Stop, Don't Stop

by Jonah Black

  Cecily kept staring at me, waiting for me to say something. She definitely seemed like an interesting girl. Her hair was in a cool braid, fastened with this clip with all sorts of snakes painted on it.

  “Sure, that would be great,” I said finally.

  “I’m so glad you like them,” Cecily said. “Most guys think they’re, you know, like, a chick band.”

  “No, their music is really cool,” I said. Then I started listening carefully to the lyrics they were singing. “Girls going crazy, girls having fun. / Girls taking over, together we’re one!” Oh, God. What have I done?

  “The only thing is, I heard the concert was sold out,” Cecily said.

  “Really? Sold out?” I tried not to sound relieved.

  “Maybe you could ask that guy Thorne for tickets? The one who’s going out with Posie Hoff? You’re really good friends with him, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. Actually, I’m good friends with both of them,” I said.

  “I heard Thorne can get just about anything,” Cecily said, like Thorne was the coolest guy in the universe. For obvious reasons, her saying that really bothered me. I wish that Thorne had to struggle once in a while the way the rest of us do.

  Anyway, I guess I’m going to the Lemon concert with Cecily LaChoy. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

  (Still Oct. 26, 11 P.M.)

  I’ve done my homework, and it’s strangely quiet in our house. Mom’s in Baltimore tonight. She called around dinnertime to say that her agent told her she might be on the Today show.

  Meanwhile, here in Florida they’re rerunning some of her call-in shows as “The Best of Pillow Talk, with Dr. Judith Black.” I don’t know what makes the programs they’re airing “The Best of,” because all of Mom’s radio shows sound exactly the same. I mean, some guy calls up and asks her something like, is it normal to masturbate forty-five times an hour? And Mom always has the same answer: “Are you being nice to yourself? Because that’s what’s important!”

  I still can’t believe my own mother is out there giving all these kids sex advice, when her own son hasn’t even had it. It’s pretty bizarre. Not that she knows that I’m a virgin. No one knows. Except maybe Honey, and Pops, because they know everything. And I think Thorne suspects. I don’t know what Posie thinks; it hasn’t come up.

  When I talked to Mom I wanted to ask her who answered the phone in her hotel room in Atlanta, but then I chickened out. I guess maybe I don’t really want to know.

  Earlier tonight, I asked Honey what she was doing for Halloween. Halloween is actually on a Wednesday, so all the parties and stuff will probably be on Friday. Honey said some alumni guy from Harvard is coming to talk to her Friday night. It’s like, her interview for Harvard, where she’s applying early decision.

  “So where are you going to do the interview?” I asked her.

  “I’m not doing any interview,” said Honey. “The loser can just ride around in my car, and do whatever I’m doing. He says he wants to get a sense of what I’m like, so he’s going to get it.”

  She was smoking a cigarette out by the pool and she threw the butt in the water. I had to fish it out because if Mom found it in the filter, she’d think I was the one who’d been smoking. Mom always blames me for everything. Honey is her little cherub. It’s totally ridiculous.

  “Honey,” I said. “I don’t get it. Don’t you want to go to Harvard?”

  “Beats me,” Honey said. “They seem all fired up to get me, though. I just want to make sure they know what they’re getting. That guy can hang out with me and Smacky. Maybe I’ll take him to the Bob’s Big Boy and get him a bacon cheeseburger. You think they got Bob’s Big Boy up in Massachusetts?”

  I can’t wait for this guy to meet Honey. It’s going to be a pretty interesting Halloween, I can tell.

  Oct. 27, 4:15 P.M.

  Today I saw something that made me so mad I only had two choices. I could either punch someone in the face, or just get out of there as fast as I could. Guess which one I picked?

  So there I was, sitting on the bleachers in the school natatorium watching the Don Shula High Swim Team flail around in the pool like drowning seals. Actually, the swimmers were doing fine, but the diving is still just a total mess. Now that Ricky Anderson has been recruited to dive, we have a second guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing on the diving board in addition to Wailer. Plus, we’re no longer competitive in breast stroke, since Ricky isn’t doing that anymore. Martino Suarez has his one-and-a-half somersault, but that’s all he does, over and over, and it drives me insane. It’s like he learned it at camp one summer and if he tries anything else he falls into the water on his head. Mr. Davis is trying to teach him not to be a one-trick pony, but every practice Martino just does that same dive, again and again. Watching him is like being stuck in purgatory.

  Anyway, I was there showing my moral support for the team, taking notes and talking to Mr. Davis after each dive. He was calling me “student coach,” which is a fancy name for making sure all the kickboards and floats are poolside. After practice I went outside, and saw my terrific best friend Thorne Wood sitting on the hood of his car with one arm around Luna Hayes. I wanted to strangle him.

  The amazing thing is that he didn’t seem upset or surprised or self-conscious about me catching him with Luna. He just acted like everything was cool.

  “Hey, Jonah,” he said, not removing his arm from around Luna’s waist.

  “Hi, Jonah,” Luna said, looking pretty pleased with herself. At her party last month she confessed to me that she had a huge crush on Thorne. Now she was getting what she’d always wanted. Only a couple of weeks ago Thorne and I saw Luna making out with Wailer Conrad on the beach. I swear, Thorne and Luna have got to be the biggest sluts in Pompano. If you ask me, they’re perfect for each other.

  “So, Thorne, have you seen Posie?” I said, kind of digging the words into him.

  “Posie Hoff?” said Thorne, as if there was more than one Posie. “Nah. Not for a long time.” He made it sound like it had been years.

  Thorne looked at his watch. “Dang. Hang on a minute, guys,” he said. He whipped out his cell phone and punched some buttons. “Hey, Kendra, it’s me. Yeah. What’s the NASDAQ doing? Okay. Did you buy some of that tech stock like I said? Okay. Cool. Oh, nothing. Just hanging out. I’ll talk to you later. Ciao.” He put his phone away. “Sorry,” he said.

  That was when I felt like punching Thorne. But I didn’t.

  “Are you going to Posie’s party Friday?” he asked me. “It should be awesome!” he said.

  I hate, hate, hate, hate it that I’m always the last person to find out about everything. I mean, what is the deal with that?? I didn’t know Posie was having a party, because Posie hadn’t even told me about it. Plus, I’m going to that stupid Lemon concert with Cecily, so I can’t go anyway.

  I was so upset I was shaking. “I gotta go,” I said, and headed toward my bike.

  “Wait, Jonah. Hang out with us,” Luna called after me.

  Us? The whole thing is so bogus.

  I guess I already knew that Thorne was a total sleazeball. And I guess that’s part of his appeal. It’s like, the more sleazily he behaves, the more girls love him. But it’s different when it comes to Posie. I’d kind of hoped that Thorne would value his friendship with Posie enough to treat her like the amazing girl she is, instead of just adding her to his collection. But Thorne’s not like that.

  I can’t imagine what it’s like for sex to be this incredibly commonplace thing, like it is for Thorne. This is one of those times when I’m actually kind of proud that I haven’t slept with anyone yet. But then again, the longer I wait the more important my first time becomes. Sometimes I’m like, screw it, I just want to get it over with and have sex with somebody, anybody, so I won’t have to feel all this pressure.

  It’s like Dad’s special bottle of wine. Up in his house in Pennsylvania, there’s this wine cellar in the basement, and on the top shelf is this bottle that belonged to some
one like King Edward the Seventh or something, which Dad got as a gift from a client one time. Anyway, Dad has this bottle of wine that’s like, two hundred years old, which he’s saving for some occasion special enough to drink it. But the longer he waits, the more it’s like, no occasion is ever special enough. So he never drinks it.

  If I had sex with Posie, that would be a special enough occasion.

  I can’t believe I’m writing this. I never used to think about Posie this way. Now all I do is think about her.

  So, do I tell Posie that Thorne is fooling around with Luna Hayes on the side? Or should I just shut up and mind my own business? I honestly don’t know. Is everyone’s life this screwed up, or just mine?

  Oct. 29, 8:08 A.M.

  I got a flat tire on the way into school today. Flat tires suck. I was cruising down the Mile, when suddenly I felt the rim of my front wheel against the road, and I hopped off the bike in front of the Sub Shop and the Mr. Formal store. I didn’t have anything to fix it with, so I just started walking the bike to school. I didn’t get very far, though, because something told me to stop and go back.

  I turned around and there in the window of the Mr. Formal store was this beautiful girl in a gauzy lavender prom dress. It’s Posie, or a mannequin that looks exactly like her. And then she says, “Of course I’m not a mannequin, Jonah, don’t be an idiot.” She steps out of the window and opens a door and inside there is old music playing, like big band tunes from the 1940s.

  “Posie, what’s going on?” I say.

  And she says, “Sshh. Let’s get you into something a little classier.”

  She picks out a light-gray tuxedo for me that is made out of the softest material, like cashmere or something. “The Silver Shadow,” she calls it. I put it on, and the two of us look like we both fell out of a black-and-white movie. Posie’s dress is strapless and backless and totally shows off her figure, which is amazing. I follow her to the back of the store, and Posie says, “Ready?” and I say yes, even though I don’t know what’s coming next.

  Posie opens the door, and we walk into a huge ballroom. There is a big band in the corner on a raised bandstand and there are hundreds of couples all doing the fox-trot or whatever. I’ve never taken dancing lessons or anything, but I just take Posie by the arm, and we start swinging all over the dance floor like we’ve been ballroom dancing our whole lives. We are totally into it, dancing to this weird old-fashioned music, and it feels completely natural, the way she fits into my arms. The whole time we are dancing we are looking into each other’s eyes with an expression that says, I have loved you my entire life. You are my one and only.

  Then Posie leans forward and whispers into my ear, “Jonah, will you take me for a drive?”

  I want to explain to her about the whole license situation, but when we get outside there is an old Rolls Royce standing outside the ballroom. Thorne is standing by the car in a footman’s uniform, and he holds the door open for the two of us. Posie gets in the front seat and she looks up at me, waiting for me to get in behind the wheel.

  “Posie,” I say. “You know I can’t drive, right? Remember, I had that accident at boarding school and they took my license away?”

  But Posie looks at me urgently and says, “Come on, Jonah. We have to go!”

  I put my hands in my pockets and pull the insides of the pockets out, and I’m just a guy with nothing in his pockets. Then Thorne takes off his footman’s coat and drapes it over my arm and says, “I can drive you, Posie.” Underneath the footman’s coat he’s wearing the Silver Shadow, too, and it looks even better on him. I’m standing there like an idiot, and Thorne puts a shiny copper penny in my white glove, and says, “This is for you, my good man.” Then Posie and Thorne drive off in the Rolls together.

  When I turned to look back at the ballroom, it was all boarded up and the windows were broken. It looked like it had been closed for years and years. All that was left was me and my bicycle wobbling along on its flat tire.

  (Still Oct. 29, 10:25 P.M.)

  I had this moment of truth or something with Dr. LaRue at Amerishrinks today. I was sitting in a leather chair, listening to the sound of the dentist’s machinery next door through the wall. I thought I heard the sound of that suction hose thing they use to suck the gunk out of your mouth, and I wondered who was getting her gunk sucked and what the dentist looked like. I had a feeling the dentist was a woman, because I kept hearing muffled women’s voices murmuring to each other.

  “Jonah?” Dr. LaRue said.

  “Yeah?” I responded.

  “I wanted to ask you some more things about the girl at Masthead Academy. The girl you called last week and had to hang up on,” he said.

  “Sophie,” I said. I thought I’d put her behind me, but Dr. LaRue wasn’t going to let her get away without a fight, I guess.

  “Yes, I want to know what happened, why you got kicked out. Do you think you’d feel comfortable telling me now?” he asked me.

  I thought about this. I wasn’t sure if I was comfortable or not. “Well, it’s kind of a long story,” I said.

  “I’ve got time,” he said, and smiled sort of benevolently, like he was the most patient shrink in the world. “But before you begin, I’d like to know how many people know the truth about what happened.”

  “Nobody,” I said. “I haven’t told anybody.”

  “Can I ask you why not?” Dr. LaRue said.

  The truth is, I don’t know why I haven’t told anyone else. It’s actually not even the worst story in the world. I mean, I was trying to help someone out and things went wrong. But it’s nothing to feel ashamed about.

  “Do you want to tell me the story, Jonah?” Dr. LaRue said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Okay, I’ll try.”

  Dr. LaRue leaned forward in his chair. He looked excited, like he was thinking, Yes, we’re finally getting somewhere!

  He’s a pretty ugly dude. That giant bald head, the tiny little toothbrush-bristle mustache. I try not to look at him too much.

  “Well, first I have to tell you about Sophie,” I said. Starting the story made me feel like I was Columbus, or something, leaving Spain. Some hero embarking on an epic journey.

  “She was in my class at Masthead. It’s this very rich, private boarding school, in the Philadelphia suburbs. I never knew anybody who acted like that before. I mean, the people at that school were from another planet. At least, a different planet from Pompano.

  “Sophie comes from Kennebunkport, Maine, the same place as George Bush, you know, Senior. She has this funny Maine accent, it’s totally weird. Like she says ‘bee-yah’ instead of ‘beer.’ And ‘ev-ah’ instead of ‘ever.’ I love the way she talks. And Sophie is beautiful. She’s got blond hair, and she’s skinny, but not too skinny. She always had this kind of aloof attitude, like she was watching everything from far, far away. And her eyes were so sad, like she was keeping all these big, terrible secrets. Like they were green trapdoors to someplace really . . . dark.

  “Anyway, I was kind of afraid of Sophie. She was just too perfect. We weren’t in any classes together except music, and in that class she sat by herself in the back row. She was kind of a musical genius. One time Mr. Krakow, the music teacher, had us write these percussion pieces for class, and Sophie came up with this whole crazy symphony for woodblocks and triangles. Everybody in the class played it, and it was awesome.”

  I told Dr. LaRue about that day, how Sophie handed out the sheet music for her piece, which was called Damnation, with three woodblocks, and two triangles, cowbells, bongos, maracas, and kettle drums. I was one of the woodblocks. We all played this thing she had written, and it was incredibly intense. Sophie just sat there listening, with this sad expression on her face. I wanted to ask her why she was so sad, but I never did.

  “Jonah?” Dr. LaRue said.

  All of a sudden I didn’t feel like going on. All I could think about was that look on Sophie’s face. I wished there had been some way I could have really helped her. I wanted
to make her happy.

  “Jonah?”

  I looked up at Dr. LaRue. He was fingering his little mustache like crazy. I guess he was worried he was about to lose me.

  “You were telling me about Sophie.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “One time we were messing around in the chemistry lab. And my roommate, Sullivan the Giant, came up with this weird like, potion, that would make any girl who drank it fall in love with the next guy she looked at. Like that stuff in that play by Shakespeare, what’s it called?”

  Dr. LaRue looked very worried now. “As You Like It?” he said, but it was clear from the way he said it that he didn’t like it. He knew I was lying.

  “Yeah, that’s it. So Sullivan the Giant goes up to Sophie and gives her this potion in a can of Coke. He says, ‘Here you go, Sophie, I got an extra Coke, you want some?’ But I grab it out of her hand and yell, ‘No, Sophie! Don’t drink it! It’s poison!’ and she looks at me like I’m crazy.”

  I do remember that look on Sophie’s face, when she thought someone was putting her on. Part of it was contempt, and part of it was like she was saying, Hey, if you’re insane maybe you and I have something in common.

  “So I knocked the Coke out of her hand and that saved her from being in love with Sullivan, but then the chemistry teacher, Mrs. Lessing, caught the can and drank it, and the next thing you know, Mrs. Lessing is like, totally in love with me, and she’s kissing me and trying to get my shirt off in front of the whole class. And at that second, the headmaster, Mr. Plank, came in, and he saw me making out with Mrs. Lessing, and he just expelled me on the spot. Mrs. Lessing protested, though. Like, she wanted me to stay in school because I was her little chemistry pet.”