Sway (12 page)

“Yeah, I told her the line you said to use.”

“And?”

“It made her happy.”

“All right, then. Ready for phase two?” I asked.

“Is there an eventual relationship with a girl in my future, or are you and I just becoming besties?”

“Patience, son,” I said. “I talked to Bridget today and she said she was coming to the game tonight.”

“Yeah?” His gaze drifted to the bleachers as he studied the crowd.

“You find me after the game,” I said. “I'll bring her to you.”

“What are you going to do?” Ken called after me as I walked away.

“Confidential,” I said over my shoulder.

From my vantage point at the top of the bleachers, I saw Bridget when she arrived with two of her girlfriends about fifteen minutes later. Her hair was swept back in a French braid but she still reached up every once in a while to tug at the tendrils of hair that had escaped the braid. Her nervous habit, like everything else about her, was completely familiar to me now. As was the feeling I got in my gut every time I saw her.

At halftime I watched as Bridget and her friends went to the refreshment stand to buy drinks. A guy approached her as she waited in line, one of the kids from the drama club I had seen her with on a few occasions. I knew he was gay, even if he didn't make that fact public, so I didn't really pay it much mind. It bothered me that when I saw her talking to other guys, my hackles would rise. I didn't like the way men looked at her, because I knew what they were thinking when they did.

By the third quarter, a dull ache had started behind my left eye. The drone of the announcer's voice and the horrible selection of music were enough to make my teeth ache. It was no wonder high school students were regularly driven to take the lives of their classmates before taking their own. I mean, One Direction? Really? How does that not violate some child protection law?

When the countdown clock reached two minutes of the last quarter, the loudspeaker pumped out the inevitable Gary Glitter “Rock and Roll Part 2,” and by then I thought I might throw up the hot dog I had eaten. I was glad Joey wasn't with me. She would have told me that this assignment wasn't worth any amount of money, and she would have been right. I hated it when Joey was right.

As the rest of the crowd watched the thrilling Wakefield victory, I was moving into position. Bridget stepped into the aisle to start down the stairs just as I was passing her row. The herd was choking the exit, so I'd have a couple of minutes to talk to her.

“Hey,” she said with a smile when she noticed me.

“Hey, yourself,” I said as we shuffled slowly down the stairs amidst the crowd. The back of her hand bumped mine and the shock it sent through my body almost made me stumble-trip down the stairs. In that brief touch, I felt the coolness of the night air in her skin, her softness. Had she been any other girl, I would have taken her hand then and made sure she knew that I wanted her.

But Bridget wasn't any other girl. She was
the
girl.

The people around us seemed to melt away and my headache dissipated.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“I'm heading to a party after the game,” I said. “What about you?”

She huffed out a little sigh and said, “My dad's picking me up in about thirty minutes. He doesn't like for me to stay out late. I looked for you yesterday when I went to visit my grandmother.”

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I was hoping I would see you.”

“Why hoping?” I asked.

“I don't know,” she said like it was no big thing, but I noticed color rise in her cheeks. Intriguing. “I thought maybe we could get together sometime. Go out for a movie or something.”

“You mean like some kind of community service thing?” I asked. “Some kind of outreach program for a beautiful girl to give a totally average guy better self-esteem?”

“I don't think there's anything average about you,” she said as she looked at me through hooded eyes. My heart palpitated crazily and I had to take an awkward shuddering breath. “Who are you here with?” she asked, but I was distracted by the sight of Ken looming ahead.

Ken's timing was just about perfect, and damn if he wasn't a ruggedly good-looking son of a bitch, the cut of his perfect physique accentuated by the football uniform. From his advantage of height, he had seen us approaching through the crowd, with eyes only for Bridget.

“Hey, Ken,” I said, feigning some surprise at finding him in our path.

“Hey, Alderman,” he said.

“Bridget, you know Ken, right?” I said.

“Sure. Of course,” she said with a smile, and I could sense Ken's heart reacting to Bridget the same way mine had. “You played a great game.”

“Thanks,” he said. His smile was somewhat sheepish and he had perfected the “aw, shucks” tilt of his head to such a degree that I imagined it got him laid on a weekly.

“Ken was just saying to me before the game how he thinks the work you do at the Siegel Center is so great,” I said casually.

“Really?” Bridget asked as she turned to look on Ken with new eyes. “How did that come up?”

“He was telling me about his cousin Jamie,” I cut in before Ken could ruin the conversation. “She has Down syndrome and they were really close growing up.”

Ken had started to sputter a little, but I salvaged the situation. “Don't be embarrassed,” I said as I gave his shoulder a friendly smack. “I won't tell Bridget there were tears in your eyes while you were talking about how much you hated it when people made fun of your cousin.”

Ken shot me a nervous glance, his eyes wide with a question as Bridget's heart started to bleed everywhere. “Jesse,” she said with a warning in her voice. “That isn't funny.”

“I'm just giving him a hard time,” I said.

“You know,” Bridget said to Ken. “You should come with me to the Siegel Center sometime. The kids would love it and you can get your community service hours for the President's Volunteer Service Award.”

Jesus, people were so predictable. It never ceased to amaze me that I knew them better than they knew themselves. I had given Ken the impression that my plan was somehow premeditated. In truth, the idea for the fake cousin with Down syndrome had struck me during the game, during the third and unnecessary rendition of Queen's “We Will Rock You.” Sheer brilliance.

“That would be great,” Ken was saying. “It would—” He stalled by clearing his throat, but his hesitation came across as suppressed emotion, so it worked perfectly. “—it would really make Jamie happy to hear that I was doing something like that.”

“You should totally bring her,” Bridget said with such enthusiasm that I almost experienced a twinge of guilt. Almost.

Here's the thing—I was going to set Bridget up with Ken, fulfill my contractual obligation to him. Had I believed that I was truly capable of loving Bridget, I might not have gone through with it. And anyway, my theory was that once Bridget got to know Ken a little, she would tire of him quickly, would see him for what he really was. I'd just let nature take its course.

I could have used my powers to make her mine. And if you didn't already see where that would get us, you clearly haven't been paying attention up to this point. In the real world, Beauty doesn't fall for Beast and live happily ever after. In the real world, Beast deflowers Beauty. Beast breaks Beauty's heart. Beauty engages in self-destructive behavior like sleeping around too much in college, thereby furthering the negative emotional impact inflicted by Beast. It was a sad story.

“Yeah, well, she lives in Maine,” Ken said, and I was impressed by his improvisational skills. Not bad for a meathead. “We spent summers there, when I was a kid.”

“Oh, well, you should still come and volunteer,” Bridget said earnestly. “You could teach the kids a few football moves. We're working on developing their gross motor skills and building their confidence through sports.”

Wow. Baffling. Where did all that goodness come from?

“You too, Jesse,” Bridget said, returning her attention to me, whether to keep me from feeling left out or because she really thought I had something to offer the Siegel Center kids, I couldn't be sure. Her lack of self-interest made her difficult to read. “You should volunteer. Pete would love to have you around.”

And the Beast reared its ugly head, frightening the poor Beauty and driving her into the arms of her Prince Charming.

“Are you joking?” I asked her. “You think I don't have anything better to do?”

“Hey, easy,” Ken said. A gentle warning for me to back off.

And then Bridget's doe eyes were on him and our fates were sealed.

“Whatever, man,” I said, “I have a party to get to. You'll wait with Bridget till her dad gets here to pick her up?” I asked as I extended a hand to shake Ken's.

“Yeah, sure,” he said as he stepped in closer to her to assume his role as protector.

“I'll see you around,” I said to Bridget as I turned to walk away. “Tell Pete I said hey.” My tone was casual and indifferent, but I could feel bile rising in my throat and I was sick to my stomach. Truly sick. Even though I knew that giving Bridget the blowoff was the right thing to do, I still hated walking away from her, leaving her with Ken.

 

SEVENTEEN

Saturday morning I woke in a strange bed and for a disorienting moment could not remember where I was. I felt the weight of another person on the bed beside me but I didn't open my eyes to see who it was.

After a few minutes, the previous night's events started to come back to me. A kegger at the Phi Delt fraternity house featuring some lame local band—more sorority girls with low self-esteem and spray tans than you could shake a stick at. The one who lay across my arm was petite and raven-haired, her face puffy and smeared with makeup. The old coyote ugly joke came to my mind as I carefully slipped my arm out from under her head.

I switched over to the local radio station as I drove home that morning. I hardly ever listen to regular radio because the music is mostly crap and listening to the radio in a car is like my own personal version of hell—strapped to a seat and forced to listen to the same shite music on a continuous loop. But this morning I was curious to get an update about how things were going at the car wash.

The announcer was a woman speaking with way too much enthusiasm for 11
A.M
. on a Saturday, broadcasting live from the Suds 'n' Shine on Main. The Wakefield senior class fund-raiser featured DJ Kiddush, a well-known DJ on the Boston club circuit, who was spinning his mixes of the latest dance music.

Sam Kline had been a student of my dad's, a musician with an incredible talent to play any stringed instrument. He had always been on the small side and was kind of a sickly kid with a slight stammer. His junior year of college, Sam had shaved his hair into a Mohawk, pierced his lip, got contacts to replace his glasses, and started wearing obscure anime T-shirts. He renamed himself DJ Kiddush, bought a MacBook, and flooded social media with his remixes of popular dance tunes.

I pulled up at the car wash to check on my investment and was satisfied to see a dozen cars waiting on line, guys lined up against the side of the building to leer at the university cheerleaders in their skimpy uniforms.

I was in conversation with DJ Kiddush when Gray Dabson approached me with a broad smile, his Adam's apple protruding grotesquely out of his shirt collar. “Hey, Jesse. This is unbelievable,” Gray said with such enthusiasm, it made me wince in my hungover state. “Half the town has turned out to get their cars washed by the university cheerleaders. I guess I got the right man for the job when I hired you.”

Gray was apparently in his element when he was taking credit for the work of others, one of the most telling signs of a poor leader.

“There's a forty-five-minute wait right now for a wash,” Gray continued, oblivious of the fact that I still had not said a word. He was puffed up with his own inflated sense of self-importance. “But not for you, of course. We'll put you right at the front of the line. It's the least I can do.” He practically snapped his fingers at a freshman kid who was hovering nearby and called him over to us. “Miles,” Gray said, his tone now weighted with some imagined authority, “tell the guys Jesse's car is next and to see that it gets the full treatment.”

“Miles,” I said, clapping a hand on his shoulder and giving him a slight shake, “if I see you, or anyone else, touch my car, I'll rip off your arm and beat you with it. Understand?”

Kiddush barked out a laugh and shook his head as he put his headphones back over his ears.

“Uh, sure,” Miles said, shooting a glance at Gray, who now had beads of sweat on his brow though it wasn't unseasonably warm.

Kiddush held out a fist for me to bump but was already back in his BPM world as I turned to leave. As I strolled away, Gray fell into step beside me and shooed Miles with a discreet flick of his hand.

“The Jammin' Java guys have been selling coffee and pastries all morning to people who are waiting on line. Inviting them to set up coffee and food sales was a stroke of genius,” Gray said.

“You're due a thirty percent cut of whatever business they do during the wash,” I said as I walked over to say hello to the cheerleaders. “Make sure you get an accounting from them before they leave for the day.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem, Sway,” Gray said quickly.

“Don't call me that,” I snapped.

“Okay … uh … Jesse, no problem.”

The university cheerleaders were laughing and chatting gaily as I approached, searching for the familiar head of auburn hair. Courtney. She was bent over, scrubbing the fender of an Acura; two guys with potbellies, their poor life choices evident from their wardrobe, stood to one side, watching her with undisguised lust. I didn't fault them for it. I had spent most of my formative years under the same spell.