Weird Girl and What's His Name (5 page)

“So, that's about ten more golf games I have to caddy to be able to afford the mind-boggling high definition of Blu-ray,” Lula sighed. Leo had gotten her the golf course job, driving carts for the old duffers and hauling golf bags that were almost as big as she was. He always used to take her along during his golf games, when she was a little kid and Janet had a day job. So Lula actually knew a ridiculous amount about the game. Still, I asked her why she didn't just work in the pro shop, where all you had to do was stand around in the air conditioning, handing out towels and baskets of balls for the driving range. Lula said she liked being out on the links.

“You wouldn't believe the dirty jokes these old guys tell,” she confided giddily. “Filthy. Absolutely the worst. Also, they think it's adorable when a short girl carries their bags, so I get big tips.”

None of the DVDs were catching my eye, so I wandered over to the CDs. I browsed the titles, looking for something Andy would like, but it seemed like it was all Country, Heavy Metal, and Top 40. There was a greatest hits of Buddy Holly CD—Buddy Holly was sixties, right?

“Hey, Ronnie. It's Ronnie, right?” I looked around. It took me a minute to realize that someone was speaking to me, and that the person was Sexy Seth Brock, our school's requisite hot quarterback. Not that I was interested. I wasn't really into jock types, and Seth had a girlfriend, besides. But I have to admit, he was pretty easy on the eyes.

“Me? Uh, it's Rory, actually.”
Or just good ol' What's His Name. Whatever works.

“Oh yeah. Rory. Weren't we in Mr. Tanner's Biology class together last year?”

“Um. Yeah. I believe we were.” He borrowed test notes from me. Twice.

“I knew I remembered you. I just couldn't remember your name.” Sexy Seth flipped his shaggy surfer-hair out of his eyes. “Things were kinda crazy last year. It was my first year on varsity.”

“Oh.”
Yeah, I bet being a gorgeous, popular football player made life really difficult for you, Seth.

“Find anything good?”

“What?”

“CDs.” He motioned to the ones in his hands. “I'm gonna try this new Foo Fighters. I was into the early stuff, but then it kinda got too metal-y for me. I was looking for the Pavement reissues, but then I remembered, hey, I'm at Walmart.” Seth kind of laughed. “Schoolkids Records it ain't.”

“Yeah,” I said, not knowing what he was talking about. Rock music wasn't my thing. I jammed the Buddy Holly CD sloppily back in the racks. “Not much, um. Cool music. Hey, uh. I like your T-shirt.”

“Pretty awesome, right?” Seth pulled at the hem. The T-shirt had a sketch of a human head, like something out of an anatomy book, and said I A
M A
S
CIENTIST
. “It was my brother's. You've heard this album?
Bee Thousand
? GBV?”

“Actually, no, but I was thinking, uh—I have a friend who would be really into a shirt like that.”

“Tell him he can probably find one on eBay. It's from back in the day. I think it's a collector's item now.”

“Seth, honey.” An older, petite, blond woman clipped down the aisle in a jogging suit, pushing a shopping cart. “We better go meet Dad. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Sort of.”

“Honey, aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?” Seth's mom asked.

“Mom, this is Rory. Rory, my mom.”

“Hi, Rory. And what position do you play?”

“Excuse me?”

“He's not on the team, Mom,” Seth explained. “We were in Biology together last year.”

“You're not on the team?” Mrs. Brock exclaimed. “But you're so big!”

“Yes, ma'am. I know.”
And thank you for pointing that out, Mrs. Brock. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be over here in Home Electronics, dying a slow death of embarrassment.

“Well, Seth, you should get him on that team.”

“I'll work on him.” Seth gave me a look that said:
Parents. What can you do?
“We better go rescue Dad from the tire department.”

“Nice to meet you, Rory.” Mrs. Brock gave me a beauty-pageant smile. I could see the family resemblance.

“See ya 'round, man.” Seth gave me a little wave. I drifted back over to Lula, who was digging through the discount DVD box.

“All these old
Star Trek
s are only six bucks,” she said. “Where did you get off to, anyway?”

“I just had a close encounter with two extraterrestrial biological entities,” I reported. “Their teeth were unnaturally white.”

“What?” Lula laughed.

“Have you ever heard of the Pavement Reissues?”

“No, but I've heard of a band called Pavement. Midnight Pete used to play them on his radio show before he bailed and we got stuck with Midnight Steve.”

“How about a CD called . . . something Be. Be something . . . ”

“Let It Be
? It's by a little band from Britain you might have heard about, Theodore. They're called the Beatles.”

“No, no . . . hang on, I'll remember it in a second.” Okay, so maybe I was a little bit swayed by the jock type. Now I could kind of see how he got the nickname. A few minutes of talking to Sexy Seth, and, without even realizing it, he puts the whammy on you. “And Schoolkids—is that the place in Chapel Hill?”

“The cool record store? Yeah. What's with the sudden interest in music, Theodore? I thought that aside from your odd affinity for the oldies station, you were a ‘whatever's on the radio' kind of guy.”

“Just trying to stay open to new ideas.”

five

I
T WAS
T
UESDAY NIGHT AND THE
gym was packed as usual. I was doing leg presses when this guy in a Fighting Eagles (our mascot) shirt came up to me.

“Hey, you go to Hawthorne High, right?”

“Uh-huh,” I grunted, not paying much attention to the guy. I'd never seen him before. I didn't know if he was giving me hell or trying to pick me up, or what.

“What're you, six feet, six-two? You go 'bout two-sixty? Two sixty-five?”

“What?” Was all I managed to say. If I was cool and I had the nerve, I'd have told the guy to fuck off. But I wasn't, and I didn't.

“Your weight.” The guy realized I was looking at him funny, because he sort of stopped, then smiled. “Sorry, I'm Morris. I'm the offensive coordinator for the varsity football team over at Hawthorne.”

“Oh.” I finished my last rep and let the machine chunk back into place. I swung my feet to the ground and wiped the sweat off my face with my towel. I wasn't sure what this guy wanted from me. Then I remembered Sexy Seth's mom telling him to get me on the team.

“I go about two-eighty,” I told him finally.

“I thought so. I saw you running on the treadmill a little earlier. How long have you been working out here?”

“Since last fall, I guess.”

“You gonna come out for the team?”

“The football team? Not planning on it, no.”

“Why not? Tryouts are coming up.”

“I thought you guys didn't play again till next fall.” I knew I was a big guy, but playing football had never occurred to me. Partly because, unlike pretty much every other male in America, I didn't give a rat's ass about football. But also because being a big fat guy wasn't exactly something I wanted to draw everyone's attention to. I hadn't bothered to attempt playing any sport since sixth grade, when our neighbor convinced my mom to sign me up for community-league soccer. Because it would be good for me. I spent most of the time riding the pine, but I got a trophy because everyone got a trophy. For being such good sports.

“We start practicing in the summer. Whip you guys' butts into shape.” Morris winked at me. I wondered if Morris was his first name or his last. I thought about the way he introduced himself.
Sorry, I'm Morris.
It was almost like one of those word tricks, where it reads the same backwards and forward. Like
Madam, I'm Adam.
What do they call those? Anagrams? Palindromes? Lula would know. I'd have to ask her later.

“You ever play football?” Morris eyed me up and down again. “Pop Warner? Mighty Mite?”

“I played soccer one year. Community league.” I could tell he was nonplussed.

“You should try out anyway,” Morris said. “Can't hurt. Come by my office sometime. We need some big fellas like you. Fresh blood on the offensive line.”

Fresh blood.

“See you 'round.” Morris winked at me again. Was he just messing with me? Was this a trick? I thought about Lula, doing her best Mrs. Lidell Withering Stare. I wanted to say something like
I bet you'd like to whip my butt into shape.
Or
I've got an offensive line for you.
And flip him the bird. But instead I threw the towel over my shoulder and headed over to the pull-up bar. The one I was always afraid I would rip out of the wall. Because I was still just a lardass, any way you look at it.

L
ULA COULDN
'
T STOP FUSSING WITH HER
hair. I told her I'd help her with it, but she was driving me nuts. And making me late.

“Is it getting too dark? I don't want it to be too brunette.”

“It won't be. It's Natural Reddish Blond.” Clairol Nice 'n Easy, number 108. Lula was going from her usual dirty-blond color to Scully Red. Even though I thought her original color was really beautiful. And Gillian Anderson's hair isn't really red, anyway. Gillian Anderson being the actress who plays Special Agent Dana Scully on
The X-Files,
of course. I even emailed Lula a picture of Gillian Anderson outside of some premiere or something, and her natural color is almost exactly the same as Lula's. Maybe a shade lighter. But Lula said she probably dyed it that color so that she wouldn't get bothered on the street all the time by crazed Philes. Lula wanted Scully Red, so that's what she was getting.

“I think it's time.” She kept poking at the cotton around her ears.

“Two more minutes.” I checked my watch.
Tick, tick.
Come on. . . .

“Thanks for letting me do this over here, by the way,” Lula said. “Janet would freak if I stained her white tiles.”

“No sweat.” My mother wouldn't notice if we painted the whole bathroom red. Lula managed to sit quietly on the folding stepstool for the next minute and a half. Finally, I took my watch off and helped her tilt her head back into the sink. I rinsed her hair until the water ran clear, added conditioner, rinsed that, finally squeezed the water out of the ends and blew it dry. I could tell right away she was happy. Her head was a bright cap of flame.

“Scully Red,” I presented the mirror.

“Oh my gosh. It's perfect.” She looked at the back with the hand mirror. “I'm so super hot now.”

I laughed as I gathered the empty dye bottles and tossed them in the trash.

“Seriously. I'm really into myself with this hair. I'm the FBI's Most Wanted. What do you think? I'm the hotness, right?” She puckered and made a supermodel face at herself in the mirror.

“I think it's remotely plausible that someone might think you're hot,” I said, quoting
The X-Files
in my best Mulder deadpan. But Lula didn't laugh. I tried John Keats. “Actually, you're dangerously hot. Try not to swoon to death while gazing upon your steadfast hotness.” At this, Lula cracked a brief half-smile. She really was pretty, with or without the Scully hair. She had Janet's model cheekbones. Lula didn't think she was pretty, though. She thought she was too skinny, too flat-chested. And, worst of all, she had Leo's nose.

“Would you go straight for Scully?” Lula asked. She was still looking at herself in the mirror. “Like, what if, one boring afternoon at Andy's, you're restocking the
Harry Potters,
and in walks Gillian Anderson—”

“Why on earth would Gillian Anderson walk in to Andy's Books?”

“Because she's shooting a movie on location in Hawthorne. And she's super bored, because it's Hawthorne.”

“Why wouldn't she just drive into Raleigh, where something interesting might actually happen?”

“Because . . . traffic is terrible! I-40 is backed up in both directions for miles. So, she's stuck in Hawthorne, and you charm her with your legendary no-foam cappuccino and your extensive knowledge of the Edith Wharton oeuvre.”

“The Edith Wharton
oeuvre
?” I laughed.

“Yep. And next thing you know, Scully's all ‘Ooh, Theodore. You're such a charming young man . . .'” Lula giggled.

“Wait, Gillian Anderson, or Scully?”

“Same difference,” Lula waved her hand. “For the purposes of this argument. A hot redhead walks into a bookstore. Would you go straight for her? If you liked her and she was into you? Would you just say, what the hell, and go for it?”

“For starters,” I asked, “why would some famous actress be interested in me? Never mind a fictional federal agent who clearly has a thing for her partner.”

Lula sighed. “Don't be so literal, Rorysaurus. This is a theoretical discussion. Theoretically, some chick thinks you're the bee's knees. Would you do it?”

“I don't think—it doesn't really work that way,” I told her. I don't see how anyone can just “go straight” for someone. You either are or you're not, in my opinion. And I don't really want to think those kinds of thoughts about Gillian Anderson. She's probably my favorite actress ever; she's in the movie version of my favorite non-sci-fi novel,
The House of Mirth,
by Edith Wharton, who is, next to Jane Austen, probably my favorite writer of all time.
The House of Mirth
is so tragic and beautiful, and the movie's great. I've made Andy watch it, like, twenty times. Gillian's so amazing in it. I cry every time I see it. But I can't picture myself going to bed with her. It's not like that for me.

“You mean even if some hot girl wanted to sleep with you, you think you'd be unable to, uh . . .”

“Lula, this is getting into kind of a weird area, here.”

“Sorry, I know. TMI.” Lula laughed. I turned on the faucet and began scrubbing the dye off my wrists. “I guess what I'm trying to ask you is, let's say somebody came into your life. Let's say this person was female. And you weren't looking for it, or expecting it, but you really hit it off with this person. You connected on a deep level. And even though you know that normally you wouldn't be attracted to this person, because, you know. She's female. Uh. You realize that it's a pretty small town and you haven't found anyone yet that you . . . that you would prefer. Who prefers you back. So maybe you start thinking that it wouldn't be such a bad idea. With this . . . with this girl.”

I turned the faucet off. “Lula, are you trying to ask me to the prom?”

“You're totally not taking me seriously.”

“This is serious? I thought it was theoretical.” I scrubbed red dye off the faucet handles, ignoring the petulant look Lula was giving me. “Okay, my answer is, no, I probably would not sleep with your theoretical hot babe. Small town or no. Look, the way I see it, even if some hot girl was into me right now, we'll be in college soon, where I'm sure we'll both have four years of awkward encounters with drunken frat guys to look forward to. So, no, I don't need some awkward attempt at hetero sex just to temporarily satiate my . . . whatever.”

“Gee, Rory, you really are a romantic.” Lula rolled her eyes. I scrubbed at the red splotches in the sink. This whole conversation was making me nervous. I mean, why did Lula care if I'd sleep with some random woman? Was she suggesting that she and I should sleep together? Surely not—our whole friendship was the exact opposite of Mulder and Scully, in that respect. Not a single molecule of UST between us. Did she know about Andy, and she was taunting me or something? This whole relationship with him was getting way too stressful. Maybe it was time to come clean. Maybe tonight I'd ask Andy what he thought about just telling Lula. She wouldn't let it get around. She could even help, maybe. I could tell my mom I was staying at Lula's and spend weekends with Andy. Maybe even entire weeks.

“Anyway.” She tucked her newly red hair behind her ears. “You wanna come over and see Janet and Leo make their shocked faces at me? We could work on the
Guide.
The Philes are getting antsy for Season Four. I had an idea for ‘Small Potatoes.' Remember, the one with the tail babies? You know the end part where Eddie Van Blundht impersonates Mulder and goes over to Scully's house, and . . . hey, Rory?”

“What, yeah?” I looked up from my sink-scrubbing.

“Are you mad at me or something?” Her voice softened. “It's like you're totally zoning out.”

“No, I heard you. You said you're quitting the FBI to become a spokesperson for the Ab Roller.” Another
X-Files
quote. I was starting to feel bad. Distracting Lula with jokes.

“Ha ha,” she said. “I'm serious. Am I, like, bugging you or something?”

“Bugging me? No,” I told her. “I just have to do some . . . other stuff now. For my mom. So . . . maybe tomorrow.” I strapped my watch back on, trying not to be too obvious, checking the time. I knew Andy was waiting for me. This was the hardest part of being with him. Making up stories. Lying to Lula. It was the only time I wished I was straight. Or at least dating someone my own age.

“Okay.” Lula said, her mouth turned down. “Have fun doing other stuff.”

Thankfully, my mother came home at that very moment, and Lula always got uncomfortable around her. She hated drinking. Lula, I mean. So she left without me having to make any more excuses. I waited until my mother retreated to her room with her tumbler full of Chardonnay, and I walked out into the cool spring afternoon, cutting through the woods until I got to Andy's back porch, hidden in the safety of the creeping dusk.