Be More Chill (16 page)

Okay.

S
HE
’
S WITH THIS GUY
J
AKE RIGHT NOW
,
SO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO IS POSITION YOURSELF FOR THE INEVITABLE
FALLOUT WHEN THEY BREAK UP
.

Gotcha.

S
O YOU NEED TO BE VERY CUTE
.

Check.

A
LSO
, J
EREMY
,
YOU CAN
’
T PLAY WITH YOUR TESTICLES THROUGH YOUR PANTS
. E
VER
.

Right. I stop. It’s an hour later; I’m sitting at the side of the stage, smack dab in the middle of the most boring part of rehearsal, tilting my plastic seat farther and farther
back as the action unfolds. (They’re working on chairs with tilt alarms, so you’ll never fall off.) It’s one of many scenes where Puck gets some instructions from Oberon;
there’s something compelling about the way Christine delivers that Shakespearean phrasing in a halter top. I don’t even know if it is a halter top, because I don’t know what a
halter top is exactly. But halter top—that’s a sexy word.

S
TOP TILTING YOUR SEAT BACK
.

I stop. I’m on in thirty seconds and this scene is fun. I get to lie down as Christine sprinkles me with magic dust; then I have to get up and be in love with Hermia, who’s played by
this girl Ellen, who I’d really have to be under the influence of magic dust to be in love with. I stand at the edge of the thick curtain and burst on stage when I’m supposed to; Mr.
Reyes, of course, is asleep.

“‘Fair love, you faint with wand’ring in the wood,’” I declare. “And…and stuff…”

“A
ND TO SPEAK TROTH
, I
HAVE FORGOT OUR WAY
.”

“‘And to speak troth, I have forgot our way.…’”

“W
E
’
LL REST
.…”

“‘We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good, And tarry for the comfort of the day.’”
Phew
. That wasn’t so bad. People give me funny, out-of-character
looks as I stumble through the next couple of stanzas. (They might also be giving me funny looks because they’ve talked with Mark Jackson, who’s playing Game Boy SP obediently under a
table.) I lie down and wait for Christine to sprinkle me with magic dust—she uses actual sparkles, which I hate, because they don’t wash off for, like, a month, but I forgive her.

“‘Through the forest have I gone, But Athenian find I none,’” she says, from actual neuron memory I bet. When she leans down over me and says “‘Weeds of
Athens he doth wear,’” the squip says,
Now!

“Rrragh!”
I snap, biting at Christine’s nose.

“Jesus!” She pulls back. I stick my tongue out and loll it around, panting under her.
“Hua-hua-hua.”
She smiles at first, then gets deadly serious.
“What’s wrong with you?” She stares down at me.

I scrunch my eyes up. I have to look cute.
“Grrr?”

“Mr. Reyes! Jeremy is messing around,” Christine tells on me. She frickin’
tells on me
. Reyes wakes up as she elaborates: “He’s, um, acting like some sort of
dog or animal.”

Reyes chastises me: “Get up, young fool! Redo the scene!”

T
HAT WAS A SUREFIRE PLAN
. T
HIS GIRL
’
S TOUGH
.

Yeah, apparently. I return to the curtain, start the scene over again and do it so many times that by the end of rehearsal I can handle it without the squip. Christine doesn’t smile once
for the rest of the day and Jake Dillinger isn’t too happy either; “Stay away from her,” is all he says, with a big hand planted on my shoulder, as I await a run-through by the
curtain.

That didn’t really work out as planned, huh? I consult the squip as we walk home.

N
O
,
IT DIDN
’
T
.

I hate rejection. Like, sometimes I wonder why I fear it so much, but then when I meet it head on, I decide that it’s good for me to fear it, because I hate it. I hate it with my soul.

I
T
’
S NOT THAT BAD
. R
EJECTION IS ENTERTAINING
!

No, it’s not.

O
F COURSE IT IS
. I
F YOU VIEW YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH FEMALES AS PROSPECTIVE ENTERTAINMENT
,
REJECTION CAN BE JUST AS FUN
,
IF NOT MORE FUN
,
THAN GAINING ACCESS
. O
NCE YOU TAKE THAT VIEW
,
YOU
’
LL BE OUT
THERE LOOKING FOR REJECTION
,
AND FEMALES WILL FLOCK TO YOU BECAUSE OF THE ANTIFEEDBACK MECHANIC OF PHEROMONES
. B
UT THAT
’
S HIGH
-
LEVEL STUFF
.

I’ll work on it.

I
N THE MEANTIME
,
YOU ARE RIGHT
. O
UR CUTESY TACTICS WITH
C
HRISTINE FAILED
. W
E
’
RE GOING TO TRY ANOTHER PLAN
.

What’s that?

W
E ARE GOING TO GET TO HER BY HOOKING YOU UP WITH AS MANY GIRLS AS POSSIBLE
,
MAKING HER JEALOUS
. A
ND WE ARE GOING TO START
WITH
C
HLOE
.

Woo-hoo!
Deal.

I jump up in the field and kick my heels together.

L
ET
’
S NEVER
,
EVER SEE THAT AGAIN
,
OKAY
?

Chloe, Chloe,
dum de dum dum
. I call her with the squip off, testing myself, seeing if I can do it alone. I dial the number, which I eventually stored in my computer
under a file called “peeps,” in a special way. This was Michael-recommended, way back: first I press the 1, then the 1-7, then the 1-7-3, then the 1-7-3-2, hanging up each time so that
the momentum just builds and builds until there I am, connected to Chloe’s cell, chatting with a girl whom I used to be afraid to look at.

I forget what day it is, really. The squip keeps track of all that.

“Hi, Jeremy?”

“Yeah, uh, hello, it’s—how’d you know it was me?”

“Well, I have everybody’s number stored in my celly, so if someone calls and it’s a new number, there’s very few people it could be, and I figured you would call
soon.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah…this number is closely guarded.”

“I bet.”

“That’s a joke, Jeremy.”

“Riiiight.”
I consider trying to laugh, but edit that out. “So what’s up?”

“Not much, what are you up to?”

“Jus’ chillin’.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah.”

Who’s supposed to talk now, me or Chloe? I forgot who talked last. I guess it’s my turn: “So, listen, I wanted to know if you want to hang out sometime this week, you know? I
can get you more frozen yogurt or—”

“Party.”

“What?”

“There’s a party at Jason Finderman’s house because his parents got busted for money laundering, so they’re in, ah, Barbados?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So it’s going to be this Saturday and he has a pool and the whole deal.”

“Wow. Is it like, bring your own liquor or whatever?”

“I don’t really care…I’m rolling. You rolling?”

Very luckily, I know what that means. Thank you, squip. “Hold on a second, Chloe.”

I turn the squip on and ask: Can we roll? You know, do ecstasy?

I
DO NOT RECOMMEND IT
. I
HAVE TO BE OFF FOR IT
. I
F YOU DO IT
,
YOU MIGHT HOOK UP WITH
C
HLOE
,
BUT YOU MIGHT JUST
—

“Okay, sure, I’ll do it,” I say back to the phone.

“Really? You will? With me? Aww, Jeremy, you’re so sweet.”

“Heh, yeah, rockin’, you know.”

“Rockin’?”

R
OCKIN
’?

“I was talking to the TV.”

Chloe laughs. “So these are twenty-five dollar rolls. Can you give me the money at school?”

$25? W
E
’
RE GOING TO HAVE TO GET SOME MONEY
—

“Sure, I’ll give it to you,” I say quickly.

“And here’s the important question…do you have a
car
, Jeremy?”

“Yeah, oh sure. I’ll definitely have one for this party, absolutely.”

W
E
’
RE GOING TO HAVE TO STEAL ONE FROM YOUR PARENTS
,
OR BRING
M
ICHAEL
.

I’ll bring Michael anyway. We’ll handle it.

“Okay, great, so does that mean you can, like,
drive me home
after the party?”

“Sure!”

“It’s gonna take a while for the rolls to wear off, but I have to be home by dawn-break, y’know?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“So we’ll meet in school and you’ll give me the money, okay?”

“Great.”

“See you, Jeremy!” And she hangs up. Damn, that girl knows how to take charge. Now all I need to do is get money and a car.

Y
OUR
M
OM
’
S PURSE IS BY THE DINING ROOM TABLE
. S
HE WON
’
T MISS
$25.

That’s the easy part. We’re going to want Mom’s ride too, right? (Mom has a decent ride, a Nissan Maxima. Dad’s is not so good.)

Y
ES
. G
ET READY FOR A LESSON
, J
EREMY
. D
RIVING
’
S EASY
. L
IKE THE VIDEO GAMES
.

I’m up for it.

I get Chloe her money in school, where everyone is talking about Jason Finderman’s party. It’s weird, now; it’s like I automatically know what’s going
on, like I don’t have to sit forward and analyze it or agonize over it; it just comes to me. I pass people in the hall—not lots of people, just a few important ones like Rich and
Brooke—and they fill me in on everything that’s happening: Anne did this; Jenna did this; this party is this weekend; this guy got in this car accident; this kid has herpes. And while
I’m talking to them, other people pass me by, people like Michael Mell—people at his status level—and they look at me the same way they look at Rich and Brooke. As a superior.

Simple things, that’s what the squip is fixing. Clothes are first. You need certain clothes and the best way to decide which ones is to have a computer do it for you. To do fashion any
other way would just take too much time—I don’t know how squipless people do it.

Then, it’s really good to get to school early. You chill out on the steps a little, see who’s coming in, see who’s in a rush and who’s not, see if anyone wants to smoke
or drink or have a cigarette before school—although they’re all dummy cigarettes to me. (The squip says cigarette smoke impairs its analytical reasoning powers.) You don’t get hit
with nerd penalty points for being there early.

Also, you never rush anywhere. If you run to class, you’re showing the world that class is more important to you than you. So you walk, but you don’t slink. You walk purposefully,
with your chest out, thinking in grunts so that you maintain that base-level competitiveness with other men. You view high school as a death-match jungle arena, because that’s what it is.

If you see a girl and she makes any kind of eye contact with you, you
have
to smile at her. The squip explained that to me this way: O
KAY
, J
EREMY
,
HOW DO YOU KNOW IF A GIRL LIKES YOU
?

Um…

L
ET ME GIVE YOU A CLUE
. W
HAT IS THE SENSORY PERCEPT THAT HUMAN BEINGS EMPLOY MOST TO ENCODE THEIR SURROUNDINGS
?

I’m sorry?

H
OW DO PEOPLE VIEW THE WORLD
?

Uh, the news?

E
YES
, J
EREMY
. T
HE EYES
. D
IDN
’
T YOU EVER HEAR THAT EXPRESSION
,
“T
HE EYES HAVE IT
”?

No.

W
ELL THEY DO
.

What do they have?

I
T
, J
EREMY
. T
HE EYES TELL YOU WHICH GIRLS LIKE YOU
.