“You broke my heart,” I say, and walk away without looking back. I think about how I lost my chance to have sex; how Hannah might never find out the truth about me; how good Brody was at kissing; how maybe it wasn’t supposed to hurt, what he was doing to me at my house; how maybe I do deserve better; how my mom would be proud of how strong I am right now; how Jensen doesn’t know any of this. Rosenberg showed me how to block someone on Instant Messenger, so I did that to Brody and felt better after. Joey got expelled for starting a fire in the bathroom with a cigarette and toilet paper. I never told Jensen about the whole Brody fiasco, because nothing really happened, anyway, except that I had to lie about never having been fingered. It was an easy thing to lie about, because I figured it would happen again soon, hopefully.
• SIX •
A new kid transfers to our school in the beginning of December. The weather is still nice, but all the kids bring sweaters to school. If you’re a senior, you’re allowed to wear the sweatshirt of whatever college you’re going to on campus. But we lowerclassmen have to wear navy-blue knitted cardigans or our school’s hoodies, which are thick and hot and too big for our bodies.
The new kid is Max Green, and he just moved from New York, so there’s an instant connection. We meet at an assembly where a guy talks to us about not smoking marijuana. He wears a fedora, and it’s hard to take him seriously. Max and I sit next to each other by chance. He’s wearing a white polo, and I like his blue-green eyes. He has a nice smile, and we make fun of the assembly the whole time. He says he’s never tried weed, but if anything this guy makes him want to do it more. That’s the thing about telling kids not to do something: it just gives us more reason to go against the powers that be. We always want what we can’t have; even if it’s bad for us, even if we don’t end up liking it, we want it.
Max is in all regular classes, so it’s hard to see him during the day. But he says he wants to get to know me better, and he calls me at night using the school directory. His mom got one for him so he could make new friends. We talk for hours every night on the phone and ask each other questions and wait for the answers. It feels so good to wrap my phone cord around my arms and legs, unwrap it, rewrap, and repeat, until I tell him I have to go to sleep. During these phone calls, I realize I’m boy crazy, a phrase I heard on the show Bug Juice, when a curly-haired girl named Stephanie said it once. She always talked about which boys she wanted to hook up with at socials during her confessionals, and when she said “boy crazy,” I knew that’s what I wanted to be. I love the boys in my school, the way they wear their shorts low, and how they carry their backpacks on one shoulder. I love how they smell of weed and musk, or sometimes their father’s cologne, or just sweat. I love their full lips and wet tongues and their mischievous glances and the way they want to touch and feel us girls, our bodies, and find out what it means to be a man, which usually happens for most of them in their friends’ bedrooms on weekends or during truth or dare at a birthday party.
I want to kiss Max so bad and be his girlfriend, but my friends don’t think he’s cool enough. At lunch, we sit at our usual table, just feet away from the snack stand and far enough from the teachers’ table that they never hear our conversations. Brittany Gottlieb argues that it might not be good for me to date Max because he’s new and doesn’t have a lot of friends here yet. He might cling to me, or try to use me to get popular. Brittany Rosenberg says Max is really sweet, and she doesn’t get why it’d be bad. She has history with him and says he asked to borrow some paper and was really nice about the whole ordeal. “He looked me in the eyes when he said it,” she recounts. Brittany Tomassi, being new herself, tries to stay neutral on the subject, but she does shrug and says he seems nice while sipping her Arizona Iced Tea. Kenzie thinks none of us should date anyone our own age. “You should always date a guy at least two years older than you, because they actually know what they’re doing,” she says, sucking on a green Blow Pop. Leigh nods in agreement with everyone.
I turn to Brittany Jensen for her opinion, but she’s focused on Brittany Rosenberg’s double-chocolate Entenmann’s donuts. Rosenberg always brings two and usually gives one of us the spare, and I can tell Jensen wants it today. Her parents give her money for lunch, and she already had a slice of pizza, but she loves those donuts. If I’m the one who gets chosen for the donut giveaway, I usually wrap it in a napkin and give it to her.
Rosenberg grabs Kenzie for a tampon change and leaves her food on the table. It’s annoying how they always have to announce it, but at least Tomassi doesn’t have her period yet, either, so I’m not too upset. I’m still waiting for a reply from Jensen. Suddenly she grabs the donut and eats it. Gottlieb and Leigh laugh hysterically. Tomassi and I look at each other in shock. Jensen puts a finger up to her chocolate-covered lips, signaling us not to say anything upon Rosenberg’s return.
“How’s it taste?” Tomassi asks, half disgusted and half still laughing.
“So good,” Jensen says, crumbs falling all over her white polo shirt. “She never would have given it to me. I had to take it, just this once.”
When the girls get back to the table, Rosenberg hesitates and looks us up and down.
“Okay, who ate my donut?” No one responds. “I was going to give it away anyway! What the heck?”
The whole table then stares at Jensen, who’s still chewing the last bits of the donut.
“I ate it!” she exclaims. “And I’m not even sorry!”
“You’re a bitch, Jensen!” Rosenberg yells, and walks away from the table. I think she wanted whoever ate the donut to be anyone else besides Jensen. They’ve never liked each other, not since Rosenberg came to our school last year. Jensen thinks Rosenberg’s parents are weird, and they are, and Rosenberg thinks Jensen is mean. They only tolerate each other in groups, like when Rosenberg’s parents took us to Universal Studios in Orlando last year over Christmas break, or when we all attend birthday parties for one another. You’d never find them at a mall together, though, or a one-on-one sleepover.
Jensen doesn’t react to Rosenberg, and I’m still waiting for my advice.
“What do you think about Max?” I ask her as she takes Rosenberg’s napkin and blots her mouth clean.
“I just don’t understand why you have to make everything about a guy,” she says. There’s a smudge of chocolate on one of her front teeth.
It hits hard when she says it. I don’t think being boy crazy is a bad thing. It’s what we all talk about all the time. Our purpose for getting dolled up and coming to school each day is that a boy might like us, kiss us, talk to us, ask us to go on a date to the movies or to walk around the mall or to go to the park in his neighborhood and lie in bed with him until he tells you you’re beautiful. Jensen rarely talks about guys, but I just think she’s shy, not as open about it as the rest of us. I know she’s kissed guys at parties and this one kid, Vince, at camp, who she always talks about because he’s British and she has a thing for English guys, but otherwise she keeps quiet.
“I don’t make everything about guys,” I say. The bell rings, and kids start to leave the lunchroom. I have PE with Jensen next, so we continue walking together out the side door, down the way to the gym.
“I just don’t want you getting obsessed with him, like you always do.”
“That’s not true. I’m not obsessed. It’s not, like, affecting my life! I’m in all honors and I still get all As and I have friends and I do stuff all the time.”
“Good for you.” Jensen opens the door to the gym and lets it close behind her. She walks into the locker room, and I follow.
I watch her change into her PE shirt and shorts. We’re both wearing the same push-up bra from Victoria’s Secret that we got together at the mall last weekend. Hers is mint green, mine pale pink. A part of me wants to tell her that Rosenberg is right, that she is a bitch, a donut-stealing bitch. I’m afraid of what’ll happen if she’s mad at me. I
see the way she yells at her parents. I see the way she doesn’t care when they yell back. But I’m pissed this time. Before I can even say anything, Jensen starts in.
“I don’t even get why you’re so worried about guys, especially Max Green. Guys like you. You know that. You’re just fishing for compliments.”
“Fishing for compliments?”
“Yeah, you do it with my parents all the time, too, telling them what grades you got and awards and whatever.”
“They ask me!” I say, which is true. Jensen’s parents are always asking me about school and how I’m doing. But they do push it and make things uncomfortable, because their own daughter gets Cs and Ds while I get all As. “Why can’t you be more like her?” they’ll ask, and honestly expect an answer. But doing well in school is nothing to feel bad about. Aren’t we supposed to want to do well, so that we can have a high GPA and get into a good college? Last year I told Jensen I couldn’t come over because something I made in art class got put in a local art show and my mom was taking me to see the exhibit. “You’re so annoying,” she had said then, and that’s when it started to get on my nerves, this hatred for my doing well, being good, excelling, while she pretty much stayed the same.
“You don’t have to indulge them, though. Just say, ‘Good, good, great, whatever,’ and move on. It’s just…conceited.”
“I’m the last person who’s conceited! I cried, like, three times doing my makeup this morning.”
“You just care too much about that stuff.” Jensen’s already dressed and moves to the bench to put on her sneakers.
“Why is it bad to care?” I ask.
“It’s not. But it’s bad to care too much what everyone else thinks.”
“I’m sorry your parents like me.”
“Don’t be a bitch,” Jensen says.
Sometimes I feel like Jensen doesn’t care enough about what other people think: the way she eats whatever she wants and never thinks to choose a healthier option, the way she laughs during assemblies or important announcements on the intercom, the way she lets her bra straps show or wears colorful bras under her white shirts, the way she bites her nails down to the cuticles, the way she burps and farts and thinks it’s funny. And then I think I love her for those things, the way she is just herself, her true self, always.
Just then our coach comes into the locker room. I realize that we’re probably late for PE and start to worry.
“What’s taking so long, girls?” She folds her arms over her chest.
“Sorry,” I say, knowing Jensen won’t even attempt to respond to her. “We were just talking about something important.”
“As if I give a tiny rat’s ass!” Coach says. “Get out there now or I’ll give you both conditionals!” She storms out, the big blue doors of the locker room swinging behind her.
It’s silent for a moment when she leaves. I’m genuinely nervous about getting a conditional, even though it’s just a piece of paper that your parents have to sign, so I start changing out of my uniform fast. I look over at Jensen, who is laughing, silently. I stare at her, as if to say, What is it? What’s your problem? Let’s go!
“A tiny rat’s ass!” Jensen repeats. We both break out in a fit of laughter, harder than I’ve laughed in a long time. Jensen bends over the sink, laughing so hard she starts to cry. I slide down the row of lockers to the floor and try to catch my breath. The rest of the week is spent recapping the story to the girls, to my mom, to anyone who will listen—except we leave out the part about the argument, of course.
• SEVEN •
My mom takes me to Party City before school the day of Brittany Tomassi’s birthday. It’s a week before Jensen’s, which is annoying, because that means I’ll be back here in a week, doing the same thing. When it’s someone’s birthday, you have to bring them a balloon. If it’s your best friend you bring a few, sometimes a tiara or a sash, maybe even cookies or cake at lunch as well. I like Brittany Tomassi. She’s from New York, like me. She’s stylish, she’s sweet and caring, pretty, and her mom and sister are cool. Her sister is older, a junior at our school, and always wears her hair in beach waves. Her mom looks like Kate Hudson and loves to take us shopping. The thing about the balloons, though, is that you’re supposed to get something stupid, not just a plain happy birthday balloon. The more random the balloon, the better. The more ridiculous, the greater the reaction from the birthday girl.
My mom waits in the car while I peruse the selection on the wall. Among the Ninja Turtles and Hello Kitty balloons, I find one that’s got the stork from Dumbo and reads It’s a Boy! It’s not that funny, but it’s weird, and I think it works. I ask the cashier lady to blow it up for me, and she ties a blue ribbon to secure the helium inside. My mom rolls her eyes when she reads the balloon.
“I don’t understand you girls,” she says, and continues the drive to school.
I get out of the car, and the blue balloon pops out behind me. I’m excited to see Tomassi and what she’s chosen to wear on her free dress-down day—you’re allowed to wear whatever you want when it’s your birthday.
I walk by the 500 Building and see Hannah Abrahams staring at me from afar. I keep walking with my head down, and she approaches me with two other girls. They’re punk also; one of them has no eyebrows and the other has on headphones, with her hair covering them. I stop walking and hold my balloon like an idiot.
“Are you wearing your red underwear today?” Hannah asks. I’m so embarrassed I could die.
“No,” I say, trying to be strong.
“You’re a little slut,” Hannah says. Her friends laugh, and they all walk away in the other direction. I keep going, but I can feel a lump in my throat. I know Hannah is just jealous. That’s what my mom would say if she even knew about any of this, which she doesn’t, but it hurts to have an older girl think badly of me. I just want everyone to like me all the time, and I guess it’s not possible, especially in high school.
I see Tomassi outside the 300 Building. She’s wearing tight boot-cut jeans and a floral long-sleeve top. Her hair is perfectly straight, and she’s wearing a little bit of mascara. She looks amazing. She’s already got a small bouquet of balloons, and I walk over to give her mine. She laughs when she sees it and gives me a hug. I say, “Happy birthday,” and step back to read the rest of her balloons. Someone actually got her an It’s a Girl! balloon, and I don’t feel so special anymore. The rest are pretty normal; there’s one telling her she’s Over the Hill. That one is probably the best and will be her favorite.
* * *
—
After school, Jensen and I have a volleyball game, and then we’re going to sleep over at Tomassi’s house and get breakfast with a bunch of girls in the morning, a sort of brunch birthday gathering. I hate games, because I never get to play much. I know I’m not good at sports. I’m only doing it so I can put it on my record for college. My mom agreed that I should do some more extracurricular activities, so I joined the junior varsity team, where everyone who tried out got a spot.
I usually get subbed in for one rotation, sometimes half a rotation, and I mostly try to stay out of the way while I’m there. After I get tagged in, I pull up my kneepads and tighten my ponytail, even though I know nothing is going to happen. A tall girl on the other team spikes the ball downcourt to my section, and I don’t make it in time to bump it back to our setter. I fall on my knees and realize I didn’t pull up my left kneepad all the way and now I have a court burn right on the spot. I go back to the bench when another girl tags me out. Jensen is still in—has been the whole time.
Sitting on the bench, I realize this is her place to shine, on the court. She’s just naturally good at sports, anything athletic. I quit gymnastics because of her. I was the best in my level until she started coming and was able to do everything I was able to. She did it with ease, whereas I was calculated.
I pull down my kneepad
s and press my bottle of yellow Gatorade against the burn. It hurts, and I have to wait until the game is over to ask for a Band-Aid. I think about quitting the team; I hate it anyway. I hate how running in practice makes my lungs hurt, how I can’t eat any real food until I get home, can’t start my homework until much later. Why am I here if I’m not good? There’s no point. I know I’m good at school: that’s my place, not here. I’d get up and walk away if I didn’t have to wait for the game to end, since Jensen and I are leaving together. Tomassi will be getting out of soccer practice around the same time, and her mom is taking us all back. I watch Jensen jump to spike an incoming ball. She gets enough height to hit it over the net, something I can only do once every so often in practice, definitely never in a game, and it lands on the floor on the other side. The point ticker goes up one for our side, and everyone cheers. I sip my Gatorade and give a halfhearted clap from the bench.
* * *
—
Tomassi has the most pairs of jeans of anyone I know. She has about sixteen pairs. Jensen and I sift through her drawer, unfolding the soft legs of each one, some embroidered, some with lace, some with intentional rips that cost extra. We are allowed to choose one to wear at her birthday brunch this morning, and we love each of them. Jensen has a bigger butt than I do, and my legs are much slimmer, but somehow we both fit into the jeans that Tomassi wears, the ones she has to ration now for dress-down days. It took her a while to understand the benefits of having a uniform—how it makes the mornings easier, how it causes less competition among us. She still wears a big, puffy scrunchie on her forearm in protest, still dons elaborate headbands, still pays a dollar for every dress-down day so she can show off her New York wardrobe.
The dynamic of three girls, especially three Brittanys, is always interesting. And by “interesting” I mean bad. It doesn’t go well for one girl. This time, that girl happens to be me. Tomassi and Jensen stayed up much later than I did and had some kind of revelation that they both love sports, both don’t like Rosenberg, both don’t really care about boys. Those were the vague conversations I heard as I turned onto my side and pretended to be asleep. I drifted off as Tomassi tried to convince Jensen to join the soccer team. Jensen said something about how the varsity volleyball coach wanted to speak with her about practicing with them, moving up from junior varsity to varsity, something I was unaware of. I’m scared she’ll actually get the spot, but also relieved; in that case I won’t have to watch her anymore, silently compete against her and lose every time. She’d be the only ninth grader on the team. Maybe it’d be harder for her, or maybe she’d still shine.
The Brittanys Page 7