Second Helpings (42 page)

Marcus finally brought home someone who is smarter than he is.

We love you, Jessica Darling! enthused Mrs. Darling as she bear-hugged me again.

Over her shoulder, I watched Marcus turn purple with embarrassment. Then he mouthed the words I love you, too.

And I love you, I replied, but I wasnt afraid to say it out loud.

the twenty-fourth

The only reason I am still in school is because extra days were tacked on to the school year to make up for the time wasted in September on account of the messed-up scheduling. I aced out of all my finals, so it has been a particularly useless week at Pineville High for me. Could there be a more fitting end to my academic experience, or lack thereof?

With the prom over, yearbooks signed, and finals a joke, seniors are compelled to be even more nauseatingly nostalgic than they would be.

This is the last time Ill ever eat school pizza!

This is the last time Ill cut Spanish!

This is the last time Ill put out a cigarette on this toilet seat.

Manda and Sara have been particularly mopey, walking around with tears in their eyes all week. I think they know the truth: This was the best time of their lives, and its almost over.

As much as Ive bitched about not fitting in, and being an outsider among the insiders, I now realize that it was probably for the best. I mean, is there anything more pathetic than peaking at eighteen? Some one who counts down the decade until the next reunion? Someone whose mantra is Remember when?

I imagine Manda trying on her Prom Queen tiara when shes thirty, Sara wanting to relive the days when her brainless scoop was a commodity, and Scotty, thick with frat fat, unable to run to the closest keg without getting winded, crying along with Glory Days on the radio because what Springsteen is singing is so true, so true .

If I ever, ever, ever miss Pineville Highwith its dingy cinder-block walls, moldy, asbestos-filled ceillings, and gray hot-dog water cafeteria stench; with its clueless administration and counterintuitive zero-tolerance policies; with its hallways you cant walk down, bathrooms you cant use, and tables you cant sit at because of its oppressive social zoning laws that put Upper Crusters at the top of the high-school hierarchy, followed by Jocks, Groupies, Wiggaz, Hoochies, I.Q.s, 404s, Dregs, Hicks, and Other Miscellaneous Bottom Dwellers Deemed Unworthy of Names; a place where any actual learning was purely by accident, and never took place inside the classroomyou have my permission to kill me. Did I just write my graduation speech? Ha!

the twenty-eighth

I had already imagined how it would be next year.

Id be at Columbia, and Marcus would move to Manhattan, or maybe one of the outer boroughs. I would study hard, and he would make money playing gigs at dingy bars. Wed spend countless hours going to clubs to see bands on the verge, touring obscure art exhibits, and sipping pot after pot of black coffee in hole-in-the-wall cafes. Many more hours would be spent lounging under the covers. We would never run out of witty and fascinating things to say to each other. Eventually, hed apply to Columbia, and wed be the type of well-educated, cosmopolitan couple that confuse the suburbumpkins who never leave Pineville.

I should have known not to get my heart set on anything.

Jess, Ive been meaning to tell you something.

While the rest of the senior class was celebrating their Pineville emancipation at yet another one of Saras boot-and-rallies, Marcus had insisted on taking me to the Seaside Heights boardwalk.

Come on, if its good enough for MTV, its good enough for us.

I still cant believe that of all the resorts in the entire world, MTV chose Seaside Heights, New Jersey, as its summer HQ, I said, shaking my head.

It is the Home of Sunnin and Funnin, Marcus said, quoting the motto printed all over the boardwalks brochures.

Easy for you to say, I said. You never had a toothless obese man in a wife-beater order a chocolate cone, then blow a burrito belch in your face.

This is true, he replied.

Millions of kids across the country are going to be sitting in front of their TV sets this summer thinking Seaside Heights is the coolest place on earth, wishing they could be here for all the sunnin and funnin

When all youve ever wanted to do is get out of here, he said, completing my thought.

Exactly.

Theres a lesson in there somewhere, Marcus said, sliding into a smile.

It turned out that MTV wasnt taping when we got there. If we had thought things through carefully, we would have figured this out before we got there. No way would Sara throw a party at her house when she could party in front of television cameras. Shes promised to be such a fixture at the MTV house that her lust for nationwide attention might even threaten to cut into her tanning time. Anyway, the beach house was surprisingly dark and quiet, though that didnt stop dozens of TRL hopefuls from hanging around it anyway, hoping for a glimpse of Carson or Quddus.

Oh, well, Marcus said. I guess tonights sunnin and funnin wont be televised after all.

Marcus beat me by 120 points in Skeeball, but I redeemed myself by thwacking the bejeesus out of the little varmints in Whack-a-Mole. We both humiliated ourselves on the Dance Dance Revolution by not being able to keep up with the disco choreography that went with K.C. & the Sunshine Bands Thats the Way I Like It. We shared funnel cake and orangeade. We giggled at countless fortysomething broads wearing age-inappropriate clothing in flammable fabrics, and the hirsute Guidos who beer-goggle them. We even checked out how the Geek from Shoot the Geek was doing, though we refused to pay a dollar to launch paintball bazooka bombs at him, even if he was dressed like Osama Bin Laden. He was not as charismatic a geek as Pepe was two summers ago, but he had mastered Pepes most impressive somersault escape maneuver.

With Marcuss help, I turned into what I thought I would never be when I slaved my sophomore summer away at Wally Ds Sweet Treat Shoppe: someone who came to the boards to have fun . So yes, there was a lesson in all this. Who needed MTV? All I needed was Marcus.

It made me think about all the other possible places in the world that Marcus could help make fun for me. Little did I know that on the sky ride, a cable car suspended high in the air that afforded a gorgeous view of the ocean and an escape from the crowds and the chaos down below, the amusement would be short-lived.

Jessica, he said, Ive been meaning to tell you something.

What?

Im going away.

What?

I wont be around here next year. Im going away to school.

I thought he was joking. He had to be joking. So I joked right back.

Ringling Brothers reopened the clown college?

Its a new liberal arts school, Gakkai College.

But you didnt even take your SATs.

I know. Thats the beauty of it. Its founded by a Buddhist sect and doesnt require SATs or any other admissions tests. All I had to do was write an essay about egalitarian ideals in the modern world. I guess they decided I was their spiritual brother because they offered me a scholarship.

So where is this idyllic, intellectual haven?

Nuevo Viejo, California.

California . Of course it sounded a little Lets put on our Nikes, drink cyanide-flavored KoolAid, and do the Helter Skelter to me. California is the cult capital of the world.

Black waves crashed into the sand.

Be happy for me, Jessica.

Thats I started.

Horrible. Tragic. Devastating.

Awesome! I managed to blurt out.

He didnt believe it for one second. Words that express excitement sound so weird coming out of my mouth. I am especially bad at expressing enthusiasm for others when I do not feel it myself.

Im not throwing my life away.

He was right. Shouldnt I want whats best for him?

BUT I THOUGHT WHATS BEST FOR HIM WAS BEING WITH ME!

Goddammit, Im selfish.

Awesome. Wow. Awesome.

You are a terrible liar, he said.

How do you expect me to react? I said, looking down at the swarms of bennies below us, all of whom were still having fun, fun, fun. I thought we were going to have all this time together next year, and to find out that we arent is just

I gurgled with tears.

Jessica

Why didnt you tell me?

He turned to face me directly, causing the car to quiver on the wire.

Because I wasnt sure if I wanted to go. I knew that if I told you before I knew for sure, you would try to persuade me to go because its the right thing. And I didnt want my decision to be based on what you thought was the best thing for me, but what I thought was the best thing for me.

How do you know that I wouldnt beg you to come to New York?

Because I know you.

He was right. I would never, ever beg. No matter how much I wanted to.

So when do you leave?

Well, thats the thing. He paused. Im driving out next week.

Next week? As in seven days from now.

Six, actually.

Six.

Yes, Thursday.

I watched a frat boy try to urinate into a trash can.

We wont even have the summer?

No. And then, very calmly: But Jessica, we have all the time in the world.

Marcus truly believes this. He believes we have our whole lives together. Forever.

I was going to say how this is easy for him to believe because he is a romantic. I was going to point out how I am a realist. Actually, how I am a defensive pessimist. I always assume the worst, so if the reality is even a wee bit better than my disaster scenario, its a cause for celebration.

I was going to say all of this, but then I thought, Marcus has never been wrong about anything so far. Couldnt he be right about us, too?

I could fly out to see him next year when our family visits Bethany, G-Money, and the baby. Pepe and I could take a cross-country drive together to see him and Bridget. Maybe this is all irrelevant, since we will be if we are meant to be, regardless of how often we see each other. If my experience with Hope has proven anything, its that true friendship can survive, even thrive, despite the distance. Why cant it be the same for Marcus and me ?

I shut up my mouth and my brain. I put my head on his shoulder and vowed to enjoy the rest of the ride with Marcus, no matter how long it lasts.

the thirtieth

Graduation Day: I am officially free. I finally feel it, too.

As a reflection of just how much I dont care, I totally neglected to mention that Len beat me out for valedictorian by two-tenths of a point. Even with our history, this was absolutely fine by me because being at the tippy-top of the class meant way more to him than it did to me. When we lined up in our red and white graduation gowns, numbers one and two leading the rest of the Class of 2002, I very graciously congratulated him.

You worked hard, I said. You deserve it.

Thanks, Jess.

I mean, you really worked for it. You did hours of homework every night. I didnt bring a book home all year.

Urn.

Okay. So I wasnt thoroughly gracious. String me up.

Since I was number two, I got to give my speech firstyou know, like the opening act to the headliner. As far as I was concerned, this was the advantageous spot. Despite my blase acceptance of being second best, I wanted to blow Lens speech away.

I took my own advice about not slamming people just for the sake of slamming people and opted against the tirade from a few pages back. Besides, that wouldve been too predictable. Instead, I surprised myself and the audience by saying something altogether unlike the Jessica they all thought they knew. I was inspired by Marcuss graduation gift, a custom made T-shirt I wore under my gown that read: ME. YES. ME. I dont think anyone will even remember that Len even got up there and stuttered his way through a very predictable quote from Thoreau followed by five minutes of canned The future is ours cliches.

The rest of the ceremony is a boring blur. As salutatorian, I got my diploma after Len, the second person out of 180. So I had a lot of time to sit and get hot under the blazing noonday sun. I might have fallen asleep if it werent for the frequent head-bonkings from the beach balls that my fellow graduates had smuggled in under their gowns.

In accordance with alphabetical destiny, I watched Sara DAbruzzi, Marcus Flutie, Scotty Glazer, Bridget Milhokovich, and Manda Powers walk up the stairs to the stage. I watched each one walk toward Principal Masters in their red and white gowns. I watched them reach for their diplomas and wave to their parents in the bleachers, despite how corny it was to do so. I watched them turn their tassles from one side to the other. I watched them walk down the stairs on the opposite side, grinning with freedom. I watched them and thought, These are the people I went to high school with. Some, like Manda, Sara, and Scotty, will never amount to more than that. There was no last-minute redemption for them, simply because it was a perfect opportunity for final forgiveness and understanding.