Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things

by Jacqueline Firkins

  When the French teacher played a short film about a family picnicking in Marseilles, Claire spun around from the seat in front of Edie.

  “My brother likes you,” she whispered conspiratorially.

  “Your brother likes a lot of girls,” Edie whispered back, recalling the dozen or so roses she’d seen him pass out at Norah’s party, as well as the blushes he’d incited and the phone numbers he’d collected.

  “He wants to know what kind of guitar you play.”

  “One without strings.” Edie pursed her lips, hoping to end the conversation there.

  “Interesting. That’s his favorite kind. Of guitar, I mean.” Claire bit down a sly smile as she turned toward the front of the room, lazily twisting her hair up into a big, open-jawed clip, leaving a few black wisps tickling her slender neck.

  Edie tensed. She wasn’t sure what was annoying her more: Henry’s repeated appearance in the day’s conversations or Claire’s flagrant display of freckle-free skin. Deciding on the latter, Edie snuck her phone onto her lap and added a post.

  Impulse

  noun

  A mischievous heart rate.

  A dive bar on Hillview that isn’t particular about IDs.

  An inexplicable urge to draw googly eyes on your arch nemesis’s flawless skin.

  For the next few minutes, Edie forced herself to focus on the French family’s vocabulary-infused feast as she pined for the simple pleasures of bread and cheese after a weekend of Norah’s organic vegan cooking. When her phone vibrated in her lap, she frantically opened the lexicon.

  James Miller

  noun

  My boyfriend.

  My boyfriend.

  Oh, and also, my boyfriend.

  Edie stared at the screen, guilt-ridden, until she realized the film had stopped and the lights were back on. She hated that Shonda was still so mad, but at least she’d written back. It was something. It was more than something. It was enough to give Edie hope that she’d find a way to break through.

  * * *

  At lunch Maria introduced Edie to four of her friends: Phoebe, Taylor, Katie-with-a-K, and Catie-with-a-C. Phoebe was the student activities chair (but totally not a nerd), tall, slim, and blond, with a heart-shaped face that matched her heart-shaped jewelry. Taylor was short and curvy, with a burst of corkscrew curls that was barely restrained by a velvet headband. She was an aspiring actress (but totally not a drama geek) who was aching to play all the Tennessee Williams roles that kept being given to white girls. Catie and Katie were athletes on the school’s lacrosse team (but totally not jocks), with bobbed brown hair, rosy skin, and sloped noses. They were distinguishable primarily by the unique arches of their carefully plucked eyebrows. Where Catie’s bent like boomerangs, Katie’s curved like wind-filled paragliders.

  Shortly after introductions were made, talk turned to prom.

  “Julia wants me to help get Edie a date,” Maria informed the girls over the top of her diet shake, sipping at a lipstick-stained straw. “Too bad Miss Picky over here turns up her nose at every guy she meets.”

  “Not every guy,” Edie muttered to her carrots.

  “Whatever. So you once made out with some emo nerd at his crappy garage band practice back in Yawn-burbia. I’m sure it was life-changing and he’ll write a painfully earnest song about it.”

  Edie pushed a carrot through a beige puddle of tasteless dressing, wondering how the carrot would look if she “painfully earnestly” jammed it up Maria’s nose.

  Maria went on to explain with great exasperation about how she’d introduced Edie to several of Rupert’s Harvard friends at the garden party but Edie barely spoke a word to any of them, preferring to hide among the hedges and sulk about something.

  “I warned you I wasn’t good with strangers or parties,” Edie said when she couldn’t stand the diatribe anymore. “Which is why I don’t need to go to prom.”

  The girls practically leapt on top of her, a rapid-fire chorus of indignation.

  “You can’t not go to prom,” Catie said.

  “Everyone goes,” Katie said.

  “It’s prom,” Taylor pressed. “You know, prom! Big deal? High school ritual? Best night of our lives?”

  “It’s, like, the only reason to go to school.” Phoebe slammed down her fork for emphasis.

  “Okay, okay!” Edie waved the girls off. “I’ll go to prom, but I don’t need a date.”

  As another round of outrage ensued, Edie stopped torturing her carrots, letting them lie beside the dressing as though they were sunning themselves poolside. In truth, she did want to go to prom, but not if the event came with a load of pressure to be some perfect, romantic night. She wasn’t Cinderella, Juliet, or the heroine from a sweeping love story. She was just Edie Price: standard-issue introvert, temporarily stunted musician, and best friend betrayer.

  “My brother’s single,” Taylor offered as she scrolled through her phone.

  “Great.” Edie forced a smile. “What’s he like?”

  “He’s tall, dark, and handsome.” Taylor showed Edie his photo. Then her expression clouded. “He also laughs at his own farts, he plays a lot of video games—a lot of video games—and he wears too much aftershave. Never mind. Sorry I mentioned it.”

  “What about Jacob Carver?” Phoebe asked.

  “Ew. Bacne.” Catie made a face.

  “Levi Chu?”

  “Taken.”

  “Ashton Hanson?”

  “Gay.”

  Edie slithered down in her chair as the girls continued to solve the problem she didn’t know she had, showing each other photos and comparing assessments on various potential prom dates. She ignored the screens as they flashed past her but when Katie uttered the word escort, Edie bolted upright and slapped both palms on the table.

  “You know what I need more than a prom date?” she said. “A job.”

  Maria let out a snort of laughter.

  “There’s no way Dear Mama will let you work. The neighbors would stop fawning on her for being, like, humanitarian of the year.”

  “But I need the money.”

  “For what? Iron-on patches for those things you call jeans?”

  All five girls stared at Edie. They awaited her response while she shifted in her chair, hating the attention she’d hastily drawn to herself.

  “Fall tuition,” she said quietly.

  As everyone went uncomfortably silent, Claire shimmied her way between Maria and Taylor. She set down her lunch tray and pulled up a chair directly opposite Edie.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “What did I miss?”

  “We were talking about prom,” Maria said, “till Edie tried to bore us to death by talking about money.”

  Edie’s jaw clenched. Naturally, money was boring to anyone who had it.

  “Oh, prom.” Claire waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t think I’ll bother this year. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

  The girls all leapt in again.

  “Totally.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Who needs another stupid dance?”

  “I bet the band won’t even be good.”

  Edie gaped, stunned by the girls’ instant one-eighty. Maybe she should move to another table. Despite Maria’s attempt to open up her social circle, Edie didn’t speak Popular Girl. She might learn the language in time, but she doubted full immersion was the optimal route toward fluency.

  “Doesn’t Sebastian want to go?” Maria asked. “It’s his prom too.”

  Claire shrugged as she picked up her apple and rubbed a spot with a napkin.

  “Dancing’s not really his thing,” she said.

  “So what?” Maria asked. “He can still pin a rose on your boob and look hot in a tux for one night. That’s, like, boyfriend basics. Even Rupert’ll get that part right.”

  Claire’s eyes flickered to Edie’s and then settled on her apple again, where her buffing efforts were growing more vigorous.

  “I’ll ask him about it ne
xt weekend.” She flashed everyone a smile that looked oddly forced. “If everyone else is going to prom, we should at least make an appearance.”

  The girls cheered and carried on talking about boys while Edie wondered why Sebastian had asked her to dance at Saturday’s party if dancing “wasn’t his thing.” And why was Claire still scrubbing away at her apple? Surely it was clean by now.

  Edie was still trying to analyze the subtext of the conversation when Phoebe elbowed her from the chair to her right.

  “Pass me your phone,” she whispered.

  Edie handed off her cell. Phoebe typed something in and handed it back. Edie expected to see a phone number, a guy’s photo, or a dating site. Instead, she was looking at a page with the school’s banner at the top and a bulleted list of links.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Scholarships,” Phoebe said quietly. “The school counselor assembled a list. We’re not all rich, you know, even if some of us don’t advertise that fact.”

  “Wow, thanks.” Edie smiled. Maybe she had a place with the popular girls after all.

  Chapter Nine

  * * *

  During the two weeks following her start at Saint Penitent’s, Edie researched every scholarship on Phoebe’s list. While still in foster care, she would’ve qualified for dozens of opportunities. Her grades and test scores were excellent, she had a clear sense of direction (a music degree with an English minor), and she’d participated in just enough extracurricular activities to round out her application materials. Ironically, now that her legal guardians could afford to send her anywhere (if they chose to, which they didn’t), she was forced to concentrate her efforts on only a few scholarships that were completely independent of financial need. The most promising one was worth $3,200, enough to make a solid dent in her remaining tuition costs for the upcoming year at UMB. She had almost eight weeks to complete the application and the requirements seemed simple enough. All she had to do was write fifteen hundred words on who she’d be if she could be anyone.

  On Friday after school, Edie finally found some quiet time to get started. Bert was at work, Norah was meeting with her philanthropic society, Maria was shopping, and Julia was getting milkshakes with Henry (an activity Edie prayed wasn’t a euphemism for something that didn’t actually involve ice cream). Edie settled herself on one of the curved stone benches that surrounded the fountain in Norah’s garden, determined to use the afternoon productively. She opened her notes and made an extensive roster of her favorite writers and musicians. She groaned as she assessed it. Her approach to the essay was so clichéd, she didn’t even want to give herself money. Desperate for a more unique subject, Edie looked up some lesser-known female firsts.

  Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (first woman to get a doctorate degree)

  Victoria Woodhull (first woman to run for U.S. president)

  Junko Tabei (first woman to climb Mount Everest)

  My mom (first woman to raise a completely incompetent essay writer)

  She followed these with a few female scientists and social activists, wondering if smart girls had always hated being called smart. Maybe Amelia Earhart was over the moon about it, or at least over the Atlantic Ocean, until of course she wasn’t over anything. As Edie continued to expand the list she came to only one concrete conclusion: figuring who she wanted to be was a lot harder than she’d anticipated.

  Eventually she gave up on the essay and started writing a song instead, humming a mellow tune as she filled a few pages of her well-worn notebook with lyrics, scribbling away about empty spaces, unconquerable distances, and unbridgeable almosts. Her songs often cycled back to similar images, like variations on a theme, or variations on a girl. Within about an hour, she had a solid draft of a little love song she called “Secondhand Heart.” Writing songs was so much easier than writing essays. Edie didn’t have to figure out what everything meant before she put words on a page. She didn’t have to develop a thesis statement or write in complete sentences. She didn’t even have to tell the guy she wrote the song about that he kept slipping into her music.

  And speaking of people who entered her thoughts uninvited . . .

  Edie reached into her messenger bag and took out the little box Claire had given her at school last week, a “tiny token of affection” from her brother. It was still wrapped in brown paper, unopened. Edie examined it for the hundredth time, wondering why she’d kept it and why she was keeping it now. She figured as long as she didn’t open it she hadn’t really accepted it, but her curiosity was growing stronger by the day. The box probably held another stupid rose. It might be even empty, just a test of her fortitude. It could also contain jewelry. It was the right sized box. God, she hoped it wasn’t jewelry.

  Edie was about to slip a fingernail under the tape when Maria’s car pulled in to the driveway. Like a guilty child, Edie stashed the box in her bag, vowing to throw it away before she broke down and opened it. She would not give Henry another reason to gloat. He had enough of those already. She watched her bag for a few seconds, ensuring the box wasn’t burning a hole through the canvas like some sort of satanic talisman. Then she banished all thoughts of Henry (mostly) and jogged over to help Maria unload what appeared to be a very full trunk.

  “Is all this for one night?” Edie asked as Maria handed her several shopping bags.

  “Unlike you, I require options. And there’ll be other parties.”

  “You can’t wear the same thing to two parties?”

  “Seriously?” Maria scoffed. “That’d be like bringing Jell-O to a potluck.”

  “What’s wrong with Jell-O?”

  “Hello? Like, artificial everything? And everyone knows you only spent a buck on the ingredients. God, Edie, sometimes I forget you grew up in Sticksville.”

  “You mean Ithaca?” Edie challenged.

  “Whatever. I meant it as a compliment.”

  Edie might’ve argued the finer points of flattery, but as Maria plunked the last of the bags into her already laden arms, she caught a glimpse of her sneakers peeking out from below her ragged jeans cuffs. She hadn’t thought about what she’d wear to Rupert’s party tomorrow night. No one had expected fancy dresses or high heels at the parties she and Shonda used to attend in Ithaca. But Edie was in Mansfield now. The expectations were different, and fitting in had proven challenging so far. It would be easier if she put a little more effort into her appearance. Besides, Claire was bringing her boyfriend to the party. It was the world’s worst reason to want to look attractive, but Edie couldn’t help herself. Was it wrong to want to be wanted? Not necessarily. For her looks instead of her brain? Possibly. By someone else’s boyfriend? Definitely. No doubt Henry would have a few smug words to say on the topic, though hopefully there’d be enough pretty girls at the party to occupy his attention elsewhere.

  Edie peered into one of the bags.

  “Anything in here that might fit me?” she asked.

  Maria went still, gaping like a baby bird waiting to be fed.

  “Seriously?” She flicked a hand at Edie’s outfit. “You’re, like, over the homeless tomboy thing?”

  Edie nodded. Maria didn’t ask twice.

  The girls parked themselves on the benches by the fountain, where they unpacked several pairs of fancy shoes, spilling an excess of glittery tissue paper onto the cobbled path like princess guts. Fortunately Maria and Edie were almost the same shoe size. Unfortunately Maria thought anything even remotely stable should be considered a dog’s chew toy. Edie soon settled on a pale gray satin pump with three-inch heels and six tiny, labor-intensive buckles on each shoe. It took so long to get out of them she decided she might as well wear them in for a bit. That way she could at least make a blister prevention plan and avoid the dermal grotesquerie of the last party.

  “Help!” Edie teetered as she stood. “I need a hand.”

  “What you need is to take off the training wheels.” Maria took a step away.

  Edie wobbled over to the nearest cup
id statue. While she desperately attempted to hold herself upright, Maria pulled a paperback out of Edie’s bag.

  “Put this on your head. It’ll help you stand up straight.” She handed off the book and sleeved her forearms in shopping bag handles. “Don’t break anything while I’m gone.”

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Edie lost her balance, windmilled her arms, and gripped the cupid by the neck. “You’re leaving me alone out here?”

  “Runway Road Kill is on. I’d much rather watch beautiful people stab each other in the back than watch you stumble around like a baby giraffe. So painful.” Maria shot a look of disdain at Edie’s unsteady feet. “Work on the shoes. We’ll do dresses after dinner.” She snatched the last bit of tissue off the rim of the fountain. Then she turned and marched away.

  Alone and uncertain about her attempt to assimilate with the natives, Edie made an unsteady circuit around the fountain. She quickly lost patience. Her balance was terrible. She needed a cane or a walker. Lacking either, she at least needed someone to help laugh away her frustration.

  She propped herself against the bench and added a post.

  Belly flop

  noun

  A percussive failure similar to the jingly dud.

  An abdominal agitation experienced by overweight twerkers.

  A poorly executed dive into a body of water or onto a garden path, as demonstrated by yours truly in approximately six seconds.

  She waited, staring at the screen, as hopeful as ever. When no reply came, she pocketed her phone, resolving to make the best of both her shoes and her friendlessness. Placing her book on her head, she let go of the bench. She managed six whole steps before the book flew into the bushes.