Chapter 1 #8
Susan and Eliza get back in the car, where Jake and Katie are sitting tensely in the back seat.
Jake says, “Well, that was a fun end to the night.”
Katie hits him. “Don’t be an asshole,” she says. “Susan, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Susan says. She’s not, and it’s obvious from the tremble in her voice.
Katie puts her hand on Susan’s shoulder. “What do you need? Do you want me to fucking kill him?”
Susan shakes her head. “I’m fine,” she repeats. “I just want to go to bed.”
Katie nods. “We can just walk home from here, right, Jake? And do you think you maybe owe Susan an apology on behalf of your friend?”
“Totally,” he says. “Hey, Susan, I’m sorry.
That was fucked-up. We all know it was an accident.
Kyle’s dad is really strict. He’s probably just freaking out because he’s going to get in trouble.
And I’m sorry for springing him on you like that.
I had honestly forgotten that you used to like him, or whatever happened. ”
“Thanks, Jake.” Susan sighs, disarmed by Jake’s evolved response to the situation. She should really give him more credit in general, she thinks, but the thought quickly leaves her head and is replaced with annoyance. “I’m just not really sure why you’re friends with such an asshole.”
“That’s a good question,” Katie agrees. “Jake?”
“He’s not an asshole to me,” Jake says meekly, and Katie gives him a withering stare. Susan assumes this discussion will continue in private during their twenty-minute walk home.
Katie and Jake get out of the car and disappear into the thick darkness, the roar of crickets overtaking the sound of their footsteps.
“How did you meet Kyle, anyway?” Susan says, merging back onto the highway with Eliza next to her.
“He crashed a friend’s birthday,” Eliza says. “I thought he was the cutest thing for a while there. But now I’m starting to feel like he was the kind of little kid who, like, tortured small animals.”
“Oh my god, totally,” Susan agrees. “I can absolutely imagine him pulling the legs off spiders for fun. I used to think he was so cool. But, like, why is he even hanging out with us? He’s old now.”
Eliza laughs, smiling so wide that Susan notices, for the first time tonight, how crooked her bottom teeth are. “He’s nineteen.”
“Like I said,” Susan deadpans. “Old.”
They’re quiet for the rest of the ride. Susan puts music on but can still hear the sound of Eliza’s silver necklace clinking as she fidgets with it. Susan feels awkward. She wonders if Eliza thinks it’s weird that they’re hanging out.
Susan pulls up in front of Eliza’s house and puts the car in park.
“Thanks for defending me,” she says.
“Of course,” Eliza says. “Sluts have to stick together.” She winks.
So Eliza overheard what Susan said to Kyle. But she doesn’t seem bothered by it. Susan blushes. Eliza is holding eye contact in a way that is making Susan’s stomach begin to do flips. “Um,” Susan says. “So.”
“So,” Eliza says, and smiles again, in the same way she was smiling right before Susan crashed her car. “Do you want to come in? My parents are out.”
Susan thinks she might have a heart attack. Instead, she says, “Yeah. That might be cool.”
She takes her seat belt off and faces Eliza, who does the same. Eliza is, incredibly, starting to lean forward, toward her.
All at once Susan feels a hot glow between her legs. A match lit in a dark room.
It feels like that moment right before the chorus when you finally understand what the melody has been building toward.
Like it deserves its own horn section. She doesn’t know much, but she’s pretty sure that if she doesn’t kiss Eliza, she’s going to die.
Every cell in her body has been tuned to a new frequency all at once, a radio station that plays only the sound of Eliza’s voice.
She can smell Eliza’s cucumber melon perfume, and now Eliza is close enough that Susan can see every freckle and blackhead on her nose and the endearing line at the edge of her face where she didn’t blend her bronzer well enough.
Eliza reaches out and pulls Susan’s glasses off, and the details blur again.
That cursed word from Jonny rings loudly in her head: lesbian lesbian lesbian lesbian.
Is she actually a lesbian? Is Eliza? It seems impossible.
The only thing she knows for sure is that a dam has broken deep inside her, unleashing a lifetime of desires that have been held at bay.
It’s not just that she wants to kiss Eliza; it’s that, with the exception of Katie, who has always felt like her sister, Susan wants to kiss every girl she’s ever met.
There’s nowhere to hide from this feeling, not now, not with Eliza getting closer and closer and closer and—
A car honks. Susan realizes she’s too far into the street.
“Sorry,” she says, scrambling to put the car back in drive. “Hold that thought.”
Eliza laughs. “Classic,” she says.
The other car swerves around them as Susan pulls toward the curb. For a brief moment Eliza is illuminated in the headlights like a flash photo.
In the harsh, quick light, Eliza’s straightened blond hair, Tiffany necklace, and black eyeliner call to mind another image Susan has seen.
She does know her. Well, sort of.
Eliza catches her staring. “What?”
“I just realized it.” Susan can’t believe she didn’t put two and two together sooner. “That … picture.” She reaches up and turns the dome light on, as though this will help her confirm what she already knows.
“Oh,” Eliza says, her shoulders slumping, tucking her hair back behind her ears, all of a sudden looking very sad. “You’ve seen it.”
“Katie’s brother, Greg, has it,” Susan says, shaking her head in disbelief as she remembers the naked photo on Greg’s computer. Eliza was even wearing the same necklace she’d had on in the picture. “How…?”
“I have to assume everyone’s brother has it,” Eliza says, in an eerie monotone.
“But why does it even exist?” Susan says. She doesn’t mean to be judgmental, but she knows that’s how it sounds. Still, she can’t help it.
“I don’t know,” Eliza says. She lifts her jaw up, a display of pride, but her top lip is trembling.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t remember,” Eliza says. She brings her chin back down, lowering her eyes. She sounds like a different person, deflated, like the air has gone out of her tires. “I was at a party, and then I woke up at home, and then a few days later I started hearing about people seeing a photo of me.”
“So did someone send it around?”
“I guess so.” She folds her arms across her chest, which, lit softly by the yellow dome light, is turning splotchy as it rises and falls.
“That’s why you don’t drink anymore,” Susan whispers, realizing all at once that she misjudged the picture.
If Eliza doesn’t know who took it, or who sent it out, she wasn’t just half asleep.
She wasn’t posing. Susan tries to swallow again, but her mouth has become too dry.
“I’m sorry,” she says quickly, needing things to go back to how they were just a minute ago. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just…”
“You saw my tits and now you think you know me,” Eliza says, her Long Island accent becoming more pronounced as she gets more upset; the vowels become longer, like there are w’s attached to them, and her t’s become more lispy, as though the consonant is formed against her front teeth with a soft tongue. Tits.
Susan has seen Eliza’s tits, and she’ll never forget them. The shame of this—what it means about her that she found Eliza’s naked body appealing in this horrible context—makes her eyes well up with tears again. “That’s not what I meant. I was just worried, that’s all.”
“I can take care of myself,” Eliza says. “Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”
No, you can’t, Susan thinks. Not if this happened to you.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Eliza snaps, as though she can hear Susan’s thoughts, or at least sense her pity.
This is the second time Susan has been yelled at tonight, and she’s feeling very small.
“Do you want me to leave?” Susan says.
“Do you want to leave?” Eliza shoots back.
“Um,” Susan says. “I don’t know. I feel like you hate me now.”
Eliza rolls her eyes and then grows stern. “Grow up,” she says.
Susan can’t see a way through this conflict. “I guess I should get going,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Susan says. She doesn’t really have to go, but she’s so uncomfortable she thinks she might throw up. “Okay, well, bye, I guess.”
Eliza is shaking her head in what Susan interprets as disbelief. “Bye,” she says. She hands Susan her glasses back. The lenses are covered in fingerprints. Eliza gets out of the car and slams the door. Then she leans into the window and says, “See you never.”
“Okay,” Susan says, defeated, trying to clean her glasses on her shirt, but she’s only making it worse, so she gives up.
She puts the car in drive and takes off down the dark and quiet suburban street.
The tears that have been building all night finally let loose down her face, dragging her eyeliner down her cheeks.
In her rearview mirror, she sees the blurry figure of Eliza standing exactly where she left her, watching her drive away.
“See you never,” she whispers, her foot heavy on the gas, taking herself farther and farther away from the only person she’s ever been sure she wants.
For once, Susan drives home without music, just the sounds of her turn signal clicking in the darkness, the Volvo’s old engine humming, and the beat of her heart, which, despite the absolute failure of the whole night, is steady with the knowledge of who she might become, if she can ever manage to leave Long Island, or at least just get out of her own goddamn way.