Same Difference (9780545477215) (16 page)

“I … I feel weird. I mean, he's still my teacher.” And also, as of a few hours ago, Yates and Fiona were inevitable. Is she really over him that quickly?

“You were telling me to hook up with him before!”

“I know … but that's someone like you,” I say.

Fiona shakes her head knowingly, and leans into the mirror to apply some more lipstick. “Don't worry. I'll help you make it happen. Just follow my lead.” She stares at Robyn as she presses her lips together to spread the shiny red around.

We return to the backstage area. My mind is swimming. Fiona liked Yates so much, but she basically gave me her blessing to pursue him. Not only her blessing, but her help, too. Honestly, this makes me feel so amazing. If a guy can't come between us, I guess we really
are
friends. Friends for real. It's almost a stronger bond than I have with Meg. It's crazy to think how far we've come in so short a time. How far I have come.

Yates stands up and makes room for me on the couch. As I sit down, I feel like everyone's watching. Fiona makes a beeline for Adrian in the corner, where he's chatting with some of the boys in the band. My heart skips a beat for him, thinking maybe now he has a chance with Fiona. But instead, she pushes past him and touches the arm of Romero's lead singer, the same boy that Robyn was talking to before. Robyn stops dead in the middle of the room and watches, her mouth ever so slightly open.

Fiona inches closer, tickling his cheek with her long lock of blue hair. “You should let me do some backup growling on your next record. I'm really, really good at growling.”

It's too much for Adrian to bear. He grabs Robyn's arm and whispers in her ear. The two walk over to me.

“We're leaving,” Robyn says.

“No. Guys, stay. Come on.”

Adrian shoots daggers across the room. “I'd rather poke my eyes out with a dull pencil.”

“Listen,” I say, and lead them away from Yates. “Please stay. You know how she gets sometimes.” I don't want to sound like I'm talking bad about Fiona, but it is the truth. “She likes attention.”

“You can tell Fiona I said ‘screw you,'” Robyn says to me, but so loud it carries across the room.

If Fiona hears, she certainly doesn't show it. Her face is locked against the lead singer's. She guides his hands onto her hips. She growls for him.

I
don't kiss Yates.

There are a few times when I think it might happen, when we're talking but not actually having a conversation. At least not one that's registering. It's more like we're both spitting out words to pass the time until one of us has the courage to lean in.

But neither of us does.

He says to me, “This TA thing isn't all it's cracked up to be,” and he sighs and raises his arms up for a stretch, lacing and cracking his fingers and giving me a glimpse of those horseshoe tattoos on his inner biceps. I feel lucky.

But I don't want Yates to risk getting in trouble. The attraction — the urge — is there. But it's held back by the caution. There isn't even a place for us to be alone backstage. There are no secrets here, and this would need to be a secret.

So I try to enjoy the flirtation of it all, the fact that I have his attention, until finally the show ends and the after party breaks up and Fiona and I go back to her apartment. For once, I understand completely why Fiona's obsessed with having all eyes on her. It does feel like a drug, or like helium, making you lighter.

We're both pretty tired. Fiona kicks some random stuff on her floor into a pile near the wall, and then unfolds a foam chair into a thin twin mattress for me. She lends me a pair of pajama pants and wraps a spare pillow in a T-shirt, because she can't find any clean pillowcases in the linen closet. It's too hot for a blanket, so I use a sheet.

“It sucks that you guys didn't kiss,” Fiona says as we climb into our beds. “If you want this, you're gonna have to grow some balls, because Yates is never going to make the first move.” Fiona falls asleep pretty quickly. From the floor, I see the tops of the Philadelphia skyline out of her window. Staring at it, I realize that the night sky isn't really black, which is the way I've always thought of it. It's actually a dark shade of blue, the darkest possible.

 

When I get back home, I find myself wanting to talk to Meg. It feels weird to be on the brink of something and her not know anything about it. She doesn't even know Yates's name. I want to tell her, as soon as we get some time alone. But I can't exactly get the subject to come up, not when all I can get Meg to commit to is a quickie Starbucks run between a lunch date with Rick and a trip to the car dealership with her mom to pick out her birthday-mobile. It's like Meg only wants to hang out with me in spare moments, instead of making real time for us. Lately I've been guilty of that, too, but she did it first.

When we meet up later that night, Meg casually mentions that she has a craving for funnel cake, and since there's nothing else to do, we pile into Rick's truck and decide to drive to the boardwalk. It'll be a long trip, about forty minutes, but I don't mind. I haven't been to the shore once yet this summer.

We're about to get on the highway when Rick fumbles for his phone. “Oh,” he says awkwardly, the way the one senior jock cast in the school play delivers his lines. “Chad just texted me and asked what we were doing.” His head spins toward us, smooth and measured. “Should we ask him to come?”

Meg taps a finger against her lips, contemplating. “That's a great idea. You don't mind, do you, Emily?”

I scrunch up my face. “No,” I say, suspicious.

We swing by Chad's house. He's waiting outside on the curb, his hair gel reflecting in the moonlight. We decide to take his car, since it has more room than Rick's truck. I'm automatically given shotgun.

Meg reaches around my headrest and tucks some hair behind my ears. I pinned up most of the pieces in those twisty buns that Fiona always wears, but I left a few strands in the very front loose. “Your hair looks so cute down, Emily. I mean, people would kill for hair like yours.” She leans forward between our seats and winks at Chad.

“I like my hair this way,” I tell her, gently guiding her hand away.

“Oh yeah,” Meg chirps. “Me too. I was just saying …”

Everyone talks and laughs on the drive to the boardwalk. I participate every now and then, but really, I just take note of the things in Chad's car. It's a typical messy boy car, with so much sports equipment and dirty T-shirts piled up on the backseat floor that Meg has to sit sideways and drape her legs over Rick's lap. Dirt from the ball field dulls the black floor mat where my feet are, and empty foil wrappers from protein bars catch the highway lights and flash inside the car like stars in a garbage constellation.

It was warm and nice in Cherry Grove, but the closer we get to the beach, the air thickens with moisture into a dense, wet fog. Chad puts on the windshield wipers, even though it's not actually raining. Not many people are out. We get a parking space, no problem.

As soon as I get out of the car, I'm shivering. I'm dressed completely wrong — in a jumper Fiona gave me. It's apple green and has tiny blue stars printed on it, and two oversized blue buttons hold up the straps. My white lace-trimmed cami peeks out the front. Fiona said I could wear it with nothing underneath — but I think she greatly overestimates the size of my boobs.

“Here,” Chad says, and pops open the back hatch. He gives me his green nylon baseball windbreaker. It has the softest lining inside, a heather gray T-shirt material that feels like it's been washed a thousand times. His name is stitched on it in a bulge of little lines of gold thread. I trace the script letters with my finger. I remember Meg telling me how thrilling it was to get Rick's windbreaker, like it was a prize she'd won. I slip it over my head, and when I poke my head out of the hole, Meg's right on top of me, giving this high-pitched
squee
that makes my stomach drop.

The boardwalk is mostly deserted and the fog makes it hard to see. But I can hear the waves crashing against the sand. As much as I like swimming in pools back at Cherry Grove, nothing comes close to the ocean. Swimming in the ocean has an element of danger, when the tide wants to pull you back in.

The boys walk just slightly ahead of us. I take advantage of the privacy.

“Is this a setup?” I whisper to Meg. Even if I can't tell her about Yates right now, she might as well know that it's not going to happen with me and Chad. I don't want things to get anymore awkward.

“Noooo,” she says, but I can tell she's lying. Meg is the worst liar. Ever.

“Meg, I —”

She turns her head toward the ocean breeze, so her hair doesn't fly in her mouth. “Remember all the summer days we'd spend here with my family? I wish they never sold my grandma's house. They tore it down, you know. To build some crappy hotel.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

I sigh. It's so weird, when something like that, something as real and tangible as a house that you've been in, is suddenly gone. “Remember how we'd boogie-board the waves until our stomachs were cut raw from the sand?”

Meg laughs. “Remember that time we were lying out and a seagull pooped right on your stomach?”

“Ewww,” I say, and slap her arm. “Remember the first time you got your period and you were so afraid of tampons that you wore a pad in your suit and it swelled up all huge from the water?”

“Emily!” Meg shrieks and covers my mouth with her hand. The boys don't even notice us. They've faded into the mist. “Those were the best summers,” she says quietly.

“Yup,” I say. But these memories don't make me happy. Even though I can see them in such sharp detail, I feel fuzzy and confused. Like déja vu. Like maybe none of it was real.

The funnel cake shop looks warm and inviting. Popping white lightbulbs chase each other around the glowing sign. I smell sugar. And butter.

Meg races to catch up with Rick. “Will you get me my own plate?”

I guess we're not sharing, like always.

“You're not going to eat a whole plate of funnel cake,” he says.

“Yes, I am,” she insists. “I haven't had funnel cake once this summer. I've got to make up for lost time.”

Rick leans against the counter. “Come on, Meg.” He laughs. “I've only got twenty bucks on me.”

I watch as she slides herself against him, her legs clenching against his thigh. She wraps her arms around his waist. A smile creeps across Rick's face. “Okay, okay,” he concedes.

I've never seen Meg do something like that before. Something so … Jenessa.

Suddenly, the light in the place is too bright and harsh. I sit down in a plastic booth and shield my eyes with the windbreaker, giving the place a wash of emerald green. Chad buys me a funnel cake and a lemonade.

“Say thank you, Emily,” Meg jokes as he plops them in front of me.

“Thanks,” I say quickly, even though I didn't ask for it.

Everyone sits down. And then something weird happens. Chad slips his hand into mine underneath the table. It feels warm and cold at the same time, or maybe I'm getting our hands confused because his fingers squeeze mine tight and there is no room, not even a little, between our palms.

There's a moment where I think I should just go with it. Let this happen so everything in Cherry Grove can go back to normal. Meg wants me to hook up with Chad because it will tie us together again, like the beach house and the Starbucks. She wants that closeness back, and there's a part of me, a little one, that does, too.

Then Chad's finger rubs against my drawing callus. It's rough and hard and completely ungirly. His grip loosens with surprise. I pull my hand free.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I announce and bolt from the table, speed-walking through the empty store, leaving their chatter behind.

There's a full-length mirror mounted to the bathroom wall. I stand there and stare at myself. My hair is all frizzy from the fog. And the windbreaker looks ridiculous, bagging out over my jumper. I look like two halves of two different people mashed together. I wonder what Fiona would say about me, about tonight. Is it possible to be a poseur in both worlds?

When I come back out, my purse has moved from the seat to the tabletop. It's open, and my sketchbook peeks out. My walking slows but my heart rate increases.

“Were you guys looking through my sketchbook?” I ask.

They all say no with super straight faces.

I don't sit down. “Just tell me if you did.” I don't want them to protect my feelings, but I am scared of what they think.

Rick says no again, but Meg cracks. “Okay, we peeked! But only because you never share anything with us. Seriously, Emily, you are so talented!”

“Yeah,” Chad says. “You should draw something for us right now.”

“Come on,” I say, falling into my seat. My body temperature drops back to normal. “Give me a break.”

“Seriously. Draw something!” Meg's eyes search the place and land back on our table. “Draw this funnel cake.”

A tingle comes over me. The funnel cake does have an interesting shape. It's like a long, skinny rope twirled around itself. And there's a lot of texture, too, with the way the bread glistens with oil in some places and looks dull where the powdered sugar was sprinkled on. Also, I do want to show Meg what I'm capable of. I want to impress them with who I really am.

I press my pencil to the first blank page, and everyone's quiet, watching me. I get the curves of the long, spiral tube. I do it like Mr. Frank says, paying attention to the real thing, and not just shorthanding a version of it. My eyes trace the funnel cake, my pencil follows. I don't even look down. Then I draw the rim of the paper plate, and start the shading.

Suddenly, my pencil skips out from under me, like a needle jumping the groove of a record. A thick white interruption in my gray line.

When I look up, the boys start to laugh. Then I notice, deep in the crevice of the spine, the rough jagged edges of paper and a loose string pulled from the binding. A page has been ripped out. Sloppy. Careless.

They've done something to my sketchbook.

I lay my pencil flat on its side and abandon my drawing. I scribble all over the sheet, hard and fast, blacking out everything in sight. But my pencil keeps skipping over the groove.

A form starts to take shape as the laughter grows into hysterics. The white lines curving and then long and then curving again. It's a big shape. It takes up almost a whole page.

They've drawn a big cartoon penis.

I flip to the next blank sheet and rub my pencil over it. They must have pressed pretty hard, because it goes through two, three, four, oh my God, five sheets. Five sheets wasted. My sketchbook, my diary, compromised.

I look up, heat burning behind my eyes. Rick and Chad slap hands over the table. And Meg looks like a kid who's been told a dirty joke for the first time — euphoric. It takes all my self-control not to throw my lemonade in their faces.

“Who did this?” I say.

Meg's face falls hard and fast like the first drop of the rickety old coaster roaring outside. “Emily —”

“Did you do this?” I shout in Rick's face. It feels good to stand up for myself.

Rick looks stunned. “Hey, Emily.” He puts his hands up. Surrender. “We were just joking.”

“It's not like you don't have cocks drawn all over that thing,” Chad snorts.

“Those were nude models, you idiot.” It's one thing to be critiqued by people better than me. But this is worse, because it's people who don't get it at all. I stand up and bump the table, spilling a bunch of lemonade. “I want to go home. Now.”

Meg tries to pull me back down. “Emily, no. Come on. We just got our food.”

“I'm serious,” I say. I grab my purse and start walking.

Meg runs after me. “Emily, listen—”

“I honestly can't believe you.”

She throws her hands up, like I am being way too intense, way too mad. “What? I thought your drawings were great. We were having some fun with you. It was just a joke.”

“You think that was funny? You honestly think that was funny?” Meg is the one who's a poseur. She pretends to like baseball for Rick's sake, and she pretends this is funny. The old Meg would never, ever think that. She would have gotten how important this sketchbook is to me.