I’m no better. I just shrug. We sit without talking. After a few minutes I’m desperate enough to bring up the prom.
“Carrie wants me to take Amanda to the prom.”
“You told me. What’s wrong with that?” David seems rejuvenated by the change in topic.
“Do I like Amanda?”
“You think she has nice tits.”
Did I say that? I can’t think of a good reason for me to have commented to David about Amanda’s breast size, but I obviously had. “Does that make her a good prom date?”
“Does she want to go with you?”
“According to Carrie. She wants you to take M.C.”
“Do you think she’d go with me?”
I’m not sure how to answer that question. I know that I’m only required to give a monosyllabic response indicating affirmation or denial, so it should be pretty easy, but it feels so complicated. I think the answer is yes, but the answer is only probably yes if M.C. thinks that David wants to date her, which he doesn’t, so maybe I should say no, but that isn’t quite right because I’m sure that if he asked her she would. I hear David sigh. A sigh is a verbal shrug.
“Look, it’s no big deal,” he says, as if he has been listening to my internal soliloquy. “I’d like to go to my prom and I get along really well with M.C. Why not?” All of which seems harmless enough.
“Are you going to tell her?” I ask.
I can’t tell whether he’s thinking or reacting. After a moment he gives a quiet “No.”
Male mail
We drink two beers apiece, and then David drives me home. Two beers doesn’t seem like too much, and we were sitting and talking for a while. I decide not to make a big deal of it now, but I was much happier riding with him when he only drank Diet Cokes.
“I sent you a letter,” he tells me as we pull up in front of my house. “You’ll probably get it soon.”
“The kind with a stamp?”
David shrugs, then nods, then shrugs again. This is a confusing mix of signals. He seems to have forgotten his nonverbal vocabulary.
“You see me every day, why did you send me a letter?”
“I had something to tell you.”
“Oh,” I say as if I understand. I don’t think I want to ask. “Just don’t read it.”
“You sent me a letter but you don’t want me to read it?”
“Not yet. Wait. Okay?”
CHAPTER 16
Seven Rhetorical Questions I Would Like Answered
If I know the answer, do I still have to ask?
For the record, Amanda does have nice tits, but when I see her at school on Tuesday I still feel like a jerk for having said so. She sits opposite me at lunch. We seem to be an item now, even though I still haven’t officially asked her out, and she smiles at me several times but talks mostly to Carrie. M.C. has placed herself beside an empty chair, clearly intended for David, who doesn’t look the least bit surprised when he arrives. The first thing he does when he sits down, even before he pulls out his ham sandwich, is turn to M.C. and say, “I was told I was supposed to ask you to the prom.” She giggles and nods, and he says something like, “Well?” and she says, “I’d love to,” and that seems to be that. They then spend the rest of lunch chatting. I mean, they’ve known each other for the better part of a year, and he gives her rides home all the time, but I didn’t expect chatting. He appears to be enjoying the attention. Part of me wants to announce to the table that David isn’t really interested in M.C.—mostly, I think, because he seems so much better at this than I am.
I can’t get a word out. I’ve talked to Amanda before, but now that I know she’s interested, I don’t know what to say. I sit, barely speaking at all, and certainly not manipulating the conversation enough to give me an opening to ask her to the prom. Most of the discussion is focused on whether or not I will be suspended. This is not a topic I want to discuss. The general consensus is that I will have to write a letter of apology or something lame and nothing will happen to me. It is easy for everyone else to feel confident about that—seeing it isn’t their butt that is hanging out in the wind.
Finally lunch is over and we go off to our classes. I feel like people are looking at me differently as we walk out of the cafeteria. Mitchell with a girlfriend is obviously a new Mitchell, one they don’t recognize. Within twenty-four hours, everyone seems to know. Even Danielle, who’s been sitting next to me in English all year without ever speaking to me, suddenly notices me, like maybe I’ve just materialized in the seat beside her.
“How long have you been seeing Amanda?” she asks casually.
It takes me a moment to realize that she is addressing me and that I’m “seeing” Amanda.
“Not long,” I say finally, turning some shade of bright red.
“She’s cute,” Danielle adds, managing to make the adjective sound like a put-down.
It is the longest conversation I have ever had with Danielle, and still I’m totally relieved when the substitute starts class.
Why only when someone is watching?
I’m supposed to be in calculus, but I have a migraine, which means I have to go to the office because my Fiorinal counts as a controlled substance and I’m not allowed to keep it in my locker. My migraines are a regular enough occurrence in calculus that Ms. Bexter waves me out without looking up from the homework she’s grading. Ms. Bexter believes that people don’t learn anything unless they learn it on their own, so her course mostly consists of handing out the textbooks, writing assignments on the board, and correcting papers. She always seems a little bitter about the fact that we don’t understand what we are doing, but maybe that’s just her personality. I get a lot of fifth-period migraines.
The J. P. Gilley water fountain is a lousy place to take my meds, but it works, which gives it a distinct advantage over the other two in the building. The Gilley fountain is centrally located, directly across from the girls’ bathroom, so there’s always a nice audience watching me choke and sputter as I try to swallow enough water to down the pills without spilling them out of my mouth. Often they half melt and taste wretched, and I gag. Gagging is so cool.
Today I try to take both pills at once, a tricky maneuver but worth the risk if you can pull it off. I don’t pull it off, and I have to spit the partially dissolved caplets back into my hand, where they sit in their little pool of drool happily disintegrating. As I’m about to try again, Danielle walks out of the girls’ room. I consider dying as a reasonable alternative to standing there, palm extended, dripping medicated saliva. There is a pause, the world stops, and we look at each other longer than we would otherwise. I can tell she’s been crying. She’s fixed her makeup, but her eyes are still red. She stands in the doorway and stares at me as if she’s never seen me before. I look back down at my Fiorinal, pop them in my mouth, and take a big swig of water. Thankfully, I keep them down this time. When I look up, she’s still standing there.
“Migraine medication,” I tell her.
“Bad?”
“I get them pretty often.”
“Me too.”
We have something in common. I almost forget to breathe.
She smiles at me, and I wonder if I’m still drooling. “I take Imitrex mostly,” she says.
“Fiorinal.”
“I tried that one.” And with that, she smiles again and walks away. I watch her walk down the hall, trying not to look like I’m just standing there watching her walk down the hall.
Of course, I get caught.
“Best ass in the school,” Louis whispers conspiratorially. I hadn’t even realized he was near me. “She knows we’re watching. Walks like that aren’t accidental.”
I don’t say anything. Okay, so I was watching her walk, and okay, I was looking at her butt, and okay, this is the second conversation I’ve had with Louis about this particular topic, and okay, I wasn’t thinking about her personality or intellect, but God, am I as much of a sleaze as Louis?
“You can tell, you know,
by the way she walks.”
Tell what? Can I go to class now?
Louis doesn’t wait for me to voice my questions. “Unlike your butt, that’s no virgin ass.”
I mutter something about how nice an ass it is.
Louis turns to me. “Mitch, you old party guy. You have it right. Life is a lot like Danielle’s ass. You need to reach out and grab it. Know what I mean?”
Well, no.
Louis turns to me and pats my butt, gently, almost lovingly. “Just normal, everyday lust. Someday you too will know the pleasures of the flesh, my little friend. Till then, just keep yanking at it. Helps it grow.”
He follows Danielle down the hall, swinging his hips in an exaggerated version of her walk.
Did Louis really just touch my butt?
Why are you such a prick?
David is in a bad mood. His baseball practice was canceled due to a threatened thunderstorm that has yet to appear, and driving me home isn’t adequate compensation. It does not seem like a good time to ask him about the letter he mentioned earlier, despite the fact that it has me panicked. He already told me he was gay. That he could tell me at lunch. But this secret is so important that we have to go drink beer in a cul-de-sac so he can tell me about the existence of a letter that he doesn’t even want me to read. A piece of paper in an envelope is making its way from a mailbox to a post office to my home, where it is supposed to wait, unopened, for something to happen. So, should we talk some more about the goddamned weather?
Instead I try to tell him about my magical encounter with Danielle. It doesn’t come out right. I’m disappointed and say something like, “How come we never have real conversations?” and he tells me that a story about Danielle at the water fountain is not a real conversation and I accuse him of never being interested in what I’m feeling and he tells me I’m shallow and self-absorbed.
“Are you just in a bad mood?”
“Quite possibly,” David answers, his eyes focused on the road. “Or maybe I’m just a prick.”
“Prick” is another one of those words I’m not sure how to use. If I were normal, I’d call people pricks.
“Speaking of …” I pause, trying to summon the word, but I can’t even say it in front of David. “Thinking about people who are …”
“Pricks?”
“Yeah. Louis touched my butt. Is that weird?”
“Depends on the circumstances.”
“We were discussing Danielle’s butt at the time.”
David doesn’t feel the need to comment and focuses on driving us home.
“Why is Louis allowed to touch my butt and nobody thinks he’s queer?”
“He’s not queer. Queer is a gender expression. Boys that act or dress like girls and vice versa.” David has obviously been doing some research. He goes on to answer the question I haven’t asked. “I am gay, but my gender expression is male.”
“What’s my gender expression?”
“Nerd.”
I wish he’d smile when he says things like that.
Can I refuse?
The phone rings. Carrie answers it and when I hear my name screeched I’m sure that it’s Amanda, and I have a moment of total panic. I consider yelling back up the stairs that I’m in the bathroom but that would be even more embarrassing than having to talk to her. I pick up the phone and, despite my best effort to sound collected, my voice squeaks out a pathetic “hello.” Not a “hi,” not a “hey,” not a “Mitchell here,” but “hello.”
“Hi, Mitchell.” It’s not Amanda. It takes a few brain cycles for the voice to register.
“M.C.?”
“Yeah, can we talk?”
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard M.C.’s voice over the phone.
“Sure,” I say. Can I refuse?
“Has David talked about me at all?”
Okay, so M.C. is calling me to ask me about David. The answer is, of course, no, but even I know that I can’t tell her that. “Sure, a little. I mean, not all the time, but some, of course. You know, guy talk.” Guy talk?
“Do you think he likes me, or did he ask me out because Carrie pressured him into it?”
“Oh, he likes you.” He said he liked her. Easy answer.
“Does he really like me, or is it just sort of a friend thing?”
Damn. I try to imagine what M.C. is doing on the other end of the line. She bites her lower lip when she gets nervous. I can almost picture the worried expression, but I can’t fill in the rest of the picture.
“I mean, David is great, he really is, and I like him and all, but I didn’t want him to think that I really liked him or was chasing him or something, because I wasn’t. I mean, we don’t even know each other that well, I mean we know each other, but we haven’t really gotten to know each other, and I didn’t want him to think I was just using him to go to the prom, because I’m not, but I didn’t want him to get his expectations up, you know?”
Okay, she lost me there. Is she worried that David expects some sexual compensation in exchange for prom tickets? “I think David asked you because he likes to hang out with you. He said that you are fun to be around.” He almost said that.
“So, mostly friends?” It is hard to tell if she is disappointed or relieved to hear that.
“I think so.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. Not that she can hear that on the phone.
“I just want him to like me. Not like like me, but like a friend. Boy, comma, friend, not boyfriend.”
“You know, I think David already sees you as a … comma friend.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Really as in ‘really’ or really as in ‘maybe I’ll ask him,’ or really because I’m a nutcase who you can’t get off the phone?”
“Really, as in ‘really.’ ”
There is another pause, but I don’t volunteer anything more.
“So, what about Amanda?”
“Oh, I don’t think David’s interested in Amanda.”
“No, you, stupid.” She laughs. At least she recognized it as a joke.
I am so not into this. “I think she’s … nice.”
“Nice?”
“Great, cute, whatever?” At least I didn’t mention her breast size.
“Are you interested in her?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to ask her to the prom?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Mitchell, of course you do. But you better do it soon. Look, I gotta go. See you tomorrow. Call her.”
Who still uses note cards?
Carrie’s also on my case about Amanda. She thinks I need to ask her out on a real date. I get out my note cards.
In eighth grade we had to take a health class. The boys were separated from the girls because who knows what mayhem might occur if we talked about sex in the same room. I don’t know what the girls heard, but our class consisted mostly of lectures about how dangerous everything we might ever want to do would be. Smoke and you die of cancer. Drink and you die of liver disease, assuming you don’t die in a car crash or shoot yourself from the inevitable depression that alcohol causes. French fries give you heart attacks. Sex causes STDs or, even worse, pregnancy, which would effectively end any chance you have of being successful at anything. Homosexuality was particularly evil since it immediately gave you AIDS, made you suicidal, and contributed to the destruction of traditional values, which led to godless Fascism or something. After the teachers had done their best to scare us into locking ourselves in our rooms until our post-college arranged marriages, we spent several weeks learning healthy, state-approved relationship tips. We had to role-play asking girls out on fun, wholesome dates, which was often pretty funny in an all-male class that was designed to promote healthy, chaste, heterosexual relationships. One of the suggestions, for those of us who were shy, was to write out note cards before you called. Everyone laughed at this idea. But now, given how tongue-tied I was when I ate lunch with Amanda, it
seems to be worth a try.
On card one I write, “Hello, may I please speak to Amanda?” It sounds formal, but it seems safer than “Is Amanda home?” because who knows, I might get her parents or I might get Amanda and not recognize her voice, particularly if I’m nervous, or she might have a sister who sounds like her, and sometimes people just say “Hi” quickly and you can’t be sure who it is that answered.
On card two I write, “How’s it going?” It doesn’t look right, so I rip it up, but I can’t think of anything better, so I write it again on a new card. It still looks wrong. I decide to leave it for now.
On card three I write, “Not much,” because I assume she’ll ask me what’s up with me. On the same card I write, “I was just wondering whether you’d like to go see Rear Window with me.” Our one sort of artsy theater is doing a Hitchcock retrospective, and Amanda had said she liked Hitchcock. It seems pretty safe. I cross out “just” because it sounds like that’s the only reason I’m calling, then write it back in because it sounds more conversational. I decide I’m perseverating. The reality is that I won’t get the words out right anyway.
I put away the note cards. I am not calling Amanda.
What is wrong with me?
“I can’t believe that you aren’t asking Amanda to the prom.” Carrie is pissed.
“I don’t want to. I never told you I would.”
“You didn’t say you weren’t going to. I already told her you would. What is wrong with you?”
Lots, actually. I look at my little sister, who is a good three inches taller than I am, and try to come up with a reasonable response. Then I try not to cry.
“You can’t just push me around all the time. I can choose who I want to date.”
“And what were you going to do, take David to the prom?”
As she glares at me, I say the only thing that comes to mind.
“He already has a date.”
“Is the atomic weight of cobalt 58.9?”
“What happened with Amanda?” David asks me. We are lining up our storyboards in the chalk tray of the blackboard that runs the length of the troll cave. It is about the only thing the board gets used for. We feel safe talking back here because all of the high-end computers are on the other side of the lab. We’d have to be shouting for someone to hear us.
Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath Page 9