Playing With Matches Page 9

  Even if we never kissed again, I knew that for the first time in my life, I had a best friend. An ally. Someone I could stick up for, and who would stick up for me.

  And who, by the way, had an amazing ass.

  15

  AN ARGUMENT FOR ARRANGED MARRIAGES

  The poster in the school lobby declared KISSING A SMOKER IS LIKE KISSING AN ASHTRAY. A cartoon teen coughed and hacked while a pretty cartoon girl turned away in disgust. Someone had drawn something in the smoker’s mouth: either a bong or a crude sketch of the male anatomy.

  It was the morning after I’d confronted Dylan, and I was a little nervous about going to school. Just a little. Still, I avoided my usual breakfast with Samantha, in case Dylan was looking for me.

  I watched the hundreds of students pass me by. Dan Dzyan, reading a copy of The Physicians’ Desk Reference and laughing. Buttercup, snapping pictures of happy things, like the trophy case and the fire alarm. Bill, stumbling as he attempted to chew gum and walk. Amy…

  Amy! She was walking with her chemistry lab partner, a curvy brunette named Cassandra. Amy was wearing a very short skirt, the kind that would ride halfway up her thighs when she was sitting down. She also had on open-toed sandals. From across the lobby I could see each individual red-painted toe.

  I was staring. I turned and put a dollar into the soda machine so they wouldn’t realize I was watching them.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amy pointing to me and saying something to Cassandra. They both laughed. Apparently, Amy was nice to me only when no one else was around.

  The soda machine spit my bill out like a mocking tongue. I forced it back into the slot.

  “Hey, stud muffin.”

  That was Amy talking. It took me a second to realize she was talking to me and not the soda machine.

  “Hi, Amy.” It was funny; the self-confidence that had made me stand up to Dylan failed me when I tried to be suave around her.

  “So I heard you were about to throw down with Dylan yesterday.”

  Cassandra was laughing into her hand.

  “Who, uh, told you that?” I pictured Dylan waiting for me in an alley somewhere.

  “Some guys on the team were talking about it. Said Dylan insulted your friend Melody, and you said you were going to bust his face.”

  Hey, I liked this version.

  “It didn’t happen exactly like that….” I leaned against the vending machine.

  Amy laughed. “No kidding, Leon. But it’s nice of you to stick up for your girlfriend like that.”

  Crap. Defending Melody’s honor was one thing. Admitting we were dating was something entirely different.

  “You know,” I said with forced casualness, “Melody’s not my girlfriend.”

  Cassandra chimed in. “Don’t sell yourself short. I’m sure she likes you. Just give it some more time.”

  Thanks, Cassie. Now Amy thinks not only that I like Melody but that I can’t get her to go out with me.

  I was about to explain that Melody and I were just friends when Amy’s hand dashed past my head and punched the Diet Coke button. She then bent over and reached between my legs to grab the can. Her shirt was loose enough for me to see the marks her bra straps had left on her shoulders.

  She took one swig, very slowly, and handed me the can before leaving. I felt like dumping the soda over my head to cool down, but settled for a drink. The taste of Amy’s lipstick almost covered the bitter aftertaste of the sugar-free cola.

  A wise person once said, “If you’re the only one talking, then the conversation is over.” Samantha had apparently never heard this. She’d spent the better part of our lunch talking about some feminist author who’d given a lecture at St. Charles Community College.

  “And Ms. Wooten explained how for the past two centuries men have been subjecting women to a constant and unending—”

  I raised my hand. “If we all agree that men are responsible for everything that’s wrong in the world, will you stop talking?”

  Samantha got huffy. “Excuse me! I’ve always admired Emily Wooten. If you met”—she looked over at the book next to my tray—“H. P. Lovecraft, you’d expect us to be impressed!”

  “I think we would be impressed,” said Melody. “He’s dead.”

  I was impressed. It seemed Melody had heard of H. P. Lovecraft, the author widely regarded as the father of the “aliens keeping a guy’s brain alive in a jar” story.

  Johnny was picking his teeth with a fork. “So, Leon. I heard you almost got in a fight yesterday.”

  Melody looked at me. “Fight? You didn’t tell me about that. What happened?”

  Johnny, in a rare display of tact, realized Melody didn’t need to know about what Dylan had said. “Ah, Leon and Rick Rose were having the old Captain Kirk versus Captain Picard debate.” He mimicked someone fighting with a limp wrist.

  Melody didn’t push the issue. Maybe she realized she didn’t want to know.

  “Anyway,” I said, trying to move on to another topic, “the new Bart Axelrod movie’s coming out this weekend. Anyone want to go?” Axelrod was an inexplicably popular action-movie star who always seemed to be parodying himself. I’d never forget the movie where he defeated the terrorists, saved the town, got the girl, and then played the bass at a spontaneous rock concert.

  “You actually like those movies?” asked Melody. She didn’t seem to want to flat out say we had bad taste.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Johnny sarcastically. “We never miss a showing.” We all laughed, thinking of how we’d been kicked out of the theater the last time for our running commentary on Axelrod’s latest masterwork.

  “Count me out,” said Rob. “Vanessa’s coming to visit.” Vanessa was one of Rob’s older sisters. I’d occasionally get a rise out of him by saying how hot she was.

  “Ben’s coming to town,” said Samantha. “We’d come along with you, but, um, you know.” Ben was her boyfriend, who was a freshman at some college somewhere.

  “What, are you embarrassed by us?” I joked.

  “More or less.”

  “Oh.” So that was why she’d never introduced us.

  “Could we make it next week?” asked Johnny. “I got a thing.”

  “You know Axelrod’s movies are never in the theaters that long.”

  “I’ll go,” chirped Melody. Then, realizing she’d just arranged to go to the movies with me alone, she added, “Or we can do it some other time.”

  Samantha shot me a glare, but what of it? Melody was funny and smart. If I could risk my pretty face defending her, why shouldn’t we see a movie together?

  Besides, it wasn’t like I’d ever be anything more than Amy’s goofy classmate.

  “It’s a date, Melody.”

  “Melody ain’t ready yet.” It was Friday, and I was picking up Melody to go to the movie. Her younger brother, Tony, had answered the door.

  Tony made no move to invite me in. He just stood there looking at me like I had wronged him somehow.

  “Will she be long?” I asked, hoping to get away from him.

  “She’s in the shower.”

  Showering for a movie? We stared at each other. Tony tilted his head, seeming to make up his mind about something.

  “Come with me,” he said, his voice cracking. “I wanna have a man-to-man talk with you.”

  I laughed under my breath. A man-to-man talk? With a thirteen-year-old kid in a heavy metal T-shirt? Give me a break.

  We walked along the fence that penned in the horses. Neither of us said anything for a bit.

  “So what’s up with you and my sister?” he finally asked.

  “What’s up?”

  “Are you dating or what?”

  How cute. He was probably going to warn me to keep my hands off her. Overprotective kid brother.

  “I dunno. Why?”

  He stopped. “Because I don’t want you to hurt her. What are you up to?”

  I suddenly felt a whole lot less condescending. “Why do you think I’d
hurt her?”

  “Just look at her, man! She’s seventeen and you’re the first guy who’s ever even called her.”

  “Isn’t that her business?”

  “You don’t get it, do you? No, of course you wouldn’t. No one has ever been nice to Melody, ever. For years, she’d come home from school crying. She’d never let Mom and Dad know what went on, but I knew. I knew how everyone treated her. I knew the kinds of things they said behind her back…or to her face.”

  “Tony…”

  “She never had friends. Once, some girls invited her to a sleepover. And then they…they…” Tony was gripping a fence rail so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “It’s not important. Listen, Leon. Melody’s not what you’d call a looker. And now you show up, taking her out on her birthday, and out to movies and stuff. Just what are you after? She’s not going to hop in the sack with you just ’cause you’re nice to her.”

  “Tony…Christ. Listen, man. Your sister’s a nice person. I like being with her. That’s all. I can’t guarantee we’ll fall madly in love or anything, but if I go out with her, it’s because I want to. No other reason.”

  Melody’s brother stared at me. I regretted my earlier impressions of this kid who had been forced to be the big brother to his older sister. Finally, for the first time since I’d met him, he smiled.

  “Okay, Leon,” he said. “Let’s get back. She should be about ready.”

  “You have to admit, Melody, you’ve never seen a more realistic movie about a Green Beret turned dance instructor.”

  Melody toyed with a strand of her wig. “Maybe, but I pick the movie next time.”

  Next time?

  I turned down the gravel road where Melody lived. It was dark, well past ten. We’d seen the early showing of Sudden Fist of Death III. (Melody hadn’t seen the first two, and I feared she hadn’t followed the plot.) I then treated her to the most expensive food the Taco Barn had to offer.

  “I had a good time tonight, Leon.”

  “So did I.” I meant it too. The more I hung out with Melody, the more I wanted to. It was kind of funny, but I felt totally at ease with her. More than I did with my other friends. To Samantha, I was a running gag, a living example of all that was wrong with the male race. Around the twins, I was the butt of their jokes, the weird friend they could push around just because they were bigger and more popular. Even Rob sometimes acted like we were friends because we’d always been, not because we had a lot in common.

  But when I was with Melody, I could be Leon. Just Leon. I didn’t worry about how I was dressed, or if I was boring her, or that she thought I was a geek. Melody liked being with me. Maybe it worked both ways. Maybe I was the only one who made her feel like more than a face.

  Besides, Melody was a cheap date who didn’t seem to mind that I was wearing a Church of the SubGenius T-shirt.

  Next time? Probably so.

  I stopped in front of Melody’s gate. My engine shuddered violently to a halt.

  “Good night, Leon.” She waited quietly, not making a move to get out.

  “I’ll walk you up.”

  We didn’t touch as we trudged through the humid night air.

  “Watch your step, Leon.”

  “I can see.”

  “No, I mean, the horses are out.”

  I began to take more care with where I walked. In the distance, I could see a lone light on in the living room of Melody’s house. Other than that, we were in pure darkness.

  “I can’t believe how many stars you can see out here.” It was a little overcast, but you could still clearly see the Milky Way. Back in Oakridge subdivision, you could barely make out the Big Dipper.

  “You should see it when it’s less cloudy. C’mere.” She hopped up into the bed of an old pickup that was parked in the yard. I joined her. We leaned against the cab and gazed at the heavens.

  I remembered an optical illusion my dad had shown me, and lay down flat in the bed. “Melody, check this out. Lay down next to me.”

  She gasped. “Oh, Leon, I can’t do that.”

  I suddenly felt like an ass and sat up. “That’s not what I meant!”

  She laughed. “It’s not what I meant either. It’s just that…if I lay down, my wig will get dirt in it. It’s not easy to clean.”

  I settled back down on my back. “Then take it off.”

  There was a pause, and Melody slid down next to me. Her hair lay on her chest. Absently, she stroked it like a pet cat. It occurred to me that maybe she didn’t like having her head uncovered, even around me. I attempted to recover from the gaffe.

  “Okay, now look up at the sky. Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now pretend we’re not looking at the sky. We’re flying above the ocean at night, looking down at those clouds. The stars are the lights of ships.”

  Melody didn’t say anything for a while, and I was afraid that maybe I was the only one who could picture the night sky like that. Suddenly, she grabbed my wrist.

  “Oh, my God, Leon, you’re right! It’s like we’re flying!”

  We lay there for a while, stargazing, holding hands. Slowly, slower than the stars moved across the sky, our faces turned toward each other.

  We were there all alone, just the two of us. We stared at each other, knowing we were going to kiss. But we waited, savoring the anticipation. The knowledge that we were close and about to become closer.

  Right when I found her lips, we were startled by a glaring light that stunned us like deer on the highway. Ten feet away, Melody’s father stood, shining a high-powered flashlight at us. Even blinded by the beam, I could tell he was not smiling. The honeymoon certainly hadn’t lasted.

  16

  A PAINFUL BOWL CONDITION

  When you first start dating a girl, you do the traditional things: movies, dinner, long walks, and long conversations. After she lets you kiss her, things get less formal: hanging out with friends, going to the mall, cheap stuff like that. Once you realize that the sight of your nacho-stained shirt and mismatched socks won’t send her screaming for the exit, you can pull off the ultimate slacker date: bowling.

  Pioneer Lanes dated from the days when St. Christopher was its own city. Everything was decades old: the lanes, the tables, the snack counter, the shoes, the gum under the scoring machines.

  On Thursdays the place was usually empty (also Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Wednesday was league night). Rob, Johnny, Samantha, Melody, and I were able to get a lane right away. Bowling was the one sport I didn’t profoundly suck at, so I was happy Melody agreed to join us.

  “It’s all in the wrist,” said Rob, demonstrating. “Right down the middle, but twist at the last minute.”

  “Like this?” I asked.

  “Better, but not quite. And more to your left.”

  “It’s still not working.”

  “Put more of your arm behind it. Power is important here. Watch how I do it.” Deftly picking up his soda can, he effortlessly crushed it on his forehead. I attempted to follow suit but could never quite get it as flat. My lesson ended when an overweight middle-aged woman roughly grabbed the can from me. At first I thought she was going to show us how it was done, but she just threw it into the trash. I guess she didn’t want me to concuss myself.

  “Who’s the man?” bellowed Johnny. “Tell me, who’s the man?” He had just thrown a strike on the first frame (after two “practice” shots).

  “Who’s up next?” The scoring machine told me nothing. Johnny had entered our names: POO, BUT, ASS, DIK, and MEL.

  “Samantha,” replied Rob. “Is she still in the john with Melody?”

  “Yeah. What do you think they’re doing in there?”

  “Easy,” answered Johnny. “Melody’s talking about Leon.”

  Rob laughed. I rolled my eyes but secretly wondered if it was true. Melody and I hadn’t formally announced that we were dating. But after the awkward encounter with her father the other night, I kind of figured we’d become a lot mor
e than study buddies.

  “Hey, Leon,” whispered Johnny. “Here comes your girlfriend.”

  I turned, expecting to see Melody silently returning from the bathroom. Apparently, Johnny had been speaking ironically. At the shoe-rental counter stood Amy.

  Seeing Amy at Pioneer Lanes was like, um…well, seeing a really pretty girl at a sleazy bowling alley. She was wearing a sleeveless sweater and tight, tight jeans. Even from across the smoky room, I could see the top of her bright blue panties poking up from the back of her pants.

  She wasn’t there alone. The guy who was clearly her date was grabbing a pair of size fourteens from the shoe rack.

  Oh, Leon, I’m not really dating anyone right now.

  The dude was wearing a jacket from Charleston West High. He was bigger than me and had a face like an angry gorilla. I began to imagine scenarios in which I could drop a bowling ball into his lap and make it look like an honest accident.

  What was I getting jealous about? Guys like me never wound up with the leading lady. We were the sidekicks, the extras, the ones with few speaking parts. We didn’t walk off hand in hand with the heroine as the credits started to roll. Besides, I had someone. I wasn’t lonely anymore; I didn’t need to dwell on Amy.

  I drummed my fingers on the console, pointedly ignoring the ex–girl of my dreams.

  “Leon! Hey, Leon!” Amy was walking over to me at a good clip.

  Johnny and Rob were staring at me, impressed. It took a lot of willpower not to rush to meet Amy halfway.

  She sat in the console seat next to me. “Thought that was you.”

  “Hey, Amy.” I pondered introducing her to my friends, but that would only end in embarrassment. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Tom wanted to take me.” She gestured at her date several lanes down. He was looking at the scoring machine with deep concentration. Every so often he’d randomly hit a button, then scratch his head.