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“Hey, man.”

It’s Reshay Pettiford. He’s about six three, wearing a Kobe tank top two hundred times too big for him.

I step away from the big double doors that lead into the cafeteria and the usual lemming suicide stampede. “What’s up?” I ask.

“I want you to put me in your movie. You talked to Debra. You got her side the story. I want you to get my side. She come on to me. She was all, ‘You don’t have to worry. It’s taken care of.’ And the next thing I know, it’s, ‘You my baby daddy. You got to do the right thing.’ You know what I mean, little man. She’s like that Colleen. She’d go with anybody.”

“Colleen’s not that way. She won’t go with just anybody.”

“She went with you.”

“And I’m what? The bottom of the barrel?”

“I’m just saying.”

I look hard at him. He’s either been shooting hoops or he’s scared to death, because he’s dripping sweat. He’s not Native American, but I can guess his origin myth: the earth was without form and void until Phil Jackson came along with the triangle defense and covered part of the earth with highly polished maple.

“The movie you’re talking about is kind of done,” I tell him. “It opened at eight p.m. and closed at ten.”

He grimaces. “Dang. I’ll bet it don’t make me look good.”

“You can see it if you want.”

He shakes his head. “That’s all right. I know it make me out to be the fool.” He wipes his face by pulling up the tank top and using it like a towel. “You gonna do another one?” he asks. “Let everybody else testify?”

I nod. “We’ll see, okay?” That’s an answer I learned from my grandma. It always means there’s no way.

He holds out one fist and I tap it with my good hand. Everybody’s afraid of the other one. Everybody except Colleen.

“Let me have my say when you do, awright?”

He’s through with me then and charges through the doors and heads right for his homies. Somebody whips a basketball to him at what looks to me like almost the speed of light. Reshay charges, dribbling low and hard a couple of times, making tricky moves, ball between his legs, head fake — the whole NBA tryouts package, and right in the corner of the school cafeteria.

To be able to do that. To be agile and dexterous.

I look for an empty table. There are my classmates: Preppy, Sporty, Goth, Emo, Skater, Mansonite, Mean Girl (aka Heather, from
Heathers,
a Michael Lehmann movie I’ve seen about six times).

“So, am I famous yet?”

I turn around and there’s Oliver Atkins, looking like he just stepped out of a Banana Republic ad. As usual.

I tell him, “You missed it.”

He points, so I take a cafeteria tray and shuffle forward while he says, “Why don’t you dice and slice that little movie of yours and put the best parts on YouTube.”

“And your part would be the best part, right?”

“One of, anyway.”

Right in front of me is something in a big pan that looks like curds and whey. I point and wait for the lady in the hairnet to hand it over.

That’s when I see Colleen. She’s wearing a flimsy little dress and trashed motorcycle boots with the laces undone. She’s not lining up for lunch, either. She’s looking around.

I tell Oliver good-bye, put my head down, pay for my lunch, scuttle toward an empty corner, and pretend to eat. I try to act surprised when she sits across from me. Her skin is see-through pale, and everything just stands still for a second.

She says, “I thought I’d test the limits of the word
tardy.
”

I glance at my watch and pretend to be casual. “So far, so good.”

“What were you talking to Reshay about?”

I shrug. “He wants his say if I ever make another documentary.”

“So you’d what? Follow him around with a camera? I can tell you how that’s going to come out. He’ll go to some community college on a little scholarship, flunk out, then come back here and get in trouble.”

I pick at my lunch. Colleen reaches across, takes a little bit between her fingers, inspects it, puts it back.

“Hey,” I tell her. “Go handle your own lunch.”

“Why don’t we cut to the chase here, Ben. How mad are you? And put that fork down before you answer.”

I take a deep breath. “I had to tell my grandma that you had a headache, so your mom picked you up.”

That seems to push her away from the table. “You should switch from documentaries to sci-fi. In what parallel and much more attractive universe would my mother ever pick me up from anywhere?”

“Do you still mean what you said about getting high every now and then?”

She shakes her head. Or maybe moves it ambiguously. “I wouldn’t pay too much attention to anything I say when I’m buzzed.”

We sit for a minute. She always wears this patchouli stuff, and the scent wafts over my mac and cheese. Queen Victoria used patchouli in her linen chests. And how do I know that? Because I Googled everything about Colleen, including the stuff she dabs behind her ears. And other places. Why is that any more pathetic than watching seven movies a day?

I can’t look directly at her. I focus on her hands — the gnawed cuticles, the black, chipped nail polish. I poke at my ice cream, which is still as hard as a meteorite. “What now?” I ask.

“Well, that’s easy. Now I go to a meeting, say, ‘Hello, I’m Stupid and I’ve been clean for forty-eight hours.’ What about you?”

I shake my head and say, “I don’t know.”

“Want to do something after school? Get something to eat, go to a movie, fool around?” She stands up. “I know what. Let’s go to your house. I love your room. It’s unbelievably tidy. How do you do that? I tried dusting once and I hated it. I mean, what’s the point? It’s just dusty again tomorrow.”

I know she wants something, and I don’t care. I’m just glad to see her again. I’m not addicted to drugs, like she is; I’m addicted to her.

I ask. “You seem a little amped.”

She shakes her head. “Caffeine. Not like you mean. So, what do you think?” She points out the window, toward that other world. “Want to get out of here?”

“I’ve got class, Colleen.”

“After, then? I need to talk to you about something.”

Ah, here it comes. “Give me a hint?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to your house? I might have to take a shower. You might have to bring me a towel.”

“How many pages?”

She grins and her teeth seem pointier. “Just three. On Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘Over-Soul.’”

I stand up first. “Well, I’ll tell you what. Because we had such a good time at the gallery the other night, because going to dinner afterward with you and my grandma and Marcie was so much fun, I’ll absolutely help you write your paper.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I made a mistake.”

I put my tray down. “What a crappy thing to do, Colleen. How could —?” But that’s as far as I get before she goes off on me.

“One ‘I’m sorry’ is all you get from me, pal. I apologize, you accept, we move on. That’s it. No lectures, no whining, no raking over the smoldering coals.”

“Well, then maybe you should do your paper by yourself, because I’m still mad.”

“Fine. And maybe you should jerk yourself off with your one functioning hand.”

I can’t stomp off in a huff, so I leave that move to her. I just take my tray to the big aluminum racks. On the way, though, I pass Chana and Molly, girls I interviewed for
High School Confidential.

Molly shakes her finger at me. “You better off without her, Gimpalong.”

I sit through two more classes, I take notes dutifully, I remember to remember the main points. If the teacher calls on me, I answer. Then at three thirty, when school is officially out, I make my way to the parking lot and lean on Colleen’s Volkswagen. The one Ed bought her with money made selling weed.

I don’t quite know what I’ll do if she shows up with Ed or somebody who wants to buy weed or even a girlfriend from detention, but when I spot her, she’s alone. She sees me, too, from kind of a long way off, and she raises one hand. So I wave back.

“Lots of Sturm und Drang, huh?” She puts one hand up and rubs my cheek, and just like that I’m hers. I was, anyway.

I ask, “Did you know that Donder and Blizten mean
thunder
and
lightning
?”

“Santa’s reindeer? No fucking way!”

“Yeah. Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen and Thunder and Lightning.”

“When I was little, my mom told me Rudolph’s nose was red from heavy drinking.”

I reach for her dress and pull her toward me. “So there’s jolly old Saint Nick, but his main reindeer was alcoholic?”

She leans into me. “Is that a three-page essay on Emerson in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

I let myself put my arms . . . well, my arm, around her. “I’m not even sure Mae West said that line, but if she did, it was in
Sextette.
”

“Can we go to your house?”

I shake my head. “Grandma’s home.”

“Want to just make out in the backseat like people did before rock and roll all but eliminated Judeo-Christian civilization as we know it?”

I could just do this forever. Stand by her car, feel her against me, say anything.

I whisper, “You know, ‘Give somebody a fish and she eats once. Teach her to fish and she eats forever.’”

“So that’s a fish in your pocket?”

“I’m saying we should work on your paper. But instead of writing it for you, I’ll show you what to do so you can write any paper anytime.”

She leans in a little more and puts her face against mine. “You sound like some guy on television who’s about to throw in a second ShamWow! if I order in the next ten minutes.”

I don’t care if she really likes me or not. All I care about is that she’s doing what she’s doing. Doing it to me. Ben the loser recluse. Ben the spaz.

“That’s the deal,” I say. “Take it or leave it.”

She kisses me quick and hard, finds the keys in her purse, hops in her little convertible without bothering with the door, and looks up at me. “So what are you waiting for? Are you going to teach me to fish or not?”

Colleen likes Buster’s, this cool little coffee shop in South Pasadena, which is, for the record, not just southern Pasadena but a whole other city. Pretty and green. Pricey. We’ll end up sitting outside just a block or so from a store that sells seven-hundred-dollar baby strollers. I know because Grandma and her yoga friends chipped in and bought one for someone in their morning class.

Colleen drives us south. We stand in a little line and order from Ayanna with the butterfly tattoo on her shoulder and the pierced lip. I’ve got the money and I order what Colleen likes (caramel macchiato), but the barista looks at Colleen. It’s not flirty or anything like that; they’re birds of a feather and I’m not.

Have I ever connected with anybody like that, ever? Amy, maybe. A little, anyway. She was in the Centrist Gallery show, too. She wants to go to film school, and she gave me her e-mail address.

Colleen and I settle into a table under the green awning. Well, she settles; I brace myself and sink. The bracing isn’t pretty, but I’ve tried just sitting down, got all tangled up in myself, and ended up flat on my back like a turtle, wishing somebody would just turn me over and let me crawl into the desert and die.

She takes my good hand between both of hers and rubs it briskly. “You okay, Ben? You’re cold.”

“Just thinking about Emerson.”

Colleen pretends to shudder. “Makes me cold all over.” She sips her drink, nods at a skate punk who checks her out as he hurtles by, then scrutinizes a couple of nannies who cruise up, speaking nonstop Spanish.

They park their strollers, and the angel-haired toddlers hold up their perfect arms.

Colleen points at the kids.
“Lindo. Lindos niños.”

The nannies nod and smile, then go inside.

I tell her, “I didn’t know you spoke Spanish.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t. I know, like, ten words. Ed’s pretty good, actually. The smugglers like it when you use their native tongue.”

“Do you ever want kids?” I ask.

“Get serious. Do you?”

“Are you kidding?”

She takes a drink from her tall glass, wipes the foam off her lip with an index finger, then licks that. “Why ‘Are you kidding?’ You don’t have C.P. where it counts; we know that. And you’ve got money to burn. You could marry somebody nice and have all the kids you want.”

“Let’s talk about Ralph.”

“Who?”

“Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

“Oh, yeah. Him. You never think about anybody talking to these, like, icons and calling them by their first names. ‘Ralph, either put on those Over-Souls or you can’t go out and play with Thoreau!’”

Colleen has a terrific laugh. High but not screechy. Big but not booming. Robust, I guess. For a girl, anyway. Especially one who weighs about ninety-two pounds.

I ask, “What’s the assignment, exactly?”

“Compare Emerson’s belief system with three or four others.”

“So it’s just research.”

She sits back in a semi-huff. “Fine. I’ll do it myself.” She runs her hand up my arm. “I just thought if you loved me, you’d do it for me.”

“Nice try.”

“Love is bullshit, anyway,” she says. “But you like me, right? Like hanging out with me?”

“I can take it or leave it.”

She’s out of her chair, leaning over the table, kissing me, asking, “Really?”

I wait till I can breathe again before I say, “So I’d rather take it.”

People stare at us, or at her, maybe. Are they thinking,
How can she do that to a gimp like him?
Or do they just think,
Get a room
? The guys can’t take their eyes off Colleen: that incredible skin, the in-your-face tats, the lazy way she smokes, the bitter curve of her lips. One of them — his wife keeps barking orders: “Get some napkins,” “Get some more milk,” “Pick up one of the twins, no not that one, the other one”— probably sees her just like I do, she’s the gatekeeper to another world. Like in the ads for movies:
A world of danger, intrigue, desire. A world where almost everything is a mistake.

When he won’t stop staring, I glare at him and ask, “What?”

He looks down, embarrassed, and I feel the rush of testosterone.