Second String Savior

by Rick Gualtieri

My newfound partner in crime inclined his head toward his left shoulder. I followed the motion to see none other than Tony reading a manga while the rest of the offensive line blathered amongst themselves.

  Gary leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “He’s been asking me about manga and other geek stuff all week. Maybe he’s going to—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence, or I’ll do things with these chopsticks that are potentially irreversible.”

  “Hit a nerve, perhaps?”

  “You don’t know me,” I muttered. Luckily there were only fifteen minutes left till the back half of the day and Gary, like me, couldn’t handle Mrs. Dubowski’s class on an empty stomach.

  “Oh, I think I do. You’re practically drooling. Even a meathead would have to be blind not to notice, unless that’s what you want. . .”

  It was amazing how much conversation could be avoided by loudly slurping one’s Ramen. My companion finally took the hint and I managed to finish my week in relative peace. As I was walking out of last period, I even caught a glimpse of Tony heading off to the locker room, where he would soon be changing out of his clothes and stepping into a steamy. . .

  “Hey, Jessie!”

  My brain instantly shut down upon hearing him speak my name, and I froze like a deer in headlights. Tony Castorini, my Tony, walked over to me and got within personal conversation range. He even leaned in so that his intoxicating sweaty-cologne aroma filled my nostrils. “Thanks for the recommendation. I really liked it.”

  Say words, Jessie. Why don’t you say words? Instead, I stood there like an idiot while the most eligible man in school struck up a conversation. He looked so nice and I . . . was totally locked up. Come on, words. Come on.

  “I started watching the series. There was another show on before it, Inuyasha, and it seems pretty cool, too.”

  “I think every girl dreams of a guy who’ll sit on command,” I blurted out. Why were those the words that finally showed up to the party? Instead of backing away slowly, Tony . . . laughed? I reluctantly joined him.

  “You’re kinda funny, Jess.” His words didn’t exactly leave me warm and fuzzy, but I think it was a compliment. “Say, are you working at the comic store this weekend?”

  I almost said yes, but my head reflexively shook no. “I help out at my grandpa’s gym on the weekends.”

  “Wow, two jobs, huh? Saving for a car?”

  “College, actually.”

  Tony’s smile changed a bit. Great, now he knew what the rest of the school probably suspected—I was from a different income bracket than the typical Tomahawk. He gave a tiny shrug. “Okay. I’ll stop by Monday, then.”

  Stop . . . by . . . Monday—did he really just say those words? Pure terror twisted in the depths of my gut. He liked the manga I recommended, didn’t mock me, and wanted to see me again. On the flip side, it was probably just to impress some other girl.

  Make that definitely. Tony waved goodbye then walked away, stopping at the far end of the corridor where a completely stacked girl in a skintight sweater and plaid skirt was twirling one of her curls. Lindsey fricking Stallings from the drama club, the ride-share of the thespians. I mean, could she even freaking read, much less enjoy manga?

  “Hey, Jessie.” Gary leaned around the lockers. Did he have a homing beacon on me, or what? He cocked his head. “Earth to Jessie. You look like you’ve checked out.”

  “I, um. . .”

  Gary looked down the hall, her royal skankiness flitting her eyelashes so furiously it was a wonder that her contacts didn’t end up on the linoleum. “So, I kinda found out a few things about Ton—”

  I whirled around, and grabbed him by the jacket, probably looking none too sane in that instant. “What exactly did you find out?”

  “I was gonna grab some froyo. If you want to come along, I’ll tell you everything I learned about the meathead.”

  Come along? I’d have gladly climbed into an unmarked white van with Free Candy printed on the side to hear what he had to say.

  We ended up at a top-your-own froyo bar in nearby Shrewsbury, parked terribly, and got ready for gossip. Gary went through the agonizing motions of recapping school first, obviously dragging it out. I was just about to dump my double swirl cone, topped with Fruity Pebbles, into his lap, when he finally put me out of my misery.

  “Look, you probably don’t want to know this, but your meathead—”

  I shot him the glare of death.

  “Um, Tony that is, he has a certain type.”

  “Actors?”

  Gary shook his head.

  “Size double-D?”

  Gary looked a bit askance. “Double-D? I don’t know, she didn’t strike me as that large in the . . . um, what I meant was no.”

  I impatiently gulped down a mouthful of yogurt. “What is it, then?”

  Gary smiled sheepishly. “He has it bad for redheads.”

  I blinked a few times, trying my best to process this nugget of information into my Friday-addled brain. He did go out with Chrissy Mendelsohn before she transferred to Assabet, and she had auburn hair, but that was hardly an overwhelming sample size. “Redheads, really?”

  Gary did a salute. “Scout’s honor. We ended up having the talk during lab.”

  I almost choked on a mouthful of yogurt. “Excuse me?”

  “You know, the talk. It’s a commonly known fact that there are only three types of guys in the world—those who like Daphne and those who prefer Velma.”

  I stared at him, slightly confused. “Daphne and Velma?”

  “You know, Scooby Doo?”

  The mental lightbulb finally went on as I made the connection. I probably should’ve gotten the pop culture reference, but my brain was far too addled with the possibility that Tony had a type to process much else.

  “Guys either like the pretty girls with the tiny dresses and scarlet tresses, or they prefer the clever girl-next-door with the glasses and turtleneck sweaters. He’s a Daphne guy, plain and simple. Personally, I always thought Velma would be way more fun in the. . .” He trailed off with a slightly disturbing smile, then nodded as if he’d shared some great wisdom of the Y-chromosome.

  “Hold on. You said there were three types of guys?”

  “Oh? Yeah, well, some dudes prefer Fred. Though I think if I batted for the home team, I’d be more into Shaggy. Ascots don’t really do it for me.”

  “That’s not the dog, is it?” I kept enough of a poker face for him to raise a brow before we both broke out into giggles. Eventually, I let out a deep sigh. “So, problem number one. I’m a brunette.”

  “Frankly, my dear,” Gary said, putting on his best Rhett Butler impression, “I don’t think you should give a damn. You do know you can do something about that, right?” He pointed toward the drugstore across the street.

  I shook my head. “Not gonna happen. My dad would have kittens if I dyed my hair. I mean, I might be able to get away with some reddish highlights, but he’s a stickler for anything permanent. He didn’t even let me get my ears pierced till I was twelve.”

  “Twelve? Quite the monster, isn’t he?”

  I punched him in the arm. “I’m serious. He’s all ‘don’t do anything you’ll regret when you’re older.’ It’s one of his mantras.”

  “But isn’t it every teenager’s solemn duty to defy their folks?”

  He had a point. I could possibly do a color rinse just to check the ridiculous notion that something as simple as hair color was the key to the quarterback’s heart. It was hoodie and hat season, and as long as I went subtle or temporary, I’d probably be fine. My dad would grumble, but so long as I was still getting good grades, what could he really do? Yeah, it might work, and even if it didn’t, I’d be no worse off than I was before.

  “I just need to do it before Monday, and it can’t be too drastic.”

  “Don’t you want him to notice it?”

  I sighed. “Just enough that he’ll notice. You’re sure about this, right? You know I’m not one to n
ormally trust the advice of a dude I met a week ago.”

  “But you’re gonna do it anyway because your desperate?”

  “Jerkface,” I grumbled under my breath. Still, I had to share a sly smile. Gary was a pretty good sidekick, if I did say so myself.

  We finished our froyo while debating whether Hayden Christensen had more acting range than a pastry. I made sure to text that I was hanging with friends so that Dad wouldn’t freak. That bought us just enough time to take a detour to that drugstore.

  As I found myself confronted by row upon row of smiling women on little boxes, it occurred to me that there was a downside to being raised by a passel of guys. I had no idea where to start with choices like permanent, semi-permanent, temporary, and all-natural to select from. Most made sense, but what the heck was semi-permanent? Did the color decide if it liked you and then moved in, or what?

  Gary had little to add except finding a placard with little loops of fake hair to give me a sense of what it might look like.

  “Did you need some help, dearie?” a raspy but otherwise pleasant voice asked. I turned to see a woman straight out of an eighties sitcom, complete with bright makeup and a mountain of stiff, bleached-blonde hair. Her eyebrows had been plucked into oblivion, giving her a perpetually bemused expression, and I noticed multiple nicotine patches peeking out from under her sleeve. Even her cloud of perfume couldn’t mask the smoke clinging to her.

  “Um, I was looking for—”

  The shop lady pointed to the section behind me. “Hair color, maybe?”

  I nodded sheepishly. Gary, meanwhile, had disappeared down the drink aisle just when I needed my wingman most.

  “I need something to make my hair a little . . . reddish, but that washes out quick.”

  “Are we talking a wash or two, or a few weeks?” She waved off the question. “Probably doesn’t matter anyway. Your hair is pretty dark, honey. If you want the color to show, you’ll have to use bleach and a permanent color.”

  I shook my head in desperation. “Oh no, it has to be temporary.”

  The shop lady clucked her tongue. “Well we’ve got this spray color, but all it’s good for is stiff ends and looking fake. Save that crap for Halloween, I say. If you want something gentle, we have a new line of one-hundred percent botanical hair coloring. There’s a henna-based auburn that would make your hair as shiny as my manager’s head.” She pointed to a chrome dome working at register two.

  “It’ll make me bald?” I asked a little too quickly.

  “Oh, hon, you are just too adorable!” The lady walked over to the cosmetics counter and pulled out a box with an Indian girl on the front. Her hair looked glossy and just a tad bit red with a little extra at the roots. “This one, Cinnabar Princess, has all-natural essences of rosemary and eucalyptus, so it’ll smell nice, too. I’d use it myself, but the henna doesn’t react so well with hair like mine. The best part is it washes out within a week, although might last a bit longer if you’re one of those every-other-day shower folks.”

  “Eww.” I looked at the label proclaiming it both vegan and gluten-free. Wow, even hair color was marketing to that crowd. Maybe it was for celiac sufferers who liked to chew their hair.

  Whatever the case, I flipped it around to look for a price tag, but the shop lady leaned in and gave a wink.

  “It’s a free sample, kid.”

  “Wait, really?” I asked suspiciously. Sure enough, when I turned it over again, the barcode had a tiny “Promotional, Not for Individual Sale” warning under the numbers.

  “The sales guys are hoping you’ll like it so much that you’ll come back and buy a bunch when the display goes up next week. These are usually one per customer, but I’m gonna give you two because you have so much hair. Just don’t tell my manager, okay?”

  “Of course not.”

  The lady led me to a corner out of sight of the manager and packed two boxes into a bag. Well, that was easier than I hoped, and cheaper, too.

  I darted to the back to find Gary loading up with chips and soda. By the time we made it to the front register, the nice cosmetics lady had already disappeared to help someone else. I probably should have thanked her better, but didn’t want to get her in trouble. I assuaged my guilt by using the money I would have wasted on hair dye to buy extra peanut butter cups.

  We walked out to the parking lot, chatting about school, when suddenly Gary grabbed my hand and pulled me tight against him.

  “What the—?” I cried out as I crashed into his chest. If this was his way of making a move, he had another thing coming.

  Just as I shoved him away, though, a massive tree branch snapped and landed on the ground right where I’d been standing. My heart leapt into my chest and, for a moment, I could feel that cold hand wrapping around my mouth again.

  “Holy—”

  “I . . . saw something . . . out of the corner of my eye,” Gary offered weakly. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you, but you know when you get one of those bad feelings, right?”

  I nodded, still numb from what had almost happened. Yeah, something was totally weird about this new guy. Then again, I’d just narrowly avoided becoming a pancake, so I probably shouldn’t complain. The best course of action was to just keep moving and try not to notice the charred ends of the limb, like it had been struck by lightning . . . on a clear evening.

  Yeah, something was off about this week. On the upside, it was practically over. What could possibly happen in the short time that was left?

  Chapter Three: I had to Ask

  All things considered, there were far worse ways to start a Saturday than the smell of bacon and pancakes. I rolled out of bed, cursing the need for a pit stop on the way.

  The clatter of pots and pans echoed as I peeked around the arch that led to the kitchen. “Hey, you,” Dad said between flips of flapjacks.

  I cocked my head at his plain black T-shirt and sweatpants. This may have been the first time this month I’d seen him out of uniform. “You’re up early.”

  He swigged a deep drink of coffee before he answered. “Haven’t been to bed yet. By the time I finally cleared out my case file, it was five, so I decided to hit the gym and power through it. Saturday mornings are surprisingly dead.” He cringed a little. “Until, of course, all the moms drop off their brats to make my baby girl’s weekend exciting.”

  “More like exhausting,” I muttered as I made my way towards the coffee pot. Dad shooed me away and proceeded to spoil me with a plate piled with pancakes and all the fixins’.

  He took the time to microwave a jar of milk then shake it up to make a mock-accino with a few swirls of chocolate sauce to decorate my foam. I raised an eyebrow. This was above and beyond for a week that contained neither my birthday nor a case of the flu.

  “I just feel like I’ve been working too much and not spending enough time with you lately. And stop with the people’s eyebrow, young lady. You know it works much better when I do it.” He punctuated his remark with a full-on wrestler glare. With his deeply tanned skin, buzzcut, and tree-trunk arms, he made a compelling argument, but that didn’t stop me from rolling my eyes. He, like most of my male relatives, had been blessed by the Goliath gene. I, unfortunately, missed the boat and ended up a stick.

  “Did you hear about the weirdness over in Shrewsbury yesterday?” he asked out of the blue. “Folks down at the station are calling it a freak lightning storm.”

  I probably shouldn’t have dropped my fork upon hearing that, but I tried to rescue it with a nonchalant, “What happened?”

  “A tree got split, sending limbs down across the power lines. Took out the lights around White City. The resulting fender benders had us stretched super thin.”

  Huh. “Did it rain over there?”

  “Nah, no rain, just a couple of zaps out of the blue with nary a cloud in the sky. I swear, I haven’t seen anything like that since I worked at the base in Greenland.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Roberto Jenkins was on dispat
ch last night. Wouldn’t stop talking about global warming and how we’re due for a new ice age,” he added with a grin.

  I thought back to the tree branch which almost clobbered me. Again with the fork dropping—I really needed to hold my cards closer to my chest. Blacking out and weird invisible lightning strikes, coupled with a new guy who just so happened to conveniently save my life, it was almost enough to make a person paranoid.

  Dad must’ve noticed the look on my face, because he asked, “Are you okay? You look a little green around the gills.”

  “No, I’m just brain fried from school. It’s been a tough week and I haven’t gotten as much sleep as I should have.”

  “Are you working too much?” He had the face now, that mix of concern and annoyance that only the parent of a teenager could seemingly summon. “Jimmy shouldn’t—”

  “Dad, I like watching the shop. It keeps me out of trouble, and I do all my homework there. Uncle Jimmy is no slave-driver, and you said yourself that you hate when I’m home alone. Okay, that and I like having all the comics I can read.”

  “I know, kiddo, but I’m your dad. I want you to have a good work ethic and time to spend with your friends. It’s all about—”

  “Balance,” I finished for him. This was a common topic in our household.

  “Anyway, if you like, I can give you a ride out to Worcester.”

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  “I’m sure Papa will bring you back when I inevitably pass out, but I’d like for us to get a little more father-daughter time. That cool with you?”

  I leaned across the table and gave him a hug. “Of course, Dad.” Yup, there came his trademark follow-up noogie.

  “Not to be a buzzkill at breakfast,” he added. Oh boy, something was up. He even did that folding his hands on the table thing, like he did when my hamster died or when I tried to hide a C- in art. “I know you like walking to the shop, but it gets dark so early now that I want you to either wait till it’s closed and Jimmy can bring you home, or I want you to call. Even if I can’t pick you up, someone who’s going off duty—”

  “Dad, it’s Northborough, not Detroit.”