The Upside of Unrequited

3

SO, THIS IS PROBABLY MY own fault for being a smartass, but I’m actually a little nervous about starting work. Even though this isn’t a brain surgery residency. I’m very glad this isn’t a brain surgery residency. I don’t think anyone wants me operating on their brain right now, or ever. Especially because my hands are shaking—just a little—on the door handle.

The store looks the same as it always does—which is to say, it looks like Zooey Deschanel exploded into five thousand tablecloths and painted plates and letterpress notecards. It’s called Bissel. Not like the vacuum. Like the Yiddish word, meaning “a little bit.” As in, good luck only spending a bissel of money when you walk into Bissel. Good luck not spending your entire paycheck on a bissel of handcrafted artisan jewelry.

I can’t believe I’m walking into Bissel as an employee.

I’m an employee.

Deborah and Ari Wertheim, the owners, are behind the counter, and I feel this wave of shyness. “Hi,” I say, and my voice comes out comically high. Squeaky Molly. Super professional.

Deborah looks up from the register. “Molly—hi! Oh great, you’re here.” She presses both palms against the counter, beaming. “We are so, so glad you’re joining us.”

She’s intensely nice. They both are. That’s the main thing I remember about the Wertheims from my interview. They’re nice in the way therapists are—like, you get the impression they’d be up for hearing your thoughts about life and humanity. They’re married, and they’re a perfect matched set: tall and big-boned, with thick-framed glasses. Ari’s bald, and Deborah has this kind of wild black hair she wears knotted into a messy bun. Or sometimes two meatball Sailor Moon buns, even though she’s probably in her forties. I really love that. Also, they both have these brightly colored, amazingly intricate tattoos all up and down their arms. Literally, they are the two coolest adult humans on the planet, or at least in Maryland.

“Hmm, so I guess we probably went over most of this stuff at the interview. You remember how to use the register?”

I nod, even though I definitely don’t remember how to use the register.

“Cool. Though the register is being an asshole today, so I’ll probably stick you in the back room with Reid. And he can kind of show you around. You’ve met Reid?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, I’ll introduce you.” Deborah gives me a little shoulder squeeze. “One sec.”

She walks toward the back of the store, through the baby section, and I try to act casual. There’s music playing—something soft and indie. Cassie would know the band. And right beside me, there’s a display of ceramic mugs shaped like whales. Of course Bissel sells ceramic mugs shaped like whales. Of course those exist. I literally don’t understand how anyone could walk into this store and not fall in love.

Deborah comes back a minute later with a guy I’ve actually seen here before. He’s tall and kind of big, in that way people describe as husky. His shirt has a map of Middle Earth on it. And his sneakers are so electric white, they’re either brand-new, or he puts them in the laundry.

“Molly, this is Reid. Reid, Molly.”

“Hi,” he says, smiling shyly.

“Hi.” I smile back.

Deborah turns to me. “Molly, you’re going to be a senior, right?”

I nod.

“Perfect! You guys are the same age. I bet you have a lot in common.”

Classic adult logic. Reid and I are vaguely the same age, so of course we’re basically soul mates. It’s like horoscopes. Somehow I’m supposed to believe that I’m similar in some meaningful way to every single person born on my birthday. Or every single Sagittarius. I mean, I barely have anything in common with Cassie, and we were born six minutes apart.

Sorry, but this guy is literally choosing to advertise Lord of the Rings on his body. I don’t think there’s going to be a whole lot of common ground.

We walk through the baby section, and the whole time, I get the impression that he’s trying to think of things to say. It reminds me a lot of those meaningless syllables people spew, like “Um, yeah, so . . .”

Reid doesn’t actually spew the syllables. He’s like the personification of those syllables. I wish there were a secret signal you could use to communicate: HELLO. I AM OFFICIALLY COOL WITH SILENCE.

Not that I actually am cool with silence, but maybe it would help him relax.

For a moment, we just stand there in the entryway to the back room, surrounded by cardboard boxes and rustic wooden furniture. I bite my lip, feeling awkward and unsettled.

“Welcome to your first day,” he says finally.

“Thanks.” I smile, looking up at him. He’s so tall, I actually have to tilt my head back. He’s not awful looking. He definitely has good hair. It’s this perfect, tousled boy hair—brown and soft and sort of curly. And he wears glasses. And there’s this sweetness to his mouth. I always notice people’s mouths.

“You’ve been working here for years, right?” I say. “I’ve seen you before.”

As soon as I say it, I blush. I don’t want him to think I’ve NOTICED him. I mean, I have noticed him. But not in that way. I’ve noticed him because he sticks out here. He doesn’t quite fit. I think of Bissel as a place for people who care about tiny details—like the texture of a woven place mat or the painted pattern on the handle of a serving spoon.

I would say Reid gives a pretty strong impression that he doesn’t notice patterns on serving spoons.

“Yeah, I’m here all the time. Kind of unavoidable.” He shrugs. “My parents.”

“Your parents?”

“Ari and Deborah.”

I clap a hand over my mouth. “Ari and Deborah are your parents?”

“You didn’t know that?” He looks amused.

I shake my head slowly. “Okay. You just blew my mind.”

“Really?” He laughs. “Why?”

“Because! I don’t know. Deborah and Ari just seem so . . .” Punk rock and badass and not into Lord of the Rings. “They have tattoos,” I say finally.

He nods. “They do.”

I just gape for a minute.

He laughs again. “You seem so surprised.”

“No, I’m just . . .” I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

There’s this silence.

“Um. So, do you want to unpack some baby stuff?” Reid asks, nudging a cardboard box with the toe of his sneaker. We settle onto the floor next to it, cross-legged. I’m suddenly glad to be wearing leggings under my dress.

Reid lifts a stack of onesies out of the box. “So these need price stickers,” he says. “Do you know how to do that?”

“Do I know how to use stickers?”

“It’s pretty complicated,” he says. We grin at each other.

I pick up a onesie. “This is very Takoma Park.”

It’s undyed cotton, gender neutral, printed with a picture of vegetables. Seriously. Babies here are forced to declare their allegiance to vegetables before they’re old enough to say, “Suck it, Mom, I want ice cream.”

“This is actually a reorder. We sold out of them last week,” Reid says.

“Of course it’s a reorder.”

“Vegetables are just really popular right now.” He looks down and smiles.

We work in silence, putting price stickers on the tags and folding the onesies up neatly again. When we finish, Reid says, “I think there are some swaddling blankets, too.”

I pick one up, reading the label. “Organic hemp.”

“Yes.”

“Really?” I look at him.

He laughs. “Really.”

So, I guess there are parents who like to roll their babies up like blunts.

It’s funny watching Middle Earth Reid while he works. All this delicate baby stuff, and he’s the least delicate-looking person I’ve ever met. He’s struggling to roll up the swaddling blankets. I think his hands are too big.

Maybe this is why they hired me: for my smallish hands and my blunt-rolling abilities.

He looks up at me suddenly. “So, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Just curious. Why are you so surprised about my parents’ tattoos?”

Um. Because these people are related to you.

“Is it because they’re Jewish?” he adds.

“Oh no! It’s not that. I knew they were Jewish. I mean, the store is called Bissel. Their last name is Wertheim.”

He laughs. “Me too. I’m Reid Wertheim.” He leans forward and offers his hand for me to shake. He has a surprisingly confident handshake.

“Molly Peskin-Suso,” I say.

“Peskin!” he says. “Are you Jewish, too?”

“I am.”

“Really?” His eyes light up, and I know exactly what he’s thinking. I don’t think of myself as super Jewish or anything, and I basically never go to synagogue. But there’s this thing I feel when I meet another Jewish person in the wild. It’s like a secret invisible high five.

And it’s funny. Normally, I go totally blank and silent when I meet a boy for the first time—which is how a person can end up having twenty-six crushes and zero kisses. But around Middle Earth Reid, I feel exactly as nervous as I’d feel around any new person. No more, no less.

It’s actually kind of wonderful.

By three o’clock, Reid and I have unpacked, priced, and set out six boxes of baby stuff. And we’ve talked. There has been ample time for talking. So far, I’ve learned that he really likes Cadbury Mini Eggs. When I asked if this was relevant in June, he said Cadbury Mini Eggs are always relevant. Apparently he buys them in bulk after Easter and hoards them.

Honestly, I respect that.

I leave work exactly at three, and the Metro’s on time, so I’m early to Silver Spring. I walk down Ellsworth Drive and lurk near the entrance of FroZenYo. There are fifty billion restaurants here, and even on a weekday afternoon, it’s packed with people: dads pushing strollers and girls who look like they’re my age but dress like they work in a bank. My moms talk a lot about how Silver Spring was better before it got gentrified. It’s sad to think about. I guess it just sucks when change makes things worse.

I lean against the side of the building so I can play on my phone. Social media is the actual worst today. It’s one of those days where both Facebook and Instagram have been taken over by selfies, and they’re not even the kind that own their selfie-ness. It’s more the kind where the person is looking off in the distance, trying to seem candid. I need an anti-favorite button. Not that I’d actually use it, but still.

I’m sort of wondering where Cassie and Mina are. Cassie’s not usually late, but it’s already ten minutes past the time we’re supposed to meet. I don’t know whether to be grumpy or concerned. But at 3:45, I finally see them: walking together, giggling about something and carrying bags from H&M. They’re not even rushing.

Anti-favorite. Dislike.

“Hey,” Cassie says. She smiles when she sees me. “You remember Mina.”

“From the bathroom. With the labia,” Mina says.

I can’t help but giggle.

Here’s a frustrating thing about me: if everyone else is happy, I usually can’t stay pissed off. My moods are conformists. It sucks, because sometimes you really want to be angry.

“Oh my God, I love your necklace,” Mina adds.

I blush. “Oh. I made it.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, it’s easy. See, it’s an old zipper.” I lean forward to show her. “You just cut off the end and unzip it, and curve it into a heart. And then you sew the bottom together.”

“Molly makes shit like that all the time,” Cassie explains, but she says it sort of proudly.

They set their bags on top of a table next to each other. I guess they spent the afternoon together shopping. Which is a horrifying group activity, if you ask me—though maybe it’s different for people with single-digit sizes. They probably modeled for each other. Maybe they got matching outfits.

I pick up an empty yogurt cup. This is one of those places where you serve everything yourself. You can pick whatever yogurt flavors you want, and once you do that, there are fifty million toppings to choose from. There are people who can’t handle this kind of freedom. But I can, and I rule at it. You just have to know your own tastes.

I pay and sit down, and Mina settles in beside me. She peers into my cup. “What’d you get?”

“Chocolate with cookie dough.”

Like I said.

I rule at this.

Mina tilts her cup toward me, and of course she’s one of those fundamentally confused people who mixes gummies with chocolate.

“So, Cassie said you go to Georgetown Day?” I feel tongue-tied.

“Yup. I’ll be a senior.”

“Us too. And you do photography?”

“You know everything!” she says.

Which makes me blush. I don’t know. I feel like a creeper. I always seem to know more about people than they know about me.

I feel an awkward silence blooming. I have to head it off at the pass. “Our friend Olivia does photography,” I say quickly.

“Oh, cool!” Mina says. “I mean, I’m really new at it. Will—you met him—the redhead. He’s actually super talented, but he’s teaching me the basics. He has this software where you can tweak the lighting and color on the images after you upload them. And he’s going to teach me how to do sun flares.” Mina pauses. “I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”

“No, you’re—”

“I talk a lot when I’m nervous.”

“You’re nervous?” I ask.

She shrugs, smiling. “I don’t know. This feels so formal, right? Like, isn’t this weird? To put actual effort into becoming friends?”

“I guess so,” I say.

“My friends and I were never like, ‘Hey, let’s be friends.’ It’s more like, ‘Yeah, okay. You’re there and you’re cool.’”

“That’s literally what I said to Cassie in the womb,” I say.

She laughs, scratching an invisible spot on her arm. Which makes the sleeve of her shirt ride up, revealing the edge of a tattoo. I can’t quite make out what it’s a picture of. But seriously. This girl has a tattoo. And she’s in high school. I feel slightly inadequate.

Cassie slides in across from me.

“You take forever,” Mina says.

“Yes, but. Decisions.”

That’s Cassie. Every time we come here, she takes her flavor profile deadly seriously, but she always gets the exact same thing. Vanilla yogurt. And some type of gummy. MEMO TO CASSIE: all gummies taste the same. They honestly do.

“Okay, I have to finish telling you about my theory,” Cassie says. She shovels a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth. “So, Molly, you missed this, but we were talking about ancestors.”

“Um, what?” I ask.

“Like, ancestors. Like, all your relatives who died before you were born.”

“Why were you talking about this?”

Cassie pauses, her spoon midair. “Oh. I don’t remember.”

“Well, first we were talking about sperm donation,” Mina says, “and whether or not your sperm donor’s relatives count as your relatives.”

“Right,” Cassie says. “But, okay, here’s my theory. You’ve got your ancestors, and they’re just hanging out in heaven or hell—FYI, this is not like a rabbi-endorsed, official tenet of Judaism.”

“I gathered that.” I smile a little.

“Right. So, here’s what I think. They’re sitting around, drinking ambrosia and everything.”

“This is definitely not rabbi-endorsed.”

She ignores me. “And then one of their descendants has a baby. And it’s you! And as soon as you’re born, for your whole life, your ancestors get to watch everything. And they’re rooting for you and discussing among themselves, but they’re not allowed to intervene. They just watch. It’s like a reality show.”

“A really, really boring reality show,” I say.

“Yeah, but it’s not boring to them, you know? Because you’re their descendant.” Cassie clasps her hands together. “So they’re invested.”

Mina purses her lips around her spoon and nods.

“And then when you eventually get old and die,” Cassie continues, “you show up in heaven, where you’re basically a fucking celebrity. And your ancestors are like, yeah, I was shipping you with that other girl, but it’s cool. And sorry you got old and died, though. And you’re like, yeah, that sucked, but you know.” Cassie shrugs. “And so then you actually become one of the ancestors, and the next time a baby is born, you get to watch everything. And the cycle continues.”

“That’s horrifying,” says Mina.

Cassie tilts her head. “How so?”

“Um, having a bunch of dead people watching you all the time? Watching you pee and have sex and masturbate. And, like, discussing it with each other?”

“Eww. No.” Cassie shakes her head quickly. “They’re not creepers. They’re not watching that stuff. And anyway, they have like a million descendants to keep up with, so it’s not like they can watch anyone that closely. It’s more like flipping through the channels.”

“But, see, that’s not what you said,” Mina argues, poking the air with her spoon. And I like this. I like watching Cassie get challenged. I think Cassie likes it, too.

“Well, I’m still tweaking the theory,” Cassie says, smiling.

“Good. Make sure no dead people are watching me pee,” Mina says. Then she glances at me and groans, covering her face. “God. Molly, you must think I only talk about peeing and labia.”

“That is true,” I say.

She sticks her tongue out at me.

And in that moment, I realize I might actually be becoming friends with this girl. That’s two legit new friends today, and it’s not even four thirty. Mina of the Labia and Middle Earth Reid. A pretty good day’s work. I feel myself smiling.

Cassie nods. “Okay, so let’s say certain things are censored. They’re not allowed to watch you in the bathroom or having sex or anything like that.”

“But you can’t just decide that,” Mina says. “This isn’t a reality show pitch. It’s a metaphysical theory.”

“But it’s my metaphysical theory.” Cassie sniffs.

I roll the idea around in my head for a moment. It’s funny—I think I actually like it. I find it strangely comforting. I guess it’s nice to imagine a roomful of people caring about what happens to you. Rooting for your happiness. They’d be pissed off when someone was a jerk to you. They’d want your crush to like you back. They’d want all twenty-six of them to like you back.

You would matter. That’s the thing. I get into this weird place sometimes where I worry about that. I’ve never told anyone this—not my moms, not even Cassie—but that’s the thing I’m most afraid of. Not mattering. Existing in a world that doesn’t care who I am.

It’s this whole other level of aloneness.

And maybe it’s a twin thing. I have never truly been alone in the world. I think that’s why I fear it.

“They’re watching us right now,” Cassie says. She tilts her face to the ceiling. “Hey, ancestors. You guys should try fro yo. It’s the best.” She gives them a thumbs-up.

Mina buries her face in her arms and just laughs.