Playing with Matches (8 page)

14

CAPÍTULO CATORCE: MI TÍO ESTA ENFERMO, PERO LA CALLE ES VERDE

M
onday morning I sat in the cafeteria, desperately trying to finish the trig homework I’d forgotten about over the weekend. Samantha sat next to me, reading and occasionally smirking at my efforts.

All Sunday I had tried not to think about what had happened out at the lock and dam. Not because it had been unpleasant. It had been a little
too
pleasant. It was the kind of thing a guy could get used to if he wasn’t careful. If I didn’t watch myself, I could wind up in trouble.

Melody had given me an easy out. She’d said she’d never tell anyone. No one would know I’d kissed Melody. We were just a couple of friends who had gotten caught up in the moment.
And that’s all.

Only that wasn’t all. I was the first guy Melody had ever kissed. And no matter how many times she said it didn’t mean anything, it did mean something. Now every time we sat across from each other at lunch, every time we exchanged jokes at our lockers, every time we saw each other, we’d remember how our tongues had touched.

I’d kissed the ugliest girl in school on purpose. What if someone found out? Girls weren’t known for their ability to keep secrets.

But did I want to keep it a secret? I could go back to no dates, no girlfriend, no kisses. I could hang out with Melody and pine over Amy and be just as miserable as before. Melody was mine for the asking. But I wasn’t sure if I was ready to ask just yet.

I looked down at the unreadable mess that was my homework. With any luck I’d get a D for effort.

“Hi, Leon,” I heard Melody say as she crept up to our table.

“Hey.” I rapidly scribbled out the final problem. I didn’t trust myself to look at her. What if, here in the sterile lights of school, I still thought she was gross-looking?

“What’s black and white and red all over?” Melody asked.

“Heard it,” I replied, still not looking up. “Two nuns in a chainsaw fight.”

“I was thinking of a newspaper, actually.”

“Yeah, but…” I stopped when I got my first look at her. Melody had hair! Real, actual long brown hair! It was a wig, of course, but you really couldn’t tell.

I didn’t realize I was staring until Samantha kicked me under the table.

“Melody! You look great!”

She smiled and for once maintained eye contact. “It was my birthday present from my parents. Second-nicest thing I got. You really like it?”

“You look great.”

She fluffed her hair. “I have to go get my stuff. See you at lunch.”

“You look great.”

I stared at her departing figure until Samantha kicked me again. She kicked hard, and I wasn’t sure she really had been aiming for my shin.

“Ow! What the hell?”

She hadn’t looked up from her novel. “Leon, you need to knock it off.”

“Pretend I’m as clueless as you always say I am. Knock what off?”

She carefully marked her place and closed the book. “Flirting with Melody. I know you get a kick out of it when girls pay attention to you, but Melody thinks you really like her.”

Was I that obvious? “Samantha, we’re just friends. Melody listens to me. And strangely, she doesn’t constantly remind me of how dumb and ugly I am. For some reason, I enjoy that.”

Samantha eyeballed me. When she was angry, I half expected her to pull out a paddle and tell me to bend over.

“Did you enjoy running off into the bushes with her Saturday night?”

I guess it was naive of me to think the gang would assume we’d been on a nature walk.

“Mind your own business.” Maybe Melody was more than a friend, but I sure didn’t owe any explanations to Samantha.

“Leon.” Her voice was softer. “It’s not my business. But a girl like Melody isn’t used to guys taking an interest in her. And next time you go drooling over Amy Green or whoever, Melody’s going to feel really ugly. Don’t do that to her.”

Señor Lopez Lopez, my Spanish teacher, was born in El Salvador. He had fled the country in the early eighties to escape the civil war. With nothing more than the clothes on his back, he had walked all the way to Texas. He had been assaulted by Guatemalan drug runners and mugged by Mexico City cops, and nearly drowned crossing the Rio Grande. He learned English while working illegally on a California farm, whose owner forced him to work fourteen-hour days (the other option being deportation). Sr. Lopez Lopez became a citizen when a general amnesty was declared, and earned his college degree while working as a dishwasher in Los Angeles.

Every year someone made the mistake of asking him why he gave so much homework. They’d get his life story in return. After that, no one felt inclined to complain about the workload.

Sr. Lopez Lopez was reviewing the study guide for a test we were apparently having the next day. My thoughts were elsewhere. Hell, it wasn’t like I could understand my teacher anyway; sometimes it was like he was speaking a foreign language.

I was pretty pissed at Samantha for sticking her gargantuan nose in my affairs, and even more annoyed because she’d been so dead-on right. I did get my rocks off on the way Melody admired me. And unless I was willing to make out with Johnny or Rob, I couldn’t really say we were
just
friends anymore. I couldn’t even say I really wanted to be just friends.

But not everything was black and white either. One kiss (or one night of kissing) wasn’t a cause for commitment. I probably had too high of an opinion of myself. Maybe Melody was just as confused and uncertain as I was.

Of course, I wasn’t exactly
un hombre amoroso.
For all I knew, Melody might be writing
Mrs. Leon Sanders
in her notebook. Sr. Lopez Lopez directed us all to do something: either break into study groups or take off our shoes and make duck noises. I was bending down to unlace when someone scooted his desk next to mine.

I turned to see the acne-free, lantern-jawed, five o’clock–shadowed face of Dylan. The guy who’d humiliated me more than anyone else in my life. The guy whose memory had caused me to cry over the weekend. And here he was, wanting to study.

On some other plane of existence, God laughed.

I’d made it a point never to acknowledge him this whole semester. Apparently, he didn’t remember our past. How could you call someone a faggot and spit on him, then expect to review verb tenses a mere five or six years later?

Dylan read our instructions, his lips moving silently. “Dude, what’s a subjunctive mode?”

I’d take the high road. “It’s a tense you use when describing something that might possibly happen.”
You stupid monkey.

“Huh?”

“Look at any Spanish sentence. If it has the word
‘que,’
then you probably should use the subjunctive mode.”
Douche bag.

“If you see what?”

“If you see the word
‘que.’
”

“If you see what?”

“If you see
‘que.’
”

“If you see what?”

“If you see
‘que’!
If you see
‘que’
!
If you see
‘que’!”

Sr. Lopez Lopez fixed me with a wrathful gaze. “Leon!”

I suddenly realized what “if you see
‘que’
” sounded like when repeated out loud.

Dylan laughed. “Dude, you totally fell for that.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I wanted to be even more pissed off, but that actually was pretty funny.

“How do you say ‘gotcha’ in Spanish?”

“Pendejo.”

“Dude, I totally
pendejo
!” he said, happily calling himself an asshole.

“I couldn’t agree more. Are we going to study or what?” I had a hard time not smiling.

“This is gay. When are we ever going to use this?” said Dylan, far too loudly. I was afraid we’d invite another “When I was your age, U.S.-backed guerrillas burned my village” speech from Lopez Lopez.

“It’s not too bad,” I countered. “I just finished a ballbuster from Mr. Hamburg. Lucky I had a smart partner.” I smiled, remembering the fun Melody and I had had writing our report…and the fun we’d had Saturday night.

“Who was your partner?” asked Dylan, scratching himself in two places at once.

The bell buzzed, and we gathered our things.

“Melody Hennon.”

Dylan hefted his backpack. “Scarface? Ugh. You should get an A for just having to look at her all that time.” He then made a gagging noise and left.

I sat there, quietly shredding the study guide. That dick wasn’t any different! After all this time, he still was the same shallow, bullying son of a bitch. Nothing had changed.

One thing had changed.

I ran out of class, just in time to see Dylan enter the men’s room. Bolting in, I found him approaching a urinal.

Was I really going to do this?

I grabbed his shoulder. Dylan, who’d been unzipping his fly, turned in shock.

“Um, hi, Leon?” He didn’t seem sure what to make of my getting touchy-feely in the bathroom.

I ground my teeth. My stomach was jumping and I had to pee.

“Dylan,” I said, my voice certainly more confident than I felt. “If you ever call Melody that again…if you ever call her anything again…”

Dylan was not smiling. He roughly shoved me back. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll hurt you.”

And now I would repeat the sixth grade. Now I’d be in for another serious ass beating. Now Dylan would once again prove that he was big and I was small and nothing would change that. All because I didn’t like him calling Melody what everyone else in school called her.

Only that wasn’t what happened. He just stood there, scowling at me.

I was aware we were not alone. Other guys had entered the john. I waited for them to start screaming at Dylan to mess me up.

Nothing but tense breathing. The stench of bleach and crap. A toilet flushing in the adjacent girls’ room.

Suddenly, Dylan barged past me, knocking me into the wall. But that was it. I wasn’t going to spend the next hour picking my teeth up off the floor or washing toilet water out of my hair.

The tardy bell rang, and the loiterers left. I just kind of stood there.

Why had I risked my jaw like that? If Dylan had insulted Rob, or Jimmy, or me, I would have let it go. I might have even joined in. And I was sure Melody had been called worse than Scarface.

But Melody was my friend. Maybe more, but a friend all the same. And not like Rob or Samantha. She had made me cry. She had opened her soul to me. I’d never connected with anyone like that before. And if Melody trusted me with her most secret hurts, I sure as hell was not going to let anyone talk about her like she was some kind of damn cartoon character that people could laugh at.

Even if we never kissed again, I knew that for the first time in my life, I had a best friend. An ally. Someone I could stick up for, and who would stick up for me.

And who, by the way, had an amazing ass.

15

AN ARGUMENT FOR ARRANGED MARRIAGES

T
he poster in the school lobby declared
KISSING A SMOKER IS LIKE KISSING AN ASHTRAY
. A cartoon teen coughed and hacked while a pretty cartoon girl turned away in disgust. Someone had drawn something in the smoker’s mouth: either a bong or a crude sketch of the male anatomy.

It was the morning after I’d confronted Dylan, and I was a little nervous about going to school. Just a little. Still, I avoided my usual breakfast with Samantha, in case Dylan was looking for me.

I watched the hundreds of students pass me by. Dan Dzyan, reading a copy of
The Physicians’ Desk Reference
and laughing. Buttercup, snapping pictures of happy things, like the trophy case and the fire alarm. Bill, stumbling as he attempted to chew gum and walk. Amy…

Amy! She was walking with her chemistry lab partner, a curvy brunette named Cassandra. Amy was wearing a very short skirt, the kind that would ride halfway up her thighs when she was sitting down. She also had on open-toed sandals. From across the lobby I could see each individual red-painted toe.

I was staring. I turned and put a dollar into the soda machine so they wouldn’t realize I was watching them.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amy pointing to me and saying something to Cassandra. They both laughed. Apparently, Amy was nice to me only when no one else was around.

The soda machine spit my bill out like a mocking tongue. I forced it back into the slot.

“Hey, stud muffin.”

That was Amy talking. It took me a second to realize she was talking to me and not the soda machine.

“Hi, Amy.” It was funny; the self-confidence that had made me stand up to Dylan failed me when I tried to be suave around her.

“So I heard you were about to throw down with Dylan yesterday.”

Cassandra was laughing into her hand.

“Who, uh, told you that?” I pictured Dylan waiting for me in an alley somewhere.

“Some guys on the team were talking about it. Said Dylan insulted your friend Melody, and you said you were going to bust his face.”

Hey, I liked this version.

“It didn’t happen
exactly
like that….” I leaned against the vending machine.

Amy laughed. “No kidding, Leon. But it’s nice of you to stick up for your girlfriend like that.”

Crap.
Defending Melody’s honor was one thing. Admitting we were dating was something entirely different.

“You know,” I said with forced casualness, “Melody’s not my girlfriend.”

Cassandra chimed in. “Don’t sell yourself short. I’m sure she likes you. Just give it some more time.”

Thanks, Cassie. Now Amy thinks not only that I like Melody but that I can’t get her to go out with me.

I was about to explain that Melody and I were just friends when Amy’s hand dashed past my head and punched the Diet Coke button. She then bent over and reached between my legs to grab the can. Her shirt was loose enough for me to see the marks her bra straps had left on her shoulders.

She took one swig, very slowly, and handed me the can before leaving. I felt like dumping the soda over my head to cool down, but settled for a drink. The taste of Amy’s lipstick almost covered the bitter aftertaste of the sugar-free cola.

A wise person once said, “If you’re the only one talking, then the conversation is over.” Samantha had apparently never heard this. She’d spent the better part of our lunch talking about some feminist author who’d given a lecture at St. Charles Community College.

“And Ms. Wooten explained how for the past two centuries men have been subjecting women to a constant and unending—”

I raised my hand. “If we all agree that men are responsible for everything that’s wrong in the world, will you stop talking?”

Samantha got huffy. “Excuse me! I’ve always admired Emily Wooten. If you met”—she looked over at the book next to my tray—“H. P. Lovecraft, you’d expect
us
to be impressed!”

“I think we would be impressed,” said Melody. “He’s dead.”

I was impressed. It seemed Melody had heard of H. P. Lovecraft, the author widely regarded as the father of the “aliens keeping a guy’s brain alive in a jar” story.

Johnny was picking his teeth with a fork. “So, Leon. I heard you almost got in a fight yesterday.”

Melody looked at me. “Fight? You didn’t tell me about that. What happened?”

Johnny, in a rare display of tact, realized Melody didn’t need to know about what Dylan had said. “Ah, Leon and Rick Rose were having the old Captain Kirk versus Captain Picard debate.” He mimicked someone fighting with a limp wrist.

Melody didn’t push the issue. Maybe she realized she didn’t want to know.

“Anyway,” I said, trying to move on to another topic, “the new Bart Axelrod movie’s coming out this weekend. Anyone want to go?” Axelrod was an inexplicably popular action-movie star who always seemed to be parodying himself. I’d never forget the movie where he defeated the terrorists, saved the town, got the girl, and then played the bass at a spontaneous rock concert.

“You actually like those movies?” asked Melody. She didn’t seem to want to flat out say we had bad taste.

“Oh, yeah,” said Johnny sarcastically. “We never miss a showing.” We all laughed, thinking of how we’d been kicked out of the theater the last time for our running commentary on Axelrod’s latest masterwork.

“Count me out,” said Rob. “Vanessa’s coming to visit.” Vanessa was one of Rob’s older sisters. I’d occasionally get a rise out of him by saying how hot she was.

“Ben’s coming to town,” said Samantha. “We’d come along with you, but, um, you know.” Ben was her boyfriend, who was a freshman at some college somewhere.

“What, are you embarrassed by us?” I joked.

“More or less.”

“Oh.” So that was why she’d never introduced us.

“Could we make it next week?” asked Johnny. “I got a thing.”

“You know Axelrod’s movies are never in the theaters that long.”

“I’ll go,” chirped Melody. Then, realizing she’d just arranged to go to the movies with me alone, she added, “Or we can do it some other time.”

Samantha shot me a glare, but what of it? Melody was funny and smart. If I could risk my pretty face defending her, why shouldn’t we see a movie together?

Besides, it wasn’t like I’d ever be anything more than Amy’s goofy classmate.

“It’s a date, Melody.”

“Melody ain’t ready yet.” It was Friday, and I was picking up Melody to go to the movie. Her younger brother, Tony, had answered the door.

Tony made no move to invite me in. He just stood there looking at me like I had wronged him somehow.

“Will she be long?” I asked, hoping to get away from him.

“She’s in the shower.”

Showering for a movie? We stared at each other. Tony tilted his head, seeming to make up his mind about something.

“Come with me,” he said, his voice cracking. “I wanna have a man-to-man talk with you.”

I laughed under my breath.
A man-to-man talk? With a thirteen-year-old kid in a heavy metal T-shirt? Give me a break.

We walked along the fence that penned in the horses. Neither of us said anything for a bit.

“So what’s up with you and my sister?” he finally asked.

“What’s up?”

“Are you dating or what?”

How cute. He was probably going to warn me to keep my hands off her. Overprotective kid brother.

“I dunno. Why?”

He stopped. “Because I don’t want you to hurt her. What are you up to?”

I suddenly felt a whole lot less condescending. “Why do you think I’d hurt her?”

“Just look at her, man! She’s seventeen and you’re the first guy who’s ever even called her.”

“Isn’t that her business?”

“You don’t get it, do you? No, of course you wouldn’t. No one has ever been nice to Melody, ever. For years, she’d come home from school crying. She’d never let Mom and Dad know what went on, but I knew. I knew how everyone treated her. I knew the kinds of things they said behind her back…or to her face.”

“Tony…”

“She never had friends. Once, some girls invited her to a sleepover. And then they…they…” Tony was gripping a fence rail so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “It’s not important. Listen, Leon. Melody’s not what you’d call a looker. And now you show up, taking her out on her birthday, and out to movies and stuff. Just what are you after? She’s not going to hop in the sack with you just ’cause you’re nice to her.”

“Tony…Christ. Listen, man. Your sister’s a nice person. I like being with her. That’s all. I can’t guarantee we’ll fall madly in love or anything, but if I go out with her, it’s because I want to. No other reason.”

Melody’s brother stared at me. I regretted my earlier impressions of this kid who had been forced to be the big brother to his older sister. Finally, for the first time since I’d met him, he smiled.

“Okay, Leon,” he said. “Let’s get back. She should be about ready.”

“You have to admit, Melody, you’ve never seen a more realistic movie about a Green Beret turned dance instructor.”

Melody toyed with a strand of her wig. “Maybe, but I pick the movie next time.”

Next time?

I turned down the gravel road where Melody lived. It was dark, well past ten. We’d seen the early showing of
Sudden Fist of Death III
. (Melody hadn’t seen the first two, and I feared she hadn’t followed the plot.) I then treated her to the most expensive food the Taco Barn had to offer.

“I had a good time tonight, Leon.”

“So did I.” I meant it too. The more I hung out with Melody, the more I wanted to. It was kind of funny, but I felt totally at ease with her. More than I did with my other friends. To Samantha, I was a running gag, a living example of all that was wrong with the male race. Around the twins, I was the butt of their jokes, the weird friend they could push around just because they were bigger and more popular. Even Rob sometimes acted like we were friends because we’d always been, not because we had a lot in common.

But when I was with Melody, I could be Leon. Just Leon. I didn’t worry about how I was dressed, or if I was boring her, or that she thought I was a geek. Melody liked being with me. Maybe it worked both ways. Maybe I was the only one who made her feel like more than a face.

Besides, Melody was a cheap date who didn’t seem to mind that I was wearing a Church of the SubGenius T-shirt.

Next time? Probably so.

I stopped in front of Melody’s gate. My engine shuddered violently to a halt.

“Good night, Leon.” She waited quietly, not making a move to get out.

“I’ll walk you up.”

We didn’t touch as we trudged through the humid night air.

“Watch your step, Leon.”

“I can see.”

“No, I mean, the horses are out.”

I began to take more care with where I walked. In the distance, I could see a lone light on in the living room of Melody’s house. Other than that, we were in pure darkness.

“I can’t believe how many stars you can see out here.” It was a little overcast, but you could still clearly see the Milky Way. Back in Oakridge subdivision, you could barely make out the Big Dipper.

“You should see it when it’s less cloudy. C’mere.” She hopped up into the bed of an old pickup that was parked in the yard. I joined her. We leaned against the cab and gazed at the heavens.

I remembered an optical illusion my dad had shown me, and lay down flat in the bed. “Melody, check this out. Lay down next to me.”

She gasped. “Oh, Leon, I can’t do that.”

I suddenly felt like an ass and sat up. “That’s not what I meant!”

She laughed. “It’s not what I meant either. It’s just that…if I lay down, my wig will get dirt in it. It’s not easy to clean.”

I settled back down on my back. “Then take it off.”

There was a pause, and Melody slid down next to me. Her hair lay on her chest. Absently, she stroked it like a pet cat. It occurred to me that maybe she didn’t like having her head uncovered, even around me. I attempted to recover from the gaffe.

“Okay, now look up at the sky. Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Now pretend we’re not looking at the sky. We’re flying above the ocean at night, looking down at those clouds. The stars are the lights of ships.”

Melody didn’t say anything for a while, and I was afraid that maybe I was the only one who could picture the night sky like that. Suddenly, she grabbed my wrist.

“Oh, my God, Leon, you’re right! It’s like we’re flying!”

We lay there for a while, stargazing, holding hands. Slowly, slower than the stars moved across the sky, our faces turned toward each other.

We were there all alone, just the two of us. We stared at each other, knowing we were going to kiss. But we waited, savoring the anticipation. The knowledge that we were close and about to become closer.

Right when I found her lips, we were startled by a glaring light that stunned us like deer on the highway. Ten feet away, Melody’s father stood, shining a high-powered flashlight at us. Even blinded by the beam, I could tell he was not smiling. The honeymoon certainly hadn’t lasted.