The Exact Opposite of Okay

by Laura Steven

  The woman is big and beautiful. Her black hair is swept up into a bright yellow headscarf, and her lips are painted purple. When she sees Carson, her eyes crinkle in recognition.

  “Hey, Mom,” Carson says, in the same relaxed tone he uses with me. I blink in surprise, but it also makes perfect sense. The woman’s skin is the same perfectly smooth brown as Carson’s, and she has the same wide smile. “This is Izzy. I was just walking her home. Izzy, this is my mom, Annaliese.”

  I smile and say, “Pleasure to meet you, Annaliese.”

  His mom blows one last puff of smoke through her lips, then buries the cigarette in a terracotta plant pot next to the doorstep. Dusting her hands off on her patterned dress, she stands up and gives me a warm hug.

  “Carson’s told me a lot about you.” Her eyes are mischievous, and I know what she’s trying to communicate: he’s told me a lot of good things. I grin conspiratorially.

  “Less of that, please, Annaliese,” Carson jokes, but his voice is light. Nothing like Danny’s when he speaks to Miranda. “Everything cool?”

  His mom nods. “Yeah. Scott was gon’ come by, but he didn’t. Don’t know why I’m surprised.”

  I guess they’re talking about the partner who left recently, leaving them in the shit with money.

  Carson grabs the little girl by the ankles and lifts her up. She squeals with delight as he dangles her at shoulder height. “It’s gonna be a’ight. I picked up some extra shifts this weekend.” He places the giggling girl down again and turns his attention to the boy – his brother? “Looks like someone’s getting pizza for dinner again. PIIIZZZAAAAAAA!!” He growls this last bit like a pizza monster, chasing the kid a short way down the street. “GRRRRRR!”

  His mom and I are both laughing too. Then she says, “That’s enough, pizza monster. Time for your prey to have a bath.”

  “Yeah, he’s pretty stinky,” Carson says, fanning his nose extravagantly to illustrate his point. His prey laughs hysterically. “Want me to do it?”

  “Nah, it’s cool,” Annaliese says. “You walk Izzy home. I got it.”

  Despite the crappy situation she’s in, she’s all twinkly at the sight of me and Carson together.

  As we walk back to mine, I don’t have to force conversation. It just flows. “So is your coach cool with you skipping practice to work at the pizza place?” I ask.

  “Nah, he’s a dick about it,” he replies. He works a thumb into the back of his shoulder to dig out a knot, wincing a little as he does so. “But what’s he gonna do? Cut me from the team? Pfft. I’d like to see ’em win a game without me.”

  His confidence is nice. It’s not arrogant. It comes with a cheeky grin and a jesting tone, rather than a condescending sneer.

  “You must be pretty good then, huh?” I ask. “I mean, I’ve seen you play, and it looks impressive. But I know more about algebra than I do about sports, and that’s saying something.”

  He laughs. “Yeah, I’m not bad. Not like I’m gonna be one of the greats, though.”

  “No?”

  “Nah. I’m too short, for one thing.” I shoot him an unconvinced look. He’s well over six feet tall. He holds his hands up. “Hey, I don’t make the rules. I’m a shortass compared to the NBA All-Stars. So yeah, not tall enough, or committed enough. Or interested enough, to be honest.”

  This last one catches me off guard. “Really? I thought you loved basketball.”

  “I do, man, I do. But you can love a thing without necessarily dedicating your life to it, you know?”

  The profoundness of this statement leaves me slightly breathless. I feel like it might apply to my situation, to the pressure I’m putting on myself to succeed in this screenplay competition, but I’m too engaged with the conversation to delve into the idea properly. I tuck it away in the back of my mind to revisit later.

  “So do you wanna do the whole college thing?” I ask, enjoying getting to know Carson beyond the class-clown image.

  He shrugs noncommittally. “I dunno. I figure I’d enjoy it, but am I willing to get into that much debt just to check a box?” Another shrug. “Right now, I don’t think so. I’d rather stay home and support my family. Leave my passions as hobbies. Play when I wanna play, read what I wanna read. That’d be enough for me, I think.”

  I smile, a warm feeling spreading through my chest. Carson’s on my wavelength. He genuinely understands that following your wildest dreams isn’t the best option for a lot of people. And he’s made his peace with it, but not in a depressing way. He’s happy. And for the thousandth time since we started talking, I feel refreshed by him. By his personality, his kindness, his outlook.

  Uh-oh. I’m in trouble.

  “So what other passions do you have? Besides basketball.” I find myself genuinely caring about the answer, rather than just thinking about the next thing I’m going to say. As a nervous conversationalist, this is something of a breakthrough.

  “I like to paint. Not like hills and trees and shit. More like art as activism. Art that says something about the world.” His hand finds mine, but not awkwardly like some teenage boys would do it. Just relaxed and nice. “I never told anyone that before.”

  I remember how good his alpaca sketch was, and the blue, white and red paint the first time we kissed in the hallway. “Art as activism. Like Banksy?”

  “Man, Banksy’s some white-ass bullshit. Sorry,” he apologizes hastily, as though he might’ve offended my white-ass feelings.

  I nudge his shoulder playfully, trying to show he doesn’t even a little bit have to worry about that. “Why’s that?” I ask. He still looks wary. “I genuinely want to know,” I add, squeezing his hand.

  “A’ight, so the dude flew out to Gaza to spray-paint a kitten on a house that’d been destroyed in an air strike. Like, the fuck? Talk about insensitive. Then our white savior has the audacity to call it art, to demand folks listen to his views on the atrocities of war, rather than the Palestinians who gotta live through it.” He shakes his head, his hand tensing and untensing in mine. “Sorry. Shit drives me crazy sometimes.”

  “Don’t apologize,” I insist. “I love listening to you. And you’re right. That’s some white-ass bullshit.”

  He laughs. “You’re cool, O’Neill. Maybe I’ll show you my work sometime.”

  “I’d like that,” I smile back. [There’s been a lot of smiling and grinning in this scene, and I do apologize for the unimaginative descriptions. Turns out there aren’t that many synonyms for smiling and grinning. Blame Carson; he’s the one who’s always making me smile and grin.]

  Strolling past the dusk-lit windows on Carson’s street, I catch our reflections in the glass.

  I’ll give it to Annaliese – we do look kinda cute together. No wonder her eyes were twinkling.

  Mine are too.

  10.42 p.m.

  Just received a Facebook message from Danny.

  Hey, so I just found this cool Getting Into Screenwriting masterclass you can do online. It’s with some prolific writing duo I’ve heard you talk about before.

  And he attaches the link. But before I can even click it, another message comes through.

  I know you’ll probably freak out that it’s $120, but I don’t mind paying for it as a treat :)

  The order of my reactions are as follows:

  1. Heart-stopping nausea at the sight of the figure $120. I’ve had this knee-jerk reaction to large monetary values for as long as I can remember.

  2. Disbelief that Danny would offer to pay.

  3. Cautious gratitude.

  4. Temptation to take him up on the offer.

  5. Remembrance that Danny is in love with me.

  6. Guilt.

  7. Disconcerting feeling that he’s still trying to buy my affection.

  8. Anger that he’s wielding his power as a wealthy middle-class dude to manipulate my emotions.

  9. Concern that I’m thinking too much into it.

  It just feels, yet again, like he has an ulterior motive. Up unt
il super recently Danny never bought me a thing, and I liked it that way. It made me feel like we were equal. He never intentionally drew attention to the disparity in our situations. And now he highlights it regularly, buying me milkshakes and sweaters and flowers and Coldplay tickets and offering to fork out an eye-watering sum of money in order for me to advance my career.

  Is it because he wants me to feel like I owe him something? Or is that too harsh a criticism?

  He looks at my life and sees I don’t have much money, and he exploits that predicament to manipulate my emotions. Did he learn that from watching his dad buy his mom’s affection instead of earning it? The Lake Michigan lakehouse was bought right after the news of Mr Wells’ affair came out, back when Danny and I were still in grade school. I was too young to fully grasp what was going on, but looking back it seems like Danny’s dad used money to fix a grave mistake, rather than actually repairing the emotional damage.

  I remember his comment back when he found out Vaughan liked me.  What’s he trying to pull, asking a girl like you out.

  A Girl Like Me. What does he even mean by that? He’s never made me feel like I’m any different, not once in our thirteen years of friendship. Until now.

  Cautiously, for fear of angering the beast, I type out what I consider to be a diplomatic response.

  Thanks for thinking of me! This sounds like a cool opportunity, but I’d never take money from you. I don’t want to feel like some kind of charity case, you know?

  The three dots showing he’s typing a response appear almost immediately.

  Wow, bitter much? You’re making me feel like a dick for offering to do a nice thing for you. I can’t win with you, can I?

  Whoa. I’m about to start composing an anti-inflammatory answer when he sends another message:

  You spend your whole life complaining about how unfair the movie industry is, how disadvantaged kids with no connections can’t get a foot in the door. And now you’re turning on me for offering to help? Like I say. Can’t win.

  Why is this escalating so quickly? I know he’s dealing with some confusing feelings toward me, but man, this is too much.

  Taking a deep, steadying breath, I reply.

  When I complain about how the movie industry prices poor people out, it doesn’t mean I want a rich person to buy me in. It means I wish the barrier to entry didn’t exist at all.

  Two seconds later . . .

  You’re exhausting.

  I want to scream in frustration. He’s so damn transparent. He offered me money so that when I cried with gratitude and told him he was amazing, it’d massage his ego and make him feel good for helping a Girl Like Me.

  It didn’t cost him anything, not really. His parents are rich. That money means nothing to him. But he knows it means everything to me, and he’s manipulating that imbalance with no shame.

  I get why he’s lashing out. As a privileged white dude, he’s used to being able to buy whatever he wants. He lives in a country where even the presidency can be bought.

  But he can’t buy my love. And that frustrates the hell out of him.

  11.07 p.m.

  Texting Carson. You know, an actual decent guy, who is nice to me at all times and has never once tried to bribe me into having sex with him. What a revelation!

  He messages me first, which is nice, because although I don’t subscribe to the sexist notion that girls should wait for potential suitors to make the first move in a heterosexual relationship, it’s always nice to feel wanted.

  Watching a documentary on the Fritzls. Inspired by you, obviously. This is so effed up.

  I grin as I reply.

  I don’t think they made a documentary about the Fritzls yet. Are you sure it’s not Keeping Up with the Kardashians ? I’ve never watched it, but understand they have a very similar dynamic.

  Lol. You’re literally funnier than every guy on the basketball team combined.

  That is best compliment I could hope to receive at this point. I was about to cave into temptation and check the online response to my nudes for the millionth time today, but this is enough to distract me for another minute or two.

  Well, that isn’t hard. Unlike every guy on the basketball team, who are hard at all times. You know, due to raging hormones and constant exposure to each other’s penises.

  He doesn’t reply to this for around half an hour, and I actually start to freak out that I’ve offended him.

  I refresh my emails several times – still nothing from the competition judges. I just want to know if I’m on the shortlist, damn it! And if I do not receive word within the next forty-eight seconds I am at very real risk of causing a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster through sheer nervous energy alone.

  But then Carson:

  Hey, is your friend Ajita single? One of my firm-penised teammates wants to ask her out.

  Oh, Ajita, you daaaaawwwwg. I mean, I’m not surprised she’s in demand because she’s a beautiful goddess and all-round hilarious human being, but still. Always nice to hear my homegirl getting the attention she deserves.

  She is indeed single! However, I am not sure firm penises are her jam. I mean, neither are flaccid ones. Like, I just don’t think penises are her preferred genitalia. But your pal should ask away, for I am not her spokesperson!

  I then ping off a text about this new development to the queen herself, and promptly fall asleep with the most absurd of smiles on my face, dreaming of pizza with Carson Manning in the not too distant future.

  Monday 3 October

  10.13 a.m.

  Things that have happened since arriving at school this morning:

  1. Danny ignored me in homeroom. Sigh. This animosity is highly inconvenient because I need him to fix my laptop for me. It just will not connect to Wi-Fi no matter how many sacrifices I make to the technology gods, including but not limited to my firstborn child.

  2. Ajita is off sick. She has stomach flu from consuming week-old pepperoni pizza, even though she’s supposed to be vegetarian. I texted her to tell her that she is an extremely selfish and inconsiderate individual, but she just told me that she hopes I contract the norovirus in the next few hours so I can join her on the sofa for a Comedy Central binge. That doesn’t sound awful in all honesty.

  3. All the usual jeers and whispers and general assholery. It is quite baffling to me that people are still interested in my nudes, because as a solid 6/10 I’m painfully middle of the road. This is why I have developed a sense of humor to compensate, so I’m totally okay with my ranking as “above average but only just”. However, I am totally not okay with the fifteen-year-old Japanese boy who follows me around everywhere asking me to sign the iPhone case he’s had made out of my leaked photo.

  4. I flunked math. Shock of all shocks, quadratic equations and/or the ancient wanker that is Pythagoras are not top of my list of things I currently give a crap about.

  5. Vaughan made a speech in the cafeteria in response to aforementioned jeers and whispers and general twattery. It went something like this: “Ahoy, gossiping fishwives! It is I, grandson of Benito Mussolini, evil dictator and abhorrent human being. I doth shall [again I’m not a hundred percent clued up on doth usage, but hopefully you’ll let it slide] make it abundantly clear that I did not have sexual intercourse with this here Izzy O’Neill.” I am paraphrasing slightly. The original was far less eloquent. Basically, he wanted everyone to know that despite all the evidence, he has zip zilch zero to do with my situ. And nothing screams “uninvolved bystander” like a public declaration of innocence.

  6. I caved and checked the WCW website again. Nice new additions: a sweepstake in which voters guess my weight, bra size and body mass index based on the nude photo [these are weirdly accurate]; a strongly worded post about how decidedly unfunny I am [lol okay sure]; more amateur Photoshop jobs [in one, my face has been superimposed onto a porn screenshot in which the actress is receiving a penis in every orifice].

  7. Bumped into Carlie in the restroom and almost as soon as she
made accidental eye contact with me, she turned and speed-walked straight out of there. Thank you for the support, dude! I mean, I understand that as a new kid she probably doesn’t want to taint her reputation by associating with the likes of me, but still. If she and Ajita do end up going out, I don’t want things to be awkward between us.

  Sigh. I might go and hang out with Mrs Crannon. She seems to be the last person at Edgewood who doesn’t despise every fibre of my being.

  2.45 p.m.

  Crannon is also off sick. Am slightly concerned about the fact this coincides with Ajita’s absence, and ordinarily I would cook up a delicious conspiracy theory about their passionate, clandestine love affair. But I’m just not in the mood.

  Ho hum, woe is me, why must I go on? How can things possibly get any worse?

  4.56 p.m.

  Ha. Ha ha. HA.

  Surely, Izzy, you have seen enough movies and read enough books to know that when the protagonist utters that doomed sentence, “How can things possibly get any worse?” things invariably get worse.

  In my case, much fucking worse.

  Someone sent a video of Vaughan’s cafeteria speech to a local newspaper reporter, who uploaded it to the publication’s website along with links to the gross, Izzy-shaming blog, and a full background as to the involvement of a Republican senator’s son in a small-town sex scandal. Ted Vaughan has been approached for comment.

  There’s also an image gallery containing – you guessed it – the nude pictures.

  It’s had over 4,000 shares.

  11.07 p.m.

  Even though she’s still sick, Ajita calls an impromptu but highly necessary girls’ night to address the catastrophic developments today brought forth.

  She answers the door dressed as R2-D2, which is an unexpected perk of the evening, and I decide it’ll be funniest to pretend not to have noticed. So I just greet her as normal and waltz into her house like I own the place. She plays along nicely, adding the occasional beep-bop for believability.

  Her parents and siblings are all out at some tragic athletics meet [Prajesh is the next Usain Bolt, by all accounts] so we have the house to ourselves. We cozy up in her kitchen instead of the basement. It’s really beautiful – sleek refrigerator with an ice machine, massive central island and breakfast bar, fresh lilies in a vase at all times.