Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Will Grayson, Will Grayson(19)
Author: John Green
I ask him if he agrees with me about what the end of her sentence probably was, and then I ask him what shortcircuited in my brain to call the note cute, and how is it even possible to be both attracted and not attracted to someone at the very same moment, and whether maybe I am a robot incapable of real feelings, and do you think that actually, like, trying to follow the rules about shutting up and not caring has made me into some kind of hideous monster whom no one will ever love or marry. I say it all, and Tiny says nothing, which is a basically unprecedented turn of events, and then when I finally stop, Tiny says hrmm in the little way that he has and then he says—and I am quoting him directly here—“Grayson, sometimes you are such. a. girl.” And then he hangs up on me.
The unfinished sentence stays with me all night. And then my robot heart decides to do something—the kind of something that would be enjoyed by a hypothetical girl-I-would-like.
At school on Friday, I eat lunch superfast, which is easy enough to do because Tiny and I are sitting with a table full of Drama People, and they are discussing Tiny Dancer, all of them speaking more words per minute than I speak in a day. The conversational curve follows a distinct pattern—the voices get louder and faster, crescendoing until Tiny, talking over everyone, makes a joke, and the table explodes in laughter and then things calm briefly, and then the voices start again, building and building into the coming Tiny eruption. Once I notice this pattern, it becomes difficult not to pay attention to it, but I try to focus on wolfing down my enchiladas. I chug a Coke and then stand up.
Tiny holds up his hand to quiet the chorus. “Where ya going, Grayson?”
“I gotta go check on something,” I say.
I know the approximate location of her locker. It is approximately across from the hallway mural in which a poorly painted version of our school mascot, Willie the Wildkit, says in a speech bubble, “Wildkits Respect EVERYONE,” which is hilarious on at least fourteen different levels, the fourteenth being that there is no such thing as a wildkit. Willie the Wildkit looks approximately like a mountain lion, though, and while I am admittedly not an expert in zoology, I’m reasonably sure that mountain lions do not, in fact, respect everyone.
So I’m leaning against the Willie the Wildkit mural in such a way that it appears that I’m the one saying that Wildkits Respect EVERYONE, and I have to wait like that for about ten minutes, just trying to look like I’m doing something and wishing I’d brought a book or whatever so I wouldn’t look so aggressively stalkerish, and then finally the period bell rings and the hallway floods with people.
Jane gets to her locker, and I step into the middle of the hallway, and people make way for me, and I take a step to the left to get the angle just right, and I can see her hand reach up to the lock, and I squint, and 25-2-11. I turn into the flow of people and walk to history.
Seventh period, I take this video game-design class. It turns out that designing video games is incredibly hard and not nearly as fun as playing them, but the one advantage of the class is that I have Internet access and my monitor faces away from the teacher most of the time.
So I e-mail the Maybe Dead Cats.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Make My Life
Dear Maybe Dead Cats,
If you happen to play “Annus Miribalis” tonight, could you possibly dedicate it to 25-2-11 (a certain girl’s locker combination)? That would be amazing. Sorry about the short notice,
Will Grayson
The reply comes before the period is even over.
Will,
Anything for love.
MDC
So after school on Friday, Jane and Tiny and I go to Frank ’s Franks, a hot-dog restaurant a few blocks away from the club. I sit in a small booth next to Jane, her hip against my hip. Our coats are all bunched up across from us along with Tiny. Her hair is falling in all these big curls on her shoulders, and she’s wearing this non weather-appropriate top with thin straps and quite a lot of eye makeup.
Because this is a classy hot-dog joint, a waiter takes our order. Jane and I each want one hot dog and a soda. Tiny orders four hot dogs with buns, three hot dogs without buns, a bowl of chili, and a Diet Coke.
“A Diet Coke?” asks the waiter. “You want four hot dogs with buns, three hot dogs without buns, a bowl of chili, and a Diet Coke?”
“That’s correct,” says Tiny, and then explains, “simple sugars don’t really help me put on muscle mass.” And the waiter just shakes his head and says, “Uh-huh.”
“Your poor digestive system,” I say. “One day your intestinal tract is going to revolt. It’s going to reach up and strangle you.”
“You know Coach says ideally I should put on thirty pounds for the start of next season. If I want to get scholarships from Division I schools? You gotta be big. And it’s just so hard for me to put on weight. I try and I try, but it’s a constant battle.”
“You’ve got a real hard life, Tiny,” says Jane. I laugh, and we exchange glances, and then Tiny says, “Oh my God, just do it already,” which leads to an uncomfortable silence that lasts until Jane asks, “So where are Gary and Nick?”
“Probably getting back together,” Tiny says. “I broke up with Nick last night.”
“That was the right thing to do. It was doomed from the start.”
“I know, right? I really think I want to be single for a while.”
I turn to Jane and say, “I bet you five bucks he’ll be in love within four hours.”
She laughs. “Make it three and you’re on.”
“Deal.”
We shake.
After dinner, we walk around the neighborhood for a little while to kill time and then get in line outside the Storage Room. It’s cold out, but up against the building, we’re out of the wind at least. In line, I pull out my wallet, move the fake ID to the front picture window, and hide my real driver’s license between a health insurance card and my dad’s business card.
“Let me see it,” says Tiny, and I hand him my wallet, and he says, “Damn, Grayson, for once in your life you don’t look like a bitchsquealer in a picture.”
Just before we get to the front of the line, Tiny pushes me in front of him—I guess so he can have the pleasure of watching me use the ID for the first time. The bouncer wears a T-shirt that doesn’t quite extend over his belly.