Please Ignore Vera Dietz(27)
Author: A.S. King

The rest of the night is a complete blur of boxes and hot bags and change and six-packs and twenty-dollar bills. I see winning men and losing men. I see happy fans, sad fans, and mad fans. Did you ever hear the statistic about Super Bowl night? How there’s a spike in wife beatings? I think of that statistic when I see the mad fans.

By midnight, we’ve slowed down. Greg struts out of the store like he’s some sort of hero, even though he managed to drop two pizzas (no kidding) facedown onto the floor during the rush. I’ve never seen anyone do that—not even people who are on serious drugs.

The phones have stopped ringing and Marie is cashing out the part-timers who came in to help. I go out to my car, pull out the Dunkin’ Donuts bag from the backseat, and count my tips. $109. James comes out and slips into my passenger’s seat.

“You sly dog! That’s more than I made tonight.”

“Yeah—I kept getting burb runs. Tough luck, big guy.”

He leans in and kisses me and I kiss him back, but only for a second. I don’t want Marie to see us. I don’t want anyone to see us. For the last four weeks, we’ve only made out in covert places. Like the bathroom in the back of the store, or behind the Dumpster. Once, we drove up to the pagoda again, but instead of parking where all the other morons park to make out, we went farther down the road to the old parking lot, and we didn’t bring any booze.

I get my cash bag ready to cash out and scribble my total on a napkin so I don’t forget it. When we get inside and Marie starts counting cash, she asks us both, “You coming to the Christmas party?”

I look at her, confused. Christmas is a month gone. She explains that the annual Pagoda Pizza Christmas party has always been on the second Friday in February, because Super Bowl night marks the end of our busiest season.

“You have to come,” James says.

“Sure,” I answer. “Where is it?”

“Greg got us the fire company in Jackson,” Marie says.

“They have a great bar,” James adds, smiling.

Marie stops to look at us and then shakes her head and goes back to counting. She compares her numbers to the computer’s numbers and punches in a bunch of decimals for our commission. She pays us that and a bonus, which makes my Super Bowl total $185 cash, plus the eight bucks an hour I’ll get in my next paycheck. Not too shabby for one night’s work.

James goes out for a smoke and I take a quick bathroom break before closing duties. I put my face really close to the mirror and try to see inside my brain. I try to get the Charlies to come and suffocate me. I breathe on the mirror and beg him to write something. He doesn’t. I wonder why not. Is he using reverse psychology? Does he think I’ll tell if he stops haunting me? Doesn’t he know it’s more complicated than that? That it’s not all about him?

When I step out of the bathroom, James is at the big sink, filling the bucket. “Jill already did the dishes, so all I have to do is mop. You want to take off early? I know you have school in the morning.”

Why isn’t Dad here to hear this? He’d love James if only he gave him a chance. God. I mean, compared to some of the real creeps in school—the ones who cling to Jenny Flick as if she’s some sort of rock star because she gives out—James is an angel.

SECOND MONDAY IN FEBRUARY—FIVE DAYS UNTIL PARTY NIGHT

Sometimes just thinking about Jenny Flick draws her into my life, you know? Like that law-of-attraction stuff Dad’s always talking about. When I drive into the school parking lot this morning, she’s there, next to her car, putting lipstick on, waiting for the rest of her stupid little gang.

She glares at me as I drive by. She thinks she’s intimidating me.

When she glares at me like this, I wonder if she’s dreaming up new lies about me, even though Charlie isn’t here to hear them. I wonder if she’s inventing new ways to steal sympathy from her friends—new diseases to feign to make them more loyal. Maybe she’s trying to scare me into disappearing. Maybe she’s afraid I’ll tell the truth about the animals. Maybe she knew all along that even dead, Charlie would like me more.

I hear giggling while I’m at my locker before my Modern Social Thought class. It’s Bill Corso. He’s whispering to some other Detentionheads and looking at me. Of course, Jenny Flick sent him. He’s like her horde of flying evil monkeys or something.

I shrug it off. Today is table two’s day to read Lord of the Flies, and I’m looking forward to watching Bill Corso struggle through every word.

Here’s me using indolent in a sentence.

My MST classmates are so indolent, they wouldn’t read the book for homework, so the teacher is making us read it aloud to shame us.

We get there, and the bell rings, and everyone gets out their paperback and Mr. Shunk says, “Page twenty-five,” and looks at his notebook. “You—in the black—read.”

Mr. Shunk acts like a drill sergeant, but only because he has to. Dad knows him and says he’s not like this in real life.

Gretchen, one of Jenny Flick’s best pals, starts reading from the book. We’re at the beginning, Chapter Two, where the kids are only just realizing that they’re going to have to fend for themselves. They are discussing how there are pigs on the island. How they will have to hunt and kill.

“Next,” Mr. Shunk says, and the quiet kid next to Gretchen starts.

While he reads the part where the little kid asks the bigger kids about the scary beastie in the woods, I daydream. I’ve read Lord of the Flies twice now. I know what’s going to happen. (**SPOILER ALERT**—Piggy dies.) But I forgot about the little kid and the snake in the woods. How they told him that he was making it up, and how being called a liar freaked him out because he wasn’t lying. I know that feeling.

“Next.” The kid stops reading and Heather Wells starts. She’s a nervous reader and reads too quietly, mumbling into her neck.

Bill Corso is sitting next to her and looks worried. He fidgets. Then, about a paragraph into Heather’s reading, he gets up and grabs a lav pass from Mr. Shunk’s desk. He sees me watching him and glares. When he’s directly behind Mr. Shunk, he makes a V with his two fingers and wiggles his tongue between them.

Twenty minutes pass and Bill is still not back. The bell rings and we pack up for sixth period. I take my time because I have sixth-period lunch and I don’t feel like rushing. With only four of us left in the room, Bill returns and hands Mr. Shunk a note.