A Messy, Beautiful Life

by Sara Jade Alan

  “Since when has standup been about something interesting? Usually it’s about nothing.”

  “Okay fine, you do it then.”

  “Solo at the mic is not my style. And, I’ve got to focus on rustling up some assistant directing or producing opportunities before the ol’ college apps are due. Can’t prove to anyone I’m supposed to be in charge if I’m not in charge of anything,” Hana said.

  I scoffed. But I didn’t tell her how hypocritical she was, because I was still reeling from the sensation of having left my skin onstage in my scene with Jason. Plus, now was my chance to focus on their show and stare freely at Jason for as long as I pleased.

  By the end of Scared Scriptless’s set, they managed to get all three storylines of their Harold to converge. Compared to our show, theirs was magic. And Jason was definitely one of the strongest improvisers in their group. His performance came off as effortlessly funny, and he had an incredible range of characters. What impressed me the most was that he was like a comedy surgeon, knowing exactly when to enter or exit a scene, or add the smallest detail to support his teammates and make the scene that much tighter.

  I leaned over to Hana and Quinn and whispered, “Can we please get out of here as fast as improviserably possible?” As I got up to join in the clapping, I caught Jason’s eyes. He seemed to be staring right at me.

  Yeah, I should definitely quit improv.

  After the show, I grabbed Harold and tried to round up all the freshmen and sophomores in our carpool and get all eight members of our team to a centralized spot. While I had my guard down, the captain of Scared Scriptless—Mark Weiss, who was the son of Channel Seven News’s affable weatherman—came up to invite us to an after-party.

  “We’re headed to J.C.’s house. You should come.” He said this, theoretically, to all of us, but his eyes were in a laser-pointed lockdown on Quinn.

  I didn’t answer, too busy noticing the intensity of Mark’s stare and how much he resembled his dad—they even had that same oddly tan skin.

  Fortunately, Hana hadn’t zoned out and could still form sentences. “We’d love to, but we’ve got a few young newbies with annoying curfews mucking up our hangout options.”

  “Damn. The good news is there will be a bigger party tomorrow night. You should all definitely come to that one. Yo, J.C.” Mark, finally breaking his creepo gaze away from Quinn, shouted at his teammate and waved him over.

  When I stopped trying to figure out if Mark’s skin color was real or sprayed-on, I was surprised at who was jogging toward us. Somehow I’d managed to convince myself I wouldn’t have to see him again until I’d better prepared myself. And yet, there he was, standing right next to me.

  “Hey, nice show,” he said to me.

  “I thought your name was Jason,” I blurted like a champ. Mark and Jason looked at me quizzically, and even Hana and Quinn cringed a bit.

  “It is. Jason Cooper. First and last names. Mark has a thing about calling people by their initials.” Jason did that one-corner-of-his-mouth smile again, as his brown eyes seemed to twinkle.

  Could eyes really twinkle? That wasn’t fair. Maybe it was his long lashes reflecting the stage lights and causing some illusion? I willed his eyes to stop looking so good. “Cool.” A nervous, gulping, laughter-like sound lurched out of me. Apparently my wits had been taken hostage and beaten to death by my hormones.

  Also, it was more evidence I hadn’t had a lot of boyfriends. No serious ones at least. It wasn’t that I was a total prude, but people are brave in different ways. Making a fool out of myself in front of hundreds of people by pretending to be someone else was way easier than in front of one person as the real me.

  Hana, who had closed her eyes in pain, was taking a deep breath, trying not to laugh. Thanks, Hana. Stay strong for me. After a silent beat, she finally opened her eyes and came to my rescue. “Hello, Jason, nice to meetcha. I’m Hana, this is Quinn and Ellie. So. Mark tells us you’re having a party Saturday and we’re invited?”

  Chapter Two

  I sat on the kitchen counter eating Oatmeal Squares and kicking my heels against the ugly oak cabinets. The cabbagey smell of kimchi wafted over from our neighbor’s apartment as images of last night’s show and my tour de force of social ineptitude pinballed around my brain. Mom shuffled into the kitchen in her faded pajama set, a big toe poking through a slipper, reading glasses askew, her laptop in hand. She brightened when she saw me.

  “How was your night with Aunt Heather?” I took a bite of my cereal.

  “She forced me to join this stupid online dating service. Look at this.”

  Mom set the laptop on the counter, straightened her glasses, and clicked on her profile. “Now I have to write some BS about myself that’ll make me sound datable. You know I’m terrible with this kind of thing.” She shook her head at the screen.

  I jumped down from the counter and took a look at the picture she’d added to her profile. It was a shot of her on a speedboat on Lake Michigan, taken when all of us—Mom, Dad, and me—had vacationed there years ago. “That’s one of my favorite pictures of you.” In the photo, she was squinting from the sunshine. Dad had called her name, and she’d turned with this natural, happy smile on her face.

  It wasn’t right that I was going to the beach today with Dad and the step-disappointments he’d forced into my life—Dad’s new wife Barb and her son Craig. Being at the lake was supposed to be our family thing. It always used to be—and because of Mom. She’d get up early to organize bags of games and fill coolers with enough snacks to get us through a whole day.

  “Is it too dated? You were, what, ten then?” Mom asked.

  I nodded. That had been one of our best family trips ever. Instead of staying at a cheap motel, we’d camped, which meant I’d gotten to stay up late every night, roasting marshmallows and listening to their stories. I’d taken turns tubing with both Mom and Dad, scream-laughing our heads off. “You still look the same, except maybe your hair.”

  “I’ve really let it go, huh?” Mom pulled her fingers through the roots of her hair.

  “Maybe it’s time to fully accept your hair and go all silver.”

  Mom narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips for a second, deciding if I was kidding or not. “Hmm, I like it. Silver cougar.”

  “Ew, gross, Mom. Unless…you’re into younger guys?”

  Mom shrugged, giving me a mischievous look. “I hadn’t considered it. But, thank you. Now I will.”

  “Again…ew. But for real, I’ll help with this thing. Lemme see.” I took her laptop and clicked to edit her bio.

  “Is it weird having my daughter write my dating profile?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is. But you are beautiful and kind and you deserve love.” I kissed her cheek. “Mom, is that a tear in your eye?”

  “Maybe. It’s nice to hear. Thank you, sweetie.”

  “Well, it’s not totally selfless. This service comes with the condition that I get a vote before any dates are made. You know, to weed out potential super-creepers.”

  She laughed. “Deal.” A shy look crossed her face. “I actually have a date tonight. Heather set me up.”

  “For real? Whoa. That’s exciting.”

  She shrugged again.

  “Just let yourself have fun. No pressure.”

  I worked on her profile until a car horn honked. Craig. “Sorry, Mom. I’ll finish this up later. The evil stepbrother is here.” I kissed her good-bye, grabbed my bag, and hurried to the sliding-glass door.

  “Be nice,” she called after me. “Craig’s a good boy.”

  A good boy? I resisted groaning out loud. Mom was bizarrely fond of Craig and invited him over to ruin our dinners several nights a week because she deemed it an injustice that my dad and his mom had moved to Wisconsin and abandoned him for more space and fresh cheese. His mom had gotten a dream job there, but this was Craig’s senior year and he refused to leave. He argued that he was already eighteen and going to be on his own next year anyway, and somehow Barb let
that fly.

  As I fussed with the sticky sliding-glass door, Craig honked again. What the hell? Didn’t he see me? I finally got the slider closed and headed for his car. In my rush, I stumbled over the edge of our “patio” (more accurately: “personal outdoor cement slab”) and felt a sharp twitch above my knee. Jogging toward the passenger door I saw that, no, he couldn’t have seen me standing there because he was looking down, elbow jammed into the steering wheel, scrolling through something on his phone.

  I opened the door and got in.

  “Nice Barbie Doll look,” he said, pointing to my straightened hair.

  I pointed back at his thick, longish, wavy hair. “Nice Disney Princess look.”

  “Eat a bag.” That was about the only comeback in his repertoire.

  Craig Kowalski wasn’t your average Northglenn senior. At six-foot-five he was the tallest guy in school who didn’t play sports. He always wore a black leather jacket—and not in that bringing-back-the-eighties way. For real. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and an even darker soul.

  Well, maybe he didn’t have a dark soul, but he was a reminder of my parents’ divorce and all that had gone wrong this summer with my dad getting remarried and moving out of state. Of course, Craig probably had it worse. At least I had my mom to depend on.

  “Dude, you’re sitting on my magic.” He reached under my butt and started pulling out sheets of music I must have sat on.

  I rolled my eyes. “Uh, your magic?”

  Once his sheet music was in order, he said, “You wouldn’t believe the tunes we laid down last night. Luke and I are gonna shake things up in the industry.” And then he did his air guitar act. It really blew my mind that half the female population of our school swooned over him when he did that and said things like “tunes we laid down” in earnest.

  “Good for you.” I punched him on the shoulder. “Is this heart-to-heart over now?”

  He clicked play on his phone, and out pumped music heavily laden with electronic synthesizer sounds. It started with a steady drumbeat, and then a kind of screechy-slidey violin was layered on top of that, followed by someone panting in short staccato breaths.

  “What do you think?” He actually looked eager for my answer.

  “It’s really…different,” I said, hoping a lukewarm response would end this conversation. No luck. He waited for more. “Honestly, those sounds made me uncomfortable.”

  “Exactly.” He slammed his hand on the wheel, his face wild with enthusiasm. “That’s what we’re about, aggressively experimenting with how music can make you feel.”

  “You want people to feel an aversion to your music?”

  “Well, not only that, but, yeah, we want people to be woken up by what we’re creating.”

  “Won’t it be hard to create a fan base like that?”

  “It’s inspired. I mean, the lame-ass music execs probably won’t get into it, but Luke’s got a buddy in the city who is friends with a guy at an independent label, so we’re gonna bring this to him and try to get the underground appeal. Or, we’ll stream it for free and create our own buzz. It’ll connect people who are looking for an experience deeper than the pop crap designed to lull the masses.”

  I stared at him. “It’s a million degrees out. I’m sweating. Can we just get to the beach?”

  He clicked to the next track and finally drove out of the parking lot.

  Each time a new track started he’d fill me in on the inner genius at play. I hoped for something that would make me feel good. But after five or six tracks, I gave up.

  Craig’s Barbie Doll remark grated on me. I had, quite recently, become one of those girls. One who spent an inordinate amount of time on her hair. And while it was hard for me to believe it had happened, I also couldn’t get over how much better I looked. I’d regrettably received the skin-and-hair genes from the wrong side of the family. Instead of my mom’s dewy skin and gleaming hair, I’d gotten my dad’s blond, curly, dry DNA. Though my dad’s genes were the recessive ones, they were infused with the cruel determination of our Viking heritage. Other than allowing me the one gift of slightly olive skin tone that kept me from burning every summer, the Scandinavian genes had viciously overpowered Mom’s Italian perfection, leaving me with a frizzy, pale ’fro.

  A few weeks ago, Mom somehow scraped together enough money to get me a top-of-the-line straightening iron as a gift for starting senior year. I tried the iron and fell in love with the transformation as my curls surrendered one by one. Thus, I became completely addicted to hair vanity. I started getting up thirty minutes early to blow out my curls and suppress them into a luminescent mane that, sadly, brought me more pride than my 4.0 GPA.

  “Hey, nerdling, did you get totally tranced out from our sounds? That’s kick-ass.” Craig finally turned down the “music,” and I snapped out of my reverie.

  “No, I was in a deep meditative state, training my mind to be like a supple reed in the tortuous winds of your madness.” I scrolled through his music, until I found a band called Lords of Misrule under his most-played list and risked it by pressing play.

  “Good choice,” he said. “I love this singer and her loop pedal wizardry.”

  I didn’t know what a loop pedal was, but I was already smitten with the music. Not that I would share that fact. “Let’s just get to the lake.”

  We pulled into the parking lot of Tower Beach, barely able to find a spot in the farthest corner. It was chaos. Our school had unjustly started two weeks ago in mid-August, but now it was Labor Day weekend, when everyone swarmed to the beach before it closed for the season. I prayed we wouldn’t run into anyone from school while I was stuck with my pseudo-family.

  On the plus side, Lake Michigan was looking particularly majestic with the sun sparkling against the soft waves. I couldn’t wait to jump in and get a break from Craig, my family, and my undefined future.

  On our way to the concession stand I waved at two sophomore girls who had done props for the Music Man last year when I played Marian the Librarian. We walked past members of Northglenn’s swim team. And then, further down the beach, I recognized a few of the Porter improvisers we’d seen in Scared Scriptless last night. What if Jason is here, too? The possibility made me squirmy. I had to get him out of my head. It was one stupid improv scene. I couldn’t let myself get all agitated over a guy I barely knew.

  When we were almost at the snack stand, I stopped in my tracks. At the end of the line, pointing at the large menu above the counter, was Jason. He was with some beautiful girl with long silky hair who was wearing a tiny white bikini. White. Her hand was on Jason’s shoulder, and she was leaning into him. My eyes froze open and a short grumble-moan escaped from my throat.

  At least I was wearing the blue bikini Quinn brought back for me from her vacation in Greece this summer. She’d handed it to me then marched over to my dresser and stole all my full-piece swimsuits and said, “No more grandma suits for you,” making it my only option for the family hangout today. Over the suit, I wore jean shorts and a thin white tank top so the plunging bikini top was still visible. It was no teeny white bikini, but better than my usual.

  I grabbed Craig’s arm to hold him back. “Hey, let’s, um, go meet our parents first, then get snacks. See if they want any.”

  He looked to where my gaze had been. Crap. I was caught.

  “What, you know them?” He looked back and forth between us. “Bet you have a thing for that guy, huh?” I rolled my eyes. He raised his eyebrows. They begged to be pulled out, hair by hair. “Now, Ellie, it’d be rude to ignore a friend.”

  “He’s not a friend.”

  “A crush.”

  “No, I just…we…”

  “Acquaintance? It’s cool. I’ll pretend for your sake that one of them is nothing more than an acquaintance. It’s the girl you’re into, then, isn’t it?”

  “You’re impossible. I met that guy for a second at the show last night. Can we go now?”

  “Of course not. It’d also be rude to ignore
an acquaintance.”

  My Ice Princess glare did nothing because he pulled me into line, too close to Jason and his most-surely-a-model girlfriend.

  They turned around at the same time. I can hardly explain the double take Jason gave me. It was like an emotional sundae—two scoops of fear with a sprinkle of huh? and a dollop of awkward with excitement on top.

  “Wow, Ellie, hi. Crazy running into you. You guys took off so quickly last night I didn’t get a chance to thank you for doing the show.”

  “Yeah, well, you know freshmen and their pesky curfews.”

  He nodded. I nodded back. That torso. Smooth and tan and apparently filled with a billion bio-magnets, because the entire organ that was my skin gravitated toward it.

  Craig piped up, overenthusiastically, “Hey. I’m Craig, and you two are?”

  “Sorry, sorry, hey, I’m Jason and this is Marissa.”

  “I heard you guys had some fun skits last night. That’s so great,” Marissa said. I winced at our improv set being called skits.

  “Thanks, yeah, Scared Scriptless is a talented team. Very meshy and swirly,” I said. Realizing how weird that must have sounded, I quickly added, “And funny.”

  Jason wore only his board shorts and flip-flops. I’d hoped my feelings last night were a result of the high from the show making everything shinier. But now, in the light of day, he looked even more irresistible than I remembered. Cheers and curses to the world of fashion for making low-riding board shorts a staple in guy’s swimwear.

  I wondered if Craig was having a similar fight to not look at Marissa’s bikini-clad chest.

  But he simply stared despondently at the menu choices.

  I looked back at Jason. At the particular darkness of his choppy-but-not-shaggy brown hair, the way he rocked back and forth on his heels, and again at his shirtlessness. Stop it. It’s just a comedy crush. It’ll pass.

  “So, did you see their show last night?” Marissa asked Craig.

  He brought his eyes back from the menu and shook his head no.