THE PARK
Needless to say, when we got to the park, I wasn’t in the best mood.
“Oh my God, Layla, where have you been all my life?” Sage asked, as if they hadn’t left us.
Valeria, Cadence, Melody, and Sloane all turned at the sound of our approach, and I bit my bottom lip hard to stop myself from rolling my eyes.
“Hey,” Layla said coolly. She hugged them each, like she hadn’t just seen them an hour earlier. “You g-g-guys remember my friend, right?”
Layla looped her arm through mine, which was a bit of a relief. It made me feel a little less invisible. At least Layla cared I was there, even if no one else did.
“Yeah. Your phone went off during my audition,” Sloane said, like that was the only interaction we’d ever had. Layla looked scandalized.
It happened right after I texted Layla to tell her how well she’d done, and it was Layla’s response to me that caused the sound to echo through the auditorium just as Sloane was about to start her solo. “Sorry about that,” I said, scratching my neck, which I could feel heating up.
“It’s cool,” Sloane said. But it didn’t sound like it was.
“Chloe, right?” Sage said, tilting her head so her layered black hair fell to one side. She was wearing a thin silver headband, and I knew if my mother could have her way, this was how she’d want me to look: contacts instead of glasses; pink nails instead of unpolished ones; relaxed hair instead of braids. Sage pulled some ChapStick out of her pocket and put it on while she waited for me to answer, and the metal headband glinted in the sun.
“Cleo,” I said back. I could hear how unfriendly my voice sounded. To be honest, the Chloe mistake was a common one. But I couldn’t hide how little I wanted to be there, how much I didn’t care to talk to these girls whom my friend seemed desperate to impress.
“Right,” Sage said, smacking her lips. She didn’t apologize for getting it wrong.
We clustered together right there near the fountain, talking about music and feminism; how much we hated the president and boys. Sage said she liked my braids, and Cadence asked me where I’d found my “crazy-cool” boots, and Valeria asked how I’d gotten so into jazz-age music. Layla was in the middle of it all, cracking jokes and being cynical and as the girls laughed and touched her shoulders, I felt happy for her.
They seemed to get her. They liked her in the exact way she wanted them to, without being a different version of herself. I smiled at how they all seemed to be welcoming her into their fold, and after a while I was laughing and enjoying myself too. I didn’t feel as out of place as I expected, and I surprisingly felt a little guilty about not wanting to come out in the first place.
Even though it was September, the weather was still sunny and warm. There was a guy with a huge bucket of soapy water blowing giant, wobbly bubbles that little kids and dogs chased and popped. There were people tossing coins into the fountain water—closing their eyes and making wish after wish. Tourists were everywhere. I slipped out of my denim jacket and stepped closer to the Chorus Girls. Maybe my “problem” with them was all in my head.
Just then, Sloane pivoted toward me and said, “So how did you and Layla, like, become friends?” She tilted her head and smiled, and up close I could see that her red hair made her cheeks seem rosier than they really were. She still looked innocent and sweet, her braces shiny and bright when she smiled, but then she added, “I mean, you two are just so different.”
There was nothing inherently mean in the question itself, but it landed hard and heavy on my shoulders. I could tell this was a test. It was her way of asking me to prove something—though what, I wasn’t sure.
“We met at a barbecue right before we started middle school,” I said. “I was sad, and Layla hung out with me the whole afternoon. She made me feel better.” I looked up at her. “She’s good at that. And after that summer we were kinda inseparable. We had each other’s backs no matter what.”
Layla grinned and looked down at me. “Yep. And we’re really not that d-different, Sloane. You just d-d-don’t know C-C-C-Cleo like I do.”
Sloane seemed unimpressed. “Huh,” she said, and it sounded like, That’s it? Or maybe, That’s nothing. But it was everything to me. My skin suddenly felt too tight and I didn’t want to be standing so close to her. I took a step back.
It might sound dramatic, but sometimes it felt like my friendship with Layla was a miracle. Sloane was right about one thing: we were different. But Layla saved me when I was the saddest I’ve ever been. I’ll never forget that.
When my phone buzzed, I took it as an opportunity to move away from Sloane’s dismissal. It was a text from my mom that said, Tell your father I’ll be working late tonight.
Why don’t you text him?
I did. I haven’t heard back from him, so if you’re still at school can you let him know?
I hated when they got into these moods where they didn’t want to talk to each other and they used me as a messenger. Daddy clearly hadn’t told her I was hanging out with friends after school either.
Fine, I sent, and then I forwarded Mom’s message to him.
What else is new? he sent back pretty much immediately. I kind of grinned. He was right. She was late almost every night these days. My phone buzzed again with another message from my dad.
DADDY-DAUGHTER PIZZA PARTY?
I sent him a dozen pizza emojis as a yes.
Instead of walking back over, I sent a message to Layla:
I’m kinda bored. Can we leave soon?
When she didn’t text back right away, I went looking for a bathroom. I normally would have never gone to the public restroom at a park, but after chugging that milkshake, desperate times called for desperate measures.
I pushed my way into the bathroom and it wasn’t as awful as I expected. The floor was inexplicably wet, but it didn’t smell too bad and most of the toilets were functional. As soon as I was done, still hovering over the seat and being extra careful not to touch anything, I heard the door creak open.
“Cady, this place is gross.” It really wasn’t. “You’re not actually going to go in here, are you?”
“Ew, no. I just had to ask you something.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, followed closely by the thought: Crap. It was Cadence and Melody. I didn’t want them to know I’d just taken a pee in the bathroom they’d deemed unfit for human use, so I froze where I was, toilet-tissue wad in hand.
“What do you think of Layla? Like, honestly.”
“Honestly? She’s cute and cool. And her voice is amazeballs. But her friend is kinda a hanger-on.”
“Oh my God, right? That’s what I thought too! Stalker-vibes, almost.”
“Totally,” Melody said. “Like, why’s she even still here? It’s obviously not her scene.”
“Sloane’s not into the friend either,” Cadence confirmed.
I have a damn name was what I wanted to shout. I’m not some throwaway person. But I stayed hidden; I stayed quiet. I couldn’t react to their words because if I did, it would be all over school in a nanosecond. I knew Melody’s reputation for not being able to keep her mouth shut—and if Cadence knew anything, you could assume Melody would within the hour, which was basically like buying a billboard or shouting the information from a rooftop. So I waited, and once they were gone I cleaned myself up, washed my hands, and headed back toward the fountain.
When I found Layla, I leaned in close. “How long do you want to hang out?” I whispered. I didn’t mention what Cadence and Melody had said, because they were all standing so close.
“I d-d-don’t know,” she whispered back. She was still huddled between Sloane and Valeria. “I think everyone’s g-g-g-going to go g-g-get food in a little bit.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to hide the instant disappointment I felt. “Well…can I tell you something?”
; “Layla,” Sloane said, like she didn’t see me talking to her. “Have you ever thought about straightening your hair?”
“Oh yeah,” Layla said. “I straighten it sssometimes, but it t-takes forever.”
Sloane fingered a strand of Layla’s fat waves. I wanted to slap her hand away. “Oh,” she said, but I’d never heard an Oh that said as much as that one did.
For a tiny second, Layla looked a little unsure of herself, maybe even hurt, but she recovered quickly. “I mean, it d-d-doesn’t take that long,” she said. Sloane shrugged, and I tugged at Layla’s arm.
“Bathroom,” I whispered, and she finally peeled away from them to go with me.
“Where does Sloane get off telling you how to do your own hair?” I said once we were back inside the restroom. Layla was standing in front of the sink and mirrors.
“I don’t know,” she said softly. Layla was tugging at a few strands of her hair where they fell to loosely frame her face. She pulled two wide tendrils straight, let them bounce back into place, then pulled them straight again.
“You two are sooo different,” I said nasally. “What was that about?”
Layla shrugged. A second later she said, “Do you think it looks b-b-better straight?” On any other occasion I would have given her my honest opinion: that it looks good either way. That I like it best when she braids it into cool crowns and stuff because I don’t know how to do complicated styles. But because of Sloane’s comment, I said, “It looks perfect just the way it is, Lay.”
Her reflection smiled at me in the mirror, but she didn’t turn around. I stepped up to the sink, careful not to touch it.
“I heard Melody and Cadence saying they don’t like me,” I told her.
Layla frowned. “Really?”
“Yeah. So can we just go?”
Layla had been watching my eyes in the mirror, looking at me without really looking at me. But after I finished speaking she turned to face me. She tugged at a few tufts of her hair again.
“I’m sure they d-d-didn’t mean it, C-Cleo. I mean, they asked us to c-c-c-come meet them, right?” Layla looked back at the mirror version of me. “That has to count for something.”
But they didn’t invite me, and maybe that was what Layla was forgetting. They invited her. I felt it in my ribs, the pain of her refusal to immediately write off someone who was hurting me, to protect me the way she always had in the past. It fractured something inside me—her choice to be loyal to them instead.
I didn’t know what to say next, so I pushed open the bathroom door. When we got a little closer to the fountain she looked down at me, then over at everyone else. For a second she went all breathless, her stutter catching the words in her throat before they could creep past her lips, and it felt like a sign; a warning that I wouldn’t like what she said next.
“You mmmind if I stay here a little longer?” she asked.
“I guess I don’t,” I said, lying to myself and to her. “Maybe I’ll see you later?”
I said it like a question, but Layla didn’t answer. She just smiled. And as I walked away alone, past the other girls, I waved goodbye, but my heart wasn’t in it.
“Bye, Chloe!” Sage said enthusiastically. And someone else said, “OMG, Sage. It’s Cleo,” but I didn’t look back to see who.
“I didn’t even invite her,” I heard one of them say when they thought I was too far away to hear. I didn’t turn my head for that either. I knew in my bones it was Sloane. A second later, I got a text from Layla.
Y.O.E.
For the first time, I wasn’t sure I believed her.
now
LOLLY & POP
I still go to meet Dom at Dolly’s after school, even though Ms. Novak told me he doesn’t need me. Some part of me wants to find out why he asked for my help with the paper in the first place, but mostly I’m just happy that he did. I want to pretend that he’s who I’m assigned to tutor instead of Layla, if only for a little while. Plus, if Sunday is any indication, Dom has the uncanny ability to make me feel better just by being himself.
The street is quiet save for the occasional jogger and small surges of noisy, busy people exiting the subway station on the corner. I ignore them all and look up at the sky, wondering what it might be like to live in a place with less light pollution—where I might be able to see dozens of constellations—stars worth defying, as Shakespeare wrote.
When Dom comes out of the restaurant, he’s wearing a dark peacoat and he’s wrapping a thick black scarf around his neck. He smiles at me and I can’t help but return the grin.
“So, where to?” I ask, taking a small step away from him. Dom takes a beanie out of his pocket and pulls it down over his ears.
“Jesus, it’s freezing,” he says. He looks over at me and then reaches out and tucks the tail of my scarf against the only bit of my neck that’s still visible. His hands smell sweet, like the soap from the diner bathroom, and they’re warm against my skin. But I still shiver at the contact.
“My place is just a few blocks away,” Dom says. “I live with my Lolly and Pop.”
I grin and quirk one of my eyebrows. We start walking, and I look at him out of the corner of my eye. “Your who and what?” I ask.
He coughs out a laugh and lifts his backpack higher onto his shoulders with his thumbs. Steam from our warm mouths fills the cold air between us, and I imagine it forming the shapes of his words. “I meant, I live with my grandparents.” He looks at me, and if his skin weren’t the rich brown of molasses cookies, I think I’d be able to see Dom blushing. “But, uh, yeah. Lolly and Pop. That’s what I call them.”
“Oh my God, Dom. That might be the cutest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Please,” I say. I press my hands together like I’m about to pray. “Please explain to me how this immeasurable cuteness came to be.”
It feels nice to be out of my own head. To be distracted by a beautiful boy on a beautiful night. Dom reaches into his pocket again, and this time he pulls out gloves. He nudges me with his elbow, and the streetlights make his face glow.
“Well, the short version of the story is that Lolly is what I call my grandmother. Her first name is Dolores, Dolly for short, and when I was a kid I couldn’t really say her name right.”
I nod and grin a little more while keeping my eyes on the ground, watching the steps we take in tandem. “Dolly of Dolly’s Diner fame,” I say. I hear a smile in his voice when he answers.
“Right. And I called my granddad Pop-Pop when I was little, and as I got older it shortened itself to just Pop or, you know, Pops.” He pauses. “You ever notice how language changes over time like that?”
It sounds like a rhetorical question, so I don’t say anything. But when Dom doesn’t continue, I glance away from the sidewalk and up at him. He’s looking at me like he’s waiting for me to speak up. So I nod.
“Yeah,” I say, because I think about language all the time. “Like, with my Granny Georgina. I always called her Gigi, which was her nickname for her whole life because it was short for Georgina. But it was also, ironically, the initials of my name for her: G.G. Words are kind of incredible that way. They have a mind of their own. But I guess the coolest thing about it is that by changing your language, you can change the way you experience the world. If that makes any sense.”
When I look over again, Dom’s still watching me. “It makes perfect sense, Shorty,” he says.
I hesitate, then continue before I overthink what to say. “Calling my grandmother Gigi made me feel more grown-up than I was, you know? And hearing you call your grandparents Lolly and Pop changed the way I saw you right away.”
“Wait,” he says. He touches my arm and stops walking. For the moment, there’s no one else on this part of the street. The whole block feels like it belongs to us. “How’d you see me before you knew about the Lolly-and-Pop thing?”
“You mean h
ow did I see you literally five minutes ago?” I joke. He nods and he looks so serious. “Oh, I don’t know,” I say.
“You do!” he says, and then, softly: “Can you please tell me?”
The dark feels darker with the sound of Dom’s voice filling the space between us, making me crave more quiet evenings and cold nights like this one. The darkness makes me love living in a place where taking a short walk with a boy after a day full of stress and sadness can feel like magic.
“You’re Dominic Grey,” I say. “You’re…I don’t know. This new boy who was instantly popular. You’re a smartass and girls like you and you’re on the soccer team already. You have these haircuts and all the coolest shoes. And though I’ve seen you do magic, which I guess is pretty nerdy”—he laughs at this—“I never would have guessed you’d be so into cooking that you’d work for free in a diner kitchen or call your grandparents such cute things. I thought you’d be into, like, cars and rap music or something.”
He bites his lip. Then he nods. When he blinks, I can’t help but notice how curly his eyelashes are—they nearly double back to touch his eyelids. He says, “Romanticizing people is dangerous, Cleopatra.”
I squint at him. “Now I’m Cleopatra?” I ask. “Why can’t you just call me by my actual name?”
He shrugs. “Change your language to change how you experience the world, right? I’m gonna call you Cleopatra, if that’s cool with you. I wanna challenge you to experience the world a little differently. Maybe if I call you Cleopatra, instead of Shorty”—he grins, and I groan—“you’ll start to think a little bigger.”
When You Were Everything Page 7
