The Boy Recession

by Flynn Meaney

  “Yeah. Well, she learned so much about putting out fires from Derek growing up, she just figured she could help out.”

  “Kelly! Kelly!” Aviva is running across the lawn to me, with Eugene trailing behind her. “I can’t decide which one!”

  So that’s how we end up helping Aviva pick out a male escort. Even Darcy is impressed with Eugene’s organization; each profile in the boy binder has two pictures, a head shot and a full-body shot, and lists essential information: age, school, height, weight, extracurriculars, hobbies, and dance ability (which ranges from “occasional Dance Dance Revolution participation” to “so good he could back up the Biebs”). Also, the boy binder isn’t just the boy binder—Eugene has girls in there, and reminds us all that “Julius is totally cool with same-sex couples at the prom.”

  “He thinks he’s being politically correct,” Hunter whispers to me, waving some smoke away from my face. “But he’s just trying to make as much money as possible.”

  “What about this one?” Eugene says, tilting the book toward Aviva. “Great jawline and he gets a twenty percent discount at Banana Republic. Ooh, or this guy. I love this guy. He’s half Filipino and knows how to samba.”

  “Ooooh…” Aviva looks intrigued.

  “This guy is a senior, and he’s debating between Cornell and Dartmouth.”

  “That one’s for Darcy!” Aviva says. “What do you think, Darcy? An Ivy guy!”

  “I don’t need a date!” Darcy protests, crossing her arms. “I don’t even wanna go. I have to, because I’m the president.”

  “Well, I need a date,” Derek says, leaning over our shoulders and looking at the binder. “And I don’t want to dance by myself, even though I look good doing it.”

  Derek stands up and starts dancing, waving his lanky arms over his head and closing his eyes.

  “You look ridiculous,” Darcy tells him. “Sit down.”

  She tries to pull him down into a chair, but he starts to run away, and Darcy gets up to chase after him. Aviva is arguing with Eugene over prices—it’s $300 to rent one of his escorts, and that doesn’t even include the ticket she has to buy for him.

  “Shouldn’t I get a discount?” Aviva says. “You don’t have to pay a guy as much to go out with me as other girls. I mean, I’m fun and I’m hot! Doesn’t hotness count for something? It’s, like, a job perk.”

  “Hotness as a perquisite…” Eugene muses. “Hmm…”

  While Aviva’s negotiating and Darcy is chasing Derek up the tree house’s ladder, Hunter turns to me and reaches out to wave smoke away from my face.

  “You think Darcy’s gonna give in?”

  I shake my head. “No way.”

  “Derek can be pretty convincing. Hey, I bet you five bucks she gives in.”

  “Deal.”

  We shake on it, Hunter putting that hand I know so well in mine. As I pull my hand away, he says, “I’m at least a better prom date than Derek. I promise you that. I dance way better than him.”

  “Oh, you can dance?”

  “I can dance!” Hunter says. “I can box step, I can shuffle ball change. You’ll be impressed with my moves.”

  “I look forward to that.”

  “And I’m going to wear a real suit. A real suit, with shoes,” Hunter promises, leaning toward me, and I wonder again if he drank before this.

  “Oh, with shoes?” I smile. “That’s good, if we’re gonna be dancing.”

  “I’m gonna give you that flower thing, and everything. I’m gonna be a good date.”

  “I know you are,” I say. “That’s why I asked you.”

  “That’s why you asked me? ’Cause you knew I’d wear shoes?” Hunter doesn’t seem drunk when he says this—he seems kind of nervous, like he’s covering up some real feeling by joking and he’s waiting for my answer.

  “That’s not exactly why I asked you,” I tell him. It’s so nice outside, and there’s that good bonfire smell, and I start wondering if Hunter will kiss me tonight. Or should I kiss him?

  “Yee-haw!”

  Just then, Derek leaps from the tree house and hits the ground. Hard.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Eugene says, standing up to see what happened. “I think I heard that crunch like when I broke my collarbone.”

  “The bag of pretzels?” Hunter stands up, too.

  “The bag of pretzels,” Eugene confirms, nodding.

  I have no clue why they’re talking about pretzels, but I don’t have time to ask, because all of us are running down from the deck and around the fire to get to Derek. Darcy climbs down from the ladder and kneels right in the dirt next to Derek, who’s rolling to the side and moaning and pulling his knee up to his chest. She pulls his head into her lap and starts taking his pulse. All of us surrounding them are waiting for Derek to stop moaning and say something. Finally, he does.

  “I almost made it six months,” he says, and slumps down against Darcy’s knees. He grabs his ankle while she takes off his hat and soothingly rubs his head.

  “She’s a goner,” Hunter tells me. “You owe me five bucks.”

  I smile at him through the smoke. “Oh, I’ll pay you back.”

  He smiles at me, too—this cute smirk that curls one side of his mouth up—and I’m pretty sure we’re not going anywhere as friends.

  CHAPTER 30: HUNTER

  “Escort Etiquette: A Manners Guide for a Rented Man”

  “The Boy Recession©” by Aviva Roth, The Julius Journal, May

  Open up,” Eugene says.

  When I open my mouth, Eugene sprays some horrible-tasting breath-spray crap on my tongue. Usually I would complain, spit it out, or accuse Eugene of poisoning me—but not tonight. Tonight I’m on my best behavior. I didn’t get pissed when Eugene put gel in my hair. I didn’t get pissed when he sprayed me down with cologne. And I let him shut me in his bathroom with his barber, Roberto, to get a straight-razor shave. Tonight, Eugene is the boss of me.

  Eugene is also the boss of eleven other dudes. His escort scheme actually turned out to be pretty successful—seven senior girls and five junior girls got dates. Aviva’s going with this dude who Eugene has a man-crush on, and Amy’s going with this huge blond dude who looks like Peyton Manning if he got punched in the nose. Man, Eugene is going to clean up on this deal tonight. Although I guess he’s got a lot of expenses, too. He’s got to pay all these guys to be here, and he also rented all the tuxes (he rented mine, too, but I paid him). When I got here, there was this huge rack of suits in Eugene’s living room. It took me, like, fifteen minutes to find the one with my name on it.

  The prom doesn’t start ’til eight, and we don’t meet up for pictures ’til seven, so I had no clue why I had to be at Eugene’s house at five. But he’s got this dude assembly line set up, and he’s methodically checking us over and fixing us up—first, he sprayed everyone with cologne and gelled our hair. Then came the breath check, and now he’s tying bow ties and putting our pocket squares in our jackets.

  “Whoa,” Derek says from the couch, where he’s stretched out with his cast propped up on cushions. The tree-house leap left him with two broken bones in his ankle. “Watching this is such a trip. Eugene looks like a child laborer in a Ken-doll factory.”

  When Eugene reaches the end of the line, he says, “Looking good, boys! Everyone go get your corsages out of the fridge. They’re labeled. Do not—I repeat, do not—take the wrong color. I can’t handle any color clashing tonight.”

  The other escorts file into Eugene’s kitchen, but I hang back with Derek and the D-Bags, who are on the couch, watching TV. The D-Bags were not part of the dude assembly line. And you can tell when you look at them, because they kinda look like crap. In Derek’s case, it’s not his fault. He’s got a cast halfway up to his knee, and he’s on crutches, so he had to have his mom put his tux on. By the time they figured out what to do with the pants, they were super-wrinkled. He’s also wearing his baseball hat, even though Darcy told him not to wear it. Everyone’s pretty pumped to see Darcy’s face
when she sees him.

  Dave is wearing a suit, not a tux, and he actually owns it—the thing is, he’s owned it since he was thirteen and going to someone’s bar mitzvah, and it’s too small. Dave is a small dude, but his suit is even smaller, and the pants are too short, so you can see his white socks. This senior girl asked Dave, because she was so desperate for a date she was willing to put up with Dave being mean to her. I guess she didn’t have the money for an escort.

  Damian’s going with one of Maddy Berg’s friends who plays World of Warcraft with us. They were both online playing at, like, 2 AM one night, and somehow they decided to go to the prom together. Damian rented a tux, but he got one with a white jacket, so he’s super pale in this white jacket and black pants, and he looks like a ghost waiter. Derek keeps trying to order drinks from him.

  Usually I would be over there on the slacker couch, screwing around with those guys and being a total mess, with pieces of potato chip in my hair and my fly open or whatever. Not tonight. Tonight, I’m not even sitting down; I’m pacing around Eugene’s family room because I don’t wanna wrinkle my pants.

  “Yo, Derek,” I say. “Are you guys gonna practice at all?”

  But the D-Bags are busy daring one another to eat parts of their corsages. Of course Derek goes first.

  “Ew, dude!” he says, laughing and making a face as he moves the piece of leaf around in his mouth with his tongue. “This thing is plastic!”

  “You bought Darcy a plastic corsage?” Damian asks. “I don’t know if she’ll be cool with that.”

  “Crap. You bought mine, too,” Dave says, trying to pull the sleeves of his jacket down. “You are the cheapest bastard. Give me my fifteen bucks back.”

  “Yo, Derek!” I say, walking over to the couch, all official in my nice tux. “Can you guys, like, go rehearse, please?”

  Derek looks up at me. “Huh?”

  “The thing! My surprise… thing! Can you go practice it? The instruments are out in the garage.”

  “They’re in the garage?” Derek says. “How are they getting to the prom place? Because I can’t lift shit.” He nods at his cast.

  “Roberto’s driving them over,” I say.

  “The barber?”

  “Eugene hired him for the whole night, and he shaved everyone already, so…”

  The D-Bags mumble and bitch under their breaths, but they give in and head for the garage. As Damian passes me, he claps his hand on my shoulder and says, “Breathe, Hunter. You seem a little uptight.”

  All the escorts start coming in with their corsages, and Eugene sits them down on the couches in front of the TV. “All right, boys!” he announces. “We’re gonna get a little education in dance-floor etiquette and conversation!”

  When the movie comes on, there’s a bunch of people from the 1700s or something doing some English version of square dancing while a few dudes play the violin. The guys are in what looks like Revolutionary War gear, with popped collars, and the girls have some push-up-bra action going on.

  “Eug, what is this?” I ask him.

  “Pride and Prejudice!” Eugene says, tossing the DVD remote to one of the guys on the couch and coming back to stand with me. “Girls love this shit. Trust me.”

  One escort turns around to say, “This version’s not bad. But I prefer the BBC miniseries. Six hours. I own it, if you’re interested.”

  When the guy turns back around, Eugene tells me, “I got him from the divorced parents’ meeting.”

  On-screen, the main girl is telling the guy she’s dancing with something like, “It is your turn to say something, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance. Now you ought to remark on the size of the room or the number of couples.”

  “Hear that, boys?” Eugene says, smacking one of the guys on the couch on the back of the head. “You gotta be making conversation on the dance floor.”

  The two guys next to me, buddies who go to Catholic school in Milwaukee together, seem kind of nervous about this whole thing.

  “Okay, so first I tell you how big the room is,” the first guy says. “Then you tell me how many couples there are.”

  Eugene turns to me and asks, “You ready to roll, Huntro? You got your corsage?”

  “Crap,” I say. “I forgot something already.”

  We go into the kitchen, and Eugene opens his fridge, takes out the last corsage, and shows it to me. It’s kind of white.

  I make a face at it. “Is that right? She said her dress was green.”

  “It goes with green,” Eugene tells me. “Trust me.”

  Eugene slides my flower thing onto the counter and puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “Hunter, relax. I took care of everything. You’re good.”

  “I’m good,” I say, looking down. “Shit! My pants got wrinkled! I didn’t even sit down!”

  “Hunter,” Eugene says. “Listen to me. I know you. When you actually give a shit about something, you do a hell of a job at it.”

  With both hands, he grabs my face.

  “Kelly is lucky to have you,” Eugene says. “Because you’re gonna be a killer date.”

  I laugh. “Was this a heart-to-heart, dude?”

  “Hell, yeah!” Eugene says.

  I think Eugene wants me to hug him, but I don’t—I just grab my corsage and follow Eugene back into the family room, where the guys are getting pretty into the movie. One of the two nervous guys behind the couch says to the other, “So I think I got it down. He was a real dick in the beginning, but he became less of a dick throughout the night, and then she thought he was a nice guy. So you have to start out the night being a dick, and then get nice.”

  Eugene turns to me sharply and warns, “Don’t listen to that. Don’t be a dick.”

  CHAPTER 31: KELLY

  “My Night with a Prom-stitute: Aviva Roth’s True Account of Paying for a Date”

  “The Boy Recession©” by Aviva Roth, The Julius Journal, May

  This is as romantic as my prom night is going to get,” Darcy says. “Taping Aviva’s nipples down.”

  It’s prom night, and we’re in the fancy bathroom of the Milwaukee hotel, which has velvet couches and carpet and full-length mirrors. It’s pretty glamorous for a bathroom—and we’re pretty glamorous for us. Darcy went for a ballerina-chic look, with a black corset dress with a short tulle puffy skirt with her hair slicked back in a tight ponytail. I’m in a long emerald-green dress, and I got my hair professionally done for the first time. Apparently my hair is so hopeless that they had to straighten it and curl it. It seemed counterproductive, but it looks really pretty now. Aviva’s gold dress is so low-cut that she can’t wear a regular bra with it. She had to wear these sticky chicken-cutlet things instead, which is what we’re working on now.

  “Your prom night is romantic!” I tell Darcy. “Derek is a fun date. And your corsage is gorgeous!”

  Darcy rolls her eyes at the red roses on her wrist.

  “I bought this,” Darcy says. “I bought one for myself because I knew he would disappoint me. He tried to give me a plastic corsage with a bite out of it. Who bit my corsage? I can’t say for sure—but I’m guessing it was my date. And he wore that stupid hat and ruined all the pictures we took.”

  “But you guys are so cute, dancing with him on his crutches!” I say. “He’s danced with you the whole night, and it can’t be easy with a cast on.”

  Darcy shakes her head, but I can see in the mirror she’s trying not to smile.

  “Slide it a little bit higher,” Aviva tells me. “Okay, perfect! Darcy, gimme the dress tape.”

  Touching Aviva’s boobs isn’t the most romantic part of my night. Hunter has been such a great date. He posed for pictures with me, opened doors for me, and pulled out chairs for me. He asked me to dance right away, and he actually leads when we dance.

  “Okay, they’re stuck to me!” Aviva announces, turning sideways to admire her profile in the mirror.

  “Viva, how’s the date going?” I ask, sitting on the arm of the fancy couc
h. “He’s really cute!”

  “He is super-cute,” Aviva agrees. “Even up close! And he’s a dancing fiend. When that Shakira song came on… his hips did not lie. This may be the best three hundred dollars I ever spent. I plan on highly endorsing prostitution in the school newspaper.”

  I smile at Darcy. “And the student journalism award goes to…”

  “Not everyone is so happy, though,” Aviva says, stopping to apply lip gloss at the mirror. “Sylvia Sanchez wants a refund. Her date is super-awkward and keeps talking about how big the room is. She thinks he just got out of prison or something.”

  “No way.” I shake my head. “Hunter said Eugene got professional background checks on all the escorts. Maybe he’s talking about the room because he wants to be an architect!”

  “Okay, let’s go,” Darcy says, snapping her clutch shut. “I have to announce the prom king and queen.”

  “Oooh, do you know who it is?” Aviva asks.

  “Don’t know and don’t care,” Darcy says, pushing the door open. “Bobbi counted the votes.”

  In the ballroom, the dance floor is almost empty. I go to our table, where Hunter is waiting for me with two pieces of cake.

  “Which do you like better?” he asks, standing up to pull out my chair. “Corner piece or middle piece?”

  “Whichever one you don’t like.”

  “I eat everything and anything,” Hunter says. “You’ll learn that about me.”

  I give in and point to the corner piece, which has more frosting. Hunter slides it over to me and hands me a fork.

  “Where’s Derek?” Darcy comes up to the table holding two gold envelopes.

  “He’s doing something,” Hunter says, through a mouthful of cake.

  “That’s not true,” Darcy says, rolling her eyes. “Derek is never doing anything.”

  “Darcy,” Hunter says. “He’s doing something important.”

  Darcy shuts her mouth and nods. I look from Darcy to Hunter, confused. I’m about to ask what’s going on, but Darcy interrupts my thought.

  “How do I look?”

  I reach out and fluff her tulle skirt. “So cute. Good luck with your announcement!”