by Pete Hautman
He said, “I don’t think I ever knew anybody who could do that. Laugh and cry all at once.”
“It hurts to laugh.” June wiped her good eye with the back of her hand. “Please don’t be funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
“That’s what made it funny.”
“I think I should go.”
“I know. Only I’m afraid you’ll freeze to death.”
They heard the side door open. A man’s voice called out, “Who left the garage door open?”
“My dad,” said June.
A few seconds later June’s father, a tall, handsome man with graying temples and an unseasonal tan, stepped into the kitchen.
Mr. Edberg looked from Wes to June, then back at Wes, then smiled, showing a vast number of brilliant white teeth, and said in a booming voice, “Well, hello, Jerry! Good to see you again, son.”
“Daddy, this is Wes.”
“Wes!” He gave Wes another look over. “You look like that young man Jerry.”
“No, he doesn’t, Daddy. He’s nothing like Jerry at all.”
Wes held out his hand. “I’m Wes Andrews, sir.”
“Wes! Wes! Of course! Elton Edberg.” They shook hands.
Mr. Edberg looked at June and frowned. “Junie, why are you holding peas on your face?”
June took the bag away from her eye and showed him.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
WES SAT QUIETLY IN THE PASSENGER SEAT as they backed out of the garage. He had the feeling he was about to have an awkward conversation. Mr. Edberg did not disappoint him.
“So, Wes,” he said, “you gave my daughter a black eye.”
“It was an accident,” Wes said.
“There are no accidents, son. Only the unforeseen consequences of reckless behavior.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re very polite. I like that.”
“Thank you.”
Mr. Edberg laughed. “I’m just messing with you, Wes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call me Elton. Or El.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me again where you live?”
“On Fourteenth.” Wes gave him the address.
“What do your folks do?”
“My dad’s a manager at Anderson Distributing. My mom’s a part-time teacher over at St. Mary’s.”
“Your mother is a nun?”
“No. She —”
“Just messing with you, son.” Mr. Edberg laughed again.
Wes did not like the man.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Please, call me El.”
“Okay.” There was no way.
“So, Wes, are you the new Jerry?”
Wes didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“Or has my little girl got a stable of young studs in waiting?”
Wes said, “Mr. Edberg, sir, June and I bonked heads at the SA, and she couldn’t see, so I drove her home. That’s all.”
Mr. Edberg shook his head. “Wes, I make my living by reading people’s hopes and desires … turn here?”
“Yeah.”
“… and their fears. I know things about you that even you don’t know. You might think that you’re telling me the truth, but you would be wrong. Which house?”
“The one with the big oak tree in front.”
Mr. Edberg pulled into the driveway.
As Wes got out, Mr. Edberg smiled broadly and said, with utter sincerity, “Sorry I gave you a hard time, Wes. It’s my job.”
“Yes, sir,” said Wes.
Paula wanted to know why he had a bump on his head.
“Because I bumped it,” he said.
“Are you having a concussion?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Then how come you’re acting weird?”
“I’m not.”
“Are too.”
Wes tipped his head back and squeezed another rope of honey into his mouth.
“That’s gross,” Paula said.
“Tough.”
“Did you know honey is the same as bee spit?”
Wes twisted the cap back onto the squeeze bottle and put the honey back in the cupboard.
“I’m gonna tell Mom you ate all the bee spit.”
“No, you’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m older. I know things about you that even you don’t know.”
“Do not.”
“Is Mom still at aerobics?”
“Yupper.”
“I’m going to my room.”
“That’s all you ever do. Mom says you’re like the Phantom of the Opera.”
“Whatever.” Wes bounded up the stairs to his bedroom and closed the door and sat on his bed. A few seconds later he heard the blare of the television. He and Paula used to watch a lot of TV together, Paula asking a thousand questions, Wes making up goofy answers. Sometimes, Izzy had been there, and Paula had asked her the questions. Izzy’s answers had always been better than his.
He imagined watching TV with June and Paula. Would Paula like June? Would June be patient and funny like Izzy? Would she call Paula “Paulalicious"? No, that would be too creepy. He moved Paula out of the picture and settled into an imaginary sofa in front of an imaginary TV with June by his side. He put an imaginary arm around her and looked into her one good eye and — no! He couldn’t go there, not even in his head. She was Jerry’s girlfriend — Jerry’s first girlfriend ever. It would kill him to lose her. Especially to Wes. And even though Wes knew that Jerry and June could not possibly last much longer, he did not want to be the one to end it. The only way he could imagine himself with June was after a disaster. Say she broke up with Jerry and moved away, and then one day Wes was, um, flying to Hawaii, and June happened to be on the same flight, and the plane crashed, and the two of them made it to an island on one of the life rafts and built a hut on the beach….
Paula was right; he was being weird.
June was staring at her reflection in her bedroom mirror when Jerry called.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself.”
“What did you do today?”
“Nothing. I, um …” She didn’t want to tell him about her black eye. Even though he’d see it sooner or later. How long does a black eye take to clear up? A couple days? And why do they call it a black eye? It’s not really black. More like purple and violet and blue and red. Later, there would be yellow and green. Maybe she could cover it up with makeup. “This weather really sucks,” she said.
“I know. You have much homework this weekend?”
“Yeah, some.” This is the most boring conversation I think I’ve ever had. “I’m supposed to write that thing for English?”
“I have to do that too.”
“And a take-home quiz for science. I already did it. It was easy.”
“You want to do something tonight?”
No! “I’m kind of tired.”
“I could probably get my dad’s SUV. Maybe I could come over and hang out?”
No, no, no! “Um … remember I told you my mom has this cold? Actually, I think I might have it too.” She sniffed and cleared her throat.
“Oh. Okay. You want me to bring over some hot herbal tea? My mom swears by herbal tea.”
“I’ve got tea. I’d just as soon sit here with my Kleenexes and teddy bear.”
“You have a stuffed bear?”
“Yeah. Actually it’s just a little thing on my key chain.” Please, God, get me out of this conversation. “His name is Bernard.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Anyways, I don’t really feel like company.”
“Oh. Okay.”
After she hung up, June noticed that she was getting a little snuffly for real. The thought that she might be getting her mom’s cold cheered her — if she could skip the next couple of school days, her eye might clear up, and she wouldn’t have to deal with all the explanations. She wouldn’t have to
see Jerry. Or Wes. She could just pretend that nothing had ever happened because, really, nothing actually had.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
WES HAD BEEN EXCITED AND SCARED about seeing June in school on Monday, so he was both disappointed and a little relieved when she didn’t show up. He was trying to figure out a way to find out why — was she in the hospital? — when Jerry came up to him as he was loading some books into his locker and told him June had stayed home with a cold.
“Huh,” said Wes, as if there was no earthly reason he should care about the state of June Edberg’s health.
“I suppose that means I’ll get it too,” said Jerry.
“That’s the problem with having a girlfriend.”
“Yeah.” Jerry nodded. “I suppose you pretty much get the same diseases. Was it like that when you were with Izzy?”
“We were both sick all the time,” Wes said.
“I’ll probably go see her after school. See how she’s doing.”
“I wouldn’t, at least not until the nose-dripping stage is over.”
“I don’t mind getting her cold,” Jerry said.
“Yuck.” Wes was genuinely repulsed.
“I know,” Jerry said. “I think that’s how you know you’re in love. When you even like the yucky stuff.”
Even before he knew he was going to do it, Wes smacked Jerry on the top of his head.
“Ow!” Jerry ducked away. “What was that for?”
“Dope slap,” Wes said. “For being a dope.”
Jerry rubbed his head. “That was kind of hard for a dope slap.”
“You were being extra dopey.”
“Oh yeah?” Jerry swung, trying to deliver his own dope slap, but Wes caught his arm and twisted it. Jerry yelled and swung at Wes with his free hand, but Wes blocked it and shoved him up against the wall of lockers. The back of Jerry’s head hit the edge of Wes’s locker door with a loud tok. He slid down onto his butt, eyes unfocused, leaving a streak of bright red blood on the front of the locker.
Wes backed away, becoming aware of a gathering crowd. A pair of hands grabbed Wes from behind and pulled him roughly back. Ms. Mayer, one of the librarians, crouched down beside Jerry. “Jerry? Can you hear me?”
Jerry did a bobblehead imitation, head lolling.
“Jerry?”
His hands flopped like a pair of beached carp.
Ms. Mayer had her cell phone out and was dialing 911.
The man holding Wes was Mr. Johnson, the music teacher. He pulled Wes down the hallway toward the office.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing.” Wes couldn’t believe what had happened. “We were just goofing around.”
A few years ago — he’d been nine — Wes had fallen out of the oak tree in his front yard and broken his leg so badly that the bone stuck out through his skin. Nothing before or since had ever hurt so bad, or been so frightening. He remembered every detail — screaming in pain, his mom rushing outside and finding him, the ambulance ride, and the surgery. His parents told him he’d been unconscious for that part, but he was sure he remembered it — the horrible pulling and grinding sensation when they set his shinbone back into place. It had been the worst day of his life.
Until now.
Wes leaned forward in the flimsy plastic chair and hung his head over his knees. He heard a distant siren. All of them — Mr. Johnson, the secretaries, everybody who came in the door — looked at him like he was this monster. The violent, ugly beast who had attacked Jerry Preuss. He would rather be lying on the ground with a bone sticking out through his shin than have them look at him that way.
The siren got louder, and then it stopped. He imagined the ambulance at the front entrance, EMTs pushing through the glass doors of the foyer with a gurney. The thought of Jerry’s face when he slid down that wall made Wes want to throw up. What if he was seriously hurt? And what the hell had happened? One second they were just talking and all of a sudden Jerry was swinging at him. Sure, Wes had given him a little dope slap, but they did that stuff all the time, just kidding around, no big deal … it was never a big deal.
And what was it with everybody all of a sudden getting hit on the head? First he and June bonked each other, and now Jerry … how was it always his fault? He stared down at the floor. It was filthy. Hundreds of students tromping in with dirty snow on their feet. It could have happened to any one of them. Just goofing around and somebody gets hurt. He thought of the woman at the SuperAmerica. You kids …
It was just as much Jerry’s fault. For that matter, it was partly June’s fault because if Jerry hadn’t been acting so moony eyed over her he wouldn’t have needed a dope slap. And what would she think when she heard that he had put her boyfriend — his oldest friend — in the hospital? He had to call her and explain what happened, that he hadn’t meant for Jerry to get hurt, and that it wasn’t his fault.
June really did have her mom’s cold, which was freaky because she had been all psyched to fake it so she could stay home from school. Did she get the cold because she had wanted it? Her dad would think so. Her dad was all into the power of positive thinking. He told his clients that the first step to success was to imagine it.
“If you can imagine it, you’re halfway there,” he liked to say.
Maybe he was right. She’d gotten sick because she had imagined it.
Whatever the case, her nose was running like a faucet and her throat was sore. She spent most of the day in bed drinking herbal tea and flipping through back issues of Cosmo and People. She didn’t even turn her cell on. Around three o’clock, Jerry called the house phone. Her mom answered it and brought the phone to her room.
“Tell him I’m sleeping,” June said.
She must have looked really pathetic because her mom just nodded, took her hand off the mouthpiece, cleared her throat, and said, “I’m sorry, Jerry. June is taking a nap.”
Thank you, June mouthed.
A little later the phone rang again.
“If it’s for me, I’m sleeping!” It hurt her throat to yell.
Sometime later — it was getting dark out — June shuffled to the bathroom, still in her pajamas and slippers, for another dose of cold medicine. Her mom heard her and called out, “I made chicken noodle soup, Junie.”
Chicken noodle soup. The thought of those fat noodles sliding down her throat almost made her gag. She swallowed the cold medicine and walked to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice. Her mother, wearing her auburn wig, full makeup, and a dark green jacket and dress ensemble — what she called her “money outfit” — was sorting through her purse.
“You’re going somewhere?” June asked, surprised.
“I’m helping your father with a management seminar tonight, then we’re having dinner with some of the Sani-Made executives. Have you seen my car keys?”
June thought for a moment, then looked at the hooks door, where the keys were supposed to be hung. “Isn’t that them?”
Her mother looked at the keys and made an exasperated sound with her lips.
“I swear I’m losing it,” she said. “Who’d have thought that I would actually hang my keys up?”
“You didn’t. I told Wes to put them there.”
“Wes? Oh yes. The boy who blackened your eye. He called, by the way. I told him you were doing a Camille.” “Doing a Camille” was what her mom called it when June pretended to be extra miserable. Something about an old movie, older even than her mother.
“You didn’t really.”
“No, I told him you were sleeping.”
“Oh.”
“I wrote his number down.” She pointed at the notepad by the kitchen phone. “He said to tell you, ‘It wasn’t my fault.’ ”
“What wasn’t his fault?”
“I have no idea.”
After her mother left, June ladled some soup into a bowl, picked out the noodles, and ate what was left. It was okay. Not that she could taste anything.
It wasn’t my f
ault.
What had Wes meant by that? That he’d bumped heads with her and given her a black eye? That he’d kissed her? What did he mean?
She considered calling him. Ask him what he meant. Would that be like chasing him? What about Jerry?
She wished she knew how long she would be living here. Her dad only had a six-month contract with Sani-Made, and sometimes these jobs ended early. They might be gone in a month or two, and then it wouldn’t matter what she did because she would be gone and all the names and numbers on her cell phone would be erased and she would have to start over. But if they stayed longer — her dad always promised that they would settle down — then she would have to decide what to do and live with it.
Jerry was easy.
Jerry was comfortable.
Jerry was a nice guy.
Jerry was Wes’s friend.
Wes had kissed her.
A good kiss. The kind of kiss that said, I want you. I need you. As if it took every last ounce of his willpower to keep from tearing her clothes off and doing it right there on the kitchen floor.
Jerry had never kissed her like that. And if he had, she wouldn’t have liked it.
But she had liked that kiss from Wes.
It wasn’t my fault, he had said.
June tore the top sheet off the notepad, went to her room, and entered Wes’s number into her cell phone. So she would have it. Just in case she ever needed it. She noticed that there were several missed calls. Three from Jerry, one from Phoebe, and one from Britt. She turned her cell off and got into bed and closed her eyes and tried to make it all go away. All of it.
All but that kiss.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
JERRY WAS OKAY. He had a “possible mild concussion” and a cut on the back of his head. They stitched him up and sent him home after just three hours at the hospital.
“Thanks for calling, I guess,” Jerry said.
“I’m really sorry,” Wes said.
“You should be,” said Jerry. “I still have a headache.”
“Well, I got suspended. My parents are really pissed. I’m stuck in the house for the rest of the week.”
“Too bad.” Jerry wasn’t going to let him off easy.
“I don’t know what happened,” Wes said. “We were just goofing around, and —”
