Klepto

by Jenny Pollack

  We were pretty psyched about Gordon’s New Year’s Eve party, because it was at his dad’s apartment and he was out of town. Ever since Oliver called Julie, he was all she could talk about. Oliver, Oliver, Oliver. Did I think he would like her New Year’s outfit? She had given him Gordon’s address and told him to stop by; didn’t I hope he would? Or maybe we’d hook up with him after the party? I was too busy thinking about Josh Heller. Would he be at Gordon’s party? Probably not. I had heard the juniors were having their own party somewhere.

  Gordon’s dad lived in a skanky neighborhood called Alphabet City a couple of blocks from CBGB’s where Fried X played. All the buildings there seemed identical and kind of dark and spooky. When we got to the party, people were already spread out all over the living room and kitchen. There were empty Budweiser beer cans lying around, and big bowls of chips on the coffee table. The living-room couches were frayed and covered with these hippie-looking bedspreads. My first thought was, Gordon’s dad must be young, because his place seemed like a college student bachelor pad. In spite of how beat-up the furniture was, there was the coolest sound system. This guy in our class in the music department, Wally, was an excellent mixer/DJ, so he started pulling out records and blending one song into another. A bunch of us started dancing, which was totally fun. He mixed the Jackson 5’s “ABC” into “Physical” by Olivia Newton-John, which totally cracked us up and was really fun to dance to.

  Julie, Natalie, and I danced for a while until we were totally sweaty and dying of thirst. It was about eleven o’clock when who walks in the front door but Oliver! Damn, he must really like Julie, ’cause I didn’t think this older guy would show up to hang out with freshmen like us. Well, it took about two minutes before Julie and Oliver disappeared off to some bedroom, and I thought, Shit. I had gone to the bathroom for two seconds to redo my lipstick, so Julie didn’t even have a chance to tell me where she was going.

  I looked around for Natalie and almost jumped back when I saw her and Reggie Ramirez curled up in this big rust-colored armchair totally making out! People were sitting right next to them on the couch and they were just going at it like no one was even there! Reggie’s hand was going up Natalie’s dress a little bit, and she wasn’t even trying to stop him. I didn’t know what to do, not just ’cause I had no one to hang out with (let alone make out with), but I couldn’t stop staring at Natalie and Reggie groping each other, even though I knew that was sick.

  The music coming out of the room where I thought Oliver and Julie went was really loud. It was “Everytime I Think of You” by the Babys, and totally different music was playing in the living room, like Adam and the Ants or something. Oliver and Julie had to be fooling around in there. I wondered if they were naked. I knew I’d get the full scoop later. So I looked around, and the only other person who was not talking to anyone else was Wally, who was super skinny and had greasy hair. Poor Wally, I mean he was a really nice guy, but he wasn’t exactly popular. People just liked him ’cause he could DJ. Anyway, Wally was pretty much ignoring me, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He seemed obsessed with peeling off the label of his Heineken in one piece in between spinning two turntables.

  Now Natalie and Reggie had also gone off somewhere; the chair they had been making out in was empty. Where were Jennifer, Gordon, and Daze? The people on the couch must have been friends of Gordon’s who didn’t go to P.A. The thought that Wally and I were the big losers of this party made me want to cry, and I had to work hard to fight back tears. I went into the dark kitchen, where some people were talking and dancing and kissing. They didn’t even notice I entered the room. How could I interrupt Julie and Oliver to tell them I wanted to go home? They would think I was such a dork; it wasn’t even midnight yet. My watch said 11:47. I looked out the window at the creepy neighborhood and felt scared. I saw a couple with party hats stumbling around and a group of, like, eight people laughing and singing. I didn’t really want to leave the party by myself, and I thought a cab all the way uptown would be expensive. What would I do if Julie stayed in that room with Oliver all night? What if she didn’t actually want to be in there and I was supposed to save her?

  I opened the fridge. Inside there were some bottles of Heineken, a few wine coolers, an open can of 9 Lives, and a saucepan with a lid on it that I didn’t dare touch. I suddenly thought of my fridge at home on Fridays after Mom went shopping, when it was stocked with lunch meats, snack-pack puddings, cans of V8, Yodels, Granny Smith apples, carrot sticks, and whatever else. Then my mind drifted to the fight Mom and Dad had had just a couple of nights ago.

  “I just don’t know how we’re going to swing it,” Dad said, sounding angry.

  “We’ll find a way, Bernie, we always do,” Mom said. “Ellie will qualify for a student loan. RISD is her first choice. We’ll find a way.” RISD was Rhode Island School of Design and Ellie really wanted to go there. It was pronounced like RIZ-dee.

  “We’re not Rockefellers, Helene, or hadn’t you noticed?” Dad said, holding up the grocery receipt. “How you manage to spend this much on groceries for a family of four is just beyond me—”

  “Bernie, please stop talking to me in that tone of voice,” my mother said. “You want to do the shopping? You do it! You’ll see what it costs!”

  “Helene! Stop already!” was his response, and he stormed off to the bedroom muttering something about what would be the harm in going to a state school; after all, he went to City College and turned out fine.

  The music switched from Adam and the Ants to the Hall and Oates song “Kiss on My List.” I took a bottle of Heineken and opened it with the sticky opener lying on the counter. Heineken tasted like a metal railing to me. When I went back to the living room, some heavy guy I didn’t recognize was in the rust-colored chair smoking. I looked around for a place to sit, thinking, I got all dressed up for this? Everyone was off losing their virginity, and I was sitting on the arm of an ugly couch with people I didn’t know.

  I decided the only thing to do was to go look through Gordon’s dad’s extensive music collection. I was an actress, after all; I could act like I wasn’t bugging out. There was this really tall black painted bookshelf full of records and tapes. Looking at the tapes with my back to everyone, I could fight back my tears or even let a few slip in semi-privacy. C’mon, Julie, I willed my best friend, come out of there. Please don’t lose it tonight, I’ll just die if you do. I’ll be, like, the only virgin in our class. I made myself take big swallows of my Heineken. This seemed to help a little. I spotted a brand-new cassette of the Split Enz called True Colours with “colours” spelled the British way. It still had the plastic on it.

  I don’t know why, but taking this Split Enz tape suddenly seemed like the most important thing. And the easiest. It was dark and smoky and noisy, and no one was even aware of my presence. I mean no one. I slipped the cassette under the skirt of my dress and, pinching it there in place with my hand, walked a little awkwardly to the bathroom. The bathroom was at the end of this short unlit hallway, but the doorknob wouldn’t turn—it was occupied. Shit. Then I realized no one could see me in the hallway, so I quickly pulled up the skirt of my dress and stuck the tape in the hip of my tights. It just barely fit there and you could only see the shape of the box if you were looking.

  Then the phone rang and I couldn’t believe anyone even heard it, but the music went off where Oliver and Julie were and Oliver came out barefoot wearing jeans and his white shirt unbuttoned. I could see his chest hair. He went right to the kitchen without seeing me and I heard him pop the tops off a couple of beers.

  I looked at the door he left slightly open. “Jule?” I said kind of loudly over the music coming from the living room. She saw me and waved me in, excitedly. She was half naked under a comforter, pulling her bra back on, grinning ear to ear. Oh my God. No, this wasn’t really happening.

  “Julie,” she said, smiling, “it’s true what they say. It was kinda painful.”

  This had to be, hands down, the ab
solute worst night. Of my life.

  “What?” I said, noticing how shaky my voice sounded, hoping Julie didn’t.

  “I did it!” she said, her face shiny and smiling. I had this urge to just run out of there, but instead I sat on the edge of the bed and felt frozen. What was Josh Heller doing that very moment? I wondered. Not thinking about me, that was for sure.

  “I did it,” Julie said again, almost to herself. “I can’t believe it.”

  Then we heard a group of people in the living room counting down. Suddenly the music went off and Dick Clark came on the TV.

  “Six, five, four, three, two, ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!” everyone yelled. We heard various screams, noise-makers, and horns from people on the street. People in the living room were hugging and kissing with continuous “Happy New Year’s” that overlapped each other. Julie sat up, still partially under the comforter, and opened her arms to hug me.

  “Happy nineteen eighty-two, Jule!” she said, and we hugged. “This is gonna be the best year ever.”

  “Happy nineteen eighty-two,” I said, and watched my tears fall into Julie’s hair. I could feel the plastic cassette box pinching me in my stomach.

  At about two o’clock in the morning, Julie, Natalie, and I left the party in a cab. Natalie immediately launched into the story of how she didn’t go all the way with Reggie but he did go up her shirt and he had amazing hands. I just sat there feeling like the inexperienced idiot I was, thinking that I couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like to be felt up, and the tears came running silently down my face again into my dress. Nobody noticed for a while—Julie and Natalie just kept talking about Oliver and Reggie—until finally Julie said I was being really quiet.

  “Did you have a good time?” she asked me, which had to be the dumbest question of the century. Before I even answered, she saw me crying and said, “Oh no! What’s the matter?” She took my hand, and Natalie swung her head around and said, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I sobbed. “I just—feel—like—I’m never gonna—have a boyfriend—” I stammered, trying to breathe. “Or do—half the things you guys have done—” More sobbing and breathing, and I wanted to say, “No guys will ever like me, I’ll be a virgin for the rest of my life!” which I knew was really dramatic, but I couldn’t get it out anyway because of the huge gulpy breaths I had to take through my tears. Julie and Natalie jumped right into, “That’s not true!” and “Are you crazy?” and “Of course you’ll have a boyfriend!” and other comfort-me words.

  “Of course you’ll have a boyfriend!” Julie said again. “You are, like, such a catch!” Now she had her arm around me so I was leaning into her, crying into her shirt, and Natalie was pushing hair out of my face.

  “Totally,” Natalie chimed in. “I bet you anything Josh Heller will ask you out.”

  “He doesn’t even know I exist!” I sobbed.

  “Oh, that’s not true!” Julie said. “He brought you coffee!”

  “He what?” Natalie said, and Julie told her about that day in French class.

  “Oh my God! That is, like, such a sign! He must like you, Julie!” Natalie said.

  “Yeah, but he totally ignored me at Kahti Fearon’s party,” I argued, sounding like a baby.

  “But so what?” Julie said. “You were making out with David Wine!”

  “You what?” Natalie said. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! You creepy slut!” This kind of made me laugh and catch my breath a little.

  “You can’t tell anyone, Nat,” I said. “I didn’t tell you ’cause Jennifer Smalls likes David, and I didn’t want her to find out.”

  “I won’t tell her, I promise.” Natalie crossed her heart.

  “You see?” Julie said. “If you were an inexperienced loser, would David Wine, who is totally cute, by the way, and the funniest guy in our class, want to make out with you?”

  I didn’t say anything; I just looked down at the wet spots on my dress.

  “No!” Julie and Natalie said together.

  “I’m hungry,” Julie said all of a sudden. We were just getting to the McDonald’s near 72nd Street.

  “Let’s get some fries,” she said. “You could use some fries and a chocolate shake, right, Julie?” Julie told the driver to pull over.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “It’ll be the first chocolate shake of the New Year,” she said.

  11

  If You Lie in Life You Lie Onstage

  Christmas break was over just like that. A couple of days into the new semester, Mom and Dad went to their appointment with their marriage counselor and then out to dinner. Whenever they went out, Ellie and I made Hungry Man TV dinners for ourselves. Or frozen fish sticks with tartar sauce. For some reason, Ellie and I got along better when our parents weren’t around.

  I got home after six o’clock ’cause I went to Sak’s after school. By myself. I got a really cool pair of green Girbaud jeans. There was a little hole at one of the ankles where I cut off the plastic thing, and though I wanted to show them to Ellie I didn’t dare ’cause they were, like, fifty-dollar jeans and she would wonder where I got the money. I was wearing them underneath my painters pants, so when I got home, I made a beeline for my room. I tried to keep my new stolen clothes hidden from Ellie. Whenever she asked about something, I said I had borrowed it from Julie.

  “Hi,” I said to Ellie, who was on the couch, surrounded by books, drawing paper, and pencils, watching Family Feud.

  “Hi,” she said, not looking up. “Mom and Dad said to make salads with our TV dinners—do you want to do that or load the dishwasher later?”

  “I’ll load the dishwasher,” I said, hurrying into my room and closing the door.

  “Geez! What’s the rush?” I heard Ellie call after me.

  I threw my book bag and coat onto my bed and took off the top layer of pants. I was so excited; I couldn’t wait to wear the Girbauds tomorrow. I examined my lower body in the mirror. The jeans made my butt look great, and I even felt almost not fat in them. Just then, Ellie opened my door. I screamed.

  “Oh! Did I scare you?” she said.

  “Yes!” I said holding my heart, “Could you knock please? Jesus, you get so mad at me if I don’t knock on your door!” I subtly sat down on my bed Indian-style and pulled my bag into my lap like I was looking for a book. I tried to cover the jeans with my bag as much as I could. It was maybe a Tony Award-winning moment.

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted to say, dinner’s in about twenty minutes. You want milk?”

  “Okay. Thank you. Good-bye!” I said. How irritating.

  “Okay. You don’t have to be so touchy.” She closed the door. Did she notice the jeans? That whole exchange was too quick for her to notice, right? I changed back into my painters pants.

  We ate dinner watching reruns of I Dream of Jeannie and The Partridge Family—our love of reruns was one of the few things we had in common.

  “What’ll you do if you don’t get into RISD?” I asked Ellie during a commercial.

  “I don’t know, it’ll totally suck. I’ll have to go to one of my safety schools.”

  “I heard Mom and Dad fighting about the cost of tuition the other day. I mean, I probably shouldn’t tell you, ’cause you shouldn’t feel guilty or anything. . . .” I said.

  “No, I already know. But they fight about everything. Their marriage is, like, totally on the rocks,” Ellie said, eating a forkful of mashed potatoes.

  “Yeah,” I said. Then we watched a Pine-Sol commercial without saying anything.

  “What do you think would happen if they got a divorce?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Ellie said. “They’d stop fighting, I guess.”

  Before bed, I was washing my face in the bathroom that Ellie and I shared. You had to walk through Ellie’s room to get to it, which was okay, ’cause Ellie was a pretty deep sleeper—she didn’t wake up if I came in to pee in the middle of the night.

  “Jule?” she said from her
bed, her lap covered with different-sized paintbrushes. She was doing a small water-color painting of her bedroom windows.

  “Yeah?” I poked my head through the bathroom doorway, my mouth full of foamy toothpaste.

  “Where were you after school today?”

  “What?” I gargled.

  “Did you have something after school today? How come you came home so late?”

  I spit out and rinsed. This gave me a few seconds to think.

  “I stayed after to rehearse with Max, my scene partner.”

  “Oh,” she said. I waited a few seconds. She seemed to buy it.

  “Jule?” she asked again, and I held my breath a little.

  “Yeah,” I said, burying my face in a towel.

  “I promise I’ll knock next time,” she said, looking at me.

  “Okay, thanks,” I said.

  “Sleep tight,” she said.

  I got in bed and stared up at the ceiling for a while, thinking about what a liar I was. I lied to Ellie. I couldn’t tell her I went to Sak’s after school ’cause she’d want to know if I got anything and then I’d have to lie about that. I wondered if it was really bad of me to lie so much. My acting teacher, Mrs. Zeig, always said, “If you lie in life, you lie onstage.” I lay there thinking as long as I was a dishonest person I’d always be a dishonest actress. A bad actress.

  Then I thought about my new Girbaud jeans and got excited. What top should I wear with them tomorrow? I wondered. Or should I wait and save them for a special occasion? I went through my wardrobe in my head. Maybe my white long-sleeved shirt with the tiny dancing cartoon guys and musical notes in purple and green and black would go good with the jeans. It was the shirt I was wearing one time when Julie pointed out I dress more cute than sexy. She didn’t mean it in a bad way, I could tell, but it kind of hurt my feelings. Julie could pull off dressing sexy ’cause she was pretty big-chested. I didn’t even start to have a chest until, like, a year ago. Anyway, I liked my musical notes shirt in spite of what Julie said, and it would look great with my new jeans. I’d tell Ellie that I borrowed the jeans from Julie. But I wouldn’t say anything unless she asked.