Stop, Don't Stop

by Jonah Black

Okay, she just said, “Oh!” Out of the corner of my eye I can see her looking at the ink mark on her shirt, and she’s looking around to see if anybody has noticed. Nobody has except me, and I’m pretending I didn’t. Now she’s getting up and asking the proctor if she can go to the bathroom, and she’s running down the hallway, and I think she’s in tears. I can see the pen on the floor where she dropped it and I want to pick it up and draw a message in her notebook, but I don’t know how to make the Japanese characters for Posie You’re Amazing.

  I can say it in German, though. Du bist ausgezeichnet. But it’s not the same.

  (Still Nov. 5, later)

  At the end of German class today Miss von Esse said, “There’s something I need to talk to you about, Jonah,” and the way she said it gave me this big rush. Was she going to give me another chance?

  Everyone else had left the room, so it was just her and me. She sat down behind her desk. “Jonah, you know that some of your teachers are upset about what was done to you,” she said.

  “What was done to me?” I asked her.

  “About your being held back. We feel it’s a waste of your time to repeat eleventh grade.”

  “I know,” I said. “And you told me if I could get my German grades up you’d ask Mrs. Perella to move me back into the senior class. And then I screwed the test up. So I’m stuck.”

  She smiled. “Lately it’s come to our attention that you’ve been under . . . some particular pressure . . . at home.”

  “I have?” I said.

  Miss von Esse nodded. “It’s not easy to study in a home without any parents.”

  “I have parents,” I said, a little defensively.

  “Yes,” she said. “But with your father in Pennsylvania, and your mother . . .” She looked confused for a moment. “Where is your mother, anyway?”

  “She’s on the radio,” I said.

  “Yes. Well, I understand how hard it must be for you to focus,” Miss von Esse said. “Jonah, do you think you could get an A in my class this marking period if you studied extra hard? If you do, I think we can make the case to Mrs. Perella again.”

  “But she won’t listen,” I said. “She hates me.”

  “Jonah,” said Miss von Esse, lowering her voice. “There are a lot of teachers on the faculty here who are rooting for you.”

  I think Miss von Esse was trying to tell me that she likes me. It was kind of nice, and kind of embarrassing.

  “Please, Jonah,” she said. “Study for the next test like it’s the most important test of your life. We want to help you. But you have to give us something to work with.”

  “Okay,” I promised.

  “Okay?” said Miss von Esse. “You’ll do it?”

  “I’ll do it,” I said. But even as I said it I wondered if I could. I guess we’ll find out.

  Oh, there was something else I wanted to write about:

  Last night I had kind of a fight with Honey. Or excuse me, should I say Honor Elspeth? It was the wrong time for a fight because I was on my way out the door to do my route at First Amendment, but there she was, lying around the pool with her top off and these weird kind of eye-protector things that look like a pair of hard-boiled eggs cut in half over her eyes. I went out to say good-bye to her and she somehow felt my eyes and she said, “Quit looking at my boobs, Penishead.”

  “Jesus, Honey, can’t you cover yourself up for like, two seconds?” I said.

  “I don’t want to cover them up. I want to toast ’em like chickens,” she said.

  She pulled a towel over herself and pulled off the sunshades. “You ever think that sex is like KFC chicken?” she said, squinting up at me.

  “No, Honey,” I said. “I never thought that.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not surprised ’cause it’s like this theory that I invented. There’s Regular, there’s Extra Crispy, and there’s the Colonel’s Rotisserie Gold.”

  I shook my head. “Which one’s Smacky?” I said.

  “Smacky?” she said. “You think I’m doing it with Smacky?”

  “Honey,” I said. “You are doing it with Smacky.”

  “Oh, but not for real,” she said. “That’s just, you know, ambient sex.”

  “Ambient?”

  “Yeah, I mean that’s like the sex that’s just like background noise, like the sex you don’t even think about. It’s like mashed potatoes or something,” she said.

  “I thought you said it was like chicken,” I said.

  “Yeah, well if it’s chicken, it’s definitely Regular. It sure isn’t Extra Crispy,” she said.

  “Honey, I have to ask you. What’s the deal with Smacky? I mean really?” I asked her.

  “What do you mean, what’s the deal? He’s my friend,” she said.

  “Honey. He’s a vedge. He’s a total wasteoid. You can speak nine languages. What do you see in him?” I said.

  “I don’t see anything in him. He’s just my friend. Anyway, what do you care?” she asked me.

  “You really want to know? Honestly?” I said.

  “Not really,” Honey said, yawning.

  “I’m worried about you, okay? I’m worried you’re messing up your life,” I said.

  She suddenly seemed really angry at me. “My life is plenty messed up already. Smacky doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she growled.

  “How is your life messed up?” I asked her.

  She sighed. “You might as well read this.” She picked up a letter that was on the ground next to her and handed it to me. It was from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  Dear Ms. Black:

  On behalf of the board of admissions of Harvard University, it gives me great pleasure to extend to you this offer of early admission. We had an exceptionally large pool of applicants this fall for the limited number of spaces available. Your accomplishments and academic record clearly distinguished you from—

  I looked back at her. “Honey,” I said. “You got into Harvard!”

  “Yeah,” she said. She put the sun protectors back on her eyes and lay back on the chaise lounge.

  “Are you going to go?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess.” She reached down and picked her bikini top up off the ground. She hooked her fingers in the straps and shot it at me like a rubber band. It hit me in the head and fell on the ground again. Then she rolled over onto her stomach.

  “You’re sad that you got into Harvard?” I said. “I don’t get it.”

  “Oh, I’m not sad,” she said, but she sounded sad. “I’ll go to Harvard. It’s what everyone expects of me. I’ll go to goddamn Harvard and graduate first in the goddamn class and I’ll become a goddamn lawyer and make a million dollars. Okay? Fine.”

  “But Honey, that’s not a bad life. Is it?”

  “No, it’s terrific,” she said hollowly. “It’s exactly what I’m supposed to do. I don’t even get any choice about it. It’s all written in stone.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry you got into Harvard,” I said. “I don’t know. Maybe you could apply to some other places and see if maybe they’d reject you.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Honey. “I guess it’s something to hope for.”

  As I rode my bike down the front walk Smacky Platte drove up in his pickup. “Jonah, man. ‘S up?” he said.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  (Still Nov. 5, 5:33 P.M.)

  Now I’m at First Amendment Pizza, waiting for my delivery shift to end. About a half hour to go. I’m writing at a table in the back. It’s very quiet in here. I want to write this as fast as I can, then get back to studying for the big German test tomorrow. I have to ace that test so I can be a senior and finally achieve my rightful place in the universe.

  I got here about two hours ago. When I first arrived, Mr. Swede had a whole stack of pizzas ready to go, so I strapped them to the back of the bike and headed out. I delivered the first two pies without anything especially interesting happening, but the third one was to a family n
amed Wright. I wasn’t even thinking about this until I rang the bell, and of course Cilla answered the door. She was wearing this purple bathing suit with fringe on it. I’m not kidding, fringe. She’s just pouring out of it, and I look at her and she looks at me and she says, “Jonah, I am so glad it is you,” and she gets the pizza out of the box and for some reason it’s not pizza now, it’s like a dozen lemons.

  “Hang on, Jonah, let’s do this right,” she says, and we go into her family’s living room, which has cathedral ceilings. Cilla takes off her top and slides down her bottoms and I take off my clothes, too, and the next thing you know we are both juggling the lemons, completely naked. The ceilings are so high that the lemons almost disappear out of sight and we just stand there, the two of us naked, looking up at the sky until finally the lemons rain down on us. Cilla cuts one in half and squeezes the juice all over herself and I go over to help her. She throws her head back and I squeeze a lemon wedge into her mouth and she wrinkles her nose and giggles. “It’s tart,” she says.

  Cilla disappeared for a second and when she came back down the hallway she was wearing a shirt so she wouldn’t appear so naked. She took the pizza box from me and shoved ten bucks in my hand. “Keep the change,” she said. Which meant that I was getting exactly one penny as a tip.

  “Cilla,” I said.

  “If I’d known you were delivering pizzas for First Amendment I would have called someplace else,” she said. She looked like she hated me.

  “How was the concert?” I said.

  “Just go,” she said. “I don’t ever want to talk to you. You’re mean, Jonah.”

  “Just wait. Let me explain. Don’t I even get to explain?” I said.

  “What’s to explain? You told Cecily you’d go with her. You told her you liked her. Then the night before the concert you blow her off. What’s wrong with you?” Cilla demanded.

  Listening to her put it that way, I felt ashamed. Cilla was right. I’d done a really mean thing.

  “I never told her I liked her,” I said, but I knew how lame it sounded.

  “You said you’d go with her. You think she asked you because she hates you?”

  “I said I’d go because I wanted to be nice to her. But I really didn’t want to go. And I knew she thought it was like, a date. So I told her I couldn’t go because I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. You think I should have led her on?” I said. I sounded like my dad, pretending to be rational when I was really being a selfish jerk.

  “You already did,” Cilla said disgustedly.

  “I was trying to keep from hurting her feelings,” I said.

  “Great job. She’s been crying her eyes out for three days!” Cilla exclaimed.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll call her,” I said. I felt terrible. “I don’t want her to be sad.”

  “You leave her alone. You’ve done enough!” Cilla cried. She shook her head. “You know, when you were in the hospital—”

  “What?” I said.

  “She went to see you every day. She never said a thing to you about it. But she was so worried.” Cilla’s lower lip was trembling like she was about to cry. “It was like she was the one who almost died.”

  I was getting tired of this. I mean, Jesus, give this girl an Oscar for Best Actress.

  “I saw her there,” I said. “It was very nice of her.”

  “And this is the way you treat her?” Cilla scoffed.

  “But Cilla, just because she’s nice to me, just because she likes me, that doesn’t mean I can feel the same way. If I went out with her without having any feelings for her, wouldn’t that have been worse?” I said.

  “Why wouldn’t you have any feelings for her? She’s nice. She’s pretty. She’s in love with you. She’s my best friend!” Cilla exclaimed.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s not something I can explain.”

  “Something happened to you when you were at boarding school, didn’t it?” Cilla said, like she knew all about it. “That’s what people say. Something happened and now it’s like you’re this . . . I don’t know what.”

  “What? I’m this what?” I demanded.

  “Nothing,” she said, and slammed the door in my face.

  I wondered if by nothing she meant that she didn’t want to say what she thought I was, or if maybe she thought I was nothing. Like, “Now you’re this nothing.” I guess it doesn’t make any difference.

  “Wait, Cilla,” I said. I opened the door again, which, looking back on this conversation, proves that I must be insane. “I’m sorry. But was the concert fun, at least? Did Cecily have a good time?”

  Cilla glared at me with contempt. “She didn’t go. She stayed home.”

  She slammed the door closed again and I stood there on her stoop, feeling like a total loser. Then I got back on my bike.

  I just can’t figure it out. No matter what I do I make a complete mess of everything.

  On the way back to First Amendment I decided to ride by Thorne’s old house. It’s strange, I never go by there anymore. But at one point in my life, I used to hang out there all the time.

  It was weird to see the Woods’ old house with someone else’s name on the mailbox. And some family I didn’t know was sitting on the front porch, and their kids were playing in the sprinkler out in the yard.

  Next door was the motel that his father used to run. It was all boarded up and on the front door was a big sign saying FOR SALE BY PUBLIC AUCTION.

  It looked like nobody had been there for years and years.

  Nov. 6, 4:30 P.M.

  The day after an unbelievable night. I think my life has been changed forever. Okay, here’s what happened.

  Last night I was lying in bed, studying for the German test, trying to do just what Miss von Esse said, to study like it’s the most important test of my life. Suddenly I heard a motorboat out on Cocoabutter Creek, the engine cut, someone walking quickly across the lawn up to my sliding glass door, a knock.

  “Jonah. It’s me,” she said. “We gotta cruise.”

  “Posie,” I said, completely surprised. It was just like old times, Posie showing up in her boat unannounced. I was so happy to see her.

  “Come on,” she said, and turned to head back to her boat.

  I paused for half a second, looking guiltily at my German textbook. I still had a ton of reviewing if I wanted to ace the test, but I’ve never been able to say no to Posie.

  I grabbed my sweatshirt and went outside. Posie had already started up the boat’s engine. I jumped over the gunwale and hauled the rope off the cleat and off we went.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute,” she said. “Right now I just want to cruise.”

  Posie steered the boat over to the Intercoastal and then up to Lighthouse Point and under the drawbridge, and soon we were headed out to sea. Posie’s face was lit with blue light from the instrument panel, and her hair streamed out behind her. The sky was clear, and a huge moon was shining down on the sea.

  We went out maybe half a mile from shore and then Posie said something I didn’t hear, and I said, “What?” She cut the engine and we just drifted for a moment on a wave of momentum. Then the boat settled down, rocking gently, on the huge quiet ocean. Posie’s hair was fluttering softly in the breeze, which was still warm even for November. There were traces of gold glitter left over from Halloween in her hair and on her neck, and they sparkled in the moonlight.

  Posie looked at me. “I’m in trouble, Jonah,” she said.

  “Tell me about it,” I said.

  “First of all tell me how the Lemon concert was,” Posie said.

  I really didn’t want her to know about Cecily or anything I’d done. And I felt kind of embarrassed for tattling on Thorne at her party, even though I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do. I just didn’t want her to know it was me who had done it.

  “It was fine,” I said.

  “How’re things with Cecily? I guess this means you’re going out n
ow, huh?” Posie asked me.

  “I’m not going out with her,” I said.

  “Why not?” she said.

  “I don’t know. She’s nice but . . . she’s just not for me,” I said.

  Posie smiled, and her smile was like the sun breaking through the clouds. “That’s what I thought all along,” she said. “I’m glad you’re not dating her. Now I don’t have to pretend to like her.”

  “Well, I feel pretty bad for letting her down,” I said. “Even though I don’t want to go out with her, I still feel like an idiot for hurting her feelings.”

  “You’re doing the right thing, Jonah. You can’t go out with someone just because they want you to,” Posie reassured me.

  “Yeah, well, it’s nice to be wanted by somebody,” I said, feeling a little sorry for myself.

  “Oh, Jonah, there are plenty of girls who want you. You’re just not looking.” Her face looked like it was going to shatter, like thin glass.

  I looked at her. “What’s wrong, Posie?”

  “I had this weird time at my party,” she said. “I mean, it was fun and everything. Everybody was there.” She paused. “Everybody except you, I mean.”

  She reached into a cabinet underneath the steering console and pulled out a tin of chaw and stuck a wad of it in her cheek. “But then at like eleven o’clock, I couldn’t find Thorne anywhere. I went downstairs and outside, but he wasn’t around. Finally, I was out near the front deck, and I ran into this guy.”

  “Who?” I asked, acting all oblivious.

  “Well, that’s the thing, he was in disguise. He had this big Bill Clinton head on, and a coat and tie? At first I thought it was Woody, you know, your sister’s Harvard interviewer, because I’d seen him before with the same mask. But this wasn’t him. It was some other guy, and you know what he said to me?” she asked me.

  “What?” I said, still playing dumb.

  “He said that if I wanted to find Thorne I could find him up in my room. With Luna Hayes.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said, trying to sound like this was news to me.

  “That’s what he said. But that wasn’t the weird part,” Posie said.