The Secret to Lying (15 page)

“Your parents are going to drive you home,” he said to me. “The administration will meet tomorrow to discuss what’s best for you.” He gave Moms a concerned RC look and added, “I’ll do what I can.”

I nearly choked. Without a doubt, Hassert would do what he could to get me expelled. He’d probably already gotten a copy of my blood alcohol level to use as evidence against me.

“We’ll call you once a decision has been reached,” he said to Moms.

She thanked him for all his kindness. Fortunately, Dad led me out before I lost it.

Dad had stayed pretty quiet at the hospital, but on the drive back, he droned on and on about medical bills, making sure I knew how much everything had cost. “Eight hundred dollars for the ambulance. A hundred and twenty dollars in blood tests. Probably over a thousand for the hospital care. They really gouge you,” he said. Never mind that insurance would cover most of it. “That’s one expensive drink,” Dad joked.

Moms scowled at him and said it wasn’t funny.

After that, Dad didn’t say anything. He turned onto the highway, and the road began to hum beneath us. I rested my head against the car door, pretending to sleep for most of the ride home. The cool ridge of the door edge creased my cheek. Despite all the pain of warming up — the burning and aching — I still felt numb. I pushed my thumbnail into the tips of my fingers and pinched the soft skin on the underside of my arms. It hurt, but only vaguely, as if I hadn’t come all the way back. “Deadened.” That’s what the doctor had said. “Some nerves might be deadened.”

PRINCIPAL DURN CALLED MY PARENTS
the next day to inform them that I was suspended for the rest of the semester, which was only five days. I listened in from the phone in my bedroom. The administration saw the incident as my third strike, after the cafeteria stunt and the “profanity” I’d scrawled on my forehead. According to Principal Durn, I was lucky not to be expelled. As he put it, I now “hung by a thread,” with “my continued enrollment being contingent upon my academic performance.” In other words, if I didn’t ace my finals, I’d get the boot.

My suspension spanned finals week, so I had to arrange for alternate times to take my exams. Ironically, this meant that my study-break swim had actually earned me an extra week to prepare.

The administration agreed to let me drop by campus on Monday to turn in assignments and pick up my books. Hassert assigned a security guard to accompany me. He made it very clear that I couldn’t talk with any students while I went around arranging things with the teachers. People stared at me like they were seeing a condemned man walking to the gallows.

I passed Dickie in the commons. “You’re coming back, right?” he called, ignoring the security guard’s glare.

“Who knows?” I said, trying to sound stoic. “Depends if I’m good.”

At home, I was trapped. I didn’t have a car, and there wasn’t anything to do in my town. There wasn’t even anyone to talk to. I tried calling Jess, but she didn’t respond to my messages, and whenever I checked online for ghost44, she wasn’t logged on.

My parents pestered me constantly about staying in my room all day. Anytime Moms asked me to go shopping with her, or Dad called for me to give him a hand with something in the basement, I shouted back that I needed to study and they left me alone. I actually did try to study, too, but I could barely get my eyes to focus on my books. Instead, I slept.

With the curtains closed and the door jammed shut by a chair, I managed to take two or three naps a day. My dreams seemed more interesting and real than anything going on in my normal life. Awake, I was clumsy and sluggish and barely able to find a reason to get out of bed, but when I dreamed, I could move quick as thought. I even learned to fly.

AFTER FIVE DAYS OF SLEEPING
most of the time, I finally agreed to go shopping with Moms.

“It’s not supposed to be a punishment,” she said. “Even if you are suspended. Honestly, James, you need new clothes.” She looked at my faded jeans and torn T-shirt with disgust. My favorite black sport coat had gotten a little ragged around the cuffs from being worn so much. “Honey, the hobo style isn’t
in
anymore.”

“It never was in,” I said. “That’s the point.”

“Don’t you want new clothes for Christmas?”

I paused. It wasn’t that I didn’t want new clothes. It was that going shopping with Moms never ended up the way I thought it would.

“If you don’t go shopping with me, I’ll buy things for you that you don’t like,” she threatened.

I thought of the pile of bright-colored polo shirts I had in my closet from previous Christmases. “Okay,” I said. “But I’m not getting any shirts with collars. Collars freak me out.”

Moms rolled her eyes and grabbed her purse.

When we got to the mall, she made a beeline for her favorite department store. I’ve always been a bit confused about where I fit in department stores. I mean, there’s the boys’ area, with the Underoos and cartoons and stuff, and the men’s area, with all the three-piece suits and shiny shoes. In between are these weird subgroups, like the sweatpants and sports teams area, or the trying-too-hard-to-be-hip jeans area, or the preppy sweater and polo shirt area. According to department stores, boys are supposed to progress naturally from Underoos, to sweatpants, to jeans, to preppy clothes, to suits. I wanted to mix it up, taking a sport coat from men’s, jeans from the teen area, and a T-shirt with G.I. Joe on it from the kids’ area, only they probably didn’t have any big enough to fit me.

Moms went straight to the preppy area.

“Hey,” she said, picking out a dark blue V-neck sweater, “try this on.”

“No way,” I replied. “I’m not in the yacht club.”

“Honey, this is what guys are wearing.”

“How do you know what guys are wearing?”

“I have a sense,” she said. “Just put it on.”

I slipped off my coat and pulled the sweater over my head, keeping my back to her so she wouldn’t see the cuts on my arm I’d recently given myself with a compass point. Then I turned and slouched, trying to make the sweater look as bad as possible.

“That’s nice,” she said.

A salesman wandered over — a young guy in a white button-down shirt, blue power tie, and hair so perfectly gelled he looked like a Ken doll.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” Ken offered.

“What do you think?” Moms said to the salesguy. “Does that look good on him?”

The guy cocked his head and stared. I slouched a little more, pulling one arm in while letting the other hang low, like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

“Stand up, honey,” Moms said.

“Very sharp,” the salesguy crooned. “The fit creates clean lines, and the color pulls out his eyes.”

Moms smiled, pleased to have found an ally.

“Pulls out my eyes?” I said, picturing the sweater attempting to gouge my eyes out. Moms and the salesguy gave me odd looks, like
I
was the weird one.

“I don’t know.” Moms fiddled with the sweater. “The dark blue washes him out, but the cut is good.”

“We have it in maroon,” Ken doll said. “It’s very chic. I bought a maroon one myself the day they came out.”

“I hate maroon,” I said.

“Don’t be so picky,” Moms chided. “Maroon is in.”

Ken burbled something into a walkie-talkie, and a moment later a girl in high heels, white shirt, and short checkered skirt approached. She was cute, with streaked blond hair and a perky figure. At first I thought she must be in college, but as she got closer, I realized she was probably around my age, except she dressed older. Not many girls at ASMA wore high heels.

The two salespeople talked, then the girl went off to find the sweater.

“We have slacks that will go nicely, too,” Ken said.

“Wonderful,” Moms agreed. “You need new slacks, don’t you?”

“No.”

Moms browsed through a rack of “slacks” with Ken, as if I hadn’t said anything. I looked at the nearby mannequins with their blank, angular faces and nonexistent mouths. For some reason, I could never be myself around Moms. At school, I knew how to act, but now this silence lodged in my throat and I felt myself getting pulled back into who I’d been before — an anonymous plastic blob for her to pose and dress up.

The cute girl returned with three different sweaters to try on, and Ken held out some slacks. “First let’s fit you into these,” he said. “So we can see if the colors work.”

He and Moms led me to the dressing room, while the cute girl followed. I had to put on the “slacks.” Even though I wanted to make them look crappy, I couldn’t do it in front of the girl.

“Very chic,” Ken said.

“So what’s the difference between slacks and pants?” I asked. “And what about trousers? Do you have any
trousers
here?”

The salesgirl smiled.

“Lift up the shirt and turn around,” Moms said.

I scowled and turned.

“The butt is everything,” she said to the salesgirl. “Men’s pants have to show off the butt. Don’t they?”

“
Mom
. . .” I protested.

“Come on, James. You know it’s true.”

“
You’re
his mother?” the salesgirl replied.

“That’s what they tell me.”

“I thought you were, like, his older sister. Your top is so cute.”

“No way. I was admiring yours,” Moms replied, sounding like a teenager. She had about sixteen different personalities, depending on who she was with — that’s why I called her Moms.

“Wow. I could trade clothes with you,” the salesgirl said. “I’d never trade clothes with my own mom.”

Moms beamed. They were all on her side now. She leaned over and whispered something to the salesgirl, and the salesgirl giggled and whispered something back.

I stood with my hands in my pockets. “So do I keep turning?”

“The slacks are good, right?” Moms asked the salesgirl.

“Definitely. Smooth-fronted dress slacks on guys are way cool.”

Moms cocked her head and stared at me as if she were a big-time fashion director. I wanted to run, or scream, or throw up.

“You need a haircut,” she said. “Pull it back from your face to make it short.”

I did, praying it would be over soon.

“That’s the look,” she said.

“Totally,” the salesgirl agreed.

I let my hair fall back over my eyes. “I feel like some brainless
GQ
poseur. Like I ought to change my name to Brad and drive a Hummer.”

“Don’t be weird,” Moms said. “It’s perfect. We’ll take it.”