Boy Meets Boy (5 page)

"Diltaunt aprin zesperado?"
Tony asks me now, seeing me lost in thought.

"Gastemicama,"
I answer decisively.

I'm good.

It's hard for me to concentrate on Tony's homework, with so many things to think about.

Somehow I manage to write three pages before my brother comes downstairs and offers to give Tony a ride home. Of all my friends, Jay likes Tony best. I think they have compatible silences. I can imagine them on the way back to Tony's, not saying a word. Jay respects Tony, and I respect Jay for that.

I already know that Tony won't give me any advice about what to do with Noah or Joni or Kyle. It's not that he doesn't care (I'm sure he does). He just likes people to do their own thing.

"Lifstat beyune hegra,"
he says when departing. But his tone holds no clues. Good-bye?

Good luck? Call Noah?

I don't know.

"Yaroun,"
I reply.

Good-bye. See you tomorrow.

I head back to my room and finish my homework. I don't look over what Tony's already written. I'm sure it's fine.

I spend the rest of the evening in a television daze. For the first time in a long time, I don't call Joni. And Joni doesn't call me.

This is how I know she knows I know.

Dangling Conversations

The next morning, I look for Noah and find Joni instead.

"We've got to talk," she says. I do not argue.

She pulls me into an empty classroom. History's great figures -- Eleanor Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi, Homer Simpson--look down at us from posters on the walls.

"You saw us. Ted saw us."

It isn't a question, so I don't have to answer.

"What's going on?" I ask instead. Implied in that question is the bigger one:
Why didn't you
tell me?

"I wasn't expecting this to happen."

"Which part? Falling for Chuck, or having to admit it?"

"Don't get hostile."

I sigh. Early signs of defensiveness are not good.

"Look," I say, "you know as well as I do what Chuck did after Infinite Darlene rejected him.

He trashed her locker and bad-mouthed her to the whole school."

"He was hurt."

"He was psycho, Joni." (I don't mean to say that; it just comes out. A Friendian Slip.) Joni shoots me the look I know so well -- the same look she shot me when she dyed her hair red in sixth grade and I unsuccessfully tried to pretend it had come out well; the same look she shot me when I tried to convince her (after the first break-up) that getting back together with Ted wasn't the best idea; the same look she shot me when I confessed to her that I was worried I'd never, ever find a boyfriend who loved me the same way I loved him. It's a look that stops all conversation. It's a look that insists,
You're wrong.

We've been best friends too long to fight each other over this. We both know that.

"So have you talked to Ted?" I ask.

"I wanted to talk to you first."

I think she's doing the wrong thing. My intuition is clear on this: Chuck is bad news. But I know there's nothing I can do to convince her to change her mind. Not without proof.

"So are you, like, Chuck's
girlfriend
now?"

Joni groans. "Remains to be seen, okay? And how are you doing with your Mystery Boy?"

"I have to find him again."

"You lost him?"

"Suppose so."

I say good-bye to Joni and head to Noah's locker. I see Infinite Darlene and duck past her--

I'm sure by now she's heard about Joni and Chuck, and I'm sure she'll have loads to say about it.

I also pass Seven and Eight in the halls, their heads leaned gently into each other, their words impossible to overhear. Their real names are Steven and Kate, but no one has called them that for years. They started going out in second grade and haven't been apart since. They are the one-percent of one-percent who meet early on and never need to find anybody else. There's no way to explain it.

Noah is waiting by his locker. No--let me change that. He is
standing
by his locker. There is no sign in his posture or in his gaze that he is waiting for anybody.

"Hey," I say. I scan his features for a reaction. Surprise? Happiness? Anger?

I can't read him.

"Hey," he says back closing his locker.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," I continue. "Did you get my note?"

He shakes his head. I'm a little thrown.

"Oh. I put a note I your locker. I tried to get here right after school, but ten thousand things got in my way. I really wanted to be here."

He can't read me, either. The confusion is on his face. He doesn't know if I'm being since.

"Locker two-six-for, right?"

"Two-six-three."

Oops. I apologize on behalf of my pathetic memory and then ask him what he did last night, trying to ease things into a conversation.

"I painted some music. You?"

"Oh, I fought a fast fire." When I don't have anything interesting to say, I usually y to make up something interesting. Then I take one last stab at sounding impressive: "And I started thinking about the Dowager Dance. I'm going to architect it."

"What's the Dowser Dance?" he asks.

I forgot he's new to the school. He has no idea what I'm talking about.

For all he knows, leally do fight forest fires in my free time.

I start giving him answers, explaining away the Dowager Dance and the organization fury of Lyssa Ling. But instead of giving answers, I want to be king him questions. What does he mean by "paint some music"? I'm happy I'm here? Does he want me to stop talking? Because I keep talking and talking. I am telling him about the time Lyssa Ling tried to sell bagels with fortunes baked inside them as a sixth-grad fund-raiser, and how the shipment was switched and we got the fortune bagels that were supposed to go to a bachelor party, with XXX-rated slips of paper inserted into the dough. It's a funny story, but somehow I am making it boring.

I can't stop in the middle, so I go on and on. Noah doesn't walk away or nod off, but he's certainly not riding my tangent. I'm barely on it myself.

"Thank God I found you!"

It's not Noah saying this. It's Infinite Darlene, right behind me.

"Am I interrupting?" she asks.

Now, I really like Infinite Darlene. But among all my friends, she's usually the last I introduce to new people. I have to prepare them. Because Infinite Darlene doesn't make the best first impression. She seems very full of herself. Which she
is.
It's only after you get to know her better that you realize that somehow she's managed to encompass all her friends within her own self-image, so that when she's acting full of herself, she's actually full of her close friends, too.

There is no way I can expect Noah to understand this.

I try to send Infinite Darlene a look to let her know she's interrupting, without actually telling her out loud.

It doesn't work.

"You must be that boy Paul likes," she says to Noah.

I turn Elmo red.

"And boy," Infinite Darlene continues, "you sure are cute."

The first time Infinite Darlene talked to me like this, I stuttered for days. Noah smiles and takes it in stride.

"Now, are all the girls at this school as nice as you?" he asks. "If so, I'm definitely going to like it here."

He looks right at her as he says it. And I can tell that even Infinite Darlene is a little taken aback, because it's clear he's seeing her just as she wants to be seen. So few people do that.

With two sentences, he's managed to win over my most critical friend.

I am in awe.

I am also mortified by Infinite Darlene's declaration of my liking. Sure, I'm about as smooth as a camel's back . . . but I was still trying to win him over with my own sweet plan (whatever that might be).

Of course, Infinite Darlene will only let a beat last so long before stepping in again.

"Is this awful, vile rumor I hear actually true? Break it to me gently."

"Do you mind if I derail for a second?" I ask Noah, then quickly ; add, "Please stay."

"No problem," he says.

That settled, I face Infinite Darlene. In heels, she is easily six inches taller than me. In an effort to break it to her gently, I talk to her chin.

"It appears that Joni has started something with--"

"Stop!" Infinite Darlene interrupts, stepping back and holding up her hand. "I can't take any more. Why, Paul?
Why?"

"I
don't know."

I am not about to argue with a football captain who has long fingernails.

"Haven't I taught her
anything?"
Infinite Darlene is clearly exasperated. "I mean, I
know
she has bad taste. But this is like licking the bottom of your stiletto."

Clearly, Infinite Darlene still feels some hostility toward Chuck.

"I have to find that girl and talk some sense into her," she concludes. I put up a show of trying to dissuade her, but we both know there's no way I'm going to stop her. She leaves in a huff.

"Friend of yours?" Noah asks, eyebrow raised.

I nod.

"I'll bet she's always like that."

I nod again.

"I feel very calm in comparison."

"We all do," I assure him. "This is the kind of stuff I was dealing with yesterday when I should've been here."

"Does this happen often?"

"Not this specific thing, but there's usually something like it."

"Do you think you could escape the crisis for a few hours this afternoon?"

Since Infinite Darlene blew my cover so thoroughly, I decide to take a risk.

"You're not asking me just because I like you?"

He smiles. "The thought never crossed my mind."

We don't say any more than that. I mean, we say things--we make plans and all. But the subject of us is dropped back into signals and longing.

We make plans for after school.

I'm going to help him paint some music.

Painting Music

Noah's house is in a different part of town than mine, but the neighborhood looks just the same. Each house has a huge welcome mat of lawn sitting in front of it, bordered by a driveway on one side and a hedge on the other. It should be boringly predictable, but it's not really. The houses are personalized-- a blush of geraniums around the front stoop, a pair of shutters painted to echo the blue sky. In Noah's yard, the hedges have been made into the shape of lightbulbs--the legacy of the former owner, Noah tells me.

He lives close to the high school, so we walk the bendily cross-hatched roads together. He asks me how long I've lived in town, and I tell him I've lived here my whole life.

"What's that like?" he asks.

"I don't really have anything to compare it to," I say after a moment's thought. "This is all I know."

Noah explains that his family has moved four times in the last ten years. This is meant to be the final stop--now his parents travel everywhere for business instead of making the family move to the nearest headquarter city.

"I'm so dislocated," Noah confesses.

"You're here now," I tell him.

If my family were to move (honestly, I can't imagine it, but I'm stating it here for the sake of argument), I think it would take us about three years to unpack all of our boxes. Noah's family, however, has put everything in its place. We walk through the front door and I'm amazed at how immaculate everything is. The furniture has settled into its new home; the only thing the house lacks is clutter. We walk into the living room--and it's one of those living rooms that look like nobody ever lives in them.

We head to the kitchen for a snack. Noah's sister is sitting alert at the corner table, like a parent waiting up late at night for a kid to come home.

"You're late," she says. "You missed Mom's call."

She must be in eighth grade -- maybe seventh. She's old enough to wear make-up, but she hasn't figured out yet how to wear it well.

"Is she going to call back?" Noah asks.

"Maybe." End of conversation.

Noah reaches out for the mail on the table, sifting through the catalogs and bulk mail for something worthwhile.

"Paul, this is my sister, Claudia," he says as he separates the recyclable from the nonrecyclable. "Claudia, this is Paul."

"Nice to meet you," I say.

"Nice to meet you, too. Don't hurt him like Pitt did, okay?"

Noah's annoyed now. "Claudia, go to your room," he says, giving up on the mail.

"You're not the boss of me."

"I can't believe you just said that. What are you, six years old?"

"Excuse me, but aren't you the one who just said 'Go to your room'? And by the way, Pitt wrecked you. Or have you forgotten?"

It's clear Noah hasn't forgotten. And neither, to her credit, has Claudia.

Satisfied by this turn of conversation, Claudia drops the subject.

"I just made a smoothie pitcher," she tells us as she gets up from the table. "You can have some, but leave at least half."

Once she's out of the room, Noah asks me if I have a little sister. I tell him I have an older brother, which isn't really the same thing.

"Different methods of beating you up," Noah says.

I nod.

After drinking some of Claudia's mango-cherry-vanilla concoction, Noah leads me up the back stairs to his room.

Before we reach his door, he says, "I hope you don't mind whimsy."

In truth, I'd never given whimsy much thought before.

Then I see his room and I know exactly what he means.

I don't know where to begin, both in looking at it and describing it. The ceiling is a swirl of just about any color you'd care to imagine. But it doesn't seem like it was painted with different colors -- it looks like it appeared at once, as a whole. One wall is covered with Matchbox cars glued in different directions, with a town and roads drawn in the background.

His music collection hangs on a swing from the ceiling; his stereo is elevated on a pedestal of postcards from absurd places -- Botswana, the Kansas City International Airport, an Elvis convention. His books are kept on freestanding shelves hung at different angles on a sea-green wall. They defy gravity, as good books should. His bed is in the middle of the room, but can be rolled effortlessly into any corner. His windowshades are made from old bubblegum wrappers, arranged into a design.