Foolish Hearts

by Emma Mills

  “Or he likes you.”

  That doesn’t quite compute. I shake my head. “I’m not his type.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Maybe he’s not my type,” I amend, because Caris is generous and probably genuinely believes that someone like Gideon Prewitt could actually like me.

  “Maybe.” She looks up from the bin, eyes dancing. “I don’t know though. He may be a little ridiculous sometimes, but something about him works on everyone.”

  It’s then that Del walks past with a shockingly ugly tulle bridesmaid dress in her arms. “Less talking, more finding,” she says. Then she pauses. “And for the record, it doesn’t work on me.”

  Caris grins. “Noted.” And we get back to sorting.

  twelve

  We go rock climbing, the cast and crew of Midsummer.

  It’s Paige’s idea. A first-week-of-rehearsal celebration. She posts the event online, invites everybody.

  I made the mistake of mentioning it to my mom, who was just as enthusiastic about it as she had been about Gideon’s birthday party freshman year. She doesn’t seem to catch the irony of once again telling me it’ll be “a great chance to get to know some of the girls at school” three years later.

  “It was just an open-invite thing. I really don’t think anyone will notice if I don’t go. In fact, they’ll notice if I do go.”

  My mom raised an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

  “I mean, yeah, it kind of goes against my usual thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “You know. Where I’m not really, like … active in that way.”

  My mom gave me a look. “Sexually?”

  “Agh! God! No! Socially. Socially active.”

  “Like … in terms of … justice and things?”

  “Like in terms of going to events! I don’t need to go to PLSG stuff. I’d rather hang out with Zoe.”

  “Yes and play video games and go to Tropical Moose and listen to your bands, I know. But it wouldn’t hurt to mix things up. Next year…”

  “What?”

  “Everything’ll be a mix-up next year. You might as well ease into it now, yeah? And didn’t you have fun at the Pink Party? Wasn’t it great?”

  That wasn’t exactly how I recalled it. But it didn’t seem like I was going to get out of this one easily.

  And maybe she has a point, some little traitorous voice said at the back of my mind.

  “I don’t even know how to climb,” I said, one last attempt.

  “You’ll learn,” Mom replied simply.

  So I find myself at a climbing gym on Friday night. I’ve never been to one before, but I’d hazard a guess that this one is pretty deluxe. It’s a giant warehouse with climbing walls bordering the interior and structures set up in the middle for what Keara Shelton, standing in front of me in line to pay, informs me are for bouldering.

  “What does that mean?”

  “No ropes,” she says with a grin.

  Those of us who haven’t climbed before have to take training on how to belay. To my surprise, Iris is here, and she’s among this group, too, hanging at the edges. We get paired up with the person standing next to us, so she gets Kaitlyn Winthrop, who’s playing another one of the fairies, and I get a guy named Corey, who’s in the crew.

  Then we’re turned loose in the gym. The people who’ve been before are already climbing—I see Paige hanging from one wall while Gideon stands below, belaying her. Noah Edelman is next to him, chatting with Gideon. Gideon is laughing at whatever Noah’s saying, but his head stays tilted up, eyeing Paige’s progress.

  Do not take your eyes off the climber, the surprisingly stern college kid who trained us had said. Do not get distracted. Do not take your hands off the rope. Do not lose focus.

  “Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars,” I had whispered to Corey, but he didn’t laugh.

  Corey has headed off and joined a group of guys already at the wall, so I glance around for a new partner.

  Iris is still standing where the beginners’ group was assembled. She’s watching Gideon watching Paige with a decidedly stormy look on her face.

  “Come on,” I say to her. Everyone else has already paired off or headed to the bouldering walls. “Let’s climb.”

  * * *

  “I hate everything about this.”

  “Iris, you haven’t even climbed as high as you are tall.”

  “Let me down. Now.”

  “You could literally just step off the wall.”

  Iris does, but there’s not enough slack (I’m a good belayer, actually), so she just hangs uncomfortably in the harness, her toes brushing the mat. I fumble with the rope and she drops down fully to her feet, then flops onto the ground like she’s completely winded.

  I laugh. I can’t help it. Iris glares.

  “I’d love to see you try,” she says, but it’s not quite as cutting as usual.

  Iris has to clip in to belay me so I don’t launch her into the air. Once she’s anchored, I pick a relatively easy path and have at it.

  Surprisingly, I like it. Reaching for the next hold, pushing up with my legs … it feels good. The muscles in my arms burn, but in a strangely pleasant sort of way.

  I’m just over halfway to the top when there’s a whoop from below. I glance over my shoulder and see that Gideon has joined Iris.

  “Whooooo!” he calls again. “Climbin’ Claudia! Owning that wall!” He starts to do a dance with jazz hands.

  “What are you doing?” I say.

  “Dancing for moral support.” He executes an awkward turn.

  “I won’t see you dancing if I go back to climbing,” I say, gripping the holds. I’m a little nervous to let go, to lean back into the harness and just dangle. It’s not that I don’t trust Iris. But.

  “You’ll know that I’m dancing,” Gideon calls back. “Iris will commentate.”

  I smile at the wall. Shake out one hand, then the other. Then I keep climbing.

  I hear some hushed conversation from below, and then “Gideon’s spinning,” Iris calls flatly. Like there was an argument she’s clearly lost. “Now he’s doing some … weird shuffle thing—that’s not a moonwalk, you’re high if you think you’re moonwalking right now. Now he’s doing like a sort of … bouncy kick line.…”

  “Thank you,” I say, grinning as I reach for the next hold. “I feel properly encouraged, thanks.”

  I make it to the top and Gideon cheers. Iris lets me back down in a jerky fashion that’s got the harness digging uncomfortably into the flesh of my hips.

  When I get to the ground, I flop down like Iris did, leaning back on my hands, but I feel like I’ve actually earned it. I’ve worked up a decent sweat, strands of hair coming out of my ponytail.

  “Good job!” Gideon says. “I tried to get Iris to do the wave with me, but she said if she did, it would kill you, so we opted not to.”

  “Probably a good call.”

  Iris unclips herself. She’s looking off across the gym, but there’s something close to a smile on her face.

  “Are you guys friends from junior high?” I ask Iris after Gideon has high-fived us both and gone back to join Noah, who is sitting with Alicia on a metal bench in the middle of the room. Neither has climbed yet. Alicia’s hair and makeup are spotless, and her workout clothes look runway-ready.

  “No,” Iris says. “I mean, I know him from school, yeah. But not … friends. We were lab partners in eighth grade. He’s…” Something in her expression softens marginally. She doesn’t finish.

  “A good egg?”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.” It’s something my mom would say.

  I try a couple more paths after that—Iris begrudgingly belaying me—but they’re much tougher, and I don’t make it to the top again. Iris doesn’t even try to get back on the wall.

  Iris has gone to the bathroom and I’m eyeing a new path when I hear someone call out from above. Just a few ropes aw
ay, Kristina Freeman, who’s playing another one of the fairies, is clinging to the wall about fifteen feet up. Pete Salata, one of the Mechanicals, is standing below.

  “I want to come down,” she says.

  “No way,” he says with a grin. “You have to get to the top first.”

  “Pete, seriously.” Even from here I can see Kristina’s arms trembling under the force of clinging to the wall. “I don’t like it, I want to come down.”

  “You just need to try harder.”

  “I’m not kidding—” There’s panic creeping into her voice.

  “If I let you down, you won’t learn anything.”

  “Hey—” I start to say, stepping toward him, but out of nowhere, Noah Edelman beats me to it.

  “Pete. My dude. How about you let her off the wall because she fucking asked you to?”

  “How about you mind your own damn business?” Pete says.

  Gideon crosses over then, stands next to Noah. He’s a good bit taller than both him and Pete.

  “What’s going on?” he asks, looking between the two of them, brow furrowed.

  “Nothing. Jesus,” Pete says, and then fumbles with the belay device. The rope jerks, and Kristina drops a foot or so abruptly and lets out a yelp. “Sorry!” Pete calls, and manages to lower her the rest of the way more smoothly.

  When Kristina’s feet hit the ground, she stumbles a bit but Gideon is right there, grabbing on to her elbows to hold her upright. She looks close to tears.

  “It’s all good,” Gideon says quietly. “Back on solid ground.”

  “I didn’t like it,” Kristina says.

  “No harm in that. Let’s shake those arms out.”

  “Just to be clear,” I hear Noah say to Pete, “you’re an asshole.”

  “You know, he’s not always gonna be around to back you up,” Pete replies, his smile at odds with the edge in his voice.

  Gideon has started shaking his own arms out, waving them in the air like one of those crazy dancing noodles at a used-car lot. Kristina lets out a weak laugh and then a more genuine one as he starts dancing around in a circle, arms still flailing.

  “Yeah. He is,” Noah replies evenly.

  * * *

  I’m taking off my harness and shoes to turn them back in at the end of the evening when Gideon approaches me again. He’s spent most of the night with Paige and Noah and Alicia, but he bounds up to me now like we’re old friends.

  “Hey, do you know Jacob Dolby?” he says like he’s going to introduce us, but there’s no Jacob Dolby in sight.

  I shake my head.

  “He’s having a party tomorrow night.”

  “Good for him.”

  “It’s gonna be fun. You should come by.”

  He’s got the dimples on display. It’s a particularly flirty smile, and he seems as if he’s aware of its effectiveness.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say.

  “I can text you the info.” He fishes his phone out of his pocket and extends it toward me. I pause for a moment but then take it and type my number in. “Or I could come pick you up if you want?”

  “It’s okay. I can drive.”

  “Cool. Well, I’ll see you there.”

  “Maybe,” I say as he backs away, flashing me a double thumbs-up.

  “Bye, Iris!” he calls, shooting her a grin.

  She just snorts.

  “What?” I say, turning to look at her when Gideon has rejoined Noah, gathering their things to leave.

  “Nothing,” she replies.

  Iris and I end up walking out together. Well, not together, exactly, but close enough that she’s forced to pause and hold the door open for me. Most of the cast and crew have left by now, the parking lot emptying out as the place prepares to close for the night. I start toward my car, but Iris lingers by the front door, pulling out her phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Calling a ride. What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “You don’t have a car?” Most of the girls in our class do.

  “I don’t drive,” she says primly, pressing the phone to her ear.

  “Do you—” I take a deep breath. “Do you want me to drop you off?”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I’m not a terrible person?”

  She looks at me for a moment and then lowers her phone.

  “Fine. You can drive me.”

  “Really? Thank you. How gracious. What a privilege.”

  Her lips twitch a little, almost a smile.

  “Do you need my address for the GPS?” she asks, following me to my car.

  “Hate to break it to you, but 2004 Toyota Corollas don’t come standard with GPS. You’re gonna have to Google-Map that shit for me. Think you can manage?”

  “I’ll do my best,” she says.

  * * *

  It’s silent on the ride to Iris’s house, in between her clipped directions.

  “Climbing was fun,” I say eventually, even though I know Iris didn’t find climbing particularly fun. “Good … bonding activity.”

  She looks over at me sharply. “We didn’t bond.”

  “I meant, like, for the show. For the cast and stuff.”

  She doesn’t respond. It’s quiet for a bit until she speaks again, a bit gruff: “I didn’t even want to be in this stupid play. I should’ve done like you did and fucked up my audition on purpose.”

  “I didn’t … fuck up on purpose.”

  “Wait, so you were for real?” Iris just blinks at me. “You making faces in the dining hall before auditions. That was … you acting?”

  “What can I say. We’re not all talented enough to be Magic Fairy Number Five.”

  “Hey, I’m First Fairy. It’s a named character. I have lines.”

  “Oh geez, let me get the Tony nominators on the phone.”

  I glance over at Iris. She doesn’t smile, but for a moment I think she might. Until her expression darkens.

  “I don’t want to be a fairy. They all … I’m supposed to…” A pause. “Almost all my scenes are with Paige.”

  I don’t know what to say—if I should act like I didn’t notice Iris sneaking glances at Paige all evening, or just come out and acknowledge it.

  I decide to go for it. “Do you still like her?”

  There is a split second where I think Iris might Hulk out of her seat and crush me. But then:

  “I love her,” she says, quiet. “You can’t just turn it off like that.”

  “It doesn’t … have to be weird between you two.”

  “What would you know about it?”

  “Nothing, I just—”

  “I’m sure you’ve got tons of exes,” she says. “Being the pinnacle of charm that you are.”

  “Do you want to walk home from here?”

  “Oh, so that was your plan. Get me in the car and then abandon me somewhere.”

  She doesn’t sound like she’s joking.

  “I didn’t have a plan, there was no plan. Not everything is malicious. Not everyone thinks the way you do.”

  “Not everything I think is malicious.”

  “What would a pie chart of your malicious to non-malicious thoughts look like? How big a piece of the pie is non-malicious?”

  “You know, I think I liked it better when you were afraid of me.”

  “I was not afraid of you.”

  “Yes you were.” A pause. “Everyone’s afraid of me. Everyone avoids me.”

  “That doesn’t mean they’re afraid. Maybe it just means they don’t like you.”

  Iris doesn’t answer, and I feel instant regret. We were doing okay. Iris just said she loved Paige. Iris Huang used the word love.

  When I glance over at her at a red light, she doesn’t look angry. Just … contemplative, I guess.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s a left at the next turn,” she says.

  The next turn takes us onto a road with fancy pillared streetlights lining each side, and we are
on it for a bit before I realize that it is in fact the driveway to Iris’s house.

  At the end of the drive is the largest mansion I’ve ever seen in real life. Bigger than Amber Brunati’s. Bigger than Lena Ideker’s, or Mikayla Jackson’s, whose birthday party I went to in tenth grade and whose mother manages a hedge fund.

  I glance over at Iris as I pull through the circle drive to the front of the house and come to a stop. She doesn’t look over or say thanks. She gets out and shuts the door behind her.

  Nevertheless, I wait until Iris gets inside before driving off. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you drop someone off. Even if you drop them off in front of a house roughly the size of a shopping mall. Even if you’re not exactly friends.

  Iris doesn’t look back.

  thirteen

  My phone dings the next morning:

  Jacob Dolby party 8PM see you there!!!!!!!!!

  An address follows, along with a startling array of emojis.

  “Is that Zoe?” Alex says, looking up from the couch where he’s flipping through the dearth of Saturday morning programming. “Tell her she should come over.”

  “It’s not her.”

  “No? Who else could it be?”

  “I have other friends,” I say.

  “Tell Julia I say hi.”

  “It’s not Julia either!”

  Alex just smirks.

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Hm.”

  Alex keeps odd hours. He works at a grocery store and also picks up random shifts as a busboy when he can, all the while taking classes at Springdale Community College toward his associate’s degree.

  It’s not that he didn’t get into college, because he did. He got into a couple state schools last spring. But his grades were thoroughly average, and he couldn’t get a scholarship. My parents gave him two options—either take out loans, or go to community college, get his Gen Ed requirements out of the way, save up money, and then transfer.

  He didn’t know I was privy to that conversation, but I was—our house isn’t huge, and positioned at the top of the stairs, you can hear everything anyone says in the living room below.

  Through the spindles of the banister, I could see Alex standing in the doorway. My dad had muted the TV.