Like two blips of Morse code, saying: Do! Me!
And really, that’s reasonable. Forget the kid stuff. I ought to just go ahead and do her. For Grace’s sake, of course—it’ll be better for both of us if I rack up some experience first. That way there won’t be a lot of fumbling around. I mean, I know what to do—how difficult could it be? But practicing on Dori will help me build up some finesse. Like in baseball—you don’t go straight to regular season. No, you need a couple of practice games first, to work out the bugs, improve your technique. Find your rhythm.
“I didn’t know you lived around here,” Dori is saying.
“I don’t. My sister takes dance right over there.”
“Oh.” She nods.
I don’t know what to say next. So I nod too, and then we’re both nodding. I hadn’t figured on having to make conversation.
I haven’t seen Dori in person in a long time. I’d forgotten how she really is pretty fine. With a very fine rack. Although the way her eyes are smeared with that black stuff makes it look like she’s been crying.
“Looks like you got caught in the rain,” I tell her.
“Yeah. I had to take something to the post office. It couldn’t wait.”
I almost wonder what it is that’s so important she’s got to mail it in the rain. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to wonder anything at all about Dori. “So,” I say, “which way am I going?”
“Straight ahead. It’s only about a block.” A drop of water runs down her cheek. She wipes it off with the back of her hand. “Turn here.”
Now I’m driving down a street with little houses all lined up like shoe boxes.
“This is it,” she says.
“This one?”
“Yeah.”
I pull up in front of the shoe box she’s pointing to. There’s a saggy screen door, and the windows have aluminum foil to keep out the sun. I tell myself, What a lazy skanky family, to let your house look like that.
My hand reaches down slowly to kill the engine. But I’m looking at that house, and I’m getting this feeling, like there’s a sign out front that says, Hey, Colt—You Could Be Living Here!
One night years ago, right after my dad moved out, I was coming down the stairs and heard my mom on the phone, yelling, “You just ask him where his children are supposed to live!” She was shrieking by the end of it, and it scared the hell out of me, watching her slam the phone down, and when she turned around there were tears coming down her cheeks.
She didn’t know I was looking down at her the whole time, of course, and when she saw me huddled on the staircase, she stopped pacing and told me everything was okay, she was just a little late on the house payment but she’d never been late before and they’d give her a little leeway just this once. Then she sent me to bed, but I just lay there wide-awake, thinking we were about to get kicked out of our home that very night, and wondering if the police would come with flashing lights, and if I’d get to take any toys or clothes, and if they’d kick us out onto the sidewalk or take us to jail.
That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. The next day my mom was on the phone again, probably with my dad but I don’t know for sure, and when she slammed down the phone, her mouth was all pinched up and she said she was ready to haul ass to her own place, that she could afford all on her own. So she took me and Cass out with her while she looked at houses for sale—small, old houses, like this one.
I got to tell you I was scared shitless. On top of my parents hating each other, and my dad leaving, and my mother shrieking and crying, I was going to be forced to leave the only house in the only neighborhood I’d ever known.
The truth is, I know Dori’s family probably doesn’t have enough money to fix things, or to buy blinds.
But I say it again, to myself. Lazy. Skanky.
It doesn’t help. I’m getting this urgent feeling, like if I don’t get busy doing this girl right away, I’m going to start thinking too much, and blow this chance completely.
I don’t know, could be I’ve got a funny expression, because Dori says suddenly, “Sorry about the way the house looks.”
“Aw, no,” I say quickly. “It’s great.”
“I live with my dad, and he’s too busy to keep up with it on the outside. I’ve been working on the inside, though.”
I nod, because I know she has been. “Wallpaper,” I say.
“Yeah. Although I haven’t actually saved up the money to buy any yet. I’m still kind of picking it out. So,” Dori says, after another moment, “what all classes do you have right now?”
I pull my eyes away from that house, stare at the dashboard. I have to make myself think. “Biology. Tech ed. Geometry—”
“Tech ed? What period?”
“Second.” My mother made me take it.
“I’ve got it third. Who do you have?”
“Wheeler.”
“Oh. I’ve got Dixon. I’m going to try to get into work-study next year. You know, where you go to school in the morning and work in the afternoons? And I’m going to graduate early, if I can.”
I nod.
She’s watching me, for some kind of response, I guess. The windows are fogging up. I’m definitely starting to think too much. Better get things started.
Now.
Only I’m not really sure how to begin.
Kiss her, I think. But she’s leaning back against the door—she’s not situated right. So I look at her hand, flat on the seat beside her, and tell myself I’m going to take her hand and put it you-know-where. Then I tell myself how I’m just going to slide over there and put my hand on her breast. Although I know from experience that kind of thing usually doesn’t go over too well. Most times you have to go through a bunch of other stuff first.
“I really appreciate how nice you’ve been to me, Colt.”
Talk to her, I think. Tell her she’s pretty. Tell her something! Speak, boy!
“Not just giving me a ride, but talking to me on the phone and everything. You’re really a good person. All those people like Stephanie and Preston and Ashley—they think they’re so great just because of who they are and where they live and what they own. But you’re the only one of them who’s really decent inside.”
Jesus. I don’t know what to say to this girl. Not at all, and I don’t know what to do with myself in front of this house.
“Listen, I’d ask you in,” Dori’s saying, “but my dad’s asleep.”
It’s five o’clock in the afternoon. And I remember how Mom used to work weird hours for a while there, before she got into real estate.
“That’s okay,” I hear myself say.
“Anyway, thanks.” Dori reaches for the door handle.
It’s okay, I tell myself, Let her go. She’s nobody. Anyway, your first shouldn’t be Jordan Palmer’s seconds. Grace Garcetti’s going to be the one.
The door’s open now—the rain has slacked off a little, it’s just regular rain, not pelting—and Dori slides out.
But she doesn’t leave. She bends over a little to look me in the eye.
“Colt, I know this sounds stupid, but if you ever need anything, I’m there for you. Girl trouble, anything. Even if you just need somebody to talk to. You’ve got my number.”
But I don’t think I do. I erased it every time she left it.
Finally she shuts the door. My palms are sweating. I watch her walk all the way to the porch, watch the screen door slam shut behind her. The screen door with a wrought-iron flamingo nailed into the frame.
I feel how I’m breathing too fast, I’m hyperventilating. Slow down, dude, I tell myself. Relax. You could have done her. You just didn’t feel like it. You’re in control. This is your show.
You’re Colt Trammel, after all.
The first thing that’s different I notice right away. As soon as I walk in the door of biology.
I don’t say anything until after the bell rings and we’re all supposed to be reading.
“You cut your hair,” I
whisper to Chlorophyll.
“No kidding,” she says. She doesn’t sound too happy.
Ms. Keller shuffles some papers around on her desk, like she can’t find something. She glances up, makes sure everybody’s still reading.
Then she slips out of the room.
“Looks good,” I tell Chlo. Because it does. I don’t usually like super-short hair on girls, but it’s brown all over now, so I’d have to say she’s crossed the line into humanhood.
Chlo makes a face.
“It really does,” I tell her, and I’m not sure why I’m trying to convince her I mean it. Maybe because she’s going to help me pass English.
“You mean it makes me look like Peter Pan.”
I start to laugh. But then I realize she’s serious.
“That’s what Brian said.” Chlo turns and looks at me from under her brand-new bangs. They make her eyes look bigger, her lashes longer. “He said it made me look like a boy.”
I stare at her. The guy must be blind. It’s her clothes that make her look like a boy. The hair looks great. It looks…soft.
Boy, I’d never tell Grace her new haircut sucked. I could tell somebody like Alicia Doggett, easy. Maybe even somebody like Dori.
But no way would I ever be so stupid as to tell my goddamn girlfriend her haircut looked bad, for Christ’s sake. Now if it was Silver Stanton, I’d shout it off the top of the auditorium. But not my girlfriend. It would hurt her feelings. And it’s not like she could glue it back on or anything. “I got to tell you something, Chlo,” I say, and for once I tell the absolute truth. “You’re too good for that guy. Dump him.”
I think about how I’d feel if somebody said something like the Peter Pan comment to Grace.
“Now,” I tell her. “Today. Pick up the goddamn phone and dump him. Because I can tell you right now, you’re in for a whole load of shit if you don’t.”
“You can talk,” she says. “You’re the one calling me Greenland and Chlorophyll.”
“I don’t call you Greenland anymore,” I say. “And I call you Chlo, not Chlorophyll. It’s like a nickname. Hell, you call me Terrell.”
“So?”
“So my name’s Trammel. Colt Trammel. Jesus. Haven’t you ever been to a high-school baseball game? Don’t you read the papers? Do you ever get out?”
“Take out your folders,” Ms. Keller says, walking back in with her grade book. “I’m checking assignments fifteen through twenty.”
“Here’s some friendly advice, Chlo,” I add, getting out my folder. “Get a life—that’s my advice.”
I actually have the assignments for Ms. Keller to look at. All finished, too; I copied them from Stu.
So I sit with my open folder, waiting for Ms. Keller to come around with her grade book. Chlo sits too, but she keeps her face down. She really looks depressed all over, with her too-big shirt hanging down almost to her knees.
It pisses me off. Everything’s right on track for Grace and me. I’m going to pass all my classes, even if I have to bust a grape to do it. I’ve got on my favorite shirt in the whole world, which Grace said is her favorite because it makes my eyes look green—which they’re not, exactly—and my hair look blond—which it’s not, exactly—so it’s my favorite shirt, too.
And I don’t like the way Chlo’s moping around at my lab table, throwing me off balance.
Just because I need her for English, it’s like I’m supposed to do something now.
Ms. Keller comes by, starts leafing through my folder. I don’t look at Chlo again. I can see her sitting there, though, and I can hear the way she doesn’t say another word, all through the rest of class.
And all through class, I’m not feeling as great as I was. I’ve got this tiny, nagging little feeling. Like something’s off. Like the earth’s just a little bit crooked, or the light is not quite right.
By fifth Chlo seems to have worked herself out of her bad mood, thank God. In assistant, we have papers to grade again. Just my luck—when I’m starting to need this time for something besides sleep, Miss A. starts dumping actual work on us.
I slap grades on those papers like I’m dealing cards. Any mistakes’ll get caught by whoever gets ’em back, anyway.
I grab some out of Chlo’s stack, because she’s moving too slow.
Finally Chlo lays the last paper on top of the finished pile. “Okay,” she says. She pulls my English book over to her and flips through. “Let’s start with ‘Ozymandias.’”
Whatever. I bend over a piece of paper, clutching my pencil.
“This is by Percy Shelley,” she tells me, and then she reads the poem out loud, slowly, like I’m going to understand it better if she reads it that way. Hah.
“I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
She finishes while I’m still copying down the title. It’s hard because I’m having to look at it upside down. “Okay,” Chlo says. “What do you think this might be about?”
I glance over at her. Is she kidding? “I can’t even pronounce it.”
She’s looking at me through her glasses, not over them. “Ozy, like in Ozzy Osborne. Man, like in guy. Dias, like in…” She can’t think of anything. “Mandias, like in candy ass,” she says triumphantly. “Got it?”
I try to read it off my piece of paper. “Ozzy…mandyass.”
“Mandyus,” she says, which is not the same thing.
Whatever. I don’t need to know how to say it, anyway.
She taps her pen on the edge of the table. She’s getting that spacey look. “Where do you think this poem takes place?”
I wish she’d stop asking questions. “I’m paying you to tell me.”
She stops tapping. “It takes place in the desert. There’s this statue, in the desert.”
I write that down, about the desert.
“It’s fallen down, so there’s just these two legs sticking up. You can’t see anything else but the broken-off face, lying half buried in the sand. And nothing else is around for miles and miles.”
I write down the part about a broken face, buried.
“And on the pedestal, under what’s left of the legs, it says, ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.’”
I write, “Look on my work,” but then I forget what else she said.
“Pretty ironic, huh?”
“Oh yeah,” I agree. “Ironic as hell. What came after ‘look on my work’?”
“It’s in the poem. You don’t have to write it down.”
I give her a disgusted you-stupid-bitch look. I do have to write it down. It’ll be like I never heard of it if I don’t write it down.
Chlo shuts the book. When she pushes it away from her, I wish to God I could take that look back. I’ve pissed her off.
“Hey,” I tell her, “Chlo. I tend to get a little uptight—”
“What,” she interrupts, “do you think this place will look like in a thousand years?”
Silence. “I don’t know,” I say, pretty nicely for me, because I don’t want to piss her off any more than I already have.
“You ever been to any place that’s fallen down? Or been torn down?”
“Yeah,” I say, nice and easy, although a glance at my watch tells me we’ve only got fifteen more minutes in here.
> “What did it make you think of?”
“Look.” I’m starting to lose it. “I’m not paying you to fucking converse with me. I’m paying you to get me ready for a test.”
“I’m trying to.” She’s glaring at me. “If you have a problem with my methods, say so now. Don’t waste my time.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t get your panties in a wad.”
“And considering what an…uptight person you are, I think I’m going to require payment in advance.”
“I thought you wanted to figure out the terms later.”
“I just figured them out. I want my money.”
“Fine,” I spit at her. “How much?”
“Fifteen an hour.”
“Fifteen? Jesus, I’m not that stupid.”
“Thirty’s the going rate for a private tutor.”
“No way!”
“Then take your book back and leave me alone.” She shoves the book at me. It slides across the table and hits me in the chest.
I don’t know why people helping me makes me such a beast. I’m even worse when Mom tries. And my sister, Cass, God—one time back in fifth grade she was supposed to help me, only I shoved her off the chair next to me, and she jumped up and started pounding me, and we ended up rolling around on the floor. Of course, she was only in third grade, so I won. But at the end I still couldn’t do the homework and Mom was mad at me, and Cass sneaked into my room and scratched one of my CDs. Although she denies it to this day.
Chlo’s flipping through her book now, looking for her place. She’s going to zone out if I don’t do something.
I reach into my back pocket, pull out my wallet. There’s two twenties and a five; I haven’t spent much of my allowance yet.
I peel off a twenty and flick it toward her. “Now you owe me some time.”
She looks at the money like it’s dirty. “What about the stuff I told you about Byron and Wordsworth?”
“You didn’t talk about those guys for an hour. More like five minutes.”
“More like thirty, you homophobic neanderthal.”
I’m getting pretty pissed now. But I’d rather swing by my nuts than ask her what that meant, and I’ve got to pass this test. And I can get more money from my dad anytime.
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