Chubby Chaser (17 page)

Jason spent Saturday evening getting ready for the Halloween party. He was going as Ghostface from
Scream
to impress Sara, but he still wanted to wear something nice underneath his costume. This was going to be a big night for him and Sara, and he wanted everything to be perfect.

He stood in front of his mirror, wearing red boxers and modeling different looks: initially, he decided to go with his black sweater and brown cargo pants, but the sweater made his skin itch, and that might turn Sara off; he then decided to go with his blue plaid shirt and a pair of jeans, but that look seemed too basic, and he wanted to look nice for Sara; and after that, he decided to go with his white dress shirt and tan slacks, but they were too formal.

He checked the time: it was a quarter past eight. He still had plenty of time before the party started. Normally, he preferred to show up late to a party, but he didn’t know what time Sara was going to arrive, and he didn’t want to call her and ask. He had already called her earlier that day to make sure she had received the text containing Eric’s address, and he didn’t want to come off as clingy.

After twenty more minutes of fussing and changing, he decided to go with his red button-up shirt, blue motorcycle jacket, and these really expensive pair of jeans he had bought from Express. He checked himself out in the mirror, and he thought he looked hot. He sprayed himself with Tom Ford cologne to complete his look and headed out the door.

Jason made it to the party a little after nine. Eric and Andy gravitated toward him. Eric was dressed as Wolverine, and Andy came as Kick-Ass.

“So who are you supposed to be, J, yourself?” Eric asked.

Jason looked down. He had forgotten his costume. Fuck! He wanted tonight to be perfect, but it had already started on a bad note. He looked around but didn’t see Sara. “Is Sara here yet?”

“Haven’t seen her. And she would be pretty hard to miss,” Eric japed.

She hadn’t made it yet. That could give him time to rush home and pick up his costume before she arrived. But it could also lead to him missing her. Sara probably wouldn’t stay if he weren’t there. He decided to stay put. He did look good, and perhaps that he had intended to dress up as Ghostface would be enough to impress her.
It
’
s
the thought that counts
. That was how the saying went, although people usually said that after you complained about them giving you a crappy present.

By ten o’clock, Sara was still nowhere in sight. Every time the doorbell had rung, Jason had raced to the front door, hoping it would be her, only to be disappointed when it hadn’t been. Every time someone had said the name
Sara
, Jason had turned toward the direction he had heard it, only to end up crestfallen, because of the name belonging to three other girls at the party. Making matters worse, Andy and Eric made fun of him by Andy calling out Sara’s name and Eric jumping and turning in every direction, his face painted with keenness.

“You guys are fucking douchebags,” Jason said.

Emily slunk over to him, wearing a homemade Wonder Woman costume: she had on a yellow headband as a rudimentary gold tiara; she had on a pink bustier instead of a red corset; she had on a pair of blue- and white-striped boy-short panties in lieu of blue panties with white stars; and she had on a pair of black leather knee-high stiletto boots in place of red-and-white ones.

“Holy shit!” Eric said, struggling to pick his jaw up off the floor.

Andy was the same: “Oh. My. God!”

“Hey, guys,” Emily said, smiling and clearly loving the attention she was getting for her costume. “Jason, I was hoping you’d be here. I love your costume.” She affectionately rubbed his arm.

Jason didn’t know whether she was simply trying to be nice or she was really that stupid. She and Kimberly were best friends.

“You wanna go upstairs and talk?” she asked, a sultry lilt to her voice.

“Take my parents’ room,” Eric offered.

“Maybe a little later,” Jason told her. “I think I’m gonna stay and hang with the guys for a bit.”

“Okay, well, I might not be around much longer, so . . .” Emily was trying to put pressure on him in a passive-aggressive way, a move she and many other girls often employed (much like the cold-shoulder treatment Emily had used on him during homecoming), so they could be bitches without actually being bitches. It never worked—at least not on him—and the girls still came out looking like bitches, so he didn’t understand why they continued to do it. It was better to be upfront, to say what you think and feel, like a dude. That was one of the reasons he liked Sara: She didn’t pull that shit. She was always upfront and direct.

“Okay,” Jason said.

She shot him a look to show she was pissed and walked away in a huff.

“Dude, what the fuck’s wrong with you?” Eric asked.

“Nothing. I’m cool, I’m fine, I’m having fun,” Jason replied absently while watching the front door for Sara.

“Uh, no. You’re not cool, you’re not fine, and you’re definitely not having fun. I mean, Emily was giving you the green light, and you gave her the brush-off. And for what? For Sara fucking Krason?”

“I told you, nothing is going on with her. I’m just trying to win this bet. Hooking up with another girl while the girl I’m trying to score with is on her way here is not conducive to winning that bet. Emily? Fuck Emily. She can wait. I’ve fucked her before, and I will again, if I want.” He thought he had made a convincing argument, but his friends didn’t seem to buy it.

“I just hope the bet’s all you’re interested in,” Eric said. It sounded like a threat (
I just hope the
bet
’
s all you
’
re
interested in
,
because otherwise
we
’
ll
have to make your life a living hell
), but at the moment, Jason was far more concerned about Sara showing up than he was about anything else.

It was 9:38 p.m. Thirty-eight minutes past the start of the Halloween party. Sara had been ready to go by 8:25, but she had kept finding things to do. She had proofread her paper on
The Canterbury Tales
for her AP English class that was due next week Monday, even though she had done that twice before (once on Tuesday and again on Friday); she had gone over next week’s lesson plans for the students she tutored, even though she usually did that on Sundays; and she had looked over her art portfolio for Wesleyan, even though she had done that this morning.

She’d been procrastinating, and she didn’t procrastinate. Unlike most people, she got shit done as soon as possible. She procrastinated only when she was scared, and she was scared shitless of attending a party.

The last time she’d attended a party had been when she’d been twelve. It was her cousin Marie’s thirteenth birthday party, and Sara was sure that the only reason she had gotten an invite was because her mom had strong-armed Lynn, Marie’s mom, into letting Sara tag along with Marie and her friends. Her mom had probably used the fact that she and Lynn were sisters and had probably mentioned that she was worried about Sara having no friends to secure the invitation. Sara loved her mom and knew she had nothing but the best of intentions, but she hated when she did things like that.

The party took place at Hershey Park—an amusement park about an hour’s drive away. The trip began on a sour note: in the car ride to the amusement park, Marie and the three friends she had with her acted as though Sara weren’t in the car and talked among themselves, with every attempt Sara made to take part in the conversation spurned. Things went from bad to worse once they made it to Hershey Park: Lynn, a bony bird of a woman, kept asking the ride operators whether it was safe for a girl of Sara’s size to get on the rides, inciting much snickering from the crowd, including from Marie and her friends.

At lunchtime Lynn ordered pepperoni-and-sausage pizzas and Pepsi for everyone else to eat and drink, and a salad, with a drop of vinegar dressing on the side, and a Diet Pepsi for Sara, and then she further pilloried her by saying, “My sister might let you get away with eating everything but the kitchen sink, but I won’t. With me you’re gonna eat nice and healthy.” She grabbed Sara by the chin, tilting her face up. “You know, you really do have a pretty face. If you lost some weight, you could be a very beautiful young lady. Don’t you know no boy will want you with the way you look now? And no man will want to make you his wife, either, if you still look this way when you get older. Didn’t your mother ever teach you about that?”

Sara didn’t respond; she was too deflated.

Lynn released her chin. “Eat your salad.”

Sara heard Marie and her friends whispering and tittering on the other side of the table. They were probably glancing at her while they made fun of her, but Sara was too embarrassed to look up and see. Instead, she dropped her head down and tried to make herself as small as possible in her chair, as though that would protect her from the susurrant insults and murmurous laughing.

When she returned home, she lied and told her mother that she’d had a great time at the party, partly because she was too ashamed to reveal the truth and partly because she didn’t want to cause trouble between her mom and her aunt Lynn, but when her mother had gotten her an invitation for the following year, she told her mom she had an upset stomach, so she wouldn’t have to go.

And now Sara had received an invitation to another party—with people who were apt to be far crueler than her aunt, her cousin, and her cousin’s friends had been—and she couldn’t find the strength to leave her house. She contemplated calling Jason and telling him that something had come up and that she couldn’t make it.

But she had promised Jason she would go. He was her friend—her only friend—and she didn’t want to let him down or ruin the friendship. He had been extremely excited (and kind of desperate) for her to go. He had even called her to make sure she had gotten that asshole Eric’s address.

But what if this was a trap? What if Jason wasn’t really her friend? What if this was only an elaborate scheme to humiliate her, another laxative-cookie situation waiting to happen? Jason had been looking at her and laughing while she had been eating the other day (she shouldn’t have eaten in front of him; that was so stupid of her).

Stop it
,
you
’
re being paranoid
! Jason had been nothing but nice to her since she had started tutoring him, and she had been nothing but a judgmental bitch to him for most of that time. Somebody like Jason wouldn’t have the ability to plan such an elaborate scheme and see it through anyway: he didn’t have the intelligence (his test scores had been such a joke that, before this week, he wouldn’t even show them to her), the foresight, or the patience.

Jason had opened up to her—really opened up—about his deepest, darkest secrets. And there had been that one time where he had called her in despair over his future and had wanted to talk to her over all his other friends. Also, he had never mentioned her sweating.

The assholes she went to school with might lead her into a trap, but not Jason. Jason was a good guy. He was a good guy and he was her friend, and he was counting on her and expecting her to show up, and show up she would, but she would also be vigilant, so she would be prepared if any of the assholes there tried something.

The doorbell rang, Jason raced to get it, and this time his hopes were not dashed. Sara was at the door. She was wearing a denim jacket, light-blue shirt, blue jeans, and black boots. She had forgotten her costume, too, which made Jason feel better about forgetting his.

He was about to greet her when he noticed something smeared on her forehead and the sides of her face. It was blood. “Holy shit! Are you okay? Do you need to lie down? Should I call 911?”

“Jason, it’s fake blood. It’s part of my costume.” She chortled.

“But you’re not wearing a costume.”

“Yes, I am. This is what Sidney wore in the final act of
Scream
.”

“Oh,” Jason said. He was now kicking himself even more for forgetting his costume, and he was feeling like an idiot for not realizing that Sara was wearing one. “Well, I was gonna come as Ghostface, but I forgot it, my costume, I forgot it.”

“Oh.”

He had been hoping for a more enthusiastic response to his revelation. “Well, you made it,” was the only thing he could think of to say next. Before Sara had arrived, he had thought of a dozen cool things he’d talk to her about, and now that she was there, his mind was a blank canvas.

“Yep.” She chortled.

There was an awkward beat as they stood in the doorway.

“Can I come in, or did I fail to make the guest list?”

Jason hadn’t been aware he was blocking the entrance. He stepped aside. “Oh, of course, duh!”

She turned to look at him as she entered.

“Not you, duh. Me, duh. Can . . . can I get you a beer?”

“Oh, I don’t drink.”

“Water?”

“Thanks, but I’ll get it. Which way to the kitchen?”

“Past the living room and to the right.”

“Thanks.” She nodded and then made her way through the crowd, toward the kitchen.

Eric and Andy walked up to Jason.

“Yeah, she sure seems like she’s going to give it up tonight, J,” Eric said.

“Shut up.”

“C’mon, J, you gave it a good try, but nobody’s thawing that out, especially without getting her liquored up first. You might as well pay up now. The new marking period officially starts on Monday anyway.”

Jason ignored him.

Sara returned moments later, lifting Jason’s spirits. “Having fun yet?” he asked her.

“Uh-huh. A guy almost threw up on me when I was in the kitchen,” she quipped. They had a little laugh over that.

Jason saw Eric and Andy exchange looks out of the corner of his eye, clearly taken aback by what was transpiring in front of them. Jason didn’t care. Sara was finally there, and that was all that mattered to him.

“These are my friends, Eric and Andy.” Eric and Andy shook hands with Sara and perfunctorily exchanged pleasantries with her.

“We have AP calc with you I think,” Andy said, trying to get a conversation going.

Sara simply nodded, looking in Andy’s direction but not at him.

“So where do you plan on going to college next year?”

“Wesleyan.”

“That’s the one in Connecticut, right?”

She nodded again but still didn’t give eye contact.

“I ask because when I started looking for colleges, I noticed a lot of them had the name
Wesleyan
in them. I’m thinking about going to Notre Dame. It’s in Indiana.”

Again, Sara only nodded with no eye contact. Eric turned to Andy and mocked Sara’s nodding. Andy tried and failed to stifle a laugh.

Sara’s face turned red. “Um, I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” She set her water down on a table and scuttled off.

“It’s right around the corner!” Jason yelled. He then turned on his friends. “You guys are such jerks!”

“It’s not our fault you can’t win the bet,” Eric said.

“I’m about—”

“Bet?” Jason heard someone growl. He turned to find Sara glaring at him. “You made a bet about me? What kind of bet? That you could befriend me and lure me here into some kind of trap?”

“Sara, you don’t understand. I—”

“I’m not stupid! I may not be pretty or popular or skinny, but I am not stupid. Everything makes sense now, why the most popular and supposedly hottest guy in school wanted to spend time with someone like me. Wanted to be friends with someone like me. It’s because he made a bet with his sleazoid friends that he could get me here and lure me into a trap, so everyone can point and laugh at the ugly, fat girl.”

“No, that’s not it at all. Sara, just listen—”

“Shut the fuck up talking to me!”

She moved past him and pushed through the crowd, toward the front door. Jason followed her, calling her name, but she ignored him and left, slamming the door shut behind her.

Jason grunted, frustrated. He punched the wall beside him.

Eric and Andy came up behind him.

“You ready to pay up?” Eric taunted him.

Jason almost snapped on him, but he didn’t want to get too upset in front of his friends, as they were already suspicious of his feelings for Sara. “I still have one more day,” he said. “I need a beer.” He pushed past his friends and headed into the kitchen.

“If you can dig yourself out of this hole in just one day, J, be my guest!” Eric called after him.