Especially because right now I can just fall back on a kindergartner’s strategy of hating people because they’re more talented, because goddamn. Bianca and James have been doing theater since they were tiny, and even though I didn’t hear him sing, I can tell by his speaking voice that he’s got to be decent, and being related to syrup-voiced Bianca has got to be a good sign. No idea if Mason’s at that level, but he spits out credentials like he generally doesn’t think they’re a big deal, and hi, I’m Etta and I go to dance class.
“So how’d you guys meet?” I say.
Bianca says, “I was born, and James was like, there.”
I say, “Oh, shut up, you.”
She grins, and it makes the restaurant seem even warmer. I like it here. It’s a little outside of town in the direction (away from Fremont, and Omaha, and general civilization) that I don’t typically go, but maybe I need to start venturing further into the cornfield wastelands. Topically, the walls are painted with kind of creepily realistic pictures of farmers, like we’re supposed to believe they’re harvesting our food as we sit here. But this ravioli is really, really good, and after two months in recovery I’m just now getting to the point where I can genuinely enjoy food (while frantically calculating calories in my head, yeah. I’m not a superhero. Unless ridiculously precise food-math counts as a superpower).
“I met James at day camp when we were goddamn infants,” Mason says. He curses, the siblings don’t. I’ve figured out from the way they bowed their heads before they ate, all subtle, in unison, that they’re definitely religious, and I’ve figured out from the way that James holds his fork—because come on it’s not like I don’t know my shit in this department—that he is definitely gay.
I say, “That’s like me and my best friend. We were like betrothed at birth or something.”
“Does she do theater too?” Mason says.
I shake my head. “We did kiddie dance classes together, but she was never really into it. Meanwhile I latched on to it and never stopped.”
“Oh, so you’re a dancer.”
Shut it down! “I’m so completely not a dancer. I just do dance classes. You have to be good to be a dancer.” I don’t know why I’m saying this, really, because the truth is . . . I’m pretty damn good. It’s the same way I used to pretend I ate a lot, I think. What if someday they see me dance and they think I’m not good? I have to start letting them down now. Jesus, I’m psychotic.
Bianca says, “I can’t dance at all.”
“I’m seriously hoping it’s not a big part of the audition,” Mason says, which maybe pisses me off a little because hello we just said that was what I was good at? Okay, maybe we kind of didn’t. Maybe I avoided praise like a pussy. Shut up.
I look around the room just to have something else to do and my eyes fall on this waitress a few tables down. She’s tallish, blond, hair in a bun but falling out and tucked behind her ears. Her uniform’s a little wrinkled and she looks flustered, tired, but she’s still sweet with her table, I can tell, refilling their water glasses and talking to them, smiling.
“See something you like?” James says, which amuses me because he totally has no reason to think that I’m into chicks (we don’t have a special way of holding our forks).
But whatever, screw it. “She looks like my ex-girlfriend,” I say. “I thought it was her for a second. Which is stupid because she’s in New York.”
“Girlfriend, huh?” Mason says. He looks kinda deflated. Aw, kid.
“I go both ways,” I say. “You know that whole thing about there being that misconception about bisexuals being sluts? Like, everyone thinks that just because we’re into both we’re into everybody?”
James says, “I do know that misconception.” Of course ya do, gay boy.
“Yeah well I’m actually kind of a slut. I’m awesome for the community, obviously.”
“Communities are overrated,” he says. “Go for small groups at co-ops.”
“Cheers to that.” I stuff another bite of ravioli into my mouth. Bianca takes a tentative forkful of salad, and James gives her this encouraging little smile. He hasn’t been pushing her, but he has been looking at her some through the meal, subtle but not secret, not like he thinks she isn’t going to notice. They’re kind of a beautiful thing, I think.
“So ‘kind of a slut’ equals a lot of ex-girlfriends, I’m guessing,” Mason says.
“Mostly a lot of ex-non-girlfriends, but yeah, Danielle was a thing. I’m still so completely in love with her, it’s immensely depressing. We plow on, whatever.”
“Why’d you break up?”
“She moved. New York. Luckiest girl in the world. Her mom got some job. It was one of those very sad very special episodes of a sitcom.” Not the musical kind.
“So you just broke up?”
“We tried, I visited a lot, but it’s hard. I was always so damn tired because I wasn’t eating and she was working two jobs plus school and busy all the time, so we wouldn’t spend all that much time together, and we’d both get snippy and passive-aggressive about it and it was just kind of a shitshow. Anyway, madly in love six months later, it’s okay. I live around it. My best friend Rachel gave me some Smiths CDs. Fills the void.”
“We’ve never been to New York,” James says.
“Shit, really? You’re theater kids! It’s the capital of the world!”
“And it’s so expensive.”
“Right, yeah . . .” I try to be sensitive about this shit, seriously, I try so hard, but I mess it up all the time. The truth is that I go to this rich private school, so I’m just used to people having money to throw around. I’m used to people living in houses that are way too big for them and I guess taking impromptu trips to New York. The fact that this Brentwood thing is a scholarship is obviously awesome because hey, saving money for other stuff, always awesome, but the hard part for me would definitely be getting into Brentwood, not paying for it. It’s not that I’m not grateful for having all this damn money. Whenever I think about it, I obviously so am. It’s just that I don’t think about it very often. I need to put Post-its around reminding me or something.
And the Brentwood thing is okay right now. I’m sitting here listening to them trade stories of their botched auditions (and they’ve all gotten through to auditions, Bianca even to second round), and they want this so much more than I do. I’m going to have a good time prepping for auditions with them, I think, but really I’m here as a cheerleader.
Which is completely fine, because have I mentioned how I don’t really have friends right now? I will cheer to the death! But for now I tip my head back and remember Danielle and me on some rooftop looking over the Hudson, and feeling very small and so big and loving, both at the same time.
“So there are two rounds of auditions?” I ask.
“Three, actually,” Mason says. “One where it’s a whole bunch of people and they have everyone sing just a few bars. I don’t even know how the hell they figure out if they’re any good just from that. And judging by some of the people who get through to second round, maybe they kind of can’t.”
“Second round is more you,” James says. “Kind of a long time in there. They get a sense of your personality, and you bring your own music, obviously. And then third round you go to New York to meet with the freaking board of the school! That’s our goal this time around.”
“That’s my goal, like, period,” I say. “I mean, not Brentwood. Necessarily. Just New York.”
“She’s scared,” James says. “If Brentwood were in Nebraska, she’d be going at it so much harder.” He talks for Bianca a lot. At first it seemed a little controlling, I’ll be honest, but as it keeps happening I’m getting the feeling it’s more like they’re psychics and he’s just being her voice. The sad thing is that I can tell that he’s pretty shy too; he’s just better at pushing through it than she is. She’s clammed up a little more than before, even, and she’s kind of shoving her lettuce around on her plate and drifting off, looking at this
lady farmer on the wall beside her who has big thighs and looks strong.
“I want to be this person who gets out,” I say.
Mason says, “A-fucking-men. Sorry, Bee.”
She smiles at him. “It’s fine.”
James says, “You didn’t apologize to me!”
“You don’t get sad about God like Bianca does.” Mason turns back to me. “Anyway. Getting out of Nebraska.”
I say, “Getting out of Nebraska is like the first dream a Nebraskan baby has.”
He taps his glass against mine.
I say, “I’ve just attached all this cosmic significance to getting to New York, and whenever I’m here, I feel like that’s so cliché and stupid, but when I’m there, it just feels like the only option, you know? I’ve just promised it to myself.”
“You’ll get there.”
“I’ll get there. Stuff is just becoming . . . I don’t know. Intolerabler.” I shake it off. “I need something to keep me going before I can get out. Really I just want to be in a motorcycle gang. I think everything wrong with me is repressed and misguided agitation about not being in a motorcycle gang.” I think I’m kidding.
Bu then Mason says, “I have a motorcycle,” and yeah, maybe I wasn’t kidding that much, or maybe it’s just that he’s really damn cute and has been smiling at me all through dinner and that I have this feeling that I can get on this bike and go anywhere and that he will want to go too.
“Shut up.”
“Seriously. I’ll bring it to prep tomorrow and take you out after. How about that?”
How about that indeed.
“You got it.”
5
EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY WE HAVE these things called extension days, which should really be called reduction days, to be honest, because all you do is this long grueling version of one class the entire day. This week is calculus, and I’m a math kid, but seriously, no math kid needs seven hours of calculus and no girl in exile needs seven hours of just the same fifteen people, I’m pretty sure, no one in the whole world needs seven hours with the same fifteen people when one of them is Natasha.
She makes this big show of ignoring me but otherwise doesn’t do anything because I guess picking on someone all by yourself is boring, and she’s the only Dyke in this class. To all the other girls she’s just, well, a Dyke, so for a little while it feels like we’re kind of the same. We’re both friendless and surrounded by nothing but math, but then on her way to the bathroom she snaps my bra so hard my skin’s still burning when she gets back, so yeah, I’m guessing she didn’t feel like joining me down here at the bottom of my totem pole. Whatever, I out-math her like it’s my job.
• • •
The people in my chorus at the rec center aren’t mean, exactly. They’re not even unfriendly. It’s just that they all go to school together. They’re picking up conversations that started during fifth period or whatever and passing each other notes and whispering about oh my god Lisa what a slut! I slept with a girl named Lisa once. Today I wish I were friends with these guys just so I could find out of it’s the same one.
We’re singing Mendel right now, “Hallelujah Chorus,” which is okay as far as choral music goes. It’s got these gorgeous high notes, but I’m a mezzo, so those aren’t mine. I sing these notes right in the middle, and the other mezzos find them no problem, while I have to hope my director remembers to play all the parts separately this time instead of jumping into playing all the harmonies and assuming we’ll be able to pick our parts out ourselves. (God, where did these girls learn to pick these out themselves? Like, I can read music, I took piano when I was a kid, where are my superpowers?)
I reach for one of our highest notes and my voice breaks. Carolina next to me screws up her own note by laughing, ha ha.
I buckle down and get through Mendel, because after this I’m singing whatever I damn well please.
• • •
It would be nice if I had any idea what that was.
Mason says, “Maybe it’ll help you, not having something specific in mind. Means you can go in there all open to anything at that first audition and not be thinking, but I could sing my song so much better.”
“What kind of stuff do they usually pick?” We’re back in the practice room, and this time there’s someone older than us coaching some people by the blackboard, and some people are listening and some people are off on their own, and then there’s me and Mason stretched out on the floor because why not. James is looking through a songbook, Bianca flitting by his shoulder and flipping back and forth between different pages, pointing stuff out, making him nod.
Mason says, “Something hard, usually.”
“Oh, good!”
He laughs. “It’s all about attitude at this stage. Show you deserve to be there, and they’ll believe you. The people auditioning you at this point are some low-level volunteers. You’ll be fine.”
“Are you nervous?”
He shrugs. Well, all right, thank you for keeping the conversation going, Mason. He’s damn lucky he’s cute.
Bianca laughs, louder than she talks, and slips a little on the floor. I can’t believe I thought that girl was a dancer.
Mason smiles a little and stretches. He’s slim, not skinny, white and broad-shouldered and big-eyed. He’s the kind of guy who I bet would look great onstage, and maybe that’s the kind of thing he thinks about. “She’s such a dork.”
“Did you ever . . .”
He says “What?” like he genuinely has no clue how that sentence ends, come on, kid.
“You and Bianca.”
“Me and Bianca? Like . . . as a thing? No no no no, God, I need to, like borax my brain now.”
“Come on, she’s cute.”
“She’s fourteen, and I’ve known her since she was three. She’s like my little sister.”
“How long has she been . . .”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I didn’t notice until last year. James says it’s been going on longer than that. It wasn’t exactly something he talked about. She was always skinny and she’s been weird about food since she was little, always saying stuff gave her stomachaches and she wasn’t hungry and asking for diet soda in her kiddie cup at restaurants. I don’t know. I don’t get how all this works, I guess.”
“The eating disorder thing?”
“Yeah, just . . . you know. Why?”
“We go through tons and tons of therapy trying to figure out ‘why.’ Everyone wants it to be this same exact reason for everybody, like, oh, shit, if only I hadn’t eaten that house paint in 2002 I’d be eating like a normal person!”
“You stupid kid.”
“Right?”
He smiles. At me.
“So how’s she doing?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I guess since she’s doing group and stuff, we’re all supposed to talk about how well she’s doing, but she’s still not eating, so I guess I’m kind of failing to see what the big deal about group is.”
“Yeah, they don’t force-feed you unless you do inpatient.”
“But you . . . I mean, you eat.”
I’m going to choose to believe that he’s getting that from the fact that I ate last night and not because I’m clearly not wasting away, because that’s what a healthy and sane individual would believe. “Yeah. I’ve been in treatment longer than she has, though. I mean, in our group at least.”
“Was it hard?”
“Of course.”
“Maybe you could mentor her.”
“I think maybe we . . . I don’t know. We’re coming at this from different places, judging by stuff we’ve said in group. God, I should not be telling you this shit.”
“You’re telling me about you. It’s okay.”
And then he puts his hand on my back. The small of my back, just kind of . . . puts his hand there. It’s big and warm.
I say, “I don’t think she’d have that voice still if she’d been throwing up for a few years.”
“Oh.”
“I know. It’s gross. Shit.”
He taps his fingers over my spine.
My spine. He doesn’t know he’s doing it.
I lean back into his hand. “Motorcycle tonight, right?”
He nods and sits up, gives one of my dreads a little tug. “Motorcycle tonight.”
• • •
The four of us (oh God, I’m a “four of us”) are leaving the community center by way of the damn third floor, and ugh, shit, I forgot I lingered after last time and that’s probably why I didn’t see Miss Michelle’s class letting out, but here they are now, tights and leg warmers and gym bags, pretty, teeny little white girls (this is why I thought Bianca might be a dancer) spilling out into the hallways, and more than a few of them give me a “Hi, Etta,” or at least nod in a way that isn’t all hateful, so all in all, these past five minutes have had more positive interactions with more humans than I’ve had in, like, months, but I’m still trying to get Bianca and Mason and James out of here as quickly as possible—Okay, keep moving, nothing to see—because really the last thing I want to do is talk about this.
And then of course, of course, Miss Michelle goes, “Etta?” And damn it, why can’t I have some name she wouldn’t immediately know was me from hearing the girls, you know? No one’s going to be like, Etta who?
“Uh, hi, Miss Michelle.”
“How are you, sweetheart? God, it’s been almost a year, hasn’t it?”