The Difference Between You and Me

by Madeleine George

  Jesse stands for a second in the doorway and takes Wyatt in from across the room, his extremely familiar mop of dark curls, the unmistakable curve of his neck and shoulders as he bends his head to read. His Western outfit has given way already to a badly beaten leather bomber jacket, cracked all over and with the lining coming loose at the collar, and some kind of nylon cargo pants with pockets up and down the side of the leg. He occupies the chair gracefully, his posture assembled and still, but Jesse knows him well enough to spot the light tremors of anxiety moving through his extremities—the thumb of his right hand riffling the corner of his book over and over again, the heel of his long, black Converse high-top bouncing up and down on the tile floor.

  Wyatt is so familiar to her, like a family member. Like her own face in the mirror. The sight of him fills her with warmth, recognition, and guilt.

  She crosses to the table where he is and sits down opposite him. He looks up sharply, but his eyes widen with surprise when he sees Jesse.

  “Oh. Hi.”

  “Hi,” Jesse says.

  “I can’t really talk right now. Howard’s gonna show up any second.”

  “I know, that’s why I’m here.”

  “I assumed you weren’t coming.”

  “I said I would. I promised.”

  “And then you disappeared.”

  Jesse nods. “Yeah. I’m really sorry,” she offers. “I know I’ve been weird.”

  Wyatt nods back and waits for more. Jesse swallows, mustering her courage.

  “It’s just that I’ve been, like, distracted by something and feeling guilty about it, and wanting to tell you about it but feeling like I couldn’t tell you. But I want to tell you now.”

  “Let me guess: you’re in love.”

  There’s an unmistakable note of sarcasm in Wyatt’s voice. Jesse waits a moment before she says, “Actually, yeah. Or I was.”

  “Oh, it’s over already? That was quick. What’s her name again? Myrtle? Hortense?”

  “Esther? It’s not Esther, why does everyone think I’m with Esther?”

  “Maybe because the two of you keep cuddling up like lovers while you walk around town?”

  “I don’t—I never cuddled up to her, and she’s not—I only like Esther as a friend!”

  “Too bad, you guys are clearly the perfect couple. You can spend the rest of your lives bringing student councils to their knees together.”

  Jesse breathes.

  “Can you maybe not be mean to me right now, while I’m trying to, like, tell you something that’s really hard for me to talk about?”

  “I’m sorry, I guess I’m not in the perfect mood to hear a big confession from you while I’m sitting here waiting for Howard. You’ve been ignoring me for, like, weeks, and this is not the first time you’ve done this to me. You keep disappearing into wormholes where I can’t find you. It’s like you’re here one second and gone the next. Frankly, it’s getting tiresome.”

  “Well, honestly? To be honest? I sort of feel like you’ve been doing that, too.”

  “I’m right here,” Wyatt says curtly.

  “I know, but like… the Denmark thing?”

  “I don’t even know if I’m going to do that, it’s just an idea!”

  “And you’re not in school anymore.”

  “You know why that is.”

  “I know and I’m sorry, but you’re sort of completely gone. So many parts of my life you don’t know about anymore.”

  “Because you’re keeping them from me!” Wyatt raises his voice now, his cheeks flushed. The students at the table across the room lift their heads to look at them, and Wyatt hunches over, quiets down again. “It’s been totally obvious that you’ve been hiding some huge secret from me for months, and I let you not talk about it because I know what that can be like. But if you’re not even going to call me back? Seriously, I’m over it.”

  “You knew?”

  “Give me a little credit, will you? This is me.” Wyatt points to his chest. “So who is it? Is it Carol Bernstein?” he asks.

  “Carol Bernstein, the reference librarian? Wy, she’s, like, sixty!”

  “I know, but you’re always at your weirdest in the library. I thought maybe Carol Bernstein had cast some magical reference spell over you and made you into her secret boy-toy.”

  “Gross. Seriously, gross. It’s Emily Miller.”

  Wyatt gives her a blank look, then shakes his head. “Don’t know her.”

  “No, you don’t. She’s a junior. She’s student council vice president.”

  “Did you bring her to her knees in the meeting?”

  “Shut up,” Jesse says, mortified.

  But Wyatt laughs at his own joke. “God, that’s it? That’s the big secret? I thought it was going to be, like, a married woman or something.”

  “She has a boyfriend,” Jesse says.

  “Oh.”

  “And she made me swear not to tell anyone we were hooking up.”

  “That’s no fun.”

  “God, Wy, I felt so awful being with her. I mean, I felt, like, amazing? But I felt like such a bad queer.”

  “Well, you are a bad queer.”

  “I know, right?”

  “But you’re not the first queer to go bad like that. By any means. You remember Rob Strong?”

  “Yeah?” Wyatt’s tormenter is still in school with Jesse—she sees him in the halls all the time, surrounded by a herd of his buddies or shooting the breeze in the cafeteria with Mr. Angel, the auto-shop teacher.

  “Not my finest moment.” Wyatt examines the back of his hand intently.

  “Wait, what? No, excuse me, what?” Jesse is stunned. The whole history of the past two years is reorienting itself in front of her eyes.

  “It was just a couple times, nothing serious, but he made me promise that I—” At this moment, the door to the café opens, and Howard Willette walks in. Wyatt’s airy look evaporates off his face. He tightens and straightens. “Howard’s here.”

  “To be continued?” Jesse hisses.

  Wyatt nods, but he’s looking up at his father.

  “Hi, Howard.”

  Howard Willette is a shorter, stockier, straighter version of Wyatt. They have the same dark handsomeness, the same angular features, and the same attentive dress—Howard is clean-cut casual, but very carefully attired in a black jacket, lavender Oxford shirt, and black sweater vest atop his black corduroys. He crosses to them and extends his hand to his son.

  “Wyatt.”

  They shake, and Wyatt tucks his book into his bag on the floor by his feet.

  “And Jesse. Always nice to see you.”

  “Hi,” Jesse says. Immediately, she slips into Howard Mode, plastering a cheerful smile across her face and nodding pleasantly.

  “Tea? Hot cocoa?”

  “I’m good,” says Wyatt.

  “None for me, thank you,” coos Jesse.

  Howard pulls a third rickety chair over to sit between them, and as soon as he’s seated, Jesse fires up the conversation, as per the plan.

  “So how’s everything over at your place, Mr. Willette? How’s Louise?”

  “Great, great.” Howard nods. “We’re both great. And you, Jesse? What have you been up to lately?”

  Wyatt looks at Jesse with mock sincerity. “Yes, what have you been up to lately, Jesse?”

  “Oh, the usual,” Jesse practically sings. “Homework, homework, and more homework!”

  “The life of a hardworking sophomore,” Howard says. “That’s how it goes at Vander. Not like where you go, right, son? The Academy of Smelling Salts and Astrology? No homework there.”

  “We don’t have to talk about school,” Jesse offers.

  But Wyatt says acidly, “I’m working my way through the complete published papers of Alan Greenspan right now. I’m learning about supply-side economics and de-regulation and how they affect entrepreneurship in the tech sector.”

  “Wyatt’s the most hardworking student I know,” Jesse hurries
to point out. “He’s very self-directed, and he’s always giving himself huge, hard assignments, way huger and harder than anything they give us at Vander. He’s kicking ass.”

  For a second she’s afraid the word will offend Howard, but he sails right by it.

  “Well, you may be right. It does seem like that school is going soft. We’ve gotten mired in a little battle for hearts and minds over there recently, but it’s—wait, never mind. Boring PR story.” Howard holds up his hand to check himself with a charming, self-deprecating smile.

  “What do you mean, battle for hearts and minds?” Jesse asks.

  “Never mind. Wyatt hates stories about work.”

  “But a story about Vander?” Jesse asks Wyatt, hyper-politely. Wyatt gives her a look: Whatever keeps the conversation running.

  “Well, it’s nothing, really,” Howard explains casually. “Nothing we haven’t seen before. We reached out to them with some support for their athletics programs and extracurricular activities and we’re getting some minor push-back from the community, a couple of letters from parents, a few disgruntled hippie students who’ve gotten bored with throwing red paint on ladies in fur coats and have decided to move on to us as their new randomly chosen target. The school is happy to have us, though, that’s the main thing. We’ve got plenty of support in the administration. It’s going to be a long, fruitful partnership for us over there, I’m sure.”

  On her side of the table, Jesse is turning this story over like a multisided die in her mind. “So, um, are you talking about StarMart?” she asks as calmly as she can manage.

  “Well, NorthStar, we’re the parent company of StarMart, yes. I’m the director of corporate communications over there. But I can see my son’s eyes glazing over here, am I right, Wyatt? You know what’s a great story is the latest update on the rabbit wars. Jesse, you know that Louise has been in the middle of a battle for the sanctity of our garden, and she’s come up with the cleverest way to—”

  “I’m one of the disgruntled hippies,” Jesse blurts out.

  Across the table, Wyatt’s face constricts with dread.

  “Oh, you are?” Howard turns an extra-dazzling smile on Jesse. “You signed that little petition?”

  “I wrote it,” Jesse says.

  Now Wyatt drops his head, weary.

  “Interesting.” Howard maintains his comfortable smile. “Very interesting. So you don’t believe that your school should benefit from our generosity.”

  “I think StarMart has ulterior motives.”

  “We don’t have to talk about work,” Wyatt says hopefully, but Howard plows on.

  “Ulterior motives, meaning that we want to become part of this community? It’s true that we do want to become part of this community, and forming relationships with members of the community is one of the most important parts of that process.”

  “But public schools shouldn’t take money from corporations,” Jesse counters.

  “Bunnies?” Wyatt tries to interrupt.

  “Public schools have been taking contributions from private individuals and corporations for hundreds of years, it’s a time-honored practice. That’s not something you learn if you go to the various quote unquote research sites you refer to in the text of that petition. And you know,” Howard says, settling comfortably into his seat, propping his right foot up on his corduroyed left knee, “there are a lot of people out there who don’t know the truth about NorthStar and who spread misinformation about us around to try to undermine us, and honestly that’s why I love my job. Because every day I have the chance to go out there and let uninformed people like you, Jesse, know the real story about this company I believe in so strongly.”

  “Um, I’m actually not uninformed,” Jesse says.

  “You are, in fact, naïve and ignorant, if you’re the author of that petition, but it’s all right. It’s not your fault.”

  “She’s not naïve and ignorant,” Wyatt says, suddenly steely.

  “I don’t mean it in a judgmental way, son. She’s like a lot of people out there, she doesn’t have the facts. Let me tell you two something about the way the world works.”

  “No, don’t!” Wyatt snaps. “Please don’t tell us about the way the world works.”

  Jesse watches with concern as Wyatt begins to implode internally across the table from her.

  “Um,” she says, “maybe this is a bad thing for us to talk about after all. I have like a great new joke for you guys, if you—”

  But Howard continues with perfect patience. “Excuse me, you don’t have to be rude to me, Wyatt. I’m trying to have a civil conversation with you and your friend, and I don’t appreciate being shouted down when I’m trying to speak.”

  “I feel a lecture about values coming on,” says Wyatt, “and I just want to, like, head it off at the pass before it starts.”

  “Okay,” Jesse says, panicky. “Okay, okay—”

  Howard shakes his head. “I do not lecture you about values. I have never lectured you about values.”

  “You lecture me about values every time I see you!”

  “I respect you enough to tell you the truth about my beliefs and to make clear to you the objections I have about your problematic life choices, but I do not lecture you about—”

  “Right now, right now you’re starting to do it! Problematic life choices! And you called Jesse ignorant!”

  “It’s okay,” says Jesse, but Wyatt scoops his backpack off the floor and gets to his feet.

  “We don’t have to do this anymore, really,” he tells his father. “If we never meet like this again, it’ll be fine with me. Come on, Jesse.”

  “Sorry,” Jesse says to Howard as she follows Wyatt out the door.

  “See you next month,” Howard replies drily.

  ***

  In the mildewy button-down-shirt aisle of Rose’s Turn, Jesse follows a couple of paces behind Wyatt, fingering collars. Still coursing with rage, Wyatt flips through shirts fiercely, flicking the hangers along the pole with a metallic click. Click. Click.

  “Horrible,” he declares. “All horribly ugly. Anyway, I don’t even need a shirt. I need a scarf. Where are their scarves? Where are their freaking scarves?”

  “In the, um, scarf aisle?” Jesse says timidly.

  Wyatt ignores her. Click. Click. Click.

  “Wyatt, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Wyatt shrugs. “My job is to tell jokes, not to start fights. I know.”

  “It’s not your fault. He’s a congenital idiot.”

  “Yeah. It was nice of you to stand up for me, though.”

  “I couldn’t let him talk to you like that. He wants to call me a sinner and a pervert, fine, but I’m not going to let him insult my best friend.”

  Jesse bumps up against Wyatt a little, shoulder-to-shoulder. A closed-arm hug.

  “Hey. Me and Esther are putting together this thing,” she says, “in a couple of weeks. This, like, dance?”

  “I hate dances,” Wyatt responds automatically.

  “I know, they’re totally gender-oppressive and awful, but this one is going to be super awesome. We’re holding it in the parking lot of Vander as like, an alternative to the StarMart dance. You should come.”

  “Do I have to physically dance?”

  “You could just stand there. Actually, we still need a DJ. You want to DJ for us? In your excellent new scarf, once you find it?”

  “As you’re aware,” Wyatt says, “I loathe popular music.”

  “Yeah, but you know how to work an iPod, right? I’ll set up the playlists, you just need to press PLAY. It’s going to be a ton of fun. And you can hang out with me and Esther. Can you handle that?”

  “I can press PLAY,” Wyatt says.

  20

  Jesse

  On the morning of the dances, two weeks later, Jesse wakes up extremely early, before dawn. The sky is a cold ink-blue through the window across from the foot of her bed, and a single star hangs right where Jesse can see it from her pillow
, just above the slate gable of the Claussens’ roof across the street. It’s a piercingly bright pinpoint of light, and it seems to throb slightly as Jesse looks at it, like a pulsar.

  Jesse lies perfectly still for a couple of minutes in the deep quiet, suspended in thought and time. Her body feels long, strong, and smooth under the covers. Her mind is still. Somewhere just outside the sphere of her mind and body is the reality of what’s going to happen today. It floats closer to Jesse, and closer, moving around her in a sparkly cloud of excitement.

  Jesse closes her eyes for a moment, suffused with the starry anticipation of what’s in store, and when she opens them again her room is washed with gray light. She must have fallen back to sleep—now the day is on. Jesse sits bolt upright in bed, her mind suddenly racing with the things she has to do. Pick up donuts and day-old cakes at Beverly Coffee. Meet Esther at Murray and Sons at nine o’clock to collect the cables and clip-lights they’re borrowing. Call Wyatt to check on the sound system ETA. Extension cords, don’t forget the bag of extension cords from Dad’s worktable in the basement, and call Esther and remind her to bring the ones from her house, too. Tape, tape, tape—masking, Scotch, and duct. Don’t forget scissors. Don’t forget rope. Don’t forget to load the folding table into the back of Mom’s Camry so she can bring it over to Vander later. Don’t forget to get the Christmas lights down from the attic.

  When Jesse shows up at Murray’s at ten minutes past nine, Esther is sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk to the right of the door, reading. She’s in her bulky coat with a ski hat on her head, and apparently, the October chill doesn’t bother her. Jesse is already a little strung out—Beverly Coffee doesn’t open till ten, it turns out, so she and Esther will have to go back there after this to get the refreshments. She can’t believe she’s already behind on her jobs.

  “Why didn’t you go in already?” she asks Esther, mildly miffed.

  “I was reading,” Esther explains. “And waiting for you.”

  “It doesn’t feel like we’re changing the world,” Jesse says as they head into the store. “It feels like we’re running a million dumb errands.”