The Astonishing Adventures of Fan Boy and Goth Girl (29 page)

"And I'll never forget: She said to me, 'This kid, he must be the smartest kid in the freakin' school. He's smarter than the teachers. He had everyone in the class agreeing with him, and we didn't even know what he was talking about.'"

She puts down her empty bottle and reaches into the shadows, from which she conjures another. She twists off the lid, raises it to her lips, then stops, smirking as she gazes at me. "Or are you going to tell me not to do this, either?"

Not a chance in any hell dreamed of in any theology. I shake my head.

"Want one?" she asks.

Again, a head shake.

She drinks. I watch. Seems like a fair deal to me.

I
'D LIKE TO SAY THAT
I
TALK
with her, but the truth of the matter is that
she
talks. I just listen and watch.

She talks about people as if I should know who they are, and I guess I probably should. Just from context, I can tell that these are the crème de la crème of the school, the masters of the top clique of the senior class. In my usual willful ignorance of all things social, I have no idea who they are. If I did, I'd be getting a lot of prime gossip material right now. As it is, I know who's doing whom, who's pretending to do whom, and who swears she never, ever did
that
with
him,
but it's useless information to me. I don't have any faces to put to the names or actions.

But it'll be useful information for
Schemata.
Change the names, tweak the truth, and it's good background for the kids in Courteney's class, a way to make them more rounded, more three-dimensional. I file it away, hoping I'll remember all of it later.

"What about you?" she asks finally. "Who're you here with?"

"Cal."

"Cal?" She gets an expression on her face like I've just offered to dip her hair in pig sweat.

"Yeah. Cal Willingham."

"Oh. Oh.
Him.
Yeah, he's a lacrosse guy, right? Wrestler?"

"Yes." Wow.
Me
she knows as a genius.
Cal
she has to think about.

"You came with him? Are you guys ... you know?" She waggles her hand, wrist limp.

"What? No. Jeez."

Dina shrugs. "OK. Whatever. Just wondering why you didn't come with your girlfriend."

"I don't have a girlfriend."

"Really?"

Now this is just getting stupid. This is starting to edge into unreal territory. I'm discussing my lack of a love life with Dina Jurgens? Stuff like this does
not
happen to guys like me.

More to the point, why does she sound so surprised that I don't have a girlfriend? I mean, even my
mother
doesn't act surprised. Sorry, yes. Surprised, no.

"Why don't you? Have a girlfriend, I mean."

I'm saving myself for you.
I stifle a giggle. Sad, funny, and true all at once.

"Is there a law that I
have
to have one?"

"Well, excuse me for taking an interest." She swigs from the bottle. "Just wondering. I mean, high school is such a bullshit place. It's a little more tolerable with someone else, though."

I goggle at her. Did Dina Jurgens—Senior Goddess, Homecoming Queen, Lady of My Dreams, etc.—just say that high school was a bullshit place? That's like
Kyra
talking. Not someone who has every conceivable advantage. "I guess you're right." I don't know what else to say to that.

"Well, then go get yourself a girlfriend!" She says it sternly, again with the maternal thing. She's just
not
good at it, though. Her version of maternal is the antithesis of motherly. Unless you're Oedipus. But let's not go there.

"It's not that easy."

"Oh, right. The mystery of women." She chuckles. "Just find someone who's cute and you like and tell her she's cute and you like her. It's not brain surgery. You can handle it."

"It's really not that easy." I say it more quietly. I'm starting to get uncomfortable, but not for the same reason that I don't want to stand up.

"It's
exactly
that easy. I'm not saying find someone and propose to her. Just find someone who's cool and funny and likes you and you can have a lot more fun."

"I can't do that." Now I'm mumbling. It's only because we're sitting pretty close to each other that she can hear me.

"Why not?"

I don't say anything. I won't. This has gone far enough already.

"Come on, why not? I'm a girl and I'm
telling
you—"

"No one wants to be my girlfriend, OK?" I say it too loud, loud enough to shock her, really shock her, to the point that she looks a little scared for a second. Scared of skinny little me.

"I just told you to ask—" she starts, calmly.

"It doesn't matter. I'm..." Ah, damn. Don't do this. I sigh and wipe my palms on my jeans. How did I get to this? I'm alone on a gorgeous night with the most beautiful girl in the world, talking about
sex,
and I get to this point. Is this my hidden mutant power—the ability to screw up absolutely any decent situation?

"You're what?"

I shake my head.

"Come on."

"I'm not ... like
them.
"

"Like who?"

I wave in the direction of the house. "Them. The guys that..."
The guys that you hang out with,
I almost say. "The guys that girls like."

"Which guys are those?" Her voice, soft.

"The big guys. The athletes. The good-looking guys. I'm skinny and I'm ... not like them."

"What, you think you're ugly or something?"

She says it innocently. So innocently that I want to smack her, which surprises me, a rage that boils up and then vanishes so quickly that all that's left is rage-residue, like the stuff left in a pot after the water has boiled out.

"I
do
own a mirror," I tell her with all the sarcasm I can muster.

She shakes her head. "Girls are such dopes sometimes. We mature faster, but we can be just as stupid. You know what you are?" I know I'm a bunch of things, but I don't know which one she's going for, so I shake my head. "You're like a ... what do you call it—the thing a caterpillar goes into."

"A chrysalis?"

"Yeah." She leans forward, the blouse spreading open a little bit, glory hallelujah. "I know how it is. You get these shallow chicks, and they see that you're not all pumped up and buff like some of those morons in there. Or your skin's not clear. Or whatever. But they don't get it. That's all like the chrysalis. That's what you go through before you become the butterfly. Guys like you are the ones to watch for."

She's leaning very close to me. I think about her advice. I want to tell her that
she's
the one.
She's
the girl I want for my girlfriend. But that would be stupid. She has a boyfriend. He's in college. That much even
I
know.

She pats my knee. I flinch, overpowered by the sudden, massive wave of arousal. I had thought I was as aroused as I could be. Wrong.

"Don't let 'em get you down," she says, unaware of my flinch. "Someone's gonna understand and appreciate you. It'll happen. Trust me."

You're the most beautiful creature on this planet or any other,
I want to say to her but don't.

And why? Why don't I say it? I think back to all the things in my life I've wanted to say but didn't. Things I wanted to say to the Jock Jerks who torment me, to Cal, to my mother and my father, to Kyra, and to Bendis. And why didn't I say them? Because I was afraid? Because I thought they would make my life worse? How much worse can it get?

Kyra would say it. Kyra would say anything because she's fearless. But I'm no noble Indian warrior. I'm not—

You have no guts.

No kidding.

Dina grins at me. Kyra ... She's inside my thoughts, where I really don't want her to be right now. Because here I am with Dina, with
Dina,
for God's sake! Why can't I get Kyra out of my head?

"You're..." I say, but then lose my nerve. I can't do it.
No guts.
Only now she's looking at me, curiosity and expectation in her eyes. I ransack my cache of lies, stories, and obscure facts, looking for something I can use to end the sentence gracefully, safely, neutrally.
No kidding.

"What?" she asks, tilting her head so that a perfect cascade of pure
blond
washes down into my field of vision.

"You're the..." My throat closes. My hands twitch. Her eyes widen, and now I can't stop myself. "...most beautiful ... most beautiful creature on this planet or any other."

She stares at me, and I try to figure out how to extricate myself from this particular predicament. I need to get up and get away
fast,
before she laughs at me or calls out for a muscle-bound moron to stuff me into a trash can somewhere. I can't get out of here on my own. I'll have to call home, wake up Mom, get her to pick me up. Oh, God, I'll be the lovesick pussy momma's boy who had to have his mommy pick him up from the party...

"That's very sweet," she says. She's being polite. Polite to the screwy, geeky sophomore.

My throat opens up again. I can breathe. "I'm ... I'm sorry," I tell her. "I shouldn't have said that."

"Why not?"

"You probably hear stuff like that all the time."

"You think so?"

"You've got, like, a million friends," I blurt out. Might as well go for broke. "You're the most popular person in school."

And she laughs. But not
at
me. Not even at
me.
She's just laughing a sad little laugh, a knowing little laugh. "You know what people tell me? Do you want to know?" I bob my head. "The girls I hang out with ... They tell me I'm pretty and I'm so lucky to be a natural blonde and they wish they had my body. And at first it sounded great, but after a while you hear the jealousy in it, as if it's my fault somehow that I have blond hair or good boobs. And the
guys
...I like to look in people's eyes, and guys just stare at my chest and I know they're watching when I walk away. And they're
always
trying to get into your pants, and even a compliment ... I mean, they're just looking to get some, looking to score."

Then why dress like that? Why make it so we can't
help
looking at you? I don't get it. I don't understand.

Maybe I don't like guys who are drooling idiots.
Kyra's voice, in my head, so strong and real that I can't hear anything but. What's happening to me?

"I'm sorry." I'm mumbling now, ashamed, but I make myself look into Dina's eyes. "I didn't mean—"

She's confused, and then she realizes what I mean. "I didn't mean
you
. Your compliment was so sweet and so real. I can tell you're not like the others." She reaches out and takes my hand to reassure me.

But I am!
I want to scream but don't, and this time I will
not
say it. But I know that I
am
just like the others, that I want her so badly I would reach into my chest and pull out my own heart for her, that I've stroked her with my eyes more times than I can count, caressed her in fantasies without number. I meant everything I said to her, but I meant everything I
didn't
say, too. And if she didn't look like this, if she didn't
dress
like this, it might be a different world and a different story. If she didn't look so perfect, maybe...

I'm caught in a crossroads. I'm paralyzed. Her hands, holding mine, burn and burn and burn. I'm helpless and lost and I don't know what to do or say. My brain's too full and my body's off on its own. I just can't handle this.

And then it happens.

She leans in more and there's a little tilt to her lips, a little smile, almost like Kyra's magic grin, only without a piercing. But almost the same.

But no ring. No ring. It's missing.

She kisses me. Her lips on mine. I freeze solid, but I thaw
fast.
It's just a chaste little kiss, a favor, a boon from a Senior Goddess, lips on lips, but nothing more, and then it becomes something more, and I think of coal smudges on my lips, black lipstick pressed between us, but this is Dina, right, not Kyra, why Kyra, stop Kyra, and then somehow Dina's got my mouth open using
her
mouth, which is soft, the lips firm and moist, but red, not jet black. She tastes sweet. Like sugar and something else. Alcohol, I guess. Beer. Wine. Can I get drunk from kissing someone who's drunk? I
feel
drunk. My head's spinning, but in a good way. She's still holding my hand, and now she moves it, and now I'm doing more than just kissing a Senior Goddess. It's a little bigger than my hand, and full, and heavy, and somehow strong. Is this...? Is this how
hers
would—

Stop it. Stop it. Don't think of that, don't think of her that way. It's wrong. She's a friend. It's wrong to think of touching and kissing a friend, but why is it all right to think of that with strangers? And she's not my friend anymore, is she? I don't—God. Oh, God.

Don't ask me how long it lasts. I don't know. I haven't the slightest idea. But she breaks contact and puts my hand into my lap, where it blessedly covers up the all-too-evident proof of my arousal. She leans back, wipes her lips, looks at me.