Mrs. Fletcher

by Tom Perrotta

  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” Wade said, in this weird flirty voice. “You never answer my texts.”

  Julian didn’t reply. He kept glancing in my direction, pleading for help, but there was nothing I could do. This was between him and Wade.

  “You shouldn’t have thrown that beer in my face.” Wade squeezed him a little tighter. “That was a big mistake.”

  “I’m sorry.” Julian’s voice cracked a little, like he was maybe gonna cry. “I’m really sorry.”

  “I bet you are,” Wade agreed. “But it’s way too late for an apology.”

  Julian nodded, like he’d figured as much. His voice was small and scared. “What are you gonna do to me?”

  Wade didn’t answer for a while. He took his arm off Julian’s shoulders and gazed out the window at the dark houses with their neat front yards, attractive homes full of decent people.

  “I’m not a bad person,” he said. “I’m really not.”

  I could totally see his dilemma. He’d talked so much about the hardcore vengeance he was going to inflict on Julian, and now he had to deliver. You couldn’t just drive around with the kid for a half hour and then let him off with a stern warning.

  “You should fuck him in the ass,” Troy suggested. “I bet he’d like that.”

  *

  I guess it could’ve been worse. There was no violence, no bloodshed, no tears. Nobody got fucked in the ass. It was just the four of us standing in front of a disgusting Port-A-John near the soccer field in VFW Park. I swear, you could smell that thing from twenty yards away, a cloud of human waste and chemical perfume that had been fermenting in the sun for the whole summer. Wade held out his hand and asked Julian for his phone.

  “Why?” Julian asked. “What are you gonna do with it?”

  “Just give it to me, asshole.”

  Once again, Julian did as he was told. Wade shoved the phone into his pants pocket. Then he pointed at the Port-A-John.

  “Get in there,” he said.

  I had my hand on Julian’s shoulder. I could feel his whole body stiffen.

  “No way,” he said.

  “Oh, you’re going in,” Wade told him. “I guarantee you that.”

  “Please,” Julian said. “I already apologized.”

  Wade poked him in the chest. “I’m not gonna say it again.”

  Julian just sort of went limp. All the fight went out of him.

  “That’s all?” he said. “You’re not gonna hurt me?”

  “That’s all,” Wade told him.

  “You promise?”

  “I promise. Now get the fuck in there.”

  It was all very civilized. Wade opened the door to that reeking closet and Julian stepped inside.

  “Enjoy your evening,” Wade told him.

  Julian turned to face us. The Port-A-John was slightly elevated, so it was almost like he was on stage. I guess he felt like he had nothing to lose.

  “You guys suck,” he said. “I hope you know that.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Troy told him. “You’re getting off easy. If it was up to me—”

  “I’m serious,” Julian continued. “Guys like you are what’s wrong with the—”

  Wade slammed the flimsy plastic door before Julian could finish his sentence. Then he sealed it shut using the duct tape he’d found in Troy’s glove compartment. He wrapped it really well, using every last bit of tape on the roll, turning that Port-A-John into a prison cell.

  “Yo, Julian,” he said. “I’m leaving your phone out here.”

  “Fuck you.” Julian’s voice sounded muffled and far away, though he was right next to us. “You’re a terrible person. All three of you.”

  Wade dropped the phone in the grass.

  “Catch you later, dude.”

  Julian started yelling as we walked away, calling us morons and scumbags and begging us to open the door, but his pleas had dwindled away to nothing long before we reached the parking lot. We tried to laugh about it in the car, congratulating ourselves on the genius prank we’d just pulled, but our hearts weren’t really in it. I was about to say we should go back and let him out, but Troy spoke first.

  “He can breathe in there, right? He’s not gonna suffocate or anything?”

  “There are vents in the side,” I said. “I checked.”

  “Can you imagine how bad it smells?” Troy asked. “Could you actually die from that?”

  “He’ll be fine,” Wade said. “People will be walking their dogs at like six in the morning. They’ll let him out.”

  “That’s five hours from now,” I said.

  “Don’t feel sorry for that fucker,” Wade said. “He’s lucky he’s not in the hospital.”

  *

  I went home and got into bed, but I couldn’t fall asleep. All I could think about was Julian Spitzer, trapped in that gnarly box, far from anyone who could help him. I wondered if his parents had realized he was gone, if they were maybe calling the phone that Wade had left in the grass.

  I couldn’t take it. Around five that morning I got out of bed and rode my bike over to the park. It had seemed so sinister the night before, a creepy place where anything could happen. But it was beautiful in the early morning, with the sun coming up and birds chirping like crazy. I could see houses through the trees, not nearly as far away as they’d seemed in the dark.

  I was relieved to find the Port-A-John empty, the tape seal broken. Maybe Julian had only been in there for a little while before someone came along, or he figured out a way to free himself. Maybe I’d stayed up all night worrying about nothing.

  We had a few bad days after that, wondering if he’d told anyone what we’d done, his parents or maybe the cops or even just his friends. We weren’t sure if it was a crime to tape someone inside a portable toilet, but it was the kind of prank you could get in pretty bad trouble for, a serious lapse in judgment you wouldn’t want to have to explain to your parents or coaches, or to a college admissions officer.

  But nothing happened. We never heard a word about it.

  That was the summer before our senior year. When we got back to school in September, Julian Spitzer was mysteriously absent. Some people said he’d dropped out, others that he’d transferred to private school. I was just glad he was gone, so I didn’t have to see him or think about him. By the time we graduated, I’d pretty much erased him from my memory, which was why it was such an unpleasant shock to hear my mother mention his name that afternoon, dropping it so casually into the conversation, asking if it rang a bell.

  *

  You know how sometimes, if you try not to think about something, you become that much more aware of it? That’s how it was with me and that girl in the library. I kept trying to concentrate on my book—the melting glaciers and rising sea levels—and she kept chewing away, making this crackly gum-and-saliva noise that went right through me.

  Jesus Christ, I thought. Can you even hear yourself?

  It was actually a relief when the protesters arrived. There were maybe twenty of them, and they entered the library like a tour group, huddled together near the main entrance, whispering and looking around. Some of the kids at my table were already rolling their eyes and shaking their heads.

  “Not again,” moaned the chewing machine.

  “Every friggin’ night,” said the kid with the eraser.

  The protesters organized themselves in single file, stretching all the way down the center aisle. The girl closest to my table had blue hair and black lipstick. She glanced nervously at the Muslim girl next to her, who just had the headscarf, not the facemask. They lifted their arms.

  “Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

  It was kind of lame that first time, like only half the group got the memo, and not all of them read it at the same time.

  “He was a thug!” somebody shouted from one of the tables.

  The blue-haired girl and her Muslim friend raised their arms higher and chanted with more conviction.

  “Hands up! Don’t
shoot!”

  I’d heard about these Michael Brown protests—they were supposedly happening all over campus—but this was the first one I’d actually seen. A lot of people were complaining about them, saying that it was really disrespectful, the way the protesters barged into classrooms and harassed the fans at sporting events. But it was kind of cool to have them invade the library like this, filling that quiet space with their chant, which became louder and more confident the more they repeated it.

  “Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

  The line was moving now, new faces filing past me in a slow parade. To my amazement, one of them was waving at me. It took me a second to recognize Amber, from the Autism Awareness Network, and by then she’d broken from the line and was heading straight for my table.

  “Dude!” she said in this jubilant voice, like I’d come back from the dead. “Where have you been? We missed you last meeting.”

  “Too much work,” I said, holding up my book so she could see I was reading about climate change.

  Even though she was out of formation, she raised her hands and shouted along with the others, begging the invisible cops not to shoot. She was wearing sweats and a hoodie, and I noticed again how strong she looked, with those linebacker shoulders, and how pretty she was, blond hair and blue eyes and farm-girl freckles, her cheeks all flushed with excitement.

  “It’s terrible what happened in Ferguson,” she told me. “This shit’s gotta stop.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. The more I heard about Michael Brown the more confused I got. Was he minding his business or had he robbed a store? Was he surrendering or trying to grab the cop’s gun? I’d heard different people say different things, and didn’t know what to believe.

  “It’s fucked up,” I said. “That’s for sure.”

  Amber smiled, like I’d passed some kind of test. She held out her hand, like she was asking me to dance.

  “Come on,” she said. “We need your voice.”

  *

  I was shy at first, and worried about my backpack, which I’d left at the table.

  “Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

  “Come on!” Amber told me. “Say it like you mean it!”

  Some people heckled us, but others got up from their seats and joined the conga line as we moved through the library. We marched past the circulation desk and snaked through the stacks to the Computer Commons.

  “Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

  It got easier the more I did it, and a lot more fun. Some people were swaying and others started raising the roof. For a little while Amber and I were holding hands, our arms aloft like we’d just won a medal.

  “Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

  We did three circuits of the main floor and then exited through the metal detector, chanting the whole time. It felt great to step out of the library into the chilly October night, everybody high-fiving and congratulating everybody else, the moonlight shining on Amber’s hair as she hugged me.

  *

  When I got back to the room, Zack was lying on his bed with these huge DJ headphones clamped over his ears. I wanted to tell him about the protest, but he yanked off the headphones and sat up before I’d even had time to shrug off my backpack.

  “Dude,” he said. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Would you ever hook up with a fat girl?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “That’s not really my thing.”

  “Yeah, but what if there’s a fat girl you really liked? Would you hook up with her?”

  “Is this for a class?”

  “No, I’m just curious.”

  “Depends.” I sat down on my bed, directly across from him. “If she’s one of those plus-sized models I might.”

  “Not a model. Just a regular fat girl. But she’s pretty and has a great personality.”

  “Are you trying to set me up with someone?”

  “Dude, I’m asking you a simple question.”

  He sounded annoyed, which was a little unfair, since I’d already answered him twice.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll hook up with her. Why not, if she’s as great as you say?”

  Zack nodded approvingly, like I’d finally given the correct answer.

  “Okay, so you hook up with this girl a couple of times and it’s fun as hell, but totally casual. No strings. But then one night she starts crying, and you’re like, What’s wrong? And she’s like, Why don’t we ever go out in public? Are you ashamed of me? Is it because I’m fat? What do you say then?”

  It was all so obvious, I almost laughed in his face.

  “Dude, are you hooking up with a fat girl? Is that where you go at three in the morning?”

  “No,” he said, in that same put-upon tone. “This is a completely hypothetical scenario.”

  “All right,” I said. “Speaking hypothetically, I’d probably say, Bitch, maybe if you dropped a hundred pounds we could go to the movies. In the meantime, could we get back to the blowjob you were giving me? I’m tired and I have to meet my asshole roommate for breakfast in the morning.”

  “Dude, that’s so mean. She can’t help it if she’s fat.”

  “Not my problem, bro.”

  “Wow.” Zack looked impressed. “You’re an even bigger dick than I am.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “You wanna get baked and watch some Bob’s Burgers?”

  “I could go for that,” he told me. “But I can’t stay up too late. I’m tired and I gotta meet my asshole roommate for breakfast in the morning.”

  “That’s funny,” I said. “So do I.”

  We bumped fists and Zack broke out his weed, and pretty soon we were lit and laughing our asses off, talking shit about my hypothetical ex-girlfriend, the fat girl who’d been fun for a while, until she turned all weepy and started getting on my nerves.

  The Confident One

  When Eve invited Amanda out for a drink, she hadn’t meant it to be a date. It was a casual social thing, two colleagues hanging out after work, getting to know each other a little better. And it wasn’t even Eve’s idea. All she’d done was belatedly accept an invitation that Amanda had extended more than once, and that she herself had felt guilty about declining. There was no hidden agenda; she was just being polite, making amends, and giving them both something to do on an otherwise empty Friday night.

  And yet it felt like a date, which was weird, because Eve didn’t date women. Of course, she wasn’t dating any men either, though that was only for lack of opportunity. If a man had asked her out, she would have happily said yes, unless it was creepy Barry from Gender and Society, who, unfortunately, was the only man expressing any interest at the moment, with the possible exception of Jim Hobie, the chatty bartender, though all he’d done was offer her a free drink, which hardly qualified as a romantic overture, and which, in any case, she’d declined.

  But if tonight wasn’t a date—and it definitely wasn’t—then what accounted for the fluttery feeling of anticipation she’d been experiencing ever since she’d marked it on her calendar? And why had she chosen to wear this silky green blouse that went so well with her eyes, and then unbuttoned it one button lower than usual? The answer to these questions, Eve knew, was as simple as it was embarrassing: she’d been watching too much porn, and it had infected her imagination, making her hyper-aware of the sexual possibilities embedded in the most innocent situations. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so pathetic.

  “I meant to tell you,” said Amanda, who seemed quite clear about the fact that she wasn’t on a date. “The maple syrup guy can’t do the November lecture, so I’m scrambling to find a replacement.”

  “Uh-oh.” Eve stretched her mouth into an expression of mock horror. “Sounds like a sticky situation.”

  Amanda looked puzzled for a moment, and then made a sound that resembled a chuckle.

  “Sorry.” Eve frowned. “Humor’s not my specialty. At least that’s what my ex-husband used to tell me.”

  “Nic
e,” Amanda said. “I’m sure you appreciated his honesty.”

  “Absolutely. He was full of constructive criticism.”

  “Sounds like my old boyfriend,” Amanda observed. “He was very concerned about my weight. If he caught me with some Ben and Jerry’s, he’d pull the container right out of my hand. He’d say, I don’t want you to regret this.”

  “Really?”

  “It was all for my own good, you know?”

  Eve wanted to say something supportive but not inappropriate about Amanda’s curves—that was one good thing about the Milfateria, it had given her an appreciation of the sexual appeal of all sorts of body types—but they were interrupted by a couple of middle-aged frat boys who wanted to know if the stool next to Amanda’s was free. The guy who asked was jolly and bloated, with thinning blond hair and an alarmingly pink complexion. He made no effort to disguise his interest in the hand grenade tattooed on Amanda’s left breast, only partially obscured by the neckline of her dress.

  “All yours,” she told the guy, scooching toward Eve to make room. Their knees bumped together, and Eve felt the subtle electric jolt you sometimes get from accidental contact. Amanda shifted again, undoing the connection.

  “Ted—that’s my ex—used to tell me I was a bad storyteller,” Eve continued. “He said it was like a Victorian novel every time I went to the supermarket.”

  That didn’t sound too bad to Amanda. “I like Victorian novels. At least I used to. I haven’t read one since college.”

  “They can be kind of daunting,” said Eve. “I’ve been meaning to start Middlemarch for the past year or so. Everybody always says how great it is. But it never seems like the right time to crack it open.”

  Amanda looked wistful. “There’s so much to read, but all I do is watch Netflix and play Candy Crush. I feel like I’m wasting my life.”

  “It’s hard to concentrate after a long day at work. Sometimes you just want to turn your brain off.”

  “I guess. But even on the weekends, I’ll read five pages, and then I have to get up and check my phone. It’s not that I want to, it’s that I have to. It’s a physical urge, like the phone is part of my body.”

  Eve was a little too old to have that sort of relationship with her phone, but she understood the larger point all too well. It was mortifying to be an adult and not be able to control yourself. She didn’t used to be like that.