Holding Up the Universe(72)

When we walk into Dave Kaminski’s, the first person I see is Mick from Copenhagen. He’s in the living room, dancing in this circle of girls, and his black hair is shining blue-black like crow feathers. Next to me, Jayvee goes, “Hello, Mick from Copenhagen,” in this throaty voice, and then pretends to faint into Iris’s arms.

I follow Bailey through the crowd, and Dave Kaminski’s house doesn’t look like a house but some sort of fraternity. It is literally crammed with so many people, we can barely move. The music is loud, and people are doing their best to dance, but it’s more like jumping straight up and down in place.

My first high school party.

The music is good, and so I’m shaking my hips a little as I walk, and when I accidentally bump some guy, he yells, “Watch it!”

I tell my hips to be still and behave themselves, and finally we break through into the dining room, where Dave Kaminski is playing poker with a group of guys and a couple of girls. Bailey goes up to Dave and says something in his ear, and suddenly he’s grabbing her until she’s sitting on his lap, and she’s laughing and play-hitting him, and then she hugs him and comes back over to us. “Dave’s really glad we’re here.”

I say, “Apparently.”

And then Dave Kaminski catches my eye and gives me this nod, and there’s something in it that feels almost like an apology.





Caroline (dark skin, smells like cinnamon, beauty mark by her eye) and I are in Kam’s sister’s room. Literally every inch of wall is covered in posters of Boy Parade, so it’s a little like sitting in the middle of a very small arena full of twenty-year-old guys. Their faces are everywhere, and their eyes are glued to us. They are smiling these unnaturally white smiles that glow in the dark.

She thinks I’ve brought her in here to make out. But instead I’m trying to see once and for all if I can trick sweet Caroline into coming out and having a real conversation with me. Because I miss Libby. Because I miss talking to someone the way I can talk to her.

After all this time, Caroline and I have our routine memorized. Until recently, I try to get in her pants, and she takes off her clothes because I’m not allowed to in case I mess up her hair. What comes next is we will almost have sex, and I’ll hold her for a little while, and then I’ll lie there wondering When when when?

Usually my heart’s not in it, only my body, and my mind cooperates by going blank. But tonight my mind is in charge. Like Mr. Levine, it wants to know why. Why are you doing this? Why are you even sitting here with this girl? Why do you keep ending up with this person? Why don’t you just stop, Jack? Why don’t you just live your life and be yourself?

Which is why I go, “What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you?”

She blinks at me. “I’m supposed to say ‘Jack Masselin,’ right?”

“Only if it’s true, baby. Come on, I want to know. In the whole history of your life, what’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you?”

“I don’t know, maybe when Chloe was born.” Chloe is her little sister.

“What’s the worst thing that ever happened?”

“When my cat Damon got hit by a car.”

The worst thing that ever happened to me was fucking up my relationship with Libby Strout, but I say, “There’s got to be something else.”

“Why?”

“Because you used to be different. Shy. Quiet. Dorky.”

“God, don’t remind me.”

“Okay, so what’s one thing people don’t know about you?”

She frowns down at the bed. “I hate the color brown. I don’t like turtles. And I got my wisdom teeth out when I was fourteen.”

Boring, boring, and boring. I almost say I have a neurological glitch in my brain that keeps me from recognizing faces. Boom! Muahahahahahahaha.

But instead I ask another question and another, and the whole time she answers in this flat, dull voice and picks at the comforter. As she talks, I’m barely listening to her answers. Instead I’m thinking, All this time, I thought she was a security blanket, but there’s no security here. How can there be when she doesn’t see me any more than I see her? I might as well be alone. And, of course, I am alone.

And then suddenly she lifts her shirt over her hair and drops it onto the floor. She readjusts her bra strap and leans back seductively. She bites her bottom lip, which is also part of the routine. A couple of years ago, the bottom lip thing slayed me.

I’m about to say something along the lines of Please put your shirt back on when this shift happens, before my eyes, and Caroline grows paler and fuller until she’s no longer sitting there. It’s Libby Strout, leaning back on one arm, plucking at the strap of her electric-purple bikini. But she’s talking and telling me things and laughing and asking me questions, and I’m talking, and then she’s sitting up and leaning in, and we’re both just talking until she says, “Um. Hello!” And snaps her fingers in my face.

And it’s Caroline again.

I stare at her, hoping she’ll morph back into Libby, and she goes, “What is your problem? Why are you being so weird?” And she’s got this sexy bra and this sexy body, and there isn’t a single guy at MVB High, even the ones who are afraid of her, who wouldn’t want to be me right now. I lay my hand on her leg and it’s smooth and feels like satin, and all I can think is: