An Ideal Boyfriend

by Mette Ivie Harrison

  Trudy took a deep breath and nodded. “I know,” she said.

  What was I supposed to do now? Kiss her? Hold her? This seemed like an important moment, but she said, “I have to get to class,” and was gone.

  What had just happened between us? I went into Government feeling like I’d just fallen off a bike and taken a long skid across gravel. Not deeply hurt, but with all the skin taken off and bits and pieces of foreign objects stuck into my bleeding tissue which would have to be picked out with excruciating patience. Vulnerable.

  What if Trudy had guessed that I didn’t have luck? Was that what she had been hinting at?

  That, of course, was the moment that Laura Chevely came up to me and put alcohol on my open wound. “You look like you just saw a puppy killed, Rob.” She leaned into me.

  “I’m fine,” I said, trying to edge away from her.

  “You are definitely not fine, Rob. Is this about you and Trudy? Something wrong between the perfect couple, after all? Because you know I never thought you two worked together. She’s just not in your class, you know, Rob, no matter how much luck the tests say she has. There is something about luck that is just born and bred, I think. It must be such a strain to pretend.”

  “There is nothing wrong between me and Trudy and there never will be,” I said.

  “Yeah, you keep saying that and maybe someone will believe it,” said Laura. “Maybe even you.”

  I thought about the time when I was ten and Dad took me out hunting for the first time. I told him over and over again I didn’t want to go.

  “He has such a soft heart,” Grandma said, when she was still living with us.

  “He doesn’t have to shoot anything if he doesn’t want to. He can miss. Plenty of the men who go up with us miss and who knows if it’s on purpose or not? That’s not what the shooting is about.”

  “Then what is it about?” asked Grandma.

  “It’s about spending time with other people of his level of luck. He’s always making friends at school with people beneath him.”

  “Just proof again of his kind heart,” said Grandma.

  “A kind heart is one thing, but it will keep him from going the places he needs to go if he doesn’t work on making the right friends.”

  It would have been nice if Grandma was right, that I had a kind heart, but the reason I didn’t want to go hunting with Dad was that I was terrified of the guns. With my bad luck, someone might shoot me and I had no idea how I could pretend that I wanted that to happen.

  In the end, I convinced myself that if I was shot, I wasn’t going to be around long enough to complain about the pain. I’d probably just die, and that was the best thing.

  I spent the entire weekend ready to die at any moment. The sight of the guns made me freeze in terror, and the whole time, I had to laugh and joke about it. We had dead animals in the back of trucks and made jokes about them, too, even while I stared into those lifeless eyes and wondered if I would be next. I even had to laugh when they talked about luckless people who went hunting and accidentally shot themselves.

  After that weekend, when I went back to school, I stopped being friends with anyone who didn’t have a lot of luck. It was self-preservation. If I didn’t have luck, I had better be around people who did. It seemed the only protection that had kept me safe while on the hunting trip.

  Dating Laura had been part of that same strategy. Maybe that was why I’d been OK with the way she treated other people, putting them down so I could feel a little superior.

  But dating Trudy was different. I was different.

  “Class, can we get to the agenda now?” said Mrs. Wilde, drawing my attention back to the present moment. Going through an agenda was a lot easier than thinking about my lack of luck.

  But a few minutes later, I saw a note sail through the air and looked up to see Laura nodding to me. I was nervous enough about what Laura could possibly want to send me in a note that I opened it.

  “I know your secret,” it read. “I always knew it. Don’t you think it’s time you came clean—with everyone?” It was signed with Laura’s signature lips in a kiss, drawn with pen.

  I didn’t look up. I didn’t dare to let her read my face. Laura was too good at that.

  It was probably a joke. Or some other secret that I didn’t care about anyway. But if I gave her a hint that there was something I was really nervous about, she would figure it out. That’s the way she is. She might not care about things like truth or mathematics or the laws of the universe. But human laws she manipulates quite freely.

  With careful movements, I took the note and folded it back up. I wanted to rip it into tiny pieces and then burn them with acid and watch the smoke rise, but I had to resist the temptation to do that. Talk about bad luck.

  I had planned out a hundred different scenarios in my head for when the moment of truth came. I had told myself that I was ready to lose everything. My parents’ approval. My place at school. All my friends. My status. My hope for the future.

  I’d planned to be strong about all that after I told Trudy. But if it happened before I had a chance to tell her the right way—

  I threw the note toward the garbage can.

  It didn’t make it.

  Bad luck again.

  Mrs. Wilde picked it up.

  I dropped my head. My ears were pounding with the sound of my heart beat. There was nothing I could do now. Nothing. If she opened that note—

  But she didn’t.

  Laura’s luck was at work there, I guess, not mine.

  Mrs. Wilde looked at me and shook her head, then dropped the note into the garbage herself and went back to the agenda.

  I tried to hurry out of class, but Laura caught me about ten feet down the hall.

  “Rob, let’s talk privately.” She put an arm around mine and I flashed back to all those times when she was my girlfriend. She had been in charge of everything. “You should do as I say because with your lack of luck, Trudy will hear all about this and wonder if you’ve decided to come back to me.”

  I pushed open the door to the party room and pulled her in after me. “Don’t do that!” I shouted at her, putting my face in hers. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

  “Ooh, scary,” said Laura. She held up her hands and stepped back. “I haven’t told anyone, Rob. All these months I could have done it, but I was waiting. I knew there would be something special that you could do for me, at just the right moment. And now it has come. A little favor I need you to do for me.”

  “A favor? You’re blackmailing me, is that it? You want me to drop Trudy and be your boyfriend again? Well, forget it. I’m not doing that. I would never do that. I love Trudy and I know that she loves me back, luck or no luck.”

  Laura didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she made a big production out of stifling a yawn. “The last thing I want is you back, Rob. I had you for two years and that was plenty. Besides, you aren’t any fun anymore. Not that you were ever that much fun to begin with, but at least you tried before Trudy ruined you.”

  “Trudy didn’t ruin me,” I said.

  “She ruined you for me. You are so worried about what other people think and feel that you can’t focus on having fun yourself.”

  “And that’s what you were doing with James and Jenna this morning? Having fun?”

  She laughed at that. “That’s exactly what I was doing with James and Jenna.”

  “Then you’re right. I have changed.” There was nothing fun about that. “I love Trudy and that’s what has changed me. I have a future with someone. I have a forever. Trudy and I are going to be with each other for the rest of our lives. Nothing and no one is going to keep us apart.”

  Laura’s has a quirky eyebrow that goes up at times when she wants to make you think she sees through you. “And yet you haven’t told her your secret, apparently. So what does that say about your relationship? It’s all based on a lie, isn’t it, Rob? She has all that luck, all proven, and she is attracted to
you because she thinks you are just like her.”

  “That’s not—it isn’t like that. She doesn’t love me because of that,” I stuttered.

  “Let me give you a hint, Rob. Women don’t like to be lied to. And they especially don’t like to look like fools.”

  “She’s not a fool,” I said.

  “No? When I guessed your secret years ago and she hasn’t got a clue? I think she will look like a fool. And she will feel like a fool. And that is never good for romance, is it?”

  I didn’t say anything. I was thinking of what I could offer to Laura to get her to promise not to tell Trudy the truth. I had to be the one to tell her, and it had to be just the right way. I would do it, too, just not quite yet. “What do you want, then?” I asked Laura. “Money?”

  She tsked. “I’m not that kind of girl, Rob. I thought you knew me. But now you’re insulting me. Not the best thing to do when I’ve got you by the short and curlies, eh?” Laura’s voice was soft and purring.

  “If not money, then what?”

  “I want you to get something for me. A key. From your friend Art Goring.”

  “Why?” I asked immediately.

  “I want something that he has, obviously. And to get it I need the key to his basement apartment. It’s the small one with the green plastic on the top. I need you to get it from him without him knowing and then give it to me during school tomorrow. I’ll copy it and give it right back to you, but you have to make sure that he doesn’t know that it’s gone during that time, and that he doesn’t know that I have a copy.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  She smiled at me. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Distract him.”

  “Why can’t I just ask him for the key?” I asked.

  “Because I told you not to and I’m in charge,” said Laura.

  “What are you going to take from him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Come on. You have to tell me something. I can’t just give you a key to my best friend’s room without asking if you’re planning to kill him or something.”

  “I’m not planning to kill him, Rob,” said Laura. “I swear.”

  And I was supposed to believe her promise? “Then what?”

  “If I promise that he won’t get hurt, will you stop asking me questions?” said Laura. She leaned in close to me.

  “OK,” I said.

  I won’t hurt a hair on his head,” Laura whispered.

  I squirmed away from her when she was done. Could I trust her?

  “You’ll thank me in the end, that Art doesn’t realize you’re the one who took the key,” said Laura.

  I stared at her. That did not actually make me feel any better. “He doesn’t keep money in his room. Or valuables.” Art came from a wealthy family, but his basement dorm room was a disaster. I’m not sure anyone could find anything in there. The last time I’d gone over there, it was full of smoke from some experiment he’d been doing.

  “I know exactly what he has in his room right now,” said Laura.

  One of Art’s experiments, then. I thought about what I’d seen of them. Sure, Art won science fair contests a lot, but it wasn’t like they were valuable. Maybe Laura had figured out a use for them, but that didn’t mean that anyone else would. And besides, Art was my best friend. He knew how much I loved Trudy. He would understand, in the end, why I’d had to do this. He would forgive me. In fact, Art might be the only person I wasn’t afraid of telling the truth about my luck to.

  “Fine. I’ll get you the key,” I said. “But I’m not getting you anything else. You can’t keep holding the truth over my head.”

  “Actually, I can,” said Laura. “For as long as you don’t tell Trudy.”

  Yeah, she had that right. I had to figure out a way to tell Trudy, and soon. Everyone else could come after that.

  Laura opened the door. “Thank you,” she said, winking at me. Then, before I could think to stop her, she leaned in and gave me a big kiss, long and loud.

  About half the student body of the school saw it.

  “Why did you do that?” I muttered, and put my hand to my face.

  “It gives us a good reason to be together. You know, remembering good times together. Now where and when should I meet you to get the key?”

  “Tomorrow in the library after lunch,” I said. I would see Art in the cafeteria, and I would have to figure something out.

  Laura waved at me and walked away.

  I tried rehearsing various speeches for Trudy. There was always one big problem. Why I hadn’t told her before. I’d lied to her for over a year. Why? Because I was afraid she didn’t love me as much as I loved her. Honestly, I was still afraid of that. But it didn’t exactly make a great opening line.

  Chapter 5: Trudy

  On Monday, I slipped out after school without talking to Rob or Mabel or Arlee, and went over to Art’s dorm. Actually, to his basement. Art had somehow managed to get the whole basement of his dorm room for himself. I say somehow, but there was probably plenty of luck and money involved. And also the fact that Art is just plain weird and no one wants to share with him.

  I’d heard Rob complain about the smell of Art’s dorm room, but I had never experienced it for myself before. It reeked with the standard mold and rotting food that many boy’s dorms at St. James have, but added to that was something pungent and eye-watering. What was weirder still was that there was no furniture in it, just a blanket and a pillow on the floor by the window, crumpled in a heap like it had been forgotten. The rest of the room was filled with tables and desks and wires and plugs and buckets of water. There were also about five refrigerators, some with doors open and stuff hanging out of them. So that was probably the smell. But why did Art need five refrigerators of rotten food when the average student at St. James got away with one?

  “How can you stand it in here?” I asked, putting a hand to my nose and trying to breathe through my mouth to minimize the impact. It wasn’t working. You know a smell is really bad when you can taste it in the air, too.

  “You get used to it,” said Art.

  “Seriously?” Tears were running down my cheeks.

  “Oh, please. It doesn’t matter. Not when there are people starving in Africa. And in America, for that matter. This is an important experiment that can make a real difference to the world. So I think you can live with a bit of bad stench when it matters.”

  I looked in my purse for some gum to distract myself, but luckily, there were a couple of those plug-in scents. I didn’t remember putting them in there. Lucky me. They probably belonged to someone from my dorm. Or they fell in when I was at the store last time. I should go back and pay for them soon.

  I got them out and plugged them in. One thing Art’s basement had in plenty was electrical outlets.

  “You’ll want to be careful there,” said Art as I bent down.

  I had to pull one of his contraptions out of the outlet first, and as soon as I touched it, I got a huge electric shock. As far as electric shocks go, this one could have been worse. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt, but it hurt in a very strange way. It was like suddenly instead of feeling pain, I could hear it instead, and it sounded like a really loud bass going into a spasm of happiness. I guess that was lucky.

  “Trudy? Trudy?” said Art, leaning over me. He looked terrified. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so,” I said, my voice husky.

  “You weren’t supposed to touch that. In fact, don’t touch anything in here, Trudy.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for the warning,” I said.

  “If you weren’t so lucky already, you probably would have touched something in the refrigerator instead, and then you’d be vomiting up your guts right now.”

  What a pretty picture that was. “So let’s make sure that we don’t invite any unlucky people down here. At least until you get things cleaned up,” I suggested.

  “Yeah,” said Art. “Good plan.”

  I stood up and shoo
k myself. The bass note in my head was fading out and my muscles felt energized like after a warm up in P.E. class. It wasn’t bad. “I thought you said it made people luckier to get shocked. So am I luckier now?” I asked. I didn’t feel luckier.

  “Well, you want to take a luck test?” asked Art. “I have one somewhere in here.” He started looking around and bumped into something in the refrigerator. He swore.

  “Did you take a test every time you changed your luck?” I asked.

  “Actually, I did at first. But after a while, it was sort of redundant. It was just obvious if I had more luck or not, based on what happened here.”

  “How was it—?” My cell phone rang. I looked down at the number, worried that it was Rob. I didn’t want to talk to him right now. I didn’t want him to know that I was with Art in his basement. It wouldn’t look good.

  But it wasn’t a number I recognized. I thought about refusing to answer it, but Art was waving at me, obviously interested in who it was.

  So I said, “Hello?”

  “This is Publisher’s Clearing House,” said a voice over the phone. “You have just won a thousand dollars.”

  “What? I never sent anything in.”

  They insisted that I had won a prize that didn’t require me to do anything. They took my name and address and promised they would send me a check.

  “So did stuff like that happen to you after the electricity?” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Art. “Actually, if you must know, I got a call from the Association of High School Geniuses, asking me to be their President.”

  That wasn’t what I expected him to say was his proof of being luckier. “I didn’t even know you were a member,” I said. Art was smart, but that was the kind of thing he didn’t seem to care about.

  “I wasn’t,” said Art.

  “So what did you say?”

  “Are you kidding? You are now looking at the President of all American Nerds. I’m going to Switzerland at the end of the year for the international session. That is, I will be going if I don’t end up losing more luck between now and then.”