Beauty and the Bully (25 page)

“How could you
do
this to me, Duncan!” snapped Carly. She raised her head and eyed the Fox crew, which had returned to their van. “Wait!” she called. The girls unfurled a giant GIVE MICE A CHANCE banner and raced off. Duncan jumped up to follow them.

He took five strides before realizing that he'd lost his robe.

Emily was cackling mightily, her tiny foot on the drawstring.

He stepped toward her slowly, naked except for his Eric Cartman boxers. “You . . . little . . . puke-licking . . .”

Freddie clapped a hand on Duncan's shoulder.

“Oh, man,” Duncan said. “This day is just not going well at all.”

“Sweet show,” said Freddie. “Really, Duncan. That was incredible.” He paused to take in the chaos that had spread across Watts Park. “Let's see. Your band hates you. My sister hates you. Hundreds of animal-testing protestors have inner ear damage because of you. And many of us will also have to go home and throw up because we've seen you half-naked.”

Duncan squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for the thrashing that he couldn't possibly avoid.

“But that's not what I'm upset about, Duncan,” said Freddie. “What I'm upset about—or rather
who
I'm upset about—is Marissa.” He paused. “I know that you hired me to be your bully, dweeb, but I thought that through all this we had developed a bond. A friendship? Hmm. It's possible. But at least a bond. And I know I'm no Prince Harry, but damn. This is what she says to me, first thing: ‘I'm only doing this as a favor to Duncan.' She never took off her friggin' mask. How am I supposed to feel, Duncan?” He bowed his head. “Man, if you were someone else, I'd be halfway through the Freddie Special, dork—and I'd be enjoying myself. But you're not even worth my trouble.”

“I
am
worth the trouble!” said Duncan. Then he paused. “Wait, no. Redo. Never a good idea to solve your problems with violence. But I just . . . well, don't be mad, Freddie. I screwed up. Not in a little way, but in a massive way. No, in a series of massive ways. I really need—”

“Hey, I'm not mad, Duncan.” Freddie shook his head. “I'm totally disappointed.” He walked away.

“Well,” said Duncan's mom, handing her son his robe, “I think Frederick really showed a lot of maturity right there. My son, on the other hand—”

“Looks like a stick figure when he's naked!” snapped Emily. She cackled again.

Duncan draped the robe around his shoulders and wordlessly packed up the Flaming Tarts' abandoned gear. The crowd was now hopefully thin, the band had scattered, his friends had abandoned him. (Well, after he threw them all under the bus, metaphorically, they abandoned him.) Duncan had never felt so ill, so hollow. He stood—the sunlight across his face, the breeze catching his hair—and watched a livid Carly, not naked, walk toward the stage dragging the banner behind her like a fallen comrade. Her eyes were fixed on Duncan.

He tried to seem busy elsewhere, turning again to pack more gear. He heard Carly's sandals slap against the stage. Seconds later, he felt a surprising sting at his back.

Carly had whacked him with her long fuzzy rat tail. He felt sure he deserved it.

He raised his hands halfheartedly to not quite protect himself.

She used to protect me from just this sort of thing, he thought.

“How
could
you, Duncan?!” Carly breathlessly demanded.

“I . . . I still don't really know . . . hey, what's up with you and Kurt?”

“What?! There is nothing up with me and Kurt.”

“You kissed him! I totally saw it! Like you kissed me.”

“It was for
luck
, Duncan. Of which you apparently have none. And out of gratitude, kindness . . . that sort of thing.”

“Oh,” said Duncan, looking away. “'Cuz I thought you were, like, kind of into him now, instead of me.”

“Instead of
you
? I thought we were friends, Duncan. I thought you cared about the things I care about!”

“I thought you cared about me,” he offered sheepishly.

Duncan managed to catch the tail before it connected again. “Okay, it's kind of hurting now.”

“You're suddenly defending yourself?” Carly said.

Ouch, thought Duncan.

Carly snatched the rat tail back.

“I never actually needed defending,” he said, suddenly in the confessional mood of the clinically despondent. “Just so you know, Freddie only attacked me so you'd notice me. He's actually a pretty okay guy. All my bullies, it turns out, are girls. You, Mom, the twerp who lives next door. Freddie's cool. If it makes you feel any better, he's pissed at me fo—”

“So I'd
notice
you?!” Carly was mortified. She let the tail dangle at her side like nunchuks. “That was all a . . . a . . . a big put-on? I was being manipulated?!”

“Well, that's a strong word for it, ‘manipu—'”

From a corner of the stage, they heard cameras snapping. Photographers from both the
Owl's Nest
and the
Elm Forest Leader
were capturing the odd scene of Carly Garfield beating Duncan with a giant detached tail.

“Great stuff, guys,” said one of them. “Keep it up.”

Carly paid no attention to them.

“You know you've ruined this event, right?!” she yelled. “You know that, yes? There is no salvaging this, Duncan. The TV van is gone. The legislators are gone. The people are gone. You scared them away.”

“It was a freak occurrence, Carly. I swear I dunno what the deal is with the sound equip—”

“I'm disappointed in you, Duncan Boone.”

He sighed. “Yeah, that's kind of a recurring theme today.”

24

Duncan sat in his dim and windowless garage on the fender of a car that hadn't budged in perhaps a year. He fumbled in his backpack for his journal, which Mrs. Kindler had returned the previous Monday. She'd made no notations. Duncan opened it to an empty page.

ENTRY #14, OCTOBER 15

So, um ... the band had its first show today. So, um ... the band had its first show today. Think I saw you there, Mrs. K. Thanks for the support. We didn't play long. The opening act was received warmly. The Flaming Tarts? Not so much.

On the cycle of good day/bad day that we've been documenting here, this can be filed under “bad.” I've made an utter mess of a few things, as I'm sure you noticed. Today I seem to have lost a girl—no, *the* girl—and most of my friends. No, my *best* friends. I am not, as it turns out, attending homecoming. But I'll keep a good thought for the fightin' Owls. Hoot.

And so we beat on like boats, blah-blah-blah. Or however Fitzgerald has it.

He threw the journal down and looked up at the musty garage rafters. The band's equipment was piled in a corner. Sometimes, in bleak moments that weren't quite
that
bleak, Duncan would play something. But just then he was too disgusted with the idea of music to pick up a guitar, and too disgusted with the idea of himself to sing.

He sighed.

I shouldn't even wallow, he thought. I'm not good enough for wallowing. Wallowing is for the virtuous, the wronged, the worthy. Hmm, there might be a lyric there. . . .

The garage door creaked open.

“I'm fine, Mom,” he said, not looking up. “Really. Thanks for checking again, though.”

“Hey, rocker,” said Jess. “Your parents said I'd find you here. A mild surprise, since I thought you liked to do most of your self-flagellation in the park.”

“I'm avoiding the park for a while,” Duncan said. “See if you can guess why.”

Jessie giggled.

“Where's your date, Jess?”

“Sloth? He's been cool, actually. Drove me here. He's outside. But between the rally and the parade, I think he's already seen enough to reaffirm the decision to disengage from high school society.”

“Did he say if he was looking for a roommate?” said Duncan. He sighed again, then sat up. “I was so close to having it all, Jess.”

“Your melodrama is showing, dude. Get over it.”

“But the band was right there, on the bri—”

“Oh, the band is
still
right there. No one's left the damn band.” She paused. “I do think it's time for another name change, though.”

Duncan smiled. “How 'bout The Three-Hundred-Decibel Atomic Shriek of Death?”

“That does fit nicely with our local reputation,” she said. “And I don't suppose Carly will be hiring us anymore.” Jess sat down next to Duncan atop the car. “What'd you ever really like about that chick, Duncan? Seriously, what?”

Ideally, thought Duncan, this is where I'd say how fun she was. Or how sweet she was. Or how mind-bendingly sexually compatible we were. But, let's be honest, none of these things are true. Well, the first two definitely weren't. And the third isn't likely to be determined. So . . .

“She cares deeply about . . . um, things.”

Jessie laughed. “There're the rats, I guess. And don't forget the beavers.”

“Mmm, yes. Can't forget those.”

“I think maybe you liked an
idea
of Carly Garfield more than Carly herself. You had no commonalities, so you tried to invent some. That was pretty dumb, dude. What you need is a girl who really
gets
you. Someone fun. Someone you won't have to deceive just to sit with her at lunch.” She paused. “Maybe you should look at your own lunch table, actually.”

Duncan sat up.

Oh crap, he thought.

“Jess, wait. This is kind of awkward, because I know I've already screwed up this day about as thoroughly as I can, but I don't really like you like tha—”

She flicked his ear.

“Jeez, you are profoundly dense,” Jess said with a smirk. “Once you've kicked a man's ass the way I've kicked yours, Duncan, a line is crossed that cannot be recrossed. I don't have a crush on you.” She grinned. “But I know someone who does. Or at least she did.”

“At our lunch tab—?”

Sydney Wambaugh? he thought.

No.

Oh, hell no. She snorts. And she's loud. And she's a total disaster on guitar. And her brother decided I was too lame to beat up. And . . . well, she
could
name every member of the Faces. And she's fun. And she crowd-surfs. And she does dig Wolfmother. And when she wears that Soul Asylum shirt tucked in with that obnoxious AC/DC belt-buckle and the jeans with the safety pins and the . . . hmm. Sydney Wambaugh. Maybe.

He looked at Jess earnestly. “Do you think Syd can ever be a good guitar play—?”

“No, Duncan,” said Jess. “No, I do not. She can be many things—almost anything, really. But guitar mastery is clearly beyond her.” Jess smiled. “Can you deal with that?”

I can fix her, he thought.

“Yeah, I can deal with that.” He stood up. “But what about Freddie? I promised him a girl. I've totally let him down. I don't think I'm very high on his list of acceptable suitors for his sister at the moment.”

“Don't worry about Freddie,” Jess said. “I have just the girl for him.”

“Don't start cutting deals with Freddie, Jess. I'm warning you. It never ends. He just asks for more and mo—”

Jess shook her head. “Leave it to me,” she said. She hopped off the Skylark, picked up Syd's Flying V guitar from the mound of band gear, and handed it to Duncan. “You need to go return this.” Jess scampered out of the garage.

Duncan, his head gathering around this new idea of Syd, drifted inside to groom. He spent far too long deciding which band's shirt to wear (deciding on the Misfits, 'cuz the cut flattered him) and which pair of shoes to slip on (the new black/gray Adios, 'cuz Syd had sort of complimented them). Then, moving slightly quicker, he hurried to his car with the guitar in hand. It wasn't far to the Wambaugh house, and he drove with obscene haste, yet he worried that this would somehow be the final humiliation in an already profoundly humiliating day.

There was, he realized, a good chance that Syd would simply snatch the guitar from him, possibly whack him with it, and then slam the door in his face. He had at least that much coming. Or maybe Freddie would answer the door, snatch the guitar, and use it to shatter Duncan's kneecaps. That might be more in line with what he deserved. Duncan saw Syd's house well before he pulled into the driveway. It was backlit by a blinking green fast-food sign, so the place seemed to wink at him as he approached. He parked, raced across the grass to her door and then . . . froze.

Duncan stood on the front step in the dark, growing steadily more intimidated.

He didn't knock or ring the bell.

Strange, he thought. He hadn't been at all frightened onstage at Watts that afternoon, with so many people around and such disaster looming. But there, alone at Syd's, he was terrified. You've totally insulted this girl, he reminded himself. Not just
mildly
insulted her, but deeply. Directly. Abstractly. Intentionally. Accidentally. Privately. Publicly. It isn't possible to humiliate a musician at a more fundamental level. There is no
way
she's going to want to see you. No way. Just put the guitar down and leave. This isn't going to . . .

The door swung open and Syd stood in the entryway, her Twins hat pulled straight and low, the Soul Asylum shirt just like Duncan liked it.