Going Viral, page 4
And then, the relationship just kind of happened. Easily. Comfortably. We’d usually hang out after school, too, doing homework … and other things.
But then we’d say good-bye, go home. This watching TV and movies together over video calls thing is new. And kind of exhausting.
But she’s my girlfriend. My smart, pretty, nice girlfriend. We’ve been dating for almost six months. One month of that in a pandemic. I can’t see her in person, haven’t seen her in person in a month. I should be excited to see her face over a screen, to spend time with her. I’m just being weird.
I attempt to focus on my imminent chat with my girlfriend. I open up the video-streaming site on my computer, then plug in my laptop to its charger. I’m ready. And at 7:30, right on time, Vanessa starts the video chat with me.
I answer the call. It’s so good to see her smiling face. To know that I’m making her smile. Her curly hair is in two loose braids, and it’s adorable.
“I have popcorn!” she says, holding up a bowl.
I smile. “Of course you do.”
“My mom and Lucy and I found this recipe for kettle corn. I wish you could be here to try it. It took a few tries before we got it right, but it turned out so good!” She pops some into her mouth.
“I wish I could be there too,” I say.
“Did you make a snack?” she asks, looking at the bottom of her screen.
“No, not quite,” I say. “The day kind of got away from me.”
She looks disappointed for a second and then says, “Oh, I hope that means you got lots of college research done!”
“Um, something like that.”
She looks at me, frowning.
I haven’t told her anything about the possible weirdness with my mom’s job, about what it could mean for money for college, because talking about it would make it real, and it all just makes me so tired, so I still don’t say anything.
“Anyway!” I say, trying to change the subject. Though I don’t know what I’m changing the subject to.
Vanessa does it for me. Picks up the slack for me. “Ready?” she says, sighing. She shows her laptop, with the show queued up on her computer.
We pop in our earbuds, say, “One, two, three,” and start the show, with our phones propped up right next to our laptops.
My TV show with Vanessa is, well, sweet. Like, in every sense. She tells me all the steps involved in making the crepe cake and the kettle corn that she and Lucy and their mom made, and I don’t mind that she talks over what the judges say about the contestants’ showstoppers. It’s cute how excited she gets about baking. How excited she gets about everything. She tells me that they’re going to make a treacle tart next, and I remind myself to google that later. There’s a chance it was baked on the episode we just watched, but I don’t want Vanessa to know I wasn’t paying attention to what the contestants were making, even if it was because she was talking to me.
When the show ends, I say good night to her. I take out my earbuds, put my phone and laptop down on my bed, where I’ve been laying. It’s just after ten, and I should be tired. Maybe it’s watching all the desserts being baked, thinking about all the sugar, but I feel wide awake. Wired.
I pace around my room, then, mid-pace, open Babble on my phone. I’m just checking to see if anyone said anything about the latest addition to my story. Not that it matters. Not that I care.
The app loads, and Comments: 1 is under my last post.
Sounds like a step in the right direction! Try, try, try again. And keep writing! You have a way with words.
A way with words. My creative writing teacher told me I was a good writer. I wanted to take more writing classes, and I even thought about signing up for one this spring, but Vanessa reminded me that I should take as many honors and AP classes as I can, for college applications. So I didn’t.
I feel my ears burning.
I shake my head. This person is just being nice. But why? Why would someone go out of their way to read my Babble story posts and comment on them? Maybe they think I’m a decent writer? Maybe they are interested in what happens with this girl across the street? I look at my curtain. I wonder if the girl is out there again.
Well, I’m not opening the curtain. Because what if I do, and the girl is on the fire escape again and I do something silly again? What if I forget how to wave, how to speak, again?
Or what if I open it and she’s not out there? What if I just imagined the whole thing, her whole existence?
I can’t decide which option seems worse.
I reread the comment. They think I have a way with words.
I pace my room, then turn off my light. Before I can stop myself, I take two quick strides over to my window and pull the curtain open.
Then I open my laptop.
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She’s on her fire escape. The light from a streetlamp casts a warm glow all around her. Why is my heart racing? Why are my palms sweating?
I pull my curtain closed just as quickly as I opened it.
I stand there, staring at the curtain again, wondering if maybe I just hallucinated seeing her. Maybe it was just a shadow. Maybe it wasn’t actually her. The building is a three-family home, like ours, and it’s a couple, like my parents’ age, who live there. I’ve never seen any indication they have a daughter, this daughter. Is this girl all just a product of my imagination? My friends have told me about news reports, stories on the news, about the mental impact the pandemic can have on people. Maybe that’s what’s happening to me.
I take a deep breath, stare at my curtain, tell myself I’m just trying to prove my mental stability, and I open the curtain, wider this time, at least four inches.
She’s still there.
This time I keep the curtain open, watching her, making sure she doesn’t turn into smoke and disappear. Before I can stop myself, I open my window and crawl out onto my fire escape, which is right outside my bedroom window.
She doesn’t even notice, though, and keeps her head bent over her book. It looks like the same tattered book that she had earlier. She runs her hands through her hair as she reads. It’s amazing how still she sits. She doesn’t check her phone, her watch, anything. She just … reads.
Watching her is really soothing. I’d never guess we were in the middle of a pandemic with how peacefully she sits on the fire escape. After less than a minute of me watching her, she puts the book down and stretches her arms over her head. I need to say something, alert her to my presence; I realize she could look over and see me on my fire escape, but I’m mesmerized watching her.
She puts her arms back down in her lap, then stretches her legs out in front of her, bending over her stretched-out legs.
I’m trying to make my mouth work, and I’m also admiring her flexibility, wondering if she’s always been that flexible or if that’s something she has trained herself to do, when she suddenly looks up. Right at me. Again.
I should wave, should speak, should do anything besides what I’m doing, which is nothing, but I’m paralyzed again.
She quickly pulls her legs in, grabs her book, and stands up. She cups her hands over her eyes, I think to cut out the glare from the streetlamp. She stands there, staring across the street at me on my fire escape. I think I’ve forgotten how to breathe. It’s like time has slowed down, or like I’m moving underwater, tangled up in seaweed, and any action I want my body to make is going to take too long.
I wait for her to yell something mean, or to ask me what my problem is and why I keep staring at her, why I’m sitting on my fire escape, but she doesn’t. She just stands there, like she’s stuck in whatever weird time wormhole I’m stuck in, or she’s swimming through the same seaweedy water as me.
And then her body moves again, and she waves. And, strangest of all, she’s smiling at me. Then, as I’m trying to process what’s happening, what just happened, she grabs her book, and climbs back inside, shuts her window, and closes her curtain. I’m left wondering once again, was it all a dream?
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That night my sleep is full of dreams about me trying to catch up with someone on the sidewalk outside my apartment, reaching for someone whose face I can’t see, whose hand keeps slipping from my grasp every time I make a grab for it.
The dreams seem endless, and apparently they are, because when I wake up and check my phone, I see that it’s almost 11:00 a.m.
Oh well. It’s still the weekend. And not like I have anywhere to go, anywhere to be. Not like I ever have anywhere to go, anywhere to be, no matter the day of the week.
I stretch in bed and scroll through my phone. Some texts from Vanessa, wishing me good morning, asking what I’m doing today, and then, finally, one from ten minutes ago.
I smile, knowing she’s been awake for probably almost three hours already. It’s cute how much of a morning person she is, how excited she is to start every day.
I send her back a waving hand emoji, and she’s off, telling me what she’s been up to so far today, what else she’s thinking about doing the rest of the day.
I send her a heart emoji and then head out into the living room. My parents are both sitting on the couch, both on their laptops. They have the news on mute. It’s showing people walking around a European city, with big gaps of space between them. Everyone is wearing masks. The words social distancing scroll across the bottom of the screen.
My parents look up at me. “Good morning, honey!” my mom says, smiling.
My dad chuckles. “Nice work, sleeping so late. It’s like you’re a teenager or something.”
I yawn and stretch. “Did you guys already eat breakfast?”
“Yeah, a few hours ago,” my mom says. “But help yourself. Last night I put together some little individual containers in the freezer. Each has enough for one smoothie.”
I raise an eyebrow at her, and she looks at me innocently. “What?” she asks. “This is still keeping it simple. There is no cooking or boiling or sautéing or blanching or broiling or anything involved. I didn’t even look at Pinterest!”
I open the freezer, see the individual containers, and take one out.
My mom watches me. “I already cleaned out the blender, so just dump everything in, put the top on, and turn the blender on.”
“Mom, I know how blenders work.”
“Sorry, sorry!” she says, but she’s smiling.
I open the container. I see some leafy greens, frozen chunks of something orange, some ice. I sniff it. It doesn’t smell terrible. I dump everything into the blender, put the top on, and turn it on. I pour everything into a cup, then take a small sip. It’s actually not bad! I can tell my mom is trying really hard not to watch me.
“Mom, it’s good. Thank you.”
I walk over to give her a hug, and she hugs me back, but when I pull away, she has tears in her eyes.
“Oh jeez, Mom!” I say, joking. “It’s just a smoothie.” But as I look at her, I realize that it’s not about the smoothie.
She clears her throat and says, “It looks like I’m going to be temporarily furloughed. But really temporarily, just until this is all over. And it’s not immediate. It’ll probably happen in the next few weeks. So it’s nothing to worry about! Nothing for you to worry about. I can pick up freelance, and we have savings. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say uncertainly, my brain trying to keep up.
“I don’t want you to worry, Claire. That’s what us grown-ups get to do.”
I nod.
“Okay?” she says again, squeezing my arm.
“Um, yeah,” I say. There are a million questions rolling around in my head, but I don’t know where to begin. And I don’t want to make my mom more upset.
My dad has remained mercifully quiet for this conversation. I look at him, still tapping around on his laptop. “You heard your mother,” he says. “Nothing to worry about.” He smiles at me, a piece of something green stuck in his teeth, and I wonder how it’s possible that I’m related to him.
My mom wipes away her tears and my dad unmutes the TV. I try to listen to what the anchor is saying about a possible vaccine for the virus, but my head is spinning.
My mom is losing her job. Probably. Maybe. But I’m not supposed to worry. Somehow.
Once the news goes to a commercial break, my mom stands up and declares, “I’m going to do some laundry.”
My dad salutes my mom, still looking at his laptop. My mom gives me a quick look. “It’s fine, Claire. Really. Please don’t worry.”
“Okay,” I say again. Then I go back to my room in a daze, my head whirling.
I sit down at my desk, open my laptop, and then suddenly everything from my Babble post comes flashing back to me. The girl on the fire escape, her seeing me watching her, the way she looked mad, then how she smiled and waved at me. How I can’t seem to interact with her in any kind of normal way.
And the other thought that flashes into my mind, making a circle around the inside of my head: why did I write the post? Why do I feel the need to give a bunch of people on Babble my awkward noninteractions with the girl across the street? What does she have to do with my life, with my girlfriend, with figuring out college stuff? With my mom possibly, probably, losing her job?
I mean, it doesn’t matter. So what if I can’t have a normal conversation with the girl across the street. What’s the big deal, right? It’s not like I have to interact with her anytime soon in the real world.
I think about the comment on my other post about the fire escape girl; someone thinks I have a way with words. That I should keep writing. That I should try again with the girl across the street.
But it occurs to me: Try what again, exactly? What is it that I’m hoping to accomplish with this girl across the street?
I look at the picture of Vanessa and me on my desk. I’m just trying to figure out who this girl is. Why I’ve never seen her before. That’s all.
That’s all.
I wonder if anyone has commented on my post from last night. Not that it matters, of course. Not that I care, of course. I’ll just check really quick, before I start my homework and college research.
I slurp my smoothie as I power up my laptop. I read my latest text from Vanessa about her lunch, and then I open up Babble. I click over to my latest post.
I see the words: Comments: 5.
Is there more than one bot following me now? Or maybe even some spammers have joined in? It can’t be any actual people commenting, right?
I click on the comments section, ready for another This review is the best. Or maybe even Hi, view my profile or I make $6,000 a minute working from home, but … that’s not what the posts say. At all. The five comments are all from apparently different people. Like, actual people. Not bots or spammers.
The first comment says, Getting closer! Sounds like the first chapter in a new story. And I love your writing!
I read through the rest of the comments:
I wish I had someone cute across the street to crush on in lockdown.
Finally, something interesting to read about.
Ooh, this could be fun to follow?
Don’t give up! Can’t wait to see what happens next!
Wait, someone else complimented my writing? These comments must be jokes, right? Like, no one reads my Babble posts, much less comments on them. It’s probably someone bored at home, pretending to like the posts, pretending to be interested. People have a lot of time on their hands these days, and when people have a lot of time on their hands, they love turning to the Internet. The anonymous Internet. Where anyone can be anyone. Where anything can happen.
And who said anything about the girl on the fire escape being cute? Having a crush on her? It certainly wasn’t me. It definitely wasn’t me. I was just following a Babble writing prompt, writing about what I saw outside. And then an update, because … Well, I don’t know why. Because I want to prove to a bunch of strangers how awkward I am, that even in a pandemic, when I have nothing to lose, I can’t say hi to someone new, be normal with someone I’ve never met? That I can’t even talk to the girl across the street like a normal person?
I look at my closed curtain. I take a deep breath, and before I can stop myself, I quickly open it, then open the window to let in some fresh air.
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I knew it was a possibility I’d see her sitting there, but her appearance still jolts me. Or maybe I didn’t know it was a possibility. Since I still wasn’t sure if she was real. But now I know she is. I think.
Sometimes it can be hard to keep track of what’s real anymore. And time. Time. It drags. Or maybe it doesn’t. It’s hard to keep track of one day from the next. What makes one day different from another, when they’re all pretty much the same. More of watching the news, hospitals at capacity, our state being shut down to outside visitors. More of worrying about what’s going to happen with my mom’s job. With everything.
But, now, at least, in this moment that will probably soon blend with all the other moments, the sun is out again today, and her hair is doing that lit-up thing again while she is bent over her book.
I grab the book I just started reading this morning, then crawl out onto my fire escape. It’s now or never. I clear my throat, but she must not hear me.
