Sloppy Firsts (20 page)

Still, every time I log on, I hope that in addition to my daily dose of Hope, there will be an E-mail in my inbox from a sender named krispykreme36hotmail.com, containing a message that is cryptic, yet significant. Something like …

I have no idea. I can’t even get inside Marcus’s mind long enough to make something up. Maybe that’s why I can’t hear what he says to me in my dreams. For the past few nights I’ve been having almost the same dream. The setup is identical: Marcus and I are sitting side by side on the cot in the nurse’s office. His mouth is moving. He’s saying something but I can’t hear him because there’s too much noise drowning him out.

The noise is part of the dream that changes from night to night. The first time it was PHS football fans chanting in the bleachers:PINE -ville!PINE -ville!PINE -ville! The second time it was a stereo blasting a medley of treacly hits from the Backstreet Boys’ first CD: "As Long As You Love Me," "All I Have To Give," and "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)." Last night it was the boardwalk’s buzzers and bells.

The point is, if there is any secret message, I’m not meant to find it out. And he’s certainly not going to tell me. It’s only been two days, but I know that this is how it’s going to be for the rest of the year, or for as long as Marcus can stay on the level and in our honors classes.

the tenth

Be careful what you wish for.

Of all my twisted fantasies, why oh why didthis one come true?

After falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow all summer, it took less than a week of school to restart my insomniac streak. Granted, as far as the first weeks of school go, mine were unbeatably bizarre. Every night I lay wide awake, trying to figure out what would be the next mind-blowing thing to happen—a slight variation on the bad-things-happen triptych.

Tonight I got my answer.

At about three-thirty this morning, I knew there was no chance I would fall asleep before sunrise. So I decided to go for a run in the dark, like I have dozens of times before, just not since the end of my sophomore year. Thankfully, it was as cathartic as ever. With each step, I felt more at ease with everything that was going on.

Maybe that’s why something had to go wrong. I was only about a tenth of a mile away from my house when it happened: I tripped over an exposed tree root in the sidewalk and twisted into the pavement, ankle first. It was exactly how I had tried to orchestrate it last spring, only my dad wasn’t there to hit me with his bike.

Or help me.

The pain in my right ankle was blindingly immediate. No way hydrogen peroxide would fix me up this time.

I literally baby-hopped home on my left foot. I cried every inch of the way. When I hopped through the back door of my house, I called out for help. My parents stumbled down the stairs in their pajamas and freaked out when they found me on the floor of the kitchen, my ankle blown up like a purple balloon. They thought I had been kidnapped and beaten or something. When I explained through my tears that no, I had snuck out in the middle of the night to go running all on my own, theyreally freaked out.

They rushed me to the ER. I was given a major painkiller that made me feel like I was moving in syrup. I don’t remember much about getting X rays or my cast.

Later at home, my mom read the doctor’s word-for-word diagnosis, as she had transcribed it on a yellow legal pad in the ER: I fractured both my tibia and fibula bones where they join at the ankle. This requires complete immobilization in a cast for six weeks, and it will take months of physical therapy and maybe even surgery to heal properly. My stability will never be the same.

My mom told me all this because my dad isn’t speaking to me.

I can hear him ranting and raving to my mother behind their closed bedroom door, though.How could she be so careless? This is the year college coaches look at for awarding athletic scholarships! She’s blown it! She could have been a superstar! What a waste of talent!

So it looks like my dream has come true. I ended my running career. Of course now that it’s happened, I can’t believe I ever wanted it in the first place.

the eleventh

I knew my parents were taking this all too well. Mom had been too quiet and concerned for my health. Even Dad’s rant was nowhere near as intense as I thought it would be. It turns out they were just waiting for the heavy narcotics to wear off so they could inflict some major parental pain on me when they got home from work today.

I was in my room, listening to thePretty in Pink soundtrack, when I heard three short, sharp knocks on my door. They came in. Dad told me to shut off the stereo. They sat down on the bed, flanking me on either side. The wrinkle in Mom’s forehead was more pronounced than usual. My dad’s hands were tightly clasped, barely containing his anger, his bald head gleaming with sweat.

The interrogation was long, and relentless:How long have you been sneaking out behind our backs? Who were you meeting? Where were you going? Why in God’s name would you go running in the middle of the night? Is your coach not training you hard enough? Why don’t we see any of your old friends? What’s wrong with you?

I answered each question honestly, because it seemed to be the path of least resistance. But they weren’t the answers my parents wanted to hear. Sneaking out to meet a boy was something they could understand. Bethany had done that. Sneaking out to go to a rave, they could understand. They’d read about that in theAsbury Park Press. But sneaking out to go running because I couldn’t sleep,that they couldn’t understand. So they grounded me for a month. Total overkill since it’s not like I can go anywhere anyway.

When they left, I put my CD back on and skipped to my favorite track.Please, Please, Please . I sang along with Morrissey, the depressed pop star of choice for melancholic music lovers in the UK and beyond:

For once in my life, let me get what I want

Lord knows it would be the first time.

At leasthe knew what he wanted.

the fifteenth

Grounded Gimphood

I. The best things about it.

A. I get to limp out of class five minutes early to ensure safe passage through the otherwise treacherously bottlenecked PHS halls.

1. Multiply that by eight academic classes and I miss 40 minutes of useless learning per day, 200 minutes per week.

2. I miss 5 minutes of Clueless Crew lunch conversation per day, 25 minutes per week.

a. This slightly ups the odds that I won’t be around when Sara spills the news about the S.O.S.

b. And spares the obliteration of countless brain cells.

B. I have a bona fide excuse for my sucky moods that family and faux friends can understand.

1. The truth is that I’m no more or less depressed than I was before this happened.

2. Blaming my sketchy ennui on my injury is easier than explaining it.

a. If I could explain it to myself.

b. Which I can’t.

C. I can’t engage in any two-legged activities.

1. I’m a guilt-free no-show at the Clueless Crew’s hoo-has of the season.

a. Football games.

b. Post-football-game keggers.

c. Post-football-game kegger sleepovers.

2. I’m out for the entire cross-country season.

a. Dad can’t strategize the hell out of me.

b. No bad races forNotso Darling’s Agony of Defeat, Volume Two.

c. No practice every day.

i. I can catchThe Real World .

ii. Or "new classics" on TNT.

iii. Or sleep.

iv. Or draw up elaborate outlines detailing the pros and cons of grounded gimphood.

II. The worst things about it.

A. The goddamn cast.

1. It hurts like hell.

2. It itches like hell.

3. It’s starting to smell.

a. Like warm, wet puppies.

b. This is inexplicable and unpleasant.

4. It’s covered in ugly Magic-Marker graffiti.

a. It’s an ever-present reminder of how unclever my classmates are.

i. BREAK A LEG … OOPS! YOU ALREADY DID!

ii. LIFE IS TUFF!

iii. GET WELL SOON, SWEETIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

b. If Hope were here, she would’ve painted something cool on it.

B. My mom hovers over me like I’m a drunk toddler.

1. I am forced to listen to her complain about how Bethany never visits.

2. I am forced to endure her lame attempts at girlie bonding.

3. I am forced to field her annoyingly inane questions about people she thinks are my friends.

a. She doesn’t understand why I had zero interest in Bridget’s Hollywood exploits.

i. Even after I explained how Bridget and I are equally skilled thespians (meaning, we aren’t) but you don’t see anyone encouragingme to fly out to L.A. to give acting a go.

ii. She still thinks Bridget and I are bestest buds.

b. She doesn’t understand why Scotty doesn’t call anymore.

i. Even after I explained how he’s gone through three bimbocious girlfriends in as many months.

ii. She still thinks Scotty is "quite a catch."

c. She doesn’t understand why I refuse to take any phone calls from Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace.

i. Even after I explained how being the inspiration for a novel calledBubble-Gum Bimbos is incredibly insulting.

ii. She still thinks I should give Hy a second chance.

C. My dad still isn’t talking to me.

1. His grunting is way more annoying than his strategizing the hell out of me.

2. This just confirms the sad truth about our non-relationship.

a. Running is all we have in common.

b. If I don’t run, I don’t exist.

D. Marcus Flutie still isn’t talking to me either.

1. This has hardly anything to do with my temporary gimphood.

a. His silence is more painful than my throbbing ankle.

b. His silence drives me crazier than the unscratchable itch on the ball of my injured foot.

2. I have more than enough time to think about it.

the eighteenth

My injury forces me to spend more time with my mom than I have since I was a zygote. Since my sister is too busy being Mrs. Grant Doczylkowski to set foot in Pineville, guess who gets to be Bethany by proxy.

Every day after school Mom plops down beside me on the couch and tries to get me to engage in girl talk, which really is her and Bethany’s specialty. I think she is trying to brainwash me so that by the end of my thirty-day prison sentence I will be the second daughter of her dreams.

When Mom isn’t pretending I’m her beloved firstborn, she is giving me lectures on life. One of her favorites is called, "Get Some Perspective." My mom has always been very big onperspective, even more so lately. She’s constantly telling me that I need to get someperspective . If I put things inperspective, I wouldn’t make such a huge deal out of the teensy-weensiest things and I’d be a much happier person.

What always pissed me off about her wholeperspective spiel was that she was writing off my feelings at that moment. If something crappy happens—say, when someone I thought was a friend betrays me for a book deal—my negative emotions are legit, right? It may not be asvivid as the crappiness one feels after contracting the Ebola virus, but it’s just asvalid . It’s notmy fault that these are the problems I’ve been put on this earth to deal with, right? They’re petty, they piss me off, and they’reall mine .

Besides, I’ve got perspective o’plenty. And to prove it, here are a few heretofore undocumented events that—in a less agitated stage of my life—inspired pages and pages worth of angst:

UNDOCUMENTED EVENT #1

"Bonjour, mademoiselle!"

It was the first day of school. The voice was unfamiliar. A baritone instead of a castrato. I turned to see who it was.

Thiswasn’t Pepe Le Pew. No, this was a different guy altogether. One who had grown four inches and gained twenty-five pounds of muscle in less than three months.

This was Pepe Le Puberty.

"Pep—I mean, Pierre!" I gasped. "You grew up!"

He puffed up with pride.

"Thanks."

"En français, s’il vous plaît,"singsonged Madame Rogan. She didn’t care if we talked before class started, as long as it was in French.

"Comment était votre été?"("How was your summer?")

"Eh. J’ai travaillé sur le boardwalk."("Eh. I worked on the boardwalk.")

"Moi aussi."("Me too.")

"Vraiment? Où?("Really? Where?")

"J’étais … Le Geek."("I was … The Geek.")

Jésus le Christ!

Pepe Le Puberty (né Le Pew) a.k.a. Pierre a.k.a. Percy Floyd a.k.a. The Black Elvis … was The Geek! The one who singlehandedly made the boardwalk’s most degrading job into the coolest position ever! My appreciation of Pepe had reached a whole new level.

Our conversation was cut short by Madame Rogan’s ramblings about her Francophilic summer vacation.