Saving Montgomery Sole Read online

  “Monty?” Naoki tilted her head.

  The rock wasn’t budging. I gave it another kick.

  Hey, guess what, I thought. It was also true that, for a really nice person, Naoki was actually acting like kind of a homophobe. I’m sure, I thought, she would never think that. Even though it was true.

  I could feel my brain filling up with angry bits, piling up like Ho Ho wrappers on a binge day. Like homework on a Sunday.

  Naoki stared at me. I stared at my unmoving rock.

  “Okay, well…” is all I got past my lips.

  “Okay, well. Let’s just see,” Naoki said, her voice a whisper in the breeze.

  “Sure.” I gave the rock one more kick.

  “Okay. Amazing.” Naoki started to turn back to the school. “Hey, so what’s up with the Eye of Know?”

  “Uh.” I looked down. Picked some stray threads off the leg of my jeans. “Maybe later.”

  “Maybe later.” Naoki shrugged. “Bye.”

  And she gathered up her stuff and waved goodbye. Coincidentally, the sun tucked itself away into a little gray cloud, which decided to take up residence over my head.

  On my way to class, I spotted him, Mr. Kenneth White. Not in costume. Unless he was dressed up as someone who wore the same son-of-an-evangelical-preacher non-outfit of denim and white every day. He was looking out the window, his arms crossed.

  I had this thought where I would go up to him and say, “I’ve seen your dad’s videos, you know.”

  I had. On Friday night, as Tesla celebrated, while I waited for Naoki to IM me back, I’d sat and watched a bunch of his dad’s videos.

  There were a lot of them.

  “I saw a video of you and your dad in New York,” I would say, “when you were protesting a wedding. It was a video taken by someone who was supposed to be filming the wedding of a friend or something. And the lesbians getting married are in white, and they’re standing in a park with their friends and family. Just some little park with ducks and stuff. And one of the lesbians is wearing a suit and the other is wearing this big dress. And the video goes in and out of focus. And all of a sudden, your dad walks in with a bullhorn, screaming about saving the American family. And the last thing the camera zooms in on is his stupid face. In his stupid white suit. At someone else’s wedding.”

  Maybe he would look at me. Then I’d get to say, “And there is no way you’re going to be a member of the only other group outside my family that I care about in this world.”

  That’s what I should say, I thought.

  Not that you would hear it.

  Even though it’s true.

  Suddenly I thought of the Eye. I flipped my bag off my back and started digging inside for it.

  But then Kenneth looked up and started walking, and it occurred to me that we were about to cross paths, so I picked up my bag and scooted back and around the other side of the building.

  See, it is possible to avoid a prophecy, I thought. It just depends on where you step.

  It was still a few minutes to bell, so I headed to my locker, bumping into Thomas, in full Queen.

  “Going to your locker?” he asked in sing-song.

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s Naoki?” he asked in regular voice.

  “Fine.”

  “Okay.” Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Hey, I thought you said you were going to be the Joker for Halloween.”

  “Yeah, I forgot.”

  Next to my locker a crew of Jefferson’s most popular stood comparing costumes.

  Madison Marlow had come as Hillary Clinton, which impressed most of the teachers. I didn’t think she looked all that much like Hillary Clinton except that she was wearing kind of a business-suit-type outfit. It looked a little slutty to be Hillary. I don’t think Hillary wears a lot of miniskirts.

  About a dozen other girls were dressed up in … basically what looked like underwear to me.

  Sixteen-year-old fairy time.

  I looked over to catch Thomas giving an appraising look.

  “Your drag is way better than theirs,” I whispered, opening my locker.

  “The Kardashians stuffed their butts,” Thomas whispered back, pointing at the Parte twins.

  “With real butt stuffing,” I sneered.

  I was about to close my locker when I was hit with a heavy thud against my back. “What are you supposed to be? A black hole?”

  “Hey!” I spun around.

  “Oooohh. Testy!” It was Matt. Wearing what looked like a weird mix of a Walmart ninety-nine-cent witch costume and a pound of horror makeup. He leaned against the row of lockers. “How do I look? I know you gays are the fashion committee around here, so I thought I’d ask. Do I look like a leading man?”

  “MATT!”

  Matt threw his hands in the air. “Hey, man, relax! Okay? I’m getting into character. Ready for my big debut.”

  “Go away.” I stepped back. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the twinkle of Thomas’s crown as he hovered.

  “You don’t like my outfit? Maybe I just need a prop. Excuse me, Propmaster.” Matt spun around, snatching Thomas’s apple from his hand.

  “Hey! Give that back!” That was me, not Thomas, by the way. Thomas just rolled his eyes.

  Matt tossed the apple in the air, caught it, and walked off down the hallway.

  “Did he really just steal your apple?” I screeched.

  Thomas brushed the wig hair out of his eyes. “It’s just an apple. I’ve got fifteen cents to get another one.”

  “It’s not about fifteen cents, Thomas!”

  I am standing in a hailstorm, and I’m the only one who can see it’s raining, my brain screamed. It cooked with the thought till my eyes watered.

  Thomas looked at me. His lips were painted cherry red, outlined so they curled up. So it was an effort to frown. Which he was, just a little. “I know it’s not. But it’s still only fifteen cents,” Thomas said, adjusting his crown. “Cue bell.”

   Why Thomas puts up with everything and doesn’t get mad

  That day, instead of study hall, we had Intramural Sports Day.

  So everyone had to do an intramural sport.

  Mandatory physical fitness. GOOD FOR US ALL, read the poster decorated with stock photos of smiling kids.

  For whatever reason, I’d signed up for soccer.

  Some of the kids showed up on the field in their costumes. One kid just changed out his pants so he was an intergalactic warrior in track pants. A girl named Susie insisted on wearing her bunny ears.

  I threw on the only sports gear I had, which was an old pair of track pants and one of Momma Jo’s field hockey jerseys. I took a very, very, very wide, and de facto defensive, position.

  Which is to say I walked to the edge of the field and lay down on the grass, hoping not to be noticed.

   Matt Truit

  Matt Truit.

  There are so many reasons not to like Matt Truit.

  It is not even worth counting.

  He is obnoxious.

  He is mean.

  He is a jerk.

  The worst thing about Matt Truit, the worst thing of all, is the fact that I didn’t always hate Matt Truit.

  The word I was looking for earlier popped into my head. Like a beacon or a crooked cartoon halo.

  Enchanting.

   Enchanting Jerks and ME

  Right.

  For seventy-two hours, his first seventy-two hours in Aunty, when he transferred last year, I actually liked Matt Truit.

  Maybe even a lot.

  I remember what he looked like that first day. I can actually see him standing at the front of the class. From Ohio, the teacher had said. Matt’s one foot was kind of shaking a bit, but he had this big smile on his big lips. And he was wearing a T-shirt that said HUG ME on it.

  Mr. Todd told him to sit next to me, and I was supposed to, like, show him around. Thomas and Naoki were both out sick, so I was kind of like, you know, “Hey, why not?”

  And so the
re was Matt Truit plopped down next to me. Smelling like soap.

  “Nice shirt,” I said.

  And Matt smiled and he said, “Are you the official fashion police?”

  It wasn’t a mean or shitty statement back then. It was just, like, a joke.

  And I said, “There’s not really a police so much as a Committee of Appropriate School Wear, of which I am a member.”

  Anyway. He drew this weird little potato man on my math book for me. This angry potato that could cook himself and then eat himself.

  It was really funny.

  For lunch, he took me out to McDonald’s to thank me for helping him, which was kind of cool because, you know, it wasn’t like I was tutoring him or anything. I’d been asked to sit with him in a class.

  While we waited in line, he did all these impressions of all these dopey kids from Ohio. And he said California was full of hippies, which it is.

  I did my impression of this art teacher we used to have who used to praise everyone’s work with this deep “whoooa,” which always sounded like “duuuude” to me.

  “Whooooa. Look at your painting, Montgomery. It’s like … whoooa.”

  After we got our food, I didn’t know where to sit or whether to sit. All the tables were full of Madison Marlows and their posses. So I just stood there, holding my tray like a dork, until Matt stepped ahead of me and walked over to a booth.

  “You just gonna stand there?”

  Halfway through his burger, Matt looked up and pointed at me with a fry. “You have really cute lips,” he said, then popped the fry in his mouth. “Like, they’re a cupid’s bow. That’s a thing, right?”

  “Oh yeah?” My hands shook a little as I tried to casually sip on my soda and not choke on my straw.

  “Yeah.” Matt looked down at his burger, smiling. “They’re really cute. They’re like a painting or something. You have a boyfriend?”

  My body forgot how to stop drinking from a straw. I had to literally lift my head off it. Like a crazy person. “Uh. No.”

  Matt didn’t seem to notice. “You should. You’re too cute to be single. You a virgin?”

  A little chill ran up my arms. “What?”

  “It’s a joke. You should wear skirts. I bet you’ve got nice legs.”

  Why hadn’t I seen it?

  Because I’m an idiot.

  The next morning in math, he carved all this stuff into my textbook, then he kind of ran off after class. Then, in the afternoon, he ran into me in the hallway and asked me to come help him with his math homework at lunch the next day.

  “After you carved up my textbook?” I said, standing in the hallway, wearing the only short skirt I owned (a garage sale find).

  Matt stared at my legs, then looked up at me and smiled a huge celebrity smile. “What? That was art! That was me giving my art to you! You should be grateful.”

  I said yes. Yes, I will help you.

  Because I’m stupid.

  “Nice skirt.”

  We sat on a hill by the soccer field, his notebook half on his lap and half on mine. He slid his hand under the flap, up onto my thigh. His hand brushed over my skin, over my fuzzy legs that I hadn’t shaved because I almost never thought about my legs as something someone would see or touch.

  My body quaked a bit. I started to shift away.

  “You know what? I bet you want to kiss me,” he said. And he smiled. A new smile I didn’t know yet.

  I could feel the skin on my thigh getting warm under his touch. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you do.”

  I leaned forward and I kissed him. He basically asked me to. And I wanted to because at the time I thought he was cute. I thought he liked me. I thought, you know, he’s funny. He’s not like the kids here. He’s different.

  I was enchanted. We had three soft kisses. They were these amazing little melty kisses.

  Then his hand grabbed my thigh. Clamped down. And all the sudden it was just like tongue. And I pulled back.

  “Relax.” He smiled, and he pulled me on top of his lap. I remember the pencil in my pocket jabbing into my side as I crawled on top of him and shoved the textbook aside. And I felt—okay, yeah, I felt this immediate surge. Like, a want. Like I wanted him.

  We kissed again. I learned to manage the overwhelmingness of tongue. And the meltiness came back.

  But that feeling was quickly replaced by something else, specifically his hand pushing under the front of my sweater. I could feel him searching for my boobs, like, clawing past my T-shirt in this weird, frustrated way.

  “Uh. Wait! Wait. No.” I put my hand on his, which was firmly entrenched on the edge of my bra.

  “Uh! What?” Matt rolled his eyes.

  I started to sweat. “Um. I mean. It’s just … really public here. I don’t want to—”

  Matt leaned back. Appraising. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing! I just—”

  “Oh my God, I knew it.” Matt slid out from under me, stood up fast, brushed the grass off the back of his jeans. “You’re a dyke, right?”

  I sat in the grass, curled my knees up. “No! Wait. What? Why would you ask me that?”

  “Forget it.”

  It was weird, suddenly not knowing what someone knew. Had someone told him about my moms? I mean, I would have said something, I guess. I just hadn’t gotten to it yet.

  The sun beat down on the top of my head.

  “I gotta go,” he said. “Later.”

  And he just walked away.

  The next day, Matt didn’t sit next to me in math. He sat at the back with these other guys. After class I found him in the hall, and I grabbed Thomas, who was finally back in school, to introduce him to Matt.

  As I grabbed Matt’s arm, I felt him pull away. And he kind of let out this noise. This, like, scoff.

  And I was like, Oh. Wait.

  Oh wait, this is not what I thought it would be for a teeny-tiny second. Oh wait, it’s what I’ve thought it would be since I got to this crummy school and realized everyone who goes here is an asshole. Oh wait, never mind. Never mind whatever I said to you, I wanted to tell Matt. I “un” this whole week. I take it back.

  I un-kiss you. I un-like you.

  I un-touch you and un-want you to touch me.

  Whatever happened now officially did not happen.

  I remember the three of us just standing there. Thomas, Matt, and me. And Matt kind of looking at me. And smirking.

  “Uh. Matt,” I said hesitantly, “this is my friend Thomas.”

  “Charmed.” Thomas smiled, holding out his hand for a handshake.

  “Uh. Right.” Matt turned and looked at his friends. Turned back. Looked at me. Smirked. “Charmed.”

  A few days after that, he was walking with the football team, like almost the whole team, and I passed him in the hallway. I was a few steps away when I heard, “Just because she’s a dyke doesn’t mean I’m not gonna tap that.”

  That’s pretty much the whole story.

  Except to say that I threw the skirt away.

  Except to say that after that, I heard Matt tell Madison Marlow’s boyfriend, or boyfriend at the time, Fred Brewer, that I jumped him his first day. And I offered to have sex with him. Because I’m desperate for sex. Even though I’m a dyke. I’m desperate to have man sex.

  “Don’t listen to them,” Thomas always says. “There’s nothing they have to say that has any value. So it’s not worth listening to.”

  Then they should all just shut up, I thought. But they don’t. They just keep talking and saying whatever they want, because who will stop them?

  “Hey!” someone screamed, and I looked up to see a soccer ball headed my way, kicked ferociously by a Parte twin.

  Mrs. MacDonald, phys ed teacher extraordinaire, finally noticed my horizontal position.

  “Get up, Sole!”

  I stood up just in time to spot a girl in a rainbow wig and a My Little Pony T-shirt changing toward me. I ran to the ball, throwing my
foot out as it rolled my way. I kicked the ball … right into my team’s goal.

  Game over.

  8

  On Tuesday, I woke up, tumbling. In my dream, I was scaling this path around this mountain. Momma Jo and Mama Kate and Tesla were ahead of me.

  The bridge was made up of black slats, dark like the Eye. Each step looked like a black hole.

  What if they are black holes? I thought. My brain was dream-mushy.

  I reached around my neck. The Eye wasn’t there.

  Was it the bridge? Was it safe?

  “Wait!” I yelled.

  Everyone on the path just turned and looked at me. No one moved.

  The bridge shook and Tesla slipped backward, shrieking.

  “Help!” I screamed.

  I woke up, and I was standing on the edge of my bed, still falling backward.

  “Montgomery,” said a black bird perched on my computer, feathers flapping in the wind. “You’re still dreaming.”

   Dream control and not control

  It’s called a false awakening. You think you’re awake, but you’re still in the dream.

  “Agh!”

  Tesla’s scream. My default alarm clock.

  “Mommmmaaahhh!”

  I threw on what looked like a relatively clean top and my overalls. Tucking the Eye of Know into my pocket, I ran downstairs and just ate whatever Momma Jo threw on the table in front of me, which unfortunately turned out to be oatmeal, which is the most disgusting breakfast on the face of the earth. Tesla loves it and sprinkles protein powder on hers. And flax seeds. And whatever else she thinks is going to make her faster and stronger than the average kid.

  Today it was green omega powder.

  “When did you start sprinkling stuff on your food?” I asked between hesitant mouthfuls.

  “Uh. Since forever?” Tesla scoffed, her mouth full of what looked like moss.

  “I can’t believe you like that stuff.”

  “Well, obviously we like different things,” Tesla said as she frowned.

  Under the table I could see she was still only wearing one sock.

  “Have you ever considered flip-flops? We do live in California.”

  “Flip-flops are gross.”