Sloppy Firsts (24 page)

He dropped his voice to a whisper, "I didn’t have the balls to break up with my girlfriend until I read it."

That’s what I thought he was trying to say.

"En français!"

Pepe looked up toward the ceiling, as if the right English-to-French translation were written there. After a few seconds, he shrugged and said, simply,"Merci, Jessica."

I can only imagine what my essay had to do with his breaking up with his girlfriend. Maybe he dated her only because he was under the same couple-up pressure that had made me consider getting back together with Scotty last spring. Maybe he thought he needed a girlfriend to prove just how testosterrific his new bod really was. Maybe, of all his identities—Percy Floyd, Pierre, Pepe Le Pew, The Black Elvis, The Geek—Pepe Le Puberty was one hedidn’t identify with. Maybe he didn’t identify withany of them, which is why he jumped from persona to persona in the first place, hoping to find one that fit. Maybe that very realization is what defeated The Geek that night. Maybe the supreme self-confidence I envied in Pepe was nothing more than cleverly masked insecurity.

It’s irrelevant really. Because Pepe is clearly happy about his decision. And to think that I’m the one who helped him come to it. Cool. Maybe my op-ed piecescan make a difference.

Still, my newfound notoriety doesn’t change the fact that I’ve alienated my suck-ass excuses for friends and don’t have anyone to sit with in the cafeteria. I now spend my lunch periods rehabbing my leg with the athletic trainer. My father and Coach Kiley are thoroughly impressed by myWill to Win . Ha! Truth is, the flesh-ripping pain of the fifteenth and final rep on the Cybex leg press is preferable to sitting through lunch with another assemblage of pseudo pals.

I know I should be thrilled about all this success—¡Viva la revolución!—as Hy said, back when she was still Hy to me. Yet, I can’t stop thinking about the one person who apparently hasn’t read it. The one person I haven’t affected at all. The one person who inspired me to write it in the first place.

the thirtieth

A Titanic, ’70s-era brown Cadillac slowed down, then pulled over onto the shoulder right in front of me on my limp home from school today. The owner had tied a fake flower to the antenna for quick sightings in shopping center parking lots. Bumper stickers:Honk If You Love Your Grandchildren andSexy Grandpa . Five never-been-worn baseball caps were lined up against the back windshield, proudly on display. Sun glare on the windows made it impossible to see who was inside, but I was expecting a blue head to pop out and ask for directions to the local V.F.W. Naturally, that’s not who I got.

"Hey, Cuz. Need a ride?"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I said, do you need a ride?"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought Marcus would pull away. But he stayed there, with his head out the window, waiting for me to respond.

"Uhhhh … I live less than a half mile from here. Twelve Forest Drive."

Pause.

"So I don’t need a ride …"

Another pause.

"But do youwant one?" he asked.

God, did I want one.

He knew it, too. He leaned over the front seat and popped open the passenger-side door. "Come on, I want to talk to you," he said. "I’ll drive around in circles if I have to." Happyhappyjoyjoyhappyhappyjoyjoyhappyhappyjoyjoyhappyhappyjoyjoyhappyhappy!

Because I’ll never see Marcus’s bedroom, here’s what the inside of his car reveals about his personality.

Marcus’s car:Luxe leather backseat littered with empty packs of Marlboro reds, wadded-up balls of notebook paper, and no fewer than four crushed sixty-four-ounce 7-Eleven Super Big Gulp cups. Caramel droplets trapped in straws chewed and bent beyond any successful suction. On the front seat, amid more crumpled paper, but still in plain sight, a teensy, quarter-inch bit of wrapper printed with the lettersROJA , instantly recognizable as the heart of the wordTROJAN , as in condom.

Conclusion:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He cleared the clutter. If he noticed the condom wrapper, he didn’t let on.

I didn’t have trouble maneuvering myself into the car. There was ample leg room. I placed my backpack on the seat between us and slammed the door, making a yellow palm-tree deodorizer swing from the rearview. The car smelled like coconuts. The beach. Suntan oil and brown skin.

Marcus wasn’t saying anything as he drove. I felt like one of us needed to break the silence. So I said the first thing that came to mind.

"Uh, nice car," I said.

"I love this car."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it belonged to one of the coolest fogues I know," he said. "I work at an old fogies’ home."

I almost said,I know , until I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to know that.

"Really?"

"Yeah, he’s dead now, though," he said.

"Oh. That’s too bad."

"It is," he said. "But he left me his car."

"Oh."

"And all the eight-tracks that go with it."

"Oh?"

"That’s why I love this car," he said. "It’s festooned with all the trappings of the elderly."

I laughed out loud. That was one of the funniest things I had ever heard in my life.It’s festooned with all the trappings of the elderly. Then it suddenly occurred to me that Marcus and I were actually having a conversation. Areal , two-sided conversation. I felt the heat creep up from the middle of my chest and spread red across my clavicle.

Roja. "Red" in Spanish.

Since school began, I’ve sat in front of Marcus Flutie in six out of eight classes. When he isn’t jiggling the back of my chair, he often stretches his long legs out into the aisle, so I can see his feet without having to turn my head around. Until this afternoon, I could say far less about his face than I could about his feet: no socks; faded blue Vans; the big toe wearing a hole in the canvas of the foot closest to me; the left one, rubber sole coming undone, opening and closing like a puppet mouth every time he taps his heel to the floor, which is quite often.

I knew that sitting beside him in the Caddie could be a one-time-only opportunity, so I looked him full in the face for the first time ever. This is what I saw, in the order that I saw it: adobe-red buzz cut, no more dreads; feline eyes; sunburnt skin peeling off his nose; two thread-thin lines bookending his mouth.

He lightly poked my shoulder with his index finger and I involuntarily twitched like a spasmodic. We were already at my house.

"Twelve, right?"

"Uh, yeah."

He stopped the car and turned off the ignition.

"I figured that I’ve been a good boy long enough to talk to you without arousing suspicion," he said, flicking a cigarette lighter open and shut. Open and shut.

"Uh-huh." I chewed my lip.

"We could be talking about homework." Open and shut.

"Uh-huh." Chew.

"Comparing notes." Open.

"Uh-huh." Chew. Chew.

"Making a study date." Shut.

"Uh-huh." Chew. Chew. Chew.

Marcus threw the lighter in the backseat and spun in his seat to face me. He paused long enough for my skin to get all electric and tingly in anticipation, like every hair on my body was standing on end, but wasn’t.

"I never readThe Seagull’s Voice because I think it’s a big, steaming turd," he said. "An opinion that has only deepened since my literary contribution was rejected."

I knew all about this. Havisham had discovered Marcus’s lack of participation on the paper and assigned him a story about the improved nutrition guidelines for the cafeteria. He turned in a poem titled, "Requiem for Sloppy Joes." It didn’t make it into print. I only know this because Havisham complained to me about his insubordination. I, of course, was dying to read it, but Havisham had already turned it over to his guidance counselor to be put in his file.

"Len told me to check out your editorial today."

Len Levy. My man, I owe you big-time.

"I’m sorry I didn’t read it sooner," he said, twisting his blue-and-white polka-dot tie. "It was the first good thing that heap of dung has ever printed. An instant classic."

He liked it. Marcus Flutie liked my editorial.

"If I had known that calling you a poseur would have inspired you like that, I would’ve pissed you off sooner."

He let go of the tie and it unfurled in a blue-and-white blur.

Too many words at once. I was overwhelmed.

Suddenly, my mom’s Volvo pulled into the driveway. Christ! I had to get out of there and fast.

"Uh, that’s my mom," I said, pointing at the high-strung blond woman straining to see who had the audacity to park this huge Cadillac in front of her perfectly landscaped front yard. As any Realtor knows, appearance is everything. "I gotta go."

"It’s too late," he said. "You’re already caught."

True, I was going to have to face the Guy Inquisition, no matter what. I wanted to get out of there before she rapped her rings on the window and screamed,Get away from my property! But I needed to ask him a question first, and somehow, I finally got up the nerve to do it.

"Marcus?"

"Yes?"

"Uh, that note you wrote me? You know, after the uh,incident last year?"

"Yesssssssssssssss."

"Uh, what did it say?"

He jerked his head quickly, as if to shake the words he’d just heard out of his ears.

"You didn’t read it?"

"Uh, well, I uh, kinda lost it before I got a chance to."

He rested his head on the steering wheel, saying nothing.

"Was it important?"

After a few seconds of silence, Marcus snapped to attention.

"You know what?" he said. "It’s better you didn’t read it."

Now I was totally confused.

"What? Why?"

"It’s just better," he said, "Trust me."

Trust him. Trust Marcus Flutie. Oh, dear God. Why did I feel like I could?

My mom was pacing on our front porch, seconds away from pouncing. I really had to get out of there before she totally embarrassed me.

"Thanks for what you said about my editorial."

"Thanks for writing it."

Marcus then leaned across me to open the passenger-side door. He was invading my personal space, as I had learned in Psych class, and I instinctively sank back into the seat. That just made him move in closer. I was practically one with the leather at this point, and unless I hopped into the backseat, there was nowhere else for me to go. Marcus was within whispering distance.

"I’ll talk to you later."

In any other context, that would have been a throwaway, something to say to put a nice tidy end to a conversation. But in this case, it meant more. I just know it.

Why must tomorrow be Saturday?!

Milliseconds after the Caddie pulled out and I was safe at my doorstep, my mom asked me who the driver was.

"Nobody you know," I said.

"Is he yourboyfriend ?"

"No way, Mom."

"A friend?"

"Uh, no."

"Well then who is he?"

"Just a boy, Mom," I said. "He’s nobody."

"He can’t be nobody, Jessie."

I can’t remember the last time my mom was so right about something. Marcus Flutie had zero chance at being my boyfriend and had even less of a shot at being a real friend to me. But that conversation in the Caddie guaranteed that Marcus Flutie would never be nobody. At least, not to me.

november

the fourth

Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalaladeeda.

There is only one reason why I am able to stay so calm about the Clueless Crew. One reason why I don’t care that they’re conspicuously ignoring me or—in Sara’s case—starting an E-mail campaign to the entire junior class to make everyone hate me as much as she does. One reason why my physical therapy sessions don’t seem to hurt as much anymore. One reason why I’m not bothered by the sudden and renewed interest my dad has in my life now that it looks like I might be rehabilitated in time to run some races during indoor track season. One reason why my mom’s endless chatter about Bethany’s Thanksgiving visit hasn’t made me puncture my eardrums with a sharp stick.

And that reason is Marcus Flutie.

Talk to you later, he said. Really, he meant it.

It all seemed so hopeless on Monday morning. He didn’t talk to me before homeroom because he was too busy macking with Mia, his moronic girlfriend. He didn’t talk to me during homeroom. He didn’t talk to me after homeroom because he was too busy macking with Mia. Again.

When he sat down in back of me in first period, I assumed we were back to our silent-partners-in-crime routine. But then he tapped me on the shoulder, and said something so random that I was afraid he was back on the junk.

"Did you know that the average American spends six months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green?"