Character, Driven Page 3

  REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD.

  “It’s an old Chinese proverb,” she said.

  “Then why isn’t it in Chinese?” Robert asked.

  “So illegal aliens like you can read it,” Butch said.

  “I’m nearly legal,” Robert said. “And I speak four languages. How many do you speak, gringa?”

  Let me briefly step away from the dialogue to point out that Robert and Butch will be arguing pretty much whenever they are within earshot of each other. If I try to convey all that they say whenever we’re together, either I will go mad or you will go away. Neither would advance my goal of leading you to the end of the story. So, from this point on, I will resort to far more exposition and far less recitation.

  Robert and Butch argued in an amusing fashion.

  We headed into Physics.

  I guess I should add one other side note: You might be the sort of knowledge geek who is aware that Butch was wrong. The quote about revenge probably isn’t Chinese. (Feel free to look it up, but I’m not waiting.) I imagine I could mark other people’s mistakes with footnotes, so you’d know the misinformation wasn’t mine. But footnotes are a pain in the butt to deal with* when you’re trying to read a story. So I won’t do that.

  Let’s get back to Physics.

  Jillian was seated a mere two desks away from me. Physics is all about attractions and repulsions. I decided not to think in those terms for the moment—especially not the latter one.

  I will spare you the classroom lecture that was taking place at the front of the room, mostly because it has nothing to do with the story, and partly because I was slightly distracted. And attracted.

  I had a free period after Physics, so I headed to the Art House. That’s what we call it. When the high school got overcrowded, about five years ago, the town bought the first house up Vorhees Avenue past the school, on the other side of the teachers’ parking lot. They’d replaced all the doors inside with archways, so the place had an open feel. They put the art classes on the second floor, and the consumer science classes downstairs. That made sense, since there was already a kitchen down there. And it worked nicely for the art students, because nothing inspires art like the smell of chocolate-chip cookies or angel food cake.

  I had Art right after my free period. That meant I could paint for two straight periods, if I wanted to. As seniors, taking Art 4, we didn’t get all that much in the way of classroom lectures. Maybe once every month or so, we’d gather to look at some slides and have a discussion, or listen to a short lesson. It was mostly like an independent study.

  We got to pick a medium to focus on each marking period. I’d started with clay, because I’d always liked sculpting. I wasn’t great at planning ahead, so any material that didn’t allow do-overs would be a bad choice. The one time I’d tried to carve a bust out of soapstone, I’d ended up making it smaller and smaller as I corrected my mistakes. Noses are a lot harder than they look. Finally, I’d given up trying to add any features and turned it into an egg.

  Second marking period, I concentrated on pencil drawings. That’s very basic, but it’s also very portable. I carried a sketchbook with me the whole time. It made me feel authentically artistic. Third marking period, I tried stained glass. That was fun, except the nurse got tired of having me show up for Band-Aids.

  This marking period, I was trying acrylics. I’ve been painting for most of my life. Way back when I was in second grade, my mom got me a tray of watercolors. I liked them right off, and I liked them even better when my uncle made a deal with me. I guess he wanted to encourage me to paint. He told me he’d pay me a dollar for every painting I made, up to seven dollars a week. I turned into a little art factory, until a couple weeks later when Dad shut things down. He said he was doing it for my own good because he didn’t want me to get the idea that I could make a living as an artist. It didn’t matter. I still painted every day for a long time after that. And I held on to the idea that artists could make money, though I kept that belief to myself.

  My first acrylic painting was a dragon. I’d started as soon as the marking period began, on April 10. That was last Wednesday. I’d finished it yesterday, on the fifteenth. I thought it looked pretty slick, sweeping a blast of fire across a group of knights, one of whom had already been totally slagged by the heat. My teacher, Ms. Gickley, told me it had nice lines and powerful sense of motion, but that the details were a bit sketchy.

  “Check out the impressionists,” she’d said, pointing to the shelf of art books behind her desk. “You might want to explore their way of looking at the world. It could be a good fit for your strengths. And maybe you could think about taking a little more time with your next painting. This isn’t a race.”

  “I’ll do that.” I already knew the impressionists, and liked them—especially Renoir—but I wasn’t interested in mimicking their style. My worldview had little room for vaguely rendered misty dragons resting on hazy lily pads or attending the ballet.

  Dalí, on the other hand, was a great role model. A lot of people know his painting with the melting watches, but one of my favorites of his was a crucified man. It was surreal, but with a touch of cubism. I wanted to do something like that, but give it contemporary symbolism. After thinking about it for most of the free period, and discarding a slew of not-quite-right ideas, I decided to make the crucifix the cross pad on a game controller. There were a ton of ways that this could be symbolic. And the crucifixee, or whatever he’s called, could be a gamer.

  As the bell for fourth period rang, Ms. Gickley walked past me, heading for the supply closet in the next room, where she grabbed a paint box and a canvas. On her way back, she nodded toward my own blank canvas and said, “Take your time.”

  “I will.”

  But the idea had seized me, and I was ready to bring it to life. It was going to be awesome. As I was sketching the controller, I realized I could add a cord, like they use for charging the battery, and wind it around the player, binding him to the cross. Oh! And then, the other end could be a crown of thorns. This was great. Everything was falling together in my mind. I loved it when an idea gelled. That was the best part about painting—coming up with an awesome idea.

  “Sweet,” I said to myself as I sketched in those details. “Totally sweet-ass bitchin’ awesome!”

  I really needed to learn to either keep my mouth shut, find some socially acceptable exclamations, or become more aware of my surroundings.

  It’s Saliva!

  AS I WAS showering myself with enthusiastic praise, I realized I’d heard, and ignored, the footsteps of someone coming up the stairs and entering the room. Those footsteps stopped right when my words did, and right behind me. I looked over my shoulder at Jillian. She had a wooden paint box in one hand and a stretched canvas in the other. I guess she was in my Art class, too.

  I froze, brush in hand, as my half-shouted cry of “sweet-ass,” a phrase I used far too often and far too enthusiastically, ricocheted around the room like a fart at a funeral.

  Jillian stared at me. Her lower lip moved slightly, as if she were contemplating saying something in response but wasn’t sure what would be appropriate. Oh crap. Did she think I was talking to her? Or talking about her? Sweet ass? What kind of communication did that imply? In my head, I could hear Robert, Jamaican accent and all, saying, “He talkin’ ’bout your sweet booty, cutie.”

  What could I say to clarify things? I was talking about my idea. Right. That would impress her. Girls adore guys who are in love with their own ideas to the point of sweet-assdom.

  She still didn’t say a word. Instead, she gave me a quizzical look, as if waiting for me to explain myself. This made things even more difficult, because it was the cutest damn quizzical look anyone had ever given me. Picture a perfect nose and mouth twitched just enough to achieve adorable asymmetry, along with eyes so open and innocent, they’d make the grateful gaze of a rescue puppy seem evil by comparison, and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

  “I, uh…
” Further words evaded me.

  Brilliant. All I needed to complete the impression that I lacked any sort of functioning brain was to let loose with a stream of drool. As that thought hit me, I felt something warm and wet roll over my lower lip and down my bruised chin.

  Holy crap, I’d just stared at Jillian, gape mouthed, and drooled. Maybe I should complete the perfect impression I’d created by screeching out chimp sounds and grabbing my crotch. Which happened to be exactly where, as confirmed by a lightning-quick downward glance, the drool had splashed to a landing.

  I swallowed, then managed to speak without spraying saliva in her face. “New idea.” I pointed at the canvas, which sported my scrawled sketches. It was crude enough at this stage that it could have been called Bondage Jesus.

  “Oh.” She turned away and went into the adjacent room, where there were several available easels. Had there been a door to close, I suspect that would have been her first move. She could have escaped even farther, but the end room was reserved for ceramics, and most of the seats were taken up by a ceaseless stream of freshmen who seemed enthralled by the pottery wheel and the kiln.

  I turned back to my sketch and forced myself not to look in Jillian’s direction even once during the rest of the period. Her room was to my right, but I was angled in such a way that I’d have to rotate ninety degrees on my stool, or look over my shoulder, to see her. By the end of the period, my eyes ached from the strain of not wandering.

  I had lunch after art, which meant a trip back to the main building. I was careful to keep far from the Pit this time. I bought an assortment of the basic fried-food groups, then met up with Robert, Jimby, and Butch at our usual table.

  “We should go on a road trip,” Robert said.

  “Where?” Butch asked.

  They both looked at me, like I would have some great suggestion. I had a tough time clearing a whole day free of work, but I loved the idea of getting away from everything.

  “New York?” I said.

  “That would be a train trip,” Robert said.

  “A road trip isn’t defined by the manner of travel,” Butch said.

  “What about New Hope?” I said. “It’s less than an hour away.” That was a cool town to walk around. There were a lot of shops that sold weird stuff, and a great ice cream place with bizarre flavors.

  “Who says you get to say what defines anything?” Robert asked.

  “Who says you do?” Butch said. “As a native-born American-English speaker, I have more authority than you concerning the nuances of my mother tongue.”

  “Delaware Water Gap?” I said. “We could go for a hike.”

  “As a multilingual world traveler, I have more insight into the subtleties of language than you,” Robert said.

  “Deportation isn’t travel,” Butch said.

  And that’s why we never seemed to go anywhere. Following Jimby’s example, I turned my attention to my food and tuned out the discussion.

  As I fed myself fries, meat-of-some-kind nuggets, and breaded-fried-vegetable-of-some-kind lumps, I kept my eyes on the cafeteria entrance. Eventually, Jillian came in. I watched her scan the room, but looked away as the scan swept past me. It was like playing some sort of minimalist stealth game.

  I wondered what she thought of our microcosm. To me, every person and every clique was well defined. Jillian was taking it all in for the first time. She couldn’t look at Clovis Hunt and his crew of future inmates and know all the harm they’d caused. She couldn’t see Christopher Lane’s or Brad Weng’s popularity, Dwight Fulmer’s record on the football field, or Peter Decker’s ability to turn anything into a joke. She’d have no idea that Amanda Carter’s skill and ambition had led our cheerleaders to a state championship last year, or that Abbie was obsessed with being better than everyone at everything.

  “Wave her over,” Butch said. “She wants to be invited. It’s tough being the new kid.”

  I glanced at my crotch, which contained just the faintest amoeba-like reminder of the previous drool splotch. Sweet ass … “This would not be a good time.”

  Robert stood up and waved like he was frantically trying to grab a cab during a cataclysmic cloudburst. “Hey! New girl! Over here! Come visit the islands! Come feel the sunshine and the burning hot sand!”

  “Hot sand?” Butch said. “Just what every girl dreams about in her erotic fantasies.”

  Fortunately, the noise level in the cafeteria masked Robert’s shouts. Jillian, who seemed unaware she was the intended recipient of Robert’s failed flailings, headed toward an empty table. As much as I would have loved for her to come over, I wanted to give her time to forget our initial encounters, and give myself time to construct a smoother conversational interaction centered around more appealing phrases and actions than “sweet-ass” and slobber.

  Chi la dura la vince.

  That’s Italian for “He who keeps trying wins.” That’s also my way of letting you know my next class. After Italian, with Ms. Beatrice, I have English, with Ms. Kovanob. She wasn’t as enthusiastic about literature as Mr. Piccaro. We mostly talked about whatever book we were reading at the time—currently The Things They Carried. But I liked talking about books, and even arguing a bit, so that was okay.

  After English, once a week, I have gym. I also have library once a week. The other three days, including today, I have Jazz Band. I play trumpet. Badly. But so do most of the other trumpeters. The band room is in the basement. That’s probably not deep enough.

  Four out of five days, I’m happy. The fifth day sucks. My gym teacher, Mr. Dumshitz, is a sadistic lout. (As you might have guessed by now, I changed most of the teachers’ names. It seemed like a good idea. I changed some of my classmates’ names, too. But not all of them. It was too much work.) Happily, nothing that happens in that class has anything to do with the story. Which means, wonder of wonders, we can skip gym.

  There was no sign of Jillian in Italian, English, or Jazz Band. And she definitely wouldn’t be in my gym class, or the locker room, though I would have sacrificed a finger or two in exchange for making that happen.

  Too much? Is my honesty about the depths of my lust making me monstrous, or more human? I suppose it depends how honest you are about your own desires. Do you admit, at least to yourself, your needs and passions? Do you accept that we are all driven by hormones and horniness? Do you dream about seeing others unclothed? Do you imagine flesh pressed against flesh? I can’t worry about it. Either you’re with me, or you’re history.

  Speaking of which, last period of the day, I had Government, which is what they switch to when they run out of history to teach. We actually had a variety of choices. Butch, Robert, and I had all picked Economics, so we’d be in class together, but I got screwed when Guidance made up the schedules.

  Mr. Tippler, our teacher, was pretty much of the opinion that we, as a society, were doomed. He also liked to shout. Add to that the fact that, unlike Physics and Calculus, Government was very democratic in how it populated the republic of the classroom. Translation—there were thugs scattered throughout the room, including the brutal, stupid aforementioned Clovis Hunt, who held sway over a handful of surly, dangerous scoundrels and nurtured a disdain for anyone who was capable of high-level thought, or who exhibited obviously unacceptable traits such as an enthusiasm for reading, a desire for clean clothing, or a vocabulary that allowed him to toss off phrases such as “nurtured a disdain.” Since Clovis and his crew were fond of working on cars (and had probably stolen a tire or two), I called them the Thug Nuts. I guess I could have called them the Jack Ups. It seemed prudent not to inquire directly with them as to their preference.

  Needless to say, Government wasn’t my favorite class. It became less of a least favorite class when I spotted Jillian. But I’d had the benefit of three periods of introspection since lunch, during which I decided that I definitely needed to take my time and wait for an opportunity to catch her attention with clever words or an act of chivalry. Preferably when my mouth was fairly
dry and I wasn’t half distracted by the pain of recent collisions with the floor.

  As I sat in my seat, imagining a successful future effort at winning Jillian’s attention and admiration, Paul Jambeau got out of his spot by the end of the aisle and slithered to the seat next to her. The empty seat. The seat I could have taken if I hadn’t recently splattered myself with drool in her presence or made her think I thought she had a sweet ass.

  “Hey,” he said. “You like music?”

  My gut rippled like I’d just chugged a gallon of battery acid. Paul was a player—in both senses of the word. He and two other guys from class, Zachary Stone and Tim Blunt, had a band. And he had a lot of moves. If Paul set his sights on Jillian, it was game over for me before the game could even begin.

  Head Home

  I WATCHED PAUL move in to steal Jillian. I guess he couldn’t steal something from me that wasn’t mine. But he could steal something before I had a chance to make it mine.

  I won’t defend myself against the charge that I was delusional if I seriously thought I could “make her mine.” You know exactly where my mind was. You’ve been there. You’ve sat in this seat and gazed at your Jillian through a filter of daydreams. We all believe our fantasies exist somewhere above the realm of the impossible.

  Paul said something. I couldn’t hear his words above the pre-class chatter of my fellow students, but I could tell from his body language that he thought his offering was slick and awesome.

  Jillian gave him a cool stare. Paul body-motioned himself through another clever sentence, guaranteed, when combined with a charming Cajun accent, a casual toss of hair, and a devilish smile, to make ladies swoon. Jillian’s face didn’t even twitch.

  Inside my skull, there was an entire stadium full of me, fifty thousand Cliffs cheering in unison, stomping and clapping as Paul got up and went back to his seat. It would have been perfect if he’d slinked. Or slanked. Or slunk. But he strided. Or strid. Or strode. Some verbs suck. But not as much as some guys.