Heartache and Other Natural Shocks (7 page)

“Classy!” Debbie whispers. Marlene’s eyes bug out of her head.

Mrs. Slater opens the door to the basement and calls down to Ian. I hope he’ll be excited to see me. I notice the way he checks me out at school, like I’m a hot car he wants to
test drive. Maybe he just needs someone to pass him the keys. I think about how nice it will be when we’re dating and I’m popping by the mansion all the time.

And then the basement door flies open, and instantly I know I’ve made a big mistake. Ian stands rooted to the floor like a guard dog. He practically has his teeth bared. “What are you doing here?” he growls.

“We just dropped by,” I say.

“Shall I make some tea?” his mom asks.

“They’re not staying,” Ian snarls.

Deb and Mar exchange looks. Mrs. Slater laughs, as if Ian’s bad manners are just a joke, but it’s the kind of tinkly horror-movie laugh that sends chills up your spine.

I say, “We really have to go.” Mar and Deb are already at the door.

Mrs. Slater says, “Perhaps another time.” She holds out a thin limp hand, and as I lean in to shake it, I catch a whiff of perfume mixed with booze. And bingo, I get it. No wonder Ian doesn’t want us here. I can feel his eyes drilling holes into the back of my skull, but what am I supposed to do? I don’t even bother saying good-bye. I rush out the door, and Ian slams it on my heels. Shit! Shit! Shit!

On the street, Debbie and Marlene are already in full gossip mode about how nasty Ian is and how Mrs. Slater is so upper crust.

“I think I detected an accent,” says Mar.

“Yeah, British. Like royalty,” Deb agrees.

“Maybe Ian is heir to the throne, 112 times removed,” Mar snickers.

I don’t say a word about how Mrs. Slater stunk of booze at three-thirty in the afternoon.

Debbie says, “I guess you can cross him off your list.”

“Why would I do that?” I say.

“Carla! He practically threw us out of the house!” Mar says.

“Yeah,” Deb says. “Why would you want to go out with a guy like that?”

“I don’t know. I just do,” I snap.

Debbie and Marlene look at me, disgusted. But I don’t blame Ian for this; I blame myself. Why did I have to barge in like that? I can hear Nonna Cabrielli’s voice in my head saying,
“Chi prima non pensa, dopo sospira”
—he who doesn’t think ahead will suffer. Yeah. I’m so mad, I could kick myself.

All night long, I roll around in bed, twisting in my sheets, having imaginary conversations with Ian that go nowhere. Finally, at three in the morning, I decide there’s only one thing to do: pretend the whole thing never happened. If I can’t fix it, I’ll wait it out.

So, at school, when Ian avoids me, I’m not surprised. In class, when he sits beside the two
J
s instead of me, I shrug it off. I sit with Sherrie Cumberland. After school, when he hangs out with Jim Malone, I pretend I couldn’t care less. I hang out with Deb and Mar. I have plenty of other things to do.

In drama, for our first assignment, Mr. Gabor asks us to create a monologue based on a fairy tale or nursery rhyme, and I focus on that. I decide to do a vampy version of a skipping song about a Girl Guide and her date. I borrow Ma’s clingy, yellow satin gown and black spiked heels. I sweep up my hair and paint my lips with Raging Red, and when I step into that studio, ooh baby, I sizzle. Jaws drop. Even the
J
s are speechless for once. Yessiree, when you’re hot, you’re hot. I sashay into the spotlight like a pro, and I sing-talk that skipping song in my low, sultry, Mae West voice:

I move on to the next verse and slink around the studio with a bump and grind. I get laughs exactly where I want them. Mr. Gabor chuckles, and the guys hoot and whistle. But best of all, without even looking, I know Ian is hooked. He slouches in his seat, the corners of his lips curl into a smirk, and his eyes track my every move. Oh yeah! Gotcha!

“You’ve Got a Friend”

The only subject I’m behind in is math, so after school, I get help from my teacher. By the time I leave his office, the math area is empty. I’m about to turn the corner to go to my locker when I spot Carla and Ian in the hallway. She’s reaching up to get her binder from the top shelf of her locker while his eyes slide up her bare legs, over her bum and across to her chest. If eyes were fingers, he’d have his hands full. This is
not
the kind of moment I want to walk in on, so I hang back.

“Where’re you going now?” Carla asks Ian.

“I’m coming to your house,” he says, flirting.

I can’t believe he’s coming on to her. Last week they didn’t even sit together in drama, and now this.

Carla smirks and slams her locker door. “Who says you’re invited?” she teases.

Ian puts his hands on either side of her, so that her back is flat against the locker, her body caged by his. “Don’t you want to invite me to your house for some milk and cookies?” he purrs in a low, rumbling voice that reminds me of the Big
Bad Wolf when he licks his chops and says
All the better to eat you with, my dear
.

“I’ll give you a ride on my bike,” he says.

The fluorescent lights hum. Ian leans in closer and they’re about to kiss, but then the back of Carla’s head clunks against her locker and they pull apart.

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s go.”

They turn in my direction. I don’t want them to see me, so I dash down the hall toward the stairwell, but I know I’m not going to make it in time. In a panic, I try two doors. The second one opens, and I slip inside just as Ian and Carla turn the corner. I crouch behind the door and listen to Carla’s loud laughter as they pass. I’m so intent on eavesdropping that I don’t notice I’m in a small room with a glowing red light until a male voice behind me says, “Excuse me.”

I nearly jump out of my skin. I whip around to see a ghoulish face looking at me with a very annoyed expression.

“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to walk into a darkroom when the red light is on?” he says sternly.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” I blurt. “Did I ruin anything?”

His eyes widen. “Well, if you’d burst into this room two seconds earlier, my entire roll would’ve been
tabula rasa
. Hours and hours of posing and shooting. Clarissa would’ve had my head on a platter, and I could’ve kissed good-bye my big chance of becoming Richard Avedon’s personal assistant.”

He looks vaguely familiar. My eyes begin to adjust to the darkness. “Who’s Richard Avedon?” I ask.

He frowns and rattles off: “Famous photographer.
Harper’s Bazaar. Vogue
. Marilyn Monroe. The Parisienne Collection …”

“Oh yes,” I say, pretending I know what he’s talking about. “Do you know him?”

He sighs. “No, but it is one of my many ambitions to be a famous portrait photographer and work for
Vogue
.” He crosses his arms in front of his chest and assesses me. “I suppose you’re more of an Imogen Cunningham type. Or—wait. Wait. Diane Arbus. Black and white. Raw. Naked. Dwarfs. Freaks. Am I right?”

I gawk. What is he talking about? I want to ask who Diane Arbus is, but I sense this may be a stupid question.

He says, “Oh, please don’t take that the wrong way. I’m not saying you’re only interested in dwarfs and naked people. I’m just saying that you strike me as someone who’s … intellectually artistic.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know me.”

“Yes, I do. You’re Jules, the new girl in my drama class.”

And then I recognize him. Geoff Jones. “I didn’t recognize you in this light.”

He grins. He has an eager puppy-dog smile that doesn’t
quite fit with his scrubbed-clean, handsome looks, but it’s the kind of smile that makes you want to smile right back. Geoff is one of the stars of the drama class. His monologue this week was brilliant. We had to do character monologues based on fairy tales and nursery rhymes. I did Rapunzel in her tower, waiting for the prince to return, wondering if his visit had been just a figment of her imagination. The crazy-isolation thing kind of appealed to me, but I think it made some students uncomfortable because after I finished, there was dead silence before people started clapping. Mr. Gabor said that I was “theatrically unnerving, in the best sense.”

Carla did a spoof of a skipping poem about a Girl Guide who dumps her date. Typecasting? Still, I have to admit, she has great comic timing, and she sure knows how to flaunt what she’s got.

But the funniest monologue was Geoff’s. He dressed up as Little Bo Peep, in a fluffy hat and flouncy crinoline. His Bo Beep was an alcoholic transvestite who had fallen asleep and lost her sheep, and now she was threatening to turn them into lamb chops if they didn’t come out of the forest wagging their tails behind them. Even Mr. Gabor cracked up.

“I loved your Bo Peep. It was hilarious,” I tell him.

“Thank you,” Geoff says with a crisp bow. “And I liked your Rapunzel. It made my skin crawl. That’s why I thought of Diane Arbus and those photos she took of freaks. Do you know what she said about freaks?” I shake my head. “She said,
‘Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.’ ”

We stand face-to-face under the red light as those words wash over us, and I know, in that moment, that I’ve stumbled upon someone who belongs to the same tribe as me. “That’s very profound,” I say.

“I know,” Geoff says. “Do you want to stay and see what I’m working on? Or do you have to go?”

I stay. In the red light, everything has a clinical laboratory calmness. The chemicals in the air smell acrid and metallic. Geoff has one roll of film hanging up, drying, and some negatives ready to be printed. He sets up the enlarger and times the exposure. Next he submerges the shiny exposed paper into a pan of liquid, swishing it back and forth with a pair of tongs, lifting it up so that the solution drips off and then dipping it into a second pan and a third. We listen to the splash of liquid and the clink of tongs on the metal pans. It’s oddly peaceful, like being in a murky underwater world.

I watch over Geoff’s shoulder as smoky shapes spread across the slick paper and form into a black-and-white photo of a woman’s face. She looks like Cleopatra with her high forehead, prominent nose and luminous cat eyes. “What do you think?” Geoff asks.

“She’s stunning!” I say.

Geoff laughs. “I’ll tell her.”

“Who is she?” I ask.

“My mother.”

I gasp. “
That
is your mother?”

“She’s an actress. She needs a new head shot.”

“Is she famous?”

“Not yet. When she lived in New York, she did off-Broadway. But then she got married and moved here, and they got divorced. And now she does plays, and occasionally commercials—just for the money. Have you seen the soap commercial where a cowgirl uses a bullwhip to flick the dirt off clothes?”

“No.”

“She was the cowgirl.”

“Oh,” I say. “It must be great to have a mother who’s an actress.”

“It has its perks,” Geoff says. “She’s helping me practice my monologues for the
Hamlet
auditions.”

“Already?”

“Sure. You should try out.”

“I might.” I pause. “Carla Cabrielli is trying out for Gertrude.”

Geoff rolls his eyes. “She thinks she’s so hot.”

“She’s my neighbor. We’re renting the house next door.”

Geoff freezes. “Oh my God! Jules, be careful! Carla’s the queen bitch of the entire school. And Debbie and Marlene are her skinny mean dogs who snap at you when you walk by. In
junior high, she made a hobby out of making girls cry. And last year, she broke up with her boyfriend—on his birthday!”

“I think she has her eye on Ian Slater,” I say offhandedly.

Geoff nods. “Yeah. They’re in my French class. Whenever she leans over his desk to ‘borrow a pencil,’ she almost has her cleavage in his face.
Quelle
trollop!” I laugh. Geoff grins back at me. “Listen,” he says, “keep away from that girl. Don’t talk to her. Don’t even look in her direction. You don’t want anything to do with Carla Cabrielli.”