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CHAPTER FIVE

Plebes Like Us

Mick was relieved when he returned home Saturday afternoon and found no one there except Foolish. On the memo pad next to the telephone was a note from Nora:

Mick,

Your dad's working all day so I went out. Reece left
message, which I saved.

Nora

P.S. I'm dying to know how job interview went!

Winston Reece and Mick Nichols had been friends since third grade when they both would sneak away from recess kickball games and go inside to investigate Mr. Reger's miniplanetarium. Now Mick went to the answering machine in the pantry, hit play, and heard Reece's voice. “Reece's log, Saturday, April 21, 11:30 A.M. I have awakened refreshed and finding no parental units present am now free to roam about the cabin.”
Click.

It was now nearly one o'clock. Mick made himself a sandwich, dialed Reece's number, and counted the rings. Reece never picked up before three rings. On the fourth ring a voice answered in a monotone. “By design or happy accident you have reached the telephonic nerve center of the empire's only Reeceman. At the tone, briefly state your business, please.” The voice then made a short beeping sound.

“Hey,” Mick said.

“Oh, it's you,” Reece said.

Mick said, “So what besides confirming your own weirdness are you doing?” He said this flat voiced. It was one of his standard lines.

“Usual Saturday stuff. Sleeping, eating, and downloading.”

“Who?”

“You've never heard of them.”

“Yeah, I have.”

Reece said, “You've heard of A Geek's Worst Dream?”

“Just did,” Mick said, and laughed.

They went on like this for a few minutes more, and then Mick told him about the new job. Reece responded to each of its requirements—being there at 7:30 A.M.; wearing the official three-color Village Greens hat and T-shirt—with an incredulous, “You're going to do that?”

“For a while,” Mick said, because that's what he'd decided. He'd stick with the job as long as Lisa Doyle did. In describing the job to Reece, he hadn't mentioned that Lisa Doyle was also among the new recruits, not that it would've mattered, because he'd never told Reece he was interested in Lisa Doyle. Reece was maybe his best friend, but he was a hanging-out kind of friend, not a talking-to kind of friend. The person he talked to was Nora, but that, he suddenly realized, was now a past-tense issue. He said, “I guess I'll take Foolish to the park in a while. Want me to call you when I go?”

Reece said, “That would mean putting on clothes, wouldn't it?”

“Your decision entirely,” Mick said, and hung up.

He put his lunch dishes in the sink without washing them, something he knew Nora hated. In the living room, he sat down at the old Chickering upright and played a few chords of the piece his piano teacher, Mrs. Marquart, had given him last week. He knew he should do his finger exercises, then his lesson pieces, then try to finish off his muckraker paper, but he was too tired. He lay down on the sofa, remoted through the TV channels, and turned off the TV. The room was dim—all the lights were off— and he felt tired. He lay on his back and spread his leather jacket across his chest like a small blanket, then closed his eyes and imagined Lisa Doyle in her too-small T-shirt, which didn't help him fall asleep, so he thought of himself lying in a rowboat on a still lake on a sunny afternoon, which did.

He awakened to the tink of the front door latch followed by Nora's quick-clicking steps in the tiled entry. She hung a scarf on the hall tree and peered up the staircase. “Hello? Anybody home?”

Mick said nothing. He expected the sheer force of his gaze to cause her to turn his way, but it didn't. She flipped on the entry light and leaned close to the hall tree mirror. She adjusted the collar of her dress. She stretched her mouth and with the nail of her little finger scraped something from her upper lip. Then she did something odd. She leaned back and smiled at herself in the mirror. Mick thought he knew what she was doing because he'd done it himself. She was trying to see what she'd looked like through someone else's eyes. Even from here, Mick could tell her face had a flushed look.

“You're back,” he said.

Nora started and wheeled around. The pink in her face suddenly deepened. “Hi, Maestro,” she said, but her voice didn't sound quite like her voice. “Mick,” she said, correcting herself.

“You look kind of hot,” Mick said.

Nora tried to laugh. “That's your father's line,” she said.

Mick just stared. “No, I meant your face looks kind of red.”

“Oh.” Nora tried to laugh again, but it came out more of a gurgle. “It's the weather. I went to the mall, but I overdressed. It turned so warm out. You live in Jemison long enough and you don't know how to act when the sun comes out.”

There was a short silence that Mick broke by saying, “Was it crowded at the mall?”

Nora's eyes slipped away from his. “Not very,” she said. Mick studied her. “What did you buy?”

“What?”

“I just said, ‘What did you buy?' ”

“Oh. Nothing! It was some kind of personal best! I tried on a zillion things and bought nothing. I'm thinking this'll please your father big time.” She made another odd gurgling laugh.

Mick said nothing. A question formed in his mind, but he couldn't bring himself to ask it. The question was, “How was Alexander Selkirk today?”

Nora said, “How come you didn't answer when I said, ‘Anybody home?' ”

Mick made a slow blink. It was strange how little he cared now what Nora thought. He said, “I guess I was asleep and thought I was dreaming.”

This time it was Nora studying him. She gave him a slow, dubious nod. She broke the silence that followed by saying, “I'm going to change my clothes and make dinner. I thawed pork chops.”

His father's favorite, they both knew that.

She was three steps up the stairs before she suddenly stopped and turned back around. “Oh, my God, I forgot! How'd the job interview go?”

“Fine.”

“You got the job, then?”

Mick nodded.

Nora was grinning her old grin now, the infectious mischievous grin. “Anybody else of interest apply?”

“Not really.”

“No redheaded girls?”

“If you mean Lisa Doyle, yeah, she was there.”

Nora laughed. “Yep, that's what a little bird told me.”

“A little bird,” Mick said in his flat voice.

Nora grinned and nodded. “A little bird named Melissa Daley.” Mrs. Daley, a math teacher at Jemison High and a friend of Nora's.

Mick said in a sullen voice, “So why didn't you just tell me Lisa Doyle would be there?”

The cheeriness drained from Nora's expression. “You don't seem exactly grateful about this.”

Mick just stared.

Nora said, “I didn't tell you because Mrs. Daley posted the flyers, and she heard Lisa say she
might
apply. I didn't want to mislead you.” She paused. “I was also worried that your knowing she was applying might scare you off.”

“You didn't think I could handle the truth.”

Nora said in a soft voice, “That's not what I thought at all.”

“I thought the deal was you tell the truth to people you care about.”

“C'mon, Mick! I was telling you the truth. I told you you ought to apply for this job, and that was the truth. You should've, and you did.”

Mick didn't speak. He knew his expression was sullen, but he didn't care.

Nora took a breath and said, “Mick, look. The truth isn't of exact dimensions. It isn't rigid. It can be shaped, made a little bigger here, a little smaller there. But it's still the truth.”

Mick blurted, “No! That's not right! The truth is the truth.”

His sudden vehemence surprised him and seemed to surprise Nora, too. She looked at her hands for a few seconds, then looked up at Mick. Softly she said, “Is there something wrong, Mick?”

He let a few seconds pass, until he was sure he had his flat voice back. “Not that I know of,” he said. “Why? Am I missing something?” He kept his eyes sullen.

Nora remained on the third step. She stood perfectly still for perhaps ten seconds, staring evenly at Mick, then without a word she turned and went up the stairs. Mick listened as she went first to her room, then to the bathroom. The water pipes made a shuddering sound when she turned on the shower.

Ten minutes later she came back downstairs. She was barefoot, her hair was wet, and she was wearing beige denims and a loose blue top. She went into the kitchen without saying a word to Mick.

Mick wasn't sure why he did what he did next. It was just something he couldn't keep himself from doing. He went upstairs to the bathroom and quietly closed the door after him. It was an old door, and locked with an old-fashioned long-stemmed key. Mick locked it. Then he opened the wicker hamper where dirty clothes were tossed. Nora's underwear was on top.

Over the years and without really meaning to, Mick had learned the basic patterns of Nora's underwear use. Normally she wore white cotton briefs and plain back-closure bras, but she had a few sets of fancier underwear she seemed to save for special occasions. What she'd worn today was some of the special-occasion underwear, a black bra with matching brief. Each had fancy lacy scallops at the edges, and when Mick held the bra in his hand he could see right through it.

He stared at the underwear a long time before dropping it back on top and closing the hamper. Then he made appropriate sound effects—flushing the toilet, running water at the wash-basin—before coming downstairs. He phoned Reece from the kitchen, where Nora was slicing carrots to go with the pork chops. “I'm taking Foolish to the park now,” he told Reece.

“Which park?” Reece said.

“Thornden,” Mick said.

He grabbed his jacket from the sofa and headed for the backyard to leash Foolish.

“Dinner's at six,” Nora called after him.

Mick pretended not to hear.

Mick had been tossing Frisbees to Foolish for about ten minutes before Reece ambled up. He was a big kid who gave a general impression of looseness. His Nikes were untied, his flannel shirt was untucked, and he'd made slow walking part of his personal code of conduct. “You walk fast, and citizens might erroneously believe you've bought into the system,” he once told Mick.

Today he sat on a tabletop with his feet on the bench and said, “So our own Mick Nichols is gainfully employed.”

Mick grinned and waited for Foolish to set the Frisbee at his feet.

Reece said, “You know what you are now? Part of the working class. One more lump folded into the buttery batter.”

Mick gave a little laugh and tossed the Frisbee in a long slicing arc that ended with Foolish snatching it from the sky. It was hot in the sun. Mick shed his leather jacket and laid it on the table beside Reece.

A few tosses later, Reece said, “What's this?”

Mick turned. Reece was holding the green floppy disk, turning it over in his hand. Mick's first impulse was to say, “None of your business, put it back,” but he knew that would only feed Reece's interest. He tried to sound matter-of-fact. “It's the second draft of my muckraker essay,” he lied, “which I can't lose, because I already lost it once.”

As Mick spoke, Reece studied him closely. “Then why didn't you label it?”

Mick gave the Frisbee a casual toss. “Because I know what it is.” Then he turned to his friend. “Also where it is, so if you wouldn't mind zipping it back into the pocket . . .”

Reece was still regarding the disk when something beyond Mick caught his eye. Reece sat transfixed, staring. Finally he said in a low voice, “Okay. Incoming at three o'clock. Two females. Really, really excellent bazongas.”

Mick gave the girls a quick glance—they carried heavy textbooks, wore long SU T-shirts over cutoff denim shorts, and were spreading out a blanket in the sun. Mick turned back around. “College girls,” he said.

Reece was undeterred. He kept staring. A half minute passed, and then he said, “I urge you to take another look, Mickman.”

Mick did. The girls had pulled off their shirts and were sitting now in denim cutoffs and bikini tops. They were putting on sunscreen. Reece said, “Throw the Frisbee over there.”

Mick said, “That would be impressive.”

Reece stared at the girls fixedly. “Okay. Let's go talk to them.”

Mick had to laugh. “They're five years older than us, Reece. And this is not to mention the fact that you and I don't go up and talk to girls of that caliber, ever.”

Reece gave it some thought and said, “I read in one of Mr. Reece's psychology books that lots of women secretly crave younger men.” Mr. and Mrs. Reece were Reece's joke terms for his parents.

Mick laughed again. “You're not a man, kiddo. You're a Reececake.”

Reece said nothing but kept staring. Finally he said, “Okay, I'll go alone.”

“You, Winston Reece, are going to go over there and talk to them alone?”

“That's right,” Reece said. “In fact, I'm already gone,” and he was. He shambled directly toward the girls until he got within perhaps twenty yards of them and then veered abruptly toward the water fountain, where he took a quick drink before returning to the picnic table. Mick was grinning hugely. “How'd that go?” he said.

“You know who that is?” Reece said.

“Lorena Bobbitt?”

“That's rich,” Reece said without smiling.

Mick, still grinning, said, “Okay. Who?”

“Myra Vidal and Pam Crozier.”

This was news. Myra Vidal and Pam Crozier had graduated from Jemison High two years earlier and had gotten a lot of publicity as “the brainy beauty queens.” The brainy part came from their 4.0s, but the beauty part got them the press. In her senior year Myra had won the Miss Jemison Beauty Contest, but wouldn't accept the position unless she could share it with Pam, who'd been runner-up. The contest people, sensing good publicity, acceded, and both Mick and Reece had watched mesmerized as Pam and Myra had stood in minimal swimsuits waving easily from the City of Commerce float in the Jemison Fourth of July parade.