I Love You, Beth Cooper (3 page)

Dr. Henneman caught herself crossing her arms tightly across her chest, as she had through junior high. Such silly, everlasting pain. She answered Denis with something approaching empathy.

“There's another Beth Cooper out there,” she told him. “One just for you. The world is full of Beth Coopers.”

Dr. Henneman began to walk away, already filing Denis under
STUDENTS
,
FORMER
and composing additional summer projects for Mr. Wrona.
The grooves between these floor tiles could use a good tooth-picking
…

“Dr. Henneman?”

“
Yes,
Mr. Cooverman?”

“You won't call Northwestern.”

Dr. Henneman chuckled. “As if I have any actual power,” she confessed, as she often did to graduates. “Denis, with your SAT scores, you'd practically have to kill someone to not get in.”

ALONE AGAIN,
Denis decided to assume a cool pose against the wall, in case anyone chose to reference him while discussing his now infamous speech. It was a pretty good pose: casual yet defiant. But no one was talking about his speech; few even remembered it. At the end of the ceremony it had flown out of their heads
like trigonometry, gone forever.

Denis canvassed the room, a cruel smile playing across his lips, he thought.

Rich's father was at the snack table, filling paper napkins with cookie remains. Rich was performing for his mother and Ms. Rosenbaum, both laughing despite obviously having no idea what he was doing. Miles Paterini and Pete Couvier, the junior ushers, were acting like they were already seniors, scoping out where their lunch table would be, temporarily forgetting how unpopular they were. And there was Stephen Gammel guzzling a Coca-Mocha, the horrible new carbonated coffee beverage, and Lysa Detrick showing off the chin she got for graduation, and:

There she was.

BETH COOPER WAS
less than thirty feet away. Twenty-seven floor tiles. She was chatting with Cammy Alcott and Treece Kilmer, fellow varsity cheerleaders and Table Six lunchers. Chatting about
him
, Denis suspected. Remarkably, he was about to be correct.

Cammy, who had a preternatural sense for when she was being stared at, noticed Denis first. Denis jerked his face to the side—universal body language for
Yes, I was staring at you—
while maintaining his casual yet defiant pose against the wall. It made him look like a male underwear model, except not. Out of the corner of his rapidly darting eye Denis saw Cammy point. Treece, and then Beth, turned in his direction.

Denis considered yawning to underscore his indifference to the attention, but he was afraid a scream might come out, undermining the effect.

Cammy made a short remark, with either a slight smile or a slight frown. Treece whinnied like a frightened mare, a thing she did in situations where other people laughed.

Beth Cooper began walking toward Denis.

WHEN DENIS WAS EIGHT,
he read a story about a boy who discovered he could render himself invisible by turning at a precise angle. Young Denis spent several days systematically rotating himself until he, too, knew the exact angle of invisibility.

Right now Denis could not fathom how he could have forgotten such important information.

“HERE SHE COMES,”
as it so happens, was playing on the iCube as she came.

This was not the “Here She Comes” by the Beach Boys or the “Here She Comes”es by Boney James, Bonnie Tyler, Dusty Springfield, Android, Shantel, Mardo, Joe, the Eurythmics, the Konks, the Mr. T Experience or any of 238 other bands. Nor was it the Velvet Underground's “Here She Comes (Now)” or U2's “Hallelujah (Here She Comes)” or Hall and Oates's “(Uh-Oh) Here She Comes,” which is actually called “Man Eater.”

Had any of these “Here She Comeses”es been playing when Beth Cooper came it would have been a spooky coincidence (especially “Man Eater”); the fact that this “Here She Comes” was also Denis and Beth's unofficial song (pending Beth's notification and approval) made it, well, also a spooky coincidence, but spookier and more coincidental.

Beth Cooper's coming was accompanied by the latest and therefore greatest song to be called “Here She Comes,” by Very Sad Boy,
*
off his new album,
Third Time's a Charm,
a reference to his upcoming suicide attempt.

Denis tried to retract his entire head into his body cavity but it wouldn't go.

Graduation cap set at a provocative angle, Beth Cooper came. She seemed to be moving—nay,
sashaying
—in slow motion, as all around her blurred and the song became a sound track.

In the music video Denis spontaneously hallucinated, a sudden breeze kicked up. Beth's long brown hair flew about her face promiscuously.

Her gown clung to her skin like a damp nightie. It was apparently quite cold in the cafeteria.

BETH STOPPED.
She was twenty inches from Denis, and, for perhaps the first time, facing him. She was about his height, and this for some reason both startled and delighted Denis. They could walk down the hallway with their hands comfortably tucked in each other's back pockets. They could wear each other's T-shirts. They could kiss ergonomically.

“You embarrassed me,” Beth said in the flat, midwestern voice of an angel.

Denis's mouth went dry.

It hung open a bit.

Death was imminent.

Then she smiled.

“But it was so sweet, I'll have to let you live.”

Only a fool would have read this gesture as anything other than kindness. Denis was such a fool.

“Great,” Denis said, clarifying: “That's great.”

Then, a pause. A terrible, multisecond pause.

Denis panicked.

Beth didn't notice.

“So,” she said, “Henneman must've given you major shit.”

At that moment, Denis realized he hadn't planned for his plan to lead to conversation. Violence, sex, either
way he had a plan (both defensive). But
chitchat
.

So, Henneman must've given you major shit
.

RESPOND
.

“Some shit,” Denis responded, with simulated indifference. “Little shit. A modicum of excreta.” That didn't come out as cool as his brain told him it would. Before he could damage himself further with
a fecal smidgen,
Beth changed the subject.

“Was it like eight hundred degrees in there?” She scrunched her brow, as she did all things, intoxicatingly. “Like boiling?”

Denis chuckled dryly. Or that was the general idea. He kind of snorted.

“Actually, the boiling point—of water—is two hundred and twelve degrees. Fahrenheit,” he said, adding casually, “One hundred Celsius.”

Denis instantly knew that was hugely geeky, what he said, and further he knew his brain knew how geeky it was even before he said it; he suspected his brain was out to sabotage him, perhaps fearing that an exterior life would cut down on his Sudoku time.

Fortunately, Beth wasn't listening.

“I am so hot,” she said.

Right there, inches from Denis, Beth did this: She bent over and lifted her gown over her head. She was not naked underneath, as Denis imagined, but somehow even better, she wore tight cutoff jeans and a sweat-soaked belly shirt. The shirt pulled up with the gown, revealing the underside of a lacy, clean, perfect and pink brassiere.

It was the first time Denis had ever seen a brassiere, live, on a girl.

“Yes. I, too, am hot,” said Denis, also bothered.

“I'M NOT GAY, DUDE.”

Rich interloped, oblivious, it seemed, to the historic presence of Beth Cooper.

Rich was more than a foot taller than Denis, which always gave their conversations a cartoonish cant. Now, with Rich's flamboyant indignation and Denis's twitchy anxiety, they constituted a bona fide classic comedy duo, like the ones on those black-and-white DVDs Denis's father insisted he watch.

“I am so
not
gay,” Rich snipped, hands perched on his hips.

Denis kept flicking his head in Beth's direction, in long and short flicks. Rich didn't know Morse code but eventually got the gist.

“I didn't realize there was a line.”

Beth, on the other hand, was a master of the segue.

“That's okay,” she said. “I have to get back—”

“Wait,” Denis blurted.

Beth waited.

Two hundred and fifty million nanoseconds passed.

Denis formulated a plan. Quite a good one, considering the quarter second that had gone into it.

“I'm having a little soiree at my house tonight,” Denis said with tight suavity. “Of course, that's redundant.
Soirée
means ‘evening.' In French.”

Rich was mad at Denis, but he wasn't going to leave his friend hoisting on his own petardness like that.

“A party,” Rich translated. “More of a party than a soiree. Music. Drinks. Prizes. Drinks.”

“That sounds fun,” Beth said with merely anthropological interest.

“You're invited,” Denis ejaculated. “It's 706 Hackberry Drive. Zip code 60004 if you're Mapquesting—”

“Wow, thanks,” Beth responded, her voice dripping courtesy. “We do have this other thing we have to do, but maybe we can stop by…”

Denis nodded the Cool Nod, the mere feint of a nod,
but too quickly and too often, making him look like a bobble-head doll.

“That's coo–”

A mammoth paw engulfed Denis's face and slammed his head against the cinderblock.

THE PAW WAS HUMAN,
Denis surmised, from the way its thumb was opposed deeply into his throat.

Greg Saloga,
Denis thought.
This has to be Greg Saloga, killing me.

And yet these did not smell like Greg Saloga's fingers, of Miracle Whip and Oscar Meyer all-meat bologna, a reliably pungent bouquet that sophomore year had temporarily rendered Denis a vegetarian. Denis hypothesized that Greg Saloga must have washed his hands for graduation, a minimum of one thousand times.

Unbeknownst to Denis, Greg Saloga's bologna fingers were miles away. After the ceremony, Becky Reese's family invited him out for ice cream. Greg Saloga liked ice cream. It was cold and creamy.

Denis could not see whose hand was buckling the plates of his skull. One eye had a clear and intimate view of the cafeteria wall, which was not beige at all but white with a fine misting of yellow grease. The outward-facing eye had a forefinger in it, doubling whatever image was unobstructed, and so all Denis was able to make out was a slab of angry red meat with at least one orifice.

“You wooed my girl,” the angry red meat said.

Denis did not recognize the voice, or the accent, a brassy southern drawl with swampy undertones. But he deduced the
gull
to which the voice referred had to be Beth Cooper, since she was the only one he had ever wooed. That would make this extremely humungous furious person…

Impossible.

Beth Cooper did not have a boyfriend. She had broken up with Seth Johansson in November, after he hit a deer with his car and refused to take it to the hospital. Since then, she had not been seen with any other guy on more than three successive occasions. Jeffery Pule, her prom date, had been a Make-a-Wish type situation; even though there were reports that Pule had felt Beth up under the guise of a fit, he was dead now and so completely out of the picture.

Beth Cooper did not have a boyfriend.

“YOU MUST BE BETH'S BOYFRIEND,”
Rich said brightly, extending his hand in hopes of tricking the meat into releasing his best friend's face.

The meat swiveled in Rich's direction. Its jaw was massive and appeared to have extra bones in it.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Rich excused himself.

The meat returned its attention to Denis. A slight shifting of its grip allowed Denis a better, albeit more terrifying, look.

The meat was a handsome young man whose army green jacket and army green trousers and army green beret and assorted patches, pins and epaulets suggested he was somehow affiliated with the United States Army.

The Army Man leaned in, putting his full weight on the hand clamped to Denis's face.

“Are you prepared to die?” he asked.

“Not really,” Denis smush-mouthed.

“Kevin!”

Denis would not have guessed Kevin. Animal, Hoss, Bull or Steve. Not
Kevin
.

“Kevin, stop!”

Kevin turned to Beth, casually leaning on Denis's face.

“Return to your friends, Lisbee,” he said, courtly like. “I will rejoin you shortly.”

Beth made a petulant, defiant sound. Then she did as Kevin requested.

Denis called after her: “Eight o'clo—”

Kevin squeezed Denis's head, silencing it. He moved in very close. Steam vented from his nostrils, hot beer vapor and a lemony smoke Denis could not immediately place. His lips brushed Denis's cheek.

“You demean her,” Kevin drawled all over Denis, “and insult me.”

Guys much braver than Denis would have simply apologized here.

“Actually,” Denis countered, “she said it was ‘sweet.'”

Kevin began choking Denis, just a little bit.

“You move in on my girl,” he said, squeezing ever so slightly more, “even as I am fighting for your freedom and safety with my very life.”

“Appreciate your sacrifice,” Denis squeaked.

“Now over there,” Kevin twanged on, “a moral transgression of this order would dictate the severing of your head. Or some other relevant part.”

Denis quickly ascertained the relevant part.

“But we're a civilized people,” Kevin said, abating his strangling as evidence. “So I am going to give you ten seconds to convince me I should let you live.”

“You mean persuade, not convince,” Denis said.

Denis was about to discover if the human head could pop.

“IS THERE A PROBLEM HERE?”

Dr. Henneman delivered her catchphrase with Rich standing to her left. Behind and to her left.

Kevin released Denis.

“No, ma'am,” Kevin said. “My hand slipped.”

“We were just discussing my speech,” Denis explained, rubbing his throat. “Kevin here felt—”

Dr. Henneman ignored Denis and addressed Kevin.

“I can't allow you to kill him on school grounds.”

Kevin nodded and walked away.

Dr. Henneman contemplated Denis. Half his face featured a port-wine stain shaped like a giant hand.

He wasn't her problem anymore, Dr. Henneman decided.

“Good luck in all your future endeavors, Mr. Cooverman,” she said. “You too, Rich.”

She left.

Denis checked for his Adam's apple.

“On the bright side,” Rich chirped, “Beth Cooper talked to you.”

DENIS DID NOT SEE ANY BRIGHT SIDE.
Beth Cooper had a boyfriend, and he was going to kill Denis. Neither of these were promising developments. The very best Denis could hope for was that Kevin would only
almost
kill him, causing Beth to break up with Kevin in disgust and, overcome with guilt, visit Denis in the hospital every day, discovering what a tremendous person he was and, perhaps, sponge-bathing him.

The fantasy quickly collapsed in a cascade of hospital regulations and other improbabilities.

Denis watched horror-struck as, across the cafeteria, Kevin was introducing Cammy and Treece to two of his army buddies.

Oh no.

Beth and Kevin were being officially inducted into a social circle. Soon they would become Beth & Kevin, then Beth'n'Kev, and eventually Bevin.

It did not look good for Deneth.

Denis's woebegoneness somehow penetrated the penumbra of Beth's happiness. She turned in his di
rection. She crinkled her upper lip, tilted her head approximately fifteen degrees, and then, quite clearly, mouthed:

Sorry.

It was the most beautiful word that Denis had ever seen.

The gesture also attracted Kevin's attention, unfortunately. He pivoted, evil-eyed Denis, and then, using the hand not cupping Beth Cooper's silky belly, made a slicing motion across his pelvis.

Denis's testicles ducked into his abdomen. They huddled there, trembling.

Rich was puzzled. He imitated the crotch-chopping gesture.

“What is that,” he asked, “an army thing?”