The True Meaning of Cleavage

by Mariah Fredericks

  “Yeah, he’s already bitching and moaning about having to go, but I was, like, ‘Honey, if I’m organizing it, you are going to be there.’”

  And then someone else says, “Have you guys found a place?”

  “We’re looking at some lofts downtown, but they all want a bajillion dollars.”

  Carefully, I shut the door to my locker and turn in the direction of the voices.

  I was right. It’s Thea.

  She and her friend have stopped to get a drink of water. Thea’s leaning against the wall, while her friend drinks from the fountain. Thea’s, like, two feet away from me.

  For some reason, I suddenly feel horribly guilty. Which is dumb. I haven’t done anything to Thea.

  “David says he doesn’t want to go to any parties at all. He’d rather we just take off someplace by ourselves.”

  The friend giggles. “Ooh.”

  I think: This is not good for Sari. This is not good at all.

  Then, as they get ready to move on, Thea looks over in my direction. She smiles, frowns a little, like she knows she’s seen me but can’t remember who I am.

  Then she drops the frown and smiles full out. She says, “Hey,” but not because she really knows me.

  I say, “Hey” back. But quietly.

  Because I just found out something I didn’t want to know.

  Thea’s not an evil person. In fact, she’s kind of nice.

  And David definitely has not dumped her.

  I wonder if Sari knows. I have a feeling she might. I have a feeling that David hasn’t called her, and she knows that means he made a choice—and it’s not her.

  But why hasn’t she said anything?

  I wonder if she thinks I’m sick of it. That I don’t want to hear it anymore.

  Which means she’s feeling rotten all by herself.

  I should let her know it’s okay if she wants to talk about it.

  Later, when I meet up with Sari for lunch, I ask, “So, any interesting phone calls lately?”

  Sari says, “From who?”

  “You know.”

  Sari frowns, like she really can’t figure it out. Then she nods. “Oh. You know, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s like … getting obsessive already. He’ll call when he calls.”

  She sounds all offhand about it, like she couldn’t care less. Sometimes she’ll do this, say she doesn’t want to talk about something—but then she always ends up going back to it. She can’t help herself.

  But not this time. Now she’s going on and on about her Spanish class, and how she doesn’t know how she’s going to pass because she knows, like, two words of Spanish, hola and gracias. And for some strange reason, I feel disappointed. Not that I want Sari to keep going on and on about David Cole, but now that she won’t talk about it, I feel … wrong somehow. Like it’s a dis on me, not David.

  Which is ridiculous. And pathetic on my part. If Sari’s trying to get over David, the last thing I should do is bug her to talk about him.

  As we’re leaving the cafeteria, I say, “Hey, you want to hang out sometime this week? Do a movie maybe?”

  Sari smiles. “Yeah, cool.”

  “Maybe Thursday.”

  For a second, Sari hesitates. I guess it’s hard to think about No More Thursdays with David. But then she says, “Yeah, Thursday’s good.”

  “Maybe even … Bloodsuckers?”

  “No! Definitely not Bloodsuckers.” Sari laughs. “Oh, okay, maybe.”

  I want to hug her for being so brave, for saying she’ll see Bloodsuckers, for being such an ultimately cool human being. But instead, I just promise her Bloodsuckers will be a peak cultural experience, one she will not regret.

  We’re walking up the stairs. Sari stops at the third floor, while I keep heading up to five. She gives me a questioning look, and I point upstairs. “Art.”

  “Oh, right.” Sari nods.

  There’s this pause, and I feel like now, today of all days, she’s going to ask me something about my class. I can’t believe I never told her David was in the class. It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten it was something I was keeping a secret from her.

  I bite my tongue, a reminder to myself not to say anything.

  But all Sari does is open the door and give a little wave good-bye. “Okay, see ya.”

  “Yeah, see ya.”

  This time when I get to class, David’s already sitting at the table in the back. Normally, I would just go sit at my regular place at the end of the table. But today, I stop. Today, I’m not going to sit next to David Cole like he didn’t do anything wrong, like he didn’t hurt anyone.

  Instead, I sit at the table right near the front. The girl I sit next to looks at me like, What are you doing here?

  Ms. Rothstein claps her hands to get our attention. When she has it, she says, “Today is a special day. Today, we begin our first full portrait.”

  Everyone in the class starts clapping and cheering. Including me. Finally, we get to do a real, whole face. I make a big symbolic turn to a fresh page in my pad. I’m totally psyched. At last, I get to finish my Sari portrait. It’s been bugging me all year—somewhere, I still have that old squiggle drawing. And it’s the perfect time to give it to her. Sari loves anything that has to do with how she looks.

  I imagine handing it to her, saying, Here, I thought you might like this. Or, Hey, recognize this person?

  Now Ms. Rothstein is going around the room, handing something out. I half rise off my stool, trying to see what it is.

  “Ah-ah,” she says. “No peeking, Jess.”

  Then she leans over and gives me …

  A mirror.

  Ms. Rothstein turns around and raises her hand. “I should correct something I said earlier. Today, we begin not just a portrait, but a self-portrait.”

  The whole class groans.

  I can’t believe this. Every drop of excitement I felt about my first portrait is gone. I can’t believe we don’t even have a choice, that we have to draw ourselves. I have zilch interest in drawing my face. It’s dull, boring. Some eyes, a nose, a mouth, pressed into a blah, blobby dough.

  Quickly I hold the mirror up, and two narrowed eyes and some ugly teeth flash out at me. Me, I think, and put the mirror facedown. Then, without thinking, I glance over at David.

  He’s got his mirror facedown too.

  That night, I get out my sketch pad and sit cross-legged in front of my closet, which has a mirror on the door. I look down at the blank page, then whip my head really fast, eyes open wide.

  I’m trying to surprise myself. So I can catch the way I look to other people. It doesn’t work. All I see is a staring lunatic in the mirror.

  I think I may hate Ms. Rothstein.

  Okay, okay. Elements. Eyes, ears, mouth. All that stuff we’ve been doing. This is not that hard. I just have to forget it’s me. And I am not that memorable, so this should be easy.

  Right?

  Right.

  Face is … round? Sort of oval? A rectangle. Can a face be a rectangle? Mine can, it seems. But if I do a rectangle, Ms. Rothstein will say I’m doing Frankenstein and flunk me.

  So do just oval. I swing my hand around the page, and suddenly, I have an oval. Maybe I can hand this in, say it’s minimalist. Or … not.

  Okay, hair. I glance up at the mirror again. My hair’s in a ponytail, just this ridge of dark around my forehead, disappearing behind my ears. My reflection is squinting, saying to me, That’s not so interesting. I know if I try to draw it, it’s going to come out as just this thick dark line around the oval.

  Without really thinking about it, I reach back and tug at the elastic band in my hair. It catches, pulls my hair, hurts. I pull harder, and it comes off with a rip of pain and a tangle of torn hair. My hair falls down all around my face, and for a second, I feel smothered. Messy. Sad.

  I glare at the mirror, find my eyes behind the hair. There’s something wild-womanish about it. Not me at all. But I can look at this without feeling too hideously embarra
ssed.

  Until I hear a knock at the door. I leap up, scrabbling to pull my hair back. Call, “Come in.”

  My mom comes in. Carefully, like she’s not sure what to expect.

  “Hi, there.” She glances down at the pad on the floor. “Working?”

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  My mom smiles. “Oh. Phone. For you. I called, but I guess you didn’t hear. You were absorbed.” She smiles again: My little artist. Gag.

  “Who is it? Sari?”

  “No, a boy. Danny?”

  Danny? Danny has never called me before.

  My mom asks, “So, are you home?”

  “Yeah … yeah.” I grab the phone. “Danny?”

  I hear him say, “Hi.” His voice sounds strange. I watch my mom as she slips out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  I say, “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. If you’re watching something, I totally get it….”

  I say, “No, I was drawing.”

  “Oh. More Hollow Planet?”

  “No, dumb school stuff.”

  “Man, I hate that. When you have to do something you like for school, it kind of ruins it.”

  “Yeah, it really does.” Its weird—when you think something is your own idea then you find out someone else has it too.

  For a second, we sit there in agreement. Then Danny says, “Uh, look, uh … I was wondering if you’d seen Bloodsuckers yet.”

  “Oh …” I feel a twist of disappointment in my stomach, and for a second, I wonder if I can see it first with Sari and then with Danny. But I can’t. It’s that kind of movie—the person you see it with is the person you’re scared with, joke about the cheese factor with. You can do all that once, not twice.

  When I give Danny the bad news, he says, “Yeah, I figured you’d already have plans. That’s cool.”

  It’s strange, I have never been the person with the power to make another person feel bad. I bet Erica Trager gets off on it, but it feels rotten to me. Like I have the flu.

  The next day on the bus to school, I try to figure out if there is any way I can get out of seeing Bloodsuckers with Sari. I could say I know she doesn’t want to see it, and tell her she can pick the movie….

  But that feels creepy. Acting nice, when in reality, you’re just being selfish.

  Maybe I’ll ask Danny if he wants to see something else.

  Actually, I think it’s good I’m seeing Bloodsuckers with Sari. Being a good friend is more important than passion any day.

  When I see Sari at the lockers first thing that morning, I feel like it’s fate, like the universe is telling me I did the right thing.

  I say, “So, question.”

  Sari is kneeling on the floor, looking through her Tornado bag, but she nods.

  “Do we want to do dinner first and see the eight thirty show or rush, see the five twenty, and then have dinner? I’d rather do dinner second and discuss, but dinner after Bloodsuckers may not be a good idea. What’s your opinion? We’d like to know,” I say, imitating a certain dweeby talk-show host.

  That imitation usually makes Sari laugh. But not this time. Instead, she stands up and says, “Actually, bad news. I can’t go.”

  “Oh.” This feels much worse than it should, but I manage to keep it out of my voice.

  “Yeah, I should have said something before, but today is just totally not a good day. I have way too much work and …”

  Even Sari knows that claiming she has to do homework is, for her, ridiculous, and she shuts up.

  Pulling at her ring, she says, “Sorry, I should’ve said.”

  I take one last chance. “We don’t have to see Bloodsuckers. We could just have dinner—”

  Sari shakes her head. “No. It’s just that I gotta do something and … you know, maybe another day, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay.” But now I can’t help it. There’s anger in my voice, and all Sari can do is sort of smile and walk away.

  I wish I could say I am surprised when I see her later that afternoon. I wish I could say I am surprised when I see her walk by David Cole and smile at him and he smiles back, like he used to. I wish I could say that I don’t absolutely know whether or not she’s going to see him after school today, that that’s the something she’s “gotta do.”

  But if I did, I’d be lying.

  And right now, I am so, so sick of lies.

  For a long time, I just stand there, watching the place where David and Sari were a few moments ago.

  I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m going to cry, but I can’t.

  I can’t cry because I’m not sad. I’m furious.

  She said she would do it—the words are punching into my brain. She said she would dump him. If he didn’t tell Thea, it was over. She said she would never put up with that.

  But she is just a cheap, pathetic liar.

  I can’t believe that all this time I’ve been feeling so bad for her, she’s probably been seeing David, exactly the same as always. I feel so stupid.

  I can feel that my face is all red. So I go the bathroom to wash my face and get it together before class. I don’t know if I choose it or if it’s by accident, but I get the stall with the Top Ten Sluts list.

  After Sari’s name, someone has written Yes!

  And I think, Good.

  In biology, Ms. Feiffer asks us to identify the muscle in the body that’s constantly held in a state of tension.

  I want to say, All of them.

  I can’t believe her. I can’t believe she just lied to me about it. That she pretended she wasn’t seeing David when she was. What kind of freak is she? What kind of sad, pathetic loser?

  How can she think we’re friends after this?

  Maybe she doesn’t.

  Thank God, thank God, thank God I have no classes with her today. Thank God I don’t have to see her again. Because I don’t know. I’m where words aren’t any good. Unless maybe you scream them.

  All I have left today is algebra. After that, I can just go home and figure this out.

  I get there early and pick a chair at one of the tables in the back. There’s still lots of seats left, so when Erica and her crew come in, they can sit far, far away.

  But here’s the weird thing: When Erica comes in, she comes in alone. And instead of waiting at an empty table for her crew, she slides in right next to me.

  Then she says, “Hi there.”

  I look around. It can only be me she is speaking to. There is actually no one else at the table.

  “I like your pen,” she says.

  It’s my dark green one, the one with the fat nib that’s flat on one side, so you can use it for calligraphy. I wonder if Erica would like the pen so much if she knew I have used it to write Erica Trager sucks over and over in my notebook.

  I decide not to find out. Instead, I say, “Thanks. I like it myself.”

  I wait for Erica to move. But she doesn’t. I think: Okay, overnight, I must have become popular. Erica Trager does not willingly sit within five feet of anyone who is not popular. Their Unpopular Germs might get on her, make her fat or break out or something. I mean, it’s one thing to talk to someone in the lunchroom. It’s absolutely another to sit next to them when you don’t have to.

  So I must be popular, right?

  Then Mr. McGuiness asks us to open our books to page 52. As we do, Erica leans closer—Watch those Geek Germs, Erica—and says, “I totally hate math. I am, like, so bad at it.”

  This is my chance to be cruel. If I want her to go away, I can make it happen by saying, What are you, like, actually good at, Erica?

  But I don’t. I’m weirdly curious as to why Erica is sitting here, risking her coolness rating by quite a lot. (Sitting next to Jess Horvath? Bzzz. Minus two billion cool points. As punishment, you must ruin your nails and go without hair gel for one week!)

  Instead, I whisper, “I suck at math too.”

  Erica looks completely amazed. “No way. You are, like, so smart.”

  Now
Erica Trager thinks I’m smart. Erica, are you on drugs?

  “Can I ask you a question?” Erica asks, not getting that she’s already asked me one.

  “Shoot.” I start drawing short, sharp lines in the margin of my notebook.

  “Why are you friends with Sari Aaronsohn?”

  At first, I can’t believe this is what Erica wants to know. And then I can’t believe how I react.

  Which is to wonder, Why am I friends with Sari Aaronsohn?

  Answer: I’m not at all sure. But I can’t tell that to Erica.

  Mr. McGuiness asks Matt McCauley to solve a problem. While Matt tries, I mutter, “I like Sari.”

  “I know, but why? She’s so dumb.”

  Yeah, like you’re Einstein’s niece, I want to say. But before I can, Erica adds, “Not that I’m, like, any great genius, but she just seems … nasty.” A little shudder, to make sure I get the point.

  “Well, she isn’t.”

  “But isn’t she, like, chasing after David Cole?”

  So this is the reason for my sudden popularity. For Erica’s immunity to my Geek Germs. She wants to know what’s going on between Sari and David.

  As I think about this, it occurs to me that I should have said something several seconds ago: I don’t know or None of your business.

  But for some reason, I didn’t.

  I feel it swelling up inside me—the yes, the admission, the truth.

  Erica whispers, “There’s something going on, right? Between Sari and David?”

  What is it, this need to tell? This need to see the expression on Erica’s face when I say yes? The need to know more than any of them?

  Sari thinks this is her little special thing that no one else will ever know or be a part of.

  I think: They only get away with it if no one tells the truth.

  And before I know it, I say to Erica Trager, “That’s right.”

  12

  —Hollow Planet: Destiny’s Sword Gaping in astonishment, he staggered backward. His hand outstretched as if to wave off the evil before him, he whispered, “You? It was you?”

  The second the words come out of my mouth, I think, Wait … Did I really say that out loud?