After Ever After Page 5

  So we got into an argument in gym, and I’m not sure we’re even talking to each other now (I mean, me and Tad. Not me and Lindsey. Or me and you. Because I would be talking to you if I could).

  Another thing: Lindsey. This is completely embarrassing, but the worst part is that I do like her. I don’t know why, but the second I saw her it was like we were two magnets or something. All I know is I’ve never felt like this before. Is this what it was like when you met Annette? Did you just know? Did she? What if one person is instantly sure, and the other one is just playing around or something?

  And what if the feeling isn’t even right? Like with Annette, did you just wake up one day and think she was ugly? Or did she gradually annoy you more and more over time?

  Did I?

  I’m sorry I bothered you.

  Your little brother,

  Jeff

  It’s amazing how life works. Sometimes a day feels like three months, but other times weeks fly by without you even really noticing. Tad kept tutoring me, I kept making him use the aerobic equipment, and he kept punishing me for it by forcing me to lift weights. My upper body was sore all the time, and according to Tad his legs were about to fall off any minute from the strain of pedaling an exercise bike for three minutes on the easiest level.

  But I was actually doing OK in math, Tad was pedaling every day, and one night I noticed that if I flexed it really hard, I was starting to have something that might one day become a bicep muscle.

  Meanwhile, Tad spent half his time trying to get me together with Lindsey and the other half complaining about what a love-struck dork I was. The worst was science, because it was the only class besides gym that we all had together. Sitting at our little table was super-weird. Every time I talked to Lindsey, Tad just sat there smirking at me. And whenever I wasn’t talking to her, I was getting busted by Mr. Laurenzano for not paying attention.

  Which wasn’t really fair. I was totally paying attention — to the back of Lindsey’s elegant, swanlike neck. Anyway, the worst was this one day when we had to pair up for an experiment. Tad made this big show of, “Don’t worry about me, kids. I’ll just work by myself in the corner. Or maybe Mr. Laurenzano can pair me up with some other lonely, friendless outcast. You just go ahead and have your fun, though.”

  So that’s how I became lab partners with Lindsey. Honestly, what would you have done? The experiment was this whole complicated thing where you pushed a toy car down a ramp, timed how long it took to go the distance, tilted the ramp a little more, and repeated until the ramp couldn’t tilt any further.

  We had only two problems: Lindsey kept making wisecracks, and I was so intoxicated with her presence that I kept forgetting to do stuff. Lindsey was the official car-pusher, and I was the timer. Before the first run, we were supposed to guess what would happen. She said, “Well, I’m going to assume that gravity works pretty much the same on the East Coast as it does in Cali, so I think the car will roll down the ramp. What do you think? And do these lab goggles make my face look fat?”

  “Uh, no. Your face is very, um, goggle-worthy. And I think you’re probably right about the car.”

  She beamed at me. “Wow, I’m goggle-worthy. You sure know the way to a girl’s heart. Ready, Doctor Alper?”

  Then she pushed the car. But I was so distracted that I forgot to push the little button on the timer, so we had to do the whole thing again. Which Lindsey found totally hilarious. “OK,” she said. “Are you ready NOW, or do we have to send you back to Button Pushing One-oh-one?”

  “Um, what’s Button Pushing One-oh-one?”

  I was wearing a button-down shirt that day. Lindsey reached out and poked one of the buttons into my chest. “There, that’s how you push a button. Any questions?”

  Yeah, I thought. Will you marry me? But of course all I did was stammer and stutter my way through the rest of the period, while my goggles steamed up repeatedly due to nervousness. Meanwhile, across the room, Tad was working with some girl from Guatemala who barely spoke any English. She was probably the perfect partner for him, because from the look on his face, I had a feeling she wouldn’t want to know what he was mumbling under his breath every time I looked over there.

  All in all, it was an interesting class period. I dropped the timer twice, Mr. Laurenzano told me three times to focus, Lindsey never stopped smiling at me once, and I learned that gravity works the same everywhere. But it wasn’t the only form of attraction in that classroom.

  On the way out of the room, I said, “Hey, Lindsey? I had fun being your partner.”

  She punched me on the arm and said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  Tad said, “Adios, amigos,” and rolled off down the hall alone.

  During our next workout, I told Tad I thought he was ready to try the treadmill. He refused to even think about it, and climbed right onto the bike. The same thing happened every day for a week or so, until one day when we were about to get on our machines, I finally said, “Tad, you have to practice walking sometime. That’s the deal. Otherwise, you’re never going to be ready for —”

  “Have I ever told you why I stopped walking?”

  Whoa, shocker. Tad used to walk at least part of every day until partway through sixth grade. Then all of a sudden, he just gave up and started spending all of his time in a wheelchair. At first, the physical therapist would argue and argue with him about it, but eventually he wore her down. But he had never, ever talked about why he’d quit like that. “No, you never have. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to —”

  “No, you should know this. Remember in sixth grade I had that huge screaming fight with Brianna Slack?”

  Oh, I remembered. She was this girl who sometimes sat with us at lunch. Until suddenly, one day during group work in math, Tad had called her a “dripping, festering human pus factory” and “Zitzilla.” Then she had run out of math class crying hysterically. After that, she’d never talked to either of us again. She still went to our school, but it was like we were on totally different planets.

  “How could I forget? Zitzilla, right?”

  He chuckled, but not in a happy way. “Yeah, Zitzilla. But you probably don’t know what she said to me first.”

  I waited while Tad looked everywhere but at me. Then finally he made eye contact and continued. “Jeff, she asked me why I walked funny. I told her about the whole cancer thing. She said, ‘Yeah, I know that. And Jeffrey had cancer, too, so he limps — but he doesn’t make that, like, scrunchy face when he walks. Plus, you stick out your tongue every time you take a step. How come?’”

  “So what did you say?”

  “Dude, you have to understand. Brianna was the first girl I ever thought was, um. Well — never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  Brianna? I thought. Tad liked Brianna Slack? That was odd, because A. He had never mentioned it, and B. She wasn’t that cute.

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “Yeah, ouch. So I got a little cranky.”

  Right. And Mount Saint Helens sometimes gets a little rumbly.

  “So you said —”

  “I said that if my face looked like someone had been firing yellow crayons into it with a rocket launcher, I wouldn’t be making fun of how other people walk. I know I overreacted, but I was so mortified. I mean, I knew I limped, but I had no idea I looked so repulsive while I was doing it.”

  “So you stopped walking.”

  “Yup.”

  “Wow, you really showed her.”

  Tad flipped me a gesture that wasn’t going to earn him any extra points for etiquette. Then he got up out of his chair, and climbed shakily onto the treadmill.

  That first time, Tad took nine steps at one mile per hour. It was a start.

  Soon enough, it was almost time for the dreaded First Dance of the Year: the Halloween Hop. As if anyone under the age of sixty-five actually knew what a Hop was. Plus, dances are always a horror, but when you combine the usual boy-girl part with the additional menace of picking a costume, you
’ve got a whole new level of angst. Tad and I were discussing it before science class one day. He was pushing hard for matching Star Wars outfits: him as R2-D2 and me as C-3PO. Or maybe historical figures, with him as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and me as — whoever. Basically, as long as Tad got to have wheels, he figured we were all set. Personally, I kind of wanted to do my own thing. I had vague visions of dressing up as Lance Armstrong, the perfect costume for a biking cancer survivor. But then there was the whole shiny-shorts thing.

  You can see the dilemma.

  Of course, in the middle of the whole scene, Lindsey came in and sat down. “Ooh,” she said, “you’re going to the dance?”

  Tad said, “Yup. But my date is being a little difficult.”

  Lindsey reached across the table and poked Tad’s arm. “Who said he’s your date?” she asked.

  Oh, man. The shiny shorts were definitely out. “Uh, so I guess you’re going, too?” I said.

  “Yuppers. I’ve got to see how you all get down and party on the East Coast. I’ve got my outfit picked out and everything.”

  I didn’t get to hear what she’d be wearing, because that’s when Mr. Laurenzano came in and started yammering at us. But I wasn’t exactly tuned in to his channel. All I could think was Yikes, I have a date. I think.

  At the end of the period, Tad asked Lindsey a question that would have some serious consequences. “If my boy here is going to be your date, shouldn’t you tell him what you’ll be wearing so you can coordinate costumes?”

  Oh, great, I thought. We haven’t ever been alone together for more than a minute, and already we’re going for the matching leisure wear.

  Lindsey said, “You’re right, Tad. But I don’t want to ruin the mystery completely. So I’ll just give you a hint. When you’re helping Jeff pick a costume, think Disney.”

  Miss Palma’s next assignment was: Write an episode in your life as though it were being written by a future scholar as part of your biography.

  She came as a princess. He came as a duck. The dance should have been a massive disaster, but somehow it worked. Thus, before the great disappointments of his later adolescence, before the terrible ordeals he faced during his second and third years as an eighth grader, Jeffrey Alper had one nearly perfect night.

  Legend has it that Lindsey Abraham, despite her famous wit, was secretly a romantic at heart. Perhaps that is why she decided to attend the Halloween festivities at East Village Middle School dressed as Cinderella. Unfortunately, through some miscommunication that has been lost to the sands of time, Jeffrey was only told to dress as a Disney character — without any more specific directions that might have led him to choose a Prince Charming costume. So, after many hours of consultation with his most trusted friend and sometime math tutor, Thaddeus Ibsen, Jeffrey met Lindsey in the lobby of the school on the night of the dance in a hand-me-down Donald Duck outfit.

  Try to imagine, through the mist of the intervening century, the horrifying tableau: She appears from behind a pillar, gorgeous in silk of the palest blue and purest white. He limps in through the double doors, sporting a sailor suit, a jaunty beret, and a bright orange rubber beak. Their eyes meet. He inhales, stunned by the vision before him.

  She must be somewhat stunned as well. “Jeffrey?” she asks.

  He nods, his duckbill flopping exaggeratedly. There is a moment of total silence. “Well,” Jeffrey mumbles defensively, “you said I should think Disney.”

  And then the unexpected occurs. Lindsey Abraham, princess of the ball, throws her head back and laughs. “God, I totally heart you. You’re just so goofy.”

  “Donald Duck, actually,” Jeffrey says. She laughs some more and holds out her arm. He blushes furiously, but takes it in his own.

  Together, they walk through an arch of crepe paper into their first date.

  History does not record exactly what is said for most of the next hour, as Jeffrey and Lindsey sit in the gym bleachers, talking intensely. However, a passing sixth-grade vampire overhears the following exchange:

  Lindsey: So, do you want to dance?

  Jeffrey: Uh, dancing is pretty hard for me because of the … (gestures vaguely in direction of his bad foot).

  Lindsey: (Looks concerned, then slowly breaks into a mischievous grin) So, do you want to slow dance?

  That was on a Friday. Tad came over on Saturday, and grilled me for about an hour before he even bothered to mention anything about math. On the one hand, I felt pretty weird discussing Lindsey with him, especially since he had supposedly come down with some kind of miraculous last-minute twelve-hour illness that had kept him away from the dance. But on the other, I was busting to talk about it with someone, and Steven was out of the country. As you might imagine, my parents were an extremely distant third choice.

  Tad led off with his usual gentle charm. “So, D.A., how was the dance? Was Lindsey all over you like a shag carpet? Was she totally hot for your duck-billed bod? Did you sneak her into the workout room like I told you to? Did you, like, make out on my favorite exercise bike? ’Cause I’d really want to be warned before Monday if you guys, like, drooled all over my seat. I mean, there are those disinfecting wipes hanging on the wall by the free weights, but —”

  “Dude, it wasn’t like that.”

  “Oh, you wiped the seat?”

  “NO! I mean, you might find this hard to believe, but we mostly talked.”

  “Excellent! You were suavely laying the groundwork for seduction. That’s good technique right there. Did you whisper in her ear? Chicks love that. At least from what I’ve read in certain illicit —”

  “Tad, it wasn’t like that, either. We had the talk.”

  He pretended to be wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. “Oh, wow, she told you how babies are made? I kind of thought the stork thing might satisfy you for a few more years, but I suppose my little Jeffy boy is growing up. If you have any follow-up questions, I’d be happy to refer you to a few choice Web sites.”

  “Not that talk. I told her about … you know.”

  “The Pythagorean theorem? The FOIL method? Photosynthesis?”

  “Would you stop being such a snapperhead for a minute? I told her about my cancer, all right?”

  Tad shut up for a little while. Then in a much mellower voice, he asked, “So how did that go over?”

  “I don’t know. I think it went OK. She danced with me afterward … and …”

  “And what?” Tad asked as a smirk started spreading across his face. It’s amazing how hard it is for him to be serious for more than three seconds.

  “And then I did take your advice about the weight room.”

  Tad’s smirk reached epic proportions, and his eyebrows shot up so high it looked like he had just been given a face-lift with a construction crane.

  “Oh, shut up,” I said. “It was totally N.B.D.” Tad and I say “N.B.D.” all the time; it means “No Big Deal.”

  Amazingly, Tad settled down again. “What exactly did you tell her?”

  “Um, well, she knew about it already. Apparently, after the first day of school, she asked a couple of girls about me.”

  “Holy — she was asking around about you. That’s, like, major.” He held out his fist for me to pound. I pounded it, and continued.

  “And it turns out her grandmother is a breast cancer survivor. So she knew the basics, and she was so cool about everything. I mean, I couldn’t even believe we were having this conversation, you know? It’s funny how you can worry about something for so long, and then when it finally happens, it’s almost no biggie.

  “Oh, there was one thing. She wanted to know whether I had been in remission for five years yet, and I told her yes.”

  Tad looked bummed out when I said that, because he wasn’t past his five-year anniversary. “I’m sorry, man,” I said. “But she asked, so —”

  “Whatever, dude. What else did she want to know?”

  “She asked about my limp, so I explained about drop foot. But I also told her ab
out my bike riding, so she wouldn’t think I was, uh …”

  “Crippled?”

  Ouch. “Well, yeah.”

  “Did you tell her about your school stuff?”

  “Kind of. She asked what the deal was with you and me in gym, so then I thought I should explain our pact. Is that OK?”

  “Oh, sure, since you were speaking of cripples anyway.”

  What do you say to that? “Tad, what’s your problem? If I’m going to be, like, sharing things with Lindsey, how could I not tell her about something as major as that?”

  “Oooohhh, you’re sharing things with Lindsey. Should I bust out my guitar so we can all sing ‘Kumbaya’? Sharing things. Geez.”

  “I don’t see what the problem is. I was just being honest.”

  “Well, it’s easy to be honest about your late effects, D.A. You know, ‘Lindsey, I have a cute little limp. But I’m fine. And sometimes I space out in class. But it’s all good. My friend Tad, on the other hand? He’s a mess. Can you believe he needs a testosterone shot every day? Plus, human growth hormone so he won’t be totally deformed when he grows up — IF he grows up?’”

  “Tad, I didn’t tell her all that! All I told her was that you were tutoring me so I could pass the math test, and that you were going to walk across the stage at graduation.”

  “Dude, what if I don’t walk across the stage? Why would I want anyone to know about that? Did it ever occur to you that I might not want the whole world to watch me prove I’m just as crippled as ever?”

  “Look, I told Lindsey how I can’t do math to save my life. I don’t see how it’s different. If you’re going to be honest, you have to be totally honest.”