Almost Perfect

by Brian Katcher

  Watching her attempt another basket, I suddenly felt incredibly lonely. Most nights, I lived alone. I worked alone. When I ran, I was essentially alone. That was how it had been for the past couple of months. It hadn’t bothered me before. I’d never asked Tanya out, or tried to get a regular job, or joined a club or anything.

  So why did I want to be with this new girl so desperately? She was cute, but that didn’t explain everything. I hardly knew her. But it felt like if she didn’t want my company, then I was better off alone.

  That was a weird attitude. It bordered on obsessed. Sage was just a girl, after all. One who obviously didn’t see me like I saw her.

  When Sage missed her shot, I snatched the ball in the air and almost dunked. Sage caught the rebound, then dropped the ball. The semiflat ball scooted along the cracked concrete. Sage pinned it with her foot, then gave it a kick. She had an intense frown on her face. The kind of expression a girl wears when she really wants someone to say, Tell me what’s wrong.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask that. Not because I didn’t care, but because I just wasn’t used to hearing about people’s problems. Mom was a martyr; no matter how hard her life was, she never complained. Tim and Jack were guys, and therefore showed no feelings. And Brenda, pardon the pun, never let me inside her.

  “Sage, what’s the matter?” I wondered how I’d managed to transform my offended dignity into deep concern in less than ten minutes.

  Sage shook her head. I wondered if I should prod her, but she didn’t need coaxing.

  “Want to hear something funny?” Her tone told me that she meant the sad type of funny, rather than Jack’s one-legged Japanese woman named Irene brand of funny.

  I mumbled some sort of answer. Sage began to walk the circumference of the court. She paused and touched the huge metal crank that had been attached to a tennis net decades ago.

  “I used to have a normal life, Logan.” She let go of the gears. Facing the fence, she wrapped her arms around her sides, as if hugging herself.

  I wasn’t sure if I should say anything or just let her go at her own pace. When she didn’t continue, I asked her what she meant.

  “What I mean is, up to maybe seventh grade, my parents were normal. I could visit my friends, go to public school, just like any other kid. But at the beginning of eighth grade, they decided I shouldn’t go. Made me learn at home. They said it was for my own good, that I wouldn’t be safe at school, that I’d end up getting into trouble. Maybe they were right; I don’t know. But that’s not the worst part.”

  I scooted up next to her. Sage turned to me and smiled sadly. There was hair in her face again. This time I did gently brush it away, and she didn’t stop me.

  “The worst part is, I wasn’t allowed to go out. At all. Not to visit friends, not to go to the mall, nothing. At home, all day. We’d go out as a family, but that wasn’t the same.”

  I was horrified. I’d just pictured Sage’s parents as being overly strict, but not allowing your daughter to have friends? That was psycho. I wondered what sorts of memories were hidden behind Sage’s smile. How bad was her home life?

  “They thought they were protecting me, Logan, but for over four years I’ve been a prisoner. When Dad got transferred here, I told them I wanted to go to school. They said no. But, like you said, I’m eighteen. I think they know they can’t stop me.”

  She grabbed the crank and tried to turn it, but it was rusted in place. With great deliberation, I placed my hand lightly on hers. We stood there, not looking at each other, doing nothing but breathing, for quite some time.

  “Logan, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I could really use a friend right now. I’m not trying to blow you off. It’s just … be my friend. It’s been so long since I’ve had one.”

  I squeezed her hand and let go. Of course I’d be her friend. The poor girl had never been to high school, never hung out with other teenagers, never had a guy hit on her. If she needed a pal, then that’s what I’d be. And hey, sometimes friendship developed into something more.

  Sage smiled. I retrieved her coat and, with uncharacteristic suaveness, helped her with it.

  The wind picked up as she stuck her arms through the sleeves, giving me a faceful of her dark hair. For the first time I could see the back of her pale neck (it was just above my eye level). I was tempted to kiss her there in a friendly, platonic fashion, but decided I was deluding myself.

  By the time she turned around, she was smiling again, her inner turmoil hidden.

  “Thanks, Logan.” She held out her hand.

  When I attempted to shake, she grabbed me by the wrist. With no warning, she yanked me toward her and engulfed me in a bear hug. Her fur coat made me feel like I was being mauled by a grizzly. Then she released me and walked off without another word.

  I watched her go. I felt a bizarre mixture of friendship, lust, fear, pity, lust, confusion, panic, and lust. Brenda had been served an eviction notice. Sage now occupied most of my brain. I’d traded a girl who seemed to like me but secretly didn’t for a girl who … what? Sage and I had just met. She didn’t know my father was gone. I hadn’t met her sister. We hadn’t visited each other’s houses. We didn’t know each other’s birthdays. And yet, she seemed to really want my friendship. And not the usual female I want to be your friend so you’ll never try to sleep with me definition, either.

  I needed to stop thinking like a sprinter and start thinking like a marathon runner. There was no rush. Just take things slow and steady. And if Sage and I wound up only as friends, well, there was nothing wrong with that.

  When two guys are friends, it means they are free to fart and scratch themselves in each other’s presence. Well, you don’t actually have to be friends for that.

  When a guy and a girl are friends, it means either the girl is ugly or the guy isn’t cool. Otherwise, the balance would be upset and they’d be more.

  Sage was cute. Not in the head-turning, blond, flat-stomached way a magazine model is cute. And not in the quiet, understated, pretty-in-spite-of-herself way that Brenda had. Sage was beautiful like a sunset. There was no one part of her that especially stood out, but viewed as a whole, there was no room for improvement.

  Except that didn’t matter. Sage just wanted to be my friend. If she’d been ugly, no problem. But she wasn’t. And I had to spend the first hour of every school day being her friend. Nothing is harder than acting normal around someone you think is hot.

  Strike that. Nothing is harder than acting normal around someone you think is hot, and then dissecting an amphibian together.

  I wonder if anyone has ever said that sentence before.

  At any rate, when I walked into the lab that Monday, I expected to find Tim, Sage, and a tray of fish bait. It should go without saying that I was not expecting a plate of homemade cookies.

  And yet there they were, at my section of the table, cheerily wrapped in red cellophane. I looked over at Sage, who pointedly took out a compact and began reapplying her lipstick.

  “Thanks,” I ventured. She grinned and turned away.

  Tim was already eyeing my treats like Wile E. Coyote looked at Road Runner. I slipped the plate into my backpack.

  Soon we were busy hacking and slashing at our dead buddy. As Tim wielded the scalpel (Sage absolutely refused to cut, and Tim refused to let me), an odd assortment of thoughts hit me.

  So does she like me?

  What, exactly, is going on at her house?

  Is she flirting? No girl, not even Brenda, has ever baked me anything.

  Is that a kidney or a spleen?

  Why is life so complicated?

  Why did I think first-hour biology was a good idea?

  Sage left the room five seconds after the bell rang, while Tim and I were still washing our hands. It occurred to me that since we’d met, I had never heard her say goodbye. She’d just up and leave.

  Tim was staring at me. At times, I had the upsetting impression he was wondering how I’d taste with fava beans and
a nice grape Crush.

  “She baked you cookies,” he whispered.

  “Yeah.” I wiped my hands on my pants. Tim probably thought I was still hung up on Brenda, too dim to take Sage’s hint.

  “She baked you cookies!” he repeated as if I’d missed the importance.

  “So what?” I turned to get my bag, but Tim blocked my way.

  “She wants to have your babies.”

  I ignored that. He was insistent.

  “The way to the heart is through the stomach, Logan!” I didn’t respond, but Mr. Elmer, who was passing by our table at the time, looked crushed. I guess he thought the anatomy lab had been lost on Tim.

  “Tim,” I said, squirming around him. “She doesn’t like me like that.” Right? I mean, she said so yesterday. The cookies were probably just a way to say thank you. She just wanted to remind me that we were buddies, that she was there for me, and to forget about asking anyone else out; I was hooked.

  Tim fingered a crumb on the table, sniffed it, and decided it was part of the frog. “Then can I have the cookies?”

  Tammi was a lesser version of her sister. It was like someone had turned a strange knob and all aspects of Sage had decreased by about twenty-five percent: her height, the thunder of her voice, even the number of freckles. It was only in the area of chest size that Tammi beat out her sister; she had an almost impressive rack for a freshman.

  I saw her after school that Monday, outside the cafeteria. She was tying her shoe in front of the butt-ugly mural that had been painted by the Class of 1982. A crowd of badly painted students (much more ethnically diverse than Boyer ever was) stood around an enormous bear, which was clad in Roman-style armor. The scene always reminded me of some sort of cult gathering; it was like the Boyer mascot was about to order a mass suicide.

  Even though Tammi was dressed in conservative jeans and a sweater, there was no mistaking that this girl was Sage’s sister. When she stood up, I went to introduce myself.

  “Logan?” she asked before I could say a word.

  “How did …”

  “It’s stitched on your jacket.” Her voice was much softer, much less intense, than her sister’s.

  “You must be …”

  “Right.” Tammi was staring at me like I was a used car with bad shocks and no radio. I regretted trying to start a conversation.

  “So, Tammi, what do you think of …”

  “It’s okay.” Tammi’s gaze made me feel like I was standing in front of a two-way mirror with five other guys as she decided which of us had snatched her purse. If I stared at a girl that way, she’d be justified in smacking my face. Eventually, she made eye contact.

  “You and Sage snuck out together Friday, didn’t you?” She wasn’t accusing me. It was like when a cop asks you if you knew how fast you were going. It doesn’t matter how you answer.

  “Uh …” I wasn’t sure what to say. Was Tammi planning on snitching to her parents? And why would she? I’d covered for Laura before; you never ratted out your own sister.

  “It’s okay, Logan,” continued Tammi. “Sage told me she went to the movies with you.”

  Great. I pictured the two sisters sitting in a darkened bedroom discussing my aborted kiss.

  I dunno, Tammi, I guess he likes me, but, well … he rides a bike, and he actually grew up in a trailer. I think I’ll tell him I just want to be friends.

  Tammi sucked in her cheeks, then peered up and down the hall and into the abandoned cafeteria. She motioned for me to lean in close.

  “Logan, Sage shouldn’t be doing things like that. I think my parents know she lied. She could wind up in real trouble if she gets caught.”

  If Tammi had been a hulking twenty-year-old marine I would have quailed at the warning. Coming from a fifteen-year-old semidwarf, it was just weird. Was she really such a goody-goody that she wanted to make sure Sage didn’t violate her parents’ insane restrictions? Didn’t she realize that she’d be forced to obey the same rules as her sister?

  Tammi wasn’t finished. She spoke in such a soft whisper, I nearly had to bend at the waist to catch what she said next.

  “Logan, I don’t mean that I want you to stay away from her. She says you’re a nice guy, and she needs a friend. But don’t convince her to sneak around. You might think it’s no big deal, but Sage can’t afford to get in trouble right now.”

  I nodded, and Tammi left. What had she meant by that cryptic remark? She made it sound like something awful would happen if Sage ever broke the rules. Like her parents were waiting for an excuse to punish her.

  Once again, I wondered what was going on at her house. Could it be that her parents weren’t strict, but abusive? Or maybe Sage had messed up big-time when she was younger and her parents no longer trusted her.

  Well, Sage had asked that we be friends. And if I was really her friend, maybe someday she’d tell me what was wrong.

  chapter seven

  BY WEDNESDAY, our frogs were nothing more than skeletons and scraps; sad carcasses of use to no one but the sausage factory. Last cuts tomorrow, test Monday.

  For the first time since this lab began, Tim wasn’t in charge of the surgery. He was having some kind of stomach problem and spent most of the hour slumped in his chair.

  “How often does this happen?” whispered Sage as we filled out our lab report.

  I watched Tim drop two tabs of Alka-Seltzer into his Coke. “Less often than you’d think. He must have accidentally eaten a vegetable.”

  Sage got up to return the animal to the lab fridge. Tim focused his bleary eyes on me.

  “I shouldn’t have come to school.”

  “Don’t I tell you that every day?”

  Tim gave me a thin smile and looked over at Sage. “So what’s going on with you two?”

  “I told you, nothing. Just friends.”

  Tim hauled himself to a semiupright position. “How convenient.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I think you’re afraid. It just occurred to me, you haven’t asked a girl out since you were fifteen.”

  I glanced over at Sage, who was still waiting in line to store the frog. She saw me looking and gave me a wave and a smile.

  I turned back to Tim. “Big talk, coming from you. You’ve never had a date.”

  I instantly regretted bringing that up. It was pretty obvious why Tim never went out. But he didn’t look offended.

  “I may just surprise you one of these days, Logan.”

  Sage sat down in her chair. Then, without warning, she swung her long legs around and flopped them onto my lap. She grinned at me defiantly. Tim, who was now clutching his stomach and sweating, still managed to look at me smugly.

  Sage’s pants had scrunched up a bit, leaving her pale shins uncovered on my lap. Without thinking, I laid my hand on her bare skin. She didn’t object. She also didn’t seem to mind when I rubbed my palm down her bladelike shin and tickled her ankle. In fact, she closed her eyes and wrinkled her nose in what I hoped was an expression of pleasure. As Mr. Elmer reviewed what we’d covered in the lab, Sage kicked her shoes off. I began to massage her toes.

  I felt strangely guilty, like I was giving a foot rub to a friend’s girlfriend. Sage had told me she wanted me as a friend. Her sister had warned me off. If I was ready to start dating again, I shouldn’t waste time hitting on a girl with all these issues.

  And yet, here I was, kneading her feet and probably enjoying it more than she was. Maybe later, she’d like a shoulder rub. Or a back rub. Or a front rub.

  I knew I needed to stop. In spite of his dysentery attack, Tim was watching us. After the cookies the other day, Tim was convinced that Sage wanted me for a boyfriend. He’d think I was lying if I tried to tell him otherwise.

  Was it really time to stop pursuing Sage? What had Mom said the other night about missed opportunities? Something told me that if I gave up on Sage, I’d end up regretting it.

  When Mr. Elmer finished his review, I removed my hands from
Sage’s foot. She shot me a fake scowl.

  “Uh, Sage,” I began. “We’re all going to the basketball game Friday. Want to join us?”

  There. Friends go to sports events together. There’s nothing wrong with my asking.

  She tilted her head and scratched her chin as if she was contemplating the mysteries of the universe. “Sure!” she said after a minute. “I think I can get out. I’ll meet you there.”

  The bell rang. Sage carelessly retracted her feet across my crotch, momentarily causing me a flash of blinding pain. She was out the door in seconds.

  I turned to Tim, ready to gloat that I wasn’t afraid of Sage. Before I could say anything, he let out a loud fart so stinky that it covered the odor of the frog preservative.

  He leapt to his feet with a grin on his face. “I feel like a new man!”

  I hoped Sage really would show up at the game. I needed a change of company.

  Time seemed to stand still as our center threw a desperate, longer-than-half-court shot with no time left in the half. For an agonizing second the basketball seemed to hover directly over the rim. Then gravity took effect and the shot went wide.

  No big deal; we were down by twenty-four points.

  Half the town had turned out for Friday night basketball. The tiny gym was stuffed to the gills as the Moberly Spartans wiped the floor with the Boyer Bears. Moberly was large enough that people actually had to try out for their team. At Boyer, anyone interested was pretty much guaranteed court time.

  The cheerleading squad assembled at half-court and proceeded to perform the same three cheers they did at every game. I could see Tanya at the bottom of the pyramid.

  For the third or fourth time, I scanned the seats for Sage’s lanky form. She had said she’d meet me here, but it looked like she had other plans. Maybe her parents had refused her, or maybe Tammi had tattled. Or she just didn’t want to go.

  It didn’t matter. It’s not like I’d been looking forward to this all day. Not like I’d rushed home in order to take a shower and shave before the game. Not like I’d spent my emergency fund on a new shirt. Not like I’d spent the past hour barking at anyone who tried to take the seat next to me.