by Jonah Black
“It is sad,” I said.
Actually the first time I ever saw Titanic it really made me angry. I mean, like fifteen hundred people die and they have to make up some junk about a missing necklace in order to make it dramatic? But then I saw it a second time recently, when it was on TV, and I liked it. It’s kind of haunting, I guess. I really like that scene when Leonardo Whatshisface is drawing the girl nude and the two of them are looking at each other, really looking, and they forget to be embarrassed.
Cheese Girl licked her lips. She was wearing that kind of lipstick girls wear that makes it look like they’re not wearing any lipstick, their lips are just really shiny. Lip gloss.
“I saw you at school yesterday, remember? I’m Donna Mannocchi,” she said.
“Yeah, I remember,” I said.
“You’re Jonah Black, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled, but she looked sort of nervous. “So like, are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I said. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve heard some stories.”
“Like what kind of stories?” I don’t know where everyone’s getting this stuff from, but they are making my life sound so much more dramatic than it really is.
“And you were in some sort of trance at lunch yesterday. I started talking to you and it was like I wasn’t even there,” Donna said.
“You were talking to me?”
She nodded. “Listen,” she said. “I want you to know, there’s nothing wrong with it. Lots of people are on it.”
“On what?” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Medication. I used to be on Xanax and now I’m on Paxil. It’s not a big deal. It really helps.”
At that moment I felt like I was on drugs.
“Thanks,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“So you were at boarding school?” Donna asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Masthead Academy.”
“And you were in some car accident? Is that right? And your girlfriend . . . got killed?”
“What?” I said. “Is that what people think?” I noticed the smallest blob of tomato sauce in the corner of Donna’s mouth. Had it been there since lunch? I wondered. Or had she come home and had more pasta? I imagined her sitting at her kitchen table, reading Seventeen, and eating this big bowl of spaghetti. Cheese Girl is starting to be one of my favorite people in the entire world.
The phone started ringing. “I have to go,” she said, giving me the money. “But listen. There’s this big party in a couple of weeks,” she said. “At Luna’s. Are you going?”
Of course I didn’t even know there was a party at Luna’s. As usual, I’m the last one to find out about everything.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Are you?”
“Yeah, I’ll probably go. Maybe I’ll see you there, okay?”
“Okay. Maybe I’ll see you.”
Cheese Girl closed the door and I got on my bike and rode away. Then this voice calls after me, Jonah, come back, I made sauce. I’m thinking, no, don’t go back. It’s a trap. But then she calls again: I need help. Will you help me, Jonah?
So I ride back up her driveway and my wheels crunch the autumn leaves on the black tar. Inside the art studio I can see Sophie, making dough. Her arms glisten with olive oil up to her elbows as she mixes the flour and eggs in the bowl with her hands. She pulls my hands into the bowl, and together we knead the warm, soft dough. On the stove is a cauldron of steaming water, and the whole room is damp and hot, like a steam bath. Sophie stirs the sauce with a long wooden spoon and the air smells like basil and parsley and tomatoes and garlic. She holds out the spoon for me to taste it and looks up at me with sparkling, speaking eyes. “Do you like it?” she says.
(Still Sept. 6, almost midnight)
I’m lying in bed but I can’t sleep. I wanted to write about the bicycle ride home from First Amendment Pizza tonight after dark, because for the first time since I got back I felt like this really is my home.
It was a beautiful night and the stars were all out. I rode through Avalon Gardens over to Highway 1 and stopped in the middle of the road to look at the miles of green lights going yellow and then red, a straight flat line all the way to Ft. Lauderdale. Then I rode past the Pompano Square Mall, and the Muvico 18 theater, and the Wendy’s, and the Evinrude dealers, and the closed-up bar with a sign that said GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS, and the Deadhead shop, and the Frank N’ Stein, and the Sears.
I cut through Cresthaven, past all the houses that look exactly the same. All the houses are all so close together here, even where the millionaires live, up in Hillsboro and Deerfield and Lighthouse Point. You’d think if you paid millions for your house you’d at least get some privacy. I guess that’s a real difference from Pennsylvania, where if you have a million-dollar house you probably have a pretty big lawn.
From Cresthaven I rode into the public park, past the airport and the Goodyear Blimp Base. The Blimp was sitting in the hangar with all the lights on, and there were men swarming around it like worker ants servicing the queen. I went past the dump and the water treatment plant and the public hoops court where Thorne and Posie and I used to play sometimes. Then I took Atlantic Boulevard all the way to the drawbridge over the Intercoastal Waterway. The drawbridge was going up, and I sat at the red light watching the bridge rise up into the sky.
I got off my bike and walked it to the edge of the Intercoastal and watched this giant yacht approaching. The yacht had three 100-horsepower outboards and was rigged for deep-sea fishing and a fat guy in a white T-shirt was up on the bridge drinking Budweiser out of a can. I waved at him but he didn’t wave back. On deck is a girl with long golden hair and golden eyes wearing a red bikini. She is knitting a blue wool sweater, and the yarn is dangling off the side of the yacht and into the water. She looks up at me and mouths the words For you. The yacht is drifting with the current and the fog is rolling in fast and I can’t see the girl anymore. A foghorn blasts and I shout, Sophie? But she doesn’t answer.
Then the drawbridge closed again. The lights stopped flashing and the barriers went back up and I rode my bike over the bridge back to the Mile. I went all the way past the cheesy tourist shops with signs that say SUNSCREEN BEANIE BABIES FRUITOPIA, and Niagara Towers where Pops lives, and finally came back to the ocean.
The stars were all out by then, and the wind was rustling in the palms. I took off my shoes and walked right into the water and felt the foam surge around my ankles. Then I raised my arms up to the sky and shouted, “Hey, I’m alive!”
I know it sounds stupid, but that’s what I did.
Out on Cocoabutter Creek I can hear a motorboat going past the house. Posie said she’d come by some night. I wonder if she’ll come.
Sept. 7
I can’t think of anything to write. I’m so tired of this.
I’m still a junior. What a loser.
Sept. 8, 2:37 A.M.
I’m writing this in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping. I went to bed around midnight, after the usual routine of food and homework and television. But then, at about 1 A.M., I heard someone knocking on the sliding glass door of my room.
“Hey, wake up. It’s me.”
I sat up, and saw Posie, standing outside with a big smile on her face. She was wearing a bikini top and cutoffs.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go for a ride.”
“Posie?” I said, still kind of asleep. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Best time for it,” she said.
I pulled my pants on and went outside and followed her down the dock to her little motorboat. It isn’t much of a boat, just an aluminum skiff with a 12-horsepower outboard that her father uses to get out to where their big sailboat is moored. The moon was nearly full, and it was warm, and the stars were amazing. I untied the bowline and jumped into the boat while Posie started up the outboard. Then we headed down Cocoabutter Creek.
“Hey, Jonah,” she said. “Don’t worry so much.”
She handed me a thermos that was rolling around in the bottom of the boat. “Check this out,” she said.
“What is it?” I asked. I didn’t really feel like drinking.
“Try it.”
I took a sip, expecting it to be whiskey or beer or something, but it wasn’t. It was lemonade.
“Good, huh?”
It was more than good. I couldn’t stop drinking it. It tasted like paradise.
“Homemade,” Posie said. “From my Gammie’s lemon trees. We picked the lemons this morning.”
I imagined Posie waking up early to pick lemons with her grandma and cutting them in half and squeezing them into a big pitcher of ice water and adding the sugar and stirring it with a big wooden spoon in her sunny kitchen. I wished I could have been there.
We were in the Intercoastal now, passing underneath the drawbridge and out into the ocean. Waves lapped against the skiff, and the engine roared against the pull of the current.
A little ways out from shore was a strange glow on the surface of the water. At first I thought it was moonlight, but it wasn’t. Posie steered the boat over to the patch of glowing water and cut the engine.
“I saw them tonight when I was surfing,” Posie said. “I had a feeling they’d still be here.”
“What?” I asked.
Posie pointed at the water.
“Jellies,” she said.
I stared at the water, and it was full of huge, phosphorescent jellyfish. Their bodies were almost see-through, with luminous neon-green streaks. And they were glowing. It’s really rare to see jellyfish in a big cluster like that because they can’t really swim or control where they’re going. They just float. I know jellyfish sound pretty disgusting, but seeing them out there in the quiet ocean with Posie in the moonlight, they were beautiful.
It was so cool that Posie knew how much I’d get off on seeing them, and that she would wake me up in the middle of the night so we could look at them. She’s awesome.
I drank some more lemonade. Posie reached down and ran her fingers over the surface of the water.
“They don’t have stuff like this in Pennsylvania, do they, Jonah?” Posie said.
I told her no. They don’t.
AMERICA ONLINE INSTANT MESSAGE FROM
NORTHGIRL999, 9-8, 11 P.M.:
NORTHGIRL999: name / age / sex?
JBLACK94710: Jonah, 17, m
NORTHGIRL999: where are you?
JBLACK94710: Pompano beach, Florida. Where are you?
NORTHGIRL999: I am in Gnorsk.
JBLACK94710: Gnorsk?
NORTHGIRL999: Norway.
JBLACK94710: Norway? You’re Norwegian?
NORTHGIRL999: yes.
JBLACK94710: say something in Norwegian.
NORTHGIRL999: Ar de dar demerna inte era systrar?
JBLACK94710: Ok. What’s your name?
NORTHGIRL999: Aine.
JBLACK94710: Aine? How do I say that?
NORTHGIRL999: it rhymes with heiney. : D
JBLACK94710: how old are you?
NORTHGIRL999: 22. I am student at university of Stokholm.
JBLACK94710: what time is it there?
NORTHGIRL999: it is after four o’clock in the morning. What time in Florida?
JBLACK94710: 9:15 P.M. What are you doing up so late?
NORTHGIRL999: I can not to sleep. I had fight with this boyfriend.
JBLACK94710: I’m avoiding my German homework. I have a test tomorrow.
NORTHGIRL999: I took German in school. It is hard.
JBLACK94710: I don’t think it’s that hard. I’m in the accelerated section. I’m a senior.
JBLACK94710: so what do you do for fun in Norway?
NORTHGIRL999: I like music and books. And boys! I will send you my picture.
JBLACK94710: what music do you like?
NORTHGIRL999: have you heard of band called Smelts?
JBLACK94710: no way! They are my favorite band!
NORTHGIRL999: they perform here last month. I was in front row!
JBLACK94710: What’s your favorite song?
NORTHGIRL999: I like Sheik of Araby.
JBLACK94710: Yes! Me too.
NORTHGIRL999: Did my picture get to there?
JBLACK94710: I’m downloading now. Wait, is that you?
NORTHGIRL999: That is me. : )
JBLACK94710: You are unbelievable.
NORTHGIRL999: I’m glad you like her!
JBLACK94710: nobody ever sent me a nude picture before.
NORTHGIRL999: so do you “cyber” Jonah Black? ; )
JBLACK94710: I don’t know. What do we do?
NORTHGIRL999: you write out your fantasies. What comes to mind.
JBLACK94710: you want me to write my fantasies?
NORTHGIRL999: do you not have fantasies? I do.
JBLACK94710: Yes, but I don’t really know you.
NORTHGIRL999: I feel like I know you, Jonah. I have been looking at your photograph for many months now. Diving board boy!
JBLACK94710: what are you talking about?
NORTHGIRL999: I am thinking about you ever since I saw your picture. I like your eyes.
JBLACK94710: You saw my picture?
NORTHGIRL999: You were in Masthead News on the Web. They have the photo of you on diving board. I love your photo Jonah!
JBLACK94710: Wow. I knew Masthead News was online, but I didn’t know anyone read it.
NORTHGIRL999: I hope you do not think I am crazy Norwegian girl.
JBLACK94710: No, it’s great. I was just surprised.
NORTHGIRL999: so play with me, Jonah. You have such sweet face. I think I have known you all my life.
JBLACK94710: You’re very sweet, Aine.
NORTHGIRL999: so what would you do if we were together? Would you hold me?
JBLACK94710: yes, Aine. I would hold you close and kiss your cheek.
NORTHGIRL999: yes, Jonah, I can feel your soft lip on skin. I am running hands on back.
JBLACK94710: I can feel our bodies close together.
NORTHGIRL999: yes.
JBLACK94710: Now I’m looking deep into your eyes, amazed by their blue darkness.
NORTHGIRL999: oh Jonah. I am growing so drangk reading your words. Make love to me and let me be your Aine.
JBLACK94710: OK. Hang on a sec while I lock my door. I don’t want my little sister coming in while we’re doing this.
NORTHGIRL999: I will wait for you all night.
JBLACK94710: I’m back. So now I am again kissing your neck. And I am imagining that we are lying on a bed in front of a fire.
JBLACK94710: The flames are crackling and we are drinking wine with our bodies wrapped around each other.
JBLACK94710: we are in no rush because we know we have the whole night to make love over and over.
JBLACK94710: you put your hand on my chest and feel my heart beating and I look at you and I have never seen such beautiful eyes, ever.
JBLACK94710: are you still there?
JBLACK94710: hello?
JBLACK94710: Aine?
[NORTHGIRL999 is not currently signed on.]
Oct. 1
This weird thing just happened. Honey was sitting in the backyard by herself on this rock that overlooks the canal. Suddenly I realized my little sister was crying. Her shoulders were shaking and every now and then she moved her hand to her eyes and anyway she hates the backyard because all the rich people and their yachts just make her angry. And then I thought, Honey, crying? No way. But what was she doing out there then? I couldn’t figure it out.
So then I did something. I picked up the phone and called Dad. Who, of course, wasn’t home. It was Tiffany’s voice on the machine: “Leave a message for Dan or Tiffany at the sound of the chime,” and I was thinking, Chime? And then, cheesy as it sounds, the machine chimed like a doorbell, and I started talking.
“He
llo, Dad, it’s Jonah. I was just calling to check in. Everything is going fine down here. I guess I was just wondering if you could do me a favor and like, call down here once in a while and talk to Honey. I think she really misses you. Um, her birthday is next week, the twelfth, so that would be a good time to call. Actually, she’ll probably be going out, so maybe call her the day before. Don’t tell her I said you should call or anything. Anyway, that’s it. Say hi to Tiffany for me. See ya.”
When I hung up the phone, I looked out and Honey wasn’t in the backyard anymore. Then I heard this creak out in the hallway and footsteps and I opened the door but no one was there. A minute later I heard the roar of her Jeep out in the street. I’m really hoping Honey didn’t hear me, because if she finds out I tried to get Dad to call her she’ll kill me. There’s nothing she hates more than people being kind to her.
Oct. 10
I went online to see if I could chat with Northgirl but she wasn’t on, so I just sat there wondering about her. Suddenly I had this huge insight—Northgirl is Watches Boys Dive! She’s some local girl who doesn’t go to Don Shula, probably. Maybe she’s really shy. That’s why she keeps disappearing, and why she’s hiding her identity.
I don’t know, the more I write this, the dumber it sounds. Maybe neither of them exists. That seems to be the kind of girl I do best with.
I wanted to talk to Posie about this. But then I’ve barely talked to Posie in the last week. I guess I’m kind of avoiding her because I can’t handle seeing her together with Wailer. I wish I could show her the pictures Thorne and I took in a dream or something so she could just wake up and know what a slimeball Wailer is.
Oct. 11
Well, here it is the night before Honey’s birthday and I can tell Honey is feeling pretty down about things because she’s in her room with the door locked. Maybe I should give her her presents now. I have this terrible feeling that Mom’s forgotten Honey’s birthday, too. I think I’m going to say something tomorrow to make sure she’s got something planned.
Until about five minutes ago Honey was listening to Hole, blasting it at top volume. Now she’s got Mom’s radio show on. I can never get used to people calling Mom to talk about their sex lives for all of Florida to listen. What makes it even worse is that every five minutes she stops and promotes her book, so in addition to all the bizarre conversations it’s like this big infomercial. It gives me the creeps.