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

by Brianna R. Shrum

  Anyway, I recognize it, and it gives me this oddly comfortable feeling of familiarity.

  Of course, only now when I have to go outside to meet him as soon as possible do I realize that I made a grave mistake watching Atomic Blonde with the girls and totally dozed off so I killed my own plans to look cute. I’m in these ratty pajama shorts that barely cover my ass and an even rattier top—loose and big with a couple holes torn in it. I’m sure my hair is just inexplicable.

  I sit up as quietly as possible and run my hand through my hair, like that will help. Maybe I can disentangle myself from this jumble of blankets without being noticed. Oh god, I don’t know.

  I grit my teeth and hold my breath and stand, wrench my ankle free of a twisted sheet, and gently push Ellie’s head away from my feet. Then I tiptoe like a cartoon out of my room and down the stairs.

  There’s not even a prayer of me being able to clean up before I see him, because well, all my clothes are in my room and turning on the light would, in fact, implicate me. So I just purse my lips, blow out a breath, and wrangle my hair in the hair tie I keep around my wrist at all times. And brush my teeth lightning fast. I sneak into the kitchen and snag some Manischewitz and date and honey cake from the fridge, then slide open the back door.

  I clench my teeth and hold my breath as it closes, but no motion seems to be coming from inside the house. That’s the nice thing about Jewish holidays—well, most of them—as a rule, they involve food and alcohol and the deep, deep sleep one gets just after is basically amazing. It’s doubly amazing if it’s your parents passed out and you’re trying to, you know, meet some boy to make out with in your backyard.

  Some boy.

  Ezra Effing Holtz.

  I walk around the back in bare feet because I somehow forgot shoes, but too late now. When I circle around the side of the house, Ezra is already out of his car, still in his nice dinner clothes (of course), hair managed, shoes on. He looks like he came here on purpose.

  Then there’s me.

  But hey, what else is new?

  Ezra raises his eyebrow and whispers, “Catch you in the middle of something?”

  “Shut up. Follow me.”

  He chuckles and closes the distance between us when I turn around, so I can hear every step he takes across the yard just behind mine. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

  I can feel his height shadowing me—smell his deodorant and the leftover scents of honey and roast chicken and whatever else he had tonight clinging to his clothing fibers. Lord. He smells delicious, and it’s a problem.

  It’s a problem that when he gets so close to me that I can feel him breathe against my hair, I get goose bumps.

  Actual. Goose bumps.

  I ignore them, or try to, and hope he doesn’t notice. How could he, in the dark like this? “We’re going into my tree house,” I say. “Watch your step on that nail, it’ll mess you up.”

  He follows me up and I watch his head pop through the hole in the ground, watch him pull himself up, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he does. I watch everything, totally fascinated, embarrassingly interested in all the little details.

  He, thankfully, doesn’t say anything.

  Maybe he’s too busy studying me.

  “So this is like, your secret hideout?” he says.

  I smile. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “This is where you go to think.”

  “It is.”

  “And make out with guys on New Year’s.”

  I snort. “Oh, I’m sorry, is that what you think we’re doing?”

  Ezra’s mouth curls up. “I would never,” he says, putting a hand to his chest, “presume. I’m just curious if that’s a regular habit.”

  I know it’s not what he means, I know I should laugh; that’s what he wants. But suddenly I see that asshole at the restaurant. I hear him implying that I’m a slut, asking me if I’ll redacted his redacted, and Ezra’s joke stings.

  I blink at the floor. “Uh.”

  “I’m not . . . I wasn’t trying to . . .” He looks up at the ceiling, and I can see the sudden torture on his face now that my eyes are beginning to adjust to the dark. “I’m not saying you have a habit.”

  That took him a while. Some real effort. To work out how to apologize for something (that, reasonably, wasn’t his fault) without letting me know that I have a reputation. Well. Surprise. I already knew.

  I say, “I know. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Nah, it was a jerk thing to say. It’s not what I meant.”

  “You?” I say. “Apologizing for being a jerk? It is Rosh Hashanah; I forgive you of your debts against me.”

  He smiles again, just a little. A twitch of his lips. And says, “If I’m being a jerk, I prefer it to be intentional. And not . . . real. So yeah, forgive me.”

  I relax by degrees, but find myself saying, “You wouldn’t be apologizing if you didn’t think it was true.”

  His voice lowers when mine does. “Think what was true?”

  “Oh,” I say. “You know. My habits.”

  Ezra scoots closer, and the bag of whatever food he brought crinkles when his leg brushes past it. “Come on.”

  “No,” I say. Suddenly I’m nervous again. I’m feeling guilty and kind of shitty about things that haven’t mattered to me in a long time. But look at him. He’s so clean and nice and sitting here on the dirty floor of my old tree-house. Meeting up with a girl after dark to make out and who knows what else and not be in love. And I feel like . . . I feel like I’m going to sully him.

  Like doing this with me is going to tarnish his reputation or his clothes or his . . . well. Just him. I feel guilty looking at him. And slutty. How unfeminist is that? How dare I even be thinking it? I’m embarrassed that it’s even a concern, but it’s true. He wouldn’t be falling all over himself to apologize, to talk around it, if he didn’t know my reputation was real.

  “You should . . .” I look up over his shoulder, at the moonlight streaming in through the window, illuminating the nothing on the bare floor. The empty walls. We’d always planned to do it up nicer in here but I never followed through. (*jazz hands* Surpriiiise.) “You should know. Getting into anything with me. It’s okay if it was just a one-time thing.”

  “Amalia.”

  “You just need to be aware, okay? People find out about anything, your reputation is probably gonna be shot.” I shrug, like it doesn’t matter. “People—people have strong opinions about me. They know me for ditching class and smoking weed and just being out-of-control, you know. You know exactly what they think. And they think I’m a slut.”

  “Please,” he says. “Like that means anything.”

  “Well. It kind of does. It means something for me. And you should know that every rumor I’ve ever heard about myself is at least half true. I know it’s almost never that way, but in my case, turns out it is. So no, I don’t have a habit of bringing people up here to make out, but I do have some habits I guess, and you’re this sterling valedictorian, and maybe you should consider that before you decide you want to get involved.”

  Ezra blows out a breath. “Amalia.”

  “What?”

  “You think I care about any of that?”

  “I—yeah, Ezra. I think you probably do. Don’t tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind.”

  His lips thin, but then he thinks for a second and says, “Okay. Yes. It’s crossed my mind. But I just . . . I just don’t think that matters right now? I know what I’m doing. You know what you’re doing.”

  A smile touches my mouth. “And what is that?”

  “Wishing each other happy new year.”

  I laugh and Ezra’s mouth ticks up.

  “What’d you bring me?” I say.

  “Apples and honey.”

  “Oh, how daring and original. Apples and honey on Rosh Hashanah.”

  He narrows his eyes and says, “Be nice to me or I’ll take them home. And this honey is the real deal; Tate got it from the farmers’ market with t
he comb inside.”

  “Oh, the farmers’ market.”

  “Don’t act like you don’t want it.”

  I do. Of course I do. When he takes it out of the paper bag, I can see the rich color of the honey even in the dark. It’s amber, almost brown, not pale yellow like grocery store honey is. It’s going to taste like the hive it came from, like depth. My mouth is actually watering.

  “Just give me the food and no one gets hurt, Holtz.”

  He says, “Say please.”

  “If you don’t hand it over, I’m not giving you this date and honey cake.”

  “Funny way you have of pronouncing please.”

  I smile with my teeth.

  He pushes the honey and apples toward me and I say, “Or the Manischewitz.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes.”

  Ezra says, “I’ll take the cake. Keep your adult syrup.”

  “Please. If I had to drink this tonight, so do you.”

  Ezra laughs. “I’m okay with sneaking out if necessary. Breaking the law is not for me.”

  I roll my eyes and swirl the wine around in the bottle. “Please. As if you haven’t been drinking since you were thirteen.”

  He takes a bite of the honey cake and mutters, “Oh, wow, this is good.” Then says, “It’s different. I’ve been drinking with parents. Or like, at official holiday dinners. I don’t think the cops will buy We were celebrating Rosh Hashanah, officers, in the middle of the night in your tree-house. While all the adults are asleep.”

  “Ugh,” I say. “Who’s going to call the cops?”

  “I will, you delinquent.”

  I shove him in the shoulder and set the wine bottle back down on the wood floor.

  Ezra says, “I don’t know if you’ve thought through the possible consequences of our hooking up to your reputation.” He pushes his glasses up on his nose and I actually clench my fingers on my thigh. My stomach kind of tightens? Jesus, it’s so endearing. Ezra is doing things that are endearing and if he could just stop. If he could just not look at me like that, like he’s studying me. Like he’s challenging me, because he’s always, always challenging me.

  He’s wry, almost, eyebrow cocked, waiting for me to respond.

  I crunch into an apple and savor the floral, woody honey on my tongue for one silent second before I say, “I’m gonna need you to explain that.”

  “Look at you,” he says. “You just don’t give a shit, do you?”

  I swallow. I’m—I’m glad he sees it that way. I’m glad everyone else seems to. That’s what I’ve cultivated for years, right? I want to say, “Nope! Sure don’t!” But instead I focus on the taste in my mouth. I focus on the apple and the honey and the smell of fall in the air, and I don’t look directly at Ezra’s face.

  He says, “Word gets out that you’re hooking up with me, it’s gonna destroy the whole devil-may-care thing you’ve got going, you know. That kid? The valedictorian? The one who doesn’t smile? Doesn’t he study calculus to have fun?”

  I laugh out loud. “Do you study calculus for fun?”

  “Of course I don’t.” He cocks his head. “Trigonometry or bust.”

  I groan but I’m laughing.

  “Amalia Yaabez is not who we thought. His hands are way too methodical for her.”

  “Methodical?” I say. “I’m sorry, how much time do you think people spend talking about your hands?”

  “I bet you talk about my hands.”

  I choke and he takes another bite of the honey cake, shifts forward so his knee is touching mine.

  “I try not to discuss you or your body parts with anyone.”

  “Mm,” he says. “See? That reputation. You’ve got one to maintain.”

  “No, I’m just busy talking about other things that interest me.”

  “Oh really,” he says flatly. “Like what?”

  “Like . . . calculus.”

  Ezra laughs. Loud, a little too loud for comfort in the dead of night, but I like it. I’m enjoying it; I’m enjoying all of this.

  I busy myself with the apples and honey and don’t reach for the alcohol. It’s less fun to drink by yourself. “Like chemistry, actually.”

  “Yeah?” he says.

  “Yeah. I’m . . . kind of into it.”

  “You sound like you’re admitting to being into clown porn or something.”

  I about spit out my apple. “Excuse me?”

  He shrugs. “You’re just . . . weirdly embarrassed. To be into chemistry. I’m judging you hard. Clearly. Oh no, Amalia is a nerd.”

  “I’m not a nerd.”

  He says, “Eh.”

  I glare at him.

  “I’m not the one going on about chemistry during a secret rendezvous.”

  “Please. You’re always more likely to be the one going on about chemistry, in or out of a secret rendezvous.”

  “My point stands. Plus, I don’t like chemistry.”

  I snort. “Bet you aced it.”

  “Well,” he says, “I’m good at a lot of things I hate.”

  I say, “That’s cocky.”

  “It’s not cocky. It’s true. Are you thinking about going into it? For a living?”

  I shrug. “Maybe.” It’s so dark, and my eyes may have adjusted but we’re still not a whole lot more than silhouettes, apart from where the moonlight hits. It feels safe for some reason, feels like we’re the only two people in the world. Feels like what I say here stays in the treehouse. And maybe that’s why I say, “I don’t know, Ezra, it’s hard. To have wanted something for so long, to have built this whole life, this whole . . . identity around it. And to have it taken from me.”

  He’s quiet for a minute. “Is it taken? Really?”

  “Well,” I say, “it’s just not the way I’d always dreamed about it.”

  “That can’t be easy.”

  “No.”

  “I mean, I know who you hang around with. I see you at school. Ellie, Skylar. Everyone knows they’re off to arts schools and stuff.”

  “Christ, rub it in,” I say.

  “Not trying to. Just saying that has to feel shitty.”

  I want to be offended. Want to wrinkle my nose and tell him to fuck off with his deep character observations. But I’m not and I don’t. All I can say is, “Yeah.” And then, “I haven’t even told her.”

  “Well. It’s not like you owe anyone anything about yourself.”

  “I guess . . . I guess that’s true. She’s my best friend, though; it feels like I do.”

  “Isn’t she your ex, too?”

  “Yeah.” I laugh. “Whaddya gonna do?”

  “Damn, do you have any straight friends? Besides me?”

  I do a quick mental inventory—I hang out with Skylar more than anyone, and with Ellie, and the kids at smoker’s corner. A few fringe friends in art. Sasha and Brent and Asia and the rest of the kids from the Cool Partier crowd. I say, “Well. Queers of a feather.”

  He laughs again, all loud and clear and genuine. I want to stretch out in it, luxuriate in the sound.

  “You wouldn’t be the first person to have not gotten things exactly as they wanted them, Amalia. Is all I’m saying.”

  “Oh? And what is it that you want that you can’t have?”

  He looks at me, and for a second he’s totally raw. His eyes are open and unguarded by the typical mask of arrogance he wears. He just . . . looks at me. And I’m afraid of what he might say. It’s such an odd reaction. But I am.

  He blinks away then says, “I don’t know, Amalia. Lots of things. Freedom, I guess. I want to go into engineering. Possibly in alternative energy. I have plans. But I’ve always had them, and there’s no deviation. I’ve never had time to play soccer like I used to want to or go to a bunch of parties—”

  “I’ve seen you at parties.”

  “Yeah. Like two.”

  I shrug. “Still.”

  “I have friends, but not the way you do.”

  “What about Mike?” I say. “He’s
still your friend. And those academic guys—Isaac and Marcus? Who else . . . Iris.”

  “One,” he says, “how do you know my entire circle of friends?”

  I blush and he looks very pleased with himself.

  “Two, it’s different. I don’t have people from every social group, everywhere, who love me. And that kind of simple, easy, I do what I want, cutting class to smoke weed thing. I don’t have that.”

  “Do you want it, though?” I say. “Do you really want that?”

  “Sometimes.”

  My eyes are sparkling; I can feel it. Can feel the smile in my cheeks. “Do you want to cut class and smoke weed with me, Ezra?”

  He shifts closer to me. “Nah.”

  “Look at me, calling your bluff.” I lean in.

  His hands are in my hair. “You calling me a liar?”

  I’m nervous, I don’t know why I’m nervous. “Mmhmm.”

  “I’m not a liar. I’m just distracted.”

  “There you go again, with that word.”

  “Well.” He kisses me. “You’re distracting.”

  He kisses me again. We don’t come up for air until the nighttime turns gray.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  TEST GROUP LINA AND JANELLE

  INT: Bedroom. Wall is baby blue with purple striping. Twinkle lights are strung from corner to corner across the ceiling. Unclear whose room.

  VIEW: Lina, hair in a ponytail with little braids woven through it, comes smiling into the frame.

  Lina: So I guess it’s my turn to give an update on the project?

  Lina twirls her hair, one finger caught in a little braid that’s fallen out of her ponytail. It’s complicated, several thin little braids weaving around her head, but not haphazard.

  Lina: It’s going well. We, uh. Went out on that date and it turns out we do have quite a bit in common. We made it through the first two sets of questions, too. The silly, fun ones like your favorite food-related memory—

  Janelle glides into the frame, eyebrows raised. She’s wearing bright orange lipstick and her lips are quirked up. Lina jumps.