The Big Crunch (8 page)

W
ES HAD BEEN EXCITED AND SCARED
about seeing June in school on Monday, so he was both disappointed and a little relieved when she didn’t show up. He was trying to figure out a way to find out why — was she in the hospital? — when Jerry came up to him as he was loading some books into his locker and told him June had stayed home with a cold.

“Huh,” said Wes, as if there was no earthly reason he should care about the state of June Edberg’s health.

“I suppose that means I’ll get it too,” said Jerry.

“That’s the problem with having a girlfriend.”

“Yeah.” Jerry nodded. “I suppose you pretty much get the same diseases. Was it like that when you were with Izzy?”

“We were both sick all the time,” Wes said.

“I’ll probably go see her after school. See how she’s doing.”

“I wouldn’t, at least not until the nose-dripping stage is over.”

“I don’t mind getting
her
cold,” Jerry said.

“Yuck.” Wes was genuinely repulsed.

“I know,” Jerry said. “I think that’s how you know you’re in love. When you even like the yucky stuff.”

Even before he knew he was going to do it, Wes smacked Jerry on the top of his head.

“Ow!” Jerry ducked away. “What was that for?”

“Dope slap,” Wes said. “For being a dope.”

Jerry rubbed his head. “That was kind of hard for a dope slap.”

“You were being extra dopey.”

“Oh yeah?” Jerry swung, trying to deliver his own dope slap, but Wes caught his arm and twisted it. Jerry yelled and swung at Wes with his free hand, but Wes blocked it and shoved him up against the wall of lockers. The back of Jerry’s head hit the edge of Wes’s locker door with a loud
tok.
He slid down onto his butt, eyes unfocused, leaving a streak of bright red blood on the front of the locker.

Wes backed away, becoming aware of a gathering crowd. A pair of hands grabbed Wes from behind and pulled him roughly back. Ms. Mayer, one of the librarians, crouched down beside Jerry. “Jerry? Can you hear me?”

Jerry did a bobblehead imitation, head lolling.

“Jerry?”

His hands flopped like a pair of beached carp.

Ms. Mayer had her cell phone out and was dialing 911.

The man holding Wes was Mr. Johnson, the music teacher. He pulled Wes down the hallway toward the office.

“What was that about?”

“Nothing.” Wes couldn’t believe what had happened. “We were just goofing around.”

A few years ago — he’d been nine — Wes had fallen out of the oak tree in his front yard and broken his leg so badly that the bone stuck out through his skin. Nothing before or since had ever hurt so bad, or been so frightening. He remembered every detail — screaming in pain, his mom rushing outside and finding him, the ambulance ride, and the surgery. His parents told him he’d
been unconscious for that part, but he was sure he remembered it — the horrible pulling and grinding sensation when they set his shinbone back into place. It had been the worst day of his life.

Until now.

Wes leaned forward in the flimsy plastic chair and hung his head over his knees. He heard a distant siren. All of them — Mr. Johnson, the secretaries, everybody who came in the door — looked at him like he was this monster. The violent, ugly beast who had attacked Jerry Preuss. He would rather be lying on the ground with a bone sticking out through his shin than have them look at him that way.

The siren got louder, and then it stopped. He imagined the ambulance at the front entrance, EMTs pushing through the glass doors of the foyer with a gurney. The thought of Jerry’s face when he slid down that wall made Wes want to throw up. What if he was seriously hurt? And what the hell had
happened?
One second they were just talking and all of a sudden Jerry was
swinging
at him. Sure, Wes had given him a little dope slap, but they did that stuff all the time, just kidding around, no big deal … it was
never
a big deal.

And what was it with everybody all of a sudden getting hit on the head? First he and June bonked each other, and now Jerry … how was it always his fault? He stared down at the floor. It was filthy. Hundreds of students tromping in with dirty snow on their feet. It could have happened to any one of them. Just goofing around and somebody gets hurt. He thought of the woman at the SuperAmerica.
You kids …

It was just as much Jerry’s fault. For that matter, it was partly June’s fault because if Jerry hadn’t been acting so moony eyed over
her he wouldn’t have needed a dope slap. And what would
she
think when she heard that he had put her boyfriend — his oldest friend — in the hospital? He had to call her and explain what happened, that he hadn’t meant for Jerry to get hurt, and that it wasn’t his fault.

June really did have her mom’s cold, which was freaky because she had been all psyched to fake it so she could stay home from school. Did she get the cold because she had wanted it? Her dad would think so. Her dad was all into the power of positive thinking. He told his clients that the first step to success was to imagine it.

“If you can imagine it, you’re halfway there,” he liked to say.

Maybe he was right. She’d gotten sick because she had imagined it.

Whatever the case, her nose was running like a faucet and her throat was sore. She spent most of the day in bed drinking herbal tea and flipping through back issues of
Cosmo
and
People.
She didn’t even turn her cell on. Around three o’clock, Jerry called the house phone. Her mom answered it and brought the phone to her room.

“Tell him I’m sleeping,” June said.

She must have looked really pathetic because her mom just nodded, took her hand off the mouthpiece, cleared her throat, and said, “I’m sorry, Jerry. June is taking a nap.”

Thank you,
June mouthed.

A little later the phone rang again.

“If it’s for me, I’m sleeping!” It hurt her throat to yell.

Sometime later — it was getting dark out — June shuffled to the bathroom, still in her pajamas and slippers, for another dose of
cold medicine. Her mom heard her and called out, “I made chicken noodle soup, Junie.”

Chicken noodle soup. The thought of those fat noodles sliding down her throat almost made her gag. She swallowed the cold medicine and walked to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice. Her mother, wearing her auburn wig, full makeup, and a dark green jacket and dress ensemble — what she called her “money outfit” — was sorting through her purse.

“You’re going somewhere?” June asked, surprised.

“I’m helping your father with a management seminar tonight, then we’re having dinner with some of the Sani-Made executives. Have you seen my car keys?”

June thought for a moment, then looked at the hooks door, where the keys were supposed to be hung. “Isn’t that them?”

Her mother looked at the keys and made an exasperated sound with her lips.

“I swear I’m losing it,” she said. “Who’d have thought that I would actually hang my keys up?”

“You didn’t. I told Wes to put them there.”

“Wes? Oh yes. The boy who blackened your eye. He called, by the way. I told him you were doing a Camille.” “Doing a Camille” was what her mom called it when June pretended to be extra miserable. Something about an old movie, older even than her mother.

“You didn’t really.”

“No, I told him you were sleeping.”

“Oh.”

“I wrote his number down.” She pointed at the notepad by the kitchen phone. “He said to tell you, ‘It wasn’t my fault.’ ”

“What wasn’t his fault?”

“I have no idea.”

After her mother left, June ladled some soup into a bowl, picked out the noodles, and ate what was left. It was okay. Not that she could taste anything.

It wasn’t my fault.

What had Wes meant by that? That he’d bumped heads with her and given her a black eye? That he’d kissed her? What did he mean?

She considered calling him. Ask him what he meant. Would that be like chasing him? What about Jerry?

She wished she knew how long she would be living here. Her dad only had a six-month contract with Sani-Made, and sometimes these jobs ended early. They might be gone in a month or two, and then it wouldn’t matter what she did because she would be gone and all the names and numbers on her cell phone would be erased and she would have to start over. But if they stayed longer — her dad
always
promised that they would settle down — then she would have to decide what to do and live with it.

Jerry was easy.

Jerry was comfortable.

Jerry was a nice guy.

Jerry was Wes’s friend.

Wes had kissed her.

A good kiss. The kind of kiss that said,
I want you. I need you.
As if it took every last ounce of his willpower to keep from tearing her clothes off and doing it right there on the kitchen floor.

Jerry had never kissed her like that. And if he had, she wouldn’t have liked it.

But she had liked that kiss from Wes.

It wasn’t my fault
, he had said.

June tore the top sheet off the notepad, went to her room, and entered Wes’s number into her cell phone. So she would have it. Just in case she ever needed it. She noticed that there were several missed calls. Three from Jerry, one from Phoebe, and one from Britt. She turned her cell off and got into bed and closed her eyes and tried to make it all go away. All of it.

All but that kiss.

J
ERRY WAS OKAY.
He had a “possible mild concussion” and a cut on the back of his head. They stitched him up and sent him home after just three hours at the hospital.

“Thanks for calling, I guess,” Jerry said.

“I’m really sorry,” Wes said.

“You should be,” said Jerry. “I still have a headache.”

“Well,
I
got suspended. My parents are really pissed. I’m stuck in the house for the rest of the week.”

“Too bad.” Jerry wasn’t going to let him off easy.

“I don’t know what happened,” Wes said. “We were just goofing around, and —”

“And you smacked me.”

“It was supposed to be like a dope slap. I don’t even remember why I did it. I didn’t mean for it to be so hard.”

“Well, it was.”

“Then when you tried to hit me back, I guess I got mad.”

Jerry didn’t say anything.

“Jer? You there?”

“Ever since you broke up with Izzy, you’ve been acting like a jerk,” Jerry said. “Maybe you should make up with her.”

“She’s going out with Thom Samples. Besides, I don’t want to. Izzy was cramping my style.”

Jerry laughed. “Your
style
? Since when do you have a style to be cramped?”

Wes was nettled. If he could have reached his arm through the phone, he would have delivered another dope slap.

“You know what I mean,” he said.

“Actually, I don’t. Even June has noticed it.”

“June didn’t even
know
me when I was with Izzy.”

“Yeah, but she noticed how weird you’ve been acting.”

“What did she say?”

“I don’t know. We were talking about you, and —”

“When?”

“I don’t know. A few days ago. Anyway, she said you walk around like you don’t care what anybody thinks. Like you think you’re better than everybody else.”

“She said that?”

“Something like that.”

Wes could feel his entire body tensing up. Was that really what June thought?

“Have you talked to her today?” he asked.

“She’s still home sick. I tried her a few times, but she must still be sleeping.”

“What are you going to tell her? I mean, about what happened today.”

“Just the truth — that you slammed me against the wall so hard I woke up in the hospital. Why? What does it matter to you? I mean, since you don’t care what anybody thinks.”

“I just don’t want people to get the wrong idea.”

“Then you shouldn’t be pushing people around.”

“What? I didn’t … look, it wasn’t my fault. You were trying to hit me.”

“Yeah, right. You know, Wes, you should get therapy or something.”

June got out of bed and went to the kitchen and stared at the telephone until it stopped ringing. She knew it was Wes, from the caller ID. She waited a minute, then picked up the phone and checked the voice mail. No messages.

It wasn’t my fault.

She could have picked up the phone and found out what he meant. Or she could call him back, right now, and in a few minutes she would know.

She practiced saying, “Hi, Wes? It’s me.” Would he know who “me” was? “My mom said you called?” Her voice sounded wrong. She sounded like she was holding her nose. He would laugh — she could hear it already. Well, what did he expect? She had a cold. People with colds talk funny.

The phone rang again. It was Jerry. She let it ring. What had people done before caller ID? It must have been awful to pick up a phone never knowing who was on the other end. The ringing stopped. Next he would call her cell phone. Again. Jerry was like that. Persistent.

It was nearly midnight when her parents got home. June could hear snatches of their conversation as they got ready for bed. It sounded as if their dinner with the Sani-Made executives had not gone well.

“They’re all scared to death you’re going to get them fired,” her mom said.

“Sani-Made has a very top-heavy payroll,” said her dad.

“You didn’t need to bring that up at dinner. You made everyone very uncomfortable.”

June had noticed that when things were not going well, her mother always said “you.”
You shouldn’t have blah-blah-blah,
or
You get what you pay for.
But when things went well, it was always “we” and “our.”
We really did a great job. Our presentation was spot on.

June had learned about that in psychology. It was called
attribution.
When something good happens, people like to take credit for it.
I got a raise because I did a good job.
But when things go bad, that same person likes to
attribute
it to outside forces.
I got fired because my boss is a jerk.