My Stupid Girl (16 page)

I was tired but would not fall asleep until
she did. I wasn’t going to miss a second of this. Her arm got heavier until,
eventually, it stopped on the muscle of my upper arm. Her head drooped to my
shoulder. Stray hairs were tickling my face but I didn’t care. I laid my own
head back on the oversize cushion and thought about all the crazy amazing
things that had happened to me this weekend. Even the memory of getting sick
was making me smile. The way Lucy stayed with me the whole day, taking care of
me and making sure I was okay, was indescribable. I was falling for this girl
and it was completely her fault. I tried, many times, to talk myself out of it,
but she was pushing herself into my heart. 

In the back of my mind I knew that this
could end badly. Anything that I enjoyed was always open for destruction. Right
now, though, I was too happy to dwell on that, which was, in itself, a miracle.
I was just happy, really happy, and totally content. And very tired. I closed
my eyes, exhaustion took over me, and I fell asleep. I fell asleep with Lucy
sitting next to me, in a beautiful home, watching an old black and white movie.
Amazing.      

* * *

Somehow I talked Isaiah and Johnny into
riding with Lucy and me to the bowling alley. It wasn’t that hard. They were
dying to see me and Lucy together. The two of them sat in the back of Lucy’s
car, looking around like they were at Disneyland. I could tell by Johnny’s face
and the way his eyebrows went up every time we spoke that I was going to get
made fun of like I’d never experienced before. They were all loving it. I could
just feel their evil little brains storing away at every glance and word, to
use against me at a later time. I actually didn’t mind, though. Either of those
guys would have given their right arm to be in the front seat with this girl.

“Johnny, your house is nice.” Lucy looked
in the rearview mirror as she spoke to him.

“Yeah, thanks.  It’s pretty cool.” Johnny
answered, looking nervously at me. I answered him with a wry smile that said,
“I know you are uncomfortable and I laugh at you, sir.”

"Do your parents hate you or
something?" Isaiah broke the uncomfortable moment with a direct question
for Lucy.

"What?"

"You couldn't get them to buy you
anything better than an Acura?" Isaiah’s voice was politely inquisitive.

Lucy didn’t even reply, she just reached
over the seat back to smack his leg. In response, Isaiah’s body looked like it
was melting. He was speechless. I turned around and glared at him. He
solidified quickly, slightly embarrassed (which was not normal for Isaiah) and
looked out the window. I was ticked a little. What was it about this girl and
dorky boys? They dropped like flies around her.

"Is Michelle coming?" Lucy
surprised me with the question.

"She said she would rather paint her
nails bright pink and then wash her cat," I said squeezing her knee,
hoping she wouldn't be offended.

"She has a mean cat," Isaiah
informed Lucy, quietly.

"Bummer." Lucy’s lips went down
in a frown.

"Why?"

"I just wanted to get to know
her."

I realized she was making an effort to know
my friends. As much as it hurt me, I figured I could give hers a break. I made
a mental note to keep it low key at Laurel Lanes.

We drove into a parking spot right next to
the door of the bowling alley at 4:30, exactly. Lucy grabbed my hand as we
headed in and all four of us walked through the doors together.

Every single person bowling in the lanes
and all the people playing in the video game arcade turned to look at us. The
whole place literally froze. I would have felt very uncomfortable if I didn't
have two of my three best friends with me. I can only imagine what Lucy looked
like, a hippie girl walking in with her hand held by a Goth boy, flanked by a
misfit like Johnny and a guy covered in black from head to toe. She seemed
completely at ease, however, and didn’t even seem to notice the group staring
at her. They lost interest quickly and went back to their games.

The first person we saw was Jennika. She
hurried over, giving me a bright-eyed smile.

"Hi, David! Who's this?" She
looked curiously at my friends, not quite as comfortable as Lucy.

"This is Isaiah, and Johnny."
Lucy pointed to each in turn, then introduced her friend to the guys,
"This is my best friend Jennika." Lucy put her head to the side and
spoke with a warm tone.

"We already paid, go get your
shoes." Jennika spoke to all of them but only looked at Johnny, giving him
a long smile. Bingo. The nicknaming wouldn’t be too bad now that I had some
ammo.

After finding our shoes we made our way
over to lane three. There were a lot of people there, all of them greeting Lucy
with open arms. She looked like she just melted into everyone’s arms, boy or
girl.  She made me feel like the only person alive at any moment; I imagine she
made others feel the same. I wasn’t really psyched about it. It was like I had
to share her with everyone.

I started to feel more jealous every time I
saw someone open their arms toward her.

"Ok. Lets pick teams.” Mike broke my
reverie with a clap of his hands.

"Teams?"  I whispered, panicked, in
Lucy’s ear.

10. OH NO SHE DIDN’T!

There were sixteen people, total, so Mike decided we
should have four teams of four. I wasn’t really sure who put him in charge. I
guess he was their paradigm of Christian light and love so the privilege was
implied. We picked our teams out of a hat, another brilliant Mike idea.  Kill
me. I picked team three and, right after me, Lucy picked out team one. I did
get Johnny; that was good. But I also got Mike, who was more upset about being
on my team than I was. Our fourth player was a guy named Sean.

Sean was cool. He was tall and wore a black
shirt that had a big hand with a hole in the palm and some text above it that
said "one truth." I’m guessing that was a religious thing. Sean was talkative
and friendly and made an obvious effort to include Johnny and me. Lucy was on a
team with Rachel and Evelyn. Their fourth player was Isaiah. The poor guy
looked like he was experiencing some horrible reoccurring, walking nightmare
from his youth. The other two teams were made up of Jennika and some people I’d
never seen before; all of them looked nice enough. Lucy was in a lane right
next to them. She high-fived every one of them.

Mike started speaking again, but only to
Johnny, Isaiah, and me: "So, all four teams play, then the two top teams
out of the four will play against each other and then we will see who the
winner of those two are.” We were the obvious newcomers. Apparently newcomers
couldn’t fathom the concept of a tournament.

I was decent at the sport, to my great
surprise. Johnny was awful; he tried very hard to take it seriously but when he
threw the ball he looked like an ape, giving a little hop right before he
threw. He only ever got one or two. Mike was so frustrated at Johnny’s terrible
bowling skills, it was marvelous. 

“Ok, we have to get strikes, all three of
us, so that we can make up for him.” Mike spoke to us in a conspiratorial tone.
He threw his thumb behind him, pointing at Johnny like he wasn’t there. Even
though it was Mike, we took him seriously. Pure competition took over, negating
all mild dislikes that had gone before us.

My favorite was Isaiah. When it was his
turn he would grab any ball he saw, walk up to the line and drop it, then turn
around and walk back to his seat without paying any attention to the action in
his lane. Twice the ball stopped and rolled back toward him. It was priceless
but Rachel was livid. Each time it was his turn she would turn on him and say
something like, ”Just throw the ball and try to act like a normal human
being.” 

He would always answer, “Okay, this time I
will.” Then he would walk over to the line and act like he was going to throw
the ball correctly. When it got to the point where he was about to let go, he
would drop the ball straight down again, turn around, and slink back to his
seat. Sometimes he would give Rachel a thumbs up as he passed her. It would
take a minute and a half for his ball to get to the pins. I couldn’t help but
notice that Lucy laughed with delight and shook Isaiah’s arm every time he did
this. Without fail, Isaiah would look at his arm like it had suddenly broken
out in vicious, talking boils: horrified and awestruck and intrigued, all at
the same time.

I was a big fan of people keeping their
hands to themselves.

“Dude, there’s a lot of bowling and not a
lot of freaking out going on.” Johnny whispered, with venom in his voice. I
smiled, not wanting to admit that I was enjoying seeing Mike so stressed out. I
definitely didn’t want to admit to Johnny that I was having fun, pure and
simple.

“Is that brown eyeliner?” Johnny
scrutinized my eyes.

“Holy crap, Johnny, chill out. It’s all
Lucy had.” I patted my hair down, trying to hide my face. Johnny laughed at my
obvious discomfort; I even heard Mike give a snort.

“Ah, don’t worry about it man, you look
really pretty. Gorgeous, even. In fact, I think I’m falling in love with you!”
His voice was loaded with something more than sarcasm, probably payback for
making him come here. It wasn’t like he was hating it, though. So I tried to
brush it off.

“Shut up.” I growled at him. I looked over
at Lucy who was playing against a guy named Prescott and his team. She was
trash talking everyone in the group. She was touching everyone, shaking arms in
excitement and slapping shoulders or reaching out for high fives each time she
got a got a strike. She wasn’t bothering with the two girls on her team but
every single guy in a five foot radius of Lucy was leaning towards her whenever
she came near. They all gave her the same dreamy look that I had whenever she
was around. It was really beginning to bother me. I felt more and more like an
idiot every time I heard her voice carry through the room.

I was an idiot for thinking that she was
treating me special. She was treating every other guy there the same way she’d
been treating me the last few days. She had said that she liked me, but here I
was in a lane three rows down from her, with her ex-boyfriend, and she was
flirting with every guy in sight. For all the stuff she said, she wasn’t acting
like I was any different than any other guy in the room. Each obnoxious laugh,
every touch and victory cry made me angrier and angrier. When I would look over
I hoped to make eye contact with her but, instead, I would see Rachel shooting
me some look that I couldn’t quite figure out. Rachel’s attention would have
bothered me a lot more if I wasn’t so focused on Lucy’s inattention. 

“You okay?” Sean asked when I didn’t go up
for my turn right away. 

“Yeah.” I stood up and picked up my ball;
it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. I looked over and saw Lucy watching
me, finally. She waved to me and winked. I just turned around and threw the
ball half heartedly. It got only half of the pins and Mike smacked the
scoreboard in annoyance. I looked back in Lucy’s direction and saw that she
wasn’t smiling at me anymore. She looked confused. After a minute she whispered
something to her teammates then walked across the lanes, in front of all the
players, to me. 

“Are you ok, David?” She whispered in my ear
from behind me. 

“What do you care?” I asked bitterly. 

“Excuse me?” Her voice was surprised and
shocked.

”Nothing, forget about it. Go back to your
game. All your boyfriends are waiting for you.” I still hadn’t turned around to
look at her.

“What are you talking about?” Her voice was
moving from confusion to anger.

“Don’t act stupid,” I spat out, moving my
body forward and putting my elbows on my legs so she couldn’t talk into my ear
anymore. For a second, she didn’t reply or move. Then I heard her feet storm
off, back to her lane. 

I looked up and saw Mike smiling. 

“Better get used to that if you’re going to
date Lucy Peterson.” His voice was filled with joy, which made me dislike him
even more – a feat I would have thought impossible just a few minutes ago.

“What?” I said, anger rolling over me.

“Get used to everyone loving her, and her
loving everyone. I still haven’t figured out if she realizes she is the one who
makes everyone fall in love with her.” I digested his words for a minute before
I replied.

“It didn’t bother you?” I asked, risking
some vulnerability for some answers from Mike. 

“Oh it did, all the time. But what do you
do? I wanted to be with her.” He looked down, suddenly avoiding my gaze. “She
never actually meant anything by it, until she met you.”

“I didn’t ask her to break up with you.” I
was trying to explain myself.

“Don’t stress it, I figured that. When Lucy
gets an idea in her head, she goes for it.” He sounded like he was trying to
like me for a second. After a pause he got up for his turn. Gutter ball. He
looked defeated, and not just because of the game.

We were second to last, beating out
Isaiah’s team. Our team and Isaiah’s went to go get food before Jennika's team
and the random team I didn’t know went head to head. 

“I’m going outside.” Isaiah told me and
Johnny, his lip quivering with satisfaction because Rachel was throwing a hissy
fit about losing. Lucy came up behind me, grabbed my hand, and walked me away
from the group.

“I really don’t know what’s wrong, David.” She
was avoiding my gaze, almost like she was trying not to force me to talk. Like
she was trying not to make it too uncomfortable to have “a Conversation.” It
was a nice effort but she was totally failing.

“Are you serious?” I asked her, disbelief
in my voice.