Anatomy of a Misfit (13 page)

“Okay. That's it. I'm gonna ask your mom. Respectfully. And your stepdad.”

“Are you serious? Seriously?”

“I am serious. Seriously.”

He walks out, still smiling.

“Hey, wait you forgot your—”

Shelli looks at me from across the Bunza Hut. She's whispering even though it's just us now.

“Anika! Anika!”

“He forgot his food . . .”

“Anika, do you know what this means?!”

“That he's coming back?”

“No. No. It means that . . . I think maybe . . . you're the most popular girl in the school now!”

twenty-eight

S
helli's assessment, that I'm now suddenly bumped up to number one popular girl, is wrong. Way off. But it's nice of her to say it, and flattering.

Really what this means is that Becky, when she finds out, is going to come over to my house, chop my limbs off, feed them into my face, and then chop my head off. I know this the way I know the sky is blue, leaves are green, and sports are boring.

I am attempting to study in my room, which is difficult when you feel dismemberment is in your immediate future.

My mom, in her Mrs. Santa Claus mode, is bringing in milk and cookies. I know exactly what she's gonna say.

“Honey, now don't stay up too late . . .”

I say it with her. She's right. I just have a habit of procrastinating my homework until the absolute last, latest, worst time to possibly do anything.

“Have you heard from Tiffany, honey?”

“Wha? No . . . her shift isn't till Wednesday.”

“Oh, well I hope everything's okay.”

“Me too, Mom.”

She stands there a second.

“Oh! I almost forgot. Someone left something for you . . . wait, hold on . . .”

She scurries out and now I'm really curious. No one's ever left anything for me here before. I don't think anyone even knows exactly where I live.

“Here. It looks like a present, I guess.”

It's a tiny box. Black velvet. Wrapped in a little white bow.

My heart gives a thump.

“Well, aren't you gonna open it?”

“I dunno, Mom. Is this from you?”

“No. No, honey. I swear, someone just left it. The boys found it, actually. On the front step.”

“That's so weird. Okay, here goes . . .”

I untie the white bow, and lift the little lid.

Wow.

It's a little gold necklace with my name engraved on it in cursive. Anika. In flowing letters.

“Wow. How cool.”

“Wow, you ain't kidding. Here, I'll put it on you.”

My mom comes around and clasps it. Now we both look.

“So . . . do you know who it's from?”

“What? Wasn't there a card or something?”

“Nope. It's a mystery.”

My mom and I both look in the mirror at the necklace. It's fancy. It's expensive. . . .

“Okay, now, try to go to bed. Will ya? Otherwise I don't feel like I'm doing my job.”

“Oh, Mom? Did anybody ever tell you that you're basically like a muffin that got turned into a person?”

Mom smiles and walks to the door. “Oh, that imagination of yours . . .”

“Night, Mom.”

“Night, honey.”

twenty-nine

T
he first person to spot the necklace at school is Becky. Of course.

“Nice. Where'd you get it?”

“Oh . . . my mom. She thought—”

“Hunh. That's nice. Is it your birthday or something?”

“No, it's just . . . She said she saw it and she thought of me.”

“She saw a necklace that said Anika? What, like, at the Anika store?”

“No, I mean she saw, like, these name necklaces, and she thought of me.”

“Oh. Whatever.”

Shelli is standing next to me. She knows I'm lying. She can feel it.

“That's awesome, I wish my mom would do something like that . . .”

“Shelli, the only necklace your mom is gonna get you is a dying Jesus.”

Becky, as usual, speaks the truth.

My turn. “It's okay, Shelli. I'll buy you a dying Jesus.”

Shelli smiles at me. She knows I'm with her. That we're in it together.

“Geez, why don't you guys get a room?”

It drives Becky crazy that Shelli and I are close. She wants to divide and conquer, any way she can. She's deranged.

The bell rings and everyone starts taking off in different directions like crazy and, of course, I run into Logan.

“Did you get the necklace?”

“What?” I glance around and confirm that no one is making note of this encounter.

“Did you get the necklace. I left you a necklace. At your house.”

“Oh! Yeah, see, here it is. I'm wearing it.”

I don't know why I feel surprised. I guess I wasn't sure it was from Logan?

He looks at me with puppy eyes and I feel like the world's biggest jerk, but I don't know why.

“That was really nice of you. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

He smiles. Second bell.

“Gotta go.”

He takes off, around the corner and I am left there, standing, late for physics, realizing that I'm the dumbest person on earth because for some insane reason I thought, now don't laugh when you hear this, I thought . . . well, I thought the necklace was from Jared.

thirty

L
adies and gentlemen, I'm confused.

On the one side there's Logan, who, even if he's a social pariah, is really cool and smart and thinks like nobody else I've ever met before. Then, on the other hand, there's Jared Kline, rock star, super-king, and the one person in the world who can protect me from Becky Vilhauer. I mean it's like trying to decide between James Dean and Elvis. Seriously, who could make that choice?

My guilt has led me squarely to the dinner table at Logan's house.

If you were wondering how close Becky lives to Logan McDonough the answer is . . . right across the street. I know. Doomsday scenario. The only good thing is . . . her house is back like a football field from the street because they needed room to put trees, a wall, a fountain, and other stuff to make everybody else feel like shit.

So, even though Becky is almost spitting distance from our little friendly dinner, I'm actually not that scared. And by not that scared I mean, I only checked three times since I've been here to make sure no one has seen me.

Besides, there are other things to be scared of. Like Logan's family. First, there's his mom, who, as far as I can tell, has her cocktail superglued to her fingers. She's a pretty blonde with a huge diamond ring and all. But there's something sad about her. Something resigned. It's like the weight of that huge, shiny rock is pinning her to the ground. Then, there are his two kid brothers, Billy and Lars, who are three and six, respectively. You could cast them in a commercial about cereal, that's how much they look like dumplings. Billy especially, a little towhead with sky-blue eyes.

Then, there's Logan and me.

And, finally, the pièce de résistance . . . Logan's dad.

Logan's dad looks like the kind of guy you are trying to avoid. All smiles and sweaters. Terrifyingly cheerful. And talking. Lots of talking. I mean the guy never shuts up. So far this dinner, which he had catered by the way. I'm not kidding. He ordered out and even had them send over a guy in a white chef's coat to serve us. He must have done this before because the guy in the white chef's coat knows two things: (1) Where the serving plates are, and (2) To keep the wife's drink filled.

I mean, this dinner, here on a Tuesday night, just a regular old Tuesday night, no holidays or anything, must have cost a fortune. Like, my mom's entire grocery budget for the whole month. Apparently this is natural behavior for him. During his monologue about how he's planning on triumphing over the zoning restrictions on his new subdivision, Logan leans in.

“He likes to show off.”

Now, Logan's dad doesn't like interruptions.

“What's that, son? You wanna share with the table?”

“I was just telling Anika what a master you are with real estate.”

“Oh. So, like I said, we're still waiting on the zone permits. Should be any time now. Goddamn city.”

And now Logan's mom actually chimes in.

“Not in front of the boys, please.”

There's a silence here.

And now Dad. “You're right. I should spell it out. These F-U-C-K-I-N-G city permits are an F-U-C-K-I-N-G waste of time!”

He slams his drink on the table and, as if on a teeter-totter, as his hand goes down, Logan's mom gets up. She gently wrangles the two little boys, kissing Billy on the head as he wraps around her like a koala. Lars stays close, too, clinging to her leg. She even puts her drink down, miracle, as she scurries the boys upstairs.

Logan looks up at his mom and you can see, now, who he loves most in the world. And he wants to save her from this
thing
at the other end of the table. You can see that, too.

Dad will not be bested. He continues on and on until the end of dinner, even through dessert. Zones, permits, the goddamn bureaucracy, all of it conspiring to ruin his life in paperwork. By the time he leads us down to his man cave in the basement, he's had about six scotches.

The caterers are cleaning up now. Logan's mom has retired to her room, the TV muffled up the stairs. And his two kid brothers, Lars and Billy, waiting upstairs for Logan to tuck them in, which I guess he does each night. Which, honestly? Massive points for Logan.

Downstairs the man of the house sure is proud of his gun cupboard or whatever you call it. Display case, I guess. My mom would freak her eyeballs out if she even saw me in this room. No joke.

Meanwhile, Logan's dad is pointing at each of his prize possessions, a litany of names that all sound vaguely menacing, conquering, and are all, obviously, invented deep in the recesses of the gun manufacturers' board rooms where a panel of guys probably sits around throwing out names that will make guys feel like they have bigger penises.

Logan is totally embarrassed by his dad, who boasts about each and every gun, its name, and what type of animal he killed with it.

Oh, I didn't mention the insane amount of deer, geese, and wild boar “trophies” he has displayed in his man cave? Let me tell you . . . I started counting five minutes ago and lost track. That's how many.

Right now he's showing me a gun that I think I saw in that movie
Rambo
.

“See, this one here's a beaut. Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. You wanna hold it?”

“Dad—”

“I am asking your friend, thank you.”

“Um, no, sir. No thanks.”

“Your loss. Wanna see something else?”

He is about to pull another gun out of the cabinet when Logan starts again.

“Okay, Dad, we really gotta—”

And it happens so fast. It happens before I even knew it could happen and before I can believe it.

Logan's dad backhands him on the cheek so hard it leaves a welt.

Silence.

Upstairs the caterers clink and clank the silverware but down here there is only silence.

Logan's dad looks at him, that drunk-eyed look of a dare.
Dare you to fight back, son. Wanna fight back?

He breathes hard. “I
said
I was addressing your friend.”

There's nothing to say. I mean, there's a million things to say but I can't say one of them.

Logan looks up, his hand on his cheek. The welt from his jaw to his ear.

“Thanks, Dad. You always knew how to leave a good impression.”

Logan heads upstairs, and I don't blame him.

Now it's just me and Rambo over here.

“Excuse my son, Anika. His mother wasn't successful in teaching him manners.”

“I-I, uh—”

“But I bet you understand why a man would be proud of this kind of collection,” he steamrolls on. “Just look at it! Do you know how much care and expense is contained in this case?”

I nod, then: “I'm sorry, Mr. McDonough, but I need to be home in time for curfew.”

And with that he smiles, picks up that ridiculous cartoon gun, and I do believe that's my exit. Yes, this is definitely my exit.

I make my way up the stairs with the world's most uncomfortable smile. No fast moves. At the top of the stairs, I look back at good ol' dad. He's sitting there on his stool with his scotch and his Bushmaster. PS: Nice name—Bushmaster. I guess that gun makes him “master of the bush.”

He is smiling to himself, a dull smile, unfocused. His eyes glazed over. It almost seems like he's talking to himself but nothing's coming out. Whatever it is, I'll bet you a shiny nickel it is some sort of paranoid rant about the government, freedom, our forefathers, and how someday he's gonna save the world.

So. I guess Logan has me beat on the bad dad front.

He's at the top of the stairs, waiting for me.

“Sorry, Anika.”

“What?!
You're sorry?
No. I'm fucking . . . I don't even know what to—”

“Yeah. Kind of like a car crash.”

We make our way up to the second floor. There's two sets of stairs up here, one for the “servants” I guess, and one for the people who are supposed to be important. I wait there on the servants' steps while Logan goes to tuck Billy and Lars into bed for the night. I'm terrified his dad is gonna come lumbering up the important-people stairs with that stupid small-penis gun. Luckily, these steps offer a kind of shelter. I mean, not much but at least it's something. His mom is hiding, too. Her door is closed, the blue light of the TV coming out under it.

I can see why she keeps that cocktail full, let me tell you. I probably would, too, married to that freak.

If I peek in I can see Logan turning on their little night-light, a mini Yoda that matches the
Star Wars
sheets and Billy's R2-D2 socks. Billy doesn't want to give back his dinosaur but Logan explains it has to protect him from the foot of the bed. Billy sees the logic in this and relents.