Playing with Matches (19 page)

34

ZONED OUT

S
hortly after I’d met Jimmy and Johnny, their parents had finished off their basement and turned it over to the twins. Mr. and Mrs. Thomson always said it was so their sons would have a place to be noisy. In truth, it was more like something you’d do for a destructive dog or an insane uncle: they had to sacrifice the basement to save the rest of the house.

Whatever the reason, it was a great place to hang out. There was a pool table, a couple of old couches, and an Xbox. Provided we didn’t smoke or use drugs, the elder Thomsons pretty much allowed us to run wild. They never asked about the stains on the rug or the head-shaped holes in the drywall.

It was Monday evening, and Rob and I were facing off against Jimmy and Samantha in a game of eight ball. Jimmy was the only one who was any good—when he wasn’t reminding us of the alternate meanings of “ball,” “stick,” “rack,” and “hole.”

“Now watch this. Trick shot.” Jimmy made a big show of lining up his stick. I wasn’t sure what he intended, but he managed to miss the ball entirely. Somehow his pool cue ricocheted off the felt and smacked him right in the face.

“Hey, first try!” said Rob. We all applauded.

“You assholes,” moaned Jimmy, clutching his bleeding nose. “That’s not what I meant to do.”

I managed to sink the cue ball on the next shot. Samantha began to rack the balls for another go-round.

“So where’s your brother?” asked Rob, sighting his cue. He always tried to come across as a hustler. I didn’t tell him he had a big streak of chalk across his forehead.

Jimmy cleared his nose. “Out with Jessica. Apparently he got tired of making out with Leon.”

Samantha was still obsessively straightening the triangle. “Speaking of which, where’s Amy?”

How the hell would I know?
She hadn’t called me for the rest of the weekend. I didn’t call her. Well, actually, I did. But no one answered, and I didn’t leave a message. In chemistry that day, she didn’t look at me. She made it a point to ignore me.

I chalked up. “We had a fight the other day.”

Several snide comments died in the air. Friends know where the line is. They might insult your looks, your clothes, your family, and your personality, but they also know when to lay off.

Samantha broke. The cue ball gently rolled into the one ball. The triangle sat undisturbed.

“What did you fight about, Leon?”

“Melody. She thinks I’m still hung up on her.”

“So?” said Jimmy. “Girls are like that.”

Samantha jabbed him in the ribs with her stick.

“People are like that,” he immediately corrected himself. “Just tell her she has nothing to worry about.”

“Well,” I said, thinking about what I’d been dancing around for a couple of days, “I’m wondering if Amy might have a point.”
There. I can admit it.

Rob, Jimmy, and I all shot in silence. Samantha made three unsuccessful attempts to hit the white ball.

“Leon, I warned—” She caught herself. “So what are you going to do?”

I shrugged. “Call Amy and apologize, I guess.”

“Is that what you really want?” Rob sank two balls with one shot. For a second I thought he’d broken his cue, but it was just his back popping.

“I guess. It’s just that Melody…Jesus.” I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I even got choked up when I thought about
The Twilight Zone.

Though the game wasn’t over, Samantha hung up her cue. “I have to go. Leon…” She stood in front of me and gently took my arm. “You’re not the first guy this has happened to. But if you really want to patch things up with Amy, do it soon. She’s not a girl who’s used to competing with anyone.” She squeezed my arm and headed for the stairs.

Amy, I pondered, wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t wait. School ended in three weeks. Then I wouldn’t see Melody again for nearly three months. When we came back to MZH as seniors, we’d be strangers.

What sort of people watched TV at three o’clock on a Tuesday morning? People who needed phone sex and drunk-driving lawyers, judging by the commercials.

I couldn’t sleep. Samantha had rattled me. I guessed I’d had such a high opinion of myself that I’d secretly believed that Melody would always take me back. But once school ended, I wouldn’t see her until late August. Her feelings would fade. Maybe Rob was right, she might even meet someone else.

And so what? I could grovel my way back into Amy’s life; she saw
something
in me, apparently.

Then again, maybe I’d just end up being bored, with Amy trying to change me. Or more likely, she’d get bored with me. We’d dated only a couple of weeks.

Why couldn’t I get a sign from God? Why couldn’t he just descend from his heavenly throne for five stupid minutes and say
“Leon! Don’t give up on Amy!”
or
“Melody’s the one!”

Of course, if the Lord had something to say to me, it probably wouldn’t be about sorting out my love life. Which is too bad, because otherwise more teenagers would go to church.

In the meantime, I was watching infomercials in the middle of the night. Maybe I ought to just go psycho and join Dan in whatever he did.

Most stations were off the air, and I was having serious doubts about the weight-loss pills being advertised. I turned on the DVD player.

Rod Serling. It was the
Twilight Zone
DVD Melody had returned. I started an episode.

It was the one Melody had talked about back on her birthday. For twenty minutes, we heard a female hospital patient bemoaning her hideous face, but we never saw her. Then, surprise, surprise, she was actually a gorgeous woman, living on a planet of pig people. In the end, she was banished to the island of the ugly people, escorted by a handsome “mutant” guy.

Rod then beat us over the head with the obvious moral: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

What if Amy had a pig face? Would I date her? Of course not.

What if Melody had a pig face? In a way she did. Not literally, but no one found her attractive. Even when I’d been on top of her in the barn, I’d wished she was normal.

What if they both had pig faces?

Then my choice would be easy.

“Leon?” Mom was standing in the hallway in her bathrobe. “What are you still doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

She joined me on the couch.

“I remember this show. Your grandma wouldn’t let me watch it. She said it would give me nightmares.”

Quietly, we watched part of the episode where William Shatner was tormented by the diner fortune-telling thing.

“Leon? What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing. Well, something, but it’s not drugs, or sex, or suicide, so don’t worry.”

She paused the show. “I’m always going to worry about you, whether you like it or not. Do you want to talk?”

I yawned. “No. It’s something I have to deal with on my own. But, um, thanks for…you know, worrying.”

“It’s what moms do. I was pregnant with you before your grandma stopped reminding me to change my oil and check my tire pressure.”

“Mom, she still does that.”

“Yes,” said Mom, bitterly. “And I’m sure I’ll still be bugging you by the time you’re my age.”

I smiled at Mom, and for the first time in years, she leaned over and kissed my cheek. I winked at her and headed off to bed, hoping to get a couple of hours’ sleep. I had some unpleasant stuff to do the next day.

35

DOWN IN THE DUMPS

I
gazed across the Formica tabletop into Amy’s blue-gray eyes. I couldn’t help thinking she was the prettiest girl in the room. Of course, maybe the Taco Barn wasn’t the greatest place to make such comparisons; next to this crowd of hicks, the Elephant Man would have been a looker.

It was Tuesday afternoon. I had called her earlier and asked her to meet me here. She hadn’t said much since arriving. Her face told me nothing: her lips stretched in a tight line, her eyes expressionless. So cold, so distant, and so very, very beautiful. I knew I had made the right choice.

“Listen, Amy.”
Sheesh, where to begin?
“I’m sorry about the other night. There was a lot I wanted to say, but it came out wrong.”
God, this isn’t easy.

Amy smiled a little. I felt like she was holding my heart in her hand. “Amy, I’ve enjoyed being with you so much. You’re a great person, and I’m sorry if you ever thought I didn’t have fun with you.”

“It’s okay, Leon…” She moved to touch my hand. I pulled back. Then I said the word that bode disaster in any relationship talk. The dreaded word. The B word.

“But…”

“But…,” repeated Amy, the smile gone.

“But”—I struggled to maintain eye contact—“we don’t get along that great.”

“Leon…”

“We don’t, Amy. We have fun, but…we like a lot of different things. Whenever we do anything, it’s either what I want to do or what you want to do. There’s never anything we want to do.”

I waited for Amy to say something but she kept staring me down. “Go on,” she said eventually.

“I don’t think we should go out anymore.” I clenched my jaw.

Amy ran her tongue over her top teeth, which I should not have found erotic.

“Leon, I don’t know how many guys I’ve dated. Probably not as many as everyone thinks. But every single one of them either cheated on me, or dumped me, or turned out to be an asshole.
Every one.
”

I sat there, stacking packets of salsa, not looking at Amy. This was hard enough without looking at those perfect lips that for a week or two I’d been allowed to kiss.

“Leon, do you know why I called you when I was sad? Why I wanted to dance with you? Wanted you to call me?”

I shrugged.

“Look at me, damn it! Because you’re funny! Because you’re smart. Because when I saw you hanging out with Melody and your crew, I thought that I’d finally met someone who
didn’t care what people thought
! I thought, ‘Here’s a guy who might want to do something besides grope me in his car all night! Here’s a guy who doesn’t need to be told how great he is every five seconds. Here’s a guy who’s got his shit together, someone I can have some fun with!’”

I flicked over my salsa pyramid. Why couldn’t I hire one of Johnny’s Total Bastards to do this for me?

“I guess you misjudged me, Amy.”

Amy reached into her purse. I waited for the inevitable cigarette (or her pepper spray), but she pulled out some gum. “Leon, I knew you and Melody had a thing going on. And I guess that doesn’t make me any better than you. But I never wanted to change you, or ignore you, or whatever the hell problem you had with me. I’m sorry you thought I was such a shallow bitch, but at least I tried. Maybe I tried to change you, but you wanted to change me too. You wanted Melody, but with my face.”

“That’s not true!”
That’s completely true. When did Amy get so insightful?

“Leon.” She sat cracking her gum for a moment. “Maybe someday I’ll meet a guy who’s not a dick. And maybe someday you’ll make up your mind about what you want. But I’m sorry I met you.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Amy spit her gum into a napkin. “No, you’re not. You’re sorry
you
got hurt.” She stood and took her purse.

“Leon? Is Melody going to take you back?”

I stayed seated. Amy towered over me. I remembered when she hadn’t known who I was.

“I don’t know, Amy.”

“Good luck. Melody certainly massages that pathetic ego of yours.”

I felt bad as she went, but not so bad that I didn’t enjoy the sight of her legs.

So that was over. Now for the hard part.

Here was my plan: I’d corner Melody at her locker. I’d apologize. I’d tell her I’d made a horrible mistake. Tell her I was weak. I was a jerk. I was sure she’d agree with me.

But I thought she’d forgive me. I thought she cared about me enough that she’d give me a second chance. I wouldn’t blow it this time.

I just didn’t count on one tiny detail: Melody wouldn’t talk to me.

She’d turn and walk away if she found me near her locker. She’d sit at a crowded table at lunch so we couldn’t talk in private. There was no time for a protracted apology during history class, and I could never find her during study hall.

Another week went by. Jimmy and Johnny wouldn’t shut up about how we were two weeks away from being seniors. I helped Rob truck home all the crap from his locker. Even the poster vandals had stopped caring. School was almost over.

I was near panic. If I didn’t mend things with Melody now, I might never get another chance. I couldn’t go to her house, face her family. She’d probably slam the door in my face, anyway.

In desperation, I called her house. Her dad answered. I expected him to threaten to skin me, but he was civil, if not polite. How much had Melody told him?

“I’ll go get her,” he said when I asked to talk to her. There was a pause, and I could hear voices in the background. Then Mr. Hennon came back on the line.

“Leon? She’s…She stepped out. I’ll tell her you called.”

Stepped out, my ass. She just wouldn’t talk to me.

Things were getting desperate. If I couldn’t get her to talk to me for five minutes, then I’d have to show up at her house and play my guitar under her window at night.

A fine plan, except she might sic the horses on me. Plus I didn’t play the guitar.

Finally, I got a break. It was study hall, and I’d been half dozing in one of the comfy chairs in the library when I thought I heard Buttercup’s voice. I looked up to see her in the periodicals section reading an issue of
Cat Fancy
magazine.

Buttercup!
She was kind of friends with Melody. Maybe she could help me out.

“Buttercup?”

She smiled and patted the seat next to her. I sat.

“How you doing?”

She grinned at me. “Great. I met this guy the other day—”

“Right. Listen, I need your help.”

She closed her magazine.

“Melody doesn’t want to talk to you, Leon.” For the first time since I met her, Buttercup was frowning.

“Five minutes with her. Help me, Buttercup. Five minutes with Melody, it’s all I ask.”

“Leon, you hurt her,” she told me. “Melody would have forgiven you for kissing Amy if you had just come clean and said you were sorry. But you waited too long. She’s moved on. She doesn’t trust you anymore.”

“So you won’t help me?”

“You treated her like poop, Leon.” Buttercup was the only teenager I knew who still said “poop.”

I got up to leave. The nicest girl at Zummer thought I was an asshole. Another door shut in my face.

“Leon?” Buttercup was rolling her magazine in her lap.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe you should try to meet Melody at her work. Maybe…I dunno, at least there she couldn’t walk away.”

“Since when does Melody have a job?”

“Since last week. She’s trying to earn some spending money for her scholars trip this summer. I think she works today.”