Out of Order (3 page)

It's a great place to sleep. Usually.

Today I've just shut my eyes when I hear the door to Miss A.'s classroom open.

“Colt, you have a helper,” she says.

No sleeping today. I raise my head and take a good look at my “helper.”

It's Greenland. “Oh, great,” I say, and drop my head back down on my arms.

“This is Corinne,” I hear Miss A. say. I don't look up. There's a pause, where Miss A.'s deciding whether it's worth the time involved to make me sit up and be polite.

She decides it's not worth it. “Corinne, the gentleman with the fine manners is Colt Trammel.”

“We've met,” I hear Greenland say, in this voice that makes it clear we didn't exactly hit it off.

“Good,” says Miss A., grimly. “Then you know what to expect. Just have a seat anywhere.”

There's the slow squeak of footsteps coming over to the table, and a chair screeching back on the wood floor.

“I don't really have anything for you two to work on
today,” Miss A. adds. “Can you wisely handle some free time?”

I don't have to see her to know she's aiming that at me.

“I've got some homework I can do,” Greenland tells her.

“Good. Colt,” Miss A. presses, because I haven't answered, “you doing all right?”

What she means is, you do anything bad and I'll tell my boyfriend and he'll bench your butt.

“Yeah, I'm all right.” I mumble it at the tabletop.

Miss A.'s little heels
click click click
out of the room. The door shuts.

I hear the
thunk!
of a backpack hitting the tabletop. A zipping sound.

There's not any point in even trying to sleep, not with another person in the room. Especially this person. She was practically begging me to flash her earlier. God only knows what she might do if I go to sleep.

Besides, what if I snore? Or drool?

I sit up. Stretch. Make a big show of looking her over. She's digging in a backpack that looks like it's been dragged behind a car. I open my mouth to make some crack about it—but then I remember Coach Kline. I don't want to be in a real class. And I don't want to get benched.

“Look,” I tell her, “you leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone.”

She ignores me, pulling out an eyeglass case. I notice she's got light-brown freckles sprinkled on her nose and cheekbones. She might look half human if it wasn't for that hair. And those clothes.

She takes out these little half glasses, like something an old-lady librarian would wear. She puts them on, but barely; they look like they're about to fall off the tip of her nose.

But her actual face is kind of delicate-looking. No zits. Yeah, she could be almost decent-looking. Too bad she dresses like a bag lady. With fluorescent hair.

“You probably don't know Coach Kline,” I tell her. “He said if there's any trouble in here, he'll kick my ass.”

She doesn't say anything.

“He'll kick yours, too,” I add. “So don't think you can get away with anything.”

“Coach Kline.” For just a second she glances up over the rim of her glasses. “Twentysomething, black hair, blue eyes, unshaved look?”

“Yeah.”

She's busy again. “In that case,” she says, pulling one of her textbooks out of the backpack, “I might go for a little ass-kicking.”

If she was a guy, I'd know that was a sexual remark. However, she's not a guy. She's a girl and I'm not sure what she meant. She might be one of those feminists, and
want to take on Coach for real. Like arm-wrestle him.

“Whoa,” I say. That seems like a good neutral comment.

She flips the book open. It's an English book. She's got the place marked with a piece of notebook paper, torn in half. It's the top half. With writing on it.

Not much. Just a few words on each line, sprinkled down the page. It's upside down, to me.

But I'm staring at that piece of paper, and I can feel the hair standing up on the back of my neck.

“What's
that
?” I point, to show there's no way I'm actually going to touch it.

She's giving me that look again, over her glasses. “It's a poem,” she says, in her boy-are-you-stupid voice.

Of course—a goddamn poem. I'd recognize one a mile away. Not just from English class, either. I've seen a ton of them, in Grace's books, in her notebooks, on the margins of her papers. She's practically dripping with them.

But this is not Grace, and I don't have to pretend to be sensitive.

“Jesus,” I say in disgust. “A poem. I knew it.” I look away and make this big shudder, like “get that thing away from me.”

“Jesus,” Greenland says, even more disgusted. “A Philistine. I knew it.” She makes an even bigger shudder.

We don't even look at each other after that. We've both made our point. Although I don't know what hers is.

She goes back to her book; I lay my head back down on my arms without saying another word. I act like I'm going to sleep, so she doesn't get the urge to tell me
she
wrote the poem. I don't even want to know.

Girl writers. I attract 'em like shit attracts flies.

 

After sixth-period athletics I go straight home. I pull my car up in the garage, next to the utility room. I get my stuff off the floorboard, then buzz the garage door down while I'm turning off the security system.

This whole day has sucked big-time, on account of I'm not going to get any sleep in assistant anymore—thank you, Greenland!—and on account of I'm a Grace addict who didn't get my fix today.

When I walk in, the house is quiet like always. My sister, Cass, Little Miss Perfect, is still at school.

Mom's at work. She works too much—it's like ever since the divorce she can't get enough money. For a while there, when Dad didn't want to split and Mom did, money was this major issue between them. She'd always slam the phone down when she got through talking to him. And now, even though they get along okay, she still works like somebody's got a gun to her head.

On my way through the family room, I see the cordless
phone. It's right there, on the end table. The answering machine's next to it, with the light blinking—and for a second hope rushes over me. Hope that it might be you-knowwho.

“Don't be an asshole,” I tell myself, and hit the button and listen to the message. Of course it's not Grace, it's Whorey Dori, this sophomore girl whose last name starts with a
K
, but it's hard to pronounce and I can't remember it. What I
can
remember is that she used to sleep with Jordan Palmer, a senior who plays first base for the baseball team. He's told some really mind-boggling stories about her, and you'd think it'd be a good thing that a certified nympho is leaving me messages, wanting me to call her if I get a chance.

But I know what she wants. All she wants is to talk about Palmer. To ask about him, to find out if he's dating anybody, if he's mentioned her at all, if there's any hint that he might still like her. Palmer is the only subject she knows, he's the only thing she wants to talk about.

And the only subject I know right now is Grace, and talking to anybody who's not her sounds about as fun as making do with a stale potato chip when there's an all-you-can-eat buffet right next door.

So I don't save the message. I erase it, and think how on one hand you've got girls like Grace, who lead this
sheltered life and get all shocked when you forget and use the F word in front of them. Then you've got girls like Dori, who give the F word a whole new meaning. From what I hear, anyway.

Still, I'm wishing Grace had been the one to leave a message.

Cass—my sister—gets out at four o'clock. Her bus won't get her here till at least four twenty. There's not going to be anybody around until then.

I could do anything I wanted for the next forty-five minutes. I could call anybody and not be hounded by Cass wanting to use the phone.

Of course, I couldn't call Grace.

“This time
she's
going to call
me
,” I tell myself.

And even if I was stupid enough to call her, it would look pretty desperate, the phone ringing right as she walks in the door.

I walk over to the clock. I'm not going to call, of course…but if I
did
, four o'clock would be soon enough. Four o'clock would give Grace time to get home. It would give me time to hear the sound of her voice, not get into anything heavy before Cass gets here. Just hear Grace's voice, maybe make her laugh a few times so I'd know I was forgiven.

But it couldn't be exactly at four—if I was going to call, which I'm not. Exactly four o'clock—that'd look too
planned. At least five after four. Or six after four, that would look completely unplanned. Yeah, that would be good. If I was going to call, it would be at four oh six.

Right now it's three forty-one.

I go into the kitchen and open the fridge. Take out a Dr Pepper. Pop the top. Drink a little. Stick the can back in the fridge. It'll get flat now, Mom'll gripe, big deal. I was hungry when I came in, but I'm not now. I shut the fridge. What time is it?

Three forty-two.

I decide I'll go to my room. Take off my shoes, maybe. Relax. But on my way through the family room, I see the phone. The phone's right there, on the end table.

It would probably actually be a good thing, to call Grace. She might even be impressed—here I am, a super-sensitive guy, calling to make up for what I did wrong. Whatever that was.

Okay, so I'll call. I'll just give her a few more minutes to get home. I'll wait till three forty-five. No, three forty-six—so it won't look planned. And if she's not home yet, if I get her machine, I'll just hang up.

I sit on the couch next to the phone.

One of the throw pillows is kind of flat. I pick it up and punch it back into shape. Toss it up a few times, catch it. Set it down in my lap.

Okay, I'll just lay the phone right here. Here, on this
pillow. I'll just hold it, till three forty-six.

Right here. Yeah.

Oh, what the hell.

I pick it up and start pushing the buttons.

Then it's ringing, and by the time that first ring's over God himself couldn't pry this phone out of my hand.

“Hello?”

I blank out for a second.

It's her
dad
.

I've met the man several times. I've just never talked to him on the phone. What's he doing home from work? He sounds a lot scarier on the phone.

I'm clutching the pillow now, against my chest. Trying to think.

“Hello?” he says again.

“Uh,” I say. “Is Grace there?”

“Who's calling?”

“Uh…Colt. I mean Colton. Trammel.”

“Well, Colton, I thought that was you. Grace is not home yet.”

“Oh,” I say. I glance at the clock. It's three forty-three. Too early! I should have waited. Why couldn't I wait? It was only fifteen minutes, or twenty, or whatever.

“Rosalyn,” Mr. Garcetti hollers. I wince. “When'll Grace be in?”

“Anytime now.” Mrs. Garcetti's voice is faint.

Now I've totally screwed up. I can't call her back.
She
won't call
me
back, for sure. I'll never even know if they told her I called.

“Who is it?” I hear Mrs. Garcetti call.

“Colton Trammel,” Mr. Garcetti yells to her.

I've got a corner of the pillow in my mouth now. I'm biting down. Hard.

“Tell him she'll be in anytime now,” Mrs. Garcetti calls.

“Colton,” Mr. Garcetti says into the phone. “She'll be home anytime now.”

I take the pillow out of my mouth. “Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

There's this silence. Am I supposed to wait, on the phone? Am I supposed to say something? Ask something?

I hang up.

Smooth, that's me.

The next morning I'm not feeling too good.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I can't stand seeing the eyes of a wimp who caved in and tried to call Grace yesterday. Not only tried, but failed.

Pride: 0, Grace: 1.

In the mirror I see one of those guys that apologize when he didn't do anything wrong. Who sits at home when
she
can't go out. Who comes trotting when
she
snaps her fingers.

This morning, when I look in that mirror, I see a guy who's whipped.

Then I tell myself, at least I'm not like Dori. I haven't called people to ask about Grace, the way Dori does about Palmer. At least I haven't done that. Those Trammel balls of steel must still be hanging solid somewhere under there.

Way under there.

Okay, I say to myself, looking in the mirror. I'm going to give myself the old pep talk.

So: Here's the deal, Trammel.

You're a baseball star. You're looking good—nice clothes, by the way! Your friends are the most important people in school. You've got your own transportation, and a good-sized, regular allowance from the old man. You've gone out with some pretty fine-looking girls. Still can, any time you want! Colton Trammel, you are the Man!

My face in the mirror looks tired. I couldn't get a smile on it if I forced the corners of my mouth up with toothpicks and Scotch tape.

All right, I tell the mirror, that's enough. You've got to get this thing under control.

So before I go to school, I do a thing I heard about on TV. I put a rubber band around my wrist, because what I'm going to do is snap it every time I think about Grace. Every thought of Grace will be connected with pain. Negative whadyacallit. It works for smoking and losing weight. It should work for this.

I have to pop the rubber band right when I get in the car, because there's that empty passenger seat, where she always sits.

And again, backing out of the driveway, because I've
got to put my arm around the back of her seat, to turn and look.

And again, when I get to the end of the block, because if I turned right instead of left, I'd be heading toward her house.

I pop my wrist twice more going up the hill that leads past Haley Turner's house, where me and Eric chased a bunch of girls who wrapped my house with toilet paper during a slumber party a couple of years ago. Including you-know-who.

Have you ever noticed the more you try not to think about something, the more you do?

By the time I pull into the parking lot at school, I've popped my wrist twenty-three times.

And while shutting off the engine and unbuckling, I get a whole series of snaps trying not to wonder if she'll be in the front foyer today. How am I supposed to stop thinking about her if she's going to be right there in front of me?

I hang around in the car, acting like I'm digging for something in the glove compartment every time somebody walks by so I don't look like a goof, sitting there all alone. And snapping, too—there's Misty, Grace's good friend.
Snap.
Has Grace told her she's mad at me?
Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

 

My wrist is bright red by the time the bell rings and I go to biology. But I still think maybe there's a chance of getting control of the snapping situation, if I actually try to concentrate on my work for a change.

So I sit there and try to read the stupid busywork assignment Ms. Keller has written on the board. I even look up every word I don't know in the glossary in the back of the book.

Chlorophyll: the green pigment found in the chloroplasts of plant cells.

I knew that already. Didn't I?

Grace would have known it.

Snap.

Greenland glances over. She looks at my rubber band but doesn't say anything.

She'd better not.

She doesn't have to. “Trammel. Pssst. Trammel.” I look around; it's Michael McMillan. “What's with the rubber band?” he asks in this stage whisper.

Haley Turner's leaning forward. She wants to hear too.

Greenland's already gone back to her book. She turns another page. It's a relief to know there's somebody who doesn't give a single shit what I do.

“Nothing,” I say over my shoulder. I act like I'm reading.

“He's trying to quit smoking,” Haley guesses, behind me.

Grace doesn't like smokers.
Snap.

“Pssst. Trammel,” hisses McMillan. “You trying to quit smoking?”

Snap
. “I'm trying to
read
,” I mutter. McMillan is almost sixteen and his voice hasn't changed yet. But his older sister is a varsity cheerleader, so he gets to hang around on the fringes of the people who count.

No way I'm going to get the whole two pages read before Ms. Keller starts class.

I see Greenland glance at the board and take out a piece of paper. Then I notice the board says to read pages eighty-nine to ninety, then do the questions on page ninety-one. I also notice my wrist is starting to get a little puffy, from the abuse it's taking. From thinking about…

Grace.

Snap.

It's to the point where the pain reminds me of what I'm
not
supposed to be thinking about.

Snap.

“I didn't know he smoked,” I hear Haley whisper.

I give up reading and take out a sheet of paper. I'll have to hurry and copy the answers off Greenland before she turns hers in.

When I pull my book closer, it knocks my pencil off the table. The pencil hits the floor and rolls to the side. It comes to a stop just on the other side of Greenland's chair.

I try to catch her eye, but she's riffling through her textbook. She's got on those stupid glasses.

“Hey, Greenland. Hand me my pencil, will you?”

She puts her finger on the page to hold her place, turns her head and looks at me over the rim of her glasses.

I point to my pencil, on the floor.

She peers under the table. The pencil's about six inches away from her shoe. She stretches out her leg, gets a toe on the pencil.

She kicks it away. It shoots across the room and disappears under one of the other lab tables.

“Don't call me Greenland,” she says. And pulls her paper half under her book—so now I can't get a good look.

“Fuck you,” I mutter under my breath.

“No thanks.”

I think about whether it's worth getting up and walking across the room to get my pencil. Even if I do, I still won't be able to finish reading the pages and I still won't be able to do the questions myself.

I decide I don't feel like working anymore today. It's
not worth it. I shut my book and lean back in my chair with a sigh. I think about how bad I am at biology. No wonder Grace doesn't want to talk to me.

Grace.

I dig my finger under the rubber band—and then
pop!
Suddenly nothing's there.

The damn thing broke. From overuse, I guess.

Who cares? What difference does it make? I'm snapping as much now as when I put the rubber band on this morning.

Well, what's so bad about being whipped, anyway? So what if my insides are turning to marshmallow? The important thing is that I don't
show
it. Not on the outside, where somebody could see.

I can feel old Greenland—no,
Chlorophyll
, my green-pigmented lab partner—sitting there next to me. She's a girl, like Grace. She's a reader, like Grace. A poem writer, too. This could have been Grace in my class, sharing my lab table. Every sophomore has to take biology. Why'd it have to be Chlorophyll sitting here?

The broken rubber band is on the corner of the lab table. I pick it up by one end. I pull the other end back, taking aim at Alicia Doggett, across the room.

Snap
. The rubber band hits her in the back of the head. Alicia gives a little jump, then touches the spot
where the rubber band hit and turns to squint around the room.

I'm already leaning on one elbow, looking out the window. I don't even pretend to be interested in biology.

What difference does it make? I'm going to get a zero, after all. No matter what I do.

 

At lunch I eat with the same guys I always do, Eric Darnell, Patrick Childers, Stu Vernon. We eat in the cafeteria for a change, because Eric and Stu didn't bring enough money to eat off campus. We're going to eat fast, so we can go out and hit some balls—but almost right away these freshman girls come over and sit at the table next to us. They're flirting like crazy, even though as far as I've heard not one of them has ever put out.

Silver Stanton pulls up a chair. I don't know how I feel about it. She's not Grace, but she is a girl, and she
is
pretty hot. She can't help it that she's got the same name as the Lone Ranger's horse. She used to kind of look like a horse too; when she was in fourth grade, and I was in fifth, I used to call her “Hi-yo Silver” and offer her apples from my lunch. But then she got braces that reined in those big teeth, and if I was to walk in off the street today, not knowing any of that, I'd have to say that she looks like a model.

She hangs with the right people. She puts a lot of
money into clothes, and it shows. There's no reason I should be sitting here wishing it was Grace who was smiling just because she's near me. Tossing her hair back over her shoulders.

That's Silver's best feature: her hair. It's straight, shining. Sort of a whitish gold. Like a horse's mane.

But all things considered, Silver has nothing to be ashamed of. Don't ask me why I can't shake the picture of a horse when I look at her. Since her dad paid off the orthodontist, she really is hot. So when she starts pushing herself on me, I don't exactly meet her halfway—but I don't walk away or trade places with Stu, or say I've got to go, either.

“What's today's date?” Silver's asking me.

“I don't know.”

“The thirtieth,” Eric says.

“Ooh. I've got a couple of movie passes that expire today. Hey, Colt. You want to help me use them up?” She flings her hair back over her shoulder again.

Suddenly I'm fucking irritated. Grace's got hair about the same length, but she doesn't toss it around like she's posing for pictures in the winner's circle.

“I dunno,” I tell Silver, although I know I ought to go out with her just to prove to myself that I'm not whipped. “I'm kind of busy.”

“Well, if you get unbusy suddenly, give me a call.
Otherwise I'll give them to my brother.”

Whatever. I shrug. “Sure. I'll let you know.” One of the other girls giggles, and she and Silver exchange meaningful looks. It's pretty junior high, and I'm not in the mood today. I just want to be outside where I can
breathe
and think about something besides Grace.

Baseball.

After eating, Eric, Patrick, Stu, and I go out to the parking lot and get my equipment bag out of my trunk. We walk down to the fields to hit a few in the time we have left.

Me first, of course. I tighten my batting glove just a little, flex my fingers. Get a firm grip on the bat. Toss the ball into the air, and…
whap!

The ball sails toward the left-field fence. Eric takes off, arms and legs pumping, but the ball's faster, and he ends up hunting for it just in front of the fence.

On my first team—the Marlins—my coach always told the other kids, “Keep your eye on the ball! Watch the ball hit the bat!” But he never had to say it to me, even though I was just as little and new as the rest of them.

My coaches have always treated me like I know what I'm doing.

Because I do. Baseball is the only thing that ever came natural to me. Besides lying, that is.

 

In fifth-period assistant, there are no papers to grade. I'm not in a great mood, anyway, because I just ate my lunch with a girl who wasn't Grace, and let me tell you, it was about as exciting as helping my mom fold laundry.

Of course I can't sleep, because Chlorophyll the Pencil Kicker is sitting right there reading one of her stupid books. I'd like to show her what happens to chicks who kick Colt Trammel's pencil, but she might tell Miss A. and Miss A. would tell Coach. And Chlorophyll's not worth the concentration it would take to plan some big anonymous revenge that'd really make her miserable.

I decide I'll just mess with her a little.

“Hey, you know, I'm kind of starting to like that hair,” I tell her across the table. “I was thinking I could dye my hair green, too. Where do you get yours done?”

She doesn't even look up.

“It reminds me of food,” I tell her. “Pickles, okra, broccoli. Hey—maybe I could go for purple. Like grape jelly. Or…let's see. What color is pizza?”

Chlorophyll puts her finger on the page, to hold her place. She raises her head to look at me—but she doesn't seem mad. “I was just thinking about you,” she says, and she sounds almost friendly. “I happened to be reading
this”—she taps her finger on the page—“and it's got
you
written all over it.”

I'm not sure what to say. Which doesn't stop me from saying something anyway. “Must be about studly sex machines.”

“Listen.” Her voice drops almost to a whisper.

“I'll skip this next part,” she tells me. “It's basically comparing poetry to beer.” Which perks my ears up—but she's already going on:

She stops suddenly and looks me dead in the eye. “What do you think that means?”