by Don Calame
A Grim Reaper wearing purple robes sits on top of a large skull. In the background, a single white rose sprouts from the scorched landscape.
“Great,” I say. Whatever this card is referring to — my horny thoughts about Nessa, my love for Leyna, my desperate desire to break things off with Evelyn — it can’t be good.
“Don’t worry,” Nessa cautions. “This card rarely means an actual physical death.” She quickly searches for the page in her guide for an explanation. “Except when it does. All right. Here we are. Death. You are facing a major change in your life, Sean. But you’ll have to let go of your old self first. And it might be very challenging. Even painful. A tearing away. But”— she turns the page —“if you manage to get past all of this and allow the end to come, however horribly agonizing and excruciating it might be, there is a new and better you waiting on the other side.”
I gulp. “It actually says that —‘agonizing and excrutiating’?”
“It’s a rebirth, Sean.” Nessa snaps the tarot guide shut and smiles. “Your rebirth. And that’s never easy. But it’s your path right now. And that’s what you want your movie to be about: death and rebirth. The world is being overrun by lifeless, soulless creatures that must be defeated so that a new and better world can rise from the ashes. It all makes perfect sense.” She leans forward, giving me an even closer look down her shirt. Sweet mother of Thor. “Don’t you see?”
My eyes bounce between her amazing cleavage and the Grim Reaper. Boobs or death? Boobs or death? What’ll it be, Seanie boy?
“Can we . . . ? Can we get back to the screenplay now?”
Nessa smiles. “Sure, Sean. Now that we know what it is we’re writing about, there’s nothing standing in our way. Is there?”
I do my best to smile, but the specter of the Grim Reaper looms large.
“WE’RE NEXT!” LEYNA CALLS OUT, taking my hand and pulling me up to the front of the room.
“All right.” Mr. Nestman looks at his Mickey Mouse watch. “But you guys are the last ones. I’ve got a commercial audition at eleven thirty, which means I need to be out that door the second the bell rings. The Discount Meat Warehouse waits for no one.”
Ever since the auditions last week, Leyna has wanted to partner up with me on almost every exercise we do in Drama. And since she’s one of Mr. Nestman’s star students, I’ve had to embarrass myself in front of the entire class on an almost daily basis.
Leyna plucks the black blindfold off Mr. Nestman’s desk. “You’ll be the blind man, okay? And I’ll lead.”
“Sure,” I say.
If this were anyone but Leyna, I would be making every excuse in the book to beg off. But I am her devoted Jedi, and I would battle the entire evil Empire for her. Besides, I did betray her honor with Nessa — if only in my mind — and so I feel like I need to make amends.
I take a glance at the obstacles — chairs, tables, traffic cones, broomsticks, boxes — that have been laid out around the room. Of course, they’ll all be moved around once I’m blindfolded, but still, it’s good to have a general idea of the sizes and shapes of things.
Leyna is going to have to try and guide me safely through the course with only the tips of her ten fingers touching the tips of mine. Mr. Nestman has offered a prize — a ten-dollar gift card to DeLuca’s Coffee Corner — to the first team that can successfully navigate the entire path without touching a single object. Five teams have tried so far and only one of them — the surprising tandem of Douchebag Dan and Voluptuous Victoria — has made it even halfway through.
“We can do this,” Leyna says, drawing me in with her intense gaze. “But you have to trust me. Just focus on how my hands are moving. Forget everything else. Can you do that?”
I nod.
“Good,” she says, gently sliding the blindfold over my eyes. And then I feel her warm breath on me as she whispers in my right ear. “Use the Force, Sean.”
Oh, my God. A Star Wars reference. From Princess Leyna. Forget tarot — this is a real sign.
I breathe deep to try and calm the nervous flutter in my lungs. There’s a wonderful toasted-almondy-sweet-honey scent coming off of Leyna. It’s subtle and delicious and intoxicating and I find myself teetering toward her. It takes all of my willpower not to bury my nose in the nape of Leyna’s neck and fill up on her wonderful smell.
It’s not until I hear the scraping and shuffling of the obstacles being moved around the room that I’m startled from my scent-induced trance. I need to focus here. Leyna seems so sure that we can do this, and I really want to do well for her. I can already picture her excitedly jumping up and down. Giving me a victory embrace. Maybe even a congratulatory kiss as we’re caught up in the moment.
I can sense Leyna moving toward me even before she’s there. I hold up my hands and feel her tenderly pressing her fingertips into the soft pads of mine.
Oh, jeez. That’s nice. That’s really nice. Her touch is so light and tingly. Like she’s emitting these minuscule sparks. She lightly swirls her fingers against mine, waking up every last nerve in my fingertips.
Holy moly. That’s crazy. My head starts to spin. My breath catches in my throat and . . .
Whoa, Nelly!
Easy, boy. I do not need that response right now.
I shift my weight and start imagining Klaus, our one-hundred-fifty-pound Rottweiler, squatting and squeezing off a ginormous mound of duke. Me having to bag that monster. The soft squishy warmth of it in my fist. The heft of it in my palm.
And the foul beefy stench of it wafting up to my nostrils.
Gugg. I nearly make myself yak. But at least it does the trick.
“You’ve got three minutes,” I hear Mr. Nestman call out. “Starting . . . now!”
Leyna begins to pull away ever so slightly. I slide my feet along the floor toward her, trying not to break the connection between us. It’s such a bizarre feeling having to put your total trust in someone like this, but with Leyna it feels perfectly natural. I bet she really was a great Helen Keller.
She leads me this way and that, raising her hands in the air when she wants me to step over something, closing her fingers when she wants me to move toward her, spreading them out when she needs me to back away. I don’t know how I figured out her silent sign language, but it seems to be working, because I haven’t knocked into any of the objects yet.
And then, of course, there’s my secret weapon. My nose. I’m following the scent of Leyna’s honey-nut aroma as much as anything else. I’m still not sure if it’s a subtle perfume or her lip balm or just her natural scent, but it’s attracting me like a hummingbird to nectar.
“One minute!” Mr. Nestman shouts.
Leyna guides me to the left, and I hear the entire class gasp. Uh-oh. Must have just missed something. Leyna presses on my fingers to stop me from moving forward. She has me step a little to the right and then we’re moving forward again.
I take a few more steps this way and another turn to the left, and then I hear Leyna scream with joy just as the class breaks into whoops and cheers.
“We did it!” She whips my blindfold off and gives me a big hug. It. Feels. Amazing. “Oh, my God! You’re such a good follower! It’s like you were inside my head, listening to everything I was thinking.”
“Congratulations.” Mr. Nestman claps loudly, and Leyna pulls away.
I instantly miss her. Her warmth stolen from me. Like someone’s just opened the door to Alaska.
Mr. Nestman takes his well-worn brown leather wallet from his back pocket, plucks a DeLuca’s gift card out, and hands it to Leyna. “Don’t spend it all in one place. Well, actually, scratch that. You have to spend it all in one place. Enjoy.” He turns to me. “So, how’s the casting come along? Have we made any decisions yet?”
“Oh, um . . .” I glance over at the clock, praying for the bell to save me. “Not just yet. We’re still sorting it out. Going through all the tapes, you know. By next Monday for sure.”
Mr. Nestman smiles and nods. “Well,
don’t give me too big a part. Third or fourth lead should be fine. I want to keep myself available to help with the directing and rewrites. But don’t take too long. I am a professional actor, and I do have other irons in the fire.”
“Yeah. Okay. We’ll keep that in mind.”
“Excellent.” He claps me on the shoulder. “Just let me know when you have some scenes you’d like to workshop in class and I’ll make it happen.”
And on that, the bell rings, sending everyone scrambling for their shoes.
I turn back to Leyna, who waves our DeLuca’s gift card at me.
“Yay!” she squeals. “Are you free tomorrow? We should totally go to the mall and get a mocha. Enjoy the spoils of our victory. And maybe talk about your movie? What do you say? Is it a date?”
“Yeah. Absolutely. Definitely.” The affirmative words tumble out of my mouth like wash from an overflowing dryer. A date with Leyna? Are you kidding? I’d stand up Slave Leia herself if it meant going on a date with Princess Leyna.
“Great,” she says. “How about four o’clock? Does that work for you?”
“Yes, it does. Four o’clock tomorrow works for me. It does. Yes.” Jesus, I sound like someone who’s been kicked in the head by a horse.
“Awesome,” Leyna says. “Well, see you there.” She glances over her shoulder as she goes, flashing me a melt-my-heart smile just before she pushes through the door that leads out to the courtyard.
I’m grinning so big that my cheeks hurt. I feel like Jigglypuff leveled up with high happiness and Aprijuice. Man alive, things could not be any sweeter.
“Hello, Sean. Are you about ready to go?” Bzzz! Game over. I’d know that strained, nasal, disapproving voice anywhere. Evelyn.
I turn around to see her standing stiffly, strangling her books to her chest, a pinched look on her face like someone just forced her to swallow a mouthful of sour milk. Oh, crap. This is not going to be pleasant.
“I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE switched into Drama,” Evelyn says, shaking her head violently as we walk down the hallway. “I’m so stupid. I should have trusted my instincts.” If her textbooks had lungs, they’d be gasping for air.
“What are you talking about?” I say, calling on all of my drama skills to try to sound completely ignorant.
Evelyn stops dead in her tracks and turns on me. “You know what I’m talking about. Miss Hotsy-Totsy you were chatting with. Don’t think I don’t recognize her. She was that terrible actress at the auditions. What’s she trying to do? Seduce you so she can glom on to our movie?”
“What? No. I mean, maybe she auditioned, I don’t remember. A lot of kids in Drama did, but . . . We just did an acting exercise together. That’s what we were discussing —”
“I’m leading lady, mister.” She jabs me in the chest with her finger. “Don’t you forget it. You aren’t even filming this movie without me and my video camera.”
“Okay, just calm down, Ev —”
“Who the heck does she think she is, anyway? Looking at you like that. I’m gonna scratch her eyes out so she can never ogle someone else’s boyfriend like that ever again.”
“She wasn’t”— my mouth has gone cottony, making it hard to get my words out —“ogling anybody.”
“Oh, right.” Evelyn juts her chin out, her eyes narrowing to slits. “Tell me you didn’t see her slowly unzipping your pants with her gaze.”
I blink. “No, I did not see that.”
“What’s her name? I’m gonna have Nick do some digging. Tail her a bit. See what kind of home wrecker she is.”
I take a deep breath to try and bring my heart rate back from the stratosphere. “Don’t you think maybe you’re overreacting a bit?”
“Overreacting?” Evelyn grabs my arm and glares at me, a furious purple vein pulsing in her forehead. “What am I supposed to do? Sit by and watch as she steals you away?” She gets right up in my grill, releasing her Swiss-cheesy smell like an angered skunk. “Should I just let her snatch the love of my life away? I don’t think so.”
Love of her life? My junk shrivels. “She’s not snatching anything. We were just talking. That’s all. Just like I talk to people every day. Girls. Guys. Teachers. It means nothing. Less than nothing, even.”
Evelyn glances away, biting her lower lip. Then she looks back at me, her eyes starting to fill up. “Do you swear?”
“Yes. Absolutely. Totally.”
“On your”— her gaze falls to my crotch —“‘down there’?”
I blink hard. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Do you swear on your ‘down there’? It’s the only way I’ll know if you’re telling the truth. No guy wants his . . . thingamabob to stop working.”
She can’t be serious.
Oh, but I can see she’s as serious as a .44 Magnum pointed at my head. If she wanted me to swear on anything else — my arm, my nose, my brain — I’d just go ahead and do it. No question. But some things you don’t want to screw with. Just in case anyone is listening.
But then — as if God knows this chick is bonkers and wants to throw me a life preserver — a memory pops into my head.
“Yes,” I say, trying to keep my expression earnest. “I swear. On my . . . thingamabob.” In my mind I am picturing the thingamabob I made in kindergarten out of clay, rocks, twigs, and pipe cleaners. The very thingamabob that my mother still has on top of one of our bookcases. It’s a thingamabob that I’m sure would be more than happy to take a bullet for me.
“Oh, snuggy bear! I’m so relieved!” Evelyn crumples into my arms and breaks into heaving sobs, trembling and snuffling against me. It’s a more dramatic personality switch than anything I’ve seen in drama class. “I’m so sorry. I totally schmucked up. Can you ever forgive me?”
I pat her back tentatively, as the clammy warmth of her snot and tears soaks through my shirt. “It’s fine. There’s nothing to forgive.”
Evelyn drags her nose across my shoulder, then lifts her head to look at me. “Really?”
I force myself to hold her rheumy red-eyed gaze. “Of course. It was an honest mistake. No big deal.”
She leans in and administers one of her patented Miss Universe death-grip hugs. “You are the greatest boyfriend ever. I don’t deserve you.” She cranes her head back and sniffs up the gooey gelatinous drip that hangs precariously from her nostril. All I can think is, Surely I don’t deserve this. “I am never going to let you go,” she adds, and smiles big, a large mucusy saliva bubble inflating on her teeth.
I force a laugh. “That’s . . . great.”
Evelyn’s mouth bubble pops, sending a mist of spittle onto my cheek.
“I want to make it up to you,” she says. “For being a jealous Nelly. Seriously.”
I casually lift my hand to my face to wipe away the wet. “That’s really okay. There’s nothing to make up for.”
She grabs my forearms, cutting off the circulation to my hands. “I insist,” Evelyn demands, her voice deadly serious. “I won’t feel better until you let me do something nice for you.”
I can’t imagine what Evelyn’s idea of being nice entails. Surprising me with a ticket to go run with the bulls? Signing us up for couples cliff diving? Or a tour of Arkham Asylum?
Just then the late bell rings, which means if I’m not in math class in thirty seconds Mrs. Buckeen is going to make me sit in the Throne of Shame at the front of the room.
“Sure,” I blurt. “Okay.”
“Thank you!” Evelyn shrieks, bouncing up and down. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You will not regret this.”
But, of course, I already do.
“I’ve got a great idea.” She shakes my arms like she’s trying to straighten out a particularly wrinkled bedspread. “Let’s go to the mall tomorrow afternoon. You and me. We can pick out your Valentine’s Day present. I want to get you something really special.”
The mall. That doesn’t sound so bad. Better than Arkham Asylum, anyway. “All right,” I say. “The mall. Tomorrow. Let’s do it.”
>
“Oh, you’re the bestest, snuggle bunny.” Evelyn grabs my head and practically gives me a tonsillectomy with her tongue before pulling away with a sloppy smack. “Four o’clock by the H&M,” she says. “And don’t be late! Toodle-oo, kangaroo.”
Then she’s gone and I can finally breathe again.
I turn and hurry down the hall, shaking off the ickiness that lingers.
It’s not until I’ve taken the two flights of stairs down to the math wing — feeling almost normal again — that I am punched in the face with the realization of how completely and royally I’ve just screwed myself.
“JUST TELL EVELYN you forgot that you had a doctor’s appointment,” Matt offers, unwrapping his tuna sandwich, the fishy smell wafting through the Hole — our secret storage-room hideout in the basement of the school — where me, Matt, and Coop have gathered for an emergency meeting. “Then you’ll be free to meet up with this Leyna girl.”
I shake my head. “Evelyn’s already super suspicious. Forget it. I have to find Leyna and cancel. I just wish I had her number so I could just text her.”
Coop tsk-tsks, like he’s disappointed in me. “I don’t understand why you don’t just keep your dates with both babes. You can shuttle back and forth between them. One at the coffee shop, the other at the food court. How dope would that be? You’ll be the super-stud of the Rockville Mall.”
“Yeah, right. Like that doesn’t have disaster written all over it.” I take a bite of my baloney and cheese on Wonder bread. “I’m just going to have to wait until after we finish the movie, dump Evelyn, and ask Leyna out then.”
Coop screws up half his face. “That is complete lame sauce, dawg. This kind of sweet sitch only comes around once in a lifetime. You’re the man with the gland, dude. Two babes wanting to paw you to pieces? You owe it to your fellow brethren to make this happen.” Coop pulls a squashed Sally Gregg Diet Meal Bar from his back pocket and starts to unwrap it. “Besides, boss. You blow this girl off now, and she’s gonna take it as disinterest. She’ll go scouting for another dude, stat. Trust me.”
