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

Nancy Yee walks by with a tray in her hands. She doesn’t look at me.

I don’t know why, but I say, “Do you want to sit, Nancy?”

“Why? So you can insult me again?”

“So we can talk a little.”

She bites her lip like she’s having trouble making up her mind.

“Just be warned,” I say. “I’m kind of radioactive right now.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Guilt by association.”

“I don’t believe in that,” she says.

“The rest of the school does,” I say.

“That’s their problem.”

That does it. She sits down and arranges her tray. Salad and french fries, with nine packets of mustard stacked along the side. I look at her like she’s crazy.

“That’s a crime in some countries,” I say.

“I love condiments. So kill me,” she says, and she rips open a packet with her teeth and squeezes mustard all over the fries and salad. “You want a taste?”

“I try not to trigger my gag reflex in public.”

She laughs and pushes her hair back from her face with two fingers. Her acne is still there, but it’s so faint now, she just looks like she’s blushing.

“Your face looks pretty good,” I say.

I’m not sure if you’re supposed to say things like that to a girl. Probably not.

“Thanks,” she says. “My mom took me to the dermatologist. The doctor said my hair was making my face break out. I don’t get how my hair and my face can’t work together. I mean, they’re both on the same body, right? They’re even right next to each other. You’d think they’d get along better.”

“I get what you mean,” I say. “I wonder why I feel hungry if it’s only going to make me gain weight. I’m already fat, right? So why would my body make me hungry if it will only make the situation worse?”

“I know, right?” she says. “I think our bodies do whatever they want. They kind of have their own agenda, and we don’t get a vote.”

I forgot that Nancy is kind of a genius. I always think of her as this scrawny, weird girl with acne, but she’s not. Or she is, but she’s a lot more, too.

“You hate me because I don’t shop at the Gap,” she says.

“It’s not hate,” I say. “More like shock and awe.”

I notice that Nancy has pretty eyes. Dark black and very bright. Naturally dark.

“Anyway, I was being a jerk,” I say.

“I agree,” she says. “But if you want to shop at the mall, that’s your prerogative.”

“I’d love to shop at the mall. But nothing fits me there.”

“Oh,” she says. She rearranges the fries on her plate so they spell her name. N-A-N-C …

“I’ll try one of those if you’re still offering.”

“Okay, but if you’re going to puke, face towards the jock table.”

Nancy slides her plate to me, and I eat the N . French fries with mustard. Kind of like a salted pretzel. Nancy may be on to something.

“I have this theory” she says. “Do you want to hear it?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, everyone in school fantasizes about having a different life, right? They daydream about who they want to be and the things they’re going to do when they get there. But nobody does anything about it. And when you look at adults, how many of them actually went and lived their dreams?”

Nancy stabs a french fry, then a chunk of salad, then another french fry. I watch it turn to yellow mush in her mouth.

“So what’s the theory?” I say.

“Dreams have gravity. You think a dream is pushing you forward, but it’s actually sucking you back towards it. That’s why people get stuck. That’s my theory, at least.”

“So we should all stop dreaming?”

“No. We should do something about it. Take action. Like you,” she says.

“What did I do?”

“You broke through the gravitational field. You played football.”

“I never thought of it like that.”

“How did you think of it?”

“I thought I was a sellout,” I say.

“No way. You’re kind of like an astronaut.”

“When you put it like that, I sound pretty cool.”

“Speaking of gag reflexes,” she says, and clears her throat.

That makes me laugh. Suddenly I get a strange feeling in my chest, and I start to sweat under my arms.

“Do you want to get a pizza bagel after school?” I say. “You can put mustard on it.”

Nancy looks at me, surprised. I’m pretty surprised, too.

“You mean like a date?” she says.

“Kind of like that,” I say.

The fourth-period bell rings. Kids groan all around the cafeteria. Nancy doesn’t move.

“Can I ask you a serious question?” she says.

I nod.

“Did you notice me back then?”

“When?” I say.

“You know. Last year. The beginning of school. Whenever.”

“Honestly?”

“Yeah.”

“You were kind of invisible to me.”

She bites down hard. I think she’s going to tell me she doesn’t want to go on a date, but she just nods her head slowly.

“I didn’t think so,” she says.

“But I see you now,” I say.

We look into each other’s eyes, and I feel that feeling again. It’s a little tough to breathe. Not like when I’m having an asthma attack, but something different.

A second bell rings. That’s the warning bell. Caroline Whitney-Smith loves a good warning bell.

“That pizza-bagel thing sounds good,” Nancy says. “I’ll see you after school, okay?”

“Great,” I say.

We both stand up, and Nancy grabs her sketchbook. The music stops playing in the background. I don’t hear the song anymore, but I can still hear the beat.

Thump. Thump. Thump .

At least I think it’s the beat. It could be my heart. It’s going pretty hard right now. Hearts do that sometimes, all on their own, and they don’t even bother to ask your permission.

To my high-school posse from so long ago: Josh, Darrin, Ethan, Peter, Jon, Paul, and our other friends from Brighton High School in Rochester, New York. Though the story is fictional, the feelings are not. Thank you for the inspiration.

I’m so grateful to Stuart Krichevsky, Kathryne Wick, and Shana Cohen at SK. Your support and encouragement means the world to me.

Much thanks to Doug Pocock and Elizabeth Law, who brought me in and gave my work a home. Thanks, too, to the great team at Egmont. You really know how to make an author feel welcome.

Thanks to Lucy Stille and Zadoc Angell at Paradigm for taking things to the next level.

Thanks to Aaron Lee, Adam Silberstein, and Doug Hill, amazing men who point the way every day.

Thanks to the sweet and brilliant Kauser for keeping me sane after the fact.

Finally, a very special thanks to Stephanie Hubbard, writer and friend, who helped me so much while I was creating this book.

Allen Zadoffwas born in Boston, Massachusetts, and went on to live in upstate New York, Manhattan, Tokyo, and Los Angeles. A former stage director, he is a graduate of Cornell University and the Harvard University Institute for Advanced Theater Training. His memoir for adults is called Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin . He currently teaches writing in Los Angeles. Visit Allen at www.allenzadoff.com.

I dream of my father.

It sneaks up on me in my sleep, this dream I have from time to time.