Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(4)
Since I became friends with Avery and close with her parents, the teasing has been like a long game of chicken: Was I going to rat on her, or was she going to stop siccing her Ugg-booted henchwomen on me? So far, neither has happened. Ave just stays out of it.
Even after nine years of torture, though, Ashley’s prettiness still stuns me like a manta ray. She looks like a Disney princess, pale with fiery red hair and a perfect ski jump nose, and stops just short of being too beautiful, as if God designed her to provide a believable photo for catfishing people. Ave is pretty too, but she’s like a wilted version of Ashley with braces and slightly duller hair. If they had been fetal twins, Ashley definitely would’ve consumed Avery for nutrients, and all that’d be left of Ave would be a tumor with a few teeth in it.
Ave’s mom gets up with some plates. “Salmon, anybody?” She explains to me, “We’re doing the Grain Brain diet, but I think I have some spelt crackers in the cupboard if you want.”
“Thanks, I’m okay.”
“Have you read about that? Wheat, carbs, and sugar destroy brain cells. Even quinoa,” she says, glancing at Avery’s dad quickly to make sure she recited it correctly. Professor Parker teaches a graduate class on nutrition at Princeton. The only noise at the table is the oppressive clinking of silverware. They’re the total opposite of me and Dawn—we’re either screaming at each other or laughing hysterically, big emotions that ricochet off the walls of our apartment.
“Little late for me, I think,” I reply.
“Scarlett, you know you’re very bright,” Professor Parker says brusquely, which is how he says most things, even compliments.
Ashley lets out a sharp breath of air from her nose, a mean, soundless laugh. Her mom gives her a warning glare.
“Listen, I understand that you don’t care about doing well in school right now, but there are a handful of colleges known especially for their exemplary creative-writing programs. Just get that GPA up, and your writing will speak for itself. You’re very talented,” he continues.
I feel my face burning, especially considering I haven’t really written since the show went off the air. The Parkers make everything sound so purposeful, as if I set out To Write, or to Be a Writer. Writing is just the only thing that makes me feel like a real person, not the tap-dancing reflection of myself that I am around other people. Until Lycanthrope High ended, I’d find ways to write all day at school, like on the backs of handouts in class or hidden in the stacks of the school library between AMERICAN HISTORY (A–P) and AMERICAN HISTORY (P–Z). It didn’t seem odd or unique to me that by the time sophomore year was over, I’d written a novel-length fic.
Besides the BNFs, Avery was the only person I told, and she talked me into letting her read it. Of course she told Professor Parker, and then he read it, and I was super-embarrassed and mad at Ave because it had all kinds of teenage hedonism in it and what have you. And when he finished, he called Dawn and told her that I had an immense talent and there were creative arts high schools specifically for students like me and he’d send over some pamphlets. Dawn was so pissed—she said he was trying to give me “champagne taste on a beer budget.”
The truth is, part of why I started writing is that it’s one of the few activities that doesn’t require any expensive helmets or gear or pay-by-the-hour instructors. And Dawn’s right, we can’t afford any of those schools Professor Parker mentioned, but I can’t say stuff like that to the Parkers, because underneath this conversation, they know it, and they know I know it, and articulating it would just make things weird. I already think sometimes that I perform for them a little too much, constantly trying to be funny and charming, like I’m singing for my supper or something.
Instead, I try to stop blushing and shrug like zero shits given.
“Frankly, I think MHS is a bad fit for both of you,” says Mrs. Parker, and she gives Avery a pointed look. Freshman year, Avery’s parents made her go to a fancy, expensive boarding school in Massachusetts. She hated it there, but they refused to let her come home until she resorted to drastic measures: A few days before summer break, she tagged along with some girls in her hall to get their belly buttons pierced. One not-so-accidental crop top later, Avery was matriculated at MHS for sophomore year.
As Ave’s parents start grilling her about SAT prep, Ashley’s phone chimes with a text, and she snatches it off the table.
Kevin Rice, Avery mouths at me. That would be Ashley’s latest conquest, who graduated MHS last year but eschewed college in favor of landing a record deal with his screamo band. I forget the name. It’s like Burgermaggot, or Juicewater, or some other two-word gibberish that sounds like you’re having a stroke when you say it.
Ashley beams as she reads the text message. You can practically hear the cartoon bluebirds chirping around her head. He wears eyeliner, for God’s sake.
“Light of my life. Fire of my loins,” I say quietly, and watch Avery snort gratifyingly into her salmon. Professor Parker stifles a laugh, but Ashley sees his eyes are squinty and smiling.
“Dad, you’re being annoying.”
He straightens himself out.
“It’s not even him anyway,” says Ashley, then a little quieter: “You *s.”
“Language, Ashley Nicole,” Mrs. Parker says on autopilot.
“Buttholes,” she says, then gets up and storms to her room.