The Difference Between You and Me
1
Jesse
Jesse is in the sophomore hall girls’ bathroom, the farthest stall from the door, one huge, scuffed fisherman’s boot propped up on the toilet seat so she can balance her backpack on her knee and rifle through it. She’s looking for the masking tape that she totally, totally put in here this morning, she’s positive, she has a perfect picture-memory of swiping it out of the designated masking-tape cubby in her mother’s rolltop desk in the den and dropping it into her backpack, the big pocket, right here she totally put it here where is it where is it the bell’s about to ring—
The plan is to wait until the pep rally is called and then paper the entire school with the latest draft of her manifesto in one lightning-quick, thirty-eight-minute blitz while the rest of the student body is penned in the gym bleating and baaing like the sheep they are. It’s a sweet, satisfying plan, but it can’t begin to happen without masking tape. Tape tape tape tape—Jesse digs deeper, feels around frantically in the backpack’s gummy innards.
And the bell rings and the announcement comes over the PA—“annual spirit assembly being held at this time in the gym, all students proceed to the gym at this time”—and Jesse whispers, “Shit!” and starts to sweat.
The door swings open, admitting a blast of hallway-at-passing-time noise, and a clutch of girls come in, mid-giggling-conversation. In her stall, Jesse freezes, presses back against the cool cinder-block wall.
“Um, I mean, no way? It’s obviously a lie?”
Through the sliver of space between stall door and stall wall, Jesse makes out a blur of blonde as the girls arrange themselves in front of the long mirror over the sinks. One of the girls is explaining something to the others in a tone that implies that they are totally stupid. She says every sentence with an implied “I mean, duh” after it.
“She can say they hooked up? She can go around telling everyone they hooked up if she wants people to think she’s a total slut? But there is no way they hooked up, just because I know that guy and that guy is impossible to get with.”
“Impossible,” one of the other girls echoes, and giggles a little.
Jesse’s knee begins to bounce. Her jaw tightens. If they were just here to pee it would be one thing, but these girls are settling in for a full hair-and-makeup session in front of the mirrors. Prepping for pepping. Go go GO! Jesse shouts at them telepathically. She has to be clear of this bathroom by no later than one minute before first period, otherwise—
“Like, remember at Dylan’s party how hard I had to work to get him to hook up with me?” the first girl continues. “I practically had to slip him a roofie, remember?”
“A roofie.” The second girl giggles again vaguely.
“Remember I practically had to slip him a roofie and like beat him over the head with a club and like drag him back to my lair to get him to hook up with me at Dylan’s party? So there is no way he got with Lauren. If I have to go through all that just to get him? And she’s like a total barking dog? I’m sorry, I just don’t believe it.”
“But why would she lie about it?” A third girl speaks, and Jesse’s heart stops, briefly—just pulls into a parking space and pauses. It’s Emily.
“I don’t see why she’d spread a rumor about her own sluttiness,” Emily continues evenly, reasonably. Emily always sounds like that, like she’s making a point that everyone else is guaranteed to agree with.
“Uh, to seem less ugly, obviously?” First Girl sneers. Second Girl giggles: Duh.
“I don’t see where her lying about being slutty would make anybody think she’s less ugly,” Emily says. “It doesn’t make sense.” Jesse can picture her shrugging her I-guess-there’s-nothing-more-to-say-about-it shrug, perfect round shoulders in their soft J.Crew sweater bobbing up and down, a smooth, case-closed bounce.
But is it the J.Crew sweater today? Jesse’s curiosity rises in her like a blush to her cheeks. Is it the pink one with the fake pearl buttons? Or maybe the black V-neck she wears over the white button-down? It could be the Vander High hoodie—it is spirit assembly today, after all, and Emily loves spirit. If Jesse were smart she wouldn’t move a muscle until these girls were gone, but she can’t help herself. Even a tiny slice of Emily is worth seeing.
Carefully, soundlessly, Jesse brings her big, galumphy fisherman’s boot down off the toilet seat, cradling her backpack to her chest to keep it from slipping out of her grasp and crashing to the floor. She hunkers down and leans against the stall door, pressing her eye to the cold gap between door and wall. Emily is right there, not even three feet away, her back to Jesse, slim, denim hip jutted out to one side, gathering her long, thick, strawberry blonde hair into a single rope rising straight up off the top of her head. Quick as a samurai, she twists the hair-rope around and around, then spreads her left hand wide as a starfish with a ponytail holder stretched around her fingers, open to its widest width, then pulls the hair through the holder once, twice, then splits it into two hanks and yanks the whole thing tight. She tips her head first to one side, then the other, assessing the ponytail’s height, form, and placement in the mirror. It’s a move Jesse has seen her do dozens of times, but she could watch it a thousand more and never get tired of it. It’s like watching a Cirque du Soleil gymnast flip ten times through the air and stick the landing.