“Oh, right,” Mel said cheerfully. “You’re wondering about the whole bring-another-guy-along thing, aren’t you?”
My father looked like he was having a stroke— not that Mel seemed to notice because he just kept talking.
“Patrick needs a ride. No car, you know, and so I fi gured, 96
hey, I can pick up some gas money.” He laughed. No one else did, and now Patrick looked like he was trying to push himself inside the door and hide.
My parents really didn’t seem impressed by any of this, and for one (very hopeful) second I thought they’d tell me, “No way,” but then they shared a look, and although I think a little bit of it was probably related to some advice they’d gotten from reading Pinewood hand-outs or talking to Laurie, most of it was about them realizing if I went out they’d have the house to themselves for a while.
So they told me I could go. Dad did pull me aside before I left, though. He said, “Be home by eleven,”
which I didn’t care about because, trust me, not a problem, and then, “Call us if you need anything. Anything at all,” which I did care about because he looked like he really meant it, and he’d never said anything like that to me before.
My mind was racing as I walked out of the house. Why had Mel shown up? Wasn’t he supposed to be walking with me or something instead of standing by his car tossing his keys from one hand to another and looking oddly proud of himself? What was Patrick doing here? Why hadn’t I at least brushed my hair, or better yet, changed my shirt?
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I was so busy trying to figure out what was going on that I—of course—walked right into Patrick.
What is it about him that makes me do stuff like that?
This time, though, walking into him wasn’t my fault at all. He was standing in the middle of the driveway like he was stuck there but still, it was embarrassing.
“Sorry,” we both muttered at the same time, and then I forgot all those questions I was asking myself. Why?
Because Patrick’s hand brushed against mine and something inside me twitched, shook itself awake. I stared at him and he stared at me, and suddenly my heart was pounding and my skin felt hot and flushed. I didn’t like it at all.
“The front seat’s kinda crowded,” Mel said, and I swear, his voice actually startled me. For a second I’d forgotten he was there. I’d sort of—well, I’d sort of forgotten everything. Patrick looked pretty startled too, and we both looked away from each other. He stared at the ground. I looked at Mel’s car. The front seat had a huge box sitting on the passenger side.
“Yeah, the box,” Mel said. “My mom told me to drop it off for some charity thing she’s doing, but I sort of forgot to. Would you mind sitting in the back with Pat—”
He broke off and cleared his throat. I looked at him. He 98
was looking at Patrick. They seemed to be having some sort of discussion without talking. It made me think of Julia, and that reminder of how they talked like she and I did, so easily in their own silent language, made my eyes prickle.
“I’ll just sit in the back, and you can put the box next to me,” I said because I knew what Mel was going to say and there was no way I was going to sit next to Patrick all the way to wherever we were dropping him off.
So we all got in the car, and there I was, in the backseat with a box. Granted, I have very little dating experience (as in none) but this just didn’t seem like normal date stuff. At all.
And then, as soon as we left my house, Mel started talking. First he asked how I was doing.
“Fine,” I said.
“Good,” Mel said, and cleared his throat again. Patrick looked out the window.
“What about you, Patrick?” Mel said, and Patrick muttered something too softly for me to hear.
“Well, man, then maybe I will make you pay me gas money,” Mel said, and then sighed.
I knew then there was no way I was going to make it through whatever this was supposed to be, and started 99
thinking about faking a stomachache as soon as we dropped Patrick off.
Except we didn’t drop Patrick off.
Instead, we all went to the movies. As in me and Mel.
And Patrick. So it definitely wasn’t a date.
And then things got worse because when we got there, everyone in my freaking honors classes was there too. Someone called Mel’s name and waved us over after we all got out of the car.
It was torture. Mel went and got tickets with most of the people, Patrick wandered off to stare at upcoming movie posters like they were the most interesting things he’d ever seen, and I got to stand there with Beth and her followers, including Corn Syrup.
Beth looked at me, said something about “social retards” just loud enough for me to hear, and then added,
“Mel’s just too nice, really.”
I pretended I was deaf—I wished I was then, that’s for sure—and then Beth dragged everyone into a discussion of whose butt was the biggest. (“Oh, mine is, totally.”
“No, mine is!” “No way, mine totally is!”) Mel came back with tickets, finally, and said, “Hey, you owe me ten for yours, okay?” as we got in line to get into the theater.
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I dug around in my pockets, feeling for money that I knew wasn’t there and vowing to never agree to anything Mel asked again, while Patrick stood next to Mel on his other side, hands jammed in his pockets and staring at the floor. Beth, who was right behind me, snorted and muttered something to Corn Syrup. I didn’t think Mel heard her, but he must have because he muttered something to Patrick and then told me, “Never mind the money, I got it.”
When we finally got into the theater Mel and I didn’t even sit next to each other. I ended up in the seat next to the aisle one, Corn Syrup on one side of me and Patrick on the other. Patrick and I shared an armrest, but since neither of us was using it—I was sitting with my arms across my chest, feeling like I was back in middle school just waiting for Beth, Anne Alice, and Caro to decide they were mad at me for something, and Patrick was turned around in his seat, staring up the aisle at the door like he’d somehow forgotten where it was—there wasn’t a problem.
Mel sat next to Caro, and they, naturally, started arguing over their armrest.
“I put my arm on it first,” Caro said.
“No, you didn’t, and besides, touching the armrest doesn’t mean you own it,” Mel said.
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They ended up going at it just like they did in English class, and watching them, it became pretty clear that their arguing was a strange sort of flirting. They were even both doing that lean-in-toward-each-other thing when Beth, who was on Mel’s other side, whispered something in his ear. Caro immediately tossed her hair and pretended to be bored with Mel. It didn’t really work.
She mostly looked unhappy.
Beth leaned back, bumping her arm into Mel’s in a way that was more of a caress, and then whispered something else to him. He laughed, and I wondered why Mel wasn’t dating her, but then the previews started and when Caro jumped during a trailer for a completely unscary horror movie I saw Mel reach one hand out toward her and then stop.
Now, as Beth so kindly pointed out, I may be a social retard, but even I could guess Mel liked Corn Syrup with that kind of clue. So how come he hadn’t asked Caro to the movies? He didn’t strike me as shy or anything.
And, more importantly, why had he brought me here?
By the time the movie started, I felt pretty bad, exhausted and sad and strange, and then something supposedly hilarious happened on-screen—some old guy 102
stumbling around, crashing into things as he had a heart attack, landing with his hands grabbing the cute young girl’s breasts right as he died—and everyone laughed.
And there was something about that laughter, that noise—