by Nancy Werlin
“Apologies kind of make things worse,” Jordan observed.
“I don’t get that and also—”
Marina held up a hand. “Stop! Now isn’t the time.” She looked at me. “Don’t pay any attention to them. Henry and Jordan bicker about everything. Oh, and my pronouns are she/her.”
I nodded. By now, I’d had time to adjust. “I’m Zoe Rosenthal,” I said. “She/her. Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Marina said, “So, back to business. The idea is that you’d share front-woman lead vocals with a puppet. Just pretend with a paper bag for now. I’ll sing for the puppet, you sing as you, and also you operate the puppet. Make sense?”
“Sure.” I stooped for the abandoned paper bag. It was a little torn but workable. I smoothed it out.
“Also, we have original music. Can you read music?”
“Yes,” I said.
As I looked at the music, I felt something strange take over inside me. A sureness. They wanted a lead vocalist. They wanted a gritty voice. They wanted someone who could sing with a puppet. I’d never even dreamed of being those things. But my singing is okay even when I’m not by myself in the shower, and also, well, in that moment, I absolutely believed—and this is embarrassing to admit—that I could become what they were looking for. That my right place was in their puppet band . . . making goo-goo eyes at my puppet . . . tossing my hair in a dance frenzy . . .
It’s like I totally forgot that I am a serious person.
I pulled a Sharpie out of my bag and drew lips and long-lashed eyes on the brown paper bag. I slipped my hand inside and moved the bag’s mouth experimentally.
“Janice and I are ready,” I said recklessly. “Let’s go!”
And then.
It was like we were all in the same movie, where the absolutely right one arrives at the audition, just when the band has given up hope, and everybody knows it’s going to work.
Keyboard guy Henry swiveled back to his instrument. He flexed his fingers, played some opening chords. Marina sang. I moved the brown paper bag as if it were singing too:
Ever since seventh grade, I’ve hated you
But I saw you crying in the bathroom
And I only have one thing to say:
Girl, they’re not worth it! They’re not worth it! They’re not worth it!
Girlfriend turn your back! Girlfriend walk away!
Second time through, I sang along too, into my fist as if it were a microphone. I waggled Janice the Paper Bag and we swayed together in time to the music. Henry and Jordan came in with Marina and me to shout Not worth it! Turn your back! Walk away!
For the next number, I was upgraded to a (clean, I hoped) sock. I ripped my ponytail out and tossed my hair around. Five original songs later—some of them needed work—we exchanged cell numbers and made plans to have band practice Sunday afternoon, in Henry’s garage. Also Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoon next week. Lots of practice, because we needed to work on music and puppeteering. Plus, we still had to make our puppets.
Henry said, “We have polyurethane. Yarn. Eyes. Felt. Glue. What else do we need?”
Which was when I came down—thump—to planet Earth.
I was taking algebra, both biology and physics, English, European history, and AP American history. I’d had to petition to get permission for the sixth class.
So: no.
No. No time!
But I nursed the puppet-band fantasy all weekend. I killed myself to get my homework done by Sunday at noon. Then I had my mom drop me off at the library, which was walking distance to where Henry lived.
The band was to be called Polly You’re Insane. My puppet would be operated visibly, by me, but there’d be other puppets dancing and singing on top of a screen, operated by Henry’s brother Josh and his friend Jesus. Henry was planning a puppet to sit on his head, operated by strings attached to his upper arms and piano-playing fingers. Jordan had their Barbie drumsticks. I failed to understand Marina’s idea for her guitar puppet but believed she would make it work.
We talked, and jammed, and talked, and jammed some more. In the middle, I texted my parents that I’d run into my new friend Maggie at the library. I said we were now studying at her house. Then the band had microwave burritos for dinner.
I had only one bite because of anxiety.
I wanted to stay in the band. I’d been having such a good time! But the all-wrong anxiety feeling grew in me and I knew, inside, that I was doing a bad thing for the band as well by staying, and that it got worse every moment I lingered. They liked me now, but they would hate me soon, when I let them all down.
For a little while longer I told myself maybe I wouldn’t let them down.
Henry had said earlier that he’d drive me home, which was a relief because otherwise I would have had to use Lyft, and the charge would have shown up on my parents’ credit card and they might have asked about it and then I would have had to tell them where I’d been and why. Which would have been fine, because I wasn’t actually going to be in the band after all. But that meant there was no reason to tell them; it would only confuse them and they’d ask questions about why I’d auditioned for a band of all things, a puppet band at that, and they’d point out stuff I already knew and agreed with, about time management and priorities and making wise choices. Then they would say with very caring faces that I could go back to violin if I wanted, if I missed music, because music was important and wonderful, and also it certainly wasn’t too late to drop a course and take it easier at school. And if I did that, they would then have pretended very hard that I wasn’t disappointing them, and very possibly I wouldn’t be disappointing them, if I were to exchange, say, violin for physics. So there was really no point mentioning anything to them.
It never occurred to me that I might tell them that I wanted to be in this band.
At eight thirty that night, I explained to the band that I needed to go home. We confirmed practice times for the week. I should have told them then. Instead, I thought about those stories of awful cowardly people who break up with other people by text or who ghost them.
I understood now why that happens.
I did one more un-Zoe thing, though. In Henry’s car, I touched his right arm. My excuse was his tattoo. I read it out loud: “ ‘You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.’ What’s that?”
“From the Winnie the Pooh movie,” said Henry. “Do you think that’s dumb?”
“No,” I said.
We were in complete eye contact.
“I got it to provide myself with constant reassurance,” Henry said.
“Does it work?”
He said, “Sometimes. Sometimes it helps me go after what I want.”
I was still touching his arm. Flirting. Me. Flirting with the edgy puppet boy! Slowly, very slowly, his eyes on mine the whole time, Henry leaned in. His mouth was a breath away. Then he stopped. “You’re sixteen,” he said. “Right?”
My skin was quivering. I knew why he was asking and I wished desperately that I was sixteen, like he’d thought. “Fourteen,” I confessed. “Fifteen in January.”
Henry closed his eyes. When he opened them, he’d moved away. My hand fell from his arm.
“I’m eighteen. Zoe?” He looked serious. “We need to be friends. That’s all, no more. You know?”
I did know.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
I moved an inch away, too, to prove I did understand.
It was the right outcome, though, because Henry didn’t want me. I knew that. He wanted the Zoe I was pretending to be. The Zoe who laughed and sang with the sock on her hand, the Zoe who was going to show up at band practice on Tuesday. Not the Zoe who was going to send a breakup text to the band. And of course, he wanted the Zoe who was sixteen.
I got it.
“You’re okay?” he asked. “We’re okay?”
“Yes,” I lied.
I couldn’t be that laughin
g, singing, playing Zoe Rosenthal, anyway.
It is very important in life to know who and what you are and who and what you aren’t, and to stick with that and not try to change, and not pretend, either.
Henry started the car. “Band comes first anyway. We’re going to be really good friends this year, all of us. Polly You’re Insane is going to be amazing.” We arrived at my house. “Talk to you tomorrow, Zoe,” he said.
I felt more myself with every step I took toward my house, and away from him and the puppets.
Before I even had a chance to look for my friends at baggage claim, I heard “Bloodygit!” Liv ran at me across the airport in exaggerated slow motion, arms flung out theatrically and the frying pan waving in one hand, an enormous Wonder Woman scarf wafting out behind.
I ran at Liv in slow motion too. We hugged and I got gently thumped on top of my head with the frying pan. Luckily it was the aluminum one. Then I turned to Cam and Sebastian and we all jumped up and down together and there was more hugging.
Sebastian was dressed as a bleeder already and totally unselfconscious about it. He wore white pajamas that fit tightly from neck to ankle, along with a red cap, red socks, and red felt slipper-shoes. He had rubbed his exposed skin with a treatment called Luminous Healing Clay, which he had praised ecstatically in a previous text. It looks just like dried blood! I can keep it on the whole time I’m in cosplay, and then when I wash it off, my skin is soft!
It all made for a candy-cane effect. People did double and triple takes. I was relieved that his new bleeding machinery—whatever it was—wasn’t also on display.
I was conscious of people looking, but in the company of my Bloodygits, it only bothered me a little. We beamed at one another and they told me catch-up stuff about Meldel and Todd, who were already at the convention center.
Belatedly, I remembered Josie. She stood off to the side.
I pulled her forward. “This is Josie, she/her, our Monica!”
My reward was Josie’s shy smile. “Hi.” Her voice came out in a squeak.
Sebastian said, “Good, hello,” and Liv said, “Welcome!” and Cam said, “We meet at last!”
He added, “I have a story for you to read later, Josie, if you have time? I’m not sure if it’s any good.”
Josie said, “Sure, what’s it about?”
“Pure invented backstory, how Captain met her husband not knowing he was a spy.”
“Wait, you have him betraying her right from the start?”
“Yes. I wonder if I went over the top. I invented this whole other character that the husband is involved with, kind of a Rasputin-like person, and I spend maybe way too much time on them.”
“Did you show it to . . .” Josie paused for a reverent moment. “Melisande Du Lac?”
“I really want to run it by you first.”
“Oh, okay!” Josie’s whole face glowed.
I was surprised. I knew that Cam and Josie had been talking online about fanfic; Josie was critiquing his stuff and Meldel’s. But I hadn’t realized they were this friendly. It was lovely to learn that Cam respected Josie’s opinion. Maybe also he was going out of his way to help her fit in? He’d done that for Sebastian, I realized. Oh. And for me, too. And Meldel and Todd! Huh. In his quiet way, Cam was maybe the social glue of our group.
While we waited for the arrival of our cosplay-crammed suitcases, Sebastian ceremonially presented me and Josie with gift tubes of Luminous Healing Clay (“Your skin will thank you”), and Liv read aloud the description of the first session we were going to at Weird World.
A meticulously dressed woman waiting near us caught my eye and said, “What are you kids getting up to here in Austin?”
“Just a con,” I muttered.
The woman smiled. “Of course! I get it. Keep Austin weird! You all have fun!”
I smiled back weakly.
It was humbling to see how quickly my self-confidence faded just because of a little maybe-smirk from a perfect stranger. I’d be okay once we weren’t out in public with the Muggles, I thought. I’d be able to put my regular life and my regular self aside, and just be me.
It wasn’t to be quite so easy this time, however.
In the shuttle van, Liv said, “I’m dying to know how you two convinced Josie’s mom and Simon to let Josie come.”
Josie answered before I could. “Zoe didn’t tell you? They don’t even know! There would have been a great big fuss and I wouldn’t have been allowed. So I told Zoe that she absolutely had to make a secret plan for me, like she did for herself. Or I’d tell Simon on her. Because I just had to come!”
In the silence, I watched the Bloodygits put two and two together.
“I feel the judgment,” I said. “I feel the judgment!”
“So what was this secret plan?” asked Liv at length.
Details spilled excitedly out of Josie. How she and I had engineered an invitation to Josie’s mom from Josie’s mom’s college roommate, so she’d be away this weekend. How we were betting that Simon wouldn’t even notice that Josie was gone.
Cam said incredulously, “What do you mean, he won’t notice?”
I said, “It’s the last weekend before the election. He’s got so many things to do for the campaign, he’ll be flat-out, 24/7, between now and Tuesday night. He told me he’ll sleep when he’s dead.”
Liv said, “But after everything you said about how responsible he is, won’t he at least check on Josie?”
“Yes. But he’ll check by text. And Josie will answer those texts.” I gave Josie a stern look. “And I will help her word those texts.”
“Meldel might help you out,” said Liv. “With the texts.”
I gave them an injured look. “I can handle it. Meldel is a little too creative.”
“My brother’s been mostly forgetting to bug me lately, anyway,” said Josie. “Thank God, because he was always trying to catch me doing something he doesn’t like, so he can explain to me how wrong I am and how I’m worrying Mom. Even if she says I’m not! He makes me want to be bad.”
“How could you afford your plane ticket and registration, Josie?” asked Cam.
“Oh.” Josie squirmed for the first time. “I’ll pay Zoe back. She knows I’m good for it.”
There was more silence in the van.
“Ooookay,” said Cam.
“Out with what you’re thinking,” I said. “I should have refused to let Josie come and let whatever happened happen?”
“No, no, of course not!” Sebastian said. “Josie is safe with us. We all had to be here to try to save Bleeders. Simon doesn’t understand about Bleeders, you always said so. I like the secret plan. Actually, Zoe, you’re getting very experienced with secret plans.” He paused, then grinned. “Zoe Rosenthal: Cons a specialty.”
Cam choked. Liv cracked up. Even Josie giggled.
Sebastian looked very pleased with his joke’s success.
Good for him.
“Hey,” said Liv. “Zoe, what happened to your arm?”
I winced, remembering. “Cat scratch. Freaking Wentworth!”
“That thing is six inches long!”
“Six and a half. Not that I measured or anything.”
The van driver said, “Convention Center.”
As we scrambled out of the van, I found myself next to Liv. We lingered behind the others. “Josie had me boxed in,” I said defensively. “I am not some . . . some con man. Con woman. Con person. I am a well-intentioned victim of blackmail who is doing the very best I can.”
Liv said, “Do you want to talk about it later? You and me? Alone?”
“Not really!” I said frankly. “Is that terrible? It is what it is. I’m just praying I get away with it.” I held up both hands to show them my crossed fingers. “Simon is totally into his politics. And he’s right to be! I was supposed to be out there, too, because it is the last weekend. But here I am. Instead.”
I laughed. A little hysterically.
“Are you sure you don’t want t
o talk it out?” said Liv.
“I just want to be here now.” I waved toward the Weird World signage. “Really.”
At Weird World, we all got into our cosplay. For Sebastian, this meant snaking tubing under his white pajamas; the tubes connected to larger packets positioned under his arms and at his hips. Liv put on a lab coat and looped on another scarf with the stethoscope-garrote. When I gave the new scarf the side-eye, they said airily, “I’m certain Torrance likes leopard print.”
“Will leopards be extinct in the future? Reduced to patterns on clothing?”
Liv said, “Stop.”
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just that I can’t always forget what a mess we’re in. Even when I want to. Sometimes it just . . .” I shrugged.
We were standing together, apart from the others. Liv said, “I do get it, you know. About Simon’s social-justice warrior principles and how you agree but can’t live in that space all the time. I sometimes think I shouldn’t even be planning for college and my personal future but instead learn farming and hunting and basically, you know, prepare for world disaster. I wonder if everything else is a waste of valuable time. So I’m kind of like Simon, only . . . less optimistic that politics will save us.”
Our eyes met, mine startled. Liv smiled crookedly. “And then I think, I’m only one person, so carpe diem, tomorrow we die anyway, and all that. Let the earth take us down if it must.”
“I didn’t know,” I said finally. “That you felt that way about college. So does my friend Maggie.”
“Only sometimes,” said Liv. “Not always. Sometimes I go to cons and play basketball and things and think it’ll all be okay and I might have a future and the right to personal happiness.”
“I keep hoping it’s okay to search for a middle way,” I said. “I want there to be joy in my life.”
“Well, me too, obviously. The middle way. The nonbinary way!” We both laughed. “Do you think there is one?” Liv continued.
“Simon’s very binary. You’re either with us or against us. Hey, do you know this meme: What’s your justice warrior name?”
