Carter
Ooh baby, do I feel like a steaming pile of fecal matter or what?
I do indeed.
I shift around in bed, and an electric current of pain extends from my knee up through my thigh. Ouch. I grit my teeth and
suck in air through the sides of my mouth.
My head is thumping, like someone jammed a dart into my skull just above my right eyebrow. The palms of my hands are raw,
and I sort of feel like I could throw up.
“Well, seems like you had an eventful night.” The blinds rise with a dramatic zip, and the sun pours in, revealing Mom standing
there. “I’m sorry I woke you, but it’s almost noon.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I’m okay.”
“Very convincing.” Mom takes a glass of water off my dresser and hands it to me, followed by two Advil.
“Thanks.” I sit up, pop the capsules into my mouth, and slowly chug the entire glass. I don’t remember much of last night’s
party. That’s a feeling I’ve gotten used to. I know I drank a fair amount of that beer I bought, and I think I . . . danced?
“Someone dropped you off last night,” Mom says. “You left your car at the party. That was smart. Thank you.”
“Oh.” I have no memory of this. But now that she’s said it, it does ring a bell, like the answer to an impossible trivia question
that sounds more familiar than you were expecting. Of course amino acids are the building blocks of protein! I totally knew that! “No prob. It didn’t, um, seem safe to drive.”
“I know you can’t really remember your past sixteens,” Mom says, “but I do feel like you’re learning. Somehow. Is that possible?”
“Maybe,” I say, though I have this feeling she’s giving me more credit than I deserve.
Then it comes to me, like a gentle smack in the face:
Maggie. Maggie Spear.
She of the blue cardigan and sparkly eyelids.
She was the one who put me in the car.
With the driver who had a female man’s name.
Johna? Michaela? Steva?
“I like to think you’re learning,” Mom says, kissing my head, and it’s one of those moments that jolts me into her point of
view, how she has this son who repeats the same stupid shit every year and never evolves. And she and Dad have to somehow,
in spite of that, keep supporting and loving me and being patient with me. “Come downstairs and eat something.”
“I think you’re right,” I say. “I think I am learning.”
“That would be—” Mom’s eyes get glassy like she’s about to cry. “That would be really wonderful.” She covers her face with
her hand, and here come the tears.
“Do you want to, like, sit?” I ask, patting the foot of my bed. “I’m . . . I’m really sorry about all this.”
“No, Carter,” Mom says, accepting my offer and plopping down onto the bed. “I’m sorry! I don’t want this for you. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, of course I know that. You don’t have to apologize, Mom. It’s not your fault. You and Dad should be, like, empty nesters or whatever by now.”
Mom puts both arms around me and sobs over my shoulder. “Carter, we want you here as long as you need to be here.” She pulls
back and looks into my eyes. “Every mom has moments where they wish their kid would freeze in time. Not like this, though.
I never would have— I really don’t want this for you.”
She says it with so much intensity, it’s like she’s trying to convince me.
“I know, Mom. I really do.”
Her tears are nearly contagious, but I stifle the sob in my chest before it emerges.
“Have the doctors,” I say, “like Dr. Reedy and whoever else . . . Have they ever said they think I’ll get to seventeen? Do
they have hope?”
“Honestly, Carter,” Mom says as she grabs a tissue from my nightstand and blows her nose, “I generally believe in doctors.
But when it comes to this? And a condition they’ve never seen before? They say a lot of fancy things, and they try to seem
confident, but it’s become clear to me none of it means all that much. Because they don’t have a fucking clue what’s going
on with you.”
“Whoa, Mom. Language.”
“As you know, sometimes cursing is necessary. And cathartic.”
“Fuck yeah I do.”
Mom laughs. “And, to answer your question, sweetie: I have hope. And so does Dad. Which is why he just set up an appointment for you with an Ayurvedic doctor for early next week.”
“Okay. Do you think that’s the answer?”
Mom shrugs. “Worth a fucking try, right?”
I lean in and hug her again. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Love you, Carter.”
“Love you.” I move my leg, and the pain isn’t nearly as bad. The Advil must be kicking in. “Hey, Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Have we . . . had this conversation before?”
She pauses a moment, and I can tell she’s not sure if being completely honest will mess with my head too much. “We’ve had
a version of it,” she says. “But not exactly like this. This is the best one yet.”
“Sure it is,” I say, laughing.
“Now get your butt out of bed so you can start your Sunday.”
“On it,” I say, and somehow, Mom has made my first hangover feel about a hundred times better than it did ten minutes ago.
Roberta.
That was the driver’s name.
I wonder what I said to Maggie Spear. Hope I didn’t embarrass myself.
I should message her to say thanks.
I pick up my phone and see a string of texts from Bodhi:
Yo heard you got a car home, sorry didn’t get to say bye
I was too busy DOMINATING BEER PONG w Lizzy
And then we DOMINATED EACH OTHER’S MOUTHS
(we made out hardcore is what I mean by that)
IOU for getting us into the party, it really was a movie
I text back: YOU AND LIZZY! YEAHHHHHH
I’m happy for him. I almost mention Maggie, but I don’t need to have another useless exchange about Muggy Sphere.
I check to see if Maggie’s name is in my contacts so I can text her, but of course it’s not.
I have literally nine contacts, and three of them are my family members.
I found Maggie on Instagram after I saw her in that yearbook photo, but her account was private and I felt weird trying to follow her. I push the button now.
I go to Bodhi’s profile, and he’s got just one pic up in his stories, a selfie of him and Lizzy screaming into the camera
lens.
I go to Lizzy’s story, and she’s got several photos up, along with a video of me being ridiculous. Seems I did the worm. And
a bunch of other weird shit.
There’s a photo with Lizzy and Shana, so I go to Shana’s profile and JACKPOT: There’s a pic of her, Maggie, and this girl with a ridge of blue hair traversing the center of her head like a lawn-dividing
shrub.
I stare at Maggie. She’s so pretty. Her smirking face sparks a memory.
She was laughing last night.
At something I said. Who knows what.
And also:
“We don’t have a history!”
She said that to me.
But I don’t think I believed her.
I find the name of one of my nine contacts and push on the camera icon next to his number.
“Well, hello there,” my younger-older brother says moments later, sitting in his tidy dorm room with his earbuds in.
“Howdy-ho,” I say.
“Still in bed, huh?” Lincoln asks.
“Well, yeah. But . . . I’m getting up in a second. Went to a party last night.”
“Ooh. How did that go?”
“It’s, uh, hard to say for sure. Fine, I think? I just watched a video of myself twerking.”
“Yikes.” Lincoln laughs. “Way to go, CT.”
“I know you’re making fun of me, but I’ll take it. What’re you up to?”
“Oh, you know. Pretending to get work done, watching TikTok instead. My roommate’s here too. This is Leo.” Lincoln flips the
camera toward a white guy with glasses and shoulder-length hair parted down the middle, sitting on his twin bed and restringing
an acoustic guitar.
“Hey,” Leo says, giving a barely perceptible nod.
“He’s very focused on his instrument,” Lincoln says, overly enunciating each word to be funny as he turns the camera back
to himself.
“Fuck you,” Leo says off camera.
“So, look, I was wondering if you could tell me about Maggie Spear,” I say, cutting right to the point of my call.
“Sure, what about her?” Lincoln says without missing a beat, none of the awkward stammering I’ve gotten used to from Bodhi.
“Just, like . . . Did she and I ever hook up or anything?”
“Wait, Maggie Spear who goes to your school?” Lincoln looks convincingly confused in a way that instantly deflates the entire
story I’ve constructed in my head. “Not that I’m aware of. Why do you think you hooked up with her?”
“Well, I don’t. I mean, maybe it wasn’t a hookup.
But just— The first day I was back at school, on my birthday, I saw her sobbing in the hall as she looked at me.
And then I showed up at this party her friend was throwing, and her friend didn’t want me there.
She was trying to keep me and Maggie in separate rooms.”
“Huh,” Lincoln says, brushing curls away from his eyes. “You and Maggie definitely knew each other at school, I think. So
I get why she’d be bummed to see you go through this. But I’m not sure you were super close or anything.”
“Okay,” I say.
There was a tiny skip in his voice when he said I think. Maybe I imagined it. The tiniest millisecond of hesitation.
Maybe I’m just desperate to believe I’m somehow connected to Maggie because I might have a crush on her based on the exactly
one conversation we’ve had, in which the only sentence I can remember her uttering is the one where she insisted we have never
been romantically involved.
“Yeah,” Lincoln says. “If it makes you feel any better, I hear she’s annoying.”
“What? Annoying how?”
“I don’t know. Just, like, annoying.”
“Who said that?”
“People. Who I know from Ridgedale.”
“People. Huh. Okay.”
Lincoln shrugs. “Yeah. Anyway, I should get back to work. I have lots to read and an a cappella rehearsal in an hour.”
For the billionth time, I’m completely in awe of how mature he seems. The Lincoln I remember was this shy little dweeb.
Quietly hilarious and bighearted, but a definitive dweeb.
The guy on my screen, though, is like . .
. cool. A confident college kid. Comfortable in his own skin.
I’m proud of him, but I also want to smash the screen and scream so loud it makes my throat ragged.
“Cool,” I say. “Thanks for taking a minute to talk, Link.”
“Always. Love you, brother. Byeeeeeeeee.”
“Love you.” We hang up, and I punch my pillow three times so hard I briefly see spots. I know I’m supposed to shower and head
downstairs, but I go back onto Instagram. I pull up Shana’s profile again in the hope of seeing more Maggie pictures. Maybe
there’s nothing between us, maybe I’ve constructed this narrative out of thin air and Maggie’s just a friend I kind of know.
But I cannot deny that I want to keep looking at her.
There’s a photo of her from September wearing a paper tiara, arms in the air, melty ice cream sundae in front of her. Underneath
it, Shana has written: happy 17 to the funniest and most beautiful bad-choice-maker I know. Setting aside the fact that rubbing a seventeenth birthday in my face like this seems incredibly rude, I have to wonder: Is
it possible I’m one of Maggie’s bad choices?
I go back to Shana’s grid. The most recent post is black-and-white with text overlaying it; I thought it was a random meme,
but I see it’s actually a poster for a gig Shana’s band is playing. They’re called Angry Baby. And there, sitting on some
steps with Shana and another bandmate, all of them glaring at the camera, is Maggie. She’s in the band. I didn’t even know
she played an instrument. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she’s the singer. Either way, it’s pretty hot.
The gig is next Thursday at a place called Bean-Age Dream, opening for a musician named Linda Schweitzer.
Maggie can continue to dodge me and say we have no history and hang out in a different room than me at parties, but she can’t tell me not to come see her band.
I mean, every concert needs an audience.
Right?