The Makeover of James Orville Wickenbee

by Anya Bateman

  But there are different ways of being smart. I’d learned the hard way that IQ has little to do with getting ahead in the world.

  “So how smart can you be and not notice that your glasses look like circus clown props?” I asked aloud. The way James dressed was reason enough, as far as I was concerned, for my brother to steer clear of him at school. I had plans for Alex, and I didn’t want this James Orville Wickenbee entering the picture and ruining things.

  “Alex, please tell me you’ll just acknowledge him, you know, nod and be polite if you see him in the halls, of course, but then leave it at that.” I was almost pleading. “I just don’t want people to get the wrong impression of who you— well, who we are.” Even as I said the words I knew how they would sound to Alex, but I said them anyway because they needed to be said.

  “You’d avoid someone because of his glasses?” Alex responded with predictable disgust.

  I moved the washcloth to my other cheek. “Yes, if that person peers at you over them like some kind of barn owl. And no, that’s not the only reason. Heavenly stars, Alex, he’s a Mormon! Sure, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking why should I even care what kind of ugly glasses James wears or whether or not he worships golden angels. But you know why I care.”

  “Oh, please, not again,” Alex moaned. “I really don’t want to hear this again.”

  “But Alex, you could soooooo easily—”

  Alex backed out of the bathroom. “Don’t say it. I mean it. I’m warning you, I have heard this so many times that I might go eat Sheetrock if I have to hear it again.”

  It was true I’d shared with Alex numerous times my belief that if he jumped through the right hoops, he could become the next student body president of Fairport High. My sharp tongue hadn’t endeared me to many, but Alex was, and I suspected always would be, a natural when it came to winning friends and influencing people.

  When my brother walked into a room, it came to life. There was an unspoken, Okay, Alex is here; the party can begin. My brother was born with the talent to get people laughing, talking, joking, and even singing. My role in his life, as I saw it, was to help him use this talent to get somewhere, to be somebody. It would start at Fairport, and then . . . who knew? With a little help from me, I was certain that nothing would stop Alex from reaching dizzying heights. “You could become a congressman someday if you played your cards right,” I’d let him know quite a few times.

  I wasn’t alone in my opinion. Our adorable and wonderful Uncle Bartholomew, Mom’s older brother, had once indicated that he, too, thought Alex had the right stuff. After serving on several boards and in an appointed government position, Uncle Bartho had been urged by many to enter politics himself. He had been seriously considering it, and I believe would have done so had his life not been cut short. “Your brother,” he’d told me once, “has that rare combination of charisma and intelligence. He’s a natural leader.”

  I agreed. Even rarer was Alex’s combination of good looks and good character.

  I was certain that Uncle Bartho had not really been joking when he’d teased Alex about becoming president of the United States someday. There was nothing funny about it. With the right connections, Alex could climb sky- high in government. But in politics, image is important and in high school, where I planned to launch Alex’s political career, image is everything.

  “It’s who you know and who you’re seen with,” I’d told him. What I perceived as Alex’s naïveté when it came to his choice of friends was just about the only thing I could think of that would stop him from landing the school’s top student position. I was fearful that his very goodness and friendliness toward everyone would backfire. And that’s why I was nervous about this camaraderie that had developed so quickly between him and James.

  As I patted my face dry on a white, satin- edged, monogrammed hand towel, I repeated, “Just be careful who you’re seen with. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Alex leaned against the bathroom door. His eyes met mine. “You know what? You’re hopeless.” He shook his head and turned down the hall to his bedroom.

  “Oh, so now I’m hopeless,” I repeated as I looked in the mirror, bobbling my head. When my mouth began to droop downward ever so slightly and my eyes started to lose a little glow, I quickly lifted my chin, lowered my lids, and hung up the towel. Still my stomach hurt a little as I crawled into bed. The skeletons in my closet were doing their little rain dance again.

  Chapter Three

  •••

  In spite of my pleas, Alex made it clear he didn’t care about image. He visited with James, laughed with James, and hung out with James Orville Wickenbee right out in the open, right in the front hall of Fairport.

  “Is James suddenly your best friend or something?” I asked Alex the night after he’d invited James to eat with us at our lunch table. I had carefully handpicked certain people to join us there, and it had been far from easy to convince some of them to come to our table. It wasn’t as if I enjoyed brownnosing. I was doing it for him.

  “No, I wouldn’t say James is my best friend— not yet, anyway,” said Alex, sliding on a Joe’s Tires cap he’d picked up from who knew where.

  “Yet?” I repeated, ripping off the cap. “Do you want to know what Dolly Devonshire said?” I flipped him his Cleveland Indians ball cap, which was not much of a step up, but at least not quite as blue- collar.

  “Not really,” Alex said, adjusting the cap carefully on his head as he perused the pantry for an on- the- road meal.

  I told him anyway. “Dolly said, ‘What poor little puppy has Alex brought home to our table now?’”

  “Mm- hm,” mumbled Alex as he pulled out a can of pears and shifted it from hand to hand. “That’s nice.”

  “That’s nice? I think it’s a pretty insightful comment for Dolly Devonshire.” Around school, Dolly was known more for her physical attributes than her insight or intellect. “I’d say she has you tabbed!”

  For as long as I could remember, Alex had brought home strays: dogs mostly, a few scraggly cats, one duck, a tortoise, and even an iguana that escaped out a basement window and ended up surprising our snooty Chicago neighbor Mrs. Aldrose in the shower the next day.

  “You know what? I really don’t care what Dolly Devonshire has to say.” Alex pulled out a bag of tortilla chips. “Or what your other supposed friends think.”

  “Well, maybe you should care!”

  Lyla Fannen was among those I’d finally recruited to join us. She and Dolly and Sonja Paulos had had some trouble deciding which table of popular people they would grace with their presence and (when they weren’t driving up to the Lake for lunch at exclusive restaurants) had been table- hopping all through September and October.

  But to my amazement, when November rolled around, the three girls started eating exclusively at our table. I still couldn’t believe Lyla had apparently chosen to remain with us because Lyla was the person to know at Fairport. Even I wasn’t sure how she’d risen so quickly to star status. Oh sure, her ultra-expensive fashion sense helped, as did her finely chiseled cheekbones and her amazingly gorgeous fox- red hair. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful girl at our school. But there are lots of beautiful people who get nowhere in this life. I guessed it was the “I’m somebody” lift of her head that made her a standout. Or was it her “You’re nobody” sneer? Whatever it was, I’m appalled to admit now that I actually respected where it had gotten her.

  Dolly struck me as little more than a loosey- goosey with the clothes to match, but these three were some of the right people who ran around with others who were the right people: Jessica Bjorn, Courtney Martindale, Katrina Utley and her cousin Scott Wilkes— Fairport’s answer to Brad Pitt. They were stopping by our table now as was svelte, golden- skinned super- model Shereen Quinn. The jocks and preps at the adjacent tables, among them Carson Parker and Dan Ravino, often called to us from their tables as well. Yes, later, I told myself, we’d concentrate on cultivating real friends.
But right now, I let Alex know, we shouldn’t be too proud to grovel.

  The really amazing part, as far as I was concerned, was that Lyla had not immediately picked up her Louis Vuitton purse, gathered up her friends, and vamoosed the scene the instant James appeared. To my relief, she’d merely lifted an eyebrow and whispered to me, “Interesting glasses.” But if James continued to join us for lunch, I was certain Lyla Fannen would not stick to a mere eyebrow lift. People like Lyla didn’t associate with people like James.

  “Do not have James come to our lunch table again,” I said to Alex again that night after dinner. “I mean it, Alex. I’ve done far too much work to have him ruin everything.” Yes, those were my words.

  “And just why are you doing this so-called work?” Alex responded with frustration, maybe even hostility in his voice.

  “For you, of course.”

  “Who asked you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  But after Alex had gone downstairs to our newly remodeled recreation room in order to catch the last of the Cavaliers’ game on the big screen, I found myself frowning at my thumbnail. Why did I feel so compelled to have Alex become president of our school, regardless of the cost?

  It was the kind of thing Dr. Griffin would have tried to pull out of me. I’d gone to his office for several weeks of therapy the summer after what Alex and Mom and I still refer to as “that awful period,” but which for me had been so much worse than awful that no adjective was strong enough. At first I’d felt fine talking to Dr. Griffin, but then I stopped going because Dr. Griffin kept prodding me to reveal more than I wanted to divulge. Why should I tell things to someone I’d just barely met that even my twin brother doesn’t know? I remember thinking.

  Chapter Four

  •••

  A flight has apparently just arrived because passengers are swarming into the waiting area of the airport. Airport terminals are very much like high school halls and college corridors in that you see all colors, sizes, classes, and types of people. You see the tall, the short, and the in- between. You see those who have let themselves go, and others who have kept themselves in excellent shape. You see people wearing stylish, well thought- out clothing, and you see those wearing strange, paltry, or far too little clothing. You see people who seem to be with it, and others who don’t seem to fit in and look as though they never will. There are the talkative and the stoic, the outgoing and the shy. You can generally spot the troublemakers, but you can pick out the well- behaved and civilized as well. At least you think you can.

  At the airport there’s a much wider range of ages, of course. Take that man in the corner who looks like he’s well into his eighties. He seems to be waiting for the forty- something woman in the tasteless shorts. Hopefully she is his daughter or granddaughter rather than his wife or who knows what. And over there it’s family reunion time as an orange- haired woman gives a bearded man in cowboy gear a huge hug, while a younger, nine- or ten- year- old version of the woman yelps with joy.

  My mouth twitches into a small smile until I see the thirty- something businesswoman, carrying a sleek briefcase and wearing high- heeled shoes, glancing with disdain at the little family as she clips past them. With obvious annoyance she pushes away the balloons that James’s parents have brought to celebrate his return. Yes, there are all kinds of people.

  And thanks to James, those I’d tabbed as the “questionable” and “unacceptable” characters of Fairport High were soon flocking around Alex like Merry Men (and Maid Marians) who had found their Robin Hood.

  There was Terrance Dokey, who strode down the school halls with his mouth open and his arms held tightly at his sides as if they were strapped there.

  With his tousle of Conan O’Brien- style hair, Derrick Farn looked a great deal like a human rooster pecking into the air as he moved from class to class.

  Sadie Rice, his cousin, seemed to have a perpetual sinus condition. I hadn’t seen much of her face, thanks to limp hair that hung down her cheeks like nearly closed curtains.

  Her best, and possibly only friend, Cassie Beudka was not shy— no, not in the least. Cassie shouted out her trademark “Wowsers!” with such vigor that you could hear her halfway across the school. Wowsers? What normal person said that? It wasn’t as if Cassie needed to draw attention to herself. She was as large as an apartment building, and when she walked down the halls, unwary freshmen were knocked over like bowling pins.

  Cassie’s brother, Bud, on the other hand, looked like something that had just slid out of a pasta maker. He was extremely tall and extraordinarily underweight.

  But it was James himself, however, who remained Alex’s favorite sidekick. Or was it the other way around?

  “What on earth do you two talk about?” I finally asked. I was very concerned about this strange alliance. In a matter of weeks Alex would need to submit his intent to run for a school office and there wasn’t much time left for him to let those I’d recruited to join us for lunch know he was one of them and not one of the others. It was obvious that James would be the most difficult to rid ourselves of. He was joining us at our lunch table every day now where he ate obscenely huge sandwiches he’d made himself.

  “What don’t we talk about?” Alex grinned. “James and I talk about everything: computers, science, history— ask James anything about history.”

  “Since when are you interested in history?” I’d already put in my time on the treadmill this morning. Now I was applying fingernail polish and watching Alex work out.

  “I’m interested in anything that’s interesting. For instance, James told me that back in about 400 a.d. there was a religious dude who, get this, lived on top of a pole for thirty- seven years.”

  “Why?”

  “Something about self- denial and keeping himself away from the world and its temptations.”

  That was, I had to admit, a pretty interesting tidbit— one that confirmed that people have done and still do some very strange and even harmful things in the name of religion. But an interesting story now and again didn’t seem like enough reason for my brother to jeopardize his future.

  “Why don’t you just register for an extra night class to learn these things? That way you’d get a head start on your college credit. I could check into it and see if you’re eligible.”

  “Even sports history,” Alex said, ignoring my suggestion. “James really knows his stats. Did you know that Reggie Jackson struck out 2,597 times? That’s six hundred more times than the guy with the next highest number of strikeouts. But the point is, he also hit 563 home runs.” Alex paused, picked up one of his twenty- pound weights, and pulled it toward him four or five times. He stopped abruptly. “Oh, and we play chess.”

  I lifted my head and looked at my brother with suspicion. He had presented this last fact far too casually. I didn’t care an eyelash about how many outs or hits Reggie Jackson had to his credit, but Alex was fully aware of how strongly I felt about the game of chess.

  Uncle Bartholomew had introduced Alex and me to the game as soon as we were old enough to sit at the board. Alex wasn’t a bad player, but I had taken to chess like a seagull to Lake Erie. I was, as a matter of fact, obsessed with the game and determined to win the Teen to Young Adult Ohio State Chess Championship that spring. I’d studied chess- strategy books all that summer before, but I had one significant problem.

  Since I was trying to keep a low profile and not really advertise what I was doing until I had actually won, I belonged to no chess groups and therefore really didn’t have anyone who could properly challenge me in practice matches. My Uncle Charles, though a somewhat better player than Alex, was out of town most of the time. Mom was capable of playing a fairly decent game of chess, but didn’t have the patience or interest to play her best and was far too busy with her causes. Besides I never knew if she was really trying or just happy to let me win. I’d even attempted to teach Adriana, my friend since the beginning of our sophomore year, how to play and she had definite potential, but s
he was much more interested in keeping current on social affairs at school than improving her chess skills.

  “Is he any good?” I asked, reapplying fingernail polish to my right pinky where it had smeared.

  “Good?” Alex half laughed. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Really?”

  Alex shifted the weight to his other hand. “You can come watch us play if you want to.”

  I blew on my nail.

  “I mean it. You ought to come. It’s fun to see genius in action. The guy’s amazing.”

  “But how would you know, really?”

  Alex took the insult in stride. “Let’s just say he creams me much worse than you ever have. I think he’s better than you are.”

  I pushed my mouth forward. Alex was doing his best to get to me, and I didn’t want to admit it, but he was succeeding. “So if he’s that good is he planning on entering any chess tournaments?”

  “I don’t think he does those kinds of competitions. At least he didn’t sound interested when I told him about them. He’s pretty heavily into physics and chemistry experiments and computers. That and his church stuff. You only have so much time.”

  “Well, maybe I will come see for myself . . .” Alex gets this certain kind of annoyingly satisfied look on his face when he thinks he’s scored points or is winning in a contest between us. “And maybe I won’t,” I finished, blowing on my nail again. I didn’t want Alex thinking I was some kind of pushover.

  “Hey, ask me if I care. It’s totally up to you.” Alex was still lifting the weight toward the ceiling. I kept blowing on my nail even though it had to be dry by this time. The words “It’s up to you” were the best words anyone could say to me. Mom had finally caught on and now she said those words entirely too much. Just last month, she’d reminded me that it was “up to me” whether or not to join the Cleveland Young Women’s Cultural Club. “But keep in mind,” she’d added, “that you would meet girls from some of the best families in the Cleveland Heights area. Still, you’re the one who knows what you want.”