Ask the Passengers

Page 10

Before we can have any sort of conversation, which is what I’d really like to do, Dee leans over and kisses me. Then, as always, she goes too fast. I take her hand out of my shirt and place it on my hip. She says, “Jones?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re scared of me.”

“Who doesn’t know this?” I ask.

“Why?”

I don’t know what to say. I want to tell her that she’s too pushy—like everyone else in my life. I want to tell her that I’m not ready for intimacy. I want to tell her to stop looking at me with those lovesick eyes. Instead, I do what any awkward geek who wants to avoid the topic of sex at all costs would do. I look at her and say, “So—uh—what do you know about Socrates?”

“He was Greek, right?” she answers.

“Uh-huh.”

She nods her head and puts her hand up my shirt and leans into my neck. “That’s what I know about Socrates,” she says.

I want to remove her hand from my belly, but I know she’ll get mad again.

“Did you ever hear of Zeno?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“He said motion was impossible.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“Like—moving. He said it was impossible to move because time stands still inside each little split second.”

“That’s stupid,” she says. “Watch me now.” And then she slips her hand under my bra. “I’m moving.”

“Too fast,” I say. “As usual.”

She doesn’t stop, so I roll on my front. “Okay. Okay. I get it!” I say.

She sighs and rolls onto her back. “So what’s the big deal about some philosopher who said motion was impossible? Philosophers said all sorts of crazy shit. Wasn’t that their job?”

“Their job was to find truth.”

“And did they?”

I look at Dee and I think that Zeno was totally right, even though that’s not what he meant: For people, motion is sometimes impossible. For Dee. For my mom and Ellis. For nearly everyone.

HOMECOMING FRIDAY IS JIGGLY.

THE GIRLS WHO TALLY the Homecoming votes walked around with smirks on their faces all week. They got out of classes for half the day on Wednesday to count, and now it’s Friday morning and I bet they couldn’t sleep last night.

Kristina isn’t even thinking about it. All she can talk about on the way to school is her double date tonight and how cute Donna is and how she thinks she might love her.

“The real deal,” she says. “She gets me, you know?”

“That’s awesome,” I say.

I wish I could tell her about me. About Dee. I feel like every minute I spend with Kristina is a lie. I’ve been practicing a sentence in my head. Kristina, don’t kill me, but I’m g*y. I think. I mean, I think I’m g*y. I mean, I think I’m in love with a girl. I mean… The sentence isn’t quite worked out yet.

Ever since European history last week and those damn pink triangles… it’s as if quitting trig opened up a channel of thinking I was pushing away. I freed myself of something I was faking, and now I want to free myself of all my faking.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Sure.” I’m not, though. I’m a little angry or sad or something. Impatient. I am sick of it not being Saturday. I want to fast-forward to tomorrow morning, please. While I’m at it, I want to fast-forward to next year. College. Leaving Unity Valley.

“You don’t look it.”

My eyes dart to the rearview, where I can see a pickup truck full of senior boys speeding toward me.

“I always wonder if the people driving behind me are texting and are about to kill me. That’s all.”

“They’ll outlaw it soon,” she says.

“That never stopped anyone from driving drunk, did it?”

I can tell Kristina is looking at me with that face. “What’s your damage?”

I shrug. I pull over to the curb and let the truck pass me.

“Come on. Don’t be pissed. It’s Homecoming Day! No matter how the day ends, I’ll be a princess or maybe even—could it be possible—your queen?” She forms her hands into a finger tiara and pretends to place it on her head and says, “What they don’t know will never hurt them, right?”

My replacement for trig, fourth-period study hall, is pleasant. No one all that recognizable in here. Stacy and Karen Koch, twins, sit next to me and smile occasionally as if they know something I don’t. Probably Homecoming results. As if I care.

I read a little bit of Plato’s Republic as well as the chapter in our textbook about the trial of Socrates.

Can I admit I’m a little freaked out that Socrates only has one name? I know that’s how it was done in those days, but it bugs me. I can’t tell if it’s his last name or his first name or what. And it can’t be shortened—except to Sock, which is completely stupid. I want him to have a more familiar name—something laid back and modern, so I can relate to him better. So I stare at the picture in my book of the curly-bearded guy with the pug nose, and by the end of study hall, I name him Frank. Frank Socrates. Makes him more huggable.

Makes his clothes easier to label for summer camp. F.S.

After sixth-period lunch is over, the entire school population empties into the football stadium. The band plays soft numbers down in the band area.

Without Kristina and Justin, I don’t have anyone to sit with. I know a few people from classes, but most of them play in the band. I’d rather sit by myself anyway. I pull out Plato’s Republic, but the minute I do, Jeff Garnet sits down next to me and stares, nervously, until I look up.

I know he’s nervous because Jeff is always nervous. He’s a leg shaker—you know, the bouncy kind that rattles entire rooms and makes you want to toss up your lunch? I see his knee bouncy-bouncy-bouncing there until I close the book around my bookmark and look at him.

“Do you know who won?” he asks.

“No.”

“Do you want to know?”

“Not really,” I say. Jeff bounces his leg so much, I want to put my hand on it and make him stop. I want to tell him to relax.

“I guess you’ll find out soon enough,” he says, acknowledging the band director giving the signal for the band to fade out.

“Yeah.”

Jeff has been staring at me for two months. Every day in third-period AP lit, I feel it as sure as I feel him shaking the whole room with his leg, making the heating unit jangle.

e we can have any sort of conversation, which is what I’d really like to do, Dee leans over and kisses me. Then, as always, she goes too fast. I take her hand out of my shirt and place it on my hip. She says, “Jones?”