Second Helpings Page 9

  I’m generally amused by Haviland’s acid flashbacks to her hippie protest days, but I was too distracted by the view to pay much attention. Haviland had finally abolished the alphabetical seating system, giving us the privilege of sitting wherever we wanted. And who should choose to sit right in front of me but Marcus, a development that, on principle, I refuse to waste any more words about. I just started writing his name again. I have to pace myself.

  But who should choose to sit on the left diagonal in front of me but the new Honors Hottie, Nirvana. I thought it really couldn’t get any better than that. I felt kind of bad for Nirvana, though. I mean, how many gyms and lunches were packed into his schedule? Furthermore, because this was our third year in a row with Haviland, she had dispensed with the usual back-to-school introductory garbage that’s way boring to us veterans but would be essential for a newcomer. I thought that was rather insensitive of her. I made a note to go out of my way to introduce myself after class.

  “I’m not a supporter of the militaristic zero-tolerance policies that are in vogue with school administrators right now,” continued Haviland. “But sometimes I worry that across-the-board punishment is the only way you people will develop a sense of responsibility or accountability for your actions. What do you all think about this?”

  Our class was surely thinking of how much we missed the days when all that was required of us on the first day of school were three paragraphs describing “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.”

  “I agree with you, Miss H,” said Scotty. “That zero-tolerance stuff is bullshit.”

  “Why, Scott! I would be delighted if you elaborated.”

  “Okay,” Scotty elaborated. “It sucks.”

  Manda—who was sitting behind him—squeezed his shoulders to celebrate her boyfriend’s profundity. While that exact line might settle some of Scotty’s fiercest locker-room debates, it wasn’t going to pass muster with Haviland.

  “Why?”

  “My ass got hazed when I was a freshman,” he said. “Now I’m a senior. I’m the captain, and it’s payback time.”

  Scotty paused, letting the significance sink like a cinder block in a swimming pool.

  “So zero tolerance sucks because I can’t touch these freshman punks when they get out of line. I can’t beat any sense into them, and it’s just not fair.”

  He leaned back into his chair and held up his palms so P.J. and the rest of Scotty’s disciples could high-five his brilliant contribution to the discussion. Scotty had successfully completed his transformation from jock to jerk-off. Manda quickly smooched the back of his neck. And to think I could have been his girlfriend as recently as a year and a half ago. Unreal.

  For a few moments, Haviland stood motionless, undoubtedly counting up her sick days in her head, wondering if they would give her enough to retire now and still earn the maximum pension package.

  Thankfully, the bell rang and everyone hopped up to head to the next nonclass. I decided it was the perfect opportunity to introduce myself to Nirvana. I would be first to welcome him to Pineville High. Plus, Marcus would see that his presence had no effect on my mental stability whatsoever. Whatsoever.

  “Hi!” I said, in my best approximation of bubbliness. “I’m Jessica. Welcome to Pineville High.”

  Nirvana shot a confused look first at me, then at Marcus, who was hovering behind me.

  “Um . . .” he stammered. “Um. I . . .”

  Wait a second. That monotone, shaky staccato . . .

  “Um. Jess. Um. It’s me. Um . . . And.”

  Those shaky, nervous “Ums” that punctuate his incomplete sentences . . .

  “Um. Len. Um. Levy. Um.”

  LEN LEVY???!!!

  Jesus Christ! Nirvana wasn’t the New Honors Class Hottie, he was the Old Honors Class Nerd—minus the purple, pus-filled cysts, plus a new haircut. Through some dermatological miracle, he’d been transformed into a porcelain-skinned cutie with a sartorial flair evoking the golden era of Grunge. Just as I made this discovery, I noticed Sara and Manda falling all over each other with laughter.

  “Omigod!” Sara shrieked through her cackles. “She totally fell for it!”

  Bitches. They set me up.

  “Len,” I said, trying to compose myself. “I’m kidding. Of course I recognized you. I didn’t mistake you for someone new. I was just, uh . . .”

  There really wasn’t a logical lie. Not one that I could come up with under Marcus’s watchful eye.

  “Um,” Len said.

  Then he turned away, like he had to cough, then very deliberately cleared his throat, as if to hock up whatever blockage made him stutter. A-heh-heh-heh-hehmmmmmmm.

  “Sorry about the zebra, then. That’s intern lingo for an unlikely diagnosis. An old medical school saying goes, ‘If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.’ ”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, starting to regret my decision to try to make Marcus jealous—I mean, show Marcus I wasn’t affected by him anymore.

  Len kept right on going. “So my assumption that you thought that I was a new kid, and not someone who had benefited from Accutane, was far-fetched, a zebra on my part. See, I learned a lot of medical lingo this summer. I worked as an EMT because I want to go premed at Cornell and I thought it would look good on my applications if I got to see the bright lights and cold steel of emergency surgery . . .”

  Len reminded me of a used ATV, one you had to kick-start a few times before the motor revved up. Once his words were up and running smoothly, he wouldn’t stop until he sputtered out of gas.

  “This has been interesting, Len, but I gotta go.” I started walking out the door, and Len trailed behind me, with Marcus following him silently, grinning like a snarky Buddha.

  “Man, I saw my fair share of fascinoma. There was one LOL with SOB . . .”

  Marcus broke in between us, then gently slapped Len on the forehead with the heel of his palm. I noticed then that Marcus’s white T-shirt had the word WEDNESDAY printed on it in black iron-on letters. It was a more true, less blue-black than that of the unreadable, tattooed Chinese characters that permanently embraced his bicep.

  “Um.” AHEM! “That’s his way of telling me that not everyone is clued into ER speak.”

  Then Len explained that LOL with SOB meant “little old lady” with “shortness of breath,” not “laugh out loud” with “son of a bitch.” When he took a breath to refill his tank, I seized the opportunity to excuse myself. I mean, this could go on forever.

  “Well, Len, I just wanted to tell you that you look . . .” Could I bring myself to say it? Len Levy, who started my streak of unrequited romances in third grade by not reciprocating my love in Pineville Elementary School’s Valentine exchange? Len Levy, who has served as my academic arch nemesis all these years? Len Levy, whose cystic acne was so out of control that it was difficult to look him in the face until now?

  Marcus was looking at me, still chuckling to himself. That sealed my decision.

  “Great,” I said. “You look great.”

  Len opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Not even an “Um.”

  Marcus never took his feline eyes off me. I know this because I was watching him, too. The entire time.

  the Seventh

  Len and I were chosen PHS’s Seniors of the Month for September. Our photo will grace the front lobby of our school for nine and a half months, which means it will acquire more graffiti than any of the other golden twosomes chosen for this illustrious honor. When you consider my competition, you can understand why I didn’t mention it until now and won’t mention it again.

  I seized this opportunity at having Len’s undivided attention. I was curious to hear about his makeover. And how he’d spent his summer, and with whom.

  Okay. A little bit of the reason I wanted to talk to Len was because of his new cuteness. Len was looking good, that’s for damn sure. But he was still stiff, stuttering, sputtering Len—a premed wanna-be with delusions of rock-and-roll grandeur, for whom the defining moment
of his young life was Kurt Cobain’s suicide.

  A whole helluva lot more of the reason I wanted to talk to him was to find out what was going on with Marcus. Len is Marcus’s only real confidant—and vice versa. Had he kept a low social profile? Had he successfully made it through his first sex-and-drug-free summer? Oh, and one more little thing. HAD HE SAID ANYTHING ABOUT ME?!

  Since his makeover rivaled her own, I knew Sara would take it upon herself to find out everything about Len’s transformation from spotty to hottie, including his involvement with Marcus. I could’ve relied on her spy skills, but I chose not to. I don’t want to get back into the habit of relying on Sara for all my gossip needs, not this early into the school year. No. If I wanted the scoop on Marcus, I’d have to find it out for myself, from Len. Knowing Len’s conversational tendencies, I was well aware that going straight to the source would prove to be a rather inefficient method. And I was right. While we were waiting to have our picture taken, Len told me a few things I wanted to know—and a lot of things I didn’t—in one long-winded sentence prompted by the simplest of questions.

  What I Asked: “How was your summer, Len?”

  What Len Said: [Ahem!] “My dermatologist prescribed Accutane, the most powerful drug for cystic acne (1) but not without a host of daunting side effects, including changes in mood, severe stomach pain, diarrhea, rectal bleeding, headaches, nausea, vomiting, yellowing of the skin and eyes, dark urine, (2) and increased photosensitivity, the last of which made it impossible for me to spend much time outdoors, so when I wasn’t working on hits and gomers (3) I was in the basement with Flu (4) and the band formerly known as the Len Levy Four because once Flu joined the band (5), it was inaccurate and unusable (6) unless we were being ironic and wry, but the other band members never liked the original name (7) so now we’re called Chaos Called Creation, inspired by a line from one of Flu’s poems (8), and he writes a lot because he says it’s a positive way to channel the excess energy he used to waste on women and wine (9), as I like to put it (10), but I’m speaking metaphorically since most of his former flings were under the age of eighteen and not technically women (11) and he was never really into alcohol and more into G-13 grade THC, but that’s all in the past (12), which is good because we don’t want to end up like every band on Behind the Music before we even get our first gig (13), so all in all I’d say I had a perfectly productive summer, how about you?”

  What I Thought:

  Too bad Accutane can’t cure the bumps in his personality. Why would anyone go out of his way to remind everyone that his now-cute face used to be in a state of epidermal emergency? How could someone so hot be so socially retarded?

  Christ. Is he a catch, or what? And I thought I’d have to go back to Silver Meadows to find a guy with such a fascinating list of ailments.

  More EMT-speak, I presume.

  Who?

  Len calls Marcus Flu. Like a viral infection you can’t shake until it’s good and done with you. Flu. Ha!

  So Marcus joined the band? No shit.

  No duh.

  What?! That’s straight from the poem Marcus wrote me after the Dannon Incident! The one called “Fall,” in which he used Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and other Creation imagery to tempt me into sin. Which meant sex! Marcus is still messing with my mind, even when I’m not around.

  Women and wine? Did Marcus really say that? I mean, I don’t doubt that he’s been tempted by his favorite vices, but would he put it in those exact words?

  Aha! I knew it. Marcus wouldn’t use a phrase like “women and wine.” Booze and broads maybe. Or nymphos and needles. But not “women and wine.” That’s too precious for him.

  If they were little girls before Marcus got to them, they were women afterward.

  When he says “all,” does he mean that Marcus has given up girls altogether? Or does he mean that he’s given up recreational ho-bag banging as a way to pass the time, but is still interested in the female form?

  Who cares about your band? Answer my questions, damn you!

  What I Replied: “It was okay.”

  By the way, Marcus wore a T-shirt that said THURSDAY yesterday, and FRIDAY today. His new uniform, no doubt. I’m going to see the entire school year, day by day, stretched out across Marcus Flutie’s chest. As if it weren’t interminable already.

  the thirteenth

  The day it happened—the day the World Trade Center tragedy was captured on camera—I was too shocked, too numb, too afraid to write anything at all. It’s been a few days now, and I know that I should at least try to write to sort out my feelings about all this.

  But everything I think is wrong.

  For example, I find myself feeling nostalgic for the post-Columbine crackdown of ’99, back when the biggest threat to our safety was vengeance at the hands of hypothetical, pimple-faced Harris/Klebold copycats. A time known as Pinevile’s infamous “No Tolerance” era, which is best remembered for its short-lived edict that simultaneously outlawed wearing a belt—because you could use it to choke a fellow student—and busting a sag—because it “glorified” gang culture—forcing us to button our pants uncomfortably at our hips. Back when we were freshmen, and PHS was ranked last in the county academically but came out on top when it came to suspensions and expulsions. When a whopping 35 percent of the student body had been booted out for one wacky infraction or another. When we were routinely herded out of the building because another anonymous misanthrope had called in a bomb threat to get out of taking an exam he didn’t feel like taking, threats moronically called in from traceable cell phones, but that still required football field evacuations while the police dogs sniffed for keg bombs made with kerosene, paper clips, and chewing tobacco, or whatever crafty suburban psychopaths supposedly used. When my biggest concern was not only having someone to sit with at lunch, but finding a bomb-scare buddy to chill with in the bleachers.

  I know I sound callous and uncaring and cruel. But really, anyone with any sense knew that the average PHS dreg would never jeopardize losing his liquor store deposit by rigging a bomb out of a rented keg.

  I can’t believe I’m making jokes at a time like this. And about Columbine, for Christ’s sake. What is wrong with me? Why do I have the compulsion to make jokes at a time when nothing should be funny? Why do I mock others for coping with this tragedy with sensationalized sentimentality, when my methods are far worse? Has my mind been so tainted by our culture of irony that I’m incapable of feeling any real emotion? Is this my way of denying the depths of the horror of what happened?

  Or am I just irreversibly fucked up?

  the twenty-first

  Other evidence that I am a seriously disturbed individual:

  All students were encouraged to wear red, white, and blue clothing to show our solidarity. I complied the first day but stopped on Thursday because the denim and American flag aesthetic made us all look like we were in the chorus of a Broadway musical version of The Dukes of Hazzard.

  When our football pep rally was canceled in favor of a candlelight vigil, I genuinely thought the latter would be more fun, anyway. This turned out not to be far from the truth.

  I’ve been glued to CNN, not because I want to see more disaster footage, but because I developed a little crush on one of the hunkier anchors. Last night I even had a dream about him in which he wore a Superman costume.

  I’m freaking out because I have to re-reconsider my college choices. If this had happened two weeks from now, I might have already sent my early-admissions application out and I would be screwed. Not like I’m not screwed now. Because I had my heart set on Columbia, but obviously, NYC is out of the question now, and I have no clue where I want to go, or whether I want to bother going to college at all because I feel like the future isn’t going to be there anymore, which makes no sense. This is all so small and self-absorbed that it’s beyond disgusting.

  There is only one thing that has given me any sense of hope, and it’s not Oval Office rhetoric or stars-and-stripes pat
riotism or religious zeal—the things that seem to be working for everybody else. It’s something that probably isn’t really happening at all. But in the past two weeks, I swear I’ve caught Marcus looking at me. It’s not a “Can I borrow your pen?” look. It’s a “Can we talk about this?” look. The look I haven’t seen since December 31, 2000. Leave it to me to turn a national tragedy into fuel for my sexual daydreams. I am one sick mofo.

  Haviland has already approached me about writing an essay about the impact of 9/11 for The Seagull’s Voice. She thinks it will be cathartic for me and the student body. I know I should try to sort out my feelings by writing, but I don’t know if I can. I doubt my ability to muster a socially acceptable response out of my twisted psyche. I told her that until I can guarantee something normal, I’m better off not writing anything at all. This isn’t an essay that airs all my petty grievances against Pineville High. This is World War III.

  And she said, “That’s exactly why you need to write, Jessica. Don’t get me wrong. Your essays last year were impressive, that’s for sure, but they were all, perhaps, too tightly focused on Pineville High. Don’t you want to broaden your scope and take on global issues? Don’t you see how your classmates would benefit from having world events filtered through the observant eyes of one of their peers?”

  Every time I hear myself described in relation to “my peers,” I can’t help but crack up.

  “Don’t you see how this would be a challenge, one that, if you don’t mind me saying, you so greatly need to prevent complacency and boredom from making a waste of your senior year?”