Allen Zadoff - Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have

“You maybe change your mind about us?” Bison says.

“No,” I say.

“Why not? Is there something wrong with us? I mean, other than Cheesy’s BO,” Bison says.

“It’s not you guys. It’s just—I have other things I want to do.”

“That’s friggin’ lame,” Bison says.

“Easy,” Rodriguez says.

“No, I’m serious. We schooled the boy, and he turns around and screws us.”

Bison flings open the locker-room door. He stops and looks back at me. “So I’ll tell you what, dude. You can suck my hole now.”

He disappears, slamming the door behind him.

The guys shift uncomfortably. Who quits football, right? Maybe it’s a little scary to them. When someone leaves, it feels like they’re rejecting you, even if that’s not what’s going on.

“Don’t mind him,” Rodriguez says.

“No,” I say. “He’s right. You guys did a lot for me.”

“That’s the game,” Cheesy says. “That’s how it works.”

“Coach and I had a heart-to-heart,” I say. “He told me I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.”

“Coach is messed up over this,” Rodriguez says. “He’s been eating pork lo mein by the truckful.”

“Seriously. We’re gonna have to get the guy a friggin’ Weight Watchers membership,” Cheesy says.

“Is he right?” Rodriguez says. “Is it a mistake?”

I shrug. It’s one of those answers I might not know for a long time.

Just then O. comes around the corner whistling. He sees me and the whistle dies.

“Okay,” Rodriguez says. “I’d better see your ass at some games, huh?” We bump elbows, then he signals the guys, and they head into the locker room.

“Football players only,” O. says. He walks past me like he’s going straight into the locker room.

“I came to say thanks.”

O. pauses. “For what?”

“For everything.”

“I thought I set you up and ruined your life.”

“Not true,” I say. “I was being dramatic. And I was pissed at you. For a pretty good reason, I think.”

O. blows out a breath. “I’m not proud of what I did,” he says. “But I’m proud of the things we did together.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Anyway, I forgive you.”

“Screw you, dude.” O. clenches his fists. I think maybe we’re going to get into it, but he stops himself.

“You know what? I forgive you, too,” he says.

“Forgive me for what?”

“For using me to get famous.”

“Am I famous now?” I say.

“Pretty famous.”

“That doesn’t suck.”

“No, it most certainly does not,” O. says.

There are catcalls inside the locker room. Guys horsing around. The team vibe. I miss it. At least that part of it.

A tiny part of me feels like I am making a mistake.

“I got to motivate,” O. says.

“So what now?” I say. “Do you think you can be friends with someone who’s not a football player?”

O. opens the locker-room door. “You don’t know me well enough to know the answer to that?”

He’s right. I already know.

“It was a good game,” he says. “But it’s over. Now I have to get ready for the next one.”

He nods once, and then he goes inside to join the guys.

“Andy! Wait up a second,” April says.

I’m on my way out of school, and I think about ignoring her, rushing out the door so fast she can’t catch me. The thing is, I see her in AP. I see her in Gym. It’s not like I can avoid her forever. So I stop.

“What’s up,” I say.

“You know,” she says. “Lots of things.”

We walk out together. I don’t think we’ve ever walked out the front of the school together. It’s a new experience for us.

“We didn’t get to talk after the game,” April says.

“You heard that I quit?”

“Everyone’s talking about it.”

“What are they saying?”

“They’re angry,” she says. “But I think it’s because they miss you.”

They . Not I . Big difference, right?

“I think I’m going to write for the lit journal,” I say. “Try something new and different.”

School buses fill up and rumble away in clouds of black smoke. I haven’t been out here at this time in a couple months. It’s funny how you can go away and come back, and things are just the same.

“How do you like being a cheerleader?” I say.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I mean, I think I’m pretty good at it.”

“I think so, too.”

“The truth is it’s not really my thing, you know?”

“So why do you do it?” I say.

“Why did you play football?”

“I quit football.”

“But why did you play in the first place?”

“There were things that I wanted from it,” I say.

I look in her eyes. Soft blue, even softer than when I first met her. Maybe she’s changed her contacts.

“Those things you wanted,” she says. “You don’t want them anymore?”

“I want different things,” I say.

April looks off into the distance. She shivers and pulls her sweater around her.

“You could quit, too,” I say. “Drop the cheerleading. Get back to something—I don’t know—more your style.”

“I’m different than you, Andy. I actually like being popular.”

“I didn’t exactly hate it,” I say.

She laughs. “Anyway,” she says, “I can’t quit. The girls need me.”

“For what?”

“I help them with their homework.”

“I knew you helped Lisa, but—”

“All of them,” she says. “We have a study group together. How do you think I got into that clique in the first place? Half of them would be going to state schools without me. So it’s pretty much guaranteed they’ll keep me around.”

“Wow. Isn’t that… I mean, isn’t it—?”

“Kind of creepy? Definitely. But it doesn’t really matter now. Once you’re in, you can make changes. Influence things. Maybe bring someone into the group that you actually like. You know what I mean?”

“It’s an interesting idea.”

“You can’t do that from the outside,” April says. “From outside you’re behind the window looking in. What can you do from out there but tap on the glass?”

Another bus rumbles away. I look at April, the sun hitting her from the side and lighting up her hair. She’s still beautiful and smart and has great teeth, but there’s something different about her now.

No, it’s not her.

It’s me. I see her differently. Everything in her life is a chess move, and I don’t like it.

“I have to get to cheer practice,” she says. “See you around?”

She says it like it’s a question, like she’s expecting me to make a move. Or at least try to.

The old me would have gotten really excited about that.

I say, “Take care, April.”

And I get on a bus.

I’m sitting alone in the cafeteria.

Eytan has some UN thing to do during lunch today, so I’m not hanging out with him until later. There are a lot of people who don’t want me at their table now that I’m not a football player. Some people are calling me a quitter, saying I abandoned the school. Other people don’t care so much, or they missed the whole thing entirely.

There are a few places I could sit if I wanted to, but I don’t feel like it. When you sit with people in high school, it’s like you’re declaring your allegiance. Kind of like registering to vote for a particular party. I’m not ready to be with any party. I want to be independent for a while.

Hip-hop music is booming through the cafeteria. A few hundred students signed a petition last week, and Caroline Whitney-Smith agreed to pipe in the school radio station while we eat. It’s better than people sneaking in iPod speakers and having music turf wars.