INSIDE THE HOUSE, I hear voices. One is Jamie’s. I don’t recognize the other two. There’s a girl, who I’m guessing is the Mara Jamie mentioned, and the other voice belongs to a guy. In a flash I remember what Jamie said on the way to coffee—band practice.
I’m in no mood to interact with Jamie’s new Facebook friends. Rolling my eyes, I head quietly for the stairs, hoping to work on homework in my room without Jamie plugging in her guitar. I need to reorganize the reunion to-do list, read Macbeth for English, and finish my physics homework. Really, I need to do whatever I can to take my mind off this weird discontentment with Ethan.
I barely reach the first step before my sister’s voice rings out. “Hey, Alison, is that you?” she calls from the other room. Holding my breath, I tiptoe up the stairs, hoping Jamie figures she was wrong and doesn’t come to investigate. I’m halfway up when Jamie appears on the other side of the railing below me. “It is you,” she says, sounding pleased. “I want you to meet the band. Mara and Ted.”
“I’m pretty tired . . .” I lie.
Jamie’s expression falters. “It’ll only take a second.”
I hear the undertone in her voice. Having brushed Jamie off a couple times this week without her protesting, I realize she might finally be fed up. If I dodge her now, I’m pretty certain I’ll provoke a fight, which I’m definitely not in the mood for.
I draw on the restraint I just used with Ethan. “Yeah, sure,” I reply.
Jamie beams. I follow her into the kitchen, where I find Ted, his back turned while he searches for something in the fridge, and Mara, who’s leaning on the counter, beer in hand.
Mara waves. “Hey, Alison. I’m Mara.” She’s short, with thick black hair, wearing a gray oversized T-shirt. The rasp in her tone makes me think she might actually have a decent singing voice.
This looks nothing like a band practice. I don’t see instruments. I doubt Jamie’s new bandmates even brought them. Instead, this looks like three twentysomethings drinking my parents’ beer in our kitchen. Jamie hops up on the countertop, perching on the granite and blissfully watching Mara and me. I wonder when I’m permitted to leave without pissing off Jamie.
The thought vanishes when Ted turns toward us, closing the fridge.
Because this random guy Jamie brought into our house is hot. Ted is tall, his arms leanly muscled, his chin covered in more stubble than a high schooler is capable of growing. His eyes are green, a much nicer shade than Ethan’s. Holding his beer in one hand, he rubs his corded forearm with the other.
I find myself fixating on those forearms. I don’t often devote time to pursuing boys, or even to thinking in romantic or purely physical directions. It’s not like I haven’t enjoyed the relationships I’ve had in high school. Nate, with hipster glasses and insightful comments in English. Prateek, one of the Chronicle news editors who graduated last year, who I made out with after production nights over a couple months. They were nice guys. Our relationships were just insubstantial because of how fleeting I knew they were. Knowing I would leave home for college, hopefully for Harvard, I couldn’t ignore how my high school relationships could only ever be that—high school. The reality made it hard to invest much of myself in dating.
None of which is to say I don’t think about guys.
“Mara’s our drummer,” Jamie announces proudly, “and Ted plays bass.”
This information doesn’t register in any meaningful way with me. I watch Ted slide onto one of the barstools on the other side of the island. He places his elbows on the smooth granite. “Did you go to Fairview with Jamie too?” I ask him.
He nods. “I did.”
“I didn’t know him then, either,” Jamie chimes in. “But he and Mara go way back.”
“Jazz band freshman year,” Mara says.
Ted’s watching me from where he’s sitting. “Do you want a beer, Alison?”
I don’t, really. For one thing, I don’t drink. For another, he’s offering me beer from my own fridge. I’m ready to ignore both these points, however, in the pursuit of continuing this conversation with Ted.
Jamie cuts in, upending my plans. “She’s seventeen, Ted.” I close my mouth, fuming, and not just from Jamie interrupting my one-on-one with Ted. I know my age won’t exactly further my flirting. It’s not like I’m trying to sleep with Ted. I just don’t want to be Jamie’s kid sister right now.
“Oh, word,” Ted replies, looking unbothered.
“Mara, Alison was curious what you’re doing your master’s in.” Jamie’s face has lit up, and I know she’s loving me hanging out with her “friends.” Despite presently having no interest in Mara’s master’s program, I turn in her direction.
“Well, I’m not in the master’s program yet,” Mara clarifies. “I’m thinking about applying to one in public policy or business or something. I’m not really sure.”
The implication of what she’s said surprises me. While I haven’t decided if I’ll major in English, government, or philosophy for an eventual career in politics or law, I’m seven-teen. I couldn’t imagine reaching my midtwenties and not knowing what subject of higher education I want to pursue.
“Cool.” I offer Mara an encouraging nod, then turn to Ted. “What about you? What do you do?”
“I want to be a music producer,” Ted says easily, like this career is not incredibly competitive and is instead equivalent to wanting pizza for dinner. “I make a lot of beats on my computer,” he elaborates. It’s a testament to his attractiveness this isn’t a turnoff. But I look from him to Mara, both hanging out in my parents’ kitchen, nowhere near pursuing the plans they each said. They’re functionally no different from Jamie, who doesn’t even have a plan.
Except Jamie did. She had a life. And now it’s gone, like it never existed.
While I grab a soda from the fridge, Mara says she wants to see the garage to figure out where her drums will fit. Jamie offers to show her, and they walk out of the kitchen, leaving Ted and me alone.
I decide to capitalize on the opportunity. While I’m really not interested in the band, I’m definitely interested in Ted. I lean casually on the counter near where he’s seated. Meeting my gaze, his green eyes leap out from his chiseled features. “What’s your band going to be called?” I ask.
“Oh man.” He rubs the stubble on his chin. “Such a good question. It’s got to be genuine and memorable, you know? I was thinking Get Us Out of Our Moms’ Houses.”
He flashes me a grin, which, obviously, I return, my eyes straying to the sliver of his chest exposed under the open top button of his Henley. “I think the Beatles were originally called that.”
He laughs. “It’s just a bit wordy. Or, you know, I’ve always wanted a band with my name in it. Like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Fleetwood Mac, Florence and the Machine.”
“The Jonas Brothers.”
“Exactly,” he says smoothly, and now I laugh. It’s really nice. His eyes sparkle, and I lean in a little closer over the countertop. This conversation’s just fun, even flirtatious, not defensive or argumentative.
“You could be Ted and the Rough Riders?” I suggest.
His face clouds with confusion. Instantly, I’m mortified. If he doesn’t get the reference, “Rough Riders” sounds like a definitely unintended innuendo.
“You know, Teddy Roosevelt?” I rush to clarify. It doesn’t help. He’s watching me, half frowning in puzzlement. “The Rough Riders? Theodore Roosevelt’s cavalry unit in the Spanish–American War?”
He finally nods, but in the slow, lost way of students not following a complicated lecture. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “He was president, right?”
It’s instantaneous. The moment the question passes his lips, I feel like I’m looking at a different person. A way less attractive person. New details come into focus—the stain on his collar, his unwashed hair, the seed stuck in his upper teeth. It’s like the weird experience of meeting someone you’ve only ever seen in pictures, and the lighting’s off, and their features seem subtly out of place. I’m left with nothing except wishing I’d escaped up the stairs when I got home.
“Yeah. He was.” I straighten up from the counter. “Speaking of which, I need to do my government homework.”
“Homework? For real?” He laughs like I’ve just successfully told a joke. “You know homework isn’t actually important, though. Like, the real world has nothing to do with that stuff.”
Now I’m extremely ready to be done with this conversation. Obviously, Ted isn’t the brightest, but his dismissal irks me. “I enjoy homework. Nice meeting you, Ted,” I say over my shoulder.
“Oh. Yeah, you too,” Ted says.
I head upstairs, closing my door when I’m inside my room. My whiteboard looms over me on the wall, reminding me of the work I have to do. When I try to focus, though, I realize I’m too worked up to get anything done. I’m not used to the combustible mixture of emotions distracting me. Lingering malaise from the charged moment with Ethan. Embarrassment, not to mention whiplash, from being very into Ted and then very not into Ted. Disappointment he didn’t turn out to be even idle-crush material.
Needing easy, mindless preoccupation, I open my closet. I have to find a T-shirt to fulfill Ethan’s blitz task. While I’m devoted to maintaining my mature decision not to feed into our rivalry, I refuse to balk on this task. Ethan would never let me. He’d heckle me endlessly for refusing, drawing out his petty victory interminably. It’s better to just get it over with.
While I shuffle through my hangers, I decide I’m grateful I quickly fell out of infatuation with Ted. I don’t need to waste time on errant crushes. I’m just months from being done with high school, moving to college, and starting my adult life. Now, if I could just find this T-shirt, I could be done with Ethan as well.
But when I reach the final hanger in my closet, I realize I don’t have even one T-shirt. I’ve pawed past blouses and cable-knit cardigans, dress pants, and the dusty zip-up jacket from when I toured Harvard last year—nothing. Ethan was right.
Of course he was right. It’s one of his greatest reporting strengths and one of his worst qualities on a list of expansive length. He’s undeniably smart and observant, and he commits every fact and facet to memory. Recognizing this is yet another detail he’s gotten right only makes me angrier.
Ethan would have gotten the Rough Riders reference. He might’ve even laughed.
Imagining him laughing at one of my jokes, I close my closet door with a bang, feeling dangerously on edge for too many reasons to name.