Page 6

A PARTY , or Why I Don’t Eat Tuna in Front of Touchstone

The text—the text that blew up my spot, that made Oliver Teller hate me, that was indirectly responsible for the single most embarrassing moment of my entire life—wasn’t even from Ros. It was from Touchstone and read:

A girl invited me to see her goats

Is this code

The answer, we learned later, was no. Audrey, who was studying in the Young Company alongside Touchstone, was a local whose family kept goats, and she was having a party Friday night at her house, and we were all invited.

However, when Friday arrived, I decided I was sadly unable to attend, as I still was dead from humiliation from when I’d screamed “Go, Soul Crushers!” at Oliver Teller. Attending the party as a ghost might have been an off-putting vibe.

“I’m sure you’re not the most deranged fan he’s ever seen,” said Touchstone as he fussed with his hair in the mirror. It’d been days, and I was still replaying the memory in my head. Ruminating was the technical term. I was really good at it.

“I just wish you’d asked him about the cliff-hanger,” Ros said, who was sitting beside me on the couch. Ros, it seemed, had had an okay week in their role as Hestia. Though they still didn’t have a job, Henry’s plants were all still alive, and they’d made us a few bare-bones meals: (gluten-free) macaroni and cheese, eggs on (gluten-free) toast, chickpeas frizzled in (gluten-free) olive oil. Both Ros and Touchstone were into food, and Ros was a pretty good cook, though cooking was one of the many hobbies they’d quit since their dad had left. Though they’d sort of been forced back into it—and though they’d also burned their hand—it was nice to see a side of their old self come through. Especially if it meant we went to bed with full bellies.

“Do you think the murder attempt on his brother was a dream sequence?” Ros asked. “Do you think he’s going to survive?”

“How am I going to survive with this memory in my head? I literally pumped my fist!” I cried.

“Oliver Teller’s the one with the fish eyes that you think is really good-looking, right?” said Touchstone.

“You don’t need to make this worse ,” I told him. I pulled a blanket over my head, disappearing into the darkness.

“Celia, stop your moaning and put on your fanciest overalls,” Touchstone said. “We’re going out. All of us.”

“Are you going?” I asked Ros.

Ros considered this. They’d accidentally run their sweater vest through the dryer, but somehow, it’d improved the fit: It was shorter now, cropped, and hit them right at the smallest part of their waist. The effect was hard to look away from.

“I don’t think so,” they said. “I’m not really in a party mood.”

“If Ros isn’t going, I’m not going,” I said.

“Oh no. Absolutely not. Attendance is mandatory. I need backup for talking to this goat girl. Celia, don’t be a drama queen,” Touchstone said.

“Yeah, you know that’s Touch’s job,” said Ros, and Touch laughed good-naturedly, and Ros’s eyes sparkled, and they fussed with the burn on their hand and asked me if I had any gauze (I did) and began to wrap their oozing palm, and then Touch helped them cover the gauze with one of my bandannas and told Ros they looked like a sexy injured Boy Scout (they did), and I loved my friends so much it hurt.

“Come on,” Ros said, extending me their nonbandaged hand. “If I’m going, you’re going.”

“Maybe something exciting will happen,” said Touch.

“If nothing exciting happens for the rest of my life, I will be totally satisfied,” I said.

“Liar,” said Touch.

“There’s a difference between lying and hyperbole ,” I said.

“Don’t worry about Oliver Teller,” said Ros. “I’m sure he’s already forgotten about you.”

Which, as everyone knows, is exactly the sort of thing you hope to hear from the object of your affection: that you are, at your core, forgettable.

The party was at Audrey’s house, a sweet little bungalow on the other side of the woods with a chicken coop in the backyard and a tree house with a fraying rope ladder that Audrey told us we were welcome to go up in and a pen holding three square-eyed goats. In the backyard, Touchstone was immediately welcomed by a small pocket of Young Company people—I recognized some costumers, but not the actors that Touch worked with—and I gritted my teeth through my Oliver Teller PTSD flashbacks so I could meet everyone.

Audrey had leading-lady energy, with big, curly blond hair that she held back with a crocheted handkerchief and a copy of a Pinter play tucked into the back pocket of her jeans—our first interaction was brief, but she seemed smart and passionate about theater, just the sort of person that might be a good fit for Touchstone; then there was Sil, who had a tattoo of a cow skull on his arm and, from what I could tell, a terrible crush on Phoebe, who was in attendance as well—she and Audrey were friends from school, it turned out. I was happy to see her, especially because she offered me a LaCroix from her own personal case, which she had labeled PHOEBE’S—U DRINK, U DIE . We all stood around and partook in the ritualistic consumption of poison, also known as beer (pamplemousse seltzer, in my case), and it was kind of fun, kind of awkward, but it was a thing to do, so we did it.

Throughout all of this, I watched Ros. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say: I watched other people watch Ros and watched Ros fail to notice them watching. I watched Phoebe steal glances while she sipped on her seltzer; I watched Sil make a joke and check to see if Ros laughed. I watched Audrey explain something about theatrical clowning to Ros, making sure that they were looped in on all the lingo everyone was using. None of this was surprising to me. In fact, it was the opposite of surprising—sort of like watching order being restored to the universe. Of course people watched Ros. They had a snowbrow, and have you seen how they looked in that cropped sweater vest?

At one point, Phoebe offered me a second can of seltzer and asked me if I wanted to go pet the goats. While we were there, remarking on the softness of their coats, chatting idly about costume-shop life, admiring Benna’s commitment to monochrome dressing and complaining about one of the Saras eating leftover fish in the shop, Phoebe lobbed a very casual, “So what’s their deal?” my way. The subtext was clear: Who is this intriguing, beguiling, gender-bending person, and how—sweet Jesus, how—do I get them to love me?

I sighed, taking a sip of my seltzer. There were so many places to go from here. I could play dumb—pretend that I’d never noticed that sparkly quality of Ros’s. Another option was the slightly patronizing “Oh, you too?” And then finally, if I wanted to be extremely direct, there was the even more dismissive “They’re not interested—trust me.”

Because Ros really wasn’t interested. It’s not like they’d drawn a hard line in the sand or anything. They’d gone out with a handful of people, and in the winter of tenth grade, they’d even briefly been courted by Leandra Maria Alma-Garcia, a senior two years above us. She was an incredible painter with a tattoo of a watch where all the numbers were scrambled, and the sort of person who everyone, even the teachers, was in love with. Ros broke it off with her —a shock to literally everyone but me.

“She was cool,” Ros had said after the breakup, when we were sprawled on my bed, a bag of sour peach rings between us. Touch was seated in my desk chair, which he wheeled to the edge of the bed to have closer access to the candy. “And like—obviously hot. All we did was kiss, but still.”

I tried to nod along, though I had the feeling we were going somewhere out of my depth.

“But like—the whole time we were together I just kept thinking that I’d rather be hanging out with you and Touch watching Power Jam . You know?”

“No, I don’t know! I would not want to be watching Power Jam ,” Touchstone said.

Even I struggled to see how Power Jam could be preferable to hanging with Leandra Maria Alma-Garcia, but I took the compliment. I wanted to say more—that I was jealous of their apathy, that nothing sucked more than having a crush. Mine on Ros was fresh, and it stung every second of every day.

“She was okay,” Ros said. “I don’t know. She did a lot of little things that were nice. Her mom always called me she , and even though they / she is fine, Leandra was always correcting her mom about it, encouraging her to use they . It was nice to have someone stick up for me that way; you know what I mean?”

“That does sound nice.” I nodded. “Though I still think her watch tattoo is pretentious.”

“It is a little bit pretentious,” Ros admitted. “Thank you for saying that.”

“Maybe it just wasn’t a good match,” Touchstone said, motioning for the peach rings. “You can’t force it.”

“No. I guess you can’t,” Ros said, passing him the bag of candy.

“I suspect one day someone is going to come along and knock you flat,” I said.

As I said it, I realized that of course I hoped that someone was me.

Still, this was a lot to get into with Phoebe, who was new to me as of that week.

“They’re single,” I started.

A casual smile broke over Phoebe’s face. “Cool,” she said. “Cool. And they’re…”

“Into women. At least so far.”

“Cool, cool,” Phoebe said, as though that was suddenly the only word at her disposal.

I thought of what it must be like to be Phoebe. All of this was going her way so far. Single, check, into women, check—in Phoebe’s mind, surely it was only a matter of time before she and Ros were shacked up somewhere in a country cottage, watering their tomato plants and harvesting kale for salads.

“The thing is,” I said, “I’m not sure they’re looking for anything serious. They’re kind of a… lone wolf.”

“Who’s a lone wolf?” said Touchstone. He’d appeared at our side, on his second can of poison.

“Ros,” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, good, something new and different.”

“I’m sorry,” said Phoebe, furrowing her brow. “ Who are you?”

“Andrew Touchstone, at your service,” he said, and gave a little bow. “I’m Celia’s first husband.”

“Touch and I got married on the kindergarten playground,” I said. “It didn’t last long.” 4

“Got it,” Phoebe said. “Thanks for telling me, Celia. About the lone wolf. I shouldn’t be surprised, anyway. I have horrible taste in people.”

“Same,” I said, and we both sighed heavily, looking off into Ros’s direction.

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be serious,” Phoebe said finally.

“Totally!” I said, as though I, too, were a person who was totally capable of being casual and light instead of a person who drew up contracts and pinned up a chore wheel.

“Celia, do you want me to introduce you to anyone? Or Andrew? There are some single guys here.…”

“That’s okay,” said Touch. “I’m straight, actually.”

“Oh! I’m sorry—I don’t know why I assumed.…”

“Trust me, you’re not the first,” said Touch. “That honor would go to my brothers, who believe that anyone involved in theater must be queer.”

“They sound charming,” said Phoebe.

“You don’t know the half of it,” said Touch.

“I’m good on intros,” I said. “Good luck.”

Phoebe took a fortifying gulp of seltzer and headed across the way to Ros.

“Ah, l’amour .” Touch sighed. “Young love. Exquisitely, violently painful.”

“Touchstone. I’m going to kill you.”

“They always come looking for the ex-wife first.”

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go up in the tree house.”

“Ooh, spicy,” he said.

We climbed. The tree house had a balcony from which we could observe the party. More people had arrived, though I didn’t understand just how many until we saw it from above: The crowd was a raucous sea of unknown faces. At the edge of the lawn, people were throwing empty bottles against a tree; two boys were wrestling; at some point, someone had started a bonfire, and now kids were taking turns leaping over it while Audrey was screaming at them to stop. And off to the side: Ros and Phoebe, who’d very easily done the thing I could not, which was reveal that she was interested.

“You know what your problem is?” Touchstone said.

“Enlighten me, Andrew.”

“I think sometimes you like moping. That it feels good. That hurt. It feels like work . Like you’re doing something, when you’re not.”

“I’m not moping,” I said.

“You climbed the ladder to the tree house and are looking off plaintively into the distance,” he said. “Maybe moping ’s the wrong word. Maybe pining .”

I said nothing. It wasn’t that I was moping . It was just that sometimes I felt weirdly like the ball boy in my own life—I was essential to keeping the game running, but only so long as I remained invisible.

“Come on, man. Pining sucks. It suuuuuuucks. You know that’s, like, this town’s whole thing, right? Like, people came here because there was a spring that made you fall out of love. You can hike up into the woods and see it. We can go. You can even drink from it.”

“Sounds germy,” I said, playing down my desire to drink from the spring. “It would be convenient, though.”

“Celia, why won’t you just tell them?”

“Besides not wanting to destroy my relationship with the only person who’s ever understood me?”

“Thanks a lot,” Touchstone said.

“Only one of two people who’s ever understood me,” I said, correcting myself.

“You and I had a relationship, and we’re fine.”

“Yeah, the kindergarten divorce was really hard to get over.”

“No. I mean, after.”

“ Oh ,” I said, embarrassed to have temporarily forgotten. Touchstone and I dated for all of eleven days during the winter of ninth grade, during which time he suddenly wanted to talk on the phone all the time even though we’d spent the whole day together and we had literally nothing more to say to each other. We made out a few times, which was fine, but otherwise, the whole relationship was kind of forgettable. We went back to being friends—so easily that I forgot it even happened, evidently.

He frowned at me. “Am I really that forgettable?”

“No! Of course not.”

“Because I didn’t forget you ,” he said. “Do you want me to remind you of our first date? How we went to Target?”

“It was a momentary lapse. I assure you I recall.”

“Whatever,” said Touch. “So it seems like you’ll have no trouble moving on if things go south.”

“I mean—point taken. But there’s the stuff with their dad.…”

“You’re more hung up on their dad leaving than Ros is at this point. That excuse made sense last year, but it doesn’t make any sense now,” he said. “You said on the proposal that change was exactly what we needed. Isn’t it better to know ?”

“Why are you pushing this?”

He shrugged, turned back to the party.

“I just think it’s better sometimes to have answers,” he said. “That way you can move on with your life.”

My voice cracked. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“You’re telling me that you, Miss Color-Coded Pencil Case, haven’t thought exactly of what you’d say to them?”

Okay. So maybe I had some idea of what I would say to them. Lately, I’d taken to studying the speeches in Power Jam as a starting place. It was ridiculous, I knew—and, like, how often were Ros and I going to find ourselves caught in a rainstorm on roller skates—but it was a starting place, a container for all the things I wanted to say. I still didn’t know what the words were, exactly, but I could feel them, at the base of my throat, and I pictured them like a jumble of letters that would somehow magically organize themselves on the way out of my mouth and arrive in the right way, and Ros would hear them and know we were meant to be, and we’d kiss in the rain on our roller skates.

“The right words are never just going to come ,” Touch said.

“Yeah,” I said. “But—”

I didn’t get to finish my sentence, though, because someone below us yelled out, “STOP!”

We had the best seats in the house to watch the fight. If you could even call it that.

It went like this: An ogre-like dude rushed toward a girl half his size, windmilling his arms wildly; someone tried to hold him back, but he broke free; she sidestepped him, looking so bored that in my memory she actually yawned, though that can’t possibly be true. Her left fist cut through the air—the speed! The control!—and cracked the guy on the nose. He cried out and hit the ground, clutching his face.

“My nose is broken!” the ogre cried out.

“It’s not,” she said. “Trust me.”

She shook out her hand once—and then it was over.

Someone cheered, but it was more like a question than a celebration, like a wooo? that hovered in the air like, We all think that was meant to happen, right? But by and large, the reaction was confused and chaotic. There was some awkward laughter, and then a lot of quiet, followed by gentle murmuring. One goat bleated very loudly. The girl had disappeared in the crowd. Someone helped the ogre to his feet, and he was checking his nose for blood. There was none.

“You’re still an ugly bitch, Jess Orlando,” he yelled at the girl, the hate in his voice almost more upsetting to me than the fact that he’d just gotten decked.

“I think it’s time for us to get out of here,” I said to Touch.

I looked in the crowd for Ros, but they were already gone.

I didn’t know it yet, but their story was starting. For them, it was love at first fight.

Footnote

4 We ate lunch together for two days before I decided I didn’t like the smell of his tuna sandwiches, told him so, and went off to play with Emily Hibbert. He and I found our way back to each other, but to this day, I cannot eat or even mention tuna in front of Touchstone without enduring some remark about how I broke his young heart.