Ten Miles Past Normal

Chapter Fifteen


The Awful Truth About Jeremy Fitch





Jeremy Fitch is happy to see me.

I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life.

You know the moment I’m talking about—the “A Cute Boy Smiles at You as You Walk into a Room and He Looks Like He’s Really, Really Happy to See You” moment. Even back in fourth grade, when I didn’t actually like boys, I still dreamed that one day I’d enter a room—dressed in a fluffy pink ball gown and a sparkling tiara, of course—and cause heads to turn and joy at my presence to abound.

“You finally made it to Jam Band,” Jeremy says to me as I head to the back of the room where I’ve stored my case.

“I thought this day would never come.”

“Yeah, well—” And once again speech escapes me.

“So what was your name again?”

I’m in the process of pulling my bass out from under a table, but I stop and peer up at Jeremy. I’ve been stalking him for two months, and he doesn’t even know my name? Why do I suddenly feel humiliated beyond belief?

Maybe it’s because I’m humiliated beyond belief.

“Yo, Janie!” Monster calls from across the room. “You can share my amp if you didn’t bring yours.”

I smile gratefully at the one person in this room who actually knows my name. Then Verbena comes in and waves. Now there are two people in the room who know my name.

“Jenny, that’s right!” Jeremy says, giving himself a mock slap on the forehead. “How could I forget?”

Two people who know my name, and one who so clearly does not.

“Janie,” I tell him, irritation untangling my vocal cords. “Jane-ee. Rhymes with ‘rainy.’”

Jeremy grins. “But not with ‘Rena.’”

“No, then I would be Gina.”

“And that would be bad.”

Okay, so he doesn’t know my name, but Jeremy Fitch is so cute, I no longer care. The fact is, I’ve waited a long time for this sort of banter with a boy.

“Very bad,” I tell him, smiling. “The worst thing ever.”

“Worse than nuclear holocaust,” Jeremy agrees.

“Worse than a rock in your shoe,” I lob back.

“Come on, Janie, let’s get you tuned up,” Monster calls to me, and I regretfully say, “Gotta go.”

“Come back soon,” Jeremy says with a grin.

This guy is dangerously cute.

While Monster tunes the bass, the room fills up with Jam Banders. It’s a grab bag of boys, though the balance is leaning toward guys for whom Jam Band is the only place in Manneville High where they fit in. I sense a strong tendency toward black T-shirts with obscure band names and hair that is not tended in any way except for the very occasional shampooing. I see two guys toasting each other with Diet Coke cans and have a sneaking suspicion that Diet Coke is not actually the beverage they’re about to partake of. There are a couple of clean-cut albeit cool guys like Jeremy Fitch, guys who don’t appear to have a parole officer in their future, but they’re in the minority.

I look over at Verbena, who is wiggling her eyebrows at me in mad ecstasy. We are in Guy Heaven, her look seems to be saying, or at least in a particular wing of Guy Heaven, the one where everyone says “dude” a lot and regrets that they missed the heyday of Mötley Crüe or else the Germs. This is what I gather from their T-shirts, anyway.

It takes ten minutes for everyone to settle in, get their guitars (it’s all guitars, plus one drum kit and my bass) unpacked and tuned up and plugged into their amps. Jam Band is electric, and two seconds into the first song, it is electrifying.

And really, really loud.

Verbena has her fingers in her ears, but she’s smiling and bobbing her head. I feel overwhelmed by the noise, but try to keep up. We’re playing some old song, something by Radiohead, a song I’ve never heard before in my life and have no idea how to play, but after about thirty seconds I realize it doesn’t matter, because no one can hear me. I close my eyes and have at it. When the song clashes to an end, at least six guys lean toward me and say, “Awesome!”

Monster, sitting next to me, beams with pride.

Verbena claps and bounces up and down. “You were great, Janie!”

My novelty act lasts one more song, and then I settle into being one of the guys. One of the Jam Band guys. We plow through six more songs, interspersed with a lot of arguing about who gets to play lead guitar and what the opening chord is and how the drummer—a kid with a shaved head and Ray-Bans named Pete—is lamer than ever, which causes Pete to throw down his sticks and stalk out of the room.

“He does that every Friday,” Monster leans over to inform me. “Fact is, he is a lame drummer. We’ve been trying to get rid of him for two years now. It’s a free country, or else we’d lock him out.”

I decide I like being part of a group where nobody gets locked out, no matter how lame they are.

At four forty-five, after a particularly raucous rendition of “Whole Lotta Love,” Monster stands up and announces, “Gotta pack it in, boys. Janitorial staff locks up at five.”

I shrug off my bass. My shoulders are aching, my fingertips are on the verge of blistering, and it’s possible I’ve lost half the hearing in my right ear. Which is why at first I think I’ve heard wrong when Verbena, caught up in the ecstasy of group participation, jumps up on a desk and announces, “Party at Janie’s two weeks from tomorrow, and everybody’s invited!”

The room erupts in appreciative whoops. I transmit to Verbena the first harrowing glare of our friendship. Sure, this is just a room of twelve misfit guys and a handful of not so misfits, but party announcements are like viruses. They spread. They get out of control. They end up with the local Chapter of Hell’s Angels at your front door.

“You still need a ride?” Monster asks me after I put my bass back in its case.

I nod mutely.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,”

Monster tells me, nodding toward Verbena, who is still standing on the desk telling a crowd of Jam Banders that she doesn’t actually know where I live, but she’ll bring in maps next week. “Half these guys never leave the house. Too busy playing Guitar Hero.”

There’s a tap on my shoulder, and I turn to find Jeremy Fitch behind me. “Awesome playing today,” he tells me. “You’re a natural. So you need a ride or something?”

Or something? How about a kiss? A marriage proposal? A trip to Paris? Not necessarily in that order.

“Sure,” I respond before I can stop myself. “I’d love—”

That’s when I stop myself. “I mean, I’ve got a ride, but—”

I turn to Monster. “Uh, Jeremy wants to know if I want a ride. I mean, you probably have to go to work or something. . . .”

There is the barest hesitation on Monster’s part before he says, “Yeah, as a matter of fact I do, so if you want to catch a ride with the ol’ J-Dog, that’d be cool. But how about your friend over there? I can drop her off if she needs a ride.”

“Definitely!” I tell him, remembering my plan to bring Monster and Verbena together to see if anything clicks. “She definitely needs a ride.”

“Happy to do it,” Monster says. “Don’t forget to practice this weekend.”

“I won’t,” I promise, clicking shut my case and grinning like a maniac. “At least thirty minutes a day.”

Monster gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Attagirl.”

And then I follow Jeremy Fitch—the Jeremy Fitch—out the door and into the hallway. Two minutes later we’re in his car (Honda Civic circa the last millennium) and riding down the road to Farm World. The music pumping out of the Honda’s tinny speakers negates the need for small talk, so I relax and look out the window and try not to think about Sarah. Jeremy is just giving me a ride, after all. He hasn’t proposed marriage or asked me out on a date—yet. He’s just thoughtfully offered me a ride home from school.

I snuggle down into the idea of how wonderfully old-fashioned this feels. An act of honest chivalry, mingled perhaps—a girl can dream—with at least a modicum of romantic interest. Nothing physical will pass between us, of course, not on this ride, but when he drops me off, our eyes will hold for a second longer than necessary and we’ll both imagine rides to come. In the meantime, I’m thankful for once that I live way out in the boonies; as far as I’m concerned, the longer it takes to get to my house, the better.

After five minutes of driving, it becomes clear that Jeremy has no idea of just how long this trip is going to take and that it’s starting to make him anxious. “Should I turn up here?” he asks, turning the volume down. “Haw River Estates, right?”

“Uh, no.” I wave vaguely toward the horizon. “Haw River Road. It’s about five miles out, off of 15-501.”

“But that’s Chatham County.” Jeremy glances at me, and I can see that he’s irritated, as if I’d somehow scammed him into giving me a ride to some faraway land instead of Farm World, which is only a fifteen-minute drive if you don’t have to stop for sheep crossings.

“No, it’s almost Chatham County,” I say, trying to keep my tone light. “But we’re still in Manneville. I mean, our farm is.”

“Your farm? You live on a farm?”

This asked in a tone of voice suggesting I probably also study by firelight and have an extra chromosome or two up my sleeve.

I nod, red-faced, and look miserably out the window. My first chance at love ruined by my Green Acres address. I should have known. I’ll never have a boyfriend, because it will be too inconvenient to pick me up on a date and my backyard smells like manure. Any chance of Jeremy Fitch asking me out—blown. Over. Done with.

Just as I’m about to fling myself from the car in despair, it occurs to me that Monster didn’t seem to mind the distance when he drove me home on Monday. So what’s Prince Charming’s deal? It’s a beautiful day, and I just had an amazing debut as the Jam Band’s bass player. In fact, I kicked some serious Jam Band butt. I sit up straight and turn toward Jeremy, who is tapping impatiently on the steering wheel, as though keeping track of each tenth of a mile we traverse. “Do you have something against farms?” I demand. “A problem with cows? No patience with root vegetables?”

“It’s just”—and here his voice goes up a half an octave, like a sixth-grade boy who’s lost his milk money—“gas is expensive, man.”

This is so uncool. I dig through my backpack and pull out a five. “Will this do?”

(Please don’t take it, I pray fervently. Please, please, please.)

Jeremy takes the bill from me and crams it in his shirt pocket. “Yeah, thanks,” he says, leaning over and giving my knee a squeeze. “You’re a cool girl. A lot of chicks I know wouldn’t understand it costs a lot to fill up a gas tank these days.”

Oh, I understand all right. I understand everything I need to understand about Jeremy Fitch.

Just wait until I tell Sarah that Prince Charming isn’t such a prince after all.