Boy Toy (8 page)

Mendel:
Sometimes.

Kennedy:
I'm not going to lie to you. You've got a tough road ahead of you. But you've got a tough road
behind
you, too. You've come so far in the past couple of years, Josh. The road doesn't go on forever, and you've already made a lot of headway.

Mendel:
I feel like I'll never be normal.

Kennedy:
It's perfectly natural for you to feel like you're always going to feel this way. That's part of being a teenager, and it's particularly strong for you, given the circumstances. But you'll date girls, Josh. Yes, some of them may react strangely. Some of them will break your heart. But not all of them. You'll go to college someday and there will be people who've never even heard of Brookdale, much less Evelyn Sherman.

Mendel:
God, that sounds good.

Around five, I go to pick up Zik from practice. He looks at me expectantly, then settles back and says nothing, alternating between looking out the window and looking over at me. So we go that way for a little bit.

"How was practice?"

He just shrugs. "You know."

He looks over at me again like he's expecting some great wisdom, some epiphany or sermon. What's with him?

"Dude, you feelin' all right?"

"Yeah. How 'bout you?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Huh." He settles back again and looks out the window.

We're almost at my house by the time the silence drives me completely insane. "So, I, uh, saw Rachel yesterday."

Which, y'know, is the kind of thing that
should
spontaneously shoot Zik through the roof like an ejector seat. Instead, he just sits up straight and grins. "Oh, yeah? Really? How was that?"

He already knew. Of course—I'm an idiot. Michelle and Rachel are still best friends, after all. That's why I don't hang out with Zik when Michelle's around, because Rachel would usually be a step behind.

"Shit, Zik! Why didn't you say something to me?" He looks wounded. "I was waiting for you to tell me, J. I don't push you, man. So," he goes on, grinning, "how'd it go?"

"What do you mean?"

"What did you guys talk about? How did you end up talking to her?"

"Oh, come on. Michelle must've told you—"

"No, seriously. She just said that Rachel IM'd her late last night and said that she talked to you. That's it."

I can't believe that they didn't exchange any more information during school today. Rachel and Michelle are, according to Zik, world-class experts at texting each other between classes—they can communicate entire bibles in the four-minute commute. Exactly
what
they need to say in those four minutes is beyond me, but teenage girls have always been something of a mystery to me.

"Look, it's nothing exciting," I tell him, hoping that this message will work its way back to Michelle. Michelle has always harbored a secret hope that Rachel and I will get together and be as hot and heavy a couple as she and Zik are. That way she can be with her boy toy and hang around with her best friend, too. In Michelle's perfect world, every night is a double date involving her, Zik, and Rachel. I'm the missing piece that makes the theorem come together, the sole variable that balances the equation in Michelle's social life algebra.

We head inside. "How did it happen?" he asks.

"Man, you make it sound like I cured cancer."

"J, you talked to
Rachel.
This is
huge.
You've been avoiding her for five years."

"Yeah, well ... I went to the Narc last night."

Zik's eyes pop.
Now
he's excited. "You went to her? Why?"

"No, no. You've got it all wrong. It was an accident. I wasn't thinking."

I recount for Zik the brief, awkward conversation, and we both agree that it didn't make much sense, which is good because I thought it was just me.

"I'll call Michelle."

I grab Zik's hand before he can snatch up the telephone. "What? Are you
nuts?
"

"Dude, it's gonna clear the whole thing up in less than five minutes. You'll see. Even if Rache didn't call Michelle, Michelle'll still have a better idea of what was going on than either of us."

"Forget it." I tighten my hold on his wrist and pull it back a bit farther from the phone. "She might call Rachel."

"Yeah, I know!" Zik says cheerily, not getting it at all. "That's even better; then we'll know exactly what—Ow!" He yelps and pulls away from me. "Shit!"

"Sorry. But I don't want you to call Michelle. Not about this."

"J, I realize you're, like, a social retard and all, but trust me—this is how it works, man. A girl looks your way, you look her way, then you find out through each other's friends what it all means. You'd know this shit if you weren't practically a—" He stops, gulps, and trails off weakly. "You know..."

"Practically a what?"

"A virgin." To his credit, he looks me straight in the eye when he says it.

I laugh because, let's face it, I'm no virgin. Zik laughs along with me after a moment. It's the closest we've come to talking about Eve and what happened five years ago.

"Look, J, this is how it works. Seriously. You've been like a, a
monk
or a
priest
or something. I mean, there've been plenty of girls interested in you. Like Lisa Carter—"

"Yeah, and I remember how that worked out."

"That wasn't her fault."

"No, it was mine. And I get that. This isn't 'how it works,' OK? Seeing Rachel, that was a fluke. I got out with my skin and that's cool."

"But—"

"But nothing. This isn't a case of a girl being interested in me. This is
Rachel,
OK? And Michelle's little fantasy world where Rachel and I get together is really getting old, man, OK?"

He bristles, real anger gathered in his eyes and the set of his jaw. I've seen him like this before, when he talks about his father or his brother. I stepped over the line—I shouldn't have dragged Michelle into it.

"It's not ... It's not some fantasy of Michelle's. It's not ... You make it sound like she's—"

"I'm sorry, Zik."

"No, listen to me. There's fantasies, OK, I get that. And then there are just things that people want really bad. And this is one of those things. And Michelle's not the only one, get it?"

"What—Rachel?" I can't believe that Rachel would want to date me.

"Me, you asshole!" he yells, his face flushing red. "Me! Jesus Christ, why do you have to be such a dense asshole sometimes?"

My fists ball up on their own; it's just a reaction to being yelled at, to Zik's flushed face. I would never take a swing at him. I tell myself that. Never. Even though I can see the perfect opening.

So, Zik shares Michelle's fantasy. I should have realized.

"I mean ... God!" He turns away from me, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration. "I hang out with Rachel all. The. Time. Do you even
realize
that? She's Michelle's best friend. I see her all the time!

"It's like I'm ... It's like I'm schizophrenic or something. I mean, I can't talk about Rachel when I'm around you, and I
won't
talk about you around Rachel. And I have to think about who I'm going to see on which days and for what events and can I wave to Michelle at a game if Rachel's standing next to her ... I mean, thank God Rachel's softball games are usually at the same time as ours so I don't have to worry about
that,
but..."

I had no idea. I never gave it a single thought. But for five years, Zik's been living two lives, like a kid with divorced parents. No wonder he never asked me about Eve; it would open the whole thing up—Rachel's closet and everything else that happened.

The phone rings just then. Caller ID says "Out of area," but that could be Mom or Dad's cell phone, so I answer it.

"Hi, Josh?" says the voice at the other end.

"Uh, yeah." And I realize, as I say it, that it's Rachel. I flicker back to the closet for half a second. Zik arches an eyebrow, and I wonder if I looked like I was going to pass out.

"So," she goes on, "I'm at work, but I get off at midnight. Do you have to get up in the morning, or are you ready to put your money where your mouth is?"

"What are you talking about?" I mouth "Rachel" to Zik and his eyebrows jut skyward.

"It's just a figure of speech," she says. "Look, I have to go. Meet me at SAMMPark? Like, twelve-fifteen. I'll see you. Bye."

I hang up. Zik's swaying back and forth like a potty-training toddler. I almost ask him if needs to pee-pee like a big boy.

"Well? What was
that
about?" You can tell that if he could ask the question louder or somehow bigger, he would.

I'm honest with him: "I have no clue."

Zik, of course, wants to call Michelle right away and get the 411 from the closest thing we have to the source itself. He's certain that Michelle has a series of text messages that, once decoded through the Michelle-inator, will spell out exactly what's going on.

"Nothing's going on," I tell him as Dad pulls into the driveway. "This is over, Zik. Rachel's just ... She's just messing with me. Which is fine. She's entitled."

But over takeout pizza, while Dad and Zik chatter about the Orioles' chances this year, I sit in silence, wondering,
Why now?
Why would Rachel wait until now, until the ass-end of senior year, to start fucking with my head? I mean, yeah, she's entitled, as far as I'm concerned. But five years is a long time to wait, even if you think revenge is a dish best served cold.

Some part of me always dreaded this. Rachel never talked about that night in the closet (other than to her parents that exact night, of course, and to the police later, and, I assume, to Michelle); there's always been plenty of school gossip and the hick-town equivalent of urban legends surrounding that night and much of what happened with Eve, but as far as I can tell, none of it is close enough to the mark to have come from Rachel herself. She's been pretty circumspect about the whole thing, as is her right as the victim. But even though I've walked five years with the guilt of that night like a squat bar on my shoulders, I never really thought Rachel would retaliate.

I always figured I
deserved
some sort of retribution, but now that it's here (or at least peeking around the corner and grinning diabolically), I'm a bit peeved. Couldn't she just have left well enough alone?

Or maybe I'm just scared. Scared of what could happen now. Or maybe...

Maybe
this
is what guilt really feels like. Maybe the past five years have just been proto-guilt, guilt-in-training. Maybe this sense of dread is the real thing. Maybe I'm only disappointed in Rachel because I'm scared shitless and she's the only one who can decide to make it all go away.

"Dude, you want the last piece?"

Zik's pointing at the last piece of pizza. I realize, in a spasm that twists my guts, that if I even
touch
food, I'm going to vomit my intestines and my stomach right out of my body.

"Take it." I push the box to him like it's laden with anthrax.

"Your plate's clean," Dad says, suddenly noticing. "Didn't you eat anything?"

The thought of food makes my stomach lurch again. "No. No, I'm..."

"Are you feeling OK?" Dad's concern is mitigated by his plan to take the last piece before Zik can get to it.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I—" And the phone rings. I almost jump out of my skin. Zik's eyes widen. Dad shovels the pizza into his mouth.

"Get that, Josh," he manages around a mouthful.

Zik follows me to the phone. "What if it's her?"

"It's not," I tell him, forcing a confidence I don't have into my voice. But Caller ID says "Out of area" again, and my stomach groans in protest and I flicker

—like this—

long enough that the phone gets to the fourth ring and the answering machine cuts in, while I'm standing there like an idiot, coming back to the present to see Zik staring at me like I just dropped my pants or something. I shake it off and grab the phone before the message gets to the second sentence.

It's not Rachel, just Mom, calling to tell me that she and a bunch of her friends have already had too much to drink so they're planning to stay at a hotel for the night.

Michelle pulls up at the house a little while later. It's Friday, so she and Zik have their standing date. Zik doesn't have much in the way of dough, but Michelle insists that they at least rent a movie and watch it at her house on Fridays. Couplehood. Togetherness. How cute.

I watch Zik scamper off to Michelle's electric blue Cobalt. I shouldn't be so mean about Zik and Michelle, about her whipping him, about the stupid movie dates. It's jealousy in part, I admit. Zik's got a regular warm body at his disposal, and what a hell of a body it is. Michelle's been blessed with the Jurgens Asset, a rack that makes grown men weep and teenagers faint dead away from the sudden rush of blood away from the brain. I'd never tell Zik that I love sneaking looks at Michelle's tits (especially in the summer, when she wears these thin little halter tops that are completely and gloriously inappropriate for someone so well endowed), because you just don't talk about a guy's girlfriend like that.