Juniors

by Kaui Hart Hemmings

  “It’s going well, thanks,” my mom says.

  “Thanks for bringing the pizza, love bug,” Melanie says, and he doesn’t cringe.

  “Right on my way,” he says.

  Whitney’s curled up in her chair and looking at her phone. “What kind did you get?”

  “Mushroom,” he says.

  “I wanted the basil tomato,” she says.

  “Well, close your eyes and imagine it.”

  He winks at me, and I blink, lamely. Melanie looks at him in an entirely different way than she does her daughter. I glance at my phone: it’s been an hour since I walked over to be on time. My mom doesn’t seem to know what the pizza’s all about either.

  “Okay, kids,” Melanie says. “We’re off. I’m so glad we could all get together.”

  “Are we not eating here?” my mom says.

  “No, I didn’t tell you? Where is my mind? We thought we’d take Gloria and the Rowes out—just going to pop into this fantastic event the girls are chairing. You don’t mind, Als, do you?” I’ve never heard anyone call my mother Als.

  “That’s fine,” she says, widening her eyes at me in a silent apology.

  “We’ll let the kids have the place to themselves,” Melanie says, something my mom can’t really argue with, and neither can I. Anyone would be happier without the adults, though for me, sometimes I like having them around. They provide a kind of safety, a time with no expectations.

  “Except be sure to get to your homework,” Melanie says. “You can all do it together. Study buddies!”

  “Weekend,” Whitney says.

  “I keep forgetting,” Melanie says. “Oh, and Ali made an amazing pie. You guys can have it for dessert.”

  I want to say that my mom made it for the dinner tonight, the dinner we were all supposed to have, and how does she know it’s amazing? It could taste like gecko for all she knows.

  “Hey, can I grab some of that, guy?” Will says. The waiter stops walking in and turns to Will. Will pops the appetizer in his mouth, then gives the waiter a kind of nod of dismissal. I don’t dare take one, not wanting blowfish face.

  “You like mushroom pizza?” he asks.

  “My favorite,” I say. A breeze comes off the ocean, moving my hair off my shoulders.

  This isn’t so bad.

  The adults make their way inside. Eddie seems unsure of his steps and is looking around like he’s lost something. I bet he’s looking for his phone, the one I happened to see inside.

  “It’s in the living room,” I say to Eddie. “On the table by the couch.”

  “What is?” he says.

  “Your phone.”

  He laughs and looks up at my mom. “Smart girl you got.”

  My mom looks at me, proud.

  “See you at home,” I say, tripping over the word. I want to talk with her about how this welcome dinner has turned into a pizza party, and I can tell she knows this. It’s irritating the way both of us are so buttoned up, like we can’t communicate freely anymore. But once they leave, I’m thrilled to have weekend plans, even though they were forced upon all of us.

  13

  WILL COMES OUTSIDE WITH PAPER PLATES AND PLACES them on the table in front of us. He sits next to Whitney.

  “Thanks,” I say. I take a small slice, even though I’m starving. If Danny were here, we’d fight for the biggest piece.

  “Now I remember seeing you before,” Will says. He takes the largest slice. “Around campus,” he says. “With a paddle.”

  “I paddled,” I add, ridiculously.

  “You did?” Whitney asks with her mouth full. She licks her fingers.

  “Yeah. I missed most of the season, but they let me practice with them, since I’d been doing it in San Francisco.” I wish the season wasn’t over. I miss the long paddles out in the open ocean, where we’d sometimes be accompanied by dolphins.

  “You steered,” Will says, and I’m surprised he knows this. “Like a blind woman.”

  I want to tell him that we won all of our races, so I couldn’t have been that bad, but I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He looks carefree and light, his eyes warm, welcoming, like you could fall into them.

  “How do you know I steered?” I ask.

  “Lissa,” he says. “I came to a few of her races.”

  “She seems nice,” I say with a note of insincerity.

  “She’s very nice,” he says with a slight grin. I can’t tell if he’s making fun of her or me.

  Whitney smirks.

  “What’s the paragraph?” I say to Whitney. “The paragraph your mom was talking about.”

  “Oh God,” Whitney says and puts her feet up on the chair. “For French. ‘Write a paragraph about Olivier’s weekend and include the animals above.’ Like, I’m sure Olivier’s weekend included an elephant and a spotted owl.”

  “Just make it up,” Will says, picking a mushroom off the pizza. Why am I noticing everything he’s doing, and why do I think it’s adorable? “Make up anything. The teacher—you have Schappel, right? She just wants to make sure you know the words. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

  “But I don’t know any of the shit I’m supposed to use. Like passé composé?”

  “What?” he says. “Where are you, dim Whit? How do you miss this stuff? Like, where do you go in your head? Kahala Mall? Claire’s?”

  “I don’t shop at Claire’s!” She elbows her brother.

  “Ow,” he says. He looks poised to say more, but can’t seem to come up with anything, so takes a bite of his pizza instead.

  “Can you write the paragraph?” Whitney asks. “You’re so smart, Will. What happened to me?”

  “I have no idea,” he says. “I like this song.” He leans back and nods his head.

  I listen to the music. I love this song too, in fact, though I don’t know what it’s called and don’t want to ask Will and give him the satisfaction of teaching me something. I kind of like the unpredictable terrain between us, like we’re both not sure where to step. It’s an old song, from the sixties or seventies, and it sounds kind of country.

  “What happened to you is that you don’t try,” he says. “You don’t want to work for anything.”

  He says this in a soft, sincere way, and I want him to continue, to understand what he’s getting at.

  “Can you write it?” she asks, and I realize she’s talking to me. Before I can answer, she gets up and runs inside, probably to get the assignment.

  “Don’t help her,” Will says, but again, he doesn’t say it in a mean way. With Whitney gone, I feel like we’re the adults talking about our wayward girl.

  “I may not be able to anyway,” I say. “I only took French in seventh and eighth grade.”

  He looks across the table, scanning me. “You’ll be able to.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because a blind woman would be able to.” That slight, highly effective grin.

  “What do you have against blind women?” I ask.

  “They can’t steer,” he says.

  We don’t break eye contact. Again, I’m off balance, not sure of his tone, but liking our rhythm. I don’t know if this is naive of me—like a bird enjoying the growling of a cat. I can’t tell if he’s flirting with me or just treating me like his sister’s friend, or maybe both.

  Whitney comes back out with her laptop and two mugs that I assume are filled with Kahlúa. I lean down and look at the assignment. I guess I still remember a few things.

  “Can you?” she asks. “Then I have nothing this whole weekend, and my mom will back off.”

  “I guess,” I say.

  It really isn’t that hard a task, and I wonder if I’m missing something. I type a paragraph about Olivier’s animals getting loose. A goose has babies. A cat lives on rib eye made from a cow. An elephan
t crushes a spotted owl. Il meurt.

  C’est terrible.

  I don’t put it in passé composé, but figure she can do that, or attempt to. I sense Will’s disapproval. I also realize that leaning over to type has made my camisole hang down. I take a quick glance, then decide not to adjust. I look up, and Will looks away.

  “Here.” I push the laptop toward her. “There are all the animals. See, I used suivre, vivre, naître, then you can just rewrite it with passé composé.”

  I can’t help but look at Will again to see where his eyes are. They’re on me.

  “You could be her tutor,” he says.

  I lean back onto the couch, pretending to be at home, at ease.

  “Maybe you can even get community service credit for it, since, you know, you’d be working with someone with special needs.”

  “Says the idiot who flunked kindergarten,” Whitney says.

  He doesn’t color externally, but I can tell she’s triggered some kind of insecurity mechanism. “Because I switched to Hanahauoli and was too young,” he says.

  “I just love that story,” she says. She rubs her hands together.

  “Because you can’t find anything else that’s wrong with me,” he says. “You can have it.”

  I laugh, and he looks at me and smiles like we’re sharing a secret.

  “You guys done?” Will asks. There’s still half of the pizza left. Whitney takes one more bite of hers, then slings the rest onto the box. Will gets up and takes the box.

  “Want me to foil it up?” I ask.

  The siblings stare at me as if I’m talking French.

  Will looks down at the box and wrinkles his nose a bit, as though it’s a week old. “I’ll just throw it out.”

  • • •

  After dinner, Whitney brings out dessert. I take a sip of my drink while looking out, still wondering what to make of Will—is he just trying to be a good host like his mom would want him to be? I take another sip, not wanting to make anything out of anything. I need to float a little more, let things roll under me like swells. I need to enjoy the movement. The lights from the coconut trees cast a glow on the ocean. I wonder how cold that dark blue water is. I wonder what vacations feel like when you already seem to be on one every day.

  “What kind of pie is this?” Will asks.

  “It’s not exactly a pie,” I say. “It’s a Pavlova. The only kind my mom makes.”

  “What’s a Pavlova?” Whitney asks. She slurps from her mug.

  “Basically a meringue, with fruit and whipped cream on top.” I say.

  “Is it called that because it makes you salivate?” she asks.

  I see she’s made a reference to “Pavlovian response” and am almost proud of her, but realize as a peer, I shouldn’t really have that right. I don’t know if I’m smarter than her, necessarily. As Will said, I think I just work harder.

  In class, I hold back answers, depending who’s in the room with me. Sometimes knowledge impresses, sometimes it just alienates you further, but something about Will makes me want to show off what I know.

  “It’s named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova,” I say. “She was the greatest ballerina of her time.”

  Will and I lock gazes for a moment.

  “When she danced,” I say, “she seemed to soar and float, like she had wings. The Pavlova is named after her because it’s light and airy. Graceful.”

  “That’s nice,” he says.

  “I still keep thinking of the dog,” Whitney says.

  I feel bad for wishing she weren’t here.

  “Like it?” Whitney asks, after I’ve taken another sip from the mug. The drink has created a heat under my breastbone.

  “What is it?” Will asks, looking into Whitney’s cup.

  She hands it to him. He takes a sip, then keeps it. He looks down at the Pavlova. It’s truly beautiful—strawberries and blueberries cradled in a cloud.

  “Looks too nice to eat.” He looks at me over the rim of his cup. I take another sip.

  Whitney stabs a fork into its middle and carves out a scoop.

  “What are you doing!” he says.

  “I forgot plates,” she says. “And we’re going to eat it anyway. Why does it matter?”

  “You could show some respect,” he says. “Get a plate.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, almost touching his hand to put him at ease.

  “Relax,” she says. “You’re getting uptight in your old age.”

  I take my fork and scoop out a bite. The cream fills my mouth and I chew the fruit. I love the sweetness and air.

  “My mom would have wanted it this way,” I say. Will follows my lead.

  “Oh, wow,” he says.

  “Good, right?” I say.

  “I can feel my thighs growing,” Whitney says, leaning down for more.

  Will and I look at each other over her head.

  14

  MONDAY MORNING, I WALK BACK FROM THURSTON Chapel alone, but migrating with the group. I don’t mind chapel—the stained-glass windows, everyone singing, the time it allows you to do nothing. Sometimes I tune in to the chaplain, or watch Ms. Freitas playing the organ, her spastic energy and the way she seems unaware of anyone else in the room. The music thunders through the cool space and makes me feel like I’m taking part in something ancient.

  When I signed in this morning, I noticed Will’s signature and looked down the row. He was slouched on the hard pew, eyes closed, mouth parted, chin tilted up to the ceiling, a cap on his lap. Just blatantly asleep. I couldn’t imagine doing the same. His seems to be a life without consequences. I keep expecting to see him around campus, wondering how he’ll greet me after our night on Friday, but I haven’t run into him yet.

  The air is humid and voggy, stifling. I don’t recognize any of the people I’m walking alongside. There are so many faces here. Even if I had started in kindergarten I doubt I’d know them all. I’m almost to the other end of the Olympic-sized swimming pool when I hear Whitney calling my name. I turn back and see her with Danny. He’s laughing at something in that Woody Woodpecker way of his. I slow down a bit and nearly get crushed by the other students headed to their next class.

  “Hey, guys,” I say.

  Whitney is wearing a maxi dress, which she pulls off despite her smaller stature. I’ve always wanted one, inspired by all the Japanese tourists in Kailua, who look stylish yet super comfortable at the same time. I tried one on at Fighting Eel, loved it, but looked like I was drowning or playing dress-up.

  “What’s up?” she says, with a nice note of familiarity.

  “I like your dress,” I say.

  She lifts a side of it. “My hausfrau dress. Love these things. You should borrow it.”

  “Want to come surf with us?” Danny asks. Today’s Monday, the day he usually can’t surf, and shouldn’t the question be rephrased? Shouldn’t we be asking Whitney if she wants to surf with us?

  “I can’t,” I say. “History exam.”

  “Boo,” Whitney says. “Join us after, then, at home?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say.

  I expect protests, begging, or just a simple “come on,” but there’s nothing. I begin to veer off toward class.

  “See you guys,” I say.

  “Late,” Danny says.

  “Bye-eee,” Whitney says. She always drags out the e. She’s got all these language tics, like word special effects.

  “Oh, my mom says you’re coming for dinner tonight, so I’ll see you for sure,” she calls out.

  “Okay,” I say, knowing nothing about it.

  “Meet earlier for cocoa, ’kay-eee?”

  “Okay, already,” I say. “My arm has been twisted.”

  She makes a victory gesture, pulling her elbow down and mouthing, “Yes.”

  I bump into so
meone during this exchange. “Oh, shit, sorry,” I say to a girl with thick glasses and hair that goes past her butt. She apologizes profusely and has a look about her that says this was some kind of fun incident.

  “Hard knocks,” she says and laughs nervously.

  I don’t disguise my confused look, and I walk away.

  When I get to the library, I wonder if that’s the way I acted when I first got to Punahou, or even until recently—needlessly apologetic, fumbling, and, well, lame.

  After history and Chinese, I’m done. I walk toward the exit by the pool and see Will, farther up the hill by the bench-encircled tree. I almost turn and walk the other way, but don’t see why I should. Still, I slow my pace, but he’s moving slow as well, so I have to go even slower. He has a girlfriend and treats me like a kid. I need to get it together.

  He turns then, sees me, and hesitates, maybe deciding whether to stay or go. He turns back, facing away from me, then stops walking until I get to his side.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey,” I say, not meeting his eyes. I look at his 808 Skate hat, and he lifts his eyes as if to see what I’m looking at. You skate and golf? I want to ask. ’Cause that goes together like wrestling and synchronized swimming. Or maybe he just wears it to look like he skates. We walk slowly, as if through thick sand.

  “This vog,” he says.

  “I know, right.” Volcanic ash and fog. It makes my eyes itch and water. I swear it affects your mood and energy too. You can just feel it in the air.

  On the walkway, he turns toward the road. “You going this way?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Are you going anywhere for break?” I ask. Spring break starts next week.

  “No,” he says. “I’ve got this tournament thing. You?”

  “Nowhere,” I say.

  We walk out of school, stopping in front of the rock wall to wait for the light to change. The wall runs alongside the campus, so you can only see the tops of the buildings from the street. I always feel like I’m in a different world when I leave, like this wall shelters us from the real world, and then our real world is surrounded by the ocean, like a castle’s moat, guarding us even further.