by Katie Henry
Mo told me I do comedy because I want to be loved, but I’m not sure she was right. What I really want is to matter to someone. Anyone.
And right here, and right now, I do.
I matter.
Chapter 10
ON SUNDAY, I meet Naomi so we can work on our history project. The café she picked is way too cool for me. Naomi discovered coffee last winter, when she stayed up for two nights straight working on her entry into the National Robotics Challenge, and she quickly became insufferable about it. Personally, I’m still not there. When I ask the barista at the register for a hot chocolate, she looks at me like I’ve asked her for literal dirt in a mug.
“We don’t do that,” she said flatly. Then, though she clearly wasn’t, added: “Sorry.”
So now I’m sitting at a table with Naomi, as she waits for her complicated coffee order, and I wait for whatever tea the barista listed first. Naomi looks toward the kitchen, clearly more interested in her drink than me. Which is fair, because this is awkward. So awkward. Worse than that guy’s set on Thursday, where he just read all the rejection messages he’s gotten while online dating.
“Let’s just pick somebody, and get this over with,” Naomi says.
“Okay.” I pull a notebook out of my bag. The assignment is to present on someone who changed American culture and show the impact they made.
“Did you have an idea?” Naomi asks. “You were always better at history than me.”
I do have an idea, but I don’t know if Naomi will go for it. “Well—”
“Why’s it have to be a cultural impact, anyway?” she complains. “Why couldn’t it be scientific? That makes an impact, too.”
“I was thinking Fanny Brice,” I blurt out before she can say anything else.
Naomi frowns. But she doesn’t say no. She says: “Who?”
“Fanny Brice. She was a performer. She did vaudeville, and burlesque, and . . .” I pick up the creamer jug off the table, to give me something to do with my hands. “She was a comedian. A really great one. You know Funny Girl the musical? That’s her.”
“That’s Barbra Streisand.”
“It’s about her.”
Naomi’s frown deepens. But she still doesn’t say no. She says: “Why her?”
“She was super popular, and she brought all this knowledge of Yiddish and Jewish culture to all of America, which is obviously important. And I thought you could talk about that part.”
“And you could talk about what?” she asks. “The comedy part?”
I shrug, trying to seem casual. “Yeah.”
“What do you know about comedy?”
I fiddle with the creamer jug, trying to think of how to explain it—or not explain it. Do I try to make her believe I liked comedy all along? No way, she’s seen every book in my room and knows all my favorite movies. Do I say I’ve just gotten really into it—that if she saw my room now, there would be how-to comedy books and journals filled with ideas and a browser history filled with stand-up clips? Or do I tell her I’m—
“Izzy?” a voice from behind me says.
I spill the creamer all over the table.
“Whoa,” Naomi says, rushing to save her notebook and phone.
“Oh, shit, here—” Someone is shoving a stack of napkins at me. I look up to see a guy—young, in a half apron—with our tray of drinks in one hand and a bunch of napkins in the other. He helps me mop up the creamer and then sets the drinks on the table. Then he straightens up, still beaming at me.
“I knew it was you,” he says to me. “What’s up?”
My heart rate, for one thing, because he called me Izzy. No one does that, except for Mo, Will, and Jonah, but he is not Mo or Will or Jonah. He looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place him, let alone remember his name.
But if he called me Izzy, that means he knows Izzy. Not Isabel, the person sitting at this table with her high school ex–best friend and covered in milk.
“Um,” I say as cold cream seeps through the napkins onto my fingers. “No.”
He tilts his head. “I mean, yes, though?”
“I don’t—” I go back to the spill. “You must be thinking of someone else—”
“Yeah, no,” he says, clearly not buying it. “I’m terrible at, like, numbers and shit, but I’m so good with faces, you have no idea.”
I look up, smile back, and desperately try to will him out of existence. “I’m really sorry, I don’t—”
“I’m Dave,” he says. “You’re Izzy, you’re friends with Mo and those guys.” He pauses. “Feels weird to tell you who you are, but you seem kind of unsure.”
Forget tsunamis or serial killers or all your teeth falling out. This is my nightmare.
“I go to the Forest a lot, too,” he continues.
“What forest?” Naomi asks.
“No, the Forest, it’s a—”
“Arboretum,” I say.
“Dive bar,” he says simultaneously. From the way Naomi’s eyebrows go up, I can tell which answer she heard.
“How did you get into a bar?” Naomi asks me.
“Um. The door,” I reply. Dave laughs. Naomi does not.
“You’ve got to have seen me,” Dave insists. “My set is the one about demonic squirrels?”
“Squirrels,” Naomi repeats.
“Oh, not live ones,” he clarifies, as if that was the source of her confusion. “Taxidermy.”
“Right! Dave!” I cut in, because maybe if I admit I know him, he’ll finally shut up. “Yeah, of course. Sorry, it took me a second. Just so weird, to see you here, in the daylight. Not that you’re a vampire, or, um, a raccoon—”
“Shit, I wish I was a raccoon,” Dave says.
“Isabel,” Naomi says. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say, too quickly. “I mean, not nothing, this is—Dave and I, um. We have friends in common.” I gesture to Naomi, then back to Dave. “Dave, Naomi. Naomi, Dave.”
“Oh, hey.” He holds out a sticky hand to Naomi. She does not take it. “Have you ever come out to see Izzy?”
“I’m . . . seeing her right now,” Naomi replies. She flicks her eyes to me. “Or some parallel-universe version of her. I guess.”
Oh my God, when will death come?
“That’s funny,” Dave says. “Are you in comedy, too?”
“Am I—” Naomi whirls around to me, then back to him. “Do I look like I’m in comedy?”
Dave takes a swaggering step forward. “I mean, from where I’m standing . . .”
I pull my notebook and cup closer. “Yeah, extremely close to the table—”
Dave ignores me. “. . . you actually look like you could use a drink.”
“Yes,” I interrupt again, “she does, so it’s great you brought us this coffee. Maybe we’ll drink it now?”
“I meant like a drink drink,” he says, still looking at Naomi. Then he winks. Then I die inside. “You down?”
“Um, no,” Naomi says. “Because I’m sixteen?”
“Oh.” Dave nods. “Okay. No worries.” Then waves his hand between me and Naomi. “So is this like a Big Sister–Little Sister thing, or—”
Naomi’s eyebrows have now fully disappeared under her bangs. “A Big Sister–Little—”
“THANK YOU FOR THE COFFEE, DAVE,” I shout. “SEE YOU LATER, DAVE.”
“Cool, yeah,” he says, infuriatingly unfazed. “I’m stopping by the Forest tonight. Maybe I’ll catch you.”
I shove the creamer back into his hands. “CAN’T WAIT.”
He smiles, salutes me with two fingers, and finally, finally leaves our table. Naomi stares at me. I pull out my notebook and strenuously avoid her eyes.
“So, I think we should do Fanny Brice.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, because she’s awesome.”
“Great.”
“And it’s not like a typical choice—not that it’s atypical, but—there aren’t going to be like five presentations on Fanny Brice—”
“Isabel,” Naomi says, louder.
I stop. “Yes?”
“What was all that?”
I almost go for the creamer, to fling it across the table again. Just as a distraction.
“We had a weird barista,” I say.
“Who knew you.”
“He knows friends of mine.”
“Who you go to bars with, apparently.”
Ugh. This is so like her. Anything I do is subject to judgment.
I shrug. “Don’t worry about it.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Why does she feel entitled to an answer? We’re not friends anymore; we’re just partners on a stupid project. She gave up the right to answers when she made me choose between her and Alex.
“It’s not a big deal, okay?” I snap. “Would you just drop it?”
“God, I can’t—I can’t do this,” Naomi mutters, grabbing for her phone and notebook.
Oh, shit, I didn’t mean to do that. All I did was ask her to drop it, I didn’t ask her to leave.
I lean across the table, trying to stop her. “Wait, where are you—”
“You’re lying to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You’re not telling me the truth, that’s the same.” She stops. Swallows. “We used to tell each other everything. And now you’re this whole different person I don’t know anything about.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.” She shoulders her bag. “I’ll email Mr. Sosa and convince him we have to change partners.”
“Naomi.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “Something weird is going on with you, and you don’t want to tell me? Whatever. Fine. I don’t know how exactly you’re sabotaging yourself this time, but I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m cool with it.”
She stands to go, but I grab for her sweater sleeve and hold on tight.
“Fine,” I tell her through gritted teeth.
“It’s not fine.”
“I mean fine, I will tell you if you’ll sit down.”
She lowers herself into the chair slowly.
“I do go to bars,” I say. “But not to drink. I go because that’s where all the open mics are.”
“Like . . . for music?”
“Like for comedy.”
“You sneak into bars to watch comedy shows?” Naomi asks, incredulous. I don’t know if she’s going to think the truth is better, or worse.
“Not to watch. Well, I do watch, but—” I take a breath in. “I’m also sort of . . . in them.”
“What do you mean in them?”
“I perform. As a performer. Onstage with a mic and a set and—” I don’t know what to say. So I make jazz hands. Naomi just stares. “It’s stand-up comedy. And I am the comedy.”
Her mouth drops. No wonder. I am the comedy. Jesus. I sound like a bitter children’s birthday party clown turned doomsday prophet.
“You,” she says slowly, “are a stand-up comic?”
“Comedian,” I clarify.
“What’s the difference?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Since when?”
“January.”
“How did that happen?”
I definitely can’t tell her I stumbled into a club trying to hide from Alex. Even if I explained it was my fault, I’m the one who lied to him, she’d still find a way to make it his fault. Better to just avoid it.
“It’s a long story.”
“Do your parents know?”
“Obviously not, since I’m here and not at some maximum-security boarding school.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is in Utah.”
She snorts, but that’s not a joke. After Peter almost lit our building storage’s room on fire when he was twelve, my mom tried to scare him with a brochure to one of those places. It was called Crossroads, but I think only because Your Kid Sucks and We Hope They’ll Suck Less with Jesus wouldn’t fit on the sign.
“Wow. I can’t believe Alex lets you . . .” Naomi hesitates. “Never mind.”
But it’s too late, I can tell what she was about to ask. “Just say it.”
“I’m glad he does, I guess. It just seems like he wouldn’t be cool with you doing that. At all.”
“Alex doesn’t exactly . . .” I fold my hands in my lap. “Um. Know.”
Naomi shakes her head, slowly. “I don’t get you.”
No shit. That’s why we aren’t still friends. “He wouldn’t want to come. It’s not like I’m holding out on him.”
“That’s not why you didn’t tell him.”
“You don’t know that,” I say. So what if she’s right? She doesn’t know.
“Yeah? Does he know where you are right now?”
“No.”
“And I bet he doesn’t know you’re with me, either.”
I shake my head.
“What do you think would happen,” she asks, softer this time, “if he found out?”
Nothing. That’s what I should tell her. Nothing would happen, of course nothing would happen. I mean, he’d be upset, of course he would. I’ve lied to him, I’ve hidden things from him. Look at how upset you got, I should tell her, when I hid things from you just now. He’d have a right to be angry. If he were. Like he’s been before.
It wasn’t that bad, I remind myself. It could have been worse.
It could happen again.
When I open my mouth, none of that comes out. What comes out is the truth, in the simplest way I can say it.
“I don’t know.”
Naomi stares at me, and I stare right back. Neither of us knowing what to say, or how to fix something that feels so broken. Then she lets out a world-weary sigh.
I glare at her. “Stop it.”
“What, I can’t sigh now?”
“You make me feel so awful, every time I talk about him.”
“I don’t know, Isabel.” She folds her arms. “Maybe that should tell you something.”
It tells me she’s judging me. Just like she always does. It tells me she thinks I’m stupid and weak, and that’s only based on the parts she knows about. How much would she judge me—how much would everyone—if they knew everything?
“It’s more complicated than—” I chew on my lip. “You’ve never been in a relationship.”
“Yeah, because I’m not interested in one,” she says. “That doesn’t mean I can’t tell this is messed up.”
I stare at the tabletop and don’t say a word. Neither does she, for a long, uncomfortable moment.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I told myself I wasn’t going to bring this up. We’ve got a project. Let’s just . . . do the project.”
I nod. Look back to my notebook. “Yeah.”
“It’s not like we don’t have practice.”
That’s true. Naomi and I always paired off together. We’ve done more projects than I could count probably.
“Remember the time we had to make a volcano together in fourth grade?” I ask her.
She laughs, I think without meaning to. “Yeah, I do, because you mixed up the baking soda with the powdered sugar and it didn’t work.”
“They looked similar!” I say, feeling a smile start to creep up.
“My dad’s fault for not labeling, I guess.”
We’re quiet for a while before I can gather up the courage to ask.
“Do you think—” I almost swallow the words. But I need to get them out. “Do you think we’ll ever do that again?”
“Do what?”
“Hang out together.”
I don’t say “be friends again.” I don’t say “be like we used to.” But I know she can hear me, all the same.
“Well,” she says, flipping her own notebook open, “if we don’t finish this stupid assignment today, I guess we’ll have to.”
And I see it, just for a second, before she ducks her head. A ghost of a smile.
That night, after we all do our s
ets, everyone decides to stick around for a drink. One single beer in my case. More than that, in theirs. It’s late by the time we walk out of the Forest into the freezing night air.
“We have to stop somewhere,” Mo says, who had at least three drinks of her own, plus whatever she stole of Will’s.
“No,” Jonah moans. “Come on, I’m tired.”
“I have to pee.”
“Well”—Jonah gestures at a side street to our left—“I don’t know, find an alley!”
“She can’t do that!” Will says, looking appalled.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a sex offense,” Will says.
“Because I’m wearing skinny jeans,” Mo says at the same time.
“Okay, everybody calm their tits.” Jonah holds his phone aloft. “I’ll find a McDonald’s.”
“Yessss,” Mo says, drawing the word out. “Shamrock Shakes for everyone!”
“Mo. It’s February.”
Suddenly, Mo grabs my arm with one hand and points in the distance with the other. “Look!”
When I finally realize what she’s pointing at, I nearly pee myself.
“That’s a Roosevelt building,” she says, shaking my arm harder than necessary. “Izzy, isn’t that a—”
I’d deny it if I thought it would do any good, but the building in front of us reads Roosevelt University in big, lighted letters. It might as well read Screw you, Isabel.
“Uh,” I stumble, first with my words, then with my foot, because Mo is holding on too tight. “Yeah?” I clear my throat. If it’s my school, which it isn’t, I shouldn’t sound surprised. Or horrified. Which I am. “Yes.”
“Oh, cool.” Jonah pockets his phone. “Never mind on McDonald’s, then.”
“What? No!” Mo protests. “You promised me a Shamrock Shake.”
“First off, I definitely didn’t,” Jonah says. “Second—and I can’t stress this enough—it’s still February.”
Will steadies a now-pouting Mo. “You take her in,” he says to me. “We’ll wait outside.”
“That’s the dorm,” I lie. “I’m a commuter. I can’t take her in a dorm.”
Jonah tilts his head up, studying the building. “It can’t all be dorms. It’s like twenty stories high. What, do you all get penthouses?”
“Penthouses are only on the top floor,” Will says. “By definition.”
