Finding Mr. Brightside (6 page)

“More so than anyone I’ve ever met, yeah.”

“Well, looks can be deceiving,” I say. “I lie to you about food all the time.”

“That’s okay, I know how you really feel about the Doritos Locos Supreme.”

I ask him to please not talk that way in front of the dog.

“By the way,” he says, as we approach the basement, “if you’re not mother-meeting material, then what kind of material are you?”

“The black kind. That doesn’t go with anything else but black.”

He laughs, asks, “And me?”

I’m about to say something off-putting like
Polyester!
but then I glance over at him trying so hard to keep up with me, still managing to be interested in this metaphor that I blame myself for starting.

I sigh. “You’re linen.”

Warm, unpretentious, counter-intuitively better with each wash.

“Linen,” he repeats to himself. “Nice. Linen comes in black, too.”

ABRAM

J
ULIETTE AND THE DOG
continue walking slightly ahead of me until the dog sits down in the middle of the path, her way of saying she’s over it. Juliette loves the dog’s honesty, and their bond deepens, which I’m happy about. We turn back around toward my place, which I’m ignorantly starting to consider ours already. Ignorance is bliss trying to pretend nothing will ever change. That saying doesn’t sound like me—probably borrowed it from someone. Juliette would tell me to give it back.

“We can do breakfast with Mom, less pressure,” I say, as we reach the patio area. “You don’t have to answer yet. Just think about it.”

“Count me in as a firm maybe.”

She frowns, slides the door open, and walks inside.

A short while later, she looks over at me and says, “Don’t let her go darker.”

“Huh?”

“Your mom’s hair,” she says patiently. “Darker is a mistake.”

“I agree.”

“Good,” she says. “If we ever
do
meet, I don’t want to feel sorry for her hair the whole time. I’ll feel bad enough because of my mom.”

I assure her everyone’s hair will be in proper order except mine.

12

Juliette

H
ELP.
F
OR THE PAST
few weeks I’ve been having trouble getting rid of something at school. It’s standing next to my locker right now, actually, not falling for my disinterested-face tactic.

“I feel like skipping eighth period today,” Abram says, even though he did that last Friday. It’s the Paxil talking—still two more weeks of tapering to go before his last pill. He puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his flip-flops, nodding in the opposite direction from class like I’m more than welcome to join in on the lazy.

“You could probably use the attendance points,” I point out. Then we both start laughing for different reasons: me, because I just sounded like some sort of girlfriend he should break up with immediately; Abram, no idea—because he thinks laughing with others is fun?

I slam my locker harder than I typically slam it, once again trying to snap myself out of this companionship phase I’m going through. Abram doesn’t flinch or say anything stupid, like,
Easy there, slugger
. He knows by now that, whenever possible, I prefer to slam doors. All the more disappointing that the one to his basement slides.

“I’ll go to class if you hold my hand there,” he bargains, once again forgetting to include what’s in it for me. He just places his fingers between mine in his easygoing manner that’s hard to object to, and the least-developed part of my brain—the prehistoric, reptilian lump of useless near the stem—signals that letting his warm-blooded palm incubate my cold one is smart, not dangerous.

As we walk down the senior hallway together, awkwardly entwined, another weird thing happens: A few of our peers smile at me like I’m
not
a loose cannon to steer clear of. This feels like a mistake on their part, in addition to mine.

“Do you think that Asian girl over there is pretty?” I ask Abram, testing him, wondering if I’m really his type, or if I’m just his type until that rare breed of slutty Asian drops into his lap.

“Only when she lets me cheat off of her,” he answers, and I feel my grip tighten around his hand. I like the way he says the wrong thing sometimes. Also, the way he carries himself: his broad shoulders back, his stride long, easy, confident. Confident about what, I’m still not sure. Couldn’t be his
Honey Badger Don’t Care
T-shirt, practically a bare midriff because his long arms are causing it to ride up on his chest. Nor that overgrown organism of blond waves around his head. Or the perversely cute little paunch where his six-pack used to be that I’ll miss when it’s gone, because it’s already shrinking. Or the butt I previously over-described a few weeks ago, barely hidden underneath the perma-droop of his sweatpants.…

“Has anyone ever told you that you think too much?” Abram asks.

It must be time for my pill. I pull a tiny fourth from my jeans pocket.

“Didn’t you just take one?”

Yes, but that was a long time ago—several minutes, at least. He looks worried.

“Here,” I say, casually transferring the pill from my hand to his. “To help you get through class.”

He swallows it without a word, tells me he wants to know what it feels like to take what I’m taking. It’s the nicest, most disturbing thing anyone has ever said to me. We walk into class together. Abram pumps his fist that our English teacher, Mr. Pewsey, hasn’t come back from his cig break yet. I spot a familiar pink North Face jacket and a pair of long, tanned legs in the back row, where my friend Heidi likes to sit and not pay attention. Is there a nice way I can tell her to
stop wearing Crocs?
Never mind, I’m not ready.

I head in her direction, Abram ambling slowly behind. I find her leaning over and flirting with a lacrosse player I don’t approve of. Heidi is perfect just the way she is, except for the Crocs and two more things: 1) Trust issues (she trusts way too many people), and 2) Bad taste in guys. She’s the girl who’d smile and wave when the white van rolled up and the scraggly-haired guy inside who smelled like public-restroom soap offered her a dollar if she’d accompany him to his cabin in the woods.
Sure! Mind if my friend Juliette comes, too?
she’d reply, as I tackled her away from his extended hand.

I sit down in the desk beside hers and make myself uncomfortable. Abram sits directly behind me.

Heidi turns around, grabs my arm, and says, “We need to talk before Mr. Pussy gets back.”

The nickname is still funny every time she says it.

“Did you remember my tennis-themed Halloween party this weekend?” she asks, seemingly unaware that she’s double-booked the theme.

“Yes,” I lie to her smiling, adorably freckled face that looks like it escaped from a Wendy’s hamburger wrapper. “Not really, no. Where is it again?”

“My house,” she says. “Well, my dad’s house. Should I feel bad for hosting it while he’s out of town?”

“Not when he still owes you for a lifetime of disappointment.”

That came out exactly right, but wrong. Heidi looks less excited about the world now.

“Sorry, Heid.” I sigh. “What can I bring to the party, besides a better attitude?”

“Hard liquor, if you have it,” she says, “and a date.” With a deliberately creepy smile, she nods in Abram’s direction. I pretend not to know what she’s talking about. “Yeah, okay,” Heidi says, letting me play it my way. “Let’s shop online for costumes tonight.”

“Yay.”

Shopping online with Heidi means her hovering over my laptop, talking about “getting deals,” not letting me buy anything cute, and then forcing me to select something from this offbeat clothing store where almost all the inventory is colorful and sporty: her closet. Looks like I’m going as Maria Sharapova, which is fine, since I’m already wearing the bitchy-face part of the costume, 24/7.

I look back to check on Abram, see if he’s having an allergic reaction to the pill I gave him, and maybe watch him do a little homework for the first time. He’s picking a scab on his arm.

I send him a text that says
Stop it!
and he responds with a winky face. I almost reply that he’s only allowed to text me winky faces when I can relate to the joke, but I have enough dumb rules to keep track of as is. Instead, I send him my specialty: a mixed message.

Come to Heidi’s party with me on Saturday?*
*Please assume I still want to go when I try to cancel. ;/

13

ABRAM

T
HINGS WERE GOING
so well until Juliette avoided her locker for the rest of the week, instead choosing to lug around her entire textbook collection from room to room, walking faster whenever she pretended not to hear me calling out for her. I didn’t get the hint, just went ahead and kept fooling myself, thinking she might show up in my basement and be like,
Hi, sorry—you’re not making popcorn tonight?

Trust me, I made the popcorn. Every night. She remained a no-show.

Now it’s Saturday morning, and I’m guessing Juliette’s status for Heidi’s party is “canceled,” but I’ve already taken a shower per her instructions to assume she secretly wants to go. I may have to settle for walking over to the window and watching her storm into a cab in exactly four minutes. Still remember the first Saturday I saw her do this, a few weeks after the accident. I could tell she was having to struggle to keep it together but was refusing to succumb, her eyes glassy and sleep-deprived, the skin underneath shadowy. I almost knocked on the window that day, but there was never going to be a smooth follow-up to taking such an action, let alone a right thing to say. Couldn’t pantomime to her, for instance, how watching her getting on with life made me feel like things had a chance to be normal for me again someday, too. No doubt they’ve been better than normal these past few weeks, in turn making it harder to go back to standing here, my breath fogging the glass, a completely separate entity from her.

I have to see her. Even if it’s not on her terms. Even if there’s never going to be a right thing to say.

I’ll need help, though, which is hopefully where my mom comes in. I find her in the kitchen, distributing a huge wad of cash into the envelopes arranged on the table. She’s been on a lucky streak at the casino lately, and I need to borrow some of it for a few hours, along with her car.

“Morning, Mom.”

“Someone’s up and ready early.” She looks at me and smiles. “Come here, let me smell your hair.”

I dip my head so she can sniff the conditioner she bought me, determine if she made the right decision. While she’s deciding, I pluck her car keys from her purse.

“Mind if I borrow?”

“Did my son run out of gas again?” She’s not asking this as a way to point out a past error of mine—just making conversation.

“Nope, he just wants to wash his mom’s car.”

She raises her eyebrows. “He does?”

“He does. Automatically.”

She nods like
that’s
the son she knows, hands me a twenty for the Ultra Wash, and then another twenty just for being me. It kind of feels like blood money I don’t deserve … but we’re blood, and it’s not as if I’m drawing a salary from somewhere, so I accept it, promising to vacuum the interior, too.

Juliette

D
ON’T GET ME WRONG
, I can tolerate Abram more than I’ve ever been able to tolerate a guy in my age demographic. I’m ignoring his existence now because I care. And I can foresee the dead end that will come from letting our feelings fester on and on, as long as we both shall not kill ourselves.

He needs to find himself a people-pleaser—a natural-born pushover who will do weird things like wear a special dress when the occasion never calls for it, forget to complain about going to the amusement park or a baseball game, and agree with his point of view for the sake of getting along. Like that musically talented Asian girl he cheats off of … but not, because I recently decided to hate that girl.

What Abram doesn’t need is a problem-maker, and he’s looking at her. The back of my shoddily straightened hair, actually, through the windshield of his mom’s
candy apple
Lexus.

What is he doing?

According to the side mirror of the cab, he’s singing. Doesn’t seem to care if any passing cars catch him getting into it, tapping the wheel as he strains his neck muscles for a high note. He’s going to hurt himself. He’s so … quick to embrace the present moment for what it is, even if he doesn’t understand why I’m complicating it. I briefly consider teaching him a lesson he’ll probably forget, but that kind of effort is what got me into this tailgating party in the first place. Besides, I don’t want to keep this other guy waiting—the cute one I’m on my way to visit right now.

I unsnap a hidden pocket of my purse to make sure I brought him a treat.

14

ABRAM

T
HIS DOESN’T SEEM
like Juliette’s kind of place, but she gets out of the cab and power-walks straight through the entrance like she owns it, so I’m gathering we’re here. I park toward the back of the adjacent lot and wait to see if anything more characteristic of her happens, like maybe she emerges with her earphones in place and starts pounding the jogging path that circles the building, or she brings a random laptop to one of the picnic tables outside, laments the slowness of the Wi-Fi, and gets a jump start on the weekend homework I’ve already forgotten about. With her, the sky’s the limit … among other limits.

Thirty minutes later and she walks out of the Loudoun County Humane Society with a lucky dog: a pure-bred Saint Bernard with a shiny black nose, a well-groomed coat, and a long tongue that he’s using to go to town on Juliette’s hand. She doesn’t seem to be enjoying the licking, but she tolerates it.

In conclusion, every Saturday morning, for the last however many months I’ve been window-watching her, Juliette’s been volunteering at the Humane Society? Come to think of it, I
have
noticed my very own dog chewing some higher-quality bones lately—assumed they’d been stolen from my neighbor’s fickle Labradoodle.