Love Drugged Read online

  “Let’s knock this out. Get drawing, Picasso.”

  We hunched close, shoulders nearly touching, both of our faces hovering over my drawing hand. It felt suddenly as if we were on a stage, the floodlight shining down on us like a spotlight. I realized it would be easy to turn my head and kiss her. Her body language seemed receptive, but she hadn’t yet broadcast a direct signal. Would I even get the signal if she sent it? I doubted that there was any boy in Maxwell Tech’s freshman class less sexually experienced than me.

  This is not a date!

  I drew the deer/tree image three times, in a slow hand, stalling, trying to muster the courage to kiss her. I decided to count to five, and then go for it.

  Five … four … three … two … one …

  Zero … negative one … negative two …

  Celia squealed and jumped out of her seat.

  “Celia, I’m sorr—”

  “Look!” she said, pointing. Maybe she hadn’t been watching me draw after all. “Oh my grossness!”

  I stood, my eyes following the direction of her finger. I searched the expanse of drab grass between the river and us until I saw it—a small, bright thing the floodlight had found. It glistened. It was a fish from the river maybe, or some sort of eel, a snake skin …

  We approached it. I said, “Oh my God, it’s a …” I hesitated to say the word out loud to a girl.

  “Condom,” she said. “A big ugly used condom.”

  I leaned closer to study it. I had not seen many condoms out of their packaging before. And never like this, unfurled and enormous, in the wild.

  She jumped on one foot. “Crap, do you know what this means?” She pointed to the house next door, her eyes burning. “Some people from there jumped the fence to do it over here.”

  “Construction workers?” The words just fell out of my mouth.

  “What?” She looked confused.

  “Or anybody, I guess.”

  “Who cares who?” She was smiling. “Some people had sex right where I used to jump rope!”

  As we stared at each other, I saw on Celia’s face the same combination of surprise, revulsion, and curiosity that I was feeling—our first real moment of connection. I finally felt those wooden ducks coming together. Then I saw two more things in the grass, a silver bracelet and a plastic wallet. “Hey!” I reached down and scooped them up, thrilled to make a contribution to this discovery. The bracelet held a turquoise charm. The thin wallet contained eleven damp dollars and a student ID from DePaul University. We studied the photo—brown hair, a nervous mouth; dark eyes hidden behind round, John Lennon-style eyeglasses. I read the name out loud: “Amanda Lynn Hampton. What a funny name. Say it fast.”

  “Amanda Lynn.” She giggled. “Like naming your kid Ann Accordion.”

  “Watch your step. There might be another used condom somewhere.” Our shared discovery made me bold. “Yes ma’am, what we have here may be a whole field of condoms.”

  “Not likely. I’m telling you, my dad would freak at the thought of any strangers back here.”

  I handed her the bracelet and the ID. “Hard to believe they had sex outside this time of year. It’s one way to keep warm, I guess.”

  She smiled insanely. “Let’s call her!”

  “Where’s the phone book?” I gathered our school papers.

  She led the way back into the house through the French doors. We entered the kitchen, but stopped.

  Here was the intimidating man from the family photographs. He was shorter than me, not much taller than Celia. Thick gray hair. Intense eyes, shining and curious, but not unkind. He stood with his back to the window. Had he been watching us? Had he noticed me sitting close enough to kiss Celia, even if she hadn’t—and even though I didn’t?

  “Hi, Daddy.” Celia slipped the plastic wallet discreetly into her back pocket. “This is my friend Jamie, from school.”

  I had expected Dr. Gamez to be dressed like normal doctors, in a white coat, but he wore a navy business suit. His black shoes were glossy and expensive-looking.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said stiffly.

  We shook hands, and I felt self-conscious about my chewed-up fingernails. He wore stunning gem-studded rings on each manicured hand, like a rap singer or a fortune-teller. “Your hands are freezing,” he said. Still no smile.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Talented hands, too,” Celia said. “We’re making something for a club at school. Jamie drew these.” She laid the drawings out on the kitchen table.

  “They’re not very good yet,” I admitted. I wondered if I might have drawn them better if my hands were warm, or if I’d been less nervous.

  Dr. Gamez nodded approvingly. “You have an observant eye. In my line of work, the talent to observe, the talent and the discipline—these are highly prized.”

  “He did it without even looking at a picture,” Celia said. It felt nice to have her bragging on my behalf.

  “Perhaps you have hunted deer,” Dr. Gamez said to me.

  I shook my head. “But one time we hit a deer with our car, up in Wisconsin.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Celia said.

  It wasn’t something I thought about much—just something that happened, between two more interesting stops on a vacation. But it seemed to spark some interest in Celia and her father, so I went on. “My dad was driving. I was in the back seat. But I watched it happen. Like slow motion. I’ll never forget how the deer looked, waiting for our car to crash into it. His left eye never blinked, not once. Maybe that’s how I remembered how to draw it.”

  “You are sensitive,” Dr. Gamez said, his face finally softening. “Sensitivity and vision—both essential for an artist.”

  I felt myself blush. It flattered me that this man thought I could be an artist someday.

  He patted his stomach. “Will we be eating soon, Celia? We like to dine out on Fridays, Jamie. You are welcome to join us.”

  I glanced at Celia, who looked as if she didn’t care one way or the other. “Sure, if you want to,” she said. She stared out the window into the sudden darkness, as if seeing something I couldn’t.

  The kitchen felt colder to me now; it was dinnertime but none of the fancy cooking appliances were turned on. A kitchen without a mother, I thought.

  “I’d like to come,” I said, “but my grandparents are expecting me.” This was only half true. While my grandparents did expect me, they also wouldn’t miss me. But I wanted to go home and process what I’d seen. Also, Celia’s indifference had caught me off guard.

  “We will drop you on our way,” Dr. Gamez said. He looked at Celia. “If you are ready, then?”

  She was reviewing the sketches, not smiling, as if her opinion of them had changed. “I’ll scan this stuff into the computer later.” She didn’t consult with me.

  Dr. Gamez opened a door off the kitchen, and we descended the stairs to the garage underground. Four cars, with room to spare. The car we climbed into was black with leather seats; the interior smelled like soap. Celia sat in the front with her father. We cruised up the cavernous driveway to the street level, glided through the tall iron gate, and moved into traffic.

  I stared out the car window, feeling uncertain, wishing Celia had tried to convince me to join them for dinner. Wishing the two of us had more time alone to make a connection.

  But Dr. Gamez’s interest seemed genuine. He was a class act. It occurred to me, then, that true class included a good measure of warmth. I felt shy, as always, but we had only ten minutes and I wanted to make a good impression.

  Prompted by Dr. Gamez’s questions, I told them about our apartment. I made a joke about sharing a bathroom with “the Metamucil twins.” I described my parents’ new business; boldly, I even took credit for the gift-wrapping angle. When Dr. Gamez put in a CD of Phantom of the Opera, I announced that I only liked Andrew Lloyd Webber’s early musicals and that all the rest were weak. “And,” I added, “if you compare his really good stuff, like Jesus Christ Superst
ar and Evita, against shows like Les Miz, Wicked, or even, like, Rent, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s don’t really stack up. In my humble opinion.” Suddenly my stupid mouth was running on overdrive.

  Dr. Gamez smiled in a bemused way, and I wasn’t sure if it was my words or my manner that struck him as funny.

  We pulled up in front of my apartment building. Three other cars were double-parked, hazard-lights blinking, keeping my parents busy. Downstairs, my grandparents’ windows were dark as usual, except for the flickering light of the TV.

  “Let’s talk tomorrow,” I said to Celia.

  She seemed to hesitate. “I’m busy this weekend, but call if you want to.” She gave me a slip of paper with her number on it. “Oh, and I’ll try to get in touch with Amanda.”

  I felt myself grinning, pleased to share that secret with her.

  Dr. Gamez reached over the seat to shake my hand again. “Jamie, you are always welcome in our home.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for the ride!”

  I ran from the car. Inside the hall, I dropped my backpack in a chair by the phone stand and heard the sound of my grandparents’ TV. “I’m home!” I called, but didn’t expect an answer.

  My grandparents had to eat supper by five o’clock or they couldn’t sleep. In the kitchen, a plate of baked fish, now cold and covered in plastic wrap, sat waiting for me on the countertop. I wasn’t hungry. Instead I went to my room, closed the door, and put on a CD. I stretched out on my bed, imagining Celia and her father at a table in an elegant restaurant, reviewing the menu, talking about their day. Now that I was alone again, in my cramped bedroom in this stale and dark house, I felt that familiar pressure against my chest—envy.

  I did not go upstairs to tell my parents about my day. I did not join my grandparents for an evening of boring television. I did not call Wesley to report on my progress with Celia.

  Instead I lay on the bed with my eyes closed. I tried to picture the college girl, Amanda Lynn, with her lover on the dark lawn between the house and the riverbank. I wondered if sex was always like that, a frantic fumbling in the wild, a spontaneous reaching for warmth and connection. I felt light-years away from that kind of experience. Even the guys I had fantasized about kissing were never people I actually knew. They were on TV, in magazines, or on the Internet. Maybe that had been my problem all along. Maybe if I focused on real people—flesh-and-blood girls—things would change for me. Maybe I would change.

  Was Celia Gamez the girl who could change me? Was she the one who could finally turn me on? Maybe I was like an expensive electronic device that required a very rare kind of battery.

  six

  Boys in high school were different from the boys I’d known before. They seemed older, tougher. Part of it was that I hadn’t known them since the first grade. I hadn’t watched them learn to read and tie their shoes. Plus, there were so many of them now, these tribes of scowling boys in the corridors between classes, punching each other. Arm jabs, titty twisters, whacking each other’s balls from behind. They couldn’t take their hands off each other. They never carried schoolbooks. They didn’t smile at strangers. If they caught me looking, they stared me down until I looked away. Take a picture, faggot, it lasts longer! In sheer number, these boys were cuter than the boys at my old school. Sexier, more dangerous. As a safeguard, I wrote with a Sharpie on my binder: Remember … KFC.

  Leave me alone.

  The best strategy, I decided, was to focus all my attention on Celia. It wasn’t enough to talk about my crush with my parents and my friends. I needed to act.

  On Monday morning, I went to the Commons before school because I knew Celia would pass by on the way to her locker. I would go every day if necessary, as if exercising a muscle I wanted to develop. I was in training.

  A tap on my shoulder from behind, and Celia said, “You didn’t call me this weekend.” Not angry, just an observation.

  “I didn’t have time,” I lied. The fact was, I had intended to call her. I’d wanted to call. But I couldn’t dial the number. My nerve kept failing. I didn’t want this thing to flame out before it began. “Did you track down Amanda Lynn?”

  “No luck,” she said as the first bell rang. “Now listen. We need to put our heads together and come up with a plan.”

  I liked the sound of that.

  In the library, we saw Mr. Covici’s ladder again, leaning against the circulation desk. The air in the room was laced with the smell of fresh paint. “Uh oh,” Wesley said. “Michelangelo must be back at it.” We dropped our backpacks and took seats while Mimi went to a computer to print out an essay for World History. Wesley opened a newspaper to the basketball scores.

  I scanned the room, hoping like hell I wouldn’t see Crazy Paul. I didn’t like being there. I had quit the habit of going to the library during my free periods. Cold turkey. It only made sense; like a gambling addict who needs to stay away from the big bad casino, I didn’t want to be tempted into repeating past mistakes.

  Across the room, in shiny red letters on the wall above the photocopy machines, Mr. Covici’s latest artwork broadcast a new message to the people: KINDNESS OPENS MORE DOORS THAN THE VILLAGE LOCKSMITH.

  “Do you think he’s got permission to be doing that?” I whispered to Wes. “Like from the administration?”

  Wes lowered the newspaper and squinted to read the new quote. “Whoa. My uncle’s a locksmith. He doesn’t need this kindness crap to come in and steal his business.”

  Mimi returned from the printers, scowling at the world as usual. She flung her essay at the table as if the paper were a Frisbee. She was one gruff customer.

  “Want me to proofread that for you?” I asked. It was always my goal to make Mimi smile.

  She stuffed the pages into her folder. “Down boy,” she said. “You’re not opening this door, no matter what the damn wall says.”

  “Any progress with Señorita Gamez?” Wesley asked.

  I shrugged. “Still laying the foundation.”

  “Yeah right,” Mimi said. “My prediction? That’s the only thing you’ll be laying.”

  I wasn’t ready to describe my afternoon with Celia to them—too much pressure. I could admit a little crush, but given this new access, Wes and Mimi might now expect a full-blown relationship.

  Naturally, therefore, I didn’t tell them about the folded-up note Celia slipped to me as we passed between lunch periods:

  Help Wanted:

  Investigator needed to track down criminal trespassers and sexual outlaws. Part-time only, but the pay is truly terrible. Applicants should inquire

  at locker #3442 between lunch and fourth period.

  At the appointed time, I made a beeline to her locker.

  “Terrific, you’re hired!” she said, shaking my hand.

  After school, riding the bus across town toward Celia’s neighborhood, a persistent thought dominated my head: Would I see her bedroom this time? This scenario seemed entirely possible, and yet the prospect amazed me. This was one of the miracles of high school—how quickly connections were made, relationships formed. Until a week ago, I knew Celia only from First Knights meetings; now we were spending time alone together, sharing an R-rated secret, and rushing toward her bedroom at twenty-five miles per hour along Western Avenue.

  “I want to meet her,” Celia said, studying the ID picture. “To give her stuff back. I’ve become obsessed with this chick.”

  “Understandable. I’m curious about anyone who’s named after a musical instrument.”

  “Can you imagine somebody having sex in your backyard?”

  “Celia, my backyard is surrounded by a chain-link fence. The central feature is a knee-high statue of the Blessed Virgin.”

  “Hey,” she said, “my dad has one of those in his office. Very sexy.”

  “For real? That’s too weird. And a three-story apartment building across the alley looks down into our yard, so you’d probably have an audience.”

  “Hot, hot, hot,” she said, laughing.

 
“Old people staring at you from behind their greasy window blinds.”

  “Stop, you’re driving me wild!”

  We got off the bus and walked along Wilson Avenue to the bridge. The sky was getting dark already. The river reflected white Christmas lights that lined private docks up and down the riverbank. The air smelled of wood smoke from a nearby chimney. We didn’t stop this time, and minutes later we pushed through the fancy iron gate at Celia’s. The immense house rose above us, dark except for an impressive spotlight on the front door. I felt thrilled to be back so soon.

  At the front door, Celia punched in the code. Fleetingly I thought of Mr. Covici: Kindness opens more doors than the village locksmith. As if reading my mind, Celia joked, “Kindness may open some doors, but not ours.”

  “Nope. Kindness can just freeze its butt in the cold!”

  She whispered, “I shouldn’t tell you this, but … it’s my birthday.”

  “Oh my God, Celia! Today is your birthday?”

  “No, the code is my birthday. When I was young, I could never remember the code. My parents changed it to my birthday so I would stop getting locked out.”

  “Wow,” I said gently. “That’s a little bit pathetic.”

  “I know, right? Trust me, I’m a lot smarter now.”

  Inside the main hallway, Celia slipped out of her coat and tossed it over the stone staircase banister, so I did the same. Underneath, she was wearing a sleeveless black T-shirt that drew attention to her chest. This girl wasn’t afraid to show some skin.

  I followed her down the hallway into the kitchen, which was four times the size of my grandparents’ boxy kitchen. I noticed, this time, that the floor tiles were made of real tile, not plastic linoleum like at home. Matching tiles covered the vaulted ceiling, where a dozen copper pots hung from an elaborate iron rack. I looked again at the family photographs; Dr. Gamez watched us from multiple points of view.

  “Is your dad around?”

  “Somewhere, yeah,” she said.

  A glossy travel brochure lay on the black countertop. I opened it to a random spread, where the pictures showed beaches and palm trees, a romantic estate, pebble paths with peacocks. “What’s this?”