Page 11 of Notice Me, Jameson Hart

how d’ye do and shake hands

“ D o you hate me?” Rita adjusts the floppy straw hat she bought from one of the overpriced souvenir shops near the pier.

It’s enormous and casts her whole face in shadow except when she tilts her head to the right.

“I’m serious, Kevin,” she says when I don’t answer her.

“Do you hate me? Because I’d completely understand if you did.

Missing your eighteenth birthday for Great-Aunt Mildred’s funeral—who I’ve never even met—is unforgivable. ”

“I don’t hate you.” I dig my toes into the warm sand and think about how I could never hate her.

We met freshman year in the drama club when we were paired up as townsfolk in the school production of Beauty and the Beast. She was the first person outside of my family that I came out to.

“You couldn’t control when your great-aunt died, Rita. ”

“But I could have skipped it! Mom said so herself. She was all, ‘Rita, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’ But then Dad gave me that look. You know, the one where his eyebrows do that thing.” She demonstrates, scrunching her face in a way that cracks me up.

“It’s fine.” And I mean it. Having Rita here now, with her ridiculous hat, her hair as red as the sun at dusk, and her tendency to turn everything into high drama, is better than any birthday party I’ll ever have.

Still, she studies me from beneath the brim of her hat, clearly unconvinced. The ocean breeze catches the edge of it, and she has to hold it down with both hands to keep it from flying away. “Okay, but I need you to tell me again exactly how he said it.”

“How who said what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Kevin Pryor. You know exactly who I’m talking about.

Jameson Hart. In your kitchen. The ‘Happy birthday, man.’” She leans forward, her blue eyes piercing through me, and nearly loses her hat completely.

“I need the full breakdown. Tone. Inflection. Body language. Everything. ”

Groaning, I fall back onto my beach towel.

Today, we’ve claimed a new spot—halfway between one of the lifeguard stands and the volleyball nets.

We’re close enough to watch all the action around us but far enough to avoid getting hit by stray balls or kicked-up sand.

Above us, seagulls circle, waiting for someone to drop some fries.

“Rita, I’ve told you this story three times already. ”

“And you’ll tell it three more.” She pokes me in the ribs with her slender finger. “This is important investigative work I’m doing, Kevin. I’m building a case.”

“A case for what?”

“That he fancies you, obviously.”

I sit up so fast I get dizzy. Placing a hand on my head, I squeeze my eyes shut. “He doesn’t—he was being polite. It was my birthday. People say ‘happy birthday’ to people on their birthdays. It’s a social convention.”

“But the way he said it?—”

“Like a normal human being acknowledging another human being’s existence?”

She shakes her head, and the hat flops comically. “You said he smiled. Was it a polite smile? A genuine smile? An ‘I’ve secretly been in love with you for years’ smile?”

“That’s not a real category of smile.”

“It absolutely is. I’ve seen it in movies.” She pulls her phone out of her beach bag and scrolls through her downloaded apps. “Look, I made a spreadsheet for all your future Jameson Hart interactions.”

“You made a what?” I lunge for the phone, but she’s too quick and holds it out of reach.

“It’s color-coded. Green for positive interactions. Yellow for neutral. And red for—well, there won’t be any red ones, so don’t worry your pretty little head over that color.”

Sometimes, Rita can get overzealous. Normally, I have no problem with that. But today, I do. “Please delete that spreadsheet,” I beg her.

“Absolutely not.” She clutches her phone to her chest. “This is for your own good, Kevin. You need to document these things.”

I grab a handful of sand and let it slip through my fingers. The grains are warm and rough, nothing like the smooth certainty Rita has about my nonexistent love life. “There’s nothing to document. He said two sentences to me on my birthday. That’s. It.”

“Two sentences that changed everything.”

“They didn’t change anything.” The words come out sharper than I intend.

Rita’s eyebrows disappear beneath her hat. “Okay, what’s really going on here? The Kevin I know would be over the moon that a boy noticed him. He’d be singing South Pacific at the top of his lungs and doing cartwheels down the beach. This”—she waggles a finger up and down my body—“is not him.”

I turn my head away from Rita. Down the beach, a group of kids builds a sandcastle. They’re maybe seven or eight. Still young enough to believe that if they make it tall, it won’t get washed away by the tide.

“I don’t want to turn two seconds in my kitchen into some grand romantic gesture when it wasn’t. And even if it was, then what? I walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, remember when you wished me happy birthday at my birthday party that I didn’t invite you to? Want to see a movie with me?’”

“That’s actually not a bad opener,” she says.

I side-eye her. “Rita. No. I can’t. I won’t.”

“Why not?”

Because I’ve never asked anyone out. Because I’ve spent my whole life being invisible, and I don’t know how to handle being seen. Because the thought of Jameson Hart staring at me with pity and rejecting me with kindness fills my stomach with acid.

“Because I know how this goes,” is what I end up telling her.

A half-truth. “I’ve watched Adam and Robbie do this dance hundreds of times.

They like someone, they ask them out. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

But they’re them. Athletes. They’re confident and know what they’re doing.

If a girl says no, they move on to the next one. ”

“And you don’t think you’re confident?”

“Do I look like someone who radiates confidence?”

“You’re on stage all the time.”

“That’s different. On stage, I’m not Kevin Pryor.

I’m Townsperson Number Four. I’m a spatula come to life.

I’m a teen from Bomont. I have lines and know what happens next.

” I lie back on my towel and stare at the sky.

The clouds are white and puffy and floating in a sea of marvelous blue.

I’m a dull gray. “In real life, I don’t have a script.

I don’t know my cues or how to act. Am I reading the scene right, or am I about to make a complete fool of myself? ”

Rita absorbs my monologue, lying down beside me and taking my hand in hers. “Not every interaction has to be perfect, Kevin. People fumble all the time.”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather not fumble in front of Jameson Hart.”

“So, you admit you like him then?”

I throw my arm over my eyes. “I admit that I find him aesthetically pleasing and that his knowing my name made me feel noticed. That’s all.”

“I don’t think it is,” she says softly.

She’s right, but I don’t tell her that.

We lie there for a while, enjoying the sounds of a day at the beach. The crashing waves. The squawking gulls. Children laughing and adults reprimanding. Occasionally, a lifeguard blows their whistle and shouts at people not to go past the buoys.

I love summer and all that it brings. The fact that we must go back to school at all disheartens me.

Beside me, Rita tugs at her bathing suit, which has bright red polka dots and an absurdly high-waisted bottom.

The halter top accentuates her shoulders and brings out a confidence that, according to her, was “born in the wrong decade.” She always goes for bold, vintage fashion—last summer it was cat-eye sunglasses, this year it’s all about pin-up girl swimwear.

The suit flatters her figure: she’s stick-thin in some ways, but her hips curve enough to fill out the cut.

“Hey,” she says right as I’m about to fall asleep. “Want to go get ice cream with your brothers?” She points to the edge of the boardwalk, where they stand, waving to us and licking imaginary ice cream cones. “You can eat your feelings like a normal person.”

“Okay. But I’m anything but normal.”

As we traipse across the sand, I catch sight of a familiar figure jogging along the waterline. Bleached hair, long legs. Enormous footprints left behind in the sand.

“Is that?—”

“No. We’re getting ice cream,” I say quickly, grabbing her arm and tugging her farther away from a scene straight out of Baywatch .

Soft serve ice cream drips down my cone faster than I can lick it away. I ordered vanilla with rainbow sprinkles. Adam has a cone of rocky road, Robbie picked mint chocolate chip, and Rita went for something called “unicorn explosion” that she says tastes of cotton candy and regret.

“Oh! Brain freeze,” Robbie announces, pressing his palm to his forehead and scrunching up his face. “Worth it, though.”

We weave through the crowd on the boardwalk.

The wooden planks creak beneath our feet, worn smooth by decades of summer traffic.

A street performer juggling flaming batons captures the attention of some kids.

The smell of funnel cake drifts from a nearby stand, making my stomach growl even though I’m filling it with ice cream.

“Can you believe we’re almost done with high school?” Rita asks after taking a careful lick of her unicorn explosion.

“Thank God,” Robbie says. “I’m ready to get out of there.” He bites into his cone with a loud crunch.

“But now it’s college applications and all that stress,” Rita continues. “Have you guys figured out where you’re applying yet?”

Robbie’s face lights up, and he bounces on his toes, nearly dropping his ice cream in the process. “All three of us are going to Arcadia University. No exceptions.”

Shit. I’d almost forgotten about what I found in Adam’s closet. I glance at my brother. His expression doesn’t change as he enjoys his cone. Has he forgotten too? Was it a thought that he decided not to pursue? Is that why the essay was never finished?