“Em, lots of people would pick you.”
“It’s like a trust thing.”
“A trust thing? You showed me his picture. You think he won’t show people your picture?”
“I’m going to lose him if I don’t, Julie says.”
“Julie says? Em. Are you sure you even like him that much?”
Em just gave her a look. “Please help me, Bridge. I want the picture to be decent. Not one of those stupid selfies.”
“I am helping you. I’m helping by saying stop.”
“You know what? You have no idea. You just—don’t. Bridge, I kissed him.”
“When?”
“Right after Halloween.”
“Halloween? That was days ago! You didn’t tell us?”
“I know. I should have.”
“Did you tell Julie?”
Em looked at her desk. “We were at practice together. It just came up.”
“Wow. So it ‘came up’ with Julie, but not with us?”
“I said I’m sorry. I didn’t know if you guys would even, like, want to know.”
“Of course I’d want to know! This is a big deal, Em. Right?”
Em nodded. “Right.”
“What was it like?”
“Good. Weird. Good.”
“Let’s find Tab,” Bridge said. “As soon as the bell rings.”
“Tab’s all judgy now, with the Berperson.”
“She cares about you.”
“I know. But neither of you gets it.”
Bridge looked at Em. “Maybe I don’t get everything, but look—we’re sticking together. Okay? We’re still a set.” She grabbed Emily’s hand.
“So you’ll help me with the picture? Please? Please-please?”
“But you’re not going to rush into this, right? You have to promise.” She squeezed Em’s hand. “Don’t send any more pictures until you think about it.”
“I promise. You’re the best. Can you come over right after school tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Just to take the picture. I won’t send it. Promise.” Em hesitated. “And don’t tell Tab, okay?”
The two-minute bell rang, and Bridge’s attention jerked to the blank page in front of her. “Can I look at your French homework?”
Emily smiled. “Sure.”
—
After the last bell, Bridge was bumping along in the sea of kids leaving the building when Em grabbed her arm. “Hey, superstar.”
“Hey. Where were you before sixth period? Tab and I waited by your locker.”
“Nowhere. Everywhere.”
Bridge looked at Em more closely. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Em put her mouth next to Bridge’s ear. “What would you say if I told you I just kissed Patrick in the hall behind the science lab?”
“Congratulations, I guess?” But Bridge couldn’t exactly picture it. Did they just stand there in the hall with their lips touching, or did they lean up against the wall? What did they do with their hands? And weren’t they afraid someone would see them?
Em smiled. “Thanks. Gotta go. Banana Splits.” Em rubbed her stomach theatrically and started walking backward toward the library, bumping into everyone in her way.
“Save me a cookie?” Bridge called.
“Not a chance!” Em yelled.
VALENTINE’S DAY
The blond girl with dreadlocks is wiping down tables. You can now see that her boxing-glove T-shirt has words on the back: TOUCH ME AND YOUR FIRST LESSON IS FREE.
You try not to meet her eyes, but there aren’t that many places to look.
“So what happened to your money?” she asks from across the room.
You think about saying that your bag was stolen. “I forgot it. At home.”
“You need to call someone?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You got a phone?”
“Yeah. But not with me.”
“You left that at home too?”
“Yeah.”
“You must have left in a hurry.”
You say nothing to that.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“You told the lady in the goofy hat that you’re fourteen.” She gives you a hard look and then walks back behind the register, where she yanks a gigantic purse onto the counter and starts feeling around inside. “You can use my phone.”
“Thanks. But I’m really just waiting for my friend.”
“Your friend,” she says.
“Right.” You want to change the subject. “So, how do you like working here? It’s been a while, right?”
She nods. “Five months. It’s pretty good. Nice boss, free food, can’t complain. Do you have a job?”
“Not really. I mean, I babysit.”
“I used to babysit. My brothers. But I never got paid.”
“Oh. That sucks.”
“I’m Adrienne,” she says, and sticks her hand out.
You have to get up and walk over to her to shake. Her grip is slightly painful. She shoves her bag back underneath the counter and then starts hopping from foot to foot. You are not about to ask why.
“So.” She glances around. “Do you really know the Barsamians, or was that just something to say?”
“No, I do. Our families are friends. I remember when Mr. Barsamian bought this place, after Bridge—that’s his daughter—”
Adrienne nodded. “I know Bridge.”
“Well, she got hit by a car, about five years ago.”
Adrienne blinked, stopped jumping. “Huh. I didn’t know that. Was it bad?”
“Really bad. She was in the hospital a lot, having these surgeries. Anyway, that’s when her dad opened this place. Before that, he had a different job—he traveled a lot, I think.”
“What about the brother?”
“Jamie?”
“Yeah.”
“Jamie’s great. I mean, we don’t hang out much or anything. He’s a year ahead of me, and we don’t go to the same high school.”
“I don’t miss high school.”
“Yeah.”
“I left early.”
“You did?”
Adrienne nodded. “I’m doing this boxing thing. And working.”
“Wow. My parents would flip.”
Adrienne smiled. “Mine definitely flipped. They want me to be a marine biologist. I’m thinking about it.”
“Wouldn’t you have to finish high school for that?”
“Oh, I did finish. Got my last credits at summer school and skipped senior year. Who needs the drama, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So now I’m into boxing. Maybe I’ll go to college next year, maybe I’ll wait. You can have it all, but you can’t have it all at once.”
You look at her. “How old are you?”
She laughs. “How old are you?”
“Almost fifteen,” you admit.
She nods, then points at herself. “Eighteen.”
“You look older.”
“You don’t. You sure you don’t want to use my phone?”
“No thanks. I should go. I guess my friend isn’t coming.”
But you just sit there.
“Keep me company for a while,” Adrienne says. “I get bored.”
SUITS
What Emily had decided to do was take a picture of herself in her new jeans, with no shirt on.
“But wearing a bra, which is basically the same as a bathing suit,” she told Bridge. “And I’ll do one of those photo filters, so it’s kind of fuzzy? You know, artsy.”
“Tell me again why you’re doing this?” Bridge said. “One more time.”
“What if my boyfriend asked for a picture of me in my bathing suit?”
“I’d say he was creepy. Is Patrick even your boyfriend?”
“You promised not to be judgy. People walk around the city in less than a bathing suit!”
“I’m not being judgy,” Bridge said. “I’m being—as
ky.”
Em started brushing her hair out in front of the mirror. “We want to, like—show ourselves. Be real. Do things for each other we wouldn’t do for anyone else.”
“Why don’t you just talk to each other? Isn’t that more real, more you, than a fuzzy picture of your bra?”
“I think,” Em said, “that you’re, like, just not there yet. With Sherm.”
“Sherm! What are you talking about?”
“And Tab…Tab has no idea at all.”
“She turned you down, didn’t she? You asked her for help and she said no. Right?”
Em mimicked: “ ‘You know I love you, but I can’t be part of this.’ ”
“She does love you.”
“I know. I love her too.”
But suddenly the air felt different. Tab wasn’t here with them, on purpose. That had never happened before.
“Let’s get this over with,” Bridge said.
Em put her brush down, crossed her arms, and pulled her T-shirt over her head in one quick motion. Underneath, she was wearing a lacy black bra.
“Wow, fancy,” Bridge said. “Where’d you get that?”
“My mom’s drawer. Can you believe it? She has, like, ten of these.”
“You can wear your mom’s bras?”
“Shut up.”
“You look like a perfume ad or something.”
Em smiled. “Really?”
—
On her way home, Bridge stopped by the Bean Bar. It was one of their busy times, right after the end of the regular workday.
“Bonjour, Finnegan!” Adrienne said, waving to Bridge over the customers’ heads.
Her dad looked up. “You okay, honey?”
“Yeah. Just saying hi.”
“Did something happen?”
“No, Dad—I told you, I’m just saying hi.” Nothing had happened, she told herself. Emily promised not to send any of the pictures they took. Bridge had made her swear, twice, that she wouldn’t do anything yet.
“It’s dark already,” her father said. “I’ll walk you home.”
“I’m fine!” Bridge said, turning around. “It’s only five blocks. I can walk myself.”
Of course she could. She’d walked home alone in the dark before. But once she left the Bean Bar, Bridge couldn’t remember exactly when she’d walked home alone in the dark before.
She decided to count her steps. Jamie was right: she took about a hundred steps for every block she walked. When she got to her building, she was on step 485. She wondered if she could make it to her room without going over five hundred. She glanced around and took four giant steps to the elevator. It reminded her of that game, Mother, May I? She used to play it with Jamie in the hallway of their apartment.
You may take two giant steps.
Mother, may I?
Yes, you may.
In her mind’s eye, Bridge could see Jamie, hair in his eyes, wearing the Spider-Man pajamas he loved all the way through fourth grade. That intense look he used to get when he was trying to do something hard.
She reached her room on step 498. Then she went and knocked on Jamie’s door.
“Enter!” Jamie was hunched over his math homework. Bridge could see graph paper.
“What’d you bet Alex?” she said. “Come on, tell me.”
He pointed his pencil at her and said, “I told you, it’s irrelevant.”
“If you tell me, I’ll make you soup. For free.”
Jamie hestitated.
Bridge smiled at him.
Then he said, “No deal.”
SHERM
Sherm loved the feeling inside his house after his parents left for work.
He and his grandmother both woke early, but they stayed out of the way until the questioning mumble of his parents’ first movements became the sound of running water, quick heels on the wooden floors, a spike or two of laughter. And then: urgency in their voices, someone always rushing back upstairs for one last forgotten something, until finally—kiss, kiss, love you!—the door slammed behind them.
It was as if Sherm and his grandmother supported themselves while a windstorm blew through the house every morning and—kiss, kiss, love you!—left through the front door. Then the house seemed to exhale. Sherm became aware of the sound of the radio in the kitchen and the smell of his grandmother’s coffee, and beneath that, he felt his grandmother’s satisfied presence, which never changed.
He always sat at the kitchen table and did his math homework while she cooked his breakfast and wrapped up his lunch for school. She never had the appearance of hurrying, and yet things were done quickly.
Sherm used math homework to wake up his brain. When he didn’t have any, he missed it. Writing out each problem, going through the steps, circling his answers—it was a satisfying system check. He was like a pilot in his cockpit.
His grandmother never asked him what he wanted for breakfast. She put an omelet in front of him, with toast grilled on the stove with olive oil, or semolina pancakes, or a frittata with peppers and mushrooms. After she put down his plate, he thanked her, and she rested her hand on his wrist for a few seconds, as if she were gently pressing something there—and then she walked to the sink or to her coffeepot. Even the morning after his grandfather left, she got up and did this for him, never letting her eyes stray to the chair across from Sherm’s.
—
This morning it was French toast. No syrup: his grandmother used powdered sugar. Next to his plate, she put a small bowl of blueberries. He ate, thinking about everything and nothing. Thinking about Bridge.
Using the side of his fork, Sherm cut up his last piece of French toast. He made it into a face with two pointy, lopsided ears on top, using blueberries for eyes.
The guys at school had started calling her his girlfriend. She was definitely not his girlfriend. But she might be his best friend.
Sherm got along with everyone—he was like that. But once his grandfather left, Sherm realized that with the guys at school, talking was like a game where everyone piled on jokes and the winner was the person whose joke ended up on top. With girls, it was a different game, a lot of teasing and trading fake insults. But it wasn’t that way with Bridge.
When he finished eating, Sherm brought his plate to the sink, jumped up the steps to the second floor of the house, ran down the short hallway to his room, and grabbed a pack of cards from where he’d left them on his desk. Then he ran back down the stairs to the kitchen to pick up his backpack and hug his grandmother, breathing her kitchen smell—it would have to hold him through the long day—and left.
He could only imagine how quiet the house was after that.
—
After his grandfather left, Sherm’s parents blew through the house a little more quietly for a while. They were stunned.
They kept saying it, on the phone, or to each other: “Stunned.”
People’s parents got divorced, but whose grandparents got divorced? Officially, Sherm’s father was the kid going through it, only he wasn’t a kid. He was a cardiologist.
After a while, though, things went back to normal, except that Sherm’s grandfather was gone. His grandmother left all the pictures of him right where they were, on the walls and the tabletops. It was almost as if he’d died and they were trying not to forget him. But he hadn’t died. He still texted Sherm at least three times a week. And Sherm couldn’t forget him anyway.
Sherm was a block from school when his phone buzzed. He slid it from his pocket. A text. Not from his grandfather. No words. Just a picture.
A WARM OBJECT
“The weirdest thing happened,” Tab said, poking the crusts of her sandwich into her thermos. “So it’s like five in the morning, and suddenly I’m wide awake, which is weird, and for some weird reason I’m thinking something’s weird.”
“Sounds…weird,” Sherm said.
Tab pointed a warning finger at him. “Don’t make fun of me, Sherman.”
He smiled. “Sorry.” He looked at Br
idge. “Ready to spit?”
“Wait,” Bridge said, still straightening the cards in her hand. “Not yet.”
In a few short weeks, backstage had become a place that was theirs, a secret corner carved out of the great un-ownable space called school.
Tab started again. “Anyway, it’s dark, right? And I sit up, and something drops into my lap. At first I thought it was Sashi, but that would be weird because Sashi always, always sleeps with Celeste.”
“In her bed, you mean?” Scrolling through her texts, Em pretended to shudder. “Evan says you should never let a cat watch you sleep.”
“Well, that’s just ignorant,” Tab said.
“Tell it to Evan. He says they can steal your breath. Or your soul or something.”
“Listen!” Tab said. “So I touch this thing in my lap and it’s like—this warm object that feels just like human flesh.”
“Ugh!” Bridge said.
“Guess what it was,” Tab said.
“What?” Em said.
“It was my arm. My own arm! Dead asleep so that I couldn’t feel it from the inside. My arm was like this random skin-covered object that fell on me! When I touched it, it was just like touching someone else’s arm. How weird is that? I can’t even tell you how weird.”
Bridge looked at the fat deck of cards Sherm held while he took double bites of his sandwich. “Hurry up,” she said. “You’re messing with my momentum. This is the part where I crush you.”
“One-two-three spit.” They each slapped a card onto the floor. Then their hands flew, throwing cards on top of cards until Bridge yelled “Out!” and banged her hand down on the smaller of the two spit piles.
She smiled at Sherm and began straightening the cards into a thin, tight pack. Fewer cards meant she was winning, and she liked to win. But she never liked the feeling of just a few cards in her hand.
When Sherm wasn’t looking, Bridge finger-combed her hair over the sides of the cat-ears headband.
—
When she’d shown up for school wearing the cat ears on November 1, Em had called a meeting in the fourth-floor bathroom, which was almost always empty.
“Halloween was yesterday,” Tab had said firmly. “You’re still wearing the ears. Are you going to wear them forever? If you’re going to wear them forever, you should tell us.”
Goodbye Stranger Page 9