“I want to be a music producer,” Ted says easily, like this career is not incredibly competitive and is instead equivalent to wanting pizza for dinner. “I make a lot of beats on my computer,” he elaborates. It’s a testament to his attractiveness this isn’t a turnoff. But I look from him to Mara, both hanging out in my parents’ kitchen, nowhere near pursuing the plans they each said. They’re functionally no different from Jamie, who doesn’t even have a plan.
Except Jamie did. She had a life. And now it’s gone, like it never existed.
While I grab a soda from the fridge, Mara says she wants to see the garage to figure out where her drums will fit. Jamie offers to show her, and they walk out of the kitchen, leaving Ted and me alone.
I decide to capitalize on the opportunity. While I’m really not interested in the band, I’m definitely interested in Ted. I lean casually on the counter near where he’s seated. Meeting my gaze, his green eyes leap out from his chiseled features. “What’s your band going to be called?” I ask.
“Oh man.” He rubs the stubble on his chin. “Such a good question. It’s got to be genuine and memorable, you know? I was thinking Get Us Out of Our Moms’ Houses.”
He flashes me a grin, which, obviously, I return, my eyes straying to the sliver of his chest exposed under the open top button of his Henley. “I think the Beatles were originally called that.”
He laughs. “It’s just a bit wordy. Or, you know, I’ve always wanted a band with my name in it. Like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Fleetwood Mac, Florence and the Machine.”
“The Jonas Brothers.”
“Exactly,” he says smoothly, and now I laugh. It’s really nice. His eyes sparkle, and I lean in a little closer over the countertop. This conversation’s just fun, even flirtatious, not defensive or argumentative.
“You could be Ted and the Rough Riders?” I suggest.
His face clouds with confusion. Instantly, I’m mortified. If he doesn’t get the reference, “Rough Riders” sounds like a definitely unintended innuendo.
“You know, Teddy Roosevelt?” I rush to clarify. It doesn’t help. He’s watching me, half frowning in puzzlement. “The Rough Riders? Theodore Roosevelt’s cavalry unit in the Spanish–American War?”
He finally nods, but in the slow, lost way of students not following a complicated lecture. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “He was president, right?”
It’s instantaneous. The moment the question passes his lips, I feel like I’m looking at a different person. A way less attractive person. New details come into focus—the stain on his collar, his unwashed hair, the seed stuck in his upper teeth. It’s like the weird experience of meeting someone you’ve only ever seen in pictures, and the lighting’s off, and their features seem subtly out of place. I’m left with nothing except wishing I’d escaped up the stairs when I got home.
“Yeah. He was.” I straighten up from the counter. “Speaking of which, I need to do my government homework.”
“Homework? For real?” He laughs like I’ve just successfully told a joke. “You know homework isn’t actually important, though. Like, the real world has nothing to do with that stuff.”
Now I’m extremely ready to be done with this conversation. Obviously, Ted isn’t the brightest, but his dismissal irks me. “I enjoy homework. Nice meeting you, Ted,” I say over my shoulder.
“Oh. Yeah, you too,” Ted says.
I head upstairs, closing my door when I’m inside my room. My whiteboard looms over me on the wall, reminding me of the work I have to do. When I try to focus, though, I realize I’m too worked up to get anything done. I’m not used to the combustible mixture of emotions distracting me. Lingering malaise from the charged moment with Ethan. Embarrassment, not to mention whiplash, from being very into Ted and then very not into Ted. Disappointment he didn’t turn out to be even idle-crush material.
Needing easy, mindless preoccupation, I open my closet. I have to find a T-shirt to fulfill Ethan’s blitz task. While I’m devoted to maintaining my mature decision not to feed into our rivalry, I refuse to balk on this task. Ethan would never let me. He’d heckle me endlessly for refusing, drawing out his petty victory interminably. It’s better to just get it over with.
While I shuffle through my hangers, I decide I’m grateful I quickly fell out of infatuation with Ted. I don’t need to waste time on errant crushes. I’m just months from being done with high school, moving to college, and starting my adult life. Now, if I could just find this T-shirt, I could be done with Ethan as well.
But when I reach the final hanger in my closet, I realize I don’t have even one T-shirt. I’ve pawed past blouses and cable-knit cardigans, dress pants, and the dusty zip-up jacket from when I toured Harvard last year—nothing. Ethan was right.
Of course he was right. It’s one of his greatest reporting strengths and one of his worst qualities on a list of expansive length. He’s undeniably smart and observant, and he commits every fact and facet to memory. Recognizing this is yet another detail he’s gotten right only makes me angrier.
Ethan would have gotten the Rough Riders reference. He might’ve even laughed.
Imagining him laughing at one of my jokes, I close my closet door with a bang, feeling dangerously on edge for too many reasons to name.
Twenty-Four
WHEN I WALK INTO English, I immediately notice Ethan’s eyes on the beige cardigan I’m wearing fully buttoned up. It’s Monday morning, and he’s no doubt preparing his pithy commentary on me not completing my loser’s task. I file into the front row, sliding into my seat without meeting his gloating gaze.
We’re discussing Macbeth and how the central couple needs each other to precipitate the events of the play. Without the prophecy given to her husband, Lady Macbeth could never have been queen, and without her ruthless ambition, Macbeth never would have been king. I listen and participate, but in the back of my mind, my thoughts are on Ethan. The way they always are. The tireless back-and-forth of our rivalry consumes too much time, too much thought, too much everything. It’s like playing chess while giving a class presentation.
Nevertheless, I’m not going out without the final win. Ethan raises his hand, which is the moment I was waiting for. “You’re presuming the actions of Macbeth and his wife are entirely detrimental to themselves and to Scotland,” Ethan says pompously.
Mr. Pham sighs, no doubt preparing for one of Ethan’s long-winded diatribes. “Enlighten me, Mr. Molloy.”
“It’s indisputable the pair’s plot harms their country and the people close to them,” Ethan goes on evenly, obviously proud of the point and enjoying drawing the explanation out. “But they still achieve a greatness they never would have otherwise. Macbeth could have died in the next battle King Duncan ordered him off to, a glorified foot soldier. Instead, he died king.”