Tell It to Naomi

by Daniel Ehrenhaft

  “I gotta go, Celeste.”

  “Okay, bye! If I don’t—”

  I hung up.

  For several seconds I held on to the phone.

  I held on so hard my knuckles turned white.

  And then …

  I relaxed. I let go.

  Miraculously, I smiled.

  The spell Celeste Fanucci had put on me was finally broken.

  What did I care if she was going to see the Palm Reader play? Celeste Fanucci was a fool. A ditz. She was a loser. It was a good thing I hadn’t screened the call, because now I knew for sure that my crush on her was … well, for want of a stronger word, wrong. Celeste may have looked like the ideal woman. But she wasn’t. No way.

  Which meant that I was free again.

  And this time, freedom was just what I craved.

  I glanced back down the hall at the bathroom. The faucet was running. I wondered if Naomi had overheard our conversation. Not that it mattered. I’d tell her that Celeste had called as soon as she was out. A crazy idea was beginning to form in my brain. Or maybe …

  Maybe it was the sanest idea I’d had in a long time

  What if Cheese and I buried our stupid hatchet? What if he and I actually did perform at the open-mike night at the Spiral Lounge? Just the two of us? Tonight? True, we’d never played together. True, we didn’t know how. But what if we got up onstage—and I thrashed on my out-of-tune guitar, and Cheese actually did dive into a vat of gravy—and we were so sublimely ridiculous that we made every other performer look ridiculous by extension?

  What if we went and made an anti-open mike statement?

  It would be beautiful. We would rag on all the so-called serious musicians, live and in concert, no less. We really could call it “The Mind Is a Terrible Thing.” It wouldn’t be so much music as one big gag … a demented piece of performance art.

  That would be cutting-edge. That would be cash money in the bank, as Cheese would say.

  Even better, I bet Celeste would think it was funny. (Not that I cared what she thought now that I was free of her spell.) Better than that, I bet Zeke Beck wouldn’t think it was funny at all. And maybe Cheese himself would realize that being in a nonjoke band wasn’t all it was cracked up to be…

  Without a second thought I dashed out of the apartment and hurtled down the stairs. I laughed out loud. This was great. Cheese would love this: me, showing up like old times—as if nothing had happened, as if I didn’t care that he’d made new friends (which I shouldn’t, anyway)—and hitting him up with this ingenious scheme…

  “Hello?” I pounded on the old familiar door of 2F. “Cheese? Anybody home?”

  Footsteps approached. The door opened a crack.

  It was Cheese’s father. He had a cordless phone shoved against one ear. Oops. I’d interrupted him. I knew he worked from home sometimes—although doing what, I’d never quite figured out. I don’t think Cheese knew for sure, either. It definitely involved yelling at people because I could hear him sometimes as I passed their apartment.

  “Hi, Dave,” he said, covering the mouthpiece with one hand. “What’s up?”

  I smiled sheepishly. “I was just looking for …”

  Mr. Harrison shook his head. “He’s at band practice right now.”

  “Band practice?”

  “I know: that’s what I said.” Mr. Harrison laughed. “Haven’t you heard? Our Mr. Cheese fancies himself a rock star now.”

  “Oh.” I tried to laugh, too. The sound died somewhere in my chest.

  “I’ll tell him you stopped by,” Mr. Harrison said. “He won’t be home until tomorrow, though. He’s spending the night at Mike’s.”

  “Oh. Mike’s. Okay. Um … thanks.”

  He closed the door.

  I turned and headed home.

  Funny. It seemed to take about a thousand times longer to climb back up the stairs than it had to come down.

  The weekend was …

  I’ll put it this way: if I’d thought that performing onstage with Cheese would somehow transform me, that it would be a cathartic ritual on par with an exorcism—terrifying, euphoric, an extreme experience—I learned that such experiences, like “the worst things in the world,” sneak up on you in ways you can’t foresee. You can’t plan for them.

  I’d assumed that the weekend would suck. And in some respects it did. But I finally rode the Cyclone. My head spun with fear and joy. I laughed hysterically; I nearly cried a few times; I almost screamed once or twice … and all without ever leaving Naomi’s room. Without leaving her chair. Because I got exactly what I’d wished for at school on Friday. I got to spend time with my new friends.

  I came to know them pretty well, too.

  * * *

  Time: 4:53 pm

  Subject: the artist formerly known as B.O.Z.

  dear naomi,

  okay, so I’m changing my name to s.o.m.b. it stands for Sick Of My Boyfriend. I still think B.O.Z. fits me better, but … crap! there I go again. I know I’m not supposed to put myself down so much. but I can’t help it. my mom says I use self-deprecating humor as a defense mechanism. Maybe she’s right. ARRGH!!! you want to know what sucks? i can’t talk about these problems with my friends. Because even though I am fat and ugly and have NO LIFE, I am also somehow the center of our little group. sound impossible? Here’s my trick: I never show any weakness. I mean I do, but I always make a joke out of it. or i get mad. But I never get mad at my boyfriend. only at my friends, who are never NEARLY as heinous as he is …

  * * *

  Time: 5:03 pm

  Subject: I SHOULD LIKE TO LEARN SLANGS

  NAOMI!

  I DO NOT KNOW THAT I UNDERSTAND YOUR PAST CORRESPONDENCE. YOU SAY I DO NOT KEEP IT REAL! I AM SAD IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ME. YOU ARE VERY KIND WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT SUPPORT. YOU ARE MY SUPPORT. I AM SAD ABOUT YOUR PAPA AND ALCOHOL. ST. VINCENT’S DOES NOT MAKE MY PAPA LEAVE BECAUSE HE GAVE HIS SORRY TO THE NURSE. I AM HAPPY! WHAT IS A SUPER FLY? MANY OF THE SLANGS I LEARN ARE FROM A VIDEO I FIND IN A MARKET A LONG TIME PAST IN ALGIERS. IT IS A PIRATE VIDEO. THAT IS TO SAY IT IS AGAINST THE LAW. IT IS OF A SHOW THAT IS YO! MTV RAPS. IT HAS A LOT OF DEF BANDS, SUCH AS BEASTIE BOYS, PUBLIC ENEMY, FRESH PRINCE, AND HUMPTY HUMP. IT IS ILL IF ILL IS GREAT. PERHAPS YOU SHOULD LIKE TO SEE IT …

  * * *

  Time: 5:22 pm

  Subject: too late for that mullet?

  Dear Naomi,

  Watch out: FONY’s mixing it up this time! She’s scrapping the A-B-C format!

  Call me crazy but I like to live dangerously.

  I’m also very funny, as you can see. What else can I tell you? I told you about one of my dreams. But I dream even when I’m awake. Every minute of every day I have crazy dreams about people I say hi to. I dream entire futures involving our interconnected lives: picnics, vacations, reunions, and all. And then the strangers are gone down the hall, into a classroom, and on with reality—and the dreams go with them. So I say hi to someone else. And it starts again.

  Is that normal? If not, maybe Jersey IS the answer …

  This isn’t a complete list, by the way. I received 162 e-mails that weekend. These are just the ones I opened first.

  * * *

  By 9 p.m. Friday, I was exhausted. Sitting in front of a computer for four straight hours can do that to you. So can rage. And I was pretty full of rage that night. It wasn’t because Cheese was spending the night at Mike’s, either—or because Celeste Fanucci was watching Zeke Beck’s Solo Acoustic Tape-Loop Crap-Fest while I sat at home. It was because I kept thinking, Naomi’s right. I am a chick. I wasn’t just “feminine.” The kids who wrote in believed that I was Naomi. I answered them as Naomi. Which made me Naomi.

  Ergo, I was a chick.

  But as I discovered, rage seems to have the same effect as crack. It pumps you up full of insanity and venom, and then it wears off fast leaving a big, empty hole.

  (Just to be clear, no, I’ve never tried crack. I mean: crack? I’ve never tried any drug. Not even bus fu
mes. But drug metaphors were on my mind because Friday at assembly, the administration forced the entire sophomore class to sit through one of those ridiculous Say No! videos. This one gave new meaning to the expression old school. I’m sure Naomi had to watch the exact same one when she was a sophomore. It was all muffled and grainy, full of bizarre references to things I’d never heard of, like Reaganomics. On the other hand, it did give me a good idea of what Hospital Girl’s pirated Yo! MTV Raps tape must have looked like.)

  Anyway, I was too angry on Friday to keep scrolling through the e-mails. I shut down Naomi’s computer and crawled into bed. I didn’t even bother to write anyone back. Which was a good thing. Lord knows what I would have said.

  Saturday morning, though, something began to change.

  I wasn’t so angry anymore. I began to fill the big, empty hole.

  It started with FONY.

  I crept back into Naomi’s room—she was still sleeping—and reread the e-mail. And for the first time, I didn’t think about any mission or hidden agenda. (I admit I was groggy.) I didn’t even really think about what I was doing. I just tried to figure out how to help this random freshman girl, this stranger, for the simple reason that I liked her. Or what I read of her, anyway.

  And that was when I realized: FONY doesn’t need any help at all. She’s as normal as they come.

  If dreaming the impossible about random strangers was a problem, we all needed help. Or at least I did. I dreamed the impossible every time I saw Celeste Fanucci. And what about Karen Wallace? I’d dreamed she was the artist formerly known as B.O.Z. I’d gone so far as to act on that dream. Jeez. Maybe it was a problem. If your dream life started getting mixed up with your real life, it could be pretty confusing. Worse, it could be embarrassing. Maybe I just didn’t know what “normal” was. Maybe that was the problem. All I really knew for sure was the jumble of absurdity inside my own head. Karen Wallace could be S.O.M.B. She might have just made an assumption about me (namely, that I was a sniveling, horny little weasel), the same way I’d made an assumption about her. There was no way I could admit to who I really was, any more than she could. So on some level we had to perpetuate a dream…

  I began to type.

  I typed that FONY had nothing to worry about. She was new. Dreaming about strangers was a perfectly fine way of coping with being a stranger. Sure, it might not be “normal”—but “normal” according to whom? Jerks who were too scared to admit that they’ve ever felt out of place? Dreaming was positive. It was a lot more positive than pretending to be somebody she wasn’t. I knew this from experience. I typed that I understood what it was like to be new, too, because … because … well, here, I had to stop typing to make something up—

  “Dave?”

  Naomi was awake.

  “Yeah?” I whispered.

  She yawned.”What are you doing?”

  “Working on the column. Go back to sleep.”

  “I can’t,” she groaned. “You’re making too much noise.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. “Sorry. Can you give me five more minutes?”

  She pursed her lips. In the dim glow of the monitor, I could see dark circles under her eyes. I wondered when she’d gotten home last I night. Nah … on second thought, I didn’t want to know. She’d been out with Brian Somebody and him.

  “All right, five minutes,” she mumbled. She collapsed back against her pillow. “But I’m gonna talk to Mom and Aunt Ruth about hooking you up with Internet access so you can do this from your room.

  “Please do.” I turned back to the computer, wriggling my fingers over the keyboard. “It’s time they put those raises to good use.”

  “What’s so important, anyway?” Naomi asked. “I mean, what are you writing that can’t wait until I get up?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “It can’t be nothing.”

  I hesitated. “It’s something I should have written all along,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The truth.”

  “The what?” she cried.

  I glanced back at her. “Not that truth,” I muttered.

  “Then what?” She sat up straight, suddenly wide awake. “What truth? I mean it, Dave. What are you writing?”

  “It’s …” I didn’t know how to explain myself. I didn’t know if I could. “I just want to be honest. There are all kinds of truth.”

  She glared at me.”All kinds of truth? What’s that supposed to mean? You sound like you joined a conspiracy cult. I’m serious, Dave. We have to be really careful here.”

  “I know, Naomi,” I groaned. “You think I would tell anyone about what really goes on with the column?”

  “No, it’s just …” She sighed. “No. I’m sorry I know you wouldn’t.”

  “Okay, then,” I said.

  “You’re right.” She settled back down, closing her eyes.”Sorry. And I do hear what you’re saying about wanting to be honest. You’re great at that. But remember, Dave: there are all kinds of lies, too. People love to tell lies. They have to. And you know I speak from experience…” Her lips curled in an odd, melancholy grin. “So be careful, okay?”

  “About what?”

  Naomi rolled over, settling under the covers. “Just be careful,” she said. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Good. Now finish up and let me sleep.”

  Once Naomi was up and out of the room, I scurried back to the computer. I basically stayed put until Sunday—except for when I had to eat and sleep. I opened every single e-mail, too. I read every single e-mail, as a matter of fact—all 162—the ludicrous, the profane, the silly, the sad … the Cyclone.

  That isn’t to say I answered all of them.

  No, I only ended up answering ones that came from FONY. It started when she wrote back to thank me for my initial reply.

  You’re right. FONY needs to feel “normal” like a fish needs a bicycle.

  HA! Ever heard that one?

  After that, we fell into a kind of routine. I would be reading a note from some poor girl who’d been dumped, or who’d eaten nothing but a bowl of cereal in the past two days, or who’d suffered a nervous breakdown on a college admissions tour … when Naomi’s computer would announce (always, it seemed, at the precise moment I couldn’t stand to read another excruciating line): “You’ve got mail.”

  Time: 11:53 am

  Subject: diarrhea

  Why the word diarrhea? Why such an ugly word for any ugly thing? Why not a silly word, so it won’t be so l embarrassing? Like “snorf” or something? Five letters, tops. “I’m not feeling well today, Dad, I have a little snorf.” I’ll explain later. My dad’s a research scientist.

  * * *

  Time: 3:18 pm

  Subject: DeKalb Avenue????

  I just went to Brooklyn. I didn’t plan to go, but the subway loudspeakers only broadcast static. Do you have to be from New York to understand what they say? Maybe there was a warning. I don’t know. I got on at Union Square. I was supposed to be going underneath downtown, and then I found myself on a bridge over a river going to a place called DeKalb Avenue. But it wasn’t so bad. The view over the river = beautiful. Sparkles and skyscrapers and boats. The view on Dekalb Avenue = not so beautiful.

  * * *

  Time: 5:07 pm

  Subject: the person in charge of the rules

  Girls LIKE piercing their belly buttons, and you can’t blame them. I want to get MINE pierced. Belly buttons are sexy. So why is it a terrible crime not to know all the lyrics to “Oklahoma!” I’ll explain later. My dad’s a conservative.

  That was the pattern, if you could call it that. I’d answer one out of about every three:

  Hi FONY:

  I don’t know about the sexy thing. It totally depends on the belly button. My fifty-year-old aunt’s belly button = not so sexy. And my question to YOU is: Why is it a crime to exchange Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain for, say, a CD you’d actually want to listen to? I’ll explain later. My mo
m’s a lunatic.

  Somehow. FONY and I established something—although I don’t know if it was a rapport exactly. Not in the traditional sense. It was more like … a mutual appreciation for nonsense and stupidity. Whatever it was, it was a lot more enjoyable than trying to figure out how to help a girl who was on the verge of starving herself.

  If that sounds a little flip … well, I admit, I didn’t know how to deal with some of the stuff I read. It was too heavy. I guess I was sort of like S.O.M.B: I had to joke about it; otherwise, I would feel uncomfortable. And yes, I knew I could always tell Naomi about the girls who were in danger, and she could tell Joel, and he could intervene. But the problem was that I didn’t know who was in danger. How could I? I wasn’t a therapist. I wasn’t even a psych major. I was a boy. I was a liar. It was the Hospital Girl conundrum: maybe these kids were exaggerating. Maybe they were flat-out lying, too. I could just picture it: some idiot writes in as a sick prank, claiming that her father is locking her in the basement at night, and Joel Newbury suddenly shows up at her door with the NYPD—in the middle of Dad’s birthday party, when Dad is perfectly innocent and has no idea what’s going on.

  No, it was best to trust my first instincts. It was best to skip over the horrific, to stick to the light and fluffy … and to leave Naomi out of the whole process.

  Technically, I wasn’t even working on the column, anyway. I couldn’t print what went back and forth between FONY and me. I’m sure my sister would agree. It was inane. Some of it was downright moronic, along the lines of the conversations I used to have with Cheese.