Parrotfish (20 page)

       FRESHMAN GIRL: Right. [pause] I like your dress.

       SENIOR GIRL: So do I.

       FRESHMAN GIRL: This is the first dance I’ve ever been to.

       SENIOR GIRL: They’re all alike.

       FRESHMAN GIRL: What if nobody asks me to dance? I’ll be so embarrassed.

       SENIOR GIRL: That’s quite likely to happen. Boys can’t dance. Especially freshman boys.

       FRESHMAN GIRL: Can I dance with my girlfriends?

       SENIOR GIRL: Only if you dance in a big circle. Or if you’re a lesbian.

       FRESHMAN GIRL: Oh, I’m not a . . .

       SENIOR GIRL: I don’t really care, sweetheart. I really don’t.

       FRESHMAN GIRL: [suddenly lost in thought] At least I don’t think I am . . . although now that
you mention it . . .

       SENIOR GIRL: [wandering off toward the ladies’ bathroom] I need a cig. Ta, babes.

I was enjoying making up dialogue for the partygoers as I taped them entering the tinfoil-starred and plastic-snowy ballroom. I almost didn’t recognize Laura in her floor-length black-and-white dress and carefully assembled hair. The exceptionally tall, skinny kid with her was obviously Mr. Popularity: The minute they walked into the room, other freshmen started to gather around them. I was glad for Laura. This was the kind of high-school experience she’d probably dreamed of. It might not last forever, but at least she’d have good memories of this night. I videotaped her smiling at Jason, laughing with friends. Someday she’d be happy I had.

And then, finally,
she
came in, hugging her coat tightly around her body. I didn’t move a muscle, just stared at her until she felt it and turned to smile at me. She was with one of her girlfriends, but they went separate ways after they hung up their coats. Kita was wearing a short coral-colored dress that made her dark skin seem to glow. Just as I leaped to my feet, I saw Russ bearing down on her from across the room, his arms opening as he approached.

I wished I could hear what they were saying. Kita wasn’t acting too happy to see him, but she wasn’t ignoring him either. He was gesturing to the back hallway, and I knew he wanted to talk to her alone. Before going with him, she turned around and waved at me. Did that mean anything?

The crowd got bigger. With Russ gone, Sebastian and I moved from camera to camera, trying to get some decent shots of the dance floor before it got too mobbed. I spotted a gawky, curly-haired girl in a blue dress hopping up and down in a circle of other self-conscious girls, and I decided she had to be Wilma’s niece Katy, so I took a nice long shot of the whole group. I owed Wilma that, at least.

After fifteen minutes or so, Russ returned with a grin on his face—which made my stomach lurch as if I were tumbling through white water on a small raft. I didn’t have time to scout the room for Kita, because Sebastian and Eve wanted to dance, so he abandoned camera duty.

After forty-five minutes, the place was already starting to look pretty straggly. The dancers were as sweaty as track stars, and girls’ hairdos were coming undone. Ties and shoes had been stripped off, and decorative streamers had been pulled down and wound around waists and necks.
Most of the tablecloths had red punch stains on them, and the floor crackled with crunched-up pretzels and chips. Same old, same old.

When Sebastian came back, he said, “Eve is talking to Zoe and Melissa. Can you believe it? They’re mad at Danya too. Only they were too chicken to say anything until Eve took the first step and obviously lived to tell the story. Now they’re acting like they weren’t even involved with the whole scheme to humiliate you.”

“Maybe they weren’t. It’s hard to tell with cowards.”

Sebastian laughed. “Yeah, I guess. Did you see Danya come in?”

“No, is she here?”

He nodded. “Over by the food table.”

I craned my neck to see her. “Is that her in the short black dress?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“She looks . . . smaller or something,” I said.

“I think that’s because she’s alone. Nobody’s talking to her. Without a posse following her around, she doesn’t seem so powerful.”

“What do you mean, ‘Nobody’s talking to her’?”

He gave me a long look. “I mean, no one in
the room is speaking the English language or any other language in a conversational way with her. Got it?”

“Really?”

But then, as we watched from across the room, a girl approached Danya, put a hand on her arm, and began to speak.

“Is that Kita?” Sebastian asked.

“Oh my God.”

We couldn’t hear anything over the band noise, but it seemed like Kita was yelling at Danya. People nearby stopped dancing and turned around to see what was going on. After a few minutes, Danya pulled away and ran across the floor, retreating to the usual party sanctuary, the girls’ bathroom.

“Wow, what do you think happened there?” Sebastian said.

“I don’t know. Can I go talk to her? Russ is here—the two of you can handle the cameras, can’t you?”

“Sure—go!”

The dance floor was packed by then, so I edged around the side of the room until I got to the table where Kita was still standing, chugging a ginger ale like it was Popeye’s spinach. Refueling. She smiled when she saw me approach, and I
wished so much that she were my girlfriend, that hugging and kissing her could be my normal greeting.

“Hey! I was looking for you,” she said.

“I saw you from across the room. What did you say to Danya?”

“I’ll tell you if you dance with me.”

The band segued into a slow number and Kita put out her arms.
Oh, Lord
. “I don’t know how to dance,” I said, my voice as quivery as my legs. “Especially, you know, as a boy.”

“I think it’ll come naturally,” she said, placing her left hand on my shoulder and taking my left hand in her right.

“See?” she said. “Easy.”

Having Kita’s body that close to mine was anything but natural, and yet it felt right. Kids on all sides of us turned to stare, of course, but Kita didn’t seem to notice or care. We weren’t all snuggled up like a real couple, but our feet seemed to move together to the music, no stumbling or stepping on toes. In fact, dancing with Kita was the closest I was ever likely to come to walking on water.

“So,” she said. “You want to know what I told Danya?”

“I do.”

“Well, first I told her that I thought she was a horrible bitch, but I think she’s proud of that. So then I said that if I ever heard of her even
trying
to hurt you again, or to hurt any of your friends, or any of
my
friends, or anybody at all who couldn’t hurt her back, I would personally hunt her down and pull every strand of her ugly yellow hair out by the roots.”

My mouth dropped open. “You did? What did she say?”

“Oh, at first she tried to argue that she wasn’t the only person who didn’t like you. She seems to think she was performing a public service, the idiot.”

“She
isn’t
the only one, Kita. You know that.”

“Maybe, but she’s the only one who acted on it.”

“So far.”

She pulled back to look into my eyes. “Grady, don’t say that!”

“I’m just being realistic.”

“Well, don’t be. Be optimistic.”

I was dancing with Kita Charles—if that couldn’t make me optimistic, nothing could. “If you say so. After all, you’re the one who scared off the big bully for me. My hero. Or heroine.”

“I don’t know what finally got to her. Apparently, her so-called friends wised up and
dumped her, so maybe I was just the last straw. I’m glad to know she actually
has
feelings. That she’s not really an escapee from
Night of the Living Dead
.”

“Yeah, that would be cause for optimism.”

The music kicked into a crazy fast number and, reluctantly, I pulled away from Kita. “I’m no good at this stuff. Anyway, I should get back to the cameras—”

“Grady!” Kita’s smile faded a little. “Before you go back, could we talk a minute?”

“Sure.” Wasn’t that what we’d been doing?

“Out here,” she said, pulling me around the corner and into the entrance hall, where the band noise was less deafening. What was this about? I turned around to see if Russ had noticed, but he was talking to Sebastian. What would I say to him? Would he be mad at me? Not that anything had happened to make him mad. Yet.

Kita leaned against the wall, and I stood in front of her, in a perfect position for another kiss.

“Grady,” she said, her voice soft and musical. “You know how much I like you, don’t you?”

How do you answer a question like that?
“I—I hope so,” I mumbled. “I like you too, Kita.”

“I think you’re a wonderful person. Interesting and funny and cute as hell. And you’re the nicest . . .” She stopped talking, and her eyes
seemed to be pleading with me, but I had no idea what they were asking for. “The thing is, Grady, I made up with Russell. We’re back together again.”

I think my head may actually have bounced backward from the blow. “Oh,” was all I could say.

Kita took my hand in both of hers. “I don’t know if it was the right thing to do or not. I feel really confused about all of this. I mean, if Russell weren’t in the picture, I would definitely want to be with you, Grady. But Russ is in the picture, and I can’t just walk away from him.” She sighed. “Especially now, when he’s apologized to me so sweetly. He says he wants to try to be a better boyfriend, more respectful of me, and I believe him. I have to at least give him a second chance.”

I nodded. “I guess you do,” I said, even though my brain was screaming,
No you don’t!
My actual feeling was, well, dizziness. In the course of a few minutes I’d found out that Kita had been interested in being my girlfriend, and that the possibility of it actually happening was already over. Apparently, I’d lost the game before I even knew I was playing in it.

“Grady?” Kita said. “Are you okay?”

“Sure,” I said, trying to keep my eyes from looking into hers.

She caught them anyway. “I just want you to know that this has nothing to do with what you’re
going through. I would be crazy about you no matter what gender you were. You believe that, don’t you?”

I nodded. I did believe her, but what difference did it make now? She’d chosen Russ.

“I really hope we can still be friends, because I don’t want to lose you,” she said. When her lips approached mine, I turned my head and they sideswiped my cheek. But that was involuntary; I would still rather have kissed Kita than do anything else on earth. Obviously, my neck muscles had more pride than I did.

I headed back to the cameras, keeping my eyes on my feet, which were no longer walking on water.

Russ looked up as I approached. “Kita tell you the good news?” he asked.

For a second I forgot that Russ didn’t know my side of the story. “What?”

“We’re back together! Thanks to you, buddy. I owe you one.” He held out his hand for me to shake, and I did.

It was impossible not to like Russ, even when he was going out with the girl of your dreams. “Watch it with the macho hand-shaking,” I warned as he pumped my arm.

He laughed. “Right. Hey, you mind if I go dance with my girlfriend?”

“Not at all,” I said. “I just danced with her myself.”

“You beat me!” he said good-humoredly, unaware that in fact he had beaten me. Soundly.

Sebastian was headed in my direction, no doubt to hear what had happened with Kita. I wished I could put off telling him. The whole truth—and nothing but the truth—was lying on my chest like a big rock.

But just then Eve came running toward both of us, sliding in her golden slippers, breathless.

“You will
not
believe what I just saw in the girls’ bathroom! Danya is lying on the couch in there, sobbing hysterically. She’s cried off all her makeup, and there’s green eye shadow smeared on her dress! She’s having a complete meltdown!”

“Wow,” Sebastian said. “You wanna take a camera in there and get some footage?”

I
didn’t get a lot of sleep that night, which was fine because I had some work to do: tweaking the Christmas Eve script one last time and doing some research online for Charlie’s gift. Now that we were friends again, Eve wanted to come too, especially when I told her I was pretty sure it would be our last performance, so I had to add a few lines for her to say. I also had to figure out a few more gifts for people. Something inexpensive, or possibly free, for Eve and Mom and Aunt Gail, because I knew I might have to spend most of my money on Charlie this year. I’d already gotten stuff for Sebastian and Laura (they were easy to buy for), and I’d found Dad’s gift—the perfect, and perfectly free, gift—two weeks ago. I was doing my gift-giving during the public observance of Christmas this year, not the next day, because this year that was going to be the most important celebration, at least for me.

But having stuff to do didn’t keep me from running through my hallway scene with Kita over
and over again in my mind. What she’d said. The way she’d looked. The feeling of her hands caressing mine. Was there anything I could have said or done to reverse the final outcome? I reminded myself that Russ had blown his first chance with her; maybe he’d be no better the second time around. Of course, now he had his good friend Grady to come to for advice.

       RUSS: Kita says I’m acting like a big macho pig and she’s sick of me! What should I do, Grady? Help me!

       GRADY: Show that woman who’s boss, Russ. Don’t let her insult your manhood. Pick her up, throw her over your shoulder, and give her a good smack on the butt. That should bring her around. [twirling his evil mustache] Around to dumping you, that is!

But I didn’t feel too bad about what had happened with Kita, or at least I didn’t feel
all
bad. If somebody as great as Kita liked me, I figured eventually there would be other girls who would too. And besides, I had four friends now: Sebastian, Eve, Kita, and Russ. I’d never had four friends in my entire life! Four friends was a group, a crowd, a
posse
.