Free The Household Spirit by Tod Wodicka Page B

wrong. Emily was so wrong.
    “Aw, Em,” Jess said in her
Free to Be…You and Me
voice. “That is so sweet of you to say. You’re like my best friend, too.”
    Emily hated Jess Yarsevich. “Whatever,” she said. Then, “I’m just fucking with you.”
    Emily had never cussed like that, not once. That wasn’t—where did that even come from?
    Jess said, “Oh.”
    Maybe Jess
was
her best friend? Or would be, could be? Maybe Emily had jumped the gun and, wait, could it be that Jess’s factious
Free to Be
voice was her true voice? I mean, she was here, wasn’t she? She was a terrific singer. She never flaked on a rehearsal or gave less than 110 percent. Emily said, “Well, I mean, I’m sorry, you’re like one of my best friends.”
    They paused, adjusted. They looked at each other and tried to figure out just who they were now, or should be. What had happened and how had it happened so quickly?
    “Good, kid, because I was gonna
say
.” Jess pretended to laugh.
    Emily pretended to laugh.
    Kid?
    Jess stopped laughing, finally, and offered, “I guess you’re my second-best friend.” Pause. “In Queens Falls.”
    They were hardly even tenth or twentieth best friends after that. Maybe Jess
had
begun feeling best friend inclinations and Emily had messed it up. Maybe Jess felt she’d gone too far, that blow-jobbing the twenty-year-old Quint Ferris didn’t sit nearly as well with Jess Yarsevich as she’d claimed it had. Jess soon left the Adirondack Children’s Troupe—she joined another, bigger theater group in Saratoga. They stopped hanging out. On the rare occasion that they’d run into each other at school they’d mime happiness, say that they’d see each other soon, joke about the old troupe maybe, say they’d call, text, whatever, and then, many call-less and text-lessmonths down the line, stop acknowledging the other altogether. And maybe Jess didn’t see Emily. But Emily did see Jess: for a whole year she was acutely aware of Jess’s movements through Queens Falls Middle School, where her locker was, her homeroom, what period she had lunch and who she sat with, which friends, at which table. Seeing Jess made Emily feel disgusting—yes, that was really the word—because it reminded her that she was always looking, in a sense, for Jess Yarsevich.
    And so it began.
    Because then came Lori Freeman in seventh grade. Similar thing. Out of nowhere Lori going, “You’re my second-best friend, Emily!” You have got to be kidding me. Emily first thought it was a joke, as if Lori was in collusion with Jess Yarsevich. Then, in eighth grade, the cabal of Stephanie Bouchard and Amber Haviland
and
Jennifer Savona. They all said it. Three second-best friendships. In ninth grade it was Rebecca Hipsh and Desi Acevado and, urgh, Lori bitchface Freeman again. Lori, who, gallingly, actually claimed to have
two
first-best friends at the time, Rebecca Hipsh and Alexi Jones in a mutually beneficial BFF power share, meaning: here was someone who had enough best friendliness to spread over
two
girls in ninth grade but back in seventh grade, back when she’d originally said that Emily was her second-best friend, she didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. For reasons Emily would brood herself to death on, Lori Freeman needed to keep her in second place no matter what, a second place that felt, to Emily, exactly like a no place.
    —
    Emily attended exactly one sleepover. She was thirteen years old. She’d been invited numerous times before but Peppy had forbidden it. The idea had terrified Emily too. But this time, for whatever reason, she pushed things too far.
    “Why can’t I go?” Emily knew why. “Everyone’s going. Peppy, I want to go.”
    “You’ve made that clear enough.” He flipped through the TV channels.
    “That’s all you’re going to say?”
    “Let’s talk about this another time.”
    “The sleepover’s tomorrow.”
    “Then I propose we talk about it the day after tomorrow.”
    “That’s not