THE FEELS OF LOVE
A senior thinks you’re cute, Beth Diaz whispers in your ear. These are the most amazing words you’ve ever heard come out of her mouth. There is you, and then there are high school seniors—seventeen-, eighteen-year-olds, with cars and sound systems, no uniforms on Fridays because they’re now exempt. You ask, Who? Who?, your abdomen burning up with this news, and she whispers again, Shhhh, it’s Chad—that’s who, because her friend’s brother’s cousin’s babysitter said so. Something like that, but it doesn’t matter to you. A senior thinks you’re cute.
And who are you? You are still a middle schooler, twelve years old, almost thirteen. You have two friends, four horses, a new splatter of acne across your forehead; you don’t even wear a bra yet. Lately, you are known as Queera or Twinky Chinky. But now, everything is different—everything will change, you’re sure—a senior thinks you’re cute.
Here’s what you do when you come home from school: Find Chad in last year’s yearbook. Call Clarissa and Beth on three-way to tell them you found him: Look, page forty-nine. Those lips! they both say, and you agree. You have never seen anyone more beautiful than Chad. His eyes are squinty and green, like the deep end of a lake, his black hair spiked. The yearbook shows him laughing with a group of friends, sprawled out on a school picnic table in the sun. They look so much like adults you can’t even believe it.
He’s going to instant message you tonight, says Beth. I gave my friend’s brother’s cousin’s babysitter your screen name to give to him. You all scream into the phone. You scream a scream that brings your father into the room, soggy from a nap, yelling. The fuck is happening? You jacking up my phone bill? He closes the door before you can answer.
Here’s the thing about America Online, about the instant messaging: you can be anyone—Dominique Moceanu, Britney Spears’s cousin, a milkmaid from Mississippi, a criminal—anyone but yourself. Recently, the jealous ex-boyfriend of a popular girl from school—such a creeper—uploaded some photos of her onto an AOL homepage. They show the girl lying on her stomach, on a bed, her pink thong blooming. Slats of light curve over her body from the bent window blinds. She wears dark-blue eye shadow; her hair is in a white-blonde ponytail; her pointer finger is in her mouth. You and Clarissa have been sending these photos to the anonymous men you meet online, in chatrooms, and they’re all crazy about this so-called Ashley Flowers, a tenth grader in downtown Miami. They send erotic poems, photos of the stirring bulges in their pants, hyphen roses that blossom into @ symbols. One man named Richard sends a blurry photo of his cock next to a Coke can, for scale. In the dark, with your face inches from the screen, you feel like each one of these men might love you.
On the news, JonBenét Ramsey does a dance. Her case is still open, years later, and everyone still cares. You watch her stamped-on face, clickety-clack cowboy boots, the tulle, her curls of shredded heaven. You strap on your headgear, hook the elastic behind your big ears. One has to be so beautiful to be chosen like that, you think. Only beautiful girls are taken. Angelic, white girls. Adored and obsessed over. Too good for this Earth. Your parents sip their seltzers, hold hands, and say, Such a damn shame. So cute, she was.
It is important to this story to know that Beth is beautiful. Beth is Latina, whip-smart, a salsa dancer, the first poet you’ve ever met. But most important, she is beautiful. She is almost one full year older, the oldest of the seventh graders, while you are the youngest. She has always been kind to you and Clarissa, and you’re both as jealous as you are grateful. Beth has friends, admiring teachers, and parents. Most of all, she has boys. You and Clarissa watch it happen in the hallways at school—a boy’s arms wrapped around her, his little metal mouth going in for a kiss. I put lotion on as soon as I get out of the shower, Beth says. In every place. The best way in is smelling good. The next day, you and Clarissa go to the mall and buy the same Juniper Breeze lotion as Beth. You smudge it on your wrists, rub it through your hair to grease down the flyaways; you slick it between your legs even though it stings there. One weekend, Beth offers to do your makeup like her own. You and Clarissa sit still as figurines while Beth paints on the glitter powders, the goopy gloss. She traces black lines around your eyes and inside the rims of your eyelids. You can tell she cares, that she wants you to feel more sophisticated, older. When she is this close to your face, you almost kiss her.
Chad does instant message you. Every night, in fact, like clockwork.
Hey Cherry Top, he says, because seventh grade is the grade you dyed your hair Mars red, to offset the braces.
Hey you is what you always say. You sounds adult, closer than friends.
I think ur so cute, he says. The first thing I noticed about you was ur red hair. Very punk! I luv it.
Cute? ROFLMAO. Look who’s talking lol, you say.
You gnaw at your cuticles and wait for him to respond, for the bloop sound of his messages.
You have abandoned all your other chatroom boyfriends. Ashley Flowers is DEAD, you tell the men. This is her mother speaking and she is gone! My sadness is uncontrollable! I can’t bear it!
She was murdered, she had leukemia but didn’t want to tell you, she slipped on a ski slope in Lake Tahoe—such a tragic vacation! It changes every day. You and Clarissa receive wonderful e-mails from Ashley’s suitors—how much she meant to them, how she was the bright light of their days, how they’ve written ballads in her honor, how they would each marry her, they would. Clarissa takes on the role of Ashley’s grieving best friend so she can continue chatting with those who show the most sensitivity.
But you don’t need any of them anymore. All you need is Chad, a person in the real world, a real man who drives a real car. Chad, who knows what you look like, who noticed you, who even knows your school schedule and where you take your study hall. You and Chad chat all night about your favorite movies and Bill Clinton and the science teacher you’ve both had. I think she might be an actual LESBO, you say, and he agrees, SUCH a dyke LOL.
I think U might be the only person to understand me, you say.
Same here! says Chad.
Why aren’t we real friends @ school then? U dun even say hi.
People would judge lol. They wouldn’t understand us.
I guess.
Baby just consider us special friends, he says. Our own little secret.
Baby. You repeat the word aloud to yourself, read and reread it on your screen to be sure. Your heart thumps between your legs. Baby.
Secrets can b the most fun, he says.
Fifteen years later, you are twenty-seven years old, and your father has just died. You’re in an isolated artist colony in New Hampshire in the frozen snap of winter, here to finish another project you have failed to finish, and you sob yourself to sleep every night thinking about how much you miss your father—his big sweeping arms, your smallness. You go so long without talking to other people that you begin having conversations with a rocking chair, convinced the chair is haunted by your father. He rocks it sometimes, on his own, and you try to decipher the code. While browsing through old e-mails one night, you find a message in your spam box.
It’s Chad.
It’s dated one year ago, almost to the day.
It says, I need you to forgive me for the things that have happened. It is my one wish.
You recognize this message. You have received similar messages from him over the years—delete, block, vomit, repeat. Each time you block one, Chad creates a new account and name, sends another.