Six more months of june, p.9
Six More Months of June, page 9
“Hi!” he sort of shouts at me.
“Hey,” I say.
“No glasses,” he says, pointing like he’s going to touch my face and then quickly folding his arms.
“Yes, I misplaced them.”
“You look nice,” he says.
“Oh,” I say.
“Sorry.” He scratches the side of his head. “I’m being super weird.”
“That’s okay—”
“I meant to text you like all weekend and then waited too long and made it a thing in my head and then couldn’t do it and I thought maybe you’d be at Little Bend since you’ve been coming around more but then you weren’t so instead I left you the elephant and I meant to just give it to you in the hallway but then you were late so I went to leave it at your homeroom desk but everyone watched me as I did it and I realized it was probably a weird thing to do but then it was too late so I just left it on your desk and dipped. I hope I didn’t embarrass you or something.”
I make myself shut my mouth. “That’s okay,” I say, raising my fist, which I’ve kept locked carefully around the elephant all morning, and open it for him like a flower. The elephant is lying there on his side. Quinn reaches out and rights him with careful fingers.
“You still like elephants, right? I remember you did that awesome report on them in, like, fourth grade and your diorama, like, put everyone else to shame. You said they were your favorite animal because they were lucky and wise and remembered everything.”
“That’s—that’s right—they do,” I hear myself say.
“Sick,” he says.
“Okay, well.”
“Do you wanna hang out this week?”
“What?”
“Like see a movie or something?”
“Like, a date?”
“Only if you want to,” he says, uncrossing and then recrossing his arms. “Yeah, we don’t have to. It’s all good—”
“No, I want to,” I say.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, awesome. I’ll text you.”
“Okay.” I turn to leave.
“Wait, do you, like, want to come eat with us?”
“No thank you,” I say quickly, feeling faint, “but please text me.”
I force myself calmly through the cafeteria, with the vague idea of going to sit at the table with Lorraine, but I can’t seem to be able to alter my path, so I head for the closest exit that leads outside. As I turn, I see Quinn in my periphery with his hands in his pockets, doing a funny little skip back to his table. Someone gives him a high five. I throw myself against the doors, out into the warm rain.
13
Caplan
“God, she’s weird,” Quinn says happily, watching Mina through the glass cafeteria windows, stomping off in the downpour.
“So she said yes?” Hollis asks.
“Yeah, I’m weak. I can’t believe it. Thanks for making me. Caplan said there was no way.”
“Why would you say that?” Hollis asks me.
I shake myself. I’ve been feeling strange all day. Bleary and numb, like sleepwalking. “I just didn’t think Mina was the dating type. She’s not even, like, the friend type.”
“Yeah, remember when she literally didn’t talk for like a year in middle school?” says one of the guys, Noah. Noah, who I’m pretty sure poured the vodka on Mina.
“All you morons could stand to talk less,” Hollis says.
“I just think it’s weird she doesn’t have any friends who are girls,” Becca says.
“Yeah, red flag,” says Ruby, who literally always agrees with Becca.
“She doesn’t have any friends, period, besides Cap,” says another one of the boys.
Hollis nudges me with her elbow. I blink at her.
“She has other friends,” I say.
“She has other loners she sits with,” says Becca.
“Quinn,” Hollis says, turning toward him, “I think it’s awesome.”
“Thanks, Holly,” he says, but he’s looking at me, not Hollis.
“Me, too,” I say.
* * *
Regrettably, Becca walks with us to history.
“Ugh,” she’s saying to Hollis, “so we like her now?”
“Becca, we are hot girls, not mean girls,” Hollis says. “And being bitter is for losers.”
“I’m not bitter—”
“I know you wanted Quinn to take you to prom—”
“That is just—I never even said—” Becca splutters.
“But this is all for the best because Noah wants to ask you. He told Caplan so.”
“Wait, really?”
Hollis gives me a hard poke in the back.
“Yes,” I say.
“What exactly did he say?”
I tune out as Hollis takes over and they set to discussing Noah’s height and whether or not Becca can still wear heels. I wonder if Hollis has already clued Noah in or if I am going to have to play some part.
As I sit down in history, I pull out the paper that Mina did end up editing for me late last night. Everything’s annoying me today for no reason. I can’t pretend that the idea of Quinn taking out Mina is a personal thrill. I’ve worked for the whole part of my life that I can remember, the whole part that counted after that brief spell in elementary school, to look out for her. To make sure she’s safe and happy. And now I’m going to watch my second-closest friend take her for a test drive and then potentially hurt her feelings. Quinn’s a flirt. He flirts with everyone and has endless flirting currency but no follow-through. I’ll be involved. They’ll drag me in. It’ll be messy. Best-case scenario, it’ll be awkward, and my big wish for Mina, whose whole life has been one terrible unfair thing after another, is to have some ease. Some fun. I just wanted to get her to prom. And don’t even get me started on Hollis’s support. Knowing her, there’s something else afoot. I don’t want anything afoot. I want everything to stay normal, and I’m also feeling sick of everything and everyone. The two feelings are a bad cocktail.
For the first time, I allow myself to consider that Mina really might also go to Michigan. That it might, in the end, be the best thing for her. That if everything is about to change—and end—the one thing that would just stay the same would be the two of us. The idea is a relief. How many times have I learned not to assume what is right for Mina? If she wants to go to Michigan, I shouldn’t fight her on it. I’m not much of a fighter, anyway.
She rushes into class with the bell, head down and dripping wet, and sits in front of me. I kick the back of her chair. She flips me off without turning around. I kick her chair harder, and she turns, with a funny combination of blush and pride on her face.
“What?”
I beam at her. “Are you excited for your date?”
“Yes. Don’t make fun of me or you’ll ruin it.”
“I would never.”
“I know it’s—but if everyone else is going to act insane, so will I,” she says and then turns back to the board. I lean forward.
“I was thinking—”
“Please change the subject.”
“I know. I was about to.”
“Fine. What?”
“I know the reason you don’t want to go to Yale couldn’t be more fucked up or unfair, but I’m so excited you might go to Michigan.”
She turns toward her shoulder, so I can see half her face, one dimple, so I know she’s smiling.
“Really?” she says.
“Yeah. Let’s just do whatever we want forever.”
* * *
The next day, the sun comes out, and all of a sudden it’s summer. The school’s AC has been broken for as long as we can all remember, which means it’s disgusting inside, but I never mind because it always means we’re getting close to vacation and there’s something fun in complaining about it all together, even the teachers. I lie on the floor in Spanish, because Mr. Ochoa is cool and doesn’t give a shit as long as we do our work, and heat rises, obviously. Quinn says from above me where he’s drawing a dick on the side of the desk, “I can’t believe this is the last time we’ll have sweaty balls in our sweaty high school.”
“Do you think you’ve drawn enough dicks on enough desks?”
“Not even close,” he says. “But an artist’s work is never done.”
“Let’s watch Superbad tonight.”
“I can’t,” he says, using his eraser to make some highlights. “I’m going to the movies with Mina.”
“Oh shit, that’s right. What are you seeing?”
“That movie about Blake Lively fighting a shark.” He looks at me. “What?”
“Nothing,” I laugh.
“Hey, she picked it,” he says. “It was that or something called Me Before You.”
“Sounds romantic.”
“Do you think it matters”—he frowns at his desk dick—“that she didn’t pick the romantic one?”
“Hey, don’t ask me,” I say. “You’re going where no man has gone before. There’s no map for Mina.”
This makes him grin. “I’m a man on the moon.”
“No, you’re still on the treasure hunt.”
He turns the dick into a rocket ship and is just starting work on all the planets when Mr. Ochoa comes over and gives him detention, but not before cracking up.
For three years in a row, somewhere around elementary, I was an astronaut for Halloween and Quinn was a pirate. My mom has a picture of each consecutive year printed and framed in my room. We did it again this year for old times’ sake. Hollis wanted to murder me, because she had this whole plan for us to be Daphne and Fred. I think we broke up over it, actually—more of a symptom than the cause—but we made up at the Halloween party. She still wore the purple dress and the green scarf thing, and I’m only human. We made a lot of jokes that night about the doghouse.
I text her—
remember when we had sex in the bathroom on halloween and Quinn walked in by mistake and you called him a meddling kid and slammed the door
She responds right away—
Yeah I do
Then—
It’s so fucking hot I want to die. I’m in a sports bra in the library
I say—
dress code
She says back—
Doghouse.
woof
I’m sweaty.
gross
Should we have sex in the library?
yeah probably.
Come here.
actually?
No, of course not.
Then—
Third floor girls room is out of order
coming
We’re late to lunch, and no one’s at the usual table outside, so we check the caf. I’m shocked to see Mina sitting with everyone. She has her book open in front of her, but she’s there at the table next to Quinn. When we sit down, she’s actually laughing.
“Why are we inside?” Hollis asks.
“Well, Mina sat in here, and I followed her,” Quinn says. “But where were you guys, and why are you so sweaty?”
“Everyone’s sweaty,” Hollis says, pulling me down to the other side of the table. Everyone else is here, too. I guess they followed Quinn. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Can’t,” he calls. “I live there.”
Mina snorts. He makes a face at her, scrunching up his nose. She makes one back.
“It’s definitely weird,” Hollis says to me in a low voice as some other conversation strikes up, and Mina looks back to her book, biting down on a little smile. “But I also think they make sense.”
“I don’t know about all that,” I say, “but she seems happy.”
“Yeah, Quinn is, too. They were texting till three a.m.”
“How do you know that?”
“Quinn told me. He said he felt like a seventh grader, in a good way, giggling at his phone under the covers. He sent me screenshots.”
“I didn’t get screenshots—”
“Cause you’re not good at texting.”
I don’t have an argument there, so I take the apple from in front of her and bite into it. It’s warm mush.
“She’s really funny,” Hollis says, now considering Mina, who’s back to reading but with that little smile on half her face. “I didn’t realize she was so funny.”
“I’ve been saying that to you for years,” I say. “This apple is gross. Everything in here is warm and gross, including us. We’re all sitting in a warm, gross pot getting hotter and hotter, and we’re gonna boil alive and not notice.”
“You haven’t, actually,” says Hollis, now considering me with the same look. “You’ve always said you wanted us to be friends, but you never really tried to make it happen.”
“I would do anything,” I say, “to not have this same conversation again.”
“Fine. Wanna come over tonight since all your other friends are busy?”
“I have more friends…”
“Cap.” She takes my face in her hands and gives me a little shake. “I’m teasing you. Stop being grumpy.”
“Sorry,” I say, pushing my forehead against hers for a second and then pulling away. “Yeah, I’ll come over. I just have to help hype Mina up first.”
“I should come, too,” Hollis says. “What are you gonna suggest for her outfit? The classic black Cons? Basketball shorts and a striped T-shirt?”
“Hey, I didn’t get screenshots,” I say. “Let me have this.”
“Fine,” she says. “FaceTime me in if you need me.”
Just then, Noah squeezes in between us.
“Yo, Hollis let slip that one of the girls recently said she was into me, but she won’t say who because girl code or some shit.” He rolls his eyes at Hollis. She takes a delicate bite of her salad, ignoring him. “But I need a date to prom, and sophomore Sophie turned me down.” I laugh halfway through my sip of water and he claps me on the back. Hollis gets up at that moment to toss her trash. I’m still choking, and Noah says, “Can you find out for me?”
I clear my throat and beckon him closer. “I already know. It’s Becca. But you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Good looks,” he says and rejoins the other end of the table.
“You should get an A-plus for all your work on prom,” I say to Hollis as she sits back down. “Your greatest project so far.” More shit talking always goes on when we sit inside, because the indoor tables are long, like the Last Supper. The outdoor tables are round and intimate. Harder to get away with side plotting or mid-game commentary when everyone is facing each other. Obviously, this is something Hollis first pointed out to me.
“Thank you very much,” she says. “The genius of this was not telling him outright, because boys are naturally curious, like toddlers, and they like to conquer small tasks and mysteries. Plus, once they have an intense thought about something, they can’t even tell what kind of thought it is. The ball just rolls.”
“All the way to prom.”
“Exactly.”
“Everyone should know who was responsible for manipulating them,” I say. “They owe you a thank-you.”
“I just want us all to be together. And it’s important to do good deeds,” she says seriously, “especially when no one’s watching.”
* * *
When I go over to Mina’s that afternoon, I find her in her bedroom, lying face down on the bed, with all her clothes all over the floor.
“I have to cancel,” she says, her voice muffled in the pillow.
“Okay,” I say, stepping over the clothes. “How come?”
“Because everything I try on makes me look like I’m playing dress-up and I’m all sweaty and I would really rather just watch a movie with you.”
This gives me a dumb little whoop of joy in my stomach.
“Yeah, no shit. That’s always what we’d both rather do,” I say, picking up some of the discarded dresses. “But life persists.”
She flips over onto her back and glares at her ceiling fan.
“That’s my app’s word of the day. Persist.”
“That’s a little easy for you, I think,” she says.
I hold out the blue dress she wore to Hollis’s birthday. “You should just wear this one again,” I say. “It looked good.”
“What do you mean, ‘It looked good’?”
“I mean I looked at it, and to me, it looked good and not bad.”
“Well, I can’t do that, because then it looks like I only own one dress like fucking Cinderella.”
“Cinderella is like the hottest princess.”
“Cinderella was a loser pushover with no dad.”
I can think of absolutely nothing to say to this. She passes me her phone.
“Make up an excuse and be believable but also kind.” She rolls back over onto her stomach. “And then leave me here to die.”
I open her messages with Quinn. He’s texted her.
im scared of sharks and dates but im also so excited to see you
whats up with that?
“You have a text.” I hand her the phone.
She looks at it. She makes this face for one second, a face I’ve literally never seen her make, with her mouth sort of open. Then she bites down on her lip and flops back onto the bed. “Mother fuck fuck fuck.”
“All right.” I stand and pull out my own phone. “Three fucks. Time for the big guns.” I FaceTime Hollis.
“What are you doing?”
Hollis picks up with the smuggest look of all time. Upon hearing her voice, Mina’s eyes go wide, and she starts shaking her head vigorously.
“Hi,” I say to Hollis, swatting Mina away. “You were right and I was wrong and we need help.” I duck as Mina throws a shoe at me. She’s hissing something about this being a very vulnerable moment.
