Things I can’t Explain (17 page)

I stare at Norm with his ab-hugging new logo T-shirt and his letter from Jeff Bezos at Amazon and I know in an instant exactly how to score this gig. Lucky for me, Norm is an irrefutable example that the DIY approach can be profitable. And he is the profile that makes it a story. A story I know personally.

“Actually,” I say, turning to MT, “I don't need an extension.
This
is my pitch.”

Dartmoor and MT look a tad baffled. And why not? My “pitch” is still on his knees in front of MT's office.

“But what about the marriage proposal?” MT asks, genuinely disappointed at this sudden shift back to business. “That was so romantic.” She still has her eyes locked on my former BF, so I figure I'd better act fast.

“All Decked Out is Norm's DIY venture, and, as you can see by this handsome logo tee, Norm's DIY has become quite a big deal despite these unforgiving and trying economic times. Therefore, as the first in my
series
of DIY articles, I would like to profile Norm and his company.”

The words trip off my tongue eloquently as I explain to the dreamy-eyed MT and the scowling Dartmoor my plan to present a “trials and tribulations” account of Norm's rise to skateboard notoriety and success. I finish by indicating the still-kneeling Norm with an exaggerated
Wheel of Fortune
spokesmodel arm flourish.

“So what do you think?”

MT is still gazing at Norm, who has remained steadfastly in proposal mode.

“Oh, I do,” she answers on a sigh. “I do.” Then she catches herself, realizing what everyone else is thinking, and stammers, “Um … what I mean is, yes, I do
like it
. Quite a lot, in fact. It's brilliant. You're hired.”

“Thank you!” I say, grabbing clueless Norm under his arms and hoisting him to his feet.

“Wait!” Dartmoor says. “Don't I have anything to say about this?”

“Of course you do,” says MT, “as long as it's ‘Welcome to the staff, Clarissa.'”

Dartmoor seethes, but I couldn't care less. I'm hired.

And weirdly enough, I owe it all to Norm, his skateboard obsession, and his Kutcher-esque cheekbones. Still, I don't want to risk him doing anything weirder than he already has, so I'm ready to wrap this up.

“Well,” I say, “Norm and I had better get going.”

“Must you?” MT says, clearly only giving a damn as to whether Norm must. I smile and nod yes. “Oh, I understand—I assume you must,” she adds wistfully, her upper-crust training kicking back in. You never know, she might even think there's still some kind of spark between Norm and me.

“Yep, ol' Norm has to go back to work,” I say, trying to put some distance between Norm and the idea that we're together.

“Norm does?” he asks bewildered, finally realizing that MT's eyes are fixated on him, and he's looking back at her realizing for the first time certain other possibilities.

“Actually, I'm sure Norm would be free for lunch some time,” I mention offhandedly. “Right, Norm?”

Norm nods, in that charming empty-headed way of his.

MT does what any self-respecting CEO would do in this situation: She conservatively bats her eyelashes.

“Perfect,” I say, grabbing one of MT's cards off Druscilla's desk and shoving it in Norm's shirt pocket. I shoulder my briefcase, pick up Norm's deck, and head for the elevator. Norm reluctantly follows.

“I'm out of here,” I say, smiling at Dartsy, “because, ya know … I'm just really anxious to get home and start working on my
assignment
.” Oh, that feels good. I have barely enough time to catch Dartmoor's desultory sneer as the elevator closes.

As soon as the elevator opens in the lobby I drop Norm's deck on the designer inlaid floor, watch him walk out, and press the elevator up button, giving him a little wave good-bye as the doors close again.

I get out on the mezzanine balcony and wait until I see the confused half dude, half boy make his way home. Months of being pursued by my very own stalker have taught me a few diversionary tactics.

Minutes later on the street I'm ready to leap in the air like Marlo Thomas in the opening of
That Girl
. You know, the one that used to play on Nick at Nite? I want to run and spin. I even contemplate flying a kite in Central Park.

Jumping for joy, I feel my phone vibrate.

It's a text message from G-bomb, Genelle Waterman, the ultimate buzzkill, the last person I'd ever want to hear from.

Oh, sugar—whatever it is can't be good.

 

CHAPTER
17

Some say that Vladimir Lenin coined the phrase, “Two steps forward, one step back,” or was it “One step forward, two steps back”? I swear it had something to do with dialectics or Hegel and materialism, but I can't remember. Either way, I know he wasn't talking about an episode of
Dancing with the Stars
. I do know that every time I think I'm getting a few paces ahead on my own personal curve, I wind up being jerked backward by my past. Take the darling Fergwad appearing on Dartmoor's radar, for example.

It's as if you go through life tied to one enormous bungee cord—you try leaping into thrilling new territory, but you can only go so far before karmic elasticity yanks you back. Sometimes I think all of humanity is in serious danger of getting whiplash.

Once in a while the nostalgic pull is positive, like hearing a They Might Be Giants song and remembering it was the first tune you ever downloaded on your MP3 player. But mostly, it's the not-so-great stuff that sucks you back.

Life is like that stupid board game, Sorry!, where you try to progress your pawn (how's that for symbolic?) around the board, but other players are always waiting to force you off the path. According to the rules, they have to say, “Sorry!” But you know they don't mean it. Funny how the space on the board you get sent back to is called “Home.” Well, why not? That's where you find the heartsick parents, the self-destructive brothers, the lost loves, and the high school enemies.

I wonder if everyone my age feels this way. I wonder if we all have to make a superhuman effort to keep moving forward toward all those things we're supposed to achieve in life.

It was Friedrich Nietzsche who rattled off that inspirational little tidbit: “That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger.” Personally, I think what doesn't kill you
almost
does. So I don't see the upside. I'm sort of half empty on that
what doesn't kill you
thing. Go ask someone with PTSD, I'm sure they'll agree.

What Friedrich forgot to mention is the corollary: That which we don't kill can come back around to haunt us and make us miserable. Which is why I should have buried Genelle Waterman the night of her reunion party.

Genelle Fucking Waterman. I don't know if that's her real middle name, but I like to think it is. She is definitely one of those high school–specific memories you hope you never have to deal with again, like rainbow meat, cliques, lockdown, drama bitches, and bullies.

For four years, Genelle and I quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) loathed each other. Oddly enough, this animosity was not inspired by any single cataclysmic event—she didn't pelt me with maxi pads in the locker room shower or dump pig blood on me at prom, so it certainly could have been worse. She did plenty of bitchy things, mind you, and I confess, once in a while I succumbed to my darker instincts and gave as good as I got. But mostly we just tormented each other at a PG-13 level by saying nasty things about each other. Why girls endlessly torture each other in high school, I don't know. When exactly does sisterhood kick in? As I get older, I wonder why, truthfully, girl-on-girl social abuse never seems to stop no matter how old you are. I've always tried to find my peeps, my safe pocket.

Thank God Facefuck, I mean Facebook, wasn't big in those days or the war between Genelle and I would have been way worse. Sure, the occasional term paper or hair scrunchie mysteriously went missing, but mostly it was just annoying, harmless bullshit that took place on school premises, not online. Outside of Thomas Tupper, our Venn diagram of life very rarely overlapped.

But on the night of Genelle's lame one-year reunion party, she totally crossed a line. Actually, that night I crossed a line, too—one just for me—and Sam did, as well—but it was a very different kind of line.

I wore this cool flowered yellow-and-blue dress over my jeans and my nicely weathered Doc Martens (for good luck and old times' sake). The party was a streamer-and-balloon-bedecked bash with more kegs than I could count and nobody was twenty-one, so I had no idea how Genelle got around her dad. The honorable Councilman Louis Waterman had a strict no-booze policy. Hell, I thought her mom was in the Temperance Union (yes, it still exists).

Clifford Spleenhurfer was DJing and I have to admit, he had become pretty good at dropping the beats. He certainly had a shedful of turntables, crossfaders, and ginormous speakers.

I don't know why, but it felt like every guy there had a condom tucked into his wallet. I know that every girl had shaved her legs, armpits, and certain other nether reaches of her female anatomy. And there was the sudden appearance of multiple tattoos and piercings. Not to mention a plethora of weed.

I had tried marijuana like everyone else, but didn't personally partake, maybe because there wasn't as much floating around the newsroom as, say, a college dormitory. The predominant self-medication of choice at the
Daily Post
was alcohol, and old boozers were not an attractive enticement to drink.

Then there was the traumatic childhood New Year's Eve incident where Ferguson and I had secretly stayed awake until midnight. When Ferg and I ran into Marshall and Janet's bedroom yelling “Happy New Year!” at the top of our lungs and found them buck naked tugging on a joint, it was vastly too weird an experience to assimilate. I still shudder at the thought. So does Dad. It kind of cured me of the desire to smoke pot. I mean, I know my parents used to be hippies and all, but it wasn't an image I wanted in my brain.

That night people came to Genelle's party full of agendas as if they wanted to reset the record on high school. Everybody (with the notable exception of me) had recently finished his or her first year of college and were two months into their sophomore year. I guess they were over their freshman jitters and at “peak recklessness,” all ready to show the old gang that although we may have been innocents when we left Springfield, higher education had changed that forever.

Genelle's agenda was simpler: Get Sam back.

Yes, once upon a time in high school, Genelle and Sam were an item. They had dated for two months, three weeks, four days, and thirty-five minutes back in our junior year. Unfortunately, I remember every minute of it. Sam and I talked about it on a play-by-play basis. She was cuckoo for his Cocoa Puffs, although sometimes I wondered if she was just trying to piss me off by forcing him to divide his time between us. She definitely decided within the first week that as much as she loved Sam, the one thing she needed to change about him was me.

I took great satisfaction in knowing that he never climbed a ladder into
her
bedroom window. But still, they held hands in the lunchroom, made out in her car, talked on the phone, and did that whole ridiculous “you-hang-up-first-no-you-hang-up-first” thing for almost the entire time they were together. I can't tell you how many times I had to listen to that one. I'd pull my tongue out with fire tongs before I'd tell Sam or anyone to hang up first. It's just too stupid.

Anyway, after that disturbing knee bump under the table in New York, I felt awkward when I saw Sam at the reunion. For the whole party, I couldn't stop looking at his mouth when he talked. Don't ask me why, it was totally sexing me out. Like I was noticing for the first time how his lips formed words and it made my knees weak.

Our bone marrow–deep friendship had morphed. I knew it, he knew it, and as soon as we ran into Genelle, she knew it.

She threw herself at him as if they were long-lost lovers, and Sam looked so uncomfortable I felt sorry for him. Genelle escalated her efforts while getting plastered out of her gourd. All she got out of Sam was a polite, “Good thing this is your party, because you're way too wasted to drive home.”

Then Sam startled me by grabbing my hand and giving me a look with those warm brown eyes of his and said, “Let's get out of here.…”

The heat from his hand made my whole body warm. Why hadn't we ever held hands like that before? He certainly didn't have to ask me twice and the confidence in his voice put any doubts out of my mind. After all, he's the cautious one between us.

I felt Genelle's death squint boring into the back of my head as Sam and I left the party together. His dad's red pickup truck was parked outside. I've always loved that truck and I always will. As we drove away, I glanced back and saw Genelle standing on her front steps still watching us, the party behind her shifting from rowdy to raucous.