“Maybe you should start hanging out with my Karin. An ambitious young man like you would be good for her.”
“I thought Karin was in juvy.”
“She should be out in the next couple of weeks, if she’ll goddamn behave herself.”
“No offense, Naomi, but I’d be terrified to go out with any girl raised by you. I mean that as a compliment.”
The cook slides Paulie’s onion rings and burger under the heat lamp and Naomi places the plate in front of him just as the bell hanging over the entrance rings and three men walk in and sit several seats down.
“Gotta get to work,” Naomi says. “Only other thing I can recommend to a guy in your position is to join up with the Thumpers. Let Jesus find a way.” She laughs and nods at a back booth.
“We’re not quite a fit,” Paulie says, smiling. “I think the answer is to drown my sorrows.” He takes a gigantic bite of his burger and washes it down with milkshake. “And remember, you can’t tell my mother. She doesn’t know any of this. I’ll give it to her a little at a time.”
Naomi’s already taking the three men’s orders, but she runs her fingers across her lips with the zipper sign.
Paulie finishes the burger in four more bites, eats the onion rings two at a time, drains the shake, leaves Naomi a bigger than shit tip, and gets up to go.
“Mr. Bomb!” comes from the back booth.
“Mr. Firth,” Paulie says. “Whassup?”
“Just sittin’ here rootin’ out evil,” Ron says. “Come on back.”
“Gotta get home,” Paulie says. “I just stopped for a little dinner to hold me over ’til dinner. My mom’s expecting me.”
“Come on, Bomb. Won’t hurt you to sit with us and get the Word. We need a little stimulation. Everyone back here agrees with each other. It’s boring.”
Paulie smiles and walks back.
The booth is full so he sits across the narrow aisle and orders another shake. “So how you guys doin’? Jesus still all right?”
It brings smiles. A couple of kids sitting against the window break briefly into The Doobie Brothers’ version.
“From what you said in P-8 the other day, sounds like you could use a little Jesus,” Firth says.
Paulie glances up. Things said in Period 8 stay there.
Ron reads his mind. “They don’t know what I’m talking about,” he says. “I keep the faith with Mr. Logs.”
“I’ll give you all dispensation on this one,” Paulie says back. “Anybody wants to know the horror of my life can go read Hannah Murphy’s Facebook page. She doesn’t name names, but it doesn’t take a genius to know which a-hole is which.”
“Hannah Murphy was talking about you?” Cassandra Hoops says. “I thought all that was rhetorical.”
Paulie says, “When was the last time you heard Hannah Murphy get rhetorical?”
Carrie Morales says, “So you’re an adulterer.”
“Just a dick, if you’ll pardon the expression,” Paulie says. “Nobody involved was married. Or an adult.”
“Semantics, really,” Carrie says.
“Actually, we have to give our wayward friend the benefit of the doubt here,” Ron says. “No promises were made in the presence of God. Let’s not get too hardass here, folks, even though it’s we who profess to be without sin.” He raises his eyebrows at Carrie.
“So there, Carrie Morales,” Paulie says.
The others look on as if they need to be brought up to speed.
“I cheated,” Paulie says. “And I’m getting what I deserved. Actually, you could have wormed all this out of Arney Stack. You guys have his ear.”
Firth says, “Say what?”
“I thought you guys were lobbying Stack to get Johannsen and the school board to let you have a classroom for your get-togethers. Midnight meeting? One of these last Fridays?”
YFC heads shake in unison. “One more politician who doesn’t come through,” Firth says. “Mr. Stack hasn’t been at one of our meetings since we carried the election for him.”
“Carried the election.” Paulie laughs. “You and every other group in school. Arney didn’t meet with you guys a couple Fridays ago?”
“Haven’t seen Arney at one of our meetings—formal or informal—since last year.”
“And we sure haven’t seen him at any of the late Friday night meetings,” Carrie adds. “Those are where we have some fun. I’d remember that.”
Paulie shrugs and runs the business end of his straw around the inside of his glass, sucking up the cold residue like an 8-pound Oreck. “Gotta go, you guys. Thanks for bearing witness.”
“You wouldn’t have to change much, Mr. Bomb,” Ron Firth says, “to be one of us. We have hope for you.”
“Thanks anyway,” Paulie says back, “but as much time as I spend trying to haul myself through the water, I’m suspicious of guys who walk on it.”
“See you in school, man.”
Paulie belts himself into the Beetle and sits, staring out the windshield at Frank’s Diner. Arney didn’t have to speed off to YFC that night. Why would he say that? Where was he going that he didn’t want Paulie to know? He said in Period 8 that Mary Wells was a friend; why would he not be willing to give her a lift? And Hannah said Arney was the only guy she knew who wasn’t afraid of Mary’s dad. What’s that about?
He jumps at a knock on the driver’s-side window, looks up into Mary’s face. She motions him to roll down the window. “Can we talk?”
“Jeez! There are forty thousand people in this town, how come I keep running into you?”
She smiles. “No coincidence. I’m stalking you. You drive a lime-green Beetle, Paulie, basically a neon girlie car. You’re not that hard to track.”
“I don’t identify myself by my ride,” he says. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Things,” Mary says. “Just things.”
.10
“I still can’t believe he let you go,” Arney says. “You guys were like, the perfect couple.”
“He didn’t let me go,” Hannah says. “I dumped him. He cheated and I dumped him.”
“Well, then I can’t believe he cheated. Who would give you up for, like anybody?”
“I guess he would. Look, it hurts to talk about it, okay?”
“Still got something for him, huh?” he says. “I just . . .”
“Enough.”
“And his choice . . .”
“Arney.”
Arney grabs a handful of popcorn and crams it into his mouth as the lights go down for the main feature.
Hannah stares at the screen. “This is a classic,” she says. “You know who Alfred Hitchcock was?”
“I’m the one who picked the movie,” Arney says through a mouthful of popcorn. “Of course I know who Alfred Hitchcock was. This is like one of his all-timers.”
The opening credits to Psycho roll.
“What about his choice?” Hannah whispers.
“You said you didn’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“What about his choice? You know who it was?”
“Yeah, I know.”
Hannah is quiet.
“Want me to tell you?”
She stares ahead. Arney waits.
“No.”
“Guess there’s no fixing what happened,” Mary Wells says.
“Nothing to fix,” Paulie says back. “It happened. It was what it was.”
“I’m sorry about you losing Hannah.”
Paulie’s eyes narrow. “How did you find out I lost Hannah?”
“Everyone in school knows it.”
“Who told it to you first? You said it to me before you would have heard it at school.”
“Did I? I don’t remember where I heard it, Paulie.”
“You know what? There’s too much mystery here.”
“I know,” she says. “There are things I can’t talk about. Things aren’t always how they appear.”
“Yeah, but they aren’t usually exactly opposite of how th
ey appear, either. I’m a nice guy. Like you said. Not dangerous and all that? But I’m getting tired of this shit and if you wanna talk about things, these are the things I’m willing to talk about before I talk about anything else.”
“Can we drive?”
Paulie palms the back of his neck in frustration. “What the hell. Yeah, we can drive. But your car. Like you said, I’m too easy to track.”
“Who would be tracking you?”
“Nobody I know of,” he says, “but I wouldn’t have expected you, either.”
“I can’t believe he lets you drive this,” Paulie says as they settle into the Lexus. “If my parents owned this car, it would never leave the garage.”
“He doesn’t want me to have one of my own,” Mary says. “Too much independence.”
She pulls into traffic, silent until they’re on the freeway, headed to Diamond Lake. Paulie leans back in the passenger’s seat, watching the town go by through the side window, letting his mind bounce with the speed of the passing buildings.
“What is your dad going to do when you take off to school?” he asks after a while.
“I don’t know,” Mary says. “I’m worried about my sister, Becca. Daddy’s not happy unless he’s controlling something and she’ll be all that’s left. He’ll have trouble with her, though. She’s not like me.”
Mary takes the reservoir off-ramp and they speed a short distance through farm- and ranchland. “So it’s clear you’re still not telling me anything useful,” Paulie says. “What do you want to talk about?”
Mary hesitates. “Is there any reason we couldn’t hang out?”
Paulie’s head jerks around. “You mean like right now? Tonight?”
“All the time.”
Paulie slumps in the seat. “Reasons we couldn’t hang out. Lemme see if I can think of some. How about so Hannah Murphy doesn’t kick your ass.”
Mary’s voice goes sultry. “I love it when you talk dirty.”
Paulie grimaces. “Jesus, are you crazy?”
“I thought she was spending time with Arney.”
“I thought you were spending time with Arney.”
Mary looks at him quizzically; her face flushes.
“Coffee? A movie?”
Mary shakes her head. “Coffee once.”
“That’s it?”
“What did you hear?”
Paulie stares at her. “Nothing.” He looks away. “Something way different than that. Look, Mary, our history, yours and mine? Not good. And I am not interested in getting into anything. Plus, like I said, if Hannah knew it was you—you wanna talk about someone who’s not afraid of your dad—she’d be parked in front of your house.”
“Believe me, I’ve been hurt a lot worse than Hannah Murphy could hurt me.”
“Christ, Mary, if I were interested in a relationship, it wouldn’t be with somebody who tells half of everything.”
“If I said I’m not afraid of Hannah? Could we hang out then?”
Why can I not get through to you?
“Paulie, I want to be with you. I need to be with you.” It’s that voice he heard the other night when she wanted to know if she was good.
“Are you not listening? Mary, I don’t even know you.”
She smiles. “You know at least one thing about me,” she says. “And you said it wasn’t so bad.”
Paulie stares straight ahead.
“Come on, Paulie. You don’t have to tell anybody we’re . . . you know.”
“We are not ‘you know.’”
Mary takes a deep breath. “Then hang out long enough to get to know me,” she says. “Then you can decide.”
Paulie doesn’t answer. He’s quiet a few more miles, then, “You know, Mr. Logs says when we don’t understand something, it’s because we don’t have enough information; that there’s almost nothing we can’t figure out with knowledge. You agree with that?”
“I guess.”
“Okay, so I don’t understand this. You act all one way, like you’re an icon for celibacy. You could be queen of YFC. Then you, like, offer yourself up. I can see you fooling your dad and having maybe a secret relationship with somebody you love and keeping the personal stuff on the down low, but I swear to God it’s like you’re two different people.”
Mary pulls the car into the reservoir parking lot and turns to face Paulie. “I was on something that night I ran into Hannah,” she says.
“Something like drugs?”
“Something exactly like drugs,” she says. She looks at her lap. “Oxys.”
“Oxycodone? Are you shitting me? Where did you get oxys? And why? That shit will kill you.”
“I know, I know,” she says. “It was stupid. I still don’t even know how I got to Hannah’s house. I barely remember getting into her car.”
“Who gave you that shit, Mary?”
“I can’t tell you that. I know what you’d do, and it was my fault. It was just once. I haven’t taken anything since. And I won’t. I promise.” She leans back in the seat. “So can we?”
“Hang out?”
“Yes.”
“We can talk, Mary, but we are not together and we are not messing around. Despite what Justin Chenier says about guys, I don’t play. Not anymore.” He turns sideways, facing her with his back as far against the door as the seat belt will allow. “And you avoided my question. I asked about you being two different people, you said you were on oxys the night Hannah found you, not the night you were all over me.”
Mary grips the wheel. “Listen.” Her voice is serious, almost aggressive. “If I get another shot at you I’m going to take it. And I’ll teach you things you haven’t even thought of. Plant that in your brain.” She drops her arms. “But if I can’t have that, I need you to do something for me.”
Fuck. “I don’t even know why I’m asking, but what?”
“I need you to make it look serious. Nothing has to happen.”
“I’m not going to make it look serious. People think I’m enough of an asshole as it is.”
The desperation returns to Mary’s voice. “Then make it look like it could be. Down the road. I know I’m going to make you mad again because I can’t tell you why, but it’s almost life or death.”
“Give me a fucking break. Life or death for who?”
Mary simply shakes her head.
As he watches Mary drive away, Paulie drops into the driver’s seat of his Beetle, lays the seat all the way back, and stares at the ceiling, one leg in and one leg out of the car. What is fucking wrong with me? I’m talking to Mary Wells like she didn’t just ruin my life. Can we hang out? Can we fucking hang out? He takes a deep breath. The answer is no, you dumb asshole, not “we can talk, but blah blah blah.” It’s NO! He hits the back of his head softly against the headrest. But Hannah and Arney . . . Goddamn!
He brings the seat back up, closes the door, and starts the engine. Nothing to lose is not a good place for him to be.
“Tell me where I went wrong.”
Mary Wells drops her backpack onto the bar in the dining room and sits on a stool in front of it. “You didn’t go wrong, Mom. It had nothing to do with you.”
“Nothing to do with me? You’re my daughter. You’re months—weeks—away from graduation and you disappear. Everything you’ve worked for is in jeopardy and you disappear for days. I’ve asked you over and over and you give me nothing. Do I seem that foolish to you? You’ve never done anything like that. We thought we’d gotten you through these awful high school years unscarred and then . . . this.”
You didn’t get me through these awful high school years, Mary thinks. You made these high school years awful. If you knew how much I hate you, you’d kill yourself.
“It’s over now, Mom. Everything you guys wanted for me will happen. I’ll work it out with Daddy. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“I hope so,” Miriam Wells says. “These last few weeks have been the hardest in my life. Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through? Thin
k of your sister.” She begins to tear up.
Mary closes her eyes. This is the part of her mother that drives her crazy: always making things look some way they’re not. You know your father loves you, he just doesn’t know how to show it. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t get so angry. Always worried more about how things look than how they are. In the dark of her room late at night, in her best moments of clarity, Mary watches herself turn into that person.
“You should have heard your dad after the Father/Daughter Prom. He said you were the prettiest girl there. He said you were the one girl who he knew would keep her promise of chastity until marriage, the one girl who would never disappoint her father in any way. All those cute little religious girls with their high necklines and crosses . . . they had nothing on you.”
Mary looks away. Never disappointing your father is NOT who a girl needs to be, you stupid bitch! Half the time he wants me sexy and the other half he wants a goddamn three-year-old! He’s SICK! YOU’RE sick! I’M sick!!! She closes her eyes. She can get through this. There is no reason for her mother to ever know. She has two cell phones now: one to give her dad at the end of the day and one that holds the answers to the mysteries of her recent history. She’s nowhere to be found on the Internet other than her cheerleader blogs and sweet “hi-ya” emails. There HAS to be a way out. Before this year she thought it was college, but it’s going to be more drastic.
“You didn’t break that vow, did you?”
Yes, Mom, I threw my entire self at Paul Baum. I trapped him. He couldn’t get away, and in the end he didn’t want to get away. And he wasn’t even close to being the first. . . .
“Celibacy? No, Mom, I didn’t break that vow.” Her life has become so convoluted that lies roll off her tongue like honey.
“You know there are going to be consequences.”
Her mother’s voice is fading. In fact, her mother’s voice has always been faded. It has no weight. It barely has sound. And Mary can hear hers fading with it.
The following afternoon after school, Paulie digs into his backpack for his laptop and places it gently on the tabletop at The Rocket, hoping for divine inspiration. He’s always done his best thinking in the white noise of a small restaurant or coffee shop and this one has the advantage of feeling like his home away from home. His bedroom is for sleep. His senior thesis is due soon and he has been swimming, working here, and playing rat basketball and screwing up his life instead of getting it written. So far, he has the title—ADOLESCENT DECISION-MAKING—and about fifty opening sentences. His idea when he chose the topic was to focus on information he’d gathered from his psychology class, brain science books, the news, and personal experience. Mr. Logs is his thesis advisor, selected because he’d get “latitude,” but also because he knew Logs would hold his feet to the fire to get a quality product. He wants that: a quality product. There has been a whole lot of high school for which he has little respect. Testing his memory ’til it was sore and bleeding has never held much water for him and the rah-rah of sports and school loyalty hasn’t cranked him up much, though he roots for the school’s teams and wears the colors on occasion. But Logs has always said this is the time. “You want to come out of high school at full speed,” Logs says. “Too many people pass it off as time spent waiting for your real life to start. But it doesn’t have to be. The more you know about what lies out there the further ahead you are when you step out.”