by Julia Swift
“I wanted to know why they didn’t approach you, how it made them feel, what do they think about guys crying. I mean, what point were you trying to get across? You started strong, but then it became all muddied and jumbled.”
For the first time since I got here, I’m scared, not scared like I’m in trouble scared. But scared I’m not going to be on the paper. Scared that I don’t have what it takes to be a reporter like my dad. Scared I’ll never be like him because he wasn’t done teaching me about life yet. And I have to be a reporter. That I know. It’s the only thing I know for sure.
“When you cite examples of when we see guys cry in the media, I’m not reading anything new. But at the end, when you talk about seeing guys cry because something unexpected or sad hits them and they don’t know how else to react, that’s where the piece kicks into gear. It’s real and personal. That’s what we should focus on.”
She packs her backpack and hands me the photos.
“It’s partially my fault. You didn’t have the pictures to work from. Really look at them. See the details, describe them, make me feel what they’re thinking. That’s the story. Call me if you have any questions.”
Amber gives me a flirty smile, hands me the story and is gone. She wrote her phone number on top. This kind of constructive criticism I can handle.
11
Will
I walk into the gym, the Teacher points to me.
“Twenty laps for being late.”
I hit the track behind the bleachers. After a few laps, I’m drenched. When I went fishing with my dad and his best friend, Bill, on the Xingu River in Brazil, the humidity made me feel like my lungs were filling with water. It was as if it was raining all the time, even though it wasn’t. Real rain came late every afternoon. We’d duck under the boat’s makeshift aluminum slab roof, but get soaked anyway. We did that for three days. Rest of the trip, we sat outside in the rain, water pelting us like needles, a prickly Brazilian massage. Felt great. When the sun came out again, our clothes dried. Locals thought we were idiots, os americanos tão tapados que nem sabiam como sair da chuva, but we didn’t care. It was one of the best times I ever had, until Dad told me we had to cut the trip short. He had to interview a Guarani tribal leader fighting to have his ancestral land restored to his people. I didn’t want to leave the jungle.
I hated when his work took precedence over me. Is that why Dad brought me to Brazil? I was angry at my father for the rest of the trip, even after we returned to the States. We didn’t shoot hoops for a long time. I was punishing him.
Mr. Huber rolls out the soccer balls. I hate indoor soccer. There’s no skill involved, plus we can’t do skins vs. shirts, can you imagine? All the girls.... Mr. Huber blows the whistle. We line up. I spot Sasha. I had no idea she was in my gym class. She’s playing goalie for the other team? Is she crazy? Who wants to be a human target? I’m not going to kick the ball at her, I might hurt her. Every time I even think about a woman getting hit, I think about Bill.
Our fishing trip was supposed to be just me and Dad. But he invited Bill at the last minute. I eavesdropped on Dad and Bill one night on the boat and discovered Bill had hit his girlfriend. Dad was probably one of the only people Bill respected. They’d been friends since the year after Dad graduated high school when they sublet a puny apartment with no electricity in New York City. Bill had studied journalism, but Dad didn’t have the money for college so it took him a lot longer to get his first byline. At Dad’s funeral, Bill confided in me that he wished he were half the writer my dad was. He said my dad taught him things they don’t cover in journalism school. Even though I lived with my dad, he was never around. If I want to follow in his footsteps, be a reporter who writes about underdogs like the street kids who eat off your plates in Rio while robbing you blind, I have to get on the school paper.
*
The next morning, I stand outside the mini-mart waiting for almost an hour to talk to anyone who saw me the other day. I down two orange juices and a breakfast burrito so it doesn’t look like I’m loitering. So far the only person I recognize is the manager guy who keeps watching me. I need to interview him, but not in front of everyone. This is the busiest I’ve ever seen this place. There’s a perpetual line of people, two and three deep. If I don’t talk to someone soon, I’m going to be late for school and I won’t finish the story on time. I approach the manager, who’s busy ringing up customers buying their morning caffeine fix.
“So the other day, when I was, you know, what was going through your mind?”
He ignores me.
“You do remember me, right? I’m the guy who was… you know, crying in front of your store.”
That got his attention. As well as some of the people in line. He looks right at me, goes back to scanning coffees. It’s amazing what people choose to remember versus what they choose to forget. I’m going to jog his memory.
“You asked me to leave, said I was making customers uncomfortable. You never even asked what was wrong.”
Now all the customers are staring at him. Judging. An old lady in a jogging suit comes to my defense.
“Is everything okay young man? Do you need help?”
Funny how when people see a guy cry, they stay away like he’s got the Plague. But when they hear about it later, somehow a crying guy is no longer threatening. I have to write that down.
The manager waves an assistant over to take his place at the register, turns to me and says loud enough so that everyone can hear.
“Let me grab you a lemonade.”
I’m about to accept the offer when I see the trucker who threw me into the trash park his rig outside. Today if he pulls anything, I get to fight back. I exit the store as he unloads more newspapers from his truck. When he sees me coming, he pauses, like he’s debating whether he’ll let me ruin his day again, or if he shouldn’t throw me because his shoulders are still sore from last time.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He slows to a stop.
“Why did you attack me yesterday?”
“I wanted to give you something to cry about.”
“How did you know I didn’t already have a good reason?”
The trucker takes a step toward me as he looks around.
“You wanna know what I think?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not right. Guys who cry end up gay.”
Is he for real? He is. What an absolute idiot. What a great story for my article.
*
Sitting in the coffee shop, here I am again waiting for Amber to finish reading. I look to see if she’s done. Finally. It’s about time.
“Didn’t think you had it in you.”
What does that mean? Does she like it? Hate it? What?
“Welcome to The Spectator.”
I double pump my fists in the air, a guy with a dozen earrings shoots me a look. Let him stare, I’m in.
“Another pass, you’ll be in good shape.”
Another pass?
“Now let’s figure out what pictures to use.”
I move my chair closer to Amber as she pulls out the photos. We sort through them nixing some right away, others we put in the consider pile. I spot Sasha’s picture at the same time Amber does. I had almost forgotten about her.
“Why didn’t you talk to Sasha? I definitely wanted to hear from her.”
I bet Sasha already had a hard life before the accident. No idea how I know, it’s just something I can tell.
“I tried to get in touch with her a couple of times, but we didn’t connect.”
“Keep trying, it’ll make for a more complete story when it runs.”
I bet Amber never had anything hard to deal with when she was a kid. Or if she did, she hides it. Only if we were trapped in a fire or on a cruise ship about to sink would she confess. Definitely not in a coffee shop. Sasha would, though. She doesn’t care where she is, she lives for the moment. Amber rises from her chair. I slip Sasha’s photo into my notebook without Amber s
eeing.
“I’m gonna get a refill. Want another soy chai latte?"
Soy chai latte. Gotta remember, never get that again. Tasted like a milky flower.
“I’m good.”
I’m really not. I want out of here. I want to talk to Sasha.
12
Sasha
Lisa runs up to me. You’d think I’d be happy to see a friendly face among all these perfect girls who always judge me, and I am, a little. Lisa’s been my friend forever. Problem is, I know if we met now, she’d avoid me. But she already knows me, and I know way too much. Like how her dad remarried a waitress and had new kids and forgot about her. And how there’s a hole in the wall where he punched his fist when he lost it his last night home. There’s a painting of flowers in a bowl covering it. Her whole family is like that – flowery and happy and smiley. One time I got a stomachache when I was over and I asked for some Pepto. She didn’t even know what it was. She never had stomach problems. I was sure they must have some of the pink stuff in the house, so we went searching and found not one antacid or laxative or even Alka Seltzer. My house has every soothing stomach medicine on the market. It wasn’t until I saw how different she was that I realized maybe we are a nervous family. But sometimes now I think, no way, they’ve got the pink stuff, they must just hide it in some perfect Martha Stewart appliquéd box so no one will know the truth.
What I know for sure is that everyone at school stares and wonders how we can be friends and what we talk about when no one’s listening. She’s always smiling and I’m always, well, not. Most people come up to you and ask how you’re doing. Not Lisa, or at least not with me. I think she’s afraid I might really tell her, and she doesn’t like to hear anything bad. Actually, she doesn’t hear it. I’ve tried talking to her about stuff, like when my brother had to go to jail, but she just kept blathering about her new haircut as if I never said anything. Maybe it’s not that she wouldn’t want to be friends if we met now, maybe I would run in the opposite direction. But now I stay. And I don’t tell her what she doesn’t want to hear. And she tells everyone we’ve been best friends forever, and I think, I hope this isn’t what best friends are or friendship isn’t worth it. I just wish I knew what was worth it.
Will.
No, I'm not saying he’s the only thing worth it. I see him. He’s sitting on the stairs reading something, like an assignment or something. He looks angry. I wonder if I can help. I wrote all my brother’s college applications. He wasn’t even going to apply because he didn’t think he had a chance. I knew I could write an essay and transform his mistakes into fascinating elements of his complex personality. He thought I was full of it, but if it meant he didn’t have to do the work, he was all for it. Not that he’s lazy. Ever since he was in jail, he gets nervous when something is important because he’s so used to everyone expecting nothing from him. If he would give himself a chance, he could do anything. I was going to give him that chance.
I requested applications from all over the country. Arizona State sounded cool and they had late admissions, but my brother didn’t want to go that far from home. I could see him running track there alongside all the innocent girls with long straight hair. Not like his girlfriends here. They all wear way too much makeup and big fake rings. Not lots of cool ones all piled on together, but one or two as if they are trying to pretend they are real. Trina wasn’t that bad. She really loved him I think, until he got in trouble. But then I wonder, why would he have robbed that store when he was with her if she wasn’t pushing for some of her big fake rings to be real? She told me once he was the best holder she ever met. He could really grab onto someone and make them feel safe and loved, and he wasn’t afraid to cuddle. She said you can’t teach a guy that, he had to learn it from his parents when he was little. My parents hugged us so much we used to complain enough already, we can’t breathe. But we secretly loved disappearing in their arms. They still hug me all the time, but now he has to go to girls to get his, and the ones who come around now don’t look like they know how to keep someone safe.
When the letters started coming from colleges, I would run to the mailbox everyday like I was waiting for my own acceptance letters. He was happy I was happy when the colleges accepted him. He said I must’ve written one heck of an essay to convince these places to accept scum like him. I showed him the catalogues and the pictures of the dorms, but he went to the local community college. He wasn’t going to take something he didn’t earn. I saved all the catalogues and sometimes at night I look at the pictures of students around mahogany conference tables and picture myself saying something so brilliant I surprise them all. Or I’m in my dorm room hanging out with new friends or at the parties with all the smart, sensitive, sexy college boys watching me from across the room. I haven’t yet gotten to the point where they approach me because even in my dreams I can’t think of the right thing to say.
Last year Lisa started going out with a guy she met on the swim team. When he would call, she would let me listen. I needed to find out what you were supposed to say, but all they talked about was swim team, and I don’t think they were doing it right. It was pretty cool she let me eavesdrop. Even though she drives me crazy, she’s always there when I need her. Not to listen, support or understand me, but sometimes it is nice to see a friendly face. She can see I’m staring at Will.
“Go talk to him.”
Like it’s that easy. No, it’s not easy, but I am supposed to be living my new brave life. I am not in the ground somewhere so what’s the worst that can happen? I stand in front of him and he doesn’t even notice me.
No, I’m not saying that’s the worst that can happen. I get up off my butt and walk over there and he doesn’t say a word. Now what do I do? I can’t slip away.
“Hey.”
Brilliant. Is that the line I’m going to use to impress everyone with my wit at college?
“Does that hurt?”
He’s talking about my toe ring.
“No. Most of the time I forget it’s there. When it’s really hot out, it cools me down, and when I’m cold, it makes me freezing.”
“You wear rings on bare toes when it’s cold out?”
“It doesn’t have to be cold out for me to be freezing.”
“Is that like a side effect from when you were sick?”
“No. It’s just part of being me.”
He’s waiting for more.
“When most people say they feel something – good, bad, scared, happy – they mean they’re thinking about it. When I feel something, I really feel it in my bones. It has nothing to do with the accident. I’ve always been like this.”
“Extra-sensitive.”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Do you have E.S.P.?”
I wish I did. That would explain why I’m a freak. But I’m not special, just different. I have to make it sound better for him.
“Sometimes I think I can feel what other people are feeling, and there are other times when I look at people and I swear I can see colors around them, like an impressionist painting of their soul. But I’m pretty sure that’s just being an aware normal person, not someone with a...”
“Gift.”
“Right.”
“I don’t think you’re normal.”
Was that an insult? He’s smiling at me like he’s almost flirting. I can call myself a freak, but when anyone else does, it stings.
“There’s definitely something extra about you.”
That was a compliment. That I felt all the way through my smile down to my toe. The ring is working its’ cooling magic, which is good because my temperature shot up about ten degrees.
13
Will
She’s about to walk away. I don’t want her to go.
“Wanna go on a hike this weekend?”
She looks completely stunned.
“Okay.”
“We could head up Porter Trail, say seven-thirty?”
“Will it be light out that early?”
“I’ll meet you there?”
Didn’t see that one coming. Normally I go by where the girl lives, we walk or cab it to a movie, split a pizza after. I make sure she gets home okay, we kiss, more, if I was especially smooth that night. Maybe a lot more. But with Sasha, no clue what’s coming. We are meeting there. What can I do to find out if it is a date, hold a branch like a car door so it doesn’t smack her in the face? Gatorade and protein bars don’t qualify as dinner. If I’m not careful, I’ll fall into the friend category.
*
The next four days are a total blur. Takes me a couple of nights to figure out what’s going on until I realize it all started the morning after she said yes. I used to crawl out of bed at 6:50, an hour before homeroom. I’d check e-mail, shower, grab a bagel, shoot some hoops. The past four nights, I can’t dream past 5:20 a.m. I’m up with the donut makers, the newspaper boy, the people my dad told me work at Walt Disney World after the park closes so we never see them clean. Which reminds me, I promised Mom I would clean up my room. She doesn’t ask me to do much anymore. It’s like it hurts for her to speak or even look at me. So if she’s not going to see my mess, what’s the point? I know where everything is. Besides, my body’s too tired now, like Dad’s used to be when he came home from trips. Even though we’d shoot hoops until Mom yelled at us, I knew he was tired and needed to catch up on sleep.
For 96 hours, I turn into a zombie. Sometime during the blur, I hand in my piece on the crying boy. Amber tells me it’ll run next week. Could be the lack of sleep, but whenever she says hello, it feels like her friends are always watching, hovering, noticing. Creeps me out, but I guess we’re both getting what we want. Every morning at 5:20, I stare at the ceiling, wonder if today’s the day for the hike, look at the calendar. With other girls, I play them. Flirt. Use those moments when we bump into each other in the halls to my advantage. It’s all about anticipation. A game. Leading up to that date on Saturday night. With Sasha, it’s different. I want to talk to her. Be around her. But I don’t want to have stupid stuff to talk about, I have to be brilliant. Maybe not brilliant, but deep. Smart. Important.