Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath (17 page)

“Did I screw around? He's the one who screwed around on me, but somehow this is all my fault.”

“Dickhead. What a total dickhead.”

Finally, I think I'm ready. Nicole leans over the seat, steadies herself by digging her nails into my right shoulder,
and smiles at me. She looks like she is trying to remember who I am, but maybe she's just trying to focus.

“Tricky clutch,” she tells me.

Although this does not seem like good news, it actually gives me an excuse for stalling several times before we make it to the first stop sign. Danielle gives me directions, still focused more on relating the details of the evening to Nicole. I concentrate on shifting the gears.

The roads are nearly empty and it's mostly a straight shot down the parkway. I try to relax a little, shifting my posture so I don't look quite so much like a driving plank.

“Why are guys such jerks?” Danielle grumbles. Then she seems to remember I'm there. “Except Mitch. Mitch is a sweetheart.”

“He's cute, too,” adds Nicole. Suddenly I'm a puppy in the window.

Danielle shifts in her seat so she's facing but not talking to me. “Look, you've embarrassed him.” Am I still in this car?

“I don't think I'm the reason he's turning all red. Why don't you go out with Mitch?” Nicole breaks into giggles again.

“Do you want to go out with me, Mitch?”

I'd love to. I'd die to. “I guess so,” I say.

“I guess so,” Danielle mimics. “Some enthusiasm. Oh, turn here. No, at the light, there we go. Then the first driveway.”

The first driveway leads up a small hill, past a gazebo to
a small mansion with columns. The Porsche sputters to a stop behind Danielle's orange BMW.

We haul Nicole out of the car and I hand her the keys. She hugs Danielle good-bye and waves at me, an awkward gesture from a distance of four feet. She then trudges up purposefully to her door, fumbles with the key, waves again, and pushes her way inside.

Danielle shakes her head and I follow her to her car. I want to tell her that I'll just walk home, but I know it would take me hours.

Car lurches and sways,
lost in the high seas in storm.
Thanks for the ride home
.

“Where do you live?”

I give her directions and she peels out of the driveway. She is, perhaps, the worst driver I have ever ridden with. We run stop signs, we swerve from shoulder to median, we brake suddenly without apparent cause. She looks as if she's concentrating, but the car lurches and sways as if lost on the high seas in a storm. By the time my house comes into view, I'm hyperventilating.

“Thanks for the ride home,” I say as I reach for the door handle.

“Oh, thanks for driving Nicole's car. That was really sweet.” Her tone is sincere, but she looks distracted. “Mitch, are you and Amanda, you know, serious?”

I want to ask why she's asking, but I don't. Amanda
and I never dated, barely spoke to each other, and, in all likelihood, will never speak to each other again. I don't explain any of this. I just say, “No.”

She smiles again, but it's her practiced one. There's something else happening in her eyes.

“Good night,” I say, and this time I get out of the car.

“Night,” she responds, and the car jerks to life as the door closes. I watch it swing wildly around the cul-de-sac. She waves as she accelerates past me.

I wave back.

Why would clowns want to juggle sea shells?

In that same health class that suggested note cards as a great way to ask someone out on a date, we were also given a chart showing all the basic emotions. We had to memorize them. There were ten: anger, contempt, disgust, distress, fear, guilt, interest, joy, shame, and surprise. All Clowns Do During Free Get-togethers Is Juggle Sea Shells. I may not be in touch with my feelings, but I can name them.

Guilt

It's Sunday morning, and my house is preternaturally quiet. It's actually almost Sunday afternoon, so I'm guessing that I'm the last one up. There are signs of breakfast: dirty dishes on the table, on the counter, and in the sink. The stove is several inches thick with pancake batter.

I seem to be alone. I scout around for the note. There's
always a note. It would be helpful if the note were always left in the same place, but it never is. I find today's on the living-room sofa.

“Dearest,” it begins. I assume that I'm “dearest.” Mom calls both of her children “dearest,” which makes it a dubious superlative and a non-specific greeting. “Dad is rounding at the hospital. We, the Wells females, went shopping. You were asleep. We knew you wouldn't want to go, so we didn't wake you up. I think that was the right decision. Mom.”

Am I supposed to feel grateful or guilty for sleeping in? I choose grateful. I ponder returning to bed.

The phone rings. This is becoming the busiest weekend of my life. I know it's David, and though I'm not sure what I'll say to him about my ride home, I pick up the phone.

“Hi, Mitch.”

It's Danielle.

Surprise

There is a pause here where I should be saying hi.

“It's Danielle,” says Danielle.

“I know,” I say. “Hi.”

“Um, I was wondering whether you want to go for a walk or something. It's a nice day and I, um, just wanted to know if you wanted to go for a walk or something.”

She's not particularly good at this. She sounds nervous, like she called without knowing what she was going to say. Maybe not everybody uses note cards.

“Sure. I'd love to.”
I'd love to
. Hardly casual.

“I'll come pick you up. Are you free now?”

I nod, but I realize she can't hear that, so I manage another “Sure.” She says great and we say bye. I hang up the phone.

I'm so confused. I need someone to tell me what's going on. I need advice. I need a shower!

I don't know where Danielle lives, but given the speed at which she drives, I know I don't have much time. I take the quickest shower of my life, dousing myself with shampoo and rinsing off. My skin smells like Head & Shoulders. I spray on my deodorant. The can is almost empty. In a panic, I decide that all of the real ingredients are used up and I'm just spraying the propellant, so I race upstairs and use my dad's roll-on. Then I decide that I've now transferred his sweat to my pits: I run back downstairs and wash my underarms with a soapy washcloth. Feeling calmer about the state of my primary sweat glands, I forgo shaving and run a comb through my tangled hair. My old cowlick has reappeared in the middle of my new haircut, only today it looks like the cow's tongue was covered in glue. Nothing will make that lock of hair lie flat, and I'm debating scissors when the doorbell rings.

Fear

I'm still naked.

Danielle is on my front porch and I'm naked.

I look at myself in the mirror. I'm naked. I don't move. The doorbell rings again.

It takes every ounce of energy for me to yell up the stairs, “Coming.” She, no surprise, can't hear that. The doorbell rings again.

I run to the bedroom. There's a pair of underwear, jeans, and a T-shirt lying on the floor. I put them on as fast as I can, and I run up the stairs. I am at the door before I realize that these are the clothes I wore to the party last night. They smell like sweat and cigarette smoke. I am about to run back downstairs, but …

“Mitchell?”

She must have heard me coming to the door.

I open the door.

“I need to change clothes,” I tell her.

“Hi,” she says.

We look at each other. She smiles. It occurs to me that she must smile whenever she's uncomfortable. Like camouflage. She suddenly seems almost human, and I find enough voice to ask, “Would you like to come in?”

Disgust

She smiles again. I realize, belatedly, that she can't come in unless I move out of the doorway. As we walk into the living room, I also realize that our house is a total wreck. Not messy, not unkempt, but demolition rubble. There is stuff everywhere. Jackets and sweaters drape the furniture, dog
hair rolls like tumbleweeds across the wood floor. I believe this is the first time I've ever noticed dust.

“I was in the shower,” I explain, and then blush. Implying that I was recently naked while she was in close proximity flusters me. “I threw this on because you were … here.”

She smiles again. I begin to sense that this isn't going well.

“I'll be right back,” I tell her and practically run down the stairs.

I put on clean underwear, a fresh pair of jeans, and a polo shirt. It takes me longer than usual to get dressed. Even knowing that I left her upstairs waiting, it takes me forever.

Shame, then anger

When I come back upstairs, Danielle isn't alone.

“When did you get home?”

“Just now. You didn't tell me you were having company,” Mom yells from the kitchen, as if the kitchen were far enough away to necessitate yelling. “You could have offered her something to eat.”

Unlike a lot of teenagers, I really do love my family. They are, however, the most embarrassing group of misfits ever to walk this planet and, at this moment, I would happily trade them in for a tribe of chimps. Then it gets worse. My dad comes home.

“Hi. Who are you?” he asks, setting down his briefcase. I don't think he means this to sound unfriendly, but it is definitely more CIA than Miss Manners.

“I'm Danielle,” she answers, “I'm a friend of Mitch's.”

“Since when?”

Dad is always this tactless, it's just how he talks, but today I could strangle him. Danielle looks to me for help, but I can't think of an appropriate response. I'm too busy withering in humiliation.

As Danielle starts to explain that we've been in the same classes all year, Carrie stomps through on the way to the kitchen. We all stop and watch her. She doesn't even acknowledge Danielle's presence on the couch. Carrie opens the refrigerator, pulls out a Diet Pepsi, and returns to her room trailing sullen silence. I get the feeling that she may not like Danielle.

In compensation for Carrie's rudeness and Dad's awkward questions, Mom is fawning. She has placed cookies on a plate and is listing drink options.

“We have to go,” I say, loudly and abruptly.

“Go where?” Dad asks.

“Out.” The desperation in my voice is obvious, but only Mom picks up on it.

“I think Mitch is trying to tell us to stop harassing his date.”

Date? I don't look at Danielle for her reaction, but instead manage a “That would be nice,” in what I hope
sounds like a lighthearted familial tone and not a pained plea for cessation.

“I was just asking,” Dad starts, but Mom drags him toward the hall.

Interest

Danielle and I go for a walk on the Granger easement, near school. I'm only partly there. Or perhaps, the Mitchell I think of myself as isn't there at all. And she's not Danielle, not the Danielle of my fantasy, not the Danielle I see in school. It occurs to me that I've never really heard her talk much before. Her voice is a little squeaky and she moves her arms around as she talks—not just her hands, but the whole length of her arms, from the shoulders to the fingertips. She talks in half questions, which she also answers, requiring very little of me.

“Like, what kind of an idiot volunteers for the prom committee? That would be me. They all want to do ‘A Night in Paris' for the theme. I mean, could they come up with a lamer, more overdone theme? Not likely. So I suggested Venice. At least it's another city, right?”

Somehow she segues from the prom to her breakup with Ryan and how she thought she was in love and how she thought everyone really liked her, and something I don't quite follow about how she is tired of being popular and how it makes you shallow, but I wouldn't know about that because I'm not shallow (and, by implication, not popular).

“You're really easy to talk to. Have you always been such a sweetheart? It must be your sister. I wish I had a sister. I'm an only child. Big surprise, huh?”

We sit down. Danielle seems to have run out of steam.

“I'm totally boring and self-obsessed, right?”

“No,” I say, trying a little chuckle that might mean “How could you think such a thing?” It's not very convincing. I am not a good chuckler.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Who are you? What do you like to do? I think we have been in the same classes since we were little kids, and I don't know anything about you. How does that happen?”

I think for a moment. The question has caught me off guard. “I don't know,” I say.

“You always seem so quiet—but you can tell there's something going on in there somewhere. You always say really smart things in class, not just show-off smart but, like, thoughtful things. You think. Whenever you talk I'm always like, wow—yeah, but I never would have come up with it myself.

“And you watch me. No, don't blush. Not in a bad way, but you do. I think you watch everyone. Every once in a while in English class, I look over and you are watching me and I'm thinking—what is he seeing when he looks at me like that? But then I'm like, no—he's not
interested in me, he's just thinking. But maybe I'm wrong?”

With that she leans over and kisses me softly on the mouth.

Surprise, again

I have no idea how to respond. With the exception of those seventh-grade lip bumps, I've never kissed anyone. Danielle smiles and kisses me again, this time not so softly, her lips a little farther apart like maybe she's trying to inhale my lips. When we separate, she looks up at me almost shyly, then more or less attaches herself to my face.