I live in the space between my large-chested internet sisters. I want to be able to stand by Pru and demand that the world make space (and bras and seat belts and crossover purses) for my kind of body. But it hurts. They hurt. My whole body hurts in all the ways you’d think it hurts and a bunch of ways you wouldn’t. And so I also want to wake up in the recovery room next to Kelsey, pop a couple Vicodin, and not have to wait for the world to be better than it is.
I am ashamed of being ashamed of being ashamed. And that is the part that no one else understands.
CHAPTER 37
Mr. Coles has rejected most of Maggie’s revisions to Seven Brides.
MC: How about one of the brothers is gay, so it’s six brides and one groom for seven brothers?
Mr. C: No. We’ve already cast the play.
MC: How about the girls from the village are a team of rural health-care workers who find the brothers living in squalor and treat them for tuberculosis and agoraphobia?
Mr. C: No. It’s a love story. People love a love story.
MC: How about we call the “girls” from the village “women,” because otherwise it suggests that they are minors and therefore Milly’s being pregnant is evidence of statutory rape?
Mr. C: No. A lot of the lyrics rhyme with girl. Nothing rhymes with woman.
MC: How about instead of cleaning up for them, Milly gives the brothers a copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing and they do it themselves?
MC: Never mind. That was Greer’s suggestion.
Mr. Coles does agree that instead of kidnapping the ladies from the village, it would be better if they consent to go with the brothers to their lodge, and the whole group sneaks out of town together.
Tiny victories.
I head to the auditorium to wait for her after rehearsal. Practice today was dive and dig drills. My everything is sore, and I could really use a shower.
I slip into the back of the auditorium as a few kids filter out. Rehearsal is over.
Maggie is onstage with Rafael Ramos-Sikes, a very quiet junior who is in the pit orchestra. Now he’s at the piano, with Maggie standing next to him. Everybody else is gone or on their way out.
Maggie is singing from a sheet of music, finding her way through some lines.
I am on your side
There’s nowhere else
I’d rather stand
Than right beside your side
It’s not from the show. I’ve never heard it before. When Maggie can’t get the melody or the cadence quite right, Rafa sings the line for her and then she repeats it perfectly. It’s sweet, both the tune itself and the way they’re working on it together.
And if you’re never right
I still won’t see the other side
Of any of your fights
’Cuz you’re the only side I’ll be on
“Is it too repetitive?” Rafa says, still playing.
“No, it’s good like that. Like a circle.”
“I was thinking of doing it in a round!”
He comes in behind her, overlapping sounds and words. Now I know why I’ve never heard it: Rafa wrote it. His voice is just a little lower, and they sound really good together.
He stares up at Maggie through his big Clark Kent glasses, not even looking at the piano or the music. I think he might have written it for her.
“Wait, is this next part the bridge? You sing the bridge,” Maggie says.
And if you start a war or two
That you will never win
I’m in
The line is too high. He cracks, but I love it, because it sounds so real. I want to clap. He and Maggie start laughing, though, and the piano trails off.
“That’s it so far,” he says. “It needs work.”
“Maybe move it down a third,” she says. “But otherwise it’s great. Really.”
It gets dead quiet. I am nervous. Not for me but for them. I wish I was the one on the bench and at the same time I am glad I’m not the one on the bench. This will always be my problem. I can’t enjoy the not knowing.
Rafa says, “Would you maybe want to . . .” They have no idea I’m here and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want me to be. I try to slide out of the seat onto the floor but the seat bottom flips up and squeaks.
“Greer?” Maggie calls.
Rafa turns pink under the stage lights. I feel terrible for him. I have completely messed up his pitch, and he is so shy when he’s not singing.
“I’m going to wait outside,” I yell too loudly, and trip over my backpack. “You guys sounded really awesome,” I say on my way out the door.
She is out a minute after me, so I know Rafael didn’t get a chance to say whatever it was he was going to say. She immediately starts ranting: Lizzie Barnes aka Milly wants all the girls to wear braids for the show.
“That is what she is spending time on: telling other people how they should do their hair.”
“She wants everybody in braids?”
“Not everybody. Everybody else. She’s not wearing braids. That’s how we’ll know she’s special. She even suggested that the rest of us wear the same color dress, and she’d wear white or red or something to stand out.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, but Ms. K-B told her there wasn’t enough of any one kind of gingham in the costume shop, so that plan is off, thank god. But she talked Mr. Coles and the assistant into her fascist hair plan.”
“If you need any help, Mena Patel is a miracle braider. And not a fascist.”
“I was like, ‘Do you mean like those beach braids you all got on spring break last year?’ Remember that? She and what’s-her-butt and the other what’s-her-butt went to Playa del Carmen with her mom?”
What I remember is that they all came back with strapless beach tops that definitely violated the dress code and completely fascinated me. How are they even staying up?!
“She’s like, ‘NO, MAGGIE’”—she goes on in a piercing impression—“‘You know what I mean. One or two braids MAXIMUM.’” Maggie thinks a second and says, “Do you think Mena can do those beach braids?”
I can’t quite see where Maggie’s going with this, but I don’t want to accidentally put Mena in the middle of drama-kid drama. “I take it back. Leave poor Mena out of it. New subject: Did Rafa write that song?”
“Yeah. He’s writing a whole musical. He’s good, right?”
“Definitely. So he likes you?”
She sighs. “Maybe. But he’s so shy around girls. He’s like you.”
“I’m not shy!”
“You know what I mean. You get weird. No offense,” she adds. I want to be offended but I can’t. “He was probably relieved you tripped over the chair.”
“Technically, I tripped over my bag. If he’s too shy, why don’t you ask him out? Throw a guy a bone.”
“I don’t know. He’s sweet and smart and an amazing musician. And somebody told me they saw him at the Women’s March. But I can’t get him to talk.”
“Perfect! You’d do all the talking.”
She slaps me on the arm. “Seriously. The other day at practice we sat there doing nothing for a half hour while Mr. Coles tried to teach Aidan Neal a step-ball-change. The only thing Rafael said the whole time was ‘Are you allergic to anything?’ and then he offered me a peanut butter PowerBar.”
“You love peanut butter PowerBars.”
“Yeah, but I’m telling you, he’s a mouse. I mean, can you see us together, I’m kind of . . .”
“A lot,” I say. She sighs and doesn’t even try to argue.
We’re at the car, and we both automatically climb in the back. “Ah, I feel like an Uber driver up here?” says Max from the driver’s seat.
“You climb up there,” Maggie says. She’s already sp
read herself and her stuff out like she’s on a transatlantic flight.
We’re in a line of cars crawling toward the exit. I thread a leg through the opening between the seats and squeeze through, kneeing Max hard in the shoulder on the way up front. “Sorry!” I’m squatting on the seat trying to get my other leg free when the line stops short and he stomps on the brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of us. I tip over into his lap. “Sorry!” we both say this time. People behind us honk and Max puts his hand out the window to flip them off while I flail myself into my seat like an octopus climbing onto an English saddle.
The seat belt fits right between my breasts, like a mountain pass. Max seems uninterested in the fact that I was just sitting in his lap, but I am completely flustered. I cross my arms in front and slouch into the seat. Max looks sideways at me.
“Buckled up? Can we go now?”
“Yep. Thanks.” I will probably still be blushing when I go to bed tonight.
CHAPTER 38
“My mom wants to know where you went for the Indian spices so she can put it in her resource binder.”
“Her what?”
“The big three-ring binder she keeps with all her recommendations for her clients. Like where to leave yard waste and who the good orthodontists are.”
“Why doesn’t she ask my mom?”
“Are you kidding? That would be admitting that your mom knows something that my mom doesn’t. It would undermine her authority.”
“She has you doing her dirty work?”
“No, she’s driving to all the specialty shops and ethnic grocery stores in a fifty-mile radius trying to figure it out. She doesn’t know I’m asking.”
Jackson grins. “What is this secret worth to you?”
“I have exactly two dollars if you’re trying to blackmail me.”
“That’ll work. You only need seventy-five cents if you have a student ID.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The bus. I’ll take you to the secret spice hookup after school if you want.”
The butterfly puts on a bus driver’s uniform and drives the express all the way through my gastrointestinal system. I remind her that we are busy.
“I have volleyball.”
“Can’t you miss it? It’s for the binder! You’re excused if it’s a family emergency.”
“Emergency?”
“It’s the binder!”
“It’s a game.”
“Today?”
“Away. St. Matt’s.”
“Ah. Okay.”
Does he look disappointed or am I imagining that?
“Klaus! Klaus! Gooooten morgen!” Red Hair fahrvergnügens right up to us. The German teacher gives everyone German names and apparently “Clow-oos! Clow-oos!” is Jackson’s. Red’s wedged herself in at a forty-five-degree angle to face Jackson, so it’s clear that it’s not me she’s talking to.
“Our group is going to work on the video after school. I can come by your locker and we can walk up to the media center together.” She casually lays a hand on his arm, a line between us, and blinks her big Disney princess eyes at him.
I can’t tell if she thinks she’s his boss, because she’s telling him what he’s going to do, or his assistant, because she’s graciously offering to help him find the media center in case after six weeks he’s still getting lost. Either way, I’ve got to give it up for her flirtatious mastery. I’d fall for it. It would be sort of fascinating if it wasn’t Jackson she was talking to.
And then Jackson makes a big slide to the right, pivoting the whole conversation so that she’s not in between us anymore. “Well, Greer, since you have a game, and I’ve got to work on mein Gruppenprojekt, maybe we can do the other thing this weekend?” My mouth falls open. “Saturday morning?”
“Yeah,” I manage. “Saturday. Sure. That could work.”
Red scowls, like she hasn’t realized until this point that I am capable of speaking. I’m a little surprised by it myself.
“Great! Have a good game tonight,” he says, and allows himself to be tugged down the hall by the envious Fräulein.
“You too,” I say automatically. “I mean thanks. I mean danke.” They are too far gone to hear me.
I float into math class wondering what I just agreed to and land in front of Kurtis and Omar, who are comparing homework. “Greer! Can we see what you got for fourteen?” says Kurtis.
“Huh?”
“Did you do the homework?”
These guys have known me for ten years. Kennedy doesn’t have a math team, but if it did, we’d be it. Have I ever not done the homework?
I pass my notebook back to them, trying to imagine what Jackson might be imagining about going to the spice place this weekend. Is it politeness because there’s a secret shop that’s off the grid and he would feel guilty if I got lost? Is it charity because my mother told his mother that I don’t get out much? Is it because he’s still kind of new and he doesn’t have that many friends and I am not completely vile to be with when Max Cleave and the baseball team are busy? Or is it because he actually wants to do something with me?
No, just a friend thing. I’m Re-Lo Jr.! Not threatening. Friendly like a sister. A sister who is not a klepto elf.
But remember when he brought that muffin?
Kurtis and Omar are bickering behind me. They have gotten different answers on number fourteen. Whenever this happens, they check to see who got the same thing as me. “Hey, Greer!”
The problem is that all three of us have different answers this time, so there’s no majority consensus.
I pull my notebook back and walk them through it. Kurtis is off from the beginning. Omar has the right idea but one of his calculations is wrong, which messes him up for all the steps afterward. Omar’s handwriting is awful, so most of what he gets wrong is because he can’t read what he did before. These guys trust me, though. I’m the Jessa here.
Ms. T is giving the speech she always gives before she returns a test. She knows she is dealing with a bunch of fragile smart kids. If you have a class where 100 percent of the students have been getting As in math for 80 percent of their lives, and then you set the curve so that 70 percent of them will get a B or less, you’ve got 90 percent of your class freaking out all the time. She explains the weighted grading and the retake policy for the hundredth time this quarter. The longer and slower she talks, the more people did badly on the test. Judging by her eulogy today, there will probably be tears.
Even though Asher Moonpie and Anitha Das get straight As, they look like they’re going to be sick before they get their tests back. I don’t freak out about these things. It’s not just that I know what I’m doing. It’s that I know that I know what I’m doing. In math.
I freak out about legitimately scary things. Like going to shop for Indian spices with a polite and non-maniacal fellow student.
There are sighs of relief from some and tiny embarrassed gasps from others as Ms. Tanner walks the papers around. Anitha, whose eyes were watery until the moment she grabbed the paper out of Ms. T’s hand, smiles at her test. She did well, as always, and is for some reason surprised, as always. Asher looks kind of sick. He’s staring at the second page and scratching one spot on his head very hard. He probably got one wrong. Kurtis and Omar are handing their papers back and forth, so I’m guessing they both did all right. I know the groaning sound that Kurtis makes if he bombs a test, and I know that if Omar bombs, Kurtis tries to cheer him up.
I get a 38 out of 35. That’s not bad math; it’s the bonus questions. Ms. T gives everyone a minute to come down off their high or pull themselves up from the pit of despair before she starts in on homework review.
Once we dive into the homework, I have the entire period to dwell on the spice store. Until:
“Greer!” Kyle Tuck snorts as the bell sends us packing. “Could you help me w
ith this problem?” His goony friends are standing behind him laughing through their nostrils. Kyle hands me a scrawled equation on a half sheet of notebook paper:
[arctan (1) × 1,290]—2(4!)
I can guess what he’s trying to do, and let my hair fall in front of my face so they won’t see my cheeks turn red. I’m more mad at myself than at them for that. I’ve promised myself I won’t let them get to me, but they always do anyway. I go from the ultra-confident A student to the ultra-awkward H cup in one second flat.
Not flat.
Never flat.
I set down my backpack to edit his scrawl. “But, um, don’t you want to do it on the calculator?” Kyle is disappointed that I am doing the work with a pencil, because the joke only works if it’s on a calculator.
But the joke won’t work on the calculator, either, because he’s done it wrong. His equation equals 58,002, or ZOO,BS.
I change the last part to 7(3!) and hand back the corrected problem. That will get them the answer they want. I can’t make them understand how horrible they are, but at least I can prove that I am smarter than they are.
“I think this is what you were going for. And you have to use degrees instead of radians.” On my way out, I add, “How did you guys even make it into this math class?” I don’t wait for them to input the problem into their calculators so they can finally see some BOO,BS.
CHAPTER 39
“Take choir. It’s easy.” Kate Wood is on her knees, leaning over the back of her seat to talk to me and Jess.
“I’m not really a singer,” Jessa says.
“Doesn’t matter. They don’t grade you on your singing. They grade you on participation.”
My Eyes Are Up Here Page 13