The Boy Recession (18 page)

After that visit, Eugene felt bad, so he did me a bunch of favors. He went and told Mrs. Martin that I was on my deathbed and couldn’t come to rehearsal. He started bringing me messages from school—homework from my teachers that I threw out right away, desperate pleas from George, who had to take my place as Billy Flynn and was going nuts from dealing with Diva. Today I’m lying in bed, feeling pretty great about not being Billy Flynn, when my dad yells up the stairs, “Hunter! Wake up, champ! You have a visitor!”

I hear someone coming up the stairs and I figure it’s Eugene again, so I keep playing BrickBreaker on my phone and call out, “You got death threats or rosary beads today, gingerbread boy?”

But it’s not Eugene—it’s Diva. She stomps really loudly into my room, wearing a big coat that looks like it’s made out of a dead bear. I wonder what made her finally decide to risk her precious lymph nodes to visit me.

“Hello, Hunter,” Diva says. “How are you feeling?”

“Uh… okay,” I say cautiously.

“Oh, so you feel
okay
about cheating on me?” Diva says, putting her hand on her hip.

What the hell? Is this girl delusional?
Diva stomps the snow off her leather bitch boots and says, “I know about Kelly Robbins.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Two people in school have mono,” Diva informs me. “You are one of them, and Kelly is the other.”

“How did she get it?” I ask, genuinely confused.

The look on Diva’s face says,
Are you a complete moron?

“So, what, are you
denying
it now? You’re denying you guys hooked up? I don’t get it, Hunter.”

I start to tell her that nothing happened, but then I realize something:
This is my way out.
Sure, this girl is looming over me like she’s Godzilla and I’m a flimsy Japanese building, but I always knew this breakup would be violent, and I gotta do it sometime. This time is as good as any. “Uh, no,” I say. “I guess I’m not denying it.”

“We are over,” Diva tells me. “We are completely over. And don’t think about coming crawling back to me. I don’t want your gross disease.”

Swinging her hair, Diva stomps out of my room, calling over her shoulder, “I’m never speaking to you again. Except for when I have to, in the musical.”

Once she’s gone, this huge weight lifts off my shoulders. I don’t have a girlfriend anymore. I can wear whatever color shirt I want. I can walk down the hallway at school without getting harassed. I’m free.

And it was Kelly who set me free. Kelly
was
my escape. I could kiss that girl. And ya know what? I will kiss that girl. As soon as I get back to school, I’m gonna grab her, and I’m gonna kiss her.

S
o does Diva still hate me?” I ask, propping myself up in bed with a bunch of pillows and stuffed animals my little sister, Lila, lent me to make me feel better.

This is my second sick visit from Darcy and Aviva. When they came over last week, Darcy was wearing a surgical mask and wouldn’t come past the doorway. But over the weekend she did some research and found out I can only give it to her if she shares my toothbrush or lip gloss or kisses me. So today she’s actually in my room, organizing homework assignments for me. Aviva brought me a chai tea latte from Starbucks (“This counts as fluids, right?”). This is why I need two best friends.

“I think she’s toned down the hostility a little bit,” Aviva says, curling up on the foot of my bed. “Here, let me
check my phone…. Okay, her last Tweet about you was a whole twelve hours ago. That’s progress!”

“What was it?”

“ ‘Still hating that diseased hussy,’ ” Aviva says. “Oh, and there’s a sad face, too.”

“But she doesn’t have mono yet?” I ask hopefully.

“I wish,” Aviva says. “It gives you a sore throat, right? Maybe if she got it, she would shut up for a few days. Or give up singing.”

“No one else has mono yet?”

“No one else. Just you and Hunter,” Darcy says from my desk, where she’s rubbing antibacterial gel into her hands. “It’s so weird. It’s actually ironic. You know what you have? Ironic mono.”

“I know, I know.”

“It really is ironic!” Darcy continues, fascinated. “I mean, you got mono, but you didn’t even get kissed!”

“I know,” I snap.

“But you did have that almost-kiss,” Aviva says. “Which I still don’t understand, by the way. What is an almost-kiss?”

I must have explained what happened between Hunter and me under the lab table five times, but Aviva still doesn’t get it. She pulls her knitting out of her giant purse—she heard the actors from
Gossip Girl
were knitting one another scarves, and she decided to knit me a get-well one—and waits for an explanation.

“I told you we just had that moment
before
a kiss. You
know, you’re looking at each other, and you know it’s about to happen.”

Aviva shakes her head. “I don’t think I ever had that moment. I usually dive-bomb them.”

I sigh and slump back into my pillow pile. I hate being sick. I’ve been out of school for only four days, and I already feel like I’m behind on everything. On top of that, there’s the Hunter situation. Diva is going around school telling people I stole her boyfriend, but I didn’t steal him. If I stole him, I would actually have him.

“But the ironic mono was actually
good
!” Darcy says. “The ironic mono broke up Hunter and Diva. He’s single now, thanks to the mono. And you’re single now, too.”

That’s true. I am single—Johann and I broke up in the nurse’s office the day I got mono. I had been feeling bad all day, and finally Johann convinced me to go to the nurse’s office. He stayed with me while I waited to get my temperature taken, and I felt so sick and also guilty about not really liking a nice guy like Johann. Finally I started to cry, and poor Johann was totally bewildered. When I pulled myself together, I didn’t know how to explain what was wrong. Everything seemed wrong.

“You’re so nice,” I began, between my gasps. “You’re so nice to sit here when I’m sick, and gross, and…”

“It’s okay.” Johann shrugged and patted my arm.

“Don’t…. You don’t have to touch me,” I told Johann apologetically, as I shifted loudly against the really noisy crinkly paper on the nurse’s exam table.

“Um, Kelly?” Johann said. “Do you think we… Do you think we should be really going out? It’s just… every time I touch you or anything, you tell me not to.”

“No, I don’t!” I protested.

But what he was saying was true.

“I feel bad that you’ve been sick so much,” Johann continued. “But maybe we should… I don’t know, do you think you should just focus on getting better for now?”

Always the gentleman, Johann was even considerate while he was dumping me. Even now, a week later, I feel guilty and awkward when I think about him.

“You
are
single!” Aviva realizes, looking up from her very tangled knitting. “
Ooh
, you should ask Hunter to the prom!”

“The prom?” I say. “There’s still snow on the ground! Isn’t it a little early?”

“Not according to the female population of Julius,” Darcy says, rolling her eyes. “You’ve been missing the mass panic that started last week. A few girls got dates, and then everyone without a date got freaked out. Pam is selling copies of her prom contract. And Kristin Chung asked
George
!”

“Ew!” I gasp in horror.

The whole time she’s talking, Darcy’s also writing on yellow Post-its, filling them up with homework assignments and tips on lessons that I’ve missed.

“It’s ridiculous. I’ve been trying to do the Women’s History Month agenda in student senate, but the prom
committee updates take up forty-five minutes every week. The whole meeting dissolves into people whining about not having dates and fighting over dates! I have to buy a gavel. Or some pepper spray.”

Darcy’s next Post-it has
PEPPER SPRAY
written on it in huge letters.

“Darcy just has no sympathy,” Aviva tells me. “Because she has a date.”

“What’s this?” I ask, sitting up and sipping my chai tea.

At my desk, Darcy is shaking her head. “I do not have a date. I have an offer, which I’m going to refuse.”

“Derek Palewski.” Aviva grins at me over her knitting needles.

“Darcy, he is your husband,” I tease. “The least you could do is take him to the prom.”

“No way. He doesn’t meet any of my requirements. He smokes. He has, like, nine body piercings. He wears flip-flops when he’s not at the beach. He doesn’t have a 4.0 GPA or a 401(k).”

Aviva rolls her eyes. “Darcy, no one can live up to those standards.”

“Viva, who are you taking?” I ask.

Picking up a stitch, Aviva says casually, “I’m thinking about getting a prostitute.”

I look over at Darcy. “If most people told me that, I would be surprised.”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “It’s not technically prostitution. Eugene’s setting people up with prom dates for money.”

“Who are these dates? Julius guys?”

“No, no,” Aviva says. “He’s got a good selection! He’s got private-school guys, college guys, this big basketball star from Milwaukee…. He’s got a whole binder full of guys, with head shots and everything. The boy binder. He let me peek at it. He said he’s not done recruiting, though.”

“Did you see someone you liked?”

“I don’t have to
like
him,” Aviva informs me. “I’m a career girl. I’m just using him for my article: ‘My Night with a Prom-stitute.’ Can you think of a catchier title than that?”

“Um…”

“I should snatch one up soon, though,” Aviva says. “Remind me to put my deposit down on a hot date. Here, Darce, gimme a Post-it.”

“So lots of people have dates already?” I ask. “Do you think someone will ask Hunter?”

“Not if you ask him first,” Aviva says.

“Do you want my phone?” Darcy asks, standing up to deliver Aviva’s Post-it.

Aviva scribbles
DATE
on it, and then sticks it on her own forehead.

“You can call him right now and ask him.”

“I can’t call him,” I say. “He’s in bed with mono, and he just got dumped.”

“Exactly!” Darcy says. “Perfect timing.”

“I’ll look completely desperate!”

“But he likes you,” Aviva says, looking at me from under her Post-it. “He almost kissed you.”

“I don’t know. I think I need to ask Hunter in person,” I say. “I need to feel him out first, read his body language, and see how he feels about the whole Diva thing before I ask him.”

“So ask him when he gets better,” Darcy says.

“But what if
he
gets better before
I
get better, and he shows up at school, and someone asks him?”

“They could,” Aviva acknowledges. “He looks a lot better since that haircut.”

“Yeah, no one would have asked him with his old hair,” Darcy says. “They wouldn’t have even been able to find him. He was like the yeti.”

I moan and put my hand on my forehead, which is really hot.

“It will be fine!” Darcy says.

“Yeah. If he gets back and a girl tries to talk to him, Darce and I will run interference,” Aviva says. “We’ll hip-check her into the lockers.”

“But hopefully we won’t have to,” Darcy says, glaring at Aviva. “Seeing as we could get
suspended
for that.
Hopefully
, Kelly will rest up and get better by the time Hunter gets better.”

“He got mono first,” I say doubtfully. “He has a week head start on me.”

“It’s a race!” Darcy says. “And you’re going to win.
You’re going to get fluids, take Advil, and rest. And you’re going to win.”

“A mono race?” I say, raising one eyebrow.

“That’s gonna be the slowest race,” Aviva says, “since the tortoise and the tortoise.”

I
t’s the first night of
Chicago
, and Eugene is patting me down in one of the band practice rooms.

“Okay, I think you’re ready,” he says. “You’ve got your suit. You’ve got your vest. You’ve got your cravat. You’ve got your stickpin. You’ve got your cuff links. You’ve got your pocket square. Did I forget anything?”

“No clue. I don’t know what half of that stuff is,” I tell him as he kneels down to pull my pants down over my dress shoes. While Eugene’s shining my shoe with his handkerchief, I look at his watch and realize there’s only a half-hour until the show starts. Have I really been getting dressed for, like, twenty minutes?

“This took forever,” I say. “How do stylish dudes put all this stuff on every day?”

Eugene stands up and sighs, putting his handkerchief back in his pocket.

“It’s a real burden on us,” he says.

I look down.

“Don’t you think these are kinda tight?” I ask Eugene, pulling the fly of the pants away from my crotch.

“This is how clothes fit, Huntro,” Eugene informs me. “You’re a man, not a scarecrow.”

“I guess.”

Eugene opens the practice room’s door and runs out to grab a mirror. When he comes back and holds it up to me, I whistle.

“Holy crap,” I say. “I look like that douchebag who’s dating the other Kardashian sister.”

“Don’t hate on Scott Disick,” Eugene warns me. “He’s my fashion role model.”

My hair has a crapload of gel in it, so it looks wet, but when I touch it, it feels all crunchy. You can see the comb marks going through it, in perfect lines, and Pam slathered makeup all over my face. But the suit actually looks good.
“Hmmm.”

Eugene isn’t totally satisfied. He’s tapping his finger against his chin.

“Aha! I know what you’re missing,” he says, and takes off his huge bling-bling watch and puts it on my wrist. “The final touch,” he says, and we go out into the band room.

It’s total chaos in here, because the entire cast is get
ting ready. All the chorus girls are running around, crashing into one another like bumper cars, and Pam is screaming at them, “Stop running around! Your sequins are falling off! You’re losing sequins!
Freeze! Freeze!
”