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

by Brianna R. Shrum

  Janelle: Your mom let me in.

  Lina: Holy shit.

  Janelle: Can you say that on a school assignment?

  Lina (looking quickly at camera): Well I guess I’ve said it already and I’m not starting over.

  Janelle: That’s what you get for starting without me.

  Janelle gets up out of her wheelchair and walks a couple feet to Lina’s bed, sits on it. Looks directly in the frame

  Janelle: So what has Lina said? Have you been answering everything already? Everything we were supposed to cover?

  Lina: No, I’d just gotten started.

  Janelle: Come sit with me.

  Lina (smiling in a slow small way that looks unintentional): What the lady wants.

  VIEW: The camera shifts so we see Lina’s jeans for a while, hear rustling in the background and Janelle giggling. Lina pulls the camera back up, angled down at both of them from what may or may not be a selfie stick.

  Janelle: So.

  She scoots close to Lina so they’re shoulder to shoulder. Lina scrapes her teeth over her lip, cheeks a little flushed. Janelle, for her part, is looking a tad smug about all of it.

  Janelle: We’ve made it through two stages of your questions. What fictional character we’d invite out for a night and what we’d do.

  Lina: What we would do if we won the lottery.

  Janelle: Worst fear.

  Lina (laying her head on Janelle’s shoulder, casual, like it’s a nothing gesture already): We haven’t hit tier three yet. Maybe we should . . . I don’t know, should we do that tonight?

  Lina looks over at Janelle, who suddenly has a furrow on her brow. Nails clicking.

  Janelle: Have you read the stuff that’s on there?

  Lina, shrugging: Yeah.

  Janelle, eyeing the camera: I don’t . . . maybe we don’t ruin this just yet?

  Lina, frowning: Just yet?

  Janelle: Okay, well hey, turn off the camera.

  End recording.

  It’s Friday night and I’m here. Working.

  I haven’t seen the light of day in ages, it feels like. Well. The dark of night, I guess. Everything, everything has turned into work. It’s either working on the project with Ezra (or . . . well, in the interest of representing the situation fairly, “working on the project” waggle eyebrows waggle eyebrows hint hint with Ezra) or studying for my other classes so I can get into school and get who even knows what kind of career, and I’m not going to lie.

  I’ve been okay about it.

  Tonight, I’m pissed off.

  I’m sitting on my bedroom floor alone with a Coke and an AP English syllabus, working out the exact possible meaning of the symbolism in Old Man and the Sea. It’s an absolute riot. Who doesn’t just fall all over themselves with love for Ernest Hemingway?

  Skylar texts me:

  Skylar: Come out.

  I take a few minutes before I even respond

  Amalia: been there done that lol

  She texts me again:

  Skylar: UGH TONIGHT YOU DORK

  I tell her I can’t, I’m studying, and just totally ignore the eighteen bazillion question marks she shoots back at me. In fairness, if I were anyone but my actual self, I wouldn’t believe me either.

  My stoner group chat goes off, too, and someone eventually says they’re about to cut me out of it.

  Fine. I don’t care.

  I kind of care.

  I don’t care about the old man or the sea.

  I rub my temples and stare at the book, this wretched, evil book, and think of all the things I could be doing that are not this.

  I could be out with Skylar.

  I could be at temple, hanging out with whoever shows up tonight.

  I could be doing a night hike and getting drunk somewhere in the woods.

  I could be researching places to go this weekend, do something cool none of my friends has done. Cliff diving or something. Oh man, I could be cliff diving.

  I’m staring off wistfully like the ingénue in a musical, imagining jumping off a rock into the cold depths below, and it’s amazing.

  Just thinking about it is amazing.

  But no.

  What I am doing is this. I have ONE LIFE and I am spending it on my BEDROOM FLOOR reading about an old guy and a big fish.

  GOD.

  I must make a noise of exasperation out loud because Ben peeks his head into my room and says, “Nerd. What are you doing?”

  I slam my head down into my book and grumble, “Nothing.”

  “You studying?”

  “Ugh. Yes. Please come kill me. Just go get one of Kaylee’s dork-ass swords and stab me in the back while I’m not looking. I don’t want to see it coming.”

  Ben says, “Thank god, I thought you’d never ask.”

  I flip him the bird and he laughs.

  “Seriously, dude, what are you doing up here in the dark?”

  “Studying.”

  “Why?”

  I sigh and turn around. “Because, Ben, someone told me I needed to if I was gonna fix my shit. Someone told me I was smart.”

  He scratches the back of his head and looks up at the corner of my room. “Couldn’t have been me.”

  “Nah. Of course not.”

  “Well,” he says after a minute, “if you’re gonna be gracing us all with your presence tonight, come downstairs. I’ll grill you on Mark Twain and whatever while you help us cook.”

  “Hemingway.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Worse. Seriously, come on.”

  I stare down at my book.

  At my phone.

  At the freedom I am voluntarily saying no to. I feel . . . overwhelmed. Even with Ben doing this suddenly super cool helpful older brother thing, even though it’s not like Hemingway is particularly hard. It’s just so much to tackle.

  I’m so annoyed with myself that all I want to do is leave.

  Annoyed that in the three hours I’ve been down here going over chemistry and psychology and trig and literature, I’ve spent an hour and a half on Twitter. And like . . . Instagram. It’s not even because it’s interesting! I started seeing all the same posts over and over!

  I just don’t know how to lock my brain into work mode, from KILL ME PLEASE mode.

  L-a-z-y.

  “Amalia. I am starving.”

  I blink back at him.

  “Good lord, Ben. Fine. You’ve probably eaten nineteen meals today.”

  He shrugs, grins, and pulls me up by the hand.

  I head down the stairs, book under my arm, and pass Kaylee who’s on the couch, feet kicked up. She’s reading Anna Karenina, I shit you not, and she looks actually into it.

  Anna. Karenina.

  “Kaylee, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I love Tolstoy’s use of language.” She eyes me over the top of the book and goes back to it. I groan. I am surrounded by these people at all turns; maybe she and Ezra should have hooked up.

  Mom and Dad are both already in the kitchen. Dad’s doing something with a whole chicken and mom is at the island that, truthfully, this kitchen is not big enough to justify. She mixing something that involves pomegranate and pepper and cayenne; I smell the sweet bite in the air when I pass her. Man, it smells divine.

  “Finally,” Dad says. “Amalia. You, my dear, are on onion duty.”

  “Noooooo,” I say.

  “As though studying in that loft all night wasn’t already making you cry. We’re just shifting the cause, not the effect.”

  “Traitorous,” I say, glaring at Ben. I hate cutting onions. We all do. Every single person in my family except Kaylee has a wicked sensitivity to them; one time Dad was upstairs cutting into one, and I literally started crying from all the way upstairs in my room.

  I’m mad at Kaylee for loving reading when I snag a pair of goggles and a couple onions. I assume Dad will be shoving these, sliced, into the chicken’s butt. I start cutting and sniffling.

  Ben is loving every minute of it. He kicks back a
t the kitchen table and pulls up something on his phone, then says, “Alright. Molls. What is the central theme of The Old Man and the Sea?”

  I say, “Kaylee. Get me your sword.”

  She yells, “WHAT?” from the living room, and Mom shoots me a look.

  Ben snaps at me. “Central theme, Molls, we’re wasting daylight.”

  “This is stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid,” he says.

  Dad says, eyes still on the chicken, “It’s about a man fighting nature. The conflict with the marlin. Hemingway was such a manly man it’s all in his work. It’s about strength and mastery.”

  Mom says, “It’s been forever since I’ve read that but I always thought it had more to do with him and himself than it did the fish. The fish is a stand-in for some real issues he had. What kind of person goes to those lengths for a fish?”

  “I don’t know, it—”

  “NERDS,” I say. “You are literally everywhere. Between this entire family and Ezra Holtz, I’m about to lose it.”

  Dad turns to face me, hands coated in grease and spices, and says, “You and Ezra have been getting close.”

  “Nope. Nope nope, that’s not something I’m talking about.”

  Ben waggles his eyebrows. “I don’t know whether to make fun of you or go hurl. Dude, of all the guys.”

  “Nothing,” I say. “Nothing is going on with Ezra Holtz, I only brought him up because everyone in here refuses to shut up about this stuff and cook and you guys are all the same.”

  “I resent that,” says Ben.

  I whirl on him, brandishing the knife. “Who’s the guy asking about central literary themes while we’re trying to cook, huh?”

  Ben laughs and the kitchen goes a little quiet while we work. My eyes are burning, even with the goggles. There’s really nothing I can do to protect myself; it’s why we all switch off when Kaylee’s being an ass. Onions are a nightmare.

  Mom sidles up next to me and says, adding her pomegranate mixture to a saucepan and reducing it on the stove, “For what it’s worth, I don’t see the issue with you liking Ezra.”

  “I don’t like Ezra.” And it’s true. I don’t. I like fooling around with Ezra and those are two very different things.

  “Well,” she says. “Even so.”

  “He’s arrogant. He’s a know-it-all. He’s . . . I don’t know. He talks about school like it matters.” He climbs mountains for fun. He’s got a smile that makes you go weak in the knees. He’s funny, shockingly wry. NO. N-O.

  Mom says, “That’s bad? Caring about school?”

  “It’s not for me.”

  Mom purses her lips as the sauce starts to steam and concentrate.

  “What?” I say.

  She shrugs. Looks out through the pass-through at Kaylee reading Anna Karenina. At Dad focusing so hard on getting that chicken absolutely perfectly prepared. At Ben, waiting to quiz me again at the table, scrolling through his phone, forehead scrunched in concentration. “I just want to say that it doesn’t make a person weird or useless. Or uncool.” She says it with extremely uncool parental air quotes.

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Choosing to care about things.”

  And that—that makes me go quiet.

  I care about things. The wrong things, apparently, according to every art school on the east coast, but, I do.

  I don’t . . . I don’t look down on people for caring about stuff.

  . . . do I?

  “MOLLS.”

  “What?” I blink. I’m done with the onion, thank the lord, my eyes are streaming. I take off the goggles and rub my hands over my eyes, hard. “Sorry, what?” It’s clear Ben’s been saying my name for a minute.

  “How does Hemingway’s simple use of language complement the text and its themes?”

  I take a second, intending to shoot back something smartass, something that makes it clear that none of this matters to me.

  Then I glance back at Mom, who is pouring the sauce over the chicken. She’s a little too still.

  Listening.

  I sigh. And I actually think.

  “I guess it complements the narrator’s voice. Which kind of reflects Hemingway’s views both on masculinity and how men think.”

  Ben doesn’t make fun of me.

  He’s looking down at his phone, but he’s smiling.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  TEST GROUP ARIEL AND CARLOS

  SUBJ. LINE: STUDY

  SENDER: Ariel Cade

  CONTENT OF E-MAIL: I have spent the last six days studiously plodding through this list of questions with Carlos, and let me tell you what I have learned: that a person should not entrust random strangers with plotting out their love life.

  I’m not trying to be a jerk here, okay? And Carlos isn’t The Worst as much as he is exhausting. To me. He’s dated a bunch of girls before, girls I like, some of them at least, so he can’t be just generally bad; maybe this isn’t your fault. But I’m telling you that SOMETIMES getting to know someone better makes it worse. SOMETIMES you actually kind of like someone from a distance, and then you find out that underneath that hardcore punk exterior lies a hardcore punk interior and they find out that the reason you wear puff sleeves and necklines buttoned up to your throat and baby pink lip gloss is because you LIKE those things, dammit. And both of you find yourselves wanting to die.

  We haven’t gotten to your last, epically vulnerable set of questions yet, but at this point I am concerned that his worst memory will be that time his mom threw his Dead Kennedys album in the fireplace and I am absolutely POSITIVE he is going to sleep through the personality trait I am most embarrassed about (if you must know, it’s my need to correct everyone’s grammar; I know it’s terrible and obnoxious but it kills me to refrain). We practically sleep through meetings now anyway.

  I don’t know how we’re going to survive four entire minutes of eye contact.

  I’m not even THINKING about kissing him so do not even BEGIN to suggest it.

  —Ariel

  P.S. Absolutely do not let this get back to Carlos or I will ruin your lives.

  It has been a while since I could pick up a brush.

  Since I could run my fingers over a canvas without feeling sick to my stomach.

  My chemistry textbook sits open behind me, pages highlighted and dog-eared, notes scribbled in the margins in handwriting, that, even to myself, even though it’s my own freaking handwriting, is a little tricky to decipher.

  I write that way when I’m interested in something. As it turns out, the idea that hydrogen peroxide will actually change forms and shift into water if left out in a clear container for long enough, is fascinating.

  The idea that just leaving something as seemingly defined, scientific, as a chemical out in the open, in a new environment, will literally change its composition. Wow. What the hell. It doesn’t seem possible, and I am such an utter dork for being capable of getting excited about that, but here I am and there’s nothing to be done for it.

  I, Amalia Yaabez, like science.

  Put that on your Bunsen burner and smoke it.

  So there’s that, there’s the bizarre thing happening in my brain.

  And if I can do that, if I can learn to enjoy something as boring (I thought) as freaking chemistry, maybe I can paint.

  Maybe I can do something I love, without furiously ripping the canvas to shreds like painting took itself away from me.

  I pick up a brush.

  My hands are shaking.

  Everything is set up exactly the way it should be—paints and brushes and canvas, the perfect light streaming through the window so the canvas already looks magical. Already looks like it should be lighting up the singular bright piece in an otherwise dark Rembrandt. Is it starting that’s difficult?

  Is that usually where I come up short?

  No, it’s not. Today is different.

  Typically starting is easy; it’s pushing through to the end that paralyzes me. That makes me want to toss the
half-done seascape or whatever and start something new, something full of blank, perfect potential. But now I’m sitting here and I can’t even get pigment on the page.

  I can’t start. I feel like everything I do is going to mess it up, and how ridiculous is that? It’s not like anyone’s even going to see it. It’s not like this is for a grade, not like anything I create is going into a portfolio. This is just for me. And even still, it’s too hard.

  I don’t have to paint. I could pop out some charcoals. Some pastels. I could draw.

  That’s not what I want to do.

  I want to paint. I love. To paint.

  A frustrated noise escapes my throat and I glance up at the clock; Ezra is going to be here in like a half hour and I can’t even get started. I swear, last year I could knock out a whole piece in a half hour if I was going for speed.

  It wouldn’t be detailed, perfect, beautiful. But it would be good. Good enough to look at and say, “Hell yeah, self. You did this in thirty minutes? Post this shit on Instagram and brag about it.”

  Now . . . nothing.

  I’m not inspired.

  Which I hate, I hate.

  I used to say that people who needed inspiration to work were amateurs and I still believe that, kind of, it’s just that now I think I am one of them.

  God, what a nightmare.

  I don’t even know how much time passes, me just staring at nothing.

  Into the canvassular abyss that is probably some incredible metaphor for my whole entire life.

  What I do know is that if I can count on Ezra for anything, it is to be on time. And by “on time,” I mean at least two minutes early.

  He rings the doorbell, and I don’t even move to answer it. I’m busy sitting here.

  Kaylee gets it, and she is welcome.

  I hear Ezra coming up the stairs, and I think, You look pathetic, Amalia, honestly. Stop. Get up. Paint something, anything, so he doesn’t walk in here and see that you are completely worthless, but what I do not do is: that.

  Ezra walks into my room.

  He nearly closes the door behind him, leaves it open just a crack so my parents won’t kill him if they venture up here, and I am sitting here like a lump on the chair.

  “Busy?” he says.

  And I burst into tears.