Not Exactly a Love Story

by Couloumbis, Audrey

  No comparison, I said to myself with a little smile. That was when I noticed Patsy. She was standing just inside the school doors, staring out at me. Or Biff.

  I left the track, heading her way. My feelings about her were mixed—confused, even—but I’d be cool. I raised a hand only moments ahead of the football team’s arrival at the same spot, a herd of great cattle, manageable only when forced into single file. They swept me past her by about ten feet, I don’t know how I avoided being trampled. I didn’t know how she did.

  If she did. When I looked back, she’d gone.

  She could go three ways from there, including up to the next floor. I decided to let her go for the moment. I got to my locker about thirty seconds ahead of Biff, who was half a dozen lockers away.

  He passed me, making quite a point of ignoring me. I mean, if he’d just gone about his business and all, he would’ve been ignoring me. But he made a point of it. Stashing his stuff in his locker. Hopping around, doing warm-ups. Sighing and grunting like he was exerting himself tremendously. Letting me know he’d completely forgotten I was there.

  Not that anybody was as aware of him as I was. There were guys yodeling into their lockers and snapping towels at each other. There was the usual foot traffic to and from the showers, a lot of horsing around. Biff was all but invisible to nearly everyone.

  I stretched—long, simple stretches that were almost a meditation. I changed clothes slowly. Cold-syrup slow. I made it a test of endurance to move so slowly, even my breathing was slow. Finally he shut his locker and headed off for a class.

  I wasn’t far behind, making it to my class as the bell rang.

  The funny thing, the slowness stayed with me. I was slow with a slothlike gracefulness that I associated with dancing.

  The girls had gotten this idea to wear pink or red for Valentine’s Day. Most of them were carrying heart-shaped boxes of candy, some of them carried more than one.

  Twice I saw guys slipping envelopes through the slots in a locker, and there was such a frenzy of card-giving that I got a couple. Nothing serious, kind of joke cards. It was fun, really, and now and then I felt a wistful twinge. I wished I’d brought a card for Patsy.

  Daniel nodded when I sat down at the table in the cafeteria. I nodded back. “You join the track team?” he asked me.

  “I’m going to try for it.”

  “I run on Forest Avenue most mornings. We could run together.”

  I asked him, “You’re on the track team?”

  He grinned. “I’m going to try for it.”

  I hesitated, then said, “I’ve seen you talking to Patsy.”

  “I know Patsy pretty well,” he said, blushing. “She has this friend, Melanie—”

  “Melanie’s cute,” I said. “Forest Ave., huh?”

  * * *

  I stayed after school to give Mr. B a hand with three filing cabinets he wanted to move out of his office. He helped me get his oversized desk out of the way. Because he’d had the football team slamming into their fake walls that afternoon, I ended up moving the cabinets myself.

  I shifted half the contents of each file drawer to a cardboard box, carrying the box and then the half-emptied drawer to a bench in the locker room. Then shoved the considerably lighter filing cabinet through the locker room to a closet. Finally I put the drawers back and stuffed the rest of the files back in. First cabinet down.

  The files were pretty interesting. Brown Bunny’s hoody guy? Likely to be another Albert Einstein. He’s not in advanced classes because he won’t do homework. Not that I could just settle in and read, but the occasional glance at what I was moving made for some lively thought.

  After an hour of shifting and lugging and sliding, I was tired. It was a helluva time for Biff to come along. “Hey, turd.”

  I stopped pushing the last filing cabinet and leaned wearily against it. I had the feeling he’d said something to me once already, something I hardly heard over the scrape of metal against the floor. The shifty look in his eyes made me suspect that he’d turned to look over his shoulder before he called out again. No one else was around.

  “You think you got nothing to worry about, huh? Cozying up to your stepdaddy?” He closed the distance between us. “Moving his shit around.”

  I didn’t open my mouth. But I was thinking, practice must be about to end. This hallway would be full of life in a minute or two.

  “You think somebody’s gonna come along and save your ass? Forget it, they’re all still on the field. You better say something, turd.”

  The first real blow came fast, so that I didn’t have a chance to be ready for it. It caught me just under the ribs, solid enough to fold me over. It’s always surprising when someone with Biff’s bulk moves quickly.

  The next one was where you’d expect, but he didn’t put any weight behind it. It was practically like he chucked me under the chin, but it brought me back up enough to face him.

  I tasted blood.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” he said to himself. For my benefit, he added, “We don’t want to leave any marks, do we?”

  I gathered he’d learned something from suspension.

  He landed one in my chest, good enough to slam me into the corner of a filing cabinet, which caught me under the shoulder blade. I shifted away, into a row of lockers, revisited by the wave of self-loathing I’d felt after the mugging. I’d hoped never to feel that kind of disgust again, at least not for myself. I tried to recall some of the moves I’d learned from those self-defense books.

  Frankly, I had abandoned the books once I figured out they didn’t offer much in the way of an immediate solution. Now I had the expectation of violence, and none of the moves.

  The other picture that came to mind, Patsy standing outside my door, waiting to hear why I fought with him the first time. If I hated myself now, how was I going to feel when I had to face her again? As if the thought had sprung into my eyes, Biff addressed that very subject.

  “You shouldn’t get any ideas, living next door to my girl the way you do. You shouldn’t think she’ll fall for your smarts.”

  It really hadn’t occurred to me that she liked to see evidence of intelligence. I mean, what other choice of boyfriend had I seen her make? But clearly, Biff felt threatened.

  “I don’t believe she is your girlfriend.”

  “You won’t hold her attention for long, Gold, but I don’t want you distracting her.”

  I felt the first flare of real anger, going off like fireworks. It felt good. Hot, colorful, good. He hit me in the shoulder, slamming me into the lockers.

  “You know what I think?” he said, pushing his face into mine.

  “Give me a minute. I’ll get it,” I said conversationally. This was not courage speaking, not even false bravado. This was suicidal. “I doubt that you do enough of it to come up with anything terribly original.”

  A quick one, two, three to the ribs, leaving me nearly breathless.

  “We’re gonna do this often, Gold, have these little talks, you and me, anytime I think you need reminding. There’s a scientific word for that, right, Gold? I hear you’re real sharp in science.”

  A sense of utter futility washed through me, leaving me weak and nauseated.

  “What’s the word, Gold?” he asked, and I sensed it was a rhetorical question, because he landed another in my gut. I was looking at the floor again.

  The double doors swung open as some guys charged in, coming from outside. I was aware of the doors, of cold air, of the charge coming to a sudden halt.

  “The word, smart-ass,” Biff said, tapping me on the shoulder hard enough I almost fell to my knees. “What’s it called, you learning not to do something I don’t like?”

  The one and only thing those self-defense books ever impressed upon me was how much power a fist could pack, not just a fist shoved straight out but one that is turning from a thumb-up position to a thumb-down position while it’s shooting forward. Something about that twisting motion increases the punch. That’s th
e kind of shot I directed at Biff as I came out of that crouched position. He wasn’t expecting it. And it landed lucky, not on the chin the way I planned but under it, fitting into the angle where chin meets throat.

  The effect it had on Biff was astounding. He squawked, choked, and struggled to breathe, tears suddenly streaming down his face, and as he choked, he backed into the bench that ran along the row of lockers, tripping backward over it with another weird squeal, continuing his fight for air, heels up.

  I watched all this, not quite believing my eyes and making no effort to help him. I don’t think I could have helped if I had known what to do. I was entirely without emotion. And after a few seconds, he began to recover, which is to say, he started to breathe. Not easily, and not with complete satisfaction, but well enough that I was sure he would live.

  I slid my foot a little way under the bench and tapped his leg with the toe of my shoe. “ ‘Behavior modification’ is the word you’re looking for,” I said.

  I saw Mr. B sitting in his office as I went back for the last filing cabinet. I knew he’d been keeping an eye on me, and he’d probably followed Biff back in, entering his office from the hallway rather than the locker room. That he knew Biff and I had had a small altercation. That he hadn’t interfered—not when it looked like I might die, not when it looked like Biff might die.

  He waved me into his office.

  “I had to make a stand,” I said. I was testing my voice, my footing, testing reality. Found I was dry as a bone.

  “You made a good one,” Mr. B said. “I knew you would. Better get some ice for that lip. Let me drive you home tonight.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  First stop, the drugstore. “Just want to pick up a card for your mother,” Mr. B said. He also went to the supermarket next door and got her some roses, leaving me to think about whether I could still get Patsy a card. Slip it under her door.

  It felt too risky, that’s what I kept coming back to. I regretted that I hadn’t given her a card at school. But now? What if she saw me cross the driveway? Even if she didn’t, it would be like drawing a dotted line with a big arrow pointing to me.

  Mr. B surprised me when he stopped again to pick up three take-out meals from a place that advertised itself as a family restaurant. They looked happy to see him, called him Dom.

  “This is where I ate while I waited for you and your mother to move out here,” he explained.

  “Smells good.”

  “Great meatballs,” he said. “You like spaghetti and meatballs? You could live on these meatballs alone.”

  I had been thinking along other lines. First manicotti, now this. “You aren’t worried Mom will think you’re backing down on the home-cooked-meal stance? I mean, I’m all for what works—”

  I just wasn’t looking forward to another argument.

  “First, no. Your mom needs a little more help from me, is all. Maybe I should have known that would be true, all that time she spends on the train. And second, we don’t build relationships like we make a business deal. It’s give-and-take, and a lot of the time it doesn’t work out to be fifty-fifty. It’s always shifting.”

  I didn’t have to come up with a reply, because the waiter came over to take our orders. “Three number fours,” Mr. B said. “And an extra side of meatballs.”

  In the car, I put my face into the bag and breathed deeply of dinner. As if it was nothing to do with nothing, Mr. B said, “You shouldn’t worry about your mother and me. We’re going to do fine.” I was glad to hear he felt that way. I went on breathing meatballs.

  Mom was in the dining room when Mr. B and I got home, standing on a chair to hang something up on the wall, and without looking in our direction she told me to hand her the thumbtacks.

  “This worked for us once,” she said, “and it’ll work for us again.” I saw that Mom had made yet another chart assigning chores, but the division of labor was better proportioned. Plus, if my olfactory senses could be relied on, she had a chicken in the oven.

  “What happened to you?” she asked as she stepped off the kitchen chair. It was hide-your-horror, toned down about fifty percent.

  “Nothing, really nothing,” I said, feeling, sad to say, a certain pride.

  “He’s okay,” Mr. B said, from behind me. Had stopped to check the oven. “A drawer opened while he was moving the filing cabinet for me.”

  “I’ve decided I like the bruised-and-battered look,” I said, to discourage Mom from looking too closely at this story. “I’m going to start talking like Marlon Brando. It’s bound to attract girls, don’t you think?”

  “Is this your blood?” Mom had found a telltale blot on my shirt.

  “Would it be better if it belonged to somebody else?” I asked her, and she laughed.

  I felt fine, even better, knowing Mr. B had not started a phone chain—calling Mom, who would then call Dad—the minute I was out of sight.

  Mr. B said, “Don’t start with the doctor business again.”

  Mom said, “But there’s swelling, Dom.”

  “Sure there is. That drawer clobbered him.” He looked in the oven again, and I caught a glimpse of foil-wrapped lumps.

  “Stop opening the oven door.” Mom pointed to the table, at the salad. And a container of sour cream.

  Actually, Mr. B looked like he’d died and gone to heaven. Roast chicken! Baked potatoes! And sour cream! Salad—well, yeah, salad. Ya gotta take the bad with the good.

  “What’s that in the bags?” Mom asked.

  “Sunday dinner,” Mr. B said. “It’ll reheat.”

  Over the chicken, Mom made one more foray into overanxious-mother territory. “I think the swelling is worse. Dom, does he look worse to you?”

  I reached for a second helping.

  Mr. B looked at the chicken, making sure he’d find a third helping on the platter. “It’ll be better in the morning,” he said.

  Probably because I looked unconcerned, Mom said, “You look like a raccoon with an underbite.”

  “Don’t say that. I’m going to the dance tomorrow night, and I don’t want to look like I think the holiday is Halloween.”

  “Taking that girl next door?” Mr. B asked.

  “I’m going alone,” I said, “and I think she is too.” A silence followed. I couldn’t leave it at that. “It’s a little early in our relationship to go to a dance as a couple.”

  Mom had a little announcement of her own. “I’m going back to work full-time next week. I’m not doing enough with the day or two I have free. And with some of the extra money, I can have somebody come in and clean once a week. Is that okay with you, Dom?”

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “I was thinking about that. For the housekeeping, I mean. Are you sure you want to work more hours?”

  “To tell you the truth, I get a little bored with too many days off.”

  Mom seemed to think she’d come to a momentous decision, and maybe it was. There was a part of me that wished she’d made this discovery sooner, with less upheaval.

  But there was a bigger part of me that had already accepted that things had changed, and the changes were irreversible. I hoped they were going to be good changes in the long run. We’d just have to wait and see.

  Mr. B helped clear the table. Mom said she would throw a coffee cake together so they’d have something to munch in front of the TV. She was talking about a boxed mix, of course, but Mr. B didn’t have a thing against it.

  I went through a couple of boxes in my closet to find a Fonz mask Dad had picked up for two bucks in a costume shop a year or so ago. Marred only by a couple of hairline cracks, it was made from a super-flexible rubber with a thin cotton lining. It folded into a small bundle that I could stuff into my gym locker Saturday morning.

  I decided to pull a bulky turtleneck sweater over my silk shirt to disguise it. The sweater wasn’t much, but if things went the way I hoped, we’d be in the dark, and the rough wool was a far cry from my actual costume.

  * * *

 
; “Tomasino.”

  “I’ll meet you at the dance,” I said, wanting to get it out before my courage died. Good thing, because I regretted it even as the words were coming out of my mouth.

  “What kind of mask will you be wearing?”

  “Maybe you want me to wear a sign.”

  “How will we meet, then?”

  I was shaking all over. “There’s a room on the second floor. Right above the principal’s office.”

  “I know where you mean. Textbooks go in there during the summer.”

  I guess that explained all the empty metal shelving. I only knew the health-class movies Mr. B showed were stored in there. I said, “It won’t be locked.”

  “That’s where we’ll meet?” Now she sounded a little shaky.

  “Inside.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “At ten after nine, you go in. Alone. I’ll follow you in at twelve after.”

  “How will I know it’s you?”

  “Who else would be there?”

  “Are we going to turn on the lights?” she asked.

  “Hanging around with Biff is getting on your nerves.”

  “Stop it. I just need to think this over.”

  “Tomorrow night. Ten after nine. Okay?”

  I halfway thought she wouldn’t go for it. A part of me was already feeling resigned, a satellite after all.

  “You couldn’t just ask me to dance?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “You’ll be nice to me, won’t you?”

  “We won’t discuss Biff at all.”

  She sighed. “See you there.”

  Click.

  Once I’d hung up, I found myself too nervous to sleep. To stay in bed. Patsy’s room was dark, I saw when I looked out the window. But then, so was mine, and I pulled back quickly.

  I imagined opening the door to the book room and finding half my class there, waiting to see an obscene caller. Maybe I should prepare a short speech. Maybe the principal would be standing there, clued in by an anonymous phone call made in a sweet, clear voice. Maybe she’d have the cops there and she would say, That’s him, he’s the one.