Tell It to Naomi

by Daniel Ehrenhaft

She looked right at me. “No, I’m sorry. I should explain.” Her demeanor suddenly became businesslike. “See, I started talking to Mr. Newbury because I found out that he helps run the school newspaper. Or he’s going to, once it gets up and running this year. And since he’s new, like me, I figured he might be more open to certain ideas than other teachers. See, I had this idea . . She rolled her eyes, as if embarrassed. “Okay, I’m rambling. Sorry! I wanted to write a story about real journalists. You know, about the real craft of investigative reporting, about finding human stories. And he said that he has a friend who’s a real journalist—or is applying for a job as one—and that this friend has a little brother who’s a student here… Her voice trailed off again. “You can probably fill in the blanks.”

  I can? All I had were blanks. She might as well have been speaking in Urdu. I was still trying to get over the miracle: Here I am, talking to Celeste Fanucci. Here I am, taking my first steps across the unbridgeable chasm. If only Jed Beck were present to bear witness. But why was this conversation even taking place? There were no celebrities in sight, no skeletons lumbering toward us. I had to get a grip. I could feel the clock ticking. Once again I was running late for Algebra II. I fought the urge to bolt.

  Say something, Dave. You look like a fool. Say something.

  “Are you some sort of couples therapist?” I asked.

  I don’t know why I said this. It was both moronic and totally deranged. (Have you ever heard of a seventeen-year-old couples therapist?) More importantly, it was in no way related to human stories, investigative reporting, the school paper, or Joel Rump-Grabber. It just popped out of my mouth, apropos of zilch—in the tradition of Grandpa Meyer. I guess it might have had something to do with the staying-friends-after-a-breakup comment she’d made. Maybe. But even then it didn’t make much sense.

  Celeste threw her head back and started cracking up.

  So it seemed I was a comedian. Good. That was something.

  Her laughter was pretty loud, in fact. And it didn’t stop.

  I cast a furtive glance in either direction. Jesus. Celeste Fanucci may have looked like a delicate green polka-dotted flower, but she laughed like an old drunk. She shrieked and cackled and stamped her Birkenstocks. A tear fell from her cheek.

  Finally she managed to calm down.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just … Wow. You’re pretty smart, you know that?”

  I blinked. “I am?”

  She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “No—I mean, yeah. It’s just that my old principal once asked me the same thing. Only he said it in a much meaner way.” She lowered her voice and scowled at me. “Young lady, do you fancy yourself some kind of couples therapist?” She paused. “Did Mr. Newbury tell you about my column?”

  “Your … column?”

  “I used to write an advice column for my old school newspaper,” she said.

  “Oh.” I forced another clumsy smile. “You know, maybe you should start at the beginning. I’m a little lost.”

  The bell rang.

  Celeste glanced at her watch, buried beneath a jumble of silver bangles and friendship bracelets. “Oh, man, I got art history right now,” she said. She grinned apologetically and started backing away from me, toward the stairwell. “I’m sorry I’m such a total freak. Listen, I’ll catch up with you later. It’s … Gabe, right?”

  “Dave,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Ugh! I’m sorry, Dave! I’m a huge space case. Hey, you don’t think your sister would mind if I called her today, do you? Mr. Newbury gave me her number.”

  I opened my mouth to say that no, of course Naomi wouldn’t mind—but then I hesitated.

  Naomi wouldn’t mind, obviously. She’d probably be flattered. It might even take her mind off her crappy job situation for a while. But that wasn’t really the point. The point was that she would probably use the call as an opportunity to tell Celeste that I wanted to “bang” her. Forget probably—she definitely would. And I couldn’t allow that to happen.

  So … what? I could make something up. Yes. I could tell Celeste that Naomi was out of town today, so Celeste should call her tomorrow. Perfect. That way I would have all night to convince Naomi (through a series of violent beatings) that she would end up at the bottom of the East River if she so much as hinted that I had a crush on Celeste.

  Besides, I wasn’t even sure it I had a crush on her anymore. Celeste was beautiful, even more beautiful than I’d suspected, but by her own admission—she was also a “total freak” and a “huge space case.”

  On the other hand, the fact that she knew she was a total freak and a huge space case made her even more intriguing…

  Unfortunately, I never got the chance to lie about my sister’s whereabouts. By the time I’d made my decision, Celeste had long since vanished up the stairs.

  I arrived home that afternoon to find Cheese sitting at the kitchen table with my sister, fiddling with my unplugged electric guitar. It sounded like torture. He was an even worse guitarist than I was. He wasn’t a guitarist. (In all fairness, neither was I, really. But at least I owned a guitar.) I was surprised Naomi could take the racket. It made me think of a B-movie interrogation scene.

  “Vee have vays of making you talk!”

  “No! Please! Not the guitar stylings of Cheese! I’ll tell you anything!”

  Cheese’s dark brown hair hung in his eyes. His hair always hung extra low these days; scruffy bangs were part of the hip new downtown image he’d been trying to cultivate. He was also wearing a black suit jacket—not because he had to, but because he thought it looked cool. His school didn’t have a dress code. But they did have half-days on Wednesdays, which was why he’d beaten me home. He’d been done with classes since noon. Lucky jerk.

  Naomi was eating olives again. The jar was almost empty. She looked pissed. But that might just have been because of Cheese.

  Nobody said a word. Not even a “hey.” I frowned. What was I, an apparition?

  “Hello, New York!” I said. “Thanks for coming! I’d like to take this opportunity to send a special shout-out to the East Ninth Street Posse, for representing in full effect.”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” Naomi grumbled.

  Sometimes when my sister, Cheese, and I were in the same room—just the three of us—we conversed in what Cheese called “MTV Award Show Speak.” Why, I’m not sure. It just sort of happened. I think Naomi started it. But we never did it in public, and it had nothing to do with how I didn’t talk like other guys. It was a completely separate abnormality

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “A guy from the New Yorker called,” Naomi said. “They passed on my story idea.”

  My shoulders sagged.

  All day long I’d been rooting for her even more than usual although I have to admit, it was mostly for selfish reasons. If she’d gotten the job, she would have left the apartment hours ago to chase down the gangsters of recycling. Which meant that she wouldn’t have been around to take Celeste’s call.

  Then again, I didn’t even know if Celeste had phoned yet. I hadn’t seen her since our exchange of gibberish this morning.

  “I’m sorry, Naomi,” I said. I dropped my book bag on the floor and sat down.

  She glared at the jar, as if it were somehow responsible for the bad news. “The guy said that my idea wasn’t edgy enough. Since when has the mob stopped being edgy? Who the hell makes these decisions?”

  “Screw the New Yorker,” Cheese said. “Take it somewhere else.”

  “He also said I didn’t have access to the right people, either,” she muttered, reaching for the second-to-last olive. “I could have gotten access, though. He said I would have better luck pitching a story about a subject I know well—like ‘youth culture,’ or some other BS.”

  I bit my lip. “Hey … uh, can I ask you something?”

  Naomi flashed me an evil smile. “Yes, Dave,” she said. “I spoke to Celeste Fanucci.”

 
; “Oh.” I could feel my stomach twisting, the blood pooling at my feet.

  “She’s quite a girl, Dave. Quite a girl.” Naomi glanced over at Cheese. “Wouldn’t you say so, Mac Daddy? You were here when she called.”

  Cheese didn’t respond. He was bent over the guitar, lost in concentration. I detected an extremely off kilter interpretation of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” in the notes he was playing.

  “Cheese?” Naomi said.

  “What? Oh. Hey, I got a name for our first album.” He looked up at me. “The Mind Is a Terrible Thing.” He paused dramatically and grinned. “Huh? What do you think?”

  Naomi frowned. “Cheese, you haven’t started experimenting with drugs, have you?”

  “The Mind Is a Terrible Thing,” he repeated. He turned his attention back to the guitar. His hair fell over his face again, like the curtain at the end of a bad comedy skit.

  “So … uh, what did you and Celeste talk about?” I asked Naomi, lamely attempting to sound casual.

  Naomi’s expression softened. “Don’t worry; I didn’t tell her that you have a crush on her.” She sighed. “If you want to know, she was really cool. I feel bad for her.”

  My eyes narrowed. Bad? The word didn’t compute. How could anybody possibly feel bad for the most prized member of the earth’s most privileged species?

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “Well, she called to ask me what it was like to be a working journalist. She wants to write a story about it. Not that I can even help, because I’m not a working journalist … ugh.” Naomi ran her hands through her messy black hair. “Anyway, when we were done, I asked her if she’d ever written for a school paper before. She started telling me about this advice column she used to write. It was kind of a ‘Dear Abby’ thing. ‘Ask Celeste.’ At first she wanted it to be really issues-oriented—you know, for kids to write in about race relations, or how they view the government. stuff like that. She wanted to spark debates and discussions. But after a while, everybody just ended up writing in about sex.”

  Cheese laughed. “Sex sells” he said.

  Naomi glowered at him. He didn’t notice. Now he was busy playing what sounded vaguely like the theme song from Law & Order, but out of tune and without rhythm.

  “So she felt backed into a corner,” Naomi went on. “The column was really popular. People from other schools even started writing in. On one hand, she didn’t want to stop. She felt like people depended on her. But on the other hand, she felt kind of slimy. She felt like she was leading people on, pretending to be a Dr. Ruth type—when that wasn’t what she wanted at all in the first place. She even changed the name of her column from ‘Ask Celeste’ to I’m No Expert.’ Right after that, though, it got canned. She printed an anonymous letter where some girl asked if it was okay to occasionally have sex with an ex-boyfriend. Her principal almost suspended her.”

  Aha, I thought.

  The conversation I’d had with Celeste earlier this morning was slowly emerging from the haze of pure nonsense. But there were still a few big pieces of the puzzle missing.

  “So … ? Why do you feel bad for her? Because her column got canned?”

  Naomi shook her head. She raised the olive jar and dumped the last olive into her mouth.

  “I feel bad because she’s lonely,” she said, then chewed for a moment. “I mean, I was happy to talk to her, but I got the feeling she hadn’t talked to anyone besides her parents in a really long time. She just moved here from L.A., so she doesn’t know anybody. Plus, it’s her senior year, so she’s worried about college. She’s trying to get involved in as many extracurricular activities as possible. She said, ‘I need to figure out a fast way to make some new friends and fatten up my transcript—or I’ll be in big trouble.’ It was kind of sad, the way she said it. Sort of desperate.”

  I leaned back in my chair, stunned.

  Wow. This was quite a revelation. I couldn’t believe that Celeste Fanucci actually had real problems. She was too perfect for real problems. Plus, I’d always assumed that being a mysterious new transfer student would be exciting and novel—a way to reinvent oneself. But I’d never imagined that it could be lonely. Not for somebody as perfect as Celeste.

  “It’s funny,” Naomi added almost as an afterthought. “She told me that ever since she moved to New York she wishes she had an advice columnist.”

  “Really?” I said.

  Naomi nodded. She grabbed the bowl of olive pits and dumped them into the garbage, then tossed the bowl into the sink and headed for the door.

  Cheese abruptly stopped playing. “Hey, Naomi, why don’t you write one?” he asked.

  She turned. “Excuse me?”

  “Why don’t you write an advice column?”

  She looked at him as if he’d just suggested that she rob a bank. “Why on earth would I ever want to do that?”

  “Because you’d be good at it,” he said. “Anyway, you were a psych major, right?”

  “That doesn’t make me a shrink, Cheese. I think you’re giving me a little too much credit. I mean, look at how Dave turned out. My advice doesn’t exactly pay off.”

  I smiled. “Bite me,” I said. “Besides, when have I ever followed your advice?”

  “No, I’m being serious,” Cheese insisted. He brushed his bangs out of his eyes, nearly dropping the guitar. “You could even parlay it into a story about ‘youth culture’—like that guy at the New Yorker said. I can already see the headline: ‘Up-and-Coming Journalist Returns to High School Paper to Counsel Troubled Teens.’” He was wearing the same I’m-a-genius grin he’d worn moments ago, when sharing his brilliant idea for the name of our first album. “Huh? Huh? Now that’s edgy. That’s cash money in the bank. I’ll take fifteen percent. And I’d just like to thank my Moms, my Pops, and God for making it all possible—and mostly, you, the fans.”

  Naomi laughed. “I pray for you, Cheese. I pray for your mental health.”

  “I mean it,” he said.

  “I’m sure you do.” She turned and shuffled out of the kitchen. “And I appreciate the vote of confidence. In the meantime, you stay off those drugs, okay? Peace out.”

  Her bedroom door closed.

  Cheese shook his head. “She doesn’t understand me,” he said. “Drugs are for the weak. I get high on life. And women. And rock ‘n’ roll. And occasionally bus fumes.”

  “And you say that I don’t talk like my fellow man?” I mumbled.

  “Yeah, but I keep my BS under wraps. That’s the difference. Hey, dude, would it be cool if I borrow this until dinnertime?”

  “Borrow what?” I asked.

  “Your ax.”

  I laughed. “Why don’t you just play it right here? I can stuff my ears with cotton and barricade myself in my room.”

  Cheese glanced up at me. “Can’t I just borrow it until dinnertime?”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Well, it’s just . .” He squirmed a little, avoiding my eyes. “See, these guys at school are starting this band. You know, Darren and Mike? I told you about them. Anyway, Mike’s guitar is in the shop. So I told him, you know…” He didn’t finish.

  I assumed that he was joking with me. “You told somebody I don’t know that he could borrow my guitar?” I asked.

  Cheese shrugged. “Yeah, well … I thought you’d be cool with it.” He hid behind his bangs as he spoke. “I mean, this isn’t like a joke band. It’s real. Mike’s a sick guitarist. I’ve heard him play. He wouldn’t hurt it.”

  I frowned slightly. “You’re being serious?”

  “Yeah.” Cheese tried to smile. “Come on, what’s the big deal?”

  “Uh … nothing,” I said. “But just so you know, I let a guy at my school borrow your new laptop. He said he’d bring it right back. That’s cool, right?”

  “Whatever, dude,” Cheese muttered. “You can come if you’re so worried about it.”

  “Really? I can come? Gosh, you mean it?”

  “Yeah,” he said witho
ut a trace of humor.

  “Well, that sounds great, Cheese,” I stated as sarcastically as possible. “I can tag along with you and watch some sick guitarist named Mike play my guitar. Gee. Thanks.”

  Cheese pushed away from the table. His chair squeaked. He stood and handed the guitar to me with deliberate care, as if he were passing off a howling baby.

  “Here you go, then, Dave,” he said. “Here is your precious guitar. If I knew you cared about it so much, I wouldn’t have touched it in the first place.”

  “You’re pissed about this?” I asked, flabbergasted.

  “No.” He headed for the door. “I’ll see you later.”

  I laughed again, even though I felt kind of queasy Somehow, we were actually in a fight. Or close to being in one, anyway. I couldn’t believe it. The last time we’d come close to getting into a fight was in March, when he’d forgotten my birthday and I hadn’t even really cared all that much. The only reason I ever remembered his birthday was because it was on Halloween.

  “Whoa, hold up a sec,” I called after him. “Where are you going?”

  He paused in the front hall, where I could no longer see him. “To meet Darren and Mike.”

  I blinked a few times. “You’re going to watch their band?”

  “Well, I was going to try to be in their band,” his disembodied voice replied. “But I guess I’ll have to wait until Mike’s guitar is fixed.”

  “I thought you said it wasn’t a joke band.”

  “It’s not.”

  Something wasn’t quite connecting here. We might as well have been talking on crappy cell phones, because the signal—whatever the signal was—wasn’t coming through. I was missing the meat of the conversation. “So what you’re saying is . .”

  “Not everything has to be a joke, Dave,” he grumbled. “I wanted to try to sing. Look, it’s no big deal. I’ll drop by later, all right?”

  “Uh … sure.”

  The apartment door opened and closed. I heard the lock click back into place.

  I swallowed.

  The kitchen was silent. The guitar sat in my lap, digging into my thighs. I was half tempted to jump up and chase after him. But then I thought: screw that. If anything, he was the one who should come back and apologize to me. I was actually sort of mad. Who the hell did Cheese think he was, offering my “ax” to a stranger—or even trying to be in a nonjoke band at all? He couldn’t sing. That was the whole point. That was what made our phony musical aspirations funny. He couldn’t sing, and I couldn’t play.