Girl, Unstrung

by Claire Handscombe

  We keep having to pause the movie to explain it to her and Harry. At this rate, it’s never going to end. I’ve seen it a billion times already though, so it’s not like there’s any suspense. My favorites are Liesl and Gretl. the oldest and the youngest. Just like in our family, they’re the most interesting. Everyone else kind of blends and blurs together. Seven children, though. Seven! Sometimes I think four is crazy. You never get a moment’s peace around here. And it’s not long before I realize the other cringe-inducing similarities between the story of this family and ours. Maria, the stepmother no one likes and then learns to love. Except everyone else in this family has always liked Ebba.

  I love the thunderstorm scene, I love that mom and dad still make us do our own version of My Favorite Things when we’re scared or sick or nervous. Maybe I should try it myself when I can’t sleep. The crisp white of new viola music before I mark it. My feet in the warm sand of Coronado beach. My mom’s hands in my hair when she’s French braiding it. The sweet smell of rosin. The applause of an audience after a solo at a concert. Harry’s giggles when I tickle him. Those are a few of my favorite things.

  Just before that song, there’s the part where Liesl climbs up the drainpipe and tries to make it through Maria’s room before she notices. Maria’s praying, but really she’s talking to Liesl. “Help her to know I just want her to be her friend,” she says, or words to that effect. I’m sure I can feel Ebba’s eyes on me. I sneak a look in her direction and for the splittest of split seconds our eyes meet and I can tell she’s trying not to smile and pretty soon I’m trying and failing too. It’s the shortest moment; it’s over before any of the others notices, probably. But something passes between us. Does she really care about me, the way Maria cares about Liesl? Or does she make herself care because she loves dad and we’re a package deal? I’d ask her someday, if I wasn’t so scared of the answer.

  I don’t know why I’m afraid. I don’t need Ebba. Liesl didn’t have a mom. I do, and she’s great, and sometimes I wish I could live with her all the time. It doesn’t matter if Ebba doesn’t actually love me. If, like almost everyone else, she only loves me because of dad. But sometimes, times like when she just looked at me, I feel like maybe she does actually care. That I might be hurting her by pushing her away. I guess I didn’t care about that before. I maybe even wanted to hurt her. But I don’t know now. Sitting on the sofa with dad’s arm around her and Rosie’s head on her shoulder, she kind of looks like she belongs there. And dad looks happy, not in a delirious, going-to-break-into-song-and-dance-any-minute kind of way, but in that super peaceful, content kind of way. Like sitting on the sofa surrounded by his kids and his new wife is one of his favorite things. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s nice. Even I can admit that. Being so angry all the time is exhausting. It’s good to have a break from that, too.

  JULIETTE’S FAVORITE scene, of course, is the dancing-in-the-gazebo scene. I like it too. I wonder if swoopy-haired Tim can dance like Rolf. I already know Tim’s not a Nazi, though – no-one in his family even voted for Trump – so he definitely wins over Rolf in the potential-boyfriend Hunger Games.

  I hope he kisses me on the ski trip. Not just a peck on the lips like Liesl and Rolf, a proper kiss, long and deep, with tongues. As far as I know, nobody has yet died asphyxiated from kissing, so people must figure out where to put their noses when the time comes. I hope I’m a good kisser. Or does that come with practice, too? I sort of hope not, because that would make me a beginner, and beginners are painful to experience. I feel sort of bad for what I made my parents endure when I was just a baby violinist, though I’m sure I was better than most. Maybe that’s what I’ll be like at kissing. Really good for a beginner. Good enough that Tim will forget about Madison Harper and about who my dad is and the parties he thinks I can get him into (but which I probably can’t) and instead he’ll just be thinking about me and hot I am, even though I’m actually not hot at all.

  The thought of it makes me blush. I can feel my cheeks getting red and Ebba’s eyes on me again. (How do we feel these things, anyway? Or is not a feeling at all – is it the fact that my peripheral vision catches her, not enough for me to consciously see it, but enough for it to register in my brain?) I think about how nice it would be to talk to someone about Tim, really talk. Not to Katie, because I don’t want to draw attention to the fact that he hasn’t kissed me yet. And not to mom, because, I don’t know, that feels weird sometimes. But to someone who’s more like a big sister. Like Ebba. But she’s not my sister, and this isn’t Gilmore Girls, either. She’s the person on the sofa next to my dad, where my mom should be.

  “Did you know,” Juliette starts, breaking into my thoughts. I already know what she’s going to say. “Liesl had a sprained ankle when they filmed that scene. How do you dance like that on a sprained ankle?”

  It’s not really dancing, let’s be honest, more like prancing around, but still, it’s a valid question.

  “Adrenaline,” Ebba says. “Painkiller injections. Plain old teeth gritting.”

  “But she’s not even wobbling,” I say, helping myself to a fistful of popcorn, without spilling any on the floor. “You can’t tell.”

  “Acting,” Dad says.

  “I still don’t get it,” Juliette says, furrowing her brow, like she’s trying to figure it out because one day she might have to do it too. “I don’t get how it’s physically possible.”

  “You’d be surprised,” I say, despite myself. I realize I’m holding one wrist with the other. “When you’re really determined, you can do anything.”

  “Shhh,” Rosie says, displeased. We sit back and watch and retreat back into our own private thoughts. It strikes me then that no-one in this room really know what the others are thinking about, even though we’re all watching the same movie. Trippy.

  Nineteen

  Katie’s been skiing, like, a bazillion times, so I’ve enlisted her help and she’s coming shopping with me. She was horrified when I let slip that all I knew about was the ski pants and jackets. You have GOT to let me help you!!! she said in her text. You have to have the right stuff! The first Saturday she was free was today, and it’s only a week till we leave, which is much closer to the wire than I’d like, but whatever. The trip starts on the first day of winter break and we’re back the day before Christmas Eve – seven days in total.

  Dad drops us off outside Patagonia, the red brick building on the corner of Union and Fair Oaks, and once we’re inside I see it right away: the ski jacket I want, red and white, hanging at the front of a clothes rack.

  “We’ll do the pants and jacket last,” Katie says. “As a reward for doing the boring stuff.”

  I open my mouth to argue, but she’s right. It’s a good strategy in life. That’s why nobody ends their viola practice with their scales.

  “Boring?” I repeat, instead of arguing. Everything about this ski trip is exciting to me. Obviously, there’s the prospect of Tim and maybe kissing him. But there will also be mountains. There will also be snow, thick as icing on a cupcake. I’ve only really seen snow in New York City when mom or dad has taken us there for the holiday lights and a Broadway show. (They’re both from the Midwest and they say Christmas isn’t Christmas if you’re surrounded by palm trees and surfers, even though surfers don’t tend to hang out in Pasadena since we’re an hour from the beach.) And skiing always looks fun in the Winter Olympics.

  “Well, you know,” Katie says. “Boring in comparison.”

  We go through the store, picking up a million things and putting them in our baskets. Good thing I’ve got dad’s credit card. I pick out a couple of fleeces – a black one and a white one – and there’s the base layer. It’s pretty unsexy – a horrible salmon color, with a texture like a waffle – but apparently it absorbs sweat or prevents sweat or something else good to do with sweat, I’m not really listening, but it seems like essentially it will stop me smelling of sweat, which is obviously a Good Thing.

  “Why would I be sweating, anyway
?” I ask. “Isn’t it pretty cold in the mountains?”

  Katie looks at me pityingly. How is it possible, she is probably wondering, to get to be 14 ½ and not know this basic stuff? I guess it’s possible the same way it’s possible to get to be 14 ½ and have never kissed a boy.

  “You’ll be working hard,” she says. “Working out hard. Also, it can get surprisingly warm with the sun beating down on you and reflecting off the snow. Which reminds me. Goggles.” “Well then why wear so many layers to start with?” This is honestly a little confusing.

  Katie looks kind of exasperated now. “Because you’ll also be really cold at the beginning of the day. And when the sun’s not out, you’ll be freezing. Literally freezing. And then when you’re mid-air on the chairlifts...”

  “Okay, okay.” I sound mad, and I guess I am a little, but I don’t exactly know why.

  “What is up with you?” Katie asks me. We’re in front of a sock display now, piles of them laid next to each other, and she picks up a few pairs of the least hideous ones. She doesn’t have to ask my size. This is the kind of thing that best friends know about each other. I shrug, which is useless, since she isn’t looking at me.

  “Are you just annoyed that I know something you don’t, for once?”

  Yes. That’s it. That’s exactly what I’m mad about. But it has nothing to do with the skiing, not really.

  “That would be stupid,” I say. “Since you knowing something I don’t is the whole reason for you being me right now in this store in the first place.”

  “Right.”

  We’re in the gloves section now. She considers them. “These or those?” They’re so enormous, they practically look like baseball mitts.

  “The red ones.” Has she forgotten what my favorite color is? “To go with my ski jacket, remember?”

  “Makes sense,” she says. Well, yes. I am nothing if not logical.

  We’ve got everything in our baskets now and we head to the fitting rooms. I don’t need to try on the socks, the goggles, the gator, the hat, or the gloves – I’ve tried those on already – but I do need to try on the base layer and thermal pants, the fleeces, the ski pants and the jacket. We’re going to be here a while, Katie watching me do twirls in this outfit that looks ridiculous in the middle of Southern California. I should probably be nicer to her.

  “How’s Jason?” I ask her through the fitting room door.

  “He’s good,” she says. I can hear the smile in her voice, but I can’t see her blush, and that’s half the fun of these conversations. They can also be fun in the pitch dark of slumber parties, but those have the added advantage of not being overheard by a dozen strangers. I open the fitting room door dressed in my base layer and thermal pants and tell her to come in with me.

  “How’s the kissing?” I ask.

  She grins. “I still like it,” she says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She points at the ski pants on their hanger still. “C’mon, don’t get sidetracked.”

  I ignore her. “Just kissing?” I look down at the pile of clothes on the chair. I figure if might be easier for her to tell me the whole truth if she’s not having to look right at me, so I start putting one of the fleeces.

  “I let him put his hand up my shirt,” she whispers. And then, even more quietly, “Last night he took my shirt and bra off and he took off his shirt and lay on top of me.” She’s bright red now, and I begin to worry that she might actually implode. “It was kind of amazing. Super-hot. It made me want to take the rest of my clothes off and feel all of him on me.”

  I raise an eyebrow. Or at least I try to. I haven’t perfected that yet. One day maybe I’ll get Ebba to teach me.

  “All of him, huh?” The ski pants rustle when I put them on.

  “Not like that. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

  “Does he have a hairy chest?” The idea of hairy chests is gross. I hope Tim doesn’t have a hairy chest. We probably won’t go far enough for me to find out on this trip, but I should probably be prepared.

  Prepared! I know. A girls’ trip to Victoria’s Secret is in order. I’ll tell dad I bought pajamas when it shows up on his credit card bill. Come to think of it, I should probably get some of those, too.

  “Super smooth,” Katie says. “Just a few hairs around his belly button. And then, you know. Below that.”

  “Boys are so weird.” I zip up my jacket, and twirl. Katie nods, like, you look good. Actual words are reserved for this far more important conversation we’re having.

  “Weird and wonderful, though,” she says, with a kind of sly grin I’ve never seen on her before. I’m so behind. I have got to catch up.

  “You know what we should do?”

  “Pay for these clothes and go get lunch somewhere?”

  “Yes,” I say. I sit down on the wooden stool and stand up, just to check the give in the ski pants. I do another twirl in the mirror. I look ridiculous. But if I squint and imagine myself gracefully sliding down a snowy mountain, it’s not so bad. The jacket is a really nice red, almost cherry. “We should definitely do those things. But first we should pay a visit to Tres Jolie.”

  Her eyes widen. I don’t know if it’s shock or excitement, or admiration of my French accent. I reached deep into my throat for that phlegmy R sound.

  “Why?” she asks, like there are a million different reasons to go to Tres Jolie. I wish Pasadena had a Victoria’s Secret, but it’s a very adequate substitute.

  “So we can be prepared. Just in case.”

  “We?”

  I’m not a fan of how incredulous she sounds. Does she think I can’t get a boyfriend? I can totally get a boyfriend. I just haven’t been interested till now, is all. I’ve had more important things to do with my time. Priorities, you know. But now that everyone else is getting boyfriends, I should probably get one before all the best ones are taken. Also, Tim has those eyelashes.

  “You have Jason. I have Tim.”

  “You have Tim?”

  This lie just sort of slips out without me noticing it. I whisper it conspiratorially as I shimmy out of the ski pants. “He kissed me behind the bike sheds yesterday.”

  Katie laughs! Actually laughs. “The bike sheds?”

  “Yeah, I know. So cliché, right?”

  “How come you’re just mentioning this now?”

  She doesn’t believe me. She so obviously doesn’t believe me. Does she not think I can get a boyfriend? Because I totally can.

  “I was waiting for the right moment to tell you.” I’m free of the base layer now. Almost back in normal clothes. “And, you know, since our parents won’t be on the trip, and since there’ll be beds...”

  Katie’s eyes widen again. “You’re going to from a kiss to – to that? In the space of less than two weeks?”

  I try to affect nonchalance as I zip up my shorts. “Maybe not that. Maybe just second or third base. But it can’t hurt to be prepared, right?”

  Nonchalance, even affected, is not something that comes easily to me. Neither is the casualness of this maybe-we-will-maybe-we-won’t kind of attitude. If I had thought past kissing, I would have written a list in my bullet journal – the new one I just got, the one with the lock.

  KISS A BOY

  BUY SEXY UNDERWEAR

  SECOND BASE

  THIRD BASE

  STOCK UP ON CONDOMS

  5b. or GO ON THE PILL

  (Ha! Can you imagine my dad’s face?) (But wait! I can tell him it’s for acne.) (But I don’t have acne. What about migraines? There’s a girl in my math class who takes it for migraines, or at least that’s what I heard her say in the bathroom that one time. I don’t get migraines, either, but that should be easier to fake. I live in a house of actors. I should be able to figure this out.)

  DO THE THING

  TEXT KATIE ABOUT DOING THE THING

  TAKE A PREGNANCY TEST JUST TO BE ABSOLUTELY AND COMPLETELY SURE

  METICULOUSLY RECORD THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AND WHAT CAN BE IM
PROVED ON FOR NEXT TIME

  DO THE THING AGAIN

  AND AGAIN

  AND AGAIN

  But obviously, no such list exists outside of my head, and it’s only been in my head for approximately fifteen seconds (which is fast to write a list, but I guess brains are faster than my multi-colored selection of FriXion gel pens).

  “Don’t you want to be prepared, for Jason?” I put the ski pants and ski jacket back on their hangers and gather them in my arms in a big pile with the thermal pants and base layer and fleeces. I could use some help, really, but Katie’s too preoccupied.

  “I told you,” Katie says. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

  “Sexy underwear works for third base too.”

  “I guess.”

  “Unless you’re thinking the sexy underwear is going to drive his wild with lust and he won’t be able to control himself?” The pitch of my voice has risen, possibly in excitement. Or possibly in panic. Hard to tell.

  “Clara! Shhh. What is wrong with you?” She nods toward the cubicle wall, to remind me we’re not alone.

  “We should probably get out of here,” I say.

  She’s irritated with me, and I don’t blame her, not really. I am acting sort of crazy. I take her arm. “C’mon,” I say. “I’ll buy you cheesecake.”

  If there’s one thing Katie can’t resist, it’s cheesecake, and she knows that I know this about her. I save The Cheesecake Factory as the nuclear option for when I’ve really messed up, like that time in the 8th grade I copied her in a test in history class and she was the one who got in trouble for cheating.