The Taming of the Drew

by Gurley, Jan

  On the top step stood Gonzo, in a coat, tie and tennis shoes, holding three stacked platters of food with a garbage-can-sized canvas bag slung on his shoulder. Clearly Gonzo and Tio had discussed what to wear. Maybe Tio bullied Gonzo into wearing a suit too so Tio wouldn’t be alone. Gonzo’s face looked stricken and I opened the screen door, saying, “Are you all right? Where have you…”

  Then Gonzo moved into the kitchen and, just like that moment in the movies when the person with the pleading eyes steps aside to reveal the villain who’d been hiding behind them all along with a ray-gun and an evil sneer, there stood Celia. Helena and I both gave a gasp.

  Gonzo, head down, arms full, fled to the living room

  “Oh, no you don’t!” I turned to say, but he was gone.

  Celia shimmied in the kitchen, giving it a look, like maybe my kitchen had B.O. or something. I said, “Celia, you are not—“ but my mother interrupted from behind me.

  “Kate, is this another tutor?” Her voice was full of hidden meaning, meanings such as hell will freeze over before you have another party, young lady.

  Celia dropped the sneer as suddenly as you can bat an eye, and walked toward my mom, radiating a charm so powerful, it could knock you over. “Mrs. Olivia Baptista, how really nice to meet you. I thought you were so patient at that meeting in the Dean’s office. God, if only my parents were more like you.”

  It was incredible to watch. My mother hesitated for a second, then began to turn to Celia and open up, the way a flower tilts and relaxes under sunshine. How could she betray me like this?

  “Now, really, I’m sure your parents are the same. Everyone thinks theirs is difficult.”

  Celia leaned forward with a twinkling smile, like she was confessing a hideous secret to my mom. “They’re lawyers,” she whispered.

  “Ah,” said my mom, smiling back. “I can see the difficulty.”

  “Excuse me?” They both turned to stare at me, like I’d interrupted them at a restaurant table.

  Celia immediately turned back to my mom, “Mrs. Baptista, I soooo hope I’m not putting you out, showing up like this. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m, well, I’m Gonzo’s first, sort of, date.” She actually blushed.

  My mother gave Celia a look, like Celia had just achieved sainthood. “Gonzo’s an incredible young man. It’s not every girl your age who knows how to recognize what’s important in guys at this age.”

  Celia looked a bit disconcerted, like she hadn’t expected my mom to be such a fan of Gonzo’s, then said, “I thought, you know, if we went to a group party and hung out together as a first step, a party where there’s excellent parent supervision, then…” she let the phrase dangle.

  I could see that Helena, like me, was getting a spit-up feeling in the back of her throat, if not actively fighting the need to heave. Celia made it sound like she and Gonzo could be tearing each other’s clothes off if there weren’t rigid controls in place.

  “Then I’m glad you two are getting to know each other better here. It’s important to take things slow.” She turned to me. “Were you going to ask me something, Kate?”

  I gaped, my brain flapping, useless as a broken wing. Whatever I might say would make it sound like I thought Gonzo was a sex-starved idiot or that no girl could ever possibly date him. In that pause, Celia slithered eel-fast into the living room.

  Helena gave me a nudge from behind, I got the message, and said, “Nothing, mom.”

  My mother smiled at me and said, “Kate, sometimes the world surprises you.” Right then, that seemed like a well, duh kind of statement. My mother had surprised me. Celia had surprised me. Most of all, Gonzo had surprised me. She added, “Let me know if you guys need anything,” and left for her bedroom.

  I could tell even before I went through the doorway that Celia’s arrival changed everything. The din of conversation crashed to a halt. You could see why. Celia, Curtis and Nate were too scattered around the room to be able to combine their disapproval, but it still drifted up and hung like a stink in the air. Tio and Gonzo, in their suits, looked heart-breakingly eager. Too eager. Phoebe’s make-up looked clownish, and Alex and Robin had TARGET written all over their vulnerable-looking foreheads.

  No one was even eating Gonzo’s food, as though biting and moaning over it was too personal a thing to do in front of the Uni students.

  Viola made things worse by opening a giant bag and pulling out three board games, Monopoly, Carcassonne, and Settlers of Cataan.

  She gave us a tiara-ed smile and said, “So which one should we do?”

  The Dog was frowning, a monstrous glower. One foot crossed, resting on the other knee, and he held his shin with both hands, like he couldn’t trust his fists. I was certain he was thinking that he’d spent better evenings getting smeared, like human pate’, across astro-turf.

  Then he turned to Alex and said, “Nice skirt.” In the shocked silence, he said, to Robin, “Doesn’t she look nice.”

  At the she, both Alex and Robin flinched, like they’d been pinched.

  I stepped further into the room, the only person standing, and said, “Drew…” in this warning tone of voice.

  Drew said, “What? He doesn’t mind if I say Alex looks nice — do you, Robin?”

  Another flinch at the he.

  Alex and Robin were looking uncomfortable, and cornered, glancing around the room at Celia and Nate and Curtis. Soon, one of the three Unis would demand that Alex and Robin reveal their privates (as Viola put it) — or at least the gender of their privates. If Alex and Robin had known the Unis were going to be at the party, they would never have taken a chance and dressed the way they did.

  That’s when I got angry at Curtis and Nate and Celia. Who were they to think they could come and sneer at us?

  And if Celia and Curtis and Nate discovered that smacking Alex and Robin with a pronoun got a rise out of them, or us, we’d never hear the end of it, all evening. There would be taunting and flipping off alternating he’s and she’s all night, indiscriminately. The kind of thing that used to happen to Alex and Robin in middle school, with lots of “fag” thrown in for good measure. Alex and Robin would probably go back to hiding by double-dressing in gender-of-the-day outfits.

  Alex stood, and said, “Kate, listen, I’m sorry, but, well, we forgot we had to do something else tonight. Right, Robin?” Robin stood too, both of them shuffling toward the door, not looking at anyone, not even each other.

  I wanted to stop them, but I couldn’t, because somewhere deep inside, that cold clear adult voice stopped me, and said that, for now, this was for the best. There literally was no way I could get Celia and Curtis and Nate to all three leave the party before something nasty happened. And I would never forgive myself if it happened in my home.

  “Wait,” I said, “at least let me make you two plates.”

  Some of the tension eased as I piled food for them. But the conversation didn’t pick up again. People watched me in silence.

  Phoebe had brought some DVDs. I raised an eyebrow at her and she nodded. I slapped a Pretty Woman DVD on their plates. As I walked them to the door, I said, “Fun outfits in that one, both Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.”

  They gave me a grateful look, and each of them, one after the other, threw an arm around my neck in a limp half-hearted hug, then turned and fled.

  I walked back into the near-silent room to hear Celia say, “Hey Dog, your shoes are scuffed. And your shirt’s, your shirt’s baggy around the waist.”

  Bianca leaned forward on the sofa and said, “Ex-cuse me?” She could out-blizzard her brother. The room suddenly felt like it needed defrosting.

  Drew said to Bianca, “Ignore her. She’s not worth the energy.”

  Celia said, as though, for the first time, she realized the Dog could talk, “Are you talking about me?”

  He acted like she hadn’t said a thing, but turned to where I stood in the doorway and said, “What did I do? To Alex and Robin?”

  The room went silent, because of
the earnestness of his question. Bianca stood and said, in the tone of a drill sergeant, “Curtis! Nate! Celia, yes, you too, you’re coming with me. Into the kitchen. Now. Move it. We’re ordering pizza and getting drinks.”

  On her way past, Bianca cranked the volume on the music. They left the living room.

  I sat and said to Drew, biting my cuticles, “Listen, this isn’t the time to talk about it.”

  He said, “Tell me. Just tell me, Kate. If you want me to call Robin a man, I will. If you want me to call Alex a girl, I will. Or visa versa. Robin can be the girl and Alex can be the guy. I messed up and I frankly don’t know how. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

  In that moment, I felt an overwhelming urge to cry. I pressed my lips together and stared at him, at the way he leaned forward, his eyes boring into me, asking in front of everyone, for real, how to fix this.

  It unhinged me worse than any angry outburst ever could.

  He wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  Voila, rushing into my silence like she knew I was going to lose it if someone didn’t do something soon, said, “Drew, do you know what a radical is? That’s what Alex and Robin are.”

  Drew said, “You mean like radical dressers? Or radical politics…” he trailed off.

  Viola said, her tiara wobbling, “No, silly, like in chemistry.”

  We all stared at her. Sometimes I forgot that Viola took classes in every subject, kind of randomly, like she was looking for an answer to boredom. She took honors everything, AP everything, in no particular order, and aced it all.

  Drew said, “I’m not getting you.”

  Helena said, “A radical is an unstable particle, isn’t it?”

  Viola nodded. “A radical doesn’t know whether to be positive or negative. It has to either lose the electron, or gain a proton. For an atom, it’s a short transition state, but it always, eventually, settles down. Unless you try to force it.” (I had a feeling that wasn’t exactly how the chem teacher described it) “Then it might get damaged, or it could damage cells around it. So it’s best to let a radical be, until it’s ready.”

  “Cool,” said Gonzo. “Like Alex and Robin.”

  All the Greenbacks nodded.

  Drew thought about it for a moment, like he was examining the concept in his head. Then he said, “Sorry,” to me.

  The party settled down a bit after that, the loud music covering a lot. But that greasy feeling of fear didn’t leave me. It only seemed to get worse. I stayed as far away from Drew as I could, and I noticed that Curtis and Nate, who were, officially, rivals and hated each other, when surrounded by Greenbacks tended to stand together in a corner of the room and talk. I caught both of them watching Bianca from time to time, and once I caught Nate staring at Viola, and Curtis staring at Phoebe.

  Gonzo’s food, as usual, was a huge success. Once someone took a piece, everyone dove in, and silence descended. Celia chewed, her eyes closed and I realized I could hear her, from across the coffee table, humming to herself.

  She opened her eyes and stared at Gonzo, who pretended not to notice, but whose ears turned bright red on either side of his asparagus head. Celia then chose another piece of finger-food with the precision of a diamond-dealer selecting a gem.

  Which is when Phoebe said, “Sooo, should we watch something? How about Serenity?”

  They didn’t actually snicker, but you could see that kind of look pass between Curtis and Nate. Before anyone answered, Bianca said, “Wait, before I forget, I wanted to see if someone would take this to Academy for me.”

  She was sitting on the sofa beside Tio and she bent her head to drag her bag out from under the sofa. Then she reached in it and pulled out the felony-camera, and held it at arm’s length, over the coffee table.

  All eyes were riveted. If Bianca had pulled a live rattlesnake out of her bag and held it, coiled in her palm, we probably wouldn’t have reacted as strongly.

  Nate said, “What’s the deal? Why is everyone so…”

  Bianca interrupted, “I’m pretty sure one of you guys does newspaper. Or yearbook, right?” Her voice sounded suddenly unsure.

  Tio said, his voice stern, “Give it to me, Bianca.” At the same time that Drew said, his voice harsh, “Where did you get that?”

  I had a mental image of both of them getting charged with a felony. No way was I going to let that happen. Ever.

  I said, “Bianca, trust me, sweetie. Hand me the camera.”

  Drew, sitting next to Bianca, whipped it out of her hand and said, “You took it, didn’t you? You’ve had it the whole time.”

  “Why not?” Bianca said, her confidence returning. “Mom was so rattled that night, she left it under a chair, outside the Dean’s office. I’m not stupid. I wasn’t going to walk off and let some random student find it. I figured I’d return it. And I am. It hasn’t been that long. What’s the big deal?”

  Drew turned the camera over in his hand, like he couldn’t quite believe it was real. I heard a click and looked up to see Celia’s hand out-stretched, her cell open in it. She gave me a hah, screw you victorious look.

  I knew instantly what Celia had done. She’d snapped a photo of Drew holding the felony-camera. Right before he turned eighteen and could be charged as an adult.

  In that moment, all the greasy fear in the pit of my stomach ignited into a ka-fwoom of adrenaline fireball. Without even thinking, I zipped the three feet across the room and snatched Celia’s cell from her outstretched arm. She stared at me, like her brain hadn’t caught up with the fact that I’d dare to do such a thing. I turned, all the faces in the room pointed, wide-eyed at me, like I was crazy and I tossed Celia’s cell phone across the room to Phoebe, who caught it in a bumbling, hot-potato catch, then glared at Celia and promptly dropped the cell phone in a glass of soda.

  Celia stared back and forth between me and Phoebe, with a growing how DARE you look on her face. Everyone in the room gaped at the glass, fizzing around the cell. Drew looked stunned, like he didn’t yet understand what was going on, what could possibly have possessed us. Unlike the rest of the Greenbacks, Drew didn’t know about Celia’s paparazzi career plans about him.

  Celia gave me an I’ll show you determined snort, darted forward and struck, her arm like a cobra, snatching the big camera out of Drew’s hand over the coffee table. I shouted “Helena!” and we both moved toward the living room door to head Celia off, Drew standing and struggling over the upturned coffee-table toward Celia, but Celia snaked her way out of the room and was gone, the screen door banging and clapping applause behind her.

  In the living room, I heard Curtis say in wonder, “Wow. Can you believe it? I thought I’d be bored.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Girl's Got A Point

  Chapter 7

  “Guys,” I said as I dragged myself back into the living room, “party’s over.”

  I didn’t care if it sounded rude. I couldn’t take any more. I had an ache inside me that seemed to expand and fill my chest. I wanted everyone gone so I could go to my room and curl up on my side in my bed and pretend my bed was the stump in the fairy circle.

  I slumped into a chair and folded my arms on my knees and put my head down, vaguely aware that Curtis and Nate were leaving, that my mom had appeared and sounded confused, that food smells and rustling sounds filled the air, which probably meant Gonzo was packing food into foil packets for school on Monday.

  I really wanted people to leave so I could be alone.

  I twitched when someone tapped my shoulder. I raised my head and almost everyone was still there: Tio (who had tapped me), Drew, Bianca, Helena, Viola, Gonzo, and Phoebe.

  Tio said, “I’m sorry, Kate.”

  Helena said, “I wish we could say it’ll be okay.” her voice trailed off. We all knew it wasn’t going to be okay. Not now. Not when Celia had my photos and the camera.

  Probably, there would be some horrible media story, complete with pictures. The trees would be lost forever. The Dog would be slammed
again.

  I would go down in history as a budding pornographer.

  My mother would see them.

  I put my head back down again.

  “I don’t get it,” said Drew, above me. “What’s eating her?”

  My head snapped up. I fought the sarcasm that welled up like bile up my throat, resisting the urge to say, Exactly what part of hell-on-earth do you not understand?

  My look was obviously enough because he kneeled beside my chair and said, “It’s the camera, right?”

  Again, I fought the urge to say, no, duh.

  “All of us can swear we know who’s got it. We’re off the hook. What’s the big deal?”

  I almost choked in my outrage. “What about the pictures,” I said. “Did you conveniently forget the pictures?”

  He gave me a smile, one so large and sincere, and gorgeous that I felt this shift inside me, my outrage and anger dwindling away. He dug in his front pocket and pulled out a thin, blue plastic square.

  His smile got wider as the entire group gasped in delighted shock.

  It was the memory card for a camera.

  I felt my eyes well with tears. “You, you?” my voice cracked and I stopped, before I embarrassed myself further.

  “Nah,” he said, giving Bianca, who stood beside him, a hip-check with his shoulder. “It’s the brat here. She took the chip out, first thing. Had it in her wallet. She gave it to me just a minute ago in the kitchen.”

  Realization dawned and my tears began to ebb as I got more ticked off, “You mean you knew? You knew Celia didn’t have the photos and you acted all innocent like you couldn’t understand why I would be upset??!” I punched him on the shoulder and he gave an exaggerated OW face and rubbed it.

  He waggled Groucho Marx eyebrows at me and said, “Listen, you ever punch me — and I find out about it — you’ll be in deep trouble.”

  There were whoops and high-fives and cheers all around. Bianca looked shy and pleased, like she’d gotten us in trouble, but managed to fix it and hoped we’d forgive her.