The Taming of the Drew

by Gurley, Jan

  Silence. He put his hands on his hips. “That’s a weird, old-fashioned word. What are you, some kind of geek freak?”

  Okay, that stung, but who was I to say it wasn’t deserved, at least a little bit, given the way I looked and what his mom had just told him I was going to do? “I’m a trifle weird and old-fashioned too, just like that word. Debonair.”

  Silence. “Are you actually trying to flirt with me?”

  “You’re kidding. Right? Your mom wants me to somehow make you behave. Why don’t we get the real problem out in the open here. First, I can’t make you do anything.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “In fact, no creature can make another creature do something. Not really.”

  “Shows what you don’t know. Drop a fumble and my coach’ll make the whole team do twenty gut-sprints.”

  “My point exactly. You agreed to follow his rules, and then you all agreed to the consequences if you break them.”

  He leaned closer. His eyes narrowed. “What happened to your lips?”

  I felt my spine go rigid. “Generally a fat lip is what you get when you’re slammed on the floor.”

  “Looks like you got stung. Bet it hurt.” He leaned in, invading my space as if daring me to say something.

  “Oh you’ll feel my sting all right, if you don’t back up.” I half-lifted my right knee and he flinched backward.

  “Funny,” he said, “I didn’t take you for the crotch humor type.”

  “We’ll both do better if you don’t try to figure out a type for me. Some of us aren’t so easy to typecast.”

  “You think you know my type?”

  I almost said it — pitt. No one on earth had ever been so clearly a dull, straightforward, pretty-boy pitt as this guy. “Indulged, in trouble, insensitive. Take your pick.”

  “And you, of course, are so normal, you believe you have the right to be my — what? — nursemaid?” The sarcasm rolled off him like steam.

  “Weird, old-fashioned, that’s me. Normal I never claimed to be. Your nursemaid? That’s my worst nightmare. Which brings me to my second point. You ought to be thinking of me as your ticket to riches. I’m the one you ought to be wooing.”

  He actually laughed, a snorting explosion. “Wooing. Did you really just say that? You are seriously weird.”

  “I meant you ought to be trying to get me to like you as…as a person. Not a dog.”

  His face thunderclouded but I kept going, “The way I see it, you’ve got yourself in one hell of a mess, and I’m your only hope out of it.” I counted them off on my fingers, “No money, no car, no social life. No football — it’s not like you can take a few years off and try again later. If you don’t clean up, now, you’re done. Forever. No future. At seventeen, you’re a big, fat has-been. Go ahead, tell me if I’m wrong.”

  “Don't you dare call me Dog.”

  We panted, almost nose-to-nose. The words don’t look scared, don’t look scared were a whining buzz in the soundtrack of my head.

  The door opened.

  Mrs. Bullard stood there, with the Deans and my mom behind her, Celia crammed to the right and Tio’s face tucked underneath them all, against the doorjamb.

  “How are you speeding along here with my son?”

  Mrs. Bullard’s voice was fake cheerful. I showed my teeth in what I hoped was a smile. “We’re cruising along great. Just great. Making lots of plans.”

  “And you, Andrew?” her fake cheerfulness faltered, “You look like a little upset. Is that so, son? Should I worry about this working?”

  He folded his arms across his chest, “Gee, why would you worry, mother? All you've done is ask her to 'help' me, right? It's not like you gave power over my life to some total stranger you don't know at all, who might turn out to be a lunatic — because that could've been a disaster, couldn't it? Good thing that's not what happened here.”

  In the silence that followed (confused silence for the Deans, my mom, Celia — breath-holding silence for the rest of us), his mother didn’t say anything to let him off the hook. She wasn’t kidding when she said she meant to make this deal stick. I saw a flash of similarity between him and his mother — both jaw-clenched, their wills slamming, huge as those behemoth guys on the football field. They were both playing for keeps.

  Well so was I. My trees were every bit as important as their family battle.

  I’d never succeed if I tried to do this thing halfway. And if I had no clue what I was doing — well, I'd have to improvise. I couldn't hesitate, or my eight thousand dollars would be lost before I had the chance to earn them. I made an instant, dry-mouth, hands-trembling, decision. Might as well put the cards on the table and call his bluff. “Drew and I,” I announced to everyone, “we’re doing very well. In fact, he’s so charming, we’re going to…to…” but then my mind, the fear-frozen traitor that it was, pulled a total blank. Nothing came to mind. Nothing at all. But I wasn’t going to stop. I couldn’t, or it would all be over before it started. “What’s that school thing happening this weekend? Anyone know?”

  Celia said, her voice low and horrorstruck, “You can’t mean” (intake of breath) “the dance?”

  “That’s right,” My voice rose two or three octaves. Mr. Fenniman, the chorus teacher, would have been impressed. “We’re going to the school dance tomorrow night.”

  Tio and Celia screeched, “You’re going with him?” and, “You’re going with her?”

  Drew and I glared at each other for a long moment.

  “Sure,” I said, “maybe it seems sudden. But Drew’s decisive. He said he could be cursed alone, or with me.” He got my meaning, and raised one lip in a sneer of angry appreciation. Miserable with me, or more miserable alone — that was his choice.

  Finally, he gritted out, “Yeah. It’s our deal. What’s between us is our business.”

  I made it all the way to the empty hallway with my mom and Tio before I had to sit and put my head between my legs.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I Do

  Chapter 3

  After the meeting in the Dean’s office I kept waiting for my mom to let rip. After all, it’s not every day you find out your daughter got busted breaking into the boys’ locker room to take naked-from-the-waist-up pictures to sell.

  And then somehow walked away from the school authorities without even a stern warning.

  But all mom did in response to my tense silence was fuss over me. She tut-tutted as she washed my face and hair in the sink, using her old cosmetology-school drape like I was four years old again. I wasn’t sure if she was tut-tutting my foolishness, or being angry at the security guards. Frankly, I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t deal with her answer, either way. I fell into bed and slept like I was under anesthesia until Mom woke me with a cup of tea, a plate of pancakes, and barely enough time to throw on my uniform and brush my teeth.

  And then, just as I was about to rush out the door, she handed me my bag and phone, stretched up on tiptoe to kiss my forehead, and said, with narrowed eyes, “Oh, you better believe we’ll talk. Later.”

  Gulp.

  I was a wreck my whole shift. It’s hard to mess up a hotdog order (three choices: chili, sauerkraut, or naked), but I managed to do it. Several times. I watched the clock so much that my boss, Mr. Gremio, said, “Stop twitching! You’re like a caffeine addict on speed! You’re giving the customers a bad impression.” I refrained from pointing out that in order to eat at Dino-Dog, it was an absolute requirement that the customer not notice things. Like toenail-shaped chewy bits.

  “What are you, dying to knock off early, Miss Lah-Di-Dah?”

  Mr. Gremio was long and flabby and over-pink, like the hotdogs he sold. He was one of those people who could be thirty, or fifty — and you were afraid to ask. It didn’t help that he had the vocabulary of an eighty-year-old geezer (“Lah-di-dah”?).

  Oh yeah, that’s me. Miss Lah-Di-Dah in a hotdog-shaped paper hat (even that can’t hide my terminal case of bed-head from going to sleep wit
h my hair wet, then shoving the whole mess in a server’s hairnet). I wore a polyester neon-bright mustard-yellow sack-shirt with the smell of endlessly heated, swollen and bursting hotdogs seeping out my pores.

  Gremio’s face puckered like the end of one of the stewing hotdogs. He leaned toward me and gave a small sniff. “You’re not doing drugs, are you?”

  “Tell me you didn’t do that. Did you really just smell me?”

  We stared at each other. Gremio said, “Methamphetamine will rot your teeth, young lady. Don’t you ever forget that.”

  Okay, if I was addicted to meth, the prettiness of my teeth would be the least of my worries. Probably. But there was no talking to Mr. Gremio when he was like this. “I’m going to a dance tonight,” I said, hoping that would end the discussion.

  “I’m warning you,” he said, “if you’re falling in with a bad crowd, I’ll start assigning you Saturday night shifts. That’ll put a stop to your shenanigans. You better watch your step, missy.”

  I sighed and slapped a six-pack of chili-dogs into a Family Carrier. Like all my friends, I worked at the one place where I could find a regular Saturday morning shift available. Working on school nights made homework impossible, and even if you didn’t have a social life, working Friday and Saturday nights made you feel like a serious loser. All of my friends worked the same kind of Saturday shifts I did.

  Which is why I was surprised when the Greenbacks started showing up 45 minutes before my shift was over.

  Hot dog steam coalesced into the shape of Gremio at my elbow. “Don’t even think about stealing dogs for your friends,” he said. “I count them, you know.”

  I pinched a broken-in-half hotdog with my tongs and raised it so that he could see the exploded end curling out like a poisonous flesh-flower. “Does this count as 0.6 or 0.7 of a dog?”

  I expected him to say something like, “Get smart with me, young lady, and you’ll…you’ll…”

  Instead he flicked a glance at the amputated dog and said, without hesitating, “0.67.”

  Okay, now that was just scary. I took off my apron and sped out of there precisely as the second-hand nailed 5 o’clock.

  ***

  “Don’t be angry at Tio,” said Viola.

  We were crammed into my thin-walled bedroom, Greenbacks standing in a circle around the twin bed that took up all the space.

  “I’m not angry,” I barked at Viola. Ever since I’d made the deal with Mrs. Bullard yesterday, something hard and afraid stuck inside me, a cold rock in my chest.

  Helena said, “Kate, Tio should have told us. Besides, we won’t tell.”

  Viola said, “Cross our hearts and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”

  Somehow, the graphic nature of that childhood rhyme sounded downright creepy coming out of Viola’s mouth. There was a moment of silence while we all contemplated the image.

  She added, “Or, instead, maybe, you could give me a wedgie?”

  As I laughed, that rock of fear in my chest vibrated, then crumbled, until only a smear was left. I smiled at Viola and felt like crying at the same time. “All right, you got a deal.” I looked around the room. “Anyone talks, it’s wedgie-time.”

  I must have contaminated the others with my stiff, cold fear because the minute I made the wedgie-threat, everyone let out a gush of air, like they’d been holding their breath without realizing it. My bedroom erupted in chatter.

  Helena clapped her hands. “People! People! There’s not much time here and we’ve got a lot to do!”

  “Listen,” I said over the dwindling talk, “I appreciate the support, but you don’t all have to stay to help me get ready.”

  Tio and Gonzo looked confused, then horror-struck, like the idea that they’d help me get ready for a school dance was appalling. Everyone else shifted in place, like I’d said something wrong, but no one wanted to explain.

  Phoebe said, “We’re all going.”

  “But…but…” If you don’t understand Legacy High School's social scene, you probably don’t understand the shock-terror effect this announcement had on me.

  The way it works is that certain kids actually take a class, one period a day, called Leadership. They even get academic credit for it, and a grade (an A).

  Leadership is always Uni students. But you can’t be merely a University student — Leadership is for the truly popular University students with enough money to bankroll major activities and moms who can devote themselves full-time to fund-raising, bulk purchasing, and decorating for those activities. If you wanted to be hated on a school-wide basis, you’d attempt to take Leadership uninvited and unqualified.

  Leadership has a big budget and Leadership decides what it’s used for. You might justify the situation by saying these kids earn it with their fundraising activities (Crab-Feed for Parents! Get Your Tickets Now! Only $100 a Plate or $1000 a Table! Silent Auction Too!), or that their parents donate the rest of the money.

  But the bottom line is that there are a few school-wide activities, like Homecoming and Prom, where a majority of students are welcome. But for the rest of the dances, only Leadership and their close friends (in University) attend. These are dances that get announced (like a spontaneous party) the Wednesday beforehand, and have cheesy themes that all boil down to an opportunity for girls with perfect waists to wear spandex and bikini tops in public — themes like the Superhero Dance, and the South Pacific Dance.

  No one — and I mean no one — in his or her right mind would go to one of these dances unless you were tight with the Leadership crowd. Freshman year, there are always one or two poor souls, usually the oldest kid in their family, who cluelessly show up at a Leadership dance in September.

  They never speak of it again, and by October, no one makes that mistake. The fact that I — one Academy geek — was attending a Leadership dance (even with the Dog, king of the untouchably popular) already violated every treaty in the Legacy High School social rulebook. But having all the Greenbacks go was a social nuclear explosion that threatened to wipe out life as we know it (primarily ours).

  In my mind, I could imagine the Legacy gym doors swinging open. Back-lit by the parking lot street-lamps would be my dearest friends, huddled together. Deafening VJ dance music would screech to a jittering stop, leaving a wah-wah-wah ringing silence pressing against ears. Strobe lights would clunk off and a spotlight would swivel bazooka-style to hit the Greenbacks, pinning them in everyone’s sight.

  On the gym’s webcam-projected Jumbotron screen, a University girl would press the back of her hand against her open mouth in horror and then a scream would tear through the night. Like startled cattle, University students would bump and bleat until they turned and stampeded for the doors, blood-lust driving them, pounding, trampling toward us, an unstoppable riot of destructive anger…

  “Kate?” Tio shook my arm, hard, “Earth to Kate!

  “You can’t!” I squeaked. “I mean it! I won’t let you guys!”

  Looks were exchanged. The silence grew heavy. Alex said, “You don’t think we can handle it, do you?’

  I swallowed. Of course they would think that.

  It was that, or believe I was embarrassed by them.

  “Can’t I just protect you?” I said.

  “And what, commit social suicide alone? You think we’re somehow going to make what you’re doing worse?” Phoebe had a hand on her hip, and her voice had an edge. Rule Number One of the Greenback Survival Guide — Don’t piss off the Phoebes. Holding together a half-time factory job, taking care of her four younger brothers and sister, keeping up with her homework and taking a serious pre-college workload meant that Phoebe was tightly wound. It took a lot to set her off, but when she blew, she really blew. We had an informal rotating schedule of who was assigned to take Phoebe somewhere and help her blow off steam. The only person left out of the scheduling assignments was Phoebe. We thought it was best for everyone if she didn’t know. So far this winter — bowling, paintball, and one free-trial-offer kickboxing
class at a health club.

  “Um, Kate?” Gonzo, who was assigned Phoebe-duty last month, got my attention, “I told Phoebe that a loud, head-banging dance might be a good time.” He pronounced the words too carefully, pausing between each one, “You know what I mean?”

  Great. That was code for the fact that Gonzo failed to do his rotation, meaning Phoebe had almost 6 weeks of high-pressure steam built up.

  In the strained silence that followed, Viola said, “Has anyone ever been to a dance?”

  I stood in horror as everyone looked at each other. No one had.

  Except me.

  That’s right, moi. I was one of those poor souls without an older brother or sister who naively wandered into the near-social-death experience of mistakenly attending a Leadership dance the fall of my freshman year. But who would ever want to admit to such a thing? It was like saying to a crowd who’s never done it, oh sure, I’ve gone to class with the bottom of my skirt accidentally tucked into the waistband of my undies. Hasn’t everyone?

  Now, on top of everything else, I had to worry that Phoebe could end up actually banging heads at the dance — University heads.

  Inspiration hit. “Helena, grab pens off my desk behind you there, and some index cards. Pass them out to everyone.”

  “Oh great,” Gonzo said, “like we’re not geeky enough. Tell me we’re not going to take flashcards to the dance.”

  “Sort of,” I admitted. “We’re going to have a competition. Everyone put five dollars on the bed.” People reluctantly peeled money out of wallets and tossed it on my coverlet with the picked threads. “Anyone know what a birding list is?”

  Tio said, “Isn’t that a list people keep of the different types of birds you find when you go bird-watching.”

  “Bingo. We’re going to have a competition tonight. Forty dollars is the prize to the person who spots all the types of predictable high school dancers.”

  “What do you mean, predictable dancers?”