If You're Out There(6)
A fit of laughter from Mom and Whit comes reverberating through the walls. Harr probably said something cute. I’d drown them out with music but I find that it’s no help. Sometimes I think I’m a bad teenager. There’s no band that knows my soul. Most of the time I just liked what Priya liked—a step up from “basic bitch” pop, but nothing obscure enough to say, “their old stuff was better.”
I stand, slumped, scanning the room for something comfortable to sleep in. Every step seems to require a little too much of me. Wake up! Brush teeth! Speak to people! Do things! I spot the sleeve of an oversize T-shirt poking out from under my bed and, with superhuman strength, crouch down to retrieve it.
A sliver of lime green catches my eye, hidden by all the junk that’s found a home down there, and I realize what I’m looking at.
The book feels strange in my hands as I stand. I can’t remember the last time I rifled through its pages. I peel open the cover and out jumps the bubbly, gel-penned handwriting of my middle school self.
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRIYA
Even as a tween Priya was so full of grand statements about life—some astute, some downright weird—that at some point I started writing them all down. The notebook has seen some wear and tear. I turn the page and smile.
#1
Pigs forgive you when it’s bacon.
When Priya first spouted this one off, I shot chocolate milk straight through my nose. The way she saw it, pigs were intelligent enough creatures to accept sacrifice for the sake of greatness. In subsequent years, this principle remained the sole exception to her otherwise steadfast vegetarianism.
#2
Hug a lot. Even if it’s weird.
We were divided on this issue. Priya lacked my regard for personal space. If she liked you, she hugged you. And sometimes it was weird.
I skip ahead, to the middle—age fourteen or so.
#126
First the train, THEN champagne.
This was a lesson on the virtues of preparedness, and Priya never let her stepdad live it down. He’d taken us with him to a swanky dinner with some old colleagues who’d flown in from New York. At the end of the night, in a moment of enthusiasm, he paid for the whole table. But when it came time to buy our rides home from the Loop, his credit card was declined. Up on the platform, on the wrong side of the turnstiles, Priya looked disappointed. You would have thought Ben was the kid.
#127
Beware of inspirational bathroom plaques, and the people who put them there.
#128
. . . Also starfish-shaped soaps.
. . . Thematic soaps in general.
. . . Or anything nautical.
I laugh lightly. Priya drew inspiration from Ben’s mother for this one. I only met the woman a few times, on her rare visits here and a lone day-trip to her home in Indiana, but she was referenced often—famous for the motivational throw pillows and posters she sent as gifts, each line of pseudo-Buddhist wisdom written out in varied whimsical fonts. Priya also took issue with whimsical fonts. (See #129: Enough with the whimsical fonts!)
I flip ahead.
#208
Ladies before mateys!
Priya didn’t like calling friends hos (over bros). Or chicks (before dicks). So here she preached in ye old pirate English. To her credit, she lived by this one when she met Nicholas Wallace Reid. I think she didn’t want me to feel like I was coming in second. I think she knew she was falling hard. My breath catches a little when I see a burst of Priya’s handwriting scribbled beneath my own.
Especially if that lady is Zan.
I slam the notebook shut and chuck it across the room. It lands, uncathartically, with a little plop in a soft heap of dirty laundry. My laptop is already taunting me from the floor beside my bed. It’s the same standoff we’ve been having every night.
And like always, I lose.
I climb under the covers with a familiar sense of dread. I settle back, tap the screen awake, and there they are. Two new photos. The first is painted toes in flip-flops. The caption?
California Dreamin. Maybe everything happens for a reason
Oh, rub it in, why don’t you? With poor punctuation, no less. I move to the other—a blueberry tart at an ocean-view table. It’s almost humiliating how much the words hurt.
I think I may never go back. . . .
I rush through the other ones—ones I’ve seen before. So elegantly filtered. Palm trees, and beaches, and California skies. I wish she could hear me as I whisper to myself, “What the fuck, Pri?”
Then I close the laptop and go to bed.
Two
Thursday, September 6
My bag hits the ground and I plop down beneath my tree. Yes, I know. The loneliness tree. Arturo can suck it.
“Hey, Zan.” Skye and Ying wave as they glide up the grassy slope by our school. I spot Lacey a ways behind them, jogging to catch up.
“Oh hey!” she says, stopping when she sees me.
“Hey, Lace.”
She rests a moment with hands on knees, a long ponytail of dark brown hair falling forward. “Woo!” She stands abruptly, her head narrowly missing a low-hanging branch. “I need to get myself in better shape before spring. That or get ready to watch me do some serious benchwarming. It’ll be nothing new. You always were the talent.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I tell her. Lacey and I were in the same soccer league in elementary school. We bonded the way little kids do, over nothing important. I liked that her mom brought orange slices to practice. I liked her house. I jumped on her outdoor trampoline.