Permanent Adhesives

by Melissa T. Liban

  He crinkled up his nose. I don’t think he had a response. Perhaps he didn’t even know why he wouldn’t talk to me. He sighed and shrugged. What kind of an answer was that? I needed more than just a shrug.

  “No, really?” I asked. “Are you mad at me from that one night with the car going backwards down the street? I said I was sorry. My sister has a ginormous mouth.”

  “I dunno,” he said, seeming very exasperated, dropping his shoulders.

  “Is it because of the name we have for your mom? Cuz Janie came up with that.” I was so trying to save my ass. “Can you try to see it from our perspective?” I kind of wished I had stopped talking.

  “Can you see it from mine?”

  “Yes,” I pleaded. “That’s why I feel so bad.”

  “Fair enough,” he said flatly.

  “We’re leaving,” I heard Kate shout from the door.

  “Hi Elias,” Nicki said from next to Kate. Seriously, Nicki knew him too, how out of the loop was I?

  He gave her a salute, looked at me, and right before we left he said, “I read your webcomic.”

  My mouth just dropped open, and before I could even come up with a response, Kate grabbed my wrist and pulled me out the door.

  “You two were talking. Ya like him?” Nicki asked, as we walked down the sidewalk.

  I sipped my coffee and stepped to the side to let a woman pushing a stroller by. I didn’t answer at first and then slowly I said, “Maybe.” Because somehow I think I was growing fond of him even though he had never said not much more than six words to me. However, I felt so bad. Oh my God, how was I going to face him tomorrow at school? And I was pretty certain he was not going to like me back because would you like somebody who made an evil villain based on your mother?

  “I’m surprised he was actually talking to you,” Nicki said.

  “Why, did he say something about me? Does he not like me?”

  “No,” Nicki said with a smile. “He just usually never talks.”

  “Oh, well okay then.” Now I wondered if it was a good or a bad thing that he chose to talk to me.

  *************************

  That night I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. I think I drank too much coffee because I couldn’t fall asleep. My sister was tossing around in her bed. It looked like she might have been having a dream about being a fish the way she was flopping about. My sister Janie—who only spoke to me on occasion as of late, and with what was usually always just some snide comment. She was mad at the world for her life that she did not quite enjoy, and I was clumped in the same world that she was enraged at, resulting in little communication between the two of us. I glanced around our darkened room to the dresser between our beds; our beds that consisted only of the box spring and mattress, one on each wall, with walking space between the two that was the width of the dresser. Our closet was overflowing with junk: clothes, shoes, books, winter weather gear. You name it and it was there. You could not close the door because of the large mound of junk oozing out. All the stuff that oozed out of the closet infected the whole floor. There wasn’t an empty spot to step. I usually just leapt onto my bed from the doorway.

  I heard my mom come in through the front door; she must have had to stay late at work. I loved my mom, but I swear life with my dad did something to her. Sometimes I had to wonder about her.

  Not too long ago she wanted my sister and I to do something like take out the trash. I told her I had to work on my homework because I really did, and Janie said pretty much the same thing. Well, she started shouting and screaming at us and grabbed a kitchen knife. I swear I almost pooped my pants being it was a sharp knife, but luckily, she turned towards the counter, probably knowing a cake was there, and started going crazy, stabbing at this cake. She stabbed at it until it was just a pile of crumbs. When she was done, she dropped the knife into the cake pan and ran into the bathroom crying and stayed in there for like an hour. Janie and I just looked at each other. What are you supposed to do after an incident like that? All I knew was—I was very thankful that cake was there.

  I flipped my pillow over, lay on the new side until the coolness disappeared, and then pulled it over my head attempting to stop my thoughts and caffeine surge so I could get some sort of sleep.

  Chapter Four

  In the background of my sleep I heard a beeping. It kept getting louder and louder. It was my darn alarm clock. I rolled over, slapped it with my hand, and pulled my pillow over my head, which is something I seemed to have done a lot. I really didn’t want to get up. I lay there for a few minutes until Janie came and started knocking on the doorframe.

  “Get outta bed,” she said.

  I rolled over and looked at her. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed. She looked a lot like me, which means she was adorable. Okay, maybe I’m stretching it, but since she did resemble me, it means she was pretty decent looking because I was cute enough. I always got, “Why don’t you wear makeup and dress a little nicer. You’d be so pretty.” Mainly, I got that from Janie and my mother though. They weren’t the best at boosting a youth’s self-esteem. Janie too had hair the color of blah, but hers just brushed her shoulders, and we both had the cursed Pearson ski slope nose. We both also had a little bit of an overbite. I think mine was a little worse though because all my front top teeth had spaces between them; all work that I’m sure could have been fixed with braces, but my mom didn’t want to spring for orthodontia.

  “Mom said to make sure you leave for school. She had to go to work early this morning.”

  “I’m getting up,” I said, rolling on my side, facing the wall. Morning was always a tough time for me. I slowly sat up and started rummaging through the pile of clothes at the end of my bed, mostly stuff I had only worn once or twice, not quite wash worthy because when you don’t have a lot of money, you learn to re-wear your clothes because it’s hard sometimes coming up with money to go to the Laundromat. I pulled out a long sleeved thermal shirt and some shorts. I topped it off with my green zip up ski vest, and I was ready to go.

  *************************

  The bus was taking forever that morning. I really should have worn a hat. My ears were starting to hurt. I waited at the bus stop with about six other teenagers, a business looking guy wearing a trench coat and holding a brief case, and then there was an old guy with three small, tan, plastic suitcases. And of course when the bus came there was another one right behind it. I got on the second one since it was nearly empty. I got off in front of my school and moseyed on in.

  During English, we had a fire drill. I was kind of annoyed because I was trying to work on some of the text for the next page of The Society of Prodigious Superbness. I usually got some good work done in English class, granted it wasn’t school work, but it was something I enjoyed more. I followed right behind Elias to outside as we filed onto one of the sidewalks leading up to the school. We stopped, and I stood looking at Addison St. and the back of Elias’s head. He stood there gnawing at his nails, not seeming to notice that it was frickin cold out, but then it could have just been me. As I said earlier, I put on some shorts. Well, they were a pair of denim cutoffs, and I also wore some tube socks. Not the wisest clothing choice when it’s late fall, but I was a teenager. We have no common sense.

  I then looked around at all the students gushing out of the building and saw kids that I would see crossing my path in the hall, but didn’t personally know. Like across the lawn with one class was this kid Otto and that time I seriously mean kid. He was like ten years old and in high school. Cars on Addison were slowing down, trying to be nosey and see why we were all standing out there. I let out a deep breath and tapped Elias on the shoulder.

  “Hey,” I said. I wasn’t sure what more I was going to say, but hey seemed like a good place to start.

  He turned, looked at me, and raised his eyebrows.

  “How’s work?” I asked, rocking back on my heels with my hands in my pockets. I’m telling you that might have been one of the dorkiest con
versation starters ever.

  “Okay,” he answered, biting his bottom lip. He didn’t seem as mad at me as before.

  I nodded my head like what he said was the deepest thing ever. I needed to come up with something fast and for some reason, a lie popped into my head. “Hey, my friend Kate is having a small party like thing at her house later. Are you working tonight?” I was so lying, but he didn’t know that. Normally, I wasn’t the kind of girl who would do something of the sort to garner a boy’s attention, but it just popped into my head. I couldn’t help it.

  “No,”

  “Well, you wanna go?”

  “I dunno.”

  Everybody started going back into the building. I was glad because at that point I couldn’t feel the middle section of my legs. “C’mon,” I said, as if that was going to convince him.

  He blew a breath out of his lips and made a clicking noise with his tongue.

  “What else you gonna do?”

  He clicked his tongue some more and rolled his eyeballs up. “Fine,” he said.

  Okay, now here was my problem. I needed to find Kate, tell her that she was to have a party that night, and invite people. I got back to the classroom, ran inside, grabbed my backpack, and ran out before Mrs. Gomez could catch me. I knew where Kate’s class was, it was Art up on the fourth floor and luckily, she had a very lovely teacher who thought he was hip and would pretty much let whoever wanted, to come and hang in his class. I darted down the hall and up the stairs, keeping an eye out for any of the security guards. You could have probably spotted one of the school’s security guards miles away because they wore these bright yellow jackets that said security in large black letters across the back. I got to Kate’s classroom, almost out of breath, and tried to saunter in all cool, like I wasn’t about to die from a heart attack. Kate was sitting in the corner at a table near the window with Roberto. Mr. Murdo gave me a wave. I flipped a wave back his way.

  “Hey,” Kate said, surprised to see me. She was wearing a tee-shirt that had a picture of Kirk Cobain and the years of his life on it. She always said that she was going to high school in the wrong decade; she should have been in high school at the dawn of alternative music.

  “Your mom works at night, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said pensively.

  “And she kinda lets you get away with murder, right?”

  “Yeah, but what’s this about, and why is my mother involved?”

  “Well, you must have a small party like thing tonight at your house, so we have to start inviting people as of this moment.”

  Roberto peeped up from his still life drawing. There was an arrangement set up in the middle of the classroom on a table covered with some material. It was a collection of baskets, bottles, and different animal skulls. “I invited?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I said.

  Kate sat there looking at me confused.

  “Huh?” she said.

  “Please, you have to for me.”

  “Soooo,” Kate said, all drawn out like. “I’m supposed to have a party. Tonight. At my house.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I guess we better start telling people.”

  “You’re the best.”

  “I know,” Kate said, flashing me a big grin.

  Chapter Five

  I stood in the middle of Kate’s living room. Crap, I thought. I think we told too many people. They weren’t all supposed to show up. It was so last minute. The house was jammed packed with kids. Roberto was playing DJ, and music wise, it was loud, but he was mostly sticking with indie rock, so hopefully our guests wouldn’t get too riled up. I surveyed the room for those I actually knew. In one corner stood this kid Charlie Chou, who was really tall and all his pants were always just a scooch too short. He was standing with Nicki and my friend Anna Lin and her boyfriend Clark Gupta and the founders of the club dedicated to my comic. There was Reynaldo, or Reynaldo Mathias Arias Delgado as he liked to introduce himself, who initially started the club, so he was like president. He often smelled of pickles. On occasion, Reynaldo had been seen walking around school with a thermos. Rumor was that it was filled with pickle juice. He also wore tee-shirts that always had weird status update like quotes on them. The shirt he had on then said Goin’ to Get My Dance On at the Club Tonite. Next to him was Brian Park, who was vice-president. Brian was half Korean and half Polish and very long and skinny, almost like one of those walking stick insects. He also had a tendency to creep me out. He often said things like, “You are looking so radiant this afternoon,” and then he’d nod to affirm what he said. The last of the club’s founders was Dean Tucker. Poor Dean was only seventeen and already had a receding hairline; a most noticeable one to boot. He also liked to sport a sweet sweater vest; he had quite an extensive collection.

  Then there were people sitting on the couch all garbed in cardigans, plaid, quirky band tees, and skinny jeans. And everybody else was standing in small clumps around the room squashed on top of one another. I was standing there looking all around, and I saw no Elias Bickler. If he was lying about coming I felt that I’d probably be pretty disappointed, but all was going well. We seemed to throw an okay party at the last minute. We made all the guests supply everything. If they wanted in they had to bring beverage, snack, or toilet paper (especially toilet paper) because Kate knew there was no way they would have enough. And we told people per chance if they brought libations that were of the illegal kind for kids our age, they had to be kept in a backpack or duffel bag near the back door just in case the cops were called, so then they could be easily and quickly transported out of the house.

  I was turning to walk to the back of the house when Elias walked in behind this guy named Tomasz. I turned and stood next to a few people so it wouldn’t look like I was waiting for him. They walked in and started saying hi to some people here and there. Well, Tomasz was saying hi to many, and Elias gave out about one head nod. They squished past everybody to the back and disappeared into the kitchen, either to get some pop or illegal libation. I went and sat down near Roberto who was skipping over the next song in the shuffle, picking out something where the main instrument being played was a banjo. I looked over to his myPad which was playing its music through a portable speaker.

  “Play that next,” I said, pointing to a song I liked by a band that used tap dancing as their percussion.

  I crossed my legs and looked at Roberto’s feet because I always enjoyed the shoes he wore. He seemed to have a pair for each day of the week. That day they were black with red plaid. He bought most his wardrobe up at Belmont and Clark (yes, the intersection we were at the day before). He said if you were authentically superb, you didn’t shop in a mall.

  “How’d you get DJ duty?” I asked.

  “I requested it, so Kate bestowed the task upon me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, when I got here I didn’t much feel like socializing.”

  I nodded my head in response. He got like that sometimes.

  I sat there for a bit with Roberto. We didn’t say much, but he was one of those people you could just hang and be cool with without saying anything. After a bit I put in another request and stood up without looking, nearly knocking over Elias. My head hit his forearm sending his drink flying and spraying everywhere. Only I would do something like that, and what were the chances that he would be the one walking out of the kitchen? I think some kind of forces were at play, but I’m just not exactly sure what kind. I gave a nervous laugh.

  “I’ll get some towels,” I said, looking at Elias. “You should help me.”

  He looked around like I was talking to someone else.

  “You,” I said, grabbing him by the elbow, leading him into the kitchen. I pushed through some people and grabbed the roll of paper towels. I ripped some off and handed them to Elias. He reluctantly took them. He walked ahead of me into the dining room, bent down, and started swabbing the floor. I watched him for a few seconds. He was wearing a gray tee-shirt with
an image of a moose and some skinny jeans, which were held in place by a red canvas belt. I squat down and started helping him. “Thanks,” I said.

  He nodded his head. We finished wiping up the pop mess without saying a word. He took the paper towels and threw them away and reappeared with a new cup. He came and stood next to me. I crossed my arms, just stood there not saying anything. I could see him look out the corner of his eye at me. He was probably thinking why is this girl wearing tube socks and shorts when it’s so close winter?

  “Word is, this was a spur of the moment thing,” Elias said, finally breaking the silence.

  It took my brain a second to register his sentence because what it actually sounded like was Wood ish, dish wash a shpu of the momen ding. He hadn’t said much to me before, so I never fully noticed the way he talked. I couldn’t recall if I noticed his speech on that first day I met him (the one on the street). But I remembered that one time in school when he said pine for fine and that when he said his name the first day he was in my English class it sounded kind of garbled, but I just thought he was mumbling, but it was something more than that. “Kinda,” I responded in slight delay.

  “Yeah?” Elias said, now smiling. He actually knew how to smile, and it was cute too because only one dimple popped up; just the one on the left-hand side.

  “Yeah,” I said, leaning against the wall with my shoulder. I felt all happy inside. We were having what could have possibly been defined as a conversation, or at least the start of one. I think it was at that point I might have actually realized I really liked him. Not just friend like liking him, but more than friends liking him, even though at that point he technically wasn’t my friend, so it wasn’t really more than friends liking him. It was, well, it was the kind of like where your stomach feels all fluttery and you hear birds chirping and harp music when you think about him kind of like.