Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath

by Steven Goldman

  I really want to ask her about Curtis, but I don’t think I’m supposed to know and anyway, I’m not sure how I could ask her. I try to imagine her kissing Curtis, but I just can’t see it. They don’t fit in the same picture. I can imagine M.C. kissing, in fact I can imagine kissing M.C., which isn’t something I have thought about before—I am suddenly uncomfortable.

  M.C. stops chewing for a moment, the half-masticated apple still in her mouth, and shakes her head. The smile never leaves her face. Holding a hand in front of her mouth to block our view of its contents, she declares, “Nope. No paper. You can’t write the paper. You have to show the film.” Mary Clarissa frequently speaks in pronouncements.

  “I don’t recall putting you in charge of my life.”

  “Sorry, but it’s true. Can’t chicken out now.” She returns to chewing happily.

  “But I read the book!”

  I don’t write the essay. It isn’t so much that I’m convinced by Carrie and M.C.; I’m just not sure how I would explain to Curtis that I changed my mind. So instead I rip a piece of paper out of my math notebook and jot down all the ways my movie is thematically connected to The Grapes of Wrath, in case Curtis challenges me. I come up with four pretty good ones and two more that are kind of a stretch. I don’t include Steinbeck as Satan, which would make it seven. I’m back to feeling pretty confident and I start to pick up the phone to call David, which is what I would normally do, but I don’t want to hear him tell me I’m an idiot again. It occurs to me that I always call David. He almost never calls me. Maybe he wouldn’t want me to call. I’m still sitting at my desk, phone in hand, ten minutes later when my mother calls me down for dinner.

  CHAPTER 11

  A Short Dramatic Presentation of a Wells Family Dinner, Followed by a Quick Review of the Entire History of My Love Life

  So, dinner

  Usual chaos. Conversation of a sort. I imagine conversations the way they appear in books. Orderly paragraphs, properly punctuated. Not in my house.

  Carrie and I eat at the breakfast bar, perched on lime-colored vinyl-covered stools that must have been popular in some decade I missed. Mom usually eats standing on the other side of the bar. Tonight she’s just standing with her glass of white wine. I always worry a little when Mom isn’t eating her own cooking. Maybe she’s waiting for Dad, who called and said he would be home in time for dinner. None of us believed him. He’s still at work.

  Carrie begins:

  “Did you buy your prom tickets yet?”

  At least it’s a new topic. I am not up for another discussion about my English project. While I’m answering that I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going, Mom has already jumped in. “Why don’t you take M.C.?”

  Carrie makes a choking noise, which mirrors my facial reaction.

  “Mom, M.C.? I might as well take Carrie.”

  “Like I’d go with you. Besides, I might have a date.”

  This is not a surprise. We wait Carrie out for full disclosure. Mom lives for these moments when she gets to hear about our lives. Dinner is banter. It certainly isn’t about food, since my mother can barely cook.

  “Seth.”

  “Seth with the trombone or Seth the football player?” I ask.

  “Oh, come on.” Carrie follows this exclamation with a look that clearly means: “Like I’d date a trombone player.”

  I chew on my manicotti, which has the consistency of the fruit leather snacks we used to get in our lunchboxes when we were in elementary school. Fruit leather with tomato sauce. I swallow and turn back to Carrie. “You’re dating a six-two brainless linebacker?”

  “Who’s Seth?” Mom asks Carrie.

  “He’s the tight end …”

  “You mean he has a tight end,” I say.

  “… and he’s not brainless.”

  “He’s not brainful.”

  “So what’s wrong with M.C.?” Mom asks, smiling. “She’s cute and she’s smart.”

  “Seth is smart too. Don’t take Mitchell’s side.”

  “How am I taking Mitchell’s side? I don’t even know Seth.”

  “So why is M.C. cute and smart? You are implying that I am interested in Seth just because he’s cute.”

  “And popular.”

  “Stop it, Mitchell.” Carrie glowers at me.

  “Mitch, give your sister a break. If she wants to date large, mentally challenged—”

  “Mom!”

  “So, Mitch, who are you going to take to the prom?” Mom asks, taking a sip from her wineglass. It almost sounds like an innocent question. As I begin to repeat that I haven’t decided whether I’m going to the prom, Carrie answers for me.

  “Amanda.”

  “Who’s Amanda?” asks Mom.

  I’m a little too stunned to reply.

  Carrie smiles. “This girl in my class who for some inexplicable reason thinks Mitchell is cute. They eat lunch together.”

  “Twice. We ate lunch twice. You brought her over to the table both times.”

  Carrie dismisses my comment with a wave of her hand and takes a bite of her manicotti. Mom immediately puts another one on Carrie’s plate. You never have an empty plate. You eventually have to leave a little bit or more food will appear. Mom, despite an advanced degree, never seems to recognize the meaning of “No, thank you, I’ve had enough.”

  I look down at my half-eaten dinner. Manicotti are really just penne on hormones.

  “Anyway,” Carrie continues, “she’ll go with you. She and I are prom dress shopping Saturday.”

  “She sounds very nice,” Mom says. “She should come for dinner.”

  “How do you know she’ll go with me? I haven’t asked her. I haven’t even thought of asking her.” I am feeling somewhat irrelevant to the process.

  “I asked her for you,” Carrie explains. “She said yes. You still should call her about it, though.”

  I’m now at a loss for words, so Mom jumps right back in. “So, who’s M.C. going with?”

  “David.”

  “Does he know?” I ask.

  “There’s no reason for sarcasm, Mitch. Your sister makes a wonderful social director. You guys certainly aren’t doing much about it on your own. Besides, I think David’s sweet on M.C.” I happen to know that David is not sweet on M.C., but I’m not sure how to explain it. I’m just relieved she’s not planning on going with Curtis. Mom, however, is on a roll. “We could have dinner for you here. I could make a special meal and appetizers, maybe a little champagne. We could decorate the dining room really formally …”

  “Mom, we are not having the prom dinner at our house. They serve dinner at the prom.”

  “Not this year,” says Carrie.

  “What’s not this year?” Mom asks.

  “No dinner. The dance committee is full of these prom princesses who don’t think hotel catering is good enough. Seth already has reservations at the Ratcliffe House.”

  “Nice,” Mom says, then turns toward me. “So where will you and David take Amanda and M.C.?”

  “I don’t know. Ask Carrie.”

  Carrie doesn’t miss a beat. “Georgio’s.”

  I almost choke on my manicotti. Mom gives a low whistle. “Wow. That’s a really …”

  “Expensive,” I stammer.

  “… nice, nice restaurant. You must like this Amanda girl a lot,” she says without sarcasm.

  A short history of my entire love life

  Just for the record, since we are talking about proms, I should point out that I am the single biggest loser on the face of the planet. Not that I think anybody needs convincing, but I would like to offer the following as evidence. I am seventeen years old and my entire romantic life has consisted of:

  1) Kissing exactly two females who are unrelated to me

  2) Having been on one date

  I should probably admit that the two kisses occurred at a party in seventh grade. The two females in question kissed practically everyone at the party. It was some sort of dare thing. My activ
e involvement was basically happening to stand in the right room. Given the speed of the lip action, I was lucky to escape unbruised.

  The one date was with Mariel. We went to a dance together in eighth grade. She asked me. Her mother drove. She danced with her friends. I stood near the water fountain.

  I feel like I’ve been standing by that same water fountain now for the last four years.

  CHAPTER 12

  Showtime

  Drum roll, please

  I’m not sure what I expected to happen. We get to class and there’s a TV with a DVD player on a rolling cart at the front of the room. Curtis has obviously thought ahead and requested it. He asks whether I want to go first or wait until the end of class. All I want to do is go, go away, disappear, but I agree to show my film first because the alternative, sitting there thinking about it through the whole class, seems unbearable.

  It takes a little longer than usual for everyone to get settled. Some of the chairs have to be rearranged so that everyone can see the screen, and there’s a little futzing with the DVD player, because it isn’t actually connected to the TV, but eventually everyone has a seat and the equipment is attached. Curtis spends a few minutes reminding everyone who hasn’t turned in a paper yet about the penalties for late assignments, then gives a shortened version of his monthly lecture on the privileges and responsibilities inherent in this being an honors class. And then he turns to me.

  “Mr. Wells”—Curtis never refers to us by our first names—“will now grace us with his latest feature film, a blockbuster titled …” He pauses and looks at me.

  “ ‘An Animated Exploration of Biblical Themes in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath,’ ” I mumble.

  There are a few disapproving grumbles, but Curtis smiles. “It sounds quite exciting.”

  Quite exciting. “Quite” may be my least favorite adverb. There are more groans from the class, but they are mostly good-natured. Whatever this film is, it has to be better than listening to Curtis drone on.

  “Is there something you wish to say by way of an introduction?” prompts Curtis.

  “No,” I think, “I want to die and puke. Or maybe puke, then die.” Instead I stand up, turn to face the class, and say, “This is a Claymation film I made as my report.” I sit back down.

  “Afterward, you will, no doubt, entertain questions.” He seems quite amused. Quite. He is enjoying something about this situation. At first I think it’s just my embarrassment, but it occurs to me suddenly that this might be Curtis’s way of trying to be warm and friendly. I don’t want to think of Curtis as warm and friendly.

  “Sure,” I mumble, not at all sure.

  “Then proceed,” Curtis commands, and I slide the disc into the slot on the player, press play, and sit down.

  Someone has left the sound set on the highest level, and the distorted cacophony of the opening theme blaring through the tiny monitor speakers makes everyone jump. Everyone except Curtis, who calmly picks up the remote and resets the volume to a reasonable level.

  The next seven minutes are excruciating. In slow motion every mistake leaps off the screen at me: the jumpy editing, Wallman’s voice shouting across the lab during one of the voiceovers, the fingers holding the disco-dancing Satan (a naked Ken doll with a picture of Steinbeck’s face taped to it). It all seems so amateurish, so horribly, sincerely, sophomorically dumb.

  It is hard to tell if anyone else notices. There are a few guffaws, mostly during the nude scene, and one “cool” in a particularly bloody sequence. No one falls asleep. Mariel takes notes. When it’s finally over, I stand up, push the eject button, and take out my DVD, all without daring to look at anyone. I am on my way back to my seat when Curtis clears his throat and motions me back to the front of the room.

  “Don’t forget questions.” He is still smiling.

  No one has questions.

  There is an awkward silence while I consider whether it’s possible to transfer schools in the second semester of one’s junior year. It is possibly the longest stretch of silence I have ever experienced in Curtis’s class.

  “Perhaps you might say a little about how you make this kind of film. It was really quite inventive.”

  So I explain. Yes, it is in monotone without looking anyone in the eye and no, I don’t raise my voice above a whisper, but I give a reasonably detailed account of how a Claymation film is made. I describe the storyboards and the editing, the ketchup packets, and how the live action and the stop action work together. I tell them about my favorite Claymation animators and which parts of this film were influenced by Nick Park and suddenly we can hear the sounds of lockers slamming and people in the hallway. Class is over.

  Thunderous applause, sort of

  I look up, startled.

  “Excellent,” Curtis says brightly over the noise of everyone packing up their backpacks and filing out. “Monday we will continue with Willa Cather. It’s on the syllabus.” He is practically ebullient. “Nice job, Mr. Wells,” he says, turning to me.

  “Thanks. I’m glad you liked it?” It isn’t meant to be a question, but it comes out that way anyway.

  “Interesting, creative, well executed.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter again, picking up my backpack. I feel it might be rude if I run to the door, so I just sort of edge my way out. Curtis keeps on smiling. He suddenly seems as uncomfortable as I am. Maybe he doesn’t have anything else to say. I have a flash of awareness where I can imagine that he might wonder later whether he said the right thing in response to me.

  There is no sudden outpouring of reaction from my classmates. In fact, no one makes a single comment except Louis, who says something like “Eve had nice tits” loud enough for me to hear, but not directly to me and probably not for my benefit. Danielle sort of smiles at me on the way out, but I think that’s mostly because I’m in her way. Her eye shadow is blue.

  David is waiting in the hallway.

  Define “great”

  “Was it okay?” I ask him.

  “It went great,” he tells me, nodding but not elaborating. “Great.”

  David’s reassurance is not reassuring. He is my friend. He helped make this thing. And although the word “great” sounds positive, it was not said with any conviction.

  “Are you angry because he liked it?” I ask, trying not to sound defensive.

  “I’m not angry.”

  “I don’t mean angry angry. Just a little angry because you were wrong.”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “What are you?”

  “Almost late for history. Other than that—not much. What’s up your ass?” David’s tone is even, but to me it still sounds aggressive.

  “Nothing. At least it’s over,” I say, more to myself than to him, as we find our regular seats in history.

  The rest of the day is pretty much unbearable. I don’t want to sit through history, or chemistry. Chemistry last period Friday is almost inhuman to begin with. Today it is a visit to the orthodontist, dinner in a fancy restaurant with my aunt Norma, and that documentary on making pencils we had to watch in fourth grade, all compacted into forty-five minutes. I had no idea that so much boredom could be crammed into less than an hour.

  Nevertheless, I dread going home. I was thinking David and I would go out and do something to celebrate or at least go do something, but he went to practice without his usual one-word invitations (movie? pizza? party?) and I’m not calling. Plus, I know my mother will not let this kind of event go unacknowledged. I expect her to meet me at the door with a bouquet of flowers or something, so her shouted “How’d it go?” from the kitchen catches me off guard.

  “Standing O?” she asks.

  “No one threw vegetables.”

  “There go our dinner plans. Did Mr. Curtis say anything?”

  “No, not really. He seemed okay about it.”

  “Tea?”

  “Okay.”

  I don’t really want tea, but I don’t feel like going to my room and dealing with my l
ife either. My mother would desperately like to have children who would sit with her every afternoon and tell her all about their lives. Instead, sometimes we have tea. I pour the water into two mugs and choose what seems to me the least offensive of the thirty-five or so flavors of herbal tea we keep in a big jar on the counter. I can’t deal with any of the berry flavors, teas with names that don’t indicate contents (Sleepy-time, Peppy), or anything labeled “zinger.” I stick with simple, easily identifiable flavors: peppermint, chamomile, vanilla. I settle on chamomile.

  “You seem a little let down,” she offers.

  No comment seems necessary, so instead I scald my tongue on my tea.

  Mom sits and looks at me expectantly. This is supposed to be a moment, a child-parent poignant memory: the two of us sitting in the kitchen drinking tea after a bad day, talking, communicating, sharing. She is trying so hard to be there for me that I almost try to tell her what is going on, but I can’t, or won’t. So we do what we normally do; she asks me questions and I give her content. The fact is I’m not sure why I feel so let down. It all went well, but I’m almost in tears when I tell her that chemistry was totally boring, and I’m thinking of blue eye shadow when I describe my little impromptu speech on the art of Claymation. And no, I’m not doing anything tonight, there’s a party but I don’t think David’s going and I don’t feel like going by myself. And, as the conversation shifts, it’s fine that we aren’t going skiing, I have a history project due on Monday, and no, no, no, I’m not making another film.

  CHAPTER 13

  Missing—One English Teacher, Last Seen Wearing a Tie and Carrying a Really Boring Novel

  At least we noticed he left

  My film having received its debut, English class is off to new topics. I don’t ask about my grade for the project. Papers will be returned on Wednesday and I assume whatever comments Curtis is going to give me about my film will arrive on Wednesday with the rest. Curtis always returns papers exactly one week after they are turned in. He seems to think that he has some sort of moral responsibility to be consistent and timely.