I WAKE UP to the sound of laughter.
It’s early still, but I know it’s only me and Will in the house. When his crew is on a project, Dad always puts in at least half a day on Saturday, and most of the time, he doesn’t get home until five. Weekends, Mom meets her friend Mindy from work to speed-walk in the park. She talks about all the calories they burn when she gets home and makes sure to mention that afterward she had her omelet made from Egg Beaters, that yellow stuff that comes in a carton and looks like liquid eggs, but isn’t quite.
I smile as I think about Mom and Mindy, pumping their arms and swinging their hips from side to side in the funny way that speed walking requires. All that movement, but they don’t cover much ground. I know she’ll switch to Sundays with Mindy once soccer starts. Hopefully, Dad will finish up this project soon and be able to make some games as well.
Will is glued to the screen of his laptop when I poke my head in the door of his room. He’s sitting at his desk, his back to me and his earbuds in, giggling like a crazy person while he clicks through Facebook pictures. I can see he’s on a video chat with Tyler, who must be cracking him up. I smile and tiptoe sideways around his bed so I can stay out of the camera frame. It is my general rule that I refuse to appear on any camera in any way until I have looked at myself in a mirror. I also want to spook the crap out of my brother. Will likes to sneak up and scare the bejesus out of me. This is payback.
I am stretching out my hands to squeeze his shoulders and shout Boo! when he says something that makes me freeze.
“No way, dude. She’s a six, tops.”
I frown and slowly lower myself onto my knees so I’m below the sight line of the camera, but can still see the screen if I crane my head sideways. Will clicks back and forth between two pictures of a girl named Emily from his class.
“She’s got a mustache, Ty. I swear. That picture has more filters on it than Dooney’s hot tub.”
I see Tyler’s head pop back with a hoot of laughter in the tiny square at the corner of Will’s screen. Will giggles like he used to when we were little and spent Saturday mornings watching SpongeBob in our PJs instead of . . . doing whatever this is.
Tyler says something I can’t hear, and Will acquiesces. “Fine!” he shouts. “I’ll give her a seven, but she is not in the top three.” Will clicks to comment on the picture. He types a 7 then #JVbuccs, then #r&p.
As he moves to post this, I jump up and grab his wrist. “No!”
Will leaps to his feet, screaming. I would say that he yelled, but it was higher pitched than that. Definitely a scream. His headphones rip from his ears, but not fast enough, and the wire pulls his laptop across the desk. It hits his leg, and the padded seat of his rolling chair before bouncing onto the carpet.
“What the hell are you doing?” He’s panting like he just ran a fast mile.
“I might ask the same of you,” I say calmly. “You’re not really about to post a rank on that girl’s Facebook picture are you?”
Will’s gaze darts to his laptop on the floor. He dives for it, but I smack my bare foot on top of it, and slide it toward me. His gangly ninth-grade limbs are longer than mine, but he’s not in full control of them yet—no match for my fast feet and twelve years of soccer drills.
“Watch it!” he yells. “You’re gonna break my computer.”
“I’m gonna break your face if you don’t knock it off.”
“Why do you care?” he huffs. “It’s just a game.”
I cross my arms as my eyes go wide. “Just a game? Putting that number on her Facebook wall so everybody can see it? Are you kidding me?”
“It’s a joke.” Will is pleading now, his eyes downcast.
“No, it’s not It’s somebody’s feelings.”
I flip open his laptop, and the screen blinks to life. The chat window is blank now. Tyler has disappeared back into the ether. He’ll stay there if he knows what’s good for him.
I put the laptop back on his desk. “Look at her,” I command.
Will rolls his eyes and sinks into his chair, his lips a locked vault.
“How would you feel if I ranked you? Or Tyler?” I ask. “What if I put numbers under your pictures and told the whole world that you two aren’t very attractive? Would you like that?”
His silent shrug makes me want to smack him in the back of the head. “Jesus, Will. She’s a human being, not a hashtag. There’s a person involved.” As the word hashtag leaves my lips, the blinking cursor in the comment box catches my eye. I point at #r&p. “What is this? What does it mean?”
Will leans in and looks where I am pointing. “I dunno.”
“Then why are you typing it under this girl’s picture? If you don’t even know what it means?”
He shrugs again. It’s an epidemic with the guys in my world, this shrugging. None of them know. Or want to know. Or maybe they do know and just want me off their backs. “I just saw it on a bunch of tweets about . . .” He doesn’t finish.