The Takedown(4)
“Wouldn’t want you to lose further cousin cred. Maybe I should stop meeting you in the little boys’ room altogether.”
His eyes widened in mock horror. “No, don’t do it.”
Grinning again, Mac wrapped me in a one-armed hug. As the full length of half our bodies pressed together, my brain made analogies. Hugging Mac was like crawling into a lifeboat after a day lost at sea. It was more invigorating than a pot of Dad’s Chemex. It was like setting foot on Mars after decades spent traveling through space. His soft, wild curls brushed my cheek. For the nine thousandth time, I was floored by how beautiful he was.
Bachata beats sounded tinnily from his EarRing. As averse as Mac was to tech dependency, he proceeded through life accompanied by an endless playlist. During school that meant caving and trading in his enormous old-skool headphones for the nearly invisible slim ear cuff that everyone else permanently wore.
He started to dance me side to side in a bachata two-step, singing under his breath. My EarRing’s Translate whispered the lyrics in English: “Time passes and passes, and I keep wanting you in my arms….”
I gently disentangled myself.
Before letting me go, Mac placed his lips lightly against my cheek. Just as I was about to utter my regular, discouraging “Mac,” he blew air so it made a loud farting sound. Then he cranked the volume on his Doc, did a fancy little bachata spin, and elbowed the wall-mounted paper towel holder. It popped open, revealing a jar of hair product. As he felt for his comb, hidden on the high ledge by the bathroom windows, I hopped up onto the garbage can. He said he didn’t slick his hair back until school because he was barely on time as it was, forget grooming. But he knew I liked seeing his curls crazy.
In the mirror his eyes flicked to me because whenever we were in the same space that was what our eyes tended to do. I could still feel the press of his lips on my cheek.
“Bow tie, huh?” he said. “Am I gonna get squirted with water if I get too close?”
“Um, it’s called fashion? What’s that look? Flannel shirt layered under a tee? It’s so retro it’s already been out twice.”
“Nah, I’m all the rage. Bra&Panties told me so.”
“Ew.” My fingers paused over my Doc, mid-Quip. “What were you doing on the B&P slut’s feed?”
“Audra sent me a link.”
“She did?”
“Yeah, they did a year-end music wrap-up that she thought I’d like.”
“Oh. That was nice of her.”
This past summer, a Brooklyn teen got efamous for streaming half-naked pics with the username Bra&Panties. When she launched her site in the spring she wasn’t any different from all the other slutty girls who posted trying-to-look-alluring, boobs-pushed-together pics online. Then the B&P chick did a post about those girls and all the reasons they were degrading themselves. She harped on them for showing their faces. She never showed hers.
Let’s celebrate and adore ourselves but not confuse our bodies with our identities. Screw boys. Let’s be sexy for ourselves.
“A teenager wrote that?” Mom asked when I showed her the feed. “Sounds like a marketing firm.”
In June the B&P slut (my name for her) got mentioned on bigger media channels and even NYMag. Next click, she had a full-on designed website, her pics looked Vogue-worthy, and she was giving fashion and dining-out advice. Nowadays her skimpy outfits were regularly “brought to us by” the next-big-deal fashion designers, and she ran a column on new products she called Die-For-Worthy.
Girl was making bank.
Since day one, my girls were obsessed with her.
Me?
Progressive or not, she got rich off of boob pics. I’d rather follow girls who were advancing in life solely thanks to their brains.
Mac grinned. “Aww, amorcita, are you jealous? Why would I need to see faceless pics of half-naked girls when I’m friends with the most beautiful girl who refuses to let me get her half-naked? Hold on, it’s like the perfect combination.”
“Har, har.”
My Doc dinged. Mac groaned. Since our class schedules never overlapped, every five minutes we could get together was sacred.
[ ] T minus seven, six…
He loudly cleared his throat. I held out my Doc.
“I plead extenuating circumstances. I think someone’s messing with me.”
Scrolling through the creeper messages, he frowned. “What happens when it gets to zero?”
“Does something have to happen?”
“Why else have a countdown?” Noticing my insta–panic expression, he set down his comb—only half his head gelled back—and adjusted my bow tie. “Tranquila. It’s probably spam. Sharma can fix it. Or maybe it’s only clocking the seconds till you jump from the high dive into a barrel of water.”
“Still with the clown jokes.” I rolled my eyes, hopped down off the garbage can. “You’re the funniest one, Rodriguez. Come on, time to go learn stuff.”
“Be right there.”
Completely unconcerned that the bell was about to ring, Mac hummed as he tweaked his curls, a residual smile gracing his lips. Mac was the primest cut of meat at Prep and he was rumored to be better at crunching numbers than all our math teachers combined. Don’t think he wasn’t entirely aware of both these facts. I’d almost made it to the door when he called out.