Thanks for the Trouble

  THREE’S A CROWD, OR COMPANY, OR A TRICYCLE OR SOMETHING

  “THAT WAS A LOVE STORY?” Zelda asked.

  I think so, I wrote.

  “But it was so sad. Why are all your stories so sad?”

  Sad stories are the best ones. Everybody knows that.

  Zelda sighed. “I suppose that’s true. Anyway, I still liked it. You’ll have to include that one in your applications.”

  My what?

  “Your college applications.”

  I’ll admit I’d kinda forgotten about that part of our agreement, and Zelda could tell. “Don’t you even think of trying to weasel your way out of our d—”

  “P-Funk!”

  Everyone in the café swiveled their heads to look toward the entrance. Alana stood in the doorway, still wearing most of her costume from the party last night, including the plastic cutlass (in a belt around her waist) and the billowy white pants. At least she’d taken the stuffing out of her butt.

  “I’m so glad I caught you,” she said, taking a seat at our table. “Hey, Zelda.”

  “Hello,” Zelda said. “It’s Alana, right?”

  “Alana, the Pirate Queen!” She picked up my coffee and drank the dregs. “Ew. It’s cold.”

  What are you doing here? I wrote.

  “Right. So listen, I realize you guys are on a super-romantic date, and I’m sorry about that, but I basically haven’t slept since Thursday, and I really needed to talk to someone, so after you texted me that you were coming here, I just figured why not, you know? I mean, it’s not like I caught you in the middle of doing it or something.”

  “Parker texted you?” Zelda asked.

  “Yeah. He was looking for date spot recommendations. Isn’t that sweet?” Alana grabbed hold of one of my cheeks and pinched it. “He’s a gem, our Parker is.” I swatted her hand away. “Besides, I haven’t been to the Legion in forever. You know, I’d forgotten how many bowls of fruit they’ve got up in here.”

  I was just thinking that! I wrote.

  “They’re still lifes,” Zelda said. “Usually it’s either bowls of fruit or strung-up dead animals.”

  “Dead animals are called still lifes?” Alana said. “That’s fucked up. They should be called still deads.” Zelda and I both laughed. “And when they say ‘still life,’ do they mean, like, life that is still, as in not moving, or more like, ‘Sure, this chicken is dead, but it’s still life,’ you know?”

  “The first one,” Zelda said.

  “Well, either way, they’re hella boring.”

  “Once upon a time, the idea of a still life was revolutionary. Before that, paintings were primarily focused around religious scenes. Still lifes opened up the possible subjects of art to include the natural world.”

  Was there anything Zelda didn’t know everything about? The needle of the faithometer kept ticking upward.

  Alana whistled. “Damn, Santé. Your girl is smart. See, I knew this was the right call. Come to the Legion, get some culture, then get some advice.”

  What advice? I wrote.

  “Let’s discuss it over lunch. You guys about ready to bounce?”

  We were going to eat here.

  “Are you kidding? You can’t wine and dine this beautiful lady at the museum café, Santé!” She pinched my cheek again, harder this time. “Museum food is for dumb tourists. I got a way better place in mind.”

  Where?

  “Lemme just finish this real quick.” She reached over and drank the rest of Zelda’s coffee. “Ew. Also cold. All right, let’s do this. I’ll lead the way.” She drew her plastic sword and marched out of the café.

  It wasn’t like we had to follow her, of course. But it also wasn’t like I had any better ideas.

  BRAINWASH

  “WHAT IS IT?” ZELDA ASKED.

  “It’s BrainWash,” Alana said, “the only combination laundromat, diner, and concert venue in the known universe.”

  She was attempting to parallel park in a handicapped spot just outside the laundro-diner-venue. I pointed out the sign. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve discovered I’m totally irresistible to cops. Seriously, I’ve never gotten a single ticket, and I can’t drive for shit.”

  To punctuate the point, she drove up onto the sidewalk and then back down again, jostling the car in front of us and then tapping the one behind. Somehow, we still managed to be about a foot and a half from the curb when these maneuvers were completed.

  The place looked like your standard diner, with the standard Formica counters and neon signage and steel tanks of what had to be shitty coffee. Alana recommended the breakfast burrito, so we ordered three of them, then sat down at a metal table right next to the smallest stage I’d ever seen. Through a doorway, I could make out the laundromat portion of the establishment, which was crammed with weekend washers dressed in their laundry-day best.

  “So what did you want to talk to us about?” Zelda asked.

  “Right. So here’s the thing—” Alana’s attention was suddenly drawn to Zelda’s right hand, which was poised to unleash a cascade of sugar into her coffee. “Hold up. You don’t drink it black?”

  “Never.”

  “But isn’t life already fake enough without watering it down with sugar?”

  “Can something be watered down with sugar?”

  Alana frowned. “Okay, that’s true. But just take one sip before you put that crud in.”

  “I’ve had black coffee before.”

  “I know, I know. Humor me.”

  Zelda lowered her face to the rim of the mug and came up grimacing. “Yuck,” she said.

  “Exactly! See, coffee is supposed to taste bad. That’s what makes it coffee.”

  “I prefer the illusion,” Zelda said, and went ahead with her cream and sugar.

  “To each her own.” Alana took a big gulp from her own mug. “It is pretty gross, isn’t it? Maybe you’ve got the right idea.” She poured in a bit of cream. “Okay, so here’s the deal. I realize this might seem out of nowhere, given that I barely know either of you, but all my other friends are part of the same fucking clique, so there’s no way I can talk to them, and Zelda, you just seemed so mature and shit at the party last night, and you two look so happy together, I figured who better to ask, you know?” She took a breath, then another sip of the coffee. “That is much better, actually.”

  Your point? I wrote.

  “I think Tyler is cheating on me.”

  “Who’s Tyler?” Zelda asked.

  “My boyfriend,” Alana said.

  “And why do you think he’s cheating?”

  “It’s just little things. Like, sometimes he doesn’t answer his phone, and when I ask him where he was, he gets all nervous. And last night, at the party, he was really weird and distant and shit. Also, he works at this movie theater on the weekends, but he never wants me to visit him there. Oh, and then there was this one time where he had a hickey on his neck and it was really faint and he swore I was the one who gave it to him but I couldn’t remember doing it.”

  “That’s a lot of circumstantial evidence,” Zelda said. “Do you have any hard proof?”

  “Not really. Just feelings. Bad feelings.”

  “Interesting,” Zelda said, and I could tell she really meant it. Treat me exactly like a teenager, she’d said to me yesterday. Well, nothing was more teenagery than relationship drama.

  “Parker, what do you think?” Alana asked.

  I’d never really liked Tyler, even though he was a lot nicer than Jamie, but maybe that was just because I was a little jealous of him.

  I don’t know, I wrote. How could I?

  “Use your gut, man.”

  My gut just says I’m hungry.

  “Parker’s right,” Zelda said. “You can drive yourself crazy with suspicions, but it doesn’t do a bit of good in the end.”

  “Maybe. But I swear if he’s cheating, I’m gonna cut his balls right off. He was my first, you know. That shit’s no joke. Who was your first, Zelda? Some older man
, I bet.”

  I knew that Zelda would lie, but I was surprised when she fed Alana the same lie she’d fed me. “Quite a bit older. His name was Karl. Sweet in his way, but a little severe.”

  Alana put out her fist for a bump. “That’s the way to do it. Mature men for the win, am I right?” Zelda awkwardly returned the fist bump. “What about you, P. Diddy? Who was your first?”

  Luckily, my burrito arrived at just that moment, and it was roughly the size of my head, so I was able to stall by taking one of the largest bites ever taken in human history. It was the second time that question had come up today, and though I hadn’t minded telling Zelda the truth, it was different with Alana. She went to my school, and so had the power to spread the word of my virginity far and wide. I held up a finger—Hold on while I chew—and tried to figure out what I was going to say.

  “I think Parker is worried about kissing and telling,” Zelda said, coming to my rescue. “But I really don’t care who knows. I was his first. First and only.”

  Weirdly, even though it wasn’t true, just the saying of it made it real in some way, almost as if she were promising me something.

  “Respect, Santé,” Alana said. “I’m all about saving it for the good ones. If only they would stay good.” She gestured with her burrito, sending beans and rice flying across the table. “By the way, you probably know this already, Zelda, but you’re some kind of miracle worker. You’re like the Miracle Worker.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’ve saved this boy’s life, girl! Last night was the first time I’ve seen him out since the beginning of high school. It’s like he actively hates being around other human beings. Right after every class is over, he’s out the door. He doesn’t even come to lunch.”

  I come to lunch, I wrote. I just eat it in the library.

  “Whatever, man. The point is, nobody ever sees you. And it’s not because anyone has a problem with you or anything, the way you seem to think they do. You’re just never there—not even when you are. What’s up with that?”

  I looked to Zelda to save me again, but this time she seemed just as interested in my answer as Alana was.

  I don’t know, I wrote. I just figured nobody wanted me around.

  “Why? Because you can’t talk? No offense, but that’s fucking stupid. Everybody hangs out with Jamie, and he’s a total dick. We all wish that guy wouldn’t talk. And Erik Jones spends every single party burping out Katy Perry songs and then throwing up in the bathroom, but nobody has a problem with him. You’re cool, Santé. You’re smart and shit. Even if you suck ass at chess.”

  I wasn’t used to hearing people say nice things about me. I felt like I should be smiling, but I’d lost control over my face.

  Thanks, I wrote.

  “Hey, I just got an incredible idea!” Alana said.

  “What’s that?” Zelda asked.

  “How about you guys go to the movie theater where Tyler works? You could check to see if there’s any funny business going on.”

  I’m not sure that’s smart.

  “It is, though,” Alana said. “I just said so. ‘An incredible idea,’ is how I described it. Did you miss that?”

  I was readying more objections when Zelda piped in. “We’ll do it.”

  “Really? You’re the best!” Alana hugged Zelda across the table. “This is gonna be so much fun. You’ll be like superspies.”

  We finished our burritos and paid up, but before we left BrainWash, Alana insisted we check out the laundromat.

  “It’s, like, the weirdest place ever,” she said.

  We followed her through the doorway and into the pungent funk of cleaning agents and damp fabric. There was a kind of loud silence, as all ambient sound was buried beneath the hot hum of the spinning dryers and the tidal sploosh of wet balls of clothes turning over again and again in the washing machines. They were the square kind with round windows in the front, so if you stood back, you could almost imagine you were looking into the windows of an apartment building, the residents of which came in three varieties: swirly and sudsy, sopping and still, or away on vacation.

  “One time, I lost an entire hour staring at these things,” Alana said. “They hypnotize you.”

  “It looks rather cozy in there,” Zelda said. “Like a bunch of little Jacuzzis.”

  We stood in a row in front of the machines, watching them spin. Around and around, like the moon orbiting the earth. Like the earth orbiting the sun. My mind wandered back to what Zelda had said a few minutes ago: I was his first. Was that just another float in her unending Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade of fibs and fabrications, or a statement of intent? Would tonight be different from last night? And why did that thought make me feel at least as anxious as excited?

  “Your hand’s sweaty,” Zelda said.

  I hadn’t even noticed she’d grabbed hold of it.

  “All right, kids,” Alana said. “Duty calls. Let’s make like a couple practicing the rhythm method and pull on out of here.”

  WHAT YOU DO AT A MOVIE THEATER, PART II: THE RECKONING

  FIRST OFF, YOU ORDER THE tickets on your phone, so you can bypass the ticket office without being seen. It’s a weekend, so the theater is busy enough for you to hide in the crowd. The venue is one of those massive cinema complexes with multiple floors, multiple little video-game arcades, and multiple snack counters. You find Tyler on the very top floor. He’s shoveling popcorn into bags and dousing each one with “butter.” He’s joined there by three other theater employees. One of them has an acne situation that has already colonized his face and neck and appears to have designs on his torso. Another is so overweight that everyone else has to turn to the side to pass her in the narrow alley behind the counter. And the third is an undeniably cute girl. She’s got pink pigtails and wears a lot of green sparkly eye shadow.

  You stand at the back of the room and observe. Nothing happens for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then the lobby starts to empty out and you have to retreat to one of the arcades to wait. After another half hour or so (during which you demolish Zelda at a game of air hockey), the room begins to fill up again, so you head back out to the lobby to continue your surveillance. Tyler and the pink-pigtails girl are standing at opposite ends of the counter, but as they converge on the center to deliver a cardboard box of cheese-soaked nachos and an oversize carton of Milk Duds to a man who definitely doesn’t need either one, there’s a look. It only lasts for a second, but both you and Zelda recognize that sort of look, and you give each other a look to communicate the fact that you saw the look and that you both recognize the look. You’re not actually sure how you recognize the look, because it isn’t a look you can remember giving or receiving yourself, but some animal part of you, the same part that senses whether the dog on the chain outside the Starbucks is the kind that will snap at you if you get too close, the same part that can tell whether those dudes coming down the street are worth crossing to the other side for, knows that this look means, We are totally engaging in some kind of sexual activities when we are not in front of people and serving nachos and Milk Duds.

  You take your time leaving the theater, because you know Alana will be waiting just outside, and the news you bring her is not good news. When you get there, she hurries across the street to you, and you give her a look that tells her about the look you saw, and she gives you a look that at first you think is going to be the precursor to a sobfest, but then you realize it’s a look that’s like Oh hell no! And then she’s marching back across the street and you’re chasing after her.

  “Ticket?” the ticket-taker guy says. Alana stalks right past him. He turns and calls out after her. “Ticket? Your ticket?” His training has not prepared him for this level of insubordination, and you can see he is torn between his responsibility to chase after her and his responsibility to continue taking tickets. A few seconds later she has disappeared over the lip of the escalator. The ticket-taker guy shrugs.

  “Oh well,” he says, then turns
to you and Zelda. “Tickets?”

  You present your stubs and are waved through.

  Alana has stopped on the first floor and is peering through the crowd to see who’s working the snack counter. Zelda puts a hand on her shoulder.

  “You’re not thinking straight, darling. You need to calm down.”

  “Oh, I’m thinking straight as a fucking arrow,” Alana says. “I’m thinking straight as a frat boy. Now where is that sleazy little shit?”

  “Let’s just have a nice sit-down, shall we?”

  “Won’t tell me? Fine. I’ll find him without your help.” She marches up to the counter, bypassing the line, and slams her hand down on the glass. Salt crystals hop up into the air like a colony of tiny insects trying to fly. “Where is Tyler Siegel?” she asks.

  The girl working the register is unruffled by this sudden interruption; she doesn’t even pause in handing over change to a customer. “Third floor,” she says. “And you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “Thank you.”

  Now you’re on the move again, heading back up the escalator. Alana is knocking shoulders with half the people on it, and you follow after her, apologizing to each person in turn. You reach the third floor, hoping Tyler might have escaped to the break room. But no, he’s still there. And it’s shit luck for him, because he’s just made some joke to the girl with the pink pigtails, and she’s laughing way too hard, and it’s like the good Lord put a target on his forehead.

  “Douche bag!” Alana announces, loudly enough to silence all nearby conversation, particularly among those families here to see the kind of movie in which such language will definitely not be used. Alana—still dressed as a pirate—clambers over the counter like that evil Japanese ghost in The Ring, knocking over the child-size popcorn of some little kid, who starts to cry. The pink-pigtailed girl knows something crazy is going on, but she doesn’t yet understand it has anything to do with her. Not until Alana has grabbed Tyler by his black button-down shirt and pushed him hard into the Icee machine, which begins to stream cherry-red Icee onto the counter.