by Jill Wolfson
Idiot! Shut up!
He flashes one of his rarely given grins. I almost drop the papers again. Eye crinkles appear, which cut off any possibility of me responding. Brain dead. Lips numb. My mouth won’t do a thing except to smile back way too broadly, a creepy clown grin that makes the muscles in my face hurt. Several more uncomfortable smiling seconds pass, and then, thankfully, he picks up the slack.
“I saw you in the ocean yesterday.”
“I was in the ocean yesterday.” This is the brilliant response that I manage to get out.
“Looking good on that board.”
Does he mean looking good as in I look good to him? My hands begin a mad dash around my body. I can’t stop them. They scratch my upper arm, rip the elastic band out of my hair and put it back in, cover my mouth in a fake cough, and then massage the back of my neck. Stop fidgeting! My left arm finally goes limp at my side and the right hand lands on my hip. I feel the brand-new curve of my waist in my hand and hold it there like a good-luck charm.
“You like to surf?” he asks. “I didn’t know that.”
“I like to surf.”
“Been surfing long?”
“I haven’t been surfing long.” More brilliance by the brilliant conversationalist.
“Maybe you’d like to…”
He hesitates. His eyes drop. He’s shy. I didn’t know that about him. But I imagined that he might be shy. Why not? Popular people can be shy, too. That’s what I saw in his expression! I’m glad he’s shy. I like that he’s shy. It makes him even cuter. So what is he trying to say? Maybe I’d like to what? What? What would I like to do?
“… to go surfing sometime.”
Be cool, Meg. Steady, girl. “Surfing? Me? With you? Together?”
“Yeah, with me. I want you to know…” He jams his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“About the mini-golf thing. The way you asked me … your invitation was pretty random. ’Cause we never talked before or anything. You took me by surprise.”
“It was weird.”
Something happens to his face then. It scrunches in on itself, a wince, like he’s reminding himself of something he’d rather forget. “No, I want to be more honest. I wasn’t just surprised. I was rude. I was an asshole. When I get uncomfortable, that’s sometimes my default mode.”
My hands start their flutter dance again. “Oh, that’s okay. I didn’t actually expect you to say yes, even though I asked. I’m always doing things like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” Shut up! “Like nothing. I had the coupon and I saw you and I thought … anyway, it was just a whim. Dumb.”
“No, it wasn’t dumb at all. It was kinda cool. Nobody ever does anything like that. We stay with the same group of friends forever, never step out of our comfort zone. You tried. I’m flattered.”
I feel my cheeks getting hot. Ambrosia is definitely wrong about him. Here’s the hard evidence she wanted. He actually apologized for being a jerk. On his own. We didn’t do a thing to make this happen.
A couple of his friends walk by. Brendon’s right hand comes out of his pocket, and I figure that’s that, now he’s going to signal them to wait up for him. Apology over. Good-bye, Brendon. But instead, he pulls out a bag of jelly beans and holds it open for me. I take my time to select pineapple and coconut. He chooses the same piña colada flavors. I can tell he does that on purpose. That’s so adorable.
Chew, swallow. “I also want to apologize for my friends—about the golf-club swinging. So immature. They can be real jerks.”
I shrug. “That’s okay. You’re not your friends.”
“I know, but it’s no excuse.” Another wince moves over his face. “My friends do things, and I just go along with them. Sometimes I don’t think for myself.”
I select a popcorn-flavored jelly bean and let it dissolve in my cheek. “Your friends, especially Pox, seem a little nicer lately. Bubonic, too.”
“They are definitely different.”
“An improvement for sure, don’t you think?”
Brendon gets thoughtful, and I worry that he somehow senses that I have something to do with the increase in the niceness quota at Hunter High.
“Maybe we’re all just growing up,” he suggests.
“Could be. I hear that happens at our age.”
He laughs immediately. A good sign. It would suck if he didn’t get it when I was being funny.
“Apology accepted?” he asks, and when I nod he looks relieved. “Can I make it up to you? Want to go surfing together? Let’s both branch out. I have some favorite secret spots I can show you.”
The way he says that—using the words spots and secret—I hope he’s not just talking about surfing. My mind makes a wild leap, and I let the words follow my thoughts, let them right out into the air between us. “I like secret spots.”
I. Can’t. Believe. I. Said. That. I said that!
Then I can’t believe that I lean against my locker with one of my hips thrust forward and my shoulders rolled back. Suddenly this is like a conversation between two sexy people in a sexy movie. I’m not sure if it’s a good sexy movie or a stupid sexy movie, but I have to think it’s at least fairly good because Brendon touches me lightly on the shoulder. I flinch, but he doesn’t remove his hand. I’m very glad about that.
The bell rings for first period. His hand lifts. Sexy movie over. I turn away, slam my locker door, pick up my book, and fumble to get everything into my pack.
“So,” he says.
“So,” I reply.
“It’s a date then?”
Date! He used the word date.
“When?” I ask it too fast and too loud, way too eager.
“I have an idea, but I have to check on something. I’ll let you know.” He hands me back my papers, checks out the title again. “The Furies. You don’t want to forget these.”
20
Did that conversation really happen?
Yes, it did!
Did Brendon ask me on a date?
Absolutely! At least, I think so.
Is it possible that he likes me? Me?
How could he like me? Why wouldn’t he like me?
This question-and-answer session with myself goes on all day, through classes, during lunch. I’m totally distracted, but I don’t tell anyone about Brendon, not even Raymond. I’m afraid that saying it out loud will break a spell of some sort. (No! We didn’t do anything to him. He asked me completely on his own.)
I’m riding the bus to Stephanie’s house after school because I promised that I’d help put together flyers and posters for her newest project—Save Our Town’s Last Greenbelt. I also know that she and Alix want to talk about projects of a different sort: What should we do about Gnat? Who else needs a lesson from the Furies? What specific areas—cornering, singing, entering, exiting—should we target for more practice?
But Fury work is the last thing I feel like doing right now. True, Gnat is a serious contender for all-American pain in the ass, but right this instant I just don’t care. I know I should, but I don’t. I can’t muster up any real anger at him. Rather, I want to drift off into about five happy hours of replaying my amazing conversation with Brendon—what he said and how he looked when he said it and what I said in return. I’m thinking about suggesting something besides surfing for our date. How about a movie with popcorn, sitting close to each other in the dark, someplace where we’re not separated by double layers of neoprene and icy waves?
When I get to Stephanie’s, one of the ever-present gardeners with a weed whacker lets me in the front door and then a housekeeper with a vacuum cleaner points me in the direction of Stephanie’s room. I enter without knocking. The room is a jumble of posters, papers, pens, markers, tape, and other assorted art supplies. Stephanie and Alix are sitting cross-legged on the carpet, huddled over a paper banner to color in bubble letters. I smell pot, which is a drug that Stephanie approves of because it
grows in nature.
They don’t look up. Things are too quiet. Something’s wrong.
“Greetings and salutations?” I ask.
Alix gives me a halfhearted hello. She’s got a smudge of blue marker ink on her chin, which clashes with the red of her stoned eyes. She arches one brow, a message to me that my instincts about a problem are dead-on. I’ve just walked into a major drama scene. Stephanie, I can see now, is crying. She’s one of those near-silent criers, meaning that her shoulders are shaking and she sniffs pathetically every few seconds.
“I’m self-medicating,” she says, showing me eyes that are bloodshot from both tears and weed. “She’s driven me to this. That’s how awful she makes me feel.”
Alix puts down her marker, pats Stephanie on the back. “Nothing wrong with self-medicating. We all need coping tools.”
“Who?” I ask. “Who makes you self-medicate?”
I’m using my most sincere caring and concerned voice, but, like I said, my heart isn’t really into it. Is it so wrong to want to feel good, to not feel pissed off? All day I’ve been practically giddy about Brendon. I want to smell flowers. I want to giggle. I want to tell Stephanie, Shut up! Stop crying. I’m not in the mood for negativity today.
But I also know that when a friend is upset, the world should stop, so I plop down on the floor between them, trying hard not to show my real attitude. To cover up, I take Stephanie’s hand and give it a light squeeze.
Alix offers me a hit of the joint, but I turn it down. I don’t have anything against pot for other people. They can get as stoned as they want, but I’m wary of it. I can never count on how it’s going to make me feel. Sometimes I get relaxed and friendly. But more often, I want to unzip my body and step out of it like I stepped out of the wet suit. I don’t want to risk the feelings of paranoia and weird social vibes that I sometimes experience. Not today, not when I feel so happy.
Stephanie takes another hit, and her words come out with a cough and a cloud of smoke. “If she was just apathetic. In her case, apathy would be a treat. I could handle apathy.”
“Who?” I ask again.
Alix makes a growl of disgust in the back of her throat. On the other side of the door the vacuum kicks on, so she has to talk loudly over the whirl of the motor. “Her mom. She called Stephanie a naïve, vapid hippie and told her to grow up. I heard it myself.”
Stephanie’s shoulders start shaking again. “And I told her she’s a self-absorbed jerk who drives a gas-guzzling pig mobile.”
“Ugly, ugly mother-daughter scene,” Alix explains for my benefit.
Stephanie grips a black marker like a dagger and scribbles hard, dark lines on the poster board. When that brings no relief, she hurls the marker across the room and it leaves a line on the white wall. “Guess what real estate developer is going to turn the city’s only green space into a new mall? Guess who said that her job feeds me and keeps a roof over my head and I have no right to complain about anything?”
As if to answer her questions, the vacuum clicks off and we hear the housekeeper say, “Missus, can I help you with your packages?”
“Let’s do it,” Stephanie says.
Alix takes another hit. “I’m game. Long overdue.”
They look at me. “Um, I’m not sure.”
Stephanie’s features tighten, like she bit into a lemon. “What do you mean? Why not?”
“I’ve been thinking. Remember what Ms. Pallas said?” Stephanie gives me a blank look, so I explain. “The stuff about compassion and forgiveness.”
Alix tries to push the joint on me again. “Sure you don’t want some of this? Sounds like you need it.”
I wave it away and focus on Stephanie. “I agree, your mom’s awful. And her values suck.”
Stephanie’s head is bobbing. “She called me pathetic.”
“But she’s still your mom. That’s got to count for something.”
“And I’m her daughter! Doesn’t that count? What about me?”
Alix, with narrow, bleary eyes: “You didn’t have any problem teaching my dad a lesson. I’m a daughter, too.”
I’m wasting my words. I see by the tension in Stephanie’s face that she is already miles away on a train of anger. She stabs a finger at me. “There are only two people in the world that I can count on, Alix and you. Okay, three—Ambrosia, too. You owe me!”
Alix bounces her fist twice on her chest, finishes with her index finger pointed at my nose. “Remember how we helped with the Leech. It’s Steph’s turn.”
I suck in my lips and hold my breath, as if that can ward off peer pressure that’s about two hundred times stronger than any normal-variety high school peer pressure. I have to inhale sometime, and when I do I feel myself letting in Stephanie’s anger.
She’s right. They’re right. I do owe them. I owe them the world.
The vacuum clicks on again and the whir provides the background to the notes of our song. Stephanie begins; Alix and I join in. I don’t want to let them down, so I try. I really try.
Only right from the beginning, something’s missing. Each note sounds vaguely flat, and our harmony has an awkward tone. Even worse, I feel alone and lost. Where are they? Where are my others? Where am I? I keep trying, but the whole thing fizzes out at note number fifty. There’s no sense going any farther. We all know it and give up.
We listen without comment as the front door opens and then slams shut. We watch out the window as Stephanie’s mom gets into her car. Through the front windshield we see that she’s whistling happily. Our song didn’t touch her. The car comes alive with a roar, and she blasts music as she pulls away.
“What the hell happened?” Alix snaps.
Stephanie turns from the window, slides down the wall, knees to her chest, a disappointed and depressed lump. “It didn’t feel right. Not like the other times.”
Alix, also mystified: “Something felt … I can’t explain it … it felt not angry enough.”
Stephanie nervously bounces her palms on her thighs. “Exactly!”
My turn. I need to say something. They’re waiting. “It could have been the pot. It made the two of you too mellow to be furious.”
“I didn’t feel mellow,” Stephanie says.
I overexplain. “You know how pot is. Yeah, I bet that’s it. It took the edge off your anger. Anyway, good try, everyone. We tried. We’ll do better next time.”
What I don’t say: It takes a lot out of a person to whip herself into a rage, to hold tight one hundred percent and block out any soft feelings. You need to stew and wallow and burn the endless fuel of fury. And right now, this minute, I’m too happy, too full of hope and possibility and thoughts of Brendon. I’m not into so much hate.
“Yeah,” Alix says. “We tried.”
But her look—confused, let down, and skeptical—tells me that she suspects that a little pot had nothing to do with our failure.
* * *
Ding, dong, ding.
“Good afternoon, Mr. H.”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. H.”
It wouldn’t be daily announcement time without a burst of static, the Thought for the Day, followed by the upbeat voices of Mr. and Mrs. H piped live over the loudspeaker.
“What are the Hunter High announcements today, Mr. H?”
“Well, Mrs. H, the SAT prep class begins after school and continues every Thursday for the next ten weeks.”
“Mr. H, due to yet more rain, color guard will practice indoors today. Members should meet Ms. Pallas at the gym. Yearbook photo sign-ups begin next week for seniors. And to conclude, we offer these two words about in-school Halloween costumes for the upcoming holiday. Ready, Mr. H?”
“Be appropriate!”
Announcements end with another ding, dong, ding, followed by the bell sending us off to our next period.
“Wait!” I yell to Raymond, who’s gathering up his books and obviously trying to get out of the room quickly to avoid contact with me.
To put it mildly, things suck betwe
en us. We’re hardly talking. The list of taboo topics keeps expanding. Alix’s dad, of course, but also how tight I am with Stephanie and Alix. Then there’s what he calls Ambrosia’s negative influence on me. Ms. Pallas. The Furies. Even the weather. What friends can’t talk about the weather without pissing each other off? Raymond blames the Furies for all the storms. He says he doesn’t know how and doesn’t know why, but he’s certain of it.
Well, maybe he does have a little point—not about the weather, but about Alix’s dad. I’m ready to admit anything if it means smoothing things over between Raymond and me. The truth is, I miss my best friend. I’m dying to share the news about Brendon with someone who will be as thrilled for me as I’m thrilled for myself. I miss him in a hundred different ways. Not having Raymond is a huge gap in my life. No one can take his place. I hurry across the room and position myself in front of him. He doesn’t give me a chance to say anything.
“I’ve given this serious thought,” he begins. “I didn’t make this decision lightly. You can’t fire me as your manager, because I have already resigned.”
I don’t comment on his resignation and instead hand him a makeup present that I brought to school for the occasion. It’s wrapped in yellow tissue paper with a green bow. He closes his eyes and feels it all over. Eyes pop open in disbelief. “No! Is this what I think it is?”
“Yes. To show how sincere I am about missing you. You know what she means to me.”
He tears off the wrapping and addresses my ceramic frog planter by her given name. “Francine!” To me: “Are you sure you want to give this away? You know I’m a big admirer. I’ll treasure her always.”
“I know you will, Raymond. I miss you. I’m sorry.”
So just like that, ninety percent of the tension between us drains away. It’s amazing what a present and an apology can do. Everything’s going to be better between us now. I just know it. I motion for Alix and Stephanie to go ahead to the next class without me. They exchange dejected looks, but they’ll get over it. Raymond and I have a lot to cover in the few minutes between classes. We haven’t talked—a real talk—in days. We’re used to knowing everything about each other.