Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [37]
What I Asked: “How was your summer, Len?”
What Len Said: [Ahem!] “My dermatologist prescribed Accutane, the most powerful drug for cystic acne (1) but not without a host of daunting side effects, including changes in mood, severe stomach pain, diarrhea, rectal bleeding, headaches, nausea, vomiting, yellowing of the skin and eyes, dark urine, (2) and increased photosensitivity, the last of which made it impossible for me to spend much time outdoors, so when I wasn’t working on hits and gomers (3) I was in the basement with Flu (4) and the band formerly known as the Len Levy Four because once Flu joined the band (5), it was inaccurate and unusable (6) unless we were being ironic and wry, but the other band members never liked the original name (7) so now we’re called Chaos Called Creation, inspired by a line from one of Flu’s poems (8), and he writes a lot because he says it’s a positive way to channel the excess energy he used to waste on women and wine (9), as I like to put it (10), but I’m speaking metaphorically since most of his former flings were under the age of eighteen and not technically women (11) and he was never really into alcohol and more into G-13 grade THC, but that’s all in the past (12), which is good because we don’t want to end up like every band on Behind the Music before we even get our first gig (13), so all in all I’d say I had a perfectly productive summer, how about you?”
What I Thought:
Too bad Accutane can’t cure the bumps in his personality. Why would anyone go out of his way to remind everyone that his now-cute face used to be in a state of epidermal emergency? How could someone so hot be so socially retarded?
Christ. Is he a catch, or what? And I thought I’d have to go back to Silver Meadows to find a guy with such a fascinating list of ailments.
More EMT-speak, I presume.
Who?
Len calls Marcus Flu. Like a viral infection you can’t shake until it’s good and done with you. Flu. Ha!
So Marcus joined the band? No shit.
No duh.
What?! That’s straight from the poem Marcus wrote me after the Dannon Incident! The one called “Fall,” in which he used Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and other Creation imagery to tempt me into sin. Which meant sex! Marcus is still messing with my mind, even when I’m not around.
Women and wine? Did Marcus really say that? I mean, I don’t doubt that he’s been tempted by his favorite vices, but would he put it in those exact words?
Aha! I knew it. Marcus wouldn’t use a phrase like “women and wine.” Booze and broads maybe. Or nymphos and needles. But not “women and wine.” That’s too precious for him.
If they were little girls before Marcus got to them, they were women afterward.
When he says “all,” does he mean that Marcus has given up girls altogether? Or does he mean that he’s given up recreational ho-bag banging as a way to pass the time, but is still interested in the female form?
Who cares about your band? Answer my questions, damn you!
What I Replied: “It was okay.”
By the way, Marcus wore a T-shirt that said THURSDAY yesterday, and FRIDAY today. His new uniform, no doubt. I’m going to see the entire school year, day by day, stretched out across Marcus Flutie’s chest. As if it weren’t interminable already.
the thirteenth
The day it happened—the day the World Trade Center tragedy was captured on camera—I was too shocked, too numb, too afraid to write anything at all. It’s been a few days now, and I know that I should at least try to write to sort out my feelings about all this.
But everything I think is wrong.
For example, I find myself feeling nostalgic for the post-Columbine crackdown of ’99, back when the biggest threat to our safety was vengeance at the hands of hypothetical, pimple-faced Harris/Klebold copycats. A time known as Pinevile’s infamous “No Tolerance” era, which is best remembered for its short-lived edict that simultaneously outlawed wearing a belt—because you could use it to choke a fellow student—and busting a sag—because it “glorified” gang culture—forcing