Andrew Klavan - The last thing I remember

“Beth!” I blurted out, surprised. I stood up. I’m not sure why I stood up-I just did. I stood up and twisted around out of my chair and faced her.

The guys-Josh and Rick and Miler-all sort of sat there staring up at the two of us, Josh with the words dying on his lips, Rick and Miler with their lips sort of parted. They looked about as stunned as the people in New York City when they looked up and saw King Kong for the first time. It wasn’t that Beth was too good or too stuck-up to talk to me or anything. She wasn’t like that, not at all. And it wasn’t that I was the least popular guy in school either. That would officially be Al Dokler. It was just that she was Beth and I was me, and if I’d told one of these guys she was going to come over to my lunch table to talk to me, he would’ve said, “Yeah, only in your dreams,” and I would’ve thought, Yeah-he’s right. Only in my dreams.

But here she was. And there was no point just standing there, staring at her like an idiot. So instead I stood there and stared at her like an idiot and said, “Hi, Beth. What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to tell you how cool your thing in assembly was today,” she said. And there was that whole nice, warm business I was talking about. The way she said it, as if no one’s thing in assembly had ever been cool before.

“Thanks,” I said.

“When you came down on that block? When I saw what you were going to do, I was, like, oh my goodness, he’s gonna kill himself, like, break his hand into a hundred pieces. Then, when you actually broke through the block like that, I was, like, so, so relieved.” She really sounded like she was so, so relieved too. So, so worried about me, and so, so relieved. It was nice.

“Thanks,” I said again. I was really pushing the conversational envelope here.

“Anyway, it was cool. It was really cool,” she said.

And guess what I said? “Thanks.”

Then she stood there for another second, as if there was something else I was supposed to say. I felt like there was something else I was supposed to say, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of what it might be. I didn’t want to say thanks again, and I couldn’t figure out anything else, so I just did the whole stand-and-stare-like-an-idiot routine again.

Finally Beth raised her free hand and gave that little metronome wave girls give-ticktock, ticktock-and said, “Well… I just wanted to tell you that. I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. At least it wasn’t “Thanks.” Then I did some more idiotic standing and staring.

With a smile that registered approximately a 9.5 on the Sweetness Scale, Beth turned and started walking away from me, walking toward the cafeteria door.

“Hey, Beth?” I said. I didn’t mean to say it. I didn’t even know I was going to say it until I heard the words coming out of my mouth. But somehow I couldn’t just let her walk away like that.

Beth stopped at the door. She turned back to me, waiting expectantly. She’d moved far enough away so that I had to take a few steps after her to catch up. That was good with me. It got me away from my table, from the staring eyes and flummoxed expressions of Josh and Miler and Rick.

I came up to stand in front of Beth again. I had that feeling again that there was something I was supposed to say, something she was waiting for. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I just stood there with my mouth open for what seemed like about half an hour.

Finally, Beth laughed-not in a mean way, just in a kind of what’s-going-on way. “You forget what you wanted to say?” she asked me.

“No. No, I didn’t forget,” I said. “I just… I wanted to say… It’s just… it’s just I really like you, Beth.”

I couldn’t believe I said that. I just blurted it right out. I felt like such an incredible idiot.

But Beth didn’t laugh at me or anything. She just kind of opened her eyes wider and looked really surprised. “Oh,” she said. “Well, thank you…”

I stumbled on quickly, without thinking, because I didn’t want there to be any more stupid silences. “The thing is: it makes me really nervous when I talk to you.”

She looked even more surprised. “It does?”

“Yeah!” I said. I laughed. It was actually kind of a relief to just say it out loud like that. It was a relief not to try to hide it or to pretend to be cool with her. “I get, like, really nervous. I feel like my tongue is superglued to the top of my mouth.”

“Agh, I hate when that happens.”

“No kidding. I really gotta stop messing with that stuff.”

She laughed. She had a nice laugh. “Well, I’m glad you like me anyway,” she said. “I like you too.” She actually said that. I swear I’m not making this up.

“Really?” I said. “Cool. So you want to, like, go see a movie together or something?”

It was that easy in the end. Suddenly I’d just said it. Suddenly it was just out there.

And just as suddenly, Beth said, “Sure, that’d be fun. Only nothing scary. I hate scary movies.”

“Me too,” I said. I don’t know why I said that. I love scary movies. It just came out because I guess I wanted to make sure she went on liking me.

“My mom doesn’t let me go to them anyway,” said Beth. “She says they’re disgusting.”

“Right, no scary movies. We don’t even have to go to a movie at all. We could just get a pizza or something.”

“Oh, I love pizza.”

“But no scary pizza.”

She laughed. “Right. Or we could go see the Dragons play. Anyway, why don’t you just call me and we’ll figure something out? Here.”

She handed her books to me and I held them while she fished a marker out of her purse. Then she took my free hand in one of hers. She wrote her phone number on the back of my hand with her marker.

“That tickles,” I said.

“It’s a very funny number,” she said.

I laughed. While she finished writing, I took the opportunity to study the way her hair fell forward across her face. It was a nice way. Definitely nice.

“There,” she said. She gave me my hand back. I gave her back her books. “Your tongue still superglued?” she asked me.

I moved my tongue around in my mouth to check. “What do you know?” I said. “Stuff’s not as strong as they say.”

“There’s no truth in advertising.” She shifted her books back under her arm. “Well, I’m really glad I stopped by.”

“Me too.”

“So I’ll see you, right?”

“Right. Definitely. You’ll definitely see me.”

That’s what I thought as I stood there watching her walk away. That I’d see her-definitely. I glanced down at the number written in marker on the back of my hand and I thought: I’ll call her and I’ll see her. Just like that. The way it felt… it almost didn’t seem real to me. It seemed like something I would daydream. It was something I would daydream-that I had daydreamed-only I wasn’t daydreaming now. It was all real.

Then she went out the door, out of the cafeteria, and she was gone and I never saw her again-never again that I remember, anyway.

Because when I woke up the next day, the daydream was over and I was right in the middle of my worst nightmare.

Leave Me Alone, Winston Churchill I lay dazed in the cab of the upside-down pickup truck. I was in the middle of the field, about two-thirds of the distance from the compound to the forest trailhead. The guards with their Kalashnikovs were running across the field toward me.

But I wasn’t thinking about them. I was thinking about Beth. Her smile flashed through my mind again, that 9.5-on-the-Sweetness-Scale smile. I saw her as clearly as if she were right there in front of me. I saw her turn her eyes to me. And she spoke! Only it was the weirdest thing. I could see her face, I could see her lips moving. But the voice that came out was not her voice. It was a deep voice-a man’s voice-and it had a British accent.