King of the Screwups

by K L Going

  “I was in Madame Gorka’s homeroom, and she was practically drooling!” A curvy redhead in a halter top drapes her body over the table. “She is totally in love with you, Liam.”

  Great, I think. All I need is a salivating French teacher.

  I’m about to deny that any teacher could be in love with me when Darleen walks into the lunchroom. I haven’t seen her since this morning when she called me an idiot, and I’m positive that if we just had a moment alone together, I could explain everything.

  Darleen snakes through the line, emerges with her tray, and then she stops, staring at the spectacle of Raymond Romer wearing a Devils football jersey and shades, surrounded by every popular senior at Pineville High. I watch her, wishing she’d sit with us, but Joe follows my gaze and moos loudly. He picks up a slimy orange seed and chucks it at Darleen’s back. Raymond takes off the shades, and I open my mouth to say something, but Joe is already moving on.

  “Simon should have some sort of guest spot every now and then, don’t you think?” He’s asking me.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess.”

  “Hey, Dougie, think up a look for the Simonizer.”

  Everything’s happening around me, and I ought to be fending it off somehow, but all I can think is that now Darleen is convinced I’ve turned the announcements into a mockery. And maybe I have.

  Mr. Popularity strikes again.

  Under the circumstances, it’s pretty amazing that I make it to English at all, but Orlando glares when I come in a half second late. He’s handing back essays, and my latest one is marked with a D–.

  Whatever.

  “We’re going to write another essay,” Orlando says. “I want you to have fun with this one.”

  How could writing an essay possibly be fun? I close my eyes and mentally will him to pick a decent topic.

  The Top Ten All-Time Best Waves.

  Why Tommy Hilfiger Is Becoming Entirely Too Well-Known.

  How to Screw Up Everything.

  Orlando stands in front of the chalkboard in his blue jeans and vest and writes, “Describe what you are best at.”

  “Okay, class, you know the drill. Two pages. At least. From everyone.” He looks meaningfully at me. “You’ve got until the end of class. If you finish early, hand your paper to me and read Hamlet. If you need extra time, I’ll stay after until you’re done. Let’s make these good, people. College quality. I want to know what you excel at, so impress me.” He sits down at his desk, and I stare out the window.

  Well, I think, it could definitely be worse. I’m pretty sure I can write two pages on what I’m best at. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can write even more than that. I take out one of my pens, and the girl beside me hands me some paper. Orlando sighs.

  “Paper, Liam. School supplies. Bring them.”

  Thirty minutes later I finish page five. I read the pages over, then grin with satisfaction as I walk them to the front of the room. At least this part of my day won’t suck. I set the pages on Orlando’s desk, positioning them on top of the pile, then sit down to stare at the first page of Hamlet for the last ten minutes of class. When the bell rings I pop up, ready to go.

  “Liam, would you stay after class, please?”

  I pause. Maybe Orlando wants to compliment me on my dramatic improvement. He points toward a seat, so I sit. He takes a deep breath.

  “Clearly, this is not your best effort,” he says.

  For a moment I think I’ve heard him wrong. I peer at the papers on his desk to make sure they’re really mine.

  “I wrote five pages,” I say at last. “You said two and I wrote five. I could have edited it more, but—”

  Orlando interrupts before I can finish. He picks up my paper.

  “‘What I’m Best At, by Liam Geller.’” He pauses, glancing over the top of the paper before continuing to read. “‘I would have to say that the one thing I truly excel at is screwing up. I am very, very good at it there are many ways in which I manage to screw up far more than the average person. Whereas most people screw up only once in a while I am very consistent about it and even screw up at screwing up when I mean to be screwing up.’”

  Orlando pauses. “This is your essay? Five pages on why you’re best at screwing up?”

  “I wrote a lot of supporting details,” I stammer. “The bit about getting caught in Dad’s office—that was pretty good, don’t you think?”

  Orlando sets down the papers.

  “No,” he says. “I don’t ‘think.’ Would any college accept this? They wouldn’t, so I want you to rewrite it.”

  My jaw drops. I spent a half hour writing that paper. My hand still hurts. I followed the directions exactly, and I deserve an A.

  “It’s a good essay,” I say, “and if you just reread it . . .”

  Orlando pauses.

  “I get to be the judge of what’s a good essay in this classroom,” he says, “and no matter how many times I reread this, it wouldn’t be college quality. Every other student managed to write something positive about themselves, and I know you can too.”

  My face is getting hot. I pick up my paper then put it down again.

  “I did everything you told me to, and it’s not fair that I have to rewrite it just because you don’t like it.”

  Orlando stands in front of my desk.

  “First of all,” he says, shifting forward, “it doesn’t matter if you think it’s fair. Second, you didn’t do what I said. I made it clear that the purpose of the assignment was to share something positive about yourself and you’re a great kid so I know you can do better than this. Tell me something you excel at.”

  “I excel at screwing up.”

  “Everyone has things they do well,” Orlando says. “You can’t tell me there’s not a single positive point about yourself that you can put down on paper!”

  I glare, willing something to burst into flame.

  “You asked what I was best at. I answered the question and that’s the truthful answer. Now you’re changing your mind, which isn’t fair.”

  Orlando takes a deep breath.

  “I’m giving you a second chance,” he says, “because I want you to succeed. “I’m not giving you an F on the paper. I’m giving you an opportunity to rewrite it, choosing another subject. Something that embodies the spirit of the assignment. I want you to come up with something else.”

  “Well, there isn’t anything else!” I slap my pen down on my desk, and Orlando takes another long, slow breath. Like Zen breathing.

  “Liam,” he says, “you speak fluent French, for god’s sake. Everybody loved your announcements. You’ve traveled all over the world. Eddie says you know everything about fashion . . .”

  I glare. “Those don’t count.”

  “Who says?”

  “I say. Speaking French is just like speaking English. When you live someplace you just learn it. And the announcements were a major screwup because I meant to screw them up and instead everybody loved them, so that just proves my point.”

  Orlando closes his eyes.

  “Why on earth would you be trying to screw up the announcements?”

  I sigh. “That’s none of your business. I just was. Besides, even if I wasn’t, it still wouldn’t be what I’m best at. I’m not rewriting anything, so you might as well just give me the grade I deserve.”

  Now Orlando crosses his arms. “I’ll give you detention, is what I’ll give you. You can sit here after school every day until it’s finished.”

  “Detention? There’s no way I deserve detention for writing a damn good essay!” I take back my paper. “Fine. What do you want me to write?”

  “It’s not what I want you to write,” Orlando says. “It’s what you want to write.”

  I grit my teeth. “I wrote what I wanted to write and you didn’t like it, so how am I supposed to know what to write now?”

  Orlando sighs.

  “I guess you’ll have to figure that out.”

  32

  THE FIRST THING I
HEAR when I open the trailer door is Aunt Pete’s bellow.

  “You’re late!”

  I follow the voice down the hallway to his bedroom, where he’s standing in front of the mirror putting on eye shadow. He’s wearing black spandex pants, a long silver tuxedo jacket with tails, platform boots, and a white feather boa.

  “You’re late,” he says again when I appear in the doorway. I frown.

  “And you’re wearing . . . that.”

  Aunt Pete glowers at me.

  “Glitter’s got a gig tonight. A private seventies-themed party out in Stonykill. Now, don’t change the subject. Where’ve you been?”

  I sit down on his bed. I consider lying, but I’m too tired.

  “Detention.”

  “For what?!”

  “Orlando gave me detention because he didn’t like the essay I wrote.”

  “Orlando gave you detention?”

  I nod. “It wasn’t fair. I wrote a good essay—longer than he said—and he told me to rewrite it. For no reason.”

  Aunt Pete stops what he’s doing and scratches his chin.

  “No reason, huh? Did you tell him you thought it wasn’t fair?”

  I make a face. “Yeah. As if that did any good. It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m supposed to do what he wants, no matter what. I hate Orlando.”

  Aunt Pete shoots me a look.

  “Watch it,” he snaps. “That’s my boyfriend you’re talking about.”

  I suppose he has a point. I flop backward onto the bed. “Okay. Fine. Maybe I don’t hate him, but it wasn’t fair. I’m telling you, I wrote five pages. He said we only had to write two, but I wrote five.”

  Aunt Pete chuckles. “All right, all right. I believe you. I’m not saying Orlando’s perfect. I’m sure it was a great essay and your writing abilities have been slandered unjustly. In fact, being a devoted uncle, tomorrow, wearing this very outfit, I will go down to the school and protest on your behalf until . . .”

  I try not to, but I laugh. Then I stare up at the ceiling.

  “That’s just what Mom would’ve done,” I say after a while. “Not the protesting part,” I add. “The part where you made me laugh instead of getting mad.”

  Aunt Pete puts down the lipstick he just took out.

  “Really? That’s what Sarah would have done?”

  I nod.

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “You’re not as bad at this as you think you are.”

  Aunt Pete grins, but I sit up. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I can’t stand it.

  “You’re pretty bad at putting on makeup, though.” I take the lipstick out of his hand. “I thought you’d been doing this a long time.”

  Pete just shrugs.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I’ve been doing a shitty job for a long time. They don’t exactly give makeup lessons for men.”

  I study his face carefully.

  “Well,” I say, “you’re obviously going for something . . . uh . . . loud.” I pause. “Still, less is more, and the outfit really speaks for itself.” I take out a Kleenex and wipe off most of what Aunt Pete put on, then carefully start reapplying it the same way I’ve watched Mom do it a million times.

  “Why do you do this?” I ask after a minute, drawing a sweeping line with the eyeliner. Aunt Pete follows my hand with his eyes.

  “You really want to know?”

  I nod.

  “Decadence,” Aunt Pete says at last. “Art, glamour, theater . . . It’s not so different from modeling, really. You get onstage and strike a pose. Plus, I feel good when I dress up, and men don’t usually get to experience that. But why shouldn’t we?”

  I sweep a line of deep crimson across Aunt Pete’s eyelid.

  “Doesn’t it bother you that people don’t get it?”

  Pete starts to shake his head, then catches himself and holds still.

  “Nope,” he says. “If you know what you love, it doesn’t matter what other people think. Besides, people are challenged when they’re uncomfortable. Glam stretches the boundaries. Gender boundaries, fashion boundaries . . . Glam, punk, rap, metal—they all make people stop and stare. It’s good for ’em.” He looks at me.

  “Besides,” he says, “I may not be rich or respected like your father, but I’ve got the three best friends in the world, a pretty decent trailer, a job I love . . . the good life. I don’t need anyone’s approval.”

  I set down the eye-shadow brush. I wish I could say that. I stick my finger in a vat of glitter on Aunt Pete’s dresser.

  “Hold still.”

  I draw an arc of silver just below each of Aunt Pete’s eyebrows. Each arc sweeps up like the eyeliner and the eye shadow, making evil wings on the sides of his face. I turn him toward the mirror.

  “What do you think?”

  Pete turns first to one side, then the other.

  “Damn,” he says. “That’s pretty good.”

  I shrug. Every now and then I manage to do something right.

  33

  I’M GUESSING ORLANDO TALKED TO PETE about my essay, because the day after the gig Pete invites me to have dinner with him and Eddie on Friday night. They have something important to discuss with me. Something they think I’ll really excel at.

  Whatever.

  Actually, Pete invites me to make dinner, because whenever he cooks it’s a disaster. At least it gives me something to do so I won’t think about all the ways I’m screwing up lately.

  Then I see Darleen coming toward the picnic table. She hasn’t been to the picnic table for days, but now she surveys our joint yard, and then she kind of tiptoes out. She’s wearing jeans that are way too short and a shirt that looks like one of those things people wore in the eighties with the giant collar. Her hair is pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, and she’s got a huge YES TO THE ARTS, NO TO HOMECOMING poster under one arm and a set of paints under the other arm. She sits down and very carefully starts to decorate the edge of the poster.

  “Hi.”

  Darleen jumps a mile. She didn’t see me jog out of Aunt Pete’s trailer.

  “How’s it going?”

  Her eyes bug out and for a minute I think she might bolt, but then her jaw tightens and she regains her composure. “Fine,” she says, even though she’s gritting her teeth. I sit down across from her.

  “You’re in my light,” she says, so I move over.

  “Did you have dinner yet?”

  Darleen shakes her head.

  “Do you want to have dinner with me, Eddie, and Pete?”

  She shakes her head again.

  “No?”

  “Yes,” says Darleen.

  “Yes?”

  Darleen sighs again. “I’m busy,” she says. “Can’t you see that I’m busy?”

  I pause. “Eddie is coming over at seven, but I can be flexible. What if we wait until seven fifteen? You might not be busy then, and we’d still have time to eat before Pete has to leave for work.” Darleen glares. She puts down her paintbrush, picks it up again, then puts it down one last time.

  “Listen,” she says at last, as if she’s prying the words out of her mouth. “The answer is no. N-O. And stop following me around. I don’t know what it is you think you’re doing, but if you think you’re going to become popular by tormenting me, then I have news for you. You already are popular. Understand? You don’t need an ‘in’ with Joe and his idiotic bunch of lemmings, so whatever grand scheme you’re concocting is unnecessary. Got it? Unneeded. A waste of time.”

  She’s talking loudly and slowly as if I won’t be capable of understanding.

  “I’m not popular,” I say. “I joined the AV club.”

  Darleen stops midbreath. “What?” she says, wrinkling her nose.

  “I know you think I’m mocking the announcements, but I’m not. I’m really taking them very seriously, because, well, equipment is my life. I can understand if you think I’m dumb, but in reality I’m very smart. Studious, I mean.”

  I hope this might make things better, but instead it m
akes things worse.

  “What are you talking about?” Darleen asks. “You couldn’t even work the stopwatch. Equipment is your life? You’re studious and smart? What does that have to do with anything?”

  She picks up her poster even though the paint isn’t dry.

  “Fine,” she says. “You want the picnic table? You can have it.”

  That’s when I crack.

  “Wait!”

  I say it louder and more desperately then I intend, but at least she stops.

  “Please, just . . . I’m trying to be nice. Dinner was Pete’s idea. He thinks you and I could be friends, and he and Eddie really want you to come. They think it will be fun. Aunt Pete’s been looking forward to it all week. If you say no, they’ll never forgive me.”

  This is probably overkill, but Darleen considers.

  “Eddie’s coming?” she asks suspiciously, even though I just said that.

  I nod.

  “And this was Pete’s idea?”

  “You’d be doing him a favor. He’s worried I’m not making friends.”

  Darleen scoffs.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she says. “I’ll do it on one condition.”

  “You name it.”

  She looks me straight in the eyes.

  “I’ll come to dinner tonight if you will leave me alone after this.”

  I can’t help wondering how I’ll leave her alone when she already avoids me all the time. I’m about to point this out, but instead I simply nod. Best not to complicate things. Besides, when she sees how smooth I’m going to be tonight, she won’t care about that anymore.

  I grin. “Great. Seven fifteen. You won’t regret this.”

  Just like that, I’ve got a date with Darleen. Well, okay, maybe not a date in the traditional sense of the word, but the most unpopular girl at school will be having dinner with me, and that’s got to count for something. If she were to become my official girlfriend, Dad would be way impressed. I think.

  I decide I’d better call Eddie to make sure I don’t screw anything up. I get the number off the bulletin board and dial the phone. It rings once, twice, three times . . .

  “Eddie here.”

  I exhale loudly.