Jay Asher - The Future of Us

The porcelain sink feels cool against my palms. In the steamed bathroom mirror, I can see my scattershot red hair, thin arms, and the towel around my waist. Somehow, in fifteen years, I morph from this into the guy who marries Sydney Mills.

I take a step back, flex my biceps, and suck air into my chest. The hazy reflection helps me imagine stacking on some muscle. And it looks good!

I wink at myself. “Yeah, baby!”

A few more pushups and sit-ups every night and maybe I can become that guy even faster. I turn sideways and flex into the mirror, but from this angle there’s no denying I’m still a skinny kid with two years of high school left to go.

I slide open the bathroom window to let out some steam. Across the lawn, the lights are off in Emma’s room. She must have gone to bed early.

* * *

IT’S GETTING CLOSE to midnight. I glance around my bedroom, but I can’t see my phone. I walk downstairs, turn on the small light in the hallway, and dial my brother. It’s three hours earlier in Seattle, so I’m not worried about waking him up.

On the second ring, David answers. In the background, there’s a TV audience laughing.

“Hey, it’s Josh,” I say. “Are you busy?”

“I’m in college,” he says. “I’m eating a bowl of Lucky Charms and watching the final episode of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” I guarantee, if David calls home tomorrow, he’ll tell our parents he was studying in the library all night.

“Mom and Dad watched that tonight,” I say. “Doesn’t it scare you to know you have the same sense of humor as them?”

“A little,” he says. “But it’s Will Smith! Have I ever told you that every time he starts rapping the theme song, it reminds me of the time you tried rapping in the junior high—”

“I remember,” I say, cutting him off. “But that’s not why I called.”

“Of course not,” he says. “So what’s going on, RedSauce?”

“There’s this girl,” I say.

I hear the TV shutting off. “Is she cute?”

“She’s gorgeous. Any guy in school would die to go out with her.”

“And she’s interested in you?” David asks. “That’s my brother!”

“No, she’s not interested… yet.” I take a breath. “It’s hard to explain, but I think she could be interested in me… eventually.”

“How do you know her?”

“I don’t. Not really. We have Peer Issues together, but she’s a year ahead of me.”

“Have you ever talked to her?”

“No.”

“Never?” he asks.

“No.”

“So she’s more like your fantasy girl,” he says. “That’s okay. You just need to break the ice.”

“That’s the part I suck at.”

“Whatever you do,” he says, “don’t walk up and ask her out. If you don’t have any sort of a relationship yet, that can seem creepy.”

“Then what do I do?”

“Hang back and play it cool,” he says. “When the right moment appears, the key is not to let it pass.”

That’s always been my problem. I let moments pass, and then I kick myself endlessly.

I twist the phone cord around my finger. “What if it feels like the perfect moment is happening, but I’m misreading things?”

“You mean like what happened with Emma?” David asks. “No, definitely don’t let that happen again.”

I ARRIVE AT SCHOOL early and head to the newspaper office. Kellan’s editorials are due on Tuesdays and she always reviews last-minute changes with Tamika West, who’s the editor in chief. When I enter, Kellan and Tamika are marking up papers spread out on a long table.

“Hey, Emma,” Tamika says.

Kellan looks up. “What happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” This morning, I blew my hair straight and even put on makeup, which I rarely do for school. But I just needed the ego boost today.

“You look fried,” Kellan says.

“I’m fine… just a little tired.”

“Can you hang on for a second?” Kellan asks. “We’re almost done.”

I settle into a stained armchair at the corner of the office. It’s a cluttered room, with newspaper clippings, gum wrappers, and flattened soda cans everywhere. For several weeks after Tyson broke up with her, we ate lunch at that long table.

I listen as Kellan and Tamika discuss Kellan’s editorial. I read an early draft of it. It’s about a school policy prohibiting girls from wearing shirts that reveal their midriffs, and whether that violates their First Amendment rights. It makes me think about Graham lusting after my belly button in the dugout yesterday. On my way here, I slipped a note through the vents in his locker, saying I wouldn’t see him until band. That way he won’t hunt me down for a make out session before class. Eventually we need to have the breakup talk, just not this morning.

Kellan picks up her backpack. “Ready?”

We walk into the hallway, and people are starting to arrive at their lockers. I have no idea what I’ll say to Josh if I run into him. It was dark when we returned home from Photomat and said good night. But now, under the bright florescent lights of school, my emotions are too exposed.

“Did you hear about Rick’s bonfire on Friday night?” Kellan asks as we walk up the stairs. “Tamika told me about it. It’s at the end of Senior Skip Day, but the party isn’t just for seniors. It’s on the beach behind his house, and he’s inviting anyone who wants to come.”

Rick Rolland is a senior who plays football and throws parties and always has a beautiful girlfriend. He actually went out with Sydney Mills last year, but word is that he cheated on her with a ninth grader.

“Rick lives on the lake?” I ask, thinking about Josh and Sydney’s future house.

“Yeah. Want to go?”

“I guess,” I say, though it’s hard planning for the end of the week when all I can think about is fifteen years in the future. As we head down the foreign language corridor, I turn to Kellan. “Do you think it’s too late to sign up for that college biology course?”

Kellan claps her hands together. “You changed your mind?”

“I think so,” I say.

I woke up this morning feeling sad for myself. But telling people I’m taking a college class while still in high school sounds worthy of respect. Also, I liked biology this year, especially the units on genetics and DNA.

“It’ll be much harder than high school bio, but you’ll do great,” Kellan says. “And you’ve already got the grades, so you’ll definitely get in.”

“I hope so,” I say.

Kellan links arms with me and squeals. “This is our first step on the way to med school!”

“We’re going to med school now?”

“We can even live together. And do our residency at the same hospital!”

When she says this, I realize that I can try looking up Kellan on Facebook. Maybe I’ll even see if she actually does go to med school. It’s such a powerful thought that Facebook isn’t limited to Josh and me. I might be able to look up anyone and see what their future holds.

TYSON AND I HAVE GYM third period. If we played a sport, we wouldn’t need to take gym, but the sacrifice is worth it. With the time it takes to change and walk to the volleyball courts, class only lasts thirty minutes.

I wipe my towel beneath each arm, and then toss it back in my locker. In the next row, someone’s beeper goes off.

Tyson’s towel is wrapped tight around his waist. He reaches beneath it to pull off his gym shorts. “I tried getting my dad to buy me a beeper for my birthday,” he says, “but he thinks only doctors and drug dealers need them.”

I sniff my armpits and reach into my locker for deodorant. “Why do you want one?”

“So people can reach me if they need to,” he says.

“Are you really that in demand?” I ask. “I know you’re not a drug dealer, so are you secretly a doctor?”

Kyle Simpson saunters around the corner, naked as usual. He holds up his little black beeper and presses a button to make the seven digits glow. “My girlfriend’s paging me,” he tells us. “Anyone got a quarter for the pay phone?”

Kyle’s girlfriend goes to the college, and we all know what it means when she beeps him during gym. He’ll be cutting fourth period and won’t return until the end of lunch.

Kyle is one of Emma’s exes. They dated for a while last year, and she used to talk about how hot he was when he took off his shirt. Guys seem to love doing that if they’re ripped. Needless to say, I’m a shirt-on kind of guy. I’m just thankful I didn’t have gym with Kyle while they were dating. The last thing I needed was to hear him talk about Emma while parading around buck naked.

I pretend to feel around for change on my towel. “Sorry, dude.”

Tyson pulls his bunched-up pants out of his locker, reaches into one of the pockets, and tosses over a quarter. Kyle slaps him on the back, then swaggers back down the aisle. When he’s gone, Tyson and I look at each other and shudder.

“Why does he do that?” I whisper. “Either get dressed or wrap a towel around yourself.”

“Exactly,” Tyson says. “I don’t need to see his schlong five days a week.”

I pull my shirt over my head. “Maybe that’s why you and Kellan broke up. You call it a ‘schlong.’”

“If I’d had a beeper,” Tyson says, “I bet we’d still be together.”

“If you had a beeper, she’d be calling it nonstop. You’d spend half your life running to the nearest payphone to call her back.”

The bell rings and I finish tying my sneakers. Then I yank my backpack from my locker and set it on the bench. From the front pocket, I remove a pen and a sheet of paper, which I smooth against my thigh. During first period, I began a list called “I wonder what becomes of…?” So far I’ve written the names of eighteen people I want to search for on Emma’s computer. The list includes a few of the smartest people in my grade. Maybe one of them finds a cure for AIDS or designs a car that doesn’t run on gas. Maybe the president of drama club makes it to Broadway. And my first girlfriend, Rebecca Alvarez. What’s she doing fifteen years from now?

There are also the people too bizarre to ignore, like Kyle Simpson. Future male stripper.

KELLAN AND I are spending study hall in the library. Kellan, who will ace finals no problem, is taking a quiz in YM called “What Kind of Girlfriend Are You?” I’m trying to remember key events in the Spanish-American War for the history final, but what I’m really thinking about is my future.

I close my eyes and massage my forehead. It’s hard to tell much when the future is given out a few random sentences at a time. Also, my life has changed every time we’ve looked, so I can’t even predict what’s going to make my future self miserable today.

“‘You’re having a girls’ night in,’” Kellan reads, “‘when your boyfriend calls and invites you to the movies. Do you, (A), say you can’t make it but you’ll be free tomorrow; (B), invite him over to join your gal pals; or (C)—’”

“None of the above,” I say. “Call him on the fact that he doesn’t really want to see a movie. It’s just a booty call.”

“You’re right,” Kellan says, shaking her head. “Guys are such horndogs.”

I study my fingernails. “Do you ever think about who you’re going to marry someday?”

“Funny you should ask.” Kellan grins and folds down a corner of her magazine page. “This morning I was telling Tamika about a Husband Theory I came up with.”

“You have a Husband Theory?”

“I thought of it while I was waiting at a stoplight yesterday,” she says. “Okay, imagine you’re about to die in a head-on collision. There you are, driving down the street, when a Ford Bronco comes hurtling toward you. You know this is it, the end. So you glance in the passenger seat and… who do you see?”

“That’s terrible, Kel!”

“Quick, who do you see? That’s your future husband.”

I pick some coral polish off my thumbnail. “I’m the one driving?”

“Yes, and you’re both about to die. Who is it?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “You, maybe.”

“Impossible” she says. “We just learned in sociology that they don’t allow same-sex marriage anywhere in the world. That’s what my next editorial is about. But come on! Who’s in your passenger seat?”

“No one,” I say, shaking my head. “I see a tabby cat. Or maybe one of those cockatoos like that woman downtown carries on her shoulder.”