Love Drugged (12 page)

We gave up on finding Amanda Lynn. En route to Celia’s house, we stopped on the Wilson Avenue bridge and looked out over the gray, slow-moving river. A red sun hovered on the horizon, and birds were going crazy in the bare trees. It was turning cold again. Celia and I pressed together, arms wrapped around each other’s coats, and we kissed.

We really went to town.

So here it was, the fantasy Celia had described to me the very first day we hung out—her childhood dream, to kiss a boy on this romantic, arching bridge. She had waited years to make this fantasy come true. I knew how important the moment was for her.

I gave it everything I had. I really
tried.
But my body didn’t cooperate.

I felt nothing.

Celia’s affection wasn’t enough. One pill wasn’t enough. I was starting to realize that this process would require more practice, more patience, and a hell of a lot more pills.

fourteen

“M
exico?”

It was rare that a comment from me could stop my parents in their tracks. But for a long moment they stood there, frozen in the living room, still holding packing slips and job orders.

I tried to sound cheerful. “The school is paying for it. It’s part of the club I’m in.”

I showed them the phony permission slip Celia and I had created using her dad’s computer. It looked official—fancy school letterhead that we designed ourselves. “You just have to sign this. It doesn’t cost anything. Remember all the fundraising we did? We worked really hard, and now the club has tons of money.”

“From the flowers?” My dad glanced at my mom, then surveyed the piles of boxes and packing clutter that surrounded him. “We’re in the wrong business.”

My mother looked skeptically at the permission slip. “I thought it was a
service
club.”

“It is. We’ll be working at a community clinic in Mexico. Dr. Gamez has arranged everything with some people he knows down there.”

“Back in my day,” my mother said, “being in a service club meant you got to decorate Easter windows at the nursing home on Harlem Avenue. We didn’t jet off to foreign countries.”

“The world’s getting smaller,” I said, shrugging. “Globalization.”

“From selling
flowers
?” my father repeated.

“We’d need to think about this,” my mother said.

“My grades are awesome,” I said. “Don’t I deserve a reward for hard work?”

“Honey,” she said, “you seem tired. Won’t this trip wear you out more?”

My father nodded. “Maybe you should stick around here during Spring Break. Catch up on rest.”

This was the trouble with dreams. Once they settled into your thoughts, they held you prisoner. The funny thing was, a few weeks earlier, the notion of traveling to Mexico with Celia never would have occurred to me. In fact, the prospect of so much togetherness with Celia, all that pressure, might have sent me running in the other direction. But life changes fast. Now I had a pocket full of miracle pills and an invitation to travel. I wanted it all.

“Who knows?” I said casually. “Maybe this trip will inspire me to study medicine. Lately I’ve been thinking about becoming a doctor.” I had rehearsed this line with Celia.

Five minutes later, they both signed the permission slip.

Astonished and relieved, I went into the dining room to tackle some gift-wrapping. The number of boxes I found there surprised me. Baby gifts, wedding presents, birthdays, anniversaries, housewarmings—a little of everything waiting to be wrapped and shipped. Either business was booming or customer service was slipping. I looked more closely. Was this a backlog?

“Hey, some of these have dust on them,” I said.

“It’s been nuts around here!” my mother said.

“We’ve been waiting for you, kiddo!” my father called. “That’s your specialty!”

“Yikes,” I said softly. Whenever I took time to observe my parents at work, I understood why they had never gotten rich. They worked hard, sure, with energy to burn, but it was all too unfocused, too diffuse. They might spend a whole afternoon devising a clever marketing strategy while RUSH orders went unfulfilled. Meanwhile, Dr. Gamez had gotten rich by close observation and attention to detail. The contrast seemed instructive.

While my parents greeted customers, running between the door and the cash box, I faced the backlog and got down to some serious wrapping. I measured, cut, taped, and tied—one after the next, working without a break to get them all ready for pick-up. I wrapped until my fingers were sticky from Scotch tape. There were more than forty packages total, and in the end, I calculated that the work—at three dollars per gift—was worth one hundred twenty dollars for my parents’ business. Not bad for an hour’s work. It made me feel less guilty about lying to them about Mexico.

How much spending money would I need for a trip like this? According to Celia, we wouldn’t ever stray too far from the resort. But I’d want cash to buy souvenirs or snacks. So when my parents were busy at the door with a customer, it didn’t seem wrong to take another thirty dollars from the cash box. Thirty dollars wouldn’t be missed. And after all, I was the one who had done all the work.

I began taking the pills with more confidence. One blue pill after breakfast, with a cold glass of milk or juice—a simple addition to the morning routine. For added security, I moved the baggie of pills from the desk drawer to a green plastic Army tank I kept on my bookshelf. I pointed the guns of the tank toward my bedroom door, in symbolic defense of my new life.

After the first three days, I didn’t suffer from any serious side effects. Some sleeplessness, a metallic aftertaste. The headaches lingered, too, but this may have been my own general anxiety rather than a chemical side effect.

I didn’t notice any major
benefits
either, except that I felt more confident around Celia. This may have been psychological.

For a week, I waited for the pills to take effect, to give me that hungry, boob-obsessed expression worn by all the boys in my school. I wanted to look at Celia the way Wes looked at every girl. I knew it wasn’t going to happen fast. The pills, I imagined, would help to
build
attraction over time, the way sports supplements help athletes to build muscle. It would happen over the course of months, not overnight. In this matter, I could be patient
.

Celia, of course, wasn’t waiting for any drug to kick in. Our upcoming trip to Mexico had shifted our relationship into fast-forward mode. Now when we found time alone together, we went from conversation to kissing without delay. We made out on park benches, on dry patches of grass, and in secluded corners of the public library. We kissed each other at leisure and used our fingers to tickle ears and stroke cheeks. We let our hands roam freely and safely over clothing. She favored my back, my shoulders, and my butt. I started with these but I knew more was expected. Over time I moved to her breasts, soft under her shirt, guarded by her bra. My fingers sometimes traced the edge, thinking about lace and design.

Her hands never went to the front of my pants, which surprised me. I’d spent so much time worrying about my lack of an erection only to have it never come up, so to speak. Wasn’t she curious?

I put my faith in the power of medicine.

The pills—or maybe it was this physical activity with Celia—did have one positive effect almost immediately: I stopped dreaming about Ivan. In fact, as soon as I started taking the pills, I stopped having any dreams at all. Upon waking, I couldn’t remember one thing I had dreamed about. It was like all the lights went out in the movie theater of my sleep. Worked for me.

The First Knights were dwindling, as if in a losing battle. Keenan quit to play volleyball; the Mosinskey twins stopped coming to meetings as soon as we took the yearbook photo. Nonetheless, Mr. Covici saw to it that members of the club were on hand during every major and minor school event. The weekend of the school play, while some of us sold soda and popcorn, others kept the sinks clean and toilets flushed during intermission. The day of the blood drive, we were tasked with distributing orange juice and granola bars to dizzy blood donors. It was rarely the whole club, just two or three members selected by Covici for the event. On two occasions, Celia and I stuffed envelopes in the main office after school, giggling with private jokes, ambushing each other with tickles.

Celia always wanted to stretch out the afternoons. “What are you up to later?”

“Biology,” I said. “Gametes and zygotes.”

“Let’s go hang out for a while. I’ll teach you about biology.” She stroked my thigh seductively.

“I can’t.” Truthfully, I didn’t have enough pills to be a daily boyfriend. Almost a week had passed since I’d had one. “Plus,” I said, “I don’t want you getting sick of me before we even go to Mexico.”

“I’m getting sick of not seeing you enough,” she said. True, a statement like this had tons of whine potential, but on her tongue it seemed only flirty.

“Celia, I have to finish two chapters in the Bio textbook. And answer questions.”

“By tomorrow?”

I nodded. With her, schoolwork was always a dependable excuse. Good grades were important to her, too.

“Tomorrow after school, then,” she said.

“For sure.”

“I wish we were in Mexico,” she said wistfully.

“Me too,” I said. “Just think, eleven more days.” My eyes went a little blurry at the thought.
How was I going to get more pills before the trip?

In homeroom, Mr. Mallet handed me a folded note. “Here’s a message from your
library buddy
.” His tone was so sinister he was practically hissing at me. I could only imagine the bad blood between Mallet and Covici. Their personalities were diametrical opposites, like the two sides of the Crusades.

“Thanks.” I opened the note and saw Mr. Covici’s neat handwriting:

Jamie, please come Saturday morning at
8:00 to help with the School Board meeting.
If this is a problem, just let me know.
Mr. Covici

I was a little surprised at the time commitment this club demanded. It was like being on a sports team, but without any of the physical or social benefits.

I stopped Celia in the hallway between classes. “Are you working the School Board meeting on Saturday?”

“Negative.”

“I can’t believe I have to be at school at eight o’clock.”

“Better you than me,” she said, swatting my ass.

Walking into the empty Commons on Saturday morning gave me an odd tremor of excitement. It felt like trespassing. The environment changed completely when students were absent. With the place empty, I couldn’t help but notice the creepy Gothic details—arched windows and doorways, spooky dark hallways, and countless potential hiding places. I’d heard a rumor that the ghost of the mascot knight haunted the building. On school days, with the lights on and the hallways noisy, a ghost seemed like a silly school tradition. But now, as I walked down the long quiet corridor toward the conference room, my pulse quickened and I felt suddenly vulnerable. Weird, how sometimes you can
think
yourself into being afraid.

I heard footsteps. They were heavy and slow, coming from the other direction toward me.

Please, please, let it be Mr. Covici or one of the parents, and not a vengeful ghost knight, come for my young flesh!

“Hello?” I called.

“Jamie?” Ivan came into view, his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. His green T-shirt hugged his broad shoulders. He seemed genuinely pleased to see me. “Good morning, comrade!”

Relieved that he wasn’t a ghost, I still felt wary. “A little creepy here this early, huh?” I controlled my facial expression, limiting myself to a stingy, fleeting smile.

“Yeah,” he laughed.

Until now, I had avoided being alone with Ivan. Maybe it was inevitable that he and I would be paired up eventually. I hoped I’d developed a resistance to him from Dr. Gamez’s pills. Weeks had passed since Ivan had appeared in my dreams.

So why is my heart pounding now?

“Where’s Covici?” I said.

Ivan shrugged. “Not coming. He called me to the library yesterday to give directions. He thinks we can handle it.”

Just us, then.

Ivan repeated the instructions that Covici had given him. We were to get ice, food, and drinks from the cafeteria, take it all to the conference room, and set the table. During the meeting, we should be available to run errands for School Board members if asked.

“Let’s go get everything set up now, so we can relax,” Ivan said.

I had to admit, I loved Ivan’s accent. When he said
go
and
so,
it sounded like “gow” and “sow.” Also, his
th
’s were hard, like
d’
s.

Quit thinking about his mouth and hard tongue.

“Hold on,” I said. “Back in two seconds.”

In the bathroom, I felt around the wall in the dark, searching for the switch. When I found it, the fluorescent lights came on with a
clap
. I saw my face reflected in the mirror. I looked panic-stricken. I took a breath and reached into my pocket.

My last pill.

I’d been saving it for my next encounter with Celia. But if there ever was a time when I needed one, it was now. I swallowed it with quick handfuls of water from the sink. I wiped my mouth with my wrist and looked in the mirror.

Be cool. Now you’re immune.

“Your accent is hardly noticeable,” I told Ivan as we walked down the corridor. Sometimes I said the exact opposite of what I was thinking.

“I’ve been here for seven years,” he said. “Almost half my life.”

“Why did your family come here?”

“We were lucky. We had a cousin here. Over there, no money, no jobs.”

“We don’t have any money here,” I said. “Maybe we should move to your old country.”

I picked up the refreshments tray while Ivan got the ice. I envied his ease with the ice buckets, his broad back, the perfect symmetry of his shoulders. He was about my height, but infinitely more graceful. He had the body of an athlete, although to my knowledge he didn’t play sports. No matter how many pills I took, I would never have that body. I would still be me. Suddenly my tongue tasted like I’d been sucking on a rusty nail.