I tell joni everything.
Then she tells Chuck.
A few days pass between the events of these two sentences. But the effect is the same.
I find out from Infinite Darlene. This alone means trouble, since Infinite Darlene tries to put as many degrees of separation as possible between herself and Chuck.
“Oh, honey,” she says, “they were talking about it in the locker room.”
“Talking about what?” I ask.
And she tells me: They were talking about me and Kyle, and me and Noah.
Then it gets worse.
“I’m only telling you for your own good,” Infinite Darlene murmurs under her breath. “Rip is in on it.”
Rip is our resident oddsmaker. His parents own islands, so his allowance allows him to bet on just about anything: How many times will the principal’s secretary use the word the in the morning announcements? How many kids will pass by classroom 303 between sixth and seventh periods? What color will Trilby Pope wear the most in the month of April? Rip is ready to make the odds and stand by them.
He loves betting on how long couples will last.
“What are my odds?” I ask.
Infinite Darlene pouts a little at me. “Darlin’, you don’t want to know that, do you?” I’m serious.
Infinite Darlene sighs. “It’s six to one that you end up with Noah, five to one that you end up back with Kyle, and two to one that you botch both chances and end up alone in the next twenty days.”
“Which did you bet on?”
Infinite Darlene flutters her eyelashes at me. “A girl never tells,” she chirps. Then she spirits herself away.
I wonder what the odds are that Noah has heard the gossip. Two to one? Even?
I haven’t noticed any change in his heart, any sudden suspicion or wariness. And I’ve been seeing him a lot the past week. We’ve been dating. On Wednesday we sneaked into the city after school, to go to a museum free night and look at all the people there. The art students stood like intellectual twigs in worn-through sweaters, while the too-beautiful Europeans dipped and glided around them, conversing in languages both floral and spicy. On Thursday we hung out with Tony. It felt like ages since I’d last seen him. Noah and Tony seemed to get along pretty okay, although Noah’s presence did complicate the homework routine.
We’ve also been kissing like crazy. Hours pass and we don’t notice. We have all the time in the world because it feels like, for once, the world is giving us the time we need.
Luckily, I haven’t had to disappear from everyone else’s lives in order to be a part of Noah’s. We don’t want to be that kind of couple (see: Joni and Chuck). I’ve also had time to check in with Kyle, for shorter amounts of time. It’s hard to resist the pull of someone who needs you. We’ve kept all of our exchanges limited to conversation—but the fact that we’re having conversations at all means something. Neither of us knows what.
I find myself relieved that both Noah and Kyle are going away for the weekend—Noah to hang with his old-town friends, Kyle to visit an ailing aunt.
Joni makes the mistake of approaching me on Friday afternoon, after I’ve talked to Infinite Darlene. Chuck is at her side. The fact that she doesn’t realize I know she blabbed is more amazing than the fact that I didn’t know in the first place.
“We’re going to pick up Tony,” she says. “Wanna come?”
These are perhaps the only words in the world that could get me into a car with her at this point. She appeals to the part of me that yearns for instant time travel—a trip to the not-so-long-ago, when Tony, Joni, and I were a band of three.
Of course, this time Chuck comes along. He doesn’t offer me the front seat. He takes it as if it’s rightfully his.
Joni doesn’t seem to notice.
So I sit in the backseat amidst the empty Fresh Samantha bottles (hers) and smashed Pepsi cans (his). I wonder when Joni stopped recycling in a prompt manner, and start to regret my voluntary passengerdom. The anger I feel towards Joni for sharing my thoughts with Chuck begins to reach the boiling point again. I vow to talk to her at the first moment I can catch her without him.
That moment never comes. They don’t even take bathroom breaks from each other.
My testiness is a little offset once Tony jumps into the backseat with me; now I have someone to share glances with. The first glance—me wide-eyed, Tony’s eyebrow raised—comes when Chuck hijacks the radio and blasts some Testosterone Rock, the kind of music best suited for “professional” wrestling compilations. The second glance—me squinting in disbelief, Tony looking to heaven—is prompted when Chuck starts to sing along and chastises us for not joining in. As if I know the lyrics to a song called “She’s All Mouth.”
Joni doesn’t sing along, either, but she makes a lame attempt at drumming on the steering wheel. At one point, she accidentally hits the horn, which cracks Chuck up.
“Nice toots,” he chuckles.
Third glance—me and Tony each pleading, Get us out of this car now.
We head to the local diner, the kind of place where you need a mob connection in order to get your song on the jukebox. The waitresses are perfectly lacquered, the waiters freshly slicked. The menu is the size of a wood plank and takes as long to read as the morning paper. Breakfast is always served, most of the time as dinner.
As we sit down in a booth, I see Joni’s eyes briefly flash worry. It’s the first non—Chuck-related reaction she’s had since I got into her car. Or at least that’s what I think at first. Soon I realize that all her reactions are Chuck-related in some way.
I turn and follow her gaze. I see Ted sitting three tables away with Jasmine Gupta. His back is to me, but when Jasmine sees me looking, she winks.
Kyle could take lessons from Jasmine—she’ll fall for anybody, guy or girl. The hitch is that the person has to be on the rebound from a serious break-up. Something about this fragile-yet-vindictive state entrances her.
The old Joni comes back to us for a brief moment.
“I see Ted’s finally gone the predictable route,” she snarks. (In all his other break-ups with Joni, he had chosen not to flee in Jasmine’s direction.)
“He’s scum,” Chuck mutters, perhaps because he thinks it’s his duty to do so.
“No, he’s not,” I say pleasantly.
“What’s everybody getting to eat?” Tony interjects. One of the weaknesses of being mellow is an inability to deal with non-mellow moments.
“I bet Joni’ll get the grilled swiss,” Chuck says with a smile.
“He knows me so well!” Joni replies. I wonder whether that’s really what she’d planned to order.
What have you done with the old Joni, you imposter?!
“That sounds good,” Tony says. Our waitress arrives and we are freed from one another’s conversation for a minute or two. After she leaves, we stick to non-controversial topics like school and homework. It is all terribly boring, which is not something our diner excursions used to be.
Of course, I blame Chuck. And Joni, for being with Chuck.
I can see her trying to watch Ted without appearing to watch Ted. I know she can read the back of his head like the rest of us can read a facial expression.
We make it through the meal. Tony becomes voluble about a church retreat his parents are threatening to send him on.
“That’s just plain wrong,” Chuck declares, spearing a french fry.
After we finish eating, we head to the pinball machines at the back of the diner. Let me tell you—nothing can compare to putting the entirety of your fate in a small metal sphere that bounces across light, sound, and plastic. The machines still only cost a quarter, and each of us has our superstitions. I always play best when I use a Georgia or Rhode Island quarter. Tony is partial to Pennsylvania and Maryland. Ted, I know, has a stack of Connecticuts in a drawer at home; sometimes we swap in the cafeteria to build our own caches.
Tony and I always take turns off the same machine, decked out in gold lights and Elvis. It plays “Love Me Tender” if you break 10,000. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” greets you at 25,000. A losing shot ends with “Heartbreak Hotel.”
Chuck commandeers his own machine—sometimes he splits flippers with Joni, sometimes he chooses to go it alone, with her cheering him on.
About fifteen minutes after we start playing, Ted and Jasmine come over.
“What are you gay boys doing?” he asks me and Tony.
“Who are you calling a gay boy, loser?” Chuck shouts out.
“Uh, Chuck?” I say. “He was talking to me. And Tony.”
“Oh.”
But Ted isn’t going to let it pass. He slaps a Connecticut quarter onto Chuck’s machine.
“I got next game,” he says. “You better make this one good.”
Since it’s Tony’s turn on Elvis, I fade back a little. As Ted hawk-eyes Chuck’s game, Jasmine steps beside me.
“What are you up to?” I ask her.
She smiles flirtatiously. “Who says I’m up to anything?”
Jasmine has always been a little bit after me, if only because she knows I’ll never go for her.
“Are you and Ted a thing now?”
“Hardly. He just needs someone to talk to. He doesn’t need anyone to talk about—he’s already got that.”
We both look over and see him glaring at Chuck and Joni. Chuck is clearly uncomfortable with this, but he doesn’t know how to handle it without looking like a brute (which clearly won’t go over well with this crowd). He plays a tense game of pinball. And as anybody knows, a tense game of pinball is a doomed game of pinball. He barely hits 8,000 before guttering out his last shot. He looks a little stunned at the score, then moves to the side of the machine so Ted can get his play.
I already know Ted is going to win. He’s damn good at pinball. And he wants it bad.
Joni looks like she’s waiting for someone to pull an alarm. She knows what’s going to happen, too. She puts her hand on Chuck’s shoulder, already near the comforting zone.
Ted sees this and plays harder. Tony’s game ends at a respectable 16,749. It’s my turn, but I don’t move. We’re all watching Ted now.
Usually Ted’s a yeller, shouting at the ball to hook left or bounce right. Now, though, he has a Zen-like calm. A casual observer might say that he has become one with the ball, that he has made himself the ball.
But I know the truth.
Chuck is the ball.
And Ted plans to wham the heck out of it.
Bumper to bumper, save after save—the numbers escalate. Six thousand. Seven thousand. Chuck leans in from the side and looks at the score.
We may never know whether it’s the lean that does it or whether it’s Ted’s reaction to the lean that causes the ball to angle a little into the narrow alley between the flippers. Ted’s opinion is loud and clear.
“You tilted me!” he shouts, slamming one hand on the pinball machine and poking the other one at Chuck.
“It was all your fault, buddy,” Chuck shouts back. He knocks Ted’s hand away from him.
“Don’t do this,” Joni says.
“Stay out of it,” Chuck snaps.
“Don’t tell her what she can or can’t do!” Ted argues.
Chuck shoves Ted away from the machine. Ted pushes back and knocks Chuck’s baseball cap off his head.
Then Tony steps in between them and starts singing “If I Had a Hammer” at the top of his lungs.
I can’t believe it. I once told him that the best way to break up a fight is to step between the two people and start singing ancient folk songs. But I’d never heard of anyone actually doing such a thing.
It works. As Tony’s voice cracks, hammering out justice and warning and love between the brothers and the sisters all over this land, Ted and Chuck back off. Joni grabs Chuck’s arm and pulls him away from the pinball area. After a beat, Jasmine does the same with Ted, wrapping her arm around him only after Joni turns back to look.
“Nice job,” I tell Tony.
“It was either that or ‘Michael, Row the Boat Ashore.’”
We look at the couples in our midst and decide it’s time to take a break from everyone else.
Tomorrow we’ll hit the mountain.