by Jenny Han
I touch his hand. “One day soon you’ll be in the world, and you’ll have so many options you won’t know what to do with them. Everyone will fall in love with you, because you’re so beautiful and so charming, and you’ll look back on high school as such a tiny blip.”
Lucas smiles, and his moodiness lifts away. “I won’t forget you, though.”
32
“THE PEARCES FINALLY SOLD THEIR house,” Daddy says, heaping more spinach salad on Kitty’s plate. “We’ll have new backyard neighbors in a month.”
Kitty perks up. “Do they have kids?”
“Donnie says they’re retired.”
Kitty makes a gagging noise. “Old people. Boring! Do they have grandkids, at least?”
“He didn’t say, but I don’t think so. They’re probably going to take down that old tree house.”
I stop mid-chew. “They’re demolishing our tree house?”
Daddy nods. “I think they’re putting in a gazebo.”
“A gazebo!” I repeat. “We used to have so much fun up there. Genevieve and I would play Rapunzel for hours. She always got to be Rapunzel, though. I just got to stand underneath it and call up”—I pause to put on my best English accent—“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, miss.”
“What kind of accent is that supposed to be?” Kitty asks me.
“Cockney, I think. Why? Was it not good?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.” I turn to Daddy. “When are they tearing the tree house down?”
“I’m not sure. I’d imagine before they move in, but you never know.”
There was this one time I looked out the window and saw that John McClaren was up in the tree house alone. He was just sitting by himself, reading. So I went out there with a couple of Cokes and a book and we read up there all afternoon. Later in the day Peter and Trevor Pike showed up, and we put the books away and played cards. At the time I was deep in the throes of liking Peter, so it wasn’t romantic in the slightest, of that I’m sure. But I do remember feeling that our quiet afternoon had been disrupted, that I’d rather have just kept reading in companionable silence.
“We buried a time capsule under that tree house,” I tell Kitty as I squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush. “Genevieve, Peter, Chris, Allie, Trevor, me, and John Ambrose McClaren. We were going to dig it up after we graduated high school.”
“You should have a time capsule party before they demolish the tree house,” Kitty says from the toilet. She’s peeing and I’m brushing my teeth. “You can send invitations and it can be a fun little thing. An unveiling.”
I spit out toothpaste. “I mean, in theory. But Allie moved, and Genevieve is a—”
“Witch with a b,” she supplies.
I giggle. “Definitely a witch with a b.”
“She’s scary. One time when I was little, she locked me in the towel closet!” Kitty flushes the toilet and gets up. “You can still have a party, just don’t invite Genevieve. It doesn’t make sense for you to invite your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend to a time capsule party anyway.”
As if there were some set etiquette for who to invite to a time capsule party! As if there were really such a thing as a time capsule party! “I got you out of the closet right away,” I remind her. I set my toothbrush back down. “Wash your hands.”
“I was going to.”
“And brush your teeth.” Before Kitty can open her mouth, I say, “Don’t say you were going to, because I know you weren’t.”
Kitty will do anything to get out of brushing her teeth.
We can’t just let this tree house go without a proper send-off. It wouldn’t be right. We always said we’d come back. I will have a party, and it will be themed. Genevieve would sneer at that, how babyish—but it’s not like I’m inviting her, so who cares what she thinks. It will just be Peter, Chris, Trevor, and . . . John. I’ll have to invite John. As friends, just friends.
What did we eat that summer? Cheez Doodles. Melty ice cream sandwiches—the chocolate wafer would stick to our fingers. Lukewarm Hawaiian Punch flowed freely. Capri Suns when we could get them. John always had a double-decker peanut butter and jelly sandwich with him in a ziplock bag that his mother packed. I’ll be sure to have all of those snacks for the party.
What else? Trevor had portable speakers he used to carry around. His dad was big into Southern rock, and that summer Trevor played “Sweet Home Alabama” so much that Peter threw his speakers out of the tree house and Trevor wouldn’t speak to him for days. Trevor Pike had brown hair that curled when it was wet, and he was chubby in the way that middle school boys are (in the cheeks, around the middle) right before they have a big growth spurt and everything sort of evens out. He was always hungry and hanging around other people’s cupboards. He’d have to go pee, and he’d come back with a Popsicle or a banana, or cheese crackers, whatever he could scam. Trevor was Peter’s number three. It went John and Peter and then Trevor. They don’t hang out so much anymore. Trevor’s more friends with the track guys. We don’t have any classes together; I’m in all honors and APs and Trevor was never that into school or grades. He was fun, though.
I remember the day Genevieve showed up at my house crying, saying she was moving. Not far, she’d still go to school with us, but she wouldn’t be able to ride her bike or walk over anymore. Peter was sad; he comforted her, put his arms around her. I remember thinking how grown-up they seemed in that moment, like real teenagers in love. And then Chris and Gen had a fight about something, a bigger fight than usual; I don’t even remember what it was about. I think something with their parents. Whenever their parents weren’t getting along, things trickled down to them like trash floating down a river.
Gen moved away, and we were still friends, and then, around the time of the eighth grade dance, she dropped me. I guess there was no place for me in her life anymore. I thought Genevieve was someone I would know forever. Those people in your life that you just always know, no matter what. But it’s not that way. Here we are, three years later, and we’re worse than strangers. I know she took that video; I know she sent it to Anonybitch. How could I forgive that?
33
JOSH HAS A NEW GIRLFRIEND: Liza Booker, a girl from his comic-book club. She has frizzy brown hair, nice eyes, big boobs, braces. She’s a senior like Josh, smart like Josh. I just can’t believe he’s with a girl who’s not Margot. Next to my sister, Liza Booker’s nice eyes and big boobs are nothing.
I kept seeing a car I didn’t recognize in Josh’s driveway, and then today, when I was getting the mail, she and Josh came out of the house and he walked her to her car and then he kissed her. Just like how he used to kiss Margot.
I wait until she’s driven away and he’s about to walk back inside his house before I call out to him. “So you and Liza are a thing now, huh?”
He turns around and at least looks sheepish. “We’ve been hanging out, yes. It’s not serious or anything. But I like her.” Josh comes a few feet closer, so we’re not so far apart.
I can’t resist saying, “There’s no accounting for taste. I mean, that you’d pick her over Margot?” I let out a huffy little laugh that surprises even me, because Josh and I are fine now—not like before, but fine. It was a mean thing to say. But I’m not saying it to be mean to Liza Booker, who I don’t even know; I’m saying it for my sister. For what she and Josh used to be to each other.
Quietly he says, “I didn’t pick Liza over Margot and you know it. Liza and I barely knew each other in January.”
“Okay, well, why not Margot then?”
“It just wasn’t going to work out. I still care about her. I’ll always love her. But she was right to break things off when she left. It would only have been harder if we’d kept it going.”
“Wouldn’t it have been worth it just to see? To know?”
“It would’ve ended the same way even if she hadn’t gone to Scotland.”
His face has that stubborn look to it; that weak chin of his is firmly set. I know he
isn’t going to say anything more: It isn’t really my business, not truly. It’s his and Margot’s, and maybe he doesn’t even fully know, himself.
34
CHRIS SHOWS UP AT MY house with ombré lavender hair. Pulling her jacket hood all the way off, she asks me, “What do you think?”
“I think it’s pretty,” I say.
Kitty mouths, Like an Easter egg.
“I mostly did it to piss off my mom.” There’s the tiniest bit of uncertainty in her voice that she’s trying to conceal.
“It makes you look sophisticated,” I tell her. I reach out and touch the ends, and her hair feels synthetic, like Barbie doll hair after it’s been washed.
Kitty mouths, Like a grandma, and I cut my eyes at her.
“Does it look like shit?” Chris asks her, chewing on her bottom lip nervously.
“Don’t cuss in front of my sister! She’s ten!”
“Sorry. Does it look like crap?”
“Yeah,” Kitty admits. Thank God for Kitty—you can always count on her to tell the hard truths. “Why didn’t you just go to a salon and have them do it for you?”
Chris starts running her fingers through her hair. “I did.” She exhales. “Shi—I mean, crap. Maybe I should just cut off the bottom.”
“I’ve always thought you would look great with short hair,” I say. “But honestly, I don’t think the lavender looks bad. It’s kind of beautiful, actually. Like the inside of a seashell.” If I was as gutsy as Chris, I’d chop my hair off short like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina. But I’m not that brave, and also, I’m sure I’d feel immediate remorse for my ponytails and braids and curls.
“All right. Maybe I’ll keep it for a bit.”
“You should try deep-conditioning it and see if that helps,” Kitty suggests, and Chris glares at her.
“I have a Korean hair mask my grandma bought me,” I say, putting my arm around her.
We go upstairs, and Chris goes to my room while I root around in the bathroom for the hair mask. When I get back to my room with the jar, Chris is sitting cross-legged on the floor, sifting through my hatbox.
“Chris! That’s private.”
“It was out in the open!” She holds up Peter’s valentine, the poem he wrote me. “What’s this?”
Proudly I say, “That’s a poem Peter wrote for me for Valentine’s Day.”
Chris looks down at the paper again. “He said he wrote it? He’s so full of shit. This is from an Edgar Allan Poe poem.”
“No, Peter definitely wrote it.”
“It’s from that poem called ‘Annabel Lee’! We studied it in my remedial English class in middle school. I remember because we went to the Edgar Allan Poe museum, and then we went on a riverboat called the Annabel Lee. The poem was framed on the wall!”
I can’t believe this. “But . . . he told me he wrote it for me.”
She cackles. “Classic Kavinsky.” When Chris sees that I’m not cackling with her, she says, “Eh, whatever. It’s the thought that counts, right?”
“Except it isn’t his thought.” I was so happy to receive that poem. No one had ever written me a love poem before, and now it turns out it was plagiarized. A knockoff.
“Don’t be pissed. I think it’s funny! Clearly he was trying to impress you.”
I should’ve known Peter didn’t write it. He hardly ever reads in his spare time, much less writes poetry. “Well, the necklace is real, at least,” I say.
“Are you sure?”
I shoot her a dirty look.
When Peter and I talk on the phone that night, I’m all set to confront him about the poem, to at least tease him about it. But then we get to talking about his upcoming away game on Friday. “You’re coming, right?” he says.
“I want to, but I promised Stormy I’d dye her hair on Friday night.”
“Can’t you just do it on Saturday?”
“I can’t, the time capsule party is on Saturday, and she has a date that night. That’s why her hair needs to be done on Friday. . . .” It sounds like a weak excuse, I know. But I promised. And also . . . I wouldn’t be able to ride on the bus with Peter, and I don’t feel comfortable driving forty-five minutes away to a school I’ve never been to. He doesn’t need me there anyway. Not like Stormy needs me.
He’s silent.
“I’ll come to the next one, I promise,” I say.
Peter bursts out, “Gabe’s girlfriend comes to every single game and she paints his jersey number on her face every game day. She doesn’t even go to our school!”
“There have only been four games and I’ve gone to two!” Now I’m annoyed. I know lacrosse is important to him, but it’s no less important than my commitments at Belleview. “And you know what? I know you didn’t write that poem for me on Valentine’s Day. You copied it off of Edgar Allan Poe!”
“I never said I wrote it,” he hedges.
“Yes you did. You acted like you wrote it.”
“I wasn’t going to, but then you were so happy about it! Sorry for trying to make you happy.”
“You know what? I was going to bake you lemon cookies on game day, and now I don’t know.”
“Fine, then I don’t know if I’m going to make it to your tree-house party on Saturday. I might be too tired from the game.”
I gasp. “You’d better be there!” This party is small as it is, and Chris isn’t the most reliable person. It can’t just be me and Trevor and John. Three people does not a party make.
Peter makes a harrumph sound. “Well, then I’d better see some lemon cookies in my locker come game day.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
On Friday I bring his lemon cookies and wear his jersey number on my cheek, which delights Peter. He grabs me and throws me in the air, and his smile is so big. It makes me feel guilty for not doing it sooner, because it took so very little on my part to make him happy. I can see now that it’s the little things, the small efforts, that keep a relationship going. And I know now too that in some small measure I have the power to hurt him and also the power to make it better. This discovery leaves me with an unsettling, queer sort of feeling in my chest for reasons I can’t explain.
35
I’D WORRIED IT WOULD BE too cold for us to stay in the tree house for long, but it’s unseasonably warm, so much so that Daddy starts on one of his rants about climate change, to the point where Kitty and I have to tune him out.
After his rant I get a shovel from the garage and set about digging under the tree. The ground is hard, and it takes me a while to get into a good groove digging, but I finally hit metal a couple of feet in. The time capsule’s the size of a small cooler; it looks like a futuristic coffee thermos. The metal has eroded from the rain and snow and dirt, but not as much as you’d think, considering it’s been nearly four years. I take it back to the house and wash it in the sink so it gleams again.
Close to noon, I load up a shopping bag with ice cream sandwiches, Hawaiian Punch, and Cheez Doodles and take it all out to the tree house. I’m crossing our backyard to the Pearces’, trying to juggle the bag and the portable speakers and my phone, when I see John Ambrose McClaren standing in front of the tree house, staring up at it with his arms crossed. I’d know the back of his blond head anywhere.
I freeze, suddenly nervous and unsure. I’d thought Peter or Chris would be here with me when he arrived, and that would smooth out any awkwardness. But no such luck.
I put down all my stuff and move forward to tap him on the shoulder, but he turns around before I can. I take a step back. “Hi! Hey!” I say.
“Hey!” He takes a long look at me. “Is it really you?”
“It’s me.”
“My pen pal the elusive Lara Jean Covey who shows up at Model UN and runs off without so much as a hello?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I’m pretty sure I at least said hello.”
Teasingly he says, “No, I’m pretty sure you didn’t.”
He’s right: I didn’t. I was
too flustered. Kind of like right now. It must be that distance between knowing someone when you were a kid and seeing them now that you’re both more grown-up, but still not all the way grown-up, and there are all these years and letters in between you, and you don’t know how to act.
“Well—anyway. You look . . . taller.” He looks more than just taller. Now that I can take the time to really look at him, I notice more. With his fair hair and milky skin and rosy cheeks, he looks like he could be an English farmer’s son. But he’s slim, so maybe the sensitive farmer’s son who steals away to the barn to read. The thought makes me smile, and John gives me a curious look but doesn’t ask why.
With a nod, he says, “You look . . . exactly the same.”
Gulp. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? “I do?” I get up on my tiptoes. “I think I’ve grown at least an inch since eighth grade.” And my boobs are at least a little bigger. Not much. Not that I want John to notice—I’m just saying.
“No, you look . . . just like how I remembered you.” John Ambrose reaches out, and I think he’s trying to hug me but he’s only trying to take my bag from me, and there’s a brief but strange dance that mortifies me but he doesn’t seem to notice. “So thanks for inviting me.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Do you want me to take this stuff up for you?”
“Sure,” I say.
John takes the bag from me and looks inside. “Oh, wow. All of our old snacks! Why don’t you climb up first and I’ll pass it to you.” So that’s what I do: I scramble up the ladder and he climbs up behind me. I’m crouched, arms outstretched, waiting for him to pass me the bag.
But when he gets halfway up the ladder, he stops and looks up at me and says, “You still wear your hair in fancy braids.”
I touch my side braid. Of all the things to remember about me. Back then, Margot was the one who braided my hair. “You think it looks fancy?”