Girls Love Travis Walker

by Anne Pfeffer

  I shook out my arms and legs, which tingled with anticipation.

  “Raise your hand when you’re done. Ready, go!”

  I had paid pretty close attention before, and now worked as fast as I could, focusing on the task and shutting out any sound around me. The second glove on, I shot my hand up in the air, then looked around.

  I must have forgotten to do part of it, because everyone around me was still working. I heard the timekeeper call “Sixty seconds” as the guy beside me still struggled with the belt for his air tank.

  The boots felt comfortable and sturdy on my feet, like they would take me anywhere. I took a few careful steps in the gear, which they had said weighed fifty five pounds. Piece of cake. After all my workouts with a chain saw, I was a solid slab of muscle.

  “Seventy seconds!”

  I adjusted the tank on my back; wearing the protective suit was like being in a separate little world that even had its own air supply. Garret had said they were going to give us axes, which weighed another twelve pounds. I wished I had one right now. I could almost feel the weight of it in my hands, could imagine giving it an experimental swing.

  “Travis!” It was Perkins, gesturing to me to take off the gear. It took me a second to realize I needed to do things in reverse, starting with taking off the gloves. I peeled out of the equipment, thinking that was awesome!

  I was grinning like an idiot as the mask came off.

  “Beginner’s luck!” Brandon gave me a snarky look.

  “What?” I stared at him, confused.

  Perkins made an announcement. “Our fastest time was fifty-five seconds, by Travis Walker, who is here visiting the fire station today. Travis has beaten the station record of fifty-seven seconds for the fastest first Turn Out Drill ever performed by a member of the Discoverers.”

  “Too bad it doesn’t count!” The voice belonged to Garret, who was holding up the phone he’d been consulting. “ Rule 82.3 of the Santa Alicia Fire Department Procedural Guide….”

  “Put that thing away before you hurt yourself!” Perkins shot back. “I knew we shouldn’t have posted our procedures online,” he muttered. “Garret, however, is right. Since Travis is not enrolled in the program, his time does not officially break the record.” He paused, then added with an evil grin. “Just unofficially.”

  I was sure my mouth was hanging open in shock.

  Perkins gave me an encouraging nod. “You should think about joining our program.”

  While most of the Discoverers gave me a thumbs up or a “Way to go,” Brandon jabbered at Austin, ignoring me. I sneaked a peek at Garret. He looked like he wanted to drop-kick me into the next county.

  I had broken his record, which had stood for seven years.

  Hormones

  On Sunday morning, in search of aspirin for Mom, I slid into the front seat of the ancient Chevy sedan, turned the key in the ignition, and sent up a little prayer. The car hadn’t been serviced in over a year, and it was starting to show pain. To my relief, it rumbled and started.

  My cell rang. I debated whether to risk turning off the ignition again or to waste gas letting the engine run. I opted for the latter. I would keep the conversation short. “Hello?”

  “Travis?” It was a girl whose voice I couldn’t place. I tried to remember who else might be mad at me.

  “Yeah?” I said cautiously.

  “It’s Zoey, from the Community Center.” She sounded resigned. “Kat wrote an answer to your note. Then she asked me to call you to come get it.”

  “Oh. Great! Can I come by tomorrow?”

  “That’s fine.”

  A text was coming in. “Thanks.”

  It was DJ. Folks gone. Wanna hang out?

  Sure. Cold beer and videogames—I was on it. I never came over when DJ’s parents were there. Clueless about the true nature of their perpetually horny, girl-chasing son, they viewed me as a bad influence who lured their baby into sin.

  After I’d gotten Mom her aspirin, I drove to his house, my mind going back to Zoey’s call. What had Kat written in her note? Playing with the possibilities, I pulled up behind DJ’s new Audi in front of his family’s big Spanish-style house. The walkway up to the entrance had these fancy decorated tiles that DJ’s mom had ordered from Italy.

  It seemed like a fairy tale existence to me, but DJ was plotting his escape, working his folks to let him get his own apartment near Cal State Riverside, where he went full-time.

  He had the beers waiting. “Good thing my dad keeps so much of this around,” he said. “They’ll never notice a few missing.”

  He handed me one, then turned to texting as we went out to the back yard.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “Melissa. The girl I met at Chick’s the other night.” His thumbs pounded the keys of his phone.

  “I’m taking her out tonight,” he said. “Then back here to the house, since Mom and Dad are in Vegas.” He gave me a meaningful look. “I told her about our hot tub.”

  “Awesome. Just tell me when to leave.”

  We were lying in the shade in his backyard. It was one of the warmest Septembers on record, with three days now up into the nineties. Every half hour or so, we’d turn the hose on ourselves to keep cool. We found ourselves talking about Suki’s meltdown at Chick’s.

  “What does she care about me, anyway?” I asked. “She barely knows me.”

  He took a long pull off his bottle. “It’s the oxytocin,” he said.

  “The what?”

  “The oxytocin.” He stretched his arms up over his head. “The hormone women have that makes them act crazy and fall in love with any guy that walks by.”

  I scoffed at him. “Dude, you’ve lost it. You finally cracked.”

  “Seriously. I saw it on the Love Doctor.” DJ nodded his head for emphasis. “Women can’t help it. Once their oxytocin starts to flow, they get really possessive.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Especially after sex. They start pumping out the oxytocin and then it’s” –he put on a high woman’s voice—“‘Why haven’t you called me?’ Half the time, they don’t even like you—doesn’t matter.”

  I looked at him in horror. “So, that’s why they do it? It’s, like, a chemical imbalance?”

  “I think it’s just normal female chemistry.”

  “That’s fucked up!”

  “I know.”

  It explained a lot. It felt like it put more responsibility on the guy, if you knew this was bound to happen every time and the girl couldn’t help it.

  Life was getting more and more sucky. I thought again about Mrs. M and the prospect of three days’ notice, but kept my mouth shut. I didn’t talk about my poverty to anyone. Not even DJ. And how could he ever understand my problems anyway?

  I stayed most of the day, consuming beer and frozen pizza from DJ’s kitchen and playing games on the wide-screen TV. At home, finding my apartment dark and my mom asleep, I thought about driving around some more, but didn’t want to waste gas. Finally, I laid down on the sofa and stared at the ceiling until I fell asleep.

  Ballbuster

  The next day at the Community Center, I tore open Kat’s note.

  Thank you for your letter. You seem really sweet, but I just don’t think it would work out. I’m sorry.

  Sincerely, Kat Summers

  P.S. My best friend is Zoey Singleton.

  I wondered why Kat had made Zoey give me a note, instead of calling me back herself. Or why bother to answer my note at all, if she was just going to turn me down? I was right to think this girl was a ballbuster. A game player. But I was up for the challenge. It was way more fun to think about Kat than about starvation and living in the street.

  “Would you just help me out a little?” I gave Zoey one of my best you-know-you-love-me smiles, thinking so she’s Kat’s best friend, is she? “All I need is her phone number or email address.”

  She hooted and shook her long, straight gorgeous hair. “Is that all?” />
  Since I hadn’t really expected her to cooperate, I had brought some paper and a pen in my backpack. I sat down at a table and wrote out a note.

  Dear Kat,

  I bet you get a million invitations. But, hey, you need to sit down for a coffee sometimes, right? Like, at the Coffee Station?

  Meet me there for an hour one day? Call me.

  Waiting to hear,

  Travis

  Again, I wrote my cell number. “You mind giving her this note then?” I asked Zoey.

  She finished wiping a table, rubbing hard to get off the last crayon marks. “You ask for a lot of favors. I’m a busy person.” The hair tossed a little, but not like she was flirting. More like she was annoyed.

  “So then I’ll owe you one.” My eyes caught her gaze and held it. “Is there something I could do for you?”

  She walked up very close to me at the table I was leaning on, only an inch or two away, her skin a perfect pink-and-white. I found myself holding my breath.

  “Actually, you could move so I can clean this table.”

  “Oh.” I jumped out of her way, feeling my face turn red. “How come Kat’s not here today anyway?”

  “She doesn’t work for the community center. The day you met her, she was just filling in for someone on sick leave.”

  “Where does she usually work?”

  “You’ll have to ask her that.” The temperature of her voice had dropped another ten degrees or so.

  “Okay, well, thanks again. So… you’ll give my note to Kat? And call me if Kat gives you another note for me?”

  Zoey frowned. “She’s already said no once. How many more times do you want to hear it?” Icicles practically hung off her words.

  “I’m holding out for a yes.” I smirked at her.

  “Tell you what!” she snapped. “I’ll let Kat know you’re waiting for her call, and she can do whatever she feels like. But carry your own letters from now on.”

  She was still cleaning off the tables, walking around them and leaning forward to scrub the tops, stopping to wring out the wet rag. She’d done half the tables by herself, while the other three counselors had gone through the motions of wiping off the rest. Her tables were way cleaner.

  She caught me looking at her and put down her rag. “What?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, but I felt bad all of a sudden. “I didn’t mean to be a dick.”

  “Yeah, well, you were.”

  Great way to win Kat over—piss off her best friend. Plus, Zoey was cool. I didn’t want her to be mad at me.

  “Well, okay. Thanks for your help.”

  She walked off without another word.

  ##

  I wouldn’t ordinarily have needed a second opinion, but this time, I showed Kat’s note to DJ. “She blew me off, but I think she’s just having fun with me.”

  We were in his bedroom, sprawled on his floor with beers and a panorama of snacks that his mom kept on hand just in case DJ might get a craving for a certain kind of chip or a particular brand of candy. He examined the note, which I’d brought as Exhibit A. “If she was blowing you off, she sure has a weird way of doing it.”

  I sat up in my chair. “You think?”

  He put on his high female voice. “’I’m not interested, but, by the way, here’s my last name and my best friend’s name. Not that I want you to, like, use them or anything! You know, to find me!’”

  I nodded, glad to hear I was on the right track. “Cool. I thought I had a chance.”

  “It’s a classic mixed message, my friend. This one’s wide open.”

  I felt better. I wasn’t used to wondering about what girls were thinking, what they thought of me. I wasn’t used to girls not being interested in me.

  “Let’s not go to Chick’s tonight. I’m sick o’ that place,” I said to DJ. Or more specifically, I was not in the mood to see Suki again.

  I was also tired of owing DJ, even though his folks gave him a ton of spending money and he said don’t worry about it.

  The Kat thing made a little part of me wonder if, at age nineteen, I was losing my game. After all, look at what I’d turned into. A desperate high school dropout with dirt under my fingernails. And behind my ears, between my toes, inside my mouth, probably inside my skull. I’d probably never get completely clean again.

  Blackout

  Mom leaned against the headboard of her bed, her legs curled up beneath her, eating a Cuppa Soup. I’d just gotten out of the shower after my day’s work. I’d found a clean t-shirt but I’d had to make do with some not-too-smelly sweat pants from the dirty laundry basket. Mom hadn’t done the wash today.

  “There’s more in the kitchen,” she said, holding up the Styrofoam cup and nodding invitingly.

  “I think I’ll have something else.” The kitchen cabinets and refrigerator held three Cuppa Soups, a half-empty jar of peanut butter, and some saltines.

  A sick, scared feeling in the pit of my stomach. I called out to Mom, “This all we got?”

  “Afraid so.”

  I sat down beside her on the edge of the bed, which was the only piece of furniture in the room. “Are we okay on our bills? Besides the rent? I haven’t even thought about, like, the phone bill and stuff.”

  “Travis. My poor baby boy.” Mom’s eyes reflected back to me the same storm of misery that I was in. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Do you think you’re getting sick?”

  She looked off into space. As impossible as it seemed, she was starting to fill out Dad’s old t-shirt. Her face was puffy and bloated.

  “Maybe I should take you over to the Free Clinic.”

  As I said it, all the lights went out.

  For a moment we both just sat there. At first, I thought it was a power outage in the neighborhood, or from an earthquake or something. But slowly, I realized that life was going on as normal outside. The sounds of traffic continued loud as ever. Light poured through the windows from neighboring apartments and sneaked under the front door from the lamps in the hallway.

  Only we were in the dark. Stuck in our own personal power outage.

  Another long moment of silence, and then I lost it. “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted at my mother. “Lying in bed and letting the lights go out while I work my ass off!”

  In the dark, I heard her sniffling. “I’m sorry, honey.”

  “You should be! Why didn’t you pay this bill? Or say something to me?”

  Leaving her to cry in the bed, I felt my way out to the living room sofa, where I tried to go to sleep. I lay for a long time, getting more and more frightened. What would we do if we lost our home? Where would we go?

  Mom must have been thinking the same way, because her pale form appeared in the doorway of the living room. In the light coming in from outside, she pulled her robe tightly around her. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

  I sighed. It wouldn’t do any good to make her feel bad. “It’s okay, Mom.”

  “I’m really scared, Travis.”

  So was I. Who was the kid here anyway, and who was supposed to be the grownup? I felt like I did when I was six and would run and crawl into bed with her, because I was too scared to be alone. But I couldn’t do that anymore.

  “Promise me something?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Don’t let us lose this place. Please, Travis. We can’t lose this apartment.”

  I sat up from the sofa. “I’m trying. Jeez, Mom, what do you want from me, blood?” I could hear my own voice, rough from fear and panic. “But you have to help!”

  Her own panic seemed to flow off of her in waves. “No! You have to fix this, Travis. It’s your job to make this right.”

  “My job? Dad screwed up our lives, you’re lying around doing nothing, and it’s my job to fix things?’

  She stood, pale and tense, in the doorway. “You’re the man of the family now.” Her voice rose higher and higher. “We can’t end up on the streets or in some filthy shelter!”

&nb
sp; She burst into tears. “Please, Travis?” She came to sit next to me and clutched my hand. Then her mood shifted. Her voice turned thin and strange and distant.

  “I miss Freddie. Maybe we can bring him down here.”

  “What’re you talking about?” My insides were twisting around, and my hand tightened on Mom’s, as if somehow I could pump calm and sanity into her through my fingertips.

  Freddie was our dog back in Modesto. We’d left him with our neighbors, Jenny’s family, when we moved to Los Angeles.

  “Do you think we could bring him down to LA?”

  My voice quavered as I answered. “He’s fine where he is, Mom. Jenny told me. The Taylors have a big yard. They love him.” Tears pricked at the back of my eyes. How could we could take care of a big dog when we couldn’t take care of ourselves?

  She sat very still for a moment, then shook her head and looked at me wonderingly. “Why, of course. You’re right.”

  “C’mon,” I said. I stood, grabbed some sofa cushions and walked to the bedroom with her following me. I laid down a line of sofa cushions on the floor beside her bed, got onto them, and punched my pillow a few times to get it into place. Mom climbed back into bed and reached down her hand, which I took.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “You tell me.” Be a grown up again. Please.

  A silence. “Remember my rose garden, Travis? In Modesto? I would pick big bunches of them and put them around the house.”

  I did. I was a freshman then, and my biggest problem had been the long bus ride to school and back. A low roar started in my ears.

  “I remember.” What had I expected her to say? Sure, I’ll get out of bed! I’ll start job hunting tomorrow?

  Slowly and carefully, she laid back down on the bed. “I need to go to sleep now.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  Soon she fell asleep, holding my hand while I lay there, looking at the ceiling and thinking about the deep, dark hole I’d fallen into and how I would never in a million years climb out.