GOOD MOVE.
“Maybe, you know, it was a bad idea or whatever.…”
“Okay,” she says, holding my leg. “It’ll be healed soon. You could kiss it later, in, like, two weeks.…” She keeps her face on my stomach. After we lie like that for five minutes, I excuse myself and go to class.
GOOD JOB. THAT’S THE WAY TO DO IT. NEVER EVER BE MEAN TO GIRLS, UNLESS THEY’RE UGLY. EVERYTHING YOU DO WILL COME BACK TO HAUNT YOU. SHE’LL TELL HER FRIENDS HOW GOOD YOU WERE AND WE CAN BUILD FROM THERE. THAT NIPPLE REALLY WAS A KICKER; I DIDN’T SEE IT COMING.
Well, I keep seeing the nipple—puffy and rainbowed and skewered, a really sad specimen, worse than anything I’ve seen on the Internet—in front of my face as I go to class. I turn the squip off in school so I can think about the stuff I used to think about.
Silence in my head doesn’t last long. The squip is back on and very much necessary as I stumble into rehearsal. Recently, I haven’t been concentrating much on my responsibilities as Lysander. I need the help.
SO THAT’S CHRISTINE.
We’re sitting in the front of the theater—squip’s advice. It says that if you’re in class or some other mandatory dorky place, you sit in back to show you hate it, but if you’re in something you’ve volunteered for, you sit up front to show you’re the f_ _ _ _n_ best at it. Mr. Reyes is going on about the importance of blocking and physical humor in “the work,” which is “the very pinnacle—maaaaaaaa!—of Shakespeare’s comedies.” The squip tells me a faulty squip might be making him talk like that.
I try to stay focused on Christine. Isn’t she pretty? I bet she doesn’t have an infected nipple.
SHE’S OKAY.
She’s two seats to my right, next to Jake; I don’t like sitting so close to her in these rows. It’s easier to be next to her in a circle, where the curve of our seating lets me eye her without turning my head. Here, I have to actually look at her to see her—and she notices.
JEREMY, WOULD YOU STOP WORRYING? YOU DON’T NEED TO LOOK AT HER. SHE’LL HEAR ABOUT YOUR EXPLOITS AND GRAVITATE TOWARD YOU NATURALLY, BECAUSE OF PHEROMONES.
Exploits? I don’t know if mouthing a diseased breast counts as an “exploit”…and what’s a phero—
Ow! Something snaps the back of my neck; I swivel to see Mark Jackson laughing fifteen rows behind me with his Game Boy. All that thumb work has given him some aim with rubber bands or staples or whatever it was. I instinctively reach for my Humiliation Sheet, then remember: the squip made me throw them all away. DON’T BE A COMPLETE SCHMUCK, JEREMY, it had said. THIS ISN’T A SITCOM. NO ONE WILL FIND THOSE “CUTE.”
IGNORE MARK. WE’LL DEAL WITH HIM IN A MINUTE. LET ME EXPLAIN ABOUT PHEROMONES.
Okay.
PHEROMONES ARE YOUR BODY’S CHEMICAL SIGNALS. THEY CAN BE ODORLESS AND COLORLESS, BUT TARGET FEMALES PICK THEM UP. THE MOST COMMON THING THEY DENOTE IS SEXUAL AVAILABILITY. WHEN YOU HAVE ANY KIND OF ROMANTIC ENCOUNTER, LIKE THE ONE WE JUST HAD IN THE BUSHES, YOUR BODY RELEASES ALL SORTS OF “JUST GOT SOME” PHEROMONES THAT FEMALES PICK UP ON. HOW DO YOU THINK GUYS WITH GIRLFRIENDS BECOME SO ATTRACTIVE TO OUTSIDE FEMALES THAT THEY’RE FORCED TO CHEAT? PHEROMONES.
Well, sh_ _! Can’t you make some of them?
CAN’T. NEXT GENERATION WILL.
Next generation of what? People?
NO, SQUIPS, OBVIOUSLY. I’M 2.5. YOU SHOULD SEE WHAT THEY HAVE PLANNED FOR 4.0.
What about 3?
OH, 3 IS COOL TOO. BUT 4.0 HAS STUFF I CAN’T EVEN TALK ABOUT.
Right.
NOW LET’S DEAL WITH MARK. GET UP AND WALK BACK TO HIM.
Mr. Reyes has finished talking and some of the actors are going on stage to block a scene, so nobody notices me striding to Mark’s seat. The squip has a great plan, and I execute it perfectly.
“Hey, Mark, did you shoot some crap at me before?” I ask, standing in the aisle beside his row.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. Then snickers. Grrr. I walk toward him, climbing over seats. As I get close, the screen on his Game Boy SP starts to shudder, like interference on an old TV signal. My head hurts. YOU’RE GIVING OFF A LOT OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION. OF COURSE IT’S GOING TO HURT.
I make my voice as menacing as I can, which isn’t too menacing, but hey—the squip showed me how to tap into new depths of my vocal cords. “Don’t ever f_ _k with me again, Mark,” I rumble. His screen is freaking out now. He looks up in total disbelief. I pull back like in the PG-13 movies and clench my fist and bring it down and punch him—in the neck. I meant to hit his face, but uh…I hit his neck.
“Ow! _ _ _t!” Mark grabs his neck. I punched as hard as I could, but he’s not bleeding or anything! THAT’S BECAUSE YOUR BODY IS INCONSEQUENTIAL, JEREMY. MORE PUSH-UPS. “What the fu_ _ is wrong with you, dude? I didn’t do anything!”
“What’s going on back there, hmmmm?” Mr. Reyes shouts from his stool on stage. “Jeremy?”
I must look a little suspicious, standing over Mark with my fists clenched, panting, with Mark’s neck all red. But I look down at the Game Boy SP. The actual game has vanished. It just says, in white on black lettering: DO NOT DICK AROUND WITH JEREMY HEERE OR YOU WILL DIE.
“Nothing, Mr. Reyes!” Mark pipes up, quite chipper. “We’re just messing around, that’s all!” And then he actually hugs me, the second hug today I’ve gotten from a former foe; I sit down next to him to make a nice scene for Mr. Reyes. His screen clears and he goes back to playing Kill All People 3.
“Are you some kind of demon or something?” he shudders, not looking at me.
“Nothing like that at all.”
DOESN’T IT RULE TO HAVE POWER OVER SMALL-SCALE ELECTRONICS?
SO IF WE’RE EVER GOING TO GET WITH CHRISTINE, WE’VE GOT TO PREP HER.
Okay.
SHE’S WITH THIS GUY JAKE RIGHT NOW, SO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO IS POSITION YOURSELF FOR THE INEVITABLE FALLOUT WHEN THEY BREAK UP.
Gotcha.
SO YOU NEED TO BE VERY CUTE.
Check.
ALSO, JEREMY, YOU CAN’T PLAY WITH YOUR TESTICLES THROUGH YOUR PANTS. EVER.
Right. I stop. It’s an hour later; I’m sitting at the side of the stage, smack dab in the middle of the most boring part of rehearsal, tilting my plastic seat farther and farther back as the action unfolds. (They’re working on chairs with tilt alarms, so you’ll never fall off.) It’s one of many scenes where Puck gets some instructions from Oberon; there’s something compelling about the way Christine delivers that Shakespearean phrasing in a halter top. I don’t even know if it is a halter top, because I don’t know what a halter top is exactly. But halter top—that’s a sexy word.
STOP TILTING YOUR SEAT BACK.
I stop. I’m on in thirty seconds and this scene is fun. I get to lie down as Christine sprinkles me with magic dust; then I have to get up and be in love with Hermia, who’s played by this girl Ellen, who I’d really have to be under the influence of magic dust to be in love with. I stand at the edge of the thick curtain and burst on stage when I’m supposed to; Mr. Reyes, of course, is asleep.
“‘Fair love, you faint with wand’ring in the wood,’” I declare. “And…and stuff…”
“AND TO SPEAK TROTH, I HAVE FORGOT OUR WAY.”
“‘And to speak troth, I have forgot our way.…’”
“WE’LL REST.…”
“‘We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good, And tarry for the comfort of the day.’” Phew. That wasn’t so bad. People give me funny, out-of-character looks as I stumble through the next couple of stanzas. (They might also be giving me funny looks because they’ve talked with Mark Jackson, who’s playing Game Boy SP obediently under a table.) I lie down and wait for Christine to sprinkle me with magic dust—she uses actual sparkles, which I hate, because they don’t wash off for, like, a month, but I forgive her.
“‘Through the forest have I gone, But Athenian find I none,’” she says, from actual neuron memory I bet. When she leans down over me and says “‘Weeds of Athen
s he doth wear,’” the squip says, Now!
“Rrragh!” I snap, biting at Christine’s nose.
“Jesus!” She pulls back. I stick my tongue out and loll it around, panting under her. “Hua-hua-hua.” She smiles at first, then gets deadly serious. “What’s wrong with you?” She stares down at me.
I scrunch my eyes up. I have to look cute. “Grrr?”
“Mr. Reyes! Jeremy is messing around,” Christine tells on me. She frickin’ tells on me. Reyes wakes up as she elaborates: “He’s, um, acting like some sort of dog or animal.”
Reyes chastises me: “Get up, young fool! Redo the scene!”
THAT WAS A SUREFIRE PLAN. THIS GIRL’S TOUGH.
Yeah, apparently. I return to the curtain, start the scene over again and do it so many times that by the end of rehearsal I can handle it without the squip. Christine doesn’t smile once for the rest of the day and Jake Dillinger isn’t too happy either; “Stay away from her,” is all he says, with a big hand planted on my shoulder, as I await a run-through by the curtain.
That didn’t really work out as planned, huh? I consult the squip as we walk home.
NO, IT DIDN’T.
I hate rejection. Like, sometimes I wonder why I fear it so much, but then when I meet it head on, I decide that it’s good for me to fear it, because I hate it. I hate it with my soul.
IT’S NOT THAT BAD. REJECTION IS ENTERTAINING!
No, it’s not.
OF COURSE IT IS. IF YOU VIEW YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH FEMALES AS PROSPECTIVE ENTERTAINMENT, REJECTION CAN BE JUST AS FUN, IF NOT MORE FUN, THAN GAINING ACCESS. ONCE YOU TAKE THAT VIEW, YOU’LL BE OUT THERE LOOKING FOR REJECTION, AND FEMALES WILL FLOCK TO YOU BECAUSE OF THE ANTIFEEDBACK MECHANIC OF PHEROMONES. BUT THAT’S HIGH-LEVEL STUFF.
I’ll work on it.
IN THE MEANTIME, YOU ARE RIGHT. OUR CUTESY TACTICS WITH CHRISTINE FAILED. WE’RE GOING TO TRY ANOTHER PLAN.
What’s that?
WE ARE GOING TO GET TO HER BY HOOKING YOU UP WITH AS MANY GIRLS AS POSSIBLE, MAKING HER JEALOUS. AND WE ARE GOING TO START WITH CHLOE.
Woo-hoo! Deal.
I jump up in the field and kick my heels together.
LET’S NEVER, EVER SEE THAT AGAIN, OKAY?
Chloe, Chloe, dum de dum dum. I call her with the squip off, testing myself, seeing if I can do it alone. I dial the number, which I eventually stored in my computer under a file called “peeps,” in a special way. This was Michael-recommended, way back: first I press the 1, then the 1-7, then the 1-7-3, then the 1-7-3-2, hanging up each time so that the momentum just builds and builds until there I am, connected to Chloe’s cell, chatting with a girl whom I used to be afraid to look at.
I forget what day it is, really. The squip keeps track of all that.
“Hi, Jeremy?”
“Yeah, uh, hello, it’s—how’d you know it was me?”
“Well, I have everybody’s number stored in my celly, so if someone calls and it’s a new number, there’s very few people it could be, and I figured you would call soon.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah…this number is closely guarded.”
“I bet.”
“That’s a joke, Jeremy.”
“Riiiight.” I consider trying to laugh, but edit that out. “So what’s up?”
“Not much, what are you up to?”
“Jus’ chillin’.”
“Me too.”
“Yeah.”
Who’s supposed to talk now, me or Chloe? I forgot who talked last. I guess it’s my turn: “So, listen, I wanted to know if you want to hang out sometime this week, you know? I can get you more frozen yogurt or—”
“Party.”
“What?”
“There’s a party at Jason Finderman’s house because his parents got busted for money laundering, so they’re in, ah, Barbados?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So it’s going to be this Saturday and he has a pool and the whole deal.”
“Wow. Is it like, bring your own liquor or whatever?”
“I don’t really care…I’m rolling. You rolling?”
Very luckily, I know what that means. Thank you, squip. “Hold on a second, Chloe.”
I turn the squip on and ask: Can we roll? You know, do ecstasy?
I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT. I HAVE TO BE OFF FOR IT. IF YOU DO IT, YOU MIGHT HOOK UP WITH CHLOE, BUT YOU MIGHT JUST—
“Okay, sure, I’ll do it,” I say back to the phone.
“Really? You will? With me? Aww, Jeremy, you’re so sweet.”
“Heh, yeah, rockin’, you know.”
“Rockin’?”
ROCKIN’?
“I was talking to the TV.”
Chloe laughs. “So these are twenty-five dollar rolls. Can you give me the money at school?”
$25? WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO GET SOME MONEY—
“Sure, I’ll give it to you,” I say quickly.
“And here’s the important question…do you have a car, Jeremy?”
“Yeah, oh sure. I’ll definitely have one for this party, absolutely.”
WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO STEAL ONE FROM YOUR PARENTS, OR BRING MICHAEL.
I’ll bring Michael anyway. We’ll handle it.
“Okay, great, so does that mean you can, like, drive me home after the party?”
“Sure!”
“It’s gonna take a while for the rolls to wear off, but I have to be home by dawn-break, y’know?”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“So we’ll meet in school and you’ll give me the money, okay?”
“Great.”
“See you, Jeremy!” And she hangs up. Damn, that girl knows how to take charge. Now all I need to do is get money and a car.
YOUR MOM’S PURSE IS BY THE DINING ROOM TABLE. SHE WON’T MISS $25.
That’s the easy part. We’re going to want Mom’s ride too, right? (Mom has a decent ride, a Nissan Maxima. Dad’s is not so good.)
YES. GET READY FOR A LESSON, JEREMY. DRIVING’S EASY. LIKE THE VIDEO GAMES.
I’m up for it.
I get Chloe her money in school, where everyone is talking about Jason Finderman’s party. It’s weird, now; it’s like I automatically know what’s going on, like I don’t have to sit forward and analyze it or agonize over it; it just comes to me. I pass people in the hall—not lots of people, just a few important ones like Rich and Brooke—and they fill me in on everything that’s happening: Anne did this; Jenna did this; this party is this weekend; this guy got in this car accident; this kid has herpes. And while I’m talking to them, other people pass me by, people like Michael Mell—people at his status level—and they look at me the same way they look at Rich and Brooke. As a superior.
Simple things, that’s what the squip is fixing. Clothes are first. You need certain clothes and the best way to decide which ones is to have a computer do it for you. To do fashion any other way would just take too much time—I don’t know how squipless people do it.
Then, it’s really good to get to school early. You chill out on the steps a little, see who’s coming in, see who’s in a rush and who’s not, see if anyone wants to smoke or drink or have a cigarette before school—although they’re all dummy cigarettes to me. (The squip says cigarette smoke impairs its analytical reasoning powers.) You don’t get hit with nerd penalty points for being there early.
Also, you never rush anywhere. If you run to class, you’re showing the world that class is more important to you than you. So you walk, but you don’t slink. You walk purposefully, with your chest out, thinking in grunts so that you maintain that base-level competitiveness with other men. You view high school as a death-match jungle arena, because that’s what it is.
If you see a girl and she makes any kind of eye contact with you, you have to smile at her. The squip explained that to me this way: OKAY, JEREMY, HOW DO YOU KNOW IF A GIRL LIKES YOU?
Um…
LET ME GIVE YOU A CLUE. WHAT IS THE SENSORY PERCEPT THAT HUMAN BEINGS EMPLOY MOST TO ENCODE THEIR SUR
ROUNDINGS?
I’m sorry?
HOW DO PEOPLE VIEW THE WORLD?
Uh, the news?
EYES, JEREMY. THE EYES. DIDN’T YOU EVER HEAR THAT EXPRESSION, “THE EYES HAVE IT”?
No.
WELL THEY DO.
What do they have?
IT, JEREMY. THE EYES TELL YOU WHICH GIRLS LIKE YOU.
Okay, so I have to look at girls?
NO, YOU HAVE TO SEE WHICH GIRLS LOOK AT YOU.
Ah. None of them do.
SURE THEY DO. YOU JUST DON’T NOTICE. OR IF YOU DO CATCH ONE LOOKING, YOU LOOK DOWN AND DON’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT AND YOUR FAILURE TO ACT PAINS YOU SO MUCH THAT YOU FORGET ABOUT IT IN FIVE MINUTES.
That sounds right.
SO FROM NOW ON, I WANT YOU TO CHECK TO SEE IF ANY GIRLS LOOK AT YOU. AND IF ONE DOES, YOU HAVE TO SMILE AT HER.
That’s hard.
OF COURSE IT’S HARD! WHAT, YOU THINK THIS STUFF IS EASY? WHEN YOU BECOME SEXUALLY AROUSED, YOUR DICK GETS HARD TOO, DOESN’T IT?
Theoretically.
NOT THEORETICALLY. I’M THERE WHEN IT HAPPENS. SO THE POINT IS SOME THINGS ARE HARD IN THIS WORLD, JEREMY. GOOD THINGS.
Right. So if—
YOU MUST LOOK AT ALL THE GIRLS WHO PASS YOUR WAY. DON’T STARE AT THEM, JUST SCAN THEM VERY CAREFULLY, SUBTLY, TO SEE IF THEY ARE EYEING YOU. AND IF THEY ARE, SMILE AT THEM IMMEDIATELY, AS IF YOU CAN’T HELP IT, THEY’RE JUST SO CUTE. THAT’S HOW YOU DISTINGUISH YOURSELF IN THIS WORLD: INSTEAD OF BEING THE GUY WHO LEERS AT THEM, YOU’LL BE THE GUY WHO SMILES AT THEM. IT’S GOING TO TAKE A LOT OF WORK BECAUSE SMILING USES THIRTY-SEVEN MUSCLES, BUT I’LL BOOST THOSE MUSCLES FOR YOU.
Okay.
IF YOU DON’T, YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO GET LAID. IT’S THE FIRST STEP.
And so I smile. At first I end up with these crooked, premature smiles that look like I have spinach stuck in my teeth and I’m trying to roll it out with my lips. But I get better with practice, to the point where I can bend over at the water fountain, see which girls are looking at me (since I’m at their level) and smile with water sloshing off my teeth, like an Oral-B ad.