Stu Truly

by Dan Richards

  “I don’t know. I’m hoping it involves explosions and a motorcycle stunt,” I replied, hoping for a nod of agreement from my father.

  “Don’t you worry,” my father said. “All will be revealed in due time. Just wait and see.”

  After dinner, my father pulled me aside. “Listen,” he whispered. “I need you to tell Mom I had to run to the store for something.”

  “Why don’t you tell her yourself?”

  He gave me his that-woman-frightens-me look. “I need to slip out for a bit. Just tell her, okay?”

  I couldn’t really blame him. That woman frightened me, too. Plus, my father was a terrible liar. He tended to get his words all jumbled up, which usually ended with him saying exactly what he was trying to cover up. That was why he depended on me at times like this. I had a knack for telling the truth in a way that kept the truth safely hidden. It was a gift, really.

  “Okay. What should I tell her you’re running to the store for?”

  “Just make something up,” he encouraged.

  “Like wet wipes?”

  “No. What would I need wet wipes for?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just trying to think of something you might get at the store.”

  “Say something a man would get.”

  “Like cigars?”

  “No! You don’t buy cigars at the grocery store.”

  “You didn’t say you were going to the grocery store. Can’t you just get what you need tomorrow?”

  My father let out an exasperated groan. “Just make something up, okay?”

  “Okay, how about deodorant?”

  My father opened the garage door like a clumsy burglar. “Yes, that’s fine,” he said disappearing into the night.

  I went into the kitchen. “Mom, Dad ran to the store to get some deodorant.”

  It was my turn to get a look from her. “What is he really up to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  My mother bent until her face was right in mine. “Be honest. Do you know what he’s really doing?”

  Hmm . . . how far was he expecting me to go in covering for him? “I don’t know. Maybe it has to do with that trailer.” That was only giving away what she probably already knew.

  My mother rolled her eyes. “That’s what concerns me.” She leaned against the counter. “If you find out what’s going on, tell me. Okay?”

  I nodded like the good son I was. “Of course.” That last line might have been a bit over the top, but what’s a guy to do when he knows his father is building a secret parade float and sewing some sort of nylon bodysuits? Yikes.

  Just before bed, the phone rang. “Stu, it’s Ben,” my mom called.

  I answered the phone with my politest be-glad-you’re-not-here-or-I’d-be-riding-your-fat-head-like-a-rodeo-clown voice. “What do you want?”

  “You’re a jerk.”

  Seriously? “You’re the jerk.”

  “You gonna tell Ryan and Tyler that, too?”

  “Shut up, or while I’m at it, I’ll tell them you still wear Aquaman undies to bed.”

  “They’re summer jammies, and they’ve already seen them. And anyways, I only wear them because they’re silky smooth.”

  He had a point. “True, they are silky smooth.”

  “Why’d you open your big mouth?” His voice sounded more hurt than angry.

  “I don’t know. Why’d you?”

  “Man, you can’t keep anything secret.”

  If only he knew. “Like you can?”

  That brought a giggle. “Did you see Tyler? I thought he was gonna choke on his own tongue. Did you hear him gulping for air?”

  “Ryan looked like he was gonna puke.”

  “That kid pukes a lot. Remember first grade?”

  “Yeah, I still can’t go near Chinese food.”

  “Me neither. Did you finish the math homework?”

  “No. You?”

  “Nope. But at least I did the history assignment.”

  “Oh crud, is it due tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, that’s why she wrote DUE TOMORROW on the whiteboard.”

  “Shut up. I gotta go.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “See you.”

  The phone hung up with a click. Ben could be a total doofus, but he wasn’t one to hold a grudge. Lucky for him because otherwise I would have ridden his head like a rodeo clown for real.

  With that out of the way, I could focus on more pressing things. Like a four-paragraph paper to finish before bed. How did the Incas impact modern civilization? I headed upstairs. It was going to be a long ten minutes.

  Thursday afternoon took way too long to arrive. Getting there required enduring three more days of square dancing with a partner bordering on criminally insane. Gretchen had taken to stepping on my toes for no apparent reason. Yes, there may have been moments I was caught daydreaming. Yes, there may have been a lot of those moments. Okay, maybe every moment seemed better spent staring into space than listening to the same song for the millionth time.

  “Pay attention,” Gretchen commanded, pirouetting on my toe like a demon ballerina.

  “Ow!” I shouted. “I’m trying.”

  She pulled me back to the correct group. I had apparently strayed while dozing. “No, you’re not.”

  To my right, Tyler was attempting to tie his shoe. He had been working on his laces for three days. From the looks of it, he was in need of a cobbler’s bench and a surgical nurse. Dang, why hadn’t I thought to tangle my laces? That kind of ingenuity doesn’t get the respect it deserves. To my left, Ryan was ducking and dodging for all he was worth to avoid being sucked into the vortex known as Debbie’s armpit. She kept yanking him along like a rag doll. To his credit, he had hung in there a lot longer than any of the rest of us would have.

  In the distance, I caught sight of Ben and Kirsten prancing about like a pair of circus ponies, all smiles and leg kicks no matter how stupid they looked.

  Across from them, Jackson and Becca tucked and turned as if they had been dancing together since birth. His lone chin hair gleamed in the fluorescent lighting next to her perfectly aligned teeth. I dreamed of pulling that hair out at long last and shoving it up his—

  “Ow! Now what?” I exclaimed.

  Gretchen pulled the heel of her boot off the top of my foot, ignoring the crater she left behind. “Pay attention!” she bellowed.

  A few moments later, Ben and Kirsten came prancing by, followed by Becca and Jackson. Both couples appeared to have gone AWOL from their group. The two couples twirled their way over to where Mr. Snedaker was standing. He pointed to two more couples and motioned for them to join the group. Strangely, he didn’t look in my direction at any time. You’d think Gretchen jumping up and down like a pogo stick on my right toe yelling, “PAY ATTENTION!” would at least have garnered a glance.

  The music ended. Finally. That annoying fiddle-

  ridden song bound to haunt me into old age. If I happened across that fiddler in real life, he’d better have sprinter speed or a cloaking device. He’d need it.

  Mr. Snedaker waved the class over. “I’m pleased to present the representatives from your class for the assembly tomorrow.”

  A murmur of approval went up.

  “I’m sure they will do great, and I know they will have your full support as they perform.” He looked about with a pleasantly evil stare. “Don’t forget—your performance as an audience will be graded.”

  I wanted to ask more about his grading scale, but the timing didn’t seem right. I was pretty sure pointing and laughing wouldn’t earn an A, but what about a discreet chuckle? Or a soft snore?

  Tyler poked my side. “Can you believe it?” he whispered. “It’s over.”

  Ryan yanked his head out of Debbie’s armpit and leaned in. “Look at those suckers,” he said, pointing at the chosen few.

  The comment would have been funnier had the couples looked at all disappointed with their selection. On the contrary, they looked way too pleased wi
th themselves. There should be a law against that sort of self-congratulatory behavior. Especially the hugging. The last thing I needed to see was hugging at a time like this. “Yeah, look at the disappointment on their faces.”

  “Just wait until tomorrow,” Tyler said. “We’ll see who’s laughing when they have to get up in front of the whole school.”

  Yeah, just think of that. Becca and Jackson holding hands in front of the whole school. Who’ll have the last laugh then?

  That night at dinner, I did my best to keep my feelings of frustration secret.

  “He just took my piece of steak!” my little brother yelled, for absolutely no reason.

  “Stu, give your brother back his steak.”

  My mother was quick to take sides. I bit off most of the piece and dumped what was left back onto my brother’s plate.

  “He ate it!” Tommy hollered.

  “Not all of it,” I corrected.

  “He ate the good part!”

  “The good part is that I didn’t eat it all,” I corrected again. Geesh, the kid made no sense at all.

  My mother set down her fork. “Stuart Cornelius Truly! What has gotten into you? Do I need to have you move to the kitchen and eat by yourself?”

  That seemed like an excellent idea. I rose with my plate.

  “Bill, do something here,” my mother snapped.

  “Stu, sit down. Don’t eat your brother’s meat,” my father said, without looking up from the construction site on his plate. His steak and potatoes were stacked together with a roll on top that looked a little like a snack shack or an outhouse depending on what the butter and blackberry jam were doing inside.

  I sat back down.

  “What would you think of us doing a family hike Sunday?” my mother asked, rubbing her temples.

  My father looked up, startled. “Sunday? Can’t. Gotta work Sunday.”

  My mother set down her fork again. I could see her nostrils opening and closing like an angry bull. “Bill, what exactly are—” She stopped, then stared down at her plate as she bit her lip.

  “What’s that?” my father asked.

  “Nothing,” my mother replied after a long pause. “Nothing, I hope.”

  The next morning started off with the sort of surprise that is usually reserved for movies. Not good movies, mind you. I mean the kind where the heroine, through some sort of impossible coincidence, becomes queen of a small European nation inhabited with whimsical folk all too willing to be captivated by her winning charm. This is not the sort of movie I watch except when spending an evening with my mother doing “something we’ll both enjoy.” Those are the moments when I realize my mother needs a daughter, or a happy-go-lucky mouse child.

  I was almost to my first-period class when things took a rather HUGE turn.

  “Stu!” Becca called, waving at me.

  “Hi, Becca,” I said, wishing I had borrowed my father’s deodorant that morning instead of splashing cold water under my pits and calling it good.

  “I need your help!”

  “Sure. Okay.”

  Becca beamed. “Jackson is sick and had to stay home from school today.”

  A sharp pain jabbed me in the stomach. I didn’t like where this was going.

  “Would you be my dance partner for the assembly?”

  Say what? My knees quivered. One foot tried to make a break for it but was held back by my ankle. Had she seen me dance? “Sure.”

  That was not a well-thought-out response. I immediately attempted to take the statement back, but my lips had crawled down my throat and were working to free my foot from my ankle so the three of them could secede from the union of my body parts.

  “Awesome!” Becca said as she reached out and hugged me. That’s right. H-U-G-G-E-D M-E.

  This was the first time I had ever been hugged by a girl. It was a moment that should have been captured on film. Or at least in an epic poem. I didn’t have time for either.

  “I’ll see you this afternoon,” she said, pulling away.

  “Okay. See you,” I replied, wondering what had just happened.

  Becca skipped away as if the thought of square dancing was enough to make her want to dance. I stared down at my own feet frozen in place like two blocks of sneakered wood. They did not look like dancer’s feet. More like baby elephant feet, which was ironic since I had the body of a stick bug. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that a stick bug with elephant feet should not be dancing in public. Especially if the public consists of your friends.

  The rest of the morning passed in a blur of confusion, fear, and guilt. The confusion was over whether it was too late to change my name to Armando and move east of the Rockies. The fear was pretty self-explanatory. And the guilt was over how much joy I got from the fact Jackson was home sick. Let’s be honest, were it up to me, he’d also be suffering from an acute foot fungus and a severe case of muscle sag, especially in the bicep region. But we don’t get everything we want in life.

  At lunch, I was forced to listen to Ben, Kirsten, and Becca jabber away about how cool the assembly was going to be.

  “I heard there’s a competition,” Kirsten bubbled out.

  “Yeah, with a winner and everything,” Ben added, a gleeful look in his eye.

  “Sounds like fun,” Becca shrieked with excitement.

  Boy, howdy, did it ever. What could possibly be more fun than being judged on how well you do-si-do in front of your peers? With luck, there’d be a hog-calling contest and a greased pig to chase up the bleachers, too.

  “I wish they did an all-school dance, like an old-fashioned hoedown,” Kirsten said, clapping her hands together like a little girl.

  Ben clapped his hands in return, also looking like a little girl. “That would be cool.”

  Whatever was possessing my best friend, I hoped a priest could exorcise it. Though from the silly grin on his face, it didn’t look likely. That demon seemed set on staying.

  “I feel bad for Jackson,” Becca said. “He’s missing out.” She looked at me. “Although, I’m happy you get to join us.”

  Lucky me. I was beginning to envy Jackson again. He’d spent the last two weeks holding Becca’s hand and then had the good fortune to be at home with a fever the day of the assembly. How lucky can one guy get? “Yeah, I’m happy, too.”

  By the end of lunch, the pit in my stomach had grown large enough to start a mining operation. I walked to the gym like an inmate on death row after his last meal. Lethal injection sounded like a party compared to what I had ahead of me. The gym was already filling up. I didn’t remember there being so many kids at our school. I began to wonder if other middle schoolers had been bused in just to intimidate the dancers. If so, it was working splendidly. Ben ran up from behind and punched me in the shoulder.

  “It’s go time.”

  Yes, I was more than willing to go, the farther away the better. Tibet beckoned. In fact, this seemed like a perfect time for my first space walk.

  Ben dragged me over to where Mr. Snedaker was waiting. The other dancers milled about, chatting in excited whispers. Where he had found such an energetic, compliant group was beyond me. The least they could do was show a little taste and bemoan this obvious example of student abuse. Instead, they seemed to be enjoying the attention being lavished upon them by their teacher.

  “I’m so excited for all of you,” Mr. Snedaker said. “You are the best of the best.” He eyed me with one raised eyebrow. “I know you’re going to do great today. Best of luck to you all.”

  “He’s so nice,” Becca whispered, stepping beside me.

  She smelled of perfume. Maybe she always did, but at that moment, the subtle sweetness enveloped me like a warm mist. It was as if a spell had been cast over me from some fairy tale. I would have followed Becca anywhere. Which is exactly what I did. What other explanation could there be for why I walked unaided to the middle of the gym?

  We broke into groups, just like we had been rehearsing for the last two weeks. Instinctively, I c
urled my big toes to avoid having them jackhammered into the floor. Becca took my hand. My toes relaxed. Their days of abuse were over. Holding Becca’s hand wasn’t so bad, either. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so awful after all. And then the music started.

  Suddenly, I regretted not having paid closer attention in class. I seemed to be a half step behind at every turn. This meant hurrying after Becca while trying to maintain my manly cool. Somewhere between “take your partner by the hand” and “turn your partner ’round and ’round,” my manly cool got permanently lost. By “do-si-do,” I was sweating like a prizefighter. And then came the complicated part of the dance. Everyone moved every which way all at once, fanning out to form a circle around the center of the dance floor. I spun, looking for Becca, but she had disappeared on the far side of the circle.

  The truth dawned on me. We were the lead couple for the finale. Becca had told me so earlier, but I had been too preoccupied with the smell of her perfume for the news to register. It registered now. At the prescribed moment, we were to enter the circle from opposite sides and come together in the middle for a twirling finish.

  Someone glared at me. I had missed my cue. I burst through the ring of dancers hoping to God I wasn’t too late in making my grand entrance. My foot caught on someone’s shoe. I stumbled forward, my momentum sending me right into the back of Becca’s spinning head. I heard a crunching sound followed by a series of gasps from the other dancers. I looked down to see blood gushing from my nose, much of which was running down the back of her sweater. “Oh my God!” someone screamed. The music stopped.

  Ben rushed over and checked out my face. “Dude, that’s nasty.”

  I seemed to have lost all feeling in my body. I stared blankly about as Ben ushered me to the boys’ bathroom. In the mirror, I saw something that looked like a bloodthirsty monster dripping after a kill, except the blood was my own. On the other side of the wall, I heard Becca sobbing in the girls’ room.

  Mr. Snedaker rushed in. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ve been better,” I said, holding a wad of tissue to my nose.

  “Let’s get you to the nurse,” he said, guiding me by the elbow.