Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath (3 page)

The same people, every day:

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Rare, more from adults:

“How's it going?”

“It's going.” (Usually follow with a shrug to show that it
is
, but not too well.)

If standing with a group:

“Did you see (some movie, TV show, concert, Ryan and Danielle making out in the hall)?”

No response required if answer is no. Answer is always no if the question concerns Ryan and Danielle. If answer is yes, then a short, noncommittal “yeah” until the group preference is established, and then agree. Usually things suck.

If standing with a group of males discussing females:

“Did she … will she … did you see her … she's such a …”

There are no safe responses, since all imply some level of expertise. Stand quietly, exit ASAP.

School

I don't react much to chemistry as a rule. Labs are a game of trying to figure out what was supposed to happen, guessing the proper conclusion, and trying to finagle the data to support the right answer. I believe this is what is known as the scientific method. Mariel, my frequent lab partner and the will-be valedictorian of our
class, has declared me a hazard and won't let me touch anything combustible or corrosive. Mostly I take dictation while she does the experiment. Lecture days are always a relief. Today's is on molecules randomly bouncing off each other. I spend the period mesmerized by how much of Simone's bra I can see through the persistent gap between the second and third buttons of her shirt. It is less than an inch of nondescript white—none of her actual breast is visible—but it is much more fascinating than anything I am being told about the chaos in a glass of water.

School

Mariel and David are laughing about something in front of Thad's locker. In all likelihood, it's Thad. A couple of lacrosse players walk down the hall followed by three cheerleaders—or if they aren't actually cheerleaders, they look like they would want to wear short skirts and stand on one another's shoulders to get a rise from the crowd. They exist in a separate high-school universe and they pass the rest of us as if they can't see us. Maybe they can't.

There are signs reminding us to register for the SATs. There's a bulletin board that displays last month's calendar surrounded by a lot of notices for events that happened long ago. But it's almost April. In September, everything is hung nicely. In October and November, someone dutifully
replaces the old notices with new ones. By now, everyone has given up.

“Are you okay?” Carrie asks me when she passes me after B period. I must look upset, because she usually doesn't talk to me at school.

“Maybe,” I answer, but I don't elaborate. She accepts my one-word response and lets the pull of the between-classes crowd drag her away.

School

There is a rhythm to the day. We don't march, we don't dance, but the movement of our feet isn't simple Brownian motion. Some genius has decreed that our schedule should rotate, but it's more of a lurch and tug. No one two three four five six seven. A and B start our day, then some combination of ones to fours except on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which have an activity period, and Wednesdays, which include time for a morning assembly, assuming we aren't on a shortened flex schedule. If it's Monday there's no fourth period, Tuesday no first. There's a logic without sense.

But we get there, mostly on time anyway. We have longer blocks for labs and seminars around tables and a gym with a real climbing wall, but it's still just school.

School

“Are you really going to eat that?” David asks, unwrapping his sandwich. David has one of three possible lunches.
To be more precise, David has one of three possible lunchmeats; the rest of the menu doesn't change at all. One apple, red; one small bag of chips, greasy; a piece of paper towel as a napkin; and a sandwich, white bread, mustard, meat. I haven't noticed a pattern to the meat itself but he only seems to eat roast beef, turkey, or ham sliced thinly. No cheese.

David does not seem to have a sense of humor about his lunch. I often try to convince him that there is some deep-seated pathology in his rigidly limited sandwich selection. But my efforts usually fail because I am always trying to convince him to trade lunches, and I have the world's worst lunches. My lunches consist of whatever happens to be in the fridge when we wake up in the morning. Cold lasagna. Pickles and cream cheese. Meat-loaf and mashed potato sandwiches. Once, a jar of capers, a package of crackers, and my aunt Ann's red pepper jelly. Roast beef starts to look really good.

“You don't even look anymore, do you?” It's an accusation, not a question.

“Sometimes I can finish it before I figure out what it is. If I eat fast enough, sometimes,” I say, still chewing, “I can eat the whole thing without really tasting it.”

I peel back the top layer of bread. The brown spread is most likely peanut butter. The red chunks are probably peppers. The little white squares have to be tofu. My mother thinks adding peanut butter to anything makes it
authentically Thai. I don't believe that anyone in Thailand eats peanut butter, pepper, and tofu sandwiches. At least not on white bread.

“You could make your own lunch,” David suggests, handing me a half of one half of his sandwich. I've noticed that he is more willing to share the ham sandwiches than the roast beef. Not sure what to make of this fact. I'd feel worse about my mother still packing my lunch for me if she did a better job at it.

School

There is nothing about history that requires me to do anything other than look alert, which I can do without paying any attention at all. The same five people answer all of Ms. Kalikowski's questions, and she prefers a lively class of five with twelve onlookers to trying to get the rest of us to participate. Sometimes I surprise her by raising my hand. She always looks pleased—partly, I think, because when I do say something it is relevant.

School

“Do you need a ride home today?”

“Always.”

I follow David to the parking lot, the way I have for most of the last year, as if nothing at all was different.

Will she skip ski trips if he slips tongue tricks?

Over the last six months, David has become our taxi service. Since about October, he's been giving me, Carrie, and Carrie's best friend, M.C., a ride home several times a week, and he still does on days when he doesn't have baseball practice. We don't even ask anymore. Carrie and M.C. wait for us in the parking lot so they won't be too identified with us. We are not the cool juniors, but Carrie decided that the bus is way too ninth-grade and David has a car.

David doesn't seem to mind. At least he doesn't say he minds. I'm not sure what he gets out of the deal.

Sometimes Carrie makes us stop on the way home. We need french fries, we need gum, we need some shade of lip stuff, and the world always depends on us having it before we get home. Home is clearly some form of dungeon. David shrugs, we stop. David shrugs a lot. It took me a while to realize that the shrugs mean something.

A short list of David's non-verbal vocabulary:

1) Shrug = okay. It is used to indicate that he is willing to go along, but only because you asked. It's a sort of “I don't care either way.”

2) Pulling glasses = not so okay, but also a sign that he probably doesn't have any choice, so he will go along with it anyway.

3) Rubbing the top of his nose. He uses his whole hand for this maneuver. It means “I am really uncomfortable with this suggestion,” but unless there is an easy way out, he will go along with it anyway.

4) Staring at his feet. If he is driving, the same effect is accomplished by staring robotically ahead and not responding. This is an attempt to convince you not to ask whatever you are about to ask. Bottom line: he will go along with it anyway.

Usually Carrie and M.C. ignore us, which is just fine. But today Carrie taps me on the shoulder from the backseat.

“I have a question. You're guys,” she says. I don't immediately answer because I assume that our guyhood is not the question. “So give us a guy opinion.”

“Sure,” I say. I hate agreeing before I know what it is I'm agreeing to.

Carrie then launches into a very long story. It begins hypothetically, something about “this girl,” who “may or may not” have done something with “this guy” on this camping trip, or maybe it was skiing, anyway, it wasn't here,
but he came back and told everyone about it, even though there wasn't much to tell about it because they hardly did anything at all. So if she didn't really do anything, but she did something, and now that they're back she doesn't want to do anything at all, this is his problem, not hers, right?

I start to ask who, but I can tell from the punching in the backseat who the story is about and that the right answer is of course his problem, not hers.

“So you'd be willing to go out with someone who you knew this about, wouldn't you? If you liked her, you wouldn't care who she kissed on some camping trip.”

If I say I wouldn't go out with her, then I've just implied that I wouldn't want to date an indiscriminate kisser, which feels all wrong particularly since I'm pretty sure I'd be in favor of it if it involved my mouth. If I say yes, I have admitted that I would be willing to ask her out, although I guess not as the real M.C., just as an abstract M.C.

“Sure, yeah, of course. Yeah.”

“See,” Carrie says, turning back to the less hypothetical M.C. “Even my brother would go out with you. What about you, David?”

“I'm saving myself for marriage.”

Perhaps popular people pick a pepperoni pizza

Carrie convinces us that we need to stop for pizza.

“I'm not hungry,” David argues.

“So?” Carrie answers.

“So, why do I need to eat pizza at 3:30 in the afternoon?”

The real answer is because Carrie told us we had to, but she tells David it is because she and M.C. so value his companionship and wit, which amounts to the same thing. David shrugs, we get pizza. He sits with M.C. and I sit with Carrie and it could be a date except David is gay and I'm sitting next to my sister.

We agree that a whole pizza is cheaper than slices for four people but David doesn't eat pepperoni.

“You're joking, right?” Carrie never knows quite what to make of David.

“No, I don't eat pepperoni.”

“But you do eat pizza?”

“Yes, just not pepperoni.”

“I didn't realize you're a vegetarian,” M.C. says brightly. “My older sister is a vegetarian, except she eats fish. And chicken. And turkey at Thanksgiving. And sometimes bacon cheeseburgers.” I think she's joking, but she keeps a straight face. She's a little like David; I can never tell when she's being serious. The difference between the two is that David never smiles when he's making a joke and M.C. smiles even when she isn't.

“I'm not a vegetarian,” David says calmly. “I just don't eat pepperoni.”

“I don't get it,” Carrie says. “Everyone eats pepperoni pizza. It is one of those things you can count on. Are you sure you're an American? What kind of pizza do you like?”

“Pineapple.”

We order pizza with black olives. I don't like black olives, but I'm not willing to make it an issue.

David dating data

“Is David dating anyone?” Carrie asks me, pretty much as soon as we walk in the door. David had offered to drop M.C. off at her house, but she decided she would do her homework here. Currently that involves sitting in front of our television in the playroom. Carrie, meanwhile, has cornered me in the kitchen.

“Don't tell me you're interested in David.”

“Not personally, no. But is he?”

“I don't think so.”

“Wouldn't you know?”

“Maybe.”

“What about Mariel?”

“They're friends.”

Carrie cocks one eyebrow. That ability must be genetic; why can't I do it? “Really?” she asks. “They seem awfully friendly.”

“I think they're just friends.”

“You think?”

“I'm pretty sure.”

“But he hasn't said anything about her to you?”

“We've never talked about her.”

“What do you talk about? He's your best friend, you're
in almost all of the same classes, you eat lunch with him every day—don't you know anything about him?”

“I know what he eats for lunch.”

Loathsome Louis longs to munch much lovely lunch

David spends too much time at lunch pitching possible essay titles at me. This is not for my benefit; he does it before every major assignment. David starts with the title, then writes a paper to fit it.

“ ‘Joad as Toad: Character in
The Grapes of Wrath
.' ”

David likes colons. You can hear them in his pause. He looks to me for a reaction.

“Possible. Nice rhyme. Subtitle needs work.”

He nods and looks solemn again.

“ ‘Mapquest: Map and Quest—Just Where Were the Joads Going?' ”

“Better.”

There is a pause before the next pitch, and I look up to find Louis behind my chair. Louis never arrives, he just appears. For someone his size, that's an accomplishment.

“Hello, Louis,” David says, placing his apple core back in his brown paper lunch bag. In defiance of all social norms, he always carries a traditional brown bag, which emerges every day from his backpack unwrinkled and stands on the table with remarkable posture for a near-empty paper sack. It's some sort of statement, because for most people the goal is to make the fact that you brought
your lunch look as unintentional as possible. The food should look like you just happened to find it—hey, there's a tuna fish sandwich in my pocket. There are a few categories of people, mostly girls, who can get away with actual lunch-boxes, but only if they can convey proper irony.