Page 16

NEEDLE AND BONE , or On Losing My Voice

Of course—it wasn’t that easy. Nothing ever is.

I woke on the morning of the Fourth of July with a pit in my stomach. And then I walked into the kitchen, and there was Jess Orlando.

She was a tiny goddess in a sports bra, running shorts, and a backward baseball cap. Her strawberry-blond ponytail was thrown across her shoulder. Ros’s chain glinted at her neck.

“Hey,” she said, and she gave me a big, friendly hug. Her head came up to my shoulder, and next to her, I felt oddly like a giantess—not unlike the ogre she’d clocked that first night we saw her. “Nice to see you again.”

“Hi,” I said, trying not to notice how good Jess smelled—like a redwood forest in human form. “Where’s Ros?”

“They’re grabbing sunscreen from the car.”

“I don’t keep sunscreen in the car,” I said.

“No, my car,” said Jess Orlando. “I always have some in there, just in case. Lovers’ Lagoon is pretty shady, but still, you never know when you’re gonna need it.”

“Prudent,” I said.

“What’s that mean?” she asked.

“Prudent? Like—um. Wise? Showing good judgment?”

“Ros warned me your vocabulary was good.” Jess’s smile was wide and gorgeous, which struck me as highly favorable compared with a big vocabulary. She looked like she’d never had braces, that her teeth had grown straight enough that no one complained. And her smile grew even bigger when Ros walked into the room. “You find it?”

“Right where you said it’d be,” Ros said. “Oh, good—you’ve met.”

“Get my back, Ros?”

Ros obliged, and my stomach turned. It wasn’t the touching that got me. It was the familiarity with each other’s bodies. They couldn’t have been hanging out more than, what—two weeks? How were they already so comfortable putting their hands on each other’s skin?

“So you’re a Jammer!” said Jess, while Ros spread sunscreen all over Jess’s back. Okay—so, fine. We were going to have this conversation now, while this sunscreen situation was happening.

“Um,” I said. “I don’t know if I really identify as a Jammer, but I watch a lot of Power Jam , I guess.”

“Dude, I fucking love that show. Kenna and Louisa? Finally, am I right?”

“Finally,” I agreed. Ros’s hand was moving under Jess’s sports bra. I appreciated their thoroughness—I’d never let them forget the time they’d somehow missed an entire section of my neck and I’d had a sunburn that outlined their fingertips. Sometimes, if I hunted for it in the mirror, I thought you could still see it—evidence both of where they’d touched me and where they’d let me down.

“Celia’s buddy-buddy with Oliver Teller,” Touchstone said, emerging from his nook upstairs and descending the spiral staircase to join us.

“No way!” Jess said. How she was able to have a conversation with me while Ros paid such careful attention to her shoulders was beyond me. “I heard Blade was in town! I was actually waiting outside his window one morning trying to get a glimpse of him, but I think I freaked him out.…”

“We’re not buddy-buddy, ” I said, shooting a glare at Touchstone. “He’s in one of the shows in the festival, and I’m working in costumes. So I’ve just been around him a little bit.”

“They went to the Dropped Acorn,” said Touchstone.

“I love the Dropped Acorn,” said Jess.

“Heard it’s nice,” said Touchstone.

“Touchstone, I’ve both apologized a thousand times and promised you that we’d go to the Dropped Acorn together.”

“I love what they’re doing with his character. On Power Jam , I mean,” said Jess.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s… it’s…”

I could not concentrate. Ros’s hands were on Jess’s low back now. I hung on to the island counter to prevent myself from spinning away.

“Making him human?” Jess offered.

“Yeah,” I said. “Agree.”

Ros handed Jess the sunscreen and turned around. I could not do this. I could not spend all day watching this—watching them , Jess and Ros, be so much more than colleagues.

Unfortunately, I had agreed to drive.

Lovers’ Lagoon was crowded .

“I told you it was going to be a scene,” said Audrey, who we’d picked up on the way there.

Half of Lovesick Falls seemed like they had shown up to celebrate the Fourth of July at the lagoon. We had to park nearly a mile away thanks to the long line of cars that’d pulled over on the side of the road. There were five of us—Touchstone, me, Ros, Jess, and Audrey—but it felt like we had enough stuff for twice that many people: towels and the aforementioned sunscreen and a portable speaker, snacks that Audrey had brought in a big, blocky cooler, which, she said, included homemade limeade and seltzers to go with them. In my own tote bag I had my water, my requisite duct tape in case of an emergency, and A Tale of Two Cities , which I thought I might finally get a head start on, if I stopped obsessing over Ros and Jess for fifteen seconds.

And that was if I even made it to the lagoon. It was, in no uncertain terms, an intense vertical ascent to get to where we needed to go.

“Sorry,” Jess said to me. “I always forget it’s kind of a steep uphill.”

“It’s okay,” I said, determined not to let her see me sweat, which I was doing, quite a lot. Little kids and geriatrics alike darted past me, while I pulled over on the side of the trail to breathe deeply. I could get down with a spontaneous hike—I did wear shepherd boots, after all, and hiking had been suggested in our MODEST PROPOSAL—section II, a.i. But I would have liked some time to thoroughly blast myself with bug spray, locate my hat, maybe pack my signature blend of trail mix that went heavy on the M she was content to walk along as slowly as I walked.

“We just don’t do a lot of marathon running at the costume shop, you know what I mean?”

Jess, to my surprise, laughed.

“I totally know what you mean,” she said. “Well, I promise you, the lagoon is worth it, even if it is really crowded. Honestly, just go at your own speed. We’ll get there when we get there.”

I was determined not to like Jess, but she was incredibly nice and also hiked with me, instead of soldiering on ahead like the rest of my friends. I wondered if this was what Ros liked about Jess: both her kindness and her ability to match pace.

We made it eventually. Jess hadn’t lied about the lagoon being worth it. It was a deep pool created by a big waterfall, bounded by big, flat rocks, on which the entire raft of humanity reclined, at least the ones who weren’t swimming. It did seem, as Audrey had claimed, like a scene: I recognized a handful of people from the festival, including the dance captain from Into the Woods , the intern from the scene shop I’d once walked in on crying in the bathroom, and even the janitor named Lou who Phoebe always said hello to.

I wished that Phoebe were here with us.

“I feel like I’m guaranteed to run into my ex here,” said Jess as we picked our way across the boulders.

“Would that be a bad thing?” I asked, the nefarious wheels of my brain turning. Maybe I could somehow orchestrate Jess falling in love with her ex, if I couldn’t get Ros to fall out of love with her.

“I mean… it wouldn’t be a disaster. I just wasn’t very nice to her. I don’t like being reminded of how I treated her, you know? I don’t like being reminded that I’m capable of being really mean to someone.”

Jess’s candor surprised me. She seemed mature, to admit to her wrongs so easily, and like she’d actually learned something from the relationships that she’d been in, which was more than I could say for myself (the only thing I’d learned was not to date Touchstone). Maybe, if I stopped being so stubborn for half a second, I could admit that she wasn’t the worst match for Ros.

But where did that leave me ?

The rest of our group had found space on a small rock tucked away in the shade. Everyone had stripped down to their suits and busted into the snacks and the limeade. Audrey had a script in her lap, making her the only other person who’d brought reading material. Jess settled in next to Ros on the same towel, curling up next to them with a kiss on a cheek. I threw my towel and my book down next to them—I would have preferred something farther away, but there was nowhere else I could sit—and stood there for a moment, surveying the joyful scene before us.

Well. It was time to be in my bathing suit.

A word on disrobing. I know it’s totally normal to be in a bathing suit at a water-based activity. Still—I always hated the moment of peeling off your clothes in front of teeming hordes of people (or even in front of your friends). Especially now, since I was the only one doing it. It was a bathing suit, said everyone; what did it matter? I don’t know! It just was weird when you thought about it, being practically naked in front of a bunch of strangers. It’s not even like my bathing suit was that scandalous—I was a simple-black-one-piece sort of girl, one that concealed more than it revealed—but still, I hated the moment where I suddenly became exposed. Like, everyone could see my bikini line, the red bumps that I couldn’t get rid of no matter what internet remedy I tried. It wasn’t like I was naked , but I was close.

I let the straps of my overalls fall, and in that very second, who should I make eye contact with across the water but Oliver Teller.

He was seated on a rock with the rest of his yeti cast, including the director, who was raising a bottle of wine to her lips, and the lead actor, who appeared to be trying to wrest it from her grasp.

For a second I looked away, and then decided it was more awkward to pretend not to have seen him, so I turned back and raised one hand in greeting.

He raised one hand in greeting right back.

I raised a second hand in greeting, failing to remember that continued hand raising was not a social custom. I resisted the urge to put my overalls back on.

“Who are you waving at, Celia— oh ,” said Touchstone. “That guy. Fish Eyes.”

“It’s Blade!” said Jess. “Celia, wait—you really know him? I thought Touchstone was making it up!”

“I sort of know him,” I said.

“Really?” said Audrey. “Do you think you could get me like ten minutes with him? I’ve seen him around Arden, but I never want to interrupt him, and I want to ask him some questions about agents.…”

“He’s coming over here!” said Jess.

I sat on my towel and pulled out my copy of A Tale of Two Cities . I wondered, again, if it would be strange to put my overalls back on. Oliver was getting closer. I opened A Tale of Two Cities to a random page. I was going to talk to Oliver Teller in my bathing suit. And he was going to be in his bathing suit. This was fine. This was all fine.

“Hey! Celia. Funny running into you here,” he said. He was shirtless again, which I tried not to notice and failed miserably. His bathing suit seemed shorter than a usual men’s bathing suit. It was black, printed with funny shapes—squiggles and doodles in shades of lavender, mint, and pink.

“Oh, hi,” I said, and stood up without putting my book down, just in case I needed it for an emergency in the middle of this conversation. “What are you doing here?”

“Our director thought it would be good cast bonding for us,” he said. “Unfortunately, she brought a lot to drink, and she’s just been fighting with her ex-husband, so it’s not exactly going the way that I wanted. What about you?”

“Just… here with some friends,” I said, as though they weren’t all staring at us like drooling dogs. At him , rather. “These are they,” I said.

“Hiya,” said Oliver, waving hello politely.

“Hi,” said the chorus back to him.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Audrey said.

“I’m a big fan!” said Jess. “Go, Soul Crushers!”

That was exactly how I’d greeted him from inside the tree, but of course, when Jess said it, it sounded totally normal.

“Thanks so much,” said Oliver. “That means a lot!”

There it was: the completely normal human interaction I was incapable of having with him.

“Does anyone want to get in the water?” said Touchstone. “Celia?”

“I need to warm up a little more,” I said.

“I still have lines to learn,” said Audrey.

“I want to go in,” said Jess, who helped Ros to their feet.

“I heard there was a snapping turtle in there, so I’ll pass,” said Oliver.

“So much for living on the edge,” said Touchstone, and jumped in with a splash.

I watched Ros and Jess in the water of Lovers’ Lagoon. They kissed, oblivious to everyone who was there, including best friends and celebrities. They splashed. They kissed some more. They swam around. They continued kissing. Jess carried Ros at one point, and Ros wrapped their arms around Jess’s neck. And, oh yes—more kissing.

“Celia? You okay? You look a bit pale,” said Oliver. “What’s the matter?”

The thing was, I couldn’t say. I’d been stunned into silence. For the life of me, I couldn’t find my line.

This may come as a shock given my tendency to ramble on, but as a child, I used to pretend to lose my voice. In part, this was motivated by an obsession with The Little Mermaid , and in part motivated by cough drops, which were all the rage at school, the way limes were the fashion for Amy in Little Women . The preferred cough drops were the sugary kind that came in a little white box, lemon or red or orange, the only food item first graders were allowed to keep in their desks. They were as precious as jewels, those cough drops, a gem in the palm of your hand. If you had a sore throat, they were easier to come by. A perpetual case of laryngitis meant you had every reason to be stocked.

Eventually, though, the cough-drop fad faded and my voice was still nowhere to be found, and so my reluctance to speak landed me in the office of the school psychologist, who didn’t really offer a solution so much as note that it was interesting that, in losing my voice, I was both drawing attention to myself and asking that no one pay attention to me. It was paradoxical, she noted, to want to be invisible and visible at the same time. At home, I looked up paradoxical in the dictionary, and thought about that word for a really long time, and then read the rest of the par s because I was already there.

The other kids said I was a faker, and they weren’t wrong: silent Celia the faker, with her lips stained wild-cherry red and a little notebook that she would write in if she really needed to say something. I had no friends, but I was light-years ahead of everyone in terms of writing and penmanship.

What I remember, what I couldn’t express at the time and fear I may not even be able to express now, is the feeling I had—of something happening in my throat. The longer I stayed silent, the more physical it felt, like there really was something damming up the words: a literal gobstopper. All the words just got stuck , like they could not pass through. Maybe it had started out as pretend, but the longer I went without talking, the bigger that ball of words became, all the letters tangled. I worried that the cough drops were getting stuck in there, too, coating the words, heavy and dense as the rubber-band ball that sat on my teacher’s desk, but I couldn’t stop eating them, hopeful that they might help.

At night, I’d cry silently, worried that if I couldn’t figure out how to speak, it was just going to explode inside my throat—obliterate me from the inside out.

Speak, honey , my mom said.

But I was worried I couldn’t, afraid that I might never speak ever again.

Ultimately at Lovers’ Lagoon, I found my words again. When I did, I made up an excuse that Phoebe had texted me from the costume shop about a button emergency, and I left. I didn’t care that I was their ride. There were plenty of them, and they were all bright, competent people, capable of finding a different way home.

Even though there was no button emergency, I actually went to the costume shop, which was mercifully, beautifully quiet. No sunscreen in sight. Not even Benna was there on the holiday, nor were the kind-of-comforting-if-only-in-their-consistency wails of Jacques, who she must’ve brought home for the holiday.

I sank into a chair by a sewing machine and tried to steady my breathing. I couldn’t get the sight of them kissing out of my head. I didn’t want to be this person. I wanted to go swimming with them and find them charming and adorable, and I wanted to support queer love in all its forms, and I kept thinking of fourth grade and my parents telling me to take risks and how that meant I met Ros and could conceivably meet other people, too.

It seemed so reasonable. So why was I having this reaction?

I didn’t want to be the person who was jealous of a new person in Ros’s life, covetous of their time, of their attention. It was such a tired plotline that they’d even accelerated it in season two of Power Jam : Everyone liked one another, right off the bat. They supported new relationships. They were a lot nicer than I was—better friends and better people.

It was then that Phoebe walked in, carrying a cream-colored bolt of furry fabric.

“Hey,” she said, surprise in her voice. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Fancy meeting you here,” I said. “Don’t you have the day off?”

“Don’t you, too? Audrey told me you all were going swimming.”

“Yeah—I just. I don’t know. I was just feeling pretty tired. And then I thought… well, maybe I can practice my sewing at the very least.”

Phoebe nodded, placing her fabric down onto one of the desks.

“How’s the costume going?” I asked.

She sighed heavily, running her fingers through the white fur. “I don’t know. I mean… it’s just a lot. They meant well, having me work on it, but now I feel, like, totally overwhelmed.”

“What have you got?”

“You want to see?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Definitely.”

Reluctantly, she showed me her sketches. She’d drawn a dramatic, hooded coat that swept the ground. It had spikes at the shoulders and spikes on the hood that she’d shaded light blue—icicles that formed a kind of terrifying armor. Down the front, she’d added a spill of red.

It was honestly incredible.

It was also deeply terrifying.

“Is that…” I pointed to the red.

“Blood,” Phoebe said.

“Oh my,” I said.

“Fuck. It’s stupid. I knew it was stupid.”

“What! It’s not stupid .”

“It’s a yeti, you know? I was trying to make him scary. Like, maybe that’s stuff he’s killed, or eaten? I’m going to have to start over.”

“Oh my God, don’t start over . I like the idea of the coat. It makes him seem…” In spite of myself, I thought of what Jess Orlando had said about Oliver’s character in Power Jam . “Like, more human, in a way.”

“That’s what I wanted,” said Phoebe. “Plus then Oliver could still move.”

We studied her sketch for another moment.

“It might be a little too human,” said Phoebe.

“I see what you’re saying. It’s like… more powerful winter sorcerer than yeti.”

“Yeah. Or, like, commander of a frozen army.”

“Maybe it needs to be less good,” I said. “Like… less polished. He would have made it himself, right? How dexterous are his paws? What kind of materials would he have had? He wouldn’t be able to make anything that nice.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. That’s a really good point. Thanks, Celia.”

I’d hardly done anything. She was the one who’d put in all the work.

“How’s the sewing going?” she asked.

“The machines are kind of intimidating,” I said.

“You want me to show you again?”

“Please,” I said.

She did, and then we worked quietly for a while, Phoebe sketching, me feeding scrap fabric through the machine to practice seams. It was nice, to be quiet with someone else. Eventually Phoebe got up and sat at the machine in front of me with her furry fabric. The only sound was whirring needles, until there came a cry that sounded a lot like Jacques, only louder, much more human—

“Celia,” Phoebe said. “Can you come here?”

She wasn’t moving her hand. Why wasn’t she moving her hand?

The needle had gone clean through her finger.

I felt woozy.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck.”

“Deep breaths,” she said. “I need you to hit Release. And then I need for you to drive me to the hospital.”

The emergency room on the Fourth of July: just where everyone wants to be.

“You don’t have to stay,” Phoebe said for the thousandth time. After waiting an hour amid people who’d burned themselves setting off fireworks and tending to their grills, she’d finally been moved to a bed, separated by a curtain. This seemed like an upgrade, though not when you considered that the TV was playing exclusively metal music videos and the remote was nowhere to be found. The needle was still in Phoebe’s finger. “My mom’s going to come as soon as she can.”

“I’m not going to leave ,” I said. “Besides, I’m really enjoying this program.”

“Why would they put this on for people? It’s not exactly soothing.”

“No, but it’s really making me want to come up with a name for my metal band,” I said.

“Prolapse,” offered Phoebe.

“Split Infinitive,” I countered.

“Can I ask you something?” Phoebe said.

“Sure.”

“Why were you in the costume shop today? Why weren’t you swimming with everyone else?”

I shifted in my chair. It was freezing in this place. “Remember when I asked you about Jess Orlando?”

“Yeah.”

“She and Ros… I guess. They’re, like, a thing now.”

“Really?” Phoebe said. “That was fast.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“I thought you said Ros wasn’t interested in anyone,” Phoebe said.

“They weren’t,” I said. “Until now.”

I must have sounded obviously miserable, because a look of dawning mixed with sympathy passed over Phoebe’s face, and I knew she knew how I felt about Ros. “Oh, Celia,” she said.

“Don’t you ‘Oh, Celia,’ me—you’re the one with the needle in your finger. It’s totally fine. I’m totally fine.”

“Celia. It’s not fine. That sucks .”

“It’s stupid,” I said.

“What’s stupid?”

I traced the seams of the blanket on Phoebe’s bed. “Having a heart.”

The metal music blared loudly.

“People talk about falling in love like it’s this amazing thing,” Phoebe said. “I don’t know. Maybe it is amazing. But for me, it’s only ever sucked.” She took a deep breath and continued. “Last year, I was, like, totally in love with this guy the year above me. Like, for three years, I was completely in love with him. And he dated other people, but, like, we’d text, and he’d always find ways to touch me, and, like, I just always thought there was something special there. And then finally, finally , he came home this winter break, and we kissed. And it felt—like it felt so perfect. Like it was everything that I’d been waiting for, and we could finally be together. I would have done anything for him. Literally anything.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. We hooked up for that week, and then he went back to college and stopped talking to me.”

“No,” I said.

“Yeah,” Phoebe said. “I told him I liked him, and he told me he was dating someone else and that he always wanted me to be in his life, and that was the last I ever heard from him. I feel so stupid. Like… why did I give my heart away that easily? I’m tough, you know?”

“Fuck that guy,” I said.

“Yeah. Fuck that guy. But also… I don’t know. You know the really sad part? I still hope he thinks about me. Isn’t that pathetic?”

“No,” I said. “It’s normal.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“You seemed so fearless, with Ros. The first night at the party.”

“I mean. What am I going to do? Sit around and wait for him to come back? But I just… I know that it sucks. When the other person doesn’t feel how you want them to feel. I mean the whole story about the spring exists, I guess, because people wanted to get rid of this feeling.”

“What does Audrey say? About the guy, I mean.”

“Audrey? Oh, I didn’t tell Audrey.”

“What? Really?”

“Audrey and I aren’t really that close. I mean, she’s nice , and we’ve done theater together for a while, so we have that in common, but… I don’t know. I don’t know if she’d really understand. Don’t—look, I love Audrey. I’ve known her for a long time. But sometimes it feels like our relationship is very surface level, if that makes any sense. Sometimes I just feel like the pool of people you know in high school is so arbitrary, you know? Like, how much did we choose one another, versus how much were we just around each other all the time, so we became friends? I’m not saying it’s not real . I’m just saying that it doesn’t always feel like a choice. You know?”

It felt both shocking and refreshing, to hear her talk so plainly about high school friendships. And it made me feel doubly lucky for Touch and Ros, who I had just abandoned at Lovers’ Lagoon: They were people I really wanted to be friends with, not just because we came from the same pool, but because I really liked them.

“I’m probably telling you only because I have a needle in my finger and I’m on drugs and they’re severely affecting my ability to think clearly,” Phoebe said.

“So I’ll have to injure you every time I want to talk?”

“Looks that way,” Phoebe said. Her phone buzzed. “My mom’s coming.”

“What does she do, that she’s working today?”

“Runs a restaurant in the next town over,” Phoebe said. “What about yours?”

“She writes horoscopes.”

“Wait, really? That’s so cool!”

“It’s… something.”

“Can I read them?”

“Yeah—they’re online.”

“Will you read me mine? Please? I’m a Scorpio. You have to; I’m injured.”

I rolled my eyes but navigated, reluctantly, to my mother’s website.

“ Scorpio ,” I began. “‘You may be dealing with some new challenges in life or career.…”

“ That’s true,” said Phoebe.

“It’s true of everyone . Who isn’t ever dealing with new challenges in life or career!?”

“Keep reading, sassafras.”

“Don’t let your passion override your ability to know when to stop.”

“Could have used that advice earlier.”

“Emotions are your friend. What does that even mean?”

“Spoken like a true Capricorn,” said Phoebe. “What does yours say?”

“Um.… okay, Capricorn. Blah, blah, blah, check your materialistic impulses—thanks, Mom. Also… a relationship may be testing you. Give someone new a chance; they might surprise you.”

Phoebe and I sat with that for a minute, letting it wash over us.

“It’s definitely talking about Jacques,” Phoebe said.

“You’re so right,” I said.

I stayed until her mom came, and for a little time after that, too.

When I got home, I was so tired, I didn’t even notice Ros wasn’t in their bed.