Thwonk

DESTINY

“Jonathan, you and I are going to drive to Peter’s house,” I shouted with ecstasy. “You are going to zap him with a poisoned arrow and I’m going to live happily ever after!”

Love, he ranted, isn’t all it’s drummed up to be,
especially
if we’re crazy about a person just because of how they look! I assured him that how Peter looked was only a minuscule part of why I was mad about him.

Jonathan eyed me wearily. “Infatuation cannot be sustained indefinitely, my friend. Love that embraces the entire person is a monumental gift that takes time to grow!”

“
I don’t have time to grow! The King of Hearts Dance is six days away, and I’m going! I’m going with Peter Terris because you’re going to shoot him, Jonathan!
”

I grabbed my car keys, flung on my black bomber jacket, and headed to my Volvo and destiny.

Books by

JOAN BAUER

Backwater

Best Foot Forward

Hope Was Here

Rules of the Road

Squashed

Stand Tall

Sticks

Thwonk

THWONK

JOAN BAUER

THWONK

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

I was in my makeshift darkroom above the garage developing my umpteenth print of Peter Terris, an individual of full-orbed gorgeousness who needs absolutely no retouching, an individual oozing with classic tones and highlights who barely knew that I was alive. I had taken this shot in great diffused light in the Benjamin Franklin High School Student Center, catching Peter poised perfectly by the sainted statue of Big Ben himself. I had taken it from afar (distance being the basic glitch in our relationship), using my ace Nikon F2 and
zoom lens while hiding behind a fake marble pillar. I was hiding because if he knew I’d been secretly photographing him for all these months he would think I was immature, neurotic, and obsessive.

I’m not.

I’m an artist.

Artists are always misunderstood.

My red safelight shot a warm glow through my darkroom. I sloshed developer solution around the photographic paper (sloshing was a key developing technique) and rocked the tray gently as Peter’s face filled the paper. At first it was hazy like a shadow, then the fine grains appeared and flowed into chiseled sensation. I dipped the paper in fixing solution to stop the process, rinsed it, ran a squeegee over it, and hung it on a clothesline to dry. I studied the photograph and felt my kidneys curl. It was a surprising shot that caught you off guard, like seeing an old friend unexpectedly. My father, who taught me everything he knew about photography, would call it “a decisive moment.” It dripped emotion like a great photograph should.

I pushed back my swivel chair and sighed deeply.

I have spent the last five months trying not to love him.

I sneezed with emotion, being a chronic allergy sufferer, whipped out my nasal inhaler, and gave each nostril a long, tormented squirt.

Falling in love is a massive pain.

I locked the darkroom door and slumped through my studio. It was February sixth: eight days until Valentine’s Day. I was dateless, as usual, deep in the vise grip of unrequited love.

It was bad enough not having a boyfriend for New Year’s Eve. Now I had to cope with Valentine datelessness, feeling consummate social pressure from every retailer in America who stuck hearts and cupids in their windows by January second to rub it in.

There was the humiliation of not having a date to the King of Hearts Dance at school, a dance considered by persons in the know to be an excellent way to get a date to the prom if you weren’t otherwise attached, a dance that is held every Valentine’s Day in the Benjamin Franklin High School Student Center in a massive celebration of teenage romance and universal love. I started down the garage steps that led from my studio and nearly tripped over Stieglitz, my dog, a forty-pound black-and-white keeshond (pronounced caze-hawnd) fur ball named for Alfred Stieglitz, great black-and-white photographer of the turn of the century. He lunged at me with unbridled glee because the mere sight of my presence always made his day. It’s important to have a dog. Dogs love unconditionally.

I knelt down to pat him. “Have you ever noticed, Stieglitz, that love is filled with pain and torture and promises nothing but agony?”

Stieglitz hadn’t noticed, wagged his tail, and tried
to climb into my lap. I crashed through the garage, into the kitchen, and contemplated my dilemma.

The whole thing with Peter Terris started five months ago, and I’d like to say from the outset that I wasn’t looking for trouble. I was walking through the Student Center to English Lit, speed-reading
Beowulf
, when I tripped over Peter’s flawless foot and crashed at his feet like a complete spaz. I would have written the whole thing off to consummately bleak timing had I not gazed into his ice-green eyes, observed that they were positively riveting, and frozen in time. This was hazardous. I was trying to avoid eye contact with the entire male species. My last relationship had just crumbled and left me emotionally blotto when Todd Kovich, my boyfriend of four gut-wrenching months, left to attend Yale University, and spoke those parting words favored by churls and two-timers the world over:

“I’ll call you.”

Did he call?

Have I heard one syllable from him since August twenty-third?

Do pigs fly?

So there I was, flopped at Peter Terris’s feet, still reeling from Todd’s premier abandonment. I brushed myself off. I reminded myself that falling for another gorgeous guy was beyond stupid, particularly when that guy was captain of the varsity soccer team and going out with Julia Hart, who was excruciatingly beautiful or, as
my best friend, Trish Beckman, put it, “Death Incarnate.” Nothing could pry a male from Julia Hart’s side with the possible exception of a blowtorch.

I smiled and tried to exit gracefully, and instead I managed to half-trip. Peter Terris was looking at me like a child watches a clown in the circus. I limped off. That’s when Trish Beckman accosted me by the World Peace Bench that had been given to the school by last year’s graduating class. Trish is in the Drama Guild and reacts theatrically to everything.

“Don’t even think about Peter Terris, A.J.!” she snarled.

I held up my hands in innocence.

“It’s not going to work,” Trish railed. “I saw the whole thing. Your eyes got gooey.” She examined my hands and shook her head. “Your hands are sweaty.” She lowered her voice ominously to a stage whisper. “We’ve seen this before.”

No joke. Trish and I have been best friends since sixth grade and we’ve been through everything together—countless romantic devastations, the constant attacks of her little brat brother, plus the epic horror of her father’s midlife crisis when he wore skintight shirts and called everybody “Babe.”

“
Say it!
” Trish demanded.

“I am not going to fall for the wrong guy again,” I mumbled.

She studied my face.

I rubbed my eyes. “I’m fine,” I assured her.

That was five months ago. I wasn’t fine then and I’m not fine now.

Let’s talk tragedy.

I’ve had four, count them, four boyfriends with definite dream potential turn into Swiss cheese in one year. Two went back to their old girlfriends, one insulted my photography, and Todd, saphead that he is, graduated and went to Yale. I’ve missed one prom (“Let’s Keep the Magic Forever”), last year’s Homecoming Howl, and the King of Hearts Dance three years running.

I have dating strengths, you understand. I am not ugly. I have long chestnut hair, solid brown eyes, excellent teeth, and a small nose I can wrinkle if I have to. I am tall (almost five nine), slim, except for my knees which will probably pudge out by the time I hit thirty. I have less of a waist than I’d like, less of a chin than I’d like, but I wear clothes well and I can handle minor repairs on any car without seeming overbearing.

My parents are concerned about how quickly I fall in love.

“Why do you think, A.J.,” they say in unison, “that you find these boys so attractive?”

I didn’t say that this fiery chemical explosion leaps from somewhere inside me. Parents don’t want to hear these things. I shrugged and said nothing.