Stranger Things

by A. R. Capetta

  “That’s okay,” Sheena says with a secret, satisfied smile. “I don’t let what people think get in my way.”

  She spins me, and I spin her. My hand rushes over her waist as I pull her back in. Then she dips me, which is pretty hilarious because I’m at least five inches taller. She looks down at me and beams. I don’t know what this dance means to her—if it’s just a prom-night whim or something else—but I know what it means to me.

  It’s my first dance with a girl. And it won’t be my last.

  Sheena and I bring our hands together and put them palm to palm between us right as the song ends. Right before the entire prom committee, half the chaperones, and a red-faced Chief Hopper in full beige regalia slam through the gym doors.

  I grab my shoes—no time to put them back on—and run barefoot for the locker rooms and the back door beyond it.

  “Robin?” Milton yells. “Are you leaving already?”

  “Gotta run!” I shout right before I hit the locker room door, greeted by the ever-lingering smell of gym socks. The red Exit sign glows, beckoning me onward. Sliding on the tiled floor, I make a break for fresh air and my final escape.

  I broke into prom. Now it’s time to break free.

  JUNE 7, 1985

  If you’d told me a year ago that I would be taking a summer job at an ice cream parlor in Hawkins instead of traveling the world, my heart would have plummeted straight through the center of the earth.

  But all the money I saved for Operation Croissant barely covered the (not one, not two, not three but four) cars I messed up on prom night—including the used-car lot purchase of another Dodge Dart to replace the one I totaled. My parents forgave me eventually, but I don’t think they’ll be teaching me how to drive anytime soon.

  The silver lining was that my parents said I could have a bike again, and even gifted me one sans flower decals and the dead remains of streamers for my seventeenth birthday. Yes, I’ve crossed the edge of seventeen.

  No, my life isn’t nearly as epic as that song makes it sound.

  But I’m only getting started.

  I spent junior year making everyone at school uncomfortable with my sarcasm and sartorial choices. Even the band nerds didn’t know what to do with me. Odd Squad is officially a thing of the past—Miss Genovese decided to mix it up and grouped me with three random new trumpet players—but Milton and I get together occasionally and watch MTV as he plays his Yamaha and fills me in on how Wendy’s doing at college. Kate is still with her debate club boyfriend; their relationship seems both adversarial and adorable. Sheena Rollins and I talked a few times after prom. It turns out she’s not particularly shy, but few people at Hawkins High merit her precious words. We didn’t have the chance to get very close, though; she graduated early, got into a prestigious fashion design program, and left Hawkins without looking back. I can’t exactly fault her for that. Tammy Thompson and Craig Whitestone didn’t last (shocking, I know), but I’ve never really hoped she might run, heartbroken, into my arms.

  So that’s progress.

  Oh, and I actually tried out for the fall play, a student-directed production of Macbeth, and got up onstage in a cloak to play a witch on a blasted heath, in a move that felt suspiciously close to typecasting. (Joke’s on them: I loved every minute I spent cackling.) On closing night, Mr. Hauser was right there in the middle of the audience—sitting next to a very nice-looking man who he introduced after the show as Charles. Mr. Hauser got a new job teaching English in a small town in Illinois, and I’ve only got one more year before I can pack up and leave this place for good.

  I’m going to need a new source of income for that.

  Now that I’ve faced down the monster that is Hawkins High and lived to snark another day, a food service job seems fairly benign. Even if it’s at the shrine to newness and money that is Starcourt Mall.

  I show up on my first day of training as the mall is just opening, its white concourses already filled with people who are far too eager to spend their time and paychecks here. The food court pumps the smell of hot dogs everywhere. Everything is bright and synthetic and bizarre, an over-lit alternate universe.

  Right there, past the Claire’s and the Waldenbooks and the Sam Goody, waiting in all its sugary glory, is Scoops Ahoy. It’s a little early for ice cream, so I expect to walk in and find the place empty, with the exception of the manager who hired me.

  But there’s one other person sitting in a booth. I see his hair towering over the top before I see the rest of him.

  “No,” I whisper. “It can’t be.”

  I keep walking to find Steve Harrington sitting with his arm thrown over the vinyl back of a booth.

  “What is he doing here?” I ask the zero people in Scoops Ahoy. I guess I’ll have to speak to Steve directly. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s a free country,” he says, nearly knocking me over with the force of the cliché. Then he scans me up and down with a lazy sort of consideration. “Hey, do I know you from school or something?”

  “Oh my God,” I mutter. “The depths of your ignorance are astounding.”

  I walk behind the ice cream counter, through the staff room behind it, to the employees-only bathroom, where I don my Scoops Ahoy outfit for the first time. The white collar and puffed sleeves on the striped shirt are a little much, but I’ll admit that I sort of like the vest and the high-waisted shorts. The hat…well…the hat is an indignity that my head will just have to get used to.

  I affix the red nametag to my vest.

  I’m Robin.

  I might get you a waffle cone with double chocolate sprinkles, but I don’t have to be happy about it.

  That’s how I ended up at Scoops—when I worked my way through the mall, most of my interviews were even more disastrous than the ones I had on Main Street at Melvald’s and Radio Shack. (RIP, Bob Newby.)

  Despite my work experience at the movie theater, my new insistence on being an unrepentant and wholly honest version of myself all the time didn’t go over so well at the Gap (I wasn’t enthusiastic enough about folding T-shirts), the food court (I wouldn’t smile on command), and the new portrait studio where people pose for soft-focus photos (I wouldn’t make other people smile on command). Here at Scoops Ahoy, they only seemed to care that I show up consistently and clean the ice cream scoops between every customer.

  Done and done.

  I check myself in the little mirror, the dark eye makeup and black nails and mismatched bracelets that are now part of my everyday look clashing with the Scoops Ahoy costume in a way that I find most pleasing.

  I leave the employee bathroom behind to find the staff room is no longer empty.

  “Robin, we have a possible new hire that I want to get your take on,” says my manager, a thirty-something guy named Ned who has escaped the sailor outfit but still has to wear navy-blue slacks with white piping and a tie with ice cream on it. He flips some papers on a clipboard. “His name is Steve…Harrin—”

  “Here are seven reasons why no,” I spit out. “He’s unreliable, he’s self-centered, he shows up late for literally everything and then acts like he’s doing everyone a favor when he finally jock-waltzes through the door, he’s going to flirt with every girl who comes in until they turn the color of raspberry ripple, and he’ll eat ice cream morning, noon, and night.”

  “I see what you’re saying,” Ned wheedles. “But I wonder if it’s still worth hiring him because of his…assets.”

  I cross my arms, preemptively unimpressed. “Are you talking about his hair?”

  Ned shakes his head like he’s not proud of himself, but he doesn’t switch course. “Do you know how many girls will come in and order ice cream just to be near hair like that? Believe me, I did not have hair like that when I was younger, so I can do the math.”

  “Wait, did you hire me for my hair?” I ask sarcasticall
y, twisting the ends like I’m showing off my tresses. It’s grown out since I hacked it unceremoniously on prom night. Now it touches my shoulders, naturally wavy, dark blond or light brown depending on who you ask. It’s nowhere near the height of fashion. It’s a non-style, an in-between color.

  It’s mine, and I love it.

  Ned scoffs and buries his face in his clipboard. “I hired you because you’re a responsible young adult. That’s why you’re going to be in charge of him.”

  Hmmm. At first blush, working with Steve Harrington all summer seems like a punishment for some horrible crime in a past life. But being in charge of Steve Harrington all summer?

  That’s something I could potentially get used to.

  “All right,” I say. “Hire him. He’ll get bored and quit by Fourth of July.”

  “Welcome aboard the Scoops Ahoy ship, Steve!” Ned says as he parades out of the staff room.

  I follow him, arms crossed, still wary.

  What did I just agree to?

  “Do I have to wear that?” Steve asks, pointing to my jaunty, if completely cheesy, outfit.

  I’ve lived through so much since the beginning of sophomore year. Even though I heard that he and Nancy Wheeler broke up in the most bitter fashion, I get the feeling that Steve Harrington still needs an education in having things not turn out the way he wants them. Maybe I can give him a crash course.

  I make a disgusted noise in the back of my throat. “Are you going to be this much of a prima donna about everything?” I ask. “Because this place gets really busy.”

  “I’m nothing like Madonna, so that doesn’t even make sense,” he says with a sudden frown.

  Oh. I really like making him frown.

  “You’re going to be fine with the monotony of scooping ice cream for entitled adults and whining, sticky children all summer? What happens when one of your many friends and admirers comes in and you wish you were out there having fun instead of in here slinging another U.S.S. Butterscotch?”

  His frown morphs slightly into a stubborn look. “I can handle it.”

  “Sure you can, rocket man,” I fire back.

  He runs one hand through his hair—not preening. This is a purely defensive move.

  “I do know you, don’t I?” he says, squinting as Ned fills out the rest of the paperwork to make this scenario official.

  “No,” I say. “You really, really don’t.”

  Steve Harrington barely recognizes me, even though I spent an entire year of my life thinking about him (and Tammy Thompson). But even if he did recognize me from school, I’m so much more than anybody at Hawkins High knows.

  “Click’s class!” he shouts, and then makes a V for victory over his head. “We were in the same history class. Or don’t you remember?”

  “I remember everything, Steve,” I say sharply. I want to keep him on his toes.

  “All right, you two. It’s going to be a sweet, sweet summer!” Ned says, pulling another corporate catchphrase out of his ass. “Steve, let’s get you into Scoops gear right away.”

  “Yippee,” he mutters as Ned disappears into the back.

  “Hey, look, if we’re going to be working together this summer, let’s call a truce, okay?” Steve extends a hand to shake. “I don’t know why you don’t like me, but I’m a pretty okay guy.”

  It flashes through my head that it’s possible—infinitesimally possible—that there’s more to Steve Harrington than I know about. That the look I saw on his face on prom night was more than a passing cloud in his sunny, perfect life.

  Then he gives the smarmiest smile I’ve ever seen. Is this how he charms people? It looks even worse up close.

  “Steve,” I say sweetly.

  He moves a few inches closer—so used to the instant affection of girls that he’s ridiculously easy to lure in. He has no idea what he’s walking into here. I shake his hand and whisper, “We might be coworkers, but there is no universe in which you and I become friends.”

  He frowns again, deeper this time. “Well, this is going to be fun.”

  Ned reemerges with another employee uniform. Two minutes later, Steve is standing in front of me, fully made over. It’s the fashion show of a lifetime, really. His sailor shorts are much too tight, and the hat sits on top of his hair like a tiny lifeboat about to capsize. (I take it back. I love these hats.)

  I laugh so hard I almost cry.

  “That’s…just…wow.”

  “Thanks for really upping my self-esteem here.”

  “Can you do a spin?” I ask, curling into the fetal position in the booth as I cackle.

  Steve throws the hat on the floor.

  Ned looks flustered, picking it up and dusting it off.

  “Let’s start you both on sundae construction, okay?” he asks.

  Part of me is almost glad that I stayed in Hawkins long enough to see the great Steve Harrington working at Scoops Ahoy. Maybe things are turning upside down again, the world slowly righting itself. Maybe life will be different soon. Now that I’ve been fully myself for a year, I know there’s no going back. As it turns out, being a loner suits me beautifully. But there are times when I crash hard into the hope of finding my people. Friends who would stick with me through anything. A girl I can have a less hopeless crush on.

  There are adventures waiting for me. I know it.

  But first, I have to get through a very strange summer.

  I pull out the last thing in my bag—my Polaroid camera—and take another picture for my collection. It flashes, then makes that intense click as the white paper rolls out from the front. Steve lunges to grab the photo, but I get it first and start to vigorously shake it.

  As it slowly develops, my smile spreads.

  I’m framed in the front, smirking, while Steve sulks behind me in his sailor suit.

  “Oh, this is perfect.”

  “No,” he says. “Destroy that, right now.”

  “Sorry,” I say, pocketing the photo in my oversize shorts. “I need souvenirs.”

  He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, acting like the overgrown child that he is. “Are you going to be like this all summer…” He squints at my nametag. “Robin?”

  “Oh, Steve,” I say sweetly. “I’m just getting started.”

  Sara Crowe, without that conversation we had in the coffee shop, this book would not exist.

  Ann Dávila Cardinal, without that conversation we had outside a different coffee shop, this story might not have found its way.

  Kristen Simmons, your margin notes and marching-band expertise are everything. Hopper and I love you.

  Cory, thank you for watching Stranger Things with me. (Even the scary parts.)

  Mav, I promise we can watch it together! Soon!

  Sasha Henriques, working with you is an absolute delight, and you guided this story in all the best ways.

  Netflix and the Stranger Things team, you gave me the chance to tell the origin story of an unforgettable nerd who showed up in a sailor hat and captured all of our hearts—and I will never forget it.

  Maya Hawke, you are an icon. Thank you for Robin.

  Winona Ryder, thank you for every bit of strange-girl greatness you’ve brought to every stage of my life.

  Last but not least, thank you to the enthusiastic strangers who saw me at New York Comic Con back in 2016 and shouted “Eleven!”—even though I hadn’t seen the show yet and wasn’t wearing a costume. (Apparently, I looked like a grown-up version of El circa season one.) Without you, I might not have started this journey. Plus, Eleven is an absolute badass, so I take it as the highest compliment.

  © 2020 Cory McCarthy

  A. R. CAPETTA is an acclaimed author of YA genre fiction, including The Lost Coast, The Brilliant Death, and the bestselling Once & Future series, coauthored with Cory McCart
hy. A.R. fell for Stranger Things after being mistaken for a season-one Eleven cosplayer at New York Comic Con.

  onceandfuturestories.com

  @ARCapetta

  @AR_Capetta

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  The floor of the San Diego bus station was mostly cigarette butts. A million years ago, the building had probably been fancy, like Grand Central or those huge places you see in movies. But now it just looked gray all over, like a warehouse full of crumpled band flyers and winos.

  It was almost midnight, but the lobby was crowded. Next to me, a wall of storage lockers ran all the way down to the end. One of the lockers was leaking a little, like something had spilled inside and was dripping out onto the floor. It was sticking to my shoes.

  There were vending machines on the other side of the lobby, and there was a bar over in the corner, where a bunch of skinny, stubbly men sat smoking into ashtrays, hunched over their beers like goblins. The smoke made the air look hazy and weird.

  I hurried along, close to the lockers, keeping my chin down and trying not to look obvious. Back at my house, when I’d imagined this scene, I’d been pretty sure I’d be able to blend into the crowd, no problem. But now that I was here, it was harder than I’d pictured. I’d been counting on the chaos and the size to cover me. It was a bus station, after all. I didn’t figure I’d be the only one here who was still too young to drive.

  On my street or at school, I was easy to overlook—twelve years old and average height, average shape and face and clothes. Average everything except for my hair, which was long and red and the brightest thing about me. I yanked it into a ponytail and tried to walk like I knew where I was going. I should have brought a hat.

  Over at the ticket windows, a couple of older girls in green eyeshadow and rubber miniskirts were arguing with the guy behind the glass. Their hair was teased up so high it looked like cotton candy.