What Happened to Lani Garver

by Carol Plum-Ucci

  Smoke rings ... propositioning someone ... I sat there frozen, remembering the funny kids from art school, eating ice cream with them on South Street, finding out I wasn't relapsing—and I got mad.

  "I ... don't believe you!"

  "Claire? Listen to me." Her voice was sympathetic, and I could hear that condescending tone that I didn't much like, but she was trying to stay calm, for once, and for once I was losing it. "You know how things always go with us. I'm the one who sees someone's idiot side first. You never believe me. A week or two later, you feel stupid. I'm telling you, you've got to trust me this time and back off from him. Whatever reason he had for helping you, I don't know. But he's not all he's making himself out to be. How often am I wrong about people?"

  I shut my eyes tight. She was waiting for an answer, and I found the only thing in this crazy tale that made any sense to me. "This just smells of Tony twisting something around," I stumbled. "Weren't you mad enough at him last night to practically drown him? You know he's an upstart."

  "He's a lush, yeah. And obnoxious. And if Vince didn't have the car, you know we probably would not see either of them as much. But Tony did not instigate that fight. He was not gay bashing, Claire. He was defending himself. If you don't believe me, Phil and Scott were standing right there, too."

  My gut was telling me something was sincerely wrong here. I couldn't imagine Macy lying any more than I could imagine Lani picking up a date on a street corner. But my imagination rarely did me right.

  I commanded myself not to cry, but it didn't work. I was sniffing, and Macy was threatening to come over and "be there for me."

  "Claire, I am really, really sorry to lay this on you. You've had the day from hell, the three weeks from hell. I promise I will not call you stupid for this one, okay? I'll pick you up on the way to school, okay? You think you have an eating disorder? Fine, whatever. You wanna pig out? Gain some weight? Let's go to Sydney's before school and we'll get the gooiest, nastiest doughnuts, and we'll totally mow down. I won't tell anybody about what happened to you, okay? Claire?"

  I felt like I'd been hit in the face with a brick, but I couldn't think of much to say about that.

  "Yeah, I'm here."

  "I love you, Claire."

  I just sniffed and said, "I love you, too."

  13

  Friday morning all my friends showed up at the corner, and we walked to Sydney's and ate doughnuts, which is so far from the usual that it could have meant only one thing. Macy couldn't help herself and had spewed the whole story. People who can't be bothered with breakfast don't turn into sudden doughnut hogs without some influence. I tried to see it from Macy's standpoint, realizing her "that's bullshit" responses last night were surely just shock. Once she hung up she probably got all worried and flipping. She would have told everyone so they would rally around and make me feel better.

  And by the way they were acting, I could only think that Macy was up to the "best" of her spewing, which means dishing out a lot of orders, all "Do not be in her face. Do not upset her. If you call her stupid or naive even once, I will be all over you."

  They were sweet as punch. Nobody mentioned the words eating disorder, but you never in your life saw girls oohing and aahing over how great doughnuts tasted. It just made it more difficult to swallow, what with the corners of everybody's eyes wandering all over me while they talked about some Spanish test.

  Eating mayonnaise and hot fudge the day before must have opened the passageway somewhat. While the thing sat in my stomach like a Thanksgiving turkey, I didn't feel like heaving—at least not until we started walking to school and what happened at the Rod 'N' Reel came up.

  For the hundredth time in a year, I was in awe of the power Macy had over people. My friends called me a bonehead on a regular basis until something pretty serious came up and Macy shot off her mouth at them. She had this way of making what she considered my naiveness into something sweet and endearing, as opposed to incredibly stupid.

  I can't remember how the Rod 'N' Reel got brought up. But when Macy said he seemed "pretty okay and not like some pervert slut" when we talked to him out in the corridor two days ago, my eyes started filling up. Then these girls all but swarmed me, gripping my shoulders, petting my hair. Any thought of pretending Macy hadn't told them where I'd been yesterday got lost in the shuffle. Yet it was hard to be mad at Macy for giving over my secrets, when the response couldn't get nicer.

  The problem was, they thought I was crying because I felt stupid. I was crying because the word confused had taken on some new depth of meaning. Secretly, I wasn't sure I'd been stupid. I still looked for some loophole in this story. I knew Macy would not lie to me. I knew my gut had had a way of getting me in trouble in the past. And yet, Lani had blown out a story to me yesterday about not knowing what oral sex was in eighth grade. And I'm supposed to just up and believe that he made the whole thing up because he got a twitch to make his life sound really good.

  I tried to remember any look of drama or lying in his eyes, his voice. I just couldn't recall seeing any of that. And yet, a pretty big part of me just wanted to believe my friends so everything could feel "normal" again.

  As we split up and I headed toward my locker, I thought about how there's a problem when you try to change what you actually believe. You can change what you say, you can change what you do, I decided, staring at my books, trying to remember what class I had first period, but you can't just change what you believe—all Okay, today I think I'll believe this thing, even though it would have seemed crazy yesterday. You can't change what you believe like you can change your underwear.

  I sat in homeroom all frozen in my desk chair, but thinking on that even more. I guessed some people could just change what they believed. Some kids could create a relationship between two things, when really, there is none, like, Okay, if I don't believe this, I will look like an ass, so, okay, I believe it. I did not want to look like an ass, but I couldn't force myself to buy into this story. Especially since Lani himself was sitting three rows over, two seats in front of me, a solid reminder of my great day yesterday.

  I stared into some textbook, pretending I didn't see anything or anybody. He didn't even turn around, and it looked like he hadn't seen me. But the rumor had obviously gotten around. Some of the jocks in the back were muttering things like "Blow me."

  The third time some guy mumbled that, Lani turned around very calmly and sized the guy up. He just looked focused, like this big mouth was the most interesting person in the universe. And he's got those dark eyes, like a shark's. They're hard to read.

  I decided one funny thing by watching this—that guys will not swap gazes for too long with someone they think is gay. And once their eyes drop, they've lost the game somehow. They can say what they want, but it no longer has half the impact.

  I wondered if Lani knew that, what with everything else he seemed to know about what makes people tick. I wondered what in hell he would say to defend himself if I went traipsing over to his house after school, knocked on the door, and asked him about it to his face. My friends were practically nominating me for sainthood right now, and that tempted me to leave well enough alone. But I felt that hearing from him might be the only way to decide what was true.

  After cheerleading I sneaked out of the locker room, figuring I could get away with anything at the moment, even snubbing people. When I got to Lani's house, his mother took my hand in both of hers as I passed through their front door.

  "Nice to see you again," she said with a smile that could eat me alive.

  "Yeah, nice to see you, too ... Hope you're liking it here ... How 'bout this Indian summer, huh? You must have brought it with you." I plastered a grin on my face, hoping it would distract from the horror in my widening eyes. I knew why she thought it was "nice" to see me again, and I didn't want to spew ... Uh, your son and I are not doing the nasty! I blathered on, gauging how long it usually took my mom to feel satisfied that my friends had talked to her long enough. Then I climbed
the stairs.

  Lani's door was partially open, and I stood outside, sighing a few times, bracing for this. He must have heard me with his mom, because before I stuck my head in the door, I heard, "Claire?"

  He was hanging up the phone as I went in. "Friend from South Street?" I said with what smile I could muster.

  "Uh ... no." His jaw hung and his eyes worked from side to side, like he was confused about something.

  "What's up?" I asked.

  He just started shaking his head, pointing to a place on his mattress not covered with paperbacks and magazines, like, Sit down.

  When I did, he recovered his normal face, though I would say he looked tired. I hoped he might save me the embarrassment by bringing up last night himself.

  "So ... how is Claire?"

  "Good."

  "What did you eat today?"

  "The usual, but add a doughnut, and Myra was, like, force-feeding me yogurt and French fries during lunch."

  "That's good. How did it feel?"

  "I've had about a nine-hour stomachache but didn't heave."

  "Any dizzy spells?"

  "Couple times, but it's not nerve-wracking, since I know it's not—" I broke off with a twitchy laugh. Now that I was here, I didn't know quite what to say. "How was your day?"

  His eyes still worked side to side, like he was still trying to get over whatever happened on the phone. I wasn't even sure he had comprehended what I was saying. It rang again, and he rubbed his eyes.

  "Uh ... yeah...," he said on the pickup, and almost immediately followed up with "Uh ... no...," and he hung up.

  My gut tightened as a bad thought wandered through me. "Is someone giving you a hard time?"

  "Uh, yeah." He looked at me this time, then shrugged absently. "Don't worry about me, I'm kind of used to this. We ... were talking about you."

  The phone rang again, and he picked it up and punched the off button, this time without saying anything. I just watched him, and he returned my gaze. "So. I guess we're not talking about you. I guess you want to know about last night."

  I kind of flinched at his bluntness. And he sounded annoyed, like I was being nosy.

  "I just heard a story about last night. And now I have to put that story together with the day I had yesterday. It's kind of a lot to believe."

  "That's good, Claire. That's good that you don't believe everything you hear." His sarcasm rang out, like the world's foulest mood was pending.

  "Can't you tell me? Your side of it?"

  The phone rang again, and he stared at the receiver before it wandered to his ear.

  "Yeah. Oh. Bless my socks. It's my great-aunt Suzie Smokes. How the hell is Aunt Suzie?" and he hung up. I got scared he was snapping. He was obviously trying to jerk somebody's chain, but it wasn't making much sense.

  "So you want to know about last night," he accused me again. "Sorry, can't help you."

  "Lani—" I laughed, confused. "You can't help me? I'm trying to help you—"

  "I never defend the things I do."

  He really looked tired, but I figured I was there to help him, not to make his life worse. "Why not?"

  "Because, as Jung would say, there is no point to it."

  "What does Jung have to do with it?"

  "He termed a psychology phrase that I have only witnessed a gazillion times." His eyes wandered over to one of the dozen paperback books spread out on his bed. He batted it with his finger so that it slid closer to me. "It's called a convenient recollection."

  I picked up the paperback and turned my eyes to the jacket. Dictionary of Psychological Terms.

  "Convenient recollection," he repeated, and I took it I was supposed to look this term up. I felt annoyed and didn't need any haughty act, not while I was only trying to be fair. But since he looked kind of ready to snap, I thumbed through until I found the term.

  "Convenient recollection. 'A memory recalled inaccurately, to unconsciously protect against guilt, anxiety, or unwanted associations.'"

  I tossed the book on the bed, going back and forth over the words in my head. They were easy enough, but I wasn't some kind of analysis genius.

  "You're saying the people last night..." I couldn't figure out what he meant.

  "I'm not saying anything, Claire." He lay down flat on the mattress with his legs on top of the books, pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut.

  I got tired of the mystery stuff and just went for a direct approach. "Okay. Macy said you came on to Tony."

  "Imagine that!"

  "Something about blowing smoke rings." I ignored his sarcasm. "You accused Tony of blowing smoke rings—"

  His fingers moved off his nose as his head jerked to the side. He stared at me, like this was the first interesting thing I'd said yet. "Smoke rings."

  "Yeah, you said blowing smoke rings was a gay thing. At least, that's what Macy thought you said." I knew Macy never missed a trick, but based on how his eyebrows went up at me before he started rubbing his nose again, I gathered I was supposed to connect her comment about smoke rings with convenient recollection.

  "I need to sleep, Claire. So, if you're okay, and you don't need anything, and there's the remote possibility you might find something comprehensible in your Jung homework—"

  The phone rang again, which prevented me from blurting the word arrogant. This time he didn't even say hello, just held the receiver to his ear for a minute and hung up without even opening his eyes.

  "Lani. Listen to reason. People are saying awful things about you. And if you can't tell me anything, what choice do I have but to believe them?"

  "Got me."

  "Great. You're in about the finest mood I've ever seen."

  "Walk a mile in my shoes."

  I stood up, hauled my backpack onto my shoulder, and shook my head at him. "Okay. I'm supposing you really did brain flake like that last night, even though it doesn't make much sense to me."

  "I must have brain flaked." He said it kind of singsongy, with a huge shrug.

  "You came on to Tony Clementi, of all people, and asked him for sex because he blew smoke rings. Okay. I'm uhm ... leaving since you're not very talkative right now." I hoped if he heard the whole thing out loud, he'd decide it was too ludicrous to let slide.

  But he shrugged. "I'm just a mad rapist."

  The phone rang, and the receiver was still in his hand. This time he just let the phone tumble onto the mattress. "Let my mom get it. Maybe he'll quit if he hears my mom."

  "Who in hell is it?" I reached for the receiver, but he grabbed for it and swiped it around to the other side of him. "Believe me when I tell you. You don't want to hear ... that."

  It rang a third time. He cocked his head at the ceiling. "Where's my mom? Did she go out?"

  "Just ... give it to me!" I crawled over him on my knees, grabbing for the receiver.

  When I got my hand around it, he said, "Don't accuse me of ruining your life."

  I just hit the button and didn't say hello. I was expecting to hear a bunch of threats and gay bashing. All I heard at first was somebody breathing. I kept waiting to hear a voice, and when there was none, I realized there was a weird rhythm to this breathing. Then these whispered comments started to fly between breaths, and at first it sounded like a girl's voice. Then the voice came out of a whisper, and I thought it was a guy's voice. The whispering came out full of the most graphic come-on lines I had ever heard. The only comment clean enough to even put on paper was "You're mine, Suzie."

  I clicked the off button, put my hand over my mouth, and flopped my butt down on the mattress. I'd heard about things like this before. As some of the fire started leaving my cheeks, my eyes wandered to Lani, who was looking directly at me this time.

  "Don't come back and say I just ruined your life," he repeated, like somehow that could ruin my life.

  "What in the hell was that?" I breathed.

  "That, darling, was phone sex."

  And of course, the next question from me was supposed to be, "You we
re having phone sex?" I suppose I looked shocked because he read my mind.

  "Did I look like I was having phone sex when you came in here?" he blasted.

  I shut my eyes and sighed. He'd been sitting with the door half open and a bunch of stupid-looking philosophy paperbacks open on the bed.

  "No..." But the truth started to strike me: Somebody was seriously harassing him, and unless it was some rich old fart who didn't care how high his long-distance bill was, it would have to be somebody from Hackett.

  I let out a laugh at the enormity of this scandal. It was a crime, Lani going through that mess last night and now having to put up with this so soon after. There was only one explanation if it was somebody from Hackett. And that explanation made me grab my cheeks to keep from smiling. Christ, if Macy could hear this ... Some guy in school was a closet gay—and enough of a perv to actually say this shit—who had seen Lani from afar, took a liking to him...

  I covered my mouth with my hand, but my eyes were probably laughing, and he glared. The phone rang again.

  He ripped it from my fingers and hit the off button. "I'm glad you're so amused by my life."

  "I'm not laughing at you, really. I'm sorry!" I defended myself, but I couldn't wipe the smile completely off my face. I'm human, too. The question tickled my insides: Who in the hell is the mystery lover?

  "Let's grow up and forget the toilet humor." He flopped over on his side, away from me, and I could see he was really tired of this.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I lost the grin and massaged his shoulder, but I couldn't just let the conversation drop. "If you want, I'll try to find out who it is."

  "I already know who it is."

  "He said his name?"

  "Uh-uh." He kept his back to me.

  "You ... got a love note to go with?"

  After a few seconds of silence, he turned over and looked at me like I was nuts. "Claire, I can see why Macy thinks you're dense sometimes. I hit star sixty-nine."

  He flopped back over, and my eyes popped. I laughed again, but silently to myself. "Whoever it is, he's a dumb ass. Wouldn't a perv think to have his line blocked? There's star sixty-nine, caller ID.... Doyee."