Twisted (10 page)

Homecoming Friday Night Play-by-Play Action:

Looked at French book by Albert Somebody = .25 hours

Printed out English essay Yoda e-mailed = 2 minutes

AP Art History reaction paper = 15 minutes

IM = monitored constantly—the entire world was away

Doodled breasts in Government textbook = 20 minutes

Surfed online journals = when I got sick of reading away messages

Online porn = you don’t want to know

Snack = leftover KFC followed by handful of Turns

Thought about ripping out drywall with my bare hands = every other minute

AP Calc = .75 hours before I threw the book in the trash

Played Tophet = 5 hours

Level Thirty-Six in Tophet looked like Antarctica with the temperature hovering around seventy degrees below zero. I was confused. Hell was supposed to be too hot, not too cold. But level Thirty-Six was Inuit Hell.

I had to spend way too much gold on a fur-lined jacket, pants, and boots for Gormley. I sacrificed a spell to start a fire so he wouldn’t freeze to death. You couldn’t really die in Hell; you’d be reincarnated as a weaker being over and over again until you were reduced to a wormspirit.

My father’s Hell level had not shown up yet. Maybe it was being trapped in a office with a screaming boss whose butt you had to kiss day and night. Maybe it was coming home to a wife and kids who bolted for the door when they saw you. Or it was waking up every morning knowing you had to do the same exact thing you did the day before and the day before, like that guy who had to roll the boulder up the mountain over and over, except you’d know that when you died there’d be no relief, because you were already dead and this was what you won as the booby prize in the game of Eternal Soul Roulette.

I wondered what the devil would say to my father. Would they watch baseball? Discuss the bond market?

I fell asleep with my head on my desk.

Dad woke me up at five
A.M
. He was already dressed for work: black suit, white shirt, gray tie. He said he had to get to the office early.

I did not tell him it was Saturday. I wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation.

On Monday morning my father went to his office again.

My mother ate dry toast for breakfast, then she went to work, too. She had to take pictures of the mayor’s terriers wearing red-and-green plaid vests.

My sister and I went to school. We learned that we had lost the homecoming game.

The perfect American family continued to lead their perfect bullshit lives perfectly.

In order to convince Bethany that I was not a rude, disgusting pig, I spent homeroom apologizing one hundred thousand times for standing her up at the game.

“It’s okay,” she said again. “Honest. I get it. You’ve seen my mother. I understand parents who freak out, trust me. Is that a new shirt?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, praying that I had taken off all the tags. “My mom bought it.”

“I like it, but you know what, Tyler Miller?” She focused her eyes on me. The rest of the world was sucked away into a giant vortex, leaving only the two of us. “You are too old to let your mommy buy your clothes.”

“I am? I mean, yeah, I am.”

“You should go shopping with me. I’ll take care of you.”

Oh, dear God, will you ever.
I was experiencing a noticeable lack of penis control. I slouched a little in my seat to hide the bulging evidence.

She didn’t notice. She turned around to ask Mikhail Roberts, sitting behind her, if he did the Chem homework. But she did not offer to take him shopping.
Ha.

Bethany flirted with me for the next two weeks. She also flirted with a soccer halfback named Stefan; Evan, who had the drum solo in the marching band; both of the Prakesh brothers; and Parker, the moronic sophomore who I put through the gym locker. I figured the only thing she saw in Parker was the Corvette he had been promised for his sixteenth birthday. Bethany was smart like that, always looking ahead.

If you lined me up with the other guys, you’d start singing “One of These Things Is Not Like the Others” from
Sesame Street
. The other guys, they all blurred into each other: rich, smart, athletic, and popular. Me, I stood out, the semi-bad boy guaranteed to bring some spice into her life.

Of course, there was always the chance that she was totally setting me up for major humiliation or that this was all mercy-flirting. But, honestly? I didn’t care.

You could tell that Halloween was just around the corner when the Christmas decorations went up at the mall. The weather finally turned cold, and girls started wearing turtlenecks that showed their belly buttons.

Bethany owned a black cashmere turtleneck. It was a little longer than the other girls’ but short enough to flash a quick hint of belly skin when she reached up to fix her hair. She was now touching me an average of 2.4 times a day.

The day the doctor gave her permission to play tennis again was the first day she hugged me. Hug #1. She hugged a bunch of other people, too, including all her girlfriends on the team, Zithead Parker, and both Prakesh brothers, but she was enthusiastic like that.

When I saw Mr. Benson at the courthouse that afternoon, he said I looked different.

“Got a girl?” he asked.

“Nah.” I shook my head.

“Nothing like a woman to lift a man’s spirits. Be safe. See you next month.”

The night of the first hug, I dreamed about beating Chip Milbury into a bloody pulp. He got in a couple of good shots; I lost a tooth and my mouth was bleeding. My last punch sent him flying off the roof we were standing on. We were so high in the air, I didn’t hear him land.

And then Bethany was in my arms, and she wasn’t mad at all that I had just obliterated her brother. I put my fingertips under her chin.

My heart beat so fast I thought I was going to die.

I moved in slowly…and kissed her pink cupcake mouth.

She kissed back. Harder.

I was thinking raw caveman thoughts, but this time it wasn’t about beating a guy to death. I wanted a woman, I wanted this woman.

I cradled the back of her head in my hand. A strand of her hair fell into my eyes. The universe was spinning, and this kiss was the only thing that mattered. Bethany opened her mouth. Her tongue glided over my broken teeth. We tasted like blood and frosting.

And I woke up.

The dream was a sign, a magical intervention by all the saints and spirits in charge of helping dweeby guys desperate for a girlfriend.

Those saints and spirits had nothing to do with decent grades, though, which is why the next day began with another Calc quiz. But I forgot about it as soon as I was out the door, because she was standing there, waiting for me.

I almost swallowed my tongue.

“Hey, Tyler,” she said.

“Hhhn,” I answered.

“Thought I’d come see you for a change. So, um, you going to the game tonight? ‘Cause I am. And then, well, then I’ll be at Rawson’s house—Josh Rawson? His parents are in Jamaica. It’ll be a great party.”

“Hhhn?” I asked.

She blinked her eyes in slow motion. I wracked my brain trying to come up with something intelligent to say, something that would make sense, anything to keep her standing close enough so that I could keep smelling her perfume because it was hitting my brain like crack cocaine.

“Hhhn,” is what I finally came up with, for the third time.

“You big dummy,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. “I want you” (she put her hand on my left forearm and slid it up under the rolled-up sleeve) “to go with me” (she stepped so close I could feel the heat coming off her body) “to a crazy Halloween party.”

I regurgitated my tongue and looked around at the crowded hall. “You’re not joking, are you? I mean, you know what I mean. You’re not punking me—nobody is filming this or anything?”

“No, silly,” she said. “Look, I like you. We’re not going out, but I like you, okay? I want to spend time with you. Are you getting the hint here?” Her fingers curled around my bicep.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Ah…”

While I struggled to remember a single word of my native language, the bell rang. Bethany pulled away from me. I shivered.

“You don’t have to pick me up or anything. I’ll be at the bonfire tonight, and then the game. See you there? If your dad doesn’t go off the deep end again, I mean.”

“Yeah, um–”

She was already gone, her ponytail bouncing down the hall.

I was so desperate to make this night happen, I took the school bus home. The underclassmen stared at me like I had lost my mind. I nearly told them I had an almost-date with Bethany Milbury
(I’ll see you tonight, right?),
but that would have tempted fate, so I scowled at them instead.

I made it to my house at eight minutes to three. I had four hours before the bonfire started. Hannah had a game and Mom was shooting Labradors. Dad was the unpredictable one. I would make a preemptive strike.

The lawn hadn’t been mowed since the Night of the Roast Pork Migraine, and it showed. In fact, our entire yard looked trashy. It wasn’t just the overgrown grass or the dying marigolds or the scraggly boxwood bushes. It was the gutters where rotting leaves had spilled onto last year’s broken Christmas lights, the paint flaking off the shutters, and the mailbox that tilted to the right.

I couldn’t fix all of that now. I just had to mow the lawn and sweep the cut grass off the sidewalk. I accomplished both in record time. After I showered I wrote a note to Mom explaining that I was spending the night at Yoda’s. I took off before anyone got home.

The Warrior tradition of holding a bonfire before the Halloween football game used to be a big deal. They say you could see the smoke for miles, that kids would party like crazy in the cornfields behind the school, that there were rivers of beer and the occasional sacrifice of virgins. Then the lawyers got involved.

Now the whole thing was closely monitored by the fire department and the police. The bonfire itself was almost big enough to cook a couple hamburgers on. The cornfields had been plowed under and turned into McMansion developments. The Key Club sold cider and fresh doughnuts. The fear of litigation had turned a pagan rite of passage into a pathetic shadow of its former glory.

Some of the kids were wearing Halloween costumes, but most of us had on winter jackets. It felt cold enough to snow. I opened a twelve-pack of spearmint gum. A few teachers mingled in the crowd, friendly-like, standing close enough to students to smell their breath and stare in their eyes. I chewed stick after stick and tossed the silver gum wrappers in the fire. The lights went on in the stadium and the marching band warmed up. The Key Club closed down the cider stand.

Bethany and her friends finally arrived as the bonfire was dying down, and people were hustling from the parking lot to the stadium so they wouldn’t miss the kickoff. The girls were wearing matching Halloween costumes—a cross between an angel and a fairy, with black leggings, tiny skirts made of fabric leaves, low-cut skintight shirts, and wings. A couple girls wore devil’s horns in their hair, which spoiled the effect. Not Bethany. Her white-feathered wings fluttered as she walked; her hair caught the breeze and played around her head like magic. She looked like she could fly away to the stars if she wanted.

“Tyler!”

She danced ahead of the other fairy angels and ran up and put her arm through mine. Her eyes sparkled in the firelight and her cheeks were red.

“Ohmigod you wouldn’t believe it Stacey’s mom’s car got a flat tire and we didn’t know what to do so then we called Triple-A and Stacey called her stepdad and some guy came out of his house and he had the wheel off before anybody could say anything and then he said we could go in his house, but we were all like,
Whoa, strange guy, I don’t think so,
and then the Triple-A guy and the stepdad showed up, and anyway, that’s why we’re late. God, it’s freezing. Did you miss me?”

Somehow my hand slipped behind her head.

Somehow I bent my face down to hers. Somehow her lips opened. Somehow I kissed her and somehow she kissed back.

The bonfire roared and reached for the sky.

Apparently we lost the football game. I didn’t notice.

Bethany started shivering right after we sat down on the bleachers, so she took off her wings and put on my jacket. I was frozen within minutes, but it didn’t matter. I kept her wings on my lap. I counted the freckles and the sparkles on her cheeks. I bought her popcorn and hot chocolate. I did not lick the spot of chocolate off the corner of her mouth. I did not make passionate love to her on the bleachers. Thought about it, but didn’t do it.

When I bought the second round of hot chocolate, she confiscated my wallet and went through it, snorting at the picture on my student ID, cooing at the photos of Hannah when she was little, and arching an eyebrow at the patient condom that had lived in there for years.

It wasn’t like we were going out. Not exactly, not officially. But we were at the she-gets-to-go-through-my-wallet stage, and I had kissed her—in front of police, armed with guns—and she had kissed back instead of having me arrested.

There was a chance that somehow this was really happening. I didn’t know how, but I wasn’t going to question anything.

The whistle blew. Game over.

I walked her to Stacey’s car, which was jammed full of girls.

In the middle of a crowded parking lot, Bethany kissed me again. It was a quick kiss but it was a) public, and b) her initiative. Two kisses in one night. I was on a roll. (There was also a chance that I was hospitalized in a deep coma and that this entire night had been a hallucination, but so what?)

Stacey hit the horn.

Bethany handed me my jacket and took her wings back. “I’ll see you at the party, right? Sorry we can’t give you a ride, but there’s no room.”

“No problem,” I said. “No, wait—problem. Where is it again?”

She rolled her eyes. “Rawson’s house? You doof, don’t you know?”

“Urn, no. How do I get there?”

She grabbed a pen out of her purse and wrote the directions on my palm. She blew on it to dry the ink. My knees buckled. She giggled and gave me a quick kiss good-bye on the cheek.

“Don’t be late,” she whispered.