I lean against the tree, breathing hard. The song switches to “Happy Jack,” and I click down the volume. School starts in less than an hour. I need to get back home, eat breakfast, and try to cram in a bit of extra studying before Sook picks me up. It’s like I lost a day trying to study with Amir. I shouldn’t have snapped like that. The pressure built too fast, and I turned on the one person who could help me out of this situation.
My stomach lurches for a different reason.
I take a deep breath, then turn the music back up and keep running.
* * *
“Are you going to apologize?” Sook asks.
We’ve been in the car for five minutes, but I’ve been immersed in the CalcU app. “Huh?” I look up. Sook’s hair is swept up into a bun, and she’s wearing clear-framed glasses. Her nails tap the steering wheel. “Apologize to who?”
“Um, to your best friend, for ditching our plans yesterday and not even texting me back. I was worried, you know. I almost texted Rachel.”
“Oh, crap.” I run a hand through my hair. “I spaced out. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy with…” I trail off. “I forgot. I’m a jerk, and I’m sorry.”
“Didn’t you get my texts?”
“I saw one…” I have this bad habit of ignoring messages when I’m stressed. They just sit there, stacking up on my phone. “I didn’t read them. I’m the worst.”
“Yeah, well, you are.” She sighs and runs a finger over her eyebrow, smoothing it down.
“I’m sorry, really,” I repeat. “How can I make it up to you?”
Sook twists her mouth. “Tinder Hill date this afternoon? I can tell you my news, finally! And I’m working on a new song that could use special inspiration.” There’s a devious glint in her eye. Inspiration means pot. It can make music pretty freaking magical.
With this upcoming test, I don’t have free time, but this is my best friend, and I did ditch her. “Sure, yeah. Right after school, though, okay? And what is this news of yours?”
“You’ll have to wait until this afternoon.” Sook nods. “We’ll pick up some inspiration from my dealer on the way.”
Sook’s dealer is the least sketchy person to ever sell drugs. A hippie in her midthirties, Beatrice grows a small crop of marijuana alongside her favorite wildflowers and legal herbs. This past summer, she gifted lavender berry teabags with every purchase.
Sook turns on to the main road.
“Is everything okay with you?” she asks.
The calculus test is Friday. If I fail, it will literally be impossible to get an A in the class. If I don’t get an A in the class, I won’t have a perfect record. If I don’t have a perfect record, I’ll be a less appealing applicant for Harvard. If I’m a less appealing applicant for Harvard, I won’t get in. If I don’t get in—
“Ariel?”
I clear my throat and muster a small smile. “I’m great. Totally great.”
* * *
I spend math class biting a hangnail and using the sum total of my concentration to avoid eye contact with Amir. I want to apologize, but if I apologize, I’ll have to explain, at least partially, what’s going on with me. And if I tell someone that this failed quiz could rewrite my entire future, the situation will become more real than I can handle.
When the bell rings, Amir stands and slips out of the classroom before I can close my notebook. Perhaps he’s also on Mission Avoid Eye Contact. As I gather my things, Mr. Eller calls me forward, beckoning with a single finger.
Dread curls in my gut. Most of my classmates are still in the room. I feel their eyes on me, wondering what the teacher wants. I glance back at Pari. Her expression flickers—hunger.
My chest is tight as I scoot as close to Mr. Eller as possible, hoping he’ll keep his voice down. “What’s up?”
“You looked a little lost in class again today, Ariel. Did you sign up for some tutoring?”
He’s speaking softly, but there are so many people around. Someone could hear. “I’ve got a tutor,” I say. “It’s all good. Thanks.” I turn before he can ask anything else and rush out of the room, hurrying down multiple hallways. Before I know it, I’m in front of the guidance office.
Ms. Hayes is smiling at something on her computer when I knock on her door. She glances up at me, eyes bright. “Morning, Ariel! Come look at this!”
Only one coffee cup on her desk today. My shoulders relax a bit. I sidle around the desk and look at her screen. It’s a GIF of a basket of puppies that tipped over, and they’re scrambling and running around the yard. “Adorable, right?” Ms. Hayes asks.
I grin, thinking of Ezekiel. My shift this weekend can’t come soon enough. “Really cute,” I agree.
She scrolls to the next GIF and asks, “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company this morning? Calculus going a bit better? I knew you could do it.”
“Uh, yeah, well…” I scratch behind my ear. “I got a tutor.”
“Excellent! Who?”
“Well, it didn’t really work out, so I’m studying on my own again.”
Her smile fades. “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?”
“We, uh, didn’t work well together.”
“That’s too bad,” Ms. Hayes says. “Is there someone else you can reach out to for help?”
“Not really…” I run a hand through my hair. It’s getting long, even with the curls. “Isn’t there another option?”
“You can’t drop the class. Students can’t drop a math or science course.”
“What? Drop a class?”
She stands and scans her corkboard, then yanks off a piece of blue paper and passes it to me. “October twenty-first. Here, you can keep that. It’s the last day a student can withdraw from a course. You can’t drop calculus, but you could drop another class to lighten your workload and make more time to study. An elective, like…” She types into her computer. “AP Spanish Literature.”
“But I have an A in that class.” I do, thanks to keeping up with the absurd amount of reading.
“I see that. Ariel, I’m only letting you know it’s possible. But I agree. You should only drop a class if you have no other options. It will show up as a withdrawal on your record. Stick it out. I’m sure you can pull your grade up.”
I stare down at the date. The two is smudged a bit, like the paper was pulled out of the printer too soon. September is almost over, so there’s less than a month until the drop date.
I can’t believe it’s come to this. I still remember my first meeting with Ms. Hayes, when I was a freshman. At the time, I remember being excited. I was special. A smart kid. A really smart kid. She laid out my future in front of me like a journey of discovery and wonderful opportunities. Smaller classes. Better teachers. The perfect college applicant.
And the sick part is, when I’m doing well, I still feel like that special kid. Like I’m important for having so much work. Kids at school brag about all-nighters like badges of honor. There’s this twisted part of me that feels proud, invigorated even, every time I stay up all night.
But I’m not special. I’m not smart enough. I put on a front, and now it’s catching up to me.
“I didn’t realize… It was just one grade…”
Ms. Hayes lowers her voice. “Look, I’m not supposed to share this, but I know Pari Shah is also applying early action to Harvard. If they only accept one student from here like last year, well, it’s tight competition. You can’t slip up.”
Nausea sweeps over me.
“I’m not trying to overwhelm you, sweetie.” Ms. Hayes reaches across the desk and pats my hand. “You have some decisions to make, that’s all. I really think you should try again with that tutor. Will you do that for me?”
“Yeah.” I slip my hand away, so she won’t notice it shaking. “Sure. No problem.”
* * *
“Want more
?” Sook asks.
I nod, and she passes me the joint. It’s down to the length of a pen cap, so when I take a hit, the smoke burns my eyes as much as my throat. “Another?” I ask, throwing the roach to the ground and grinding it out with the bottom of my metal water bottle. My head buzzes, fizzes.
“Fantastic idea,” Sook replies.
We’re sitting on a giant boulder, half a mile down the twisted trails of Tinder Hill. Canopies of leaves provide respite from the lingering summer heat, but the air is still tacky with humidity.
Sook pulls her lighter and a second joint from a floral-printed pencil pouch. She lights the joint and takes a hit before handing it to me.
The weed eases my racing pulse. I don’t smoke often, especially not during the school year. Usually I like my express train of thoughts. It gives me an edge, helps me get more done. But for today, for the moment, I need to chill.
“Grateful Dead okay?” I ask, queuing up music on my phone.
Sook laughs. “Fine, I guess it is appropriate.” She snatches the joint back from me. “Maybe it’ll be good inspiration to mix it up anyways.”
“Scarlet Begonias” begins to play. Sook and I finish the joint and lean back on the boulder. There’s a cool breeze and a dappling of sun through the trees. Jerry Garcia’s music mingles with the sound of wind ruffling leaves.
“Remember the first time we smoked?” Sook asks.
“Unfortunately, yes.” I laugh. “Summer before ninth grade. Isaac had some, but he was worried they were going to drug test him for football, so he gave it to us.”
“And we came right to this boulder,” Sook says. “Well, after walking around for like two hours trying to find the least suspicious spot.”
“And then we had to YouTube how to roll a joint. And how to light a joint. And how to smoke a joint.”
Sook laughs. “It was a lot of work. Good thing we were fast learners.”
I’ll never forget that summer. My last months of freedom before high school; though I didn’t know what high school would be like at the time. It was also the summer I started figuring out my sexuality.
I’d always been attracted to girls. My first kiss was as clichéd as it comes—a game of spin the bottle in sixth grade, a red-cheeked peck with Cindy Lao in front of twenty of our closest friends. Then in seventh grade, I had my first real kiss. It was Ava Newman’s bat mitzvah party, and Hailey Bloom and I snuck out of the social hall and down to the east wing of the synagogue and made out for ten minutes in an empty preschool classroom. It was great.
But in eighth grade, I met Ian. He had blue eyes and played bass in orchestra, and my stomach flipped every time I saw him. I tried to brush off my interest as nothing, a silly infatuation. I liked girls, not guys. But the infatuation progressed into a hard-core crush, and one day, I was hanging out with him in the bass room after class, and he kissed me, and I kissed him back. And it was great, too.
It took a lot of processing. I knew bisexuality was a thing, but I guess I wanted it to be simple: straight or gay. Sook, already out as a lesbian, was the first person I confided in. Over that summer, she helped me confirm that yes, I am attracted to girls, and yes, I am attracted to guys, and yes, bisexuality is definitely a thing, and it might be complicated for some people to understand, but it’ll get easier.
And then we watched that Brooklyn Nine-Nine scene where Rosa comes out as bisexual to the squad about a hundred times.
Sook nudges me. “Whatchya thinking about?”
I nudge back. “How much I love my best friend.” I laugh. “God, I was such a dork back then. I tried so hard to be high. Like they are in the movies. I kept staring at my hands. And I decided I was ravenous, so I ate the leftover crusts in my lunch bag and acted like they were the best tasting things ever.” I pause. “Damn, we should’ve brought snacks today.”
“Ariel Stone doesn’t have sour candy on him?”
“I’ve failed us. We’ll never learn.”
The song switches to “China Cat Sunflower.”
“I like this one,” Sook says.
“It’s my favorite. Sounds like sunshine.”
“I want to do that. Evoke a feeling so pure.” Sook closes her eyes and hums, her fingers playing against her arm, like how I practice violin against mine.
As the song finishes, I ask, “So, are you going to tell me this special news of yours?”
Her smile is contagious. “I thought you’d never ask.” She sits ups and straightens her shirt. “My parents offered me a deal.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What kind of deal?”
“A deal that would let me pursue my music instead of going to their crap little school.”
I clear my throat. “Okay, let’s not call Dartmouth a crap little school.”
Sook’s parents are forcing her to go to Dartmouth, their alma mater, where she’ll definitely be accepted thanks to their donations and Sook’s intelligence. I try to muster sympathy for my best friend who has to go to an Ivy League school. I get that Sook doesn’t want to go live in a small town, but an education at Dartmouth could set her up for life.
“Yeah, okay, I know,” she says. “It’s an amazing school. Great education. Etcetera. But it’s like in the middle of nowhere. Not the place to rise to musical stardom. But if I go to school in Atlanta or even Athens, there’s a huge music scene, and Malka and I can keep playing together.”
“So what is this magical deal?” I ask.
“My parents say if Dizzy Daisies signs with an agent before graduation, I can pick whatever college I want!”
“Oh. Awesome.”
Sook narrows her eyes. “Why aren’t you more excited? Be more excited for me.”
“I am!” I laugh and hold up my hands. “Promise. But how do you plan to get an agent?”
“With hard work and brilliance. Duh.”
“All right, then.” Sook is a determined person. If anyone can do it, then it’s probably her. “Hey, speaking of brilliant female musicians, how are things going with your dream girl, lead Carousels’ singer Clarissa?”
“Excellent!” she says. “We’re mutuals on Tumblr now, and she listened to one of our songs and left the comment, ‘Great sound.’”
“Impressive progress,” I say, then fiddle with my phone, switching over to the Beatles. “Yesterday” begins to play. Gentle guitar fills the air. Sook and I pause for a moment, the lyrics washing over us.
“I wrote a new song,” Sook says. “It could really use some violin.”
“Sook—” I warn.
“Don’t say no yet. Look, Malka is coming over for practice today. Join us and listen to the song. I’m only asking you to think about it.” She nudges me and smiles, literally batting her eyelashes. “Please?”
I sigh, grinning despite myself. “Fine. But I’m not promising anything.”
Sook squeals. “Deal!” Her eyes soften, and she leans into me. “I’m glad we came out here today,” she says. “We only have so many afternoons left together, you know?”
Her words hit harder than expected. A year from now, we’ll likely live in different states and only see each other on school breaks. I’ve been so busy racing to the finish line, I haven’t thought much about what happens when I cross it.
“We have plenty of afternoons left,” I say. The music fades back in, with McCartney’s melancholy voice and steady guitar. I wrap my arm around Sook and pull her into me. She’s soft and warm and smells like yesterdays.
* * *
A baking sheet clatters to the floor. “I’m okay!” Sook yells. “We’re good! The cookies are good!”
She giggles, and I snort, and then we both break into hysterical laughter.
“Oh my god,” Malka says. “Are y’all high?”
“Yup,” Sook responds.
Malka rolls her eyes. “Thanks for the invite.”
“You were in class!” Sook says.
“Fair point, I suppose.”
We’re in Sook’s Food Network–style kitchen. Gigantic island, marble countertops, stainless steel appliances, three ovens. We live in a well-off area, but Sook’s family has some next-level money.
The kitchen smells like the inside of a warm cookie. Sook is making my favorite: chocolate chip with chunks of melted caramel. I should be at home studying or at least practicing my violin solo, but it feels good to say screw it for an afternoon. Still, I can’t relax entirely.
“We’re home!” two voices call out. Her parents walk into the kitchen. “Mmm, smells good,” her mom says, kissing Sook on the cheek. The female Dr. Kim has short hair and dresses like a teenager, preferring jeans and T-shirts over business attire. She’s rarely home, always disappearing to work on her next invention. Most of their fortune comes from some kind of extra-strength fabric she sold to the military for an obscene sum.
“Ariel, it’s good to see you!” Sook’s dad says. “It’s been a while.” The male Dr. Kim prefers tailored slacks and expensive shirts. Maybe because he’s a neurosurgeon he gets tired of spending most of his time in scrubs.
“Good to see you, too,” I say. “Sook told me about the deal y’all made with her. Very cool of you.”
“Ah, well,” her mom says. “I’m sure she’ll still end up at Dartmouth.”
Sook’s brow furrows. “I’m going to get an agent.”
Her mom nods with a soft smile. “Your music is very good, sweetheart. But you have your entire life to play it. I don’t want you stressing yourself out too much.”
“And you’ll love it at Dartmouth, Sook. You can play music there!” her dad says.
Sook mutters something under her breath about shitty coffeehouse open mics and turns back to taking the cookies off the tray. We keep chatting as her parents put the groceries away. Then we grab the cooling cookies. I pile four on my napkin while biting into a fifth. The caramel is warm and chewy. Bless these cookies.
We thud downstairs to Sook’s basement. There are soundproof walls, an array of instruments, and leather couches. Sook settles at the table with the Mac desktop, while Malka and I jump on the leather couch.
You Asked for Perfect Page 6