Adam Read online

  Adam often felt like he was teetering on the edge of Popular, a pit full of Nerds waiting to catch him below, shrieking and giggling with outstretched arms and drooling smiles. Being best friends with Brad had been his ticket into the right crowd. The problem was that Adam felt totally dependent on Brad, and if Brad decided he didn’t want him around anymore, the rest of the group would eagerly kick him to the Nerds. They knew he was faking it. He could see them see through him.

  It was the usual at lunch that day. The group: Brad, Colin, Colin’s girlfriend Andrea, Stephen and Stephanie, who’d been dating since the fifth grade (barf), Fletcher, Fletcher’s girlfriend Alice, and Kelsey Winslow. Fletcher was busting everyone up imitating teachers and various Nerds.

  “So, Mr. Stewart is all, ‘Fletcher, you need to pull yer pants up! I can almost see yer bare ass!’”

  “It’s true! He totally said that!” Colin chimed in. Colin was always trying to insert himself into Fletcher’s jokes. Fletcher ignored him and continued.

  “And I was like, ‘Um, excuse me, Mr. Stewart, you have a little chalk . . .’ Because you know his entire dick area is caked in the shit. So he starts brushing away furiously at his crotch. Dude totally looks like he’s beating off, and just at that moment, Talitha walks into the room and is all, ‘Oh!’”—Fletcher put his hand up to his O-shaped mouth in a perfect prude imitation. “Shit was hilarious.”

  Everyone in the group doubled over laughing, Alice louder than everyone, though her laugh struck Adam as painfully fake. He couldn’t believe someone with a name like Fletcher was so popular. Weren’t people named Fletcher supposed to be Nerds? Like how fat people were supposed to be named Bertha or stupid people, Dewey? In Fletcher’s case, his dork name just made him cooler.

  Colin, attempting to ride out the rest of Fletcher’s wave, started his own joke.

  “That totally reminds me of that time in Eleanor Meyerhoff’s hot tub? You guys know what I’m talking about?”

  Brad burst out laughing, but everyone else looked kind of vacant. Adam felt a prickle up the back of his neck.

  “So it’s me, Brad, Andrea, Eleanor, and Adam.” Colin swallowed some Coke and then cough-snorted it out, laughing preemptively at his own joke.

  “We were all stoned, just chillin’ in the tub, and Adam starts telling some long-ass story . . .” Colin’s eyes shifted quickly over to Adam and then back. Not long enough to actually make contact but a kind of token gesture like, I looked at you and you didn’t stop me, so I’m allowed to go on.

  “So, Adam’s talking and talking—I don’t even know about what—and he’s, like, leaning back in the water, kind of floating as he goes on. And we’re all staring at him, kind of laughing, but trying to act like we’re really interested in what he’s saying, when what we’re all staring at are his boxers, which are, like, billowing up from the water jets, and his fucking schlong and balls”—Colin leaned over to try to catch his breath—“like, hanging out, all wafting back and forth in the water!”

  The entire lunch group exploded. Adam could tell that this time Alice’s laugh wasn’t fake.

  “Finally, we just had to tell him,” finished Colin.

  Adam tried to cover his red face with his hands and laugh a little too, like he didn’t give a shit, like, you know, it was funny to him too or whatever. The worst part hadn’t even been his exposed dick. It was what he’d been saying when it happened. Some stupid joke about his mom that had gone on way too long because he thought everyone was super into it, the way they were all staring at him so intently. The moment they all cracked up, right before they told him about his boxers, he thought they were laughing at the climax of his joke. He remembered how cocky and pleased with himself he’d felt for those few seconds.

  “Is there gonna be a hot tub at the cabin in Tahoe?” Andrea interjected into everyone’s laughter.

  “Yeah, what are you gonna hook us up with, Stephen?” asked Fletcher. The group was staying at Stephen’s parents’ cabin for the first two weeks of summer.

  “Fuck yeah, there’s a hot tub,” said Stephen. He draped his arm around Stephanie so his hand rested limply on her breast. “But my folks only want two in at a time. After that crap when my brother’s friend went unconscious. So it’s couples taking turns. It’s better that way, anyway.” Stephen grinned and his hand grazed back and forth across Stephanie’s tit. Adam swore he could see her nipple getting hard. She giggled and squirmed in closer to Stephen.

  “So, my car’s got room for three more,” said Colin. “The rest of y’all fools have to ride up with Stephen’s parents.” Colin was the only one with his own car.

  “No problem,” said Fletcher, “the Explorer’s sweet. Alice and I call back. Got those TV screens on the car seats and everything.” Fletcher and Stephen knuckle-bumped. “Better than your piece of shit.” Fletcher laughed at Colin.

  “At least I can call her my own, bitch,” said Colin. “So who’s with me? Brad, you taking Sandy or Jennifer?”

  “Sandy,” said Brad with an expression like, Duh. And he and Colin shared a grin that meant: The girl that puts out is the girl who comes to Tahoe. Sandy went to Bishop O’Dowd High, and Jennifer went to Berkeley High. Brad had managed to pick both of them up just by walking down the street and saying “hi.”

  Adam was getting nervous. Everyone was coupled up. When the trip was first planned, it had been assumed he and Kelsey would be a couple. But after yesterday, he wasn’t sure. Well, whatever, they were a couple by default anyway, right?

  “OK,” said Colin, “so you and Sandy ride with me and Andrea.” Brad shrugged. The chillest person on the earth.

  “I guess we gotta ride separate.” Adam smiled at Kelsey. There were two seats left, one in Stephen’s parents’ car and one in Colin’s.

  “Actually, Stephen, I wanted to ask if it would be OK if I brought Matt up with us?”

  Matt. Kelsey’s ex-boyfriend. What the fuck? She was supposed to hate him. Suddenly, as if on some kind of magical cue, Matt appeared on his skateboard next to the group. In one swift movement, he flipped the board up with a kick, it landed on the ground, and he sat on it with a space left for Kelsey. She eagerly took her place.

  “Heard you guys are hittin’ Tahoe,” said Matt.

  “Colin,” continued Kelsey, “Matt can ride with you guys, right? If I go with Stephen?”

  Adam felt his face grow hot. He shifted on the concrete, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

  “Sure, I guess,” said Colin. Adam saw Colin looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Like he was waiting for Adam to speak up, defend his spot or something. Colin didn’t care whether Adam went or not, Adam knew that.

  “Dude,” said Brad to Colin, “you could squeeze four in your back seat, right? I’ll put Sandy on my lap.”

  “Naw, my parents are all up in my shit about that shit,” said Colin. Was he lying?

  “Adam could drive up by himself,” said Alice, giggling a little. What the fuck was that retard bitch talking about? Everyone knew Adam didn’t have his license yet.

  “Stephen, what about the Explorer?” said Brad. Adam felt stupid letting Brad talk for him, but his entire body had shut down. Like, even if he wanted to talk, he couldn’t.

  “I could ask my dad if we could squeeze . . .” said Stephen.

  “I thought this was a trip for couples,” said Matt, swinging his arm over Kelsey’s shoulder. “You bringing anyone, Adam?”

  Adam stared at the giant zit perched on the tip of Matt’s nose—a huge red mountain with a quivering chunk of white ready to burst out. Adam shook his head.

  “Yeah, who’s Adam gonna go in the hot tub with?” said Alice, more giggling.

  “We gotta be in couples for the Jet Skiing too . . .” said Stephen to no one in particular.

  If Brad was the odd man out, they’d never try to kick him out of the trip. They’d all wanna take fucking turns being his Jet Ski/hot tub/whatever-the-fuck partner. He had to just act like he was Brad, just be Brad for f
ive fucking seconds and—

  “So whatever the fuck, you guys can take turns being my couple, I mean, or whatever,” Adam found himself saying.

  Everyone in the group stared at him.

  “Yeah, like, I’ll go in the hot tub with you”—Adam nodded at Kelsey—“and you”—he nodded at Andrea—“and you”—he nodded at Alice—“and you”—he nodded at Stephanie. “And . . . you!” Adam jerked his head toward Matt, the word coming out like Boo!

  Matt slowly lifted his hands up, as if Adam were pointing a gun at him.

  Everyone was silent. Adam looked at Brad, thinking he would laugh, turn it all into a great joke. But Brad just looked embarrassed for him.

  “Whatever, I, like, wasn’t even sure I could go anyway . . .” Adam trailed off. And someone changed the subject.

  ***

  Adam crumpled his lunch bag, the majority of his lunch still in it, and threw it in the trash. He walked up the steps of the Language Arts Building, passing a group of Nerd boys huddled together playing Magic: The Gathering.

  “OK, I’m bringing out my five/four dragon. Fear me the wrath of my wingèd foe!” said a kid named Marvin, absent-mindedly scratching his balls through his thin sweatpants.

  Adam hustled up the steps faster. He got to his Spanish classroom, kids laughing and racing around before class started. Barely aware of what he was doing, Adam turned down the hall, ducked into the boys’ bathroom, and locked himself in a stall.

  He listened to make sure no one else was in there and then kicked the stall door. He felt like he wanted to cry. There was something wrong with him. He didn’t know what it was, just that it was inside him and it was wrong. “Fuck me! Fuck me!” he said through clenched teeth. He slammed his fist into the metal divider and then jerked over in pain, massaging his knuckles with his other hand. Fuck you, Adam Freedman, you stupid fucking pussy.

  ***

  Adam walked through the front door to his house and headed straight up the stairs to his room. He caught a glimpse of his mom in the kitchen, bent down on her hands and knees, scrubbing hard at the bottom of the stove. They had a housecleaner who came once a week, so Mom in crazed-cleaning mode only meant she was upset about something.

  “Adam?” she called out. Her voice was weak, anxiously apologetic.

  “What,” he yelled back. A statement, not a question.

  “Could you come here for a minute?”

  Adam rolled his eyes and turned back down the stairs. He was so fucking bored of this routine. Mom nice. Mom freaks. Mom nice.

  His mom was still hunkered down by the stove. She was wearing her nice blouse and skirt—like she’d gotten home from work, walked into the kitchen, was suddenly struck with an undeniable urge to clean, and had immediately fallen to her knees, grabbing a scrub brush on the way down.

  “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for last night. I know I shouldn’t—”

  “It’s OK,” said Adam.

  “Friends?” she said.

  “Uh-huh,” said Adam. “I gotta go do homework.” He started to walk away when it occurred to him that since Mom was in making-up mode he should take advantage while he could.

  “Hey, Mom?” Adam said, turning around.

  His mom poked her head up from underneath the stove. “Yes, honey?”

  “I think I might actually want to go visit Casey after all . . .”

  “I thought you were going to Tahoe with Brad?”

  “I just miss Casey. It’d be cool to see New York.”

  His mom stood up, wiping her hands on the rag hanging from the stove handle.

  “Yes, I think we can still arrange it—the last week and a half of June?”

  Adam had a flash of the entire summer ahead of him. The gang going to the movies—couples only! The gang going swimming at Lake Anza—couples only! The gang getting high and going to the Laserium in San Francisco—couples only! Adam sitting alone in his room, jerking off for the fiftieth time that day.

  “What if I went to New York for, like, the whole summer?”

  His mom’s face did a little twitch back.

  “You’re paying for Casey to stay in an apartment. I could live there too . . .”

  “First of all, we’re helping Casey to stay in an apartment; she’ll have a job. And she already has roommates—”

  “I’ll get a job! I’ll find something! If Casey says it’s OK, can I just do it? Please?”

  All of a sudden, spending the summer in New York City was the perfect and only solution to every single problem in Adam’s life. He knew, he just knew, that if he could do this, everything would be OK. He had to do this. There was no going back. This was the answer. “Please, Mom? Please?”

  His mom stared at him. She appeared genuinely impressed by his desperation.

  “OK, well, we’ll have to discuss it with Casey and see if she even has room . . . Though I do think that as your sister she should make room. And I’ll also expect you to make some money—this will not be some paid vacation for you.”

  “Of course! I know! I’ll call Casey right now, OK? And you think it will be OK with Dad?”

  Adam’s mom sighed. “Oh, we both know it doesn’t really matter what he thinks. I’ll convince him.” And she smiled.

  Adam grinned back.

  Chapter 3

  IT WAS SETTLED. Casey was spending the summer living with friends in an apartment in Brooklyn, and Adam was going to live with them. The apartment was in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. “Actually, it’s Bushwick,” Casey had told Adam on the phone. “But Mom read about Williamsburg in some fashion magazine, so she thinks it’s safe and cool.” They would be living with two other people: a friend of Casey’s from Columbia and someone who Casey referred to as “Craigslist” (who their Mom was told was also a friend from Columbia). The apartment had an extra sort of glorified closet-room that they were originally going to use for storage, but that Adam could cram a single mattress (and nothing else) into. He (well, his parents) would pay $900 for the room for the summer, which cut everyone else’s rent down, so they were into it.

  At first Adam had worried Casey wouldn’t want him there—that she’d think he’d be a tagalong, or that she’d have to be responsible for him the whole time—but when he’d called to bring it up, she had been really nice. Casey knew how it had been at EBP for him that year, and she loved playing the role of cool older sister who could solve any problem.

  “Fuck Brad and Colin and all those pathetic people,” she said the next time they talked. “We’re gonna find you some hot older hipster girl, and you’ll come back with the entire school wanting to suck your dick.”

  Adam saw an image of everyone in the school, teachers and maintenance staff included, all standing in a line that snaked down through the hallways and out into the courtyard, everyone patiently waiting their turn to blow him.

  “Everything is different here,” Casey continued. “It’s like my life at EBP never even happened or was just some shitty dream. This is my real life, where I was meant to be all along.”

  Adam remembered how during the month before she left for school a year ago Casey’s response to anything anyone said to her was “I’m supposed to be in New York.”

  “Casey, do you have plans this weekend?”

  “I’m supposed to be in New York.”

  “Casey, it’s your turn for the dishes.”

  “I’m supposed to be in New York.”

  Now this became Adam’s mantra too, albeit a silent one. Sitting at lunch, watching the couples paw and giggle at one another—I’m supposed to be in New York. Taking his finals, knowing he’d get a C average at best—I’m supposed to be in New York. And sitting at the dinner table, Mom telling him to stop chewing so loudly and to sit up straight and to put Neosporin on the zit on his chin before it gets infected—I’m supposed to be in fucking New York.

  He couldn’t wait.

  ***

  The night before Adam left for New York, Brad spent the night. Adam’
s mom had booked his ticket to leave at 6:15 A.M. (His mom always booked these butt-crack-of-dawn flights, which was so annoying, though not as annoying as booking the ticket himself.) Since they had to leave for the airport at 4:00 A.M., he and Brad decided to stay up all night.

  They played Xbox, ordered a pizza, drank beer from the fridge that they snuck down to get at 1:00 A.M., and IM’ed with Brad’s girlfriend Sandy, who didn’t know Adam was there and gave Brad a verbose, poorly spelled online blowjob. It was fun. It had been so long since he and Brad had had one of these nights where the two of them synced up perfectly, felt like doing the exact same thing at the exact same moment. Adam missed them.

  They were sprawled on the floor, buzzed from the beer and playing two-player Killzone: Liberation on their PSPs, when Adam started to get nervous. Why was he going to New York again? To hang out with Casey and her lesbian friends for an entire summer? Maybe if he stayed here, it wouldn’t be so bad. He’d just hang out with Brad, and maybe Sandy would have a friend from Bishop O’Dowd that he could go out with. They’d say fuck it to the rest of the group and just the four of them would hang out all summer.

  “You’re such an asshole for leaving,” said Brad, as if he were reading Adam’s mind. “I can’t believe I have to hang out with Colin and Fletcher all summer. I’m gonna get brain damage. You’ll come back and I’ll be retarded.”

  Adam locked on to his missile launcher and threw a grenade. “So you’re saying you’ll be exactly the same.”

  Brad laughed. “Dick.”

  Adam imagined walking out into the hallway and creaking open his parents’ bedroom door. Dad would be snoring. He’d tiptoe through the dark over to Mom’s side of the bed. “Um, Mom, I think I changed my mind . . . can we, like, cancel the whole New York thing?” He looked over at the clock: 3:09 A.M. In less than an hour, his mom would be knocking on his door, freshly dressed and ready to drive him to the airport. She’d surprise him with that care package he saw on the dining-room table when he and Brad had snuck downstairs for the beers. A neatly folded little brown bag with Keebler cheese and crackers, a chocolate bar, and dried apricots for him to eat on the plane. The thought of it killed him. He had to go to New York, if only because of that stupid care package.