Hissers (3 page)

“Kinda. It’s gonna be weird, huh?”

All four were in the same grade. Connor and Nicole had shared a few classes last year but usually sat on opposite ends of the room. They were both in honors classes, as was Seth, but everyone knew Nicole was the smartest person in their grade and could stand to be in the honors classes a full grade ahead. You just knew she was going to go far in life.

“Is that a porno magazine?” Amanita pointed to the closed magazine on the counter.

Jared whisked it away and looked her up and down. He seemed enticed by the way she had her hands on her hips and Connor wouldn’t put it past the guy to make a move. Hell, he wasn’t sure Amanita would even mind. “I’m over eighteen, little girl. Don’t judge me. You all gonna buy something or just stand around littering?”

“I think he means loitering,” Nicole whispered.

Amanita put a twenty on the counter. “A pack of Parliament Lights. You can charge me ten dollars for them. You know, just in case.” She winked at him.

“Ten? They’re only six.”

“But you can charge me ten. Like, to make sure there are no hard feelings, no feelings involving your job and all.”

Jared scratched his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. They’re six.” He rang up a pack for her and gave her correct change.

Nicole and Connor both shook their heads and smiled.

“You fuckwads paying for these Redbulls or what?” Jared snapped his fingers on the cans, making a pinging noise.

Seth put some folded-up bills on the counter. “And two hotdogs,” he said. Jared huffed and went to get the hotdog tongs.

“So hey,” Nicole said, looking at Connor, “you going to Jason Drake’s party tonight?”

Connor remembered the recent incident with the car. He and Jason were not friends by any means despite being in the same grade. Jason was not in the honors classes and spent most of his time in Home Ec classes or in detention. In fact he was in most of Amanita’s classes. “Uh, no.”

“Oh, c’mon. You should. It’s gonna be fun. His brother does it every year the last weekend before school starts. Everybody goes. Jason said there’s gonna be three kegs.”

Amanita yanked the plastic off her cigarette box and began packing them against her palm. “Let it go, Nicole. I doubt they got invited.” She glared venomously at Seth, who was still leering sideways at her body. When he caught her eyes he looked guiltily at his shoes.

“Oh please, that doesn’t even matter,” Nicole said. “Everyone’s invited. It’s like an all-inclusive school thing. That’s what Jason said. So you guys could come.”

If we show up we’ll get thrown in the pool or pantsed or something,
Connor thought. One brush a day with the Drake brothers was about all he could stomach. “Nah, we were gonna have our own little celebration tonight anyway so…I don’t think we’re gonna make it.”

“Oh.” Nicole nodded like she understood. “That’s cool. Where?”

“Where what?”

“Where’s your party.”

“Our party?”

“You just said you’re having your own celebration.”

“Oh! You know, like, we were gonna hang out at the…fort and stuff.”

“The fort? You mean that shitty wooden thing in the woods?” Amanita grimaced. “Sounds like a real blast. What do you do, reenact Star Trek Wars or something.”

“
Star Wars
and
Star Trek
are two different things,” Seth corrected. “And only
Star Wars
is cool.”

“Neither is cool, actually.”

“Well, maybe we could join you for a bit,” Nicole said.

Connor could tell she was just being nice. He appreciated it but he knew no girl about to enter high school was gonna pass up a chance to meet four grades worth of high school boys at one of the most popular parties of the year.

“If you want,” he replied.

“I’m going to the Drakes,” Jared said, putting the hotdogs on the counter. “It’s gonna be fucking awesome. You going?” He directed the question at Amanita. This time he made no effort to hide the way his eyes undressed her. “I could introduce you to people. I know lots of people. I could totally introduce you and stuff.”

“I’ll bet you could.” Amanita took a pack of matches off the service tray on the counter. She was not amused. If her eyes could talk they’d say everyone around her was an idiot.

Seth took the hotdogs and Redbulls and handed Connor his share. “‘Star Trek Wars’. What does that even mean? C’mon, we should get going.”

Connor nodded. He felt weird enough as it was, if they stuck around any longer he’d surely do something embarrassing.

Nicole stepped in front of him before he could head to the door. “Well, look, I mean maybe we could just come by and hang for a little bit. Then when we go to the party—”

“I don’t want to go to some stupid fort in the woods,” Amanita chimed in.

Nicole glared at her, then looked back at Connor. “Then when we leave for the party if you want to come you can come with us. We could all go together. If you don’t then no big deal.”

“You’re not listening, Nic, I don’t wanna go into the fucking woods. I wanna go to the party and I need to do my hair and fix these tan lines.”

Connor wanted to tell Amanita to shut the hell up but held back. She’d been Nicole’s friend since preschool and he didn’t want to insult their bond. It was similar to how the junior high school soccer team was all friendly with Connor for being a good scorer but made fun of Seth for being overweight. Why did people think you could insult someone’s friend and they’d be okay with it?

“I dunno,” he said.

“Look, Nic, They weren’t invited. If they don’t want to go they don’t have to go.”

“I could introduce you to a whole lot of people,” Jared said. He winked at Amanita.

Nicole had finally had enough. “Am, we’ll be there in plenty of time for you to shake your ass. You,” she pointed at Jared, “we’re fourteen, you know.”

Jared shrugged. “Yeah, but not for long.”

She turned to Connor. “And you, if you don’t want to hang out with us just say so.”

“Okay, look,” Connor said, suddenly feeling like a real jerk. “You know where the fort is. We’ll be there around eight or so. If you come, awesome. If not…”

“We’ll be there,” she replied, back to her giddy self.

“No we won’t,” Amanita added.

“I just want to eat my frigging hot dog and play some games. Can we go now?” Seth motioned to the door.

Connor pushed past his best friend. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Saturday. 1:30pm

The park wasn’t a park in the normal sense. There were no lakes or streams, no hiking trails, no park rangers hassling people for leaving food where bears could get it. It was more of a community pasture. Two soccer fields and a baseball field served as the grounds for the local sports leagues, along side of which ran a football field’s worth of green grass with occasional park benches and trash cans. The town called it the park though it was technically modeled after ancient Roman malls—meeting places where people came to mingle and barter goods.

Most of the people in the neighborhood only came to play Frisbee, cook burgers on hibachis, and in the case of underage hooligans, sneak beers in coolers when they could. Right now a pee wee soccer game was taking place on the far soccer field, and every now and then one could hear angry parents yelling at other angry parents. A Parks and Rec employee was cutting the grass on the baseball field, and the only other sign of life was two high school boys playing catch with a football way down at the other end.

Nicole and Amanita spread their beach blankets and stretched out on their backs. Amanita took off her shorts leaving nothing on but her bikini, but Nicole felt a little too exposed to go that bare and kept her pants on.

“Your legs will never get tan if you keep ‘em covered up all summer,” Amanita said.

“I’m Irish, I’ll just burn.”

“You used to be a shorts person. What happened, you outgrow them?”

“If that’s a fat joke, then you’re a bitch.”

“D’oy.”

“I like pants is all. They’re comfy.”

They both donned their sunglasses, stuck iPod earbuds in their ears, and closed their eyes. Everything was serene until the smell of Amanita’s cigarette began to overpower the scent of the grass and summer wildflowers.

Nicole turned off her iPod. “Do you need to smoke that here?”

Amanita pulled her earbuds out. “Yes.”

“You’re gonna get cancer.”

“So? You think anyone’s gonna miss me?”

“I’ll miss you.”

“Well, you’re the only one. You’ll be in the White House or something by the time the cancer kills me so we won’t even be friends anymore anyway.”

“Just put it out, please.”

Amanita huffed and pitched the cigarette into the grass. They both listened to the distant sound of a pigskin smacking into hands. “You weren’t serious about going to that stupid fort were you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? I mean, Connor is okay, he’s kinda cute and all, but they’re pretty much dorks. We’re about to go into high school, Nic. We should be looking for some older guys. Guys with cars at least.”

“I like Connor. And I like Seth. There’s nothing wrong with them.”

“Gross.”

Nicole propped herself up on her elbow. “What’s so important that you have to be at Jason’s right away, anyway? We’ll have the next four years to go to this party. It’s probably gonna be lame. For fuck’s sake, Jared the Wonder Tard is gonna be there.”

“Well, I sure as shit ain’t going for him. What a pervert. He’s like, as old as my dad.”

“Well if you didn’t dress like that in front of him...”

Amanita flipped her glasses up and stared at Nicole. “Okay, Mom, thanks for the advice.”

“Well, I’m just saying. Guys are stupid and you never know what they’re gonna do. So what’s so important about this party tonight? I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Nothing, I just really want to go. Like I said, it’s time we start recognizing we’re older. We’re in high school. We need high school boyfriends.”

“Seth and Connor are gonna be in high school too.”

“You know what I mean. Not losers, real older guys. You don’t want to be part of the lame crowd in this school.”

Nicole gasped and hit Amanita on the shoulder. “Wait a minute! You like someone that’s gonna be there. Who?”

“Why do you say that?”

Nicole hit her again. “Stop being coy. Who is it? Holy shit is it Jason? It is, isn’t it?”

Amanita hit Nicole back. “Jesus, will you be quiet. So what? So I happen to think he’s hot. You act like it’s a tragedy.”

“I’m just shocked is all. I mean, you were in his classes last year. Did you even talk to him?”

“Sometimes. I dunno. He isn’t that smart, y’know. But there’s something about him. At the end of the year he just started to look really good. He’s starting to look like Maynard with the chest muscles and all. Besides, I don’t need to talk to him. I just sort of want to mess around and stuff.”

“Ew, gross. I don’t think he’s hot, he looks greasy. And you shouldn’t put yourself out there so easily. You don’t know where he’s been.”

“God, you sound like my Mom again. It’s just sex. We’re gonna do it sometime anyway. You really think it’s gonna be all special like in some movie? Do you even know how boys feel about a girl who makes them wait? It pisses them off.”

Nicole lay back down and was quiet for a minute before replying. “Well then, I guess I’ll be pissing a lot of guys off.”

“Well, I don’t care. I mean, you lose your virginity once and it’s gone and then it’s all meaningless anyway. Might as well just get it over with.”

“You talk like you know.”

“I know more than you.”

“Oh really, how far have you gotten?”

“I told you, I got naked with my cousin’s friend. We almost did it, but he didn’t have a condom. I’m not a slut, you know.”

Nicole laughed. “I told you before I don’t believe you. Stop making up stories.”

“It’s not a story. What about you? All you ever did was kiss that ugly boy you met at the mall.”

“So, he was a good kisser. You know, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Why? Afraid Connor will be bad kisser? I doubt he even knows how to handle a woman.”

“We’re not women, we’re fourteen.”

“Speak for yourself. Like I said, there will be real men at the party tonight. If you want a good kisser, find one there. Not at some stupid fort in the woods.”

“You’re really not going to come to the fort?”

“I sure as hell don’t want to.”

“What if I promise we’ll be at the party by nine o’clock? Just come so I can convince Connor to come with us. For me, okay?”

“If I come then you owe me.”

“Put it on my tab.”

Amanita’s cell phone began to play a Fallout Boy song. She checked the number and grunted. “It’s Alicia. She’s texting me.”