Russel Middlebrook: Double Feature Part 15

"Okay," I said. "Let's get some dinner."

Here's the thing. If Russel hadn't wanted to switch units with me, I might not have been forced to talk to Leah, and we might not have made up. As I was thinking about this, I realized that the first time we'd talked was also because of Russel-because he'd gotten his plastic number mixed up with mine.

In short, I had him to thank for this new relationship of mine, and he didn't even know it.

69.

CHAPTER FIVE.

We went back to that Ethiopian restaurant on McKenzie Street. We had said we were going to talk more about her 70 decision to come out, or not, but it didn't come up. I guess we both concluded that, for the time being, there wasn't anything more to be said. Dinner was good, but not like it was the first time around. It's possible that what was different wasn't the restaurant, but Leah, or at least the fact that my feelings toward her were a little more wary now.

After dinner, we decided to meander along McKenzie Street again. Thanksgiving was the following Thursday, and the street and the shops that lined the sidewalk had now been decorated for Christmas. So much had changed in just a week; it was like a completely different street. Fairy lights twinkled in the bare branches of the trees along the sidewalk, and the air smelled of peppermint hot chocolate and wet cardboard. Everywhere we looked, stars glittered, mangers glowed, and in the windows of all the shops, distorted reflections of Leah and me undulated on the surface of a hundred colored Christmas b.a.l.l.s.

"So," said Leah. "The movie. Who do you think is turning the school into zombies? The princ.i.p.al, the nurse, or the janitor?"

"That's a good question," I said. "I think it's the nurse. There's like three female speaking roles in the whole movie, so it would just figure that one of them turns out to be the villain. It's either the nurse, or someone completely 71 off the radar. One of the other students maybe? The captain of the football team?"

"I think it's the janitor," said Leah.

"Really? No. That's too obvious. It's always the janitor. That's a cliche."

"Maybe so, but I still think it's him."

"I think you're wrong."

We walked on in silence. Somewhere in the distance, a Christmas ornament shattered. Was all this a sign? Was something about Leah and me fundamentally wrong?

We pa.s.sed the shop with the cardboard cutout of Princess Leia in the metal bikini. A lot had changed since last week, but not everything.

Leah stopped suddenly.

"What?" I said.

She had spied something farther down the sidewalk. "Nothing," she said. "Just some friends of mine. From school."

"Really? Let's say hi." The truth is, I was exceedingly curious about these "friends" of hers.

"Oh." Leah shrugged. "I don't know."

"What? Ashamed of me?"

"No!" said Leah. I had meant it as a joke, but Leah had 72 responded so quickly I wondered if maybe she really was ashamed of me. "I mean," she went on, "you can meet them if you want."

"Okay."

Leah treaded lightly down that sidewalk, as if she were walking on crossbeams in the attic and was worried that she might step through the ceiling.

I didn't see her friends anywhere. The only other high school students on McKenzie Street right then were three cheerleaders on the corner. They had donned jackets, with sweatpants under their skirts, as if they'd been outside for a while. They'd transformed a plastic garbage can into a big, hollow papier-mche turkey and were using it to solicit donations for a local food bank.

I turned to Leah. "Wait. Those aren't your friends, are they?"

Right then, one of the cheerleaders-in-sweats noticed us.

"Leah?" she said. "Is that you?"

"Yeah," said Leah. "Hi, Dade, hi, Savannah, hi, Alexis."

We walked the rest of the way to the corner. Having been on the movie set all day, I was used to seeing people dressed up like cheerleaders. These three, however, weren't just dressed like cheerleaders; they really were cheerleaders. The differences were subtle but profound.

Diamond stud earrings, for example-practical given all 73 the jumping required, but clearly expensive. The hair was different too: styled, not cut; swept, not curled. "What is that you're wearing?" one of the other girls- Savannah-said to Leah. She meant the navy Union jacket with the epaulets, which Leah had on again today.

"This?" said Leah. "I just thought it looked fun. Dade, Alexis, Savannah," she quickly went on, "this is Min. She's one of the extras from that movie I was telling you about."

"Oh," said Dade, blinking at me. "Hi."

"Nice to meet you," said Savannah.

"Great turkey," I said. "Really clever."

I couldn't help but think that Leah's friends were staring at my purple hair. Or maybe it was the fact that I'm Asian. I wasn't sure what they were looking at, but I definitely had that on-display feeling. I also detected a foul smell wafting over us from somewhere nearby-a tipped garbage can maybe.

"So," said Leah. "What are you guys up to?" Dade sighed. "What does it look like? It's so not fair. Crystal, Cyndee, and Veronica got to go to the mall-this part of town totally gives me the creeps. And what is with that smell ? I think there's a dead body in that alley back there!"

74 Alexis leaned toward Leah and me. "Total college boy babe at twelve o'clock." Leah made a perfunctory glance over her shoulder. "Oh, yeah, very cute. Listen," she said to her friends. "Min has to get home, so I'll see you around, okay?"

"Okay," said Savannah. "Bye!"

"Bye, Min!" said Dade. She made the "phone" sign with her thumb and little finger and waggled in the general vicinity of her ear. "Leah, call me!"

"Cheerleaders?" I said to Leah a few minutes later, once we'd left her friends back around the corner. "Your friends are cheerleaders?"

"What?" said Leah defensively. "What's wrong with cheerleaders?"

"Do you really have to ask?"

"That's just pure prejudice, you know that? You're just relying on stereotypes."

"Is that right?" I said. " 'Crystal, Cyndee, and Veronica got to go to the mall-this part of town totally gives me the creeps'! 'Total college boy-babe at twelve o'clock'!"

Leah held up her hands. "Okay, okay! They're stupid and superficial! I told you that already, remember?"

"You did, but what you didn't say is why they're your friends!"

"They just are, okay? Why is that any of your business? 75 I've known them a long time. They've got good qualities too, you know."

"And what was that they were saying about your clothes?"

Leah tried to shrug it off. "This just isn't what I usually wear, okay?"

"Well, what do you usually-" Suddenly, however, I knew the answer. "Oh my G.o.d! You're a cheerleader too! Aren't you? That's why you made such a good cheerleader back at the shoot. Because you are one!" Why hadn't this occurred to me before?

This made Leah angry. "No!" she said. "I'm not! I told you I wasn't, and I don't appreciate your accusing me of lying. I was a cheerleader in the seventh grade. But I hurt my knee, and I had to drop out."

"You hurt your knee? You didn't mention that before!"

"What difference does that make?"

"The difference," I said like I was hurling a thunderbolt, "is that if you hadn't injured your knee, I bet you'd still be a cheerleader!"

"Maybe! So what? How is that a lie?"

"It's like you changed everything about yourself!" I gestured at her. "Like this is all an act."

"I did change everything!" said Leah, exasperated. "Because I wanted to meet some new friends! I told you 76 that too. Yeah, maybe I even wanted to find a girlfriend. So yeah, I changed my hair a little, took off some of my makeup, and got some new clothes. So? That was the whole point. I wanted to meet new friends. Different friends. If I'd dressed the way I usually dress, I just would have ended up with the same old friends!"

I turned away. "It just seems . . . dishonest." Like everything about her, I thought. I acknowledge, however, that technically she hadn't lied about any of this.

Leah faced me and took my hands in hers, even though her friends were still just one block over. "Look," she said. "I'm sure this must be very weird for you. But that person that I am when I'm with my other friends? That's the act. The person I am with you? This is the real me."

I looked up at her. "Really?"

"Really."

I tried to take all this in. "Okay. I'm sorry I overreacted." "It's okay," she said with a smile. I couldn't help but notice, however, that the second I had apologized, she released both my hands.

That Monday during after-school tea with my mother, I filled her in on everything that had happened with Leah so far. "That's not good," said my mom, unwrapping her Ding Dong. 77 If you had told me six months earlier that I'd be sitting having tea with my mother talking about girl problems, I would not have believed you. However, had you told me that she'd be wearing a horrible denim jumpsuit at the time, which she was, that I definitely would have believed.

"So what do I do?" I asked. "I really like her. But those friends of hers! They're terrible. I can't imagine what she sees in them."

"You're not dating her friends," said my mom. "You're dating her."

"But they are her friends! They make me question what I see in Leah. First, it was her att.i.tude about coming out. Now this."

My mom sipped her tea. Her placid demeanor was beyond annoying. When she wanted to, she could still play the quiet Chinese wife.

"What?" I asked. "You can say what you really think."

"My mother used to tell me this little story," said my mom. "It's a fable. There was a priest who lived in a cave in the mountains above a village. He was a very virtuous man, and when he came to town to teach, the whole village would stop and listen to him. In exchange for the wisdom of his teachings, the villages would give him the food 78 and other things he needed to live."

"Wait," I said. "You're actually telling me a fable to make a point? Do people really do that?"

"Just hush," said my mom. "Anyway, the priest liked that the village thought so highly of him. He thought very highly of himself, for he knew that he was the wisest, most virtuous person in the whole countryside."

"And how exactly does this story relate to me?" I said. "You think I'm sanctimonious?"

"A little," said my mom.

"What?" I said, but it was mostly false outrage. Like me, my mom could be pretty blunt, but that was part of what I liked about her.

"You're not hushing. Just eat your Ding Dong and listen, okay? Anyway, one day the priest thought, Why should I travel all the way down to the village to teach? I am the one with the wisdom. The villagers should be the ones to come up here. And so he waited. Down in the village, the villagers wondered what had happened to the priest. They hiked up to his cave, where the priest explained that if they still wanted to hear his teachings, from now on they would have to come to him."

"Did they come?" I asked. I was still offended that my mom had called me sanctimonious, but I was intrigued by the story.

My mom nodded. "They did indeed. The priest would 79 have the villagers gather in a big cavern in the middle of his cave, and he would teach. And did he teach! He dazzled them with his great wisdom. It got so he never even needed to leave his cave at all."

"But?" I said.

"But what?" said my mom, taking a bite of her own Ding Dong.

"Oh, please. He was a jerk to the villagers. These things always have a way of backfiring."

My mom smiled. "Well, one day he woke, and it seemed as if his body had magically grown bigger overnight. At first he thought it was all in his imagination. But the next day, he had grown bigger still. After a few days, even the villagers started to notice it. When they asked him about his sudden growth, he said, 'Well, as you all know, I am so much wiser and more pure than most people. And now that my soul has grown so big, my body had no choice but to grow bigger too, to keep up with it!'"

"Uh-huh," I said. "What did I say? Karmic revenge." "As the days and weeks went by, the priest kept growing larger still, until he was a giant. Which is only fitting!

thought the priest. I have always been a giant among men.

Now I am an actual giant! In all this time, however, the priest had not left the cave. But one day he decided he 80 wanted to see the sunrise over the mountains. And when he went to leave the cave-"

"He found he had grown too large to get out," I said. "Exactly," said my mother. "Well, the priest thought, so I can't leave the cave. The villagers will still come to me, to hear my great wisdom! But then one day, a new teacher came to the village, one who had new teachings, things they had not heard before. Soon the fickle villagers had forgotten all about the priest in the cave."

"Leaving him trapped inside," I finished.

My mom nodded again. "To subsist on rainwater and rats and spiders." I sat upright in my chair. "So I'm trapped in a cave? Is that what you're saying? I'm just that sanctimonious?"

"Min-"

"So, what, I should just ignore my principles? Not be bothered by Leah's brainless friends, or the fact that she's lying to the world?"

My mom shook her head. "That's not what the story is saying at all."

"Then what is it saying?"

"Just that if you demand that the whole world lives on your terms-that if you require that everyone sees everything your way-well, you can end up in a place that's awfully small." 81 I hesitated. I was still a little annoyed. I had to concede, however, that my mom's story made a legitimate point.

CHAPTER SIX.

Russel's boyfriend, Otto, lived in another state, but he was coming to visit over Thanksgiving break. Wednesday 82 night, Russel, Gunnar, Em, and I went to pick him up at the airport. In the car on the ride over, I wanted to confess to Russel everything that was going on with Leah. I'd already told Gunnar, who had probably told Em. Things were still rough for Russel with his parents, but he wasn't in crisis mode anymore. He was my best friend, and he deserved to know.

For some reason, however, I couldn't get the words out. I thought about all the times I had acted all holierthan-thou around Russel. The year before, we'd started this secret gay-straight alliance called the Geography Club. At one point, we'd had to decide whether to stand up for this kid who everyone thought was gay and who everyone was bullying, or to stay quiet and protect ourselves from maybe being bullied too. This was the time that Kevin had acted like such a baby. I, of course, had made a big stink about how we couldn't compromise our principles. Yet now here I was with Leah, this person who basically agreed with Kevin, that gay people should just stay silent if it means jeopardizing their popularity. It wasn't that Russel would judge me for being with her; he wasn't like that. Still, having to explain it to him would make me feel like a hypocrite. Maybe I was a hypocrite. Or maybe my mom was right when she'd implied that I could be sanctimonious. 83 "So," said Russel as we drove along. "Has anyone figured out what the h.e.l.l a 'brain zombie' is yet?"

"That is a d.a.m.n good question!" said Em. "What is a brain zombie?"

"They haven't mentioned it in any of the scenes I've been in," I said.

"Me neither," said Russel.

"Just because we don't know the explanation," said Gunnar, "that doesn't mean there isn't one. Or maybe it's just a working t.i.tle." Even now, he took any disparagement of the movie as a personal criticism.