MERIT BADGE: SWEET REVENGE
“And here’s to Isaac,” says Lesley, standing, plastic cup of white wine held high, her gaze affixed on me, “who has been through the wringer and is still doing a great job, even though his jerk brother is a jerk to him.”
“I’ll drink to that!” says Terri, and knocks her cup against Patrick’s, while Josh shakes his head and rolls his eyes.
The backyard, Sunday. Perfect summer evening: warm, slight breeze, birds calling. Paper plates, hot dogs blackened and blistered from the grill, corn, potato salad, something radioactive-looking that Terri made, called Strawberry Mess. And the best ingredient of all: the Magic Impenetrable Lesley Force Field protecting me from Josh.
“You are doing a great job,” says Lesley to me, and leans across the picnic table to give me a big mmmmuh! kiss on the forehead before she sits down again. I look over at Josh, grinning, and he’s looking back evenly, chewing slowly on the inside of his cheek.
Josh has been looking at me like this the whole afternoon and evening, his gaze saying, We both understand this game. You can stand on that side of the Force Field and throw turds at me, and I can’t do anything about it, not even act upset.
Until later, when you’ll pay dearly.
And I smile back, saying, Yes, I’ll pay later. But in the meantime I’m going to be standing here right at this line, just out of your reach, chucking as much crap at you as possible. Which is what I’ve been doing. It’s awesome.
Awesome from the beginning, when Lesley arrived, instantly erasing all the pain and horror of the week.
It had been a very full day: hard morning workout with special attention paid to how to escape the mount position, various chores around the house, marathon study session. Around two o’clock I was finishing washing the car in the driveway, Josh the Overseer indicating molecules of dirt that I had missed. I was polishing the tires when I heard a familiar hum and looked up to see Lesley approaching the house on her Vespa.
“Hey,” I said, because the sight was so unexpected, “it’s Lesley!”
“Good job, Isaac. Figured that out on the first guess. She’s here for dinner.”
She pulled into the driveway, hopped off, removed her helmet, ignored Josh completely, and came right over to me to give me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, lover,” she said.
Lover, like she read my mind the other day at breakfast and remembered it. Lover.
Then she turned to Josh and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, and there was a pause and some sort of obscure communication between the two of them, and then he held out his arms and they hugged, but I don’t think it was anything like what I got from her.
She pulled a bag of potatoes out of the little storage thingy on the back of her Vespa, tossed the bag to Josh, and we all went into the house together, me tagging along as he gave her the quick tour, gruff as always, Lesley glancing over at me with that conspiratorial smile, both of us grinning and making fun of Josh.
Terri and Patrick were out back on the porch, Terri doing Lisa’s nails for what had to be the tenth time. Lesley knew both Terri and Patrick—hugs, kisses, how’s this person, what happened with so-and-so. Then, to me, “Well, you saw my place. You going to show me your room?”
Yes.
We went to my room, Patrick and Terri’s clothes strewn about on the floor and over the unmade bed.
“This isn’t my stuff,” I said quickly.
“Really? That’s not your thong?”
She stepped into the middle of the room and did a slow, full 360, taking it all in. I tried to time it just right, moving behind her field of vision like I was ducking behind the sweeping spray of a rotating lawn sprinkler, making it to the chair and its embarrassing occupant while she was looking in the other direction, hoping she hadn’t spotted the stuffed Snoopy. Then she suddenly reversed course and twisted back toward me, and we had a moment of her regarding me as I stood there posterized, holding Snoopy.
“Um . . .” I say.
“I’ve got one just like that,” she said, and gave it a pat-pat. My love grew even stronger.
“So,” she said then, “here we are.”
“Right.”
I know when she’s being flirty she’s being ironic, but I’ll take what I can get.
“Did you get in trouble for being late to school?” she said.
“No. School was . . .” Horrible. “Fine.”
She cocked her head. “Did something happen?”
“No.”
She squinted. “Really?”
“Yes. Thanks for letting me stay over,” I said, hoping to shift things back in that direction. “I didn’t want to come home.”
She picked up one of Patrick’s combat boots, which was resting on my pillow. He really has it in for my pillow.
“Yes, I can see why.”
She chucked the boot onto the carpet, then stood with her hands on her hips, tapping her foot, examining me. Then she walked to the door and leaned out to make sure no one was around before turning to me and saying, “How are you?”
“I’m okay.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Josh is being all right with you?”
“He’s . . .”
“Being Josh.”
“Yes.”
“I let him have it, you know, about everything.”
“Oh. Maybe you shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, I made him promise to be nicer to you.”
I nodded. I had a fair idea of what sort of behavior that particular conversation was going to produce.
“You’ll tell me if he’s being mean to you again?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“I like you, Isaac. You’re my bud.”
“I know. Thanks. I like you, too.”
“Good. Hey, you have my favorite shirt?”
And so I had to reveal to her about the whole thing with the Assholes. It wasn’t so bad, though, because we ended up sitting on my bed, Lesley telling me what jerks they are and how great I am, her arm around my shoulder to comfort me, and we were sitting like that when Josh came in to fetch us.
“Hey, lovers, hope I’m not interrupting,” he said.
“Josh, you jerk,” she said, and that’s when the game really got going.
We all gathered in the kitchen, the action centering on two acti- vities: cooking, and Let’s Get Josh. There was a strange charge in the air—layers of warmth and celebration and joviality, a happy reunion, and intercut with it all was an unmistakable whiff of bitter aggression. It’s like everyone sensed that there was Kryptonite in the room, that Josh was temporarily without his powers, and everyone wanted to get in a few shots while they had a chance.
Everyone, it turned out, had a funny story about Josh, each with the same theme: You know about the time when Josh completely lost his temper because of ______ and did ______?
All the tales were like that. You know about the time he got so angry at that dude on the motorcycle and was chasing him down the middle of the street in his underwear, trying to catch him? Did you know about that time when he dumped that whole massive stock pot of cold gazpacho on the dishwasher? Remember the time ______?
It was like a storm cloud forming, organic, spontaneous. Except it wasn’t. The more I observed, the more I could see what was happening, could see Lesley subtly orchestrating everything. Little verbal nudges to people. Didn’t you have some story about . . . ? Really? Tell us more! And then gentle hints that she knows something juicy but really can’t share it, really, she can’t, no, no, never mind, forget I said anything—oh, all right. There was this time . . .
She’s got great stories, stories I’d never imagined. So do Patrick and Terri.
But no one’s as good at it as me.
I’ve known Josh for a lot longer than they have, and I’ve seen the soft parts they haven’t: the portions of Josh’s existence that are about having parents, about being a child in a family. You know that embarrassing something, whatever it is? That feeling of not wanting anyone to see your parents drop you off at the soccer game, because it shows that you’re not a totally independent person, that there are people in your life you answer to and who used to wipe your rear end for you, and not that long ago? I’m the witness of that something for Josh. I’ve seen it and know all about it. I’m the one who can put gouges in his hardened exterior.
The time Josh got so angry he went to sit on the roof and wouldn’t come down for hours. The time Josh body-slammed the lawn mower on the driveway. The time my mom got so angry at Josh that she sent him up to the roof and wouldn’t let him come down for hours. The time . . .
I feel powerful and reckless, everyone’s laughter urging me on. Lisa listens, wide-eyed, giggling when everyone else laughs, especially Terri. Lesley literally says, “More! More!” The frog is very much on the scene, singing and dancing his heart out.
So now we’re out back eating, the game of Let’s Get Josh still continuing, if not at the same intensity. The whole time Josh has taken it with barely a word, smiling a grimacey, pained smile, nodding. Each story and joke I tell is another deposit into the bank of I’m Gonna Get My Ass Kicked. But that’s going to happen anyways, right?
Whenever I want, I can put my gaze on Lesley. That in and of itself is nice. What’s better is that as soon as she notices, as soon as our eyes meet, I get our Look. We’re still part of the same secret club. At school I might be a friendless loser, but I have Lesley.
“Hey, I’ve got another story,” says Terri, who I think has had a bit too much wine. “Remember that time that Trish—”
As soon as she says that name, Josh shifts in his seat, taking a sharp breath in through his nose. It’s the first time he has betrayed any real annoyance at all.
“Hey,” he says quietly, and Terri says, “What?”
“Terri,” says Patrick, looking at her.
“What, we can’t talk about Trish?”
“Yeah, why can’t we talk about Trish?” says Lesley, who I think maybe has also had a bit more wine than she should.
“I’m gonna head in and clean up,” says Josh.
There are glances exchanged when Josh goes in, and Terri says, “What? What’s the big deal?” Then we all sit and talk for a while until it gets dark, and I say, “Why don’t I build a fire?”
We sit around the fire pit, Lesley next to me, sometimes putting her arm around me. We sing campfire songs, or the fractions of campfire songs that everyone remembers. We talk and laugh and tell jokes. The air above the fire shimmers, sparks rising up, and I follow their drifting spirals with my eyes. They’re like this magical evening, I think, floating and dancing weightlessly into the sky, taking my cares away with them.
After a while Josh comes back out again and tells Lisa to go to bed, and off she goes. He sits down with no explanation or apology. He puts himself on the other side of Lesley, but she mostly ignores him, keeping her arm around me. The Force Field is still in effect.
After a little while longer Terri says, “Let’s go in,” and we do. Now we’re in the TV room. Patrick is kind of spread over my dad’s easy chair, Terri in his lap, taking a break now and then from her fortieth cup of wine to trade sloppy, wet kisses with Patrick. I try not to look.
Josh and Lesley and I are on the sofa, Lesley still between us. I’m slouched down, feeling warm and relaxed and contented, included in the circle of big kids. The conversation has been waxing and waning, topics surfacing, discussed, fading away to periods of silence. I know that when Lesley goes home, the Force Field will go home with her, and I’m planning a very rapid retreat to the tent when that happens.
“Okay, y’all,” says Patrick, standing and stretching, Terri with her arms around him for support, “we’re gonna hit the hay.”
They weave out of the room, a tipsy four-legged creature.
It’s silent now. I feel almost hypnotized, slouched so low that my body is parallel with the floor, hands folded over my stomach, looking up at the ceiling. Lesley is next to me, our sides touching. When was the last time I felt this at peace, this happy? The other night when I was in her bed, I guess. Other than that, never.
“Isaac,” says Josh.
“What?”
He doesn’t answer, finally forcing me to struggle up into a sitting position and look at him. He gives me a look: head inclined toward me, eyebrows up, then a jerk of the eyes in the direction of the backyard.
“What?”
“Bedtime.”
“No.”
“Yes,” says Josh.
“No, I think I’ll hang out,” I say, and glance to Lesley so we can share our Look.
But it’s not there.
I’m alone.
She smiles at me, an apologetic twitch of the lips, and she looks away. Then I see her hand. It’s resting on Josh’s hand, their fingers intertwined. Josh’s eyes are boring into mine, and suddenly I understand what his gaze has been saying this whole time, understand why he never bothered to react, understand what the game really is and that I’m the one who lost.
I get up without a word, without looking at them, feeling a numbness, the kind that comes right after you’ve hurt yourself and before the pain really kicks in.
“Good night, Isaac,” says Lesley, but I don’t answer, just keep going down the hall, out the door, into the night.