Into the Wild Nerd Yonder (3 page)

The first bell rings. “Better get to class, ladies. Mrs. Buxton always has a shitfit if I’m late. I can’t wait to see her face when she sees this,” Bizza muses, brushing the top of her hair with her palm.

The three of us head down the hall. People are packed together, hugging their beginning-of-the-school-year hellos. But as Bizza and Char walk, the crowd parts. I watch the innocent bystanders from behind Bizza and Char (walking with them would feel like a game of “Which one of these things doesn’t belong?”). Some people point and laugh at them. Others’ eyes bug out, and they turn away to whisper to their friends. One guy, I can’t see who, yells out, “Freaks!” Bizza doesn’t seem to care at all. I can almost see the defiant smirk through the back of her shaved head as she holds up her middle finger high and cuts through the hallway. I turn into honors English and wonder if Bizza remembered me in her moment of punk rock glory to turn around and share it with me. It’s not like she shared her shaving experiment with me, so why would she include me in this? Why didn’t she call me when she buzzed it? Did she think I’d try and talk her out of it? Make
fun of her? Or maybe she just thinks my boring brown hair wouldn’t understand.

The quiet normalcy in honors English is a welcome change from the new hair drama in my life. I sit down next to Polly Chlumsky, a familiar, friendly face from years of gifted classes together. Polly is a flute prodigy, which suits her perfectly. She sort of looks like a flute; everything about her is long and elegant—her hair, her nose, her fingers. I have only ever seen her play once, during an all-school assembly. It pissed me off how most of the students talked or slept during the performance because Polly deserved better. If it is possible to kick another flute player’s ass, she definitely did just that. (By the way—I know a flute player is technically called a “flautist,” but something about it sounds a little sketchy, as does “pianist,” so I will refrain. If I need to refer to it in the future I will use the variant, “flutist,” which also works. I looked it up.)

“Hey, Jessie, how was your summer?”

Well, Polly, my friends turned into poseur punk rock turdettes who didn’t invite me into their personal hair club. Have you seen them? I’m sure they’ll make an announcement about Bizza’s haircut over the loudspeaker. And maybe they’ll hold a pep rally. “Pretty good.” I decide to just tell her the non-annoying parts. “I made about fifty skirts.”

“Is that a new one? Very cute. Very ‘first day of school.’ ” Polly knows how to give good compliment. She always appreciated
my occasion-appropriate fashion sense, and she actually bought one of my skirts at the Greenville High Summer Craft Fair. It had a bunch of fruit baskets all over it. I doubt she’ll ever wear it, but it was nice of her to show her Gifted and Talented support. “I went to band camp for the first time.” Polly laughs as she says this. “I know, I know. So cliché. And no, I did not stick my flute up you-know-where.” I laugh. I think flutists worldwide will never live down the
American Pie
flute-in-the-crotch reference. “But I did meet a guy,” Polly says. She opens up her neatly decorated binder, and taped to the inside is a picture of a guy with round glasses, a military haircut (short on top, even shorter on the sides—ugh), and a T-shirt that says “Science Olympiad 2008.” Awkward. I hate when someone you like wants you to like something they like but you can’t quite muster up the fakeness to tell them something, anything, good. This is one of those times. “His name is Jake,” Polly gushes. “Isn’t he cute?”

“Yeah.” I smile, trying to look sincere. Polly leaves her binder open as Ms. Norton passes out this semester’s reading list and class expectations. I look at the picture of Jake and try to see what Polly sees. Maybe he has a nice voice or he’s really funny or crazy talented in whatever instrument he plays (I’m guessing the oboe). Did they kiss? Do more? I glance at Polly, and suddenly she looks about fifteen years older than she did two minutes ago. Summer sure can change people. Just not me.

I’M SLIGHTLY RELIEVED THAT I ENDED up with fifth-period lunch, while Bizza and Char have seventh period. I’d rather not have to deal. But that means that I either have to walk around the cafeteria with a “pick me” look of desperation while I try to figure out who I kind of know, or I can sit outside on a bench and eat while I listen to an audiobook on my iPod. No-brainer.

I munch an apple as I listen to a particularly gory scene in Stephen King’s
Cell
, where a zombie-type person rips off another zombie-type person’s ear. I’m pretty grossed out and consider whether to
re
consider this as a listening choice when I’m jerked away from the story by a grab on my shoulder. I look up and see the gorgeousness of Van. He asks me something, but I can’t hear him between the apple crunching and the flesh biting. I yank out my earbud.

“Hi.” I smile. “I didn’t know you had fifth-period lunch,” which, of course, makes it sound like I’m keeping track of his schedule and I should have been more on top of things.

“Yup,” he says, dangling his car keys from his finger. “You want to get out of here?” I nod, trying not to look as incredulous
as I feel. Going out for a second lunch with Van. My hands barely work as I grab my stuff and follow him to his car.

Greenville High School is located on a major road across from a million fast-food restaurants and car dealerships. If you want to go out for lunch, it’s actually much faster to walk instead of having to deal with the onslaught of lunchtime traffic, but it’s not nearly as cool. Van’s car is what Barrett enviously refers to as “a classic pile of shit,” a Gremlin, which for those who have never seen one is about the grossest, ’70s-looking car on the planet. The outside of the car is a classic vomit green, while the inside is mustard yellow, yet it somehow looks cool. Probably because it belongs to Van.

Van is a somewhat legendary player (in the female sense, not in the actual instrument playing sense, so I guess I mean “playa,” but writing that just looks like “beach” in Spanish) on the local punk scene, according to Barrett. Loyal to a fault with his guy friends (he once got into a fight with a group of skinheads when they called Barrett a fag), Van is somewhat looser when it comes to the traditional boyfriend/girlfriend thing. Practically every week Barrett would tell our family a dinnertime tale involving Van and (fill in girl-of-the-week’s name here). I was never sure if Barrett did this because he thought the stories were actually amusing (they usually were) or if he was not so subtly trying to provide his little sister with a book full of Van precautionary tales. No matter how much crap Barrett talked about Van and le bimbo du jour, it didn’t
stop me from playing around a fantasy in my head that when I’m old enough (not like I’ll catch up to him, but maybe he has a minimum age requirement for hookups), Van will declare his love for me, and tell me he’s done with the hoochie-of-the-week program, and that he never wants to screw around with anyone else but me.
Très
romantic, I know. But it’s hard not to turn to soup around a guy as annoyingly delicious as Van. He has that TV-show-bad-boy thing (he doesn’t speak as much as he sighs and smokes) going for him, which I’m a total sucker for. All I can hope is that he has a thing for the plain, girl-next-door types (who the bad boys always seem to end up with on TV, right?).

All of this is going through my mind as I sit in Van’s Gremlin, music too loud and smoke from Van’s dangling cigarette clinging to my hair. We pull into the parking lot of Wendy’s, and Van lets the car and stereo run until he finishes his cigarette. When he’s done, he flicks it out the window and shuts off the car. I want to tell him that not only is smoking bad for him and everyone else around him but flicking the butt out the window isn’t exactly good for the environment. I refrain. So instead, there’s at least a minute of dead silence. “Hungry?” he smirks my way, and I turn to pudding, grateful I didn’t declare a smoking ban.

“Sure,” I answer, still full from my first lunch.

“It’s my treat,” he says, and I get the tiniest rumble in my stomach that this could be the date I’ve always dreamt about. I mean, he asked, he drove, and he’s buying. The few guys I
dated always asked and paid (but never drove because they were my age—usually had the humiliation ride from a parent), but those guys were not anywhere near Van status.

We get to the counter, and Van orders a four-piece-nugget Kids’ Meal. “It’s a good deal.” He shrugs to the zitty adult behind the counter. “And the lady will have . . .”

The lady. Hee-hee. I say, “Just a Frosty. I’m not that hungry.”

“A Frosty,” Van repeats to the man, who gives him his total. Van pulls out his chain wallet and fingers the dollars inside. “Yeah,” he draws the word out and looks at me, “do you think I could borrow a buck from you, Jessie? I’ll pay you back.” I’d give him a hundred dollars just for saying my name. “Wait—two bucks?” he asks as he realizes the extent of his shortage. I have now paid for more than my Frosty, but no biggie. People go dutch all the time.

We grab a table by a window. I sit down and spoon my Frosty while Van pumps out six tiny paper cups of ketchup. He sets them up on the table in a perfect line. “I love the stuff,” he says. He pulls the toy out of his Kids’ Meal, a bunny bobble-head from some forgettable kids’ movie. He holds it up, jiggles it, and hands it across the table. “For you,” he says. I am mesmerized by the giant bunny head. Van munches his ketchup-dipped fry, and I have to restrain myself from jumping across the table and kissing his full, slightly chapped, ketchup-dappled lips.

I hold the bunny, shake it, and smile. “Thanks. I’d put it
in my car, if I had one.” I’m trying to be cool, when I really know that this bunny is going directly onto my nightstand so I can kiss it (i.e.,
the spirit of Van
) every night before I go to sleep.

Van inhales his tiny meal, and in an instant the lunch is over. I don’t even have time to finish my unwanted Frosty. “Better get back. Wouldn’t want to be late for my first day of shop,” Van chuckles.

“Yeah,” is all I manage to say, not wanting to sound too dorkish by concurring with, “I wouldn’t want to be late to precalculus.”

The ride back is as smoky and loud as the ride there, and we get to the parking lot with two minutes to spare before class.

I look over at Van as he superinhales his cigarette. “Thanks for lunch,” I say, “and my bunny.” I waggle the bunny at him in a thank-you gesture.

“No problem,” he breathes, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. Then he leans toward me, and I ready myself for a dream kiss. His arm brushes my shirt and the tiniest corner of my chest (not that my chest has corners) as he pushes open my door. “Door sometimes sticks.” He smiles, his face way too close to mine for not having any actual lip-connecting intentions.

“Oh.” I blush. I get out and look at my watch. One minute before the bell. “See you around,” I call over my shoulder as I
run into school like a dweeb who hates to be late for class. I make it to my seat just as the bell rings.

Before Mr. Bowles begins class, I hear Mike Eastman a couple of seats over say, “Was somebody smoking?” I simultaneously hope that someone and no one thinks it’s me.

WHILE BIZZA AND CHAR WOW THE free world with their punk-rock selves during seventh-period lunch, I have study hall. On occasion I have ditched study hall to hang out in the lunchroom (when I know I won’t get caught), but I’m glad I have the excuse of first-day-of-school honors classes homework to stay in. Not that they’d notice. I spied Bizza in the hall before seventh (of course she didn’t see me) talking with a couple Crudhoppers, who seemed totally wrapped up in her bald-is-beautiful look. I watched as she put a hand on each guy’s shoulder, completely sure that that’s where her hands should be. Of course, I totally froze when I could have put my hand on Van’s shoulder, or more. I mean, he did touch a tiny portion of my boob, so that’s gotta mean something, right?

Study hall “teachers” (Are they really teaching us anything except how to fake bathroom passes?) at Greenville High School are a crapshoot. Sometimes you get the motherly, doting woman who just wants to give you bathroom passes and is fine “as long as you talk quietly.” Other times you get the gym teacher who’s so used to yelling all day that any instance
of a disturbance is cause for a shout and a detention. Today is the in between: a home ec teacher who doesn’t take any BS excuse (too used to that with students trying to get out of her own classes), but not too concerned with the noise level.

I try to focus on my precalc, but my mind keeps floating back to my pseudo-date with Van. I must be drooling or something because I’m snapped back into reality when a girl’s voice asks, “Where
are
you?”

I look next to me and notice for the first time that I am sitting next to Dottie Bell, one of the known weirdos of Greenville High. And junior high. And elementary. She isn’t the weird that Bizza and Char want to be known for, but the kind who was just born odd. Her hair is strawberry blond, with the possibility of being quite pretty if it weren’t for the clumping factor due to obvious unwashedness. She wears oddly colored corduroys no matter what the temp is, and never goes anywhere without her denim jacket, which is lovingly covered with a hand-drawn Lord of the Rings symbol (yes, I lose several cool points for knowing what it is). She’s been in several of my classes, usually pretty friendly, but mostly in her own world. I’ve never really gotten to know her, probably because I never put in the effort. Or maybe because she always seemed a little strange and I worried that I’d get sucked into some conversation about things which I know nothing about (except
Lord of the Rings
, which I do know something about, but I’d rather not everyone else know I know).

“Where are you?” she repeats with a curious look.

“Nowhere, really,” I reply hesitantly because I’m not quite sure if she wants to know what I’m thinking about or if she actually thinks I’m on some other, parallel plane. “Um . . .” I manage.