Love Drugged (18 page)

“You had your own hotel room?”

“Yeah. Dr. Gamez is, like, super generous.”

“But you and Celia slept together, right?”

This was, technically, true. I figured I was entitled to a little bragging. “Yeah, we shared a bed when we could.”

“How was that?”

“What do you mean,
how was that?
It was awesome.”

“What’s she like between the sheets?”

“Wes, I don’t want to talk about that. I really like her.”

“C’mon, I’m your best bud.”

“Let it go.”

“Tell me about some of her favorite tricks.”

I winced. “Shut up.”

“Just give me a taste.”

“Forget it, will you? Let’s go.” I turned and started back toward the parking lot.

“All right, I’ll drop it. Relax, dude.”

I kept walking toward the car.

“Jamie, I’m sorry,” he said, grabbing at my arm. “Wait a minute.”

“What’s with you tonight? You’re being a complete dick.”

“I said I’m
sorry.
I just wanted to hear about your trip. This is getting serious with you and Celia, right?”

“Obviously, yeah.”

“So let me in sometimes.”

We leaned against the car, both trying to cool down. My left arm made the spaz-ballplayer move again, and I tried to conceal it with a full-body stretch. This was more than fatigue. Maybe the pills had some freaky side effects I hadn’t seen yet. This could be a problem. Headaches weren’t noticeable, but spasms were hard to hide.

Wesley grinned. “So, Mr. Jumping Bean, this girl is important to you.”

“She really is.”

“I’d like to get to know her then.”

“She said she wants to know you guys, too,” I lied.

“Excellent. Truly excellent. We’ll talk to Mimi tomorrow and set something up. Mimi’s been wanting us to go bowling.”

“Bowling?” I said. “Mimi bowls?”

“She says she does.”

I wondered how a limb spasm, combined with blurry vision, would affect me in a bowling alley. “Fine by me.”

“Okay then, let’s organize it. Make it happen.”

We got in the car and drove home, radio blaring, and my heart pounding all the way. He dropped me in the alley behind the apartment. I shut the car door with as little noise as possible. I opened the back gate and saw that the lights were off upstairs. Everyone was asleep. I crawled back in through my bedroom window.

Wes was right, after all. We could handle a little freedom now and then.

As tired as I was, the trip to the beach had left me feeling wired, exhilarated. I tiptoed to the kitchen for a glass of milk.

In the moonlight, my eyes caught the sparkle of my grandmother’s wedding ring. It was on the windowsill near the sink, along with the other jewelry she typically removed for washing dishes.

I thought again of a piece of jewelry I could buy for Celia—a simple bracelet, maybe, or earrings. I sighed. With the money I had left from the trip, I could barely afford to buy her a
candy
necklace.

My grandparents, I knew, always kept some emergency cash in the cupboard under the sink, hidden in a box of steel-wool soap pads. I opened the cupboard door and crouched on my knees. The S.O.S. box never held too much money, usually only enough to pay for newspapers or an occasional pizza.

I turned the box upside-down and shook out its contents. A wad of crumpled cash fell into my hand. I unfolded the scraggly bills, which felt thin as tissue, their texture almost oily from age. Listening for the sound of my grandparents’ bedroom door, I counted quickly. I was surprised. Ninety-one dollars total. If I took it all, they might ask questions. I took seventy and left the rest.

My grandparents would never think I took it. They would blame their own faulty memory before they suspected me.

The funny thing was, for once I didn’t feel guilty. I was only a boy who wanted to buy a nice present for a girl. And the one thing I had known since childhood was that the whole world smiled upon simple, romantic gestures between boys and girls.

nineteen

Until the limb spasms began, I’d never thought the drug might kill me.

“What has gotten into you?” my grandmother said at the breakfast table.

“What do you mean?”

“You think we can’t feel you kicking your damn leg?”

I bent down, pretending to rub my calf, and locked my foot behind a table leg. “I’ve got a cramp. Trying to shake it out.”

“You’re acting like a defective.”

“Don’t say defective,” my grandfather said, looking up from the newspaper. “Say handicapped.”

“I’m not handicapped.” I sat on my hand before it could flinch again. I hadn’t slept well, and I felt grumpy. Were the pills I’d gotten in Mexico the original formula or something new? I could conceal headaches, sore muscles, even blurry vision. But I couldn’t easily explain a spastic arm or jumpy feet. The drug seemed to be affecting my brain, as promised—a result that had sounded ideal in concept but was scary in practice. The dangers of self-medicating were becoming more and more evident.

I pushed away the fear. Already the pills had gotten me through a trip to Mexico. My relationship with Celia was more intimate than ever. I was eager to continue treatment.

When my grandmother got up for more coffee, my grandfather leaned close. “You know, Jamie, your folks are in a bit of a pickle. Financially speaking.”

“I don’t have any money,” I said defensively.

No money from under the sink, that’s for sure.

“Think about getting a job this summer,” he said.

“I’m not sixteen until October.”

“Cutting grass then, or painting fences. Walking dogs for yuppies. Use your imagination.”

My grandmother turned from the sink. “How’s a defective like him going to make any money?”

“Don’t say defective,” my grandfather said. “He can walk a dog, can’t he?”

So now it was
my
responsibility to fix my parents’ financial situation? The suggestion drove me crazy. The fact that my flaky parents weren’t money savvy annoyed me to the extreme. As much as I loved them, it was hard not to compare them to an authentic success like Dr. Gamez.

“I’ll think about it.” I got up and reached for my backpack. “By the way, are
you
hiring?” I asked my grandfather.

His eyes went back to the newspaper. “Sorry, we don’t have a dog.”

At the First Knights meeting on Tuesday morning, Celia and I sat side by side, sleepily comparing forearms. Her skin was still a smooth golden brown from the trip. Mine, peeling and irritated, looked like a moonscape.

Across the table, Ivan spent most of the meeting avoiding eye contact with me. He hadn’t greeted us or asked about Mexico. Clearly I had gotten my message across—
we can never be friends
—but I hadn’t intended to hurt his feelings.

Mr. Covici’s somber gaze moved around the table, resting on each of us. “Okay, club members, we have a unique problem.” Finally he broke into a big grin. “We need to spend all this flower money!”

We gave a half-assed cheer.

“How much do we have?” Ivan asked.

Covici looked over the club ledger. “Three thousand dollars, give or take.”

As expected, Perfect Gwen’s hand shot up first. “Maybe, since we do so much clerical work and hang up so many posters around the school, we could spend the money on office supplies. New staplers and staples, tape and stuff.”

Nobody said anything.

“Dream bigger, Gwen,” Mr. Covici said gently.

Ivan smiled. “What about new laptops for all of us in the club?”

“Not quite that big,” Covici said.

Gwen was chock-full of ideas at seven o’clock in the morning. “How about some new American flags for the school? With so many soldiers back from the Middle East, I think it’s important to honor them. We could put up big beautiful flags all over the place.”

Another suggestion met with silence.

“A noble intention,” Covici answered. “But flags seem more like the realm of the History Club, or even the Sewing Club. You guys are the Knights—”

She nodded. “Right, and knights were like soldiers!”

“Flags are one idea,” Covici said. “Are there any others?”

I stayed quiet. Given recent events, I was likely to steal the damn money. Plus, the creativity tank in my brain was on
empty
. I was too tired to think. Tired from the trip, tired from not sleeping enough, tired of schlepping to school at daybreak for this stupid club. Next year, I resolved, I would join a different club—a club that met
after
school. A club whose members sat around after school and watched old movies. That sounded perfect.

My hand went up as soon as I thought of it. “What about using the money to buy a new movie screen for the auditorium?”

“That’s a little random,” Gwen said with a huff.

“There’s a film club here at Maxwell,” I said. “They’ve got camcorders and supposedly they make funny short films. But there’s no big screen to show them on.”

Celia leaned forward. “That’s awesome.
And
we could show regular movies as fundraisers, even for other clubs. It would make fundraising, like, really easy.”

When no one else said anything, I turned uncertainly to Ivan for support.

He shrugged. “It could work,” he said. “We could show movies on the first night of every month. First Nights, sponsored by the First Knights.”

Covici looked pleased, but perfect Gwen wasn’t going to back down. “Isn’t it
illegal
to charge admission to rented movies? It says so, right at the beginning of every DVD.”

“Well,” Covici said, “maybe we wouldn’t charge for the movie. We’d charge for the refreshments, and for the opportunity to socialize before and after the movie. Plus, we would suggest a donation to support any club or cause we wanted.”

Ivan was nodding. Apparently his dislike for Gwen was more potent than any bitterness he felt toward me. “And the movie,” he said, “would be a free gift to express thanks for supporting the fundraiser.”

“Exactly,” Covici said.

“It sounds like a lot of work,” Gwen muttered.

Now Anella came to my defense. “Not compared to the flower sale. All those tags,
ach!
Selling them, putting the
leetle
tags with the flowers and distributing them to homerooms? Compared to that, movie nights would be easy.”

“All in favor of a new movie screen,” Covici said, “raise your hand.”

All hands went up, except for Gwen’s.

“I like it too,” Covici said. “A movie screen serves a need, fills a gap. Well done, Jamie.”

I felt myself grinning. I looked at Ivan and mouthed,
Thank you
.

He returned a quick, shy smile, then turned back to his book bag.

Celia and I got up and moved closer to the library doors, waiting for the first bell.

“Bowling, huh,” she said, talking to herself. I’d told her about Wes’ invitation before the meeting. “This weekend will be interesting, to say the least.”

“It’ll be fun,” I said. “Trust me.”

The truth was, I felt nervous about bowling under the drug’s jittery influence. I pantomimed throwing a bowling ball. My throwing arm had a slight tremor, but maybe it wasn’t noticeable. I tried it again, concentrating on a smooth underhanded arc.

Ivan was standing near us. “Let me guess. Is it … tossing breadcrumbs to pigeons?”

I smiled, embarrassed. “We’re supposed to go bowling this Friday. But I may have pulled a muscle in my arm. Or something.”

“Ah, bowling.” When Ivan pantomimed the bowling act, the gesture was graceful, one arm in front of him, leg raised behind him, perfectly balanced.

“Come with us, Ivan,” Celia said. “Please? The more, the merrier.”

“I have never bowled before,” he said, his voice full of hesitation. “But I will mention it to Anella. I know for a fact she would like to spend time with you.” He gave me a lingering, sideways look. There had been a time, not long before, when I would have spent hours recalling and analyzing any look from Ivan.
What did the look mean? What secret message was he trying to convey?

But that was the past. I realized I didn’t think about Ivan very often anymore. And when he did cross my mind I didn’t feel much of anything, except slightly guilty for rejecting his offer to hang out. I didn’t dream about him. I didn’t look for him at his locker. My crush on him was over—vanished, like a minor cut that had healed, leaving no trace. For the first time, it struck me:

The drug really is working.

Sudden joy washed over my body, a downpour of joy. Everything Dr. Gamez had said was true. The treatment was working. And not since I first grabbed a handful of the pills at Rita’s café did I feel such unrestrained hope about my future as a heterosexual.

As a result, the notion of spending time with Ivan didn’t threaten me at all. “Sure, Ivan,” I said easily. “Come bowling with us.”

He smiled, as if taken by surprise. “Really? Okay …
thanks.”

“Whoa, look.” Celia pointed behind us and we turned. “What is that man doing now?”

Mr. Covici had the ladder out again and was leaning against the farthest wall, the remote corner where the students went to fart. He climbed the rungs slowly with another can of paint.

“Another message
from
the wall
,” Ivan said gravely, as the first bell rang. “Who knew the library walls had so much to tell us?”

We all headed to our first-period classes.

Before lunch, I stopped by the library to print out an essay for English. Right away, I saw Covici’s latest handiwork. Above the bookcase, green letters rose and fell in a wavy line:
OPPORTUNITIES ARRIVE LIKE TRAINS AND THEY DEPART LIKE TRAINS.

On Friday, the plan was for my parents to drive, stopping by Wesley’s house to pick up him and Mimi. Celia told me she would meet us at the bowling alley, where we would find Ivan and Anella, too.

I always hated for friends to ride in our van, a humiliating relic from my dad’s print shop. It wasn’t like a regular minivan—it was a hideous gray delivery van. The walls and ceiling were all exposed metal and there weren’t any windows in the back. It looked like a van for transporting hostages.

As predicted, Wesley had not made the baseball team. He hadn’t gotten past Day Two of tryouts. He was thrown out for talking back to an assistant coach. Although Wes did not seem devastated by disappointment, he didn’t want to talk about it.

Instead, he and Mimi sat in the back seat of our van and argued about school. Wes was under the impression that
The Scarlet Letter
and
The Crucible
were the same story—one in novel form and the other a play.

“I’ve seen them both on TV,” he insisted. “They’re the
same thing.
”

My mom settled the argument. “Different stories,” she said. “Same costumes.”

Mimi stared out the window. “Sometimes,” she said, with genuine sadness in her voice, “I wonder how it’s even possible I’m related to him.”

“Mimi,” I said, “I’m counting on you for some coaching tonight.”

“All right,” she conceded. “As long as you know I like to win. My main advice is not to compare yourself to me. Or, in your case, to anybody else.”

Mimi and I had developed a routine. I complimented her and she fought back. It was an unusual kind of friendship, but it seemed to work for us.

All day I had wondered how the evening would go, these people from different parts of my life getting together for the first time. I liked to keep the separate parts of my life separate, the way I kept my things organized in rubber bins at home. Old toys in one bin, CDs in another, movies in a third. Tonight I felt like all my stuff was spilling together onto the floor in an unholy mess.

On the plus side, Celia already knew Ivan and Anella from club meetings. Mimi and Celia knew each other from middle school. And Wes could make friends with anybody. Everybody had somebody to latch onto, but for the first time in my life, I was the glue.

We met the others inside the front door and wandered toward the counter. The bowling alley was loud and bright. Fluorescent and neon lights curled across the ceiling, blinking to the sound of the music. The worn dark carpet had an abstract pattern of what looked like humongous pink and orange slices of toast repeating in endless swirls and circles.

“My treat,” I told Celia.

“I can pay,” she said, but she didn’t protest further. I could tell she was pleased. She looked even better than usual, dressed in tight black jeans and a lime-green T-shirt. I felt proud to be with her. “Okay,” she said, “while you guys pay, I’ll use the time to find the perfect bowling ball.”

“You do that, dear,” Mimi said, not very sweetly.

Wes and Mimi accompanied me to the counter.

“Let me pay for you guys, too,” I said.

I wanted Mimi to smile, but all she said was, “Oh, is her money rubbing off on you?”