Two
I am going to die of heatstroke before I see my sister obtain a diploma.
The sun is blazing down on the bleachers of Calhoun High’s football stadium, where I sit wedged between my dad and Jack. Paul has just walked, and we are now crossing the wide alphabetic wasteland that remains between H and Z . It’s eighty-five degrees, and the humidity is so high you could pull out a straw and suck in the surrounding air like a beverage. I thought I’d been smart this morning when I chose to wear my lime-green linen romper. I was thinking the linen would keep me cool. I didn’t consider that I would work up enough butt sweat to create two embarrassing crescent marks on the seat of the romper. I haven’t looked in a mirror, but I can feel the damage. When it comes to perspiration and periods, a girl just knows.
So here I am, terribly toasty and probably dehydrated and wondering how I can exit this stadium without ever standing up again, when Jack leans in close and says, “Check your phone.”
They’ve only made it to the M s onstage, so I figure I’m not going to miss any fireworks by sneaking a peek.
“It’s eleven thirty,” I tell Jack.
“No, no, check the site .” Jack shoves her own phone in my face.
I squint. “I can’t see, the sun’s too bright.”
Jack drops the phone in my lap. “Look at it.”
I cup my hands over the screen in a way that renders it still dark and reflective but readable. The setup of our YouTube home page is the same as always. There is the salmon-colored banner with the words “Seedling Productions” scrawled in spindly script, the logo of a watermelon atop a sunburst, and two running playlists: one for my personal vlog, and one for the web series. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Jack isn’t smiling, so I’m expecting the worst.
“What?” I bug my eyes in an attempt to see past my apparent blind spot. “What’s wrong, did someone hack it? I don’t see—”
“The subscriptions. Look at the subscriptions.”
I usually check subscriptions once a week, on Sundays, when I upload a new Monday morning vlog. This past Sunday, we were at 409. I remember the exact number because it launched me into vigorously humming the Beach Boys around the house all day long, until Klaudie shouted from down the hall to shut up and holy crap was she glad to be moving out in August.
On average, my personal vlog gets about a hundred hits a week, and Unhappy Families gets a bit more. It’s a small but loyal following. I guess that’s all you can really expect when you are a seventeen-year-old amateur vlogger with a full school load. It’s all I expect, anyway, when I look at the red subscription box.
43,287.
There are more than forty thousand subscribers to Seedling Productions.
“Dude,” I whisper.
My dad thwacks my knee with his bunched-up program. He gives me a mock-stern look and nods toward the stage. I throw back a mock-repentant look but don’t put away Jack’s phone. I stare some more. I refresh the page, certain it has to be a fluke. Instead, I get 43,293 .
Jack’s eyes are dilated and her electric-purple hair looks more electrified than usual. Color has exploded in her cheeks, and while some of it might be sunburn—damn whoever invented outdoor graduations—I think most of it is due to sheer bewilderment.
“Dude,” I repeat. “That can’t be right, can it?”
“Something’s happened,” says Jack. “Some big shot must’ve mentioned us. That’s the only explanation.”
I’m still staring at the screen when a hand swoops in from my left. I look up to find my mom reaching across Dad’s lap with an actual stern expression. She pinches her fingers tight around the phone and raises a brow that says, Natasha Zelenka, is it too much to ask that you devote one hour of your time to this momentous rite of passage?
I shake my head. Appeased, she releases the phone. That’s the thing about Mom: stern, but so easily satisfied, the sternness is rendered completely ineffective. I return the phone to Jack and train my eyes toward the stage like a model daughter, which is the joke of the day, really, because everyone knows that role is already filled by Klaudie.
Klaudie is prettier, taller, and smarter than I am. No one has ever had to tell me this. It is amputation-without-anesthetic-painfully obvious. She’s going to Vanderbilt in the fall, and after that she plans to get her doctorate in chemical engineering. After that , she will engineer chemicals and get married and have seven children and maybe become president on the side.
I honestly don’t begrudge Klaudie’s perfect future, because it means far less pressure on Future Me to get married and produce offspring. My theory is this: So long as the older sibling does all the right things, the younger sibling can go wild. Take William and Harry, for instance. I am Prince Harry. Only I’m the descendant of Czech political dissidents and Kiwi fishmongers, not inbred British monarchs. Also, I am not the hotter sibling, as has already been established.
Klaudie can have the perfection and procreation. I am more than happy to cheer from the bleachers, figuratively and, in today’s case, literally. But dude, over forty thousand subscriptions . And I haven’t even checked the views yet.
As the P s trot across the stage, my mind is far from a high school football stadium in central Kentucky and lost in the wilds of the Internetsphere. Jack is right: Someone—someone big —must have thrown a mention out there. Who? And whatever they said, was it . . . nice ?
My tongue high-dives into my stomach. I was thrilled to see those magical five digits in the subscription box, but now I’m beginning to wonder if this is a bad thing. What if we’ve been slammed? But no, people wouldn’t subscribe to a channel with a bad rap. Would they? Who even knows these kinds of things—PR experts? Is there a video tutorial out there for what to do when you go viral?
Viral. I’ve always thought that’s an ugly way of putting it. As though the population of the Internet is one perpetually ill body, ravaged by disease after disease. Isn’t there a pleasanter substitute? For example, “going supernova.” Way more epic, and probably the better analogy: a colossal burst, followed by a gradual fade from memory.
And now, it seems, Seedling Productions is going supernova. Bursting forth in a crazy display of light and color at this very moment, when I am supposed to be pondering a commencement speech and tearing up as my sister moves a tassel from right to left. Why couldn’t this have happened in mid-January, when everything was dead and cold and time moved at half its regular pace and I had nothing better to do than binge-watch all ten seasons of Friends on Netflix? Why is it happening now, as another Important Life Event is going on?
Out the corner of my eye, I see Jack’s knees bouncing, her fingers flicking across the phone screen.
One hour, I tell myself. You can wait one hour.
My body disagrees. My stomach feels like it’s overproducing acid, and my mind is whirring with possibilities. Hashtags, fan art, raving blog posts—all devoted to Seedling Productions. Maybe even . . . a Golden Tuba.
Whoa there, Tash, I tell myself. Calm down.
They’ve made it to the T s. Klaudie’s row—the very last—is filing toward the stage. I can make out Klaudie from here; her hunter-green graduation cap is bejeweled with the words Music City Bound .
Maybe once Klaudie hears the news, she’ll decide to stay in Lexington and keep filming with us. Maybe she’ll reread all the articles I once sent her about how people who take gap years between high school and college are much more well-rounded and fulfilled individuals.
“It would be great if I were going to drama or film school,” Klaudie replied at the time, “but no engineering program is going to be impressed that I spent a year fiddling around with a camera.”
This comment led to a giant fight back in March, and even now I am smarting from wounds that haven’t scabbed over properly. I don’t mind that Klaudie is perfect or that she has a plan, but there’s no need for her to be so damn condescending about it. It is a toss-up, really, as to whether Klaudie will be genuinely happy about going viral or will say, with tight lips and bored eyes, “That’s nice, Tash, I know how much your little project means to you.”
Ever since Klaudie received her acceptance letter from Vanderbilt, she’s been wearing a lot of those tight lips and bored eyes, droning out her constant refrain that August can’t come soon enough.
“Klaudie Marie Zelenka.”
My row, mostly relatives and friends, strains forward, at attention, as Klaudie takes the stage. She crosses the platform in measured steps, posture excellent, and she wears a big-but-not-goofy smile as she shakes Principal Hewitt’s hand and he hands over the diploma. A few high-pitched cheers ring out from the graduate section—probably Klaudie’s friends Ally and Jenna. Then Klaudie is gone, and the very last of the seniors, Charlie Zhang, steps forth for his own fleeting moment of glory. And that’s that.
It’s all so . . . anticlimactic.
I guess this is how things will be a year from now, for me and Jack and all the rest of us rising seniors. How depressing. Though who knows? What with Seedling Productions’ forty-three thousand subscribers (and counting!), I might not even need to graduate a year from now. I might have already made a life fortune and be sitting pretty in a Californian mansion.
This time, I don’t tell my imagination to calm down. Because the thing I’ve joked about for so long is no longer a joke. It’s real .
• • •
As you might expect, my bedroom is decked out with a lot of Tolstoy-related items. I have one giant poster of him hung over my dresser. I also have a half dozen or so quotes of his written on colored card stock and taped to the walls. Every few months, I look for new quotes, write them up, and change them out.
Here is one of the quotes currently hanging in my bedroom: “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
So true. Like how, after the graduation ceremony is over, time moves so. So. SO slowly, just to spite my patience. I want nothing more than to lock myself in my bedroom, throw open my laptop, and figure out the why and who and how of the subscriber explosion. But just because Graduation the Event is over doesn’t mean Graduation the Day is over. After the photographs and hugs outside the stadium—during which I keep my hands fanned over my backside in a ducklike attempt to cover the butt sweat stains—there is an after-party on the agenda, at the Harlows’ place.
I like to think I would still be die-hard, lifelong friends with Paul and Jack Harlow had they not lived on my street. That all the bike races and water gun fights and backyard camping trips would’ve happened even if the Harlows lived on the opposite side of town. What I have with the Harlows is an ironclad friendship that has floated through doldrum summers and weathered overlong winters. It is an almighty mess of belly laughs and broken ankles and outdoor voices and first cusses. Friendship like this has to be destined. My bond with Paul and Jack transcends the convenience of location, the sheer luck of our parents’ real estate decisions. You can’t convince me otherwise.
Of course, location comes in handy on a day like this, when Paul and Klaudie have a joint graduation party. The Harlows are providing the backyard, because they are the ones with the inground pool and the better grill. We Zelenkas are providing food because my dad is basically the MasterChef of Lexington, Kentucky. It is a perfectly symbiotic relationship that requires only a fifteen-second drive from 12 to 24 Edgehill Drive. We’ve done a lot of birthdays this way. Paul and I share a birth week in August and have insisted on co-planning a joint party for years. I’m pretty sure I can beat anyone for the number of childhood pool parties in their past. Anyone but Paul, of course.
It’s the first joint party at the Harlows’ that hasn’t directly involved me, and I was kind of surprised Klaudie agreed to go along with it. She’s never been part of the trio. She never wanted to be. She’s only fifteen months older than me, but since toddlerhood she’s felt the need to act like she is the mother figure. When I made friends with Paul and Jack, Klaudie wrote off the whole set of us as childish little trolls. She was never mean to us, exactly, but she sure kept herself untouchable.
So, considering this history, the news that Klaudie planned on celebrating graduation with Paul was brow raising. Though I guess it isn’t so much that Klaudie and Paul are celebrating together as the Harlows and Zelenkas are celebrating together, and that is very natural.
At the moment, this Zelenka is on the lookout for her Harlows. I need to find Paul to properly congratulate him on surviving more than a decade of public education. And I need to find Jack to process exactly what’s going on with Seedling Productions. I checked the site again on the drive here, and the subscriptions have passed forty-five thousand. For some reason, my eyes have started watering. I’m not sure my body is capable of handling whatever new emotion I’m experiencing.
Since my arrival at the party, I’ve been running a gauntlet of family friends and relatives who think it’s necessary to congratulate me for my sister’s graduation, as though I had any hand in it. I’ve just escaped another well-wishing neighbor’s clutches when I spot Jay Prasad up ahead, standing by himself at the edge of the pool. Or more like wobbling at the edge of the pool. Jay always gets wobbly when he’s uncomfortable.
“Jay!” I cry, throwing my arms around him.
Jay wobbles backward, taking me with him. We both do some crazy wobbling together, then regain our balance.
Jay is Paul’s friend, and of course mine, and of course not Klaudie’s. He is short and slight and an invaluable member of the Seedling Productions team.
“I don’t know any of these people,” Jay says, adjusting his askew glasses.
I glance around, assessing the crowd. “Yeah. You were really sweet to come. Paul will be so glad you’re here.”
I grab his hand and lead him along the pool’s edge. Paul is sitting on the diving board in a muscle tee and his graduation cap. He appears to be engaged in some kind of dare from a set of guys at the diving board ladder.
“Paul!” I shout. “Look who’s here!”
“JAY !” Paul bellows. He scoots halfway across the diving board, then gets to his feet and shoos the guys from the ladder. He gives me the impression of a king processing down a staircase and waving aside his attendants.
He and Jay exchange backslaps before Paul turns to me and chucks me on the cheek.
“Where’ve you been hiding?” he asks.
“I was going to congratulate you earlier, but relatives kept getting in the way.”
Paul peers closer at me. He points at my eyes, which are still watery.
“Have you been crying, Tash? Are you mourning my loss? No more cool points for knowing me.”
“I never got them from you, loser,” I say. “If anyone is responsible for lending me cred, it’s Tony.”
Tony is a rising senior at Calhoun and also in the web series. He has a three-inch Mohawk and is undoubtedly the coolest person I know. He is also Jack’s ex.
“TONY !” Paul is an individual who takes advantage of every chance to bellow people’s names. “Is he here?”
Jay gets wobbly again. Some people wear their hearts on their sleeves. Jay wears his as a giant patch embroidered on his chest, like a tacky Christmas sweater.
I say, “He’s probably making his rounds at all his many friends’ parties.”
“I dunno which friends’ parties are more important than mine.” Paul pouts. But it isn’t a real pout. I’ve never seen Paul be petty about anything.
“There you are,” says a sharp voice at my back. Jack. I side-shuffle to allow her into our forming circle.
“I’ve figured it out,” she says.
“Figured out what?” says Jay.
Paul folds his arms and pushes his eyebrows up so high they disappear behind his toppling mess of long dark hair.
Jack’s voice is deep and low as she says, “Seedling’s going viral.”
Which is met with a pair of “What? ”s from the guys.
“Well,” she says, “not exactly viral . Ellen DeGeneres isn’t going to come calling anytime soon. But there’s been this crazy spike in views and subscriptions. I think we might hit fifty thousand subscribers today.”
An echo of even more incredulous “What? ”s.
“This is the best part,” Jack continues, and I marvel at how she can deliver all this news without the hint of a smile. “Guess who’s responsible? Taylor Mears. ”
“WHAT ?” This time, I join Jay in a baffled screech.
Paul is wearing a guilty expression that I’ve become very familiar with over the past couple years. Paul isn’t into this stuff—web series, acting, drama in general. There are some conversations he just can’t engage in. There are too many names and terms and backstories that have built up during months of filming. Taylor Mears is one of those.
“She’s this really famous Internet personality,” I explain, so Paul doesn’t have to ask. “She basically invented the web series. Like, years and years ago, when not everyone who had a camera was making one.”
“Wuthering Bites , man.” Jay is awestruck by Paul’s ignorance. “You’ve never heard of Wuthering Bites ? These girls never forced you to watch an episode?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Paul says, pinking at the ears. “I just didn’t know . . . the name. Taylor Spears?”
“Mears,” corrects Jack. “She helped write and produce, and she starred as Cathy. She’s a goddess. And she has this vlog, and she mentioned us on it. She said we were one of the most well-acted amateur series she’s seen.”
“She said that?” I near-scream.
I grab both Jack’s hands and squeeze them in excitement, then shake them in excitement, then raise them in excitement. The effort is entirely on my part. Jack is not the kind of friend I can squeal with about anything. She is cold, bordering on the freezing point, and she has this perpetually grim expression. But even though Jack would never debase herself by jumping and squealing, she’s just as excited as I am. I can see it in the slight quirk of her purple-lipsticked mouth.
“You have to show it to me,” I tell her. “Now.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got it pulled up.”
Jack whips out her ever-handy phone and brings up the YouTube page, where Taylor Mears’s face is paused in a cheery grin. She punches the volume up to the highest tick, then presses play.
The title of the video is “New and Notable!” It begins with Taylor explaining that she’s been browsing through dozens of little-known web series produced by amateur filmmakers working with small budgets. She then says she wants to share what she considers three “undiscovered gems” that aren’t getting enough attention. Unhappy Families is first on the list.
“You guys,” Taylor says with huge, earnest eyes. “You guys. Don’t walk, run to this series. They are already forty episodes in, so carve out time to binge. I don’t know how the hell these girls have managed to make a giant Russian novel so darn accessible, but believe me, they have. They’ve taken a super smart approach by whittling down the cast of Anna Karenina to seven main characters: Anna, Alex, Vronsky, Dolly, Stiva, Levin, and Kitty. And oh my God, I love what they’re doing with the Levin/Kitty storyline. Both actors are crazy talented and adorable, and you will feel all the feels . So, whether you want a fun alternative to SparkNote-ing this book for your world lit class or you just want to stay up late watching well-crafted drama, check out Unhappy Families .”
Jay’s response is, understandably, “Holy shit.”
My response is silence. Silence so long that Jack asks, “Are your organs shutting down? If you’re still with us, blink twice.”
But I’m not with them. I am dazed and quiet for the rest of the party. I can’t even properly taste the cake. People’s words sound staticky in my ears.
“You look so spaced,” Paul tells me after a while.
“I can’t believe . . . ,” I begin, but don’t finish.
Paul taps my cheek and says, “Go home, Tash. No one’s going to care. You’re useless to all of us now.”
Harsh words, but I know Paul doesn’t mean them that way. His eyes are soft with affection.
“Paul’s right,” says Jack. “Go recoup.”
My best friends know me well. I need to be home, curled up in bed, finding out everything I can about the site’s stats and any buzz on social media. I need comfy pajama shorts and a gigantic cup of Twining’s Earl Grey and the new St. Vincent album on full blast. Everything between me and that ideal setup is white noise, a pointless parade of movement.
“Thanks,” I tell them. Then, to Paul, “Enjoy your big day.”
He responds with a two-fingered salute.
As I’m running back home, I have a thought, and immediately after I wonder if it is unforgivably selfish. The thought is this: Yes, it’s Paul and Klaudie’s big day, but it might be my big day too.