by R.P. Burnham
Jeremy liked supper time. He and his mother could share their day, she about work at the Davenport Insurance Agency and he about his new life as a freshman at Courtney Academy. They had always been close; now four years after the grievous loss both suffered, they were even closer and able to talk without barriers almost as equals. Today his mother was telling him about a curious incident that occurred at the office. The pocketbook of one of the agents, Stephanie Drouin, went missing, and for a long time they suspected a client who had been alone in her office for about ten minutes while she was searching for his file. Just when Stephanie was about to call the police, the pocketbook was discovered in her car where she had forgotten to remove it when she came into the building.
“Wow! That would have been embarrassing,” Jeremy said. “I mean if the man was accused by the police.”
She smiled broadly. “We’d have lost at least one client, that’s for sure. For the rest of the day everyone was joking that their wallets and pocketbooks were missing and pretending that they suspected respectable people like Rev. Covington or the mayor. ‘Come on, Bill,’ I said to Bill Delos, ‘surrender the pocketbook or expect the full majesty of the law to descend upon you.’ That,” she added with a girlish giggle, “was my contribution to the fun.”
“I see that you all have fun at work.”
“We do,” she said, suddenly serious. “Just about everyone at work is nice.”
“Just about everyone?” He raised his eyebrows and bent his head.
She buttered a piece of french bread they were having with the spaghetti and salad. “Well, I’ll be giving away no secrets when I say Ted Davenport is not popular.”
Jeremy knew he was the nephew of the founder and that Becky Paine ran the agency when Mr. Davenport was away on business or vacation. He thought he could see where the problem lay. “How come Mr. Davenport doesn’t put his nephew in charge. Doesn’t he want to keep the directorship in the family?”
“The simple answer is because Becky is ten times better. Instead of accepting that obvious fact, Ted spends all his time frowning and rolling his eyes and using other forms of passive aggression including snide remarks to show his displeasure. But he knows he has not a single ally on the staff. We all love Becky. Today her husband Bill came by with their little son. He was a little angel, staring at us with his big blue eyes and smiling at our cooing. It’s the first time we’ve seen him. They were going to an appointment with their pediatrician after work.”
Babies didn’t interest him much, so he just nodded. “You remember I’m going to the Halloween party at Bev Frechette’s house tonight.”
“Yes, her mother was talking about it today. She was as excited as a school girl.”
“Is that why Bev invited me? Because you work with her mother? I don’t know her very well and was surprised by the invitation.”
His mother smiled knowingly. “Perhaps she’s sweet on you. You’ve turned into quite a handsome boy.”
He didn’t believe that. People said that the older he got the more he looked like his father. That should be good thing because he thought his dad had been a handsome man, but while he was tall, muscular and thin like his dad and had the same brown hair, firm chin, small nose and general facial shape, his eyes were different. He had big, round, blue eyes and hardly any eye ridge so that he looked constantly surprised even when he frowned. He knew his mother and aunts regarded it as a very attractive feature; he thought it made him look dopey. And that was not the only thing that made him feel self-conscious. He had problems with acne and had tried unsuccessfully every nostrum that the drugstore offered. Thinking of his long struggle against his hormonal imbalance, he rubbed at the current irruption, a zit on his chin, and winced as he pressed at the hard nib that told him it was red and swollen.
Seeing his mother looking at him, he quickly changed the subject. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I have some good news about the paper topics in freshman honors.”
His teacher, Mr. Tarkenton, had assigned a choice of seven topics. Six were based on their class readings; the seventh allowed students to choose their own topic. Earlier in the week in discussing this at supper, his mother had told him some family lore about an ancestor who had been involved in the Salem witch trials, and had decided to choose that topic for his research paper.
His mother stopped her fork in mid action and asked, “Did he say it was okay?”
“Yes. He said because I was interested in the subject I was sure to do an excellent job.”
“I’m sure you will,” she said with a proud smile. “Your midterm grades were most impressive.”
“Except for that C in algebra. I just don’t have dad’s knack for math.”
“But the rest were excellent. Three A’s and a B. Your dad would be very proud of you. I sure am.” She leaned across the table and lovingly touched his arm. “I bet you’re Mr. Tarkenton’s best student.”
He felt himself grinning sheepishly but knew modesty was called for. “I don’t know about that. He did tell me, though, that I have a very good mind. I do respond to his teaching technique—you know, I’ve told you before how he allows a great deal of freedom in discussions and brings everyone into them. He says he models his teaching on college seminar courses. And he knows everything about history and even though literature is not his field he teaches Romeo and Juliet and the other required readings great. You know what? I think he inspired me to want to be a teacher too. Dad was a teacher.”
She was pleased to hear him say that, he could tell. “You’ll be carrying on a family tradition. I was going to be a teacher too, you know.”
“You were? How come you didn’t?”
“Well, there were no English teaching positions available around here when I got out of college. We got married and your dad got that job teaching engineering in Portland. We wanted to save to buy a house, so I took a job at the insurance agency. Then you came along, and I was busy raising you.”
“Does it make you sad—that you didn’t teach?”
“Not now. But I certainly had the same thought when I was your age. I had a great English teacher and thought it would be a wonderful life. What do you think you’d like to teach?”
“Well, it won’t be what dad taught. He must have been really good at math to know engineering.”
“I wasn’t very good at math either, and now I’m doing the accounting and payroll for the agency, so who would ever have guessed that. You never know.”
“It doesn’t require algebra, calculus or trig, though, does it?”
She shook her head with a laugh. “You got me there. So what subject do you think you’d like to teach?”
“History, I think. Mr. Tarkenton has made it so interesting that I’ve caught the bug. The other day he put a quote from Shakespeare on the board. ‘The past is prologue.’ He said Americans as a whole live in the present and that it is very dangerous not to understand historical forces. Teaching history is important.”
“Yes, it is. And seeing things as they are is also important. Your father and I tried to raise you to think for yourself and be free from the ordinary prejudices of most Americans. I think we’ve been successful.”
He thought about that remark as he got ready for the party. Although he hid it well from his mother, he was very nervous about it. The Halloween party would be his first social event as a high school student. While he might be intellectually mature, he knew that socially he was still an adolescent and extremely shy. It wasn’t just his absurd eyes or acne that made him so. Girls were a mystery to him. He was very interested in them and thought often about sex, but how to approach girls, understanding how they thought and what they wanted, were all complete mysteries to him. If anything, he was scared of them. It was the ways they were all different from his mother that confused him. She was straightforward with him. She spoke her mind. But high-school girls when not giggling and making faces were all indirection. They gave hints but never spoke plain. When his mother teasingly suggested Bev Frechette was intere
sted in him, he couldn’t really believe it. The only indication of such a preposterous idea was the invitation itself. She had otherwise shown no interest in him or even much awareness of his existence. She had even been completely casual when she asked him to come to the party. “My mother thought a Halloween party would be fun. Would you like to come?” As she spoke her eyes avoided looking into his and were directed beyond him. Maybe she was nervous, but he doubted it. Although he knew as an idea that girls could be nervous, he didn’t really believe it. Girls had such a strange power over boys that it seemed impossible that they would be unaware of it and nervous. And as for liking her in that way, he didn’t see the possibility of it. She wasn’t bad looking or anything like that, but there was nothing interesting about her. She wasn’t in any of his honor classes and she was completely ordinary in every way.
He wasn’t sure whether his nervousness came from the uncertainty about Bev’s feelings for him or—more likely—from the fact it was a social situation he was going to, but whichever it was his nerves got no better. Downstairs he could hear his mother interacting with trick-or-treaters who were already coming to the door. Last year as an eight-grader he, Keith and Ray had gone trick-or-treating for the last time, wearing only an eye-mask and feeling slightly awkward, a feeling reinforced by some classmates seeing them and laughing that they were doing kid stuff. He didn’t like that, but it was undeniable that the uncomplicated world of a child held its attractions. That thought passed through his mind as he dressed in a new sweater and a pair of comfortable jeans and felt a tinge of sadness for the lost world and a stab of anxiety for the new world that awaited. Tony, with his inherited Italian charm, already had a girlfriend, and Keith was quite sure they were already doing it. That meant it was possible somehow to get to know girls. Maybe, in fact, it just happened without thinking. Maybe tonight that would be what he learned. He tried to make that thought smother the scary ones that suggested failure and isolation. With a final application of zit medication smeared on in hopes the redness would be covered, he went downstairs.
His mother acted motherly when she saw him. She looked him over and seemed pleased. She told him to have a good time and to be back by 11:30. She suggested he carry a coat against the possibility that it would be much cooler later in the evening. She kissed him lightly on the cheek.
The walk to Ray’s house took no time at all. He lived only three houses down. His heart beat excitedly, nervously, and he took deep breaths to calm himself. Across the street a girl dressed as a witch giggled something to the devil she was with, but they could not have been talking about him. For a moment he was almost calm, but then as he approached Ray’s door he could hear the sounds of an argument and was pretty sure what it was about. Ray had gotten a D on his history test and had predicted his father would go ballistic on him. He was already on probation because his midterm grades were three C’s, a D and only one B, the result of which was that his television privileges had been taken away from him until he showed improvement. Now hearing Mr. Martineau’s angry voice, Jeremy became nervous for a selfish reason. If Ray was punished by being forced to stay home, he’d have to go to the party alone. The thought terrified him.
He stood at the door too nervous and embarrassed to knock, but Ray’s little brother Pete must have seen him coming, for suddenly the door swung open and a bright, smiling freckled face looked up at him. Pete always liked him. “Hi, Jeremy. My dad’s real mad at Ray.”
Jeremy couldn’t help smiling at the solemnly conspiratorial way Pete was whispering. “About the D he got, I bet.”
“Yup. My dad keeps calling him a goof-off.” He finished with an impish grin. He seemed to be enjoying his older brother’s discomfort.
“I hope he’s not going to be punished,” Jeremy said anxiously.
“I think the TV punishment is extended until he gets a good grade. And something else. What does carrot and stick mean?”
“Well, the stick means punishment. The carrot means a reward. I think it’s from a fable about training a donkey.”
Pete’s face brightened in enlightenment. “That’s another thing my dad called Ray, a donkey. I get it. Ray can get ten dollars for every B he gets. That’s the carrot, then.”
“What did Ray say to that?”
Pete looked behind him in the direction of Mr. Martineau’s angry voice. “All I’m saying, young man, is you have to change your ways! And don’t give me that look!”
“He said he wasn’t sure he could do it. He said he tried as hard as he could on the history test. Then you know what, Jeremy? My dad used you as the example of what Ray needs to do. You got good grades, didn’t you, Jeremy?”
“Well, they were okay.”
“You’re smart, Jeremy. Everyone knows that.”
Just then Mrs. Martineau came into the kitchen carrying a load of dish towels from the dryer. Catching sight of Jeremy, she placed the towels on the table and came up to the door. “Perhaps you can hear Ray’s father is having a talk with him.”
“Hi, Mrs. Martineau. Yeah, I couldn’t help hearing some of it.”
“I wish he knew your secret, Jeremy. Your mother was telling me about your grades earlier today. She’s very proud of you.”
“I’m not so hot at math, though. That’s what Ray’s good at.”
“But his verbal skills are very weak.”
Ray came out from his father’s home office looking fit to kill. He grabbed his jacket from the hook by the door and said, “Come on, Jeremy. Let’s get out of here before my father changes his mind.”
“Be back before twelve,” his mother called, but Ray was too angry to reply.
“So you had a spat with your dad, huh?” Jeremy said once they were away from the house and passing a large group of kids coming down the street dressed in Halloween costumes and carrying bags for the bounty they planned to gather.
“He’s impossible to please. He wants me to be perfect. Sorry, wrong number.”
“I could help you next time you have a test. Pete told me you could get ten bucks for every B. That might make studying worth it.”
“And twenty bucks for an A. I think the bastard knows his money is quite safe. I told him that I was just an average student. Average students get C’s.”
“Well, the offer stands.”
Ray paused at the corner for a couple of cars to pass. They were walking to the other side of town. “You don’t argue with your mom, do you?”
“No, not really.”
They scooted across the street while coming towards them were a bunch of kids dressed for the occasion. One of them wore a Batman outfit and another smaller kid, probably his brother, was dressed as Robin.
“I thought they killed Robin off?” Ray said.
“Yeah. Probably an old outfit in the family.”
“That’s because you get good grades,” Ray said.
At first the remark was a non sequitur; then he saw the point. “Probably,” he agreed. “But she’d be unhappy too if I ever got a D.”
Ray was silent for a while. Jeremy, glancing at his face, saw he was brooding. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You’re the only kid I know who gets along with his parents, that’s all.”
From what he heard from other kids, that sounded right. He’d heard some students say they actually hated their parents. Others routinely called them stupid. Sometimes he’d been with kids when their parents came to pick them up, and they acted embarrassed and ashamed of them. So he was definitely in the minority.
“I’m lucky, I guess. My mom treats me almost like an equal. She’s my friend as well as my mother.”
“Hell’s going to freeze over before my old man treats me like a friend. Christ, I wouldn’t want him to be. Who’d want a pompous old windbag for a friend?” He was speaking bitterly, but in a sudden mood swing, he changed the topic. “But the hell with him. What girls do you think will be at the party tonight? I’m available,” he added with a grin. He was already forgetting his angry argume
nt with his father.
The question made Jeremy nervous and he didn’t answer for a moment as he tried to figure out how he was going to react to Bev. He knew Ray was more self-confident socially than he. Ray was fairly good-looking with long sandy hair and dark eyes and with skin free from blemishes. He was also big and muscular, and the girls seemed to be attracted to him. With Tony already having a girl friend, and Keith having his first date tonight with a girl who’d been sweet on him since eighth grade, Jeremy felt the pressure. If he didn’t get a girlfriend he would be left behind.
“Well?” Ray asked.
“I’m not sure. Just like you, I don’t know Bev all that well. I don’t imagine it will be the beautiful people.”
“You mean like Billy Swift and Caroline LaRocque?”
“Yeah.”
Yet another group of excited kids ran past them. They were shouting something about candy bars being given out at some house up ahead. One of them was telling his brother they had to get home soon or their mom would be mad, a remark that apparently reminded Ray of his recent ordeal with parental authority, for after things to quieted down, he said, “How come your mom treats you like an equal? It’s kinda weird, don’t you think?”
Ray’s question required a cautious answer. The equality and friendliness he shared with his mom had a lot to do with her earlier remark at the supper table about both her and his dad trying to raise him to think for himself. All his dad’s lessons about how to act rightly in the world were still very important to him, and he would never want to do something that would cast a shadow across the sacred memory of his dad. His mother’s progressive attitudes also made her different. The yoga classes she had taken to help relax after his father’s death had led her indirectly to an interest in Buddhism. Its gentle ways and introspective philosophy introduced a different and atypical perspective into his life. And both parents were or had been political progressives. These inherited examples had made him more mature than the typical freshman—for he knew that he was different from most students at school. He was intellectually curious and had a mature sense of self that was much different from the ordinary student on the one hand and the cheerleader-athlete-class leaders on the other. Both groups shared the same values despite the social distance between them. They all parroted their conservative parents views on politics and mindless patriotism, followed the lives of rock stars and movie actors, found their world-view in the lyrics to rap songs and the dialogue of TV shows, worried more about their appearance than about their understanding, wore the same clothes, thought the same thoughts, didn’t care about anything outside of their narrow little world of school and friends, were terrified to stand out from the crowd.
Not much of this knowledge and awareness could he tell to Ray. Even though they were still good friends, Ray was much more the ordinary student and regular guy than he was. What he could say would answer by indirection:
“I guess it also has something to do with mutual respect. My mom lets me be me, you know? Like when I didn’t go out for Little League that second year because I was disgusted about how Billy Swift and a couple others were treated like kings? She totally respected my feelings about it.”
“Humph!” Ray snorted. “I still don’t understand why you did that. I didn’t like Billy being treated like King Shit either, but the next year I became a starter and it was all right.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it was. But it was more than Billy. I didn’t like how it wasn’t democratic. Call me weird, but that was and still is my feeling. Ten-year-old kids shouldn’t be treated that way. I didn’t feel I was part of a team. It was just like high school, if you know what I mean. The beautiful people walk around campus like they own the place, and we’re supposed to bow to them.”
Abruptly he stopped, remembering the football rally they had to attend after school in the afternoon where the students were whipped into a frenzy of school patriotism. With drums thumping and bugles shrieking, each class was called upon to show its support for the team. “Freshmen, are you with us?” the head cheerleader shouted, and the freshmen would respond with a thunderous, rhythmic “Yeah, man!” Each class tried to outdo the others, though with the understanding that seniors would yell the loudest. The drums and the excitement almost swept him into the frenzied madness until a sense of estrangement possessed him when he remembered his mother talking about Buddhists seeking a quiet place for the soul to repine. But just when he thought he was safe, some of the football heroes spoke and asked the student body for its support, and he had found himself fantasizing that he was the star quarterback speaking with a swaggering self-confidence and feeling the adulation of the mere mortals. After the rally he was so ashamed of himself that it was one of the few things, together with his nervousness about the party, that he did not share with his mother when they talked about their day. It was as if he’d forgotten everything his father taught him about self-reliance and standing up for his beliefs.
It was dark enough between street lights to hide the redness burning into his face; yet Ray still sensed something was bothering him. He tapped Jeremy’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Talking about the beautiful people reminded me of the football rally for the game against Bedford High tomorrow. It was like a Nazi rally.”
“A Nazi rally?! What d’ya mean?”
He didn’t dare talk about it. “Oh, nothing. It was just too rah-rah, you know? Who else is going to be at the party?’
“I’m not sure. We’re going to Cross Street, right? That’s coming up.”
They soon found out who two of the girls were. As they turned up Cross Street they saw the McCarron twins being dropped off by one of their parents. Gina and Kathy were both tall, flat-chested and shy, the cause, no doubt, of the frown that passed across Ray’s face. So far, not too promising—that was what the frown said.
But the spectacle of Mrs. Frechette and her house cut off any discourse. The ranch-style house was garishly decorated for the holiday. Orange and black crepe paper wound around the posts at the front door in barber-pole fashion. Each window had a carved pumpkin eerily glaring at the world from a candle’s flickering light. A string of Christmas lights with orange bulbs was attached to the gutters and draped across the entire length of the house. But the house was demure and unobtrusive compared to the queen whom reigned there. Mrs. Frechette was dressed like a witch with a flowing black robe, a tall pointed hat, and for a final touch of authenticity she had a huge rubber nose with a wart the size of the hope diamond attached to the front of her face by rubber bands.
Ray and Jeremy exchanged troubled glances as they listened to Bev’s mother talking to the children in a piercing voice that was supposed to represent a witch. “Here you go, my little dearies. One for you, and one for you—and you’re not to be forgotten, young gentleman,” she said as she ended with a loud cackle.
Watching the little ones scampering off, she seemed lost in thought for a moment before she turned to Ray and Jeremy. “Oh, hello boys. Come on in. The party’s just starting.”
Inside they found they were the last to arrive. Besides the twins, there were eight other guests, four females and four males. Jeremy’s math was good enough to see that the party was unbalanced with one extra girl. He found himself assessing them to see where he stood.
Loraine Keohan, Bev’s best friend and a girl who sat near Jeremy in home room and with whom he was on nodding acquaintance, was a slightly overweight girl who always wore bright colors. Tonight she had on a yellow sweater and white slacks. Joan Hiram he knew slightly better. She was in his freshman honors class. She was plain and wore glasses but had a pleasant personality. He liked her. Diane Nadeau and Betsy Black he knew only by name, but he saw Ray’s eyes light up when he caught sight of the latter. She was the prettiest girl there with a cute pug nose which she crinkled whenever she smiled, long dark hair and a stunning body. Bev’s appearance, like her personality, was ordinary. She wasn’t pretty and she wasn’t ugly. When she saw him, she only said, �
�Oh, hi, Jeremy,” in an ordinary way. She wore a short skirt that revealed her bony knees.
The boys he also knew only slightly. Pat Hooper was, like Loraine, in his homeroom and they had talked occasionally. Dan Paige he knew only by name and had hardly ever said more than a few words to. The surprise was Bob Parole and his friend John Dewberry. All the rest of the guests were ordinary people, a long ways off from the beautiful people they had talked about on the walk to Bev’s house, but Bob and John were both from upper middle-class backgrounds and usually traveled in quite different circles than the present company.
He felt very uncomfortable. The other guests were all from the west side of town, while he and Ray were east-siders, an absurd distinction when the distance traversed was only six or eight blocks, but in a small town a kid growing up six blocks away might as well be living in the next city. With Ray the only real friend among them, it was going to be difficult to make his first teen party a success.
It certainly didn’t start out well. When everyone turned expecting him and Ray to speak, all he could think to say was, “I see the party started without us,” a statement so profound everyone was left speechless.
Ray was much cooler. “What’s happening?”
“Not much,” Bev said. “We’re just hanging.”
Mrs. Frechette’s voice singing out from the front door rescued him. “You kids sit down and have something to snack. There’re candy bowls everywhere, soft drinks and pastries, and for you gals watching your figures there’s veggies and dip on the dining room table.”
Instead of following directions, the boys grouped together, standing near the sliding glass doors that led to the patio while the girls sat on the couch, chairs or floor in the living room.
For the first fifteen minutes Mrs. Frechette was busy with the trick-or-treaters. Her piercing cackle and high-pitched witch’s voice drowned out many a conversation, something Jeremy didn’t mind since attention focused on her weird behavior was attention not directed at him. After his opening faux pas he was even more nervous. He both wanted Bev to pay him attention and dreaded it, wanted to talk to the other girls but could think of nothing to say. Neither Bev nor any other girl paid him any attention, however, and after a while he actually started relaxing.
It didn’t last long. When Ray started talking to Pat Hooper, Jeremy, finding himself standing next to Bob Parole, nervously searched for something to say before stupidly actually giving voice to what was in his mind. “I’m surprised to see you here, Bob.”
“I’m surprised too,” he said in a low voice. “I was roped into it because my mother rather insisted I go. Bev’s my cousin. Her mother is my aunt. You get the picture—poor relatives can’t be entirely ignored. That’s what my mother thinks, at least.”
“No kidding. Mother’s side or father’s?”
“Bev’s father is my mother’s brother. I used to wonder why he divorced her. I’m beginning to see why now.”
John Dewberry leaned toward Bob and whispered confidentially. “Hey, Bob, these girls remind me of that girl who wears the weird, old-fashioned clothes. What’s her name?”
Bob thought for a moment. “Charlene something. I know what you mean. There’s no action here except for that little pussy Betsy Black.”
Their private conversation was interrupted by Bev calling to all the boys. “Hey, don’t you guys want something to eat?”
They all walked over to the girls and started talking. Jeremy heard Ray telling Betsy Black that he was planning on playing baseball in the spring; John Dewberry and Dan Paige joked to a couple of the girls about having a sweet tooth; Pat Hooper told the twins the story of his first Halloween when he was four. He had dressed as a bunny rabbit and everyone teased him about Easter. Bob Parole helped his cousin fill some of the bowls. Jeremy stood alone. Despite the numbers favoring the males, he was the odd man out.
Once again Mrs. Frechette rescued him from awkwardness. When the 7:30 close-off time for trick-or-treaters passed, she left her post by the door, removed her witch costume, and came into the living room wearing casual jeans and a gray sweater. Noticing Jeremy’s ugly-duckling status, she said, “My, Jeremy, you look more like your father every week. Such a handsome boy.”
Feeling himself blushing, he mumbled a thank-you.”
“I thought it was so sweet of you to lend Bev your history book last week when she forgot hers.”
He shrugged. “I’d already had class and she needed a book. I was glad to help.”
“Well, your kindness was appreciated.”
“Bev, did you thank him?”
“Yes, mom.”
Mrs. Frechette scanned the gathering. “Isn’t it time we heated up this party? Do some fun things?”
It turned out that any expectation that she was going to retire and let the kids find their own fun proved to be fatally wrong. She seemed to regard herself as some kind of a den mother who would run the entertainment and keep the party going. But even that did not quite describe the role she was fulfilling. It seemed, much to her daughter’s embarrassment and a certain subterranean scorn expressed in surreptitious rolling of the eyes or muttered comments from the rest, that she regarded herself as a member of the party.
Shining with happiness, bubbling over with enthusiasm way out of proportion to the situation, and often giggling like a schoolgirl, she was trying to act girlish and be one of the kids. Judging by some of the pictures Jeremy saw on the wall—particularly one of a kitten rolling a ball of yarn—she was a sentimental person, but there was more going on than that. She was near his mother’s age, 38 or so, but, he thought, she was trying to recapture her youth by living vicariously her daughter’s life. But she was trying too hard at the same time she was too controlling. It was she who suggested they bob for apples, something the girls did reluctantly and the boys not at all. It was she who put on a CD of Broadway music and even sang along with some of the sappy songs until Bev asked if she could play some different music. At first Mrs. Frechette’s face went rigid, then with a nervous smile she relented. The trouble was that one bad taste was exchanged for another. Bev put on a CD of one of those bottle-blond girl singers who needed all the tricks of the recording studio to creak out her pathetic attempts at love songs.
Those CD’s became the occasion for Bev’s first approach to Jeremy. She came up to him wearing a moonstruck expression and asked, “Don’t you just love that song?”
He nodded diplomatically. At home his mother listened to classic rock on the radio and folk music from his dad’s collection when she played CD’s. To the extent he liked any music, the folk music was the most enjoyable. He really liked The Weavers, Woodie Guthrie and a New England local, Charlie King.
“Oh, I love it!” she said, speaking earnestly. “It has such feeling in it.”
He kept his opinion to himself and changed the subject. “Your mom seems to be enjoying herself, isn’t she?”
She smiled nervously. “She’s trying too hard, I think.”
After letting the music go on for some time, and probably because she noticed no one was dancing, Mrs. Frechette continued trying too hard. This time she suggested they play charades.
The idea wasn’t met with much enthusiasm, but everyone seemed to understand that humoring Bev’s mother was the cost of a ticket, so after some hemming and hawing the game started.
The first few efforts were so simple they were childish. Dan Paige pretended to saw a board and then nail it, and the collected genius of the group yelled “Carpenter” before he’d finished nailing. Loraine Keohan was next recruited. She enacted two characters. First she put up one finger and lay down as if asleep. Then, after flashing two fingers, she walked away and then back, stopping as if in surprise and gazing down at where the sleeping figure was supposed to be reposing; then kneeling and pursing her lips, she implanted a kiss. “Wet one,” Jeremy heard Bob Parole murmur to John Dewbery while the rest of the group shouted “Sleeping beauty!”
Then Jeremy felt Mrs. Frechett
e’s iron gaze and wanted to hide.
“Jeremy, your turn.”
He felt very foolish, but would have felt more foolish refusing her and creating a scene. So after thinking for a moment, he pretending to be pouring something into a beaker while trying to make his eyes shine madly.
“A cook?” someone guessed.
He shook his head, then pretending to put the beaker down while he rubbed his hands in glee.
“I know,” Ray said. He had watched many sci-fi movies with Jeremy. “A mad scientist.”
“You got me,” he said sheepishly, glad to be delivered from public display. He saw Bob Parole rolling his eyes.
So did Mrs. Frechette, and she made the mistake of trying to draw the malcontent into the spirit of the party. “It’s your turn, Bob.”
He shook his head. “I’m no good at those things.”
“Oh, come on,” she pleaded. “You can think of something.”
But he refused her, this time with a dark frown that threw a poll over the party. “I said no and I mean no! What part of that do you not understand?”
An embarrassed silence descended upon the group as Mrs. Frechette stared angrily at Bob, who glared back at her defiantly. But just as she was about to say something she would probably regret, Betsy Black asked in a perfectly normal voice that under the circumstances was electrifying, “Bev, do you have The Rolling Stone CD with “Start It Up” on it? I was telling Ray what a great song it is.”
That innocent remark was enough to unlock aunt and nephew from their deadly staring duel and stop any venomous words from Mrs. Frechette. She watched her daughter searching through the CD collection for the requested song. “Well, well,” she said with a forced smile, “it looks like you kids have had enough of games and want to listen to some music.” Then she turned and went into the kitchen where she started putting the dinner dishes and pots and pans away. Judging by the loud sounds of pans being hurled rather than placed in cabinet shelves, she was still angry.
That display put a period on the party. It continued, but everyone knew that the night would be remembered as a disaster and that it was very unlikely that Bev would ever host another party.
Bob backed away from the group and began conferring with John Dewberry by the sliding doors. He was wearing an ugly frown as the rest of the group listened and hummed along to the Stones. Jeremy, finding himself still odd man out—Ray was now completely absorbed in Betsy and had no time for his friend—eventually wandered over to the two other outcasts.
“Bev’s mom didn’t handle that very well, did she?”
Bob was still angry. He glared towards the sounds in the kitchen. “She’s even more of an idiot than I thought. And those kids”—his lip curled in contempt as he looked at the other kids— “What losers.”
Jeremy didn’t like his attitude, but he assumed a jaded tone to fit Bob’s mood. “They’re just kids. Freshmen kids. What do you expect?”
“I expect more than bobbing apples and charades. You call that a party?”
Jeremy glanced at him, trying to read what it was that made him so judgmental and superior. He certainly was no movie star. His nose was too big and his brown hair was trimmed so short that it exposed his protruding ears. But he was dressed in a collarless peasant shirt that Jeremy knew was expensive, and he wore pre-faded jeans likewise expensive. On his wrist was a large gold watch, probably a Rolex. It was money and a life of privilege that made him supremely self-confident. He was used to getting his way. He expected people to defer to him.
In these ways he was the exact opposite of Jeremy. Even though he didn’t want to be, he found himself subservient in his answer. “No, I think everyone will agree this party’s a disaster. But what’s the alternative?”
“What’s the alternative? That’s easy—the party I wanted to go to in the first place.”
“At Caroline LaRocque’s house,” John said.
Bob nodded. “There’ll be plenty of beer and weed and maybe some poppers. Loren Eberhardt will be there—”
“She’ll spread ’em for anyone,” John said in an excited voice, then whispered when one of the twins seemed to overhear him, “and she’s not the only one.”
Bob, a little impatient with John for interrupting him, gave his friend a look. “Last week the party got really wild. We played strip poker. Any girl in her underwear or less had to go down on a guy who lost his last article of clothing.” A sickly grin broke across his face. “It’s the only poker game I’ve ever played in where the guys were trying to lose.”
“I think we should leave right now, Bob. The three of us don’t fit here.”
Jeremy felt jolted. The three of us. Had he passed some test and not known it? But he couldn’t suppress the rising panic. “What? You mean they had public sex?”
“Some did. Others went into the bedroom.”
“How come Caroline’s mother’s not home?’
“She’s dating some guy and is out of the house every weekend.”
“I wasn’t invited. I don’t know many of those people.”
“Hey, it isn’t a stupid little goodie-two-shoes party like this. Who comes, comes, that’s all. There ain’t any list.”
John reached for his coat, which he’d left hanging on the handle to the sliding doors. “Let’s go. You coming, Lawrence?”
He thought of his mother and the eleven-thirty deadline. All the times he’d daydreamed about sex, he’d never thought his first experience would be part of some tawdry exhibitionism. But Ray had deserted him and John Dewberry had included him. He was scared to go and scared to say no. He wavered, but it was his mother that tipped the scales. He shook his head. “I’m on a strict deadline. I’m supposed to home in less than an hour.”
Bob gave him a contemptuous look that he did not try to hide. “Have it your way. No skin off my nose.”
So they left and he stayed. The rest of the kids were listening to music and talking. None paid him much attention, and he was too shy to initiate any conversations. Once in a while he’d say something like, “That was a good song,” and the others would agree, but the only conversation of more than a few sentences happened when Joan Hiram asked him if he’d chosen his topic for the term paper and he told her about his ancestor’s role in the Salem witch trials. She seemed interested in the topic, and he was just beginning to feel comfortable with her when one of the other kids said, “Hey, you guys. No talking about schoolwork. It’s the weekend.” That slammed that door shut. After that chastisement he hardly said another word for the rest of the evening. A little before eleven o’clock Ray took him aside and whispered that he was going to walk Betsy Black home.
That meant that all three of his best buddies were starting to become involved with girls and he wasn’t. He was the odd man out. Bev, who supposedly had invited him to the party because she was interested in him, hardly even looked at him now. If he had momentarily passed some test with Bob and John, he had equally failed some inscrutable test that Bev had subjected him to. And of course he realized that by refusing to go with Bob and John his passing grade had been turned into an F. But there he was thinking in terms of schoolwork, and on the weekend you weren’t supposed to do that. He thought about girls, sex and social situations on his lonely walk home. He was frustrated that his thoughts kept spinning around and going nowhere. He did conclude that it was easier to be a good student than to be a social success, and finding himself valuing that which was difficult and thereby judging himself harshly, he also was forced to admit that maybe he was a nerd and maybe he’d always be one.
The Answer to His Question