In the habitat, the Jezebel with the wing I fixed crawls up the mesh side closest to us.
“There she is,” I say, pointing. “The one I fixed.” I move my finger along where she walks, my heart swelling. “She’s still hanging in. I can’t believe it.”
“How do you know it’s a she?” Max asks.
“I can’t swear it,” I say, “but I think so. The black veins on the females’ wings are thicker.”
“Uh-huh,” Max says, and I punch his arm playfully.
“You were hoping for something more anatomical?” He turns to me, sincerity registering on his scruffy face.
“Don’t worry about the sex stuff, Jailbait. Really. I mean it. I told you, I’m not like that. I swear. And anyway, I’m on hiatus, if you must know. What did that weird actor do, remember?” I shrug, clueless. “Oh yeah, his chi. Something to do with his chi. I’m doing that. Recharging my chi, or regaining it, I forget which. But by the time you’re ready, it’ll be like I’m a virgin all over again.”
I roll my eyes, but he takes my hand and pulls me down next to him. “I’m serious, Jailbait. I like you. I’m not just in it to fuck your brains out, no matter what you’ve heard about me. I like the other stuff, too. All the kissing and shit. Talking to you. How you like all this butterfly crap.” He nods at the habitat.
“Well, when you put it that way,” I say, and he laughs.
“No, but I mean it. You care about stuff other people wouldn’t. You make me feel like I can tell you stuff, like you care that I’m here.”
It’s not what I’m expecting, and it makes me feel uncomfortable and I don’t even know why. I feel responsible for him, suddenly. Because I get what he’s saying.
Even he wants to belong somewhere.
SUMMER
AFTER SIXTH GRADE
It’s the weekend before middle school starts, and several of our friends have been set free for the night, off to the YMCA carnival without parents, roaming in cliques, their pockets stuffed with tickets, no one telling them how much fried dough not to eat, or what ride not to go on.
I’m allowed to go parentless, but you’re not, so you say it should be my parents who supervise us because they are cooler, but I argue it should be yours. I want a fresh start in middle school. I don’t want to be known forever as the girl with the weirdo hippy parents, my mother coming to class parties in her floppy hats and long, flowing tie-dye skirts, and my dad in his goofy sandals, talking about herbal vitamins, his ponytail practically down to his butt. And unlike you, I have no Ethan, no drop-dead-gorgeous, star older brother, to buffer or pave the way.
“How about Ethan?” I blurt, the idea popping into my head. “He’s starting high school, so he’s practically a grown- up, right? What if your parents let him take us instead?”
“I’ll ask,” you say. “But I doubt it.”
They do, though, making him promise not to take his eyes off us the entire time, and making us promise not to make him chase after us.
It’s the other way around. Ethan spots a bunch of his friends walking in and takes off the minute your parents are gone, calling after us to meet him back at the ticket booth, “Right in this spot, exactly two hours from now.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” we chime back together, doing our best impression of the SpongeBob opening. You elbow me and give me a “well-we-pulled-this-off” look, and we’re off on our own at the YMCA carnival.
It’s a perfect late summer evening, the melancholy of the too-soon chill in the August air immediately erased by the cheerful twang of piped-in calliope music and the dizzying blur of the Technicolor lights. We’re giddy as we run off to scope out food and rides.
On the line for the Tilt-A-Whirl, you lean in and whisper, “Don’t be obvious, but, ew, gross, look over there.” I’ve pulled a chunk of rainbow cotton candy from the stick and hand it over to you.
“Where?”
“Don’t be obvious,” you repeat. “By the bathrooms, there.”
I twist around slowly, trying to be nonchalant, but don’t see anything.
“What, Aubrey?”
You pull off a smaller piece of spun sugar and place it on your tongue, sticking it out so I can watch the pastel colors deepen as they melt away. “Not a what, a who,” you say, when it’s gone. “Those two, making out in the corner.”
“Oh.” I can’t make out their faces, because they’re glued together at the mouth. “So what?” I ask because aren’t I desperate for the day when I can make out with a guy by a bathroom stall or anywhere? And I thought you felt the same. We’re always talking about it, imagining it. Choosing from boys in our class. Pretending on dolls.
“Nothing. It’s just, that’s Janee Freese. With Rebecca Goldberg’s brother.”
“So?” Janee Freese is our friend Tanya’s sister, although we’re way better friends with Tanya, and Rebecca Goldberg is one of our newer friends we met through Tanya, because they went to camp together.
“Geez, JL, don’t you know the rules at all? Brothers are off-limits. Even across grades.”
“They are? How come?” You give me a look like I’m dumb. “Okay, got it,” I say, looking back at Janee with envy. But I don’t. Not completely. “But what if Rebecca doesn’t care?”
“Trust me, she’ll care.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“Of course I’m going to tell her. That’s what friends do.”
Is it? I wonder.
I nod anyway, and try to work up a dislike for Janee the way you have. But I can’t seem to. So what if they’re kissing? It’s not like they’re stealing, or doing something wrong.
All through the Tilt-A-Whirl and Pirate Ship, I’m distracted and mad and sad. I want someone to kiss me one day the way Rebecca’s brother is kissing Janee. I want to tell you to mind your own business, to not start trouble where there is none. To leave Janee and What’s His Name alone. Is this what middle school is going to be full of?
* * *
After the Pirate Ship, I feel sick. I think about calling Dad to pick me up and take me home, but you grab my hand—me practically wincing at your touch—and say, “Shoot, JL, it’s past nine! Ethan is going to kill us!” and we break into a run. When we reach the ticket booth, he’s not even there, and you yell dramatically at the top of your lungs in some weird, unidentifiable accent, “The lying bastard!” and I bust out laughing at that, because I can’t even help myself, and just like that, everything is good between us again.
And, when we do find him, over by the goldfish game—the one where you have to toss quarters into the bowls—he’s holding court there, surrounded by a group of friends, mostly girls, clutching neon-colored stuffed animals, all fawning over him, his golden-haired self in the center, shining in the artificial lights. And all I can think about is what it must be like to be you, to be Ethan, to be either one of you super-perfect Anderssons.
But I don’t have to wonder because you grab my hand and pull me into the center of that circle, and say, “This is my sister, guys. Jean Louise. But everyone calls her JL.”