Girl Meets Boy (6 page)

“You’ve got a bad habit there,” he says.

“I told you. I get hungry.”

“Can’t imagine there’s much nutritional value in fingernails.”

Alex laughs.

“LOL,” says Max, and he smiles—not at his own joke but at the sound of Alex’s laughter. “I knew you’d have a laugh like that,” he tells her.

“You thought I was a boy,” she says back.

“Yeah. A boy with a goof-ball laugh.”

“Thanks a lot,” she says.

“Hey, I like it. Honest.”

They return their gaze to the table, staring at their own hands for a time, fiddling with their napkins and silverware, waiting for the food to come. He starts to speak, but then figures he may as well let her do the talking. This is her game, after all; she’s the one with the rulebook.

“I needed to see you with my eyes,” she says at last.

“As opposed to, what? Your nose?”

She doesn’t laugh this time. “As opposed to my imagination. I needed to know you were real.”

Max looks up from the table and into Alex’s eyes. He tries to connect the person across from him to the person he’s been
talking to every night for weeks. That person started feeling like his best friend; this person is a total stranger.

“So how real are
you?
” he asks at last. “I still don’t get it, okay? Were you looking for a boyfriend? I mean, talk about looking for love in all the wrong places.”

“I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend,” Alex says, blushing. “I was looking for answers.”

“Did you find them?”

Alex bites her lip again. Max thinks,
definite oral fixation.
But then he thinks what courage it must have taken for her to come here tonight.

“How’d you get here, anyway?” he says as Sally puts their food in front of them, her hands still unsteady as she asks, “Can I get you guys anything else?”

He tells her no thanks, and Sally moves slowly, dreamily away.

In the distance, the man with the hunting cap has folded his arms over his belly. He stares right through the woman across from him as if she isn’t there. The woman has her head turned toward the window. Even from where he sits, Max can make out her unblinking eyes looking vacantly back at her.

Alex slathers her burger with ketchup, takes a bite the size of all outdoors, and says, “Rode my bike.”

“You rode your bike? There are crazy drivers on this road at night. You got reflectors?”

“I come here all the time,” Alex reminds him, mid-bite. “Any-way, I got reflectors. And don’t worry, Mom. I got a helmet, too.”

Max’s stomach takes a little turn. The way she says that sounds just like the Alex he knows, the one he
thought
he was meeting.

“So did you get the answers you needed?” he asks again.

Her mouth full, she nods. “All except seeing you,” she says when she can speak. “I mean, you could’ve been anybody. A mass murderer or that guy over there with his hairy beer gut sticking out because he can’t even get his shirt to stay down. Ugh, that is so gross. Or—”

“Or a girl.”

Alex blushes for a second time. “But you’re not any of those things. You’re the same nice guy you seemed like online. And that’s what I needed to know. I’ve got my reasons.”

“Which I have the feeling you are not going to share with me. Why is that, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Alex puts down her burger and takes a long swig of her cherry coke. She turns her head and stares at the man in the far booth.

Turning back, she goes, “That guy over there?”

Max nods.

“He looks a lot like my dad. I wasn’t kidding when I told you I hate him. My old man, I mean. He’s a bully son of-a-bitch, and I wish he’d drop dead. I’d kill him myself if I could figure out how to get away with it.”

Max starts to object, but Alex doesn’t let him.

“How would you like it if you had a father who was drunk half the time and called his own daughter a piece of ass, who treated his wife like she was his slave and his whore? How would you feel if you were the son of a father like that?”

“I wouldn’t like it,” Max says.

“Wouldn’t like it?”

“I’d hate it.”

“Yeah, faggot, you’d hate it, all right.”

“Hey!”

“That’s what he’d call you. He’d call you faggot and pussy and piece of shit. He’d tell you that you had arms like a girl’s and he could snap ’em in two if he had a mind to. He’d make you go hunting and fishing and play football and other stuff you don’t like and aren’t any good at, and if you didn’t do them, he’d use you for his personal punching bag.”

Alex’s hands have turned into fists. Her meal sits half-eaten, forgotten. She stares at the man across the diner until finally he turns and scowls at her, and she looks away, back at Max, who doesn’t know what to say.

“My house is like a prison,” she tells him, “and my dad is the warden. Maybe I just needed to find somebody nice to talk to. Maybe that’s what I was looking for along with answers.”

She picks up an onion ring, then puts it back down on her plate. “They get cold fast,” she says. “Listen, Max, I’m sorry I messed with your mind, and I’m sorry if I ruined this big evening you had planned.”

It’s Max’s turn to blush. “All I wanted was to meet you,” he says. “Or to meet the guy I thought was you.”

“Maybe you still will.”

“Huh?”

“Who knows? It could happen. I better go,” she says, nervous all of a sudden. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a few wrinkled ones.

“I’ll get it,” Max tells her.

Ignoring him, she drops the money on the table. “Really, I better get back. He’s out with Ray tonight. He never gets home before eleven, but it would be just my luck …”

“Do you want to talk—online, I mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know.” She leans across the table and kisses Max lightly on the cheek. “You’re just who I hoped you would be.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, thank you for caring that I have reflectors on my bike.”

She looks back at him from the door of the diner, bumping into Sally as she turns. Sally’s hand moves protectively to her own belly.
Maybe she is married,
Max thinks, hoping that if she is, it isn’t to somebody like Alex’s father.

The man in the hunting cap snaps his fingers. “Sally!” he calls out. “How about a check, huh?”

The woman sitting opposite him continues to stare out the window, her reflection staring back at her like a ghost.

Max doesn’t hear from Alex again. She’s no longer a regular in the chat room, and when he tries to e-mail her, his e-mails come back, undeliverable. He doesn’t know her last name or where exactly she lives. He has to laugh when he thinks of all the information she got out of him, even his phone number, and how little she told him about herself. Half of what she did tell was lies, stories about a boy named Alex.

Max gives up on the chat rooms, goes back to being lonely.

Then one night a few weeks later, the phone rings. It is someone named Cal asking for Max.

“My sister told me I should call you,” he says. “She wouldn’t tell me how you met, but she sure knows a lot about you. She says we have a lot in common and we should get together. I don’t know, I mean, do you want to?”

“Meet?”

“Yeah.”

“Great.”

“Do you know the Arrowhead Diner?”

“Who doesn’t?” Max says. “They’re famous for their fries.”

Cal laughs. Max gets a chill from the sound of it. He swears he’s heard that laugh before.

And, of course, in a way, he has.

Alex pulled the curtain shut over the door to her room, as if a thin piece of cloth was enough to keep out the sound of her brothers’ arguing. Why, she wondered, didn’t Cal give it up? He’d never get James to change his mind anyway. Discussing it just gave James an excuse to act mad and mean, the personality he’d inherited from their dad and was beginning to enjoy.

“I don’t understand how you can treat anybody like that, much less somebody you once
loved,
” Cal said as he broke eggs into a bowl on the table.

“I never said I loved her! Jesus, Cal, you sound like Mom used to—everything is supposed to be a big romance. I slept with her, that’s all. There was no love involved.”

“I don’t think she’d say that.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what she’d say!” James peered into the bowl. “If you’re making eggs again, at least put some bacon or ham or something in them. I’m sick of those faggy
omelets
with a few strings of mozzarella cheese.”

“I’m frying bacon on the side,” Cal said, and to prove it, took a huge slab of pork fat out of the fridge. “Alex, can you come out here and make some salads?” he called to the curtain.

Alex sighed and put down the book she hadn’t been reading anyway, but she didn’t get up immediately.

gotta go, she typed into the computer.

ok, Max answered. can you talk later tonight?

> i think so. 8:30?

> i’ll be here.

Alex wished this was one of the nights James had to work and her dad wasn’t expected home until late. Those nights she and Cal could have real conversations at dinnertime, about important things. Sometimes they even talked about their mother and where they thought she might be.

James was stalking around the kitchen, pounding his fist on the countertops. “You just don’t get it, Cal. This is the kind of trick women pull on guys all the time. They get themselves pregnant and then they expect you to marry ‘em. Well, I’ve got a surprise for
her.
”

“Oh, she got
herself
pregnant. I didn’t realize that,” Cal said. James glared at him.

Alex heard the truck pull into the backyard and came barreling through the curtain. “Shut up! Dad’s home!”

“I don’t care if he is,” James said, but he sat down at the
kitchen table and bent his head over his textbook. He was learning to be an electrician, slowly.

Alex rummaged through the refrigerator and came up with half a head of lettuce and a red onion. “Is this all we have? No tomatoes or anything?”

Cal shook his head. “The good ones are done for the season.”

“I don’t want that rabbit food anyway,” James said, just as the door banged open, letting in a warm breeze and Jim Bellarose, his face flushed already from the two hours of drinking he’d managed to squeeze in since leaving the factory.

“Who’s having rabbit food? Not me. I want a piece of meat for a change. Doesn’t anybody in this house know how to cook a piece of meat?”

In fact, none of them did. Since Jim’s wife, Cindy, had run off the year before—”disappeared like a thief” was how he put it—they’d eaten mostly what Cal figured out how to make. He didn’t mind the cooking, only the complaining.

“What’s wrong with you, missy?” Jim looked at his only daughter. “You’re old enough to be learning how to cook a god-damn meal around here once in a while. It’s a woman’s job, I don’t care what anybody says. Men who cook are queer as a three-dollar bill,” he said, staring into the bowl of eggs and milk Cal was mixing up.

“That’s an old-fashioned idea, Dad,” Alex said. “I mean, lots of guys—”

“Are you talking back to me? You are a big know-it-all, missy, and that’s why you ain’t ever gonna get a man interested in you.” He poked his finger into her back and ground it in hard. “Even boys your age don’t want that back talk. You hear me?” He ground harder.
“You hear me?”

Alex hated having to agree with him on anything, but she knew he’d poke her and hound her all evening if she didn’t give in. “Yes, I
hear
you, Dad. I hear you.”

“No man’s gonna want you, and no woman’s gonna want this here pansy of a brother of yours. I’ll be stuck with the both a yous the rest of my damn life.”

Oh, no you won’t,
Alex thought. Not if I can help it.

James snickered, and their father stalked off to his bedroom to pull off his steel-toed boots. Cal and Alex communicated with their eyes, as they always had around the other two. They told each other
I’m sorry
and
He’s crazy,
the way they’d learned from their mother.

Cal sometimes talked to Alex about being gay, but she didn’t really understand all of it. Oh, she understood that her brother was attracted to men and not to women, but she didn’t really appreciate how that affected him day to day. Nor did she understand why some people hated homosexuals and called them stupid, insulting names. Her brother Cal was the nicest person Alex knew, and probably the smartest person too. Most people seemed to like Cal, even though he kept to himself after school and never hung around with the other seniors like he could have. He told her once that they were nice to him because he didn’t try to hang with them, but she didn’t want to believe that.

When Alex first found the gay chat room online, she only intended to “listen” in, not chat with anybody. She wanted to know if other gay people were like Cal, picked on and kind of lonely. She wondered if there were other teenage boys who would understand her brother’s problems better than she could. Maybe she could get some ideas from them about how they coped with a miserable father who called them things like
pansy
and
faggot.

The talk was fascinating. Yes, people did talk about their parents, but also about the girls they pretended to like, the boys they had crushes on, the teachers who helped them and the ones who sneered, the friends who supported them and the ones who acted like they had the plague, their sex lives or lack thereof, and what they hoped might happen to them in the future. For the younger people, the future was everything. It offered the enormous hope that they could stop pretending to be somebody they weren’t. Sometimes it meant they’d be old enough to run away from the people who were tormenting them. And almost always it meant their life could finally, really begin.

The more she logged into the chat room, the more Alex began to understand how Cal felt. Strangely, she began to feel that she really knew some of these people, though she’d only heard them “talk” online. One boy in particular, Max, caught her attention. Often he said something that reminded her of Cal, and she started thinking how much the two of them would like each other. Finally, one evening, she responded to something Max wrote. When she signed herself
Alex,
she wasn’t even thinking about fooling him, but when he wrote her back and asked if she wanted to go into a private chat room with him, it was obvious he thought she was male. Alex didn’t correct this mistake. At first, she was embarrassed about lying to Max, but then she decided she was doing it for Cal and that made it okay.

Within a few weeks, Max and Alex were discussing everything—their parents, their schools, their friends, their need to talk to someone like themselves. Alex found she could make jokes with Max and he got them. He was funny too, and kind, it seemed. He was the closest thing to a best friend she’d ever had. Or rather, he was the closest thing to a best friend
Cal
had ever had. Because
most of the time Alex answered the questions as if she were Cal. But sometimes she forgot who she was supposed to be and answered as herself. Max didn’t seem to notice, but sometimes Alex got so confused about who she was and who she was talking to—her brother? her boyfriend? her brother’s best friend?—that she’d tell Max she had to study and get off the computer.

When it turned out that Max lived ten miles away from her, Alex got nervous. What would happen now? If he wanted to meet her—well, he wouldn’t want to meet
her.
She would have to figure something out. Maybe she would have to tell Cal. But not yet. Not yet.

“Hey, I stopped by the Arrowhead after work,” Jim Bellarose said as he ripped chicken meat from a crispy leg. Cal had gone to KFC and brought home a barrel of chicken and a tub of mashed potatoes just so he wouldn’t have to listen to the complaining for one night.

James was stuffing potatoes into his mouth but looked up at his father. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Saw your little knocked-up girlfriend. She’s not looking so pretty these days with that big belly on her.”

James shrugged. “Her own damn fault. I thought she was on the pill.”

“Did she tell you that?” Cal asked.

“I never asked her, smart-ass. I assumed anybody who wasn’t stupid as dog crap would automatically be taking it.”

“You can’t count on women,” Jim Bellarose growled. “You can never count on ‘em.”

Alex stirred the gravy around in the middle of her mashed potatoes until she’d made a swamp. She’d always liked Sally, but now Sally wouldn’t even speak to her. She hated the whole family, and who could blame her?

James rifled through the chicken barrel until he found a fat breast. “We should have this every night. This is a whole lot better than the junk Cal makes.”

Cal wiped his fingers on a napkin and stood up, taking his plate to the sink. “Thanks a lot. I’m the only one around here who even
thinks
about feeding anybody else but himself.”

Jim laughed. “Oh, now you hurt his feelings, Jamie. He’s gonna cry. Boo-hoo!”

James snorted. “He gets his feelings hurt every five minutes.”

When Cal walked out of the room, Alex got up too, her plate swimming in gloppy potatoes.

“Where you going, missy?” her father said. “You left a pile of food on that plate.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“Give it to me,” James said, and grabbed the plate out of her hand.

“You running back to your room to play with that expensive toy your mother talked me into buying you? Every night, that’s all you do is bang around on that computer. Where you think that’s gonna get you, huh? Not gonna get you a boyfriend, that’s for sure. Boys don’t want some smarty-pants who thinks she’s too good for ‘em.”

“Some boys like smart girls,” Alex said.

“No, they don’t,” James said, as though he were the final authority on the matter. “They just pretend to so they can get laid once in a while.”

But Jim Bellarose didn’t laugh. He was staring at Alex now. “You’re not a
bad
-looking girl, really. Not a bad piece of ass at all. Your problem is, you just can’t keep from running your mouth. Just like your mother.”

Every time the words
your mother
came out of Jim Bellarose’s big mouth, it made Alex want to cry. She missed her so much. How could she have left Alex here with her father and James? Of course, Alex had Cal. Maybe that’s what her mother had been thinking—that the two of them could save each other.

Alex took her milk glass to the sink and began to run hot water for the dishes. She
would
save Cal, if she could, and then maybe he’d save her too.

“What happened to that tall hippie kid you were hanging around with for a while? Cory somebody?” James asked. “Did he have the hots for you, or something?”

“Cody,” Alex said. “Cody Marker. I was helping him with math.” She plunged her arms into the hot water and shivered as it heated her all the way up her spine. She had wondered herself if Cody’s interest in her might have to do with something other than schoolwork, but it hadn’t panned out that way. It never did. Once Kendra Graham started flirting with him, he didn’t seem so interested in Alex’s ability to explain geometry.

“Math!” James practically choked. “The way to a man’s heart is through arithmetic! That’s a new one!”

Jim Bellarose shook his head. “I tell you. How old are you, Alex? Sixteen? I had half a dozen girlfriends by that age. You better not turn out an old maid.”

“I’m not sixteen until next month,” Alex said.

“Oh, right,” Jim said. “We’re planning a big surprise birthday party, aren’t we, Jamie?” He reached across the table to poke his son’s biceps. “Where we invite a buncha really horny
boys!
”

The two of them laughed like fools.

Alex said nothing. She finished the dishes, walked behind the curtain, and signed into the chat room. There was Max.

want to meet, she typed. Sure, it was risky, downright scary, actually, but what other choice was there? She had to see him, to know he was real, to know there was somebody out there who was different from her father and James. Somebody who was like her. Like her and Cal.

As she rode her bike along the highway to the Arrowhead, she was wishing there had been someplace else close by for them to meet. Her dad had said Sally was working tonight; it would be awkward if they didn’t speak to each other. But she hadn’t wanted to ask Cal for a ride. He would have had too many questions.

Max had said “YES!” as soon as she asked about meeting him. He’d been wanting to, obviously. Was he nervous too? He couldn’t possibly be as scared as she was. What if he wasn’t who he said he was, either? What if he was a big jerk? Or an old guy? Or a … girl? That would be something, wouldn’t it? Or what if he just didn’t show up at all? Which would be worse? She had no idea, but she slowed down so as not to get there first.

She breathed deeply and threw open the diner door. It didn’t take more than a brief glance around the room to find him. He looked just the way he’d described himself: raggedy blond hair, rimless glasses, skin too pale for the end of a hot summer. And very nervous.

She walked to the table. “Max?” He stared up at her, not figuring it out, of course, even after she opened her coat and showed him the shirt that said I’M ONE OF THE PEOPLE YOUR MOTHER WARNED YOU ABOUT. “I’m Alex,” she said.

She’d never seen anybody look so thrown for a loop, and it made her feel lousy. Max was obviously very disappointed. He wouldn’t have been disappointed if Cal had come. He was expecting Cal.

There were some awkward moments as she sat down across from him and answered his questions. Yes, her name was Alex—Alexis, really. No, she wasn’t seventeen (although Cal was), but she was almost sixteen. He kept staring at her as if the answer to the
big
question would be written on her face somewhere. Finally she told him she was hungry, which was suddenly true. She wanted to eat something that wasn’t chicken poisoned by cruelty.