by Carrie Jones
“Oh,” I say. “Oh.”
Tom wraps his arms around me and someone nearby whistles.
Tom wraps his arms around me and I let him. I crumple. There is nothing else to do.
Tom pulls me into his arms, then he settles me on the floor.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Did I shake?” My voice is frantic. I couldn’t have had a seizure. I’ve had no caffeine, no aspartame, nothing. All around me, people stare, but I don’t feel fuzzy brained like when I have one. Oh God. “Did I shake?”
Tom’s confused. “What do you mean? Shake?”
“N-nothing,” I stutter. I swallow; try to calm down. “What happened?”
He brushes some hair out of my face. “You fainted. You were out for like three seconds.”
I struggle back up, but Tom’s not letting go of me. He thinks I’ll fall again, I bet. “I do not faint.”
My cheeks turn bright red.
He smiles, and there’s a swagger in his voice as he says, “What would you call it then?”
I think. My hands raise up in the air. “Passing out?”
He laughs some more and the soccer guys all come over, which makes me blush worse. My cheeks feel like they are on fire. They start teasing him. “What did ya say to her Tom? Finally ask her out?”
Blah. Blah. Blah. I tune them out, but I watch Tom. He smiles but his eyes are pained. He smiles but his hands shake a little like they do when he has to give an oral report in German.
“It’s my fault,” I laugh. I try to save him. “I got dizzy. Tom was doing his knight-in-shining-armor routine.”
I bat my eyelashes, but it makes me feel a little woozy and I sway. Both Tom and Shawn grab me and Shawn yells, “Whoa!”
By now, the whole cafeteria’s looking and Emily’s run over with her hands over her mouth. She knows I’m horrified that I’ll have a seizure in school. She knows it’s unlikely to happen in school. It wasn’t a seizure, though.
“Did you forget to eat? Girls always forget to eat,” Andrew says. He’s still holding the little alligator.
“I bought some Postum,” I explain.
“What’s Postum?” Andrew asks Shawn.
Shawn shrugs and says to me, “I’m getting you some food.”
He takes off and Emily bursts in, grabbing my arm where he let go. “She hasn’t eaten since Saturday!”
I shoot her a death-beam look.
“She’s not anorexic or anything,” Emily blurts. “She’s . . . she’s just stressed about Dylan. They broke up.”
I give her super-laser-beam eyes. She covers her mouth again.
Tom raises his eyebrows. He mouths the words, “So you knew?”
I shrug, but Emily’s seen the whole thing and she says out loud, “He told her Saturday night.”
Tom’s back goes rigid. He shakes his head. “That’s crap.”
“What’s crap?” Andrew asks, looking clueless and silly in his soccer shirt. They are all wearing them. There must be a game today. “What’s crap?”
“Nothing!” I tell him. “Just how stupid I am passing out. What a weenie. Ha?”
I stand up, push away the helping hands, stagger over to Emily, and try to look like I’ve got it all together. Even I know I’m failing miserably. Shawn comes hauling ass over and he’s got a bagel in one hand and a grilled cheese in the other.
“I didn’t know what you’d want,” he says and he looks so sweet and little, like a four-year-old boy who has made his mommy a picture, even though he’s more like six foot eight and could have sex with every single cheerleader in school.
“Thanks,” I say. “That’s sweet.”
“Ooo, Shawn is sweet,” Andrew croons and bats his eyelashes.
Shawn turns red. “Better not let Dylan hear that.”
The silence sinks into all of us, even Shawn, who still holding the food, lifts his hands in the air and says, “What? What did I say?”
Emily grabs the grilled cheese for me and pulls me away, back toward our table, but not before I hear Andrew pantomimes the alligator saying, “Shawn, buddy, Dylan is no more.”
Tips about Postum
Postum is the elixir of the blue-hair set. Even brand new cans look like they come from the 1950s. There’s a dried-up label with old-fashioned block-style lettering that says, “Postum, Instant Hot Beverage. Original. Full-Bodied Taste. Naturally Caffeine Free.”
Postum mixing is an exacting experience. If you submerge the spoon into the hot water, the brown grains adhere to the metal becoming a brownish sludge reminiscent of dog diarrhea. I do not ever think about what it does to the lining of my esophagus and stomach. Some things you are better off not knowing.
You must tip the spoon, wait a moment, and then stir. Do not think about passing out in front of the cafeteria. Do not worry if it’s some new kind of seizure.
Sip and enjoy the combination of water, wheat bran, wheat molasses, and maltodextrin (from corn).
Fend off the curious who gawk and say, “What the hell is that?”
Hide beneath the cafeteria table and finish your drink away from the demanding crowds.
The first time I ever had a seizure was right after I started dating Dylan. We’d been just hanging out in the family room in the basement, watching Survivor, this reality show where they live in nasty places and vote each other off and whoever wins gets really skinny from only eating maggots, and they also get a million dollars. I was drinking my 509th Pepsi of the day and he was snarfing down nachos.
Somebody on Survivor was crying because she missed her husband and Dylan snorted. “God, what wusses.”
I started to agree, but the Pepsi can in my hand was shaking. I tried to put it down. But then my fingers let go. They straightened out all rigid and shook, shook, shook and I opened my mouth to say something but before I could, I was gone.
I woke up with my head in Dylan’s lap and Pepsi all over the floor.
“Dylan?” I was totally confused.
He kissed the top of my forehead. “It’s okay, Belle. You’re okay.”
Everything in my body hurt like I’d run a marathon. My head looped around against itself. I started to cry. “What happened?”
Dylan shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know, sweetie, but I’m right here. I’m right here for you.”
“You swear?”
He nodded again. “Swear.”
But he won’t be anymore. He won’t be and I can’t handle that. I want to hide. It’s like everyone in the whole cafeteria is staring, staring, staring at me. Em keeps talking, trying to pretend like everything’s okay, but it isn’t. It isn’t at all.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” I say to her.
“What?” she cocks her head. “The bell’s going to ring in like two minutes.”
I gulp the rest of my Postum and then I just get up and take off out the cafeteria door. I slam past everyone at a speed-walker pace and then sprint across the parking lot, heading toward the softball field. I race so fast that no one can stop me.
When I left, Em stood up and yelled my name. I hope no one heard her. I hope no one saw.
Tom saw though. Tom sees me now and he runs faster on those soccer legs. He grabs hold of me behind the old green dugout, by the words EASTBROOK ROCKS. We’ve both escaped the high school lockup, sprinted in school clothes (me) and soccer uniform (him) past everyone and everything, past gray walls with scuff marks on them, past linoleum floors and people’s concrete eyes, past the stares. Now, we’re out here under the big sky, with our backs against the dugout, barely panting, just a little.
“Life sucks,” he says to me.
I can’t say anything, just wipe my hand against my face, which is all wet from tears and sweat. I can’t tell which is which.
>
“Life sucks and then you die,” I mumble.
He coughs out a laugh. A squirrel chitters at us from the top of the dugout. We’ve invaded his space.
My back slides down the dugout wall. My bottom plops on the cold ground. My legs turn to straight sticks in front of me. Dylan told me they were pretty legs. I choke on my own breath and start to sob, just sob, because there isn’t anything else I can do.
My shoulders shake. My eyes turn into mountains releasing all the melted snow, turning it into rivers that cascade down my shirt, puddle into my hands and lap.
Tom leans me toward him. His arm wraps the straightness of my back, wraps itself around me. When all the snow has melted, I wipe my face with my hands. I look away at a softball, white, fat, round, stuck in a puddle full of leaves, forgotten and abandoned during some game last spring. I feel like the softball, but I’m not. Or maybe I am. I’m a softball and Tom’s the puddle I’m stuck in. No. Tom’s a leaf in the puddle with me, waiting to see what will happen. The puddle is my own tears.
“I’m sick of crying about this,” I say, wiping at my face.
He lifts an eyebrow and says in a real cranky way, “Have you cried about it a lot?”
It’s not like I’ve been a Mallory, really, completely crying and feeling sorry for myself. “I just mean, I’m tired about crying about this right now.”
He nods and his fingers drum against my shoulder. “It’s okay to cry. It sucks.”
I nod my head. “Yeah.”
The squirrel pelts down two acorns at us, one after the other.
“Grumpy little guy,” Tom says.
“Me?”
“The squirrel.”
The squirrel leaps from the edge of the dugout to a pine branch that swoops out near us. He rushes up toward the trunk, turns around, and scolds us again.
“I don’t feel like I know who I am anymore,” I tell Tom, and once the words rush out of me, just like a hyper squirrel’s chatter, the truth of them hits me hard in my stomach. I stare at Tom’s face, this teasing guy, this ex Mimi-flame. “Why am I telling you this?”
“You need a friend, Commie.”
“I have friends,” I say. A logging truck zooms by on Route 1, past the baseball field, heading to Bangor and points beyond. Maybe Canada. Maybe Boston. Maybe to a tanker that will take the lumber to Japan or Russia, somewhere exotic, somewhere not here. “I’m not a Commie.”
“You know that, then, don’t you?” Tom says. He pulls me closer and jostles me around in that brother way of his. The squirrel chucks another acorn at us. It hits my foot. Tom turns serious. “I think, that sometimes when you’re with the wrong person, you try to become what that person wants. You lose yourself and who you are, just a little bit, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get it back.”
“Like Dylan with me?”
He shrugs. “Yeah. Or me with Mimi back in eighth grade. But I was really talking more about you with Dylan.”
We don’t say anything. The squirrel calls over a friend and they scurry up and down the branches, angry, worried over their acorn stash. Who do they think we are? Acorn-stash abductors?
Tom pulls his leg up close and fiddles with some duct tape that he’s pressed on the side of his shoe. In tiny black letters he’s written a line.
“‘Exit, pursued by a bear?’” I ask.
“It’s a stage direction in The Winter’s Tale.”
“By Shakespeare.”
“Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t figure you for Shakespeare.”
“What would you figure me for, Commie?”
“I don’t know,” I reach out and touch the duct tape with my finger. “Soccer? I mean if you’re going to quote something on your shoe, I guess I’d imagine soccer.”
He doesn’t answer.
“Do you always quote people on duct tape and smack it on your shoe?” I ask.
“Sort of.”
Tom smells nice like marshmallows on a campfire and we sit there for a good, long while, annoying the squirrels by our very presence, before I say, “We’re going to get in big trouble for this.”
He fidgets with some duct tape on his sneaker, pulling it off, tearing it in half, folding it in and out. “You think the squirrels will send the rodent mafia after us for invading their territory? Maybe in the middle of the night we’ll be cozy in our beds only to be besieged by chipmunks wielding hand guns. Exit, pursued by a squirrel.”
“No,” I laugh and bop my shoulder against him before I remember my newest worry. “In school. We just raced out of school.”
I imagine detentions, suspensions, getting kicked off National Honor Society. I imagine our principal stopping my mom in the produce aisle of Shop ’n Save, telling her what a bad kid I’ve become. Is that who I am? A bad kid? I shudder. The squirrel chucks an acorn at us, right toward my face. Tom’s hand flashes out and he catches it before it hits my cheek.
“I’ll talk us out of it,” he says, slowly opening his fingers to reveal the acorn resting in the middle of his hand.
I turn to stare into those brown eyes of his. I don’t know how to look at him when he’s not teasing me. “You can do that? You can talk us out of it?”
“Commie,” he says, giving me a fake gentle punch on the chin. “I can do anything.”
I nod at his sneaker. Duct tape is wrapped around the sole of it, like a bandage. That piece doesn’t have writing on it.
“You’re into duct tape, huh?”
“It can do anything,” he smiles, stands up, offers me his hand, then offers me the acorn.
“Kind of like you, right?” I kid and grab the acorn. It’s a Tom shade of brown, rich and homey.
“Yeah, kind of like me,” he says, but he’s not kidding at all.
Since I don’t stand up, he comes back down to me and we sit there for a little bit longer and the wind blows against us so hard we have to huddle next to each other. My fingers turn blue. Tom says, “You remember in eighth grade when you used to cheer at our soccer games?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“I liked that.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You liked Mimi Cote.”
He shrugs. “Only cause I couldn’t have you.”
“Couldn’t have me?” I raise my eyebrows at him. The wind whips a twig against my legs. I reach out and start stripping it of bark, but it’s hard to do because my fingers are so cold. “Why couldn’t you quote-unquote have me?”
“Dylan and I made a deal.”
I snap the twig in half. “Really?”
“If you or Mimi asked one of us out, we’d have to go out with them, leave the other one alone,” Tom shakes his head, does his little half-smile thing. “Mimi asked me out.”
“That’s awful, like we were prizes or something,” I spit out.
“It was eighth grade.”
“It’s completely stupid,” I yell at him. He puts his arm back around me and sort of jostles me the way a big brother would do. I try to edge away, but it’s too much work, so I stay put.
He nods. “Yeah, it was stupid.”
Look sorry. All I’m supposed to do in the vice principal’s office is look sorry, Tom says.
That’s not going to be hard. I am sorry.
I’m sorry that I’m such an emotional idiot.
I’m sorry that I passed out in the cafeteria.
I’m sorry that I only ate half that grilled cheese because now I’m super hungry.
I’m sorry that my face is death girl white with red splotches on it that match the rims of my eyes and I have to walk through the halls looking like this.
I’m not sorry that I ran away though. I’m not sorry about that at all.
When we are far enough away from the principal’s office, Tom and I give each other h
igh fives.
“Told you I could do it,” he says, smiling huge, showing all his perfect white Chiclets teeth.
“You were awesome,” I tell him.
He smiles even bigger, raises his hand for another high five. When I slap it with my own hand, his fingers grab my own fingers. “You know what this means, Commie?”
I shake my head. My fingers tingle. They must be numb.
“This means we’re partners in crime,” he says.
My eyebrows raise. “Like Andrade and Trevi? Like Burke and Hare or Bonnie and Clyde. Like Cuba and the Soviet Union back in the 60s?”
He squeezes my hand, drops it, and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Commie, sometimes you’re too damn smart.”
I wish, I think. I wish. I wish. I wish.
Okay, Dylan. I’m sitting here in advanced biology looking at a dead pig. Emily and I are trying to find its spleen, but it’s proving to be a little more elusive than we thought. If I’m in bio it means you are in chorus, with Bob. With BOB!
I need to talk to you about things. I need to talk to you, but I’m afraid to even see you. I’m afraid if I see you it will rip my heart into pieces, that it will feel like a scalpel jabbing into the center of me.
Emily is currently using the scalpel to cut through some abdominal muscles in her quest to find the spleen. She keeps wrinkling her nose and saying, “Disgusting.”
I don’t think she’ll find the spleen.
I don’t think we ever find anything, do we? I mean in life. I mean we think we find things and then it turns out those things aren’t what we thought.
How could you not be what I thought?
In my pocket, again, is the note you gave me last Friday.
You wrote, I just want to be free with you. Just like that song “I’m free” on the Cold Spring Harbor tape. You made me free. I think that’s part of the reason I like you so much.
What was that supposed to mean?
Our science teacher, Mr. Zeki, has given up on us.
