What to Say Next(13)

“How’s things, buddy?” Trey asks after we run through a few finger-warming exercises. I realize this is what people call small talk. I also realize the world would be a better place without it.

And why call me buddy? We are not friends. We are teacher and student.

“Fine,” I say, and motion to the guitar to keep us on track. Maybe Trey has ADD. I should look up the diagnostic criteria in my DSM.

“So hear me out,” he says, and I groan, because this is the thing about Trey, who, oddly enough, is the only person in my life who seems to have the exact right name: He’s a kick-ass guitar teacher, but he doesn’t stop at teaching me guitar, and I wish he’d learn to stick to his job. He likes to lecture about life and give me pointers for my notebook and “challenge” me to do things I’m not comfortable with. Like talk to someone new each week (which I did, finally, but I might keep that to myself because I don’t want to give him the satisfaction). Or ask to borrow a pen from a classmate (which doesn’t even make sense, since we all use laptops). Or join the Academic League (which seems to be a running theme in my life).

So hear me out is code for I’m about to ask you to do something you don’t want to do. I’m not usually good at understanding subtext, but Trey keeps things pretty simple. “There’s this showcase I’m doing.”

“No,” I say.

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“No,” I say again. “Let’s work on ‘Stairway.’?”

“I want you to perform.”

“No.”

“It’s at a café. Totally low-pressure situation, and a bunch of my other students will also be there.”

“Nope. Not going to happen.”

“David, this will be good for you. And I think you’ll like the others. They’re all a lot like you.”

“Like me…how?” I ask, because even though I don’t know what he means, I still don’t like where this is going.

He pauses. Strokes his chin, which is hairless. A total Trey gesture, which I’ve imitated a few times in the mirror. It did not suit me.

“They’re all cool. And maybe a little shy. Not the type of people to feel comfortable doing a showcase.”

“Logic dictates that we shouldn’t do one, then,” I say, and play a quick riff to let him know the conversation is over.

—

Later, when I practice my daily krav maga, instead of using my go-to fantasy that I’ve been jumped in the street by a gang of thugs who mistake me for a rival gang member—admittedly an unrealistic story, since I do not live in a place known for its drug wars—I let myself picture someone stealing Kit’s purse on Main Street. In my mind, I chase down the culprit and neutralize him with a swift groin kick and then an uppercut elbow. True, in krav maga you are supposed to avoid confrontation and attack only in self-defense, but tonight I allow myself this exception. As I sweat and kick and punch, over and over again, I get to picture Kit’s face, her cheeks pink, just like they were at lunch today. But instead of signaling embarrassment, this time she’s signaling pride.





Violet and Annie are waiting for me outside the computer lab after school, and they have that look on their faces that I’ve come to think of as faux pity: eyebrows scrunched up, concern dripping from their half smiles, like they’re about to stage an intervention. Or like they are human emojis, premanufactured to send a particular message.

Or maybe it’s real pity. I can’t tell. Either way, I don’t like the way it makes me feel.

Reminders everywhere.

“Hey,” I say. I keep it casual. Pretend I haven’t broken many of the unspoken rules of our friendship or that I don’t know what’s coming. I’ve ignored their calls and texts. I defected from our lunch table without explanation or reason. I never did give Violet my opinion on her high-waisted jeans. “What’s up?”

“I think we should talk,” Annie says, and though she’s trying to be nice, I get the sense that underneath she’s pissed off but that she knows she’s not allowed to be. My dad dying is the world’s best and worst get-out-of-jail-free card. Violet puts an arm around my shoulder, and I try my best not to flinch. I don’t want that kind of hug—a buck up, camper half hug—but I play along. I blink back the first sting of tears.

Violet’s dressed in her usual über-preppy uniform: a button-down shirt with a collar, her blond hair kept off her face with a brain-squeezing headband and twisted into a complicated braid that rests on one shoulder. She looks like a J.Crew model. She’s basically the whitest person I’ve ever met. Annie’s white too—Mapleview is not a particularly diverse place; the default here is white—but she’s less overtly white, if that makes sense. She’s not at all preppy like Violet, and her parents don’t golf at an exclusive country club or try to casually mention something about India or a random Indian person they know every time they talk to my mom. Annie’s parents are liberal Jews who met while working for the Peace Corps in Kathmandu. They seem to understand that the world is a big, diverse place, and that different is not the same thing as scary. It’s amazing to me how many people mistake the two.

If I hadn’t known Violet since we were in the fourth grade, when her family first moved to Mapleview from Connecticut, I’d never have guessed that she and I would be best friends. The thing is, stiff collars and twee belts and subtly racist parents who have mastered the art of the micro-aggression notwithstanding, Violet’s actually pretty gooey inside. She’s the first to let me know if I have something caught in my teeth or stuck to my shoe. She writes long, inside-joke-filled messages in my yearbook in pink and purple ink. When Violet first heard about the accident, she drove straight over to my house and waited on my front stoop until my mom and I got home, and then she hugged me before I even had a chance to get out of the car. She’s been doing everything right, been following the Best Friend Handbook to the letter. It’s not her fault that I suddenly don’t know how to talk to my friends. That I’d almost prefer it if they got pissed at me instead.