Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters

by Meredith Zeitlin

  “Seriously? Damn! I could’ve just asked her about the pictures instead of taking the ‘Kelsey is a nutbar’ show to the newspaper office.”

  “Yeah, but it’s such a good show,” Lexi quips. I flick her on the arm. “Besides, I needed your moral support! And anyway, then we wouldn’t have met … huh. What was that guy’s name, anyway?”

  Before I can respond, Cassidy shoves past us, her arms full of sheet music books. “Excuse me! Oh, sorry, Lexi.” She doesn’t meet my eye, not that I want to meet hers. But when did she become such a bitch?

  Lexi gives me a sympathetic look. “It’s not your fault, Kels. She’ll find out about Jordan for herself and then you’ll make up.”

  “Ha! Who says I even want to make up with her, anyway?” I scoff. “And I’ll tell you something else: Musicals might be lame, but I’m auditioning for this one. And I’m gonna kill it.”

  22

  The second I get home from school, I grab the Wicked score, head to the living room, and plunk out my song on the piano. Not bad, if I do say so myself. But after about fifteen very intense minutes of rehearsal, I get bored and decide to head over to JoJo’s for the night.

  I get to JoJo’s around seven. She and her parents just finished eating, and of course JoJo is having a glass of wine, so I figure I’ll have one, too. It must be so weird having parents who don’t have any rules. I mean, awesome, but … weird.

  After her parents go upstairs, we lounge around in the living room, flipping through channels. I take a sip from the bottle of Skyy vodka JoJo brought from the kitchen—it’s not so bad on its own, actually. The taste reminds me of how nail polish remover smells, which I’ve always sort of liked. Besides, I’m starting to feel buzzed.

  JoJo is sprawled in front of the TV, thumbing through DVDs. She asks, “Do you want to watch something funny or serious?”

  “Whatever, I don’t care.”

  “We could watch my parents’ pornos. They’re hilarious.”

  I practically choke on a mouthful of vodka. “Um, thanks, but I’d rather just chew my arm off. How about a nice slasher film instead?”

  “Suit yourself … but you never know, Kelsey, you might learn something. Which could come in handy next time you and Keith—”

  “Okay—that will be all, thank you,” I interrupt hurriedly. “As you may recall, he’s not ready for a ‘comitment.’ Thank God—I have enough to deal with as it is.” Ugh. Keith Mayhew. That’s an error in judgment I won’t be making twice. I decide to swiftly change the subject.

  “So,” I say slyly. “How’s my former friend Cassidy doing, anyway? I shared a lovely moment with her in the hall today….”

  JoJo gives me her patented raised eyebrow. “Kelsey, I’m not having a Cass-bashing session.”

  “I didn’t say anything mean!” I protest. “I just asked how she was!”

  JoJo chugs a few swallows of vodka, then says, “She’s okay. Yes, she’s still dating Jordan, and no, she doesn’t believe you about Lori Soler.”

  “Didn’t you tell her it was true?”

  “Well, I didn’t see them together like you did … and anyway, I don’t want her to be pissed off at me, too. She asked him about it and he said it was a lie. So … she believes him. But I think she feels bad about what went down with you guys,” JoJo explains.

  Ah, excellent. The wonderful, wonderful vodka is loosening JoJo’s previously impenetrable tongue. I push on. “Please. If she feels so bad about it, how come she parades around school acting like I don’t even exist? It’s beyond childish.”

  “Childish? Like … trying out for a play you couldn’t care less about just to try and make her feel bad?”

  “Um, that is a totally different situation! And I do so care about the play. I told you months ago, this is the year I’m going to mark up … I mean, make a mark! I didn’t say it had to be through soccer, you know. I’ve been seerearching—researching—wait, hang on.” I take a swig from the bottle and pass it back to JoJo. Man, that stuff burns the throat.

  “Look, you can’t totally blame Cassidy,” JoJo says. “I mean, yes, she was a jerk for lying about Jordan. But why didn’t you make a move on him yourself? You’re hot! You’re awesome! You could’ve just gone for it. So … what gives?”

  “JoJo, you have made some excellent points, especially the part about how Cassidy was a jerk, though I think, really, I’d classify her more specifically as a—”

  “Don’t make me switch back to my neutral status!” she warns, lifting that eyebrow again.

  Arrrgh. Must proceed with caution. “Fine. So, what was I supposed to do? It’s not like I was going to walk up to him in the hall and be like, ‘Hi, Jordan, feel like making out today?’”

  “That’s probably what Cassidy did.” JoJo giggles. “You should’ve done that. I bet he’d’ve said ‘Hells yeah!’ and given you the J. Rothman special. Maybe you could try it on someone else. Maybe a certain cute newspaper guy? Lexi told me during last period that some dude was totally flirting with you.”

  “Come on, get real.” Now I’m starting to get the alcohol spins—just the early stages, when they feel really good. Tra la la laaaaaa …

  “You get real!”

  “You get real first!” I scoff. “Blech. Boys are stupid.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” she agrees. “Frankly, I don’t know why you bother with them at all.”

  I don’t say anything, wondering if maybe she’ll finally expand on the topic. I ready myself to be reassuring and enthusiastic about her sexual awakening … but instead she pulls out her battered Connect Four game from under the TV and starts setting it up.

  Am I imagining this whole gay thing? And where is that vodka, anyway?

  Why, oh, why is Connect Four so fun when you’re drunk?

  And hey—why is Lexi telling people that that guy was flirting with me? He so wasn’t! He was just enjoying the sound of his own voice, that’s all.

  He was cute, though. For an egomaniac, that is.

  Five games later, JoJo claims her championship title. I console myself with another big swig from the vodka bottle. As I tilt my head back, I accidentally smash the lip of the bottle against my mouth with a THUNK.

  Shit. Shit! Ow-ow-ow-ow!

  I yelp, “Oh my God, JoJo, I think I just broke my face!” The bottle, meanwhile, is on the rug where I dropped it, and the remaining vodka is glugging out all over the floor. JoJo is half freaking out about the rug, half hysterically laughing at me. I curl into the fetal position on the couch, clutching my mouth, while JoJo mops up the puddle of vodka with her orange hoodie.

  The intense pain in my lip finally starts to fade, as does JoJo’s totally unsympathetic cackling. She tips the bottle into her mouth and polishes off the last drops.

  “See, Kels, in the mouth is the idea.” She plops down onto the couch next to me. “Were you held back in kindergarten for poor hand-eye coordination, by any chance?”

  “Hardy har, you are hilarious,” I say, scowling at her.

  JoJo blinks and her mouth actually drops open.

  “What?” I demand.

  She just gapes at me like I have three heads, and then starts to grin.

  “What?”

  She goes, “Look in the mirror, that’s what.” And dissolves in another fit of giggles.

  I sigh, figuring if I have to get up anyway I can at least grab some snacks from the kitchen.

  I stumble a bit heading into the kitchen. Once there, I grab a couple of Cokes from the fridge and a box of Oreos from the snack cabinet. Then I go to the hall mirror and look at myself. I look totally normal, if a smidge bleary eyed. No blood or anything. A little puffy redness on my upper lip, but that’s it. What the eff?

  I shout toward the TV room, “JoJo, what is your prob—”

  The second I start talking, I see it. Half my front tooth is gone!

  Oh my God. I look like the scary witch lady from The Princess Bride! All I need is some dirt on my face and a big cane made from a tree branc
h. This is not going to go over well with the folks back home, methinks.

  I race back into the living room, shouting, “What am I gonna do? I look like a—”

  JoJo is practically having a seizure, she’s laughing so hard. She wheezes, “An old-timey hobo? A ‘before’ picture at the dentist’s office? A vic— A vic-vi-victim of the beatdown?!” She can barely squeak out her last piece of creative genius, as her air intake appears to be constricted by mirth.

  “JoJo! What am I going to do?! This is really, really bad—much worse than the time you dyed my hair purple. At least that washed out!”

  But there’s no talking to her. She’s rolling around on the vodka-soaked carpet, snorting “victim of the beatdown,” whatever that means. I may have to smother her with a couch cushion. No court in the world would convict me.

  I decide that, since I do not have direct access to dental insurance, the only thing to do is call home and explain. It’s only midnight, after all. Maybe my mother will not be her usual oppressive self and will instead intuit that I am at a time in my life where things are changing, and that I need the freedom to experiment with alcohol and boys without worrying about silly things like consequences and repercussions. Yes! She will realize that her best course of action will be to offer unconditional love and understanding. Perhaps she will even reflect upon the memory of a similar time in her own life (about eight thousand years ago) when she and my dad probably sat around dropping acid and twirling their love beads and wearing John Lennon sunglasses or whatever.

  It could totally happen.

  I call my house. My mom picks up, sounding sleepy, and mumbles, “What’s wrong?” (Why does she always answer the phone that way? So annoying.)

  Deep breath. Must try to sound completely sober. “Mom, don’t freak out. I froke—I broke my front tooth—it’s, um, sort of totally chipped in half.”

  I can practically see her snapping to attention and sitting up in bed. She now sounds completely awake, and hollers, “What? How the hell did you do that?”

  Moment of truth.

  “Well, JoJo’s mom got these awesome old-fashioned root beers for us, you know, the kind in the glass bottles? And JoJo was telling me a really good joke, and I guess I laughed too hard because, um, I hit the bottle right into my tooth. And it just chipped off!”

  Shockingly, and despite JoJo’s dancing on the couch and making faces at me, Mom totally buys my lame excuse and even agrees that coming to pick me up right now would be unnecessary. And really, lying in this specific instance is the right thing to do—I mean, there’s no need to worry her. After all, she’d just have a conniption and ground me for the rest of my life, which would stunt my growth as a person. Plus I’d probably develop an allergy to Nancy the Cat from being home all the time, which would mean Travis would have to give her up and then her growth would be stunted by depression and the whole domestic unit would fall to pieces. So as much as I hate lying, I’m doing it for the good of my family. I am so proud of myself for being unselfish that after I hang up, I treat myself to a thousand Oreos. Yum.

  I can only enjoy them on one side of my mouth. But still.

  The next morning, I feel like someone poured cement over my entire head and let it dry overnight. My mouth tastes like an old sock—a chocolate sock, but still not good.

  I crawl to the bathroom after spending about a week locating my glasses, which were miraculously unbroken and underneath the pajamas that I should have put on but apparently just threw on the floor before passing out. I look in the mirror, hoping that maybe my tooth won’t be quite as bad as I thought, like if it magically regenerated somehow.

  It is, in fact, still a disaster. I can’t stop running my tongue over it, the way I did when I first got my braces off last year. It feels all scratchy and jagged.

  God, my head hurts.

  I shower in an attempt to revive myself, which doesn’t really work, but at least I smell better. JoJo, who seems to be totally immune to the after-effects of alcohol, skips around the kitchen while I try to choke down a few saltines. She will not stop calling me a victim of the beatdown (where does she get this stuff?), so I decide I’d better slink on home.

  “I’m out of here, crazy lady,” I grumble. “And PS, when something like this happens to you, I hope you won’t be looking to me for any sympathy. Because I’ll—I’ll be—”

  But she isn’t listening. She’s laughing too hard. Hmph.

  I take the subway home, lurch into my house, and find my mother in the kitchen doing her crossword (surprise). I try to sneak past her up to my room, but she is too fast for me in my injured state.

  “You look horrible!” she exclaims. “Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

  “Gee, thanks, Mom. I dunno—I think maybe I’m coming down with something. I’m just going to go to bed and—”

  “We’re supposed to be going shopping for something to wear to Cousin Lainie’s bat mitzvah, Kels. You have nothing to wear that doesn’t make you look like the ragpicker’s child.”

  “Mooooooom! I can’t go out in public with half a tooth! And anyway, that bat mitzvah isn’t till May!”

  “Oh, right, your tooth. I guess I’ll have to call Dr. York’s office.”

  “So … do you think he can see me on Monday? I’m totally down with missing school.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you’re down with that. Not happening. Don’t you have a history test?”

  Argh. My mother is unstoppable in her madness. “Mom, I cannot go to school like this. Do you really expect me to be able to focus on a test when my face has been disfigured?”

  She looks up at me, smirking. “Lemme see.”

  I show her. She barely stifles a laugh. “An old-fashioned root beer bottle, huh?” she says in this sly, annoying way. “You don’t say. I’ll have to ask JoJo’s mom where she got those.” Then she goes back to her puzzle. Without looking up, she adds, “Don’t you have some studying to do?”

  Note to self: Mother may not actually be fooled by brilliant white lie. Looks like I’ll be going to school with half a tooth. If I have learned nothing else from living in this cesspool of insanity, it’s when not to press my luck.

  23

  As it turns out, no one even notices my tooth on Monday, partly because I keep my lips tightly clamped shut all morning, but mostly because someone was even drunker and more careless than I was over the weekend. The whole school is talking about this junior, Lenny Pitcher, who got a face tattoo in New Jersey using a fake ID. It’s a giant lightning bolt down one cheek, and is seriously the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen. Bad for Lenny, but definitely good for me.

  After second period we all have to go to the auditorium for the biannual sports awards assembly. When I heard about it at the beginning of the year, I had fantasized that maybe I’d win something for my prowess as JV soccer’s star left wing, but now it’s just another boring assembly to get through. At least I get to miss econ.

  The gym teachers clamber up to the stage and start talking about team mentality and self-confidence and other things that are not the actual reasons people play sports in high school. Then they start giving out the awards—MVP, Most Improved, Looks Best in a Helmet, etc. There are guys’ and girls’ teams to get through, and though some people (the winners) are very excited, I am bored senseless.

  I lean over to whisper in Em’s ear. She had planned to come to JoJo’s, too, but Em’s mom was being grouchy and made her stay home at the last minute. “I’m holding you responsible for what happened on Friday night, you know. If you had been there, I never would’ve ended up looking like a jack-o’-lantern on crack!”

  “Pleeeaaassseeee,” she hisses back. “No one told you to guzzle down a whole bottle of vodka! Besides, it’s not that bad. No one has even noticed.”

  “You are supposed to be the sensible friend! You can’t leave me alone with the crazy one—I’m not strong enough to withstand her powers of anarchy!”

  Em giggles, and a teacher on the aisle gives u
s a death-ray glare. I sit back in my seat and whisper out of the corner of my mouth.

  “See? Your positive influence on me is fading! Soon I’m going to—”

  “Oh, Megan won!” Em squeals, standing up with a bunch of people in our section and clapping. Our friend Megan goes up to the stage to accept the prize for something to do with field hockey. I clap for her and simultaneously check my watch. Less than two hours till my appointment with Dr. York. As long as I keep breathing through my nose and don’t talk to anyone besides Em and JoJo, no one will ever know about my run-in with the end of a bottle. Excellent.

  “I’m really psyched for her,” Em is whispering to me. “She worked so hard at field hockey camp this summer; she was telling me about it during—”

  “… captain of the girls’ junior varsity soccer team, Julie Nelson,” Coach Cantwell is saying on stage. Julie bounces up to the podium. More applause. She presents the MVP Award for girls’ JV soccer to a sophomore who’s unbelievable at defense. I turn around and give Lexi a sympathetic look, but she makes a “no big deal” face.

  Julie goes on for a few minutes, and I cheer loudly for my teammates. I whisper to Ana, who’s on my other side, “I’m amazed Julie didn’t give the awards to herself!”

  “Oh, she doesn’t choose, the coaches do. Otherwise, yeah, I’m sure she would!”

  “So really all she does as captain is yell at us and organize someone to bring orange slices to games? That’s—”

  “… extra category this season, the Unsung Hero Award. It’s for someone who maybe wasn’t the best athlete or scored the most, but achieved in other ways, like persevering in a difficult game situation.” Julie’s voice has gone totally flat, like she’s reading off a script. She looks pissed. What’s her deal?

  “So, yeah, the winner is Kelsey Finkelstein.” She zips through the sentence so fast, it takes me a moment to register that she just called my name.

  “Oh my God!” Em shrieks. “Get up there, you won!” Ana pushes me out of my chair and I head to the little stairs that lead up to the stage.