5

Mr. Dixon was tired. He was fat, and his face was always flushed from having to carry himself, but now he was tired of me. He handed me my geometry test while second period filtered in through the departing first period. He leaned back in his chair and appraised me, like he was examining my future in the world of math and deciding that something had to be done one way or the other. “Talk to your counselor,” he suggested.

“I never see my counselor. He’s a dim old man who eats Rolaids.”

“See him. Get transferred out. Either that or study, Peter. You’re a smart kid. But you aren’t working.”

“That’s true. I have a lot on my mind lately.”

“You look a little tired.”

“No, I feel fine.”

He nodded. “Me, too,” he said drily. You have to like someone like Mr. Dixon. He could walk into class carrying his severed arm, look at you, nod hello, nod to the arm, and say, “Little accident.” “You like getting F’s?” he asked.

“No, I hate getting F’s,” I said, but Mr. Dixon was already talking to two girls with admit slips, so I faded from the room; I didn’t mind doing badly at geometry—it’s an antique philosophy of lines and points, neither of which, it starts by admitting, can ever exist in any real place. But I felt that I had disappointed Mr. Dixon. Why should he care? He had seen thousands of geometry students roll like so many boulders down that big empty gorge of classroom upon classroom. He must know inside somewhere that geometry doesn’t matter, or that it is, at best, an acquired taste. But it feels bad to be a failure at something, even at something stupid, and I needed some time to myself so I could think about what was happening.

Harding High was going to be torn down in a few months. It had been condemned because they were afraid if an earthquake hit, the buildings would collapse. Raw holes were kicked in the walls of the hallways, and students had written names and drawn freehand anatomies on the doors. It was like inhabiting a huge piece of trash.

I sauntered into the counselors’ office and blinked because of the blue fluorescent lights there. File cabinets echoed from the insect-brittle tapping of a typewriter. A bell rang far over my head and I closed my eyes for a moment. I took a deep breath. I opened my eyes and there was my counselor, wide-eyed—as if my presence had called him with a jerk from some level of Hades where they manufacture index cards.

He backed away from me. “You can’t just drop in and see me,” he said, breathing antacid into my face. “You have to fill out a request.”

“Mr. Dixon sent me here.”

“Where’s your slip?”

My attention drifted. Hard to believe, I know, but I simply could not focus on someone so inconsequential. I stretched my shoulders and made an effort, bending forward earnestly. “He told me I should see you about transferring from geometry.”

“Mr. Dixon.”

“Yes.”

Mr. Tyler chewed, savored, and swallowed that residue of tummy medicine he had in his mouth. “You were the one who wanted to take geometry.” His face got sharp and he made himself look smart. “I told you you couldn’t handle the work. That’s university prep.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“I told you it would be very difficult, and now here you are.” Spookily, he and I were alone in the office. The typing had stopped. The clock on the lime-green wall made a noise like someone sucking a lozenge, and the minute hand advanced one step. Mr. Tyler glanced around, coughed and patted his coat pocket.

“I wanted to take some math,” I said, trying to sound stupid enough to be harmless. “It’s important to be well-rounded.”

“What did you get in algebra?”

“I don’t remember.”

“As I recall,” he said, patting his breast, “you did very poorly.” He put his hand into his coat like he was adjusting his bra strap. He brought out a small white tube and slipped what looked exactly like a tablet of chalk onto his gray tongue. “Make an appointment,” he said. “And we’ll talk about it.”

I nodded, but his heel had made a squeak like a rusty car door and he was already in his office, a small cubicle behind translucent glass. His form rippled and shifted behind the rough texture of the glass like someone you could not conjure into your memory, a distant relative, or someone who used to be very important who, at that very moment, you cannot recall. It was abrupt, being left there at the counter, and even though I had wanted to be left alone I was not prepared to be left alone in that place.

A secretary clicked across the room to the typewriter. She was a heavyset Latino, pretty black eyebrows, muy made-up, a revvy chassis, but over the hill. She looked at me, passing a pink wad of gum across her tongue as if it were me and, to no one’s surprise, I didn’t taste all that good.

Angela was waiting for me in her green BMW after school, racing the engine in neutral and working the gear knob like it was a penis that refused to comply. “What took you?”

“Nothing took me. I’m just walking along the ground like a normal human being.”

“That would be a first.”

The BMW made toylike squeals as it pushed off from the gutter. She deftly avoided a guy on a motorcycle, and leaned on the horn at two junior high school kids who were crossing Lake Boulevard in a crosswalk. “They’re not back yet,” she said.

“Good,” I said. I admired Angela’s black hair. She was beautiful. There was no question. I was lucky to have her, of course, but then, she was lucky to have me. Mutual good taste. She changed lanes to pass a pickup loaded with branches, and punched buttons on the car stereo. Music thumped the car and I twitched, working my knuckles, frowning at the soreness, feeling for my seat belt, which I found and worked until it clicked. I experimented with it to make sure I was secured by it.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing’s the matter with me.”

“You art like a zombie. What have you been taking?”

“Nothing. My nervous system is completely unaffected by any stimulant or depressant.”

“Maybe that’s what’s wrong with you.”

“Almost certainly.” I pretended to be suave, but I felt about as suave as a cow pie. She offered me a cigarette and I took it, letting the thing flip up and down in my mouth as I talked and waited for the cigarette lighter to pop out, but I did not want to be with Angela that afternoon, and I was sorry her parents weren’t back from Vegas.

She was a year ahead of me. She should have been going to Skyline, but her parents had decided to let her finish her senior year at Harding. Her father had made a lot of money in the past couple of years inventing ways for meat to brown as well as cook in microwave ovens. They had moved out of the mixed neighborhood near Harding and into a new house on stilts overlooking eucalyptus and the expanse of Oakland.

Angela let the BMW fishtail a little going around curves in the hills, flashing in and out of the shade of redwood trees. She jerked the wheel and the car jumped up the driveway. We left the car making the ticking noises cars make as they cool and slipped into a house so new it smelled like Saran Wrap. The carpet was orange, and the new sofa was a blinding blue. Paintings of patio furniture decorated the walls.

I was drawn to the view, to escape the sight of all that newness and to get some wind on my face, but Angela called me back, holding forth a highball like a movie star in some old movie filled with talk and cigarettes. She arrayed herself on the sofa and I stumbled into a leather chair. I settled back, sipping my drink, a tall scotch. The flavor snaked into me and something in me went stiff. I swallowed the drink as fast as I could, hoping some shock to my system would ease me into a new state of mind: clarity. The use of booze as shoehorn is well known, but it is not a surefire method. What is? But I looked at Angela acting, whether she knew it or not, like her mother flirting with a lover, some friend of her husband’s invited up for a little of the wet stuff while hubby was out testing candied hams, and did not like what I saw. Angela is striking to behold. She could be in magazines, in or out of clothes. The sight of her did not please me.

We did the sticky on her parents’ bed, gluey with whiskey and working it hard, like some athletic event, or a twelve-cylinder monster created to consume as much as possible in the shortest space of time. I took the bus home. I told myself that I felt fine, that I would maintain the situation and that Mead’s father would have a long and happy life.

Lani was sitting right in front of me and I had not seen her.

“I was calling to you and you looked right through me,” she said. Her black hair was damp from her postgame shower, and she held a notebook crammed with sheet music.

I realized that I wanted to talk to Lani more than anyone. She was the sort of person you want to have like you, and you want to have understand you. There was a compelling quality in her dark eyes, and the way she looked at me as if she saw me.

“You must be on your way home,” I managed to say.

“Going to piano lessons. You can come, too. My teacher’s very interesting.” Lani has a soft, deep voice, always a little serious, a little formal. “I’ve never met anyone like him.”

I was, stupidly, a little jealous of her piano teacher.

“Maybe someday I will, but not tonight.”

“Are you all right, Peter?”

“I’m fine.”

“I hope so,” she said. “You look so strange.”

“I’ve always been a little strange,” I said, making myself laugh.

“This is different. You should take care of yourself.”

“I’m fine, Lani. Really.”

She flexed her fingers. “He tells me that the muscles for softball and the muscles for piano are not compatible. He tells me I’ll have to decide whether I want to pursue the piano, or the curveball.”

“I’ve never heard you play.”

“You aren’t missing anything. Maybe someday I’ll be as good as I want to be. You know,” she said, changing the subject in an instant, “I’ve never seen any of your drawings.”

“I don’t draw anymore. I used to. But I stopped. I think I’m getting stupid as I grow up.” I laughed, as though I had made a joke. “Premature senility.”

“I think you should draw. I bet you’re a marvelous artist.”

I felt hot, pleased and embarrassed. “Not that marvelous—”

“I expect a lot of you, Peter. You’re not an ordinary person at all.”

“It might be good to be ordinary. A major achievement, far beyond my reach.”

She looked at me, hard. “Are you sure you feel all right?”