Foolish Hearts

by Emma Mills

  “Maybe everyone feels that way.”

  She blinks at me, eyes still shiny. “I’m just scared I’m gonna mess this kid up.”

  “You won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I just do.” I look down at the carpet for a moment and then halfway smile. “In case you forgot, I came here so you could help me with my problems, not the other way around.”

  “Ugh, okay.” She sniffs, presses the back of her wrist to her eyes, and when she lowers her arm, she’s composed again in that Julia way of hers. She gets to her feet, and we both stare at the chili for another moment. “Let’s fix this,” she says. “And then we’ll fix your Alex and Zoe thing.”

  * * *

  We try to clean up as best we can. I get down and scrub the rug. The stains are huge. Julia’s right—they probably won’t get their deposit back. But maybe Mark could rent one of those carpet cleaners or something.

  We get McDonald’s for lunch and sit on the couch and eat while watching a TV show where a woman tries on several wedding dresses that make her feel magical, but unfortunately her family hates each of them in different and creative ways. And only when the woman has finally said YES to her dress does Julia put her Big Mac box aside, mute the TV, and look over at me.

  She doesn’t even have to ask.

  “They didn’t tell me,” I say.

  “That sucks, I know. But what else?”

  “What do you mean, what else?”

  “What’s the rest of the problem? Because there’s more to it than that, right?”

  I shove the last handful of fries in my mouth and chew unhappily. She’s not wrong. “It’s different,” I say finally. “Everything’s gonna be different.”

  “How?”

  I shake my head. “I can’t tell her anything now without thinking she might tell him. And same with Alex, I can’t—he’s supposed to be my brother, and she’s supposed to be my friend, and it’s like…” I stare resolutely at the TV screen. “It’s like I’m losing both of them.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “But it feels like I am. They’re a thing now. They have their own thing, apart from me.”

  “Yeah, people have things apart from you. Shocking. You know Mom and Dad dated before we were born, right? You know that I existed for a good eleven years before you did?”

  “That’s not … I don’t—”

  “Hey.” A different sister might slide down the sofa closer. Put her arm around me. But Julia just blinks at me, shakes her head minutely. “This is happening. It’s happened. They’re together. So you can be okay with it. Or not. But they’re still gonna be together.”

  “What if they break up? What if it gets weird and Zoe doesn’t want to hang out with me anymore?”

  “So you don’t want them to be together, but also, you don’t want them to break up.”

  “I just—” I mash my fists against my eyes.

  “You don’t want anything to change,” she says. “You don’t want to get left behind.”

  I nod. “Give me some Mom advice,” I say when I can speak again. “Get some practice in.”

  “Ask Mom for Mom advice, geez. I have seventeen years before I have to deal with this shit with my own kid.”

  I huff a laugh.

  “It’ll be okay,” Julia says.

  “But everything’s gonna change.”

  “That’s not always a bad thing, is it?”

  I shake my head begrudgingly.

  “That’s the spirit,” she says, and unmutes the wedding dress show.

  forty-two

  My dad picks me up from the bus station on Sunday. I get a long lecture about going to Julia’s without permission (because apparently leaving a note and then calling them from the bus was “more like asking for forgiveness than for permission”). It finishes off with a “You know you can talk to me about anything, you know we’re here for you…” which implies that they know about my freak-out.

  Alex is gone when I get home. We eat dinner. My folks watch Wheel of Fortune.

  Before I left her place, Julia gave me a Tupperware of cookies she had baked. “You can give them to Zoe,” she said. “Difficult conversations are at least one and a half times easier if there are cookies.”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready to talk.”

  “Then give them to Gideon,” she replied. “You can thank him for getting up at ass o’clock and helping you get here.”

  I sit in my dad’s car in the driveway for a bit, staring at the cookies in the passenger seat.

  And then I drive to Gideon’s house.

  I knock on the front door, but then I figure it’s so big they may not hear, so I press the doorbell. It’s quiet, and I feel like a complete and total idiot—I should’ve called or texted, I should’ve said something and now I’m here and even if I leave right now and take the cookies with me, I will still know the private shame of having come in the first place.

  I’m considering bolting when the door swings open and reveals Victoria.

  Her face brightens on seeing me. “Claudia!” She turns and bellows back into the depths of the house: “GIDEON. CLAUDIA’S HERE.”

  When she turns back, her gaze drops to the Tupperware in my hands. “What’d you bring?”

  “Cookies.”

  “Did you make them? For Gideon?”

  “Um. My sister did. Not, like, for Gideon exactly, but I thought maybe…”

  Gideon appears at the end of the hallway in sweatpants and sock feet and rushes our way, sliding the last few feet and catching himself on the doorjamb before he pitches clear through the door.

  “Claudia, hey! Hi. I was just. We were just—”

  “Watching the Disney Channel,” Victoria helpfully supplies.

  “That is … exactly what we were doing,” he says, looking a little chagrined but pulling out a smile all the same. “What are you doing here?”

  “I, uh, I just wanted to drop these off.”

  His eyes light up upon seeing the cookies. “Did you make them?”

  “My sister did. They’re just the break-and-bake kind.”

  “Those are my favorite.”

  “No they’re not,” Victoria says.

  “Hey, how about you head upstairs and start getting ready for bed?”

  “It’s seven o’clock.”

  “How about you head upstairs and just … stay there?”

  They look at each other for a long moment and seem to be having some kind of nonverbal sibling communication. Finally Victoria sighs and steps away from the door.

  “I get half of those cookies.”

  “Deal,” Gideon says, turning back to me as Victoria retreats. “Come in. Want to hang out?”

  “Um, sure. I can for a little bit.”

  “Great.”

  I follow him into the house and to the family room, where the TV is currently showing High School Musical 3. He shuts it off.

  “We can go in here,” he says, leading me back down the hall to a door at the end. “It’s, uh, you know. Quieter.”

  He opens the door to reveal the biggest home office I’ve ever seen. It looks like something out of a movie—all warm wood paneling and shelves lined with books. Thick curtains and paintings and a fireplace with a leather couch and two club chairs situated in front of it.

  I watch as Gideon goes over to a table up against the far wall, between two big picture windows.

  “My dad keeps his record player in here. He lets me use it whenever I want,” he says. “Sometimes I—”

  He stops himself.

  “What?”

  He looks sheepish. “It’s not like I really think vinyl sounds so much better. Sometimes I just want to come in here ’cause my dad’s here. I don’t get to see him a lot.” He busies himself flipping through records on one of the shelves to his left. He turns and holds one up. “Do you know them?”

  It’s Drunk Residential’s third album.

  I nod.

  He puts it o
n and then his eyes widen. “Sorry. I forgot about the cookies. I don’t know how anyone forgets about cookies.” He reaches out and takes the Tupperware from me and then gestures me over to the fireplace seating arrangement. I watch as he sinks down onto the leather couch.

  I pick one of the club chairs adjacent to it.

  “So I … I just wanted to thank you. For taking me to the bus station yesterday.”

  “No problem. I’m always up for a trip to the bus station.”

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “If you’re the person who needs to go to the bus station. Then I’m up for it,” he amends with a grin.

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I look at the painting over the fireplace, which depicts an ocean scene. The colors are vibrant, but it’s oddly calming somehow.

  When I look back, Gideon’s tearing into the cookies. He extends the Tupperware my way, but I shake my head. “Did you have fun with your sister?” he asks between biles.

  We watched a lot of TV and ate a lot of junk food and played a lot of Battle Quest. It was our version of fun.

  I nod, and then it’s quiet.

  “Do you want to play Connect Four?” Gideon says. “I’m kind of amazing at it.”

  “I know,” I say, and he gives me an odd look. I flush. “I read it on JustGideonPrewittThings.”

  Gideon groans. “You tell one person you like soggy cereal and suddenly you’re a fucking meme.”

  “You know, the crunch is kind of the thing people like best about cereal.”

  “No, the milk and the cereal working together is the thing people like best about cereal. Why wouldn’t you want maximum interaction between the two most essential parts of the meal?”

  “Is cereal a meal?”

  “The way I make it, it is.”

  I can’t help but grin.

  “I will make you Froot Loops. You’ll never go back.”

  “Okay. Make me some Froot Loops right now.”

  “Right this second?”

  I nod.

  * * *

  Gideon makes us bowls of cereal, but while it’s sitting on the counter “marinating,” we go back to his dad’s office and play a round of Connect Four. Drunk Residential is still playing.

  He wins the first game. “I feel like vigilance is key,” he tells me as we go to retrieve our cereal. “It’s my best strategy for Connect Four.”

  “It’s glorified tic-tac-toe. You realize that, right?”

  “They added a fourth objective. You need to achieve thirty-three percent more than in tic-tac-toe, plus they’ve dimensionalized it. It’s three-dimensional!”

  I don’t mention JustGideonPrewittThings again, but apparently the entry I had seen—Weirdly passionate about Connect 4—is entirely accurate.

  I go for a spoonful of the cereal as we stand at the kitchen counter. It’s soggy and terrible. My face likely communicates that.

  Gideon frowns. “Not good?”

  I chew. Sort of. It’s not really required. “I kind of definitely prefer it the old-fashioned way.”

  “I’ll make you more.”

  “I don’t want to waste it,” I say, though I don’t want to eat it either.

  “I’ll eat yours, too.” He makes a new bowl and presents it to me, and then carries both my old one and his back to his dad’s office. “So crunchy cereal only. First entry for JustClaudiaWallaceThings.”

  “Ugh. No one would follow that account.” It’s the same thing Iris said about my “update account,” and it’s not wrong.

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause there’s nothing to say.”

  He makes a noise of outrage.

  “Crunchy cereal only is the first entry!”

  “I think it’s confirmed that like ninety-nine percent of the population likes crunchy cereal only.”

  “I need to see some literature on that.” He sinks back down on the couch, and this time I join him. “I would follow JustClaudiaWallaceThings. There are so many of them.”

  “Name three.”

  “I will name six.”

  I purse my lips, trying to suppress a smile. “Okay. Go.”

  “Number one, looks good in yellow.”

  “That’s a bit subjective.”

  “Some Gideon Prewitt things are subjective. Sings better than you would expect but not as good as he thinks he does? Subjective.”

  “That’s mean. Who said that?”

  “Why, are you going to fight them?”

  “I could.”

  “I don’t doubt that.” He grins. “Number two, wants to slay the Lord of Wizard, has all the skills to do so. Number three, uncommonly good at Shakespeare. Number four, master deflector. Number five, super smart—see number three, uncommonly good at Shakespeare.”

  His gaze darts back and forth between me and his cereal bowl.

  “Number six, best laugh. Ever.” His eyes land on me, fix there for a moment. “When you make Claudia Wallace laugh, you feel like you’ve earned something.”

  I swallow. I want to look away, but I can’t. “It’s like a snort,” I say. “Like a snort chortle. It’s a snortle.”

  He moves a little closer. “Is that a Pokémon?”

  “Gideon—”

  “Do you want to go to Homecoming with me?”

  I blink. PLSG and Danforth have Homecoming together, alternating which campus hosts each year. I’ve never gone. Junior prom with Will Sorenson was going to be my first foray into school dances.

  I surprise myself with my answer: “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Awesome.” He smiles. “Now tell me that second bowl isn’t the best cereal you’ve ever had.”

  forty-three

  “I’m not going,” Iris says when I mention Homecoming to her on the way to rehearsal on Monday.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s lame.”

  “Is it?”

  She glances over at me. “Have you ever been?”

  I shrug. “Not really my thing.” Though I loved when Zoe would tell me about her Homecomings. Somehow it always seemed like putting everyone in formal wear and adding a deejay upped the chances for Major Drama. School Dance Drama was a whole different breed than your average, run-of-the-mill Drama. Even though I didn’t want to live it, I always liked hearing about it.

  Though right now the thought of Zoe makes something in my stomach twist. We haven’t talked since Friday night. I didn’t see her online once this weekend.

  “So what’s Homecoming like?”

  “You have to wear a stupid outfit and listen to stupid songs and dance stupid dances,” Iris says.

  “Geez, don’t hold back. Poor Homecoming’s not even here to defend itself.”

  “It sucks.” She fumbles with the strap of her book bag. It’s quiet for a moment. “Unless…”

  “What?”

  “Unless you really like the person you go with. Then it sucks less.”

  “Hm.”

  “Maybe you should give it a try,” she says as we make our way up the path to the arts building.

  “You should come.”

  “I’m not gonna third-wheel you and Gideon.”

  “It’s not … it isn’t like a date date.” I reach for the door.

  “Claudia, I will bet you ten thousand dollars Gideon considers this a date date.”

  “I don’t have ten thousand dollars.”

  “Good, because you’d lose it,” she says before we part ways.

  * * *

  Thursday rolls around. I still haven’t talked to Zoe, and the door to Alex’s room has been shut every time I’ve gotten home, and stayed shut for the remainder of the evening.

  But come Thursday, rain or shine, without fail, Zoe and I go to Roosevelt-Hart to volunteer. So I put on my blue shirt and I drive to her house.

  She’s sitting on the front steps, waiting for me.

  She gets into the car, wordlessly, and I pull away from the curb.

  The radio is on, some generic club song playing, all sirens an
d whistles. I switch it off without thinking.

  “I like that song,” she says finally.

  “No you don’t.”

  “I could.”

  I don’t acknowledge the possibility of her liking something without me knowing about it. I don’t turn the radio back on either.

  It’s just as quiet on the ride home until I pull to a stop in front of Zoe’s house. She unclicks her seat belt and pauses, her expression blank.

  “Alex and I broke up,” she says.

  “What?”

  “See you next week.” She gets out of the car.

  “Wait, what?” I switch off the car and jump out. “Why did you do that?”

  “Why do you think, Claudia?” She turns, halfway to the front door.

  “I didn’t want you to break up.”

  “You didn’t want us to date either.”

  I hear Julia’s words: So you don’t want them to be together, but also, you don’t want them to break up.

  I shake my head. “I didn’t—look, I just, I needed to—”

  “It’s done, Claude. It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine.”

  “I’ll see you,” she says, and goes inside, shutting the door definitively.

  I could knock on the door, or just follow her in, but I don’t even know what I’d say. I can’t act like this isn’t what I wanted because maybe some small part of me did. I get back in my car, rest my head against the headrest, squeeze my eyes shut.

  * * *

  When I get home, I hear music coming from Alex’s room. I knock lightly on his door. “Alex?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  forty-four

  Homecoming is a thing that happens.

  Gideon picks me up. He’s wearing a black suit with a ruffly shirt that should look terrible but somehow does not look the least bit terrible.

  I wear a dress I wore to my cousin’s wedding last year. It’s nothing particularly special, but Gideon tell me it’s “Beautiful. Radiant. Excellence,” and I can’t stop smiling.

  He gives me flowers—pink tulips—and we stand in the kitchen while my mom puts them in a vase and exclaims over them as if he’d brought them for her.

  She lets us go after she’s taken our picture several dozen times. “Have fun, and don’t stay out too late. Back by twelve, okay?”