I strode confidently out the door, awed by my power.
Jonathan fluttered down from the ceiling vent. “How are the lovebirds?” he asked.
I’d learned my lesson. I wasn’t going to gesture or speak to the air like a moron. I epoxied myself to Peter’s gorgeous side and beamed.
Then suddenly Peter’s face went morbidly pale. He bent over and clutched his heart.
“Peter!”
“I just had this…sharp pain…,” he stammered, trying to straighten. He caught his breath. “I’m okay,” he said shakily. “It’s gone.”
I grabbed his hand. Jonathan put his ear on Peter’s chest, listening. I said it was gas, maybe. Heart-burn. I said I was really sorry. I looked at Jonathan who looked at Peter like Dr. Frankenstein looked at his monster.
“We will hope for the best,” Jonathan said gravely, and flew off.
I was hoping for the best, hoping so hard that my hope muscles hurt. Peter and I huddled behind Big Ben, trying to steal a few quiet moments.
Lisa Shooty grinned her Head Cheerleader smile at me and bounced over. Lisa had never given me the time of day. She tossed her mane of flawless raven curls and patted my F2 like it was a stuffed animal.
“A.J.,” she cooed, “I have so wanted a really great photo of myself as Head Cheerleader leading cheers at a game…” She let her hand glide over my camera. “I was hoping that you, who are the greatest photographer any of us knows, would take it.” She smiled extra hard.
I smiled too, the way Mom taught me to when a customer was being a pain.
“I just don’t want a strange picture, A.J….”
“You mean like the one I took of the football team growling and caked with mud?”
She nodded.
“You want something, Lisa, that captures passion, school spirit, and that really great backflip you do at halftime when your skirt goes up?”
She grabbed my arm. “You understand, A.J.—cheerleading is very centering for me.”
The plaintive sound of a lone kazoo wailed from the front of the Student Center. All eyes turned to see Gary Quark, chairman of the King of Hearts Dance Committee, dressed in a purple robe and crown. Katie Broadringer, dressed like a Valentine heart, did a cartwheel in front of Gary, who blew his kazoo again.
“Hear ye, hear ye!” Gary cried. “Let it be known that the King of Hearts Dance is only four days away!” A ripple of anxiety gripped the air as dateless girls considered their prospects.
“So if you haven’t asked him yet”—Gary paused here for royal impact as Katie did a series of happy-heart somersaults—“do it! I myself was only picked off last week.” He smiled at Becca Loadstrom, who had done the picking.
“And”—Gary raised his plastic scepter—“you have only two more days to cast your votes for that macho senior male who will wear this crown as the King of Hearts!” Gary took the crown off his head and waved it. I smiled proudly at Peter—his chances of being crowned King were excellent. Only Al Costanzo could possibly beat him. Gary gave a final snort on his kazoo. Katie did a cartwheel and ended in a heartrending split. They exited to polite applause.
I leaned back on Peter’s kingly shoulder. We would knock the world on its ear Saturday night.
Wednesday I was sitting with Peter on his sister’s couch as his destructive two-year-old niece, Marcie, dive-bombed the ottoman with her plastic doll. We were going to have pizza while he baby-sat Marcie, a task his mother forced upon him to keep the family together. Peter stroked my hand; our hearts beat as one. Marcie stuck her tongue out at me and wiped glop on my supremely expensive cowl-neck sweater that I had bought to impress Peter’s mother, who was grinning at Marcie like she was the most adorable child in the world. I eyed Marcie’s glop and smiled tolerantly just like Mom did when Dad’s aunt Agnes asked her why she spent so much time cooking for other people when she should be at home cooking for us. Marcie made a foul noise meant for me. I didn’t kill her. I was trying to make a good impression.
Peter’s sister, Sarah, was dashing about in a violet silk suit while Marcie tried to rub a Hershey’s kiss on as much of her mother as possible. Peter’s mother was tall and stylish and exhibited no further supreme shrew characteristics. She said I must be a very special girl because all Peter had been talking about for the last few days was me. Sarah’s husband, Hector, was a gastroenterologist who carried a clip-on phone and ate Tums.
“Sarah,” Hector barked, “get the seat and let’s go!”
By “the seat” Hector meant Marcie’s new potty chair that was pink and happy and played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” at the vaguest hint of moisture. Sarah plunked the seat down.
“She’s not…trained?” I asked, gulping.
“We’re working on it,” chirped Sarah. “Marcie’s a very big girl and we know she can do it!”
Marcie kicked the seat and toddled away.
Sarah handed Peter a bag of Hershey’s kisses that were Marcie’s rewards when she used the chair. “It’s the learn-by-doing method,” Sarah explained. “Instant rewards, instant gratification. They train themselves. Just have the doll wet first; you’ll be fine.” Sarah beamed at Marcie who was eyeing the candy bag. “Kiss Mommy good-bye, sweetie.”
Marcie lunged for a Hershey’s kiss instead of her mother; Peter tossed the bag to me. I threw it on the stereo as Sarah, Hector, and Mrs. Terris hurried out the door to meet Mr. Terris in the city. Mr. Terris was a personal-injury lawyer and always worked late. I guess you never know when tragedy might strike.
Marcie made a noise like a B-52 and rammed her doll into the stereo cabinet. She stormed up to me and shoved the doll in my face.
“Make dolly wet!” she demanded.
Peter groaned. I took Marcie and the doll into the bathroom, unscrewed the doll’s head, poured water inside the plastic body, and put the head back on. “There,” I said, “you make the dolly wet.” I was going to add “in the next county,” but decided against it.
Marcie ran back to the living room, sat the doll on the pink potty chair, and squeezed its stomach viciously. Streams of water squirted into the bowl, causing the chair to play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and Marcie to shriek, “Good dolly!” Peter handed her a Hershey’s kiss, which she smeared around the doll’s mouth before devouring it herself.
“Well,” I said, “so this is potty training.”
I gazed at Peter’s sculpted jaw. Over the weekend we were going to merge our CD collections, which was almost like being engaged. We had perfection right down to coordination in pizza toppings (we both adored veggie). This was an absolute sign from heaven that our love would last. We’d be munching Veggie Supremos when we were gnarled and middle-aged. But antiquity was light years away. The Dance of the Century was almost upon us.
The whole school felt its power. All anyone could get out of the King of Hearts Dance Committee was a knowing smile and a whispered assurance that this dance was going to blow the prom out of the water. Everyone who went would be changed forever; everyone who sat home would ache for what could have been. It would be my moment in the sun, the deliverance from years of grinding pathos and romantic devastation.
We cuddled close as Marcie whacked the chair. Not even potty training could extinguish our eternal flame. There was so much we had to learn about each other, so much distance that had separated our empty lives until now. I wanted to know every last scrumptious fact about him.
“Peter, tell me about the debate team.”
Peter shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“I mean really tell me. I want to know what it’s like in the heat of a debate when the clock is ticking and you’re up there and the whole team is counting on you to say something brilliant and the other guy has just scored a big point.”
He shrugged.
“Peter,” I tried again, “what kinds of things do you like to do? I mean, I love to go to museums and just spend time around all that good, rich art that’s lasted for centuries. I love sitting in front of it and seeing it from every
angle. You can learn a lot about yourself that way.”
“I kind of like to hang out,” Peter said.
I took another approach. I said, “I’m definitely into gourmet food because my mother’s a chef and all, and I like to photograph just about anything that speaks to me about life. I try to photograph things that mean something to me, because that’s kind of how I see the world, through my camera.” I left lots of space here for him to jump in and say he’d love to see my work.
He didn’t.
I said that art was the door we open to understand ourselves. I said that artists, like debaters and athletes, have certain depth that other people can’t see. Peter fixed his ice-green eyes on me and motioned me to sit on his lap. I did, because there’s more to life than sparkling conversation. He looked at me sincerely, like a dog about to be fed. I tried again.
“Peter, I’ve always felt that when two people really care about each other, one of the most important things they can do together is to—”
“Make dolly wet!” Marcie shouted.
I threw up my hands.
Marcie shook the doll at me. I stormed into the bathroom and filled it full.
“Go to it, kid.”
She ran back to her potty chair. I shuddered. Here was a child who would never be able to sit through The Wizard of Oz without having to go to the bathroom.
I had hardly lunged back into the living room when Jonathan pirouetted down unannounced, and did a three-point turn on Peter’s left shoulder.
“Good evening,” Jonathan chirped.
He circled Peter, looking him up and down like an internist. He felt his forehead, he tapped his chin. I shot Jonathan a Supremely Irritated Look from the corner of my eye. You have to be massively subtle to pull off invisible relationships.
Peter caught it. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing…”
Jonathan flew toward me, his wings beating in a blur. “I must tell you, my friend, that I do not like what I see.”
“Then do something, please!” I cried.
“Do what?” Peter asked.
I shouted that I didn’t know.
Peter said he’d do anything for me. His eyes glazed with blind love. He gripped my hand.
Jonathan said he would think about the dilemma. Marcie announced that it was time, once again, to “make dolly wet!” I yanked the doll’s head off and poured my can of 7-Up inside. Jonathan did a slow, ponderous spiral and spun backward out the window as the sounds of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” wafted through the living room.
It was past midnight; I couldn’t sleep.
I was eating a meat-loaf sandwich in my room, trying to picture what it had been like when Peter saw my face in his meat loaf and knew I was the one. I took a huge bite of sandwich. My mother made the best meat loaf in the world—dense, smoky, shouting with authority.
I had shouted for Jonathan twice since Peter drove me home. He hadn’t answered. He was probably lounging on Uranus, contemplating whatever minuscule thing was wrong with my boyfriend.
I played the messages back on the answering machine. Pearly wanted to do an in-depth blurb on me for the Valentine edition and wanted to know where Peter and I liked to hang out and what our favorite foods were. Melissa Pageant invited me to her birthday party. I played that one back three times. Trish had left two messages. The first one said she’d asked Tucker to the dance—he said he hated to dance, but would go with her anyway. The second one asked if I’d had any further “incidents.” This depended on who you talked to.
I was really glad for Trish—she was going to the dance with someone mysterious who could benefit from in-depth psychoanalysis.
I sat on the floor of my bedroom and looked at my strapless red formal that I was going to look smashing in because the deep red offset my dark hair and made me look fiery, which is a good look for Valentine’s Day, all things considered.
I dangled my drop rhinestone earrings in the eerie glow of my halogen lamp. I felt the smooth container of my Ruby Rapture lipstick. I stuffed pink Kleenex and my extra nose inhaler into my sequined evening bag. I walked to the framed eight-by-ten photo hanging on my wall that my father had taken. It was a color shot of a cardinal on an evergreen branch eating from a home-made bird feeder. Dad had taken it the Saturday of last year’s King of Hearts Dance, two days after Robbie Oldsberg dumped me. Dad had wakened me up early that morning and we had driven to the country with our cameras. We’d trounced through snow-ladened forests, we’d crossed icy streams, not once talking about Robbie or Valentine’s Day or my heavy, broken heart, but everything we did that day lightened me. Dad spooned peanut butter in a grapefruit rind and hung it by a pine tree for the birds to find. Two cardinals came and ate their fill. Dad and I blasted off a roll of film each through our zoom lenses. The birds flew away when I moved too close. We headed back home talking about light meters and color film, still yakking when we picked Mom up from work and went out for barbecue. Mom was asleep by ten, but Dad and I pushed through until two in the morning, watching old Marx Brothers movies and eating meat-loaf sandwiches. I knew exactly what he was doing and I loved him for it. It was the nicest day we’d ever spent together.
I touched the frame, wondering if my father would ever accept me as an artist.
Peter hadn’t seemed too keen about my art either. That hurt. Todd Kovich had never understood about my work. I’d had to drag him into my studio and force him to look. I could do that with Peter, of course; he would follow me anywhere.
I wanted him to care about my art without being pushed.
I wanted us to have a decent conversation.
I needed to talk to Jonathan. There must be something he could do. Peter was just in a sensitive stage of succumbing adjustment. I’d ask him for a teensy-weensy cupid alteration. How hard could that be?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Peter drove me to school Thursday, a shade too fast, in my opinion. He ran two red lights and almost hit a van of St. Ignatius nuns because he simply could not keep his eyes on the road for all the looking he was doing at me. At the intersection of Crosstown and Bernice I was shrieking, “Watch the road!” as he beamed at me like a thousand Christmas lights, screeched into the Ben Franklin parking lot, and rammed the Jeep to a sharp stop, causing the glove compartment to flop open and scores of parking tickets to flutter to the floor.
I stared at them in shock. “Peter, are these your tickets?”
He smiled and shrugged.
“You could get in trouble for not paying these!”
He scooped up the evidence. “My dad knows a guy who takes care of it.” Then he pulled me close and kissed me with unbridled emotion. It would have been a much better kiss if he’d paid the tickets.
At school we were mobbed.
We were asked to be on the Prom Committee and the Graduation Committee. We were asked to join the Young Republicans, the Young Democrats, the Young Independents, and the Young Undecideds. We were asked to suggest a gift for the senior class to give to the school at graduation. I proposed a cappuccino machine for the teachers’ lounge and received thunderous applause from the English Department. Deenie Wilcox asked if I would head a student panel discussing the Realities of Teenage Dating. The Student Council asked to display my photographs (no fewer than twelve) in the Student Center. This was the ultimate popularity nod. I was giddy with the thought.
“It will be my first private show!” I explained to Peter, who said “Uh-huh” and brushed a strand of hair from my cheek just like Todd Kovich used to do when the subject of my art came up.
“I need you to care about my work, Peter! This is what I plan to do for a living!”
He pulled me close. The hair on my arms tingled. “I care about you,” he whispered breathlessly.
You could hardly see my locker for the forest of notes taped to it about all the upcoming parties and important in-crowd gatherings. People came at us waving appointment books, trying to fit themselves into our blockbuster schedules. I was writin
g dates in textbooks, on Kleenex.
I was a megatrend in the making.
I was passing old friends at a distance because the new ones kept crashing in. Trish tucked a note in my fist saying to meet by the World Peace Bench after fourth period—we had to talk. I was trying to figure out which of my photographs should grace the walls of the Student Center when Pearly Shoemaker ran up to me, her eyes twinkling like Hollywood.
“I can’t tell you what it is, A.J., I swore I wouldn’t talk. But when you see it, well…it is the absolute ultimate expression!”
“What are you talking about, Pearly?”
“You’ll see.” She giggled, dancing off.
I forgot about meeting Trish at fourth period. I forgot about helping Nina Bloomfeld with her Art History paper. I almost forgot to vote for that lucky macho male who would be Ben Franklin High’s King of Hearts. I cast my vote (for Peter, of course). The King of Hearts Dance Committee carried the hermetically sealed king-sized mayonnaise jars off to a soundproof, windowless room to tally the figures and swear a blood oath not to divulge the findings to anyone until Saturday night.
The mantle of royalty hovered above Peter’s dazzling head.
At fourth period Peter taped a flower to my locker. At lunch he gave me a box of designer chocolates in the cafeteria, right by Lisa Shooty, who flamed with envy. He said, “Sweets for the sweet,” which was really corny and I wished he hadn’t said anything because I thought about the reams of unpaid parking tickets and cleared two rows of buttercreams in under three minutes. At sixth period he gave me a silver bracelet. At seventh period he gave me his school jacket, at eighth period he tried to give me money.
“Just pick out a little something nice for yourself…,” he explained.