The Danger of Being Me

by Anthony J Fuchs

  I paused there as Amber stood from her seat. She shouldered her own backpack as she deposited her exam on top of the growing pile on Mrs. Troshak's desk. Then she was moving in my direction, and I felt my heartbeat quicken in my throat when I saw her caramel eyes.

  "Mind if I walk you out?" I asked her.

  Her lips curled into that beauteous smile, setting me to rights in an instant. She brushed by me, and I followed her out into the hall, merging into the current of teenagers. We turned a corner as locker doors clanked around us like the bowels of some vast industrial machine.

  "So how do you think you did?" I asked her.

  "Alright. I'm pretty sure I passed." She shrugged. "But I'm still having a little bit of trouble with derivatives."

  I almost laughed, but thought better of it. Instead, I told her, "Differentiation is a bit of an artform. It clicks when it clicks, but when it does, it becomes second nature."

  Amber grinned and shook her head. "Nothing about calculus is second nature. It's not even seventh nature."

  I did laugh at that. We emptied out of the corridor into the main lobby, passing the auditorium as we approached the double doors next to the front office. I stopped, and she stopped beside me as students surged around us. I looked at her, saw those caramel eyes that I would remember for as long as men can breath and eyes can see, and I made a decision. I smiled at her. Better to act than to think.

  "I have a proposition for you," I told her.

  She cocked an eyebrow at me, the corner of her lips flickering into an intricate little grin. "Do you, now?"

  "I do," I told her, nodding. "I said I wanted to adapt a scene from Cyrano for World Lit, and I finally discovered my hook." I paused, remembering. "At 2:30 this morning. Watching a marathon of Mission Genesis reruns on Sci-Fi. Hopped up on four No-Doz and a two-litter of Jolt."

  I shook my head, laughing. "None of which matters." I pushed the strap of my bookbag higher up my shoulder. "I now have a story to go with my idea, and most of a script to go with my story. What I don't have is a cast, but I do have it on good authority that you are an actress."

  "And a Pisces," she added. "All us leaplings are."

  I blinked at her. "You were born on February 29th?"

  "I was," she told me. "But not on purpose."

  I grinned at her. "So you're only four-and-a-half?"

  "And to think I've never heard that joke before."

  I laughed as I felt that scarlet flush creeping out of my collar. "Sorry."

  "I'll give you a pass this time because you're secretly kinda sexy," she told me, flashing that beauteous smile of hers. "But only because you don't seem to know it."

  I paused. She watched me think until I grinned, shaking my head again. "That's my proposition. Combine our talents and hand Dr. Lombardi something unique. Something memorable. An Everett-Chandler production."

  She considered for several long moments, then asked me, "I'm the only actor you know personally, aren't I?"

  "You absolutely are," I admitted. She laughed, and I added, "But you brought depth and breadth to Meg Boyd. Shannon Bolin's got nothing on you." She smiled at that. "If you're not the best then I don't want the best."

  This time she nodded. "Get me a script by tomorrow afternoon, and I'll get you a cast by Saturday morning."

  I watched her caramel eyes, saw that she was sincere. "That's what I like to hear," I said, grinning.

  Amber smiled again and nodded but she didn't move. She cast a distracted glance down at her pink Puma Anjans before looking back to me. I waited her out, and saw her make a decision. "I'm going out with some friends to shoot pool at the Morris tomorrow night. You should come."

  "Tomorrow night," I repeated, just to say something. I briefly considered my mental calendar, and then realized that it didn't matter if I had other plans tomorrow night. I looked at Amber, and I smiled. "Yeah. Sure."

  She flashed a quick grin, blew out a long breath that I didn't realize she'd been holding. She seemed curiously relieved as she backed away from me toward the double doors next to the front office. Or maybe I imagined it. I must have imagined it. "Eight o'clock," she called out, raising her voice over the noise. "Bring your A-game."

  I watched her go, and felt myself grinning. I couldn't help it. She was out of earshot and lost in a sea of shifting bodies in between by the time I said, "I always do."

  I stood there in the crowded main lobby for a handful of seconds, a static point of reference in the midst of chaos. Tomorrow night. Eight o'clock. The Morris. I laughed out loud suddenly, ignoring sidelong glances from my fellow students. I was going to shoot pool with Amber Chandler and some friends. I laughed again. How about that.

  I headed back down the hall, passing a string of posters advertising a ska-punk concert at the Prophecy Creek Rec Center by a local band calling itself Chorduroy. I'd never seen the group perform, but I had heard good things about them. I decided that I would have to go see one of their concerts sometime. And I would take Amber.

  7.

  I pushed through the heavy door into the newsroom.

  A dozen teenagers milled about the room, waiting for Mrs. Kraven to arrive so that the production meeting could begin. I spotted Gale hunched over the blank front-page lay-out sheet at the center table, but she ignored me as I passed her on my way to the computer. Ethan sat at the station, considering a notebook page of mostly illegible scrawl that he'd propped up next to the monitor.

  "How is it," he asked without turning to me, "that these uncultured bloody miscreants manage to dress themselves in the morning? Case in point," he said, leaning toward the page, squinting at the writing, "'Spice World is totally great. The chicks are hot, the soundtrack gave me an eargasm, and Victoria Beckham is majorly bangable'."

  Then he turned to look at me, his expression blank as he shook his head. "The computer says that neither eargasm nor bangable are even real words." He tore the page away from the monitor, waved it at me. "So what am I supposed to do with this kind of irredeemable garbage?"

  I shrugged. "She asked me out."

  He blinked at me, then looked at the horrendous movie review in his hand, undoubtedly wondering what one had to do with the other. He looked back up to me, watched my face for a few seconds, then turned in his seat to face the computer again and propped the handwritten page next to the monitor. He typed as he asked, "Who did?"

  "Amber Chandler," I told him.

  He coughed out a laugh. "The leapling?"

  I smirked behind him. "How does everyone else know that she was born on February 29th?"

  "She's the only one in our class," Helen said as she passed by me on her way to the bay of lockers.

  "Really?" I said. "Out of all 373 of us?"

  I heard Gale from my left, though she didn't bother to look at me as she told me, "She's one of a kind."

  I turned to Gale, watched her examine the blank front-page lay-out sheet on the center table, and nodded.

  "So she asked you out?" Ethan asked. "On a date?"

  "No," I said too quickly. "With some friends."

  Gale snorted, then coughed to cover it up. I ignored her as Ethan asked me, "Are you sure?"

  "She told me that I should come out with her and her friends to shoot pool at the Morris tomorrow night," I told him. "So I guess I'd say I'm pretty fuckin sure."

  Ethan glanced back over his shoulder at look at me for a moment, then turned back to the monitor and continued typing. "I meant whether you're sure it's not a date."

  "It's not a date," I insisted, laughing. I dropped into the seat next to Ethan, glanced to Helen as she stood fresh lay-out sheets on the upright easels facing the back wall. "I can barely remember the last time a girl asked me out."

  Helen's eyes flicked to mine. She cocked an eyebrow at me in a look somehow both patronizing and curiously alluring, then looked back to her blank pages. The corner of my lips twitched into a wry grin, and then Ethan turned to look at me, and I straightened my expression.

  He smirked, entir
ely unfooled. So I said, "What?"

  He shook his head. "Nothing," he said, laughing.

  I laughed back. "You're a shitty liar."

  "I know," he admitted. He turned back to the monitor, read over what he'd typed, and rubbed his hands together. He grinned at me, nodded, and deleted the entire block of text. Then he tore the handwritten page away from the monitor with a flourish, promptly crushed the sheet into a compact little ball, and flung it over his shoulder.

  I had to laugh when the wad of paper bounced across the center table and landed on the blank front-page lay-out sheet in front of Gale. She glanced over her shoulder to glare briefly at Ethan as he brushed his palms together and sighed. He turned to face me with a contented smile.

  "So," he said. "Wanna review Spice World for me?"

  Gale flicked the offending piece of writing away from her lay-out sheet, and I waved a hand at it. "I'd rather roll an ounce of weed up in that one and smoke it than waste 93 minutes of my life watching a Bob Spiers movie."

  Ethan considered that as the door swung open and Winnie slipped into the room. She headed for the bay of lockers to stow her bookbag, then stepped in behind the pair of easels along with Helen. I watched her for a few seconds, then reached for my bookbag, opened the main compartment, pulled out my faded-green notebook.

  I flipped to the page near the back where I'd written, memorized, immortalized that one brief moment when Amber had caught my eyes and seen me staring at her. I tapped the sheet twice with my fingertip, read the words and then read them again. Then I made my decision.

  I tore the sheet out of the book and stood from my seat, crossing the room to those upright easels. Winnie watched as Helen gestured toward the pair of blank lay-out sheets, describing an idea she'd conceived for part of the eccentric centerspread. Winnie agreed, and Helen headed for the computer station. Winnie stared at the blank pages on those easels for another long moment before turning to me and flashing that broad, endearing smile of hers.

  I smiled back at her, offered her the sheet of notebook paper. She glanced down at it, then back up to my face.

  "I wanted to give you the exclusive," I told her.

  She accepted the page, and scanned the text. "One Brief Moment," she read, and I realized when she smiled that she only had one dimple. I laughed at that, because I had to, and she glanced up. "Someone found his Dark Lady."

  I laughed again, and told her, "Maybe my Beatrice, leading me out of Pugatorio to the gates of Paradiso."

  Winnie smiled again and nodded, folding my sheet as I said, "I'd like the original back when you're done."

  She agreed, and headed across the room to the counter where she stored her calligraphy supplies. I watched her for a moment before I spotted Gale again, still bent over her lay-out sheet, pretending not to eavesdrop. Then she said, "Have you guys started looking at colleges yet?"

  "Nope," I said, forcing a grin across my face.

  Ethan laughed. "I may not even finish high school."

  "I got a full scholarship to UMH," Ben announced.

  "UMH?" Winnie repeated. "Where's that at?"

  Ben grinned. "The University of My House."

  "You've been waiting all year to use that," Helen said, "haven't you?"

  "I've been waiting to use that since sophomore year," Ben admitted, still grinning.

  Helen rolled her eyes at Ben. Ethan turned to look at Gale. "Why?"

  "Just wondering," she answered, so casually that she was almost certainly doing more than just wondering. "The application essays are giving me migraines, and the word around town is that you guys are the bullshit experts." She said it like a compliment, and from Winnie or Helen it would have been. But I saw Gale's hazel eyes flash dangerously, and I heard the malicious edge in her voice. And I didn't like. Not even a little.

  "I am way more full of shit than them," Ben insisted.

  I nodded to Ben. "The man makes a valid point."

  "Don't encourage him," Ethan told me, and I saw his eyes flick from Gale to me and back again.

  "Amber and I were talking about it after chorale yesterday," Gale continued, almost as if she'd been talking about Amber all along. As I watched Gale lean over the center table on her elbows, I realized that, in a way, we had been. "She's already done with her applications. She even applied at the Curtis Institute, and they don't just make you write an essay. They make you audition."

  Winnie looked away from her work on the countertop. "Isn't their admission rate like six percent?"

  Gale nodded. A tiny smile crept across her face, as if that detail were important for some reason known only to her. Her eyes flicked to mine for an instant, and then Ben laughed, "The admission rate at UMH is 100%, baby."

  "From what I hear," Helen said, laughing in return, "their athletic department is for shit."

  Gale laughed at that, and the sound was genuine this time. Then she glanced back across me, and said, "she won't know for another month, but there's no way she won't get in. I saw the tape. She blew them away."

  "That'd be incredible," Winnie said. "Has anyone from PCHS ever gotten into Curtis?"

  "Never," Gale told her, shaking her head. "Amber's going to be the first."

  "She's destined for greatness," I said, smiling, recalling the night I'd seen her rehearsing for the Spring production. Doing all the work for less than half the credit.

  Gale nodded, and shot me a significant look that I failed to understand. I was beginning to realize that this conversation was somehow between me and her. Gale turned to Helen, and said, "Her dad's an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia." Helen looked blankly at Gale, as if she didn't see the relevance. "He just won the case against that guy who killed those cops last year."

  Helen blinked. "I could have lived a full life without ever learning that particularly piece of information," she said sweetly. I grinned at that. I couldn't help myself.

  "There's a cardiothoracic surgeon over at Prophecy General," Ben said. His usual sarcasm was absent. "She did my grandmother's triple-bypass a few years ago."

  "That's her mom," Gale confirmed.

  Ethan looked to Ben. "You never put that together?"

  "Never had a reason to," Ben admitted, shrugging.

  "Yeah," Gale said, "they live up there in Brookshire, near the golf course where Tiger Woods plays." Then she turned to look me in the eyes, and I saw her dangerous hazel eyes flash maliciously as she asked casually, "What part of Prophecy Creek do you live in, Michael?"

  From the sudden look of disgust on Helen's face, she was the first to put it together. Then all at once, all of the tumblers clicked into place in my own mind. I pulled in a hard breath, held it for a moment, tried to bite back my response, and failed spectacularly. "Fuck you, Gale."

  Winnie gasped. Ben looked up, and Ethan spun in his seat. Helen was the only one who didn't react. She was still glaring at Gale, who stood and leaned forward with her palms on the tabletop. "What'd you say to me?"

  The room went silent like someone had hit the mute button. That scarlet flush crept out of my collar, but I stared her down from across the room. "Did I stutter?"

  "I'm the editor of this newspaper," she said. I couldn't decide if the fury in her voice outweighed the satisfaction. She had gotten what she wanted out of me. She folded her arms across her chest. "You don't talk to me like that."

  "Take it up with Mrs. Kraven," I recommended, mostly because Mrs. Kraven was not in the room. Not yet. "Until then, I don't talk to you at all." I grabbed my notebook in one curt snap, and as I flipped it closed and crammed it back into my bookbag, I saw Ethan watching me.

  I looked back into his face for a long moment. Then I demanded, "What?"

  He didn't even flinch. "You need some air?"

  I did. I nodded roughly, and he pushed out of his seat.

  "We're not done here," Gale huffed indignantly.

  I turned to respond, and felt that sweltering scarlet veil swirling up around me. But before I could even open my mouth, Ethan had a hand
on my shoulder. I looked down at it, then up to him, then across to Gale where I found Helen standing between her and Ethan. Hellfire flared in her eyes as she stared down the editor. "You're done."

  Gale glared at me. She didn't speak; she didn't move. Ethan started me toward the door, and I emptied out of the crowded, overheated newsroom into the hallway.

  8.

  Immediately around the corner, I spun on my heel and drove my knuckles into the narrow door of a locker hard enough to put a tiny dint into the metal.

  A brassy note clanged out, and a dozen kids turned to look. I ignored them, hissing as a bolt of fire exploded inside my fist and surged up my arm to my shoulder. I stopped next to the locker, shaking out my hand, flexing my fingers. My knuckles felt full of hot sand.

  Ethan shook his head with a lopsided grin. "You're really gonna let her get to you, huh?"

  "I get that I'm a piss-poor nobody from the ghetto of Prophecy Creek." I winced at the shattered glass grinding in my hand. "Does she think I don't know that?"

  I looked up at Ethan. His grin widened. A freshman girl excused herself from beside me and gestured toward the locker I'd just dented. I apologized and followed Ethan through the knot of teenagers. He said, "So you think you two have got a Lady and the Tramp thing going on."

  I considered the analogy as we turned down another aisle. Halfway down the row, Ethan stopped at a locker and started spinning the dial. It was the locker he'd used before he joined the newspaper staff. "Gale obviously thinks I'm some mutt sniffing up Amber's ass."

  Ethan finished his combination and snapped the door open. "She clearly does," he said, glancing to me before reaching to the upper shelf. "To which I say: BFD."

  I watched him dig through the assorted clutter on the shelf until he found what looked like a green cigarette box. He stuffed the box into his pocket, closed the locker, and started around me. He said, "Do you really think that anyone gives a ripe toss what Gale Knox thinks?"