Punk Like Me (22 page)

“Look, I don’t mind, just tell Coach,” Kitt responded, her voice slightly irritated. We pulled into the parking lot.

“How come you’re parking your car on campus?” Betta leaned forward to ask.

All three of us turned to her in unison and answered, “Senior privilege.”

“Oh…” she said quietly, and sat back shyly, as if suddenly aware that she was a freshman in the presence of the vaunted upperclassmen.

Poor kid. It had to suck to feel like that. Oh well, I was sure by the time she got to homeroom, she’d be happy enough to have gotten a ride with both co-captains, and that by the time Þ rst period started, there’d be a ton of freshmen who decided they wanted to see Kitt and Blade in action later that evening.

Samantha looked over at me and gave me a quick once-over. “You okay to race? You’re anchoring with me today,” she said and narrowed her gaze.

Her eyes were a steely blue as she searched my face, and I tried not to squirm, but I dived into one of my books for something, anything, to

• 143 •

break the gaze. I felt more than a little uncomfortable.

“Yeah, I’m Þ ne,” I answered shortly, and found a book that looked like it might be important enough to ß ip through.

Samantha parked the car and cut the engine, then twisted in her seat to look into the backseat. “Kitt, I’ve got my car—and I drive faster than you. You go home and,” Samantha’s mouth quirked slightly, “get ready for the race. We need to win.”

Kitt considered for a moment, then nodded. “All right, Þ ne.

But be careful, Blade. We don’t want to lose both anchors or our top freestylers.” She grabbed her book and gym bags off the ß oor. “Cool, we’re set, then. C’mon,” and she opened the door to step out, and Betta, silent this whole time, did the same.

Samantha put a hand on my arm to restrain me when I went for the door handle. “Wait,” she said quietly. I dropped the handle and simply stared at the hand on my sleeved arm.

Both rear doors slammed shut, and Kitt walked around to my side of the car. Betta had already started running toward the school building, calling out “see you in the water” behind her. I watched her catch up with a knot of freshmen that had just climbed off the bus and come in the gates, talking and waving her hands in the midst of the group as they walked on.

“You guys coming or what?” Kitt asked by my window.

“In a minute,” Samantha answered. “Just got some strategy to discuss, you know, for the hundred.” She was referring to a speciÞ c race event, which was the baby endurance swim, of one hundred yards or meters or whatever it was the pool was measured in. All I know was that it was four long, very long laps.

“Cool. Later, then. See you in the water.” Kitt started off, then stopped and turned. “Oh, Blade? Thanks,” and she walked away.

Alone in Samantha’s car, we sat in silence. As I Þ ddled with the strap of my book bag, I heard her scramble around in a pocket and pull something out. “Here,” a red cigarette box landed on my bag, “have one,” she invited as she took a pull on her own freshly lit one.

“Thanks.” Samantha and I smoked the same brand—well, I did mention we were on detention together, a lot.

I pulled one out, then reached over to the dashboard to use the car lighter, focusing on the red glow before me, and when the cigarette Þ nally lit, I took a grateful drag. I shifted and twisted to face Samantha.

• 144 •

PUNK LIKE ME

A few books slid halfway out of my bag onto the seat between us.

“So,” I exhaled, “what’s up?” I suppose, no, I know, I was a little leery, wary even, in my approach. It was like I had this new sense, this new awareness, of myself, of my body, of Samantha’s proximity, and I didn’t know what to do with it, like I was a blind person given sight for the Þ rst time and trying to make sense of the shapes. No, actually it was more like always knowing what the shapes meant, but only now being able to see their true colors.

Samantha shifted to look at me and leaned an arm across her door.

“You sure you’re up for racing today? You look a little pale.” She took a drag and blew it back out toward the windshield.

“Nah, I’m Þ ne, Blade, just Þ ne,” I drawled out casually, and I stared out the front windshield. “I’ll be okay to race. And thanks, for the ride, I mean.” I continued to stare out the window. I couldn’t, just couldn’t, look at her, my pal and partner in crime against stupidity, as we referred to the student handbook. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her raise her eyebrows when I called her “Blade,” which was something I really never did outside of practice or meets. I guess I Þ gured it would be better for both of us, it wouldn’t hurt so much later, if and when she found out, about me, I mean. I was reaching for safe distance.

“Okay, just checking,” Samantha said in a tone that told me she didn’t quite believe me. She pursed her lips in thought and looked down at my books. “Oh, and no problem about the ride. We’re buds, teammates, right?” She grinned at me. Unconsciously she reached for the charm hanging from her neck.

I met her eyes with a smile that quickly died and watched her Þ ngers play with the miniature blade that was her namesake between her Þ ngers, glad she hadn’t reached out to touch my shoulder or play with my hair, because I felt just so damned raw, so fucking naked. I was afraid that if she did, touch me at all that is, that it would hurt, that I would explode from some unknowable depth of pain.

“Yeah, we are,” I Þ nally answered in a soft voice, my mind full of a tangle of images from the beach this past summer, when I had thought Samantha and I were going to kiss or something, and the way Kerry’s eyes appeared before she and I did for the Þ rst time.

Damn, though. Who knew how long the friendship Samantha and I had would last once she knew. Did she know what I’d thought then?

Or would she be relieved that it had been someone else? I seriously doubted she had felt the same way. Why would she? Why should she?

• 145 •

I looked out the windshield again.

Boy, that was an interesting tree there, outside the window. Gray, lifeless, waiting for spring. Those branches reached up for the sky, though, and never stopped. Just held still and held on, knowing spring had to show up sooner or later. But in November, it was deÞ nitely later.

In the silence, Samantha had picked up one of my notebooks and ß ipped through it. She was about to close it, but something caught her eye—she opened it again. She stared for a long, long while and I sat very still, staring at that frozen, reaching tree. I think it was a maple.

“Friends of yours?” she asked Þ nally, and I saw what she was pointing at—the “Hopey ’n’ Maggie” written inside the back cover.

I swallowed—hard—and almost choked on my cigarette. Samantha pounded on my back a few times. Well, there went no touching each other out the door. At least there were no explosions, either. “Dude, you okay? You sure?” she asked in between poundings. That for sure was going to hurt later.

“Oh, Þ ne, just—gak—Þ ne.”

I Þ nally answered her earlier question, now that I was able to breathe again. “Um, no, they’re not friends of mine,” I told her, taking my notebook from her hands and sliding it and the rest Þ rmly back into my bag. “It’s a comic book thing. They’re characters in a story line I’m following.”

“It’s that one you’re always reading, right,
Love and Rockets
?” she asked me, nodding her head in understanding. “So, it’s good, then?”

“Oh yeah,” I answered enthusiastically, self-consciousness momentarily forgotten. “It’s not like superpowers save the world from aliens or that sort of bullshit. It’s got, like, real people, like, all kinds, you know—black, white, Asian, Hispanic.” I turned my head back to the window and took a drag on my cigarette. “Some different religions, and the people are gay, straight, whatever. You know, real-world stuff.” I glanced at her as I said it, trying not to put any special emphasis on it, just, you know, it was no big deal. “Cool music stuff that the characters are into, the punk scene.”

Samantha looked down at my bag and twisted her lips again in thought. “I’ll have to check it out sometime,” she said Þ nally, and took another drag.

The silence hung on and on. Honestly, if I had to conÞ de in someone, besides Nicky that is, it would have been Samantha. While

• 146 •

PUNK LIKE ME

Kitt passed around the shaving tip, or other swim-related esoterica, Samantha pulled me aside to tell me to just trim and avoid side effects, or how to do other things Kitt suggested without doing permanent damage to my skeletal system.

“Let her shave it, she’s not gonna use it for anything else, anyway,” Samantha had said, her eyes dark and stormy, her mouth a hard line.

She’d been silent, considering an answer, I guess, then smiled, and it was like the sun had come out. “Other people like to be comfortable the rest of the time. Besides, who wants to be that fuckin’ crazy about it?” When looking for loopholes or inconsistencies in the student handbook, she laughed with me and found some more, or pointed out others; she snuck out with me from school, from practice, and from meets for cigarettes, or we’d Þ nd the most obscure places to hang out on the grounds and just shoot the shit, bitching about parents, school, life, school, death, school, you get the picture. She was one person I wanted to talk with, who’d help me get my head on straight, so to speak. The one real friend I had outside of Nicky and Kerry, and I wasn’t sure I could call what Kerry and I were friends either.

And we looked a lot alike too, Samantha and I, same sort of blue eyes and same color hair, same way of standing, walking, even talking.

Except for the height difference, everyone joked we could be twins, we’d been mistaken for one another so often. I didn’t want her to regret our resemblance or come to despise it.

We smoked on until Samantha broke the silence. “Nina, we haven’t really hung out this year, have we,” she stated more than asked.

“No, not really,” I answered her, and it was true. After the party, we hadn’t really spoken much, and during the year so far, I’d been too busy studying to get into much trouble. Mostly we’d been together at practice, and while we spent less time together than usual, when we did it had seemed more intense, more connected somehow. But still, it seemed like we were avoiding each other, too.

“I really wanted to hang out with you this summer, you know, but things were crazy, with, like, all this insurance crap from my dad and all…”

“Yeah, I remember,” I said, “and it’s totally cool, you know. I understand that.” Please, I thought, please don’t talk about the beach.

I peeked at her Þ nally, and Samantha was staring down at the space between us on the seat. “I’m really, really sorry about your dad,” I added sincerely, from the heart. Samantha was ofÞ cially an orphan

• 147 •

now that her father had died, her mother having died before she was two years old, and she had no brothers or sisters. Apparently, neither did her parents, and her grandparents were very, very old and living somewhere in Arizona or someplace.

There had been a lot of concern as to what would happen to her, where she’d live, go to school, all of that, and I knew, because Samantha had told me, that the school had gotten directly involved in trying to make sure she could stay, both in her home and in her classes.

“Me too.” She sighed. “I spent all my free time working on this car, trying to Þ nish what he started, I guess, just be near him, somehow, you know?” And she looked up at me for a second with full eyes and a lopsided grin, then dropped her gaze. “Your birthday present was the nicest thing that happened all summer, and I should have called you more—I’m sorry.”

“’S all right, Sam,” I said. “I Þ gured you needed the space, you know? Room in your head, like.” Ohplease ohplease ohplease let’s not talk any more about the beach, I mentally begged, because as much as I was really listening to Samantha and sincerely cared about what she felt, I was feeling
very
uncomfortable and a little embarrassed, too.

Samantha sighed again. “I guess I did, maybe. Hey.” She looked up with a forced bright smile. “I got a legal guardian over the summer.” ESP worked! Thank you! “Yeah?” I asked with interest. This had been a crucial part of Samantha’s continued attendance and ability to live in the house her father had helped build.

“Yeah, turns out, he’s, like, an old friend of my dad’s, or a really distant relative, or something like that. Anyhow, legally, he’s my uncle Cort, or some such thing—the uncle part, not the name, I mean,” she added hastily.

“Hey, cool!” I was enthusiastic, then sobered instantly. “Do you like him? Is he, like, decent?”

“He’s, um, actually he’s pretty okay,” Samantha answered, considering. “I don’t know him that well yet, but we’ll see. I think I do remember him from when I was really small, I’m not sure. He calls me ‘Sammy Blade.’” She smiled a little shyly, but at least a real smile this time. “And he registered the car and got the custom plate for me, in August, when I was Þ nally done with the chrome work.”

“Cool.” I nodded. “Very cool.”

• 148 •

PUNK LIKE ME

“So, how about you? Anything interesting going on, besides Joey, I mean?” she asked.

I almost choked again. I’d forgotten all about Joey. Jerk. Him, not me. I mean, sometimes he could really get on my nerves. What the hell was I going to do about him? I had to end that—soon, really really soon. It had already gone on longer than I would have normally allowed it.

“Remember how I told you about my brother Nicky’s former classmate, how we’d become buds, you know, Kerry?” I asked, and Samantha nodded. “Well, we’ve just been getting closer, hanging out and stuff, you know, that’s all,” I answered as blandly as I could.

“Nothing, really.”

It stuck in my throat, and I hated myself for saying it. It most certainly wasn’t nothing; it was something, really, truly something, and I crossed my Þ ngers as I’d said it, hoping to somehow negate it. I just didn’t know what else to do or say—I mean, I wasn’t going to tell her exactly just how close we’d been in the last twenty-four hours. I mean, it was still so fresh and new and still mine somehow, well, mine and Kerry’s—ours alone. At least, though, if Samantha heard me talk about Kerry, she’d know it was because we were close.