manicpixiedreamgirl

by Tom Leveen

  “Ben and Jerry’s only comes in pints, Sparky.”

  “Then I will fly to Vermont and make it happen by brute force and naked aggression.”

  Becky sniffs. Such a small sound, but it hurts so much. It’s like a laugh, but not.

  While I think dumbly, I just said “naked” to Becky Webb, huh huh huh huh!, Becky says, “Tell me about the magazine.”

  I didn’t talk to Becky in the two days after opening night of Mockingbird. Didn’t even look for her. Went to the booth, did my job, went home. That Friday morning before school, Mom asked me about “the little girl who played Scout.” I passed on that one.

  I didn’t explain that the “friend of mine” I’d talked about in the car on opening night was Becky, didn’t want to point her out as the girl who needed “extra lovin’s.” What was a cute euphemism for encouragement from my mom became an ironic dagger in my belly when I thought of what Matthew had done opening night.

  On closing night, Ross asked again if I was coming to the cast party. I hadn’t intended to, not after the Matthew thing. But when he asked, I said, “Yeah, I am. Could I get a ride?”

  “I can get you there, yeah,” Ross said. “But you might want to find another way home. No way am I driving anywhere!”

  I sent a text to Gabby first to see if she’d mind picking me up.

  Sure, she wrote back. You drinking?

  No, I wrote.

  Good man. Sydney coming with?

  No, I wrote.

  She didn’t write anything back after that. Sydney probably could have come, but technically since she wasn’t involved in the show, she didn’t get an invite.

  I managed to wait until after the curtain call to ask Ross if Becky was going to the party. Ross grunted and grinned. Beneath the red glare of the booth lights, his face looked wicked.

  “I hope so,” he said.

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “How come?” I asked.

  Ross didn’t even glance at me. “Just … stick around,” he said.

  When we’d finished our idiot check—I’d lost track entirely of Becky, which was partly on purpose because I was still fuming—Ross drove me and a couple other techies to the party. The entire cast and crew were there, and nearly everyone was drinking. Ross fetched me a beer from a cooler, slapped it into my hand, and said, “Don’t do anyone I wouldn’t do!”

  “Right, got it,” I said. “Hey, whose house is this, anyway? Is it cool that we’re here?”

  “Matthew’s,” Ross said, and my stomach twisted. “Yeah, it’s cool. His parents go out of town all the time. See ya!”

  With that, he abandoned me for the backyard, where most of the cast had migrated.

  I opened the beer and took just enough of a sip to convince anyone looking that I was, in fact, drinking the thing. It tasted awful. I spent ten minutes kicking back against one wall, nodding and saying hi to people who passed by and congratulated me on my first tech experience. This included, of course, Neapolitan Girl.

  “So where’s Syd?” she asked as she walked by with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other.

  “Friends,” I said.

  “You didn’t invite her?” she asked. She sounded surprised.

  “Was I supposed to?”

  The girl shrugged. “You could’ve,” she said. “That’s all.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Um. Next time.”

  “Cool!” the girl said, and wandered off.

  Matthew’s house. I couldn’t have dreamed of a worse place to be. And I hadn’t even seen Becky anywhere. The only reason I’d shown up was to—I don’t know. Yell at her? Beat up Matthew? Not a clue. Just seemed like the perfect bad idea at the time to agree to come.

  Restless, I moved out to the backyard. Kids were gathered in groups, mostly laughing, a few groping. When I spotted Becky, I almost dropped my beer.

  She sat by herself by the swimming pool, her legs dangling in the water. She had a beanbag chair stuffed under her back and took long, practiced hits off a small blue pipe. I could tell by the way she held each inhalation what she was smoking.

  I wanted to rush over and knock the pipe into the pool. Stop! I screamed in my head. What are you doing, you don’t do this, stop!

  Okay, so, it’s not like this was a moral issue for me. If someone wanted to get high from time to time and deal with frying their brains, more power to ’em. But not Becky.

  I mean, it wasn’t that she was smoking out; it was how easily she was doing it. No hesitation, no uncertainty. Think about a fifth grader sneaking his first cigarette in the alley versus a pack-a-day addict—you can tell by body language who has been doing it longer.

  This wasn’t an experiment for Becky, and it killed me. It wasn’t who she was supposed to be.

  I set my beer down on a lawn table, went back inside, and texted Gabby.

  Ready to go.

  I expected her to text back. Instead, my phone rang. I didn’t want to answer it, didn’t feel like dealing with Gabrielle’s big-sister bit.

  I hit the button anyway. “Hello.”

  “What happened?”

  “Can you just … I’m just ready to go.”

  Gabby paused. “On the way,” she said finally, and hung up.

  Sometimes having a sibling means not having to say anything.

  I went out front and waited for her. Gabby showed up in less than fifteen minutes, driving her ancient red Honda. I got in and slammed the door shut.

  My sister said, “So …”

  “Whatever,” I snarled.

  Gabby let the car roll down the street. “Easy there, peaches,” she said. “What happened?”

  “Why did you get high?”

  Gabby laughed. This improved my mood not at all. She trailed off when she saw I wasn’t enthused by her reaction. “Well,” she said, “I guess because it was fun. Yeah. Final answer.”

  “You did it a lot.”

  “I wanted to have a lot of fun.”

  “Have you done it since Mom and Dad busted you?”

  Gabrielle shrugged. “You itching to try it out? Or have you already?”

  “I tried it a couple times last year with Robby and Justin.”

  “So what did you get into tonight?”

  “It’s not me, it’s …”

  Gabby lifted her eyebrows but didn’t take her eyes off the road.

  “Okay, look,” I said, “if I tell you something, you have to promise not to tell Sydney.”

  “Ohhhh-kay. Pinkie swear.”

  “Okay, so, on the first day of school last year …”

  I unwrapped the entire Becky saga as it existed at that point. I barely registered that when I concluded the story with what I’d seen tonight, we’d been sitting in her car in our driveway for at least half an hour.

  “I see,” Gabby said when I stopped talking. “So, couple things. First, are you saying you don’t like Sydney anymore?”

  “No, it’s not that. I do like her,” I said. “She’s great. But Becky’s … I don’t know …”

  “Becky is unattainable,” Gabby said. “And I can’t help but wonder if that’s part of the attraction.”

  “It’s crossed my mind, but I don’t think so,” I said. “There’s just something about her.…”

  “Something about the way she takes off her clothes for guys and gets high.”

  “That’s not who she is!”

  “But it’s what she does. What else defines a person?”

  “That’s not all there is to her,” I said. “She’s—”

  “Broken.”

  I scowled at my sister. “What?”

  “Ty, listen, there’s doing dumb things in high school because it’s high school,” Gabby said. “Drink, smoke, ditch, whatever. But there’s something else going on with this girl, and whatever it is, you don’t want any part of it. Trust me.” She opened her door and put one foot outside. “You got a great girl in Sydney. This Becky chick is bad news, I promise you. I mean, crushes can be kind of fun,
but don’t let it mess up the good stuff you’ve got.”

  “But I can’t stop thinking about her,” I said.

  “So write a story about it,” Gabby said. “Use it for inspiration.” She reached out and shoved my shoulder. “I got homework to do. Lock it up before you come in.”

  She got out and closed the door. I watched her go inside, then sat alone in the passenger seat of the Honda for a while.

  Write a story about it? Yeah, did that. But I figured another couldn’t hurt. So I went in and got to work.

  With my job as lighting operator over, I swore off any more drama club meetings, despite a few techies and actors stopping me in the hall or talking to me in classes we shared. They were nice and all, but nothing could scrape the image of Becky and Matthew from my head, or of Becky poolside at the cast party.

  These elements did not make it into the story I wrote over that weekend. If anything, my character Becky grew more perfect.

  But I avoided the real thing at school.

  I spent more time with Sydney than I had during the weeks of rehearsals, and Sydney asked no questions. She seemed happy I wanted to hang out with her more often. Before too long, we’d be hitting the one-year mark. A whole year. I don’t know how she put up with me. Or why. I guess Gabby was right—I was lucky to have her.

  I returned to writing short stories, mostly melodramatic crap and some horror stuff. I went to a How to Get Published seminar at an indie bookstore and started sending out short-story manuscripts to as many magazines and websites as I could—horror stories and one particular version of my many Becky stories. I’d finally settled on what I thought was the best version of it, and I only sent it out in hopes of killing off my desire for her. Kind of like throwing out photos of an ex-girlfriend.

  I sent it to about a dozen different magazines in the week following the cast party. The magazines that bothered to respond at all weren’t interested.

  Yet.

  “It’s no big deal,” I say to Becky. “It’s a short story for this magazine called … Blood Tales.”

  “Blood Tales?” Becky repeats, and I’m pleased to hear her voice clearing up. “That’s graphic. What’s the story?”

  “Uh … buncha guys turn into werewolves and eat a girl alive. Basically.”

  Becky gives me an appreciative laugh. “Awesome. Are they paying you?”

  “Eh, a few bucks.”

  Blood Tales is paying me fifty dollars, to be exact, but I don’t want to say it. On one hand, fifty bucks isn’t going to pay the rent, as my dad would say. On the other hand, it was the first story I’d sold, and fifty was better than nothing; it was fifty more than most aspiring writers make. I’m thrilled, to be honest. I just don’t feel like broadcasting it. Most people don’t understand how hard it is to sell a story. I’ve got a stack of rejection letters to prove it. Sydney, Robby, and Justin know, but only because I explained it.

  Also, there’s one more thing I don’t want to tell Becky. Can’t tell her, not yet.

  It’s the first time I’ve ever lied to her.

  I did get a story in Blood Tales, and it was about werewolves, and it did pay fifty bucks, which I am still waiting to get in the mail. But that’s not why we’re out here tonight.

  It’s not why I’m out here tonight.

  I’m out here tonight to celebrate another story altogether. In another magazine. The very one my mom gave to Sydney earlier this fine evening.

  Maybe you’ve heard the story. It’s about this guy who has fallen hard for a girl he can’t have? Yeah, that one.

  Two copies of the magazine where the story appears arrived this afternoon in my mailbox—my only form of payment. “Contributor’s copies,” they call it. Which means I won’t get paid cash, but the magazine—The Literary Quarterly Review—has more readers than Blood Tales. It’s a nice credit to have. It’s a well-respected magazine, and to have been accepted at my age is rare, I’m pretty sure. Probably won’t hurt my college applications, either.

  My copy of the magazine is in my car right now. Under the driver’s seat. I have plans for it. The other copy had been in Mom’s hands. Until.

  No way in hell am I going to let anyone else read it, though. While there’s nothing libelous in the story—I did a lot of research on libel before I submitted it—anyone who knows me even remotely will put the pieces together before the end of the first paragraph. Kind of like Sydney did.

  “Still,” Becky goes on. “A few bucks is a few bucks. That’s what you always wanted. I’m proud of you.”

  I get a strange lump in my throat when she says it. “Thanks. So listen …”

  Headlights sweep across me as a car pulls into the parking lot. A little white Sentra.

  Sydney’s little white Sentra.

  “… Um … can I call you back?” I say.

  “If you want,” Becky says. “No big.”

  “Cool. Give me fifteen minutes. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Hey, Mustardseed … you gonna be okay?”

  “Aren’t I always, Sparky?”

  She hangs up.

  I do not like the way she said that. Defeated.

  Sydney parks her car next to mine and fast-steps toward me. I put my phone in my pocket.

  “Hey,” I say when she gets to me.

  “Thank god,” Syd says, and gives me a quick hug. My arms automatically hug her back, even though I’m shocked at her attitude. I was expecting a knife in the eye, or worse.

  “I thought maybe you were already out there on the street somewhere,” Syd says.

  “I’m not hammered,” I tell her.

  “No … I guess not,” Sydney says. She tilts her head, looking over my shoulder at the picnic table. The guys call out to her, but it doesn’t sound like they’re headed our way.

  “So what’s all the drama with your little manic pixie dream girl?” Sydney says, sitting beside me on the wall.

  “My what?”

  Sydney reaches into her back pocket and brandishes Mom’s copy of LQR. I fight the urge to scream and yank it from her hand. I don’t want creases in it.

  Syd waves the folded magazine in my face. “Manic pixie dream girl,” she says. She uses her Masque & Gavel–approved jazz hands for emphasis. “The adorably eccentric sweetheart who dazzles a broody male lead?”

  “I have no idea what you’re even saying.”

  “Yeah, you do.” Syd crosses her legs and flips the magazine open, right to my story. “Rebecca Webb,” she says. “You were talking to her earlier. What’s going on?”

  Damn. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Not my problem.”

  She closes the magazine and holds it in one hand. “You’re being a real ass tonight, Tyler.”

  As usual, she doesn’t sound angry or whiny or bitchy when she says this. It’s just a statement of fact.

  Maybe Syd’s right—I know she’s right—because all I can think about is how I can get her the hell out of here so I can call Becky back.

  And maybe it’s the last bubbles of alcohol talking, but it hits me that sometimes, there’s just no time like the present to get something over with.

  “Syd … why are you out here?”

  She bumps her shoulder into mine. “Because I was worried you were drinking and driving. I went to two other parks before I found you.”

  “No, no, I mean … why … why bother?”

  “I just said I was worried about you.”

  The oblique approach is clearly not working. I try to come up with exactly the right words to do this. I gaze out across the parking lot because I can’t look her in the eye when I say what’s coming next.

  “I’m in love with Becky Webb.”

  I sense Sydney staring at me.

  Then she bursts out laughing.

  “All right, my academicians,” Ms. Hochhalter said on the Friday one week after Mockingbird closed. “One quick announcement, and then we’re into Fahrenheit 451.
Mrs. Goldie in the drama department announced yesterday she’s looking for original one-act plays to produce for the spring show.”

  I sat up straight. Sydney cast me a Did you hear that? glance.

  “So if anyone has any interest in submitting a play, come see me after the bell and I’ll give you the list of requirements. Get it, got it, good. Now, Fahrenheit. Do any of you malefactors even know who Ray Bradbury is?”

  I didn’t hear a single word anyone said the rest of class, although I was a fan of Bradbury. I still hadn’t written more than a few pages of some dumb plays, and that was a long time ago, back when Syd had first brought up the idea. But I figured I could still whip something up. After class, I was the only person who took a copy of the submission requirements from Ms. Hochhalter, photocopied on a sheet of pink paper.

  “Ah, I wondered if you’d be interested, Tyler,” she said when I asked for the sheet. She handed it to me and smiled. “I’d love to read anything you come up with.”

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure I can,” I told her, scanning the sheet.

  “He will,” Syd said from the doorway, where she was waiting for her post-English-class kiss.

  Still looking at the sheet, I went over to Sydney. She fell into step beside me as we went to our next classes.

  “Hang out tonight?” she asked.

  “Uh … homework,” I said.

  “Tyler, why not just say, ‘No, Sydney, I’m going to be writing a play.’ It would really save time and effort.”

  I finally looked up, and grinned. “Sorry,” I said. “Yeah, that’s probably what I’ll be doing.”

  “That’s cool. Good luck with it.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “Sure I am,” Sydney said, acting offended. “But I can’t complain too much since the whole playwriting thing was kind of my idea in the first place.”

  “True.”

  We reached her biology class. Syd leaned in and kissed me. “Call me, though,” she said. “Just for a bit, okay?”

  “Totally. What’re you going to be up to?”

  “I don’t know. Probably call Michelle and Staci, see if they’re up for something.”