The Taming of the Drew

by Gurley, Jan

  Gonzo got a Second World.

  Robin got a Second World. Each of them looked stricken, like it was their fault, like they were personally responsible for gobbling up Second World resources.

  Oh please, oh please…

  Time seemed to slow down, like an action sequence in a movie.

  The Dog stepped forward, put his ticket on the counter and said, “I’d like a…” Simultaneously, the lunch-lady reached down, pulled a paper strip out from under the counter and flapped it next to Drew’s ticket, like she trumped him before he even got his bet out.

  Her left hand reached up to the rows of plates and pulled one off the packed line. “Third World,” she said.

  The Dog stared at the marble-sized wad of white rice sitting bereft in the middle of the plate. “What?”

  She leaned forward and spoke like he was dense — “You’re poor. That’s what this whole lunch is about. So you rich kids can appreciate what you got.”

  The Dog looked confused. “Can I?…”

  “Move along,” she barked, “I got eight hundred more of these to serve.” As Drew shifted to the side, she muttered, “If he didn’t want to play, he shouldn’t have bought a ticket.”

  For the first time, Drew seemed to notice the Hunger Luncheon banners overhead, packed with statistics about world poverty. I slid my ticket on the counter and saw, with a sinking heart, that, of course, I got First World. When she handed me my lunch, my tray dipped down under the weight.

  We shuffled through the crowds to sit at a table at the far edge of the atrium.

  Everyone stared at their plates. No one moved. I slid my tray out to the middle of the table and said, “Drew, I could never eat all this…”

  He glared, “Listen, find another Uni student to mock. I got the message.”

  He popped his sushi-sized rice ball in his mouth, and a “click” sounded beside me. Helena held her cell toward me and, by way of an apology for interrupting, said, “Mom -text,” which meant her mom must have had some emergency-level after-school change in plans, because Helena’s mom never texted her at school.

  The Dog, still chewing and glaring at me, then gave me a screw-you, sardonic slow smile. “Tasty,” he said. “Well, I’m full.” He pushed back his chair so hard it almost toppled, and stomped off.

  Everyone stared at me, stricken.

  I told myself it was the hopelessness of the whole mess that got to me in the moment. But really, it was also the fact that someone could think I was that cruel. What was supposed to be a treat for everyone was worse than nothing and there was no way I could ever undo it.

  I pushed my tray further away, put my cheek on the cold sticky table, and circled a sweater-thick arm over my face. I heard chairs move around me, but someone, even over the noise, must have heard me sniff, because a napkin appeared in the space between my arm and lap. I reached down with my other arm and took it.

  A long time later, I sat up.

  My plate sat congealed in the middle of the table, with most of the Second World food still sitting on the other trays. Everyone was gone except Viola, Helena, and Phoebe, who were all three pretending to not notice me.

  “It’s okay,” I said, “hayfever.”

  Phoebe said, “You know time’s passing.”

  “I’ve got all my books with me, and next period isn’t far.”

  “I didn’t mean lunch-time’s passing — I mean every day that passes is a good thing — right? For the trees?”

  “I guess. Except time passing means tomorrow’s Friday, which is when the Dog can get into serious trouble. I’ve got no idea how to stop that. I’ve got no tricks left. I’ve gone from being an annoyance to someone he actively despises. And worse yet,” I stood and pushed my chair, “time passing means that in two hours I’m going to be stuck sitting next to him in tutoring. I should be trying to get in the Dean’s office, or trying to help Gonzo deal with Celia and look for the camera. Instead I have to sit there in tutoring, spying on Tio, hated by everyone.”

  “Sometimes,” said Viola, standing and then lifting a foot and putting it down as carefully as if she was on a high-wire, then another step, arms out, wobbly, her eyes glued to her feet, “sometimes, to get somewhere, you have to put one foot in front of the other.”

  I gave her a shove and she laughed and pinwheeled, and pretended to fall, but saved herself by throwing an arm across my neck. The four of us giggled all the way to the girls’ bathroom.

  ***

  During the next two periods, I decided on my strategy. I wasn’t going to keep doing the tutoring thing, not now that I knew it bothered Tio. The best way to end it, I decided, was to tell Drew while we were in tutoring. That way, if the Dog yelled at me, he might get barred from tutoring hall. Hopefully for the rest of the year.

  I felt so good about my plan I almost bounced my way to our cube.

  The Arctic circle still hovered around Drew. He sat, leaving me no space. I had one shoulder wedged sideways between him and the wall. I tapped him once and his head turned, eyes narrowing like he couldn’t believe I was daring to speak to him.

  Or like he thought I’d be afraid he’d blow up again, the way he did in Mrs. Gleason’s class.

  In truth, nothing would make me happier.

  “Drew –“

  “My name’s not Drew!”

  “Shhh!” spewed from all sides.

  “Drew,” I said, not really caring if other people could still hear, “I want you to know, this tutoring thing you forced me to do…”

  Before I could finish my sentence, two guy voices rang out — “Could you shift over?”

  “Hey, make room.”

  More shh’s geysered up around us. The guy-voices came, oddly, from across the barrier — in fact, from the Bianca/Tio cube.

  I blinked at the Dog. He blinked at me. We both popped up, like prairie dogs out of a cube-hole, to stare.

  It was the old guy and the young moneybags from last week’s Uni dance. I put both elbows on the top edge of the barrier to lean on tiptoe farther forward and see better. Drew did something similar and the barrier-wall earthquaked, but didn’t buckle. The two guys, one on each side of Tio and Bianca (who were looking alarmed) were busily trying to squeeze more folding chairs into the cramped cubicle.

  They both must have sensed someone glowering over them, because they glanced up at the Dog and froze like palpitating rabbits.

  “Exactly what,” said the Dog in a flat voice, “do you two think you’re doing?”

  There was a long, harsh silence, and I could almost swear I saw the older guy’s five o’clock shadow darken. The Dog leaned his forehead at the older guy to indicate who he was talking about, “I’m betting you’re not even a Legacy student.”

  The young rich guy said, “He’s my tutor.”

  The two of them gave each other a stare of equal parts smugness and hatred. They had clearly cooked this plan up together.

  The Dog shifted his attention to the rich guy, who looked like he might, under the glare, spontaneously combust at any second. “You’ve got balls. I’ll give you that — trying something like this. You know this is Academy's tutor-hall, right?”

  “Take it up with Dean Padua,” the young guy said. “He gave me authorization for an out of pod tutor space — here.” The young guy gave Bianca a leery smile, “Once I explained to Dean Padua that Bianca might not be getting the best help from an — Academy” [said like it was a bad word] “student — and that I would pay for a college tutor for us both, he had no objections.” The guy seemed to not realize he was risking his life when he said, “We all benefit. My theory is, let the best guy win.”

  I had to put a hand on the Dog’s shoulder because he gripped the edge of the styrofoam wall so hard, I actually thought for a second he was going to climb over the partition. When the barrier stopped rocking, I noticed Tio looking up at me with pleading eyes.

  What? Did Tio want me to let the Dog pound this guy into a smear? It would certainly get the Dog banned from tu
toring — and possibly on the evening news.

  Tio, seeing that I didn’t understand, gave an almost imperceptible jerk of the head to his right and left.

  The guys. He wanted me to do something about these two guys. Tio didn’t think he could compete.

  Tio!

  I gave him a stern look, a clear, you-can-do-this nod of the head. His jaw worked, like he was trying to swallow words faster than they popped into his mouth, and I suddenly knew with a sinking dread what was coming. I opened my mouth to head him off, or to talk over him, but in that half-second of brain-freeze where you frantically search for a word to say he blurted out, “’Where hope is coldest, despair most fits.’”

  There was a shocked silence. Bianca turned sideways to stare at Tio, as if this was the first time she’d noticed his existence. The two guys on either side shared a who’s-the-freak look over Tio’s head.

  This was not how it was supposed to go. Finally-noticed or not, I knew Tio would never want Bianca to see him being mocked by other guys. I had to say something.

  What actually broke the silence, though, was Bianca, who stood and poked Drew in the shoulder. “Go ahead, get yourself thrown out. And in the newspapers again,” she taunted.

  Drew said, “Tell these guys to leave.”

  She narrowed her eyes at Drew and smoothed her skirt down as she sat. She said, “Nope. Don’t think I will. You act like I’m a slut. If I’m going to be treated like one, I might as well play the part, don’t you think? Three guys at once, sounds about like my speed.”

  There were gasped inhales all around — disbelief from Drew, joy from the new guys, horror from Tio, and surprise from me.

  When Bianca stood up for herself, she really stood up.

  “Now if you’ll excuse us,” Bianca said to Drew, “Or do you want to go ahead and blow up — and save me the trouble of calling the proctor to have you thrown out?”

  Drew dropped with a thud back into his chair, elbows on the desk, hair in his hands. We could hear whispers over the barriers — introductions — and Bianca’s laugh. I wasn’t sure, now, what to do with myself. Should I stay, should I go? If I stayed, how could I possibly help Tio? Bianca didn’t know me, didn’t care to know me, and would barely tolerate her brother. Face it, there’s nothing I could do — for Bianca or Tio. God knows the Dog didn’t want me around, and I was tired of spending my free seventh period being glared at by him.

  I stood, picking up my bag, and then Tio appeared at my side. I whispered, “Tio!”

  But he wasn’t interested in me. He poked Drew in the arm, hard.

  Drew raised his head and stared at Tio, absent-mindedly rubbing his shoulder. Tio said, “I’m out of my depth here. You’re not leaving her alone with those creeps. These are the kind of guys who could actually try to get your sister to leave with them, or do something gross to her in one of the practice rooms — which means they’re also the kind who’ll pay attention to whether you’re here or not. They’re not going to try much with you sitting and watching them. You need to get your temper under control and, for God’s sake, stop being such a bully. All you’re doing is forcing Bianca to sneak around and do things she’d otherwise never do. Are you listening to me? You need to grow up for once and be a man.”

  Whoa.

  Drew looked angry and confused, like someone had, yet again, changed the rules of the game on him. Tio jerked his head at me and continued whispering to the Dog, “That means Kate’s got to keep coming to tutoring, so you can get in. You okay with that Kate?”

  I gave a baffled, surprised nod.

  “But there’s no point in Kate wasting her time. The only reason for her to do this is if you think you can hold it together and, for once in your life, try to be pleasant.”

  Drew gave Tio a short, angry nod then stood, and said, “All right, I’m going to stay calm. For today.” There was a pause, like he expected us to object or something. Then Drew leaned down and shook a finger at Tio, “But you, little man, you better not leave her alone with them.”

  They both went back to their seats, leaving me blinking.

  Final bell sounded as I walked across campus. I tried to get into the Dean’s wing of the offices, but the doors were locked. I took the fifteen-minute detour to the stadium bleachers (located, of course, on the University side of the campus), in case Gonzo was there, but he wasn’t.

  On the field, guys in helmets and those knee-length pants and stringy tops and pads were running and slamming into some giant snow-sled with padded bumpers on front. A grown man stood on the back of the sled, and when a guy hit, the sled rocked up and forward, the coach leaning down to scream or blow a whistle at the exhausted guy in pads.

  Four days in a row of no snack, no lunch, followed by two hours of hard, hot, bone-jarring exercise. If he didn’t collapse, or get seriously ill, the Dog would be primed, after all the frustrations of the week, to head out with his friends and blow off some serious steam this weekend.

  I dragged home and logged on my computer to post my daily tweets from the keyboard. And had an out-of-body experience.

  There it was — my post for today, already done. On my personal twitter account.

  Who could have done this? And it wasn’t even like something I’d write.

  The whole thing was a shocking bit of sucking-up. Don’t believe me? Check this out -

  Title: Legacy's Star Stud Tackles Poverty.

  Not only was it posted, but it had gotten passed around. My mouth dry, I checked the stats. 759 followers! In one day!

  It was like a B-movie science experiment gone horribly wrong — I created this little innocent-looking thing and now it was growing and mutating and taking on a life of its own, threatening to spin out of control and destroy me. How could this happen? Who were these 759 people?

  Okay, I’m no technical whiz, but I was pretty sure turning off the computer and acting like it never happened wasn’t going to fix this. I skooched my chair closer, studying details.

  It was when I spotted the twitter-picture that I knew. It was a blurred cell shot of Drew, that moment when he gave me that dark, intense screw-you smile and popped the ball of rice in his mouth. You could only see one eyebrow raised behind his hand, but I knew instantly that Helena had to have taken that shot.

  A hurt feeling twinged in my stomach. All the Greenbacks knew my password for everything was 6redwoods. It never dawned on me to keep it a secret — at least partly because I figured they could guess it if they tried. But I never, never thought any one would use it behind my back.

  I heard a clear, calm voice in the back of my head say, you mean go behind your back - the same way you did with your mother’s password when you signed up for a data plan on your cell?

  I wanted to argue, but mine was for a good cause, and the voice answered, and isn’t this, also?

  But I didn’t say Helena could.

  The voice didn’t even have to answer that pathetically hypocritical argument.

  So I picked up the phone to call Helena and thank her — and to find out what she’d been planning, when she posted the tweet.

  “Oh thank God,” Helena said, “I was so worried you’d have a hissy fit.”

  There was an awkward silence. “Not that it wouldn’t be deserved,” she said.

  “Am I that bad?” I asked.

  “Not bad. That’s not what I mean. It’s just that…”

  I could hear Helena breathing.

  “Go ahead, say it.” I braced myself.

  “It’s just you kind of are always in charge. You tell us what to do and we just do it. That’s how it’s always been with the Greenbacks, kind of like the rule for joining.”

  Ouch.

  I felt like hanging up. So much for listening to that voice.

  “Oh, Kate,” she wailed, sensing my distress even over the phone, “don’t be like that. It’s not a bad thing. And, well, I hate to admit it…”

  “What?” I said, feeling flat.

  “Well, pretty much all of us wa
nted you to be like that. Maybe we even needed it. After you’re alone for a while, you don’t really trust yourself. It’s nice to let someone who wants you around take the lead.”

  “But after a while…” I said.

  I could hear her breathing again. “Yes. After a while…”

  “So what’s the plan,” I said.

  “You mean it? You really want to hear?”

  “Hey, I asked, didn’t I?”

  There was moment or two of girl-awkwardness — the are-we-in-a-fight-or-not kind that you have to just get past when you stand up for yourself with your friends — before Helena said, “Thanks, babe,” and I could hear the tears in her voice and knew it was going to be okay between us.

  “Here’s what I was thinking,” she said. “What if we go on the offensive?”

  “The what?”

  “You’ve been talking like we have no control over what people say about the Dog. What if we take the Dog by the horns, or the Bull by the leash — you know what I mean — and do a kind of PR thing.”

  Wow.

  “He could still blow it,” I said.

  “Yeah, but it’d be harder. Especially if we got everyone thinking he’s a really good guy. And think of it this way — if he doesn’t do anything too horrible, even if he’s still a jerk at the end of school, this way you might still win.”

  “My God, you’re so Machiavelli.”

  “Thanks. I’m flattered.”

  I heard voices in the background. “Is that…Phoebe?”

  Helena’s hand covered the receiver as she said, “Quiet down, you guys!” She took off her hand and said, “Phoebe and Gonzo are here — there’s lots of news and plans but we talked about it and decided the Greenbacks should meet in the circle tomorrow before school. We can go over the whole plan then, when everyone’s together.”

  I felt the fear seep into me, like toxic mist coming out of the telephone. Why were they all over at her house, when no one had invited me? Was Helena going to cut me out? Would I end up left out from now on, watching my friends have fun without me?

  That clear voice in my head said, you have to trust.