The Taming of the Drew

by Gurley, Jan

  “I got to thinking,” he said, as if I hadn’t said anything, “once I calmed down and Bianca helped me force my mom to tell us everything. I realized that, tables-turned, I’d take the exact same deal. Take it in a heartbeat. Probably even do a better job of it.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Well sure. Reforming an extreme juvenile delinquent like yourself, what could be more worthwhile than that? I think I’ve proven how willing I am to sacrifice myself for a good cause.”

  Now was the moment. If I wanted it, now was the time to open myself up to what could be a world of hurt. If he wanted to understand me, understand like a, I suddenly realized with a lightning strike of insight, like a depp would, then he could decide now. Whether to take me up on my offer, as vulnerable and soft and hurting as I felt asking, now, when I knew he’d been angry, and had a right to be angry.

  Or he could pretend to misunderstand, and ignore me, and say no without having to be a jerk about it. Or he could humiliate me. It was his ballgame now. My heart went boom, boom, loud enough that I thought he must hear. I said, leaning toward him. “It’s heartbreaking, really, how much help I need.”

  He stared at my lips. “Are you saying you’re hoping someone will throw himself on a stake?”

  “Be a boy scout.” My voice was early-morning husky.

  He said, “Do some self-sacrificing.” With each phrase, he got closer and closer, until I could feel his breath on my face, warm and minty.

  “Take one for the team.”

  At that he gave a half smile, that wicked Drew smile and his hand cradled my head, pulling me to him with an effortless, hitching lift that moved me onto his lap, his eyes never leaving mine as he said, “Just so you know, I’m only doing this for your own good.”

  I’d like to say it was everything the first kiss was. But that would be a lie.

  It was more. His hair was silk in my hands, his lips gentle at first and then he turned his head, this shimmy like he did to get through a crowd and we both ignited with hurt and wanting and, for me, everything that was Drew.

  We were both shaky when we stopped, one of his hands at my waist, the other between my shoulder blades. I leaned back and he lowered me until my head was almost touched the stump, a grand slow tango-dip where I stared up at the trees doing a streamer dance with ribbons of sunlight.

  Then he lifted me and tucked my head against his neck. I couldn’t see him, only feel the breathing in his chest, my hand circling up and around him. For a minute, I thought it was too much, my heart swelling balloon-tight until the giddy helium feeling began to hurt with wonder and disbelief that Drew was here, that he wanted to be with me, the geeky girl from Academy, that I could even — the way I’d never dared to dream of doing — reach my hand around his neck and feel the warmth of his skin under my palm, my thoughts floating and wheeling like a bouquet of balloons, released, free. And then he said, his voice low and rumbly under my ear, “I’m sorry.”

  I pushed away so I could stare at him. “For what?”

  “For being the kind of idiot who gets himself in that much trouble. Thinking it was just fun. Thinking I was somehow helping my friends, by going along. Thinking the rules didn’t quite apply to me.”

  I put my face back against his neck. After a minute, he said, his voice kind of strangled. “Kate?”

  ‘Umm, yes?”

  “I’m kind of sensitive there.”

  “Behind your ear?”

  I heard him swallow. He breathed the answer, “Yes.”

  “You want me to stop?”

  He almost yanked me away. I smiled at him, “You could just say.”

  There was a pause. He looked stunned, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. Like that.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Don’t ever do it again.” He seemed to be catching his breath, “For anyone else.” He shook himself, literally. He lifted effortlessly again, and put me away, back at my place on the other side of the stump.

  “I’m not finished,” he said. “Apologizing. And if you look at me like that, I’ll never do it.”

  “Maybe you don’t need to,” I said.

  “Stop! Stop looking like that!”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Okay,” I said, and tried to look dowdy and constipated.

  “Now that’s just scary,” he said, “For a second there you looked just like Mrs. Gleason.”

  “You were saying?”

  In answer, he pulled out pages stapled together and tossed them on the stump between us.

  I picked them up. “What is this?”

  It was his psych project. Topic?

  Pavlov’s operant conditioning. He stared at me with a worried expression on his face. “Viola said I should tell you.”

  I laughed until I hiccuped, then laughed some more.

  “What,” he said, a confused half-smile on his face.

  “You’ve, you’ve been…oh, God, I’ve got to stop.” I wiped a laugh-tear. “You’ve been Pavloving me. And I’ve been…Pavloving you!”

  “What?” He mouthed the word “Pavloving,” pronouncing it both ways, his eyes gleaming.

  I finally wound down, like a top that let go and spun until it wobbled to a halt, all the energy gone. “I think,” I said, “some of this is Viola’s doing.”

  “No duh,” he said, “she’s the one who suggested I use you as my subject.”

  “Just so you know, we’ve been Pavloving you.”

  “We?” he said, arms crossed.

  “Okay, me.”

  He stared at me for a minute. “How?”

  “Nothing formal, just discouraging bad behavior.”

  He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against his chest. “You want to reward some good behavior?” his voice shimmered with laughter.

  I ran my thumb along his lower lip and said, having trouble focusing, “Not if you want to talk about anything else.”

  “Ah,” he said, and let me go.

  I decided the only womanly thing to do was put some distance between us. I stood and went to lean against a tree. “So what else?” I said, and my voice had a hint of panic to it. Whatever it was, must be worse, for him to feel so compelled to confess.

  He looked at me, like he debated whether to say it or not, like he weighed what he was risking.

  Then he bent, reached in his bag and dropped more sheets on the stump. Glossy eight by ten sheets.

  Even from across the clearing, I could see what they were, even as the top few curled up in the quickening breeze and flipped away.

  It was him. Drew. The Dog. Staring at me with a look that practically ignited the paper, his chest bare, the muscled curve of his shoulder hiding half his wicked smile. One eyebrow raised.

  No wonder Dean Verona fanned herself when she saw them.

  My mouth went dry, and I stared at them as they shifted and slithered across the stump. I stared, partly because I couldn’t look away, partly because I didn’t want to face him.

  “See,” he said, “I knew. I cheated and looked. Of course I could say I never promised not to.” He cleared his throat, embarrassed. “The bottom sheet’s your twitter feed. I knew how you probably felt about me looking at all of it. But I did it any way.”

  I turned and pressed my face against the bark, the redwoody smell strong and soothing, even with the rustling breeze. He came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder, but I didn’t turn, feeling my face glow like the embers left over from a campfire.

  “I know,” he said, his breath hot in my ear, “that you cared. From the beginning. It’s on the page.”

  I felt exposed and angry and, well, used. Was that why he came onto me? Was I just a groupie like those football guys said?

  “Kate,” Drew said, lifting my chin to turn my face. I kept my eyes down. “I like them.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Seriously,” he said. “I got a charge out of how you kept trying to find something nice to say, even if I did sometimes lo
ok like the world’s biggest dweeb. And I especially like the fact that all the pictures of me rock. And all the other guys’ photos suck. Big time.”

  He reached down and gathered the papers. “That’s all of it,” he said, throwing that heavy sack of arm across the back of my neck again, “Let’s get going or we’ll be really late.”

  “Did the bell ring?”

  He looked at me sidelong, “While ago.”

  “Ah crap,” I said. “How’d I miss that?”

  “Can’t imagine.”

  He lifted the Caution tape outside the circle for us to exit. But there was no real reason to hurry to class. Something had jammed the field-side door to Academy, so hundreds of students milled and muttered outside, unable to get in. We were all the way across the grass before I dared to say it, as though saying the words might somehow jinx any hope I had left. “Drew, do you think, if we get your mom to put up some money, and we talk to the Deans today at brunch, maybe we can stop the--”

  There was a metallic clang, a death-gong behind us so loud that I jumped. I wheeled and saw a guy, inside the caution tape, lifting a chainsaw from the back of his truck, flipping down an abraded-until-clouded wide plastic face-shield with a buckled strap around the back of his head, his arms tendony and tanned.

  We hadn’t heard the truck, its near-silent backing across the lawn, because the breeze carried the low rumble away.

  Across the field and outside the circle, the guy with the mask gave a yank on the chainsaw. It coughed. Then another yank, and the tree-eating monster roared to life, bucking and writhing. The man lifted it high, stepped forward and—

  ***

  They say Drew hit me from behind with only two feet to spare.

  I saw the chainsaw bite into bark, give a delighted leap back, and then dig in. An arterial burst of redwood splinters sprayed the man, gouts of it covering him as the chainsaw growled and tore into tree-flesh, the man struggling to control it.

  That’s all it took. I ran, like I’d never run before, straight at the monster, at the chainsaw, not caring what happened when I hit, only thinking to stop it, to save my baby before it was too late.

  Drew’s tackle was like a truck, or the way I imagine it feels to be hit by a truck. Bam! A vertigo of colors smearing as you go down, blackness rushing you from the sides. Only then, as you scrabble to get back up because you have to hurry, you’ve got to keep going, hurry hurry, only then does the pain hit you next, exploding along nerves like another bam!

  Helena told me later I charged again.

  And Drew got me from behind, a clean snag, my fingers outstretched to the shoulder and arm of the man struggling to control the bucking, grinding, chewing metal monster.

  I remember feeling the sting of the bark, flung against me like spray. And then a lurch, a prickly feeling down my arm, vertigo again, an oof feeling like a punch to the gut and I hung from my waist, my head down.

  Drew carried me over his right shoulder back towards the school, his bulging arm gripped across my thighs, across my crinoline, and I fought him for everything I was worth. I scratched, feeling skin and my own nails tear, and I bit and I kicked with all my strength, my boots and knees in his belly and he staggered halfway there, then rose back up, hitched me again wide-legged and kept walking.

  I tore at him, pummeled him with my fists, no longer remembering why, not really seeing, everything blurs and pain, only knowing something was dying and soon it would be too late and I had to get loose and I couldn’t see what was happening, not with all the tears and the strands of my hair blinding and caging me in as they shredded my babies. My trees.

  ***

  Helena told me Drew carried me straight through No Man’s Land, straight through the atrium and straight to the girls’ bathroom. He put me on the linoleum floor and shoved me through the swinging door, then turned, put a hand on both Alex and Robin’s heads, and pushed them through after me. Then he faced the crowds, his arms folded in front of the door, and dared anyone to say a word.

  ***

  You could say they called a special meeting, but the fact is pretty much everyone was there already. Or close to it.

  By the time I got myself de-hysterified and able to talk without hiccuping, it was almost brunch. Tio and Gonzo were able to get Drew to step out of the girls’ bathroom doorway by replacing him with the combined bodies of Helena, Viola, and Bianca. He still wouldn’t agree to go until they added Phoebe to the mix. Tio and Gonzo then took Drew to the guys’ bathroom to clean the blood and gunk off him, then Tio ran to Uni to find someone large enough (football teammate) to loan Drew a clean shirt.

  Not a single Greenback went to class that morning. The school buzzed with the drama trauma, and rumors were already circulating that a big showdown was set for brunch.

  Even when surrounded by my friends in the bathroom, I couldn’t focus, or follow conversations around me, because I kept listening for the sound of the chainsaw starting. I wasn’t sure if it was off, but I couldn’t hear it, and I knew it would give that distinct cough before another feeding frenzy began.

  Alex and Robin did the best they could with me, but only after I cried it off twice did they give up on the eyeliner.

  “You need the attitude it gives, girl,” Robin said.

  I felt shaky, and not myself, like sounds were too loud, and emotions too sharp-edged. But I wouldn’t have said I was hallucinating yet — not until I saw Gremio in the hallway off the atrium, standing outside Dean Verona’s offices. Gremio is hard to miss at the best of times, and now, in a polyester-shiny plaid suit with white socks showing at the ankles and a faint whiff of boiled swine detectable even from twenty feet away, he was a sensory-trauma experience.

  It was the smell that convinced me he was real. But I couldn’t think of any reason why Gremio would be at Legacy. Then the only logical possibility came to me, not exactly dawning on me, more like the way a sun-nova flash-sears and destroys all life-forms, that kind of “dawning.” Gremio was at Legacy to talk to Dean Verona about my money-laundering. The last thing I needed was Gremio convincing the school I had a drug problem.

  I speed-walked across to the hallway, Alex, Robin, Viola, Phoebe and Helena following behind me. From the opposite direction, out the door of Dean Verona’s office, Tio appeared, also heading toward Gremio. By the time we all arrived, Gremio, watching the approaching assault from two directions, shifted from foot-to-foot, as though fighting the urge to flee. Or, possibly, pee.

  I put a hand on my hip, ready to rip into Gremio, when Tio gave a frantic, not-at-all-subtle jerk of his head behind him. “Tell her,” he said. That’s when I realized Dean Verona waited in the doorway to her office further down the hall, watching.

  “Oh I’ll tell her all right,” I said, “This man,” I pointed a shaky finger at Gremio, “this man has no idea what’s going on in my life. And don’t you deny it, mister!” (mister?). I stepped to Gremio, going up on tiptoe to loom over him as I poked him in the chest with my index finger.

  Gremio puckered inside his skin like processed meat.

  “That’s right,” said Tio behind me in a fake-hearty voice, “He doesn’t know anything because he’s my father.”

  I could feel Greenback heads swiveling in horror and confusion behind me.

  Gremio, vindicated, bloated in front of me, back to normal size. He gave a so there tug on his clip-on tie so hard that it accidentally popped off. Then, fiddling with the metal clip, he turned sideways, like he needed to preserve his modesty.

  “Ha.” Said Tio, the volume still up on his voice. “Ha. Ha. Of course my dad doesn’t know what’s going on in your life, Kate. Ha. Ha. Kate, you’re such a kidder. Ha -”

  He might have gone on that way for quite a while, except I sprayed him with a Mace-glare. He shut up instantly.

  Dean Verona said, her voice too flat, “Is this true, Katharine? Are you joking with Tio’s dad?”

  Tio, his back to Dean Verona, turned on me a pair of desperate going-to-the-pound-don’t-let-them-pu
t-me-down puppy eyes and made a chin dip of yes Yes YES.

  I said between clenched lips, “This will never work.”

  Tio said back through his own suddenly-paralyzed mouth, “I don’t care.”

  This was insane. And if I did this, if I baldly said, oh sure, this is Tio’s dad, I could add accessory-after-the-forgery to the list of things I’d done wrong. My criminal rap sheet was getting longer and longer.

  Dean Verona said, “Katharine?”

  I gave Tio a you owe me big time glare and said, “Ha. I am such a kidder. Hello, Tio’s dad.”

  Gremio’s tie hung by a fabric tendon to his neck, and one of his collar points went straight up, the way a flap of hotdog can peel off and refuse to lie flat ever again. “Hello, Kate,” Gremio said.

  There was a vague threat in those two words.

  “So who called you to ask you to come to the school?” I said, all casual, as Dean Verona turned to go back to her office.

  Gremio said, “Someone from the school asked me to be here, someone who would never get people in the kind of trouble that you get them in, Kate. Her name is Celia. Maybe you ought to try to be more like her.”

  In the boiling greasy water of my anger, my face felt like it swelled. I rose up on tiptoe again, but Tio stood in Dean Verona’s doorway, motioning with a hand-flap for Gremio to hurry.

  Gremio turned back to the hallway, and harshly whispered, “If I get a chance, young lady, I’ll certainly tell them what you’re up to, before you end up in a gutter somewhere. Just remember, I’m only doing this for your own good.”

  He must have seen the look in my eye because he frantically clicked the door shut and I pulled up a nano-second before I collided, the tip of my nose touching the wood of the door, my panted breath bouncing back on my face.

  I gave a growl of frustration, my hands clenching and fisting at my sides, arms straight down.

  From behind, I heard a vaguely-familiar man’s voice saying, “Excuse me, can I get through here?”