Luella walked back across the park, thinking about what Tiny said. Tomorrow is high school. It’s not going to be like this forever.
If you took away traditions, did life really have no meaning? Were things supposed to stay the same, always? Was she supposed to want them to? Tiny clearly did, but Luella wasn’t so sure. She was excited about making way for the new. She was ready to let go of some things from the past.
Suddenly, the way one memory will sometimes flash at you while you’re trying to remember something else, a scene from finals week popped into Luella’s head.
She and Tiny had been sitting cross-legged in the fifth-floor hallway, their backs up against the lockers, working through some geometry study sheets.
“I don’t get this,” Tiny muttered, frustrated.
“Oh, hey,” Luella said. “So, my dad is leaving.”
Tiny didn’t look up. “Where’s he going?” she asked, erasing something and then blowing away the eraser shavings. “Somewhere on business? Anywhere cool? You should get him to take you.”
“Actually,” Luella said, “he’s just leaving.” Tiny stopped scribbling and looked at Luella. Luella nibbled on her lip but didn’t look up from her homework. “He’s leaving us.”
“Like, moving out?” Tiny said quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Oh my god, Luella.” She put her arm around Luella’s skinny shoulders, but Luella pulled away.
“No, whatever, it’s cool,” she said. “It’s fine. He’s probably taking all the dude stuff, so Mom and I are, like, excited to redecorate, and—”
“Luella,” Tiny interrupted. “How could it be cool?”
“It just is,” Luella said, looking past Tiny’s shoulder down the hall, as if someone more interesting were walking up.
“Luella, how can it be? Your dad’s leaving. It’s, like, anything but!”
“Tiny,” Luella said sharply, suddenly, turning back and focusing her green eyes on Tiny. “It just is.”
“But—”
“Because if it weren’t, things would be so, so, so the opposite of cool. So it has to be cool. Okay? It has to be.” Tiny was looking at her like she wanted to say more, so Luella cut her off before she could. “Geometry is so fucked up,” she said. “How is this going to be remotely useful in my life? Why don’t they teach us anything useful here! What about some real-life skills for a change!” She threw her notebook across the hall, where it slammed into the row of lockers, and a few people turned to look at the noise. Then Luella got up, picked up the notebook, shoved it into her backpack, and stalked off down the hall without saying good-bye.
* * *
Luella didn’t know why she was thinking about it now, as she walked back across the park on this last day of summer. A lot had already been changing this summer for Luella. Things had been happening that she didn’t tell Tiny about. It’s not that she didn’t trust her best friend. It’s more that she didn’t know how to put them into words. Tiny was a words person. She valued strong communications skills.
Luella was not especially strong at communicating. Or so her mother told her all the time.
She’d lied to Tiny. She did have a secret.
She kept it inside of her for now.
It had started like this.
Back at the beginning of the summer, Luella had been standing outside the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College trying to get cell reception on her phone after her summer acting class, when some boys in glasses walked past her.
“Keebler?” She looked up, then immediately kicked herself for responding to that stupid nickname. Will had peeled off from the group and was walking toward her, grinning.
“Hey, Will.”
“I knew that name would catch on,” he said. “How could it not?”
“Beats me,” said Luella. “It’s so flattering and complimentary.”
“Whatcha doing? Are you done pretending to be someone else for the day?”
“Hmm? Oh yeah. Acting class just finished. I gotta go somewhere and memorize these.” She held up a stack of pages. “I’m auditioning for the summer play.”
“What play?”
“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. You know it?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
Will shuffled his feet.
“Do you, like, play the cat?”
Luella squinted at him. “No.”
“Oh.”
There was a pause that lasted a few seconds too long. Will pushed his glasses up on his nose.
“Hey,” he said. “I have some homework and stuff too. Want to join forces and do our work together? I know somewhere quiet.”
Luella didn’t say anything right away. She and Will had been friends since they were kids, but they usually hung out in a group with Tiny and Nathaniel. They had never hung out one-on-one before. Will blinked, waiting for an answer.
“Look, if you don’t—I mean, if you’re busy, it’s—”
“Okay,” Luella said. She slipped her phone into the pocket of her bag.
“Really?” Will beamed.
“You don’t have to throw a parade or anything. It’s just homework.”
“Surly,” Will said, then turned and began walking. Luella stepped out into the glaring sun and walked quickly to catch up to him. She held her arm in front of her eyes.
“Here.” Will handed her a pair of knockoff Ray-Ban Wayfarers.
“Did you get these at Rachel’s Rockin’ Eighties Bat Mitzvah?” Luella said dubiously, looking at the writing on the sides.
“You should know,” Will said. “You were there, remember? Look, is the sun in your eyes or what? Just put them on, you vampire.”
Luella put them on. “They’re huge on me.”
“They’re fine.”
“I feel stupid.”
“You look cute.” Luella stopped in her tracks, but Will kept walking on ahead. “Come on, Keebler! Time waits for no man. Or elf.” She felt her cheeks turn pink, and hoped the sunglasses were big enough to hide it. She hurried to catch up, muttering under her breath.
“You know,” said Will, “maybe if you got more vitamin D, you wouldn’t be so mean.”
“If I were being mean, you’d know it.”
“Fine, then maybe you’d have a boyfriend.”
“Ew, that is a totally sexist thing to say. Like having a boyfriend is the pinnacle of accomplishment? The bar to which we all must strive? Listen, Kingfield. I’m going to win an Oscar one day. And a Golden Globe. And the goddamn Nobel Prize for drama. And you”—Luella paused to breathe—“will be begging to accompany me down the red carpet.” Will held up his hands in surrender and kept walking.
They took the bus across the park at Sixty-Sixth Street, and then walked up Central Park West. Luella had to admit that it helped to have the sunglasses, but she wasn’t about to say anything. Will was wearing cargo shorts and a baggy T-shirt with a linocut of some guy’s face on the front.
“Weird shirt,” said Luella. “Who is that?”
“Who is that? Do you seriously not know who Bill Murray is?” Will looked aghast.
Luella shrugged. “No.”
“Oh my god,” Will said, slapping his forehead. “Oh my god. Saturday Night Live? Groundhog Day? Ghostbusters?” Luella shook her head. “Just . . . watch Caddyshack, please. Please just watch it. It is one of the greatest films of all time.”
“Wait,” Luella said. “Was he the old guy in Lost in Translation? I love that movie.”
“I’m going to cry,” said Will. “You are such a girl.” Luella stopped and stared at him, her mouth gaping.
“That’s not an insult, Will!”
“Catch up, Keebler,” he said, smiling. “We’re here.”
Luella looked up and realized they were standing in front of the Museum of Natural History.
“The museum?” Luella asked.
“It’s my secret study place. Come on.”
They sat in a corner of the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. Growing up, Luella had always been secretly afraid of this room. There was a humongous to-scale model of a blue whale suspended from the ceiling, and she was always afraid that if she walked under it, the giant thing would fall and crush her. Usually, she had never gotten farther than the fake firefly display outside. It was a favorite spot for her and her dad, but even her dad knew never to try to force Luella into the whale room.
But she didn’t mention any of this to Will. He looked so sure of himself as he breezed past the fireflies and into the massive hall. She closed her eyes when she saw the whale, but she didn’t want Will to think she was some kind of wimp. She insisted they walk about the edges of the room instead, so that they didn’t have to walk directly underneath it.
They made their way past the life-size dioramas of dolphins and sea lions, manatees and jellyfish and octopi, suspended in fake time in the fake ocean, until they found a dark corner of the room where the whale probably wouldn’t fall on them. They sat down.
“This should appeal to your vampire nature,” said Will. “Nice and dark. You can give the glasses back now.”
“Shut up.” But she handed them over.
They sat in silence, except for the sounds of Will typing away on his calculator, and Luella muttering words out loud every now and then.
Will looked up.
“Is there even a cat in that play at all?”
Luella rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you ever heard of a metaphor?”
“I think they should call it something else. That title is so misleading.”
“I’ll e-mail Tennessee Williams and tell him you think so.”
“What kind of a name is Tennessee?”
“What is your obsession with names?”
Will seemed to consider this. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Maybe because Will is so boring?”
Luella reached into her bag. “Here,” she said, shoving something into his chest. “You need to read more books. Broaden your mind. Try this one.”
“Hedda Gabler? What the hell kind of a—”
Luella clamped her hand over his mouth.
“No,” she said. “Do not make fun of Hedda. Hedda is a brilliant feminist play that was way ahead of its time.”
“Yay,” said Will. “Sounds fun.”
“Just read it.”
He read the back cover, then looked at her. “I think I’ll just get back to my problem set.”
“Wuss.”
“Unless you want to switch?”
“What’s wrong with the name Will?” Luella said suddenly. “Don’t you like it?”
“Is it a big deal if I don’t?”
“Well, yeah,” Luella said. “It’s yours.”
“So? Do you like your name?”
“Luella? I don’t know. It doesn’t feel very me. I think I sound like a debutante.”
“It’s unique. Let’s look up what it means.” Will pulled up a name meanings website on his phone. “Oh. No. Way.”
“What?” Luella cried. “Let me see!”
“No.” Will held the phone away from her.
“Why not? Let me see!”
“I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Luella pounced on him and tickled him.
“Stop. That’s not nice.”
“Let me see what my name means!”
“Fine. Fine. Stop tickling me!”
Luella grabbed the phone from him. She smiled.
“Renowned warrior.”
“I told you.” Will snatched his phone back.
“That is the most badass name ever!” Luella put her hands on her hips. “Renowned warrior.”
“I had a feeling you would like it,” Will said, rolling his eyes.
Luella was floored. She always thought Luella was some family name she didn’t really feel any connection to. Her grandma was Luella—not her. But renowned warrior. Luella liked the sound of that.
She was. She would be. She’d get through this stuff with her parents. She had to.
“Will,” she said, “there are maybe a handful of things in this world that are truly yours, and your name is one of them. You have to, like, own it. Besides, you should feel comfortable being yourself.”
“Do you feel comfortable being yourself?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Well, I think that’s bullshit advice,” Will said, picking Hedda Gabler back up and paging through it. “Who wants to be themselves? No one I know.”
* * *
Luella was smiling just thinking about it.
On the west side of the park, she passed two kids, a guy and a girl who were both kind of hipster and did theater at her school, as they performed a scene on the street from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. On her corner, she stopped to get a dark roast French press from her favorite coffee shop. (She’d gotten into dark roast French press last year, and loved how mature and sophisticated it made her feel to drink coffee out of a white paper to-go cup while walking down the street in sunglasses, like an actress in Us Weekly.)
The moving van was just pulling away when she made it to the front of her building, a five-floor brick walk-up with a front door that was painted a crisp white.
Inside, their apartment looked like it had been robbed. Half their stuff was gone. Everything that was left belonged to either Luella or her mom. It was a lot of plants and floor poufs. Her dad’s stuff was gone. Vanished, like some sick magic trick.
On the coffee table there was a note. Luella wasn’t in the mood to read it.
She texted Will, and went to meet up with him instead.