Me, Keith, and Treat are standing on the back patio looking out at an empty backyard. Treat reminds us that only dorks show up to parties on time. “We got a can’t-miss formula. Free beer and a band. Totally punk rock.”
The words are barely out of his mouth when a couple guys who lettered in Academic Decathlon come walking in through the side gate.
“Great,” Keith says. “Dorks.”
Treat snaps his chin up like he made those guys appear. He grabs a couple fake beers from one of the coolers, walks across the grass, and slips one to each of them. They’re all thanks and head bobs because neither one of them has probably ever had a guy that looks like Treat actually be nice to him.
“See?” Treat says when he gets back to the patio.
“That’s two people,” I say.
“Yeah,” Keith says. “That just makes this a Math Club party.”
Treat folds his arms. He’s wearing his black Buzzcocks T-shirt, the one with the sleeves cut off so it matches his sleeveless Levi’s jacket. “Come here,” he says, and waves me and Keith over to a little red cooler hidden behind the big ones. He digs down below the Löwenbräu on top and pulls out bottles of Coors. “This is the real stuff.” He clicks the caps off one at a time and hands them out. “It’ll help us relax.”
“Awesome,” Keith says and takes a big drink from one like it’s a soda. He pops the bottle out of his mouth and coughs with his whole body, and some beer foams out of his lips and crackles down onto the cement.
“You okay?”
Keith sucks in a deep breath and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “Fizzy,” he says, his voice hissing like he has a cold.
“You don’t suck it,” I say and pull the bottle up to my mouth. “Tilt it back and let the beer come to you.” This is how Uncle Ryan showed me one summer at Seaside Heights. I’ve only done it with birch beer, though, so when the real stuff hits my throat, it’s bitter and the back corners of my mouth squeeze like they’re trying to stop it from getting to my throat.
I only mean to show Keith how it’s done and that’s all, but Treat clinks my bottle, then Keith’s, and we all take a good draw. This time the beer washes around and then attacks the insides of my cheeks. I swallow and a breeze swirls around inside my skull. My mouth tugs at itself again and there’s still a taste in there, kind of dry and slowly going away. Almost good.
Treat takes another good swig and opens the glass sliding door to the house. “I’m going to tell Lyle people are starting to show up.”
They are. It’s mostly freshmen and sophomores forming into small circles out in the grass, standing and looking over at the coolers. When one guy breaks free and comes over to the patio, Keith says, “Grab a beer.” The guy looks relieved and waves up his group. A few more people break off, get a beer, and head back to re-form their circle. Pretty soon, everyone’s getting chattier and goofier and breaking off old groups and re-forming new ones around the yard.
I’m nearly to the bottom of my beer when two girls wearing ripped-up jeans and T-shirts come walking around the side of the house to the patio. One of them has this black leather jacket, kind of Fonzie but with buckles and silver studs. The other girl has short black hair spiked up and flaring out.
Keith’s digging out a couple beers for them and I say, “Do you know who that is?” because it’s Cherise and Edie. Cherise is the one looking tough with that jacket and thick black eyeliner. Edie’s eyeliner is in these long thin lines that make her eyes look sharp and less relaxed than usual. Up close, she’s got purple streaks in her hair, like fireworks arching up into the sky right before they explode. Her striped shirt is supertight, and her jeans have two massive slits in them, one by each thigh.
I hand Edie a beer. “Where’d you get those?”
She pushes a leg out, the slit parting like a curtain to show lots of skin. “I made them.” She takes a sip of her fake beer, wrinkling her nose a little as she pulls it away. “Are you guys nervous?”
Keith takes a swig of his beer and it looks smooth now the way he lets it come to him. “I’m a little nervous.”
Not until my bottle is an inch from my lips do I realize how light it is, that I must have finished it off on the last drink. “Me too,” I say and tip the bottle back anyway.
Cherise is looking out into the yard. “Where’s Treat?”
“He’s around,” Keith says. “Probably making changes to the set list.”
Cherise and Edie nod, real serious. The way Keith says “set list,” it’s like we really are a real band. Treat’s Mohawk is as big as ever, and even though Keith’s wearing a plain white T-shirt, he’s written Muck the Fan on it big in black marker, and it looks good with his collared long-sleeve shirt unbuttoned over it. I’ve got Treat’s black Minor Threat shirt underneath my Packy jacket, which makes everything okay the way it covers the fact that this shirt is way too big for me. And even without Mohawks, me and Keith have our hair messed up and stiff with hair spray Keith stole from his mom.
Cherise tugs at Edie’s shirt and Edie gives her an All right, already look. “We’re going to go walk around a little,” Edie says.
The yard is changing by the second. You can’t see all the way to the deck/stage anymore. Every few feet is a clump of people and this chatty murmur hovering over everything. I don’t even realize Petrakis is talking to us until Keith taps me. He’s got a six-pack of Pabst in one hand and shakes our hands with the other. It’s actually a normal handshake, not like he’s trying to prove he can bench-press a Pontiac. “Good party, little dudes. Where’s the beer?”
“In your hand,” Keith says.
He laughs and I point to the coolers. “Right there.”
Petrakis half turns his body, like a door opening, and a couple football players walk by and start fishing around in the coolers.
“You gonna spit on people?” Petrakis says. “Like van Doren does?”
“You know it,” Keith says and clinks his beer bottle to Petrakis’s cans.
“How ’bout you?” he says to me.
“I might just throw up on them.”
Petrakis clinks my empty beer bottle. “Kick ass.” He looks out into the yard and tells Keith he wants him to meet some of the guys from the team. It’s been a good season and they think Keith really is a good-luck charm.
The yard is full now, the groups grown together into a single mass of people. I don’t recognize anybody, and that’s what gets my stomach tightening again. My eyes go to the grass, trying to focus on the most basic thing I can see, a single blade catching some light from the back of the house. For a minute, my head rises above the murmur, blocks out the sounds of people laughing and asking their friends when they think DikNixon will get there. It’s just chatter and blur until the clacking of wood gets me looking over at the side fence. There’s a guy in midair, one hand on the fence and feet flying over sideways. He thumps to the ground and three more guys pop up and over right behind him. Everybody along that side of the yard looks and you don’t need much light to know that a guy in combat boots with cropped hair and three friends behind him like bodyguards has to be van Doren and the rest of Filibuster.
Van Doren looks out at the yard while a couple of the Filibuster guys come over and grab four beers. They bring him one and he barely tilts his head at all, instead lifting the bottle, letting the beer come to him, then dropping his hand so the bottle slides through until the last second when he catches it with two fingers around the lip. It dangles there the way you’d hold a lantern or something, like he’s forgotten he even has it until the next sip.
Keith comes back then, a new beer in hand. “How’s he do that?”
“I don’t know. My uncle Ryan never had a move like that.”
Van Doren looks right at me. His eyes move just a bit to the side, to Keith, then back to me. He doesn’t blink or look away either. He walks through the middle of his own group and over to us.
“Good crowd,” he says.
It’s a great crowd. Bigger than Ted Two or Three. Maybe as big as them combined. So I nod, but Keith doesn’t. He looks down at his beer, the cap still on, studying the label like it’ll say Vintage 1925 and he can talk about what a good year that was. “It’s not bad.”
Van Doren looks at Keith without moving his head. “Not bad? I’d have been shitting bricks if this many people showed up the first time we played.”
Keith looks up. “I’d be shitting bricks too, but it’s not our first gig.”
“Then you know better than to wait too long to play,” van Doren says, his eyes back on me. “So you don’t lose the crowd.”
Me and Keith nod and van Doren steps back and looks us over. “Okay, then, boys, break a face.”
As soon as he turns around I say, “We better play soon or he might.”
“We can wait a little longer,” Keith says. “Make them really want us.”
I just want to get it over with now. It’s like one of those huge tests you’ve been dreading all day and keep thinking: Three hours from now I’ll be taking it, then two hours, then forty-five minutes. The closer it gets, the less chance for the teacher to go home sick or the Soviets to attack and save you. “Where’s Treat?”
“Somewhere,” Keith says. He swishes the beer around in his bottle and flicks his head like something is over my shoulder. “Guess who.”
Over by Mrs. Dumovitch’s rosebushes is a circle of girls away from everyone else. It’s dark over there except for the garden lights along the ground and the light shimmering through the bottles they’re holding. Wine coolers. I can’t tell one silhouette from the other at first; then the shape of Astrid’s hair appears. It’s parted down the middle tonight with the Farrah Fawcett feathers on each side. It couldn’t be less punk rock, but it’s so perfect.
One of the girls, Sascha, comes walking over to the patio. She’s wearing these dark blue jeans that are about as tight as security at the Kremlin. Keith grabs a beer for her, tucking his own beer into his armpit, using both hands to dry the new bottle off with the bottom of his shirt.
She clinks the bottle with one of the rings on her fingers and doesn’t take it. “I’m fine,” she says. With Keith holding a beer in each hand now, it’s like Sascha’s got him handcuffed. She pushes open Keith’s collar and inspects his neck. “Looks like I’m going to have to freshen up your marks tonight.”
Keith nods and tries not to smile too big. “Maybe I should mark you too.”
Sascha puts a hand on the back of his neck and pulls him closer. It looks real sexy the way her head tilts sideways and her mouth opens just a little right as she starts kissing him. She pulls away and pushes him back a little. “Better. Much softer that time.”
“Thanks.”
“If you play good,” she says loud enough for me to hear, “you can mark me somewhere no one can see.” You might think she’d smile with that, leave it open in case she wants it to be a joke, but it’s not. Her face is serious, her eyes locking Keith up until she walks away.
Keith sips a beer and holds it there until Sascha’s turned completely around. He pulls the bottle from his lips and it’s the wrong one, the one with bottle cap still on it.
“Smooth,” I say.
“She is,” Keith says and turns to me. “We need to play right now.”
“Okay. Where’s Treat?”
Even in a yard full of people and just patchy light, it should be easy to spot a Mohawk sticking up. But we don’t see him.
“He’s got to be in the house,” Keith says and looks out at the deck/stage. “You go check and I’ll stall.”
“How?”
Keith steps over to the coolers to pop open the bottle he got for Sascha and a second new bottle, which he gives to me. “Flip on the utility lights when you see me up there; I’ll do a sound check.” He nods once, looking more excited than nervous, and heads into the crowd.
I step inside the glass sliding door and close it, the house as quiet as a confessional. Nobody is even looking at the deck/stage when Keith hops onto it without using the steps. I flip the switch and the deck/stage lights up, even brighter now that it’s night and so dark back there. Everyone in the yard turns around. There’s a muffled cheer that dies down as Keith steps into an orb of light. Behind him, the DikNixon logo glows in white light and Keith picks up the bullhorn: “Check, check, check. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Check-check. Fuck-fuck.” Every time he says “fuck” a few people cheer, then a few more after the next one, and even more after the one after that until everyone is getting into it. “Check. Fuck. Check, fuck,” he says faster and faster. “Check, fuck, check-fuck, checkfuck, checkfuck, checkfuck.” Everyone’s cheering and Keith waits until they quiet just a little before yelling, “Fuck Czechoslovakia!” The yard explodes in a roar. Van Doren and the guys from Filibuster are at the front edge of the deck/stage, holding up their beers, saluting Keith as he waves and sets the bullhorn down.
Mr. Krueger always tells us it’s important to be thorough so you don’t have to go back and check what you’ve already checked. So I look for Treat in the bathroom, the kitchen, the hallway, and his own room. In a corner of the dark Two-Car Studio there’s this guy and girl making out, arms and hair twisted up and fused together so you can’t see who’s who or where one person ends and the other begins. “Treat?” The guy’s head peeps out at me. No Mohawk. “Sorry,” I say.
Now I’m nervous. I mean, it’s easy to lose a person in a crowded backyard, but not the lead singer of the band that’s about to play, and not at his own house.
I’m down to two rooms, Jewell’s and Mr. and Mrs. D’s. The last thing you want to do is go into a guy’s parents’ room, so I step into Jewell’s room, running my hand along the wall for the light switch.
“Don’t,” says a low voice.
My eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark, but I can feel the voice coming from the beanbag chair by the window. And there, with just the glow of streetlights coming through, is the silhouette of Treat’s Mohawk.
“Treat. We’re ready to start.”
His voice comes through the dark just louder than a whisper. “I’m not.”
“Come on, everyone’s waiting for us. Didn’t you hear the sound check?”
The Mohawk drops a little and his face is so dark there’s no telling what he’s up to. “Let them wait.”
“Come on, Treat. Astrid’s here and everything, just like you said.”
Nothing.
“Cherise is here too. Have you seen her? She looks so cool.”
“What the hell do I care?”
“I don’t know. Just, come on.”
Treat takes a deep breath and lets it out with his words: “I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
He doesn’t say anything and I start rubbing my hand along the wall again. My thumb finds the switch, and bam, the lights are on.
Treat is slung across the beanbag chair, his arms out to each side, his feet on the ground and knees up almost as high as his head. He’s surrounded by stuffed animals, elephants and cartoon dogs, some of them falling over and resting on his arms like they crawled up to him. He squints at the light and right there on the floor by his boots is a lunar surface of barf.
“Are you sick? How many beers have you had?”
The Mohawk fans out sideways and Treat talks to the floor. “Go away.”
An ache shoots from my heart and through to my fingers and toes. “Everybody’s here, Treat. Everybody. They’re waiting for us.”
He throws Goofy at me but misses. “Get the fuck out of here, Reece.”
It’s not real. It’s that dream where your locker won’t open and the bell’s ringing and you’re spinning the dial and the combo won’t come. Your heart’s rattling in your chest and then you’re running and it’s the wrong classroom, and the wrong classroom again, until finally it’s the right one. You hit your desk and the teacher doesn’t say a thing but there’s a test waiting for you that’s worth 150 percent of your complete high school career. Only then, at that very moment, do you remember that, yes, there was a test coming and, no, you haven’t studied for it. It’s all your fault. You’re not ready, not even a little bit, but you pick up your pencil anyway and, poof, wake up.
Only, I’m not waking up. The murmur from the backyard seeps into the house. The bathroom door shuts with a soft click and a girl giggles because she’s not in there alone. It’s all happening. Now. None of this seems real. Not when Treat yells, “Go! Get out of here!” Not when I’m walking through the hallway and toward the glass sliding door.
From the back patio, the deck/stage glows like sunrise. Everybody in the yard is a silhouette, staring at the stage, watching Keith pretend to tune his guitar.
I slip through a forest of people. When I get to the top of the three steps on the side of the deck/stage, a few people start chanting, “Nix-on, Nix-on.” More people notice and the chant grows nice and steady.
Keith grins and says, “What’s Cf?” He sets down the bass, takes a sip of beer.
His words don’t make sense. “I don’t know, Keith.”
“Californium,” he says. “The element that keeps the state warm all year-round. Atomic number seventy-two.”
I don’t laugh and Keith looks back at the steps. “Where’s Treat?”
I step around him, set down the beer I haven’t taken a single drink of, and pick up the bullhorn. It’s heavy in my hand and when I step into the orb of light, everything goes quiet. I’m the center of the universe, and with the utility lights, I can’t see anyone past the first couple feet. But this is almost how it was supposed to be: Astrid out there in the darkness with her cheerleading friends, Ted and Sergio and Petrakis ready to start a slam pit. And van Doren’s below me for once, right there at the edge of the deck/stage and waiting to see what comes down on his head. Only, it feels more like I’m standing up in class about to recite the periodic table. If I get it perfect, nobody will care. If I get it wrong, I’ll look stupid-times-everybody, squared.
“Check, check,” I say, and a couple people yell back, “Fuck, fuck,” and then everyone laughs. The voice coming through the bullhorn is not the me I know. “We just got some bad news,” I say and let the weight of the bullhorn make it sag. It’s quieter now. Everyone listening. Nobody joking. The guys next to van Doren look like I’m about to tell them disco is back and they have to play it.
“We just found out,” I say and it sounds like me again until I pull the bullhorn closer. “We just found out we’re not going to be able to play.”
Everyone groans and somebody yells out, “Bullshit!”
Keith looks at me, like, What the hell? and I need something better than Our lead singer is yakking in his little sister’s bedroom. “The police said they’d shut the party down if we played.”
Everyone groans again, and van Doren says, “Fuck the pigs, man.”
I let the bullhorn drop and it’s me again. “Yeah. F them.”
“No.” Van Doren shakes his head. He leans forward, one hand on the deck/stage, the other cupped around his mouth. Without making a sound, he mouths one word at a time: Fuck. The. Pigs.
It’s like I’m staring at him for five minutes before it hits me. Then the bullhorn is at my lips and I hear the other me say, “Fuck the pigs.”
“Yeah!” someone yells and everyone cheers.
“Fuck. The. Pigs.”
Everyone cheers again and van Doren says, “Go with it.”
“Fuck the fucking pigs!” I yell, and the cheers bounce back at me right away. I have the crowd. Everyone is waiting like the next thing out of my mouth is proof, not hypothesis. “The pigs can’t handle DikNixon,” I say. Everyone cheers. “DikNixon is above the law.” Everyone screams. “You know why the pigs are scared of DikNixon?”
Van Doren turns to the crowd and raises his hands as he shouts out, “Why?”
“Because DikNixon is punk rock.”
Through the roar van Doren starts the chant, “Nix-on! Nix-on!”
Keith steps out next to me, his bass in his left hand, his other hand out like the pope on his balcony. The people at the front of the deck/stage slap the boards with their hands to the beat of “Nix-on, Nix-on.” Me and Keith lock arms. I hold up my other hand too, the bullhorn reaching up high, and we take it in, the whole backyard chanting, “Nix-on, Nix-on. Nix-on, Nix-on.”
I pull Keith down with me into a bow, rise back again and say, “Fuck you very much. Good night!” I fling the bullhorn down, letting it bounce off the planks, and shove Keith to the side.
As I’m leaping off the stage, van Doren hops up. He’s got the bullhorn and he’s keeping the chant going, “Nix-on, Nix-on.” A path opens for me through the middle of the yard. People reach out, shaking my hands, grabbing my shoulders, slapping my back the whole way to the glass sliding door. I get into the house alone, and I don’t know if I’m going to walk straight down the hallway to tell Treat we saved DikNixon or if I’m going to slip into the bathroom and wipe off whatever is making my face feel like it could bust out laughing and crying at the same time right now.
The bathroom door swings open and out steps Astrid. She’s wearing Dr. Martens lace-up boots with black tights that have a cheetah pattern if you look real close. It all disappears into an oversize sweatshirt, and even if it doesn’t quite go together with her hair, it all looks good, like she’s one of the Go-Go’s. Her eyes find me but it takes a second before they open up kind of wide and she says, “Reece?” She looks past me to the backyard, where the chanting is dying down. “Is it over?”
I can’t believe she’s missed it. The first time ever I’ve looked sort of cool in front of everyone who matters and she’s looking at me like she just heard we landed on the moon. “You didn’t hear any of that?” I say. She shakes her head.
Van Doren is still at the bullhorn. It’s muffled through the door, but the word Filibuster comes through and everyone cheers. Then it goes quiet and Astrid gives me the school nurse smile, the closemouthed one that says it’s all going to be okay. She puts a hand on my shoulder and looks at me, a little unsteady. “Listen, there’s something I should tell you. I don’t think people should ever lie, especially if other people could get hurt.” Her hand slips from my shoulder and she takes my right hand in both of hers. “That’s a rule for me. There shouldn’t ever be a reason to break it.”
Her eyes are more relaxed than I’ve ever seen, and even though I’m expecting her to say something more, she doesn’t. She blinks too long, a tiny nap, and I guess that means I’m supposed to say something about lies. Then the list of my lies rolls out in my head—the real reason we aren’t playing, why we tried to be a band in the first place, our gig in San Diego, our gig in LA, and me the fake songwriter—which is fine until me in the bathroom with her panties makes the list. A surge of sick goes through me. My face heats up, and I start talking fast: “Remember how I told you I write the songs?” Astrid doesn’t nod or anything, but I don’t stop. “I had a little help . . .”
The glass sliding door rattles and swishes open. Astrid lets go of my hand as Sascha steps through and over to us, the door wide-open behind her. Astrid turns back to me and I finish, “From Neil Diamond.”
Sascha leans into her. “Neil? Is that the guy I kissed?”
Astrid thinks about it a second, then smiles and says, “Kar-en! Neil Diamond? The singer?”
“Karen?” I say.
Sascha/Karen puts her hand on my chest and pushes me back a step. “You know Neil Diamond? My mom’s gonna shit when I tell her.”
I start explaining, but Astrid puts her hand in the middle of my chest and pets me. “Okay. It’s okay.” She turns to Sascha/Karen. “What?”
Sascha/Karen shrugs. “I think this party’s finito.”
Astrid nods. “Okay.” She breathes in, thinks, and says, “Del Taco, then that party by the Orange Circle.” Sascha/Karen nods and Astrid says, “Go tell everyone. I’ll be out in a sec.”
“Okay, chick.” Sascha/Karen weaves her way back to the door. “I’m gonna go mark that little band boy one more time before we go.”
Astrid smiles and it’s off a little, kind of crooked. “Sometimes Karen takes little vacations from her boyfriend and scams on other guys.”
“That’s who Sascha is?” I say, and Astrid nods. She’s still giving me that relaxed stare. “Is that what you’re talking about? The lying stuff?”
Astrid stares at me, her eyes moving back and forth at each of mine. “I think so. Yes.” Her eyes get big for a second; then she takes another breath and says, “Definitely. Don’t let your friend take Karen too seriously.”
“I think Keith’s just happy somebody kissed him.”
Astrid nods, her eyes close too long again, and I know now where I’ve seen that. Uncle Ryan would do it when he was drunk. Astrid gives my jacket a tug by the zipper and it pulls tight around me for a second, like a hug. She leans forward and kisses my cheek. I can’t take a breath in or let one out. This is it! Sort of. It’s a little wetter, I think, than it should be. It’s soft, but somehow too soft. Loose. I mean, it’s not like a ton of girls I’m not related to have kissed me on the cheek before, but this feels sloppy and too long for a cheek kiss.
Astrid pulls back and says, “Stay sweet, trash buddy.”
“I will,” I say, because what do you say to that? I’m waiting for a tingle from the kiss to spread across my whole face. It doesn’t. It’s more like a good-bye kiss your mom gives you when she’s going to the store. Astrid is out the door, not looking back, and I want to say, Hang on, I need you to help me win a bet. I don’t. I just watch her walk across the patio, pull Sascha/Karen away from Keith, and head for the gate.
The yard’s still full and more people slap me on the back as me and Keith go back to the deck/stage to start unplugging things. I’m winding up cords when Cherise and Edie come up. Cherise is panicked, asking if we know which police station they took Treat to.
“He got arrested?” Keith says.
“Yeah,” I say. “When you were doing the sound check.” Cherise is totally buying this. “It’s okay. He’s back now.”
Cherise puts her hands over her mouth the way Miss America does her happy cry. I tell her that Treat’s inside, pretty sick over the whole thing, but if she doesn’t mind a little barf he’d probably like to see her. She nods and Keith says he can walk her into the house and show her which room is Jewell’s.
Once Cherise and Keith are out of sight, Edie sits down on the steps and says, “What were you talking to your girlfriend about?”
“Cherise?” I crouch down to put Keith’s bass in its case.
“Astrid.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“You’d be her boyfriend if she let you.” When I don’t say anything, Edie shakes her head. “You don’t even know her.”
“I know her.”
“Do you know she calls the police on her own parties to break them up?”
“That’s stupid. No one would call the cops on their own party.”
Edie stands up on the second step, taller than me now. “Are you playing dumb, or are you really just dumb? She calls the police so her parties won’t go too late and she can pretend it’s not her fault.”
That sounds like it would work, you know? Like it could be true. Like I just did something exactly like that.
“You’re such a fraud, Reece.”
“Me?” I want to tell her all about the real Treat, or van Doren at the Whisky, or my parents ever since the night Uncle Ryan died. But Edie’s looking at me like I’m so ugly and sad she can’t figure out if I’m even human.
“The band conveniently doesn’t play,” she says, “and you get to act like a hero. And you pass all those notes and pretend you never read them. Or even care.”
“I care,” I say, but I’m not sure what I’m saying I care about.
A few people around us are looking over and whispering. Keith’s coming back from the house and stops when he gets close to the deck/stage. He looks at Edie, then me, then turns around and disappears into the crowd.
“If you cared about anyone but yourself,” Edie says, “you wouldn’t be kissing the girl who tried to ruin your party.”
“She kissed me.”
“You let her. What’s the difference?” Edie stares at me and waits, like maybe I’m hiding something behind my back. “Well?”
Edie’s been with us the whole way. The fake San Diego gig was her idea. If I’m a fraud, what’s she? “I don’t understand why you’re mad at me.”
“Of course you don’t,” she says. “You never have the answers.” She goes down the steps and into the yard. “See you in math class, friend.” She slips past a couple people, then shoves through a group that’s in her way.
This shouldn’t matter, you know, not with all the good stuff that’s happened with Astrid, but my stomach goes from spinning to falling. It’s like watching the string break and your kite fly away—you’re stunned for maybe a second, maybe less, but that’s all it takes. If you didn’t go after it right away, you’re not going to get it back now, so you don’t even run.
Keith comes up to the steps a few minutes later, smiling. He says the guys in Filibuster want us to play a party with them in a couple weeks. “We’re for real,” he says. “Our fourth gig and it’s with Filibuster.”
“Fourth?”
Keith nods. He’s doing what Mr. Tomita always warns us not to do, mix up the known with the unknown. Then you do not solve for x, he says and bounces on his toes. You have to go back and solve for why. Why did I do that? Why won’t the answer come out right?
When Keith heads back to talk to the guys from Filibuster, I go through the house and into the Two-Car Studio. I look around without turning on the light, the chairs and carpet and boxes, there but not there in the dark. Then I rip off my jacket and throw it out into the nothingness. I don’t know why exactly. It’s like it can’t come home with me or something even though my parents know all about it now and what it all means and there’s no taking any of that stuff back. But I leave without it anyway..
.
Walking home, I try not to think about Treat, or the band, or anything. You’d think having all those people cheer for you and a girl like Astrid Thompson kiss you would be the greatest thing ever. But Edie won’t get out of my head, how great she looked, how mad she was. Angry too. And why is that all for me? Keith and Treat are frauds too.
I have a beer in me so I’m careful to stick to the sidewalks all the way through Treat’s neighborhood. And even though there aren’t that many cars around, I walk to the corner and wait for the WALK sign at Yorba Linda Boulevard before crossing. My eyes are wide-open the whole way, but all I can really see is that disgusted look on Edie’s face.
My arms are chicken-skin cold and hurting a little by the time I get to the soccer fields. The dew is collecting again, the dampness hovering just above the grass, and my toes stiffen up and get achy inside my Converse. The fields glow in the park lights. They’re smoothed over again like they haven’t been trampled on all day. Like nothing’s happened at all. Or maybe it’s just that after everything that did happen all day, nothing has really changed.