The Loser's Guide to Life and Love

by A. E. Cannon

  Anyhow! Please please please stop worrying about me. I am so totally happy. That other thing is completely behind me. I promise.

  Hugs and kisses from your very own,

  Ellie

  THE EMAIL ELLIE WANTED TO SEND

  SUBJECT: Do I at least?

  To J.

  You see how I cannot even write out your name because of the pain it causes me?

  I was so excited when I received permission to enroll at Dixie State before graduating. High-school classes in the morning! College classes in the afternoon! What could be more perfect?

  Who knew that things would end the way they did?

  Still, in spite of everything, I miss you. I miss our talks. I am so lonely here it hurts. Tell me, do you ever think of me? Do I at least trouble your sleep?

  With questions unanswered I remain,

  Ellie Fenn

  FROM THE LAB BOOK OF QUENTIN ANDREWS O’ROURKE

  I, Quentin Andrews O’Rourke, believe in the following things.

  I believe in the scientific method.

  I believe in empiricism.

  I believe that men, in general, can and should choose to be rational creatures.

  I believe that I, in particular, am a rational creature.

  And I believe that my existence has become excruciatingly, unbearably, mind-numbingly dull.

  For many months now, I have been carefully observing the movements of the moon through my telescope in the backyard. Furthermore, I have dutifully and accurately kept track of them in this same journal.

  I am nothing if not accurate and dutiful.

  Yet, as I look over my notes tonight, I suddenly find myself dissatisfied and restless. My observations are facts devoid of real meaning. Stupid. Pointless. Who cares? What of it? It’s not as if I will discover anything new about the moon, staring at it night after night. Lunar research fills volumes. Man has even been to the moon, though there are those who claim the moon landing was only a clever conspiracy, a weakly supported thesis that I unequivocally reject.

  But I digress.

  What I really want to do is kick over my telescope and toss my notes to the wind!

  Except then my father and his newest girlfriend named Ashley (they’re watching TV inside) would think I am even more disturbed than they already do.

  What is happening to me? WHAT DO I WANT?

  I can pinpoint exactly my new restlessness to a night several weeks ago. I was shooting baskets in the light from the street lamps. Dad was working on his car, listening to a radio station that plays the songs he liked when he was growing up in Southern California.

  “Hey Quen, this is one of the all-time greats,” he shouted at me. “It was the theme song for my junior prom.”

  Dad is always trying to interest me in popular culture—music, television, movies, novels by Stephen King and John Grisham. As if any of these things would make me a better student of the sciences. But I indulge him. I held on to my basketball and sat on the curb near his car, pretending to be interested as I watched a pair of dragonflies flit by.

  I, Quentin Andrews O’Rourke, believe that small kindnesses such as these are important.

  The song, not surprisingly, was the kind Dad usually favors—emotional and overblown, with violins swelling in the background. “I’m Irish,” he always says with a shrug whenever a song makes him cry. “What are you gonna do?”

  I myself was neutral about the song. I am often neutral about songs. At the end, however, the singer stopped singing and started reciting a poem—something about a “coldhearted orb.”

  The moon.

  “What did you say the name of this song is?” I asked.

  Dad peered out from underneath the car, a surprised smile on his face. “You like this one, Quen?”

  I shrugged.

  “It’s called ‘Nights in White Satin’ by the Moody Blues,” he said nonchalantly. Then he stuck his head back under the car, but not until I heard him say, “Hot damn!”

  Later, after Dad was in bed, I got online and Googled the song’s lyrics. As I expected they were full of emotional drama. People lamenting. Lonely men crying. Old people wishing. Lovers wrestling.

  Things happening at night beneath a high moon.

  Things I have chosen to know nothing about.

  Why?

  Why have I chosen NOT to know? Could this be the subject of an investigation using the scientific method?

  NAME THE PROBLEM OR QUESTION. (See above.)

  FORM AN EDUCATED GUESS (that would be my hypothesis) OF THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM AND MAKE PREDICTIONS.

  TEST HYPOTHESIS BY DOING AN EXPERIMENT USING PROPER CONTROLS. (Controls? When it comes to human beings? )

  ORGANIZE AND INTERPRET DATA. (What do you suggest? Creating a graph? Making a chart? It’s not like I’m in the first grade again, tracking how long it takes for lima beans to sprout.)

  REPORT YOUR RESULTS TO A GROUP. (A group? Who could possibly care? ANSWER: I do.)

  I don’t know why I do, and so suddenly, too. It’s as though I’ve contracted one of those viruses that hit out of the blue and flatten you.

  But there it is. I care.

  JUNE 13

  ED’S TURN

  So. Here it is. The (late) morning after. I’m parked on the couch in front of the television, wondering about a number of things.

  First, I’m wondering if I could make Maggie come in here and find the remote so I don’t have to get up from the couch.

  Second, I’m wondering if that’s actually my stomach I spy creeping over the top of my boxers like rising dough. How can this possibly be? I’ve always been a very skinny guy. When did I start getting a gut? Is this why Scout’s been begging me to start working out with her at Body, Inc.?

  And I thought she just liked my wonderful company!

  Third, I’m wondering how the dragonfly that just flew past my face got into the house.

  Fourth, I’m wondering about that girl, Ellie Fenn. Will I see her again? I hope I do.

  While I’m mulling these things over, I notice there’s one of those talk shows on the television right now where everybody is bragging about the first time they had sex, and I start wondering about something else, namely this: Am I the ONLY living teenage boy in America who hasn’t had sex ONCE, let alone THREE or possibly FOUR times? A day? Between classes? In the janitor’s closet even?

  Trust me on this one. If you watch enough daytime television in the summer, you start thinking thoughts like this on a regular basis.

  Just then my mom cruises through with a laundry basket full of socks. “As long as you’re sitting there in your boxers rotting your brains out in front of the TV, Ed, you can match these for me.”

  Great, I think, as I take the basket from her. Now I can be a short, boxer-wearing, weight-gaining, laundry-folding, not-sex-having teenage American guy.

  Yes! Just what I always wanted to be!

  Mom squints at the TV for a minute and bursts out laughing. Then she looks at me. “Oh stop worrying, Ed,” she says breezily. “Believe me, you’re not the only teenager in America who isn’t having sex. There’s plenty of time for that later.”

  Then she sails out of the room with her invisible crystal ball, leaving me on the couch feeling depressed and really scared of her.

  That’s when I make two extremely important decisions.

  First, I’m going to start working out with Scout so I can turn my stomach into a six-pack. Or possibly even a twelve-pack. Or maybe even a complete crate of soda like the kind Mom buys at Costco.

  Second, if Ellie ever comes back to Reel Life, I’m gonna be ready. I’m not gonna blow my chances with her. Do you hear me?

  I leave the unfolded socks sitting on the couch, pick up the telephone, and call Scout as Quark’s silver-striped cat, Helena, begins to thread herself lovingly through my legs.

  Scout’s Take

  The phone rings and I pick it up. Someone shouts in my ear.

  “STOP DOING THAT, HELENA!” This is follow
ed by very loud hissing and meowing. “MAGGIE! GET THIS STUPID CAT OUT OF HERE!”

  “Um. Hello?”

  “Sorry about that, Scout,” Ed bellows. “My neighbor’s cat won’t leave me alone. She’s in love with me.”

  I laugh. “That’s sweet.”

  “It’s not sweet. It’s sick! She sneaks into our house and stalks me, even though I am highly allergic to cats.”

  “Why is she in love with you if she belongs to your neighbor?” I ask, smiling.

  Ed heaves a huge mock sigh. “It’s like that old comedian guy Woody Allen said when he started dating his own daughter. The heart wants what it wants.”

  “Technically speaking, Woody Allen wasn’t her father,” I point out, in the interest of fairness to disgusting and lecherous movie stars. “He wasn’t even her stepfather, Ed. He was her mother’s lover, which makes him the steplover.”

  Ed gives a halfhearted, sad little laugh, and I start to wonder if something is wrong.

  “What’s up?” I ask lightly, although my worry alarm is going off.

  “I’m getting a gut, Scout.”

  Relieved that he’s okay, I laugh. “You are not getting a gut. Jeez, Ed, you sound like a girl. Next thing I know you’ll be asking me if your pants make your butt look too big.”

  “Then why do you keep dropping hints about me going to the gym with you?”

  This truly takes me by surprise. I pause, wanting to say the words people in Regency romance novels always say.

  Because I want to be with you. Always. Anywhere. Even in a gym.

  Okay, maybe they don’t mention “gyms” in Regency romances. But you get the idea.

  “Duh,” I say instead. “I just thought it would be fun. You’d like Body, Inc. Ali works out there too.”

  “Great!” Ed laughs nervously. “Sign me up then!”

  I pause. “Seriously?”

  “Yup. If I have to work out, I can’t think of anybody I’d rather work out with than you.”

  My heart skips a beat. Ed wants to be with me! And then he throws a bucket of cold water my way.

  “I need you to teach me some Portuguese fast, Scout. I took Spanish in seventh grade. How hard could it be?”

  “You’re crazy, Ed. Oh, excuse me, Senhor Sergio Mendes.” I do my all-purpose foreign accent.

  “I’m serious about this, Scout,” he persists.

  “Ed,” I say, trying to keep my voice even. “Do you even realize who Sergio Mendes is?”

  “Um. Me?”

  “No. He is a Brazilian musician who had a group called Brasil ’66.” Then I tell him about all those old Sergio Mendes albums in my dad’s vinyl record collection.

  There’s a little pause. “No wonder my new name sounded so familiar. I used to be a Latino rock star,” Ed observes weakly.

  “Why do you want to learn Portuguese anyway, Ed?” I know already, of course, but I want to hear him say it. Call me a masochist, but it’s always interesting to watch Ed wrap his nimble brain around things.

  “For your information, Scout, Portuguese is a language I happen to admire and respect very much,” Ed says. “Sometimes I do nothing all day long except sit around admiring and respecting Portuguese. You can ask my mom, who also admires and respects Portuguese.”

  He’s good. I gotta give the guy credit for that. “Can’t help you out, Ed. Too bad, so sad.”

  He starts to plead. “Come on, Scout. Please. Please.”

  I don’t answer.

  “Scout?”

  “Tell me the truth. Why do you want to learn Portuguese?”

  He lets out a heavy sigh—a real one this time. “Because I’m short,” he says simply.

  Normally I would laugh at such a goofy answer. For one thing, Ed is not that short. I’m serious. For another, his size doesn’t matter. Not to me. Not to anybody. But I can tell he isn’t joking with me for once.

  “I’m a short guy in boxers who’s sick of being from Salt Lake City instead of Brazil,” he clarifies.

  What could I say after that?

  “Well, sim means ‘yes,’” I say finally. “So sim, I guess I can teach you how to count to ten.”

  “I love to count to ten!” Ed perks up. “Frontwards! Backwards! Sideways!”

  I say the numbers and he repeats them after me.

  “Now here are the days of the week,” I say.

  He repeats these, too. Then I teach him how to greet people and how to respond when they return the greeting.

  “Scout,” he says when we’re through, “I freakin’ love you!”

  I don’t answer. Instead, I just hang up the phone.

  ED’S TURN

  I check myself out in the rearview mirror of Mom’s Geo before I back out of the driveway and head for work.

  “Domingo. Segunda-feira. Terça-feira.” I try to say the days of the week with “suaveness” as well as “suavity.”

  Do I look stupid? I put some gel in my hair after washing it this time, and then I slicked it back so that I would exude foreign-ness in general and Brazil-ness in particular. One way or the other, slick hair is definitely a new look for me, the boy who’s as American as Velveeta cheese.

  “What’s up with your hair tonight, Ed?” Mom asked earlier as I floated into the kitchen wearing my newly polished wingtip shoes and grabbed a Capri Sun from the pantry.

  “Yeah,” chimed in Maggie, who was squirting strawberry syrup into a glass of milk. “What’s up with your hair?”

  “I’m trying something new,” I told them, bristling. “Can’t anybody try something new around this house without mothers and sisters making a freaking federal case out of it?”

  An idea for a scene from the yet-to-be-made movie of my life flashed through my mind.

  JUDGE:

  (pointing at a guy in a Reel Life Movies uniform) Ed McIff! The United States government, whose constitution I have sworn to uphold, chooses to make a federal case out of your stupid hair!

  ED:

  Please, Your Excellency, I was only trying something new.

  JUDGE:

  (slamming his gavel) We’ve sentenced people to life imprisonment with T. Monroe as a cell mate for less than that.

  ED:

  Your Honor, could you just give me the death penalty instead?

  Mom gave me a little hug. “I kind of like the old Ed. What was wrong with him?” She reached out and touched my shining helmet of hair, after which she burst out laughing.

  That’s my mom for you—the World’s Happiest Gal. Gershwin should write a snappy show tune about her. Too bad he’s dead.

  I adjust the Geo’s rearview mirror and touch my hair one more time, praying like crazy that I don’t look as stupid as I suspect I do. Then I slip the key in the ignition and turn on the engine.

  Nothing.

  I try again.

  Nada.

  Again.

  Zip.

  I check the lights and swear loudly. Somebody (okay, it was me) left them on, and now the battery is as dead as yesterday’s roadkill. Dad, who’s out of town, has the other car, and I need to be at work in fifteen minutes.

  Ali will be there, watching to see if I make it on time.

  I leap out of the car without bothering to shut the door, spring across our front lawn (ruining my newly polished wingtip shoes), and jump over the low boxwood hedge that divides our property from the O’Rourkes’. Whether he wants to or not, Quark is going to haul my sorry carcass to work.

  In a flash I’m on the front porch, ringing Quark’s doorbell. His dad answers and gives me an easy smile.

  “Hey there, Ed,” he says.

  Sometimes I wonder what Quark’s dad must really and truly think about his only kid. Mr. O’Rourke was an All-American football player for Brigham Young University back in the days when Steve Young played there. He’s still a big, athletic guy who looks a lot like Quark. That, however, is where the resemblance between father and son ends. Quark is a nerd, a geek, a dork.

  Which I am too. Don’t get me wro
ng. But at least I have the decency to recognize the fact. Quark, on the other hand, is completely oblivious to his own NQ (nerd quotient).

  “Is Quark here?”

  “He’s out back, messing around with that telescope of his,” Mr. O’Rourke says with the tone of bewildered affection he always uses when he talks about Quark. He pushes open the door and invites me to walk through the house to the backyard.

  Quark is looking through his telescope, even though it’s still light outside.

  I cut to the chase. “My car won’t start. I gotta be there in fifteen minutes, or I’ll get fired, Ali said. Can you take me?”

  Quark doesn’t answer immediately because answering immediately would show that you have some actual social skills.

  Which Quark does not.

  I don’t mean to be unkind when I tell you this. I like Quark a lot. He and Scout are my best friends. It’s just that Quark doesn’t pay attention to all the little unwritten social rules that the rest of us do.

  “Quark?”

  He stands up to his full height. Watching Quark stand up is like watching the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María unfurl their mainsails. He’s that tall.

  “I heard you,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  I keep touching my hair on the way to work, still wondering if I look stupid. Although I am fixated on my hair at the moment, I do notice that Quark is performing what sounds like the drum solo from “Wipe Out” with his fingers on the steering wheel.

  Okay. Guys all over America do this on a daily basis when they drive. It’s written in the Handbook for American Guys that they must do drum solos on steering wheels whenever they get the chance.

  But not Quark. Quark doesn’t listen to music with drum solos. He listens to classical.

  “What’s up with you?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” he says.

  I shrug and then throw him a question straight out of left field. “What do you know about Brazil these days, Quark?”