The next morning, he came crashing back to reality.
It was a Saturday, and he realized he had no desire whatsoever to drive to the school. Why bother? Michelle wouldn't be there. She'd let a few weeks pass between First Michelle and Second, and another few weeks between Second and Third. If a Fourth Michelle happened, it would happen in a few weeks. Not the day after Third Michelle.
After all, she'd just satisfied her weird obsession. She'd gotten herself off. Probably her appetite would be satisfied for a while. That was the pattern, right? Once she had her fun, she didn't need Charlie anymore. She could go on with her life. Until the desires came back, and then she would seek out Charlie again. He was the only one who knew her secret, and the only one she could indulge herself with.
Maybe she was like an alcoholic trying to quit. Maybe after each event, she told herself it was the last time, and she was done with it. After a few weeks, the need would come creeping back, and she would find herself seeking out Charlie for another thrill, another fix.
Was that all he was to her?
Charlie stared at the ceiling of his room for most of Saturday morning. In the afternoon, he got in his car, but instead of driving to the school, he drove out of Pine Hills and along the highway for half an hour, finally stopping at a Gozerburger twenty miles out of town for lunch. He ate in a booth by himself, watching the cars pass by outside the window.
"I can't keep doing this," he muttered to himself. He didn't doubt that Michelle was the definition of a dream girl, and any other boy in the school would trade places with him in an instant. He couldn't deny that he felt an absurd happiness when he was with her. But he'd only been with her three times in the last two months. The gaps were becoming too hard to take, the lows too deep and empty. He hated the uncertainty of never knowing if she was done with him, never understanding what drew her back.
"I don't need a secret girlfriend," he thought. "I need a real one. An every day one." He hadn't felt like his life was lonely until he met Michelle. She made him realize how much he had isolated himself, hiding behind his cameras and his projects, never reaching out to anyone. He would graduate in three months and his memories of high school would consist of sitting in front of a computer, splicing together images of other people's experiences.
She had come into his life and stirred something up inside him that he hadn't known was there. Now he had to admit that no matter how good it felt, he wasn’t satisfied with his once-a-month flings with Michelle. He wanted something more real.
"Monday," he told himself. “She has one day. One last chance. If it's like all the other Mondays, where she doesn't speak to me at all, then that's it. I'm done with this."
Monday came. He saw her in the hall, and she passed by without a word. And that was it.
***
Charlie sat at his usual lunch table in the cafeteria, with the usual gang. Andy and Greg, Michael and Dinesh, another boy that everyone called Frito. Charlie was only half-listening to their conversation, lost in his own thoughts.
"What about you, Charlie?" Greg asked.
Charlie blinked. "Sorry, what?"
"Prom. You thinking about going to the prom?"
"Sure he is!" Dinesh burst in. "He's going so he can film it!" The boys laughed.
"Have you decided which camera you're going to take, Charlie?" Andy asked.
Dinesh added, "Better hurry... before they're all asked already, and you get stuck with the Nikon!" Laughter.
Charlie smiled tightly. When the laughter subsided, he said, "As a matter of fact, I am going to prom. I'm taking Ronni."
The laughter evaporated immediately. Now five sets of eyes gazed at him in sudden interest. "Ronni?" Dinesh asked. "No kidding?"
"You asked her?" Michael asked.
"I asked her," Charlie confirmed. "She said yes."
"Wow... you and Ronni..." Greg considered the news. "What, you like her? I didn't know you liked her..."
"I don't know..." Charlie said. "I mean, I know her from the AV team. She's cool. We'll see what happens."
"Yeah, she is cool," Dinesh agreed. "She's pretty, too. Nice job, Charlie."
The boys all nodded, looking at Charlie with respect. The discussion turned to Andy, who still hadn't asked out his prom choice. "I'm pretty sure she'll say yes..." Andy said. "I'm just waiting for the right moment..."
Charlie returned to his thoughts, only vaguely listening to the boys as they heaped unsolicited advice onto Andy. He stirred the pasta on his plate with his fork. How many bites had he taken? Two? Three? He didn't seem to have much of an appetite lately.
Charlie realized the boys had all stopped talking. They all stared at him. Charlie straightened, confused. What had he missed?
No, it wasn't him they were staring at. They were staring at Michelle. Michelle Santos was standing right next to him.
Charlie looked up at her. She looked amazing, as always, in a pristine white dress, with her dark hair brushed straight and tucked behind her ears. Charlie blinked, surprised to find her standing so close to him. Was she actually going to talk to him?
"Hey, Michelle," he said.
"Hi Charlie. I just heard..." Michelle paused to push her hair over her ear, even though it was already there. She started again. "Someone told me you asked Ronni Arthur to the prom. Is that true? Are you going to the prom with her?" Michelle's voice sounded unsteady.
"Yeah," he said.
She looked to the side, blinking at the ceiling. "Why? I don't understand. I mean...I thought after... after everything..." She pressed her hand against her eyes, and her fingers left a streak of wet mascara across her cheek. Abruptly, she turned and dashed away, her heels tapping furiously on the linoleum floor.
The entire cafeteria had gone silent as everyone paused to watch. Charlie could feel the shocked eyes on him. "Wait!" he called. He scrambled to his feet.
Michelle disappeared through the main door of the cafeteria, but by the time he reached the door and pushed it open, the hallway was empty. He took a couple steps and then stopped, noticing the door to the girl's bathroom next to him. Had she gone in there? Did he dare to go in after her? What if he went in and she wasn't in there?
What was he going to say to her, anyway? What was he supposed to say? Charlie stood uncertainly for a minute. He took another step down the hall, then glanced at the bathroom door again.
It was pointless. He wasn't going to catch her. Not this time. He would find her, he would talk to her, some other time. After he'd had some time to think.
Charlie turned around and pulled open the door to the cafeteria, trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened. It didn't make any sense. Why had she been so upset? She barely talked to him. What had she expected?
He stepped back into the cafeteria and stopped.
Everyone was staring at him. The entire cafeteria.
Charlie looked at all the faces. They watched him as if expecting some further development in this unexpected drama. He heard whispering, although he couldn't see who was whispering.
Everyone knew Michelle. Everyone liked Michelle. Now everyone was no doubt asking who the hell this Charlie guy was who had brought Michelle to tears.
Charlie glanced at his plate of pasta, sitting abandoned in the middle of that sea of eyes. Even the boys at his table gaped at him in wordless astonishment.
Charlie didn't say anything. He just turned and walked out.
CHAPTER 4
Charlie had always felt like he was invisible at Pine Hills High School. Or, perhaps it was more accurate to say that he felt more like a school employee than a student, invisible in the same way that Daryl the security guard was invisible to the high school kids. Or the custodians, or the guy who maintained the sports fields. Charlie had joined the AV department his first year in high school, and by junior year he was the student supervisor. He was always at the football games, always at the basketball games, always at every event, but he was always there worki
ng, and no one paid any attention to him.
Now, suddenly, everyone could see him. The story of the cafeteria incident had travelled quickly around the school and now it seemed like everyone knew what had happened. Everyone knew Michelle had confronted him in the middle of the cafeteria. Everyone knew she had run away crying, and he’d chased after her. They were happy to fill in the rest of the details themselves.
People he rarely talked to now came up to him as if he was an old friend. Jerrod Sanders threw his arm around Charlie in the hallway, leaned in like they were co-conspirators and whispered, “Charlie! What’s this I hear about you got something going on with Michelle?” The skateboarders that inhabited the bench behind the auditorium chorused “Way to go, Charlie!” when he walked by.
Myra Tenney and a group of junior girls surrounded him at his locker, with expectant smiles and twinkling eyes, to tell him that they would deliver a message to Michelle if he wanted. Also to share with him an assortment of other rumors they had heard, as if he was part of their gossip ring. His response, “This is between me and Michelle,” only caused the girls to giggle and exchange meaningful looks.
He didn’t want to talk to anyone but Michelle, but she was now impossible to find. He wandered the hallways, searching for a glimpse of her, even staking out her locker, but she never seemed to be around. He thought maybe she had called in sick, but then he glimpsed her at the end of the day, far off at the other end of the hall, walking with a group of her friends. He rushed down the hall trying to catch her, but by the time he reached where he’d seen her, she was gone.
Charlie had to face Ronni in the AV room. She approached him, looking pensive. “Charlie, did you already ask Michelle Santos to prom?” she asked in a low voice.
“No!” he said. “Look… I know there’re some rumors going around…”
“I overheard some boys talking about it.” Ronni chewed her bottom lip. “They said you had to choose between Michelle and me and you chose me. Which is good, I guess, but some of the things they were saying about me weren’t very nice… like why would you choose someone like me over someone like her. They said you were crazy to pick me…”
Charlie shook his head. “I’m sorry… I hope you just ignored them…”
“I’m good at ignoring negativity, most of the time. But geez, Charlie… when you asked me to the prom, I didn’t expect all this drama… I thought we were just two friends going together…”
“I know.” Charlie rubbed his forehead, trying to push away the throbbing in his temples. “Here’s what happened. I met Michelle on a weekend when we were both at the school, when the school was pretty empty. She was doing spirit squad stuff, I was editing in the bay. We went out a few times. Three times. Honestly, I didn’t think she liked me that much. She hardly ever talked to me when we were at school, kinda like she didn’t want anyone to know she had gone out with me. So we stopped dating and I thought that was the end of it. But then she got upset that I asked you to the prom instead of her, and she let me know in the cafeteria in front of everyone.”
“So… would you rather go with her?” Ronni gazed at him.
Charlie remembered his moment of epiphany the day after Third Michelle. Whatever was going on in Michelle’s head, he didn’t need to be the one to make sense of it. “I want to go with you. That’s why I asked you. I didn’t ask her.”
“Okay.” Ronni nodded. “Have you talked to Michelle?”
“Not yet.”
“You should.”
“I will.” Charlie looked towards the glass window, the window where he had seen Michelle walking naked that first Saturday.
“Girls can be like that, you know,” Ronni said. “My brother’s ex acted like she didn’t care at all about him, until he found a new girlfriend. Then suddenly she acted super jealous. Sometimes girls take it for granted you’ll be there, until you aren’t, then they get possessive.”
Charlie shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Ronni grinned. “Or maybe she’s just crazy.”
Charlie chuckled. “Yeah. That could be it.”
They laughed.
That night, Charlie sat in his room, gazing at Michelle’s clothing which he had carefully arranged on his bed, and he thought maybe he was the crazy one. All he could think about was how he had never seen her wear this outfit. She had discarded the clothing in the back of his car before coming to see him, the day of the Second Michelle. He had never seen her wearing it, and now he never would.
Why did he tell himself in the daylight that he was going to try for a normal relationship with Ronni, when he still had reminders of Michelle hidden all around his room? If he was serious about moving on from Michelle, he should take all of it, throw it in a paper bag and toss it in a dumpster somewhere. Everything. Even his tribute video to her, which he had put hours into. Everything.
He couldn’t do it.
Maybe after he talked to her. Maybe that was the answer. He would wait to talk to her, get some closure. Then he’d make a clean break and throw it all away.
***
The next day at school, he didn’t bother trying to chase down Michelle. Instead, he found Vanessa Watson.
Vanessa was the head cheerleader, and Michelle’s best friend. Everyone called her Vampire Vanessa, a nickname she didn’t seem to mind. She had perfect teeth, except for her canines, which were slightly crooked, protruding down more than normal. They did look a little like fangs when she smiled, and combined with her raven black hair and light complexion, the nickname fit her well.
Charlie found her at her locker. Alone, thankfully, so he didn’t need to ask to speak to her in private. He wanted to deal with as few of Michelle’s friends as possible.
“Hi, Vanessa,” he said.
“Hi, Charlie.” She pulled books out of her locker without looking at him. She didn’t seem overly surprised that he was there.
“I need to talk to Michelle. Do you think you could ask her if she’ll meet me?”
“I don’t know, Charlie… what do you want to talk to her about?” When he struggled to formulate a response, she chuckled. “Can’t answer, huh? That’s all right. She won’t tell me anything either.”
“I just need to talk to her.”
Vanessa closed her locker door and turned to face him. “You know, Charlie, a week ago I would have said Michelle was my best friend and that we had no secrets from each other. I thought she pretty much told me everything. I believed it right up to the point she stood up in the cafeteria and walked over to you. Now, I’m really not sure if I know her at all.”
He kept his face impassive. “Will you ask her?”
Vanessa scowled for a moment. Then she rolled her eyes. “Fine. Tell you what. Give me your number. I’ll talk to Michelle. If she wants to talk to you, I’ll text you and tell you where to be. Maybe she’ll show up, maybe she won’t. If she doesn’t want to talk to you, I’m just going to text ‘sorry’, and that’ll be it. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“I don’t know what happened between you and her. She hasn’t told me anything, so far. But I’ll tell you what, Charlie. You’re an idiot to turn down Michelle. She’s the nicest person I know. I could easily recite a list of boys who would love to take her to prom, a long list. Why she wanted to go with you, I have no idea. Just like I have no idea why you wouldn’t want to take her. This whole thing makes absolutely no sense to me.”
Charlie hadn’t intended to tell Vanessa anything, but now he felt like he needed to defend himself. “I found out Michelle wanted to go to prom with me the same time everyone else did. In the cafeteria. That was the first time she ever mentioned the prom to me.”
“Bullshit,” Vanessa retorted. “You and Michelle have something going. She didn’t just spontaneously decide you would ask her. She had a reason to think you would.”
“We had something going,” Charlie said. “But not anymore.” He opened his Calculus textbook to the first page an
d quickly jotted his phone number in the corner. He tore off the corner and gave it to Vanessa.
“No promises,” she said.
“I know.”
Half an hour later, his phone buzzed. He checked and saw a text message: “Football stands, top row, after school.”
He texted back: “Tell her I’ll be there.”
“Thanks, Vanessa,” he murmured. “Owe you one.”
***
He ascended the football stands right after his last class. He looked across the long rows, but he was the only one there. That time of year, the track team used the football field and surrounding track, and Charlie could see a handful of runners already doing warm-up laps. Most of the track team wouldn’t show up until later; practice didn’t start until an hour after last bell. Charlie made his way to the last row and sat down. He watched the joggers circle the track. They took no notice of him as he sat there by himself.
Maybe she wouldn’t show up.
It was an overcast day. They predicted rain later, and Charlie could already feel a cool breeze stirring the air. He wished he had brought his jacket. Still no sign of Michelle. He wondered how long he should wait for her.
Then he saw her. She appeared at the edge of the field and glanced up at the stands, quickly locating him. He was the only one up there. She walked to the stairs and started to make her way up to him. She was beautiful, as always, wearing a grey knit dress and black coat, with black leggings. She looked down at the stairs as she ascended them, only looking his way when she reached his row.
“Hi, Michelle.” His voice sounded muted, as if the still air swallowed the sound.
Saturday Night School 2: Risky Behavior Page 3