Analee, in Real Life

by Janelle Milanes

  “What’s with the face?” Seb asks.

  “Just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “My mom.” I decide to say it. Let the words hang there. Wait for Seb’s discomfort.

  But his face doesn’t slam shut, like Dad’s would, and he doesn’t change the subject, like Lily.

  “Was she a Harry Potter nerd like you?” he teases.

  “The biggest,” I say.

  “What house?”

  “Oh, Gryffindor,” I say. “Without a doubt. She was fearless.”

  “Like mother like daughter.”

  “Oh my God, you are so bad at sorting people.”

  He laughs and opens the car door to let me in.

  I fully believe that Seb is wrong. I’m definitely more Hufflepuff than anything else. But today, for me, took guts. And I pulled through. I’m not recklessly brave like a Gryffindor would be. I don’t jump into situations or try to be a hero. Still, maybe somewhere in me, amidst all my Hufflepuff nature, is a quieter Gryffindor courage that’s sitting there, waiting to be unleashed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ON THE DAY OF MOM’S funeral, I wasn’t above wondering what to wear. You would think that something as frivolous as fashion wouldn’t matter so much after your mom died. You would think a person would be above it all, busy thinking existential thoughts and searching for spiritual fulfillment. The thing is, though, that you can’t think about the giant, tragic, life-changing stuff. It’s too much for a human brain to process all at once. So you obsess over the details. You give them meaning.

  I stood in front of my closet for an hour. I considered Mom’s favorite dress of mine, sunset-colored with a scalloped skirt. She once said it made her think of mangoes. But then I thought, Shouldn’t I wear black? I’m in mourning. But Mom hated black. The inside of her closet looked like a bag of Skittles.

  Except, it occurred to me, Mom wouldn’t care what color dress I wore today or any of the days after. Mom was no longer here.

  Back to clothes, look at the clothes. I couldn’t jump to the bigger things. Skirt? Pants? I called Lily, but she didn’t answer. I settled for the mango dress with a black jacket. It clashed terribly.

  The drive to the funeral home was bright and too quiet with just me and Dad in the car. We both had forgotten how to talk to each other without Mom. I sat in the backseat, because the front seat was hers. Even after she died, I was always making space for her. It was like I expected her to stroll back into our lives, as if the past months had been just a cruel joke.

  He put on the radio, the oldies station, and they were playing the song about Pasadena from that band that sounded like the Beach Boys but they weren’t the Beach Boys. The song was aggressively happy. About an old woman who drove too fast. Who cared? Now whenever I heard it, I would think about Mom’s funeral, and this pleasant song that had no effect on most people would be devastating to me.

  Details I remember about the drive to the funeral: a man selling churros on the sidewalk. A squashed bird in the middle of the road. A cloud shaped like a snail.

  It was a closed casket funeral. I insisted on that, because Mom would never want people to see what she looked like at the end of her treatment. She wasn’t herself then, anyway. She was gone long before that, the life leaking out of her like air from a punctured balloon.

  My grandparents smothered me in hugs and kisses. My dad stood stiffly in the back of the room, as far away from the casket as he could get. People talked to him and he talked back, but his face was wiped clean of all emotion.

  And then there was Lily. She walked in with her parents, wearing the perfect funeral outfit: a black pencil skirt and a dark purple blouse. Her parents nudged her toward me before they went to talk to my dad.

  For the first time ever, I didn’t know what to say to her. We hugged, which felt wrong. Neither of us were big huggers.

  “I have the homework for you,” she said. “All the teachers said there’s no rush. And to email them if you need extra time.”

  “Thanks.”

  I suddenly wasn’t sure what else to say to her. I was used to having issues with small talk, but I had never had them with my best friend.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said, stiffly. She teetered in her heels. “About all of this.”

  By “this” I assumed she meant the most horrible thing that had ever happened to me. Sorry wasn’t nearly enough. But then, what could anyone say that would be?

  “Thanks,” I said again.

  She breathed out, sounding relieved, like she could cross something off her list. Provide the barest possible comfort to best friend? Check.

  When the service started, I sat in the front with my dad. I tried desperately not to imagine what Mom looked like inside that casket. I thought about her before the cancer, how she laughed with her mouth wide open and wore Dad’s T-shirts tied in a knot against her hip. How she opened a giant bag of tortilla chips to share with me and Lily and asked us for the latest school gossip. Lily was happy to oblige. She talked with Mom in a way I never could with her mom. Like you would talk to a friend, not a mother.

  I cried. It was the first and only time I ever cried in public. Big fat whopping tears that ran down my face and neck. People got up and told stories about Mom. I had so many stories, but I didn’t move. Maybe I should have. I should have done it for Mom, but I wasn’t strong enough. Dad didn’t go up either. He sat there, stone-faced, but I saw the tears lining his eyes. He was a silent crier, like me. We hated to show ourselves to other people. If I had the ability to cry on the inside, until my whole body filled with salty tears, I would do it.

  I tore my eyes away from Uncle Jorge, who was speaking. I searched around the room until I found her. Far away from me, in the back corner, Lily was crying harder than anyone else.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  MATT MCKINLEY PLOPS HIMSELF DOWN at our lunch table while Seb and I are splitting a piece of chocolate cake and I’m ranting about Harlow. Matt comes out of nowhere, like a bout of food poisoning, and instantly I tense up. He has the effect of making me crave the sweet release of death when he’s anywhere within ten feet of me.

  “What’s up, bro?” he asks Seb, taking the seat in between us even though no one asked him to sit down. “Why don’t we ever see your ass anymore?”

  “Been busy,” Seb answers. He pokes at the cake without looking at either one of us.

  “Your girl’s got you quarantined or something?” Matt laughs.

  “Nah, man,” Seb says.

  I’m sitting right fucking here. Even when I’m Seb’s girlfriend, I’m still less than human in Matt McKinley’s eyes. I’m not even worth acknowledging.

  I wish I could say something to him, call him out, but I’m afraid of what he would say back. He has his choice of everything wrong with me, and I know he would pluck the one thing I’m most insecure about to display to the world. People like Matt have a gift for cruelty. Even Seb knows it, which explains his uncharacteristic silence.

  “So how’s it going with you lovebirds?” Matt asks. He breaks off a chunk of cake with his fingers, also without asking. And I’m officially done eating it.

  “Fine,” Seb says.

  “You sure?” Matt finally looks at me, and his eyes twinkle with something like mischief, only more evil. My heart sinks. He knows. Matt somehow knows we’re faking it. It’s all over his face.

  “Yeah, dude,” Seb replies. “What’s the problem?”

  “Some would see you two as . . . tame.”

  “Meaning?” Seb clenches his jaw.

  “Meaning G-rated. Meaning full of shit.”

  “Who cares? We don’t need to prove anything to anyone.”

  “Just saying.” Matt takes another piece of cake and pushes his chair back to stand. “See you later.”

  As soon as he’s out of earshot, Seb slams his fist onto the table. “That’s it. We have to make out.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” A confusing rush of emotions takes hold of me. Fear
and annoyance and maybe, maybe, the smallest hint of excitement. But the fear and annoyance are way stronger.

  “Did you hear what he said?” Seb asks.

  “I did,” I say slowly.

  “He’s calling us out.”

  “Remind me why you’re friends with that guy again?”

  “Analee . . .”

  “I’m serious! He’s such a mega-douche. You see that, right? You have to see it.”

  Seb sighs. “He can be. I guess.”

  “He can be?” I repeat. “It’s his natural essence. He just is.”

  “You don’t know him. He’s going through a lot.”

  “I hate that excuse,” I say. “Plenty of people are going through a lot, and they still manage to act like civil human beings.”

  “Regardless, we don’t need him spreading the rumor that we’re faking this.”

  “So, what do you suggest?”

  “We have to act like a couple. We have to do more than hold hands in the hallway.”

  “You’re right, but—”

  He suddenly jolts forward, springing toward my face.

  “Seb! Hold on!” Instinctually I duck away, almost falling out of my chair. Seb freezes, still leaning over the table.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You can’t just attack me like that!”

  “I was going to kiss you!”

  “Really? Because it looked like you were about to choke me.”

  He flops back into his seat. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I reply. “But oh my God, the intensity in your eyes . . . that was legit terrifying.”

  “Sorry,” he says again, laughing. He rubs his fingers through a patch of curly brown hair.

  “I’m just not sure I’m good with our first kiss being in the middle of the school cafeteria,” I say. “And I’m not really good with spontaneity in general.”

  “I get it. Too much too soon.”

  Entirely too much for someone like me, but I don’t know how to explain that to him.

  “So, what’s the plan?” he asks. “Do you want to set up some practice runs?”

  I make a face. “Like we’re playing soccer?”

  “Analee, soccer is a metaphor for life. Don’t you get that yet?”

  “Silly me. I thought it was an excuse to run around in knee socks and kick a ball into a net.”

  “Oh my God.” He puts his head in his hands. “Why am I quote-unquote dating you? They’re soccer socks, Analee. Knee socks are for Catholic schoolgirls.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Ignoring you now.”

  “Good.”

  “So where do we practice?” he asks. “Your place? After school?”

  “Can’t,” I say. I quickly explain my dad’s antiquated rules for dating his daughter.

  “Your dad doesn’t trust me?” Seb asks, looking wounded. He puts his hand over his heart.

  “Considering you tried to put the moves on me in the cafeteria, can you blame him?”

  “So somewhere that’s not public, but our houses are out,” Seb murmurs. He snaps his fingers. “I got it.”

  “What? Where?”

  “I’ll pick you up on Friday night. Make sure Avery has a playdate.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I BARELY REMEMBER MY FIRST and only kiss, aka the Incident. Only bits and pieces come to mind. I remember my head pulsing in time to a monotonous base line. The stale stench of beer on Colton’s breath. I remember lying down, stiff and unmoving, his tongue poking through my lips, his hand running up and down my rib cage.

  “You are so beautifully sad,” he whispered into my ear.

  I hated that he said that. Colton said crap like that all the time, and everyone thought he was so deep and sensitive. He wasn’t. He observed us all like a detached anthropologist of emotions, all the while feeling nothing himself. Lily couldn’t see it because she feels everything, all the time.

  After a while Colton got tired of kissing someone who wasn’t kissing him back. He slipped out of the room, presumably to find Lily. I wanted to go find Lily too, but my legs were uncooperative. In my drunken state the most I could do was turn over and fall asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ON FRIDAY NIGHT SEB PULLS into the entrance of Midtown Cinema, and I’m sitting next to him, sucking on my fifth spearmint Altoid. I feel jittery. I’m going to kiss Seb Matias today. Not that I like him in that way, but inside, sixth-grade Analee is thrilled with this development. The most handsome boy in school is going to lock lips with me in a darkened theater as romantic movie music swells in the background.

  Seb nabs a parking spot by the theater’s entrance. I pop another Altoid. It’s just kissing. Lips on lips. Seb’s lips. Seb’s tongue.

  Jesus Christ. I can’t do this.

  “You okay?” he asks as we get out of the car.

  “Peachy,” I reply.

  Midtown Cinema used to be a cool indie theater. They ran midnight showings of cult classics and foreign films, and their lobby had a bunch of old Hollywood memorabilia on display. At some point last year the theater changed ownership. Now it plays tired superhero sequels along with every other theater in the East Bay area. It’s what living here does to all people and places—whatever is different will be squashed and molded until it looks identical to everything else.

  “What are we watching?” I ask Seb as we wait in line.

  “Gregor the Lion: Journey to Africa.” In sync we scoot up as the line moves forward.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why are we watching a kid’s movie?”

  “Because we’re not here to actually watch a movie,” Seb says. “We have work to do.”

  Sixth-grade Analee shrivels and dies at his words. Kissing me is in no way pleasurable. It’s not fun, or enticing, or even tolerable. It’s work. Like taking a final.

  Seb pays for my movie ticket when we get to the window.

  I pull out my wallet. “I can—”

  “Nope.”

  “But—”

  “Shh.”

  I roll my eyes and stick the wallet back into my purse. Seb makes zero sense. He makes kissing me seem like this laborious effort, but then he acts all boyfriendy. It must be leftover instincts from the days of Chleb.

  My mind shoots back to Chloe again. She’s a dancer, which means she knows how to do all kinds of things with her body. Plus, she’s always wearing this yummy pink-tinted lip balm that makes her lips look extra inviting. Kissing Chloe must feel like eating strawberry shortcake. Except this strawberry shortcake knows how to move her mouth the perfect way and has a perfect model body and says the perfect thing at the perfect time, and you know what, fuck strawberry shortcake. I’m a girl who always preferred a hearty steak over dessert.

  “You want some popcorn?” Seb asks as we walk into the lobby.

  I look longingly at the golden kernels overflowing from the popcorn machine. I inhale the butter-soaked air.

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “Why not?” He frowns. “Don’t tell me you’re on a diet.”

  “No,” I say, “although I probably should be.”

  “Oh, stop it. I like your body.”

  I momentarily forget how to breathe. Guys like Seb don’t look at girls like me, not in that way. I don’t look like the girls on the covers of magazines. I don’t have a thigh gap or even a thigh slit. I’m just . . . I’m a lot. On my thighs, on my ass, everywhere else. Too much, some might say.

  “You like Chloe’s body,” I correct.

  “I can’t like both? Buy yourself some popcorn.” He pulls a twenty from his pocket and hands it to me.

  “Okay, ew. You’re not, like . . . my sugar daddy.” I push his hand away. “I have money. And I don’t want any popcorn because we’re going to . . . you know.” I pucker my lips into a smooch.

  He stares blankly at me. “So?”

  “I just think we’ll get kernels stuck in our teeth and popcorn bits in o
ur mouths and it’s not going to be a pleasant experience.”

  He keeps staring at me like I’m this otherworldly freak, when all I’m trying to do is be a considerate person.

  “Okay, then,” he says finally. “Let’s go inside.”

  “You’re acting like I’m unreasonable.”

  “You are unreasonable.”

  The ticket-taker raises an eyebrow at us when we show her our tickets.

  “Enjoy your movie,” she says. She doesn’t conceal the amusement in her voice.

  Seb and I sit in the corner, in the very last row of the theater. We’re ten minutes into the movie, and a CGI lion cub is frolicking across the screen. The room is practically empty except for a handful of exasperated parents and squirming kids in the first few rows.

  I assume Seb will be making the first move, but he sits there with his eyes on the screen. Is there something I’m supposed to be doing right now? Am I too stiff? I’m sitting on the edge of my chair, my hands folded tightly on my lap.

  “Seb,” I whisper.

  “Hmm?”

  “When do we start?”

  Even in the darkness I see him close his eyes and shake his head. “You really need to chill out.”

  “I just want to get it over with.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Come on. You’re not looking forward to it either.”

  “Fine.” He pivots his body so that he’s facing me. I turn to face him. He puts his hand on my shoulder. I don’t know what to do with mine, so I settle for lightly resting it on his knee, then think better of it and drop it onto my lap. The movie light flickers, and I’m dimly aware that on-screen Gregor the Lion is crying behind bars at the Central Florida Zoo. I hate animal movies. They are so manipulative.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” Seb whispers.

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m a dentist about to give you a root canal.”

  “That’s my resting face,” I whisper back.

  “I can’t kiss that.”

  I stretch my mouth open and closed, blink my eyes a few times, then puff out my lips.