by Matthue Roth
So no, my parents knew about my distaste for Youth Group. They asked me about it anyway, though. I think out of a vain hope that I would meet more friends than just Larissa, or just some normal people.
The lasagna was good, though.
Over second helpings they asked about school, how it was going, and what we were working on. That, I could do. “In math, mostly it’s quadratic equations, but Dr. Bonner was telling us about string theory yesterday,” I said. “It’s a hobby of his, he says. Mostly everyone was zoning out, but I was really finding it interesting. And in English, we’re reading Wuthering Heights.”
“Wuthering Heights? Already?” said my mom. “I don’t remember reading that till eleventh or twelfth grade.”
“Maybe because your teachers were merciful,” I snarked, my mouth full of pasta sheets and eggplant.
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t hate it. I really like reading those long Victorian-style sentences, and there’s a little bit of an episodic plot twist thing, which I like. But Heathcliff and that Catharine lady—”
Oh no. I’d opened up to my parents, started talking to them honestly about my own thoughts and feelings, and now I’d fallen into the classic sand trap. Discussing girls with them. Possibly even relationships.
“Yes?” prodded my mother, anxious to keep the lifeblood of this conversation flowing.
“They don’t shut up. They’re consumed with each other and everything, but it’s getting to the point where it’s a little absurd. It’s like they have nothing else to do with their lives except mope over each other.”
“Well, that’s how some people are when they’re in love,” said my father.
“That isn’t love, it’s being stupid. They ignore the most blindingly obvious things. I mean, I know how it is, but they don’t even try to help each other along or just talk to each other. Emily Bronte is completely clueless about what love’s really like. Their whole lives stop. They never go outside of their lame mansions. Even though they’re right there and they could, and it wouldn’t just make their relationship easier, it would make their whole lives better....”
“That’s just how love works for some people,” my father offered. “You feel strongly about someone, but life goes on.” He was chuckling, but good-naturedly. He wasn’t making fun of me just because I was critiquing an author who’d been dead a couple of hundred years and had probably sold about a billion dollars’ worth of books.
“You know how it is, is that what you said?” said my mother. Her eyes sparkled with amusement. “Do you mean, you’ve been in love?”
“I don’t mean that,” I said. “I just mean, I have an idea how it works when you have feelings for someone.”
“Well, I know you haven’t spent forty years pining away over someone, but who were you referring to?” she asked. “Anyone we know?”
“No, Mom, it’s not,” I said. “And if it was, do you really think I’d tell you?”
“You don’t have to tell me.” She realized how that sounded, and then she said, “No, I mean—it’s fine, you can have your secrets—”
“Ugh.” I threw my head down toward the lasagna. I wish I would’ve thrown myself all the way into it.
“Olga,” warned my father gently.
“You’re always telling me how smart I am,” I said, louder than I should have. “So how come you’re saying that I can’t know what love is like? Aren’t I just a little perceptive about human emotions?”
“I’m not saying anything!” my mother protested. “Everyone’s entitled to have their own bonds that connect you to other people, whether we’re talking about Catharine and Heathcliff or Arthur. I just think, if nothing’s wiped you out totally and completely, than it probably isn’t true love, the kind that they’re talking about in the book.”
“Are you talking about Tony?” I shot back. Tony was my mother’s boyfriend, the one she’d had in high school before she met my dad.
Her face sealed up tighter than Shabbat dinner leftovers. Lips squeezed together, cheeks puffed in. My father leaped up from the table.
“Young man—”
“Dad, it isn’t fair—”
“Don’t tell us what’s fair! You don’t talk to your mother that way.”
“But she doesn’t get it. She just insulted me—”
He pursed his lips and listened. He was waiting for me to finish. I knew he was on my side, even a little. He could see my point. I just couldn’t stop talking.
“You guys think that just because I’m younger, I don’t understand this stuff, I don’t experience things as vividly? Maybe you don’t understand. Maybe you’ve never felt anything this intense—”
I was losing him. I think it was the you guys part. I shouldn’t have lumped him and my mom together. That’s how you make enemies.
Fortunately—fortunately for all of us—my phone took the opportunity to ring just then.
I could see my father heating up, getting ready to tell me not to answer it or he’d take it away or something. Using my most well-honed quicker-than-thou video gamer instincts, without thinking about it or waiting for the second ring or checking to see who it was, my thumb jammed the SEND key and I picked up.
I held it out, a foot or so away from my body, as though it was my hostage and I wasn’t letting go of it till we were out of there. Easy, now. Treat me with respect and nobody gets hurt.
Neither of them said a thing. My father’s face reddened, puffed up, and then deflated. The humiliation of defeat was in his eyes.
The words LARISSA FLEISHMAN were like healing salve to me, the knowledge that soon I would be away from all of this, that I could agonize to her how my parents tried to force me to talk about love, how they were only with each other because of convenience, and they were both really boring people, and she would empathize with torrid stories of her own parents.
“I’m going to take this in my room. I’ll be back,” I said to them, knowing that I wouldn’t.
a functional unit
I used to be jealous of people like us. The jocks, the conventionally hot kids, the people who had people just like them to hang out with. I pretended I was disgusted by them and their identicality and their conformity, but really I wished there were fewer of them and more of me. Or just more of me. Even Carrie Moss and her pack of weirdos, who wore lots of black and eyeshadow and might abuse puppies or just did a lot of drugs, I hated them most of all. How could those people who purposefully repelled everyone else have a group of friends, and I was the only person I knew who was remotely like myself? It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t fair.
Or maybe it was. Maybe I just had to be on my own until I found Larissa and the others.
Except that the others were, each in their own way, super annoying. Crash Goldberg knew all the words to The Raven, all eighteen verses of it, and would sing it aloud, belting it out like a metal song, over and over again for hours. Damon was always trying to get everyone to stay at his house and play video games, or to go to someone else’s house and play video games, or threatening to not show up at all.
And Mitch Martin was always inviting other people along without telling anyone, and without asking if it was okay. He pulled up in that gas-guzzling mutant car of his and it was always a surprise, who was riding in his side seat? Usually a girl. She laughed along with the rest of us and acted really interested in what we had to say, but we could tell, she had no idea, and Mitch would have to explain all our references.
Then he would do something grandiose and unexpectedly nice—like offering to buy everyone falafel—except that, in doing so, he’d also somehow decided that we were all going out to falafel, and not pizza or the vegan hippy place or Vietnamese.
Thinking about it now, in retrospect, it feels like bribery. Or like we were the high-school equivalent of Pavlov’s Dogs. Buy us food, and we will believe everything you say. We’ll believe in you.
But back when it was happening, all it felt like was: He likes us. This is ho
w much he likes us.
Some of us—Damon, for example—were perfectly happy to accept. “It’s free food,” he said, his mouth stuffed, traces of hummus caught around the corners. “Don’t ask questions.” Not everyone went down so gently. Crash left the restaurant and ran to the Tamale Lady on the corner, bought some tamales, and smuggled them back into the falafel shop. He lifted forkfuls of polenta and chili sauce into his mouth, baiting the rest of us by its very smell.
“Hey, bud, I don’t know if you’re allowed to do that,” Mitch said.
“It’s your fault,” Crash shot back. “I always have tamales Thursday nights. You should’ve checked my Internet calendar, you would’ve known.”
The rest of us couldn’t figure out what to say. It was hard to tell when Crash was joking and when he was serious. I laughed it off. Crash was from the city, like me, so we were always sort of on the same side. Mitch scowled.
Another time, we were walking on South Street. No destination, just walking. It was cold out, the sort of cold where puffs of smoke come out of your mouth and you try to act like it’s just cigarette smoke. It was a weekend night, sort of late, and we were all starting to act silly. Crash was climbing up the fences and drainpipes of historic buildings. Damon was going onto different people’s Internet connections as we passed their houses and uploading mp3s from Rocky Horror onto their hard drives. Larissa was watching him over his shoulder and giggling. I remember being mildly annoyed, and wanting to dive into a private conversation with her alone, except that tonight it really didn’t bother me. I was in love with all of us, and in love with this weird misfitty superteam we’d fallen into, and in love with the night and with the downtown cobblestone streets and, for once, with life itself.
Mitch, for no reason, put on a British accent. He kept calling Larissa “milady” and me “garcon,” which was French, not British, and I was waiting for the right moment to point that out. We hit a red light and Mitch took off his hat and waved it impatiently at the traffic post.
“Change, damn thee!” he bellowed.
Larissa lay her hand on his arm. “Constable Martin, a modicum of patience might behoove you,” she said softly, teasing but also serious.
“Patience is for those who can’t afford otherwise.” He sniffed. The light took that opportunity to change to green.
Now we were standing on the edge of Center City. On the far side of the traffic light, South Street ended in a bridge. Beneath it, a 200-foot drop, was a highway. After that, the Delaware River.
We ran madly across, all of us gripped by this wild need to be on the other side, the dark side. Crash was first, running on all fours. The rest of us were nearly as unhinged. My lungs were heaving. It was great.
As soon as we were on the other side, we regressed back to our normal selves. Mostly.
“By Jove,” said Mitch, taking Larissa by the arm, “I think I needed that.”
“I’m sure you did,” said Damon, a little unsettled.
“And what’s with the accent?” I said.
“Vhat accent do you mean? Ah, thees accent?” He tried to exaggerate it. Now it sounded even more rubbery and fake.
“Seriously, where did it come from?” said Larissa. “You sound like Dr. Jekyll.”
“Ahh,” said Mitch, getting louder, “But perhaps I am only waiting to turn into Mr. Hyde.”
His fingers snaked around her waist, both hands, and lifted her in the air.
“Mitch!” she shrieked. Playful, but with a slight edge.
“Who ees this Meech? My name is Edvard Hyde!” He kept raising her up.
“Stopit!” Larissa’s fists pummeled his shoulders.
“Call me Edvahrrrrd!”
“Edward.” I tugged on his sleeve. “Come on. This isn’t funny.”
Damon gestured frantically from behind Mitch to never mind it, just don’t mess with him. Deb and Crash saying, Mitch, you’re starting to get a little scary.
Mitch, in his Victorian Freddy Krueger voice, rasped, “Everyone’s a critic.” He looked up to Larissa to see how she was doing.
Larissa was trying to at once maintain her composure, appear dignified, and keep her skirt from snaking up too high. While being suspended above our heads. It wasn’t easy, but she was doing a reasonable job of it. Mitch stopped and blinked up at her, as if to ask for her opinion—or as if he’d just put himself on pause.
“Down,” she said flatly.
Mitch’s face changed. His posture cleared, although he still had Larissa in suspension above him. Before, he looked like King Kong. Now he was like a father lifting up his daughter.
“Alright. You want to go down? Here’s down.”
Still holding her, Mitch stepped onto the handrail of the bridge itself. One huge Nike straddled the handrail. That was all that was holding up both of them.
A tall fence lined each side of the bridge. Although the fence didn’t look so tall now, with Mitch standing next to it. With Larissa still in his hands, he lifted her over the fence, and—gently, almost tenderly—set her down on the far side.
He hopped off the handrail, then stepped back to admire his work.
I got a jolt—something between jealousy and alarm. I tried to meet Larissa’s eyes with my own. Do you need help? I wasn’t sure if they were playing, or if this was real. I waited for her to look at me. She didn’t.
Larissa stood on a narrow ledge. It couldn’t have been more than three or four inches wide, the area on the far side of the fence. Beyond that, just air. A 200-foot drop to the highway.
“Mitch,” she said. Her voice shook with a mix of horror, disgust, and something resembling fascination. “You complete sycophant.”
She was wearing heels. Not those intense, practically-vertical heels, the kind that were ostensibly forbidden in school but girls wore them anyway, but also not relaxed, easy-to-walk-in, lounging-around shoes either. These were fashionably aerodynamic white studded ankle-boots with stiff heels, pointy toes, and a sideways cut that revealed, if we were being completely honest, a fleetingly meaty glimpse of toe cleavage.
Larissa rotated herself so her feet were both firmly situated on the ledge, and aimed them toward the far end of the bridge. The ledge wasn’t long, six or eight inches in width. To one side of her was the fence. To the other, nothing but air, a hundred-foot drop onto the highway below. She took her time. Usually she was meticulous with her body, every movement planned and perfectly executed, but this—this was high art. She didn’t even hold onto the fence.
Soon she was at the stairs.
She took them carefully, pausing after each one. The stairs were trickier than the bridge surface. Nothing to support her, nowhere to hold onto as she shifted her center of balance from one step to the next. We thundered down past her, down to solid ground. Larissa was still only halfway. We held our breath. We waited for her to rejoin us, to say that everything was okay, or to simply wave at us or give us a sign. She didn’t. She didn’t even see us. She didn’t acknowledge our existence until she touched ground.
The first thing Larissa did when she landed was to take off her heels. She slipped her feet out of them, stepped behind them, and then hurled them straight into the Delaware River. First left, then right. The river was right there. Two quick splashes, and they were gone.
The second thing she did was to slap Mitch in the face. It was loud, much louder than I expected a slap to sound like. It also looked pretty severely embarrassing. His head jerked back.
Then she turned to me and said, “Arty, could you please hail us a taxi?”
I’d never hailed a taxi before. Also, we weren’t exactly in an optimal place for it. This was a deserted spot off the highway that was only in operation as a tourist area, and that only during the day.
Despite both those things, I managed to hop over the wall of bushes that was designed to keep tourists from wandering onto the road, avoided getting hit and injured by that very same traffic, and attracted the attention of an oncoming taxi that happened to be empty,
and happened to be piloted by a very courteous recent immigrant who either didn’t know the rules about only fitting four people into a taxi, or didn’t care.
Five of us piled into the back seat. Mitch sat in front. We could’ve left him alone—he certainly deserved it after that, and none of the rest of us would’ve protested—but when the taxi pulled over, he walked over to it with the rest of us. Nobody said anything. Also, he’d gotten a ride down here with Larissa, and we couldn’t abandon him here. Even considering what he’d done, none of us would’ve taken the responsibility of leaving him by the river alone. That’s the biggest difference between being in school together and knowing people in actual adult life, I think. In real life, you could just abandon an unrelenting jerk like Mitch. But we were in Hebrew School together, and we knew that a Sunday or a Tuesday or a Thursday would come, and we’d have to live with seeing him again.
Loser or not, Mitch was our loser. It was a weird moment, but we’ve all had moments like that. And he acted like nothing had happened, like the entire thing had just been one big wacky joke, and Larissa didn’t say anything, so we acted like that too. We forgave him and brought him along as we stepped out of that taxi—Damon baffled, Crash still playing with the onboard computer, me staggering out, one leg asleep, and Larissa, who’d stared out the window that whole ride and said nothing, walking with perfect posture and long slender legs held straight, not wincing or flinching as the bare bottoms of her feet touched the cobblestone Center City street.
