by Abby Sher
“Hey, so I just wanted to say—”
“Wait.” Gus cut me off. “Hay is for horses!” He looked at me with a bright, eager smile. “Huh? How’d I do?”
I wanted to hug him so badly. But I didn’t want to freak him out.
So instead I said, “Learned wisely, you have,” in my best Yoda impersonation.
Dr. Yogurt-Breath: What do you think you are trying to say here?
Me: Nothing. I’m saying nothing. I am nothing.
Dr. Yogurt-Breath: You’re something to me. And to a lot of people.
Me: *gag*
CHAPTER 11
backseat zombie slayer
The only thing worse than a backseat driver is a backseat zombie slayer. I spent the next two hours next to Gus as he battled the netherworld.
“Die, assface. Die!” he yelled at the television, swerving his body left and right.
“You showed him,” I said. “I heard zombies are really self-conscious about their asses.”
Gus gave me half a pity laugh for that, but it was better than nothing. He started another attack while I shouted at the TV with him. “He’s on your left! Behind the catacombs! No, I mean right. Over there! Get him!”
Gus was disemboweled twice and then beheaded by a particularly bloody corpse while I shouted out useless directions. At least we were spending some time together though.
“Wait, can zombies even die?” I pressed. “Maybe this is virtual reality where to survive is actually to embrace death!” I thought Gus might be impressed with my profound exploration of zombiehood, but he just kept grunting and shaking his head until he’d used up all his afterlives. At which point he paused the game and turned to me with a tight-lipped smile.
“Right. Now what were you saying, my dearest sister?”
“Ha-ha.” I shrugged. “Sorry, am I being superannoying?” He chose not to answer that at all, so I continued. “I just—we haven’t hung out in a while and you said you had some friends coming over, which is … awesome. And—whoa! When did you do that?” I asked, reaching out to touch his ear. My little brother had a gold stud earring in his right lobe. The skin around it a fiery pink.
Gus swatted me away and shuddered.
“Ow! Don’t do that!”
“Sorry. But … does Mom know?”
“Yes. Why?”
“No reason. I just…” I wondered how Mom had received that news. More than that, I wondered why Gus had told her before telling me. “Wait—when did you…? How did you…? Did you put ointment on it?” Gus waited until I stuttered to a stop before answering.
“I did it yesterday. With a friend from choir. And please do not use the word ointment in my presence ever again.” Gus scrunched up his nose. At least he hadn’t outgrown his sweet freckles.
“Got it.”
“Thank you so much. And if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to play one more round on my own.”
“Right. Yup. Just … for reference, when are you expecting your friends and how long are they staying?”
“Just for reference … I dunno exactly. We’ll be in the basement.” Gus tilted his head like he was choosing his words very deliberately. “Is that okay with you?”
“Totes! Just let me know if … you need anything.”
Which clearly, Gus did not. As I made my way back to the kitchen, I ducked into the basement, which had always been a dumping ground for half-folded laundry, overgrown Halloween costumes, and metal filing cabinets spilling over with tax receipts, book reports, outdated warranties. Only today it had been rearranged and swept clean. The cabinets were shoved back into their rightful corners; the washer and dryer were empty and silent. There was a string of chili pepper lights strung from one end of the room to the other. In the center of the room was an old area rug that used to be in Gus’s bedroom, with a frog flying a helicopter over clouds shaped like the alphabet. There was also a metal card table covered in a navy bedsheet, and five folding chairs.
“Wow,” I said to the empty room. “Classy.”
I knew I should just let Gus do his own thing, but I couldn’t take the mystery of it all. I popped my head back into the TV room and tried to be extra-subtle.
“Just wondering if you need any help cleaning up downstairs or…”
“Hank. I could hear you on the basement stairs. It’s fine. We’re doing a campaign.”
“Oh! Like student government?”
Now it was Gus’s turn to laugh. “Um, like D&D,” he explained.
“Right.” I knew Gus had been reading up on Dungeons & Dragons last year and had met some gamers online, but I didn’t know he was still serious about it. “That’s really cool.”
There was no part of me that was curious about role-playing games until this very minute. I’d always been a little judgy and snooty of people who got into these alternate lives full of wizardry and otherworldly beasts. Only now could I see how this could be fun and even kinder than the real world. Gus must have seen some pitiful look in my eyes, because before I could say another word, he told me, “I’d invite you to join, but it’s my first time as DM and we just set our characters.”
“No worries! Of course! DM? That’s awesome!”
“Hank, do you know what DM means?”
“Dude … Man?” I guessed.
“Close. Dungeon Master,” Gus explained.
“Right. Keepin’ you on your toes. All hail the Dungeon Master!” I folded myself into a deep curtsy for him. Gus just shook his head and chuckled. As in, Boy, it’s amusing how clueless you are.
“Okeydoke,” I said. “Well, I’ll be upstairs doing … something. Just shout if you need me.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Not that I didn’t have an obnoxious amount of homework left to keep me occupied. Or preoccupied. Although I never really understood the difference between those two words so then that sent me down a rabbit hole of nerditude, looking up the Latin roots for occupied and preoccupied and finding out they both involved seizing and grasping and then thinking about all the things I wanted to seize or grasp.
A piercing beeeeep jolted me awake around 12:30. It smelled like someone was cooking tires downstairs.
“Gus?” I yelled. There was a lot of hooting and cackling going on, so I was pretty sure no one was on fire. “Gus!”
“Aw, shit!” was all I heard in response. Followed by “Daaaamn” and “Gross, dude. Get that out of here.”
When I got down to the kitchen, I was blasted by a heavy, greasy fog. The window over the sink was open, and Gus was outside on our deck with a metal tray that was smoking like a cauldron. Next to him were three gangly boys and a girl in denim overalls holding my mom’s striped umbrella over herself and Gus. She stood so confidently, with wide shoulders and a short shock of turquoise hair. Gus must’ve said something to her, because the girl looked up and they both waved at me.
“Nothin’ to see here!” Gus called. He tried to laugh but it turned into a cough. “Hey, guys! Say hello to my sister.”
“Hey, sister,” mumbled one of the guys standing out in the rain.
“Sister. I think I have one of those,” said another.
“Sorry about the smoke,” shouted the third. “We were just trying to melt some cheese on … stuff and then…” He unraveled into a snorty kind of laugh that made me feel embarrassed. Not that I was some paragon of graceful adulthood, but these guys were all limbs and smells—dangling somewhere between childhood and adolescence in a pimply, awkward phase.
But then the girl took over. Whoever this girl was, she was unafraid. She flung open our back door and walked into the kitchen with a smile that took up most of her face. Her cheeks got involved too—wide and rosy, practically shoving her eyes closed. She looked almost like a snowman, getting progressively rounder as she went down.
“Hey,” she said. “I’m really sorry we almost burned down your entire house.” She stuck out a doughy-looking hand for me to shake. “By the way, hi. I’m Tata.”
“Tata?! As in…?
”
“Yeah.” She pushed her ample rack out at me. “My little sister couldn’t pronounce ‘Tara’ when she was a baby, so she called me ‘Tata’ and it stuck.” I still hadn’t taken her hand, so she dropped it by her side and said, “Comin’ in for a hug instead.”
She was warm and thick, her arms tucking me in tight. We were just about the same height, and even though the rest of the kitchen reeked of burned cheddar, Tata’s neck smelled a little like a Creamsicle. I noticed a colorful skull tattoo just below her left ear as we broke apart.
“That’s Hank!” Gus called from outside.
“Awesome! I’ve heard so much about you!” said Tata.
“Uh-oh,” I responded. “Like what?”
Tata looked at Gus and then smiled at me. “I don’t know. Maybe that you were really cool and a kickass piano player and the best big sister ever.”
“Really?” The backs of my ears were getting hot and I wondered how much of that Gus actually said. He was still outside though, fanning his tray of cheesy burnedness under the umbrella.
“Okay, boys! We’ve done enough damage here. Let’s move it on out!” Tata circled her hand above her head like a lasso. The guys shoving and poking each other as they meandered toward the back door to meet her.
“See ya later, Gus!” shouted Tata. “Nice to meet you, Hank!”
“Yeah, you too!” I called after her. And I meant it.
“So … Tata’s cool,” I told Gus a few minutes later when he’d come back inside.
“Yep.”
“Is she?”
“I think we just established that she is.” He overenunciated, as if I were hard of hearing rather than just incredibly annoying.
“Okay, I’ll butt out,” I said. “Just … thank you for saying those nice things about me. And I’m really happy that you have some nice new friends.”
“Thanks. And sure.”
I really missed Gus in that moment. Despite—or maybe because of—the fact that he was standing right in front of me. Already at least two inches taller than me, in fact. And no matter how much facial hair was forcing its way between us, I felt darn lucky to call him my little brother.
“You and Uncle Ricky doing something fun tonight?” I asked. I was seriously wishing I could tag along, even though I knew Zoe was counting on me now.
“Yeah, I think we’re gonna catch an early movie and then maybe go ax throwing.”
“Whoa. Manly.”
Gus smiled. “Looks like you’re gonna be busy too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Aren’t you part of that music video thing? Tata was actually showing me the events page that Zoe made. It already looks like a ton of people are going,” Gus said. There was something tentative in his voice now. Like he wished he hadn’t started this conversation.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but…”
Gus swiped through a few pages on his phone and then handed it to me. The screen was covered in cat stripes and in hot-pink letters it read:
Be Part of Our New Pussycat Warriors Music Video!
Apparently, I was cohosting an event with her, chez the Hartwicks. Zoe had already collected ninety-eight people who promised to attend, plus a disco ball, “libations,” and someone’s cousin’s smoke machine. More upsetting was the series of photos that she’d included on the page. Most of them were of Pepe le Meowsers, but there were a few of Zoe peeking seductively over her bare shoulder, along with a short testimonial from her that I was too scared to watch. The comments underneath were alarming enough.
Nerdknocker (3 hours ago)
Love these soooooo much! You look hottt!
Alakazoom (1 hour ago)
I’ll be your pussycat. Meow!
Fred2003 (20 minutes ago)
what is your name I think we have a lot in common also I produce movies and want to meet for coffee?
I didn’t know who these faceless people were, but I hated them all.
“What the hell is this?” I demanded. I didn’t want to shoot the messenger, but Gus was the only one available to receive all my fearful anger at the moment.
“I don’t—don’t know,” Gus stammered. I could hear him chewing on the strings of his hoodie nervously. “And also … have you seen this?” He took the phone from me and clicked on a link before handing it back.
There was a thirty-second video of Zoe and Pepe le Meowsers basically tonguing each other.
“Okay, you know what?” I shoved the phone back at him. “Why are you watching this? Why are we watching this?”
“I don’t know. I thought you were one of the pussy people or—”
“No!” I cut him off. I loved my little brother fiercely, but hearing the word pussy come out of his mouth was just too much.
“I appreciate your … attention, but please put that away. I will take care of this situation.”
“Oh-kay,” Gus said, brow furrowed.
“Actually, can you just send me the link so I can figure out what creeps are posting comments?”
“Sure. But why is that your job?” he asked.
“Because she’s my best friend!” I yelled.
Gus nodded thoughtfully before saying, “Is she though?”
His thorny question hung in the air between us as the front door opened and Uncle Ricky came in dripping.
“Two of each animal! Gather them quick!” he boomed. Uncle Ricky was born without volume control, so we really never had a conversation that didn’t echo throughout the house.
“Hey, FU!” Gus answered. FU stood for Favorite Uncle, among other things.
“Hey hey!” Uncle Ricky answered. “What? Nothing from the Hankster?”
I was too busy scrolling through my own phone now, trying to get to the comments under Zoe’s video. Uncle Ricky shed some of his soggy clothes and shuffled up behind the couch.
“Whoa, are we watching porn as a family now?” he asked. Then he busted out laughing at his own joke, which I found thoroughly unamusing.
I slammed my phone down and snarled, “Okay, that’s not only gross; it’s illegal, because she’s not even eighteen.”
Uncle Ricky put his hands up in mock defense and shook his head.
“Also, don’t you guys have some movie to watch or axes to throw?” I added.
“Well, I haven’t even looked up the movie times yet,” Uncle Ricky started. “I thought maybe I could dry off, grab a snack, and then maybe we’ll head out around four?”
Gus must have heard me steaming. He stood up and announced that he really wanted to go see something as soon as possible. Like, it was urgent that he see this movie that was probably playing only at two. They could get eggs at the diner on the way back. Or Chinese takeout. He started ushering Uncle Ricky back toward the front door as he spoke. I knew it was Gus’s way of giving me some space and I was truly grateful, but I was also too frayed to thank him.
As they headed outside, I texted Zoe in all caps: DANCE PARTY?
She wrote back right away: So stupid. Lol.
BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN? I persisted.
Will explain in person. Promised Alli I’d do Booty Camp class with her first tho so meet me at gym @ 3? We can change for party in locker room and use their fancy hair products.
I wrote back: I DON’T UNDERSTAND.
Pretty please with everything on top?
I heard it was November out in the real world.
But enough about me!
Or you!
Or the “us” that was destined to one day topple over and break into me and you again.
Check out some of my newest and dearest celebrity crushes who either self-destructed or rose from the ashes to tell the tale!
(See—we get homework in here too.)
Karen Anne Carpenter (March 2, 1950–February 4, 1983)
Brilliant American songstress and drummer. She had a voice that tripped and trilled. She also defined bell-bottoms and free love. Until she died from anorexia. In those days, people could stil
l go to the pharmacy and get drugs that would make you vomit, so Karen did that in between singing gigs. It made her heart so weak that it eventually gave out. The saddest part is that Karen sang this awesome song called “We’ve Only Just Begun” and it really does sound like hope with whipped cream on top.
Gilda Radner (June 28, 1946–May 20, 1989)
My mom’s all-time hero, and I have to admit she was freaken funny and brilliant. She was on the first season of Saturday Night Live. There’s this one skit where she dances with Steve Martin and I just want to float away on her skirt. She also had a ton of eating disorders though, and she wrote this beautiful book about how she wanted to do right by her body. She got cancer really young and she kept on making people laugh even while she was dying.
Kesha Rose Sebert (aka Kesha)
Is a motherf-cken woman! Her Rainbow album is the only thing keeping me (somewhat) sane in here. Do you remember all that crap and abuse she went through with her old producer? And it led right into an eating-disorder nosedive for her. I’ve been reading these amazing interviews with her that make me weep. How she felt so forsaken and alone. How she sat in rehab and asked the universe for a sign. And now she’s kicking ass.
Zayn Malik (aka the silent sexy guy from One Direction)
Okay, first because he has righteous eyebrows. Also, because he broke out to perform on his own and there is something so sad about his voice. Which is maybe why he had to sing. To get out his inner sadness. He spoke openly about battling his eating disorders and I think that’s extra-hard to do if you’re a guy.
Zosia Mamet
When I first saw her acting, I thought she came from another planet. She spoke so fast that I felt dizzy but in a good way. And then I heard her talk about her relationship with her body and how she doesn’t want to hide from or with eating disorders anymore. One of my favorite Zosia quotes:
“Wouldn’t you rather be your real self instead of an unrealistic idea of perfection?”
I’m just not sure I can answer that yet.
CHAPTER 12
