by Adam Selzer
And she would be just about right.
7
I think the worst love song I’ve ever heard is called “Tammy’s in Love,” which is from a dumb but harmless 1950s movie (the class people had in the 1930s sort of dried up after World War II, if the way people act in movies is any indication). It has this line “The ole hootie owl hootie-hoos to the dove … Tammy’s in love.” Terrible. Or at least, I used to think so. Now that I know that the whole “going on dates to the malt shop with a guy you really like” thing actually exists, I’m starting to get it.
I wake up the next morning feeling like I want to hootie-hoo to the dove. And I don’t even feel like slapping myself upside the head for thinking it. Not really.
After a shower, I’ve calmed down a little. I used to think teenage relationships were for idiots. I didn’t feel bad about making fun of couples at the lunch table because I figured that if you were dumb enough to get into a “serious” relationship in high school, you sort of deserved it. Now I’m willing to admit that maybe some of what I thought about teenage relationships being for idiots was wrong, but I’m not willing to totally reverse my opinions. I mean, most of the couples at school are pairs of idiots. Fred and Michelle, for instance. Maybe I can be Alley part of the time and Gonk the other part. Would that, like, be a multiple personality disorder kind of thing?
Sadie and Trinity pick me up in Trinity’s Volvo station wagon, and they both see it in my face.
“Holy crap, Alley,” says Trinity. “Sadie told me you were versmitten or whatever that word was, but I’ve never seen you look like this!”
“Versmote,” Sadie corrects her. “We have got to work on your fake Yiddish.”
“Please, don’t let me turn into one of those girls who’s stuck so far up her boyfriend’s butt she can’t see out,” I say. “Make fun of me or something.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Trinity says. “They don’t call us the Vicious Circle for nothing.”
“We’ll show no mercy,” says Sadie. “I promise. But was the second date as good as the first?”
“Yeah,” I say. “We went to a malt shop.”
“A malt shop?” asks Trinity. “There’s one still around?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s sort of by Drake.”
“Dreamy,” says Sadie, with a chuckle. “Oh, Alley, how do you absolutely feel? In your deepest, secret soul?”
I just kinda blush. I know she’s making fun of me and that I frankly deserve it, but how I absolutely feel is great.
“Did you ever find out what’s wrong with him?” Trinity asks. “Sadie was telling me he’s kind of a mess.”
“He is,” I say. “He has to take this medicine every four hours, and he’s in pain, like, constantly. I just want to kiss him and make it all better!”
“It’s like, tragic,” says Sadie. “Which is totally hot.”
“And it gets worse,” I say. “His parents have practically abandoned him. He lives by himself.”
“He has his own place?” asks Trinity. “You’re living the dream!”
“Yeah,” I say, “but I think he’s kind of embarrassed by it. I’m almost afraid he might live in his car, or in a storage locker or something. He seemed really nervous when I suggested he take me back there.”
“Maybe it’s just performance anxiety,” Trinity suggests. “I mean, if he’s in pain all the time …”
“Yeah,” I say. “We’re going to have to find ways to work around that stuff. I mean, we can do that, right? Quadriplegics still get married and stuff. They make it work.”
“Sure,” says Trinity. “The guy can sing, and eat, and drive a car. He’s not totally immobile.”
“He’s a good kisser, to start with,” I say. “We can build from there.”
“And you can do plenty of experimenting if he has his own place!” says Trinity. “You won’t have to wait for your parents to go out, or waste your money down at Motel Six or risk getting a stiff neck in the backseat.”
“If I can get him to take me there. I offered to go last night, but he was a total gentleman.”
“Crap,” says Trinity. “That sucks.”
I didn’t offer to go back to his place, exactly. I basically threw myself at him at the end of the night. I’m not really that proud of it. I mean, maybe he wasn’t ready to go further than kissing (hard as it is to believe that any guy, anywhere, ever, isn’t). Plus, if it hurts to kiss me, how much must doing anything else hurt? We’ll have to take this slow. I guess that’s the benefit of dating someone with physical handicaps: you can’t rush into things.
But I kind of want to rush.
We pull in to school and sneak through the door that leads to the newspaper room; it’s kind of like our own private entrance. Ryan and Marie are already there, reading news blogs online. Ryan has a Web browser open to my review.
“Well played, Alley,” says Ryan. “You really nailed these guys.”
“I can vouch for it,” says Marie. “I was there.”
“Do you remember any of it?” I ask. “You were trashed!”
“I remember you talking to that zombie guy,” she says.
“Zombie?” I ask. “There weren’t any zombies there. You really were trashed!”
Marie frowns. “That guy who sang for the band on a song or something,” she says. “Wasn’t he a zombie?”
“No!” I say, a little offended. “He’s just a goth. And he’s a real goth, too, not one of those posers. Almost all the zombies crumbled after Megamart let them go. There aren’t any left around here.”
“There might be,” says Marie. “I mean, not all of them crumbled. And there are probably others that other people made. No one knows for sure.”
“No one knows how many zombies there are?” I ask.
“Well, no,” says Trinity. “It’s not like people file paperwork when they illegally raise the dead.”
“Crazy,” I say. “I thought they were almost all back to being dead full-time.”
“Anyway, that singer happens to be Alley’s new boyfriend,” Sadie says.
I blush a little as Ryan and Marie do the “Ooooh” thing.
“He’s the love of her life!” says Sadie, in a cute voice that makes me want to punch her a little.
“Shut up!” I say, even though I don’t totally disagree with her. “We’ve only been on two dates.”
“He made her a playlist!” says Sadie. “And they’re going to prom!”
Marie squeals. I blush more as she rushes up to ask me questions about my dress.
Ryan starts taking notes. I can see that he’s thinking up good one-liners to throw at me at lunch so Peter can put them in his column. Ryan’s probably the least funny person at the table, but he gets a good one in now and then.
I shake my head, trying to go back to being regular, devastatingly witty, sophisticated Alley. The girl everyone at school knows, loves and fears.
It turns out that I need every bit of iciness I’ve ever had inside me, because a lot of the vampire-loving girls in school have read my Sorry Marios review. And they aren’t happy about it. All the way down the hall, girls are mouthing unpleasant words at me. Even Fred and Michelle stop making out long enough to give me dirty looks. The old Alley thrived on idiots being pissed at her, but now it kind of bothers me. I’m feeling too good to get scowled at.
When I get to first period, I sit at a computer and quickly write up a “part two” of the review:
The SORRY MARIOS at the CAGE:
PART 2
(not posted previously due to digital error)
There was one bright spot in the Sorry Marios’ set, and it soared. Midway through the set, a special guest was brought on as a singer. Hailing from West Des Moines, Doug Benchley has a breathy whisper of a voice that makes him sound far older than he is. The two selections he sang, by Cole Porter and Leonard Cohen, demonstrated not only terrific taste in music but also a sense of daring. Not many guys would sing a show tune at the Cage, for fear that some douche bag
would accuse him of being gay. Though his health prevents him from being a full-time band member, Doug’s occasional presence alone makes the Sorry Marios well worth sitting through. It was even worth my while to get hit on by a guy who called me “cuz.” That’s how good he was.
I’m supposed to send things to Trinity for editing, but this time I just post directly to the Web site, then go straight to the board at the front of the room and write the URL.
“Here’s the second part of the Sorry Marios review,” I say to the whole room. “It didn’t go up right away for some reason. One of those e-mail glitches. Tell your friends.”
That shuts people up, at least for that class. Half an hour later, I’m still on the computer, trying to make it look like I’m working on a spreadsheet, but I’m actually on Google, looking up diseases and trying to figure out what, exactly, might be wrong with Doug.
I can’t really find any disease that fits all his symptoms. Honestly, everything points to Sadie being just about right—he must have something kinda gross that he doesn’t want to talk about. Like something wrong with his colon that causes explosive diarrhea or something. That would also explain why it’s hard for him to talk, since he’d probably be really dehydrated all the time.
No wonder he doesn’t want to talk about it on dates. Ew.
But I don’t care what’s wrong with him, really. He could be missing all four limbs and have a colostomy bag and I’d still want to go out with him. I mean, the guy likes Leonard Cohen. And he treats me like a queen.
Class is almost over when this girl named Crystal walks over to me. She’s one of the sluttier girls in school—she was one of the girls wearing a belt as a skirt who was hanging around Will at the Cage. I assume she’s coming to chew me out, but she’s grinning.
“Hey, Alley,” she says.
“What’s happening?”
“I wanted to make sure you know about the party Friday at 1518,” she says. “You and Doug have to come! It’s the preprom bomb.”
“Who’s Doug?” I ask, trying to be all coy.
Crystal giggled. “No point denying it, it’s all over school that you’re dating him. Marie told someone who texted it to Brittany. God knows how many people she might have told by now. And Will already knew.”
I sigh. I figured it would at least take until third period to get out.
“Great,” I say. “So much for keeping it quiet.”
“Anyway, it’s at 1518 on Friday night. Michelle and Fred will be there, so you and Doug have to come.”
“What’s 1518?” I say. I’ve always suspected the “popular kids” have some sort of secret hangout. I’m not that interested in going to one of their parties, but maybe I can get a newspaper story out of it. Undercover among the cheerleaders and football players and vampires. One last big snarky story before I graduate.
“1518 Bartleby Way,” she says. “Haven’t you been there before?”
“No,” I say. “Is it someone’s house?”
“It’s that empty one back behind the cemetery on Bartleby,” she says.
“That house?” I say. “People have parties there?”
“Sure,” she says.
1518 Bartleby Way is an old house that every kid thought was haunted when I was little. It was one of the first houses to be built in town, and then the cemetery grew around it, so when the last owner died or moved to Florida or whatever, it just sat empty. Kids swore up and down that they saw lights on inside now and then, but after it turned out that ghosts and stuff were real and some international brotherhood of ghosts said there was nothing in that house, the stories sort of died down.
“So all those lights kids used to see there were just people having parties?” I ask.
“Probably,” she says. “It gets pretty wild in there, too. No one’s sure who really owns it, so no one stops us.”
“Are you sure I’ll be welcome there?” I ask. “Isn’t everyone pissed about the review?”
“They’ll forgive you when they find out about your boyfriend. You and Doug have to come. Promise?”
Wow. Who knew having a boyfriend was a ticket to an instant social life?
“I’ll see what I can do,” I say. “I don’t control his schedule.”
Crystal chuckles. “Honey,” she says, “you got a thing or two to learn about relationships!”
I don’t know if Doug will want to go to a party—I mean, what if his disease flares up and he has to spend the whole thing in the bathroom? But I’m halfway curious to check out the house. I mean, it was a part of the mythology of my childhood. But then I remember the Sorry Marios are supposed to be playing a gig that night at a private party—it’s probably this one, and Doug will be going anyway to sing a couple of songs.
The next class, two more girls invite me to the party at 1518 Bartleby Way. Everyone is kind of hovering around me now—not in the same way they were an hour ago, when they were pissed off about the review. Now they all want to invite me to parties and ask if Doug knows anyone who can take them to prom. I’m amazed at the turnaround.
Third period, computer lab, is when it all falls apart.
I’m in the middle of Googling more colon diseases, seeing pictures of stuff I hope I never see again, when it happens.
“You’ve got to come to the party, Alley,” says this girl sitting next to me. “You’ve got to. Everyone’s dying to meet Doug. Pun not intended.”
I look over at her. Do I even know this girl? I sit by her in the computer lab for the media class, but I’ve never spoken to her or anything.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Where’s the pun?”
“You know. Dying,” she says.
“I don’t get it,” I say.
“Sorry if that’s not PC,” she says. “But I don’t think I’ve ever met a free zombie before.”
“Doug’s not a zombie!” I say. “He’s a goth! Why does everyone keep calling him a zombie?”
The girl turns a bit pale.
“Um, Alley?” she asks. “Have you Googled Doug? ’Cause a bunch of other people did this morning after part two of your review came out.”
I start to feel the blood going out of my head. Everything around me fades away.
I thought all the zombies crumbled after Megamart let them go, but Marie has a point. Maybe not all of them did. And there probably are people still making them. I didn’t think zombies were quite as functional as Doug, but maybe if they made him into a zombie before his brain totally rotted away …
And Doug did get some sort of medicine at Megamart….
I normally Google everyone I meet, but after getting that date, I felt almost like it would be … impolite to Google Doug. Like I was stalking him or something.
I’m not really ready to Google him now, but I have to know.
I start by just going to the second part of the review on the Web. I never read the comments, since it’s mostly just anonymous idiots shooting their mouths off, like every other “leave your comment” section on the Internet, but now I see that Nat left one: “Sorry you didn’t like the rest of us! Doug’s a good guy. We were in plays together when I was a kid. Only he used to be four years older than me, and now we’re the same age!”
Shlabotnik.
There’s no putting it off any longer. I type Doug’s name into the Google search box at the top of the window.
As soon as I hit Search, I see it: one of those “memorial” pages where someone puts up a picture of someone who died, and then all their friends leave notes and messages and stuff. And there it is: a picture of Doug, looking healthy and happy and not at all pale. Like just a normal person in a Nirvana T-shirt. Below that, there’s a picture of him as Harold Hill in The Music Man, and a little paragraph about his life.
Doug died in a car accident four years ago.
I feel my stomach knotting up and my fingers starting to shake. My eyes go blurry for a second. I feel like I’ve been standing on a rug that just got pulled out from under me, and my head has gone crashin
g to floor with a big gonk.
My vision gets blurrier and my breath gets shorter as I read through the notes people have left on Doug’s memorial site. He didn’t even look like a goth when he was alive. From the comments people have left, he was a regular hipster drama geek.
All the pieces fit. That smell in his car and the medicine? Obviously embalming fluid—a quick Google search confirms that zombies need to drink that stuff every four hours to stay moving. The stuff that would stop the pain but he couldn’t get it? Probably brains.
The suit he wears probably is the one he was buried in.
And when Will told me he was dead, he wasn’t saying he was going to kill him. He was just stating a fact.
I’m totally verblecht.
And I feel like a complete moron.
This is why I’m suddenly popular. I’m the second girl in school to date a dead guy.
I’m still in a total haze by the time I make it to the lunch table. Peter is waiting for me, notebook in hand. So is everyone else. I can see by the looks on their faces that they’ve found out, too. Marie and Sadie seem kind of jealous, but nervous on my behalf.
“Here she is!” Peter says. “The only girl I know who can a win a heart that’s already decomposed!”
“Shut the hell up,” I say.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of!” says Marie. “I mean, dating a zombie isn’t quite as cool as dating a vampire, but it’s like dating a dentist instead of a doctor.”
“Or dating a drummer instead of a lead guitarist,” says Peter gleefully.
I imagine grabbing Peter’s backpack and busting him over the head with it. I imagine hearing the noise (gonk!) and watching the blood pour out of him. And maybe collecting the brains for Doug.
But that’s just stupid. Even I realize I can’t possibly keep seeing Doug.
“Shut up, the both of you!” I say. “I have to break up with him! I can’t date a dead person!”
“That’s so racist!” says Marie.
