Hello Groin (11 page)

After Cam finally drove away, I turned out the living room light and headed upstairs to my room, stopping en route to knock on my parents’ door and let them know I was home. They were both in bed, Mom watching a video and Dad reading a book, probably about astronomy or time travel, his two favorite subjects.

“Did you have a good time, sweetie?” asked Mom, putting her video on pause.

“Yeah,” I said. “The Buffones had a hay ride for us.”

“Keelie talked nonstop about driving Cam’s car when she got home,” said Dad. “We could hardly get her to go to sleep.”

“It’s a game they play,” I said quickly. “He doesn’t really let her drive it, she just imagines she does.”

“I figured,” grinned Dad, and I leaned down to give them each a goodnight hug, everything warm and affectionate, both of them smiling as I left, pleased with the way their eldest daughter was turning out, the choices she was making. There were some pretty mixed-up user guys out there, but she’d chosen a decent caring one—that Dylan really had her head on straight.

When I got to my room I didn’t bother to undress, just crawled into bed and curled into a ball. Mom had left my desk lamp on,
and the room was a glow of colors at low ebb—salmon walls, amber quilt, a scarlet throw rug on the floor. Cam had never been in here, but he’d asked me to describe it in minute detail, and twice he’d given Danny a box of chocolates to leave on my bed.
Sweets for the sweet
, the notes had said. Okay, maybe not original, but the meaning had been his, a thought coming from him to me. And here I was, lying to him, leading him on toward...what? It wasn’t ever going to happen between us, the relationship was a charade, a dead-end—something I seemed to have to go through to prove to myself it couldn’t work. Why couldn’t I just face reality and give Cam up? I mean, I’d felt more tonight for a girl I didn’t even know than I had for him.

As I lay there, staring at nothing, it came to me that my life was like a negative confession, that list of statements the ancient Egyptians used to say before they died. That was it—my relationship with Cam was one long negative confession:

Hail, Basti, who comest forth from Bast, I have not told the truth.

Hail, Ruruti, who comest forth from heaven, I have not let my heart beat.

Hail, Unem-Snef, who comest forth from the execution chamber, I have not sought my own happiness.

Hail, Neba, who comest and goest, I have not let myself feel pleasure and love.

Hail, Set-qesu, who comest forth from Hensu, I have not broken out of my fear.

Hail, Her-f-ha-f, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have not crawled out of the grave.

Hail, Qerrti, who comest forth from Amentet, I have not lain with women.

Turning off my desk lamp, I lay in the dark, listening to an inner voice repeat endlessly,
I have eaten my heart, I have eaten my heart, I have eaten
...

Chapter Nine

The following Tuesday I was back in the library, doing my volunteer shift at the check-out desk and sorting books that had been returned for reshelving. Beside me, Joc leaned against the counter, looking utterly morose as she unwrapped a piece of Double Bubble. Yesterday, to her dismay, she had discovered that drama rehearsals had been scheduled every lunch hour this week. This obviously put serious brakes on her love life—today was probably only the second school lunch hour in over a year that she hadn’t spent with Dikker. Withdrawal symptoms were setting in.

“Y’know,” she said, staring moodily at the comic that had been enclosed with the gum. “I must’ve read hundreds of these things in my life, and they’ve all been boring. Every single one of them.”

“Yeah,” I said, sliding a book onto the fiction filing cart. “Double Bubble must hold the Guinness world record for lousy jokes.”

“Not a single funny one,” muttered Joc, still staring at the comic. “Mom told me that when she was little, you could buy two Double Bubbles for a penny. Now they’re five cents each.
That’s nine hundred percent inflation in forty years. You’d think for nine hundred percent inflation, they could come up with one funny joke.”

“At least print them in color,” I agreed.

“Boycott,” said Joc, looking grim. “We’ll start a petition. No more Double Bubbles unless they’re funny bubbles.”

“Mmm,” I said. “Does that mean you’re going to start observing the library’s no gum-chewing rule?”

“Uh-huh,” Joc said carelessly. “As soon as I finish this one.”

“Ah,” I said and went back to alphabetizing the fiction cart for shelving. A small group of kids pushed through the turn-stile, headed for the exit, but didn’t sign anything out. Several others came in and wandered over to the study carrels. Today, blessed by Dikker’s absence, the library was decently quiet, with only Joc’s gum chomping and the whirring of the wall clock for sound effects.

“What d’you think of Shakespeare?” she asked, gloomily surveying the library.

“Shakespeare?” I repeated, glancing at her. “Dunno, really. Did he write jokes for Double Bubble?”

“If he did, they wouldn’t be funny,” grumbled Joc. “And no one would be able to understand them. Why does everyone in his plays talk so weird?”

“That’s the way they talked back then, I guess,” I shrugged.

“In rhyme?” she demanded, staring at me. “I don’t think so. Anyway, I don’t see why we have to study one of his plays
every
year. At least someone could translate them into normal English, so you can understand it. I have to look up every other word in a dictionary, and even when I know what all the words mean, the characters still sound weird. And Dikker is starting to talk just like them.”

“Dikker,” I said emphatically, “always talked weird.”

“Maybe,” said Joc, “but this is
Shakespeare
-weird. Like, he doesn’t say hello anymore, it’s ‘holla.’ And if he wants my opinion on something, he says, ‘Stand and unfold yourself.’ Then if he’s giving
his
opinion, he says, ‘In the gros and scope of my opinion.’ I mean, really, Dyl—’in the gros and scope’?” She sighed heavily. “Last night when we were saying goodbye on the phone, he told me, ‘Get thee to a nunnery!’ He was just joking, but...I dunno, d’you think maybe he’s losing his mind?”

What could I say? I had no gros or scope of an opinion on that whatsoever. At least nothing I could say out loud. With another emphatic sigh, Joc wandered off to the main study area, looking for someone else to gripe with about Shakespeare, and I got back to the fiction filing cart. I had just finished alphabetizing all of the authors up to the letter
J
, when I heard a shuffling sound behind me and turned to see a short skinny minor niner standing at the check-out desk. Eyes glued to the book she’d just placed on the counter, she looked distinctly nervous. A lot of kids got nervous when they saw me at the check-out desk, even kids from the upper grades. I guess they expected to see an academic type, or someone from the library club. Not a member of the jock set, even a fringe member, and certainly not Cam Zeleny’s girlfriend.

Sometimes this nervousness got to me and I would play with it, to see how a kid reacted. Because it bugged me, I guess, when someone morphed into an uptight state around me. I mean, why would anyone do that? Because I was Cam’s girlfriend? Because it looked like I was in tight with the phone patrol?

Picking up the girl’s book, I read the title and said, “
The Small Words In My Body
. Cool title. What’s it about?”

“It’s poetry,” the minor niner mumbled, so quietly I could barely hear her. Ducking her head farther, she stared intently at her hands.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Poetry about what?”

And then I stood there, just looking at her—not demagnetizing the book and not scanning her student card to complete the sign-out. Instead I waited for her answer, half because I did think the title was interesting and half because I knew it would send her deeper into her funk. Which it did immediately: a beet-colored flush crawling up her neck, then shooting up to her forehead. The kid was in utter misery, staring at her hands so hard she was almost bug-eyed. I mean, we’re practically talking a near-death experience here.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, rubbing a finger along the top of the check-out counter. “I haven’t read it yet. That’s why I’m signing it out.”

And still I stood there just looking at her, even though I knew what a power blush felt like and what it could do to you. It was something about myself that I hadn’t figured out yet, why I got like this sometimes—I mean,
mean
. Not as in bitchy, the way I was with Dikker; I mean pure snake head, hissing its venomous little tongue.

“Poetry,” I said coolly, keeping my eyes fixed on the minor niner’s beet-red face. “
Why
do you read poetry? Do you like everything to
rhyme
?”

The poor kid didn’t respond, just stood there, staring down at her hands.

“Double Bubble,” I said, kind of singsongy. “Juicy Fruicy. Shy fly. Me oh my.”

The girl’s hand made an agonized jerk, as if she wanted to grab her student card and take off but didn’t have the guts. And instead of showing sympathy, my venomous little snake-head self opened its mouth again, ready to hiss out a few more rhymes. But at that moment a loud “Oof!” came from the library’s main study area, followed by the sound of a chair being pushed back.
Turning to check out what was going on, I saw Geoff Simone, one of the Dief’s grade-ten low levels, half-sprawled over Diane du Bois, a grade twelve student who was seated at the closest work table. Right behind Geoff were two of his friends, more low levels. From what I could see, it looked as if one of them had shoved Geoff from behind as he was passing Diane, and he’d ended up in her lap.

Normally this wouldn’t have been a big deal. It was just the way these guys’ minds worked—kind of dumb, yuk yuk, guffaws from the gutter. But Diane happened to be one of the Dief’s five official lesbians, and her lap was, technically speaking, not the kind of turf Geoff dreamed of diving into. With an agonized yelp, he leapt to his feet and danced melodramatically backward.

“Dyke germs!” he shrieked, waving his hands frantically in the air. “I’ve been contaminated. I’m going to turn into a queer!”

Raucous guffaws erupted from his buddies. Turning, Geoff gave one of them a shove, and his buddy shoved back. Lewd comments started pouring out of them—I mean dumb, stupid,
absolute
gutter. While they yukked it up, Diane sat leaned back in her chair, silently watching, her face in neutral. Neither of her friends, who were seated across from her, said anything either. Generally speaking, no one said much to Geoff Simone. He’d been suspended twice last year for coming to school drunk and had also managed to score several trips to Youth Court.

All across the library kids had gone quiet and were watching, like I was. I mean, it was difficult to figure out the best thing to do. No one liked what was happening to Diane, but at the same time Geoff wasn’t the kind of guy you normally took on, even when he was in a quasi-civilized mood. And even if you were crazy enough to speak up, how did you go about communicating the obvious to him—
Like, you’re being a moron here.
He probably already heard that ten times a day.

“Dyke warts!” howled Geoff, shoving both his friends. “That’s what you just made me catch. Or dyke gonorrhea. Eeeeeeeuw!”

My jaw dropped. I mean, I’d heard some nasty things in my day, but nothing quite like this, broadcast at full volume in the
library
. Some of the watching kids gasped, and an angry-looking Diane started to stand up. But as she did, Joc suddenly appeared out of the study carrel area at the back of the library and made a beeline toward the work tables.

“Excuse me,” she said, cutting in front of Geoff, her voice so loud it carried to every corner of the room. “Mind if I join you, Diane?”

Without waiting for a response, she pushed Diane gently back into her chair, then plunked her butt onto Diane’s lap and put an arm around her shoulder. “What’re you studying?” she grinned at her. “If it isn’t Shakespeare, I’ll give you a big fat kiss.”

For a moment Diane just stared at her, then let out a short angry laugh. “You’re on,” she said, “it’s algebra,” and without hesitating, Joc smacked her on the cheek.

A relieved snicker ran through the watching kids, and Geoff stepped back with a high-pitched shriek. Then, waving his hands as if warding off the Black Plague, he and his friends beat a hasty retreat to the study carrels. Ignoring them, Joc remained sitting on Diane’s lap, probably bitching about Shakespeare as the surrounding kids went back to their interrupted conversations.

All I could do was stand there and stare. I mean, as far as I knew, Joc didn’t know Diane. She’d never even talked to her. It was brilliant, what she’d just done. How had she
ever
gotten the guts?

Turning back to the check-out counter, I saw the minor niner still standing across from me and staring down at her hands. And it hit me then, what I’d been doing—little snake-head me, bitchy little
queen
snake.

“Uh, sorry about bugging you about your poetry,” I said, glancing at the name on her student card. Tracey Stillman—even in her ID photo, she was looking down. “I’m in kind of a weird mood today,” I added, completing the sign-out and handing back her book and student card. “Nominate me for the Geoff Simone Award, eh?”

Another flush hit Tracey. Grabbing her book and card, she mumbled, “I’m not a dyke,” and took off for the exit.

Stunned, I watched her go. How in the world had she gotten the idea that I thought she was lesbian? For a long moment I stood there trying to work
that
one out, then gave up and went back to organizing the fiction filing cart. My volunteer shift was almost over. A few more kids passed through the turnstile, checking out books. I’d just demagnetized a copy of
Dune
, one of my all-time faves, and was handing it back to another skinny minor niner, when Ms. Fowler entered the library, returning from her lunch break. But instead of heading into her office the way she normally did, she stopped in front of a large display case that was mounted on the wall directly across from the check-out desk, and stood staring at it bleakly.