Chapter Seventeen
CeCe
Doing laundry was a nightmare in my apartment building because of the basement. Dim lighting emanated from naked bulbs. The sole switch only activated the first light—at the top of the stairs. If you wanted to illuminate anything beyond, you had to stumble down into the shadowy depths, like a teen in every slasher movie ever made, and pull the chain dangling from one of the bulbs farther in.
What the light revealed wasn’t much of an improvement—cobwebs, weird crawl spaces, and doors leading to coal chutes and walk-ups long ago sealed over. Edgelake had decided to put off any basement renovations, as if it would demise the building’s historical integrity.
The bouquet of decaying rodents mingled with the musty, damp smell of age. Unfortunately, the laundry area lay at the opposite corner from the stairway. So we maneuvered our heaping laundry hampers down narrow steps while keeping one hand free to pull light chains as we moved through creepy rooms to where access to water and gas had situated the laundry. A long white Formica counter with neatly organized stain fighters and fabric softeners made us feel like we’d found an oasis of civilization.
Laundry was my attempt to avoid thinking about Bryn’s date with Emmett tonight. Their first real date involving more than one of them attending the other one’s game. They had managed to find a Tuesday night that worked. I knew this because I had done the texting to set the whole thing up. And I had counseled a panicked Bryn about what to say during an entire dinner where she was expected to talk.
I took my time separating laundry while I tried to muster the courage to retrace my steps, this time turning off the lights as I went, finally making a mad dash for the safety above ground. If I stuffed the washer, I could manage my laundry in just two loads. It was a good thing the athletic department washed all our workout gear. It was tempting to live in my practice clothes so I would never have to do laundry.
I was adding detergent to my load of whites when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my back pocket. The screen identified the caller as Bryn. Why was she calling me in the middle of her date? Not even the middle—I’d be surprised if they’d had their appetizer yet. What the hell?
“What the hell, Bryn?” I said into the phone.
“CeCe, I can’t do it. I’m going to make him take me home. I’ll say I got food poisoning.” Her voice was shrill.
“Bryn. Calm down. Where are you?”
“In the bathroom at Brovi’s,” she said. Brovi’s was an Italian restaurant on Monroe Street, one of my absolute favorites. I could visualize their table in the wine cellar, aglow with arched arbors draped in white lights. I could see the golden candlelight quivering between them. I could almost taste the cheesy garlic bread.
“You don’t have food poisoning,” I said. “Have you even tried the food yet?”
“It all looks greasy,” she said. “And everyone’s old here. Like, old, old.”
I sighed. It just wasn’t a high school hangout.
“Then go somewhere you feel comfortable,” I said.
“I already thought of that, but Emmett didn’t want to go to Yogurt Express,” she whined.
I muffled the phone against my chest as I groaned at the ceiling.
“Bryn, what is actually the problem?”
“I can’t talk to him. He keeps asking me questions. It’s weird.”
“It’s called a conversation. He’s trying to get to know you.”
“Well, it’s making me feel stupid. We’ve already established I don’t play any musical instruments and that I’ve never heard of any of the weird classical shit he listens to. I thought Schubert was a kind of ice cream.”
I slapped my hand against my forehead.
“So, ask him questions. Don’t you want to get to know him?”
My phone chirped as I got a text. An idea came to me. A bad idea, but it might work.
“Bryn, there’s a very simple solution.” I could still hear her hyperventilating over the phone. “Take a breath, okay? Now, keep our call live, and open your texting app.” I sent her a message.
I heard the chirp as she got my text. Shit. “Bryn! Put your phone on silent.”
“Okay. It’s on silent.”
“Attagirl. Listen, in one minute, you’re going to leave the bathroom and go back to your table. Don’t disconnect our call. When you sit down, put your phone in your lap where you can see it. I’m going to text you things to say to Emmett. Do you think you can do that?”
“I’ll try. Thank you CeCe. I love you!”
“Not as much as you love Emmett,” I murmured. “It’s time to go back out there. Now, head up and smile. And Bryn?”
“What?”
“Don’t leave the bathroom with the phone up to your ear.”
“Right,” she said, followed with a nervous laugh. “Got it.”
I heard restaurant noises as I pictured Bryn crossing the elegant space with the confidence of a runway model, all eyes on her—especially Emmett’s. Staying where I was in the dank, deserted basement, I scooted my piles of laundry to the side and hoisted myself up onto the counter.
“Good, you’re back. The food’s here. I didn’t want to start without you.” I was surprised how well I could hear Emmett.
“Super. I’m starving.” Bryn said too loudly. I heard a chair scrape against the floor. “Thank you!” she practically squawked. I clenched my teeth and texted:
“Thank you,” Bryn repeated, drawled out in a tone two octaves lower. Ugh.
My thumb paused briefly over the keypad as I thought of all the things I would say if I was sitting across the table from Emmett.
“What do you mean?” he asked Bryn.
I heard Bryn read the words. She sounded halting, like she was reciting from memory. It came off perfectly. As Bryn read, I could hear a creak as if Emmett was leaning forward.
“I like football, but I love music.”
“I don’t get it,” Bryn said.
I sighed.
“Most people don’t,” Emmett said. “I think it’s pretty simple.”
“You’ll make fun of me.”
I smiled at the phone.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone? I sort of have this tough-guy persona on campus.”
His voice sounded closer. I imagined him leaning over the table. I could almost feel his eyes on me. Suddenly, I was there, across the candlelight from him, soaking in his stare.
“I hear music in my head. When it rains. When leaves fall. I hear it when I see people walk. Especially when I see you walk. You put a lot of notes in my head. It’s like my mind is constantly writing a soundtrack.”
“You mean my superpower?”
I could hear him smiling through his words.
“Wow. That is really hot,” Bryn said.
I shook my head.
“Stop taking Bryn,” her voice echoed my text. Shit. I started typing again.
“I mean, that’s reflexive,” Bryn stammered.
“What?” Emmett asked.
I looked down at my text. Fuck. I must have typed too fast. The auto-correct changed “impressive” to “reflexive.” I typed again:
And that’s when a gigantic spider slid down a silken thread to hover right in front of my nose. I dropped my phone and let out a strangled shriek as I cringed away from the repulsive thing. I looked around frantically for something to swing at it and settled on my shoe. But by the time I’d armed myself with a sneaker, the spider was gone. It could be anywhere—my clothes, my hair, my laundry basket. I could not be down here one moment longer. I grabbed my phone and sprinted to the stairs, leaving the lights on behind me.
Tuba was in the kitchen listening to music and making supper when I ran up the stairs squealing like a seventh grade girl.
“Check my hair for spiders!” I butted my head into her, accidentally knocking an oily spatula out of her hand. “Tuba! Please! Check my hair for spiders!”
Tuba was the only one of my roommates who wasn’t afraid of anything. She was a farm girl, a 4H queen, unperturbed by blood, raw meat, creepy crawlies, mouse turds, bats, or anything that the rest of us couldn’t stand. She patiently worked her hands through my hair.
“There’s nothing there.”
“I feel like it’s crawling all over me.”
“You’re such a wimp,” she said.
“Only when it comes to spiders.” I shuddered and distracted myself from the sensation of imaginary arachnids crawling over my scalp by focusing on the chicken she was pan-frying. “That smells good.”
“Want some?”
I had leftover pizza in the fridge, but it wasn’t nearly as appetizing as chicken and whatever I smelled in the oven. “I’ll make the salad,” I offered, because I knew Tuba would approve. Anyway, her greens were already rinsed and set out on the counter with a tomato and a cucumber.
As I got out a bowl, I remembered Bryn. All the excitement—and the thought of food—had wiped it from my mind.
“Shit!” I yelled. I looked for my phone. It lay on the floor near the basement door. I turned it over with my toe, checking for spiders, before picking it up. Bryn had disconnected the call. I texted her.
I waited for a response. Nothing came. I sighed and went back to the salad, setting my phone face-up on the counter so I could see if I got a text.
“Bryn had a date with Emmett tonight,” I said.
Tuba’s six feet of svelte loveliness radiated waves of compassion. She had played the tuba in her high school band, and the nickname had stuck, possibly due to its exquisite irony. She combined the dark Hungarian looks of her mother and the tall rangy build of her German father. I had known her since summer volleyball camps in middle school. She was like a sister to me. So she zeroed right in on the subtext beneath my statement.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I was trying to help but I’m pretty sure I just made everything worse.”
“That calls for some New Order.” She grabbed her phone and switched the music to “Bizarre Love Triangle.” In Tuba’s world there was a song for every situation, even if it meant time traveling back to the early eighties.
I wasn’t really in a position to appreciate her humor tonight. But even though she thought I was being profoundly stupid about Emmett, she still listened to me and gave me emotional support. I filled her in as we set the table—Tuba did stuff like that. I earned a glare by using my fingers to dish the salad, and she brought over chicken and roasted squash. Tuba cooked like a mom.
“Ah! There it is.” She suddenly reached over and plucked something from the collar of my shirt. She held out what looked like a piece of brown fuzz. I leaned closer, and then cringed back. It was my spider, curled up into a protective ball.
“Ew! It’s been on me the whole time. Maybe crawling up my body!”
“It’s just a barn spider,” she said and held it tenderly in her open palm.
“It’s huge! Kill it!”
“I’m not going to kill some poor little spider just because it had the bad luck to land on a spaz. Besides, haven’t you ever seen Charlotte’s Web?” she asked.
“It’ll just come back. Smush it!”
“CeCe, if you want it dead, you have to kill it yourself.” Tuba waited a moment. Seeing that I obviously wasn’t stepping up to the task of smashing that disgusting spider, she went to the door and gently placed it outside.
Tuba and I were just finishing dinner when we heard a knock on the door. Nobody knocked on our door. I got up to open it and found Bryn standing dejectedly in the doorway. On the street behind her, a truck pulled away.
Her expression was frozen into a pleasant half-smile, like she was trying not to cry. “That went well, I’d say.”
“Bryn, I’m really sorry. There was a spider.” I pulled her inside and shut the door.
“You know I really learned something tonight. I should be able to get through a single conversation with Emmett on my own. A single conversation.” She kicked her shoes off as she spoke.
“You want to hang out here for awhile?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s had it with me. It’s over.”
Tuba had taken a bottle of her dad’s Jägermeister out of the freezer and poured some into a juice glass. She handed it to Bryn.
“I don’t drink,” Bryn said.
“Tonight you do.”
Bryn took a swallow. “Good lord. That’s revolting.”
“Tell me what happened,” I said. “Maybe we can fix it.”
“Doubt it. He’s really mad. I don’t think it’s fixable.”
“What do you mean? Why would he be mad?” I asked. “Did he tell you he was mad?”
“No. But he watched me like a hawk. Or like one of those owls with heads that go all the way around and eyes that never blink. Like he knew everything.”
“What did he say?”
“He heard your scream over the phone. I told him it was my stepmom’s ringtone and I shut it off.”
Tuba and I exchanged glances.
“Then I tried to ask him my favorite go-to conversation questions,” Bryn continued, “like Red Vines or Twizzlers? Dr. Pepper or Cherry Coke? French fries or tater tots? Boxers or briefs?”
“Ugh,” I muttered into my hands. What a nightmare.
“He wasn’t into it,” she said. “He started acting annoyed, like I was messing with him. Then he asked me how I felt about him. So I said the usual stuff.”
“What’s the usual stuff?” I asked.
“I said he was hot.”
“You want to elaborate?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what he wanted me to do!” Her voice rose again. “So I said he was really, really hot.”
“Oh God.” How could someone Bryn’s age completely lack descriptive language?
“And then I said football was hot.”
“Oh shit.” Bryn could talk circles around every other guy. Why not Emmett?
“And then I did stuff under the table, you know, kind of aggressive? Most guys really get into that.”
“But he didn’t?” I figured. I tried to hide the part of me that was actually pleased by the first ever failure of Bryn’s massive sex appeal.
“He just got really polite. And he said he needed to be somewhere, and he asked if he could take me home. I told him I wanted to come here instead, and that seemed to make him even madder.”
“Oh fuck.” He was mad about dropping her here. Did that mean he was starting to piece things together?
“Do you think he knows?”
“He can’t know.” I was trying to convince myself as much as anything. I went to the kitchen, got out a juice glass, and poured some Jägermeister for myself. I handed the bottle to Bryn. “We’ll fix it. We have to fix it.”
“What’s the plan?” Bryn asked as she poured herself another glass and slammed it with a grimace.
I heard the thumping of the opening bars of “Heartache Tonight” on the speaker. Tuba brandished her music like a weapon and glowered at me portentously. Somebody’s gonna hurt someone before the night is through.
…
CeCe
Two hours later it was 10:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night. We had a plan, and we had a Bluetooth headset borrowed from Kelsey. She had things like a Bluetooth, an interview suit, and a LinkedIn profile.
The alcohol had lent me courage and optimism and had given Bryn confidence. Tuba, it had imbued with a spirit of adventure, so she was tagging along as well. Like some collegiate Wizard of Oz, except we were straying way, way off the yellow brick road. In my head, I imagined Dorothy’s wide-eyed, “We’re not in Kansas anymore” dubbed over with “Toto, this shit just got real.” The mental image set off a bout of giggles, inexplicably joined by Bryn, and firmly shushed by Tuba.
We ran down to Vilas Street, cutting through the woods behind campus buildings. Though the air was chilly and damp, there was a chance he would be outside.
The mansion was just off a busy commuter path, so there was noise and scant privacy this early in the night. Stealth dictated a route through piles of leaves, a chain-linked fence, dog poop, and stinging nettles. We crept around the side of the house and listened beneath Emmett’s balcony. The faint strumming of an acoustic guitar drifted down to us. He was there. Bryn wore the Bluetooth earpiece beneath her blown-out date-hair. She stepped into view in the front yard. I stayed out of sight.
“Emmett,” she said in a breathless whisper he couldn’t possibly hear.
“Louder.” My message traveled unknown miles from the phone in my hand to a cell tower and back to the Bluetooth in her ear fifteen feet away.
She overcorrected. “Emmett!”
The strumming stopped. Bryn waved her arms like a castaway trying to flag down a plane. I wanted to throttle her.
I stared up at the balcony as Emmett stood up and peered over. I swallowed and adjusted the Blue Tooth. Was I actually going to go through with this?
…
Emmett
What the hell? I looked over the edge of my balcony.
“Emmett. It’s Bryn!”
I peered through the leaves but I could barely see her, just the outline of her jeans and a gray sweatshirt. She had a lot of nerve to come here tonight. I just accepted the fact that it was over between us. Nothing she said was going to change that. I had tried everything with this girl, but she always put up a front around me. I was so sick of the act.
“What do you want?” I asked, my voice hard. I sat back down on the stool and propped the guitar on my knee.
“I’ve come to tell you…to tell you I’m sorry!”
Her apology almost made me laugh.
“Sorry for what?” I asked.
“I…I want to explain why I acted like that,” she stammered like she was trying to piece words together. I resumed plucking the strings on my guitar. I was playing it cool. If she knew me at all, she would know this was a bad sign.
“What do you have to say that you couldn’t just say at dinner?” I asked.
I thought I heard whispering in the bushes below me. I stopped strumming.
“I want you to understand me,” Bryn said.
“You don’t know what you want.”
“I know exactly what I want,” she said. “It’s you. I can’t leave things like this.”
I blew out a sigh. That’s not how she acted at dinner. She acted like she couldn’t get away from me fast enough. She acted like sitting across from me in a restaurant was torture.
“Then why were you so weird tonight?” I asked. “If you’re not interested, fine, just tell me the truth. I can take it. But the mind games are getting really annoying.”
A siren blared off of Monroe Street. I swore I could hear Bryn mumbling below, like she had to practice out what she was saying. I peered through the leaves again.
“The truth is, when I’m with you…all the thoughts go out of my head. I’m insecure. And what?”
“What do you mean, what?” I asked.
“And stupid. I’m stupid.”
I heard her mumble, “Why am I saying I’m stupid?”
“What?” I asked. I leaned forward. There was a rush of traffic on the street behind my house. A light must have turned green. Someone needed a new muffler.
“When you really look at me,” she continued, “when you really see me? I want to hide. I want to run away…”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I’m scared.”
I stopped strumming and scooted my stool back against the wood porch. I stood up. It was the moment of truth.
“What are you scared of?” I asked.
A whisper came down from the ground. It sounded like my thoughts.
Bryn turned to me and shouted, “I’m scared of robots, Emmett. Robots!”
“What?” I asked.
“I’m scared of thoughts!” Bryn said again. “Thoughts. I have too much to lose,” she cried out.
I folded my arms over my chest. “So, why can you suddenly talk about this now?” I asked.
Bryn backed away toward the side of the house. I heard an audible “Oof!” like she fell over.
“Bryn?” I asked. I moved closer to the edge of the railing. “What’s wrong with you?” What the hell was she doing?
A few seconds later, Bryn moved to the stoop directly below the balcony. A gray sweatshirt hood concealed her hair and face. The leaves concealed the rest. She cleared her throat.
“I’m fine. I was stammering because…because honest words are harder to say. They carry too much weight.”
“You sound weird,” I said. It was like her voice turned an octave lower. I tried to see through the leaves, but it was impossible to see her face, just the sweatshirt and jeans. “Why are you hiding?”
“It’s easier to talk like this. I can’t do this while you’re looking at me.”
I smirked. “More of that eyes closed crap?” I said.
“I mean every word I’m saying to you right now,” she told me. Her voice was edged in confidence. Her words were more assertive than normal.
“All of a sudden you can talk, without stumbling over yourself?” I said.
“The dark makes me brave. Or maybe it’s knowing if I’m not honest I’ll lose my chance with you.”
I blew out a long sigh. “I just want you to be yourself around me,” I said. “That’s it. I feel like you’re always holding back.”
She opened up her arms, helplessly.
“I’ve just had some bad experiences,” she said. “I’ve felt devalued around a lot of guys, no more than the sum of my parts. As if no one can ever see beyond what I look like. It’s made me skeptical of relationships. I assume men are shallow and would never want me for what’s inside. Underneath the…surface. I keep that part of me unavailable. I’m sorry. This is how I’ve been for a long time. I can’t just change over one date.”
I shook my head with disbelief. “Bryn, what kind of people were you dating for God’s sake?”
“I just need you to understand. I’ve never had anything deep with anyone. I never dreamed I would meet someone who wanted my mind and heart the way you do.”
Her voice was starting to shake like she was holding back tears. It was like she was opening up the pages of her heart and reading out loud. This was the Bryn I wanted. The anger in my chest started to dissolve.
She took a steadying breath.
“You really see me,” she said. “More than just…my face. I think you’re the first one since…since forever. Right now that’s too much for me. I try to say things right. I try to think of the right words, but I can’t think when I’m so exposed. I need to hide behind a laptop screen or a phone. Inside I’m a wreck. I’m this vulnerable mess trapped inside a tough shell. I want to break it down, but I need time.”
“You think you’re too messed up to make this work?” I asked. Her answer dangled in the darkness between us. Suddenly, I wanted to try.
“If I fall in love with you it won’t be in a normal way.” She laughed but it came out as more of a cry. “It won’t be pretty. It’s going to be awkward and uneven and a little backwards. I can’t do normal. I haven’t had a normal experience. But I can’t leave it like this. I can’t lose the best thing I’ve ever discovered.”
It started to rain. She stood beneath the portico, without pride, rain splashing at her feet. I waited in the balance of her words and I could feel my heart sway toward her. She won.
“What do you want to do now?” I asked. All the anger in my voice had faded away.
“Make out with you!” she screamed. Her voice was higher now. It sounded shrill. I wrapped my fingers around the balcony railing.
“Come up here,” I said.
My words floated down out of the darkness and rain.
…
CeCe
His words hit me through the cold rain. I stood below his porch, wearing Bryn’s gray sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over my face and hair.
“What?” I stammered.
It worked?
“I want to see you,” he said. “Right now.”
I was almost to the balcony gate when a fierce grab yanked me back beneath the tree. Bryn pulled me into a tight hug.
“We did it!” she whispered into my ear, and in doing so, she pulled me back into the reality I had left behind during my confession.
“We did it,” I whispered back. The rain cleared my head and realization began to set in. Holy shit. I did it.
I blinked at Bryn, and up at the steps that I felt I had just claimed access to. Tuba tugged at my arm, trying to remove Bryn’s sweatshirt. I witnessed it all as if peering up through a tunnel, seeing the rest of the night unfold from a place of deep, bitter envy.
By this point I was crying, but Bryn didn’t notice my tears in the rain as she made a dash up the stairs.
Tuba said gently, “Let’s get you to bed. You’re going to feel like shit in the morning.”
“As opposed to how I feel now?” I mumbled.
I turned and followed her home, my feet heavy, and my heart dragging after me.