Playing The Game

by Jeff Shelby

“Probably not.”

  “I'm not kidding, Amy.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  The bell rang and people stood, the noise level rising about a hundred decibels.

  “Leave school with me right now,” I said. “Anywhere you wanna go.”

  “You're making no sense.”

  “I know what's coming next,” I said. “Okay? So will you just come with me?”

  The blood drained from her face. “Tell me.”

  “Not here,” I said, standing up. “Just let's go.”

  “You'll get busted,” she said, pushing herself up from the table. “You're already on thin ice, Brady. Just tell me. I can deal with it.”

  “I don't care,” I said. “I seriously don't care at this point. Can we just get out of here? You pick the place.”

  She eyed the throngs of people milling around the lunchroom, laughing and talking. “If we go, will you tell me what's going on?”

  I hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I'll tell you.”

  She stared at me for a long moment. Then she picked up her book and grabbed her tray. “Fine. I'll drive.”

  FORTY SIX

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  We were in her old, orange VW bug and I adjusted my knees under the low-slung dash. “Your call.”

  Her hands were shaking on the steering wheel. “I don't care, Brady. Just name some place so we can go.”

  I gave her the name of a greasy Mexican place down near the beach. My dad and I had gone there a couple of times right after we'd moved, when we hadn't realized money was going to be as tight as it was. We drove in silence toward the ocean and I glanced again at her death grip on the steering wheel. I immediately regretted asking her to leave with me, not even thinking about how uncomfortable it might be for her. Even if she could fake trusting me for a little while, it didn't mean that she liked being alone with me. I knew what my intentions were, but she didn't and I assumed that what she didn't know was far scarier to her now.

  She said she didn't want anything when we got to the taco shop, but I ordered her a soda, anyway. I waited at the counter for the rolled tacos I ordered for me, trying to figure out what I was going to say to her. When the girl at the counter handed me the tray of food, I still didn't know what I was going to do.

  I carried the tray over to the table where Amy was sitting.

  “Didn't you just eat?” she asked when I set the food down.

  “I can always eat,” I said. “And I can eat a lot of rolled tacos.” I slid the drink toward her. “Just in case you get dehydrated or something.”

  She frowned at first, but it flickered into a smile. “Thanks.”

  I nodded and shoved one of the tacos in my mouth and looked out the window. The sky above the beach was overcast, and the water looked dull and gray. The entire length of the beach was empty.

  “You need to tell me,” she said. “Because I'm a wreck.”

  I wiped my hands on the thin napkin and decided to just say it. “There's a video.”

  Her shoulders stiffened and she held the drink with both hands. “From the party?”

  I nodded.

  “Shit,” she whispered, staring at the straw next to the drink, then looking back to me. “Did you see it?”

  I shook my head. “No. But Jake said people were talking about it earlier. I sorta figured some asshole would've said something to you already, but I could tell at lunch that you didn't know.”

  “I didn't.”

  “And then Jake was talking to those girls at lunch and I'm pretty sure it was about that,” I said. “I just didn't want someone walking up to you and saying something and you not knowing. I didn't mean to freak you out or anything.”

  “Where is it?” she asked. “Where's the video?”

  “I don't know,” I admitted. “I don't have a phone. Or a computer. Jake just said the Internet. So I don't do all that social media stuff. But I'd assume it's there.”

  She reached in the pocket of her sweatshirt and whipped out her phone. Her eyes lasered in on the screen as she tapped away at it. I looked at the rest of the tacos and wasn't hungry. I pushed the tray to the side.

  “I shouldn't be surprised,” she said, making a face like she'd eaten something rotten. “I knew this was gonna happen. I knew it.” She paused. “I shouldn't even care. I don't care. This is so stupid.”

  I wasn't sure if she was talking to me or to herself. But it was hard to think she didn't care in some way.

  Her thumb scrolled maniacally against the phone's screen. Then it slowed. She bit down on her bottom lip and stared at the screen. Then she shook her head and shoved the phone back in her pocket. “Fuck it. I don't need to see it.”

  “No?”

  She stared at me, her eyes full of...something I couldn't read.

  “I mean, aren't you curious?” I asked. “Don't you want to see it?”

  “Would you want to see it?” she snapped.

  “I—”

  “I'm not curious because I was there. I know what happened. No matter what they say.” She looked away from me but not before I saw her eyes well up with tears. “I was there.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I don't want to see it, Brady,” she said sharply.

  I looked down at the table. I knew what she was saying—as much as I could, anyway—about being there and not needing to know what was on there because she'd lived it. But I couldn't believe she would just dismiss it so quickly and act like it was no big deal. Maybe I really had no clue what I thought I knew.

  “Okay,” I said. “Sorry.”

  We sat there in silence for a few minutes before she glanced at my food. “Are you going to eat that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Can we go then?” she asked, standing up.

  I carried my tray to the trash and tossed my drink in, too, then followed her back out to the car. She jammed the key in the ignition, but didn't turn it. She put both hands on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead.

  “That's an old radio,” I said, unnerved by the silence.

  She glanced at it, then nodded. “Yeah. My dad bought it for me—which is weird, because he hasn’t done shit for me otherwise—but he won't let me change anything in the car. It's all original. As if changing the radio would somehow turn the car into a pumpkin or something.”

  “It is orange.”

  A small grin found its way onto her lips. “Ha.”

  I reached over and pushed the buttons on the radio, watching the orange line slide between the numbers.

  “I usually just hook my earbuds to my phone and listen with one bud,” she said.

  “Pretty sure that's illegal.”

  “Yeah. I'm a rebel.”

  “What do you listen to?” Music felt like a safe topic. For both of us.

  “Lots of stuff. But I like older stuff, mainly. Not super old, like the fifties or anything. More like eighties, some nineties.” She paused. “Like the stuff you put on that CD for me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I knew a lot of it,” she said. “R.E.M., obviously. U2. English Beat. Those two Smiths songs. New Order. The Cure. There were a couple I didn't know that I had to look up.” She glanced at me. “Totally surprised me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don't know,” she said.. “Just wasn't expecting it.”

  “My dad's a music nut,” I said. “He used to be in a band, and he has this massive collection. He's always buying me CDs.” I didn't mention that they were from the used record store near the restaurant, and that I was pretty sure he bought me old stuff because he couldn't afford the new releases.

  She glanced at me again. “You said something about a long story with the music.”

  My knee bounced a little. “When my parents would argue and yell and shit, I would just stick the earbuds in to block it out. They fought a lot, so I listened to a lot of music. And then it got quiet and they stopped talking to one another and that was worse. So I j
ust always had them in. I know the lyrics to more songs than I can count. It was that or books to get away from it. I read a lot of books, too. I couldn't stand listening to them yell, and I couldn’t stand the silence, either.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I get it. I did that a lot, too. I was always afraid my dad would stumble in drunk. And he wasn't violent or anything, he was just loud. And then they'd fight and say horrible shit to one another and then it would just go dead silent and I didn't know if he'd passed out or she'd killed him or what.”

  I could picture it because I remembered thinking the same thing when my parents abruptly closed their mouths.

  She adjusted the mirror and then rested her hand on the gearshift.

  “How'd you learn to drive a stick?” I asked. “I can barely drive an automatic.”

  “You drive your bike.”

  “Because I don't have a car.”

  “My dad taught me,” she said. “He's not a bad guy when he isn’t drinking. But he said if I wanted a car, this was gonna be the one and if I learned how to drive a stick, I'd be able to drive any car I ever had for the rest of my life. So he took me to this massive parking lot at the junior college on a Sunday and after like three hours of screaming and yelling and whiplash, I could drive a stick.”

  I chuckled. “Cool.”

  “I guess.”

  We were both quiet for a minute. I looked around the car, trying to find something else to talk about.

  She leaned back in the seat. “I really don't wanna go back.”

  “We don't have to,” I said. “We can just sit here. Or go somewhere else.”

  She frowned. “Where?”

  “I don't know,” I said. “You didn't like this place, so I don't think I should be doing the picking.”

  “It's not the place,” she said, staring out at the ocean again. “It's just...everything.”

  “I know,” I said. “Sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Is what it is. Where would you go right now if you were by yourself?”

  “Me? Probably just home because no one's there.”

  “Well, eventually someone will be, right?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “My dad works at a couple of restaurants,” I explained. “He used to just work nights, but he started working a few shifts at some new place this week. Day shifts. That's why he's not home right now. And he probably won't be home tonight, either.”

  She didn't raise her eyebrows or wrinkle her nose or ask why my dad had to work two jobs instead of one. Instead, she just said, “Every night?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “You said your parents were divorced. What about your mom?”

  “She lives in Florida.”

  “Sorry.”

  I shrugged. “I'm not.”

  “No?”

  I shook my head. “My dad has always been my parent. My mom just...worked. A lot. She's a real estate agent. Then she started doing one of her clients and my dad found out and they got a divorce. She moved to Florida with the guy and never thought to ask if I wanted to come with.”

  “Would you have? Gone with?”

  “No,” I said. “But she didn't even ask, you know? It's just her. Now she wants me to come there and spend time with her this summer.”

  “Do you have to?”

  I shifted in the seat. “My dad says no, but I think he expects me to go. I don't know. If it's up to me, I'm not going. Fuck her.”

  I was looking out the window and I could feel her eyes on me.

  “Wow,” she said. “I really did get you all wrong, didn't I?”

  I shrugged. “Not your fault.”

  “My mom is, like, the opposite of the that,” she said. “She stayed with my dad forever and I think if he asked to come back home, she'd let him. She feels sorry for herself all the time, doesn't do anything to fix the situation.”

  “So why'd they get divorced?”

  “It was the one time she actually stood up for herself,” she said. “He came home from work one night and was just totally trashed. I don't know what got into her, but she just told him to pack up his stuff and get out. Maybe she didn't think he would. But he did. He's trying to get his act together, but she's just stuck in neutral.”

  “My dad was like that for about a week,” I said. “He pretty much stayed in bed and he kept telling me he was just sick, but I knew he wasn't. I had no clue what I was gonna do, but then I woke up on a Saturday morning and he was awake, making breakfast in the kitchen. He'd showered, shaved, and was out of his sweats. He told me he was sorry for being an asshole for a week and that it wouldn't happen again.” I smiled at her. “So far, it hasn't.”

  “I wish my mom would snap out of it like that,” she said. “She needs something to wake her butt up.”

  I remembered how helpless I'd felt, watching my dad lay in bed for days. I didn't know if I was going to have to go live with my mom or if he was going to have to go into a mental hospital or what. I barely slept, thinking I might wake up and he'd be dead or gone. When he was in the kitchen that morning, standing over a pan full of eggs, I almost cried because I was so relieved. The rest of my life had gone to shit, but I felt like it was going to be okay because my dad was okay.

  “Why did you tip Chuck over in his desk?” Amy asked.

  I shifted in my seat. My knees were pressed against the glove compartment. “Because he was being a dick.”

  “Everyone was being a dick, Brady,” she said. “Everyone.”

  I shrugged. “I dunno.”

  “So why him?”

  I thought for a moment. “Because he was saying it to you. And I was there. And I didn't like it.” I shook my head. “Not cool.”

  “No one else did anything.”

  “I know.”

  “Chuck Buchanan is a fucker.”

  “Huge fucker.”

  She put her hands on the steering wheel. Her nails were painted all different colors – red, blue, yellow, orange. A rainbow. I wondered how I hadn’t noticed before. “No one else did anything.”

  I knew that, too, but didn't say anything.

  “And everyone is still being a dick,” she said, staring over her hands and out the dirty windshield. “Everyone.”

  “You want me to tip them all over?”

  She turned to me. “Why do you care? Like, give me a real answer, Brady. Why do you care?”

  I shifted again in the seat and thought for a second. She was asking for a real answer and I wanted to give her one, not just some stupid thing that came to my mind first.

  “Okay,” I said. “That night? At Ty's?”

  She swallowed, then nodded.

  “I went because the other guys were expecting me to go,” I said. “But I wanted to go because you were going to be there. I don't know. After we'd talked in class, I wanted to hang out with you.” I wiped the palms of my hands on my jeans. “And then sitting outside with you, it was...pretty awesome. I was really having a good time. I didn't feel like the new basketball kid that everyone liked just because he plays basketball.” I paused. “I was honestly bummed when you left. I wanted you to come back. I sat there and waited.” I paused again. “I just like you, Amy. That sounds stupid and cheesy, but I like you. So I guess that's why I care.”

  She looked down at her fingernails, at her hands still wrapped around the steering wheel. I couldn't ever recall saying “I like you,” out loud to a girl before, and I wonder if it sounded as lame to her as it did to me.

  “Is that why Ty punched you?” she asked.

  “More or less.”

  “Which is it?”

  “They want me to pick a side. And I did. They don't like that I picked yours.”

  She shook her head. “You don't know them, Brady. They're bad news. Which sounds like a terrible line from a terrible movie, but they are. They won't let you pick my side.”

  “They don't get to choose for me. And I already chose.”

  “Maybe,” she said, glancing a
t me. “But that doesn't mean they won't make you regret it.”

  She turned the key in the ignition and the engine sputtered to life. She backed up out of the lot and pointed us back in the direction of school. Small dots of rain splattered against the windshield and as they hit the rest of her car, it sounded like we were inside an empty soda can.

  “Are you gonna do anything?” I finally asked.

  She downshifted as we coasted to a stop at a red light.

  “And I'm not asking to be nosy,” I said. “I just...I just don't know why you wouldn't.”

  She leaned her head against the window. “Because I don't think anyone's going to believe me, Brady. And it will fuck up my life even more that it already has.”

  “Why wouldn't anyone believe you?” I asked. “And if they, uh, taped it—”

  “Derek and I slept together,” she blurted out. “When we were together. And I've slept with other guys. I'm not some virgin that got defrocked, okay? I've got a reputation, and they'll just say I wanted it. That's what they're already saying.” She shook her head. “If I go to the police, they'll just make my life even more miserable than it already is. And there are no guarantees. About anything.”

  The light turned green and she tapped the accelerator. It stung to hear that she'd slept with Derek. It wasn't a surprise, especially considering he’d essentially told me the same thing, but it still stung. Because he was an asshole and I liked her and because of what he'd done to her and because I thought all of it was unfair.

  She pulled into the school lot and parked at the far end. She cut the engine and reached into the seat behind me, unzipped her backpack, and pulled her hand back. She held a blue rectangular sheet of paper out to me. “Here.”

  I took it. “What's this?”

  “Blue slip,” she said. “Just fill it out and scribble some initials on the bottom. Take it to whatever class you're going to. They're passes.”

  “How'd you get them?”

  “I work in the attendance office,” she said. “I snagged a couple of pads. They come in handy sometimes.”

  I laughed. “Okay. Thanks.”

  She nodded. She wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel, then unwrapped them. “You were the only reason I went to Ty's, Brady.”