by Ryan Gebhart
Capítulo Uno
Capítulo Dos
Capítulo Tres
Capítulo Cuatro
Capítulo Cinco
Capítulo Seis
Capítulo Siete
Capítulo Ocho
Capítulo Nueve
Capítulo Diez
Capítulo Once
Capítulo Doce
Capítulo Trece
Capítulo Catorce
Capítulo Quince
Capítulo Dieciséis
Capítulo Diecisiete
Capítulo Dieciocho
Capítulo Diecinueve
Capítulo Veinte
Capítulo Veintiuno
Capítulo Veintidós
Capítulo Veintitrés
Capítulo Veinticuatro
Capítulo Veinticinco
I’m playing beer pong in Kyle Dorton’s backyard, and the drunk girl from Perrysburg starts painting on my face, totally unannounced. She’s got jungle juice on her bra and her breath smells a little bit like throw up and her eyes are intense, like she’s Pablo Picasso. When she’s done, she opens her compact so I can see.
“You’re a kitty cat,” she says. I can’t see my reflection in her little mirror, but I take her at her word.
So I’m a kitty cat and I sink my ball into the final cup and me and Andy get our third consecutive win. It’s not like we really earned this one — Gabe and Kaitlyn weren’t paying any attention; they were just letting the Perrysburg girl use their bodies as canvases. And neither of them had ever played before. Actually, this is the first time either of them had ever drank, as Kaitlyn repeatedly reminded us.
“Who’s got next?” I say.
It’s early November and unseasonably warm and, like almost everyone at the party, I’m in nothing but my underwear and covered in glow-in-the-dark paint. Madeline Fisher painted a really shitty alien on my chest; Courtney Horowitz painted a dick for the alien; Erin Adamski painted another dick for the alien.
Ten years ago the most expensive and high-tech deep-space satellite ever made started sending blurry pictures of hundreds of different planets from nearby stars in the Milky Way. Almost all of them were determined to be inhospitable. Then they found one that was green and blue and a little larger than Earth. It was orbiting Alpha Centauri A, one of the closest stars to our own. When NASA released the images, it was awesome. I was in second grade, and I remember everyone debating about the odds of a binary star system sustaining life. Space programs from around the world created a message from the people of Earth to the potential people of Pud 5, which is what some astronomers named the planet. It included a bunch of songs and images of us and things like that. We didn’t get any kind of message back, and pretty much no one thought we ever would. But yesterday a satellite array in the Andes Mountains picked up all these noises for three hours. They weren’t random. There was composition to them. They were songs. And some of them were pretty jamming.
The government confirmed this morning that the signal came from Pud 5.
Now we know intelligent life exists on another planet, so Kyle decided to throw a body-painting party, since his parents are in Michigan for the weekend. And everyone is painting their vision of what the aliens look like. The one on my chest looks like a sad potato with big eyes and two dicks.
I’m hugging a half-empty twelve-pack. I set it next to the table where Randy’s talking to Andy.
He says, “This doesn’t prove that life exists on Pud Five. Can’t anybody see what’s really going on? The government is just trying to distract us from the war.”
Andy says, “Every satellite across the planet heard the music. How could they have faked that?”
He shakes his head with his eyes closed. “You don’t know what the government is capable of. They can fake these signals.”
“You’re on too many conspiracy theory sites.”
“I saw it on the New York Times, dick. They were saying that a radio signal from four and a half light-years away would come in sounding like shit, but the quality was perfect. And they were saying that the Alpha Centauris are the closest stars to us. The odds of intelligent life being that close have to be at least one in a trillion.”
“Who’s got next?” I shout again.
“Have you ever heard what Carl Sagan said?” The girl from Perrysburg wanders into Randy and Andy’s convo, looking in their direction but not really looking at anyone. “He was this smart space guy, and he said that we shouldn’t have —” And then she gets a little louder, “He said we shouldn’t have contacted aliens because now they’re going to take over our planet!”
My phone rings. Mark Shugar’s calling, and so I step out of this obnoxious conversation. I move to a quieter spot, where I see Kaitlyn and Gabe waiting their turns at the Slip’N Slide. She’s looking at him with some pretty turned-on eyes, one hand holding a Solo cup, the other making a claw shape on his chest.
Mark says, “’Sup, Scrobes?”
“Yo.”
“How are the boobs? It must be, like, a boob forest there.”
“Nah, I’d say it’s more like a boob savanna. None of the girls got topless; they’re all just in their bras or swimsuits. But I’m pretty sure Kaitlyn and Gabe are hooking up tonight.”
“Kaitlyn Sherwin?” He’s just as surprised by this as I am.
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t she wear a purity ring?”
“Yeah. We were playing beer pong and —”
“She was drinking? Wow.”
“— and she said how any day now we’re gonna get anally probed to death by aliens.”
He laughs. “Solid poops. I’m so pissed I can’t be there.”
“I don’t see why everyone’s making a big deal about this. We just heard some music. It’s not like they sent us a message of our impending doom.”
“Well, you gotta find someone to hook up with tonight, because you’re never going to have a better opportunity than this.”
“I know,” I say, even though I hadn’t planned on it. Call me old-fashioned, but I kinda wanted to lose my virginity to someone who actually likes me, instead of someone who just wants to do it because she thinks aliens are about to murder her.
“You promise me?”
“Derek, I’ll play you.” I turn around, and oh, my God. Jennifer Novak from Spanish class has appeared from out of nowhere, and she’s completely topless.
Do not look at her chest.
The crowd over by the Slip’N Slide stop slipping and sliding, and now they’re all staring at her, mouths and eyes wide open in disbelief. Some are laughing, others are pointing, and a few have their hands over their mouths.
“Shug, I gotta let you go.” I turn off my phone, and suddenly there’s a nervous lump in the back of my throat. What the heck do I say to her? Hey, I see you’re not wearing a bra. That’s neat.
“You got a partner?” I manage.
“We can just do one-on-one.”
Why is she talking to me? This is Jennifer Novak. I had heard from Shugar via his ex-girlfriend Nikki that she’s slept with four guys and fooled around with a couple of girls. There’s no way she’s interested in me like that. Is there?
Dude. Calm down. All she said is that she’d play me in beer pong.
Andy, Randy, and the Perrysburg girl are still intensely debating the existence of aliens, but they’ve relocated from the Ping-Pong table to the patio, paying no attention to the fact that I’m talking to a girl wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.
“Someone’s looking to get laid tonight!” someone calls out, and a bunch of people cheer and raise their cups.
“Yeah, and that’s me!” another guy bellows out, and it’s like I’m in the middle of a flock of douchebags perform
ing their mating calls. But Jenny appears unfazed and almost comfortable standing there so exposed, even with all the hormones raging around her. She’s gotta be on something.
We each arrange our ten plastic cups in the form of a triangle, use two beers to fill them, and shoot to see who goes first. We both sink our first throw, each in the front cup — mine circles the rim while hers plops right in. We throw again. This time hers splashes my back left corner cup and mine air-balls it.
“You just said ‘Shug,’” she says. “Did you mean Mark Shugar?”
“Yeah.”
“He told me he was going to be here.”
“His parents grounded him. He got in a fender bender last night.”
And had he been here at Dorton’s, he’d be stripped down to his Hugo Boss almost-thong. He spent forty bucks on it and was dying to show off the fact he completed two months of the Insanity workout. So yeah, I’m fine with him not being here. Lately he’s been doing this obnoxious thing where he stretches and casually lifts up his shirt to scratch his two-and-a-half-pack abs.
She says, “Why didn’t he just bust out? Not many days we discover we’re not alone in the universe.”
“His folks know about the party, and they’re not letting him leave their sight. They’re watching that movie Contact.”
“That stinks.”
“It’s not that bad of a movie.”
“I mean, I wanted to talk to him about our physics project.”
I say, “At a party?”
I don’t say, And also topless?
“Yeah.”
Man, she’s so hot it’s unfair. It’s not just her boobs or her smile, but also her really long auburn hair; even her slightly nasal voice sounds sexy. Her skin is November-in-Ohio pale, but she’s got that kind of Mediterranean complexion that tans easily in the summertime.
I manage my breath while she retrieves the ball. I can’t handle this. From the waist down, I’m wearing nothing but my flannel boxers and fighting down a semi. Like every ten seconds, I check and make sure my wiener — whom I call the King in the North — doesn’t poke out to say “heyoo” to the world.
She cleans off the Ping-Pong balls in her water cup and casually bounces her first throw, but I slap it away.
House rules state: If you sink a ball on a bounce, the opponent drinks two cups. The game ends on two consecutive hits in the last cup, and if only one is made, the opponent gets a rebuttal. If a ball is rimming around the edge, guys can finger it out, girls can blow it out.
“So, Jenny, what do you think about that music from Pud Five?” I say, because it’s either that or talk about this unseasonably warm weather we’re having or the shit going on in Raya or Spanish class. “Intelligent life exists on another planet.”
She blows out my throw, though it definitely wasn’t rimming the cup.
She says, “No one calls me Jenny except for my brother.”
She ends my three-game streak and, yeah, I admit she’s got skills, but I just couldn’t focus. I chug the remaining beers, give a solid burp, and now I’m standing next to her. I gotta think of something interesting to say, or else she’s gonna get bored and end up talking to somebody else.
Dammit. I got nothing.
Jenny offers me a cigarette. I press it between my lips. The last and only time I smoked a cigarette was freshman year, back when Shugar got his first dime bag and he was teaching me and Andy how to inhale.
She says nothing, lighting mine, then hers. I have to cough, but I choke it down and my eyes water. I’m about to ask her what her favorite band is when Dorton appears from the Slip’N Slide in his board shorts with his hat on backward. He’s dripping with soapy water, there are scrapes up and down his chest, and his right knee is bleeding pretty hard. He lifts Jenny into his arms and spins her in a circle. Dorton’s strong, and suddenly I’m extra skinny.
“Cut it out, Kyle!” she squeals, and rage shoots through me. What the actual fuck? She never asked him to pick her up.
I march toward them like I’m about to fight him. But would I actually do that? Defend the honor of a girl I’ve barely talked to since she joined the Brandywine swim league in eighth grade?
It’s weird, but I still remember that one time after practice we were sitting with our feet in the pool and she said, “What do you call cheese that’s not yours?”
I knew the answer — everyone in the world did — but I still played along. “What?”
“Not your cheese.”
I really wasn’t expecting that, and I ended up laughing so hard that I had to look away, because I could feel my face reaching an embarrassing level of red.
Dorton puts Jenny down. She’s smiling and puts her arm around his waist like she’s into him. Maybe he’s one of the guys she’s hooked up with before. Or maybe he’s going to be the one she hooks up with tonight.
“Yo, Derek, my eyes are up here,” Jenny says.
Shit, I was staring at her boobs.
Dorton takes her cigarette without asking and finishes it, flicking the butt into the yard. Jenny follows him inside.
Why did she call me out when practically everyone here is staring at her?
I’m not going to waste another second thinking about her. Jenny’s simply out of my league. I need to accept the fact that I belong with a nice girl. Someone who would want to work with me and her parents on one of those thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles that come without the edge pieces.
We had our moment. We played one game of beer pong, and that’s the end of our story. But that’s how it always is: every girl I like ends up with someone else.
This cigarette is awful. I rub the cherry out with my heel and throw the butt in the recycling bin overflowing with beer cans, and then I walk inside. Some horrible R & B song is playing where the singer’s voice is on Auto-Tune. Black lights are illuminating the neon paint on everyone. And Jenny is sensually moving her ass near Dorton’s crotch, and he’s just standing there like it’s no big deal. Everyone is watching her, some casually, but most are gawking. She’s the only girl that I can see who came topless.
Whatever. Jenny’s just whatever. I’m not impressed by the fact that she speaks Spanish better than I do, or that she has those little dimples above her ass that are pretty much the sexiest things.
A girl puts her arms around my waist, grazing my sides with her fingertips, and rage shoots through me. I hate it when people touch my sides. But I resist flipping out. Jenny’s looking in our direction.
This girl with her arm around my waist is Chris Rosales’s little sister Adriana. She’s a nice girl with a cute face. But Jenny is all I want right now.
Adriana gets on her tiptoes and puts her lips close to my ear, and I lean down a little. She says, “I like your alien.”
“Thanks.” I have to make it look like we’re in an interesting conversation. “So, I see you came fully clothed.”
She laughs. “My mama would kill me if she knew I was here. I swear everybody’s gonna be hooking up.”
“What? You didn’t hear? Aliens are a total aphrodisiac.”
She smiles like she’s about to kiss me. “But I’m glad I came.”
Someone taps me on the shoulder.
“What’s up, Señor Pervert?” Jenny says with her arms crossed. She almost looks jealous that I’m talking to somebody else, although a minute ago she was all over Dorton.
“I wasn’t looking at your boobs.”
“Hi,” Adriana says to her sweetly. “If you don’t mind, Derek and I were talking.”
Jenny uncrosses her arms. I unapologetically and studiously stare at her.
She rolls her eyes. “Such a creeper.”
“No, I’m just debating whether or not I’ve seen better teats on a pregnant cat.”
My chest tightens. I can’t believe I insulted her. It just came out of me before I had a moment to think. She’s probably going to grab someone’s drink and throw it in my face.
Her head jerks back and her eyes get big. She cracks a smile, t
hen busts up laughing. I breathe. Thank God, she’s not offended.
I really have no idea how to flirt.
“That’s not very nice,” she says.
“I’m not a nice guy.”
“Yeah right. All your favorite movies on Facebook are fantasy or Disney.”
Whoa. She’s looked at my profile. That’s so . . . I don’t even care to bring up the fact that I only made that page so Dad could share stuff with me, or that I haven’t updated it in years.
I turn around and Adriana is nowhere to be seen. I know I should feel bad that I’m such an asshole, but I lean closer to Jenny. She cups her hand around my ear and shouts, “What’s your favorite movie?”
I flinch. “The Lion King. First movie I ever watched. That scene where Mufasa appears in the clouds and, you know, even though my testes are, like, forged in the fires of Mount Doom, that scene really got me.”
She gives me a blank look. The music is thumping in my skull. She says, “I have no idea what you said.”
I respond with, “Want to walk with me outside?”
We each take turns putting on our clothes in Dorton’s parents’ office. I’ve got my black polo, a pair of jeans, and a Browns cap, and she’s . . . well, she’s got a bra on now, and a pink T-shirt that says: “My friend went to the Lousy T-Shirt Store and all I got was this lousy T-shirt,” which is amazing, but I make no reaction. As we walk out the front door, she takes a walking stick that was resting against the siding. It’s almost as tall as she is.
I say, “Is that yours?”
“Uh-huh.”
It’s been sanded down, but the top is twisted and gnarled, making it resemble a staff. Maybe she’s also into fantasy.
I say, “Who do you think you are? Some sort of wizard?”
“Yeah. I do.” She gets into an attack stance with a devilish smile, holding her staff like a sword. “Hi-yah!”
“That’s not what wizards say. They say things like, ‘You shall not pass.’”
She taps me on the arm with her staff. “Hi-yaaah!” She laughs.
“No, like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, but back when he was gray and not white. You know, when he faced the Balrog.” I repeat the line: “‘You shall not pass.’” It comes out weaker than I expected, because she’s giving me a blank look, and only now do I realize just how big of a dork I am. My face gets warm. “What’s your favorite movie?”