by Robin Reul
This is what’s known as a trick question, and Dad is loaded with them. If I answer no, then he’ll go on a tirade about how I look down on him, how I think I’m better than him. If I say yes, we’ll both know it’s a lie because his life is shit, a wretched existence shadowed by a series of unfortunate events and bad choices, made tolerable by an abundant supply of cheap beer. I can tell you, whatever I do with my life, it won’t be working some crap-ass factory job, getting drunk every night, and talking down to everyone around me to compensate for the fact that I’m a miserable son of a bitch.
I may not be an AP Scholar or the quarterback of the football team, but it wouldn’t matter if I were. At the end of the day, I’m the one who’s still here and my mother and brother are the ones who are six feet under. And that pisses him off. They were the only bright spots in his life, and he’ll never let me forget it. What he doesn’t realize is that Mom and Mickey were the only good things I had too. We’re in the same damn boat, he and I, and he can’t even see it.
Dad pounds the empty beer bottle on the table and it falls over, but he doesn’t pick it up. It rolls in a semicircle, then falls to the floor. He stands up, stepping over it, and heads toward the stairs, bumping into me as he passes. “You better watch yourself, kid.”
I don’t answer. I just keep scrubbing.
It takes another fifteen minutes to get every trace of the mud out of the carpet. I pick up the abandoned beer bottle, throw the empty food containers in the trash, shut off the television, and head back to my room. I can hear him snoring through his closed door, like someone is drilling into the sidewalk. In the morning, he’ll act like nothing ever happened.
By the time I get to bed, it’s past 1:00 a.m. I close my eyes, but I can’t sleep because my brain is going a hundred miles an hour. What happened with Dad is bad enough, but this thing with Peyton is eating away at me like a cancer.
The girl burned a Barbie with my name on it. She only does that when people genuinely hurt her, and I know I did. But someone can only hurt you if they matter to you in the first place. And this weird sense of loss I’m feeling, believing I’ve caused some irreparable damage to our friendship, makes me realize that in some messed-up way, she’s started to matter to me too.
Which is crazy.
The thing is, my gut tells me it’s about to get even crazier.
9
By the end of third period, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that Peyton (a) isn’t at school, (b) is completely avoiding me like a flesh-eating virus, and/or (c) is off somewhere sticking pins in a voodoo doll that bears an uncanny resemblance to me and I will be stricken with zits the size of bowling balls. The way I see it, I’m simply screwed. The charred Barbie could be the tip of the iceberg.
As if she wasn’t pissed enough last night, the turn of events at school this morning probably isn’t going to help. Amanda Carlisle’s website went live. And everybody’s talking about it. So many people tried to log on that the site crashed.
So even if Peyton ratted me out, at this point why would anyone believe her? Practically the entire male student population of Kennedy High is lying their asses off, hoping to take Amanda to prom. It’s not a matter of truth; it’s a matter of winning. It’s like the whole school turned into Crazytown overnight and Amanda’s the new mayor.
I pass Nick on the way to my locker before lunch, and he jackknifes in front of me, sporting this goofy grin. “Have you checked out Amanda’s website yet?”
I try to act nonchalant. “Not yet. The server was down.” I don’t tell him I’ve spent half the morning trying to get on, the same as everyone else.
“I heard it was back up again. There’re already, like, three hundred and sixty responses logged. She has a counter.” He says it with authority, as if he’s sharing an insider tip.
“Seriously? That’s nuts.” The only thing nuttier is how three hundred and sixty guys are trying to take credit for my epic fuckup so they can go out with Amanda.
“I filled out the questionnaire. It’s totally anonymous. What the hell, right?” Nick rakes his fingers through his hair and checks out a group of freshman girls walking by.
“So what kind of questions does she ask?”
I throw my books in my locker and we head toward the cafeteria. He says, “I don’t remember exactly. Just stuff about that night. I don’t know how she’s gonna weed out the liars.”
“They’re all liars though. Yourself included.” And then to cover my ass, I add, “Unless, of course, you set the fire.”
Nick scoffs and says, “I didn’t set that fire, man. I’m not that stupid.”
True, because only one guy is that stupid.
I can tell it’s Taco Day long before we hit the cafeteria. The smell of greasy ground beef hangs in the air like a radioactive plume, and I suspect it’s no less toxic.
“Aw, man,” Nick says as we grab our trays. “Last time it was Taco Day I spent half of sixth period doubled over in the friggin’ bathroom. I think they’re trying to kill us.”
My stomach feels queasy as the lunch ladies dole out the tacos, give them each a squirt of sour cream from a bottle, and ladle fluorescent-orange Mexican rice and runny beans onto our plates. Since they make the tacos ahead of time, by the time you sit down to eat them, the bottoms are soggy and they fall apart. I imagine prison food is better than this. So are Monica’s attempts at cooking.
On the plus side, the lunch lady gives me an extra vanilla pudding.
We wind our way to our corner table, which is usually empty, but today someone is already sitting there. Before I see her face, I recognize the long, frizzy hair and the fork in her hand, maniacally picking off the tomato bits and olive slices. It’s Peyton, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or nervous as hell. Nick’s face lights up as we draw closer, and he says in a low voice, “Hey, it’s your friend. You told her I said hi, right?”
“Definitely.”
“What did she say?”
“Not much.”
His jaw tenses and he stops for a second. “Whaddya mean, ‘not much’? Did she look interested? Happy? Suicidal? What?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Happy, I guess. She definitely knew who you were.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Excellent.” He grins and bobs his head, then runs his hand over his hair, smoothing it down. “I’m in.”
“Hold up a second, Romeo. What about Amanda Carlisle?”
“I should have such problems,” he jokes as he picks up his pace and I trail behind him.
On the way, I catch sight of none other than Amanda, holding court at the center table, surrounded by her group of girlfriends. She’s mid-story, because she’s the only one talking, while the others sit there slack-jawed, hanging on her every word as usual. She glances in my direction and we seem to make eye contact so I smile, and I swear she smiles back for a split second before she looks away. It’s not as if I expect her to wave, though less than twelve hours ago we were having a conversation in the pouring rain like something out of a movie. Of course, it’s entirely possible that she didn’t see me just now.
Nick sets his tray down across from Peyton’s, leaving me no choice but to sit next to her. She doesn’t even look at me. I wonder if Peyton’s ever burned a blond Barbie with “Amanda” scrawled across it in black Sharpie—maybe last night, in particular.
“Well, hello there. We meet again,” Nick says. His voice is an octave higher than usual. He sounds like a prepubescent middle schooler. Smooth.
“Hey,” Peyton says and pushes at a blob of sour cream to make sure she has removed every last bit of unwanted tomato and olive. I’m wondering why she doesn’t bring lunch.
“You’re not gonna eat those olives?” Nick asks, eyeing them.
“How’d you guess?” She extracts yet another tomato embedded in the sour cream, then licks h
er fingers.
“I love olives. Can I have at it?” he asks.
She slides her napkin, which is piled with them, toward Nick, and he dumps the contents on top of his taco.
Peyton makes a face. “Olives are disgusting,” she says and pokes her fork around in the beans, stabbing them one at a time and eating them. At this rate, she’ll be done with lunch by dinner. “Not to mention they’re super high in salt. Salt can raise your blood pressure and cause heart attacks and strokes. Plus, they have skin and pits and taste gross. It’s so much work to eat them. I don’t understand why anyone would bother.”
“Most things with skin and pits are a pain in the ass to eat. Look at humans, for example,” I joke. I can see her fighting back a smile. The ice has been broken.
“I’m Italian,” Nick says. “If I didn’t love olives and tomatoes, my relatives would think I was adopted.”
“Don’t even get me started on tomatoes,” she says.
“Don’t you eat pizza? Or spaghetti?” I ask.
“Of course.” She shoves a bite of rice in her mouth, then crinkles her nose and takes a big swig of her chocolate milk.
“Last I checked, I’m pretty sure those dishes are made with tomatoes,” I tell her.
“Yeah, but they’re cooked down. No skin or seeds or runny, nasty bits. I gotta say, I don’t think anyone has ever taken this much interest in my eating habits except maybe my pediatrician.” She lifts her taco gingerly with her fork, and the bottom of the soggy shell sticks to her tray, causing reddish-brown meat to ooze out of the tear like a slow-moving lava flow. “This is foul. I cannot eat this.”
“You should come to my house for dinner sometime,” Nick says, popping an olive in his mouth like candy. “My mother makes a marinara sauce that will knock your socks off. My great-grandmother’s recipe.”
“Is that an invitation?” she asks, and Nick’s face flushes.
He beams, encouraged, his chest practically puffing out. “Yeah, absolutely. Anytime.”
“Can Hank come too?”
Nick instantly deflates, but Peyton doesn’t notice because she’s turned to look at me. And when she does, I can tell that she heard everything last night.
Every last word I said to those garbage cans.
And when she smiles, even though it’s kind of tight-lipped, no teeth showing, I know she’s forgiven me.
Nick looks at me, then her, then back to me. He’s trying not to seem ruffled by the fact that she invited me along on their date, which is most definitely a buzzkill. “The more the merrier,” he says.
“When?” she presses, putting him on the spot.
He raises his eyebrows. “When? Uh…how about Sunday night? My mom makes marinara for dinner every Sunday.”
“I’m free Sunday. Are you free Sunday, Hank?” She and Nick both stare at me, waiting for an answer.
“I don’t have anything going on,” I tell them.
“Do you ever?” Nick cracks himself up, and I give him the finger. Karma takes over because Nick takes a bite of his taco and the whole thing falls apart all over his frickin’ lap.
He jumps up, cussing in Italian. Peyton and I stifle our laughter while Nick dabs at his crotch, but the score is definitely Taco Stains 1, Nick 0. His face is beet red with embarrassment.
“Your jeans are black and your shirt will cover it up, man. No one can even see it. Don’t worry about it,” I reassure him.
He’s stressing though, looking around like people will notice, will laugh. Or maybe he’s upset he did that in front of the girl he’s trying to impress. I’ve never seen him like this. Usually stuff rolls right off him. Well, except for the taco.
Peyton must sense his distress too because she does the damnedest thing. She reaches over, grabs her chocolate milk, and knocks it accidentally on purpose into her lap. She watches as the brown stain spreads on her jeans and says, “Seriously? I’m such a klutz. Hank, can I borrow your napkin?”
Nick glances up as I hand her my napkin and tell her, “You don’t even have to give it back.”
“This table is jinxed,” he says.
“That seals the deal. I’m sticking to vanilla pudding for lunch.” I push aside the remainder of the contents on my tray, peel back the foil on the top of the container, and dunk my spoon.
“I’m gonna grab some more napkins. You need some?” Nick asks Peyton and she nods. As soon as he walks away, an awkward silence sets in.
“Listen, Peyton, about the other day—”
She cuts me off. “So are you gonna do it?”
“Do what?”
“Fill out the questionnaire. On Amanda’s website. I mean, you’ll know all the answers, right? Nothing to hide anymore.” She looks at me but she isn’t smiling.
“You heard about that too, huh? It’s pretty insane.”
“You’d have to live in a cave not to know about it. This has all worked out perfectly for you. You tell your story, you take the girl to prom, and everybody lives happily ever after. That’s what you wanted, right? To go out with her?”
“Well…sort of. All these guys are trying to take the blame for the fire, so ironically I have no proof it was me.” I pop another spoonful of pudding in my mouth.
“You’ve got empty sparkler boxes.”
“Yeah, but anyone could order those off the Internet. That’s how I got them.”
“How come you got two puddings?” She balls up her wet napkin, throws it on the table, and steals the extra dessert off my tray.
“I think the lunch lady is into me.”
“That must be it.” She starts in on the pudding and says, “As I see it, you’ve got something the others don’t.”
“Two puddings?”
“A witness.”
I freeze. “You’d do that for me?”
“If that’s what you wanted.”
“I mean, I think it is. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do. The whole thing is weird, right?”
She nods. “Let me know. Happy to help.”
“Thanks.” I look over at Nick, who’s across the cafeteria pulling wads of napkins out of the dispenser. “That was pretty cool, spilling your milk so that Nick wouldn’t feel like an asshole.”
“No big deal. I felt bad for him.”
“I did too, but I didn’t take a lunch in the lap for the guy.”
She turns her head and looks me straight in the eyes. “Perhaps that’s the difference between us. Maybe we have different versions of what it means to be a friend.”
I deserve that jab after what I said to Amanda.
“Peyton, I just need to say—” I start but she cuts me off again.
“You want to get out of here?”
I sweep a glance around the cafeteria and then back at her. “Yeah, sure. We can go to the library until the end of the period.”
“No, I mean outta here. Like leave school.”
“As in ditch class?”
She raises her eyebrows and smirks. “Do you seriously expect me to believe you’ve never ditched?”
I say casually, “Of course. I do it all the time.” Which is total bullshit. I’m not up for the fallout if Dad found out, and quite honestly, there’s never been anywhere I wanted to go.
Nick comes back with a wad of napkins and shoves half of them in Peyton’s face. She sets them down on the table, seemingly unconcerned with her stained clothes at this point.
“What’d I miss?” Nick asks, looking at each of us.
“We’re thinking about bailing. Getting out of here for the rest of the day,” she tells him.
“I’m in,” he says.
“We’ve got English next period with Vaughn, Nick. I don’t know if that’s a great idea,” I say, feeling a little nervous about pushing the envelope so soon after what happened last night with Dad. “Plus, I gotta be
home by six. My dad knows I’m not working tonight.”
“You’ve got plenty of time. And, dude, Vaughn is totally cool with people ditching class as long as you bring him back a cheeseburger.” Nick laughs.
“We won’t be coming back though,” I remind him.
“I’m sure he’ll take a rain check. But how are we gonna get out of here? There’re security guards at the exits, and they only let seniors out during free periods.”
“Unless there’s a distraction and security is needed elsewhere. Leave it to me,” Peyton says. “Meet me in the faculty parking lot during next period.”
“How? Just get up and leave?” I ask.
She says, “You won’t have to. You’ll already be outside.” Nick and I look at each other in confusion as she adds, “Bring your backpack to class. By the time they figure out we’re gone, school will be over.”
“What about my bike?” I ask.
“You’ll come back for it later. Trust me. I have a plan.” She takes a final bite of pudding, drops the empty container on my tray, stands up, and walks away. Clearly this is not her first rodeo.
Nick watches her leave. “That girl is an enigma, man. I am so completely turned on right now.”
“Look, I don’t want to get busted, Nick. I’m kind of walking on thin ice at home as it is. Maybe just you should go,” I tell him, but he shakes his head furiously.
“Hank, don’t be such a pussy. You gotta go. I think she’s nervous is all. Like with dinner. She wants you there too, like a chaperone or something. And that’s cool. If I can talk her up a little, I can get things going. Then you can take off or whatever. C’mon, you gotta do this for me, man.”
He gives me a pleading, desperate look before one eye starts roving toward the window, and between that and the stains on his pants, I can’t help but think about Peyton’s comment and the kind of friend I want to be. So when the fire alarm goes off during English because, rumor has it, someone set a small fire in one of the classrooms, I can’t help smiling because I have a pretty good guess who was behind it.