by Libba Bray
A hand clapped down on my shoulder. “I saw you take that. Better put it back, or I’ll have to run you in, young lady.” I turned and faced the hulking ex-marine behind me.
“Hi, Mr. Jameson. How are you?”
He laughed, and his flinty eyes crinkled. “Fine. You teaching my son some manners today?” He looked over at Jared. He was smiling, but his jaw was set “You got your work cut out for you. Hello, Jared. Hey, I’m talking to you, son.”
“Yes, sir,” Jared said, taking a sudden interest in a sale bin of telephone cords.
Mr. Jameson put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me. “I keep telling Jared he needs to invite you over. If I had a girlfriend as pretty as you, I’d take her everywhere and show her off. Of course, if Jared would help me out at the store here some nights ’stead of sitting in his room drawing comic books, he might have enough greenbacks to take you out on a proper date.” He laughed the way people do when they’re sharing a joke that’s anchored in meanness deep down.
Jared looked thoroughly miserable.
I was digesting what Mr. Jameson had just announced. He’d said girlfriend. As in friend who is a girl. As in…really? Was that why Jared had been so schizoid around me? Were we making that awkward hormonal jump from punching each other on the arm to long, meaningful stares and hurt, reproachful silences? My mind started scripting the movie without the rest of me totally participating: Best buds fall passionately in love after he finally confesses his love for her.
I looked at Jared, but before I could agonize over the topic, Jared put the kibosh on the whole me-him idea.
“Dad, Kari is not my girlfriend, okay? I mean, Kari and me? Please.” Okay, he didn’t have to be quite so final about it. I didn’t want to go out with Jared any more than he wanted me, apparently. But did he have to dismiss me so quickly? My ego couldn’t take much more squashing.
Mr. Jameson took my videotapes and scanned them. “Whatever you say, son. That’s three eighty-three. Family discount.” He winked.
I paid, and Jared grabbed the bag. “Let’s go, Kari. We gotta run, Dad.” Jared turned to the left, and Mr. Jameson’s smile hardened into a grimace.
“What the…?” He marched over to Jared and whirled him around. The dolphin earring caught the light, then dove into darkness again. Jared’s dad brought his voice down to a harsh whisper. “I oughta whup you right here. Would serve you right.”
“Dad…”
“You look like a sissy. Take it out right now.” Mr. Jameson held his sizable paw out for the earring. Jared clenched and unclenched my bag of videotapes in his hand. Mr. Jameson grabbed a fistful of Jared’s Silver Surfer T-shirt. Jared brought his arm up reflexively, trying to unhook himself, but his dad had him snared.
I knew I should say something, yell “fire” or make a lousy joke or jump on Mr. Jameson’s broad back, kicking and screaming, but I couldn’t seem to move. Emotion has a way of immobilizing me. Fortunately a man in a polo shirt cleared his throat.
“Excuse me…Can I get some help over here?”
Mr. Jameson snapped to attention. “Be right with you, sir.” He pointed a threatening finger at Jared as he walked away. Words weren’t needed. Jared walked out of Radio Shack without saying anything. I ran after him.
“Jared!” I half yelled. He stopped, and I caught up with him. “He’s a jerk, okay?”
“Ah, but he’s my jerk. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say with love in my voice?”
I didn’t know what to tell him. My dad was the best, but he existed only in memories. Jared’s dad was alive and a terrible pain. Please see listing under life is unfair.
“Hey, Jared. I thought that was you.” A skinny guy with glasses walked up to us. I’d seen him around. He was a senior whose folks owned a print shop. He looked down at the see-through bag of videotapes Jared was still clutching tightly. “Planning to tape a year’s worth of Ally McBeal?”
I broke in. “It’s mine. I’m making a video documentary.”
“Impressive. Hey, Jared, you never told me you were friends with the future Tarantino.” The skinny kid gave me a once-over.
Ick. Just my luck to have the president of Future Backgammon Players of America want me.
“Must’ve slipped my mind. We’ve really gotta run, Mark.”
Obnoxious Boy wasn’t budging. “I’m Mark, by the way. I’m a business associate of Jared’s.”
“Hi. I’m Kari,” I said quickly.
Mark tilted back his head and looked at me strangely. “So you’re Kari…of Kari and Dee fame.”
Dee. Wow. So Jared had been talking about Dee. Dee, Dee, Dee…Dee? Oh. My. God. That must be it—Jared had the hots for Dee. Suddenly I couldn’t bring myself to look at my best buddy. This was turning into a whole new dimension of awkward.
Apparently Jared felt it, too. “I’ll meet you at the car. Aisle B-22,” he said, and took off at a race-walk clip for the exit.
“Nice to meet you,” I mumbled. Mark was still looking at me strangely. I’m entering a convent for big-nosed loser girls, so go away, I wanted to shout after him.
Jared and I pushed through the exit doors into the afternoon sun, letting it thaw our goose-pimply skin.
Jared and Dee. I had to admit that it was hard to think of my two favorite people becoming an item. But when I saw how tense Jared looked, I had an idea that suddenly filled me with optimism.
Just because I was the dateless wonder didn’t mean other people couldn’t be happy. Dee was…perfect for Jared, Really. She was sweet and loving and romantic. She would gaze at him in a way that would nauseate entire cafeteria tables full of budding Romeos. She would feel about him the way I felt about Connor.
What this lovesick movie needed was a director. Enter me. Hey, if I could get those two together, it might give me the kick I needed to put together a romance of my own. I would call the beauteous Miss Deirdre the minute I got home and concoct some reason she had to hang with me. The romance of Jared Jameson and Deirdre “Dee” Malloy would be my greatest triumph, next to enchanting Connor Reese, getting a full scholarship to NYU, and turning my family into a Sears portrait of normalcy. Things were looking up.
Jared was yelling to me from the car. “Are you coming in this century?” The sun was low and runny in the sky. I gazed out and saw my best friend’s black-clad form bathed in an orangy glow, like a Bedouin warrior.
“Yeah,” I said, running toward him. “Hold your horses, Plays with Matches.”
chapter 5
Dee and I had been friends since the time in sixth grade when we’d been forced to do a rap version of Betsy Ross making the flag. That kind of total humiliation tends either to bond people for life or force them into early therapy. Friendship is cheaper.
On the surface Dee and I were a combo like peanut butter and goat cheese. But somehow it worked. Dee needed a little direction. I needed a little mellowing at times.
I wish I could say I was having no trouble with Dee’s recent metamorphosis from gawky to gaga. As a freshman, Dee was as geeky as Jared and I, trying out for a majorette position with her glitter baton. Glasses. Braces. Then over Christmas break came “the body.” I swear, she developed faster than one-hour film. She followed that up with contacts and a new smile, and suddenly Dee was a swan. But Dee being Dee, she was a swan with a band geek heart.
“Here we go,” Dee trilled as we neared town in the Jesus mobile. It was just dusk when Dee and I hit Greenway’s infamous “strip,” a one-mile stretch of road flanked on either side by every fast-food restaurant and covert teen meeting spot in town. Ordinarily I didn’t go for this kind of mindless release of pent-up teenage lust. I’d rather watch James Dean act out for me in Rebel Without a Cause. But I was on a mission. I had coaxed Dee into driving the Jesus mobile while I filmed a Saturday night on the strip as part of my documentary, At least, that’s the story I gave her.
“I’m so psyched I get to be in your movie!” Dee squealed. She’s a big squealer. I try to overlook it. “Does my hair
look okay?”
What hair I could see under a rain forest of meticulously placed butterfly clips looked big and bouncy and shampoo-commercial perfect.
“You look great,” I said. “Go slow so I can get a good shot of all the cars.”
A Ford pickup with mag wheels slowed down even with us. A beefy guy leaned out the truck’s window. He had a mouthful of chewing tobacco. “Hey. How you ladies doin’ tonight?”
“He’s kinda cute.” Dee giggled. Did I mention Dee is also a giggler? She took a quick look in the side mirror to fix her hair.
Chaw Boy spoke again. “I’m Terry. This here’s Jay.What do you say we meet at Hunter’s Point?” Hunter’s Point is the local makeout spot. Or so I’d heard.
“I don’t think…,” I started, but Dee shouted over me.
“Only if you can catch us!” The light turned green, and she gunned the motor, giving Jesus and his disciples a taste of a V-6 engine. To my amazement, the Jesus mobile actually responded without stalling. We went sailing into the night, leaving Terry and Jay in our wake. “Hold on,” Dee yelled, making a sudden left turn across oncoming traffic and into the safety of the Sonic drive-in. She pulled up to an order box and cut the engine.
“Did you get that on tape?”
“Uh, I can’t remember much after the whiplash set in,” I said.
The order box squawked into action. “Two cherry limeades,” Dee answered. “Whew. All that James Bond stuff makes a girl thirsty.”
A limeade lackey brought us our drinks. Outside, a parade of cars passed behind us, looking for relief from Saturday night boredom. I took a deep breath. “So, Dee, I was just wondering…. What do you think of Jared?”
“Jared? Why?” Her eyebrows snapped together. “What have you heard?”
“Nothing! Paranoid much? I was just thinking that y’all might make a cute couple, that’s all.” I tried to sound very casual, like the idea had formed in my head while I was brushing my teeth.
Dee leaned forward and grabbed my arm. “Oh my God. You will not believe this, but I have this major, major crush on him, okay? Isn’t that so Roswell?”
Roswell was Dee’s term for anything she considered out of the ordinary, from having your math book disappear from your locker to two people discovering they shared the same dermatologist.
“Totally,” I said. There was no need to mention the practice signature of Mrs. Jared Jameson I’d seen all over her Piggly Wiggly book cover in history. Of course, the signature was mixed in with Mrs. Just About Every Guy in the Tenth Grade, so who knew for sure? Still, there had been a big heart around it. “It’s fate, then. I was at the mall today with Jared…and I’m pretty sure he wants to go out with you.”
“Oh my God!” Dee’s voice floated up to a frequency only dogs can hear. “This is so monumentally amazing. So why doesn’t he ask me out?”
I thought about Connor. If only it were so easy. “Well, here’s the thing: He wants to; he’s just shy. You know how Jared is. He’s usually holed up in his room with art supplies and a year’s worth of comic books. He’s not so good at the talking-relating thing.”
“Should I call him? Ask him out?”
“No!” I answered, a little too forcefully. Then Jared would know I’d put her up to it. “I mean, we’ve got to plan it carefully….”
A slightly familiar laugh drifted over the parking lot. Through the windshield I saw Nan Tatum’s silver-blue convertible BMW, top down, in the parking spot catty-corner to the Jesus mobile. She was perched on the hood with her arms around Connor, who was wearing that superstylin’ fedora of his. A tingle crept up my spine and electrified my whole rib cage. He bent in to kiss her forehead, and I swear I felt his breath on my face, warm and moist. I was torn between the desire to gawk at them and the impulse to look away. It was like a highway accident.
I brought up the camera and centered them in the zoom lens. They came into perfect focus, and I felt a chilling numbness. I was fooling myself to think that Connor would ever be interested in an outsider like me.
“What are you looking at?” Dee asked.
“Nothing. Just practicing,” I replied, not taking my eyes off the scene. I needed to torture myself, to sear the truth into my brain.
Nan’s friends were sitting in the backseat. Jen Appleton flopped into the front seat and half climbed over the windshield. She put her cigarette in Nan’s mouth, and Nan took a drag, exhaling a wispy puff of smoke.
Connor looked angry. He said something and stepped back from Nan, who had a hold on his turquoise 1950s bowling shirt. I realized he wasn’t happy about the icky nicotine puff. I zoomed in as far as I could go to see if I could read his lips. A waving hand came across my lens. I looked up and saw a girl in a tank top.
“Excuse me. Do you know where the party is tonight?”
“Sorry,” I said. Great. Another party. Whoo-hoo.
The sound of a tray being slammed against a car door interrupted) our conversation. When I looked back at the scene in parking spot number eleven, Nan was pushing Jen Appleton over and starting up the car.
“Fine! Forget you, then!” Nan screamed, backing out her Beamer and nearly crashing into a gray Camry. Connor had both hands on the front hood, trying to stop her.
I wondered what it would be like to have Connor Reese try to stop you from getting away from him. And I wondered what kind of fool would even try.
Nan’s car lurched forward, and my heart stopped for a full three seconds. Connor jumped out of the way before he could become the world’s sexiest hood ornament.
“Could I at least have my jacket?” he yelled.
A brown blur came flying over the back of the car and hit the pavement, where the Camry ran over it. Nan tore out of the Sonic parking lot and into the now inky Greenway night.
I couldn’t help feeling a little thrill when she left. It was like being in a hot room and having someone open the window a crack.
Connor put his hands on his hips and shook his head in that stoic Gary Cooper way of his. It reminded me of my dad—so quiet, calm, dignified. So…there. The sight of him bending down to pick up his filthy, ruined jacket made me want to run over and help him dust it off. At the same time I didn’t really want him to see me like this, dateless on a prime weekend night, videotaping life from the safety of the Jesus mobile.
“Let’s go,” I said to Dee, shutting off the camera.
“Can you believe her? How rude can you be?”
“Yeah, it’s tragic. I should get home.”
“Kari, don’t look now, but guess who’s coming over?”
Common sense told me to keep my head down, but common sense wasn’t exactly my strong suit. I raised my eyes and found Connor coming over to my window, wearing a sheepish grin. It looked good on him.
“Hi,” he said, crouching down even with my face.
“Hi back,” I said, turning my face three-quarters to minimize the nose that roared.
“Seen any good foreign dwarf movies lately?”
“Nothing but cheap Hollywood dwarf movies,” I managed. His face was inches from mine. One wrong move and we would be touching. Or was that one right move?
“Hi, I’m Dee!” Dee stuck her hand past my face and out the window. Connor shook it graciously.
“Nice to meet you, Dee. I think we had chem together last quarter. Deacon’s class?”
“Really? You remember me?”
“Yeah. Well, when your aspirin experiment went wrong and you made a small explosive, it was hard not to notice you.”
“Oh, right,” Dee said. Suddenly I wished Dee and her great body and butterfly hair clips were somewhere else. This was supposed to be my moment. Fireworks and “fancy meeting you here” and all that stuff.
“So…what are you up to?” What are you up to? Had I actually said that?
Connor gave me that cool half smirk of his. “Walking, apparently.”
Should I acknowledge the fight I’d just witnessed? Pretend it didn’t happen? I settled for the noncommitta
l. “Would you like a ride? We were just out getting some footage for my documentary.” My documentary. I meant to toss it off with a hip oh-I-do-this-all-the-time air. Instead I sounded like a seventh grader talking about her extra-credit project.
“That’d be great. Could you do me a favor?”
Anything. Everything. I’d walk over hot coals and change my name to Bambi with an i. “Sure,” I said weakly.
“I was supposed to catch Robin’s Hoods at Café Vortex tonight. Could you give me a ride over there?” Robin’s Hoods was the hottest swing band in the South. They played the Vortex a lot. I could just imagine Connor jumping and jiving to a big band, sweat trickling down his sideburns, his well-loved wing tips flashing across the dance floor.
I made a mental note to buy every Robin’s Hoods CD I could get my hands on. I’d also need to learn to dance. Well, developing any sense of rhythm would be a good idea. The last dancing I’d done was the hokey pokey at Jared’s ninth birthday party.
“Robin’s Hoods. I hear they’re great,” I said, like I knew what I was talking about.
“They smoke, man. Why don’t you come with me and check ’em out?” Connor flashed that smile.
“You never told me you liked Robin’s Hoods,” Dee said to me. “I thought you said swing bands were too retro and derivative.”
I laughed so loud, it came out my nose like a horse’s whinny, “Such a jokester, this one!” I leaned close to Dee and whispered through clenched teeth, “Don’t you need to go home and help your mom with that big project?” I fixed her with a meaningful glance.
Dee returned the stare. It was like she was trying to read my mind through my skull. “What project? My mom’s playing bridge with the Thomases. She always plays bridge on Saturdays.”
I’d hate to be one of those lame-o girls who dumps her friend the minute a cute guy happens on the scene, but I was mighty tempted. This wasn’t just any guy. It was Connor Reese, and he was sort of asking me out. Okay, so without me he’d be spending his Saturday night scarfing leftover Tater Tots while digging up cab fare, but why overanalyze?