Out of Order (11 page)

“Thanks, Colt,” Dori's saying, breathless. Her shirt is too dark to see through, but she must be cold because her nipples are sticking out like those 3D dots that blind people can read.

Which you're
supposed
to run your fingers over, by the way.

Dori looks at me and smiles, and I see that her eye
liner, or whatever that black stuff is, is smeared under her eyes. The moment she looks out the window at all that rain, I look at her breasts again, the way they vibrate as the car moves along, at her nipples poking at her shirt, like…like…

Like two blips of Morse code, saying:
Do! Me!

And really, that's reasonable. Forget the kid stuff. I
ought
to just go ahead and do her. For Grace's sake, of course—it'll be better for both of us if I rack up some experience first. That way there won't be a lot of fumbling around. I mean, I know what to do—how difficult could it be? But practicing on Dori will help me build up some finesse. Like in baseball—you don't go straight to regular season. No, you need a couple of practice games first, to work out the bugs, improve your technique. Find your rhythm.

“I didn't know you lived around here,” Dori is saying.

“I don't. My sister takes dance right over there.”

“Oh.” She nods.

I don't know what to say next. So I nod too, and then we're both nodding. I hadn't figured on having to make conversation.

I haven't seen Dori in person in a long time. I'd forgotten how she really is pretty fine. With a
very
fine rack. Although the way her eyes are smeared with that black stuff makes it look like she's been crying.

“Looks like you got caught in the rain,” I tell her.

“Yeah. I had to take something to the post office. It couldn't wait.”

I almost wonder what it is that's so important she's got to mail it in the rain. But I don't
want
to. I don't want to wonder anything at all about Dori. “So,” I say, “which way am I going?”

“Straight ahead. It's only about a block.” A drop of water runs down her cheek. She wipes it off with the back of her hand. “Turn here.”

Now I'm driving down a street with little houses all lined up like shoe boxes.

“This is it,” she says.

“This one?”

“Yeah.”

I pull up in front of the shoe box she's pointing to. There's a saggy screen door, and the windows have aluminum foil to keep out the sun. I tell myself, What a lazy skanky family, to let your house look like that.

My hand reaches down slowly to kill the engine. But I'm looking at that house, and I'm getting this feeling, like there's a sign out front that says,
Hey, Colt—You Could Be Living Here
!

One night years ago, right after my dad moved out, I was coming down the stairs and heard my mom on the phone, yelling, “You just ask him where his children are
supposed to live!” She was shrieking by the end of it, and it scared the hell out of me, watching her slam the phone down, and when she turned around there were tears coming down her cheeks.

She didn't know I was looking down at her the whole time, of course, and when she saw me huddled on the staircase, she stopped pacing and told me everything was okay, she was just a little late on the house payment but she'd never been late before and they'd give her a little leeway just this once. Then she sent me to bed, but I just lay there wide-awake, thinking we were about to get kicked out of our home that very night, and wondering if the police would come with flashing lights, and if I'd get to take any toys or clothes, and if they'd kick us out onto the sidewalk or take us to jail.

That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't. The next day my mom was on the phone again, probably with my dad but I don't know for sure, and when she slammed down the phone, her mouth was all pinched up and she said she was ready to haul ass to her own place, that she could afford all on her own. So she took me and Cass out with her while she looked at houses for sale—small, old houses, like this one.

I got to tell you I was scared shitless. On top of my parents hating each other, and my dad leaving, and my mother shrieking and crying, I was going to be forced to
leave the only house in the only neighborhood I'd ever known.

The truth is, I know Dori's family probably doesn't have enough money to fix things, or to buy blinds.

But I say it again, to myself. Lazy. Skanky.

It doesn't help. I'm getting this urgent feeling, like if I don't get busy doing this girl right away, I'm going to start thinking too much, and blow this chance completely.

I don't know, could be I've got a funny expression, because Dori says suddenly, “Sorry about the way the house looks.”

“Aw, no,” I say quickly. “It's great.”

“I live with my dad, and he's too busy to keep up with it on the outside. I've been working on the inside, though.”

I nod, because I know she has been. “Wallpaper,” I say.

“Yeah. Although I haven't actually saved up the money to buy any yet. I'm still kind of picking it out. So,” Dori says, after another moment, “what all classes do you have right now?”

I pull my eyes away from that house, stare at the dashboard. I have to make myself think. “Biology. Tech ed. Geometry—”

“Tech ed? What period?”

“Second.” My mother made me take it.

“I've got it third. Who do you have?”

“Wheeler.”

“Oh. I've got Dixon. I'm going to try to get into work-study next year. You know, where you go to school in the morning and work in the afternoons? And I'm going to graduate early, if I can.”

I nod.

She's watching me, for some kind of response, I guess. The windows are fogging up. I'm definitely starting to think too much. Better get things started.

Now.

Only I'm not really sure how to begin.

Kiss her, I think. But she's leaning back against the door—she's not situated right. So I look at her hand, flat on the seat beside her, and tell myself I'm going to take her hand and put it you-know-where. Then I tell myself how I'm just going to slide over there and put my hand on her breast. Although I know from experience that kind of thing usually doesn't go over too well. Most times you have to go through a bunch of other stuff first.

“I really appreciate how nice you've been to me, Colt.”

Talk to her, I think. Tell her she's pretty. Tell her something! Speak, boy!

“Not just giving me a ride, but talking to me on the
phone and everything. You're really a good person. All those people like Stephanie and Preston and Ashley—they think they're so great just because of who they are and where they live and what they own. But you're the only one of them who's really decent inside.”

Jesus. I don't know what to say to this girl. Not at all, and I don't know what to do with myself in front of this house.

“Listen, I'd ask you in,” Dori's saying, “but my dad's asleep.”

It's five o'clock in the afternoon. And I remember how Mom used to work weird hours for a while there, before she got into real estate.

“That's okay,” I hear myself say.

“Anyway, thanks.” Dori reaches for the door handle.

It's okay, I tell myself, Let her go. She's nobody. Anyway, your first shouldn't be Jordan Palmer's seconds. Grace Garcetti's going to be the one.

The door's open now—the rain has slacked off a little, it's just regular rain, not pelting—and Dori slides out.

But she doesn't leave. She bends over a little to look me in the eye.

“Colt, I know this sounds stupid, but if you ever need anything, I'm there for you. Girl trouble, anything. Even if you just need somebody to talk to. You've got my number.”

But I don't think I do. I erased it every time she left it.

Finally she shuts the door. My palms are sweating. I watch her walk all the way to the porch, watch the screen door slam shut behind her. The screen door with a wrought-iron flamingo nailed into the frame.

I feel how I'm breathing too fast, I'm hyperventilating. Slow down, dude, I tell myself. Relax. You could have done her. You just didn't feel like it. You're in control. This is your show.

You're Colt Trammel, after all.

 

The first thing that's different I notice right away. As soon as I walk in the door of biology.

I don't say anything until after the bell rings and we're all supposed to be reading.

“You cut your hair,” I whisper to Chlorophyll.

“No kidding,” she says. She doesn't sound too happy.

Ms. Keller shuffles some papers around on her desk, like she can't find something. She glances up, makes sure everybody's still reading.

Then she slips out of the room.

“Looks good,” I tell Chlo. Because it does. I don't usually like super-short hair on girls, but it's brown all over now, so I'd have to say she's crossed the line into humanhood.

Chlo makes a face.

“It really does,” I tell her, and I'm not sure why I'm trying to convince her I mean it. Maybe because she's going to help me pass English.

“You mean it makes me look like Peter
Pan
.”

I start to laugh. But then I realize she's serious.

“That's what Brian said.” Chlo turns and looks at me from under her brand-new bangs. They make her eyes look bigger, her lashes longer. “He said it made me look like a boy.”

I stare at her. The guy must be blind. It's her
clothes
that make her look like a boy. The
hair
looks great. It looks…soft.

Boy, I'd never tell Grace her new haircut sucked. I could tell somebody like Alicia Doggett, easy. Maybe even somebody like Dori.

But no way would I ever be so stupid as to tell my goddamn
girlfriend
her haircut looked bad, for Christ's sake. Now if it was Silver Stanton, I'd shout it off the top of the auditorium. But not my girlfriend. It would hurt her feelings. And it's not like she could glue it back on or anything. “I got to tell you something, Chlo,” I say, and for once I tell the absolute truth. “You're too good for that guy. Dump him.”

I think about how I'd feel if somebody said something like the Peter Pan comment to Grace.

“
Now
,” I tell her. “Today. Pick up the goddamn phone
and dump him. Because I can tell you right now, you're in for a whole load of shit if you don't.”

“You can talk,” she says. “You're the one calling me Greenland and Chlorophyll.”

“I don't call you Greenland anymore,” I say. “And I call you Chlo, not Chlorophyll. It's like a nickname. Hell,
you
call
me
Terrell.”

“So?”

“So my name's
Trammel
. Colt
Trammel
. Jesus. Haven't you ever been to a high-school baseball game? Don't you read the papers? Do you ever get
out
?”

“Take out your folders,” Ms. Keller says, walking back in with her grade book. “I'm checking assignments fifteen through twenty.”

“Here's some friendly advice, Chlo,” I add, getting out my folder. “Get a life—that's my advice.”

I actually have the assignments for Ms. Keller to look at. All finished, too; I copied them from Stu.

So I sit with my open folder, waiting for Ms. Keller to come around with her grade book. Chlo sits too, but she keeps her face down. She really looks depressed all over, with her too-big shirt hanging down almost to her knees.

It pisses me off. Everything's right on track for Grace and me. I'm going to pass all my classes, even if I have to bust a grape to do it. I've got on my favorite shirt in
the whole world, which Grace said is her favorite because it makes my eyes look green—which they're not, exactly—and my hair look blond—which it's not, exactly—so it's my favorite shirt, too.

And I don't like the way Chlo's moping around at my lab table, throwing me off balance.

Just because I need her for English, it's like I'm supposed to
do
something now.

Ms. Keller comes by, starts leafing through my folder. I don't look at Chlo again. I can see her sitting there, though, and I can hear the way she doesn't say another word, all through the rest of class.

And all through class, I'm not feeling as great as I was. I've got this tiny, nagging little feeling. Like something's
off
. Like the earth's just a little bit crooked, or the light is not quite right.

 

By fifth Chlo seems to have worked herself out of her bad mood, thank God. In assistant, we have papers to grade again. Just my luck—when I'm starting to need this time for something besides sleep, Miss A. starts dumping actual work on us.

I slap grades on those papers like I'm dealing cards. Any mistakes'll get caught by whoever gets 'em back, anyway.

I grab some out of Chlo's stack, because she's moving too slow.

Finally Chlo lays the last paper on top of the finished pile. “Okay,” she says. She pulls my English book over to her and flips through. “Let's start with ‘Ozymandias.'”

Whatever. I bend over a piece of paper, clutching my pencil.

“This is by Percy Shelley,” she tells me, and then she reads the poem out loud, slowly, like I'm going to understand it better if she reads it that way. Hah.