The fact is she’s very much a non-beautiful fat girl. Whereas Cassidy’s voluptuous with grand monumental curves, Krystal Krittenbrink is what you’d call amorphous—a blob. She has a very little face in the middle of a big pink head. Her mouth alone is about the size of a dime. But the real clincher is she has her dull brown hair done up in this weird ponytail that starts at about the crown of her head. You have to know she looks in the mirror every morning and thinks that is the height of style.
She’s Aimee’s friend, though, so I invite her to have a seat, but she just turns to Aimee and says, “Hurry up. The meeting starts in like five minutes.”
“Oh, what kind of meeting is it?” I ask, trying to show some polite interest.
But Krystal’s like, “French club. You wouldn’t know anything about it.”
So Aimee goes, “Why don’t you go ahead, Krystal? I can be a little late.”
“Don’t be stupid,” says Krystal. “The whole meeting won’t last but like five or ten minutes.”
Aimee looks a little stung, but you can tell she’s used to Krystal calling her stupid. “I guess that’s right,” she says and turns to me. “Actually, I guess I’m going to have to go. I forgot about the meeting. I’m sorry.”
“But you haven’t finished your pizza.”
“She can take it with her,” says Krystal.
“Yeah, I guess I can just take it with me.”
“Don’t forget about tutoring me for Algebra.”
A smile pops back onto Aimee’s face, but Krystal goes, “That’ll be a waste of time.”
I just ignore her and keep my gaze fixed on Aimee. “Why don’t you give me your number?”
“My number?”
“Yeah, your phone number.”
“Like my home phone number?”
“Yeah. Or your cell phone number.” She seems to be having a hard time comprehending the concept. Maybe no guy ever asked for her phone number before.
“It’ll have to be my home number. I don’t have a cell phone.” She starts digging through her backpack for a piece of paper and a pen, and Krystal’s right at her shoulder going, “Come on, let’s go.”
Aimee gets the number dashed off and hands it to me. There’s a smiley face at the end.
“I’ll call you and we’ll set up a time,” I say. “When are you home?”
“Who knows?” says Krystal as she practically drags Aimee away. “You think all she has to do is wait around the house for you to call?”
Chapter 23
Surprisingly, my mother really does phone me at home around two o’clock to see if I’m living up to the rules of my magnificent groundation. She’s all stern and everything, giving me the Mister this and the Mister that. I don’t know why calling someone Mister is supposed to underline the seriousness of a situation, but it seems to be a pretty common tactic among adults.
I’ve got to hand it to my mom this time. She really has stuck to her guns. Again, she comes with the line about the military academy. To be honest, though, it was kind of shitty of me to set Kevin’s suit on fire. But it’s not like I did it on purpose or anything.
Ricky’s cocked back in the recliner about five feet away during the whole conversation. When I hang up, he’s like, “Dude, do your folks really think you’re buying this military academy yarn? I mean, you’re graduating in like three months. Even if they did stick you in there, what good would it do for three months?”
“Yeah, I know. It doesn’t make sense. I think it’s just their way of letting me know how much they think I suck.” I head for the bar. I don’t have to work today, so it seems like a good time to mix up a pitcher of stout martinis.
“I’ll tell you what,” Ricky says. “They wouldn’t think it was too f**king fortuitous if you got spit out into the real military and they sent you over to Iraq to get blown up like Jeremy Holtz’s brother.”
“I don’t know. They like to pretend they’re all patriotic. It’d be the best thing that ever happened to them if I got blown up over there. They’d be bragging about it for years. Might even get their pictures in the paper pretending to cry over my flag-draped coffin.”
And Ricky’s like, “Oh right. As if that’s real patriotic. People like that go around acting like if you want peace, then you’re some kind of anti-American, anti-military traitor scum. Seems more pro-military to me if you want to stop getting Americans killed. I’ve grown up around military people all my life—my dad, my uncles. I don’t want them even leaving town if there’s not a damn good reason for it. This f**king war pisses me off. You know what it is?”
“A quagmire?”
“Oh, it’s quaggish to the extreme, dude. It’s a sewer swamp. With turds the size of ottomans. I mean, is that what the politicians think of us, that the youth of today are nothing but roadside-bomb magnets for their trumped-up invasion? My dad was in the navy, and I wouldn’t mind joining it myself, but I’m not about to now. The whole thing’s run by vampires, dude. Virulent atomic vampires. And their leader is, like, this ancient, bulbous-headed bloodsucker named Generalissimo Hal E. Burton. Jesus. You think I’m fighting in an atomic vampire war? Give me a break. Sign me up for the protest movement instead. But where is it? There isn’t one. It’s like everyone’s lazy. Or brainwashed.”
“Look out,” I say. “You better stop that kind of talk, you damn hippie. Generalissimo Hal might have this room bugged right now. Next thing you know we’ll be over in some Cuban prison chained to the floor without a lawyer in sight.”