by Bridget Farr
“I’ve gotta go,” I tell Santos. “But I’ll ask you more questions when we do your one-week follow-up.”
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“Oh my god, I forgot, didn’t I?” He nods. “What day is it?”
“Friday.”
“We were supposed to meet today!”
Santos shrugs. “It’s cool.”
“How about Monday? Same place as before?”
“Sure,” he says, popping his headphones in his ears. “Let me know if you need help with that girl.” He doesn’t give me a chance to respond before heading down the hall.
Inside the classroom, Ms. Hulsman sits behind her desk, leaning so close to her screen that she might be smudging it with the tip of her nose. Hamilton is in his regular seat, furiously scribbling. A few other kids from class are scattered around the room.
“Sign in,” Ms. Hulsman snaps without looking up from her screen. Once I’ve filled in my information, I sit beside Hamilton, whose pencil hovers in the air as Piper chatters away to him. She must be really bored to sit here watching him while she waits for her mom to pick her up.
“Did they?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“Is she?”
I nod.
“Man…” He sighs, banging his fist on the table. Ms. Hulsman glares before pointing up at the sign on the bulletin board, reminding us that tutoring is a RED ZONE for volume, so no talking at all unless we’re working with her.
“Do you have a—” he asks, and I cut him off.
“No. Not yet.”
“Oh my god, can one of you speak in a complete sentence?” Piper sighs in exasperation.
Hamilton mimics Ms. Hulsman and silently points up at the RED ZONE poster. He and I share a look, both grateful for the silence. For the moment, we have nothing to say.
PIPER’S PLEA
Hamilton and I are in the living room when the doorbell rings. Marjorie frowns, but we know better than to even shift in our chairs. Instead, we share a quick glance over our tattered copies of Harry Potter, Half-Blood Prince for me and Order of the Phoenix for him. I’m only staring at my pages tonight, not able to stop thinking about Meridee walking into the Nickersons’.
The doorbell rings again and Marjorie huffs, tossing off her quilt and setting her autobiography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the teetering stack of nonfiction piled high on the end table. She heaves herself out of her overstuffed chair before taking off her red reading glasses and tucking them on the edge of her shirt. Our eyes follow her to the hallway where she momentarily disappears into darkness before turning on the light.
“Piper!” she says before the creak of the door finishes.
Hamilton sets down his book, perking up in his seat. He looks over at me and I shrug my shoulders. How would I know why she’s here? She’s his best friend.
“Ms. Jennings, I know it’s deep into family time, but I wanted to see if I could interrupt for a few minutes.” Piper’s voice is chipper, and I expect her to start a speech about raffle tickets.
Hamilton leans over the back of the couch, pushing aside the embroidered drapes.
“Her dad’s parked out front,” he whispers, and I picture Piper’s dad texting as he waits in the SUV.
“Shh.” His talking made me miss the first part of Marjorie’s response. She must have invited Piper in, because we hear the front door close and Piper’s voice is louder now. I wonder if she knows we are in the next room.
“To begin, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I’ve been made aware of Hamilton’s declining academic performance,” Piper says. “And I must say that I, too, was disappointed by this break from his potential.”
“Geez,” Hamilton huffs, slumping back on the couch.
“I support your decision to remove his evening outing privileges until he improves his grades, and I respect your authority as his mother to punish him as you see fit, but…”
Hamilton and I lock eyes. But?
“I would like to submit that while Hamilton’s personal academic success has suffered in the past few weeks, the community gain from his extensive work in the online do-it-yourself (a.k.a. DIY) arena cannot be denied.”
What? Is she saying what I think she’s saying? I recognize the vocabulary and the argument from last year’s Mock Trial competition. I didn’t think Piper even liked Mock Trial, preferring creative writing, but here she is, pouring out a defense for Hamilton like the attorney general of the United States!
Piper clears her throat. “Are you aware of Hamilton’s recent success with the Goth Boy tutorial on my Pretty with Piper YouTube channel?”
“I knew he made a video with you, but I wasn’t aware of its… success.”
Hamilton cringes.
“We currently have over one thousand views and one hundred seventy three new subscribers to the channel. You may have even seen the flood of goth style now happening all over the school. But what you don’t know is how much of an impact those videos have had on struggling youth.”
“Well, then, enlighten me,” Marjorie says. Piper’s feet scuff back and forth between the hardwood and the welcome rug.
“Hundreds of students walk those halls feeling different, feeling weird, feeling… alone. The students who watched this tutorial might not be the star athlete or the top student. They need a role model. Dare I say a hero?” Piper clears her throat with a small cough. “Hamilton didn’t just demonstrate how to properly wear black eyeliner! He gave them someone who wasn’t afraid to be different!”
“Afraid to wear flour on his face,” I whisper, and this time Hamilton shushes me.
“He gave them a hero,” Piper says, her voice low as her feet finally stop shuffling on the floor. “And it would be a shame for them to lose their hero so soon.”
There’s a pause.
Is she done?
“And so, I am proposing that Hamilton be allowed to skip tonight’s… in-home reflection time, and instead be allowed to join me for a fully adult-supervised filming of another YouTube video.”
Hamilton is almost off the couch, his body craning to see around the corner.
“You want to film tonight?”
“Yes, so as not to…”
“Lose momentum,” Hamilton whispers along with her.
“We would get all our homework done before starting production. Obviously. Hamilton can be more productive with a dedicated friend slash tutor like me.”
“Thank you for being such a great advocate for Hamilton.” Marjorie takes a step back to where she’s almost fully visible in the doorway. “If he wants to go and completes his work, I am willing to accept your proposal.”
“Yes!” Hamilton shouts with a fist pump before flying back to his spot on the couch.
“I assume you heard Piper’s proposal,” Marjorie says as she comes around the corner.
“Yes, ma’am.” Hamilton sits up in his seat, pushing his glasses back up on his nose.
“This is a onetime trial, largely due to Piper’s impressive argument, but you are still grounded for the rest of the week.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Piper beams. “Dad is waiting in the car. We’re going to pick up tacos on the way home.”
“Okay, then. Go get your stuff.”
Hamilton pops up from the couch, tucking his book onto his shelf before running out of the room, his feet flying on the stairs.
“You’ll need to take Pavi with you,” Marjorie says, pulling the reading glasses off her shirt. Piper turns, her lips parted in the protest I know she’s forming.
“After hearing about how beneficial you’ll be for Hamilton’s academics, I can’t let Pavi not receive similar support. I’m sure she can help with your videos, too.”
“I don’t know anything about makeup,” I say, and Piper looks relieved.
“The studio space is really only set up for two people,” Piper adds.
Marjorie gives that smile all teachers do: the one that looks nice but means “I’ve got all
the power.”
“But I’m sure we can make space,” Piper says.
Hamilton trips on the last step, stumbling back into the room with an oversize duffel.
“Ready!”
“Pavi’s coming, too,” Piper whispers to Hamilton, and he smiles.
“Sweet!”
The three of them look over at me, and while I don’t want to be involved with Piper’s videos, I realize if I stay here, Marjorie will fill my evening with family-friendly activities and I won’t have any time to plan. No one will care what I do at Piper’s. I might even be able to use her computer for research.
“Let’s do this,” I say as I fold my blanket, setting my book on top.
Marjorie gives me a side hug before nudging me toward Piper. “Tell your dad I’ll pick them up at eight. He doesn’t need to make the drive here twice.”
“Okay, Ms. Jennings. Thank you again. So. Much.”
I swing my backpack over my shoulder before giving Hamilton a pat on the back.
“Let’s go make you a hero.”
MERMAN
From the edge of Piper’s marshmallow-like comforter, my feet don’t even hit the floor. Across from me, Piper and Hamilton hover around a storage bin overflowing with craft supplies. Piper drapes a shiny blue piece of fabric over a card table before Hamilton sprinkles it with a saltshaker full of sand, pausing occasionally to sweep the sand into little dunes. Piper pulls out seashells from a large Ziploc bag, nestling them among the sand. They work methodically, as if they are saving a life and not simply making Piper feel cool.
“So, what is the theme for tonight’s tutorial?” I call down from my perch, and Piper holds up a finger to me as she whisper-counts the seashells: “… six, seven, eight.”
“Mer-makeup,” she says as she surveys the table, a large pink conch shell in her hand.
I hop off the bed, stumbling a little from the distance. I scan the table, running my hand over the tiny shells in a Tupperware container and the pieces of fake algae.
“Don’t touch anything!” Piper shouts, and I take a few steps back, leaning against the closet door.
Piper pulls out a massive makeup kit from under her bed. From the depths, she gathers an assortment of eye color palettes and brushes, and tubes of glitter and lipstick. Then comes a bedazzled jar, which looks like it used to hold baby food but now houses cotton swabs. Hamilton takes his duffel to the bathroom and returns in a bright-blue T-shirt with the seams showing.
“Your shirt’s inside out,” I say.
“I know, but I don’t have a plain blue one. I don’t think people will notice. Pipe?”
Piper turns from the brushes she’s cleaning. Upon seeing him, she wrinkles her nose before rubbing on a quick swipe of gloss. She tilts her head as she assesses him.
“I thought we decided no shirt.”
“I thought we decided yes shirt.” Hamilton pulls at the bottom hem.
“But merpeople don’t wear shirts.”
“No, but I am not a merperson. I am a human being who is not going to be naked on YouTube.”
“You won’t be naked. You’ll have pants on.”
“No way.”
“Don’t you go swimming? You don’t wear a shirt then.”
“He does, actually,” I say, cutting in. “Marjorie makes him. For sun protection.”
Hamilton looks relieved at my support. “That’s right! I always wear a shirt!”
“We might as well not even bother making the video, then,” Piper says as she starts yanking the recently placed makeup containers off the table. “It won’t make any sense that a merman is wearing a shirt. Besides, I wanted to do some detail work near your neck and collarbone, and I won’t be able to do that if no one can see it.”
Piper’s eyes drill into Hamilton’s, and he can’t withstand the power of her stare for more than a millisecond.
“Fine. I won’t wear the shirt, but can you make sure only the top of my chest is in the shot? Just my shoulders and above?”
“Of course!” She plops the makeup brushes onto the table. “Sit here.”
Hamilton slinks over to the stool behind the table.
“Shirt, please,” Piper says from behind the camera, and Hamilton slowly takes it off, crumpling it into a pile in his lap.
“Sit up straight,” Piper chides, and Hamilton complies, but only by a few centimeters.
“We’re going to start in five, four, three…” She counts two and one by holding up her fingers and then gives Hamilton a thumbs-up. Instantly his back pops rigid-straight and a commercial-star smile spreads across his face. Piper skips behind the table.
“Hello, my pretties,” she says, looking straight into the camera. “Thanks for joining me today for our segment Beauty Below the Blue! Today, we’ll be working with my costar, MarchingMagic612—follow him on Instagram—to demonstrate mer-makeup for all you merpeople out there.”
I didn’t know Hamilton had an Instagram. Marjorie will freak if she finds out.
“What’s the first thing we all know about merpeople?” Piper asks into the camera.
“They’re fake,” I whisper, but she doesn’t notice me.
Piper pauses for a few seconds like they do in kids’ TV shows so the toddlers have time to answer.
“That’s right! They have scales! To get this dramatic look, you’ll first need to get a pair of fishnet tights. I bought these at Target, but you can get them at any store where they sell tights.”
“Obviously,” I mutter to myself.
Piper holds up the tights before moving toward Hamilton. It’s the first time she’s actually looked at him since she started filming. His frozen smile hasn’t moved. “First, pull the tights over your head.” While still making direct eye contact with the camera, Piper pulls the fishnets over Hamilton’s head.
“Ow! My nose!” he whispers, but both of them keep smiling. She yanks a few more times before pulling them all the way under his cheek. The leg of the tights hangs from the top of his head like a really long ponytail, and suddenly I burst into laughter. Piper glares, but when I look at Hamilton’s face squashed under the tights, I can’t stop laughing.
“Stop! You’re ruining the shot,” Piper complains.
“You look like a robber!” I squeak out between laughs, my giggles almost bringing me to the floor. I don’t know why I’m laughing so hard, but I can’t stop.
“Pavi, stop!” Piper shouts as she walks around the table and shuts off the camera. “Now we’re going to have to reshoot that part and it’s going to take me longer to edit. If you can’t get ahold of yourself, go outside.” She points a black fingernail at the door.
“I’m fine, I’m sorry,” I say between gasps. “I’m so glad I came. This is hilarious!”
“Now we need to shoot it over again!” Piper groans.
“Let me help,” I say, taking a step toward the camera. “I can rewind back to wherever you want to start, and you can be ready behind the table and start right where you stopped.”
“We can handle it.”
“Let her help, Pipe,” Hamilton counters. “We’re already running late, and she knows how to work a camera.”
“Fine!” Piper stomps to her place behind the table. “Let’s just reshoot the whole thing, but I don’t have a ton of space on my disk, so you’ll have to delete the file first.”
I inspect her old camera, most of it looking somewhat familiar from my semester in video production. I click a button that changes the focus. Wrong. Then I get the gallery of videos. I push PLAY on the first file, and Piper’s voice fills the room.
“That would be manifest destiny,” the Piper on the video says. She’s sitting behind a table that is dressed like a school desk: papers, folders, a container of pencils and highlighters. “Wow, Piper, you’re so quick to answer,” she continues in a different voice I assume is supposed to be a teacher. “Do you have any other intelligent thoughts to add to your peers’ knowledge?”
“Turn that off!” Piper says, her chee
ks flaming.
“What is this?”
Piper’s video voice explains the benefits of manifest destiny in language I’m sure she memorized from the textbook.
“It’s nothing. Turn it off.”
“Did you… video yourself practicing for school?”
“That’s my private stuff!” Piper rounds the table as I start laughing again. Now video Piper is writing things on a blank piece of notebook paper, occasionally reaching a hand up to push back her blonde strands of hair.
“Hamilton, come see this!” I begin to giggle again, and Piper reaches for the camera.
“That is PRIVATE!” she shouts as she attempts to turn it off.
“Give it to her, Pavi,” Hamilton says from his perch on set.
“I swear to god if you break this camera…”
“Fine,” I say as I step back. “It’s all yours.”
“You were not supposed to see that,” she says, quickly turning off the camera, her face brighter than her candy-apple lip gloss.
“Obviously! Who records themselves practicing for school? Do you watch this and take notes?”
“No! Well, yes, I watch it, but I don’t take notes.”
“I think it’s fine,” Hamilton says. “A lot of professional speakers tape themselves. It’s a great way to practice.”
“Those people are professionals!”
“Enough, Pavi.” Hamilton’s tone stops me, and I don’t look at him for the disappointment I know I’ll see on his face. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just can’t with Piper right now, and her perfect life and her tiny problems.
“Why don’t you just go?” Piper says as she busies herself with the table props. “You’re only here because you don’t have any friends of your own. It must be embarrassing: don’t have your own family, don’t have your own friends.”
