“Upward mobility,” I say.
Angel reaches back her hand, and Grimshaw slaps her high five.
After lunch, Grimshaw and I meet in my mother’s office to talk it over.
“Melody,” the principal starts. “I’m really liking this new Melody we’re seeing this year. Active, engaged, really participating.” Without her glasses, her eyes seem very round and bright. “For right now, though,” she says, “I’m thinking we should stick to cheerleading, and really focus on getting those grades up.”
“My grades are up,” Grimshaw says.
“And I think that’s great,” my mother says. “Good for you, really. So our next step should be let’s see if we can really sustain that. Let’s get those good grades locked right in, at least past midterms, and then we’ll see—”
“When?” I ask. “When will we see?”
“January, end of January.” My mother snaps her fingers. “Coming right up. And those good midterm grades will be on your transcript, which is so important for…” She searches the air above Grimshaw’s head for what it might be important for. “For the future, for your future.”
“So … we can’t start a dance team, then?”
“No!” My mother holds both hands in the air as if warding off attack. “I didn’t say that. What I’m saying, what I’m talking about right now, is prioritizing.” She launches into it, she talks about Grimshaw’s transcript, as one’s permanent record, how it communicates to the future. “Who you are, what you’re capable of, it really sends a message.” It’s like if she talks enough, she’ll arrive at some actual logic, if Grimshaw ever wants to … “I don’t know, get a certificate, perhaps, or look into community college.” She keeps talking, as if she can talk her way to reality, when actually we have floated farther and farther away from it, until reality is a distant shore and we’re so far out to sea we don’t even know what direction we’d row in to get back there. And still the principal keeps talking, about how dance should be thought of not as a career, but an avocation, part of a balanced life. She, for instance, although very busy in her profession, loves to sing, “just loves it,” how singing helps her keep her perspective, just let it all go, while I try to think of a single time I have heard this woman sing and can’t come up with one. Grimshaw has long since gone numb. Her face is stone, and her eyes don’t move. Eventually, Mrs. Pentz stops talking, rubs a spot on the desk she just noticed, and asks if there are any questions.
I raise my hand. “Are you on crack?”
* * *
After we get thrown out of the principal’s office, there is still more school left in the day, but we go to our bench in front of the school to wait for Rack and Angel. I feel like crying. I’m so ashamed of my mother I can’t take the cigarette when Grimshaw offers one to me. Ankle-deep in dead leaves, I keep my head in my hands.
“I’m really sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” She lights up. “I’m the stupid one. I should have left town last summer while I had the chance. Now it’s too late.”
“Is Mike gone?”
“Yup.”
I look at the street where I saw the gold Corvette on the last day of school, as if it will always be there, some ghost of it lurking behind those bushes. It occurs to me that I just saw Mike, but she broke up with him, so it doesn’t seem relevant enough to mention. So much is different now, anyway, not just that it was lush and green then and gray and cold now.
“I feel like we’ve just been checkmated,” I say.
“Why does Nanci Lee hate you so much, anyway?” she asks. “She’s so committed to it.”
“I don’t know. I think she might be like Iago, she just likes evil for its own sake. It’s fun for her, messing with people and destroying their dreams.”
But when I look up, Grimshaw is smiling broadly at me.
“What?” I ask.
“That question that you asked your mom at the end almost made it all worth it,” she said. “That was classic Serena.” She throws back her head and laughs. “Promise me that your grades will never get so good that you stop being yourself, okay?” She’s looking at the bank of windows right above the front doors of the high school. For the longest time, it was Mr. Van’s office. Now it’s hers. Grimshaw shakes her head. “I will always love your mom, but … wow.”
“I’m really sorry,” I say. “I don’t think she used to be like that.”
“Yeah,” Grimshaw says. “We definitely should have started playing this game earlier.”
“Well, we didn’t know we were going to be good at it.”
“Time to find a new game,” she says.
“Maybe we should just do it anyway. The dance team. Just go ahead and do it. Do it out of Monique’s. What can they say?”
“No,” she says. “What killed me was how nice she was.” Rack pulls up in front of us. “Once they’re nice to you like that, you’re dead.”
eight
NO MIKE, NO DANCE TEAM, now we’re just high school girls with no future but plenty to think about in the present. When tomorrow dies, you still have today. Be a cheerleader, have friends, laugh, drink, be normal. It’s not so bad. I’d do it, too, if I were her.
For homecoming, the Rockets are playing the Minnechaug Cougars, the only other undefeated team in the conference. Minnechaug is just like Colchis and Linerville and Bavaria, only smaller and grimier. For the first time in eighteen years, there’s going to be a homecoming parade through the middle of Colchis, and each class has to build a float. Somebody will be king and somebody queen. None of this will happen democratically. When the football team started to win, Rack basically assumed command of the high school. When Rack and Angel pick us up at the cemetery every morning, it’s getting cold enough that I have to do my homework wearing gloves. Rack decides to build the senior float down in Scot’s hot-rod shop, which he never rented out. Rack wants to dub Scot the Official Realtor of Homecoming, but Scot says no thanks. It’ll look bad, him being married to the principal. We can use the garage he owns, about two blocks from the high school. Grimshaw’s brothers offer us the use of their flatbed.
At our first meeting, the interested members of the senior class meet at the shop to go through the motions of consensus, even though Rack has already decided what the float is going to be. Her vision is to make a rocket with the slogan Colchis Shoots for the Stars, and she doesn’t expect any dissent. A healthy fraction of the senior class is there. Scot’s shop is a big empty space with the iron arch for lifting motors still in place. Old license plates are nailed to the wall, along with calendars using semiclad females to sell fan belts and car wax and oil filters. There are old automobile seats around the edge to sit on. The pool table is pushed against the back wall with plywood panels and a tarp over it. On it, a foam board model of Versailles is laid out, complete with the missing manor homes.
“What a great place,” Junior Davis says, walking around the shop. “This should definitely be a bar. Colchis needs a bar with a pool table, because I don’t drink.”
Rack takes center stage. “Okay, let’s get started,” she says. She whips out her poster. Her rocket is quite impressive-looking, with purple and gold lettering down the side and a lot of stars and planets dancing around on springs.
“The rocket needs to be about twelve feet high,” she says.
“That’s not big enough,” says Junior. This, for some reason, strikes all the guys as profoundly funny.
“It’s not violent enough, either,” says Tony Beech. Tony smokes pot and captains the badminton team, usually on the same day. “How about something like Hunt the Cougars to Extinction and Then Skin Them and Mount Their Heads on Spikes?” This suggestion proves popular.
“It’s not very sustainable, though,” I put in. “Aren’t cougars an endangered species?”
“It’s not real, Serena.” Junior claps his hand on my shoulder. “It’s only a game. Just a bunch of guys with a football.”
“Can we stop wasting time, please?” Rack cuts in
. “Can we have a vote on Colchis Shoots for the Stars?”
“How about Bomb the Cougars?” Lars Madsen asks Junior.
“No,” Tony says. “Not Bomb. Bomb sucks.” Dozens of dissenting opinions are fielded.
“How about Crush?”
“How about Kill?”
“What do you think their floats will say?”
“Lick the Rockets!”
“Lick my rocket!”
“Is Junior going to be the model for the missile?”
“It’s not a missile!” shouts Rack over all the voices. “It’s a rocket!”
“I can’t be the model,” says Junior. “The trailer’s too small.” Again, all the boys double over laughing.
“How about Castrate?” asks Angel, lighting two cigarettes and giving one to Grimshaw.
Junior howls and covers his crotch.
“How about Excellence, Perfection, Teamwork, Success?” My idea gets booed. “Sorry. Just a thought.”
“Hey—how about Trap?” says a voice that has not been heard yet. Everybody looks around to see who’s talking. It’s Martin Gerard. Martin Gerard is one of those people you never notice unless you’re forced to be his lab partner. But that never seems to bother him. He makes bad puns and always seems to have a drip of toothpaste lather on his shirt.
“How about what?” Rack asks with as much scorn as she can muster.
“Trap!” says Martin, all happy. “As in—Trap the Cougars! My grandfather was a trapper, up in Canada. Those traps are wicked-looking. Big steel teeth.” He bares his teeth at us and bugs his eyes out behind his glasses.
Junior laughs and claps him on the shoulder. “I like it,” he says.
“And the float—” Marty keeps going. “The float could be this giant trap with big teeth, and we could have someone dressed in a cougar suit—”
“Like their mascot—” Lars gets excited. “Let’s kidnap Minnechaug’s mascot!”
“They don’t have a mascot,” Rack sneers. “Nobody has mascots, you dumb-ass.” But it’s too late—Martin’s idea is taking off. Everyone crowds around him, suddenly excited.
“Isn’t there a football play called the trap, too?”
“And then put the slogan Trap the Cougars over the top of the trap!”
Everybody except Rack goes home happy from that meeting, but one thing’s still on my mind. It’s a delicate matter. I call Rack about it. But when I tell her that I think Grimshaw should be homecoming queen this year, she’s offended.
“Serena, queens are elected,” she says. “Everybody votes. What planet do you live on?”
* * *
So a couple of nights later, we get together in Scot’s shop again, to start building a giant trap for the Minnechaug Cougars. Martin has drawn the plans. The boys get out the two-by-fours and start hammering. The girls have collected half-gallon juice containers for the teeth. Then we dip sheets of newspaper in flour paste and drape them around the chicken wire and blow-dry them so that we can spray paint them primer black. Then the boys make a trip to McDonald’s before it closes, and the girls glue the teeth on. The senior float starts to look like a huge pair of dentures.
When Martin comes back from McDonald’s, he has a fit. “That doesn’t look like a bear trap!” he shouts. “It looks like a mouth of a whale! The teeth are supposed to be serrated, you idiots!”
Rack looks at him like he’s so far out of line she can’t even take him personally. “Martin,” she says. “Do you even exist?”
Junior laughs hysterically. Overnight, he seems to have adopted Martin Gerard as his personal mascot.
“How about Hey Cougars, Bite My Missile?” This is my idea. Martin glares at me. It was only a joke, and not a very good one, but I watch incredulously as the idea takes flight. They take out Rack’s drawing of the missile again and talk about building it and putting it in the mouth.
“I hate it!” storms Rack. “And anyway, we’re not the Colchis Missiles, we’re the Rockets!”
“How about Hey Cougars, Eat My Rocket? And the rocket can be upside down in the mouth, and we can build a cougar head around the teeth.” It’s Lars. When everybody turns to look at him, his face turns bright red. Everyone starts talking at once.
“That is so stupid.”
“It doesn’t even make any sense.”
“If we build the head around the teeth, we won’t be able to get it out of here.”
“Do we even have a trailer?”
“We’re using the Grimshaws’ flatbed.”
“Do we even know how we’re going to get it on the flatbed?”
“What time is it?”
“One thirty a.m.”
Everybody groans. “I have practice tomorrow morning,” Junior says. “Hey Marty, give me a ride home.” In ten minutes, everyone’s cleared out except for me and Rack. Grimshaw’s gone home with Angel to her aunt’s apartment over the bridal shop.
“I have a physics test tomorrow,” I remember. Rack sits down on one of the car seats, reaches in her purse, and gets out a bottle of beer. I’m sitting up on an oil drum. She offers me the first sip.
“It’s still cold,” she says.
“Thanks.” The beer leaves a clear, cold track down my center. “Wow.” I exhale slowly. “That was really good.” I hand it back to her. She’s studying her purse.
“You keep that one.” She takes another one from her purse. “I was going to save this one till later, but what the hell, right?”
“Later when? It’s almost two o’clock in the morning.”
“I know. But I always keep an extra beer around. I like to have something to look forward to. Cheers.” I lean over, and we touch bottles. She pours half of hers down her throat and slowly exhales. “Can you believe I’ve been dumped for that dork Marty Gerard?” she asks.
“You’ve been dumped?” I parrot.
“Basically. You didn’t notice how Junior treated me all night?”
“No.”
“It’s been going on all fall, off and on. He pretends I don’t exist. He’s playing the game of treating me like dog shit so I break up with him and he doesn’t have to take any responsibility for it.”
“Oh.” I’ve never heard of that game. Grimshaw never got dumped. The more I know about other people, the less I know about Grimshaw.
Rack sighs. “It sucks.” She holds her beer bottle up to her lips and blows a long, sad note. “Never have sex, Serena,” she says. “It’s kind of … this lie.”
She concentrates on picking fuzz balls off her socks.
I clear my throat. “What do you mean, it’s a lie?”
“Oh, it’s not that big of a deal.” She checks her watch. “It’s just another stupid promise that stupid people believe in until they learn. You know what I mean?”
I don’t, but I nod. Grimshaw’s been with a lot of guys. But I don’t know if she took any of it as a promise or a lie. She seems happiest now, actually, staying with Angel on Main Street without any boyfriend at all. If she gets out of the junkyard and off the hill, maybe that’s as big as her dream needs to get.
“Well, shit,” Rack sighs again. “What are we going to do with this damn thing?”
We look at the dentures, each take our last big swig of beer, and then look back at each other. We start laughing at the same time. Suds come out of my nose and Rack’s nose, and we sit there laughing, holding the rest of the beer in our mouths until it foams out between our fingers. I manage to swallow mine and keep laughing. Then I realize she isn’t laughing anymore. She’s crying. She’s sobbing into her hands with her elbows on her knees. I don’t really know what to do, so I get off the drum and sit on the bucket seat next to her. I touch her knee.
“I’m really sorry,” I tell her. “About Junior and everything.”
“Oh my God, Serena,” she wails. “I am so stupid. I am such a jerk. I wish someone would hit me on the head with this beer bottle.” She starts hitting her forehead with the butt of the beer bottle. Drops of foam fly out. “I am the stu
pidest cow alive.” I watch her bang herself on the head until it occurs to me to hold her hand and take the bottle away. She lets me do it and then collapses with her forehead on her knees, crying and crying.
“You’re not stupid.” At first I sound sort of doubtful, like I’m not really sure it’s true. I’m the one who sounds stupid.
“Yes, I am stupid,” she insists angrily. “I am just a dumb cow. You’re the smart one.” She stops crying and just sits there miserably, waiting for me to say something.
“I know you’re not stupid.” I try a little more conviction this time. She looks at me doubtfully and sniffles. She rummages through her bag again, just in case there’s more beer in there. There isn’t. She studies me for a minute, picks a last flake of red polish off her thumbnail, and looks up at me again. Her eyes are cinnamon brown, and soft and bright.
“My period’s late,” she announces.
“Oh.”
“Two weeks.”
It takes me a minute to get it. “Oh. Oh my God.”
She doesn’t take her eyes off me. While I gaze back at her, her eyes get dull and old, like she’s suddenly on the other side of the big divide and she will never get back to where I am.
“But do you know, have you gotten—”
“Tested? It would be the only test I ever took where I actually knew the answer.”
I reach for her hand again. We can handle this, I want to say. The four of us—we can handle anything as long as we stick together. We can’t let anything drive us apart—nothing. Just as I’m trying to figure out how to tell her all this, she takes her hand back and turns away from me.
“So what are we going to do with those teeth?” she asks. She stares at the bear trap. “Let’s do something really nasty to it.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like, I wish we had some better—paint, or something.”
“Rack.”
“What?”
“We’re in a hot-rod shop.”
“So?”
“So what color paint do you want, Candy Red or Maui Blue?” She screams, literally screams with joy, twirls around, picks me up, and hugs me.
The Spaces Between Us Page 11
