Folie à Deux (13 page)

Despite my constant readiness for any topic to be broached, I’m immediately lost when she asks, “Are you familiar with the term ‘forensics’”? The best that I can do is, “In grammar school I had competed in something called forensics but it was where another student and I acted out, “Who’s on First” by Abbot and Costello.”

“Oh that’s it exactly and you’ve done it before?” she bursts. “Oh that’s so great, well there is a Foreign Language Forensics competition in the spring and I want you to compete.”

I’m not a good French student so I can’t guess her angle. I know this is not an invitation rather a notification, immediately transparent when she reveals that rehearsal starts right after winter sports finish. This is the new pretext that allows me to stay after school without harassment from my parents. I accept, when she offers to explain the procedure to my mom, although I’m regularly her accomplice I refuse to be as deceitful as this necessitates.

“That’s not even the big thing I have to tell you, Jimi,” calling me Jimi to show just how excited she is. “Well,” she starts absent any segue and audibly short of breath. She knows by now that she has complete control over me so her apprehension makes me tense too, “I was thinking that since this trip to France is an exchange where students will stay with host families, I will need
a host family to stay with. So maybe you and I could be placed together. We could do the excursion trips with everyone but we would have time to ourselves to do the things we want.”

She speaks faster, “I was thinking that I could just say you’re my nephew, and that way, nobody would ask questions. I know you’ve never been to France, but it would be a great opportunity for us to spend time together. I could even introduce you to the family that I stayed with in high school because they don’t live far from Fontainebleau.”

Again, notification. It’s framed as a suggestion but my input is invented somewhere in the shadowy context.

“That sounds good,” I offer but she receives absent the cynicism.

“Great, I was hoping you would think so, because I was so excited to tell you,” she concludes. Our trip is in April so I have time before facing the reality of this plan. My only immediate option is to ignore it, hoping her reality never comes to fruition. Maybe she’ll forget. Hopefully the program doesn’t allow students to stay with chaperones. My parents might tell me they can’t afford the trip. Maybe the school will burn down and all extra-curricular activities will be cancelled. I hope for a variety of possibilities to impede her, from natural disaster to civil war.

So quickly I learn the benefit of keeping my feelings to myself. It saddens me but I cease to need what I’ll never have. In face to face conversations where she forces me to react I simply nod in agreement. I can only provide a physical reaction because she strips me of speech. When I have offered counterpoints her circular arguments back me further into a corner. I leave conversations unsure why I’ve changed my mind but thinking she was correct from the beginning.

I watch other kids come to school and try on new personalities. Adolescence is when we’re able to see who we want to be. One day, a class clown trying to be funny, the next a smart kid. Attitude and wardrobe always match. That is the existential splendor of being young. I watch jocks audition for the school play and I see members of the marching band try out for baseball but I have no such jockeying for position in my own life. My personality remains stagnant. I’m Carla’s boyfriend, expected to be a man always and in all ways. I must physically perform while being able to tend to the emotional needs of a professional woman.

Worse yet, it’s my fault because I made the first move. I made the phone call. I allowed her to kiss me in the staircase. I told her I loved her the night she was crying and most permanently, I never stopped her from crossing the boundaries when she afforded me so many opportunities to halt her.

Carla cannot hide her excitement the evening I reluctantly confess, “My parents said I can definitely go to France,” even though I no longer want to go. Not after how she has now twisted something that was thrilling. This has also been ripped from me like so much recently but I can’t back out now.

“Oh my God, Jimi, I was a little nervous, but I just knew it was going to happen, I just knew it,” she squeals.

My parents attend a meeting the following week to discuss dates, prices, and procedures in preparation. They come home as excited as Carla seems but for different reasons. I can tell that my mother is nervous but also reassured that the chaperone is someone, “As sweet and thorough as Miss Danza.”

The feeling gleaned from the meeting is, “Miss D. knows exactly what she’s doing and since she will never be more than a phone call away, no problem will be left unaddressed.”

The beginning of this affair seemed a whirlwind with the death of Kevin’s mom, my Christmas flu, Wrestling season, and the loss of my virginity. Replaced now by continued demands of sexual maturity, preparing to travel abroad, and memorizing my piece for the forensics competition. The stresses never recede, only change into other elusive anxieties equally as haunting. Anticipating the end of one despicable phase of my life only frightens me about what may supplant it.

Getting out of bed each morning is an effort. Everything is set against a backdrop of Carla, my circadian clock set firmly to her. I’ve always been an A student. The first class that I ever earn less than B — tenth grade Biology. Not coincidentally, the second marking period, beginning in November is a challenge evidenced by my failing grade. This is unthinkable for me and my parents. They look for the cause and theorize wrestling. They threaten pulling me from the team, devastating not simply for losing my roster spot but because the blame for my failure is incorrectly placed.

I struggle whether to tell Carla because I’m terribly embarrassed. Remembering I am not exclusively responsible however, convinces me to share. I know that she has access to my grades and may already know but I tell her anyway, coldly, “I failed Biology this marking period.” I want her to know that I may be forced to go home right after school as a punishment. I say it and shut my mouth hoping to torture her with silence like she does me.

When she outwaits me I continue, “So my parents said that I’ll have to quit wrestling if I don’t get my grade up. They might not let me go to France either.” I throw in the France part to scare her.

She asks, “What happened? How did you fail?” with the exact sense of urgency I attempted to create.

I can’t tell her that I don’t sleep for days on end only to sleep away my weekends. I never tell her how my parents question the causes for such an abnormal schedule. I hope she makes the leap that my life is overwhelming, normal functioning impossible. I can’t find the words to tell her that I feel contrasted against everyone else my age. It’s slight, like ivory on white, maybe imperceptible but I know it’s there and I feel contaminated. It’s the reason I can’t let anyone close to me because the thought of being discovered makes me shudder therefore, socially hermetic.

I lay it on thick hoping that she arrives at the obvious conclusion but instead asks, “What projects and tests do you have approaching?”

She volunteers to write my term paper for me, ignorant to the principles involved. I argue that she has missed the point but she refuses to back down. More importantly, do I need to explain why plagiarism is unethical? When I resign she takes immediate control, lacking any introspection. She writes my term paper on wild horses of the western United States. We earn an “A”. Her portion is authoring, mine is going to class every day to pass the work off as my own without vomiting.

I pass Biology for the third marking period as well as finish the wrestling season with my once a week absence. With no break, I begin practicing for Forensics. The schedule includes an alibi three days a week but actually rehearsing only one. A typical week includes spending the other two days in Carla’s apartment, exploring our sexual relationship. We try new positions and different rooms. We take a shower together. I master pillow talk. I receive further detailed instruction in several areas and although it disturbs me, we sixty-nine, often.

Our first day of truancy went so smoothly that Carla decides to take another. The thought of being in her apartment all day
again is dreadful. I remind her of the school’s policy a second time, fearful the gloating in my voice is detectable.

“Oh don’t worry about that honey,” she says with an unmistakable tone of triumph.

“How can I not worry Carla? What will I tell them when they see that letter?” I snap back.

I rarely use her name in conversation, refusing her the satisfaction of that personal connection. “Well,” she says after clearing her throat in an attempt to be coy, “I happen to have connections at the school and can make sure that the letter never gets to your parents.” Her surgical precision as prominent as the claustrophobia that tightens in my throat.

We skip school again, a carbon copy of our first day. I prepared for my anxiously awaited nap by staying up as late as possible last night. The afternoon drags on painfully slow until she pulls a French workbook from her bag out of frustration and says, “Ok, fine, let’s just work on French.”

She doesn’t see my disgusted look as she thumbs through the pages, “Ok, here. This is stuff you won’t see until college,” somehow overlooking the assortment of experiences I’m too young to witness.

“Well, I guess we should be leaving now,” I say after dinner, as softly as possible because she has become reluctant to drive me back lately.

“I hate being alone. It’s so nice when you’re here. When I come back it’s lonely and makes me sad,” she says in a monotone. Her hesitation to make our way to the car becomes alarming as I look at the dusty clock hanging over her kitchen sink. I know that the clock is four minutes fast compared to the clock in her car and that clock is a minute faster than the one in my kitchen.

“Um, Carla, it really is getting late and if I miss the bus, I’ll need to have a very good reason.” She sinks down further in the couch bowing her head.

“Just stay with me a little longer and I’ll take you home. I’ll drive you right to the bus stop and they’ll never know. That way we can spend twenty more minutes together before we have to leave,” she begs.

I’m at the end of my underdeveloped capacity. I feel a drop of sweat run down the center of my back half from fear and half from the premise of spending another twenty minutes trapped.

My life is a perpetual power struggle. She drops to her knees and submits to me yet, I allow her that clout. I don’t feel the authority at the moment she bows in front of me because it seems as though she’s in control. I try to recapture what she is stealing with each nod of her head by employing the only defense I know which is to put my mind elsewhere. I think of my history homework. I have chores when I get home. Cleaning my room. Walking the dog. My dresser drawers have clothes that no longer fit. This closet is no bigger than the bathroom in my parent’s house. I see old projects and posters from students who she has had in the past. Not like she has me.

I feel it building first right behind my balls. Tightness from underneath and between my legs. The words that pop into my head so vulgar, but so is my whole life. I have to pick a topic for my English paper on Shakespeare. She knows when I’m close. She tells me that right before I come she hears a little gurgling sound in my stomach. I wonder how much warning she has. My hip flexors tighten. I have a note in my pocket from Kevin to give to some girl. I want to watch a movie tonight on HBO. Her hand is involved now, stroking at the same pace.

I fight, wanting physical control. My grandfather is coming to my parents’ house this weekend. I bought a new video game I’m anxious to play. She puts her left hand on my ass not to restrain
but better keep our rhythm synced. The pressure increases to that fragile line between pleasure and pain. Have I gurgled yet? Instinctively, and what seems like involuntarily I put my hand down her shirt, into her bra and grab a breast with a hard nipple. Jason borrowed the driver’s-ed handout to copy my answers, I need that back. I heard the first single from the new Cure album,
Wish
and I love it. It’s ironic because of all the things that I wish were different.