Three Eden
Three
Eden
I don’t remember whose idea it was to wear these fake astronaut helmets, but mine’s stifling. Our deep space research station
is nearly out of power and we’ve only solved six of the nine puzzles that will unlock the multitiered security system, granting
us access to the escape pods.
“Terraformists,” a robotic voice says over an intercom, referring to our team name. “You have ten minutes of life-supporting
oxygen remaining.”
“As opposed to the non-life-supporting oxygen?” my friend Ray asks, throwing his arm around me.
I roll my eyes and poke him in the shoulder. “Honestly, Ray, this is your fault. We all went for your stupid first-letter
code theory.”
“Excuse me?” He puts a hand to his heart, as if he’s been mortally wounded. His curly hair takes on a life of its own as he
shakes his head. “It’s so not my fault if you can’t recognize genius for what it is, Eden. The first letters of all the safety directions spell out P-L-A-N-E-T-A-R-Y and you’re trying to tell me that’s just a wild coincidence? How can it mean nothing?”
“He has a point,” says Jackson. “How can it mean nothing, Eden?”
“You guys are ganging up on me,” I say, laughing.
“I have a new plan,” says Suzanne. “We perform a lifesaving dance to communicate with aliens, who will naturally be delighted by our choreo and decide to stage a rescue.”
Everyone laughs, except Alex and Isla, who are consumed with a word scramble that the rest of us have given up on.
Well, and except for Georgia—I notice she’s not laughing either, she’s checking her texts. Again. Even though we all agreed there should be zero reception in space—you know, for verisimilitude. (In fact, there really isn’t very good reception since we’re in a soundproofed basement in K-Town.)
I totally get that she doesn’t know any of my friends and is probably feeling a little shy, but she could make more of an
effort. I’m not saying my cousin’s being a killjoy, but something has definitely been bugging her since we got to the escape
room.
Finally, someone—okay, it’s Isla—basically finishes the three remaining puzzles on her own, and by some miracle, we make it
to the escape pods (that is, we get out of the room), with about ninety seconds to spare.
As soon as we take off our space helmets and I hug all my friends goodbye, I turn to Georgia, trying to modulate my annoyance
with her.
“Everything okay?”
“What? Yeah, it’s just . . .” Georgia trails off, typing again. She’s still got her face down over her phone like she’s breaking
a war code.
“So do you want to get some late-night bibimbap and meet up with Ray and Alex? They were talking about renting a karaoke room.”
Georgia looks up, as if startled I’m still here.
We’re standing on the sidewalk, neon signs blinking brightly overhead, cars squealing past us, people talking, singing, shouting.
It’s June in the city, warm but not too hot, and New York is alive with activity. Can’t she feel that electric buzz?
“Sorry, Eden, what did you say? I’m a little distracted.” She holds up her phone and makes a cringey face. “I missed like
three calls from Rhys while we were down there and his texts weren’t really coming through because of the service, and now . . .”
“Now . . . ?” I prod. I mean, what could be such an emergency?
“Let me just see if I can try him back,” she says, already dialing. But the phone rings and rings on the other end. “Darn.”
She hangs up.
“I’m sure whatever it is, it’s fine,” I insist, but Georgia seems stressed. “This one karaoke place . . .” I start, but she
holds up a hand.
“Eden, it’s after ten. We don’t have time to do karaoke and still get home by curfew.” The lights from the street are turning
her pale blond hair a pretty shade of pink.
I sigh. “Fine. Ray always hogs the mic anyway. But we may as well use up all the time that we have. Hey, I know. Why don’t we walk home?”
“Is that safe?” Georgia asks.
“Of course! And I carry my trusty pepper spray with me at all times, just in case. It’ll be great. We can grab some tacos
and walk through Washington Square Park. Maybe the saxophone guy will be there. You never know. We could accidentally stumble
on another Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest or something. And that way,” I add, “if Rhys calls back again, you’ll be able to answer.”
I can see the visible wave of relief cross Georgia’s face. “Okay,” she says, starting to smile. “Thanks, Eden. That sounds
great!”
After about ten blocks, I manage to get Georgia laughing at my dumb jokes and weird stories about the friends she just met.
We’re passing by Madison Square Park, where the Shake Shack still has a line.
“Your friends all seem so great,” she says. “I really liked them. That guy Jackson was so funny. And Ray seems cool, too. He seems kind of into you, actually.” Georgia elbows me.
“Ray? He’s gay, babe. But Jackson . . . there was something there. For maybe a week. But he was getting clingy, so I had to end it.”
“Clingy? What did he do?”
I shrug. “Nothing really. It was more an energy thing. I could, like, feel the cling. In his eyes.”
“He was giving clingy eyes?” Georgia asks skeptically.
“It’s a thing!” I insist, laughing.
Georgia shakes her head. “It is not a thing. You’re just a chronic heartbreaker.”
I roll my eyes. “We’re seventeen. We are supposed to be testing the waters, not settling down. And by the way, Alex was definitely flirting with you. If you hadn’t had your head in your phone the whole time you might’ve noticed. He’s cute!”
Georgia looks at me like I’ve sprouted two heads and they’re both purple. “I have a boyfriend, Eden!”
She sounds so scandalized I can’t help but laugh again. It’s so easy to rattle her!
Despite the fact that people have always called us “twin cousins,” since we were born only a few weeks apart, in many ways
Georgia and I are opposites: Georgia is a romantic, loyal, sunny blond who can’t hail a cab or navigate a subway to save her
life. She’s a nature girl at heart; she’s been known to talk to bunnies and frogs and, once, she rescued a skunk. Like some
sort of real-life Sleeping Beauty.
And I’m, well . . . not that. The only animals I speak to are pigeons and cockroaches, and you do not want to know what I tell them.
“Boys can be fun,” I tell Georgia now, “but they always reveal themselves to be scum in the end. Even the cute ones. Why wait
around to find out?”
Georgia shakes her head. “Are you sure that’s really the truth, Eden? Or are you still bitter because you never properly let
yourself heal from Leo Goldbaum?” She looks at me meaningfully.
I look away, pretending to be extra concerned about whether we have the walk signal or not.
“What happened was, he was a judgy little jerk and I should’ve seen it coming from a mile away.
I won’t make that mistake again,” I say before marching into the intersection.
The idea that I’m not over Leo Goldbaum is ridiculous.
Utterly absurd.
I haven’t thought about him in like two whole years. At all. Barely.
The thing about Leo Goldbaum is that he really does come off as a decent guy.
Or at least, he did to me. We’d known each other all the way back in middle school, when we were both total babies. He was
a nice, curly-haired kid who got insane math scores and busted his chin open doing the worm at Malcolm Levy’s bar mitzvah.
He let me touch his stitches. At the age of thirteen, this was a serious level of intimacy, so, yeah, I got the idea that
maybe he liked me. We smiled at each other at a few more of those bar and bat mitzvahs. Got seated near each other in a handful
of classes thanks to our last names. And despite his failing dance skills, he was a great soccer player. You could tell all
his teammates were obsessed with him, which can be a very green flag, though I suppose it depends on what the teammates are
like. Anyway, he was cute then, in a dweebish, “wanna see all my Boy Scout badges?” kind of way.
Then we both got into Stuyvesant High School. Leo got even cuter. He made varsity soccer as a freshman, which everyone thought was a big deal. His dimples settled more into his face; his curls settled a little more into dark waves.
Okay, fine, he got hot.
I thought he’d forgotten I existed, and then one day in the cafeteria toward the end of that year, he asked me if I wanted
to go to a basketball game with him at Barclays. He had courtside tickets to the Nets.
Do I like basketball? Not really. Did I say yes anyway, then tell all my friends we had “net side” tickets? I’m telling you,
I know nothing about sports.
And back then, I clearly didn’t know much about boys, either.
Still, we had a great time. At the end of the game, he kissed me. It was a good kiss—maybe even a great kiss—and after that, we were dating: studying together at the library on Tuesday evenings; going to parties together instead
of just running into each other there; texting all summer; me actually going to some of his soccer games sophomore year and
holding up signs, like a classic, totally cringey “cheers for her man” girlfriend type.
Ew. I was smitten, and I can admit that, even if I’m not proud of it.