Monstrato by Christopher Ganey

  Chapter 6

  All dudes—dudes chilling in Calvin's basement passing a bong, dudes squeezed on a couch watching a basketball game, or piled into Calvin's car going over to some other dude's house to watch a game and smoke pot. That's how it'd been for the last month and a half since Calvin and I got back together—all dudes. Weeknights, I'd be over at his house watching TV. On weekends, I'd be hanging out with him and his boys, K.P., Cecil, Trent, and Keenan, doing whatever. Only time I saw my girlfriends outside of school was at cheerleading practice or basketball games. And since Corena always lost interest in cheerleading as the season went on, we weren't even doing much of that. I was cool spending all my time with Calvin and his friends, but it was different than hanging out with girls.

  Girls usually wanna talk, mostly about other girls, but guys always gotta be doing something. They're either playing video games or spades, watching basketball, or playing it. They'll spend the whole day outside installing something into their car, then take off in the middle of the night to go catfishing. Guys are always looking for some kind of action, and when they find it, it can be a wild fun like you'd never have with girls. I remember once, hanging onto the back of Calvin on one of Keenan's ATV's, screaming down the railroad tracks at two o'clock in the morning. We didn't have helmets or goggles, we couldn't see anything, and almost drove straight off a trestle. Afterwards, I'd get the willies just thinking about it, it was so stupid and foolish, but that's the kind of stuff these guys would come up with. Other days, it'd be dead boring hanging out with Calvin and his friends. They were always talking about the same things—how many Kobe dropped the night before, or the stereo system they wanted for their car. I'd find myself trying to be interested in the same stuff they were, and then I'd know I was spending too much time with boys.

  Truth was, none of my girlfriends had anything going on that would make me wanna spend time with them. Lori was turning into some sort of crazy drunk. Alley was staying home all the time ever since she got her apartment and wasn't even coming to school, and Chelsea had a boyfriend who lived in another town. I'd see my friends at school when they decided to show up, but we weren't going out and kickin' it like we used to.

  Then, one week, Corena began acting really friendly towards me. She made a point of sitting next to me in math and would pass me these notes all through class. The notes didn't say anything important, just questions about what I did the night before or stupid jokes she found on the internet—she was always finding jokes on the internet and telling them to people. I didn't think much of it at first as to why she was being so friendly. Then one day, she walked into Algebra 2, and as she made her way between the tables to the seat next to mine, I saw her looking right at me with her eyes all bright like she had some important news. She sat down, put her face close to mine, and asked, "Hey, Macy, you wanna go to lunch with me and Sidney?"

  I said, "I already told Calvin I'd go to his house for lunch."

  With her face still close to mine, she says, "Well, we gotta do something, something fun. It's been so long since we've done anything together." She had this way of looking at you when she was talking about something important, where she'd lower her head and her mouth would hang open like she was trying to look at you through her eyebrows.

  I didn't know what to say. It was typical of Corena to, all of a sudden, start cozying up to you like you were best friends and you just got back from vacation or something. I didn't have a problem going to lunch with her, or doing anything else. At the same time, I was wondering what this was all about.

  I said, "Yeah, we should do something sometime."

  Still staring at me, she blurts out, "How's Calvin?"

  "Fine? I guess…"

  "I mean, how's it going with you and him? Is everything cool?"

  "Yeah…it's great."

  She said, "Good. I'm so happy for you." I watched her turn her head and take a quick look around the room like she was seeing who was in there and if anyone was listening. Then she turned back to me, "So it's going okay, huh?"

  I said, "Yeah, I don't have any complaints, if you know what I mean." I smiled at her real big, still wondering what she was driving at.

  She asked, "So what do you guys do? I always see you, Calvin, K.P., and Cecil leaving at lunch."

  I put my fingers up to my mouth like I was smoking a joint. She nodded and said, "Ahhh."

  Then she started rolling her tongue around on her lower lip. I could tell she was thinking some evil thought. She leaned towards me and whispered, "So is Cassidy still going over to Calvin's house at lunch?"

  I said, "Not lately. She was over there the other day, but we were just sitting around smoking."

  Corena said, "Yeah. I guess she'll do whatever she has to to get high," which I thought was kinda mean. She didn't even know Cassidy. Cassidy wasn't having sex with those guys so she could get pot. She wasn't a whore.

  So I said, "Actually, she brought her own weed, and she was smoking us down. It was some good shit, too." Corena just nodded her head, and I could tell she was already thinking about something else.

  Then, in a quiet, confidential voice, she asked, "So you don't mind what she and those guys were doing?"

  I shrugged my shoulders and said, "It doesn't bother me. We were broken up." I watched her study my face. It was like she was looking for an answer to a question she hadn't asked.

  Then, even more quietly, she asked, "Do you ever see Calvin's brother?" with her face kinda lighting up.

  I said, "Yeah…He comes by their house every once in a while. Sometimes he and Calvin'll watch a game together." I said it in a real relaxed, off-hand sort of way like we weren't talking about anything important. Now, I felt like I was in a game. It was as if she was trying to get information out of me, and I was trying to make sure I didn't give it away—even though I didn't know what it was—all the while, acting like I wasn't hiding anything. Right about that time, Calvin and K.P. walked into the room and headed for the table in front of ours. Corena was sitting there looking thoughtful, still examining me for information. I asked, "What about you? You seeing anyone?"

  She said, "No. I'm not really interested in going out with anybody right now." It was weird asking Corena about herself. She didn't like talking about any part of her life someone showed an interest in—she was suspicious that way. Right after she said that, she changed the subject.

  I couldn't figure out why she was paying so much attention to me, asking all those questions. It wasn't because she liked me or missed hanging out with me, not the Corena I knew. It was something else. She always had a reason why she'd put her attention on certain people, and usually, it didn't take long to find out what it was. Recently, it seemed like Corena had been trying to make things up with Hope, being friendly towards her. They weren't exactly talking because Hope wasn't much of a talker. But when Corena would talk to me, she'd look at Hope to let her know she was in the conversation—which basically meant Corena wasn't mad at her anymore.

  All the kids had come in, and Ms. Strauss got up and started class. We were learning how to factor quadratic equations, which I thought was easy, but some kids weren't getting it at all. So every day for the last week, Ms. Strauss had been giving us worksheets with a bunch of practice problems for us to do. I'd always whip through them as fast as I could and spend the rest of the period chatting with people or sleeping. On this day, Corena was paying real close attention to Ms. Strauss, being well-behaved and polite, which was unusual—she was even asking questions. It was all very odd, and it was obvious Corena was working on something, some evil plan—I just couldn't figure out what it was. One thing I can say for her, when she got her mind on something, she didn't slow down for nothin' but went charging right through. Soon as we got our assignment, Corena crept around the table acting real excited and sat opposite me and Hope so she could talk to both of us.

  She said, "So I got this idea…Since we're getting near the end of the season, how about we have an outing for all the cheerleaders
?"

  To Corena, cheerleading was nothing more than a girl's club that she could be in charge of, and the only girls who got in were the ones she wanted. Corena actually got paid to run cheerleading, thanks to her mom. She'd spend the whole first quarter fussing over uniforms and shoes, ordering things, and making sure all the girls paid their fees. Then we'd have a couple practices and cheer a few games, but by Christmas time, it seemed like everything would fall apart. Corena would be mad at someone and wouldn't wanna cheer, or she'd just get bored with it. I didn't mind. It could be a drag going to all those games and always having to ride the bus. We lost almost every game, and the cheerleaders on the other teams were always way better than us.

  Corena said we should go have our nails done or go tanning and that she was gonna talk to her mom about having the school sponsor it. I told her it was a great idea, and we started talking about different places we could go. The whole time, I kept wondering what the hell she was up to. Usually, she'd be so blatant and careless, it was real easy to see what kind of plan she was developing, but not this time. I couldn't figure it out. Was she trying to get back at someone? Were we going to leave somebody out and not invite them?…And what about all those questions before class, what was that about? You see, most of the time, she'd come right out and tell you once she was sure you were in, but this was more down low and mysterious. In fact, she seemed to be keeping it all to herself.

  The reason I thought this was because Latisha didn't seem to know anything. You see, if Latisha knew something and hadn't blabbed it to someone yet, you'd be able to tell. She'd be jumping out of her chair trying to hold it in or, at least, be insinuating something was gonna go down even if she wasn't quite ready to tell you about it. But Latisha was asleep a couple chairs down from me. And Sidney Bouchard, the other person who would know if there was something to be known, hadn't even bothered to show up for class that day. Now trust me, if Corena was working on some scheme and someone was gonna get screwed, Sidney would wanna be there to watch it unfold. So on that Friday, when Corena brought up the idea of the cheerleaders all getting together, I left Algebra 2 feeling confused and curious.