The Taming of the Drew (19 page)

Drew moved so fast, I didn’t see him shift. He was just there, yanking the guy, Peter, backwards. “Dude,” Drew said, low enough that only me and Peter could hear it, “I’ll get her number for you. Now take your foot out of your mouth and go sit on the table.”

Drew turned him, a hand at Peter’s shirt collar, and shoved him towards the other guys. They grabbed Peter and started pushing his head back and forth, laughing and looking back as they ambled toward the edge of the lot.
 

I took a deep, shuddery breath, and right then, when a scared little knot in my shoulders started to loosen, the skinny guy on the team, the one who carried the sloshing barrel off the field, jumped up to get a look from the middle of the crowd and said, in a loud and carrying voice, “Hey! Isn’t that the girl from the Leadership dance?” He boinged up again, “That’s
her
! The one with the boner — and the lips!”

Drew froze, standing three feet away from the counter. The tide of guys carried the skinny guy away to the picnic table at the far side of the parking lot, leaving me and Drew in a painful silence.

“Sorry,” I said. “You won’t live that down for a while. I thought no one would recognize me.”

Drew rubbed a hand up the back of his neck. “Yeah, right,” he said, “the way you look.”

“I grant you, it’s kind of distinctive, but none of them have ever seen me in this glorious outfit before, now have they?”

He gave me a level look, like maybe I was being deliberately dense.
 

“What?” I said.

The small back door opened and Mr. Gremio charged out. He shook a fist at the distant figures of the guys and said — but not very loudly — “I heard that! You bother my employees and I’ll have you know I donate twelve pounds of hotdogs to the Annual Police Benevolent Society fundraiser! I got my finger on the button!”

I sighed. “It’s okay, Gremio.”

He glared at me, “Don’t you get smart with me, missy. That’s
Mister
Gremio.”

After he slammed the door, Drew raised his eyebrows at me. “Missy?” he said, laughter shimmering in his voice.

Suddenly, it was much more awkward. I didn’t know where to put my tongs, or where to look. “Here,” I barked at him, “take two of these.” I slapped two dogs into buns and slopped a ladle of chili on each. “ And
don’t
thank me. Not until you’ve burped them for a day or two. Then you can decide what’s the appropriate response.”

I watched the Dog saunter over to the picnic table. The guys woof woof-ed at him as he crossed the parking lot.

The skinny guy shouted, “I bet you got more than her number, didn’t you, Dog?”

I glanced at the clock. Six o’clock and these guys were already geared up for trouble. Really, it wasn’t my problem. God knows I couldn’t do anything to stop the Dog if he didn’t want to be stopped.
 

But what if he just needed an excuse?

Like the way my mom always encouraged me to use
her
as an excuse — starting from middle school, I had permission to say anything I wanted, if it would help get me out of a bad situation. “Oh, my mom’s sick, I’ve got to run.” “My mom’s such an evil hag — I have to be home by midnight.” It was all okay by her. Maybe because she knew sometimes people just need a way to say no.

Drew sat on the table, above all the guys like the top Dog, glancing back every so often at the stand. Was he the only one still clear-eyed because he had no money, or because, even if he didn’t realize it yet, he wanted things to be different?
 

Or was I reading too much into the situation?

I pushed my paper hat back on my head, then made a decision. Only one way to find out.

I dug out my cell, popped it open, snapped a photo of the Dino-Dog sign and tweeted Help. Pushed send.

There were 759 people who might read that. But only a handful who knew what it might mean.

***

Forty-five minutes later, there were less than 15 minutes left in my shift, and the sun had set. In the dark, the guys at the picnic table at the edge of the lot had gotten louder. I heard a bottle break and someone shout, “Where’s that girl with the stupid hat? I didn’t get her number. You promised me you’d get her number.”

Gremio congealed out of the hotdog steam. He stood at my left elbow and peered across the lot. “I could take them,” he said, his voice flat with calm. “The whole lot of them.”

If my eyes rolled any further back in my head, they’d get stuck.

“Is one of them your dealer? Is that why they’re here?”

I put one hand on my hip and tapped the serrated tips of my tongs against the counter at his waist. Gremio took a step back. “Just asking,” he said, “before I call the police.”

He looked way off to the right, feigning innocence, “You should be grateful I’m warning you, about the police, in case, you —
you know
— need to go use the toilet and…flush anything down.”

“Okay now that is just gross.” He took another half-skipping step backwards. I point my serrated tips at him, “Let me tell you, buddy, if you weren’t my boss--”
 

I stopped, horrified. Buddy?

Did I just call him
buddy
? Was I becoming a mini-Gremio? My God, if I wasn’t careful, before long I’d be saying, “if you think that, then you’ve got
another think coming
.” Was there any greater shame?

The sound of squealing wheels punctured my throbbing embarrassment. I turned to the lot to see a convertible Porsche circle right up to the stand. The driver’s door popped open and Nate gave a half-start, fell back in, grabbed the rims of the door-opening, and hauled himself out.

He straightened his shirt and went around to open the passenger door.
 

Bianca had no trouble swiveling her legs around to get one foot underneath her, and Nate was left waiting with his hand out.

“I can buy you anything you want,” I heard him say, “and you want this crap?”

Bianca gave me a look, then turned to Nate and said, “But none of it’s really your money, is it?”

“Of course it’s my money.”
 

“I thought your mother gave it to you. In fact I saw her do it — just now.”

While Nate spluttered, Bianca swished forward, leaned on the counter toward me and said, “Kate, what’s good tonight?”

It felt like a gust of steam from the boil-pans suddenly warmed my face.
 

It was one thing to know that a goddess like Bianca existed. It was another to be forced to stand next to her while you wore a polyester mustard sack-shirt, saturated and drooping from the weight of eight continuous hours of pork-flesh steamed grease. Here she was being nice to me, when all I wanted to do was crawl away.

Before I could think of anything to say (that’s such a great fashion accessory, don’t you think — the hanging-open-mouth look — it’s one of the few things that can actually make an end-of-shift Dino-Dog uniform look
worse
), a Toyota Camry pulled into the lot and out stepped Curtis.

“Nate,” he shouted across the top of the Camry, “what are
you
doing here?”

Nate said, “What the hell are
you
doing here?”

“Bianca called me. Couldn’t you even afford to take her somewhere decent?” Curtis said. “This is just embarrassing.”

Nate’s face flushed, and he sputtered, “How
dare
you…”

The Dog’s voice, scary-calm again, said from the darkness at the edge of the stand, “I’d like to know what the hell
all
of you are doing here.”
 

Gremio puffed out his chest and threw an arm over my shoulder. He sputtered, “We
work
here.”
 

There was a long, awkward silence, while everyone looked at me and Gremio in our Dino-Dog uniforms, standing behind the steaming cauldron of the Dino-Dog grill, under the 13-foot illuminated Dino-Dog flashing sign — a huge brontosaurus shape, all long curving hotdog except for the thicker body, which was the bun wrapping the middle. Even limbless flubber creatures from another planet would realize Gremio and I worked here.
 

Gremio jabbed a finger at the darkness, “And don’t you forget it, buddy-boy.”

The Dog stepped into the light and Gremio shriveled to half-size. For a second, Drew raised both eyebrows at me and I half-expected him to mouth the words “buddy-boy?” in my direction. But instead he frowned and opened his cell. “Great, just
great
. Another night ruined. I can’t turn my back on you for a second. Guess mom’s going to have to come take us
both
home,” he said as he glowered at Bianca. “And don’t expect me to stand up for you. Not after this stunt.”

Her back to Drew, Bianca smiled serenely at me.

Thanks for the tweet, she mouthed.

Chapter 6

I didn’t expect any of the Greenbacks to join me in the tree-circle Monday morning before school. But when I opened my eyes, they were all there, looking sleepy and boneless.

It struck me that no one else in all of Legacy ever sat like this together — contented, okay with no one saying a word.
 

Finally Alex, with a new, day-glow neon, sticking out in all directions anime-style haircut, said, “It
is
addictive, isn’t it?”

The sun was well up and at its desk now, busy and indifferent. We stood and brushed off and Phoebe said, “Kate, you heard about the football team, right?”

I didn’t lose all my great feeling, but I could feel it disappearing fast, like it was being sucked down the vacuum hose of real-life.

Something must have shown on my face because Gonzo and Tio exchanged a look. “Now don’t panic,” Tio said, “The Dog wasn’t there.”

I waited for someone to tell me. I expected Helena to step up and do it, but surprisingly it was Robin who said, “Drunk driving. Two carloads got pulled over — trying to drag race on a back road. Luckily no one was hurt. The parents of some guy named Steve are now in huge trouble. The police found a credit card receipt with the pile of booze in the trunk and a convenience store parking lot video, showing how Steve’s mom bought the alcohol and handed it to them.”

“My mom would never buy me a drink,” said Tio. “Not in a million years. She’ll probably breathalyze me at my retirement party.”

Phoebe said, “My mom’s too tired to know what I’m up to. But one thing’s for certain — if the police caught me drunk driving, I’d never go to jail, because there’d be nothing left to take to jail, not after my mom got through with me. She’d
find
enough energy
somewhere
to kill me. And then they probably wouldn’t convict her, because she’d convince them I deserved it.”

Gonzo said, “I heard Dean Padua showed up. People are saying he made sure the whole team got let go. Now everyone in town is angry about how it was handled and they’re talking about how some of these football guys have been let off before and how someone ought to open up the juvenile records of the guys who are over 17, even if those records don't include convictions.”

Helena said, “Right now, because he wasn’t there, the Dog’s not part of it. But Saturday was way too close, Kate.”

In the glum silence, we could see people far off, heading into the school. It would be so nice to only worry about my homework. Or possibly my outfit. Those days seemed a lifetime ago.

“We have to come up with a plan,” I said. “You guys have to help me think of
something
. I tried just playing things by ear last week, and it didn’t work so well.”

Gonzo said, “I got a photo-shoot scheduled with the Dean, but it’s not for a while.” Everyone groaned. We’d forgotten about the camera. “That’s good news, right?”

Phoebe said, “Does that mean there’s some bad news, too?”

Gonzo looked uncomfortable. “Well. Yeah. The big camera’s still missing, so I’m using a cheap one. And Celia got herself assigned to help me.”

Silence.

“It’s a teeny digital camera. How can she help you?” Alex asked. “Hold your hand? Wipe your forehead?”

Gonzo flushed. We could see his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. “Celia’s going to be a…a…” he swallowed again.

“A what?” said Robin.

“A stylist,” blurted Gonzo.

We looked at each other. I said, “For the
Dean
? This is Dean Verona, we’re talking about. Right? The one with the smudgy bifocals and the cat hair on her sleeves?”
 

“Don’t ask me. I didn’t want this.”

Helena crossed her arms and eyed him coolly, “Couldn’t you object?”

By now Gonzo’s flush had deepened to a dusky shade of burgundy. “I…I…I…” His Adam’s apple bobbed like a yo-yo.

Viola said, “Don’t blame Gonzo. He can’t help it. Celia emits this jamming frequency. I noticed it in the hall after journalism.” Viola looked at Gonzo, who was gargling an incoherent protest, “But I guess she doesn’t even have to be close for it to work. Maybe that’s why Celia complains about guys not talking.”

Great. Now I was completely irritated, like today’s dawn-with-the-trees had never happened. I stood up and slammed my India-print woven book-bag onto my shoulder. “Let’s get to class,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Phoebe, “otherwise I might heave. That Celia makes me gag.”

“But that’s not the way it works,” Viola said, “Celia has to be nice —
really
nice — otherwise her jamming frequency doesn’t work. Hey! Wait, wait, everyone! I’ve got an idea! I know how to keep Drew out of trouble!”

The whole Celia discussion had me snappish, “We’re going to be late, spit it out Viola.”

Viola looked at me with anxious eyes, like she didn’t understand what she’d done wrong. I felt a twinge of guilt. “Go ahead, tell me what you think I should do.”

“Be like Celia.”

“
What
?” I had a mental image of Celia — the way she probably acted in journalism lab — tilting chest-forward from the hips in a micro-mini and heels so that her cleavage lowered to eye-level as she asked a seated guy to hand her a (blink-blink) camera.