Promise Me Something

by Sara Kocek

  Olive took the brunt, of course. She made it easy. During homeroom one morning, when John Quincy grabbed the attendance clipboard and called out, “Miss California? Miss Rhode Island? Miss Florida?” Olive turned toward Gretchen and me and said, in her haughty way, “I suppose you two get a kick out of this.”

  “No,” said Gretchen, not missing a beat. “But we get a kick out of your outfit.”

  Olive was wearing a dark denim skirt that looked like something the Gap might have sold before the millennium. Ignoring Gretchen’s comment, she glanced pointedly at John Quincy and said, “Naming women after states is sexual harassment. I don’t find it funny.”

  “What’s funny?” countered Gretchen, “Your skirt?”

  If Levi had been in our homeroom, he probably would have stuck up for Olive or said something funny to Gretchen about her own clothes. I would have too, if something clever had popped into my head. But the only thing I could think to say was, “Denim is very Florida.”

  Gretchen laughed, prompting Olive to give her the finger as Mr. Lee wrestled the attendance book out of John Quincy’s grip. Once he began taking role call for real, Olive turned around in her seat and glared at the clock, waiting for the bell to ring.

  Gretchen and I shared a look; then I felt my mouth open—quick and lethal, with a mind of its own. “Lesbo,” I said.

  Gretchen laughed again, louder than before. It didn’t matter that lesbo was a word I hadn’t heard anybody use since fifth grade. That wasn’t the point. You didn’t have to be funny to make Gretchen laugh. You just felt on the safe side when she did.

  There was only thing stopping me from turning into a complete monster, and that thing was Levi. We saw each other exactly eight times a week—once every day in History and three times a week during Gym—and I lived for our conversations. In the week since our ice cream date, we’d talked about which Harry Potter house we’d be sorted into, the best way to make Rice Krispies treats, and our favorite kinds of sushi.

  When Levi showed up at my locker on Friday morning with a guitar case tucked under his arm, my first thought—absurdly enough—was that first period had been cancelled. Then, as he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the first-floor stairwell, I started to wonder if he was taking me to an assembly in the auditorium. I didn’t realize until I followed him up the stairs into the empty band classroom on the second floor that we were cutting Gym.

  “So what’s up?” he asked, stealing the words right out of my mouth as he closed the door behind us and hit a switch. The lights flickered on one by one, illuminating a big, cluttered room I’d seen only once before at freshman orientation. There were music stands and plastic chairs crowded in a semi-circle at the center of the room. Levi grabbed one and spun it around to sit with his legs on either side of the back.

  “Um—what about Gym?” I asked, glancing toward the door.

  “We get two free absences.”

  “Oh.” A thrill was passing through me, running like a current down the wire of my spine. I was cutting class with Levi. Everything else about my morning—the bad milk in the fridge, the strained silence in the car with Lucy—receded into the background.

  “So are you friends with Gretchen Palmer now?” Levi asked, tapping his feet against the band room floor. “I saw you guys at lunch yesterday.”

  “I guess,” I said. “I mean, she invited me to sit with her.”

  He frowned. “How can you be friends after what she did on Halloween?”

  “I don’t know.” I pulled up a chair and sat down across from him. “Why?”

  “She’s scary.”

  I laughed.

  “No, seriously.” Levi ran a hand over his coppery hair. “It doesn’t seem like you.”

  What would seem like me? I wanted to ask.

  “I can tell you’re not shallow,” he said. “Your favorite book is The Little Prince.”

  I tried to smile—he must have stalked me online—but all I could muster was a faint twitch of the mouth. He was right. Every person has a best self and a worst self, and Gretchen was bringing out my worst self.

  Desperate to change the subject, I glanced around for something—anything—to talk about. “Is that your guitar?”

  “Yeah.” He kicked the case with his toe. “Talk about old friends.”

  The wistful tone in his voice softened me. I relaxed into the back of my chair and imagined myself leaning in to kiss him on the lips—to let him know I belonged to him, not Gretchen. But all I could think to say was, “How long have you played?”

  “As long as I can remember.”

  “It looks hard.”

  “Not really.” He pulled the guitar from its case and passed it to me. “Try.”

  I didn’t even know where to place my hands. I wrapped my right arm under the curved base and reached up for the strings.

  Levi laughed.

  “What?” I asked. “Not like this?”

  “No.” He came around and stood behind me, moving my arm over the top of the guitar so that my palm rested near the hole at the center. Then he guided my other hand over to the stem and pressed my pointer finger onto one of the strings. “Like this.”

  “This?”

  “Yeah.” He was leaning over me awkwardly, his guitar pick necklace dangling by my ear. I could feel the heat coming off his body. “Play,” he instructed.

  I strummed for a few seconds while holding down the chord. It sounded pretty good, but then again, I’d never heard a guitar sound bad.

  “That’s it,” said Levi. “You’re a pro.”

  I would have kept playing all day as long as we could stay in the band room together, alone, almost touching. But the minute he took a step back, I fumbled the chord.

  “Are you doing anything for Valentine’s Day?”

  The question took me by surprise. I pressed my fingers onto the guitar strings to quiet them and looked up. Levi was watching me out of the corner of his eye.

  “I don’t know yet,” I answered. “Are you?”

  “Maybe.” He glanced down at his sneakers and looked, for once in his life, a little nervous. “Do you want to come to a party with my Ridgeway friends?”

  “You have Ridgeway friends?”

  “Yeah.” He grabbed a sheet of music off the floor. “But it’s not their party. Just some girl they know. Can I see the guitar?”

  I handed it to him and watched as he started to strum the chords of “House of the Rising Sun.” It sounded twangy and full of omen and also pretty catchy.

  “OK,” I said, tapping my foot on the leg of my chair. “I’ll be there.”

  I can’t.

  Why not?

  They’d just send me back.

  To your aunt’s house?

  To boot camp.

  What?

  To cure me again.

  GAY boot camp?

  Bingo. The only place in the world where they leave notes on your pillow like, “The opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality. It’s holiness.”

  Don’t tell me you believe that crap.

  My dad’s a minister, Olive. My mom teaches Sunday school. You may think it’s crap, but I grew up believing it.

  Hating yourself, you mean?

  If I could change myself for them, I would.

  There is nothing about you that needs to be cured.

  I wish I could believe you.

  February

  12.

  My brain, as Valentine’s Day approached, became as flimsy and full of holes as a paper doily. I couldn’t seem to remember to floss my teeth or clean my room or study between periods at school. What I did remember was to make every possible excuse to hang out with Levi. I even dropped by the band room one afternoon to talk to Mr. Wilson, the music instructor and the only male teacher at Belltown High with a ponytail and earrings. He was sitting at his desk, sorting through CDs when I knocked on the door and asked whether there were any spots left in his advanced guitar elective.

  “What do you play?” he asked,
sizing me up. “Acoustic or electric?”

  “Neither, but I’m a fast learner,” I said.

  He gave me a big, crinkly smile that stretched from one silver-hoop earring to the other and then pointed at his wedding ring. “Ah, the things we do for love.”

  I was too embarrassed to show my face in the band room after that, but I did purposefully leave my math binder in a classroom across the hall so I’d have an excuse to come back at the end of the day as Levi’s class let out.

  And it worked. As I lingered by room 206, Levi stepped out of room 207 and waved at me. Waving back, I smiled and pointed at the classroom. “I forgot my binder in there.”

  “What a coincidence,” he said. “I left my jacket in the library. Want to walk with me?”

  “Sure,” I said, ducking into room 206 to grab my binder. The library was on the opposite side of school. It was the perfect excuse to spend time together.

  Or it would have been anyway if we hadn’t run into Olive. She was walking up the stairs as we were walking down them. I looked straight ahead, intent on ignoring her, but Levi stopped in the middle of the stairwell and said, “Hey, Olive. How’s it going?”

  She paused with one hand on the railing, skeptical. “Fine…Why?”

  “No reason,” said Levi. “Just asking.”

  I felt my cheeks burn. Why did he have to be so nice? Anyone else would have ignored her and kept walking. “We’ve got to get to the library before it closes,” I said, not looking at either of them. “We should probably go.”

  “Me too,” said Olive, hurrying up the remainder of the stairs.

  Levi waited until she was gone. Then he looked at me, confused. “What’s the deal?”

  “Nothing.” I tried to smile like everything was fine, but my face was frozen in a grimace.

  Levi looked unconvinced. “I thought you were friends.”

  “Not anymore.” I forced myself to keep walking. “We got into a fight a week before winter break.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s gay,” I said, lowering my voice. “Or lesbian or whatever. She likes girls.”

  Levi looked nonplussed. “So?”

  “So,” I said. “I don’t.”

  Levi raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were that kind of Catholic.”

  “What kind of Catholic?”

  “The intolerant kind.”

  I paused at the base of the stairs. The disapproval in his voice felt like someone dumping ice water on me. “I just meant—” I searched for the words. “It’s not that I care whether she likes guys or girls—it doesn’t have any effect on me—it just—”

  Levi was watching me, waiting.

  “I just wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea about our friendship,” I finished with a shrug. I knew I sounded lame.

  Levi pushed open the door at the base of the stairs and held it open for me. “Was she hitting on you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Was she asking you to change your own beliefs?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, walking through the door.

  “Well, I don’t either.” Levi followed me, letting the door swing shut behind him. “If you ask me, her love life is none of your business. But I guess I’m biased. I have two moms.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “And if you have a problem with it, you better never come over my house,” he said lightly. “Otherwise they’ll talk your ear off.”

  “Levi—I’m so sorry—” I started to say. My face was burning crimson. “I didn’t mean to insult your family.”

  “It’s OK.” He smiled. “I’m just saying you should think about it.”

  “I will,” I said. And I meant it. “I’m really sorry,” I told him again, wishing I could take it back. “Now you probably think I hate your family.”

  “Nah.” He shrugged. “You’re too smart to hate anyone. I think you’ve just never had a reason to think about any of this stuff before now.”

  “You think I’m smart?” The words popped out before I could stop them.

  He smiled. “I think you’re smarter than the people you hang around with. Actually, I know you’re smarter than the people you hang around with.”

  Warmth spread from my cheeks to my fingertips. Hearing Levi say I was smart felt better than a million party invitations from Gretchen Palmer. He was right—she was scary.

  As we reached the library, Levi slowed down, faint pink splotches forming on his cheeks. “I just remembered I left my jacket at home this morning.”

  “Oh.” I slowed to a stop, a few feet away from the library doors.

  “So it’s not in there after all.” He looked embarrassed. “Sorry.”

  “It’s OK,” I said, smiling as we turned and headed toward the front of the school, where the buses were lining up. Either Levi’s brain was just as full of holes as mine or he was making up excuses to spend time with me. Either way, I didn’t mind.

  Valentine’s Day arrived on the eve of Gretchen’s birthday. All week long, cheap carnations and paper hearts rained down like some kind of perfect, pink storm. Valentine’s Day fell on Pajama Day—or rather, Pajama Day fell on the fourteenth of February. Spirit Week was late this year because of basketball playoffs.

  When I showed up at my locker on Friday morning, Gretchen was waiting for me in a pair of hot pink boxers that showed off a dark, splotchy birthmark on her inner thigh. She didn’t seem to care that it resembled a wart, or that it was twenty-five degrees outside and she was probably freezing cold. In her hand was an entire ream of glittery pink stickers, and the minute I stepped up to my locker, she reached over and pinned one to my cheek.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day!” she said. “Why aren’t you wearing pajamas?”

  I was wearing pajamas. They just weren’t cute, like hers. Mine consisted of gray athletic sweatpants and a fleece pullover. Also—in honor of Valentine’s Day—a red hair elastic. But I never got a chance to point it out to Gretchen. Before I could say anything, she stepped a little closer and whispered, “OK, important question. What are you doing tonight?”

  “Going to a Ridgeway party,” I answered automatically. “Why?”

  “No!” she gasped. “Really?”

  Immediately, I wished I hadn’t said anything. All week long I’d been trying to avoid Gretchen without actually telling her outright that I didn’t want to be friends. Mentioning the Valentine’s party was not exactly part of my plan.

  “It’s just a little gathering,” I amended. “Probably not very big.”

  She looked devastated. “But it’s my birthday!”

  I broke eye contact and glanced down the hallway, wishing I’d had the presence of mind to make up a better excuse—a sick relative, maybe, or some kind of family bowling tournament.

  Gretchen put on her best puppy dog face. “You don’t have to go, do you?”

  “Sorry,” I said, looking down at my shoes. “I promised someone.”

  “Who?” She narrowed her eyes.

  To my relief, the bell rang just as I opened my mouth. I changed the e sound in Levi to the i sound in “I better go.”

  “Well, this royally sucks.” Gretchen slung her purple backpack over one shoulder. “If one more person can’t make it, I’m going to have to push back my party.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I mean, that sucks. I mean, happy birthday.”

  “Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “At least wear a freaking sticker.” Then she tore off another glittery heart and jabbed it at my shoulder.

  Real, honest-to-God pajamas. That’s what Olive was wearing during English. Red and green plaid flannel pants with a matching button-down top—the kind of set that goes on sale at Macy’s right before Christmas. I wasn’t sure what shocked me more: the sight of her in flannel or the fact that she was voluntarily participating in School Spirit Week. Still, as I passed her desk on the way to mine, I said, “Nice pj’
s.”

  “You too,” she answered.

  For a split second—literally half a hundredth of one—I thought maybe something had softened between us. I actually felt relieved just long enough to picture myself sitting with her after school in the parking lot, saying something like, “Sorry I overreacted to you being gay. I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe I was wrong.” But then she looked away, and the feeling evaporated as I watched her flip open her bloodred moleskin notebook. She leaned over, scribbling something in a slant across one of the pages.

  English took off to a slow start as Ms. Mahoney made us read aloud from The House on Mango Street. The room was warm, and my mind grew soft and spongy as I followed along in the book. I found myself wondering if Olive knew how obnoxious she looked scribbling in her journal, but then I started thinking about getting one of my own, just to annoy her. I’d write about Lucy for the most part, but also about the people at school and Levi and those dim, wispy, cotton candy thoughts I would have been embarrassed to tell anybody else. Somewhere along the line, my eyes got heavy and I let them close.

  I slept for a good five minutes with my chin propped in my hand. It wasn’t a deep sleep, but it was a peaceful one, and when I woke up, it took me a moment to realize that someone across the room was reading aloud from The House on Mango Street. There was a faint tapping on the front right side of my desk, and I blinked at it groggily, my dream and reality not yet clicked into place. It was only when I realized someone was trying to pass me a note that I woke up.

  It was David Beck, my Language Arts partner from sixth grade. He was a short, skinny boy with bad skin, and even though we’d known each other forever, we didn’t talk much. I couldn’t think why on earth he was passing me a note now. Snatching the folded paper from his hand, I propped up The House on Mango Street and opened the note behind it.