Not Like I'm Jealous or Anything: The Jealousy Book (Ruby Oliver) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Foreword

  I THINK THEY GOT YOUR NUMBAH

  BAKE SALE A RUBY OLIVER STORY

  DO NOT GUT FISH IN ROOMS

  A GENIUS FOR SAUNTERING

  THE DRIVER: ME AND MARTY BECKERMAN

  WHY I’M JEALOUS OF NED VIZZINI

  SHE’S MINE

  WHY I HIT MY BOYFRIEND

  FIFTY PERCENT

  TEST YOUR JEALOUSY QUOTIENT

  CONFESSIONS OF A JEALOUS GIRL

  WE’RE ALL GREEN ABOUT SOMETHING

  TOE THE LINE WITH ME

  ALL JEALOUSY, ALL THE TIME: Extras

  JEALOUSY VS.ENVY: IMPRESS YOUR ENGLISH TEACHER

  BEING WELL-READ MAKES SOME PEOPLE JEALOUS

  MAKE YOUR OWN JEALOUSY MIX!

  GREEN-EYED VIEWING

  BUY GREEN!

  IT’S NOT THAT EASY BEIN’ GRANNY SMITH APPLE: Crayola’s Twenty Shades of Green

  Capricorns (Dec. 22–Jan. 19) are known for being jealous.

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  ABOUT THE EDITOR

  Copyright Page

  For Steven and Joseph,

  my nonrivalrous siblings

  “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey’d monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”

  —Shakespeare

  “Jealousy is in the house y’all, Fellas sing it . . .”

  —Eminem

  JEALOUSY: AN INTRODUCTION

  Marissa Walsh

  I am a jealous person. It’s one of my worst characteristics. But recognizing that you have a problem is the first step, right? So what am I jealous of? I’m jealous of people with TiVo. And iPods. I’m jealous of people who know what music I should be listening to before I do. I’m jealous of people who get to hang out all day and write, or paint, or tap dance, or do all three. I’m jealous of people who get to spend their summers on Cape Cod. I’m jealous of people who go on vacation to Italy. I’m jealous of skinny girls. With long flowing hair. Red hair—I’m jealous of people with red hair. I’m jealous of people who can afford Marc Jacobs. I’m jealous of people who aren’t afraid to skydive. Okay— maybe not that. I’m jealous of people who’ve got it all figured out.

  I suspected there were other writers (a notoriously jealous bunch) out there who felt the same way—or at least understood the way I feel. And I was right.

  Reading the six short stories, four essays, one quiz, and one poem in this collection made me feel much better about my own green (and I don’t mean recycling) tendencies. Face it, we may say “not like I’m jeal ous or anything,” but as the title of one of the stories in this collection states so well, we’re all green about something.

  I THINK THEY GOT YOUR NUMBAH

  Siobhan Adcock

  It’s hard to start without pushing off the wall. You feel and smell other people’s foot sweat. Gwen’s rental skates had still been hot and moist from the last user when she put her feet into them. The roller rink had not been Gwen’s top choice. Even at ten, she was the kind of girl who’d throw out the socks she wore to roller rinks and bowling alleys rather than wear them ever again. She had wanted to have a slumber party. But she knew better than to want it, so she had pretended she didn’t. She hadn’t even mentioned it.

  And now here she was with her friends, Kim, Kayla, and Dawn, waiting out the pause between songs for what would come next. Laura Branigan. Not for the first time, either. Gwen and her friends shrieked and clambered out of the food pit, abandoning their nachos, struggling across the carpeted rest area, on their way to swing around the smooth floor in oval after oval. Gwen didn’t even glance back at her mother, whose only job today was to wait gamely on a low carpeted bench in the food pit, watching other people’s kids roll past. Her mother’s job today was to make melted cheese appear on command, on anything Gwen and her friends wanted. She was to rent lockers and keep track of the keys, so Gwen and her friends didn’t have to wad their coats up in a ball on a bench and hope nobody touched them. She was to wait in line to rent and return their skates. She was to stand by the railing and take pictures when Gwen and her friends got to do a solo skate, just for her party. Gwen and Kimmy were wearing matching polo shirts.

  “Let’s skate holding hands! All of us! Let’s make a wall!” Kimmy shouted over I think they got your numbah. Kimmy always had good ideas; she was a leader. They formed a wall. A singing wall. I think they got the ALIAS! They made their arms tense and formed a whip. THAT YOU’VE BEEN LIVIN’ UN-DAH! Gwen was on the end that moved the fastest. She gave up the lyrics and screamed. Her friends whipped her even faster.

  To be honest, it was the first time all day she’d felt as if she was enjoying herself. Gwen’s mind had been on other things: Kimmy’s vastly superior roller rink birthday party last month, with all the girls from their class; Kayla’s slumber party on her birthday, back in January, with red velvet cupcakes and rented horror movies. Gwen was acutely aware of what her friends were thinking right now—but it was her own fault if they felt sorry for her.

  Mostly Gwen had been thinking about her sisters, Avery and Sally, at home with their father on a cold Saturday afternoon. Sally, who was seven, had cried this morning because she couldn’t come. Gwen, staring miserably at the living room carpet, had almost invited her. But then her mother had said (and this was really what Gwen was still thinking about, even though she knew perfectly well what it meant): “Sally, baby, this is Gwen’s special day with her friends. When your birthday comes we’ll have a skating party for you. But Mommy can’t bring you along today.” Sally had cried even harder at that. She didn’t get it.

  Sally’s tears were far from the only ones that had been shed over this party. Gwen had only been allowed to ask three girls. At first she had been stunned: she had raged, she had cried, and in the end she had been sent to her room in the middle of dinner, after her father had smacked her for being such a brat and for not appreciating how lucky she was to be having a goddamn party at all.

  Her sister, Avery, who was twelve and prone to thinking that this made her wise, had found Gwen later, facedown on the lower bunk bed in the dark, seething. Gwen had been experimenting with screaming quietly into her pillow, a kind of high-pitched whistling keen that seemed to concentrate and focus the agony in her chest without actually relieving it much.

  Avery didn’t turn on the light. “Gwen. You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Still into the pillow. Hearing her sister’s voice made Gwen start crying again. Avery sat down on the bed and put her hand on Gwen’s back. Gwen didn’t shake her off. (At the beginning of the school year, Gwen remembered, Avery hadn’t been allowed to be a crossing guard, and all of her friends were. Avery had thrown herself on her bed and cried then, too, while Gwen had sat on the bottom bunk, feeling bad and strange. Their father had come in after a while, glanced sympathetically at Gwen in the bottom bunk, and stood next to the bunk bed patting Avery’s back, just like Avery patted Gwen’s now. Gwen remembered not being able to see her father’s face, but his voice had sounded amused and kind: “I’m sorry, Avery. But it’s not the end of the world, is it?”)

  “I have to tell you something important,” Avery said, with her hand on Gwen’s back.

  “What.” Gwen’s face felt suddenly like it was burning off, a thousand tear-wet degrees of furious heat. She angled her head slightly to get some air on her skin without turning over.

  “Mom’s in the kitchen really sad right now.”

  “Good,” Gwen said stormily.

 
; “She wishes you could bring more people to the roller rink.”

  “Well, that makes two of us!” The hateful sarcasm was such an intense pleasure that it provoked a bitter, dorky-sounding laugh: “Heuhh!”

  “I don’t think Mom has the money to pay for more people.”

  Gwen started crying again.

  “So don’t be mad at her.”

  Gwen curled up in a ball and wept even harder. Avery sat with her for a few minutes. When Avery tried to pull a blanket over Gwen, Gwen kicked it off. “I’m wearing shoes!” she’d wailed. “Don’t put my blanket on my shoes!” Avery got up and left, closing the door quietly behind her. Gwen hated when Avery acted motherish. She snarled after her sister in the dark: “Oooh, you’re so understanding!”

  Fury at Avery’s goodness had sustained Gwen for about fifteen minutes, and then it transmuted into cold, tearless fury at her parents. She thought about pink cakes and ponies and streamers, and realized she’d never had that kind of party and never would. Never mind ponies—never mind ponies—she couldn’t even have a freaking slumber party after what had happened at Avery’s last year. And she definitely couldn’t have a Pizza Palace party, like Dawn had had when she turned nine. Gwen knew that game tokens and pizzas and pop for fifteen kids cost a lot of money. Never mind Pizza Palace. She probably, Gwen thought, bitterness and envy burning a hole in her chest, couldn’t even have a Burger King party, with stupid paper crowns and toys in little baggies. Gwen flopped on her bed in the dark most of that night, angry and staring and feeling crappy.

  Which later, much later, once Gwen’s heart rate had slowed, gave rise gradually to the crappiest realization of all: Gwen had treated her mother badly. She had made her mother feel bad.

  Gwen thought of her mother crying in the kitchen—crying, Gwen thought miserably, about the very same thing she was in here crying about. Gwen hoped Avery had exaggerated. Avery probably had exaggerated—their mother never really cried—but that wasn’t the point. Her father was actually right: she was lucky to be having a party at all. She was a brat. She was spoiled. The remorse was physically painful, as aching and pressurized as the bitterness had been. She had hurt her mother’s feelings, and Ma was just trying to be nice. Gwen couldn’t believe how awful she felt. And it was supposed to be her birthday; she was supposed to be happy! This thought made her miserable enough to cry all over again. The tragedy of it buckled her heart. Her mother tried so hard! They were so poor! Mom was so good! More tears at the thought. (But under the tears, shoved down where Gwen wouldn’t have to look at them: pulsing, black jealousy and anger that her birthday party was still going to suck.)

  When Gwen finally stopped crying, she felt heroic and weak, ready to admit her mistake, martyred and cleansed.

  Gwen had crept into the living room before bedtime, red-eyed and sniffling. Her parents were reading and The Honeymooners was on the television. She was too ashamed to approach her father, who sat in his usual chair with an old yellow lamp shining on his book, and a few empty cans of Old Style at his elbow. Instead Gwen went to stand next to her mother, who sat with a paperback on the couch.

  “Hi, baby.” Her mother smiled at her.

  “Hi, Mommy,” Gwen whispered.

  “Hey, poopy. Done sniveling?” her father asked jovially.

  At which point Gwen found she was not done sniveling at all. Crying afresh (with snot, even), she managed,“I’m sorry I was a brat about the party!” And then she ran back to bed, sobbing.

  So, tears and resentment. The roller rink party felt spoiled before it had even begun. Sally’s tears this morning plus Gwen’s tears for the last few weeks . . . Gwen wondered how much water it added up to. Enough to take a bath in, maybe. Gwen had even cried when it came time to invite people—not only that, she’d made other people cry. Her mother had told her she should ask her three guests privately, so no one would feel excluded, but the irony of it had made Gwen furious all over again, furious and mean. She had asked Kimmy, Kayla, and Dawn right in front of Casey, whom Gwen didn’t like as much. (Gwen privately suspected Casey of trying to “take away” Kimmy, by which she meant Kimmy was her, Gwen’s, best friend, and she should really act more like it and stop passing so many notes with Casey.) Casey had cried. Then Gwen had cried for being such a jerk, and apologized because she could only ask three people.

  “Can’t you beg your mom?” Kayla had asked woefully.

  “No,” Gwen had said. She thought about crying again. Then she stiffened up. She lifted her chin and looked at all of them defiantly. “My parents don’t make as much money as yours do. I’m sorry.”

  It had impressed her friends (and soon, when the word spread, the rest of her class) more than she could ever have dreamed. The drama made her, somehow, briefly powerful. Gwen’s family is poor. But she’s cool. She can only have three people at her birthday party— three people! But she never complains—you’d never know! To Gwen’s surprise, her noble suffering had given her a sudden and unprecedented prestige.

  The minute Kimmy pulled a ten-dollar bill out of her pocket at the roller rink, though, Gwen would gladly have traded her prestige for a convenient hole in the floor to crawl into.

  Her friends had brought their own money for snacks.

  Nobody did that at someone else’s birthday party.

  “Mrs. Rodman? Would you like a pop?” Kimmy probably thought she was being polite. Gwen stared at the floor in horror, unable to meet her mother’s eyes.

  “Oh—no, that’s very sweet of you, Kimmy, but I don’t need one right now.” Her mother sounded gracious and unsurprised. Gwen glanced at Dawn, who met her eyes. “There’s cake and drinks on the way for you girls.”

  “Really? Thank you so much, Mrs. Rodman!” Kim said enthusiastically. Gwen felt her stomach wrench. The cake and orange punch, as Kim knew perfectly well, were part of the birthday party package at the roller rink. It wasn’t that big of a deal.

  “Come on, Gwen, let’s go to the bathroom,” Dawn said suddenly, grabbing Gwen’s hand.

  You never went to the bathroom by yourself at the roller rink, unless you actually had to go to the bathroom. The bathroom was where you went with your friends to brush your hair and talk about your other friends and what they’d done to piss you off. As she and Dawn pushed off the bench to roll toward the girls’ room, Gwen allowed herself a moment of satisfaction at Kimmy’s expression.

  There was a clot of older girls at the door to the bathroom, and Dawn and Gwen had to wade their way through carefully. Bumping into an older girl, even accidentally, could be a bad idea. Some older girls would go to the trouble of getting revenge if a girl Gwen’s age nudged their elbow while they were touching up lip gloss or eye shadow. A classmate of Gwen’s, Brianna, had spent most of Kimmy’s birthday party hiding with Kimmy’s mom in the food pit to avoid a gang of older girls. Brianna had bumped one of them into the sink in the girls’ room, and the older girl and her friends had sweetly (too sweetly; they shouldn’t have been trusted) forgiven her, and then pursued her with a grim, laughing mercilessness in the roller rink, circling her, yelling at her, pulling Brianna’s hair and shirt, and even knocking her down once.

  Dawn had Gwen’s hand, and she maneuvered them to a spot between two mirrors. Dawn wasn’t the prettiest of Gwen’s friends—in fact, Dawn had thick black eyebrows and early braces—but she was matter-of-fact and she was loyal, and she was a total goof, so a lot of people liked her even though she still got teased. Gwen liked her. Kayla was prettier and Kimmy was funnier and more popular, but Dawn was the most like Gwen.

  “Listen. I told her not to do that,” Dawn said, frowning. “I told her it would just embarrass you. Kimmy’s, like, a big actress sometimes. Which you know.”

  “Which we all know,” Gwen agreed dryly.

  The two of them leaned against the wall in thought for a moment. Gwen wondered if Dawn was remembering Kimmy’s party. She was tired of people feeling sorry for her. She was tired of people feeling sorry in general.

  “Daw
n. What are you going to do for your birthday this year?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not till April.”

  “Don’t have a roller rink party. I think people are sick of coming here.” Gwen flexed her toes in the tight skates and raised an eyebrow knowingly.

  “I’m totally sick of having blisters.”

  “God. And I’m totally sick of that disgusting orange drink.”

  “And I’m sick and tired,” Dawn lowered her voice, “of the tough girls here.”

  “I know. Me too. It’s, like, trashy here. Dirty.”

  “But I don’t think you should feel bad about having your party here,” Dawn said quickly.

  “I don’t. I mean, it’s fun to skate and stuff. And the nachos are soooo good.” Gwen smiled, ready to change the subject.

  “Gwen, don’t mind me saying this. But it’s actually a lot nicer being here with just the four of us.” Dawn seemed very serious, and Gwen tried not to look surprised. One of Dawn’s eyebrows had an orange fleck of Chee-to dust in it. “With a big party there’s always somebody getting left out.”

  Gwen nodded. It was easy to become the left-out girl. Even Kayla had been the left-out girl once.

  “So, this is more fun. It’s more like a party,” Dawn finished.

  Gwen reached up and picked the Chee-to dust out of Dawn’s eyebrow, showing it to Dawn on one fingertip, by way of explanation. But instead of laughing about the Chee-to dust, Gwen said, “Thanks for putting it like that.”

  “I mean it.” Dawn shrugged.

  “I know.”

  For Avery’s birthday last year, her eleventh, Avery had had five friends over on a Friday night for lasagna and cake and a sleepover. Gwen and Sally had been allowed to sit in their pajamas and watch movies with the older girls, but only until nine-thirty. Gwen had watched her sister’s friends lay out their sleeping bags in the living room, and while she and Sally sat on the couch, the older girls lolled around on the floor; the whole living room converted into a big soft nest. Avery didn’t have a sleeping bag; she folded a comforter in half on the floor instead and put her pillow on it. Gwen’s mother was in the kitchen at the table, reading and listening to the radio. Their father had gone out with friends after work that night, “to get away from all the females,” as he put it. Gwen’s father liked to complain about living in a house full of females, and she and her sisters often teased him about it. As he said, even the stupid cat was a girl. Gwen’s mother had warned him not to come back too late. Or too drunk.