The Break-Up Artist

by Philip Siegel

  “Vermilion is Division 3, barely,” Mr. Towne says. He rests his hands on his gut. “Steve should be at a D1 school like Chandler University in Texas. He has the talent. That’s where the real recruiting for pro is done.” Mr. Towne’s cheeks flush with red.

  “You think if he and Huxley are broken up, he’ll go to one of those schools?”

  “Definitely. That kid was born to play football, and he knows it. The only thing stopping him is right between that girl’s legs. Excuse my language.”

  I shake that mental image out of my head. Huxley and Steve. She has him, the whole school, wrapped around her finger. She won’t give that up. Not before senior prom and graduation, the two most public events in her high-school career. Some people begin dating just so they have a boyfriend or girlfriend on hand for those occasions.

  “You still there?” he asks.

  I grunt in response.

  “So can you do it?”

  “I don’t know.” I bite my lip. So much for my comfortable, calm demeanor.

  “What do you mean? You have done this before, right?”

  “These two are different. They are like this impenetrable fortress. I don’t think Huxley will let anything come between them. She would know if someone was messing with her.”

  “You can start a rumor or something.”

  “She would use her minions to squash it and then hunt down whoever started it.” Lena Herman started a rumor that Huxley was using laxatives to slim down, and Huxley found out that same week. Lena transferred to Catholic school a month later...and she’s Jewish!

  “I was hoping you were the real deal.”

  “I am, but I don’t know if they can be broken up.” Or maybe I don’t know if I can do it. If I get made, she’ll be out for blood. And she’s brainwashed the school, so they’d chase me out the front doors with burning pitchforks. You have to know your limits sometimes.

  “I’m giving you my honest, semiprofessional opinion.”

  “What if I tripled your rate? Three hundred dollars?”

  My eyes widen at the thought of three hundred dollars. But then Huxley’s face pops into my head, and the money fades away. “If Steve’s family can’t sway his decision, what makes you think I can?”

  He lets out an exasperated sigh. “It sounds like you’re scared of her.”

  “Scared of her? No way!”

  “You’re making excuses when you know this girl is no good.”

  I get a short burst of pleasure hearing him say that. I’m not the only one who thinks she’s awful. “She’s just annoying.”

  “I remember there was this bully when I went to high school.” Mr. Towne leans back in his chair, and it looks like he’s reaching back decades for the memory. “He loved picking on anyone with a pocket calculator. No one ever fought back. Until one day, this scrawny kid walked right up to him in the lunchroom and gave him a bloody nose. No warning, no hesitation. The whole room busted out laughing at him. And you know what that bully did in return?”

  “What?”

  “He left me and my friends alone for the rest of high school.”

  I was expecting him to be the bully. But then, who knows, this could all just be made up, or stolen from some episode of The Andy Griffith Show.

  “Listen, I need to know. Can you make this happen?” Mr. Towne doesn’t mince words.

  “Let me think about this.”

  “Think quickly. If I don’t hear from you by Sunday, I’m rescinding my offer.”

  10

  Movie Tonight? I scribble down my note, write Val’s name on it and stretch my arms behind my head.

  My classmates fidget in their seats, restlessly readjusting themselves in their chairs. It’s Friday, eighth-period Latin class, and I can feel the excitement about the weekend pulsating through the room. Except for Bari, whose blank, drained face stares at the board as if it’s Monday morning. She trudges out of class once the bell rings, avoiding all people. A pang of guilt jabs at me, but it’s for the best. I’m not evil; I’m a Good Samaritan. One day, she’ll thank me—or, she would if I could tell her who I was.

  I walk in between desks to get to Val.

  “So what time should I pick you up tonight?” I ask. “The movie starts at seven forty-five.”

  Val hugs her two books and notebook to her chest. “Great,” she says with hesitation. “Is it okay if Ezra joins us?”

  My Friday excitement dissipates. I struggle for an answer. Should I be easygoing and fun, or honest? Val will turn into Relationship Val if he comes, and the night will be ruined.

  “Is it okay?” she asks again.

  “I guess, if you want to.”

  “Are you sure? If you don’t want him around, I understand.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want him around?” Hopefully, she doesn’t ask me to list out the reasons.

  Val exhales. A smile returns to her face. “Great! I wanted to ask because I wasn’t sure if you liked him or not.”

  “What? I just don’t really know him.” Although I shouldn’t be, I’m taken aback by Val’s assumption. I can’t be mad that I barely see her anymore; no, it has to be that I don’t like Ezra.

  “I was worried there for a second. I want you to like him. He’s amazing, and I’m not just saying that because I’m his girlfriend.” She blushes when she says girlfriend. “So what movie are we seeing?”

  “Starship Alien II.”

  “Didn’t we hate the first one?”

  “We almost got kicked out,” I say. We both burst into laughter at the memory. Starship Alien I was so horrible that we couldn’t stop giggling and making comments. Why do horror directors think that girls love walking around topless while a killer alien is on the loose? The usher came into the theater and said we had to be quiet or leave.

  “That movie was terrible! I’m kind of excited to see how bad this one will be,” she says.

  I’m excited she’s excited. Maybe it won’t be that different from old times.

  I sit in the backseat of Ezra’s white Toyota Camry, playing with a hole in the seat fabric. The rhythm of his windshield wipers drowns out the inside banter coming from the front. I feel like the baby in a car seat. Single Person on Board. Where’s their decal?

  Whenever the road is smooth, they hold hands on the middle console. At every stoplight, Ezra blows hot air on Val’s fingertips and then kisses them.

  “What?” Ezra asks Val, who won’t stop looking at him.

  “Nothing,” she says coyly. “I guess I was just looking at you.”

  “Well, then, you’re driving home so I can look at you.”

  They’ve done this twice already.

  “So, Ezra, are you excited for the glory that is Starship Alien II?” I ask, reminding them that someone is in the backseat.

  “What’s it about?”

  “These astronauts on an abandoned ship have to take down an evil race of aliens who eat human brains, and they realize that if they can kill the queen, who is giving the aliens their brain-sucking power, then they can escape. Prepare to laugh a lot.” Val isn’t laughing right now. She’s probably waiting to see how Ezra reacts so she can craft a similar response.

  “Horror isn’t really my forte, so this should be interesting. I usually go to the theater by the college. They play some good indie films there, and some classics, too.” His deep voice reverberates through the car.

  “I’ve always wanted to see a movie there,” I say.

  “Really? Val said you guys go all the time.”

  “We do?”

  I check Val’s face in the rearview mirror. Her eyes plead with me to just go with it.

  “We do,” I say emphatically, searching for words. “I just always fall asleep ten minutes in. So technically, I’ve never seen a complete mov
ie there.” I hope some part of that made sense.

  “I admit some of them can be slow, but there are a lot of gems.”

  He pulls into the shopping center, which has gone to sleep for the night. The bright, sparkly lights of the movie theater light up the area like a casino. “Wow, I haven’t been to a multiplex in ages. I’m going to stick out like Alvy did in L.A.,” Ezra says, nudging Val’s arm.

  “Who?” she asks.

  “Alvy Singer,” he says. The name doesn’t ring a bell to me or Val. “From Annie Hall.”

  “Oh, right!” Val says.

  “You okay?”

  “Sorry, long week.”

  That makes Ezra chuckle. Their hands meet again on the middle console. Val exhales. Color flushes back into her face. He finds a space not too far from the theater, throws the car in Park and smirks at Val.

  “What?” she asks, blushing.

  “Nothing,” he says. “I guess I was just looking at you.”

  And the cycle continues.

  * * *

  The unexpected rain made the movies the place to be for half my high school tonight. The concession-stand line stretches almost to the ticket booth. I give Ezra money to buy my ticket and dread the next step. The social obstacle course. I walk past groups of kids I see every day in the hall, alone. I don’t know if it’s true, but all eyes seem to be on me, sizing up my social profile. I’m here with friends, I want to tell them. Just act cool, Becca. In my brief glances at the onlookers, I notice lots of couples. I suppose that’s standard for Friday night at the movies. Val and Ezra wait in the ticket line, hand in hand.

  I feel better once the movie starts. I can leave my current world behind and focus on astronauts getting killed in intricate and gruesome ways.

  Well, I thought I could.

  But Val and Ezra insist on putting on their own movie. They can’t just hold hands and be done with it. It’s a process, with the necessary buildup. Their slightest moves distract me. Ezra strokes her arm while Val pretends to watch the movie. Then he puts his arm around her. But he won’t stop there. Next, they hold hands. But I guess that isn’t taking advantage of their bodies being so close to each other. So she leans against him, stroking his arm. But then he chooses to rub her thigh, which means she can’t lean against him. She resumes her regular position. But a hand on her leg isn’t enough, so he throws his arm back around her shoulders. Their bodies are like puzzle pieces not fitting. On-screen, a buff guy gets a tentacle through the eye socket, and I have no idea why.

  I tap Val’s shoulder. “Bathroom,” I whisper. I do the crouch-stand and shuffle out to the aisle, where I can see that my theater is all couples, all mimicking some version of Val’s and Ezra’s moves.

  I step into the lobby, and my night instantly gets worse. A line of moviegoers wait for the eight-thirty showing. Mostly from my school. Huxley and Steve stand in the middle with their entire social circle. Shouldn’t they be someplace cooler than the movies?

  I avoid eye contact and beeline to the bathroom, ignoring my peripheral vision. All I see is the bathroom, my salvation, my lean-to in this storm of awkwardness.

  I bump into someone, a lady with her son. Their popcorn spills onto the red plush carpet. A preshow for the line.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Watch where you’re going!”

  “Sorry!”

  I glance over at the line. Of course. I am right in front of Huxley and Steve.

  “Rebecca.”

  “Hi, Huxley.”

  “Are you here alone?” Her hair is dry. Steve’s hair is dripping water onto his soggy shoulders. His umbrella lies at his feet.

  “No, I came with Val and Ezra. They’re in the movie. In the movie theater.”

  “Oh. That’s nice they let you tag along with them,” she says.

  Addison and her boyfriend, who’s at the local junior college but creepily still comes to all the Ashland events, snicker to each other, and I feel heat creep up my cheeks.

  The mom I bumped reappears. “Hey, they charged me a refill fee for the popcorn. Three bucks. You’re paying for it.”

  I’m not hallucinating: everyone in line is staring at me. My mouth turns into a cotton swab. Sweat beads behind my ears. When I go to my ten-year high-school reunion, they’ll introduce me as that tagalong girl who spilled a child’s popcorn.

  “Nice one, Rebecca,” Huxley says.

  “We used to be friends!”

  She nestles herself against Steve’s broad chest, and he closes his arms around her. That’s her response, and I get it loud and clear. Other girls in line hug their boyfriends, so grateful they’re not me.

  I hand over the money and get this old woman out of my life. Forget the bathroom. I race back into the theater.

  I stumble down to my row and find Ezra and Val making out. I guess they couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I tap Val’s shoulder, but she’s too entwined with Ezra to notice. I’m standing in the aisle. Yet another batch of my classmates gawk at me. “Sit down!” one of them hisses.

  These two aren’t budging. I sit in the empty row behind them. I try to concentrate on the movie, but all I can see are my best friend and her boyfriend slobbering all over each other.

  We used to be friends.

  Tears well up in my eyes. Thank goodness I’m in the dark. Val and Ezra’s quest to gobble each other’s faces off overtakes my peripheral vision, but finally, the action on-screen wins out. The two remaining astronauts fight the evil queen, whose tentacles swirl around voraciously. She chases them through the spaceship, and because of all the brains she’s sucked out, she knows how they’ll think. She’s smarter, faster and completely ruthless. But because of their small size, they can squeeze into a rescue pod, blast off, nuke their spaceship and kill the queen. This stupid movie totally transfixes me, opens up a new worldview in my mind. I feel like I’m right there with the astronauts, and I want to cheer at the top of my lungs when the spaceship blows up. It’s like divine intervention that I came to see this movie on this night.

  I have to vanquish the evil queen.

  11

  I don’t have to do any thinking for Huxley and Steve’s gossip dossier. As soon as I get home from the movies, I race up to my room and dig out my notebook. Everyone at school, including teachers, knows their history. It’s an essential part of the social curriculum. I create from memory, the words spilling out faster than I can write them down. My pen whips back and forth on the page.

  I combine their dating histories, because they’ve only ever been with each other. How adorable...and boring.

  Huxley Mapother & Steve Overland

  Dating History:

  • Fall 7th grade (Huxley)/Fall 8th grade (Steve)–present

  º Steve—new student, played football. Huxley—nice and normal, then met Steve and became popular and demonic.

  º Eating lunch together by end of second week.

  º Were seen at parties together by mid-September.

  º Publicly confirmed relationship with article in school paper = the decline of modern journalism.

  º PDA Level = ELEVATED

  • Held hands in school, kissed in the hall, nothing obscene.

  Confirmed rumors:

  º Winter sophomore/freshman: Steve—Got so drunk off tequila that he threw up on Huxley.1

  º Fall junior/sophomore: Huxley—went on acai-berry diet and dropped 6 lbs before homecoming coronation.

  º Fall senior/junior: Huxley and Steve window-shopped for wedding rings.

  I stop writing. My hand is shaking. After over four years together as the top couple in school, do they really have no other rumors? No fights, no scandals? Huxley is a master of controlling her PR; you would never guess that Steve’s family is scheming to rip them apart. In a school of
fifteen hundred kids, why is there so little gossip about the biggest couple? Their relationship cannot be as perfect as it seems.

  * * *

  Diane and I form a battle plan over leftover pizza the next night.

  “I hate that the middle of the pizza never gets warm in the microwave. The edges are burning, but then the middle is still ice-cold,” she says. But she eats it anyway.

  My gossip dossier and yearbook are laid out on the dining table. My parents are at a bar mitzvah tonight, so we don’t have to plot in private. “We have a better chance of getting Steve to dump Huxley. There’s no way she would ever dump him.”

  “I’m not so sure. He’s not going to be a big football star next year. His sex appeal is going to drop.”

  “He’s going to Vermilion for her,” I say. “And she’ll probably join him when we graduate.”

  “That’s bleak.”

  “Never underestimate the power of a whipped guy. He has a breaking point. She doesn’t.”

  “Dammit!” Diane wipes a clump of sauce off her sweatshirt. A red splotch covers the g in Rutgers. Just one of many. “And since his family hates her guts, he’s probably looking for any excuse to get rid of her. Now you need to work this angle, try to talk to his parents maybe.”

  “I don’t think so,” I say. I leave families out of my break-up schemes. I do have some ethics, despite my line of work. I pace around the room, careful not to knock into any of my mom’s antique vases.

  “What if he thinks she’s cheating on him?”

  “I doubt she would cheat on him, and he knows it.” Huxley’s face circles in my mind. Why would anyone break up with her? I think about all those picturesque moments she and Steve share during school. Her life is like a movie, every detail staged so that girls can aspire to be her. If you are her friend or boyfriend, you have to know your lines. And as I learned, if you don’t fit the part, you’re cut.