by Compai
Okay, noted Nikki, polishing off her boba with a mighty slurp. All members of Poseur accounted for— she frowned—except one. Standing on her tiptoes, she scanned the now car-dominated parking lot for the missing member in question. Shouldn’t she be playing third wheel to Jake and Charlotte by now? Or texting her best friend Amelia from the confines of her half-dead Volvo sedan? Or (at the very least) hiding in a bathroom stall, bemoaning the perpetually pathetic state of her very existence?
Where was Janie Farrish, anyway?
The Girl: Janie Farrish
The Getup: Gray American Apparel racer-back tank, black BDG skinny jeans, red high-top Converse All Stars, thirty or so black gummy bracelets, and underwear fit for a pinup (so to speak)
In eighth grade, Janie decided to practice kissing, and so (actual boys not being an option) started with an apricot (according to Farrah Frick, apricot skin and human lips feel way similar). The trouble was, after macking the orange fuzzies for say, twenty minutes, Janie ended up eating it, which made her feel kind of soulless and creepy. Like, if she wasn’t careful, she might train herself into becoming the human version of a praying mantis. To stave off her guilt, she dug the moist pit out of the trash and apologized, stopping halfway through, of course, because honestly—she was apologizing to a piece of fruit. Any more of this and they’d be in a full-on relationship, which was seriously so weird they haven’t even done it in Japan.
She decided to break up with apricots and graduate to something healthier… like her hand. Her inner elbow. She even tried her knee, pinching the skin so it resembled a protruding tongue. If tongues were riddled with shaving nicks, that is. And tasted like Skintimate.
Okay, so that didn’t work either.
She moved on to the mirror—at least she’d understand the sensation of another face deliberately approaching hers, even if that face happened to be her own. Afterward, she stepped back to discover the glass mottled with drool-smeared, gaping mouth-prints. Janie pulsed with something like panic. Did people seriously do this to each other’s faces? With a wad of paper towel and Windex, she urgently wiped them away, ignoring the mirror’s plaintive squeaks. Like, willingly? she thought. Like, on a daily basis? It seemed impossible.
And yet.
She rejected physical engagement in favor of drier research. She compiled lists of how-to-kiss tips cobbled together from select magazines, slo-mo’d movies, overheard bathroom gossip, and Google. Then, just as she began to feel prepared, Amelia returned from visiting her aunt in Texas and proudly reported she’d been kissed. Janie swallowed her envy, even feigned happiness for her best friend, cheerfully asking what it was like. It wasn’t until Amelia replied, “I dunno… depends on the guy,” that Janie’s heart grabbed her esophagus and hung itself. For the first time, Janie understood the terrible extent of her behindness. What’s the point of research? she scolded herself. Obviously, God had a plan, and part of that plan, after dividing light from darkness, water from sky, included dividing Janie Farrish, for all eternity, from the opposite sex. (Okay, unless you count Jeremy Ujhazy, ninth-grade author of the admirably succinct “I need you,” followed by “please,” love notes left in her locker. But, come on: with his distressingly slick cherry Popsicle pout, sprouting man boobs, and evident taste for pastel pink stationery, he was more woman than she was.
The nice thing is, once you accept life as a predestined march through a sexless desert of meaningless despair, you can relax. Which is precisely what she’d been doing last Saturday night at the now notorious Pink Party. While everybody else mingled indoors, bubbling over with laughter and champagne, she retired to the empty pool deck, prepared to stare with resigned melancholy at the surface of the Moons’ infinity pool. But then, just when she’d accepted her fate as an outsider, a wallflower, a Shakespearean clown, Evan Beverwil took a seat next to her, filling the night air with the scent of salt, sand, and sun-warmed cedar, and changed everything. After months of fleeting glances, accidental physical contact, and fumbled attempts at actual conversation, after months of wondering whether he just sort of liked her or full-on loathed her, he looked into her eyes and answered the question. He answered in a way she could not in a billion years have anticipated.
That kiss was waking up and falling asleep at the same time. That kiss was like dying, maybe. The moment their lips touched her entire being coiled into a tiny, tight ball and levitated—just a quaking planet where her face used to be. Her body ceased to exist, and then he’d touch her, conjuring it back in bursts. He’d touch her shoulder; it throbbed back to life. He’d lift his hand, and it drifted away, fading like a firework. Not that she’d notice; the next touch always eclipsed the last. Her cheek, her chin, her waist, her hip: one by one they’d explode, hot, bright, shimmering—and all the while there was that kiss, returning her to nothingness, the velvety black abyss without which she’d have never known the shivery intensity of all that light.
Let’s just say the apricot did not prepare her for that.
It turned out kissing wasn’t something you could research or practice, but something you had to do, like diving into the deep end to learn how to swim. Except, of course, when it came to swimming, her brother had to push her (she still hadn’t forgiven him). With Evan, she hadn’t needed convincing; she’d been incredibly nervous, yes. But she’d also been ready. Which is why—how else could she explain it?—the kiss had been so spectacular. At least she thought so. And if she thought so, he’d have to, too, right? Something so intense couldn’t possibly be one-sided.
Could it?
She replayed the moment in her mind until, like a photograph passed between too many hands, it began to yellow and fall apart. By the time Sunday night rolled around she was in a state of jittery panic. What had happened exactly? I mean, she knew what had happened, but what made her think it had been so meaningful? After all, Evan could have just kissed her because he was drunk, or because he felt bad for her, or because, you know, it was something to do. It’s not like kissing was a big deal for him, right? He was a senior. Oh, and how about how they’d parted ways? Little did they know, but as they’d kissed, a scene of epic chaos was underway indoors. Finally, the shattering sound of glass diverted their attention. Before they knew it, they were surrounded: a flood of guests streamed onto the deck, pushing one another out of the way, some of them screaming, some of them laughing. Janie and Evan leaped to their feet and fled, only to be intercepted by Charlotte and Jake. And that’s when it happened.
They’d dropped hands.
It seemed perfectly natural at the time. After all, Charlotte was his sister—his incredibly domineering, terrifyingly popular sister—not to mention Janie’s former tormentor turned colleague turned friend. Well, sort of. Charlotte wasn’t exactly an equal. Theirs was a friendship based on power. As in Charlotte had it. Janie was beta to her alpha, squire to her queen, lowly, hunchbacked assistant to her sorceress. Was it any wonder she’d dropped Evan’s hand before Charlotte noticed? He was her brother, after all—her older brother; holding his hand (not to mention kissing him for what must have been a full minute) was a major transgression, and not because it put her and Charlotte on equal footing. Far worse.
It made her the most powerful girl at school.
Of course, now that she’d had some time to think about it, the action wasn’t so clear. She hadn’t exactly had to wrench herself free from Evan’s grip. Quite the opposite. He’d dropped her hand as much as she’d dropped his—if not more so—and not for the same reason, she was pretty sure. Evan didn’t curtail his needs in respect to his sister’s feelings—or anyone else’s, for that matter. If he dropped her hand, he did so because he wanted to. Don’t read into this, she ordered herself. It’s just something that happened. It doesn’t have to mean anything.
Except that maybe he was embarrassed of her?
By Monday morning, she’d gone completely, irrevocably bonkers. So bonkers, in fact, that when they finally crossed paths in the Showroom, and his beach glass–blue eyes
settled on hers, and their gazes twisted together and locked, and he melted into a smile, and he seemed happy to see her, she was so overcome with relief that when at last he said, “Hey,” she could only sigh, “Fine,” but it was okay, because they both just laughed, and she glimpsed his perfect teeth, and his large, square hand in his beach-tousled hair, and then the bell began to ring, and the sun behind the trees glittered like confetti, and it filled her to the brim, like she’d just won something big, something grand, and then the bell abruptly stopped, and the air around her hummed, and he gently kicked her ankle as shyly she shook her head, grinned at the ground, and croaked, “I should probably go.”
She positively floated to class; she sailed through the door, tethered herself to a chair, reeled herself into the seat, and chained herself into place. How else could she explain it? This absurd ability to sit down, to follow the mundane rules of gravity. In any event, she was grounded. Until her phone beeped, and the sound was a needle-size arrow of pure delight, and his text said, “God, I like looking at you,” and she floated into the air again, bumping lightly along the ceiling, cell phone in hand, her thumbs almost pulsing as quickly she wrote back, “I know.” Meaning, of course, she liked looking at him, too—but what if he thought she was being egotistical? She thought she should clarify, except then Ms. Bhattacharia rumbled into the room, forcing her to shut off her phone, and then, just as it powered down, it beeped again, and the beep echoed in her mind, again and again, like a machine that measures heart rate, until she couldn’t take it anymore and excused herself to the bathroom, and it was there—with the morning light sifting through the beveled bathroom window, and three seventh-graders chattering loudly at the sinks—that she finally read his reply.
I need to see you again.
And then.
Projection room? Lunch?
At last, the bliss petered out; she plummeted out of the air and crashed to the ground. Because “Projection room? Lunch?” really meant “Dark and empty room? Lunch?” which really meant I will touch your boobs at lunch. After all, lunch lasted a full forty-five minutes, and she couldn’t depend on a celebrity-studded stampede to interrupt them. Not this time. Which wasn’t to say she was against the idea of going further per se. Quite the opposite. She was pro progress. It was her body that was all anti. Seriously, she’d seen fifth-graders more developed than she was. And the upshot of it all was she didn’t even have the nerve to change in front of other girls (she’d worked out a pretty awesome maneuver where she almost, like, birthed her sports bra through the armhole of her t-shirt), and now Evan Beverwil, whose abject, surf-god gorgeousness replaced Victoria Falls as the seventh wonder of the world, was going to slide his warm, beach-weathered hands beneath her ribbed, threadbare gray tank, and… what?
Mistake her for his surfboard?
And, if that wasn’t bad enough, she happened to be wearing her bleach-eaten, held-together-with-a-safety-pin bra from the Gap. Seriously, the one day it mattered, she’d chosen the underwear equivalent of a lint trap? Evan was probably used to dating girls who wore couture lingerie, like, every day. Girls who bought panties at the rate Janie bought gum. Girls who had their bras professionally laundered in, like, baby shampoo, lavender water, and the tears of newborn pandas.
By the time the lunch bell rang, she’d settled on one of four inane speeches she had swirling in her head. “Hey,” she’d begin, perhaps sheepishly biting her lip. “Look, I wanted to say hi, but actually, I can’t stay. I have this, like, doctor’s appointment. Yeah, my mom’s picking me up. Oh, no, no, you don’t have to walk me there. Seriously, my mom’s, like, super weird about me walking to the car with, like, other people. Yeah, I don’t know why. I should probably ask her one of these days. Okay, well… see you around!”
After that, she’d just hide in the bathroom for an hour. And yeah, it was a lame-ass move, but what was she supposed to do? Seal off her chest with police tape? She smiled to herself, quickening her pace. A deconstructed pageant dress with a yellow DO NOT CROSS sash could look kind of awesome, actually. She’d just have to pick up her sketchbook on the way to the bathroom. Of course, she exhaled, stopping in her tracks. First things first.
She opened the projection room door.
Heat bloomed across her face as he looked up and stepped toward her, reaching around her shoulders to shut the door. She sucked in her breath, knocking into a rickety fold-out table. A stack of shiny purple programs from last year’s production of Godspell spilled to the ground and fanned across the floor. The door clicked. It was dark. The programs slithered under her feet as she creaked across the small room and perched on the sagging arm of an old club chair, sinking her palms into the worn leather, frowning at the floor. She refused to look up, not even when he put his hands on her knees, sliding them up her thighs, his thumbs following the inseam of her jeans; not even when he gripped her hips and gently urged her closer, his t-shirt sagging forward like a sail, his sweet breath in her hair. She felt weirdly furious with him, for making her feel so much, for making her want to both run and stay exactly where she was. “Hey,” she cleared her throat, dimly remembering something she was meant to say. Oh, right. She relaxed as the words came flooding back. The speech. She looked up, boldly met his eyes, and repeated herself with authority. “Hey.”
And then her arms flew around his neck, and she pulled him toward her mouth, because it wasn’t a choice, because she had to, because blood thundered through her like a river, and each kiss was a rock, a small, jutting island.
Each kiss was a safe place to land.
The Girl: Melissa Moon
The Getup: White bedazzled bandanna, white Dereon Peek-a-Boo skinny jeans, white wife beater, strappy platinum Giuseppe Zanotti jeweled heels, manicure in Chanel’s “Paparazzi,” obvi
“Très gentille of you to show up, darling,” Charlotte cooed as Petra traipsed into the weekly Poseur meeting, saluting her colleagues with a sloshing bottle of Kombucha tea.
“I know, right?” she replied, chucking her ratty hemp hobo onto the carpet and sprawling out beside it. She was wearing vintage jean overall cutoffs with a black Speedo racer bikini top underneath an oversize green-checked flannel, and slouchy knit boots. The ensemble was decidedly Ugg, but with her tumultuous golden mane and wide-set tea-green eyes, both shining with Visine and imperceptibly bloodshot, Petra could have made a garbage bag—sorry, an ecoconscious biodegradable compost bag—look like Oscar (the Grouch) de la Renta. For real, y’all.
She put the reek in très chic.
Melissa was not impressed. “I was just checkin’ the agenda for today’s meeting?” she announced blithely, and flapped open her white-glitter binder like someone gutting a fish. “And nowhere does it say, ‘arrive late, smelling like a marijuana joint.’” She arched a ferociously gelled eyebrow at the offending hippie. “You get me?”
“I think so.” Petra repressed a smile. Who the hell said marijuana joint? Could she seriously be more uptight? “But, um, I’m not really hip to your lingo.”
From her station at the teacher’s desk, the demanding diva’s head-to-toe white ensemble complemented her glaring, white-hot rage. With her white linen pleat-pants, body-skimming wife beater, light-reflecting running jacket, and interlocking G-print carré scarf, Melissa’s look was pure JLo—back in the good ol’ Diddy days, of course. Melissa hardly counted Jennifer Lopez’s “regular girl” Bennifer phase (not to mention her current “dead-in-the-eyes, Marc Anthony–keeps-my-soul-in-jelly-jar” phase) as fashion inspiration. “Regular” was just another word for “boring,” which she was anything but. From her swinging, diamond dollar-sign necklace to her sickly high stiletto heels, Melissa could take the blah out of Blahnik.
“How’s this for lingo?” Charlotte chirped from her perch on the sunny windowsill, extended her long leg to point the toe of her fuchsia suede Delman ballerina flat and addressed Petra. “If you’re so much as a minute late to the Nylon shoot?” The shoe slipped from her heel, dropping like a jaw. “We stuff you in
to a hacky sack and feed you to the narcs.”
“Okay.” Petra laughed, raising her ink-stained hands in surrender. “Not to point out the obvious here? But I am not the last one here.”
And then, as if on cue, Janie rushed through the open door, cheeks flushed and light brown hair askew. Melissa and Charlotte shared a glance. It was totally out of character for Janie to be late. That said: Petra had a point.
“Where were you?” Melissa puffed up, fully prepared to unleash her wrath.
“Um…” Janie finger-combed her hair and commenced digging through her bag, as if somewhere within its chaotic depths she’d unearth an answer. Sadly, in the course of kissing Evan, her brain had died, and as coming up with good excuses was a completely brain-based activity, she was pretty much screwed. Maybe she should just tell them the truth? She looked up from her bag, catching Charlotte’s cool, unreadable glance. Exactly when was the right time to tell Winston’s resident ice queen you’d just spent all of lunch in a small, criminally unlit space with her totally out-of-bounds older brother? When do you tell Poseur’s seamstress her brother had clutched her proverbial DO NOT CROSS sash and ripped it apart at the seams? When do you tell her you were late because you couldn’t kiss him good-bye without starting the whole damn cycle over again? She cleared her throat.
“I…”
No. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t. Even that word, which was barely a word—that letter—which constituted exactly one-twelfth the weight of her full confession—I was with Evan— had proved too treacherous. For the second time that day, she recalled the Pink Party, the flustered way she’d flung off Evan’s hand, her instinct (and possibly his?) to keep things private. On a gut level, she just knew: