Girls, Girls, Girls

by Jonah Black

  “You mean like I could get my hacker friends to crack the school’s computer, and make the changes?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, getting excited. “Can you do that? Please?”

  She shrugged. “Sorry, Nutly. I can’t hack into the school’s computer.”

  “How do you know if you haven’t tried?”

  Honey smiled. “You think I haven’t tried?”

  She went to the door. “If you change your mind about the panties thing, though, let me know.”

  Then she walked back to her room, and I crawled into bed and wrote this. Now I’m going to sleep.

  Sept. 21

  Today was my second session at Amerishrinks. That same girl was waiting in the lobby today, but this time she didn’t look up at me and when her mother came out of her session the girl didn’t even wait for her, she just got up and headed toward the car. I wondered what the two of them would talk about in the car ride home. I bet they’re going through some big conflict right now and the mother is seeing Dr. LaRue to help her with it, although she really wants her daughter to be going to the shrink, and the daughter refuses. Maybe the daughter wants to be more independent, and start doing things on her own, but the mom won’t let her and the daughter says, But Mom, I’m not a child anymore, and the mom says, Crystal, I don’t care how old you are, you can’t go around with your shirt off, and Crystal says, I hate wearing shirts. How come boys can walk around with their shirts off and girls can’t? And the mother looks tired and says, I don’t know, Crystal, but those are the rules. Yeah, well, Dad says rules are made to be broken, says Crystal. And her mother speeds up the car and says, How dare you mention your father at a time like this?

  So I went in there and I was definitely not in the mood. I don’t know. I think everything is starting to annoy me. I decided to try to get Dr. LaRue mad at me. Actually I didn’t really plan for it to happen, it just did.

  “So how have you been, Jonah?” Dr. LaRue said.

  “Peachy,” I said. “I mean, wow, could things be better? I don’t think so.”

  “It must be hard, being back in Pompano, repeating eleventh grade.”

  “Hard? No, it’s great. I love eleventh grade! I’m hoping they’ll hold me back next year, too, so I can take it a third time,” I said.

  I know, I was being really obnoxious.

  “How are things with your mother?”

  “Mom? Oh, she’s great. They’ve just cast her to play the part of herself in the movie they’re making of her life.”

  “Mm-hmm. And your father? How are things with him?” Dr. LaRue said, twiddling his little mustache.

  “I haven’t heard from Dad since I got down here. I think he’s out of the country. They’re going to blast him into outer space again in a couple months though. You know he works for NASA.”

  I couldn’t believe myself. Dr. LaRue knows Dad is in real estate.

  “Your mother is the radio personality?”

  “Yes. Dr. Judith Black. Author of the bestseller Hello Penis! Hello Vagina!”

  “And how do you feel about her success?” he asked.

  “It’s great,” I enthused. “Mom is a genius.”

  “Does she know what happened to you at boarding school?”

  “Oh, sure. She knows all about it. She’s proud of me,” I said, beaming like an idiot.

  “Are you proud of yourself, Jonah?” Dr. LaRue asked me.

  “Proud? Definitely! Did you know that when I was up there I won a pie-eating contest? It’s true.”

  “What else did you do to be proud of?”

  “Well, this one time I hit a baseball so hard it knocked out the window of a low-flying airplane, and there was a hijacker holding a gun to the pilot’s head and my baseball knocked the gun out of his hand and saved everybody’s lives. I’m proud of that, definitely. I mean, it’s not like I did it on purpose or anything, but I did it.” I couldn’t stop myself. I was just babbling like a lunatic.

  “Anything else, Jonah?” Dr. LaRue said patiently. He looked at the clock.

  There was plenty of time left. So I kept on babbling. And no matter what I said, nothing seemed to get him angry. I kept telling bigger and bigger lies, and it didn’t make any difference.

  Toward the end of the hour, he said, “So is there anything you regret about your time in Pennsylvania?”

  I was just about to tell him how I never got to eat the World’s Largest Pretzel, which is in Littiz, PA, but instead I suddenly see Sophie sitting where Dr. LaRue is sitting and she’s wearing a yellow sundress and her red fishing hat, the same thing she was wearing the very last time I saw her.

  She looks like she’s been crying and she leans toward me and whispers, “Don’t tell them, okay? Not ever.”

  “I won’t,” I promise.

  Dr. LaRue fingered his mustache. Then he leaned back in his chair and clasped his fingers around his bald head.

  “What?” I said, after he’d been staring at me for a whole minute.

  “You said, ‘I won’t,’ Jonah. What question are you answering?”

  “I’m not answering any question,” I said.

  “Well, you can say that again,” Dr. LaRue said, finally sounding a little irritated. “What do you think we’re doing here, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Do you think we’re just here to blow the hour?”

  I guess he knew I’d been lying my head off.

  “Dr. LaRue, I’m here because I got kicked out of boarding school and now everyone thinks I’m insane. Which I’m not,” I said.

  “I see. So you don’t have any problems, then. You’re pretty well adjusted?” he said.

  “I guess.”

  “Are you happy, Jonah?” he asked me.

  “What?”

  “I said, are you happy?”

  My voice kind of stuck in my throat. Dr. LaRue looked at the clock.

  “Time’s up,” he said.

  Sept. 22, 9:15 P.M.

  I’m lying here waiting for Honey to finish putting on her makeup so she can drive us both over to the party at Luna’s.

  There is an amazing silence in our house right now. It’s sort of like being at the orchestra and watching the conductor come out and that moment when he raises the baton and stands there looking at the musicians for a second and you know the moment he moves his hand the music will begin but for just that instant nothing has happened yet and all of the music is still in the future.

  I can hear the water running in the bathroom. Honey is singing to herself while she gets ready. In the distance I can hear the television on in my mother’s room. Probably Lifetime, her favorite channel. Now Honey has turned off the faucet and I can hear it dripping.

  A boat is approaching on Cocoabutter Creek, an inboard, I think. I can hear the filter for the pool grinding away in the garage, and the water in the pool lapping through the skimmer.

  Cars are roaring up and down Highway 1 five blocks away. There’s a jet plane crossing the sky. A dog is barking a few houses down. My clock beside my bed is ticking. It sounds loud.

  Now the bathroom door is opening and Honey is coming down the hall to her room and I know she’s just put on huge stomping platform shoes because I can hear her clomping around in them even though the whole house has wall-to-wall carpeting. Now she’s coming down the

  Sept. 23, 2:32 A.M.

  We’re back. Now Honey is in the bathroom again with the water running, but this time she’s taking her makeup off.

  Here’s what happened. We got in Honey’s Jeep and drove over to Luna’s. Honey’s Jeep is like Honey in a nutshell. I love it. It’s this black shiny Wrangler and she almost never puts the top on it. She takes good care of the car, but it also has these weird little touches, like a decapitated dolls’ head that hangs off the rearview mirror.

  The fact that she has this cool car drives me slightly crazy, even though I know that Mom and Dad would get me a car, too, if I ever got my license back. But just sitting in the c
ar with Honey made me think about how I lost my license, and that made me think about Sophie and that jerk Sullivan and Masthead and the whole messed-up situation. So I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I was feeling a little nervous about this party anyway, and thinking about what happened at the end of last year didn’t help.

  Honey was quiet during the drive over. She had the radio on but I don’t think she was listening to it. She seemed deep in thought, which shouldn’t be that rare for a genius like her, but Honey’s intelligence always seems to be on the outside, not the inside, if that makes any sense.

  Just as we turned onto Luna’s street, Honey turned to me and said, “So, Jonah. Let me ask you something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you happy?” she said.

  Jesus. Suddenly everyone in Pompano Beach wants to know how happy I am.

  “Am I what?” I said. I really didn’t feel like having this conversation.

  “Happy. Satisfied. Characterized by pleasure, contentedness, or gladness.”

  “You’re really asking me this?”

  “Yeah, maybe I am. What’s the answer?” Honey insisted.

  “I don’t know,” I said, annoyed. I mean does everyone want me to walk around with a great big smile on my face all the time?

  “Yeah? That’s too bad. We gotta do something about that.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m working on it,” Honey said.

  “What about you?” I said. “Are you happy?” I asked her.

  Honey didn’t answer.

  As she drove, I took a good look at my sister. She was wearing a black vinyl miniskirt and a ripped black tank top with a big blue star printed on the front of it. Her hair is dark brown but she keeps it dyed black and it’s cut in shaggy layers around her face. People don’t really lie out to get tan here, but everyone is fairly tan anyway. Except Honey. Her skin is so white it’s practically translucent, and it’s completely flawless except for one big chicken pox scar on her forehead. She could be pretty, beautiful even, if she didn’t scowl so much, and if she didn’t have such dark circles under her eyes. And her body is pretty bony, even though she eats a whole box of Ring Dings every day.

  Honey’s all right, I guess. But happy? She didn’t look happy.

  We got there and Honey parked behind a long line of cars and checked out her reflection in the Jeep’s side mirror. “Come on, Jonah. It’s time to get happy,” she said.

  Actually it’s time for me to get some sleep. I will tell the rest of this story tomorrow. Good night.

  (Still Sept. 23, 9:30 A.M.)

  Saturday morning and no school. I’m eating breakfast out by the pool. Cap’n Crunch. So here’s the rest of what happened at Luna’s:

  Luna lives in Deerfield Beach in a big one-story house with crazy views. The ocean is right in her backyard, the Intercoastal Waterway is out front, and a monster yacht is moored at her dock.

  I started to head toward the front entrance but Honey pointed to a basement door and I followed her. Of course, Honey had been to parties there before. She’s been everywhere.

  The basement was dark, lit only by candles. It was decorated like a hotel lobby or something, with lots of couches and armchairs and oriental rugs and potted plants. Fatboy Slim was on the stereo.

  “The wine cellar’s down here,” Honey explained. Apparently Luna’s parents are pretty liberal about her having drinking parties, in their own twisted way. They wouldn’t buy their daughter a keg for her parties, or hard alcohol, but they don’t see anything wrong with us drinking wine, as long as it’s really good wine. This was kind of a waste, I think, since the wine that I usually drink comes in a bottle with a screw cap, not that I drink much wine anyway.

  We went over to the table where there were all these uncorked bottles of prime vintage and poured ourselves some. People kept saying hi to my sister, which seriously pissed me off. It was like a reminder to me of how unfair the universe is. I’m the invisible man, and she’s like Madame Connected.

  Smacky Platte came up to Honey and said, “Yo.”

  “Yo,” my sister said back.

  The three of us stood there for a moment, sipping our wine. Then Honey turned to me and said, “I’ll catch up with you later, Bro. We’re going to go check out the shelter.” Then she and Smacky walked off together and went through a door that looked like it led to a long, dark hallway.

  I was thinking, What’s the shelter?

  Then these two girls came up to me, one of whom I sort of recognized from my junior history class.

  “Hi, you’re Jonah Black, aren’t you?” said the one I thought I knew. She had thin strawberry blond hair and a freckly nose. There were big spaces between her teeth, as if she still had her baby teeth.

  “Yeah, I’m Jonah,” I said.

  “I’m Brady Walsh,” she said, “and this is Lauren Hoogs.”

  Lauren blushed. She was only about four feet tall.

  “I’m in Miss Tenuda’s class with you,” said Brady.

  “Right,” I said. “You’re a junior,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “Lauren’s a sophomore,” Brady said, and they both giggled like they were nervous about talking to me. That kind of made me feel good, or maybe it was just the wine.

  “You’re friends with that girl Posie Hoff?” Lauren said. The way she said Posie’s name made it sound like she was talking about a celebrity.

  And now that I think about it, I can see why Posie would be idolized by the other girls at school. She’s gorgeous, but not in a fussy, phony way—she just rolls out of bed beautiful. She’s genuinely sweet to everyone, but she’s not too perky and loud about it—she’s just considerate. She has a wicked sense of humor. She can act like a guy—swearing and chewing tobacco and playing with fireworks, but she’s also really poised and graceful and womanly. Plus, she has the whole surfer wahine chick thing going, which is beyond cool. Seriously, Posie has got to be the coolest girl in the universe.

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling like the luckiest person in the world all of a sudden. “I’ve known Posie since I was little.”

  “Wow,” Lauren said.

  “I’ve known Lauren since I was two,” said Brady.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s nice to have friends like that, isn’t it? People who know you so well you don’t have to explain everything to them all the time.”

  “Definitely,” Lauren said.

  “Isn’t Posie going out with that guy Wailer now?” Brady asked.

  “Yeah,” Lauren said, like she knew everything there was to know about Posie. If there was a VH-1 Behind the Music with Posie Hoff, Lauren would have taped it and watched it every day.

  Lauren and Brady looked at each other and wrinkled up their noses. “Ewwwwww!” they said in unison.

  “Hey,” I said. “What’s so wrong with Wailer?” It was funny—I don’t like Wailer, either, but I felt like they were cutting down Posie when they made fun of him.

  “Ick,” Lauren said. “He is so gross!”

  “Oohhh, Brady,” Brady said, in this big-dumb-guy voice that actually sounded a lot like Wailer. “I wanna play badminton with you, and get married, and live on the beach, and make babies!”

  “Oohhh, Lauren,” Lauren said, and her Wailer was even better. “I wanna play volleyball with you, and get married, and live on the beach, and make babies!”

  Brady and Lauren were practically falling over each other now laughing. “Oohhh, Jonah, we wanna join the diving team with you and get married and live on the beach and make babies!” they squealed.

  I didn’t think this was funny at all.

  Lauren tried to stop laughing and took a sip of wine, but then she snorted and the wine came out her nose. She covered her nose with her hand and then she hiccupped so loud that people on the other side of the room looked at her.

  “I’m sorry,” Brady said. “I think I’d better take her outside.” She led her friend outside, both of them still laughing.

  I stood there thinking ab
out what they’d said, and wondering if Wailer could really be that gross. Then I realized I was standing alone in the middle of a crowded room, like an idiot. I looked around for Cheese Girl, but she wasn’t there, so I sat down on a couch with some girls I used to know, Cecily LaChoy and Shanique O’Reilly. They are both seniors, but Cecily is in the junior German class because she’s only been taking it for a year.

  Don Shula is like the only school in the world where you’d find a Chinese-French-Belizean girl talking to a West African–Irish girl, and be able to sit down and converse with them in German. It’s a crazy world we live in.

  “So are you glad to be back?” Cecily asked me.

  “Yeah. Pretty much,” I said.

  “It must have been weird to be so far away from the ocean. I don’t think I could handle that,” Cecily said.

  Shanique wrinkled her nose. “Me neither,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, although I hadn’t really missed the ocean until I came back and saw it and realized how much I missed it. “But I mostly missed my friends,” I said.

  “Posie Hoff,” Cecily said, with the same note of reverence in her voice that Lauren had had.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “What’s she like?” Shanique said. And again I got the feeling that Posie is the girl all the other girls in my school are totally in awe of.

  I thought about the night Posie had taken me out to see the phosphorescent jellyfish. And I wanted to say, Posie is someone who can take a totally ordinary moment and turn it into something you’ll remember for the rest of your life. All of a sudden I had this huge craving for Posie, like I couldn’t wait to see her again. I was thinking, Hey, why shouldn’t I go out with Posie? It was like Pops Berman said, you have to love somebody, why not someone who likes you? Why not your best friend?

  Then I remembered why not.

  “Posie,” I said. “She’s fine. She’s going out with Wailer. I guess you know.”

  Shanique and Cecily looked at each other and started giggling.

  “What’s so funny?” I said. It was like a repeat performance of my conversation with Brady and Lauren.