by Katie Henry
“Please tell me it’s a comedy.”
“It is.”
Thank God. “Why do we have to read all this depressing stuff, anyway?”
“The tragedies are easier to start with,” Ms. Waldman explains. “Comedies have a lot of jokes, and wordplay, and that takes more effort to understand.”
“I mean, there’s bits of funny stuff in the tragedies, right?” I say. “Like with the Gravediggers in Hamlet, and I know you said how the Porter in Macbeth might have been the first person to tell a knock-knock joke. But even those little bits are important, because life can be so—” I struggle for a word to sum it up, and fail. “Hard. Scary. Unfair.”
“Even more so, in Shakespeare’s time.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “And with comedy, when you get to laugh in the middle of something so difficult, you feel—” I struggle for a word, again, and fail, again. “I don’t know. Release. Connection.” I swallow. “Hope. It feels like hope.”
We sit there together, and it’s like we’re holding that spark of hope between us. Quiet and small and bright.
“Do you like comedy?” she asks.
“I love comedy.” I say this with a level of seriousness more common at war councils.
“Really.” She doesn’t ask, this time. It isn’t a question.
“Yeah.”
“Our next read is Much Ado About Nothing,” she says. “But in the meantime . . .”
She turns her head toward the overflowing cabinet of books in the back corner. Jack and his friends like to open it and flick paperbacks at each other when she isn’t looking. Ms. Waldman stands and strides toward the cabinet with purpose.
“I have one for you,” she declares, holding up a red-nailed finger. She pulls a thin, battered paperback from the bottom shelf. She returns and holds it out, but I don’t take it just yet.
I lean in and read the cover aloud. “As You Like It.”
“A comedy. With a true happy ending.”
“Is it about love?”
“Yes. But also . . .” She searches for the word. “Transformation.”
Transformation. I like that. It’s the kind of word that blooms.
“I think Rosalind is a girl after your own heart,” Ms. Waldman says.
“When are we reading this one?”
“We aren’t.” Ms. Waldman presses the play into my hand. “She’s just for you.”
Chapter 19
IT’S SATURDAY, AND the sky is a brilliant blue speckled with perfect, fluffy clouds. It’s hotter than any March day should be, but none of us are complaining. Millennium Park is more crowded than it should be, which we might be complaining about if Will and Jonah hadn’t gotten here early and snagged us space in the shade of a big oak tree.
Looking at Mo lying on the ground beneath the tree, staring up through the branches, I think of this one moment in As You Like It. A song, actually, sung by the exiled duke’s happy band of followers as they camp out in the Forest of Arden.
Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird’s throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
I loved it the minute I read it, but I wondered—a greenwood tree? I’d never heard of that before, and I wondered if they only existed in the Forest of Arden. Either As You Like It’s Arden—a mystical utopian land of runaway girls and shepherds—or Shakespeare’s Arden. The real one, nestled up against the Avon river, not far from the little cottage where he was born. But when I looked it up, the answer was simpler and sweeter than I could have guessed.
There is no greenwood tree.
It’s not a name, like I assumed. It isn’t even one tree, though it sounds like it should be. What it actually means is a forest in full leaf, green and wet and new.
Any tree can be a greenwood tree.
I lie myself down next to Mo. The grass tickles the back of my neck. Sunlight and sky poke through the tree branches, leaving dappled shadows on my face.
It pricks at my brain again, that weird sort of foresight. The reverse déjà vu from the first night I spent at Mo’s dorm. You will be here again. And more than that. You will feel this way again, and again, and again.
It’s like I can see all the days I’ll have, all these long moments in the light, spread out before me. I would grab them all now, if I could. Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe it’s better to take them as they come, knowing they’re just on the horizon.
“Come on, Izzy.” When Mo shakes my shoulder, she shakes me out of my thoughts, too. “We’ve got to go.”
“Can’t we stay?” I sigh, raising myself up on my elbows. “Just a little longer?”
“It’s supposed to start at six,” Will says. He’s the one who suggested this new open mic, downtown at some cocktail bar. I looked it up and it seems way too fancy for us, but Mo agreed we should go.
Jonah checks his phone. “We’re going to get terrible times.”
“They don’t have a list. They’re pulling names from a hat.”
“Why are we going to this place?” I whisper to Mo. The sun is so bright and the grass is so soft, I’m not thrilled about trading it in for dim lights and bar stools.
“The All-College Showcase auditions are right around the corner. If we want to have a chance at making it there, we need the prep.” She doesn’t say “you especially,” but I think it’s implied.
“So let’s go to the Forest, then,” I suggest. I start to lean back down on the grass. “Tomorrow.”
Mo puts her hand on my back and gently pushes me upright again. “I know you like the Forest. But the showcase won’t be there.”
“It’s not going to be at this bar Will found, either.”
“But it’ll be new, like this place is. You won’t know what to expect. And you’ve got to practice that.”
“I do practice,” I protest. “I practice my set all the time—”
“You have to practice adapting, Izzy. We all do.”
I pick at a blade of grass and say nothing. Mo turns to Will and Jonah, who are already getting to their feet.
“You guys go ahead.” She waves them off. “We’ll catch up.”
When they’re out of earshot, Mo turns back to me. “Look, I know this has been a really tough time, with the breakup and everything—”
Mo doesn’t even know everything. I told her about Alex, that he broke up with me because he didn’t like me spending so much time away from him. But I didn’t say he broke up with me because I wouldn’t choose him over her. I didn’t want to make her feel bad.
“And I get how vulnerable you must be feeling—”
“It’s a nice day,” I say, cutting her off, “it just feels like we should spend it outside, in nature.”
Mo stares at me, unblinking and searching. “Is that really it, Izzy?” I look away. “Or is it that you’re scared?”
I haven’t gone up much since the thing with Mitch. Mo promised me I’d never see him again at the Forest, and I didn’t ask how she knew that or what she’d told Colin to make it happen, but I trusted her. That’s the only place I’m sure is safe.
“It’s a lot,” Mo tells me, trying so hard to sound reassuring. Like she’s trying to coax a neurotic cat into its carrier without getting bit. “It’s a shit ton to deal with, I promise I know that, and I’ve tried not to pressure you. But please—”
“Please what?” I ask, trying not to snap but doing it anyway. Whatever she’s going to ask—for me to be braver, like her, or to go public with what Mitch did to me, like she would—I can’t do it. And maybe Mo can sense that, or at least my annoyance, because she hesitates for a second. She breathes in through her nose, locks her gaze on mine, and says:
“Don’t let them do it. Please don’t let them take this from you.”
And then I’m just confused. “Take what?”
> Her eyes are sad. “Your voice.”
They’re only jokes, I want to say. They don’t really matter. But the longer I think about it, the less true it seems. Yeah, people act like only the serious stuff matters. History class focuses on wars and tragedies and the news does, too, but that isn’t life. Not all of it. Not the best parts of it, anyway, the parts that make all the tragedy worth it. When people laugh, they open up. And when you’re the one to make them do it . . . you open up, too. Not all at once, but slowly, so slowly you don’t know it’s happening until it’s there in full view. Like flowers blooming on a greenwood tree.
The funniest things can free you.
I stand up, so quickly it startles her, and put out my hand.
“Let’s go.”
She grabs it. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I pull her up. “Before the guys leave us behind.”
It’s clear from the second we arrive and throw down our coats at a corner booth that this place was never meant to have an open mic. For one thing, it’s way too expensive for anyone on an aspiring comic’s budget. For another, we’re the youngest people here by twenty years.
But at least we fit in better than Dave, who I bump into as I’m leaving the bathroom. For one thing, he’s wearing sandals.
“Hey, Izzy!” Dave holds up a hand for a high five.
I keep my hands in my pockets. “Hey, Dave.”
He plays it off like he was stretching. “So, how’s your friend?”
“Still sixteen.”
“Right.” He nods at the mic and stool set up by the back wall. “You going up tonight?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s always weird going up at new places.”
“Totally.” He rummages around in his pocket for a minute, then pulls out a little tin. “Here, you want something?”
“Huh?”
“You know. Something to help.” He flips it open, and I peer inside.
“What are they, like, gummy bears?”
He considers this. “Like gummy bears, yeah.”
I look closer. They’re not really bears, just blobs, and they don’t look particularly appetizing, but I haven’t eaten today. Might as well have a little sugar. I take one and pop it in my mouth.
He grins. “Have a good set, Izzy.”
It’s a half hour past when the open mic was supposed to start, and still, no one’s gone up.
“Totally typical,” Mo grouses. “Everybody thinks they can do an open mic, but they have no clue how to deal with logistics.”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Will says. “You said we needed to branch out.”
Jonah pushes the menu away. “This place is weird. All their beers are made by, like, German monks who, I don’t know, mash the beans with their feet.”
Will doesn’t laugh. “That’s not how you make beer.”
“It is at the Monastery of St. Pretentiousness.”
I don’t know what Jonah’s problem is. I like this place. The lights are soft, the booth is comfortable, and the music is really nice, whatever it is. Plus, we’re right near the doors to the kitchen, and whatever they’re making in there is making me drool.
All of a sudden, Mo’s leaning in close to look at my face. I blink and pull back.
“Are you okay?” she asks me, brow furrowed.
Actually, now that she says it, I am feeling a little weird, but I don’t know how to place it. I’m not sick to my stomach, I don’t have a headache, I just feel . . . off. Like everything around me is happening, but I’m separate from it. And also, very hungry.
“Yeah, I just feel kind of weird.”
“Oh no, really?”
“Maybe I should I order something.” I reach for the menu. “The only thing I ate today was this, like, gummy bear from Dave.”
They all turn to look at each other. Then turn back to stare at me.
“Dave gave you what, now?” Mo’s voice sounds much higher than usual.
“A piece of candy,” I say. “When I came in.”
“And you ate it?” Jonah asks.
“No, I saved it in my cheek like a chipmunk, Jonah.”
“Motherf—” Mo buries her head in her hands. “That wasn’t a regular gummy bear.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I say. “It tasted super weird.”
“IT IS DRUGS,” Mo whisper-screams at me. “YOU ATE DRUGS.”
“Say it louder,” Will hisses at her. “Let’s make sure the whole bar knows.”
Oh, shit.
“That was an edible, Izzy,” Jonah says. “It’s weed.”
Oh, holy fucking shit.
“It was just a gummy bear!”
“Smokey the Bear, maybe,” Jonah replies. Mo jabs him in the ribs. “Ow!”
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to take candy from strangers?” she asks me.
“Dave’s not a stranger,” I point out.
“Yeah, if she knew Dave she would have mentioned him specifically.”
God, I feel stupid for having trusted Dave, and embarrassed that all my friends now know how stupid I am, and suddenly desperate to seem less stupid than I clearly am.
“I was trying to be polite!” I whine, as if somehow that’s a justification. “Like when Jonah forced us all to eat those cheese curds his mom sent!”
“Hey, there is nothing wrong with cheese curds,” Jonah says.
“Have you ever been high before?” Mo asks me.
“Not really,” I say, though the truth is “not ever.” I’ve never really wanted to, especially since my only opportunities have been with Alex, at one of his terrible friends’ houses. If I was going to try it, it wasn’t going to be around them.
“Okay,” Mo says, launching straight into damage-control mode. “So, you know, you might feel sleepy, or you might get hungry, but it’s going to be fine. Okay? Don’t freak out. And if you start feeling bad, we’ll go.”
“Maybe we should go now,” Will says to Mo.
“I’ll be fine,” I say. Nobody should have to leave because of me. “It’s not my first time,” I lie, because I don’t want to seem as stupid and unexperienced as I really am. “No big deal.”
So I sit there as they all talk, light-headed and starving and trying to convince myself I’m fine. Of course I’m fine. It’s just a gummy bear. Why gummy bears, anyway? How did they decide that bears were the best animal shape for gummies? Why not go for the whole menagerie, like with animal crackers? The zoos in the gummy universe must suck, with only bears to look at, and I guess also an exhibit of worms just flopping around.
I think I need to lie down. But just as I’m about to rest my head on the tabletop, something—someone—sitting by the bar catches my attention.
Huh. I’m definitely high now. I have to be high, because one of the middle guys at the table by the bar, looks like—it almost looks like—
My dad.
“Oh, shit.” I scramble under the booth. “Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit.”
“What the hell?” Jonah says. Or something along those lines, I can’t hear exactly, because, as I mentioned, I am now under the booth.
“It’s my dad,” I whisper back.
“What?” Mo says, ducking under so she can see my face.
“It’s my dad. My dad’s at the table closest to the bar, with the glasses and the sweater and the face.”
Mo searches him out, then ducks back down to me. “It’s not.”
“It is. It is my dad and I am dead.”
“You’re just paranoid, okay? That can happen. It’s not your dad.”
I swipe through the photos on my phone until I find one with him in it—our Christmas card from three years ago. We haven’t done one since the twins went to college. I shove the phone in Mo’s hand. “Look.”
She straightens up so I can’t see her anymore. It’s quiet for a moment. Then she says, loud enough for me to hear: “Oh, fuck.”
“I told you!”
“Chill,” she says, ducking back down. “You’re out with your fr
iends. That’s not a crime.”
It is when you’re sixteen and in a bar and high, I want to say, but obviously can’t.
“He would not be cool with this,” I tell her, grabbing my phone back. “He would be the opposite of cool with this. Volcano with this?”
“He probably won’t even notice you,” she reasons. “Just come out and we’ll all leave, really quietly, okay?”
But I’m already texting Charlotte. In all caps.
CHARLOTTE
The moments between my text and when her typing speech bubble pops up are the longest of my life.
what
CALL DAD
wtf?!
Okay, I’m now realizing out of context, that text is very ominous.
SORRY NO ONE IS DEAD
?????????????
Okay, I’m now realizing that text makes it sound like I’m apologizing for the lack of death.
My phone rings.
“Is everyone okay?” she blurts out the second I pick up.
“Yes,” I whisper, doing my best to block out the noise of the bar with my free hand. “Everyone’s fine.”
“Jesus, Isabel, you scared me—”
“I need you to call Dad and tell him you can’t hear him.”
“What? Why?”
“We’re in the same bar.”
“What do you mean—”
“I mean I am in a bar and he is also in a bar and they are the same bar.”
There’s a moment of silence. Then she groans. “Oh my God.”
“You have to make him leave so then I can leave.”
“Give it up. You’re caught.”
“Nope,” I say. “Nope nope nope.”
“It’s just Dad. It’s not like he’s going to actually parent you.”
“This is a situation where he would, I think, maybe. He would parent. As a verb. He would do the parenting. Or maybe just take me to a hospital maybe?”
“Izzy.” I hear Mo clap her hand to her forehead. “Calm down. You’re fine.”
“I don’t remember his policy on this,” I babble to Charlotte. “Maybe he’d be cool with it. Maybe he did it, in college. Maybe he even did it on purpose, not because of Dave. Do you remember if Dad went to Woodstock?”
“Exactly how old do you think he is?”
“Izzy, honey, maybe let’s end the call.” Mo leans down and tries to pry the phone out of my hands. I resist.
