Playing With Matches

by Brian Katcher

  “I don’t think we should go out anymore.” I clenched my jaw.

  Amy ran her tongue over her top teeth, which I should not have found erotic.

  “Leon, I don’t know how many guys I’ve dated. Probably not as many as everyone thinks. But every single one of them either cheated on me, or dumped me, or turned out to be an asshole. Every one.”

  I sat there, stacking packets of salsa, not looking at Amy. This was hard enough without looking at those perfect lips that for a week or two I’d been allowed to kiss.

  “Leon, do you know why I called you when I was sad? Why I wanted to dance with you? Wanted you to call me?”

  I shrugged.

  “Look at me, damn it! Because you’re funny! Because you’re smart. Because when I saw you hanging out with Melody and your crew, I thought that I’d finally met someone who didn’t care what people thought! I thought, ‘Here’s a guy who might want to do something besides grope me in his car all night! Here’s a guy who doesn’t need to be told how great he is every five seconds. Here’s a guy who’s got his shit together, someone I can have some fun with!’”

  I flicked over my salsa pyramid. Why couldn’t I hire one of Johnny’s Total Bastards to do this for me?

  “I guess you misjudged me, Amy.”

  Amy reached into her purse. I waited for the inevitable cigarette (or her pepper spray), but she pulled out some gum. “Leon, I knew you and Melody had a thing going on. And I guess that doesn’t make me any better than you. But I never wanted to change you, or ignore you, or whatever the hell problem you had with me. I’m sorry you thought I was such a shallow bitch, but at least I tried. Maybe I tried to change you, but you wanted to change me too. You wanted Melody, but with my face.”

  “That’s not true!” That’s completely true. When did Amy get so insightful?

  “Leon.” She sat cracking her gum for a moment. “Maybe someday I’ll meet a guy who’s not a dick. And maybe someday you’ll make up your mind about what you want. But I’m sorry I met you.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  Amy spit her gum into a napkin. “No, you’re not. You’re sorry you got hurt.” She stood and took her purse.

  “Leon? Is Melody going to take you back?”

  I stayed seated. Amy towered over me. I remembered when she hadn’t known who I was.

  “I don’t know, Amy.”

  “Good luck. Melody certainly massages that pathetic ego of yours.”

  I felt bad as she went, but not so bad that I didn’t enjoy the sight of her legs.

  So that was over. Now for the hard part.

  Here was my plan: I’d corner Melody at her locker. I’d apologize. I’d tell her I’d made a horrible mistake. Tell her I was weak. I was a jerk. I was sure she’d agree with me.

  But I thought she’d forgive me. I thought she cared about me enough that she’d give me a second chance. I wouldn’t blow it this time.

  I just didn’t count on one tiny detail: Melody wouldn’t talk to me.

  She’d turn and walk away if she found me near her locker. She’d sit at a crowded table at lunch so we couldn’t talk in private. There was no time for a protracted apology during history class, and I could never find her during study hall.

  Another week went by. Jimmy and Johnny wouldn’t shut up about how we were two weeks away from being seniors. I helped Rob truck home all the crap from his locker. Even the poster vandals had stopped caring. School was almost over.

  I was near panic. If I didn’t mend things with Melody now, I might never get another chance. I couldn’t go to her house, face her family. She’d probably slam the door in my face, anyway.

  In desperation, I called her house. Her dad answered. I expected him to threaten to skin me, but he was civil, if not polite. How much had Melody told him?

  “I’ll go get her,” he said when I asked to talk to her. There was a pause, and I could hear voices in the background. Then Mr. Hennon came back on the line.

  “Leon? She’s…She stepped out. I’ll tell her you called.”

  Stepped out, my ass. She just wouldn’t talk to me.

  Things were getting desperate. If I couldn’t get her to talk to me for five minutes, then I’d have to show up at her house and play my guitar under her window at night.

  A fine plan, except she might sic the horses on me. Plus I didn’t play the guitar.

  Finally, I got a break. It was study hall, and I’d been half dozing in one of the comfy chairs in the library when I thought I heard Buttercup’s voice. I looked up to see her in the periodicals section reading an issue of Cat Fancy magazine.

  Buttercup! She was kind of friends with Melody. Maybe she could help me out.

  “Buttercup?”

  She smiled and patted the seat next to her. I sat.

  “How you doing?”

  She grinned at me. “Great. I met this guy the other day—”

  “Right. Listen, I need your help.”

  She closed her magazine.

  “Melody doesn’t want to talk to you, Leon.” For the first time since I met her, Buttercup was frowning.

  “Five minutes with her. Help me, Buttercup. Five minutes with Melody, it’s all I ask.”

  “Leon, you hurt her,” she told me. “Melody would have forgiven you for kissing Amy if you had just come clean and said you were sorry. But you waited too long. She’s moved on. She doesn’t trust you anymore.”

  “So you won’t help me?”

  “You treated her like poop, Leon.” Buttercup was the only teenager I knew who still said “poop.”

  I got up to leave. The nicest girl at Zummer thought I was an asshole. Another door shut in my face.

  “Leon?” Buttercup was rolling her magazine in her lap.

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe you should try to meet Melody at her work. Maybe…I dunno, at least there she couldn’t walk away.”

  “Since when does Melody have a job?”

  “Since last week. She’s trying to earn some spending money for her scholars trip this summer. I think she works today.”

  36

  FEAR AND IGNORANCE

  The strip mall was attached to a Wal-Mart that had closed five years earlier, when they’d built the supercenter. Half a dozen businesses clung to life: cell phone shops, insurance agencies, check-cashing services, and the bookstore where Melody reportedly was working.

  The front door jingled as I passed through. The place reminded me of a cave. Little book-lined tunnels ran in all directions. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling; more piles of books cluttered the floor. A few bare lightbulbs cast a dusty glow. The musty, mildewy scent that accompanies old books hung in the air. I was somewhat shocked that there was a bookstore in St. Christopher besides the Barnes & Noble. Funny that I’d never heard of this place. The Fear & Ignorance Bookstore: What was that all about?

  The store seemed deserted, which suited me just fine. If Melody was somewhere in there, I could talk to her without being interrupted by a customer.

  “May I help you?” I turned toward the unexpected voice. It came from behind a cluttered counter. Two beady, narrow eyes observed me from above a newspaper.

  “Um, no, just looking.” I was answered by a long stream of coughs.

  I turned to poke through the cavernous store, then thought the better of it. “Excuse me…” I addressed whomever was behind the paper. “Is Melody Hennon working today?”

  Another round of coughs. “Straight back, up the stairs.”

  After passing the Political Science, Psychology, and Popular Cuture (sic) sections, I found the set of wooden stairs. A short jaunt brought me to a small alcove, where a shadowy figure was shelving books.

  “Melody.” She turned at the sound of my voice and I saw her face. She wasn’t wearing her wig; instead she had a scarf tied around her head. As I looked at her enlarged lips, her taught, mutilated skin, and her almost complete lack of ears, I couldn’t help comparing them to Amy’s perfect features. And I didn’t care. This g
irl had made me happy. I wanted to be with her.

  Melody looked at me for a couple of seconds, then returned to her shelving. I repeated her name.

  “May I help you find something?” she asked with exaggerated politeness.

  “Melody, I have to talk to you.”

  “Good for you. Now go away; I’m busy.” She began to slam books onto the shelf.

  This was not going well. I had kind of hoped there’d be some sign that she was glad to see me. Some memory of the times we’d had together.

  “So how long have you worked here?” I asked, trying to get her talking.

  “About a week, week and a half. And no, I have no idea what ‘Fear and Ignorance’ is supposed to mean.” She had finished her shelving in that section and tried to push past me. I grabbed her arm.

  Melody didn’t resist; she simply looked at me with such wrath that I quickly let go. She stood staring at me. The laughter I had seen so often in her eyes was long gone.

  “Melody, can we talk? Just five minutes?”

  She leaned against a shelf full of serial Westerns. “Talk,” she challenged.

  “I broke up with Amy.”

  Melody didn’t blink. She just kept staring at me. “Was there something else?” she asked eventually.

  “I broke up with her because I wanted to be with you.”

  Melody cocked what used to be her eyebrow. “Did you?” Her tone was sarcastic.

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence, broken only by the owner’s coughs echoing from below.

  “Oh, wait,” continued Melody, “this is the part where I’m supposed to say ‘Oh, Leon,’ and fall into your arms, right? The part where you kiss me and we go back to exactly how we were before. That’s what you were expecting, right?”

  Okay, so I’d misjudged a bit.

  “Mel, I made a mistake.”

  “Yes. And you lost me.”

  “Melody, I screwed up! Can’t you give me a second chance?”

  “No. I’m not going to put my heart on the line again. I’m not going to wait until the next pretty face comes along so I can go through this a second time.”

  “It won’t happen again!”

  “Why should I believe that? We had a good thing going, Leon, and you chucked it as soon as someone sexy came along. I’ve seen the kind of person you are.”

  Amy hadn’t exactly just appeared out of nowhere, but I knew better than to mention it. Instead, I tried the only thing I could think of. I begged.

  “Melody, pleeease…”

  “Save it, Leon. This isn’t a movie. You’re not allowed to run off with the cute girl only to realize it’s the ugly chick you want.”

  For some reason that infuriated me. “You’re not ugly!” My voice reverberated throughout the store.

  “You’re not ugly,” I repeated. “You’re beautiful. I know I haven’t shown it, but I’ve always thought you were.” Maybe not always. “Don’t give up on us.”

  For a couple of seconds, I thought I’d reached her. At least she no longer looked as angry. “You know, you’re the first person who ever made me believe that.” There was a glint of warmth in her eyes. Then it passed. “But you hurt me. You hurt me in a way I can’t forget.”

  “I could try to make it up to you.”

  She shook her head. “When you dumped me, I cried all night. I told my parents I wanted to be homeschooled again. I would have taken you back in a second. I would have made you think it was all my fault.” She abruptly turned to the wall, took a breath, and continued.

  “Leon, we were going to have sex. Maybe that didn’t mean anything to you, but it meant everything to me. And after a while, I realized if that meant nothing to you, then I meant nothing to you. And we were better off apart.” She looked at me almost with pity. “It wasn’t easy. It hurt. But I don’t want you back in my life. Not ever.”

  I couldn’t remember ever feeling so low. It wasn’t even that Melody wouldn’t take me back. It was that she had trusted me and I hurt her. She had thought I was great and I treated her like she didn’t matter. Thirty years from now she’d remember the guy who kissed her for the first time, and feel angry.

  “So now what?”

  “Now we say goodbye.”

  “Can I call you?” I was really grasping.

  “No. Summer vacation starts in two weeks. By the time we’re back, I’m sure you’ll be telling some other girl how beautiful she is.”

  I stood there for a few seconds. “Goodbye, Melody. I’m sorry.”

  “Goodbye, Leon.”

  There was one last thing I could try. I remembered how Melody and I used to tell jokes to each other.

  “A three-legged dog walks into a bar and says, ‘I’m looking for the man who shot my paw.’”

  Melody smiled, but it was an indulgent smile, one you’d give a kindergartner who told too many knock-knock jokes. I felt embarrassed all of a sudden and made my way down the dusty steps. Before I hit bottom I could hear the thunk of books being slammed onto a shelf.

  37

  GET THEE BEHIND ME, DAN!

  Plunk.

  Another Friday night. First Friday night in May, a week and a half left of school. Another night hanging out at the lock and dam. Another moonlit bonfire. Jimmy and Rob sat on a log, shooting the breeze. A little bit out of the firelight lurked Dan, a silhouette in the darkness. I had been kind of surprised when he had arrived with Rob.

  “He just showed up at my house,” Rob whispered to me. “I couldn’t tell him no.”

  Johnny was out with Jessica, and Samantha was working. I stood away from the fire, tossing rocks into the chilly river.

  Plunk.

  Dan was telling one of his unending tales of the dark side of humanity. “So when the guy wakes up, he’s in a bathtub filled with ice, the girl’s long gone, and one of his kidneys is missing.”

  Rob cracked his knuckles. “I heard that story five years ago, Dan. It never happened.”

  “Not true,” Dan insisted. “I know the guy involved.”

  “You know the guy who lost a kidney?” asked Jimmy.

  “No. I know the guy who took it.”

  I didn’t laugh. I was too grumpy. For the past few days, I had been a whiny bitch, and I knew it. Melody was gone; Amy was gone; I was pissed; and I wanted everyone to feel sorry for me.

  Plunk.

  Jimmy opened a grocery bag and passed around sodas. “You want one, Sanders?”

  I didn’t answer; I just grabbed a rock and threw it into the water.

  Plunk.

  I was pissed at myself; I knew that much. Melody had laughed at my jokes, told me her secrets, and watched my favorite shows, and I had blown it in a most spectacular manner. And I’d pissed off Amy in the process. What a loser. What a dick!

  The thing about being in a bad mood was you wanted to bring everyone else down with you. It wasn’t enough that your friends wanted you to be happy. You wanted them to be unhappy. It galled me that Samantha and Ben had made up, that Johnny and Jessica were probably naked somewhere, and that Rob had just gotten a thirty on his ACTs. How dare they be happy?

  I picked up another rock and held it in my tightened fist. A month earlier I had kissed Melody, not twenty feet from where I stood. Why hadn’t I realized how happy I was? Why had I let her get away? Furious, I hurled the rock off into the darkness. It ricocheted off the NO TRESPASSING sign and pegged the sedan Rob had borrowed from his dad.

  “Hey! Watch it!”

  “Sor-ree!” I apologized sarcastically.

  “My dad’s gonna have my nuts if that gets scratched!” hollered Rob. I shrugged.

  Rob got up and stood next to me. “Dude, you got to lighten up.”

  “Piss off.”

  “Seriously. I know you liked Melody, but it’s all over. You got to move on. Find someone else.”

  “What would you know about that? When was the last time you had a date?”

  It was a mean thing to say and I knew it. I hadn’t seen Rob with a girl in q
uite some time. Zummer High wasn’t exactly a liberal school, and not all the girls there would consider dating a black guy.

  Rob’s eyes narrowed. “You know what, Sanders? Go screw yourself. You wanna be an asshole, do it without me. I’m outta here.” He hopped into his dad’s car and gunned the engine. Jimmy got up from his log.

  “Um, he’s my ride,” he said with an uncomfortable grin.

  I turned away, disgusted with myself. Now that I’d chased off the women in my life, why not my friends? Why not everyone? I heard Rob’s tires kick up gravel. Then there was silence.

  I sat on the bank of the river and buried my face in my knees. I wished they hadn’t gone. I really could have used a friend right then.

  Suddenly, I screamed and jumped three feet forward, landing in ankle-deep water. A hand had gripped my shoulder from behind. Only when I realized that it belonged to Dan did my heart stop trying to bust out of my chest.

  Dan didn’t react to my display of terror; he just stood on the bank, looking hypnotized.

  “I thought you left with the guys,” I said, sloshing through the muddy bank.

  He shook his head. Great. Now I had to give him a ride home. I stood next to the fire, trying to dry my shoes.

  “Lovely night,” said Dan, still standing by the river. “Full moon, shining on whatever blasphemies sneak through the darkness. Fire…” He crept toward the bonfire and stared intently. “Son of the morning…bringer of light.”

  I dug mud out of my shoes. “Yeah.”

  “One might wonder what bloated, eyeless things crawl through the primordial slime of this river. Pity we don’t have dates here.”

  My temper was on a short fuse. “Dan, let’s go home.”

  He ignored me. “Nothing like the soft touch of a woman. Her smooth skin…or her rough scars.”

  I shot up. Dan was standing on the opposite side of the fire. The blaze reflected redly in his dark eyes.

  “Dan, shut up. Shut the hell up or I swear I’ll leave you here.”

  He took no notice. “I warned you, did I not? Warned you of the fire?”

  I stepped around the fire, toward him, but he circled away from me. His gaze held mine. The flames that flashed in his eyes seemed to come from within.