Brett McCarthy

by Maria Padian

  “I thought you just said Mrs. Levesque wasn’t too upset,” I said.

  “Meredith Levesque has impeccable manners,” my mother replied. “She lives in a small town and understands that you handle things politely.”

  That hit me. Small town. Mess up in a small town and live with it forever. I wondered if this was a good time to bring up private school. Or moving.

  “I don’t know, Brett,” Mom sighed, shaking her head. She seemed deflated now, de-angered. “This is the last thing Marie needs right now. What were you thinking?”

  What-were-you-thinking. Let-me-tell-you. Don’t-speak-tome-in-that-tone. Did someone give them a book in the maternity ward called Really Annoying Things for Parents to Say?

  Then, just when I thought the conversation couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did.

  “You know, you’re going to have to apologize,” Mom said.

  No. No no no no way. I was prepared to pack up, on the spot, and move to another town. I was willing to telephone every private school in Maine and request transfer applications. I would have even considered renouncing my U.S. citizenship and relocating to Singapore, or some other country on the farthest point of the planet away from Mescataqua. But apologize to the mother of the Hottest Boy in Maine, when all I really wanted to do was crawl under a rock and hide?

  “You’re kidding, right?” I said hopefully.

  “I’m as serious as a heart attack,” she replied.

  Evil. My mother had become evil. Cruella de Vil, Cinderella’s stepmother, and the witch queen from Snow White all rolled into one. Only that morning she had packed my snack of a Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll, waved, and said, “I love you—have a great day!” when I’d headed out the door. What had happened to her while I was at school? Had aliens taken over her body?

  “No.”

  It came out of me, simple as that. Just the one word.

  “Brett, this is not negotiable.” Mom was talking in her I-mean-business voice.

  “Mom.” I was talking in my pleading, I’m-on-the-verge-of-tears voice. “I’m really sorry I got involved in such a stupid joke. I’ll call Diane’s mom. But please don’t make me call Mrs. Levesque.”

  “So write her a note,” Mom said impatiently. “Why are you being so pigheaded?”

  “Why are you making such a big deal about this?” I answered. “It’s not like we were doing drugs or raiding the liquor cabinet. We played a dumb joke. Big deal!”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Mom replied, putting her hands up in the I-surrender mode. “In the universe of big bad things kids do, this is minor. You weren’t stealing cars or setting fires. But it was rude and you do need to offer a simple ‘I’m sorry.’ It’s not the end of the world.”

  How could I possibly explain to her that it was? At least the world I inhabited, where Bob Levesque was the sun and the rest of the kids at Mescataqua Junior High School fought and bit and clawed for positions as minor planets in his orbit. My friends and I were tiny moons in the outermost regions of popularity, like Charon circling Pluto. Which isn’t even a planet anymore.

  Circling Pluto may not be very cool, but obscurity has its good points. People don’t bother you if they don’t notice you. And people like Bob Levesque for sure didn’t notice me. Sure, in Girl Jock Universe I was a star. But step into the boy-girl world of going out, making out, weekend parties…and I was a dim bulb. They might be playing spin the bottle over at Bob’s house, but I spent Saturday nights baking brownies with my grandmother.

  I didn’t want to think about what I would have to face at school the next day.

  “You know, I think I’d like to go to my room, if that’s okay,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  She pressed her lips together, nodded, breathed The Sigh, and I was dismissed. I scooped up my backpack and was just heading out the door when I remembered something.

  “What did you mean by ‘This is the last thing Marie needs right now’?” I asked.

  Mom waved her hand as if the question were a mosquito. She didn’t look at me. “Oh, nothing, really. We’ll talk about it later. She’s just under a lot of stress these days.”

  I wasn’t the only one in the kitchen who had something she couldn’t possibly explain.

  dis•o•ri•ent•ed

  After a half hour in my room with Good Charlotte (I played the refrain “Don’t Want to Be Just Like You” six times at full volume), I was ready to make the first apology call. When I dialed, Mrs. Pelletier picked up.

  She wasted no time in letting me know it would be a cold day in Quito before she forgave me or let Diane associate with me. (Quito is the capital of Ecuador, located smack on the equator.) I told her I was sorry, and I even offered to pay for the lamp, but that seemed to piss her off even more.

  “You know, Brett,” she said, her voice icy, “throwing money at a problem doesn’t necessarily make it go away.”

  Frankly, I thought throwing money at a new lamp would go pretty far toward making the broken lamp go away. So when I finished apologizing, I asked to speak with Diane. That’s when she announced The Ban.

  “Diane is not allowed to use the phone for a week,” Mrs. Pelletier said. “And I don’t know when she’ll be allowed to see you.” Click.

  I was in no hurry to call Mrs. Levesque after that. So I wandered over to the Gnome Home to see what Bazooka Nonna was up to.

  She was stacking the molded plastic chairs from the afternoon’s entertainment in her garage and already knew the whole story. Apparently Mom had been over, filling her in while I was blowing out my eardrums in the bedroom. I told her about my call to Mrs. Pelletier. Nonna shook her head and settled into the top chair of the stack. Like she was sitting on a little throne.

  “Well,” she sighed, “as usual, Marie Pelletier is overreacting like a real rhymes-with-witch. You’re just going to have to wait it out. But I’m proud of you for calling her. It’s not easy to apologize, especially to someone who has trouble forgiving.”

  That was the thing about Nonna. She never let you get away with anything, but she always let you know she was on your side.

  “I don’t understand why she’s so angry and why she won’t let me pay for the lamp,” I said.

  “Well, she’s got a lot on her mind right now,” Nonna said.

  “That’s just what Mom said!” I burst out. “What are you guys talking about?”

  Nonna looked at me, eyebrows raised.

  “Has Diane told you about how her family’s doing?” Nonna asked.

  Now it was my turn to look puzzled. Diane and I talked all the time, but frankly, I couldn’t recall hearing any important family news recently.

  “What I’m going to say doesn’t go beyond this…garage,” Nonna continued, her eyes briefly scanning the mausoleum of old toys, bicycle parts, and cast-off windows that filled every corner of the building.

  “It looks like Larry Pelletier is leaving Marie.”

  For a moment I thought I hadn’t heard correctly. I felt disoriented, the way you feel when you walk into a quiet room and suddenly people jump out from behind the curtains shouting, “Surprise!”

  Disoriented: to lose one’s sense of time, place, or identity.

  Mr. Pelletier leaving Mrs. Pelletier? After all the work they’d done on that house? After two kids? They were both old…at least in their forties, like my parents…what was the point? Nonna had to be wrong.

  “No way,” I replied. “Diane would have told me.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know yet,” Nonna replied. “Marie told your mother this afternoon. Brett, you know I hate gossip. But I think knowing might help you understand why Diane’s mother is overreacting.”

  I didn’t know what to say. My head buzzed, and more than anything I needed to talk to Diane, right then. But we were banned. That’s when I remembered Instant Messenger.

  “Nonna, I think I need to get started on my homework,” I said. She looked at me, surprised.

  “Well, okay,�
� she laughed. “I guess we’re done with that subject. Or do you just want to get out of here?”

  I bent over Nonna, seated on her plastic throne, wrapped my arms around her bird-bone shoulders, and squeezed. She smelled like fresh laundry detergent.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. For not hating me for calling the Levesques, I thought. For not keeping secrets from me. She patted the top of my head with her incredibly wrinkly hands.

  “You know,” she said, “you still haven’t told me what you think of our Potato Bazooka.”

  bal•lis•tic

  Diane didn’t go online until that evening. At that point Dad was home too, and the three of us were in our usual spots in the kitchen: Dad sorting mail and getting interested in the evening paper, Mom doing something with dinner, me at the computer. I had pretended to do homework for more than an hour, Sockrgurl waiting impatiently for 2Di4 to sign on.

  Just when I began to suspect that Mrs. Pelletier might have also imposed a computer ban, “hey!” appeared on the screen. Diane was on.

  Sockrgurl: whazzup?

  2Di4: mom’s ballistic.

  Ballistic: moving like a projectile or rocket in flight. Stratospherically angry.

  Sockrgurl: i thought merrill snitched but mom said mrs. l called?

  2Di4: yup. she’s a client. mom’s totally embarrassed. made me drive w/her 2 l’s. F2F apology.

  Sockrgurl: OMG what happened?!?

  2Di4: it was ok. as j a says, mrs. l is really really nice. i think she felt sorry 4 me ’cuz mom was way over the top, sucking up to the l’s. etc. mrs. l invited mom to have a glass of wine & talk upholstery.

  Sockrgurl: so?

  2Di4: i hung w/bob while they had wine.

  I stared at my screen. No way.

  Sockrgurl: r u kidding?

  2Di4: he’s wicked cool. he had some friends over & we played foosball in the basement. they have a totally awesome house.

  I was stunned. My best friend had just spent the afternoon with the hottest guy in Mescataqua, possibly in all of Maine. The worst, most embarrassing punishment in the world had somehow turned into a huge step up the social ladder.

  Sockrgurl: wow. amazing.

  2Di4: j a won’t believe it.

  I felt the back of my neck stiffen. Diane seemed to have forgotten that “j a” had caused all this trouble to begin with. Even if she, Diane, had just taken the miraculous step of having a conversation with the godlike Bob Levesque, entering his home and touching his foosball table, she was still banned from the phone and forbidden to see me. Her best friend.

  Sockrgurl: who sez we r talking 2 j a??

  2Di4: u rn’t still blaming her r u?

  Sockrgurl: r u kidding? this was totally her idea! she called l & used my name! she got us in trouble! she’s an idiot!

  2Di4: ok she shouldn’t have used your name. but mrs. l is glad someone called so she didn’t drive around looking 4 josephine.

  I stared at the screen. Somehow, this “conversation” wasn’t going right. Was 2Di4 taking “j a’s” side? Just then she sent another message.

  2Di4: G2G.TTYL.

  The message “2Di4 has signed off” popped up, and Diane disappeared into cyberspace. Nothing about her parents.

  “Brett, dinner.” My parents carried steaming plates to the kitchen table. Mom had made one of my favorites: meat loaf and mashed potatoes. I knew it was her way of making peace. Of getting us back to a normal, good place, where we hung out in the kitchen after school and talked about easy stuff, like sports or Nonna’s latest inventions.

  As I sat down at my place at the table, I caught Dad’s eye. He winked at me and put one hand over mine.

  “‘You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies. / You may trod me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I’ll rise,’” he said quietly. “Maya Angelou.”

  One of the weird things about having an English professor for a dad is that he quotes poetry at random moments. One of the cool things is that when you’ve screwed up, he quotes poetry instead of getting mad. Quoting Maya Angelou was Dad’s way of letting me know he’d heard all about my great day. I winked back at him, then filled my mouth with meat and gravy.

  “Mmmm. My favorite,” I said, glancing at Mom. My way of making peace. If I had decided to keep the Cold War going, I would have taken two bites, pushed the plate away, and asked to be excused to do homework. But I’m too much of a chow hound to be a successful Cold Warrior, especially when the potatoes are garlic-mashed.

  Anyone peering in the window would have seen a happy family having a perfectly ordinary evening together. But as Tuesday, October 16th, drew to a close, I knew it was going to take more than meat loaf to make things normal. And while I had a feeling Diane was looking forward to school the next day, I sure wasn’t.

  fea•si•ble

  As I stared at my bedroom ceiling the night of October 16th, two questions kept a steady drumbeat in my head. First: What was the feasibility of hiding my identity at school the next morning? Could I slip on dark glasses and a hat every time I saw Bob Levesque?

  Feasible: capable of being done or carried out; likely.

  Second: How had the Pelletiers broken the news to Diane and Merrill that they were splitting? Was it feasible that Diane didn’t know yet? Was it likely that she already knew and hadn’t said a word to anyone?

  Morning and October 17th finally came, and I stumbled to the bathroom. The big raccoon circles under my eyes, the direct result of no sleep, were the bad news. The good news: I wouldn’t need a disguise at school after all, because no one would recognize me.

  Not wanting to face Mom’s inevitable “My goodness! Do you feel all right?” when she saw my eyes, I raced through a quick shower, packed my gym bag (we had a soccer game that afternoon), and grabbed a box of blueberry Pop-Tarts. I shouted goodbye toward my parents’ bedroom as I headed out the door and walked to school.

  Pop-Tarts are sort of okay toasted and totally gross un-toasted, so after the third one I needed a drink, badly, to wash the saturated-fat gunk down my throat. I also needed to wipe off my shirt; it’s hard to walk and eat breakfast at the same time. So I headed to the outdoor water fountain behind the main school building.

  If you had asked me to list the Top Ten People Brett McCarthy Didn’t Want to See at the Water Fountain, I couldn’t have come up with anything nearly as bad as I actually encountered. Rounding the corner at a full run, I crashed into some tall guy’s T-shirted back.

  “Hey, watch it!” he exclaimed. There was something sickeningly familiar about the “Hey, watch it!”

  Of course, it was Bob Levesque. Who else on the planet could possibly be standing at the back-lot water fountain—what I believed to be the least-frequented place in the entire school, except for maybe the custodian’s supply closet in the basement? If I hadn’t known it before, I sure knew it then: Brett McCarthy was the unluckiest piece of dead meat in Maine.

  Bob took a step back. A semicircle of tall, cool guys, followers of the Greek God Levesque, stared at me. A sort of haze hung around their heads, and the place smelled. On the ground in front of them were discarded cigarette butts, and I realized, with the typical delayed reaction of an uncool kid who finally gets what the cool kids are up to, that this was where they came to smoke.

  Then the kicker.

  “Well, if it isn’t Josephine,” sneered a particularly annoying voice.

  Jeanne Anne. She wasn’t smoking (I’ll give her that), but she was standing alongside Darcy Dodson, a.k.a. Darcy the Ditz to me and Diane. The meanest, skinniest member of the Mescataqua Junior High Cheerleading Squad, and one of Jeanne Anne’s neighbors.

  “Hey, Josephine. Slow down and have a smoke,” said one of the Demigods. The others laughed.

  “No way,” said Darcy. “She’s one of those super jocks. You know, protects her lungs, eats health food.” I wondered if Darcy considered Pop-Tarts health food.

  “Whatever,” said another deity from the semicircle. “As long as y
ou aren’t a narc. You aren’t going to tell anyone about our little…uh, meeting. Are you, Josephine?”

  I shook my head. Speech was not a possibility. My teeth seemed permanently cemented shut by the pastry and blueberry goo.

  Then the bell rang and the deities dispersed, dropping their cigarettes in the dirt and grinding them out with their heels. Jeanne Anne walked up to me.

  “See you around. Josephine.” She looked at Bob and raised her eyebrows knowingly at the “Josephine” before sauntering off. Then it was Darcy’s turn. She jabbed a red-lacquered fingernail into my chest and smirked.

  “Next time try eating the food instead of wearing it.” She and Jeanne Anne burst into hilarious giggles, then disappeared around the corner.

  As soon as they were out of sight, I lunged for the water fountain. I must have sucked down a gallon before coming up for air—that’s how long it took to clear my throat. When I lifted my head, I saw I wasn’t alone.

  Bob was still there. It was a little strange to see him without the usual crowd of adoring fans. He seemed serious, which, unbelievably, only made him look better.

  “You’re Brett McCarthy, right?” he asked quietly. I nodded.

  “You know, Brett,” he said, “my mother is a nice person. She doesn’t deserve to have people play stupid jokes on her and waste her time. That was a real loser thing to do.” Then Bob Levesque, God of Hotness, Loyal Son, turned and walked away without a backward glance.

  Leaving me, Low-Life Insect, Deadest Meat on the Planet, wondering how I was ever going to make it through school that day.

  As it turns out, I wouldn’t have to.

  un•prec•e•dent•ed

  Here’s the most important thing to know about junior high: Bad news travels fast and good news is a well-kept secret.