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Authors: Flynn Meaney

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / General

The Boy Recession (19 page)

BOOK: The Boy Recession
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“So,” Eugene says, “how ya feelin’?”

“Uh…” I look around at the craziness and laugh.

“No, I mean, how’s the mono?”

“Oh, I’m okay,” I say. “I’m pretty much healthy, I guess.”

I got back to school last week, in time for final dress rehearsals, and it’s been totally fine. I know my lines. I know the dances. I’m good to go. It was actually lucky I was out for all that time, because it gave Mrs. Martin a chance to teach Diva how to sing. Well, sort of. Right now Diva’s over by the piano, doing vocal warm-ups. I feel really bad for the piano guy—she’s shouting in his ear.

“You’re not gonna pass out or anything?” Eugene asks me.

“I’m pretty sweaty in all these layers,” I say, unbuttoning my jacket over my vest. “But I think I’ll be good.”

“What about your ulcer?” Eugene says. “You got that ulcer again?”

“What, do you
want
me to be sick?” I ask him.

“I’m just letting you know I’m here for you!” Eugene says, raising his hands innocently. “I’ve got Pepto-Bismol, and I’m here for you.”

“No ulcer tonight,” I tell him. “I’m ready to go out there and kick ass. I have strong motivation to nail this thing.”

“What?”

I point to Diva.

“I wanna be so good that everyone’s watching me instead of her,” I tell Eugene. “Because when people don’t give her attention, she gets super pissed off.”

Just as I say this, Diva crosses the room to come bother me and Eugene. She’s got this crazy wig that Pam duct-taped to her head. Crooked.

“You’re supposed to be warming up your voice,” she tells me.

“I couldn’t. You were at the piano forever.”

“Well, I’m
obviously
not at the piano anymore.”

“Okay. I’ll go in a minute.”

That should be the end of the conversation. But Diva feels the need to hover around and wait for me to say something to her. I don’t, so she says, “I saw what you wrote in the program. And it was really, really stupid.”

Last week we were supposed to write biographies of ourselves for the musical’s program. I wrote: “This performance is for All the Young Dudes.” That’s it. One line. “All the Young Dudes” is this Mott the Hoople song that was actually written by David Bowie. I love Bowie, and I friggin’ love that song. So I put that in there, because what the hell.

“No one even knows what that means,” Diva tells me.

“I know what it means,” I say, leaning against the bandstand railing. “Seventies-music aficionados know what it means. Eugene knows what it means.”

Eugene, on his BlackBerry, holds up his hand.

“Leave me out of this,” he says.

“Ugh. You guys are so annoying. I’m so glad I don’t have to hang out with you anymore.”

“Yeah,” I say, rebuttoning my jacket. “Ditto.”

“You should go warm up your voice,” Diva says. “You need it.”

I don’t want to fight with Diva, but she keeps trying to start crap with me, and so I’ve decided that I’m ready to upstage her ass in this show. As I enter the backstage area and look over in the wings, I see my dad holding a program and my Al Capone–style gangster hat. “You left this in the car,” he tells me. “Wow! Look at this place!”

By now, people are throwing clothes, tripping over one another, and practicing dance moves one last time. Mrs. Martin’s trying to yell over all the noise, but she starts hacking up a lung.

“It’s great back here!” my dad tells me. “So much energy!”

“Uh, yeah. I guess.”

“This reminds me of my swim team state championships, the year I was captain,” my dad says. “There was such great energy. So much team spirit.”

“Yeah,” I say, watching Pam chase George down with her hot glue gun. “Team spirit.”

“Man, this is so exciting, champ,” my dad tells me, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Isn’t it so great, being part of a team? Not only part of the team—you’re a
leader
tonight. Everyone depending on you… It’s such a great feeling. Remember this, Hunter.”

I stop tugging on the crotch of my pants, because I realize this is a pretty important moment for my dad. Sure, he’s kinda living vicariously through me, because he loved the good old days when he was an athlete… or the good old days when he had a job… but he’s probably right. I’ve got a big part tonight, and that’s a cool thing; I should live up to it.

“I’m proud of you, man,” my dad says, and hugs me before he leaves.

“Ten minutes, everyone! Ten minutes to curtain!” Mrs. Martin yells, and all the chorus girls start screaming.

“If you have to pee, you better pee
now
!” Pam adds.

As I go back over to the piano for my warm-up, I’m thinking
Oh, crap.
I wasn’t nervous at all when I was gunning for a kick-ass performance to get revenge on Diva. But now that I want to rock this Billy Flynn thing because all these people are depending on me, and because my dad’s so amped to see me onstage, I think I feel that ulcer again.
Damn. Where’d Eugene go with the Pepto?

CHAPTER 27: KELLY

“Is Theater the New Football? The Men of Julius Embrace the Arts”

“The Boy Recession©” by Aviva Roth,
The Julius Journal
, March

H
e was really, really good!” Aviva says in my ear, so I can hear her over everyone’s applause. “I don’t even have to lie in my review!”

It’s my first time back at Julius since I got mono, and Hunter’s getting a standing ovation.

“Plus, he’s dressed a lot better than he was at Open-Mic Night,” Aviva says. “I think he read my advice in the newspaper.”

“Viva, that’s his
costume
,” I tell her, without taking my eyes off the stage.

After a quick bow, Hunter backs up into the crowd of other cast members. But the director, Mrs. Martin, grabs his arm and forces him to take another bow, because we’re still standing and clapping for him. Diva, who already took a bow, takes a few steps forward, like she’s waiting for her
turn for a standing ovation. But she didn’t get one before, and she’s not gonna get one now. This is all for Hunter.

When the show first began, I barely recognized him. It wasn’t just the costume. All the usual Hunter habits were gone; instead, he was Billy Flynn. He was loud and assertive and arrogant. He spread his arms out when he talked, and when other people talked, he drew attention to himself by stroking the lapels of his suit, flashing his shiny cuff links, and pulling up his sleeve to show off a giant, sparkly watch. He kept checking out chorus girls with an exaggerated up-and-down look, and when he made a joke, he would turn to us—the audience—and wink. Even his singing was different tonight; he had this quick, staccato way with the lyrics, the complete opposite of his usual drawling voice.

“I’m going backstage,” I tell Aviva.

“Do it! Do it!” Aviva says, bouncing up and down in excitement. “I’ll watch your coat.”

Usually I would need lots of encouragement before going backstage, but tonight I feel different.

I hurry up the aisle of the auditorium, push open the doors, and go down the main hallway toward the east hallway. I duck into the band room, which has been completely taken over by the cast. There are racks of costumes and tables covered with lipsticks and makeup compacts everywhere. I push open the door to the stage, and I’m blinded by camera flashes. There are even more people than there were the last time I was backstage—parents with big bou
quets of flowers, yearbook staff taking pictures, crew dressed in black, and the cast members in their freaky makeup. Onstage they looked normal, but up close, they’re scary. The girls all have cracked bright red clown lips and blue eye shadow up to their eyebrows, and the boys have orange foundation smeared all over their faces and necks, and black eyeliner that looks like permanent marker.

“Look who it is. Typhoid Mary.” Diva is coming toward me, in her super-high stage heels. “Looks like you’re feeling better,” she says.

When Darcy and Aviva first told me Diva hated me, I was really upset. People never hate me. It bugged me so much I thought about sending her a Facebook message explaining I didn’t hook up with Hunter. I even thought about using Darcy’s research to prove you can get mono other ways than kissing, but I didn’t think Diva would feel any better about her boyfriend using my toothbrush or my lip gloss.

Now that she’s confronting me, though, I actually feel kind of excited. You’re supposed to get in at least one fight in high school, right?

“I am feeling better,” I say, and smile.

Diva doesn’t smile back.

“Thank you for spreading your disgusting mono around to my boyfriend,” she says in a hoarse whisper. “I really appreciate it. You broke me and Hunter up,
and
you almost ruined the show. If I got sick because of you, my agent would have sued you.”

“Yeah, that would have been a real shame,” I say. “If you got sick and missed the show. No one would have heard your
beautiful
voice.”

It takes Diva a second to register my sarcasm; when she does, she gets ready to start screeching, but just then Amy’s mom interrupts us.

“Congratulations! You were wonderful!” Amy’s mom says.

Diva turns around and gushes in a sweet voice, “Oh my gosh, thank you!” and they hug.

A minute later, Diva turns back to me and says, “You act like a big kiss-ass, you act like you’re so nice to everybody, and then you go and steal my boyfriend. You are so fake. You are so ridiculously… Oh my God, are those for me? Oh my God, I
love
you!”

A junior spandexer appears with flowers for Diva, and she flips immediately from I-hate-Kelly mode to I-love-flowers mode. Taking this as my chance to escape, I turn to look for Hunter.

But I don’t need to, because Hunter is pushing forward to find me.

When we meet in the crowd, he wraps his long arms around me, pulls me against his sweat-soaked suit, and holds me there longer than a normal hug. My ear is against his chest, I’m warm and close, and I think Hunter smells good, no matter what Darcy says about his hygiene. When he pulls away, his orangey makeup smears against my fore
head. Hunter cups my temple with his hand and rubs the makeup smudge on my forehead with his thumb.

“I’m getting makeup all over you,” he says.

“Oh, don’t worry,” I say. “Guys do that to me all the time.”

I’m pretty sure the makeup smudge is gone, but his hand is still on my face, and he looks at me intently.

“Will you go to the prom with me?” I ask him.

“Yeah!” Hunter says right away with a smile. “Hell, yeah!”

“Okay!” I say.

“Okay! Yeah! Cool!”

Hunter realizes he’s talking in exclamation points, laughs at himself, and shakes his head. That one piece of hair falls across his face.

“Okay!” I say again, laughing.

“It was ’cause you saw me in the suit, right?” Hunter says. “Eugene always told me to dress up, and I never listened. I coulda been getting girls this whole time.”

“It was definitely the suit,” I tell him. “I love the stickpin.”

I reach out and touch the pin that’s glittering on his tie.

“I thought I was gonna stab myself this whole time,” Hunter says. “But if you like it, I can get one for the tux….”


Cast photo!
” Mrs. Martin shouts, and someone pulls Hunter away.

All the cast members from the show go out onto the
stage and try to get close enough so the whole huge group fits in the picture. The three leads—Hunter, Diva, and Amy—pose in the front with their arms around one another. For one of the pictures, Mrs. Martin yells out, “Girls, kiss him! Kiss Billy Flynn!” So in the next picture, Diva and Amy, on either side of Hunter, are each kissing him on the cheek.

But seeing him with other girls is different this time. This time, I don’t feel jealous.

CHAPTER 28: HUNTER

“Aviva’s Sneak Peek: Your Preview of the Hottest Escorts in the Boy Binder”

“The Boy Recession©” by Aviva Roth,
The Julius Journal
, April

Y
esterday was April Fools’ Day, so when Eugene called me up and asked me to come help lift up his boat, I thought he was screwing around. But here I am—Saturday, ten o’clock in the friggin’ morning, and I’m at the marina.

The musical is over, so life is pretty much back to normal. Right after the show, things were different. My teachers congratulated me, and when my dad dropped me off in the morning, all these parents rolled down their windows and told me that I was an awesome Billy Flynn. And on the bulletin board in the main hallway, there were all these pictures of the cast. But then yesterday April rolled around, and they took the
Chicago
pictures down and put up this weird display that said: “A Parent’s Guide to Sniffing: Spring Allergies or Drug Use?” That’s how I knew my fifteen minutes of fame were up.

So now I’m back to my normal stuff—driving around with Derek, Dave, and Damian, hanging out at the gas station, chilling out at my house, playing video games, sleeping in on weekends—except today. This morning Eugene was honking under my window at 9:45
AM
, forcing me out of bed. He and Derek borrowed a truck from his neighbor to hitch up his old-ass rusty boat trailer.

“How’d he get you to do this?” I ask Derek as we stand out on the dock, waiting for Eugene to start bossing us around.

The wind off the lake is whipping through my pajama pants—yeah, I’m still wearing my pajamas. Derek’s got the hood of his sweatshirt up, and he’s trying to block the wind with his hand to light a cigarette. He fails, gives up, and chucks the thing into the water.

“Promised me a hundred bucks,” Derek says. “What about you?”

“He’s giving me some valuable advice,” I say, looking out at the water.

“Stock tip?”

I shake my head.
“Nahhh.”

Eugene backs the truck up as close to the dock as he can get. Then he stops it, hops out, and slams the door behind him.

“Great spring day to be out on the water!” he says, coming at us and rubbing his hands together.

“Yeah, gotta love the windchill,” I say. “Remember, I’ve kinda still got mono.”

“You’ll be fine,” Eugene says. “This will be a piece of cake! I’ll be backing the truck up, and you guys make sure the trailer stays in the middle of the dock. Lemme know if I need to go left or right, and lemme know when I gotta stop. Once I stop, you guys unhitch the trailer. Then we get the boat off, slide that baby into the water, and, bada-bing, bada-boom, we’re floating.”

BOOK: The Boy Recession
2.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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