I'm with Stupid
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Elaine Szewczyk
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
5 Spot
Hachette Book Group USA
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at
www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com
.
Book design by Stratford Publishing Services, a TexTech Company
First eBook Edition: July 2008
Summary: “A hilarious tale of girl meets boy, girl falls in lust, girl discovers boy is dumber than a box of hammers”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-446-53776-6
Contents
Dla moich kochanych rodziców
Thank you to my loving parents, Maria and Stanislaw, and my brother, Robert; my grandparents Aniela and Stanislaw Szewczyk and Anna and Jan Nieckula; my cousin Peter, who encouraged me when I needed him most (I can’t confirm it, but I think he puts laugh pills in my potatoes—there’s no other explanation for why I have so much fun when he’s in the room); my cousin Bob, who always thinks there’s time for Jack and Coke, and his family, Janka, Jacob, Thomas—and counting; my goddaughters Gabriella and Klaudia; and the rest of the family, including Andrzej, Maria, Jacek, Jasiek, Zbyszek, Zosia, Hania, and Krzysiek Szewczyk; Anna and Franek Szewczyk; Maria, Brigida, and Wiesiek Kraj; Helena, Jan, Ela, Grzesiek, and Piotrek Hodorowicz; Aniela, Józef, Dorothy, and Bernadette Luberda; Gienia, Józef, Daniel, Andrzej, and Ania Szewczyk; Gail, Wally, and Alex Szewczyk; Tadeusz, Maria, Robert, and Emily Nieckula; Józef, Czeslawa, Adam, Ewa, Sylwia, and Hania Nieckula; Wojciech, Teresa, Piotrek, and Pawel Nieckula; Ela and Staszek Dawiec; and dear family friends Teresa, Jan, and Tomek Piskorz. Thank you to my wonderful editor Caryn Karmatz Rudy and the 5 Spot staff, and to my agent, Jeff Kellogg. Finally, thank you to Renee Orvino and Danny Sciortino (our friendship inspired the energy of this book); Amarula Cream and the staff of Brown-Forman, especially Rick Bubenhofer; Maxime Cescau (known in at least one French village as “Le Sugar Shorts”) and his gracious parents, Patrick and Ursula; Colleen Corrigan; former baby model Ryan Darrah; Elizabeth Einstein; Matt Englund; Katie Hasty; Charlie Hrebic;
Kirkus
colleagues, past and present, Andy Bilbao, Karen Breen, Molly Brown, Tracey Davies, John Kilcullen, Eric Liebetrau, and Chuck Shelton; Ryan Kniewel; Jerome Kramer; Walter Lamacki; Patty Lamberti (for getting me to SA) and Dan Swan (for getting Patty); Adam Langer; John Lerner; Kristin LoVerde; Pete Nawara; Susie Nevin (this woman needs a talk show, seriously) and her partners in crime, Andy, Lily, and Marytherese; Chris Orvino (how dare you, sir?) and little Johnny, who has one hot mama; Elizabeth Passarella; Project Jenny Project Jan; Mark Sadegi; Nikki Tait; Ted Waitt (!); Eric Wetzel; Teresa Wisniewski; Josh Yaffa; and to Mordecai Corbin, who explained without words. I’m glad you made that long journey to Beirut.
I want to live and I want to love. I want to catch something that I might be ashamed of.
—“Frankly, Mr. Shankly,” the Smiths
Chastity is as great a perversion as libidinousness . . .
—Manuel Narciso Lorenzo Hernandez y Sanchez, addressing a disinterested passenger in a safari truck
T
he flight to South Africa is scheduled to depart in approximately two hours. I am at the airport, waiting at the end of a long check-in line, when I see him from across the terminal: a lone police officer, pushing four enormous designer suitcases stacked on a rickety metal luggage cart. The cart’s loose front wheels dart from side to side like the eyes of the village crazy. The cop is wearing a dark blue uniform and matching hat. There is a nightstick hanging from his belt and a shiny badge over his heart. His polished shoes are standard-issue black. When our eyes lock he removes the nightstick from its holster and begins rapidly swinging it in the air in a circular motion. A mother grabs the back of her young son’s red suspenders and pulls the boy toward her. “Get out of the way, Jimmy!” she screams and shields his head.
I squint at the police officer then glance at my friend Libby, who is sitting beside me. She is perched on her suitcase, wearing sunglasses, her head tilted back like she’s relaxing on a beach of fluorescent lighting. She turns over her piece of watermelon bubble gum, pops a pink bubble, then holds out the pack. “You want some, babe?” she asks in her lulling voice, the auditory equivalent of two NyQuil doses. “I bought a bunch of packs so our ears won’t hurt from the cabin pressure.” I tell her not yet and with my foot absently push her an inch closer to the counter. Just then someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn and flinch. It’s the cop. “How goes it?” he asks. “Ready for our safari?” I do a double take. It’s my friend Max. Um, he’s a personal trainer, not a cop. Libby pulls her sunglasses to midnose. “Why are you dressed like that?” she asks. He frowns at her: “I don’t know, Fonzie. Why are you wearing sunglasses in an airport? You need a job.” It’s true. Libby does need a job. She was laid off a few months ago and hasn’t made progress in finding a new one. I have unemployment check envy. But now’s not the time to discuss that.
Max twirls his nightstick like he’s a Keystone Kop then gently pokes me in the stomach with it. “The reason I’m dressed this way is because I just came from Richard’s apartment building,” he explains.
Revulsion slowly spreads across my face like a blot of black ink on paper. Richard Stein is the guy I dated for two months. He made a fool of me this past Valentine’s Day, which was just three days ago. I haven’t fully recovered.
“I knocked on all his neighbors’ doors,” Max coolly continues. “I told some of them that Richard is under investigation for organ trafficking, I told a few others that he is a convicted flasher and that, if he is seen around the building in a coat, neighbors should under no circumstances make eye contact, although it would not hurt to say ‘We know about you’ under their breath as he passes. My crowning moment occurred at apartment Nine-C, where I told a sweet granny that Richard is running a retirement home scam. She was taking notes.” He tips his hat. “He’s not going to be popular there. You’re welcome.”
I put out my hands. My mouth falls open. Wait, what? Max puts the nightstick under my chin and manually closes my mouth. “I must have forgotten to tell you,” he says. “Did I forget to tell you? Yeah, I’m getting revenge on Richard. I’m not going to physically injure him, just really, really annoy, confuse, and inconvenience him.” He begins stripping off his uniform, underneath which he is wearing civilian clothes better suited for a sixteen-hour plane ride. “The plan is to loosen the screws in his brain just enough so that pieces start falling out and it hurts to think straight.” He stuffs the uniform in a suitcase then removes two stacks of papers. He places one on each arm. Suddenly he looks like Moses via Charlton Heston holding up a pair of Ten Commandments tablets. “Okay, I have no time for you two right now,” he says. “I have to pass out these flyers. On my right I have five hundred with Richard’s name and phone number advertising cheap laptops for sale, fifty dollars or best offer, and on my left I have five hundred advertising Richard’s male escort service. Yes, he has one. He just doesn’t know it yet. And as long as you’re asking I should mention that this morning I put up flyers on street lamps all over town advertising an open house at Richard’s place and about fifty advertising sheepdogs and greyhounds for sale. I’d love to be there when people start calling him up.” He tilts his head and lets out a burp, thoroughly pleased with himself.
“Gesundheit,” Libby offers. I turn to her and ask if she knew about this. She crosses her legs and nods. “Kind of,” she admits. “But not about the police thing. The other day I walked in on him while he was on the phone making doctors’ appointments in Richard’s name for oozing blisters or something.”
Max corrects her: “It was bunions, not oozing blisters, although that’s not bad, Lib.” She blows a bubble. He points at her mouth. “You got gum?” he quickly asks.
She hands him the open pack she’d been holding. “You can have the rest,” she tells him. “I bought a bunch for the plane.”
He takes it and stuffs it in his pocket. “Thanks. I’ll need this when we get back from South Africa,” he says. “I can smear it on Richard’s doorknob.” He pauses. “Come to think of it, I’m also going to need Vaseline so I can grease the handlebars of Richard’s bicycle and some itching powder so I can send it to him inside a greeting card.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “What the fuck is going on here?” I ask. “Who are you all of a sudden, Red Buttons? Harpo Marx? You’re going to send Richard
itching powder
inside a
card
?”
Max eyes me disinterestedly. “Uh-huh, sure am.”
When I ask the obvious question—Shouldn’t I be the one exacting revenge? I’m the one who dated Richard—Max responds that I would never properly exact revenge because I’m by nature too nervous of a person (this is true), and that, furthermore, I lack the creative vision for what he has in mind, something I do not doubt. He gives me a serious look. “Richard is . . . ,” he starts to say.
Max is momentarily distracted by a cute guy dragging a compact navy suitcase. The guy stops in front of a monitor displaying departure times. He studies his ticket, then studies the monitor. Max addresses Libby. “Libbers,” he says, “I need your help.” She stands up. He pulls her closer. “Is that cool drink of water straight or is he—” He whistles instead of speaking the word. Libby fixes on the cute guy. She takes off her sunglasses. She puts her hands on her hips, raises a manicured eyebrow, and pushes out her chest. Max stares at her expectantly. For a gay man, he has a shocking lack of gaydar, whereas Libby’s gaydar may as well be approved by NASA. She never misses. “He’s one of mine,” she quickly concludes and sits back down.
Max sighs with disappointment. I again try to get his attention. “Richard is what?” I ask.
He looks over at the cute guy one last time. “Richard,” he says, “is not an upstanding guy. He’s a douche bag. He needs a valuable lesson, and I want to personally deliver it to him. He messed with your head, and now I’ll mess with his.” He tells us to watch his bags and walks off whistling with the flyers.
Well, Max is right about one thing: Richard is not an upstanding guy. It was shameful what I put myself through waiting on his call. Bear with me for a moment as I explain how it went down, and then it’s off to Africa.
So there I am, on Valentine’s Day, in quite a mood . . .
I am lying on my lumpy deathbed in my studio apartment staring up at the huge piece of poster board that I duct-taped to the ceiling, with the words
DON’T CALL RICHARD (AGAIN), YOU BIG EMBARRASSMENT
scrawled in black Magic Marker, when the phone rings. Music to my ears! I jump up to answer, praying that it’s Richard. I check the caller ID. It’s not Richard, it’s my mother. Fucking Richard, useless noisy phone making all that noise. I get back in bed.
“Hello, Kas?” my mother calls out from somewhere inside the answering machine. “Do you light mood candles in the apartment? It’s dangerous.” Kas. My name rhymes with ass. I’ve always resented that. I cover my face with a pillow. I’m twenty-eight years old. If I want to fire up a mood candle, whatever that is, I’ll fire up a mood candle. “I was watching the news. A woman left one of those scented mood candles unattended in her apartment and burned down the building. I’ll call later. I love you.”
I throw off the pillow. Valentine’s Day is today, and I have not heard from Richard in fifteen days. They always get you just as you’re letting down your guard. Fifteen days ago he’s telling me he’s never met anyone like me and the very next he’s gone. Poof. If he doesn’t call today then it’s official—I’ve been rejected. Thank God we didn’t sleep together because that would make this moment really painful. Okay, we slept together, you got me, but no one tell my mother because I’m still a virgin. Besides, it only happened once. Fine, three times, we slept together three times. But the third time was a misunderstanding, if only because I thought there’d be a fourth and fifth time. I’m glad we didn’t have three misunderstandings because that would have meant sleeping with him four times, which would have amounted to multiple mistakes, not to mention a lot of confusing math. I just don’t get how he could stop caring about me so fast. I should call him. I’m calling. I need an answer. No, I said I wouldn’t call. I promised myself I wouldn’t call. I put up notes all over my studio apartment telling myself not to call (again) ((I already called three times, once for each of the nights we had sex)) (((I figured that was reasonable))) ((((by the way, I don’t roll around like a sweaty pig with just anyone. I really liked this guy—he was smart, we had chemistry)))). Anyway, after calling repeatedly and not hearing back I put notes on the toilet, on the TV remote, in the freezer . . . everywhere, to remind myself not to do it again—after all, I have dignity. I even got one sign custom-laminated for the shower. Cost me twenty bucks. I drained an entire Magic Marker on that sign. I should have put a sign near the phone, that would have made sense. Now I’ll let him call me. That’s what I’ll do. He’ll come around. He has to! I’m an attractive girl: light brown hair, light brown eyes. It’s an interesting combo, even though it may not sound like much. I’m fairly slender, and I know how to dress for my body type—which is to say I know enough to wear pants to cover any cellulite. Not that I have . . . yes, I do, a little, more every day, to be fair. In any event, it’s not like I’m shedding skin in clumps while my nose hairs grow wildly like octopus tentacles. My gums don’t bleed; I have all my own fingernails—which I trim regularly, if that needs to be said. Other guys like me. They’re always guys I don’t want to like me but they’re guys . . . Maybe he fell for me so hard he can’t bring himself to call and tell me how hard for me he fell. He did mention that he loves kids. Maybe he wants to get married and have kids. I should call and tell him it’s okay, people fall in love all the time (I don’t, but people do). Unfortunately I’m not ready to get married but if we take it one decade at a time, maybe we can get married and have a child. I like kids. Well, that’s an exaggeration. Not all kids. Are Haley Joel Osment, Dakota Fanning, and Lil’ Bow Wow still kids? If they are then I hate kids. But I might eventually be talked into a kid if he takes care of it . . . Okay, gives birth to it. If that’s not too much to ask . . .
