Suddenly people want to talk to me. I’m stopped so often on my way down the halls that I don’t even bother with my headphones. I let them dangle around my neck in that casual way like a rock star necklace.
“Dude, you’re a monster!”
“Yo, man, didn’t know you had it in you!”
“Hi-yah!”
Enthusiastic sentences are shouted in my face, often with crazy hand gesticulations or faux karate kicks. I even get a few high fives, which I don’t think allow for an alternative interpretation other than good job. I’m about ninety-seven percent sure that none of these people want me to die. At least not today.
“You’re late,” José says when I arrive at the decathlon meeting. I am not late. I am twenty-three seconds early. Instead of saying this, I show him my phone, which is synced to Greenwich mean time to the second. “Okay, fine. But traditionally we ask that members arrive by two-fifty-seven.”
“Well, then you should have told me that,” I say, looking around at the group. There are seven people here. Two girls. Five guys, including myself and José. I don’t know their names and can’t look them up because my notebook no longer accompanies me to school. “I appreciate specificity.”
“Noted,” José says. “What happened to your face?”
“How can you not already know this? He, like, demolished the entire football team. Joe Mangino, who is officially the worst person in the world, is in the hospital because of this guy!” a kid with a hairstyle I believe is called a mullet says, and then fist pumps the air. Miney does that sometimes, though she accompanies it with the words Can I get a woot woot? I never oblige. I have no idea what a woot woot is.
I consider correcting Mullet, since there are probably worse people in the world than Meat Boy—like, say, ISIS members, or even Justin—but I remember that it’s rude to correct people. Then again, this is the Academic League, so you’d assume they’d want to get their facts straight.
“I cried every day of freshman year because of Joe Mangino,” José says.
“Drucker, our freakin’ hero,” Mullet says, and stretches his arms out wide. “Meet the team.”
A girl with yellow pigtails and glasses and an awesome T-shirt that says DON’T TRUST ATOMS; THEY MAKE UP EVERYTHING smiles at me and puts out her hand, which I assume means she wants me to shake it, and so I do. Her palms are cool and soft. I search my brain for her name, but all I can come up with is Wheelchair Girl. I consider that she may be the second-prettiest girl in school, though it’s still too early to officialize it, especially because I haven’t spoken to her yet. That T-shirt is too little to go on. She must be a senior, because we don’t have any classes together.
“I’m Chloe. On behalf of all of us, who have endured much verbal abuse from those guys through the years, and also on behalf of José’s copious tears, I salute and thank you,” Chloe says, and does a little wheelie with her chair as punctuation.
“You are very welcome,” I say, and wonder if I’m flirting. Does my ability to banter extend beyond Kit? Probably not, but can’t hurt to try, as my mom likes to say.
“Okay, Drucker, we’re expecting you to kick ass for us at next week’s meet against Ridgefield Tech. The team is all Asian, so they’re amazing,” Mullet says.
“That’s racist,” I say.
“I’m Asian, though. I’m allowed to say it. My people slay at this shit.” I don’t say anything back because I don’t know if being Asian allows you to say racist things about other Asians. I’m not aware of this carve-out.
“Tell us everything you know about quantum mechanics,” José says, and then, just like when I drop-kicked Meat Boy, my whole body sighs with pleasure.
“Where have you been?” Trey asks with a big contradictory smile on his face when I come home to find him waiting on my front porch. He has his guitar in his lap, and his feet are, as usual, in flip-flops even though he has been presumably stuck outside for at least seventeen minutes. I do not like looking at his exposed toes and their spritely hair patches.
“Oh no, I forgot about our lesson!” I say, and my heart drops. I never forget prescheduled events, but the meeting devolved from Academic League prep to a debate about the existence of the multiverse and the mechanics of the time-space continuum, and I must have gotten lost in the conversation. Chloe is surprisingly well read in the quantum world and knows almost as much as I do. Mullet is an expert in the field of theoretical mathematics. José is a history whiz. The whole experience turned out to be stimulating in the good way, not in the Jessica’s blond hair or Abby’s perfume sort of way. “Sorry.”
“Seriously? You forgot?” Trey asks as he follows me inside and upstairs to my room, where we practice. “That’s awesome!”
“It’s been a big day.” I’m rattled. How could I have forgotten my lesson? And why would Trey think that’s a good thing? Routine is important. That’s why tonight, like every Tuesday night, is pasta night, and also why, contrary to my mother’s insistence, risotto doesn’t count. (If it was a designated Italian night, not a pasta night, she might have a point.)
“Your sister texted me about the fight. You okay?” he asks, and points to his nose, which is decidedly less blue and swollen than mine.
“Fine.”
“I heard you joined the Academic League. That’s rad.”
“I assume we’ll have to pay you for the full hour even though it’s a short lesson, so let’s get started.” I play a few chords as a hint that I’d like our work to commence, just in case I am being too subtle.
“No rush. Let’s talk a little first,” Trey says, and puts his guitar on the floor, like we have no need for our instruments. “We can go over our time.”
“Will my mom be charged extra?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried. I’m clarifying.”
“No, you won’t be charged extra,” Trey says, and then blows up his cheeks and lets out a deep breath exactly like Miney does. Trey swings to look at me—he’s sitting on my rotating desk chair; I’m on the bed—and he does this weird thing where he forces me to make eye contact. This technique of his invariably precedes a question that will make me uncomfortable.
“David, why don’t you ever ask how I am?”
Phew, I’m relieved. That’s an easy one. I thought he was going to bring up his showcase again. Recent out-of-character events like hanging out with Kit and fighting the football team and joining Academic League notwithstanding, me getting up onstage with a guitar in front of people is just not going to happen. I have my limits.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s polite to ask someone questions about themselves from time to time,” Trey says.
“We have only sixty minutes a week allotted to my learning how to play the guitar and I’d prefer not to waste them.”
“Come on. We’ve been working together almost ten months, and you know almost nothing about me. Whether I have brothers or sisters. What my major is. Where I live. How old I am. Aren’t you curious?”
“Not really.” I assumed he was an only child, since all his insistent chattering suggests he is desperate for company. My mother told me he was a college senior, so that makes him about twenty-one. And as for major, he seems suited for the liberal arts. I’d guess comparative literature or art history.
“People like it when you make small talk. It makes them feel like you care,” Trey says.
“What’s your major?” I ask, because though I appreciate efficiency, I do not like hurting people’s feelings. And now that he’s brought it up, I am curious. Could be I have him pegged all wrong. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
“Double major: math and psych.” He says the last word firmly, like if I were transcribing the conversation I should put it in all caps. Math and PSYCH. But I’m distracted by his empty neck. For the first time, he’s not wearing his conch shell necklace, and its absence and the consequent pale expanse of skin—one more break in our routine—bring on a sudden wave of depression and hopelessness. I feel like crying or lying down in a dark room, which is inconvenient given I’m about to start my weekly guitar lesson.
Maybe I’ll buy him a scarf for Christmas. Cover up his neck, which given his toes is surprisingly hairless.
“I wouldn’t have guessed math, and if you’re a psychology major I bet you like reading the DSM too,” I say as a thought forms in my brain the same way I burrow into complicated algorithms. Lego pieces stacking on top of each other until they manifest into something recognizable. Like pointillism.
The wave of depression rolls away and is replaced by a vivid certainty.
For once, I understand. Ten months too late, maybe. But I finally get it.
“You’re not really a guitar teacher, are you?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“My dad told Principal Hoch today that I have a social skills tutor. That’s you, right?”
“I like to think of our work together as multifaceted,” Trey says. He picks his guitar up off the floor and fiddles with the strings. “I mean, I do teach you how to play, but I also hope I teach you other stuff as well.”
“I didn’t realize. I feel stupid.” Why is it I have to go through life only seeing part of the picture when everyone else gets to see the whole thing? Like my magnification level is set at fifteen thousand percent. “I wish you had told me. Then I wouldn’t have rushed us through all the talking.”
“Really?”
“Well, yeah. I could probably learn guitar from YouTube, but there’s nothing on there for how to talk to other kids in high school. Believe me, I’ve searched,” I say.
“Okay then.” Trey puts down his guitar, looks up at me.
“So do you have any brothers or sisters?” I ask.