Kissing Ezra Holtz (and Other Things I Did for Science)

by Brianna R. Shrum

  “Why not? You Holtz me all the time.”

  “That’s filthy, Holtz.”

  He blushes immediately, just a little. His expression doesn’t shift, but color crawls into his cheeks, light like watercolor.

  I say, “Last-naming me sounds weird coming out of your mouth. That move is not for you.”

  Ezra rolls his eyes, cheeks and ears still pink, mouth still turned up at the corners.

  “Now,” I continue, “are you gonna give me some Shabbat provisions to break or am I just holding this pencil for no reason?”

  A literal groan. Then, “I legitimately have nothing. You think everything I want to do is like . . . charting the drying time of cement.”

  “Well, whose fault is that?” My phone buzzes in my pocket. “One sec.” I glance down at it. “Oh shit,” I say. “Kaylee says you left your headlights on.”

  “Dammit, did I?” Ezra stands and says, “You don’t think this is a ploy for her to start making out with me in the hallway?”

  I bark out a laugh. “I don’t know, man, leave my room at your own risk.”

  I’m still giggling about it thirty seconds after he’s left. Poor Kaylee. She would actually die if she knew he’d said that; I’m about to die just out of surprise that he was observant enough to acknowledge it and cool enough to joke about something as plebeian as making out. Then I freeze.

  Maybe that’s it.

  I’ve got it.

  “Well,” Ezra says when he comes back in, “no attack in the halls; my lights really were on so—”

  “Ezra,” I say.

  He shuts his mouth and looks at me. Then sits on my gray carpet. Takes a drink of his Coke.

  “I have it. Okay, listen, you’re gonna wanna shut this down on instinct but don’t.”

  He says, blithely, “No promises,” and I ignore it.

  “I was just sitting here, thinking about how shocked I was that you were an astute enough student of human nature that you would even recognize my sister’s obvious, like, mating call down there—”

  He literally chokes on his drink.

  “—and I thought, what if we did an experiment on that?”

  “On . . . me and your sister? Listen, I said no promises. I will not—”

  “No,” I say. “Lord. Holtz. No. On love. Like, on relationships. There was this study they did way back in the nineties.” I scroll through my phone and wave it in his face. “Arthur Aron, looks like? Anyway, they matched up these total strangers and had them answer a bunch of questions, then like. Stare at each other. To see if they could use science to get people to fall in love.”

  “Huh,” says Ezra. I have the sneaking suspicion that he’s being more agreeable than he would have been otherwise because of the palpable relief at my not suggesting he hook up with Kaylee. Another psychological phenomenon to chew on.

  “What if we recreated that experiment?”

  Ezra frowns and confers mentally with my carpet, trying, no doubt, to decide if this is foolproof and logical enough. “I don’t know that we can take his hypothesis, word-for-word, and regurgitate it.”

  I breathe out through my nose. “Dammit.”

  “No, wait, I’m not saying no.”

  My eyebrows rise.

  He says, “We could add in a matchmaking component. Come up with several research-based determinants of romantic compatibility, and have students volunteer to be matched up, and do Aron’s study. Personality plus intention.”

  “They could journal it,” I say. “Or like, video diary, or whatever?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “And we can compare results at the end. Maybe three couples?”

  “If we can get that many, sure,” I say.

  He smiles, genuinely. A wide, enthused thing. I get this little jolt of excitement at his approval and start scribbling.

  “So what we need,” I say, over the sound of graphite soaring across a page, “is to determine what we think, based on our own conjecture and the body of research supporting it, are primary factors of compatibility.”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Like an expansion on what he already did. A modern update on”—I glance at my phone again and read—“The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness.”

  “Yes,” says Ezra again. “Perfect. Okay, yes, I think this can actually work. Maybe we’re not doomed.”

  “Well,” I say, “don’t seem so surprised.”

  He shrugs and tips his lips in this almost mischievous way that makes his eyes sparkle.

  “Look at us,” he says. “Being brilliant. Surviving being in a room together for more than eight seconds.”

  “Truly, a miracle.”

  Then the room falls silent. For a couple full minutes, at least.

  “I, uh. Yeah, I should probably get back, actually,” he says.

  “Sure.”

  That’s fine with me. Because it seems like we will in fact be capable of working together without committing murder, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend the whole evening with him, being subtly chastised for breathing wrong.

  “Let me walk you out,” I say.

  “You don’t have to,” he says, but I follow him out the door to his car anyway, notebook still in hand.

  “Hold up just a sec,” I say, and I rip the page out of my notebook. Then hand it to him.

  He eyes it then me, then says, “Why are you giving me this?”

  “Because you’ll feel better knowing I’m not gonna lose it. And then I won’t lose it and have to deal with you riding my ass about it on Tuesday.”

  He adjusts his glasses at me.

  “Plus,” I say, “now you can do what I know you’re gonna be dying to do the second it hits like 8:30 tomorrow—”

  He raises an eyebrow, playfully. As close to a smile as he usually gets. “8:47.”

  “Amazing. You actually have all the times memorized?”

  A little exasperated tic in his jaw. He has a number of ways to show that specific emotion, I am learning.

  “I have an app,” he says. “I checked to see what time Shabbat ends like three hours ago.”

  He’s a little defensive, but now I’m smiling instead when I say, “Well, hat’s off.” And I don’t say it in a jerky sarcastic way. His jaw unclenches, the littlest bit. I continue, “Anyway, I know at 8:47, you’re gonna be dying to write all that down in your perfect, precise handwriting, and get this beautifully organized outline going, and I am trying to facilitate that. Better for my grade.”

  He peers at me, then just folds it up in a flawlessly symmetrical square and slips it in his back pocket. He says, “Thank you.”

  I say, “Don’t say I never did anything for you. Good Shabbos.”

  “Good Shabbos,” he says, hand still in that back pocket when I walk away.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Observation: If an object in motion stays in motion, and an object at rest stays at rest, I suppose that means that humans, down to a cellular level, are resistant to change. But the law of . . . what? Thermodynamics? No. Murphy’s Law. That’s not . . . Entropy. ENTROPY guarantees that everything, everything will.

  What a racket.

  Skylar’s house is one of those houses that looks like it was transplanted here from another time. It’s old and off-white with a wraparound porch and these green wooden shutters and a long driveway with weeping willows leading up the path. Spanish moss, rustling leaves blowing dangerously across the pavement in the fall, the whole nine. Every time I show up here—all the time—I find myself wondering if, this time, the place will be haunted.

  In the seventh grade, Skylar played Bloody Mary in the old already-Stephen-King-looking bathroom, and I swear to god I didn’t come back here for a month.

  So far, no hauntings, but who’s to say if that’ll stick.

  I ring the bell and spend the two minutes she takes to answer trying to peel my shirt off my skin for a half second of relief. North Carolina humidity means I am unsuccessful.

  “You dork,” sh
e says. “You can come in without knocking. How many times have I told you that?”

  “One time too few.”

  There was a time, summer between ninth and tenth grade, that I snuck into and out of Skylar’s house over and over, knew the exact path to take to hop the fence and scale up to her window and avoid the motion lights—could do it in the pitch dark without stumbling. She snuck into mine, too.

  But things change and they changed with us, and I guess I just . . . ring the doorbell now.

  Skylar rolls her eyes and opens her door, and I follow her inside. “Ellie’s upstairs,” she says. “Hope that’s cool.”

  “Yeah, no, of course.”

  Ellie and Skylar started dating a few weeks ago. Ellie and I have slacked our way through a couple classes here and there, and there is some kind of special bond to that, like a pact. So I’ve always liked her. Even if it’s still just a little weird to watch her stick her tongue down my ex-girlfriend’s throat.

  Skylar tosses her perfect brown-black hair and I get this sudden wave of peony and vanilla as she walks up the stairs. Ellie, of the precious overbite, amazing coal black dreadlocks, and absolutely killer vibrato when she hits the high notes in every school musical/concert/whatever, is sitting cross-legged at the top of the stairs, waiting for us.

  “Now it’s a party,” she says.

  I smirk. “Please. I’m sure you guys had more than enough party to keep you entertained on your own.”

  She presses her hand to her chest. “Amalia, I am a lady.” When she lets it fall back to the old hardwood, I spot an extremely fresh hickey where her palm was and my mouth turns up.

  “Mmhmmm.”

  “We were practicing,” says Skylar.

  “Ah yeah, the all-important mouth exercises.” I raise an eyebrow at her. “Hand exercises?”

  Skylar holds up a finger. “One, I’m a bassist. Hand and finger exercises do matter. Two, we really were working on something. Listen.”

  She cocks her head toward her room and Ellie and I follow her in.

  I sit on the hardwood floor and lean back on my palms as light filters through the window. It’s more a little old attic than a real bedroom but it’s extremely Skylar. The light picks up the dust so when Skylar kicks on her computer and joins the violin and cello in the recording with her massive upright bass, it feels almost magical.

  The instrument is bigger than she is, but I’ve never doubted that she is in complete control over it. The bass doesn’t overwhelm her, which is saying something.

  She has that energy.

  It’s quiet, understated. Because Skylar is quiet and understated.

  But it’s quietly, understatedly like she could slide down into a bear pit at the zoo and the bears would defer right away. She chooses to use that talent on giant musical instruments.

  Skylar plays and Ellie kind of rolls her eyes but opens her mouth to sing and god, they’re good together. Ellie got into a different arts school than Skylar, but they both got in. It’s incredible.

  Ellie’s deep alto and Skylar’s bass fill the room and I don’t even know the song; it’s in a different language I could maybe recognize if I cared but I don’t.

  I’m mesmerized.

  I’m fixated.

  I’m . . . I’m furious.

  I’m suddenly so mad and sad and each emotion is fueling the other until I can’t tell which is which. Because I can’t hear them without my counselor’s voice stealing the main track, their music fading into the background.

  FAILURE. FAILURE. FAILURE.

  I’m so selfish, because I’m supposed to be listening to my friends, and I guess, as usual, it’s just become all about me.

  My fingers curl on the wood, and I’m so glad Skylar isn’t looking at me because I never have been able to control my face. Some people have resting bitch face? I have Literally Always Bitch Face with a side of Cannot Mask My Emotions. Ever.

  I should be supportive.

  I should be looking for ways they can improve before the talent show this winter (four full months from now—but that’s Skylar) and picking out everything incredible about their performance.

  But I’m not, I can’t.

  Like always—like always—Skylar does something perfect, and she gets exactly what she wants, and I am left here on the floor of her attic feeling just.

  Completely fucking useless.

  The song ends and it’s actual seconds before I realize they’re looking at me and that I should probably say something.

  “Amazing,” I manage. “You guys work really well together. You’re perfect.”

  I about choke on it.

  “We’ve been working really hard,” says Skylar.

  Ellie says, “Please.” Then elbows Skylar. “I’ve been kicking my own ass. Skylar practices for fourteen seconds and comes out playing like she’s Julliard-trained.”

  “Ugh, whatever,” says Skylar, but she says it with this grin on her face that isn’t trying to be smug.

  It is, though.

  And now I’m just sick. Looking at them so lit up by their art together is just a reminder of this extremely, extremely fresh wound. Self-inflicted. One I haven’t even been able to tell my best friend about for weeks because I can’t stand the thought of her feeling sorry for me, or knowing—like I’ve always been afraid of—that’s she’s better than me.

  She doesn’t even have to try and she’s better than me.

  Ellie doesn’t do anything but smile, because she doesn’t know me like Skylar does.

  Skylar cocks her head and opens her mouth, a perfect pout of dark red lipstick and seriousness.

  I say, “Shit. Shit I completely forgot about something I promised my mom I’d do. I have to go.”

  It’s been five minutes since I got here and I feel like a complete asshole, but my actual skin is itching.

  I leave and I feel bad and I feel . . . well. I get in Ben’s commandeered car and I feel like I always felt back when Skylar and I were dating.

  Like I have been found wanting.

  I don’t even know by whom.

  I’m in a supremely shitty mood when I get home and Ezra Holtz is sitting on my front step.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He raises an eyebrow and stands. “I texted. Like four times.”

  “Did I answer?”

  He purses his lips, flashing from a surprising I am insecure to I am disappointed. Which puts us back in familiar territory, and I am just fine with that. He says, “I spent last night organizing our notes and I wanted to nail down our plan so we can turn it all in on Tuesday.”

  “It’s Sunday, Holtz.”

  “What?” he says, looking around himself in fake shock. “For how long?”

  I flip him off.

  “Honestly, Amalia, we’re partners and I came to work and—”

  I scratch my head and my fingers get caught in my utterly untamable hair, which kind of hurts, so I huff out this breath and shove past him.

  “What crawled up your ass?” he says.

  I whirl around. “You. You’re exhausting me.”

  “I’ve been here for all of two minutes.”

  “Well that was all it took.”

  He straightens his spine and looks down at me. Adjusts the stupid collar of his stupid button-down. “Why are you in an AP class if you’re not interested in work? You’ve never been interested in doing anything.”

  I scoff. “Okay that’s not fair. You know I’m really into—”

  I was going to say art.

  He finishes, condescending as fuck, “Weed?”

  “Oh my god.” I look up at the sky. “Oh my god, how did I think we were going to be able to work together? How am I supposed to walk away with any semblance of a grade when this project is about understanding humans, and the person I’m supposed to count on to do that is you?”

  I don’t know if he’s about to laugh or yell at me, but this look spreads across his face that could go either way. “Sure,” he says. “Yeah, I
’m sure you’re really concerned. About your grades.”

  “Because I’m just a complete waste of space, Ezra?”

  He furrows his brow. “No. No that’s not what I—”

  “I’m just this inconvenient person you have to suffer through so you can tolerate class and synagogue and whatever, and if you had your way, you wouldn’t descend to this altitude to speak to me.”

  “Amalia.”

  “Even if I tried, even if I cared, I’d bring you down.”

  He says, sharply, like a command, “Amalia,” and grabs me by the shoulders. Hard enough to pull me up out of this little ridiculous immature pity party. “What is going on?”

  I say, “I care about things. I care about this grade.”

  “Okay,” he says, letting go of me, but it’s conciliatory. It’s a gift, like he doesn’t believe me. And for whatever reason, I need him to believe me. I need him not to give me validation like it’s something to be given out for free.

  Like Skylar would give me if I asked her to look at one of my paintings, which are apparently shit.

  I say, “I need this grade.”

  He sighs and rubs this perma-furrow between his eyebrows. “Why?”

  “Why do you need good grades, you pretentious ass?”

  Another sigh, louder and through his nostrils. “Because I got a scholarship? To one of the top engineering schools in the country? Aren’t you going to art school?”

  I’m seeing red again, but I make myself breathe because I’m tired. I’m too tired to knock him over the head for assuming an engineering degree means something and artists are a joke. Of course he thinks that, of course Ezra Effing Holtz thinks a lot of maddening things.

  I say, instead of throwing him into one of the support beams of this front porch, “No.”

  The second I say it, I hear it. I hear how it sounds. It sounds like I’m dying, it sounds like I have actually deflated while making the words come out. I heard it all confident and strong in my head, but when I said it, it . . . well. It sounded different. Like this was absolutely, positively, eight hundred percent not my choice.

  “Oh,” he says. Then, searching my face in a way that makes the air a little thick, makes me need to take a step backward: “Oh.”