All of This Is True Read online

  With a chicken drumstick in one hand and The Drowning in the other, Brady read about Jules and her boyfriend, Sam. The book detailed their rushed, heated car sex in the parking lot of their Catholic school and Sam’s jealousy over text messages that were, strangely, from Jules’s biological father. The beautiful, very graphic language in a book that was supposedly for teens shocked Brady. The Drowning was juicy. The Drowning was hot.

  This is what girls read?

  Brady kept on reading long after he’d finished his after-school snack. He was breathing heavier now, rapt as Sam’s hand slid up Jules’s shirt and Jules’s skirt inched high up over her thighs.

  So, this is what the hype is all about.

  Several chapters later, Margaret was taking Jules to the doctor to take a “proper” pregnancy test instead of a drugstore stick. The anxious mother prayed the rosary while her daughter’s fate was decided.

  No wonder . . .

  Brady picked up a pencil and scratched a note in the margin next to the words “drugstore stick”: Pregnancy tests. How do these things work? He’d always wanted to know. He planned to look it up later and then fill in the answer. He had a habit of marking up his books with notes like these—questions, opinions, sometimes memories that the story brought to mind.

  Brady turned page after page. Cletus snored and drooled. By chapter sixteen, Margaret and Jules were on a flight, traveling over the Atlantic Ocean toward Dublin. Jules was shushing her mother, who was reading from the Bible, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Brady underlined the passage. His cell phone buzzed. When he looked up to reach for it, he was surprised at how dark his room had become.

  SUNNY

  Heeeey! Thora Temple signing

  Sunday night at Book Revue.

  Dreams do come true! COME WITH US!!!

  Brady couldn’t believe Sunny’s timing. Of course he should meet Thora Temple. He sat with his phone for a few minutes to avoid seeming overeager. He scratched Cletus’s neck while he contemplated how to sound casual, like a guy who hadn’t been reading The Drowning all afternoon.

  BRADY

  I dunno.

  Come on! We need someone to stop us from embarrassing ourselves with our fangirling!

  OK, I guess.

  Yaaaas!!!☺!!!

  Brady turned on his reading lamp. He studied the photo of Thora Temple on the back flap. She was in her twenties? She looked more like eighteen or nineteen. He wondered whether some people were destined to be so accomplished at a young age or whether anybody could do it given the right set of circumstances and a sufficient collection of inspirational don’t-give-up/puppies-climbing-up-a-staircase memes. Brady knew what it meant to do something memorable at a young age. But memorable isn’t the same as admirable. He should hold on to his dream of becoming a surgeon. No offense to Amazon stock boys, but medicine would be a better way to live up to his potential and give back to the society that had afforded him countless privileges, as many people had reminded him.

  So, Brady would be seeing Thora Temple in person. Just like that. Or maybe it wasn’t “ just like that.” Maybe months or years had been leading up to this meeting.

  Thora Temple’s half smile in her author photo was full of knowing. She looked as if she had answers to the questions Brady had been thinking about for a very long time. If he were to ask her something this Sunday, it would be: Do you believe in absolution, the cleansing of the body, mind, and soul? Is that why you wrote The Drowning? He wrote these questions on the inside cover, knowing that in person, he’d never be able to put those words together without sounding like the biggest fangirl of the group. He might be able to answer these questions himself by the time he finished the book. That’s what he hoped for. If The Drowning was half as good as the girls claimed it to be, the odds were with him. Brady rested his head against his dog’s thick, warm neck and breathed in the earthy, oily scent. For now, this smelled like absolution to him.

  Miri

  Penny’s father is going to tell you that Fatima Ro brainwashed us into holding a meeting and recruiting new members into her “cult” [uses air quotes]. But I am stating for the record: [looks straight into the camera] Undertow Society was a club, like Students Against Driving Drunk, Young Entrepreneurs, and Speech and Debate. I should know, I’m Debate captain. I repeat: Undertow Society was a club. Not a cult. And it wasn’t Fatima’s concept in the first place. She would’ve been perfectly content with the four of us and a pot of green tea at the café. I deserve all the credit for Undertow Society since it was my idea and my idea alone to bring readers together in appreciation of literature and to celebrate its positive impact on our lives.

  NEW YORK CITY MAGAZINE

  FOUR-PART SERIES

  * * *

  Stranger Than Fiction

  The True Story Behind the Controversial Novel

  The Absolution of Brady Stevenson

  SOLEIL JOHNSTON’S STORY, PART 2 (continued)

  * * *

  MEETING NOTES

  October 15, 2016

  Undertow Society Meeting #1

  Meeting objectives: Establish a safe, open forum for fans of Undertow and Fatima Ro where we can get to know one another in the spirit of the Theory of Human Connections and practice the steps of developing human connections.

  I. Roll Call

  II. Exercise A: switch tables and lie beside someone you’re not friends with; share the sky

  III. Reading from Undertow by Miri, excerpt from Chapter 14

  IV. Discussion/analysis of excerpt

  V. Introduce the concepts of the Theory of Human Connections: Miri will give a practical example of making a human connection; steps to making a human connection

  VI. Connect the excerpt and Undertow as a whole to Fatima’s development of the Theory of Human Connections

  VII. Exercise B: apply the Theory of Human Connections! Look each other in the eyes; acknowledge each other’s presence; make and express an observation; answer an open-ended question—What do you want from this life?

  VIII. Discussion: effects of Exercise A; how to apply the theory to our daily lives; how the theory can change society

  IX. Closing: read favorite Undertow lines—open to all attendees

  Penny

  So. Like. Miri sat on the same table Fatima picked the night we brought her to the courtyard, and when Soleil and I tried to sit up there with her at the start of the meeting, she told us we should all get our own tables so that we could spread ourselves among the group. I was like, “What do you mean spread ourselves?” And she goes, “If people have questions or anything.” But what questions would people have? I mean, come on. I saw what she was doing, trying to be the center of the meeting—trying to literally be Fatima Ro. She sat up and crossed her legs like Fatima and even spoke like her, talking about how we should strive to share our “precious truths.” [pauses] I believed in the theory too, you know? For real. I thought we were going to run the society together the way we planned at the Witches Brew. Fatima even helped us come up with what to do—the agenda and all. It was interesting talking about human connections and thinking of who we should recruit. It was like a fun kind of homework, and I hate homework.

  So how did the rest of the meeting go?

  [groans] It was pretty much, like, The Miri Show. She talked about herself and how the theory has helped her and Fatima become close friends. She didn’t really care about analyzing the book or spreading the theory. She wanted an audience to listen to how she was besties with the famous author. I didn’t even want to listen anymore.

  But how did the group respond to her?

  They were so into it; it was gross how into it they were.

  And what about Soleil? What was she doing during that time?

  Soleil? Oh, she wasn’t even paying attention, ’cause she was on a table whispering with Jonah. I’m not sure how he ended up over there with her; he was supposed to make an authentic con
nection with a new member. [pauses] So, maybe it wasn’t so awful that Miri wanted to be the leader or whatever. But I thought that knowing Fatima and learning about making deeper connections was supposed to help us break the cliques and grow closer as friends, but we weren’t using the theory as a group. People were just using it for, like, their own individual reasons.

  Huh.

  Miri was using it to get closer to Fatima, and Soleil was getting closer to Jonah.

  You’re right.

  And I wasn’t using it at all. I was just . . . [pause]

  You were what?

  I don’t know . . . the cat sitter.

  That sucks. What a crappy feeling.

  Uh-huh. And another thing? One night there wasn’t any cat food left. I told Fatima she was running out, but did she listen? No!

  Oh, no.

  Yeah. So, what did I do because I’m, like, a good person and I didn’t want the cat to starve? I went and I bought it myself. It’s, like, this special diet stuff for a sensitive digestive tract. It was expensive. It doesn’t come in small packages, either. It was the big bag or nothing. It was heavier than the cat. I left the receipt on the table, but Fatima never offered to pay me back.

  Wow. I would’ve been pissed.

  I was pissed! I just didn’t have the nerve to say so. She bought a whole house but wouldn’t give me $79.88.

  [Penny’s father calls from the back door] Penny! Show him the book excerpt!

  [Penny turns to face her father] I’m going to! Go away, Dad! [sighs] Ugh. I’m sorry.

  No problem. Do you have an excerpt for me?

  It’s the Undertow passage Miri read that night. [unfolds a few sheets of paper from inside her notebook] My dad made a copy of it. He thought you might want it.

  Yes, I do. Thank you. This is great. [holds the excerpt to the camera]

  Sloan Kettering calls it a chemotherapy suite, as if it’s desirable, as if it’s the VIP lounge of cancer. At Sloan, the word “suite” really means, “Hey, sucks to be you in this shithole, but here’s a pleather recliner and a flat-screen TV.”

  Mom likes to binge-watch her favorite comedies while she gets her cocktail of anti-nausea meds. She says that the only way to get through something like this is with familiar plotlines with familiar punch lines delivered by familiar faces. Sitcoms are Mom’s emotional comfort food, especially now, when she’s not particularly interested in actual food. I’m not a sitcom fan. The acting’s corny. The laughter’s forced. Parents are overinvolved in their kids’ lives—always sitting on the edge of the bed for a heart-to-heart, always yelling at coaches on the soccer field or making their kids’ egg-parachute projects. Mom asks me to choose the show this time, so I say Frasier, the one show of hers I can tolerate because at least it’s smart and there’s no cookie-cutter suburban family of four.

  Today, Frasier is pretending to be Jewish in order to date a Jewish woman he met at the mall. When she shows up at his apartment, Frasier’s father stuffs the Christmas tree in the bathroom, and brother Niles, dressed as Jesus for a Christmas pageant, hides in the kitchen. Mom and I laugh at the appropriate places. Laughter is, as they say, the best medicine.

  Without warning, my mind wanders to a morbid place: by Christmastime Mom won’t be here anymore. I try to shake the thought, but each time the Frasier audience laughs, the thought rushes back. The next time I see this Frasier episode will probably be by chance. I’ll be flipping through channels one day and come across it, and instantly I’ll remember that the last time I watched it was with Mom in the chemo “suite” before she died. This episode, this show, is now ruined for me forever. Or maybe it has become more precious? I won’t know how I feel about it until it happens—the inevitable channel surfing and Frasier sighting. When will it happen? This is one more thing to fear. The audience will still be laughing, but my mother will be dead.

  I miss a joke (something between Frasier and Niles), so Mom slaps me on the arm. I chuckle and adjust my face. The nurse comes in to attach Mom’s tubes and start the chemo drip. As we watch the TV, I suddenly wish that we were laughing at our own stories instead—we haven’t told our own stories all year. I want to turn the TV off and ask Mom to tell me about the time she went on a date to the beach and the pads popped out of her bikini top. I want to hear her describe the way they “floated on top of the water like soggy dinner rolls.” I want to tell her again about my first date in seventh grade with Trevor Logan and how his mom came, sat beside him in the movie theater, and fed Trevor snacks from her purse.

  I’m panicking inside at the thought of losing our moments and stories, our words, our laughs. I want to hear them and tell them now. There’s no time left. I won’t be able to rewind us or find us on television when I’m flipping through channels late at night. Tell me, tell me, tell me, and I’ll tell you. We had all this time, but it’s over now. Between counting medications and arguing and avoiding each other, we squandered it.

  I turn the volume down on Frasier and Niles and Martin and Eddie the dog, and I turn to Mom.

  “What happened to the sound?” she asks.

  “Hey, Mom, tell me about that time on your date. Remember? That date to the beach . . .”

  Mom laughs even before she starts the story. Her laughter cracks my heart wide open. I listen to her voice, and I bleed and bleed.

  I remember this part. Fatima’s really, really good. This is some emotional stuff.

  Right? It got to me, even though I was mad at Miri. It got to everybody—the whole atmosphere, I guess—the stars, the reading. I also had Fatima’s voice in my head about sharing our truths. I paired up with Natalie Singh. She was, like, the top of our class, as in a 4.2 GPA. It was my idea to invite her, because she’s a good role model and everything. I didn’t think I’d end up on a table with her. She seemed nice enough, but I’d maybe said two sentences to her before in my whole life. It was way awkward lying there with her. When we sat up, we were supposed to make eye contact, acknowledge each other’s presence in the here and now, and exist together in that moment. That was all stuff Fatima talked about, but it was a different thing to try it with someone, like, in real life. It’s sorta like the person in front of you changes from a being into a someone. Oh, I don’t know how to put it, but it worked. I felt like I saw Natalie during that.

  It sounds like it was incredibly impactful. You know, I’ll be speaking with Natalie and a few other students who were there that night.

  You will?

  Yes.

  Oh, good, cool. Tell Natalie I said hi.

  I will. I’m interested to hear Natalie’s take on the theory exercise.

  Me too, for real.

  Tell me about the open-ended question. Hey, do you like what I did there? That was an open-ended question about an open-ended question.

  [laughs]

  Sorry. I couldn’t resist. Go ahead.

  [laughs] Well, um, the question was, “What do you want from this life?” [pause] I told Natalie that she was noticeable because she was the top of the class. Miri was so driven, obviously. [rolls eyes] Soleil was pretty, and Jonah was the new guy. They were all noticeable for something. Then I said that I wanted to be noticed, too. [pauses]

  What is it?

  I don’t know why, but I felt like crying when I told Natalie that. It’s stupid. Whatever.

  Not “whatever.” It was your precious truth. It was important to you. There’s nothing stupid about that.

  I guess, thanks. I thought about the question for a long time. I kept trying to come up with a different answer, but I couldn’t. “You can’t hide your true self.” That’s what Fatima said.

  She was right about that, wasn’t she?

  [silence]

  Wasn’t she?

  [nods]

  Any thoughts on that?

  [shakes head]

  All right. Well, your father called Undertow Society a cult. Do you think Fatima’s following was a cult?

  What? [looks up] Ew, no. It wasn’t a cult. We just liked the
book and the theory. And we liked Fatima, that’s all. We didn’t light candles or anything, and we weren’t chanting. Those were only rumors.

  What is a cult, in your opinion?

  Uh, well, it’s when there’s a guru guy who’s, like, super weird, and people go along with his kooky ideas even if they don’t make sense. He has, like, a bunch of followers who are never allowed to leave. I would never join anything like that.

  NATALIE SINGH

  The theory exercise felt like we were becoming friends in fast-forward. I don’t want that to sound superficial because I don’t think it was. I think that if both parties are sincere, it really is possible to get to accelerate friendship. With Penny, I’d seen her around school and always thought of her as quite confident because of her influential circle of friends. They’re part of the Graham Sevens—students who started at Graham in seventh grade.

  What makes that so special?

  There’s the money, for one thing. Most families wait to send their kids to Graham in high school because why waste the money on seventh and eighth grade? For their families, it’s not a big deal. And then there are the relationships. Those who enroll as freshmen all begin as strangers, while the Graham Sevens have already been friends for two years. Those circumstances make the Sevens more powerful, in a sense. Teachers and faculty don’t admit to favoritism, but they definitely choose Sevens over others for leadership roles, because they know them better. You have to work harder to get ahead if you’re not one of them.