by K L Going
I pause. What kind of trick question is this? Of course I know the name of the book we’re reading. Something by Shakespeare. Something hard to read, so I’m going to tackle it all at once the night before the exam.
“No recollection?” Orlando asks. “How about the front cover? Any idea what it looks like?”
My mind is blank. I’m sure I know the answer, but I can’t clear the fuzziness from my brain, so I glance at the girl next to me, and she tilts the book in my direction so I can see the cover.
“White?” I suggest.
“I have an idea,” Orlando says, tapping on my desk. “Why don’t you go back to the guidance office and not return to my class until you come prepared with the book we are reading— Hamlet —as well as the Strunk and White grammar guide I recommended in your syllabus, and a notebook. How about that?”
It isn’t really a question, but at least Orlando doesn’t wait for an answer.
27
PETE IS SITTING ON THE COUCH watching TV when I get home.
“Good day?” he asks from the living room as the screen door bangs shut. I shrug. I go to the fridge to take out a diet soda, but there’s only beer, so I take out the orange juice instead.
“It’s Friday night,” Pete says, making a whooping noise. “Any plans?”
I shake my head.
“I’ve got the night off,” he tells me. “The radio station is doing some all-request eighties thing. The guys and I thought we might drive over to the Hillsborough Mall to do some shopping. You want to come?”
This is very obviously a setup, but every fiber of my being still desperately wants to say yes. A chance to get out of this trailer is way too good to pass up. There’s only one problem.
“Orlando’s coming?” I ask.
“Yeah. Something the matter with that?”
I shake my head. “Of course not, I just meant . . . you know, maybe he might be busy or something.”
Aunt Pete looks at me funny. “No. He’s definitely coming. Is that a problem?”
Some of the orange juice dribbles onto my shirt. It’s a Ralph Lauren, because I couldn’t find anything worse in my closet today. I swear and rush to the kitchen sink to splash water on the spot before the stain sets, but finally I stop scrubbing and resign myself to the presence of the huge off-colored splotch. I take the shirt off and throw it in the garbage. You can’t wear a designer shirt with a spot on it.
“No, it’s fine,” I say. “I just don’t think Orlando likes me. He kicked me out of class this afternoon.”
Aunt Pete’s eyes bug out. “Orlando kicked you out of class?!”
I nod. “Yeah. Because I forgot my book. As if that can’t happen to anyone.” I sort through the shirts in my room until I find a suitable alternative. I’m considering a really slick black V-neck when the front door opens and Eddie and Dino wander in.
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Pete says, shooting me a look. “You just concentrate on finding the most perfect shirt in the universe and I’ll make sure my boyfriend doesn’t harass your totally innocent self. Okay?”
I nod. Only what Pete doesn’t realize is that my problem isn’t finding the most perfect shirt, it’s finding the worst possible shirt, and honestly, I don’t own any of those. In fact, my entire wardrobe is way too nice for unpopularity. A shopping trip is definitely in order.
There’s a high-pitched whistle from the kitchen, and when I look over Eddie is shaking his head at me.
“Sugar pie, where did you get those abs?” he says. Eddie is wearing an outfit that is entirely silver. I’m not kidding. The shoes, the pants, the shirt, the shades . . . all silver.
“I have good abs,” Dino says casually.
Pete snorts.
“It’s true,” Dino argues. “You can’t see them under the beer belly, but every night I do, like, ten sit-ups.”
“You’ve never done a sit-up!” Eddie says, letting the shades slide down his nose.
“Oh yeah? Come on, Liam. I will take you on, right here, right now. I am a sit-up machine.”
Dino makes a huge bicep, which is impressive, even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with sit-ups. By the time Orlando arrives, me and Dino are down on the floor and Eddie and Pete are counting off our crunches.
“. . . five . . . six . . . six and a half . . . seven . . . seven and a quarter . . .”
“. . . thirty-four . . . thirty-five . . . thirty-six . . .”
Orlando comes in and flops down on the couch.
“I don’t even want to know what’s going on,” he says, leaning back and shutting his eyes. He looks like he’s had a hard day, and for a moment I feel guilty. Dino collapses onto the carpet.
“We’ll have to continue this later,” Dino says. “Orlando’s here now, so we’d better get going.”
“Right. Don’t want to be late for the mall,” Pete says, real sarcastic. “Only four hours of shopping time left.”
I get up, grab a shirt, and follow the guys outside. I’m trying not to make eye contact with Orlando, but he punches me on the arm and says, “My money was on you.”
Then everyone is crowding into the Nissan, and I stand there staring in disbelief. We can’t all be traveling in the same car. It’s bad enough that the car in question is a zebra-striped vehicle from 1990, but there is not enough room for four big guys and Eddie.
Pete beeps the horn loudly.
“Pile in,” he yells as I stand there gaping. Then he turns and hollers, “Make room in the back.”
I take a deep breath and slide in next to Dino. I pray that Darleen will come outside at this exact moment, but of course she doesn’t. Instead, I ride the entire way to the mall holding my breath while the guys sing really loud with all the windows open.
“Join in,” Dino says when we’re almost there, and then he says, “Let’s sing something Liam will know.”
I want to melt into the backseat. Fortunately, by the time they think of a song I might know the words to, we’ve arrived in the parking lot.
“Save it for the way home,” Pete says, pulling the Nissan diagonally into a parking space. I open the door and jump out like my life depends on it.
The mall is one of those old malls where everything is on one floor and half the shops have been abandoned for years. When we walk inside it’s dark, and there’s a huge dried-up fountain with loose change still scattered on the bottom. I look up and down the long hall, and Eddie puts one hand consolingly on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m afraid this is it.”
My first thought is that I can’t believe malls like this really exist, but as I look at the stores—JCPenney, Sears, Karl’s Shirt Emporium, Payless—I realize this is exactly the place I need to shop.
“Actually,” I say, “it’s perfect.”
Pete frowns, but he doesn’t say anything as I follow Eddie and Dino from store to store. I don’t trust my own ability to pick out horrible clothes, but I figure I can’t go wrong with these guys.
Eddie pulls a shirt off the rack in the Shirt Emporium.
“If I were you, Liam,” he says, “I’d add a little flash to your wardrobe. You have impeccable taste, of course, so I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but you could really wear this shirt . . .”
He’s holding a hot pink button-down with black stripes.
“You think?” I say, pretending to consider. “All right. I’ll get it.”
“What about something like this?” Dino asks, holding up a T-shirt that has a skull on the front.
“Yeah, that’s great!” I add it to my pile.
Pete stands to one side, watching me. Every now and then he says, “I’m not sure I can see you wearing that,” and before I take my stuff to the cashier, he says, “Are you sure about all this?”
I nod and go up to pay for my huge stack of horrible shirts. Fortunately, this stuff is dirt cheap. They’re having a sale—five shirts for twenty bucks.
“Who’s up for shoe shopping?” I ask when I’m d
one paying. Eddie raises his hand, but Pete and Orlando exchange a look.
“Maybe we should split up,” Orlando says. “Me and Eddie and Dino can go look at vacuum cleaners in Sears. Weren’t you just saying you needed a new one, Ed?”
Eddie shakes his head, but Pete and Orlando ignore him.
“Me and Liam will head over to the shoe store,” Pete says. “We’ll meet you guys later at Friendly’s.”
Orlando kisses Pete good-bye, and then the guys head out, Eddie glancing back over his shoulder. Aunt Pete and I stand there for a minute, and the mall seems suddenly silent and empty.
“Shoe store is this way,” Pete says, motioning in the opposite direction.
We walk for a while without saying anything, then when we reach the store he coughs nervously. He stops in front of a table full of women’s high heels and fingers one shoe wistfully. He moves around the table but keeps coming back to that shoe. Then he takes a deep breath.
“You know,” he says, “you don’t need to impress the guys. Buying that stuff, I mean. Assuming that’s who you’re trying to impress, of course. It’s just . . . well . . . we like you the way that you are. I know that sounds corny, but sometimes people don’t say this stuff and . . .” He pauses. “Hell.”
It’s probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I’m not sure I believe it, but at least Pete made the effort to lie. I swallow hard and turn away for a second. When I turn back I nod at the shoes.
“Those are nice.”
Pete looks up and his brow furrows. The look is strangely familiar, and at first I can’t figure out why, but then I realize it’s the look I use when I can’t tell if someone is making fun of me.
“I really like them. I mean, they’re a cheap reproduction of the originals, but I’ll bet they’re modeled after these shoes that were in the spring show in Paris a couple years back. Everything was about glamour that year. Liberace style. Real splashy.”
I stop for a minute, remembering. Mom and I had gone back to Paris to visit some friends of hers, and we went to almost all of the shows together. I remember the color and the noise. The lights on the runway. Aunt Pete would have fit in perfectly there.
Suddenly I want to say just the right thing.
“Want to know what makes this shoe great?” I ask, picking it up.
Pete looks at me like I’m crazy. He said all that cool stuff and now I want to talk about shoes? But he nods.
“Sure,” he says. “Tell me.”
I turn the shoe around so he can really look at it.
“It’s not just the rhinestones, although those are really fun. It’s the fact that the rhinestones are on a regular high-heeled pump. Glitzing up something common. That’s what that season’s shows were all about. Adding something flashy to something ordinary.”
I hand the shoe to Aunt Pete.
“I think you should buy these. To go with your red dress.”
He takes it and holds it in his rough hands like it’s something special. For the first time he’s not looking at me like I’m some strange fungus that grew overnight in the middle of his life.
“Thanks,” he says. “I think I will.”
28
ON THE RIDE HOME the windows are open and the night air is still warm. We’re all stuffed from greasy food from Friendly’s and Pete blasts the radio. He plays WXKJ so it’s the all-eighties marathon and the songs are terrible, but the guys belt them out anyway. Then Dino farts really loud and everyone laughs until our stomachs hurt.
When we get back to Pete’s trailer, we pile out of the Nissan, weighted down by bags of clothes and shoe boxes. Pete’s already wearing his new red heels, and he holds the screen door open with one rhinestoned foot as everyone stumbles inside. The phone is ringing so there’s a mad dash to pick it up in time without spilling the packages all over the floor.
Eddie grabs it, then hands it to me.
“It’s for you.”
I pick up the receiver, still grinning and trying not to trip.
“Hello?” I say, a bit too loud.
“Liam?”
“Dad?”
Pete looks up, and suddenly all the raucous fun comes to a grinding halt.
“Dad?” I say again. “I’m so glad you finally called. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
“Cut it out.”
Dad’s voice is sharp, and I pause.
“Cut what out? I just said I was glad you—”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I . . . What do you mean what am I doing? I’m doing good, mostly. Did you get my message?”
“Do you know how humiliated I am?”
“What? Wait.” I can’t keep up. “Why are you humiliated? I said I was—”
“Your guidance counselor called. Wanted to talk to your father because you’re having adjustment problems. He said you didn’t make it to school the first day, then you lost your bus privileges, and that today he had a long talk with you after you were kicked out of class.” Dad pauses. “Adjustment problems, Liam?” he asks. “Have the last seventeen years been adjustment problems?”
I take a deep breath. Am I supposed to answer that?
“You want to know when your guidance counselor called me?” Dad asks. “He called during an important meeting. There I am with my colleagues at the conference table, and the secretary interrupts the meeting to tell me my son’s school is on the phone. Now, I couldn’t very well not take the call after she says that, could I?”
I shake my head, even though I know he can’t see it.
“Your guidance counselor tells me that you were also called into the office for cheating, and now they’ve been studying your files and think you might need counseling. Can you imagine how that made me feel?”
I try hard to keep my face composed.
“I don’t know. Ashamed? Dad, please just—”
“You don’t know? I’ve given you everything. I’ve put up with your partying and your sleeping around, and your drunk driving . . .”
I hold the phone away from my ear. I know how this part goes so I follow along in my mind until I’m pretty sure Dad’s near the end of the speech. Then I put the phone back.
“You’re right,” I say. “I know you’re right. I’m sorry they called you at work, but if you just give me a chance, I’m going to do better. I’m making all new friends here. Smart friends. And I’m going to join something academic. A club or something.”
Dad sighs. “I hardly think you’ll get accepted into an academic club.”
That stings, but I let it slide.
“I promise, Dad.”
There’s a long pause, then Dad breathes out long and slow.
“Tell me something,” he says. “Did your mother tell you to call Peter?”
The question catches me off-guard, and I want to ask what this has to do with anything, but I don’t.
“No,” I say. “Mom didn’t even know about it. I was the one who wanted to call Pete.”
Dad laughs a tired laugh. “You always defend her,” he says. Then he pauses. “Well, obviously it’s a disaster, and I could have told you that much if you’d bothered to ask.”
I twist the phone cord between my fingers until my circulation has nearly stopped. I hold my breath, waiting to see what Dad will say next.
“One of these days you’re going to make a decision you can’t apologize away,” he says. “You’re selfish, irresponsible, and indulgent, and unless you shape up, you won’t amount to anything. Do you understand that?”
I nod into the phone.
“I asked you a question.”
“Yes. I get that.”
“Good.”
For a moment there’s silence.
“Liam,” Dad says at last, his voice cold and calm, “I don’t intend to let my brother, who’s never done anything responsible in his entire life, turn you into some faggot living in a goddamn trailer park in the middle of nowhere. You need discipline. That’s the bottom line. And Peter is certainl
y not the one to provide that. One more slipup and you go to Nevada.”
I cringe and glance over at Aunt Pete. I know he can’t have heard what Dad just said, but my cheeks still burn. From the looks of things, Dino is physically restraining him from lunging for the phone.
“That won’t happen,” I say, turning back.
Dad clears his throat loudly.
“I know I’ll regret this,” he says at last, “and I’m warning you—when you’re failing your classes and your uncle is ready to stop trying to spite me by playing this stupid little game . . . When he figures out it’s not that easy being a parent . . .”
Dad doesn’t finish the threat, but I nod anyway.
“I understand,” I say. “Thanks for . . .” There’s something I’m supposed to thank Dad for, I’m certain of it, but I can’t think of what it could be. “Thanks for the call,” I say at last.
Dad snorts. His bullshit meter picked that one up a mile away, but he’s had enough of me, so he hangs up. I close my eyes for just a second before setting the phone carefully back in place. When I open my eyes, Pete is standing at my elbow.
“What the hell did he say?” he demands.
I shrug. “My guidance counselor called him. He wasn’t happy about it.”
Pete’s eyes narrow. “Did he fill your head with a bunch of crap?” he asks. “Telling you you’re not good enough, or smart enough . . .”
I know Pete means well, but Dad only said the truth.
“It’s no big deal,” I tell him, and at that moment I’m not even lying. It doesn’t feel like any deal at all.
“I’m going to bed,” I say. “Thanks for taking me to the mall.”
Pete drums his fingers on the counter and the guys glance at one another.
“Liam—” Pete starts, but I’m already gone.
29
MONDAY IS MY CHANCE to redeem myself. Maybe my last chance. Armed with my new wardrobe, I show up to school like Rocky preparing for the big fight. There’s only one problem. I told Dad I was joining an academic club, and as of now I can’t think of one that will take me. I don’t play chess, can’t debate anything, don’t understand politics, and I certainly won’t make it into the honor society.