Punk Like Me (4 page)

No, I wasn’t surprised by Nicky’s subject. I was surprised he asked at all.

“You could always tell him about Hopey and Maggie. He might leave you alone then.”

I stood stock-still for a few breaths, then actually took my focus off the line to stare at my brother. He had this silly little grin, and his eyes were open wide, too wide, like when you know something you’re not supposed to know, or try to lie. You know,
that
look.

“Dude, Kerry’s my friend…” I began patiently, then stopped. I didn’t know where to go with this. It’s not that the idea of two girls together in that way bothered me. In fact, I thought it was pretty intriguing, except I couldn’t Þ gure out how they’d do it, ya know? I just didn’t remember ever saying anything that speciÞ c about it to Nicky.

And I was confused, anyway, about how I felt about Kerry. Yeah, she was my friend, but it was different, too, in ways I had no words for, and I didn’t know what exactly that meant.

Oh hell, Nicky and I talked about everything all the time, even the gay thing in general; he knew I couldn’t care less which way people went.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I Þ nally said. “I mean, Joey and Jack are best friends. Kerry might not be too thrilled with the whole thing when it gets back to her.” There, that sounded like it covered everything. I was cool and didn’t care, at least for myself. I was just considering someone else’s feelings, which in reality pretty much did sum it up.

• 29 •

Nicky laughed. “Ya know, man, she probably wouldn’t care. It would just add to her reputation or something.” I laughed with him in agreement, then focused back on my line.

There—I thought I’d seen a slight movement. “Ya know, Nicky, that might not be a good thing to have on my background check for Annapolis,” I mentioned while I shifted my grip a little more. I could feel the play of the line along the rod, the slight pulling stress. There was something there, and that sucker was going to be mine.

“Oh shit, dude! I didn’t even think about that. You really think they’ll care?” he asked, his voice full of worry. “You think they won’t take you just for a rumor of something like that?” Nicky was totally not Þ shing anymore, and he gripped my shoulder.

“Dude, they can’t do that! That would be totally stupid!” he practically shouted in my ear.

I turned my head toward him and tried to give him as reassuring a smile as I could. After all, Nicky and I had the same dream: we were going to go to Annapolis together and graduate one year apart from one another. That was the plan, and that’s what it had been for a very long time, since we were small.

If you’re wondering what the heck we caught when we went Þ shing that time, I’ll tell you the truth. The more Nicky and I talked about Joey, the worse the Þ shing got. In the end, while we had gotten one or two “keepers”—porgies—the last thing I caught was a three-foot-long, slightly translucent, mud green, slimy, nasty, ugly eel. The hook had gotten caught between its teeth—the pointy sharp ones, which were an inch and a half long. All of them.

We would have tried, actually, we did try to free it, except it was snapping and spitting, and to be quite honest, neither of us wanted to get bitten by this nasty thing. In the end, we had to cut the line and let it go, hook and all, and it took the opportunity to lunge for Nicky in the waves before it Þ nally, thankfully, disappeared. I guess I somehow took that as an omen of some sort. You’d think that I would have known that it was.

• 30 •

PUNK LIKE ME

Well, summer ended, school started, and Kerry and I hung out after school at the Universe comic book store. I’d get off the train, run down the steps from the elevated platform, and there, on Richmond Avenue, across the street from the Eltingville train station, is where I’d go. “Hey, Nina!” yelled Robbie from behind the counter as I walked in that particular Friday. His greetings were always loud enough to rattle the glass, and we all suspected it was because his older brother was in a heavy metal band that practiced in his basement.

Basically, we all Þ gured he was going deaf—but then again, he could hear change falling, and pages turning in the restricted section, and kids sneaking out without paying, so we weren’t really sure.

“The new one just came out,” he informed me conversationally as I came up to the counter.

“Cool! Where ya got it?” I asked, maybe a little too eagerly. Well, it had been almost eight weeks since the last edition.

Robbie grinned at me, his eyes peeking between the curly strands of brown hair that came down to his chin.

“I kept a mint one for you back here,” he told me with satisfaction as he reached down under the counter to retrieve it. He presented it with a little ß ourish.

I was more than happy to reach for the latest version of
Love and
Rockets
by the Hernandez Brothers (and that’s Fantagraphics Books, if you don’t know, by the way).

“Ah ah,” he singsonged, holding the comic just out of my reach and a hand up to forestall me, “Þ rst things Þ rst.” I groaned inwardly—I had an idea of where this was going. The grin he’d had a scant second before turned just slightly shy, and I was

• 31 •

certain that he was trying to hide behind his hair.

“What’s the deal with you and Joey?”

Bingo—he went there. My groan moved from the inside out, and I rolled my eyes in irritation. “Damn, Robbie, can’t I keep my own business to myself?” I snapped at him.

His face ß ushed and he lowered his eyes, sliding my now near-mint as opposed to mint copy of
Love and Rockets
to me. Good if he felt a little bad about asking—how nosy!

“It’s just that, you know, Joey’s been telling everyone that you guys are, like, you know, serious and all, and like, you and him and Kerry and Jack are gonna like, do, like, some double-ceremony wedding thingy after graduation,” Robbie stammered out. His face might have been redder than before, and I could tell he was shufß ing his feet behind the counter, but obviously he didn’t feel too bad if he was going to pursue the subject. Ah well, best to grab the bull by the horns, so to speak.

“Yeah, well, he didn’t ask me yet, so you can forget all about it,” I abruptly answered, “and as for Kerry, I don’t even know if she and Jack have discussed the whole thing.” I sifted among some ß yers on the counter, trying hard to act normally. “By the way,” I asked him casually, “has she come in yet?”

Right on cue, because I swear that girl could read my mind, the glass door swung open with a shake of the bell and a crash on the wall, and there she was—my best friend Kerry.

“Hiya, Magpie!” I waved happily, using her nickname.

“Hey there, Hopeful!” She smiled just as happily back, using mine. We gave each other a Þ ercely quick hug.

“New one’s out, by the way.”

“
Love and Rockets
?”

“Yep. Robbie put ’em aside, right?” I asked him with an arched eyebrow as I looked at him, trying to send him the message via mental telepathy that he’d better have laid one aside for Kerry as well as me.

“Um, uh-huh, yeah, uh, sure. I’ve got one for you, too, Kerr,” he stammered, and he shufß ed behind and beneath the counter. His face had quickly blossomed to a raspberry pink again, and I suspected he was worried that I might bring up our previous conversation in front of Kerry. He was wrong: I was
deÞ nitely
going to bring it up.

“Hey, Kerry. Robbie told me he heard that you and Jack and Joey and I are all going to share a wedding day after graduation. Have you

• 32 •

PUNK LIKE ME

heard anything about that?” I grinned as I asked her and watched the color in Robbie’s cheeks deepen.

“Well, you know, rumors,” he trailed off into a mumble. “Joey told me that…” more faint mumble, “and I…” Robbie mumbled in conclusion as he dug for Kerry’s copy of
L&R
.

I might have been smiling, but I was annoyed. When did Joey speak with Robbie? I mean, I know they went to the same school and all, and also, what the hell was Joey thinking? Why in the world was he going around telling anyone such ridiculous stuff anyway? It would have been nice if he’d at least talked with me Þ rst, don’t you think?

Yeah, me too.

I glanced over at Kerry, who ß ashed me an evil grin, the one that means, “Play along with me,” which I was more than happy to do. Man, I loved this chick!

“Actually, Robbie, Joey’s got it all wrong.”

“He does?” Robbie blinked at her in confusion and surprise.

“Yeah, he does.” She nodded emphatically. “If there’s a wedding after graduation, there’ll be no Jack or Joey there,” she added conÞ dently as she reached for our copies of
L&R
on the countertop and slipped them into a bag.

“Huh?” Robbie’s lower lip hung down in shock. He looked completely dumbfounded.

Kerry leaned over the counter and into Robbie’s personal space, and intensity burned from her face. Mesmerized, he leaned closer.

“You think I’m just gonna let some jerk marry Nina?” Poor Robbie just stared and swallowed silently. Finally, he found breath enough to ask, “Well, who’s getting married, then?” Kerry narrowed her eyes, making sure she still had Robbie’s attention until the silence grew thick and hard. “No one,” her voice cut through the silence. “No one’s going to marry Nina. Not unless it’s me,” she told him in deadly seriousness, thumping her thumb to her chest for emphasis.

Robbie’s mouth was an open
O
of astonishment at this point, and though I felt just a little bad for him (but not too much. He was listening to gossip and guy crap and believing it, after all), I couldn’t help myself.

I started to laugh and forgot all about being mad at Joey.

Kerry grabbed my hand. “C’mon, hon, let’s go,” she insisted, and very determinedly began to drag me out of the store.

• 33 •

Still somewhat helpless from laughter and with shoulders still shaking, I let her pull me. I managed to Þ sh in my jeans pocket and toss what felt like the right amount of bills toward the register, then carefully scooped up the bag with our comics that Kerry had left on the counter.

“Keep the change, Robbie,” I told him as Kerry hustled me out the door.

Kerry kept dragging me behind her as she marched us determinedly down Richmond Avenue toward our homes. Where in the world was she getting all this forcefulness, I wondered. Finally, I collected enough of myself to stop laughing. “Okay, stop a sec,” I said. Kerry still held my hand, but at least she halted her forward charge—for the moment, anyway.

“Let me catch a breath here.” I took my hand from hers so I could hand over her comic, and I was mentally trying to Þ gure out why she’d said what she had to Robbie. You see, since the summertime I’d had the time to Þ gure out that I kind of
liked
Kerry, more or other or in addition to just as a friend. I was just never going to tell her that part.

I must have looked very serious (I seem to be famous for that), because Kerry searched my face intensely. “I hope you’re not sore at me for what I said to Robbie.” She seemed a bit anxious.

Gosh no, I wasn’t sore. Just, well, a little confused. I mean, she told Robbie she wouldn’t let anyone but herself marry me. What the hell did that mean? This was sort of a half-subconscious daydream of mine? Did people joke about stuff like this all the time? Was that normal if they did? If they didn’t? And then, there were those weird few seconds at the beach, when she kept looking at me and I didn’t know what she wanted, but I had the strange feeling she was, like, jealous or something. No, better let that train of thought go. But did Kerry think stuff about me? Like, maybe, did she think I was, well, maybe was she saying—ah, forget it. I didn’t want to prove how stupid I was by opening my mouth, so I said nothing.

Kerry shufß ed a bit and glanced down at her scuffed Doc Martens boots. “Yeah well, I, um, know you’ve got that whole military thing coming up and all, and I wasn’t trying to wreck it for you,” she said earnestly, gazing back up into my eyes, searching them. “It’s just that if people are gonna talk shit, let ’em really have something to talk about.

Then they feel stupid when they Þ nd out they were wrong.”

• 34 •

PUNK LIKE ME

I gazed at Kerry’s Doc Martens, too, and tried to appear very serious and cool as I nodded my head in understanding—an understanding that reached my ears, but not inside them. I couldn’t look at her, I couldn’t breathe. My God, what was I going to do when she found out they were right—at least about me?

I shoved one hand deep inside my pocket and let the other one swing the bag a bit as I continued walking, my eyes still focused on the ground ahead of me. Kerry trotted a bit, and as she caught up with me, she reached for my shoulder. I jumped, surprised, shocked, scared she could read my mind through my skin.

It was all well and good that we could talk about people being bisexual or gay or whatever, and that we didn’t care, ’cuz we were too punk and too cool, and we had heard other people were, but I had the uneasy feeling that it would be different if it was someone we actually knew—if it was, well, me.

“Hey, girl.” She bumped her hip against mine. “We still have plans with the guys tomorrow?” she asked me lightly. “We gonna let them in on our fun?”

I stepped out from her reach because I still felt a little uncomfortable, but I smiled anyway because I just couldn’t help it as I glanced at her and gave her one of my trademark crooked grins as all those weird thoughts disappeared from my mind.

“Oh, yeah, we did say we were gonna show them what exactly it is we do when we hang.”

“Think they’re up for it?”

Oh, what a deliciously nasty mind she had with the look she gave me. “Oh baby, they ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

• 35 •

• 36 •

PUNK LIKE ME

I’m not gonna bore you with all of the details, just entertain you with the most important ones. Here’s the deal, see. Nicky and I, or Kerry and I, or the three of us, would go to the Village every Saturday, and I do mean every Saturday—some Fridays, too. We’d take the train to the ferry (yeah, that’s the famous one every visitor to New York has to step on at least once—it’s kinda cool, actually) and walk up from South Ferry through Tribeca, wander through Chinatown and browse through SoHo, and then Þ nally, the Village.