“Just go,” said her couldn’t-be-bothered mother.
Cheeks burning red, Fat Angie trotted up the stairs only to find Wang sitting cross-legged in her room.
“Get out,” she said.
“Look, I didn’t know she’d be a complete bitch.”
“Quit lying.”
“You better go to the baby shower or she’ll have them up your dose of Paxil —”
“Leave,” she said.
But Fat Angie made a fatal error in raising her palm. The beautifully inked-on numbers were now in clear view of Wang.
“Angie’s got a boyfriend.”
Wang reached for her hand. She flailed.
“Cut it out,” she said.
Wang was more than a stink-breath bomb; he was The Flash fast. He snapped onto her wrist, almost making out the numbers when she yanked it back. The ink smeared.
Fat Angie heaved one of those big chest-swelling breaths. Then again. Then —
“Get out or I’ll tell Mom you’ve been masturbating to her Martha Stewart magazines.”
“Whatever. Like I care.”
“Gross! You really are?” she asked.
“No.” He laughed. “But I’d love to see you tell her ’cause then she’d really up your meds.”
He peeled out of her room. ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” soon swelled from Wang’s stolen surround-sound stereo system. Stolen even though he had the money to buy it.
Fat Angie studied her hand. Her predictably miserable existence had in fact become:
1. Less predictable
2. Potentially not as miserable
An equation formed in her number-deficient mind. She reached for a scrap of paper and a mini IKEA pencil.
Less Predictable + Not As Miserable = KC Romance
KC Romance had been inserted into the equation of her life.
OMG!
Fat Angie held up her hand to admire it and to prove the day actually had happened when the most daunting reality set in. Two of the numbers were missing. Smudged from her sweaty palm, two of the numbers had been erased.
Panic panged her. She held her hand as near to the desk lamp as possible without searing her palm. A seven, she thought. The last number was a seven. But she wasn’t sure. She was absolutely 99.5 percent unsure. The middle number might have been an eight or a zero — possibly a four depending on how you made out the faded ink. Only the heart had remained fully intact. But the numbers — what she needed the most, should confidence overcome her — had been nervously sweated out of existence.
She yanked open her desk drawer. As she awkwardly twisted her arm, her fingers scraped the underside of the desk for her hidden stash. After a prolonged ripping of duct tape, she emerged relieved with a PayDay candy bar. Surely a PayDay could calm her, comfort her through such a crisis. It could —
No!
She threw the candy on the floor and stomped on it. Again and again, jumping with both feet, shaking the furniture in her room. The flattened caramel peanut goo stuck to her sneaker.
Fat Angie made out all the numbers with the exception of the initial two that had been erased. She held the Post-it she had jotted them down on and bit her thumbnail. The options lay before her: call the coolest girl to ever talk to her or pretend she’d called the coolest girl to ever talk to her. Fat Angie deliberated a long while on this question. Approximately 4.5 seconds, give or take.
She picked up her tricked-out cell phone, a not-so-cleverly conceived bribery tool from her father after the divorce. Angie had scratched out every variation one phone number could be. The total equaled ten variations per number counting zero to nine. Then she scribbled down the total number of calls given that two numbers were missing. The sum total of phone numbers she would have to call, assuming the last set of numbers was correct, would be one hundred. Fat Angie fell back on her bed and examined her palm once more. Regardless of how hard she stared, the two numbers were simply not there.
Fat Angie decided in a swift moment of judgment that it was, in fact, now or never. Do or die. Be . . . well, the point seemed clear.
So, she began to dial. One set of numbers after another. She was well into hearing “Piss off,” “Screw you,” and other obscenities when she punched in the ninety-eighth phone number and said, “Um . . . can I speak to KC?”
Fat Angie’s fingertip edged for the END button just as the woman on the other end of the line said, “Sure. KC! Your phone!”
And just like that, Fat Angie’s life changed.
Fat Angie stood alone. In a corner. Opposite a set of beeping, blasting, monster-growling arcade games. Far from the crowd on the dance floor. Far from the crowd at the counter ordering pretentiously named coffees like James Dean Crashed Why?, How Did This Begin?, and You Talkin’ to Me? It was as if she were staring at categories for the Daily Double on Jeopardy rather than a menu of what was mostly foam and adrenaline-pumping caffeine.
She searched through the crowded pockets of populars energizing the warehouse-esque setting. Enlarged pages from screenplays and novels, and posters of cinematic legends plastered the ceiling, their edges burned for effect. At the center of the wordtopia was a mural of a 1950s suburban family wearing 3-D glasses and watching a swelling nuclear cloud.
Fat Angie’s neck cramped.
She shook the ice in her Where Did You Come From? Italian cream soda, puckering her lips to the straw when —
“Hey, hey, hey . . . it’s Fat Angie!”
Gary Klein cleared a path of kids to stand right in front of her. He smelled like Mad Dog 20/20 and herbal tea. Fat Angie inched as close as possible to the wall without literally tiptoeing.
“Fat Angie at The Backstory. Now that’s a first,” said Gary.
She clenched her teeth. Her teeth should have shattered under the pressure.
“I’ve been here before, Gary,” she said.
Clearly savoring the taunt, he inched closer, leaning more with his crotch than with anything else. “Oh, yeah, when?”
“Just before, OK?” she said. “Leave me alone.”
He mocked, “Leave me alone. You know, how do you live with your kind of pathetic?”
Gary scoped out the small crowd gathering around. The semi-OK live band, Tortoise in the Shell, headlined by William Anders High’s star quarterback, could not hold their attention. And everyone liked looking at Mr. Quarterback. But right then, they were more interested in looking at her. Sort of reality television minus the high-def screen.
“You go,” said Gary. “Running out on the gym floor, during my speech. Screaming ‘We’re all killers, wah-wah-wah. Look at me, I’m bleeding.’ ” He reached for her wrist. “Come on, show us your cat scratches —”
In a defensive move, she struggled with his meaty grip and pulled loose.
He turned back to the crowd. There was a smell of dissension in the ranks. The sense that maybe Gary had gone too far. Unfortunately, he was too buzzed to catch the shift in sentiment.
“You don’t belong here,” Gary said to Fat Angie. “You see, the freak show isn’t until tomorrow at nine.”
Then the impossible happened.
From somewhere deep — very, very deep — traveled a comeback to remember.
“Then I guess you’re a day early,” said Fat Angie.
The crowd ooo’ed in Fat Angie’s favor.
“What did you say, Fat Angie?” Gary asked.
A hand snapped onto his shoulder. “She said, for the hearing impaired, ‘you’re a day early.’”
When Gary spun around, Fat Angie saw that her hero was actually a heroine. KC Romance.
Gary sized up KC, still wearing the Catholic school skirt and crossbones-adorned fishnets. Her top tied at the bottom exposed a pierced belly button accessorized with what would now seem to be the KC trademark: a purple heart. Her arms were hidden by a tattered fitted gray tee with a faded peace logo.
“Wow,” Gary said, looking back at Fat Angie. “You paying people to pretend to care about you?”
Angie’
s eyes reluctantly cut to KC Romance. How to recover from such deliberate scrutiny at The Backstory eluded her.
Gary leaned in to KC. His pea-size brain, floating on the Mad Dog 20/20 and You Talkin’ to Me? (with an amaretto lemon twist), jumbo-sized his already large ego.
“Wanna get something?” Gary asked KC.
She grinned. “Like a lobotomy for you?”
The crowd ooo’ed.
Gary half-laughed, clearly confused, the buzz buzzing off. “What?” he said.
“Forgot. Hearing impaired,” said KC. “I’ll translate, and slower. You’re. Not. My. Type. You’d require a soul or at least a strong collection of mumblecore films.”
Mumblecore film (n.): a genre with “a low-key naturalism, low-fi production value and a stream of low-volume chatter often perceived as ineloquence” (New York Times 2007). Examples include Hannah Takes the Stairs and Quiet City.
“Oh, I get it. This is a new-girl thing,” Gary cackled, trying to win back the onlookers.
KC stepped closer to Gary. “What is it with you, jock boy? Can’t get attention from the pom-pom squad on account of your minuscule”— she held up her pinky —“wienie?”
His comebacks were on a ten-second delay, which allowed KC to continue. “Or is it that you’re secretly in love with Angie and can’t come to terms with your feelings?”
“Screw you,” said Gary. “Dyke!”
KC grinned, tucking a piece of her hair behind her multipierced ear.
“That’s all you’ve got?” KC asked. “An arsenal full of homophobic language and you spin up three amateur-night hate words? Are you really that much of a snore?”
KC had shifted the temperature in the room, and Gary was feeling the heat.
“Come on, Gary,” said a guy. “Leave it.”
“Watch yourself, freak,” Gary warned.
She stage-whispered, “I do all the time.”
And just like that, the showdown at The Backstory ended. The onlookers looked toward Mr. Quarterback onstage.
KC turned to Fat Angie, who was still pinned against the wall. Her cup of Where Did You Come From? Italian cream soda sweated against her T-shirt.
“Hey,” KC said, approaching Angie.
“Hey,” Fat Angie managed to get out.
“Everything crystal?” KC asked.
Fat Angie nodded.
“This is some place, huh?” KC said, taking in the atmosphere. “You wouldn’t tell it from the outside. Looks kinda 80s pop, you know?”
Fat Angie actually did know, and she grinned while KC whipped out her cell phone. Clicking to camera mode, KC snapped a picture of the ceiling.
“Check it out,” KC said, leaning in closer than anyone who didn’t want to eviscerate Fat Angie had in the last few months. “Sweet, huh? I’m totally sticking that on my Wall of Thoughts So Twisted.” KC hovered the camera slightly above them and moved in for a “say cheese” moment.
“I’m — the camera thing,” said Fat Angie.
“It’ll be a quickie,” said KC.
Fat Angie fell heart-forward into KC’s dark eyes. “ ’K,” said Fat Angie.
The camera phone flash-snapped. Fat Angie’s eyes were closed.
“That would be good for your Wall of Weird and Twisted,” said Fat Angie.
KC saved the photo.
“Yeah, not so much,” KC said. “Closing your eyes is pretty normal. The Wall of Thoughts So Twisted is plastered with articles like ‘Cheerleader Caves under Cambodian Web Scandal.’ Or a photo of JFK holding Jimi Hendrix on his shoulders and Jimi holding the world on his. Or a headline like ‘Playwright Preverbal Play Plops: Pounces Pumice Onstage.’ ”
“Um, that’s pretty —”
“Twisted?” asked KC.
“Yeah.”
“It kind of reminds me that the world can be a lot stranger than my everyday life.”
Pause.
Tortoise in the Shell started a new song.
“They’re pretty good — the band,” KC said. “Kinda Iron and Wine and the Kills sandwiched with a little Doors.”
“Yeah. They sell T-shirts.”
“Yeah?”
“Yup,” said Fat Angie, her mind racing for a more interesting topic.
“So . . .” KC said.
A “so” was never a good starting point for Fat Angie. It led to uncomfortable pauses that made her armpits sweat.
Fat Angie nodded her head.
Pause.
Pause. The dreadful “so” pause.
“What’s your mix?” said KC, killing the weirdness. “Your drink?”
“Um . . .”
Fat Angie had mastered the “um” shortly after her alleged nervous breakdown. It filled the space to make doctors — and, most important, her couldn’t-be-bothered mother — feel that something more and hopeful would blossom from her lips. However, that was a rare phenomenon . . . like a quality hit show for the teen bracket on CBS.
Fat Angie’s eyes pinned on to Gary sneering from the pool table. KC followed the look.
“You scared of him?” said KC. “I mean, is that why you’re so —”
“Um . . . no,” Fat Angie said. “He’s just . . .”
“An asshole?”
Fat Angie rarely communicated using profanities. To be more specific, she never did. Her mother said it was a language of ignorance and poverty. Fat Angie was neither ignorant nor poor, according to her standardized tests and her mother’s income tax return.
“You know, Angie, they got one of those guys in every school I’ve been to.”
“How many would that be exactly?” asked Fat Angie.
KC grinned. “I don’t know exactly.”
Fat Angie smiled. She had no idea what propelled this reaction. It was a soft smile. An unpracticed one. It was . . . real?
KC’s smile widened. They were in the middle of their smilefest when Jake stepped in, throwing his head back in that awkward, overly practiced way.
“Hey,” he said.
Smilefest ended.
“Oh,” said Fat Angie. “Hey. Jake.”
KC executed a perfected pretend grin combined with a raised, pierced eyebrow. “What up, Jack?”
“Jake,” he said, correcting her.
“I know,” said KC. “Esther, my mom, she says that to all her clients. Her catchphrases are kinda habit-forming.”
Sucking on her straw, Fat Angie said, “What exactly does your mother do?”
“She’s into tats mostly. Tattoos? Why? What do your parents do?”
Fat Angie nervously sipped her Where Did You Come From? Italian cream soda. Be absolutely cool, she thought. Her mind raced. What did her mother do? Besides reign humiliation on Angie and any client fool enough to tangle with her? The Backstory shifted in disjointed photo time lapse. “My mom’s a . . . a criminal.”
Jake did a double take.
“Yeah,” said Fat Angie. “Real hard-core.”
“Really?” said KC, suspicious.
“No,” said Jake. “Her mom’s a corporate lawyer.”
“Same thing,” Fat Angie said.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” said Jake. “My parents are accountants.” Jake snagged Fat Angie’s drink from her.
His lips met the straw before she could stop him.
“Wow,” said KC. “So, you guys are all ’burbing it, huh? Minivans and listening to underground rap from the early 90s.”
“Don’t you think that’s kind of a stereotype?” Jake said.
“Oh,” KC said, smiling mockingly. “My bad.”
“Almost everyone has to drive at least twenty miles to work,” Jake said in a passive-aggressive tone. “Dryfalls, Ohio, is not exactly a Starbucks town. I mean, it’s not like our zip code is ripped off a TV show or anything.”
“OK, what’s really itching you, Jack?” KC asked.
“Jake. My name is Jake. It’s probably too bland for you, California.”
Fat Angie did not follow the trajectory of the conversation, as it wa
s second-level dialogue.
Second-level dialogue (n.): dialogue in which the speaker says one thing but means another.
“Still scooping for the Daily Planet?” said KC. “Big superjock S on your chest?”
Fat Angie did not like confrontation.
Fat Angie especially did not like this confrontation.
Why were Jake and KC in a head-to-head battle using second-level dialogue and Superman references? While athletic, he clearly did not have the comic-book hero’s build.
“It doesn’t take much to find something if your name’s KC Romance,” said Jake.
“You Scoobied me?” said KC. “I met you, like, what, eight hours ago?”
Fat Angie said, “You Scoobied her?” Then she leaned in to Jake. “What exactly is Scoobied, and is that OK for you to do?”
“According to your online yearbook, you useta be a regular Stacy Ann in Beverly Hills,” Jake said.
“Read the fine print, Clark Kent,” said KC. “I’m nothing like Stacy Ann.”
“Jake.” Fat Angie pulled him away from KC. “Seriously. We don’t talk. Now you’re bullying the only person who has willingly talked to me in forever.”
“Come on, people talk to you,” Jake said.
“No, they don’t.”
“Melissa Peel? Rosie Hernandez?”
Fat Angie glared. These people talked at her. Looking behind her. They talked to anyone who would listen.
“Even so,” Jake said, “KC is not like you. Just trust me, OK?”
“I don’t, OK?”
“Your sister —” Jake stopped himself midsentence.
“What?” Fat Angie asked.
Jake was a good boy from a good home that, as far as Fat Angie could tell, had little conflict. While he had played one-on-one games in their driveway with her sister, Jake and Fat Angie had rarely spoken. Standing in The Backstory, Fat Angie began to wonder why. Just as the question took shape Jake said, “Look, I checked out her Facebook. KC’s got history. A lot of history.”
“So what?” she asked. “And why do you care?”
Jake nodded ever so slightly. Fat Angie often lacked the skill of nonverbal communication. She felt the weight of her disability quite distinctively at that moment.
Fat Angie Page 4