Heartache and Other Natural Shocks (16 page)

Mr. Gabor nods for us to begin.

I/Hamlet call out to Laertes in a bold voice,
“Come on, sir.”

Ian/Laertes smiles malevolently and replies,
“Come, my lord.”

We raise our swords, and in a flash, our bodies leap toward each other. Our swords whoosh through the air, and our blades smash, cut and strike. I’m in combat against a fierce opponent, and the duel feels almost real. Ian is fast—even faster than he was in practice—and I’m not faking it when I have to throw myself into the fight.

At first, Laertes pushes hard, forcing Hamlet backward, making me leap over his sword, but then I feint and twist away. Laertes raises his sword above his head and slashes downward, trying to hit Hamlet’s arm, but I anticipate the move and lunge underneath his sword for a swift touch to his waist.

Hamlet calls out, “
One
,” meaning one point for me.

Laertes shouts,
“No.”

“Judgment,”
Hamlet demands.

Mr. Gabor, as Osric, the courtier who is judging the match, calls out,
“A hit, a very palpable hit.”

Laertes swallows his anger and glares at me.
“Well, again.”
He raises his sword. We salute and hold our positions.

“And … scene!” Mr. Gabor says.

Ian and I break. The class cheers. I lean over, hands on knees, panting and exhilarated.

Mr. Gabor beams at us. “Yes! Wonderful! That’s how it’s done, people!”

Ian grins and extends his hand. “Well played, Rapunzel.”

“Thanks,” I gasp. “I could barely keep up!” He laughs, and rests his hand on my shoulder. We smile at each other, bonded by the blade. For one perfect moment, it’s just the two of us under the lights.

Then Carla bulldozes her way over. She throws her arms around Ian’s neck. “Oh my God, you were so amazing!” she shrieks. “You
have
to be Laertes in the play. You just have to!”

Jeremy says, “Yeah, man. You should definitely audition.”

Ian smirks. “I don’t do plays.”

“Are you kidding?” Carla says. “I got goose bumps just watching you. You would make a fabulous Laertes.” She turns to me with a fake smile. “Don’t you agree, Julia?”

I look at Ian. “Yeah, I do.”

Geoff bounds over and executes a mock lunge. “Jules, you were marvelous! You were like Errol Flynn in
Captain Blood
.”

Carla sneers, “Yeah, well, it’s sort of a waste. I mean, it’s not like there’s lots of fencing roles for women. Like … none!”

Geoff rolls his eyes. Carla grabs Ian and leads him away. Geoff says, “Meow, meow.”

“Carla hates me,” I say.

“She doesn’t like you messin’ with her man,” Geoff says.

“I wasn’t messing. We were fencing.” Geoff gives me one of those you-can’t-fool-me looks. “What?” I say.

“Come on,” he says. “I can tell you like him.”

“Ian? Don’t be silly,” I say.

Geoff laughs. “Jules, I totally get it. Ian has that bad boy/James Dean appeal. Sexy and dangerous. Who wouldn’t fall for someone like that?”

“I wouldn’t,” I insist. “I’m not his type.”

“Good thing,” Geoff says. “He’d only hurt you in the end.”

“If You Really Love Me”

Debbie’s Halloween party is three days away, and I still haven’t decided what to wear, mostly because Ian won’t commit to a costume. I think we should wear something matching, but Ian doesn’t want to dress up at all. We’re walking through the ravine and I say, “If you go as Batman, I could be Catwoman and wear my black jumpsuit and a cat mask, which would look incredibly sexy on me.”

“I’m not dressing up like some queer,” Ian says.

“Okay, you can be Zorro and I’ll be a Spanish senorita,” I say. I picture myself in a flamenco dress that shows a lot of cleavage, or maybe a pair of skintight capris, a bolero jacket and one of those flat-rimmed hats with the cute little bobbles.

“I hate costume parties,” Ian says.

“Then obviously you’ve never been to a
good
costume party,” I say.

We cross the bridge and spot Julia up ahead. Man, that girl gets on my nerves. Lately, in drama, she’s been acting like some kind of fencing queen, slicing and dicing, trying really hard to impress Ian. She makes me sick.

When we reach Julia, Ian yanks her braid and says, “Hey, Rapunzel, what’s up?”

I say, “Julia, where’s your boyfriend today?” We all know who I’m talking about. She and Geoff are glued at the hip.

“We’re just friends,” Julia says.

Well, duh! I know Geoff isn’t really her boyfriend because if anyone in the entire school is gay, it’s him. Ian thinks so too. He says you can tell he’s gay by the way he fences.

“You shouldn’t hang out with him,” Ian says. “People will call you a fag hag.”

“I don’t care what people say,” Julia says, blushing.

We reach my back gate and I undo the latch. Ian says, “So, Jules, are you going to Debbie’s Halloween party?”

I give him a look like
why are you asking her that
? Debbie and Julia are
not
friends. I say, “Ian, it’s not up to you to invite people to Debbie’s party.”

“What’s the big deal?” he says.

“It’s Debbie’s party,” I say.

“So?”

Julia looks down at her feet and says, “It’s okay. I already have plans.”

“No, you don’t,” Ian says. “I bet you’re just being polite.”

“Ian, she
said
she has plans,” I say. I open the gate and give him my
let’s-go
look. For a second, he doesn’t move. He just stares at me coldly, like he’s not going to take orders from me. Then Julia says good-bye, and Ian follows me into the house.

In the kitchen, I say, “Ian, what the hell was that?”

“Why are you always such a bitch to her?” he asks.

“Why are you always talking to her?”

“She’s different,” Ian says, poking around in the fridge. “She’s not what you’d expect.”

I put my hands on my hips. I don’t want to get into a fight with Ian, not when we have a costume party on the weekend, but sometimes he really pushes my buttons. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

“Well, for one thing, except for me, she’s the best fencer in the class.”

“So? I’m the best actress in the class,” I say. I wait for Ian to agree with me. He doesn’t say anything. I say, “Ian?”

“What?”

“Don’t you think I’m the best actress in the class?”

“I don’t know. You do different things.”

“What do you mean, ‘different things’?” I sneer.

Ian helps himself to Ma’s leftover lasagna. “Look, you’re a comic actor; Jules is a dramatic actor.”

“So, who’s better, if you had to choose?”

“I don’t know.”

I grit my teeth. “Ian, if you had to give Julia or me an Oscar for Best Actress in a Grade Eleven Drama Class, which one would it be?”

Ian gives me a deadpan look. “Carla, this is really boring.”

“No, it isn’t,” I say. Ian heads for the basement door. I block his path and glare at him. “Look, acting means a lot to me. It’s the only course I care about. I get excited when I’m onstage. So actually, Ian, this isn’t boring at all.”

Ian walks around me and goes downstairs with his lasagna. I stand in the middle of the kitchen, livid. He actually thinks Julia is better than me! If he thought
I
was better, he’d come right out and say it, but no, he’s sidestepping the issue, which means he thinks
she
’s better. I can’t believe it! What a jerk! Everyone else thinks I’m the best. Everyone except my own boyfriend! And here I am, inviting him to Debbie’s party, trying to make his miserable, messed-up life a little more fun, and he thinks Julia’s more talented than me?

Downstairs, I hear Ian turn on the
TV
. I pour myself a Coke and try to calm down. I wait to see if Ian will come upstairs and apologize for hurting my feelings, but he doesn’t, so after about twenty minutes, I go downstairs and sit at the far end of the couch. Ian pulls a joint out of his pack of cigarettes. I don’t like smoking pot in the afternoon, especially not on school days, so I only take one toke, and then I say, “Ma and Buzz could be home any second, you know.”

Ian keeps smoking. I open a window and light a stick of sandalwood incense so the basement won’t smell of weed. After a while, Ian turns off the
TV
and puts my
Who’s Next
album on the stereo. He sings “Won’t Get Fooled Again” with
Roger Daltrey and drums on my head like he’s Keith Moon. I tell him to stop. He hops on the couch beside me and says, “Carla, I think you’re really talented.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re stoned and you want to fool around,” I say.

Ian laughs. “You’re a really talented kisser,” he says.

“Great,” I say sarcastically. “I hear there’s good money in that.”

“You’re also the funniest girl I ever met,” he says, passing me the joint.

“You’re just saying that.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” he says.

And that’s true. Ian’s not a liar. He won’t say anything unless he means it, not even to be nice, not even to get what he wants. “So you think I’m funny,” I say, taking another toke.

“And sexy,” he says. He leans in and kisses me. Eventually, I kiss him back. Pot is such a love drug, and even without the weed, Ian is hard to resist. Soon we’re making out on the couch. I’m sitting on his lap and my shirt is undone. I’m slowly rubbing against his jeans, and Ian’s hands are all over me. And maybe it’s the pot, or maybe we’re just in another zone, but for some reason, I don’t hear the door open, and suddenly footsteps are thumping down the stairs.

“Carla, it stinks down here,” Papa says, walking into the basement. Ian and I spring apart. My fingers fly to my buttons—but too late. Papa’s face boils red as a lobster. His shoulders bunch
up, and he glares at Ian like he wants to rip him limb from limb. “Get out,” he growls.

Ian grabs his smokes and beats it up the stairs, two at a time. Pa and I both wait till we hear the door slam. Then, World War III breaks out. I tell Papa that he has no right to barge in, but Papa roars and points to my shirt. The buttons aren’t properly done up. I know I’m in trouble, but I don’t back down. I yell, “I’m almost seventeen, and I have a right to some privacy around here.”

Pa bellows, “You think that boy cares for you?”

“He does!” I say.

“He’s using you,” Pa snorts.

“You don’t even know him!” I scream.

“I know what he wants. And you’re acting like a tramp!”

“You have no right to talk to me like that,” I say.

“I am your father,” Papa shouts. “You live in my house; you obey my rules!” I scramble to my feet, but Papa’s not done with me yet. He jabs his finger into the air. “Carla Antonella Lucia Cabrielli, you are grounded!”

I gasp. “But Debbie’s having a party!” I shriek.

“Tough.”

“I’m going.”

“You’re not going anywhere. The only place you’re going is straight to your room!”

I burst into tears and rush upstairs. I slam my door, and then I slam it again just in case he didn’t hear it the first time.
Later, Ma knocks on my door. She walks in wearing her boss-lady face. She says, “Your father is very upset with you.”

“
He
’s upset?” I say. “He’s ruining my life. He embarrassed me in front of my boyfriend. And now he won’t even let me go to Debbie’s party.” I beg her to please talk to Pa, but instead, I get a lecture about boys and their raging hormones, and how there’s no point in closing the barn door after the cow is already out. “Why buy the milk when you can get the cow for free?” she says.

“I am not a cow; I am a person,” I yell. “And what the hell is it with these stupid cow metaphors anyway? We’re not living on a farm in the 1950s. It’s not like I’m actually having sex with him or anything!”

Ma throws her hands up in the air. She storms out of my room muttering under her breath,
“Marito e figli, come Dio te li da, così te li pigli,”
which means
when God gives you a husband and children, that’s who you’re stuck with
.

Saturday night, I am held prisoner by my evil parents while everyone I know is at Debbie’s party. I try calling Deb a couple of times to see how the party’s going, but no one answers. They’re probably having way too much fun to bother picking up the goddamn phone.

Sunday morning, Papa says that if I feel like getting out of the house today, I can always go to church with the family.
I pass. But as soon as the three of them drive off, I sneak out the back door and race over to Debbie’s. Deb’s mom answers the door. She says, “Debbie’s still sleeping.”

“That’s okay,” I say politely. “I’ll just go upstairs and wake her up.”

Debbie’s huddled underneath her blankets. I throw myself onto the bed. “Tell me about the party,” I say.

“Go away,” she moans.

“Tell me,” I insist.

Deb opens her slit eyes and wipes the drool off her face. She says, “You missed the best party ever.” Gee, thanks, Deb! I am so bummed! Deb says, “Jason Titlebaum had the funniest costume. He wrapped himself in cotton wool and tied a string to the top of his head, so he looked like a giant tampon.” Debbie grins. “And the sluttiest costume award goes to Sherrie Cumberland.” Natch. “She dressed up as a French maid in fishnet stockings and a corset, probably so she could show off her boobs.”