by Andrea Speed
My mother has long ago learned that the simple question “How was your day?” would never elicit anything but one-word replies from her children and now makes sure to only ask specifically about the events of the day. “Nothing” is of course not an acceptable answer.
I step into the kitchen, which is a cozy mess as usual. The light blue tabletops are messy with ingredients and leftover batter, and several bowls stand in the sink, filled with soapy water. My mother is licking a spatula while keeping one eye on the oven, one on me. I put my backpack on a chair.
“We dissected frogs in bio class, and Shelly Thompson accidentally dropped one into her lunch.”
A snort of laughter erupts from my mother’s nose. “Oh my God! Did she eat it?”
“No—she gave it to me. I didn’t eat it either, though.” I slide a hand over my stomach, suddenly remembering its emptiness. “Speaking of which, do we have any food?”
My mother’s laugher morphs into a displeased hum. “I keep telling you to eat. I don’t understand why you always forget.”
There’s a faint, warm sensation of guilt in my chest, but my mother doesn’t pursue the issue further. Instead, she starts heating up some leftovers for me and tells me I can have a cookie afterward.
“I see your father made casserole again.” There’s a hint of disapproval in her voice while she presses a complicated series of buttons on the microwave, but then she looks back at me. “Are you doing anything with your friends this weekend?”
“No,” I say, well aware that the sole word won’t be satisfactory.
“No events? Nothing going on?”
“My class is having a beach party.” I tap my fingers on the table. “But I’m not going.”
My mother has a particular look. I think most mothers do. It’s a look of utter, encompassing defeat; it’s a look that tells you that not only have you failed somehow in your business of being a normal, well-functioning adolescent, but she, too, has failed on a spectacular level in her mission to take care of you and raise you into a happy and healthy human. The entirety of this dual failure is concentrated into one wordless glance, and you feel not only the weight of your own lack of success (which your mother will always assure you is entirely her fault, which only makes it worse), but hers as well. It’s devastating. And my mother is giving me that look right now.
I am about two inches tall. I stop tapping the tabletop.
“Why not?” I never thought my mother could ever in any way resemble Peter and his foghorn voice. But there you have it.
“I don’t know how to swim.”
She waves the spatula dramatically. “Pshaw! Who said you had to? Just don’t go any farther than to your bellybutton.”
The mental image of myself standing awkwardly halfway between land and open water while my classmates frolic in the waves farther out is not an appealing one.
“Mom—”
“Ask your father if he’ll take you to the public pool for swimming lessons tonight—”
“Mom,” I repeat, “I don’t want to go.”
The look is back, only slightly different. Now the failure is entirely hers. And yet I feel every ounce of it on my shoulders.
“Why, Mimi?” The nickname is heavy as syrup in her mouth. “Why won’t you try to make friends? You’re such a lovely boy. No one will know if you don’t show them.”
I fall silent the way I always do when my mother calls me Mimi. Back when I was little, I loved that nickname; it made me feel so cute and loved, like a teddy bear or a puppy. But when she called me that on my first day of middle school, it elicited strange stares and laughs from the other children, and now hearing the name makes me feel… weird.
I never asked her to stop calling me it. It’s still me—I’m still Mimi. But something tells me I shouldn’t be.
The silence is broken by the simultaneous ding of the microwave and ringing of the oven’s alarm. My mother practically jumps and frantically starts pulling out the hot dishes. She places the plate of casserole on the dining table. I sit down.
Steam rises from the food as I poke it with my fork. “Maybe if it wasn’t a beach party….”
“Well, it is,” my mother states, seemingly having made up her mind. “And you’re going.”
I attempt my excuse from earlier. “But, Mom! I don’t even have any swimwear!”
There’s a loud clatter as she drops a second plate on the table in front of me. “I will buy you some. Now, more importantly, do you want a cookie with raisins or with nuts?”
IT’S NOT that I don’t want to make friends. I do. I had some when I was younger, but at some point everyone seemed to drift off into small, close-knit groups, and I didn’t fit into any of them. I don’t like football enough to be a jock, don’t play any instruments, not smart enough for the Mathletes, and quite frankly the theater kids scare the living wits out of me. None of the boys at my school have any reason to hang out with me. As for the girls… I don’t even want to go there. The onset of puberty elevated them to a different world. A closed party with an estrogen-based passcode that I can only gaze at from afar.
So instead I pass my days at school quietly and for the most part unnoticed, never a bother nor a benefit to anyone. I show up for classes, sing along at the morning gatherings, lend people pencils when they’ve forgotten theirs, and by the end of the day I go straight home and go about my own business. Do my homework, watch TV, play video games. I’ve all but perfected the art of being a bored loner. It’s all right; high school will only last a few more years, and I have the rest of my life ahead of me to make friends. Right?
And yet I find myself standing in the open, oversized backyard of a beach house, scratchy sand already in my sandals, while I stare at the gathering of teenagers farther ahead on the beach in front of me.
In my arms I’m clutching a wrapped present, partially to hide the hideous Hawaiian shirt I decided to wear. Beach party, luau dress code—I assumed it would be in keeping with the theme, but the rest of my classmates all seem to be wearing their regular clothes, and I feel the painful nervousness in my stomach growing stronger. Quickly I button the three buttons I had left open at the top of my shirt before, with reluctant steps, I move toward the party.
A pair of girls approach me, the prettiest of them looking me up and down with an amused expression, while the other points at the package in my hands.
“Michael, did you bring a gift?”
I’ll be frank: Marina Young looks like a train wreck and has the most laughable smile in the world. I would never be cruel enough to say that out loud, but it’s all I can think of when I look at her. Teeth stick out to all sides as though someone threw them into her mouth haphazardly, and two huge creases run over her cheeks when something—like my present—prompts her to stretch her lips into that weird grimace. But she never seems to care. Just like she doesn’t care that her mousy brown hair is in a bird’s nest of thin messy tufts and that none of her clothes match in either size or color. Tonight she’s wearing a bright pink dress over a red-and-yellow-striped T-shirt, and it’s almost making me feel better about my own choice of outfit.
“Yeah, um, it’s nothing,” I mumble. “It’s just a swim ring. It’s sort of stupid, I know. I thought it could be fun… ny. Funny.”
Marina laughs, says some variation of thank you, and takes the present from me.
It’s her parents who own the beach house, and the girl next to her, her twin sister May, is the host of the party. Marina evidently helps her greet the guests but didn’t sign the invitation, and the whole shebang has been entirely advertised as May’s thing. Really, it sums up their sisterly relationship pretty well. They’re fraternal twins and look nothing alike; May must have gotten all the good genes and is the epitome of everything Marina is not—beautiful, fashionable, popular. Which, incidentally, also makes her the epitome of everything I’m not. For the boys in my school, the desire to fuck May Young is as self-evident as the need for food. As for myself, I must be suffering from an
eating disorder. I frequently catch myself gazing longingly at her long, silky hair and the delicately round shape of her hips, but actually touching her, being with her naked… somehow, the thought is slightly less titillating than a basket of wet laundry.
But every other boy I know flocks to her like flies to a bowl of honey. Even now, as the girls return to our peers with me tailing behind them, four guys rush up to her immediately. She flicks her hair and shifts her weight from one leg to the other and back again, and the guys are kicking in the sand and sticking their thumbs in their pockets, waving their long skinny arms around. Beside them, Marina observes peacefully with her hands clasped together behind her back. They’ve all forgotten about my existence after the initial greeting has been dealt with, and I shuffle away to position myself by the refreshment table.
Several bottles of soda are lined up next to brightly colored plastic cups, and I remember that I haven’t drunk anything all day. Gingerly I pour Coke into a cup and take a sip. Sweetness explodes in my mouth, sticky and fizzling. My throat feels unbearably dry, and yet I can’t get myself to swallow.
Someone has gotten a bonfire going, and I tag along as the others sit down to form a circle around the flames. Lighting a fire is ridiculous, since despite the setting sun you could still fry an egg on the ground, scorching as it is. But the heat from the bonfire is different from the moist warmth in the air; it’s dry and sharp and illuminates our faces in a way unrivaled by daylight. People break into conversation here and there. They’re kept within the usual cliques, the usual groups, and the faces on either side of me are turned in the opposite direction. Still, the familiar dynamics are comforting in a way. I almost feel good.
Suddenly, a singular voice rises up above the general chit-chatter and addresses the entire party. Peter is standing up, his shirt off, his arms spread out.
“Who else thinks it’s about time we went swimming?”
Cheering erupts from the crowd, and in my stomach something does the opposite and curls up into a cold and hard little ball. Whatever hint of peacefulness I was feeling evaporates immediately. I flinch as my classmates all stand up at once, kicking sand into my eyes as they run past. I stay put. Maybe if I continue to just sit here quietly, I’ll go unnoticed as usual. It’ll be just like another day at school.
“Michael, aren’t you coming?”
May is looking straight at me. She’s folding her summer dress neatly and lets it drop to the ground before placing a hand on her perfect hip. Her bikini is white, and she’s looking at me the same way she looks at every boy, all smiles and gentleness.
“I….”
“The water is nice. Come on.”
She turns around and runs along with the others, a gazelle rejoining the flock, and I, despite myself, get up and follow.
There’s already the sound of loud splashing as I step onto the pier. The wooden planks are wet and half-covered in sand, and the contrast between their coolness and the hot air sends chills up through the soles of my feet. I realize I’m shaking; my skin is covered in goose bumps even though I’m still wearing my shirt. The large floral print glows even redder in the fading sunlight.
I stop when the pier does and stand staring into the water. I don’t know when I last went to the beach, only that it was a long, long time ago. I have the faint memory of my father in the water, calling out to me, and then my feet slipping, a burning sensation in my nose, and then only darkness….
“Belly floooooooooop!”
I recognize the prolonged vowels of Peter’s excited voice but too late. I feel a rough shove on my back as he and two, four, a million other guys ram me from behind, the weight of their bodies dragging me over the edge of the pier and into the water.
Salt and wetness fill my world in an instant. All sound is transformed into a hollow hum, and my vision is clouded with bubbles, my eyes burning. My arms flail and something slams me across the face, possibly some kind of body part; rocks and seashells scratch my fingers bloody as they drag across the seafloor. I splutter; I’m drowning, for sure. I’m going to die.
All of a sudden, my head is back above the surface. Water is running down my face, shooting out of my nose and my mouth, and for all I know it’s leaking out of every orifice in my body. I stand on shaking legs and rub my face, bewildered. The water only reaches my bellybutton.
Once I regain my vision, I hastily orient myself. Hopefully no one noticed my embarrassing stunt—no, my classmates are still splashing and giggling away around me. I see my chance to get back on land and start moving backward—
I bump into something warm and spin around.
“Michael, are you okay?” Marina asks me with a concerned expression. “Did you get dunked under the water?”
I try to say something but break into a coughing fit instead. Only water comes out of my mouth, no words.
Unhesitatingly, Marina wraps an arm around my waist and places her hand firmly on my arm. “Let’s go get you dried off, okay?”
And without giving it much thought, I let her lead me into her parents’ beach house.
IT TAKES me a moment to adjust myself to the new surroundings. My outfit feels doubly ridiculous now that it’s clearly lit by the indoor lightning, while Marina’s somehow seems to fit in more. But I guess it’s her parents’ house, after all: it only makes sense that she would be a natural part of the scenery here.
The water dripping from me forms large, gross pools on the cream-colored tiles of the floor as I follow Marina through the hallway and into a bathroom, where she hands me a towel. I press it to my face so hard it feels like the fabric melts into my skin, and it comes off smelling like seaweed.
Marina regards me. “You’re all covered in mud and sand,” she says. “Take off your shirt. We’ll wash you off.”
I pause and ball my fists. As much as I would like to get rid of my ugly shirt, Marina’s presence is an unfortunate complication. She looks at me with puzzlement in her eyes.
“Could… you turn around first?”
“Oh!” she exclaims. “Yeah, sure. Sorry. I forgot that… I’ll turn around.”
Once I get the water in the shower going, she takes it as a cue that it’s okay to start talking again.
“I’m sorry this happened. It must suck to have your first party go like this.”
I have to strain to hear her over the sound of running water. “This isn’t my first party—” I start. I went to more than one birthday party back in middle school. I think I even threw one at some point.
“What?” Through the semitransparent shower curtain, I see Marina turn around to hear me better. I hunch over instinctively, although she likely can’t see the finer details of my naked body through the curtain.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say instead.
The Marina silhouette makes some sort of movement; I think she’s shrugging. “I was just excited for you, that’s all. It’s cool that you wanted to come, because normally you never go to any social stuff.”
There’s a moment of silence.
“Why don’t you, Michael?” she continues.
I put my face into the stream of water, looking straight at the streams as they shoot into my eyes and onto my cheeks and blind and drench me. I pull my head out again once I can neither hold my breath nor postpone replying to Marina any longer.
“What makes you think I don’t hang out with anyone just because I don’t hang out with you?” I don’t sound convincing. I know that, even disregarding Marina’s reaction.
“You think I don’t notice what goes on at school?” She laughs. “You vastly underestimate my level of social observance.”
I can’t see her face through the curtain, but I imagine her lips spread and teeth jutting out as she grins at her own unusual choice of words. The visualization pulls at my own cheeks a little, if just for a moment.
I turn off the water and slowly pull the shower curtain to the side. My swimming trunks stick to my legs, and I bend my knees awkwardly to hide my body the best I can.
Marina hands me a fresh towel.
“I just don’t fit in,” I say with a voice muffled by the towel across my face. “I’m not like any of you guys.”
Marina is silent, and I don’t dare remove the fabric from my eyes to see her expression. Finally she speaks. “Not like us how?”
I move the towel a little so I’m able to speak. Or would be, if I knew what to say. Part of me wants to lie to her, tell her that I’m just a loner, a loon, nothing to be concerned with. But I can’t lie.
“Like….” I search for the words in my head, for reasons that are entirely clear in my internal mind but somehow fail to take any sort of graspable form when I try to vocalize them. “I don’t know, it’s just, like… there are all these groups of kids, and the groups are all different from each other, but none of them are like me. There’s something binding each group together, something they have in common. I don’t know if it’s the same in every group or something different, but I know it’s something I don’t have.”
I sit down on the edge of the bathtub, and Marina soon joins me. My throat is burning, and I press the towel harder against my eyes to force the tears back in. I’m not entirely sure why I’m crying. I’m worried that I’ve offended her somehow, but mostly, I think, I just feel lonely. This was not how it was supposed to go. I knew I shouldn’t have come to the party.
Marina doesn’t speak, and eventually the silence starts feeling harrowing to me. I swallow.
“Everything was a lot easier when we were young,” I say, “and everyone played together in one big group. Boys and girls. Now there’s just a bunch of secret boy clubs, and I need to choose one, but I don’t understand how to get a membership card.”
“We still hang out in big groups,” Marina argues. “What do you think we’re doing tonight?”
“I know, I know. But it’s different. Everyone is here as a member of either a boy club or a girl club. You all interact with each other, but you still wear differently colored uniforms and have different mottos or whatever. Even you and I, when we sit here alone—we’re not the same.”
