They Wish They Were Us

by Jessica Goodman

  I didn’t really register their intense desire for my excellence until fifth grade, when Mom and Dad not-so-subtly suggested I apply for Gold Coast Prep’s Alumni Merit Grant for Students in STEM. It was given out in secret every year, and afforded one lucky student full access to the school’s multimillion-dollar science wing, AP classes, and extracurriculars. Dozens of alumni have ended up in the best undergrad science programs, to no one’s surprise. I’ve never seen Mom and Dad as happy as they were when I got in.

  It’s not like scholarship is plastered on my forehead, but sometimes I swear it must be obvious. No designer loafers to offset the pleated plaid skirt. No car of my own. No summers in the Hamptons. “Who needs a beach house when you live near the beach!” Mom said when I told her Shaila invited me to the Arnolds’ place out east back in middle school.

  The grant doesn’t cover everything—there are still extra expenses like uniforms and textbooks and Science Bowl dues. And all of Jared’s tuition, of course. All of Mom and Dad’s resources go into making sure we can stay at Prep with the hope that it will somehow pay off. That my baby brother and I will get into better colleges—Ivies, ideally—than if we went down the street to Cartwright Public High, where only half the class graduates.

  How we would pay for college was always a sticky subject, one I tiptoed around on purpose. I pretended not to hear them fighting about it late at night in hushed tones after they thought we were asleep. “Just let her get in first,” Dad always whispered. “We’ll find a way.”

  But is it worth it? The long hours Dad spends crunching numbers in a soulless office? The fake smiles Mom puts on when she has to pretend those awful wine drunks are brilliant artists? To be determined. And, that’s where the Player Files come in. I need to do well. For me, but mostly for them.

  But here in Gold Coast, Mom is forever optimistic. She’s the mom who trusts just about anyone, because people are inherently good, Jill, they just are. Even after Shaila, she still says that.

  It’s that same motto that made her say yes one day during a temple sisterhood meeting when Cindy Miller suggested that her eighteen-year-old son tutor Jared in English on the cheap.

  “You’re off the hook,” Mom said when she told me I didn’t have to listen to Jared read aloud anymore. “Adam Miller is going to do this with him.”

  “What?” I was shocked. Everyone at Gold Coast Prep knew Adam. Sure, he was unbelievably gorgeous, with long, lean arms, swoopy dark hair, and blue eyes that could melt ice. But he was also brilliant. Adam had won the National Young Playwright Award three years in a row and was rumored to be shopping scripts around to different regional theater companies . . . as a high schooler. Colleges were practically begging him to join their writing programs. He was also, obviously, a Player.

  So, why the hell did he want to spend Friday nights reading chapter books with a sixth grader?

  Mom smoothed her chunky knit sweater over her jeans and fastened a heavy ceramic necklace behind her head. “Cindy suggested it. He wants some real work experience, or something. Probably for his college applications.”

  They were going out to dinner that night and I was supposed to go to Shaila’s for a movie marathon, but my brain basically short-circuited at the idea of getting to hang out with Adam.

  Outside of school.

  Alone.

  Well, after he was done tutoring.

  I quickly texted Shaila an excuse. Sore throat. SORRY!!!!!

  She responded with a wailing face, but I was in the clear. When I told Mom I was feeling sick and staying home, her mouth turned up into a small, knowing smile. “Sure, Jill.”

  Dad laughed and ran a comb through his hair. “Classic.”

  Then the bell rang.

  I tried to be cool and only sort of rush to the door, but Jared beat me there.

  “You’re the tutor?” he said, eyeing Adam with a grin.

  “Indeed, I am, buddy. You must be Jared.” Adam flashed a wide smile that hugged his cheeks. It was lopsided and formed a J shape, pink and full. He crossed his arms over his chest, causing his thin white T-shirt to ripple over his biceps. They were so perfectly round and smooth and strong. He looked so much older without the blazer and khakis all the boys at Gold Coast had to wear. My neck flushed with embarrassment. I fought the urge to lick his skin. “And you,” he said. “You must be Jilly.”

  “I—uh,” I said. “It’s Jill.”

  “Jill.” Hearing him say my name was intoxicating. Say it again, I willed. “Jill,” he said, like he’d read my mind, “I didn’t realize you’d be here, too.”

  Before I could respond, Mom burst into the foyer.

  “Adam! We’re so glad you’re here to help Jared. We’re heading out for the night, but our numbers are on the counter next to your check. Pizza’s in the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever you want.” She and Dad were off.

  Adam threw me another one of those body-melting smiles and then turned to Jared. “Ready, dude?”

  Jared groaned but then disappeared with Adam into the kitchen. I plopped down on the couch and turned Bravo on the lowest volume possible, to make it seem like I was busy and definitely not eavesdropping.

  An hour passed before Jared tore through the room. “My turn.” He grabbed the remote and switched it to some stupid superhero movie.

  When Adam didn’t follow, I tiptoed into the kitchen, curious if he was still there.

  “Hey,” he said when I appeared in the doorway.

  My face instantly flushed. “How’d he do?”

  Adam stretched his arms overhead, revealing a thin strip of skin and a faint trail of curly, feathery hair between his jeans and his shirt. I had to suppress a sharp inhale.

  “Pretty good. Kid’s a sweetheart.” He gestured to the half-empty pizza box on the counter. “Join me? I hate eating alone.”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, he picked up the box and walked toward the back of the kitchen, leading to the deck that jutted out over our backyard. I followed him through the screen door. He dropped the box down on the glass table and disappeared back into the kitchen. When he returned, he was holding two glasses full of ice and two cans of soda.

  “Thanks,” I said when he handed me a cup.

  But before he took a sip, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a metal rectangle. He unscrewed the top and poured a dark and shiny liquid into his cup. “Want some?” he asked, his eyebrows raised. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  I nodded. The first taste made me cough.

  “It gets easier,” he said with a laugh.

  I wanted to tell him that I’d done this before. I was cool, too. But I just brought the glass to my lips and sipped again, listening to the ice crackle beneath the booze. It burned in a way that ignited the nerves in the tips of my fingers. Then I did what I always did when I was anxious. I looked up. The stars swirled overhead and I could spot my favorites with ease. My dad’s instructions played on a loop in my head. Find the North Star. Look down to the left. Then tilt your head just a little more. Bam. Big Dipper. A calm settled into my skin.

  I took another sip.

  “So, Jill,” Adam said, holding out the last letter of my name. Ji-llllll. “Who are you?”

  I laughed. “Excuse me?” The nerves came flooding back. I forced myself to find Orion’s belt and focus on the three blinking lights instead of Adam’s question.

  “You heard me,” he said. “Who are you? Who is Jill Newman?”

  I chewed the inside of my mouth and looked down, then back to him.

  “I’m no one.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “No?”

  “No. You’re just still becoming.”

  My bottom lip fell. It was so precisely true, it stung.

  “That’s okay. I am, too,” he said. Adam held out his drink as if to meet mine in a toast. “We’ll find ou
t together.”

  Then he reached over and slipped my phone out of the pocket of my jeans, a motion that made my insides turn to jelly, my toes curl. “Here,” he said, typing with flying fingers. “I’m texting myself so I have your number.”

  Later that night, hours after we had finished the last of the cold pizza crusts and he had gone home, my phone buzzed.

  I know who you are, Adam wrote.

  Oh yeah? Do tell.

  My new critic. His typing bubble paused, but then Adam sent an enormous block of text followed by an explanation. The first scene from my next play. You’re the first to read it. Tell me what sucks, Newman. I can take it.

  My heart thumped as my eyes decoded the words. I bit back a smile and responded.

  I’m honored.

  That’s how it started.

  Soon, he was over once a week to read and do worksheets with Jared. And then hang out with me after. Fridays usually. Sometimes on Wednesdays when Mom taught evening classes and Dad had late nights. Never Saturdays. Those were Player nights.

  At first, I told no one. I wanted to keep my time with Adam secret. I was greedy for more of it. At school, I watched him flit between classes and occupy his place at the senior Players’ Table. He wasn’t Toastmaster but he anchored their unit. Everyone turned to him for approval, to make sure he laughed at their jokes, to hear his wild, winding stories.

  We had an unspoken understanding. My house was safe. School was not. Instead, we exchanged secret smiles in the halls only once in a while. Then, one Thursday, when I walked by him in between second and third period, he changed the rules. Adam stuck out his index finger and pressed it to the back of my shoulder just for a moment. His touch traveled through my veins, zapping me into an alternative reality.

  That’s how Shaila found out. “What was that?” she said, gnawing at her cuticle, a gross habit she was always trying to kick. I picked it up too after she died. “Why does Adam Miller know who you are?”

  I tried not to smile. “He’s been tutoring Jared. I think our moms are friends.”

  “Huh,” Shaila said, her eyes trained on Adam, who was gliding down the hall, turning into the math wing. A wake of students rippled behind him. “He’s dating Rachel, you know,” she whispered. “Rachel Calloway.” My heart sparked and cracked. Rachel was Graham’s stunning older sister. Captain of the field hockey team. President of their class. She was a towering goddess. A senior. A Player. That made it all so much worse.

  “I know,” I lied.

  “I saw him over the summer once or twice,” she said. “With Graham.”

  I stayed silent, seething that Shaila had yet another thing to show me up. First a boyfriend, then Adam’s attention.

  But perhaps she picked up on this because she quickly ceded the power. “He never really wanted us around, though,” she said.

  I had always been jealous of Shaila, of the way her clothes smelled like summer and were super soft when you rubbed them through your fingers, and how she seemed so comfortable with her long legs and her growing chest. She never had oily little pimples on her back or weird fine fuzz growing above her lip. Even her hair stayed in place, unbothered by the Gold Coast mist.

  I was jealous that things were so easy for her. That she could be the number one student in our class, run miles, star in plays, and dazzle anyone without much effort at all. She claimed to have only one real fear. A totally benign, normal one. Heights.

  “Nope. No way,” she said back in seventh grade when I begged her to join me on the Ferris wheel at the annual Oyster Fest. It was always set up right at the mouth of Ocean Cliff, so when you reached the top you felt like you were falling into the abyss. “You know I don’t do heights.” She grimaced as her eyes scaled the metal monstrosity.

  Otherwise, Shaila could make everything seem glamorous, mysterious, an adventure. Like if you stuck with her, you’d never be bored again.

  She even looked special. Her eyes were a grassy shade of green that grew brighter when she was excited. Shaila was the first one in our class to wear a bra. Mrs. Arnold even bought her the ones with extra padding that pushed everything up and out. Her body always looked like it was morphing into itself at conflicting speeds. I was still terrified of myself and the power I did or didn’t have. But I must have had something Adam liked, something that kept him hanging around, even if he did have a girlfriend. My ability to listen, maybe. My willingness to say yes. For forever, I’d wanted to have something Shaila didn’t. Now I had access to Adam. It was a weird imbalance, one I could milk.

  “Maybe I can come over one time,” she said quietly. “When he’s at the house?”

  “Would that be weird with Rachel?” I said, trying not to let my annoyance show.

  Shaila shrugged. “Nah. Rachel’s like my big sister. She’d be psyched. Plus, it could help us get into the Players. Rachel said she couldn’t guarantee anything.”

  She knew I couldn’t fight her on that one but I made her promise not to tell Nikki. Three would feel like an ambush, I argued. We didn’t want to seem like we were fishing for invitations to parties. She agreed.

  That Friday, when Shaila came home with me after school, I was anxious. Concerned he would like her more than he liked me. Worried there was only room for one of us in his freshman-girls-who-I’m-friends-with crew. I spent the nights he was here on stilts, trying not to fall over, to misstep. Adding another whole person to the event felt like narrowing the platform.

  The doorbell rang and Shaila bolted for the stairs. I was a few steps behind her but she opened the door, pushing her body into the frame, between Adam and me.

  “Shaila,” he said. A surprised smirk took over his face.

  “I’m spending the night,” she said.

  “Fun.” His eyebrows shot up at me, amused. “Graham out of town, too?” he asked.

  She nodded. “One last weekend out east.”

  “Rachel was pissed,” Adam said.

  “Graham, too.” Shaila wrinkled her nose.

  I tried to follow their chatter but it sounded like a different language. One spoken by people intimately in the know about a certain family’s quirks, the things they keep behind closed doors. But as my unease came to a boil, Adam moved past Shaila and brought me in for a bear hug, resting his head on top of mine.

  “Hey, Newman,” he murmured into my hair. I wrapped my arms around him, feeling his heat. That was the first night I knew for sure that Adam and I were friends. And Shaila saw it firsthand.

  For the next hour, Shaila and I watched YouTube until Adam emerged from the kitchen and Jared rushed down to the basement to play video games.

  “Deck?” Adam asked us. He didn’t wait for a response and instead headed for the door. By then he knew which wooden board was creaky, where to step to avoid the sticky patch of sap. He took his seat, the one under the apple tree that had never produced a single piece of fruit, and fumbled in his pocket.

  Shaila and I sat on either side of him. She nibbled her fingers and tore her skin with her teeth.

  “I’ve got a surprise,” Adam said, setting his hands on the table.

  “Bourbon?” I said, trying to find the line between knowledgeable and desperate, hoping not to step over it.

  He shook his head. “Better.” Opening his hands like a magician, he revealed something small and oblong, rolled up like a messy straw wrapper and pinched at one end.

  Shaila giggled. “Yes!”

  “You blaze before?” he asked her. I shot her a look. It was a line we hadn’t yet crossed.

  “Once with Kara,” she said. “She had dank shit from the city.” Dank shit. Two words I’d never heard come out of Shaila’s mouth, especially not when referring to her chic family friend who also summered in the Hamptons.

  Adam nodded and raised his eyebrows at her, impressed. “Et tu, Jill?” he asked, jabbing the little cigarette my way. I
shook my head. “Well, then. Big day.” He gave my knee a squeeze and my stomach clenched. The joint dangled from his mouth, so pink and full, and he flicked on a lighter, inhaling deeply.

  “Ah,” he breathed out. The air smelled of musk and dirt and faintly like Mom’s pottery studio, and I wondered if my parents had done the same back there, if I was the one who was slow, always catching up. I took the nub from Adam and followed his lead, inhaling until I thought my brain would combust. My lungs expanded and I wondered how long I was supposed to hold this odd air inside me. Adam nodded, and I let it go, releasing smoke. My limbs were heavy and I felt good. Another task completed. Another line crossed.

  We passed the joint around and around, and when that one was finished, Adam revealed its twin. Soon, we polished that one off, too. We were starving and silly. Adam made nachos and we danced around the kitchen to Motown music. Shaila and I sandwiched Adam between us, holding hands as he jumped up and down. We collapsed onto the couch and Adam cackled furiously when I insisted we watch a clip of pandas rolling down a hill.

  “Jill! I can’t, I can’t!” he said, gasping for air. Tears rolled down his cheeks, he was laughing so hard. And through the haze I felt accomplished and satisfied. I had made Adam Miller laugh. It was I, the funniest freshman at Gold Coast Prep.

  Shaila soon fell asleep on the couch. When Adam noticed, he turned to me and said, “Let’s sit outside.”

  I followed him to the deck, but this time he walked down the stairs and to the white woven hammock on the edge of our yard, hung between two cedar trees. He motioned for me to join him. Slowly, I sunk down next to him so we were lying side by side, head to toe. His mouth was so far away but I could see it taunting me.

  I tilted my head to the sky, trying to spot something I recognized. But a fog had settled over the inky night. There were only clouds. I was alone with my tangled nerves.

  He rested his head against my feet and I said a silent thankful prayer that I had painted my toes a bright canary blue earlier that morning. The breeze from the bay picked up and I nuzzled into his legs. They were warm and the little hairs tickled my chin when I got too close.