Keeper of Dreams (52 page)

“
Seeing
somebody?” said Becky. “Adults who are having affairs ‘see’ somebody. High school girls
date
. And not somebody, guys.”

“Sounded more like seeing somebody to me,” said Lex. “If you don’t believe me, push redial.”

“Not a chance,” said Deeny, as Becky reached for the phone. “
Real
friends don’t spy. Or assume that I’m lying.” She meant it—but she had to put a smile on it, because after all, if Lex was playing along, Deeny didn’t want to antagonize her
too
much. Still, she had to act pissed off because she
would
be pissed off at Lex taking her phone—and she knew she
would
be pissed off because she
was
pissed off.

“He’s probably twenty-five,” said Lex. “Either a garage mechanic or an investment banker—”

“Oh, like
those
two professions sound the same,” said Becky.

“Same kind of I-know-everything-and-you’re-as-ignorant-as-fish attitude,” said Lex.

“Well what did he say?”

“Try, ‘Hello, Deeny.’ Like he had caller ID.”

“Cellphone numbers don’t show up on caller ID,” said Becky.

“So maybe he has a special cellphone whose number he gave only to Deeny,” said Lex.

“Maybe he got Deeny
her
phone and his is the only one on speed dial,” said Becky, really getting into it now. “So she isn’t paying for it at all.”

“But she’s a kept woman now,” said Lex, “and so he thinks he owns her, he can call her whenever and wherever he wants, only she longs for her independence, and so she’s going to dump him, but he won’t accept it and starts to stalk her and take pictures of her with spycams and then he puts them out on the internet only with other women’s bodies so they’re really pornographic.”

“Oh, like mine wouldn’t be sexy enough to be pornographic,” said Deeny.

“Oh, it would,” said Lex, “except it would only appeal to men who go for boys without weenies.”

“Oh, who
is
he?” demanded Becky. “Forget all the other stuff, who got you this phone?”

Deeny noticed how Lex’s joke had now become the “true” story—she’d been given the phone by a boyfriend. And it felt bad to have them actually believe the lie, even if it
was
exactly the lie she had bought the phone for.

“I pay for it myself,” said Deeny. “Out of my savings. I can only afford the first three payments and then they’ll cancel my account. I got it so I could fake having a boyfriend but I was never going to try to fool
you
guys.”

“Ha, ha,” said Lex.

“So you’re really not going to tell us?” said Becky.

“There’s nobody, honest,” said Deeny. “I only faked it that time because it pisses me off when you try to console me about wearing size A-minus. Tell her, Lex. You don’t have to play along any longer.”

She had expected Lex to break into a grin and say, “All right, Deeny-bopper.”

Instead, Lex’s face got cold and hard. “Play it that way, stud,” said Lex. “I guess you’ll be talking about it with your
real
friends.” And she stalked off.

Becky rolled her eyes. “I don’t mind if you want to keep it a secret. And Lex won’t stay mad. She never does.”

I’ve only known her three years longer than you have, so duh, yes, I know that. “Thanks, Becky,” said Deeny. “I’m not going to keep carrying it. It was a dumb idea, anyway.” Especially if you two won’t believe me when I tell you the absolute truth.

Together they headed off to Calculus, which was a hell of a way to start the day, especially because she had no intention of ever using a logarithm in her entire life after high school. She was only taking it because the district had passed a new ruling just before her sophomore year that all phrosh and sophs had to take four years of math, and since she had already taken honors Algae Trichinosis her freshman year, it was too late to start out with remedial so her fourth year could be geometry.

The nice thing about Calculus was that since she had already passed her first semester, now all she needed was a D in the second semester because the college of her choice would already have admitted her before her final grades came in. So she didn’t actually have to pay attention in class. Her mind could wander. And it did.

How far is Lex going to take this? She had to recognize Deeny’s home phone number. She had to know she was hearing the blat-rest-blat of a ringing telephone, and not a voice. So why was she doing this whole injured-friend routine?

There was no figuring Lex out when she got some gag going. Like the time Becky had said “Oh, you talk too much” to her, and for five whole days Lex hadn’t said another word, not one, nada, not even when teachers called on her. It was like she had gone on strike, and by the end Becky was begging her to say something, anything. “Tell me to go eff myself, just say
something
.” That Lex, what a kidder. In an overdone assholical way.

Didn’t use the phone all the rest of that day. Didn’t even bring it to school the next day because she forgot and left it on the charging stand. Then she brought it on Friday because what the hell, she was paying for it, wasn’t she?

Pep rally after school. Attendance required. “Enforced pep,” said Becky. “What a Nazi concept. Sieg Tigers.”

Lex was still being a butt, making snide remarks about how Deeny had a whole secret life that only her
real
friends got to know about. And all those perky cheerleaders making brilliant impromptu speeches about how, like, our team does so much better if we, like, really have spirit, they were really irritating, too, especially because so many of the other kids were getting into it and yelling and chanting and cheering, the whole mob-mentality thing. And it didn’t help to have Becky mumbling
her
snide
remarks. “You want them to have spirit, try wearing that cute little skirt without panties, that’ll make those boys play hard.” Oh, that was funny, Becky, why not laugh so hard you fall off the back of the bleachers.

So what was there to do, really, except push the button and then rush over to the edge of the bleachers and turn away from everybody and pretend to be having a phone call.

There was so much noise that she didn’t actually have to make up anything to say. Just mumble mumble mumble, and then laugh, and then smile, and then imagine him saying something kind of dirty, and smirking at what he said, and then he says something
really
dirty, and so she makes a face but it’s plain she really likes hearing it even though she pretends to be mad.

Twenty-five-year-old mechanic. Covered with grease but arms so strong he just lifts the car up onto the jack. Or investment banker. Who never wears anything under his suit except his shirt, “In case you only got a little time for me, baby,” he says, “I don’t want to waste any of it.”

Yeah, right.

But don’t let the “yeah, right” show on your face, moron. A laugh. A smile. A little offended. Then delighted. Then . . . yeah, they’re looking, not just Lex and Becky, but other kids, too, looking at Deeny, can you imagine that, watching her have a love life, even if it’s only with the beep beep beep of the ring tone at home.

Only now that she thought about it, there wasn’t a beep beep beep.

Had one of her parents picked up the phone? Come home early from work maybe, and the phone rang, and they picked it up, only she didn’t hear them saying, “Hello? Hello? Who’s there?” because there was so much noise here at the pep rally.

She pressed
END
, stuffed the phone in her purse, and then just sat there, looking out over the basketball court with all the stupid streamers that somebody was going to have to climb up and cut down before the game anyway, so why go to all that trouble in the first place, and I wonder what my parents heard on the phone when they picked it up, was I actually saying stuff
out loud
about what the investment banker does or doesn’t wear? Even if I was, they couldn’t possibly have heard me. Except that my mouth was right by the mike and they didn’t have a pep rally going on there at home so they probably
could
hear and she hoped it was her
father—let
him
hear her talking about how maybe somebody wanted sex with his loser daughter, sit on
that
and spin—

But if it was Mom . . .

Please don’t let it be Mom. Please don’t let her go to the drugstore and buy me condoms or make an appointment for me to go to the doctor and get a prescription for the Pill or the Patch or whatever remedy she decides is right for her little flat-chested princess who has about as much use for birth control as fish have for deodorant.

Lex was sitting beside her. Close, leaning in, so she could whisper and still be heard. “Who
is
he?”

Deeny turned to her, then leaned away, because Lex was right there in her face. Nobody was near enough to hear.

“You of all people should know,” said Deeny.

“Why, is it someone I know?”

“It’s
nobody
.” It’s my wishful thinking. It’s my pathetic loser attempt to make people think I have a love life, somebody who cares enough to call. And I don’t even
care
what people think, except I bought the phone and I put on this little show so I do care, don’t I, which makes me just as needy as any other loser. People smell the need like dogs, like wolves, and if they’re like Daddy they torment you because they know they can get away with it because losers have no claws.

Lex was angry. Sat up straight, looking forward, down toward the stupid pep rally where they were either acting out the kama sutra in cheerleader outfits or trying to spell something with their bodies. But then she must have decided that being mad wasn’t going to get what she wanted, because her face softened and she turned back to Deeny, rested her chin in one hand, and contemplated her.

“I know from his voice that he’s not a kid,” she said. “I was thinking college student, but the way you’re acting now, I’m thinking—married guy.”

“How can you know anything from his voice?” said Deeny, disgusted now with this whole game.

“I know he exists,” said Lex. “I know he’s a guy. I know he doesn’t sound like any of these little boys. He doesn’t talk like high school.”

And it finally dawned on Deeny that Lex wasn’t lying. She actually heard something. There
was
a voice when she took the phone and called.

Which meant that someone at home must have picked up. “It must have been my father,” said Deeny. “The only number I had ever called was my home phone. My father must have been home this morning.”

Lex rolled her eyes. “A, I
know
your father’s voice, give me some credit. And B, I
saw
the number on the screen and it wasn’t your home phone.”

“Well then I don’t know who it was because I’ve never dialed any other number,” said Deeny. “It really was a wrong number.”

“Oh, a wrong number that says, ‘I can’t stop thinking about you either, Deeny’?”

Now Deeny understood. “Oh, how sick can you get. So I was playing around with the phone and yes, it was a dumb thing to do, but let it go now, OK? You’re as bad as the Nazis, making fun of me. Just let it go.”

Lex’s astonishment looked genuine. “I’m not making fun of you, I think you’re in trouble somehow, I think maybe you’re doing something really dumb or really cool and I just want to know, I want to be your
friend
, but if you want to keep it all to yourself that’s fine with me, that’s
no skin off my ass
!”

She was shouting by the end because Deeny was going down the bleachers as fast as she could, getting away, getting off by herself. Lex believed it. Lex wasn’t making fun of her. Lex really talked to somebody. Somebody who said things like “I can’t stop thinking of you either, Deeny.”

Only there wasn’t anybody that Deeny couldn’t stop thinking about. There was just a phone she got so she could make fun of all the girls with cellphones talking to their stupid boyfriends who were only sixty yards away talking on
their
cellphones at
their
lockers. And maybe she
did
want people to think she really might have a boyfriend, some older guy who wasn’t in high school, so she could seem mysterious and mature so people would think the reason she never connected with anybody at high school except Becky and Lex was because she had a life outside, a life far more exciting and dangerous than any of the Nazis had here at school.

Somebody answered the phone when Lex pressed
TALK
.

Outside the gym, over in the grove where the smokers and lovers gathered to light up and pet, Deeny took out her phone and pressed
TALK
and looked at the number.

It was a number she’d never seen before. With an area code in front of it that she’d never heard of. Long distance. Oh, that was great, all she needed was long-distance charges, she’d lose the phone the first month at that rate.

She was about to press
END
but then there was a voice.

“I dreamed of you last night, Deeny.”

Tinny as it was, coming out of the tiny little speaker eighteen inches away, Deeny could still tell that it was a man’s voice. Deep. With a bit of humor in it. And he knew her name.

She brought the phone up to her ear. “Who is this?” she asked.

“You gotta stay out of my dreams, Deeny. I wake up and I can’t get back to sleep, thinking about you.”