manicpixiedreamgirl

It’s about a girl.

This isn’t going to end well. Justin is curled up on the grass, on his back like a beetle, biting his thumb, laughing so hard he can’t breathe. We’ve been drinking Western Flower champagne out of red Solo cups. Full red Solo cups.

Justin also concocted butterscotch pudding shooters. That’ll look nice on the return trip, if you know what I mean. Robby and I abstained. Which probably helps explain why my head feels a bit lighter than my body but I still know things like my phone number, address, and gender. Robby, I think, is in about the same condition. Justin is … not.

Usually we don’t drink at all. A celebration is in order, sure, but with the champagne bubbling in my guts, I’m starting to think a night of video games and pizza might’ve been a better idea.

“Someday,” Robby says slowly, studying the rim of his cup, “I want to be just like you, Ty. I want to tell a story.”

“You should,” I say. “Writing is fun.” Which, even as I say it, I know is one of the dorkier things I’ve ever said. And I’ve said a lot of dorky things. I keep a list. “Splendid abdominals” comes to mind. Also “milky belly.”

“But I want to tell a
true
story,” Robby says. “I want to be able to tell a story that ends with the sentence, ‘And that’s when the profound tsunami of blow jobs started.’ ”

Justin hacks, coughs, stutters a breath, and keeps laughing.

I force myself to laugh with him. My story
is
true—except for the whole “fiction” thing. Maybe “science fiction” is a better term, because my plot is about as realistic as a B movie.

“When do we get to read it, anyway?” Robby asks, taking a drink.

“Sometime,” I say. “Listen, can I ask you guys something?”

“The capital of Guam is Hagåtña,” Justin says, giggling.

“G’head,” Robby says, trying to find a serious face to put on.

So I ask, “Do you think I should just tell her?”

Robby groans. Justin stops laughing.

“Oh,
shit
, Tyler,” Justin says. “Not again!”

Robby chugs the last half of his champagne in one mighty gulp. A
super big gulp
, you could say.

He belches. “Justin’s right,” he says. “It’s time to move on, man.
‘Time to git goin’. What lies ahead I have no way a’ knowin’.…’
”

Singing Tom Petty. Badly. Isn’t he dead? It’s taken a couple years, but Robby—currently wearing a distressed Zeppelin T-shirt—has circled back to a classic-rock phase.

Justin, still on his back, raises a hand. “Wait a sec,” he says. He turns his head to one side. A second later, a great glut of butterscotch and champagne rockets out of his mouth and onto the grass. The sight of it makes my stomach roller coaster.

“Okay, I’m back,” Justin says. He grunts and sits up, crossing his legs and dangling his hands off his knees. “What were we talking about?”

“Never mind,” I say, and finish my drink. The champagne carbonates my bloodstream and burns acid in my stomach. So this is why we don’t drink very often.

“You can’t back out now,” Robby says to me. He sits on top of the concrete picnic table where we’ve decided to hold our little party, his feet on the bench. “This needs to be addressed. So? Let’s do this. Are you trying to say she has
no idea
? Seriously? Let’s start there.”

I look aimlessly around the dark park, hoping someone will happen by and mug us.

Robby and Justin aren’t her biggest fans, and I know this. I never should have even brought her up.

I met her the first day of freshman year. Three years ago.

Well … not so much “met” as “made brief eye
contact.” It was enough.

My first crush happened in eighth grade. A girl named
Lily Rose. No joke, that was her name. I’d thought Lily was “cute.”

Rebecca Webb eclipsed cute and went straight to being the sun that lit and warmed my world.

If I could be any more melodramatic about how she made me feel, believe me, I would. It’s the best I can do.

Becky Webb stood in front of me in line in the cafeteria that first day. All us freshmen seemed to be trying too hard to look cool: bangs in faces, shoulders thrown back or curled forward, sharp scowls or wide puppy-dog eyes. You could tell the upperclassmen by the way they’d snicker and shake their heads at everyone else, and by the fact that they’d shoved their way to the front of the line, leaving us ninth graders to bring up the rear. Yeah, looking cool was a mathematical impossibility on our first day of high school.

But we tried anyway. We collectively scanned the entire smelly, damp room as if we didn’t care in the least that no one cared in the least about
us
. As if any moment, a group of popular seniors would wave us over to their kingdom-table. I was just happy I’d found the cafeteria without getting lost.

Like me, Becky scanned the cafeteria, moving her head in slow circles as we shuffled forward to order our soggy lunches. Our lighthouse-like movements must’ve been in sync, because for the longest time, I didn’t notice her. I mean, I saw a girl with iridescent blond hair trimmed short in back, long in front; this girl a little shorter than me, in denim cutoffs and a dark blue ringer T-shirt, but I didn’t see her face. Not until that moment.

When I changed my scan to a faster tempo, just to mix it up a bit, our eyes met.

I’d like to say she smiled at me. She didn’t. Not really; it was one of those toothless
Hey, how’s it going? Don’t answer because I don’t really care
sort of half grins you give people when you want to be polite but not start a conversation.

My head locked in place on my neck, my eyes wide, taking in every detail of her face.

That was it. The beginning of the end.

She faced forward again after our brief contact. A tattoo, half-covered by her shirt, graced the smooth curve where her shoulder met her neck: a nautical star, blue and black. Big, too—three or four inches across. I liked it, but it surprised me. A collared shirt would cover her tat, but her ringer T didn’t. She
wanted
people to see it. And I wanted to ask her why.

This adorable, serene, tattooed girl picked up a chicken salad and carton of milk while I blindly grabbed whatever crap du jour was flung at me by the hairy cafeteria ladies. A suave gentleman might have purchased her lunch as a
way to break the ice. Since I was not then and am not now a suave gentleman, I instead almost spilled my swill on the cashier as I watched Becky walk to an empty table.

A friendless dork myself, I sat at a half-f table several yards away to study her, tasting nothing of my lunch and ignorant—mostly—of the glares I got from the muscular, mustachioed seniors whose table I’d invaded.

Becky methodically arranged her food, adding to it a box of animal crackers from a cobalt messenger bag slung over her shoulder. She’d safety-pinned a patch to the front, but I couldn’t tell what it depicted—a band logo, I guessed. She dumped the cookies on her tray and appeared to organize them.

How?
I wanted to know.
By species? Alphabetically?

Becky nibbled at her salad while pulling a paperback book from her bag.
Night Shift
, by Stephen King.

If I wasn’t in love with her before this, now my devotion became complete.
Night Shift
was the first Big-Boy Book I’d ever read, sometime in fifth grade. It was an older book too. Not many people even knew about it anymore.

When the bell rang ending lunch, I chose the trash can nearest Becky to throw away my remains. My path, of course, took me right past her. She seemed in no hurry to get to class. Despite years of story writing, I had no words to say to her; speaking and writing are two vastly different skills, it turns out. I walked right past without saying anything. Even “hi” would’ve been a good start, but nope.