“Nah, just checking out her earrings.”
“She was a little shook. Whatever you did, I don’t think she saw it coming.”
“Oh yeah?”
“But when I tried to talk to her about it, she acted like it was nothing. Like she’s cool with everything, like she’s in complete control. I just never know what to make of any of it. One minute she’s having a nice time, the next she’s saying something insane. A lie for lying’s sake. Like she’s deliberately trying to see how big an idiot I am.”
“A lie like what?”
“She’s just, I dunno, always saying shit, and then if I look at her funny, she says I’m so gullible, like, Who would believe that? Like—here, perfect—yesterday, she started to tell me that one of her roommates in Paris had been fucking murdered last week! And that was one of the reasons she had to get out of town—so she wouldn’t be dragged into talking to the cops and have to spend more time in France. Then when I looked at her all shocked and concerned, she started laughing hysterically, like I was so fucking dumb, how could I believe her? And then she just snaps back to being totally normal.”
“Normal, then, as a baseline of two or three fake names goes, right?” she said.
“Right. Which, to be fair, is maybe more normal than dropping MMA moves on someone,” he said, grinning.
“What can I say—that’s how they teach you to defend when the attacker’s back is to goal,” she said, smiling. “Just checking out her earrings, seeing if she dyes her hair…”
“She’s harmless. Just a little weird sometimes. I can’t crack it.”
“So,” she said, a little drunk still, and desperately wanting to know, “what is it about her, then? I mean: What’s it like with her?”
“What do you mean? You know her.”
“I mean, is it just unadulterated in its greatness?” She watched his face change as he caught on. “Or is she one of those who’s all show until the bedroom and then is actually kinda timid and quiet and sweet and deferential when it all comes down to it? I know girls like that. All this big talk and then a different person once you get her back?”
“Um,” he said, kicking a seedpod. “Not really that one.”
“So she’s into it, she’s loud, she’s what she seems?”
“You’re just gonna keep pushing, huh?”
“Gimme one thing! I’ve always cared more than is polite. But we’re bros now, right?”
He laughed. “I dunno, she…she’s young. It’s not over till she says it’s over. One of those.”
It hit her sharper than she’d anticipated. She’d brought it on herself but hadn’t expected it.
“She really gets to you, huh?” he said.
“I don’t know why,” Whitney said, quickly. “I did it, too. The acting-older thing. The projecting yourself forward a few years in an effort to, I dunno, get there faster. It’s so dumb. She’s just gonna piss some people off along the way, she’s gonna burn bridges. Then she’ll graduate, get a job, get beaten down in some useful ways and probably some ways nobody should. And then she’ll wish she’d just shut her mouth and made some more friends along the way. My boss used to say, ‘I wish somebody had told me when I was your age: These people, they’re going to be in your life forever—on the way up, and again on the way down.’ It’s a long road. Then again, she can probably blow up her life and land on her feet in New York or Paris, or go back to L.A. and settle into whatever. Or better yet: Chicago, with the basketball star of her dreams.”
He chuckled half-heartedly. He was checking over his shoulder to make sure they didn’t get hit by the tram.
“Or,” she continued, wading into the non-reaction, “maybe I don’t know anything about her, or you, for that matter.…We’re all strangers.”
“No, no,” he said. “You’re probably right. I was just thinking about that advice from your boss. Just coming up in an industry or whatever.…I’m basically in the same boat as her, when you think about it. Seven years older, but nothing to show for all this time over here. I’m starting at the bottom again. I’m going home, probably for good. Back in the house.…Have you ever gone back to live at home?”
“Home’s not—I mean, when I left, I really tried to leave. I go back now and again to check the boxes with my folks, make sure people know I’m still alive and that I still like a few of them. I drink beers with my brother and his idiotic girlfriend. But I don’t have a ton that’s left there. The old teammates I do keep up with, they have different things going. Husbands, dogs—fucking babies. I sit through stories about hunting trips. Updates on their yards. Long recaps of the after-work kickball leagues they play in. It’s different than being from a place where people from my work wind up, you know? It’s different for Will, or even how it’ll be for you.”
“The kickball thing, that’s what makes me most nervous. Well, not nervous…” He looked genuinely distraught. “I always pick the wrong word…I just know I’m gonna be playing in that league. Crushing it. Dominating at the park where my brothers and I grew up playing Little League. Then the same bars. Lollapalooza every August.…Honestly, that part—that might be why I was okay ducking that scene back there. I had this sudden feeling of: Am I really doing the same thing I’ve been doing since I was a teenager? Same jersey, even. But then I feel guilty about it, because the thing I’m worried about becoming is the life my brothers and my best buddies are living. It’s not like it’s horrible—it’s my favorite place in the world. But up there, up near the house…I’m gonna get sucked into all that because it’s my world to a T.”
“Who would’ve thunk
