Girl, Unstrung

by Claire Handscombe

  “Okay,” she says. “I’m having the Godiva chocolate. We need the carbs if we’re going to make it all the way to Tres Jolie.”

  It’s only, like, a half hour walk away, but whatever. “You’re the best.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She’s playing at still being irritated. At least I think she’s playing.

  AT TRES JOLIE, I HELP Katie pick first—it’s the least I can do. She loves purple, so we choose a satiny set of bra and panties. They’re pretty plain, but they’re a gorgeous deep eggplant color and super soft to the touch. They’re very understated – exactly what I’d imagine sweet-natured Katie to wear the first time she has sex. Or, you know, not wear. Take off. Is it weird to think those thoughts about your best friend? I guess it is kind of weird. Not as weird as imagining myself doing it, though. I’m still not quite clear on how everything is supposed to fit, and also how do you breathe with a guy on top of you? Seems like that would be suffocating. Anyway. I should probably work on figuring out where noses fit when you kiss before I get too deep into this.

  We walk around the pink-walled store some more, looking at different things, feeling the different fabrics. I’m embarrassed about being here, suddenly. What would Tim think if he knew? He’d freak out, probably. Chill, he’d say. I really just wanted an invitation to Madison Harper’s Sweet Sixteen. Although I doubt he’d turned down sex, even it’s sex with me. If there’s one thing better than an invitation to Madison Harper’s Sweet Sixteen, it’s sex and an invitation to Madison Harper’s Sweet Sixteen, or, even better, sex with the daughter of a vaguely famous actor and an invitation to Madison Harper’s Sweet Sixteen. There is one thing that’s clearly even better than that, sex with Madison Harper and an invitation to Madison Harper’s Sweet Sixteen, but he’s out of luck on that one. She’s really into the whole Christian saving yourself for marriage thing. Which, each to their own, I guess?

  But right here, right now, in Tres Jolie, Katie is trying to be helpful.

  “These?” she says, holding up a red thong and lacy bra.

  “Not red,” I say.

  “I thought –”

  “Not for lingerie,” I say, because underwear sounds like something mom tells Harry to remember to put on. Lingerie is much sexier. “Red lingerie is slutty.”

  “Okay,” Katie says. If she was less sweet, she might say, slutty like kissing behind the bike sheds and then having sex two weeks later? But she’s Katie, and there’s a reason we’re friends. A reason beyond our shared inability in our first and only ballet class when we were six.

  I’m a little grossed out, suddenly, by all the lace and the colors. All the overt sexuality in here. Kind of like, at Halloween, you’re like, candy corn! I always forget how much I like candy corn! But what you also always forget is that after you’ve pigged out on candy corn to make up for how much you suddenly realize you’ve missed it all year, you feel sick to your stomach, and vow never to touch it again, except that by next year you’ve forgotten all about that and you make the same mistake over again. Kind of like that. Too much of everything here, and I feel a little sick.

  “What about these?” Katie says. Bingo. She’s pointing to a bra and thong set, a teal color, with a little bit of lace around the edges. Baby’s First Lacy Underwear. Ugh. Gross. What is wrong with me?

  “I like that.” The bra is padded, which is necessary, and sure, once he takes it off me he’ll see he’s been lied but by then I doubt either of us will care. The tops of my legs feel all Jello-like and weird when I think about that. I’m not sure about thongs, though. I asked mom about them years ago, and she said they’re a lot more comfortable than they look, but I’m skeptical. Wouldn’t it feel like a permanent wedgie? Not that I’d be wearing it for long.

  “A thong, though?”

  Katie shrugs. “They’re actually pretty comfortable.”

  “Wait,” I say. “Are you wearing one right now?”

  She blushes. I can’t believe there is so much about each other’s lives that we don’t know these days. If Katie can wear a thong, I can for sure wear a thong. Let’s do this, I tell Tim in my mind. You might not think you want me apart from those selfies and those party invitations, but I’ll show you.

  Twenty

  I’m packing for the ski trip on Sunday afternoon, almost a week before we leave. when Ebba knocks on my bedroom door. The door’s ajar, since I keep running out to go get stuff, clothes from the dryer or sunscreen from the bathroom cabinet (you have to be careful with the glare off the snow, apparently) or my dad’s old Taboo for game night. Ebba’s learned her lesson about privacy, though. Good.

  “Come in,” I say, and then I wince. I’ve noticed too late that the Tres Jolie lingerie is lying at the bottom of my otherwise empty suitcase. Any chance she won’t see it? No, you’re right. There’s absolutely zero chance she won’t see it. The best thing is to act like it’s no big deal. Like I wear underwear – lingerie – like that every day (though she sees my laundry, so I’m not sure how effective that strategy will be.) I’m really getting a lot of practice at this nonchalance thing.

  “I got you that new book of études you asked for,” Ebba says. “Plus some extra rosin.”

  “Thanks,” I say. I was running low on rosin, but I kept forgetting to get more. Turns out she’s remembered for me.

  “You got everything you need for the trip?” She is trying not to smile. I can tell.

  “Yeah,” I say. And I rattle off the list, counting off each item on my fingers – gloves goggles ski pants ski jacket base layer thermal pants fleece hat gator sunscreen snow boots regular clothes. I even had to buy some regular clothes, because Ugg boots and thick woolen sweaters aren’t exactly everyday wear in Pasadena. They’re cute, and right now they smell of honey lavender Tide, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them afterward.

  I have to remember to pack my music and my music stand, too, but I’ll do that at the last minute after the last pre-ski practice. My viola will be carry-on; no way am I letting them take it from me and stow it away in the too-cold hold where it will be bashed around and lonely, wondering why I’ve left it. It’d probably sulk and pay me back with wrong notes when I try to tune it. (Yes, I’m aware of how ridiculous this sounds, but remember when I said my viola was an extension of me? This is the kind of thing I meant.)

  “Okay,” Ebba says. “Good. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”

  “Yeah.” And I’m so grateful that she hasn’t referenced the teal bra and thong that I add, “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” she says. She is out of the door and I’m letting out a sigh of relief and then she pushes it back open and lowers her voice.

  “Word of advice,” she says, and she nods toward the suitcase. I brace myself for a lecture, formulate an argument about how I really don’t think she should be the one having this conversation with me. That’s more the job of an actual parent, don’t you think? But she doesn’t lecture me. Instead, with something like sparkle in her eyes, she says, “save those for the evenings. They can get uncomfortable under ski clothes.” She winks, closes the door, and leaves me standing there, relieved and flabbergasted.

  Twenty-One

  “Okay if I sit here?”

  I’m leaning against the foggy school bus window, still half asleep. I don’t even want to think about how early it is. It’s the first day of winter break and I should be in bed, recovering from the semester, for several more hours. Still, I guess it’s worth it: kissing! Also: snow! Mountains! I’m thinking, suddenly, about the actual skiing part of this ski trip. The part where we attach pieces of – what? Metal? Plastic? Wood? Whatever – to our feet and hurl ourselves down mountains. I’m up for the challenge – of course I am, I’m always up for every challenge – but what will it be like? How will it feel? I’ve wondered plenty about the other stuff: who my roommate will be, whether she’ll be sneaking out at night to kiss boys too, whether someone besides me thought to bring popcorn because it seems like that would be the perfect
post-ski snack.

  I’m looking forward to the cold, to having to snuggle under blankets or multiple layers of clothing. Cold, to me, means happy. Cold is New York trips and Central Park in the snow and the ballet at Lincoln Center and listening to Dad’s endless Juilliard stories and thinking about being there one day too, being one of those people who sits by the fountain with a viola case between my knees. Cold means the sweet smell of roasted chestnuts and the Christmas lights on Fifth Avenue and skating at the Rockefeller Center. All the things from the movies, basically. Cold is dreamy. Cold is happiness. I’m excited to be heading into it, first this bus and then the flight from LAX to Salt Lake City.

  I’m bleary-eyed, too: I’m used to getting up early for viola practice, but four a.m. is kind of ridiculous. The plan is that we make it to Alta in time to get settled in, go rent all our equipment and make it onto the snow for at least some of the afternoon. I’m going to need coffee. I’m probably also going to need a snooze, but that’s not going to happen on this bus, because apparently Tim is going to sit next to me, and if I’m going to want him to kiss me I probably don’t want him to see me dozing with my mouth half-open as I drool and snore. Not that I know if I do either of those things, but it seems preferable not to risk it. I’ll also need to chew gum at all times so I can be ready with fresh breath. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to not have fresh breath. Probably worse than passing out because you haven’t figured out the nose-and-breathing thing.

  “Sure, you can sit there,” I tell him. All cool and nonchalant. Good job, Clara. Going well so far.

  “You brought your viola?” he asks me, as soon as he sits down. I guess there’s not going to any compensable silence on this trip.

  “I have an audition in exactly two months,” I say. “I can’t afford to slack.”

  I’ll actually be slacking pretty majorly, since there’s no way I’ll be getting in anything close to my daily three hours of playing. But I’ve practiced harder than ever these last few weeks, and I’ve got the pieces down damn near perfect. I’m hoping for half an hour after dinner or something—just enough to make sure my muscle memory is intact. I really wasn’t sure about going away, and maybe I should have stayed home, but then there was Katie with all her talk of kissing so here I am, sitting next to Tim on this ski trip. Except that now that I actually am sitting next to Tim on this ski trip, he’s not just a concept anymore. Not just the Potential Provider Of First Kisses (And Uses For The Teal Lingerie). He’s an actual real person whose breath, thankfully, smells like toothpaste, and I’m not entirely sure how we go from sitting on this bus having conversations about my viola to his mouth on mine and our tongues playing footsie. I can feel myself blushing. This is weird.

  “An audition for what? You’re trying for LACHSA again?”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s too bad. We’re only just going to know each other.”

  “I might not get in,” I say. Crazy talk. Of course I’m going to get in – watch me, doubters. But I can’t have him thinking there’s no point kissing me if I’m going to be leaving anyway.

  “You’ll get in,” he says, bumping my arm with his. It feels like someone’s turned the thermostat way up in my body when he says that. I could kiss him right now. That might be weird, though. He wouldn’t have time to prepare himself. To decide he really likes me enough to stick his tongue in my mouth and leave it there for a while.

  “We’ll see,” I say. The bus rumbles into life; the kids on the last row cheer.

  “We will,” he says. Then there’s a pause, but this isn’t companiable silence either. This is the oh-crap-I-think-we’ve-run-out-of-things-to-say-to-each-other kind of silence.

  “Who’s your favorite composer?”

  I mull this over in my head, but really I’ve always known the answer. “Brahms,” I say. At orchestra camp we play a lot of Dohnanyi and I like him too, but he’s really just an easier Brahms and why do what’s easy when you can conquer what’s hard? “How about you?”

  “Classical music’s not really my thing,” he says. Actually, as soon as he says classical music I know it’s not his thing. Because people who know about music don’t call it that.

  “Classical music’s actually a misnomer,” I tell him. “Brahms is a Romantic. And then there’s Baroque, too, like Bach. Classical is just one of the periods of music.”

  “Oh,” swoopy-haired Tim says. “Okay. Teaching me things already. I like it.”

  I’m not sure when he expected when he sat next to me. I’m smart and I know things and I consider it my duty to correct people when they’re wrong, because who wants to go through life being wrong? But then, Tim wouldn’t know that. He doesn’t know anything about me except whose daughter I am.

  “What’s your thing?” I ask him. Because I don’t know him, either. I only know he’s the only who’s going to end the Kissing Drought and give me things to report back to Katie.

  “My thing?”

  “You know. The thing you’re into. Your passion.” My face boils up when I say passion. I wasn’t trying to come onto him, I swear. Not yet, anyway. He smiles, an embarrassed little smile. Is he embarrassed for me? This is excruciating. Get me off this bus.

  “Promise not to laugh?”

  “I promise.”

  “Scrabble,” he says.

  I know I promised, but I can’t help it: I laugh anyway.

  “What?” he says. He looks mildly offended. Or maybe more than offended.

  “Scrabble the board game?”

  “Yes, the board game. What other kind of Scrabble is there?”

  I shrug. “I didn’t know it was a thing you could be into.” What I mean is, he doesn’t look like a nerd. He’s way too cute. He doesn’t even wear glasses. But: it’s true that I’ve only ever seen him by himself. If he has no friends, that would figure.

  “I play in competitions,” he says. “I’m pretty good, actually. Los Angeles-wide Youth Champion last year.”

  Okay. Well. Now he has my attention. Or he would have it if he didn’t have it already. Ack, you know what I mean. What I mean is: he’s competitive. And he’s a winner. These are things I can relate to. Things I can admire.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “I’m pretty impressive.” He does this toothy grin that tells me he only half believes that I believe it, though. He’s cool enough to be into all the regular things that guys are into, but instead: Scrabble? I think that’s kind of impressive. Forging his own path.

  “What’s your favorite word?” I ask him.

  “Zyzzyva. It’s a South American weevil. Even without any double or triple word scores it’s worth 43 points. It’s also the name of one of the apps I use to train.”

  “Train?”

  “Yep. Serious stuff. I can’t afford to slack either, you know.”

  I laugh, without knowing why, and this time he laughs too. He digs his phone out of his jeans pocket to show me the app, but instead of giving me his phone, he moves it toward me slightly, so that I have to lean into him. His face is so close to mine it feels like we’re touching even though we’re not. A kind of phantom touch. I can hear him breathe. I try to make my own breathing even and pretend I’m listening to what he’s saying about the app, about Scrabble, about how to get the most points. I wonder if he can hear my heart. It’s beating way too loudly. I can feel it everywhere, like right before a performance: in my neck, in my wrists, in my ears. Maybe even in the tips of my fingers.

  It usually takes forever and a day to get from Pasadena to LAX, but we’re there far too quickly. Maybe it’s the early morning and its comparatively low levels of traffic. Or maybe it just feels quick because I wanted to sit like this for hours and hours.

  Twenty-Two

  Skiing is a lot of hard work. Just getting dressed seems to take forever, and then you feel like the Michelin Man walking around with ski pants and ski jacket, all that padding designed not just to keep you warm but, Tim says, also to break your fall. He tells me falling is part of
the deal. It’s important not to be afraid of it. If you’re afraid you’ll be tense and actually more likely to hurt yourself. Being told to relax has never really worked for me, but okay.

  “The trick,” Tim says before we go to our different lessons on the first afternoon, “is to learn to fall right. Like this.” He lets himself fall onto his side on the snow, there at the bottom of the slope. “Then you put your skis perpendicular to the hill and push on your poles, and you’re up in no time. See?” He stands up effortlessly, or as effortlessly as you can do anything with all those layers on.

  “Well, yeah. It’s easy when you’re not actually wearing skis.”

  He shakes his bangs out of his eyes and looks at me. “Trust me,” he says.

  “Okay,” I say, trying not to let my voice wobble.

  If I thought it was hard to walk with my base layer and thermal pants and fleece and ski jacket and ski pants, it was nothing compared to walking in ski boots, aka torture instruments. They’re these big heavy clumpy things that make it impossible to move your ankle.

  “That’s kind of the point,” the guy who fit them on me said. “They’re supposed to protect your ankles. The last thing you want is for them to turn.”

  That’s when it hit me, how dangerous this all is. It seemed, suddenly, like not the best of ideas. Like maybe I should have stayed home this week and practiced my viola for my LACHSA audition, as per original plan. But I’m here now. Tim is here with his swoopy hair and his unnaturally yet sexily long eyelashes. And the mountains are beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful. More beautiful even than Tim’s eyelashes.

  Everything is so white. I mean, obviously, snow is white. It’s not like I’ve never seen snow before. Just never this much of it all in one place. And never not in New York, where it starts to turn grey fifteen seconds after it lands, except maybe in Central Park, which is beautiful in its own way, but not like this. There are mountains and more mountains and behind those there are more mountains, all of them dotted with people in blue and red and purple and yellow being dragged up on ski lifts or looking down from chair lifts or curving their way down slopes with varying degrees of gracefulness. There’s something so beautiful about this, about the real world not intruding. Well, aside from Tim. Tim is real. I know this because every now and then my stomach flips over itself in an effort to remind me.