Poser (7 page)
I was talking quickly. We were on again in about five seconds. I could see the photographer and the props guy chucking their Styrofoam coffee cups in the garbage. Ever heard of the
environment
, you jerks?
I turned back to Cody, hoping he wasn't bawling now. And then a light went on in my brain.
“Hey, Cody, you should talk to my Aunt Macy. She's my agent, and she's really good. She's started a modeling agency, and I know she's looking for some new clients.”
He brightened immediately, like babies do when you shake some keys in front of them. Shiny! Noisy!
“Thanks, Luke,” he said. “Macy even
sounds
like Marnie. I'm gonna do it! You're a good friend. A really good friend.”
Awkward man-hug alert! I stepped back just as Cody stepped toward me, so he kind of punched my shoulder instead, which was way,
way
better. I lightly punched him back, feeling guilty for all the times I got frustrated with Cody, said mean things about him in my mind and felt like he was a loser. He wasn't a bad guy. Just kind of goofy and vacant. There I go again. He's a good guy. Period.
“BOYS?” bellowed the photographer.
“Time to rock and roll, Lukester!” Cody whispered, his face lighting up.
NORMAL-ISH BOY MODEL SEEKS HOCKEY TEAM
I'm a big hockey fan. As big a fan as you can be when you can't play on a team or watch almost any NHL games. But I always know who's playing, I check the scores, and I cheer to myself.
Chan and Frey play hockey in a league. As far as I can figure it out, this is how leagues work: the guys who've been in skates since they were sucking on a soother play in the A league, with the burly coaches who act as if their players are almost semiprofessional.
The A-league guys all wait by the phone for the NHL to call them up. The parents are, shall we say, very,
very
involved. I once saw Ethan Malloy's dad scream so hard that he horked a gob of spit onto the Plexiglas two rows down. I watched that spit trickle down into the boards the whole third period. Not pretty. My mom would say Mr. Malloy has issues.
Chan and Frey play on the same team, in the D or F league, meaning they can stand up on skates and have parents that don't mind driving them to early Saturday-morning practices.
It's my kind of league. Nobody scores much, but they have fun.
Chan's actually really fast, in an out-of-control kind of way. It's the stopping
he has trouble with. He generally just skids into the boards and falls, crashing into a
crumpled heap. Frey plays defense. BIG defense. He doesn't move much, but he
doesn't have to. His skill is being almost impossible to get around.
I really thought this would be the year I got to play, but you-know-what got in the way.
“Hmmm. Hockey, hey?” Mom said, looking over the registration forms. I'd sneakily made sure Macy was out before I showed Mom the forms.
“Yeah, I got it all figured out,” I said quickly. “I get Frey to lend me some secondhand equipment. The Frey guys all play hockey. There's got to be some old gear lying around.”
I thought I had her, I really did. Then she flipped through the pages of The Calendar That Rules Our Lives.
Have I mentioned that I hate that calendar? I think I did.
It's always booked solid, the dates of modeling shoots in red. I looked over at it. There was a lot of red.
“Oh, honey, I'm sorry, but it looks like in the fall you're booked every Saturday until Christmas,” she said. “I guess that's the price you pay for being gorgeous! Maybe next year, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, trying to smile back at her.
Now, when I was younger I would have just shrugged this off as another thing in a long list of things I couldn't do, like eating donuts, cutting my own hair and using non-whitening toothpaste.
But I'm twelve now. And I'm getting angry. Slowburn Spin, that's me. Man on the edge.
Anyway, I go and watch Chan crash and Frey be immobile when I can. And we play after school sometimes with Frey's brothers at the park near Frey's house. It's just a little field in the summer, with an old climber and two baby swings in one corner. But in the winter, Frey's dad puts up some two-by-fours and floods the field every night for a week as soon as we get a cold snap.
It's like the Frey family's personal rink. Their two nets stay on the ice, and the boys and their friends do all the shoveling. One of the only rules is, you want to play, you have to shovel. When you finish playing, you just dump all your goalie pads and sticks and helmets in a heap at one end of the rink, knowing that another group of kids will be out playing soon.
More than once, I've strapped on goalie stuff that was frozen solid, like big blocks of ice. The equipment is not exactly state-of-the-art gear: helmets with flapping grills held on by a single, ancient screw, gloves with holes in the leather. No A-league guy would touch it, but hey, I'll take it.
Some of my best memories are from that park, playing out there with frozen hands until I couldn't even see the puck. Then, when it was hopelessly dark, some Frey would shout, “ARE...YOU...READY... FOR...EXTREME HOCKEY?” which is just skating wildly and crashing into each other randomly in the dark. It's awesome.
Last year, Nick (Frey's oldest brother) decided to ask his dad to put in floodlights.
“Yeah, and a hot-chocolate machine,” chipped in Chan, blowing on his hands.
“Benches!” said Frey, brushing snow off his enormous backside.
“How about bleachers for all our fans?” I suggested, gesturing to two elderly ladies at a bus stop across the field.
None of it happened. But we still have the old equipment, the goals and EXTREME HOCKEY.
But listen up, sports fans: Big News!
Now, for the first time in my life, I might have a chance to be on a
real
hockey team. My school is putting together a team for a citywide junior-high tournament.
Chan told me about it at lunch.
“So it's a few weeks of practices and one tournament,” he said, pushing up his glasses. “And here's the best thing, Spin. All the guys who really play hockey have provincials that weekend, so they're not trying out. Mr. Schulz said to get the word out that we really need bodies!”
They need bodies!
Bodies
! I'm a body! This was my kind of team.
I peppered him with questions.
“Any early-morning practices?” This would be a deal breaker for Mom and Macy.
“There are two, but my dad says we can pick you up,” said Chan.
I gnawed on my thumbnail. Where was a pencil when I needed one? I could already hear the crowd chanting,
Go, Spin, go
!
“Chan, you know I'm not very good. You've seen me play. Not so good with the turning and the stopping. Or the puck handling or the shooting. Do you think I'd make it?” I asked.
“Geez, Spin, have you been listening?” He spoke slowly. “We...need...bodies. To fill positions. So we can play. Get it? Just show up.”
“Yeah, just shut up and show up, Spin,” said Frey through a mouthful of my celery sticks.
So I did. I showed up.
And I made the team. I made it!
Sure,
everyone
who showed up made the team.
Sure, my number 13 jersey is faded orange and reeks of years of other guys' sweat.
Sure, I still have to find some equipment so I don't actually die out there.
Sure, I still have to break it to Mom and Macy, which won't be pretty.
But I'm on a
hockey team
. Playing real hockey. Real shots, real skating.
Ice, Stick and Puck: The Luke Spinelli Story
.
In this chapter, Mr. Spinelli attempted, unsuccessfully, to describe a “gruesome” Valentine's Dayâthemed modeling shoot with Clarissa, “Psycho-Freak Girl Model,” during which they were required to freeze a “pucker-pose.”
In another pose, they were “forced to hold hands and fake-skip together.”
Due to the extreme distaste (to say nothing of the inappropriate language) our author showed for describing this shoot, it has been omitted.
He requests that we remind you that he promised to be honest.
He did not promise to tell you everything.
Please respect his privacy in this deeply painful matter.
IN WHICH MY MONSTER LIE GROWS AND LURCHES OUT OF CONTROL
I'm back. If you have any questions about that last chapter, keep them to yourselves.
Remember: I'm a man on the edge. Things could blow up any chapter here. Like, for example, in this one.
First thing this morning, Mrs. Walker came on the intercom, all serious and solemn.
“Students and staff,” she began, “I would like to take this opportunity to announce that our junior-high community will be promoting a new initiative...”
Do all principals talk like that? All “initiative” this and “strategy” that and blah, blah, blah? I was barely listening. I was busy with my ongoing project of using my Sharpie to turn my blue binder completely black.
“...committed to social justice, and the support of our family here at Leonard Petrew Junior High...” She was still at it. Ms. McCoy was leaning on her desk, trying to be patient while Mrs. Walker droned on.
Suddenly, I snapped to attention. What did she just say?
“...and to support one of our brightest stars, a boy who is courageously fighting a private battle with a life-threatening disease, our school will be holding a major fundraiser for the children's hospital. Or as I like to call it, a FUNdraiser!”
I was stunned! That was my private lie she was announcing to the whole school.
I sank down, my face burning, and scribbled madly with the Sharpie. Sometimes, even for a professional liar like me, it's hard to make your face look like you don't care. A whole FUNdraiser to support a liar like me?
Now, I knew the Monopoliitis lie was a big one. Obviously. I don't invent diseases every day of the week. I just didn't know it would turn into such a monster.
Wait: have I told you my theory about lying? Don't worry, this isn't a moral or a lesson or anything. It's just what I've noticed, in a detached, scientific way, in my own life of lies.
DR. SPIN'S THEORY OF LYING
Lies come in three main forms:
The One-Off
(level: amateur)
This type of lie is small, quick and usually about something unimportant. Saying you brushed your teeth when you didn't is a typical lie of this level. Or that you ate your vegetables at lunch when you really two-pointed them into the garbage. A one-off lie might be as small as a yes or no. These lies often work well, especially when the person being lied to is busy, tired, uninterested or otherwise preoccupied.
The Multiplier
(level: intermediate)
This type of lie builds on a smaller one, maybe a one-off, but requires further and more elaborate lies. It involves thinking quickly and improvising. For example:
Mom: “Did you do your homework?”
You: “Yep.” First lie.
Mom: “Well, where is it?”
You: “I finished it at school before the bell rang.” Second lie, because it's sitting in your backpack.
Mom (
rummaging in your backpack, which is PRIVATE, but not really the point in this example
): “Well, what's this in your backpack, then?”
You: “Oh, that. Yeah, I still have to do
that
. But it's not for tomorrow. Our teacher said it's not due until Friday.” Third lie, and possibly fourth.
The Monster
(level: expert. Don't try this at home. Or at least really think it through before you try it.)
The monster is a lie not to be undertaken lightly. It is a huge lie, and it can have major, unexpected consequences. It can involve multipliers and can begin as a one-off, but it grows and grows out of the liar's control.
It is a dangerous kind of lying.
The Monopoliitis lie was obviously a monster. I'd known that when I decided to use it, but I'd foolishly thought I could control it. Me, the expert liar.
I'd been so busy warning Mrs. Walker not to talk to my mom about it that I'd forgotten to warn her not to talk to the
entire school
. She'd really caught me off guard on this one. Never for one moment did I think she would announce the news to the whole school or start a huge campaign about it. I thought she might discuss it generally at the next staff meeting or have a private word with my teachers. I never imagined how the whole situation could spiral out of control. How long would it be until everyone found out who the “sick” boy really was? Mrs. Walker-Talker was clearly not to be trusted.
That's the thing about lies. You have to be very, very good at them. You have to remember them. You have to track them. You have to plan. And even if you think you've done everything right (or, maybe, wrong?), they can still come back to bite you.
I know, I know: I deserve it.
But I didn't
expect
it.
INTERRUPTION BY MACY #4