Bad Romance

  “Are you having the time of your life?” I ask her.

  Even though she’s just in LA, it feels like she’s a million miles away. I want gossiping in the middle of the hottest nights, when we can’t sleep because the only air we have is the hot, manure-scented breeze trickling through the open window. I want washing dishes side by side. I want how we’d go from tears to laughing so hard our stomachs hurt.

  “I am,” she says. “And you will, too. One more year. Chin up, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  When I’m done, I run to the kitchen and make the salad and set the table. I glance at the clock on the stove: 4:40. I really hope Mom doesn’t make me walk. It’s a couple miles—I’d never make it in time.

  I hurry to my room and throw on the white shirt and black skirt all of us Honey Pot girls wear, then grab my khaki apron and purse. 4:45.

  Mom comes in from her room and surveys what I’ve done in the kitchen as she talks on the phone to a friend.

  She laughs. “Oh, it’s no problem, really. Grace can watch Sam and I’ll come over and help you plan the party. Saturday night at six? Perfect.”

  I hate when she does this, just puts a big X over my weekend. Maybe I had plans for Saturday night at six. But the conversation with her friend seems to be winding down and my heart lifts. She’ll hang up, I’ll be on time—no. Now she’s crossing into the living room, straightening things that are already straight, seeing wrinkles that aren’t there.

  It wouldn’t be the first time that I was late for work (or anything else) for that reason. I’m dying inside (I have to go, I have to go!). Why does she always do this? She knows I start at five. She knows you can’t be late for your job. I can’t say anything, even though it’s so hard not to. It’s pointless. She’ll just wave me away like I’m an annoying fly: buzz buzz buzz. It’s hard to kill a fly, but it can be done, if you swat at it enough.

  I rush to my room and scream into my pillow, just to let some of this out. When I get back to the kitchen, she’s off the phone and scrubbing the cutting board.

  “Mom?” I glance at the clock. 4:55. I should have just walked. “Can we—”

  “I’m not leaving the house like a pigsty,” she says. “What have I told you about cleaning up after yourself?”

  It’s a cutting board, that’s all that’s out of place. A cutting board I’d already rinsed off after chopping onions and making a salad for a meal I’m not even going to be eating because there’s no time to eat and I’d rather go hungry or eat my left arm, if it means I can get the hell out of here. I’m going to be late because of a cutting board? How do you explain that to your boss? I’m sorry, but there was this dreadful cutting board situation, you know how it is.

  Other than the cutting board, the house is perfectly clean. I mean, you could literally eat off the floor. Put on white gloves and run your finger along the bookcase—your glove will come away white as snow. There are medical words for the problems my mom has, but my only words for it right now are batshit crazy.

  These are the worst moments, knowing I can’t say a word while something important to me hangs in the balance. How many times have I been late or missed entire events because of a dirty dish or my mom’s sudden need to dust or organize a cupboard, water the grass. I’ve learned my lesson the hard way: pester her, even just once, and that’s it, you’re not going.

  4:58—if we leave right now, I’ll only be five or ten minutes late. That’s respectable. You can blame traffic or a watch that’s set too slow.

  4:59. My mom hands me the keys. “Go get your brother in the car seat.”

  I grab Sam and run.

  SIX

  I see you every day after school for four hours. For most of it, I sit hunched over my copy of the script, writing down the blocking and anything else Miss B needs the cast and crew to remember once we get onto an actual stage. Being a stage manager is serious business. I could screw up the entire show, so unlike you and the rest of the cast, I don’t have much time for socializing.

  You’re Billy Flynn, of course. No surprise there. The first time I ever saw you perform was when you played Don Lockwood in Singin’ in the Rain. I was a lowly freshman, utterly besotted from my seat in the audience. When you’re onstage, nobody can look away. You just have it. You know, It. Star quality, that je ne sais quoi.

  Something’s happening now with you and me, but I’m not sure what it is. I catch you looking at me, furtive glances that you hold long enough for me to see. You want me to catch you looking. There are soft smiles that make me blush. And suddenly there are hugs. When you see me, when we part ways. Hugs that last longer than they should, your heat seeping into me. More and more often now you’ll come and sit by me and do homework if you’re not in whatever scene is onstage. Or you pretend to do homework—mostly you write funny little notes to me.

  When I walk into a room the magnets inside us make it almost impossible to stay more than a few feet apart. But we don’t talk about it. Any of it. There are no phone calls, no dates, nothing. Just these magnets.

  I worry that it’s all in my head. Wishful thinking. I mean, come on. We’re talking about Gavin Davis here. I’m not the type of girl that gets a boy like you. And yet.

  Nat makes a beeline for me, pulls me to an empty corner.

  “I heard something,” she says.

  I raise my eyebrows. “Don’t tell me God spoke to you again.”

  Every now and then Nat will say that God laid something on her heart, which in Christian speak means God communicated directly with her. It’s usually something that she needs to do or fix. Lys thinks that’s creeptastic, but I don’t know. It’s kind of nice, I think.

  “No,” she says. Then she gets a wicked look in her eye. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you.”

  “I’ll give you my firstborn child if you tell me your secret,” I say, contrite.

  She laughs. “Fine. Gavin told Peter and Kyle that you’re hot.”

  I pretend to be offended, but inside? DYING. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  “Oh, shut up. Of course it’s not hard to believe.” Her big brown eyes dance. “I think he’s crushing on you.”

  “Don’t get my hopes up,” I say. But they’re already up. This is going to crash and burn so hard.

  “Fabulous thespians!” calls Miss B. For some reason, she’s decided to have an English accent today. “Gather round while I tell you the schedule.” She says it the British way: shed-jewel. I love Miss B. She exudes theatricality. The whole world is her stage. She’s got a thousand-watt smile, a chic bob, and when she talks, she uses her hands as much as I do. Her hair’s black, with one white streak in the front. In short, she’s super awesome.

  You catch my eye and I can’t look away and we smile goofy smiles.

  Nat takes my arm and whispers in my ear, “I think he’s imagining having sex with you right now.”

  My face turns bright red and I hit her arm as she guides us to the opposite side of the room from where you, Kyle, and Peter lie on your backs side by side, elbows propping you up, the Kings of Roosevelt High Drama. Your head turns, ever so slightly, following me. Cue soft smile. Cue my blush.

  “Uh-huh. Just as I suspected,” Nat says under her breath.

  “Nothing’s going on,” I say, adamant. So why are things bursting inside me, stars being born where there’d been only darkness before?

  Miss B runs down the shed-jewel: five more weeks of rehearsal after school, then we move into the big, fancy theater we get to use downtown. I could pee my pants I’m so excited. Once we start night rehearsals and performances, I won’t have to go home until ten every night. It’s the only freedom I’ll have until the next play, which is next October. (Best not to think about that.) Then Mrs. Menendez comes up, our dance P.E. teacher who choreographs all the shows.

  When she gives the rundown on all the things the dancers will need to buy, I thank my lucky stars I’m not in the cast. It gets old being broke. My family’s biggest splurge is getting the two-for-one
cheeseburgers at McDonald’s on Sundays. On my last birthday, I had to use the money my grandparents sent me to take my family to the movies, otherwise we would have had to just stay home and do nothing. I know people are starving in Africa and it’s wrong of me to complain, but it’s hard, seeing how most of my friends don’t get it. I’m so used to Money doesn’t grow on trees, Grace. I honestly don’t remember the last thing my mom or The Giant bought me. Oh wait—The Giant lent me the money to get a soda at Costco last week. Yes, he lent me the ninety-nine cents—I shit you not.

  After rehearsal, I head toward my house, walking as slowly as I can. A slow walk takes between eight and ten minutes, as opposed to normal walking, which takes only five. I always dread that moment when I walk through the door. I never know what’s waiting for me. Maybe I’m already in trouble and I don’t even know it. I shove my earbuds in and turn up Rent. I’m in NYC, eating lunch with my bohemian friends at the Life Café …

  There’s a honk and I turn around. Your Mustang pulls up, a shimmery dark blue classic, the engine purring. “Hey, girlie,” you say, sunglasses slipping down your nose, your voice purposefully creepy. “Want to take a ride with me?”

  I lean in the window and grin. “My mommy told me not to talk to strangers.” I hold up my hand when you open your mouth. “Don’t you dare make a your mom joke, Gavin Davis.”

  You laugh. “Fine. I’ll resist the temptation—just this once.” You turn down the radio—indie rock of some kind, mellow and deep.

  “So…,” you say.

  “So…,” I say.

  Smile. Blush. Repeat.

  “You want a ride home?” you ask.

  My stomach goes all kinds of wonky.

  “Oh, I literally live across the street.” I point toward Laye Ave. “On the cul-de-sac.”

  Yes! I want to say. Let me get in your surrey with a fringe on top, your rowboat in the depths of the Paris opera house. (Pssst: ten points to you, Gav, if you can guess which shows I’m talking about.) But I can’t get in that car. And I really don’t want to explain why. See, my mom has this rule … I’m so tired of having to narrate the crazy that is my home life.

  You raise one eyebrow. I didn’t know that real people knew how to do that. “Good to know,” you say. “Where you live, I mean.”

  Butterflies! In my stomach!

  “Don’t use that knowledge for nefarious purposes,” I say.

  “I make no promises.” You grin. “You know, I could really go for a Pepsi Freeze right now.” You point to me and then to the passenger seat.

  Me. Freaking. Too. Are you asking me out? What is happening?

  I take a breath and give you the rundown, which is: “So, I don’t know if, like, Kyle or Nat or anyone has told you about my weirdo family. One of my mom’s million rules is that I’m not allowed to drive with people she doesn’t know.”

  “Even to the gas station up the street?” you ask.

  “Even there.”

  “Sucks. And you don’t have a license?” you ask.

  “No,” I say. “Parentals don’t want to pay for insurance, blah blah blah.”

  “Lame.”

  “Pretty much, yeah. But it’s … you know, whatever, it’s cool.”

  “Don’t go anywhere,” you say. “Promise?”

  “Um. Okay?”

  You turn back into the school parking lot, park, then walk over to me. I like watching you do this, the way your shirt rides up a little so I can see the skin at your waist. The cool you exude with your Ray-Ban Wayfarers and skinny jeans.

  “Gavin, you really don’t need to walk me home,” I say when you get to me.

  “I’m not.” You grab my trig book out of my hand. Why, hello, Gilbert Blythe. “How long do you think it will take us to walk to the Pepsi Freezes?”

  “Gavin…” I shake my head. “Seriously—”

  “Half an hour there, half an hour back?”

  Twenty-six minutes, not like I know or anything. I nod.

  “But I can’t just—I need permission? And my mom, she’s … Maybe I shouldn’t.”

  “I’m super good with parents.” You grab my hand and pull me toward my house. So. Freaking. Smooth.

  You’re holding my hand, you are HOLDING MY HAND.

  There isn’t much time to talk on the way, but you don’t let go of my hand and I’m worried mine is sweaty but I try not to think about it because that will make it more sweaty and then if you realize it’s sweaty—hell. I am in hell. But, like, with a view of heaven.

  I’m not religious but I literally pray to whatever is out there that my mom isn’t screaming at Sam or fighting with The Giant when we get to the house—how mortifying would that be?

  When we walk up to my front porch, though, it’s unexpectedly quiet. Our house is never quiet. I unlock the door and you hover in the hallway, so close I can feel the heat of you. I can’t enjoy being this close, though—I’m about to break out in hives because if I have a friend—especially a friend of the male species—inside the house without anyone else being home, I will be dead. Like, so dead. My mom can’t handle people being inside unless it’s just been cleaned.

  “Any embarrassing baby pictures for me to look at?” you ask. Wow, do I love that gravelly drawl of yours.

  “Sorry,” I say, grabbing my trig book out of your hands. “We have a no-baby-pictures policy here.”

  “Somehow I think you’re lying.”

  I roll my eyes, open my bedroom door, and throw my backpack and book inside.

  “Your house smells like lemons.”

  “Pine Sol Lemon Fresh, to be exact,” I say. Other people’s houses smell like life: food and maybe candles and dog.

  “No pets?” you ask.

  I laugh. “My mom would probably have an aneurysm if there was an animal in the house.” I seriously can’t imagine what she’d do if there was dog hair in here. “I guess we can go.”

  This is an adventure I might pay for later, but it’ll be worth it. On our way out, I see a note on the dining room table for me in my mom’s looping handwriting.

  Went to Costco. The laundry needs to be folded and the front and back porch swept. Also, you forgot to clean the baseboards in the dining room last Friday, so that needs to be done before we get home. Put the roast in the oven and make a salad.

  The effing baseboards. Mom’s invisible dirt and microscope eyes. There’s no reasoning with her, either. You just scrub until she can’t see it anymore.

  “Is this for real?” you ask, reading over my shoulder. You’re so close I can smell your cologne, a woodsy, spicy smell.

  “Yeah.” I hate it when people find out about my family for the first time.

  I do some time math in my head. No Costco trip is shorter than an hour and the long list of chores suggests Mom’s planning on being gone awhile, maybe running other errands, too. That should buy me at least another twenty minutes, maybe more. I can always say rehearsal went long if she and The Giant get back home before I do. Which isn’t technically lying because rehearsal went five minutes longer than it was supposed to.

  Good enough.

  I push you out the door. “We have to power walk.”

  “I was in the Guinness Book of World Records for power walking,” you say.

  In my fifty-seven minutes with you that evening, I learn three things:

  1. You’re the only other person I know who looks up at the sky and imagines you’re somewhere else.

  2. We both cried at the end of Hamilton.

  3. You’ve always wanted to get to know me but were too intimidated.

  “Intimidated?” I say. “By what—my efficient stage management skills?”

  You shrug. “You’ve just got this thing.…” You start in with some Billy Joel: “She’s got a way about her, I don’t know what it is, but I know that I can’t live without her…”

  I love being around a boy who sings all the time. And sings old-school songs only our mothers know.

  It’s a perfect first date, even though
I know it’s not actually a date. I walk around the house in a daze and when I get an apple to snack on, I catch myself twisting its stem, playing that game from when I was a little girl. You twist the stem around and each rotation is a letter of the alphabet. The letter corresponds to a boy. A-Andrew, B-Brian, etc.

  The stem breaks off at G.

  SEVEN

  I stumble out of the bathroom and crawl into my bed, weak. I think I’m finally done throwing up. I’m at the dry-heaving stage, which is pretty much as low as you can go.

  It started in the middle of the night, a nausea so strong I had vertigo. It was noon before I was able to text the girls—I didn’t want Miss B to think I was ditching the show. When I’m not throwing up or curled into a ball of pain, I try to imagine what’s going on at rehearsal. I can picture you lounging offstage, trading jokes with the guys, or maybe in a hallway by yourself, going over your lines. I see Nat and Lys practicing a tap routine. Miss B looking slightly frazzled.

  I drift in and out of sleep. When I look out the window I notice the sky is getting darker—rehearsal will be over soon. I’m pissed that I missed a whole day of seeing you. You sent me a selfie at lunch—in it, you made yourself look totally depressed. You texted, This place sucks without you. A few hours later, during one of my many trips to the bathroom, you left a voice mail singing a naughty sea shanty. I listen to it for the fifth time, propped up on two pillows. This is evidence of how close we’ve gotten over the past few weeks. It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t even have each other’s phone numbers. Now I have hundreds of texts from you. I set down my phone and slide back under my thick duvet, fluffing the pillows until I get comfortable.

  The doorbell rings and I hear my mom pad down the hallway. She’s paranoid about getting sick—she can’t handle the germs, so I’ve pretty much been a prisoner in my room. She’s been talking to me through the door all day, leaving the occasional tray outside of it with crackers or a glass of water or a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, which makes me nauseous just looking at it. I’m not allowed to open the door until she’s out of range. I think she’s about two seconds away from calling the Centers for Disease Control.