After Dakota (11 page)

Back at school the week after the party, Rosemary passes Cameron a note in class, a sheet of binder paper folded in eighths:
Thanks for the other night. Sorry the police came
.

He studies the note all through science, while Mr. Turner lectures in his lab coat. In every photo of Turner, going back his twenty years at this school, he’s wearing the coat. There has been speculation about whether he ever takes it off, even to sleep or to have sex with his wife.

Cameron shows the note to Bryce at the snack bar, before Geoff arrives. “Does she mean she’s sorry the party got broken up?” he asks. “Or is she sorry we didn’t get to hang out more?”

“And what exactly is she thanking you for, exactly?” Bryce replies.

They explore the possibilities further, analyzing her sentence structure and word choice, each playing devil’s advocate for the other’s point. Did she already have a colored pen out, or did she choose it just for this? Did she write the note right before passing it, or compose it earlier, knowing she would see him?

Bryce goes along with the discussion, but his heart doesn’t seem to be in it – normally he relishes a chance to pry into Cameron’s love life. He picks at his nachos, the bright orange cheese sauce polka-dotted with green jalapenos.

From the next table, the sun glints off Eddie Levy’s bald spot (which he claims is the result of a nervous hair-pulling habit, not genetics). He used to wear baseball caps but stopped bothering last year when he accepted the fact that everyone knows.

Geoff sits down without food. “Check this out, bitches” he says, pulling from his pocket a thick needle in a suede holder.

“Are you taking Home Ec?” Bryce asks.

“Har, har. This baby came in the mail yesterday.” When neither of his audience members reacts, he goes on, “Some mugger jumps you, you jam it in his eye. Game over.” He mimes jabbing a needle into Bryce’s eye. “Stealth attack, always ready.”

Lunch ends before Cameron reaches any conclusions.

During fifth period he sits at Ms. Langdon’s desk in the counseling office and reviews for the Latin quiz next period. Why did he sign up for Latin II? Serves him right for trying to be different from everyone else who takes Spanish or French, for thinking in terms of what will look good to colleges. The hunched Mrs. Cronin often makes jokes about being late for school because of how slow her chariot is; Cameron isn’t the only one in class who thinks she might be old enough to have an actual chariot.

Ms. Langdon leans in over his shoulder, her turquoise pendant swinging like a hypnotist’s watch. She smells like roses. “I couldn’t figure that stuff out if you offered me a million bucks,” she says before sending him out with three call slips.

After dropping in on a social studies and computer room, his final stop is a math class. There sits Rosemary, brow furrowed, chewing her pencil. She’s working with another student on something and doesn’t look up. Cameron tries to stand cool while Coach Danvers – who looks out of place away from the gym, wearing a whistle around his neck in a real classroom – limps over to check the call slip.

Rosemary still hasn’t looked up. Cameron stands there longer, trying to remember if he ever saw Dakota chew a pencil, until it’s not plausible to do so anymore.

* * *

When he awakens from his dream of a smoke-filled plane cabin, he decides he’ll definitely ask out Rosemary. Definitely-maybe. He’ll hold off on a one hundred percent commitment until morning, given his long history of bad ideas originated in the late hours (cooking a Mother’s Day breakfast; trying out for the track team; Mallory Hellman).

The morning comes and it still feels like a good idea.

The school’s boiler is down, meaning no heat anywhere on campus, meaning everyone sits through their classes in jackets and hats. Ms. D talks about cost-benefit analysis while wearing an unfortunately puffy outfit, which hides her foxiness and makes her look inflatable. As the boys leave first period, Cameron tells Bryce his Rosemary plan, to which Geoff says from behind, “The British chick? I hear they’re all stuck up over there.” Neither Cameron nor Bryce asks where he heard that.

When he gets to English, Cameron’s chest hammers non-stop for 45 minutes, to the point where he fears others might be able to see it even through his coat, like a wolf in a cartoon whose heart rubber-bands in and out. Mrs. Gordon calls on him to read a poem aloud but his mouth is so dry he stumbles through it, rallying in time for the last five lines:

“‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’

Nothing besides remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

After class he and Rosemary walk out together and when she asks him what he’s doing on the weekend he blurts out, “Hopefully going on a date with you.” He feels like he accidentally shouted it but no curious crowd gathers, just the two of them in the November chill.

She blushes and says yes.

King of Kings indeed.

Bryce plays the Time Pilot videogame in the middle of the night. He should be asleep – he’ll be a wreck at school – but he knows from the past several nights that it might not ever come. The
Ca-Ch
volume from the family encyclopedia set sits open on the floor, the cancer entry both too informative and not informative enough.

Earlier, he waited until his mom was alone in the kitchen, then broached the subject of making a doctor’s appointment. “Is something wrong?” she asked as she slid a tray of biscuits into the oven. A pot of stew bubbled on the stove. “You’re not due for a physical yet.”

His dad appeared, loosened tie and wet armpits from work. “You sick?”

“No,” Bryce said, “I thought it was time for my… forget it.”

While the others shared their good news at dinner, Bryce dunked hunks of biscuit into his stew bowl and felt stupid. What had he been thinking? He couldn’t see Dr. Pederson about this. Dr. Pederson and his dad play golf together!

Bryce would go to the office and hear that it’s nothing, and feel stupid.

Or he’d go to the office and hear
It’s cancer, Bryce. The good news is we can treat it. The bad news is we’ll need to take one of your balls.

He can’t lose a ball. Not to mention that cancer treatment leads to hair loss. There’s freaky and then there’s
freaky
. He’d rather be dead.

After dinner, Bryce and his dad watched
Cheers
; his dad laughed at all the jokes, repeating his favorite ones aloud (and thus missing the next one). His mom came into the den later, looking like a Kabuki actress in her Japanese robe and white-creamed face, in time for
Hill Street Blues
.

Bryce stayed up watching that with them. Then the late news. Even hearing about Cabbage Patch Mania – images of shoppers charging into stores, practically fighting each other over some hideous-looking dolls – was better than being alone with his thoughts downstairs.

He turns off Time Pilot. What now, play Donkey Kong Jr. or lie in bed and hope for sleep? Footsteps thump around the kitchen overhead. Who’s walking around at 3:37 a.m.? Bryce needs to pee but doesn’t want to see anyone (and answer questions about why he’s up), so he dumps his pencils out of the Pac-Man mug and fills that.

* * *

The morning traffic moves slower than usual, cars inching along behind their bright headlight beams, drivers unprepared for the early fog that greeted the city. Bryce’s mom made him promise to drive carefully at the table and again at the front door as they left for school.

“I don’t get it,” Bryce says to Claire. “We’re like a thousand miles away from any water.” He leans forward against the steering wheel. The taillights in front of him are red demon eyes.

“You don’t have to go five miles an hour,” Claire says, aiming her camera out the window at the nothing.

“It’s not safe on these roads, Claire. What are you taking pictures of anyway?”

“Stuff.”

The windshield wipers fwap the misty glass. “Wanna eat lunch together today?” he asks.

“Did Mom tell you to ask me that?”

“No. I’m asking because I want to eat with you.”

She holds her arm out the window; it disappears past the wrist. “What if your friends see you?”

“You make everything so complicated,” he says. “I know it’s no fun eating alone – I’ve done it.”

“Fine. Meet me in front of the library.”

Bryce does, after stopping at the snack bar to pick up two sandwiches first. The fog still hangs on, thickest around the outer perimeter of the school, but the novelty from the morning has worn off (when someone in every class mentioned the movie
The Fog
).

He’s had thoughts about telling Claire his cancer news. Non-cancer news. Lump news. He needs to tell someone; his parents would make it a federal case, Cam is too wrapped up in his own problems. Claire’s the best choice, if not for the fact that Bryce doesn’t want to discuss his balls with his little sister.

Over by the water fountain, a group of boys torment an unfortunate pigeon that keeps flapping a few feet away before they catch up to it again.

Bryce eats half the tuna melt because he can’t wait.

Gwen Worthington strolls by, back from her stay in the hospital after cutting herself yet again, her hair chopped short, Pat Benatar-style. She wears her white plastic bracelet proudly, like a fashion accessory.

Bryce eats the other half of the tuna melt.

The bell rings. Still no Claire. Just like her to forget.

He’s on his way to Spanish when he sees her emerging out of the white with Zaplin. They look so far apart in age, like an adult and a kid. Behind them, Zaplin’s gang comes into focus.

Zaplin seemed so big, even in middle school, and older than the rest of them. Like the school got bullies delivered just to break in the new kids. Their first encounter was the time Bryce and Cam waited outside a classroom door for their next period (having just learned the school layout). When the bell rang and the door opened, Zaplin stepped out and they were face to face. Before the boys could move out of the way, Zaplin shoved Cam to his butt on the ground.

From then on, they were enemies, as if accepting the shove had been a sign of weakness to a predator. The feud remained one-sided. Bryce got sucked into it because he didn’t abandon his friend; they’d hide in the library at lunch, then hurry home from the bus after school.

Was it all because of standing in the wrong place that day in the hall? If questioned, would Zaplin even be able to supply a reason? Cam and Bryce rarely see their adversary anymore now that they have a big high school to avoid him in.

The boys veer off one way, leaving Claire alone.

Bryce catches up to her. “What happened?”

“I had to make up a quiz.”

“With Zaplin?”

“I was walking near them, Officer.
Sor-ry
.”

“I got you a sandwich.” He holds the ham and cheese toward her.

“I already ate. Thanks anyway,” she says, and disappears into the haze.

Bryce sits in Mr. Ellington’s office for his college counseling appointment after school. Mr. Ellington has the hairiest arms in the state, maybe the world – a thick coat of gray all the way to his fingernails, like he’s wearing hair gloves. “I talked to your mother this morning,” he says.

“You called her?” Bryce asks.

“Other way around. She wanted to talk about your options before we met today.”

Bryce is horrified. Mr. Ellington says his grades are respectable, which seems like a good adjective for a three-point-two. He asks where Bryce sees himself in his wildest dreams.

Easy question. What Bryce has wanted to be since the age of seven – since he discovered a pile of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s
Fantastic Four
comics in his cousin Lloyd’s attic – is a comic book artist.

Mr. Ellington says, “Normally I hear CEO or doctor or professional athlete.” He seems not to have taken Bryce seriously, because the college choices he talks about have nothing to do with art.

Which is fine, since Bryce’s wildest dreams probably won’t be coming true. If only Mr. Ellington knew what a waste of time this is. Bryce could interrupt the sales pitch and say
I may have cancer
.

That, and the world might be a nuclear wasteland before applications are due.

The last of the fog has burned away when Bryce leaves with a stack of non-art school brochures. How about this for a college essay topic: the fog represents his hopes and how they’ve burned away too.

He stops at Dunkin’ Donuts and orders a dozen Munchkin donut holes, all chocolate. He opens the box in his car, chews carefully at first, but why bother? Choking to death doesn’t seem that bad anymore. He devours them – two, three in his mouth at once – until the box holds only sugary crumbs. He wets his fingertip and sucks those down, too. During the whole chowdown, yes, he feels better. Maybe even good.

Then he leans out the door and vomits into the parking lot.

Cameron wants to make it a good date. He knows better than to ask his mom for suggestions and jinx it (as has happened in the past), so he ends up with the movie listings page of the newspaper folded in his wallet. Along with a condom. This also invites a jinx but he takes the risk. He might have procured one of Bryce’s deluxe lambskin ones; buying Trojans just seemed simpler all around.

There’s no way he’ll get to have sex with her on a first date. No way. Carrying it is just precaution.

She’s waiting for him on the sidewalk in front of her house, bundled up like an Arctic explorer. Her first words upon leaping into the heated car are, “It’s bloody freezing out there.” The next thing she says is, “Fancy an ice cream?” and while those two thoughts back to back don’t make a whole lot of sense, she could’ve proposed visiting a slaughterhouse and he would’ve said yes.

The Baskin Robbins clerk looks legitimately happy to see them. Rosemary orders butter pecan, only she says it
pe-CAN
in the most adorable way. Cameron gets his usual mint chip. They eat in the car, the heater vents aimed directly at them, and he’s proud of himself that only a small portion of his brain is worried about the car battery running down.

She updates him about the Russians walking out of nuclear talks in Geneva; since he doesn’t know much about this, he keeps his mouth on his cone and nods a lot.

He can smell his own cologne, which may mean he put on too much.

When the subject turns to favorite movies, he mentally scrambles to come up with a choice that doesn’t involve nudity or aliens. She cites
Grease
, claiming to have seen it four times in the cinema and even had her first kiss during one of those times. She tells him about a boy named Gareth – not Nigel – and some other details, while Cameron stares at her chin and the one faint zit on an otherwise flawless face. When she’s done talking she adds, “Probably not a proper story for a date, eh?”

She uses the word
date
.

He reciprocates at her insistence, composing a pretty accurate (though minus the unfortunate braces) recollection of Becky Reynolds in sixth grade. After that they sit not looking at each other for a few minutes; Rosemary draws a smiling sun on the fogged-up windshield, then adds a flock of birds for good measure. Cameron convinces himself he doesn’t mind fingerprints on the glass.

He thinks back to another night in a cold car, like the two of them were there, too, together.

He’s going to pull out the newspaper page when she says, “I hear you make pizza.”

Did she hear that in the halls at school? Did she ask someone about him? Did she ask someone about him and get only that information in return?

“I work at Chuck E. Cheese.”

“You’re joking! I’ve seen the advertisement (
ad-VER-tizment
) on TV! Can we go? Please?” She bounces in her seat like a little kid.

Cameron wishes he and Bryce had gotten around to inventing that time-stopper they used to talk about. He needs to pause everything, consider his options, review the facts.

Fact: The restaurant is closed now. This means they’ve been talking in the car for two hours. His poor battery.

Fact: He has a key.

Fact: Any guy can take a girl to a movie, but no other guy from school can take her on a private tour of Chuck E. Cheese.

Fact: A girl is in his car, on a date, excited about being there.

“Let’s go,” he says, and starts the engine.

Rosemary holds Cameron’s sleeve as they enter the restaurant. They pass the arcade, where the games are still on; all that’s visible are the pixilated ghosts and spaceships on the screens. The images float free in the air like the visions of a madman.

He finds the master control panel and flips some switches, careful not to activate any outside lights lest the grinning mouse on the sign attract drunken classmates or a curious patrol car.

In the dining room, the Pizza Time Players, slumped onstage, straighten and begin their act. The banter. The lame jokes. Then “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and “Workin’ on the Chain Gang.”

Rosemary claps. “This place is brilliant! I can’t believe you get paid to come here!”

Cameron watches her, taking in the sight of someone actually enjoying this show. In the arcade, they play skeeball, accompanied by blinking lights and calliope music. Between her purse and his pocket they produce a handful of quarters, which they change in for tokens at the machine. Frogger. Ms. Pac-Man. Centipede. Cameron gets so engrossed in a game of Sinistar that he loses track of both the time and the girl. Smooth move, Ex-Lax.

He finds her in the plastic ball pit, her face grinning at him, her body hidden in primary colors. Oh, the horrors he’s witnessed in there: the drool, the diaper, the rotten pizza, the whole toenail separated from its owner.

But then Rosemary says, “Get in here!” and he finds himself doing something he never could have imagined. He tries to stay on the surface, to have no bare flesh touch any plastic, but the balls make that impossible and he’s soon in up to his chest.

“I wish I lived here,” she tells him, eyes closed like she’s floating on water.

Just how Dakota looked with her eyes closed.

He replies, “Uh, yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?”

“D’you plan to stay way over there?” she asks. He swims the few feet across, looking for a spot to tuck in next to her, but then she sits up and kisses him.

She
kisses
him
!

It isn’t quick, either. She holds his collar with one hand, braces herself on the back wall of the pit with the other. He keeps his eyes half-open, to remember every detail. The soundtrack for the moment: faint echoes of “Long Tall Sally.”

The longer the kiss goes, the more active his mind becomes…

Does the mint chip ice cream make his mouth taste minty good or minty bad?

Does all the plastic between their bodies effectively hide his hard-on?

Will she want to have sex tonight?

Will she want to have sex
here
?

Has anyone ever done that before?

When the voice says, “What the hell?” Cameron turns and jumps up while simultaneously trying to cover his crotch. He goes face first into the pit, loses his glasses in the process.

Loo from Norway stands in the middle of the arcade, hair askew, wearing a tank top and white briefs. He holds a broom like a baseball bat.

“Cameron?”

“Loo?” The two co-workers, having established their identities, stare at each other through the netting.

“I thought someone broke in,” Loo says.

“What are you doing here?” Cameron replies.

“I sleep here sometimes. You don’t tell, please?”

Doesn’t Loo see they have each other busted? Cameron’s dad calls this kind of situation a Mexican standoff. “I won’t.”

That’s good enough for Loo. He nods, says, “Good night,” and leaves the arcade.

And Cameron is alone. “Rosemary?” he whispers. Her head pops up from the pit.

“Who was that bloke?” she asks, handing him his glasses.

“Never mind.”

They still have their hideaway, but it isn’t the same anymore, isn’t special. She says she’d better get home and he agrees. Cameron’s uncomfortable crotch situation has diminished enough that he can exit the ball pit. On the way out of the restaurant, she points at the menu and comments on how good the hot dog looks.