“Hey, Grommet,” he told me, “I’ll catch a big one for your bruddah.”
This time of year, the swells are huge. For a second, I thought Eli would be sad he’s missing it.
Then I remembered to hate myself for feeling sorry for him. I remembered what he did.
FALL
Prompt: Decisions.
Today, Brielle came up to my locker and sprayed me with White Gardenia Petals. “Taylor Harper,” she said, “you might make a girl think you’ve been avoiding her or something.”
I don’t know why Brielle would say that. She herself had been missing a ton of school. I saw Soo’s post to her Instagram: “Boo, when u coming back?”
For three whole days, I didn’t see a single swish of Brielle’s macadamia hair or get one whiff of her perfume.
I tried to throw back my head and laugh her off, like I’d seen her do a thousand times.
“That’s quite a system.” Brielle pointed to my locker. “Everything in perfect order … So, anyway, are you in?”
Li Lu had completely bailed on me. I messed things up again with Henley. Brielle and Noelani and Soo were the only friends I had left in the world. It was just better to play Brielle’s meaningless game. It wasn’t going to go anywhere, and anyway, no one was going to find out about it.
“How does it work?” I shut my locker door.
Brielle was smiling. “For a second there,” she said, “I thought you were going to tell me you were out.” She did the lizard eyes thing. “There aren’t a ton of rules,” she said. “Basically, we wait. We watch. Does she Cut herself, or does she make it onto the Carnivale list?”
The way Brielle said it, I already knew. She had someone picked out. For me to watch.
“Who is it?” I asked.
Our eyes locked.
Brielle said, “Noelani.”
WINTER
Prompt: Can something be wrong and also right?
Yesterday, after school, I walked up North King to Bank of Hawaii and took some money out of my college savings. The teller told me I had to have a parent signature, but Dad would never let me touch that money—not even for something this important—and Mom was still in bed. So I told the teller I’d run the slip out to the car and have my mom sign, and I’d be right back. This is where living in Hawaii is a plus. People aren’t all wound up about things.
* * *
Only, I went around to the side and signed “Julia Harper” almost exactly like Mom would do herself. When it was all done, I had $200 in my purse, enough for the teriyaki dinner I’m going to make for Mom and Dad, plus enough for laundry soap and a few weeks of lunches. I thought I’d pass on the birds of paradise. Just in case I needed that money in the future.
On my way home, I got a text from Henley: cooking.
So it wasn’t all over???
This time before writing back, I actually thought for a second. Then I texted: i like 2 cook 2, Im making my family dinner 2morrow!
The exclamation mark was a little much. I swapped it out with a regular period and added: What do u make?
Him: Happy face/tongue stuck out.
Then: Coconut soup.
Me: Seriously???
Henley’s yaai (who wasn’t really his technical grandma, but his stepmom’s mom) lived in Thailand, Henley texted. She came to visit and taught him how to make it. She even planted a tree in their yard to make fresh kefir.
I had no idea what a kefir was.
Me: are u Team Kristen or Brooke
He came back with a???
Me: Top Chef?!? Finale tomorrow
Maybe we could watch it together.
It was getting dark. The sun was gone, the moon rising up over Mānoa.
I waited a long time, but Henley never got back to me. Had I said the wrong thing again? I read through the whole thread twice. It didn’t seem like it. But you could never know for sure.
FALL
Prompt: Listen to this song and write what or how it makes you think or feel.
(Gavin DeGraw, “Soldier”)
Miss Wilson said that every so often, she’ll play songs for us to write about.
Today, she is: black wide-leg pants, pink top in woodblock print. MAKE IT MAJOR: Add a cropped jacket and colorful flats. Streamline the look with straightened hair and long earrings.
This is a decent song. It’s not the kind of music I usually listen to, and I don’t see how it’s about soldiers. Is it supposed to make us think about the Middle East?
Civil war.
People fighting each other.
The whole point of Brielle’s game is to get dirt on her best friend?
That day before fourth period at my locker, when she sprayed me with White Gardenia Petals, she said a girl could never be sure about anyone.
Noelani, though?
Everyone loves Noelani. She’s popular, happy, friendly. Nice. She has great style, money, and is student-body secretary. Even teachers love her.
I can’t imagine Noelani would do ANYTHING to be the Next Cut. But also, I had wondered that about Isabelle. No one was safe.
Like always, Brielle could tell I wasn’t one hundred percent.
“I thought you two were close,” I said.
“The people closest to us are EXACTLY the ones we shouldn’t be one hundred percent sure about,” Brielle whispered while Miss Wilson started up the song. “It’s about trust. I have to know EVERYTHING, so I can be prepared.”
Prepared for what, I wondered.
“Stalk her,” Brielle went on. “I mean … don’t STALK her, stalk her. But … you know … friend her, follow her, see what she’s really about.”
And honestly, this whole thing makes me nervous.
Yesterday, after school, I had a friend request on Facebook and another on Instagram.
Both of them were from Soo.
WINTER
Prompt: Revisit the argument you made in October.
Do you still feel the same way?
I have to get my math grade up. The tutor just gives me the answer to the problems. He doesn’t really explain how to do them, and Dad is going to lose it.
Last night, after I finished studying for the Latin quiz, I made the teriyaki chicken.
I went into Mom’s room and told her dinner would be ready in twenty minutes. I turned on her shower, told her the water was ready. But after the rice was boiling, the water was still running, and Mom was still in bed. Her phone was on her nightstand, plugged in, ringing.
“Do you want me to answer it?” I asked her.
It was some number with a 406 area code. Where was that? Was it something about Eli?
Mom didn’t answer. She didn’t even move, but the shower water kept running and running. Finally, the phone stopped ringing.
I sat down on the bed.
“I made us dinner,” I said. “Teriyaki and rice.”
She said she’d eat later. Her phone beeped twice with a new voicemail.
“Would you like me to play it?” I asked.
There were seventeen voicemails. Were any of them about Eli? Were any of them not about Eli?
“No thank you,” Mom said. She was going to sleep for a little while.
I pulled up her quilt, turned off the shower.
“Tay?” Mom mumbled. “You can have my seahorses.”
She was talking about the earrings she’d bought herself at the farmer’s market when we first came. She never bought anything for herself, and she loved those so much. They were not seahorse shaped but sterling discs that dropped down and were stamped with seahorses. I ALWAYS wanted those earrings, not because I liked them—they weren’t my style—but because Mom did. She thought they were pretty and special. So I’d always thought they must be, too.
But now I was sick about them. I didn’t want those seahorses, and I wasn’t going to take them. I was going to leave them in that little cedar box right there.
“Have a good sleep, Mom,” I whispered, closing the door.
The dinner was star
ting out all wrong. Because I didn’t know how to work the barbecue, I had to bake the chicken, and it came out dry and rubbery. Also, the rice was undercooked—gummy and chewy.
Dad didn’t come home from playing handball till late, and when he did, he said he’d already grabbed a sandwich at the college. He took off his tie, sat in the green armchair, pulled his ringing phone out of his shirt pocket, and looked at it as it rang. It stopped, then it started ringing again, and Dad made a face and hit the ANSWER button hard with his thumb.
“Hello, Stella,” Dad said, like he was giving a concession speech, throwing in the towel.
I pretended I was cleaning up the dinner, scrubbed the sauce that was burned into the bottom of the pan, but the hot water had run out because of the marathon shower Mom never took.
“We’re all fine.” Dad was drawing out his words. “Busy here, just busy.”
Later, I tried to do my math. But I kept thinking about the seahorses. And I wondered why Dad had lied like that to Grammie Stella. So I switched to Latin, but I couldn’t remember any of the Latin I was supposed to remember. Instead, I put two pieces of bread in the toaster and started the lilikoi tea.
A lot has changed since October, but homework has stayed the same. I still think kids shouldn’t have to do it. Living is hard enough.
FALL
Prompt: Does homework help or hurt kids?
After school, kids’ brains are fried. We just want to eat and hang out at home or with friends. Mostly, homework is memorizing stuff we forget right after the test, or it’s reading that doesn’t sink in because there’s already too much crammed in our minds. Kids have way more to think about than extra schoolwork.
I know that other countries think homework is important, like China and Japan. But France doesn’t. And I’m with France.
Look at famous people like Lady Gaga, for example. Did she get where she is by doing homework?
If Steve Jobs had been doing a bunch of math instead of putting together computer parts in his garage, there would be no Apple. If Kurt Cobain had been reading To Kill a Mockingbird instead of playing with his garage band, the whole grunge movement would never have happened.
Fetua does all her homework. And where is it getting her? If she wasn’t doing math and Latin, maybe she’d be the next big author, the next John Green.
“I can’t believe this.”
That’s the first line from my favorite book, Queen of Babble.
This book gives fashion the props it deserves. I mean, the whole story begins with fashion! The main character, Lizzie (the Lizzie Broadcasting System, because she talks so much), spends a summer in London with her loser boyfriend. But she ends up going to France to work at a château and has all this boy drama with Luke and all this friend drama, too.
It seems pretty real. Lizzie is a huge risk-taker—something I definitely admire about people. She’s also brave and HILARIOUS! At first, she has absolutely no idea what she’s going to do after she graduates! She’ll figure it out, though. There are two more books in the series—thank you, mullet baby Jesus.
Me, I know what I want to do. When I graduate from design school in Portland, I’m going to France and New York, just like Lizzie.
I read this book in two days, then lent it to Li Lu, who said Lizzie was annoying. (Li Lu prefers reading about vampires.) She never finished it—or gave it back to me, now that I think about it.
* * *
Also, I can’t find the cord that connects my iPod to the computer—the short white one.
Seriously, I can’t find it anywhere. So (1) I can’t charge it, and (2) I can’t make a new playlist. I would borrow Eli’s cord, but his room is such a mess I’d never be able to find it. And also, Eli would kill me if he knew I was in there.
Dad said my cord is probably right where I left it. Mom told me it would show up somewhere.
I looked all over my room.
After, of course, I checked the freezer.
Seriously. I’m going to kill Eli.
FALL
Prompt: Should the drinking age in Hawaii stay at twenty-one, or should it be changed back to eighteen?
The drinking age doesn’t matter. Anyway, it’s getting to be more and more about weed.
People come to Hawaii to party. When you think “Hawaii,” you think beaches and mai tais, bars, hotels, restaurants, the college, the base—there’s nothing else to do, really. We’re all trapped. We might as well have a good time while we’re stuck here.
Koa has a ginormous supply of Malibu and Cuervo right at his house. And at Puakea Keahi’s last weekend, there were two kegs and Jäger. Everyone was talking about it. People posted pictures all over.
Speaking of parties, Sophia booked the band! For Carnivale. It’s Hula-baloo, who EVERYONE loves. Island music. So. Good! Carnivale is literally only eighty days away.
The Five-0 should let people make their own decisions. They should worry about bigger problems, like the ice that’s all over here. That’s the real problem.
Seriously. We’re just trying to live our lives.
And speaking of drinking, I asked Brielle if she wanted to get a Frappuccino after school.
She slammed her locker door, left a full can of Red Bull Sugarfree spinning on the floor, and said Frappuccinos were for bubbleheads.
That was harsh. I asked what her deal was, and she said her dad was a jackhole. She asked to go with him on his business trip to Australia. She needed a break, she’d told him. But for no reason, her dad said no.
Brielle hates that word.
She said it was total crap, that there was no reason her dad couldn’t bring her. He couldn’t even come up with ONE.
Honestly, she was making such a big deal out of it all. So she can’t go to Australia right now. Geez, you’d think her whole life was ruined.
Last night on Project Runway, Sonjia was eliminated because of the dress she made. Okay, it looked a little like lettuce. But did the judges have to be so mean about it? First Tim Gunn made Sonjia feel like a loser. Then Michael Kors called her work “an ice skating costume.” That was unnecessary, over-the-top brutal.
WINTER
Prompt: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…”
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806–1861)
Miss Wilson asked if I would consider stopping by Ticket to Write. Just to check it out.
The Writing Club? Fetua’s group?
“Oh, I don’t know,” I told her.
“Your writing is really improving,” Miss Wilson said. “Your Mockingbird essays are descriptive, detailed.” She told me I’m showing the bigger picture, a deeper understanding. It’s been happening in history, too. Mr. Montalvo said that my essays are clearer now, more organized. None of this makes any sense. My life definitely doesn’t feel clear or organized. And I don’t understand anything.
Miss Wilson told me Ticket to Write is once a month, that I could think about it. Dad would probably love it if I joined. That would be some points with him, at least.
Yesterday, the Bank of Hawaii on King Street called him at the college to verify that Mom had signed the bank withdrawal slip I’d forged to get that chicken at Foodland. The truth is that I’m running out of money.
Bankoh had been having some problems lately, they said. They were just being careful.
Dad covered for me, or maybe for himself. He said that yes, his wife had signed, she must’ve been in a hurry.
I thought I was going to get grounded for a month, or, in the best case, a big lecture.
But I got this instead: “Taylor, I’d expect this from Eli, but I wouldn’t expect it from you.”
I let that go, asked Dad instead if he was taking Mom to Alan Wong’s like he always did on Valentine’s Day.
He looked surprised. Had he forgotten what day it was?
He told me it was too late to make a reservation.
“She’d like noodles.” I tried to help Dad with a backup plan. My own Valentine’s Day might be nonexistent—it’s been
forever since Henley’s texted—but I could save Mom and Dad’s. “Italian? Indian? Mexican? Thai?”
I was hoping the more ideas I’d had, the better chance Dad had of taking Mom out.
“Taylor, it’s too late,” he told me.
FALL
Prompt: What’s something about O‘ahu most folks don’t know?
Mongooses.
Most people have no idea about those here.
A long time ago, O‘ahu brought in mongooses from Jamaica to catch the rats that were eating all the sugarcane. But the mongooses didn’t eat the rats because they weren’t nocturnal. Instead, they ate birds and eggs. So now, there are almost no Nenes.
* * *
“I have to know,” Brielle told me at lunch. She told Noelani and Soo she needed to talk to me alone. “About Noelani. Is there anything on her?”
“Not really,” I said.
Brielle’s shoulders slumped. She sighed. “Are you looking EVERYWHERE? At EVERYTHING, at ALL her Facebook and Instagram posts?”
“I friended her,” I said. I mean, I was doing what I could do. And anyway, Brielle was best friends with her. She had way more access to that stuff than I did. Brielle should know better than anyone that there’s nothing on Noelani.
This game is the worst. I wish I could get out of it. You have to do every single thing perfectly. There’s no room—not even one millimeter—for a single, small fail. You have to watch everything all the time. You have to watch yourself.
Instead of posting selfies with Li Lu that Soo would tell Brielle about—selfies that would definitely get me Cut for liking girls or something—I’ve been putting up pictures that are safe. The underneath of a banana tree leaf, a cat curled up by a FERAL CATS sign, Eli waxing a board at Dave’s Waves.
Taylor Before and After Page 9
