Perfectly Good White Boy (23 page)

“Why, Sean?”

I didn't know why. I kind of hated her, too, at that moment. And then her mom came home with a bunch of bags from Walgreens and she looked at me sitting by her sobbing daughter on the TV room sofa like I had fallen from the sky into her house. But she didn't seem surprised by the endless crying, and I just handed Mrs. Martin the wad of toilet paper and she nodded and hugged Hallie, and this time I went out the front door because I didn't want her to connect me with the footprints in the snow on the back deck, since obviously she had enough problems.

Since he was in trouble with Libby, Eddie and me decided to hang out one Friday. We spent the first bit of it in his basement playing video games and eating dinner (Eddie's mom made the best food, I swear). Then we decided to go to this party he'd heard of, even though I thought it'd probably be a bunch of sophomores, from the sound of it.

But it wasn't; it was a pretty great party, some dude he knew from lifeguarding's house. And strangely enough, Neecie was there, with Ivy. And Ivy was drunk and hanging around Neecie's neck, and Neecie looked super happy and a little buzzed and her face was all red, down to her neck and the top of her boobs and she wore this shirt that was really low and I wondered if she got red like that all the way down under her shirt. And then Ivy started hanging off Eddie, after a while, and Eddie and her went into another room because he wanted to smoke his little bit of weed and Ivy was all about that so it was just me and Neecie standing next to each other in this cram-packed party when the cops showed up and everyone bolted in a million directions.

Running from a house party when the cops come is a stupid thing to do. They're looking for you to run, really, which is why you should just stay put until you know the situation. Like if they're more cops out on the street or if it's just a warning or whatever. But Eddie and Ivy freaked and with a bunch of other kids, shot through the back door, right into the snow drifts and started running.

But it was just a cop responding to a noise complaint, wanting everyone to leave, not to bust anyone. That's all they wanted, really: to make the fun end.

I explained this to Neecie, because she wanted to run at first too. Then we played pool in the basement for a while. The kid whose house it was hung out with us; with most everyone gone, he shut off all the lights and music and sat on the little built-in bar thing and smoked weed out of a pop can and told us about how he was going to college in North Dakota and it was boring as hell, but I knew Neecie wasn't paying attention anyway, and I was mostly paying attention to her low-neck shirt and her pink bra sticking out at the shoulder and wondering again, now that her skin was all calm and pale again, what her boobs looked like and thinking I was gross, because it'd only been like a week since the Hallie crying thing had happened, and it was like I had some kind of addiction with The Horn or something.

“I have some pretty good news, Sean,” Neecie said when we'd left the party. The kid who'd been smoking out finally passed out on his sofa watching Cartoon Network. Neecie and I sat in my car; I was spitting sunflower seed shells into an empty bottle of Amp while she kept checking her phone for texts from Ivy.

“What's that?” I asked.

“I got into Carleton,” she said. “I just found out this afternoon.”

“Really? You're kidding! That's awesome!” I wanted to hug her, but it was awkward in the car, plus I didn't want to spill the sunflower seeds everywhere.

“I know,” she said. “It's expensive as fuck, though. My mom's making me work with Gary's brother's company all summer, plus the Thrift Bin. She's sort of crazy about all the loans and stuff.”

“Well, but still, that's great, Neecie. I'm really happy for . . .”

“Oh!” she said, as her phone beeped. She scrolled through the text. “They're going to the King Pin. She says to meet them there.”

“For what? To go bowling?”

“Yeah, I guess. They got a ride from someone Eddie knew. And Ivy's car is still parked over here, so, I don't know how she's gonna handle that shit.”

“But, bowling?”

“It'll be fun,” she said. “We gotta go. She said they'll get us a lane.”

“I hate bowling.”

“Everyone hates bowling. Just drive.”

The King Pin was past its prime. Seriously. You went to the bowling alley connected to the movie theater if you wanted something decent, because that place had cool games and shit to do.

But the King Pin was for people who actually still bowled competitively, and not for a joke like kids did. Though the King Pin had probably been a hopping joint back in its day. It was still all kitted out with gold walls and bright orange plastic seats, the kind that looked like the old version of spaceships, in what people thought was so cutting-edge back then. There were still ashtrays built into the curvy seats, and you know the million-year-old score machine that looked like the overhead projector our Global Studies teacher still used must have been considered pretty fancy too.

But I was feeling a little shitty. Because I was supposed to be happy for Neecie, celebrate her going to college. Instead I was just thinking about my own dumb self, how I didn't have a good answer, still, when someone asked me what I was doing after graduation, because I couldn't tell my mom because I was a giant pussy about everything. Neecie was the only one who knew about me, and now if anyone asked what she was doing after graduation, Neecie could pop up like toast and chirp, “Going to Carleton!” and everyone would smile and be impressed and think she was super smart—which she was and which they should be.

But I still didn't have an answer. Not one that I could say, at least, because I didn't want it to get back to my mom. And I didn't know when I was leaving, either. And that sucked, too; I wanted to know, because I wanted to have something to say. And keeping secrets from my mom made me feel like a little kid. Like I'd stolen money from her purse or jacked the last piece of cake—though this wasn't that kind of secret. The longer it went on, the worse it was.

The King Pin was wall-to-wall kids. Kids from our high school and from St. Albans, the Catholic one that some kids I knew in elementary went to, and the whole place was jammed. Kids playing pool, standing in groups around the restrooms, smushed into the lanes next to all the hardcore bowlers, some of who wore those wrist guards, too, as if bowling was a dangerous sport that required equipment. One dude I kept staring at. He was sitting there, his face half covered by his VFW trucker hat, all covered in pins and crap, and the number of his unit back in Korea or whatever, and he was spitting chew into a Styrofoam cup and it looked like he didn't have any teeth, but it was hard to tell because he had the biggest mustache ever. It was kind of funny, seeing him spitting into his cup and probably talking shit out of the side of his mouth to his friends about all of us dumb kids. But then he took off his hat, and he was bald. Totally bald. And his head was
lumpy
. Not covered in moles, though. Just those dark, ragged freckles that old people get. Also his head skin wasn't smooth and tight, but sort of saggy around his ears. I couldn't help it; I had my hand in my hair instantly, feeling around everywhere, especially my ears.

“What is your deal?” Neecie asked, handing me my rental shoes. “You keep scratching your head.”

I ignored her, took the shoes. One of my socks had a big hole in it. “I can't bowl for shit.”

“It'll be fine. Everyone sucks at bowling.”

I sighed, nodded. Tried to not be so tense. I just wanted to go home, check my scalp for moles. But there was no point to acting like an asshole. Especially on a night when Neecie had something to celebrate.

Eddie and Ivy were drunk and bowling and acting like best friends. I wasn't sure if they'd actually hung out before; maybe they had? But it didn't matter. Eddie wasn't that kind of dude; he didn't care now that he was loaded and spinning around in his bowling shoes to boy-band music, or that the lights got all pinkish and low and hearts started swirling around the walls as a cheesy voice announced the “Glitzy Midnight Bowl.” Nope, Eddie was the kind of dude who just grabbed Ivy and started tangoing all over the place until her turquoise bowling ball popped back up out of the machine. Seeing that, I decided to stop being mopey and sorry for myself; I had to be happy for Neecie and try to just have a good time already.

But then I turned around and saw Tristan Reichmeier standing by Neecie and he had his hand on the back of his neck and was looking down at her and she was smiling and shrugging and then he laughed and she kind of shook her hair, in a totally non-Neecie way, and they kept talking and then he grabbed her by the elbow and they ducked behind one of those dumb machines where you can try to pluck a stuffed animal out of it with those little pincher claws, the kind that are impossible to win at, and I couldn't see them anymore.

“Can you do Neecie's turn, Sean?” Eddie, poking my shoulder. “Where'd she go anyway?”

“To the bathroom,” Ivy said, but then she was scanning around just like I had been.

I almost slipped getting up on the lane and then Neecie's ball had just tiny finger holes so I couldn't even use it normally; I just sort of granny-shotted it down the lane and turned around, and Ivy and Eddie were shouting, “Sean! You just did a strike! First crack, too!” and “Holy shit, dude!” but I didn't care. I couldn't see Neecie anymore, and I was feeling headachey, and I couldn't stand it.

But I rolled Neecie's turn like a million more times, and even when Eddie bought another game, I went along, holding her tiny-holed ball and not getting any more strikes and wondering why we were celebrating Neecie's good news if she wasn't here. But I didn't want to be a downer, because it seemed pretty likely that Ivy and Eddie were into each other; I'd never seen Ivy so happy and smiling.

“What's your problem?” Eddie said once when Ivy was up bowling her turn.

“Nothing.”

“Ivy thinks Neecie's with some guy. Ivy's pissed off about it, I think.”

“You seem to attract girls who get pissed off, you know that, Ed?” He smiled, but then quit right away. Because then Libby was standing just two feet away from us, with all of her friends, Emma, too, and everyone's good time really screeched to a halt.

“Who's that?” Libby asked me and Eddie, nodding toward Ivy up in the lane.

“Ivy Heller,” Eddie said.

“I know who she is.”

“Then why'd you ask?” I said. “Jesus Christ.”

Eddie looked at me like, “Dude, don't,” and Libby's eyes were all squinched and teary, and then Ivy came back and the girls all had this uncomfortable stare-off and I couldn't stand it anymore. I took off my bowling shoes, left them beside a plate of half-eaten French fries and put on my own shoes. I looked everywhere for Neecie; I even went outside, scanning the groups of kids waiting for rides next to the hardcore bowlers smoking cigarettes. No Neecie. No red truck in the parking lot, either.

She'd gone and done it, hadn't she. Another disappearing act. I couldn't believe her.

“You owe me fifteen bucks.” Eddie, at my shoulder.

Then Ivy was behind him, on her cell phone, super mad.

“Well, if your mom calls, I'm not fucking lying to her again,” Ivy yelled. “I'm not. And I don't fucking care. No! No fucking way! He's a total dickhead and full of shit and you totally fucking know it.”

“Dude, just get us out of here,” Eddie whispered to me when we got in my car. “Libby's in there, crying. All her friends are going to kill me . . .”

“They're sophomore girls, Eddie,” I said. “They can't kill anyone.”

“They're juniors, Sean,” he said. “And they're freaking me out. Let's get out of here.”

He buckled his seatbelt and rapped his fist on the dashboard. “Chop chop,” he added. I started driving, but Eddie kept checking the rear-view. Like we were being followed.