Cycler

by Lauren McLaughlin

  “Yes, but—” I face Alicia Bernstein, who is not even trying to hide the fact that she’s eavesdropping. “You want me to type this up for you?” I say.

  She makes an innocent face for a second, then says, “Whatever. Tommy Knutson’s gay.”

  Ramie points a chopstick at Alicia. “Bi, dude. Google it.”

  Melinda Peters nods sympathetically at me. “He is really cute, though.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I know. Anyway.” I turn my back to them and huddle with Ramie and Daria. “The thing is, I think Tommy might suspect that I’m only doing sticky eyes out of political correctness. So I was thinking that maybe we need to kiss.”

  Ramie raises her eyebrows.

  “I think if he kissed me,” I say, “he’d know that my lust for him is genuine and not political.”

  “I see,” Ramie says. “So you vant to speak in zee language of loffff.”

  “Yeah, Dracula.”

  “No way,” Ramie says. “That was deeply French.”

  “Whatever,” I say. “How can I get him to kiss me?”

  There’s a bit of silence and some chewing; then Daria unleashes the following Einsteinian proposal: “Why don’t you just grab him in the hallway and kiss him?”

  I just look at her.

  “What?” she says.

  “Yeah, Daria,” I say. “Then I can rip off my shirt and shake my boobs in his face.”

  “That reminds me,” Ramie says. She picks out a long strand of seaweed and stares at it before sliding it into her mouth.

  “Ramie,” I say. “Please don’t tell me you ripped off your shirt and shook your boobs in someone’s face.”

  “Yeah,” Daria snorts. “ ’Cause they could deeply sue you for damages.”

  Ramie places her chopsticks down. “Jill,” she says. “Why are we friends with Daria again?”

  “She has a swimming pool.”

  Ramie nods.

  “You guys deeply suck,” Daria says.

  I put my arm around her and give her a peck on the cheek, which, not surprisingly, inspires an improvised round of “lezzy, lezzy, lezzy” from a tableful of sophomore a-holes.

  Yes, I am the subject of homocurious speculation because of my association with Tommy “the gay” Knutson. At least five times a day, someone calls me fag-lover or lezzy, which doesn’t even make sense when you think about it. But since when do cranially challenged homophobes need to make sense, right? Anyway, I will undoubtedly come out of this whole affair a more well-rounded and worldly individual.

  “As I was saying,” Ramie says, “Mr. No-name Window Stalker is an amazing kisser.”

  Oh great. Another spell of pointless blatheration about a guy who Ramie spent exactly half an hour with and who, let’s face it, people, she’ll never see again. But I’m a good friend, so I do not roll my eyes at this. I nod supportively and wait for the right moment to move the conversation back on track.

  “Jill,” Ramie says. “Don’t look at me like that. He is a good kisser. Although he did bite my lip.”

  “Ouch,” Daria says. “On purpose?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Actually,” I say, “I accidentally bit Travis Kitterling while kissing him in seventh grade. It’s an easy mistake to make. It means he’s new at it.”

  “Hey, look.” With a head bob, Daria indicates Tommy, who has entered the cafeteria, looking devastating as usual in his baggy jeans, white button-down shirt and navy blue sweater.

  “I guess he wasn’t absent,” Daria says.

  “Slovenly prep,” Ramie says. “He needs to evolve that look a bit. I’m getting tired of that blue sweater.”

  “Shut up,” I say. “He’s perfect. And this conversation never happened.”

  “Right,” Ramie says. She takes her prom dress picture and puts it back in her bag.

  As Tommy makes his way toward us with his blue backpack slung over his shoulder, he cuts a channel of whispers and stares through the crowded cafeteria.

  “Jheesh,” Ramie says. “This is the longest fifteen minutes in history. Will people ever move on?”

  Tommy shows no sign of acknowledging the chatter, but as he nears our table, Jed Barnsworthy, sitting two tables over, launches a French fry that soars past Tommy’s nose. Tommy stops walking, then slowly turns his face to Jed.

  Jed coughs out “faggot” to thunderous cackles from his toady-boy posse. I want to kill Jed. I want to smash my peanut butter sandwich in his blotchy face. But I’m too late.

  Ramie stands up and yells, “Hey, Jed, when was the last time you saw any action? Or have you and your buddies set up a weekly circle jerk?”

  In eerie unison, the handful of tables within immediate earshot peel with laughter. Then the ripple of reportage makes its way through the cafeteria.

  Jed seethes for a few seconds under the expectant glare of his posse, then says, “Just don’t give us all AIDS, Knutson.”

  While the cafeteria settles to an expectant hush, Tommy stares blankly at Jed and his toady boys. The only motion is from students newly emerged from the clangy kitchen, with looks of silent inquiry on their faces.

  Extracting my legs from the cramped table, I approach Tommy through the pregnant hush.

  “Don’t bother, McTeague!” Jed yells. “You’re not his type.”

  At Jed’s right, wormy Paul Markusak says, “Yeah, you have the wrong-shaped hole.”

  Jed cackles like a hyena.

  As Tommy stares at Jed, his expression changes from blank to curious, as if he could unearth the purpose of Jed’s clodlike idiocy.

  I take Tommy’s hand. “Hey,” I say. “Where were you? I haven’t seen you all day.”

  “Doctor’s appointment,” he says, still staring at Jed.

  “Forget him,” I say. But now I’m aware of all the eyeballs sticking to us. I’ve never had so many people staring at me before.

  As Tommy turns the full burn of his laser-beam eyes from Jed to me, I hear the low murmur of “fag-lover” and the insipid rhythm of “lezzy, lezzy, lezzy” gently blossoming amid the cafeteria’s almost surreal hush. Tommy’s eyes are soft, liquid, vulnerable. Despite his outward stoicism, it’s clear to me now that he has no armor. Everything they say, their gestures, their curious stares penetrate him.

  I try to take his other hand, but he pulls it away.

  “Don’t,” he says. “They’ll just—”

  “I don’t care,” I say.

  And it’s true. Despite the heat rising to my face from all of their sticky eyeballs, I do not care what they think. As far as I’m concerned, the entire cafeteria is filled with losers and the only person worth a dime is standing right in front of me.

  “I mean it,” I say. I take his hand in mine, and this time, he lets me.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he says.

  “I know.” I step closer.

  He flinches for a second but does not pull away. When his eyes lock on to mine in that dreamy liquid way he has, I find myself doing something I never would have thought possible. I lean forward and close my eyes.

  An electrifying moment later, our lips meet.

  The outside world disappears for a precious few seconds, then returns in the form of unrestrained hoots and whistles.

  When I pull my lips from Tommy’s, a French fry lands on my shoulder, followed by a hailstorm of napkins and straws.

  The heat burning my face becomes unbearable. Everyone—and I mean everyone—is staring at us.

  But Tommy is smiling. “You keep surprising me,” he says.

  I keep surprising myself, I think. But I’m too stunned to speak.

  “I like that about you,” he says. He takes my hand and leads me back to the table, where Daria scooches over to make room for us.

  A smile just shy of manic stretches Ramie’s face to its limit. “Now that’s what I call an entrance.”

  I sit down and fumble for my PB and J sandwich, but I’m too nervous to eat. Tommy puts his hand on my knee. “You okay?”


  I nod weakly and stare at my sandwich.

  As suddenly as it all bubbled up, the noise of the cafeteria quiets down.

  Tommy takes his brown lunch bag out of his backpack. “I hate to say it, Jill. But I think your reputation is pretty much destroyed now.”

  “Really?” I say. “I didn’t think I had a reputation.”

  “You do now,” Ramie says.

  Tommy takes a giant bite of his mush sandwich. “Yup,” he says. “Not only are you a fag-lover and a lezzy, lezzy, whatever that is, but you’re the kind of girl who makes the first move.” He shakes his head in mock admonishment. “Very scandalous. What would your mother say?”

  Daria looks up, startled.

  “And I thought you were such a nice girl,” Tommy says.

  “No way,” Ramie says. “Jill’s like one of those people with a secret dark side. You know, like the type that goes all nuts one day and the neighbors say, ‘She was quiet, kept to herself.’ ”

  “Exactly,” Tommy says around a giant mouthful. “You’ll never be homecoming queen.”

  “Homecoming was last October,” Daria says.

  “Oh,” Tommy says. “Well, you’ll never be prom queen, then.”

  A deeply mal silence descends.

  Tommy stops chewing and looks at me. “What?” he says. “Please don’t tell me you’re running for prom queen.”

  “You don’t run for prom queen,” Daria says. “I think they just kind of vote for it. At the prom.”

  Tommy keeps staring at me and all I can do is shove my sandwich into my mouth.

  Tommy turns to Ramie. “You’re not going to the prom, are you?”

  Ramie shakes her head.

  He turns to Daria. Daria, genius at improv that she is, faces me with a look of panic. Tommy turns to me again.

  After swallowing a sticky mouthful of sandwich, I say, “Are you going?”

  “Are you kidding?” he says. “Prom is such a cliché.” He resumes eating his sandwich. “Spend three hundred dollars on a skeevy tux that other people have probably puked in, then rent some tacky limo and play make-believe movie star? No thanks. It’s all marketing. It’s nothing but canned nostalgia.”

  I keep my eyes on my sandwich, but I can feel Ramie’s and Daria’s eyes burning into me. When I finally face Tommy, all I can muster is “Hmmm.”

  “And what about the kids who can’t get dates?” he says. “How are they supposed to feel? Being left out of this big, important social event. It’s mean. The whole thing. It’s cruel.” He takes another big bite of his sandwich. “I wouldn’t be caught dead there,” he says.

  That afternoon, Ramie and I go straight from school to her bedroom for an emergency brainstorming session. Because she thinks better while she’s styling, Ramie insists on beginning construction of my prom dress while we talk. I slide into her mother’s vintage silver ball gown and Ramie cuts into it with a pair of scissors. Outside, the little green buds on the big maple tree by Ramie’s window mock me with their promise of late spring and all that it entails.

  “How could this happen?” I say.

  Ramie finishes cutting a V shape out of the front of the dress, then looks up at me and shrugs.

  “If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” I say. “First he’s bi. Now he’s anti-prom. Is that a thing now? Are there hundreds of you out there? Or do I just have the unbelievably bad luck of knowing the only two anti-prommers at Winterhead High? Do you think he’s right? Do you think the prom is cruel?”

  Ramie stands back and looks at the giant V-shaped hole she’s made. “Well, he does have a point,” she says. “I mean, sure, it’s all magic and disco balls for the popular kids, but what about the Tony Repettos and Marcy LaForges of the world? Turn around.”

  I turn my back to her and catch my profile in her dresser mirror. The silver dress is ugly, but I have faith that Ramie can transform it. Not that it matters anymore. I’m clearly not going to the prom.

  “Yeah, Rames, but where do you draw the line?” I say. “Should there be no dancing because some people are in wheelchairs? Should we close down all the art museums because some people are blind?”

  “Well argued.” She grabs a pile of black tulle from her bed and holds it up to the dress. “You know how I feel about the prom, Jill. But I’m here to support you because I know it’s important. To you.”

  “Jeez, Rames,” I say. “Condescend much?”

  “Plus, this dress is definitely going to the prom.”

  “Great,” I say. “How?”

  She unrolls the tulle on the bed and cuts off a two-foot length. “Well,” she says, “I guess we have to find a way to persuade Tommy that the prom is a worthwhile social event.” She tucks the tulle under the front of the dress and tries to shove it into the top of my underwear. I push her hand away.

  “Jill,” she says, “I have to make sure I have the right kind of tulle.”

  “Well, don’t go sticking your hand in my underwear, you perv. I’ll do it.” I take the tulle from her, face the mirror and tuck it into the front of my underwear. I catch a reflection of Ramie’s bedroom window and the maple tree blowing in the breeze. A strange desire to escape overcomes me, an urge to slip through that window and shinny down her maple tree.

  “Earth to Jill,” Ramie says. “What are you staring at?”

  “Huh?” I shake the thought away, then arrange the black tulle so that it’s visible under the dress. “How’s that?”

  Ramie screws up her face as she stares at it. “It needs structure.” She goes to her closet, pulls free an empty hanger and starts unbending it from its triangle shape.

  “Don’t get costumey,” I say. “You told me you hate that.”

  “I’m glad you were paying attention.” She hands me the hanger. “Unravel that for me.” She returns to her closet and starts shuffling through it.

  I put all my weight into unbending the wire hanger, but I can’t keep my eyes off that maple tree. It calls to me. I shake my head vigorously to empty my mind. “Okay,” I say. “So first we outline the pro-prom argument. Then we have to figure out how to deliver it to Tommy in a way that doesn’t appear desperate or manipulative.”

  “Piece of cake.” Ramie holds up a bright pink tutu and stares at me over the top of it.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Don’t worry.” She throws it on the floor and walks over to me. “So, what’s the pro-prom argument?” She unbuttons the back of the dress and pulls the bodice down. I’m not wearing a bra, and for some reason, I feel self-conscious about being topless in front of her.

  “You okay?” she says. “You look sick.”

  Ramie and I undress in front of each other all the time, so I don’t know why it’s suddenly bothering me. “I’m fine,” I say. “Just cold.” I shiver slightly. “So, the pro-prom argument. Well, first of all, it’s an excuse to get all dressed up and look positively gorgeous.”

  Using a tiny pair of scissors, Ramie starts separating the bodice of the dress from the skirt. “Yeah, Jill. The guy wears the same sweater every day. I don’t think that argument’s going to fly. Actually, you should step out of this.” She yanks the dress down, leaving me naked but for my underwear and a length of black tulle sticking out of them like a grass skirt. Ramie pulls the hair off my neck and lifts it into a loose bun. “Hey,” she says. “You have really great cheekbones. You should cut your hair. A bob, maybe.” She pulls my hair down into a chignon and tries to simulate a bob. “Chin up,” she says.

  I lift my chin.

  She squints at the mirror, then touches the bottom of my chin. “Hmm.”

  “What?” I push her finger away and look at the half-inch scar on the bottom of my chin. “Oh, that. Skating accident.” I reach for my shirt on the dresser.

  “Really?” she says.

  I nod. “Thought I was Tara Lipinski. Wasn’t.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What?” I slide into my shirt and start buttoning it.

  “Nothing,” she
says. “It’s just that Mr. No-name has one exactly like it. Wait, don’t get dressed yet. I want to try something.”

  I stop buttoning my shirt and look at the scar in the mirror again. “Does he skate?”

  “No idea,” Ramie says. “Don’t worry. You can barely see it.” She hands me a faded black tank top with a frayed Pepsi logo on it. Salvation Army, no doubt.

  I sniff it. “I’m not putting that on.”

  “Just try it.” She attempts to unbutton my shirt and I push her hand away forcefully.

  “Jeez,” she says. “You’re so touchy today.”

  I stare at my scar in the mirror. “Ramie,” I say. “How did Mr. No-name get his scar?”

  “I didn’t ask.” She looks at my scar. “But it was exactly like that. Same place, same shape. Everything.” She starts unbuttoning my shirt again slowly, gently, as if deep in thought, the coconut smell of her shampoo evoking a strange sense of déjà vu. “Jill, why hasn’t he come back?”

  “Huh?” I run my finger over the scar while staring in the mirror, but my gaze keeps wandering to the maple tree. If I snuck out the window, I could walk across the porch roof and climb right down. I could make a clean escape. Why do I want to make a clean escape?

  Ramie pulls my shirt open and looks right in my eyes. “Do you think it was a one-night stand?”

  The smell of coconut shampoo envelops me, and the room starts spinning.

  “Whoa.” Ramie grabs my arms. “Jill, are you okay?”

  I drop onto the bed. Ramie sits next to me, and the smell of her hair makes me sick. “Ramie,” I say. “I think something’s happening. I think . . .” I look into her face.

  She looks scared, her big brown eyes wide open and her mouth hanging slack. “What is it?” she says. “Are you getting your period or something?”

  I watch her mouth, the way it opens and closes around the words. Her lips so full and soft.

  “Ramie,” I say. “When was he here last?”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. No-name.”

  “Um.” She looks up at the ceiling. “Two weeks ago? It was the day before you came back to school. The day before your little heart-to-heart with Tommy at the soccer field. Well, the night before.”

  “And you’d never seen him before that?”