Naomi

“So how can I tell if he actually likes me?” the high-pitched voice in my headphones asks. “That he’s not just being polite because we’re forced to work together for our class?”

Even though the caller can’t see me, sweat breaks out over my lip and my brain freezes. The only sounds are the steady thump-thump-thump of my heart echoing in my ears. This is the third interview on this episode of Three Good Things and the first one who’s stumped me. I can usually pull advice out of the air without missing a beat.

“Do you think it’s hopeless?” she asks, defeat clear in her voice.

Theo, my seven-minutes-younger brother who’s sitting across from the old desk that serves as our recording studio in the corner of our basement, gives me a stern look.

The silence drags on—something Theo will edit out in production—and I wipe my clammy hands on my jeans.

“Naomi,” he whispers. I lock eyes with him and he makes a cutting motion with his fingers indicating we can edit this out later, then motions for me to continue.

The gears in my brain whir to life and the words tumble out. “It’s all in the body language,” I tell the caller. “If a person likes you, they find ways to make physical contact. And even when they don’t touch you, they subconsciously keep their posture open to you.”

The girl on the phone giggles. “Like he’s coming in for a hug?”

Theo covers his eyes with his hand and shakes his head, his shaggy black hair falling over his fingers.

Research shows that people can hear a smile in your voice, and mine comes naturally. “Not that obvious. Subtle things.” I picture my best friend Sage and her boyfriend Neb. From the moment they met, they seemed connected by an invisible string, always aware of each other’s proximity and in a constant dance to be near each other.

Theo makes a show of crossing his arms and widens his eyes at me.

I mouth, “I know,” then clear my throat. “Sometimes it’s easier to explain how to tell if a person’s not interested. If they avoid eye contact, or cross their arms, or if you’re sitting near each other and they shift away from you, those are pretty good signs they’re not into you.”

“Oh.” Her voice sounds farther away than it did a moment ago.

“But just because a person isn’t interested now doesn’t mean they never will be. Find ways to get to know them. Show them what a wonderful person you are.” My shoulders relax and I exhale, feeling my rhythm returning. “Insta-love only happens in books and movies, so don’t worry if you don’t have an immediate love connection.” I smile at Theo. “Real love takes time.”

I wrap up the call, thanking the caller for her bravery in calling into the Three Good Things podcast and while Theo takes down her contact information, I toss my headphones onto the desk.

“Three good things that’s over,” Theo says.

“That was a train wreck.”

“I said good things.”

The premise of my show, aside from the advice I give, is to find the positives in every situation—even a dumpster fire like that interview. I tick off my fingers. “My guest was well spoken, I got to reiterate my stance that love takes time, and…” My eyes dart over the recording equipment in our corner studio to the worn couch and first generation flatscreen TV against the far wall. The scent of mom’s lemon cleaner mingles with the musty odor that comes with living in a damp climate like Oregon. “And it’s over?”

“I can salvage it in editing.” He picks at a nick in the wooden desktop and lets his headphones settle around his neck.

“You always do.”

We produce my weekly podcast every Wednesday, and despite the occasional misstep like what just happened, it took off faster than I ever dreamed. My friends not only blanketed the high school with buttons with the show’s logo—my show has a logo—they pushed everyone to submit questions, and now underclassmen call me the Podcast Chick, which I love way more than I ever imagined. To anyone who asks, I insist I launched the show because I want to help people, but this little taste of fame has been pretty fricking cool.

Even Theo seems to enjoy the notoriety. I’ve heard him called the Producer Twin, and he beams whenever someone talks about the show. When he agreed to help, I don’t think he realized how much work would go into producing each episode, and while moments like these are sometimes demoralizing, getting feedback from the person who knows me best in the world is easier than it would be from a stranger.

He types something into his laptop before looking up at me. “We’ve got enough to cover our trip, plus the week after that.”

We double-booked the past two weeks because in two days we’re leaving for a week of family bonding—in the form of camping, canoeing, and star gazing. While our mom has always enjoyed sitting around a fire in the backyard, in my seventeen years, she’s never slept in a camper, let alone gone camping in the woods. And yet we’re about to drive over six hundred miles to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Utah. To stare at stars.

All because mom’s friend Margo has always wanted to visit a dark park and they thought it’d be fun for our families to vacation together.

“And you’re sure it’ll launch without you pushing the button?” So far, we’ve manually published each episode. This will be our first time relying on technology to launch my baby into the airwaves.

Theo shrugs. “I trust the technology. Worst case, we publish it as soon as we’re back. But hey, we probably won’t have signal so at least you won’t know.”

That sounds like pure torture. I make a mental note to ask Sage to text me when it’s live. “But texts will still work, right?”

When Theo and I camped a couple months ago to see the eclipse with a group from school, the WiFi was nonexistent, but texts still worked.

“Sure?”

“I can’t believe we’re camping again,” I say.

“Repeating your disbelief won’t change it. I just hope this Hunter guy can handle the tents.”

“Gender stereotype much?”

He flips his hair off his face and rolls his eyes. “As if. We know Mom’s ability, and she said Margo has a fancy tent that basically assembles itself, which implies she doesn’t want to deal with those bendy poles.”

The summer trip proved neither of us is an expert with the bendy poles.

“Which leaves Hunter.”

Margo’s son, who we’ve never met.

“Hey, I put mine together okay,” I say.

“Then you two are in charge.” He powers down the recording equipment and stands.

“I should have interviewed Sage.”

“You can’t keep having your best friend on. She’s amazing and I love her, but unless you’re making her a co-host, you need to mix it up.”

“There’s a thought.”

“What?”

“Co-host.”

He presses a hand to his chest and feigns shock. “I’m not enough for you?”

“I meant you, ya goofball.”

I reach for his hand and grab it. Our fingers look eerily similar—I can never decide if that means mine look masculine or his look feminine—and my twin-love thuds in my chest. Having him by my side makes life easier, and I couldn’t imagine it any other way. But we’re two months into senior year and, despite our tendency to overshare everything, we haven’t talked about what will happen to the podcast after we graduate. For all I know, he’s thinking it’ll end once we go to college.

Either way, I’m gonna miss him. He’s like an appendage I don’t know how to live without. My heart’s set on the University of California at Berkeley, hundreds of miles south of where we live in Oregon, and while Theo’s undecided, I’m ninety-nine percent certain he’s not planning to go that far from home. If he’s even going to college.

Which means we’ll be apart for the first time in our lives.

I hate that I don’t know what he’s thinking, so before I lose my nerve, I spit out the question I’ve been wanting to ask for months. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about—”

“Maybe we should cut that last section from the show.”

I drop his hand, the warm fuzzies evaporating along with my confidence. “Doesn’t that feel inauthentic? We can’t keep deleting the interviews where I screw up.”

“What difference does it make?”

The difference is the email I haven’t told him about. The one that has a contract that’s due next week and represents everything I dreamed of when I decided to launch the Three Good Things podcast.

Not telling Theo could destroy his trust in me and ruin what we have before we get to college. Even worse, if I reply and it leads where I think it might—it could expose me as a fraud.

 

 

 

Hunter

“Dude, you really have to go?” Darren, my fellow Media Studies major and the closest I have to a best friend since starting college, eyes me from across my cramped dorm room. The industrial beige walls are mostly bare, save the poster of an Underwood typewriter over my desk and another of the New York skyline over my bed. “This is like a once in a lifetime thing, man.”

“Don’t remind me.” I shove a pile of T-shirts and my favorite UC Berkeley sweatshirt—the one I got at orientation over the summer and screams Go Golden Bears!—into my duffel bag, followed by enough underwear for a week. Because that’s how long I’ll be camping in Utah with my mom and sister and a family I’ve never met instead of listening to one of the top book publishing acquisition editors in New York, my idol Evie Monroe. My dreams of meeting her afterwards died when Mom insisted I come home today.

Darren slides a pile of books across my desk to make room for him to lean. His brown hair is cut in the same shaggy style as mine and we have the same slight build, but he’s like a miniature version of me: he barely stands five foot five while I’m just over six. “Just show up a couple days late.”

“My mom’s not having it. She wants us to drive there together for family bonding.” And something about my car not making the seven hundred miles across three states to Salt Lake City.

“You’ll be well bonded after a week.”

“Along with my mom’s friend and her kids who I’ve never met.” I grab my copy of Into the Wild by Erin Hunter and finger the worn edges before tossing it next to my bag. My twelve-year-old sister Melody and I haven’t read together since I left for college and I’m looking forward to rekindling that habit. I drop to my knees and pull my sneakers from a tangle of clothes under my bed.

“You said they’re seniors in high school? At least they’re around our age.”

Darren’s the master of arguing both sides of a situation, sometimes even in the same breath. There are times, like now, that I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it.

“Yeah, and I get to share a tent with the guy.”

“Did you really think you’d get to bunk with the girl?”

The corner of my mouth lifts, telling him he should know better.

He holds up one hand and grabs the front of his jeans with the other. “I know. You don’t have time for girls, Mr. I’m Gonna Graduate in Three Years Even if It Means I Die a Virgin.”

“Hey!” I throw a balled-up sock at him and he swats it away, laughing. “I didn’t swear off sex, but I also don’t believe in screwing my way through college.”

“Oh, so you were hoping for a little something something.”

“Who’s getting some?” Shawna, another Media Studies major, materializes in the doorway. She’s got dark skin, braids halfway down her back, and a smile so bright I swear it’s fake. And she’s on the same three-year track as me. The three of us met the first week of classes and quickly became the Three-Act Structure. No one else calls us that, but I like it.

“Dude, I was joking when I suggested the no dating pact.” Darren pulls himself onto the desk, his feet swinging against the drawers. “Date! Be free! Get some!”

He may have been joking about the pact, but it makes sense. Romance is nothing but a distraction.

Shawna’s gaze settles on my duffel bag and the underwear hanging out of the top. “You’re not gettin’ some with those.”

Heat flushes my neck and sweat breaks out on my upper lip. I’ve got mom’s Mediterranean complexion, which means my embarrassment isn’t usually telegraphed for the entire world, but Shawna has the magic touch. I shove the offending boxer briefs deeper into my bag. “What’s wrong with my underwear?”

She strides across the room and swats away my hand. Darren snorts as she pulls out a pair and examines the navy cotton. “Nothing, really. But they look like they came from a five-pack at Walmart.”

Which they probably did. New underwear appears in my drawer once a year. I’ve never questioned its origins. “And that’s bad because…”

“Hunter, you’re in college. Time to step up your game.”

I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I lock eyes with Darren, who’s failing at trying not to laugh.

“Dude, she’s not wrong.”

I grab the underwear from her, and the cotton suddenly feels rougher than I remember. I imagine being alone with a girl and her… feeling it… and my face flames hotter. “My underwear is fine.”

Shawna grazes a hand over my shoulder and sits on the end of the bed, picking up the book and idly flipping through the pages. “I haven’t read the Warrior Cats series in forever.” I want to snatch it from her hands before she teases me for my reading choices, but she tucks it into my bag and gives me a gentle smile. “We didn’t mean to embarrass you. But at some point…” She nods her head back and forth. “I’m just saying there’s more than one way to be prepared when it finally happens.”

My head whips to Darren. The lasers from my eyes nearly set him on fire.

His eyes go wide, understanding my freak-out. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Would you chill,” Shawna says. “Darren didn’t out you on purpose, but he calls you a virgin all the time.”

My glare stays locked on Darren. My lack of a sex life is a personal choice, but that doesn’t mean I want it to be the center of the conversation.

“Seriously, your secret is safe with me.” She takes the underwear from me, FOLDS IT, and puts it back in my bag. “At least until the lucky girl who sees those.”

“Did you two need something—besides making fun of my life choices?”

Shawna tosses her braids over her shoulder with a flick of her wrist. “I was just making sure—” she rolls her eyes on the last words—“you’re really missing Ms. Monroe. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“You two tag-teaming me isn’t going to change anything.” No matter how badly I want to stay, when my mom makes up her mind about something, there’s no changing it. Just ask my dad, who moved across the country after she filed for divorce. “I’m surprised she hasn’t checked in yet to make sure I’ve left.”

As if on cue, my phone buzzes with a text. But it’s from my sister Melody, not Mom.

Melody: promise me you’ll listen to her podcast on ur way home

“Speaking of tag-teaming.”

“Do tell.” Shawna leans against my arm to look at my phone. “The podcast girl?”

I throw even sharper daggers at Darren. “Is nothing sacred?”

He pushes off the desk and approaches the bed, looking stricken. “I didn’t know some random chick you haven’t met was a secret.”

“Hunter, is something else bothering you?” Shawna asks. She has a knack for cutting through my bluster and seeing what’s really going on. I both love and hate it about her.

“No, sorry,” I say to Darren. “I’m just on edge about missing Evie.” And spending a week with total strangers. I thumb out a reply to Mel.

Me: won’t I hear her enough camping?

Melody: duuuuuuude trust me

Me: I’ll think about it

The little dots bounce as she types, and types, and types.

Melody: but you’ll need to download it before you leave so ur not scrolling and driving because that’s as bad as texting and driving and even though ur annoying sometimes I love you cuz ur my brother

Me: punctuation, I beg of you

Me: and I love you too

Melody: please Hunt, just listen to it

Melody: (curtsey for punctuation)

Me: I’ll think about it

I stand and slip my phone in my back pocket. “If you two really want to help me, there is something you can do.”

“Name it,” Shawna says.

“Record Evie’s presentation?” Because I’m not letting this vacation get in the way of my dreams to be an acquisitions editor for one of the big publishers in New York.

Learning from a successful editor is the first step to the rest of my future. To avoiding the mistake my parents made of getting married too early and divorcing too late.

This trip is just a bump in my plot. It won’t change anything.

 

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