Thirteen
“Wait, so we’re mad at Klaudie again?”
Jack, Paul, and I are sitting under the metal slide in Holly Park, prepping ourselves for our annual Burn and Earn contest. We’ve been doing this since fourth grade. The rules are simple: We choose a hot day midsummer and challenge each other to sit, bare-legged, on the metal slide for as long as possible. Whoever holds out the longest reaps a cash reward from the losers. Back in elementary school, the amount was a dollar per contestant. Now, it’s twenty dollars and a year’s worth of honor, glory, and bragging rights.
Jack is slathering moisturizing lotion on the backs of her legs, which she claims to be the secret behind her success for the past two years. (I haven’t won since middle school.)
“We’re not mad,” I say. “We’re . . . frustrated.”
“Really? Because we sound mad.”
“Why are we using the royal ‘we’?”
“We don’t know.”
I grunt and say, “She’s treating me like I’m a traitor for being okay with the baby. Like, what other choice do I have?”
“I already told you my great plan,” says Jack, “and you shot it down.”
“You mean your plan to make a deal with the devil so that my baby sibling turns out to be the Antichrist and my parents realize the error of their ways?”
“You make it sound so sinister.”
I haven’t mentioned what Klaudie said about Vanderbilt. That topic is still too tender to touch.
Paul is lying on his back, his long legs sticking out from under the slide. He collects a fistful of gravel, raises it over his head, and says, “How much would you pay me to eat this?”
Jack asks, “How are we related?”
“Maybe we’re not. Maybe I’m the Antichrist.” He waves the gravel-filled hand over his head, shrieking, “Look, Damien! It’s all for you, Damien!”
“I’d dare you if it was normal gravel,” I say. “But I’m pretty sure that stuff is more contaminated than Chernobyl. It probably hasn’t been raked or changed out since, like, the Vietnam War. Do you know how many dogs have probably pooped on it?”
“Or little kids have peed on it?” Jack adds, an instant fan of this game.
“Or cigarettes butts have landed on it?”
“Or birds have mated on it?”
“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point, sheesh.” Then, at turbo speed, he tugs open the collar of Jack’s T-shirt and dumps the whole fistful of gravel down her back.
Jack does not scream. She does not whine out Paul’s name and bat him off. She locks a cold, murderous glare on him and says, “I will kill you. I will murder you in your sleep tonight, Paul Marcus Harlow.”
There’s a sudden snap of sadness inside me. Even when Jack is threatening fratricide, I can see it there—how much she and Paul genuinely like each other. How well they get along, like best friends. It makes me sad, and kind of jealous too. By rights, it should be like that with me and Klaudie. She and I are even closer in age, and we’re the same gender. We should be the best of friends. We should know each other’s secrets and share each other’s clothes and be confidantes. But we’re not. We never were. We’re just too different, I guess. Klaudie is student council, I’m the arts crowd. Klaudie is equations, I’m fiction. Klaudie is National Merit, I’m . . . Golden Tuba.
I know it’s not something I can change, but times like this, I do wish we got along better. That I could hug and threaten and joke with her as easily as Jack does Paul. For a few months, when Klaudie filmed with us, I thought maybe we were getting closer. That the filming gave us common ground. We spent more time together then and were happy about it. Except not , since Klaudie now thinks filming is too time-consuming and highly unpleasant.
So much for sisterly bonding.
Jack doesn’t get the chance to elaborate on her threats to Paul, because a flock of small children descends upon us. There are five of them, and judging by the green icing stains on the face of one of the kids, they’re part of a birthday celebration. A girl who can’t be any older than six stops right in front of our hideaway and shoves her hands on her hips.
“You guys are too ooold to be here,” she says, pointing accusatorially. “Only kids are supposed to be on the playground. Those are the rules.”
“We’re still in school,” Paul says congenially, “so I think we qualify as kids.”
“Nuh-uh .” The girl stamps her foot. She’s wearing light-up sneakers, and an impressive display of blue and green zaps across her toe.
The boy standing next to her, who seems much less concerned about the apparent breach of park rules, says, “You wanna play with us? It’s tag, and I’m it, but I’ll give you a five-second head start.”
A big blue button is pinned to his Transformers T-shirt. It reads, Birthday Boy.
Jack says, “Oh, Paul here loves tag. I’m sure he wants to play.”
She nudges Paul’s knee with a malicious smile.
Paul isn’t even fazed. He ducks out from the slide and gets to his feet, wiping gravel off his backside.
“Five seconds, huh?” he says.
The boy gives Paul a good looking over.
“Mmm,” he says, before smacking Paul’s leg and screaming, “YOU’RE IT !”
Paul produces the roar of an angered bear. The kids all shriek in exhilarated terror and scatter. Paul glances back at us and sticks his tongue out at Jack.
“Ha,” he says. “Now I’m in with the popular crowd.”
He sets off running at a slow, exaggerated pace, and reaches out to tag kids in a series of carefully calculated near misses.
I shake my head at Jack.
“What?” she says. “He’s having the time of his life.”
“I bet that boy’s parents want to know why some random teenage dude is chasing their children.”
Jack makes a sputtery snorting sound. “Need I remind you, he stole all my babysitting clients? Parents love him.”
“Why do you sound bitter? You hate babysitting,” I remind her.
This is indisputable fact. Jack does not have the temperament for child care. She refuses to smile at kids or kneel down to their level or ask them what their favorite school subject is. According to Jack, kids are mini grown-ups who act constantly drunk, and if they refuse to be rational in her presence, they are not worthy of her attention, much less cloying accommodation. She phased out the babysitting thing three years ago so she could devote herself exclusively to her Petco job and Etsy shop.
“I’m not bitter,” she says. “I’m just saying he’s the guy all mothers love.”
For a minute, we watch in smiling silence as Paul and the birthday kids whip around the playground. Paul fits right in, whooping and dodging in and out of the swings with overexaggerated propeller arms.
“Those kids are lucky,” says Jack. “It can’t have been a good birthday if the parents thought this was a nice place to host it.”
I shift my gaze to Jack. There’s a question I want to ask her, something that’s been gurgling around in the back parts of my brain for weeks now. It’s not a question I can just ask outright. It requires buildup—a seven-layer dip of increasingly probing inquiries.
“So, are you still planning on going to the Chvrches concert?”
Layer number one.
Jack gives me a look like I’m being unforgivably stupid.
“Uh, yeah . I spent good money on that ticket.”
“Okay, cool. I just . . . you know, I don’t want you to feel awkward. If you didn’t want to go, that’s all right. I could even stay here with you.”
A sloppy layer number two.
“What the hell, Tash? I’m going. Just because Tony and I aren’t together anymore . . . Is that what this is about? Because it was his idea? Or that we covered a Chvrches song for the channel, or something?”
“Well. Yeah, I guess.”
This dip isn’t ever going to make it to the party table.
“You’re making something out of nothing. I’m fine, okay? We’re fine now.”
“You never talk to him.” I quickly cut off Jack’s protest with “Hardly ever. If it’s something that’s not directly related to filming, you don’t. You won’t even sit next to him. I’ve seen you leave the room when he walks in. So don’t tell me you’re totally fine.”
Jack shrugs violently. “What do you want me to say? Would I rather not interact with him almost every week? Sure. Are things still weird between us? Yeah. But I don’t really have a choice. He’s part of the cast, and we’re professionals .”
“Bleh. What does that word even mean?”
“Hell if I know.” Frowning at the ground, Jack adds, “You know what gets me? Sitcoms. Like, okay, everyone knows they’re not an actual representation of life. They’re what sad, tired working people come home to and watch so they don’t feel like complete shit. But you’d think they could at least be honest about how breakups work. Healthy breakups, anyway. I get it, they have limited resources, and they have to keep the same cast members. But inevitably all those cast members start dating each other, and when they break up, nobody leaves. The ex stays in the picture, in perpetuity. They just stay part of the same friend group, no matter what. It’s so dysfunctional. And that’s not how it’s supposed to work. You break up, you go your separate ways. Nine times out of ten, it’s not healthy to stay friends with your ex. Because things will always, always be weird.”
“You made that statistic up,” I say.
“If national television corporations are allowed to make up bullshit love stories, then I am allowed to fudge a few statistics.”
“Are you saying Unhappy Families is a like a bad sitcom?”
“I’m saying I’m fine, but wrapping up filming has its silver lining.”
“Okay.”
“So stop being sensitive.”
“Okay.” But because the topic has already been broached and doesn’t seem likely ever to be broached again, I hastily ask, “Do you want me to take the music videos down?”
“Why would you do that?”
“If they make you uncomfortable. I mean, you guys were really . . . affectionate.”
The combination of Tony’s poppy synthesizer and Jack’s throaty vocals was a big draw to viewers, but by far the most endearing quality of their videos was that Tony and Jack were open about being boyfriend and girlfriend and even kissed on-screen at the end of a love song Tony wrote for Jack. If I were Jack, I’d want those videos taken down immediately.
“It’s still good music,” Jack says. “Our relationship status doesn’t affect the quality of sound. Think about it: Plenty of band members have dated and broken up. Jack and Meg White, Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal. They don’t just pull all the records and videos they made when they were dating. When you’re a musician, sometimes you don’t get that kind of catharsis.”
I nod slowly, not sure of a good response. Jack has entered a land where musicians live and I am only an ignorant visitor.
In an attempt to leave Music Philosophizing Land, I ask, “How’s your dad?”
“From what he’s telling us, fine.”
Mr. Harlow stopped complaining about his headaches a couple weeks back. Despite his family’s pestering, he didn’t get them checked out. They obviously weren’t happy about that, but Mr. Harlow is scheduled for his next oncology checkup at the start of next month, and if there’s anything to be concerned about, surely the doctors will catch it then.
“INCOMING .”
I make room just in time for Paul to come skidding under the slide and hunch with his hands over his head.
“Hey!” shouts Birthday Boy, galloping over to us. “Hey, no fair!”
“It’s totally fair.” Paul’s still covering his head, as though he fears the six-year-old might do damage to him. “I tagged you, so now things stand the way they did before I got involved. You’re It. I’m out.”
“Nooo,” says a pigtailed girl. “You’re fun!”
“I’ve gotta have fun with these two losers now,” Paul says, waving at me and Jack. “Sorry. We already had a scheduled playdate.”
A whole swarm of glum-faced kids has congregated around us.
“My God,” Jack says under her breath. “It’s like Village of the Damned .”
“Pleeeease,” says Birthday Boy, who is now in all-out pout mode. “Play with us five more minutes?”
“Sorry, kiddos. I’m old and tuckered out.”
Just as a couple kids begin whining, Jack pokes her head out from under the slide and, in a dead, monotone voice, says, “I’m a witch, and if you don’t leave him alone, I’ll put a curse on you.”
“You’re not a witch!” yells Pigtail Girl. “They don’t exist, my mommy told me!”
“Your mommy is a liar. Ow , stop it, Tash.” Jack wiggles her fingers sinisterly toward the girl. “You don’t want to test my powers, do you?”
Pigtail Girl looks dubious, but Birthday Boy has backed away, uneasy. With no warning, he jets off again, shrieking, “I’m It!” And Paul is forgotten.
“You’re horrible,” I tell Jack. “You don’t tell a kid their mother is a liar.”
“All parents are liars,” says Jack. At which Paul frowns and chucks another handful of gravel at her.
“Burn and Earn,” he says. “The sun is at its peak position. Let’s do this.”
We do it. Jack wins the contest for the third year in a row. Eighteen seconds of uninterrupted contact between skin and burning metal.
“Triple Crown winner!” she bellows, before inspecting the hot red backs of her thighs.
• • •
The next day, I’m hanging out in Jack’s bedroom as she edits footage and I scroll through comments on our newest upload, entitled “Anna’s Turned the Corner.” Tomorrow is an early morning filming day, and we’ll be shooting in the Harlows’ dining room, so I’ve decided to spend the night. We’re sitting in a comfy silence, punctuated by clicks, when I notice Jack frowning at her screen.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, immediately worried that it’s something to do with the footage—that there aren’t any usable shots from a certain angle, or there’s some glaring continuity error we didn’t catch.
“Um, nothing,” she says, but her frown deepens.
I scoot closer to take a look at her laptop. “Are you sure?”
Jack throws her hands over the screen, shielding it from view. “Yeah.” She sounds weirdly nervous. “It’s fine.”
“Then why are you covering the screen?” I try to peel back her fingers, without success.
“Okay,” says Jack. “Okay, you’ve got to promise not to freak out.”
“Just show me.”
So Jack drops her hands. The screen is pulled up to a Tumblr post. A lengthy Tumblr post.
Jack says, “The haters have finally come out to play.”
• • •
There’s a certain brutality about repeating things to yourself, even if those things are good. After you stop purposefully reciting the words, they continue in an automatic loop, wearing down a groove in your brain. I’ve experienced this before with Taylor Mears’s video and with some texts from Thom. Certain words hop aboard the Endless Loop Train and go around the track again and again and again, draining the fuel of my very consciousness.
And that’s when it’s good words. With bad words, it’s much, much worse.
I read through the Tumblr post once, twice, three times. Then I react, talking faster and more ferociously with every passing moment. I am in full-on rant mode when Paul comes in the room, basketball in hand. His hair is gathered back in a ponytail and his face is flushed. He smells of sweat and sun.
Jack interrupts my tirade to say, “Don’t you dare touch my furniture like that. Floor only.”
Obligingly, Paul tosses aside the basketball and dives to the floor. He asks, “What’re we mad about?”
“Some horrible person with nothing better to do wrote a critique of Unhappy Families . Like, okay, I’d like to see you try to produce a show with no money and a ton of logistics to worry about, and I bet he doesn’t know we’re only in high school, because what kind of creep . . . Jack, what ?”
Jack looks like she’s making a concerted effort not to laugh.
She says, “I like it when you get all vindictive. Suits you.”
This makes me angrier, because it reminds me that I am not acting anywhere close to enlightened. I really need some space with this. Space to think and calm down.
“What did this person say, exactly?” Paul asks. “And what makes you think it’s a he?”
I shrug. “Why not?”
“Hey,” says Jack, jabbing my knee. “That’s not fair. Girls and boys can be equally horrible.” She leans over the edge of the bed and props her laptop on Paul’s chest. “Read it for yourself. It’s the one by silverspunnnx23.”
Which Paul apparently takes to mean “Read it aloud for us,” because he clears his throat and revisits the phrases that are already tearing wounds into my brain:
Okay, I seem to be in the minority here, but why the f*** is everyone suddenly OBSESSED with Unhappy Families? So it got a plug from Taylor Mears, but everyone knows Taylor’s vlogs have turned into throwaway content these days, now that she’s busy working on her new project. Personally, I’ve found the whole series so far to be dull and hackneyed. And so no one can accuse me of being in a bad mood, I’ve listed the problems I found when watching. Let’s take a look, shall we?
1. ACTING —I guess the acting is decent overall, but the script sounds so forced most of the time. They’re obviously trying way too hard to make references to the text, but it just doesn’t work.
2. THE STORY —Am I the only one thinking this? There’s a reason no one’s made Anna Karenina into a modern web series: BECAUSE IT DOESN’T WORK . It’s WAY too ambitious. Tolstoy wasn’t writing some cute love story. He was writing a social and political commentary, and that’s totally lost here. I’m not saying it’s a web series’ job to be as epic and insightful as a Tolstoy novel. Most of them are derivative pieces of fluff, anyway. But it’s one thing to update some already awful gothic novel. It’s another to attempt to update Russian lit. I bet at this point, the writers are already realizing they bit off way more than they can chew.
3. KEVIN —God, don’t get me started here. I can’t for the life of me understand what anyone finds attractive about this ship. It’s not that great in the book to begin with, but in this series it’s a total joke. Levin is an awkward, sniveling pansy rich boy who likes plants. Also, the actor playing him is way too pretty for the role. Kitty is bland and has NO definable personality traits other than being a dancer. Even so, she deserves better than Levin. I don’t get why anyone is cheering for these two to get together. WHY .
Conclusion: WTF . Seriously, that’s all I can think when I see people junking up my feed with their fangirling over this mediocre-at-best show. I can only hope this is a phase and everyone will move past the #KevinThursday madness soon.
Paul shuts the laptop and stretches both arms over his head to return it to Jack.
“Ouch,” he remarks. Then, noticing a pile of Jack’s newly molded clay figurines, he picks up a Corpse Bride and Jack Skellington and makes them dance across his stomach in a languid waltz.
“I would sincerely like to see that person write and direct and produce a web series,” I say. “What, does he live off tears and negativity? Does he have nothing better to do than burn people who are actually trying to—to make art?”
“Okay, Tash, don’t make it so lofty.” Jack throws the laptop screen back open. “We’re doing Unhappy Families because it’s fun, not because we got commissioned to spruce up the Sistine Chapel. And the reviewer could be a she. Probably is.”
“Whoever they are, they suck. And did you see all those reblogs? Who would reblog something that mean? What, are there hundreds of people out there who hate our show?”
I think back to those nine dislikes on my vlog. I tear up.
“Hey,” says Paul, lifting the Corpse Bride to my eye level in a consoling approach. “It’s not worth crying over.”
“Don’t tell me what’s worth crying over!” I shout, knocking the figurine from his hand. “Like you’ve ever done something like this, Paul!”
The silence that follows is awful. Paul’s gaze is back on the ceiling, but I can see hurt in his face.
Jack’s staring at me. “Jesus, Tash. When did you get to be such an asshole? That’s my job.”
“I—I’m sorry,” I say, miserable. I slide off Jack’s bed to sit beside Paul. I nudge him in the shoulder, which is still damp with cooled sweat. “I’m sorry, that was way out of line.”
Paul closes his eyes and says, “It’s fine.”
“Bad reviews are inevitable,” says Jack. “We just can’t let George see this.”
“For so many reasons,” I agree, shaking off my remaining disquiet.
“So. Enough of that.” Jack turns the screen for me to see. “Look at this GIF set instead. Isn’t that the best?”
Someone has captured three moments from the Scrabble episode: a close-up of the letter tiles, of Levin and Kitty brushing hands, and of Levin and Kitty’s kiss.
I smile and nod, but I can’t help thinking, NO definable personality.
Is that true? Jack and I worked so hard to make Kitty’s character sweet-tempered but believable. Is it not enough? Or is it just Eva’s performance? Or what ? What are we doing wrong?
Even late into the night, after Paul has dragged himself off to his room and Jack and I have settled into bed, my mind won’t shut off. The words keep whirling around in my mind: so forced, derivative pieces of fluff, total joke.
After an hour of trying to fall asleep, I take my phone out from under my pillow and text Thom.
We got a really bad review today. Any tips for how to shake it off?
I don’t anticipate getting a reply until sometime tomorrow, so I’m surprised to see typing on Thom’s end.
He writes, That’s the worst. I’m so sorry. I’ve gotten my fair share. Just try to stay away from them, and DON’T read obsessively. Otherwise, you’ll remember them for-ev-er.
I grimace and text, Too late for that.
It’s going to be okay, Thom texts back. Remember, there will always be people who don’t like your content. It’s their right to criticize. It’s your right to keep making art.
I smile. At least Thom thinks I’m making art.
Thanks, I text. Seriously, that makes me feel better.
Anytime. Sweet dreams.
I stare at the screen for a full minute.
Sweet dreams. Is that a normal thing for friends to text each other? Are Thom and I friends, or what? It’s not like either of us is making protestations of love, but lately Thom has been responding much more quickly and holding out longer in our conversations. Two nights this week, I stayed up past three o’clock in the morning chatting with him about the new material he has planned for his vlog and—my new favorite topic—the Golden Tubas.
Do you ever feel totally intimidated by the Golden Tubas? I texted him a couple days ago. I know it’s not like they’re the Academy Awards, but sometimes it feels like that.
Thom texted back, Don’t let it get to you. I was all hyped up when I first got nominated last year, but I would’ve enjoyed it a lot better if I wasn’t so nervous.
He added, Also, if I’d known I wouldn’t win, I wouldn’t have gone. Lol.
Why not? I asked. It’s still a great opportunity to meet people.
I know enough people, Thom replied.
Which, I suppose, is true. Thom is much more established in this world than I am. Last year, Beaker Speaker was nominated for three Tubas— Best Vlog, Nerd of Honor, and Best Personality. He may not have won any of them, but getting the nominations was a big deal. At least I will only have to be a nervous wreck for one round of awards.
I just hope I don’t cry, I wrote.
And Thom replied, I’ll bring lots of tissues, don’t worry.
So, no romantic overtures, but still, there’s something there. Not romantic yet, maybe, but a tenuous promise. I have a feeling both Thom and I know things will change at the convention. Our meeting will either be a confirmation of what we’ve been hoping for or a sad realization that reality doesn’t match expectations. The thought of that meeting sends shock waves through my body—tangled sensations of fear and anticipation.
I wonder how Thom pictures our first meeting. If things take a good turn, will he expect us to make out? Will he expect . . . more? If he doesn’t, there’s absolutely no reason to tell him yet. Anyway, how are you supposed to tell a boy you like that you don’t want to have sex with him, possibly ever? There are no tips for that in Cosmopolitan , no informational paragraph in my health textbook. It isn’t something I can ask Jack’s or Paul’s advice about.
Even if I start a thread on the forums, no one there can tell me exactly how to phrase the text or the spoken words. So, Thom, I like you a lot, but absolutely no part of me wants to hook up with any part of you. How do I word that without making it sound like a rejection? Without sounding like I’m just a prude? I mean, what teenage guy wants to hear that? What person wants to hear that, period?
In any case, there’s no reason to tell him now. I have until the Golden Tuba Awards, when that tenuous promise of ours is bound to either come true or break into a hundred tiny pieces.