Betting Blind (9 page)

“You okay, Gabe?” Mrs. McVeigh gave me a strange look.

I nodded, stuffed my book in my backpack, and headed out. I was mentally scanning my locker, my pockets, my car. Clean, clean, and clean. I knew better than to bring anything to school. But what if somebody had narced?

I half turned toward the lot, then turned back around and kept going. I’d watched enough movies to know I had to play it cool. Still, as I opened the door to Ms. Tacquard’s office, my heart was hammering like it wanted out of my chest. She was one of those people who took her job too seriously. And she was a bulldog about dope; I’d heard there was a one-strike policy.

“Hi, Gabe,” Ms. T. said as I walked in. “Have a seat.” She was a tall, gray-haired lady, and she never wore any jewelry or makeup. She was in her big leather chair, which she’d pulled to the side of her scarily clean desk. That pull-to-the-side trick was supposed to make me feel like I could trust her. They all did it. I sat down and looked at her framed diplomas on the wall. There were about five of them.

“Gabe, I was wondering if we could chat about how you’re doing with the transition to Claremont.” Ms. Tacquard leaned back in her chair. She looked like a wooden toy trying to relax. “More specifically, how are you doing academically?”

Relief made me actually smile. “Fine. Doing good.”

“That’s not what your teachers are saying.” She glanced at a folder on the desk.

I’d played this game plenty of times. I tried to look sorry, although I was so glad it wasn’t about drugs that it probably came off like a smirk. “Sorry, Ms. Tacquard. I’ll try harder.”

Her eyelids lowered a notch, and I could see her going into “tough” mode. “I’m afraid we need to be more proactive than that.” She opened the folder and started flipping through papers. “This is the test you failed in biology last week. This is the English paper you turned in a week late, and which received a grade of D. This is your math practice final, which you failed.” She set the folder back on her desk. “Gabriel, I need to impress upon you the importance of these grades.”

Her strategy worked. F-D-F was a bad lineup, even for me. Not that I’d admit it to anybody, but I’d been trying. Those damn tests. Every time I got one back, I
knew
I’d had the right answer, but I’d filled in the wrong bubble for some reason. Bubble tests had screwed with me my whole life. But I wasn’t giving Tacquard the satisfaction of seeing that she rattled me.

“Okay, Ms. T. I know they’re important.”

She sighed. “You’re close to failing three of your classes. The quarter ends in three weeks. If you don’t pick up your grades, you’ll have to repeat them to graduate. And that’s not going to help your chances of getting into a good college.”

“I’m not going to college,” I said.

It was like I threw a rock through the window. She stared at me. She cleared her throat. “Gabe, that’s a pretty big statement. Do you want to talk about it?”

I looked away. “Nothing to talk about. I’m just not college material.” I couldn’t read for longer than ten minutes without getting dizzy. I couldn’t write worth crap. And I couldn’t stand the thought of another four years locked in a white-walled cage with adults pouring bullshit through a tube into my ears.

There was a long silence. Ms. Tacquard stared at me with narrowed eyes. “Well, I hope you’ll reconsider. A college degree can open a lot of doors. In the meantime, we have an after-school tutoring program that I think would benefit you. We offer sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Would you like me to sign you up?”

“No, that’s okay.”

Ms. T. let out a quiet
hmsh
through her nose. “All right, Gabe. You understand that I’ll be speaking with your mother about this. It’s a school policy to keep parents informed.”

I didn’t answer. Mom wasn’t going to take the news easy. She’d been getting her hopes up, asking where I was going to apply, and even throwing out “Florida State,” which she loved because she once dated a guy who played football there.

I stood up and slung my backpack over my shoulder.

Ms. T. said in a gentler voice, “Don’t give up on yourself, Gabe. Those analytical scores on your ninth-grade battery were good. With tutoring, I know you can pull up your grades.”

I looked at the door, waiting for her to let me go.

“And please, think a little more about college.”

I felt my neck getting hot. Why should I think about college? Everybody acted like it gave you a passport into the Real Person Club, instead of an expensive-ass brainwashing.

“Gabe?”

I walked out before she had a chance to say anything else.

When Kyle stopped to get books before study hall, I was waiting at his locker. “Hey, man,” he said, sounding surprised.

“Did your parents already leave for Sonoma?” I asked.

“Yeah, this morning.”

“Let’s bail and start the party early. I can’t handle math right now.”

He grinned and started dialing his lock. “Done.”

A few minutes later, I was tailing Kyle’s Jeep down the I-405. We hit Bartell’s first. He wasn’t messing around; he filled up a cart with candy, Vicks, a pack of binkies, orange juice, sherbet, glow sticks, a musical top with flashing lights, light-up Hacky Sacks, and Christmas lights.

After paying for everything, Kyle kicked me half a G for the e and Oxies. I felt a little bad about making such a big profit. But if I gave him a discount this time, he’d wonder why I hadn’t done it before, and it would be confusing. It was his parents’ money, anyway.

Then we headed to his place to set up. Kyle lived in a modern house that looked like somebody took a giant cement box, cut windows in it, and dropped it in the middle of the White House lawn. There were some ugly Lego-looking bushes and a jelly bean–shaped pool, but the inside was dope. The staircase looked like it was floating, and the carpet was made out of thick white stuff like grass from another planet.

Kyle got busy picking out tracks and setting up a candy buffet. The colors had to be in order from light to dark: Lemonheads all the way to Junior Mints. Kyle was like that. He seemed chill, but he was actually a freak about organization.

I sipped a beer and mostly let him do it. I was feeling kind of messed up about the talk with Ms. T.
College.
That word was eating through my brain.

Ms. T. had looked so shocked when I said I wasn’t going. I’d known for a while, and I was fine with it. But being around all these trust-fund kids was messing with me. You could just tell they would stick their head in an oven if they didn’t get into college—and not just any old college, but Stanford or something.

FDF.
Fucking Dimwit Fool.
I looked at Mr. 4.0 Rower, setting out a drug buffet, and I wanted to know how he did it. How did he stay focused? Remember what he read? Fill in the right bubbles? Were there tricks?

But it wasn’t the kind of thing you could ask.

I drank my beer fast and opened another. Kyle put on some tunes, and pretty soon the girls arrived in a pack—Erin and Becky and three others, who were mad fine but off-limits because Becky had staked me out. Girls have secret laws like that, and it screws things up for us guys pretty good.

We all took our pills right away and just hung around, waiting for them to kick in. Everybody except Matt. Dude was straighter than a ruler. I knew he’d leave in a little while; he didn’t like being around trashed people.

Kyle went into Host Boy mode, handing out candy and party favors. Forrest and Matt got into some argument about MIDI, and what would have happened if somebody had invented a different computer language for music first. This girl Samantha was practically sitting on Forrest’s lap, and another girl, Melanie, was leaning against Matt, but they might as well have been pillows with boobs and hair for all the attention Matt and Forrest paid them.

Becky was getting pretty friendly, too. You could tell she was starting to roll. She kept running her fingers through her hair, and then petting the carpet like it was a cat, and smiling at me. I wasn’t feeling anything myself, only a little buzzed from the beer.

E wasn’t my drug. I didn’t like that fake-happy feeling, acting as if I loved the whole world—because I didn’t. I only loved a few people. Even when I was rolling, there was a little voice whispering,
This is bullshit. You don’t feel this way. It’s just the drug.

Crank was another story. I felt like myself on crank, only better. But that scared me, because they say feeling that way is the surest sign a drug can hook you. Besides, I’d seen what the stuff did to Tim’s friend Julio, who was tweaking so hard, he ripped the skin off his face because he thought there were bugs crawling underneath. Missy and me were there—it was sixth grade—and we couldn’t stop him. Tim wouldn’t let us call 9-1-1 because he didn’t want Julio getting arrested, but Julio said we should have. He had nasty scars after that.

Becky scooted closer to me and laid her head in my lap. “Tickle my hair.”

I started running my fingers on her scalp, and she made little moaning noises, which made me and Kyle look at each other and crack up. He gave me a look, like,
All yours
, but I wasn’t feeling it yet.

Then a good song came on, with a phat beat, and I started to feel waves of sensation. But I was so weird, I kept fighting them.

Feels so good right now—

Bullshit.

All these cool people, your friends—

Won’t remember you once they’re in college.

Nice girl, take her in a bedroom and—

Wish it was Irina.

Chill out, you bastard, and have fun—

I’m a loser. I don’t belong here.

Finally I got so sick of my own stupid brain that I stopped tickling Becky’s hair and leaned down and whispered, “I heard there’s a concert in one of these bedrooms. We should go check it out.” She giggled and stood up and took my hand, and we went upstairs, found a good room, and shut the door.

CHAPTER EIGHT

S
aturday morning, I woke up lying on carpet as thick as a mattress, under a giant wood shelf with mirrors. There were rows of shiny circles hanging over my head like spotlights, and it took me a second to realize they were upside-down glasses. I rolled over and knocked into . . . an empty bottle of maraschino cherries.

The cherries triggered my memory. When Becky and I had come back downstairs the night before, everybody was acting like idiot candy ravers, sucking on lollipops and listening to trance music that sounded like somebody’s three-year-old got hold of a synthesizer. I wanted to get away from Becky, who kept stroking my hand, so I went bar hunting and got into some wack scotch that tasted like motor oil. Then I got hungry, so I started eating the cherries.

After that . . . I didn’t remember.

I scraped myself off the floor and stumbled to the living room, where some of the others were passed out. Binkies and candy wrappers and Christmas lights were everywhere, like baby elves had a party. Kyle was snoring, lollipop-colored spit trickling out of his mouth onto the white couch. The girls were lying in a heap like puppies. I tiptoed so I wouldn’t wake anybody up.

“Hey,” said a weird voice.

I almost jumped out of my skin.

It was Forrest. He was wrapped in a blanket and leaning against the sliding glass door. He’d been sitting so still, I hadn’t realized he was there. His eyes were vampire red and he was holding an Orange Crush.

“Hey,” I said. “You have fun last night?”

“I’m still having fun.” He pulled his other hand from under the blanket and shook a pill bottle at me. It was the Oxies.

I frowned. “How many did you do?”

“Five or six. I don’t know. This shit is awesome. Can you get me more?” There was a hungry look on his face.

A surge of warning jumped into my chest. “That might be hard to hook up,” I lied. I knew tweakers; I knew junkies; I knew addicts; and suddenly I could tell that Forrest had that in him.

He shrugged. “That’s cool. I’ll find it somewhere else.”

“Okay, man. See you.” I walked out the front door. The sunlight felt like it was cutting me open. I got into my car and had to sit a couple minutes so I wouldn’t heave whatever was left of that nasty scotch. I pictured Forrest lying dead on the pavement after an OD. Living under the bridge. Screwing men for drugs. It would be my fault because I got him started.

No, wait. He was rich. Okay, he’d be in rehab in some dope spa with Hollywood hotties and fresh carrot juice and massage.

Still not that cool.

I felt like hitting the steering wheel. I was being paranoid. Forrest wasn’t doing anything I hadn’t done myself, so I needed to stop acting like his grandma. And Becky would understand that we just hooked up because we were rolling, and not because I liked her or anything. Right?

And college could go to hell.

I needed aspirin. Something. I hit the gas and peeled out.