The Sky is Everywhere(42)
Author: Jandy Nelson

She looks down at her feet. “I miss her too.” Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to me she might’ve read those books for herself also. But of course. She revered Bailey. I’ve left her to grieve all on her own. I don’t know what to say, so I reach across the bench and hug her. Hard.

A car honks with a bunch of hooting doofuses from Clover High in it. Way to ruin the moment. We disengage, Sarah waving her feminist book at them like a religious zealot – it makes me laugh.

When they pass, she takes another cigarette out of her pack, then gently touches my knee with it. “This Toby thing, I just don’t get it.” She lights the smoke, keeps shaking the match after it’s out, like a metronome. “Were you competitive with Bailey? You guys never seemed like those King Lear type of sisters. I never thought so anyway.”

“No we weren’t. No … but … I don’t know, I ask myself the same thing—”

I’ve crashed head-on into that something Big said last night, that awfully huge something.

“Remember that time we watched the Kentucky Derby?” I ask Sarah, not sure if this will make sense to anyone but me.

She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Yeah, uh, why?”

“Did you notice the racehorses had these companion ponies that didn’t leave their sides?”

“I guess.”

“Well, I think that was us, me and Bails.”

She pauses a minute, exhales a long plume of smoke, before she says, “You were both racehorses, Len.” I can tell she doesn’t believe it though, that she’s just trying to be nice.

I shake my head. “C’mon, be real, I wasn’t. God, no way. I’m not.” And it’s been no one’s doing but my own. Bailey went as crazy as Gram when I quit my lessons.

“Do you want to be?” Sarah asks.

“Maybe,” I say, unable to quite manage a yes.

She smiles, then in silence, we both watch car after car creep along, most of them filled with ridiculously bright rubber river gear: giraffe boats, elephant canoes and the like. Finally she says, “Being a companion pony must suck. Not metaphorically, I mean, you know, if you’re a horse. Think about it. Self-sacrifice twenty-four/seven, no glory, no glamour … they should start a union, have their own Companion Pony Derby.”

“A good new cause for you.”

“No. My new cause is turning St Lennon into a femme fatale.” She smirks. “C’mon, Len, say yes.”

Her C’mon, Len reminds me of Bails, and the next thing I know, I hear myself saying, “Okay, fine.”

“It’ll be subtle, I promise.”

“Your strong-suit.”

She laughs. “Yeah, you’re so screwed.”

It’s a hopeless idea, but I have no other. I have to do something, and Sarah’s right, looking sexy, assuming I can look sexy, can’t hurt, can it? I mean it is true that seduction hardly ever fails in movies, especially French ones. So I defer to Sarah’s expertise, experience, to the concept of jouissance, and Operation Seduction is officially under way.

I have cleavage. Melons. Bazumbas. Bodacious tatas. Handfuls of bosom pouring out of a minuscule black dress that I’m going to wear in broad daylight to band practice. I can’t stop looking down. I’m stacked, a buxom babe. My scrawny self is positively zaftig. How can a bra possibly do this? Note to the physicists: Matter can indeed be created. Not to mention that I’m in platforms, so I look nine feet tall, and my lips are red as pomegranates.

Sarah and I have ducked into a classroom next to the music room.

“Are you sure, Sarah?” I don’t know how I got myself into this ridiculous I Love Lucy episode.

“Never been more sure of anything. No guy will be able to resist you. I’m a little worried Mr James won’t survive it though.”

“All right. Let’s go,” I say.

The way I get down the hallway is to pretend I’m someone else. Someone in a movie, a black-and-white French movie where everyone smokes and is mysterious and alluring. I’m a woman, not a girl, and I’m going to seduce a man. Who am I kidding? I freak out and run back to the classroom. Sarah follows, my bridesmaid.

“Lennie, c’mon.” She’s exasperated.

There it is again, Lennie, c’mon. I try again. This time I think of Bailey, the way she sashayed, making the ground work for her, and I glide effortlessly through the door of the music room.

I notice right away that Joe isn’t there, but there’s still time until rehearsal starts, like fifteen seconds, and he’s always early, but maybe something held him up.

Fourteen seconds: Sarah was right, all the boys are staring at me like I’ve popped out of a centerfold. Rachel almost drops her clarinet.

Thirteen, Twelve, Eleven: Mr James throws his arms up in celebration. “Lennie, you look ravishing!” I make it to my seat.

Ten, Nine: I put my clarinet together but don’t want to get lipstick all over my mouthpiece. I do anyway.

Eight, Seven: tuning.

Six, Five: tuning still.

Four, Three: I turn around. Sarah shakes her head, mouths unfreakingbelievable.

Two, One: the announcement I now am expecting. “Let’s begin class. Sorry to say we’ve lost our only trumpet player for the festival. Joe’s going to perform with his brothers instead. Take out your pencils, I have changes.”

I drop my glamorous head into my hands, hear Rachel say, “I told you he was out of your league, Lennie.”

There once was a girl who found herself dead.
She peered over the ledge of heaven
and saw that back on earth
her sister missed her too much,
was way too sad,
so she crossed some paths
that would not have crossed,
took some moments in her hand
shook them up
and spilled them like dice
over the living world.
It worked.
The boy with the guitar collided
with her sister.
"There you go, Len," she whispered.

"The rest is up to you."

(Found on a folded up flyer on the sidewalk, Main Street)

“May the force be with you,” Sarah says, and sends me on my way, which is up the hill to the Fontaines’ in aforementioned black cocktail dress, platforms and bodacious tatas. The whole way up I repeat a mantra: I am the author of my story and I can tell it any way I want. I am a solo artist. I am a racehorse. Yes, this puts me into the major freaker category of human, but it does the trick and gets me up the hill, because fifteen minutes later I am looking up at Maison Fontaine, the dry summer grass crackling all around me, humming with hidden insects, which reminds me: how in the world does Rachel know what happened with Joe?