We drive around for a while, then get some Taco Bell and head to an earlyish movie. As we’re waiting for the coming attractions, I find myself looking at all the other people in the theater. Most of them are my age, and I can’t help but wonder if one of them might be A. Her track meet would be over by now. Maybe she decided to go to a movie with friends afterward. It’s not impossible.
A few girls catch me watching. Most turn away. A couple confront me, staring back to make me feel uncomfortable.
Justin is fidgety, maybe sensing how my attention is wandering. I lean into him, hold his hand. He shifts the popcorn in his lap so this can happen. But when the previews start, he pulls away.
I don’t think the movie is what he expected it to be. The posters promised it was a horror movie set in space. But soon it’s clear that the most horrific thing the astronaut is fighting is the endlessness of his boredom and the pointlessness of his life. Justin’s eyelids start to flutter. I want to use his shoulder as a pillow, but he told me once that if I lean there for too long, it kills his circulation. So I go back to looking at the audience as much as I can, picking out which person I’d be most attracted to, if A were inside.
I know the answer should be all of them.
It is not all of them.
It’s not as simple as saying all the guys are yes and all the girls are no. It’s more complicated than that. Although mostly it’s the guys I consider.
The answer—the real A I want—is sitting right next to me.
When I get home, it’s my father who’s waiting in the kitchen, looking disappointed. He tells me Mom’s already gone to bed, and that it was inconsiderate of me to ditch dinner without a call. I lie and say I told Mom ages ago that this was going to be a date night with Justin. I call it a “date night” so my dad will imagine we went for ice cream sodas and gazed lovingly into each other’s eyes the whole time.
He falls for it completely.
I check for a new email from A, but don’t find anything. And I don’t write back, since I still don’t have anything interesting to say.
The next morning, my mother says she isn’t speaking to me. I know I’m supposed to feel bad, but mostly I’m happy not to deal with her.
I’m worried that they won’t let me go to the party tonight, so I make a big production of doing my homework and completing some random chores. It’s very easy to win my father over this way.
Before I leave the house, I consider emailing A and letting him (her?) know where I’m going to be. Then I remember what happened to that poor guy Nathan the last time this happened, and I decide to stay silent. Still, I wonder where he (she?) is. I also wonder why I haven’t heard anything.
I pick Justin up, because I know he’s planning on drinking. I ask him what he did all day and he barely remembers. I think maybe his life is as uneventful as mine, and that’s why we’re together. To be each other’s eventfulness.
Or maybe that’s why we go to parties, to find some eventfulness there. Or wastedness. Or both. Preston’s also driven, so he and I sip Diet Cokes as I tell him about the movie, which is more interesting to make fun of than it was to watch. While I’m talking, Preston keeps his eye on the door, waiting for his gaydar to go off. It stays silent for a while until this James Dean wannabe strides in. Preston comes to attention like a hunting dog that’s spotted the prettiest duck to ever fall from the sky.
“Really?” I say. “Him?”
Preston nods once. Twice.
“Do you want me to find out who he is?” I ask.
Preston shakes his head once. Twice.
A minute later, Dirk Nielson bounds in, car keys dangling in his hand. He looks around, spots James Dean, heads over, and kisses him hello.
“Shit,” Preston says.
“Sorry,” I tell him.
“Well, it was nice for the five seconds it lasted.”
James Dean looks over at us—looks over at me. For a brief second, I feel connection. But then I really look into his eyes and I know: It’s not A. It’s nothing.
I talk to Preston some more, then Rebecca and Ben come join us. I’m telling them about the movie when Stephanie comes tearing out of the kitchen, looking like she’s on fire. Steve follows her for a few feet before stopping and yelling “WHAT THE FUCK?” at least three times at her back.
“Who wants to take this one?” Rebecca asks. When no one else makes a move, she sighs and bolts after Stephanie. Ben and Preston head over to Steve.
I walk around them and find Justin doing shots with Kara Wallace and Lindsay Craig, the girl who was so certain I was up to no good with the guy I was taking around school.
I steel myself and walk over. “So what happened with Steve and Stephanie?” I ask.
I am clearly asking Justin, but Lindsay answers. “She saw him eating pepperoni and said it was really rude of him because she’s been vegetarian for, like, the past three minutes.”
Kara finds this funny. Justin just shrugs at me, like he stopped trying to figure Stephanie and Steve out years ago.
Lindsay’s staring at me in a way that makes me wonder whether I wore the wrong thing, said the wrong thing, or am just the wrong person. I decide not to ask.
Justin seems taken care of, so I head back out of the kitchen. Once again, I find myself wandering around all of the conversations, avoiding all of my friends. I am this body, I think. When my friends see this body, they assume they know a lot about the person inside of it. And when people I don’t know see it, they also make assumptions. No one ever really questions these assumptions. They are this layer of how we live our lives. And I’m no different from them. When I saw James Dean walk in, I felt I knew as much about him as I’m sure he felt he knew about me when he looked my way. It’s like an instant form of reading, the way we define each other.
The house isn’t that big. There’s no dance floor in the basement—I’m not even sure there is a basement. There’s a line for the bathroom off the living room, so I walk upstairs, hoping to find a bathroom there. And also because it’s quieter upstairs.
All of the doors on the hallway are closed. I open the first and see it’s a bedroom. I’m about to close it when a voice says, “Hello? Can I help you?”
I poke my head in and see Daren Johnston cross-legged on his bed, reading The Outsiders.
“Oh, hi, Rhiannon,” he says. “The bathroom’s the second door on the right. I left it open, but I guess someone closed it. I mean, there might be someone in there, so you should probably knock.”