Thin Ice (5 page)

             
“You’re insane,” I hollered, jerking my leg away.

             
“Take them off!” Chrystal insisted.

Krishna
kept going, aiming the cigarette at my thigh.  I slapped madly at the burning hole.  Chrystal started pulling at my pants, ripping them, helping me to take them off. I grabbed Krishna’s beer and poured them on the smoldering, burnt material. 

I wished I
were drunk.  Then I wouldn’t feel the pain. 

Gay showed up
, and said, “What the fuck are you guys doing to Glinda’s pants?”

             
All three of us looked up at her.

             
“God, she was nice enough to lend them to you.  What is your problem?” Gay continued.

             
Krishna chuckled, then said, “You think that’s bad, watch this.” She put the cigarette cherry to the back of her wrist, sizzling her skin.

             
“What are you doing?” Gay and I both screamed.

             
“Now that’s punk,” Chrystal said, watching in admiration.

             
All of us watched in awe as Krishna’s flesh blistered and blackened. 

We scrambled toward the quarry, the four of us
.  Only Gay was still fully clothed.  We flitted through the shadows and trees, trying to reach the water as quickly as we could.  Well, not Krishna.  She ambled along, drinking from a plastic cup that she casually filled from the keg while a dozen teenage boys encircled her, gaping at her, dumbstruck.  She was darkness and curves, giggles and curly hair, and when she finally stuck her toes in the water, there was an actual crowd of spectators.  She ignored them all.

When I jumped from the cliff into the giant bowl of ice water, at first I felt the intense slap of it
.  Then I sunk helplessly, ten or twenty feet into the darkness and terror.  Then, at the point where gravity meets water density, I stopped sinking, started kicking back up, opened my eyes to see the green filth.  Finally, up above the surface, I flailed and gasped for air.

“It’s freezing!” I screamed, choking and sputtering.

We bobbed around, Cheerios in the milk.  We were shouting, teenaged nothings.  Gay kept jumping out, running up to the edge and doing cannonballs, screaming on the way down.  She never did strip.  She jumped into the quarry in her cut-off blue jeans and black T-shirt. 

Si
egfried sat alone in his ripped-up jeans and long-sleeved, white button down, watching us from a sloping rock under the full moon.  Clusters of teenagers everywhere, teenagers of all shapes, sizes, and social groups.  Scattered among them were people I knew, people I’d heard of, people who knew one another that I didn’t know knew one another.  Buzzing networks and burning cigarette cherries and popping sounds, and group giggles, and midnight laughter. 

I wanted to get the hell out of that water
.  The freezing hell of it finally spurred me on.  The only place to climb was the slippery slimy rock where Ziggy was.  He stabilized his footing, leaning toward me. 

“Need some help?”
He reached down a hand.  Stark naked, and feeling a little sheepish, I took it.

“I’m freezing
.”  My teeth chattered at him.

“Obviously,” he muttered, sweeping his gaze across my chest as he pulled me onto the slippery rock.

His grip was tight; I wouldn’t fall.  He dug his heels in and pulled me up.

I tried to
find my footing, but slipped the moment he let go of my hand.  He immediately grabbed me around the waist, to stop me from falling, and pulled me down hard onto his lap. 

“I’ll get you
wet,” I said.

“Or maybe I’ll get you
wet,” he said.

“That makes no sense.”

“God you’re stupid,” he said, laughing.

I scrambled to
climb off his lap. “I am not stupid,” I shouted, and found a spot to sit on the rock, which was not easy.

He sat in silence for a long time while my teeth chattered on and on
.  Then he said, “Where’s Paul?”

Suddenly
, my teeth stopped chattering.  Where was he?  I couldn’t see him anywhere.                “I don’t know.”

             
“Isn’t that him up there with that girl?” He pointed to a clump of trees up and to the left.

             
“Who is she?”

             
“I don’t know,” he said.

             
Her name was Candy.  I met her later, by the kegs, the mass of teenagers, and the boom boxes.  Paul never stopped talking to her or took his eyes off her for the rest of the evening.  He’d followed her everywhere she went.  Ziggy stood back and laughed and watched him follow her around. 

“Ziggy, shut up!” I snapped.

She was hot.  She looked like her name.

             
“Who is that talking to Paul?” Gay asked me, half an hour later.

             
“Candy,” I answered. 

             
“Hmm.  Good name.  Perfect name.  Bet he takes a bite out of her,” Gay said.

             
I stood back, sulking, between Gay and Ziggy.  Both were fully clothed.  I had on a T-shirt, but still no pants, because I no longer had any.  Gay urged me to get high or drunk and forget about Paul.  Ziggy said it wasn’t that easy, and I agreed with him.  In the moonlight, I felt my insides caving in. 

I dripped dry
.  Eventually, most of the people left—including Paul, who left with Candy, and Glinda—which meant I could lumber up the dirt and rocks to my dad’s car and those half-burnt, beer-soaked, torn alligator pants.

“Where did she come from?”

“She’s from West.”  The other public high school in town. 

             
“I dare you to drive home like that,” Ziggy said as we neared the car, before I had put Glinda’s pants back on.  I picked up the pants, felt their griminess in my hands, and tossed them into the dirt.  Gay picked them up, outraged. 

I decided I would drive home with no
pants on, because it made me laugh, and anything to ease my pain over Paul was welcome.  I dropped everyone off, all of us laughing about how I was wearing no pants.  When the car was empty, I returned to my house with the ruined alligator pants and went inside the dark, empty kitchen. 

I shouldn’t have
raised my hopes about Paul. 

I put my dad’s keys on the counter and heard them clink in the night
.  I went back to my empty bed in the dark and sunk in it.  Of course, my dad wouldn’t be happy about the cigarette burns in his floor carpet, but I knew he wouldn’t say anything the next day.  And he didn’t. 

             
As I lay in the dark, I tried to come up with a way to coax Paul back. Perhaps I could get to know Candy, and somehow sabotage them and steal him back. Maybe that could work. I schemed as I fell asleep, and somehow became part of a bizarre dream involving Candy, Paul and those alligator pants.

“What do you know about him?” Candy asked.

              “Well,” I said, carefully considering my options.  I certainly didn’t want her to know how I felt about him.  I wasn’t sure I wanted her to know I had been seeing him.  I wanted her to trust me, so that I could keep tabs on their relationship, but I didn’t want Paul to know what I was doing.  I continued, saying, “He’s good at music.”

             
It was Oshkosh North prom night.

The Transistors stood on the makeshift stage
, very cool, especially Paul.  Ziggy leaned against the wall behind them.  Our high-school lunchroom had been completely transformed. The lights were at different angles, highlighting strange parts of the building, turning the cafeteria into a place I’d never seen before. 

T
he metal picnic tables were gone. 

             
“Normally I’d go to prom at West,” she said, “but when Paul asked me . . . I don’t know, I just thought he was so cute.”

             
“Yeah, he is.”

             
“That’s pretty much the consensus.” 

Candy and I turned to see who said it
.  As I should have known, it was Gay.

             
There was no drinking at the prom, which meant everybody (except me) either became drunk before, or carried it in pop bottles, or coat pockets in brown, paper bags like old bums, or maybe even, if it were schnapps, lip-gloss containers.

             
Candy stared at Paul, dreamy-eyed.

Gay eyed me with a look that said,
‘What are you doing talking to that bimbo?’

             
I rolled my eyes.

             
“Hey, I notice you’re not wearing the alligator pants,” Gay said.  None of us wore prom dresses. We wouldn’t be caught dead in a prom dress. All except Glinda, that is.  She was all decked out in something unforgettable that she made herself.

             
“Yeah, well. . . .”

             
“What pants?” Candy asked.

             
“Oh, it’s nothing. Gay is harassing me about Glinda’s pants, which I ruined.”

             
Glinda was dancing with some tall, handsome guy under the twirling disco ball.  They were holding each other close.

             
“That’s her over there.” Gay pointed.

             
“Oh.  I know her,” Candy said.  “She’s the one who invited me to the quarry that night, said I had to meet this cute guy.  She introduced me to Paul.”

“What?”

Candy
smiled her oblivious smile and said, “I really, really like him.”

             
I looked over at Gay, who refused to turn her head.  I crossed my arms and glared at Glinda. 

So that’s who set them up
, I realized
.  It figures.  When she said she was going to beat me up, she didn’t mean physically. 

The desire to sabotage Paul and Candy was gone, suddenly.

Suddenly I felt helpless.  Like nothing I did mattered anyway.

I suddenly noticed how ugly the building was
.  The halls were dark and empty, although I knew kids were wandering them.  Hollow rectangles with no style or elegance meandered this way and that. 

“Why does modern architecture have to be
ugly?” I asked nobody in particular.

Candy turned around and said, “What?”

“Nothing,” I said.  I didn’t care about her anymore.  “Why does everything have to be ugly?”

“Drink some of this and everything will look beautiful,” Gay said, offering me a brown
, paper bag.

I ignored her
.  I knew she and Krishna were taking bets on how long it would take for me to give up my sobriety kick.

Out of the corner of my eye
, I saw Ziggy, disgusted about something, scoff and leave the cafeteria.  He headed down the dark hall, and, I assumed, exited the building. I didn’t see him again until we went over to his house later that night.  That’s where everyone went, including Paul and Candy, who were now quite an item.

By everyone
, of course, I didn’t mean Glinda.  She was still at the prom, or off with her handsome date.  She was too good for us.  Or she thought she was.

I lay on the dilapidated couch in Ziggy and Glinda’s in-between room
.  I called it the in-between room because it was the room between their two bedrooms.  The two of them had an apartment to themselves on the second floor of the Sinclairs’ run-down, Victorian home.  Their parents never came upstairs.  We could do pretty much whatever we wanted.  We could smoke pot, drink, and have an orgy if we wanted to.  That was practically what was going on up there that night, after the prom.  Paul and Candy were going at it right below my feet, lying on the floor making out, making smooching sounds.  I wondered if that was what Paul and I had sounded like, only three weeks ago. 

I lay
the side of my head on Ziggy’s lap, and put my feet up.  He immediately started giving me a back rub.  Krishna noticed, from her make-out-with-Ames corner.  She said, “Ziggy gives the best backrubs.”  I didn’t know how she noticed; the two of them were practically having sex on the floor. 

But she was right
.  He did give good back rubs.  When he slowed his hand down, I said, “Don’t stop that; it feels good.”  It felt so soothing that it almost made the pain of watching Paul and Candy kiss go away. 

Why couldn’t I
turn my head and stop watching them?  I couldn’t, though. I lay there watching till I fell asleep.  Ziggy woke me up when he lifted my head off his lap, stood up, went into his room, and slammed the door.  Why did he always have to slam the door? 

That woke Gay up
.  I tried to go back to sleep, but in a few minutes she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Can you take me home?  I need to check on my little brother.” 

The TV had turned to static
.  Lots of people were still lying on the floor, but some had clearly left.  Raj had left.  I remembered he had been making wisecracks about the show we had been watching. 
Star Trek
, and then some stupid Friday night rip-off of
Saturday Night Live
.  He’d had some girl with him, too, but I hadn’t been paying any attention to her. 

“I think I’m too tired to drive,” I told Gay
.  I sat up and looked for Paul and Candy.

“They left,” Gay said, reading my thoughts
.  “Come on, you don’t have to drive.  I’ll drive.  I can stay awake.”

We left, walking down the square, spiral
, wooden staircase in the dark.  The old wood didn’t creak. Although it was old, it had been built too sturdily to creak. 

We
sat in the car. Gay drove to the all-night donut shop.  She said she needed some sugar to stay awake.  The drive out to her house took about a half hour, and neither of us would be able to make it without the help of a sugar rush.

When we walked in the
donut shop, bright lights overwhelmed my senses.

It was clear we weren’t the only ones to have this idea
.  There were several people from the prom there, including Glinda.  She stood in her elegance, wearing the sealskin coat she had lent me one time.  I wondered if it still had the five droplets of red wine I had spilled on the front of it, near the collar.  I wondered if they could ever be removed.

When they saw each other, Gay and Glinda immediately started talking in
their old, familiar way.  I stood a ways apart from them, near the counter. 

“Are you ready to order?” said the clerk, with the droopy-eyed vacancy of the 3:00 a
.m. shift.

“No,” I said
.  I was so tired I just stood there, staring at her.

After a few minutes, I
ordered a bear claw.  I reached into my pocket and was surprised.  I’d thought I had change in there, but instead pulled out some lipstick and mascara I didn’t own. 

“That will be
seventy-five cents,” said the clerk.

“This isn’t my stuff,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s Glinda’s coat,” Gay said from near the counter.

“How did I end up wearing it?” I asked
.  The coat was tan, and, like everything else she wore, unusual.  It had fringes hanging from the bottom and the sleeves.  “How did I not notice it till now?”

“It was sitting on the couch when you were lying on it
.  Ziggy must have put it over you when you said you were cold.”

“I said I was cold?”

“Yeah,” said Gay.

“I don’t remember that
.  I must have been asleep.”

“Ziggy shouldn’t have given you my coat
.  You’ve damaged enough of my clothes,” Glinda said, gliding up to me.

“What
?  You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Where are my pants that I lent you
?”

“You asked me to borrow them,” I said.

“Why would I do that?”

“I wondered that myself.”

I turned back to the counter, started looking through my purse for some change for the bear claw. I thought I heard her say something else nasty, but couldn’t quite tell what.

I slammed three quarters down on the counter
for the cashier before rounding on Glinda.  “What did you say?” I spoke so loudly that everyone in the donut shop turned to stare at me.

Glinda set her sparkling eyes on me
.  Her date stepped up beside her and put his arm around her.  The five tiny droplets of red wine were gone.  I wondered how she had removed them.

“Let’s go,” Gay said, grabbing my arm
.  She had already bought a large coffee.  We had planned to drink it here to stay awake for the drive to her house.

“No,” Glinda said
. “You don’t need to leave with her, Gay.  We’ll give you a ride home.  You can stay at our house.”

“I have to go home and check on my little brother,” she said.

“We’ll drive you there,” Glinda said.

“You’re
evil,” I said.  “Why do you hate me?”

“Why do I hate you
?  Seems to me you’re the one who has a hard time living with yourself,” Glinda said with a smirk.

“It wasn’t my fault
!” I fairly shouted.  The people in the coffee shop stared at me.  I didn’t care.  My face was hot and I was shaking. 

“Let’s go
.”  Gay grabbed my arm and tried to pull me out of the shop.  I flinched, spilling some of the hot coffee on her.

“It wasn’t my fault
, Glinda, and you tried to make me feel like it was.  You’re the one who made me want to kill myself.  It was you.  Why do you hate me?”

“Ha!
Not my fault you can’t live with yourself.  Of course, I can certainly understand.  I wouldn’t be able to live with myself either if I had done what you did.”

“You are a bitch,” I shouted.
“You are a judgmental, snobby bitch, and you know what else?”

Gay
jingled my car keys.  She said, “I’m taking your car and leaving you here, Jane, if you don’t come now.”

“Do you know what else?”

Gay grabbed me by the arm.

“No,”
I smacked Gay’s arm away.  “You are taking her side now, you hypocritical, two-faced liar.  You are the one who encouraged me to date Paul when Lucy was pregnant. You said to hell with her.”

“I’m not taking anybody’s side,” said Gay.

Glinda had turned back toward me and walked back toward her date with a smug shrug.

“Get in,”
Gay commanded. She opened the door and shoved me into my seat.

Glinda opened the door and headed out toward us
.  “Come with us, Gay,” she called.  “We’ll drive you home.  Don’t ride with her; she’ll probably crash her car, she’s so hell-bent on self-destruction.”

“Go to hell
!” I shouted from inside the car. 

Gay slammed the door on me
, sat in the driver’s side, and started the car.  “It’s okay, Glinda,” Gay said out the open window. “I’ve got it under control.  We’ll be fine.”  And she hauled ass out of the parking lot.

“Why didn’t you defend me?” I asked.

“Defend you?  You were the one attacking both of us, her and me.  You need to mellow the fuck out.  Have a beer.  At least smoke a joint.”