Well, That Was Awkward

by Rachel Vail

  Because I was concentrating on my vital work wiping up the spilled soda, I didn’t see AJ approaching until he grabbed some napkins and started wiping up soda with me.

  There truly wasn’t much soda spilled and it was beading up anyway, but we both scrubbed until that thing was bone dry. And then a bit more. We threw our barely dampened napkins into the trash. So, that was done.

  “How’s it going?” I eventually asked him as we stood there, just staring into space, where the water towers of the buildings between Michaela’s roof and the Hudson were outlined against the pinking sky.

  “Great,” he said. “Good, great. You? Are these cookies up for grabs? I’m so hungry.”

  “Oh yeah, absolutely,” I said.

  He ate one. Fast. He looked like he was going to say something, but instead he took another and popped it into his mouth too, as if they were Doritos. He swallowed, shrugged, smiled sheepishly. “They’re good.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You made them?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah!” I said, too loud. Weirdly overenthusiastic. Shhh.

  “They’re good.”

  “Thanks,” I said again. “Were you looking for Sienna?”

  He blinked his long eyelashes a few times. “Um, no,” he said. “You.”

  My knees wobbled. “Me?”

  “I just . . . I was just . . .” He took another cookie and ate it in one gulp, like a snake devouring a mouse. “I was gonna . . . It’s kind of a funny . . . The thing is— Emmett!”

  “How was the . . . I’m sorry—what?”

  “Fine!”

  “What?”

  “Did you ask, ‘How are you?’”

  “Oh, um.” I tried to rewind the conversation in my mind. “I don’t remember.”

  “I thought . . .” He smiled at me. “Just in case: I’m good, thanks.”

  I noticed, I thought. But then: She is my best friend. “How was the game?” I managed to ask.

  “Game?”

  “Baseball? About an hour ago?”

  “Oh,” he said. “Yeah, right—um, good.”

  “Great!” I said, super psyched. Ugh.

  “I mean, we lost, but . . .”

  “Oh,” I said. I wished we were texting instead. We were better at talking by text, where it all went so smoothly and we were funny together. We picked up each other’s references and jokes and rhythms when we were texting and he thought it was Sienna on my end. This talking thing was brutal. What to even say about the fact that he’d lost a baseball game this afternoon? Is that a thing people feel terrible about? Or no biggie? Do you say you’re sorry for his loss, or is that only for when somebody dies?

  How am I fourteen years old and I still don’t know how to have a conversation? “Was it close?” I asked.

  “Was what close?”

  “The game,” I said, sweating. “That you lost.” Oh, just put me out with the trash, will somebody, please?

  “No,” AJ said. “Uh, not even, no. Nine–nothing. They completely abused us.”

  I smiled and nodded.

  He looked a little confused, justifiably. Think, Gracie, think. Say something. You can’t just smile and nod when somebody says he and his team were completely abused.

  “Hey, yeah, one of my favorite kinds of used,” I said. Please let him get this.

  “Your . . . what?”

  “One: Ab,” I said. “Two: Conf!”

  “Huh?” he asked.

  “Favorite kinds of used!” Dying, I explained: “Ab-used. Conf-used.”

  He blinked a few times. Long eyelashes causing a breeze.

  “And, oh,” I said, getting slightly louder and maybe also slightly scarier. “Three: Am!”

  “Am?”

  “Used! Am! Used! Amused! Get it?”

  “No.”

  “Am-used! Hahahaha!” I had to blink away the sweat dripping off my forehead and into my eyes. “Isn’t that a great kind of used? To be? Am-used?!”

  “Am used?” AJ asked. “Wait, I don’t—Who’s used?”

  “I am,” I said. “Hahahaha! Right? Well, you’re conf-used. I’m not ab-used, not really, and okay, neither of us is very am-used, obviously! But I am actually used up!”

  “Okay,” he said, stepping one step backward.

  Oh, dear God.

  I wiped more sweat away from my eyes with my palms, forgetting I’d put on eyeliner and mascara while the cookies were in the oven earlier, until I saw smears of black across my hands.

  “Like our favorite kinds of lakes!” I practically shouted. Why am I screaming?

  “Our what?” he asked.

  “Favorite kinds of lakes,” I repeated, simply wilting. Other people were coming toward us, the Loud Crowd, marching toward us like an avenging army, to rescue poor AJ from the Crazy Shouting Melting Girl. “Great, Cornf? Lakes? And then you said . . .”

  He looked at me, kind of concerned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Three: Frostedf,” I said. “When you were texting with Sienna. Remember? Late at night? After my birthday party?”

  “Oh,” he said. He looked embarrassed.

  And then it hit me. He hadn’t realized I’d seen (never mind written) those texts. He’d been pretending not to understand because he’d thought that it was all a private inside joke, between him and Sienna. Oh no! I’d blown it. Uh-oh. No, no, no. And there was Sienna, almost next to me, finally. Oh no, oh no. I so suck.

  “She didn’t . . .” I started, then quick, leaning close to AJ to whisper so my best friend wouldn’t hear. “I saw Sienna’s phone. I read. I didn’t mean to. She didn’t show me anything private or—”

  “It’s okay,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I swear she never . . . It’s my fault completely.”

  “No,” AJ said. “I know. It’s okay. I just didn’t . . . I actually was . . .”

  “You okay?” Sienna asked me at exactly the same time as AJ was saying, “It’s okay.”

  “Great,” I lied to them both simultaneously.

  Sienna squinted at me a tiny bit, unsure.

  “Great as a lake,” I said. I actually had to close my eyes to ward off the threatening tidal wave of sobbing. I should never go to parties. I just never should.

  When I opened them again so nobody would think I’d fallen randomly asleep standing among them, Michaela had latched her arm through Sienna’s and was whispering something to her. Sienna nodded her tiny, subtle nod, a single downward head tip. Like a girl in a Renoir painting: so pretty, so perfect.

  Michaela turned to AJ and said, all casual, “Hey, AJ, could you do me a favor and run down to my apartment to get some more napkins? We’re running low.”

  “Sure,” he said, smiling wide. He’s like a golden retriever, eternally up for a task.

  “Sienna knows where they are,” Michaela added, and gently shoved Sienna toward him.

  They went toward the elevator together without looking back at the whispering mass of us. Well, not all of us were whispering. I just stood there, not whispering with anyone but instead watching and wishing good things at my best friend.

  Really.

  If she was about to go get her first kiss, I wished for it to be not weird but really nice: gentle, sweet, and mutual. As the Loud Crowd moved like one big gossiping amoeba toward the Ping-Pong table, I smiled to myself. That conversation I’d just had with AJ was about a twenty-seven billion on an Awkward Scale of one to ten—completely my fault—but there was an upside: I could feel my crush on AJ lifting a bit.

  No. A lot.

  I’m not even sure why.

  It’s not that I suddenly disliked him—not at all. He’s great. He’s still sweet and good-looking, obviously. But just, suddenly, I could like him in a more
normal way. More sturdy, like how I liked him a month ago, before I got all clumsy every time I thought of him. More like how I like enthusiastic Beth, or dorky Dorin, or jokey Harrison, or unnecessarily tall Ricky Wu, despite his unfortunate tendency to do magic tricks. I deeply didn’t want to be the one in the elevator with AJ, possibly about to try to kiss. I really didn’t. I was happy to have that be Sienna instead.

  If anything, I was more jealous of AJ, having time alone with Sienna.

  My knees felt normal in their hinges. I wasn’t having any trouble balancing on the spinning planet. I could think of AJ and his cute face and his reassuring altitude and sweet attitude and be like, Yeah, nice guy.

  Yay! Excellent! I could be a noncomplexly good friend again! Thank you, yes, please. Being a good friend is the thing I’ve actually always liked best about myself. Better than cute toes.

  That’s why when Riley came over and smiled at me, I smiled back. I had enough good will about everything to spill some over onto her, too. She’s probably feeling unchosen, I thought, realizing I was probably the only one of us up there on the roof who knew Riley might be having a hard time right now. Because she was just jealous. Who said that about her one time before?

  “Hey,” I said. “How’re you doing?”

  “Me?” Riley asked, flicking her hair.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You okay?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “Yeah,” I said, thinking, Yeah, I get you. Me too. It felt so good to like everybody again. Even the most difficult among us are really just walking a sometimes rough path, feeling too many feelings all at once. Be gentle with everybody, Mom always says; be gentle and generous. I used to succeed at that, until last week, which Mom loved about me. And so did I! Welcome back, me! “Same,” I said, appreciating the private secrets I shared even with Riley, poor insecure Riley. “Nice night, right? How was the game?”

  “It’s kind of funny. You didn’t even go to the game, but you’re here,” Riley said.

  “Sienna asked me—”

  “Oh, you don’t have to apologize,” Riley said. “Don’t get all awkward and defensive again. The last thing we need is a scene, am I right?”

  “I . . .” How does she get me so turned around all the time? “I wasn’t apologizing. I . . . Sienna wanted me here.”

  “She invites you to somebody else’s party and then she dumps you?”

  “She didn’t,” I said, feeling my face heat up. She did kind of dump me, though, didn’t she? No. Kind of? “She and AJ. They went . . .”

  “Sure,” Riley said, and smiled prettily. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I wasn’t worrying.”

  “Listen, Gracie. People were talking about you tonight. I thought you should know.”

  “Talking about me?”

  “About who you like.”

  Sweat, my old enemy. Oh no, oh no, oh no. It would be Riley who realized I liked AJ. Ugh, how perfectly inevitable and hideous.

  No.

  “Riley, I don’t like anybody.”

  “Come on.”

  I knew exactly what she was about to say: that just a few minutes ago, when they were all over on the other side of the roof-deck, their whispering was about me and AJ. That everybody except Sienna had seen me flirting with him, and they’d all been commenting on my desperate, sad failed attempts to get AJ to like me instead. After witnessing my betrayal of Sienna, they felt honor-bound to tell her. And so Riley was just the ambassador, letting me know that that’s what was about to go down.

  Sienna would hate me. Rightly so.

  I hated myself for it.

  “I don’t like him,” I said, leaving out the feeble anymore.

  “It’s pretty obvious you do, actually.”

  “It is?” I asked. “But no, honestly, I don’t . . .”

  “Admit it! You’re totally into Emmett.”

  “Wait. Emmett?”

  “Yeah, Emmett. Don’t deny it.”

  “You think . . . You all think . . . Emmett?”

  “Yeah. Obviously you like—”

  “No!” I said. Loud, relieved. “I don’t like Emmett!”

  “You don’t?”

  “No!” Shhh. “We’re friends,” I whispered. “Just friends.”

  “Okay,” Riley said.

  “Youch,” Michaela said, beside me.

  I’d been in such a fog of trying to figure out how to deny the truth about how I’d been acting toward AJ, I didn’t even notice everybody had joined us at the table and they were all devouring the cookies I’d baked. They were also all looking over toward the door, so I did too. Sienna and AJ were coming back onto the roof-deck, and they were holding hands. Emmett was running toward them.

  “Hey!” AJ said, big smile all over his face until it faded fast.

  Emmett pushed past them.

  “Emmett!” AJ yelled, and then turned around and followed him inside.

  “What happened?” Beth asked.

  Sienna walked straight to the table. “What happened to Emmett?” she asked.

  Everybody looked at me.

  “I don’t know,” I said, and stepped closer to Sienna. “How are you?”

  “Good,” she said. “What was Emmett upset about?”

  “Tell us everything,” Riley said to Sienna.

  Michaela said to me, “I think Emmett heard what you said.”

  “What did I say?” I asked.

  “That you don’t like him.”

  “Gracie!” Sienna gasped. “You said that?”

  “I didn’t mean at all,” I spluttered. “I . . . he . . . I said we’re friends!”

  Michaela shrugged and turned away to talk with David. Riley had swooped in on Sienna by then, and everybody was in a swarm around her. All their backs were toward me.

  I pulled out my phone. A text from Mom asking what time I wanted to come home. I ignored that for the moment and texted Emmett: you okay?

  No answer.

  Everybody had moved to the far side of the roof-deck. I was alone with the cookies again. Only seven left.

  I texted Mom: I may head out. kinda done here okay? I’ll walk home IT’S FINE.

  Mom texted back immediately: Stay there. Daddy is at the Starbucks on the corner. He can meet you in the lobby.

  I walked across the roof to the door. Nobody called out to me, so I just ducked my head and kept going.

  40

  SOME TRUTH

  Dad picked me up in the lobby, and after he thanked the doorman, randomly, we walked home up West End Avenue together, past the brownstones and prewar buildings, in the quiet of the evening. I was trying not to be mad, but come on. I am fourteen years old. I can walk eleven blocks by myself.

  Couldn’t I have ten minutes to myself? I had a lot to think about.

  Including the fact that I had texted Sienna and Emmett and even Riley and Michaela to see what had happened and nobody had answered me. I had turned my phone off, sitting on the black leather couch, the doorman pitying me, and then back on.

  Nothing.

  I smiled at the doorman before I texted Sienna again: hey sorry I had to go but I want to hear all about what happened <3 <3

  And texted Emmett: hey srsly you okay?

  Nothing. Very busy here, Mr. Doorman; don’t worry about me.

  I texted Sienna again, third time in a row with no response: are you mad at me?

  And then texted Emmett a third time too: are you mad at me?

  No responses. And then my dad blustered in and explained to the doorman that he was there to pick his daughter Gracie up! And here she is! Hahahaha. I guess we’ll head home now. Thank you so much! Nobody cares, Dad.

  And so while the rest of the grade, or at least the sporty kids, plus Sienna (oh wait, she is kind of a sporty kid, I guess—why did I never reali
ze that before?) and Emmett, stayed at the party on Michaela’s roof, I walked grumpily uptown with my father.

  It wasn’t even fully dark out yet. Dad pointed at the moon in the still-half-bright sky. “Look, a nearly full moon!”

  He loves the moon.

  I hate the moon. I hate everything.

  “It’s hovering so big and swollen over the East Side,” he said.

  “I used to think the sun rose on the East Side,” I mumbled.

  “The East Side?”

  I didn’t want to get into it. I wanted to just trudge quietly home, feeling like unsorted litter, and crawl into my bed and forget who I am.

  “What do you mean?” Dad asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Gracie.”

  “I didn’t know there was east, like, in the world. Beyond maybe Madison Avenue,” I explained unwillingly. “So when you and Mom said the sun rose in the east, I was like, Oh, sure, east. I remember where that is. It’s across Central Park.”

  He laughed a little. I love making Dad laugh.

  I could feel my annoyance lift a tiny bit, against my will. “East as a compass direction, instead of, you know, the fancy neighborhood where the museums are? Never occurred to me.”

  Dad smiled. “Until when?”

  “Embarrassingly recently,” I said.

  Dad smiled at me like I was awesome instead of an idiot.

  “Maybe at the Met Museum,” I said. “Near all the statues of the naked people, or maybe where the knights are.” It’s like I’m addicted to making my parents smile. Stop it! Why can’t I just be a normal sulky teenager for half an hour?

  “That would be where they kept the moon, no?” Dad asked. “With the knights? Get it? Night, knights? They’d keep the moon with the knights?”

  I groaned. Please just leave me alone!

  “I thought that was a good one. Knights and moons.”

  “Dad! Stop.” Could he please just not push all the time?

  “I’ll keep working on it,” Dad said. “I’m pretty sure there’s a funny joke in—”

  “Why didn’t you press charges against Bret’s killer?”