Read Online (You) Set Me on Fire by Mariko Tamaki - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mariko Tamaki
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call her Sharon. Very little pissed Shar off more than people calling her something she wasn’t.
Which was funny.
Because, from what I could tell, Shar almost never called anyone by their real name.
First there were the Patties, a name that stuck even after the toaster oven thing. (A week later, the Patties purchased another toaster oven that they kept illegally in Asian Patty’s room.)
Since the night of the film club meeting Carly was “Superstar.”
The girl who lived in the room next to Shar, Natalie, was “Rattles” because she was always jumpy and nervous (and because her silent but constant piano practising next door rattled her bed against Shar’s wall and drove her crazy).
Random people whose real names we never knew acquired tags after various incidents. Whatever the incident was, after Shar tagged them it was forever crystallized across their being. Like “Mr. Pickles,” who may have been a really nice guy aside from the one time Shar caught him picking his nose then scraping the boogers on the underside of his seat. Then therewas “Hives,” the really tall, Shar thought gay, guy in our Social Problems class who always wanted to talk about HIV awareness and its impact on any and all social problems that came up in the lectures.
Not all the names were mean. There was “Notes,” the guy who always gave Shar his notes for Enviro Geo. “Pam,” Shar’s other neighbour on her floor, had a legitimately nice pair of Pam Anderson–sized boobs and Shar didn’t seem to hate her.
Shar never asked me who or what I was named after. I wasn’t. My mom really wanted me to have a three-syllable name and my father had exes named Stephanie, Isabel, Jennifer, Gwendolyn, and Madeleine. So, my dad often noted, Allison was the obvious choice.
I’ve never actually had a nickname, although a lot of people in my life, mostly teachers, have called me Allie. Shar never called me anything but Allison, and she called me Allison of a book in the library. s c runningten, the punctuation that bracketed our conversations.
“Right, Allison?”
Until Halloween, of course, when I stopped being just Allison and started, from time to time, being Sonny.
Sonny and Shar.
Get it?
Because we were Sonny and Cher for Halloween that year?
Clearly it was more complicated than that.
Beyond my name, I was pretty sure of a bunch of things before Halloween. I was sure Shar didn’t sleep with girls, because she’d mentioned a couple boyfriends. I was pretty sure she thought I didn’t sleep with girls either, because when people think you’re not straight, especially girls, they usually want to ask you a bunch of totally inappropriate and stupid questions.
I was also, on a different level, pretty sure that Shar and I weren’t going to be doing anything specific for Halloween, especially not any shindig put on by the college. Shar had an intense reaction to every -fest and -a-thon St. Joseph’s had thrown thus far, which included the BBQ-fest, the Rap-fest, the (vaguely titled) Culture-a-thon, and the unpopular Fitness-a-thon. The only positive side to any of these events was that they left the TV room free for our personal TV-and-junk-food-fests.
It wasn’t until Carly brought it up at breakfast the morning of, in the buzz of the early cafeteria rush, that Shar expressed any interest in Halloween festivities.
“Hey! Everyone’s dressing up and coming to the dance, right?”
Shar raised an eyebrow. “What are ‘us’ dressing up as?”
“Uh. Well.” Carly huffed and turned to face Shar, squaring her shoulders. “WE, as in a bunch of us, are all going as Grease . The movie? From Cultural Studies? Were you there for that class? Allison?”
I wasn’t, but I’d seen the movie. My dad’s company had had a Grease party once. “Right. Oh, so like with the pink ladies? Are you going as a pink lady?” I asked, easily picturing Carly in a pink silk jacket.
“No way! Are you kidding? I’m going as Danny Zuko! You know,
Which was funny.
Because, from what I could tell, Shar almost never called anyone by their real name.
First there were the Patties, a name that stuck even after the toaster oven thing. (A week later, the Patties purchased another toaster oven that they kept illegally in Asian Patty’s room.)
Since the night of the film club meeting Carly was “Superstar.”
The girl who lived in the room next to Shar, Natalie, was “Rattles” because she was always jumpy and nervous (and because her silent but constant piano practising next door rattled her bed against Shar’s wall and drove her crazy).
Random people whose real names we never knew acquired tags after various incidents. Whatever the incident was, after Shar tagged them it was forever crystallized across their being. Like “Mr. Pickles,” who may have been a really nice guy aside from the one time Shar caught him picking his nose then scraping the boogers on the underside of his seat. Then therewas “Hives,” the really tall, Shar thought gay, guy in our Social Problems class who always wanted to talk about HIV awareness and its impact on any and all social problems that came up in the lectures.
Not all the names were mean. There was “Notes,” the guy who always gave Shar his notes for Enviro Geo. “Pam,” Shar’s other neighbour on her floor, had a legitimately nice pair of Pam Anderson–sized boobs and Shar didn’t seem to hate her.
Shar never asked me who or what I was named after. I wasn’t. My mom really wanted me to have a three-syllable name and my father had exes named Stephanie, Isabel, Jennifer, Gwendolyn, and Madeleine. So, my dad often noted, Allison was the obvious choice.
I’ve never actually had a nickname, although a lot of people in my life, mostly teachers, have called me Allie. Shar never called me anything but Allison, and she called me Allison of a book in the library. s c runningten, the punctuation that bracketed our conversations.
“Right, Allison?”
Until Halloween, of course, when I stopped being just Allison and started, from time to time, being Sonny.
Sonny and Shar.
Get it?
Because we were Sonny and Cher for Halloween that year?
Clearly it was more complicated than that.
Beyond my name, I was pretty sure of a bunch of things before Halloween. I was sure Shar didn’t sleep with girls, because she’d mentioned a couple boyfriends. I was pretty sure she thought I didn’t sleep with girls either, because when people think you’re not straight, especially girls, they usually want to ask you a bunch of totally inappropriate and stupid questions.
I was also, on a different level, pretty sure that Shar and I weren’t going to be doing anything specific for Halloween, especially not any shindig put on by the college. Shar had an intense reaction to every -fest and -a-thon St. Joseph’s had thrown thus far, which included the BBQ-fest, the Rap-fest, the (vaguely titled) Culture-a-thon, and the unpopular Fitness-a-thon. The only positive side to any of these events was that they left the TV room free for our personal TV-and-junk-food-fests.
It wasn’t until Carly brought it up at breakfast the morning of, in the buzz of the early cafeteria rush, that Shar expressed any interest in Halloween festivities.
“Hey! Everyone’s dressing up and coming to the dance, right?”
Shar raised an eyebrow. “What are ‘us’ dressing up as?”
“Uh. Well.” Carly huffed and turned to face Shar, squaring her shoulders. “WE, as in a bunch of us, are all going as Grease . The movie? From Cultural Studies? Were you there for that class? Allison?”
I wasn’t, but I’d seen the movie. My dad’s company had had a Grease party once. “Right. Oh, so like with the pink ladies? Are you going as a pink lady?” I asked, easily picturing Carly in a pink silk jacket.
“No way! Are you kidding? I’m going as Danny Zuko! You know,
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