Tell Me Three Things - Julie Buxbaum Page 0,54

a dollop of wild rice.

SN: your day? go.

Me: great, actually. yours?

SN: memorable.

I only saw Caleb once today. He was leaning against a locker in the hall at school, and when he saw me, he saluted me with his cell phone and then whispered something to the guy standing next to him, a senior who has the feltlike complexion of a Muppet. I assume his cell salute meant something like Let’s keep talking with our phones, not in person, since there’s been no attempt to make my suggestion of a date a reality. But thirty seconds later, my IM dinged.

SN: three things. (1) Hendrix was the most amazing guitarist who ever lived. even better than Jimmy Page. (2) sometimes when I listen to music, I actually feel lighter. (3) and sometimes when I play Xbox, I feel nothing.

Me: Which do you like better? Music or Xbox?

SN: ahh, that’s a good question. no doubt my mom’s medicine cabinet is like her Xbox, right? so I’m going to say music, because there’s nothing scarier to me than becoming my mother.

SN: but truthfully?

SN: Xbox.

I think it’s becoming clear Caleb and I will never actually chat over hot beverages, never say out loud that SN is Caleb and Caleb is SN, and maybe it’s better that way. Maybe we’ve said too many scary things online already, and knowing what we’ve already shared, all that honesty, makes talking in person impossible.

Still, it’s sad, because I’m starting to appreciate his particular brand of hotness. Sitting across from him wouldn’t be distracting the way it is with Ethan. He’s a blanker, simpler, well-balanced canvas. Like Rachel’s white-on-white walls.

Me: Your day was memorable? Memorable=good? Or memorable=bad?

SN: good. what was under the dome tonight?

Me: Fancy-pants chicken. And you? Please tell me not Whole Foods sushi again? I’m starting to worry about you getting mercury poisoning.

SN: my mom cooked, actually, which, as you know, is weird. it was good, though. homemade mac ’n’ cheese. my favorite when I was a kid. I guess still my favorite.

Me: That’s sweet of her.

SN: yeah, it felt like an apology. like she knows she’s been…absent.

Me: Did she seem, you know, clear?

SN: hard to tell, but yeah. i’m allowing myself to think so. at least for tonight.

Me: Good.

SN: then again, do you know what’s the number one sign of mercury poisoning?

Me: What?

SN: optimism.

—

That night, I dream about Ethan and Caleb, both of them in my room and perched on my day bed, except they’ve switched T-shirts. Ethan wears gray, and Caleb wears Batman, and neither of them talks to me. Caleb plays with his phone, texting someone else—maybe me, but not the me in this room—and Ethan strums his guitar, lost in some complicated finger work, lost in the way that happens when he looks out the library window. I sit behind them, quiet, just watching and admiring the backs of their very different necks, trying not to be bothered by the fact that they don’t even realize I’m right here.

CHAPTER 21

“What do you guys think about me getting a pink stripe? Like just slightly off center?” Dri asks, and runs her fingers through her unruly brown hair. We are sitting outside during our free period, our faces tilted up toward the sun like hungry cartoon flowers. I now have sunglasses—Dri and Agnes helped me pick out a knockoff pair—and I love them. They feel transformative, like I’m somehow a different person with large squares of plastic covering my face.

“Pink?” Agnes asks.

“Pink with an exclamation point instead of an ‘i,’ pink?” I ask.

“Maybe,” Dri says. “Either. Both.”

“No.” Agnes says it straight out, no attempt to preserve the possibility. Pure veto, which is exactly what Scarlett did when I suggested getting my inner ear flab pierced. Well, after she told me to Google what that part of the body is actually called, because she never wanted to hear the words “my inner ear flab” together in a sentence again. Can’t say I blamed her.

Turns out it’s called your tragus, which sounds vaguely dirty. No one should have their tragus pierced.

“How about all pink?” Dri asks. “Dye my whole head.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I like your hair the way it is.”

“Why? Why would you do that to yourself?” Agnes asks, though neither Dri nor I have the nerve to point out that Agnes’s red hair is as artificial as Dri’s would be if she were to dye hers pink. Then again, Agnes’s red somehow works in a way that I don’t think Dri’s pink would. Not a