Chapter 2
He Died Laughing
I stood by my locker, watching the only entrance Owen could come in, and waiting for him. He was usually early, which is why I made it a point to be extra early. I wanted to have time to get my thoughts in order, to sort of feel the air around me, and come up with exactly the right thing to say.
I had been stroking these feelings for so long now, building it up in my head, that I needed to do this right. Even if he said no, even if he looked at me like some love struck idiot, I wanted to be clear.
He wasn’t early today though. I must have ran my hands through my hair a thousand time, watching the door and trying to act nonchalant as other students started to pour in.
I had never been the most popular person in DeSoto. Hell, I’m sure if you asked them, most of the other sophomores probably couldn’t tell you my name. They’d say I was the new girl, or Casper’s friend, or the chick from Chicago whose dad died. It’s not that they didn’t like me. At least, that’s not the way I took it. I always figured they sort of saw me as an outsider; an unnecessary addition that came along once they were set in their ways.
Everybody in Crestview seemed to have known each other since forever; like they made phone calls from the uterus or something. Their mothers knew each other. Their fathers hunted together. Sure, the fact that my mom was head of nursing (and pretty popular come flu season) might have got me a little attention, but that only lasted so long. And, if I’m being honest, I never did much to garner any affection.
Aside from Casper and Owen, for whom I had a different sort of affection, I never made much time for the kids in Crestview. They always seemed so silly to me; so small. They were obsessed with country music, with the DeSoto Excavators Friday night football games and, worst of all, with each other.
Every day there was a new rumor. Claire Collins dumped Randy Gentry after she caught him cheating with her sister. Wade Reynolds got suspended for sneaking peppermint schmaltz into the boys’ locker room. Susie Townser spent six months in Wyoming, but it wasn’t for a spiritual retreat. Claire Collins dumped Randy Gentry again after she found incriminating pictures of the cheerleading squad on his cellphone.
Those two were like Chris Brown and Rihanna minus the domestic abuse.
It was like none of them could see past the town limits; like there wasn’t a whole wide world out there full of amazing stuff. I couldn’t live that way. I had seen that world, I had lived in it. So, if I didn’t exactly fit in in Middle-of-Nowhere, Georgia, well; I could think of worse things.
Owen wasn’t like that though. He was an outsider too. He was stuck just like me. He understood, and hopefully he would understand what I was about to tell him.
If he ever bothered to show up, that is.
“Bell’s about to ring Cress,” Casper said. He was standing next to me, his foot propped up against a locker, sucking on a bright red Tootsie Pop.
“He’ll be here,” I insisted, scratching my face. I had snuck off to the bathroom to put some makeup on for my big moment. I mustn’t have done it right though, because my face was itching like crazy. Mom had never been the sort to use a lot of makeup. I guess when you spend all your time sticking needles into sick people; there isn’t much need for it. As a result, I never really figured out how to apply the stupid stuff.
Still, I must have done it okay, because Casper hadn’t seemed to notice. Which is good because if he had, he’d no doubt have a field day with it.
“Maybe he’s sick,” Casper suggested through a mouthful of sucker.
“Maybe,” I muttered, and ran my fingers through my hair again.
He turned to me, pulled the sucker from his mouth, and put his chin on my shoulder. His breath was cherry and chocolate when he said, “Don’t kill yourself about it Cress. You’ve always got me.”
I knew what was coming next; the same thing he said since the instant he heard my last name.
“Casper Rhodes and Cresta Karr. Karr and Rhodes,” he smiled. “See, ‘cause cars drive on roads.”
“I get it,” I said, ruffling his red hair. “You don’t have to kill the metaphor.”
He scrunched his nose and peered at me from over his glasses. “Is that rouge?”
Luckily, that was when Owen finally decided to arrive.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said and pulled away from him. He clanged against the lockers, catching his balance and tried to look cool in front of the freshman girls that passed.
“How you doing?” He waved at them. “I totally meant to do that, by the way.”
Not that it mattered to me, but Owen was less than his spectacular self as he drudged into the hallway. His black hair was still wet, presumably from the shower, and brushed lazily to the side, making it look like sloshed mud on his head. There were huge dark circles under his eyes, and he was pulling at his jacket, suggesting that, even now, he was still getting dressed.
I walked toward him, a super bright smile plastered across my face; the same sort of smile I imagined Merrin wore when she was picking flowers, or surfing, or whatever it is perfect California girls do in their free time.
“Hey,” I purred, and tilted my head a little to the left. I saw Angelina Jolie do that once in a movie, and the guy completely melted. She had a pistol strapped to her thigh at the time, but I figured it was worth a shot.
“Did you do the math homework?” he asked, looking past me.
Angelina Jolie, I was not.
“I-“
“I overslept. Plus, I didn’t do the math homework. Plus, I left a red shirt in the washing machine and now all my socks and underwear are pink. Plus, I think I have an inner ear infection.”
Okay, so he wasn’t exactly Brad Pitt today either. But I had made up my mind. I was doing this. I brushed off everything he had said and put my hand on his shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice.
“I wanted to talk to you about something.” I stared at him, making sure my green eyes synched up with his deep blue ones perfectly. The look in them must have been telling, because this time he did notice something was up.
“Is everything all right?” He asked, biting his lip, which he always did when he was nervous, and which I thought was just about the cutest thing ever.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. It’s just-“
The bell sounded, cutting into my words. I felt his shoulder tense.
“Can we do this later?” He asked. The rest of the student body was busy filing into their respective homerooms and I could tell from the look on his face that he didn’t want to be late.
No. This wasn’t the right time.
“Sure,” I said, and took my hand off his shoulder. He smiled that electric smile that had been front and center in my dreams since the day I met him.
“Thanks Cress. Look me up at lunch or something, okay”
“Sure thing,” I grinned.
But then, something else happened. He leaned in close, his pool blue eyes inspecting me. I caught the scent of him on the air. I felt his breath against my cheek. For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me, and my heart started pounding in my chest like a jackhammer against pavement.
“You have schmutz on your face,” he said.
Okay. Not gonna kiss me.
“Red schmutz,” he continued.
He put his hand on my face and started rubbing which, if it wasn’t the most embarrassing moment of my life, would have probably been nice.
“I don’t know. Maybe you should run to the bathroom before class.” He gave me a smile and a ‘We’re such great buddies’ pat on the shoulder, and then he was off.
I almost limped back to Casper, who wasn’t even trying to hold in his laughter.
“Not a word,” I said, but he keeled over, holding his stomach and howling in delight.
“That was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. “My tombstone’s gonna read: Here lies Casper Rhodes. He died laughing.”
I had three classes with Owen befor
e lunch; History, where I watched him struggle to stay awake through Mrs. Gilman’s forty three minute lecture about the Cotton Tax and its effect on the Civil War, and Science, where he chewed on the end of his pencil and stared out the window. I had never wanted to be an eraser so badly in my entire life.
I almost talked to him in Math class. I stood outside the door, waiting for him after the bell rang. When he didn’t come out, I went back in. He didn’t see me. He was standing at Mr. Jacobs’ desk, holding out a sheet of paper. I could see that the paper was blank, save for a giant smiley face he had drawn in the center in red crayon.
“What’s this?” Mr. Jacobs asked, taking the paper.
“It’s my math homework,” Owen answered, without cracking a smile.
“No it’s not. This is rubbish.”
Owen folded his arms and leaned toward the desk a little, “Look again. It’s my homework, and I think you’ll see it’s all correct.”
Mr. Jacobs seemed confused but, when he turned the paper back toward him he said, “My mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking. Good job on this.”
Before Owen could come out, before I could ask him what all that was about, Margie Connor, who thought that just because she got a sash and a demerit card, she was queen of the hall monitors, shooed me toward Language Arts.
Lunch came with a caveat that I hadn’t considered. It was Thursday, which meant the meatheads that made up the DeSoto High Excavators would spend their entire lunch period going over plays and strategies for Friday night’s game. They’d flick fish sticks at each other and talk about how they were going to ‘completely own’ whatever poor team had the misfortune of having to come to this excuse of a town to play.
Owen, for all his pluses, counted himself among the meatheads. I never understood why someone like Owen; so witty, so cerebral, saw fit to join their ranks. I mean, they spent their days arguing over whether Becki Saunders or Claire Collins had the more squeezable butt (usually Claire), or who could hock the biggest loogie (Ernie Palmer, though during pollen season Dennis Johnson gave him a run for his money).
Maybe Owen saw it as a way to fit in. And, to that end, it worked. Less than a week after putting that jersey on, he was one of the most popular guys in school. People started gathering around him in the hallway, girls started flirting their way up to him (though they hit the same Merrin shaped road block I had been dealing with). Even parents in the PTA knew who he was.
It didn’t change him though. For all the new friends he had, for all the parties he got invited to, it was still rare for me to go more than a day without seeing him. I think, in a lot of ways, he still saw himself as an outsider and, because of that, thought of me as a kindred spirit. At least, I hoped he did.
He waved as he saw me walk into the cafeteria, and even stood as if to join Casper and me at our regular table. I waved him on, letting him know it was okay that he stay with the team. It was Thursday after all, and this wasn’t where I wanted to tell him how I felt anyway, not in some crowded lunchroom where we’d have to shout over the sounds of last night’s gossip worthy events to be heard.
I would see him after school. I would take him to the swing set at the elementary school next door, and I’d lay it all out. With any luck, he’d bit his lip, smile that electric smile, and tell me he felt the same way and that he had been dying waiting for me to make the first move. He’d call Merrin and break the news to her, while I planned our perfect future together. Then, he’d kiss me and I would run home sing that song like the chick in the beginning of Adventures in Babysitting and smile forever.
But I didn’t see him after school. He must have left before the final bell, because by the time the student body poured out into the parking lot, making plans for tonight and the coming weekend, there was no sign of him.
From the corner of my eye though, out past poor neglected Hernando, I saw the black Sedan from Mrs. Goolsby’s idling alongside the road, blacked out windows and all.
“Is that that car?” I turned to ask Casper.
By the time I turned back though, it was gone.