Philip Siegel - The Break-Up Artist

“A non-Indian girl?”

“Yeah. His family said that if he didn’t marry an Indian girl, he would lose his inheritance.”

Aimee doesn’t say anything. I’ve heard of pregnancy brain, where you forget certain things, but did she honestly forget about that? “Is that what Diane told you?”

“Sankresh just wanted some fun before finding a traditional Indian wife.”

“Becca.” She lets out a long exhale, like people do when they have to say something they really don’t want to. “Two of his older brothers married white girls, and his family didn’t say a word.”

“Maybe not in public.”

“Being Indian had nothing to do with it. You think he would’ve waited until just before the wedding to call it off? Trust me, that was the least of their problems, and Diane knows it.”

“Then why didn’t she break it off?”

“Because she wanted to get married.” Aimee stops herself. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not true.” I grip my phone until I feel the plastic buckling. “It’s not like you care.”

“But I do! We all care! Diane is one of my best friends. Even though she won’t talk to any of us, I still consider her one of my closest friends.”

“Seriously?” I wonder why they kept trying, when Diane wasn’t giving them anything back. Was their friendship really that strong?

“She was there for me when I was in a dark place, almost as dark as where she is now. It’s a weird-ass bond we all have, and now she won’t even talk to me. Do you know what that’s like?” I find myself nodding without realizing it. Diane can be stubborn, but she needs the maxipad girls.

I have some time before I need to hop in the shower. “I know how you can see Diane again.”

* * *

With ten days to go until opening night, rehearsals have been stretched an extra hour, which feels like an extra decade. Each minute is another challenge to not look over at Ezra, and to stop wondering if he’s looking at me. In those moments (and there have been plenty) when I succumb to temptation and turn my head to him, he’s distracted with painting or talking to his crewmates.

“Huxley, can we take a break?” Ally says, wobbling around. “I’m feeling a little dizzy.”

“If you must,” Huxley says, looking unimpressed. “Let’s take a quick water break.”

I’m relieved. Most of my hydration has sweated onto my clothes. I stumble to the water fountain with my empty bottle. Who knows what kinds of germs rest on it, but I don’t care. Must have water.

Kerry fills up hers and Ally’s water bottles. “Did you hear that another girl came forward claiming that she hired the Break-Up Artist? Urban legend, my ass.”

“I think between her, Sarah, Bari and Calista, they should find her in no time,” Ally says. I suddenly feel fully hydrated, but I can’t move. I must keep eavesdropping.

“Seriously, how sad and pathetic do you have to be to break up couples for money? She must be uuugly.” Kerry caps the bottles. “It’s all yours,” she says to me.

I check myself out in the reflection of my bottle. Isn’t it sad and pathetic that people in relationships act so horribly that they force people to contact me? I inhale a gulp before filling up my bottle. When I finish, I jump back, startled that it’s not a girl waiting behind me. It’s Ezra.

I look at him. I have to. He’s right in front of me. It’s the perfect excuse.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi.”

“I was just getting some water.” He points at the fountain.

“Yeah. I just got some. It’s good.” I squeeze my bottle until the cap almost pops off.

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

“Um, you looked... You guys were good out there.”

“Yeah. Ten more days.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” he says.

“I’m really excited.” We’re just two people having a conversation. Totally normal. Just talking about...I’m not really sure what we’re talking about, but it’s of the G-rated, non-home-wrecking-slut variety.

“I’m gonna get back to the squad and drink my water.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.” I run-walk back to the bleachers. I remember that I’m still thirsty and take a sip. I would love for us to kiss again. (Wow, I did not know what I’d been missing out on!) Instead, I pucker up to my water bottle and chug.

“Rebecca,” Huxley says. I stop in my tracks. She waves me over.

I do as I’m told. “What’s up?”

“I have a question for you.”

“What is it?”

“How long have you and Ezra been hooking up?”

I peel pieces of the label off my bottle. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie, Rebecca. It’s rude and it gives you premature wrinkles.”

I crinkle my brow, seized by worry.

“So does that,” she says.

“I was just getting water.”

“I didn’t just fall off the boat. I’ve never seen such a charged interaction between two people. Well, aside from Steve and me.” She does a quick stretch while I stand here awkwardly. “Now I get why you weren’t into Colin Baker.”

I think fast for a cover story. “It’s really embarrassing.”

“I can’t wait to hear it, then.”

I sit down on the bleachers and act mortified—head in the hands, et cetera. “He picked me up from Chris’s party since you obviously weren’t driving me home. I was stupid drunk, and I kind of threw up in his car.” I laugh it off. “Like chunks of dinner all over his leather interior.”

She holds up her hand. “No need to elaborate. I recommend you stay away from alcohol, Rebecca, if only because of the empty calories. So nothing else happened?”

“No.” My voice returns to calm. The key to lying is convincing yourself that what you’re saying is true.

Huxley calls everyone back to practice. Even though she thinks nothing happened, I still feel uneasy about her knowing anything. I get back into position, and with all my mental power, I concentrate on dancing. Not on Ezra.

* * *

Diane sits in my mom’s throne watching a cooking show with a chef so thin I doubt she ever eats anything she prepares.

“Hey,” she says. “You can change it if you want.”

“I have a question.” My voice travels to helium levels. “Did Sankresh’s brothers marry white women?”

“Wow. That was the non sequitur of non sequiturs.” Diane is wearing her usual uniform of Rutgers sweatshirt and pajama pants, and I want to take her in the back and hose her down. I feel this disgust toward her creeping in, toward what she’s done to her life.

“Did they?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Then why was that okay?”

“Sankresh wasn’t as strong as they were. He was kind of a pushover.”

Maybe that explains why they were together as long as they were. Diane mutes the TV and kneels on the Throne to look at me. “Becca, relationships are complicated.”

“They can’t be that complicated if I break them up so easily.”

“Did you hear that?” I hear faint screams from upstairs, my mom’s voice. Diane and I look at each other, verifying that we both heard it.

“Mom, are you okay?” Diane yells as we run into my parents’ bedroom.

“If you don’t stop that, we’re going to call the police!” my dad yells.

Diane swings open the door. My mom and dad are screaming at someone out the window.

“Oh! My windows!” my mom says, feeling the glass. “If I find scratches, you’re paying for them! Do you hear me?”

I race to the window and nearly die from simultaneous shock and embarrassment. Ezra stands in our backyard, next to our rusty swing set. Pebbles lie at his feet.

“What the hell were you doing? You vandalized my property!” my dad yells.

“I’m sorry,” Ezra says. “I thought this was Becca’s window.”

“No, she’s one window over. Couldn’t you have sent her a text message?”

Diane pats me on the back. “It’s lover boy.”

“Who’s lover boy?” my mom asks. She comes closer and whispers to me: “Is that the boy you went on the date with? He’s not what I pictured.”

“No!”

“You vandalized my property!” my dad says again. He repeats himself when he’s angry.

“He’s a friend of mine from school. I’ll take care of this.” I draw the blinds and sprint to my bathroom for an outfit check and a quick blush and lipstick touch-up.

I haven’t spent time in my backyard in years. I’m too old to play here. It’s a shame I can’t donate the space to little kids in need. Ezra sits on a swing, probably getting tetanus as I speak. He digs his hands inside his hoodie. Our outdoor lights paint him in silhouette, and he’s never looked cuter.

“I’m sorry for the fracas,” he says. His voice sounds sexier than ever. I’m the only one that gets to hear it.

“Hey,” I say. For some reason, it’s the only word that comes to mind.

Ezra pulls me in for a kiss, and it sends a blast of electricity through me. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he says.

“Me, too.” But I’m also thinking of Val. I squeeze his hand, wanting him to squeeze back.

“You’re incredible, Becca. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.” He runs his hand down my cheek. It makes me shiver.

Ezra’s phone chimes with a call, but he silences it before the second ring.

What if that was Val? I can’t let myself get sucked into the vortex like the couples at school. Not when Val is sitting in her bedroom alone trying to talk to her boyfriend.

“What is it?” Ezra asks, noticing my giddiness deflate.

“I can’t do this,” I say.

“Val?”

I nod. “How is this so easy for you?”

“I feel awful, but I know I’d feel worse if I let you go. It drives me crazy being in the same halls as you, and not being able to do anything about it.”

Does he prewrite these lines? Still, I can’t help but swoon. They only sound stupid until a guy says them to you.

“What are we doing?” I ask. “I can’t go behind my friend’s back.”

“We don’t have to. If she saw how right we were together, she would understand. She wants us to be happy,” Ezra says, completely clueless about his girlfriend. “I think she would be more upset if we kept sneaking around.”

“She would be miserable, no matter what.”

Ezra swings next to me. He laces his fingers into mine. I can feel his warmth prickling the hairs on my arm. “I don’t want to hurt Val. But why should we both be miserable to make her happy?”

I pull back. Suddenly she’s making him miserable? That’s a bit harsh. Val isn’t some third-world dictator.

“Bad choice of words,” Ezra says. He reaches for my hand again. “Not miserable. Val and I just aren’t right, not like us. There’s chemistry between us. You have to see that.”

I gaze up at the sky, reaching for some kind of answer. All I can see is the North Star and a few others fighting through the pollution and lights. I don’t know how a field of science with beakers and boron came to be a relationship necessity. There is something between us. A natural comfort level and physical attraction. It’s all brand-new, and maybe I should keep experiencing it. I want to.

I take a deep breath. “So what happens now?”

“I—I don’t really know. I guess I’ll start by meeting you first thing in the morning at your locker, and we’ll take it from there,” he says. Ezra tries for another kiss, but I shuffle to the side.

“What about Val? You need to break up with her.”

“I’ll do it before homeroom.”

“Ezra!” Even though we’re outside, I feel walls close in on me. I need time to process what’s happening. Does this mean I have a boyfriend? Isn’t there more of a gestational period? I wish there was an instruction manual.

“The longer we wait, the more upset she’ll be. We have to tell her.”

“Eventually,” I say. I leap off the swing set. I need to move around. “We have to wait. First, you need to break up with Val immediately. We’ll play it cool for a few weeks so she can heal and I can get used to all of this, and then we can go from there.” Ezra won’t have a problem because people always blame the other woman. I may not be popular, but Ashland High won’t be able to resist sinking its teeth into this gossip and piling on the dirty looks.

“What do you mean, ‘go from there’?” he asks. He grounds his feet into the dirt. “You mean become official?”

“Sort of.”

“I don’t want to wait! I want you to be my girlfriend now.”

“I thought you weren’t into labels.”

I prefer labels on my clothes, not my life. Why does it always come down to being in a relationship? I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I don’t want to join the packs of relationship zombies at Ashland. I don’t want to be known solely as someone’s girlfriend, or begin all my sentences with “my boyfriend.”