The Cake is a Lie (30 page)

My cell phone alarm went off. One hour.
I’d pretty much forgotten about the cigar incident but I took a big
sigh of relief anyways. I wasn’t drugged. I was safe.

I’d been meaning to say something to
Wendy Acer for a while so I went over to her, reaching my hand up
for a big high five. Reluctantly, she shyly reached up and tapped
my hand.

“
Hey I’m sorry for what
happened in class Wendy, I feel embarrassed about it.” In world
history one of our classmates, Ahba, had been finishing a
presentation about her religion, Hinduism, when she went on a
tangent about cultural acceptance because some kids had made fun of
her bindi dot.

“
Any questions?” She’d
finished.

My arm hung menacingly in the air. “Why
should I respect Hinduism? Where women are second hand citizens.
Where there’s a caste system based around which social group you’re
born into. A whole class of ‘untouchables.’ I noticed you didn’t
talk about those issues in your presentation.”

“
It’s just a very different
culture. It’d be hard for you to understand. Plus there’s been a
lot of reform recently.” Her equally sassy counter-argument struck
me like a flint.

“
Your backwards religion has
been internally oppressing for 5000 years! Fuck Hinduism! Fuck your
dot and fuck you, you dweeb!”

The teacher, Mr. Hardaway, pulled me
into the hallway. “Marco, I know about your mom. I’m very, very
sorry. Take the week off.”

“
It’s okay,” Wendy said.
“After you left Mr. Hardaway told us about your mom. He turned it
into this whole lesson. He spent the rest of class talking about
how personal crises’ can cause people to lash out in anger. People
told their own similar stories. Ahba cried and said she had no
idea.”

I dropped my mouth open. “He can’t do
that. Can he do that?” I felt like the butt of a big joke. Wendy
laughed, “It even kept going for the first half of the next
class.”

“
All this time I’d thought I
struck a huge blow for universal rights.” I said in
disbelief.

The blue packaging of a tooth whitening
strip on the floor caught my eye. I walked over sleuth-like and
picked it up... Scanning the floor I spotted another one, this time
suspiciously underneath two girls. I walked up to them. “Did you
guys steal my whitening strips?”

One of the girls started laughing
wildly while the other inconsistently stared back at me with a
worried look. I’d never seen them before, they looked 14. How do 14
year old girls I’ve never seen before end up here? Before I could
even say anything else a big thud produced one of my cologne
bottles on the floor beneath the laughing girl’s jacket. This
caused her to laugh even harder.

“
Ya, laugh it up. You’re so
hilarious. You’re not sleazy at all.” I tried my best to be scary
but they weren’t very intimidated. The comedian started emptying
her coat of my toiletries, dropping them on the ground too.
Handfuls of white strips, lotions, deodorant, soap, even my
toothpaste.

“
I’m sorry, my friend’s
really drunk, we’re leaving.” The concerned girl started herding
her friend on as I frantically tried to gather everything off the
wood floor covered in a half-inch of dried beer.

“
Haha, did you just get
robbed by some little girls, Caldirolis?” On my hands and knees, I
heard Justyn’s voice.

“
Little girls? They’re
straight professionals. They’ve probably hit every party in this
town. They even went for my toothpaste.” I stood up with my arms
full of toiletries.

“
Hey Justyn, I heard you
knocked out, Robby. Is that true?”

“
Oh ya?” Justyn shrugged
with pride, “He tried to jack me 40 dollars like it was no big
deal. So I went up to him and said pay me or we’re fighting. And he
laughed at me and said ‘alright’ like I was bluffing. So I gave him
a little shimmy. A quick side pivot with a hard right. Bam. One hit
and he was done.”[26]

“
That’s crazy man, he’s
gotta have 30 pounds on you.”

“
Size doesn’t always matter.
Remember me when you take over the world Caldirolis. I could be the
head of your secret police.” Laughing I scurried my toiletries back
to a safe room.

[26]
I still can’t
believe Justyn didn’t succeed, not with his charisma, his energy.
He’s been off the grid completely, no social media, no nothing.
Last thing I heard was that someone randomly ran into him at a
party and he was on some crazy e/molly binge. I believe it because
he had a scary tendency for self-destructive drug streaks when I
knew him. It’s sad, I would have been friends for life with him. At
least what he was, who knows what he is now.

I headed downstairs to the basement I’d
been avoiding the whole party. I spotted Oakley in the back of the
room sitting on the center of my couch, surrounded by a layer of
friends, who themselves were surrounded by another layer of
people.

I saw a vision of Shoreline’s nicest
park at night with the words “Prom?” spelled out in white Christmas
lights across the grass. I’d thought over the execution of the plan
ad nauseam, but never had the guts to do it. I pushed the vision
out of my mind, it had no use to me now.

To circumvent the log jam of kids
crowding the couch I stepped onto the coffee table and walked
across it over to Oakley, plopping down next to her, right in
Elle’s lap.

“
Nice of you to stop by,
Marco.” Oakley said. Elle tried to scoot over until one of my legs
was slumping in-between them with the other still hanging over
Elle.

“
I just came over to ask you
guys to please stop checking out my butt, it’s getting old. I’m not
going to tell you again.”

“
Marco, why are you wearing
your jacket hood up? We’re inside,” Elle asked. I was wearing a
windbreaker to protect my skin from a possible contact high, but
the hood was dangling halfway off my head for moxie.

Caught off guard I could only gag up,
“I don’t know.”

“
It’s the style, Elle,”
Oakley cut in. “Marco’s a trendsetter.” I laughed.

“
Shouldn’t you be on the
stand testifying against someone right now, Elle? Are you like
officially undercover at this point? Are you on duty right
now?”

“
I never told my parents
about Benny’s! Never! Why don’t you believe me?” Elle protested. We
all laughed. I look over at Oakley.

“
Isn’t your curfew at
midnight?” It was now 12:30.

“
Is it?” She turned her
impatient face up a degree until her mouth was within a few
insistent inches of mine. To this point, in the history of our
miraculous, intertwining lives, I’d done enough to make Oakley want
me to kiss her. All those other times, who knows. But this time, to
be so close to your enchanted goal, and let some ridiculous ping of
self-doubt nudge your leaning trajectory so that your cheek brushes
up against hers as you nestle your head into her shoulder for a
hug. Well generals have sent hundreds of thousands of men to their
deaths, but I should have kissed Oakley Carter.

It started on the stairs. Drunk
Shorewood and Shorecrest heavy hitters staring each other down, a
pushing gathering crowd, yelling, a punch, an errantly thrown
bottle that hit a skinny, Lizzie, in the face. I headed for my
living room window as the brawl spilled out into the street. The
shadows postured for position, carefully clashing and then
retreating, converging on the stumbled. I felt a presence join me
at the window and looked over to see Greg Cooks. It was an honor
having him at my party, he rarely partied with the high schoolers
anymore.

“
I can’t believe the cops
haven’t come yet, lil bro. If I was you I’d get out of here before
they come.” Greg’s advice seemed invaluable in this situation, but
I could’ve cared less about getting in trouble. I was sober, I had
nothing to lose.

“
I feel like they would have
come already if they were going to come.”

“
Oh they’re def coming
bro.”

“
I bet you they
don’t.”

“
How much?”

“
Two dollars.” Greg laughed.
Rumor was he was big into the oxy scene now.

“
Pretty tight party though,
Marco.”

“
Not the same as when you
used to do it man.” After a moment I added, “Well the fighting’s
still the same.” I cringed as someone got tackled into one of our
rose bushes, breaking it in half.

“
You know what I did during
all those parties I threw?” My periodic glance his way ran into a
deadly serious gaze. “I just walked from my garage, to the
bathroom, to my room, doing line after line all night long. I can’t
remember any of it.” I gave him a few heavy nods. The fight was
over, the last cars were speeding off.

“
Hey Marco,” Katie called,
“We’re taking Lizzie to the E.R. Are you coming?”

“
Go ahead bro,” Greg said.
“I got your house till you get back, it’s on me.” I’d never been
more confident in a promise as I headed out the
door.[27]

[27] Greg Cooks is still a pretty nice,
funny, somewhat exceptional guy after all the drugs he did. No
exaggeration, Greg could’ve been president. But, hey, he partied as
hard as you can. Too bad he can’t remember it.

Oakley’s music was bumping as she
picked me up on a Friday night. “I never slip, I never fall. Hoes
give me they number but I never call…Every freak should have a
picture of my dick on they wall.”

She turned it down as I got
in.

“
You still blasting gangster
rap every morning on your way to school?” I asked her,
laughing.

“
It’s how I wake up, Marco!”
She moaned defensively, playfully annoyed. She was wearing a bright
purple UW sweatshirt. She’d worn almost every day since she
accepted a scholarship to play soccer there. It was bonkers because
she got the full ride for soccer on top of never getting anything
less than an A- in her life. Seeing that sweatshirt made shake my
head in disbelief every time.

“
What are you smiling
about?”

“
Nothing. Are you excited to
start LEAP?” That was the summer program for incoming student
athletes.

“
Crazy excited. I just found
out what dorm I’m staying in today.” I didn’t ask any more
questions about it, it was a sore subject. I didn’t even apply to
any colleges.

We were going to Colby’s house, one of
Oakley’ friends from private school. I knew the kid loosely, he was
a year younger and hung out with some Shorewood Juniors that were
on the party scene. He was a multimillionaire though, he wasn’t
normal. You couldn’t hold him to the same standards as other
kids.

“
So how’s your love life,
Marco?” Oakley asked.

“
Oh you know, I can’t keep
the girls off me,” I said dryly. “How’s things with your new boy
toy?” Oakley had started dating some guy from her old private
school. I’d never seen him, but through my inquiries I’d heard he
was a good guy, a beautiful, sort of aloof musician, who could be
super social when he wanted to be.

“
Good.” She paused. “His
parents are super strict so we have sex in his car a
lot.”

“
Oh, good to
know…”

“
You’ll think this is funny,
Marco. He’s obsessed with taking pictures of his cum.

“
Like a cumshot?” The blurt
sort of comes out in the form of a question.

“
Ya but, but like intense
into it, and always on different spots all over me. He’s fascinated
with the specific way each one goops and drips down my skin. Last
weekend he came around my neck and screamed, ‘It’s the best pearl
necklace I’ve ever seen.’ He spent ten minutes making my lay still
so he could take pictures of it. He says he’s got a collection of
them from all his girlfriends.”

“
HAha.” I made my loud
laughter sound eerily genuine, one of my gifts. Anger pounded in my
chest. I puzzled over what could have created this cum obsession.
Porn stood out as the obvious answer, but every guy I knew had
watched porn since 13 and this was the first time I’d heard of
this. I imagined his mom finding cum on his blankets or clothes
when he was younger and blowing up at him about it.

“
Kid needs to lay off the
porn.” I finally remarked.

“
Okay Marco, your turn, tell
me something interesting.”

A big pen fence running alongside the
road signals we were in Woodway. The mansions of Woodway were only
a couple miles from Richmond Beach. When I was a kid I would go
with my mom to Woodway to feed the rich people’s horses and goats.
Sometimes they’d ask us politely to stop, but we’d ignore them.
‘Bill grogan’s goat, not a chicken but a goat, was feelin
fine…’

“
Umm I’ve been hooking up
with Asia.” I picked a girl out of a hat for the make-believe
affair. She fit the bill perfectly, from Shorecrest, Oakley knew I
had ties to Shorecrest. And Asia’d given me huge hugs in front of
Oakley. Who knew, maybe she did like me.

“
Have you ever felt black
skin before?” I asked Oakley.

“
I mean, not like
that...”