The Basic Eight

by Daniel Handler

  In some ways it reminds me of the sunrise itself. One minute it’s dark. Then you perceive a vague light in a scarcely delineated direction, and before you know it the whole world is rippling with light, and soon it’s blazing and you can see everything. The harpsichord was playing one of those fugue things, which usually sounds a little to me like somebody playing any note they want to but this time around I could not only hear each voice and each melody but I could expand on it: Kate’s brash laughter working in counterpoint to the left hand (right hand? left hand, I think) of the harpsichordist, and then Lily was reading something out loud from Hattie’s class, Poe I think, but then we all got distracted by the food and just ate and ate and ate–I have this vision of V__ standing in front of the open refrigerator door bathed in the light like she was being abducted by aliens, reaching in with both hands and putting everything edible onto the counter: cold pasta, and lemons, spicy mustard spread on crackers, an old jar of maraschino cherries, and pickles, and suddenly Douglas was holding one of the pickles and explaining to all of us the right way to hold it in our mouths and everyone laughing so loud and blushing so red it was like being in the middle of an enormous gardenia. Suddenly we were noticing that the Bach CD was skipping all over the place, showering us with little harpsichord shards that hit me like hail before turning off and replacing itself with cha-cha music, with Natasha leading an enormous conga line up the stairs, all around the bedrooms with everybody taking a turn stepping into the bathtub for a special solo dance–Gabriel’s stiff and awkward, Douglas’s surprisingly lithe, Lily’s wild and hulalike, Natasha’s insanely sensual, Jennifer Rose Milton’s spectacularly elegant, V__ doing a mock minuet with her palms outstretched like something painted on the walls of the pyramids, with Kate just putting her hands on her head like antlers and saying “I’m a moose! I’m a moose!” and then we were all saying it, skipping downstairs saying “I’m a moose!” which made me wonder what time it was so I looked at the digital clock in the kitchen but I pressed the reset button by mistake and spent what felt like the rest of the weekend watching the bright red numbers go zipping by. People were taking turns blowing bubbles out of a plastic bear so bright blue it felt like a postcard sky of a national park. V__ was suddenly asleep and snoring with her mouth open. Kate was wrapping herself in the living room curtains and murmuring that she was a beige mummy. Douglas was looking at some coffee table book of Michelangelo’s David. Lily was in the downstairs bathroom, looking in the mirror and whispering her name over and over while Jennifer Rose Milton sat on the toilet, nodding in agreement and eating peanut butter out of the jar with her fingers and perfect nails and maybe one hundred bracelets and I thought about grabbing one but I remembered the earrings upstairs so I took Gabriel up to my room and we kissed and kissed. I tried to take all the chocolate off of his tongue until I remembered it wasn’t a strawberry and Gabriel cupped one of my breasts, over my shirt, and suddenly began to cry. Natasha poked her head up and rolled her eyes at me. She had been underneath the bed and looked like a dust bunny herself. The three of us giggled and I quietly put Gabriel’s pocketknife and Jennifer Rose Milton’s earring in my pocket. From nowhere we were seized with the idea that we were detectives and needed to solve the mystery of why everybody was asleep downstairs, even Jennifer Rose Milton with one hand still in the peanut butter and the other one half in her mouth. I took the magnifying glass from the unabridged dictionary and we giggled and looked for clues on everybody’s face and I opened one of Kate’s eyes and saw it staring back at me like a wet marble. Gabriel was afraid we would accidentally burn somebody with it even though the sun wasn’t up yet and that’s when we had the idea to go develop the photographs and see the sunrise in the mall.

  Gabriel has brought back the photographs, developed and in envelopes. In part of some glorious cycle of synchronicity, every roll you develop at Day ’n Nite Foto gets you a new free roll of film, like throwing one rock into the river and stepping on it before looking around for the next roll. Or something, but you know what I mean. Now that I know this, Day ’n Nite Foto will always be my photo developing place, despite its grammatical problemics, unless it changes its name to Day ’n Nite Foto Shoppe, in which case I’d have to boycott because every word of the store name would be misspelled. Oh, Day. But still. Natasha and Gabriel and I giggled through the pictures: mostly blurry and at odd angles because we’d been tipsily tossing the camera, but then there was the one: Kate, leaning on an armrest rather than sitting on the couch like a normal human being, placing herself above us and looking a little smug. V__ right next to her, fingering her pearls, looking better than everyone else with her perfect makeup, better than Natasha even, and that’s saying a lot. Lily and Douglas, snug on the couch, Lily between Douglas and me. As usual. Douglas was talking to Gabriel about something and didn’t want to stop his train of thought just for a stupid picture so he has an impatient look on his face. Plus it’s weird to see a picture of him when he’s not wearing a suit. Gabriel, his black hands stark against the white apron, squished into the end of the couch and looking uncomfortable. Beautiful, beautiful Jennifer Rose Milton standing at the couch in a pose that would look too formalized for anyone else who wasn’t as beautiful, and stretched out luxuriously beneath us all, Natasha, one long finger between her lips and batting her eyes at me. And me, of course. I’m there too, looking right at the camera. We all hushed when we got to it. We looked at it for a minute, and then Gabriel put his hand on my bare neck and I grabbed all the pictures and stuffed them in the envelope. We walked home in silence, feeling grittier and grittier with each step. As soon as I opened the door and saw everybody still sprawled all over the living room, all my plans for making them coffee went out the window. Forget my friends and forget breakfast, I wanted all these people the fuck out of my house.

  Vocabulary:

  LEPRECHAUN

  PHOTOSYNTHESIS

  DEPRAVED

  DRUG-INDUCED

  Study Questions:

  1. Calculate the minimum dimensions required to fit an entire person in the trunk of an automobile, if you scrunch him.

  2. Do you think that high school actors are ready for something as important as a production of Shakespeare’s Othello? Keep in mind that most of the cast of Roewer’s production of Othello were honors students.

  3. Who took that group photograph at the absinthe party? And I know what you’re thinking.

  Monday October 11th Columbus Day

  Somewhere in the aftermath of those darn sugar cubes not only the rest of Saturday but Sunday have fallen somewhere, irretrievable. Like Jenn’s earring–she called me yesterday because she lost one in the fracas. I think I probably stayed in my room, because last night I discovered I was hungry, went downstairs and realized the house hadn’t been cleaned up. The bowl of drained absinthe was still underneath the strainer and soiled napkins lay everywhere. A big champagne-glass ring was right on David’s groin. By the time I cleaned up and found something to eat (and there wasn’t much–we had pretty much cleaned out the pantry) I wanted to go back to bed. I woke up this morning, took a shower, got dressed and then realized there wasn’t any school today because just about five hundred years ago somebody got the continents mixed up, gave everybody smallpox and then got called a genius. So now I’m in Death Before Decaf with a latte and an allegedly fresh muffin, trying to start a lazy day at seven-thirty. I can’t decide whether to read my Poe assignment or my Whitman assignment first, so I’m flipping the muffin paper in lieu of a coin. It falls like a dead bird. Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to Poe I go.

  Tuesday October 12th

  SCENE: The hallway outside the auditorium, directly following Othello auditions. At rise, KATE is at her locker, putting away some books and talking with V__ and FLAN.

  Kate, Flan and V__ (mocking auditionees in hysterical unison): “That I did love the Boor to live with him!”

  Kate (as they all laugh): That would be Moor, little girl.

  Flan (mock-innocently): Oh, I get
it. I love him the more.

  Adam (appearing from nowhere as he always does): Talking about me again?

  Flan (blinking, blankly): Maybe.

  V__: Oh. Um, excuse us, Adam. We need to–

  Kate:–wash our hair. Hairs.

  Flan: Hair.

  Exeunt KATE, V__.

  Adam: Hi.

  Flan: Hi. You looked really good up onstage.

  (FLAN waits for lightning to strike her down.)

  Flan: I mean–

  Adam: Thanks.

  Flan: You know what I mean.

  Adam (looking into her eyes): I think I always do.

  Chorus: Is this man charming like a host or like a snake?

  Is he for real or is he fake?

  Flan does not know what to make of it,

  If Adam is full of love or full of shit.

  Flan: Yeah, well.

  Adam: When are we going to have that coffee?

  Flan: I think I know better than to meet you at Death Before Decaf.

  Adam: That isn’t fair.

  Flan: You’re right. (She sighs; ADAM leans in close.) I don’t know better. Give me a call.

  Adam (touching her cheek): I will.

  Gabriel (appearing from nowhere): Hello.

  Chorus: Fuck.

  Kate (Offstage, from down the hall): Adam, are you still giving me a ride?

  Adam: Um.

  Kate: Adam?

  Adam (calling out): Yes (spreads his hands out, emptily, and leaves).

  Gabriel looked at me like he just couldn’t believe it. “I just can’t believe it,” he said.

  “Let’s not talk about anything here,” I said.

  I craved a latte but I ordered a monkey-shaped pot of tea for Gabriel and me to share. I thought he’d like that, and I was right: he smiled faintly. We sat down underneath a sculpture of a monkey, hanging precariously on the wall. It reminded me of a joke that used to crack me up in third grade: Why did the monkey fall out of the tree? Because it was dead.

  “Listen,” Gabriel said, and then looked at his tea for so long I caught myself trying to listen to it. Given the seashell-ocean thing, if you put your ear to a teacup, what do you hear–the source of the tea or the source of the cup? “Listen,” he said, and I looked back up at his face. His eyes were red.

  “Listen,” he said, and then looked down again.

  “I’m listening, I’m listening,” I said, and we both smiled.

  “I just need to know what’s going on. After this weekend, I felt sure we were together, and that made me so happy.” He swallowed. “But then when I see you talking to Adam I wonder what is up. If you just want to be friends, I can live with that. I love you too much to have you not be in my life. But I just can’t stand this roller-coaster thing. We spent all that time alone, just watching the sunrise, and I was just so happy, but then I see you making a date with Adam.”

  “I wasn’t making a date with him,” I said. I wanted to add, “And we weren’t alone all that time; Natasha was with us. And we were on drugs. And stop telling me that you love me so much, it makes me want to die.”

  “Well, he said he’d call you, and he was–” He started to mime Adam putting his hand on my face, but he couldn’t continue. He didn’t need to; I still felt it there myself.

  “Gabriel,” I said quietly. “The Othello auditions are over. I was just talking to him.”

  He blinked, sipped. “I guess I’m just still in character,” he said. Feeling like a marionette I reached across the table and took his hand. Gabriel smiled small. “Maybe it’s just going to take a while before this all feels natural.”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Because you make me so happy–”

  The monkey fell.

  Chorus: The boy has also fallen for our Flan.

  She has no course in life; she has no plan.

  It’s senior year; her grades should be sky-high:

  She’s flaking, flunking Calc. We cannot lie.

  The boy she loves is playing with her mind

  Her love for G. is of a different kind.

  Flan can’t bring herself to tell this dear, dear friend

  Their ill-conceived romance forsooth must end.

  She’s gaining weight; soon all will call her Fatty.

  In her mind are words from teacher Hattie:

  “Relax,” she said, “You’re young. You will be wise.”

  But now it’s not in sight. Tears fill her eyes.

  But for Flan, her strife has only just begun

  She kills the boy October thirty-one.

  Wednesday October 13th

  For most of this entry there’s a soundtrack: can you hear it? It’s actually nonspecific but of a particular type: any theme to any spy movie you can dream up. You know, the espionagy twang of guitars, an agitated bass line, sinewy sax, washed-up semistars singing of martinis and car chases, and usually, inexplicably, love. Got it in your head? Then we can continue.

  Most of these photographs no longer belong to me. They were sold to tabloids to defray legal expenses. Whatever I paid to have them developed at Day ’n Nite Foto paid off considering that groveling “investigative journalists” paid up to eight hundred bucks a pop. Just how investigative is it to call an alleged felon’s lawyer and negotiate for snapshots?

  EXPOSURE ONE: A happy couple making out on the bus. I hate them. Why does it always work out for people who wear ugly clothes? I hate them so much when I got it developed I wrote I HATE YOU all over them in big red felt-pen letters.

  EXPOSURE TWO: Kate and Natasha at the bus stop, waiting for me. Kate doesn’t see me yet–that’s how I could snap the picture–she’s standing there with her arms crossed, pursing her lips. She’s obviously cold. Behind her is Natasha, who is looking right at the camera and rolling her eyes at me. And no wonder, considering the conversation Kate and I had as we trudged to Roewer.

  “Flannery,” she said grandly as I disengaged myself from public transportation. It was like she’d been trying to catch my eye for some time and I had finally come over to give her a refill. Natasha, still behind Kate’s back, mouthed it right back at me: “Flannery.”

  “Kate,” I said, and meant it.

  “I always feel a little bit like a deranged stalker waiting for someone on the bus like this,” she said, “but sometimes you want to talk to someone, and you don’t see them one day at school, and then all of a sudden the week’s almost over.”

  “This small talk makes it sound like I’m about to get fired,” I said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Kate said. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “Well,” I said, shrugging and rolling my eyes. It was so reassuring of Kate to tell me I wasn’t fired. “You’d better get to it. Before you know it the week’ll be over.”

  Natasha snorted. We walked silently for a few seconds while Kate stared off at Roewer looming over the horizon, collecting herself. She sighed and began.

  “Flannery, I just wanted to know where you stand with Adam. Now that you’re together with Gabriel, you obviously aren’t actively pursuing him, so technically it’s an irrelevant question, but–”

  “Inquiring minds want to know?” I finished for her, echoing a TV ad for a tabloid newspaper whose articles on us were particularly offensive. Now that I’m together with Gabriel. Suddenly it was canonized, like “Basic Eight.” First I kiss him in private, then at a party, and all of a sudden I’m together with Gabriel.

  “No.” Kate took a navy-blue handkerchief out of the pocket of her navy-blue blazer. “I don’t just want to know for gossipy reasons.” Kate never does. She always has a philanthropic reason for needing to know some piece of information.

  “You never do,” I said. “You always have a very good reason for wanting to know everyone’s business.”

  It’s always even odds whether Kate’s going to take offense to something like that. She looked at me for a moment, wavering, and then, even though she was smiling, said tensely, “You obviously haven’t had your co
ffee yet. Or enough coffee.” Behind her back Natasha held up her flask and wiggled it at me, but Kate must have caught it in her peripheral vision because she turned to Natasha and gave her a curious, withering look. “We’ll talk later, Flan.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve had enough, um, coffee. Tell me what you have to say, Kate.”

  “It’s just that I’m finding–I have found–”

  “The Holy Grail,” Natasha said.

  Kate didn’t even acknowledge the wisecrack. “I think we’ve all really been getting to know Adam, and, I don’t know, liking him. I think we’d all like to like him better.”

  “What?”

  “Know him better. We’d all like to know him better. And I think–I’m not just speaking for myself–we all feel a little tentative about that, because we don’t know how you feel.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Kate granted me a gratuitous smile. “I mean that we’d like him in our circle. What do you think?”

  “You make it sound like a cult,” I said. I know; I know: ironic.

  “I just wanted to know if you’re OK by that.”

  “Of course I’m OK with that,” I said. “I have to go.”

  We were at Roewer. “Of course,” Kate said, carefully. “I have to go, too. See you later?”

  “It’s a safe assumption.”

  EXPOSURE THREE: A good one, and I’m not alone in my opinion; America Unveiled paid two hundred bucks for this one: Kate walking through Roewer’s side entrance with a puzzled frown. Behind her is the “PUSHED TO THE LIMIT ACADEMICALLY, ATHLETICALLY AND SOCIALLY” sign, tattered to photogenic disarray, like something kids just don’t care about anymore.