39
A nd who can say what foul combination spurred that intestinal distress?
The pepperoni, the half-baked cookie, the two Red Bulls I chugged to impress?
” Ben’s cheeks were pink under his patchy attempt at a beard.
“But one thing remained clear to me, ’pon my final attempt to flush: All bad things pass, at times the worst all in a rush. ”
The senior common area erupted in cheers.
Everyone at the fifteen café-style tables got to their feet, thumping their hands together, howling for more from the Bathroom Bard of Green Hills High.
“The Dump I Did Take,” as it turned out, was the Poem of the Year in this edition of Explorations .
MC had a feeling there would be more recitations at the after-party.
Luckily, the theoretical grown-ups in attendance—MC, Joe, Gabby, and Conrad—were not invited.
But it was nice to be at the official portion of the evening.
Sheila had gone all out, turning the small area, with its black-and-white-checked floor, into a coffeehouse.
There were electric candles on the tables, and little cups of espresso and hot chocolate for sale at a makeshift bar in the back.
The presentation area was on the other end, with a faux-stone wall for backdrop and a mic stand placed in the center of three overlapping rugs.
MC had made a few remarks to start the night off, complimenting the students on their intellectual intensity and telling them she’d been honored to work with them; she hoped everyone who’d gathered to hear their stories and poems—a crowd of nearly sixty—knew what a feat it was to not only write, but take feedback, revise, and present that writing to an audience of listeners known and unknown.
From there they’d followed the table of contents.
Each student took a turn up at the mic, with a few other interludes from various members about the art and photography featured in the pages of the magazine.
Ben, as the most popular presenter, had been in the final slot.
Now, as he stepped into the arms of his comrades, MC wondered if she should get back up and make some closing speech.
She’d dressed up a bit for the occasion, just like the students, in dark jeans and a little black jacket, her curls gathered in a neat ponytail.
She’d finally gotten a haircut the week before.
Not for the occasion, but on the off chance that a new look might help her move on from mourning Nora.
Unfortunately, the look had no effect on her depression.
It did, however, remove a shocking amount of dead ends, and reconnected her with yet another old high school friend, who’d recently come out of cosmetology training.
Before MC could head back up to the mic, Heather beat her to it.
“Most of you have probably already figured this out,” she said, her sequined button-down sparkling in the low lights, “but we had some help this year from a few alumni.” People whistled.
“To thank them, we’d like to invite them to share their work from when they were students, which can be found in this rare edition of Explorations . ”
To MC, Joe, and Gabby’s horror, Heather held up a copy of their old magazine, grinning wickedly.
“Where did they get that?” Joe whispered.
Gabby was already glaring at Conrad, who was literally rubbing his hands together.
The crowd was cheering again.
“I’m not going first,” Joe said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.
MC was about to sacrifice herself when Gabby got up, drawing a fresh wave of applause.
“Just so you know,” she said, grabbing the mic like she did this all the time, “I may have been the only person in our whole grade who had a sense of irony.” She opened the magazine and searched for her piece. “Let’s just pretend that’s what this is.”
With one hand on her belly, the other on the magazine, she launched into a caper about a posse of hyperintelligent turkey vultures.
The hideous, oversize birds had been infamous nuisances in the school parking lot back in their day.
From the peals of laughter the story got now, it seemed they were still well-known.
Gabby’s story was so absurd it bordered on genius at times.
It was a side of Gabby that MC had completely forgotten about.
When she looked over at her brother, smiling and shaking his head as one of the lead turkey vultures prepared to remove his own feathers in a political demonstration, she realized he’d forgotten about it too.
“Was there anything worse than the sight of its puckered flesh?” Gabby said with great feeling. “But even in his ugliness, Roxanne loved him, and sheltered him under her wings.”
Gabby, like Ben, received a standing ovation.
Unfortunately for MC and Joe, there was little irony or absurdism to hide behind in their own work.
Joe recited a poem cycle in the style of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady sonnets, while MC read a short story about a tense relationship between two sisters living, for some reason, in Idaho—a thinly veiled attempt to cast judgment on her brother.
At least the students were gracious with their applause.
She was about to encourage the audience to stay for drinks, as they had the commons for another hour before they needed to clean up. But before she could get the announcement out, she saw people’s heads turning toward the back of the room.
“Hi, everyone,” Ms. Kim said. She was standing alone at the bar.
“Reading night has always been my favorite tradition here—don’t tell the basketball team—and this is probably the best one I’ve seen in my time at Green Hills High.
” Most people were smiling. But Gabby had gone rigid in her seat, Conrad staring down into his lap and jiggling his knee.
“Anyway, I wanted to congratulate all of you, current students and alumni, on your accomplishment. I feel honored to get to share it with you, as this will be one of my final weeks here.”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Conrad finally looked up but didn’t seem surprised.
“I’ve been offered a teaching position in the city,” she said.
“As much as it pains me to say goodbye to all of you, I think administration isn’t exactly my calling.
The district is still determining your next principal, but in the meantime, I wanted to say that this year, while difficult at times, has also been extremely rewarding.
I’ll miss all of you.” She smiled, though it looked forced. “Who’s ready to party?”
Someone started a slow clap, which built into a decent roar, everyone getting to their feet. MC couldn’t help sneaking glances at Conrad and Gabby, who were pointedly not looking at each other.
People started to get up in a flurry of scraping chairs.
In the blink of an eye, a line formed at the bar.
Knots of students gathered around tables or up at the mic, talking and laughing, paging through copies of the magazine.
The electric candlelight was entrancing, twinkling off glasses and the big windows overlooking the garden beds.
But MC felt unexpectedly detached from it all, an emptiness in her chest as Joe told her he was getting up for an espresso.
She knew she should go with him. Stretch her legs, shake off the funk.
But some powerful inertia had taken hold of her, pinning her to her seat.
“Hey!” Heather announced. MC looked up to find her standing on a chair at the neighboring table. “Hang on!” The chatter faded. “We still have one last reader.”
Everyone shifted, looking around, until it became clear that the final author was coming in through the back entryway.
There was a scattered applause as she walked, back straight, jaw tight, toward the mic.
MC stared.
Nora’s hair was swept back in a clip, eyeliner dark, cheeks drained of color. When she stepped up on the carpets, she stared out at the crowd with a look of complete terror.
She cleared her throat. “Can someone pass me the old magazine?”
Joe brought her his copy, and MC noticed that Lois, Helen, and Maureen had squeezed into one of the entryways near the stage. Maureen was filming on her phone. Helen looked vaguely confused. Lois was beaming.
MC tried not to gape.
The silence deepened as Nora cleared her throat once more. A few other people had taken their phones out to record whatever was about to go down. But Nora didn’t shy away from the attention.
“This,” she said, “is called ‘On the Look You Give (Before Turning Away).’”
The whole room—Joe and Gabby and Conrad, Jae and Lois and Helen and Maureen, Heather and Sheila and Patrick and Ben—seemed to take a breath with her.
But MC was still frozen.
“It’s weird,” Nora said. “String lights in a dark room... make me think of you.”
She coughed. The mic buzzed with feedback. Everyone winced until it stopped.
“The tacky charm,” she went on. “The warm glow. I would like to lie with you, in a dark room like that, under string lights.”
She took a shaky breath before continuing.
“See the parts of you that catch color. Blue wrist. Green brow.”
She looked up from the page, at MC, then back down.
“I would kiss you first—this is a dream, right?—give in to red wanting. Wrap my legs in yours and squeeze, the soft edges of our arms running parallel.” She pressed her lips together. “My breath in your ear would sound like yellow, your nose would be tipped yellow... in the lights.”
One last, deep breath, and every eye in the room was moving between Nora and MC.
“Sometimes I am so sure you want this, too, because of a look you give, before turning away. And you wouldn’t even think I’d write poems—I don’t, except for ones about you. It’s just the way my hands itch when that look passes, my only consolation the perfect line of your neck.”
A drop of sweat rolled down her temple.
“That’s it. Thanks.”
Nora stepped away from the mic.
Heather got up first, whistling and thundering her hands together.
Sheila, Ben, and Patrick were right behind her, along with Joe and Gabby, shouting Nora’s name as they clapped.
Conrad shook MC’s shoulders. Lois and Maureen snapped their fingers.
And suddenly everyone in the room was going wild, the way they had when MC had read the poem herself ten years ago.
For a second it felt like the echo went both ways, the past and the present switching places.
MC was the last to rise, her cheeks burning, her heart hammering against her ribs. Nora kept her chin tucked despite all the admiration. The edges of her ears had gone crimson.
Conrad stood up to offer Nora his seat, sparing her any more attention by issuing a command in his best vice-principal voice: “Students and staff of Green Hills High, you may resume partying!”
And they did.
Eventually, MC turned to Nora, freshly shocked to find her sitting there. But when she’d recovered, she reached under the table. Put her hand in Nora’s lap.
“I don’t even know where to start,” she said softly.
Nora stared back at her with that stern, focused look of hers. “Do you want to get some air?”
MC stood up and pulled Nora to her feet, then led them out of the crowded commons, away from the stares, into the dim of the hall.
They walked deeper into the school, flanked by lockers, taking one turn, then another.
In the silence, with so many lights off, MC could really believe the place hadn’t changed in a decade.
That every last one of them—she and Nora, and Joe and Gabby and Conrad, and even Jen Turner and Nico Price and Jim McDade and Jerry Bickley—had never left.
Linoleum floor. The scent of lemon antiseptic.
The whir of air ducts and the intermittent red of emergency lights.
All of it gave off a strange, homey feeling. Comforting and stifling all at once.
Nora finally stopped and leaned back against the lockers.
“You were really good up there,” MC said.
Nora grimaced. “You were right.”
“About what?”
“It’s hard to recite sensual poetry.”
MC wanted to reach out and touch her, hold her close and kiss her, but she kept herself in check. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”
“Me neither. Turns out I really don’t like writing scripts.”
Silence stretched between them.
MC struggled to make herself speak. “Did you... quit?”
“I shifted into an advisory role. Technically.”
“Whoa.”
“Don’t worry, everyone was relieved about it.”
“Is that why I hardly heard from you? Because you weren’t happy?”
Nora nodded.
MC couldn’t help laughing. “You could’ve just told me that!”
“It took me a while to admit it to myself. You were next on the list.”
“I thought we’re supposed to be good at this kind of thing now.”
“Can’t we just appreciate that the cycle of foolishness is getting shorter?”
“Fine.” MC pursed her lips. “So... what happens next?”
Nora pulled her in at last. MC felt a rush in her chest, desire and something more complicated. Nora ran her hands from MC’s waist up to her shoulders, then over her neck to her jaw.
“I don’t know,” Nora said. “You’ve made me into a crazy person.”
MC felt feverish under her touch, a month of brooding like kindling in her gut. “Same.”
“I don’t want to be apart from you anymore.”
“Sounds good to me.” The lockers made a rattling sound as MC pressed against her, needing Nora as close as possible. “But are you sure I wouldn’t be wrecking your self-growth and stuff?”
“I have no idea.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Lois’s attic. You?”
“I’m still crashing at Conrad’s. Figured I’d commute to school.”
“Look at us, moving up in the world.” Nora’s hips moved a little, the lockers rattling again. She tilted her face, brought their mouths close, but hesitated at the last second, narrowing her eyes. “I think people are going to put videos of me reading that poem to you on the internet.”
MC leaned forward, kissing Nora’s neck. “Probably.”
“Also, the Girl Next Door script is definitely going into production. They’ve already found a distributor.”
“That’s cool.” MC brushed her lips against Nora’s, then lightly caught Nora’s lower lip between her teeth. “Who’s going to play us?”
Nora sealed their mouths together, kissed her hard. “I don’t really care,” she said. “Do you?”