On the last page, there’s a website link. Written in her pretty red script, all numbers and random letters, and below it the following words: My own garden of secrets.
Secret:
I wish I were hotter.
—Agnes
Secret:
I drive drunk. Often. There have been some seriously close calls.
—@sshole
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Four.
Morning Assembly.
It’s the kind of crap Circle Community Day School comes up with: most days we have a twenty-minute Morning Assembly, where we get school announcements in the auditorium. Every Thursday morning the headmaster hires a speaker for an hour (sometimes academic, sometimes inspirational, always boring), and the tiny student body, all five hundred of us, settles into our squeaky, itchy seats and tries to not get caught napping. So basically, thank God it’s Wednesday.
I’m procrastinating outside the auditorium and hoping Elise will come by, until I remember I can’t tell her anything about last night and Joe and the things I’ve done that feel great but make me terrible. Even without reassurance from him online last night, I smile even thinking his name. I replay the kisses in my head, the moments before the kisses too, and I worry the spaces between my ribs are being literally crushed with feelings.
I do some imitation of Cate and Paul’s yoga breathing, but it only makes me more hyped up, more ready to explode. I was so certain it was best not to let Elise in on the secret that I am a bad person who makes out with other people’s boyfriends, but the more I breathe, the more convinced I am that the words will spill out from physical necessity.
Sun’s streaming in the floor-to-ceiling windows, and grumpy kids in fleece and corduroy are all squinting against the light. Joe walks by with Sasha. I reach for my hair on autopilot, push it behind my shoulders and try to look normal.
“Please, no,” Elise says, coming up behind me and squeezing my sides so that I jump in surprise. She gives me a good, hard stare, like I’m in trouble. Which, given Elise’s distrust of hockey-playing cheaters, is probably exactly what she thinks I am. “Aren’t we done with the Joe Donavetti crap yet?”
“I know, I know. I’m the worst. The League of Great Feminists from Throughout History will come down and haunt me.” I wrap an arm across my body so that my hand wraps around my ribs and tell the words and feelings to stay there and chill out.
“I’m not kidding, Tab. He’s gross. And everyone loves his girlfriend. So get that look off your face.”
The unspoken end of that thought: you’ve lost enough friends already. Don’t make it worse. She notices my wince and shakes her head, like she’s forgotten herself.
“You can do so much better, is all I mean. You’re fucking gorgeous. And hilarious. Basically I’m obsessed with you, and your future boyfriend will be too.” Elise bumps my hip with hers, and I get a lift from her words because she says them with such total sincerity that I think they might be true.
Except Joe’s the one I want.
We follow Joe and Sasha into the assembly hall, and I don’t even try to stop looking at them. I want a glimpse of his lips. It will feed the total bliss I feel at having kissed them.
Elise and I sit a few rows behind them, and I watch the hair on the back of Joe’s head, looking for meaning. I know he wants to get out from under her thumb. He tells me he does every night. But his arm is around her, and I think from the way her body sort of shudders against his that she’s crying.
Sasha Cotton is always crying.
“All right, lady, you obviously need to talk, so talk,” Elise says with a huge sigh. Her lip is curled in disgust at having to listen to this, but she’s a good friend, so she leans in, elbow on my armrest, chin on her fist, and gets ready for my gushing. “What’s the update?” Assembly must be running late. The headmaster hasn’t made his way onto the stage yet, and the din of voices isn’t dying down.
The thing about Elise is, she always comes around. She hasn’t been the greatest listener lately, but she certainly tries. I don’t tell her about the kissing or his running away; I just tell her about a conversation Joe and I had a few days ago online. I am desperate for her to approve of me and Joe, so that someday I can tell her the whole story.
“Well, so Joe did tell me that Sasha’s on some new antidepressant medication. So as soon as she adjusts, he’ll break up with her and—”
“Are they sleeping together?” Elise interrupts. It’s the question we ask about every couple lately, but I haven’t tried to find out about Joe and Sasha yet. I don’t think I want to know the answer.
I shake my head and shrug and sigh all at once, and Elise adjusts her black T-shirt. She buttons and unbuttons the snaps on the brown leather cuff she wears on her right wrist. She musses up her own pixie cut and leans back in her seat.
“I guess I’m asking because they’re passing out the lit journal today, and I hear she’s got a poem in it,” Elise says, choosing her words so carefully I don’t even recognize the rhythm of her voice as her own. Sasha has cupped her hand around the back of Joe’s neck. It’s the kind of gesture I’ve seen Cate and Paul do, and I shudder at the thought of Joe and Sasha as some kind of old married couple: comfortable, impenetrable, and in love.
“Hm?” I say.
“Heather said something. About Sasha’s poem,” Elise goes on. I’m so sick of hearing about her new friend Heather and their amazing connection that I don’t immediately ask a follow-up question, even though the words she’s saying and their vaguely ominous meaning make my stomach twist. Not to mention I owe her a good listen after she listened to me talk about Joe without gagging.
“What, did Sasha write about, like, dark thoughts and unicorns and Sylvia Plath or something?” I just can’t stand the weepy-pseudo-deepness that is Sasha Cotton. But she’s fooling everyone else, I guess. Even the lit journal. Even Joe. He’s whispering something into her ear, and I swear the feeling travels right to the skin of my ear. I shudder from the abrupt desire. I want his lips to be on my ear so badly I could scream. I force myself to swallow instead.
“I know she’s lame,” Elise says, “but she’s smart, too. And sort of . . . weirdly sexy. So, I don’t know. Just be prepared. I heard her poem is kinda . . .” Elise can’t seem to come up with the right word, so she makes her eyes go wide and shimmies her shoulders a little. I want to ask for more but the announcements are starting and the teachers are on high alert, so we both pretend to be totally dedicated to learning more about bird migration from the hack that Headmaster Brownser hired to speak to us today. There’s that rumble of nerves in my stomach, and I grab Elise’s arm for support. She pats my hand quickly and then slides her arm out from under my grip.
After twenty minutes of reminders to buy baked goods at Friday’s sale, and to not park in faculty spots, we’re dismissed for first period. On our way out of the hall, as promised, Heather and the other literary magazine evangelists hand out Libretto, the bimonthly journal they produce every other month that is chock-full of tortured poetry, SAT-word-heavy short stories, and black-and-white self-portraits. Everyone is obsessed with Libretto. It’s like a barometer for the gossip in the school: who is in love, who is breaking up, who is losing it, who’s fighting, who’s got family issues, who’s talented and artsy versus who is just annoying.
I’ve submitted some writing, and it never gets in. That’s the embarrassing truth that makes me hate them even more.
Elise has a self-portrait on page three: spiky hair, duct-tape-covered mouth, sleepy-sad look in her eyes. She told me the photograph’s title is “Out,” but in Libretto they’re calling it “Just Me.” Elise may be a lot of things, but she’s not out. People suspect. People make fun. People ask me about it. But the simple declarative “I’m gay” has only ever passed through her lips when she’s talking to me.
I’m pro
ud of her, though. The photograph is a step.
I flip through more of the magazine: sketches of the mountains, photographs of inanimate objects, someone’s poem about their dead uncle.
Then there’s Sasha’s poem. It’s not long. It’s extra deep because she uses slashes instead of line breaks, like a real Artist.
When you said not to be scared/ I believed you/ because when I can’t trust myself/ I can trust you/ to know what my body wants./ Underwater your body looks/ like something I could love/ Naked, and these are things no one else will see/ and we are keeping secrets in the cold and the dark and the way you hold me/underneath/ if you touch me again/ I will drown/ but maybe I wouldn’t mind/ if it’s your hands (mouth? skin?) stopping me from breathing.
It’s titled “Underwater Joe.”
I make myself throw up in the bathroom just to see if it will clear the feelings out of my chest.
It doesn’t. I’m so not cut out for bulimia.
Secret:
I hate my best friend’s boyfriend. Really, really, really hate.
—Roxie
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Five.
I hide in the bathroom for, like, twenty minutes and miss part of Women’s History because I cannot possibly face the day. I do a Downward Dog in the handicapped stall, but it does nothing to make me feel calmer. And since I also can’t throw up my feelings, and I can’t scream without attracting some serious attention, I reopen The Secret Garden and consider a few of my favorite notes, before lingering on the last page and the website written there.
The link is circled in silver ink, which I hadn’t noticed in the crappy lighting of our living room. Which I guess means my school’s bathroom has better lighting than my family’s living room, but that’s a different issue. The silver ink gives it a magical quality. I lean against the locked stall door, take out my phone, and type in the address. I’m not sure exactly what I’m expecting. Maybe the note taker’s blog or a Secret Garden fan page or something.
But the link doesn’t take me straight to a website. A little gold box appears on the screen first. Are you sure? it says. I press yes, but I am suddenly not.
Can you keep a secret? another gold box asks. I laugh. A tight laugh, the uncomfortable kind that comes from my throat and not my stomach. I look around the stall, like someone might be in there with me. I look in the book again, too, in case there’s some clue that this website is sort of crazytown.
I press the silver-script Yes. It reminds me of this princess-themed video game I used to play when I was little. Except when I press yes this second time, the actual website pops up. Dark with gold and silver writing. Life by Committee it reads on the top.
A silver spiral spins in the top right corner. Hypnotic.
I can’t process what I’m looking at, but I also can’t look away. Like a car crash or an eclipse or Joe’s face. I could get lost in it, but it scares me.
There’s a squeak as the bathroom door opens and a group of freshman girls enter.
“She doesn’t even know it’s hot, which is what makes it so freaking hot,” one of them says. “You, like, can’t even hate her, you know?”
“She’s not, like, traditionally pretty. Not out-there pretty. She’s, like, mysterious pretty. Which, I mean, is the best kind of pretty, you know?” her nasal-voiced friend agrees.
I close the website. Put my phone away.
I’m dizzy from this day, but I refuse to hide in a stall and listen to freshmen talk about how amazing Sasha Cotton is. I push the door open and try to see if they know who I am, if they know about me and Joe, if anything registers on their faces.
One of them clears her throat, and I try to interpret the tone behind the cough.
Definitely judgmental. If they don’t know about me and Joe, they’ve at least heard from Jemma and Alison that I’m the wrong kind of girl.
Everyone’s talking about Sasha’s poem. The artsy kids are saying it’s totally beautiful, and the young teachers are stopping her in the hallway to tell her she should be applying to colleges with great English programs. Everyone else is acting like she wrote soft-core porn, and even the jocks are looking at awkward wispy-haired Sasha in a whole new light.
I’m spending my free period drowning my sorrows in shitty on-campus coffee at a little table near the alcove where the hot athletes hang out. Joe isn’t quite one of them, maybe because he’s not very tall and fails to buy the Right Sweater every fall, but his big-toothed smile and varsity-athlete status make him something of a sidekick. He can go to the parties, but they don’t think to invite him. They talk to him when they are bored, but they wouldn’t list him as a friend.
Athletes aren’t supposed to have special status at Circle Community Day School, but these guys are gorgeous and their parents let them throw ragers after their games, so they end up popular despite the best efforts of the vegan potters who run our school to keep them down.
“Joe, my friend,” Luke, the tallest and hunkiest of the guys, calls out. Joe beams, knowing what’s coming, because I’m sure he’s been hearing it from every guy since assembly let out. “What’s up with your girl? She a freak? Your girl like it a little crazy?” Luke talks like he’s from Detroit or something, but his parents make homemade jam and run the tourism office, so they’re real Vermonters.
“I don’t know, man,” Joe says. He’s grinning, though, a huge, shit-eating grin.
“Come on. She seems like a secret freak. She’s one of those girls . . . kinda nuts, writes in a journal or some shit, reads a bunch of books with naked people on the cover. . . . Am I on the right track?”
My stomach turns. I blush, even though no one is looking at me or talking about me. I blush so hard my own face is warm to touch. I blush so hard I’m pretty sure it is distracting to everyone around me. A bright red glow must be flooding the hallways.
“She’s a little like that, sure,” Joe says. He seriously cannot stop smiling. He’s standing up straight, his feet wider than his shoulders, like he suddenly requires more room than your average person.
I am going to vomit. I am going to vomit right here, in front of everyone. Which will make my lack of Sasha-style sexiness even more obvious to the whole school and to Joe.
“That’s what I thought. I know what those chicks are like. You’re a lucky man, brother. Lucky, lucky man.” Luke sticks out his hand and Joe shakes it;both of them flex their ridiculous muscles as they grip hands.
“You’re gonna get me in trouble, dude,” Joe says, his chest all puffed up. I’m full-on watching them now, no longer trying to hide my interest in a book or my coffee or anything. I’m just slack-jawed staring at Joe and Luke and the now applauding football team. They are giving Joe a standing ovation.
I want to die.
And then, of course, Joe sees me and there’s no way for me to quickly shift my gaze or anything, I’m just stuck with my mouth open and my eyes pinned to him. His face tries to rearrange itself into something mildly apologetic or friendly or gentle or something, but it really just looks scrambled and still glowing from stupid pride.
He gives a half wave, not big enough for anyone but me to notice, and I wonder if we’ll talk online tonight, or if this is how it ends.
Then Elise is at my side, and I have to turn off that line of thinking for a second.
“Don’t kill me,” she says, which means she’s done something ridiculous that doesn’t affect me at all. This is exactly how she told me about stealing a hundred dollars from her mom to buy a fake ID from some sketchy dude in Burlington.
Not to buy beer, just to get into gay bars. Elise has no interest in drinking; she just wants to be around other lesbians, which I totally respect. Elise is both fearless and straight edge, which is a killer combination. I can only miss Jemma and Alison so much with Elise around.
“I’m not gonna kill you,” I say. She’s wrin
ging her hands, though.
“I kinda like the poem.”
“Elise!”
“I kinda think it’s hot,” Elise says. “I want to be honest. I’ll probably tell her I liked it.”
“But it’s weird. I mean it’s . . . everyone in the whole school knows who her boyfriend is. And everyone in the whole school knows that she lives on a lake. And now everyone knows what she and Joe do in the lake,” I say. I drop my voice to a whisper so that the crowds of people picking up books and making jokes and texting and holding hands don’t overhear us.
“But isn’t that hot? That she just doesn’t care? Like—that she’s so into sex or Joe or whatever that she has to publicize it? That she can’t keep it in, and doesn’t care, and all the societal prescriptions fall the fuck away?” Elise is getting all worked up and forgetting to look at my face, which I’m almost certain is turning shades of pink and gray from humiliation and disgust.
“I mean, you’re obviously in the majority. Sasha Cotton just became the hottest girl in school,” I say.
“It’s also kinda genius,” Elise goes on, this time actually looking me in the face while she talks to me. This time, she’s really considering the words.
“Genius?”
“She must have known. About you liking Joe. And Joe thinking you’re cute or whatever it is he thinks. Or maybe she could tell he was thinking about breaking up with her or something. She must have felt it coming, and what better way to stake her claim, right?”
“We’re talking about my life here, Lise,” I say. I’m still waiting for my best friend to pull me into a hug and tell me it’s going to be okay, or to help me hate on Sasha, but Elise is in a whole other realm with all this.
“Right,” Elise says, and grabs my hands in her own. “Sorry. I know you like him and stuff. And he’s a dick for leading you on. But she’s upping her game, and I think you need to step out of this one. That’s what I really wanted to say. Don’t get in some weird girl-fight over stupid Joe, right?”
Life by Committee Page 4
