First, Last, and Always Page 3

  The rest of class is spent in a stupor. Holding in my breath is depleting the oxygen to my brain, which is making me dizzy and giving me a headache. What feels like hours later, a ringing alarm goes off over the loudspeaker. I’ve never been more relieved to hear the sound of the class bell. It’s mass exodus as usual. Everyone jumps out of their seats and bolts for the door. When Grayson stands and turns away from me, I exhale fully for the first time in forty minutes. Leaning over, I grab my bag by my feet, stand up, and—

  “Hey, I meant to tell you.” Grayson is standing in front of me.

  How did he move so quickly? Deep breath! Suck it in! my brain tells my body.

  “I’m a total fan of Other People’s Heartache,” he says.

  I’m not quite sure how to respond to this. It doesn’t sound like your typical pick-up line. Not that I would know what one sounded like, and not that I honestly believe he is trying to pick me up.

  “Your T-shirt.” he nods. “Bastille. They’re one of my favorite indie rock bands.”

  “Oh.” Right. “Me too.”

  “Bad Blood is great, but Other People’s Heartache is one of my favorite albums. You can’t really get it anymore, but it’s seriously a killer mix.”

  By some miracle, I respond. “I like that one too. I have it.”

  “No way,” he says.

  I nod.

  “I’ve tried to find it everywhere,” he tells me. “It used to be free online, but now I can only find it on SoundCloud and YouTube.”

  “Well.” I shrug. “I can make you a copy if you want?”

  “Are you kidding me? You’d do that?”

  “Yeah.”

  He beams. “You are awesome.”

  That’s a first. Nobody’s ever called me awesome. I blush.

  “I’ll totally owe you one,” he says.

  I wave my hand. “It’s really not a big deal.”

  “No, it totally is.”

  Squeaking out a smile, I glance at my feet.

  “Anyway,” he says, “I gotta get to my next class.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” This isn’t happening. Seriously. I mean, nothing is happening. It’s just not possible. I’m being realistic and reminding myself that I’m not “that girl.” He’s not interested. He doesn’t like me. I shouldn’t get excited.

  “I’ll see you in class tomorrow?”

  “Okay.” With my jaw lax, I stare at his back as he walks away.

  Later—after staring at the clock through three more classes, after listening to Lani complain about six of her seven teachers, and after Miles and I endure the harassing glares of Lenny Grapinski on the school bus—I come home to the sanctity of my bedroom, where I close the door, toss my backpack onto my bed, sit down at my computer, stick in a compact disc, open my music, and click BURN.

  2

  Charlotte

  There comes a time in the life of a teenager when you realize that pretty much everything your parents say or do will most likely embarrass you. Like yelling at you in public in front of other parents and friends, or picking you up at school in their shabby sweatpants and disheveled hair, or pretending to be cool by using words like “rad,” “sweet,” or “whatev.” As teenagers we know they don’t realize what they’re doing, but it’s humiliating nonetheless.

  Today, on the second day of high school, in my bedroom, I am having one of these moments.

  “Mom, the jeans don’t fit.” I hold up the faded denim pants in front of me so that my mom can clearly see the width of the waist is two sizes narrower than my actual body size.

  “I just bought those for you. They have to fit.”

  “They don’t.”

  “I thought you tried them on in the store.”

  “No, I didn’t. You wanted me to get them because they were seventy-five percent off.” My mom, Dee (short for Deena), is a notorious bargain shopper. If it doesn’t come from Costco or Kohl’s and it isn’t discounted on top of the already discounted rate, she doesn’t buy it.

  She waves her hand at me dismissively. “We got them because they were in your size and you said they were supercute.” Actually, she said they were supercute. I would never use the word “supercute.” “Put them on. I want to see.”

  This is the point when I realize it will not matter how they fit. Not only does Mom like to ensure that she’s always right, but she continually dismisses the fact that I’m big. According to her, I’m an average teenage girl who happens to have a little extra meat on her bones. “Curves are flattering,” she likes to tell me. She needs glasses. I’ve been big my whole life. Not obese or anything, but it’s hard not to consider myself anything other than that when most of the girls in school are a size zero and I’m a size eight.

  “Mom, they’re way too tight.”

  “They’re jeans. They’re supposed to be snug on the curves.” When I don’t make a move, Mom purses her lips and glares at me with the intensity of an agitated wild animal. It’s a look she’s perfected over the years. “Don’t make this difficult, Charlotte. Please try them on. I’d like to see for myself.” She says this as if I couldn’t possibly know whether an article of clothing will fit me correctly.

  Grunting, I slide my pajama pants off and pull the jeans over one leg and then the other. By the time I make it halfway up my thighs, the material is tight and clinging to my skin. I pull harder. When I reach the point just below my hips, there is nowhere else to go. I can’t fasten them, and the elasticity in the material is at capacity. They’re stuck. Mom, however, does not seem to see this.

  “Oh, they fit you fine. You look superfly.” She smiles and gives me a thumbs-up.

  Superfly? Oh, Lord. In an effort to convince me how cool she is, my mother has turned into a blind, soul-talkin’ black man from the seventies. “Mom, my underwear is showing.”

  Walking over, she grabs the waistline and starts to lift, hiking the pants up my body as if she’s shaking a pillow into a pillowcase. “Just...a little...more...” She’s exerting so much energy trying to fit me into the jeans that she starts to perspire. She’s as desperate for me to fit into them as I am to get out of them. My body jostles from her movements. “Hold up your arms and suck in your stomach. I almost have it,” she says.

  I can’t believe this is happening. I feel like a deformed blowfish that’s ready to explode. As I suck in my stomach and hold my breath, my older sister, Alexa, passes the bedroom door in her bathrobe and towel turban. She’s probably the only person I know who can make terry cloth look fashionable. Alexa’s the anomaly in our family of big-boned, dark-haired Irish meat-and-potato lovers. She’s gorgeous—like, model gorgeous. I’d die for her pencil-thin frame, thick, honey-blond hair, and smooth, flawless skin. I don’t think there’s a freckle or birthmark anywhere on her body, and I doubt she even knows what a zit is.

  “Good God.” She snorts, stopping to peek in. “It’s like you’re trying to fit a watermelon into an ant hole.”

  Mom scowls. “That’s enough out of you,” she scolds, walking over. “Why don’t you finish getting ready for school?” Closing the door on Alexa, she returns to me to resume her tugging.

  Mom doesn’t notice I’m upset. Probably because disparaging comments from Alexa have become regular occurrences in our household. Alexa teases, Mom threatens, and all the while I keep quiet. It’s not easy pretending not to care. Especially when the person who’s making the comments is someone you once considered your closest friend. Those days are long gone. We’re just too different now. I guess we always have been, but growing up seems to make it more noticeable. I can remember when we were kids, parents would say to my mom, “What a beautiful girl, Dee. Alexa’s as perfect as a peony.” When people met me, it was simply, “Oh, my, what a healthy-looking child.”

  With a couple more tugs at my waistline, Mom stands back. There,” she says, letting out a huge sigh, admiring her hard work. Letting my arms fall by my sides, I push out a breath, relieved that it’s over with. As I do, the button on the jeans flies off, r
icocheting against the wall across from me. My reaction is a distorted mix of mortified justification. I so want to say, I told you so.

  Mom curses under her breath: “Dammit.” With another sigh and an apologetic look, she finally relents. “Okay, fine. Take off the jeans. I’ll take them back.”

  Thank God.

  I unzip the pants as fast as I can and twist myself free of the denim vise so I can breathe fresh air. Mom extends her arm for me to drape the pants over them. When I do, she scowls.

  Exiting with jeans and button in hand, Mom closes the door. Once she’s out of the room, I scour my closet for something to wear. My clothes and I conduct a staring contest for what feels like days. How is it that I can have twenty shirts, ten pants, and four skirts, and still feel like there’s never anything to wear?

  Getting more depressed by the second, I settle for a pair of old worn-in jean shorts and a gray T-shirt I wore three days ago that’s sitting on top of my laundry basket. Lifting the shirt to my nose, I smell the pits. Good enough. With the most difficult decision out of the way, I brush my hair, pull it back into a ponytail, slip on a pair of flip-flops, and bound down the stairs.

  Miles

  I dribble right, left, spin, stop, plant my feet, and push. The release is textbook. The ball sails through the air in a perfect arc. My right arm remains extended; the index finger points directly at the rim of the basket. I wait for the sound of the swish, the satisfaction of seeing nothin’ but net. The imaginary crowd hushes around me. All I hear is the steady thumping of my heart. The ball descends, faster, faster, and then...air ball.

  Air ball?

  “You suck, man!”

  I turn my head to look behind me. Two kids wearing backpacks pass by on bikes. They appear to be much younger than me, maybe second or third graders.

  “Give it up, dude!” the one closest shouts, while the other one laughs. They pedal on, their snickers trailing behind. I stare at them, glazed and unemotional on the outside, but on the inside it feels like someone let the air out of my basketball. When the two boys are out of sight, I turn back to the rim of the basket and sigh. I’m not bothered by the fact that two young kids just made fun of me. I’m upset by the fact that they’re right. I’ve been shooting hoops in the driveway outside my house for over an hour and I’ve barely made any shots.

  I don’t get it, I think, scratching my head. How did I miscalculate? For three years now I’ve been trying to come up with the secret to a perfect shot. I’ve studied the form and techniques of the best basketball players in the world: Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James. When they shoot, there’s a calculated rhythm to their form, a repetitive process they seem to be able to mimic every single time, like waves rolling on the ocean or the daily revolution of the earth around the sun—consistent and natural. For some reason, my shots are more like the kind at the doctor’s office—painful and scary.

  The front door of my house opens. Mom steps out on the porch and calls to me, “Miles, what are you doing?”

  “I’m shootin’ hoops,” I respond.

  “I can see that. I guess I’m wondering why you’re out here when you should be in the shower getting ready. It’s seven o’clock. The bus is going to be here in fifteen minutes.”

  “I lost track of time,” I tell her. “I was trying to get in some practice before school.”

  Shaking her head, Mom glances around and notices the basketball at the edge of the porch steps, where it landed after missing the net, bouncing along the pavement, and rolling through a flower bed. Walking over, Mom bends down and picks it up. I hold out my hands so I can catch it when she tosses it to me, but instead of throwing it my way, she juggles the ball in her hand, eyes the hoop of the basket over twelve feet away, then haphazardly tosses the ball into the air with both hands, an underhanded alley-oop that has about as much grace as a drunk dancer. The release is so sloppy the ball looks like a bird trying to fly with one wing. It falls in a zigzag motion—a strange pattern I would never have imagined possible. And then...

  Swish.

  Yes, she did. She made it. The woman who hates sports, who can’t stand when I watch football, who would rather wash dishes than play miniature golf, and has probably never attempted to shoot a basketball ever in her entire life, just shot the ball through the net on her first attempt.

  “Huh,” my mom says, not sounding the least bit excited, “that was kind of fun. Maybe I’ll come out and shoot around with you sometime.”

  My eyes remain fixed on the basket, the image of the floundering basketball replaying over and over again in my mind. I can’t respond. I’m completely dumbfounded.

  “Hurry up,” she says, reminding me of school again before disappearing into the house.

  Charlotte

  Downstairs, Alexa glides into the kitchen as I pour milk into my bowl of Cheerios and sit down on a barstool at the kitchen counter.

  “What happened to the jeans you were trying on?” she wonders.

  “Changed my mind.”

  “Didn’t fit, huh? Starting the freshman fifteen early?”

  It’s her second shot of the day, although I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it anymore. Unconscious verbal jabs and snark seem to fall out of her mouth with carbon dioxide. I look down into my bowl, preferring not to respond even though I want to. For once she picks up on the fact that I’m not laughing. “Oh, come on.” She nudges my arm. “Lighten up. You know I’m joking, right?”

  “You’re telling jokes?” Mom asks, entering the kitchen as she adjusts the back of her earring and fluffs her hair.

  “Charlotte and I were just talking about what a joke those jeans were that you bought her. Did you even look at the size this time, Mom, or did you just see the sale price again?”

  “For your information, the pants were in Charlotte’s size.” Mom will always defend a sale. “They just didn’t fit because Charlotte is retaining a little water.” She looks at me and winks as if she’s just explained away the extra pounds I have on my hips. “That happens when it’s that time of the month.”

  I choke on my cereal. “Mom, did you really have to say that?”

  Alexa chuckles and shakes her head. “Wow, what would you say you’re retaining? Four, maybe five gallons, at least?”

  Delivering a stern look, Mom takes a step forward and points a finger in Alexa’s face. “Alexa, that is hardly funny. Another comment like that out of you and you’ll be making weekend plans in your bedroom.”

  “Geez, I’m sorry,” Alexa responds unconvincingly with a roll of the eyes. “Doesn’t anyone in this house have a sense of humor?” Shaking her head, Alexa leans over, rests her chin in her hands, and closes her eyes.

  Mom glances at the clock. “Shoot, I’m gonna be late.” She’s always running late. She works in the administration office for the school district. She’s at least twenty minutes late four days a week during the school year. With one final look of warning in Alexa’s direction that goes completely unnoticed, she moves briskly across the kitchen, throws her half-eaten plate of toast and empty cup of coffee in the sink, grabs her bag, and races to the door leading out to the garage. As she opens it, she hollers, “I’m sorry I can’t stay around to see you guys head out. Have a great day. I’ll be home early. Your dad will be late.”

  Still ignoring her, Alexa pretends to be asleep sitting up. I give a quick wave good-bye.

  With my parents, opposites definitely attract; while Mom’s late to leave and early to come home, Dad’s early to leave and late to come home. He works as a sales engineer for an industrial manufacturing company that makes high tech medical equipment; big stuff that you see in hospitals. I don’t know what most of it is called, but it’s important stuff (so Dad says). Most mornings we don’t even see him. He’s gone before we get up.

  When the door finally shuts behind Mom, Alexa mumbles into her palm, “Is she gone?”

  “She’s gone,” I confirm.

  With another sigh Alexa lifts her face out o
f her hands, gets off the stool, and walks to the fridge. With her back to me she opens it, grabs a carton of orange juice, twists off the cap, takes a swig, and puts it back. Her movements are nonchalant. “I can’t stand this place sometimes, ya know?”

  My current position is to remain nonresponsive on all subjects Alexa hates. There was a point in time when I actually responded, but then I realized that ninety-five percent of her comments are rhetorical. She doesn’t actually want to hear what I have to say. Ever.

  She continues talking. “So,” she says squinting, giving me a sideways look up and down. “Are you really wearing that to school?”

  I’m in the middle of chewing when she asks. “What’s wrong with it?” I say with a mouth full of cereal.

  The look she returns tells me I should know. “Do you even care what you look like?”

  I look down at my T-shirt and shorts.

  She shakes her head. “Never mind.”

  Granted, I know my sense of fashion isn’t great, but I don’t think I’m a complete slob either. “Is it really that bad?” Isn’t simple best?

  “You’re in high school now.”

  Yep. This is something I am painfully aware of. I wait for the point, which I know will come whether I ask for it or not.

  “When was the last time you had a boyfriend?” Alexa asks, her eyebrows raised, her head tilted, an accusatory tone to her voice.

  This must be a trick question. “Never.” Alexa knows this.