Mermaid in Chelsea Creek by Michelle Tea

would invite her over, but knew it wouldn’t happen.
    â€œHello?” Ella was breathless at having run through the house.
    â€œHi!” Sophie said. “What’s up?”
    â€œNothing, just a million people over here as usual, a girl can’t get any space. I’m dying to get out of here.”
    â€œAre you having a nic fit?” Sophie asked. Never having smoked, Sophie didn’t know what a nic fit felt like, just that her friend claimed to have them, and once she started having one it was all she thought about, all she talked about, until she smoked a cigarette. Sophie thought nic fits were strange and boring.
    â€œNo way, my house is so smoky with everyone over here, I just had a cigarette right in my bedroom and no one even knew!” Ella soundedproud, having found away to make the chaos of her home work for her. “I got burned at the beach today. It was hot, huh?”
    Sophie had forgotten about the beach. She was surprised to feel not a single pluck of envy at having missed something. “How was it?”
    â€œHow do you think it was? Awesome. There were so many cute guys. One gave me the rest of his pizza—he was soooo wicked cute.”
    â€œWhat’s his name?”
    â€œJunior. Which is crazy, right, ’cause I’m a junior, like my mother’s name is Ella, and he’s a junior, ’cause he’s named after his dad, like his real name is Tony or something. But I was like, Junior! That’s got to mean something.”
    Sophie paused, waiting for Ella to bust up into laughter. Was she joking? She sounded like an airhead.
    Listening to herself talking to Sophie, Ella could hear how dumb she sounded, but she couldn’t help herself. There was something exhilarating about giving herself over to such talk and feelings. The boy’s attentions had electrified her, his steady dark eyes and his husky voice as he traded his pizza for a cigarette. She could feel another girl rising inside her, dumber in some ways and smarter in others, haughty and confident, a flirt. She supposed she’d flirted with the boy, and it had worked —he’d seemed both flirtier and shyer when he’d left, after smoking his cigarette down to the filter and tossing the butt into the frothy waves. Ella’s body buzzed from the interaction like a hive of yellow jackets swarmed through her, beating their tiny wings. The rash her last scrubbing spell had left upon her was minor, no onenoticed it, she could pretend it was gone and that the girl who’d done it was gone, too, that she was through with all that, and she wouldn’t let such craziness overtake her again.
    â€œOkay.” Sophie laughed. She sounded almost nervous. “Well, ah, I was at the dump all day.”
    Ella had forgotten to stay mad at her friend for telling their secret and getting herself punished. She’d missed her at the beach, at first, but then, later, when the boys showed up, she’d been grateful Sophie wasn’t around. How could Ella have tried on this new personality in front of Sophie, who knew her so well? Sophie who knew she was a nerd, scared of most everything, had never exchanged a germy kiss with anyone. Sophie would have kicked her with her foot and crossed her eyes at her, and the boy would have decided they both were freaks, and he would have been right. Ella felt guilty to be glad about her friend’s punishment, but she was. “That sucks,” she said unconvincingly. “What, did you, like, hang around in trash all day? What even happens there?” Ella shuddered at the thought, feeling the incoming crave of another nic fit.
    â€œThere’s a glass recycling place, and this person Angel operates it, and she’s, like, a girl, but she looks like a boy, she’s really cool. And she gave me this amazing, like, jewel—not a jewel, it’s glass with a seashell in it, and there’s all this tumbled glass and it’s so