The Taming of the Drew (30 page)

Drew walked back toward us and we all dispersed.
 

Tuesday in tutoring, Bianca sent Nate to get the instrument of his choice for her session with him. Curtis looked like he’d bit into a rotten lemon, keeping his eyes on the desk in front of him. Nate returned with a guitar, looking proud and puffed up, like he’d transformed into a rock star.

Bianca appraised him, the way he held it and she said, “You play?” as they headed into the side room.

“A little,” for the first time you could see fear cross his face, just a shadow, flickering past like a startled fish deep in a koi pond.

“Then why don’t you tune it first?” she said, with enough fake-sweetness that she would have made the most hardened Uni-girl proud.

At the end of the hour, Drew knocked on the door with me, Tio, and Curtis peering around him. Bianca sat in a chair, her legs stretched in front of her, reading a novel.

Nate looked like he’d run a marathon. His hair was stuck down in the front. He plucked a string that gave out an almost pure sound.

“He’s still trying,” Bianca said.

Tio said, “You’ve got a good ear.”

“Voice lessons,” she said, standing, closing her book and walking out past us.

We turned to leave and Curtis stuck his head in the doorway to say to Nate, his voice a little smug, “I think you can quit now.”
 

Wednesday, Bianca said to Tio. “You play?” Her voice was hesitant, like maybe she hoped he’d say no.

“A little,” he said.

I smiled at the desk-top in front of me.

Tio brought back his bass sax, having to haul it to our side of the cubes because of its size. We half-turned to see them at the door of the rehearsal room.
 

Bianca said, “Wow. That’s a big…instrument.” Then she blushed a scarlet color. Drew gave a snort beside me.

Tio’s jaw got a tiny bit more square, and he said, chin high, “Well, what counts is knowing how to use it.”

I couldn’t help it — I raised my eyebrows at Drew in shock — an
oh- my- God- did you hear that
look, to find that Drew was facing me with the same look on his face.
 

Then Drew started chuckling, holding his side to keep quiet. “Little man, not so little anymore,” he murmured, and went back to staring at the monitor.

Every minute that passed, Nate and Curtis got more and more twitchy. Pens slammed, chairs screeched. Keyboard poked and pushed.

Drew and I both knew why.

From the side rehearsal room came the most incredible jazz riffs. One after the other, gorgeous melodies of longing and love, weaving through the air. And after twenty minutes or so, you could hear Bianca had started to sing along, a husky doo-wop.

Finally Drew slapped his hand on the desk, turned to me and said, whispering harshly, “So is
Tio
the one I should have been worried about, all along?”

I kept my eyes on the desk. I knew there were lots of girls, right now, who would try to be agreeable, who’d say whatever Drew wanted to hear. It would be a great opportunity for the two of us to band together and discuss Tio and Bianca for hours at a time. I could feel the pressure of that desire to share something with him, to thaw this horrible resentment and anger, but no matter how deep the longing, that’s just not me. I said, “Don’t ask me. Ask your sister. She’s a big girl.” I licked my finger and turned a page, “And, in case you haven’t noticed, she’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

He shot flame-thrower glares at the computer monitor for the rest of the period.

I sent my tweet from tutoring, hunched and hiding it, my face hot as I typed.

***

Today’s Tweet:
Drew cares for his sister.

***

As we walked out of tutoring, Phoebe, Gonzo, and Helena were waiting. They sheep-dogged me, cutting me away from the others and Gonzo said, “Kate, these football players, the ones who are harassing you — it’s getting out of control.” His hair tufts vibrated with outrage as he talked, and both his semi-circle ears were bright red, thinking about the things guys said to me in the hall, the kinds of notes I found on my locker.
 

I said, “Gonzo, you can’t stop this kind of thing.”

Helena said, “That’s your answer? Ignore them?”

I said, “What do you suggest I do? How can I go to the school and say guys are treating me like a slut? I’d sound like a prude. Who the heck is going to take that seriously, huh? And have you thought about the fact that now is not a good time to get the school’s authorities focused on us?”

Phoebe said, “What do you think about all this, Drew?” Which is how I knew they’d walked up.

Drew said, from behind me, “It’s total bull,” (only he didn’t say just bull). His voice was a fist-punch of anger.

I said, talking to him, but still facing away, “That’s kind of hypocritical, Drew — you said to ignore Celia when she harassed you, didn’t you?”

“That’s different, I’m a guy. Celia wasn’t a group and she couldn’t
do
anything to me,” he said. He grabbed my arm and turned me around, “Whether it’s fair or not, the fact is, it’s not the same thing at all.”

Tio said to me, “You have to
do
something.”

I thought the top of my head would blow off. I said, putting all my frustration, despair, and anger into each word. “What
exactly
do you suggest I do?”

They looked at each other. Not a word was said.

So I left, but not before I glanced back and saw, behind me, Helena grabbing Drew’s sleeve and talking while punching him in the chest with her index finger. All the other Greenbacks around them looked uncomfortable. I kept hurrying home before some carload of guys could drive past and shout at me.

***

I’d learned over the last three days that a ten-foot limit was a decent compromise. I felt like I was tied to Drew by a tether through my belly-button, and if I drifted too far, something pained me deep inside. But I couldn’t get closer, either. If I did, it was like getting too close to a campfire, where the heat on your face turns it red until your skin crackles and prickles to the point of hurting.
 

I positioned myself to fit the ten-foot radius, hanging back in hallways, and at brunch. This week had been Helena’s week for food, and we all ate efficiently made sandwiches, wrapped in cellophane. Most of the time Drew didn’t meet us for lunch any more, but went to Uni to hang with his football buddies. Even when he showed, he grabbed a sandwich and blew out.

On Thursday morning, as Drew left pottery, one of the patronizing pottery girls said to him, “That vase is advanced work, you know. You haven’t been at this very long. You really
are
a natural.”

Ahead of me, walking past her, Drew looked mortified and I almost smiled.

Then she turned to me and said, without a trace of irony or flirtation, “He’s got great hands, you know.”

My face went into red-alarm sirens flashing-blush mode. I couldn’t stop it, and I couldn’t even really tell you why. Except maybe because I’d spent most of the last three days admiring his hands, the one place I could look without drawing attention.

I kept my head down as I went into psych, but when I took my seat, I noticed Drew was giving me a long, appraising stare.

“What?” I snapped at him.

He smiled to himself.
 

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

***

Today’s Tweet: Drew embraces pottery. Hand skills admired by girls.

***

Thursday at tutoring, Drew sat as he’d done all week, facing forward with his shoulders taking all the space. I hesitated, not sure how to get in, since this was the first time he’d gone inside and sat without me. Standing behind him, looking at the smooth column of his neck as he sat there, relaxed and comfortable without me, well, it made me feel pathetic, but I still couldn’t help the longing that rose inside me.

Drew finally sensed me staring, turned and said, “Here,” and stood.

So I sat, stiff, shoulders hunched.
 

Bianca was cycling through the boys again, starting the second round of torture with Curtis, who looked almost stricken when she said it was his turn again to go to the side room. This week was math, and I felt a worry about how Tio would do for the first time. A slacker student, as he’d described himself, pretty much summed Tio up.
 

I opened my novel flat on the desk top, but Drew said, “I have an idea.”

He said it facing the monitor, so it took me a moment to realize he was speaking to me. It also was the first time he’d started a conversation with me since the episode with Celia in the clearing. I sat, not answering, and not able to breathe, waiting.

He said, “Here,” and handed me an earbud. I stared at it a moment. If felt like something in my chest had ballooned into my throat, making it impossible for me to talk, much less refuse. Finally I put the earbud in my left ear and he put the other one in his right ear, and then he plugged the cord into the sound dock.

He stared at the monitor as he clicked and moused around. Within moments, he launched YouTube. I elbowed him and said, “We’re not supposed to do this,” and he turned and raised his eyebrows.
 

“So report me,” he said.

At the end of a seven minute clip, I realized I’d relaxed, which meant I leaned into his chest, his arm was across the back of my chair, and we were linked by an earbud each, white parentheses on the outside of our faces.

I sat up like someone zapped me with a cattle prod.
 

Drew smiled at the monitor, took out his earbud, and said, muttering to himself, “Probably enough for today.” He clicked off, I handed him my earbud, and he opened his psych textbook.

We were back to sitting ramrod straight, books flat on the desk.
 

I hunched to send a tweet.

***

Today’s Tweet: Drew tutors computer skills.
 

***

At the end of tutoring, we both stood, Drew stretching his neck left and right. Curtis came out of the side room, and sauntered over to Tio and Nate. Curtis said, not bothering to whisper, “Calculus. I really let her have it.”

Tio gave an audible swallow, and in response I saw Nate narrow his eyes at Tio, like Nate was making a mental note of something. Bianca, looking haggard, joined us. I was so annoyed at Curtis and Nate both that I couldn’t help leaning over the barrier and saying to Curtis, “You letting Bianca ‘have it’ with calculus — maybe I’m out of the loop, but that’s not exactly
romantic
, is it?”

Curtis looked confused for a second, then slammed his math textbook in his bag and stalked out.

Friday at lunch, I sat in the circle of trees, feeling more alone than I’d ever felt in my life. I chewed my dry sandwich, finding it hard to get down. Greenbacks were clumped on the other side of the clearing, sitting at the bases of trees in twos or threes. It was the end of a week where Drew didn’t eat with us any more.
 

Celia still hadn’t made her move yet, the camera out there somewhere.

I sat at the base of the brown tree. I’d watered it but, if anything, it looked worse than it did a few days ago, like it was withering in front of me and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

I sat with it every chance I got, hoping it knew I was there. When no one else was looking, I whispered to it, “C’mon, baby, you can make it. Just hang in there, I know you can.”
 

“Kate!” Phoebe’s voice rang across the clearing, “you’re starting to scare us, staying away from us all and muttering to yourself!”

Phoebe had the glossy look of a happy labrador retriever after a good run. She’d been going to the gym before school every day and she’d even lost her pinched look. My guess was that she was kicking some serious basketball butt. And like a happy labrador, she wanted everyone else around her to be happy too.

Only I didn’t think I had the energy to even fake it.

Everyone stared at me, waiting for an answer to why I’d made myself an outcast. But Bianca, Drew and Celia arrived then, stepping into the trees to awkward cries of both pleasure and horror — depending on who you spotted first.

Celia hung back, her arms crossed. She edged sideways away from the Greenbacks, until she glanced down, saw me, and decided to back-pedal. The only person who looked more miserable than Celia, I noticed, was Gonzo.
 

Drew sat on the stump, his back to me. Bianca joined him, sitting cross-legged so she could see me to her left and the Greenbacks to her right.

Tio, who seemed so pleased that the collar of his shirt looked too tight (or — gack — had he grown AGAIN?), said, “To what do we owe the honor?” It was the kind of thing only Tio could say and pull it off.

Celia drifted to a trunk and starting picking at the bark. Viola speed-walked over and actually slapped Celia’s hand. “Don’t do that,” Viola said, “You wouldn‘t like someone picking your skin off, now would you?”

Viola returned to her place and Celia, slitty-eyed, said to Drew and Bianca, “I don’t have to take this, you know.”

Drew gave her a look, and said, “Celia and I have had a little discussion. Bianca and I convinced her that it’s impossible to get a good interview out of a subject when you start with blackmail. So Celia now seems to understand that a little,” he paused, his voice heavy with significance, “
goodwill
is necessary for this to work. Especially long-term.”

Celia turned Victoria’s Secret pink, and tried to look like she was ignoring him by chewing on her cuticles.
 

Bianca said, “So we wanted to talk to you guys about this weekend. There’s a big Uni party, one of those huge all-comers kind of events, and ‘Sander’s hosting it.” Bianca turned to me, as if I somehow knew what she was talking about. “You know Lysander, the skinny guy on the football team?”

I remembered him, but I still didn’t have a clue where the three of them were going with this. The whole thing sounded to me like a serious opportunity for Drew to end up in jail, for real this time, since his 18
th
birthday was tomorrow.