We’re all pretty much spread out as I round the corner for the last half lap. My mind wanders back to the girls. I wonder how many of the other guys are thinking similar thoughts. I wonder how many of them have to rely totally on their imaginations to picture the girls naked. Probably more of them than I think, but you never know. Ahead of me, Chris Brody slows to say something to one of the girls—Vanessa. She laughs. I pass Chris and try not to look at Vanessa. Not because Chris would go after me for looking at his girlfriend, but because I don’t want to think about it. Instead, I try to remember whether I threw a bottle of Gatorade in my bag.
I walk it off behind the bleachers and then head for my bag. No Gatorade. Coach talks to us during the cooldown, but no one listens. I find a spot by myself on the top row and take a few minutes to catch my breath. The rest of the guys are gathering up their gear and heading for the parking lot. I see Chris and Vanessa at his car. It’s a piece of shit, but it works for him. When he showed up to school in a beater, it took some of the sting out of having to see him with a car. That didn’t last long. Because instead of apologizing for having a crappy car, he completely went the other way and owned it. Suddenly it was cool to have a shitty car. I could never pull that off. But there you are. He’s driving home in the coolest piece of shit car known to man, and I’ll be walking through the woods with a backpack and nothing to drink.
If it were just Brody, it wouldn’t bother me too much. Things are always going to be better for guys like him anyway. That’s just life. But now it seems every other guy on the team has wheels. It’s making things kind of miserable. The funny thing is, a few weeks ago this was my favorite part of the day. Sitting on the bleachers with my best friend, Cooper, and the other guys from our class. Tossing stones at the trash-can. Warm sun, hot girls, nowhere to go. And then one by one guys get cars, and suddenly they have a million things to do right after practice. It was total bull-shit. They just wanted to drive off while there was still an audience. At first I tried to hitch a ride home, but you should hear the excuses these guys come up with. I’m almost out of gas. I want to beat traffic on the bridge. Something’s wrong with my alternator. Yeah? Alternate this. Now the guys who don’t have cars head straight to the bus stop so nobody sees them without cars, walking home.
Greta
I waved goodbye to Lillian and took the last few steps to the bleachers where Ben sat alone, finally. Almost like he’d been left behind and was waiting for someone to return. He must have been lost in thought because when I spoke—in my recollection, the first words ever uttered between the two of us—he looked startled. “You look thirsty,” I said, between sips from my water bottle.
Ben blinked twice and shifted his focus to my eyes from a spot somewhere in the near distance. It was so abrupt I was tempted to see if one of the girls was back there in some yoga position. When he did speak, he did so slowly. “Yeah, well, you know, the mile and everything...”
“Yeah, I saw. You know, if you ever get tired of running a mile every day, you can always practice with the girls.” Did I just say that out loud? All these weeks building up to this moment, and that’s what I come up with?
But Ben let me off easy. “I like your flower. Daisy?”
“My name is Greta,” I said, shaking my head. "I’m in your English class.”
“No, I mean the flower in your hair. Is it a daisy?”
Every drop of blood in my body ran to my cheeks, then fell to my feet. I nodded yes to Ben’s question about the flower and paused to regain my cool. "Where’s your team?” I asked, reclaiming some self-control. I put down my bag and took a seat on the bottom bench.
Ben
I can’t take my eyes off this girl. I try not to stare as she sits down, takes a hat from her bag, and slips her ponytail through the back, leaving the flower from her hair beside her. This is the same Greta who’s been sitting across from me in English for three weeks? She’s never said a word to me, and now here she is. Things like this just don’t happen to guys like me. “Gone,” I say to answer her question. “We used to hang out longer after practice, but now everyone pretty much jumps ship when the whistle blows.”
“Why don’t you get a ride with someone?”
“Don’t ask,”I say with an eye roll. "What about you?”
Greta gave a look like she was considering the question and then locked eyes with me. “Listen,” she said, with a voice that was all business. “Do you want to walk me home?”
I’ll be honest. It does cross my mind to ask where she lives, in case it’s out of the way, but I stop myself and just say, “Yes.” We collect our bags without a word and head toward the main road like it’s something we do every day. And for the first time since the start of the school year, I’m actually thankful I don’t have a car.
Greta
Our routine never changed from the day it began. Ben waited for me after practice on the bleachers. He said the time it took me to change out of my cleats gave him a chance to catch his breath. There was one day Chris asked me if I wanted a ride home—in the seat vacated by Vanessa, who had left him for the starting goalie—but by then I was long gone for Ben. The first day he walked me home, I think he wanted to ask where I lived, just in case it was over the hills; but he didn’t, which was so sweet I can’t even tell you. Not that he had anything to worry about. My house isn’t too far out of the way. And of course it was fall, and, really, is there a better time of year to be walking home through the woods with a boy you want to throw in a pile of leaves and have your way with? The thing is, whatever did happen or didn’t happen, nobody would ever know because on those walks we were all alone in the world. Which is why I think I trusted Ben so completely so quickly. I was never afraid Ben would try anything or make me feel vulnerable, and when you can place your trust in someone like that, it’s a very big deal. I suppose that’s what drew me to him in the first place. He didn’t want anything from me. Okay, I know all boys want something, but I’m not talking about that. Anyway, I don’t know about you, but sometimes there is nothing more irresistible than someone who doesn’t want anything from you. Without those walks in the woods, if Ben and I had just driven everywhere, I don’t think things could have been what they were.
One day after English, Lillian caught up to me in the hallway. "I hope you got a good look,” she said, smiling.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“I’m talking about you staring across the room at Ben for fifty straight minutes. Like he was a Lava lamp.”
“I wasn’t staring.”
Lillian shrugged. "That’s okay, because I think I can see what’s happening.”
“What do you mean?”
“That you love him.”
“Do not.”
“Do so. You love him. Have you told him?”
“No, of course not.”
“So you do?”
“What?”
“Love him.”
“What am I, on trial here?”
“Yes, you are on trial. For public swooning and being in love. And I am the judge. So speak the truth. And I remind you, you are under oath.”
“I plead the fifth, Lil. I don’t know if I love him. And, no, I don’t know if he loves me. We’re just having a great time together. We just get each other. That’s all I know.”
“One more question. Have you?”
“Lil! No. Do you think I wouldn’t tell you?”
“I don’t know. All those walks home through the woods. I don’t know what the two of you do when you’re alone.”
“We—connect.”
Lillian looked unimpressed. “And there isn’t a small part of you that wishes he could offer alternative means of transportation? Just once in a while?”
“I can honestly say there isn’t.”
Ben
Cooper and I are sitting on the bleachers tossing rocks at the trash can, just like the old days. Man, I missed this. Not that things haven’t been good. The last three weeks hav
e been insane. Ever since Greta asked me to walk her home that day, we’ve been in a world of our own. I swore I’d never be one of those guys who got a girlfriend and then blew off all his buddies—the guys who were there for him before the girl came along and would be there long after she left. But in a way, didn’t they blow me off? Hadn’t I been sitting here on the bleachers every day after practice while they drove off to other more important places? My cleats hit the turf as I lay back on the bleachers, barefoot.
“You miss the bus?” I ask Cooper.
“My dad is supposed to pick me up. Guess he’s running late. What about you? Waiting for a ride?”
“Nah, just waiting for Greta. We’re walking.”
“Walking? What do you mean?”
“I mean, walking. I walk her home and then go to my house. It’s pretty much on the way.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cooper toss a rock at the trash can. It misses by at least three feet. “Shit. That sucks,” he says.
At first I think he’s talking about his throw, but then I realize he means that it sucks Greta and I walk home. I sit up and shield my eyes. “Coop, listen. Every day I spend at least an hour alone in the woods with one of the coolest girls who’s ever spoken to me. The best you can hope for is that your dad is going to show up in a Volvo and drive you home for chores and homework. So, you tell me. What exactly sucks about walking home?”
Cooper obviously misses the point of my little speech as badly as he missed the trash can. “What do you do with your gear?” he asks.
We’re quiet for a few minutes. At the far end of the field, I can hear the girls wrapping up practice. Greta will be over soon. After a moment, Cooper speaks up. “So, you like walking home. Does she?”
Good question. We just started reading Thoreau in English class, and even though Greta isn’t about to go live with a family of beavers, I know she gets what the book is about. It sounds kind of corny, but there is something peaceful about having that time in the day to be alone together somewhere quiet. I’d still like to have the option of driving home or to the movies instead of walking all the time, but for now while the weather is good, I wouldn’t trade that time for anything. And unless Greta is a world-class liar, I think she sees it the same way. Which is what I tell Cooper.
Cooper nods. “All right then. If it makes you happy. And with all that alone time, I imagine it does.”
“Hey, what happens in the woods stays in the woods.”
Cooper shakes his head and throws a rock at me, missing by a mile.
There is an old stone footbridge that crosses the main road from the soccer field to the woods where Greta and I walk every day. Just across the footbridge two paths lead through the woods to our neighborhood. One path goes up toward a ridge. The other path drops toward a stream. Some days we follow the lower path along the stream. There is a duck pond about halfway down, with a bench on the far side where the sun still reaches even this time of day in November. We sit on the bench and watch the ducks dive for food. Greta does most of the talking. The latest with Lillian’s love life. Her Spanish teacher, who nobody can understand. Who’s getting too much playing time in soccer. Who’s turning sixteen and getting a license and a car next. Other days we take the upper path and walk along the ridge. Now, we’ve both lived in this area for years, but neither of us knew about the vacant church until we happened to wander into what might have been a garden. You can drive to the church—there is an access road from the main street I found out later—but from a car, you’d never know about the untended patch of lawn in the back. To get there, we have to pull aside a board in the wooden fence that surrounds most of the garden area. Don’t ask me how we thought to look in the first place. I wouldn’t call us being there trespassing because, first of all, it doesn’t look like it belongs to anyone; and, second of all, it’s not like we’re back there breaking windows or spray painting.
Today we followed the upper path. Greta leads the way through the trees to the fence. Even though we’ve done this half a dozen times and never been caught, we still act like we’re breaking into the Pentagon. Greta reaches the fence and turns to me, holding a finger to her mouth. We crawl through the fence and step onto the grass behind the church. In the center of the yard is a dry fountain with weeds and wildflowers growing all over. On the other side of the fountain from the church is an area of growth that looks like it could have been a flower garden. I head for the softest patch of grass I can find and lie down, using my bag as a pillow. Greta drops her bag and lies down next to me.
“You know, I could kill you and nobody would ever find you,” she says, poking me with a stick.
“I think they’d find me eventually. And then they’d come looking for you.”
“By then I’ll be sitting on a beach in Cabo earning ten percent.”
“Ten percent of what?”
Greta rolls on top of me. “I don’t know. It’s just something they say,” she says, tossing the stick.
When the sun dips behind the trees, the temperature drops quickly, and we know it’s time to head home before there are people out looking for both of us. Greta pulls her shirt on and takes a sip from her water bottle. I start to put my shoes on. I think back to my conversation with Cooper. Even though I know he was wrong, I can’t stop thinking that Greta might not be as into the walking thing as she says she is. I decide I have to know for sure. So as she stands and looks toward the fence, I ask, “You like walking home, right?”
“Oh my God. Have you been talking to Lillian?”
“No, no. It’s just . . . ”
Greta walks up and kisses me on the cheek. “You have no idea how much I like walking home with you.”
I think I have some idea. “That’s what I figured. I was just thinking if I had a car we could...”
“We could what? Drive home and sit in my basement watching TV? No thank you.” She picks up her bag and turns back to me.
I smile. "Good, because to tell you the truth, even if I had a car or you had a car, I wouldn’t want to change a thing.”
Greta
In a way I’m actually relieved Ben never came right out and said he loved me, because when it comes to boys and things like that, talk is cheap and I’m not, and I know I would have spent the rest of my life wondering whether he said it because he meant it or because he thought he needed to say it. Besides, it was more fun to look for the truth in the signs that don’t lie. The way he touched my hair before he kissed me. The way he always let me choose which path we took home. The way he wasn’t afraid to challenge me. We never fought, but we didn’t always agree.
We were on the bench by the duck pond one day when I asked Ben if he ever wondered what people thought about us.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Like, why we walk home all the time . . . that kind of stuff.”
“Cooper asked me about it once.”
“What did he ask?”
“Basically he wanted to know whether we liked walking home.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I did. And that you did too.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Why—did I say something wrong?”
“No. I’m just surprised...”
When I left the sentence hanging, I knew part of Ben wanted to leave it alone and move on to something else. But he must have sensed it was important to me, so he took the bait.
“Surprised about what?”
“That you’re so cool about not knowing whether people are talking about us, and if they are, what they’re saying.”
“First of all, of course they’re talking about us. But there’s not much I can do about it. And as for what they’re saying, I don’t really care. To hell with them.”
“How can you not care?”
Ben paused. “I care what I think and what you think. But their opinions don’t really matter. At least not about this.”
“Okay, if you’re so ‘whatever’ about what other
people think, why does it bother you so much that Chris Brody has a car and you don’t?”
I don’t think Ben was ready for that. We’d never talked about Chris. Or even very much about cars. But like I said, I’m observant, and I saw how he watched Chris drive off every day.
“That’s different. That’s what he has, not what he thinks.”
“Why do you care what he has? I thought you said you didn’t even want a car.”
Ben rocked his head around in exasperation. “I said even if I had a car, I wouldn’t want anything between you and me to change. Big difference.”
I stood up and stretched before replying. "I still say you’re better off appreciating what you do have instead of spending time worrying about what you don’t. Who cares about the rest of them?”
“That’s what I just said! Anyway, I’m not sixteen and I don’t have a car, so it doesn’t matter.”
“But you will be soon. And then anything is possible. I just hope you mean what you’re saying.”
Ben
It’s the morning of my sixteenth birthday and we’re standing in front of my uncle Carl’s garage. With a tug, Carl pulls the garage door open and fumbles around for the light. “She hasn’t been driven since Paul went to school, six years ago,” Carl tells me, reading my mind. The bulb hanging from the ceiling flickers to life and enough light to see fills the garage. Carl reaches beneath the front bumper and works the canvas free. “You should stop by next week. Paul will be home for Thanksgiving,” he says as he moves around the car. He pulls the cover back to reveal a Karmann Ghia— an older model Volkswagen. They don’t make Ghias anymore, but this car is definitely one of the finer things VW has ever manufactured. Cherry red exterior, two doors, slope nose with oversized headlights and original fenders. Carl gives me and Dad the tour. He’s loaning me the car indefinitely, at no cost, to clear space in the garage for his workshop. He shows us the interior. Black vinyl bucket seats, A/C on the dash but no CD player, of course. Not in a car this old. Not even a tape deck. The Ghia is a three speed but will do just fine on the highway, Carl explains. With four cylinders I won’t be winning any road races against some of the guys with newer cars, but it occurs to me I can give Chris Brody and his piece of shit a run for his money.
Not Like I'm Jealous or Anything Page 5
