Diana was still holding my arm and I was trying to figure out what exactly I’d done to get back in her good books. That thing my brother told me about the new girlfriend and the ex — I didn’t remember that until later.
“You know Rain don’t you?” she squeezed my arm.
“What?”
“Rain Masters? This is her house you’re in, remember?”
I turned and Rain Masters was standing there smiling. I was real happy I hadn’t called her Elaine. What kind of a name is Rain anyway? But hey, that guy in Coldplay, Chris something-or-other, the one that was married to Gwyneth Paltrow, isn’t their kid named Apple?
“Hi … Rain,” I smiled back at her.
“I have to borrow your girl for few minutes.”
“Uh … sure.”
They headed off in the direction of what I guessed was the kitchen.
Diana looked back over her shoulder. “I’ll be back.”
My girl. Right.
I pulled a beer out of a giant cooler full of ice and twisted the top off as I turned around to check out the room and the people in it. I started by looking up. It was like the place made you do that. The ceiling was really high with these wooden beams or whatever crisscrossing along the ceiling. A lot of glass. As in very large windows and lots of them. The far wall of the place, the one that Hennie and Big Nose Kate were sitting and leaning against was just about all entertainment centre: a TV — I figured maybe a sixty-inch-screen — and a stereo system with a couple thousand components and speakers that were even bigger than the TV. As I looked around, I decided that the theme of the room was … big. Yeah, the Masters family wasn’t hurting.
The place had a smell to it too, kind of that new-carpet-shampoo smell. Except that there wasn’t any carpet — just hardwood floor. Whatever was making that clean smell would have to be fairly powerful if this place was still going to smell like that in two or three hours.
“Hey.” T-Ho had come to the table for a beer.
“Hey.”
“Now how does someone as un-jen-yoo-wine as you get invited to a fancy-shmancy deal like this?”
To tell the truth, I’d kind of been wondering the same thing about him. I decided not to bring that up.
“Just lucky I guess.”
T-Ho punched me on the arm … pretty hard. “And what was all that interrogation crap you were giving me in the DQ the other night? About the Bidwell Plant and how I knew about it and a bunch of shit.”
He leaned toward me, breathing beer on me as he said, “There’s a lot of stuff I know. And if you ever get jen-yoo-wine maybe you’ll get to know a few things too.”
He walked off and disappeared into the crowd, which was okay with me. T-Ho can be a little hard to be around sometimes, and that situation doesn’t improve as he takes on more beer.
I walked around the room taking the odd sip and doing the “hi, how ya doin’” thing with some kids I knew. There were lots I didn’t.
I slid down onto the floor next to Hennie and Big Nose Kate. Hennie was telling a joke and I just caught the end. It sounded crude and Big Nose Kate and Hennie both laughed for a long time before they noticed I was there. Kate took a sip of something clear … probably vodka.
“Where is everybody? I saw T-Ho but where’s the rest?”
Hennie shrugged. Big Nose Kate pointed. “Upstairs. There’s a bunch of people up there. They’re in the other kitchen, upstairs. I think Rain’s parents are doling out some kind of snacks.”
Two kitchens — that is shmancey. I nodded. At least the parent question had been answered. I reminded myself that if I had to puke I should take it outside.
Kate must have guessed what I was thinking. “They’re cool. I’ve been to parties here before. They’ll just go to bed after a while and let things roll.”
“Nobody’s ever wrecked the place?”
“Nobody’s ever wrecked the place.”
“What’s with you and the lovely Diana?” Hennie grinned at me. “Looked to me like she thinks you’re the man again.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe she thinks I won a lottery or something.”
“I don’t know about no lottery but it looks to me like you could score all right.”
“Yeah, right. I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure she still hates me … remember the dance? Maybe she just wants something.”
Hennie’s grin got bigger. “Yeah, she just might want somethin’, mon.” Hennie’s Jamaican accent got more pronounced after a few drinks. He drew out every word in the sentence and then laughed his crazy laugh. Big Nose Kate smiled at me and nodded.
I downed the rest of the beer. “Think I’ll get another. You guys okay?” I got to my feet.
“We’re fine.” Hennie pulled back the curtain that hung down from one of the giant windows. Behind it was a stash of beers, half a bottle of Smirnoff, and a plate of snacks that looked like it would feed a dozen people. I had to give Hennie credit; he was pretty good at gathering supplies.
Someone had cranked the music and nobody was talking much. No one was dancing either — it was mostly just sitting around, drinking, a little smoking weed (I wondered about the parents again) and heads moving to the music. A couple of people were making out — I didn’t know them — and a couple of girls were all over each other not far from where Hennie and Big Nose Kate were sitting. They were watching the two girls.
I downed a couple of cheese crackers and was about halfway through my second beer when Diana came back. She grabbed my arm again and reached up and kissed me on the cheek. Then she put her lips against my ear and said, “I think you should come with me.”
I set my beer down and she led me down a hall. We passed Rain and she smiled and said, “Have fun, you two.”
Diana opened a door and pulled me into a room that led off the hall. I could see it was a bedroom in the few seconds before the door closed. Then it was pitch black in there and Diana didn’t turn the light on. Her mouth was on mine and her tongue was doing some fairly magical things that I remembered from before. Except this time her hands were doing some things too — stuff that I didn’t remember from before. She pulled me down on the bed and when I reached for her there wasn’t the kind of almost-but-not-quite-giving-in that there’d been before. There was no almost at all. The only thing she said was in a breathless, panting sort of whisper. “You don’t need to worry about a condom; I’ve got that handled.”
Later I thought how stupid it was that I didn’t question that little piece of information. Or give at least some thought to all the stuff that could have gone wrong — the stuff they tell you about at least once a month at school, pregnancy, HIV, some other STD … . But my main thought at that exact moment was, thank god, because I’ve never carried a condom in my entire virgin-plagued life.
It started and ended — way too fast. Diana was lying back on the bed and she was all, ohmigod that was beautiful and I was all, what the hell happened? Of course, I didn’t say that out loud. I mean, it was good and it was cool and everything, but I had this voice inside my head — sort of, okay, so I got laid, what now?
I put my face up into Diana’s neck, thinking well, now that I’ve got that first one out of the way, let me show you what I can do. But just like that she rolled onto her side and said, “I think you’d better go.”
“What?”
“Alamo, I want you to go … now.”
Jesus Christ.
It was a bit of a joke trying to get dressed in the dark, especially since my clothes were all wrapped up with Diana’s. I was afraid I’d walk out of that bedroom with my T-shirt on inside out or, worse, with something of Diana’s sticking out through a sleeve or something.
I was dressed and ready to go with my hand on the doorknob but I stopped. “Uh … Diana, I …”
“It was nice, Andy. It was. I just want you to go now.”
“I’ll … uh … see you at school?”
“Yeah.”
I went out into the hall and back into the big living roo
m. I grabbed a beer off the table, twisted off the top, and looked around. I was afraid every eye in the place would be on me and this would be like some huge April Fools’ joke or something. But the only person who paid any attention to me at all was T-Ho. He got up from where he was sitting and walked over to me.
“Well, well, the look of a man satisfied — in fact, it looks like maybe you’re finally getting a little more jen-you-wine, Alamo.” He was grinning and nodding like he’d had a video camera on the whole thing. I actually glanced around to see if there were screens or anything, but I didn’t see any.
I looked back at him, but decided the smartest thing right then would be to keep my mouth shut. No bragging. Actually I wasn’t sure my performance in the bedroom deserved any bragging.
“And what about sweet Patti there, stud? What … about … the … girlfriend?”
I hated the way he said it, but even more I hated the fact that when he said Patti’s name it was the first time I’d thought of her since I’d got to the party. That was the second time in a week that something I should have been thinking about went right out of my head while I thought about something else.
I had a couple more swallows of beer and left.
Two
Hoax day in Mr. R’s class. Actually it was the third and final hoax day. I was in the last group. There were only a few of us who hadn’t done our presentations — Hennie and I from The Six, Gail Bannering, Ben the computer geek, and Patti.
Patti and I hadn’t gone out since Rain Masters’ party, but we’d hung out some at school and so far it didn’t look like anybody had said anything to her. Diana had said hi to me in the hall a couple of times. The look on her face wasn’t real friendly but it wasn’t I hope a Black Widow bites you on the ass either.
To tell the truth I didn’t know how to act with either of them. I didn’t want to get back together with Diana or anything, which was good since it didn’t look like that possibility even existed. I felt, I guess, nervous, whenever I saw her, mostly because I had no clue what I should say. And around Patti I felt bad, I really did. I’d cheated on her, sort of, and I wasn’t proud of it. But more than anything I kept hoping that somehow she wouldn’t find out.
Having to do the presentation in class helped to get my mind off women issues. I absolutely knew I was going to kick butt. I’d worked on my hoax for two days and two nights and I’d seen all the presentations so far and I was totally positive mine was better than all of them.
I even rehearsed my presentation in front of Mom and Dad. Actually that was kind of weird. My dad made a couple of suggestions that I thought were pretty good. After his second suggestion — about how to use my voice to convince people, Mom said, “Oh, that’s a good idea, Larry. You’re so much better at seeing things like that than I am. It must be your theatre background.”
Theatre background? My dad? I knew he’d been in New York when he was in his early twenties but he’d never said anything about theatre. So, of course I asked.
He seemed almost embarrassed. “Yeah, I studied for a couple of years at a theatre school called Circle in the Square…. I guess I had a couple of small roles in some off-Broadway productions.”
“You guess? That is so cool. My old man, the Broadway actor!”
“Off-Broadway.”
I shook my head. “Still way cool.”
Dad nodded and got up and went into the kitchen. Didn’t want to talk about his acting career anymore.
“He sees it as a failure,” Mom said after Dad was out of the room. “He went to New York convinced he’d set the acting world on fire. When he didn’t, he came back home and has never done another thing with theatre. We very seldom even go to plays, except for the ones you guys do at school.”
I’d had a part in a play called Arsenic and Old Lace back in middle school. I played a butler. I don’t think I was very good.
But my dad had been an actor! In New York! It’s strange how there’s all this stuff about our parents we don’t know. And I never would have found out about my dad the actor if it weren’t for the hoax presentation.
It had taken only about five seconds to feel the excitement after I walked into Mr. R’s classroom. The place was jumping … wall-to-wall energy. Like when it’s the last day before Christmas break — that’s how it felt. I was hoping I’d be first. I was ready.
But Mr. R called Gail Bannering first. She was Jake the tire guy’s daughter. As Gail walked up there, I thought again about that night — Uncle Herm Night. Mostly I thought about what had happened afterward. The jokes in the hall had more or less gone away but there were still the smiles, some giggles from girls, behind-the-hand comments from the guys. It was like having a second nose. Nobody actually pointed to it. But I knew and they knew it was there.
I’d always liked Gail — she seemed nice enough — but I never thought she had much imagination. I was right. She did the Kennedy assassination — claimed the whole Lee Harvey Oswald thing was a hoax. Yeah, we’ve never heard that before. She probably rented that JFK movie, made a few notes, and bingo. Although Mr. R did say we could use a hoax that was already out there. He seemed to like Gail’s presentation.
Next was Ben. His was pretty good. It was a radio broadcast from sometime in the thirties by an actor named Orson Welles. I thought of my dad and how Orson Welles and Dad had both been actors. Anyway, this had been a radio play — kind of a takeoff on an H. G. Wells novel called War of the Worlds. Yeah, same as the Tom Cruise movie, I guess. But this was all done like a newscast that made it sound like it was really happening. Ben had some clips from the actual radio program and some amazing stats about all the panic it caused.
After Ben was finished, Jen put up her hand. “Does something count as a hoax if it wasn’t meant to be a hoax? I read something about that radio broadcast, and they even had a thing at the start that told everybody it was a play. The reason all those people panicked is that they were dumber than shit.”
I thought Jen would be in serious trouble for the “shit” comment, but Mr. R just shook his head. He was sort of smiling. “Bad word choice, Jen, and don’t do it again. As for the hoax part, it may not have been intentional but it was probably the best career move Orson Welles ever made. My ruling is it counts.”
Hennie was up next, talking about the “Paul McCartney’s dead” hoax. I’d never heard of that one but when I saw the stuff the Beatles did on their album covers and in their songs I could see how they might have fooled some people. Hennie did a pretty good job.
Then it was my turn.
I’d checked out a bunch of the hoaxes that were already out there but I decided to make up my own. But now I was having serious second thoughts. Like my idea to sell a fake medical product was totally stupid and maybe not even a hoax at all. Anyway it was too late now. I’d have to go with it. I pulled on a green cap and shirt like you see doctors wearing in hospitals. I had a stethoscope around my neck.
I stepped to the front of the room and looked out at the class. I took a deep breath (my dad had given me that piece of advice) and started.
“My name’s Dr. Dan,” I said to a fair amount of snickering. That wasn’t exactly what I was going for in terms of reaction, but I was hoping things might get better. The Dr. Dan thing, that was because I’d noticed that a lot of the guys (and women, too) on those radio and TV programs where they’re selling some health product, had only one name, or at least they only used one name.
I smiled my best used-car salesman smile at the class and made sure I didn’t look at Mr. R. I wasn’t sure I’d get through the presentation if I saw his reaction, whatever it was. “The biggest concern people have these days is that they’re going to die before they get everything done that they want to.” I paced up and down in front of the class, using my voice like Dad had said to.
“Whether it’s travelling to exotic places you’ve always wanted to see, watching your grandchildren grow up, or making one more million to add to the millions you’ve already made, you need more time �
�� you need to live longer. Because let’s face it — dying sucks. Especially when it happens before you’re ready. That’s why my dedicated team of assistants and I have created this amazing new product, Ten Plus, that comes with a money-back guarantee. Die before the guaranteed ten years and you get your money back.”
Most of the class laughed at that part. I couldn’t help myself and snuck a look over at Mr. R, but he was looking down writing notes on the pad in front of him. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling.
“Six years in the laboratory and the result is a remarkable new formula that works very simply, really. It’s all about the immune system. If your immune system is functioning as it should, you can fight off many of the diseases that take us out prematurely. Ten Plus acts as a stimulant to the immune system. Think of it like steroids for athletes. Except our product is legal, of course. Ten Plus enhances the performance of your body’s defence system. Just take a package a day, mixed up in a tasty drink, and the results are instantaneous and amazing.”
I held up three packages of Ten Plus. “To show you exactly what I mean, I’d like to call on three volunteers to sample Ten Plus and, before the end of this class, report what is happening with their bodies….”
I’d spent most of the night before thinking about who I should use for my test cases. I’d decided I wouldn’t use any of The Six. I handed out the doses of my magic crap potion to Marcia Kiefer (perky and would try hard), Gail Bannering (cute, likable, and that no-imagination thing meant she wouldn’t say something totally stupid just to get a laugh), and Ben the computer geek (would probably hit me up to let him design the product website. He’d want it to work.).
The stuff looked harmless, kind of like cola, only thicker. Each sample was about a third of a glass. I would have liked to give them more but I was afraid they might take too long drinking it and kill my presentation. All three looked at it suspiciously at first, which is why I had a fourth batch ready. I drank it down, and wiped my lips with the back of my sleeve. “Satisfyingly delicious,” I said.
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