He offers her a beer.
“No, thanks,” April says.
“Hey, it’s a party,” O. says.
“April doesn’t drink,” I say.
“I drink,” April says defensively.
“Well, which is it?” O. says. “Drinky or no drinky? Not that I give a crap either way.”
“Drinky,” she says, and she grabs the beer from O. and takes a sip.
I can’t believe it. We just had a whole conversation about this, but the O-Effect has completely neutralized it.
“What about your dad?” I say.
“Don’t have a hemorrhage. That’s why they make breath mints,” she says.
“Or better yet…,” O says. He takes out a pack of those Listerine strips that burn when you put them on your tongue. “Lista-rents. Two on the tongue and the ’rents don’t know what you’ve been up to.” He passes the pack to April. “With my compliments,” he says.
We stand there, nobody saying anything.
April looks at me, then shifts her eyes towards O. When I don’t do anything, she gives me an elbow. Suddenly I get that she wants to be introduced.
“Do you know April?” I say.
“We’ve met a few times,” O. says. “But I can’t say I really know her.”
“Let’s do something about that,” April says, and she holds out her hand. “April Park, cheerleader extraordinaire.”
O. takes her hand. “Cheerleader. Well, that explains the short skirts,” O. says.
April giggles.
O. pushes her hand down by her side. “You’d better take this back,” he says. “I don’t trust myself with it.”
“You’re a pervert,” April says. She laughs way too loud. “Hey, I’m going to run to the ladies’ room. You guys stay here, okay?”
“Sorry,” O. says. “We’re required to make the rounds every fifteen minutes. Spread the love. You know.”
O. turns his back, hooks his arm around my neck, and pulls me away from her.
“What are you doing?” I say. “I was talking to her.”
“Just walk away, baby boy.”
“But she asked us to wait.”
“We don’t wait. We move, and she follows.”
“But it was going well,” I say. I’m so pissed right now I want to punch O.
“She’ll go to the john, fix up her makeup, then come back in five minutes. But only if you don’t look for her.”
“That’s like playing some kind of game.”
“Exactly,” O. says. “It’s all a game. Your only choice is which one you play. Do you want to play the friend game? Or the hot-guy-I-have-to-chase game?”
“When you put it like that…,” I say, and I follow O. to the bar.
“Change of subject,” O. says. He grabs himself another beer. “Get this: I nailed the Huckleberry Finn quiz.”
“Seriously?”
“No kidding. B-plus. Burch practically crapped his Depends.”
“That’s great,” I say.
O. looks upstairs towards the bathrooms.
“Here’s the deal,” O. says. “You’ve been working hard. Practicing a lot, helping me out. So I’m going to help you out.”
“Help me how?”
O. takes a long slug on the beer. “I’m your genie,” he says. “Just make a wish.”
“What can I wish for?”
“What do you want?” he says.
“You know.”
“Say it.”
“April.”
O. waves his hand in the air like a crazy magician and hops on one foot. It’s so ridiculous it makes me laugh.
“Done,” he says.
“Bullshit.”
“Seriously. I’m going to take care of you.”
I suddenly feel excited. It’s like a dream I used to have where I become president. That’s what it feels like to be with O. Like I’ve been elevated.
O. looks over my shoulder.
“Speaking of which… hot Asian at six o’clock.”
I start to turn around, but he stops me.
“I’m going to walk away, and you keep looking towards the kitchen like you’re thinking about something important. Preferably another girl, hotter than April.”
He takes the empty beer bottle away from me and replaces it with his own half-full one. I feel strange drinking the beer that was just in O.’s mouth, but I take a long swallow. It’s like we’re brothers or something.
I see Lisa Jacobs beckoning to O. from the other room. He pats the center of my chest.
“Lisa needs my lips,” he says. “You’ll be fine.”
He walks away backwards, making the magician motions with his hands again.
I stand there for a second, not knowing what to do. I look towards the kitchen. I try to think of another girl. “Bring the hotness,” as Eytan used to say. But instead of the hotness, an image of my mother pops into my head. Probably not what O. had in mind.
“Andy,” April says from behind me.
O. was right. She came to me. I turn around slowly, trying not to smile.
“How’s it going?” I say.
“We’re friends, right?” April says.
“Friends? Um, yeah,” I say. I drink the beer and try to channel O. “We are good, good friends. Or we could be. If you play your cards right.”
“Why are you acting funny?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m happy.”
“Okay, listen,” April says. “I want to tell you something. But you have to promise you won’t say anything.”
“Don’t have a hemorrhage,” I say. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
She grabs my arms and pulls me towards her, all the way in so our faces are practically touching.
“I mean it. You can’t say a word to anyone.”
“Okay,” I say. I’m smiling now, wondering what’s about to happen.
April stares at me intensely. Her eyes are huge, her cheeks flushed with excitement.
“What’s the big secret?” I say.
“Oh my God,” she says. “I have such a crush on O.”
34. the nice/mean/nice theory.
I’m lying in bed looking up at the stars swirling around my ceiling. Dad and I put glow-in-the-dark cutouts up when I was Jessica’s age. For some reason I never took them down. Maybe I’m still a little drunk, because when I look up, it feels like I’m flying.
There’s a tap at my door and Jessica cracks it open.
“How did it go?” she says.
“You should be asleep.”
“How can I sleep when you’re at a football party?”
It sounds like something Mom would say.
“How did the clothes work?” Jessica says.
“Fine.”
“Just fine?”
“I looked good. You did a good job.”
Jessica beams. She comes into the room uninvited and sits on the edge of my bed.
“Did you meet anyone famous?” she says.
“There’s no one famous at Newton.”
“O. Douglas,” Jessica says.
“How do you know about O. Douglas?”
“What do you mean? Everyone knows.”
I lie back and groan. I wish my ceiling was really the sky, and I could take off and never come back.
Jessica says, “You smell like beer and Listerine.”
“How do you know what beer smells like?”
“From the weddings, stupid.”
Jessica lies down next to me. I don’t think she’s been in my bed since she was five. She used to try and get me to play dolls with her. Sometimes she’d want to sleep with me when she had a bad dream.
“What am I going to do?” I say.
“About what?”
“I have problems,” I say. “You wouldn’t understand.” But as the words leave my mouth, I realize she might actually understand. She’s popular. She’s got boys chasing her. Even if she’s only twelve, she probably knows more about this than I do.
“Jessica, what would you do if you liked a boy, but he didn’t like you back?”
“That would never happen,” she says.