My Stupid Girl (10 page)

"David, if you need anything please
ask us, okay? Even if you just want to hang out, we would be happy to have you
over.” His offer seemed genuine and I appreciated it. Her father seemed like he
was a good man. Even if he had just handed me an open invitation to be around
his daughter every day if I could manage it. Which I could.

"Okay," was all I managed to say,
despite the warmth I felt coming from him.

"Drive safe." He shook my hand
again and reopened the front door. I nodded at him and felt my limbs
re-animating. I walked to my car feeling oddly content. I shook my head, not
believing where this evening had taken me. One minute I was drifting into one
of the most miserable sleeps of my life and the next minute I was in an
abandoned lighthouse, almost kissing an insanely pretty girl. And to my
surprise the pretty girl was actually really cool. In just a few hours I’d seen
some realism and a hint of sarcasm in her personality, which had surprised and
delighted me. Plus, I was in complete awe of her confidence. I could not figure
how any person could be that sure of themselves all the time.

Helps if Mom and Dad adore you, I guess.

As I was about to get on the freeway by
Spyglass, a local hangout, I noticed Johnny’s car in the parking lot. We used
to shoot pool and eat the famous fish and chips at Spyglass almost every Friday
night. I decided to stop in. Johnny needed a good punch in the face anyways,
for betraying me to a tiny girl.

I walked into the smoke-filled pool hall
and was greeted with deafening applause. I stepped back a few inches, trying to
get my eyes to adjust so I could figure out what everyone was clapping at. Then
I saw it was my whole gang sitting near the door like they had been there all
night, just waiting for me to enter. The Spyglass regulars were clapping, too.
I sat down with my group, willing the rest of the place to quit staring at me
and go back to their pool games.

"Dude," Isaiah raised his soda to
me in a solemn toast, "last time we saw you, you were running like a
little princess, diving headfirst into ice to rescue a damsel in
distress." Everyone else also raised their glasses and held them there for
a moment of silence.  "I didn’t know you had it in you, man."

Everyone drank to that. Jerks.

"I didn’t realize you had a thing for
those pretty Christian girls at school." Johnny was sitting right next to
me, which put him in easy arm’s reach. An arm’s reach that I immediately took
advantage of by shoving him while he sipped his soda. I was rewarded with a bit
of Sprite through the nose.

"You’re a funny man, Johnny. Lucy told
me you all but peed your pants when she got a hold of you at school. Which is
hilarious." Everyone started laughing at my retort. Johnny’s smile went
down a fraction of an inch.

"You should have seen him,"
Michelle spoke loudly, "he stammered like an idiot, made a few hissing
noises and basically threw your keys at her then ran away like he’d just had
three cups of coffee and a fresh bran muffin." The whole table continued
to laugh. They all looked generally delighted at the situation, except
Michelle. I noticed that she wasn’t enjoying all of it quite as much as
everyone else was. Even Johnny seemed like he was having more fun than our
token female.

"Dude, she put her hands on my
shoulders." He imitated a board, stiffening his body. A feeling I was all
too familiar with. His grin widened, "It was awesome, but that’s all I
could think to do."

I found my laughter switching off suddenly,
replaced by a feeling of jealously that Lucy had touched him. Couldn’t the girl
do anything without touching someone? Especially boys. I buried my face in someones
soda, trying to hide my discomfort.

"I see she made it to your
house?" Johnny wanted some details.

"Yeah," once again my non-turtle
shoulders were failing to hide me. I really didn’t want to talk it all out for
the whole group. I wasn’t looking forward to the mockery that was sure to
accompany the part of the story where I drove into the Richie Rich
neighborhood. And this group sure wouldn’t appreciate how imported terra cotta
tiles fit into all this.

"So, you a ‘born again’ Christian now,
or what?" Michelle’s mean voice accompanied the air quotes she used around
born again, a term we heard a lot from Lucy’s group. Let the ridicule begin.

"Yeah, has she let you ‘see the
light’?" Isaiah interrupted, his deep voice sounded amused, and he also
busted out some air quotes. Everyone laughed again.

"Man, you guys are giddier than a
twelve year old shopping for her first training bra, aren’t you?" They
laughed again, but let it drop.

"We’re just glad you’re okay,
man." Johnny spoke directly, not bothering to be loud enough for everyone
else to hear. Say what you will about these misfits, but they were decent.
Sure, we smelled funny and wore makeup and most of us needed a haircut about
three years ago, but when it came down to it, they were decent.

Conversation moved on to catching me up on
everyone’s lives in the last few weeks. I was glad they had forgotten about the
question they were teasing me about. I thought about what Lucy had said about
me being like God. I really didn’t know what she had meant and I was sure none
of my crowd would either (they’d probably tease the crap out of me if I
mentioned it) but it touched me deeply. Who says stuff like that? This girl
unashamedly believed in God, and she had compared the two of us. I knew little
about God and I definitely saw no correlation. I’d tried to help her and
luckily it turned out okay.

If Lucy was in trouble now though, it would
be a different story. I would step in front of a truck for her now. I would do
the same for each one of my friends. I wondered vaguely if my grandma had a
bible at her house.

Johnny nudged me out of my thoughts.

"Have you eaten?" Johnny asked me
just so the two of us could hear. I looked at the clock on the wall and saw
that it was almost three in the morning. I was shocked that Lucy’s father
hadn’t skinned me alive. Then I wondered vaguely if my grandma would be
worried, or if she would even notice. She might just be assuming I was in bed.
We hadn’t really worked through the whole curfew thing.

"Yeah, but since I’m here I’ll get
something." I got up to order some French fries at the counter and Johnny
followed me. I stood in line with Johnny, neither of us really talking, when a
girl behind us started giggling. We turned around and saw two girls. They were
both from school but I had no clue what their names were. Their fingers
fluttered at me in a girly wave, and the giggling continued. My face was
turning purple from embarrassment. I flattened my hair against my face. Johnny
nudged me in the ribs. I could tell he was trying not to lose it and laugh and
embarrass me more.

"Why are they waving at us?" I
whispered urgently to Johnny, so quiet I wasn’t sure if he had heard.

"They aren’t waving at me!" He
was choking on his laughter.

"I hate you," was my only
response.

"I hate you too, buddy!" He
clapped my back and pointed me toward the counter, where a sullen guy stood
waiting behind a register. I ordered my food, peeled my debit card out, and
handed it to the cashier.

"Hey!" The guy all but yelled at
me, "you’re David Johnson?!" He stood up straighter like he was in
the presence of greatness.

"Umm, yeah?" I had no idea what
was going on.

"Dude, you saved that girl from the
lake, you’re like a hero, man!" He was looking at me with awe and
excitement and turned around to tell everyone in the kitchen that I was there.
I don’t know if he actually did end up telling his fellow workers if he had
seen me, because I bailed. In two seconds I was back at the table, head down,
wishing I was home in bed. Or that my turtle shoulders would work.

"You owe me four dollars,
coward." Johnny plopped my fries and soda down in front of me. I ignored
him.

"What is going on?" I asked,
revolted by what the guy behind the counter had said. And by the look of
adoration in his eyes.

"You’re a hero, man. Have you not been
listening to us? Everyone at school has been talking about you." Isaiah’s
smile widened as Johnny spoke, and it wasn’t an innocent smile. It was an evil
one. In fact, they were all wearing evil smiles. I half expected evil mustaches
and bowler hats to appear.

"I’m surprised you didn’t know,"
Isaiah said.

"I’ve been in Whitefish," I said,
miserably.

"Ah man, don’t worry about it, someone
will do something stupid enough and people will think it’s amazing and they
will forget all about you!" Michelle nudged me and I felt a little better.

"Speaking of stupid, I saw your
father," Johnny said brightly, with an air of sarcasm in his voice.

"Yeah?" Oh joy. An even more
unwelcome subject of conversation. They were really pulling out the big guns.

"Yeah, he was at the grocery store,
buying some health crap and looking like he had cleaned up a little, probably
trying to get you back again."

I was sure he was right. For some reason my
dad hated my guts when I was around but tried hard to get me back when I was
gone. I didn’t understand the guy. I really didn’t want to go back. I felt
comfortable at my grandma’s. I wasn’t afraid of what I was walking into every
day when I got done with school. I felt happier, and safer. I realized that, in
less than two weeks, it’d turned into home.

"I should get going," I said to
the table, “my grandma didn’t even know I was leaving the house."

“Oh my word! Look at the time!” Isaiah said
in a fake, falsetto woman’s voice.

"Me too, actually, my mom said I
needed to be home at a reasonable hour." Johnny played along with Isaiah
and pretended to be shocked when he looked up at the clock. "We are going
to see my sister tomorrow in Billings, big trip." I always liked Johnny’s
family. He had normal parents who were very nice and accommodating. That’s
probably why he was a little bit more chipper than the rest of us.

"Dude, call us,” they all encouraged
me as we walked into the parking lot. Johnny kept walking with me, “Seriously,
dude, we‘ll come and see you or plan something next time you’re in town."
He nodded encouragingly as he climbed into his Ford. Another visible sign of
his parent’s love.

"Yep." I crawled into my little
car that was probably going to die on the way home. I turned the music up high
so I wouldn’t have to think on the long ride home. My brain was on overload. I
zoned out.

My car didn’t die. Before I knew it, I was
chugging up the street. I tried to ease the car into the driveway, willing it
not to make too much noise. It was uncooperative, as usual. But I doubt anyone
noticed. It was late. And cold. At least it wasn’t raining anymore.

I fumbled with the keys in the dark for a
minute before I figured it out. I wasn’t used to walking in this late. Or
early. I couldn’t wait to fall asleep. My bed was calling to me.

Light from the street flooded the interior of
the house as I opened the front door. From the blaze of the streetlamps, I
could see my tiny grandmother, curlers in her hair, sitting up straight in a
chair, in the dark. Thunderous.

6. SICK (AS A DOG)

I got a stack of fresh, homemade waffles the next
day. They were technically lunch, I guess, because I woke up at 1:17 in the
afternoon. My grandma sat across from me at the kitchen table with a weary look
on her face, although the curlers were gone.

The night before, she had spanked me. An
honest to goodness spanking.

I, of course, kept a repentant face on the
whole time it was happening. Even being that the situation was the most
hilarious of my life, I was able to keep a straight face. I knew how much it
meant to her.

As I’d walked in the door, this tiny little
woman came stomping over like a herd of elephants. She grabbed my upper arm in
her version of a firm grip, which I could barely feel, and hit me as hard as
she could right on my butt with her little bony hand. Totally unlike my dad’s
drunken swings, grandma’s midnight swat really touched me, and filled me with a
good dose of guilt. I saw how concerned she was.

In fact, I realized as I sat at the table
the next morning, it was the first time I had ever been spanked. I’d been hit
plenty of times, but properly disciplined? No, that was the first time. Who
would have thought that my first ever spanking would have occurred at the age
of seventeen by a woman who was half my size? I think she would have placed me
over her knee if I wouldn't have crushed her.

This morning, she was looking at me with a
new kind of concern. My suspicion that the homemade waffles were more than just
made on a whim was confirmed when she spoke: "David, I'm sorry I got so
upset last night," she spoke with measured resolve, "I was just
scared you'd left and I didn't know where you were."

Job done, she dipped an uneaten bite of
waffle in syrup for the sixth time, eyes welling up the tiniest bit. We were
both awash in guilt, now.

"Grandma, I shouldn't have stayed out
so late." I flattened my hair against my eyes. Look at me, having a
rational conversation with an adult about boundaries and rules. Will wonders
never cease? My grandma smiled at me over her waffles. Then she slid a black
cell phone on the table and pushed it over to me. I looked at it, not believing
what I saw.

"What is this?" I could hear the
shock in my own voice.

"It’s a microwave, sweetie." She
took an actual bite of her waffle, smiling as she chewed. "I got a plan
for us this morning, I thought we could join the 21st century."

Now it was official, my grandma was cool.
She kept going after another bite of real food.

"You know, since you are here until
you are eighteen, or whenever you’re ready to leave, I figured it would be
smart to have a way for us to contact each other in case we need to. For
instance, when I stay out with the bridge club until the wee hours of the
morning."