Californium (19 page)

“We had a blackout,” I say. “Didn't you?”

Treat pulls my jacket out of his satchel and hands it to me. “Nope. We must be on a different grid.”

Keith's been up for about five minutes when we get there, so we sit in his room while he scrambles to get ready, yelling from the bathroom that maybe he should just have his mom call him in sick since he doesn't have time to shower.

“Are you kidding me?” Treat says, lying back on Keith's unmade bed. “Look at Reece. His hair looks bitchin' today. Maybe a little Echo and the Bunnymen, but kind of Joe Strummer too.”

Keith sticks his head in the room and looks me over. “Okay, two minutes.”

I tell Treat about what happened with Astrid, how I was so panicked about the trash cans that I was kind of relaxed when I gave her the flyer, which seemed good at first, but then she said the thing about only trying to make it and hadn't totally promised.

“She'll come,” Treat says. “She knows it's a big spotlight now and she needs to be in it.”

Keith comes back in the room, one whole side of his head soaking wet. “I told you,” he says. “The less you care, the more they like you.”

“Just like Cherise,” I say, and want it back as soon as it's out of my mouth.

“Cherise?” Treat sits up.

Keith's eyes bulge for an instant as he grabs his backpack off the floor. “Come on, we're gonna be late.”

Treat grabs Keith's backpack, stopping him right where he is. “We're already late, Turbo. What's this about Cherise?”

“You idiot,” Keith says to me.

Treat lets go of the backpack. “Does Cherise have a crush on one of you guys?”

Keith slips on his backpack. “She has a crush on you.”

“Me?” Treat says. He stands up the way a cowboy in a Clint Eastwood movie does when he knows he's about to get shot, kind of slow and stunned and looking around like he doesn't recognize anything around him.

Keith heads to the stairs. “Don't tell Edie you know. It's been a secret.”

“Been?” Treat says as he gets to the top of the stairs. “For how long?”

Keith's at the bottom now, so Treat stops and waits for me. “How long have you known?”

“I
just
found out,” I say and fly past Treat.

The whole way to school, Treat grills Keith for more answers, completely forgetting that Astrid may come to the party, that all the best people might be coming to hear us play.

As we set foot on campus, Treat makes us swear to keep secret what is already supposed to be kept secret, shakes his head, then takes off for his locker.

“He's mad,” Keith says.

“And angry,” I say, and we both laugh. “I'd be so stupid happy if
anyone
liked me.”

Keith pets my arm. “I like you.”

“Yeah. But that only makes me feel stupid. And gay.”

Keith rubs his chin. “Gay means happy, right?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Well, I'm just so gay about the fact that I can make you feel gay.” I'm busting up, so Keith isn't about to stop: “We should wish everyone to have a gay day today. And gay birthdays, and a Gay New Year, and a gay old time, and . . .”

T
reat's so angry with me and Keith that he won't talk to us at lunch the rest of the week except to say something about new songs he's heard by bands we've never heard of, or what time to be at the Two-Car Studio for practice. At practice, he'll only talk about the songs we're working on. It's still fun, though. Between songs, while Treat fiddles with the drum machine or changes a lyric, me and Keith study our periodic table flash cards or joke around a little. Then Treat says to focus, which we do, and we get going again.

We're getting pretty good. Our songs sound like songs most of the time now, and by Saturday afternoon, a week before the party, Treat holds his hands up in the middle of a song that's going pretty good and we stop. It's quiet for a second, just the hum of the amps, and then he says, “I'm giving you both a pardon.” He doesn't say for what, but it's got to be the whole Cherise cover-up. Keith looks at me like maybe he's going to
start explaining what happened but I shake him off and say, “Thanks. Let's get back to the music.” Treat nods, says, “Walk Like a Man,” then hits
start
on the drum machine and we're back at it.

We don't practice on Sunday, though. Treat says it's so we'll be fresh for Monday and not so he can stay home to give out candy while his parents take Jewell trick-or-treating. Keith comes over to my house to jump out of the bushes and scare kids while I work the door, and it's pretty fun until my parents come back with Brendan and Colleen. Keith has to go home then, so it just feels like a normal Sunday night after that. At least, as normal as things have been in California.

We're back to practicing Monday after school, and again Tuesday, and by Wednesday night I'm feeling pretty good about DikNixon and write a letter to Uncle Ryan. I tell him all about what happened last week with Astrid and the trash guy. I even draw the barbed-wire Jesus tattoo for him in the middle of the page. I tell him how good DikNixon is sounding, how it's just in time with the party in a few days, and I give him the set list we're thinking about using. Then I tell him how Keith and Edie and Cherise have been passing out flyers all week to freshmen and sophomores, and how Treat says we'll hit the upperclassmen tomorrow. Astrid's had a week to get them all talking about DikNixon, so Treat thinks one last push will have them all in a frenzy for the party. I finish the letter by drawing the >I< logo at the bottom, tell Uncle Ryan I wish he could be here to see the band even though I know he can't, and then go to bed with the glow of Astrid's room as my night-light.

.

Thursday morning my mom's at the front door, the Yankees jacket in her hand. When I take it without a fight, she opens the front door and tells me to have a good day.

Treat thuds down from the wall and meets me at the sidewalk. His satchel is bulging with my Packy jacket stuffed inside. When I go to reach for it, he looks past me and snaps his hand to his forehead like a salute, “Good morning, Mrs. Houghton.”

The front door is still open, my mom fiddling around with the lock like maybe there's something wrong with it, which there isn't. She stands up and folds her arms over her work blouse. “Good morning.” She touches the lock again, gives it a
humph,
and shuts the door.

“Nice lady,” Treat says.

“She's okay, for a spy.”

On the way to school, Treat gives me and Keith each a fresh stack of flyers for the upperclassmen. He won't pass any out himself because he says Mr. Marshall is just looking for an excuse to bust him again. I believe him and try not to think about how me and Keith will have to take the fall if we get caught.

When we get to campus, Treat reminds us, “Just be smart about it.” Then he takes off for his locker. Keith takes off too, saying he's going to go give some flyers to Edie before Mr. Krueger's class.

I'm stuffing the flyers in my locker when van Doren comes walking up with a few other guys. He's laughing and saying how maybe they should go up to Santa Monica Saturday night and party at his cousin's place. I'm a tenth of a second from
getting out of there, my General Science book in my hand, when van Doren's calculus book smashes down on top of it, knocking it out of my hand and both books flopping open on the ground. Van Doren's hand drops down next to my face and he says all casual, “Do you mind getting that?”

He turns around to his buddies and keeps talking. “His parents are out of town for the weekend . . .”

As I grab van Doren's book, I pull a DikNixon flyer out of my locker, fold it in half, and tuck it into the calculus book with all the other papers.

“Here.” I hold up the book and van Doren puts his hand back, nowhere near it. I stand up and look right at him. “Right here.”

Van Doren turns and his eyes go a little round as he gives me a half smile and takes the book. “Thank you, Mr. President.”

When I see van Doren later in the morning, he's talking to Astrid after third period. He's got the flyer in his hand and looks like he might actually say something to me. Then Astrid says, “Happy Thursday,” and van Doren looks at her, kind of surprised.

At lunch, me and Keith walk to the edge of the Senior Circle and get Petrakis to come over. As soon as he sees Treat on the flyer, he says to give him the rest of the stack. “We'll make this party go off, little dudes.”

Petrakis slips back into the circle and right away he's showing people the flyer. Treat's watching from the Bog and when he asks how it went, Keith says, “Legos.”

Treat looks at me, so I translate: “Everything's fitting together perfectly.”

.

Edie's at my locker after school, her arms folded and foot tapping. “Where have you been?” she says and doesn't wait for an answer. “Look what somebody did.”

She hands me a flyer, only it's on yellow paper now and
DikNixon
is gone. It says
Ted,
and Treat's address is covered over with a new one. It's almost my house, just off by two numbers.

Keith and Treat come walking up with yellow Ted flyers. “She screwed us,” Keith says.

“Who?” Edie says.

“Astrid.” Keith flicks the address at the bottom. “This is her house.”

Treat shakes the Mohawk at me. “Fucking Judas with pompoms.”

“Maybe it's the house on the other side,” I say, because how could Astrid do this? She said “Happy Thursday” to me.

Edie looks at me like I said the earth is flat.

Treat crumples the flyer in his hand. “We should rip the fucking ribbons out of her hair and choke her with them.”

Keith crumples the flyer in his hand. “I hope she chokes on her pom-poms.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” I say. “Besides, how do we know Astrid's even connected to this? Are we going to dust it for fingerprints?”

Everyone glares at me. Treat snatches the flyer and holds it an inch from my nose. “It's her address, Reece. Connect the dots.”

“It doesn't mean
she
did it.” I look at Treat. “Maybe it's a conspiracy.”

“Are you serious?” Edie says. “She does stuff like this all the time.”

“Like
this
?”

“Devious stuff.” Edie looks around, then lets her voice go a little lower. We close in to hear and she says, “Not obvious things, but secret things so she can still look sweet in public when she's really not.”

“How do
you
know?”

“People talk. You think you guys are my only friends?”

Treat steps back. “Emergency band meeting at three thirty.”

“Let's do it right now,” Keith says.

“No,” Treat says. “At three thirty. After I rake leaves.”

Keith folds his arms. “Okay. But then we come up with a plan that gets right in Astrid's face and says, ‘You know what, you bitch? You're a . . . a . . . you're a bitch.'”

“Yeah, something like that,” Treat says, “but something that's actually good.”

Treat and Edie get going. Keith waits for me to get my stuff, and when I open my locker, one of those yellow flyers falls out. It's folded in half so someone could slide it in, and there's a note on the back in swirly, perfect, girl writing:

Dear Reece,

I'm so sorry about the mix-up. I totally forgot about the party I'm throwing on Saturday. It was kind of a last-minute thing and I hadn't made flyers yet. So, my friend Lori changed your flyer and Xeroxed them during fourth period work-study so that my party won't compete with yours. She shouldn't have done that,
and I'm sorry, but now you can change your party for the next weekend and everybody can go to both parties.

Plus, you have to come to my party too. You can bring your band, except you can't play. It got too loud last time. But I really want you to come, okay? You're the best neighbor ever and if I could have anyone in the world living next door I'd pick you every time. So come to my party and give me a new flyer for your party with a new date on it and I'll tell all my friends.

Your friend, neighbor, and trash buddy,

Astrid

Keith reads it after me. “She did do it.”

“On accident.”

“There are no accidents,” Keith says just like Mr. Krueger does when he's talking about discoveries and experiments. “Just happy mistakes.”

“Okay. So, a happy mistake.”

“Maybe,” Keith says. “But I'm not happy. Are you?”

I'm thinking,
Kind of,
because I finally got a note from a girl and it's Astrid. It hits me big then; she knows which locker is mine. She came over, stood right here, and slid the note through the door. She even spelled my name right. “We can make this work for us. You know, more time to practice and promote the band.”

Keith leans against the lockers and looks out at the quad. “I guess. But I hate it when people play with my Legos.”

“Liar. You're dying to let somebody play with your Legos.”

Keith grins and we start walking. “You're right. I've been playing with myself way too much.”

.

Treat's got the Bug out on the driveway with the car cover actually on it. Keith's guitar and amp are sitting next to it and Treat's inside the Two-Car Studio, folding up chairs.

“What are you doing?” Keith says.

Treat folds his arms. “Nobody's going to have DikNixon to kick around anymore. I won't let that happen.”

My heart feels like it just swallowed itself and I pull out the flyer with Astrid's note on the back. “Here.” I hold it out. “Astrid apologized.”

Treat steps around me and starts rolling up the carpet. “Does she say it was all an accident?”

“Yeah.”

“And that she didn't mean anything by it and she'll make it up to you?”

“Pretty much.”

“And that she's a lying whore who only cares about herself?”

I step onto the carpet so Treat has to stop and look up at me. “She says she wants us to come to her party.”

Keith steps onto the carpet next to me. “She says it twice.”

Treat stands up and I hand him the note. He reads it and hands it back. “You know she's lying.”

“Maybe she's not,” I say.

“Look, she's lying. I know you like her, and I know you're probably the only freshman she's ever talked to, even counting when she was a freshman, but she's lying.”

“She invited us. We'll know if there isn't really a party.”

“There's going to be a party.” Treat grabs a chair, unfolds it, and sits down. “The only thing she's sorry about is that this makes her look bad. There wasn't a Ted Three until today.”

I unfold a chair and sit. “That doesn't mean we have to end the band.” As I say it, I feel it, you know? We are a band. I know it now because it feels like we're losing something. “Come on, Treat.”

Keith squats down between us. “It's not very punk rock to let some cheerleader break up your band.”

Treat keeps quiet, his head down and eyes on the floor. “I'm not going to her party. No way.”

“Okay,” I say. “But we're still a band, aren't we?”

Keith slips the flyer out of my hand. “You know what we could do? We could change their flyer back to make it ours again, like ‘Never mind Ted Three—here's DikNixon.'”

Treat looks up at the flyer. “Almost,” he says and the Mohawk swings over toward me. “We need it to be more of a
fuck you
than that.”

I laugh. “A
fuck you
flyer?”

“Who doesn't like to get fucked?” Keith says and we look at him. “I mean, hypothetically.”

Treat's grinning now. “Hypothetically fucked?”

Keith is serious. “When you think about it,
fuck you
is a compliment. If a good-looking girl said, ‘Fuck you,' to me, I'd say, ‘Okay, when?'”

“That's not what it means,” Treat says.

“I know,” Keith says. “It's just hypothetical.”

“Fuck you,” Treat says.

Keith stands up. “No, thanks. I like girls.”

Treat busts out laughing and tells me to go get the guitar and amp off the driveway. We put the carpet and chairs back in the right places and then we bring the car cover back in. Me and Treat stuff the top corners up high under boxes while Keith holds it.

The cover unfurls in front of us and Treats says, “Ready to jam?”

Keith is nodding and I know now, for sure, this is going to happen. DikNixon is back. Again.