“So is it a mashed-potatoes kind of night?” I think I’ve made the mouth too big and try to compensate for it on the other side of the toothy grin.
“Something like that. Hey. You should really think about going out with your friends on Devil’s Night. There’s nothing wrong with stirring up a little mischief.” We look up from our pumpkins and lock eyes. Betsi’s lips part just a bit, as if the words are trying to push their way through. Then there’s the sound of the garage door lifting, and her lips seal shut again. She glances at the kitchen clock.
“Damn, I didn’t realize it was so late. I need to jump in the shower. You don’t mind if we finish this up tomorrow, do you?”
Before I can answer, she’s darted up the stairs, and I hear the screech of the shower handles and the water warming up. Betsi’s pumpkin is still sitting on the floor, empty and punctured. I set the interrupted piece of work over a clean sheet of newspaper on the windowsill so she won’t forget to finish what she started.
Hannah and I are splitting a banana for lunch, based on some diet she read about in her mother’s stack of magazines. I already know my chances of making it through the entire week on this plan are slim to none, but I play along. I’m trying to be a good sport so I can convince Hannah to come out on Devil’s Night with Chris and his friends.
“I don’t know, it sounds kind of lame,” she says, chewing her half of the banana slowly, like the article suggests.
“I know, but I really like him, and he asked if both of us wanted to go. We can tell our parents we’re babysitting. They won’t even know we’re gone,” I tell her, somewhat surprised by my own idea. Halloween falls on a Friday this year, which means Devil’s Night is Thursday, a school night. “I bet I could get Betsi to cover for us too, if we needed it.”
“Presley, no offense, but sometimes I think your aunt Betsi is more like your crazy sister home from college.”
“She’s not crazy.”
“I didn’t mean crazy-crazy, I just meant a little…different. You know, from normal aunts.” Hannah folds the banana peel as if she’s trying to put it back together. “I’m not really worried about cover stories. My parents are both in trial right now, so I’m pretty sure I’d need to light myself on fire before they noticed anything out of the ordinary.”
“So? Will you come?”
“Toilet paper and shaving cream, huh? Oh, what the hell. When you see Carroll in gym class at the end of the day, tell him we’re in.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I squeal, as if I’ve just won the Chris Carroll lottery.
“Jesus, don’t make a scene.” Hannah tosses the banana peel in the garbage can. “Wow. I can’t believe how full I feel.”
“Full. Right. Me too.” I don’t have the heart to tell her the banana diet is a bust. As we walk out of the cafeteria, Hannah fixates on something in the corner. “Hey. Isn’t that your cousin?”
I look at where she’s pointing, at a kid sitting by himself, slumped over the table like he’s sleeping. “No, of course not—” I start to say, but then I see the varsity jacket draped over his chair and recognize the number on the back.
“Catch up with you later?” I say. Hannah nods, and I make my way over to Barry. His head is actually resting on a pile of textbooks with loose-leaf sheets crumpled and crammed in between the pages.
“Barry?”
His head jerks. “Pres. Hey. I didn’t realize anyone was there.”
I slip into the chair across from him. Barry’s shirt is on inside out, and I don’t think his hair has seen a brush or a shower in several days. His eyes are sinking into black rings, and he’s surrounded by an open bag of corn chips and three empty Coke cans. Maybe he should’ve had four.
“You okay?” I ask, even though I can see he’s not.
“Me? Oh, sure. Just a little catnap before afternoon classes. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. You know how the homework piles up.” Barry runs his fingers through his hair and attempts a smile. “How are you? Anyone giving you a hard time?” He motions like he’ll punch anyone who might fit the bill.
“No, not really. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I kinda think you get more of a break when you’re a girl, you know?”
“You’re a fast learner, Presley. By the way, that rule doesn’t change once you leave high school.” Barry glances at his watch. “Damn. I was supposed to meet Jack twenty minutes ago. You didn’t happen to see him come through here, did you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“What’s that about?” Barry asks, cocking his head to the left and smirking.
“What?” I ask, wiping my nose just in case.
“You rolled your eyes when I asked about Jack.”
“I did? I didn’t mean to.”
“He’s actually a really good guy. I know he acts like a smart-ass in front of you, but he’s solid.” Barry shuffles his empty Coke cans into a clustered triangle. “You know, he was the only one of my friends to show up at my mom’s funeral.”
“Really? I sort of remember him being there, but I didn’t know he was the only one.”
“Yeah. He probably knows more about me than anyone—almost anyone.” Barry leans closer and lowers his voice. “So I heard you might be going out this week for Devil’s Night?”
“Who told you that?” My cheeks feel hot, like Barry just caught me lip-synching to my mirror.
“Betsi.”
“When did you see Betsi?”
“She came by to pick up something from my dad,” Barry mumbles, standing up. He tucks his mess of books and papers underneath one arm, walks around toward me, and places his other hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Pres. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Moran!” The voice is easily recognizable, but one I don’t usually hear until the end of the day. We both turn to see Mr. Lyndon standing behind us, arms folded, rocking back and forth slowly on the heels of his stark white athletic shoes.
“What? I mean, yes?” I stammer, convinced he’s figured out that I don’t really run the full ten laps to warm up in class.
“Not you. You,” he says, pointing to the other Moran, Barry, who apparently is on trial for assassinating the president. “You want to explain to me why you’ve missed the last three practices? You want to tell me why I shouldn’t bench you for Saturday’s game? The rest of the season?”
If Barry was catnapping five minutes ago, he’s wide awake now, his eyes darting between me and the enraged coach. “I can explain,” he pleads. “Just give me a second.”
The bell is ringing in the background, signaling the end of the lunch period and, quite possibly, the beginning of several rounds between Lyndon and Barry. This is clearly not an exchange I’m meant to witness or know about. This time I am the one who puts my hand on Barry’s shoulder and leans close.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone,” I whisper, because we’re family, and keeping secrets seems to be what we do best.
“Remind me again,” Hannah asks, “why we fabricated a babysitting story to sneak out with Chris Carroll and his two Zombies to papier-mâché the neighborhood. What is so great about him, anyway?”
I am starting to ask myself the same question. Hannah and I are on our way to the corner of Wilson and Kensington, chosen because Chris said the old brick bus shelter on the corner offered a good rendezvous point.
“I mean, really, Pres,” Hannah goes on. “You’ve had, like, what—five conversations with him? He’s not even that cute.” She is right about the first part; most of my exchanges with Chris have been during gym class, in less than desirable conditions. I’ve never been an athletic superstar like Barry, but I can usually hold a solid B in gym class. This year is becoming a catalog of pratfalls, with Chris bearing witness: first with basketball, a series of missed layups and overthrown foul shots, and now with soccer, where I miss foot-to-ball contact on a regular basis. Last week Mr. Lyndon pulled me aside after class to ask if I’d had my eyes examined recently. What I wanted t
o say was “No, it’s not that I can’t see the ball—it’s that I can see Chris Carroll watching me,” but I nodded and said I’d look into it.
“I don’t know, I just like him. I think he’s cute and funny. And he asked if we wanted to hang out with him, so that must mean something, right?” I say.
“I hope so. I’m missing at least three omelets for this guy,” she says. Hannah and I were in charge of procuring the eggs. At this time of year, eggs are one shopping-list item that sets off alarms in the neighborhood grocery stores, especially when they’re being purchased by teenagers and not adults. We decided to cobble together what we could from our own refrigerators, splitting the ransacked quantity evenly between households so as to remain unnoticed. We left behind the original carton and wrapped the eggs in kneesocks, placing them in a Tupperware container tucked discreetly into my backpack.
Daylight savings time kicked in last week, and with the hands of the clock moved back an hour, we are blessed with darkness falling earlier in the night to help cloak our actions. On the way over with our smuggled eggs, we shuffle through piles of fallen leaves, trying to remain casual every time a pair of headlights comes into view. Pumpkins flicker from the porches of most houses, and some neighbors have lined up fake tombstones in their front lawns. There are even a few bloody corpses made from old clothes stuffed with newspapers, lying on the ground as if they’ve resurrected and tried to crawl from their own graves to tell us what really happened.
Chris Carroll is already waiting inside the bus stop with his two sidekicks—the Zombies, Jeff and Jayar. I have a hard time telling the two apart, especially when they’re wearing baseball hats, like they are tonight. Chris is smoking, and I try not to act surprised.
“You guys bring the eggs?” Chris asks, taking short, quick puffs.
“Of course we did,” says Hannah. “That’s not a cigar, you know. Do you even really smoke?” She’s standing close enough to me so I can jam my elbow into her ribs without it being visually obvious, but her loud, yelping “What?” doesn’t help keep my cover.
I’m waiting for Chris to laugh, to tell us how lame we are or that our services are no longer required, but he just nods slowly, throwing the cigarette on the ground and smashing the embers underneath his Adidas.
“You’re right. I don’t really smoke. Sorry about that.”
I’m starting to think maybe Mr. Lyndon is right and that I should have my eyes checked after all.
The boys make a pile of weapons in the center of the bus stop: twelve rolls of toilet paper, two and a half cans of menthol shaving cream, and the eggs, still intact in their sock incubators.
“That’s all we’ve got?” Hannah asks, rearranging her scarf for the fourth time since we got here. I’m going to owe her big for this one.
“We decided to hit one target, hard, instead of several small ones. Makes a bigger impact,” Sergeant Chris explains.
“Cool,” I tell him, even though he clearly wasn’t talking to me. “Good idea.” Hannah snorts, while the Zombies grunt and distribute the ammunition evenly among our backpacks. “So who’s the target?” I ask.
“Lyndon,” Chris says, and the Zombies high-five each other, though I’m not sure why.
“Lyndon? Do you know if he’s home?” Hannah asks.
“Maybe. We’ll have to be quick. And quiet. The eggs will probably draw the most attention, so we’ll do those last.” Chris is obviously taking this very seriously. “I made a map so we all know our positions.” He pulls out a piece of graph paper from his back pocket, the kind we use in math class.
“How did you figure out where he lives?” I ask.
“Hey, Pres, it’s not like teachers are in the Witness Protection Program,” Chris says. The Zombies snort, and even Hannah giggles.
“Right,” I say, hoping no one can see the flush filling my cheeks. Chris motions for everyone to come closer and review the map. All the key points around Lyndon’s house are marked with thick, black X’s. On the east side, near the driveway, two X’s for the Zombies. On the rear west corner, behind the house, two X’s—for Chris and Hannah. The final X is in the front of the house, behind what I assume is a large oak tree.
“Shouldn’t someone be out front with me?” I ask.
“That’s the most visible and important position, so we don’t want more than one person out front or it might draw attention,” Chris explains, refolding the map and sliding it into his back pocket. “Plus, there’s really only room for one to take cover behind the tree.”
“I’ll take the front position,” Hannah says, trying to throw me a lifesaver.
“No!” Chris yells a little too loudly. He lowers his voice. “I mean, I need your arm, Hannah. We’re in charge of the eggs, and, well, you throw a lot better than Pres does. No offense.”
I make an immediate mental flip to one of the Ten Commandments of Presley—Make fun of thyself first—and wave Chris off with a talk-show-host laugh. “Oh, hell, I’d probably end up hitting myself in the head by accident.”
We file out of the bus stop, and the Zombies take the lead, making the “ch-ch-ch-ah-ah-ah” sound from theFriday the 13th movies. Chris follows, and Hannah falls back to talk to me while I bring up the rear.
“Let’s just go,” she says through her teeth.
“No way! Lyndon deserves this,” I say a little too merrily. “He really chewed out Barry the other day.”
“What for?”
“Just football-practice stuff, but he was such a dick about it. You’d better catch up with Chris, we’ll need to break off in a few blocks.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Hannah asks.
“Of course. Now go!” I maintain my smile until Hannah’s safely in front of me, and then I erase it like chalk on a board, shoving my hands into my coat pockets for warmth. For the next few blocks, I catch myself playing that old game of trying to avoid the sidewalk cracks among the wet leaves while chanting in my head,It’s not her fault, it’s not her fault, over and over. Above me, constellations peek from the clear October sky—Orion, the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia. Betsi was the person who taught me how to trace the stars, and they come into focus much more quickly now.
Lyndon’s block is abandoned and still. The houses here sit closer together, and the decorations are sparse. Older people live in this part of town, their grown kids long since moved away. On Halloween night, most of the porch lights will remain dark, the front doors shut, signaling a refusal to participate in a holiday geared toward children and candy.
The Zombies take their position behind the minivan parked in the driveway, toilet paper in one hand and shaving cream in the other. Chris and Hannah move back behind the bushes on the other side of the house. There aren’t any porch lights on, but there’s a dim glow peeking through the large window on the first floor.
The plan is this: as soon as we hear the eggs hit the house, everyone is to retreat to the bus stop to reconvene. One long whistle is the all-clear to begin the damage, while three short whistles are the signal to abort. I am the gatekeeper. I peek around the tree one more time; the glow from the downstairs window is brighter now, the curtain open. I can see Lyndon sitting in the room, the light from the TV bouncing off the walls. It looks like he’s shoveling bites into his mouth from a plate held in his hands. I’m fairly certain he’s still wearing his gym-teacher outfit. He’s seated near the window, as if he knows his time has come, but he won’t go down without a fight—and a full stomach.
I think about what Betsi said: “There’s nothing wrong with stirring up a little mischief.” And as I walk directly ahead of the tree to keep myself out of the line of sight, I choose my signal—one long whistle—leaving behind the scene of the crime as the shrill tweet escapes from my lips. It is exactly ten blocks east and two blocks south to my house, and I don’t need Chris Carroll to make me a map to tell me how to get home.
By the time I get to my street, clouds have draped themselves across the night sky, and the constellations have disappeared. I
button my coat all the way to the top and wonder, if Chris or Hannah or the Zombies got caught, whether they would implicate me to Lyndon, whether I even cared.
Instead of two carved pumpkins on each side of our house stoop, there’s just one—mine—and the candle struggles to flicker inside. The opposite side of the porch is occupied by Betsi, whose lit cigarette burns almost brighter than the jack-o’-lantern.
“How’d it go?” she asks. Her voice seems cold and flat.
“It was stupid. I left.”
She nods and continues to smoke.
“Where’s your pumpkin?” I demand, my words unusually clipped.
“It’s not officially Halloween yet. I still have time to make everything the way we wanted it to be.”
“Do you?” I snap.
Betsi takes another drag from her cigarette, blowing the smoke directly toward me. For the first time, I notice a red plastic cup at her feet.
“What’s that?”
“Hey, Pres, get off my back. You’re not the Betsi police. You’re just a kid, and you don’t know what it’s like to try and survive in my world.”
“Actually, Betsi, I think we’re all trying to survive in your world.” It might be the first honest thing that’s come out of my mouth all night, but Betsi just lights up another cigarette and doesn’t say a word. My body shudders, maybe from the chill in the air, or maybe the silence between us. We are staring at each other, but she doesn’t see me. She has dark glass marbles for eyes.
Then she picks up her red cup and swallows long and hard.
I walk up our stoop, stopping midway to lean down and lift the lid off my pumpkin, blowing out what little light is left.
That night I dream about my school cafeteria. It’s snowing outside, but the windows have been wedged open, and the wind blows the napkins and food wrappers from the trays. The cafeteria is full of students, but no one talks. I see Hannah sitting at a table stacked with bananas ripe for peeling, and I try to catch her eye. She ignores me, rearranging the fruit into a pyramid. Chris Carroll is standing in the hot-food line smoking a cigarette, and no one objects. I decide to look for Barry and head toward the corners of the cafeteria, thinking I might find him curled up on top of his textbooks. The only trace left behind is his jacket, draped over the chair to mark his place. He is nowhere to be found.
The Girl I Wanted to Be: A Novel Page 7
