28
It started in math class. Gustavo Cruz was tapping him on the back. Connell had been resisting all year, but Gustavo hadn’t given up. It was the time of year when every point counted for some kids. Usually Connell just framed his test more tightly with his arms, leaned over it more to obscure it with his body. He didn’t care if it made him look like a hopeless nerd; he wanted the teachers to know he had nothing to do with cheating.
Gustavo was slapping him on the neck now. Connell couldn’t turn around to tell him to stop without risking looking like a conspirator.
He thought about what he must look like to the others—a stiff kid incapable of acting normal, a former fat kid still awkward in his body, a nerd with no style or balls who would never, ever kiss a girl. He’d been insulted and made fun of a thousand times, and he’d hung from the basketball hoop, desperate to shift his hand down to cover his privates but too afraid to fall, but he hadn’t suffered the truest humiliation, because his parents always told him he was worth more than other kids could see. He wasn’t sure he believed that anymore.
He sat up straighter, leaned to the side, and gave Gustavo full view of his paper—the top part, at least. It was a multiple-choice test with a couple of show-your-work problems at the bottom. The multiple-choice alone was enough to get Gustavo to pass. Connell was nervous. He would have been even more nervous if Miss Montero ever even looked his way during tests, but he’d put up such staunch resistance that it must have seemed to her as if the fight on that front had been permanently won.
In the lunchroom Gustavo exulted.
“Man, that was the shit. Cuh-nell!”
“Shh . . .” Connell tried to play it cool, but he felt exposed. “Keep it quiet.”
“I get you, man.”
A couple of days later, when they had a surprise quiz, Connell waited until he’d finished and then leaned to the side a little. This time Miss Montero snapped, “Eyes on your own paper!” but Gustavo had probably had enough time.
“Cuh-nell!” Gustavo said again, and Connell thought, Con-null. Con-null.
? ? ?
That afternoon, instead of hustling home, he found himself sitting on the rectory steps with them. Some cosmic sleight of hand had deposited him in their midst. He hoped none of them would notice he didn’t belong.
They went to Shane’s apartment to make prank calls. They called Gianni’s and had a pie delivered to the address in the phone book for one of their teachers. They called Antigone Psillos, a good-hearted, untouchably homely girl who had been given the unimaginative nickname of An-pig-o-nee. Pete asked her out, and when she cautiously agreed, he said, “Psych!” and hung up the phone.
“What’s that Chinese kid you hang out with?”
“Who?”
“Your friend,” Shane said. “Elbert. Elbert Lim.”
“He’s not my friend.”
“Whatever. What’s his number?”
“I don’t know,” Connell said.
“Here,” Shane said, passing him the phone. “You dial it. Order some Chinese food.”
The guys were sniggling and slapping their knees. They were in Shane’s living room. His mother worked late, and his father wasn’t even in the country. He was a Marine who’d been in the Gulf War. He was supposed to have come back in March, when the war ended, but he’d been sent to Bangladesh to do relief work after a cyclone. There was a picture of him in his uniform on the wall right above the phone.
“I don’t know the number,” Connell said.
“Bullshit,” Pete said. “You talk to that kid every day.”
“Hang on,” Shane said. “I had to call him once for homework.”
Shane got his address book and dialed the number. He made excited faces as it rang.
“Hello?” he said into the phone. “Is this Chow-Chow Kitchen? I want to order some fried rice and spare ribs.”
The other guys were hooting. Connell tried to smile. Shane had his hand over the receiver. His father, he mouthed.
“No, I said I want to order spare ribs. For delivery.”
Shane slipped into laughter and hung up.
“Call back!” Pete said. He handed Connell the phone. “You call.”
Connell pretended to look at the paper and picked up the receiver. He dialed slowly, made a mistake on purpose and started again. Then he made a genuine mistake, from nerves. Shane grabbed the sheet and dialed. Connell was still holding the receiver. It rang a few times and someone picked up. It wasn’t Elbert’s father. It was Elbert himself now.
“Hello?” the voice said.
Connell was too nervous to speak.
“Hello? Who is this? Can you stop calling, please?”
Elbert hung up.
“He slammed the phone down,” Connell said, hoping that would be enough.
“Call back!”
“Don’t you want to call someone else?”
“Call back!”
Connell took the sheet and dialed the number. The phone rang for a while. He was relieved to have been spared. Then the line clicked on. It was Elbert again.
“You assholes need to leave us alone now. Isn’t your break over at McDonald’s? Oh wait, I forgot. Even McDonald’s wouldn’t hire you. I bet they’d hire your mama, though. By the hour. I hear she comes pretty cheap.”
He’d always appreciated Elbert’s adult air, his razor-sharp intelligence. Now it made him feel ashamed. They were looking at him intently, his new, old friends.
“Say something,” Shane urged.
“I want to order spare ribs and fried rice,” Connell said in a fake voice deeper than his own.
“That’s really funny,” Elbert said. “Original. I’ve never heard that before. Not even once.”
Connell didn’t know what to say. He felt an idiot grin spread across his face. He could feel himself getting dumber. He saw the other faces looking back at him with—could it be?—appreciation. All he could think to do was order more food.
“And some egg rolls,” he said in a fake Chinese accent that made his friends laugh even louder. “And wonton soup.” It made him feel sick to do it—his father would have lost his mind if he knew—but it also felt good to be one of the guys.
“Shane Dunn? Is that you? Pete McCauley?”
He was praying Elbert wouldn’t say his name.