The Basic Eight (30 page)

It’s over. I will always remember you,

Steve Nervo

“Oh dear,” I said, and then reconstructed it: “Oh, dear, my dear.” Hugged her. “What an idiot.”

“
I’m
the idiot,” she said, breaking away from me and slapping her own chest like an Indian brave. “
Me
. I can’t believe I fell for him.”

“Everybody in Roewer has fallen for him, remember?

He’s Steve Nervo. His name is all over the bathroom walls, for God’s sake.”

She cried harder. “Oh, dear, sshh,” I said. I hugged her again, patting her stiff, ironed back.

“Why did he do it? I can’t even call him and find out! How could he be so mean?”

In my own delicate state I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle this alone, and as though I’d wished for her, Natasha materialized out of the fog.

“Because he’s a shit,” she said, munching an apple. “Who are we talking about?”

I gave her the crumpled piece of paper. She read it quickly, snorted and recrumpled it, throwing it to the ground near V ’s half-finished cigarette. She finished her apple as V kept crying and threw the core to the ground. I looked down at our feet: V ’s in expensive, tasteful dark blue pumps. Natasha was wearing bright silver hiking boots. I was wearing something somewhere in between. Natasha’s foot began to tap impatiently; V ’s feet wandered all over as she blew her nose and got herself together.

“Let’s go buy some shoes,” Natasha said decisively. “What?” V said. “I have to–”

“Shoes,” Natasha said, cheerfully and firmly. “The better to kick some butt with, dear.”

V smiled slowly and we all walked to the Malleria. By the time the pencil-thin fluttering salesman found something suitable for Natasha we were all shrieking with laughter and piles and piles of shoe boxes were surrounding us, like coffins for babies, like some infant morgue had suffered an earthquake and the three of us, tipsy from Natasha’s flask, were picking through the rubble trying to figure out which dead person belonged to whom. V
found a pair of white shoes–“too bad it’s

after Labor Day, but I can wait,” she said primly–with little pearl buttons, and I found some sinister-looking black tennis shoes, the soles of which turned out to rub off everywhere in a very in- criminating way. Natasha found these ghastly bright orange fake fur things with high, thin heels like spider legs. V insisted on paying for all the shoes, like Natasha and I had made some huge sacrifice in cutting school to shop.

Over a midmorning snack at the Worldwide Food Court (V
had a quesadilla; I had egg rolls; Natasha had a quesadilla and egg rolls) we ironed out plans for Sunday’s garden party. We’d come over Saturday afternoon to cook a bunch of stuff; it would chill until Sunday. Cold salads because we’d all been eating too much lately, although I was still thinner than Kate. V had a tentative guest list, and with great ceremony we crossed Steve Nervo’s name off; Natasha had the idea that if we invited each and every member of the cast except Steve it would insult him further, so we added everyone’s name, from The Frosh Goth to Sweater-Vest Shannon (who’s in charge of props) to Ron Piper himself. Natasha said she was sure he’d be cool about the drink- ing. V was still slightly tipsy and so told me that Douglas had asked her to invite this superskinny boy from her math class named Bob. After much debate Flora Habstat did not get crossed off the list. Fictional characters next: both the Daisys, Buchanan and Miller, were welcome; Gatsby himself was not. Ophelia but not Hamlet. Both Oberon and Titania if they promised to be nice. Phoebe but not Holden. Pearl but not Hester. Desdemona but not Othello. I had to get to rehearsal.

By the time I walked back to Roewer I scarcely had time to stash my new shoes in my locker and head to the auditorium. We were running through the last two acts.

We weren’t doing the beginning part. We were doing the part where it all comes unwound. The part of the plot where all the elements have been clearly established, and put in the right place. The part where you just sit and watch everything happen, where everything goes wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it but wait for everybody to die.

Thursday October 28th

Three days, one for each of my eyes. Two outer, one inner. Just kidding. You really thought I believed that mumbo jumbo for a minute, huh? Be honest. That’s one thing I’ve learned: be honest; always be honest.

“Honestly?” Natasha said, recapping the flask. From the smell of her breath it definitely wasn’t water this time. “Heavens no, I’m not going to speak to you honestly. I’m
never
going to speak to you honestly. Where did you even
get
that idea, anyway? I’ve never spoken to you honestly and I don’t plan to start. Get honesty from, I don’t know,
Flora Habstat
.” She spun the car through a right turn that would have killed us all had we been minor char- acters.

“But are you going to do something, or not?”

“That’s the question
you
should be asking,” she said, blowing a kiss at herself in the rearview mirror and turning up the stereo. She was playing me her favorite new band, Tin Can. They were loud and electronic, like the noises you might imagine happening inside a computer. Tin Can’s singer sounded like he was singing through a tin can. “Baker’s not even
my
Math teacher. I have Deschillo, and he never has
anything
interesting to say, and what does
yours
do? Gives you
the key
! You have
the key
to everything, to
everything, Flan
, and you ask me if
I’m
going to do something. Baker’s Rule, Flan:
do

something
. And you have to ask
me
?”

“Natasha,” I said. “
Natasha
! You’re scaring me.”

She stopped the car suddenly, in the middle of the street. Luckily, there was no one behind us. She stopped yelling and looked at me; everything was quiet except for the traffic and Tin Can, who were shouting either “My heart” or “My art.” “I’m not trying to
scare
you,” Natasha said. “I’m trying to
help
you, dammit. That’s what I’m here for. Adam is messing with your brain, and you have to do something
back
to him, just like Carr messed with your brain, and–”

“Carr didn’t mess with my
brain
,” I said, “he–” “
Whatever
.”

“What about Gabriel?”

“Save Gabriel. You can be with Gabriel when you get Adam off your back.”

“He’s not on my back. That’s the prob–”

“
The problem is that you’re not doing anything
!” she said. “
Do something! Do something! Come on
!”

“All right, all right, I hear you,” Jennifer Rose Milton said, opening the back door and getting in. Where had she come from? “Thanks for the ride, even if it’s only a couple of blocks.” She smiled, and we could see she’d been crying. “Millie’s taking a mental health day, but I had to come in. Bio test. Don’t you hate those? Well, of course you do, Flan. Do you have a tissue or something?”

“What happened to you?”

Jennifer Rose Milton sighed. “Oh, you know. Just a little morning cry.”

“What are you talking about?” “Kate didn’t tell you?”

We shook our heads in unison.

She swallowed and tried to smile again. “I guess I

can’t rely on Kate to disseminate information so quickly. Frank and I–well, Frank dumped me last night.” She burst into tears again. Behind us, someone honked and Natasha started moving again. “
He
dumped
me
! He just said ‘It just isn’t working out between us.’ Can you believe it?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve never heard him say a sentence that long.

You must be very proud.”

“Oh, Flan,” she said, laughing, crying. “He
was
an idiot, wasn’t he?”

“Well, he dumped you,” Natasha said. “Give him
some
credit.” Jenn swatted her just as she parked. She blew her nose with a long shudder, loud and wet as the gurgling in my head. “I should

have taken a mental health day, Bio test or no.”

Natasha smiled thinly. “Jenn, I’m going to leave you in the Hands Of Flan. I gotta go.”

Suddenly V was knocking on the car window. I opened the door and saw she was crying, too, again. “Oh, Flan,” she said. “He’s such a rat. A rat and a
liar
. Oh–”

“Now I
really
gotta go,” Natasha said, getting out of the car. She walked six steps, turned back and got the flask, and waved it at us, looking at me sharply. “See you guys later.”

I sat there for a second, but neither V nor Jennifer Rose Milton could reach me to their satisfaction, so I got out of Natasha’s car and leaned against it while they both cried.

“He’s seeing someone
else
,” V said. “This little thin
freshman
! She’s joined his band now, on
tambourine
! I can’t believe it! ‘
Just isn’t working out between us
’ indeed!”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m sorry too,” Jennifer Rose Milton said, and burst out crying again and then V burst out crying and then both of them were crying on my shoulder–one on each shoulder, I mean. “I don’t know what to
do
,” one of them said, I couldn’t tell which. Do
something
, I wanted to tell them, but it isn’t always that easy. Sometimes you don’t just know what to do, and with that bland cliché I will close this journal and end the entry for Adam’s third- to-last day.

Friday October 29th

Two days. Kate filled me in at lunch. “Did you hear the latest about Frank?”

“Yeah, Jenn told me yesterday,” I said. “What a creep.”

“No, no,” Kate said. Her eyes lit up; she was pleased as punch I hadn’t heard the latest. “He’s seeing someone else.”

“What? I thought things between them–” “‘
Just weren’t working out
,’” we said in unison.

“Yeah,” she said. “I know. He’s such a rat. It’s Nancy Butler, of all people, remember, Mark Wallace’s old girlfriend?”

“No,” I said. “Nancy Butler wasn’t going out with Mark. I be- lieve she was going out with Martin Luther King.”

“Well,” she said, “someone in the triptych, anyway. But now she’s hot and heavy with Frank. Jenn went ballistic when I told her.”

“
You
told her?” I said.

Kate straightened up defensively. “Well,
somebody
was going to tell her. I thought that I should do it, you know, as a friend. You know, three couples within the Basic Eight have called it quits lately. You and Gabriel and me and Adam are the only happy couples left.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, trying to find something to say.

Kate crumpled up the bag of chips. “I’m just glad that I don’t have to worry about–”

“Can I talk to you?” Adam said, looking at both of us. Just at that moment some stereo on the other side of the courtyard started playing the Tin Can album, like he’d brought his own soundtrack.

“Do you mean me?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, and we walked to a quiet corner. “I’ll just come to the point. I made a big mistake, Flan. It’s you, it’s always been you.”

“Well,” I said. “There’s not much we can do about it now, is there?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “It will be difficult, but we can do it. We have to seize the day, Flan. Our love won’t wait. Is your unicorn parked outside?”

“Yeah right. Yeah right. Yeah right,” spat the chorus of the Tin Can song. Adam wrinkled his nose in irritation.

“No,” he said, tiredly. “I don’t mean
you
. I mean
Kate
. Can I talk to you, Kate?”

“Sure,” she said, extending her hand to him so he’d help her up. He paused for a moment and took it, and Kate looked up at him and saw that something was wrong. “What’s up?”

“I want to talk to you,” he said again. I watched them walk to a quiet corner. The Tin Can song was getting turned up louder, louder, louder–no, it was Natasha walking toward me with her portable stereo.

“Howdy!” she crowed, blocking my view of Kate and Adam. “Yes, yes,” I said. “I’m trying to see.”

“See what?” she said.

“I’m trying to find out,” I said pointedly. “Sit down, Natasha.” She sat down. “What are we looking at?”

“Adam wanted to talk to Kate.” “I bet he did.”

“No, no, it looks serious,” I said. “Will you turn down that Tin Can?”

“It’s Tin
Pan
, not Tin Can,” she said, but she turned it down, whatever it was. Tin Pan sounded like they were using tin pans for drums, and the singer was still saying, “
Yeah right. Yeah right. Yeah right
.”

“‘You bite, you bite, you bite,’” Natasha corrected me. “It’s about vampires, I think.” Adam was walking away from the quiet corner with an uncomfortable look on his face like he had to pee. Shannon, sweater-vested as usual, stood up from one of the Sophomore Benches and called out his name but Adam kept walking. “What’s going on?” Natasha said, as Kate looked after him. She looked at him, she looked at me and then, standing there alone in the quiet corner, took out a navy-blue handkerchief.

LATER

“Are we even going to have the garden party now?” Gabriel asked me as he drove me home from a dismal dinner with all the dumpees: V , Jennifer Rose Milton and my personal favorite, Kate Gordon. “It doesn’t seem like we have much to celebrate.” “We’ve got to have it,” I said. “An opportunity like this doesn’t come very often. V ’s parents away? The Basic Eight let loose

in that glorious house and garden?”

“People are upset,” he said to me, looking confused. “Tonight was a bummer. We don’t want to have a party that feels like a funeral.”

“Sunday is
two whole days away
,” I said. “I bet by then Kate will be saying, ‘Adam who?’ She’s a big girl. She’ll be over it in a jiffy.”

“Right,” he said, smiling. “That would explain why

she hardly ever mentions Garth.”

“We’re not going to cancel the party,” I said.

“We could take off school Monday anyway,” he said. “You and me. Lounge around the house all day.” His eyes were on the road so he couldn’t read my expression, but there was nothing I could do about him taking my hand.

“What’s with everybody?” he said, suddenly quiet and tense. We were stopped at my house, and Gabriel was getting out of the car so he could come around and let
me
out. “What’s with people, Flan? One minute we were all happy here, and now everybody’s breaking up with everybody else.” He shut his own door and I had a blessed moment of silence as he walked in front of the car to open my door. If I had been behind the wheel I could have just eased the car out of park, right when he was in front. He would have been pinned.
Speaking of breaking up
, I wanted to say, but no way was I going to start that sentence to his face, his eager and fragile face, expectant and so young, and cute. “I’m glad we’re not going through that,” he said. “No, no”–as I started to speak–“I’m not saying we’ll be together forever or anything, I just mean that I really care about you, and I want to tell you not to worry. I’m not just going to walk up to you someday and say it just isn’t working out. I’ve waited a long time for this, and I’m committed to staying and working out whatever we’ll need to work out.”