“Ruby broke up with Mikey,” said Alexis. “And Sweets is fine, for now…but apparently Mikey revoked use of his brother’s house as, like, punishment for the breakup, I guess. So they need a new venue.”
“What a little bitch,” said Ronni. We didn’t have to ask—we knew she meant Mikey.
“I wonder if they could play at Triple Moon,” said Jamie.
“Ha!” I laughed. “Right. I’m sure those guys would love to play at a lesbian coffee shop.”
“Why not?!” Alexis nearly shouted. Alexis was very offended on Jamie’s and my behalf whenever someone did or said something vaguely homophobic. Because Jamie was Jewish and Ronni was black, Alexis also took anti-Semitism and racism very personally. Needless to say, she found most things sexist. Her backpack was covered in pins that read STRAIGHT BUT NOT NARROW and COEXIST and WHO RUN THE WORLD? GIRLS and BLACK LIVES MATTER, the last of which Ronni gave her to replace one that read ONE RACE: HUMAN.
“They need somewhere to play, don’t they? And Triple Moon has shows,” said Jamie.
“Yeah, like…spoken-word shows.”
“I dunno,” said Jamie. “I think Dee and Gaby would be down. A lot of people like Sweets. It’d be good for business.”
“I’m sure they’d be fine with it. I just think those guys would sooner play a Panera Bread than Triple Moon.”
“Maybe a break will be good for them,” said Ronni. “You know, take some lessons…learn to read music…” (Fine: I’d sent Ronni the link I’d listened to.)
I cracked up. Jamie looked annoyed. “They know how to play. You guys just don’t get it.”
“You got me there.” Ronni shrugged.
“I get it,” I argued. Suddenly I was mad. “I just don’t like it.”
“The one song you listened to?”
“One was enough.”
My heart hammered against my ribs, and I saw Ronni and Alexis exchange a quick look, just like I knew they would. We were making them uncomfortable, which was the last thing I wanted. No matter how stupid Jamie had made me feel, I had to be cordial. I didn’t want to give them the opportunity to pick sides unless I knew for sure they’d take mine.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Triple Moon isn’t a bad idea.”
Jamie stared at me for a moment. It took everything I had not to look away before she muttered, “Thanks.”
Under the table Ronni grabbed my wrist and squeezed it. I couldn’t look at her or I’d cry, so instead I slid an Oreo into my mouth and focused on chewing that instead.
* * *
—
The good thing about not having Civil Liberties until last period was that I got a break from seeing Jamie for two hours. The bad thing about having Civil Liberties last period was that I spent those two hours dreading seeing Jamie. She shouldn’t have even been in Civil Liberties, which was, for most people, a civics graduation requirement taken at the last possible second. Jamie, however, had already taken AP Government junior year, and was taking Civil Liberties for “fun,” which to me felt a little like a billionaire choosing to take the bus.
At passing time I stepped into a stall in the girls’ bathroom and waited the remaining four minutes out, not wanting to get there before she did. When the warning bell rang I checked my teeth in the mirror and pulled and poked at pieces of my hair until it looked almost normal, and then I walked into class. And for a moment—just a moment—I considered walking right back out.
There was only one open seat left: the one closest to Mr. Haggerty’s desk. Sitting in the seat directly behind that one was Jamie.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered to myself.
I dropped my bag alongside the desk, and Jamie gave me a bashful, closed-mouth smile.
For the first time in my life, I prayed to be given a seating chart. And I prayed it would put me as far away from Jamie Rudawski as possible.
Mr. Haggerty introduced himself and took roll call, pausing to make notes when someone corrected his pronunciation or specified a nickname. We could have done the whole routine collectively, on each other’s behalf, so many times had we heard each other’s names read aloud over the last three years. I stared at the surface of my desk, imagining I felt Jamie’s eyes boring into my brain. Don’t let her catch you thinking about her, I thought. Ah, I mean—shit.
Then Mr. Haggerty called out, “Ruby Ocampo,” and I looked up.
You know those people who were a little too good-looking as fifth graders? Like, so good-looking that you knew, as a fifth grader yourself, that something deeply and biologically unfair was afoot? Before fifth grade, my classmates and I were on pretty equal footing, looks-wise—all of us barefaced and missing teeth, wearing braids and ponytails that hung loose and weird by the end of each day. Back then the only person fit for a crush was my teacher, Ms. Urlacher, who had a bottle-blond newscaster blowout and wore blue mascara and Britney Spears perfume. (I knew this because she kept a bottle on her desk, and once I’d pretended to leave something behind so I could run back and sniff it.)
Then fifth grade started, and a few of the girls I thought I knew came back to school so pretty it embarrassed me to look at them. That was when I learned two very important things: one, that I was super gay, and two, that life wasn’t fair.
Ruby didn’t go to my elementary school, or my middle school for that matter, but I knew, I just knew she’d been one of those fifth-grade girls. You could see it in her face, in the way she sat in her chair: the mind-numbing boredom of lifelong beauty.
When Mr. Haggerty called Ruby’s name, she didn’t say anything. She just lifted the hand she’d been using to hold her head up. She was seated across the room from me, so it was easy to get away with looking at her, which I felt like I hadn’t done in forever. When Jamie and I were together, other girls stopped existing to me. But way, way back before Jamie and I got together, I had a not-so-tiny crush on Ruby. So did Jamie. Once we figured out we both liked girls, but before we figured out we liked each other, we spent a gleeful afternoon listing all the girls we thought were prettiest at school. All of them were straight, just like everyone we knew. And lo, the Straight Girls We Wish Weren’t list was born. It was a joke, obviously, and I’d fully forgotten at least five of the fifteen or so names we’d written. I no longer knew where the physical list was, and I kind of hoped I’d never find it. But I would never forget writing Ruby’s name in the number-one spot. She still belonged there. That much, at least, hadn’t changed.
Ruby was—how to put this?—so hot I wanted to die. Her hair was incredible: long, shiny, and black, the tips currently dyed emerald green. This was one of her signatures. In fact, I had a theory that Beauty Supply Warehouse based its Manic Panic stocking decisions on the color of Ruby’s tips. When she showed up to school with a new shade, it was like a pandemic: at first there would be one alt-girl copycat with a streak in the same color, and then there were three, and suddenly there were twelve. Ruby had the kind of hair you’d naively bring a picture of to your salon, as if there were any way a mere mortal could turn the mess on your head into that.