by Tom Leveen
Before I could say anything beyond my greeting, Robby stuck a hand in front of Sydney’s face. “I’m Robby,” he announced.
Sydney didn’t rush to finish chewing and swallowing her bite of food. “Syd Barrett,” she said, reaching across her body to shake Robby’s hand.
Robby goggled his eyes and stared at her. “The Syd Barrett?” he asked, shaking her hand.
Justin said, “Awwww, sweet!”
Robby said, “Wow. I was expecting someone older. And male. And British.”
“It’s short for Sydney,” she said, not the least bit put off. “With a y.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” Robby grinned at her, and when she wasn’t looking, tossed me a backward nod, like I was supposed to get the joke. I didn’t, not then. He explained it to me later.
“What’re you guys doing?” Justin asked, directing his question mostly at me while sliding curious glances at Syd.
“Uh … just … eating,” I said.
Justin contorted his face. “Wait a sec,” he said. “She’s not the girl who you—”
“Dude!” Robby cried. “I almost forgot! We gotta get tickets for the Executives show next weekend. Right? You’re going, right?”
“Um … the who?” I said while avoiding Sydney’s smirk. Robby’s derailment of Justin was not among the most subtle.
“Never mind, we’ll fix it up later,” Robby said. “You two kiddies have a good time.”
“Yeah, see ya,” Justin said, scowling at Robby and clearly having no idea what had just happened.
Their two girls didn’t say a word, their heads still tilted down to watch their phones. They were somehow able to navigate completely blind this way, like they had echolocation apps.
“Bye,” Sydney said, waving. Robby waved back for all of them, and then they were lost in the mall shuffle.
“The Executives are a band,” Sydney told me as she turned back to her food. “You’re going to the show?”
“I guess so,” I said. The name sounded familiar, like they were a band Robby had mentioned before, but I didn’t know anything about them.
Sydney shrugged and twirled lo mein on her black plastic fork. “Well, that would be cool,” she said.
She didn’t bring up Becky. And I was glad. No—relieved.
After eating, we went outside to wait for her dad to pick her up. A low concrete wall divided the sidewalk from the mall landscaping, and Sydney sat down on it, throwing one leg over the side like she was getting on a horse.
I couldn’t explain it then, and I don’t think I can now, but something about that simple move made me see Syd a little differently than I had the day before in English. It wasn’t a feminine thing to do, really, but she did it with a sort of grace. Or maybe it was ease; somehow, that gesture told the world she was completely at home with herself.
I don’t know.
I sat down beside her. Syd put both hands in front of her and leaned forward on them.
“So, listen,” she said, “are you going to talk to her at some point?”
Because I’m a dumbass, the first word out of my mouth was, “Who?”
Syd rolled her eyes, but smiled when she did it. “Tyler …,” she said.
I looked at the sidewalk. “Honestly?” I said. “Probably not.” That was the truth of the thing. Rebecca Webb was too … too everything for a troglodyte like me to ever think of approaching. I think even her tattoo intimidated me. Sometimes when I thought about her—you know—she wore her costume from Midsummer. It had fit her very nicely, that’s all I’m saying.
Just a few days before, Justin and Robby and I’d had a conversation about what celebrities we wanted to meet someday, and which ones would make us—to quote Robby—“lose our shit” if we did meet them. Robby had listed off a whole ream of musicians and bands. Justin said Gracie Cee, some famous female soccer player I’d never heard of.
I’d said Stephen King, primarily because I did not want to say Rebecca Webb. If losing one’s shit was the standard we were going to use, I was sure I’d lose mine if I did talk to her.
“Really?” Sydney said, leaning a little closer. “You really don’t think you’ll talk to her?”
“Kinda doubt it,” I said.
“Hmm,” Syd said. “Cool.”
Her dad arrived in this enormous black four-wheel drive and stopped next to the sidewalk. Sydney said, “That’s my ride. Call me later if you want.”
And leaned over and kissed me, once, quick, on the lips. In front of her dad and everything.
I sat there for another twenty minutes trying to figure out what had just happened before walking home, completely forgetting that my sister was supposed to pick me up.
I called Sydney the next day.
That was it. The beginning of the end.
Two years ago.
I hit a button on my cell as Robby, Justin, and I sit at the concrete table again.
Sydney’s text reads: Where are you?
Two years, remember. More than two. Good god, it’s already May.
I write back: At park with Robby and Justin.
Sydney: Who else would it be? What are you doing there?
I shut my eyes, start to tip over, open them again quickly. I shove my phone back into my pocket. I don’t feel like dealing with Syd right now.
“What’s up?” Justin asks me. His eyelids are drooping, his mouth hanging slightly ajar.
“She just wants to know where I am,” I say.
“You should really get those back someday,” Robby says.
“Get what back?”
“Your balls.”
“But they match her purse!” Justin says, and cackles.
“Dude—” I start saying to Robby, but my phone rings. Not vibrates; it’s a call.
Snorting, I pull my phone back out and check the ID.
Yep.
“Yeah?” I say after tapping the call button.
“What’re you doing at a park?” Syd asks.
“Hanging out.”
“You mean just sitting there?”
I stand up and walk away from the table with my friends watching me. Justin’s still enthralled with his own drunken humor while Robby’s giving me the stink eye.
“Yeah, pretty much, just sitting here.”
Silence.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Sydney says, which is another word for “something.”
“Syd, what?”
“You sound drunk. Are you drunk?”
“Maybe a bit.” But I don’t think I’m so far gone as drunk. Tipsy, maybe.
“Jesus, Tyler, are you driving?”
“Through the park? No. Not quite that far in the tank.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, Syd. Robby won’t let me.”
“So you were going to.”
Maybe because I am tipsy, or maybe because I want to set her off, I say, “I was going to go help Becky with something, but Rob said no because I was drinking.”
Silence.
Penetrating, unending silence. Silence with brilliant crimson fingernails.
Somehow, by the time the second half of freshman year started up again after Christmas, Sydney and I were a couple. I couldn’t tell you how. I called her, and she texted me, and I texted her, and we hung out, and we friended each other, and she called me, and we hung out again, and I texted her, and …
There was no discussion about it. No Will you go out with me? No romantic overtures or an exchange of high school vows. Neither one of our online romantic statuses changed. I’d searched and searched for Becky but had never found a Facebook or any other page for her—which was probably just as well, because I wouldn’t likely have tried to friend her out of the blue anyway. Still, I kept my romantic status “single,” just in case.
Which of course makes me an asshole. But remember, Sydney didn’t change hers, either, so.
I couldn’t understand why Syd would even want to go out with me in the first place. I mean,
she must’ve known how bad I had it for Becky after hearing me talk about her—what little I knew—and asking her all kinds of questions about Becky prior to that first movie date.
Becky’s name morphed into an unspoken topic hovering in the air between our words and our kissing. Yeah, I kissed Sydney. A lot. And more than that by summertime.
And through it all, I thought and wrote about Becky.
I’d started writing a story about her—about us—before Christmas break, and it was something I went back to again and again, polishing, revising, rewriting, reworking, trying to make it perfect.
I hoped someday to give it to her. Since I was apparently incapable of speaking, maybe my writing would win her over. I felt like it was all I had to offer. I was happy to note at the time that Becky didn’t seem to have a boyfriend hanging around, and I lived in mortal terror of seeing her in the hall holding some guy’s hand, or kissing someone in front of a classroom door before the bell. But I didn’t see anything like that all during freshman year. She was always alone. The only time anyone sat with her was that once, the day I met Justin. And I never did see that guy around school. It would be a while before I solved that little mystery.
The summer before tenth grade was tough, because obviously there was no chance of seeing Becky. Sydney kept me occupied, for the most part, which was … nice. I guess. Neither of us went on vacation, so we got together probably twice, three times a week. The rest of the time I was either at home writing or out with the guys playing video games, throwing darts in Robby’s basement, doing some mild trespassing on golf courses late at night, that kind of thing. Syd and I talked every night. That’s what couples do, after all.
This thing with Syd … it just sort of happened. I guess it was a combination of her very forward nature and my utter lack of balls, despite what Robby thought had happened to them. Syd wasn’t all demanding and needy, really. I don’t expect any sympathy on this point, but the fact is, she was a good-looking girl who was also pretty smart—she had four more honors classes besides our English class—and she could hold a conversation. I liked those things about her.
And I liked hooking up with her. Not going to lie about that.
As August rolled around, I was initiating our make-outs as often as she was, because, I mean … well, it was there. I was fifteen, a guy, and here’s a cute chick who likes hooking up with me. Maybe a better man could have called it off, but I wasn’t a better man.
I think for those first few months together freshman year, it would be fair to say I was tolerating Sydney. By the end of summer, though, it was more like: lust plus fun minus access to Becky equals … keep dating Sydney.
I never said “I love you” to Sydney, and Syd didn’t say it to me. I knew I didn’t love her. And maybe somewhere deep down, she knew she didn’t love me, either. And we both knew the other knew it. That’s what I told myself, anyway.
On the last night of summer vacation before tenth grade, Becky’s name finally came up in conversation.
“Ty,” Sydney said, lying next to me on the floor of my room after we’d been making out for about an hour while Mom was shopping, Gabby was at school, and Dad was at work, “we need to talk.”
Part of me was relieved, assuming we were about to break up. It would be a bummer, no doubt, but I had other things on my mind. Like Becky. I’d get to see her the next day after a three-month dry spell. Since it was impossible to find someone named Becky Webb or Rebecca Webb online, all I’d been able to do over the summer was keep an eye out for her. Fat chance.
I still had a thousand scripts ready to try out on Becky, unwritten words I’d planned in my mind, except, of course, now I couldn’t on account of Sydney. Many of my scripts included the Breakup Moment—the point in time where, as Becky fell hopelessly in love with me, I’d have to cut Syd loose.
I might’ve been an ass for yearning for Becky Webb while dating someone else, but I wouldn’t cheat on Syd.
Plus, I mean … what were the chances Becky was going to fall for me anyway?
“It’s about Rebecca,” Syd said.
My stomach shriveled with guilt, as if Sydney somehow knew about the stories saved on my computer. Like the one in which a high school guy sees a girl being hassled and steps in to protect her at the risk of his life. Despite his physical weaknesses, he’s able to defend her, and she sees him in a new, attractive, romantic light. That was only one of several.
I’m not saying they were good.
“Okay,” I said to Sydney. Nice and unassuming.
“Mr. Konigsberg invited me to be on the debate team this year,” Syd began. “Which puts me right in the middle of the drama department.”
Mr. Konigsberg was the speech and debate team coach, while Mrs. Goldie ran the acting and technical side of things. Their classrooms were just down the hall from each other.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay …”
“So I need to know— Well, I mean, we’re not going to talk about her like last year before we got together, right?”
“No,” I said, too quickly.
“You sure?”
“I guess,” I said.
“Well, I’d rather we didn’t,” Syd said, sounding about forty-five years old and divorced twice and unflappable. “I mean, we’ve got us going on now.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“So you understand?”
“Sure I do.”
I didn’t, but I couldn’t say it. She hadn’t grasped that when I said “No,” what I meant was, No, I can’t promise I won’t talk about Rebecca or think about her or wish someday we …
“Great!” Sydney said, smiling happily. She had a great smile.
Sydney sat up, straddled my leg, sat back on her heels, and peeled up her T-shirt, exposing a lacy white bra. It kind of surprised me—the style, I mean, compared to her usual buttoned-down appearance.
Oh, hell, who am I kidding, I was just surprised, period. It was the first time she’d done that. I want it noted that I did not think about Becky for the next hour or so.
Possibly a personal record.
“Sydney?” I say into my phone. It’s been at least a minute since either of us spoke.
“What did she want?” Syd asks.
“I dunno, she was upset about something, I think.”
“You going to go comfort her?”
“I’m not doing this, Syd. I’m not having this conversation, not again, not ever.”
I can practically feel her scowl over the phone.
“Tell Pink Floyd we say hi!” Robby calls. Justin, on cue, begins giggling.
I give them both the finger. I love these guys, I really do. They’ve put up with a lot of my crap these past three years. Making fun of Syd’s name—Syd Barrett, by the way, was a founding member of Pink Floyd—is a small price to ask for their patience.
“Tyler,” Syd says, and sighs. “I read the story.”
Despite summer creeping up on us, a chill wind blows through the park. I hunch my shoulders against it.
At least, I think it’s the wind.
“Story?”
“In the magazine,” Syd says. “I’m looking at it right now. Your mom gave me her copy.”
Traitor. Or is it “traitoress”?
“The magazine?” I say. God help me if I’m ever on trial for something; the jury would take one look at my face and convict me on the spot.
“I’m not stupid, Ty,” Syd says. “Your mom thought it was about me. But we both know that’s not true, don’t we?”
The wind kicks up again.
The first day of tenth grade, Becky walked right up to me in between my math and Spanish classes. It was the first time I’d seen her since summer vacation began. She hadn’t changed much; her hair was a little shorter, like she’d gotten it cut and styled yesterday, but otherwise—
“Are you Tyler Darcy?” she said.
She’d never talked to me before. I’d never heard her speak before, apart from in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but it’s not li
ke that was her real speaking voice, you know? Her voice now tickled my spine like a breeze and made my toes curl inside my shoes. I smelled a faint aroma of vanilla on her clothes. I’d never eat vanilla ice cream the same way again.
All the scripts I’d written in my head turned out to be empty pages as soon as she spoke. A year of imagining, hoping, waiting; now she had made the first move, and I couldn’t think of a single clever, charming, romantic thing to say. All I could do was answer.
“Yes?” I said, question mark and all.
“And you’re going out with Sydney Barrett?”
“Yes?” I repeated, not enjoying the reminder.
Becky studied my face, holding a textbook to her chest with both arms. A black leather backpack hanging from her shoulders had replaced her blue messenger bag from last year. I wondered crazily if she had animal crackers stashed inside.
“Huh,” she said.
I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“Well … see ya,” Becky said.
“Okay,” I said.
Becky walked off down the hall. I watched her until she turned a corner. Right then, for the first time, it occurred to me that she was always alone. Not once freshman year had I seen her talking to anyone in the halls. Previously I’d kept an eye out for any possible boyfriends, but now I realized there weren’t any girls talking to her either. I knew she talked to Syd, but I never saw Becky talk to anyone myself.
Not unless you counted onstage while performing. Then she soared.
“You’re not seriously going to try and lie to me,” Sydney adds as I zip up my Dickies jacket against the wind.
I don’t respond. I never lie to Sydney, not really. Evade. Excuse. Scoff. But not lie.
“When did you get it?” I say finally. “The magazine.”
“I met Staci and Michelle for coffee at Jamaican Blue,” Syd says. “By your house? And on the way home, I stopped by to say hi. And your mom told me about the story. Gabby didn’t even know about it. Why didn’t you tell her?”
Gabrielle is finishing up her college degree in digital journalism. Guess writing runs in the family. She still lives at home because, for one thing, it’s too expensive for her to live on campus, never mind in an apartment. For another thing, about three years ago, right after she turned eighteen, Mom caught her getting high in the backyard with some friends. That was that. Mom and Dad said she was welcome to smoke whatever she wanted, wherever she wanted, on her dime and at her own place, and she could drive there in her own damn car. So Gabby left. That lasted about a month before she came back begging for another shot, which Mom and Dad gave her. I’d been just as glad when she left as when she came back; I’d known about the drugs and hated how it made her act so lazy, and how shitty it made her clothes reek. When she moved back in, she was more like the sister I’d known before. Someone who’d stop what she was doing to read anything I wrote, and give me advice on how to make it better.
