by Amy Reed
I was able to get my shit together enough to sit through the rest of dinner. My sister kept looking at me and raising her eyebrows and telepathically asking me what’s wrong, but I’d just smile and mouth that everything was fine. The subject got changed to what they’re doing to prepare for the baby, which is something everyone can agree is a lovely topic of conversation. We’re so tragically modern. Or would it be postmodern? Jesus, Isabel, shut up.
I spent the rest of the evening lying on the roof in my sleeping bag. Did you realize there was a meteor shower last night? A big, cosmic rock pile collided with our atmosphere. It’s kind of sad how something that seems so magical is actually a bunch of burning garbage hurtling through space. Luckily I didn’t realize that until afterward, when I looked it up. That night, I was still pleasantly naive. I could still get excited about burning space garbage. I could believe it was a bunch of shooting stars. I could believe it was something to wish on. Every couple of minutes, I’d see one, but it was always just out of my vision. I would only ever just barely catch some movement out of the corner of my eye, but by the time I shifted my focus, the star would already be gone. I have never seen a shooting star straight-on, never fully in focus. It’s like I’ve always just missed them. And I guess that’s just the nature of them, because space is a such a big place, and it’s impossible to know where to look.
Love,
Isabel
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Monday, February 6—8:33 PM
Subject: Re: what’s the opposite of angst?
Dear Isabel,
Señor and I were watching that same meteor shower! I was wondering what it would feel like to fall like that, so fast you catch on fire, so perfectly out of control. I was thinking about how I’ve never really been out of control like that. I’ve been supported and cared for and accepted. I’ve never been in any kind of real danger. I should feel grateful for that, and I am. But I also feel like I’m missing something, like there’s some essential part of being human that I don’t have. All day long, I’m surrounded by kids complaining about something—their parents, their curfew, their chores, their college applications—and it all seems so ridiculous, these problems of abundance. The real problems are the things people don’t complain about, the things they keep secret. The things that are so scary, you can’t even say them out loud.
I’m scared of getting to the end of this world and realizing it was all a waste of time, that I was a waste of time. That’s my fear. That’s the thing I don’t talk about.
Why wouldn’t you cry, Isabel? Why wouldn’t you be devastated to lose your brother like you have? You talk like emotions are a dangerous thing. What are you so afraid of?
Love,
Connor
From: yikes!izzy
To: condorboy
Date: Wednesday, February 8—11:43 PM
Subject: more useless information
Top 5 People I Want to Have Sex With
5. The barista at Bauhaus coffeeshop with the lip piercing
4. Matt Berninger, lead singer of The National
3. Banksy, even though I don’t know what he looks like
2. Michael Cera
1. Pink
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Thursday, February 9—10:10 PM
Subject: Re: more useless information
Dear Isabel,
Well, I don’t know this barista you speak of. Matt Berninger and Banksy, I guess I can understand, although Mr. Berninger is like eight feet tall and Banksy supposedly looks like a chubby, middle-aged janitor. But the other two? Michael Cera? That guy is such a wimp. I thought you liked the burly, tattooed guys anyway. And Pink? Last I checked, she’s a girl. I thought you didn’t roll like that, although of course it’s totally okay with me if you do. And she could definitely kick Michael Cera’s ass.
Love,
Connor
From: yikes!izzy
To: condorboy
Date: Friday, February 10—12:36 AM
Subject: Re: more useless information
Connor,
I know Michael Cera doesn’t seem like my type, but something about him is so freakishly adorable. It’s like he puts a spell on me and all of a sudden I hear birds chirping and little rabbits start hopping around and I want to hold him against my breast and let him compliment me and tell me how he’s had a crush on me since fifth grade. And I know you’re going to hate me for this, but if there was a movie made about us, Michael Cera would totally play you. No question about it.
Pink is fucking hot. It doesn’t matter that she’s a girl, or that she’s a little old, or even that I don’t particularly like her music. She is beyond gender. She is beyond mainstream music. She has reached a level of hotness that is even beyond the human species. She could totally kick everyone’s ass. She’s kind of the opposite of Michael Cera, when you think about it. Michael Cera’s the kind of person you want to cuddle with. Pink is the kind of person you want to ravage you.
Isabel
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Friday, February 10—5:46 PM
Subject: Re: more useless information
Dear Isabel,
I don’t want Michael Cera or Pink to do anything to me, thank you very much.
Love,
Connor
From: yikes!izzy
To: condorboy
Date: Tuesday, February 14—2:07 AM
Subject: SLUGS!
Connor,
I just had the best idea! Seriously, in my short life full of brilliant ideas, this one is up there, the top of the top, the cream of the crop. Which brings up the important question: What does “cream of the crop” actually mean? What do crops have to do with cream, or any dairy product, for that matter? This is assuming “crop” refers to some kind of plant material. The only other definition I can think of is riding crop, but that makes even less sense. I suppose I could look it up, but I don’t have time for that right now.
I have found us a mission, and if you’re brave enough to take it—well, let’s just say you’d have bragging material for the rest of your life. You know the radio station KUTE? “Ninety-six point three—The Way You Wanna Be”? What idiot marketing person came up with that slogan? “The Way You Wanna Be”? Couldn’t they think of anything better to rhyme with “three”? What about “please”? That kind of rhymes. Ninety-six point three—Give Us Money, Please. Or Ninety-six point three—Rich White People Ski. The possibilities are endless.
I know you must have heard of that big stupid concert they’re putting on this weekend, the “Escape to Winter Wonderland” pop music barf-fest, with an impressive lineup of scantily-clad anorexics with boob jobs who can’t even sing, committing the crime of spreading poisonous music throughout western Washington. We cannot stand for this! Something must be done! That is why I am calling for your help. Musical integrity needs us. The taste of our generation needs us. We can’t let them down. We cannot pass up this opportunity to show the world our ninja skills. Hear that, Connor? You are a NINJA! Don’t you dare forget it. The world needs its ninjas desperately. We are a dying breed. Better yet, we are ninjas with a very special knowledge of slugs and other things slimy. You can do a lot of damage with a slug. Imagine those little top-heavy pop kittens getting a face full of slugs. Imagine the chaos that would ensue. There’d be a riot. The riot would turn into a revolution. The revolution would turn into us TAKING OVER THE WORLD.
This is the plan: I come over to Bainbridge and we get all of your mom’s reusable hemp grocery bags or whatever, then spend the whole day scouring the woods for slugs. They can survive in a bag overnight, can’t they? We’ll spray them with water and throw in some croutons or something. We’ll have an arsenal of ten or so bags full of slugs. People talk about biological warfare. Well, THIS IS BIOLOGICAL WARFARE. We’ll get backstage somehow, using our ninja skills of deception, and we’ll find the place where all the
costumes are kept. Shoes are an excellent place to hide slugs, Connor. Stuffed inside the legs of pantyhose. Tucked in between the folds of various garments. Nestled in the cups of their oversize bras. In hats and sleeves and legs and every single nook and cranny they could possibly poke their teensy-weensy emaciated body parts into. In their purses and makeup bags and anywhere else slugs can hide. And IN THEIR FREAKING WATER BOTTLES. Those bitches will lose their minds.
So are you with me or ARE YOU WITH ME?
ONWARD!
Iz
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Tuesday, February 14—8:54 PM
Subject: Re: SLUGS!
Dear Isabel,
Please stop yelling! Slugs? Um, I guess I’m happy to hear that you’re excited about something. But have you been hitting the coffee a little too hard lately?
I would love to get arrested with you this weekend, but I’m actually busy. Don’t fall out of your chair in surprise, but yes, I have plans. Nothing exciting, just college visits at Evergreen State and Reed, but I’m looking forward to it. Jeremy’s coming with me and we’re going to be gone until Wednesday. I know he’s just humoring me about Evergreen since he’s determined to go to a “good school,” whatever that means. And Reed has great science, and it’s prestigious, and there’s a good music scene and queer culture in Portland. And I guess that’s all important, but mostly I’m just looking for somewhere I can be weird and do my own thing, maybe get a degree that’s potentially useful for getting a job as a teacher or something, not to mention the fact that I probably couldn’t get into Reed if I tried. He’s more interested in Reed, and I’m more interested in Evergreen, and we’re both just excited to be on our own for the weekend, so I think it’s going to be a fun trip. What about you? Do you have anything fun planned for the weekend?
Love,
Connor
From: yikes!izzy
To: condorboy
Date: Wednesday, February 15—11:58 PM
Subject: Re: SLUGS!
What about you? Do you have anything fun planned for the weekend? Jesus, Connor. When did you get so boring? Anyway, you know the answer to that. No, I don’t have anything fun planned for the weekend. When do I ever have anything fun planned for the weekend?
Maybe I’ll become friends with your beloved Jeremy at Reed next year, and I’ll steal him away from you and he’ll become my drunken make-out buddy instead of yours, and we’ll start a gang with our cool Portland friends and we’ll declare war against your lame Olympia friends, and we’ll kill you with our top-rate academics while you twitch in the death throes of your wimpy, non-graded classes.
Iz
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Saturday, February 18—11:07 AM
Subject: Re: SLUGS!
Isabel,
I’m leaving for my trip right now. Do you have any idea how mean your last email sounded? I know you have a sarcastic sense of humor, and usually I find it pretty funny, but I feel like your last email crossed the line into bitch territory. To be honest, my feelings were a little hurt. I just wanted to tell you that.
I also wanted to tell you that I’ll probably be away from email for the next few days while I’m on my trip, so don’t freak out and think I’m giving you the silent treatment or anything.
Connor
From: yikes!izzy
To: condorboy
Date: Saturday, February 18—4:10 PM
Subject: sorry
You and your fucking “I” statements! Sometimes it makes me sick how well-adjusted you are. Are there support groups for people raised by therapists? Sorry I was mean. Sorry I am mean. Sorry for all of my fucking faults that seem to have no end. It’s like I have no control over it sometimes. These bitchy things just come out and I won’t even know about it until I realize someone’s pissed off at me. It feels like everyone’s pissed off at me right now. I guess I’ve been saying a lot of bitchy things lately, but the fucked-up thing is I don’t even know what they were.
Have you noticed I’m not yelling? I’m trying really hard to stay calm. See? I try, I really do. But it never seems to matter. It’s such hard work lately for me to just try to be a normal person, let alone try to be better than normal, which you obviously are and which you deserve and expect me to be, but I can never be no matter how hard I try.
So you want honesty? Okay, here’s the deal. I think I’m a little jealous of Jeremy. There, I said it. It seems so stupid and childish, but I guess I feel mad sometimes because I don’t have a Jeremy and you do. You’re one of those people who people like, and you have a Jeremy, and even though you’re a little weird and artsy, the kids at your school seem to think you’re one of them to some extent. You’re surrounded by real, live people every day who are glad or at least not pissed off that you exist. That must be nice. I try to imagine what it feels like, but I honestly can’t. I don’t know what it feels like to have a parent who seems genuinely glad you’re her kid, teachers and classmates who don’t look at you like they wish you’d just drop out already and save them the trouble of dealing with you for the rest of the school year. Wah, wah, wah. I turn into such a whiner when I feel hyper. I think you’re right about me drinking too much coffee. Maybe I should cut down. Yeah right, like that’s going to happen.
I hope you have a good time down south and all that jazz. I’ll just be sitting here trying not to explode all weekend. Don’t let Jeremy take advantage of you, and don’t let those frisky coeds slip anything into your drink. Hey, I just thought of something! If I go to Reed and you go to Evergreen, we’ll only be like an hour away from each other! Not that we’re much farther away from each other now, but something about a body of water makes it seem like you’re in another world.
Love,
Iz
From: yikes!izzy
To: condorboy
Date: Sunday, February 19—10:18 PM
Subject: boys
Dear Connor,
I know you’re on the road and everything, but I’m bored and have no one to talk to, so I’m just going to pretend you’re there, okay?
My brother’s in rehab. Again. He went once after that time he OD’ed in high school, but I don’t think anyone really expected it to work. But this time, I don’t know. It can’t not work. There’s nowhere else for Jesse to go except prison or dead. Prison is probably where he should be right now, but for some reason the judge took pity on him and sent him to a six-month in-patient treatment program up in the mountains where even someone smart like Jesse can’t find a way to get drugs. We can start visiting after his first month is over, so that’s good, I guess. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much, because we all know how that usually turns out. The truth is, him being up in the mountains doesn’t even seem that different than when he lived in Seattle. Even though he’s technically been living in the same city as me for all these years, it feels like he’s been gone a long time.
What else is going on with me . . . Well, Trevor emailed me yesterday. He didn’t even mention the fact that I haven’t emailed or texted or called him for the last few weeks, even though that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I wanted some kind of recognition for it, you know? Like maybe he missed me or his feelings were hurt or he at least wondered why I wasn’t contacting him. But apparently he didn’t even notice. Fucking asshole. I’m done with men. Seriously. I wish I could be a lesbian like my sister. Then I could find a nice lady like Karen to shack up with and she’d never treat me bad or take me for granted. She wouldn’t email me after two months and be like, “Hey, I’m driving through Seattle tomorrow on my way to Vancouver, wanna meet up for a couple hours?” Translation: “Will you be my on-the-road booty call?” The answer is NO. I didn’t even write him back. I deleted his email. He is dead to me.
Aren’t you proud of me?
Love,
Iz
From: yikes!izzy
To: condorboy
Date: Monday, Feb
ruary 20—6:46 PM
Subject: puppets
Dear Connor,
Things are speeding up and something tells me I’m supposed to be scared, it’s telling me to BE REASONABLE, ISABEL, but it’s my mother’s voice, not mine. It’s my mother’s voice stolen into my skull, an earwig or some other kind of creeper crawled in through my ear and lodged in my brain, a whispering parasite saying, DO THIS, DO THAT, but I won’t listen. How did she get in there? How do our parents slither inside us and take control like that without our permission? Who gave them that right? Was it God? Did God say go ahead and play your children like puppets? Did God say we don’t know better? FUCK GOD. He tells me to be reasonable, calm down, BEHAVE, because maybe then everyone at school wouldn’t hate me and maybe I’d actually have friends and maybe my teachers wouldn’t make me sit outside because I’m fidgeting and talking too much, maybe everyone wouldn’t roll their eyes when I walk by and whisper their little evil spells in my direction. Maybe my sister would call me back, maybe Karen would let me touch her belly longer so I can feel the baby kick. Maybe she wouldn’t think I’m poison. Maybe she wouldn’t have said, “That’s enough,” and when I didn’t move my hand she said, “THAT’S ENOUGH, ISABEL,” like I stung her, but I was just trying to feel the baby, I was just trying to love him, that’s all I’m ever trying to do, but she backed away and my sister said, “CALM DOWN, ISABEL,” and I kept trying to tell them I didn’t mean anything by it, I just wanted to feel the baby, everybody else got to feel the baby but I couldn’t feel him, he wasn’t kicking for me, just let me see if he’ll kick for me. I said just let me try one more time and she said, “THAT’S ENOUGH, ISABEL,” again, and she could just say it over and over and it would never get through my thick skull because I’m always wanting and wanting because nothing is ever enough you are never enough I am never enough I am never enough I AM NEVER ENOUGH.