She wasn’t there, not in the usual places. Google gave me nothing. Facebook gave me five Alisons, from as far away as Western Oregon, none her. As if her actual physical existence (which I’d yet to shower off) nullified the need for a 2-D online surrogate. Instead I wrote to Jennifer Estes, who still wasn’t real. She was a set of identity-markers (hair: black; lips: glossed; favorite music: Beyoncé) I attached to an imagined angel of empathy. “J,” I wrote. “Can I call you J? You know, like J. Lo. J. Est? Does that work? In French est means something. To be. I remember that from French class. I want to be. I don’t know what I want to be. Just to be something. Were you in my French class? Do you know who I am? My name is Eli Schwartz, and I am a rich Jewish kid you smoked pot with once who’s put on a few pounds in the past couple years, but cleans up nicely. Actually, that’s not true. I’m not rich anymore. I used to be basically rich a few years ago before my dad left, but now we’re moving out of the house, and though I wouldn’t exactly say we’re poor (that would be patronizing to real poor people—not that I’m assuming you’re poor, or that there’s anything wrong with … okay, I’ll shut up), I would say we’re moving down a tax bracket or so, relegated from the grandiose upper upper middle class to the boring lower upper middle class.
