Mack’s an okay friend, but he doesn’t like to read and he doesn’t always tell the truth. He exaggerates to make stuff sound more exciting. It’s not that I mind so much. Even when he won’t admit it, I know when he’s stretching things. I mean, it’s not okay that he does that. It’s a character flaw he needs to get past. I stopped leaving my chewing gum on the bedpost when I was nine. Ha-ha.
Dad says people usually grow out of bad habits like they grow out of clothes. Things happen to make them see how destructive the habit is. Either way bad habits definitely get in the way of what’s important. They can hold you back. That’s Dad talking. I’m the first one to admit I have a few bad habits. I’m definitely obsessed with Meredith, but at least it’s not girls in general anymore. I’m antisocial. Not that I don’t like being with people. It’s certain people I can’t be in the same room with. You’d think I could focus on their good traits and ignore the lousy ones. I’ve tried, but faking it would be worse, in my mind.
Holden has plenty of bad habits and he knows it too. He wants to be a regular guy so much that he puts up with jerks. He doesn’t want anyone telling him he has to do something. He has trouble when it comes to priorities. That’s one of the problems I used to have, but not anymore. The Disease really cuts to the chase.
Not that he’d admit it, but Holden’s working through the honesty thing too. Personally I think he almost has it right. Being honest with other people if it means you’re going to hurt their feelings is not always necessary, but being honest about some things is crucial. Like, if Meredith didn’t know about my being sick, I’d have to tell her before we slept together. This is all hypothetical, now. I’m talking it through with myself. It wouldn’t be fair to her. She ought to be able to choose before she commits, if a guy she’s serious about might not be around to take her to the senior prom, that kind of thing.
Under the bridge I row hard, maneuvering the boat away from the concrete pillars. My elbows ache and my knees ache. The sun slashes across the boat like the scene in Apocalypse Now where the ceiling fan blades are spinning and Martin Sheen’s character is in some kind of drug fog or heat exhaustion. This bridge always gives me the creeps like that scene. Something’s so not right. But there’s nothing to see, you just feel it.
It’s probably the creepy half-sunken old dock with the fishing boat tied up. The boat’s too new and kept too well for the age and condition of the dock. Almost like the owner has hidden it there for a getaway. Except it’s right out in the creek for anyone to see who comes on the other side of the bridge. Not that many people do come all the way up here. Unless you’ve done it in a little boat, you don’t have any way to know whether the water’s deep enough and you wouldn’t take a chance of getting stuck in that mud with a big boat. There’s nowhere to turn around.
On the other side of the bridge the phragmites are waiting. Out in the open. Their ditzy blond heads make them look like a line of cilia on the paramecium in my bio book. Even without a breeze they bow and dip like those couples in the ice-dancing competitions. It’s better up here, back in the open air and away from that strange fishing boat at the falling-down dock. The creepiness is gone.
Phragmites (pronounced like mighty) can’t be just in Virginia, because they’re actually weeds. And weeds grow anywhere. Miss T. Undertaker and her rank-and-file environmental saviors raise money every year to pay for a gazillion gallons of safe herbal spray to kill the phragmites. Supposedly they block out the good plants. I know it’s weird, but I kind of like them. They’ve figured out a way to grow no matter what. They morph or something. Every season they’re slightly different and they rise again out of the mud, to hell with the pesticide squad.
As I row against the current, I’m thinking about Meredith again. It’s not that I’m so sure she’ll say yes about sleeping with me. God, I can hardly let myself imagine how that might happen. When am I ever alone with a girl? Either Mom or Dad, or both, is always at home. Or Nick’s bouncing in and out. I won’t live long enough to get to college, where Joe says almost anything’s possible. In college dorms you might have a single or your roommate sometimes goes away for the weekend.
Plus, how do you bring up a subject like wanting sex? Especially with a girl like Meredith. Only she does put off these signals like she might be interested, and she likes being kissed. According to Dad, adults talk about everything beforehand. Plus, I know she’s the kind of girl who would want to not just get led away in the dark. Mack says, mention being dead next year and any girl would let you do it, out of sympathy.
See what I mean about Mack? It’s not exactly honorable how he thinks. And if I only have so many chances, I don’t want just any girl to “let” me do it to her. I want her to be part of it, wanting it as much as I want it.
If Meredith thinks about it at all—I don’t mean with me, but with her ideal guy—I bet she wants it to be perfect, not rushed and sleazy in the backseat of a car. When Mack told me about his first time, it knocked me out. In the woods at some church camping retreat with a girl he’d never seen before. Or since. Last year I might have gone for something like that, but it’s different when you know you might have only one shot.
The kind of girl who’d stand on a bridge and yell at the top of her lungs to the world is going to have an idea of the perfect first time. I don’t even have a sister and I can figure that out. Although I don’t think Holden ever talks to Phoebe about sex—she’s too young to know about stuff like that—he knows that a girl like Jane has a different idea about the first time than a girl like Sunny. You have to think about who the girl is. I mean, if you want to be fair about it. To be honest—sorry, old Holden—girls are way more savvy these days. They’ve seen it on TV and all the movies are full of it. Maybe just to earn the R rating to increase the box office take, but maybe because girls are different now, more up-front too. With Victoria’s Secret and that kind of public display, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nick’s friends are all popping some girl behind the soccer stands.
I’d like to ask someone, Joe, I guess, or Dad if he remembers his first time. I don’t want to hear the details—God, no, no details—just whether you forget or whether it’s worth remembering. If it was a mess or a good memory, something he likes to remember. Just to know if I’m on the right track.
My thinking is if Dad or Joe said the first time is always a jumble and no one really remembers it because they’re too scared and it’s too new, then I might stop being so nervous about it. Trouble is, if I ask Dad a question like that, he’ll know what I’m thinking and he’ll probably figure out Meredith is the one, since the subject is coming up right after I met her. That would be the kiss of death. He’d say something to Mom. They’d never let us be alone together after that.
The rowboat is really cruising along now. Upstream the mudflats disappear and the creek twists. The current’s weaker, so I can row less and glide more. The river is narrower, too. And there are tons more birds. They must like it here because boats don’t invade very often. The birds can sit on the reeds or the phragmites and look out without being disturbed. It’s also warmer because the shore breaks the wind.
Then this flash hits me. I should bring Meredith up here before winter. With the binoculars she could see the kinds of birds we get in this part of Virginia. They’re bound to be different from the mountains. No room in the rowboat for Juliann. Or Mack. The more I think about it, the more I know Meredith would like it. There’s a first time for everything.
When I pull alongside the houseboat, Joe’s ride from Warsaw has arrived. Joe’s already in the skiff. Nick’s getting ready to pull the choke and start the engine. Big smile when Joe sees me.
“Dan. You been hiding out? Listen, come spend a weekend in C-Ville. See what college is really like.”
“I’ll ask Mom.”
“Don’t do that. Just pick a date. Rusty’s girlfriend drives from Warsaw almost every weekend.”
Rusty’s waving from the shore for Joe to hurry.
“Come on, Dani
el, say you’ll come.”
“I have to ask.”
“What’s with that? You’re not a kid. It’d be different if you needed them to drive, but Jessica can bring you. Any Friday. She’ll drop you back on Sunday. Say yes.”
“Okay, yes, yes, I’ll come, but I’ll have to let you know about the date after I talk to Mom.”
“All right, baby brother, be that way. If I were you, I’d start doing what you want to, I’d—”
Nick has to get in the picture. “Joe, cool it. He said yes, leave him alone.”
“What is it with you guys?” I can’t stand it. “Let’s just drop the whole thing.”
Nick can’t let it go. “He’s not here enough to know how tired you get.”
“Jeez, Nick, I think I can handle this without my little brother taking up for me.”
Joe starts to say something else, but then just reaches over the railing and hugs me hard. Maybe he does understand. Halfway to the D-funct marina dock, he calls back.
“Danny boy, you better be there one of these Fridays. I mean it.”
Nick jerks the skiff hard and the spray arcs up and rains down on Joe, who flips him the bird.
Once Rusty has driven off with Joe waving madly from the side window like a weak sister, I go inside to change out of my sweaty rowing clothes. He’s left me a present on the top bunk. An envelope with my name in his perfect draftsman block letters, with extra tape on the flap. Inside are two condoms.
Saturday night Mack drives the four of us to the party at the Yowells’ house on the Gold Coast where all the other “rivah” mansions are. Mack’s so full of himself, not that I blame him. He’s dressed up like Johnny Cash, sporting my father’s belt with the huge metal buckle from the sixties, black jeans, and a black shirt with little white metal snaps instead of buttons. Oh so cool.
Juliann walks around him in circles after he parks the car in Leonard’s side yard, next to the dozen or so vehicles already there. “Where’d you ever find that shirt? It’s so perfect for the man in black. Real rhinestones?” She peers closely at Mack’s chest, which sends him strutting around, right in character.
“Not very scary,” I say. “Halloween’s about ghosts and goblins, not rock stars.”
The twins come as one thing, a doppelgänger. They wear matching gray sheets and have big black circles around their eyes to make them look otherworldly and miserable. Their arms, covered in black stocking material like those black stretchy suits dancers wear, stick out from holes in the sheets. My mother would never have let us cut up perfectly good sheets. They spray-painted baseball hats and Meredith’s D on the front of the sheet is backward, to be the mirror image of Juliann’s. Pretty simple, but effective. Unfortunately the costume only works if they stay together, the opposite of what Mack and I were hoping for. And the opposite of what we’ll be doing our damnedest to have happen.
Mack’s building the right mood, working up from the compliment on his costume. “You know, a doppelgänger might not be so happy to have his shadow follow him, ah, her everywhere. She can’t have any real fun.”
Although Juliann giggles, she stops immediately as if she remembered who she was supposed to be. “Not shadow. Mirror image. Her missing half.”
“Doppelgängers don’t want to have fun.” I’m baiting him.
“You know, misery loves company,” Meredith chimes in.
When I pour it on, I can see Mack frown, like Why don’t you shut up. I pitch my voice low. “Doppelgängers wander the earth for all eternity. They don’t belong in either place. They’re meant to be miserable.”
“What if…” Mack puts his thumbs in the belt and sputters nonsense, caught between staying in character and thinking of a credible reason half a doppelgänger would go with the Man in Black and half would go with Captain Hook. “What if they’re really two separate people and the doppelgänger has taken possession of their bodies? June Cash, for instance. And…”
There’s no place for him to go with this. Captain Hook had no female admirers. We’ve been standing in Leonard’s yard for ten minutes it seems like and all kinds of other ghoulies have passed by with the appropriate whistles at Mack and shivers at the girls and me. Meredith whips off the hat and jams it on backward.
“This doppelgänger is unhappy because she isn’t getting to dance.” She grabs my hand and we’re gone. I can hear Mack and Juliann working painfully through the analogy until we’re inside and I’m introducing Meredith to the senator and his wife.
Senator Yowell’s shirt is starched, the collar a stiff castle inside his V-neck sweater. No suit jacket or sport coat. It must be a rare day when the senator doesn’t have to worry about impressing people. The insult, the inference that his son’s friends are not worth impressing, hits me a few minutes later when I’m pouring Meredith a soda after our first dance and feeling PO’d because Leonard cut in and I couldn’t think fast enough to say no. Heck, she could have said no.
I try not to stand there and stare at them. Leonard keeps swinging her under his arm with enough momentum to bring her crashing back into him. And she keeps circling away. I know Leonard has had dance lessons, so I know the excess swings are for a whole different purpose. Creep.
Guys are so single-minded. Except Holden, who had dance lessons with Sally or Jane and goes ape when Stradlater stays out late with Jane. Some of the kids I know at prep schools still do that debutante social thing. My parents couldn’t afford any fancy dancing classes and probably wouldn’t understand why anyone would think it was important. No wonder Leonard’s a way better dancer than me. First off, he’s probably had dance classes for three or four years. In the second place, he’s way more experienced with girls, period.
He’s so confident that people just assume he knows what he’s doing. To be honest, I could care less most of the time. It’s not that I want to be smooth; I’d just like to be able to dance with Meredith without looking spastic.
Stepford-Hanes would say I should simply seize the day. Carpe diem. She sees things so clearly. It never seems personal or critical because she can make you laugh. She’s one of those teachers you know from the first day of class that you won’t forget. She sees you, the real you, and not just twenty-five nail-biting, gutter-mouthed teenagers. I miss her class. I miss her.
Studying alone is not the same. There are no jokes, no cutups, no paper airplanes from the back row, no other fools to make you feel better. I miss her voice, too. It has that Northern pushiness that doesn’t allow for wasting time. Not harsh or mean, just let’s get to the important stuff.
I should go see her, talk to her about Holden and the hotel-room scene and how he tricks Phoebe when she comes with her suitcase, one of the few dishonest things he does in the whole book.
“Whoa, whoa.” Senator Yowell yanks my wrist to stop the soda flowing over the top of the plastic cup. There are chocolate-colored lines of bubbles on the cabinets and a puddle on the floor.
“Oh, jeez. I’m sorry, sir. That was careless of me. I was thinking about…just thinking, not paying attention.”
“Reinventing the wheel, I hope.” He smiles broadly and hands me a sponge.
The idea of him watching over his possessions, his house, his family, comes to me as I mop up the sizzling puddle and squeeze the sponge over the sink. He’s a father, too. Although he steps back through the doorway when Meredith comes in from the den, he doesn’t leave. Probably wants to be sure I’ve managed the mess, that there won’t be any slip-and-fall injuries on his watch. I’m not used to this kind of management from the sidelines. My parents have no image to maintain, nothing to guard against except whatever nature delivers. I’m not sure Dad would even notice if I poured something all over the floor.
Leonard follows Meredith into the kitchen. He elbows past his father. His costume is really weak, a baseball jersey over jeans. The newly ubiquitous button-down peeks out from the jersey. When I asked him who he was when we first arrived, he looked right at Meredith and said, “Barry Bonds on steroids.” Now h
e’s practically tripping on her doppelgänger sheet to stay connected. It would be funny if it didn’t piss me off so much.
Last year he had a girlfriend, Sarah Messimer. He’s had several, actually. Sarah’s father is a real-estate lawyer in town. Leonard and Sarah were a perfect pair. Her shoes matched her sweaters. No telling what Leonard did, but it ended abruptly and he refused to talk about it. Mack and I agree, chances are she just figured him out. Or he got too personal too fast. He has this entitlement thing, like how could any girl resist him?
Just because Meredith’s the new girl in town, he has to make this a contest, prove he’s the better man. It’s like Nick’s win-win obsession in soccer, except more twisted because Leonard and I are supposed to be friends. Friends don’t steal each other’s girls.
He turns and frowns at the senator. “I think we’ve got it under control now, Dad. Isn’t Mom waiting to watch the movie with you upstairs?”
When Senator Yowell starts sputtering, I have to look away immediately. He’s so shocked, his mouth is open, not any photo op he’s used to. Kid power. Or maybe it’s more about Leonard showing off for Meredith. Whatever Leonard meant, it comes across as an underhanded dig at his own father. I’m liking him less and less.
After I hand Meredith the cup, I wave the plastic pirate hook taped to my left arm. “Time to walk the plank, matey.”
And hard as it is for me to believe, she catches the hint. She walks past Leonard, links her little finger to the hook, and leads me out to the porch.
“You okay?” she asks, sharp glances into the corners as if more than a few couples might be snuggled down out of sight, though the room feels and looks empty.
“I spilled the goddamn drink like a five-year-old.”
“Why did you abandon me to the Steroid King?”
“He’s everywhere.”
“Everywhere he wants to be,” she says.
“Nowhere I want to be.”
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