by S. J. Goslee
Deanna is giving him these looks. These looks that imply that Lisa has maybe been talking to Deanna about things she shouldn’t be talking about.
When Cam disengages the invisible lock that keeps him and Deanna attached at the hip and follows Jay down to the basement, Mike makes faces at Deanna until she waggles her eyebrows back at him. They’ve always been weirdly good at silent communication, stemming from their third grade bout of chicken pox that kept just the two of them quarantined and crazy-bored for days.
Finally, Deanna huffs out a breath and says, “Nobody told me, doofus. Well, Lisa might’ve mentioned something, but it’s kind of obvious you want Zack to—”
Mike lunges forward and claps a hand over her mouth. What the hell happened to silent communication? He knows his eyes are wild, and his face feels hot. “Please, Dee,” he says, a harsh, panicked whisper.
Her eyes go wide. She uses her fingers to pry his hand off, then cups it between both of hers, pressing it back against his chest. She says, “Hey,” only it’s a really stunned and subdued hey.
“Sorry,” Mike says. He still feels like he’s been donkey-kicked in the chest. His friends are, like, fifteen feet away; he doesn’t need this.
“What are you…? Mike, it’s totally cool,” Deanna says softly.
“Maybe,” Mike says. There’s nothing wrong with it, he’s just not sure he wants even more people to know about something he doesn’t even really know about himself yet.
Deanna rings an arm around his neck and tugs him down for a noogie. “It’s totally cool,” she says. “Don’t even sweat it, Tate. And you know I won’t say a damn thing to anybody, okay?” She lets him go and holds up her little finger, wiggling it in his face. “Pinky swear.”
“All right,” Mike says, hooking his finger with hers. Deanna has never broken a sacred oath. So far as he knows, she still hasn’t told Cam about the Han Solo incident, and even Mike admits that sort of teasing fodder is fucking gold. “Pinky swear.”
* * *
Student council election speech day is pretty anticlimactic. At least it is for Mike, because if they lose, Mike’s free of cheesy high school politico, and if they win, Lisa will be happy and hopefully content with her extracurricular schedule, so he’s okay with it going either way.
Jules Fitzsimmons and Jeremy Smith are huge nerds—massive math and science nerds, actually. Smith tutored Mike in geometry freshman year—and Mike has no doubts that they’ll both move on to impressive nerdy colleges and even more impressive nerdy professional lives, but here and now, listening to Lisa’s speech, Mike’s pretty sure she’s got all of tomorrow morning’s votes locked in.
It’s maybe got more to do with the way she looks like an otherworldly mermaid in her button-up dress and skin-tight cardigan, long, dark hair spilling over her shoulders, than any of her words, but whatever works. Lisa seriously has bombshell curves. How could he have screwed that up? His hormones are crazy for letting that slip away.
When his name’s called, Mike waves, and then he slumps low in his chair to the right of the podium, crossing a leg to rest his ankle on his knee. Principal Lord frowns at him, but Lisa’s all they need, anyway. Whatever Mike could say would just ruin their chances. He’s better at being silently supportive in the background, like Lieutenant Worf to Lisa’s Captain Picard. And Mike is totally blaming Jason for the Trekkie reference—Mike used to be cooler than this.
Fitzsimmons’ speech is boring and predictable.
Smith’s speech is better, but Mike’s afraid that’s mainly because of the angle Mike’s sitting at and Smith’s tight pants. So maybe, Mike thinks grudgingly, he’d had a tiny, inadvisable crush on his math tutor once upon a time … Ugh, it’s like all his memories are warped now; mutual respect over fractals has now become more about Smith wearing tight pants back before tight pants were even in style.
At the end of the assembly, Lisa collapses into Mike’s side and says, “The suspense is going to kill me before tomorrow. You need to buy me pizza.”
Mike arches an eyebrow. “Why can’t Larson buy you pizza?”
Lisa’s nose wrinkles. “He’s lactose intolerant.” She sounds a little more disgruntled than Mike personally thinks lactose intolerance warrants. As a relationship hurdle, it’s not as devastating as, say, being the wrong gender.
“Huh,” Mike says. “Trouble?”
“Is it even physically possible to be allergic to plastic?” she says.
Smith says, “You can be allergic to pretty much anything,” following them off the side of the stage.
Mike tries to give him a mind-your-own-business glare over his shoulder, but Smith just grins, and Mike remembers why he always enjoyed listening to Smith wax dreamily about dodecahedrons. He fights off an answering smile and shakes his head, deciding to just ignore him.
“All right,” Mike says to Lisa. “I’ll buy you pizza. Then you can tell me what’s up with Larson, and if I’m going to have to get Meckles to kick his ass.”
Lisa says, “Nothing’s up with Larson,” in a tone that suggests nearly everything is up with Larson, but not necessarily in bad ways. “Did you know he’s afraid of llamas?”
“Llamas can be scary,” Mike says. He’s not going to knock a fear of llamas. They’ve got weird tongues, and Mike’s no stranger to irrational fear himself.
“It’s his biggest fear, being eaten by a llama,” Lisa says. “I don’t even think they eat meat.”
“Llamas eat shrubs and grass and hay,” Smith says. He’s trailing them like a puppy. Mike is trying hard not to notice.
“Right.” Lisa pauses in the hallway and nods at Smith. “So my point,” she says slowly. “My point is that Larson is weirder than I originally thought. It’s kind of neat.”
Mike thinks okay, eyebrows raised, and stuffs his hands into his jeans pockets. The moment isn’t exactly awkward, but he’s still wondering why Smith is just hanging around, standing there with them.
Smith smiles down at the linoleum tile. He clears his throat and says, “I, um. Mike, I wanted to ask you … You’re friends with Mo Howard, right?”
Mike stares at the top of Smith’s head, then looks at Lisa. Lisa shrugs.
“Yeah,” Mike says, frowning.
“So, uh.” Smith rubs a hand under his ear, bites his lip. He darts his gaze up to Mike and then away again. “Never mind.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I—”
“Jeremy,” Fitzsimmons says sharply. The click of her heels echoes in the near-empty hallway, and she snaps her fingers. Smith straightens up like a soldier; she’s trained him well.
Mike still wants to know what this is about, though. “What do you want with Mo?” he asks, the words coming out a little harsher than he’d meant.
But Fitzsimmons’ eyes narrow, and she’s drawing up her breath like a fiery dragon getting ready to blow.
Smith swallows hard and says, “Never mind,” again, and then he heeds Fitzsimmons’ silently beckoning finger and trots off down the hall after her.
“What did he think I was going to do?” Mike asks Lisa, confused.
“Beat him up, probably.”
“Beat—” Mike cuts himself off, incredulous. Mike doesn’t beat people up, first of all, but that’s not what he meant.
Lisa cocks her head. “No, you’re right,” she says. “He was probably worried about Jules beating him up. You, he kind of hero-worships.”
“Hero?” No, no, really, he’s not going there. He waves a hand around. “I mean about Mo,” he says.
“The conversation was kind of disjointed,” Lisa points out. She grabs his arm and starts pulling him down the corridor, toward the back doors that open up onto the parking lot. “But luckily I’m fluent in Socially Awkward Boy speak.”
Mike’s sure that’s a dig on him, but he doesn’t comment.
She grins at him and holds up two fingers. “One of two things,” she says. “He was either seeking your permission to ask Mo out—”
“Why?”<
br />
“I told you, Mo’s been crushing on you for over two years, Michael. She has a secret blog dedicated to your loser band.”
“She does not,” Mike says, but wow, if she does, that’s kind of awesome.
Lisa flicks the side of his head. “Or,” she says, “he was just fishing for Mo-info, since you guys are so friendly-like.”
“She’s a Bobcat,” Mike says. He meant to say that he hardly knows her outside of English and baseball, but it came out wrong.
Lisa has that half-indulgent, half-exasperated look on her face, like she wants to pat his head and say, And you’re special.
“Shut the fuck up,” Mike says gruffly.
Lisa palms the heavy metal doors and pushes out. The afternoon sun is golden already, hanging low, and there’s an autumn bite in the wind.
“Pizza,” Lisa says, steering him toward her car.
“Pizza, right.”
* * *
Mike is sixteen and a guy. Mike thinks about sex roughly every other second, which he’s pretty sure is normal. So now he’s just … got more options. It’s not that bad, right? Theoretically, it should be awesome.
It’s just. He got the girl stuff down in eighth grade, when he’d made out with Carina Constantinides in Cam’s basement, and Carina Constantinides had been thorough. He mostly knows what he’s doing with girls, making out wise. He has no clue what to do with another guy’s dick, and so far all he can imagine is unmitigated horror and embarrassment fumbling through trying to figure that out. He’s too old for this shit.
“You are not too old, Michael,” Lisa says, grabbing another piece of pizza. “God, you’re almost seventeen, this is, like, the best time to experiment.”
“Experiment with what?” Cam says, sliding into the vinyl seat next to Lisa. He waggles his eyebrows.
“Farm animals,” Lisa says smoothly. “So we know you’re all set.”
Cam tugs his newsboy cap to the side, so the brim is just over his right ear. He clasps his hands together and leans into the Formica. “Is this about Meckles’ crush on Dotty? Because I know we all decided many, many years ago that Meckles was possibly an amphibious alien, but I think we should all be adults about this.”
“Amphibious?” Mike says.
“Hell, yeah,” Cam says. “Big words are in, man. I’ve got ambidextrous on the back burner.”
Mike shakes his head. Lisa looks amused, but really it’s not even worth laughing over. Cam is totally serious.
Cam steals the half a slice left on Lisa’s plate. “So what are you ladies talking about?”
“Have you ever been attracted to a guy?” Lisa asks, and Mike tries to burn her alive with his eyes. Tragically, it doesn’t work.
“Dude, Tobey Maguire,” Cam says.
Mike stares at him.
“What? Isn’t this one of those ‘Tobey Maguire is universally hot’ things?” Cam says. He stuffs the crust into his mouth and crunches through, “I mean, who doesn’t want to fuck Tobey Maguire, right?”
“For the record,” Mike says, raising his hand.
Lisa joins him and says, “Yeah, and that’s Johnny Depp, anyway, you weirdo.”
“What the fuck? Come on, he’s Spider-Man. And Johnny Depp is old.” Cam makes a face.
Mike can’t believe he’s actually having this conversation. Wait, scratch that. This is Cam. He grins, shakes his head and says, “Why are you even here?” He’s pretty sure Cam had plans with Deanna.
Cam reaches over and snags Mike’s chocolate milk shake. “I’m thinking about bringing the fanny pack back,” he says.
“Of course you are.”
Cam says, “It’s ten times cooler than the man purse,” like this is a hard feat to accomplish.
“Good luck with that,” Lisa says.
Cam gives her a finger gun, because sometimes Cam has trouble acting like a real person. “Luck’s got nothing to do with it.”
* * *
Smith sits one row away from Mike in homeroom, so Mike can see the blatant relief on his face when the loudspeaker announces Lisa and Mike the winners of the junior class election. Which makes Mike think that his new VP role is going to suck even more than he’d originally suspected.
Cam leans over and claps him on his shoulder. “Congrats, man.”
“Yeah, this is great,” Mike says, frowning. He probably should’ve asked Lisa what being on the student council actually entails. Oh god, what if he has to organize school dances? What if he actually has to go to school dances?
He can’t think of anything more horrifying than that.
seven.
Rosie and Mike destroy the living room in favor of making an epic fort. It’s a massive, misshapen fortress of cushions, and they use every clean sheet set and blanket they can find. They make sure to cover the TV, too, so they can watch movies.
Their mom comes out once while they’re building it, shakes her head, and then disappears back into her office.
They’ve got a pile of junk food and soda, because it’s Sunday morning and Mike doesn’t feel like doing anything else. Under the sheet dome, boarded between cushions, he’s well aware that he’s hiding. He thinks Lisa wants his help brainstorming for Homecoming, and if Mike gets caught up in that crap he’s pretty sure his brain will just liquefy right out of his skull.
“Sandwich thinks we should get a bird,” Rosie says, stuffing a cookie into her mouth.
“Yeah? What kind of bird?” Mike asks.
“A Tiki Room bird,” Rosie says. “That talks.”
Mike nods. “A parrot. Good idea. But you better do your research before asking Mom.” Mom’s all about being prepared. That’s the only reason Rosie has hermit crabs. Mike coached her for weeks on proper hermit crab care. They’d even set up the aquarium with an egg to show Mom how careful Rosie would be with them. The only thing so far that research hasn’t worked on is dogs, but that’s mainly because Mom’s allergic. And maybe because Rosie forgot to feed the practice dog for a couple days, no biggie. It’s not like a roll of toilet paper can actually die.
Rosie looks up at him, mouth pursed. “Birds are easy.”
“You think?”
Rosie nods.
Mike says, “So you’re sure they don’t crap wherever they want? Mom’ll be pissed if a bird ruined the couch because you figured it’d be polite enough to use the toilet.”
Rosie narrows her eyes, thinking. “Maybe he’ll scratch at the door?”
“With his beak?” Mike isn’t trying to talk her out of this. He’d totally be okay with a bird, so long as Rosie knows how to take care of one. He has a feeling birds are hard, but Rosie’s got a good brain for a six-year-old, so she’ll figure that out.
“Yeah,” Rosie says. “Birds are smart.”
Mike ruffles her hair. “You can look it up on the computer later, okay?”
Rosie gives him a cookie from the pile she’s hoarded on her side of the fort. It’s one of her favorites, oatmeal chocolate chip, so Mike eats it quickly before Rosie can change her mind.
He plans on eating his weight in cookies and cheese curls and M&M’s before he has to get up off his ass and go to work.
* * *
Mike works part-time at Louie’s House of Cheese. Louie is his mom’s younger brother, and he’s crazy. Mike’s pretty sure that’s where Rosie gets it from. He wears a lot of plaid and talks with a French accent. Uncle Louie isn’t French. Mike’s mom’s people hail from Detroit, and out of the long line of Detroit Tates, none of them ever came from France.
He makes delicious spreadable sharp cheddar, though.
Occasionally, Mike works at the House with Chris Leoni. Leoni is Wallace’s best friend, and Mike and Leoni have been locked in a battle of mutual hate ever since freshman year, when Mike had taken exception to Leoni taunting Meckles—obviously before Meckles grew to roughly the size of a bear. They glare at each other over the wine and cheese tasting counter, but they have a no-fighting rule while in the store, and they never rat each other out when
they sneak sips of whatever bottles of wine Uncle Louie has stashed in the mini-fridge for the day. Neither of them wants to lose their jobs, because working at Louie’s House of Cheese is a sweet deal. They get paid to lug cheese around. It’s not exactly the toughest thing in the world to do.
Leoni has two inches on Mike, height-wise, and outweighs him by a good thirty pounds, but their mutual dislike usually doesn’t get much more physical than Leoni’s annoying habit of flicking Mike on the ear.
Mike’s having a super fantastic year, of course, so it figures he’s not even really paying attention when Leoni takes him down with a flying tackle as he’s pulling his jacket on, stepping out of the back of the store. Mike clocks his head on the concrete sidewalk so hard he sees sparks behind his eyes.
“What the fuck, man?” Mike’s too stunned to even try to push Leoni off of him.
Leoni grabs the front of Mike’s shirt in his fists, leans down close and says—pretty menacingly; Mike’s impressed, since Leoni’s cursed with a sort of weaselly, high-pitched voice—“You only get one warning, Tate. Be very fucking careful.”
Mike’s torn between taunting, Or what? and asking him what in the actual hell he’s talking about. He goes with “Sure, okay,” and hopes that gets Leoni off of him. He’s heavy; it feels like Mike’s hip bones are folding inward and digging up against his spleen.
Leoni releases his shirt and sharply pats his cheek. “Good boy.”
Finally, Leoni shifts off of him and gets to his feet. Mike scrambles up and out of the way and glares sourly, rubbing at his hips. No elbows were thrown, so that’s a win, but he hates feeling like he just got bullied. He tugs at the hem of his T-shirt. “You’re such an asshole, Leoni,” he says, scowling.
Leoni grins at him, stoops to scoop Mike’s jean jacket off the ground and holds it out. “Don’t forget your coat.”
Mike grabs it out of his hands with a huff.
* * *
“I need you to get rid of someone for me,” Mike says into his cell phone, sprawled on his stomach on his bed. “It’s a mercy killing, really. He’s too stupid to live.”