“It says the same stuff about every girl on there. It has columns with check marks. She’ll do this—like French kissing—but she won’t do this—like, you know. It’s gross, stupid guy stuff.”
Suddenly I felt like somebody had cut open the back of my head and sucked out my brain. I was totally numb.
Then I got angry.
I got angry at Wendy. For flirting with me. For making me think I had a chance with her. For asking if I had a zero sex drive. (Yeah, maybe I did, after watching her puke up those candy corns. That’ll do it.)
But I got more angry—enraged, violent angry—at that college guy. That scumbag. For calling me a townie. For making out with my girl—even if she was only my girl for ten minutes—and then posting lies about her on a website. A dirty sex site. What kind of scumbag would do that?
And, more important, what was I going to do about it?
I got to class early. I sat in the front row and stared up at the bars of the TV test pattern: ROY G BIV.
Wendy came in at the last second and sat next to me. I couldn’t even look at her.
Mr. Proctor wrote out today’s vocabulary word and sentence without comment:
Wendy, apparently, was not impressed. She didn’t say anything about it. We worked in our vocab books for ten minutes. Then I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned my head toward Wendy and kept it there until I knew she was listening. Then I whispered in a quick, flat monotone exactly what Lilly had told me. Every word.
Wendy’s blond head stayed frozen in place until the end of my monologue. Then she whispered back, “First of all, if I am on that site, that guy is lying about me.”
“So you know about the site, and the guy? Is he your boyfriend or something?”
“That would fall under the category of none of your business.”
I pulled away, angrier than ever. I leaned back and demanded to know, “It was that guy at the Halloween party, wasn’t it?”
After a moment, she conceded, “Yes.”
“You were making out with him.”
She finally answered, “I was drunk. I was making out with you, too.”
“Yeah. I remember. So, did he ask you out after that?”
“Yes, he did. He wanted me to go back to his room that night, and I said no, and I guess that’s why he’s telling lies about me.”
“So he did this as revenge?”
“I guess, yeah.” After a long pause, she looked straight at me. She softened her voice. “Look, Tom, I’m really sorry about what happened at the party. I was drinking, and I should not drink. It’s a problem for me.” She added, “That’s why I’m in the counseling group.”
After a long pause, I finally managed to mumble, “Okay.”
Mr. Proctor walked over and stood right in front of me. He rarely got annoyed at talkers, but he was today. He asked coldly, “Are you two finished?”
I answered for both of us. “Yes.”
“Then let me get your attention up here.” He raised his voice. “Let me get everybody’s attention up here, please.” Mr. Proctor pulled out his marker and stepped to the whiteboard. He drew a rectangle with a curvy right side. He called over his shoulder, “What does this look like?”
Ben answered, “A rectangle?”
“No. What state in the United States does it look like? I’ll give you a hint: We’re living in it now.”
Several people chorused: “Pennsylvania.”
“That’s right. Your state. My state. Now listen to this, because it is important: Pennsylvania was once considered to be a Garden of Eden by Europeans. Many religious communities, utopian communities, settled here. They lived off the bounty of the land, in a Garden of Eden, just like the villagers of Eyam. Then, just as in Eyam, just as in Eden, something evil arrived, something so horrible that it was able to destroy everyone and everything.
“For the town of Eyam, that something was the bubonic plague. For Pennsylvania, that something was methamphetamine. For both places, it signaled the start of a plague year.”
He looked out at the class. “Those of you who are writing journals, I want you to keep this in mind.” He picked up a leather-bound classic. “In
He looked right at me. On another day, I might have been excited. I might have been honored. But right then I couldn’t even register what he was saying.
I was in my own world, and it was a world full of pain.
All I could think about was that college guy. And what he had done to Wendy. And what he had done to me. And what he had said to me. And what I should do about it.
By the end of class, though, I had my answer. I turned and asked Arthur urgently, “Will you drive me to the college on Saturday?”
“Why?”
“I think I need to beat a guy up.”
“Righteous! Who is it?”
“A guy who started a website.”
“Really? Why?”
“He put lies on it about Wendy.”
Arthur looked disappointed. “The Grape? Come on, cuz. Can’t we come up with a better reason than that?”
“And he insulted me at the party.”
“There you go. What did he say?”
“He called me her ‘little townie friend.’ And he told me to go home.”
Arthur practically snapped to attention. “Oh, did he now?”
“Yeah. Can you help me? I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Definitely. You leave everything to me.”
“No. No, I want to do this myself. I just want you to drive me there. And maybe help me find him.”
“Yellow Corvette.”
“What?”
“Are we talking about the dude who was making out with the Grape?”
“Yeah.”
“Little curly-haired guy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I saw him get into a yellow Corvette.”
“So we just need to find that?”
“Yeah. Then what?”
I heard myself say, “I’ll take care of the rest.”
I couldn’t even look at Arthur. He might have been laughing at me. But he sounded serious enough when he replied, “I’ll do whatever you need me to do, cuz.”
The field trip to the Ashland coal mine began just like the one to the flight 93 crash site. There were three fewer passengers, though, since the high school stoners had not signed up.
Jimmy Giles was sitting up front again with his hand on the door. Catherine Lyle was driving. Wendy Lyle was sitting alone behind her, reading a novel. (Maybe it was another novel about someone who was beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside.)
