Hello Groin

by Beth Goobie

  “She can do that for herself, Cam,” Mom said with a smile.

  “No prob, Ms. Kowolski. I’m a sucker for little kids,” said Cam, and I watched Mom melt.

  “Yeah,” said Keelie, crossing her arms and frowning at Mom. “He’s a sucker for little kids LIKE ME.” With immense satisfaction she watched Cam finish her second shoe, then took his hand. Looking up at Mom, she said importantly, “We’ll probably be late, so make sure you brush your teeth and go to the bathroom before you go to bed.”

  “Okay, Keelie,” grinned Dad. “We’ll make sure we brush every tooth.”

  “Don’t let her eat too much candy, Cam,” Mom called as Keelie dragged him to the door.

  “No prob, Ms. Kowolski,” Cam called back. “I’ll probably eat it all myself.”

  “Don’t listen to her, she’s too bossy,” ordered Keelie, her voice floating back through the open door. Halfway down the front walk, she dropped his hand and took off for the Firebird, which was parked at the curb. “I’m driving, I’m driving,” she chanted, jumping up and down as Cam unlocked the passenger door. Then she scooted into the front seat and placed her left hand firmly on the wheel. This was what she and Cam called “driving”—he steered and kept up a constant description of various monsters, labyrinths and UFOs that supposedly surrounded us, while Keelie hung onto the wheel and imagined herself getting us victoriously through the melee.

  “Watch out, Keelie,” hissed Cam as we started off down the street. “There’s a drooling, snotty-nosed, one-eyed boogeldy-bear coming at you from behind.”

  Immediately Keelie whirled around in her seat, her eager eyes honing in on me.

  “Not me, not me,” I protested from the backseat, raising both hands.

  “Ah,” said Cam, sending me a grin in the rear view mirror. “My mistake. It’s the queen of the Sirius galaxy disguised as a drooling, snotty-nosed, one-eyed boogeldy-bear. Legend has it that years ago she was kidnapped by an off-planet tribe of drooling, snotty-nosed, one-eyed boogeldy-bears. How shall we rescue her, brave Princess Keelie?”

  Reaching around the back of her seat, Keelie grabbed my hand. “Don’t worry, Captain Cam. I rescued her,” she said. For a moment she looked at me intently, a thoughtful, almost sad expression creeping across her face. Then she said slowly, “But the queen isn’t happy, Captain Cam. She doesn’t have enough happiness in her life.”

  Cam’s and my eyes met, startled, in the mirror, and the inside of the car was suddenly very quiet. “What d’you mean, Keelie?” I asked, forcing my voice past an odd graveliness. “I’m happy. Of course, I’m happy.”

  In the dusky evening light, Keelie continued to gaze at me, then shook her head. “You’re lying,” she said. “The queen of the Sirius galaxy is lying, Captain Cam.”

  “Well,” said Cam, quirking an eyebrow at me in the mirror, “the queen and I will talk about that later. But right now, Keelie, you and I have to watch out for that giant suction pocket over there, between those two stores. Can you see it?”

  He pointed and Keelie nodded fiercely, her eyes beady with anticipation. They were both back into their game full force, Keelie’s comments about my happiness sucked into the imaginary suction pocket Cam was pointing out. And if I was lucky, I thought, leaning into the backseat shadows, Cam’s memory of those comments had just been sucked away too.

  The movie was the usual—an animation feature with a lost princess heroine who had to be rescued by a brave hero. Seated between Cam and I, Keelie leaned against his arm and devoured popcorn nonstop, giving him the odd poke when she wanted a slurp from the large container of pop he was balancing on one knee. When Keelie was with us, she got all of Cam’s attention, which meant it was pretty much time off for me. So I just sat there in the dark, pretending to watch the movie while I thought about Cam, the way he would be fifteen years from now with his own kids, helping them into their jackets and shoes and making up stories for them to star in. And that made me think about how massively the future sucked. Because I loved Cam; he was the exact kind of person that I wanted to spend my life with, but I knew I didn’t fit into that picture with him. It sucked, it really sucked. Big-time.

  Leaning over Keelie, I rattled the ice in my pop container and told Cam, “Gotta visit the can.”

  He nodded, and I headed down the aisle toward the wash-rooms. The theater’s front lobby was pretty much empty—just a couple of adults buying candy—and so was the women’s wash-room. As I sat there on a toilet, doing my thing, sounds from the movie oozed through the wall behind me—muffled shouts and screams, swells of scary music. An image of Keelie came floating through my mind, bug-eyed and openmouthed, staring at the screen. The queen isn’t happy, Cam, I heard her say again. She doesn’t have enough happiness in her life.

  So, someone besides Joc had finally noticed. It didn’t really surprise me that it was Keelie. She had a way of watching you so intensely that you felt as if her eyes were stuck to your soul. And like most little kids, she could spot a lie a long way off. When it comes to lying, little kids are different than adults. I mean, they haven’t lived long enough to learn the art of lying continually the way adults have. Sure, they come up with incredible whoppers sometimes, but only in a crisis, to save themselves from a time-out or an early bedtime. They don’t live a lie all the time like some grown-ups, plodding through each day resigned and defeated, all the while smiling tiredly and saying, “Oh, I’m good, great, fine. Everything’s okay.” Happiness, there’s no happiness in them anywhere.

  What if that happened to me? I mean, what if, in spite of what I knew about myself, Cam and I someday got married, and because of my skewed wrong body, we weren’t happy? Because how could we be, how could I make him happy when I didn’t... well, feel normal, the way girls are supposed to feel about guys? How long would it be before that resigned defeated look settled onto him? Five or ten years? Two or three weeks? It wasn’t fair what I was doing to him now. I didn’t have the right to go out with him under false pretenses like this. Not when he liked me so much, not—

  Mid-thought, I heard the washroom door open, and then someone entered the cubicle beside me. A minute later the outer door opened again and someone else entered, so I waited until I heard both women leave before coming out of my cubicle. I’d been crying a bit—not too bad, but I wanted to check my mascara in the mirror before heading back to my seat. To my surprise, when I opened my cubicle door I saw a girl standing at the sinks. She looked to be about my age—sixteen or seventeen— with shoulder-length, wavy, brown hair and brown eyes. Not the kind to wear makeup, and maybe a little plump and not really pretty, but there was something about her that made you look at her twice—just the way she held her head, chin up, demanding your eyes. She didn’t attend the Dief, but I’d seen her around, at the library and in cafés. Always alone, though—she didn’t seem to hang out with anyone.

  Without saying anything, I went up to a sink and started washing my hands. A quick glance at the mirror told me that my mascara was fine, but my eyes seemed a bit red. So I glanced at them again, more carefully this time, and as I did, my gaze met that of the loner girl in the mirror. And in that moment an electric vibe passed between us—heated, singing, shimmering— the way I’d so often felt it with Joc. Astonished, I ducked my head and rode out a warm flush of heat. This was impossible. It couldn’t be happening here, in a public washroom, with someone I didn’t even know.

  “Hey,” said the girl, turning toward me. “What’s your name? Don’t you go to Diefen—”

  Massive panic slammed into me. Why was this girl talking to me? Had she felt the vibe that had just passed between us? Could she tell about me, the way I was?

  Without replying, I grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser and walked out the door. In the lobby I didn’t look around, just kept going, headed for the safety of the theater and its dark shadowy aisles. If the loner girl followed me out, I didn’t hear her and I didn’t look back. All the way to my seat I kept my head down, telling myself that what had hap
pened wasn’t important. There was no way the loner girl could have known what I was feeling and if she’d guessed, she was nobody, anyway. Even so, when I slid into place beside Keelie, my blood was pounding. I mean, it was pounding.

  What’s going on? I thought frantically. Is this going to start happening with every girl?

  Quickly I stood up, edged past Keelie and sat down on Cam’s other side. Then I leaned against him and laid my head on his shoulder.

  “Hey,” he said softly into my hair. “What’s with the paper towel? You keeping it as a souvenir?”

  Startled, I looked down at my lap. Clutched in my hand was the paper towel I’d grabbed as I was leaving the washroom.

  “Oh,” I said and dropped it to the floor.

  Fortunately there was so much going on at Deirdre Buffone’s place, the house party Cam and I went to after we dropped off Keelie, that we didn’t have much time to talk. Since Deirdre was part of the jock crowd, as well as a senior member of the phone patrol, only popular kids were invited to her parties. That meant the energy was pumped, but so were her parents. Mr. and Ms. Buffone liked to get involved in their kids’ lives—down to the very last detail. They always sat down with Deirdre ahead of time and organized her parties so every breath you took was fun, but also supervised. There was no wandering off to bedrooms or dark deserted corners at the Buffone house, and if a couple took off early in a car, Mr. Buffone would call their parents to let them know their dearly beloved offspring were headed straight home.

  Tonight they’d organized a hay ride, with hot chocolate and charades afterward. The party was officially over at 11:30, but a few of us got talking with Deirdre and her parents at the door. Suddenly Cam looked at his watch, swore softly and said, “We’d better get moving, Dyl. It’s five to twelve.”

  He kept it to the speed limit all the way to my house, but just, and when we got there the living room light was on. As usual, Guardian Angel Buffone had called ahead. So there was just time for some quick kissing before Cam’s watch alarm went off, signaling 12:15—my extended curfew. Or, as Cam put it, “execution time,” though when he was with his guy friends, he called it “the castration hour.”

  “Uh, Dyl,” he said hesitantly as I opened the passenger door. “Y’know what Keelie said earlier, about you not being happy?”

  “That’s Keelie for you,” I said quickly. “She’s little. She gets ideas in her head and makes herself believe they’re real.”

  Cam’s eyes hovered on my face, uncertain. “You’re sure?” he asked awkwardly. “Because if—”

  “Of course, I’m sure,” I said, forcing a smile. “Why wouldn’t I be sure? Call me tomorrow, okay?”

  Relief crossed Cam’s face, and I could feel him ditching his doubt. Just like that, it was gone. “I’m going out with the guys,” he said, flashing me a grin, “but I’ll work it in. Y’know, I can’t believe we wasted the entire evening at Deirdre’s. Not even a half-hour pleasure cruise.”

  “Dream about me,” I said, getting out. “And I’ll dream about you. We’ll dream the same thing, okay?”

  “You bet we will,” he called after me, waiting as I unlocked the front door, then waiting again as I closed it and drew the dead bolt. Even then he didn’t drive off, and I stood inside the locked door, listening to the Firebird rumble contentedly in the driveway. Cam was thinking about me, I knew that, and it wasn’t Keelie’s comment about my happiness either. No, he was imagining all the ways he wanted me and was probably lost in the fantasy, staring off through the windshield and humming low under his breath the way I caught him sometimes when I snuck up on him from behind. He wanted me bad and it was a good bad, the way you were supposed to want someone. Pressing my palms against the door, I stood listening to the quiet rumble of the Firebird and guilt rose in me—something ugly, I was disgusted with myself, filled with self-loathing because of what I couldn’t seem to do, the healthy natural things I couldn’t make myself feel.

  After Cam finally drove away, I turned out the living room light and headed upstairs to my room, stopping en route to knock on my parents’ door and let them know I was home. They were both in bed, Mom watching a video and Dad reading a book, probably about astronomy or time travel, his two favorite subjects.

  “Did you have a good time, sweetie?” asked Mom, putting her video on pause.

  “Yeah,” I said. “The Buffones had a hay ride for us.”

  “Keelie talked nonstop about driving Cam’s car when she got home,” said Dad. “We could hardly get her to go to sleep.”

  “It’s a game they play,” I said quickly. “He doesn’t really let her drive it, she just imagines she does.”

  “I figured,” grinned Dad, and I leaned down to give them each a goodnight hug, everything warm and affectionate, both of them smiling as I left, pleased with the way their eldest daughter was turning out, the choices she was making. There were some pretty mixed-up user guys out there, but she’d chosen a decent caring one—that Dylan really had her head on straight.

  When I got to my room I didn’t bother to undress, just crawled into bed and curled into a ball. Mom had left my desk lamp on, and the room was a glow of colors at low ebb—salmon walls, amber quilt, a scarlet throw rug on the floor. Cam had never been in here, but he’d asked me to describe it in minute detail, and twice he’d given Danny a box of chocolates to leave on my bed. Sweets for the sweet, the notes had said. Okay, maybe not original, but the meaning had been his, a thought coming from him to me. And here I was, lying to him, leading him on toward...what? It wasn’t ever going to happen between us, the relationship was a charade, a dead-end—something I seemed to have to go through to prove to myself it couldn’t work. Why couldn’t I just face reality and give Cam up? I mean, I’d felt more tonight for a girl I didn’t even know than I had for him.

  As I lay there, staring at nothing, it came to me that my life was like a negative confession, that list of statements the ancient Egyptians used to say before they died. That was it—my relationship with Cam was one long negative confession:

  Hail, Basti, who comest forth from Bast, I have not told the truth.

  Hail, Ruruti, who comest forth from heaven, I have not let my heart beat.

  Hail, Unem-Snef, who comest forth from the execution chamber, I have not sought my own happiness.

  Hail, Neba, who comest and goest, I have not let myself feel pleasure and love.

  Hail, Set-qesu, who comest forth from Hensu, I have not broken out of my fear.

  Hail, Her-f-ha-f, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have not crawled out of the grave.

  Hail, Qerrti, who comest forth from Amentet, I have not lain with women.

  Turning off my desk lamp, I lay in the dark, listening to an inner voice repeat endlessly, I have eaten my heart, I have eaten my heart, I have eaten...

  Chapter Nine

  The following Tuesday I was back in the library, doing my volunteer shift at the check-out desk and sorting books that had been returned for reshelving. Beside me, Joc leaned against the counter, looking utterly morose as she unwrapped a piece of Double Bubble. Yesterday, to her dismay, she had discovered that drama rehearsals had been scheduled every lunch hour this week. This obviously put serious brakes on her love life—today was probably only the second school lunch hour in over a year that she hadn’t spent with Dikker. Withdrawal symptoms were setting in.

  “Y’know,” she said, staring moodily at the comic that had been enclosed with the gum. “I must’ve read hundreds of these things in my life, and they’ve all been boring. Every single one of them.”

  “Yeah,” I said, sliding a book onto the fiction filing cart. “Double Bubble must hold the Guinness world record for lousy jokes.”

  “Not a single funny one,” muttered Joc, still staring at the comic. “Mom told me that when she was little, you could buy two Double Bubbles for a penny. Now they’re five cents each. That’s nine hundred percent inflation in forty years. You’d think for nine hundred percent inflation, they could come up
with one funny joke.”

  “At least print them in color,” I agreed.

  “Boycott,” said Joc, looking grim. “We’ll start a petition. No more Double Bubbles unless they’re funny bubbles.”

  “Mmm,” I said. “Does that mean you’re going to start observing the library’s no gum-chewing rule?”

  “Uh-huh,” Joc said carelessly. “As soon as I finish this one.”

  “Ah,” I said and went back to alphabetizing the fiction cart for shelving. A small group of kids pushed through the turn-stile, headed for the exit, but didn’t sign anything out. Several others came in and wandered over to the study carrels. Today, blessed by Dikker’s absence, the library was decently quiet, with only Joc’s gum chomping and the whirring of the wall clock for sound effects.

  “What d’you think of Shakespeare?” she asked, gloomily surveying the library.

  “Shakespeare?” I repeated, glancing at her. “Dunno, really. Did he write jokes for Double Bubble?”