Twerp (17 page)

But here’s the weird part. Knowing the truth frees you up. Or at least it frees you up if you accept it. Knowing that, in a thousand years, nothing you’re doing or not
doing will matter frees you up to do what your heart tells you to do. So I listened to my heart for a couple of days and nights, and I turned off my brain, and then, suddenly, yesterday, as I was sitting in English class, I knew what to do.

I walked right over to Jillian at the end of the period. She was still sitting at her desk, straightening up her desktop before lunch. She looked real pretty. She had on a pink-and-gray-striped dress. Her brown hair was even darker and shinier than usual, and she had a pink ribbon in it. I looked her straight in the eye and said, “Do you want to go to a movie on Friday?”

The question seemed to catch her off guard, or maybe just the directness of it caught her off guard. She looked down and went back to shuffling her papers. Then she glanced up at me again. She was interested, but she wasn’t quite smiling. “What movie?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Whatever’s playing at the RKO Keith’s.”

“Would it be just the two of us?”

“I’m sure there’ll be other people in the theater.”

“But not Lonnie?”

“No,” I said.

“I spoke to him about us. He said he doesn’t care.”

“Trust me, he
does
care. But it doesn’t matter.”

“But why would he say he doesn’t care if he does?”

“Because he’s a great guy. That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

“Then why are you asking me to go to the movies on Friday?”

“Because it doesn’t matter. He’ll get over it. Or else he won’t.”

“But he’s your friend.”

“You don’t have to remind me, Jillian. I know he’s my friend.”

“I don’t want to come between—”

“Do you want to go to the movies with me or not?”

“You’re supposed to act nicer when you ask me that,” she said.

That was when I realized I was ruining it for her. “I’m sorry.”

“Is this the first time you’ve ever asked out a girl?”

There was no reason to lie to her. “Yes.”

“Friday is Memorial Day. We don’t have school. You know that, right?”

“Why does that matter?”

“Your family doesn’t do stuff together?”

“Not that I know of,” I said.

She hesitated another second. “All right.”

“So you’re saying yes?”

“Where and when do you want to meet?” she asked.

“How about the RKO Keith’s at seven-thirty?”

“Are we going to dinner first? Or should I eat at home?”

“Which would you rather?”

She cracked a smile. “You
really
haven’t thought this through, have you?”

“I want to go to the movies with you, Jillian. Do you want to go with me?”

“I do.”

“Then let’s go,” I said.

“What about dinner?”

“Why don’t you eat dinner at home and then meet me afterward?”

She thought it over. “If I get my dad to drop me off, do you think your dad will drive me home?”

“I’ll ask him.”

“If he can’t, will you ride the bus back to Bayside with me?”

“If it comes to that,” I said.

“Do you promise?”

“I promise that you won’t have to ride the bus home alone.”

She put out her hand. “Then it’s a date.”

As I shook her hand, I was thinking,
I’m a quintessence of dust with a date for Friday night
.

June 1, 1969

An hour after I asked Jillian to go to
the movies, I began to ask myself,
What did you do that for?
That’s what happens when your heart gets out in front of your brain. Your brain catches up, except by then there’s nothing to do but scratch your head. Still, it wasn’t like I was going to take it back. Sooner or later, I was going to have a first date. Why not Jillian Rifkin?

So, no, I didn’t want to take it back. I just didn’t want to think about date stuff. Like what movie we were going to see. Like whether twelve dollars, which was how much allowance I’d saved up, would be enough to buy tickets, popcorn, and sodas for both of us. Like whether I was supposed to kiss her good night.

If you step back and analyze the thing, of course, you’d
have to say the main reason I asked out Jillian was because I was mad at Lonnie. There’s no dodging it. Which, I guess, makes me a double louse. I’m a lousy friend to Lonnie. And I’m a lousy boyfriend to Jillian. Writing that word feels weird: “boyfriend.” Even thinking about it feels weird. It feels like a pair of dress shoes that doesn’t fit, the kind where your feet are swimming around inside so you have to put on two pairs of socks and then pull the laces real tight, and you wind up with blisters below your ankles. I’d never thought of myself as anyone’s “boyfriend.” But if the first date went well, and if we went out on another date, then you’d have to say I was Jillian’s boyfriend.

The thought made me kind of queasy.

Between Wednesday and Friday, I spent hours and hours going through the date in my mind, trying to work out every possible way it could go. But there were too many
if-thens
. Like with popcorn, for example:
If
she wanted popcorn,
then
should we both wait on line for it, or should she get us good seats while I waited on line? But in that case, after I bought the popcorn, how would I find her in the dark theater? Stuff like that. The kind of stuff you don’t have to worry about if you’re going to the movies with the guys because then you can just yell out one of their names, and he’ll call back and wave his arms, and you’ll call back to him, and who cares if the grown-ups sitting around you start going,
“Shhhhh!”

I would’ve given my right arm—not really, of course—to talk it out with Lonnie, to get his take on things. But that was out of the question since the date was with Jillian. Not to mention that he wouldn’t give me the time of day. It killed me every morning, waiting for the bus, the way he walked right past me without even a glance. Between him and Howie Wartnose, I was public enemy number one. Eric the Red and Shlomo Shlomo weren’t as obvious. They’d at least nod hello. Still, you could tell they felt weird about it. The only one who stuck by me was Quick Quentin. But I don’t think he has it in him to hold a grudge.

So I was flying solo.

Sure, I
could’ve
talked it out with my dad. That’s how the world works on TV …. You know, the son sits down with his dad to get the facts of life. No question he would’ve razzed me, but he would’ve cut it out once he realized I was desperate. Talking to him also would’ve solved the problem of getting Jillian home after the date. I came close on Friday morning. I woke up an hour early and walked with him the three blocks to Thirty-First Avenue, where he’d parked the car the night before. The entire time, I was just about to spill my guts. I even got into the car with him, and he asked me what was on my mind. But I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t get that first word out. I sat there and shrugged. He drove me back to the house without asking again.

If I couldn’t talk to my dad about the date beforehand, I sure couldn’t ask him to drive Jillian home afterward. Which meant I was going to ride the bus back to Bayside with her. That much, at least, was settled.

So I decided to let it go. Whatever happened, happened. I stopped thinking about
if-then
and focused on being a quintessence of dust. Would it matter in a thousand years what happened on my date with Jillian? What was the worst thing that could happen? I mean, if I pissed my pants in the movie theater, would it make a difference in a thousand years? People will be riding around in flying cars, going from planet to planet, and taking pills that let them watch movies inside their brains. Who will remember the kid who pissed his pants in the RKO Keith’s?

By Friday afternoon, I didn’t just
feel
like dust. I
was
dust. I could taste it in the back of my throat. There was dust in the corners of my eyes, and I could hear it blowing around in my ears. I could feel the wind coming up behind me and carrying me forward, light as dust, from the present to the future, and I had no more control over where I was going than a tumbleweed rolling across a desert.

Late in the afternoon, I took a quick walk over to the RKO Keith’s to find out what films were playing. It turned out there were two possibilities:
Nightmare in Wax
or
Mackenna’s Gold
. Both started at eight o’clock, so either
worked since we were supposed to meet at seven-thirty. I stared at the marquee for a full minute. I didn’t care, to be honest, but girls don’t like horror movies, or at least they
say
they don’t like horror movies, which nixed
Nightmare in Wax
. So that left
Mackenna’s Gold
, which was a western. If nothing else, I figured there would be a tumbleweed in it.

Then I went home and tried to act as though nothing was going on. I told my mom I’d be out later than usual but no later than eleven o’clock. She likely figured I’d be over at Lonnie’s house watching television or trading baseball cards or doing whatever we did when we were together. She had no reason to ask questions, and she didn’t.

But after dinner I ran into trouble with Amelia. She’s always been able to read me, and when I took extra time in the bathroom—I mean, it was no more than a couple of extra minutes to comb my hair—she parked herself outside the door and waited for me to come out. She cracked up as soon as I opened the bathroom door. She took one look at me, and she just knew I wasn’t going to Lonnie’s house.

“You’ve got a girlfriend, don’t you?”

I pushed past her. “Leave me alone.”

“I’ll bet it’s that Jillian girl,” she said.

“Get lost!”

I hustled back to my room with her footsteps right behind me. But then, at once, her footsteps stopped. I shut
the door to my room and listened for her, but there was no sound. It was weird. If she’d followed me the entire distance, I would’ve slammed the door in her face—which would’ve caught the attention of my mom and dad. But she kept them out of it. She kept the thing between the two of us. She had me dead to rights and let me off the hook.

I cracked open the door and peeked out. She wasn’t there.

Now
I
was curious. I should’ve let it pass, probably. But I couldn’t figure out what had stopped her in her tracks—I mean, since she’d started to give me a hard time, but then just quit. If I didn’t find out, the question was going to gnaw at me the entire night.

I walked the length of the apartment and knocked on her door.

“Who is it?” she called out.

“It’s Julian.”

“Julian who?”

“You know who it is!”

“All right. Come in.”

I opened the door, which let in a breeze and rattled the beads on the wall. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed with a copy of
Newsweek
in her lap. There was no chance she was reading it. She hadn’t been back in the room more than ten seconds before I knocked on the door.

I shut the door behind me.

“Maybe I do,” I said.

“Maybe you do what?”

“Maybe I have a date.”

“With Jillian?”

“Yes.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not ashamed of it,” I said.

The right corner of her mouth turned up. “What I mean is, you don’t have to feel awkward about it. It’s the most natural thing in the world. It’s not the kind of thing you have to hide.”

“I’m not hiding it. It’s just not a big deal.”

“Are you nervous?” she asked.

“No.”

“You’re sure you’re not nervous?”

“Why should I be nervous?”

“You’re not even slightly nervous?”

“Whether I’m nervous or not, what does it matter? I’m not going to chicken out.”

“You make it sound like an ordeal, like a math test. But it’s not like a math test.”

“I know that,” I said.

“I don’t think you do,” she said. “You can screw up a date just like you can screw up a math test. But it’s also different because there’s not one right formula. You see? You don’t have to study for it because there are lots of
right formulas. You just have to be yourself and pick the one you can make work.”

I nodded. I had no idea what she meant.

“Let’s start with the basics. What are you going to wear?”

“Just a shirt and pants. What I wear to school.”

“If you wear jeans, wear a
nice
pair. All right?”

“All right,” I said.

“And a nice shirt, with buttons. Oh, and no sneakers.”

“All right!”

“Did you take a shower?”

“This morning.”

“Did you put on deodorant?”

“Just now, yes.”

“What kind?”

“The kind Dad uses,” I said.

“You used Dad’s Mennen?”

“I didn’t think he’d mind.”

“Well, first of all,
ick
.”

“Why?”

“I’m only joking, Julian.”

“Oh.”

“Now, let me smell you—”

“C’mon, Amelia!”

She lunged forward before I could react, grabbed me by the waist, and sniffed my underarms. I felt stupid
standing there, letting her do it, but I wanted to know if there was a problem. She let go of me a moment later and fell back onto the bed. Then she squinted her eyes like she was deciding whether I stank.

“Well?” I said.

“Not bad.”

“What else?”

“Did you brush your teeth?”

“I will before I leave.”

“What about your tongue?”

“What about it?”

“You have to brush your tongue too,” she said. “You have to go all the way back with the toothbrush until you gag.”

“Then why is it called a toothbrush?”

“What?”

“Shouldn’t it be called a tooth-and-tongue brush?”

“Don’t be such a wiseass,” she said, smiling. “Are you going to a movie?”

“Yes.”

“What movie?”

“Mackenna’s Gold.”

“Not a superb choice, but at least it’s not a horror movie. You’re planning to pay for her, right?”

“Yes.”

“How much money do you have?”