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On Sunday morning, April 24, at 8:43 A.M., the Earth is 4.54 billion years old, give or take a few hundred thousand, and it’s looking pretty good, all things considered.
E.V. Spiker on the other hand, who is 15 years, 3 months, two days, and a few random hours old, has had better mornings.
Her hair is matted, her mouth scummy. She reeks of B.O. A bloody, sequined dress from Saks lies like a contorted corpse on her bedroom floor.
E.V. yawns, stretches, flips open her laptop. Three minutes and thirty-two seconds elapse, during which she checks Facebook, Reddit, and McSweeney’s, before she opens her in-box.
From: Brizley, Bob
Sent: Sunday, April 24 1:12 AM
To: Spiker, Evening
Subject: wtf?
look, e.v., if you didn’t want to kiss me, all you had to do was say no, not go all freaking ninja … i have a deviated septum now & thx to u i may never smell again … plus i’m out like 260 bucks if u count the corsage and the smirnoff & dry cleaning the rental tux which my mom says they may not be able to get the blood out of … i mean i drive a bmw 3, E.V., i could’ve taken karina instead & she probably would have put out … at least she wouldn’t have decked me in front of the entire school … you deeply suck, e.v., and i don’t unfortunately mean that literally …
E.V. studies the missive from Bob. She is troubled by the punctuation, but surprised by the correct use of “literally.” Bob, a junior, is a star on the water polo team, solidly built, and passably charming, but he is taking his freshman English class for the third time.
E.V. considers forwarding the e-mail to Aislin, her best friend. Aislin witnessed the whole unfortunate incident: the head butt to the nose, the crimson gush under the twinkling mirror ball, the backward fall, the collapse of the henna tattoo table.
The theme of the dance had been “Arabian Nights,” which explained the henna table and the Magic Carpet Ride photo booth, but left the Mardi Gras beads and roulette wheel open to interpretation. E.V. and Aislin agreed that the suggestion they’d submitted to the dance committee—“Life Sucks and Then You Die”—would have made for a more compelling decor.
While Bob was stuffing napkins up his nose, Aislin had done what any best friend would have done: She’d dragged E.V. to the bathroom, wiped Bob’s blood off her corsage, and high-fived her for disrupting an otherwise tedious, overly chaperoned evening.
The head butt had been unintentional mostly, a gut reaction to Bob’s closing in for a kiss during the first slow dance of the evening. Something about the look of expectation on his square-jawed face had bothered her, his certitude, the inevitability of the whole thing.
She’d snapped. Lost it. Maybe it was the green apple vodka–Dorito breath, the cheesy boutonnière, the Jurassic Era Clapton (you look wonderful tonight.…). Maybe it was the half dozen chocolate chip cookies she’d scarfed down in rapid succession when no one was looking, the torture chamber heels Aislin had convinced her to wear, the smell of stale sweat and Axe deodorant.
Maybe it was the zit mushrooming near Bob’s left nostril.
Or maybe she will never know what set her off.
E.V. considers brushing her teeth, or downing a Red Bull to get the synapses firing. She has a buttload of homework to do.
Instead, she lies inert, staring down at her dress. Twelve minutes and thirty-three seconds pass, during which she wonders if she is, in fact, as Bob had so graciously suggested to her departing back, a frigid bitch.
With a sigh, E.V. forces herself to click on her history homework folder.
All week, they’ve been creating a time line of the Earth’s history. Her teacher calls it “The Big Picture: Big Bang to Right Now.” The line E.V’s created stretches on for pages. Algae get inches. Dinosaurs, a nice, healthy chunk. There’s no room for the Renaissance.
Her life would not register on this line. The entire history of modern humans barely registers.
Ms. Leach had warned them: You will find this exercise humbling and surprising.
E.V. clicks back to her e-mail.
She stares at her laptop screen and begins to type.
From: Spiker, Evening
Sent: Sunday, April 24 8:56 AM
To: Brizley, Bob
Subject: Re: wtf?
Bob:
I will be happy to cover the costs of dry cleani–
E.V. stops typing. Her mother is rapping insistently on her door. She doesn’t wait for E.V. to yell “Come in.”
She never does.
Terra Spiker looks elegantly fatigued in her Prada suit. She is the CEO of a pharmaceutical company worth billions. She always looks elegantly fatigued.
“Were you at work all night?” E.V. asks.
“A crisis. My head biochem is a cretin.” Terra waves a hand dismissively.
She trains her gaze on E.V.’s bloody dress. “What happened? Were you deflowered?”
“My virtue remains intact.”
“You’re all right, though.” It’s not so much a question as a command.
“Yep. Minor skirmish. I ran into my date’s nose.”
Terra puffs her lips and lets a bit of air escape. “You’re still taking the pill, Evening? And your condoms are up to date? Condoms expire, you know. Like milk.”
“You do understand, Mother, that I have never even been kissed?”
“Forewarned is forearmed.”
Terra approaches the bed. She strokes E.V.’s head the way an allergic person pets a cat. Satisfied her maternal duties have been executed, she heads for the door.
“I’m going to take a bath and head for bed. Do you have plans?”
“Homework. I might hook up with Aislin later.”
Terra exhales. “Aislin is a—”
