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Afterward I walk Colleen across the street, say hi to Marcie, who’s up reading; then Colleen and I make out a little by the front door. It’s nice. Sure, I get excited. I’m sixteen. But I don’t get feverish.

We stand face-to-face, almost nose-to-nose, and she whispers, “I was checking this couple out the other day. At the store, right? At my register. And he’s just staring at this little picture, so his wife is doing all the work. She’s helping me bag, and before that she’s got the credit card, and she unloaded the cart, and I’m thinking,
What a dick. Look at your stupid little picture somewhere else.
And then he shows her, and she smiles this huge smile and shows me, and it’s an ultrasound. She’s pregnant. They’re both so happy. He was, like, mesmerized. And there I am, judging him.”

“You didn’t know.”

“Maybe it’s all these people I’m calling. All the amends I’m making. I felt like I should apologize to that couple.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I guess. Did you just brush your teeth? You taste like fucking candy.”

“Actually, I did. When I went to the bathroom after dinner. I thought if you wanted to kiss me, I’d be ready.”

All of a sudden she holds me so tight. Seizes me. Grips me. “I fucking do not deserve you.”

I smooth her short hair. “Yeah, you do. You deserve better than me.”

“Really? Like who?”

“I didn’t mean anybody in particular.”

“Like Brad Pitt? I would do Brad Pitt in a heartbeat.”

“There goes that Hallmark moment.”

She laughs and asks, “So, what about the elusive Delia?”

I shrug. “I call and she doesn’t pick up. Is she not there, or is she screening her calls? I was all gee-I-found-my-mom-again for a few days. Now I’m kind of mad. I think if you don’t want to see me, say so. I’ll be fine. I’ve seen you, and you’re nothing to write home about.”

Colleen shakes her head. “Don’t be that way. We have to go out there again. I’ve got Tuesday off. Can you go Tuesday after English?”

I like school. Before Colleen, school and movies were all I did. Now I still like it. Maybe even more. People talk to me, they ask me what’s playing at the mall and if anything is worth seeing. They’re stuck on a math problem or an
être
verb involving movement. I don’t always know, so we figure it out together. They ask about Colleen and actually seem sincere.

The last class of the day is English. I walk in to find this substitute teacher right out of Central Casting — ponytail, cords, sandals — writing on the board:

the goldfish held the cats hostage

He asks, “Keeping in mind the whole poem in your text, but concentrating on just this one line, what do you think the poet is trying to say?”

He’s the opposite of Ben Stein in
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,
but he sounds just like him. “Anybody?” he asks. “Anybody?”

Oliver Atkins looks at me, then falls facedown on his desk in a pretend faint. Three or four girls giggle. They’re too pretty for poetry, anyway. Boots are all the rage, and they have theirs out in the aisles, where everybody can see who has the shiniest, the highest heeled, the most expensive.

The sub moves a plastic bag of baby carrots to one side and consults his seating chart. He hasn’t shaved, and I wonder if the office called him at 7:05 this morning and he shot out of bed. Under that Gap shirt, I’ll bet he’s got a pale, bony chest like John Keats.

He asks, “Mr. Atkins?”

Oliver looks up, bright-eyed, then gets to his feet. “Yes, sir?”

“You don’t have to stand up.”

“But we always stand, sir. As a gesture of respect.”

That’s a lie, but everybody likes it.

“Whatever,” says the sub. (I know he has a name, and I know he wrote it on the board, but I can’t remember it.) Right now he looks like he’s heartily sorry he’s a vegetarian and what he really wants is a burger and a whip. “What do you think the poet is getting at?”

“I’m not sure,” Oliver says, “that he’s getting at anything. Our regular teacher says that poems should be, not mean.” He points. “That line on the board is interesting, though. It turns the usual power structure on its head. The slaves turn on the plantation owner, the UPS man on the Amazon-addicted customer, the abused on the abuser, the students on their teacher.”

Now the sub looks up like this unexpected turbulence will cause the oxygen mask to drop down. He tells us to talk among ourselves. He puts another poem on the board. Finally, the bell rings and he collapses into the chair.

Oliver grins at me. On the way out, the jocks who regularly torment Oliver and call him
faggot
cuff him around harmlessly. Attaboy. The done unto becomes the doer.

As I pass the teacher, he looks at his watch, which is a Little Mermaid model, the one where she’s wearing the blue bra top and her hair is bougainvillea red.

When I see that watch, I wonder if he isn’t an interesting guy, after all. His girlfriend gave him that. Or his kid. Or, even better, he bought it for himself.

So there’s a possible documentary:
The Secret World of Substitute Teachers.
Maybe I wouldn’t be exploiting anybody if I talked to them. Maybe they want their story told.

I tell him, “See you tomorrow, maybe.”

He looks up and offers me one of the tiny carrots from his stash. “Yeah, maybe. I hope so. I could use the money.”

“You don’t know ahead of time? They just call you?”

“There are long-term gigs. Some old guy dies or something. But usually I just wait by the phone like a pudgy virgin with acne.”

That makes me laugh, and that makes him grimace.

“Sorry,” he says, “that wasn’t very PC of me.”

“That’s cool. I’m not very PC myself.” I take a step toward the door. “See you.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow, I hope. Thanks, man.”

Thanks, man.
What is he — ten years older than me? Eight? A few months ago — Before Colleen — I was the pudgy virgin with acne waiting by the phone. Well, not pudgy. I never had acne, and the phone was a DVD. But the virgin part for sure.

When Colleen pulls up, I tumble into the car.

“Lean over here and kiss me passionately,” she says. “It’ll ramp your street cred to new heights.”

I do, and she puts her heart into it. Then zips away from the red zone. A couple of kids I know from English glance up and nod in that I’m-too-cool-to-wave way, but I know they saw.

We pass a huge McDonald’s on the corner just a block from the on-ramp to the 210. I like the primary colors. Kids wiping their hands on their good clothes. Kids in what look like pajamas, but it’s almost four. One little boy trying to push his backpack up the longest slide, like a kiddie version of Sisyphus. I point and Colleen gets it. Then she laughs when the kid almost makes the top, reaches for a handhold, just misses, and slides all the way back down.

She’s in pants with extra loops and side pockets, a black sweater, and blue Vans. I wonder if Marcie took her shopping.

Colleen likes to weave in and out of traffic, make all the lights, then zoom onto the freeway. We’re zipping along just past the speed limit — and most things are just past the speed limit with her — when she says, “I heard from Ed. He’s so crazy to see me, he’s going AWOL. And then we’ll probably go on a little crime spree — rob banks, jack a few cars.”

“Keep books out of the library way past their due dates.”

“Me and Ed forever. That’s about your worst fear, isn’t it?”

“That and big dogs charging at me.”

“You’d be fine without me. You and that icy bitch A.J.”

“A.J.’s history. She got all mad because I wouldn’t shove a camera in my mother’s face and make her cry.”

“What’d I just say? Another cold-blooded opportunist.”

“She’s way more hard-core than I thought.”

“I guess you know she doesn’t wear underpants.”

“It’s the first thing she told me. That and where the gold in her backyard is buried.”

“You jest, but it’s true. Have you seen those low-rise jeans of hers? No panty line.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Where is your little camera, anyway? You used to point that thing at me twenty-four seven.”

“I’m giving it a rest. I’m not sure I want to make any more documentaries. They’re kind of nosy.”

“That’s why they’re interesting. You should meet these aliens who work at the co-op with me. This one guy is obsessed with Ping-Pong. It’s all he talks about: backhand slams, punch serves, you name it.”

“Have you seen him play?”

“On his iPod, yeah. He’s got, like, matches of the century on there. Featuring him.”

“And he’s good?”

“Scary good.”

“What’s his name?”

“Walter, but he wants me to call him the Demolisher.”

“Christopher Walken was already in a movie about Ping-Pong:
Balls of Fury.
”

“That was stupid. You’d never make anything stupid. That thing you did about those kids at school? That was really tasty. And if you meet the Ping-Pong guy and don’t like him, how about some alcoholic sisters who work produce? They play Monopoly twelve hours a day.”

“If there’s anything that’ll keep an audience riveted, it’s seeing a top hat hop around a board.”

“Except these girls are crazy. They play this really caffeinated version, so one of them wins about every half hour. Three or four wins makes one of them an angel. Three or four more and she’s an archangel. A few more and she’s Super Queen of Heaven. It’s not about Monopoly or table tennis. It’s about obsession, right?”

I sit up straighter. “And they’re grown-ups. They’d know what they were getting into.”

“They’re grown-up fruitcakes, and they’re dying for attention.”

“You might be onto something.”

She looks over at me. “So, I’m the one, aren’t I?”

“With grammar like that, who could resist.”

She pretends to scowl. “You know what, Tiny Tim? What say we find a little park and play a little catch? Maybe do some wind sprints.”

I take her right hand off the wheel, kiss it, and let it rest on my semi-useless leg. She leaves it there, too, the rest of the way to Azusa.

A person can get used to anything. I got used to limping all the time. I got used to being alone. All I really mean, I guess, is that I’m used to Target. Used to my mother being there, bending over to pick up a dress that somebody in flip-flops tossed on the floor.

Except she’s not in her section.

“What now?” I ask Colleen.

“Give it a minute. She could be in the bathroom.”

One of the racks looks junky, with dresses crammed against each other, so I straighten those out a little.

“Did you ever buy stuff from Target?” I ask.

Colleen shakes her head. “I was raised by wolves.” She reaches for my hand. “C’mon, let’s check the dining room, with its chandeliers and liveried footmen.”

Sure enough, my mother is in the snack bar, sipping at her favorite soft drink. The one she likes and that likes her back.

“Mom,” I say. “It’s me. Ben. And Colleen.”

“Oh, dear. Where did you come from?”

I point. “Okay if we sit down?”

She nods. She has deep, dark half circles under both eyes.

“We’re not going to keep you,” Colleen says, “but we just wanted to check — you’re still good for dinner sometime soon, right?”

She leans back in the plastic chair. “I know what I said, but I’m just so tired.”

Colleen reaches for my mother’s hand and holds it. “Man, tell me about it. I’ve got the register to worry about; I work the loading dock; I stock shelves. My back hurts; my legs are sore. And it’s like that from three in the afternoon to ten o’clock at night.”

“Oh,” my mother says. “That’s a terrible shift. I’ve worked it, but I don’t like it.” She looks at me then. “You don’t understand, Ben. You can’t.”

I start to protest. Colleen cuts me off.

“Forget about him. He’s a freaking brainiac.” She points to her forehead. “It’s all up here with him. A’s all the time, honor society, the whole nine yards.”

“You’re that bright?” she asks.

Colleen answers for me. “Bright? Are you kidding? You need sunglasses just to be around him. But he doesn’t work, Delia. He’s not like us.”

Her other hand covers Colleen’s. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

“You can say that again.” She nods my way. “You know what this one does? Makes movies. Sits on his butt in his little canvas chair with his name on it and says, ‘Roll ’em!’ How hard can that be? I mean, he’s talented, and, okay, he shows in Hollywood and places like that, but he doesn’t get his hands dirty like we do.”

Delia looks at me. “You’re in Hollywood?”

“At a gallery,” I say. “No big deal.”

“Hollywood.” My mother says the three magic syllables.

“When you come to dinner,” Colleen says, “you can see his latest. Okay?”

Delia takes a deep breath. “I don’t know. I’m exhausted all the time.”

I tell her, “We’ll come get you. You won’t have to drive.”

“I can drive, Benjamin. I’m a perfectly good driver. I drove from Seattle, Washington.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t a good driver. I just meant —”

Colleen leans toward my mother and half whispers, “Let’s go to the bathroom.”

“What?” she asks.

“I want to go to the bathroom. Come with me. Girls always go to the bathroom together.”

That seems to light my mother up a little. “All right.” And she gets to her feet.

Colleen peers down at me. “You stay here, and if the handsome waiter comes, order for me, okay? I’ll have the escargot.”

I watch them walk away, Colleen’s arm linked in my mother’s. Colleen’s tall and thin as a reed; my mom’s a little thick and stooped over. She’s looking up at Colleen and nodding. That’s a picture I’d like to have in a frame.

I listen to the hubbub around me, mostly kids begging for more of everything. A couple of guys who work there sit across from each other with tub-size drinks, both of them plugged into separate iPods. Maybe that’s why they work — to buy stuff like that. They probably live at home.

Those people from the food co-op Colleen told me about sound interesting. They actually do stuff.
High School Confidential
was just talking heads. The editing made it as good as it was, and Marcie helped me with that.