Stranger Things

by A. R. Capetta

  “Robin, you’re scowling.”

  “Sorry. I’m concentrating.”

  “On skating? It’s not making us any better, so you can just relax.”

  I’m not fixated on my footwork, though. Milton told me once that my brain works in puzzles, logic, problems to be solved. Why can’t I figure this out? Why is Tam a mystery that makes no particular sense to my brain? Why does thinking about her sometimes make me intensely happy, and other times make me feel like the high school monster is right behind me, breathing down my neck? Why is the idea of talking about her to somebody else inherently terrifying?

  I speed up a little bit.

  There are four or five other couples breezing around us in circles. They look so smugly proud of themselves, like dating in high school is some kind of accomplishment instead of a way to deal with the increasingly tight boa-constrictor-squeeze of obligation.

  Then I catch sight of two girls bombing around the rink, going twice as fast as everybody else, laughing so hard they can barely stand up. They’re probably just doing it as a joke, but nobody’s stopping them. And unlike most of the boy-girl couples making their way around the rink, they look so happy. Their hips bump together on the beat. One of the girls brushes the other one’s lower back with her hand, then dips her right in the center of the rink, her long hair brushing the floor.

  I pull my fingers away from Milton’s sweat-slicked palm and leave the floor, fast.

  “Where are you going?” he asks, skating after me.

  “Snack bar,” I shout back.

  I need to ground myself with some grease. I don’t know what’s going on right now. Holding hands with Milton? Wishing I could skate with some pretty, popular girls instead when they would sooner laugh me off the face of the planet?

  This night is getting totally out of control.

  I settle my arms on the snack counter and order two baskets of curly fries. I’ll leave one for Kate and Dash—an apology for cutting out. The other is all mine. I’m going to scarf it and then walk all the way home.

  That’s what my parents get for taking my bike.

  I look down the counter and find Sheena Rollins perched on a stool, drinking a vanilla milkshake. I wonder if she likes vanilla best, or if this is just unshakable commitment to her all-white aesthetic. When I plop down next to her, the red vinyl stool squeaks horribly. She looks up from the book she’s reading—something by Anne Rice—and cocks her head at me.

  Sheena studies me unabashedly.

  I study her right back.

  I’ve felt bad for Sheena every time I’ve seen her dealing with bullies and bullshit within the confines of school. But now that I see her in a different context, I can’t help thinking she looks like she’s doing her own thing, instead of following the crowd.

  I’m officially a tiny bit jealous.

  “You’re lucky,” I say. Sheena scrunches up her button nose with a questioning look. “I wish I were reading a good book right now instead of dealing with social fallout.” I think for a moment, then emphatically add, “The couples’ skate sucks.”

  A dent, the faintest dimple, appears on one of her pale cheeks. She shrugs one shoulder and goes back to her milkshake.

  Milton reaches the snack counter right as my fries are dropped in front of me. I grab the baskets, but they’re viciously hot, and I overturn one of them, scattering hot-fry-projectiles all over both of us.

  “Could you just…give me some space, please?” I shout, much harsher than I meant to.

  Oh, great. Now I’m being shitty to Milton because I don’t want Kate and Dash pushing me to date him.

  Milton gives me a weird look. Like he’s hurt, and not just by the fries.

  I don’t want to hurt Milton’s feelings. I hate that he’s upset right now. I hate that any of this is happening.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t…,” I start, but he’s already turned and is skating away.

  I’m stuck there with my oil-soaked fries, scarfing them all alone, which is exactly what I thought I wanted. Sheena Rollins sits a few stools down, reading silently, probably judging me. Intellectually speaking, I know that the fries are delicious, but I can barely taste them.

  “This whole night sucks,” I mutter.

  I push the basket away and stand up. Rolling over to the skate rental counter and asking for my sneakers means that Kate and Dash will realize I’m leaving and stage some kind of intervention that will make this whole thing worse—so without breaking stride, I roll straight out the doors onto the dark pavement. For a second, I think about Will Byers and wonder if I’m safer waiting inside and calling my parents to pick me up.

  But I can’t live like that, afraid of every shadow. I rattle across the parking lot, picking up speed as I hit the sidewalk. I hate to leave my sneakers behind, but they’re a necessary sacrifice. I’ll get home much faster this way, and if they never let me back in the Moonbeam Roller Disco Rink because I fled into the night with a pair of size 9 skates, so be it.

  NOVEMBER 18, 1983

  The Friday of the play, I’m sitting squeezed between Milton and Wendy DeWan. I’ve apologized twice for what happened at the snack counter, and Milton’s accepted my apology both times—and laughed about my new status as Hawkins’s most wanted roller skate thief—but it still feels like something between us is strange and strained. And I don’t like that, at all.

  I want my best friend back.

  And I want him back before the end of marching band season, when the bonds that tie Odd Squad will naturally loosen a bit. The other three members will return to their regularly scheduled high school excellence while I mildly slack around and make plans for Europe.

  So I keep stubbornly putting myself right next to Milton, waiting for this weird feeling to dissolve and for everything to go back to our normal MTV-fueled, banter-laden, couch-pillow-throwing routine.

  “This play had better not suck,” Dash says, leaning over from the row behind us.

  “It’s a school play, Dash,” Kate says. “I know that you’re the only one here who’s seen a show on Broadway, but you might have to lower your standards a little bit.”

  “That’s what I’m best at,” he says with a smirk at Kate.

  And she doesn’t destroy him.

  She doesn’t exactly look happy about it, either, but she just rolls her eyes like it’s no big deal, like this is just the kind of crap thing boys get away with saying once you’re dating them. Oh, Kate. I’m bristling enough for both of us.

  “Buckley, are your eyes okay?” Wendy asks as Dash and Kate settle back into their seats. “You’re squinting really hard.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “And the play is going to be really, really good.”

  Those aren’t my words—they’re Tam’s. I hear them come out of my mouth, like I couldn’t help echoing her.

  “Either way,” Wendy says with a shrug that sends her black ponytail bouncing. “I’m just here for those sweet, sweet bonus points.”

  “What about you, Milton?”

  “Oh, you know,” he says.

  But I don’t. Is he here because he wants to see how the play turned out, even though we didn’t get cast? Did he just tag along because more than half of the marching band is here, so we’ve got critical mass for another almost-obligatory social outing? Does he want to be sitting next to me?

  His gaze shifts from me to Wendy, then back again. “The play came so fast, right? I can’t believe the season is almost over.”

  Tomorrow we have a game, one of the last of the season. Everyone in marching band who wants to see Our Town, or get the extra credit in English for seeing Our Town, is packed into the auditorium tonight.

  After Tam asked me to come—specifically made sure I was coming—I couldn’t imagine skipping it.

  Mr. Hauser catches sight of us in the audience and waves. I can
tell, somehow, that the wave is meant more for me than anyone else. And then, to make it officially awkward, he shouts, “Robin! So glad you could make it!”

  “Are you two friends?” Wendy DeWan asks, pointing between us with her lavender nails. “It’s always so funny when teachers try to act like they know us outside of class, like because we’re nerds, maybe we’re on the same level of cool as actual adult teachers.”

  Milton laughs. Chortles, really. I’ve never seen him do that before.

  “Mr. Hauser really likes Robin,” Dash says, leaning over from the row behind us again to haunt my conversations.

  “Are you kidding? Mr. Hauser loves Robin,” Kate adds. “He waxes poetic about her papers in my class, and she’s not even in my English period.”

  “Wow,” Dash says. “That’s an even creepier amount of love than I thought.”

  “He’s just being nice,” I say confidently.

  I don’t understand why he singles me out, but there’s no question in my mind that he’s trying to be helpful. His increased attention probably has something to do with the fact that he can tell I’m underperforming in English class. On purpose. I sail by with good-enough grades, but I’m always holding back.

  “I don’t know,” Dash says, watching Mr. Hauser with a tight focus as he paces up and down the auditorium in his best brown suit with a bright-red tie. He’s double-checking everything in preparation for opening night (which is also the night before closing night). “There’s something about that guy that I just don’t like. He’s creepy to the max.”

  “Mr. Hauser is not a creep,” I snap. “Maybe you’re just smelling your own cologne and getting confused.”

  “Robin!” Kate says with a stupidly theatrical gasp.

  “Why are you defending him?” I ask. “He’s being a dickwad about a teacher you like.”

  Kate’s eyes get all big and wounded.

  “That cologne really is wafting all over us,” Wendy confirms, waving the thickly perfumed air in front of her face.

  Dash is about to launch a rebuttal, but at that moment the lights go down, so we don’t have to talk anymore.

  Thank God.

  I can’t really handle much more of this. I’m feeling hemmed in on all sides by the marching band. I can’t wait for the end of the season, when I can focus on getting a job and raising money for Operation Croissant.

  Milton and I will still hang out, of course. Once he knows the whole plan—which I had to bail out of telling him at the roller rink, but I’m going to tell him soon, maybe even tonight—we’ll have so much to talk about that we won’t need anyone else for the rest of the school year. I’m sincerely looking forward to the whole “I don’t need a social scene because I’ve got a best friend” scenario.

  As the play starts in the best, overeager tones that the Hawkins High School actors can muster, I shoot a look over at Milton. He’s sunk into his seat, looking dismal. Maybe that’s just the forced exposure to bad theater.

  But maybe it’s something more.

  Is he upset with me? Is he upset because our friends are pushing us together?

  I catch a glimpse of red hair and my eyes snap to the stage.

  It’s Tam. In the end, Mr. Hauser cast her in the role of Rebecca, the younger sister of one of the main characters. She’s wearing a long black skirt and a high-necked lacy blouse, and her hair is pulled back in two short French braids. She’s making the most of her time onstage. But she’s not overacting.

  I’ve noticed that in the morning, when she’s singing and she gets the sense that people are watching her, she’s got a tendency to really perform. But sometimes I catch her in moments when nobody else is watching, and her voice travels over the words of a song like she’s going somewhere new. I can only look at her out of the corner of my eye, because it would be so weird to stare. Besides, it might change how she sings.

  Right now, I can look at her full on, because everyone is staring in the same direction. (Except Milton. I think Milton’s looking at me.)

  When the play is over, all of the actors are mingling in the hallway, most of them still in costume. Tam is standing by the spot where the audition sign-up was posted. Her stage makeup, which didn’t look like much under the heavy lights, is caked on so thick that it looks like she’s wearing a whole extra skin. So many of the other actors are surrounded by parents and grandparents and siblings and friends. The girl who played Emily (the one Mr. Hauser cast after my little audition debacle) is holding a bouquet of white flowers.

  Tam’s arms are empty.

  I have the weirdest thought: I wish I’d brought her flowers. Stargazer lilies, those are my favorites.

  “I should go over and say something to Tam,” I say to the Odd Squad as we work our way through the choked hall.

  There, I did it. I talked about Tam out loud—and I didn’t die.

  But I am subjected to immediate scrutiny.

  “Why?” Dash asks.

  “She invited me.” Didn’t she? That day in the bathroom?

  “It’s the school play, Robin,” Milton points out. “Nobody has to invite you.”

  Fine. But that’s not really the point. “I think she did a great job. And somebody should tell her.”

  “It doesn’t have to be you, Buckley.” Dash is already herding band nerds toward the door and Friday night freedom. “I want Hawkins Diner. Only their cherry soda can wash out the taste of amateur theatrics. Let’s gooooo.”

  I know that if I push right now, everyone will push back—Kate with curiosity, Dash with impatience, Milton with confusion. They’ll want to know why it matters for me to say something to Tam.

  And I honestly don’t know why.

  I don’t want that stumbling block of a conversation tonight—another bit of distance between me and the only friends I’ve got.

  I send one last look back at Tam. She’s got people with her now. Friends. Assorted Jessicas and Jennifers. (No Steve Harrington in sight. Of course not. He’s still getting over his bruises from that fight with Jonathan, and I don’t think he likes to be seen at anything less than his prettiest. Not that he would be caught dead at a school play, anyway. Maybe I shouldn’t be quite so glad that I’m here to see Tam’s performance tonight and he’s not, but I dislike him so much and he’s so deeply unaware of me that sometimes private gloating is the only victory I can get.)

  Anyway, Tam’s not alone. Someone will tell her she did a great job. Obviously, it doesn’t have to be me.

  Why would it?

  When we get to the car, it’s Milton’s station wagon, but Dash is dangling the keys. “I’m driving.”

  “Did you take my keys?” Milton asks, checking his pockets as if there isn’t already visual evidence they’ve been stolen.

  “Shotgun,” Kate cries.

  Everyone else piles into the car as quickly as possible.

  Milton and I are left standing in the dark, cold parking lot. There’s only one seating option left.

  “The wayback it is,” Milton says.

  NOVEMBER 18, 1983

  “Do you feel like they planned that?” I mutter as Milton and I shove our way into the small, cramped space. This bench seat, a godsend for suburban moms who can’t seem to stop having kids, is usually occupied by small children, not two high schoolers who could both vie for the Gangliest Teenager trophy.

  We settle in and fumble at seat belts and buckles in the dark, our hands bumping more than once.

  “Yeah, this feels about as scripted as Our Town,” Milton says.

  I can see the barest outline of his face in the dark. He’s turned all the way toward me. I can hear his breathing, heavy and fast.

  Is he frustrated by this whole setup? As frustrated as I am?

  I thought Kate and Dash were going to back off after what happened at the roller rink. But that was far too
hopeful. If Kate thinks we should be together, she’ll make this her new extracurricular activity. She’ll be de facto president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary of the Milton and Robin Must Date Club. I genuinely can’t tell if Dash is participating in this charade to make Kate happy or because messing with us gives him something to do.

  At the diner, I get a brief break from Kate’s scheming. (I also get my nearly broke go-to order, a plate of chocolate chip pancakes, which are shockingly cheap and unfairly delicious. I ogle Dash’s club sandwich with extra curly fries, but anything expensive I eat in Hawkins is one more meal I won’t be eating in Europe.) As soon as we leave the diner, everyone lightning-bolts for their original seats in the car—leaving me and Milton stranded together yet again.

  “Our friends suck,” I say, loud enough for everyone in the station wagon to hear.

  They laugh, like I just told the best joke of the night.

  “I don’t know,” Milton says. “It’s not so bad back here, right?”

  “At least you keep it clean.”

  “Until you put your bike grease all over it.”

  Me: Wait. This feels strangely flirty.

  Me: This is just how Milton and I banter.

  Also me: Then why is Milton breathing so heavily and leaning his thigh against yours? Is it really that tight back here? Or is this something he wants?

  The idea hits my brain all at once. Maybe Milton told Dash that he was interested in dating me, and that’s where this whole aggressive plan to push us together came from. Kate and Dash might have decided that Milton needed help telling me. That drastic measures must be taken.

  Milton hasn’t been acting like he has a big must-tell-Robin-or-I’ll-die-type crush.

  Has he?

  We’ve been hanging out for two solid months and he’s barely ever seemed nervous. He’s never gotten mysteriously sweaty or looked at me with pre-kiss intensity. (My only kiss was with Joe Flaherty at a seventh-grade dance, but I’ll never forget That Look right before he dove in and mashed his braces against my closed lips.) Milton hasn’t been weird with me, ever.