Boy Proof

by Cecil Castellucci

  The security guard’s walkie-talkie jumps to life with noise, and he gives Eduardo and me the okay to start letting people in. The people give us their names and we check them off the list and then they head straight toward the free booze and food.

  When the line dwindles down to nothing, Eduardo dismisses me.

  “Go,” he says, waving me away with the back of his hand. “Go find your movie star or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  I wander into the courtyard full of people in black. All the ladies have blond streaks in their hair. They all wear glitter in their base to make them look sun-kissed. Their faces are frozen into one youthful expression from Botox injections. They look like they are so afraid to be themselves.

  Then again, I guess if they were themselves they might be as lonely as I am. Maybe if I ever grow my hair out I’ll run off and get blond highlights. That worries me.

  I notice Saba Greer. She is being cornered by a group of Eggophiles from the Terminal Earth message board. They all said they were going to meet her. They are all wearing those stupid white flowers.

  I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to meet those girls. I am so happy that I came here as myself. Not Egg. Just Victoria.

  I notice that Saba Greer is not so much smiling while shaking their hands and signing autographs. She looks like she’s cringing.

  I see my mom and head over to her. I’m tired of standing alone. She is talking to a woman in a suit. The woman looks familiar. My mom stretches her arm out and waves her newly manicured nails and bangly bracelets at me. She hired a stylist for this evening.

  She puts her arm around my shoulder.

  “Lark Austin, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Victoria.”

  “Hi, Victoria, nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah, you too,” I mumble looking at my feet.

  “Victoria is a big fan of your movies,” Mom says for me.

  I nod. “Yeah. You’re great. My favorite is They Scream in the Night.”

  “Thanks,” Lark says. “I’m a big fan of your mom’s. I’m excited that she’s going to play Hera for me.”

  “Isn’t that exciting? It’s all settled! I wanted to tell you today but you were gone by the time I got back from signing the contracts,” Mom says. She’s drinking a glass of wine. Her glass has a large creamy-pink lipstick mark on it. I want her to notice it and wash it off. Everything about my mom is embarrassing me right now.

  “I’ll be right back; I’ve got to use the loo,” Mom says. When in the Hollywood bubble land, she’s always pretending to be British.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “God, those girls with the white flowers in their hair are fucking pathetic.”

  I look up at the woman who is speaking. I can’t take my eyes off of her. Flame-red hair flowing down her back. Face dotted with freckles. It’s Saba Greer. It’s Egg herself. I didn’t have to go find her. She came and found me. It’s perfect.

  “I know, honey,” Lark Austin says, slipping her arm around Saba Greer’s waist. “But they’re your bread and butter. They buy your action figure and keep you nice and pampered and pretty.”

  It’s suddenly clear to me that they are a couple.

  “But they’re freaks,” Saba Greer says. “I mean, they worship Egg. Those girls need to get a fucking life. Lonely. Pathetic. Pasty teenage girls.”

  She is talking about me. I try not to look as though I am lonely and pathetic and pasty. I try not to let on that I am one of those girls.

  My heart sinks as I realize that Saba Greer is a bitch. I listen to her mouth off about her fan base for a while longer, and then I just stop listening to her altogether. She’s an awful person. She’s no hero.

  “Who are you?” Saba Greer says, eyeing me suspiciously. “You’re not an Egg freak, too, are you?”

  “No, this is Ursula Denton’s daughter, Victoria — right?” Lark says.

  “Yes. Victoria,” I say.

  Saba Greer sticks her hand out to shake mine. I take her hand. Her grip is weak. Her hand is freezing cold and her skin is clammy. She is everything that Egg is not. I guess that’s why they call it “acting.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she says. But she’s not pleased at all. She’s already looking behind me to see who else is here.

  Wanda comes over to join us.

  “Lark, Saba Greer. I see you’ve met our best intern and your biggest fan, Victoria.”

  Saba Greer and Lark shake their heads yes, that they have met me and I imagine probably immediately forgotten me.

  “Well, we’re going to start in about five minutes, so we should probably head inside,” Wanda says.

  “I’ll help Eduardo break down,” I say. They leave me standing there in the open air with my heart breaking. I look over at my mom’s full glass of wine and down the whole thing in one gulp.

  Then I notice a tray of full wineglasses that has been left on a table. I go over and take two glasses and down those as well. Then I take two more and wander off to behind a palm tree to drink in peace.

  “How much wine did you have?” Mom says, standing in my doorway. She’s yelling too loudly. My mouth feels like a cotton ball. My head is splitting right down the middle. This is my first hangover.

  “Don’t talk so loudly,” I say.

  “Excuse me?” Mom says.

  “Please,” I beg. I am actually begging my mom.

  “Is this how you are going to behave at the Nemesis reception at the museum?”

  “No,” I say. “Please talk quietly. In fact, please don’t talk at all.”

  “I give you so much freedom and this is what you do?” Mom says. “I didn’t think that you would become a drunk.”

  Now she is making me angry. She is being dramatic, as usual.

  “I’m not a drunk. I never get drunk.”

  “Except last night.”

  “Saba Greer was a bitch. She was a horrible, horrible bitch.”

  “Well, Saba Greer is playing Athena in the movie with me, and since you’ll be coming with me to Greece this summer before you go to college, you’d better get used to her being a bitch.”

  “Maybe I’ll have other plans for the summer,” I say. “I’ll be a high-school graduate and can make my own goddamned decisions about where I’ll be this summer. I might not go to college right away. I might not even go at all. I’ll be independent, and I would like to consider all the choices open to me.”

  Mom doesn’t have an answer for that. She just slams the bedroom door shut.

  I am so glad it’s Saturday and not a school day.

  I make my way to the bathroom and take some aspirin and drink lots of water. If I cared, I would notice that I look like hell.

  I slide in front of my computer and log on to the Terminal Earth site. There are ten new postings all about the party at the Cinematheque last night. They all say that Saba Greer was the nicest, most sincere, most loving person ever and that she had complimented all of their Egg costumes.

  That seals it. Saba Greer really is a good actress.

  I follow a thread on the message board that asks the question, “Any chance Saba Greer is gay?” I’m tempted to reveal that I know she is dating Lark Austin, but I resist.

  “Well?” Rue is gooning at me, as always, trying to bond with me. “How was Saba Greer?”

  “I thought you’d be swinging off the roof today,” Martin says.

  “It was so special,” I lie.

  I don’t want them to laugh at me for worshiping someone who sucks.

  Martin puts his arm around Rue’s waist. It’s so tender it makes me want to barf.

  “Hey, Thursday, New Bev, Lord of the Rings marathon. Wanna come with us?” Martin asks.

  “A bunch of us are going, and we’re packing a picnic dinner,” Rue says.

  “Sure,” I say. “I was going to go anyway.”

  I almost tell them that my mom is going to play Hera in the Lark Austin movie. But I don’t. I know they really, really want to be the first people to kno
w. They’ll read about it online. They’ll get the scoop soon enough.

  I just don’t want to do any more talking about it today.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Victoria. You’re really falling behind.” Dr. Gellar has called me in for a special emergency meeting. She is actually worried about me. “You’re an exceptional student, but —”

  “It’s not like I’m going to fail anything,” I say. “I don’t fail.”

  “Well, it seems as though you are really struggling with math this semester.”

  Dr. Gellar is trying to tell me that it’s okay not to be perfect. I almost bring up the valedictorian question. But I don’t. Because I don’t really want to hear about it.

  “I’ll get a tutor. I’ll catch up,” I say. “I’m sure I can get someone to help me with trigonometry.”

  Dr. Gellar nods. “All your applications are in?”

  “Yes, they’re all in,” I say.

  “Good. Do you know where you want to go?”

  “I haven’t really decided about that yet,” I say. “I have to wait until I see where I get accepted.”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t pull me out of the running yet, Dr. Gellar. I’m full of surprises.”

  “I know you are, Victoria,” she says.

  “Don’t forget. I’m going overseas for the next six weeks to prep for the new Dracula movie,” Dad says.

  Dracula. It’s a big deal. All those vampires. All that blood. All those delicate bat wings and eyeballs and pointy teeth. He’s been working hard on reinventing the way vampires look.

  “Hey, Dad,” I ask. “How did you know that you wanted to be a special-effects guy?”

  “It was the one thing that made me happy,” he says.

  My heart skips a beat.

  I pick up a piece of foam and start cutting it. I think best when my hands are working on a new project. All of a sudden, my mind is spinning at light speed.

  This moment right here. Freeze time.

  I am completely happy.

  “Hey, what’s different about you today?” Max catches up with me in the school entrance. He’s hurried up to me from the parking lot.

  “Nothing. I’m exactly the same,” I say.

  “No. Something’s different.”

  He looks me up and down. It’s a little chilly outside this morning. His black sweatshirt is zipped all the way up and he has a knitted black ski cap on. His blue eyes water a little in the wind, making their color even more brilliant.

  “Are you wearing makeup?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “Did you dye your hair?”

  “No.”

  I pull my new thrift-shop ski jacket closed as we cross the school courtyard.

  “Hey,” he says. Finally noticing. “Where’s your cloak?”

  “At home,” I say.

  There is nothing but bad news.

  The news has me convinced that an asteroid is going to hit the earth. That a bomb is going to go off in some city and that there will be a nuclear winter. That the sun will explode. That the moon will lose its orbit. That a plague will wipe the earth clean. That we will all starve from bad farming. That a volcano will erupt. That there will be a massive earthquake. That the polar ice caps will melt. That people are going to turn into zombies. That they are going to get us.

  There is nothing I can do about any of it.

  The only thing I can do is get good grades. I have control, ultimate control, over that. The only thing I can do is apply myself. Cannot fail. Must do well.

  Mental note: Don’t freak out.

  I push open the door to the library, and Rue is there holding court with her books. Her fedora is on the table in front of her, and her hair spills over her shoulders like a medieval queen. I make my way over to her.

  “You know I get bummed out when you say you’re going to come somewhere with Martin and me and then you back out at the last minute,” Rue says. “You always do that.”

  She’s referring to the Lord of the Rings movies.

  “Nah, I’m not backing out — I am going to be there anyway.”

  “Oh, good!” she says. “So what’s up?”

  “I have to ask you a favor.”

  “A favor?” Rue says.

  “Yeah. I need a math tutor. I’m having trouble with trig.”

  The light from the library window makes twelve triangles on the table. The size of the triangles is changed by the curves of the hat and the lines of the books.

  I bite my thumb. Maybe she’ll say no.

  Instead, she wrinkles up her nose and purses her lips into a smile.

  “I knew it! I knew one day you’d come to me for something!”

  “So, you’ll do it?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “How about here at one o’clock on Monday?”

  “I’ll be here,” I say.

  “I’m a real hard tutor,” she warns me. “I expect a lot. I expect results.”

  “That’s cool,” I say. “I want to make the grade.”

  The waves of a minor earthquake. They bottom out. They roll. They undulate. They are like my feelings, only with little painful spikes in them. Those spikes are like the minute second of happiness that I feel when the sun shines just right. Or when the sunset looks a certain shade of pink. Or like this moment, when I am holding the shooting script to Terminal Earth in my hands.

  “Looks good, doesn’t it?” Martin says.

  I really am excited, I say to myself. I don’t care if Saba Greer is a bitch. Egg still kicks ass. I still really like this movie.

  “It looks great. I can’t wait to read it,” I say, even though I know most of it by heart. “Zach Cross looks really hot in the pictures.”

  “So I hear Rue is going to help you with your trig,” Martin says.

  “Yeah, I’m struggling.”

  I’m too proud. It’s embarrassing to admit I’m weak.

  “It’s okay, Egg. Everybody has an academic weakness. Mine is French. I can’t conjugate worth shit, and you know those Ivy League schools like you to speak more than one language. As a scientist, I’ll have to read texts and stuff in journals in other languages. But as hard as I try, I just don’t understand French.”

  Why is it that when people try to make me feel better, it just makes me feel worse?

  I head over to the Melrose Lion office and settle up with some photography stuff I have to hand in. I scan some pictures. I clean my camera. I sit and go through the assignment board and write down what I think I might be interested in shooting.

  Nelly and Inez walk into the room. They nod in my general direction and then immediately forget that I’m there.

  They start gossiping. Which I find boring.

  “So anyway, we’re at this café, it’s called the King Kong Café, and it’s all these supercool people. Adults, you know. Artists. College kids. There’s this singer-songwriter on the stage. Anyway, it was a total scene. And Max starts to cough, and I’m like, ‘Are you okay?’ and he looks at me and he takes my hand and puts it up against his heart and says, ‘Amor tussisque non celantur.’”

  I pop my head up and look over at them.

  “What does that mean?” Inez asks.

  “It means, ‘Love, and a cough, are not concealed.’ Isn’t that romantic?”

  “I think that’s weird,” Inez says.

  “Then he told me all about his artwork that he’s going to do. He’s writing a whole novel with pictures.”

  “He’s definitely weird.”

  I close the photography closet after loading up on Kodak paper. I don’t want to hear any more. She can’t actually believe that the feeling is mutual. She can’t even find a cool café on her own. She doesn’t even know the term graphic novel. She doesn’t know Max.

  Catburglar: You up?

  Eggtoria: Yep. Are you?

  Catburglar: Ha ha. Your analysis of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment was really astute today.

  Eggtoria: Wow. A compliment from the literary
king. I’m honored.

  Catburglar: A bunch of us were thinking of going to Griffith Park merry-go-round for a picnic Monday since it’s a half day. Want to come?

  Eggtoria: I dunno. I wouldn’t want to get in the way.

  Catburglar: ????

  Eggtoria: I’m tired, I’m going to sleep.

  Catburglar: The fresh air would do you good.

  Eggtoria: I said Good Night!

  Catburglar: Sweet dreams, weirdo.

  Sweet dreams. It blinks at me. It is a wish you make to someone you care about. It’s something you say to someone special. You don’t just say it to anyone.

  Or do you?

  Selectively, I ignore the word weirdo and I wrap the phrase sweet dreams around me like a security blanket. It is a blanket that will prevent any bad dream from visiting me tonight.

  I sign off and lie in bed.

  I push open the double door to school and get blasted by the heat of the hallway. Max follows as we enter AP Global History and take our seats.

  I open my loose-leaf binder and take out my pen.

  “That photo of the boys on the basketball team was hysterical,” he says. “The way you framed it makes it look like some kind of cult meeting.”

  I notice that the line that goes from his neck and disappears down inside his hooded sweatshirt makes a beautiful curve. I am transfixed by the curve and the mystery of where it goes. I wonder what it would be like to kiss his neck. I wonder how the scar feels on his belly.

  All of a sudden I’m very nervous.

  I take out my textbook.

  “Max, I really want to look at my notes before the exam.”

  “Okay, whatever.” He turns his eyes to the front of the room and ignores me.

  After a few minutes of staring at his back, the weird upheaval my body is experiencing settles down. I can breathe. I am back to normal.

  I pull on Max’s hood.

  He turns around.