This Is Not the Jess Show

by Anna Carey

  “And then the guy was all: what’s the secret password. He literally said that, ‘secret password’.” Kim Kennedy leaned over the counter and tipped the fake ID back and forth in the light, showing us the hologram. She’d bought it in December, when her parents took her to New York City to see the Rockettes. “He wouldn’t let me into the back room until I told him.”

  “So what was it?” a sophomore with a mushroom cut asked.

  Kim paused dramatically. “New England Clam Chowder.”

  “New England Clam Chowder,” Mushroom Cut repeated. “From Ace Ventura? You’re lying.”

  “Why would I lie about that?” Then, before anyone could question her, Kim snatched the ID and tucked it back in her wallet. The music changed, and that cheesy Savage Garden song came on. Z100 was playing it every hour.

  “Hey, I wanted to see,” a familiar voice said.

  The group was suddenly quiet, and it wasn’t until I turned that I realized Patrick Kramer was standing right behind me. He was in his iconic red and black North Face fleece, his hands pushed deep into its pockets. Okay, he was good looking—like Joey Lawrence if he was taller and had darker hair. I knew why Kristen and Amber wanted me to want him, but everything about him was just so…blah.

  Kim passed the ID to him and he inspected it, looking at her, then to the photo, like he was some bouncer at a club.

  “Decent,” he finally said.

  “I haven’t had any problems.”

  Patrick smiled, but no one else said anything. He was usually trailed by at least three guys from the varsity soccer team. When they moved in a pack it was impossible to approach them, and we didn’t know what to do with him now that he was alone. He kept glancing around the room, then pressing his lips together, like he was waiting on line in a bank.

  Kim said something to Kristen, and then everyone broke off into side conversations. I tried to maneuver myself closer to Kristen but she inched away, separating me and Patrick from the group.

  “You don’t come out much,” he finally said.

  I probably should’ve made up something that sounded mysterious or cool, but it was Patrick Kramer. It didn’t feel worth it.

  “I was grounded for six months. Now it’s been downgraded to close surveillance,” I said. “After my house was broken into? You probably heard?”

  “Oh, right. You’re over in the flower streets, Honeysuckle Court, Rose Lane. That’s why those Swickley Alarm cars are everywhere.”

  “I don’t feel like I missed out on much. I mean, this isn’t really my scene…”

  I swirled the pink concoction around my cup.

  “So what is your scene?” Patrick moved closer, dipping down so we were eye level. I had a jolt of nervousness, like I was taking a test I hadn’t prepared for. Kristen was right…Patrick Kramer was flirting with me.

  “I kind of like the Wolf Den, that place on Main Street where they have live music twice a week.” My voice got all weird and pitchy. “It’s sixteen and over now to get in.”

  Patrick leaned against the wall and stared off, like I’d just said something incredibly profound. I was 99 percent sure he’d never been to the Wolf Den, but even if I was right, he didn’t ask about it.

  “Yeah, I don’t think this is my scene either. It can be hard to relate. Everyone’s getting high, or talking about stupid meaningless stuff, like the yearbook superlatives. I feel really separate sometimes, like I’m watching a movie of it all, that it’s all happening in front of me but I’m not part of it. Especially after last year.”

  He didn’t look at me as he said it, and I knew that was my cue. We were supposed to have some deep conversation about what happened that day at the Empire State Building. You’re a hero, I’d say, resting my hand on his chest. Tell me what it’s like.

  “I have to uh…go to the bathroom…” I slipped past him, immediately wishing I’d found a better excuse, that I’d said anything but that. I just wanted to get rid of him, not make it seem like I had explosive diarrhea.

  A few guys from the basketball team were playing quarters on the kitchen table. It was unclear where the bathroom was, so I wandered through the first floor for a minute, finally trying a door off the living room. It was locked.

  “There’s another one upstairs,” Neel Nair, a hot senior from my Spanish elective, said as he passed. His breath smelled like bong smoke.

  Jen Klein didn’t seem to care that her friends had started a dance party in the living room. She messed with the stereo, switching on “Baby Got Back.” It was cliché and obvious but everyone was just drunk enough to love it, doing this silly stomping dance. Chris Arnold slammed into the wall as I went up the stairs.

  The bathroom linked Jen’s bedroom with her older sister’s—the kind I’d only seen on 90210, where Brandon and Brenda Walsh ran into each other brushing their teeth. I closed the door behind me and locked it, enjoying the quiet comfort of being alone. I could’ve stayed in there for hours, reading the stack of YM magazines next to the sink, or just lying on the furry bathmat and listening to music. At home the bathroom felt like the only place I could relax. Maybe it was how good the acoustics were when I sang, or maybe it was that no one bothered me when I was taking a bath or drying my hair, but those private spaces always calmed me.

  I smoothed on my lip gloss, careful to blend it to the corners, taking my time. I had this horrible feeling Patrick would be waiting for me right where I’d left him, and Kristen had no interest in helping me dodge the Spring Formal invite.

  Then someone was at the door, two quick knocks echoing in the bathroom. At first I worried it was Patrick, so I ignored it, but then I got paranoid people were waiting outside and they’d think I was doing something weird. When I peeked out there was only one person there. He inspected the CD tower by Jen’s bed, running a hand through his mop of red hair. Tyler.

  I just stood there, unable to speak.

  “Jess! It’s you…”

  “It’s me.”

  Then he smiled that smile, and everything switched on inside me. I was suddenly hyperaware of the strip of exposed skin by my waist, where my sweater cropped up, or the spot where my hoop earring brushed against my neck. I wanted to go back into the bathroom and reapply my lip gloss and pinch color into my cheeks.

  “Who knew Jen Klein was obsessed with Chumbawamba?” His finger rested on some CD spines in the middle of the stack. “I didn’t even realize they had other bad songs.”

  “I actually wouldn’t mind that stupid song if it wasn’t so lazy,” I said, stepping toward him. “Have you ever listened to the lyrics? It’s the same two verses over and over again. He says the same line three dozen times.”

  “But also, what is the guy in the song even doing?” Ty was still smiling as he said it. “He drinks four drinks in a row, all different. Like, I’m no bartender dude, but I’m pretty sure mixing a whiskey drink and a vodka drink and a lager drink, then chasing it down with hard cider, is not going to be good.”

  Did I love him? Was it possible to love someone you’d never even kissed?

  “You hiding out in there?” Ty asked, glancing over my shoulder into the bathroom. He had on this green flannel that he was obsessed with and a vintage Tears for Fears tee shirt underneath, the fabric faded from so many wears.

  “Maybe. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “You kept my secret about that weird cat statue.”

  “The statue! I forgot about that.” I laughed.

  “That’s how good you are at keeping secrets.”

  When I was younger, my mom bought this abstract cat statue and displayed it on a pedestal in our den. Ty and I were rolling around inside a refrigerator box, pretending it was a carnival ride, when we slammed right into it, knocking it to the floor. I put the head back on with Crazy Glue. You could only tell it was broken if you held it an inch from your face.

  “What is that?�
� he asked, peering at the pink stuff in my cup.

  “Some weird lemonade drink. Wanna try?”

  “With that rave review?”

  Ty stepped closer. That one small movement sent me spinning, and even though I could still hear the music from the party, we were suddenly in another universe, one all our own. I’d spent so much time wondering what it meant that Ty always stopped by my locker on his way to gym, or that he’d volunteered to play drums for me last month in the talent show. Did he feel anything when he threw his arm over my shoulder as we walked down the hall, or was it just another version of the hundreds of other hugs he’d given me over the years? He answered me now with this smile, with the way he let the silence linger between us.

  “You look…nice.”

  “Nice?”

  “Pretty.”

  And then he shrugged this tiny, awkward shrug, like he couldn’t help himself—like he’d had to say it. I laughed, because it seemed like the only thing to do, but then he leaned in closer. His lips touched down on mine and he kissed me slowly, carefully, like he was just learning how. His hand wandered to my hair, his fingers getting tangled inside it. His breath warmed my skin. As we kissed, my hands found their way to his back, and I tried to pull him closer, but no matter how close we were, it wasn’t enough.

  At some point the overhead light flicked on. Jen Klein stood in the doorway, a Zima in her hand. Her eyes were bulging out of her face—the melodramatic, drunk version of someone in shock.

  “You guys aren’t supposed to be in here,” she said, stepping forward. She shooed us away like dogs. “Come on, get out of here. Get out.”

  Tyler and I ducked around her, bursting into laughter as we ran down the stairs. She yelled something else that I couldn’t quite hear. His hand found mine and squeezed tight.

  8

  I could have survived on that memory for years. I kept reliving it over and again in my mind, slowing it down to savor the tiniest details. There was the moment Tyler stepped toward me, and that question: Nice? Pretty. I rewrote the dialogue so I was sharper, funnier. Every version started and ended just as it had on Friday night, but they were each special in their own way, and I never got tired of any of them.

  “You’re doing it again,” Sara said. “That smiley, staring off into space thing.”

  “Sorry.” I pressed the picture of Fuller against her wall. I’d taken it a few weeks ago—it was the closest he’d ever come to being photogenic. “Here? Or lower?”

  “That’s great.” She was sitting up in bed, watching me cut and tape and organize.

  “I’m just distracted. Tyler hasn’t been online all weekend.”

  When we rejoined the party on Friday, Kristen already had her jacket on and was ushering me out the door, muttering something about curfews and Kim trying to be a club kid instead of accepting that she wasn’t any cooler than the rest of us. Tyler and I still hadn’t had a chance to establish what we were now. After that kiss, after his hands were in my hair, after it was so clear we were more than just friends.

  “Well, he obviously likes you,” Sara said. “Why would he kiss you if he didn’t like you?”

  “But why would you avoid someone you like?” I asked, rolling a piece of tape onto the back of the photo. I made sure it was straight before I smoothed it on the bottom-right corner of Sara’s collage.

  “There’s no way he’s avoiding you.” She squinted at the wall. “How do you want to put the dried flowers up?”

  I stepped back to assess my work. Sara had spent all of seventh grade hanging up different postcards and mementos, magazine spreads and polaroid pictures. Raffle tickets from the Swickley carnival and a hand-drawn playbill for Annie, her elementary school play. There was a whole collage of disposable camera photos—her and her friends at a Valentine’s Day party and a pretty one of Sara in her black-and-white recital outfit. My favorite was a particularly silly photo-booth strip she and I had taken two years ago, before she’d gotten really sick. In one picture she was sticking out her tongue and in the next she was pressing it to my cheek.

  “I’ll tape the stems,” I said, and tucked the ends of the dried roses underneath a Bop collage of Devon Sawa and Andrew Keegan. Fuller was sprawled out on the floor beside me, twitching and huffing in sleep.

  “He’s always been in love with you,” Sara said.

  “I don’t know about that…”

  “Oh please! He’s always looked at you with those googly love eyes.”

  “Googly love eyes?”

  Sara leaned forward, her gaze unfocused and just the slightest bit cross-eyed. She smiled so wide it looked like she was wearing a rubber mask. I took a step to the right, then the left, but everywhere I went she kept staring at me.

  “That’s really creepy. Stop.”

  She laughed, then sat back in bed. “I’m just saying. If you really want to be with Ty, I think you’ll be with Ty.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “I just have a feeling.”

  “So you’re psychic now?”

  “Maybe.” She closed her eyes, pretending to be in a trance. “I see homemade chocolate chip cookies in my future. I see them on a tray with milk.”

  “It’s almost ten o’clock. I am not baking you cookies.” I laughed. But I was already considering it, weighing how much time it would take, if we had any chocolate chips. Lately it felt like there wasn’t anything Sara couldn’t get me to do.

  “It was worth a try.”

  I stepped back and felt something underneath my bare foot. I knew what it was before I even looked. Sara was obsessed with Lisa Frank, and it was maddening how those stickers turned up everywhere. I’d find them in the medicine cabinet, underneath plates, and clinging to Fuller’s butt. I’d once cut a neon dolphin out of his fur.

  “Seriously?” I raised my eyebrows as I peeled the rainbow unicorn off my heel.

  “I’ve gotten better,” she said. “I’ve been trying to keep them all in that sticker book you got me.”

  I smiled so she would know I wasn’t genuinely mad. But when I moved to throw it away she yelped.

  “Just give it to me, I’ll put it in here,” she said.

  She grabbed one of the books off her nightstand. Sara read more than anyone I knew, including Miss Thomas, our Swickley High librarian. After she’d blown through all the Baby Sitters Club books and everything Christopher Pike, she’d moved on to adult books like The God of Small Things and Tuesdays with Morrie (which she said was horribly cheesy). She’d even had our mom’s friend from London send her an advance copy of something called Harry Potter, which had only been published in England. As she pressed the unicorn onto a back page, I studied the cover.

  “The Philosopher’s Stone?” I asked. “Isn’t this a little young for you?”

  Sara paused, holding the sticker book in the air. She squinted at me, like she was confused, but then the expression passed. “It’s really great. I have a feeling it’s going to be huge. There are supposed to be seven.”

  “You have a feeling about a lot of things,” I said.

  Sara tilted her head to one side as she smoothed the sticker back into the book. Then she pointed to a picture of us that our dad had taken when we were kids. We were rolling around in the grass, our eyes squeezed shut as we laughed. It was tucked beside the carnival tickets.

  “Do you remember the park we went to that time? It was near the old library, before it closed.”

  “Kind of?”

  I wasn’t even sure that’s where the photo was taken, but I vaguely recalled a huge park we went to once as kids. We’d raced to the end of the tree line, to where the grass met the woods.

  “It had that garden. There was that fairy statue in the middle of it.”

  It felt so far away, but I could almost see it—the stone fairy with her wings tucked behind her back. I’d wandered off. Th
ere had been something strange about the trees there, but I couldn’t remember what. Our parents had called for me and I felt like I’d done something bad, that I was about to get in trouble. Had I?

  “What made you think of that?” I asked, adding a few cards to the top of the collage. One of Sara’s friends from music camp had sent her a postcard that said MULLETS ROCK.

  “I don’t know.” Sara fiddled with her blanket, smoothing it down over her legs.

  There was a strange, persistent silence. I expected her to say something else, to elaborate, but she didn’t. We’d been having moments like this more regularly lately. Awkward pauses and her saying something I couldn’t decipher, then not following up with an explanation. Part of me wondered if it was a sign her disease was progressing, or one of the consequences of her being at home alone all day, with no one to talk to but Lydia.

  “Okay, out with it,” I said.

  “Nothing, what?”

  “Nothing? That’s your response?”

  Another long silence, then she started picking off her nail polish, as if I might forget what we’d been talking about.

  “You’re being really weird,” I said.

  “I’m not.”

  I rolled my eyes at her, but she was still chipping away at the polish, pastel-green flakes now scattered over the blanket. I went to the end of the bed and tried to see the wall the way she saw it. The pieces we’d added spread out above her dresser, but there was still so much blank space by the door.

  “We have to find more things to add,” I said.

  “When it gets warmer, maybe we can go out and take more pictures,” Sara said, finally looking up. She pointed to the space. “That whole area needs something. It’s starting to feel lopsided.”

  We kept putting things off for when Sara felt better, for when things improved. We’d have a picnic in the backyard and we had to go to the mall so she could finally get her ears pierced. There were still so many memories to be made. There were pictures that needed to be taken and printed and hung up.

  “I think we might have some chocolate chips left,” I said, turning to her.