Friend Is Not a Verb

by Daniel Ehrenhaft

  “I’m still sleeping, Mom,” I croaked.

  “It’s Emma.”

  The room turned upside down, dumping me out of bed.

  I had a hard time with the doorknob. I kept fumbling with it and nearly knocked myself over when I finally yanked it open. My head spun. Emma—

  There she stood.

  Dark circles ringed her eyes. Her face was pale, almost snow-white. She probably hadn’t slept, either. She was still wearing the same dress. Her hair looked like a bomb had gone off. She was beautiful.

  I opened my mouth. “I—”

  She grabbed me and kissed me.

  It was more of a lunge. Practically violent. She squeezed her eyes shut. (I knew because mine were wide open.) Then she stepped back.

  “Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed of doing that?” she asked hoarsely.

  I stood motionless, still scared. “Really?”

  “Not just in regular dreams. In everyday daydreams.”

  I swallowed. “Since when?”

  Her eyes began to water. She sniffed and rubbed them, grimacing. “Since forever. Since we used to play hopscotch.” Her voice was thick. “Look, do me a favor, okay? Pretend I didn’t just fly to Palm Springs for tear duct surgery. The constant waterworks make me feel self-conscious. You can make fun of the Botox, but that’s it.”

  Slowly, slowly—in spite of how hard I tried to cling to the shell I’d spent the last twenty hours tightening around myself—the fear that I’d lost Emma for good melted away. “You have a deal,” I said, fighting to make my voice as dry as possible. “Didn’t I tell you this face-lift was a risk?”

  “I know. They made it seem so easy on Nip/Tuck. I should have paid more attention to the botched cases.” She stared me straight in the eye, batting her wet eyelashes. “Hen, listen. I know you think that becoming a rock star is a stupid fantasy. But it isn’t. You have to swear it isn’t.”

  I shook my head, at a loss.

  “Because I have a stupid fantasy, too,” she went on. “A stupid, ridiculous, girly fantasy. I’ve had it ever since I moved next door to you. It’s one of the few things I’ve never told you. You want to hear what it is?”

  The golf ball in my throat made it impossible to speak.

  “My dad springs for a huge outdoor wedding. It’s a gorgeous summer day, like today. We close off the street, and he gets one of the lame bands he represents to play, and you and I take our vows right on my front stoop. What do you think of that?”

  I nodded lamely. I didn’t even know if that was the right response.

  “See, if you pretend that your rock star fantasy isn’t stupid, then I can pretend like my wedding fantasy isn’t stupid, either. I can salvage some dignity. And I promise I’ll never, ever run out on you again like I did yesterday. See, I was always supposed to make the first move. That was part of my fantasy, too. But I was never able to muster the courage. I was too scared you’d say no.”

  I extended a hand. “I’m saying yes,” I choked out. “And you have a deal.”

  She shook it. Her hand was warm. She didn’t let go.

  I swept her into a very tight hug.

  “I wonder if this is gonna make things easier or harder at school this fall,” she whispered in my ear. “You know, with the troglodytes.”

  “Are you kidding?” I breathed. “Much easier. This will really confuse them.”

  If this were a normal story, that would be a perfect place to end.

  Boy makes good with girl next door. Weirdness: over. New phase of relationship: on. A quick montage of bloopers and outtakes as the credits roll. Oh, the hilarity. Oh, the romance of it all. (No, we didn’t shtup, if that’s what you’re wondering. What is this, porn? The morning was too pure and wondrous to be cheapened by gratuitous sex. We’re saving that for later.) Cheers to us. Hooray for wholesome, predictable teen cheese.

  Unfortunately, having a felon for a sister tends to ruin the possibility for a neat wrap-up. Okay, maybe that’s overstating it. And, in fairness to Sarah, I wasn’t sure if the label “felon” fit. Close enough, though. Actually, it’s amazing how certain disaster areas of your life can seem a lot less complicated when the important stuff is taken care of. I shared this remarkable insight with Emma, and she agreed.

  “She’s really coming home today, huh?” Emma asked. We were lying in a comfy tangle on my bed. “You honestly think she’s gonna spill the beans about everything?”

  “I don’t know. It seems that way.”

  “Well, it would be nice if she showed up sooner rather than later.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s almost noon. At five o’clock, you’re mine.”

  I blushed slightly. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

  “Please don’t tell me you forgot about the Journey concert, Hen. Please.”

  “Holy crap.” I sat up straight and ran a hand through my hair. “That’s tonight, isn’t it? I told my parents I’m sick. They think I’m at death’s door.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to convince them otherwise. My parents made reservations for the four of us at some swanky steak joint for an early dinner before the concert. Leave it to my dad to be sensitive about your vegetarianism.”

  I nodded. “Okay. I need to think. You know…it might be best if I sidestepped my family altogether and snuck out. We can climb down the fire escape. Besides, running away seems to be great reverse psychology with them. Sarah ran away, and they do everything she wants. Maybe they’ll do everything I want now.”

  She wriggled her eyebrows. “You naughty boy! I like your thinking. Where to? My place? Conveniently, it’s close by.”

  My gaze fell to Gabriel’s manuscript, still facedown on the floor. “No. This’ll sound insane, but what do you say we go to Gabriel’s?”

  Emma’s eyes widened. “You mean now?”

  “Yeah. Right now. You and me. Together. To come clean.”

  “Come clean about what?”

  “To tell him that I did steal one of his manuscripts. And to tell him that he was right. See…he knew about us.”

  She squeezed my hand. “He did, huh? What did you tell him?”

  “I don’t even know. It was sort of like he read my mind.”

  “And you really want to tell him you lifted one of his manuscripts? You’re a brave man, Hen. A total wack-a-doodle, but brave.” She let out a deep, contented sigh. “Well, count me in. I’m sort of dying to see what he looks like, anyway.”

  As far as supernatural coincidences go, the timing worked out perfectly. I swear; I wasn’t even all that surprised. The subway ride and stroll through the East Village put the two of us at Gabriel’s apartment building at the same moment a taxicab pulled up to the curb—and out climbed you know who.

  “Hey, Sarah,” Emma said brightly.

  She stared at us as the cab sped off. A faint smile curled her lips. She was as tan and stylish as ever, dolled up in sandals, a wide-brimmed white sunhat, and a silky, pricey-looking aquamarine dress. (Since when had she started caring so much about her wardrobe?) With her little Samsonite luggage on wheels, she looked as if she could have come straight from the set of some glamorous tropical fashion shoot. Wow. That Sarah Birnbaum. She really knew how to live life on the run, didn’t she?

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “Why is Emma’s hand in your back pocket?”

  Jesus. Emma wrenched it free. I hadn’t even realized it was there. I guess we’d been doing that corny new-couple snuggle walk since we’d exited the subway…I turned to Emma. Her cheeks looked as pink as mine felt. The Unseen Hand, I thought, and almost laughed.

  “Did I miss something while I was away?” Sarah asked.

  Neither Emma nor I said a word. We both lifted our shoulders.

  Sarah smirked. “Never mind. I can probably figure it out. Man, you disappear for a couple of weeks, and everyone starts falling for each other. It’s a good thing I’ll be staying put.”

  “Really?” I asked. “You’re really st
aying put?”

  “I really am,” she said. “Look, Hen…I’m so, so sorry I put you through all this. But I can tell you everything now. I just sold our house in Puerto Plata. I even turned a profit, if you can believe it. I got all the money back to repay Gabriel’s father.”

  My nose wrinkled. Repay Gabriel’s father? I opened my mouth, but Emma raised a finger to my lips.

  “Shh. Whaddya say we go inside, Sarah? You can tell us all about it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Steal Your Parents’ Money

  About the surprise twist that I probably should have seen coming…

  Gabriel almost seemed to be expecting us. I mean, as a package. He shook hands with Emma as if he’d known her his entire life and kissed my sister on the lips the way Petra had kissed me the day of my audition, with just a little too much fuego. Then we stood there for about five minutes in his sterile little apartment, grinning at one another with weird, anticipatory looks.

  Finally Sarah told Gabriel to tell Emma and me the whole story. “Right up until we ran away,” she said. “You know, so Hen gets it.”

  It went like this.

  For most of his life, Gabriel Stern had one parent. His mom died of cancer when he was a toddler. His dad, Roger Stern, never quite recovered from her death. This isn’t to say that he retreated into a sad shell, writing unpublished poetry to his long-lost love. No, he reacted by becoming a colossal dick—one that made Emma’s dad and Petra’s dad look like kindhearted heroes by comparison. He turned into a degenerate gambler. He started going on sex tours to Cambodia and Thailand. He left Gabriel to the care of babysitters and nannies, even on holidays. But he was also a dazzling success. He quit his job as an investment banker and founded a hedge fund in 2002. In Gabriel’s senior year of high school, his dad made over a hundred million dollars. The two of them moved into a penthouse apartment on Madison Avenue, whereupon Gabriel’s dad gave Gabriel his own wing with a separate entrance, so they could avoid running into each other.

  Now, none of this may sound especially tragic. Sad and pitiable, yes. But not a dire recipe for disaster. The real trouble, however, started when Gabriel started applying to colleges.

  “I was rejected from every single college I applied to,” he told us all. “Can you imagine? Picture yourself surrounded by jubilant schmucks who are all getting into the colleges of their dreams. I bet it’s like how lepers must have felt in ancient Rome. There were six: Columbia, Vassar, Tufts, Haverford, George Washington University—and my safety, Boston College. Safety. Ha! What a great word. A euphemism for ‘a lousy college even a dope like you could get into.’

  “Columbia was the real disgrace, though. Dad was a Columbia alum. He and Mom met and fell in love at Columbia. They joined the student government together. They protested all the issues worth protesting. Gas lines? The CIA in Chile? Whatever was wrong during the late seventies—a very lame decade, even lamer than the one we’ve got going now. They drank and chain-smoked at all the right bars and cafés. They both graduated cum laude. To them, Columbia wasn’t a college; it was a chrysalis. They came in like pupae. They went out like butterflies. Two beautiful, brilliant creatures flapping among the rest of us lowly insects, stinking of cigarette smoke.

  “Afterward, they donated a few thousand bucks to the school.

  “And still, I was rejected.

  “Dad couldn’t believe it. He called the admissions office in an outrage, demanding an explanation. How could his only child, his scion, be rejected? How on earth was this possible? ‘Not enough extracurricular activities,’ he was told. Apparently, playing bass in a self-made student band didn’t count.

  “The subtext was clear: I was lazy. And laziness is not an acceptable character flaw, as far as Dad is concerned. You can smoke, you can be neglectful, you can go on sex tours, you can make your only child feel like garbage…but if you’re lazy? No. It won’t do. So after that, he donated in the high five figures and secured my admission. I had to meet personally with the dean of students and director of admissions.

  “After I started Columbia, I got over it, though. I tried not to let myself get angry with him over his frustration with me. I understood it. I was an unmotivated deadbeat.

  “But then came the straw that broke the camel’s back. I told him that I wanted to get a master’s degree in religion. You know what he said? I had ‘the foresight of an amoeba.’ Those were his actual words. When I told him to go easy on me, he said: ‘I’m your father, Gabriel, I’m not your friend.’ He finished by telling me that if I went to graduate school for religion, I’d have to pay for it myself. It was business school or nothing. He was cutting me off. Disowning me. And that’s exactly what he did.”

  I flinched. Whoa.

  Gabriel took a deep breath. His eyes were moist. I glanced at Emma. She blinked uncomfortably.

  My sister took off her sun hat and clasped it in front of her.

  “Did you know that Dad didn’t even come to my graduation?” Gabriel added softly. “I tried to convince myself that there was something romantic about it. You know: a solitary figure in a black gown, ducking around all the happy families, a musician, forsaken by his own flesh and blood…”

  Emma slipped her fingers into mine. “So what happened after that?” she asked.

  “I better let Sarah tell it,” Gabriel mumbled. “I need a drink first.” He disappeared around the corner into the little kitchen nook.

  “Are you toasting Raj Bhutto?” I called after him, trying to lighten the mood.

  He laughed. “Is that some sort of subtle attempt at an apology? For reading something you shouldn’t have?”

  I had to smile, too. “So you knew about that, huh?” I asked.

  “Of course.” The refrigerator door opened and closed. Ice cubes clinked in a glass. Gabriel reappeared with a tumbler of brown liquor, heavy on the liquor.

  “I read it, too,” Emma confessed. “Do you want it back? It’s in Hen’s room.”

  “Nah, keep it,” Gabriel said. He took a sip.

  “Keep what?” Sarah asked.

  “My memoir,” Gabriel said, gesturing to the pile of manuscripts. He shot me a quick glance. He probably knew what I was thinking: A very long love letter to my sister.

  “Tell the rest of the story, Sarah,” Emma prompted.

  Sarah took a deep breath. “Right. So anyway, after we heard that Gabriel’s father was cutting him off, we—”

  “Who’s we?” Emma interrupted.

  “Our circle of friends,” Sarah said. “Me; my best friend, Madeline; and the guys in Gabriel’s band, Rich and Tony. We just couldn’t believe that Mr. Stern could be so evil. But he was. And the way it happened…” She shook her head and laughed. “I still can’t believe it myself.”

  “What?” I practically screamed, about to jump out of my skin. “Tell us already!”

  “I tagged along with Gabriel when he went to make stickers to promote a gig that Friends was playing near campus,” she explained. “It was the last gig they ever played. The stickers were originally supposed to feature the band motto, you know, ‘Friend is not a verb.’ But at the last second, when we were at Kinko’s, I convinced him to change it. I said we should turn the stickers into a big screw-you to his dad. Something that would scare him—a warning, almost, that Gabriel wasn’t alone, that his friends were his family, and we would all figure out a way to get back at his dad. So Gabriel printed up five hundred that said Steal Your Parents’ Money instead.” She chuckled. “Ring any bells?”

  Holy crap.

  Emma dropped my hand. Our eyes bulged. We both started cracking up.

  “You?” Emma shouted at my sister. “You’re the unsung mystery genius behind Steal Your Parents’ Money?”

  Sarah looked embarrassed. “If you want to call me that…”

  “That’s exactly what you are,” Gabriel said. “The unsung mystery genius.”

  “Please, Gabriel,” she muttered.

  He turned to us. “See, none of us had a
ny idea that the stickers would be the next big thing. Blogged about and twittered about…they were actually on the news.”

  I nodded. I remembered. How could I forget?

  “We all got a kick out of how different people tried to take credit for it,” Sarah added. “And that’s when it started. We were all in on this delicious little secret, the five of us. It just sort of snowballed from there. We convinced ourselves that we’d founded some kind of revolutionary underground movement. We decided we should steal our parents’ money. Starting with Gabriel’s dad. Why not? He was the living embodiment of all those Wall Street swindlers who sunk the economy and walked away with a fortune. It wasn’t revenge; it was a public service. We’d only take a few million. That was a drop in the bucket to him. And then we’d all disappear somewhere and live happily ever after.”

  “And that’s exactly what happened,” Gabriel finished. “Well, not the happily ever after part. The snowball turned into an avalanche. And it swept us all down with it. We robbed my dad of about two million dollars and split to the Dominican Republic. But the thing is…”

  “There is no happily ever after,” Sarah finished.

  I shook my head, still staring at Emma. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I know.” Gabriel took another sip from his glass. “And I swear to you, Hen, I’m still asking myself: When and how and why did we reach that point? That’s the question. I don’t believe in accidents, but there’s no denying the randomness of it all. Suddenly we were trapped in a huge house we could never leave—”

  “No, no, no,” Sarah interrupted. “There was nothing random about it. We were totally united up until the day we got there.”

  Gabriel tilted his head. “Were we?” he asked in a melancholy voice. “I don’t know. I always felt like we were less of a pack and more of a giant spiderweb. Our group friendship started with the bond between you and me, and then it exploded into a sticky mess. But what is friendship, anyway? It’s just a big tangled jumble of shared experiences. ‘I did X, Y, and Z with these people, so they must be my friends.’”