“No, he’s just always been friendly because of our moms.”
“Hang on. That’s what I thought at first. But then I realized that wasn’t it. Then I thought, he likes her, she doesn’t like him, and she thinks she’s being polite by pretending not to notice. Because you totally avoid conflict.”
“No, Maggie, it’s just because I was the first person—”
“Patience, my friend!” She grabs the bottle back from me and finishes the rest. Maggie is on a roll. “I’m only halfway through. Because then I thought, she likes him, but she doesn’t realize he likes her.” I roll my eyes. “But that was wrong, too, because what I now believe is this: He likes her, she likes him, she actually knows it but pretends not to so she can fuck it all up.” She says it like she’s solved the case, but she doesn’t look triumphant. She looks sad. I pick at the fake fur under us. After a minute she says, much more softly, “The part I can’t figure out is why.”
I think of a hundred sarcastic comebacks, but none of them come out. I wait for a long time for her to go on, but she doesn’t. When I look up, she is holding out her arms. It’s probably exactly how I looked at her when her dog got leukemia. Finally, I say, “I really fucked it up.”
And the second the tears start down my cheeks, they are running down hers, too.
And, for the million and first time in my life, I am grateful for Maggie Cleave.
It’s hard to hug somebody in a Lovesac. Mavis takes a sharp elbow to the nipple, and my head bangs into Maggie’s chin. The thing nearly swallows us up. The crying turns to laughing and oofing and more crying. Every time I try to separate us, we either sink deeper together or one of us nearly falls out. But we cling and claw our way back and then there we are, a tangle of legs, arms, and bodies, Maggie’s crossed over mine, and I am breathing normally again.
“You’ve really put a lot of time into this Jackson thing,” I say.
“I know. It’s been pretty exhausting, honestly.”
“You could have just asked me.”
“I tried. Like forty times.”
I know this is true. I have always known this was true. “I don’t know what I would have said anyway.” I look up at the ceiling and try to piece it together in my own mind, what I want, what I don’t want, what I wish for, what I’m scared of. “It’s like the ideal thing for me would be a boyfriend that was super into me, but didn’t actually want to touch me.”
Maggie bursts out laughing. “No, it’s not.”
I pull her leg hairs. Hard. “Don’t laugh at me. I’m trying to be honest.”
“No, you’re not.” I glare at her. “You’re not! Really, Greer? You never think about kissing him? You never imagine running your hand up inside his shirt or kissing his chest or him sliding off those little butt huggers you wear with your volleyball costume? You are honestly telling me that you don’t want Jackson Oates to touch you?”
“Oh god,” I say, ducking my face into both my hands. Have I mentioned that Maggie Cleave can read minds? “No. No, I can’t tell you that. Ugh. I like him, Mags. Really like him. Or I did. Or I do. So, so much. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
I flop forward over her legs, which are over mine, and sit for a minute, Maggie playing with the back of my hair. I assume that she’s going to tell me that it’s simple, because I assume that it’s simple for her. I assume it’s simple for everybody but me.
“I think . . . ” She starts and stops. “It’s like you’ve been trying to live your whole life inside your head. I mean you were always a brainiac, but the last couple of years, it’s been different. Like you know in Futurama how they keep all the famous people’s heads in jars? I could see you being a head in a jar.
“So when you said you were auditioning for volleyball, at first I was, like, How’s that going to work? but once I realized you were serious, I was really excited, especially when I saw you coming out of those rehearsals. Like you were finally going to get outside your jar. You’d be sweaty and exhausted and smell like armpits (no offense), but you were also, I don’t know, kind of relaxed. Loose. Happy? This sounds crazy but the first time I saw you coming from the gym, I thought you had gotten taller. I mean your posture is still terrible (no offense), but I think you actually stand straighter after you play.”
We talk forever, Maggie trying to do a Dutch braid but mostly tying knots in my hair. Not only does Dad not ask me to come paint, he shows up with a tray of drinks from the coffee shop. Hot cocoa for me, a soy mocha latte for Mags. My dad is a good guy, and a good guy knows when what you need is a good girl.
It turns out Maggie doesn’t tell me it’s simple. She tells me it’s hard. It’s hard because she knows who I am. But she also tries to tell me it will get better.
“Forget about Jackson. Think about a mystery man. Imagine that everything is going great, like for some reason you’re not all worked up about your boobs. And then it turns out this guy has this mole.” I glare at her. “Not like a normal mole, though. It’s shaped like a swastika. And he knows you’re half Jewish, so he’s too embarrassed to ever let you see it. He thinks you’re going to freak out. What do you do?”
“I send him to a dermatologist because that sounds like a very irregular mole.”
“Come on, Greer. Do you care about him enough to get past the mole?”
“Are you comparing my boobs to a Nazi mole?”
“I don’t think your boobs are a Nazi mole. I think you think your boobs are a Nazi mole. And by the way, in case you missed it, straight guys usually think big boobs are a positive.”
“They don’t have to play volleyball with them.”
“They wish they could play volleyball with them.”
I pinch her, not hard. “But what’s your point? That I’d still date somebody who had a weird mole? It’s not the same thing, Maggie.”
“I know it’s not the same thing. No one has the same thing. But everybody’s got some thing.”
“I don’t think Nella Woster has any things.”
“I knew you were going to say that. You’re practically in love with that girl.”
“Here’s the problem. What if I didn’t mind the mole. Maybe I’m even turned on by weird moles. But what if he didn’t want me to see it or touch it but it was right in the way of everything, and every time I got close to him he freaked out that I was going to freak out?”
“Okay, let’s say he’s got a really crooked penis.”
“MAGGIE!”