Weird Girl and What's His Name (18 page)

“Maybe we should, um.” I cleared my throat. “Maybe we should get back down to the party.”

“Yeah. Lemme grab those CDs.” He flipped off the light, and we left his brother's room, closing the door behind us. I looked at the other closed door down the hall.

“How did Rory end up living with you? If you don't mind my asking.”

“He showed up at my dad's church,” Seth said, crossing the hall back to his bedroom. “My dad's the minister at the Unitarian church—you know that church in the building where the old library was?”

“Sure. I used to love that library.”

“You should come by sometime. It still smells like books,” Seth said, turning his bedroom light back on. “Anyway, they've got a support group down there for gay teens. Well, gay people of all ages who don't feel welcome in more conservative churches, or fall out with their families, or whatever. So, Rory came in. He came to a couple of meetings before somebody figured out he was living in his car. My dad, like, flipped out and insisted that he come live with us. Especially since we're on the same team and everything. And it's been really cool. Kind of like Instant Brother.”

“Oh.” I didn't know what to say. I felt horrible. It should have been me. I should have been the one to take him in. Even if I was gone, why didn't he come to Janet and Leo's? I sank down on the end of Seth's bed, feeling too bad about Rory to even appreciate the weirdness of sitting on Sexy Seth's
bed.

“But enough about Rory. We have serious business to discuss.” Seth gave me an all-business look as he took a small handful of CDs off of the shelf by his desk. “What's your favorite Guided by Voices album?”

“Well, I don't actually . . .” I could feel myself blushing. “Truthfully, I only really know one of their songs.”

“Just one? Lemme guess: ‘Hardcore UFOs'? That was a Midnight Pete favorite. I could see you digging that song. Rory told me you guys were into that
X-Files
show. He showed me those articles you wrote.”

“He—Rory did what?” I felt my stomach drop to my toes. Sexy Seth knew about the
Guide.

“He showed me your, uh,
Guide to
The X-Files, the blog you guys did?” Seth opened one of the CD cases, closed it, then chose another. “I never watched the show, but those articles were pretty funny. I like the “point/counterpoint” one about the liver-eating mutant guy, where you and Rory were arguing and he kept making you all mad.”

“Oh yeah. The liver-eating mutant guy,” I echoed weakly. My ears were so hot, I was afraid my hair was going to catch on fire. I couldn't believe Seth had read all that goofy stuff we wrote.

“So that's why I guessed ‘Hardcore UFOs.'”

“Huh?”

“Your Guided by Voices song. Did I guess right?”

“Oh, the song . . . it's, um. Actually, it's ‘Teenage FBI.'”

“Man! That's a great song, too! Do you have the album version, or the EP version?”

“I'
M NOT SURE
. I
T WAS
. . . on the
Buffy
soundtrack.” Just when I thought it was impossible to be any less cool, I went and admitted to Sexy Seth Brock that I owned the
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
soundtrack. I was blushing so much that I felt like Madeline Kahn in
Clue.
“Flames. Flames . . . on the side of my face.” Extra flamey.

“Buffy
had a GBV song on the soundtrack?” Seth asked. “That's awesome. I might have to go back and watch that show now.” He knelt down to a lower shelf and pulled out more CDs, seemingly unfazed by my uncool confession. “The EP version is like, rawer, but it's awesome. I love 'em both. Some people say
Do the Collapse
is too polished, you know? Too slick. But I love that album. I love the lo-fi stuff too, though. Even when it sounds like it was recorded straight into a tape recorder—it probably was—but the songs are so good, it doesn't matter.
Under the Bushes Under the Stars
is maybe my favorite album of all time. Even though
Isolation Drills
is the one I usually listen to before games. I know, I'm supposed to say
Bee Thousand
is the best, and, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's awesome, but—” he paused, gave me one of his patented Sexy grins. “I'm not making any sense right now, am I?”

“Yeah, I kind of need to phone a friend right now,” I admitted. Seth laughed.

“I tend to get sorta carried away when I talk about Guided by Voices. It's just—their songs are like magic to me. Some of 'em get me so psyched up, I feel like I could leap tall buildings, be all Superman. And then the very next song, I go and get all choked up—” Seth paused, kneeling on his carpet. He shook his head. “Why do we love this stuff?”

“What, music?”

“Anything! Why do we love anything? I mean, my brother played plenty of other bands. Good bands. There was music coming out of his room all the time. But this one time on a long car trip, he let me listen to some GBV on his headphones, and that was it. I had to hear it all.”

“You woke up one morning and said, ‘I know: dolls.'”

“Do what now?”

“It's, uh. Sorry, kind of random. It's from this
X-Files
episode. Clyde Bruckman . . . he's a psychic, and he's wondering why this woman they're investigating was a doll collector. Like, why do any of us become obsessed with the stuff we become obsessed with? The stuff that kind of defines who we are. Is it some kind of destiny, or more like a flash of inspiration? Like, was it a series of unavoidable events, all through this woman's childhood, leading her to accumulate all these dolls? Or did she just wake up one morning—”

“And say, ‘I know: dolls!'” Seth laughed. “Exactly! Like,
Under the Bushes
—the first time I heard it, I didn't even like it that much. I felt like it was too long and there weren't enough songs that stood out. I kept going back to
Alien Lanes
and
Bee Thousand
instead. But then one night, the summer after Donnie died, I was lying here watching the sun go down. For whatever reason, I put on
Under the Bushes Under the Stars.
It was one of those nights, before school started back. Even though I was psyched about the football season, I was feeling kind of bummed out about summer being over. You know how it gets right before night in the summer, when the trees are dark, and the sky behind them is all fire colored and dark blue, and you feel this sort of . . . melancholy?”

Sexy Seth Brock, popular football star, looked out at the trees at dusk and felt melancholy? Are you kidding me? Was I being Punk'd? I would've assumed a guy like Seth would look out at the trees at dusk and feel like, I dunno, doing a keg stand.

“Yeah, actually, I do,” I said. “I think I know what you mean.”

“And right then, this song came on, ‘Acorns & Orioles'—you got a minute?”

“Well, I should get back to this fabulous party I've been invited to, but,” I shrugged, “for you, I've got a minute.”

Seth grinned. He stood up, opening a CD case. He slapped the disc into the little portable stereo on his bureau and skipped tracks until he found the one he was looking for. I heard plaintive, minor-key acoustic guitar, quieter than the one other GBV song I knew. The first verse sent a sort of chill fluttering through me. By the time the song got to the chorus,
I can't tell you anything you don't already know,
I knew how Seth felt.

“Like the weather changed.”

“Huh?” Seth turned the volume down a little.

“It's like—” I hesitated. “The first time Rory and I watched
X-Files.
Normally we talk through whatever we're watching. But that first episode we watched, we were dead silent. And afterward it felt like the weather had changed. Like the clouds had rolled in, even though they hadn't. But it was like we . . . went through the wardrobe or something.” I trailed off, feeling like a weirdo, as usual. “It's a really good song.”

“Isn't it? Like the weather changed . . . that's a good way to describe it. What do you reckon it is,” Seth mused, “that makes us see something all of a sudden? When we've passed by it a hundred times, and it suddenly jumps out? All of a sudden it's not just music that you're listening to, it's a feeling that you're . . . feeling. And next thing you know you can't stop listening to the record without all the catchy tunes on it, or out of all five hundred channels, you can't stop watching that one old show. Why do we love the stuff we love? Especially when it doesn't make no regular sense.”

“Maybe love never makes sense,” I said. The song was fading to an end. Seth popped the CD player open.

“You know, back before I knew him, I thought you and Rory were going out,” Seth said, putting the CD back in its case.

“We were just friends. Best friends. But we . . . had a falling out. He didn't tell you?”

“Rory's kind of private about stuff. Not like me,” Seth smiled. “He said the same thing. You guys had a falling out. But he talks about you all the time. Me and Lula used to do this, Lula always says, Lula this, Lula that.”

“He does?” I felt myself blush again. “Bet that gets boring.”

“Any friend of Rory's is a friend of mine. Anyway, whatever happened, I don't think he hates you or anything. You guys can work it out.” Seth went back to his CD shelf. I hoped he was right. That Rory didn't hate me. I didn't know what to say. I still felt the melancholy of the song, that feeling like dark trees at dusk in the summertime. It reminded me of Rory, of our Friday nights.

“I guess these'll do,” Seth broke the silence, gathering up a stack of CDs. “Sorry, didn't mean to get off on a big GBV tangent.”

“It's okay. I really like them. I mean, I like what I've heard so far. You should tell me which songs to download, and I'll get some more,” I said, trying to break up the melancholy. I didn't want to further my embarrassment by admitting to Seth that I'd just stopped at the one Guided by Voices song because I was more intent on making a mix CD for Rory. Who didn't even care enough about music to realize that I'd found all these songs that seemed to be written just for us. “I looked them up online, but there were, like, a hundred albums. I didn't know where to start.”

“Probably more like a thousand albums! I swear, Bob Pollard writes more songs than Lil Wayne. Anyway, you can't download GBV.” Seth became very professorial all of a sudden. “I mean, you can, if it's the only way you can hear them. But they're one of those bands where it's better when you can, like, hold the albums in your hands. Almost all the covers are Bob's collages . . . they're so awesome. Next time you come over, we'll spend some quality time with Donnie's collection. He's even got an original
Propeller
on vinyl!”

“Well, uh—okay.” I was too busy trying to make sense of the suggestion that Seth and I were going to spend some “quality time” together to wonder what on earth a propeller on vinyl was.

“In the meantime, I'm gonna make you a mixtape!” Seth went on. “I've got all their albums, plus Donnie's old EPs, Bob's solo stuff, Tobin Sprout's solo stuff, all of it. In fact, it's gonna have to be mixtapes, plural. Prepare yourself, Lula Monroe, 'cause you are fixin' to get bombarded with GBV.”

“I hate to tell you, Seth, but I think I've been vaccinated against that sort of thing.”

Sexy Seth laughed again. He stood up, tucking the CDs under his arm. He gave me one of those classic Sexy Seth smiles, and, I have to admit, I could see why my fellow female classmates tended to turn into complete idiots around him.

“Has anybody ever told you you're pretty funny, Lula?”

“Many times, as a matter of fact, but I think they meant funny-strange, not funny-ha-ha.”

“Huh. Well. I think you're pretty funny-ha-ha.” Seth looked down at the stack of CDs in his hand, raking his hand through his hair. He seemed nervous or embarrassed or something, all of a sudden. His room was quiet except for the dramatic
dum-da-da-da-DUM!
music coming from
Millionaire
on the TV downstairs.

“Maybe we should get back to the party,” I suggested.

“Yeah. These oughta keep us busy for a while, don't you think?” He flipped the light out.

“For a little while, anyway.” I stopped in the doorway. “Hey, Seth? When you said you and Rory were on the same team, did you mean—”

“Football.” Seth said. “What'd you think I meant? Ice hockey?”

eleven

M
Y MOTHER AND
I
WERE WALKING
around downtown Santa Fe, on our way to meet Walter for dinner. The night air was cool and the sidewalks were threaded with tourists bearing shopping bags, their wrists stacked with turquoise bracelets. We had just made a lame attempt at bonding by going to the opening-night screening of
The X-Files: I Want To Believe.

“I'm just surprised, that's all. I thought it would be a lot more suspenseful. Wasn't this show about government conspiracies? It wasn't even scary.”

“You weren't scared? Not even when they had Mulder out in the barn with the axe?” I kicked a loose pebble down the narrow street. I was already writing in my head, trying to compose an entry for the
Guide
about the movie, but my mom's complete lack of shrieking hysterical excitement was making it hard to concentrate.

“Come on,” she scoffed. “You know they're not going to chop up one of their principals. I can't believe you're defending this movie. It was sort of homophobic, don't you think? Not to mention trans-phobic. Evil gay mad scientists chopping up bodies for bizarre transgendered Frankenstein experiments? Predatory gay pedophilic priests? I thought your best friend was gay.”

“Yeah. He is.” What was I supposed to say? My mother was seriously raining on my
X-Files
parade. She didn't even care about Mulder's Exile Beard, or that he and Scully were living together, but they were still too wrecked to be normal and married and happy. And we even got to see Skinner come in and kick some ass. Everything else was, well . . . secondary.

“And what about you? You weren't offended?”

“Me? Offended?” On the contrary. I got to see Mulder and Scully on the big screen—I was delighted. But I didn't say that. My mother's disdain was actually making me feel embarrassed to love
The X-Files.
Thankfully, there was Walter, standing on the corner, giving a big wave.

“Walter!” My mother seemed relieved, too.

“Lucky me, two lovely ladies on my arm.” He and my mother kissed. I looked away. “Hey there, sport. Did you two have fun together?” He gave my shoulder a little punch.

“Yeah, we had fun.” I sounded a little too chipper.

“Come on in,” he opened the door for us. “Our table's ready. Now, I won't tell you what to order, but I believe they've got the best tamales in town.”

The dinner was indescribably boring. My mother kept talking to Walter about some guy they knew who was divorcing his wife and who would get the gallery they coowned and the wife was having an affair with some artist who blah blah blah. Walter just nodded and chewed his tamales. Which were insanely good, by the way, but it wasn't like I'd eaten a lifetime of tamales for comparison. I kept wishing I was with Rory; we would be at Federico's Pizza right now, going insane, already planning on going back to the Saturday matinee. I wondered where Rory was right now, who he was seeing the movie with.

“Did your mother tell you that the oldest-known church in America is right here in Santa Fe?” Walter said when she'd gotten up to go to the bathroom. “You'd think it'd be in Boston or some such, but it's just a few blocks away, matter of fact. Spanish explorers came up here through Mexico, years before the Pilgrims.”

“Huh.” I tried and failed to sound interested.

“I figured that'd be right up your alley. You're looking for religion.”

“Who says I'm looking for religion?”

“You did. Didn't you?” Walter leaned back in his chair. I shrugged.

“I don't know what I'm looking for,” I admitted, and it hit me how true that was. All of a sudden, though, I felt like I was going to cry. My mother came back from the bathroom and sat down, shaking her napkin out like a matador and landing it in her lap.

“Should we order dessert?” She looked at my plate. “Are you finished? We could get them to wrap that up.”

“Don't rush her, Chris.”

“It's fine. I'm done.” I wiped my mouth.

“Walt, you wouldn't believe this movie we saw. So gruesome.”

“Huh.” Walter swirled his beer bottle around and took the last swig. “I thought it was an adaptation. Something off TV.”

“You remember that show,
X-Files
?” Mom tried to jog his memory. “Mid-nineties? FBI agents investigating UFOs? Kind of
Twin Peaks
meets
All the President's Men.”
Walter squinted, trying to remember.

“Sounds familiar . . . sorta like
Kolchak: The Night Stalker,
but with a guy and a girl, right?”

“Right. Same cast, but this time, instead of UFOs, it was about a serial killer who turned out to be decapitating girl's heads so that he could attach the head of his dying gay lover to their bodies and re-animate them.”

“Shoo,” Walter winced. “That's gruesome, all right.” He cocked a look at me. “You like horror movies?”

“Not really, no.”

“What would you call that, then?” my mother challenged. “It was certainly horrifying.”

“But it wasn't about—I mean, it was really about them. About Mulder and Scully, working together again. If you were into the show, that's all that matters—”

“Is it?” My mother arched her eyebrow. “So you're postulating that plot has nothing to do with your overall enjoyment of a piece of cinema, as long as you like the main characters? That's interesting.”

“No, I meant—”

“Because you have to admit, it was not a pleasant viewing experience. It was dreary, visually unappealing, credulitystraining at every corner—you have to admit that it simply wasn't very good.”

“Why do I have to admit anything?” I felt my stomach knot up. Walter picked at the label on his beer bottle with the edge of his thumbnail. “Why can't I have my own opinion? I mean, yeah, I would've liked it better if it'd been about the mythology arc, but whatever. They used to do stand-alone episodes all the time. They call it Monster of the Week. Maybe you just don't understand—”

“Then enlighten me, daughter.” My mother sat back and folded her arms. “What do I, after a lifetime of working in film and theater, fail to
understand
that you, in your infinite fangirl wisdom, fully comprehend? I mean, I've seen the posters on your bedroom walls, and I gotta say, kiddo, I don't have a lot of faith in your ability to give a fair, objective critique of anything that involves an hour and a half of David Duchovny's puppydog eyes.”

I stared down at my half-empty plate, willing myself not to cry. Okay, so this is how it was going to be. We weren't going to bond. We weren't going to go to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum together and stand arm in arm in front of the big flower paintings. She wasn't going to be impressed by the endless Internet articles I'd read on Stanislavski and method acting or Ingmar Bergman's use of Jungian dream imagery or magic realism in the plays of Sam Shepard. We were going to sit here in a crowded restaurant with the forks clinking against the plates and hate each other silently, one of us for leaving, one of us for showing up.

“Christine,” Walter whispered. “It's just a movie. Take it easy.”

The waitress came with her tray. “How we doin' over here? You guys ready for some dessert?”

“I think we'll take the check,” Walter told her.

I stood up and pushed past the waitress, walked out of the restaurant, to the sidewalk outside. This line from one of my mom's books came into my head. From the Liv Ullmann book.
To return is not to revisit something that has failed.
It was underlined. I always hung on to that line, thinking it meant that someday, somehow, my mom would come back. Now it dawned on me that I could take it for my own. That maybe it meant I should go back home. It would be mortifying, for sure. But maybe the embarrassment would hurt less than this.

I
FOUND
R
ORY OUTSIDE, SITTING ON
the low brick wall that edged the patio, texting somebody on a brand new phone. Maybe the Brocks bought it for him. Maybe Seth was texting him right now.
Dude, your friends are weird.
Or maybe he was texting the old guy from the bookstore again. Planning another secret rendezvous.

“There you are,” I said.

“Here I am.” He snapped the phone closed.

“The enigmatic Theodore Callahan. Hey, nice Exile Beard.”

“This old thing?” Rory smiled absently, rubbing his chin. “I was getting all broken out from the chinstrap. On my helmet. I'm gonna shave it as soon as the season ends.”

“It makes you look older,” I said, not wanting to admit that I preferred clean-shaven, baby-faced Rory. I noticed his pinkie finger, wrapped in strips of white tape. “What happened to your finger?”

“Oh.” He flattened out his hand as if he was seeing the taped finger for the first time. “Got dislocated.”

“You dislocated your finger? You're allowed to play with a dislocated finger?”

“I don't block with my pinkie.” He laughed softly. “Anyway, it just happened tonight. It's no big deal.”

“No big deal?” I jammed my finger playing basketball in gym class once, and it hurt like a bitch for at least a week. “I guess they're making a tough guy outta you yet.”

“It doesn't hurt that much, that's all.” He opened his Gatorade bottle and took a drink. “Having fun?”

“Yeah, it's been, ah—” Okay, all sarcasm aside, yes, I was having a good time. Some of Seth's church buddies started a huge game of Uno, which I hadn't played since I was, like, seven. I know. Uno. Go ahead and laugh. I'm uncool, whatever.

“It was fun. Seth's friends are nice. Seth's nice. We had a weird, um—” I hesitated. For some reason, I felt like I shouldn't tell Rory. But, what the heck. We used to be best friends, once upon a time. “He told me about his brother's testicles, and then he hugged me.” I stopped at telling him about the song, or Seth's melancholy trees and musings on the nature of love.

“He gets pretty emotional about Donnie,” Rory agreed. “The first night I lived here, he told me the whole story, and he was crying and everything. Then we stayed up till, like, 3 a.m. listening to Guided by Voices. I don't think his parents like to talk about Donnie dying, so it's like any chance he gets, you know?”

“Makes sense.” I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets. “How's it working out? Living here?”

“It's nice. It's different. Seth's folks are cool. They're older.” Rory looked up at the house. “It's nice that everything stays the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the furniture doesn't move.” We both laughed. “You know what's weird, though? I miss her.” Rory sniffed. “I miss my mom.”

“Patty the Pickle? Come on,” I sighed. “Even without being a crazy inebriated homophobe, she's nuts. Remember that time she wouldn't let you throw out the shower curtain because she thought the mold pattern looked like the silhouette of Dick Cavett?”

“I guess no matter how old you get, you still want a mother,” Rory mused.

“You can have mine,” I offered. “She totally ruined the
X-Files
movie for me. We were supposed to be bonding or whatever, and we had this huge fight afterward because she was, like, adamant that it sucked.”

“She seemed pretty hardcore.”

“She was. She is.” I kept forgetting that Rory had met her. This conversation was making me nervous somehow. “So, did you go see it with, um, with Andy?”

“No. We broke up. I saw it alone.” Rory twisted his Gatorade cap again.

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. That you broke up.” Was I sorry? Not really. I didn't even know the guy. I hadn't even known Rory was in a
relationship,
for Pete's sake—how could I feel sorry? But I wished I'd been there for him. I was so far out of Rory's life, I didn't even know how long it had been since the breakup.

“It probably would've happened anyway,” Rory shrugged. “He's moving to Salt Lake City to be closer to his kids. He already sold the bookstore and everything.”

“Geez, that's . . . that sucks.” I didn't know what else to say. “Um. Anyway. I'm gonna head home, but I just wanted to say, you know, if it doesn't work out over here, you can always come stay with me at Janet and Leo's. We've got the pullout bed and you know how Janet loves to cook, so.” I cleared my throat. “Of course, we don't have Sexy Seth sleeping in the next room. Just raggedy old me.”

“Just you, huh.” Rory looked at me. Good gravy. He and Seth must get together and practice their Intense Stares on each other.

“Yeah. Just me.” I said. “Well. See ya 'round, Rory.”

“See ya, Lula.”

I started to walk away, then I stopped. I wondered if Seth was telling the truth, if Rory really did talk about me all the time. I kicked at the edge of the patio wall.
Dammit.

“Rory, hey. I'm sorry.”

“What?”

“I said I'm sorry. I really am sorry about you and Andy breaking up. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you after Andy, or when your mom threw you out. I'm sorry about leaving and not telling you. I'm sorry I didn't reply to your emails or call you or anything. I was really angry that you didn't tell me about Andy. I was mad that we fought about it. But that's no excuse.” I stopped. Faint voices drifted out of Seth's basement, laughing, a whole other world.

“It was a shitty thing to do, for me to leave like that and not tell you,” I went on. “And I'm sorry. I'm really, truly sorry, and I wish that I hadn't acted like I did. I wish I'd confided in you. I wish I'd been honest with you about leaving. It should have been the easiest thing in the world to send you an email as soon as I left, and tell you not to worry, that I was okay. But . . . it wasn't. You don't have to be friends with me if you don't want to, but I just want you to know that . . . I'm sorry I hurt you. Okay?”