Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have

by Allen Zadoff

  Most teachers would jump in and explain it now, but Ms. Hartwell doesn’t say anything. She just folds her arms like we’re discussing something really important, and she’s got all the time in the world. She shifts her attention back to the girl I can’t see.

  “Would you care to elaborate, Ms….?”

  “April,” the girl says. “April Park.”

  My heart drops about forty-seven feet and bounces up into my chest. I’m not sure I believe in God, but moments like this get you thinking, you know?

  I get a sharp elbow in the ribs. Eytan is staring at me. “April?” he mouths silently.

  Crap. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth earlier.

  Ms. Hartwell says, “What do you think, Ms. Park? Is that a correct definition of history?”

  April bites at her lip for a second, thinking hard. She’s wearing a pink Izod that reveals a little V of honey-almond skin below her neck. I happen to like honey and almonds. Especially when they’re together. She has on those same genius glasses, only now that we’re in AP History, they don’t seem so out of place.

  “I don’t think that’s an accurate definition,” April says. “It reminds me of when we learned about World War Two in my old school.”

  “What about World War Two?” Justin says with a sneer.

  “How did it end?” April says.

  “Duh,” Justin says. “We won.”

  “We kicked ass!” Eric says, and the class laughs.

  “But the Japanese don’t think so,” April says. “They think they were on their way to a compromise surrender, and we committed a crime by dropping the bombs.”

  “Why would we do that?” this Goth girl says.

  “The Japanese say we’re too arrogant to compromise,” April says.

  “Ah, yes. History repeats itself,” Eytan whispers to me.

  Justin rolls his eyes like April’s an idiot. “That’s not the real story,” he says. “That’s Japanese revisionism.”

  “First of all, I’m not Japanese,” April says. “I’m giving an alternate view.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have entered the spin zone,” Eric says.

  I can see April’s pissed.

  “It’s like my parents,” I say all of a sudden.

  The attention shifts in my direction. I feel sweat break out under my arms. I glance at April. She looks surprised.

  Ms. Hartwell says, “Yes. Mr….?”

  “Zansky.”

  “Tell us, Mr. Zansky.”

  Eytan looks at me like I’m nuts. The seniors lick their lips.

  “I went to Hyannis Port with my family a few summers ago,” I say. “We were walking through town, and my sister got lost. She was, like, seven, and she wandered away from us in the crowd.”

  Eric makes a loud yawning sound. I want to crawl into a hole and die, but I can’t give up so easily with April listening.

  “Right away my folks started blaming each other,” I say. “Mom said it’s Dad’s fault Jessica got lost because he wasn’t paying attention. Dad said it’s Mom’s fault because she was supposed to hold her hand. But probably it was nobody’s fault. I mean, Jess is a kid and she got distracted, right? But they were so freaked out they just yelled at each other and bolted in different directions. So I stopped and I tried to think like Jess. Where would she go? What does she like? And I looked behind us and I saw these shirts hanging in a doorway that have all kinds of animals on them, like cutesy Asian stuff.”

  I shouldn’t have said “cutesy Asian stuff.” Maybe that’s an insult to April. Maybe now she thinks I’m a jerk. I glance at Nancy Yee for a status check, but she’s sketching in a little book.

  “What happened then?” Ms. Hartwell says.

  “I pulled my parents into the store, and we found Jessica.”

  “News flash. You’re from a dysfunctional family,” the Goth girl says.

  Half the class cracks up.

  “What’s your point?” Justin says.

  I don’t know what my point is. I don’t know why I told this story. I glance at the clock, hoping lunch is coming soon.

  “Well?” April says. She sounds kind of snooty, and I hate her for it.

  I take a deep breath. Focus.

  “I guess my point is that Jessica got lost, and right away my parents started making up stories about it. Nobody bothered to find out what really happened. They couldn’t even see the truth. That’s what history really is. It’s people making up stories to suit themselves. Different countries, different parties, different stories.”

  “Whoa,” Eytan says. “That’s deep.”

  Ms. Hartwell nods. “How do they tell the story now, Mr. Zansky?”

  “They don’t,” I say. “They split up.”

  Everyone’s quiet for a second, and then Justin rubs his fist on his eyes. “Waaah,” he says like he’s a baby crying. The class giggles uncomfortably.

  “Screw you,” I say really loudly. I feel good about saying it. At least until Justin stands up and cracks his neck like a weightlifter. Come to think of it, Justin is a weightlifter.

  “You want to repeat that?” Justin says.

  I glance towards Ms. Hartwell, and her eyes are jumping around like she doesn’t know what to do. She might have ideas, but she’s never had real students to teach them to. Real students are trouble, and I can see she doesn’t know how to handle it.

  Justin stares at me, his palms out by his sides. “What’s up, bro? You got something to say to me?”

  The class is really quiet.

  I know I’m supposed to do something, say something, take him on in some way. But I can’t. I’m totally frozen. I try to meet April’s eye, but she won’t look at me now. She just stares at her desk.

  That’s when Ms. Hartwell pulls it together. “All right. That’s enough,” she says.

  Justin sits down, but he takes his time doing it, sinking slowly. Just before his ass hits the seat, he coughs and says, “Fag” under his breath. A couple guys laugh.

  “Let’s get back to work,” Ms. Hartwell says.

  “That guy is ass lint,” Eytan whispers to me. “Don’t let it faze you.”

  “It doesn’t,” I say. I want to be a guy who doesn’t give a crap. I want to be a guy who doesn’t get fazed.

  I want to be a lot of things, but I’m not.

  eytan meets the new girl.

  Eytan and I walk out of class together. As soon as we’re clear, he pulls me aside.

  “Is that the April you were telling me about?” he says.

  Before I can answer, April walks out of class alone.

  “Give me two seconds,” I tell him, and I peel away. I have to do something before I chicken out again.

  “Hey,” I say to April. Not what you’d call a brilliant opening line.

  “Hey,” she says, but she doesn’t sound happy about it. It’s not like yesterday when she was teasing me. Maybe I look better with a table of éclairs behind me.

  “Remember me?” I say.

  “The big jock, right?”

  “Yeah.” I smile. She doesn’t smile, but at least she remembers. I glance over my shoulder at Eytan. He’s watching me with a curious look on his face. I don’t think he’s ever seen me talking to a girl except maybe Nancy Yee. But she’s not really a girl. More of stick figure with an accent.

  “Do you go here?” I say to April.

  “Now I do,” she says. “My dad got transferred over the summer.”

  “Interesting,” I say.

  I can feel my heart beating in my chest. The last time I went to the doctor, he had to press the stethoscope into me really hard because he couldn’t hear well through my fat. But my heart’s banging away so hard right now, it feels like I don’t have any fat at all. It’s tapping right against the front of my chest. What if I die of a heart attack in front of April? What if her last memory of me is 306.4 lbs. pounds of blubber collapsing at her feet like a dead walrus?

  Eytan’s slides in next to me. “Eytan Michaeli,” he says, and exten
ds his hand.

  “I’m April,” she says, and they shake.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you from Dr. Zansky here,” Eytan says, and he puts his arm around my shoulders. April looks at both of us like we’re maniacs. I know Eytan’s trying to help me, but he’s making it worse.

  “April’s a new student,” I tell him.

  “You fell down the rabbit hole, huh?” he says.

  “If you have questions about anything …,” I say.

  “It would be our pleasure to assist you in navigating the madness,” Eytan says.

  We stand there for a second, Eytan and me on one side, April on the other. People are looking at us with the new girl, and I can see it’s making April uncomfortable. You have to be careful who you stand next to when you’re new. Eytan and I are not exactly status builders.

  “I have to get to class, guys,” April says.

  “Absolutely,” I say. “You don’t want to make a bad first impression.”

  April kind of shrugs like she doesn’t need my advice. Then she takes off.

  “That was your girlfriend?” Eytan says when she’s gone.

  “Sort of. I’m hoping. You know.”

  “Okay, here’s my assessment,” Eytan says. “First of all, I’m putting aside the fact that you lied to your best friend.”

  “I didn’t lie exactly.”

  “Your shwanz is making up stories. It’s normal. Hormone-induced psychosis.”

  “I admit I stretched the truth.”

  “So here’s the thing,” Eytan says. “Normally, she’d be way out of your league. No offense.”

  “None taken,” I say. He’s right about April being out of my league. I know it.

  “But seeing as how she’s new … you might have a chance. You just have to act fast. That’s how I got in with Sveta last year. What chance did I have with a hot German exchange student, right? So I moved at the speed of light. Blitzkrieg, baby. I had to impress the hell out of her before she had anyone to compare me to.”

  “You think that will work for me?” I say.

  “Only if you dazzle her,” he says.

  I bite my thumbnail. I’m starting to feel hungry again.

  “Fast,” Eytan says.

  long-distance dad.

  “Do you believe in love at first sight?” I ask Dad.

  I’m hiding in my bedroom on the cell while Mom watches TV in the living room downstairs. She hates it when I talk to Dad, especially if she’s not around to monitor the call.

  “Love at first sight,” Dad says. “You mean like in a fairy tale?”

  “In the real world.”

  I look down at the iPhone Dad gave me for my birthday. His picture is staring out at me. For some reason, he doesn’t quite fit in the frame. His forehead is chopped off. I’m trying to remember the last time I saw him in person. I’m pretty sure he had a forehead, but it’s been a while.

  “I met this girl,” I say.

  Dad interrupts me. “I don’t want to talk about this, Andy. We have bigger fish to fry.”

  Dad likes to get down to business. It’s because he’s a lawyer, and lawyers bill by the hour. Dad’s life is measured in billable hours, six minutes at a time. Ergo:

  a six-minute phone call to Andrew = $35

  a fight with Mom = $140

  going to the bathroom (#1) = $5.83

  going to the bathroom (#2) while reading The New Yorker =$70

  messy divorce = $1.4 million

  I understand how billable hours gives a different perspective to everything. Time is money after all.

  Anyway, I know what fish Dad’s talking about. School.

  Now that sophomore year has started, Dad’s worried. Not half as worried as I am. I’m the one who had to live through ninth grade.

  Dad interrupts me. “It’s a whole new year,” he says, “which makes it like a new start. You know what I mean?”

  “I know.”

  I had a few hundred issues my freshman year, and Dad’s concerned I’m going to have a few hundred more this year.

  “You’re starting behind the eight ball,” Dad says. “They’ve already had a good long look at you. A whole year’s worth of impressions. That means you have to overcome before you can triumph.”

  “That’s exactly my plan,” I say.

  Dad doesn’t say a word. The line is totally clear, not a crack or a pop. Just three dollars’ worth of silence. When Dad and I stop talking, it feels scary, like looking into a canyon from the very edge.

  “What’s it like in New York?” I say to try and change the subject.

  Dad’s been commuting back and forth, making the transition to the new office.

  “It’s an amazing city. Really something special. Like Boston times three, if you can imagine that.”

  “Maybe I can go down there with you one time.”

  “What do you mean?” Dad says.

  “Before you move. Just so I know what it’s like.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m still getting settled,” Dad says. “But once things calm down a bit, we’ll make a plan.”

  “I could come one weekend, maybe. I’ll take the train so it will be cheaper.”

  Mom walks by my bedroom door. “Who are you talking to, honey?”

  “My friend,” I say. Mom usually checks the cell bill at the end of the month and scans it for Dad’s number. That’s the downside of a family plan. Surveillance. The upside is that she won’t know I lied to her for twenty-four days.

  “I have to go,” I tell Dad.

  “Good boy. Don’t upset the apple cart.”

  I click off, and Mom looks at me suspiciously. “Did you do your homework?”

  “We’ve only had one day of school, Mom.”

  “Well, don’t scream at me. I’m your mother, and I want you to go to college.”

  “I’m so not having this conversation,” I say.

  this theory I have in the middle of the night.

  I’m standing in Coolidge Corner on a winter afternoon. It’s really cold out, and I have to blow on my hands and slap them together to keep warm. I try to pull my jacket closed, but it’s a size too small and the sides won’t meet.

  Suddenly I hear brakes squeal as the T stops two blocks away.

  April gets off.

  She’s wearing a red coat, and even from far away I can tell she looks really beautiful. It takes her a minute to see me, but when she does, a big smile crosses her face, and she starts to run towards me….

  That’s when I wake up.

  Crap. It was one of those dreams that you don’t know is a dream until after it’s over.

  My whole body is hot and tingling. It feels like April was right here with me. I can even smell her in the bed next to me. That’s totally crazy because I’ve never been in bed with a woman, and I barely know what April smells like in the first place. Something fruity. That’s all I remember.

  That’s when a theory pops into my head. It’s a theory about love at first sight.

  I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight. It’s kind of fairy-tale stuff. But then I start to think, what if love at first sight is the wrong name for it? What’s if it’s really love at second sight? Maybe you fall for someone in one life, and then you don’t see them for a thousand years or whatever. Your heart totally forgets about them. Then you meet again, and it remembers.

  Maybe that’s what happened to April and me. We met a long time ago, and when I saw her at the wedding, I didn’t know her, but my heart remembered her.

  The problem is her heart didn’t remember me.

  Okay, theory number two.

  Maybe when we met the first time, I was thin—really thin, like a guy who wears size 29 jeans. Or a size 29 toga or whatever. That’s why April’s heart couldn’t recognize me now. It was thinking about the thin guy from the past, and that didn’t match the guy standing in front of her.

  So she saw me, and maybe she had a little déjà vu, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

  Sh
e needed more time to get to know me. Her heart needed more time.

  That’s the thing about being fat. People can’t see the real you, so you have to work really hard to show them.

  Now I’ve got a second chance, but I have to work fast. Like Eytan said. Super fast.

  Love at second sight. I can’t tell if this is some brilliant idea, or just one of those thoughts you have in the middle of the night that seems ridiculous when you wake up. Dad used to say you shouldn’t trust yourself after two beers or after midnight. I’ve never had a beer, but I look at the clock and see it’s 2:30 a.m., way after midnight.

  I write myself a little note and put it on my night table. Remember love at second sight, it says.

  I close my eyes and try not to think about April. Eventually I fall asleep. Maybe I dream of her, but if I do, I don’t remember.

  a bad bounce.

  I’m not sure I believe in God, but there are times when I could really use him. Right now for instance. Gym class.

  We have to wear shorts in gym. It’s mandatory. And because the weather is still nice, Coach Bryson has us outside on the soccer field. That means I’m standing in bright sunlight with my elephant legs exposed. I wouldn’t mind wearing shorts if I went to a school for the blind. I’d feel very comfortable there. But in the middle of the day surrounded by thin guys with 20/20 vision and the girls about to show up any minute?

  This is where I could really use God. I know he can’t make me instantly thin or strike the entire sophomore class blind, but I need one small favor from him.

  I need him to put April in a different gym class.

  Is that too much to ask? Just put April in a different gym class so she doesn’t see me running in shorts. Then when she thinks about me, she can think about my brain rather than my blubber.

  Coach Bryson surveys the field with his hands on his hips and a whistle clenched between his teeth. He’s got a big chest and a thick moustache like a seventies porn star. Some of the guys call him Magnum P.I. He blows the whistle and shouts, “Let’s warm up, gentlemen. I don’t want any of you superstars tearing a crotch muscle.”