by Chris Lynch
Frank went straight to June, and was already on the dance floor before anybody else even started with their chat-up lines. Then I was there standing in his wake, having sort of blindly followed along behind him, into June’s circle of friends, where I was face-to-face with Sally.
Was this what I’d intended? This wasn’t what I’d intended. Wait a minute. What was I intending?
“Did you do the right thing?” Sally said, grim look on her face.
Holy smokes. Holy, holy...
“Course he did,” Frankie said from a few feet away. Dancing, listening, talking to June for himself, talking to Sally for me. Taking no chances. Working all the levers.
“You did the right thing?” She was not convinced, but she was willing to be. Her face brightened a bit.
The right thing. The right thing? Did I even know what the right thing was? I could almost hear the snappling in my head, like a frayed electrical wire.
“Elvin Bishop,” Sally said, snapping her fingers in front of my face.
“Elvin,” Frank called, making the get on with it rolling gesture with his hands.
Voices. Music. Stuff. Ugly puppies. That buzzy feeling in my belly. There was a point. Where was it? Did something bad. Wanted to do something good.
“She got a friend for me?” came the voice of the individual glommed like a mussel to my stern. It was the fat kid.
I wanted to be kind. I am kind. I used to be fat. I used to be kind.
It used to be simpler.
“I told you. Nobody’s got a friend for you.”
“Ya,” he said, “but you got lots of girls. Couldn’t you introduce me to one?”
Lots of girls?
I was looking straight at Sally, who was looking up at the ceiling. I was thinking about... who, now? Somebody else. Confused, I was here now... Sally... Sally is very pretty, isn’t she... Sally, who was now tapping her foot, checking her watch, whistling—the fully mimed version of time passing.
And passing it was. Frank had by now circled around behind me, placed his hands on my hips, and was guiding me toward Sally. “Ya, it was hard, but Elvin’s a stand-up guy in the end. He did the right thing, Sally, and your rep is back in order.”
She smiled. Not, like, joy, or love or anything. Just, okay, good enough. So she tugged me out of the harbor and into the deep water. Mid dance floor.
I was at first just happy to be there. Found myself mostly just watching, as Sally danced in front of me, dancing, yes, like girls dance. Which is to say, dancing well. Her weight shifted from one foot to the other, smoothly, a slow transfer of power in the middle of a fast dance. She looked into my face, and nodded, and one of her hands flew up and away, like a bird, out, flutter, then returning, to her hip. All done like it was supposed to be done just that way, no other way. As of this point, it was not quite eating at me, that I was here as a fraud. That I was, in fact, still the rat she thought I was. That, if she knew the truth... ooohh, let’s not go there. Let’s go back. Her face. Sally’s neat unblemished peach-colored confident face showed nothing that shouldn’t occur to a face on a dance floor. You could not tell she was thinking about dancing, the way I was sure you could see the whole complicated process on my furrowed, sweaty brow. You could not see calculations or pressures or who’s-looking-at-me on Sally’s face, because it was apparent that Sally did not care. You could not see that I had told a lie about Sally, and that there were probably a lot of people in that hall thinking about that lie at that minute. Why couldn’t you see that? I would expect to see that.
“I suppose I deserved it... a little,” Sally said, looking off over my head as she said it. “I pulled one on you, you pulled one on me. Now that we’re all clear, we’re square.”
Oh. Ow.
I stopped dancing. I stood flat-footed and, I guess, stared at her. Reality, just when you’re getting the engine started up on your denial, is a cold shot. We were not all clear. We were not square.
“I’m still pulling one,” I said, not loud enough to be heard over the music.
But loud enough to be heard by my mentor. “Excuse us,” Frankie said, bumping me, manhandling me off the dance floor while both of our partners continued dancing without us. He hustled me all the way to the snack table, where Mikie was.
“Talk some sense to this guy,” Frank said to Mike as he grabbed himself a drink. “He listens to you. Tell him not to blow it with Sally.”
Mike cracked a huge cookie in half, gave me the smaller piece. “Okay. El, don’t blow it with Sally.”
Frank finished his drink, made a snort noise. “Fine,” he said. “I got business. Can’t be wasting my time...” And he was gone back to the dance floor.
“I’m afraid I’m disappointing him,” I said. But as I said it, I realized I couldn’t manage to care. “I’m going to tell the truth about Sally. I meant to already, but got sidetracked. Anyway, know what? Know what’s weird, Mike?”
Mikie waited. This was an old, old story. The difference was, this time I was saying it was weird before he had to tell me.
“I’m not, like, all upset that Sally’s not gonna like me. Even though she’s great and every guy probably wants to go out with her.”
He turned to look her way. There she was, still dancing, but not by herself anymore. I looked at the guy dancing with her and thought, for no good reason, Ah, she could do better. She could have...
“Hey,” I said, “why don’t you talk to her? Now that makes sense.” The more I thought about it, the more sense it did make. “Ya. Right. That’s what bothers me, I think. I don’t fit there. But you do. Interested?”
Mikie continued looking, started smiling, looked interested. Then turned to me.
“Nope,” he said, shrugging.
That appeared to be that. No, though.
“How come?” I asked, and it was surprisingly hard coming out.
“Truth?” Mikie asked me.
Simple enough proposition there. Truth. Truth? Like in, did I want the truth? Well, easy, no? Isn’t the answer to that always yes?
No. Of course it isn’t.
But.
“Yes,” I said. “Truth.”
Best friend I ever had. Makes a difference.
“Truth is, El, I have no idea. I mean, really, I have no idea why not.” He shrugged.
It was a big shrug. Not an I don’t care, either movie is fine with me shrug. It was more of a no answer there, let’s shelve this for now shrug.
“What about you?” Mike asked. “What’s your excuse?”
This was one of those moments, one of the million moments. Where without necessarily telling me anything, Mikie told me something. But then he told me not to pursue it, either. And so I would need to tell him something too. Not as a trade, but as a want.
I scanned the place, suddenly, madly, seeking. I put a hand on Mike’s shoulder so he could be ready when I wanted to force him to see what I saw. Then my eyes rested, off to the side, just off the main dancing area of the floor, where that girl, the round-faced curlicue girl who would not tell me her name, where she passed by with a cookie and a Kool-Aid.
“That’s the girl I can’t stop thinking about,” I said.
He looked at her. Looked at her, nodded, then looked at me.
“So don’t,” he said.
Right there. That was the moment. If Mikie said so, I knew I was right.
“Help me,” I said.
“No way.” He backed up like I had yet another creepy medical problem. “That’s not my game. Get Frank to help.”
“Impossible. Frankie had a plan for me, and I’m breaking from his plan so he’s gonna be all mad. And besides...” It hit me then, like it was personal, like somehow I was wounded. “Frankie thinks she’s... I don’t know. Not quite. Not, like, enough, or something.”
Mikie looked at her one last long time, over there munching her cookie.
He was gentle with me. “Or that she’s a little more than enough?” he said.
I nodded.
&nb
sp; Like a human bulldozer, he circled behind me and plowed me toward the round-faced girl of my dreams.
What was it about these dances? If I could get the girls to manhandle me the way the guys did...
There was no great surprise on her face when we finally reached her. We were pretty obvious. “Hi,” Mikie said confidently from over my shoulder. Maybe that’s what I should have done, come in with a human shield.
“Hi,” she said.
“My name’s Mike, and this is Elvin.”
“Hi. My name’s Barbara.”
Wow. Mikie was great at this.
He didn’t have to shove me anymore, so he stood back and let me waver on my own. She seemed somehow friendlier now, softened somewhat. We stood for a minute or so grinning at each other kind of stupidly. At least hers was stupid. Mine I couldn’t see, but I could assume.
The time of my life. That’s exactly what it was.
“What are you doin’, Elvin?” Frank asked. Accused, really. He pulled on my arm, making me spill splotches of pink sugar water all over the varnished floor. I didn’t even realize I had a drink in my hand.
“Shaddup, Franko, is what I’m doing. Get outta here.” I yanked my arm back, spilled most of what was left of my drink.
“All our hard work... you were on the brink. You were a couple of rungs away from climbing out of the dry well of your sorry little life.” He made a big showy gesture in the direction of Sally, like he was a magician and was about to saw her in half. “Sally, for god’s sake, El. Remember Sally?”
“I’m thirsty,” Barbara said, and walked away. In the opposite direction from the drinks table.
“Now look what you did, bonehead,” I said.
Frank was about to respond when Mikie—who apparently found something he liked to do at dances—started muscling him away. “You’re on your own now,” Mike said.
“Good,” I said, and scurried off to find Barbara.
If this was a movie, you know, where things work out right and the music matches every mood and the backgrounds never get in the way of the action, and when you want dreamy or sad or romantic you get dreamy or sad or romantic, then I would have found Barbara outside the gym, leaning on a fresh-waxed copper-colored convertible or under a young maple tree, kicking at the roots with her toe. And either way, the dance music would settle down on us like a friendly warm mist that just visited and didn’t disturb anything.
But it was not a movie. It was my real life.
I found Barbara sitting on the edge of the auditorium stage, her back against one throbbing speaker as something scary—the Beach Boys or something—fell out of it. We had to scream at each other.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“I thought I lost you.”
“Your friend is a dirtbag.”
“Oh,” I said, reaching back into the mental file of all the times I’d had to try and explain Frankie to people. “Well, no, Frankie, he’s not a dirtbag. He’s just... handsome.”
I shrugged. Somehow, I just expected her to understand that. The way I pretty much always had. I hoped, hoped, anyway, that it would work that way. Boy, did I need her to understand.
She nodded. She did, did understand.
Mostly.
“He can be both, you know,” Barbara said, still nodding.
She got me nodding. I got her grinning. The reflective white crescents of her cheeks again came up and arced high above where any cheekbone could follow. Her eyes hid again behind them. I think I sighed.
“What?” she asked. The music was still swamping us, but still leaving me audible apparently.
“You heard that?” I asked.
“I heard something come out of you, but I don’t know what it was exactly. That’s why I said, ‘What?’”
Good, she didn’t hear it. Gotta be cool. Sighing like that so soon wouldn’t be cool. Good, good, she missed it, that was a close one. Whew.
“What?”
“Nothing. Did I say ‘whew’? Sorry. Nothing.” Jeez, how long have I been going around saying everything I think? Dangerous trend there. How lame am I that I didn’t know? Why didn’t anybody tell me?
The song changed. Thank goodness. Crap. More surfer music. I could swear it was the same song if they hadn’t stopped the music, paused, and started up again. The dopes.
“I love these old beachy songs,” Barbara said, starting to sway.
“Absolutely,” I said, starting to sway.
The one of us who was telling the truth even closed her eyes to love the music an extra bit. I realized how hard I was staring at her when I felt my eyelids pulling down along with hers.
But I caught them just in time. To some jolt in the tune, some spasm of rhythm or melody that I could not hear but that oh boy could I appreciate all the same, Barbara toggled.
Toggled. Her head, her rounder than earth, smoother than ice cream face tilted this way then that, back this way then again. The curls, hanging lower, shinier with the heat, brushing her cheek, touching her shoulder, falling around her eyes until with two dimpled hands she swept the whole hairy killing me dead mess back up and over and out of her way again.
Out of my way.
She did it two or three quick times, the toggle, as if she were trying to shake something out of her ears, and the effort didn’t trouble her one bit.
Troubled me. Troubled me crazy.
She caught me, and god only knows what a sweaty pervert I must have looked like because she immediately shrank away from me, leaning all the way back into the speaker, sinking there like into a wingback chair.
Merely startled, however. She toggled once more. A gift. And you know why? Because she had no idea she was giving it to me. She was just enjoying herself. And I was just enjoying herself.
“I love it because it makes me think of nothing,” Barbara said, referring to the sounds swirling around her head. “The surf stuff. It makes me think of just nothing, and I like my music to do that. A good feeling for no good reason.”
And so. I stood, still and silent and sappy, staring up at her there. And just as I was learning to love the surf, after I had already gotten the good feeling for what I thought was a pretty darn excellent reason, they pulled the plug. Just like that. Music over. Dance over.
And though I knew it made no sense, I felt like everything was over. When the lights came up—they weren’t very down to begin with—a panic filled my belly and I wanted to make a sound like a seagull.
I at least managed not to do that. But...
“I have puppies,” I said as I awkwardly rushed the stage to help Barbara with the short trip down. Where do I put my hands? Do I speak? Here, Barbara, let me grab something? Here, Barbara, grab onto me. Or hell, I should just drop to the floor and let her bounce off me like a moon walk. I’d do it, if that were the thing. What was the right thing for a guy to do here?
By the time I’d finished bumbling, of course, she was down off the stage, with her back toward me. She never even knew I was being gallant.
“Puppies?”
“Ya, a whole bunch of them. Wanna see ’em, Barbara? You can have one. You can have more than one, even. They’re really sweet. And they’re beautiful.” Please god, this’ll be my final lie, don’t strike me down...
I waited ten seconds. No lightning. Oh well, good. Maybe I could paint them or something before she came over.
“BB.”
“Huh?”
“It’s what my friends call me. Not Barbara. Although you can still call me Barbara if you prefer.”
Dropkick me Jesus, I was now all the way intimate, with such a pretty girl. Such a pretty girl. I didn’t know what Frankie was thinking, what he thought was a pretty girl but... holy smokes, I kept feeling like I wanted to reach out and just put a hand on her face like they tell you you can’t do to the artwork in the museum.
“Whoa, you okay there, Elvin Bishop?” Barbara asked, grabbing my elbow just before I lost my footing entirely.
Did you hear that?
the way she said all of my name, just like that?
“Ya, thanks, I just slipped in some bug juice there. Dangerous stuff, y’know?” I paused. A spastic pause. Followed by a blurt. “Barbara, though.”
“Huh?”
“Barbara, I think is prettier. Than BB. Suits you better. It’s what I would call you... y’know, if you were letting me call you something.”
“And I will call you Elvin, unless you prefer something else.”
I’d answer to anything. So I just nodded.
I stood outside as the sisters of our sister school were shoved back on their bus. I waved, and was waved at. I smiled, and was smiled at. She blinked. I heard it—the swoosh of her eyelashes. I waved again, just a small, doofus wave to see if it was real, if I could get one back again. I did. I looked around to see who could see but, funny enough, they all had their own stuff to see.
I wanted to make the bus stay. I wanted to keep Barbara there in the parking lot. Or to accompany them, running alongside the bus, beneath her window. Just to talk. Or to listen would be fine.
And not to make one single joke, even.
Rare Company
LIFE, I WOULD DARE to say, was on the upswing.
Physically, I was just a shadow of the Elvin I once was. I felt strong and lean. I didn’t want to eat every minute because, to my surprise, I found there was other stuff to do. And when I had to get from point a to point b, I walked rather than slunk.
And I barely suffered the slightest lingering effects of my old, debilitating medical issue.
Love can work miracles.
Okay, love and EXTREME UNCTION.
So I used it, all right? I don’t know what the secret was—and judging from Darth’s manner and his references to the import trade, I probably don’t want to know—but I don’t think a visit with the Pope could have been as transforming as my private anointings with UNCTION.
So it was only right. I had to settle up two scores. I had to pay for The Cure, and I had to once-and-for-all come clean on the Sally lie. I stopped hiding from Darth in bathrooms and lockers and teachers’ lounges, all of which was pretty much of a joke anyway since the Witness Protection Program couldn’t hide you from him if he really wanted you.
