Juniors by Kaui Hart Hemmings Read Free Book Online

So and so did this. So and so wore that. Those kind.”
    I laugh, needlessly, then stand up because I can’t just stay crouched down by my boxes, but when I stand, I have nowhere to go. I feel my stupid clothes, my ratty nondesigner jeans, my sweatshirt with the stain that runs along the zipper like a sewage canal. I suck in my stomach and hold my hands together, cross my arms, then uncross them and say, “We were in the same ethics group, right?” as if I don’t know.
    â€œOh yeah,” she says.
    She has no problem with the silence. She stays still. I walk over to the bed and sit down.
    I think back to the peer-counselor-led session, the things we had done, and more important for me, the things we’ve never done and always wanted to do. I remember noticing she wasn’t too far ahead of me and thinking she must be lying.
    â€œThat was a weird exercise,” I say. “Walking across the room.”
    She looks like she’s remembering something that happened ages ago. “Yeah. I kind of liked it. Made you think.”
    â€œTotally,” I say.
    â€œDid you see Laura Fujimoto?” She laughs. “Oh my God,she got, like, all the way across. I always thought she was some goody-goody.”
    I laugh, or make a sound that approximates laughter.
    â€œBut who knows why she walked,” Whitney says. “Hopefully ’cause she did bad shit and not because bad shit happened to her. Like what if she took her steps ’cause she was molested or something? And by the way, how the fuck is walking across the gym supposed to help her with that—or with any of our problems?”
    â€œYeah,” I say again, ineptly. Where is my funny self? Where does it go when I’m intimidated? I fold shirts that I’ve already folded.
    â€œWhy’d you walk?” she asks.
    â€œI don’t know,” I say. “I don’t really remember.”
    She looks at me like I’m hiding something scandalous. Black-soled shoes in the gym. That’s why I walked. Thug life.
    â€œWhat about you?” I ask.
    â€œI don’t really remember,” she says, and now she looks like she’s the one hiding something scandalous.
    Water drips from her hair onto my hardwood floor. Her hardwood floor. This is all hers. While it’s easy to adapt to better things, it’s probably hard to come back down.
    â€œSo do you like it?” she asks, and looks up at the ceiling.
    I look around, as if considering. “Yeah, it works. My mom’s going to be shooting more in town now, so . . .” I usually find that when I mention my mom, the attention turns immediately to her and sheds a more attractive light on me as well, but Whitney doesn’t seem to care.
    â€œYeah, my mom’s all amped on your mom’s show.” She getsup and walks by me. Her hair smells like expensive perfume. She picks up the few things on my shelves—an old pencil box, a glass vase I made—then puts them down again. She’s in charge, and I feel like I’m losing an invisible race. Even my posture is pathetic. It’s like I’ve become suddenly infected with clumsiness and I’m afraid to move and spill my dignity.
    â€œYou going out tonight?” she asks.
    â€œNot sure yet,” I lie.
    â€œYou’re friends with Danny, right?” Her smile is coy.
    â€œYeah,” I say.
    â€œHe’s kind of a dreamboat,” she says.
    I laugh, and a little spit darts out. I think she cringes.
    She taps her nails against my ukulele on the shelf, and now she looks bored, like she’s enduring a class in school. I wonder if she feels forced to stay and hang out with me. I don’t know what to say to her and hate that I’m nervously trying to think of something.
    I’m about to say something about the cottage, how it’s nice, how everything’s so great, so much better than our last place, thereby firmly establishing my rank