My Eyes Are Up Here

by Laura Zimmermann

  “Not for long,” I’d say. Then I’d walk up to Max and Red, and he’d drop her like a rock and I would suddenly know how to dance. Jackson would shuffle away in his ugly suit, get on a plane, and cry all the way to the Netherlands.

  Yes, that’s where my mental preparation got me.

  But that was before I found this. Sitting in the back seat behind Rafa, I fold and unfold the paper in my lap.

  I found it when I was putting away Mrs. Frisby, folded up and stuck in like a bookmark. It’s Kyle Tuck’s word find. I don’t know why Jackson ended up with it, but since Quin takes everything of Jackson’s, once it was his, it was hers.

  It’s been filled in. The scrawly penciled letters are circled in red ink and there are some other notes on it. The second I saw it my heart shattered into sharp bits, shrapnel cutting from the inside out. It’s Jackson’s writing; he makes his Gs with a little drop in front, like a goat with a beard.

  Jackson saw it? Jackson played it? Jackson kept it? I almost tear it to shreds.

  But then I see that they aren’t the words they’re supposed to be, not the words Kyle hid. Jackson has jumped from letter to letter, turning corners, making arrows, basically breaking all the rules to make it say something else. Finding something different from what everybody else would see. He’s taken a B from what should have read BOOBS and connected it to an RI diagonally and then made an arrow to where there is a GHT. Instead of the obvious JUGS and TITTIES and BIGMAMA, he’s found words that Kyle and the rest didn’t know were there:

  BRIGHT

  LOVELY

  BRAINIE (there is a shortage of Ys)

  VOLBALERINA

  FUNNY

  SMART

  COOL (except that he had to make an O into a C because there weren’t any in the puzzle)

  WEIRD

  WITTIE

  BOODIFUL

  GREER

  I fold the paper again and run over the creases with my nails. Up front, Maggie and Rafa are talking about a movie they saw where all the singing parts went to movie stars instead of actual singers. They think it’s unfair the way “Hollywood caves in to common perceptions of what’s valuable and ignores what’s actually remarkable.” I’ve never seen Maggie enjoy agreeing with anybody before now.

  I have no idea what I’m going to say. I have no idea what he’s going to say, either, but since I’m the one showing up at his house uninvited in a volleyball uniform/cocktail dress, I feel like maybe it’s my responsibility to lead the conversation.

  The ride is both way too long and way too short. I’m suddenly standing in front of the Oateses’ door without having figured anything out. Jackson answers, and I realize that all my mental preparation wouldn’t have done me any good anyway, because his suit does not fit badly. It fits really, really well. It’s dark and slim, not like the kind that are supposed to look too small; just slim like it was made for his body. His shirt is pale blue, and his tie is an explosion of tiny flowers. And he does not look like he would ever drift away alone and cry all the way to the Netherlands. He looks like half the school would follow him to the Netherlands if any of them could identify it on a map. The boy could sell a million of those suits. I bet Ty would wear a suit if he saw how good Jackson looked.

  “Do you have a minute?”

  “Um, sure. Yeah. Come in,” he says, and I duck under an arm, acutely aware that the back of my dress is see-through mesh. The butterfly is in full flurry. It feels like this time she may bust her way out of my stomach like the thing that comes out of the wall in Stranger Things. “Who’s in the car?”

  “Maggie and Rafa. They don’t mind.” I look back at them. “It gives them a few minutes to be alone. I’m kind of crashing their night.”

  It’s painfully awkward for four seconds before Quin barrels into me.

  “GREER!” She wraps her bony arms around me and squeezes like I’m both a life preserver and a lost golden retriever. It’s a nice way to be greeted.

  She’s not happy when Jackson and I head upstairs and he closes her out of his room, but there’s no way to have a conversation with her around. Or maybe there’s no way to have a conversation with me around, because I just stand there in front of him with my folded paper, staring up at the row of things on his bookcase and trying to think of where to start.

  He sees me staring at the stuff and sighs. “That’s what you meant by souvenirs?”

  I nod.

  “You want to know why I keep that stuff?” he asks.

  “Sure,” I manage.

  “It’s pretty dumb,” he says, lifting down the Beanie Baby iguana. “In kindergarten, we lived in this place called Sandy Springs, Georgia. I had two friends, Willem and Charlie. We used to play this game at recess called Jump Pile. You’d make a pile of sand, and then you’d jump on it. That was the whole game. Jump Pile.”

  It is hard not to smile at this.

  “We moved before the end of the year to Maryland, but by second grade, my dad got moved back to Georgia, and I went back to the same school. I was really happy because I already knew people this time. I thought Willem and Charlie and I would go back to playing Jump Pile. But my first day there Willem and Charlie got introduced just like everybody else. I was, like, ‘Remember, guys? From kindergarten? Remember Jump Pile?’ They had no idea who I was.”

  “Ouch.”

  “It wasn’t their fault. I was just kind of temporary to them. That’s how my family is to most people.”

  I want to object, but he cuts me off.

  “Kids were always nice. I went to sleepovers and birthday parties. But once I was gone, I was just gone. It made me feel kind of irrelevant. If you move a lot, it’s not like you forget. It’s like nobody remembers you.”

  I wonder if that’s how it’s going to be, eventually. At my ten-year high school reunion, someone will open the yearbook and say, “I don’t remember this guy. Was he an exchange student or something?” and I’ll say, “I feel like his name was Jacob or Justin or something like that? Moved to Australia.”

  I don’t think so.

  “So I wanted to make sure there was somebody in each place who would remember me. I started keeping track.” He holds up the dirty iguana. “Stella Goodman. Arlington, Virginia. Third grade. We made an animal shelter in her garage for neglected stuffed animals. Everyone else thought it was a garage sale. Iggie was the last one to be adopted. Even if she didn’t remember me, this iguana would remind her.”

  He picks up the Batman Lego boat. “Tanner White. San Jose, California. Fifth grade. We made a movie of Batman Versus Sharks and dropped his mom’s iPad in the tub. We dried it off and it still worked, so we figured it was waterproof and tried to film an underwater fight scene. He will remember me. And he’ll remember Batman versus Sharks versus Mom.” He goes through the collection, piece by piece—the doubles tennis trophy was Kai Dalin’s first win and Jackson’s first tournament. There’s an Altoids tin with a dog biscuit in it from the dog that lived next door in Cleveland. Ruffles waited at the gate for Jackson to come home from school every day.

  As he explains each thing, I start to understand. These aren’t like souvenirs from vacation. They’re not to check off “I’ve been there/lived there” or to remind him of a landmark. They are not about places at all. They’re about people. They are his way of proving that the relationships that mattered to him actually mattered to someone else, too. Like a guarantee that each part of his life can be verified by another source. He really was there. He really did count. Represented by knickknacks and toys and dog biscuits, it’s a collection started by a little boy before he knew what he was doing or why he was doing it. I’m not sure whether he even understands it now. But he knows they are not souvenirs. And he wants me to know, too.

  And then there is the Cupernicus mug. This one he doesn’t say anything about for a long time. Just holds it and doesn’t look at me. He closes
his eyes and a line of wet squeezes through his lashes. My stomach turns over.

  “You got caught stealing a mug, but the nice barista let you keep it?”

  He ignores me. Stands there for another minute, takes a breath.

  “Greer Walsh. Illinois. Tenth grade.” Do I want him to go on? Do I want to be in this collection? Because this is a collection of people who are important to Jackson, but he leaves anyway. “The smartest, funniest, weirdest girl I ever met, with these amazingly bright eyes. Completely clueless about everything that’s not schoolwork. Except volleyball. She’s okay at volleyball.”

  “I’m better than okay at volleyball,” I whisper.

  “I almost didn’t keep this one because I thought it was the beginning of something I wouldn’t have to remember because it would just last.”

  I can’t say anything. I just swallow.

  “But I misunderstood how you felt,” he adds. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out.” He lifts the cup to me. He is giving it to me. He is letting me out of his collection.

  I take the cup. I take a breath. I ask.

  “What did you see when you first met me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. What did you notice about me?”

  He looks away. He bites his lip.

  “A lot of things, Greer. Everything.”

  I wait, trying not to fidget. A few months ago, I would have done anything to avoid a conversation like this, but now I want to know. Or I think I do.

  He looks at his shelf, not at me. “You want me to say I didn’t notice? You want me to say that I only ever cared about how smart you are? You want me to say I wasn’t, I don’t know, surprised at that first volleyball game, when I finally saw you in something besides your dad’s clothes? I can’t say that, Greer. I’m sorry. I noticed your breasts.”

  I don’t know what I was hoping for, but at least the kid is honest. “At least we know you were paying attention.”

  He sighs. “Look, I’m not going to tell you I haven’t thought about your body. About your breasts, okay? I can’t tell you that I don’t think about them.”

  Jackson takes a step closer, and now he’s looking at me instead of the bookshelf. Really looking at me. I look down, uncomfortable. Or maybe not uncomfortable.

  Is there a good kind of uncomfortable?

  And then he says, “I think about your breasts. A lot. And your legs. A lot. And your hips. And the back of your neck. All the time. And the front of your neck. And your thighs. And don’t tell me that’s the same as your legs, because the way I think of them, they’re not.” His voice is quiet, and it’s close.

  It is suddenly very, very hot inside this dress, even though the back is made of mesh. The butterfly’s jaw is hanging open. And now I wish I paid more attention when Maggie talks about waxing.

  “I think about Every. Part. Of. You.”

  I look up and he is not even blinking.

  “Including my mind, right?” I say, but honestly, my mind is the last thing on my mind.

  “Sometimes. Not always. Not only.” His eyes are teary, and his cheeks are flushed. He doesn’t look as confident as the day I met him, but somehow he still looks like he’s exactly where he wants to be.

  And finally, I see it. All the ways he’s open, all the ways I’m not. The way I dodge and slouch and avoid and, yeah, maybe even hide. My instinct, even now, is to say something sarcastic. To cross my arms in front of my chest and sidestep out of the room. To say toedeledoki, which means “toodaloo” in Dutch, according to “Ten Ways the Dutch Say Goodbye,” one of the trillion stupid articles I found on my phone last night.

  But I’m looking at Jackson, and he is kind and honest and possibly the best-looking boy I’ve ever seen in real life and staring at me. He is brave enough to start over again and again with people who probably won’t remember jumping in a pile of sand with him. To choose a girl who was afraid to be chosen. If he goes to Amsterdam, it will be without anything new for his bookshelf because the one he was counting on couldn’t believe he was actually counting on her.

  I’m still clutching the Cupernicus mug—really, really hard. Butterfly is on her knees with her hands clasped, begging me not to mess this up.

  I set the mug on the desk, and for once, I know what to say.

  Nothing.

  I kiss him so suddenly and so hard that he stumbles backward and sits on the iguana. He looks up, surprised, and then he is kissing me back, and he tastes like toothpaste and lips. I can’t believe how soft his face is. His hands are on my waist and mine are in his hair. My breasts are pressed up against him because we’d have to be ten feet apart if they weren’t going to touch him, but it doesn’t feel weird. It just feels like we are squeezed tight together—all of us—and every part of me wants to be as close to him as Maude and Mavis are.

  There is so much more talking to do, about the word find and the fact that he’s kept a Beanie Baby for eight years and what a wimp he still is for not refusing to move and the jerk I am for blaming him and what happens after all this and whether Quinlan is going to give back the rest of my books and all sorts of things, but none of it seems as important as what we’re doing right now.

  This time, I am not living only inside my head. And I think I like it out here.

  And then my phone vibrates for the thirty-ninth time, and I remember that Maggie and Rafael are out in the driveway waiting.

  Are you okay? Did the sister kill you?

  Not killed. Just distracted.

  I add a winking smiley.

  Should we wait for you?

  “Um, Jackson? Would you go to the winter formal with me?”

  “I was wondering what you were doing here in that fancy dress.”

  “Well?”

  “Just as friends?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then yes. Or . . .” He sits up and squinches his forehead. “I mean, we could. Or we could also just stay here and not go to the formal.”

  He looks sideways at his bed, which once again looks very horizontal. His hand on my leg is warm and heavy, and I am thinking that I am rather curious about whether he’s got any embarrassing moles I could find. Maybe the formal is overrated. I mean, it’s not even in the binder. And staying right here with Jackson talking about my body parts for the rest of the night does not actually sound like the worst idea in the world.

  But then I think, Ms. Kershaw-Bend went to a lot of trouble to make this dress for me overnight. And I went to a lot of trouble to learn how to wear it. To wear this patchwork of parts. To wear this girl that is twirly and smart and funny and strong all at the same time.

  To wear this body.

  I am going to this formal. I’m going to dance and spin and laugh and make a fool out of myself, right out in the middle of everybody. My boobs are going to look huge. I’m not going to know how to dance. People will know that that’s all me, too. I will hold on to Jackson and he will be holding on to me, too. The only thing that would make it better is if I drove us in a rocket boat I clicked together myself.

  But I can’t drive, and neither can Jackson, so we really need Rafael to wait for us.

  One sec! J coming too.

  There’s a hard kick at the door and Quinlan barges in.

  “This is for you.”

  She dangles a string in front of me. Clay beads, threaded into a bracelet. They are bright spheres, like you’d expect beads to be, mostly hot pink and green because Quin loves hot pink and green together lately. But a few of them are rectangles, and as I look closer I see that they are meant to be books: one with an AF scratched into it for Artemis Fowl, a mouse I can tell is Despereaux, a Clarice Bean face, and of course one for Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which just has NIM scratched into one side because she ran out of room.

  “Those are your books.”


  “I can tell.”

  “You said you wanted a bead bracelet. You tried to make one.”

  “I did. I wasn’t any good at it.”

  “Well, I am. I’m really good at making things.”

  “You are. Thank you for making it for me. I love it.”

  Jackson watches this conversation curiously, like he’s not sure what to think about Monster Girl and Math Girl hanging out.

  “Mom says to say you don’t have to wear it tonight. It’s not really for fancy things.”

  “Here’s the thing, Quin: I’m not really for fancy things either.” I hold out my arm so she can tie it on me. She beams, pulling the ends of the thread so tight I’ll probably lose my fingers. I don’t think she’s crazy anymore. She’s just more obvious about her feelings than the rest of us. Maybe that makes her less crazy.

  “Mom! I told you Greer would wear it!” She runs down to yell at Mrs. Oates for being wrong.

  I dangle my arm in front of Jackson. “Since apparently you didn’t get me a corsage.”

  “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have gotten you a whole tree.”

  He kisses the inside of the wrist with the bracelet, then kisses the one without. It is weird how you can feel your wrists all the way up to the back of your neck.

  “Can I ask you something?” he asks. I imagine he’s going to ask why I decided to come here or what happens next or something else I can’t answer.

  “What?”

  “Did the High School Athletic Commission approve that jersey?”

  I look down at the dress. “I’ll probably have to get a new one for next season.”

  “You going to play next season?”

  “Of course! And Jessa wants me to try out for softball in a couple of weeks.”

  “So now you’re a softballerina, too?”

  “We’ll see. I need to learn to bat first.”

  “I know a hitting instructor.”

  “Max Cleave is not going to want to teach me to bat.”

  “I meant me! Why are you so obsessed with Max Cleave?!”