Chapter 9 #2
“This is one of my favorite memories,” she says, putting both hands on her desk. She tells a story about a camping trip when she saw a cute chipmunk. I try to listen, but mostly I think about what story I’ll tell. I am not telling her about almost crying at a birthday cake.
At some point Steph stops and I tell myself to applaud. “That was great. Really great.”
She blushes.
“I love chipmunks!” I say.
“They are so cute.” She sits up and fluffs her hair. “Your turn.”
“Let’s see.” I look at my notes. All I can think about is Mom holding the cake, but I tell myself to talk about anything else. “When I was in tenth grade, a girl asked me to help her ‘study for the Chemistry Regents.’ Except tenth-grade me didn’t hear the air quotes.”
“Oh no.” Steph laughs and the sound wakes me up. I quickly write down the line so I remember to keep it.
“So I showed up at her house with my study guide, ready to talk about hydrogen bonds.” I start remembering how to talk. “She was like, ‘Oh, you brought your book,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, how else am I gonna ace this test? With that scented candle you’re carrying?’?”
Steph laughs.
“So she was like, ‘Maybe we could go upstairs to my room and study,’ and I was like, ‘That would be fine,’ and that is. Exactly. What. We. Did.”
Steph snorts. “Oh my God.”
I bow in my seat and Steph gives some snaps, but I’m surprised to find I feel disappointed. By all appearances she liked the story.
“Let’s switch!” Mazzei says from the front of the room. “Try your story with a new partner.”
Why would I be disappointed in getting a good response?
A hand touches my arm.
“Quick,” Elijah says, keeping his hand lightly on me. “Before we get stuck with anyone else.”
His fingernails are short and shiny. He takes his hand away and puts it in his lap.
Like he’s sharing a secret, he leans in. “That baby frat boy spent the entire time interrupting people around us. Neither of us said a word to each other.”
“If you can go the rest of your life without having a conversation with him, that will be a good life.”
He grins. “I love it. I want all the gossip.”
“He’s not that interesting.”
“A sassy voice—this is a new one for you.”
My stomach twists. I try to smile.
“Will you please go first?” he says. “I need a palate cleanser.”
I look at my notes. He needs a palate cleanser. Keep it light. Nobody wants more bummer thoughts.
I tell the same story to Elijah using the same lines I used with Steph. He almost smiles and almost laughs but doesn’t do either entirely. Or not wholeheartedly. His mouth smiles, but his eyes squint, watching me.
When I’m done he says, “That was cute.”
I shrug. “I was raised semi-Catholic.”
He gives serious eyes. “In this case, maybe it saved you.”
“Maybe it did!” I say. “If I’d started making out too young, it might’ve stunted my growth.” This doesn’t get a laugh even though I thought it was good. “Anyway, feedback?”
“It’s funny…” He consults his notebook as though it has his response. “It’s like a billboard against compulsory heterosexuality.”
“I’m gonna have to google that, but I do like billboards.”
“It means everyone is assumed to be straight because that’s what is quote normal.”
“I appreciate you saying quote .”
“Yeah.” He folds his paper in half. “Unspoken words can be…” He folds it in half again. “Frustrating.”
I nod, although I can sense myself fading away.
What feeling am I even protecting myself from?
“I could see that, about the compulsory stuff.” I search for words.
“In the seventh grade, I got into an argument with a kid who came out as gay. I didn’t see how someone could know, so young, how they identified. ”
Elijah’s gentle voice acquires a sharpness. “Yet it wasn’t hard to believe every other kid knew they were straight.”
“I guess not, even though that seems absurd now.”
He doesn’t lower his volume. “What if everyone was raised assuming they were gay?” I must make a face, because he says, “I’m not saying they should be, but how would it change how we learn to see ourselves and others?”
“True.” I hear my voice continue, “Maybe it would be best to be raised to think you could be attracted to anyone regardless of gender. Or that attraction itself isn’t compulsory.”
“Maybe.”
Mr.?Mazzei watches us from his desk.
“Uh.” I look at my page, trying very hard to focus enough to read it. “Your turn.”
“I don’t feel like it right now.”
Why do I want to cry? “I wouldn’t mind hearing a story.”
“But I don’t want to tell one.”
“Unrelated to the assignment, like, I want to hear about the friend who saw you but didn’t see you. That was in New Jersey before you moved here?”
He brushes a finger across an eyebrow. “How did you feel after you left that girl’s house?”
It takes a second to realize he’s talking about my story.
“Oh.” I push my lips together. “Stupid, I guess.” I listen for the inner voice that reprimands me when I let my guard down, but it doesn’t come.
“Like I should’ve done something different.
But that’s how I feel most of the time anyway.
I probably sat in my room and made fun of myself for what happened.
Then I told it to friends in a way that made them laugh, and that made me in on the joke.
” I lean in and whisper, “That’s my secret.
” He half smiles but doesn’t laugh. “Then that version of the story replaced the actual memory, which is mostly of me feeling confused during and stupid after.”
“So you did hear her air quotes?”
“I’m not even sure she was giving air quotes. She probably didn’t know what was happening either. Neither of us did. We were both trapped by expectations of what’s supposed to happen when a girl and a guy are alone.”
“You should tell that story.”
“It doesn’t sound very funny.”
“But it does sound true.”
His eyes are two magnets that don’t let go of mine.
My breath catches and the muscle of my heart pounds in my chest. I don’t know if Elijah is angry or sad or determined, or which of those things I am.
I think of him going into the city every week.
I think of him cuffing the sleeves of his T-shirts every morning.
Who is this guy who, without considering otherwise, is himself?
What would I allow myself to say if I were more like Elijah, if I weren’t worried how it would sound to others? What would I allow myself to do?
“For your homework this weekend,” Mr.?Mazzei says, “write down any other memories you might like to expand into stories. Give yourself permission to value your experiences.”
After class I go to the bathroom next to the main office and shut myself in a stall.
I open the draft of my stand-up set on my phone and I select all of it.
Without considering otherwise, I press delete.