The gymnasium’s heart kept beating across the parking lot, the inside blushing crimson, blue, lime, the outlines of students pulsing the same colors. I looked at Snake. He was biting the inside of his cheek, working the soft flesh.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
Snake took another gulp and smacked his lips, exhaling loudly. “I think I put in too much vodka,” he said, steering the conversation from one incompetent act to another.
“Yes, you did.” I held my cup by the rim with my fingertips and swirled my drink around.
“I’m not a bartender,” he said.
“Maybe you should go to bartending school,” I told him.
“Dude, there’s no such thing as bartending school.”
“You want to bet?”
Snake lowered his cup. “You’re shitting me.”
“You know Jonathan Meeks?”
“That tall dude?”
I nodded. “His brother’s in bartending school.”
“Man, I should do that. Bartenders are always getting laid.” Snake took a swig and looked into his cup as if there were a goldfish swimming in it. “Soon as I get out of this shithole, that’s what I’m doing.”
Again the ground behind Snake’s car lit up with headlights. We moved our cups behind our legs once more and tried to look normal, not like two teenagers getting hammered in the parking lot.
A car horn chirped, and we both turned around quickly. It was Isabel, wavy-haired and green-eyed Isabel.
Vanessa leaned out from the passenger seat and shouted, “What’re you guys doing?”
Snake and I lifted our cups as if we were making a toast.
Isabel smiled and shook her head slowly. “We’ll be back.” She hit the gas and rolled off to find parking, sparks of light sliding along the car’s frame.
“She’s hella cute,” I told Snake.
“So’s Vanessa.”
“I think she digs me.”
“Vanessa?”
“No, dipshit. Isabel.”
“Yeah, I think she does,” Snake said. “But Vanessa’s got a better booty.” He palmed an imaginary ass in front of him and moved his hips suggestively.
I finished my drink and watched Isabel’s car glide down the parking lot and turn around. “There was something between us when we met,” I said.
“Between you and Vanessa?”
I flicked Snake on the side of his head and my finger thumped against his skull. “Isabel,” I corrected him.
“Shit, man, I thought you were talking about Vanessa again,” Snake said. “I know you work both at the museum with you.”
“What?” I said, laughing. “Did you hear what you just said?”
Snake blinked.
“You said, You work both at the museum with you.”
“I did?”
Even though we were standing just outside a lamppost’s circle of light, there was enough illumination for me to see that Snake’s eyes were now glassy.
“Are you drunk already?” I asked him.
“I’m cool,” he said.
“Sure you are,” I said. “You lightweight.”
“Bitch, what are you talking about? I can drink more than you.” Then, as if to prove his point, Snake lifted his cup to his lips and tipped his head back, finishing his drink in one quick motion. “Just like water,” he said.
Isabel and Vanessa walked toward us through the parking lot, chatting quietly. Isabel wore a dark red dress with a black sweater. Her hair drifted behind her.
“Hey, guys,” Vanessa said.
“Hello, ladies,” Snake said. “Would any of you care for a drink?”
“You look nice,” I told Isabel.
“Thanks,” she said. “You too.” She crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. She did this thing with her mouth, a quick smile that pushed her cheeks out like a chipmunk’s.
“What’re you guys drinking?” Vanessa asked.
Snake reached through the driver’s-side window and pulled out the thermos and a plastic cup. “Cranberry and vodka.”
“Isn’t that a Sea-Breeze?” Vanessa asked.
“More like a Sea-Hurricane,” I said.
Snake handed Vanessa the cup and she raised it to her nose and whiffed. She took a sip and made a sour face. “Oh God,” she said. “How could you drink that?”
“Easy,” Snake bragged.
“Do you have anything else?”
“I’ve got another thermos with OJ and vodka.”
A car rolled toward us and we hid our cups. It was Mr. Ziolkowski, folded inside his Jetta. He was hunched over the steering wheel, his forehead inches from the windshield. He gazed in our direction and waved.
“We should probably drink in your car,” I told Snake. “Play it safe.”
“Good idea,” Isabel said.
Snake climbed behind the wheel and leaned over to open the passenger-side door for Vanessa. I let Isabel into the backseat first before I scooted next to her. She smelled like vanilla and flowers, her hair or skin, I couldn’t tell which.
Snake put his key into the ignition and turned it halfway so the console lit up blue. A song filled the car with a thick bass and lazy drumbeat, a woman’s voice threading through the rhythm. Snake eased the volume down and uncapped the thermos. “Screwdriver, anyone?” he asked.
Vanessa held her cup out and Snake filled it. She brought her drink to her lips tentatively and sipped. “Much better,” she said.
Snake filled another cup and passed it to Isabel. “There you go,” he said. “Drink that so Carlos has a chance.”
Isabel did that chipmunk smile again—a nervous twitch, my guess.
I reached over the seat and thumped Snake on the skull as hard as I could.
“Ow!” he exclaimed. “Man.”
“You deserved that,” Vanessa said.
Snake looked at her. “Babe, that hurts.”
Vanessa cocked her head to one side and raised her eyebrows. “Babe? You’re already calling me babe?” She jabbed her finger at Snake’s waist.
“Don’t,” he said, dropping his elbow and backing off. “I’m ticklish.”
She poked him again.
“So you guys want to know how Snake got his nickname or what?” I asked.
“Yes,” Isabel and Vanessa said in unison, excited.
“Don’t tell them the part I told you not to tell,” Snake reminded me.
“You mean when you pissed in your pants? That part?” I said.
Vanessa nearly choked on her drink.
“Oh, this is going to be good,” Isabel said.
“Screw it. Tell ’em everything.” Snake waved his hand around like a magician after performing a trick.
“This happened last year, in Ms. Wagner’s health class,” I began. “Me and Snake sat next to each other in the back.”
“What’s your real name, by the way?” Vanessa asked.
“Jeffrey,” Snake said.
I reached over with my cup and motioned for Snake to fill it. “So anyway, Ms. Wagner was showing us this video on snakebites, about what steps to take if you’re ever bitten by a poisonous snake. The dramatizations were so lame.”
Snake unscrewed the thermos. “They were really lame. Remember the park ranger with the knee-high socks?”
“Don’t interrupt,” Vanessa said, poking. “Go on, Carlos.”
“It was pretty hysterical. I mean, they had this guy hobbling back to his campsite, wincing. Then he showed his friend his leg and the snakebite looked so phony, like someone made two dots with a red felt pen.” I took a sip from my cup. “Me and Snake were laughing, everyone’s laughing, and Ms. Wagner was getting mad, shushing us. Then the video switched to these color photographs of untreated snakebites.”
“It was gnarly,” Snake said.
“They showed these hands that were all swollen and black. The fingers looked like burnt sausages.”
Vanessa twisted up her face. “Gross.”
“One of the photos was of this dude’s
leg, his calf,” I continued. “It was fat and purple and all shiny like an eggplant. Then they showed the same leg split open during surgery and we got to see what the poison had done to the muscle. Really nasty stuff.”
“It sounds like it,” Isabel said.
I took another sip. “In the corner of my eye I see Snake lean my way, like he wants to whisper something to me. Next thing I know—Wham!—he’s on the floor.”
Isabel covered her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“You fainted?” Vanessa asked.
“Yeah,” Snake said shyly.
“Hey, I fainted on a hike once.”
“All right.” Snake made a fist and held it in front of Vanessa. “Fist bump,” he said.
Vanessa tapped Snake’s fist softly with her own and giggled.
“Anyway, someone hit the lights and there was Snake sprawled out on the floor. All of a sudden, there was a wet spot on the crotch of his jeans, getting bigger and bigger.”
“Aw, poor baby wet his diaper,” Vanessa teased.
Snake nodded sheepishly.
“Ms. Wagner kneeled at his side and all the students crowded around. Eventually Snake came to, like he was waking from a big nap.”
“I was so damn confused,” Snake said. “I didn’t know how the hell I ended up on the floor.”
“Then what happened?” Vanessa asked, sipping her drink.
“He sat back down on his chair and started to rub his noggin, like this.” I demonstrated, sliding my palm across my forehead. “Then Ms. Wagner asked me to walk him to the school nurse.”
“Poor you,” Vanessa said, caressing Snake’s arm. She turned to me. “Weren’t you scared when it happened?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But when he woke up, then it was funny as shit.”
“What a friend,” Snake said.
Vanessa rubbed Snake’s arm again. “Are you wearing Huggies now?”
Everyone laughed but Isabel. She was looking out the car window, across the parking lot, her eyes frozen on some faraway object. I tried to figure out what it was that held her attention, but there was nothing out there but a row of houses sunk in darkness and a lone streetlamp’s yellow halo.
“Wow, that’s a great story,” Vanessa said. She turned around in her seat. “Right, Isabel?”
She kept staring out the window.
“Is,” Vanessa said.
Still nothing.
“Is!” Vanessa shouted.
ISABEL
I snapped out of my tunnel vision, my daydreaming, whatever you want to call it, and looked at Vanessa and Snake and Carlos, all of whom were looking at me.
“Sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking.”
“Obviously,” Vanessa said.
Carlos put his hand gently on my leg. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “I zone out sometimes, that’s all.” I took a big gulp from my drink and smiled.
It was happening more and more frequently—spacing out. Anything could set me off. A struck match, a car horn, windblown trees, a stranger’s cough. This time it was the image of Snake tipping over, the whack of his body as he hit the classroom floor. I started wondering what it would feel like to faint, what happens to the brain, if it’s anything like death or if it’s more like sleeping, a quick nap. And then I wondered what happens the instant you die—the exact moment—if it’s like a light switch turned off and the room is suddenly dark, or was it the opposite, a million lights blazing. But wouldn’t someone need their eyes to see that being dead was complete darkness or complete brightness, and wouldn’t that be impossible, the person being dead and all, including the eyes, and is that why humans came up with the idea of the soul and heaven and religion, because an afterlife that consisted of nothing but nothing was too hard to visualize, too lonely to imagine?
This got me thinking of Gabriel, of the photos I took of him with my digital camera and clicked through on my computer the other day. Gabriel on the bleachers, Gabriel striking a pose in a sombrero, Gabriel in the swimming pool with the water up to his neck, hair slicked back, the shadow of a palm tree behind him on a wall like a twelve-fingered hand reaching. A wave of guilt slammed into me and I began to kick myself for thinking I was ready to be with another guy. Maybe I needed a couple more weeks. A few more months. Another year. Maybe my heart would never be ready.
“Is!” Vanessa shouted again, breaking my spell.
Carlos removed his hand from my leg, Vanessa turned back around in her seat, and Snake unscrewed the thermos and filled his cup once more.
“Shit, Carlos, I forgot to tell you,” Snake said. “Will wanted you to call him.”
Carlos leaned forward. “Did he say what it was about?”
“He didn’t. Probably Suji.”
“Suji Kim?” I asked.
“You know her?”
“She’s in my English class,” I said. “She hasn’t been there for the past two days, though.”
Carlos leaned back in his seat and made a sound in his throat, a short hum. “When did you talk to him?”
“Just before I left to pick you up,” Snake said.
Carlos took out his cell phone and checked his messages. “This is probably him,” he said, and lowered his head, listening.
“You good back there?” Snake said. He shook the thermos and the booze sloshed inside of it.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, then took a sip from my cup. I heard some kids laughing in the parking lot behind me, the chime of a kicked bottle skittering across the blacktop. I looked over my shoulder and saw them heading toward the gymnasium, one boy already dancing, his hands pushing upward as if he were lifting a heavy box.
“You want to go inside?” Carlos asked me, slipping his phone back into his front pocket.
“Sure,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure. The guilt was still swirling around me.
“I should warn you, Is,” Snake said. “Carlos looks like he’s being stung by bees when he dances.”
“Dude, you should talk.” Carlos turned to me. “You know those dolls you see on dashboards with the springy necks?”
“You mean a bobble head?”
“Yeah, those things. Snake dances like a bobble head in a car going over potholes.”
Vanessa was in mid-sip and quickly covered her mouth to stop from spraying orange juice and vodka all over the windshield. Her shoulders quaked, she held her laughter inside her mouth with her drink. Finally she composed herself and gulped it all down. She laughed and coughed, fanning her face with her hand. “Almost,” she said, giggling. “That was close.”
“I laughed Pepsi out of my nose once when I was a kid,” Snake said.
“God, you’re really turning me on,” Vanessa said, still chuckling. “Pepsi out of your nose, piss in your jeans. You’re a keeper.”
Then we were all laughing. Even Snake.
“Let’s go inside and tear up the dance floor,” Carlos said, already opening the door.
Snake whispered something to Vanessa, and Vanessa whispered something back. I finished my drink and set it down on the floor of the car.
“We’ll meet you guys inside,” Snake said.
Carlos and I looked at each other. There was a pause there, a moment when we both weighed the idea of spending a few minutes alone. “Come on,” he said.
I put my hand on Vanessa’s shoulder. “Don’t be long.”
Vanessa covered my hand with hers and turned her head so I saw her profile in the console’s glow, the powder blue line from forehead to chin. “We won’t be,” she said.
I stepped out into the cool evening and straightened my sweater. The gymnasium was at the end of the parking lot and I could see kids inside the front entrance, their silhouettes, the wall flashing orange and yellow like they were standing around a bonfire.
Carlos blew into his cupped hands. “Chilly.”
“I’ve got my sweater,” I said, stating the obvious.
“It’s nice.”
“Thanks.”
I held one of the pearly white beads and rolled it between my thumb and forefinger. “Me too,” I said.
We began walking across the parking lot. Whenever we decided to zigzag between cars, Carlos let me go first. I thought it was really sweet, but then I thought maybe he wanted to check out my ass.
“Sorry about Snake,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“That comment he made about drinking so I’d have a chance.”
“Oh,” I said. “I thought that was kind of funny.”
“He likes to embarrass me. If we’re in an elevator with other people, or in a line for a movie, he’ll say really loud, So, how’s your rash doing? or something like that.”
“I’d be afraid to go out with him in public,” I said.
“I guess I’m sort of used to it.”
We had to zigzag through a couple more cars and Carlos slowed down. “After you,” he said.
I smiled and walked ahead of him, hoping my sweater and dress didn’t make my ass look too big.
We stepped onto the walkway that cut through the grass and straight to the gymnasium’s front doors. The speakers thumped louder as we approached, the lights flashed brighter, white and pink now. I heard the chatter and laughter of students inside, their voices coming in and out of the music’s crashing waves.
Mr. Bissell and Ms. Lauden were seated behind a table just outside the entrance. There was a fat red roll of raffle tickets and a clipboard with a pencil tied to the metal clasp. Mr. Bissell picked up the pencil and made two quick lines on a sheet that was already crowded with marks.
“Here you go,” Ms. Lauden chimed, tearing off a couple raffle tickets and handing them to us. “We’re giving away a gift bag at the end of the dance.”
“What’s in the gift bag?” Carlos asked.
“It’s a surprise.”
Mr. Bissell muttered something under his breath and Ms. Lauden elbowed him playfully.
When we stepped into the gymnasium we were slammed with the music and splashed with colored lights. The air was warm from the heat of other bodies as we shuffled past one of the throbbing speakers, my dress vibrating against my skin. The DJ stood on a platform with headphones and bobbed his head like a parrot. Carlos took my hand and together we maneuvered through the flailing crowd, the maze of dancing bodies. Once he found a good spot, he turned around and said something that sounded like, Take chances like this.
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