She's the Worst

by Lauren Spieller

  “It looks like this one doesn’t want to come down,” Brian says into the mic.

  For a second I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but then I realize the woman who was next to me a moment ago has disappeared, and everyone is staring at me. I must have missed the signal to fall backward off his shoulder! I blush, but Brian is smiling. “I’m thinking it might be time to go surfing. What do you think, Marco?”

  Mr. Muscle Beach—Marco—looks up at me. “You wanna do another trick?” he says, just loud enough for me to hear over the music.

  I glance at April to see what she thinks, but she’s too busy filming me to weigh in one way or the other. It’s up to me. I could get down and no one would care. I’ve already done what they called me up here to do. But the surprising thing is . . . I don’t want to get down. Maybe it’s because I finally came clean to April, or maybe because tomorrow I’m starting fresh—new school, new city, new life—but for some reason the fact that this is an objectively terrible idea doesn’t seem to bother me. After all, if I can survive telling a member of my family the truth, I can survive anything.

  “I’m in,” I tell Marco. “What do I have to do?”

  “Nothing,” he says. “Just relax and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  I nod, and he leans forward just enough so that I slip off his shoulder. For a split second I think I’ve made a huge mistake—I’m going to hit the ground, and it’ll be all my fault for agreeing to do this in the first place—but then he catches me behind the knees and back and cradles me in his ridiculously large arms, like a baby. The crowd cheers again.

  “You ready?” Marco asks.

  “I guess so.”

  “Good enough for me. Just don’t squirm.” He nods to Brian, who lifts the mic to his lips again.

  “Let’s count him down. Three—”

  April covers her mouth, but I can tell she’s smiling.

  “Two—”

  Marco bounces me in his arms, changing his grip on my back.

  “One!”

  Marco slowly begins to lift me. Not onto his shoulder like before, but directly over his head. It’s slower, almost agonizingly slow, and I can feel the tremor in his arms as he pushes me into the air. I want to grab on to something but there’s nothing to hold on to. All I can do is lie there on my back and pray he’s as strong as he looks.

  And then before I know it, I’m suspended high above his head, still flat on my back, though I keep glancing down at the audience below. At least fifty people are staring up at me, oohing and aahing. And there at the front is April, cheering for me like I’m the one lifting Marco instead of the other way around. I give a tiny wave back—Marco might be strong, but I’m not tempting fate by moving around too much.

  “Ready to come down?” Marco calls up to me.

  “Yes!”

  He lowers me back down to the ground and holds up his hand for a hive five. I give him a hug instead. “Thank you for not dropping me.”

  He laughs. “Thank you for not squirming.”

  I run back into the crowd, and April catches me in a hug. “You were great!” She lets go, and her face turns serious. “Are you pissed that I volunteered you?”

  “Nah,” I say. “I’m actually glad you did.”

  She looks surprised. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.” I smile at her, and she smiles back.

  “Ready for the next stop?” she asks.

  “One thing first.” I pull out my phone, turn on the camera, and lean my head toward April. “Say ‘cheese.’ ”

  “Cheese!”

  I snap the photo and drop my phone back into my purse. I might not remember the last time we came to Muscle Beach together, but I’ll remember this forever.

  CHAPTER 9

  APRIL

  I can’t believe Jenn let that guy pick her up. It was like she’d been body snatched or something. I also can’t believe she’s not pissed at me for volunteering her. That’s a small miracle in and of itself, and it almost makes me feel bad for doing it in the first place. Almost, but not quite. She’s still got a long way to go before I stop being mad at her for springing Stanford on me.

  We make our way off the boardwalk and back toward the car. I’m psyching myself up for telling her why I chose our next stop—Urth Caffé, where she and Thomas went on their first date, after which she looked like one of those heart-eyed emojis—when she stops walking.

  “If we’re going to do this pact thing,” she says, “then I think we should do it together. You’ve got a plan, and I respect that, but can we squeeze in a few things I choose too?”

  I fiddle with the car keys. I put a lot of time into making our itinerary, and I kind of want to show her what else I came up with. She had a good time at Muscle Beach, even though she clearly doesn’t remember what she said to me that night. But that’s okay—I do.

  I’d just made the JV team an hour earlier, but instead of letting me go home to shower after the scrimmage, Mom and Dad had insisted we go to Venice Beach. Not to celebrate, of course, but because they’d heard about some tiny antique shop tucked away on a side street nearby and they wanted to check out the competition. Jenn didn’t care about the antiques, though. She just cared about me making JV. So while Mom and Dad snooped, we snuck out to the boardwalk. I can’t believe how good you were out there, she said as we leaned against the railings separating the boardwalk from Muscle Beach. You should be so proud of yourself.

  Then she asked a stranger to take our picture.

  It meant the world to hear her say she was proud of me. But I guess it didn’t mean as much to her. If it did, she’d remember.

  “Fine,” I say, tossing her the keys. “We can alternate places. But I get to decide where we have lunch.”

  “Deal,” she says. “But we don’t need to drive. Our next stop is walking distance.”

  We set off, Jenn speed-walking like we’re late to class, me hurrying after her. I’m just about to ask how much farther this mystery location is when she comes to an abrupt stop at the end of a long residential block. “Close your eyes,” she says.

  “Seriously?” I ask. “Why?

  “Just trust me.”

  I close my eyes, and she takes my hand and pulls me around the corner. Jenn and I haven’t held hands in years. It feels weird, but also familiar.

  We come to a stop again, and she turns my body to the left. “Ta-da!” she says.

  “No way.” Stretching down the block where the street should be is a canal. A real-life canal, like the kind you’d find in Venice, Italy, not Venice Beach. Small canoes float in the water, each one docked in front of the owner’s house. “Where did this come from?”

  “It’s always been here!” Jenn says. “Actually, this isn’t the only one—there’s a network of canals.” She starts walking. “Come on—let’s go stand on the bridge.”

  “There’s a bridge?”

  Sure enough, we walk another block, and halfway down the connecting canal is a bright white wooden bridge connecting the two walkways on either side. I walk to the middle and peer down. It’s just high enough for a boat to pass under.

  “Let’s rent a canoe,” I say. “Or a gondola. Whatever.”

  Jenn looks unsure. “I’m not sure we can. The canals are public, but I don’t think they have rentals.”

  “There’s gotta be a way.” I turn around and look out over the other side of the bridge. “What’s that?” I ask, pointing. “It’s a boat, but it kind of looks like—”

  “A pink swan!”

  Jenn runs off the bridge and along the side of the canal. By the time I reach the swan boat, Jenn is bouncing on her toes and smiling so big I’m worried I’m going to have to sedate her. And it’s no surprise—this boat looks like it was designed with Jenn in mind. My sister may be super serious most of the time, but she never really grew out of her ten-year-old obsession with pink. And this boat? It is bright pink. It looks like the kind of boat you’d ride in It’s a Small World at Disneyland.

>   “I wish we could borrow it,” Jenn says.

  “Hmm.” I look up and down the canal, then step into the boat and crouch down.

  “April!” Jenn exclaims. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for the oars, obviously.”

  Jenn glances over her shoulder, then takes a step closer to the boat. “We are not going to borrow this boat without asking,” she whispers. “We could be arrested!”

  I reach under the seat, and pull out two bright pink oars. Figures. “We’ll leave a note,” I say. “Come on!”

  She crosses her arms. “No way.”

  “Don’t be a—”

  The front door to the house directly behind Jenn opens and an old man appears in the doorway. “What are you two doing?” he demands.

  “Nothing,” I say, jumping out of the boat.

  “Doesn’t look like nothing.” He steps forward, letting the door close behind him. “That boat doesn’t belong to you,” he says. “You shouldn’t be in there.”

  “We were just—” I start, but Jenn steps in front of me.

  “We’re so sorry, sir,” she says, her voice sweet as honey. “We were just so amazed by the canals, and then we saw your adorable boat, and I thought we could take a quick picture without bothering anyone. My sister didn’t want to do it because, like you said, it’s not our boat, but I insisted. You see, our grandmother just loves swans, so I thought—”

  “Oh, all right, all right,” the man says, holding up his hands. “Take your picture.”

  I climb back into the boat, and Jenn clambers in after me. I take my cell phone out of my purse, and we snap a selfie.

  “That’s not going to be a very good picture,” the man observes. “Your grandma won’t even be able to tell it’s a swan from that angle.”

  “Oh,” Jenn says, glancing at me. “Right . . .”

  “Give it here,” he says, striding down his walkway toward us. “I’ll take the photo.”

  I hand my phone over. I half expect him to fumble with it and complain about “newfangled smartphones,” but instead he takes a step back, lifts the phone, and snaps a picture. “Let me get another angle,” he says, taking a step to his left. “This time, look like you actually have a grandma who is waiting on this photo, and not just a big sister who has a future in politics.”

  Jenn tenses next to me, but I burst out laughing. The old man smiles and takes another picture. “That’s a good one.”

  He hands the phone back to me. He’s right—it’s a great picture. Way better than the selfies we’ve been taking.

  Jenn starts to climb out, but he stops her. “You girls want to take Alice here out for a bit? I almost never use her anymore; it’d be nice to see her out on the water.”

  “Your boat’s name is Alice?” I ask.

  He nods. “After my wife. She died last summer.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Jenn says, but he waves her off. “Have fun, and get her back by dark.”

  “Oh, we don’t need that long,” I say as Jenn settles into a seat and picks up the pink oars. “Just twenty minutes.”

  “Suit yourself,” he says, pulling a key out of his pocket. He unlocks the boat’s mooring from the dock. “Just make sure you lock her back up when you’re finished.”

  “Thank you,” Jenn and I both say.

  “You’re welcome.” Then he puts his shoe on the swan’s folded wooden wing and pushes us away from the side of the canal.

  Jenn fumbles the oars into the water and starts to row. I peer over the edge. “It’s not very deep. Or clean. Where does the water come from?”

  “The canals lead to the marina, which connects to the ocean.”

  “So this is salt water?” I ask as a duck floats by in the water beside us. “That explains why it still kinda smells like the beach.”

  We continue to paddle down the canal, past landscaped front gardens full of lavender and rosemary, and a house shaped like a small castle. I lean against the back of the swan’s neck and tilt my face up to the sun. It’s midmorning, but the day is starting to heat up. I look at the houses floating by, and even though I’m still kind of mad at my sister for lying to me, I have to admit that hanging out with her is really nice. She seems way less tense than usual—like telling me the truth made her lighter somehow. I just wish she’d done it sooner.

  Jenn’s phone buzzes.

  “Thomas?” I ask.

  “No,” she replies. “Just Mom, checking in. You know how she is.”

  “Not really,” I say. “Mom doesn’t text me.”

  Jenn’s eyebrows shoot up. “She doesn’t?”

  “Nope. Unless she can’t find you. Then I hear from her.”

  She goes quiet, and I think maybe it’s finally sinking in for her that Mom and Dad don’t pay attention to me. That she is their priority, and I am an afterthought. At best.

  But then she sighs and starts rowing again. “Must be nice,” she says.

  I stare at her. Must be nice? To be ignored and forgotten? No, I want to insist. It’s not nice. I’m a stranger in my own home. I’m an inconvenience. I’m not good enough to notice, and never will be. It’s not nice at all. But even if I say these things, Jenn won’t understand. She can’t, not really. Mom and Dad worship the ground she walks on. They have for years, ever since it became clear she was destined for academic greatness like the two of them, and I . . . wasn’t.

  For a while, it seemed like that might be okay. Up until ninth grade, they were still coming to my soccer games, still cheering me on from the sidelines. Sure, we spent every night talking over dinner about which honors classes Jenn was testing into, and every morning wishing her good luck on yet another test she was sure to ace, but at least they were showing up to games once a week. But then Mom and Dad opened the store, and they stopped coming to games. I thought they’d at least ask how I was playing, but instead it was like they forgot I played soccer entirely. They forgot about me entirely. But Jenn? They always kept her in their sights, no matter what. And Jenn ate it up.

  Jenn looks up at me. “You should start thinking about which shifts you’re going to pick up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “At the store. Now that I’m leaving, I mean.” She leans forward, pushing the top of the oars all the way to my knees, then pulls back, taking them with her. We surge forward in the water. “Obviously, you can’t go until after your classes are over during the week, but have you thought about whether you want to work in the morning or afternoons on the weekend?”

  “Uh, no. Because I’m not doing any of that.”

  She frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “Jenn, I’m not working in the store. That’s your thing, not mine.”

  “No, that’s our family’s thing,” she says. “Mom and Dad are going to need you to start helping out. Especially on Saturdays. That’s the busiest day.”

  “I can’t. I have practice on Saturday.”

  “Practice for what?” she asks.

  I immediately want to throttle her. “Soccer! Why is everyone always forgetting I play freaking soccer?”

  Jenn’s eyes go wide, and I realize I just yelled at her in the middle of this quiet canal. I take a deep breath and try to regain my cool. “Look, I’m on varsity this year, okay? Which means we practice every day after school from four till six, and we have tournaments in the evenings and on weekends.”

  “Can’t you just, I don’t know, skip some of that? Or move it around?”

  “Are you serious?” When she doesn’t say anything, I say, “No, I can’t skip it, and I can’t just move it around. If I miss that stuff, I’ll get kicked off the team.”

  Jenn keeps rowing. “It’s just a hobby. It’s not like soccer actually matters for your future.”

  Her words hit me like a blow. She’s talking about soccer, but dismissing it like that—like it’s not worth discussing, like this thing I love is worthless—it cuts all the way down to my bones. Because she’s not just dismissing soccer. She’s dismissing me. />
  Not only does Jenn not remember what she said to me at Muscle Beach, she never meant it in the first place. If it’s not academics, it doesn’t matter to her. Or to my parents, for that matter. That’s why I didn’t bother telling them when I made varsity—because who cares about sports when there are calculus textbooks to read and shitty antiques to polish? Never mind that a soccer scholarship could get me into college despite my grades only being middle-of-the-road. Never mind that it makes me happy.

  This is the time to tell her about the USC rep. Right here, right now. She’d have to take it seriously then. But I don’t want anyone to know about it, not when there’s no guarantee it will work out. The only thing worse than listening to her talk about my dreams like they’re a joke would be watching her face if it turns out she’s actually right.

  “Soccer is part of who I am,” I say at last, my voice shaking with barely controlled rage. “It’s not just a hobby.”

  “I know it’s fun,” Jenn says slowly, like I’m a child. “And I’m not saying you should give it up entirely. I just think it’s time for you to look past what’s fun and focus more on what’s important. Like family. And college.”

  “That’s pretty funny, coming from someone who lied to her family for a year about exactly that.”

  Jen glares at me. “I thought we were past that.”

  I cross my arms. “You thought wrong.”

  We continue to float down the canal, but the entire mood has changed. I’m trapped in this stupid boat. Not just with my sister, but with the awful realization that Jenn’s right. There’s no way Mom and Dad won’t make me work at the store once they find out she’s leaving. It won’t matter that I have other things going on or that I hate being cooped up with all that old crap. With Jenn gone, I’ll have no choice.

  I’ll lose the only part of me that matters.

  “I know it’s disappointing,” Jenn says, reaching for the oars once more, “but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. That’s part of growing up.”