20 : Big Cheese

Soon I was hanging with Skully and Morgan every weekend. This is what I should’ve done last year instead of playing Halo3 on the Xbox and stalking girls in chatrooms.

Skully took good care of her guests. She brought her little brother orange juice in the morning, which she squished with her bare hands into a soup bowl. Sebastian went to some Catholic junior high school where they memorized Bible quotes for homework. Their grandmother watched TV all day in the “maid’s quarters” (although I’d never seen a maid there), and a stream of nameless people flowed in and out of the garage at all hours.

I was sleeping on a pullout bed that unfolded from a leather couch upstairs. Each morning, I shaved with Skully’s pink plastic razor, which she used to sculpt the back of her neck.

She told me to lose the goatee.

“You look more like yourself without it,” she said.

I lathered up and scraped it off. My chin itched all day. When Morgan saw me at school, she said, “I’m glad you finally nixed the soul patch,” and I couldn’t stop smiling.

Me and Skully were always late to school. For the next few weeks, we sleepwalked through class until she drove us back to the McMansion. It sure beat living on crappy Biscayne Boulevard. On Fridays, we met up with Morgan (unless she was grounded) and read magazines and drank bottomless frappuccinos at the bookstore, and made fun of the coffee dude, who always threatened to throw us out and never did.

Just when I’d started to forget about this Halloween business, one of the girls would mention it again. The party was coming up in a couple of days. They called it a “birthday blowout” for Morgan. Since she was turning eighteen, they were making a big deal about it. Morgan spilled the news to Brent, who wasn’t exactly thrilled that his ex-girlfriend heard about the party from me.

The cops hadn’t forgotten either.

I met my “friend” one last time in a rented storage room, not far from the expressway. There was nothing in the place. Just a bare bulb flickering in the ceiling. I leaned against the wall while the cop paced. He seemed more agitated than usual.

“Take this,” he said, handing over my cell, which looked just like new. “When you get to the location, you will send a text message. No phone calls. Understand? This will be the ‘take down’ signal. And the phone signal is how we’ll find you.”

He rambled on about “showtime” and “cranking up the ante.” When I told him about my truck and the DIE NARC SCUM message, he didn’t seem to care.

“You signed that paper,” he said, meaning the substantial assistance agreement. “We treated you like an adult. Now you have to act like one.”

More than anything, I just wanted to run away. Tell my mom the truth. I mean, they made me sign without her permission. But even that wasn’t completely true. I signed that damn paper, all on my own.

“Once the signal is given,” he went on, “you need to remove yourself from the situation.”

“You mean … ditch everyone?”

“Unless you want to go to jail, yeah. Nobody’s going to be looking out for you. Got it?”

I explained about crashing at Skully’s place and he said, “Smart move.” I finally felt like I was doing something right. At the same time, I wasn’t completely convinced.

“This makes it safer for my family, right?” I asked.

He grunted. “Like I said before, I can’t make any promises. Until we catch this guy, there’s always a chance that someone will get hurt. You. Your family. The kids at the school. Nobody is safe.”

“And if we don’t catch him?”

“Someone will get hurt. I guarantee it. Now it’s up to you. Make sure all the players show.”

“Okay, okay,” I told him. God. Would he ever get off my back?

“We’ve done our part. Now you need to do yours.”

I thought about my dad’s truck, the words spray-painted like blood. Mom blamed it on our shitty neighborhood. Did she even know what narc meant?

I had the feeling I was just beginning to learn.

On the day before Morgan’s birthday, I couldn’t concentrate in class. As I flipped through the pages in my World Civilization book, I found doodles in number two pencil.

The Greeks=sexist assholes, somebody wrote in Bubblicious handwriting.

I couldn’t help wondering who scribbled in my book, years before I came to this school. Who were they to judge? The Greeks lived a long time ago; they didn’t know any better. Or maybe they knew more.

Turning a chapter ahead, I found more comments in the margins: WTF? Kill me now. I can’t take any more of this torture …

What was so important that this person couldn’t sit at a desk for forty-five minutes and listen to a few ancient stories? I could think of a lot worse places to be.

On the next page, they wrote:

How old is Mr. Pitstick?
a. 40
b. 50
c. 60
d. All of the above, added together.

I busted out a laugh. A girl in the front row turned around. She was sort of cute, despite the constellation of pimples dotting her chin. I turned back to my book and pretended to read. After skimming the same paragraph five times in a row, I realized that I had absorbed nothing. God, I was so out of it.

My phone vibrated inside my bag, making a noise like a dying muffler. Mr. Pitstick got so frazzled, he dropped his marker.

“Whose phone is that?” he called out.

“Sorry,” I told him. “I just got it fixed and I forgot to turn it off.”

“Well, do that,” he said.

The bell rang a few moments later, and everybody grabbed their stuff. Mr. Pitstick yelled, “Stay in your seats. You’ve got an essay due on Monday. Listen up, people.” A communal groan washed across the classroom.

Later I caught up with Skully in the parking lot. Morgan was there, smothered under her headphones. The girls leaned against the dented Explorer, laughing as they shared a cigarette. Looking at them, a spreadsheet unfolded in my head—punk, emo, Goth—but I couldn’t make sense of these labels anymore. I called them the Muses, like the sister-goddesses in Greek mythology.

Morgan flicked the cigarette onto the pavement. I watched it smolder and fizzle, the smoke rising like slow-motion calligraphy.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she said in her wispy voice.

“What do I look like? A horse?” I said, faking a smile.

She smirked. “Yeah. Actually, you do,” she said, kissing my cheek. “What’s up, rocker?”

I leaned in to return the kiss, the standard Miami greeting, but I moved right instead of left, causing a brief collision. I ended up smooching her thick bangs, which smelled like health-store shampoo—rosemary and mint.

Skully snatched my hand and planted a big wet one on it. “How’s it going, Double A? No sugar for me? Don’t you love me anymore?”

I wrapped her into a hug. “Of course I do.”

The girls wouldn’t stop talking about the Glades party.

“My costume is going to be so amazing,” said Morgan.

All I wanted to do is get behind the wheel and drive, take the girls with me, as far north as 95 will carry us, to a place far away, where the leaves had changed color.

“You can’t be serious about this party,” I told them.

“Oh, we’re dead serious,” says Skully, cackling like a mad scientist.

“Dressing up was always my favorite part about Halloween,” Morgan said. “I could’ve cared less about the candy. Except for the Hershey bars. Or the Butterfingers.”

“I always put those in the fridge. They taste better frozen,” said Skully. “Did you go trick-or-treating when you were little?” she asked me.

“A couple times. I don’t really remember.”

“He’s lying,” said Morgan. “What are you trying to hide? Did your mom make you wear a pillowcase with holes cut into it?”

“Actually, yes,” I said. “But that didn’t suck as much as the actual trick-or-treating. See, we were living in an apartment on base. And there were like, no other little kids around. So we got in the elevator and knocked on people’s doors. They weren’t prepared or anything. All I got was an apple and some old man candy.”

“Gross. What’s that?”

“You know. Those chalky mints you get with the bill in Italian restaurants.”

“Oh, that’s tragic. We have to make up for lost time,” she said, patting my head. “You’re going, even if I have to tie you up and drag you there.”

“Thanks.”

“We’ll even help you pick out a costume,” said Skully.

“He’d look good in a mask,” said Morgan. She talked about me in the third person, as if I didn’t exist. I realized they did that a lot. “He should go as a superhero or something.”

“A superhero in tights,” Skully added.

“Hm,” said Morgan. “It’s my birthday, right? All I’m saying is … I better get lots of presents.”

“Oh, you will. You invited the entire school. Except Danica Stone, who will probably find out anyway. That skank.”

“You invited more people? How?” I asked.

“Online. Duh,” said Skully. “It’s going to be so amazing. And it’s in the middle of nowhere. So who the hell is going to stop us?”

“Enough talking. Let’s get out of here,” said Morgan.

I opened the car door and climbed in the front. Cranked the radio, just to smother the noise inside my head. All the songs about hearts and dreams and tears didn’t do any good.

“It’s freaking hot in here,” said Morgan, switching on a portable fan duct-taped to the dashboard. Her driving skills hadn’t improved. The Explorer groaned and sputtered and finally stalled in the middle of the highway.

“You’re going to wear out the clutch,” I told her.

“Fine. Since you’re the expert, you can drive.”

She threw the keys in my lap. I had no choice except to slide behind the wheel.

The girls screeched at me to drive faster, so I hit the gas. I had to admit, this was a hell of a lot more exciting than driving my dad’s old truck. I was perched so high, I could peer into the smaller sedans beside us, see people messing with their cell phones or munching fries. One woman was actually painting her nails, right on top of the steering wheel.

Morgan rattled off directions. She kind of sounded like her stepmom. “Turn right here. No, I mean left. That’s right.”

I veered into a barren strip mall. There was a military Jeep parked beside an Army Surplus store, and a mannequin draped in fatigues. We got out and the sun drilled into my eyes. As we breezed through the door, a chain of cowbells jingled and slammed against the handle, startling me out of my head.

Skully called, “Hey, Alvaro!” to the dude behind the cash register.

He nodded, and they talked a million miles per hour in Spanish.

“I hate when she does that,” Morgan said, drifting into the guns and ammo aisle. She picked up a pair of aviator goggles and slid them over her face. “Bang,” she said, cocking her finger. “You’re dead.”

“Do you really hate me that much?”

She pushed the goggles against her forehead, making it seem like she had grown another set of eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself, player.”

“Look. I don’t think I’m a player or anything. I’m sorry those rumors about us got spread around. But trust me, I’m not the one who did it.”

“I know,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re a nice person.”

I held my breath. “What makes you say that?”

“I’m a really good judge of character.”

“Right. You can’t pull the wool over your ice,” I said.

Morgan smirked. “You’re weird,” she said, ruffling my hair. She grabbed my hand and tugged. I squeezed her fingers, which always seemed cold. “Help me pick out something that doesn’t suck,” she said, squeezing back.

The guy behind the counter said, “Look at Romeo here, surrounded by two beautiful girls. What’s your secret? Just be yourself, yeah? That’s what they say on TV. But it’s bull. Nobody gets laid by being themselves.”

“Stop corrupting him,” Skully said. “Aaron is a pure spirit.”

Morgan snorted. “There is no such thing.”

“I can pretend, right?” Skully shouted, turning the heads of a few people at the register.

Afterwards, we drove to the Big Cheese, a South Miami pizza place. It was packed with college people and screaming kids. Skully’s little brother, Sebastian, was already waiting at the table.

“It took me like, a half hour to skate here,” he said. “Now I’ve got muscles on top of my muscles.”

I slid between the girls. They shouted over my head like a pair of stereo speakers. They were squawking so loudly that the people in the next booth told us to “tone it down.”

Sebastian took out a plastic Circle K bag and tried to unwrap something inside it, but Skully caught him.

“No candy.”

“I’m not doing anything,” he said.

“I can hear the wrapper crinkling. You know better.” Skully handed him a fun-sized diabetic granola bar from her bag. “Eat this and shut up.”

“This would be better if it had chocolate chips. You know, I would eat myself if I were chocolate,” he said with his mouth full.

“Then you’d be dead.”

I took another swig of the flat Coke that Skully bought for me. She always paid for everything on her debit card. Yet another reason to feel like a complete asshole.

“You remind me of the long-haired dude in that surfer movie,” Sebastian said.

“Is that a good thing?”

Skully glanced around the table. “He does, right? Look. He’s turning red.”

Just hearing the phrase, “He’s turning red,” took me back to the cafeteria in seventh grade. I listened to the girls laughing, and I got nervous all over again, staring into the grease stains on my paper plate. Maybe hanging with girls had its drawbacks.

“My homeroom teacher is a girl,” said Sebastian, “which is good because the boy teachers are mean. But she always gets my name wrong. I’m like, you’re a teacher. Sound it out,” he said. “But it’s okay. I like older women.”

“Good for you!” Morgan thumped the table. Then she moved onto another topic: My ex-girlfriend.

“Was your ex pretty?” she wanted to know.

“Can we talk about something else?” I asked. Having an ex was another lie I told to fit in.

“Look at his face. He’s still in love with her,” Skully said.

I studied my napkin.

Later, the girls filed into the bathroom, as if they were having a conference in there. Who knows? Maybe they were.

Skully’s brother stayed behind, and we headed for the car after I finished my flat, watered-down Coke. As we walked through the deserted parking lot, he said, “I think Morgan is into you.”

This is how low I’d stooped. I was getting advice from a thirteen-year-old.

“We’re just friends,” I said.

It was true. Why would a cool girl like Morgan be interested in me? I might catch her eye for a while, but it was all fake, so it wouldn’t last long. She’d get bored. This was exactly where I always got stuck, doomed to the friend zone. My sister would probably have an opinion about it … like she did about everything. I never thought I would miss her so much. Or Mom, who started crying every time I called now. So I just stopped calling.

I pulled out my cell and sent Haylie a text message:

OLA KALA?

Minutes passed. Nice. Haylie was ignoring me, just like Collin as soon as he escaped to his fancy college.

I was shivering as I walked to the car. Skully was already in the driver’s seat, honking the horn. I took my time. The night air felt cooler than I could remember, and it was beginning to rain. But it was a good kind of cold. It let me know I was still alive.

“Aaron. Wait up.”

I turned. There was Morgan, clip-clopping after me in her wooden flip-flops. She stopped in the middle of the parking lot, kicked them off, and carried them in both hands.

Then she gave me a hug—a genuine embrace, not one of those fake half ones. I felt like there was more to say, but never enough time. Or it was never the right time.

I looked at her bare feet, at her painted toenails.

“Hop in,” I said, opening the door.

Morgan slid next to me in the backseat. Her knees bumped against mine. Neither of us said anything.

In the passenger seat up front, Sebastian twisted around. “No funny business.”

“Shut up,” his sister said.

Driving along US-1, Skully rolled down the window. I dangled my hand until the tips of my fingers turned numb. Nothing to hear except the tires rolling forward and a deep, still quiet of the air rushing by.

I leaned back and listened.