The Sound of Us

by Julie Hammerle

  “When are you leaving?” asks Kendra. “Tell me not right now.”

  “Tomorrow morning,” I say.

  “Thank God.” She flops down on my bed. “We have one more night.”

  I watch as my friends scatter around the room, my half of which is practically empty by now. They chat and joke about the day, about their lives at Krause, which will go on even when mine is over. I feel like I’m sitting in on my own wake as they reminisce about all that has happened over these past five weeks.

  “Remember when I puked on the Persephone statue?” says Kendra.

  “Remember when you guys tried to hook me up with Philip?” asks Mary.

  “Remember when I thought you and Seth were hooking up?” Andy asks me.

  “Remember when you kissed Tromboner Dave?” says Kendra.

  I’ve officially had enough reminiscing. I stealthily make my way over to Norman, who’s on Brie’s bed with Mary. I sit on his other side. “Where’s Jack?” I whisper.

  He puts his arm around my shoulders. “He’s at a golf thing; it’s supposed to go late. I texted him, told him you were leaving.”

  I nod. I guess I’ll wait.

  We order pizza and Norman puts on Project Earth. We spread around the room—Kendra, Seth, and me on my bed, Brie and Andy in the papasan, Norman and Mary on Brie’s bed. I sit up straight, waiting for Jack to show up. I keep one eye on the door at all times, poised to answer his knock, but it never comes.

  “I’m glad I got to introduce all of you to this show,” says Norman, pressing play on the next episode. “I feel like I really made a difference in your lives.”

  “Not mine,” I say, one eye still on the door.

  “What? You don’t like Project Earth?”

  “No,” I say, “I love it. You just didn’t introduce me to it. I’ve been a fan since…I don’t remember when I wasn’t a fan. I have over two thousand followers on Twitter who tweet about the show with me.”

  “What?” He stands up and peers at me over Brie’s and my desks. I think he’s about to slap me or shake some sense into me.

  I sigh. “My ex-best friend always told me it was a waste of time, that I sound like a lunatic when I talk about it and no one would want to spend time with me if I let my true geek colors fly. I decided to repress that part of myself, for popularity’s sake.” I shrug. “But now that I’m leaving, I guess I can let the cat out of the bag.”

  “Kiki,” says Kendra, “since you’re leaving, I suppose I should tell you that you weren’t fooling anyone. We figured you for a geek all along and we love you for it, not in spite of it.”

  I reach over and hug her.

  At ten until midnight, I finally come to terms with the fact that Jack is not coming. I’m going to leave Indianapolis tomorrow without saying goodbye to him. It feels like I’m listening to a song that ends on a seventh chord, like the piece is hanging there unfinished. That’s Jack and me, unfinished. I guess that’s how we’ll stay. He’ll go to Krause next year, I’ll go to my dad’s school, and we’ll never see each other again. I start mentally running through my catalog of sappy lady music, searching for the perfect song for this moment. I can’t think of one.

  Five minutes later, my friends and I start saying our goodbyes. Kendra leaves first. She pulls me into a big hug. “This isn’t goodbye,” she says. “I will see you next year. You’ll be my roommate and it will be amazing.”

  I don’t have the heart to tell her that will never happen.

  I hug Andy and Seth.

  “You are a good kisser,” I tell Seth.

  He winks at me.

  Mary stands by the door, waiting for a hug or something. I can’t do it. “Bye,” I tell her. Then I relent a little bit. “Let me know how you like Spencer Murphy’s new movie this summer.”

  She knows I know. I can tell. “I will,” she says. Her words feel heavier than that, like she means them as an apology I won’t accept.

  After she’s gone, I ask Norman to wait for a second. “I want to give you my Twitter handle. We have to chat about Project Earth this year. It’s imperative.”

  I shut the door to my room and motion for him to come over to my desk. Brie is at her bed, listening in, which is only right. She should hear this, too.

  “I’m sorry about Jack,” he says.

  I wave him off. “That’s not why I wanted to talk to you.” I write my Twitter handle down on a Post-It, hand it to him, and lean against my desk. “I need to tell you something, something really important, despite the fact that you kept Jack’s girlfriend a secret from me.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” he says. “Jack asked me—”

  “I know,” I say. “I get it. You were being a good friend to him. I hope you think I’m being a good friend to you now.”

  His face goes white. “What?”

  I glance over at Brie and motion with my head that she should listen in. “The mole,” I say, “the one who turned you in, Brie? It was Mary.”

  Neither of them says anything.

  “She knows I know. It’s pretty obvious.”

  “I get why she did it,” says Brie. “We were all under a lot of pressure. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t shitty.”

  Norman’s mouth is a line.

  “I didn’t want to leave here without telling you. You two, at least, needed to know, obviously. Do with that information what you will.”

  Norman leans in and gives me a big hug. “Telling me, you know, it’s what Dana would’ve done.”

  “What Would Dana Do? It’s my life’s motto.”

  *

  The ride home from Indy with my parents is torturous.

  My mom is equal parts concerned and embarrassed. My dad is straight-up beaming. My brother, Tommy, who’s a year younger than I am, is sitting in the back with me and is lost in a movie on his tablet, Creed. More Stallone. I wince at the memory of Cop Land. I pop open the can of lukewarm Diet Coke my parents brought me from home and toss out an S.O.S. tweet: “Headed back to Chicago with my family for the rest of the summer. Save me.”

  “I hate to say I told you so,” my dad says, absolutely giddy at the prospect of telling me “I told you so.” He hits the left-hand blinker hard for emphasis. “I was very much against you going to this camp. You know that. But really, it’s all for the best. You got the music stuff out of your system, and now you can study something more worthwhile. Something that will get you a job.”

  “What are people going to say when you’re home early?” my mom says. “And being caught drinking and staying out late.” She shakes her head. My mom is always worried about what other people think. For my entire life she’s tried to get me to be a more social creature, more like her. She was class president and homecoming queen. She has a big fancy job with a title too long for me to bother memorizing. She doesn’t understand my social anxiety or my introversion or the fact that I’ve been carrying thirty-odd extra pounds of insecurity on my frame for most of my life. She loves me, but she doesn’t understand me. And this is what I’m going home to. For the next five years, apparently.

  My phone buzzes and I grab it from the slot on the door. Someone responded to my tweet. “Nobody even cares that I’m home, Mom. I don’t think anyone realized I was gone. And people will only know that I got caught drinking and stuff if you tell them.”

  “You’re in no position to get snippy with me.”

  “I’m not getting snippy.” I check my phone. @Tyrions-Banister messaged me, telling me that he’d keep me company if I got sick of my family. Knowing that @TyrionsBanister is a man in his late twenties, I take this in the creepy way I’m sure it was intended and do not respond.

  “You know you’re grounded,” my mom says.

  I shrug. What difference does it make if I’m grounded or not? It’s not like I have this amazing social life I’ll be missing out on or anything.

  My dad is still lost in his own world. “Just think of how ahead of the game you’ll be when you graduate with no student loans. I was paying min
e off until you kids were practically in high school. Your sister is lucky she got a scholarship or she’d be in hock up to her eyeballs, especially considering she hasn’t been able to find a job in a year.”

  “But she got to study something she really loved.”

  “The point of college is to get a job to pay off those loans after you graduate.”

  “The point of college is to broaden your horizons.”

  “You’re pushing it, Kiki,” my mom says, turning around and gritting her teeth. “I don’t think you realize how much trouble you’re in. The rest of the summer”—she ticks off the list on her fingers, as if coming up with this on the fly—“no phone, no parties, no friends.”

  My brother laughs. I glance over to see what’s happening in his movie. The credits are rolling. He pulls out his earbuds.

  “What are you laughing at?” I ask.

  “Real tough punishment, Mom.” He’s looking at our mom in the front seat.

  “What do you mean?” She furrows her brow.

  He shakes his head with a smirk. “If you really want to punish Kiki,” he says, “take away her computer. And her tablet.”

  I stare at him open-mouthed. “What the fuck?” I mouth. I need those things. Without access to the internet, how will I even survive the summer? I won’t. I simply won’t.

  “Fine,” my mom says. “Those, too. Gone.”

  I elbow Tommy in the side. “Thanks, jerk.” I can’t believe he would sell me out like that. Everyone in Chicago is against me. That’s official.

  “You’re welcome.” He replaces his earbuds and presses play on another movie.

  *

  Back home in Chicago, I retreat to my bedroom and spend the next two days in social and technological detox. My mom was not kidding about the grounding. She confiscated my phone in the car and my computer and my tablet as soon as we got home from Indianapolis. I didn’t even have time to send off a “nice knowing you” tweet or a single text message to any of my friends at Krause.

  It’s only Sunday. I’ve been home for a day and a half, and I’m already tearing my hair out. I’m lonely. I’m in the place I’ve lived my whole life, but I’m actually homesick for Krause. I miss everyone terribly. I miss their company. I miss having a big group of people around me at all times. I, the girl who used to need nothing more than Twitter and a Netflix queue to keep her warm at night, now ache for human interaction.

  Right now, the only people around are my family. My brother basically pretends I don’t exist, which is fine by me. My parents are hell-bent on trying to convince me that going to my dad’s school really is the best option for me. When I woke up this morning, my dad had left a stack of articles on the edge of my bed with titles like “The Most Profitable College Majors” and “Dead No More: Latin Language Finds Life on Chicago’s North Shore.” My mom, as she’s wont to do, spent most of breakfast talking about all the people she knows who have kids who were successful with this major or that career. She even told me that one of the local high schools is in the market for a Latin teacher, like that position will still be available five years from now.

  Tina, between catnaps, is trying to sway me back into opera, my parents be damned. She keeps threatening to call Mr. Bertrand and ask him to give me another shot at the scholarship. Then she tells me about all of her singer friends who went to other schools. Even though her heart belongs to Krause, she’s willing to send me to another school if it means I keep studying opera just like her.

  I spend most of my time alone in my room, reading or watching (gasp!) live television. In the past thirty-six hours, I’ve watched more Food Network than I’ve seen in my entire life. I’m pretty sure the hiring directive for most of that network’s competition shows is, “MORE PUNCHABLE!” When I realize that’s a tweet I would’ve sent if I still had tweeting capabilities, I spiral further down into the depths of loneliness and despair.

  After lunch, I’m pretty sure everyone has gone out, so I head down to the kitchen for a change of pace and turn Cake Wars on down there.

  “Gross,” says Tommy when he comes in, pointing at the TV.

  “I thought you were gone,” I say.

  He grabs a banana from the island in the middle of the room. “How’s your day going?”

  I pour myself a glass of orange juice. “Eat a bag of dicks.”

  “What’d I do to you?” He sits on a stool at the counter and pulls his phone out of his back pocket. He starts texting one-handedly while eating his banana.

  “You got my computer taken away. Et cetera.”

  He grins, examining the banana up close. He peels each string away from the flesh as if he’s restoring a delicate piece of art back to its original form. I want to grab it away from him and shove it in his mouth.

  Instead I say, “I’m bored.”

  “So go out.”

  “I’m grounded.”

  “And?”

  “And I’m grounded.”

  “You can still drive, right?” he says. “I need a ride.”

  “Like I’ll give you one.”

  He swallows some banana. “There’s a party tonight.”

  I stare at him. “Are you really asking me, your grounded sister, to drive you to a party that she can’t even go to?” Not that I’d want to go.

  He nods, eyes on his phone.

  “Well, screw you. I’ll be here watching more of this bullshit.” I point to the TV where someone’s three-foot tall Monsters, Inc. cake has toppled to the ground.

  “You should come, stay for the party.” He never looks up from his phone. I wonder who he’s texting, his girlfriend or a friend. It doesn’t matter. I’m jealous of whoever it is. I’m jealous of him. My hands twitch at the sight of his phone. I’m jonesing for a fix.

  “Did you not hear the ‘I’m grounded’ part of my story?” I ask.

  “Mom and Dad are gone tonight. They’re going out with some friends and won’t be back until well after we’re home from the party.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want to go to a party.” Pause. “Where is it?” I wait for the inevitable.

  “Matt Carroll’s house.” Duh. “You know him?”

  I shake my head. “I know his house.” Everyone knows his house. Beth knows his house. Beth will probably be there tonight with Davis, another reason to avoid the party.

  “See,” says Tommy, “you should come.”

  I take a sip of juice and ponder what would happen if I showed up at the party. Beth has been tweeting at me, but I don’t know if I trust it. We’ve been down this road before. At the same time, I know we have to resolve things between us. We can’t let twelve years of friendship end on such a sour note.

  “What’s it to you if I stay at the party?” I ask Tommy.

  “Nothing. You just seem bored.”

  “Kind of the point of being grounded.”

  “Suit yourself.” He tosses his banana peel into the garbage.

  *

  I’m resolute about not going to the party until my sister, Tina, comes home and announces that she’s going with Tommy and his girlfriend to Matt Carroll’s house. “I haven’t been to a high school party since, well, high school,” she says. “I hope at least a few of the guys will be over eighteen.”

  I lie down on my bed to watch Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, but Tina keeps distracting me, scanning my closet for clothes to wear but, of course, she finds nothing.

  “You need to come,” she says. “Who cares about Mom and Dad? Tommy and I won’t tell on you. It’ll be our little secret.”

  “I’m not too trustful of people promising not to rat me out these days.”

  “I swear to God, Cicero. Don’t leave me alone with Tommy and his girlfriend. Barf. Sixteen-year-olds in love.” She hands me one of the twee dresses she picked out for me in the beginning of the summer. “Wear this,” she says. “But leave that disgusting monster backpack at home.” She gags and points to poor Chumley sitting innocently in the corner.

  I stare at the dre
ss. Why not go? I’m already under arrest in my own house, cut off from society, and being forced to attend my dad’s school. Even if my parents catch me sneaking out, what else could they do to make my life worse? I’ve reached my misery saturation point.

  I put on the dress, and Tina turns me into her dress-up doll for the night. She moves my wallet and stuff from Chumley into one of her very grown-up purses. She does my hair and slathers makeup all over my face. I go along with it passively, numbly. I’m done fighting for my own identity. I might as well become what everyone else wants me to be.

  In the car on the way to the party, Tommy’s girlfriend, Natalie, asks me about my high school friends, to see if she knows any of them. She’s going to be a sophomore, a cheerleader. I’m pretty sure we don’t run in the same circles.

  “Are you friends with Matt Carroll?” she asks.

  “No.” No one’s friends with Matt Carroll. I’ve never actually seen him at one of his own parties. I think he goes to, like, the movies or something just to avoid all the people. I consider this. “Maybe we should go to the movies instead.”

  “Lame,” says Tina.

  We pull onto Matt Carroll’s street and it looks just like it does every weekend during the school year. Fancy cars and SUVs line both curbs. For some reason, every boy at my school needs a car with four-wheel drive. Probably because they have so many rough trails to blaze on Chicago’s North Shore.

  I stop the car at the end of the block and sit there for a few seconds, my hands on the steering wheel, the car still in drive. There’s time to go back. I don’t have to go to the party. I don’t have anything to prove to these people. I got along fine without them after the whole Beth thing blew up. I don’t need them anymore. I could go home and not risk trouble with my parents. But since I’ve become a rule-breaking machine, I throw the car in park. “Let’s go in.”

  Tommy, Natalie, Tina, and I exit the van and I lead the way to Matt Carroll’s house. As usual, his neighbors sit in their front windows looking on disapprovingly, ready to lash out at anyone who comes near their property. Matt Carroll’s own lawn is covered in a thick carpet of teenagers, standing around talking and smoking and drinking out of plastic cups. I’m always curious as to why none of Matt Carroll’s neighbors ever complain or call the police during these huge parties. Maybe they feel bad for him because his parents are divorced and his mom is never around. Maybe they’re scared because his dad is a big fancy lawyer. Maybe they secretly long to be invited.