Authors: Julie Kraut
Hot Mess
Contents
To my parents for always being totally supportive and totally embarrassing. I love you guys.
—J.K.
To Mama, the hero down the hall. To Gigi, the late bloomer.
And to all the girls who trust their dreams more than they doubt them—be brave, fortune favors the bold.
—S.L.
One
R
achel, Kyle, and I rocked up to El Shack del Tacos straight from seventh period. My boyfriend, Brian, and his posse had been there for hours. This was their last day of high school
ever,
and they’d commemorated it by ditching, which didn’t make sense to me. Because then yesterday was their last day. Whatever, I always tried to be fun, cool girlfriend and not logical, naggy girlfriend, so I didn’t mention it.
Brian’s posse was really tight. They were all a year older than Rachel, Kyle, and me, and always reminding us of it. They call themselves “The Hombres.” I know—eye-roll central.
I was sitting next to Bri, who was dressed in the typical Hombre uniform: khakis and a lame slogan tee. Today’s read “I Like Girls Who Like Girls.” What can I say? That’s my boy! Captain Classy. We’d been together for nine months officially and, I guess unofficially, ten and a half, and I couldn’t believe he was leaving at the end of the summer. Sure, he’d only be two hours away in Albany, but I knew things were going to be different between us. The
official
plan was to stay together.
My
plan was to savor this summer and hope for the best when he packed up and headed off to college in the fall.
Luckily, we were both going to be lifeguarding at the swim club this summer, so we’d be able to hang out between adult swim and kids crapping the pool. My parents were really pushing this “summer internship in New York” idea for a while. One of Mom’s “Golf Gals!”—that’s what they call themselves. Yes, with the exclamation point. And no, not to be funny, either—said that she could set me up with some kind of internship at a branch of her company in New York. And I have to admit, a summer of pink drinks and high heels in Manhattan would have been pretty awesome, but I decided to stick with my chlorine-and-flip-flops summer here in Bridgefield. New York was always going to be New York, and I could go there another summer. But who knew with Brian? I kind of wanted to carpe diem while the diem was good with him. Pathetic or romantic? I couldn’t decide.
I looked over at Rachel, who was all up on Warren, her apparent crush of the moment, sitting on his lap and feeding him taquitos. And poor Mister Sister Kyle, as always, was just kind of lingering around the periphery of The Hombre bunch, twisting his kabbalah bracelet uncomfortably. I knew he didn’t like Brian or The Hombres—they didn’t exactly follow Perez Hilton the way he did—but he sometimes pretended to for my sake. Not today, though. I heard him sigh loudly and then mumble something to Rachel about asphyxiating on all the testosterone. She looked at me and twirled her finger around in the air. I nodded back and reached for my bag. The finger twirl was our code that it was time to leave. Rachel’s uncle taught it to her. It was some military sign that meant start up the choppers…or missiles are coming or something. Whatever—it worked. Surprisingly, Bri took a last gulp from his soda and announced that he was going to leave with us.
“Rach, you think you’re gonna have enough room for me?” Brian asked between belches. “I ate an extra taco. I’m feeling a little bigger than usual.”
We all laughed at the thought of Rachel’s battleship-sized car. The girl drove a bona fide mom-mobile station wagon, complete with a “Bridgefield Elementary Super Speller” bumper sticker. The thing was so huge, it pretty much had its own zip code. I was jealous that she had a car at all, but it wasn’t exactly the Nissan Z she was hoping for on her Sweet Sixteen.
Kyle hopped in front with Rachel and I scooted next to my still-belching bf in the back. As she turned the key to start up the bus, “Ring of Fire” blared from her speakers and we sped off, going at least twenty miles above the speed limit, as usual. Rachel tried to compensate for the fact that she drove a covered wagon by going 120 miles per hour on Ridgeline Drive.
“Lady, it’s two-forty-five
p.m.,
not a.m. We’re not late for curfew or anything. Slow down before we turn into a driver’s ed cautionary tale.”
“Fine, Emma,” Rachel snapped at me, and rolled her eyes, slowing down by about four miles per hour. I still felt like I was on the Bezerker.
“Honey, will you do something about this music,
puhleeze
.” Even Kyle’s whines were sassy. “I need to be celebrating the last day of junior year. This shit would make my Latin oral exam sound like music. I need to work this out, bitch!” He did his signature body wave. It totally didn’t go with the Johnny Cash blasting out of the speakers.
Rachel slapped his hand as he reached down to find another song on her playlist. “Don’t you dare, Ky. Johnny Cash stays on. I’m doing research.”
“On what, Professor Wolfe? How long it takes before country music will make a brother’s ears bleed?” Unless Kyle was talking to one of his siblings, he surely was not a brother. Yes, he was darker than Rachel and I were, but that had more to do with self-tanner than minority status. And Lancôme Flash Bronzer does not a black man make.
“According to Danny’s MySpace page, Johnny Cash is now his favorite artist,” she said matter-of-factly. “By the time we’re on the bus up to camp together, I’ll be a total expert.” She turned up “Folsom Prison Blues” and pretended to sing along, but I’m pretty sure “Get this party started” isn’t part of the lyrics.
She was what some would fondly call “boy crazy” and others would not-so-fondly call “stone cold psycho.” Either way, Rachel Wolfe was a seventeen-year-old on a mission to find a boyfriend. And “tall, dark, and handsome” were not on the checklist for her ideal mate. “Funny, intelligent, and rich” were missing, too. But “bar mitzvahed, circumcised, and from a nice family?” Check, check, and check! She was on the warpath to find a nice Jewish boy and she’d already exhausted all of the Semitic studs in Bridgefield. Well, to be fair, there was only one barely popular-enough Jewish male in our class, Josh Kleinman. After two weeks of dating him last year, she was already talking about marriage and the theme of their kids’ bar and bat mitzvahs—
Casino Royale
for a boy and
Hollywood Lights
for a girl. Needless to say, he dumped her. She totally didn’t get what scared him off.
Anyway, Jewish summer camp was where my girl really shined. For eight weeks each summer, my best friend abandoned me in Boringsville suburbia and hauled her bug-sprayed butt over to the Pocono Mountains to be a counselor at Camp Oakmere. There, she basked in sunshine, Popsicle-stick crafts, and the groping hands of nice Jewish boys. And that’s where Danny Steinberg, the boy she was researching/ stalking, was waiting for her.
“Why don’t you stalk him in some quieter way? Like something that wouldn’t subject your best friends to this god-awful country music? I mean, is this off the
Red Neck Funeral Favorites
album or something? Read his favorite book, for God sakes!” Whine on, Ky, whine on.
“He doesn’t have any books listed,” she said, like there was no shame in Internet stalking. Then again, maybe there wasn’t.
“Stop being such a little bitch about this,” Brian yelled way too harshly at Kyle. “It’s a classic.”
“Thank you, Brian!” a vindicated Rachel said, smiling at him in the rearview mirror.
So we listened to the symphony of Johnny Cash and Kyle’s wails of agony all the way to Brian’s place.
“So, what’s up for tomorrow?” Rachel asked as we pulled into his driveway. Brian climbed out of the car and bounded up to the house to give us—and Kyle—time to chick-chat.
I leaned forward between the massive seats. “Well, I’m going to wake up early and say goodbye to Brian. He’s going to that freshman orientation thing in the morning. So I’ll be free later. Want to lie out in my backyard?”
Rachel nodded. “I’m so there. I need to get rid of these tan lines before camp.”
“What? Did Danny list tan lines under turnoffs on Facebook?” Kyle has more sass than Pete Wentz has eyeliner.
I rolled my eyes and hopped out of the car, closing the door on Rachel hissing, “Shut up! He actually has ‘bitchy men who wear too much foundation’ under turnoffs!” and hustled up the driveway and into Bri’s. Neither of them noticed when I turned to wave goodbye.
Brian’s door was unlocked, as usual. That’s what a Snoozeville this town is. No crime, even when we’re asking for it.
“Brian?” I said as I stepped into the empty foyer.
“Yo, I’m up here.”
I followed his voice up the stairs and found him lying on his bed, shuffling through his iTunes. I nestled myself next to him and he closed his laptop. As he was putting the computer on his nightstand, my arms found their way around him. This was my favorite way to be with Brian: one hand on his six-pack, the other smooshed between the arch of his back and the bed, enjoying the electric seconds just before a long kiss.
“Emmy babe, I love you.”
It was moments like this when I didn’t know how I was going to make it without him every day. I loved him. Well, I was like ninety-four percent sure it was love. And yeah, I was pretty sure that he wasn’t The One. I mean, I knew he’d never grow beyond a
Superbad
-quoting,
Madden
-obsessed,
high school
boyfriend. But to throw away ten and a half months? That was longer than most Hollywood marriages. I couldn’t imagine life without him. Who’d take me home from parties when I turned into a pukey, weepy mess next year? Who’d be my date to homecoming? And who’d act like he had a secret to tell and then when I came in close, burp in my face?
“I love you, too,” I said back to him.
As I craned my neck up to kiss him, we felt the rumble of the garage door opening.
“Crap,” he growled.
His mother was home from work. We quickly positioned ourselves in our typical “We’re not having teenaged sex under your roof” pose—sitting on opposite sides of the bed staring at a textbook. It was only after Mrs. McSwain had already poked her head in to say hello that I realized how stupid we looked.
“Happy summer, guys! Oh, my big guy is all grown up,” she sing-songed. “How was the last day?”
In unison, “Good.”
“Well, that’s nice. Whatcha up to now?”
“Nothing, Mom, just studying,” he said automatically. Oh, nice one, Bri. Studying on the first day of summer? “Fending off alien attacks” would have been more believable.
Mrs. McSwain either didn’t care or just chose to ignore it. “You staying for dinner, Em? I’m going to try and do something fun with the ziti from last night.”
“Um, sure, Geri Anne. Thanks.” I always felt weird calling Brian’s mom by her first name, but after months of her insisting, I finally gave in. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so weird if her name weren’t Geri Anne.
Once the door closed behind her, he pulled me close again and I rested my head on his chest.
“Em, it’s going to be so sweet in a few months when I have my own place and we don’t have to worry about parents and shit.” Brian flashed that open-mouth smile that kind of made him look like a mouth breather. But a totally cute mouth breather.
“Your own place? Didn’t you sign up to live with a roommate?”
“Well, yeah. But in college, you just hang a sock on the door and boom—sexapalooza!”
“Real romantic, babe.” I laughed and he pulled me in for a noogie.