Haters

by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

  Anyway, about Chris coming to talk to my dad? Bad idea. Somehow, I don’t think my dad would like that very much. Anyway, I told Chris that I don’t care if my dad doesn’t want me to see him. It isn’t up to my dad what boys I see. It’s up to me who I see, and I’m not sure I want to see anyone. Except that I really do want to see Chris. I just wish I didn’t really want to. See what I mean? As far as I’m concerned, my dad has made more than enough decisions for me lately, like moving here. Oh, and the Planned Parenthood thing. God. I almost forgot about that. The appointment’s two weeks from Saturday.

  The bell rings, and the ever-suave Mr. Big comes in the room, wearing khaki shorts with a stylishly frayed hem and a loud Hawaiian shirt. There’s total silence. I feel everyone’s eyes on me, even the people who aren’t looking directly at me. They all know I’m here, and they know Jessica’s here, and no one knows what any of it means. I count myself among those who don’t know what’s happening.

  “Hello, everyone,” says Mr. Big. “Good to see we’ve got a full class today. Everyone’s here except Andrew, who is going to be out for a couple of weeks.” He claps his hands the way teachers do, and asks, “Do you all know where he is?”

  No one answers. I look up. Mr. Big is looking right at me with sympathy in his eyes. Then he looks right at Jessica without sympathy. I hear someone clear his throat. It’s Chris. I turn, and he smiles in a reassuring way that makes me feel a lot better. I’d like to think he’s a solid guy, but things have already been so messed up since I got here and it’s only been, like, a week.

  “Andrew’s parents sent him to an intensive counseling center where they work with kids who have emotional problems,” says Mr. Big. People look at each other out of the corners of their eyes but sit as still as rabbits afraid of a noise. Mr. Big continues, “So, as you all know, we’ve had a busy week here. I’m not going to mess around and pretend I don’t know about it. I don’t think you should, either. It’s been in all the papers and on the news. It’s no secret, Paski, that you had a terrible thing happen to you last weekend. I want to say I’m very sorry that this was your introduction to Aliso Niguel High School.”

  I feel my heartbeat get faster. It’s like a bird heart. Boomboomboom. I feel heavy in my face, and the stitches throb with the increased blood flow. Ouch. This so sucks. I don’t want him talking about this here! Why is he doing this to me?

  “So, today I thought we’d have a change of pace, and instead of talking about the reading assignment, I want us all to put our desks in a circle.”

  No one moves.

  “Come on,” says Mr. Big. He claps his hands again, even louder. “Move your desks. Let’s go!” He sounds every bit like the soccer coach he is.

  We put our desks in a circle. Chris puts his hand right next to mine. “How you holdin’ up, kiddo?” he asks me. Jessica gives him an evil stare.

  “I’m okay,” I say.

  Mr. Big walks around the outside of the circle, handing us all photocopies. One is a magazine article about date rape drugs. Another is a newspaper article about the influence of pop culture on girls and women today. Then there’s another one on why girls are so mean to each other when they should be sticking up for each other at this incredibly hard time in their lives. It reads like my dad wrote it, I swear to God.

  Mr. Big gives us all fifteen minutes to read the articles. After everyone is finished, he starts a discussion. At first no one wants to talk. But Chris takes the initiative.

  “I agree with everything in these articles,” he says. “And I’m not afraid to say it. Andrew was a friend of mine, but I am disgusted by what he did.”

  “Thanks, Chris,” says Mr. Big. “What about the rest of you? Do you think it was okay for Andrew to do what he did?”

  Everyone shakes their heads. Even Tyler.

  “How about you, Jessica? What do you think?” asks Mr. Big. He sits on the edge of his desk, crosses his legs, and folds his arms across his chest, defensive. Don’t tell me the teacher is even afraid of her? That’s whack.

  Jessica looks at her hands with a scary little smile and doesn’t say anything. Then, slowly, she lifts her eyes and stares him down. “I think I don’t want to talk about this. If you don’t mind, ‘sir.’” She says “sir” sarcastically, to drive home the fact that she has no respect for his authority.

  “Is there a reason?” asks Mr. Big.

  Jessica stares at him with hate. “No,” she says. “There’s no reason. But I think you should stop pushing me about it, unless you want me to bring up another topic that might interest the class. A topic you and I have discussed before.”

  Mr. Big looks nervous all of a sudden, and Jessica smiles.

  “Here’s the topic,” she says. She leans forward and smiles like she’s crazy. “Teachers who flirt with their female students. Oh, and soccer coaches. I think that’s having a really bad impact on the self-esteem of high school girls, don’t you, Mr. Big?”

  Mr. Big blushes, and moves on to another student. I realize there are more layers of sickness at this school than I know — or want to know.

  25

  After school, Tina, dressed in black pants, black shirt, and black jacket like a vampire with pink hair, bobs down the hall next to me. School’s out for the day, and I’m going to the newspaper. Earlier, she cracked the knuckles on her long, skinny fingers and told me she didn’t think I should go alone. Tina said that she knew I’d feel slightly strange, because my assignment to write about the race looks a little bit different now that everyone in school knows Jessica tried to kill me. “The homicidal wench,” Tina concludes.

  “She didn’t try to kill me,” I say as we walk through the hall.

  “Hello? Hospital? Intravenous fluids? Were you not there?”

  “I know, but I don’t really believe Jessica tried to kill me.”

  “It’s official, then,” says Tina. She shrugs in defeat.

  “What’s official?”

  “You’re officially in denial.”

  We enter the bright room and look around. Lots of plants and maps. When she’s not doing the newspaper, Miss Munn is the senior English teacher. I suppose it’s nice of Tina to be here with me. She’s, like, the only person in school who hasn’t changed the way she looks at me or talks to me because of this whole stupid thing. I love her for that. She’s what my grandmother would call a keeper, someone you cherish because they will never let you down.

  All the newspaper kids sort of stop what they were doing and look up at me. Then, like everyone else I’ve come into contact with today, they flinch or fidget or look away like they don’t know what to say. I see Sydney, in the kind of elegant pants and sweater grown-up lawyer women wear, way focused on her computer, tapping away. She hasn’t even noticed we’re here. She’s a good editor. I like the way the papers turn out here, and I’m impressed by how dedicated and smart Sydney seems. She’s one of those kids who don’t seem to care what people think of her. Tina wants to be that kind of kid, but I think she cares as much as the rest of us. Her whole thing with trying to look Goth and countercultural still seems to acknowledge what is acceptable, if only to go against it. Sydney doesn’t even know what’s acceptable, or if she does, she cares so little that it doesn’t affect her life at all. She’s already figured out who she is and what she wants.

  I walk over to her desk, and Tina follows. I tap Sydney’s shoulder, and she swivels her head. Unlike the other kids, she smiles like nothing is wrong with me. She’s got on a new pair of funky glasses, sort of square-shaped, black with gold flecks.

  “Hey, Paski,” her voice chirps. “How are you?”

  I tell her I’m okay, and she looks at me long and hard, like she’s trying to figure out whether or not I’m telling the truth.

  “Hi, Sydney,” says Tina. To my surprise, Sydney smiles and gets up to hug her. I didn’t realize they were friends. “Have you thought about that cartoon strip anymore?” Sydney asks.

  Tina shakes her head. “Nah.”

  “Oh,
come on,” says Sydney with a friendly fake punch to Tina’s arm. “You totally have to do it. You’re so funny.”

  I look at Tina like I want to know what they’re talking about, and she tells me that Sydney has asked her to draw a comic strip for the paper, about kids who are kind of like the kids at school.

  “You should!” I think it’s a great idea.

  “Nah,” says Tina again.

  “C’mon!” pleads Sydney.

  “I’m not comfortable with it,” Tina says.

  “But why? You could have a huge impact here.”

  “I don’t want to have a huge impact here,” says Tina. “I want to wait to get out in the real world to have my big impact. Here is a place I just want to get out of. Like Alcatraz.”

  Sydney shrugs at me, like she’s tried all she can. I can tell she isn’t giving up, though. I like that about her. “So,” she says to me. “I know all about what happened with the party. I’m not going to say I’m sorry, because I know that’s not what you want to hear.”

  I see some of the other kids in the room listening to us, and it seems like they all really respect what Sydney has to say. I realize that even though Jessica and her friends are the most obviously popular girls in the school, there are many layers of popularity, and kids can be popular in different cliques for different reasons. Sydney the smart, funky newspaper editor is exactly the kind of person I would like to be friends with.

  “So, anyway, all I’m going to say about it is that you don’t have to do that motocross race story if you don’t want to.”

  “I don’t mind doing it,” I reply.

  “Okay, but I have to ask if you think you have a conflict of interest now.”

  “A what?” I ask.

  “A conflict of interest is when, as a journalist, you don’t think you’re going to be able to do a fair job covering a story because your personal feelings or experiences about it might get in the way.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Do you have bad feelings about Jessica that might get in the way?” asks Sydney.

  I consider the question, and the truth is . . . no. I know that I should dislike her, obviously, but it’s like someone planted another feeling in me. It’s this weird sense of peace, and I know that it’s coming from the same place the spirit voices and invisible coyotes have come from. Trust me, I don’t like that I feel this way. It’s like I wish I could be angry about it, but I just feel neutral.

  “I’m okay with it,” I say.

  Tina looks at me in shock, grabs me by the shoulders, and stares at my eyes, close up. “You’re crazy,” she says. “In a good, Walt Whitman sort of way. But crazy.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Sydney asks me, but Tina thinks the question is for her.

  “I am completely convinced she’s insane,” she exclaims.

  “I’m not sure Jessica knew what she was doing,” I say. “I think the bigger problem for me is with Andrew, or whoever put that stuff in my soda.”

  “Okay, then,” says Sydney. “I like that you’re being open-minded about it. That’s a must for reporters.”

  Sydney opens a file box on the floor next to her and pulls out a white envelope. She hands it to me. “This is your press pass for the race this weekend. Use it wisely.”

  I stuff the envelope in my backpack and try to ignore the awful, bloody vision of Jessica crushed under her own motorcycle in the third turn. I tell myself I’ve done all I can to warn her, but in my heart I know the truth: I should have tried harder.

  26

  I open the door from the parking lot to the garage, and in the half-dark, I see the hulking shape of the Squeegeemobile. I smell it, too. Oily. Like spray paint and CK One. You know that new-car smell? Well, whatever the opposite of that is, I think it smells like this. Dad’s back early. It’s Friday, and we have plans, me and Dad, to go to a movie. It’s been a long time since we did that. Ever since the party, Dad has been coming home earlier than before and spending less time with his pro-cholo posse.

  I stash my bike in a corner far from the “car” and head upstairs. When I open the door to the apartment, I hear a muffled gasp of surprise and look up to see my dad and Melanie, the twins’ mom, jumping away from each other on the couch with these guilty red faces. No. Way. Please tell me I did not just walk in on my dad making out with the lady next door. Please tell me I’m hallucinating. Don Juan, sitting near them, points one of his back feet up toward the ceiling like a ballerina and proceeds to lick his butt. I want to ask him what’s going on, but he’ll just walk away like he always does, waiting for a can of food to get the butt taste out of his mouth.

  “Hey, Punkin,” says my dad in a sort of high-pitched tone. He looks at his watch, way awkward. “I didn’t realize it was this late already. Wow.”

  I smile tightly but can’t find my voice. I don’t know what to say. I just stand there, all stupid and frozen.

  “Hello, Pasquala,” says Melanie. She’s adjusting her shirt. Adjusting her shirt. Eew. Please tell me my dad was not the cause of her shirt’s disorder. Oh. My. God. Dad is feeling up the neighbor lady. Puke?

  “We were just sitting here . . . talking,” says Dad. Melanie laughs with her hand over her mouth.

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll be in my room if you crazy kids need me,” I say. I dash up the stairs before they can stop me. I don’t mean to slam the door, but that’s what happens anyway. Wham! Like I’m angry, which I’m not. Sickened and angry are not the same thing. I pick up the phone from my old dresser and punch in Janet’s number. I need to talk to her about everything.

  Janet tells me all the latest gossip from Taos High, including the fact that she has a crush on a boy I used to think she liked. She denied it back when she had a boyfriend, but now she says she thinks he’s cute. She also finally tells me that Emily is getting hot and heavy with the dude from Española.

  We laugh about my dad making out with the lady next door. I tell her I have had weird visions about them getting married someday. Janet gets all excited and asks me what I envision for her and her new crush, and I tell her I have no idea. I have never been able to have a vision on demand. They just come when they feel like it, and it’s my job to figure out why and what to do with them. Janet asks about Chris Cabrera, and I tell her I’ve sort of been avoiding him because of my dad.

  “Don’t do that,” she says.

  “I know.” It’s not like my dad has a lot of ground to stand on. He’s the freak who’s downstairs molesting the neighbor lady.

  “You’re his daughter, not his slave,” Janet says. Thank God for friends.

  “You think I should go out with Chris if he asks me?”

  “Duh,” says Janet. “He’s hot, he’s available, he saved your life. What part of perfect do you not understand?”

  At that moment, the call waiting beeps. I look at the caller ID. Cabrera. I tell Janet I’ll call her back, and I switch the call over. My pulse races.

  “Hello?” I say, like I don’t already know who’s calling.

  “Paski?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s me, Chris. Cabrera.”

  “Oh,” I say, pretending to be surprised. “Hi. How are you?”

  “Fine. You?”

  “Okay. I mean, I just walked in on my dad making out with the lady next door, but other than that . . .”

  He laughs. “Your dad’s a character.”

  “I guess that’s why he draws them,” I say.

  He laughs again. I love his laugh. “So, I’m calling to see if you have plans tonight.”

  “I’m supposed to go to the movies with my dad.”

  “Oh. Can you get out of it?”

  “Maybe. Why?”

  “It’s a beautiful evening,” he responds. “And I’m dying to see you ride a motorcycle.”

  “I don’t have a motorcycle,” I point out.

  “I know,” he says. “But I do.”

  “I don’t know how to ride.”

  “What about your granny’s Ha
rley?”

  “I can’t ride your motorcycle.”

  “I’ll teach you.”

  I get goose bumps when he says this. It sounds amazing.

  Come to think of it? There are lots of things I’d like Chris Cabrera to teach me.

  “Let me see if I can get out of this thing with my dad,” I say. I might be making a mistake, but after you’ve been through what I have lately, what’s one more little problem?

  27

  My dad seems relieved when I tell him Tina invited me to go to the movies. It’s a lie, of course. I’m going to meet Chris at school, leave my bike there, and he’s going to teach me to ride his racing motorcycle.

  Yes, I just said I’m going to learn how to ride a motocross motorcycle. Can you believe it? Me, neither. You have no idea how excited I am. Not just to learn to ride, but to go for a ride, too, behind Chris, where I can wrap my arms and legs around him and hold on. You have to curl around the driver on the back of one of those things, right? It’s, like, a requirement. So I won’t be a hoochie for it. I’ll just be safety-conscious. Very convenient.

  I can’t exactly tell my father what my plans are, though. I think that on any other day, he would have noticed I was lying. He’s usually pretty good at that. But today he’s embarrassed about making out with Melanie in our apartment. It’s not like I really care. I’m happy for him. No, seriously, I am. I want him to have someone besides me to tell him how great he is. And if he had a girlfriend, it would make my leaving for college a little easier.

  Melanie is still in the living room when I ask Dad if he minds that I go with my new friend instead of him. “I mean, no offense. It’s just, Tina’s really cool.”

  “She’s awesome,” he agrees. Awesome? Why is my dad still using that word? He sounds foolish. “You should meet this girl, Mel,” he says. “She’s dope.” Dope? The only dope here is my father.

  “What movie are you going to see?” asks Melanie.