Underneath Everything

by Marcy Beller Paul

  It’s not until I’m walking into school, well after the bell, that I realize I felt this way before I got in bed, when I was still awake.

  I think back to yesterday, then last week, trying to find a time when I felt crystal clear—real—but each image I conjure shimmers and vanishes. None of them will hold still.

  Señora doesn’t say anything when I walk through the door ten minutes late. Instead, she slides her glasses to the tip of her nose, stares me down, then pushes them back up and continues her review of the subjunctive. I’m lucky it’s her favorite tense. Señora says it will change our Spanish lives as we know it. I used to think she was taking grammar a little too seriously, but the longer I stare at the board, the more I think maybe she’s right. Maybe the subjunctive is the crowning achievement of language itself, the root of desire, as unpredictable as the future it describes. Maybe that’s why I can’t complete the sentences. Because after four years of Spanish, I know how to conjugate the subjunctive. That’s not my problem. My problem is that I can’t seem to get past the part we’ve been given—the first word of each thick, white chalk scrawl across the board: Quiero. Deseo. Espero.

  I want. I wish. I hope.

  I tighten my grip on the pen. My paper is blank, my sentences unfinished.

  Because I’ve done this before. What do you want to be, Mattie?

  I stare at the thin blue lines on the page, willing the sentences to write themselves. To tell me what I want to be and what it means.

  “¡Chicos!” Señora says, bringing her hands together in a brisk clap. Heads rise around the room. “Let’s see what you’ve done to my darling, the subjunctive!”

  When the bell rings, the hallways buzz with manic laughter and excited chatter. It’s only the end of first period, but everyone’s already frantic with the idea of a week and a half of freedom, like we’re on the verge of something huge and uncontrollable instead of Christmas break.

  I wait for the rest of the class to shove through the doorway before making my way into the hall. When I get there, the crowd has thinned, leaving Kris. I didn’t expect to see her after what happened yesterday. She stands up from her slumped position against the lockers. We stare at each other across the hall. Then an arm loops through mine and I’m swept away.

  “Can you believe she’s here?” Jolene’s warm whisper in my ear.

  “She’s my—” I don’t finish the sentence, because I can’t. What is Kris to me now?

  “She was never your best friend.” My words from Jolene’s mouth. It’s not what I meant, but I nod anyway. Jolene tightens her grip on me. “She was never like us.”

  The few people left in the hall are watching. They’re always watching Jolene, but now they’re also watching me. I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t been seen anywhere near Jolene in over a year or because she’s barely been seen for the past few weeks, or if it’s how we’re intertwined; but when Jolene notices, she angles at a small crowd standing to our right, tells them to fuck off, then tilts her head to mine and says under her breath, “They wish they had this.”

  I wish. We wish. They wish.

  We walk. All day long, before and after class; as the anticipation of vacation builds with the end of each period, Jolene and I walk together, hand in hand, hip to hip, ears to lips. She tells me things. How the dark-haired skater hanging out in the corner proposed to her one weekend, asked her to run away to his family’s vacation home in Hawaii; how she said no because she didn’t like his nose. How the pale-faced president of student council sitting in the back of the cafeteria eats nothing but Honey Nut Cheerios; how she shows her jutting bones in the gym locker room and stares at Jolene when they’re changing. How the quiet kid in the black T-shirt and jeans in study hall fills his notebook with hit lists.

  Jolene’s words work their way around me like music.

  When Hudson passes us in the halls—headphones up, eyes down, jaw set—Jolene tells me the story of a boy who loved us both but couldn’t choose and so we dated him together, twin fair maidens, and broke his heart before he could break us in two.

  I turn back and catch sight of the flapping flannel at Hudson’s wrist. He seems far away, suddenly strange. I can’t remember the temperature of his skin, the feel of his hair, the sound of his voice over my shoulder after we finished but before he fell asleep.

  I get the same feeling after the final bell when Jolene and I walk, clasped hands clutched between us, past the squeals and shouts in the parking lot. It’s as if the whole school—walls and windows, hoops and handles, desks and everyone who sits in them—slides away, fades to black and disappears behind our backs.

  CHAPTER 31

  WITHOUT SCHOOL TO deal with, Jolene and I fall back into our old summer routine: her place during the day, mine at night. When she leaves, she calls me on her cell and then we text until we go to bed. The days of winter break pass by in a stream of stories, cinnamon, and magazines. And even though I haven’t heard from Hudson or Kris, I don’t miss them. I’m too busy. Jolene needs me for makeup consultations, breakfast decisions, company. I forgot how sometimes she wants to stay on the phone without talking so she knows she’s not alone. And I like being the person at the other end of the line. In a way, I feel like that’s who I’ve always been. Even the past year and a half, when I wasn’t texting her back, she knew I got the messages. She knew I looked at them, that I saw her. That even if we weren’t speaking, our breaths would eventually fall into the same rhythm across the silence.

  Then one night Jolene doesn’t leave. The SNL rerun we were watching ends, and she doesn’t get up from my bed. Instead, she rolls off the edge, opens my dresser drawer, skims her fingers along my clothes, and picks out one of my brother’s oldest shirts: a soft black tee with letters so cracked and faded, you can barely tell they spell Foo Fighters anymore. With her back to me, she strips off her beige sweater and black bra, then slides the shirt over her head.

  Jolene lifts her long, dark hair out from underneath the scrawl of tour dates on the back of the shirt and—after she finds my favorite light-blue cotton pajama shorts—peels off her jeans and threads her long, bronze legs through them. Then she crawls under the covers and curls up like a cat near my pillow.

  She watches me change into a tank top and yoga pants, then turns away when I get into the bed. I lie completely still next to her, unsure of what to do, until she finds my hand and pulls me forward, into the curve of her back. Her skin is hot. Her hair smells sweet.

  She looks at me over her shoulder. At first I think she’s going to speak—a line from “The Two Little Girls,” like we used to. I’m already forming the words in my head when she leans forward and presses her lips to mine. They’re soft and smooth. And then they’re gone.

  A few minutes later Jolene’s breath is light and rhythmic.

  And even though I haven’t spoken to Hudson in over a week, his words come to me through the darkness like a dream.

  You two deserve each other.

  I don’t know why Jolene chose me that day on the cliff, but I’m happy she did. I’m not special, but I’m essential to her.

  She needs me. I don’t know what that makes us. Best friends? Something else? Hudson and I did a lot more than kiss, but sex with him didn’t compare to this feeling.

  Jolene twitches in her sleep, relaxes into me.

  I don’t know what I deserve, but I hope Hudson was right.

  I hope it’s this.

  CHAPTER 32

  I WAKE TO the smell of onions and potatoes, the clatter and clink of my mom putting pans on the stove downstairs in the kitchen. In my half-awake haze I forget what day it is, what year, and I wonder when Kris will be over for Hanukkah dinner. Then something dark sinks down my chest and anchors in my gut as I live it all over again, Kris lying to me about Jolene.

  Jolene. Where is she?

  I flip up the covers. There’s nothing but creased sheets.

  Then I hear her hoarse, morning voice in the hall. “Don’t you think it looks good
on me?”

  A deep voice answers her. “Looked better on me.” Jake. How did he get off work so early? I check my clock. It’s barely eleven. Mom said she wasn’t even sure he’d make it for dinner. She was hoping for dessert. Never mind that this isn’t even officially Hanukkah—that’s still two days away. It’s just the day Jake could probably make it. Like he’s the miracle, instead of the oil lasting for eight days.

  I’m about to open my bedroom door and save Jolene from my brother when she says, “Do you want it back then?”

  My fingers halt on the handle. I picture Jake in the hallway in a white undershirt and warm-ups even though, lately, I only see him in suits. I imagine his lips rising at the sides as he considers Jolene. Her dark hair and hazel eyes. Her long legs. Her smile.

  I twist my hand and push open the door before he can accept her offer.

  Jake’s in cargo shorts and a collared shirt. Jolene’s leaning against the banister, arms spread out behind her, one knee bent.

  “What are you doing here?” I demand.

  “Hi to you too,” Jake says, without looking up from his work cell. “Happy Hanukkah.” He sighs, then types.

  I stare at Jolene. What? she mouths.

  “Stop giving my stuff away,” Jake says, tucking the phone into his pocket as he heads down the stairs. “I liked that shirt.”

  “I’ll take good care of it,” Jolene says, bending over the banister.

  But Jake is already in the kitchen, talking about his wonderful life. I can tell because Mom is laughing. It’s a sound I haven’t heard in a while.

  “What was that?” I ask.

  “Had to pee.”

  “That’s my brother, Jolene.”

  “We were just talking, Mattie.” She grabs my hand and drags me into my room.

  We change in silence. Until I slip on my white bra. Jolene spins me around by my shoulders and looks me up and down. My cheeks burn as her eyes move over my skin, pale compared to hers, and goose bumped.

  “You have to keep this,” she says, pinning her beige sweater to my body. It’s soft and see-through thin. There’s a delicate design stitched near the neck, above my breasts. “It’ll look amazing.”

  “Okay.” I hold it against my chest and peer down over my chin. It smells like her. “But it’s not like I have anywhere to go.”

  “Yeah you do,” Jolene says, with gleaming eyes and a satisfied smile.

  I blink my eyes. I’ve seen that look. It’s the same one she gave me when we were sitting on the floor of her room, listening to the storm, leafing through magazines. It’s the way she settled her eyes on me right before the ropes.

  My hands tremble. In anticipation. In fear. I set her sweater on my pillow and grab a gray V-neck from my bed.

  “And where would that be?” I ask as my bedroom door swings open.

  “Mattie, I have to go— Oh!” My mom pauses in the doorway. “Jolene. I didn’t know you stayed over.”

  “You could have knocked, Mom.” I turn my back to her as I wrestle my shirt over my head and tug it down my torso.

  “It’s okay.” Jolene takes off my light-blue shorts and tosses them to the corner of the room. The only thing she’s wearing now is Jake’s shirt and her black bikini underwear. “We were just talking about what to wear for New Year’s.”

  I snap my head in Jolene’s direction, but she’s too busy smiling at my mom, whose mouth is stretched into an O of delight and surprise.

  “New Year’s Eve? You’re going out, Mattie?”

  Every year my mom asks if I’m going out on New Year’s Eve, and every year I stay in with Kris. New Year’s Eve was our very first sleepover, in fourth grade, and we’ve kept the tradition ever since.

  Before that, my mom used to stay up with me until midnight, while my dad slept on the couch. We’d play cards until the ball dropped. Solitaire. Spit. War. She’d tell me about all the parties she used to go to and how I’d go to them one day, too. She’d tell me how New Year’s Eve was her favorite night of the year. And I agreed. Until Jake was old enough to babysit, and she started going out again.

  Jolene and I answer at the same time.

  I say: “Maybe.”

  Jolene says: “We’re going to Bella’s party.”

  My mom hears Jolene.

  “How nice! All you girls together again. Well, I won’t interrupt.” My mom beams at Jolene before turning to leave. “I’ve got to go to the store. I’ll be back in a bit,” she calls over her shoulder, and clicks the door shut.

  Then it’s just me and Jolene again.

  “Why did you say that?”

  “Say what?” Jolene faces herself in the mirror, gathers the front of my brother’s shirt in her fists—which lifts until I can see the tiny pearls on the front of her black underwear—and leans into her right hip. But she’s not looking at herself. She’s looking at the reflection of my room, searching it.

  “That we’re going to Bella’s.” The thought of going to Bella’s party with Jolene makes me nauseous. I reach my hand up to cover my mouth and remember the gloss Kris wore to the bonfire, the lip balm I borrowed when we got there. How she looked at me before we went in to Bella’s, to make sure I was okay.

  I wonder now if this is how Kris felt at the end of that driveway: protective, scared, like she didn’t want to share me. I wonder if she asked herself why she wasn’t enough.

  “Because we are.” Jolene finds what she wants on my floor. She strips off Jake’s shirt and pulls on the pale-blue sweater my mom gave me. “And I’m going to wear this. It’s perfect,” she says to her reflection.

  I run my fingers over the fuzzy blue threads on her back and notice a catch in the stitch. It must have happened one night at Hudson’s. “It looks great with your skin,” I say. She smiles, pleased. “But”—I sit down on the bed and cross my legs—“why are we even going?” I smooth the small piece of comforter in front of me. “We don’t need them.”

  “Of course we don’t,” Jolene says. “They need us.”

  CHAPTER 33

  THE LINE AT the Bagel Place snakes around the counter and between peeling plastic tables full of people. Jake’s in front of me, studying the chalkboard menu hanging on the wall as if it’s changed since he’s lived here. As if he’s not going to get a toasted sesame bagel with vegetable cream cheese, tomato, and lox. I lean on the rounded glass counter that houses the smoked fish, salads, and more exotic cream cheese combinations, right next to a sign that says “Don’t Lean on the Glass.” But who cares? I didn’t want to come anyway. I was supposed to spend the day with Jolene. But Jake didn’t ask me before he told Mom we’d take care of breakfast. He just announced we were leaving. Now I’m standing in line behind moms with loud little kids, middle-aged men with beer guts, and a few kids from school—some guys I recognize but don’t really know. I think they’re juniors. Either way, I’m not friends with them.

  I shuffle forward a few steps and lean on the glass again, but a woman behind me with a frosted helmet of hair taps the sign with her manicured nails and pinches her lips. So I stand up, shove my hands into my pockets, and bounce a little on the balls of my feet.

  I’m not used to being alone. For the past week I haven’t left the house without Jolene. When we’re together, there’s always a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean into. People look at us—at least, they look at Jolene—but the best part is, she looks at me. We make up stories about the woman spraying perfume, the man selling shoes, the guy buttering popcorn. I’ve tried to do it alone, but without someone else there to listen, the story doesn’t feel true.

  When Jake and I reach the front of the line, the round-faced guy behind the counter with sweat rolling down his stubbled cheeks asks us what we need. Not what we want. It’s like after years of working in the Bagel Place, he’s come to the conclusion that humanity needs bagels. That we’d suffer without them.

  After Jake gives our order and pays, we stand against the opposite wall and wait for the warm brown paper bag with our name on it.r />
  “Are you wearing perfume?” Jake asks, sniffing the air around my face.

  “No,” I say, bringing my arm to my nose. It tickles with cinnamon. Jolene. The sweater she left in my room.

  “Okay, whatever.” Jake reaches for his work cell again. “So, what’s up?”

  “Abby!” yells the skinny kid handing out the brown bags. A tall blond woman in a tight white tank top with a fluorescent iPod strapped to her biceps bounces toward the counter. “That’s me!” she says to the rest of us. As if we’d challenged her identity.

  “Nothing,” I say, with a one-shoulder shrug. “Senior year. You know how it is.”

  “Totally,” he says with a quick laugh. He looks up from his phone. From the faraway look on his face, I can tell he’s flipping through memories. Parties. Soccer games. Friends. Girlfriends. But the things he sees, they have nothing to do with me. He’s had tons of people in his life, but he’s never had one. He has no idea how it is.

  “Mike!” the skinny kid shouts. A dad in sweatpants and a Vanderbilt sweatshirt reaches across the counter and hands the kid a tip before grabbing his bag. “Thanks, Chief,” the dad says, “take it easy.” The kid gives a quick nod before stuffing the bill into his jeans and disappearing behind the bagel racks.

  “You’ve been working a lot?” I ask. I don’t want to hear another one of Jake’s stories—or worse, his lectures—and this is the only question I can think to ask him, which is really sad.

  “Yup,” he says, running his hands over his hair. It’s a habit from when it hung down to his shoulders in high school. Now it’s short and cropped close to his head. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks.” He shoves his cell into his pocket and crosses his arms. “So who’s the new Kris? She looks familiar.”

  “Her name is Jolene,” I say, pressing my back flat against the wall as a huge, sweaty boy pushes between everyone who’s waiting. No name was called, but when the boy gets to the counter, the skinny kid hands him a bulging bag with one hand and slaps him sideways with the other. Then the huge boy is on his way out again. “And she’s not the new anything.”