Casey Barnes Eponymous

9



“Are you dying?” Leigh asked.

They were at Casey’s locker in between eighth and ninth periods. She had one more torturous class to go until she would meet up with Alex Deal. She had a feeling Leigh said something about death but the end of her existence was not an immediate concern and she was too nervous to focus on anything but matters of the moment. “Do you have any cherry chapstick?”

Leigh shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Don’t worry,” Leigh said, “you look good today. You washed your hair last night, right?” Casey nodded. The late bell rang. “Call me the second you get home,” she added.

“Are you sure you don’t have chapstick?”

Leigh shook her head. “You look fine. Don’t sleep with him.”

“OMG Leigh. This isn’t television.”

Leigh shrugged and took off for class.

Casey did not hear a word Mrs. Edwards, her English teacher, said. English was the last period of the day and Casey, as well as motivated students, often had trouble focusing last period of the day. But on that day, she did not hear a word. At one point Miss Edwards even asked her a question, but her eyes remained on the window. Sukh the Sikh, whose Dad was another World Bank person, poked her when Mrs. Edwards repeated her name. “She’s talking to you.”

Casey looked at Mrs. Edwards. “Can I please use the bathroom? I’ll be able to concentrate more effectively once I’ve gone.”

“Fine,” Mrs. Edwards said.

She took an extra long time at the sink, using water to smooth unruly hairs as she bit her lips until they turned bright red. By the time she returned to English the class had mercifully been split into project groups.

Mrs. Edwards told Casey to join Sukh and high-strung school newspaper editor Catherine Hightower’s group. This in turn provoked an uncensored look of horror from Catherine. Casey tuned out again once she sat down. Sukh might have said something about the project being a dramatic interpretation of Beowulf, Catherine might have asked Casey what she got on the first essay of the year. Casey did not really know.

The bell rang. Everyone around her hustled to get their stuff together and get out. But Casey found herself moving slowly. She had, all of a sudden, a wave of something that felt like nausea. A moment passed. She fished inside her bag for her iPod.

She considered the Strokes song she listened to that morning. Then another idea hit her. “Your Ex-Lover Is Dead” by Stars. Stars were Canadian indie rock. They also played in Broken Social Scene, but while Broken Social Scene was music to play when you wanted people to think you got French films, Stars was more poppy. The song was about exes running into each other at a party. It had a soaring orchestral middle section and a girl and boy singer and it was one of Casey’s Monday morning standbys. She put it on as she walked to her rendezvous.

He was waiting next to the front door of the school checking his cell phone. They were not supposed to have cell phones in school. But there was Alex Deal, scrolling through messages on his mere feet from the principal’s office. He looked up.

She forced herself to breathe. “I’m starved. The ladies in the lunchroom wouldn’t confirm that the hamburgers don’t contain canine so all I’ve had today’s a bowl of cereal.”

“I haven’t had a hamburger from that place in two years,” he said.

“I knew there was a secret to your youthful glow.”

He smiled. “Let’s go.”

As Casey followed him out the front door she might have seen, out of the corner of her eyes, the figure of one Yull Barnes standing ten feet away. She did not turn to confirm said sighting.





10



As he pulled out of the parking lot he plugged an iPod into the car and fiddled with it. Casey took it from his hands. “I’ll do the honors.” Then she had a better idea. She took her iPod out and cued up “Bustelo” by Ratatat. He nodded. She nodded back. He eyed her at a stop sign.

At a pizza place in downtown Bethesda, he paid for their slices and they sat. Two girls in cheerleading outfits from another school entered. He glanced their way. Casey bit her lip and commanded herself to think of something clever to say. “I’ve seen A Clockwork Orange” was what came out.

He looked from the cheerleaders to her. “What?”

“I said I’ve seen…” It hit her that she had uttered the kind of thing people say when they’re trying to get other people to think they’re cool. “There’s a porn movie called A Cockwork Orange.”

Now she had his full attention. “Is there?”

She had no idea whether or not there was a porn movie called A Cockwork Orange, and it took her no more than a nanosecond to realize that her second statement on things Clockwork Orange-related was ten times worse than the first. He watched her expectantly.

“The guy behind the counter reminds me of the guy with eyeliner in the original. You know, the guy with the stick who wears white.”

Casey had not seen the original either. But once Yull was watching it in the living room and Casey entered for about twenty seconds before Tricia called her back out because her homework was not done.

He cocked his head to one side. “Yeah.” The ‘yeah’ lacked his usual self-assurance. Ah ha. Alex Deal had not seen A Clockwork Orange. Casey felt more confident. He glanced at the cheerleaders again, and then pushed his empty paper plate away. She still had a half a slice on hers. “Wanna get out of here?” he asked.



The Strat and a drum kit were set up in his basement. He picked it up and began to play. Casey sat down on the couch. She debated telling him she played guitar. But what if she did and he asked her to play something and he didn’t like it? Her stomach tightened.

But then again (By then he finished playing the first song and launched into a second. He did pause in between songs to shoot Casey an expectant look, to which she responded “That was really good.”) Then again, what if she didn’t tell him she played guitar and they fell in love and he found out she had been hiding it from him? Would it be like one of those moments on TV when one half of the main couple’s dark secret comes out and the other half of the main couple says, and really they say it every time, “It’s not the secret, it’s that you never told me,” when in fact the viewer knows, hell even the actors know, that of course it’s the secret that’s bothering the person so much. That’s why the boyfriends slash girlfriends keep them secret all along.

Would it be like one of those moments?

He launched into a third song. Come now. Her secret wasn’t one of those secrets. Anyway she could always play cover songs for him. She would tell him she played when he finished. Except that when he finished the third, he launched into a fourth. And she was beginning to think all his songs kind of sounded alike. After the fourth song he came over, sat down, and she opened her mouth to speak. He leaned in and began to kiss her.

Casey and Sex. While in tenth grade it may not have been the biggest tragedy in the world to still be a virgin, it was not great if one was aiming to be the next female Mick Jagger. So, yes. She was, painfully, still a virgin. The year before she made out three times with her guitar teacher Leo. He was two years older and a student at a rival school. She even planned, after makeout session number two, when his hands made contact with her you know what, to lose her virginity to him. But it was somewhere during session number three that she realized not only was Leo boring but had an uninspired music collection and tasted like sour milk. She could not lose her virginity to him. Alex Deal, however, was a different story.

He took her hand and led her to the couch nearby. He removed her shirt. She hesitated. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“Not at all.” But in fact at that moment she realized it might be a good idea to play hard to get. Alex Deal was clearly used to girls as easy as Sunday morning. She inched away. “This has been choice but I really have to go.”

For not exactly the first time that day he looked puzzled. “Huh?”

“I have a test tomorrow.” As soon as it was out of her mouth she regretted it. A test? How geeky was that? “I mean, hemophilia.”

Casey was obsessed with hemophilia. Her history teacher Mr. Karp kept mentioning it when he talked about European monarchs. He even showed the class a clip from a movie in which a French king was dying of hemophilia and sweating blood. Except, the king was actually dying from having received a poisoned book in the mail and because Casey was not entirely listening she attributed it to hemophilia on the test they had the next day. Mr. Karp was not happy about that.

“Hemophilia?” Alex Deal repeated.

Casey nodded solemnly. “From inbreeding.”

“Are you saying you and Yull are inbred?”

“Not me. Just Yull.”

He stared.

“Just kidding, though if you want to spread that rumor and blame it on a game of telephone gone horribly awry, that’d be fine by me.”

A moment passed. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

It was then that Casey realized that the conversation had spun a bit out of control. “Our neighbor’s in the hospital with hemophilia and I told her I’d walk her dog. I really have to go.”

“Oh.” He looked down.

“But I wouldn’t mind continuing this sometime.”

“What about your boyfriend?”

“Um,” she said. He looked at her, a bit too sharply, and she wondered if he knew. “I mean, he’s awesome. But he goes to another school and he’s always really busy with his traveling soccer team and sometimes it’s hard.”

“I see.”

A long, awful moment passed in which she wondered whether she had ruined everything. But then he spoke. “I wouldn’t mind continuing this sometime too.”

Hallelujah. Neither the original Leonard Cohen song that regardless of its title was melancholic, nor the Jeff Buckley cover that despite a more harmonious feel was still less than jubilant. Just simple, old-fashioned, let’s par-tay, hallelujah.





11



He did not come into the library the next day. It was not like he said he would. All he did after she ended their makeout session was walk her upstairs and drive her home. On the way they talked about the merits of Goldfrapp’s live shows. Then at her house he kissed her again and said he would see her at school the following day.

As soon as Casey entered the house Yull came out of his room. “What were you doing with Alex Deal?”

She ignored him and headed to the basement, where she took her cell phone out of her bag. In the course of her two hour date with Alex Deal Leigh had sent two text messages. 1. How’s it going? 2. Do not have sex with him today. There is no source of female knowledge in the world that says this would be a good idea. She sank onto the couch and selected Leigh’s name.

Yull followed her. “What were you doing with Alex Deal?”

Casey allowed herself to savor the moment. It was the first time ever Yull had demanded to know details of her social life. Most of the time the curiosity strain ran in the other direction, though because she would never admit to this she relied on Leigh to share whatever she heard. “And why exactly is that any of your business?” she asked.

“Because you’re my sister and I know more about Alex than you do.”

There was something in Yull’s voice that made Casey pause before hitting Leigh’s name. Rather it was the lack of the two things that were always there: hostility and sarcasm. He sounded serious all of a sudden. Whatever.

“If you’ll excuse me I have to make a phone call now,” she said.

Yull rolled his eyes. “Tell Leigh I say hello.” He left the room.



At any rate the next day, once her library period ended, Casey could not help but feel disappointed. There was even a text message from Leigh asking if Alex Deal had come to see her. She did not reply. There were, after all, three more periods to go in the school day. He was probably waiting for the passing time between one of them to come to her locker, say hello, invite her for pizza and then to his house for another makeout session.

By last period of the day, a hellish English in which Casey again sat with Sukh the Sikh and Catherine Hightower and listened as Catherine prattled on about project ideas for Beowulf, she began to feel sad. Exactly twenty-four hours ago she had plans with Alex Deal. Now the only plan in her life was a project on Beowulf. Oh cruel cruel fate.

“Casey!” Catherine Hightower said, “Did you hear, like, a word I said?”

Casey looked at her. “Start with a Feist song. ‘I Feel It All’ would work. The dance remixes of that one are pretty killer too. Then venture out to Band of Horses. ‘Our Swords.’ Might feel a bit grungy for a couple of bars but by the end of it you won’t be nearly as freaked by all the schoolwork you have to complete in the next week. And for a third song I’d try something by The Helio Sequence. That’ll help your nails grow back.”

Catherine and Sukh looked at Catherine’s nails. They were bitten to the quick. Catherine shoved them under her thighs. Casey yawned and looked out the window. The bell rang to end the period. Sukh leaned over. “I like these bands too.”

“I had a feeling about you, kid.”

Sukh held up his index and pinkie finger in the ACDC sign.

Leigh was waiting for her in the hall. “So did he come to the library today? You didn’t respond to my text.”

“Many guys came to the library today. Which ‘he’ are you referring to?” Casey walked towards her locker.

Leigh fell into step alongside her. “What do you mean, ‘which he?’ Alex Deal of course.”

“Oh right. That guy. Umm.” They arrived at Casey’s locker. She twisted the lock and opened it. “Nope, don’t think I saw that guy in the library today.”

“But,” Leigh began. She looked around and brought her voice down a decibel, “didn’t he say he’d see you at school today?”

Casey made a mental note to never, ever, ask a friend about someone they liked who did not follow up the way he or she said they would. This was a straight path to that netherworld that sat in between heaven and hell. Purgatory, that’s what it was called. Of course Leigh was too naïve to know this. Or was she? Casey stopped what she was doing and studied Leigh. Was Leigh in fact a pawn of the devil and Casey had just failed to notice it in three years of friendship? “I’m sure he’s gonna call you,” Leigh said.

Casey decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. She sighed and turned back to her locker. “What’s that thing they say? Another day, another dude.”

“Who says that?”

“I just did.”

Leigh rolled her eyes and looked away. Casey caught sight of something at the other end of the hall. It was Alex Deal, in the flesh, with his bandmates. They were walking out together. Maybe they had band practice that day and that was why he had not come to see her in the library! Of course. Leigh saw him too. “Oh my God,” she said.

Casey feigned a look of innocence. “What?”

“Oh you know exactly what.”

“Be right back.”

Casey walked in the direction of him. The only problem was that she did not see the person directly in her path hunched on the floor getting stuff out of his locker. It was only when she tripped on him and fell flat to the floor, in the process knocking one of his binders and sending papers flying everywhere, that she realized that person was Ben. He frowned. “You okay, Barnes?”

Casey was already halfway up off the floor. She stole a look in Alex Deal’s direction. If she was ever going to start believing in God, it would have been if Alex Deal did not see what happened. But he was looking at her. She turned back to Ben. “There is no God.”

“No shit.” He began to pick up papers. She bent down and helped him. Now that Alex Deal saw her pull what was perhaps the biggest dork move of the school year so far, there was no way she was going over there. Leigh arrived, shaking her head in disbelief. “Was that an accident?”

“Either that or she was trying to get to my Spanish homework again,” Ben said.

Leigh looked from Ben to Casey. “Oh it’s him.”

Ben flushed and turned to put stuff in his locker. Casey shut her eyes. Leigh clamped her hand to her mouth. He turned back around. “You guys wanna get something to eat?”

Suddenly Alex Deal walked over. “Hey.”

Leigh and Casey froze for a moment. “Why hello…John, is it?” Casey asked.

“Looks like you took a bit of a spill there.”

She smiled. “Oh that was for show. Leigh here is in a play and she’s trying to learn how to do prat falls. I told her I’d do a demonstration.”

Ben mumbled something under his breath that might have included the words “distortion” and “truth.”

Alex Deal, fortunately, was distracted by one of his bandmates calling out his name. He turned back to Casey. “We’re rehearsing today.”

“Oh.”

“You can come if you want.”

“Great!” She paused. “I mean…” She glanced at Leigh.

“Go!” Leigh said.

“Okay,” she said.

“Meet at my car in five minutes.” He walked away. Leigh grinned and gave Casey a thumbs up. Ben’s expression was impassive.

“Let’s all get food after school some other time,” Casey said to him.

Ben shrugged. “Whatever.” He grabbed his bag and departed.

She turned to Leigh. “Please tell me you have cherry chapstick today.”

Leigh reached into her bag and produced a stick of the magic substance. Casey grabbed it. “Maybe you’re not a daughter of Satan after all.”

“Huh?”

She patted Leigh on the head. “I’ll call you later with a detailed report on fornication with le Deal.”





12



Casey resumed position in the passenger seat and attempted to summon yet another sonic stunner as Alex pulled out of the spot. Something caught his eye. She looked and realized it was none other than Melanie Corcoran. She was with two other girls. Casey put a hand on her stomach. He moved his eyes back to her. “Whatcha got?”

They drove to McDonald’s, where she met the other two members of Alex’s power trio. His drummer was tall and blonde and fiddling with a phone as he waited in line. He did not acknowledge Casey. His bass player had a big head of red hair and freckles. She remembered him from talent show the year before because he smiled throughout the whole song and she thought it was cute. She also recognized him because he had a girlfriend. They walked around school hand-in-hand and every time she saw them they were laughing.

“I’m Danny,” the red-head said, “You’re Yull’s sister?”

She nodded. “Casey.”

Alex motioned to the blonde guy. “That’s Peter.” Peter looked at her and went back to his phone.

The takeout from McDonald’s was consumed in Alex’s living room. The guys talked about their set list and which songs to perform for the upcoming talent show auditions. Just as quarter pounder wrappings were being crumpled into balls and last squeegees taken of milkshakes, Casey decided to make an announcement. “I forgot to tell you that I actually play guitar.”

“I thought you told me you didn’t,” Alex said.

“You must’ve misunderstood me.”

He gave her a funny look. “Oh. Well, I mean, cool.”

“How long have you been playing?” Danny asked.

Suddenly she felt self-conscious. Alex’s reaction was not what she had been hoping for. “Oh, you know.”

“Actually he doesn’t,” Peter said, “That’s why he asked.”

Casey looked at the floor. “Two years.”

“Nice,” Danny said.

“Let’s go,” Peter said. They stood up and walked to the living room doors that led to the basement. Once they got there and Peter saw that she was still following them, he frowned. “You’re not gonna watch T.V.?” He looked to Alex. “Melanie didn’t--”

“Hey,” Alex said.

“It’s fine,” Danny said.

“Was there an unfortunate incident with a Yoko-like character in your childhood?” Casey asked.

A moment of silence passed. She wondered if she had committed one faux pas too many. But Danny and Alex laughed.



The songs were better with drum and bass, but they still sounded alike. There was one moment towards the end of their set when Alex looked at her and she wondered if he was going to ask her to play. But then he swung into the next song.

Band practice ended not long after that. Danny and Peter packed up their stuff and said goodbye. Once they were gone and Alex was in the bathroom Casey went over to his Strat. She didn’t want to play without an express invitation, but she figured that if she positioned herself just so, that invitation would be as good as issued. He returned from the bathroom and sat on the couch. “Come here.”

As soon as she sat down, he went straight in for a kiss. That time she let him take her shirt and pants off before she started to wonder how far would be too far. They were, after all, hanging out two days in a row. Now they were pretty much a thing. A couple. An object of envy on the part of other females. Future progenitors of a musical wunderkind.

Casey had a fantasy that, when they collaborated on Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, Thom Yorke and PJ Harvey had an affair that left PJ pregnant. Despite Thom’s longtime relationship with his college girlfriend, PJ kept the baby. She gave birth in utmost secrecy at her parents’ place in the English countryside, the baby was being raised by PJ and an English nanny who wore a uniform, and it was guarded, zealously, as the Adam/Eve of a rock and roll master race needed to be. Casey and Alex Deal could do that too. They’d just have a manny and live in Beverly Hills.

He did not ask any questions about her boyfriend that day. Instead he began to explore beneath her underpants. She stood up. “I have to use the bathroom.”

“You on the rag?”

“Oh no no no. I’m not one of those girls. Just have to use the bathroom. Be right back.” She grabbed her bag and, once inside, ran water so she could call Leigh.

“What’s up?” Leigh asked.

“I’m at his house.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Sublime. But inquiring minds want to know…”

“No.”

“Right.” She hung up and went back out.

“All good?” he asked.

She sat. “Amazing.” They began to make out again. He started to take off her underwear. She stopped him. “The thing is--”

“You’re a virgin.”

She cocked her head to one side and made a face. “Why, I mean, no. Me?” She laughed. “That’s funny.”

He smiled. “So you’re saying you get around?”

“No. I’m just saying I’m not a virgin.”

“Well then what’s the problem?”

“I have a friend’s birthday party to plan tonight. I mean like a big party. College kids may be coming. And I won’t be able to, you know, enjoy it because I’ll just have to go home and figure out how many kegs to buy and whether we’re gonna smoke pot from bongs or water pipes.”

“Bongs are water pipes.”

“Right but sometimes people get confused so I’ll need to clarify that for them. At the party.”

“I hope I get invited to this party,” he said.

“You’ll need to play your cards right in order for that to happen.”

He smiled again. But then he moved away from her on the couch. “So it’s really like a big deal for you, having sex with me?”

Casey wanted to kill herself. How could she have shown her naïve and overtly virginal cards so easily? “Of course not.”

“So if it’s not a big deal why let a party you have to plan stop you?”

She stared at the guitar ahead. Oh what she would have given for a little Joan Jett sitting on her shoulder at that moment. Alex Deal was right. Right? It was only sex, and they were pretty much going out. Plus, who better to lose it with than him? She imagined herself at school the next day telling Leigh all about it. She would finally be one of those girls who made it to the other side of the fence.

He sensed he was making headway and placed a hand on her knee. She looked into his eyes. She started to form the words that would constitute a yes okay let’s go for it, even if there were some technical issues she was curious about, such as birth control and AIDS and herpes. She wanted to call Leigh again. But he kept staring at her with those eyes. And sometimes you just have to lose yourself in the moment.