Читать книгу Be More Chill - Ned Vizzini - Страница 16

“What’s the deal?” Michael asks as I leave math. “You OK?” Michael’s sitting cross-legged in the hall; I’m looking for a place to update my sheet.

“Yeah.” I stoop down. I try to slap his hand but miss.

“Redo,” he smiles. We connect.

“All right. Take a seat.”

“Why? I hate sitting on the floor.”

“You should.”

“Why?”

“Trust me.”

I do.

“Anything new happen with Christine?” Michael prods.

“Nope. Today’s been really crappy.”

“Well it’s about to get good.” Michael absently picks at his headphone cord. “Take a look.”

We are in the absolutely choicest position for spying girls’ knees and calves in the hall. I figure that’s what Michael plans to do, but then, across the way, a particularly fine parade of knees and calves emerges. They belong to Katrina, Stephanie and Chloe—the Hottest Girls in School.

Michael is admirably calm as the three of them slink out of whatever class they were in (human sexuality, I think—seriously) in triangle formation with Katrina at the lead. I’m the one with the motor control problem, sitting like a tormented puppet, my wrist twitching and my neck grinding against itself as the legs pass by. My heart tightens and the whole lower half of my body aches in a sudden, silly way that reminds me of last night on the Internet.

“Guh…”

It’s unfair that I should have to go to school with Katrina, Stephanie and Chloe. They cover all the bases of things that you might possibly be attracted to if you think girls are attractive in the slightest bit. Katrina is blonde; Stephanie is brunette and Chloe is a redhead (dyed). Katrina wears bright, preppy stuff; Stephanie wears Goth things with collars; Chloe does raver clothes. All their outfits are tight and imaginative, as in: it’s easy to imagine them not being there. The Hottest Girls in School came to Middle Borough together in my grade and have been inseparable ever since, a force to be reckoned with, discussed, analysed and penetrated by the upper echelon of Middle Borough men.

They do not react to Michael or myself in any way as they pass.

Then again, we are on the floor.

“You should go for one of them, man,” Michael suggests.

“Shut up.” Then: “You think I could?”

“Sure…You could do whatever you want. I mean, you’re still going to that dance, right?”

I hadn’t thought about the dance. I’d just been kind of talking about it the night before, in the abstract. Here in the light of day, with real females present, the dance is more terrifying. I have not had good experiences with dances. I wasn’t even good at those super-hippy modern dance “movement” classes I took in fifth grade. I couldn’t do a spider right.

“I was kinda…”

Christine walks out of math. Maybe she was in there talking to Mr Gretch, or one of her friends. She strides past me and I’m at eye-level with her legs and calves and I think they might just be the most beautiful calves I’ve ever seen, better than the Hot Girls’. Then I think about how when computer imaging guys are making special effects for movies, one of the hardest things they have to do with CGI light is get it to reflect off of complex surfaces the right way, but if any of those CGI guys ever needed a model for how light should bounce off a girl’s leg, pixel for pixel, this is it.

And the two forces that battle for real estate in my brain—fear and lust—they reach an agreement and I turn to Michael.

“Yeah, I’m going,” I nod.

“Really?” He stands up.

“Yeah. You still not going?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Then could you give me a ride at least? After school or something? After play rehearsal, actually, down to Halloween Adventure sometime. So I can buy a costume.”

“You’re getting a costume and the whole deal? Who are you gonna bring to the dance?”

“I guess nobody. But…” I watch Christine fade “…I have to get there somehow.”