The room smelled gross in a way I kind of liked, boy sweat and skunk weed. After a couple of minutes, I pulled back the tab on the can and sipped the soda slowly, knowing that I could only stay here as long as I was drinking it, knowing that Michael’s goodwill wouldn’t last all day.
Michael set the rest of the sodas down on his dresser and pulled open the top drawer. He took out a plastic sandwich bag of weed, a little pipe, and a lighter. He looked at me. “You gonna tell Louise?”
I shook my head. He closed the drawer.
He sat on the edge of the bed. Wade was sitting on the floor, leaning up against the side of the bed, his head relaxed back against the edge of the mattress. When he took a sip from his can of soda, I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down.
Michael pinched some of the weed out of the bag and put it in the pipe. The pipe was made of clear glass with wavy lines of pink and yellow running through it. The lines looked like colorful little worms. He pushed down on the weed with his thumb to pack it and then brought the pipe to his mouth. Before he lit it he told me, “Shut the door.”
I jumped up from the beanbag and pushed the door closed until I heard it latch. Then I went back to the corner, sinking back down and hoping hoping hoping Michael wouldn’t offer me the pipe. I wouldn’t have any idea how to use it.
After he’d sucked on the end of the pipe, his breath still held, lungs full, he handed it down to Wade. They passed it back and forth, each taking a few hits.
I didn’t know where to look. I drank my soda. It was cold and sweet and bubbly, just like every soda I’ve ever drunk, but totally different.
When they were stoned enough, I guess, Michael leaned over and put the pipe on top of his dresser. Then he flopped back against his pillows and rubbed his eyes. “Dude,” he said.
The music was so, so loud. The room was hazy with smoke, and I had to take shallow breaths to keep from coughing.
“Hey,” Wade said suddenly, after a few minutes of them saying nothing. “I forgot I wanted to show you something. Where’s your computer?”
“Over there,” Michael waved his hand vaguely. His eyes were closed.
“He’s stoned,” Wade said to me. He grinned.
I grinned back, like we were in on a joke together, even though Wade’s eyes were bloodshot red and he’d taken as many hits off the pipe as Michael had.
Then he said, “You’re the same age as my brother. Do you know him? His name’s Seth.”
“We’re in the same class.” I felt myself blushing. This was Seth’s brother? No wonder he was so . . . well, just so wonderful looking. They had the same energy, Seth and Wade. This forward-pushing wave of masculinity, though it was stronger in Wade.
Wade drew his brows together. “Hey,” he said, “Don’t tell him I was smoking weed, okay? I don’t want him to think it’s cool.”
“Oh, sure, no problem. I mean, it’s not like we hang out or anything, anyway. We barely ever talk.” I was babbling now, and embarrassing myself. I thought it was sweet that Wade didn’t want Seth to know that he smoked pot, that he wanted to protect him like that.
“Great,” Wade said, and then, “hey, help me find the computer.”
Michael’s backpack sat near his door, next to the laundry hamper. “In there, maybe?” I said.
Wade crawled across the room to the backpack. His T-shirt was loose, and his pants were low, and as he crawled by I saw the waistband of his underwear. “Jackpot,” he said after he unzipped the backpack and pulled out Michael’s laptop.
“Dude,” he said again, after he’d scooted back over to his place against the side of the bed. He pushed open the laptop and tapped on the space bar until the screen came to life. “I have to show you this thing.”
He opened the browser and typed something into the search bar. He was a good typist, using all his fingers and his thumbs. He didn’t have to look at his hands at all.
Then he looked over at me and grinned. “You probably don’t want to see this.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.” I stood up. My soda can was empty, anyway. I headed to the door.
Michael rolled over to see the screen of the computer. “What the fuck,” he said.
“Well,” I said, one hand on the doorknob, wishing they would ask me to stay. “Thanks for the soda.”
Neither of them looked up at me. The glow of the computer screen lit Wade’s face.
“It’s called a Wishbone Doll,” Wade murmured.
Michael looked up at me, lurking in the doorway. “Close it on your way out,” he said.
???
As soon as she woke up, I told Louise all about Wade. “He’s Seth’s older brother,” I said.
“Does he look like Seth?”
“Mm-hm. Probably he’s what Seth is going to look like in five years. Like, a glimpse into the future.”
Louise giggled and sighed. “And what were they looking at?”
“I don’t know. Something on the computer. A Wishbone Doll.”
“A doll? What kind of doll would they be looking at?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s something dirty?”
“Of course it’s something dirty,” said Louise, in her you’re-such-a-baby voice.
After eating the pancakes Louise’s mom served us at the kitchen table, we went up to Louise’s room. We climbed onto her daybed, surrounded by pillows and stuffed animals, and we googled “Wishbone Doll.” It took us to a website that prompted us to click a button saying that we were eighteen or older and aware that we were about to enter a site with “adult content.”
Louise clicked it. The next web page loaded. There was a woman—a tall, beautiful, weird woman, with giant boobs, dark red hair framing her face. She was wearing red underwear and a bra and high heels. She was as tall as a woman, and she looked almost real, but not quite. Her mouth was sort of open, and her hands looked stiff, unnatural.
“What is it?” Louise asked, fascinated.
“It has to be a joke, right?”
Louise scrolled down. Under the picture of the girl was a list of options:
STANDARD
CUSTOM
CLASSIC
RETIRED MODELS - SALE
“They’re dolls,” Louise said. There was a list of prices—between seven and ten thousand dollars. “Really expensive dolls.”
“Who would pay that much money for a doll?”
Louise clicked on the button that said CUSTOM. “Look,” she said, “We can build one.”
FACE TYPES was the first section. There were twelve options. All of them held their mouths slightly open like the first doll, all of them gazed straight forward with thick-lashed eyes. We chose Lynda, who had the biggest eyes and the second biggest lips and a small nose.
Then came HAIR. Louise clicked on the picture of long, wavy black shoulder-length hair.
EYE COLOR. LIP COLOR. MAKEUP: Heavy, Light, or Natural.
Then came BREAST SIZE.
“I hope mine get big, like these,” Louise said, her cursor hovering over an enormous pair of breasts.
“I’d hate to have boobs like that,” I said. “You’d have to wear a bra all the time.”
“That’d be fine with me,” Louise said, clicking on the big pair.