“A little sewing lesson,” Mom says.
He walks over and kisses her on the cheek; then he picks up the Packy jacket like he’s never seen it before. He stares at the TSOL patch with its Statue of Liberty head and it’s like somebody asked him the square root of 1776.
“True Sounds of Liberty,” Mom says.
“True Sons of Liberty?” he says.
I want to sound tough, be punk rock and defiant, except there’s a needle and a spool of thread in my lap. “Sounds,” I say.
“Look at mine,” Colleen says, holding up her cloth, the threads loose and way too far apart.
“Oh, that’s good, Colleen,” Mom says. “Isn’t it, Pat?”
He nods the way he does when Brendan gets a 71 on a math test and brings it home like a dog with a dead squirrel. “That’s lovely, sweetheart.” He looks back at me. “Where’s your Yankees jacket?”
I tell him upstairs but he keeps looking at me until I say, “It’s fine.”
Mom stands up. “Are you hungry, Pat?”
He keeps his eyes on the jacket. “What’s with all the safety pins?”
“For emergencies,” Mom says all matter-of-fact. She pulls the jacket from him, tossing it to me on her way to the kitchen. “Come on. I’ll fry you up some tomatoes before I get lunch started.”
.
On the way to the stairs after Algebra on Monday, Edie says she’s already bragged to five people about our show in San Diego and how we got out of there before the cops could arrest us. Just thinking how the rumor will be bouncing around at the speed of light—van Doren and Petrakis and Astrid all connecting us to DikNixon—makes me want to give Edie a big hug, my arms wrapping around her, my breath blowing across the back of her neck because her hair is short and there’d be nothing between her skin and my mouth.
I’m staring, saying nothing, just enjoying the niceness, when Edie’s head goes a little sideways and her eyes narrow a little. “What?” she says, like she knows what I’m thinking.
“Nothing, except thanks, you know, for seeing us play Friday.” I lean in close and whisper, “How many songs did we play?”
Her eyes go big and round and she whispers back, “Five.” Then she puts on this fake voice. “Oh, and thanks again for letting us hitch a ride with you to San Diego. I don’t know if we could have gotten there otherwise.”
We laugh and Edie says she and Cherise will help us pass out party flyers.
“How do you know about the party?”
She says Keith told her, then looks me up and down, sort of squinting. “Is that okay?”
We get to the stairs and stop. “Yeah,” I say without looking at her. “There’s nothing to be mad about.”
Edie laughs. “‘Mad’ means ‘crazy.’ But I’m glad you’re not crazy.”
I laugh. “Well, I’d be mad to be angry. Keith’s your friend too.”
“Good.” She pulls a note out of her folder and hands it to me. “Then can you give this to him? Cherise and I are going to eat in the cafeteria today so we can keep talking you guys up.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“Don’t read it.”
I put it in my pocket and pop my hand up like a magician who’s just made a scarf disappear.
“Good,” she says. She backs up a few steps to the stream of people headed up the stairs, slips in with a turn, and just like that, disappears.
.
Before English, Treat is crouched down in front of Mrs. Reisdorf’s desk scribbling >I< on the front with a pencil. It’s no bigger than a radio station bumper sticker, but it’s the teacher’s desk. Mrs. Reisdorf isn’t in the room and everyone floating in looks at Treat for a second, then sits down like they don’t see a thing. It’s weird, you know, how a guy that big can be doing something this obvious and thirty people are looking around at each other or talking in pairs and doing everything they can not to see him.
Treat stands up when he’s done and gives it a good look. “Hey, Reece,” he says without looking back at me. “Is it dark enough?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Is it straight?”
I glance at the doorway for Mrs. Reisdorf. “Are you mad?”
Treat laughs and walks to his seat. “Could’ve gone bigger, huh?”
“You could’ve got caught.”
The Mohawk shakes me off. “We’ve got a sub.”
“It doesn’t matter who catches you.”
“He asked me where the bathroom was, and I said by the staircase.”
“But there’s one right here in the breezeway.”
He looks at me, like, Do I need to explain this?
“Oh,” I say and relax a little. “Did he say where Mrs. Reisdorf is?”
“Divorce court,” Penny Martin says. She’s in the desk in front of Treat and turns sideways. “Her husband’s totally gay. Everybody knows.”
It’s weird how you never think of your teachers existing outside of school. How they have real lives and all. Even when me and Keith saw Mr. Krueger in the staff parking lot getting into this little MG convertible, I never thought about him actually pulling up next to me at a stoplight or cruising around on a Friday night with his wife next to him.
I try to imagine what Mrs. Reisdorf looked like when she first got married, before her eyes were red and puffy like they are a lot of the time now and instead of her hair being short and flat, maybe in a beehive or flipping around like Jackie Kennedy’s. “Why would a gay guy get married in the first place?” I say.
“He probably didn’t know he was gay,” Penny says. “Happens all the time. He’s in total denial and she just thinks he doesn’t touch her because he’s a gentleman.”
“What about their honeymoon?” Treat says. “She’d know then.”
“He probably faked it,” Penny says.
I give that a “ha” and look at Treat. “Guys can’t fake it.”
Treat leans back in his seat. “People fake stuff all the time. Especially if they think it’s what they’re supposed to do.”
Our sub comes rushing in, saying sorry he’s late, and we start a read-around. Since I’m in a middle row, I’ve got a few pages before my turn, which makes it hard to follow along and not think about Mrs. Reisdorf being in love with some guy who hardly notices her. At least, not in the right ways.
After class, Treat reminds me to ask Astrid to the party, but instead of looking for her on the way to Spanish, I’m still thinking about Mrs. Reisdorf. What happens when she’s not Mrs. Reisdorf anymore? I mean, not what do we call her, but who does she become when she’s not the person she thought she was? It tickles my brain until I see Astrid, her white stockings clinging tight to her legs and disappearing into her Catholic schoolgirl skirt. She squints at me a little; then this half smile creeps out and she says, “Happy Monday.”
My cheeks pull at my mouth, trying to stretch it to a smile, but I’m fighting it, keeping it tight and closed so I don’t look stupid or say something stupid. She keeps staring and my hand shoots up on its own and it’s all I can do to stop myself from waving like a kid seeing Mickey Mouse for the first time. I do this little pulse, forward and back, like the pope or something, like I’m blessing her somehow, and keep walking.
It’s so dumb, so not what I’d wanted to do, that I’m too embarrassed to mention it until after lunch, after PE, when it’s just me and Keith in the locker room.
“She talked to you first?” He grabs my wrist and stops me from stuffing my gym clothes into the locker. “She’s not supposed to do that.”
“Yeah, but the hand thing—”
“That’s nothing. You didn’t say anything, right?”
I snap my lock shut. “No. Nothing.”
Keith shuts his locker. “You played it perfect.”
“Doing nothing doesn’t work,” I say. “I’ve already done plenty o
f that.”
“Nothing can be something.” Keith pulls a note out of his back pocket, unfolds it, and puts it on the bench between us. “Look.”
“You want me to read this?”
Keith shakes his head. “You’re not supposed to, but if I drop it and don’t realize for a minute—” He starts down the row of lockers to the bathroom. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to check my hair.”
Even without reading the note, you can tell a girl wrote it. It’s in blue ink and swirly and neat, though a lot shorter than you might expect:
Keith,
Even if Reece doesn’t ask Astrid to the party, you guys still have to play. Cherise thinks that if she drinks a beer and Treat is real happy like he was after you guys played Friday, she’ll be able to talk to him.
Your friend,
Edie
P.S. Find out what Treat is going to wear because Cherise wants to try and wear something like it.
I pick the note up and look harder at Your friend.
A second later, Keith comes around the corner of the lockers. “See?”
“Cherise likes Treat?”
Keith takes the note, folds it up, and stuffs it in his back pocket. “Yep. He pretty much ignores her and acts weird and she thinks he’s a fox. Makes about as much sense as algebra.”
Normally, we’re at the door by now, waiting for the bell to ring, but today we keep standing there. “What about you? Doesn’t Edie like you?”
“What’s it look like?” Keith says.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I bet you if I’d been like Treat, she’d like me.” He picks up his backpack. “That’s why Astrid talked to you. How many guys don’t notice Astrid? You’re like Fonzie.”
The bell rings and we walk out onto the quad, people zooming by everywhere, and it’s like me and Keith are invisible because we can talk about anything and no one is going to notice us.
“There’s one other possibility,” Keith says. “Maybe Astrid knows you’re in DikNixon and just thinks she should be nice to you.”
“Gee, thanks,” I say.
“It’s not a bad thing,” he says. “And as soon as she sees us play, she’ll be all Twinkie for you.”
I’m trying to figure out if Keith knows something cool that I don’t or if he’s made this up on the spot. “Artificial colors and ingredients?”
Keith shakes his head. “Soft on the outside. Creamy on the inside.” He grins and heads off to sixth period.
It’s weird. Keith’s pretty happy for a guy who keeps getting notes from the girl he likes that pretty much ignore him to talk about his friend and his band that isn’t exactly real. I guess I’d have to be mad not to feel good about everything too, even if all the artificial colors and ingredients are starting to make me nervous.
Terrorize Your Neighbor
The thing no one ever tells you about California is that even though it gets to at least seventy degrees every day in the fall, the mornings don’t always start out that way. A lot of times it’s cloudy and gray, and even though you know you’ll be dying of heatstroke by lunchtime, you need a jacket to get through the morning. That, and if I’m going to ask Astrid to come see DikNixon, I need to do it in my Packy jacket now that the patches are sewn on. After I got the Dead Kennedys sewn on by myself and gave it a good look, I knew I wouldn’t want to explain it to my dad, or even my mom. So I’ve been smuggling my Packy jacket in and out of the house by stuffing it in my backpack, which works fine until you’ve got a mess of homework and your mom sees you holding books while your jacket’s peeking out of your backpack and Why aren’t you wearing your jacket? And why don’t you wear the new one? That’s when parents start asking even more questions, or looking for patterns, or coming up with their own theories, and none of that is good. So after practice yesterday, Treat said I could leave my jacket in the Two-Car Studio from now on and he’d bring it to school for me.
Tuesday morning my mom’s at the front door yelling at Brendan and Colleen to get it in gear. Her freckles are covered for the day, her hair up and tight. She’s jingling her keys in one hand and has my Yankees jacket in the other.
“Here,” she says.
I take it like she’s handing me something to throw away. “Come on, Mom; it’s California. It’s not like it’s really cold.”
She opens the front door and the cold air rushes in like I’m in the ice-cream aisle at the A&P. “The weatherman said it’s going to stay cold all day.”
If my dad were home, I’d just put the jacket on, but he’s been gone since before the sun came up. “I can’t wear it.”
“Can’t?” She looks at the jacket, then me, as she folds her arms. “What’s wrong with it?”
I fold my arms to hide the goose bumps. “Nothing. It’s just, people here hate the Yankees. They’ll make fun of me.”
She stares at me, then lets out a big burst of air like she’s blowing out birthday candles. “I don’t have time to deal with this now. Where’s your jacket with the patches?”
“I left it at a friend’s house.”
“Left it?” she says like it’s a hundred-dollar bill. “At Keith’s?”
I stare outside, wondering if a little lie is okay. The jacket really is at a friend’s house; does it matter which one? And suddenly, Treat’s out on the sidewalk in front of my house, looking around like he’s lost a ball in the bushes.
“Never mind,” I say and step out the door with the jacket.
“Put it on,” she says as I’m pulling the front door closed behind me.
Treat’s hands are plunged into the pockets of his ripped-up jeans. He’s wearing his sleeveless Levi’s jacket with a lumberjack shirt underneath, checkered and bleached, and his army satchel is bulging at his side.
I cut diagonal across the front lawn and head down the sidewalk so he’ll follow.
“Hang on,” he says. “I brought you something.”
I wave him up but don’t stop walking until I’m at the corner, across from Keith’s house. Treat’s just about caught up, only a few feet behind me. Over his shoulder, back at my house, Brendan is walking across the lawn. He’s looking down at his feet and stepping in the footprints my feet left in the dewy grass.
“Come on,” I say, because if Keith isn’t ready, we can go inside until Brendan walks by and my mom leaves with Colleen in the car. Only, Keith comes slamming out his front door just as we get across the street.
“Hey, Treat,” he says like it’s no big deal, like we always walk to school with him.
“Let’s go,” I say and start walking up the sidewalk.
“Hang on,” Treat says and digs into his satchel. He pulls out my jacket, crumpled down to the size of a football. He takes a good look at my Yankees jacket. “You’re not wearing that to school.”
Keith laughs. “Cool jacket, Slugger.” He’s wearing his Mickey Mouse Mohawk T-shirt over a black, long-sleeve T, and with some new crosses added to Mickey’s ears, it’s looking really punk.
Treat unfolds the Packy jacket and it comes to life. The Dead Kennedys and TSOL patches scream out from the shoulders, and the red of the GBH patch looks bright and serious in the morning gray. I slip it on and it feels good to be standing there, the three of us looking kind of different yet fitting together. Like a band should.
“Reece?”
Brendan steps up next to me on the sidewalk, his eyes huge and on Treat.
“Is this your bro?” Treat says.
“Yeah.”
Brendan hasn’t looked this scared since the Saturday he confessed about the trash can fire.
“What do you want?” I say and zip up my jacket.
Brendan’s eyes move from Treat’s real Mohawk to the Mickey Mouse Mohawk and then to my patches. “I don’t want anything.”
“Great. See ya.”
“Okay,” he says
and walks away real fast.
“Bright kid,” Treat says.
I push the Yankees jacket at Keith. “Can you put this in your house? I’ll get it after school.”
“Sure,” he says and takes off to do it.
Treat looks back down my cul-de-sac.
“Astrid’s already gone,” I say. “She gets a ride with her friends.”
“You have to ask her today. Three people congratulated me yesterday for our gig in San Diego.”
“I’ll try.”
“Try?” He looks at the gray sky like there’s something there, then back at me. “People know we’re DikNixon. We’ve got less than two weeks until the party, and socialites like Miss Astrid have to make plans well in advance.”
“It’s not like it’s easy to ask.”
“You think carving our logo into desks all over campus is easy?”
Keith comes running back and we start walking. Treat puts a finger to my chest. “You’ve got to do more than try.”
“Do. Or do not,” Keith says. “There is no try.”
“Yoda?” Treat says and gives Keith the stink eye. He puts an arm around my neck and squeezes a little. “Remember, this is bigger than all of us. If Astrid doesn’t come, no cheerleaders come. No football players, no upperclassmen . . .”
“Not even the geeks will come,” Keith says. “Except for me.”
.
No one in first period actually asks if me and Keith are in DikNixon. But it’s like half the class watches me sit down. And halfway through class, when I look over at Keith to see if he’s as bored as I am, I catch someone beside Keith watching him like something could happen at any second.
It’s the same in Algebra. Edie sees it too. She passes me a note with a cartoon drawing of me surrounded by bug-eyed people. The little bubble by my face actually says something this time too: I’m not Dick Nixon, but I play him in a band.
In English, Penny Martin asks if it’s true, that I’m in Treat’s band, and Treat says it is. “Wow,” she says. “Who knew you were cool?”
Van Doren hasn’t been to the lockers all day and I’m glad. If he asks me anything, I know my answers will sound like I’m covering something up, because I am. We’re not really a band with all this experience. And as soon as van Doren knows there’s a cover-up, it’s probably over for DikNixon.
Californium Page 17