Ailey was my BFF K thru eight, but we drifted freshman year when we came to Park Prep. Or, skip the sugarcoating? I drifted. Ever since, Ailey and I had swum in entirely different circles. Her, quite literally, as swim-team captain and all-around likable jock. Since she still cropped up in my feeds, I knew she went to perfectly adequate parties, was now the aforementioned Ellie Cyr’s bestie, and did plenty of the enviable cultural stuff that is the hallmark of any NYC teen’s life.
And that was all great until, in a weird turn of events, Audra deemed Ailey “cute” this, our senior, year. They’d only been in the same classes for three years prior, but then they found themselves the lone two seniors in the Japanese Life, Art, and Love elective, and suddenly my new best friend was talking my old best friend up to me as if she were Brooklyn real estate at the turn of the century and I’d passed on the chance to buy her.
Whenever they saw each other, to the exclusion of everyone else—namely me—they embraced in, I kid you not, a full-minute-long hug. I pretended absorption in Sharma’s zombie-dedicated screen until it was over and Ailey was back on her way.
And then my Doc chirped a familiar tone and I didn’t give a swipe about any of it. Not the creepy txts or my lateness or the fact that I lived in a constant state of stress over my bestie’s mood while she merged new, apparently more fulfilling, friendships in maddeningly adorable Japanese. My heart skipped in my chest.
Mac.
mac Boys’ room. Now, betch.
I snorted.
“Toodles, lovelies,” I said as my battery light went from yellow to red. “Ran so seven and a half minutes late this morning, didn’t have time for a proper pee.”
“I-C-K.” Sharma crinkled her nose.
“Sharma,” Fawn said, and tsked. “Pee is natural.”
“Boo!” Audra called after me. “We aren’t going up together?”
“Audy, I’ll see you in two minutes.”
“But how am I supposed to survive in the meantime?”
Just like that, all was right with the world again. Tossing me a coquettish wink, Audra linked arms with Fawn and Sharma. I blew them a kiss. And even though my favorite part of the morning was almost there—Mac time—I paused to watch my vivacious girls climb the stairs. We only had six more months together, and then it would be separate schools, states, social calendars, lives. This time was precious. Precious and finite, because more than ever, right at that moment, I had the worst feeling it was all about to go away.
And what do you know? Like always, I was right.
I barged into the bathroom, very Audra at a sample sale: What I want is in this room and I will have it. A freshman was picking at his face in one of the mirrors.
“Out,” I said.
“Oh gawd, I’m sorry.”
The boy bumped into the sink, dropped his Doc, fumbled to pick it up, then fled. I laughed, not so much at his freshie antics, but because there at the end of the row of sinks, also laughing at them, was the latest, yet most indispensable, addition to my life.
Mac.
“Did you just kick a boy out of the boys’ bathroom?” Mac arched the eyebrow of ruin. “That’s a pretty boss move even for you, Ms. Cheng.”
Utilizing my best impersonation of Mac’s strut and light Chicano accent, I said, “You’re, like, not the boss unless you make people work for you, you know?”
As much as I would miss the girls in the fall, I couldn’t even grapple with not being around Mac. But he’d accepted early admission into NYU, and my top five schools were out of state.
“All right, my little Szechuan baguette.” Mac snorted. “Let’s promise you’ll never do that impression again. I just heard my primos cringe all the way from Sunset Park.”
“Wouldn’t want you to lose further cousin cred. Maybe I should stop meeting you in the little boys’ room altogether.”
His eyes widened in mock horror. “No, don’t do it.”
Grinning again, Mac wrapped me in a one-armed hug. As the full length of half our bodies pressed together, my brain made analogies. Hugging Mac was like crawling into a lifeboat after a day lost at sea. It was more invigorating than a pot of Dad’s Chemex. It was like setting foot on Mars after decades spent traveling through space. His soft, wild curls brushed my cheek. For the nine thousandth time, I was floored by how beautiful he was.
Bachata beats sounded tinnily from his EarRing. As averse as Mac was to tech dependency, he proceeded through life accompanied by an endless playlist. During school that meant caving and trading in his enormous old-skool headphones for the nearly invisible slim ear cuff that everyone else permanently wore.
He started to dance me side to side in a bachata two-step, singing under his breath. My EarRing’s Translate whispered the lyrics in English: “Time passes and passes, and I keep wanting you in my arms….”
I gently disentangled myself.
Before letting me go, Mac placed his lips lightly against my cheek. Just as I was about to utter my regular, discouraging “Mac,” he blew air so it made a loud farting sound. Then he cranked the volume on his Doc, did a fancy little bachata spin, and elbowed the wall-mounted paper towel holder. It popped open, revealing a jar of hair product. As he felt for his comb, hidden on the high ledge by the bathroom windows, I hopped up onto the garbage can. He said he didn’t slick his hair back until school because he was barely on time as it was, forget grooming. But he knew I liked seeing his curls crazy.
In the mirror his eyes flicked to me because whenever we were in the same space that was what our eyes tended to do. I could still feel the press of his lips on my cheek.
“Bow tie, huh?” he said. “Am I gonna get squirted with water if I get too close?”
“Um, it’s called fashion? What’s that look? Flannel shirt layered under a tee? It’s so retro it’s already been out twice.”
“Nah, I’m all the rage. Bra&Panties told me so.”
“Ew.” My fingers paused over my Doc, mid-Quip. “What were you doing on the B&P slut’s feed?”
“Audra sent me a link.”
“She did?”
“Yeah, they did a year-end music wrap-up that she thought I’d like.”
“Oh. That was nice of her.”
This past summer, a Brooklyn teen got e-famous for streaming half-naked pics with the username Bra&Panties. When she launched her site in the spring she wasn’t any different from all the other slutty girls who posted trying-to-look-alluring, boobs-pushed-together pics online. Then the B&P chick did a post about those girls and all the reasons they were degrading themselves. She harped on them for showing their faces. She never showed hers.
Let’s celebrate and adore ourselves but not confuse our bodies with our identities. Screw boys. Let’s be sexy for ourselves.
“A teenager wrote that?” Mom asked when I showed her the feed. “Sounds like a marketing firm.”
In June the B&P slut (my name for her) got mentioned on bigger media channels and even NYMag. Next click, she had a full-on designed website, her pics looked Vogue-worthy, and she was giving fashion and dining-out advice. Nowadays her skimpy outfits were regularly “brought to us by” the next-big-deal fashion designers, and she ran a column on new products she called Die-For-Worthy.
Girl was making bank.
Since day one, my girls were obsessed with her.
Me?