Boy Meets Boy

  After the tennis team has been cheered, our school cover band comes out to play. The cover band's stats are actually better than the tennis team's -- at this past year's Dave Matthews Cover Band Competition, they went all the way to the finals with their cover of the Dave Matthews Band covering "All Along the Watchtower," only to be defeated by a cover band that played "Typical Situation" while standing on their heads. Now they launch into a cover of "One Day More" from Les Miserables, and I admire the lead singer's versatility.

  After an encore of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," the principal's secretary asks for quiet and introduces this year's homecoming king and queen. Infinite Darlene strides out in a pink ball gown, covered in part by her quarterback jersey. The homecoming king, Dave Sprat, hangs from her arm, a good thirteen inches shorter than her (if you count the heels).

  Infinite Darlene is holding a portable microphone we borrowed from Zeke's van, so she can introduce and march at the same time. As the school cover band strikes up a skacore version of "We Are the Champions" (we're not entirely without tradition), the members of the football team line up for their presentation.

  I lean over to Joni. She's fixing her eyes on Chuck.

  I honestly don't know why. Chuck is the second-string quarterback who fell for Infinite Darlene and got all upset when she didn't return his affections. He was real bitter about it, worse than Ted in his fouler moods. Ted, at least, is able to lose his cool without totally losing his sense of humor. I'm not sure that Chuck's the same way. I wish Tony went to our school, so I could lift my eyebrow and get his take on the situation.

  Ted doesn't seem to notice where Joni's glance is taking her. He is looking elsewhere.

  "Is that him?" he asks.

  Because he's Ted, he goes right ahead and points at someone in the stands across the gymnasium. I squint to make out the faces from the crowd. At first, I think he's pointing at Kyle, who is somewhat subdued in his applause for the football players as Infinite Darlene introduces them. Then I realize Ted is pointing a few rows up.

  I see an empty seat. Then, next to it, I see Noah.

  He senses me looking. I swear. He looks right at me.

  Or maybe he's looking at Ted, who's still pointing.

  "Put your finger down," I say between gritted teeth.

  "Chill," Ted tells me, moving his finger through the air, as if he hadn't been pointing at Noah at all. I try to play along.

  When the whole pointing charade is over, I see that Noah's still where he was a second ago. I don't know why I thought he would have disappeared. I guess I don't believe these things can ever be easy, although I also don't see why they have to be hard.

  Joni's broken her attention from Chuck for long enough to get what's going on.

  "Don't just sit here," she says.

  "If you don't go over there, I will -- and I'll tell him all about your crush," Ted informs me.

  I'm not sure if he's kidding or not.

  It's a mighty thin border between peer pressure and bravery. Knowing that Joni and Ted aren't going to let me get out of it, I head to Noah's side of the gym. One of the teachers shoots me a stay-in-your-seat glance, but I wave her off. Over the loudspeakers, I can hear Infinite Darlene's crystal voice: "And now, introducing the quarterback . . . the one . . . the only . . .

  ME!"

  I look at the crowd. Everyone cheers, except for some of the more elitist drag queens, who feign disinterest.

  I duck behind the bleachers, weaving to the stairs. I wonder what I'll say. I wonder if I'm about to make a fool of myself.

  All I can feel is this intensity. My mind beating in time with my heart. My steps keeping sway with my hopes.

  I get to the bottom of the stands. I've lost track of the space. I can't find Noah. I look back to Joni and Ted. Much to my mortification, they both point me on my way. The football presentation is over and the quiz bowling team is preparing to enter. Infinite Darlene is basking in her last round of applause. I swear she winks when she looks my way.

  I focus on the seat next to Noah. I do not focus on his crazy-cool hair, or his blue suede shoes, or the specks of paint on his hands and his arms.

  I am beside him.

  "Is this seat taken?" I ask.

  He looks up at me. And then, after a beat, he breaks out smiling.

  "Hey," he says, "I've been looking all over for you."

  I don't know what to say. I am so happy and so scared.

  There is a roar through the stands as the quiz bowling team is announced. They come sprinting onto the court, rolling for pins while answering questions about Einstein's theory of relativity.

  "I've been looking for you, too," I say at last.

  He says, "Cool," and it's cool. So cool.

  I sit down next to him as the audience cheers for the captain of the quiz bowling team, who's just scored a strike while listing the complete works of the Bronte sisters.

  I don't want to scare him by telling him all the things that are scaring me. I don't want him to know how important this is. He has to feel the importance for himself.

  So I say, "Those are cool shoes," and we talk about blue suede shoes and the duds store where he shops. We talk as the badminton team lets its birdies fly. We talk as the French Cuisine Club rises the perfect souffle. We laugh when it falls.

  I am looking for signs that he understands me. I am looking for my hopes to be confirmed.

  "This is such serendipity, isn't it?" he asks. I almost fall off my seat. I am a firm believer in serendipity--all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.

  We talk about music and find that we like the same kinds of music. We talk about movies and find that we like the same kinds of movies.

  "Do you really exist?" I blurt out.

  "Not at all," he says with a smile. "I've known that since I was four."

  "What happened when you were four?"

  "Well, I had this theory. Although I guess I was too young to know it was a theory. You see, I had this imaginary friend. She followed me everywhere--we had to set a place for her at the table, she and I talked all the time--the whole deal. Then it occurred to me that she wasn't the imaginary friend at all. I figured that I was the imaginary friend, and she was the one who was real. It made perfect sense to me. My parents disagreed, but I still secretly feel that I'm right."

  "What was her name?" I ask.

  "Sarah. Yours?'

  "Thorn. With an h."

  "Maybe they're together right now."

  "Oh, no. I left Thorn in Florida. He never liked to travel."

  We are not taking each other too seriously, which is a serious plus. The paint on his hands is not quite purple and not quite blue. There is a speck of just-right red on one of his fingers.

  The principal's secretary has the microphone again. The rally is almost over.

  "I'm glad you found me," Noah says.

  "Me too." I want to float, because it's that simple. He's glad I found him. I'm glad I found him.

  We are not afraid to say this. I am so used to hints and mixed messages, saying things that might mean what they sort of sound like they mean. Games and contests, roles and rituals, talking in twelve languages at once so the true words won't be so obvious. I am not used to a plainspoken, honest truth.

  It pretty much blows me away.

  I think Noah recognizes this. He's looking at me with a nifty grin. The other people in our row are standing and jostling now, waiting for us to leave so they can get to the aisle and resume their day. I want time to stop.

  Time doesn't stop.

  "Two sixty-three," Noah tells me.

  "?!???" I reply.

  "My locker number," he explains. "I'll see you after school."

  Now I don't want time to stop. I want it to fast-forward an hour. Noah has become my until.

  As we leave the gym, I can see Kyle shoot me a look. I don't care. Joni and Ted will no doubt be waiting under the bleachers for the ful
l report.

  I can sum it up in one word:

  Joy.

  Hallway Traffic (Complications Ensue)

  Self-esteem can be so exhausting. I want to cut my hair, change my clothes, erase the pimple from the near-tip of my nose, and strengthen my upper-arm definition, all in the next hour.

  But I can't do that, because (a) it's impossible, and (b) if I make any of these changes, Noah will notice that I've changed, and I don't want him to know how into him I am.

  I hope Mr. B can save me. I pray his physics class today will transfix me in such a way that I will forget about what awaits me at the other end. But as Mr. B bounds around the room with anti-gravitational enthusiasm, I just can't join his parade. Two sixty-four has become my new mantra. I roll the number over in my head, hoping it will reveal something to me (other than a locker number). I replay my conversation with Noah, trying to transcribe it into memory since I don't dare write it down in my notebook.

  The hour passes. As soon as the bell rings, I bolt out of my seat. I don't know where locker 264 is, but I'm sure as hell going to find out.

  I plunge into the congested hallway, weaving through the back-slap reunions and locker lunges. I spot locker 435 -- I'm in the wrong corridor entirely.

  "Paul!" a voice yells. There aren't enough Pauls in my school that I can assume the yell is for someone else. Reluctantly I turn around and see Lyssa Ling about to pull my sleeve.

  I already know what she wants. Lyssa Ling doesn't ever talk to me unless she wants me to be on a committee. She's the head of our school's committee on appointing committees, no doubt because she's so good at it.

  "What do you want from me now, Lyssa?" I ask. (She's used to this.) - "The Dowager Dance," she says. "I want you to architect it."

  I am more than a little surprised. The Dowager Dance is a big deal at our school, and architecting it would mean being in charge of all the decorations and music.

  "I thought Dave Davison was architecting it," I say.

  Lyssa sighs. "He was. But then he went all Goth on me."

  "Cool."

  "No. Not cool. We have to give people the freedom to wear something other than black. So are you in or are you out?"

  "Can I have some time to think about it?"

  "Sixteen seconds."

  I count to seventeen and then say, "I'm in."

  Lyssa nods, says something about slipping the budget into my locker tomorrow morning, and walks away.

  I know it's going to be a rather elaborate budget. The dance was created thirty or so years ago after a local dowager left a stipulation in her will that every year the high school would throw a lavish dance in her honor. (Apparently she was quite a swinger in her day.) The only thing we have to do is feature her portrait prominently and (this is where it gets a little weird) have at least one senior boy dance with it.

  At first I am distracted by theme ideas. Then I remember the reason for my after-school existence and continue heading to locker 264 . . . until I am stopped by my English teacher, who wants to compliment me on my reading of Oscar Wilde in yesterday's class. I can't exactly blow her off, nor can I blow off Infinite Darlene when she asks me how her double role at the Homecoming Pride Rally went.

  The minutes are ticking away. I hope Noah is equally delayed, and that we'll arrive at his locker at the same time, one of those wonderful kismet connections that seem like signs of great things to come.

  "Hey, Boy Romeo." Ted is now alongside me, luckily not stopping as he talks.

  "Hey," I echo.

  "Where you goin'?"

  "Locker two sixty-four."

  "Isn't that on the second floor?"

  I groan. He's right.

  We walk up the stairs together.

  "Have you seen Joni?" he asks.

  Sometimes I feel like fate is dictated by irony (or, at the very least, a rather dark sense of humor). For example, if I am standing next to Joni's on-and-off boyfriend and he says, "Have you seen Joni?" the obvious next step would be to reach the top of the stairway and see Joni in a full frontal embrace with Chuck, on the verge of a serious kiss.

  Joni and Chuck don't see us. Their eyes are passionately, expectantly closed. Everybody pauses to look at them. They are a red light in the hallway traffic.

  "Bitch," Ted whispers, upset. Then he charges back down the stairs.

  I know Noah is waiting for me. I know Joni should know what I've seen. I know I don't really like Ted all that much. But more than I know all those things, I know I have to run after Ted to see if he's okay.

  He stays a good few paces ahead of me, pushing through hallway after hallway, turn after turn, hitting backpacks off people's shoulders and avoiding the glances of gum-chewing locker waifs. I can't figure out where he's going. Then I realize he doesn't have any particular destination in mind. He's just walking. Walking away.

  "Hey, Ted," I call out. We're in a particularly empty corridor, right outside the wood shop.

  He turns to me, and there's this conflicted flash in his eyes. The anger wants to drown the shock and the depression.

  "Did you know about this?" he asks me.

  I shake my head.

  "So you don't know how long?"

  "No. It's news to me."

  "Whatever. I really don't care. She can hook up with whoever she wants. It's not like I was interested. We broke up, you know."

  I nod. I wonder if he can actually believe what he's saying. He betrays himself with what he says next.

  "I didn't think football players were her type."

  I agree, but Ted's not listening to me anymore.

  "I gotta go," he says. I want there to be something else for me to say, something to make him feel even marginally better.

  I look at my watch. It's been seventeen minutes since the end of school. I use a different stairway to reach the second floor. The locker numbers descend for me: 310 . . . 299 . . .

  275 . . .

  264.

  Nobody home.

  I look around for Noah. The halls are nearly deserted now-- everyone's either gone home or gone to their activities. The track team races past me on their hallway practice run. I wait another five minutes. A girl I've never seen before, her hair the color of honey-dew, walks by and says, "He left about ten minutes ago. He looked disappointed."

  I feel like a total loser. I rip a page out of my physics book and write an apology. I go through about five drafts before I'm satisfied that I've managed to sound interested and interesting without seeming entirely daft. All the while, I'm still hoping he'll show up. I slip the note into locker 264.

  I head back down to my own locker. Joni is nowhere in sight, which is a good thing. I can't even begin to know what to say to her. I can see why she would have kept the news about Chuck from Ted. But I can't figure out why she never told me. It hurts.

  As I slam my locker shut, Kyle walks by me.

  He nods and says hi. He even almost smiles.

  I am floored.

  He keeps walking, not turning back.

  My life is crazy, and there's not a single thing I can do about it.

  Finding Lost Languages

  "Maybe he was saying hi to someone else," I say.

  It's a couple of hours later and I'm talking to Tony, recounting the drama to the one person who wasn't there.

  "And the smile--well, maybe it was just gas," I add.

  Tony nods noncommittally.

  "I don't know why Kyle would start talking to me again. It's not like I've done anything differently. And it's not like he's the kind of guy who changes his mind about this kind of thing."

  Tony sort of shrugs.

  "I wish I could call Noah, but I don't feel like we're close enough for that. I mean, would he even know who I was if I called? Would he recognize my name or my voice? It can wait until tomorrow, right? I don't want to seem too neurotic."

  Tony nods again.

  "And Joni. What was she thinking, snogging up to Chuck in the middle of the hall like that?

&nb
sp; Do I let her know that I know, or do I pretend I don't know and secretly count the number of times she talks to me before she lets me know, resenting each and every minute that goes by without her telling me the truth?"

  Tony sort of shrugs again.

  "Feel free to chime in at any time," I tell him.

  "Don't have much to say," he answers with another slight shrug, this one slightly apologetic.