Brand X

by Laurie Gwen Shapiro

  “Well, you know who she's working for, don't you?”

  A sudden thought crossed Vaughan's mind. “You know, I never really asked you, but where is your internship?”

  I hesitated for a second and then said, “At a company called Out of the Box.”

  “It's fascinating what they do there, of course,” Clara said, primping her hair as she spoke.

  I looked at her intently. It was just something about her tone of voice again.

  “Which is?” Vaughan asked.

  “They make premiums,” I said quickly. “The spot freakishly got through Dr. D's vetting, and Becky thought it was a good match for me, so I'm the only one she—”

  “Premiums?” he repeated. “What are premiums?”

  “Advertising giveaways. Toys for kids' meals.”

  “Why would you accept that?.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Vaughan, even as my date, couldn't help a sneer. “Don't you feel like crap at the end of the day? It's not only not brain surgery, it's consumerism at its worst.”

  I felt sick at his words.

  “I like my experience. It's really eye-opening. I mean, they're fighting against people who don't want to take risks.”

  There was an even bigger snarl on his face. His whole mannerism stiffened: his way of talking, his way of moving his hands.

  I really wished Clara wasn't sticking to us like glue.

  “What kind of risks do they take at a premium company?”

  “Well, they were looking ahead eighteen months, and the inevitable premium is a Disney movie. I actually had the idea that Olympic mascots had never been exploited, and they ran with it. Amazing mock-ups. There was some enthusiasm, but eventually the executives at Burger Man knocked it back.”

  I liked my internship, and I liked the people I worked for. People sell pizza, and people sell shoes. Did he hate the entire capitalistic world? That's a lot of hatred for one guy. I kept my thoughts to myself, of course.

  “Good for you and your exploitative skills,” he said out loud.

  Clara blinked at that comment. I could tell something was going on inside her head, because a different look came over her face and she seemed almost protective.

  One of the new dance songs of the year came on. I never know the names of dance songs, but I knew I liked that one. I've always liked alternative sounds, but I've also always had a weakness for those forget-about-it-tomorrow catchy tunes with generic backing singers. I did not permit myself to think about my sudden romance being all over. I was desperate to salvage the great vibe we had going into the dance.

  “We can leave the debate for later. Do you want to dance?” I almost pleaded.

  Vaughan scrunched his nose. “To this?”

  I had a horrible fact to admit to myself: I no longer liked the God of Room 207 very much. Jeremy and Paulette had figured out how horrible he was before me, but the reality of how much the person I was involved with was just a good-looking jerk hit me over the head like a hammer.

  “You don't have to dance with me after all,” I said sharply. “We can just stand here knocking my life.”

  “Hey, calm down,” Vaughan said, and leaned closer to Clara to ask her something.

  But instead of answering him, she followed me as I walked to the bathroom.

  I started crying, and she spotted the first tears right away like best friends do. “We have to stop keeping secrets,” she said sympathetically. And then she gave me a big squeeze, her outfit muffling my sniffles. “Personally, I think you have no idea how much you're worth. Or who you're worth attracting.”

  When we returned to the dance floor, Blanca was making out with Jeremy. Willie was dancing too, with a girl whose face I couldn't discern. (Although, I could tell by her silver helmet and horns that she was supposed to be a Viking girl.)

  Clara got asked to dance almost immediately by Mark Bruin, from the math team.

  “No, thank you,” she said, although she looked conflicted.

  Lately I had heard her mentioning his name more frequently, ever since he had ranked me on the stairwell. By the look in his eye, he ranked her near Tara. Had she really told me everything from that afternoon? I needed to get myself together. “Go dance with him,” I whispered. And she did.

  I breathed out when I was alone, and I found myself looking for Zane. I spotted him sitting with shy Sara Schwartz on the gym bleachers. Had he asked her to the dance, or had they come as two birds of a feather, two bashful souls? All I knew was that they looked pretty happy talking to each other.

  I walked over near them. Sara looked flabbergasted when I said to him, “Can I talk to you for a second?” My voice was shaky.

  “What is it?” Zane said incredulously, and then snuck a look at Sara.

  “Can I have a tiny second of privacy?”

  He stood and walked me a few feet away. “What?”

  “I made a mistake. You're not pathetic. I'm the pathetic one for not seeing more clearly how nice you are.” I accidentally hit him in the head with a spider limb when I said that.

  “Oh, are you?”

  I wasn't sure what I expected him to say, but certainly not that. “I—I didn't mean to be condescending,” I stammered.

  Zane just looked at me and said, “I'm here with Sara now. Let's discuss this another time, okay?”

  A slow song came on. I didn't know where to go next. Almost instinctively, I headed back to Vaughan, who was dancing with one of the senior girls.

  “We're just friends,” she said when she spotted me.

  “I'm going now,” I said to my “date” after reaching up and tapping him on his shoulder.

  I realized I had absolutely nothing else suitable to say to him. In fact, I had nothing to say to him at all. I turned and walked away. I looked around.

  Clara was making out with Mark. Perhaps I really deserved this terrible fate since I hadn't been much of a friend to anyone.

  Outside the door of my school there were a lot of pebbles that had somehow made their way onto the sidewalk from the gravel around the big oak tree.

  I kicked a big muddied one really far.

  I hailed a cab cruising down the avenue. I knew it was expensive, but I decided I needed to spend the money to get home.

  When I staggered inside my door, my parents were in the middle of a Scrabble game.

  They took one look at my face, and there were all sorts of empathetic sounds coming out of their mouths.

  “I can't go to school on Monday,” I said at the end of my woeful tale. “Everyone is going to think I'm such a loser.”

  Mom gasped. “Nonsense. You're a national essay contest winner. Everyone in school must be so impressed with you.”

  “Vaughan is in my precalculus class, and Zane is in both.”

  My dad looked at my mother. “Zane? Who's Zane?”

  “He asked me to the dance after Vaughan. He's the really nice one, and I turned him down. He was there with someone else and wanted nothing to do with me. But there was this stupid notebook issue between us—” I couldn't continue because I had begun to sob.

  My mother stroked my hair. “Notebook what?”

  I wouldn't elaborate.

  My sister called me from Princeton on her cell. I was sure when Dad went to the bathroom he'd called and told her to call me, but still, I was happy to hear from her, as I knew she would be more attuned to high school humiliation.

  She never even mentioned Vaughan. She started in with “I never told you the full story about how Greg and I broke up.”

  Greg was her Columbia grad student guy, whose age appalled Dad.

  “Men can be pigs,” she said.

  At the word pigs, I laughed for the first time of the night and told her what Vaughan's costume said.

  She went hysterical on the other end of the line.

  “So, how's school?” I managed, so I wouldn't be 100 percent self-centered, something she is always accusing me of.

  “Good. I've been changing my research focus
again.”

  “Wasn't it something to do with fish lighting up?” I asked.

  “Luminosity of the laterneye—yeah, that was my old idea. I don't actually remember telling you about that.”

  “Mom did. Anything you do, she is over the moon.”

  “She is pretty over the moon about your essay award—”

  “There's a first for anything.” I tried to make that come out funny, but instead it came out a little too bittersweet.

  “Funny you should mention Mom. She has something to do with my new research.”

  “Have you gathered one hundred science-obsessed mothers in a room somewhere?”

  “No, I'm thinking of doing my research on neuro-diversity.”

  “Whatever that is.”

  “What it means is that while environment is important, genetics is even more important. Some people are born with a visual-spatial brain—like Mom and me. We see things in pictures.”

  “What does that mean? Don't we all?”

  “Well, you know how you and Dad are always telling stories, always have a way with words, and you're very social people? That's a different brain style altogether. I'm guessing you think in words. That's what the literature says regarding people like you.”

  “I'm your sister, Sari. You're talking like a robot to me.”

  She laughed. “Sorry. Visual-spatial thinkers are usually more uncomfortable with people. More awkward, like Mom and me.”

  “I think I understand “

  “It gets more interesting, though, because no one is exactly the same. That's why even though we have the same parents, we have different ingredients in our own mix. Everyone is like a genetic stew of their ancestors, except some of us get more carrots, and some of us get more string beans.”

  “But no onions, I hope. I hate onions.”

  She ignored my wisecrack and kept talking. “But even if you think in words, you have to have some of Mom's brain style in you. Manhattan Science classes are tough, and, well, what was your last math test score?”

  “Eighty in precalculus.”

  “Eighty is not terrible.”

  “Oh, such charity on your part.”

  “Just shut up, Jordie, will you? I'm trying to say that an eighty is holding your own in a school that is full of math geniuses. Plus you've gotten a hundred on almost every English exam you've ever taken. You should applaud yourself for your overall ability.”

  “You did very well in English, Miss I'm-Just-a-Visual-Spatial-Thinker.”

  “Fair enough. But I'm book smart when it comes to English. And I'm much more organized than you. I took good notes, and I always knew what the teacher wanted. But your writing always has more creativity. More risks. More energy. I only wish I could make people laugh or sigh the way you do with your writing. I can't even begin to explain how envious of your talent I am.”

  This was perhaps the single nicest thing my sister has ever said to me in my life. And I stopped myself from another sarcastic comment to say simply, “Thank you.”

  And her answer was just as direct: “You're welcome.”

  You could almost feel the sisterly love buzzing through the wireless network.

  Finally, just to fill the silence, I said, “Okay, enough pep talk. I'm trying to get over a guy here.”

  “There's our girl,” Dad said when I hung up and he saw I was much more at ease. “What did Sari say to you that we didn't think of?”

  “We just had a little talk, that's all.”

  “It's amazing how you girls get along these days,” Mom said.

  “Considering how neurodiverse we are.”

  “Where did you even learn that word?” Mom asked.

  “What's that supposed to mean?” I found the way she said that quite insulting.

  “I meant that you don't seem to have an interest in—”

  “I just heard it from your visual-spatial daughter. She thinks I think in words.”

  “Doesn't everyone?” Dad said. He turned to my mother. “Three words. Leave. It. Alone.”

  “I wasn't trying to—” Mom stopped her sentence with a troubled look on her face. “Do you think I treat you that much differently from your sister? I couldn't love you any more than I do—”

  “Actually, I do, Mom.”

  “I understand her better. But I love you just as much.”

  “Let's change the topic,” I said. “I can't handle this right now.”

  She rose to her feet. There were tears in her eyes as she went to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  “Handle it,” Dad said. “Your mother needs you as much as you need her.”

  “This was my crisis, not hers,” I whispered.

  He grabbed a pad and scribbled something. He yanked on my shirt so I would read what he wrote: Give her a hug.

  I rolled my eyes at him. Mom is not especially huggable. In fact, I was sure that the last time I hugged her was freshman year.

  He actually pushed me in her direction. “Mom?” I said when I reached the kitchen.

  “Yes?”

  “Can I give you a hug?”

  Her face brightened considerably. “Of course, darling.”

  She embraced me tightly, and midsqueeze she started to weep. She was still holding on to me, though. I really felt her hurting, but this was such a rare event that I had no idea what to say or do for her.

  “I don't ever like to see my little girl hurt,” she whispered in my ear when she calmed a little.

  When eventually she let go, I kissed her on the cheek.

  Now Mom decided to make the three of us chamomile tea. As the kettle was heating, I was so glad I had my parents together.

  “We're having a pajama party,” Mom announced, and then disappeared. Truly, we were having a pajama party. When she returned she threw me a pair of red and orange striped ones I had never seen before. “I was going to give everyone a pair of Dr. Dentons for Hannukah.” She held on to a pair of pink and green ones.

  Dad held up his pair, which had navy and green stripes, and grinned.

  Our Dr. Dentons had tush panels so you could go to the bathroom without having to take the whole rigmarole off. It was especially hilarious to see my mom wearing them when she returned from the bathroom pretending to suck her thumb. I was used to my father's shenanigans, but now I was sure that my mother had a sense of humor too.

  But then she leaned over to me and wiped a bit of “dirt” off my cheek with a wet finger. I was a little afraid that Mom had lost it, and that she was next going to serve us some jelly sandwiches cut into cutesy shapes with cookie cutters. (That's how she taught Sari and me what a trapezoid and a hexagon were at the age of two.) But despite the ridiculous sight of three-quarters of my family in tushy-paneled Dr. Dentons, we soon went back to talking about our peculiar family dynamic and how we could work things out better.

  That night I slept right in the middle of my parents in my footsies. I could see why Vaughan's sister felt so safe when she did that. The world was a scary place.

  On Sunday there was not even a phone call from the creep.

  I was ready to call him, but each time, I pulled back my hand. I didn't want him back, did I? I had my pride, at least.

  Clara called me first. She meant to be comforting, but after the dance she had a new boyfriend, Mark, and her joy over this leaked though. She sensed she better get off the phone.

  Willie checked in and pointedly did not mention his sister smooching with Jeremy, who, as it happened, called next.

  “Clara told me all about it. Now, finally, you girls see what I see. Vaughan Nussman is an ass. I want to kill him—”

  “How's Blanca, by the way?” I was tired of the whole topic.

  “We're really happy,” he said guiltily. “I don't know why I never pursued her before.”

  “It's not like she wasn't giving you signals. But you were stuck on Tara the Poor Model.”

  “Careful, I'm giving you sympathy here. Zane was giving you signals too, you know, but you chose a man w
ho laughed at your humiliation.”

  “Zane hates me,” I said.

  “He didn't.”

  “Well, he does now.”

  “I'm not sure what to say about that,” he said in such a glum way that I felt he knew something more than I did about the situation.

  Monday morning I kept to my prebreakup routine and headed for Out of the Box. I dreaded going there almost as much as going to school because I knew my supervisors would want to grill me on every detail of the dance.

  “Ooh, is there big news,” Brad said when I walked in.

  “I don't think I can take any more big news,” I muttered to myself.

  “Sit, sit,” Joel said when I walked in the premiums room.

  Definitely, something was up. At least nobody was asking me about the Halloween dance.

  “Don't tell me—they went and dropped the Eggcups idea too….”

  Marcus looked at Paulette. “You tell her.”

  “Tell me what?”

  She didn't answer me right away, but simply smiled wide enough that I noticed her teeth had been professionally whitened. I was miserable, but it still occurred to me that Paulette looked—well, really pulled together. In addition to her prettied teeth, she had on a red silk blouse and her hair was pulled back with a Chinese “sewing needle” accessory. She was wearing sleek pants again and stylish heels. Her face looked worry free too. Everything was working for her.

  I tried again. “What?”

  “Jordie! We're getting hitched!”

  I leaped up to kiss both of them. For a moment I could forget about my pitiful self. “When? Where? How did this happen?”

  “Well, I'm not sure you would have picked up on this, but Paulette and I dated a while back.”

  “Not sure she would have noticed?” Joel said.

  Just then the big bearded boss they were always deriding as the Pope of Mope popped his head in. In my entire time there, I'd only ever seen him once. “You two are getting married? I need an oxygen tent. When do I get the invitation?”

  A hush came over the room.

  “We're having a small party,” Paulette said apologetically.

  “Of five hundred,” Marcus said when the enemy had left.

  “Talk about cajones,” Joel tsked.