by Kieran Scott
I glanced up at the house. Swore I saw the curtains move again. “Really?”
“Trust me,” Robbie said confidently. “You can relax. Everything is going to be fine.”
ACT FIVE, SCENE FIVE
In which:
SODA IS FLUNG
“YES! ONE HUNDRED POINTS!” CAMERON CHEERED AS THE Skee-Ball machine spit out twenty tickets. “I rule at this game!” He ripped the tickets off and handed them to me. I stuffed them in the plastic Dave and Buster’s cup with all the others. The ones he’d won at basketball, at the horse-racing game, at the football-throwing game, the NASCAR game. “You sure you don’t want to play?” he asked me.
“Me? No. I’m fine,” I told him.
There was no way I’d let him see how pathetic I was at this stuff. No thanks. Standing here obsessing about the fact that tomorrow night I very well might have to play Rizzo in Washington High School’s sold-out production of Grease was plenty nerve-splitting enough for me. It didn’t matter how confident Robbie was in Tama. I couldn’t help feeling petrified. Every time my mind wandered to the musical, I physically cringed. The last thing I needed right now was a spotlight on my stunning lack of coordination.
“Two hundred twenty? That’s nothing!” the ten-year-old kid on the lane next to Cameron’s taunted. He had spiked hair and gapped teeth and a T-shirt that read “You Smell.” “I got three fifty this one time.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cameron said, taking off his varsity jacket and handing it to me. “You wanna go?”
The kid crossed his arms over his puny chest. “Whaddaya say we make it interesting?”
“What were you thinking?” Cameron asked.
I smiled as the kid thought it over. Cameron was so sweet, playing with this little kid. Maybe there was something here to distract me after all. Don’t get me wrong. Watching Cameron Richardson shoot hoops had been plenty entertaining—for the first thirty or so minutes. But after two hours, standing around playing the role of ticket-keeper got boring, even for the hottest guy in school.
“If I win, I get all your tickets,” the kid said, nodding at me.
“What if I win?” Cameron asked.
“Then you get all mine.” The kid lifted a bucket from the ground. Red and yellow and blue tickets spat out in every direction.
“You’re on,” Cameron said.
The two of them shook hands.
“Good luck,” I said jokingly to Cameron, folding the bulky jacket over my arm.
“I won’t need it, babe,” he said.
Babe. Had he just called me babe? How cool was that?
A stool finally opened up and I sank onto it gratefully. Cameron rolled his first ball and it almost popped into the hundred circle, but then bumped down to twenty.
“You suck!” the kid taunted. He threw his ball and got a fifty. “Take that, meathead!”
“I’m just getting started,” Cameron replied. He threw another ball. This time he hit the hundred. “Ha! Who sucks now, midget boy?”
I blinked. What was that?
Another ball rolled. The kid got a ten. He mumbled something under his breath.
“Can’t take the heat, can ya?” Cameron teased. He threw another fifty. “Aw yeah! I rock. Better start handing over your tickets now, kid!”
The kid’s face grew red and my brow started to furrow. What was Cameron doing? Was he really standing in the middle of Dave and Buster’s taunting a ten-year-old?
“I am a Skee-Ball god!” Cameron said, rubbing his hands together.
My skin prickled with heat each time Cameron opened his mouth again. Suddenly I found myself rooting for the competition. The kid started to catch up, but even then, Cameron wouldn’t let up. He was trash talking like some dude on ESPN. Like this was the Super Bowl or something. If it were me, I’d let the kid win, but clearly that thought hadn’t even crossed Cameron’s mind.
“Three hundred to two seventy-five,” Cameron said, lifting his last ball. “It all comes down to this roll. You ready, twerp?”
The kid nodded, ball in hand. He looked miserable. “Ready.”
They both rolled. Cameron’s ball popped up and into the fifty hole. The kid’s fell right into the ten.
“Yes! I win! I rule all! I am the Skee-Ball champion of the world!” Cameron threw his hands up, and a few kids from the middle school who had gathered nearby applauded. His sweater rode up and got stuck halfway up his chest, exposing a flat, but very white, stomach.
Oh. My. God.
Suddenly, all I saw was Fred Frontz. Fred Frontz and his dorky awkwardness, his uncontrollable overexcitement. The qualities Cameron and his friends had been taunting him for ever since we were kids. I watched Cameron laughing and pointing at the little boy. Watched him yank his sweater down. Watched him high-five a bunch of strangers, cheering with his mouth open and his wad of gum exposed. Watched him hold his hand out for the poor kid’s tickets. And second by second, the truth sank in more and more. Cameron Richardson was a complete and total . . .
Geek.
He was constantly playing with his own hair. He chewed gum while eating popcorn. He taunted fourth graders in the middle of Dave and Buster’s and thought it was cool. And he kissed like a dog with a saliva problem!
When I really looked at him, I realized he was no cooler than anyone else. He was just so hot it masked his geeky qualities. Maybe every one of us had a little bit of geek in us. It was just that some of us were better at hiding it than others.
“Here!” Cameron said, his face all red from the celebration. He handed me the bucket of tickets. “We’re totally going home with that statue of Derek Jeter.”
“Uh, Cameron? You’re not really going to take that kid’s tickets, are you?” I said, sliding down off the stool.
“Why not? I won them fair and square,” he replied.
“No, you didn’t. You’re older than him and bigger than him, and you’ve probably played Skee-Ball four hundred more times than he has,” I said. “How is that fair?”
“He made the bet!” Cameron protested.
I rolled my eyes, took the bucket and handed it back to the kid. He ran off without another word, probably suspecting Cameron would track him down.
“Hey!” Cameron shouted. He shot me an annoyed look.
“Sorry,” I said with a shrug. “But he’s just a little kid.”
“Whatever.” Cameron rolled his eyes. “You can buy me a Coke to make it up to me.” He walked over to the bar and ordered two Cokes.
Okay, was he really going to make me pay for his soda just because he wasn’t going home with a plastic statue of some baseball dude?
He passed me a soda. Luckily the bartender hadn’t asked for money yet.
“So, what’s up with you and Tama?” he asked me, his tone back to normal. “Are you, like, fighting now or something?”
“I guess. Sort of.” I put his jacket and the bucket of tickets on an empty bar stool and picked up my soda. The glass was cold and slippery, and I didn’t even want it.
“You should make up with her,” he said.
My brow creased. “You don’t even know what we’re fighting about. Maybe she should make up with me.”
“Whatever. You guys should make up.” Cameron shrugged. “I think it’s cool that you guys hang out.”
Something was not quite right about this conversation. I felt an eerie thump of foreboding and took a step back. Cameron sipped his Coke, oblivious.
“Why do you care if we keep hanging out?” I asked.
“Because, you know, if you’re hanging out with her, then you’re hanging out with me. And my friends.” He looked around the room, as if assessing which game he was going to play next.
“So why can’t I just hang out with you? Why does Tama have to be part of the equation?” I asked.
Cameron blushed a little and shrugged. “I don’t know. She just does. It’s just better if we’re, like, a whole group.”
There was a lump of clay where my throat used to be. Was he sayin
g what I thought he was saying?
“So if I’m not in with Tama, I’m not in with your group and you can’t hang out with me,” I said flatly. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Cameron looked at me for the first time in a couple of minutes, anguished. “Come on, KJ. Don’t make a big deal out of it. Maybe you should call her. See if she’ll talk to you.”
And finally, it hit me. Cameron hadn’t started to talk to me because I’d lost the geeks and started acting more confident and cool. He’d started to talk to me because of Tama. Because I’d been hanging out with her more, because she’d been seen out in public with me, and if she did it, then it was okay for him to do it. Hanging with Tama had made me acceptable to date. And if I was no longer hanging with Tama . . .
“I’m no longer acceptable,” I said aloud.
“What?”
My cheeks were on fire. My eyes burned painfully. I stared into my soda, watched the bubbles popping to the surface, the square ice cubes contorting my reflection.
Cameron Richardson wasn’t just a closet geek. He was a total jerk, too. Robbie was right. He’d been right all along. Cameron Richardson was as shallow as a puddle. And as transparent, too. And it had taken me way too long to see it. I looked up into his eyes. He was all innocence.
“What’s the problem? I’m just trying to make it so that we can be together. You should be happy I care.”
And that’s when he got an entire soda, ice cubes and all, right in his beautiful face.
ACT FIVE, SCENE SIX
In which:
THERE’S LAUGHTER AND TEARS
“UM . . . STEPH? DID I ACTUALLY THROW A DRINK IN CAMERON Richardson’s face?” I rambled as Stephanie turned her mom’s SUV onto my block. “I mean, did I actually do that?”
“That’s what you told me,” she replied with glee.
I hid my face in my hands. “Oh my God. What did I do? I’m dead, you know that? Everyone’s gonna think I’m a psycho.”
“Or that you’re insanely cool,” Stephanie said. “It’ll depend on who you ask.”
She turned into my driveway and put the SUV in park. I managed to lift my head, which weighed about a thousand pounds, and look at her. “This has been the worst week ever.”
“And it’s only Tuesday!” she said happily.
“Why are you so Rachael Ray right now?” I asked. “My life is over.”
“No, it’s not. You just found out that the guy you like is an ass,” she told me. “That happens to people every day.”
“That’s probably true,” I said.
“And if I’m in a good mood, it’s just because I find the image of Cameron Richardson doused in Coke and ice pretty freaking hilarious,” she said.
I met her eye. “It was pretty funny. Some of it, like, went up his nose so he had this sneezing fit, and soda was dripping down his back and onto this guy next to him and . . . and . . .”
Suddenly I was laughing so hard I couldn’t stop. Stephanie held her stomach, making this wheezing sound that would have been alarming under other circumstances.
“And he . . . he . . . he stormed off like this big . . . big . . . baby!” I cried.
Stephanie shook her head. “Stop! Stop!”
“ ‘Oh my God! My new varsity patch! ’ ” I wailed, imitating him. The splash had, in fact, hit the jacket on the stool and the guy in the suit nearby and myself. But it had all been worth it.
“Stop! Seriously! I can’t take it!”
After a couple of minutes of laughing, we finally got control of ourselves and I sighed. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
“Anytime,” she replied.
“I guess I should go inside and start going over Rizzo’s lines,” I said mournfully.
“Want some help?”
“No. It’s cool. I’m just going to do it once. I’m banking on Tama’s lust for stardom getting the better of her,” I said, gathering my things. “She’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Yeah. She will,” Stephanie said as I got out of the car.
“Steph! You’re thinking positive!” I said, surprised.
“There’s a first time for everything,” she said. Then she blew me a kiss and I closed the door.
I was halfway up the front walk, laughing and shaking my head, when a car pulled into our driveway. I saw the cab light on the roof, just as the front door of my house flew open. My father came storming toward me. For a quick, terrifying second, I thought he was coming out to yell at me, but then I saw the suitcase in his hand.
“Dad? Where’re you going?” I asked.
He blew right by me. “Ask your mother.”
My heart pounded a slamming beat. He got in the cab and after idling for a moment, the car was gone. My mother came to the open door. I attempted to breathe.
“What just happened?” I asked.
“Come inside, KJ.”
My brother stood near the wall in the kitchen, tears streaking down his face. My mother sat us both down at the table. I felt like everything inside of me was shaking.
“Kids, your father is going to be moving out for a while,” my mother said.
“Why?” Christopher shouted through a sob.
My stomach went hollow. This wasn’t happening. After all these years of wishing for this . . . it couldn’t be happening. My father was moving out. My father, not here. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to laugh or scream or cry.
“Because, honey, he’s . . . he’s sick. And if he wants to live in this house with us, he has to get better,” my mother said, reaching for Christopher’s hand. He yanked it away and stuffed both hands under his arms. I saw a flash of pain cross my mother’s face.
“Is he . . . Did he say he was going to . . .” I didn’t know what to ask first. “Mom, what happened?”
“Your father, he . . . relapsed,” she said.
“Already? He just got home!” I blurted.
“What’s relapse?” Christopher asked.
“It means he had a drink, honey. And he promised all of us that he wouldn’t,” she said, looking at me. “So I told him that until he could keep his promise, he had to go.”
“You threw him out!” Christopher shouted, getting up. “This is all your fault!”
“Chris—”
He turned around and ran up the stairs, slamming his bedroom door. My mother heaved a sigh and looked down at the table.
“Mom—”
“It’s fine. He’s just angry. He’ll be okay,” she said.
“Mom, are you okay?” I asked.
She managed to look at me. “I’ll be fine.”
“Are you guys . . .” It was difficult to speak past the rock in my throat. “Are you getting divorced?”
“No one’s said anything about divorce,” she assured me, pushing herself up from the table. “Not yet, anyway.”
She opened the refrigerator and stared into it. I wondered how she could think about eating anything right now, but as she stood there longer, I realized she didn’t even know what she was doing.
“Mom?”
She startled and closed the door. “You were right, KJ,” she said, leaning back. “We couldn’t live like that anymore. You kids deserve some stability in your lives. You deserve not to be . . . not to be afraid of your father. Not to be afraid in your own house. That’s not what a family is supposed to be. And he . . . he has to figure that out.”
I felt like something warm and soothing was enveloping me. I’d done something right. All this time I’d been wishing for the strength to stand up to my dad, but it was my mother I needed to stand up to. The one who would listen. The one who was able to change.
“So,” she said. “How was your date?”
I exhaled a laugh. “It sucked.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. I got up, feeling so heavy I could have just pulled myself out of a pool fully clothed. “I think I’ll go to bed. Unless you need me.”