Apple's Angst

by Rebecca Eckler

  For Rowan, with all my love

  “Apple! Are you insane?” Happy demanded, viciously tearing Apple’s fourth-favorite pair of jeans from her.

  “Please tell me you’re not thinking of wearing those,” Happy continued, dismay dripping from her tongue. “I know you’re obsessed with jeans. But please, not today! Today, you can’t be yourself!”

  Happy tossed the jeans into a corner, a revolted look on her face, as if she were tossing out a baby’s dirty diaper. Her perfect ski-slope nose crinkled as if there was also a foul stench in the air. She ran her fingers through her shiny, long black hair and shot Apple a glance. Happy’s green eyes said it all: “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Hey, be nice to the jeans!” Apple huffed, picking up the pants, folding them, and placing them gingerly on her bed. “What did they ever do to you?”

  There were already dozens upon dozens of items of clothing in the Absolutely Not pile in the corner of Apple’s bedroom, including jeans in every wash, shade, and style imaginable.

  The heap was getting higher by the second. Apple hadn’t known how much she owned until most of her clothes had been ripped from hangers and emptied from dresser drawers and she could see them in the one mammoth heap. Some of the clothes, much to Apple’s shock and shame, still had price tags. This made her feel supremely guilty. Apple loved to shop, especially with Happy. Happy always managed to convince Apple she “should” buy something when they shopped together. But most of the time, no matter what was in her closet, no matter the occasion, Apple ended up in jeans and a tank top.

  All that money gone to waste, thought Apple, looking at all the unused clothes, wondering if she could return any of the items, or if—genius idea!—she should actually start to wear them.

  Happy hadn’t approved of any of the outfits Apple had so far held up as possibilities to wear today. Every outfit Apple suggested had ended up in Happy’s Absolutely Not pile, mostly because Apple kept holding up variations on jeans and a tank top.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” asked Happy. “You can’t be yourself today.”

  Apple had heard her—she had simply pretended not to the first time.

  “Oh, I heard you. So what exactly do you mean by that?” she asked, watching Happy pick up another pair of jeans, looking unimpressed. “Hey!” Apple cried. “I love those jeans. What’s wrong with them? They’re such a dark wash they could pass for a really funky pair of pants. And you said you loved them on me! And you said my butt looks fabulous in them. And you’re the one who gave them to me, in case you forgot,” she said, hoping to convince Happy before the jeans ended up in the Absolutely Not pile.

  Apple suddenly wished Lyon was there, though she knew he would probably rather cover himself naked in honey and lie on an ant pile. But at least he would tell her that no matter what she wore, she looked fantastic. Thinking about her boyfriend, Apple couldn’t help but smile. He had come by first thing in the morning only to drop off her favorite strawberry-banana smoothie.

  “I just wanted your day to get off to the perfect start,” he had told her. And though she was dressed in one of her dad’s T-shirts and an old pair of sweatpants, he had also told her she looked adorable. Thanks to Lyon and his surprise visit, it had been the perfect start to a day.

  As Happy sighed, with exaggerated tolerance, Apple was brought back to the present. Happy was speaking to Apple as if she were a very patient teacher explaining to a six-year-old how to add single-digit numbers.

  “How many ways am I going to have to explain the situation to you so you’ll actually understand, Apple? I do love the jeans. And they do make your butt look great. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry if I hurt the jeans’ feelings,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I do love all your jeans. But you just can’t wear jeans today! Today is too important, even for designer hand-me-down jeans from yours truly. Even if they make your butt look delicious.” Apple tried to interrupt, but it was impossible. “And I know how you always say that Lyon loves you in jeans, but today is not about impressing your boyfriend, who would find you attractive in a garbage bag. Deal with it,” Happy said, finishing her rant.

  “But that’s me,” Apple argued. “Jeans are me! That’s who I am! I’m a jeans-and-T-shirt type of gal. I’m at my most comfortable casual.”

  “I know that. We all know that,” Happy said, glancing to the far end of Apple’s bedroom, where their other best friend, Brooklyn, was sitting silently, eyes closed, hands resting on her knees, palms facing up.

  Brooklyn was meditating, something she had recently taken up as an add-on to her regular yoga practice. Brooklyn was as obsessed with yoga as Happy was with fashion and Apple was with jeans.

  If Happy had been looking to Brooklyn, whom they called “the Noodle” because she was so lean and flexible, for backup it wasn’t happening. Not only did Brooklyn live in yoga pants, but ever since she took up meditation, she had also acquired the amazing capacity to tune out everything that was going on around her. You could dance in front of Brooklyn, making ridiculous faces and gestures, while she meditated and she still wouldn’t budge.

  “So what you’re really saying is that they won’t like ME if I wear jeans, even though that’s who I am?” asked Apple. It bothered her that there could be people out there who thought like that, who would judge her based on what she was wearing. Apple liked to believe that people weren’t that superficial or judgmental, even though she knew that was kind of naive.

  Apple never judged people by the way they looked or dressed. Though she would admit she sometimes laughed along with Happy’s biting criticisms of someone else’s outfit, Apple was not the type to actively start those conversations, or even have those thoughts.

  “No, what I’m trying to say is that, today, you just have to be a better version of yourself. At least you have to dress like a better version of yourself,” Happy said gently, taking Apple’s hand as if she were breaking bad news. “Listen, how are people supposed to take you seriously if they aren’t a little envious of what you’re wearing? They want people to look up to you, don’t they? And people won’t look up to you if you don’t look like you’re a person to aspire to! If you were going to be interviewed to be a counselor at a day camp or a salesperson at a clothing store, I’d tell you to wear jeans. But this is so, so different. This is so much bigger and more important. You have to impress these people. Please, please, please just let me pick out what you should wear. You’re going to be working at Angst magazine! This is, like, the most important day of your life! It’s Angst magazine!”

  Happy was probably right. If there was one thing she was an expert on, it was fashion and celebrities. Happy knew every trend that hit mainstream stores six months before everyone else. She had been into the boho fashion before the Olsen twins and Nicole Richie. Happy also knew which celebrities hooked up and broke up, practically the second it happened. Apple wouldn’t even venture to guess how many times Happy, an aspiring actress, had looked at a photo of celebrities holding hands and predicted, “I give them three months.” Happy was always bang-on. Likewise, Apple couldn’t even estimate how many times Happy saw a celebrity photo on Perez Hilton’s website, which she logged on to many times a day from her iPhone, and announced, “Perez Hilton is totally going to make fun of her for wearing that out in public.”

  Apple wasn’t convinced. “They called this meeting because they told me they think I’m ‘real.’ That’s the world they used. ‘REAL.’ They want me at Angst magazine because they think other teenagers can ‘relate to me,’” she explained, using finger quotes as she said “relate to me.” “Other teenagers wear jeans,” she continued. “Hell, everyone wears jeans! Well, except you.”

  Today, Happy was wearing an off-the-shoulder T-shirt
dress with high black boots. Happy was dressed as if she were the one going to an interview at Angst magazine. This was how Happy was always dressed, like she was about to walk a red carpet.

  Apple looked at her watch. They had been in her bedroom for nearly two hours. She threw herself facedown on her bed and sighed loudly into her pillow, like she was fed up with the whole finding-the-perfect-outfit ordeal.

  But Apple was only acting disillusioned. Apple was content. No, she was more than that. She felt her heart swell with joy and smiled into her pillow. Only a month ago, she would never have believed that Happy would be back in her bedroom, let alone her life.

  After a month of Happy, her best friend forever, acting like Apple was a great-aunt she rarely saw, speaking to her with an over-the-top tone of politeness—“Hi, Apple, how are you?” and, “Hello, Apple, it’s so nice to hear your voice”—Apple and Happy had finally got back to being on the Best Friend Track, and back to their thrice-daily phone chats and constant text messaging.

  It still pained Apple to think of how she had treated Happy, all because of their classmate Zen, whom Apple had had a crush on forever. There was a point, just a couple months ago, when Apple had somehow believed that her and Happy’s over-a-decade-long friendship was worth losing over him.

  Oh, Zen.

  Zen. Zen. Zen.

  Apple had been silently in love, or at least in deep like, with Zen for years, since way before he came back to school after six months off traveling and then fell in love with Happy. Zen, with his beautiful blue eyes and the dimple in his cheek that melted Apple’s heart every time he smiled, looked like a model in a surfing magazine.

  When she had realized that Zen was interested in Happy, and that Happy, who had never even noticed Zen prior to his arrival back at school, was also suddenly very interested in him, Apple had gone down a path that could only be described as pure evilness.

  Apple hated to think about how she had tried to sabotage her best friend’s blossoming relationship by doling out awful advice to both Zen and Happy, in an attempt to keep them away from each other. Eeesh. What had she been thinking?

  Even worse, Apple had pretended to be her mother, the famous Dr. Bee Bee Berg. (Yes, that Dr. Bee Bee Berg, the talk-show host, celebrity to millions! Yes, the one who was just named one of America’s 100 most influential people. Yuck!)

  Apple had broken into her mother’s computer to send Happy that bad advice. Double-eeesh! No, make that triple-eeesh!

  Apple and Happy’s friendship had diminished to the point of hatred after Happy found out what Apple had done. Oh, the sound of that dial tone! Happy had hung up on Apple, but not before announcing stonily, “This friendship is over!”

  And as if losing her best friend wasn’t bad enough, it had got even worse for Apple.

  Happy, in revenge mode, had then been a guest on Apple’s mother’s daily afternoon talk show, Queen of Hearts with Dr. Bee Bee Berg, telling millions of viewers how Apple had stabbed her in the back.

  Watching Happy, her best friend, tell the world on live television, on her mother’s daily talk show, about how Apple had tried to sabotage her relationship with Zen had been the most mortifying moment of Apple’s entire life.

  Her mother was out of town on a romantic getaway with her father when Guy, Dr. Berg’s long-time assistant, had booked the guests for that day’s show, so she had had no idea that Happy was going to be a guest—or what she was going to say—until moments before the show was to air. Guy and her mother hadn’t even had any idea that Apple and Happy were in a fight, and certainly not over a guy!

  There was nothing left for Apple to do but spontaneously walk onto the set of her mother’s television show that day and apologize to Happy—in person. The studio audience booed and hissed when Apple admitted what she had done to her best friend. It hadn’t even mattered that she was Dr. Bee Bee Berg’s daughter. And people worshipped the ground Dr. Berg walked on!

  Apple still couldn’t believe she had done it.

  However, at that point, she would have walked on burning hot coals to get her best friend back, which probably would have been less painful.

  It was actually Apple’s crazy aunt Hazel’s suggestion that Apple apologize to Happy on her mother’s show, and for once, out of pure desperation to get Happy’s friendship back and let her know how sorry she was for being the type of girl who would choose a guy over her very best friend, Apple had listened to her aunt.

  Apple usually never listened to her aunt, who, at that point, had never been in a relationship lasting longer than a vase of fresh flowers. Her aunt was known for what Apple described as her “Girl Crazy Moments,” like when she would sneak into boyfriends’ e-mail accounts or tell them on first dates she wanted to have babies and marry them. Crazy Aunt Hazel was the complete opposite of her well-spoken, famous sister, who saw everything in black and white, as right or wrong. Sneaking into boyfriends’ e-mail accounts? Wrong. Apple’s mother was as organized as Crazy Aunt Hazel was disorganized. Her mother was always optimistic, especially when it came to love, where her Crazy Aunt Hazel was a cynic, always crying out things like “I’m never going to meet anyone!” and “You can’t trust any guy!”

  In any case, Apple felt bad for the daughters of supermodels, the ones who didn’t end up being as good-looking as their mothers. It was the same for Apple. She felt she was missing some of her mother’s DNA too.

  Her mother was shocked when Apple walked on stage that day, as if Madonna or Britney had appeared looking for relationship advice, not her own daughter. Apple, after all, had rarely showed any interest in her mother’s talk show.

  Apple’s nickname had always been “the Sponge,” because you’d have to wring her to get her to share any personal information. She had always kept her feelings to herself and, back then, on the diary she kept on her computer, which is why not one person had known about her Super-Sized Zen Crush.

  But Apple had apologized to Happy, crying on live television, in front of millions. Even still, Happy would only say that Apple would have to “earn her trust back.” And Apple’s mother was furious to learn that Apple had sneaked into her computer and not only impersonated her but also given advice that was sure to ruin a relationship, not move it forward. What Apple had done to Happy was, in her mother’s eyes, akin to murdering someone.

  For a few awful days following Apple’s teary television debut, days that felt like years to her, it seemed like everyone in the world hated her. Apple became the poster child for Bad Best Friends everywhere. Clips of her admitting what she had done went viral. There were websites dedicated to discussing Apple as a “frenemy.” Bloggers called her a “toxic friend.” Most everyone seemed to agree that Apple was a bad person. Even Apple couldn’t help but agree. What she had done to her best friend was awful.

  Yes, without a doubt, it had been the most awful time in Apple’s life. But Apple was not that person. She just had a “Girl Crazy Moment” like her aunt! She had never loved anyone before. She should have told Happy how she felt, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk about something so personal, even with her best friend. Yes, she was the exact opposite of her mother.

  Thankfully, all of that was history now. Happy seemed to have forgiven her entirely. Zen and Happy seemed to be happy together, the most gorgeous and affectionate couple at Cactus High.

  The fact that Happy was helping Apple pick out the perfect outfit for her meeting at Angst magazine, the must-read weekly fashion and celebrity magazine for teenagers, proved she had truly forgiven her and put her friend’s evil behavior behind her. This wasn’t just a favor. Happy sincerely wanted to help Apple look her best. She sincerely wanted Apple to have the job at Angst.

  Happy, in fact, wanted Apple to have the job more than Apple did.

  Happy read Angst magazine religiously, unlike Apple, who never understood people’s obsession with celebrities and fashion, just as she never understood why people would share their relationship problems on her mother’s show.

&n
bsp; Sure, Apple flipped through Angst at coffee shops while waiting for friends, but Happy read it as if she were studying for an exam. Apple just didn’t care about who was dating whom, or which celebrity was getting drunk and flirting with other celebrities, although she also knew that was kind of abnormal. Even Brooklyn couldn’t get enough of celebrity gossip, and Brooklyn was nonstop talk about karma and how you shouldn’t gossip because it would come back to bite you in the butt.

  While Happy continued to busy herself in Apple’s bedroom and Brooklyn remained still, Apple found her eyes resting on a framed photograph on her bedside table of Lyon and her. Lyon’s arm hung lightly over Apple’s shoulders in the photo, and he was glancing down at her with a look of adoration. He had given it to her a couple of weeks ago as a gift.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” Apple had told him. “I love it—don’t get me wrong—but I didn’t get you anything. And you’re always giving me things.”

  “It’s no big deal,” he had responded. “I was just thinking about you and I wanted to give it to you. It’s my pleasure.”

  That was what Lyon was like.

  Yes, at least something positive had come out of Apple’s tearful, embarrassing—make that mortifying to the infinity degree—television debut. Actually, two positive things had come out of her television debut. One, she had met Lyon.

  And two, the editor of Angst magazine was an avid viewer of Queen of Hearts with Dr. Bee Bee Berg and had witnessed Apple’s teary admission and apology, which had led to a phone call to set up a meeting to discuss Apple’s becoming the magazine’s teen advice columnist.

  Apparently, though Apple cringed at the thought, trying to sabotage your best friend’s relationship and NOT getting the guy you’ve been in love with for years and LOSING your best friend over it was “real” and just what the editor was looking for in a teen advice columnist.

  Apple couldn’t help but think that Happy should have also received a job offer. Happy, after all, was also on the show that day and was the victim. Plus she was so much better suited for a job at Angst. She was so much more put together, so much more outgoing, and so much more into fashion and celebrities, which is what the glossy magazine was all about.