I’m not sure what to say. Which doesn’t stop me from saying something anyway. “Must be about studly sex machines.”
“Listen.” Her voice drops almost to a whisper.
“And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
“I’ll skip this next part,” she tells me. “It’s basically comparing poetry to beer.” Which perks my ears up—but she’s already going on:
“But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour….”
She stops suddenly and looks me dead in the eye. “What do you think that means?”
This whole situation’s so weird that just for a second I hesitate.
But just for a second.
“It means you’re a fucking psycho,” I tell her.
“Wrong!” She thumps the open book with her hand. “It means that you’re my vaccination.”
“Your vacc—”
“See, Golden Boy, you’re a pain in the ass right now, but gradually you’ll make me immune to all the other morons in this oppressive caste system you call a school. You’re my cowpox, my measles shot, my DPT booster.”
I start to say something about at least my hair’s not the color of snot, but I’m not really sure what all she just said, and besides, snot comments are too fourth grade.
And she’s already bending back over her book. Like she’s already immune to me.
I think about what she said. She said I was a pain in the ass. She didn’t exactly call me a moron.
Did she?
And it’s too late now anyway—to tell her not to call me one. Besides, I don’t see how she could have picked up on it. Most people think I’m just lazy.
She keeps her nose in her book. Which is good, because from then till the end of the period, it’s as if my tank’s run dry. As if what she said put the brakes on any more words coming out of my mouth.
I can’t remember the first time I knew I was stupid. It must have been in kindergarten or first grade, when everybody else could already tell the letters apart and I couldn’t, even though I started school a year late on account of my birthday’s in June and my dad didn’t want me to be the smallest boy in my class for the rest of my life. But even with a year’s head start, I kept getting the letters mixed up. I still don’t read so good.
But I am good at copying, lying, cheating. I get notes like “doesn’t work up to potential,” and “would rather entertain his classmates than work.”
And that’s why I could always sit through a whole class period, doing nothing but watching Grace. I’d give anything to be smart like that. The only smart I am is smart-mouthed. And if somebody like Grace—intellectual, pure, refined—could fall for me, then nobody will ever guess that I’m just plain fucking stupid, after all.
Sixth period is athletics. That means different things depending on who’s taking it, and the time of year. Most of the guys I know do football in the fall and then basketball or baseball or track in the spring.
For me, it means weight training in the fall and baseball in the spring. Football’s okay—I used to play in junior high—but it’s not worth fucking up my future with a cracked collarbone or even a broken finger. Jesus, a broken finger! That could ruin everything.
So right now, in the fall, I do weight training. It’s me and a few of the other baseball guys that Coach likes, and we don’t screw around too much because Coach holds our lives over our heads. If he gets mad, we’ll get benched or demoted to second string—or even cut. And I’m the only sophomore on varsity, so Coach could easily send me down to JV.
That’s why I’m here every damn day, focused on keeping in shape for the spring. Me, a guy you couldn’t count on to show up for his own funeral.
I change clothes and go straight down to the weight room. I’m the first one there. I pick up a thirty-pound dumbbell and take it over to the curl bench. I straddle it and start in on my left arm.
Jordan Palmer and Max Gutterson show up next. They’re both seniors, and they’re both in baseball. Both played football up till last year, when Palmer sprained his back and his doctor told him he couldn’t tackle anymore. Gutterson had one too many concussions.
Palmer is like me in some ways. He lives in the same neighborhood I do, which means he’s not hurting for money. He’s got a neck like a bull, but eyelashes like a girl—he’s a good-looking bastard, like me—but Jordan Palmer never had to work at just getting through the day. His life is smooth as silk; you can bet he’s never had a teacher talk to him through her teeth, with veins bulging in her forehead like she’s about to have a stroke. He’s one of those High Academic people that always have the right words and the right tone of voice with teachers and parents. And even more with girls. He’s screwed more times than a Black & Decker power drill.
He nods a hello at me as he takes a seat on the leg-press machine. If I wasn’t on varsity, he might not even admit I was here, me being an underclassman.
“I’m telling you, that’s bullshit,” he says to Gutterson, slipping the key between the plates. “It’s because he’s still in football and you’re not.”
“That’s what I figured,” Gutterson says. “But she says it’s because he asked her first.”
Gutterson is built like a side of beef; he’d like to pound me just for being a sophomore, but he follows Palmer’s lead, and Palmer is too cool to pound.
“She has to say that. Social-climbing bitch.” Palmer grips the handles on either side of his seat. “Ready?” he asks Gutterson, who puts both hands on Palmer’s knees.
I watch them while I’m counting out twenty reps on my right arm. Palmer braces his feet on the pedals, knees bent, and nods to Gutterson.
“Aaa…”
Palmer’s neck cords strain—he tries to straighten his legs, to force the pedals out and the heavy plates upward.
“—rrah!” Gutterson drops his own body weight on top of Palmer’s knees, forcing Palmer’s legs straight. Cables creak. Palmer’s face is frozen in a snarl of effort and he’s not breathing. His legs are fully extended.
Coach has yelled at them for doing that, but Palmer doesn’t care if he breaks both legs and has his kneecaps sticking backward like a chicken for the rest of his life. He just wants to up his leg press.
So here we are, me, a lowly smart-ass of a sophomore, and two eighteen-year-olds with five-o’clock shadows at two o’clock in the afternoon. And they’re the ones who need supervision.
“Kay!” It comes from somewhere behind Palmer’s teeth. Gutterson leaps back at the same instant Palmer’s legs give out. Cables whir; the weights come crashing down. Palmer’s done the one and only rep of his first set.
Now he’s got to rest. He wipes his hands on his towel, then swipes his forehead.
“That’s the only problem with baseball,” Palmer tells Gutterson. “The uniforms. They don’t attract the chicks. Not like football uniforms.”
“It’s those pads,” says Gutterson. He leans forward, moves the key down, adding twenty pounds for Palmer’s next rep/set, then sits on the bench next to Palmer. “Pads’ll make anybody look like Arnold fucking Schwarzenegger.”
“Like you’d attract a lot of chicks from the bottom of a dogpile,” I mutter to myself.
Not low enough, though. It’s a lucky thing Gutterson’s too lazy to walk over here. He looks for something to throw at me, but the only thing at hand is Palmer’s sweaty towel.
He throws it anyway. I duck, and it only catches me on the shoulder before falling to the floor.
“What do you know about attracting chicks?” Gutterson says.
“Enough.” I scoop up Palmer’s towel and debate snapping one at Gutterson’s crotch just to see him vault into midair. I end up tossing it back to Palmer. I don’t feel like getting pounded today.
Palmer drops the towel to the floor. “Trammel, my lad,” he says calmly
, “the only thing you’ve ever laid is a fart.”
Where the rest of us have to work to get anywhere with a girl, all Palmer has to do is smile in their direction, say a couple sentences, and there they are with their skirts hiked up around their ears. He is hands down the most experienced guy in the school, if you believe what he has to say about it. Which I do. Some of those details nobody could make up.
And I may not have as much experience as Palmer does—nobody could—but he doesn’t know that. Besides, I’ve got balls. Most times, balls are all it takes to make people think that you’ve got it more together than you really do.
“Hey,” I tell Palmer, dead serious, “I’ve done it ways you can’t even imagine.”
“Oh yeah?” Palmer and Gutterson exhange smirks. “Like what?”
I pick my dumbbell up again, and start another set. I’m thinking. “Scuba diving,” I tell them.
“Scuba diving?”
“Yeah. Forty feet down.”
“You’re full of shit, Trammel.”
I ignore Gutterson, like I’m focused on my biceps. It works—when I don’t argue he glances at Palmer, who’s watching me now, thinking. Palmer’s probably done the deed in all kinds of weird places. He knows anything is possible.
“Where was this?”
“Bahamas,” I say. “Back in August.” We did go to the Bahamas, but it was three years ago, when I was thirteen. And I did go scuba diving, but it was with my mom and sister. And we only went to twenty-five, thirty feet.
I switch the weight back to my right hand, and start my last two sets. I can talk, easy, while I’m pumping these light weights—I just can’t count while I’m doing it. “It was this girl I met at the hotel. We only did it once, scuba diving. But we’d already done it back in her room a few times.”
I keep my voice matter-of-fact, I keep my eyes on the weight, going up, going down. I have no idea how many reps I’ve done—but I can tell Palmer doesn’t know whether to believe me or not.
“Bull.” Out of the corner of my eye I see him and Gutterson glance at each other again. “You couldn’t get any traction in the water.”
I lower the weight to the floor and straighten. Then I smirk at Palmer and shake my head, like he’s an idiot. “You don’t need traction. You’re floating.”
Palmer just raises an eyebrow at me, then turns to Gutterson. “Ready?” Gutterson gets up and puts his hands on Palmer’s knees again, while Palmer grips the handles. “Aaarrr!” They work together to force Palmer’s legs straight; Palmer’s shaking and sweating. After a few seconds he nods, and Gutterson jumps back as Palmer’s legs turn to jelly. The plates drop with a crash.
Palmer scoops up his towel from the floor, wipes his forehead. “What was her name?” he asks me.
“Twyla.”
I don’t know where it came from. It’s great. It’s so weird it’s got to be a real name.
“Twyla? What the hell kind of name is that?”
“Dutch. She was on vacation with her parents. They liked to party, so she had a lot of free time. I was the one who had trouble ditching—my mom’s into the family vacation thing. She was all ‘Now, how do I know this diving trip will be supervised?’” I say that part in a falsetto, then go back to my own voice. “It was supervised plenty…on the boat.”
At that Palmer’s face slides into a grin—he gives me a “way to go” nod—and then doesn’t say another word.
I should feel good because I got Palmer and Gutterson to believe this great lie, but I know I’m probably the only virgin on varsity. Well, technically, anyway—in some countries I might not be considered a virgin.
When I walk into the house after school, I just stand there, looking down at the phone. Funny how if I just barely even touch a few buttons, bip-bip-boop-bip, I could be talking to Grace. Hearing her voice. Just a few little numbers, bip-bip-boop-bip.
I find myself picking up the phone. It feels nice in my hand, smooth and rounded, not too heavy, not too light. It’s not me pushing the buttons—my fingers are doing it all on their own, very slowly: bip…bip…boop.
It’s pleasure and torture at the same time. It’s kind of a rush watching my fingers dial Grace’s number, wondering how far they’re going to go. Beep…bip…bip…
No. No way am I going to crawl. I crawled yesterday, and look where it got me. A sore wrist.
Shit. I am in bad shape. There’s only one thing to do.
I hit the off button.
Then I pull out the school directory, turn the phone back on, and call Silver. Colton Trammel doesn’t roll over and beg—not without a fight.
“Hey. This is Colt,” I tell Silver when she answers. “Turns out I just got unbusy.”
“I heard this is a really good movie,” Silver says, as we’re walking into the theater a couple of hours later. We traded in the passes for tickets to Last Kiss.
Last Kiss is a tearjerker of a chick flick. You can tell by the posters. Silver’s walking so close that her hand keeps brushing against mine. Her purse is looped over her shoulder like a saddlebag.
I hadn’t really thought about what movie we would see. The point is I’m not lying around crying my heart out just because Grace is mad. But once we’re past the ticket taker, I see that there’s an R-rated action movie playing on another screen—a movie I’ve really been wanting to see, whenever it came out.
Well, it’s out. So now I’ve got to act quickly, no arguments. I grab Silver’s hand and pull her aside to sneak into a good movie.
She doesn’t argue. She doesn’t let go my hand when we’re in the theater, either.
The story takes place on a submarine, and the exciting part is they could all drown any second. Plus there’s tons of explosions and fight scenes, and there’s also a topless dancer who stowed away to escape the mob, so there’s a half-naked woman to look at. It’s everything you’d ever want in a movie.
You’d think I’d be happy to see this particular movie with a non-Grace. Silver doesn’t seem to mind the half-naked woman thing, whereas Grace always gets offended and says how it’s sexist. I don’t know what she wants, like they’re going to show a bunch of half-naked men running around on a submarine, just to make it equal. Nobody would go see that.
But Silver doesn’t say a word about the half-naked woman or the movie. She just sits there watching and popping her gum, and once, when I realize I haven’t heard her popping for a while, I glance over and she’s looking at me instead of the screen. And when it’s over, which is when Grace lists everything she liked and didn’t like about the show, Silver just walks out with me and starts talking about how she’s got to find a new guy to cut her hair because the old one made her wait an hour last time.
I’m not really listening, but I’m not saying much either. I’m not used to being with a date who doesn’t give a shit what we just saw.
“You want to go somewhere?” I hear Silver say.
I shrug. “Like where?”
“Like…St. John’s?”
I look over. She’s smiling at me. No sign of gum being chewed—maybe she threw it away already, getting prepared. Because the dead-end street behind St. John’s Presbyterian Church is the prime parking spot for every guy with a car.
Well. Why not? It feels pretty good to have somebody want me more than I want her, for a change. Why not give the chick a thrill? And what Grace doesn’t know won’t hurt her. It’s all her fault anyway for getting mad over a stupid Coke-can ring on her poem and all the other stuff she gets so pissed about.
I drive to the dead end behind the church. Silver’s running off at the mouth again, talking about how her dad’s going to get her a brand-new Mercedes when she turns sixteen next fall, only he’s also going to give her his old Lexus to drive to school because he doesn’t want the Mercedes to get banged up.
Finally I get her to shut up by kissing her.
Silver’s a pretty good kisser, but tonight she’s a little stopped up so we have to pause every once in a while to let her breathe. Afte
r a while she lets me touch her up top. She’s got nice breasts for a freshman, good sized, but I haven’t touched anybody but Grace in a while, and it feels strange, like when you’re in a hotel and it’s hard to sleep because the bed’s not what you’re used to.
With Silver, it turns out I can do pretty much whatever I want as long as I stay on the outside of her clothes.
I don’t mind too much. She’s not Grace, and anyway I don’t want to go all that far with somebody who’s probably going to go straight home and call the entire freshman class and spread all the gory details about how I performed.
Besides, Silver’s nose is starting to make a little whistling sound when she breathes through it.
So after a while I sit back and tell her I’ve got to get home.
I drop her off at her house—which is huge, one of the biggest ones in the neighborhood—and I’m not feeling too good, because Silver’s got her gum back and I know she didn’t open a new stick, so she had it hidden somewhere inside her mouth where I couldn’t feel it, and I’m kind of grossed out. But mostly I’m thinking how I just got more off Silver Stanton than I got off Grace for the whole first month we dated.
I walk Silver to her front door, say good-bye, don’t even bother to try to cop one more feel.
Back in my car I sit there for a second. I’ve got that feeling, like a volcano, building out of nowhere, about to blow.
It’s only a few blocks to Grace’s house.
So. I’ll just take a little detour—I won’t stop, I’ll just pass by on the way home. Let off a little of the pressure so the volcano doesn’t blow. I’ll just look at her house, that’s all, and think how she’s in there, just a few yards away, doing homework, watching TV.
I drive slowly down her street—that’s her house I’m passing now, the one with the winding stone walk, the one with two bay windows.
The volcano’s not satisfied.
I turn the car around and drive by again. Slower. Slower.
Well. I’m here, I’ve taken the time to turn around, she’s probably already seen me out the window anyway.
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