“I just want you to be careful. There’s something about that Sam I don’t trust. There’s just a … subtle cruelness about him, or something.”
I walked out of your room and slammed the door. I’d just had this magical moment, and all I wanted was for you to read this on my face and know that inside me bloomed my own psychedelic landscape.
Dinner was awkward. I’m sure Mom looked at me thinking: Moody teenager. I sulked and pushed my food around my plate while you talked a mile a minute. You’d just read the most AMAZING poem for English Lit. You were studying Willem de Kooning; his art is INCREDIBLE. It’s so AWESOME that we made it to the soccer finals, who cares if we win? Did either of us notice the sunset? It was GORGEOUS.
Your exuberance exhausted me.
Later, when I was lying in bed, you pushed open my door. You didn’t knock.
Parker had just been telling me how guys don’t rub girls’ hip bones with their thumbs like that unless they totally like the girl. Duncan was a little more skeptical. Parker told him he didn’t know anything because he was only fourteen and hadn’t had enough experience. You interrupted us.
“Are you okay?”
I’d asked you that very question a hundred times over the last few months.
“Yeah.”
“You seemed kind of … upset. Like, you didn’t say a word at dinner.”
“You didn’t exactly give me an opportunity.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you were rambling on and on about how totally amazing everything is and how the sky is beautiful and whatever.”
“So? I’m happy. Do you have a problem with that?”
I sighed. No. Of course I don’t have a problem with that. I want you to be happy. There’s little more I wish for in the world. But …
You came in and closed the door. You kicked off your slippers and climbed into my bed. You pulled the covers up over both of us.
“Layla.”
“What?”
I wanted to say: What about the other girls? Yelli Rothman? Hazel Porter? How do you know you aren’t just the flavor of the month?
“Nothing.”
You squeezed me and whispered, “You’re my sister.”
“I know.”
“I love you more than anything.”
“I know.”
WE LOST.
You were right. It didn’t much matter. We’d made the finals and that was enough. We played hard, or you and the team played hard and I kept the bench warm. At the final whistle the score was three to one.
Our opponents came from an all-girls’ school. As I sat and watched, I did the math. They had three times the pool to choose from when putting together their team, so of course they were better than us. Plus it was a Jesuit school, so they probably had God on their side to boot.
I wondered what life would be like at St. Mary’s. Wearing a uniform every day. No makeup. No boys who’d inspire you to try out for the play just to get closer to them. No boys to give you a ride home when it’s dark outside. No Felix …
I bet their art teacher doesn’t have tattoos. I bet he doesn’t wear black jeans and tight T-shirts.
Maybe life would have been better at that school for us, but it was never an option. We weren’t like those boys and girls in plaids and ties who clogged the streets at the top of Pacific Heights, navigating the entryways into their separate institutions. Our parents had different values. Different plans for us.
Why were we born to a couple of atheists? Why are Mom and Dad so aggressively progressive? Why do they always seek out bastions of liberalism?
Why do they always say things to us like: We want you to be strong, independent women. We want you to speak your minds and demand that others listen. We want to give you the freedom to make the right decisions.
Look at what can happen when you allow your daughters too much freedom. Would it have been so terrible if we’d been sent to a stricter school?
It’s a stupid fantasy, I know. I don’t really believe St. Mary’s is the answer. We would have hated it. Probably would have gotten expelled. But from the bench, those girls looked happy. Strong. They played some kick-ass soccer, and I can’t say for sure, but I doubt they had a teacher in the stands who’d showed up to cheer on his girlfriend.
There was a party that night. For juniors. A party with beer and boys and flirting, and Sam asked me if I was going and I said yes because you’re a junior and I knew you’d take me with you. I knew you’d understand how important it was to me.
“I’d take you,” you said, “if I had any intention of going, which I totally don’t.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“If Sam asked you, why don’t you just go with him?”
“Because he didn’t ask me to go with him. He just asked if I was going.”
I was wasting my breath; you understood. You’d been in high school two years longer than I had. Sam and I might have been beginning something, but we still stood outside the starting gates. He couldn’t just offer to bring me. That’s not how it’s done.
“Well, you should go. Obviously he wants you there.”
“You think?”
“Of course he does. He wouldn’t have asked you if he didn’t care.”
“Really?”
You smiled. “Really.”
“Cool.”
“So you should go.”
“Maybe I will.”
“And we should pretend we’re going together. That way Dad won’t freak out.”
Oh. So that’s what the ego stroking was about. You just wanted me to cover for you so you could go off with Mr. B.
Dad did his standard don’t let her out of your sight routine, and you promised you wouldn’t, and we agreed we’d be home not a minute past 11:45—a fifteen-minute extension on our curfew.
Felix agreed to come with me. It didn’t take much convincing. He was hoping for a shot at Hazel Porter.
“Do you think those rumors about her and Mr. B. were true?”
“Not a chance,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because Hazel was going out with Gideon Banks last year. Sure, she spent lots of time with Mr. B., but that’s because he was her adviser, and they became friends, and he’s cool and she’s the coolest. But it was never anything more than that.”
“How did you become such an expert?”
“I do my research.”
“Creeper.”
“Guilty as charged.”
The party was awful, and not because all parties are stupid and boring and lame like you’d become fond of saying, but because (1) Sam didn’t show; (2) without you, I’m just a freshman, that’s the sad truth. And, like the fortune cookie wisdom goes, bad things come in threes: (3) no fewer than five separate people came up to me and asked, Where’s your sister?
They said it in that way that meant they had a pretty decent idea where you were. Eyebrows raised knowingly. Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge.
You get the picture.
Felix and I left after an hour. He’d had two beers; I’d had none. He didn’t speak a word to Hazel. It felt like a Happy Donuts kind of night to me, but Felix lobbied for a Simpsons marathon at his house. The Simpsons always pulls me out of a funk, especially when viewed with Felix, who does dead-on impressions of the characters.
Felix reeked of beer.
“We need to buy you some gum.”
“Por que?”
“Because you smell like a distillery.”
“You mean I smell like baby food?”
True, there was a park we went to sometimes near the Anchor Brewing factory, and the dominant odor it gave off: Eau de Baby.
“I mean your parents will know you’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk. And anyway, they have bigger fish to fry.”
I grabbed his arm and we took turns pulling each other up the hill. It wasn’t an Oh My God hill, but still, we needed the extra help.
“So. Where is she tonight? What’s
she up to?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always know. Your life’s work is knowing what Layla is up to.”
“Well, she isn’t up to what everyone at that party thinks she’s up to.” I hated lying to Felix—it upset the natural order of the universe.
“That’s because everyone at that party is a Cretan.”
“An evil brute.”
“A lazy glutton.”
We’d learned The Cretan Paradox in our eighth-grade humanities class with Mr. Garcia. The Cretan poet Epimenides says, “All Cretans are liars.” Because spoken by a Cretan, the statement is true if and only if it is false.
Discuss.
How I missed Mr. Garcia. Sixty-something Mr. Garcia with his ill-fitting Dockers and neck beard. Safe, unknowable Mr. Garcia.
Angel looked every bit the same to me. His hug was still all-consuming. He offered me a sandwich, like he always does, or a dish of ice cream, and like I always do, I agreed to let him fix me something I didn’t really want.
He and Julia disappeared into the kitchen, and Felix and I went down to the basement to Felix’s guy pad.
“He looks good,” I said.
“He always looks good. Like father like son. But, you know, he hasn’t started treatment yet, so …”
“When?”
“Soon. But first they have to make sure they know what they’re dealing with, like, is it only in this so-called adrenal cortex, or is it other places too?” He shook his head, then lowered the lights. “How ’bout we start with a classic? Bart versus Australia.”
“Season six. Episode sixteen.”
“God, how I love you.”
Just then Angel and Julia emerged with microwave s’mores, one of their specialties. “The flavor of camping without sacrificing the miracle of indoor plumbing,” Angel liked to say.
Julia handed Felix his plate. “Finally you admit what we’ve all known for years.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve never hidden my love for Nell.”
I knew this was a joke, but still, I couldn’t keep from blushing, which amused and delighted Angel. He loves to embarrass me. Once, early in my friendship with Felix, I’d tried out some of my fifth-grade Spanish and responded that I was embarazada, which actually means “pregnant,” and now whenever I turn red Angel says, “Are you expecting?”
“Can Nell sleep over? We have, like, a thousand episodes to get through.”
“Of course. She’s always welcome,” Julia said. She took Angel’s hand and they started back up the basement stairs. “Just don’t stay up all night.”
“There. Done. You aren’t leaving.”
“I don’t know, Felix.”
“What?” He looked hurt. And of course I wanted to stay, but I wasn’t sure how to handle you and the lie we’d told Dad about going to the party. We’d planned to meet on the corner at 11:40 so we could walk in the door together, but I wasn’t about to ruin my night to protect your secret.
I texted you: Staying at Felix’s. Tell Dad the party was lame.
In the middle of our third episode, the one where Homer and Marge tell the story of how they first met and fell in love, my phone rang. It was midnight.
Dad was pissed.
“I’m standing here with your sister and I’m noticing that you’re not here with her.”
“I know. I’m at Felix’s. I’m going to stay here tonight.”
“Is that so?”
Dad loves Felix. He loves Felix’s parents. He never minds when we have sleepovers.
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem, Nell, is that you wanted to go to a party with your sister, and against my better judgment I let you go, and then you fail to show up at the appointed hour, and I can’t help but wonder why.”
“Because … I went home with Felix.”
“Are you drunk? Did you take any drugs?”
“What?”
“Let me talk to Angel or Julia. Are they home?”
“Of course they’re home. Dad. Why are you being such a prick?”
I regretted it as soon as I said it. Dad is pretty loose about language, except when it’s directed at him.
“Okay. That’s it. I’m coming to get you.”
“Dad. What did Layla tell you?”
“She said you thought the party was lame, which, by the way, is a word I’d like to see eradicated from both of your vocabularies. She said you left early with Felix.”
“Dad.” My eyes were stinging with tears. I felt six years old. I wanted to shout, This isn’t fair. I wanted to shout, I’m the good one. I wanted to shout, Punish her, not me.
“I’ll be there in five. Be ready.”
Felix waited out on the steps with me. I’d started crying when I’d hung up and was doing my best to rein it in before Dad arrived. It was freezing. I sat one step down from Felix, in between his knees. He ran his hands up and down the sleeves of my denim jacket, but I couldn’t stop shivering.
“Sorry this night has been such a big sack of poo.”
I sniffled. “You’re such a poet.”
“First the man of your dreams stands you up, and then your dad starts acting like it’s his time of the month.”
“Maybe it is.”
“Usually he’s so chill. At least with me.”
“I guess I should have asked him if I could sleep over.”
“Can’t hurt to ask.”
Dad pulled up in his Porsche, and for the first time I thought he looked ridiculous in it. He looked the opposite of cool. He looked old and bald. And angry.
“Get in.” And then, “Hi, Felix.”
“Hi, Matthew.”
“Say hello to your folks for me.”
“They’re sleeping.”
“Well, then say hello in the morning.”
We drove off without speaking a word to each other. I think you should know that in that silence I seriously considered telling Dad everything.
“You’re only fifteen,” he finally said. “I know you want nothing more than to be treated like an adult, but I can’t treat you like an adult because you’re my child, and I especially can’t treat you like an adult when you change the rules without consulting me. You promised to be home at eleven-forty-five and you weren’t. Case closed.”
“Case closed?” I hate when Dad pulls his lawyer crap on me.
“Look, I worry about you, okay?”
“I guess I should have called.”
“Of course you should have called.”
“But you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Yes, I do.”
I tried again. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Yes, I do.”
I’m sure you were confused when I came home and went to my room and wouldn’t talk to you. I was so angry. Everything felt so unfair. We were watching cartoons! Eating s’mores! How can you get more wholesome than that?
You knocked, you rattled the knob, but I wouldn’t undo the lock. You pounded.
Let her in, Duncan said. She probably wants to apologize.
Let her in, Parker said, and tell her how much it hurts that Sam didn’t show up.
More pounding.
You don’t feel like yourself when you’re mad at Layla or when she’s mad at you. Let her in. You need her.
I didn’t need you. I had the Creed brothers.
They looked at each other and then at me.
But … we’re not real.
YOU KNOW THAT POSTER IN the science lab? Albert Einstein with the quote The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. I’m not sure Einstein actually said this—maybe it just looks good under a picture of him with his insane hair—but I wanted to tell Einstein that sometimes time is of no use.
Everything in the world was happening at once. Every clock was ticking. Every radio station was playing. Someone had turned up the speed on the treadmill while I was still trying to walk.
The play was opening in four days. W
e were in the middle of finals. And you’d all but disappeared: always out, busy, lying to Mom and Dad. Like that time I convinced Mom you didn’t mutter bitch, I covered for you, helped maintain the fiction that you were just working hard at school.
And, of course, there was Sam.
After our Goldsworthy trek, after asking me if I was going to be at the party, after rubbing my hip bone with his thumb, he barely acknowledged me.
“You said ‘the play’s the thing,’ ” I whispered to Felix. “But guess what? The play is this weekend and Sam is already over me. My window has closed. On my fingers.”
We were sitting in the back of the theater, watching Sam. The scene where he tells Ophelia “Get thee to a nunnery,” one of the only original lines Ms. Eisenstein kept in the play, before walking offstage and leaving her all alone. I knew exactly how Ophelia must have felt.
“Maybe he’s just distracted. He has like a thousand lines. And he’s a junior, so his grades actually count. Plus the tights might be cutting off oxygen to his brain.”
“I’m supposed to be the distraction,” I whined.
“I find you distracting,” Felix said. “Like a fly or a gnat.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He knocked me on the chin. “Buck up. There’s the cast party coming up. And it’s at his house, so he has to show.”
All this work. For three performances. Friday night, Saturday matinee, Saturday night. It hardly felt worth it. Especially for the five lines I had, two of which were only one word.
I guess I was sitting in the auditorium that day coming to terms with what the sensible part of me already knew—that life is a long series of anticlimaxes. Starting high school? Soccer finals? School play? Sam’s thumb on my hip bone? So when the final performance of the play rolled around—I guess the joke was on me.
Every movie I’d seen, book I’d read, or bad made-for-TV movie I’d watched about a school play went something like this:
The heroine’s life changes on the night of the play in one of the following ways.
A. The lead actress falls suddenly ill, so the heroine gets to live out her dream of being a star.
B. The shy heroine opens her mouth and sings like an angel when before she could only croak like a frog.
C. The boy the heroine adores finally confesses his love.
We Are the Goldens Page 9
