I kept thinking he’d text me. Not that we were on texting terms. But maybe he knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who had my number. Maybe he’d look me up. Maybe he’d follow my Instagram. It’s funny—I remember almost nothing about the variety show itself. I just remember being backstage, checking my phone over and over.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
But as soon as we got home, my brother followed me straight to my room. That’s how I knew something was up. He passed me his phone, already open to Mira’s finsta page.
There I was.
Thirteen-year-old me, my peasant shirt coming untucked, and a crease I hadn’t noticed on the side of my hair. It was the shittiest possible angle—tilted up from below, making me look like a front-facing camera meme in motion. And my painstakingly modulated Ella voice sounded as high as a six-year-old, with round choir-girl vowels and overly enunciated consonants.
There were already thirty-two comments.
yikes lol
saw it live, that was some good shit wow
I’M SCREAMING
Is that Ryan garfield’s sister??
What is her face doing at the 32 sec mark? haha
this is so embarrassing, I literally can’t watch
“Don’t read those,” Ryan had said, snatching the phone away.
I could hardly form words. “Mira filmed me?”
Ryan showed me the caption.
Shoutout to e-dawg @sirEricGeneric for this cinematic masterpiece
Everything froze.
E-dawg. Eric Graves.
“Don’t sweat it, okay?” Ryan shifted awkwardly beside me. “It only has a hundred and three views.”
“A hundred and three people have seen this?”
I remember I could barely breathe. I remember wondering if you could puke your own heart out.
“It’s not actually that bad,” Ryan said.
I didn’t reply.
“I mean, at least you sound—”
“Oh my God, just stop.”
Ryan stopped.
I flopped backward on my bed, arms crossed over my chest like a corpse.
The next day, someone started a new account on Instagram called Kate Garfield Singing. It consisted entirely of ugly screenshots of me from Eric’s video. Square after square of my jaw hanging open, lips curled, eyes half closed. The bio said simply: I die a little. I cried, texting the link to the squad.
FUCK THIS, Raina wrote. I WILL DESTROY THEM. HOLY SHIT
This is garbage, sweetie, I’m so sorry, Brandie wrote.
Anderson never wrote back to the text, because he was already at my door.
“That fucking monster,” he said. He didn’t even pause to say hello.
I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand. “Which one?”
“Eric. Mira. Both of them. Every single fucking fuckboy who followed the page.”
By then, there were seventy-eight. I couldn’t stop checking. Some were faces I recognized from the f-force, but some were strangers.
Ryan was on the living room couch, but I plopped down anyway, peering up at Anderson. “I’m never singing again. Ever.”
Ryan didn’t even look up from his phone.
But I woke up Sunday to find Mom’s old guitar propped outside my door.
Ryan was in bed still, but awake, thumbing through a textbook. He didn’t exactly look surprised to see me.
I gripped the door frame. “You know I don’t play guitar, right?”
“I’ll text you a tutorial.” He stretched his arm sideways, expertly plucking his phone from its charger. A moment later, my phone buzzed.
I glanced down at it and then back up at him, glaring.
“‘Somebody to Love?’” I asked. “Yeah, that’s not—”
“It’s a good song. Don’t let a bunch of assholes ruin it for you.”
I pressed play, and the video was pretty basic—just some guy running through the chords and finger positions on an acoustic guitar. But there was something about how the threads of sound came together.
My eyes were glued to the screen. “Who would I even play for?”
“What do you mean, who would you play for?” Ryan said, shrugging. “Just play for yourself.”
Scene 11
I think Mom’s self-destructing. Cause of death: Shabbat dinner. She’s got no fewer than eight printed recipes fanned out on the table, and she’s making everything from scratch. I don’t know if she realizes we have one oven. And she’s one person.
Needless to say, we Garfields aren’t exactly Shabbat-dinner-level Jews.
“Katy, stick the mini soufflés in the toaster oven. Can we do that? They’ll cook, right?”
I survey the kitchen: cabinet doors flung open, pans on every surface, Mom’s cheeks streaked with flour. “Wait, so how many people are coming to this?”
“Well. You said Anderson’s busy, right?”
“If by busy, you mean at home watching Tangled.”
“Hasn’t he seen it twenty times?”
“Twenty-two.”
Not that I’m one to judge. I’m closing in on that figure myself. Tangled happens to be the best movie of all time. It gives me legit Ella Enchanted vibes, but without the weird f-boy baggage. Plus, there’s Flynn Rider—the animated floppy-haired wiseass scoundrel boy of my dreams.
“Okay, so us,” Mom says. “Ryan, Ellen, and Ellen’s bringing her son.”
“So . . . five.”
“Mm-hmm. Oh, you’ll like Ellen’s son. We got dinner the other night when you were at your dad’s house. He’s a cutie. Looks just like his dad, and let me tell you, Paul is handsome. A total schmuckboy, but handsome.” Mom purses her lips. “Very conservative. He grew up right in Mentone, right by camp. But he’s turned into one of those Fox News Republicans. It’s very sad.”
“He went to camp with you guys?”
“Oh, no, he was a townie, and of course, that was this whole other thing. Ellen thought I was being a snob about him living in town, but it wasn’t that. No ma’am. I didn’t like the way he talked to her. Very condescending. I don’t know, it all seems so silly now. Can you imagine losing your best friend over a guy like that? I’m just so stinking grateful for Facebook—otherwise Ellen and I would never have reconnected. I’d never have known she was back in Georgia.”
I’m just so stinking grateful for Facebook. There’s a phrase never uttered by anyone younger than forty.
“. . . like no time had passed. It was remarkable. There’s just something about old friends. And her son, Matthew, is absolutely lovely.”
Every cell in my body freezes. “Matthew?”
Okay, that squeak you just heard? Was my voice jumping a full fucking octave.
Mom’s as oblivious as always. “Such a sweetheart. Oh, he was telling me some story about—”
Deep breath. “Is his name Matt Olsson?”
“Oh, that’s right! I forgot he’s a senior. You and Ry might have run into him at school. He’s—”
“Matt Olsson’s coming here?” I grip the back of my chair so hard, I can see my knuckles. “Tonight?”
“Any minute.” Mom exhales, glancing back toward the oven. “Oy. Okay. No good.”