She shifts, tucking a stray curl behind her ear, fidgeting and trying to put the annoyance behind her, but she was in the middle of an epic construction and was on a roll. She could have been adding a new floor to that new watchtower for the village she just fortified. Emily snorts and shakes her head.
If you had them pick you up at your actual apartment you could have played for another half hour, a small voice inside her says. It’s a logical one, a practical one, so of course, Emily ignores it.
She checks her nails, hoping that the gold-green color she’d mixed together to go with this outfit will be met with approval. Emily had been proud of it an hour ago, admiring the glint in the safety of her bedroom, imagining Pattie and Nita’s reaction to the bold statement, but now she’s starting to second guess. It doesn’t quite match, though that was the point. But what if they don’t get it?
Emily spots Pattie’s mom’s flashy Lexus rounding the corner just as her phone buzzes with a new text. Probably Pattie telling her she’s outside, even though she’s all the way at the end of the block. Pattie hates waiting, never mind that Emily’s been here on the sidewalk forever.
The gleaming black car slows to a stop in front of Emily. Nita waves excitedly out the window; Pattie doesn’t look up from her phone in the front seat. Emily bites back the scathing comment she had prepared and instead goes for flippancy. “We going to absolutely crush this sale or what?”
Nita giggles as she opens the back door for Emily. “Or what!”
Emily hops into the car, returning Nita’s hug with equal fervor.
“We’re going to do H&M, Forever, and then Orange Julius, but only because I’ve got this coupon, but it’s buy one get one free, but that’s fine because I’m only going to have half. Emily, you can share with me because Nita doesn’t like chocolate malt.” Pattie hardly breathes as she says this, but she glances over her shoulder, her lips quirking up in a smile as she gives Emily a once-over from the front seat. “Your nails look great. Nice color,” she says, quirking her eyebrow at Emily’s outfit. “Goes well with your shoes. Not quite matching is totally in right now.”
“Heh, I thought it would be cute,” Emily says, basking in the approval.
“I love it!” Nita grabs her hands and coos over her nails. “Do you still have this color? Paint mine next!”
“Seat belt, Emily,” chides Pattie’s mom in the front seat. She’s glamorous and beautiful and works as a producer in television, and today has her hair in a sleek updo, offsetting an effortless pantsuit.
“Sorry, Mrs. Anderson,” Emily says sheepishly, buckling herself in.
“Darling, call me Rose,” Mrs. Anderson says smoothly.
Emily shakes her head and smiles as they glide out of the neighborhood and onto the freeway, leaving the sad gray mediocrity of their not-quite-suburb behind.
After spending more than two hours browsing stores at the mall, Emily hasn’t spent any money, so she counts the trip as a success so far. She claimed she forgot her purse, and Nita still owed her for yesterday’s ice cream so with that and Pattie’s coupon, she still got to have the chocolate malt at Orange Julius and hang out with her friends. It’s going to take a while with her very minimal allowance to make up for even half of last week’s shopping trip, but Emily’s sure she can make it work. Now Pattie wants to take pictures by the fountain, and it seems like they’ve been here forever trying to catch the perfect light dancing through the water in the background of her shots. Finally Pattie is satisfied, and offers generously to take a photo for Emily as well. Emily can’t say no; Pattie takes amazing photos, and if she posts it on her feed then Emily will have confirmation of what she has been unsure of the whole summer: that Pattie sees her as a friend, an equal.
Click.
Emily shakes her hair out of her eyes, pouts a little, and stares beyond Pattie’s shoulder.
Click.
“Hmm,” Pattie says, looking down at her phone.
Emily looks over Pattie’s shoulder and sees herself and the result of two hours of getting ready and then waiting for the perfect lighting—artfully blown-out hair, subtle-looking makeup, long lashes, a casual-but-artsy outfit—reflected in Pattie’s hands. She can see her flaws immediately, though: the clumsiness of the contour, how her brows are uneven, and that expression. What was she even thinking? Pattie said she should look like she’s thinking of a secret, a good one, and that this would definitely get Toby—and other boys—to notice her. And Emily couldn’t think of a good secret except that she was afraid, afraid Pattie didn’t really like her, that all of this would end, and the alliances she’d been building all year would disappear like smoke.
“Cute,” Nita coos, bouncing up and down beside her.
Pattie doesn’t say anything, just turns the phone toward Emily so she can see herself.
“What do you think?” Emily finally asks, because she needs to know.
“Re-gloss,” Pattie demands, waving her hands at Nita.
Nita promptly offers the lip gloss tube. Emily plucks it out of Nita’s manicured fingers, and pretends she’s annoyed instead of afraid. They’ve been at this for what seems like an eternity. The sun is almost setting, but Pattie insisted that they catch the “golden hour” for these Instagram shots. Emily’s heart starts to pound faster as the sun dips lower, sinking fast, too fast behind the apartment complexes and strip malls of East L.A. She bounces on her feet, anxiety starting to spike. In Minecraft, it means danger: zombies and skeletons and worse. Emily’s fingers twitch, her autopilot already on—How far am I from my home base? Do I have a safe house nearby? Am I too far? Build a shelter, quick, before the monsters come—
“Come on, we don’t have all day,” Pattie snaps.
Emily is tired. Spending time with Pattie and Nita is fun, and she loves hanging out with her friends—picking out outfits and catching movies or enjoying a pretzel at the mall together—but sometimes it’s tedious—taking pictures for Instagram, helping Pattie shoot her videos, planning and plotting how to get even more followers and likes for their channels.
She thinks about the boy in the computer lab, the animated way he’d leaned forward when he was fighting that zombie, the weird little grin on his face when he introduced himself. Part of her wanted to ask how long he’d been playing Minecraft, to check out his builds, but he looked her age, and more likely than not would be going to the same school. Better not to risk making friends with anyone who could hold her back from the social status she’d worked for.
Emily reapplies the lip gloss, smacking it with more force than necessary, which makes Nita giggle.
Pattie and Nita are her two best friends in the whole world. Pattie was the most popular girl at their middle school, and Emily’s come a long way from being that invisible girl that everyone picked on. People notice her when she’s with Pattie and Nita. She’s made a name for herself through hard work and time, agonizing over the perfect Instagram captions and comments. It took a month of carefully crafted run-ins with Pattie at the mall and then one lucky invitation to a sleepover before Emily was even considered for part of Pattie’s inner circle. It’s been two years—seventh and eighth grade—working toward that social safety, and Emily’s spent too much time this summer to not have Pattie and Nita by her side when she starts high school. She can’t risk them branding her as uncool.
Emily pouts again for the camera, and lets Pattie take photos until there’s one that’s acceptable. Emily posts it with Pattie’s caption, hugs her friends goodbye, and lets Pattie’s mom drop her off two blocks from her apartment building.
Emily waves and ducks into the courtyard of the beautiful Glen Oaks complex, and waits there until the Andersons’ Lexus pulls away. When the coast is clear, she leaves and walks down the street. Dry grass rustles in the median, and trash rolls across the street as she walks briskly down the few blocks. It’s funny how quickly neighborhoods change, and East Los Angeles is no different. As she walks over the pedestrian bridge across the storm channel that pretends to be a river, the manicured lawns and well-kept buildings give way to rusted and torn chain-link fences and older apartment complexes, and finally Emily sees the familiar drab gray sign that reads PACIFIC CREST COMMUNITY CENTER AND APARTMENTS. The font isn’t even retro, she thinks. It’s just old.
The thick square key sticks in the lock as it always does, and Emily gives it a shove, eyeing the moving van blocking the entrance to the parking lot. Someone else moving into the brand-new building, she guesses.
Emily trudges up the dimly lit stairwell to the West Tower, yanking off her false eyelashes as she goes.
High school. It’s starting in only a few months, and Emily isn’t…she isn’t ready. She only just figured out middle school, the right clothes to wear, the best way to laugh even when she didn’t find something funny, how to do her hair and her nails, and how to cultivate an air of I don’t care for Pattie to call her her best friend, to not be that mousy, invisible girl no one thought anything about. People notice Emily now; they stop when she walks through the halls, smile at her, offer her compliments, but every day it’s fleeting, every day is a new struggle, and if her purse doesn’t match, if her gloss isn’t perfect, if so-and-so commented on her Instagram. She could be better, thinner, prettier, shinier…
Emily takes off her makeup and flops into her comfy computer chair. She doesn’t have any new comments and only two likes on her latest haul video, and notices that Pattie has gotten several hundred new hits on her latest video. Emily watches Pattie smile at the camera, thinking about how long it took to shoot these videos, how much work they put into it. She sighs, clicking on her notifications.
The two likes are from Pattie and Nita.
This whole YouTube thing is so hard. Pattie’s had her channel since sixth grade and her mom works in television so she’s always had professional lighting and cameras and everything. She says being a YouTuber is fun, but so far it’s just been a lot of work. Emily isn’t quite sure how to bring up that filming makeup tutorials isn’t exactly how she likes to spend her time. Pattie loves everything to do with editing and the ins and outs of making a video cool; Emily just likes watching them.
She switches accounts and smiles as her feed changes from haul videos and makeup tutorials to everything Minecraft: playthroughs, news, joke videos, all of her favorite things. Emily goes through her subscriptions and catches up with her favorite YouTubers, the pranks they’re playing on one another, their newest constructions and mods. She watches a video about treasure maps, taking careful notes about the best way to proceed. She’s at a good point in her current game—maybe she’ll go look for treasure today.
Emily sits up a little straighter at the notification alert in her in-box. She gets so few likes and views on her videos that any sort of interaction is surprising. Emily at first thought it would be cool to show off her redstone constructions, so last summer she put up a video, but it’s hard when you’re not already famous. Maybe she should change her username.
No, she chose it because she is a rock star, and she’s going to be. Fake it until you make it, and just keep learning, keep trying.
Oh, she’s gotten a new comment!
PacificViv: thank you for the subscribe! I like what you’re doing with pressure plates here, very cool design!
Oh, nice. This is someone Emily found a while ago who looks like an amateur YouTuber like herself, with a bunch of simple recordings right from the game. PacificViv never appears on-screen, unlike so many other players, who are eager to talk and laugh and joke with one another. It’s frustrating, trying to make a name for yourself; not everyone can afford to have cool equipment to record themselves and green-screen themselves into the game. It’s a whole new world with rules and people who are already best friends with each other, one that Emily hasn’t quite figured out yet. She can’t really imagine herself doing it, either. No, the kind of videos she should make are like Pattie’s—cute outfits and fun makeup tips. It’s not like she can really keep up doing both haul videos and redstone constructions—that’s not going to work in the long run.
Emily quickly types out a response to the message, and then goes and likes a few more of their videos for good measure, leaving comments on each one. Her notification pings again with a reply. PacificViv must be online, replying to her comments in real time.
RoxXStarRedStone: great video! I always thought this was super complicated but you make it sound super simple
PacificViv: thank you! It’s really fun, it took me a while to figure out but I really like it, it’s just like another language you just gotta get fluent in it!
RoxXStarRedStone: haha yeah I thought it would be my favorite part but I’m still figuring it out. My redstone constructions are still pretty basic
PacificViv: not at all! I thought what you did with the trapdoor was really cool! And you’re a redstone ROCK STAR, clearly
Emily hesitates before taking a chance and sending PacificViv her server name and asking if they want to play together. She waits anxiously and then a moment later, an excited YESSSS! beams across her screen.
Which world should she show PacificViv first? The one with the labyrinth? What about the one with the automated bee farm in the shape of a bee? Yeah, that would be impressive and cool. Emily fluffs the pillow on her chair and puts on her headphones, letting the soft notes of the opening music waft over her. She pauses, looking over each of her worlds, smiling at the memories built into each one. It’s easy to lose herself, and she loves spending time catching up on her builds, designing a new structure, creating trapdoors and hallways. She could spend hours exploring and adventuring, and she’s been trying to learn more about construction and all the possibilities of redstone. There are just endless things to do, to explore, to learn how to make.
PacificViv has joined the game.
PacificViv’s avatar is a girl wearing leather armor, modded with pink hair done in pigtails. She waves excitedly at Emily.
< PacificViv > what do you want to do first?
< PacificViv > this is so cool!!! want to show me around?
< PacificViv > do you like to explore? any cool places you want to check out?
< RoxXStarRedStone > i love exploring
< PacificViv > awesome!! sometimes i play with my brother but all he wants to do is stay in one spot, its sooooo boring
Emily laughs as the conversation flows as quick as water; no need to double or triple check what she’s saying, calculate the maximum social impact, determine who knows what and who likes who, who wore what last week. It’s fun in an entirely new way. Is this what it’s like to share something you love with your friends? She can’t imagine playing Minecraft with Pattie and Nita at all.
< RoxXStarRedStone > there’s a cavern a ways from my base that’s covered in lava— i always die trying to get to the mine
< PacificViv > have you tried redirecting the flow?
< RoxXStarRedStone > i told you I keep dying
< PacificViv > hm lets go see and figure out how to get past it!
Emily leads the way with a new thrill of excitement for her new friend.
They build a base together. It starts to be really fun when she discovers that PacificViv has the same attitude toward adventure—which is to say, rushing headlong into it. Emily finds herself relaxing and laughing, pausing in surprise when text flashes across her screen.
< PacificViv > call me Viv
< PacificViv > what’s your name? do you wanna voicechat easier than typin esp when we’re fighting
A rush of pleased warmth floods through Emily, and she shyly types out her own name and downloads the app Viv suggests. She’s never done voicechat on Minecraft—only ventured into multiplayer once and was too intimidated by the other players—but this, this feels just as easy as saying hello to a new friend on the playground and asking if they want to play tag. It was so much easier back then, before things got complicated with followers and likes and what everyone looked like.
Viv sounds like she’s her age, but Emily isn’t quite sure—she uses a lot of big words that make her sound older sometimes, but she’s right, it is easier.
“To the left, to the left!” Viv shouts.
“Yaaaagh!” Emily backs up frantically, trying to get a better shot, arrows flying wildly at the skeleton.
“One more!”
“Got it!” Emily grins in triumph, taking a moment to breathe as they enjoy a brief respite in the cavern they’re exploring. Her heart pounds with excitement, Viv’s excited shrieks as she dives headfirst into a throng of skeletons echoing in her ear.
This is fun. Having a new friend to play Minecraft with.
“Hey, I gotta go soon but this has been awesome!”
“Yeah. You wanna play again tomorrow?”
“That’s what summer is for!” Viv says brightly.
Viv logs out of the voicechat but stays in the game, leading the way back to their new base.
< PacificViv > yessss all the iron love it!
< RoxXStarRedStone > we did good
< PacificViv > hey
< PacificViv > do you want to join another server with me and my friends? there’re a lot of fun projects there I think you’d like!
< RoxXStarRedStone > how many people are in your server?
< PacificViv > haha a lot
< PacificViv > 17 active right now, and in our district only five
< PacificViv > we’re the original, haha, and then we invited more people
< PacificViv > there isn’t really room in this area to build in the original township, but there’s a great plot in the water district if you like!
< PacificViv > or we can go find and make a whole new district!
< PacificViv > i know mina was excited to settle a new area…
< PacificViv > omg this is going to be so amazing!!! pls come it’ll be so much fun
Emily hesitates as she and Viv put away their loot. Viv seems nice, and one-on-one Emily can hold a conversation, and it’s fun. With more people, she’s worried it’ll be harder, a level of social interaction she isn’t prepared for. With a group, she’d have to figure out the rules in order to stay in, and she isn’t sure she wants to do that right now.
Her phone buzzes. It’s Pattie, asking for outfit opinions.
“Mija, can you go get the mail?” Mama calls from downstairs.
“Yeah! In a minute!” Emily calls back. She sighs.
< RoxXStarRedStone > maybe
< RoxXStarRedStone > ttyl
Emily saves and quits before pulling up Instagram, flopping back on her bed. Helping Pattie isn’t that much different from her earlier venture with the skeletons and the cave; a bit of puzzling out what would work best where, remembering Pattie’s accessories and when she last wore what and giving a prompt suggestion. It’s a different kind of problem-solving, and she’s good at it. Being popular is like a job, she thinks, as she scrolls through her feed and likes her friends’ posts, staying up-to-date on what everyone is doing. Emily finally posts a selfie after changing the filter three times and crafting the perfect caption to direct people to her new YouTube video. Pattie likes it right away and comments with a bunch of heart emojis and yes! Great video!
Pattie was the one who encouraged her to start her own video channel. “You’ve got the talent and you just need the confidence. Come on, I believe in you,” she said. Emily didn’t have the heart to tell her she already had one where she posted her Minecraft constructions. And she loves putting together outfits, loves sharing that with Pattie, but sometimes she wonders if they would be friends if they didn’t have that in common, if Pattie would even enjoy hanging out with her if Emily didn’t have a sharp eye for fashion and a knack for finding sales.
Emily puts the walls back up between her two passions. It wouldn’t do, to be fully herself. She has to separate everything; Viv would probably find her love for clothes silly, and Pattie would find Minecraft boring and nerdy. Just like how RoxXStarRedStone and her haul account are two different people with two different interests. Cute clothes and videogames don’t go together, right?
It’s important, who you’re seen with and what other people think of you. It’s something that new kid, Jake, is going to learn very quickly. Emily sighs. She hopes he isn’t going to be in the computer lab all the time. That was her spot, the one place she could guarantee no would ever see her, where she didn’t have to pretend to feel anything she wasn’t feeling, to put on a face for the world. Now it’s just another public place, where she has to worry about being seen, how she looks, and what she’s wearing.
He had been playing Minecraft, though. Emily caught a glimpse of his player name before she left.
Part of her feels guilty for being kind of a jerk, but it’s expected. If he lives here, he’s probably going to end up going to the same high school and it’s not like they could be friends. Pattie and Nita would have a fit, and the cool kids she’s worked so hard to fit in with—well, they’d throw her right back to the loser aisle where she knows she belongs. She can see her classmates now, making fun of this boy and his awkward little smile.
If things were different, Emily would have stopped to talk, if she had Viv’s confidence and easygoing warmth, she could have—she could have made a friend. Maybe they could have played together.
Emily finds herself googling “how to make new friends” before lying back down in defeat. She doesn’t know how to do this outside the rules of engagement at school. PacificViv was a fluke. Plus, she reached out to Emily, and it just happened to work.
Step one. Be authentic.
Emily closes the article and groans.
“No way.”
The difference between her air-conditioned apartment and the bleak hallway outside is immediate; heat pools and collects here, sinking into the concrete. Down, down, down the stairwell, the temperature dropping a few wonderful degrees as Emily exits the West Tower. Outside isn’t much better, but at least there’s a breeze.
She wades through the weeds of the overgrown courtyard, walking quickly; sometimes those so-called tough guys hang out here, and she takes care to avoid them. They like to scare the younger kids in the complex. She definitely doesn’t like the tallest of the boys—the skinny fish-named guy who made clicking noises at her back when he thought she couldn’t hear.
She doesn’t see those guys from her school lingering by the vending machine or any of their usual spots, so she cuts through the empty playground on her way to the mailboxes.
Oh. One of those guys is here. It’s the big broad-shouldered one who looks like he’s in high school, but Emily’s seen him at school. He was in eighth grade, just like she was, drifting through the corridors and grunting back at the teachers. Tank, Emily remembers. She remembers in seventh grade a guy called him Frankenstein because of the lurching way he happened to walk and an unfortunate sweater choice in the first week of school, and it stuck for a whole year. She always felt sorry for him, but he started hanging out with those guys in eighth grade, so they must have made up or something.
Tank pulls an armful of paper towels out of some bushes, looking shifty as he makes his way to the play set.
Emily keeps quiet, lurking in the shadows of the shrubberies. What is he doing?
Tank sighs, picking something up off the ground and tossing it into the trash can. He glances around before ripping off a long roll of towel, then proceeds to wipe down the swing set chains.
He does the same for all the swings, and then wipes down the monkey bars before throwing the paper towels away and slouching off to the North Tower.
Emily steps out of the shrubberies and pads over to the trash can. Inside, on top of the other trash, is an empty plastic bottle of vegetable oil and the paper towels Tank had used.
Weird.