The Boy Recession (23 page)
Authors: Flynn Meaney
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / General
H
ey-o!” I call out to Eugene and Derek as I stroll down the dock to Eugene’s sailboat.
It’s the first day of summer vacation, and there’s an awesome wind for sailing. Eugene and Derek are already on the boat, waiting for me.
“You’re late!” Eugene tells me as I climb over the side. He’s got the boat all ready for sailing. Derek isn’t helping at all, but to be fair, he’s still got the cast on. “Damn, Huntro,” he says, and whistles. “Check you out!”
I’m wearing a polo shirt and khakis. These are the nicest clothes I’ve had on since prom, which was a month and a half ago.
“Did your girlfriend dress you up?” Eugene asks.
“Nah.” I shake my head, hopping up onto one of the side railings. “I had a job interview!”
“What?” Eugene squawks, taking off his sunglasses to examine me. “Seriously?”
“Hell, yeah. And I got the job!”
“What is it?”
“I’m teaching guitar lessons at the music school. I put Derek down as a reference. He told them how I taught him to play guitar in a month and got him his first public gig.”
“It’s all true,” Derek says, sitting up to stretch and accidentally knocking his hat off. “I also told them I was recovering from an injury at the time, so you have experience working with the disabled.”
“Well, it worked,” I say. “I’ve got a job.”
“First day of summer and you’re already employed,” Derek says, putting his hat back on. “Pretty impressive, Huntro.”
“Actually, it’s not that impressive,” Eugene contradicts him, stepping over Derek to do something with a rope. “Considering he started job-hunting over a year ago.”
“Hey!” I say to Eugene. “Gimme some credit, dude. I’m wearing a shirt with a collar.”
“All right. Are we ready to set sail?” he asks.
I hop down from my railing, go sit by Derek, and take out my phone.
“We gotta wait for Kelly,” I tell Eugene. “She’s on her way. Is Bobbi coming out with us?”
Eugene shakes his head.
“She’s away on a retreat.”
Derek, who’s scratching all around the edge of his cast,
looks up to say, “I thought you guys were going on a retreat next week.”
“That’s a different retreat,” Eugene says, rolling his eyes. “The one she’s on now is the Christian teen retreat. The one I have to go to with her is the young Christian couples retreat.”
“Well, look at you,” I say to Eugene, as I put my foot up on Derek’s cast. “Saintly little gingerbread boy.”
He tries to whip me with a rope, but he completely fails at it.
Eugene and Bobbi are back together, and Eugene is dealing with the fact that he can’t flirt with other girls and that Bobbi still won’t let him touch her boobs. Seriously, though, I think he’s pretty happy. But Eugene’s not the only dude around here with a girlfriend. I’ve got one, too. I’ve got a job, a shirt with a collar, and a girlfriend. And this girlfriend is actually
not
a psycho, which is a step up from Diva. Kelly and I have been dating since the prom. We never actually decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I just kept asking her to hang out, and we kept hanging out until one day Derek or Eugene or someone referred to her as my girlfriend, and she seemed to be okay with it.
But I have to keep reminding myself she’s my girlfriend—like now, as she comes down the dock with Darcy, and she’s laughing and the wind is blowing her hair and she looks completely awesome. At times like this, I realize that this whole year and all the crap I had to deal with were all worth it. This year was so ridiculous for me—being in
the play, getting that ulcer, learning how to dance, cutting my hair, going to the emergency room, getting yelled at for my grades, getting yelled at for wearing a blue-green shirt instead of a blue shirt. But I guess dealing with all that bullshit got me off my ass so Kelly noticed me.
And now she’s actually my girlfriend. She must be, because after I help her onto the boat, she kisses me.
“Congrats on the job!” Kelly says. “That’s so exciting! You are going to be an awesome teacher.”
Kelly was the first person I called after I got the job. I called her even before I called Derek, and he was my reference.
I help Darcy onto the boat, too, and when she sees Derek lying on the deck, she glares at him.
“I would’ve helped you!” Derek says. “But I can’t stand up!”
“You wouldn’t have helped me either way,” Darcy says.
“Come here.” Derek stretches both arms out to Darcy. “Come here and kiss me, wife.”
Derek always tells Darcy that they’re gonna get married, but when he says it, Darcy shoots him the same no-chance-in-hell look she’s got on her face right now. Derek and Darcy are not dating. But they do actually hook up sometimes. It wasn’t just at prom—that was the only time they made out in public, but apparently they’ve made out a few other times since. Kelly told me that Darcy hooks up with Derek only in dark or sketchy places, the way girls used to hook up with me. Darcy and Kelly sit down on
either side of me, and Kelly says, “Eugene, your boat is really nice! When Hunter told me you kept all your beer on a boat, I was kind of picturing a canoe with a few cases of Milwaukee’s Second-Best on it.”
“Do you have life jackets on here?” Darcy asks.
Kelly turns to me and says in a low voice, “Aviva makes us watch
Titanic
every weekend. It’s made Darcy a little paranoid.”
“I gave a seminar on nautical safety earlier,” Eugene tells Darcy sarcastically. “You missed it because you were
late
.”
“Sorry, Eugene,” Kelly says. “We were saying good-bye to Aviva. She’s leaving for engineering camp.”
“Seriously?” I say. “I didn’t even know she liked math.”
“Oh, she hates it,” Kelly says. “But engineering camp is eighty percent guys.”
“So she’s looking for a dude?” Derek asks.
“No, surprisingly,” Darcy says. “She’s going undercover to report on it. She’s calling it ‘The Girl Recession.’ She’s gonna be gone for six weeks!”
“Don’t worry,” Derek says, grabbing on to the railing and pulling himself up. “I’ll keep you company when she’s away.”
He grabs on to the mast and supports himself while he hops over to Darcy. She doesn’t help him at all, but when he sits down, she smiles. Derek looks at me and mouths the words
Feelin’ the kid.
Eugene, who’s leaning over the side of the boat, untying
the dock rope and giving us all a nice full view of his ass, turns back to ask, “Everyone ready to set sail?”
For some reason, everyone else looks at me, like I’m the decision-maker or something. Darcy is trying to wrestle a cigarette lighter out of Derek’s hand, but they both stop and look up at me. So I shrug, put my arm around Kelly, and give Eugene the signal.
“Let’s go for it,” I say.
Bloodthirsty
MANY THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE: my agent, Dan Lazar, who handles all the aspects of publishing that I’m clueless about; my editor, Elizabeth Bewley, who worked tirelessly to help me find this story’s focus and direction; everyone else at Writers House and Little, Brown; Rachel Markwiese, who gave me the inside scoop on Whitefish Bay; my family and friends, especially the ones who visited me at the library and entertained me on Gchat while I rewrote and revised this manuscript; and all the people whose names I borrowed for characters (with or without permission).
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Flynn Meaney
Book design by Saho Fujii
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ISBN 978-0-316-20256-5