by Sarah Miller
He opened the door. He had a sixteen-ounce Coors Light in his hand. He just looked at Pilar and didn’t say anything. She felt her knees start to knock together and her breath waver.
“Hi,” she said. “How are you?”
He still said nothing.
“I probably shouldn’t be here…”
Damn, this ees hard. If I could just get a sense that he ees at all happy to see me, I would know where to take thees.
She was going to have to take it up a level.
“I probably shouldn’t be here, but I just found that I couldn’t…stay away.”
The wolfish glint she was waiting for came up in his eyes. He didn’t open the door any wider, but his stance relaxed a little and behind him, on the coffee table in the living room, Pilar saw a stack of Coors Lights. “Stay away…from what?”
The back of her neck started to sweat as she considered what she should say next. Thank God he ees drunk. Men always have to have sex, which he is not going to have but he is going to theenk he have, when they are drunk.
“She’s almost in,” I told Edie. “She’s trying to decide whether to keep it cool or come right out and say it.”
“Come right out and say what?” Edie asked.
“That she wants his johnson. Duh.”
Pilar looked at Cockweed’s face. He still looked suspicious. It wasn’t the right expression for a come-on. She didn’t know what the right expression was. But that wasn’t it.
“It’s just that…I really want to talk about what happened. How you caught us. I want to know something. And I don’t know why, but I feel like you’re the only one who can tell me.”
I watched Cockweed through her eyes, very carefully.
I hoped she saw what I saw. His face softened, but his eyes stayed hard. He thought she was the fool. He thought she was the one who didn’t understand the rules of this game, and that he was in control. He was just trying to look sympathetic.
Pilar thought, So far so good.
“I hope you’re not here to try to change my mind about what happened,” he said. “Because what’s done is done. I don’t ask you kids to break the rules, but I can’t help but enforce them when you do.”
Pilar put her hand over her heart, consciously letting her wrist press against her breast a little so Cockweed could get a sense of how soft it was. “Oh no,” she said. “If there’s one thing about me people know, it’s that when I have been bad, I can take being punished.”
Cockweed made an involuntary squeaking noise in the back of his throat, like he wanted to speak but couldn’t.
He opened the door, and Pilar stepped inside. And walked past his arm, extended in invitation. As she got a few feet past him, she looked over her shoulder, ostensibly to smile at him, but he had to look up quickly to meet her eyes—he was, as she had suspected he might be, fixated on her ass. His eyes moved up quickly, his face doglike with unconcealed shame. Cockweed wasn’t smooth. He tried to look stern, and Pilar gave him a frightened, appeasing smile to make him think he’d gotten away with it, but she was thinking, Oh, I think I have him where I need him.
“Poor Pilar,” Edie said.
“What do you mean?” I said. “She’s kicking fucking ass.”
“Yes,” Edie said. “But what if she actually gets to the point where she has to kiss him? Can you imagine?”
But I had to put that out of my mind or I would feel guilty. I told myself that if I were in her place, I would make out with Cockweed, and decided to remember this moment as the very last time I wished I were stunning and traffic-stopping instead of just kinda cute.
Cockweed’s apartment was cavernous and old, and like the boys’ room, which was on the same floor, sloped down at the edges. Furniture was functional, a futon sofa, a couple of old chairs covered with canvas slipcovers, a big, old television. The walls were covered with Midvale memorabilia.
“The baby’s asleep,” Cockweed said as he indicated that Pilar should sit on the sofa, and he sat in a recliner at the end of it. “And the kids are at their friends’ until ten—watching that American Idol nonsense. You don’t watch that, do you?”
Pilar loved American Idol, but she said that she didn’t watch it. “It’s a leettle childish for me,” she said. “I…know I’m only sixteen, but I feel that I have…well, we have an expression in Argentina. I have el alma de mujer…the soul of woman.”
She looked right at Cockweed with her giant brown eyes. He adjusted himself in his chair. Then a sour expression came over his face, and he said, “Look, Pilar, I don’t have all night.”
Pilar tilted her head girlishly. “Of course you don’t. Well. I guess I felt kind of weird about the other night. And I just…wanted to talk to you about sex.”
Cockweed made a fussy adjustment of the slipcover and then tugged at his pants again. He was definitely tugging at his pants a lot—nothing wrong with that. He coughed formally. “OK,” he said.
“I…oh, this ees so embarrassing,” she said.
She had him now. Naturally, I wasn’t in his mind, but it was clear that he was extremely eager to know what this absolutely gorgeous girl about a third of his age who wanted to talk about sex was so terribly embarrassed about.
“I want you to know that I am a virgin,” Pilar said. Her heart stopped beating when she said this. Could she hear his pounding? His cheeks looked as if they’d been injected with red pen ink.
“And why did you want me to know that?” he asked.
“Oh,” Pilar said. “I just didn’t want you to think anything bad about me. Because I always thought you were one of the cool teachers here. I mean, like, you could be a hard-ass, yes?”
“Yes,” Cockweed said, looking off into the middle distance with wistful self-importance. “That I can.”
“But, like, you are not full of yourself. You totally know who you are.”
Now he looked at her. “Really? Is that what people think of me?”
Now Pilar did something really brilliant. She pretended not to hear him, and stood up. He wants something from me, and eef I try to go now, it will be almost like it was his idea for me to come over. “Thanks for listening,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to think just because I had a guy in my room that I was, like, you know, totally loose like all of the other girls here. So. Anyway, it was nice knowing you.”
She started to walk out. A brilliant move. Cockweed stopped her with his voice. “I think it’s very admirable you’re a virgin,” he said.
His voice wavered a little. Now he was the one taking the risk. Pilar stopped and turned, dramatic, like a heroine in a telenovela. “Thank you,” she said. “Gracias.”
“I have to admit I am curious about how exactly…you’ve managed to preserve…?
“My maidenhood?” Pilar said.
His eyes glittered. “It’s just that I rarely get to know the kids one on one,” Cockweed said.
Pilar paused. “Well,” she said. “I guess we are having…one of those conversations that doesn’t really make any sense, you know.”
“Yes,” Cockweed said. “I don’t know if you know this word, because English isn’t your first language. But we Americans might call this an interlude.”
She returned and sat down. She took a deep breath. This was her moment, the crucial moment, and she knew it. She felt sick and she also wanted to laugh. Who ees the dumb ass who doesn’t know what an interlude ees?
She sat down, crossing her legs demurely. “Well,” she began. “I guess I just find that young boys are just after one thing. You know? They just want to have sex, and you get the feeling that they just want to do eet so they can, like, say they did it, you know? I guess I have always been looking for more of a sensual experience.”
“Hmm,” Cockweed said, trying to keep his voice light and curious. “Tell me more about that.”
“Well, you know, they’re just dying to get your pants off. They don’t like to relax and share…casual relaxing times together, unwinding.”
It wa
s a good hint, but Cockweed shook his head in an elaborate display of sympathetic disgust.
“Those boys,” he said.
She looked at the floor. “You probably think I am being really silly,” she said. “I get thees way sometimes when I am feeling uptight and need to just let my hair down.”
“No, Pilar.” Cockweed shook his head. “I think you’re just being very real.”
Pilar counted to ten, letting the silence, and the tension, build.
“It’s just lonely sometimes,” she said. “Feeling like a woman, but having to live in the rules of girls. I like adult things. I like to have a good time just like everyone else…but most of the things people do to have a good time here…it’s not worth doing eet with those people, right?”
Cockweed said nothing. He’s either onto me, Pilar thought, or he’s eating out of my hand. Either way…
She went in for the kill.
“I mean, Gideon Rayburn is a nice boy, and he’s cute, I suppose, for a kid, but he’s a boy, you know, and…”
Cockweed started to look angry, which basically meant that his head was going from a tender pink color to a vibrant red. Pilar’s eyes darted nervously around, looking for an escape if he blew up.
“Oh fuck,” I said to Edie. “He’s onto her.”
Edie put her hand over her mouth and we sat, not moving, as Cockweed stood from his chair. “Goddamn it,” he shouted. “I can’t believe this shit.”
Pilar looked at him imploringly and was about to open her mouth and say something, anything, when he spoke again.
“It makes me sick, sick to my stomach, that those boys get their hands on a girl like you.”
Pilar bowed her head so he wouldn’t see her smile. She said nothing.
“Oh my God,” I said to Edie. “I think she did it.”
Cockweed almost shook with indignation. He slowly lowered himself back to sit. He looked at Pilar. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was inappropriate.” But his eyes got kind of puppy-doggish, like he expected her to say something.
“Oh no, Gene, but seriously, don’t you think maybe we should…take theengs down a notch here? Mellow out?” Jesus. I can’t make thees any more fucking obvious. If he doesn’t fall for this shit, I guess I am just going to have to start getting him turned on and then say I like to do it on pot. And then I am going to have to run or something.
“Mmm,” Cockweed said. “Why don’t you show me what you mean by taking things down a notch?”
My beauty is a sword, and it is also a wall. I will stand in it, and fight with it, and I will win.
And then Pilar Benitez-Jones fell to her knees, placed her hands on Cockweed’s thighs, and gazed upon Cockweed’s meaty face with quite as much reverence as if she were Guinevere gazing for the first time at her Lancelot.
She forced herself to slide her hands up his thighs as she felt her stomach turn over.
Cockweed pulled away. “How do I know this is for real, Pilar? How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick?”
Pilar swallowed. She knew she didn’t have much time to think. The really obvious, cheesy stuff had totally worked with him, so she might as well just try more. “It would be your word against mine,” she said, “and I’m not wearing a wire. See?” With this, she whipped her shirt open. She was wearing a bra.
Cockweed leaned toward her.
“Would you like to see how a real man kisses?” he said.
“Oh yes,” Pilar breathed. She closed her eyes tight, and her whole body stiffened.
“She’s kissing him,” I told Edie. It was easy to guess what Cockweed was thinking right now, because he was staring at Pilar’s breasts: Pilar has awesome breasts. I can’t wait to see them, Pilar has awesome breasts, I can’t wait to see them.
Her mouth was inches away from his when there was a sound of a key in the lock.
Pilar didn’t even think. She ran for the bedroom closet, diving behind a pile of coats. From behind them she watched as Cockweed hurried to straighten up the couch. When his wife came in, he was just plumping up a pillow.
She lit into him right away. “What the fuck are you doing, Gene?”
Wow, Pilar thought, Cockweed’s life sucks.
Mrs. Cockweed was wearing a raincoat and a sort of silly, floppy rain hat. She disappeared down a hall, and Cockweed, scratching his head in panic, followed her.
“All you do is sleep,” Mrs. Cockweed railed from the other room.
“That’s bullshit,” Cockweed said. “I was just straightening up the couch because you’re such a terrible housekeeper.”
OK. Maybe I don’t feel so bad for him. I mean, not that I really did. Just for a second.
As the Cockweeds continued to bark and snipe at each other in the living room, Pilar inched out of the closet.
I failed. I didn’t get the pot. Molly and Edie are going to theenk I’m a loser. Who cares? They’re not that great. But I really wanted to find the pot. Look at Cockweed’s stupid shoe tree in his closet. His wife’s shoes are all so ugly. You can’t blame a guy for being mad when he’s married to a woman with such ugly shoes. Oh my God, his slippers are so gay. I guess I’m just going to wait een here? Maybe all night? No. When she goes to the bathroom. Except the bathroom’s een here, and if they’re married, she probably pees with the door open. I can’t stay here all night. His slippers are corduroy. They have, like, thees gross bow on them. Ew. Imagine having bows on your slippers. Wait. She stepped forward and poked the bow with her finger. It made a crinkling sound. It was a bag of pot.
Cockweed appeared in the doorway. He hissed, “Get out of here! My wife’s making micro wave popcorn. You have two minutes.”
Pilar stepped out and started to walk around him to the front door.
“No way,” Cockweed hissed. “The window.”
The bedroom window was open, and there was a tree outside, the tree that was the twin, symmetry wise, to the tree that grew outside Proctor 307.
OK. I gotta get out of here.
“Come on, Edie,” I said. “We gotta go.”
Edie ran out with me and didn’t argue.
It was a good thing that even under all those layers of alfajor chubbiness her core muscles were still so strong, because Pilar needed them to get out of that window and onto that tree. It was easy enough to climb down, until she got to the bottom.
The lowest branch was fifteen or so feet from the ground. Pilar leaned on a branch at waist level. Her arms started to shake. If I jump out of a tree, I’m probably going to break an ankle. Or a wrist. Or a knee.
“Pilar!”
Pilar looked down. Edie and I were standing there, smiling up at her, each of us holding two cushions that we’d grabbed off the sofas and chairs in Emerson.
“How deed you know I was—”
“There’s no time for that,” Edie said. “Jump.”
Pilar crossed herself and then jumped.
It wasn’t a jump worthy of crossing yourself. We each got one of Pilar’s arms, and we all fell backward. The cushions went flopping off to the side of our ugly human heap, totally useless. It didn’t feel good, but none of us were going to die. We all lay there for a minute, and then we heard the sound of a window closing above. We looked up. It was Cockweed. He blinked into the darkness. “Stand up,” I whispered. “Wave to him.”
Pilar stood up. She waved. Cockweed waved back. The window closed, and Pilar turned away from us and vomited into the grass.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Before the hearing the next morning, Pilar came into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth and looked at me in the mirror. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I said.
She couldn’t not check me out—couldn’t not look at my hair, my mouth, even my ears, and to wonder if maybe Gid still loved me, if he still thought about me.
She decided that he probably didn’t.
“What are the chances that you’re going to be able to take care of thees?” she said.
“Hundred percent,”
I said. “You don’t even have to go to the hearing. It’s not even going to happen.”
Maybe, Pilar thought, Gid liked Molly not just because of her body and stuff, but because she was cool. This was an amazing thought for her.
“OK,” Pilar said. “I am going to stop packing. I will just relax. Maybe I will just watch The Hills on my computer.”
We just stood there. “I know you mostly did thees to get Geedeon back in school,” she said. “But I really like him. I know he…has feelings for you. But I think he has feelings for me too and…”
I set my toothbrush down. Pilar was afraid of me now, just as I had been afraid of her. “I promise I won’t fuck with you and Gid,” I said. I meant it. Pilar had been pretty cool to go through with what I wanted her to do with Cockweed, and I just wasn’t going to mess with her anymore. I had to get out of her head eventually. And Gid would pick who he wanted. There was nothing I could do about it.
She didn’t believe me. Molly will do anything to get Gid back. She still loves him, and he ees everything to her.
“I know you don’t believe me,” I said, “because, yes, I do still have feelings for him. But I will be OK. I…what I really want more than anything right now is for us to win that match. That’s really what I want right now.”
Her face lit up. It was amazing how, when you knew someone’s fear and were honest about it and addressed it, they felt better. “I believe you,” she said. Then she frowned. “I don’t know how I am going to not be freaking out until thees is over,” she said.
“Go study,” I said. “Go study and just assume you’re going to that match with us.”
There was a rule at Midvale that, if you were going up against the judicial board, you were entitled to have any member of the community present at your hearing. So when Edie and I stepped out of Emerson that morning, dressed neatly in the same prim, preppy outfits we wore for Academic Tête-à-Tête, we were quickly joined by Nicholas, Cullen, Devon, and Liam coming down the path from Proctor, all looking grim in sport coats.
“This is so gnar-gnar,” Devon said, touching what looked like a painful stripe of razor burn on his cheek. “It’s total Angnartica.”