by Jody Gehrman
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m used to being sexually harassed at work.”
Just as I was handing them their orders, John Jamieson drove up in his silver convertible with Corky riding shotgun. He nosed the Beemer as close to Dog’s rear fender as he possibly could—so close that he actually tapped it slightly. I could hear him and Corky cracking up.
Dog leaned out his window and scowled at John.
“Sorry, man!” John called, obviously not sorry in the slightest. “My foot slipped.”
Dog mumbled something under his breath. Then the Beemer inched forward again and nudged the bus a little harder, spilling some of George’s shake as Dog handed it over to him.
Dog yelled out the window, “Back off, Barney!”
“Hey hippies—suck this!” Corky thrust his hips into the air and grabbed his crotch.
Delightful.
John caught my eye and raised one shoulder, like What can you do?
Dog shook his head in disgust, handed me two fives, and said, “That cover it?”
“Yeah—wait, I’ll get your change.”
“Naw, you keep it. Take it eas—”
He was interrupted by a loud, prolonged honk as Corky leaned over and pressed his weight against John’s horn. Dog swore under his breath and drove off with Virg hanging out the window, filming the street as it sped by beneath him.
John pulled forward and immediately started making excuses. “Don’t be mad, Skater Girl. I try to keep him on a tight leash, but sometimes he gets away from me.”
I was a little annoyed, but seeing John’s aquamarine eyes lit up by the sun softened me a little. He really is movie star pretty, and even though I sort of hate myself for it, whenever he uses his nickname for me it makes me feel strangely glam.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Beside him, Corky cackled with glee for no apparent reason. Someone told me they call him Corky because once he chugged a whole bottle of wine and, prompted by his buddies, proceeded to eat the cork for five dollars. I could believe it; he really was that stupid.
“I hear you’re quite a brainiac,” John said to me. “Here’s your quote for the day: ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be.’ ”
“Shakespeare.” I couldn’t help gloating a little. "A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“Very good! I’m impressed.” He propped his sunglasses up in his gelled hair and tilted his head in a not-so-subtle effort to see behind me. “Hero working?”
“Not today.”
When he spotted Amber, he treated her to a smile that managed to be both lazy and smoldering. “Hey, Ginger.”
Corky pulled the mirror down and examined a zit on his forehead. “I heard Hero’s a total cock tease.”
“She is not,” I said.
“Where’d you hear that?” Amber asked.
Corky abandoned his zit-probing to look at her. “Around. She’s the exact opposite of you, huh, Beezie?”
Amber arched an eyebrow. “Meaning . . . ?”
“Everyone knows you’ve given out more free blow jobs than anyone. And you’re only a sophomore. You’ve got a shot at the—whatdoyoucallit—world record!”
Amber’s hand tightened around the napkin dispenser and I thought for sure she was going to break his nose with it, but she just told him in a low, even tone, “Everyone’s good at something, right?”
Corky howled with laughter. John just suppressed a grin and eyed her cleavage. I busied myself wiping down the espresso machine, hoping to stay out of it. If I were Amber I’d probably burst into tears, but that wasn’t her style.
“What can I get you boys?” Amber asked.
“Coke,” Corky bellowed. “You got a thirty-two-ouncer?”
“No,” she said. “This isn’t a mini-mart. Sorry.”
“Whatever,” he said.
“I’ll take a macchiato,” John said. “Be sure the foam is good and stiff.”
“Oh, it’ll be stiff,” she told him. “Trust me.”
Amber started making John’s macchiato. I was about to hand Corky his Coke when she motioned me over. “Stand in front of me,” she said. “And turn on the steam.”
“Why?”
“Just do it,” she said.
I did. As soon as the steam was on, emitting a high-pitched whistle, Amber angled herself behind me, snorted deeply, and hocked a huge loogie into the Coke. She snapped the lid into place and grinned.
“Voila,” she said into my ear. “Coke con loogie.”
“Oh, God,” I said, closing my eyes.
“Here you go, boys,” I heard her say at the window. I didn’t dare turn around for fear that my face would give everything away. “On the house.”
Corky said, “And I thought only the blow jobs were free!”
We heard an engine rev. It was Mr. Little, still not moving, just turning the engine over and revving the gas on his enormous yellow truck.
“You know that guy?” Corky asked.
“Mm-hm,” Amber said. “My boyfriend. Very possessive. Carries a Glock in his glove compartment, just in case . . .”
John was already shifting into gear.
“Have a nice day!” we trilled sweetly as they gunned it out of the parking lot in a cloud of exhaust.
I’d just started to make myself an iced mocha when we got mobbed by more customers. The last in line were Uncle Leo and some guy I’d never seen before; they cruised up to the window in Leo’s Merc.
“Hey there, Unc! What can I get you?”
“Couple iced coffees.”
I got them their order and handed them over. “There you go. That’s three dollars.”
Leo handed me a ten. “Keep the change. Hey, heard from your old man lately?”
“He was here last weekend.” With the bimbophile, I wanted to add, and I only saw him for about five hours. Instead, I said, “We had fun.”
“Good, good. Geena, have you met Alistair Drake?” He motioned to the guy beside him. “He bought the place next door.”
“Oh, no. Hi.” Alistair Drake, Alistair Drake. Where had I heard that Name? The guy had a dark, slicked-back ponytail, a hawklike nose, and his bare, muscled biceps were covered in the most intricate tattoos I’d ever seen. He was almost cute in a hard-edged, old-guy, Billy Bob Thornton sort of way.
“Nice to meet you.” The Australian accent was unexpected.
“Your uncle’s giving me the tour.”
I felt Amber behind me, and turned to see her staring, bug-eyed, like she’d just seen Kurt Cobain’s ghost. I figured I’d better get rid of them and see what was up. She looked like she was about to have a seizure.
“Cool. Well, have fun,” I told them. “Say hi to Hero.”
As they drove off, Amber let her breath out in a gush, like she’d been holding it for an hour. “Oh my God. Oh my God,” she said over and over.
“What? What is it?”
We went back and forth like this for what seemed like forever. Finally she said, “Do you have any idea who that was?”
"My uncle?”
“Not him, you idiot! The other guy. The one with the ink.”
“Oh,” I said, “him. Alistair Drake. Why are you making that face?”
She spoke slowly and deliberately, as if she were squeezing each word from a nearly depleted tube of toothpaste. “Alistair Drake. Floating World Tattoos? Am I getting through here, G?”
“Oh,” I said, “yeah, I kind of remember now. You want to work there, right?”
She closed her eyes as if I were beyond moronic, and when they sprang open she said, “I have to meet him!”
“I’m sure Uncle Leo would introduce you.”
Her eyes lit up. “You really think so?”
That’s when I hesitated. I’d never considered what Uncle Leo would think of Amber—what he would or wouldn’t do for her. Usually the preferences and opinions of adults don’t concern me much, unless they actively interfere with my own. Suddenly it occurred to me that I couldn’t picture Uncle Leo liking Amber.
In fact, I couldn’t even imagine him talking to her. I mean, she was . . . colorful. Obviously, Uncle Leo wasn’t exactly a right-wing Republican—he’d made friends with Alistair Drake, after all—but in general, his tastes were decidedly refined. He liked Schubert, Sotheby’s, stinky cheeses, and crème brulée. I wasn’t sure what he’d make of Amber in her tube tops and her body glitter.
“Um, yeah. I think so. I mean, I don’t see why not.”
She sensed something. “Don’t lie to me, Geena.”
“What? I’m not lying,” I lied.
“Parents hate me. Always have, always will.”
“Be quiet!” I went back to my mochus interruptus, adding espresso to the chocolate milk at last.
“It’s true. Story of my life.” She sat down, pouting now, and flipped through her sketchbook. “The only ones who like me are the pervs.”
“Ewww.” I made a face.
“Well, it’s true.” She studied her pages, cocking her head at different angles to examine the drawings. She seemed to be speaking more to herself than to me when she said, “I’ll just have to figure out a way . . .”
Monday, July 14
1:00 A.M.
Hero’s lost it.
I once had a cousin. Now I have a blond vegetable.
Mom says everyone goes a little brain-dead the first time they fall in love. No doubt—look at her. Her brain went so mushy she agreed to become Joan Sloane for life. Joan Sloane! If that’s not a perfect example of love’s ability to cut your IQ in half, I don’t know what is.
Hero’s sleeping over tonight. At this very moment, she’s curled up in a sleeping bag on my bedroom floor. She looks perfectly normal, aside from the way her jaw hangs open like an old man’s. I have evidence that her normality is only an illusion, though.
Exhibit A: Inside that sleeping bag, clutched in her delicate fingers, is a picture of Claudio she took from her bedroom window two days ago. In the photo he’s about half a centimeter tall—just a tiny black speck in a sea of grapevines. When I told her as much, she went on and on about how she knew it wasn’t exactly a close-up, but somehow she’d captured the essence of him—his adorable lankiness, his innate intelligence and sensitivity as evidenced in his humble-yet-ready-for-anything posture. She made me look at it with her for an eternity. Finally, when I was so tired of squinting at it I could scream, I told her, “If his essence is an indistinguishable fleck of black, then you’re right, you really captured it.”
She didn’t talk to me for an hour after that.
The girl’s hopeless.
The problem with love is it totally ruins your ability to relate in a normal human fashion. For example: What do we do when we’re together? Half the time we spend staring at a photograph of a speck in a field. The other half she tries to bribe, threaten, or otherwise coerce me into dating Ben Bettaglia. She says she can’t possibly wait until her birthday party to see Claudio. The more she asks, the more determined I am to resist. Has it occurred to anyone that being cast as the virgin’s bodyguard is not exactly flattering? Am I such a killjoy that everyone assumes no one can possibly get laid in my presence?
1:55 A.M.
I wonder if PJ told Ben Bettaglia about me being recruited as the sex police? Oh, God, now everyone thinks of me as the Abstinence Enforcer.
Saturday, July 19
10:20 A.M.
I am absolutely not getting out of bed today.
Just hung up with Dad. Amazing. Here we’ve got a grown man so gaga over his midlife crisis bombshell he can’t even string a sentence together anymore.
Observe our conversation, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and tell me if this man is fit to father:
ME: So, when are you coming up here next?
DAD: I, uh— Sure, baby, that looks fine.
ME: What?
DAD: Oh, nothing, I was talking to— The pink.
ME: The pink?
DAD: Jen. I was talking to Jen. Sorry. What was I saying? ME: When are you going to visit?
DAD: (Manic giggling. I ask you: Should a father, under any circumstances,giggle?)
ME: Dad?
DAD: Sorry, just . . .
(He clears his throat in this weird, embarrassed way that makes me suspect there is something pseudo-sexual happening on his end, which is against the law or, at the very least, puke-inducing.)
Listen, Geena, maybe I should call you back. You going to be home for a while?
ME: I guess.
Hung up totally depressed and confused about the nature of existence. Tried yogic breathing, skimming the best scenes in Wuthering Heights, and inhaling four chocolate chip cookies, but am still lying in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering why we even bother.
10:40 A.M.
If love can make a grown man giggle uncontrollably and a girl-genius stare for hours at a photograph of a comma-sized boy, what might it do to a five-foot-two, chocolate-chip-cookie-addicted weakling like me?
11:15 A.M.
Why isn’t Dad calling back?
What if he marries his midlife crisis?
I am not wearing lavender, pink, or any form of butt-bow to their wedding. I will wear black. I’ll pierce my septum, my tongue, and maybe even my nipple. (Ouch. Maybe just the septum and tongue, then.) If they ask me to make a toast, I’ll recite Sylvia Plath.
12:50 P.M.
Mom came home from teaching summer school and found me prostrate on my bed, flipping listlessly through a stack of old Skateboarding magazines.
“What’s wrong?”
I snorted. “What isn’t wrong?”
She came over and sat beside me. “Are you on your period, honey?”
If a girl between the ages of twelve and twenty has a crisis, everyone immediately cries, “Hormones!” Why is that? I was in the midst of an existential, soul-wrenching moment. The fact that I just got my period had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Luckily, just then the phone rang, allowing me to avoid her question.
It was Dad. We talked for twenty minutes. He had apparently managed to secure a bimbo-free zone, because his ability to combine subjects and predicates to form independent clauses had increased dramatically. He’s visiting next month. So far, no mention of weddings or butt-bows, thank God.
“Feeling any better?” Mom was standing in the kitchen in her silk blouse and linen slacks, eating cut-up peaches and cottage cheese. I thought of Amber’s mom with her boy toy, and of Aunt Kathy, who Hero can never see again for as long as she lives. I went over to Mom and put my arms around her neck.
“Whoa,” she said, putting her bowl down and hugging me back. “What’s this all about?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
Mom raised an eyebrow. “You are on your period, aren’t you?”
I laughed. “Shut up!”
5:55 P.M.
At Hero’s house, Uncle Leo was there with a professional party planner, talking about decorations. The planner was in her mid-thirties and she was wearing chocolate brown suede pants with a white, sheer linen blouse over a tank top. She looked very chic in that calculated-to-look-casual way. You could tell she only moved to Sonoma after it got all shi-shi. Probably she’s an L.A. import, the sort you see at farmer’s markets buying armloads of lilies and thirty-dollar bottles of olive oil, talking about Sonoma like they’ve been here since the turn of the century. I think of them privately as the EUWWs (Ex-Urban Wine-Country Wannabes). I know it’s sort of elitist to be so anti-outsiders, but come on, these people wrote the book on elitism; if I give them a taste of their own medicine within the confines of my own brain, is that a crime?
“Wow,” she said when she saw me in my sweaty FUCT T-shirt carrying my board. “You can really ride that thing?” Her highlights ranged from chili-pepper red to pumpkin, and I wondered idly how much she’d paid for them.
“Yeah.” I was bored, but not desperate enough to encourage conversation with a perky little EUWW.
“I would be terrified.” She laughed, looking at Uncle Leo. “Alt
hough I used to roller-skate. Is it kind of the same thing?”
Her tone was saccharine and patronizing. She was one of those adults who think anyone under the legal drinking age is essentially an overgrown toddler. I wanted to say Goo-goo ga-ga, but instead I said, “Not really, no.”
“Anyway.” Uncle Leo cleared his throat. “Let’s get Hero down here, since it’s her party.”
“Yes, of course,” the EUWW replied, all smiles.
I was sent to fetch Hero. In my house, you can stand in any room, shout someone’s name, and even if they’re out in the yard they’ll probably hear you. In Hero’s house, you’ve got to hike about four miles before you find another human soul. I sometimes wonder if Uncle Leo gets lonely, sitting in his sleek, modern chairs, eating the dinners Elodie whips up. Everything in that house is incredibly tasteful and expensive, but nothing about it is cozy. Esperanza and Elodie keep it running like a four-star hotel, and still Uncle Leo often looks like he hasn’t slept well for weeks.
As I wandered down the hall, delicate strains of Mozart told me Hero was in the music room; I found her playing the baby grand in a pink tank top and denim shorts. Sunlight was pouring through the huge picture windows; her hair was a blinding gold. She looked like an angel dressed for the beach.
“The EUWW’s here,” I said. “She wants to talk to you.”
Her fingers froze and she looked up, startled. At first she seemed not to recognize me. Sometimes when Hero’s playing piano, she slips into another world. “Who?”
“Party planner,” I explained.
That was the magic word: party. She jumped up from the bench and twirled me around. “It’s going to be so fun!”
“I’m sure it—”
“And Claudio’s coming! Oh my God! What if I have gas that night?”
I faked a look of concern. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get there.”
After we’d trekked back to the living room, the party plans started in earnest. I sank into the cushy leather couch with a Rock Star soda and watched the show. Hero kept pushing for pink roses and baby’s breath and swaths of lace, while Uncle Leo and the EUWW wanted big glass bowls of floating camellias and candles. Personally, I wanted them to rent a dilapidated warehouse, hire a punk band, and get a mosh pit going. It’d be like a Berlin squat circa 1970-something. Awesome. But I didn’t want to make things more complicated than they already were, so I kept my mouth shut.