by Jo Knowles
I wonder if the girls’ locker room is this scary.
Cal pushes his toe against Dylan’s bag. “What the hell’s in there, anyway?” he asks again. This time, he doesn’t bother to wait for Dylan to answer or stop him. He bends down and grabs the bag.
“Hey! That’s private!” Dylan lunges for it but misses.
Cal gets this weird look on his face, then reaches in and pulls out a gray brick. It looks like one of those pavers people use to line their gardens or driveways or whatever. “What the . . . ?”
“Why the hell do you have a brick in your bag?” I ask.
Dylan grabs it from Cal and puts it back inside. “None of your business.”
I can think of only two reasons someone would have a brick in their bag:
A. To break a window.
B. To break someone’s head.
Since Dylan is not a violent kid, I’m going with A. But why?
“Talk to us, D.,” Cal says.
Dylan slumps down on the bench between us. “It’s stupid,” he says.
“True.” I sit next to him. “There are no good reasons to carry a brick in your bag. Unless you plan to build a fort, which, well, is not much of a fort if you only have one.”
“Who’s the unlucky bastard you plan to use this on?” Cal asks.
“He’s not using it on anyone,” I say.
“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” Dylan says. “I just . . . never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”
I reach for the bag, but he grabs it away.
“Whoever it is isn’t worth getting in trouble for,” I say. “And you know that’s exactly what will happen.”
He stands up. “I’m doing this,” he tells us. “And if you guys are my friends, you won’t try to stop me.”
We watch him, then look at each other for some wordless agreement about whether to tackle him for the bag. But before we can get our telepathic communication at the right frequency, Dylan bolts and is out the door with a lead on us that means we will never catch him.
“Wow,” Cal says. “That was weird.”
“What are we gonna do?” I ask.
He shrugs. “A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do, I guess.”
“Shouldn’t we try to stop him?” I can’t believe Cal’s so nonchalant.
“I say we follow him from a distance and see what he’s up to. If it looks bad, we’ll step in.” He nods, like this is a brilliant plan.
He seems a little too hungry for some excitement, all of a sudden.
Why am I the only one who sees this for what it is: insane?
We rush out to the hall to see which way Dylan went. It’s the end of the day, so the halls are a madhouse, with people shoving their way out of our group holding cell. Luckily Dylan is tall, and we can see his mop of shaggy brown hair bobbing between the traffic up ahead. We shove our way through as best we can, keeping enough distance so he doesn’t realize we’re following him. Normally after school we meet up in the parking lot at Cal’s car, but today Dylan goes out the exit where the bus pickup is. I turn to see what Cal wants to do. He motions for me to keep going.
Just as I think we are being totally covert spies, Dylan is standing in front of us. “Fine. If you’re just going to follow me anyway, let’s take the Great White.”
Cal nods and we go back to the other parking lot and climb in.
The car has been sitting in the sunny lot with the windows rolled up, so it’s hot inside and stinks to high heaven. As soon as Cal starts the engine, we all roll down our windows and hang our heads out.
“Told you it wasn’t my feet,” says Dylan.
“Well, they don’t help, that’s for sure,” I say.
“Where to?” Cal asks.
Dylan sticks his head out the window and takes a deep breath. “No questions. Just go.”
“Why?”
“No questions. Just go.”
Cal shrugs and pulls out of the parking spot. We drive through the lot with the music blasting, as usual. Boom bah-bah, BOOM bah-bah.
I lean forward to see Dylan’s reflection in the side mirror. He seems to have a far too serious and determined expression on his face to be up to anything good.
As always, the school parking lot is packed and completely bottlenecked at the one and only exit. It’s a really good thing that our school has never had one of those crazy shooting sprees because no one would be able to escape. The car idles. The cool November breeze mixes with the usual school smells of stale cologne, cafeteria, and car exhaust, and drifts through the car.
“Dylan!” a girl yells. Sammy, his sister, runs toward us. She’s wearing her cheerleading uniform and looking extraordinarily hot, as usual. What is unusual is the fact that she is not only acknowledging Dylan’s existence but using his name and coming toward us. The outcasts. Sammy sits at the jock table surrounded by basketball players and cheerleaders. She does not acknowledge our existence. Ever.
She runs over to Dylan’s side of the car and leans her head in. Her perfume mixes with the ugly and banishes it.
“Hey,” she says. “Can you tell Mom I don’t need a ride home tonight? The battery on my phone died. We have an away game, so I won’t be home till late.”
“How are you getting home?” Dylan asks.
She sighs. “Jacob.”
“Gross.”
“He’s not gross.”
Cal coughs and says “asshole” at the same time.
Cal’s crush on Sammy is kind of like my crush on Claire. Hopeless. Sammy will never be in our arena. She is a Popular Girl for the Popular Crowd. Not for us outliers. Sammy is destined to always be under the arm of the captain of something sporty. Not the chess club. (Not that any of us are in the chess club. But we’re a lot closer to that than any sort of sport.)
“Subtle, Cal,” Sammy says.
“You know my name?” Cal pats his chest where his heart should be.
“Can you just let her know?” Sammy asks.
“Yeah. Be good. OK?” Dylan sounds so serious. And sad. His fingers clutch his backpack more tightly.
“I’m always good,” Sammy says. “Maybe you should take your own advice.” She winks at him and fluffs his hair. I’ve never seen them be so . . . brother-and-sister-ish. They’re so good at pretending the other doesn’t exist at school. But I know their secret, so I get why they would be close. They have to help each other keep their friends from finding out how they live. Stuff like that bonds you.
I bet Sammy would be horrified if she found out I knew about them. It’s not really something Dylan and I talk about at all. He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to. But I do know. And I guess that makes us closer than I am to Cal. Also, Dylan’s just a lot nicer.
Until I met Dylan, I never knew there were people who lived with so much . . . stuff everywhere. Dylan says their mom can’t help it. That must be true, because there’s no way anyone could want to live like that. In complete chaos. My parents are neat freaks so the one time I stepped into Dylan’s house, I was in shock. I had no idea Dylan lived that way, with boxes of clothes and magazines and newspapers stacked in strange heaps all over the place, even in the hall. When I see Sammy and Dylan at school, looking so normal, I forget what they go home to, and what that must be like. Looking at Sammy with her supermodel smile, her perfect hair, and her crisp-looking uniform, it’s as if that other life doesn’t exist. Somehow, she keeps herself separate from it.
We all watch her jog off, cheerleader skirt swinging.
“If either of you are looking at her butt, you’re dead,” Dylan says.
We keep watching.
“So, what’s up with your sister and that douchebag Jacob?” Cal asks.
Dylan shrugs. “Who knows. I guess they might be dating. But it’s not serious.”
“You mean they haven’t screwed yet,” Cal says.
“Don’t even go there.”
“Well, that won’t last long,” Cal says. “Jacob isn’t going to waste his time on someone who doesn’t pu
t out. Sorry, D., but it’s the truth.”
“Sammy doesn’t put out,” Dylan says. “For anyone.” He’s still clutching the brick.
“That’s good news for you, Cal,” I say.
“Like she’d ever look at me.”
“Can we stop talking about my sister like she’s a piece of meat, please?”
“I would never talk about her like that!” Cal says.
“Whatever.” Dylan looks out the window, and we continue to inch forward in the parking lot.
I keep thinking about the brick in his backpack and wondering what Dylan has planned, who he could be so mad at, and why none of us knows about it. Maybe it has something to do with his mom. Or Sammy. My own sisters would kill me if I tried to defend their honor or anything like that. They kind of hate me, I think. Other than ditching the tandem mountain bike, my sisters are total do-gooders, like my parents. They started a Go Green campaign at their middle school. They stand by the trash at lunch and make sure people recycle properly. They even collect food for compost and wheel the bin two blocks away to the community garden my parents helped start.
I do none of these things. I don’t know if it’s because I’m lazy or because I know I’ll never be as perfect as the rest of them so why bother.
One time I caught my sisters trying to break into the clubhouse. They told me they’d smelled marijuana and “were concerned for my health and safety.” They told me they were going to tell our parents if I didn’t confess everything to them, and even then they would still tell if they thought I needed help. They’re so naive, they didn’t realize that I could just lie. Which I did. I said we tried smoking a little but it made us sick and we would never do it again.
They believed me.
The truth is, I didn’t get sick. I got high. And I liked it. We all did. I guess lucky for us, pot is kind of hard to score if you don’t know any potheads or have any other friends outside our circle of three. Or much money, for that matter.
“So, J.,” Cal says. “What about you?”
I have no idea what he’s asking.
“Huh?”
“D. has a thing for Ms. Lindsay —”
“No, I don’t!” Dylan interrupts.
“Right. What was she wearing today? Something sexy?”
Dylan’s face is bright red. “I don’t remember,” he lies.
Cal laughs. “OK. You both know I lust over Grace Lear.”
“And Sammy,” I point out.
“Not going there,” Dylan says.
“What about you, Jack?” Cal asks.
If I don’t answer, they’ll harass me and accuse me of being on the other team. But if I tell the truth, they’ll most likely do something to embarrass me in the most horrifying way possible.
“You don’t know her,” I lie. We’re all pretty good at this. I don’t know why I don’t want them to know about Claire, but my feelings for her feel private. Like a secret wish that wouldn’t come true if anyone else knew it.
“Um, the school’s not that big,” Cal says. “I’m pretty sure we know her.”
“I don’t know her name,” I lie again.
“Right,” Cal says. “C’mon, spill. We all did.”
“Make someone up,” I say. “Like you did for D.”
Cal laughs. “Ms. Sawyer.”
“That’s the best you’ve got?” I ask. “Fine. I am madly in love with Ms. Sawyer. Every night, I dream about her gym uniform and that whistle around her neck.”
“No uniform,” Cal jokes. “A pinny! With nothing under it!”
Dylan makes a gagging noise. “Oh my God. I will never be able to get that image out of my head. Thanks a lot!”
“Pinny and a whistle.” Cal purses his lips and makes a loud whistle. “Oh, Jack. Jack, come here and score a three-pointer,” he says in a high-pitched voice.
“What does that even mean?” I ask.
“I don’t know — it just sounded good!”
“There has to be a basketball term that’s at least a little more sexy,” Dylan says.
“‘Balls’?” I ask.
“How is ‘balls’ sexy?” Cal says. “It’s a dude body part.”
“Well, maybe she could say, ‘I want to dribble your balls’?” Dylan suggests.
“What does that mean?” Cal asks.
Dylan shrugs. He still seems distracted.
“Ooh-ooh! Layup!” Cal says.
“How is that sexy?” I ask.
“You know. Lay!”
“Use it in a sentence,” I say.
Cal taps his fingers on the dashboard. “Crap. You’re right. Basketball just isn’t sexy. Except for the pinnies. On a girl. With no bra.”
“As long as she’s not Ms. Sawyer,” I add.
“I think she plays on the other team, anyway,” Cal says.
“Why, just because she’s a gym teacher?” I ask. “Nice stereotyping.”
Cal shrugs. “I bet she hooks up with that computer teacher, Ms. Yung.”
“Nah, she’s hot for Ms. Lindsay like everyone else,” Dylan says.
“Maybe all three of them get together,” I say. “And Ms. Sawyer makes them wear pinnies.”
We all laugh. It feels good. I look out the window and imagine Claire here beside me again. Not part of this conversation, obviously. But here, laughing with us. With me. I wonder where she is right now. I wonder if she’s looking out a window like I am, and what she’s thinking about. I wonder if she’s ever thought of me or remembers that time we held hands. But I know it’s probably hopeless. So I try to focus on the now. On here. On my friends.
Cal turns up the music so the bass thumps through my chest like an out-of-rhythm heartbeat. It makes me feel alive in a way I haven’t for a while.
Maybe it’s OK, after all, me just hanging with Cal and Dylan. Maybe this is good enough. Maybe, for now, there isn’t more to life. Maybe there doesn’t need to be.
But then I glance over at Dylan, who is still clutching his backpack, and I have a horrible feeling that what feels like “good enough” for now is about to change. That something is brewing, and maybe we are all going to have to decide who we want to be after all.
Dylan sees me staring at the backpack and gets all serious. “I hate this stupid parking lot,” he says as we inch forward one more car length.
Normally, I do too. But right now, for the first time, I’m grateful to be stuck here. Stuck in the Great White with my best friends, no matter how screwed up they are.
It’s hard to believe these same people earlier conned a poor guy out of forty bucks and gave him the finger for his trouble. How do we get from that to this? How do we lose ourselves like that and still somehow manage to find our way back to caring?
As I sit here and laugh about sexual basketball references, my best friend holds a weapon in his backpack. A weapon he may be afraid to use but plans to anyway.
These are the thoughts I have, staring out my window.
Not There must be more to life but Please don’t let there be. That anything beyond this moment, any meaning our lives might have outside this car, scares me.
But we keep moving forward anyway.
Inch by inch.
BEN’S BREATH IS WET IN MY EAR. A WHISPER. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” I whisper back. “I can’t do this anymore.”
He squeezes my arm and presses his chest tighter against mine. We’re hiding under the stairs at school. It smells dusty and full of secrets. Every time we hear footsteps above us, we pull apart, wait, then come together again. Every time, it hurts more.
We have the most impossible relationship in the world.
When we move away from each other for the third time, his eyes are glassy. He better not cry. I will kick his ass if he cries.
“I’m the one who should be crying,” I say.
He wipes his eyes with the back of his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
“I know that. All right? It doesn’t actually solve anything, thou
gh.”
“Why can’t we just keep things like they are?”
“Because I don’t like hiding under stairwells after school just to see you? I don’t like lying to my friends? I don’t like feeling that what we’re doing is wrong?”
“You know it’s harder for me,” he says. “With basketball. My parents. My friends. I can’t be open the way you are.”
“You think I’m open? Hardly.”
“You told Lacy.”
“She’s my best friend. Or was.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“I doubt that. She’s good friends with Grace. You’re supposed to be dating Grace. You cheated on Grace with me. She has a fairly good reason to hate both of us.”
“She’s always hated me.”
“Only the way sisters do. She only hates your lies.”
He bangs the back of his head against the grimy wall. “What choice do I have? Do you know what my coach would do if he found out? He’d probably kick me off the team.”
“Right. You know he can’t do that.”
“He’d find an excuse. Plus, hello? The team would kick the crap out of me.”
“You don’t know that.”
He leans his head against the cinder-block wall and closes his eyes. “I know those guys, OK? There is no way they’d be cool if they found out I was —”
“Was what?”
“You know.”
“Yeah. I know. I just don’t know why you can’t say it.”
He reaches for my hand awkwardly. “Why do I have to say it? Why does this have to have a name?”
“Because it does have a name,” I say. “If you really cared about me — about yourself — you would tell them. At the very least you would break up with Grace. She saw us, for God’s sake. What, is Miss Perfect going to pretend she misunderstood what we were doing? How did you explain it to her, anyway?”
“I told her I was confused. That it wouldn’t happen again.”
I shake my head and start to leave. “Then, I guess it won’t.”
“Wait!” he says, reaching for me. “You make everything sound so easy. Like there was some switch someone clicked, and I’m this new person now —”
“I know it’s not easy. But accepting who you are is . . . necessary.”