Second Helpings

  After I crossed the finish line, I curled up into a fetal position on the grass with my eyes closed, contemplating how much I suck, and how much I couldn’t wait for the season to be over, how much I dreaded indoor track season, and spring track season. Then I thought about how much I couldn’t wait until college because only then would I be free from all this torture, which sent me into a panic, since I still have no idea where I want to go.

  I didn’t see my father, camcorder in hand, having just documented the race for Notso Darling’s Agony of Defeat, Vol. 5, but I felt his presence, like a cold shadow after the sun disappears behind a storm cloud. The gray behind my eyes went black and a chill shot straight through me to the bone.

  “Dad, don’t say a word.”

  “I don’t know how many more of these disasters I can take.”

  You would think that in light of 9/11 he wouldn’t be throwing around words like disaster. But to him, my performance really was a disaster, which is really messed up.

  “I just don’t know,” he grumbled again.

  I knew the answer to that question: None. I couldn’t take any more pain and suffering all in the name of preserving my honor as a mighty Pineville High Seagull. Screw it. I was done.

  “You won’t have to worry about it anymore, Dad, because I quit.”

  I couldn’t believe I said it. Neither could he.

  “You what?”

  “I quit,” I said. “I’m done with running. It hurts too much.”

  “But the orthopedist said that you should be fine.”

  He thought I meant my busted leg, so I didn’t bother to correct him.

  “Well, it’s not. I tried and I failed and I don’t see the point in trying anymore.”

  “Then what the hell are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, without looking up or opening my eyes.

  “Not this.”

  When the darkness lifted, I knew he was gone. The wind shifted, then lifted the familiar, pungent scent of Chanel No. 5 into the air.

  “Jessie . . .”

  I looked up and saw my mom, just as I had expected to, but she had someone with her, which I hadn’t smelled coming at all.

  “Um. Hi, Jess.”

  Len had come to see me run. No one came to cross-country meets unless they had to. My first reaction was shock, followed by my second reaction, which was total and utter embarrassment, both over my performance and my sweaty, grimy appearance. This led to my third reaction, which again was shock. Why would I care about my performance or appearance in front of Len?

  “Len was telling me that he’d been to every other type of sporting event but a cross-country meet and wanted to see for himself what it was like, so he could round out his Pineville High experience. Isn’t that right, Len?”

  Len nodded and my mom kept right on going.

  “Especially after talking to you about it when getting your yearbook photos taken last week. Aren’t you two the high achievers? Len told me that he’s applying to Cornell. He’s just waiting for his last round of SAT scores. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  My mom had taken an instant liking to Len. Not only was she talking our ears off, but she kept patting down her hair, making sure each expensive golden strand was in place. She’s thrilled whenever any male shows the vaguest interest in her younger daughter, as it brings her just the teensiest bit closer to planning her next wedding extravaganza.

  “I only wish that you were so organized. I told him that you had narrowed it down to Amherst, Piedmont, Swarthmore, and Williams.” She turned her attention to Len. “I don’t know why she’s waiting until the last minute to apply, Len, dear. Honestly. I’ve told her to apply to them all and make her decision based on who gives her the biggest scholarship.”

  While my mom babbled (something she and Len have in common), Len gave a sympathetic shrug. I could tell from his reaction that his mom must do the same exact thing to him.

  “It was my first cross-country meet,” he said, cutting someone else off for a change.

  “That’s funny,” I replied, “because it’s my last.”

  “What?!” asked Len and my mom.

  “I’m quitting. I mean, I quit,” I said, switching to a verb tense with more finality. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to spend another second on this field, so let’s go.”

  Len and my mom wore strangely identical expressions of gaping-mouth shock.

  “Len, thanks for coming to witness my last moments of agony.” I got up and limped toward the car.

  “See you in. Um.”

  “Mom, let’s go,” I said, my back to both of them.

  My dad had opted to ride home with Coach Kiley to discuss in detail all the things that were wrong with me. Unlike my dad, who doesn’t even bother trying to engage me in any non-running related conversation, my mom frequently tries to force touching mother-daughter moments—usually when we’re trapped alone together in an automobile. The fundamental problem with this ritual is that she all too often relies on the stuff of which her Blonde Bond with Bethany is made: boys, dating, shopping, and, uh . . . boys. So any bonding between us is short-term and ill-conceived—like trying to rebuild the World Trade Center with Popsicle sticks and edible elementary-school paste. Thus:

  “Len is so cute! And smart! Cornell! Ivy League! You should have invited him over our house!”

  “I didn’t want him over our house,” I replied.

  “And why not?” she said.

  “I just don’t.”

  “What is your problem?” she asked, strangling the steering wheel. “Why do you reject every cute catch who comes your way? First Scotty, then that nice boy Marcus who took you out on New Year’s Eve and we never saw again . . .”

  I started thinking about that nice boy who took me out last New Year’s Eve. If my mom had any clue that I almost became his fortysomethingth sexual conquest in the backseat of his 1979 fossil-burner, she wouldn’t think he was so nice, now, would she?

  “But Len is so cute, Jessie. And smart! Cornell! Ivy League!” she repeated, like a TV pitchwoman. “I bet he makes his mom proud.”

  “I bet he does. His mom is so lucky to have such a great kid, isn’t she?”

  I was starting to get dizzy.

  “That’s not what I meant, Jessie, and you know it,” she said, her face hard and lined like a walnut shell. All of a sudden—FLASH!—her eyes popped and her face brightened with a lightbulb memory. “Wait a minute! Is this the same Len Levy you had a crush on in elementary school?”

  I groaned. I really wasn’t feeling well.

  “The one you gave a Valentine in third grade, but didn’t give you one in return?”

  I was sweaty but cold.

  “That’s why you aren’t giving him the time of day! Revenge for being rejected! Well, Jessie. Let me tell you this, revenge won’t get you a date to Homecoming.”

  So it went for the rest of the trip. I didn’t hear much, though, because her voice was drowned out by the sound of my blood pulsing through my skull. When we got home, I ran straight to the bathroom and threw up.

  It was probably dehydration, or overexertion and lack of sleep. For a few seconds, I actually wished it was carbon monoxide poisoning. Anything not to be subjected to a car ride home like that again.

  the twelfth

  Sara thinks I quit the cross-country team because I haven’t had a boyfriend since eighth grade and I’m tired of being mistaken for a lesbian.

  “Omigod! Not that I think you’re a quote muff bumper unquote,” she said in homeroom this morning. “I know all about your quote undying love unquote for Paul Parlipiano.” She paused long enough to chew on a yellow Swedish fish. “Then again, he is gay, which makes him the perfect quote beard unquote, doesn’t it?” She popped another piece of candy into her huge gob, the same mouth I wanted to fill with a boxing-gloved fist.

  “Sara, I’m so happy to see you eating,” I replied, sweet as the cherry gummy fish she held between her fingers.
“You’re obviously comfortable enough with your body not to worry about putting the weight back on. Good for you.” I clapped lightly.

  That was mean, I admit. But it shut her up. Bonus: She gave me the unfinished school of Swedish fish left in the bag.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that Sara of all people would offer an opinion, as Sara prides herself on knowing everything about everyone. It turns out that me quitting the cross-country team is already a very big deal, and people who don’t ordinarily offer their amateur analyses are having no problem sharing them.

  A Collection of Theories

  About Why Jessica Darling

  Quit the XC Team

  EVEN THOUGH SHE IS A SENIOR CAPTAIN AND

  FOUR-YEAR VARSITY VET

  And Senior Captains and Four-Year Varsity Vets Just Don’t Quit Right in the Middle of the Season, Goddammit!

  Scotty’s Theory:

  Females aren’t meant to be athletes. Unless they’re hot, like Anna Kournikova. But who the fuck cares? It’s not like the star player on the football squad quit.

  Comment: I definitely agree with the Who the Fuck Cares? aspect of his otherwise sexist analysis. Though I don’t think my weakness is an inherent female thing; it’s just something wrong with me.

  Manda’s Theory:

  Whatever Scotty said, by default. She might have expressed her own point of view, a feminist take that would have been diametrically opposed to Scotty’s, if she had taken a moment to remove his cock from her mouth.

  Comment: That is probably the crudest thing I’ve ever written. It is also one of the truest. Scotty represents everything Manda hates in males—and vice versa. Sex is the only thing they have in common.

  Len’s Theory:

  I quit the team to devote more time to my studies so I can beat him out as valedictorian.

  Comment: I had much pleasure informing him that it would require absolutely no extra effort on my part to kick his academic ass.

  Marcus’s Theory:

  ???

  Comment: None. None at all. Okay, maybe one comment . . . No, Jess. No. NO COMMENT.

  Bridget’s Theory:

  I quit the team because I want to devote more time to obsessing about why Marcus hasn’t expressed his theory.

  Comment: Har-dee-har-har.

  Hope’s Theory:

  I quit the team because it was conflicting with my desire to make good on my second goal for my senior year, which was not to be such a buzzkill.

  Comment: She’s partly right. I wasn’t consciously thinking about my goal list when I quit, but I do hope that my freedom will make me less of a mopey mess.

  Pepe’s Theory:

  I quit the team because as I got to the elite level of competition I would inevitably be outclassed by runners from the continent of Africa, who currently dominate the middle and long distances.

  Comment: I laughed, which was his intention.

  Then Pepe reminded me how it shocked everyone when he quit the wrestling team last year to go out for the school play.

  “They’ll get over it,” he said.

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Ain’t no problem,” he paused, striking a classic thug pose. “I’ll get a gat.”

  “Shhhh,” I half-laughed, half-hushed the Notorious P.E.P.E. “You better keep it down or you’ll get suspended for making death threats.”

  “Zero tolerance. Just another way to keep a brotha down.”

  Pepe knows where I’m coming from. He was tired of rolling around on a mat with another sweaty, half-naked guy and wanted to try something new. So unlike everyone else who gets categorized early in our high-school careers and just sticks with the status quo, he actually did something about it. He quit to try something new. And it turned out that he was an even better actor than he was a wrestler. The big difference is that he had something new to quit for. I don’t.

  I’ve been doing a fairly good job at avoiding Coach Kiley in the halls. I think he was avoiding me, too, thinking that if he didn’t put any pressure on me to come back to the team, I’d come back on my own. But as the time wound down before the team’s next meet, he cornered me.

  “You’ve only missed a few practices,” he said, clamping his huge hand on my shoulder, having snuck up on me from behind. “It’s not too late to come back.”

  There is no chance of me rejoining the team.

  Need I mention that my dad is less consolable than Kiley about all this. I suspect that the only reason Dad hasn’t shut the garage door and turned on the car’s engine is that he got a promotion at work that sucks up a lot of the hours he would’ve spent obsessing about me. He’s hardly home anymore, but when he is, he always manages to finds time to guilt the hell out of me, invariably in the form of one of the following short but bitter exchanges:

  Exchange #1: You’re Not Tough Enough

  Dad: How can you quit? Other runners come back from injuries worse than yours.

  Me: I’m not other runners, Dad.

  Exchange #2: You’re Passing Up a Golden Opportunity

  Dad: How can you quit? You could have gotten an athletic scholarship.

  Me: I can still get an academic scholarship, Dad.

  Exchange #3: You’re Going to Regret This When You’re Old and Gray

  Dad: How can you quit? Doesn’t leadership and teamwork mean anything to you?

  Me: Uh, not really, Dad.

  Exchange #4: You Can’t Let the Terrorists Win

  Dad: How can you quit? If you leave the team, the terrorists have won .

  Me: Uh, it has nothing to do with terrorism.

  One of these days, in the middle of one of these exchanges, his chrome dome is going to crack open like the San Andreas fault. But it won’t be my fault when it does.

  As proof that my departure was meant to be, the Monday after I quit the team, Taryn Baker (aka stepsister of peaceful anarchist and gay man of my dreams) approached me about tutoring her after school.

  I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder. I turned to see Taryn, who, like always, wasn’t looking at me, but at an invisible person behind me.

  “Hey, Taryn. What’s up?”

  “Geometry.”

  Taryn is a true minimalist when it comes to conversation. With that barely audible whisper, I knew exactly what she needed from me.

  “So you need me to tutor you after school?”

  She nodded. As usual her T-shirt and cargo pants were at least three times too large, as though she doesn’t want any body part to be distinguishable beneath the fabric. Dressed in all brown, Taryn never strays from a palette of earth tones—all the better for blending in. And she was wearing a striped wool cap, even though it was unseasonably warm. For Taryn, it’s 365 days of winter. I couldn’t believe that she and Paul Parlipiano were quasisiblings.

  “Well, it just so happens that I just quit the cross-country team and . . .”

  I babbled for a few minutes about my defection. That’s the thing with Taryn. She’s such a nonentity that you end up talking way more than you normally would because you feel compelled to hold up her end of the conversation, too.

  Once it was agreed that we would meet at 2:15 P.M. in the library, Taryn noiselessly drifted away, like a phantasm. That girl is strange. Whatever. Her academic loss is my monetary gain. Ten bucks an hour, for a minimum of five hours a week. Sweet! And if she starts failing Chemistry, I just might be able to buy myself a VW Beetle.

  So I have no regrets about quitting the team. The sleeplessness thing isn’t even a big deal anymore because I’m so accustomed to it by now. I’m used to memorizing every vein and capillary crack in my ceiling. I’m used to looking at my walls so long and so intensely that shapes—a tugboat, a ladybug, Carrot Top in profile—suddenly pop out of the imperfections in the paint. I’m used to the whirr of my fan, the hum of my laptop, and the drip in my bathroom sink converging together in a nocturnal symphony that only I can hear. I’m used to getting shocked out of a dream by the alarm clock, even though I was wide a
wake minutes, maybe even seconds, before.

  It can’t be very healthy, though.

  Hope suggested that I replace running with yoga as my way of releasing some insomniatic tension. She even sent me a book and a video to help me get started. It’s from a series called “Yoga for You.” I’m not sure it’s for me. But if yoga mellowed Madonna into an earth mama, it should at least help me get more than my current average of three minutes of sleep every night. The negligible brain activity PHS asks from its seniors is about all I can muster right now. This is the one advantage to not attending a real high school, you know, one with academic standards.

  Still, I’m pretty skeptical of the om-ing and all those other New Agey trappings of yoga, but I should at least try them so Hope’s money doesn’t go to waste. I appreciate any effort that she makes these days, only because I don’t know how much longer it will last. It’s really only a matter of time before her real life in Tennessee—or wherever she winds up—takes precedence over the one she left behind.

  the fourteenth

  The first, belated edition of The Seagull’s Voice came out today. And my editorial, “Sycophants, Suck-Ups, and Scrubs: How High-School Hero Worship Hurts Us All,” was nowhere to be found. Not that anyone would have noticed besides me, of course. I stalked Haviland as soon as I discovered the omission.

  “Where’s my editorial?”

  Haviland wrung her bony hands. “It seems the administration thought your editorial was too controversial.”

  “What?” I asked, truly shocked. “It wasn’t any more or less controversial than anything else I’ve written!”

  “Well, it seems that the administration couldn’t condone any writing that castigates your fellow students.”