Second Helpings (3 page)

To this end, the girls on my floor have devoted much time to the creation of the Lucky Seven, an official designation of the most doable guys in the program. Girls outnumber guys seventy-two to twenty-eight, so the competition is fierce. SPECIAL is a haven for hetero boys whose interest in the arts has inevitably led to chants of Fag! and other homophobic taunts at their respective high schools. This is their chance to shine. But even after taking their hardships into consideration, only seven made the cut. Very lucky for them, indeed. Very unlucky for me. See, I made butt-to-butt contact with each and every one of the Lucky Seven, none of which was a gluteal love connection.

Take the vocal music hottie, Derek, for example. The mere mention of my name inspired him to break out into a Broadway show-tune version of the 1981 Rick Springfield tune Jesses Girl. This was unwise for two reasons: (1)1 introduced myself as Jessica, not Jessie. I loathe being called Jessie. (Almost as much as I loathe it when my dad calls me Notso, as in Jessica Notso Darling. Har-dee-har-har. Its even more hilarious now than it was the first bizillion times he said it.) (2) The song Jesses Girl is sung by a guy (Rick Springfield) who wants another guys (Jesses) girlfriend (name unknown). For the song Jesses Girl to apply to me, it would have to be a song about Ricks lesbo envy, or something like that.

I tried explaining this to Derek, to which he replied, Well, excuse me, Miss Buzzkill.

I see my reputation has preceded me.

The only other notable Lucky Seven exchange was with the saxophone player hottie.

Im Mike, he said, swiveling his butt against my shoulder blades. He was nearly a foot taller than me. Whats yours?

Jessica.

Jessica what?

Jessica Darling.

Get the fuck out! he yelled, bringing our butt-to-butt dance to a screeching halt.

I will not, I said. Thats my name.

He snickered.

Seriously, whats your problem?

Snicker. Snicker. Snicker.

What?

You look different in person

I stood there with my hands on my hips, glaring.

You usually look like a glazed doughnut.

More glaring.

Glazed doughnut. Get it?

I know we just met, but now youre pissing me off.

He held out his hand. Im honored to meet you, Jessica Darling, the Queen of Anal as voted by the 1997 Adult Video Awards.

Jesus Christ. If telling a girl she shares a name with a porn queen who specializes in butt sex qualifies as wooing these days, Im signing up for the nunnery tomorrow.

The upside to all this is that at least I know for sure, on Day One of Orientation, that there is no hope. Not one shred of hope that I will find my true love. Not one sliver of hope that I will meet the one who will permanently erase the memory of He Who Shall Remain Nameless.

Its good to get that out of the way. Now I can just move on.

Of course, it would be much easier to forget He Who Shall Remain Nameless and move on if I stopped having XXX-rated dreams about him.

Oh, Christ. Thats exactly the type of thing that warrants a journal burning.

the sixth

The very notion of being defrocked by a teacher is nothing more than comedic fodder for girls in the Pineville school district. A sorrier assemblage of maleness is unlikely to be found anywhere in the world. Hope and I once tried compiling a list of the hottest teachers when we were sophomores, and it turned into a carnal cavalcade of freaks, starting with Mr. Bee Gee Gleason, the history teacher whose irony-free wardrobe consists of polyester bell-bottoms and butterfly collars, and ending with Mr. Rico Suave Ricardo, my homeroom teacher, whose party-in-the-back, all-business-up-front mullet is an engineering marvel requiring no small amount of technical know-how and a complex assortment of mousses, gels, and hair sprays.

I lamented the dearth of hot male teachers, but now I realize it was a blessing. My academic record would not be as impressive had I been distracted by the likes of Professor Samuel MacDougall, who can credit three novels, two works of nonfiction, and one hot piece of ass to his name. Finally! A new Obsessive Object of Horniness. OOOH!

Call me Mac, he said.

Mackadocious is more like it.

For the next month, I will be your writing instructor

Lip Macking Good.

It was Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who said, Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the Soul within

Big Mac Attack.

Here, in the next five weeks, I hope you do more revealing than concealing

Oh, Ill reveal more than that if you want me to, Mac Daddy.

You will read and write for six hours a day, five days a week. There will be a morning workshop lasting three hours. Then a break for lunch, followed by an afternoon workshop. You will be expected to share your writing and critique each others work, which will help you become more careful readers and better blahdiddyblahblahblahblah

Thats where I kind of zoned out. Maybe its the humidity, but Jesus Christ, Mac brings out the David Lee Roth in me

Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad Im hot for teacher.

What makes it worse is that I seem to be the only student who has fallen under his hypnotic spell. True, hes not the obviously crushable type. Hes skinny with thick black glasses and kinky black hair that springs off his head in all directions: SPROIIIIINNNNNNG ! See, my idea of cute comes with an IQ requirement. Its geeky cute. Its Rivers Cuomo, not Justin Timberlake. Its Gideon Yago, not Brian McFayden. Jimmy Fallon, yes please! Brad Pitt, no thank you.

My mental undressing got as far as Macs boxer briefs when the class gasped in response to something he had said.

What did he just say? I whispered to a tall, anemic guy next to me, a dead ringer for the Grim Reaper. (Pun very much intended.)

The seminar will culminate in a reading at Blood and Ink, he replied in a subvocal growl.

This meant nothing to me. Where?

Blood and Ink.

Me, expressionless as a lifetime of Botox injections.

Grim Reaper turned to the shadowy figure sitting next to him.

Shes never heard of Blood and Ink.

You wouldnt think that a girl with eight barbells in her face could be so easily horrified. I would say that all the color drained from Barbellas face, but I was pretty sure that the vampire girl sitting in back of her had drained her veins already.

Thankfully, Mac stepped in before I was ritually sacrificed.

Blood and Ink is a performance space located in the East Village in Manhattan. It is one of the last bastions of oral storytelling. Historically, it has always been a forum where writers blahdiddyblahblahblah-blah

I think the other reason Im the only one Macking out is that my fellow students can only be bothered by the deepest, most intellectually rewarding pursuits.

Now that you know what I expect of you in these next five weeks, which I didnt, because I hadnt been listening, Id like to find out what you hope to get out of this program. Francis Bacon said, Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought are commonly the most valuable. For the next fifteen minutes, I want you to write in the moment. Answer these questions: Why are you here? Why did you willingly sign up for a program that traps you inside a classroom all summer long, while your friends are at the beach? More important, why do you want to write? I expect you to share your responses with the class.

A hand shot up next to me. It was attached to another black-clad lump of a person, with skin so pale that her veins gave her a blueish hue. A vision of the Lump frolicking in the sand made me chuckle, which was not a very cool thing to do when you should be trying to make friends.

Must I use prose? Im a poet.

You can write in whatever form you feel is best for self-expression, Mac replied.

So what did I write about? How did I account for my presence at SPECIAL? Well, without totally plagiarizing my application essay, I basically wrote that I wanted to escape another summer catering to attitudi-nal tourists at Wally Ds Sweet Treat Shoppe but my parents are putting every extra penny toward my college fund and would only send me to a summer program that cost little (cross-country camp) or nothing at all (SPECIAL), so I chose mental exertion over physical and applied to the writing program because I cant sing, act, dance, paint, play the piano, or do anything else of artistic merit.

This response was deemed unacceptable by everyone in the room.

Is that your idea of satire? asked a guy wholiterallyhad the word LOSER tattooed in tiny letters across his forehead.

Do you know how many serious writers were dying to get into this program? grumbled the Grim Reaper.

I know her type, murmured the Lump. Shes here so she can put one last accomplishment on her Harvard application.

And Mac clicked his tongue. Teh.

I deserve this abuse, but not for the reasons they thought I did. My essay was the biggest pack of lies this side of Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace. Its one thing to lie to my (hot!) teacher. But I know Ive sunk to a truly sad state when Im tempted to lie in here, in the effort of making myself look better to the hypothetical reader in the future who has nothing better to do but pour over this journal. (Wouldnt you rather beam yourself to another planet, or something twenty-third century like that?)

So in the spirit of full disclosure and unflinching honesty (that is totally unnecessary for anyone who has been reading this notebook from the beginning and sees my confession coming), I will reveal the truth. I am here for one reason.

Because He isnt.

He.

Him.

HIM.

He Who Shall Remain Nameless

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH.

This self-prescribed cognitive behavioral therapy isnt getting any easier.

According to my Psych book, shrinks sometimes tell patients who have been traumatized to convince themselves that the heinous event never happened. Apparently, if the delusion lasts long enough, youll trick yourself into really believing that it did not occur. So I decided to remove the name of He Who Shall Remain Nameless from my vocabulary until 1 forget him entirely. At that point Hell still be nameless, but I wont be excruciatingly aware of it anymore.

Its been seven months and my carefully selective amnesia hasnt kicked in yet.

But I wasnt about to write about Him. Nope. Just like Im not going to think about Him now. Instead I will think about Mac. And I will think about Mac out of his boxer briefs

the tenth

Well, after a week of endless introductions, its official: I cant revel in my relative obscurity anymore. Until six months ago, Pineville was fairly anonymous, even to fellow New Jerseyans. If Pineville High was known at all, it was only for its proximity to other notorious high schools.

Heightstown High School, for example, the upscale enclave for Wall Street commuters kids that saw its hoity-toity reputation plummet when it was revealed that one-third of the graduating class of 1996 had contracted syphilis at one of several Senior Class Orgies organized by the student-body president in the attempt to boost school spirit. (Go SCO! was a popular motto among those in the know.)

Or perhaps you recall hearing about PHSs archrival, Eastland High School, aka the Prom Moms alma mater. Back in 1999, she left the dance floor and dropped a six-pound, two-ounce bundle of joy in the backseat of the rented limousine. Prom Mom left him screeching and covered with amniotic slime while she headed back inside and asked the deejay to play Boom Boom Boom (Let Me Hear You Say Way-Oh). Psychologists scratched their heads over interpreting the symbolic meaning of the song choice, oblivious to the obvious explanation, which was, simply, that she was a Hoochie Mama. (Ha. In more ways than one.)

These tabloid stories occurred at high schools less than a half hour from home, thereby providing an amusing way to pinpoint Pinevilles location when introducing myself to strangers, i.e., Oh, Pineville? Its fifteen minutes from Prom Mom. I appreciated the relative anonymity, as it spared me the embarrassment of apologizing about my origins with a reflexive, Yeah, I know. I live in the stankiest, hairiest crook within the armpit of the nation.

Here at SPECIAL, my fears have been confirmed. Pineville is now as well known as its neighbors for not one but two different claims to fame: (1) The inspiration behind Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallaces book and motion picture. (2) The birthplace of gansta pap trailblazer Kayjay Johnson and the video bitch who broke his heart.

I refuse to waste ink on the former because its only going to get worse in the coming months, a thought that makes me want to pull out my teeth one by one with a medieval dental instrument as my SPECIAL classmates cheer me on.

I have avoided writing about the latter because I keep hoping that he will cross over into Where are they now? oblivion. But its clear that neither is going to happen anytime soon. Im known throughout the dorm as the girl from Pineville who knows the other girl from Pineville who went with Kayjay Johnson! So much for me wanting to establish an identity completely separate from Bridgets.