Crash Test Love Read online

  I am overwhelmed with jealousy.

  They notice me (!) before continuing to their lockers, which are farther down the hall from mine. I think about my table in the cafeteria. About the girls who did not want to include me. What would I be doing if I were back in Chicago? Probably making out with Ben or walking to the nearest Starbucks with Amy.

  I turn my attention back to the J Squad. They are laughing and smiling and look incredibly … happy. I’m about to approach them when my eye catches on a figure who takes my breath away.

  Right there is an incredibly gorgeous guy who is absolutely, for sure, staring at me. He’s wearing a pair of snug, faded jeans and a yellow T-shirt that, if T-shirts could speak, would say, “Take me off. I know you want to. No need to be gentle.” He is tan and muscled and his hair is messy and slightly gelled. His cheeks are smooth and his eyes are dark. He is angular and sexy and everything about him drives me crazy.

  He is also familiar.

  He’s the guy I met at the Sweet Sixteen. The one who I was immediately attracted to. Who left suddenly with no hint that I’d ever see him again. The one I’ve been (sort of) thinking about ever since.

  He goes to my school.

  Henry.

  HENRY

  INT.—EAST SHORE HIGH SCHOOL, TUESDAY, FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

  I freeze when I see her. What is she doing here? I think back to the party and remember her mentioning that she’d just moved, and it all clicks into place. She now goes to East Shore. I do not know what to feel, so I feel nothing. I just watch.

  NIGEL

  I can’t fit any of my books in this backpack. It’s too small.

  DUKE

  That’s what she said.

  NIGEL

  What?

  DUKE

  That’s what she said. It’s a joke.

  NIGEL

  I know. It’s stupid.

  DUKE

  Your mom’s stupid.

  NIGEL

  Henry, make him stop.

  DUKE

  Yo, Enrico. Isn’t that the girl you banged last week?

  Never in a million years did I imagine I would see this girl again. Garrett. I’d hoped I would, but I have hoped for a lot of things in my life. I know from experience that hope does not equal happening.

  DUKE

  You all right, Enrico? Henry? Hello?

  ME

  I’m fine.

  I blink. She’s still there. Wearing a black shirt and a dark pair of jeans. She looks gorgeous. The vibe in the hallway changes, as if a button has been pressed and everyone around me stops, waiting to see what I will do. If I act happy to see Garrett, then she means something to me. If I act nonchalant, then she means nothing.

  What will I do?

  GARRETT

  Henry?

  I push Duke and Nigel away but I know they are not out of earshot.

  ME

  I, uh, didn’t expect to run into you.

  GARRETT

  Ditto.

  ME

  So … you go to school here?

  Dumb, dumb, dumb. Why else would she be here?

  GARRETT

  Yeah. Well, it’s my first day. But yeah.

  ME

  Are you liking it?

  GARRETT

  It’s okay. I haven’t really made any friends yet. It’s … really good to see you, Henry. It’s nice to run into someone I know. Well, someone I sort of know.

  ME

  What class do you have next?

  GARRETT

  Spanish. I don’t even know why I’m taking it, really. It’s not like I can say anything useful except Creo que vomité por allá. Lo siento.

  [TRANSLATION: I think I vomited over there. Sorry.]

  ME

  Looks good on college applications.

  GARRETT

  I guess. How about you?

  ME

  I’m off this period.

  GARRETT

  Too bad we don’t have lunch together. (She pouts. It’s adorable.) That would be fun.

  Duke and Nigel choose this moment to interrupt.

  DUKE

  Remember us?

  NIGEL

  Surprise, surprise.

  GARRETT

  I do. (She laughs, softly.) Nice to see you guys again.

  DUKE

  (checking her out)

  It’s nice to see you again. Isn’t it nice, Nigel?

  NIGEL

  Sure is. So, what’s your name, mystery girl?

  GARRETT

  Garrett.

  DUKE

  Do you have a boyfriend, Garrett?

  I wait for her answer.

  GARRETT

  Why, are you offering? (To Duke.) Charlie von Huseldorf, right? Oil money?

  Duke blushes.

  GARRETT (cont.)

  What are you doing later, Henry?

  ME

  Oh … I dunno. Stuff.

  I feel the burn of Duke’s and Nigel’s eyes on the back of my neck.

  GARRETT

  (lowering her voice)

  Would you maybe want to get a cup of coffee?

  Yes, I want to say. But Duke and Nigel think I’ve already hooked up with her. How would I explain myself? I am Henry Arlington. I do not get with the same girl twice. I do not get coffee. I do not have girlfriends.

  ME

  Maybe some other time. (The second bell rings and whatever hold has been over the hallway dissolves. People start to move.) See ya.

  I walk away and don’t look back. I’m scared that if I do, I will see something that will make me change my mind.

  I don’t dislike being by myself—in fact, I sort of prefer it. Most days, when I get home from school, I sit down at the piano and play, or put my iTunes on shuffle and listen to whatever my computer tells me I should be listening to; or I’ll watch random (silly) YouTube videos on my computer. And do my homework. My dad works late; sometimes we’ll have dinner together, but mostly I cook myself something simple (chicken, fish, vegetables, pasta) and eat at the kitchen table with my dog, Max, at my feet. I’ll go online for a few minutes, take a shower, flick on the TV in my room, and chill out to one of the hundreds of DVDs I own. There’s not a night in recent history I can remember not falling asleep to a movie, whether it’s something indie or big-budget or whatever. I will watch anything once. I will watch anything good twice. Or more than twice. (This is a secret: I’ve seen Shakespeare in Love, like, twenty times. Seriously. Don’t tell anyone.)

  Right now I am working my way through all the Scorsese films. I’ve been going by decade; I started with the seventies—Mean Streets; Taxi Driver; New York, New York; Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore; The Last Waltz; American Boy—and have moved on to the eighties. I’m in the middle of Raging Bull; I love that it’s in black-and-white, and how Scorsese messes with perspective to get across his point of view. I admire how involved he was in shaping the script. I think he is a brilliant storyteller.

  I walk and feed Max every day after school, and today is no different. When I’m done, I finish my calculus problem set—why do teachers give assignments on the first day of school? What’s the point?—and go outside to play a little basketball. I debate whether to call Duke and Nigel to come over, but I decide against it. Even though they haven’t done anything wrong, I’m a little pissed at them. Or at myself. I can’t really tell which.

  The three of us came up with the Crasher Code last year so that we wouldn’t wind up with girlfriends who’d drag us down our last year in high school and make our lives miserable. Because even when it starts out all fun and isn’t-this-so-great?, that is what girls do: complicate things. They make requests and place demands and pretty soon you go from carefree to completely stressed. That’s the very last thing I want for myself. I want my freedom. I want to do whatever I please, whatever makes me happy. So why can’t I stop thinking about Garrett?

  I toss the ball into my garage and go inside. Upstairs, I pull out the piece of paper with the Crasher Code t
hat Nigel wrote out one night. I don’t know why I saved it, exactly, but I look at it every now and then.

  THE CRASHER CODE

  Rule #1: Never tell a girl your real name

  Rule #2: No hos before bros

  Rule #3: Never get with the same girl twice

  Rule #4: Never spend more than five minutes talking to the same person (unless it’s a chick and you’re about to seal the deal)

  Rule #5: Never contradict another crasher

  Rule #6: Do your research

  Rule #7: Never wear spandex or anything that can be mistaken for spandex

  Rule #8: Wrap it before you tap it

  Rule #9: Always compliment the birthday girl, but never bone her

  Rule #10: Always be (kind of) polite

  Rule #69: Decide on a meeting spot beforehand, and if there’s an emergency … drop everything and run!

  I laugh to myself as I think about some of the ridiculous things I have done with these guys. Stealing the birthday cake at a Sweet Sixteen in Glen Cove and drawing a penis on it in vanilla icing. Pretending to be Danish royalty and dancing with seventy-year-old ladies at a Sweet Sixteen in Little Neck. Toasting the birthday girl (while posing as interns for Newsday) at a Sweet Sixteen in Old Bethpage. Dancing, drinking, hooking up, more drinking, more dancing. More hooking up.

  Could I give that all up for a girl? Would I have to? Could I have both: independence and a girlfriend? I have gone so long without being responsible for anyone’s happiness but my own that I don’t even know if such a thing is possible. Being happy with someone else. Being with someone else. The notion is completely foreign to me, like somewhere far, far away that can only be reached by a boat or a plane or a hot-air balloon.

  I wake to the sound of my father coming home; downstairs, Max barks in excited yips. I glance at the clock on my nightstand: 10:49 p.m. Is it too late to call Garrett? I don’t even have her number.

  DAD

  Henry? You up?

  ME

  (yelling downstairs)

  I am now!

  I stumble to our kitchen. My father is rummaging through the fridge. Dad works a finance job in Manhattan. Good pay but crappy hours. He’s up early and gets back late.

  DAD

  Oh, there you are. How was school?

  ME

  Fine.

  DAD

  First day back, eh?

  ME

  Yup.

  DAD

  Hard classes?

  ME

  Sort of.

  DAD

  You’ll do fine. You always do.

  That exchange, I think, pretty much sums up our relationship. We are not buddies and we are not friends. We are father and son, but we keep a safe distance from one another. He cares about me—I know that much—but he was so in love with my mother that when she left, it broke him. We are holding on to each other by threads, he and I, afraid that if we do or say anything too drastic, the threads will unravel completely.

  I watch him make a sandwich and open a cold beer. I imagine how this scene would play out in a Scorsese film. Some dramatic underscoring? A shot with the brightness of the refrigerator illuminating the dark kitchen? A close-up of my face? Of his?

  He goes to sit in the living room, and I hear him turn on the TV. There is nothing stopping me from joining him, but there is also nothing encouraging me to. This is our routine.

  I go back upstairs and get ready for bed. I put on a fresh pair of boxers and a clean T-shirt that says the name of my elementary school on it. I turn on Raging Bull. I’m up to the part when DeNiro, who plays Jake LaMotta, a middleweight boxer, knocks down the door to the bathroom where his wife is hiding, demanding to know whether she had an affair with his brother (played by Joe Pesci). DeNiro is an animal and I love it.

  I watch for about twenty minutes and then turn it off. Some people like to see movies from the beginning to the end. No interruptions. I get that, but if I have a choice, I like to watch them in pieces, to savor them, like an expensive steak or a good book.

  My father has retreated to his bedroom; I can see the light underneath his door. The rest of the house is dark. I go into the hallway and wait, listening. I do this most nights. Sometimes, I hear nothing. Other times I hear sounds that make me wish I’d never listened in the first place.

  Grown men are not supposed to cry. Especially fathers. They are supposed to be protectors; they are supposed to be strong. But my father is not strong. He is weak. On the outside he looks whole, but inside there are pieces missing, chunks of him that my mother scooped away and took with her when she left us. I’m going, baby. I’m sorry, but I have to go. One day she was there and the next she was not, and my father, who loved her with everything he had to love her with, slowly began to fade. Thanks to my mother, I have always known there is a difference between loneliness and aloneness. I am alone, but my father is lonely. And if I had to choose one, I would rather be alone.

  In my room, I put the Crasher Code back where it belongs. I am an idiot for wasting any time thinking about a girl named Garrett who I barely know. Because there is one solid truth about women, and that is this: they never stay.

  GARRETT

  It takes three full days before the J Squad asks me to have lunch with them. Part of me thought it would never happen. Overall, I am pleased. Marilyn has basically disappeared, and Erica, whose Sweet Sixteen I attended, hangs out with a bunch of girls who chain-smoke in the student parking lot and seem about as approachable as pit bulls.

  I have yet to make a single new friend at East Shore.

  Jessica is the one who begins. “We asked you to have lunch with us today because you’re new.”

  The four of us are at a table smack in the middle of the cafeteria. Prime real estate.

  “And you’re pretty,” Jyllian adds. “Well, you’re sort of pretty.”

  “Pretty-ish,” says Jessica.

  “Thanks?”

  “You’re welcome,” says London. I can’t tell for sure, but I think she’s in charge. She is the only one without a name starting with J or blond hair; the fact that she’s different makes her special. “So, what’s your deal?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, what’s your story?”

  “My story?”

  London smiles at me. Her teeth practically sparkle. “If you were writing a book about your life, and you wrote a chapter, like, every day, what would the chapter you wrote yesterday be about?”

  “Good one,” says Jyllian.

  “I guess it would be kind of boring,” I say. They stare at me with great intensity, waiting for me to continue. Honestly, I think this particular line of questioning is ridiculous (so what does that say about them?), but this is also the first day at East Shore I haven’t had to sit by myself—or virtually by myself—at lunch. People are walking past our table and studying me with interest. Noticing me. I decide to play along. “I’m still unpacking my stuff from the move, so it would mention that. My homework. Eating dinner. Watching TV. You know, the usual.”

  “Are you dating anyone?” Jyllian asks.

  Jessica widens her eyes. “Yeah, are you?”

  I am trying to differentiate between Jyllian and Jessica. It’s not easy.

  Am I dating anyone? Yes. No. Well… no. I did, though. Ben. And what about Henry? I haven’t spoken to him since I asked him to have coffee and he blew me off.

  I take too long formulating a response; the girls look bored.

  “Garrett?”

  “No,” I say. “Not at the moment.” I can’t tell if this is the right answer. Was I supposed to say yes so that I didn’t seem like a loser? Or is it better to be single—“Miss Independent” (Ne-Yo, 2008)? All I know is that for the first time in a long time, I am completely alone. No boyfriends. No friends (family excluded). Just me.

  Jyllian coughs and says, “If I know two things, one of those things is karate. The other is boys. And Garrett, you have boy drama. I can tell just by looking at you. I see sadn
ess in your eyes. Spill.”

  “You don’t know karate,” Jessica says.

  “Oh yeah?” Jyllian raises a hand in the air. “Tell me that after I karate-chop your head off.”

  “Girls,” London says. “Let Garrett speak.” She leans forward. “Who dumped you?”

  “Is it that obvious?” I ask.

  They nod.

  “This guy, Ben,” I say. “We dated for a while back in Chicago, but I haven’t heard from him since I got here. It really … sucks.”

  Sucks doesn’t sum it up, but I barely know these girls. I don’t need to reveal my life story within ten minutes of meeting them, do I?

  Jyllian dabs her eyes with a napkin. “That. Is. Tragic,” she says. “Actually, it’s rusty.” She elaborates: “Rusty is when something is so tragic you can’t even use tragic to describe it.” She blinks. “Say it whenever you want. Pay that shit forward.”