Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel (4 page)

I have decided to quit soccer and find myself sitting on a bench about to audition for the play. Tess and I were not improving and were going to be benched the whole season as juniors. I tell myself that would be more embarrassing than trying to act. Maybe they’ll let us play something small in the background. I am completely nervous, but not so much because of the audition. I wonder where Saskia is.

My stomach is acting up and I am not sure if it’s butterflies or nausea. It’s probably both. I pretend I’m reading the monologue I’m going to perform, silently rehearsing, but really I’m going nuts, looking for Saskia in every direction.

Focus, Leila, focus. “Hi!” Saskia calls, swatting the paper away from my face. I scream and she backs away, laughing.

“I didn’t mean to scare you!” she says.

“Sorry, I’m just easily startled.”

“I can see that.” She smiles and sits down next to me on the bench outside the auditorium. “You nervous?”

Of course I am. You’re sitting so close to me. “Yeah.” My voice cracks. How embarrassing. She cocks her head back, laughing again at my expense. “I guess I’m a little nervous for the audition. I haven’t really done this before.”

“Me neither. But it should be fun. Nothing to lose, right?”

She stands up and faces me, reaching for my hand.

“Come on. Let’s go in.”

I smile and take her offered hand. She doesn’t let go as we walk down the ramp into the auditorium. Taryn, one of the tech crew, pops out of the side stage door, carrying a prop trunk. “You’re in my way,” she grumbles.

I know exactly who I would be expected to hang out with if I came out: the theater tech girls. There are three of them who are for sure gay, and I always compare myself with them and think,
Is this my future? Will I become like them, or even date one of them?

Taryn, gay tech number one, has not smiled once in public. She has a website where she sells T-shirts that say
I screwed Taryn.
She enjoys flame throwing, photography, and particularly taking photos of her friends smashing furniture with baseball bats. And never shaves her legs. Simone, gay tech number two, wears a bandana every day, knits sweaters, and rows on the crew team. I’m pretty sure Christina, gay tech number three, is not only a lesbian but also a vampire.

They are all vegan, they all listen to feminist folk music by the likes of Erin McKeown, and they all work on tech stuff, building sets and setting up lighting cues in the theater. Even Ashley doesn’t bother the tech girls, probably because she’s afraid of them. I have to give them credit—they’re very much themselves, and that’s not always easy. But I look at them and I just don’t know if we’d get along. And shouldn’t we, as part of the lesbian tribe?

I begin to sidestep and expect Saskia to do the same, but she doesn’t.

“Manners like that are unbecoming, don’t you think?” Saskia asks loudly.

“Move,” Taryn says gruffly. “This shit is heavy.” She glances at our linked hands. I pull awkwardly away from Saskia to make a path for Taryn. She skulks by, and Saskia leads us down the ramp.

“She’s a gem,” Saskia says. “I didn’t know they admitted trolls.” She walks into the auditorium as though she’s been there dozens of times, while I marvel that Saskia’s not intimidated by Taryn and wonder why I am. Tess is already sitting near the middle of the auditorium, but Saskia pulls me toward the few rows in the front. I look back at Tess, who points to the empty seat next to her.

“Should we go sit with my friend Tess?” I ask Saskia as we sit down.

“I want to sit up front so the director notices us. We are stars in the making, and we should present ourselves as such,” Saskia says. I can’t argue with that, can I?

Mr. Kessler, the drama teacher, comes onstage and opens up his notebook while other students file in. Not too many people have shown up—probably about as many as there are roles in the play. Maybe that means no one will have to face rejection. After a few minutes of silence, Mr. Kessler looks up from his notebook and faces us.

“Okay, so I am sure we are all excited about
Twelfth Night
! It’s a play by Shakespeare—you may have heard of him. I’m sure he’s going to be a big deal someday.” No one laughs. “Anyway, this play is one of my favorites. It’s a comedy with gender bending and mistaken identity. Kind of like my time at college.”

Crickets.

“Okay, so you all have your monologues. Just do your best. Tomas?” Mr. Kessler nods to Tomas Calvin before sitting down in his seat, facing the stage. There are a few kids at Armstead who are out, and no one has been more out and proud than Tomas.

A secret admirer left a beautiful note in Tomas’s locker a week after he came out. Apparently the note said how brave Tomas was and how it inspired the secret admirer to grapple with his own feelings. The note asked Tomas to meet his admirer in the school auditorium after school. No one showed up. When Tomas realized he’d been had and left the auditorium, a few guys wearing ski masks sprayed him with Silly String while calling him a fag.

But after that he was taken in by the hot girls in our class, like Ashley and her followers. He was a fun new accessory, something you just
had
to have, the way celebrities adopt babies like they’re handbags. I was happy for him, but I resented the crap out of him, too.

Tomas slowly and methodically walks onto the stage as though he is Laurence Olivier. He pauses for much too long in between lines and then says the next line in a big, booming voice. I think it’s supposed to be for dramatic effect. Tess goes next—and she is actually really good! She reads the part of Maria, Olivia’s gentlewoman, and has done her homework; Tess delivers the speech with meaning, and I can understand most of what Maria is telling me.

When Saskia takes the stage, everyone pays attention. She’s going for the role of Olivia, a wealthy love interest, and everything about her is graceful and sophisticated, but I can’t get over how blasé she is. Saskia seems to have this ability to be incredibly indifferent to public scrutiny. It’s almost like she forgets she’s being watched. She reads her piece, and she is eloquent and charming and regal and totally believable as someone in love. She’ll probably get the lead.

“Okay, anybody else?” Mr. Kessler asks as he writes in his notebook. I look around and realize everyone has performed but me. If Tess can do it, so can I. These butterflies sure are aggressive little jerks.

I’m nervous, not so much because of the audition but because Saskia is watching me. I don’t want her to think I’m awful or melodramatic or quiet or timid. I want to show her I’m someone to contend with, someone worthy.

I am reading the role of Viola/Cesario, a shipwrecked young woman who dresses up as a man to work for the Duke. The Duke is in love with the noblewoman Olivia and sends Cesario to go express his love for her. Olivia, though, becomes enamored with Cesario, which complicates things. I know what it’s like to have a dual persona, so this role was made for me.

I’m reading the part where Viola in her Cesario disguise realizes Olivia’s feelings for her. “She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion invites me in this churlish messenger,” I say performing with what feels to me like conviction and daring. “None of my lord’s ring! Why, he sent her none. I am the man: If it be so, as ’tis.”

I am killing it! I am captivating the audience’s attention, and thinking,
Yes, I am this good
.
I’ve got this in the bag
.
Saskia and I will practice scenes together and I will give her pointers, and she will compliment me and make out with me whenever I want.

Any chance of that happening is gone as I fart loudly. Onstage. In front of everyone.

Only the ringing laughter that fills the auditorium drowns out the clanging of my heartbeat and the buzzing in my ears. In shock, I finish reading the last few lines out of character. “O time! thou must untangle this, not I; it is too hard a knot for me to untie!” As soon as I finish, I flee from the auditorium. Any chance I may have had with Saskia is now decimated. I don’t want to look at her as I run out. I don’t want to see if she’s laughing along with everybody else.

Dinner at Tess’s house on Thursday is more awkward than I had expected. Ms. Taylor didn’t know I was going to be there, and I’m still not over walking in on her making out with Mr. Harris. Mr. Carr is talking about the boys’ varsity football game this week and how his players are really in shape, considering the preseason workouts he’s been putting them through. Mrs. Carr pours herself another glass of wine before offering the bottle to Ms. Taylor, who declines. I am sure she doesn’t think drinking in front of her students is very responsible. Neither is sucking face with another teacher at school, but maybe that’s just me being petty.

“More for me then,” Mrs. Carr says as she puts the bottle by her glass. She gives me a wink. Mrs. Carr drinks an awful lot, but I appreciate her “I say what I mean” approach to life, which may be a side effect of all that drinking.

Ms. Taylor hasn’t touched much of her food. She cuts up her meat and looks like she’s about to dig in, but she never does.

“I tell you, Greg Crawford is one of the best players on our team this year,” Mr. Carr says.

Tess squirms in her seat, this time not out of embarrassment for her dad but because Greg has been mentioned. I don’t know why she doesn’t go for it. Tragic really. After all, they’re both straight; it should be so easy for them—if only Tess believed that Greg and I are just friends.

After more preseason football talk, Mr. Carr turns to me. “So how’s our new student? Did you give her the grand tour?”

“Oh, Saskia’s great. She’s really great.” I turn my eyes downward and hear Ms. Taylor finally begin to chew.

“You’re too pretty to be a teacher,” Mrs. Carr blurts. There’s just an ounce or two left in the bottom of the wine bottle now. Ms. Taylor looks up and Tess looks mortified. Mrs. Carr isn’t done. “My teachers were always nuns. Between you and that science guy, I’m surprised the students learn anything.”

Ms. Taylor chokes on her water a little, and even I am blushing.

“Mom!” Tess says.

Mrs. Carr smiles and turns back to Ms. Taylor. “Oh, it’s a compliment. How old are you? You look like a student yourself!”

Mr. Carr clears his throat and starts talking about teaching
Madame Bovary
. Tess looks like she wants to disintegrate into the floor, and I think about how something this awesome never happens in school.

Later, Ms. Taylor offers to drive me home from dinner instead of having my mom pick me up. We listen to some folky-pop hybrid, one of those bands that girls at my school love but I can’t stand.

“I failed to tell Mr. Carr that I’m a vegetarian,” says Ms. Taylor. “The beef was kind of a surprise. I’m starving. Do you mind if we grab some food?”

We pull into a Dunkin’ Donuts, where Ms. Taylor orders a bagel with light cream cheese and a latte, and treats me to a chocolate glazed doughnut and a Coolatta.

“I guess neither of us was really talkative at dinner,” she says.

“Well, with the Carrs it can be hard to get a word in.”

Ms. Taylor laughs at my candor, and I take a bite of my doughnut. I don’t worry how I must look in front of her since she has more to be embarrassed about than I do. We’re quiet again. She sips her latte and I watch the television mounted on the wall. Nancy Grace sure looks angry.

“I’m really sorry about today, Leila. Mr. Harris and I were in the wrong, and I don’t want this to change our dynamic.”

“So are you bribing me with a chocolate doughnut so I don’t say anything?”

She laughs nervously.

“I already told you, you don’t have to worry, Ms. T. I’m not going to say anything. Can I ask you something, though?”

She nods, sipping her coffee.

“What is it about him that you like? I get that he’s dreamy and everything, but other than that.”

“I don’t think we should talk about this. It’s not appropriate.”

Is she kidding? I take another bite of my doughnut.

She speaks again. “But since you proved your ability to use discretion at dinner . . . I like him because I feel safe around him. He’s stable, he wants to have kids one day, and I know he’d be a good dad. All clear?”

It’s strange seeing her so honest.

I nod. “You’re a great teacher, and if you leave, I’ll be stuck with Mr. Carr talking about sports instead of literature. Really, it’s in my best interest not to say anything.”

She laughs at this. “It’s nice being able to talk about it. I mean, we shouldn’t be, but it’s hard keeping a secret like that.”

I shove the doughnut in my mouth, chewing on
my
secret, the one I want to blurt out to someone. Anyone.

“So how are you liking junior year so far?” Ms. Taylor asks. “You seem to be handling the material well, but I’m surprised you don’t participate in class more. Your last essay would have made for a great discussion topic—”

“I like girls,” I say, sputtering doughnut crumbs. I can’t believe I just said it out loud for the first time. It feels ridiculous, frightening, and exhilarating all at once.

“I’m sorry?”

“Shit. This is so awkward,” I mumble. “I don’t know why I told you.”

I can see she is processing what I said. I feel like crawling underneath the table, crouching down there until the manager closes up shop.

“It’s okay. I guess we’re both speaking in the spirit of honesty today.” I want to throw up my doughnut, but Ms. Taylor holds my hand and I feel a little better. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shake my head. I’m not ready yet. We leave the Dunkin’ Donuts and walk to her car. Whatever teacher-student relationship we had yesterday is gone now. We know too much about each other to go back. We’ve been driving ten minutes before I find my voice again.

“Do you think we can change the music? I’m not really into these whiny guys.”

“Leila
joon,
Greg is downstairs waiting! Are you ready?”

Mom smooths my hair out when I turn in my chair to face her. She’s blow-dried it straight and has fit me into a navy-blue dress for the semiformal party. My C cups runneth over, but I’m sure Greg won’t mind.

“Look at how pretty you are!” Mom exclaims. “You should straighten your hair all the time!”

Well, I guess that’s one thing I can straighten about myself.

“I better get going.”

I walk downstairs and Greg’s eyes widen for a moment. Mom, always the good Persian guest, bought me a gift to give to Lisa, even though I told her it’s not a birthday party.

Greg opens the passenger side door for me, and I wish this wasn’t so obviously looking like a date, especially when Mom waves to us from the house. I just know she’s picturing waving good-bye to us on our wedding night.

Greg tunes the radio to Classic Rewind, and the sounds of Journey escort us over to Lisa’s house. It’s ironic that “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” is on, because from the way Greg occasionally glances at my cleavage, there may be some hope left in him.

“Eyes on the road,” I say as I fold my arms over my chest. Greg coughs and I change the radio station in hopes of changing his train of thought. “I had dinner at Tess’s last night,” I say. “Her dad kept gushing about you.” Tess would have, too, but Greg doesn’t need to know that.

“Yeah, the team is really holding its own this year.”

“Greg, can you at least try and boast a little? If I was a star football player, you wouldn’t be able to shut me up.”

He laughs quietly. “Trust me. I’ve seen you on the soccer field. I don’t know that the football team would take you.” I swat his arm and he laughs louder. “Though you can take a hit. At least from soccer balls, anyway.” I fake laugh and then scowl at him, and that makes him laugh even harder.

Lisa’s house is pulsing with music. I drop my mother’s gift for Lisa on a table in the foyer and look for familiar faces in the crowd. Robert and his guy pals are chugging beer, spilling it all over the Persian rugs. Those things have history, Goddamn it! Ashley is grinding with some hockey guy, while her gal pals look bored to death. It’s strange being here again. I feel like Lisa’s brother, Steve, should come jogging down the stairs, laughing at all of us and then driving off to the movies with his college girlfriend. I begin to make my way over to Tess.

Greg goes straight for the kill. “Do you want to dance?”

No,
I think.

“Sure,” I say.

I change course and we head for the dance area. I’m pretty sure Ashley could get arrested for what she’s now doing with the hockey player. Greg and I just stare at each other for a moment, and then he begins to move his arms side to side—not at all with the beat of the song. His legs remain immobile except for some strange bending at the knees. This continues for a minute more until I take pity on him and swing my arms over his shoulders to restrain them from any further movement. We sway at a sort of frantic rhythm that still doesn’t match the song. Greg’s hands are clammy, gripping at my lower back. I wish I were dancing with Saskia. Around her I feel longing, passion, confusion. Greg’s hand is now on the top part of my butt. This just feels wrong.

“Greg, I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

To the bathroom? “No, I’ll be fine. Thanks,” I say.

I leave him in the dance area and take the back stairs up to the second floor, a space I haven’t been in for years. When Lisa and I were younger, we’d go upstairs and talk about school and which teachers we didn’t like, about her emotionally unavailable parents and my sister’s annoyingly perfect accomplishments. Now, I gently open the door to a balcony, hoping not to find anyone making out. Instead I find Lisa in her sweats, sitting on the balcony, her knees pulled into her chest. She looks up, startled to be found, but she seems relieved that it’s only me.

“You do know there’s a party in your house, right?”

She nods. “I’d rather not watch my house get trashed.”

Her hair is up in a messy ponytail, and even in this disheveled state she looks like a teen magazine queen. I sit down next to her and wrap my arms around myself.

There’s a book on the patio next to her. “What are you reading?”

“
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
It’s kind of slow.”

“Yeah, I read that last summer. It’s good. You just have to wait it out a little.”

We sit in silence for a few moments more, and then I sneeze.

“Jesus, you sound like a dying animal.”

I hold up my hands, now covered in snot, and Lisa rolls her eyes and goes inside. Apparently I’ve repulsed her beyond tolerating my presence. Well, screw her. She’s the weirdo ditching her own party.

“Here,” she says, suddenly back again, plopping a box of tissues in my lap before sitting back down. I wipe my hands and nose, and then blow loudly.

“Sorry. Nice party.”

“Is it? That’s good,” she says, pulling her bangs in front of her eyes. She sighs and examines her perfectly manicured nails.

“If I knew we could wear sweats to this party, I totally would have worn mine.” This doesn’t get Lisa to react at all. “You haven’t complimented me on my dress,” I say.

She doesn’t even look at me. “Tell your mom she did a good job picking it out.”

“Aw! You remember my lack of fashion sense.”

She smirks and finally turns to face me. “Hard to forget. You remember scruff days?”

Scruff days were a fun way for the administration at our elementary school to remind us that we had freedom to dress how we wanted . . . for one day each semester.

“You always looked like a homeless person on crack,” she says. “I remember one outfit where your shirt didn’t match your pants and you had like four hats on.”

“I was cool! I had flavor.”

“You had something.”

Lisa falls quiet again, staring vacantly out into space.

“Your essay was great the other day,” I try. “The one where the thing happened to the thing? You must have spent a lot of time on it.”

She continues to stare into space. “Leila, why are you up here?”

“I’m avoiding Greg Crawford. He’s working hard to turn our nondate into a date. Why are
you
up here, Lisa?”

She looks at me with a weak smile. “I haven’t really felt like socializing much. You know, what with my brother dying and everything.” There’s a sting in her words, but I know it isn’t necessarily directed at me. More at the universe.

“I know I’m being a huge baby and people die all the time, but I feel lonely without him. I feel lonely all the time. And it’s been a year, I should be over it, but I’m not.”

I don’t know what to say. There are no tears, no anger, just complete weariness in her voice. I kind of can’t believe she’s picked me to open up to.

“And please don’t be like everyone else and say you understand or it’ll all be okay, because it’s not going to bring him back,” she says.

“I farted onstage during play auditions today,” I say. Diversion. It’s all I have to work with right now.

Lisa smiles and shakes her head, so I run with it.

“I didn’t plan on it happening, of course. I mean, I was totally in the groove, everyone stunned by my acting ability, and it just sputtered out of me.”

“I didn’t know you were into theater.”

“I’m not. I just thought anything would be better than soccer.” I say it like I believe it.

“I hope you’re a better actress than soccer player.”

She’s still wearing her smile, and it’s nice to see her be a little lighter.

“Your friends downstairs are grinding up a storm,” I tell her, and then make a fake puking noise. “Why do you hang out with them anyway?”

“I don’t have to think too much when they’re around. We shop or go to parties, but there’s no heavy stuff.”

That makes sense. We sit there in silence again.

“Do you want to be alone?” I ask.

She doesn’t say anything for what feels like a whole minute. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

I stand up to leave when she drops a bombshell. “I can see why you don’t like Greg. I don’t think he’s your type.”

Has she figured me out? “What’s my type then?” I ask, like I’m vaguely curious to know.

She shrugs and picks up her book. “No clue. But hopefully someone who can help you pick out your outfits.” She can’t possibly know what that sounds like to me, can she?

I leave the balcony only to be greeted by Mrs. Katz, and I turn red, as though she can tell what I’m thinking.

“Leila. What are you doing up here?”

“Sorry, I was just using the restroom in there. The downstairs one was occupied.”

“Oh. Have you seen Lisa?”

“No. Sorry.”

Mrs. Katz doesn’t even try to make chitchat; she just walks off in the wrong direction to look for her daughter.

Back downstairs I see Ashley giving Greg a lap dance of sorts, and everyone at the party is surrounding them, laughing and clapping. Greg is looking side to side, as if trying to escape. Sparing him any further embarrassment, I walk over and yank him by his hand. Ashley loses her balance and stumbles to the floor, red-faced and scowling.

“Bitch!” Clever.

“Sorry, he’s my ride. I’d better get home,” I say with mock friendliness.

“Why? Are you missing something on the SyFy channel?”

I don’t reply but just walk away, pulling Greg behind me.

We don’t speak on the ride home. I think both of us are embarrassed, for different reasons.

“I was having a good time you know,” Greg huffs as he turns left.

“You looked uncomfortable dancing with her. I thought I was helping,” I say. I didn’t even want to go to the party!

“Well, at least she was interested in me,” Greg mutters. I thought we were over this! Does he think I’ll change my mind about liking him?

“Greg, you
should
be with someone who is interested in you.” It’s just not me. We get to the house and Greg leans across me to open the door. “I’ll see you Monday,” he says. He’s not going to walk me to the house, I can see.

I give him an unenthusiastic salute and walk to the door, remembering why I’ve never been a fan of parties.