The Cake is a Lie Read online

  But peering over Taylor’s center console from the backseat I couldn’t be more ecstatic in the face of the streaking lights of the night. Taylor told us about how when he was a sophmore the seniors had took him out partying. He had such a good time that he decided to keep the tradition going. While he talked, Tysen and I laughed our loudest at anything that remotely resembled a joke. All the while I was promising myself I would never, ever, party with sophomores when I was a senior.

  I’d of course come fully prepared for this once in a lifetime social event and brought a dub—twamps were called dubs now. I ask Taylor if he wanted to get high, I definitely said it cool though, probably used the words bud or fire.

  He declined, “I don’t smoke.” Uh oh. He was the first cool person I’d met at Shorewood that didn’t smoke. I felt sorry for him–he was missing out on true happiness.

  “You should ask Hawkins, he smokes.”

  Everyone was meeting up at the local bowling alley’s parking lot. When we got there some football players walked over to Taylor’s car and told us everyone was waiting for a senior cheerleader, Lauren Lo, to go on a beer run.

  The magic of life was all around, I was a sophomore hanging out with some of the coolest seniors. I’m just better, I reflected, my life’s special.

  Dan Hawkin’s truck was parked a few spots down from us, it was raised on huge tires. After practice, Hawkins would take off his shoulder pads and jersey to reveal his popping, unrivaled abs and a tattoo of a black hawk sprawled across his back, its wings spread wide open from shoulder blade to shoulder blade.

  Hawkins might have had an amazing last name, muscles and the most badass tattoo ever. But I was a baby faced, handsome, straight-A sophomore with a puffy black North Face hood hanging just barely over my twisted, bleeding eyes. I was oozing confidence, the kind of confidence that comes from partying since thirteen. How could you look at me and not shudder at the potential? I walked over to his car ask him if he wanted to get toasty, flashing my big, white, perfect teeth.

  “It’s been a while man but I’m down.” I climbed up into the truck.

  Dan was easy to talk to, nice. He talked kind of like an air head. “Yaaa man, whaat? Oh ya.” Not impressively clever. I immediately assumed his life had been a picnic solely on behalf of his physique and good looks. Like Landon or Jonsen.

  Dan blew a hit out his cracked window far off into the night, he lingered there, with his head resting up against the glass.

  “I was a sophmore just yesterday man. I can’t believe I’ll never play football again after this year. It’s crazy, I’ve been playing football my entire life.” It was true, the end of Hawkin’s high school reign was looming, he looked genuinely stressed. Dan was not the kind that goes to college.

  When I told my mom how badly I wanted to be popular she would always tell me about the most popular kids in her high school. How when she saw them years later they were all fat and had drinking problems. She’d describe how their eyes lit up when the conversation would steer back to high school. How sad it was. I looked at Dan, sitting in the passenger seat of his truck, and thought about my mom’s words. I knew deep down there was no way that was happening to me. I was definitely going to college, college is where smart guys like me finally got girls like crazy, where society finally weeded out the dumb jocks like Hawkins and Jonsen. I couldn’t wait.

  Lauren Lo finally showed up in her glistening Ram truck. I’d never met Lauren before, but I’d overheard some cheerleaders talking about how Lauren had gotten everyone wasted before the annual cheerleader flag football game.

  Ceremonially, Lauren came around to each car. She was extremely outgoing and flirtatious. Dripping black curly hair. I was immediately captivated by the three different bright colors faded together on her eyelids, I’d never seen that before. The ton of make-up thing wasn’t really my style but it suit her.

  She wanted to know all about me. “Where did you come from?” She questioned.

  I didn’t really answer, it was best to drag the mystery out.

  “Who sells you beer?” I interrogated her back.

  “This goober at Fred Meyers has a huge crush on me, I can get it anytime I want.” I couldn’t help but laugh when she laughed. As Lauren asked me what I wanted to drink her perfectly painted eyes broke every rule for how long you’re allowed to cordially stare.

  She “promised” to hook me up whenever and gave me her number. [11] The procession of cars headed off to Taylor’s.

  [11] Making drug connections, that’s the cool way in high school. They must never know you actually like them.

  Taylor’s house was down by the beach, where all the fancy rich houses were. His house wasn’t nice, but it was a great sanctuary of unsupervision. We entered through the screen doors of an old patio. Then we went down an old, handlebar-less, nails-sticking-out, wooden stairway to his basement. Someone had called Taylor’s house the ultimate bachelor pad and they were right. It had a mini bar–and that’s pretty much all it took. It was by far the coolest basement I’d ever been in. Lauren and her friends started making people drinks. Sitting at the old wooden bar, I told everyone my favorite football team story. Here’s how it goes:

  Somehow I convinced Tysen to take Adderall for the first time before one of our football games. I was just always making jokes about how much faster he would be on Adderall. “Tysen, this shit will make you Speedy Gonzalez,” I’d say while jogging circles around him, “Tysen, I can’t get tired, I just can’t, it’s impossible.” The night before one of our games, with a whole four hours of riding the bench ahead of him, he eventually caved. Unthinkably, but oh so perfectly, our star quarterback got hurt and Tysen was thrown in. Tysen, and I say this without a hint of exaggeration, played the greatest half of quarterback of his life. Our team still got blown out, we were… not good, but Tysen made some big completions, even like a 50-yard bomb. After the game everyone was going wild congratulating him, coaches, players, his family. I was able to catch him on the way back to the bus. Tysen was a lick lipping, pupil bulging mess. He looked at me with his crazy dilated pupils and said “Marco, what did you give me? I don’t even know what is going on right now.” I keeled over laughing. How could everyone not notice, how could they not see?

  Tysen was being a total wet blanket at the party. He was freaking out about getting in trouble, apparently his mom knew all about Taylor’s, she actually might have been the one that dubbed Taylor’s house “the ultimate bachelor pad.” She had also threatened to smell Tysen’s breathe when he got back, so he wasn’t drinking. I kept trying to talk to him, to share the incredible moment with him, but he didn’t want any of it. He kept walking away from me to other groups, looking certain that at any moment his mom was going to show up and break up the party.

  Sitting at Taylor’s bar I felt like I’d just won 10 trophies. Tysen and I were the shit. We were sophmores partying with seniors. 2 out of 500. Well, there was one other sophomore there, Oakley Carter.

  Oakley had transferred to Shorewood from private school at the start of sophomore year. In a million years I never expected to see her at Taylor’s that night, I knew people’s crowds and the senior footballers were not supposed to be her crowd. Even more surprisingly, she was curled up on the other side of the basement with Pacey Baker, sitting across his lap on a sofa chair, making out with him hard. She looked like she’d make out with anyone, she was straight mashed. Pacey knew exactly what to do with that. When she turned her head away from him to the party, he reached up his fingers to her chin and steered her mouth back to his. What a lush, I thought, staring over at them, slutting her way to the top. I wasn’t impressed, any half way good looking girl could do that. Rumor was she’d already slept with two seniors at Shorewood. We were barely a quarter into sophomore year. She was a certified ho. She probably left private school because all the girls hated her for hooking up with all the guys.

  But credit where credit was due, Oakley was without a doubt, officially, the coolest sophomore girl. Alth
ough that spoke more to the class of sophomore girls at Shorewood than to the social genius of Oakley Carter. She might have gotten rid of those hideous thick black hairs on her arms and lip, but I still remembered.

  She finally saw me. “Marco!” She pried herself free of Pacey’s death grip and ran to greet me. Then we looked at each other and shared something way more meaningful than the lip licking she was doing with Pacey, an understanding, we’d made it. Out of every other sophomore, we’d made it. If only Jonsen and Avi could see me now, I beamed.

  Driving home in the back of Dan’s truck I looked up at the stars and knew life had meaning. Things happened for a reason. Who knew my pipe dream to play football would be the random key to finally becoming super popular? After all these years, I’d finally done it. All that worrying had been for nothing. My childhood had been hard to make me tougher, better. My academic record was perfect and my social record only had the smallest blimp on it, losing Jonsen in 7th grade. But I’d resiliently found another way to the top. I always knew I’d catch up to Jonsen eventually.

  I’d finally achieved my greatest ambition and my body was dumping feel good stuff. Life was perfectly wrapped up in a bow. It was enough to reaffirm my belief in fate. Dan could’ve crashed and we could have all died that very night and it would have been okay because I’d experienced true happiness. [12]

  Oakley and Pacey were in the truck bed with me, getting rides home from Dan too. Oakley was cuddled up in Pacey’s arms, sleeping like an angel. She’d snuck out that night. She’d been sneaking out a lot. She’d go off about her parents, how much she hated them. How controlling and strict her lawyer dad was. Her parents must have eventually done something right though because after that night I never saw her sneak out again. Maybe that night was the very night she decided to change, who knows, but she did change. She still went to the parties, but she started abiding by her curfew. I never saw her that wasted again.

  [12] I saw Dan again a few years later, he looked awful, skinny, withered, I didn’t even say hi.

  Part 3.

  23. Mike (Fall, 2004)

  Shorewood’s “Career Center” was a cramped little room in the library made even smaller by the ring of bookshelves lining the walls. There were never enough seats at the six tables crammed inside, so some kids had to stand. The only amenity was one wide tinted window that faced into the library so you could watch the students walking by without them seeing you.

  I had a seat and was making good use of it by hiding the book I was reading under the table.

  “Here’s our scholarship binder everyone, over ten years we’ve collected 200 scholarships in this file with tips on what they’re looking for in applicants and keywords to use in your letters.” I looked up to see the Career Center counselor waving around a big file book. I thought back to my mom forcing my brother to write his scholarship letters for college. We’d be watching T.V. when she’d come into the room and stand in front screen while she spent five minutes trying to find the off button.

  “Alright Carlo, time to write your Italian Club scholarship letter. Where is that dang off button? Marco, can you turn this off for me?”

  “You can’t just do that. We’re right in the middle of a show. I’ll do it after the show, I swear.”

  “Come on Giancarlo, right now, I’ll help you.”

  “Go get your work done, Carlo, it will take you a whole hour,” I’d chime in provocatively.

  They’d leave, still arguing, and I’d jump up to turn the T.V. back on as quickly as I could, ecstatic that I didn’t have to worry about writing scholarship letters for years, an eternity.

  “We recommend that you initially start contacting scholarship commissions as sophomores so you should be starting now. Contacting a member of the commission increases your chances of getting the scholarship and usually they will give you inside tips.” The counselor holds up a white handout, “Here’s a Q&A questionnaire we recommend you use when you call them.”

  The counselor didn’t like me, for our first assignment we had to write a short one page essay about something we wanted to be when we grew up. I wrote about how I’d always wanted to be a Janitor as long as I could remember. How the world was one big trash pit everywhere I looked. About my compulsive needs to clean up this filthy repulsive world inch by inch. She didn’t think it was funny.

  The counselor put the sheet down and picked up a clipboard, “If you want help finding a scholarship to apply for, remember that you can sign up for office hours with a counselor.”

  I was so bored that I was physically getting agitated. I tapped my foot rapidly while I examined my nails over and over again, frantically looking for a spot that needed biting, a piece of skin that needed peeling. I had to get out of this chair. My whole life passed before my eyes if I were to just get up and leave, I saw myself as a homeless man curled up under a freeway. I looked at the clock, only a half hour more. I looked around the room to see if anyone was paying attention. There were a few ugly nerdy girls in front that looked pretty focused. What was the point of applying for a scholarship if you had to compete against girls like that? They had no choice but to be smart, they were hideously gross.

  Thank god I wasn’t going to ever need a scholarship anyways, my dad had already saved up the money for my college. Scholarships were for poor kids like Liam, I looked over at Liam sitting at the table across from me. Growing up everyone knew he was going through a rough time because his mom had M.S. and his parents were divorced. He was in the nutrition club at our elementary school which meant he was certified poor. Liam was leaning over reading a graphic novel with his friend Terry, they weren’t even attempting to hide the fact that they weren’t paying attention. Liam was wearing his favorite Super Mario shirt. He was one of those kids that wore the same shirt two weeks straight. He’d just never get it.

  There was a noise at the window and everybody turned to see two black hands curled up like binoculars against the tinted glass. Around the hands I could make out cornrows and a thin black mustache and goatee. Everyone waited while the intruder scanned the room. Once he found what he was looking for, he pulled back with a huge, pearly white smile, while tapping on the window with his pointer finger directly at Kace. Kace started laughing loudly like it was some big inside joke no one got. Kace was standing by himself against the wall. Kace sparingly showed up for the class, let alone socialized with anyone in it. The G-thug then opened up the door and leaned his body half way in, revealing a big black leather jacket and a sagging jean leg barely kept off the floor by a beige boot. He gave one quick upward-jerking “what up?” nod to the Career Center lady.

  “Yo Chops, you left this,” he said, extending a large, half rolled brown paper bag into the room. Kace smugly beamed as he walked over and took the bag, putting it quickly in his backpack.

  “Aw ya, my bad, thanks.”

  As the door slowly closed behind him, the G quickly shouted back into the room, “Call me.” He then walked out of the library like he was in a rush, taking big, wide strides and looking all around as if he expected to see someone he knew at any moment.

  Who was that? I was absolutely baffled. How could he be friends with Kace and I didn’t know who he was?

  The counselor resumed class like she wasn’t just interrupted by a gang banger.

  What was in the bag? I looked around at everyone in the room, everyone had moved on. Even Kace, the cold distant look had returned to his face. The counselor started talking about internships again. Liam was back reading Pete’s graphic novel. Why couldn’t they see? What the f, what was in the bag?

  I peeled back one of my cuticles until it bled.

  “Who’s Mike?” I asked in vain for the fifth time, no one was listening to me.

  I was standing around with Jeff, John and a few others in Shorewood’s bigger but less popular courtyard. Jeff was going to buy a bag of weed from his brand new connect, Mike, and those of us with money were trying to throw up on it.

  “I got ten on it, but I wa
nt to come with you to get it,” Jon said. Jeff had been adamant that he was going alone to buy the weed, making everyone very suspicious that he was going to “pinch” some bowls before it got equally divided up.

  “Naw, I’m getting it alone. I’m telling you, Mike’s hella sketchy about who he deals with.”

  “Who’s Mike?” I tried again.

  “He’s black, older. You were at Kylie’s party two weeks ago right? He was there.” Jon finally answers me.

  “Dude I have no idea who you’re talking about,” Could it be the guy from the career center..?

  “Alright fine, I got ten on it.” Even if Jeff was gonna pinch some, there wasn’t much I could do, I wanted to hangout and smoke with everyone.

  A tall, swaying black kid came walking into the courtyard from the junior parking lot. He was on his cellphone talking loudly, taking wide bow-legged steps while holding his jeans up by the front of his belt. I recognized his big black leather jacket.

  “Aight, I’ll roll SVP after I’m done handling this biz.” The whole courtyard could hear Mike’s conversation.

  Jeff started walking in a hurry to go get Mike’s attention and Jon followed him, then another one of the skaters followed them, and soon our whole circle was following Jeff. Mike saw the group coming and took a sharp turn away from us towards the field. Eventually we all caught up to him and converged in a circle around him.

  He ignored us for a second, “Shiit, hold up yo.” He put down his phone.

  “What the fuck are ya little bitches doing getting all up in my shit? Ya’ll are trying to get me busted I swear. All ya’ll lil youngins need to back the fuck off except for lil dude I need to speak with.”