Chapter #44Cody Shows the Way by: Seuzz   You feel yourself freezing up all over. Teresa wants me to go over and try to pick up those girls? you gasp to yourself.
"What's going on?" Caleb asks, looking up from his phone with a frown.
"Some girls just came in." Cody points with his chin.
"Don't look!" you hiss as Caleb and Keith both turn to look.
"Sure they can look," Cody retorts. "We want 'em noticing we noticed them."
"What are we doing?" asks Keith, oblivious as usual.
"We're going over to talk to 'em," Cody says. "Will is, anyway."
"I am not!"
"Why not?" he asks. "Scared, bruh?"
You gasp with outrage.
"Well fine," he says. "If you won't, I will."
Your arm seems disconnected from your shoulder, or else you would have grabbed him before he can get away. As it is, you can only watch with horror as he saunters over to the table where the girls are seated.
Caleb and Keith are staring as well with their mouths hanging open. After a moment, Keith turns to you to ask, with bulging eyes, "That is Teresa, isn't it?"
"Yeah!"
He turns back to stare.
Then his expression curdles into a smirk. "Knew it!" he says as he relaxes back into his seat.
"Shut up."
"Yeah, shut it, Tilley," Caleb says. "She's just trying to be one of the guys."
"You don't see us going over there to chat 'em up," Keith retorts.
"Yeah, and what does that say about us?" Caleb looks at you with a wince.
You see his point. At the same time, your ass feels like it's been transmuted into pig iron: too heavy to move. You can only watch helplessly as Cody, looking relaxed, stands with his back to you and talks to the three girls.
They don't look unfriendly, but they don't look enamored of him, either, as he stands over them, occasionally gesturing with one hand, or pushing his long hair back from his face. They look over at you a couple of times, catching your eye briefly before looking back up at him. A couple of times they smile.
After a minute or two, Cody turns and gestures you to come over. You look at Caleb and Keith, then numbly get to your feet.
"So, this's my cousin, Will," Cody says. "He goes to school with you guys, 'cept he's a senior. This is Esty, Frida, and Lori."
"Hey," you croak as they look at you with open, curious expressions.
Esty has a wide, rather plain face—not unpretty, but not remarkably beautiful either. There's baby fat in her cheeks, and you have the impression she will turn out to be a little plump when she stands. Her light brown hair hangs past her shoulders, curling in some very soft and loose waves.
Frida is the Hispanic girl, and her straight black hair frames her oval face. She is on the slimmer side, though she also looks softly padded. Her black eyes are alert, and her smile is the widest and warmest of the three.
Lori's hair also hangs in straight sheets down the side of her head. Her face is narrow, and there is something shy and awkward in her expression, and though she smiles like her friends, you think you see a note of nervousness—even fear—in her eyes. She also looks younger than the others. If you had to guess, you'd say she was a sophomore.
"So, I told 'em we're driving up to the mall when we're done here," Cody tells you, "and they're gonna meet us up there."
"I didn't say that!" Lori protests.
"Well, Frida and Esty are," Cody says. "You should come too."
"Yeah, come on," says Frida. "We were looking for something to do," she tells Cody.
"We can push a couple of tables together until we're ready to go," Cody tells them. He turns back to Caleb and Keith. "Push those two tables together!" he orders them. "We're all gonna hang out for awhile!" They look startled, then stumble to their feet.
"Get'cha something from the front?" he then offers the girl. "Split a basket of Brownie Bites? Cool." He nudges you to follow him, even though none of the girls said yes.
"The fuck are you doing?" you mutter at Cody as you follow up to the front counter.
"Tryin' to get us some dates," he says.
"For who? You?"
"I don't understand, Will," he says. "Isn't this what you guys do?"
"Well—!"
You have to break off, because you have no good answer to that question. You can't in truth agree that you do; at the same time, you don't want to truthfully confess that you don't.
"Is this what you do?" you retort. "What Cody does?"
"Sure. Why do you think him and his brother weren't surprised when a couple of girls showed up at their party? Why do you think Jared tried to slip you some tongue the minute you were alone with him?"
"And this is what you want to do?" you hiss at him in a strangled voice.
"I just want to do what you guys do. Isn't that why we all came out like this? Besides," he adds, and a giggle comes into his voice, "this is fun!"
* * * * *
Everyone introduces themselves to everyone else, and you learn that all three girls are juniors at Westside, that none of them have a boyfriend, and that they came out for coffee this afternoon because they were bored. You tell them about yourselves.
And you learn a lot about "Cody," too. That he's your cousin, visiting for a few days from Memphis to see his mom, who is in the hospital undergoing treatment for cancer, and that he'll be leaving town on Wednesday. You listen to this story, which he conveys fluidly and easily, with astonishment and dread. Caleb and Keith also listen with bug-eyed disbelief.
After half an hour, you all rise and drive out separately to the mall. (Cody rides with Caleb, probably so you won't have a chance to yell at him.) There, your seven-some take a long, leisurely stroll down the concourse, stopping in at various shops—the pet store, where the girls coo over the puppies; a department store, where you all look at and critically finger shirts and blouses; the food court, where you buy giant, soft pretzels—and separating out into various twosomes and trios to get to know each other better.
"It's so bad about your cousin, isn't it?" Esty says when you and she wind up next to each other in a little tschotske shop. You're watching from a few yards away as Frida—who seems very taken with Cody—drapes various necklaces around his neck to try out their effect, while he patiently smiles at her. "God, if my mom was sick like that—"
"It's all going to be okay," you tell her. "Everyone thinks she's going to be fine."
"But it's got to be so scary! Is she your mom's sister or your dad's?"
"Mom's," you say, even though you don't think that little detail has been established yet. "I— We really don't know her that well. I mean, I don't."
She is staring at Cody, then she looks at you.
"God, you guys look a lot alike, you know that?" she says. "I've seen twins that don't look as much alike as you do!"
"Well, we're a lot different, though," you protest. "You know, he's gonna flunk out of school?" Fuck Teresa, you think. If she can make up a story about "Cody," I can too.
"No!" Esty gasps. "Is it on account of his mom? Because she's sick?"
"I dunno. But you need to be careful around him. My dad busted him for smoking weed in our back yard the other night." Three point shot! you congratulate yourself. Except—
"That's no big deal," Esty grumbles.
"It is to my dad. But you know the guys at school who hang out all the time at the portables, never go to class? I think Cody's basically like them."
"I hang out at the portables," Esty says.
"Oh. Uh, well, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it—"
"You know, there's a lot of kids who have, like, really shitty life circumstances."
"Yeah, well—"
"You shouldn't be so judgmental."
"I'm not judgmental! I'm just saying— Um—"
"What are you saying, Prescott?" That's Caleb asking. He has just materialized behind you, with Lori in his train.
"I dunno," you mutter, and feel yourself flushing. You glare over at Cody, who is walking away with Frida. His arm is behind her back, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder. "We're just talking about Cody."
"Yeah, where have you been hiding him all this time?"
"Memphis, I think," you retort. "Isn't that what he said?"
"Doesn't speak well of you, Prescott, that you can't keep track of your cousin."
You're about to make a sharp reply, when you catch the look on Esty's face. It's the expression of someone who would agree with Caleb's just-stated sentiment.
* * * * *
"Okay, I did my job," Cody says later, when you and he and your friends have rendezvoused at the elementary school again, and are standing in the darkening basement. "I set up a date with Frida for later tonight."
He was the one who wound up being popular with the girls, of course, though Caleb seems to have hit it off with them as well. ("Your friend's so funny," Lori shared with you; and you were with her because Esty had dropped you for Caleb after that disastrous conversation.) But you had no idea he had made such a hit with one them so as to score a date at short notice.
Then, to your alarm, he whips his shirt off over his head, to stand bare-chested in the middle of your group.
"Of course I'm not going keep it, because I'm not into that kind of thing," he continues, and his voice turns more prim and more mannered—more like Teresa's. "But since Cody doesn't break his dates, one of you is going to have to cover for him."
He holds out his shirt.
"Who wants the job?"  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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