The Blue-Haired Boy

by Courtney C. Stevens

  With her playfully kicking her way up the steps and my warning bells on full alert, we open the front door.

  To one of the coolest places I’ve ever been.

  45 Pizza isn’t just a pizza shack; it’s a record store. The smells of freshly baked bread and cardboard dust are in the air. Seventy-eights and forty-fives hang from the ceilings, decorate the walls, and are boxed and labeled in every space that doesn’t have a red-checkered table and chairs. Gerry and I both breathe in at the same time, and from her ahhh, I know we’ve landed in the perfect place.

  “I told you,” she says.

  A grandma-aged lady comes around the corner and puts one of the two pairs of glasses she has around her neck on her face.

  “Large pepperoni with pineapple and olives?” she asks, like we’re regulars.

  There’s the weird I expected with a shack like this. Does she guess everyone’s order or just ours?

  “How much?” Gerry asks, without questioning the choice of toppings.

  “Five dollars with the purchase of any vinyl,” Grandma Two-Glasses says.

  Considering there’s a sign over the cash register that says ALL RECORDS $1, this is a steal.

  Gerry gives a thumbs-up, and that’s all it takes to make the order complete.

  “Any seat you want,” Grandma Two-Glasses says, and walks back through the door she came in, and we hear her singing along to the Rolling Stones and rattling pans.

  What 45 Pizza lacks in air-conditioning and customers, it makes up for in awesome. There’s a jukebox in the corner, and Gerry and I head that way without discussing it.

  “Pink Floyd, the Wallflowers, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World soundtrack, P!nk.” Gerry reads a few more titles and then says, “I thought they’d all be older stuff, but these are totally badass.”

  “My mom has a bunch of records,” I say.

  “These?”

  “Well, not P!nk, but some of her music is cool.”

  Out comes Gerry’s trifold wallet. She checks the collection of bills and says, “I wish I could buy them all and dance with Lewis until my feet fall off.”

  “You look like a dancer,” I say, and make some dust tracks on the jukebox’s glass.

  “We never danced.”

  There’s so much regret in her voice that I take another step outside my comfort zone. “I’m not her, but I’ll dance with you.”

  Instant decision. Gerry’s quarters clink as they fall, and she punches A21. The eX-Files, a band I’ve heard of, but don’t know their stuff by name. We shove the tables back enough to turn one or two middle school circles and wait on the needle to hit the record.

  Everything about Gerry has been larger than life—green hair, leather boots, smile, crazy-accurate psychic guesses regarding my life—but here in my arms, she is small. Somehow I am just her size, but I don’t feel less-than. I am just right. Perfect days aren’t fiction and myth after all. And they happen to the Bodee Lennoxes of the world. Who knew?

  This isn’t a real dance. We stand. We hold on. Sweaty hands latched to our sweaty bus clothes.

  We are completely still on the outside.

  But God, the inside of me moves enough to stir the dust of 45 Pizza. Little motes of a blue-haired boy and green-haired girl float in the air.

  I see them, smile, and pray Gerry sees them, too.

  Gerry. Holding on. Letting go. Holding on. Not to me. To the girl she loves who is dead, but not gone. I don’t pity her this. I envy her a love that lasts longer than the heart can beat.

  “Thanks for letting me tag along,” I say, knowing that’s hardly enough to express my gratitude.

  “Shhhh,” she says. “You can’t be Lewis if you’re talking. You don’t sound anything like her.”

  I am quiet. The eX-Files sing, and I tighten my grip, hoping I’m the best Lewis I can be for this dance.

  When I’m standing or I’m sitting

  When I’m dancing beside you

  In a white gown

  Or ragged jeans

  I’ve got holes in the seams of my heart

  Holes in the seams of my heart

  When she opens her eyes at the end of the verse, she says, “You’re a very good Lewis.”

  “Thanks. So what made you pick this song?” I ask, assuming it’s okay to talk now.

  “Just seemed like both of us.” She’s quiet until the chorus starts again, so I focus on being her dead girlfriend until she says, “Tell me about the girl you like.”

  Eyes on the Ramones vinyl that’s hanging from the ceiling fan, I say, “There’s not one.”

  “Not fair, Blue Hair. I told you about the girl I liked.”

  “Okay,” I concede. “She’s in the band, has a locker near mine, the best freckles on the planet, and doesn’t currently know I exist.”

  “The new hair will help with that,” Gerry says.

  “Maybe. She doesn’t say my name very often, but when she does, I feel like I am someone. Not like I’ll be someone someday. That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

  “No. I know exactly what you mean.” Gerry’s voice changes just slightly as she says, “Lewis—”

  “Pizza’s almost ready, kids,” Grandma Two-Glasses yells from the kitchen.

  The eX-Files song ends, or maybe it ended several minutes ago and we didn’t notice, but Gerry and I look at each other like there’s more to say, but no time to say it. I feel that way a lot at home. With Mom.

  The pizza arrives at the table before we do.

  “Well,” Grandma Two-Glasses says. “One thing’s for certain. You two have the hottest punk hair in Huntsville.”

  “We probably have the only punk hair in Huntsville,” Gerry says.

  “Ain’t that the truth.” Grandma Two-Glasses rolls a pizza cutter over the crusts and then lets it double as a spatula to put a slice on each of our plates. “Well, whatever brung you, I’m glad it did.”

  “Me too,” Gerry and I say together.

  Chapter 8

  AFTER today, I can’t believe in circumstances or accidents.

  Maybe it’s because this morning started out normal. With normal Dad suckage. I went to the bench. But there was an army recruiter guy who had never been at my bench before. Lieutenant Williams. And without knowing it, he sent me to Gerry.

  I take his card from my pocket along with the torn-off section of my bus ticket and put them in the plastic sack from 45 Pizza. Gerry bought a scratched copy of the eX-Files for me as part of the dollar deal.

  Souvenirs from my day.

  I’m in Huntsville, Alabama, with . . . I look to my right: Gerry Lennox.

  And she is crying. Elephant tears. My eyes are leaking, too. I don’t want to go home, but I know I have to cross the street and board a bus headed north. I also know we are supposed to be on these steps in our green and blue hair and brokenness. No circumstance. No accident. Just necessity.

  “Hey,” I say.

  Gerry won’t look at me. She hugs the peeling wooden railing as if it’s a flotation device.

  “Hey,” I say again, and touch her shoulder. “You’re okay. This was a good day.”

  “No.”

  She doesn’t elaborate, and the sight of her breaks me. I slide over next to her until our knees touch. Slowly, I unpeel her fingers from the post and ask her to look at me.

  “Tell me,” I say.

  “Why did . . . you follow . . . me here?” she asks.

  It’s my turn to squeeze her knee for a second. “I told you. Because you were smiling.”

  “I’m not smiling now. Sorry,” she says, shaking so hard that the step beneath us vibrates.

  “Don’t apologize.”

  “I’m crying because I lied to you.” These words come out in one breath.

  I’m not sure how, but I instantly know the lie. It comes together in my mind like some crime show. The flash of her license. How different she looks now. The third-person talk. The scars on her stomach.

  “You’re Lewis, aren’t you?” I whisper into her e
ar.

  I can’t tell if she’s saying yes or having an emotional collapse until she says, “Gerry’s mom loved her so much. And I always wanted that. My mom . . .”

  Burns her with cigarettes. I know why she’s pretending, and I understand why she laughed when she fell off the bus. That’s what Gerry—the real one—would have done.

  “I get it,” I say.

  “The postcards are my journal. What I think Gerry would tell me if she were still here,” she says. “She had the best way of seeing the world.” Lewis reaches up and pulls on a strand of my blue hair. “You know, she would have loved you.”

  “I wish we’d met,” I say.

  This makes her sob, but she continues, “Kool-Aid Kids forever.” A smile cracks at the edge of her mouth.

  “I’m just glad I made the journal,” I say.

  “Made it? More like changed it,” she says.

  “Me?”

  “Question! And bullshit,” she says, and we both almost laugh.

  “Why?” I say, expecting her to bust my chops for asking another question.

  “Because you figured out how to be here anyway. No one’s done that since Gerry died.”

  “Well, you’ve got one hell of a smile,” I say.

  “The size of Alaska.” Gerry takes out her wallet and hands me the license that started this whole adventure. “Geraldine Lennox died in a car accident on February seventh at eight forty-two p.m.”

  She says this as if it’s the police report, and then adds, “I was . . . supposed to be with her.”

  “No, you weren’t,” I say. “Because you were supposed to end up here with me.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. In the bathroom. On the bus. Over pizza.”

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  And, I think, given the fact that she takes a deep breath and wipes her nose on my shirt, she believes me.

  “So did her mom know about you?” I ask.

  “’Course.” Gerry unzips the duffel bag and shows me the stuffed bear again. “Gerry’d have told the whole world about us if I would’ve let her. I’m the one who couldn’t tell. Her mom gave him to me at the funeral. Meet Dee Dee.”

  “Telling is hard,” I say, thinking about my own family.

  “Telling is hard,” Gerry repeats. “But I wish I had before she died.”

  I palm Dee Dee’s head, and pull the old rotten bear into our hug, and say, “You’re telling now. That counts.”

  “I hope so. I really hope so.”

  Part of me wonders which things Gerry said belonged to her and which to Lewis, but it doesn’t matter. Or it doesn’t matter most. The people we meet, if they’re special enough, leave something on us. Something visible.

  I hope what Gerry’s given me doesn’t wash out with the Berry Blue.

  We’re quiet as we walk back across the street to the bus station.

  Gerry beelines it to the vending machine and donates one twenty-five to Huntsville so I can have caffeine for the way home. She chooses Mello Yello and explains with a ton of pointing to it and me and her, “Yellow and blue make green.”

  I accept the drink and perfect logic.

  “I owed you a beverage.”

  “I owe you . . .”

  She puts her fingers over my mouth. “Shush it.”

  As I’m getting on my bus to Rickman, I say, “Hey, Gerry Lee Lewis, two truths and a lie.”

  She smiles, and I continue, “One, I’m going to work my way through every box of Kool-Aid there is. Two, this has been the best day of my life. Three, I’ll see you around.”

  “Keep holding on, Kool-Aid Kid,” she says, and blows me a kiss good-bye—we both know this is the very end of us—and she backs away, still facing me.

  We wave until we are specks.

  Excerpt from Faking Normal

  Bodee’s story continues and intertwines with Alexi Littrell’s in the searing, poignant debut novel from COURTNEY C. STEVENS

  Faking Normal

  Chapter 2

  LIFE starts during fourth period.

  It’s not because of AP Psych or the fact that this is the one class I have with Heather or that lunch is next. It’s all about the desk and the lyrics. And since it’s Monday, I get to start them.

  What should I write about today? The funeral? Girls who talk to boys they don’t really know? Sex? Girls’ fear of sex? No. I’ll keep the illusion intact, since most guys would rather believe girls are just as horny as they are. This flirty masquerade with Desk Guy is like reading a romance novel. Love in pencil is safer than love in life. So I settle on a piece of pop culture that describes my entire weekend after the funeral.

  Do you have a minute?

  Can I invite you in

  To take control?

  Heather leans over to read my words. “There’s no way Desk Guy’ll get that. And if he does, it’s totally some girl jerking your chain.”

  “It’s not a girl. I asked already.”

  “You can’t count on a desk to be honest,” Heather says. “Mine has ‘Mark loves Lisa’ carved on it, underlined. And, uh, everyone knows the only person Mark loves is Mark.”

  Heather’s desk sucks, but I do count on my desk to be honest.

  “Dang,” Heather says when she sees my face. “If you want it to be a guy that bad, it’s a guy. I’m sure Captain Lyric will totally complete you like he does those pretty little verses you write each other. But just in case he doesn’t, Dane’s going to the soccer game with us tomorrow.”

  I erase the word minute in my lyric and rewrite it so it’s easier to read.

  “Why do you always do this to me?” I say. “I don’t even know Dane.”

  “Well, he’s Collie’s cousin, and I’ve given you almost two months to manage a date with Captain Lyric here. Since you haven’t even tried to figure out who he is, I’m in charge of your social calendar. There’s a ladder to climb, sweetheart, and you’re standing still. At least he’s cute.”

  “Just because you have Collie doesn’t mean the rest of us want what you do.”

  “It’s a soccer game, not a proposal,” she says.

  “Thank God.”

  “Oh, you know you want what Collie and I have.”

  “Uh, no. I don’t.” The idea of anything resembling a relationship gives me hives. First dates are pretty safe, because any guy who wants to mess around on the first date’s a jerk. But a guy who’s been dating you for six months and who doesn’t want to mess around has orientation issues. At least that’s what Kayla says.

  “You and Collie still talk?”

  Heather knows the answer is no, since it’s hard to peel the two of them apart, much less for him to have a conversation without her knowing. But she’s still fishing for an answer to the lull in Collie’s and my childhood friendship.

  “Not since summer,” I answer honestly.

  “Weird,” she says, but accepts my answer with a shake of her head. “Something wrong?”

  “No. Just nothing to talk about lately.”

  “You could talk about me.”

  “That’s all we ever did,” I say.

  “So you don’t want a boyfriend, but you want Captain Lyric.”

  “I don’t even know who he is,” I say. “School’s boring, and this desk stuff’s the only thing that keeps my curiosity aroused.”

  I blush even before Heather says, “I’d say it keeps more than your curiosity aroused.”

  “Ladies in the back of the room,” Mrs. Tindell, our substitute, interrupts. “Could you please keep your voices to a dull roar? Other groups are trying to work.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say.

  Heather writes WORK? in big letters on her notebook and then raises it to cover her grin. Only two brown braids are visible behind the book, and she looks a little bit like Heidi at the library. I put my head down to keep from giggling at her antics.

  Heather inches her desk closer to mine, and it screeches like a hoot owl. We both duck behind books and wait for Mrs. Tindell
to look down. “You might not like Dane yet, but you’ve got to do something to recover from your funeral rescue mission of Bodee Lennox. Trust me, you hook up with Dane and nobody will remember a thing.”

  I stare at her hard enough to re-part her braids.

  Heather rolls her eyes. “Hookin’ up means kissing, Lex. I know you’re all virgi-terrified.”

  “I am not.” Mechanically, I lower my voice as Mrs. Tindell goes fish-eyes on us again. I make the first excuse that’s believable. “I just want it with the right guy. You know? Too many guys running around Rickman with the crawlers.”

  “Man, you and Liz are gonna be ancient before I can talk to you about this stuff.”

  “Liz is not gonna sleep with a Rickman, Tennessee, boy.”

  Heather adds, “Thus sayeth the Lord.”

  Liz has a pile of blond curls, a collection of vintage T-shirts, and a desire to wait. Heather doesn’t go to church with us, so she hasn’t been privy to all the stuff about waiting rings and promises. She thinks even the people who wear the rings slip them on and off as if they’re coated in butter. But Liz is the real thing. She has convictions in all the places I’ve got fears.

  “I’m sorry,” Heather says. “I’m not being fair. I wouldn’t want you to do it with someone you don’t love. I just wish I had someone to talk to.” Her eyes waver between rainy and cloudy, and I realize we’re having a moment. “Collie and I have come pretty close,” she says.

  Heather doesn’t take her mask off very often. She’s the verbal beast of our threesome, but under all those bold, sexy words, evidently there’s still a virgin. I try not to sound too surprised. “If you both want to, then why haven’t you?” I ask.

  Heather is barely audible. “I’m afraid he’ll move on.”

  “Then why are you still with him?” I know the answer before Heather says it.

  “Because I hate being alone.”

  Heather’s beautiful where I’m ordinary. She could find someone else in a minute who would love her, but Collie’s her flypaper; she’s been stuck on him for years. “Alone isn’t terrible.”

  “I don’t know.” She sighs. “I wish I could talk to Liz about this, but she doesn’t get it.”