Up All Night

by Peter Abrahams

  Even worse, Amanda’s crush had a friend. Sarah had already forgotten his name—or maybe nobody had bothered to mention it to her. All that mattered was that he was going to be at Devin’s party. Amanda had even told her what to wear. Ever dutiful, Sarah had put on the skirt they’d bought at Bloomingdale’s over spring break. Amanda had said Sarah looked good in it, but Sarah suspected she was only saying that so she’d feel less guilty about her own purchases.

  “Aren’t you excited?” Amanda and Ashley asked when Sarah met them in front of her building. Sarah didn’t say it, but she realized she was the opposite of excited. Then she realized she didn’t even know what the opposite of excited was. She’d never allowed herself to express it, so the word had just dissolved.

  On the subway downtown, Amanda and Ashley gossiped about who was going to be at the party and then tried to guess what was going to happen. Sarah kept silent, not even realizing she was staring at the woman on the seat across from hers. The woman was alone, quietly reading a magazine. She looked like that was all she wanted for the moment, and she was content in having it. Sarah was surprised by how jealous she felt. She didn’t know this woman; this woman was old. Why would Sarah simply assume a stranger’s life was better than hers?

  The boy throwing the party went to one of the private schools that didn’t even bother to be named after a saint. He didn’t greet them at the door. Instead, the girls found the door cracked open, a bare-bones invitation to walk from the hallway of the building into the hallway of the apartment. It was already crowded with teenagers—mostly anonymous, mostly drinking. Amanda and Ashley led the way, angling through the crowds until they found the bed with the coats on it. Then they angled again until they got to the place where the beer was being distributed. Sarah took a bottle, because it was handed to her. She said thank you, because it was the right thing to say. But she didn’t take a sip, or even look around much. She noticed the copper pots hanging on the walls and wondered if they were ever used, or if they were just there for decoration. She asked Amanda, and Amanda either didn’t hear or pretended not to. Instead, she and Ashley took sips from their bottles and scoped out the crowd. Sarah knew Amanda and Ashley were not going to leave her; they were in this together. This had always been a comfort to her, because she feared being left behind. But now, on this strange night, she wanted just that. She wanted them to forget she was there.

  Sarah was not used to making excuses, so she fell back on the most universal one: She said she had to go to the restroom. That’s how she said it—restroom—as if they were in a restaurant instead of some rich kid’s home. Amanda and Ashley said they’d wait for her in the den; the jerk Amanda liked had last been seen heading that way, and Amanda didn’t want to miss her chance.

  Sarah didn’t know which direction the bathroom was in, so she chose the direction opposite the one Amanda and Ashley were taking. It was still early in the evening, but already couples were making out against walls and boys were putting on their jackets to go to the roof for a smoke. Sarah wanted to put her unsipped beer bottle down, but all the available surfaces were too close to people. She had no desire to be pulled into a conversation. She just wanted to find a room where she could close the door and lock it and be alone.

  Lindsay Weiss saw Sarah walking down the hall, looking into doorways, trying to find something. Lindsay would never have been able to explain it, but immediately she recognized what Sarah was feeling. She knew it as if it was happening to her. So she cut off the boy from Regency who was attempting to flirt with her, and she caught up with Sarah just as she was about to peer into a bedroom.

  “Excuse me,” she said to Sarah. “But you look lost.”

  Before, Sarah had felt stirrings, but they were isolated stirrings. Now, having this girl come up to her and say she looked lost, the stirrings filled her with noise. Not the noise of sound, but a noise much louder than that—the noise of thought.

  “Yes, I’m lost,” she said. And she could have left it at that. She could have just asked where the restroom was. But something about tonight made her go further, made her more honest than necessary. There was something in this girl’s eyes that already understood. So Sarah found herself adding, “I’m completely lost. I don’t belong here at all.”

  The truth feels different from other things. The closest you can come to describing it is that it feels like taking a perfect breath.

  Without having to think about it, Lindsay knew the next thing to say was, “I’m Lindsay.”

  And Sarah could find just enough energy to say, “I’m Sarah.”

  Sarah had never wondered what it would be like to tell the total truth. If asked, she would have said she had done it numerous times before. And it would have been a lie, as much to herself as to the person who had asked. Now, she understood this. Now, she wanted to try to tell the total truth.

  They ended up where Sarah had been intending to go all along—the bathroom off of the parental bedroom. Mom’s bathroom, clearly, with its museum of perfume bottles, its royal-majesty mirror, and its hand towels embroidered with shells. With the party raging on, it was the quietest part of the apartment. Lindsay sat on the edge of the tub while Sarah put the seat cover down and sat on the toilet.

  “What is it?” Lindsay asked.

  “Can I really tell you?”

  Lindsay nodded.

  “I don’t want to be here,” Sarah said. “I don’t really want to be anywhere I usually go. I have no idea where I want to be instead, but I know that I can’t keep going to the same places. My friends have no idea who I am, and maybe I don’t know who they are, either, but they live much more on the surface than I do. Is that awful to say? I don’t mean it as an insult. They’re the way they are and I’m the way I am. Neither way is better or worse. It’s just that my way is better for me.”

  Lindsay didn’t pass judgment. Instead she asked, “So why did you come tonight?”

  Sarah shook her head slowly. “Because I can usually trick myself into thinking I’m going to have a good time. It’s like this social amnesia kicks in, and I forget how ugly I feel and how out of place I am and how miserable I’ll be. It’s amazing how you can convince yourself of something when you don’t think you have any options.”

  I should be crying, Sarah thought. She was effectively erasing everything that was supposed to matter to her. What her friends thought. What the guys might think.

  Lindsay heard what Sarah was saying and she knew: This was a girl who wanted to walk away. And who would walk away, even if it hurt. What Lindsay felt then wasn’t the desire to walk away, too, but instead the desire to remain. She knew that Sarah’s problems were not her own, even if she could understand where Sarah was coming from.

  “I just don’t want to be here,” Sarah said again.

  And Lindsay replied, “You should never be somewhere you truly don’t want to be.”

  “Is it that simple?” Sarah asked.

  And Lindsay said yes, it was that simple.

  There is such freedom in learning you can leave.

  Less than a mile away, Stewart Hall was sitting with his friend Phil in Tompkins Square Park. Later, they would each wonder whether being outdoors made them more susceptible to the night. The day hadn’t been at all out of the ordinary; Stewart had gotten new headphones at Best Buy while Phil had worked on an English paper and had IM’d with a girl named Deborah who he’d met over the summer at camp. The conversation had been inconsequential; they often chatted about visiting each other, but they never did.

  “So what’s up?” Stewart asked. They’d just gotten to the park.

  “Not much,” Phil answered. “You?”

  “Not much.”

  It was Stewart who’d called Phil, who’d said they should hang out. They usually met in the park, then saw who else came by.

  “Not much?” Phil said.

  “Yeah, not much.”

  Phil started thinking.

  “And how are you?” he asked.

  “What do yo
u mean, how am I?”

  “I mean, how are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “You tired?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No. You tired?”

  “Hell yes, I’m tired. I’m always fucking tired.”

  Phil nodded. “You know what I wonder?”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna tell you. I’m wondering, why are the answers to these questions always the same?”

  “What questions?”

  “You ask ‘What’s up?’ I say ‘Not much.’ Then I ask ‘What’s up?’ and you say ‘Not much.’ And if anyone asks how we’re feeling, or how we’re doing, we say, ‘Fine.’ And if someone asks if we’re tired, we say of course we’re tired. Because everyone is tired. There is not a single person we know who isn’t tired. That’s the only truthful answer of the three.”

  Normally, Stewart would just tell Phil to get his head out of his ass, but for some reason he went along with it. He was listening, which wasn’t something he always did with Phil.

  “But isn’t ‘not much’ true?” he asked. “I mean, are you saying that something’s up and I don’t know about it?”

  “I’m just saying that if nothing’s up and we’re all feeling fine, then why are we so tired all the time? Something’s got to be happening.” Phil stood up from the bench. “We can’t all be doing nothing, right?”

  “I’m not saying ‘nothing,’” Stewart pointed out. “I’m saying ‘not much.’”

  But Phil was already heading somewhere. Since the weather was so perfect, there were a lot of people in the park, even long after sunset, well into the night.

  “Where are you going?” Stewart asked. Then, not getting an answer, he followed.

  There were two girls from the neighborhood sitting on a bench about twenty feet away. Tamika and Danika, or something like that.

  “What’s up?” Phil said to them.

  “Not much,” they responded.

  He nodded and moved on to the next bench. A homeless guy who smelled like bad cheese.

  “What’s up?” Phil asked.

  “Not much,” the guy said.

  Third bench. A poet type with a black notebook on his lap, pen poised for words that he clearly sensed were on the way.

  “What’s up?” Phil asked.

  The poet looked up thoughtfully from his poetry daze.

  “Not much,” he replied. “Not much at all.”

  Stewart could sense his friend getting more and more frustrated. But still, he wasn’t expecting what happened next.

  They saw a few members of their group—Mateo, Ben, Miranda—ahead.

  “Hey, man, I called you!” Mateo yelled out when he saw them coming.

  “Hey!” Phil yelled back. Then, when they were closer, he asked it: “What’s up?”

  And Mateo said, “Not much.”

  Next, Phil asked Ben, and Ben said, “Not much.” Then Miranda, and she said it too.

  “That’s not true!” he yelled. “We’re all so full of shit—‘not much not much not much.’ Mateo, something has to be up. Ben, I know there’s something going on in that head of yours. Miranda, why don’t you just come right out and say it?”

  Something clicked into place then. Was it the way Phil said it? Or was it the light or the scent in the air that opened them up? Or maybe they were just tired of not really answering. Whatever the cause, Stewart could actually see the change—the way Phil’s question was suddenly a real question, not just something to say.

  “You want to know what’s up?” Miranda asked. “You really want to know?”

  Phil nodded.

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” she said. “I’m here with Mateo and Ben, right? But I’m also on the lookout for my brother, because he’s been acting weird lately, and I think he might be coming to the park to get some. I mean, we’ve hardly seen him in the past few weeks, and when he’s home, he’ll just lock the door and do whatever behind it. The other night, we were both brushing our teeth at the same time, and I tried to ask him what was going on, but he just looked at me like I was some girl renting a room from his parents, and he said nothing was going on. Nothing at all. I just thought he was being a jerk, but then when he was leaving, he tells me not to worry. And I’m thinking, if there’s nothing to worry about, then why is he telling me not to worry? I know who he hangs out with, and they’re not a problem, but suddenly I’m wondering if he’s hanging out with someone else I don’t know about, or if he’s gotten into trouble. I mean, I know he’s done some shit in the past, but it’s always been under control. He’s got his friend Mike, who keeps him in line. But it’s not like I can call Mike and ask him what’s going on—Darius would knock me in the head if he knew I did that. So I’m just trying to see what I can see, you know? Darius likes to come to the park and do his thing. So maybe I’ll catch him at it.”

  “How ’bout you?” Phil asked, turning to Mateo. “What’s up?”

  “I’m not over Deena,” he said. “You know that’s what’s up.”

  “You hoping to see her?” Miranda asked.

  “I’m always hoping to see her. Even when I’m all like fuck hope, I’m still hoping.”

  “And you, Ben?” Phil asked. “What’s up?”

  “Just had to get out of my house, man. Being there makes me feel like I’m living a murder, you know?”

  Phil didn’t know. None of them knew. Ben never talked about home.

  Phil thought: We talk all the time about people opening up, as if it’s some kind of physical unfolding. But the only thing that can open us up to another person is words. Words on the inside, telling us to do the things we’re most afraid to do. Words on the outside, sharing what’s really going on.

  Sometimes all we need is a little attention to open up.

  People kept knocking on the bathroom door, but Sarah and Lindsay didn’t feel too guilty about staying locked inside; they knew there were at least two other bathrooms in the apartment. People could deal.

  Then there came a knock that was less insistent, more of a question than a statement.

  A voice followed it.

  “Sarah, you in there? It’s me, Ashley.”

  Lindsay watched Sarah, wondering what she was going to do.

  Sarah didn’t seem to be surprised at being found, or even that worried.

  “What is it, Ashley?” she asked through the door.

  “I was just looking for you. Are you okay? You’ve been gone for a long time.”

  Sarah noticed the I—Ashley was almost never an I. This had to mean that Amanda had found her guy and left Ashley to the wolves.

  Sarah sighed. Had she really thought her life wouldn’t be able to find her? Did she really think it would get distracted and not notice she was gone? She looked to Lindsay, silently asking if it was okay for her to open the door, to let the interloper in. Lindsay nodded; she knew from experience that even though it was important to hide away in the bathroom when you needed to, it was equally important to leave it eventually.

  Ashley looked stupidly confused when the door finally opened and she found two girls inside. Had Sarah and this girl been making out? Was Sarah a lesbian? Ashley couldn’t understand how a bathroom could be used for anything other than making out or, well, going to the bathroom. Ashley wasn’t perceptive so much as receptive; she needed someone to explain things to her. And Amanda was too busy flirting with Greg to be there.

  Sarah said, “Ashley, this is Lindsay. Lindsay, Ashley.”

  This new girl held out her hand, and Ashley wondered if she’d washed it. After either making out with Sarah or going to the bathroom. Whichever.

  It looked clean, so she shook it. Then she asked Sarah what she was doing.

  “Just talking,” Sarah said. “I needed to get away.”

  Get away? Ashley was confused. They’d only been here for a half hour or so. Which was long for being in th
e bathroom, but pretty short for being at a party.

  The next possible explanation that came into her head was that Sarah had gotten her period and Lindsay had given her a tampon. Although that didn’t explain why Lindsay was in the bathroom with Sarah, or why Sarah hadn’t asked Ashley or Amanda for a tampon. Not that Ashley or Amanda would have had one; this one time, Amanda’s purse fell open when she was with a boy and the tampons had fallen in his lap, and Amanda had been so mortified that she said they would just have to rely on scamming them off other girls from now on. Ashley had actually sent this story in anonymously to a teen magazine’s embarrassing moments column, but they hadn’t printed it.

  Sarah could not for the life of her figure out what was going on in Ashley’s head. More than anything, she wanted Ashley to go back to the party and leave her and Lindsay alone again. Sarah knew she should never have opened the door. Now there’d be no closing it again.

  “There you are,” a male voice said. A not-as-cute-as-his-clothes indie-rock boy was shouldering into the doorway, looking at Lindsay. “I totally lost you.”

  Lindsay was happy to see Jimm, only not right now. This girl needed her more than he did. At least until she left the party.

  “Jimm, Sarah. Sarah, Jimm,” Lindsay introduced. “And…I’m sorry, I’ve already forgotten your name.”

  “Ashley.”

  “Jimm, Ashley. Ashley, Jimm.”

  The presence of a boy made Ashley stop thinking too much, especially since he was clearly with Lindsay, and therefore Lindsay wasn’t a lesbian. Not that Ashley minded lesbians. She would just be hurt if Sarah had been one all along and hadn’t told her and Amanda.

  On other nights, Sarah would have given in. She would have asked Ashley where Amanda was, and they would have headed to that general vicinity together, to chaperone her flirtation and provide interruption if it was needed. She would have let Amanda’s guy introduce her to the guy she was supposed to fall for tonight, and maybe she would have been so bored that she would have fallen for him. Or at least pretended to, if he was pitiable enough. But not tonight.