Into the Wild Nerd Yonder (7 page)

“Please tell me not jelly?” I fake panic.

“I’m afraid so, dear. I think that they started laying donuts flat after Krispy Kreme became popular.”

We all boo. Our family hates Krispy Kreme. Krispy
Kreme stores were only recently introduced to the Midwest and were a huge deal when they popped up in random cities. We had already been celebrating Dunkin’ Donuts since forever, so we were hesitant to give another franchise our business. We drove over forty-five minutes for the grand opening of the nearest Krispy Kreme store, and when we got there it was packed. Line out the door. So we waited. And waited. When we finally got inside, we watched the donuts ride through their shower of whiteness. By the time we got to the counter, we were starving. Like the donut-loving fools we are, we ordered three dozen original glazed because we were just so excited that the warm donut light was on. Plus, whatever we couldn’t finish we would share with the neighbors. In the car, I wolfed down two hot, melty donuts. My dad, precholesterol check (perhaps this is what upped his cholesterol to deadly proportions) ate five or six (he ate them so fast, he lost count). My mom had a couple, but sipped her coffee to slow her down. Barrett was the only one who contained himself, and not because he was on a diet. As I gorged, he watched with a disgusted look. “What?” I demanded, my mouth full of creamy donut goo.

“How can you eat them after seeing that stuff dribble down on them on the conveyer belt?”

“You mean that white stuff? The glaze?” I couldn’t see a problem.

“It looked like”—he paused for grody, dramatic effect— “jizz.”

“Barrett!” my mom yelled from the front seat. My dad stopped eating.

“What’s jizz?” I asked, hating to be naive.

“Yes, Barrett, why don’t you tell your little sister what jizz is, since you brought it up?”

Barrett looked incredulously at Mom. “You’re the parent. You should educate her on such matters.”

“If you’re going to use a word like
jizz
in my car, young man,
and
ruin my magical donut experience, then you can give the sex-ed lecture,” my dad said. He wasn’t so much mad as he was annoyed that he had to stop stuffing in the donuts in order to have a conversation.

“Whatever.” Barrett turned to me all big brotherly. “You see, Jessie, when a man and a woman love each other—”

“Shut up!” I yelled, embarrassed. “I had sex ed last year, thank you very much, and they didn’t say anything about Krispy Kremes. Just get to the point.”

“You know that stuff showering down from Krispy Kreme heaven?” Barrett asked me seriously.

“Yeah.”

“You know that stuff that shoots out of a guy’s . . .” He didn’t have to finish, thanks to a graphic diagram that popped into my head from the boy portion of our sex-ed film.

“Ohmigod.” I was mortified, not to mention disgusted. Just as Barrett, I’m sure, would never want to know what my period looks like, I had no interest in visualizing his bodily functions.

“Well, now that that’s over . . .” Dad closed up the first box of our three dozen. On our way home we stopped at a gas station and left the three flat Krispy Kreme boxes on top of a garbage can. Thus, every Saturday we eat Dunkin’ Donuts.

I work on my second donut, always a colored sprinkler. I especially enjoy a holiday-themed colored sprinkler. Today’s is just a common multicolored.

“What time are your friends coming over tonight?” Mom asks me.

“Who’s coming over?” Barrett asks suspiciously.

“Bizza and Char. Around seven.”

“But we have band practice tonight,” Barrett practically whines. “I don’t want your friends invading the basement to swoon and interrupt with nauseating stories of sophomore rebellion.”

“I don’t want that either,” I say, annoyed, as if it’s my fault that my friends chose this new, punkified way of life. “It’s not like I want to sit around watching the Crudhoppers suck.” I was hitting below the belt, but this adds a whole new cruddy dimension to the evening. Am I going to have to spend the whole night finding new and exciting ways to keep my friends out of the basement?

“Why don’t you just put a sign on the door?” my mom suggests. “Like, ‘Keep out. Genius at work.’ ” I laugh at my mom’s attempt at intervention.

“Mom, you know Bizza. Even if the sign spelled out in giant, hot pink letters, ‘Keep out, Bizza,’ she would just turn it around in some way. Like, ‘It says my name, so they must actually want me down there.’ She doesn’t take no, and she doesn’t think it’s possible for someone to not want her around.” I slump.

“Jessie, there’s a lot going on with the ’Hoppers right now. Can you please try to keep the punk-lites out of the basement?” Barrett uses his puppy-dog eyes on me, and he did say
please
.

“I’ll try,” I say. Now I just have to think of 10,000 things for us to do in order to keep Bizza and Char from descending into forbidden territory.

I’m so edgy about tonight that I frantically make three more skirts. This audiobook doesn’t help. The family is almost out of food, and the air is dark and freezing and there’s no one around to help. I must remember to ask my mom about what canned goods we have stored in our pantry.

When the book is finally over (with a slightly relieving ending, although not enough to take the edge off), I lay down on my bed to work on my precalc homework. Nothing like math to make me forget about everything for a while. I make it through about three problems before I decide to straighten up my room for my impending guests. The doorbell rings as I finish clearing off my bedroom floor to make room for Bizza’s
and Char’s sleeping bags. I hear my mom open the door, and soon Bizza and Char are clomping up the stairs in their giant boots.

“Hey girl.” Bizza throws her stuff into a corner of my room. Her outfit is new to me: weird, kiltlike skirt, “vintage” Sex Pistols T-shirt, and these boot-shoe combination things with metal buckles. Char’s long hair is divided into dozens of multicolored braids. She’s wearing what I guess is a dress, but it looks more like a Victoria’s Secret nightie, finished off with her jumbo combat boots.

“Take off your shoes and make yourself comfortable,” I say, dreading the thought of listening to the clomping all night.

“Maybe later,” Bizza says, and she sits on the rug, legs crossed. I don’t see how that can be comfortable with those hard boots under her legs.

I walk over to Char and feel her braids. “You like? I did it while I was babysitting last night. Actually, the twins helped. I taught them how to braid and then made it into a contest to see who could make the most braids the fastest. I thought they would pull off my head, but they did a pretty good job. Now I have to bake them chocolate chip cookies, but I would do that anyway. Speaking of . . .” Char pulled a Tupperware container out of her bag.

“Pecan tassies!” Bizza and I shout at the same time. Char’s a fantastic baker, probably because she’s forced to spend so many hours at home. Pecan tassies are beautiful, my favorite,
like tiny little pecan pies. She bakes them for us only on special occasions.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I hug Char and grab the container from her hands. Opening the lid, I inhale the pecan-y goodness. “May I?” I ask, tassie already so close to my mouth that no one else would want to eat it, anyway.

“Of course. I made them for you. But don’t eat too many. I want to give some to the Crudhoppers when they get here.”

A sound goes through my head like a car slamming on its brakes and skidding forty feet. Of course they knew the Crudhoppers were coming over. Why else would they want to be here? God forbid it be to enjoy
my
company.

There is no way of keeping them out of the basement now. So much for my nostalgic sleepover. Shit.

MY EXPECTATIONS OF RELIVING OUR joyous youth fizzles with every application of Bizza’s extra-black eyeliner. I don’t know how I could have thought that things could go back to stupid movies, karaoke, and Ouija board sessions. We’re big girls now, and anything social must involve boys. Girl power be damned.

“I think I OD’d on tassies.” I excuse myself as if to go to the bathroom, and then creep down the stairs toward the basement. As I open the basement door, I hear Barrett on the phone in the kitchen.

“Yeah, we have practice tonight. But if it doesn’t go too late, maybe we can hook up.” He notices me, and he shifts his position to hide his words. “I gotta go. Talk to you later.” He laughs. “Me, too.” He hangs up quickly and says to me, “Hey, why aren’t you upstairs with your friends?”

“Whatever. Who was on the phone? And don’t say no one because it was obviously someone. And most definitely a girl.”

“Nancy Drew’s got nothing on you, Jessie. I don’t know how you figured it out, seeing as you had a fifty percent chance
of getting the gender right.” Barrett is so trying to cover something up.

“No need to be a butt. Who was it?”

“A girl. Someone from school. From work. Uh, that girl Chloe.”

Total avoidance of eye contact. Barrett picks at a hangnail.

“Chloe Romano?” Chloe Romano has one of those names that you have to say in entirety every time, partially to differentiate her from the million other Chloes at our school, but mostly because she is not one of those people you ever get to know in any sort of personal way. She’s more abstract prom princess/honors student/all-around-gorgeous, plastic, generic teen. So why is my brother getting his boxers in a bundle about her?

“Chloe Romano,” he answers as a yes. “She helped me get my job at the theater. And
we might be going out sometime.
” He opens and closes random drawers in an effort to distract me.

“Excuse me?”

“Please don’t make me say it again.” He’s got his back to me, drawers now shut.

“What could be so bad, Barrett? It’s not like you’re going out with the prom princess.”

He turns around with a “Surprise!” grin.

“No way!” My eyes bulge. “Chloe Romano? And my punk rock, Mohawked brother? You’re shitting me.”

“Keep your voice down.” He moves closer to me so he can talk at a near whisper. “The ’Hoppers are gonna be here soon. And I don’t want anyone to know. It’s not exactly cool for me to be going out with the prom princess.”

“No kidding. How did it . . .
happen
?” I punctuate the word like I’m touching dirty underwear.

“I don’t know. We had a class together. Shared some notes. She said she could get me a job at the movie theater. She was in my car. She smelled really good and had on an incredibly short skirt and . . .”

“TMI, Barrett. So you like her?”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean yes. I like her,” he admits with a sheepish grin.

“And she likes you?” Not that I would doubt that anyone could like Barrett. He is any girl’s dream. I just never thought of the prom princess as any girl.

“Hey.
She
called
me
. Is that so hard to believe?” He’s defensive, but I can tell he wants me to be okay with this.

“No. I mean, not from her side, but I didn’t know you liked girls like that. You always dated the freaksters before.”

“Well, maybe I’m tired of getting punctured by lip rings and trying to outcool each other. Chloe doesn’t care about any of that.”

“And she does have those legs.” I laugh.

Barrett waggles his eyebrows up and down. “So don’t tell anyone, okay? Let me figure out what it is first.”

“Okay. But if she starts coming over here and tries to teach me a cheer or some other crap, I can’t promise anything.”

“Cool. So why are you down here and not upstairs with your gal pals?” He relaxes and regains normal volume.

What am I going to do when Barrett goes off to college? He’s always so good at taking my mind off my stupid life when we talk about his. “They’re”—I pause guiltily—“getting ready for the Crudhoppers’ practice.”

“Jessie!”

“I didn’t say anything! They already knew!” I moan.

“See, this is what I’m talking about. This ‘scene.’ What kind of band are we if we can’t even play music? I’m so glad I got the job at the theater.” He hoists himself onto the kitchen counter. “It’s totally gonna be my excuse.”

“Excuse for what?”

“To get out of the band.”

I gasp. The Crudhoppers have always been part of my tween-to-teen existence. They’re what gave me an in to the cool punk scene at school, not that I really wanted it, but it was a good thing to have. I practiced with them or watched them practice or went to their shows. They were my biggest excuse for seeing Van. Without Barrett in the band, I have zero coolness connections. I refuse to count Bizza and Char. I want to tell Barrett how this will affect me, but what can I say? This is Barrett’s thing, and I’m just the tagalong kid sis. Now that Bizza and Char are with the band, so to speak, they won’t care
if Barrett’s out. I’m sure they can get plenty of rides from Van. With or without me.

The Crudhoppers’ practice is as I expected. Between every song is a lot of yammering and jabbering (old-lady speak for “talking out of one’s ass”) from Bizza and Char. A second ago, Van hopped off his drums, sat on our groovalicious basement couch, and patted the seats next to him for Bizza and Char to join him.

“Are we practicing or what?” Barrett has no patience and gives me a “see?” look. Not wanting to look at the couch activities, I fill in for Van on drums for what may be my last time, once Barrett makes his announcement. I count out the beats and do a decent job keeping up, trying to keep my focus on the music and not my guy-crazy friends.

At around 11:30, Doc Mom peeks her head in and swirls her finger in the air—her sign for “It’s time to wrap it up because your dad and I are going to bed.” There is also the two hands waving frantically, which means “the neighbors have complained and threatened to call the police.”

After ten minutes of the clanging and buzzing of putting away the instruments, Van finally notices. “What? Practice over already?”

“Practice? You played two songs.” Barrett is angry, but I can tell he’s acting angrier than he really is. He clenches his fists, which he never does, for buildup. I think this is it.