Me You Us

by Aaron Karo

  My worry, however, is interrupted by the constant vibrating of my phone. I’m now officially late, which means I’m on the receiving end of a barrage of emoji poop courtesy of Jak.

  11

  JAK IS PISSED AT ME. I can tell because she’s running as fast as possible to get away from me. Unfortunately for her, we’re both on treadmills and she can’t get far.

  The plan was to meet up after school and then go to the gym. She only waited a few minutes before deciding that I had abandoned her, and headed on without me. The odd thing is that in all our years of friendship, we’ve never once worked out together. The only time I’ve ever lifted a weight was when it was mandatory in phys ed; Jak has the rapid-fire metabolism of an adolescent cheetah and finds the idea of voluntary exercise offensive. But then she got us Fitbits and signed us up for free passes at this gym. She’s either bored or having a midlife crisis at seventeen.

  Sweat Republic, however, is more than just a gym, an assumption I gather from the banners covering half the wall space, which read MORE THAN JUST A GYM. It’s a New Agey Equinox meets yoga studio meets smoothie bar. Everything is painted neon and the dumbbells are arranged by “mood” instead of weight. The dozen or so other gym goers seem to be moms and dads with too much time and money on their hands. When I walked in, I found Jak still in street clothes on one of only two treadmills, which have been unceremoniously stuffed in the corner like artifacts in a museum of Dark Age fitness.

  I’m now jogging alongside Jak as she gives me the silent treatment.

  “Jak, I was a little late. Gimme a break.”

  She turns up the speed on her treadmill. So do I.

  “What, did you wait like three minutes?” I ask. “At least give me a grace period.”

  She turns down the speed on her treadmill. So do I.

  I’m annoyed, apologetic, and also a little amused.

  “Where were you?” she asks finally.

  “I got held up in Spanish.” I don’t want to bother getting into the whole Mr. Kimbrough saga.

  Jak slows her treadmill down even more, to walking speed. I do the same.

  “Held up in Spanish?” Jak says. “¿Lo siento?”

  “Are you saying you’re sorry? Because I’m saying I’m sorry.”

  “¿La biblioteca es en el diablo?”

  “The library is in the devil?”

  Jak takes French but knows about twenty words in ­Spanish that she sometimes spouts to me at random.

  “You seem to be muy busy lately.”

  That time she actually used one right.

  “It’s my bad,” I say. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging.”

  She checks her Fitbit. “Boom! Ten thousand steps! I win, sucka.”

  And with that, it’s as if our little tiff never even happened.

  We continue walking side by side. It feels kind of like our walks home from school together, except we’re indoors and EDM is blasting in the background. The treadmills also face a mirrored wall, so I’m staring at my reflection. At five foot nine I can approach most girls even when they’re in heels. My eyes are hazel; my nose is straight and thin.

  Jak catches me looking at myself. “Like what you see?”

  “I mean, the treadmills are going into the mirror,” I say. “Where do you want me to look?”

  Jak shrugs. She’s wearing a beat-up Aerosmith T-shirt. I’m wearing an Abercrombie button-down. We’re probably gonna get kicked out of here for our lack of appropriate workout attire.

  “So how was your day?” I ask.

  “Fine. Another day, another dollar. We had a pop quiz in history, which was awesome.”

  “That sucks. Wait, you have Ms. Solomon, right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  I didn’t even think about this until now, but Jak is in Deb’s class. “No reason.”

  “She’s really cute,” Jak says. “But kind of a pain. I totally wanna be just like her when I grow up.”

  “Jak, you’re already like that.”

  Jak smiles. “Aw, shucks, Chambliss. Aren’t you the sweetest?” Then she reaches across the treadmills and punches me really hard in the arm.

  “Ah! Goddamn it. That hurt! Why are you so bony?”

  “It’s a gift.”

  “Some gift.” I rub my shoulder.

  “Are you two enjoying your sweat?”

  Our banter is interrupted by an overcaffeinated Sweat Republic employee. “My name is Sarah with an h, and I just wanted to see how your complimentary visit was going. Sweat-tastic, I hope!”

  “Sure,” Jak says, amused. “I’d say reasonably to quite sweat-tastic.”

  “Awesome!” says Sarah with an h. And then she starts her sales pitch: “As you may know, we have a variety of plans to fit your specific needs. Do you think you two would be interested in . . . a couple’s plan? A family plan?” She kind of trails off at the end.

  Jak and I glance at each other and smile. This is not the first time someone has mistaken us for a couple, or even black and white siblings.

  Sarah with an h realizes she may have misspoken. “None of the above?” she offers.

  “We need to think about it,” I say.

  “Okay, great! Take all the time you need. I’m Sarah with—”

  “An h. Yeah we got it,” Jak says. I stifle a laugh.

  “Right. I’ll be by the front desk if you need me. Have a sweat-tastic day!”

  And with that she scrams.

  I turn to Jak. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “That that was the single greatest moment of my entire life?”

  “Exactly.”

  We high-five.

  My iPhone pings and I take it out of my jeans pocket. Text message.

  “Give me three tries to guess who it is,” Jak says.

  “Deal.”

  “The pope.”

  “I would never give him my number.”

  “JD Salinger.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Tristen.”

  “Bingo. Pretty good.”

  Tristen and I haven’t gone out again yet since our double date, but we’ve struck up quite the torrid text affair. I try my best to be witty and make her LOL. She sends me pleas for donations to global crises, along with occasional pictures of her nail polish. It’s entertaining.

  “So you and Tristen, huh?” Jak says. “Your relationship has gotten quite . . . textual.”

  “Oh, it’s very textual.”

  “Are there lots of p’s and v’s?”

  “Oh yeah. The p’s are going into the v’s.”

  “Nice,” Jak says. “I want to know what her boobs are like when you touch them.”

  “When? You mean if.”

  “I mean when.”

  “You know I don’t kiss and tell,” I say.

  “Who said anything about kissing? I’m talking about boob touching. Is ‘don’t boob-touch and tell’ a thing?”

  Jak is such a character. And a trouper. When Voldemort ripped out my heart like the bad guy in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (yes, I need two movie references to explain how awful it was), Jak listened to me wail about it forever. In fact, I was in such bad shape Jak swore to me that she and I would never date. If we ever broke up, it would be devastating: Not only would I be a mess, but it would be her fault and she wouldn’t be there to help me through it.

  “When are you guys going out again?” Jak asks.

  I look at my phone. “That’s what I’m texting her to find out.”

  “What’s she saying?”

  “She wants to know if I’m aware of the situation in the Congo.”

  “What’s the situation in the Congo?”

  “I don’t know. The next text is a dolphin emoji.”

  “Oh no!” Jak says. “Are dolphins being slaughtered in the Congo?”

  “I don’t think there are any dolphins in the Congo.”

  “Well, duh. They’ve all been slaughtered. That’s why we need to send money.”

&n
bsp; I shake my head. “I’ll get right on that.”

  “I wish I was in a textual relationship,” Jak says.

  “Is that not what we’re in?” I show her my phone. “I have a hundred and twenty-three unread texts from you just from today.”

  “Exactly. Unread. I have needs, Shane.”

  “You know I have terrible service in school. But anyway, we’ll work on finding you a textual partner and we’ll google dolphins in the Congo. As if I didn’t have enough homework from Spanish.”

  Jak looks at me mock-longingly and spouts three more random Spanish words: “Amor y cacahuetes.”

  “Love and peanuts?” I ask.

  Jak nods. “Love and peanuts.”

  12

  SOMETIMES DUTY CALLS at ten p.m. on a Wednesday night.

  I’m driving out to the beach at this late hour to meet Adam Foster. After I noticed that something was off between him and Olivia at the college fair, I texted him a few times to check in, but he never wrote back.

  Most of my successful clients, like Hedgehog, are super grateful, and keep in touch throughout the course of their relationships. But occasionally a guy finds that I remind him too much of his loveless past, or he gets caught up in his new girlfriend, and stops talking to me altogether. I assumed that was the case with Adam and didn’t take it personally.

  However, after not responding to my texts for a week, Adam finally replied and asked if we could meet at the beach as soon as possible. Unfortunately, my first instinct at the college fair was correct: Adam and Olivia were indeed going through a rocky patch, and they subsequently broke up.

  The beach is a thirty-minute straight shot from my house. I park my silver Jeep and find Adam about halfway down to the edge of the ocean. It’s really cold this close to the water, especially at night, and I’m bundled up in a too-thin Windbreaker. Except for the moon bouncing off the Pacific Ocean and the glow of Adam’s phone, there’s almost no light.

  “Hey, buddy, how you holding up?” I say, as I sit down next to him.

  There’s no towel. He’s just sitting directly on the sand. And he’s crying.

  “Terrible,” he sobs. “It’s over.”

  “What happened?”

  “Olivia cheated on me. That’s what happened.”

  “Oh man. I’m sorry.”

  “She was all distant,” he says. “And it was like that for weeks and I didn’t know why. And then finally I confronted her about it. She said she met some other guy. A friend of her brother’s. I don’t even know. She ended it.” He has trouble continuing.

  “Just take a deep breath,” I say.

  “She ended it, Shane. She said it was over. When you get cheated on, aren’t you the one who’s supposed to break up with the cheater? What does the Galgorithm say about that?”

  Despite the cheap shot, I feel terrible. I pat him on the shoulder. “It’s her loss. Screw her. She doesn’t deserve you anyway. I’ll help you meet someone who appreciates you.”

  “But she was the best thing that ever happened to me. How am I supposed to meet anyone else?”

  Adam was an interesting case. He’s not that bad-looking. He’s over six feet tall, which is always a huge plus with the ladies. His hair is black and the consistency of a Brillo pad, but it’s manageable as long as he keeps it short. His nose is big and obscures the rest of his features like an eclipse with nostrils, but I convinced him to ditch his contact lenses and pick out some cool black glasses from Warby Parker to frame his face. It totally changed his whole aura. We joke that I Clark Kented him.

  Right now those glasses are coated with water droplets—a combination of tears and mist from the ocean.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” he says.

  In my line of work, there are no money-back guarantees, because there’s no money involved. These are people, not vacuum cleaners. But when a client suffers a breakup, I do my best to get him back on his feet.

  “Adam, I will do whatever I can. But I think if you really want to get over Olivia, you should move on as quickly as possible.”

  “Fine. But I don’t want anyone too thin. Girls are too thin these days. It’s weird.”

  “Not too thin. Got it.”

  “And no one who says ‘hella.’ I hate that. What does that even mean?”

  “No ‘hella.’ Done.”

  This was one of Adam’s major issues when I first helped him: He’s the most finicky guy I’ve ever met. He nitpicked everyone and everything. Girls were “too nice.” The air was “too breathable.” He once said that a sandwich was “too bready,” which I think pretty much defies the laws of sandwichness. Adam was hopeless when he came to me: Olivia is a total free spirit, and so, by conventional standards, she and Adam were polar opposites. But much like I did with his nose and those glasses, I helped Adam frame his weakness as a positive. He’s reliable, organized, and steady—voilà: just the grounding presence Olivia never even knew she needed but soon couldn’t live without.

  The problem with free spirits both male and female, however, is that they can never truly be tamed . . . and then one day they stray.

  “I can’t believe she cheated on me,” he says. “I did everything right.”

  “I know, man. It sucks. But unfortunately, it happens. So why don’t we get back to basics. You know the drill. Be different. Notice her. Tell her. Let’s talk about how we’re gonna get you out of this rut.”

  “Here’s the thing.” He pouts. “I’m busy. I have chess club Monday. Model UN Tuesday. Mathletes Thursday. I missed anime club today because of this whole mess.”

  God knows what happens if you miss anime club.

  “I’m busy,” he repeats. “I need someone who understands how busy I am.” He starts to cry once more.

  Having been the victim of epic heartbreak myself, I know that he is more than entitled to whine and sob all he wants. “It’s okay, Adam. We’ll find you someone who gets you and makes time for you.”

  I let him blubber a bit more until he finally composes himself. I pull out some tissues from the pocket of my ­Windbreaker and he blows his nose. I know Adam will come around to my thinking. He’ll listen. He always does.

  “Here’s what I want you to do,” I say. “Start to consider if there’s anyone at school you might be interested in. If there’s a bright side to this, it’s that girls feel bad for a guy with a broken heart. You just got out of a relationship that ended through no fault of your own. I mean, you’re a hot commodity!”

  “I am?”

  “Oh yeah. Sympathy is a major aphrodisiac. I know you don’t trust the Galgorithm right now, but the week or two after a breakup is a great window.”

  “I just don’t know if I’m ready.”

  “Adam, there’s no better way to get over an ex than to meet someone new. That’s just science.”

  “Huh. Well . . . there is one girl I’ve kinda had a crush on.”

  I sense an opportunity to really build up his confidence and seize it. “That’s great. And guess what? You don’t even need me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Adam, you were one of my best clients. You’re outgoing. You’re persistent. You don’t need me to hold your hand anymore.”

  This probably isn’t true, but if it gets him out of his funk any quicker, there’s no harm done.

  “So . . .”

  “So I want you to find that girl you have a crush on, go right up to her, and do your thing.”

  “Any girl?”

  “Any girl. The world is your oyster,” I say.

  “I’m allergic to oysters.”

  I sigh. “How about carpe diem? Does carpe diem work for you?”

  “It does. Thanks, Shane.”

  “No problem.”

  We both stand up and start heading back to the parking lot. I’m shivering.

  “By the way,” I add, “since when are you so emo?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why didn’t we just meet at your house? You live like five bl
ocks away from me.”

  Adam shrugs. “Good point.”

  13

  “FIRST OF ALL, YOU WOULD not believe the amount of gunk that came out of my skin. I mean it was disgusting . . . ly awesome.”

  “Come on, Reed. Gross.”

  It’s gorgeous outside; the calendar may say February, but spring has already sprung in Kingsview. School ended a few hours ago, and I spent the afternoon running around like mad putting out a couple of client fires before meeting Reed here in the bleachers of the baseball field behind school to catch up.

  A few players are stretching on the field, but it’s an off day, so it’s otherwise quiet. Reed and I are sitting on the third-base side. Behind us are the tennis courts, where Reed first attempted to hit a forehand volley into Marisol’s heart. After several reschedulings and some uncertain moments, Reed finally had his first date with Marisol last night. I’ve been waiting all day for the download. I’ve folded an empty straw wrapper in my hands twenty times out of nervous anticipation.

  “It wasn’t gross,” Reed continues. “It was strangely magical.”

  “You’re sick.”

  Before I send my clients out on their first date, I make sure they take care of a few basic grooming needs. The predictable stuff is Q-tips in the ears and tweezing eyebrows, but I also had Reed buy Bioré pore strips. You put a strip on your wet nose, wait fifteen minutes for it to dry, and then rip it off. Out come all your blackheads. Sounds weird, but my clients soon swear by them. The only thing is, the very first time you use them and sixteen years of gunk comes out, it’s not pretty.

  “Reed, will you just get to the date?”

  “You said you wanted details!”

  “Not this much.”

  “Fine. So I picked her up. We went to the pizza place. We ordered some slices and sodas and stuff. I paid.”

  “Nice. Nice.”

  “She looked amazing. We talked about school for a little bit. And then . . .”

  “And then what?”

  “And then Rebecca joined us.”