Beyond Clueless (18 page)

“Who’s that from?” asked Jimmy.

“Oh, Oliver,” I said.

Jimmy nodded, but he didn’t seem too happy about that, either.

Anyway, near the end of the day, I was busy trying to finish applying plastic ivy to the palace wall with a staple gun when Maria Kilkenny tapped me on the shoulder.

“I’ve been sent on a very important recon mission.”

“Oh-ho?” I asked, happy to take a break.

“Yes. It’s very, very important,” she said solemnly. “Madison thinks”—she nodded her head across the room toward Cinderella’s Stepmother—“that Oliver is, in her
words, ‘way hot.’ She also seems to think we’re in third grade, which is why she sent me over here.”

“I see,” I said.

“So. As his friend. Can you confirm or deny that he has a girlfriend?”

Even from fifty feet away, I could see Madison watching us with a crazed, eager look on her face.

“Why, yes, I can definitely deny the existence of any girlfriend.”

Maria clapped happily.

“But,” I continued, “unfortunately for Madison, Oliver is not looking for a girlfriend.”

The clapping froze. “No? Oh, crap, you two aren’t going out, are you?”

I snorted in response. “No, it’s not like that! He’s not looking for any girl. He’s crushing on some guy.”

Oops. The crush was supposed to be a secret, wasn’t it? Oh, well, it had been weeks, and there’s gotta be an expiration date on secrecy sometime . . .

“Womp-womp,” she said, slumping into a slouch. “Just when you think you’ve found a unicorn in the thea-tahh . . .” Then she shrugged and made her way back to Madison.

When I turned my attention back to my plastic ivy, I heard a “psst” and looked up to see Felix off to the side, beckoning me.

I immediately dropped the staple gun to the floor and nearly pranced over to him, behind some painted flats that were propped up to dry. (Well, what can I say? The days
of coy restraint were gone, apparently.) The flats formed a tiny room right in the middle of Set Day activities, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they completely blocked off the view from everyone else.

“Why, hello,” I said quietly, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Hi, there,” he said, his voice deep and low, and he pulled me toward him, drawing me into a kiss. His bottom lip dragged against my bottom lip, and I found myself breathing “Ohhhhh” into his mouth. I mean, I’m sure I had pizza breath, but he didn’t seem to notice; he just kept kissing, his tongue licking the edges of my lips.

Suddenly I felt his hand move against my stomach. Like,
under my T-shirt
. I was so startled, I jumped back with an audible “Ah!”

He cringed and looked about wildly, waving to shush me. We stood there, frozen, waiting to hear if anyone had noticed my little outburst.

The coast seemed to be clear. I twisted around to check myself, to be sure I hadn’t backed into the wet paint. Seemed OK.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “I just didn’t—”

“It’s fine,” he replied softly, pulling me back into his embrace.

“I don’t think I’m quite . . . I mean, not yet,” I said lamely. I rested my cheek against his shoulder, and he stroked my hair for a moment.

Suddenly I heard a girl’s voice call out, “Felix? Is Felix here?”

Whoever she was, she sounded annoyed.

Felix’s whole body clenched up. I looked up at his face, which was contorted into a grimace of pain. “Fuck,” he whispered. “My sister.”

Then he perfunctorily pulled away from me and ducked out of our little room.

“Jill! Relax,” I heard him say.

“
There
you are!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been waiting for forty-five minutes! You said to come pick you up at five . . .” I listened to their voices recede before emerging from the secret room.

As far as I could tell, no one in the room had noticed a thing.

That
was a close one.

T
ooth decay?” Jimmy asked, incredulous. “You’re dressed as
tooth decay
?”

Halloween was on a Saturday this year, and Derek, Kirby, and I had come to Jimmy’s house to hand out candy while his parents went to some concert in the city. Jimmy’s dad had bought a whole bunch of Butterfingers but nothing else, so Jimmy had the brilliant idea to pay his little sister, Jeanie, to collect better candy for us from all the other houses on the street.

But with Jeanie’s outfit, it wasn’t looking very promising. Her body was covered in rumpled brown paper bags, and her face and hair were smeared with red and brown paint. The words
TOOTH DECAY
were scrawled across her front in white.

“Yes,” she sniffed. “Kids should know what they’re getting themselves into. Knowledge is power.”

Derek gave her a reassuring smile. “That’s very sensible!”

Jeanie rewarded him with a rare smile.

“This is hopeless,” Jimmy said, defeated. “Go. Just go. See what you can get.”

But Jeanie stayed standing in the foyer, looking at him expectantly.

Exasperated, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill.
“Go.”

She grabbed the bill, shoved it under her paper shell, and turned to leave.

“Hold up!” Jimmy suddenly called out.

“What?” Jeanie huffed.

“Who are you going with?”

“Penny and her dad.”

Jimmy looked at his sister suspiciously. I could tell he was trying to decide whether “Penny” even existed. But then the doorbell rang.

“That’s them,” she said, and she disappeared out the front door.

Jimmy got up to look out the window to confirm her story.

“I don’t mean to be harsh, but that is one wacked-out little girl,” Kirby said, shaking his head.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Jimmy mumbled. “And I could’ve just
bought
better candy with that money.” He was apparently satisfied with what he saw, because he lumbered back to the couch and sank down next to Derek.

This was my first-ever Halloween as a high school student, which seemed to mean no more dressing up. I was a bit depressed about that, I have to say.

The doorbell rang again, and we all four looked at one another. “So, who’s gonna get it?” asked Jimmy.

Tick
.

Tock
.

Eventually, I rolled my eyes, got up from the couch, and
walked to the front door. Through the glass I saw a very handsome cowboy standing under the porch light.

“Howdy, ma’am,” Oliver said from under his hat when I opened the door.

“Well, well!” I exclaimed. “To quote one of the girls in the show, you look ‘way hot.’ ”

“Nice! I’m developing a following, then?” he asked, grinning.

Then his face fell when he realized I wasn’t in costume. He bounded past me toward the living room, his cowboy boots clicking against the foyer’s tile floor. He stared at Kirby, Derek, and Jimmy.

“What? Y’all aren’t dressed up? It’s Halloween!”

Kirby shook his head. “It’s pointless, man. They only give candy to kids. We’re too old.”

“But that’s not the point!” Oliver said. “It’s a joyous holiday!”

“Any reason to rejoice, huh?” I said, giving him a knowing look.

He grinned at me, the happiest-looking cowboy I’d ever seen. “Absolutely right.”

“Uh, what?” asked Jimmy.

“Oh, it’s—never mind,” I said. “Not worth explaining.”

“It involves booths,” said Oliver unhelpfully.

Kirby took in Oliver’s getup. “So, tonight, are you going for a
Brokeback Mountain
kind of thing?”

Oliver looked down at his black leather vest, bandana, and faded jeans. “I just threw this together at home. But I
think some elements may, in fact, be part of a Village People outfit.”

“Anyway,”
I said, trying to steer the conversation away from Gay Things, “what’s the actual plan for tonight?”

“Well,” said Jimmy, switching to his business mode, “we’ve got some board games in the other room. Or movies. Or video games. Or just food.”

“Maybe board games are best, since the doorbell will be ringing every few seconds?” said Derek.

“Excellent point!” Jimmy gave Derek a peck on the cheek before going to retrieve the games.

“Where’s Xiang?” asked Oliver.

I was about to answer when Kirby said, “She’s out with Parker, if you can believe it.”

Well,
he
certainly seemed to be updated.

“But if anybody asks,” he continued, “she was at Marty’s the whole time.” Kirby winked broadly.

“How do you
do
that?” asked Derek, amazed. “I’m not a good winker. I can’t wink.”

We all tried to wink as slowly as possible. It reminded me of that early lunch with Xiang, when we’d tested our stiff upper lips. I realized I missed her, which I figured to be a good thing: It was a sign that we really were a group.

Then I found myself wondering: How would Felix fit in?

It wasn’t long before Jeanie came back, way early and with a surprisingly large haul. (“Penny got a little scared by something I did” was all she said by way of explanation.) So we gorged ourselves on sugar until we practically hallucinated.
Seeing little kids in Spider-Man and
Frozen
outfits every few minutes only added to the surrealism of the evening. To top it off, we chose to play Risk, which, if you don’t already know, is a terrible, horrible game. It was all kinds of nightmarish. I don’t want to get into the details of what happened, but the game takes forever, it’s too complicated, people drop out too fast (OK,
I
drop out too fast), and by the end people get downright nasty. Jimmy’s a really bad loser, too, so after Oliver knocked him out of the game, Jimmy went off to sulk in the kitchen. Which, of course, meant that Derek basically committed imperial suicide in order to leave the game, too. Kirby ended up winning, but he had to totally backstab Oliver to do it.

Never play Risk.

Never.

Monday featured a long, tiring night at rehearsal (sans Felix). Memorizing, blocking, stopping and starting, turning this way, walking that way, trying to squeeze in some algebra backstage . . . This play was a marathon.

Jimmy called my cell just as I was getting into bed. And getting into bed was trickier than it sounds: My room had slowly devolved into a major disaster zone since rehearsals had started, with clothes and notebooks piled up everywhere. When would I ever have time to clean?

“My quirky collard green!”

“More like your sleepy celery stalk at the moment,” I replied, tossing some folders to the floor and trying to
bury myself under the covers so my evil parents couldn’t tell I was on the phone so late at night. (They were clearly into rule-setting, having limited the
duration
of any calls, so there was no need to point out other potential areas for their involvement.)

“Oh, pish,” Jimmy chided me. “Sleep when you’re dead. We barely got to talk today, and you’re the whole reason I’m hauling ass down to your school every other day.”

“I thought
Derek
was the whole reason you were there,” I mumbled. I felt something poking into my side, and I realized I still had my keys in the pocket of my jeans, and I was lying on them.

“Aww, Derek. He’s so stressed about this whole thing,” Jimmy whined, not even bothering to address my accusation. “He never imagined he’d get a part, and then he felt like he couldn’t turn it down, and now he’s just a mess. Poor thing.”

“Yeah, well.” I yawned audibly. Rehearsals were exhausting, all my unfinished homework was exhausting, and Jimmy’s yammering on about Derek was exhausting. I fished out the keys and clicked the mini-flashlight on the key chain. On, off. On, off.

“I mean, it’s pretty bad now—how do you think he’ll be when it’s for real? I mean, it’s so bizarre that someone can be so
good
at something and yet not like doing it.”

“Hmm.” On, off.

“But I think he secretly
does
enjoy it. Deep down. I can tell.”

At the moment, I could not care less about Derek and his problems. On, off. Then—
click
—the flashlight didn’t turn on.
Click. Click. Click.
Nothing. The battery must have died.

Jimmy kept on. “But he is really good, isn’t he? I didn’t even know he could sing before he opened his mouth at the audition! I wish he’d just be able to see how good he is, and then he wouldn’t be so nervous anymore. Don’t you think?”

I couldn’t help but remember how Jimmy used to gush about how good of a singer
I
was. I peeked out from under the covers and tossed the keys over to my book bag.

“Jimmy,” I said, “I gotta go to sleep.”

There was a long pause.

For once, I didn’t know what Jimmy was thinking.

“OK. Yeah, you should get to bed,” he finally said.

“Jimmy—”

But he had already hung up. I stared at my phone in disbelief.

By Tuesday afternoon, I still hadn’t heard a peep from Jimmy, and it was really starting to freak me out. During English class, I pulled my phone out of my bag and hid it between my copy of
The Scarlet Letter
and the work sheet Mrs. Mason had passed out to us.

I sent Jimmy a message.

Hello, r u mad @ me?

Moments later I got a reply.