The Brittanys

by Brittany Ackerman

“Yeah, but you hit me. Like, on purpose.”

  “I thought you’d hit it back or something, but I guess I should have known you’re not very good at sports.”

  I spot a photo of us at a gymnastics tournament from when we were in fifth grade on her desk. We’re in hideous leotards, mine purple and hers blue, our hair in braided ponytails, and Jensen’s giving me bunny ears behind my head. I’m smiling like a doofus, and she is, too. I feel so far away from that moment. I know Jensen is upset about what her mom said, but she didn’t have to be mean about it. Jensen goes to her closet and takes out a pair of Rollerblades and a hockey stick.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I’m going to see if my neighbors want to play street hockey. But you probably shouldn’t come, because you’re sick or whatever.”

  I walk downstairs and go out to the backyard. Her dad hands me a slice of Key lime pie. I eat it and wait for my mom to pick me up. I tell her I’m feeling sick again, and I can tell she’s mad. I pretend to fall asleep on the ride home.

  I don’t hear from Jensen the rest of the week. No calls, no instant messages. But I figure all will be well for my birthday in a few days. She usually calls me at midnight on the day of, but, no, not even that. I’d hoped she just needed to cool down; now I’m not so sure.

  * * *

  —

  I fail my permit test. I didn’t know who had the right of way at a four-way stop. I didn’t know the protocol for parking uphill, downhill, on any type of hill. A kid from my history class, Kyle Schwartz, is also at the DMV and sees me fail. He doesn’t say anything to me, but I watch him move toward the photo area to get his permit as I walk away crying.

  I wanted to get my permit on my actual birthday, but now I’ve ruined it. Rosenberg, Tomassi, and Jensen had all gotten their permits on their actual birthdays. I remember the day they all pulled out their permit cards in the bathroom of the 400 Building. We had left lunch early to check our hair and makeup, and all the girls who were already fifteen pulled out their cards to compare pictures. I couldn’t wait to have my card, too, to be able to slide it in and out of my wallet at a moment’s notice, to be a part of that elite club.

  It even rains on my birthday, right after I fail the test and climb back into my mom’s car, crying. I refuse to go to school permit-less, and my mom refuses to take me home. She tells me to lie, to say I couldn’t get an appointment or that it was taking too long, anything to clear my name of a failed permit test. Kyle Schwartz poses a problem, though: He is such a little shit, always causing the type of unnecessary drama that high school freshmen thrive on. He’s smaller than the other boys, and it was his insecurity over this that probably made him tell the kids in our grade that Amanda Wharton gave Richie Davis a blow job in the stairwell during Homecoming. He tried to hook up with her in sixth grade on a field trip to Washington, DC. She said his penis was too small, even though she didn’t see it. “I felt it,” she argued. “It was smaller than my dog’s dick.” Then there was Abby Lampbert, who claimed he tried to finger her during a pep rally, unsuccessfully. It seemed that his rejections made him lash out at the female population, and though he never tried to hook up with me, I was a girl and he would likely assume I was a bitch.

  When Kyle Schwartz walks out of the DMV, my instinct says to get out of the car. I tell my mom to hold on, and I pull my hood over my head and run to him, desperate and frantic. He’s smiling and showing his dad his new ID card when I reach him.

  “Please, Kyle,” I say, “I beg of you. Don’t slander my name.”

  “Oh, because you failed your permit test?” He smiles and puts his ID in his pocket.

  “Jensen told me not to study. It’s not my fault.”

  “Is this one of your classmates?” Schwartz’s dad asks.

  “Yeah, but we aren’t friends,” Schwartz says. I realize it’s true, we aren’t friends, and he’ll never cover for me. My life is over. Everyone will know I’m permit-less.

  “That’s not very nice,” his dad says. “And I’m sure, if you want to keep this a secret, that Kyle will do that. No one should have to be embarrassed about these sorts of things.”

  Just then I notice my mom’s gotten out of the car, too, with her umbrella. She pieces together what’s happening and introduces herself to Schwartz’s dad. They apparently know each other from a while back, some field trip they both chaperoned for us in middle school. The parental bond seals the deal, and Kyle agrees not to say anything.

  “Do you think Kenzie would ever go out with me?” Kyle asks, a last request.

  “She has a boyfriend,” I say. “Sorry. And thank you for not telling anyone about this.”

  We get back in the car and drive to school. A part of me still worries whether Kyle will say something, but I also know my mom would make his life hell if he did. Kyle never stopped being mean to girls in high school, but at least he didn’t tell on me that day. I occasionally wondered if I should thank him, but that would have meant thanking him for not being an asshole. I was so scared every time I saw him in the hallway, that secret looming, the look on his face like he might let it slip. But I got my permit two weeks later, after scheduling another appointment and actually studying the stupid book.

  * * *

  —

  My mom drops me off right before third period, and I feel the dumbest I’ve ever felt in my life. I am fifteen today. It’s supposed to be the greatest day of my existence so far. I’m wearing acid-wash jeans and a red off-the-shoulder shirt that’s made out of spandex material and is so tight I had to stretch it over my head to get it on. I have on white Nikes with red laces; Jensen has the same ones with blue laces, up a half size. No one knew I’d be coming in late, but I assume they carried their balloons and other gifts to their first two classes, setting them in the corner of the room, eagerly awaiting the time they’d see me in the hall and wish me a happy birthday.

  Second period ends, and everyone rushes out of classrooms. I stand by Mr. Greggor’s door in the 400 Building, where Jensen has biology. She walks out of the room wearing her oversize varsity volleyball windbreaker and a navy skirt with our matching shoes. She’s talking to a kid named Joshua Sherman, who has white-blond hair, like hers, and wears his uniform super baggy. He’s laughing so hard his face is all red. As they walk out, they begin playing some sort of tag game. Jensen touches Joshua Sherman on the strap of his backpack, then he lightly touches the collar of her shirt, back and forth. I’ve seen them do it before, and it’s so annoying. It’s like a variation on flirting, because they’re either too shy or scared to actually flirt. Jensen doesn’t see me. She doesn’t stop walking.

  “Hey!” I shout, following the two of them. Jensen turns around but doesn’t stop moving. Joshua Sherman pauses, ready on his feet for an attack.

  “I can’t stop or he’ll get me!” Jensen yells, darting across the hall, being chased. I realize she doesn’t have any balloons, or a tiara, or a cupcake, a donut, anything.

  “Did you forget my birthday?” I ask. It slips out, emotional, heavy, sad. Jensen stops in her tracks. Joshua Sherman tags her on the butt and she barely notices, lets him get away, off and down the hallway.

  “I had to carpool with Jayce this morning,” Jensen says. Jayce Williams is a junior who lives in her neighborhood. She does sometimes get a ride to school when her parents are away for business or on vacation without her and her grandparents can’t make it, but I doubt that’s the case this morning. It seems too random; it seems like an excuse.

  “So?” I ask.

  “So it would have been embarrassing to ask to stop and get dumb balloons for your birthday.”

  “It wasn’t dumb when we did it for your birthday, or anyone else’s.”

  “Maybe it is dumb.”

  “But did you even remember?” As I say it, I regret it, not wanting to know the real answer: That she probably did forget. That she prob
ably doesn’t really care. That she really is a bitch. I walk away before she can respond and head to the 500 Building, where Rosenberg has history. I want to catch her and ask for a second opinion, but by the time I get there the bell has rung and she’s inside, in her seat. She can’t see me motioning for her to come outside, to ask to use the bathroom, something. I have a pass, so it doesn’t matter when I get to my own classroom. I take my time walking back to the 400 Building.

  I get through my next two classes and eat lunch in the library, which isn’t really allowed, but I tell the librarian, Mrs. Peterson, that I’m looking for a book to read. She’s more than happy to help and suggests a book about a young girl in London who can’t stop “snogging” boys and thinking about “snogging” all the time. I read the first twenty pages during lunch hour and decide to check it out.

  It turns out none of my “friends” remembered it was my birthday or brought me anything. They all have excuses. The only ones who attempt to redeem themselves are Rosenberg and Tomassi. Rosenberg says she left cupcakes from Publix at home by accident. Tomassi draws me a card in fifth period that I end up throwing away. I tell my teacher I have a stomachache, so I sit in the nurse’s office during PE. In seventh period, art, Todd Wexler asks me why I’m dressed down and I almost cry.

  * * *

  —

  I’m embarrassed by my own birthday. I wish it wasn’t even my birthday today, so it wouldn’t matter that everyone forgot. It’s too much to bear that no one remembered.

  My mom comes upstairs and knocks on my bedroom door. I open it and she hands me a box full of various crafts.

  “These are yours,” she says. There are horrible crayon drawings of bulbous-looking people and collages of paper shapes badly glued to construction paper. There’s a “book” I wrote from kindergarten called The Queen Fairy Princess, which is about a princess who orders a pizza to her castle and eats it.

  “Why would I want this?”

  “Because it’s all of your artwork.”

  “Artwork?” I pull out a piece of blue construction paper with shapes glued to it. “This is artwork?”

  “That was very good for your age!” My mom laughs. “I just thought you’d want to look through them.”

  “Why?”

  “I just know things.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m your mother.”

  She walks out and closes the door behind her. The box sits on my bed, and I decide to sift through it. I find my birth certificate, prints of my baby feet in clay, a lot more very bad “artwork,” a few framed baby pictures, and birthday cards from years past. I read through a couple of the cards, but none of them speak to me in the way I want. The cards, from my grandmother who lives in New York City, my aunt and uncle who are down the street in another Boca neighborhood, and my mom, are an endless string of promises that each year will bring me luck, love, growth. Mickey Mouse holds a birthday cake with five candles, Cinderella’s shiny shoe sits covered in glitter, Winnie the Pooh holds a lone balloon.

  Then I find a Dr. Seuss book, All About Me, that I had when I was seven years old. The book has a picture of me in a purple dress inserted into the cover art—each kid was supposed to make the book about them and ask a parent for help incorporating their photo into it. I wanted the book to have me photographed in my favorite dress, and it makes me glad even now to see myself documented in such a way.

  The book had many blanks to be filled in, like eye color, hair color, height, favorite food, number of pets, number of siblings, names, dates, etc. But there is one page that asked for my address. I had written my name, house number, street, city, state, and zip code, and then proceeded to write below: United States of America, Planet Earth, Outer Space, the Galaxy, the Universe…And I wonder why I kept going, after I had already written all I was supposed to. I must have felt the need to define myself, to define my place in the whole world, at seven years old. I remember feeling too old to have a book like that. Maybe I was embarrassed about it and wanted to complicate the logic of the book. Maybe I wanted it to mean more than it did. But reading it now makes me feel so small. I’m fifteen years old, but I’m not that important. I’m just a body, much smaller than any star in the sky. I’m only a person, just a girl.

  I fall asleep in my clothes until my mom comes in again and says we’re going out to dinner for my birthday. I tell her I don’t want to, but she doesn’t listen, and I end up leaving on my same clothes from school and going out with my family. My mom, dad, brother, and I go to an Italian restaurant close to home. My mom gets minestrone soup, and my dad gets a salad that he doesn’t want, so I eat it, removing the tomatoes from my dish onto my mom’s plate. Brad waits patiently for his dinner, not spoiling it with any appetizers. He seems really tired, but I assume it’s from studying or something. His eyes are drooping, like he’s stayed up all night. But when the food comes, he dives right in. I’ve ordered spaghetti and meatballs, my favorite meal, and I eat three pieces of bread. Two before dinner, one during. I dip the bread into my pasta sauce, and it’s delicious. At the end of the meal, a waiter who is actually kind of cute brings me a slice of chocolate cake with chocolate icing and a candle. I blow it out and wish that someday I will matter to the whole world, that something good will happen to me. My dad helps me finish the cake, and I’m so full that I fall asleep on the ride home. I had forgotten it was Friday, and when I wake up the next morning at 11:30 a.m., I’m surprised at first by the prospect of missing school and by my mom allowing me to miss it. But then, slowly, I come to realize it’s Saturday, and I turn on cartoons and watch SpongeBob SquarePants while I eat a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with milk.

  There is a small amount of peace before I realize my parents didn’t get me a birthday present, which causes an argument with my mom that lasts all night, the both of us crying, yelling, crying even more. Eventually we retreat to our rooms. Later, my mom comes into my bedroom with a printed-out picture of a Tiffany necklace that she promises is in the mail, on the way. She apologizes, saying she had planned to get me a gift when I had a party, and I tell her I’m sorry for being a bitch.

  • ELEVEN •

  I get a note in my locker from Stephen Fraber. He’s in my grade but is unpopular. Naturally, there are certain kids at school who are favored. They are usually the richer kids, the kids who have famous aunts or uncles, the kids who fly to Turks and Caicos in private jets, the kids who spend summers in Europe. But sometimes they are the troublemakers, the kids who maybe don’t have as much money, but what they lack in funds they make up for in mischief. They talk back to teachers and sell weed on campus. They wear their uniforms however they want to, sagging their pants or rolling up their pleated skirts until you can see their underwear from behind. Or maybe they become known for something that happened to them at school, like when Marissa Katz got caught cheating on her Spanish test. Her teacher, Señora Dolores, caught her and lifted up her skirt in front of the whole class to prove she had written the answers on her thighs, which she had. But Señora Dolores got fired, and Marissa Katz was only given a warning. There are many levels of fame one can achieve at our school; even being a Brittany counts toward boosting our reputations.

  Stephen Fraber plays soccer, which works in his favor; the other girls have clearly disapproved of my choices in love interests. He has a few friends who are less than desirable, like Eddie Sullivan and Jerry Ferguson, who are perpetually getting busted in class for playing Snood or watching porn on their laptops. They’re pretty goofy, but I don’t care, because there’s something about Stephen that interests me. I’ve decided I’m in a phase where I don’t care what anyone else thinks of me except my parents, who are basically in charge of me. I walk through the halls at school with a different kind of stride. I’m learning not to give a shit, as they say.

  The note asks me if I want to go to the movies. Stephen requests my home phone number and leaves
his locker number on the bottom of the note. I write down my number and slip the note back during fifth hour, right after lunch. I tell him to call me tonight.

  It’s cold for January, still cold enough to wear my sweatshirt all the way through the school day. It’s my brother’s, actually, one of his old ones that I borrowed and never gave back. It’s a navy-blue crewneck with a white-and-gold eagle emblem on the chest, our school’s mascot. The Eagles. It always makes me think of the Eagles’ song “New Kid in Town.” My dad used to play that song a lot in the car when we were younger. I liked how it was about a new person in a new town and everybody liked him for just doing nothing, it seemed. Maybe I didn’t fully understand, but it made me feel good to know that guy had a good life, and I imagined myself in the song, walking around school like I owned the place, being popular, being liked by everyone, having it be that easy.

  I haven’t really been hanging around the girls much, but I notice Jensen is getting closer with Kenzie. They hang out a lot, and I don’t see why Kenzie even likes her. Kenzie likes guys, and Jensen only likes weirdos like Joshua Sherman and teachers. I’m supposed to have my annual birthday sleepover with all the girls this weekend, but I don’t think I’ll invite the usual people. Things are kind of off now, and I don’t want to further upset the generalized chaos between fifteen-year-olds. Last year my sleepover sucked, anyway. We watched a movie called But I’m a Cheerleader, which ended up being about a girl who figures out she’s a lesbian instead of what we actually thought it’d be about: cheerleaders. The girl was a cheerleader, but that wasn’t what the movie was about. None of us were even cheerleaders, but we liked the idea of girls who were.

  No one asks about the sleepover. It’s been a week since the mess of my actual birthday, and I’m sure they all think I’m doing nothing to celebrate. It’s sort of unspoken that I’m mad at everyone, so when I call Rosenberg to invite her over on Saturday, she’s pleasantly surprised.