by Gurley, Jan
“Phoebe,” I said around the heavenly mouthful, gesturing with a calzone in each hand, “I thought I saw one last banana in your purse — you know, that brown thing in a ziplock bag, from the ones you brought two weeks ago? Could you dig it out for Drew? I’m sure that’s more to his standards.”
Then I turned and stomped back to the school, leaving them all staring after me.
Let the rest of the Greenbacks draw straws to decide who would flirt with the Dog when he was nasty. It sure wasn’t going to be me.
***
It’s hard to imagine how tutoring that afternoon could be more strained. Drew sat with his back to me and I sat with my back to him. That’s no easy feat in a cubby.
We were forced to listen to Nate and Curtis have a whispered argument about who caused the Saturday Dino-Dog date disaster, until Bianca said, “That’s it. You’re both so busy going after each other, it’s like neither one of you thinks I exist. I might as well not be here. Tio, let’s go to the side-room. Maybe that way I can at least get some of my English homework done.”
Drew and I half-stood to watch them go into a room with a glass window. Bianca pulled out a thick book. I recognized the cover from English two years ago. It was Romeo and Juliet.
My heart went tu-tung like an arrow hitting a target. Tio stood frozen at Bianca’s side, staring at the book in front of her.
You can do this, Tio, I wanted to shout it at him but had to stand there, gripping the styrofoam wall.
Then, like an act on a screen, I saw Tio pull out a chair and sit facing Bianca, the book open, bridging the distance between them. The Dog said, “What are they studying?”
“Oh, you know, stodgy stuff. The classics,” I said with an it’s-so-boring flip of the hand, “Shakespeare.”
We both sat. Then there was the twenty-minute Curtis-and-Nate-argument about whose fault it was that Bianca left, until the Dog rose like a Death Star over their barrier to glare down at them. They fell silent.
***
Today’s Tweet: Draft #1 He deserves to never eat a Gonzo meal, ever (a fate worse than death), if hurts my friend’s feelings.
Draft #2 He smothers, doesn’t trust, protects his sister. Sort of. Discard.
Posted Tweet: Today the Dog explores the power and value of silence.
***
The next day, give him his due, or perhaps it was because of six straight school days of no lunch, but whatever the reason, Tuesday at lunch we found the Dog waiting for us in the trees. We Greenbacks drifted out to the sides, filtering into the clearing, but Gonzo hung back, picking at the string knotted at the top of his backpack.
“Here,” Drew said, moving close and hoisting Gonzo’s bag right out of his hands. Drew walked to the stump and put another hand under the bulging bag, lowering it to the surface like it was a screaming baby that had finally gone to sleep.
Drew stepped back with a ta-dah! flourish of his palm and said to Gonzo, “C’mon, dude, show us your magic.”
The breeze shifted and light flickered across all our faces. I wasn’t surprised that Gonzo’s ears were red, but I didn’t expect the frown on Drew’s face, that bit of anxiety, as we waited for Gonzo’s reaction.
Gonzo cleared his throat and said, reluctant, like he’d been put on the spot, “I overslept, so I only made a couple of frittatas.” He moved closer, like he couldn’t talk about his food without being near it. “And a few corn-fritters.” He took another step and slid an arm in the top of his bag. “And some lettuce wraps.”
I saw people swallow and edge closer.
Tio’s voice burst out, “Get out of my way! You guys want to be pussies about this, go ahead, but I want my Gonzo meal!”
In a flash, Tio charged the Dog from the side, and my heart stopped in my chest. Tio slammed into Drew, but Tio might as well have slammed into one of the trees. Drew didn’t budge at all. In fact, Drew ignored Tio and reached over and shoved Gonzo’s chest, a lazy swipe that had Gonzo staggering backwards, the top of his backpack still in his hands.
“NOOOO!” cries erupted, but before the food could fall, Gonzo righted himself, whirled, and gave Drew a furious, leaning-forward, punch — bam — on the upper chest, Gonzo’s whole weight behind it.
Drew rocked a few inches back from the blow, then straightened with Tio still churning, pushing at his hip without moving him at all. Drew said, with a nod at Gonzo, “Nice swing.”
There was a pause, then Gonzo, his ears still pink, said, “Thanks.”
Helena and Phoebe and Viola and I stared at them and each other in disbelief. I choked out, “What happened? Didn’t he just assault Gonzo?”
Alex and Robin were smiling. “They’re bonding,” Robin said.
In our shocked silence, Alex shouted, “Let’s eat!”
People surged forward and there was laughing and shoving and then I saw Drew haul Tio up onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and dump him on the grass outside the circle. Tio scrambled up and darted around Drew, who walked — slow — back to where Gonzo served food on paper plates, like Drew wasn’t sure if he should be there.
Weirdly enough, Gonzo paused with the last plate in his hands, and looked at me. I realized everyone was looking at me. I gave Gonzo a short, embarrassed nod okay, then Gonzo handed the sagging last plate to Drew.
Drew carried it to a spot away from the rest of us and sat. We watched as he took a bite, closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the tree trunk, and chewed. When he opened his eyes, he said, “Man, I have died and gone to heaven. Some day you have got to show me how you do this.”
Everyone looked at Gonzo, who got busy putting extra forks and napkins back in his bag, his neck mottled red with emotion, trying hard to look like it was no big deal.
People chatted and laughed and I settled back against the tree and sighed at my plate. But as I lifted the fork to my mouth, I saw out of the corner of my eye that Drew had stopped eating and was staring back, a moody, brooding half-lidded stare, part anger, part confusion, part something I couldn’t identify, directed at…
Then he blinked, and looked away. He ate his food, stood and folded his plate, walked to the stump and gave Gonzo another, easier swipe against the back of his head that left Gonzo staggering, then turned and gave a nod to a vague location in the middle of the group and walked, one hand in his pocket, back to the school, long before the bell rang.
***
On the way back to school, just outside the fairy circle, my foot hit something and I stumbled. There, barely visible above the green blades of grass, was a fat wooden stake, driven into the ground. The dirt was raw around the base of it. I turned and stared back toward the edge of the field. The other Greenbacks drifted past me. They only stopped to look when I walked straight across the group, heading to old lady Hathaway’s broken-down fence next to the redwoods. There, at the edge of her property, was another stake driven into the ground.
The stake was wider at the top, narrowing down to the dirt like it was a thorn.
I could see the vague shape the stakes outlined. The school had staked out the snack shack location, probably so they could plan how to pour the concrete once the sale went through — after the trees were killed and a backhoe clawed up the dirt and roots.
The greens and browns of the grass and the ground and the pale stake all seemed to blur. I bent and tugged. I hauled, two-handed, leaning back with the effort, feeling splinters needle into my palm. It popped loose and I stumbled again.
When I straightened, I held it out from me like it was poisoned, the tip coated with dirt. The others had drifted closer.
“Oh Kate,” Gonzo said, “don’t cry.” I turned my back to them, like I was busy studying the stake, and fingertip-wiped under my eyes to get rid of mascara smear.
“There’s probably more,” I said, my voice nasal and clogged, “in a rectangle shape around the fairy circle.”
We were late getting to class because, on our way, we detoured so we could toss all twenty-eight stakes into the recy
cling bin.
***
Today’s Tweets: The Dog shows unexpected appreciation for culinary science. Surprises everyone with his nice palate. Budding connoisseur?
***
Tutoring that afternoon was miserable. The Dog and I sat with our backs to each other again. The Nate-and-Curtis blamefest continued unabated. I didn’t have enough room to read my book easily. If I got it high enough up in the tiny space between my face and the cube wall, I ran the risk of leaning back and bumping the Dog. So I had to twist sideways.
Holding my paperback novel flat was cracking its spine and trying to read it sideways was giving me an ache in mine. I knew I was shifting and sighing with irritation every few minutes.
I got up to go pee, and when I came back, the Dog had turned facing forward, his shoulders occupying all the space.
Great, just great. Right when I thought it couldn’t get any worse.
But when I took my chair, which was bumped forward, Drew did this sudden, too-fast-for-the-human-eye shifting thing and we ended up with his left shoulder behind my right shoulder, both of us facing forward in the cube. His eyes were glued to computer terminal the entire time.
I sat, shoulders rigid, wondering what had just happened. And why. Then I thought, why the hell shouldn’t he make room? Of course he should. I opened my novel, put it on the desk in front of me, and started reading.
***
Wednesday morning Drew slid down the wall at brunch and sat like the rest of the Greenbacks, knees up, back against the wall. Gonzo absent-mindedly reached in his backpack and handed Drew a homemade energy bar hand-dipped in organic dark chocolate. Towards the end of brunch, Alex and Robin, who were wearing skinny jeans, Vans, and baggy tops, got up to go to the bathroom. The Dog’s eyes followed them.
He said, off into space, as though he was talking to himself. “Alex has boobs.”
Long pause as we chewed.
I finally said, “Or man-boobs.”
More chewing.
“Damn,” Drew said, still staring down the hallway, “you’re right.”
The group sat in silence until the bell rang.
***
Today’s Tweet: The Dog ponders gender studies.
***
On Thursday morning, in band, Mr. Whitworth — world’s most easy-going, ineffectual man — blew up at the Dog in front of the whole, one-hundred-and-thirteen-person class. “It’s a triangle! Anyone can play the triangle!”
In the shocked silence, everyone kept their eyes on their music stand. I could feel Drew standing behind me, but I didn’t dare turn and look.
By tutoring, the Dog glowered at everyone, not just me.
Bianca took one look at him and, when he turned to stare at the computer terminal, raised her eyebrows at me. I shook my head, an almost invisible shake, with my head down.
Bianca stood, “I’m going to the bathroom,” she said, and left Tio in an awkward Nate and Curtis chair-sandwich sulk.
I mumbled “me too,” and fled.
“Bianca,” she said, her hand out, when I barreled into the tutor-area girls’ bathroom.
“Kate,” I said, and we shook on it. She looked at my earrings — the ones I’d made out of origami cranes I folded myself and then varnished with clear nail-polish — and she casually brushed back the edge of my hair with the back of her hand to lift and turn the cranes, like we were friends.
“Those are neat,” she said, and straightened. “You know, when he’s like this, especially now — they’ve reduced practice time — he’s got to do something to blow off steam.”
“I’ve got a friend, Phoebe, who’s like that.”
“So if we don’t come up with something, his friends will swing by Saturday and after two days in the house with me and my mom, when he’s already got that look in his eye — he’ll jump at anything.”
“If you’ve got any ideas, feel free to share. We’ve got nothing.”
“We?”
“My friends — Tio’s one of them.”
At Tio’s name, Bianca did this sort of slow neck-stretch, unaware she was doing it. “Oh yeah,” she said, “I think he mentioned them — the Greenies or something.” She thought for a second. “But why do you need them — can’t you just do it?”
“Do what?”
“Ask Andrew out? Saturday night?”
“Me?” A gust of disbelief snorted out of me, my face got hot and I felt a rising wave of irritation. “Umm. See, I know you’re from Uni and things are way different there and you probably don’t understand the situation, but the thing is, your brother doesn’t actually like any of us –least of all me. He would never choose to be seen with any of us. He kind of got forced into this bad situation and no one’s even at the being-civil stage. Trust me on this one. In the first place, he wouldn’t, and, second, it’d be so weird, he’d instantly know something was up. Which would blow the whole point of the thing.”
The entire time I spoke Bianca was giving me this raised eyebrow look, like she was a bit offended or something. I finished with, “I don’t mean to disagree, but it’s the truth.”
She stared at me, thinking, this look still on her face like I was being foolish.
Finally she said, “Here, watch this,” and headed out of the bathroom. She tossed a smile back over her shoulder and whispered “hey, you ought to learn something in tutoring, don’t you think?” as she veered to head down the opposite row of cubes.
I hurried to arrive in time to see what she was doing, my mouth dry, not really sure why I suddenly wanted to bolt out the door and never come back. I skidded to a carpet-burn stop at the cube wall and tried to not look as unsettled as I felt.
I sat and Drew did his shoulder-rhumba, so that half his chest was behind me. For the first time, it felt…strange to sit like that.
Nothing happened. I could hear Bianca’s boys get up, the creak of folding chairs as they re-arranged seats, a few whispered insults from Curtis to Nate, then back again.
Quiet settled.
I let my head relax, my shoulders loosened…
And then Bianca whispered, clearly, “So what are you doing Saturday night, Curtis? Want to go out?”
The Dog rocketed up out of his chair so fast it toppled backward, the metal clang dulled by the carpet, but still gaspingly loud.
He leaned forward and said in a semi-whispered shout, “You know you’re not allowed to date! You’re fourteen, for God’s sake. Didn’t you learn anything last weekend?”
Bianca folded her arms and smiled sideways at Curtis, “I learned not to trust Nate if I want to sneak out of the house,” she said. Nate now glowered, more than the Dog had done all day, and Curtis was looking pretty darn smug.
I saw the Dog’s fingers making crescent-moon dents into the barrier. “You are so dead,” he said to Bianca. “I can’t believe you’d be asking for this kind of trouble. Mom grounded you last weekend for a month.”
Bianca seemed to remember something, “But not if you go out with me, though, right?”
The Dog was breathing through his nose. “You think I’m going to escort you on a date with one these scumbags?”
Bianca said, her temper rising, “No. What I was going to do was ask if you would see if we could do something Saturday with Tio and Kate and the rest of their group.”
It was like someone hit Drew in the face with a bucket of cold water. Then swung the bucket back and smacked Tio in the face with it. Then possibly ricocheted it off my face, then into Nate and finally a backhand clang into Curtis — whose eyes looked like they were going dingdingdinging in their sockets.
“I’m waiting,” Bianca said, “aren’t you going to call them scumbags? And say how you’re rather die than do something with me and them?”
Drew’s back stiffened and he flicked his eyes sideways at me, then down to Tio, like he was desperately hoping that somehow, he’d discover we’d been teleported to a different dimension.
Or perhaps that he and Bianca were having this conversati
on in a top-secret cone of silence.
Before any of us recovered, Bianca added, “Or would you and mom instead like to have me sitting at home Saturday night, bored out of my head and feeling,” she gave a little, almost imperceptible wiggle, “antsy?”
When I glanced down at Tio, his hands were on the edge of the desk, his eyes were huge and pleading as a puppy’s. Before I thought about what I was doing, my mouth said, “You could come to my house. All of us, I mean.”
Bianca turned her gigantic eyes to me, “Would your mom be there?”
I swallowed, “Uh. Sure.”
“And my mom could call and verify with your mom that we’d be supervised?”
“Um, yeah.”
There was another trembling silence, then Tio said, nonchalant, “And Gonzo could cook.”
***
When we walked out of the tutoring hall, it was hard to tell who was more shaken — me, Tio, or Drew. Bianca gave an airy wave to Nate and Curtis, who slumped and sulked their way toward the far parking lot.
My mind spun with stress — I’d have to make sure all the Greenbacks could come, my life would be over if Gonzo didn’t cook, I’d have to find some way to get my mom to agree to host us without her thinking this was a big deal. Casual, be casual.