In Memory of Todd Woods
by Tom Taylor
Copyright © 2011 by Tom Taylor
Published by Tom Taylor at Smashwords
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This book
and all the words in it
are dedicated to
Hillary Johnson
Chapter One
Bob
About three months after Todd Woods killed himself, the school put a plaque up in his honor. Shiny brass on a dark wood base. And like a lot of shiny attractive things, that plaque was very controversial. A lot of people thought that the school shouldn't be honoring a suicide. Others argued that it wasn't in honor of a suicide, but of a kid. The arguments were all pointless, obviously, because Todd was so popular—and more importantly, his parents were so loaded—that it was pretty much guaranteed that Todd would be remembered in a very dark wood, shiny brass sort of way for everyone to see, no matter how he died.
That plaque amazed me. I would stop and look at it every chance I got. I had absolutely no idea why Todd Woods had killed himself. I knew the same story that everyone seemed to know, that he took his dad's pistol out in the backyard and shot himself in the mouth, and that he was found face down in the rock-lined brook that ran through the yard. There were variations in the story too. Some people said he was found naked. Some people claimed to know weird details, like that he was holding a caboose from a train set in his hand. Everyone knew some version of the story, but as far as I could tell no one had any idea why he did it.
But it was huge. I remember Mandy Plummer running out of class crying a week after it happened. Some people missed school for days. The student body in general was freaked out. In fact, Prom was coming up, and the school would probably end up naming that after him somehow. A Very Todd Woods Evening, something like that.
There was an announcement early on that the teachers read to us that said anyone who wanted to go see the school psychiatrist, Dr. Wood, was encouraged to go and his door was always open, etc.
Dr. Wood. I'm serious. Not only did his name sound like a porn star, but it was almost the exact last name of the kid we were supposed to be upset about.
But I actually went to his office. Once. I hadn't even thought about going to see him until after the plaque went up and I kept finding myself staring at it. I thought to myself, "In a movie, it would be obvious to the audience that this kid staring at this plaque had some issue or two to work out."
So I went after lunch one day. I basically slammed into Ellen Trumbull as I was walking in and she was coming out, which almost made me turn around and leave, for a lot of reasons, whatever. But I sat down and talked to him for about twenty minutes, maybe? He was a nice enough guy, but he sort of sounded like everything he said was out of a pamphlet about talking to kids about suicide.
He asked me why I was there and I just told him. "I keep staring at that plaque they just put up for Todd Woods and I thought I should talk to somebody about that." The second I said it I was waiting for my chance to leave. It sounded so dumb. It sounded like I was saying, "Everyone seems to be having a killer time being upset about Todd Woods so I thought I'd give it a shot."
He just asked me questions like did I know Todd Woods (no), did I ever know anyone who died (two grandparents), did I find myself thinking about Todd's death a lot. That one I actually sort of lied about. The answer was, Yeah, I think about it all the time but I don't know why since I didn't know him. But that sounded like it came out of the same pamphlet he was reading from, so I just said, "Not really."
The bell had rung a few minutes after that. He actually handed me a pamphlet and I left and never went back.
* * *
Todd Woods was a guy who was, as they say on TV and in the movies, popular. Which, as I understand it, means that not only did he have friends, but that everyone else wanted to be his friend too. Except for the people who hated him because they couldn't be his friend for whatever reason, like because they were "losers," sub-rich, or not wearing the right shoes. Or because they hung out in the A/V room, like me and my friends did.
"Oh, the A/V room," I hear some people yelling. "No wonder you couldn't hang out with the cool kids." Well, shut up. I didn't say Todd Woods was "cooler" than me, I just said he was more popular. Besides, what does "cool" mean? Does it mean being a star athlete and getting all the ladies, or does it mean designing and installing a system of video monitors throughout the school showing the day's class schedule and school news, as well as whatever I felt like putting up on them from my command corner in A/V? I think the answer is clear.
In fact, in my own techie way I had paid a nice tribute to Todd Woods. Before he had killed himself, I had installed a camera in the ceiling above the intersection where the school's two main corridors met, to use as background video for the monitors. After he died, I got on a chair and aimed that camera at the plaque, as sort of a gesture, I guess, but also so I could continue to study that plaque from A/V.
I won't say I was obsessed with that plaque, but I will say I was fascinated.
Anyway, today it was Friday and the school day was almost over, and that was just enough to pull me away from standing in front of the plaque and getting nowhere with the mystery. It was the first really nice day of the year out, so instead of heading into A/V, I headed for the exit.
As I walked, it occurred to me that maybe Todd Woods's life had been much more complicated than it seemed. Maybe there was a lot of pressure involved in being a track star and dating dazzling girls all the time. Me, I didn't have a date to the Prom, but you know what, that was fine because I didn't want a date to the Prom.
I didn't have those big social problems and that was fine with me. My deepest darkest concerns were what video games would I play when Pete and I went to the diner after school, would our favorite club The Show really reopen as planned next week, and would I ever really be able to get an Xbox 360 to play Atari 2600 cartridges. A lot of people—even Todd Woods—could call me a nerd (fair enough) or even a geek (inaccurate), but that's fine by me, because nothing in my life was driving me to shoot myself in the mouth.
Certainly not girl troubles. Todd Woods had had a gaggle of them and look where it got him. Maybe if he had tried to get an Xbox to play Atari games like I was doing he wouldn't be where he was now, which was nowhere.
* * *
As I walked, the end-of-the-day bell rang and the classrooms started hemorrhaging human bodies into the halls. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and headed for my shortcut through the courtyard outside the library. I shouldered open the door to the courtyard, took three steps in the fresh air, and almost broke my damned neck tripping over a pair of legs. These were Pete's. He was sitting against the brick wall of the school with his legs out in a V in front of him, and squinting through his horn-rims into his sun-lit copy of I, Robot by Isaac Asimov.
"Bob," he said, either not noticing or not caring that he had almost just killed me, "you know what's very annoying?"
"Almost breaking my damned neck?"
"It's annoying that Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics do not apply to girls."
He didn't continue, so I stared for a second. "I always sorta assumed they didn't—"
"Girls don't have to do what you tell them, they most certainly can hurt humans, and they can probably hurt themselves, I'm guessing."
I held out my hand to help him up. "Why all the brain damage?"
He took my hand and I pulled him up. "I'll tell you on the way to the diner," he said, then just stood as we both looked each other up and down.
It was just occurring to me that Pete and I were dressed exactly the same, but with different clothes. I had on an old gray flannel over a Gorillaz t-shirt, and jeans with a hole in the left knee. Pete had his own neater version of the same thing: A blue dress shirt—buttoned, but untucked—over a white t-shirt and khakis. (The girls of A/V, Jen Clifford and Jen Spencer, always asked Pete why he dressed like a pissed-off prep school kid.)
Even our white sneakers were nearly identical. The only difference was that about a week earlier I had taken a black Sharpie and written "NO" across the top of my left shoe and "FUN" across the top of my right. I don't remember why.
Any bizarre level of similarity between us never freaked me out. It made sense. We had been best friends since about fifteen minutes after we met in first grade.
Seeing us not-really-but-kind-of matching like this I said, "We look like a transporter malfunction," and then we both yelled, "I'm Captain Kirk!"
We did that a lot, Pete and me, communicate in Star Trek references, so I'll either apologize now or suggest that you get with it and start watching the best show you've ever seen.
As we walked out of the courtyard, I wondered if Pete and I would beat our high scores on Joust at the diner. I was thinking simple easy stuff like this because I didn't know what was coming.
And what exactly was coming? Was it the talk we were about to have? Was it later that night in the intersection? Was it the strange new fight that was coming up in the next couple of days? Or was it much later at the hospital? Maybe it doesn't matter exactly when it happened. All I'm saying is that it's hard to tell exactly when Pete and I stopped being best friends.
Chapter Two
Bob and Pete on the Brink
Pete and I played this boring game all the time where we'd have to pick a girl we saw to have sex with before we got somewhere, or else we'd have to have sex with our grandmothers. Neither of us had had sex with anybody—including our grandmothers—which is what made the game so boring. But it was a decent outlet for thinking about cute girls. Cute girls like Sara Lake.
Sara Lake, a girl from our grade, still in her cheerleader outfit, saw us leaving the school grounds on foot and offered us a ride in her (dad's) convertible, but we turned her down. Pete had something on his mind. I was reading it from the sag of his shoulders, which made him about a foot shorter than me, even though we are actually about the same height.
"You should ask her to the Prom," Pete said as we watched the convertible drive away from us, bouncing lightly over the stone bridge up ahead. "She likes you."
"Just 'cause she's nice doesn't mean she likes me," I said. "Besides, what do I need with a date to the Prom?"
"If you need me to tell you, maybe you don't need one."
"She probably has a date," I said. I didn't care about Sara Lake. I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't want a date to the Prom, but if I did want a date there was only one girl I would ask. That one girl. Everyone's got a one girl, don't they? I had never spoken to mine, so Prom wasn't going to happen. Not with her anyway.
"Are you even going to go?" Pete asked.
"'Course. It's a school dance. It'll either be great and fun, or it'll be sucky and funny, like all school dances." I glanced sideways at his slumped-shouldered trudging form. "Are you going with Jen again?" Pete and Jen Clifford had gone to the last five or six school dances together, just as friends. Default dates, they called it.
"Yeah, I guess we're going," he sighed. Then he stopped walking and said, "Okay, this sort of sucks, so don't be a jerk about it, okay?"
"Okay," I said. "About what? When am I ever a jerk?"
"I just asked Ellen Trumbull to the Prom and that's the sort of thing you could conceivably be a jerk about, so don't."
I didn't really hear the end of what he was saying. I had a creepy feeling in the base of my spine, and deep in my stomach. I'll tell you why later, even though it will not surprise you at all.
"You asked Ellen Trumbull to the Prom?" I asked.
"Yes."
"You asked Ellen Trumbull to the Prom?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"You asked Ellen Trumbull to the Prom?"
"Damn it, Bob, I asked you not to be a jerk!"
"Well, tell me what happened," I said. I was stunned, in more ways than one. Neither of us had any of what you could call experience with girls. I had kissed Amy Rand at a party once in middle school, but that didn't count for anything. And Pete had gone on one date with Candice Inihar freshman year, but he had been so nervous the date ended when he literally broke his thumb trying to hold open a revolving door for her. And out of nowhere he asks out Ellen Trumbull? That wasn't possible. Why Ellen Trumbull? She was—
"I'll tell you what happened," Pete said, then stopped to groan. "God, I'm stupid. But I've— God, I've been in love with Ellen Trumbull since the fifth grade. And she's been sitting next to me in AP English this semester, and sometimes she'll ask to borrow a pencil or ask to copy my notes or something, and she's always really cool about it, and really nice, so I was starting to think, Well, hey. I'll ask her to the Prom and she might say Yes. Why not?"
"Really?" I said. I had doubts, based on what I was saying before about popular folks.
Now Pete turned to me and he looked exhausted, like he might puke, but also pissed. "Stop it, Bob, that's exactly the kind of 'really' I had talked myself out of. I was thinking, Okay, she's popular, but so what? It's not like she's a Capulet and I'm a Montague or anything." (We had read Romeo and Juliet in English two years before.) "And people happen to like us, Bob. I don't care if we're not Alan Wells or dead Todd Woods or any of them. People actually like us." He kicked a pebble as we resumed our walk.
He was right. There was no reason we couldn't ask out anyone we wanted. I had been trying to tell myself that for years. I was still floored that Pete had done it. Floored and something else. I didn't want to think about the something else, but it was there.
Pete straightened his glasses. "So, we were just in class about fifteen minutes ago," he said. "And the bell rang and we were getting up to leave. And she gave my pen back to me. And I was very proud of not being too nervous when I blabbed, 'Uh, hey, would you, uh, like to go to the fancing Prom with me?'"
I looked at him as we walked. "That's what you said? 'The fancing Prom'?"
He smiled, even though it was clear he was trying not to. "Yeah."
"What the hell does 'fancing' mean?"
"I meant to say 'fancy Prom.' I was trying to be funny or cool or something. And I was more nervous than I thought, so it came out 'fancing.' Anyway, I don't think she even noticed."
I looked at the sidewalk ahead of us. "Well, that's a fancing shame, Pete."
He laughed. "Shut up, you fance."
"Don't call me a fance, you fancing bastard."
We stopped at a traffic light, waiting for a school bus to pass.
"So, what the fance happened?" I asked.
"I'm telling you what happened," he said, scowling at the school bus's tires. "She wasn't rattled or anything by me asking. She had this smile that was really . . . sincere. She always seemed like that, you know. Always seemed nice and welcoming.
I knew.
"She said, 'Oh, thanks Pete. That's really sweet.' So I was all set for her to say, 'Yes.' But then she said," and here Pete started speaking in a deep slow motion, "'But . . . I . . . all . . . ready . . . have . . . a . . . duuuuuurrr . . . .'"
I didn't want to laugh at a time like this. But it was sort of funny, and Pete did add the slow motion voice. Besides, he was laughing too.
And yes, I was relieved. Of course she had had a date already, but I was still relieved to hear it. Relieved?
"Well," I said, crossing the street with him, "I'm not surprised she has a date already. She's Ellen Trumbull."
"You're right, you're right," he mumbled. Now that I was relieved, I could see this more from Pete's point of view, and I didn't blame him for slouching like he was. Asking Ellen Trumbull to the Prom would have to leave a guy feeling like he had run emotional wind sprints. I wouldn't have been able to do it. I knew that for a fact. I was amazed Pete could stand, let alone walk, and I told him so.
"That took huge balls, Pete."
"Balls that I apparently won't be needing at the Prom," he said.
We walked in silence for half a block. We had to swerve around the line that was coming out of Biggle's Ice Cream. It wasn't exactly hot out yet, just barely warm, but it was starting to smell like spring and summer. That deep green Connecticut smell. And I guess that smell was telling people they needed ice cream.
When we regrouped after walking around the people in line I said, "By the way, I guess I'll have sex with Sara Lake." We were almost to the arcade and we had to pick somebody.
"Fair enough," Pete said. "I'm just going to go ahead and have sex with my grandmother this time. It's all I deserve."
I was trying to think of something encouraging to say when he went on and said, "I know I'm going to get over this in a while, and it's no big deal, but what's really tough is that I've been in love with her since fifth grade, but that whole time it was fifth grade love. But now that I've actually fancing asked her out I've reactivated the whole thing, and now it's high school love."
"I know what you mean, Pete," I said. And I did. And I was damned thankful that I had things as easy as I did, without so many of the big fat complications other people seemed to walk around with balanced on their heads. Prom and high school and being a teen and all of it. It was all scary and confusing. Todd Woods would probably add dangerous to that.
I know, what a brilliant observation, being a teen is hard. So here's a specific: The scariest part of all, it turned out, is that when you're a teenager, even the places that seem safest in the world can be dangerous. And then they disappear for you. Even the arcade, for fance sake.
Chapter Three
The Girl in Bob's Head
We called it the arcade, but it was actually a diner, with a lot of video games filling one half of it, most of them old-timey ones like Joust.
When we got there, Pete headed off to play his shooter games—his current favorite was Deadly Bullet—and I noticed that he took the long way around. I didn't know why at first, but then I saw that the direct way would have taken him right past the diner area where Ellen Trumbull herself was sitting in a red leather booth with Gretchen Sivertson.
I was about to have many thoughts about Pete and Ellen Trumbull, but Martin bumped into me out of nowhere. Another friend of ours from A/V, and when I say he bumped into me, I mean he walked over and made his presence known by slamming his shoulder into me. I don't think I've ever heard Martin say, "Hello."
"What's up with Pete?" he asked. "He just passed me and didn't say Hi or give me the finger or anything."
Martin was wearing his grayish tattered jeans, his heavy black boots and a white t-shirt that said "Don't Talk To Me. I'm A Stranger." Martin had black hair that he cut himself and sort of steely gray eyes and something about his complexion made him look like he smoked. But if you asked him if he actually smoked, he would walk down the block to the store, steal a pack of cigarettes, piss on them, and then walk back and hand them to you. I only know this because I saw him do it once.
"Pete's just bummed out," I said.
"Did he lose his Darth Vader pencil case?"
"No, I don't know what it is." I figured Pete would be okay with me telling Martin about Ellen Trumbull, but I didn't know that for a fact, so I played dumb.
"Well, tell him to start acknowledging his friends," Marty said. "He can still say Hi with his head up his ass. You working tomorrow?"
"Yeah." On Saturdays and some nights after school I worked at the Vinyl Solution, the only used record store left within twenty square miles of New York City. I was currently designing an online database for all the used records they bought and sold.
"Good," Marty said, "I'll come see you. And if Pete gets his head out of his ass, we can all bum around." And he punched me in the arm and kept on going to wherever he was going.
I kept going, too, and I glanced at Ellen Trumbull as I passed near her booth. I actually wanted to not glance over, but I couldn't help it. And of course I was sorry the second I did glance over because when I did, something happened that made me feel horrible for Pete and rotten for myself too.
Ellen Trumbull, smiling at something her friend had just said, glanced over and looked directly at me. It was enough to ruin my day.
* * *
Now I'm going to tell you a secret. About why I was freaked out and feeling like I had dodged a bullet earlier. Like I said, it's not going to surprise you at all.
Ellen Trumbull had been on my mind for over a year.
That's all. That was the big crazy news that no one knew, even Pete. She was just on my mind. In my head. She was The Girl I would think about. That's all. Like I said, I never worried much about girls or dating or finding a girlfriend or any of that. But if I ever pictured myself going on a date or asking a girl out or something, Ellen Trumbull was the one I thought of.
"Oh, real clever, thinking about the most beautiful girl in school." But I wasn't in love with her like Pete or everybody else in school was. I wasn't thinking about her in a way in which you couldn't see my hands, and I wasn't writing our initials in my notebook with a big heart around them. She was just The Girl in my head. That's all.
* * *
She had come into the record store about a year earlier. And I knew right away some huge mistake must have been made because not only was she in a record store, and not only was she actually buying a record, but she came up to the counter holding our only copy of Three-Way Intersection by Burgess Clevelittle, this jazz trumpeter I guarantee you never heard of. I thought I was the only one who still knew he had existed, so I hadn't even bothered to set that record aside for myself when it came in. Now here was that popular girl from school Ellen Trumbull waiting to buy my record.
In all the years we were in school together I had barely ever spoken to her, basically because she seemed so unapproachable and too boring for me to bother with. Who cared if she was hot? She was just some hot popular girl with nothing to contribute to the world but amazing looks and asshole ex-boyfriends. But seeing her holding that record, it didn't just make her seem surprisingly cool. It was a more fundamental realization: A girl like that, a hot untouchable popular queen, could be into something I was into. She and I could have something in common. And since I was a human, it made her seem very, very human. And the realization that Ellen Trumbull was human flipped a switch somewhere in my brain, and the first thought that shot through after that switch was flipped was "It must be amazing to be in love with a beautiful girl."
That thought had probably been in there my whole life. But now, looking at Ellen Trumbull holding my record, I was able to think it, clearly and in a full sentence. Ellen Trumbull coming up to the counter to buy that record was the most important event in space-time I had ever experienced.
And I still had never talked to her, even as I sold her the record. I just took her money like a dummy with a gallon-sized jug of girl-inspired confusion smashed over my head.
I never mentioned the record episode to anyone, especially Pete. What was I going to say? "I can see why you're in love with Ellen Trumbull because she flipped a switch in my head."
Besides, it's not like I'm in love with her, I thought as I dropped a token into my current favorite old-timey game, Tempest. She's just in my head. And Pete's my best friend. I'm not going to just—
A voice interrupted me. A female voice. "What did I ever do to you, Bob Bixler?" This female voice was coming from right behind me, over my left shoulder. And I don't have to tell you who it was, even though I was flabbergasted. If you've ever been a teen and you know the constant pulse of drama and coincidence that flows through high school life, you now exactly who it was.
I turned quickly to look at her, still working the controls of the game. I saw exactly what I expected to see. Ellen Trumbull: Biped. Human Caucasian female. Aged between sixteen and seventeen years. 1.8 meters tall. German or Swedish ancestry? Indicated by blond hair (presently tucked neatly behind her ears) and ice-blue eyes. Complexion suggesting one ounce of French Roast coffee—half decaf—with two cups of heavy cream. Did I mention she was female? And her ice-blue eyes? I couldn't look at them for too long. Because they were beautiful? Or because Pete was about twenty yards away playing Deadly Bullet?
"Oh, hi," I said as I turned quickly back to the game. And then I added, "What?" Because I had no idea what she had just been talking about.
"I just waved to you back there," she said, "and you totally blew me off."
She was even beautiful as a dark reflection in the game's screen, just standing there, watching me play.
"You were waving to me?" How the hell had I missed that? I guess when you're assuming a hot girl isn't going to wave to you, you don't stand there and wait for it to not happen. And then you miss it when it does.
"Yes, I waved right to you." Her arms were crossed, like she was mad, but I could see she had a sly grin, a grin that involved her arching eyebrow. She wasn't mad at all. "If you're playing hard to get, well I guess it worked because here I am pursuing you."
If I had been drinking milk it would have gushed out my nose. Pursuing me? I took a second to glance down the aisle to Deadly Bullet. Pete was still playing down there, with his back to me. Good. Let's keep it that way.
"You're pursuing me?" I asked Ellen Trumbull's reflection.
"Well, yes," she said, like it was no big deal at all. "I wanted to ask you something. But maybe I should talk to you later, you look like you might be busy."
"No," I said, somehow not blurting it out like a spazz. "I can talk and play at the same time." Damn it, I was nervous. She leaned her shoulder against the side of the game's cabinet, watching me play. She was very close. Maybe I wasn't nervous. I think I was excited.
"You're very good at these games, aren't you?"
"Yeah," I said. "I have the high scores on a lot of the games here."
"Showoff," she said, and she laughed, like we were old friends. She nudged me with her shoulder, then leaned forward to see the screen, and when she did her hair brushed my nose just slightly and I could smell . . .
Have you ever been sitting quietly, and someone sneaks up behind you and scares the hell out of you, and for a second you are furious, but then this sort of exhausted calm comes over you, and you laugh a little and enjoy that tired feeling? Well, that is a lot like what Ellen Trumbull smelled like, that nice tired feeling. That and the Bath and Body Works store at the mall.
"Is that your high score where it says BOB?"
"Yeah, that's me."
"Wow." She smiled and leaned against the game again and looked at me. "Why do you put BOB in there instead of your initials like everybody else?"
"Those are my initials," I said.
"What?" she said. "Isn't your full name Robert Bixler?"
"No," I said, and I smiled. People got caught on this all the time, and it was usually a drag to explain it over and over, but I didn't mind at all explaining it to Ellen Trumbull. "My legal first name is Bob."
"It is?" She stood up from the machine. "It's not Robert? It's Bob?"
"Yup."
"That's bizarre, Bob. What's your middle name?"
"One."
Now her mouth was open. "One? The number one?"
"Yep."
"Your full name is Bob One Bixler?"
"Yuh-huh."
"Bob, why is your name Bob One Bixler?"
"Because, my parents are nuts. "I scratched my nose as the levels of the game switched. What the hell was going on? "My dad is a math nerd. He wanted one of my names to be a number and he wanted my initials to spell my first name. Which didn't leave a ton of choices. So there."
"Wow." She was nodding slowly in the game's screen, not taking those blue eyes off me. "That's pretty crazy, Bob."
"I know," I shrugged. "If I was a girl I would've been Deb Eleven Bixler. Like I said, my folks are nuts."
She was looking out into space, thinking. "Do you have a sister?"
"No."
"Oh. I was going to say she could be Bab 'A hundred' Bixler."
See? Ellen Trumbull was more than hot and popular, she could make horrible jokes that were almost funny!
She was smiling at her idea. "That's a great name," she said. "I'm named after my grandmothers." A second later she burst out laughing with her hand over her mouth. "That's not nearly as good of a story as yours! Sorry."
For some reason her laughing reminded me that Pete was less than twenty yards away. I took another quick glance that way. He was still there. I was guessing that seeing me chatting it up with the girl who just broke his heart might not do him any good. But what could I do? Stop talking to her? I didn't know how to do that. And I didn't want to do that. But Pete could be done with his game any second and could be on his way over here.
"So, what did you want to ask me?" I said.
"Oh yeah," she said, as if this was the kind of conversation she and I had all the time. "I wanted to see if you had plans for the Prom."
Um. What? I could smell spicy bread pudding coming from my ears as my brains began to bake.
"Uh," I asked, "are you trying to set one of your friends up with a date?"
She smiled after just a second.
"Yes, I am, Bob. How did you know?"
Oh. That sort of sucks, I thought as the blood rushed back into my head. Had I really thought she was asking me out herself? Dummy. Suddenly I wasn't worried about Pete showing up and seeing us. It's okay, Pete. She's just trying to fix someone up with a date. Not me and her. (Damn it.)
"Well, I actually have plans for the Prom," I said.
"Oh."
"Yeah, sorry," I said. "I'm gonna film it for the video yearbook."
"That's your plan?" she said. "Oh, that's dumb, Bob, you should go with somebody. Let me just tell you who I'm trying to set up and maybe you'll change your mind."
"Wait," I said, "don't do that, don't tell me."
"Why not?"
"Because if you say who it is and I still say No it'll seem like I'm rejecting her personally, when I really just want to go by myself."
She was frowning in thought. "That's pretty nice of you, Bob."
"Well, I don't want anybody's feelings to get hurt," I said.
"How about this," she said. "I'll tell you who it is—" She put her hand up to stop me when I was about to object—"and if you still say No, I won't tell her I told you her name. I'll just say that you had plans. Deal?"
I thought about it. "You'd do that? You'd lie to your friend for me?"
"Of course I would," she said. "I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings either."
I sighed. "Okay," I said. "But please don't tell her you told me because that would suck if she—"
"The person I'm looking for a date for," she announced over me, "is Ellen Trumbull."
It was like being slapped in the face with a wet bus. My mind was knocked out of my head and flashed to Pete on the other side of the arcade and I hoped he was having an excellent and long game of Deadly Bullet. And then my mind bounced back to me, Bob, playing Tempest and being asked to the Prom by Ellen Trumbull who owned a Burgess Clevelittle record.
"You tricked me," I said. I was staring forward, keeping my eyes on the game. I was starting to sweat from my mind bouncing around so much.
"I tricked you?" she asked. "I'm sorry." And she actually sounded sorry. When she said she was sorry her voice dipped to this smooth pitch that made my stomach go sort of funny.
I said, "Are you being serious? Wanting to go to the Prom with me?"
She must have seen that I was conflicted up to my eyebrows. In the reflection in the screen she bit her upper lip. "Yes, I am serious," she said. "Is that bad?"
I had no idea how to answer that question other than by just saying Yes, but I knew that wasn't true. When I didn't say anything, she said, "You don't have to say you'll go with me. My feelings won't be hurt if you'd really rather go by yourself." And before I could say anything she said, "I'd really like it if you went with me, though. It would just be fun. It would be very fun. Don't you think?"
I thought about seeing her in the store with that damned record. I had a warm buzzing feeling from my chest down to my feet.
"I guess—" I said. "I guess it would be fun." I was starting to feel like Pete was behind us, watching.
"Look," I said, "I have a problem—"
"Bob," she said, and that apology and understanding was in her voice again. "I'm not completely clueless. I know this is a little strange, just coming over here like this and asking you out. But there's no law that says we can't go to the Prom together, is there?"
Wasn't that exactly what Pete had said about asking her out?
"I'm just asking you, Bob," she said. "I just don't want you to say No because I surprised you or something. Or because of any . . . conflict."
I stared at her reflection in the screen. She knew. She knew exactly why I was saying No.
I stopped playing. I took my hands off the game controls, saw the first of my remaining guys die on the screen, and turned to face Ellen Trumbull.
"Pete asked you to the Prom today and you told him you had a date already."
Her eyebrows went up, but she didn't look surprised exactly. "Yes, he did ask me," she said. "But I didn't say I had a date. I said that I had plans."
I tried to understand what she was telling me as I listened to the sound of my last three guys getting killed in the game behind me.
"Do you mean that you turned Pete down because you were planning on asking me?"
"Well, I was thinking about asking you, that was part of it, but . . ." She paused. Her hands were shoved deep into her pockets. What was it about this conversation that was making the most popular girl in school so uncomfortable?
"I like Pete," she said. "But I don't want to go to the Prom with him."
"He's in love with you," I said.
I know, why would I tell her that? But I was feeling horrible for Pete. He was just some nice guy to her. Is there anything worse than having a girl you're in love with think you're nice? Maybe having her think you're nice while she's asking out your best friend. I bet that's worse.
"I know he likes me, that's why I didn't want to string him along," she said. "How . . . Is he doing okay?"
I heard my last guy die behind me. My game was over.
I said, "How is asking his best friend out going to do him any good?" I glanced down to Deadly Bullet again and shit! Pete wasn't there.
"Bob." She rested her head against the machine as she looked at me. "I didn't ask Pete to ask me to the Prom." And she left it at that. I tried to think of any holes in her logic, but I couldn't think of one. And it was hard to think as I looked her in the eye. It wasn't just that her eyes were that incredible blue, but it was that knowledge that she was looking at me with them. It was making me go a little nuts inside. Half of me was worrying about Pete—where was he?—and the other half—you can guess which parts were included in this half—was being pummeled by massive doses of Ellen Trumbull radiation.
"Bob, would you like to go to the Prom with me?" and her eyes told me that this was very possibly the last time that this human girl who had flipped a switch in my head was going to ask me.
I couldn't think of anything I had ever wanted to do more. I swallowed hard and I answered her.
"I can't," I said, and turned back to Tempest to enter my initials. I had the second-highest score. All the other scores were mine, too. A long list of BOBs.
Ellen Trumbull didn't leave. I could still feel her presence baking into the side of my body as she leaned against the game. "Okay, Bob," she said. She didn't leave.
I didn't say anything. I just rested my hands on the controls and stared at the three blank spaces waiting for my initials. "It's just that— Pete just asked you and he's somewhere in this arcade right now and I can't do—" I stopped, glanced at her, and had to look away again. "I'm sorry."
Ellen Trumbull stepped away from the game. "Okay. I can understand that." And she started to walk away.
"Hang on," I said. I didn't know where Pete was or if he was going to see us together, but I knew my conversation with Ellen Trumbull was not going to be over until I did this.
She turned around, and one of her eyebrows was raised in a curious arch. Her hands were still in her pockets. I hated that I knew her and Pete at the same time.
"What's your middle initial?" I asked.
She just looked at me for a second, that one eyebrow still raised, then said, "K. Katherine."
I spun the knob and hit the button and entered EKT. Now Ellen Katherine Trumbull had the second highest score on Tempest and I was willing to bet she had never played.
She walked back over to look at the screen. She saw her initials there and said, "Is that my consolation prize?"
"Hey," I said, "this is not an easy score to get. I bet I'm the only guy here who could get you this score."
She was smiling at me again, which killed me inside because it was already my favorite thing in the world and I was being forced to reject it. "Bob," she said, "if Pete hadn't asked me to the Prom, would you have gone with me?"
God. God damn it. I actually blinked before giving her the only answer I had: "Yes. I can't think of anything I want to do more. All I know is I can't."
Her smile never went away completely. "Okay," she said as she stood away from the game again. "I'll see you around, Bob One." And she turned and walked away. I didn't stop her this time.
Chapter Four
At the Intersection of Bob and Pete
There was a time in fourth grade when Billy McFeeters called Pete an asshole behind his back, and I put off telling Pete for a long time—about an hour—because Pete thought Billy was so cool. And there was this time in seventh grade when Rachel Dunwoody told me to tell Pete that she liked him, but I put that one off for a whole day because I knew Pete liked her as a friend and it would put him in a tough spot. (By the time I told him she had made out with Chris Evenson, so it didn't even matter.)
Other than those two occasions I could not remember a time when I felt torn about telling Pete something.
We had met up to play Joust shortly after Ellen Trumbull left. He hadn't seen us talking, which was good, but I was still badly distracted during our game. I just didn't want to say a word about Ellen Trumbull to him. Any version of my story would punch him in the nuts. So as we ate a plate of fries after our game, I kept the conversation to who would win in a fight between Han Solo and Captain Kirk. (The answer is Han Solo.)
Somehow I managed to keep away from the subject of Ellen Trumbull for the rest of the day. That night was a different story, though.
At night, especially since the weather was getting a little warmer, Pete and I would meet up after dinner and walk around town. It makes us sound like two eighty-year-old men, but screw you, it was a good way to spend time. We'd talk and try to figure out life on those walks.
The town was quiet at night. We kept on the main roads, which were windy and bendy the way only New England roads are. These would lead north, away from the Post Road and downtown, into the dark residential areas of town, where the houses were fewer and farther apart, set back from the roads, where there were no streetlights.
Our old grade school was right at the corner of Manchester and Linden. The intersection saw almost no action, especially late at night, so the traffic light was just four lights, one aiming in each direction. Two yellow, two red.
We would sit directly under this traffic light, right in the middle of the intersection, back-to-back, so that we were each looking down Manchester in opposite directions. If a car ever came, which almost never happened, we'd be able to see in plenty of time to get out of the way. We didn't even do it to be dangerous or daring or cuh-ray-zee. It was just a nice quiet place to sit, while we were hypnotized by the alternating lights overhead as they turned everything around us red and then yellow, red and then yellow.
As we sat there under the lights that night I asked, "Remember Amy Rand?" The yellow light made the trees at the corner of the intersection appear and disappear as I watched them.
From behind me Pete said, "Of course I remember Amy Rand. I have social studies with her." Then he realized what I was talking about and said, "Oh, but I don't remember her the way you remember her."
"I'm not sure I remember her the way I remember her."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that she's . . . you know. She's the only girl I ever kissed. And it was at a dumb make-out party in sixth grade. That's all."
"And?"
"And I don't know. Maybe I should have a date for the Prom."
"Okay. Maybe we could each take one of the Jens or something."
I didn't say anything for a while, but I felt words and sentences building up in me. They had been knocking at the front of my skull all afternoon and I knew now I was going to say them. Even though we could see if cars were coming, I still felt like one or both of us was in danger.
"Pete, you gotta believe me, what I was just saying is not meant to be an intro into what I'm about to say. I just wasn't gonna tell you but I think I should."
"God," he said. "Okay. What?"
"Today at the arcade," I said, "I was playing Tempest and Ellen Trumbull came up to me."
Pete didn't say anything. I had no idea what he was thinking, but man, that silence was loud. Then before I could go on he stood up and without him to lean against I almost fell back. I caught myself and stood up too. We faced each other in the middle of the street, like gunfighters in a western.
"She asked me— Damn it, this sounds shitty, and I'm only telling you so it's not hanging out there as a weird thing."
"What?"
I took a deep breath. "She asked me if I wanted to go to the Prom with her."
"Uh," Pete said, and he took a step back, watching me.
"I know, I know," I said as quick as I could. "I told her No, I didn't even think about it."
"She told me she had a date," he said.
"I asked her that, and she said that she meant that she had plans. I guess."
"Plans to ask you?"
"I don't know. I think she . . ." Why the hell had I said anything?
"What, go on."
"She said she didn't want to lead you on because . . . you know . . . because you were nice."
"Oh, my god . . ." Pete looked like he was going to sit down right there in the middle of the road again. Or maybe even lay down this time. "I'm nice?"
"No, she likes you, she thinks you're cool. She just doesn't, I guess, like you like you."
"But she likes you?" His hands were in his pockets, but he looked somehow like he was pointing hard at me, accusing me.
"God damn, I don't know. Pete, I have no clue why she was asking me. It doesn't make any—"
"You turned her down?" he asked. He was looking down at the ground, frowning hard in the alternating red and yellow.
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I said No."
He looked at me again, still frowning. "Why?"
"I said I had plans. To film the—"
"No, I mean, didn't you want to go with her?"
"I— Sure, I guess. I mean . . ." And I don't know what I said really. Something about really wanting to film the Prom and who needs girls and whatever crap would sound right to Pete. But I was thinking about Ellen Trumbull. She flipped a switch! I wanted to tell him. She flipped a switch in my brain! And did I already mention the way she smelled? And her eyes? Jesus Christ, I almost couldn't look at her when I was talking to her, and as I pictured her I could barely look at the image in my mind. I was starting to understand what the term "attractive" really meant because I just wanted get closer to her, you know? I wanted to be closer to her, maybe really close, like sexy close, close enough that we were—
My pants started vibrating, and can you blame them? I stopped whatever I was saying to Pete and dug my buzzing phone out of my pocket. I flipped it open and squinted at the blue light. It was bright in the dark. I didn't recognize the number, but I knew who it was. Ten bucks to the first person who guesses.
Pete knew too. "Are you going to answer it?"
I just stared at the number on the phone, having no idea if I intended to answer it. I wanted it to just stop ringing so I wouldn't have to decide.
Pete didn't say anything else, and when the phone finally stopped ringing and I looked up again, he had disappeared into the dark of the unlighted streets.
* * *
I took off after him. He must have started running at some point, because I wasn't seeing him or hearing his steps. I started running in the almost complete dark. There were a few more house lights as I got to our neighborhood. I didn't catch up with him until he was just getting to his driveway. By now he was walking.
"Pete," I said, out of breath.
He had his hands in his pockets, and was looking down at the ground in front of him. He was breathing heavy, and his shoulders were working up and down. His glasses needed adjusting on his nose. "What did she say?"
"I didn't answer it," I said. "Pete, I have no idea what's going on. She just showed up."
"No, I know, I know." He hadn't looked up yet. His hair, the long part in front, was hanging down in his face. I could barely see his expression. I didn't need to. It didn't help that I didn't answer the phone, or even that I wasn't going to the Prom with Ellen Trumbull. She wanted to go with me, apparently, and not him.
"I saw you," he said. "Talking at the arcade. I figured it had to just be something about homework or something. But it hurt to see anyway. Now it . . ."
He turned and walked up his driveway.
"Hey, wait," I said. "Wait," I called after him. It was too loud, but I didn't care. Pete was getting away.
"Don't worry about it," he said over his shoulder without stopping. "I'll stop by the store tomorrow." Then he let himself in the side door.
"Wait!" I yelled. "What the hell is going on?" The door closed behind him. It was loud. His parents had probably woken up and would be asking Pete if we were having a fight.
* * *
I just went home after that, I gave up. It was about a two minute walk from there, but I'll tell you this, that walk feels a lot longer when you're weighted down with the guilt of stabbing your friend in the back. That thought made me think of Todd Woods. Even though Todd Woods hadn't stabbed himself.
My parents were asleep when I got home, so I just went upstairs to my room and shut the door behind me. I let out a long breath. On the other side of that door were Pete, who was pissed at me, and Ellen Trumbull, who had the second-highest score on Tempest and wanted to go to the Prom with me. On this side of the door was me, alone in my room, which was humming lowly like it always did, with all the half-working computers and junk that I was trying to build. It felt like it was all humming, even my posters and comic books and records.
I grabbed the paperback copy of Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke off my nightstand and pressed it between the palms of my hands as I looked around, looked at my room. I couldn't remember ever feeling this weird. This excited. And pretty much completely alone. If I wanted to feel more alone I could have called up Pete and let the phone ring, knowing he wasn't going to pick up.
Ellen Trumbull had tried to call me. I didn't know why, but she did. I got out my phone and looked at her number glowing there. It could have been anybody's number, but I knew it was hers.
My finger was on the Send button. I had an open invitation to call the hottest girl in school. Pete had just walked away from me, so it was basically okay if I called her, right? It's not like he'd know.
Except he would know. He'd probably feel it all the way over in his house, a stab like a sharp ice cream headache without the ice cream. But Ellen Trumbull was waiting for me and I don't think anyone in the world can say I was wrong for calling her.
I hit the button. I had no idea what I was going to say to her, and I didn't really try to think of anything as the phone rang once, then twice, and then—
"Wow," she said.
Not even "Hello."
"Hi," I said. "Did you call me?"
"Wow," she said again. "You surprised me. I didn't expect you to answer when I called and I didn't expect you to call back. Hi, Bob One."
"Hi," I said again. I was nervous as hell, but it was an excited nervous. And her Wows just made it worse, or better. She was excited to hear from me.
"So," she said, probably realizing it was up to her to move the conversation along. "What's on your mind?"
"I'm not calling too late, am I?" Was she in her room right now? Painting her toenails surrounded by teddy bears?
"No, no, it's fine," she said. And then she was patiently quiet.
Finally I just started talking, mostly to hear for myself what I was going to say. "I hope you really understand why I can't go with you," I said. "To the Prom. Pete is . . . " And I just trailed off. To me, just saying Pete's name expressed all of it. So I said it again. "Pete."
"I do understand," she said. "I hate it, though."
I hated it, too, but I didn't say so. Neither of us was saying anything.
"My parents are out of town this weekend," she said finally. "I'm having a party tomorrow."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she said, sort of echoing my dumb response to this huge news. "And I think," she said slowly, and it felt to me like she was running her fingers through my hair as she said it, "that it would be very fun if you could make it."
Very fun, I thought. I was so glad I had called Ellen Trumbull. I didn't feel at all lonely anymore. I felt like flying straight through the ceiling of my room. I knew I would be killing Pete by going to this party, but I had already killed him by calling her back. Even so, I was telling the absolute truth when I said, "I'll be there."
We talked a little bit more, but not much. When I got off the phone I was so jazzed that I felt sure I wasn't going to sleep at all. I just laid on my bed, wishing that I could burst through my ceiling and the roof of the house and through the tops of the trees, knocking leaves off the branches and dragging trails of clouds behind me as I rocketed out of the atmosphere and tried to figure out how I was going to punch through the moon when I got there.