by Dyan Sheldon
And then the girl spoke clearly for the first time. “Oh, come on, you guys. You’re not being fair.”
I knew that voice, too. It was Alicia Smythe, captain of the cheerleaders. Known for her gravity-defying leaps and her sarky putdowns (she got a lot of practice at both). And Duane’s girlfriend since the last week of school. Now I really didn’t want to see Duane. (Not when he was with a girl who has more teeth than a shark.) Together they were guaranteed to ruin what up until then was a pretty okay day.
“No, man, you know what’s even worse than a lady mechanic?” chipped in one of the others. “A lady dentist!”
“Nah, doctor!” said another. “Doctor’s way worse than any of those. Maybe a GP giving you aspirin or something, but a surgeon? Operating on you? Sticking that knife in? Sewing you up? No way.”
“Oh, hey, what about a woman pilot? That could end air travel as we know it.”
“I have to go to the john,” announced Duane.
There was a short hall that led to the back door right behind my booth, and the restrooms were off that. He’d have to pass me to get there. What if he looked over and did recognize me? Unlikely, maybe, but not impossible. Stranger things have happened. Like wrinkles, talking to Duane wasn’t something I really wanted to think about right then. So, just to prove that women are better at quick thinking than the guys behind me thought, I was on the floor in half a second. Someone had spilled something sticky under my table, but right then that wasn’t my biggest problem. I watched the legs of my biggest problem go by. Now was my chance. I figured if I walked fast and kept my head down I could get past their booth without being noticed by the boys or Alicia, and be outside before Duane came back. I was about to move when I realized that Duane hadn’t. He’d stopped at the entrance to the hall. Waiting. “Hey,” he called to his friends. “If you’re ordering more stuff, get me some more fries and another soda.” Then there was a little back and forth about whether he wanted regular, cheese or chilli fries. And some different opinions on which were better. Duane wondered if the French ate chilli fries. Opinions were divided on that question, too. For God’s sake, I begged silently, shut up and go to the john. The minutes crawled by like snails dragging tanks behind them while I wondered what it was exactly that I was kneeling in. At last he started moving again. I turned, ready to jump up and scurry to the door, and nearly banged my head on the waitress’s legs. She was peering down at me. Concerned. “You okay, honey?” I said I was fine. “My contact,” I whispered. “I dropped it on the floor.” She offered to help. Was that it to my left? Was that it by the wall? Did I want a torch – maybe that would make it easier to see? Duane returned as she finally left. I got back in my seat. The waitress brought more food and drinks to Duane and his friends. They weren’t going anywhere soon. Now how was I supposed to leave?
I had no choice. I’d have to go out the back. I left money on the table, and walked slowly towards the restrooms. I couldn’t risk turning around to make sure no one was watching me. I had to hope my guardian angel hadn’t fallen asleep or wandered off the way she does. I took a deep breath and kept going to the end of the hall and straight through the fire door. But I wasn’t out yet. There was a wire fence that ran along the back alley. So I had to be grateful I was wearing trousers and practical shoes or I’d never’ve been able to climb up and haul myself over to the other side.
By the time I got to Chelusky’s they were about to close. The guys were getting the yard ready for the night and putting things inside. Mr Chelusky was wheeling a mower into the store. A month ago, all of them would’ve given me big smiles and “Hi”s even if they couldn’t remember my name. Today, no one looked twice. Except Loretta. Of course.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You’re filthy.” She squinted at my knees. “Is that chocolate syrup?”
“It’s okay. I can get it out.”
“And your shirt’s torn.”
“I know that, Loretta. That’s okay, too. I have another one.”
Loretta looked even more concerned than the waitress had. She wasn’t used to seeing me stained and dishevelled. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
I said, “It’s a long story, but I kind of ran into someone I really didn’t want to see.”
“Not Dillon Blackstock,” said Loretta.
I started to say no, Duane the Pain, but Mr Chelusky came in with a bin under each arm just then. “Blackstock!” he crowed. “So that’s your fella’s name. Dillon Blackstock.” He was looking at Loretta.
So was I. “What?” Loretta’s fella? Dillon Blackstock’s Loretta’s fella? Since I knew Dillon wasn’t Loretta’s fella (he was supposed to be mine!), and since I knew he was out of the state, I was pretty confused. What was Mr Chelusky talking about? “Loretta…”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr Chelusky.” She grabbed my arm and started dragging me away. “I can explain,” she whispered. “It’s a long story, too.”
Loretta
Maybe plans aren’t always particularly useful, since you can’t always predict what’s going to happen
My parents were watching the news when ZiZi and I got to my house. Their smiles locked when they saw ZiZi.
“My God!” My mother inhaled sharply. “What on earth happened to you? You look like you’ve been in a war.”
“I have,” said ZiZi. “The one between the sexes.”
If my mother was surprised that ZiZi knew about the war between the sexes, she didn’t show it. “I’m going to assume that the other guy looks a lot worse,” was all she said.
“I didn’t stop to look,” said ZiZi. “I have a slash-and-burn policy.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you when you didn’t look as if you were about to have your picture taken.” My father squinted at her through his glasses. “Is that blood on your trousers?”
“Chocolate syrup,” said ZiZi. “And before you ask, I ripped my shirt climbing over a fence.”
“So I take it the bet’s having some unexpected results,” said my dad.
He was right about that. Sometimes I felt as if we’d all discovered a new level of shallow.
Possibly because of ZiZi’s unkempt state, Horst had insisted on giving us a ride home from Chelusky’s. Which meant there was no time for the long stories until after supper, when ZiZi and I retired to my room to discuss some of the unexpected results the bet was having.
ZiZi turned to me as soon as the door shut behind us. “Okay, Let’s hear it, Loretta. How come Mr Chelusky thinks you’re dating Dillon Blackstock? You’re not telling me you have a thing for Dillon, too?”
“Of course not.” I flopped down on the bed. Life can be really exhausting. “It’s all a horrible misunderstanding.” I explained about making up a boyfriend, and how the guys were always on at me about him and then Mr Chelusky pressuring me into telling him this boyfriend’s name.
“Seriously? You couldn’t’ve made up a name?” You’d think I was the one who was always exasperating and difficult. “You couldn’t say Elmo or Cullen? You had to say Dillon?”
“I panicked. It just came out.” I sighed sadly. “You don’t know all the pressure I was under from them. It frazzled my nerves.”
“And that’s another thing,” said ZiZi. “All I heard about was how they expect you to make the coffee. I didn’t hear anything about them thinking you were dressing up because you have a boyfriend.” She wasn’t really upset about the Dillon mix-up, but this had her fuming. “That’s a real insult. Seriously? Like a girl only looks nice if there’s some guy around? Do we slouch around the rest of the time in old bathrobes and curlers? Do all the trees drop their leaves if there’s no one in the woods?”
I put my face close to hers. “Who are you?”
She pushed me away. “You know what I mean. You make yourself look good because you like to look good. Guys come and go, but you’re stuck with yourself twenty-four seven for ever. You’re the person you need to
please.” She thumped the bed for emphasis. “That just shows you how self-absorbed men are. They think everything’s about them!”
Was I hearing her right? She really was beginning to sound like me. “I mean it,” I said. “Who are you?”
“I’m the girl who knelt in chocolate syrup and had to sneak out of the diner through the back way, that’s who I am.”
Personally, I thought ZiZi’s long story was a lot more interesting than mine; it had much more drama and tension. For definite, it was funnier. ZiZi hiding under a table in a public eatery; ZiZi scaling a chain-link fence; ZiZi being outraged at the assumptions of men. Talk about tales of the unexpected. I really didn’t know who she was any more.
“It is pretty ironic, Duane the Lame criticizing women drivers,” I said when I’d stopped laughing. “Gender stereotypes aside, it’s like a nuclear bomb calling a BB gun a dangerous weapon.”
“Tell me about it,” said ZiZi. “If I hadn’t been terrified he’d see me I would have laughed out loud.”
A new, unpleasant image came into my mind. “It could have been much worse, though.”
“You mean if he had seen me?”
“I mean if they’d been talking about sex. It could have put you off it for life.”
“If they were, I guess I would’ve had to kill him. Or at least push his face in his fries.”
I have to admit to a certain amount of astonishment. Giselle Abruzzio isn’t the first person you’d imagine sneaking out of her favourite diner. More astonishing was the fact that she was taking it all in her stride. As if it was a typical day in her life.
“Between Schonblatt haranguing me, spoiled brats trying to bite me and my brothers giving Neanderthals a bad name, it pretty much was a typical day in my life,” said ZiZi. “And anyway, I’m pretty astonished, too. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you have a crush on Gabe. I’m not saying I didn’t suspect it. I saw the way you looked at him that time in town. But you never said a word. And I thought I’m your best friend. You’re supposed to share stuff like that with me.”
“You are my best friend. But I didn’t want to jinx it.” I let out a long, heartfelt sigh. I wasn’t eighteen yet and I already seemed to be accumulating an impressive collection of regrets. “Only it looks like I jinxed it myself with Gabe. If you’d seen the way he backed out of the store…”
“Excuse me?” ZiZi eyed me as if I was a debatable shade of blue. “Backed out of what store? You mean there’s something else you forgot to tell me? Maybe I should make a list of possible discussion topics to run through with you every day.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “One: did they really find a baby bear on Mars? Two: what would Emma Goldman think about Internet porn? Three: do you have a major crush on Star Boy? Four: did you tell everybody except me that you’re going out with Dillon Blackstock? And five—”
“Do you want to hear what happened or not?”
When I finished my tale of woe, ZiZi, whose knowledge of fashion is only matched by her experience with boys, said, “But that doesn’t make sense.” She frowned in thought. “I mean, if he came by Chelusky’s, it was because he wanted to see you. Why would he run off? Maybe he just got a case of the shys.”
Shy was good. I could live with shy. But he couldn’t be that shy if he stopped by in the first place.
“Yes he can,” said ZiZi. “He’s not exactly a player, is he? He may be totally confident with meteors but I don’t think he’s the kind of boy who’s that confident with girls.”
“Maybe…” I replayed the doomed visit to the store in my mind. Gabriel. Me. Vinnie. “I don’t know… I thought it was okay, but maybe it wasn’t, after all.”
“Thought what was okay?”
I explained about Vinnie coming in while Gabe and I were trying to think of something to say to each other. “Vinnie almost called him Dillon.”
ZiZi groaned. “See, boys and girls? This is why your parents tell you never to lie.” She eyed me sternly. “How close?”
“He got as far as ‘Dillo’, and then I shouted that this was Gabriel Schwartz. I thought I cut him off in time.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like you did a very good job. Not if Gabe bolted like that.” She’d been lolling back against the pillows but now she sat up. “Here’s the thing, Lo. Gabe must know Dillon, right? From school.”
“Yeah, of course he does. Gabe even came to a special screening of Kubrick’s 2001 at the Film Club, and Di—” And Dillon was there; the three of us sat together. “Oh God, do you think he thinks there’s something going on with me and Dillon?”
“If he doesn’t, that puts him in the vast minority,” said ZiZi. “You have to do something, Loretta. Call him.”
“I have called him.”
“Well, call him again. Call him about the shooting stars or whatever.”
“I did that.” Two voicemails and three texts since his very brief visit to Chelusky’s.
“And?”
“And I got one text back saying he’s cancelling the Perseids watch due to lack of interest. Since then, there’s been silence.” So I knew where the lack of interest was coming from. And who it was directed at.
“Well, you can’t leave it like that,” said ZiZi.
“I can’t?”
“No. Seriously, Lo. This is just a misunderstanding. I think he likes you likes you. I know he thinks really highly of you. Plus, he talks about you all the time.”
“He does? All the time?”
“Don’t get mega literal, Loretta. All the time when I see him. I mean, I don’t see him every day or anything. And we don’t always have a chance to speak. But when we do, your name always comes up.”
“What does he say?”
“You know.”
“Yes, of course I do. Because of my psychic powers. That’s why I’m asking you what he says. To check I’m listening in on the right thoughts.”
“He just asks about you. You know. ‘How’s Loretta?’ That kind of thing.”
Not exactly a declaration of undying love or a threat to spend the rest of his life floating through space like a chunk of debris if he has to live without me.
“I know what you should do,” said ZiZi. “You’re picking me up from work tomorrow, right?” The parent Abruzzios were still away; I was going to spend the night at ZiZi’s so I could see Nightmare on Olsen Street for myself. My mother was letting me take her car. “Try to be a little early, so you’re there at shift change. Park by the side entrance to the kitchen, not out front. You might run into him. Have a little conversation. Maybe it wasn’t Vinnie. Maybe it was just the store scared him off. All those power tools and all that testosterone.”
“Scientists use power tools, ZiZi. Besides which, I’m sure he has plenty of testosterone.”
“You know what I mean. He’s not exactly fullback of the year, is he?”
I mulled this over for a few seconds. Not the football part, the trying-to-run-into-Gabe part. Men often depict women as scheming and duplicitous, always trying to entrap them. Which, obviously, I disagree with, but it made me wary of acting in any way that might be seen as scheming or duplicitous. For definite that was a stereotype I didn’t want to fall into. On the other hand, I couldn’t see anything wrong with ZiZi’s idea in principle. I was picking her up anyway. And Gabe is my friend. If I saw him it would be really odd if I didn’t say hello. It would be rude; possibly hostile.
“Okay. I’ll be there. I’m pretty sure Mr Chelusky will let me leave a few minutes early.”
The next afternoon, I got to the Inn twenty minutes before shift change and parked by the far side entrance, STAFF ONLY. Some guys who were obviously kitchen staff showed up, but none of them was Gabe. Tired of standing, I sat down on the steps to wait. A waitress arrived and hurried inside. I was checking the time when a shadow fell over me. It could have been the shadow of a very large bird or a fairly small bear. I looked up. It was Mr Schonblatt. I’d never actually seen him in the flesh before but ZiZi’s pretty good at description a
nd has an eye for detail. I would have recognized him even if I wasn’t sitting on the steps of his Inn but had bumped into him in town. She got the fishing-line mouth and ball-bearing eyes perfectly. He didn’t look happy to see me. I guessed I was probably breaking a couple of his rules.
“Can I help you, young lady?”
“You must be Mr Schonblatt.” I got to my feet. “I’m Loretta Reynolds. I’m waiting for Giselle? Giselle Abruzzio?” Smiling as if I was selling something had become second nature. “She’s told me so much about you.”
It didn’t seem to occur to him that everything she’d told me was bad.
“Has she?” He smiled back. “Loretta, is it?” He held out his hand. “Very nice to meet you.”
That should have ended our conversation – it ended it for me – but Mr Schonblatt had other ideas. He started talking about the Inn and how busy it is in the summer and all the problems he was having with staff – because a great many people are useless and not accustomed to real work. Now that I was a professional listener, I nodded and murmured and acted a lot more interested than you expect a teenage girl on a Summer afternoon to act when the topic was less interesting than someone reading out batting averages for the last fifty years. I didn’t so much as think of yawning. People walked past us, some going in and some coming out – and none of them Gabriel Schwartz – but Mr Schonblatt kept on talking. And then he said, “I suppose ZiZi’s told you about the wedding reception we’re having here soon.”
