Never Have I Ever(13)
“What about Ragweed?” I said. “Because I’m such a bitch, and you . . . well, you know.”
Tig shook his head. He didn’t get it.
“Like, I’m always on the rag and you’re always on the weed.”
Tig laughed so hard he snorted. “You don’t go on the weed.”
“I know,” I said wisely. “You do a weed,” and I thought he might bust something. I loved making him laugh, and the farther we got from my house, the lighter I felt. The joint helped, too, so I had another puff off it.
“Ragweed. You and me,” he said, when he could talk again. “Perfect. Especially since the whole damn school is allergic to us.”
I grinned, because it was so true. We were outliers, defaulted into friends because I was fat and he was poor. No one else was either one of those things. Not at Brighton. There were a couple of chunky girls, one podgy boy, but I was the biggest human in the school. Maybe even bigger than the secretary with the huge, mothery boobs and the wig. She was Nana-aged, so no one cared if she was fat. They didn’t even care if she was breathing. She sometimes passed me Starlight Mints, sad eyes downtilted as if to say she understood that we were the same, and I hated her so much in those moments. I took the fucking mints, though.
Tig was actually, really poor, the only full-scholarship kid in the whole school. Every other scholarship was partial, doled out to a few kids with middle-class parents and 4.0s. Tig’s ex-stepdad owned Vintage Wheels, a garage where a clique of Brighton’s major power dads rebuilt classic cars for fun. The ex-step had brought Tig, who was a certified genius, to their attention. Tig took the scholarship, but he didn’t really embed. He walked the halls alone. He read smart-kid books—Brave New World, Cosmos, The Jungle—but he didn’t sit with the smart kids.
Before Tig I’d sat with them, anchored by the desperate friendship of Peg, the second-fattest girl. She’d liked hiding her body in the wider shade of mine, making me fat camouflage, but she’d never once called me up to see a movie on the weekend. Still, I couldn’t have done what Tig did before he had me, just plop down alone at a small corner table, reading while he methodically ate every scrap of food on his school lunch tray. I envied his metabolism. It didn’t occur to me that the free lunch the school gave him was most of what he got to eat on any given day.
I passed the joint, then braked as we got to the railroad tracks. We were out of my neighborhood now, into undeveloped land. Loblolly pines rose high all around us. I lumped us over the tracks, slow and careful.
Tig said, “Pussy move, Smiff,” but with no rancor. He liked to speed up and try to get a jump off, though most of the time he only jarred us so hard it rattled my teeth. Once or twice, though, it had really felt like he’d gotten his muscly steel monster airborne. I was scared to try it. What if I did it wrong? I’d scrape the muffler clean off.
As I turned onto the dirt road, Tig took another huge drag, then carefully tamped out the half joint and left it in the ashtray. He started digging in the bag, hunting meat. He came up with a sandwich.
“Oh, yeah, Smiffy, you are God.”
“You’re welcome,” I intoned, Godlike, and Tig snorted.
He flipped on his radio. It was set for 101.5, which was alt-rock and old-school. He had every button on his car radio set there, because he said it was the only station worth a preset. A solid three weeks back, I’d changed all the button settings to a fluffy pop station he would hate, but he had never punched one to notice. I was tired of waiting, so I did it for him. Morrissey cut off mid-dirge, and there was MC Hammer, making whoa-whoa noises.
He punched button four, button two; it stayed MC.
“Smiff, you total asshole,” he said, so fondly that I flushed.
He fished the ham out of his sandwich, dandling it over his face like a pink meat rag. He sang the duh-nuh-nuhs along with the music, but at the end he said, “Ham Time!” and snapped at it with his teeth, cracking us both up.
“Ham time! Ham time!” We sang together. The car wobbled on the trail, branches scraping the side.
“Whoa!” Tig said, still laughing, and I righted us and slowed. I crept the last half mile into the woods, stealing tiny glances at his Roman nose, his sharp-cut jawline, his long-fingered musician’s hands.
Tig sang with MC, and ate his sandwich, and never felt my gaze. I was good at it. I’d learned at school, looking at girls. My eyes seemed to point themselves at girl bodies in a way that disturbed me; it felt so hungry. The meanest girls had the prettiest bodies, as if slender legs and perky breasts and clear, fresh skin were day passes to cruelty.
They didn’t deserve those breezy bodies that they flexed and swayed inside. What would it feel like to run without feeling my fat jouncing around me, turning every sprint into a humiliating lumber? Would I be a bitch, too, if I could? As it stood, I was careful to stay jolly and kind.
Once, in the girls’ locker room, after laps, I forgot myself, staring openly at Shelley Gast and her friends. They were shifting from one foot to the other, leaning on things, touching their own narrow waists. They were all so bendable inside their cream or pink or olive skins, the only shades on regular display at Brighton. Shelley stood closest to me, near naked by her locker, underpants riding high up on the half-moon curves of her tidy little ass.
“Why don’t I have any boobs at all?” she lamented.