Cracked Up to Be (4 page)

“Sure . . . ,” Mom says slowly, staring at Dad, who nods slightly. “That would be fine. Thank you for asking, Parker.”

I’m out of the house quick in case they change their minds. It’s dark out, but I have a Mini Maglite attached to my key ring, so I’m not worried. It feels nice having the streets to myself. Every so often I hear the sound of cars in the distance navigating some faraway road.

Chris lives two blocks from me, in the nicest house on the nicest piece of property in all of Corby, Connecticut, and I’m sure he’s still out with Becky and no doubt his parents are at the country club. When his house comes into view, I walk up the gravel driveway casually, so if any of the neighbors happen to look out their windows I’m only here for a visit. Nothing unusual.

I bypass the front door and edge my way around the house, maneuvering past shriveled flower beds and tacky lawn ornaments until I find myself in the backyard, facing the woods behind the house. These woods never change. The pine trees stand tall and separate, illuminated by the light of some far-off source. When I come here, it always takes me a while to get my bearings, but I can’t afford to do that tonight because I promised my parents I’d be home within the hour and I’m not wearing a watch.

I trudge into the trees and pull out my Mini Maglite. One step, two steps, ten steps, twenty, twenty-five steps. I turn the flashlight on. A feeble, yellow light reveals a small strip of ground laden with pine needles.

It was around here . . .

And then, without fail, I hear the music from that night, like I always do when I come out here. A heavy bass line and an earsplitting drumbeat winds its way into the woods from Chris’s open bedroom window, where he likes to mount the speakers of his sound system for optimal noise blaring into the neighborhood. And then there’s splashing sounds coming from the pool and everyone’s laughing and talking and shrieking and having a good time.

His parties are the best.

I stick the flashlight in my mouth, get down on my hands and knees and start pushing aside pine needles. Five minutes later, my throat hitches. I rip the flashlight from my mouth, scramble backward and throw up.

Fuck.

I wipe my mouth, force myself to my feet, move past the puddle of vomit and get back to work. I don’t know what I think I’ll find out here, but I stay on the ground for a while anyway, searching, until I know the hour’s gone and I’m late and I’d better go. I don’t want Chris to come back and see me here and ask me what I’m doing.

Finding the bracelet that time was just a fluke, Parker, you idiot.

three

Jake’s a rather tenacious young man. Monday starts with him waiting for me by
my locker, and I’m really not in the mood for it because I might have a hangover.

Okay, that’s not true. I’m kind of in the mood for it because it
is
vaguely intriguing. I have clearly charmed the guy out of his mind.

“You’re in my way.” I nudge him aside. I think Grey knows I’m hungover. She gave me this extralong look when we passed in the hall earlier, and that’s never good. I grab my history books and slam my locker shut, which makes the bad headache I’m nursing worse. Like that, my vague state of intrigue fades. “What do you want, Jake?”

“In your pants.” He turns red and cringes. “I mean, I don’t want into your pants. And I didn’t. I’m not interested in you.”

“Okay.” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “Thanks for that.”

I head for homeroom, but Jake expects more apparently, because he follows after me.

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”

“You don’t want in my pants. Duly noted.”

A couple passing freshmen give us startled looks.

“Look, I was just trying to be nice to you and—”

“Give me the chance to redeem myself; I know,” I say. “When you were obsessing over our conversation this weekend, did you take a moment to appreciate what a jerk kind of thing that is to say?”

“I offended
you
?”

“Not likely. I just thought you’d want to know how it made you sound. You’re obviously one of those people who really care about what other people think of you.”

“
What
?”

I stop; he stops.

“I didn’t really think you wanted in my pants, Jake, but if you spent the whole weekend waiting for today just so you could clear that up, you have some issues.”

“
I
have issues?”

“There. Admitting you have a problem is half the battle.”

“You know, you’re not half as clever as you think you are.”

“This still makes me a lot cleverer than you.”

We arrive at homeroom. Perfect timing. I get to leave Jake sputtering in the doorway. It’s almost worth being early for that alone.

The room is only half-full and Becky is nowhere to be found, but Chris is seated in the middle row, working on his homework. He’s almost as bad as I am, if not for the fact that he usually gets it done.

“Uh-oh,” he says, looking up as I approach. “I know that face.”

“Do you ever do your homework at home?”

“About half.” He finishes up some English and I sit down beside him for the hell of it. He closes his book. “You’re hungover.”

“I have a hungover face?”

“It’s subtle, but it’s there.” It’s stuff like this that makes me glad we broke up. He pauses. “You want to talk about it?”

“I think my face says it all. How was your date with Becky?”

He forces a smile. The right corner of his mouth starts twitching.

“Good,” he says, in a voice that belies the word. “It was good.”

“Uh-oh, I know
that
face.”

He groans and leans back in his seat. “Becky’s a great girl—”

I clutch my heart. “There’s not going to be a second date!”

“Did I say that?”

“Yeah, when you called her a
great girl
.” This poses a problem. Becky’s supposed to be my replacement, or at the very least they could distract each other from me for a while. I’ll have to lie, but it’s for a worthwhile cause. “She
is
a great girl. You’d be an idiot if you let her go.”

“Parker, you hate Becky. And you’re taking an unusual interest in my date with her. Jealous?” I laugh and he gives me this look. “No, really. Why do you care? And why are you hungover?”

I put on my most Obnoxious Teacher Talking to a Really, Really Stupid Student voice.

“Well, Chris, sometimes when someone overindulges—”

“You do know that Becky and I are supposed to report any kind of behavior like this to Grey and Henley?”

“That’s funny. Tell me another.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“It was because she’s not me, isn’t it? That’s why it didn’t work out, huh? Becky’s a
great girl
, but she’s no Parker Fadley. It’s okay. I understand. I
am
pretty awesome.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you, too. And if you tell Henley or Grey, I’ll kick your ass.”

He snorts. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, and I’ll probably get away with it, because I’m a girl. Make sure you hit me back. That’ll only improve my odds.”

He shakes his head. “You have to take it that one step too far, don’t you?”

“Always.” I won’t do it. I won’t. I will not. “Sorry.”

Goddammit.

“Forget it,” he mutters, waving a hand. “I won’t tell on you.”

“That’s not why I said it.”
Goddammit
. “Look, just give Becky another chance—”

“Only if you ease off on Jake Gardner.”

“Ease off? I’ve only talked to him, like, three times.”

“Yeah, and every one of those times you’ve been a bitch—”

“What is this? Have you taken a
shine
to the boy?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, Parker. That’s exactly it.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? I’ll lighten up on him then.”

“Really?”

“No. God, do you know who you’re talking to?”

“Unfortunately,” Chris says. The bell explodes in my head or rings, whatever. I wince and rub my temples. “And consider this a favor. If you come to school hungover again, I’ll go straight to Grey.”

“
Thanks
, Chris.”

“You’re
welcome
, Parker.”

Becky makes a mad dash into the room a minute after the Pledge of Allegiance starts over the PA and I wonder if she’s avoiding Chris, like if their date went that bad. After we recite the Apostles’ Creed, I move back to where she’s sitting despite Chris’s best efforts to convince me not to.

“How’d the date go?” I ask.

She smiles. “Okay. Chris is a great guy.”

It’s enough to make a girl depressed. When Chris says Becky’s a
great girl
it means she’s boring, but when Becky says Chris is a
great guy
it means she’s probably started a scrapbook of the time they’ve spent together.

“Details, details,” I sing. “Where did you go and what did you do and do you have a Tylenol on you? I’ve got a killer headache.”

She unzips her pencil case and retrieves a Baggie of white pills and I can’t help but laugh at how suspect it looks. I help myself to two and swallow them dry.

“We went for a ride around and we stopped at that diner out on Route Seven. It was mostly just talking, you know. He talked about you a lot. Like, the whole night was mostly about Parker, actually. It was lovely.”

I pretend she didn’t say it.

“Did you make plans for a second date?”

“No,” she says. “I don’t think there’ll be one.”

“What? Come on! You said he’s a great guy!”

“I also said he talked about you for the whole date.”

She says it with a voice that totally hates me, even though I can’t be held responsible for Chris being such a fuck. We stare at each other. It’s way easier to not be Becky’s friend than it is to not be Chris’s girlfriend.

“He liked the sweater though,” she adds. “A lot.”

My head buzzes through history while I wait for the Tylenol to kick in. By the time art rolls around I feel less hungover and more charitable. We’re working with paint today and I pick the easel next to Jake’s. It thrills him.

“What do
you
want?”

“I want to apologize if you’re offended by the way I am,” I tell him. “But that’s the way I am with everyone. I was just trying to make you feel welcome.”

“That’s the crappiest apology I’ve ever heard.”

“Well, that’s because I’m not really sorry.”

He rolls his eyes. “Right.”

We get to painting. I wish I could have art forever. Senior art, anyway. Norton’s a hard-ass, but a lazy one. At our age, he figures,

we’ve learned everything about art that can be learned in high school, and now we spend the entire period trying to create things that he might not have seen in the last twenty-five years. Every forty minutes is another opportunity to surprise him. The bigger the surprise, the better the mark.

“So, where do you come from and how come you moved here?”

Jake reaches for the red paint. “West Coast. My dad wanted a new scene.”

“He couldn’t have waited until the end of the year?”

Jake snorts. “Nope.”

“And how are you finding St. Peter’s? Do you like it here so far?”

He gives me a look. “Generally.”

What can I say? I stare at the paper in front of me and try to figure out what to create. I glance across the room, at Chris’s easel. Sure enough, he’s painting a tree. I grin, reach for the black and get to work on a stick person.

A stick person with its head on fire.

“So, what’s your deal?”

It takes a minute before I realize Jake’s talking to me. There’s something very enthralling about painting a stick person with its head aflame.

You just forget the rest of the world.

“What do you mean?”

“I heard you used to be captain of the cheerleading squad.”

“Now where did you hear a crazy thing like that?”

“Chris mentioned it.”

“Then it must be true.”

“He said you used to be popular.”

“Mentioned that, too, did he?”

“I asked, but if you were head cheerleader, I guess I didn’t need to. I was surprised. Not many people give up those kinds of perks.”

“Hmm.”

I think I’ll turn this stick person into Chris. All I have to do is put an orange jersey with the number 22 on it and he’ll know it’s him.

“So, what’s your deal?” Jake asks again.

“Jake, I barely know you.”

I spend lunch
in the gym again, watching the boys scrimmage and the girls eating carrot sticks before they get ready to cheer. This kind of routine could get monotonous fast, and not in a good way.

I stretch out on the bleachers, shoving aside the lunch Mom packed for me. My headache is gone, but I don’t think I can handle food. I shouldn’t have finished off the bottle of vodka in my room last night. It was left over from before, hidden in the back of my closet, and I drank until I fell asleep. That’s the only reason to do it now and I don’t do it very often, contrary to what everyone else thinks. Back then, I drank to be caught. It was the start of my great campaign to distance myself from everyone. I even had a checklist and everything. First item: indulge in alienating, self-destructive behavior.

It worked beautifully at the start, but I hadn’t counted on my family and former friends conspiring against me. The problem with alienating, self-destructive behavior is people get it into their heads it’s a cry for help. It wasn’t. It was just a really poorly executed plan to get everyone off my back. So now I’m halfway between where I started (not alone) and where I want to end up (alone) and I just have to roll with it if I want to graduate or else I’ll never be alone. It’s stupid. And not just because of the homework thing. Oh shit.

Lerner’s essay.

Shit
.

I tear out of the gym with such zeal the boys stop playing and the girls stop cheering to watch me go. I rip my English binder and pencil case from my locker and find the page Becky gave me with the assignment on it.

Write a thousand-word essay comparing how you relate to “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a senior to how you related to the story as a freshman
.