Almost Perfect

by Brian Katcher

  I was utterly out of my depth. I tried to think of something to say to encourage her, but anything I’d say would just be empty words from someone who didn’t really understand. No matter what kind of friend I was, no matter how supportive I acted, Sage’s problems wouldn’t go away. There was nothing I could do to help. Sage was doomed to walk a long, lonely road. Me shouting Everything’s going to be okay! from the sidewalk wouldn’t do her much good.

  Sage turned the ignition key. The truck was already running, and it made that nasty grinding noise. I took my cue and left.

  chapter nineteen

  I STOOD on the football field next to Jack, flanked by the runners from Westran. Jack had placed in four events at our first track meet of the spring. I’d only managed to finish a close second in the 400-meter dash.

  Coach Garrison looked down at his shoes as he addressed the crowd of dozens. “We’d like to thank everyone for coming out today. Our next meet will be on the twelfth, in Hallsville. Remember, Boyer T-shirts are still for sale at the ticket booth.”

  He tried to pass the mike to Principal Bloch, who just frowned and shook his head. I couldn’t tell if Bloch was pissed because he had to come here on a Saturday, if he was disappointed that Jack and I were the only Boyer students who’d won anything, or if he was just being his usual unpleasant self.

  As the Westran team high-fived their way to their bus, I scanned the crowd for my mom. It took two seconds to find her.

  “Logan, you were amazing,” she bubbled as I joined her at the bleachers.

  I shrugged like it was no big deal. Actually, I was really glad that Mom had come to the meet. I wished I had done better. Eighteen years old, and I still wanted to impress my mommy.

  “Are you sure you didn’t finish first in that last race? It looked awful close.”

  I wiped my forehead on my sleeve. “It was close, but he edged me out.”

  “You were robbed.” I swiveled in time to see Sage returning from the snack bar. She sat down. I realized that the jacket on the bench next to my mother actually belonged to Sage. That meant she’d been sitting with my mom. Luckily, I was still winded, so my subsequent panic attack just looked like I was trying to catch my breath.

  Mom smiled as Sage passed her a bottled water. Then Mom turned back to me. “Logan, do you need a ride home, or are you doing something with the team?”

  It took me a stunned second to process her question. I was still trying to figure out why they had been sitting next to each other. “Uh, you go on ahead, Mom. I have to shower.”

  Mom hugged me, smiled again at Sage, and walked to the parking lot. As soon as she was in her car, I assaulted Sage with an angry stare.

  “She asked me to sit with her,” replied Sage, not the least bit defensive. “I couldn’t really tell her no. It’s not like I could lose myself in this crowd.”

  I could picture Mom trying to get to know her son’s “friend.” She had always peppered Brenda with questions whenever they were together. And now this new girl shows up to watch her son run. …

  “What did you guys talk about?” I asked, not even pretending to be calm.

  “I told her you were a tiger in the sack. And that we decided to name our first kid Durwood.”

  “Sage!”

  She stared at her cuticles. “We just talked about the track team and school, nothing else.”

  “Sorry. Sorry.” I shouldn’t have worried. I knew Sage would have been on her best behavior. “Thanks for coming.”

  She flashed her braces. “You were pretty fast out there. I was sure you were going to beat that guy. Are you going to run in college?”

  “Nah.”

  “I thought a guy like you might have an athletic scholarship.” For a moment, Sage’s eyes scoped out my body.

  “No, just a poor-boy scholarship.” The government was really coming through for me. If I could maintain a B average, school was almost paid for. “You?”

  “Wealthy parents.” We didn’t look at each other for a second. We were both just a little ashamed of our families’ financial statuses.

  “Logan, about the other day …” She smiled awkwardly, then closed her eyes with the air of someone about to give a rehearsed apology.

  “It’s okay, Sage.”

  “No, it’s not. You were trying to make me feel better. I need to remind myself how special that is.”

  I looked down at the blacktop, a little embarrassed. I didn’t realize a third person had joined us until it was too late to escape.

  She was one of those middle-aged women who could probably pass for the older sister of a student. She had a round face dotted with brown freckles, a mouth permanently twisted into a smirk, and kinky rust-colored hair interlaced with strands of gray. Her resemblance to Tammi was striking.

  Sage’s mom folded her arms and looked down at me, even though I was much taller. Thankfully, she didn’t wear the expression of rage that her husband had worn. Just the typical distrustful glare of the mother of a teen girl.

  “Mom, this is my friend Logan.”

  “Hi, I’m Logan!” I shouted, desperately trying not to make an awful impression.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  We stood there not saying anything. I was sweating through my already wet clothes. Sage broke the silence.

  “Logan’s a runner. You should have seen him out there.”

  “I’m a runner,” I repeated.

  “He’s going to Mizzou next year.”

  “I’ll be going to Mizzou.” Awk! Polly want a cracker!

  I slammed my foot down on the clutch and violently shifted my brain out of neutral.

  Mrs. Hendricks was looking at me like I was special, but not in the way Sage thought. “Mizzou,” she said, frowning. “Just like Sage.”

  “It’s a great campus. My sister goes there, says she has the time of her life.”

  Her frown deepened, and I mentally kicked myself. She probably took that to mean there was a lot of drunken sex going on at the university.

  Sage cut in. “I wouldn’t know about the campus. I’m not allowed to visit,” she said huffily.

  Her mom turned toward her. “Sage, we’ve been over this. You’re …” She paused for a second. “Too young to visit the college on your own.”

  Sage was eighteen. I didn’t think her age had anything to do with it.

  “C’mon, Mom,” Sage whined. “I could go up there on a Saturday morning—”

  Her mother held up a palm. “We’ll discuss this at home.” Her tone telegraphed the fact that there would be no discussion. Mrs. Hendricks nodded politely at me and took Sage’s arm, leading her toward the family car.

  So Sage couldn’t even spend the day at Mizzou by herself. I wished there was something I could do for her. Help her get out of her parents’ clutches for the weekend. It would be almost impossible to sneak her away for that long. As always, when faced with a situation that required underhanded, smarmy, double-dealing trickery, I asked myself the same question: What would Laura do?

  Laura …

  The perfect solution hit me.

  “Hold on!” Sage and her mother turned back to me. I grinned, more confidently than I felt. “There’s a program on campus, a freshman orientation, where Sage could spend the night with an upperclassman chaperone.”

  Sage looked wary; her mom, interested. I continued, the lies rushing easily through my teeth. “I’m surprised they haven’t contacted you. Sage would stay with a Mizzou senior, have dinner in the dining hall, sleep in a dorm. She could tour the campus, meet some professors. Religious services Sunday morning, if she’s interested.” I was laying it on with a trowel.

  Mrs. Hendricks rubbed her chin thoughtfully. Sage took a cautious step back until she was out of her mom’s line of sight, then made violent slashing motions at her neck. I ignored her.

  “And you say this is a university-sponsored program?” asked Sage’s mother.

  “Yep. I have the number at home. If you like, I can have them contact you.�
��

  She turned to her daughter. “What do you think?”

  Sage had been spastically shaking her head, but stopped just in time to say, “It’s something to think about.” She was not enthused.

  “Great,” I said with a politician’s grin. “I’ll call them tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Hendricks smiled warmly at me. “It was very nice to meet you, Logan.” She patted my shoulder. Sage glared at me until they reached their car.

  I raced my bike back to the trailer, determined to get home before Sage did. The phone was ringing as I passed through the door, just like I expected.

  “Hi, Sage,” I answered before she spoke a word.

  “Logan, I’m going to hurt you,” she said evenly and with great seriousness.

  “Why?” For once, I was only faking my ignorance.

  “Do you really think I want to spend a weekend listening to the history of the campus with some twenty-two-year-old stranger breathing down my neck? I want to go there to meet people, not hear some lecture about safe sex and drinking responsibly!” She was bellowing, yet her voice was still unmistakably that of a girl.

  “You really don’t think much of me, do you?” I responded, trying to project my smarmy smile over the telephone line.

  Sage paused. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’re going to be staying with the least responsible nonauthority figure this side of St. Louis. My sister, Laura.”

  There was a long silence. “Do you really think she’d let me stay with her?” asked Sage meekly.

  “She’d be happy to help out any of my friends. Maybe not Jack. The point is, she’s the most skilled liar I’ve ever met. Your parents will think you’ll be bunking at a convent when she’s through.”

  I waited for the laughter, but it didn’t come. “Logan, you’re my best friend. Thank you.”

  I was totally not used to being friends with a female, even a female like Sage. All this lovey-dovey sharing of feelings was giving me a complex. I mumbled goodbye and hung up.

  Laura wouldn’t be back at her dorm until the evening. I was sure she’d go along with my plan; my sister was always willing to bend the rules on principle, if nothing else. My only concern was that I’d opened my big mouth at Thanksgiving and admitted to liking Sage. I’d just have to tell Laura that it hadn’t worked out and we were only friends.

  Smiling, my mind drifted to the year ahead. Funny, I’d always pictured doing things at Mizzou with Jack and Laura. But I’d probably need frequent breaks from my future roommate, and Laura … well, she was my sister. She didn’t need her little brother tagging along all the time.

  But Sage was my friend. And we were both a little frightened about the future. For the first time since winter, I was completely happy that we’d be going to school together. Now that any chance for romance was gone, we could actually enjoy each other.

  I stripped and jumped in the shower, but not before admiring my body in the mirror. When school started, I could be like a brother to Sage. I’d make sure no guys got too close to her, while she could build me up to the pretty coeds. It was a win-win situation. What could go wrong?

  chapter twenty

  TIM CAREFULLY WIPED down his bookends with a rag. They looked as if he’d painstakingly carved them out of mahogany instead of smacked them together out of the cheap pine we worked with in the wood shop.

  I studied my spice rack. It looked like something a fifth grader would make with his daddy’s tools.

  If my daddy had any tools, he’d taken them with him when he left. Tim’s dad was a bank manager, but he’d still showed his son how to use a table saw and router. I could barely drive a nail.

  Tim swabbed away a last blob of stain. “So, Dawn is on my case again.”

  Tim and Dawn had been dating for months. For a while, Jack and I had been worried that Dawn was actually a brain-eating alien in disguise. Tim, however, continued to survive, so we concluded that she actually really liked him.

  “What is it this time?” I asked. The honeymoon was over; the lovers were now sniping at each other over little things. Surprisingly, Tim’s weight problem didn’t seem to be an issue.

  “My dog. She says he has a dumb name. Wants me to change it to Max or Rover or something stupid like that.”

  “You have to admit, Number Forty-Four Ninety-Three is an odd name for a dog.”

  “I keep telling you, that’s what they called him in the animal shelter. He’ll get confused if I change his name now.”

  I tried to force the back part of my spice rack into place. There was an ominous cracking noise. Happy Mother’s Day!

  “Well, looks like you’re going to have to choose between your dog and your girlfriend.”

  Tim looked less serene than usual. “Yeah. Hey, Logan, can I ask you a serious question?”

  “Sure.”

  Tim glanced around, making sure no one was listening in. Luckily, you can’t really zone out in shop class, not if you care about your fingers, so no one was paying any attention to us.

  Tim gnawed his knuckles. Maybe because he was nervous, maybe because this was the only class where he wasn’t allowed to eat. Eventually, he spit out what was on his mind.

  “How do you know when a girl is ready to … you know?”

  When your best friend tells you about it? Or when she explains that she was a boy until she was a teenager?

  “I dunno, Tim. You’ll know.” I wiped some sawdust off the bench. Tim wouldn’t be asking unless he thought the time was right. I was happy for him and completely jealous.

  Tim grabbed my arm. “C’mon,” he stage-whispered over the sound of the band saw. “I’ve never done this before. I’ve got protection, we’ve got places we could go, but what if I try and she freaks out?”

  It killed me that not only was I an eighteen-year-old virgin, but that Tim and Jack assumed I’d been doing it with Brenda since I was fifteen.

  “Tim, if she’s not ready, she’ll tell you. She’s a girl; she’s used to guys trying to get into her pants. Just take it slow and check your teeth first.”

  Tim nodded, mulling over my deep advice. The bell rang, and we cleaned up our work area while Mr. Adams hollered at us. I had shop sixth hour. Only American literature and track practice separated me from a lazy afternoon.

  “Logan.” Tim stopped short, halfway down the industrial arts hall. “Look.”

  I could see the familiar, statuesque figure of Sage, milling around with the shorter students in the commons area. But what had grabbed Tim’s eye was who she was talking to.

  Brenda. They were standing in front of the pathetic Boyer trophy case chatting. Brenda had a sort of intense look on her face. She kept adjusting her glasses, something I knew she did when she was uncomfortable. Sage looked calm, though not as relaxed as usual.

  This was bad. Seeing the two of them shooting the breeze was like seeing your parole officer having a beer with your drug connection. Had Sage started the conversation, trying to size up the girl who’d dumped me? Or had Brenda been curious about this new girl who spent so much time with her ex? Were they just exchanging pleasantries, or were they sharing secrets? Girls seemed to break out their innermost feelings and fears shortly after being introduced. Guys only did that when they’d been in combat together or were cell mates.

  “No good can come of this,” I whispered to Tim, though we were well out of hearing range.

  “Why? You keep telling us Sage isn’t your girlfriend.” Tim and Jack no longer asked me if Sage and I were dating. I’d told them we were just friends so often it was starting to sound like a mantra.

  “But Brenda knows she’s my friend. So why does she want to talk to Sage?”

  Tim cocked his head at me. Maybe he was remembering how I’d slobbered over Sage one month, then acted like she’d never existed the next.

  I was still staring at the girls. Sage laughed, patted Brenda on the arm, and walked off.

  “What was that all about?” I pondered out loud. “It’s not like Bren
da tries to talk to you or Jack, right?”

  “Well, maybe they were …”

  “Right?”

  Tim sighed. “No, Logan. So do you think Brenda’s going in for a little backstabbing? Spilling those intimate little secrets that she swore she’d never tell?”

  I watched as Brenda hurried to her next class.

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

  * * *

  I picked at my Big Mac, wondering if it had actually been stepped on or if it just looked that way. I’d invited Sage out to McDonald’s to discuss the upcoming trip to Columbia (yes, Boyer has a McDonald’s. We’re not barbarians). Sage had paid for both our meals. Then she’d fluttered her eyes at the dude behind the counter and asked for some Happy Meal toys. He’d passed her a handful with a wink and a smile. I wondered what would happen if Sage didn’t have to restrict herself around boys. There’d probably be two dozen guys lined up behind me. Or in front of me.

  “Logan, your sister should win an Oscar! By the time she got off the phone with my mom, Laura had her convinced we’d be doing nothing but visiting the library and going to church. Mom doesn’t have a clue she’s your sister.” Sage paused for a bite of her salad. “I’m so looking forward to next weekend. It’s going to be a blast.”

  “Well, Laura’s an expert at tricking parents. She used to sneak out with her old boyfriend when my mom worked the late shift. Never got caught.” The plan to trick Sage’s parents had gone incredibly smoothly. Laura told me she’d make sure Sage had a good time. I don’t think she bought my story that I no longer wanted to date Sage, but that was just as well. I didn’t want Laura trying to introduce Sage to any guys.

  “So, what do you think we’ll do with your sister? I mean, I do want to see the campus, but I’d like to explore the town, too.”

  I was busy picking yellow pickles off my burger and almost missed what she said.

  “We’ll do? Sage, I’m not going with you.” Sage and I had bonded recently, but spending the night away from home, with only my libertine sister watching us … that was a bit much.