Still Not Dead, page 9
Suffice it to say, even though my mom mostly didn’t want us to leave the apartment, it was a much more enjoyable lockdown experience. Having Paolo and Millie around didn’t hurt either. Other than when Dane took some of Paolo’s blood, saliva, and hair for testing (“Hey, Dane, we’re blood brothers now!” Paolo said), we mainly just hung around, watching movies and playing board games.
My mom hasn’t talked about the movement that much, both because they’re waiting on a couple more mouse deathdates before they can interpret the results and because she doesn’t want to say much in front of Paolo and Millie. It’s been kind of nice. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I fully understand what goes on in her brain, but she’s been able to relax a bit more, let down her guard.
In fact, she’s trying to take a more relaxed approach with me overall, which is pretty miraculous. “That strict-mom routine didn’t suit me,” she said on Sunday. “And obviously it didn’t suit you either. I trust you and your friends, so if you want to go out sometimes, that’s all right with me. Rather have you do that than cook up another terrible escape plan.” Fair enough!
Her one condition was that I change up my look: she gave me a pair of black nerd glasses, and Millie bleached my hair blond. I know. But it had to happen. On Sunday, Paolo, Millie, and I took a walk around the block. It was beautiful. Then yesterday was Memorial Day, and the three of us spent a couple hours in the park, weaving our way amongst picnicking families as the sun burnt our necks. It made me miss my parents pretty bad, but it was also a reminder of how quietly spectacular life can be.
Both of those outings went well (insomuch as they seemed to have gone completely unnoticed by the DIA), so, in the spirit of her new lenient approach to parenting, my mom granted us permission to have our first nighttime excursion. She even gave me a Frank Biggs debit card and a Frank Biggs license. (Paolo wanted an alias, too, so he’s Steve Pickle now.)
“I hooked you up when I had those made,” Felix said later, helpfully pointing out that Frank Biggs’s age is three and a half years older than mine, making him twenty-one. “Don’t say your older bro isn’t looking out for you.” He winked in a big, exaggerated way. “And also don’t tell Mom about this.”
I definitely won’t. The fake ID has been very helpful.
And anyway I told my mom we were going to a diner tonight. (Untrue.)
“Hey,” I say, holding up my bottle of beer. “I want to make a toast. To you guys, for saving me and for being amazing friends.”
“Aw, no,” Paolo says, raising his beer. “To you, for living. And maybe helping me live, too! Denton lives!”
“Shhh,” I say, looking around. “You can’t say that too loud.”
“Oh right, right,” Paolo says. “Everybody, I was just saying that, uh, there’s a dent in my liver!” He’s really proud that he came up with that on the fly.
“To Frank Biggs and Steve Pickle,” Millie says, clinking her Shirley Temple with both of our bottles.
“There you go,” I say. “And to Millie, a very excellent driver.”
I take a swig of my beer, a bittersweet brand called Arthur’s Great-Aunt’s Ale. I don’t really like the taste, but I like the idea of it.
“I gotta say, dude,” Paolo says. “This intellectual albino thing you got going on is really starting to grow on me.”
“Thanks.” It might be growing on me, too. I like having glasses I can adjust all the time.
“There’s no reason why this look should work on you, but somehow it does,” Millie says, her head tilted like a bird’s as she gazes at me. “You look like a handsome tool.”
“Thanks?” I say.
“Yeah, that’s exactly it!” Paolo says. “A handsome tool!”
“Cassandra!” a bartender shouts from the other side of the bar. “Food’s up for Cassandra!”
“Oh, that’s me,” Millie says. Paolo and I stare at her. “What? You guys shouldn’t be the only ones who get fun names.”
“She’s so cool,” Paolo says once Millie’s a few steps away.
“Quick, man, tell me everything,” I say. It’s the first moment Paolo and I have had alone together since arriving in Brooklyn. “What’s going on with you two?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?” Paolo usually revels in hookup stories, so this is bizarre. “Are you guys, like, doing stuff?”
“Oh. No,” he says, shaking his head like I could never understand. “Not yet, man, it’s much deeper than that.”
“Is it?”
“We just get each other. We don’t need to express it with our bodies.”
“Have you, like, kissed or anything?”
“Well, what’s your definition of kissed?”
“What kind of question is that? You know, like, two mouths and tongues mushing up against each other.”
“We—” Paolo begins to say, but then Millie sits back down, setting her plate on the bar and staring at it.
“What are those, babe?” Paolo asks.
“Pomegranate mozzarella sticks,” Millie says. “They sounded nice on the menu. But now I’m having doubts.”
Paolo grabs one of the purple, gooey sticks and takes a bite. “Oh sweet Ryan Phillippe! These are delicious.” He pops his chomped-on mozzarella stick back onto her plate. “Don’t ever doubt yourself, Mills.”
“Thanks,” she says, still looking unconvinced.
“You know what? I gotta do something,” Paolo says as he stands up on his chair. “Everybody, I am so happy to be alive! Living is the best!” A couple people cheer, but most just look annoyed. “I gotta say, these past few days have been awesome,” he says, sitting back down. “Every time I remember that I might not die in a couple weeks, I get so happy. And Brooklyn is great. And, you know, I was so pissed at Dane for smashing my phone into pieces, but it’s actually been quite liberating. Everyone should try disconnecting for a while.” Paolo takes a deep breath, inhaling the world.
“Speaking of disconnecting,” Millie says, “I should probably get going. I told my parents I’d be camping all weekend and wouldn’t have cell reception, but by now they’ll be starting to freak out about me missing school. They’re chill, but not that chill.”
“What? No!” Paolo says, tugging on her arm. “Don’t leave, WindMill. At least finish your sticks!”
“Thing is,” I say, “I think my mom might have a meltdown if you leave. Plus, I don’t think she’ll let you come back.”
“Well,” Millie says. “That may be true. But I give my own parents’ meltdowns priority.”
“That’s fair,” I say.
“And if I can’t come back to the apartment,” Millie continues, “we’ll have to meet elsewhere, then. Maybe we can find a bar called Table. That only has tables.”
“Whoa, do you think that exists?” Paolo asks.
“Also,” Millie says, “I need to go to school so I don’t get suspended.”
“Ah, yeah, that’s also fair,” I say. “You don’t have the dying excuse.”
“She could die, though!” Paolo says. “Seriously, she’s undated. She can die whenever. So that means you should stay. Cassandra would!”
“I don’t disagree,” Millie says, and Paolo’s eyes light up. “But I just stopped being Cassandra thirty seconds ago. Sorry, Stevie.”
“Aw, you called me Stevie,” Paolo says, finishing off his second beer and gesturing to the bartender for another.
“I did,” Millie says. She goes to hug Paolo, and he goes in for the kiss. She angles her head a little bit, so he gets part of her cheek and the corner of her mouth. He stays there for a solid five seconds. It’s awkward to watch.
Once she pulls away, Paolo stays where he is with his eyes closed, swaying slightly.
“Um,” Millie says, looking at me before swiftly changing the subject. “Don’t forget to watch out for any government weirdos lurking around.”
“Will do,” I say.
“I don’t know if they’re with the government, but we definitely got some weirdos up in this piece,” Paolo says, a little too loudly, as he gestures to a mustachioed man in a seersucker suit.
“You all right getting back to Penn Station on your own?” I ask Millie.
“Thanks for asking, Blondie.” She gives me one of her trademark, barely perceptible grins and ruffles my hair. “But I’m tougher than I look. Later, Stevie. Later, Franklin.”
“Peace out, Cassandra,” I say. “See you when we see you.”
Millie puts two fingers to her mouth, then raises them in the air and leaves. I can’t get over the fact that somehow, right before I was supposed to die, she became such an important presence in my life again. I’m glad I hit her with my car.
“Did you see that moment Mills and I had when she was leaving?” Paolo asks. “Wasn’t that beautiful?”
“It was,” I say, and I instantly feel the guilt of lying to my best friend.
“I seriously feel like I could marry her, you know?”
I start to laugh, but Paolo doesn’t seem to be laughing along with me, so I stop. “But…,” I say. “Maybe you guys should, I don’t know, kiss first before you talk marriage.”
“Kissing before marriage is so 1992, dude,” Paolo says.
“I don’t know what that means.”
Paolo puts his arm around me. “It’s so good to be hanging out with you,” he says.
“I know,” I agree. “It really is.”
“We’ve never been to a bar together!” Paolo says. “This is, like, the first taste of what life could be like as grown-up people.” He takes a sip of beer.
Paolo’s words knock me in the gut. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this yet: it’s possible I’m going to live to be an adult.
Paolo might, too.
It should obviously be cause for celebration, but instead I feel a hard knot of anxiety form in my stomach.
“Wasn’t that cool,” Paolo says, “how after I said ‘first taste of what life could be like,’ I tasted my beer?”
“Ha, yeah,” I say, trying my best to get back into the moment and out of the terrifying blankness of my adulthood. “That was really cool.”
“You okay, D?” Paolo says, chugging more of his alcoholic beverage. “You usually love my puns.”
“I don’t think that counts as a pun.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Probably more of a homophone.”
There’s a melancholy song playing in the bar, overly affected vocals and soft guitar. It’s only feeding my existential crisis.
“I’m just…” I shift around on my bar chair. “I mean, I never mentally planned to be a grown-up, you know?”
“Nobody plans to be a grown-up, dude. It just happens.”
“I guess,” I say.
“And anyway,” Paolo says. “Look around this bar! Lots of these people might technically be grown-ups, but they’re wearing the same shit that people in our high school wear.” He cocks his head sideways. “Well, maybe not that mustache, seersucker-suit guy. Or that chick over there in the Jane Eyre dress. Superhot.”
I follow Paolo’s gaze to a girl in a huge, fancy blue dress holding a beer. “That is pretty hot,” I say. “But if you and I really do live…We haven’t applied to college. We haven’t even taken the SATs!”
Paolo starts cracking up. “Only you would say something like that, Dent. Seriously. You beat death, and you’re worried about a standardized test?”
“All right, fine,” I say, swigging some of my beer. “But I mean, we probably at least want to graduate from high school.”
“Not sure how that one’s gonna play out,” Paolo says, grabbing two of Millie’s abandoned pomegranate mozzarella sticks and shoving them both in his mouth at once. “Graduation’s the same day as my deathdate.”
“Oh man. I’m a terrible friend. I never even realized that.” My deathdate was prom, and Paolo’s is graduation. Hard to say which is worse.
“Why would you, dude? You were supposed to be long gone by then.” Paolo always cuts me so much slack. “And anyway, even if I do end up surviving, I think I’d rather spend that day getting high or something. To commemorate the Day I Was Supposed to Die—you know?”
“Yeah, I hear that,” I say. “But, like, if you survive, have you thought about what your career would be?”
“Hell no!” Paolo says, making a twirly signal in the air so the bartender will bring him another beer. “But I’ll figure it out. Maybe do a bunch of things: grocery cashier, newspaper writer, zookeeper….Oh! Actually, I just remembered, I’d love to be one of those people who say stupid shit to celebrities on the red carpet.”
“Really?”
“Yeah! It’s such a cool skill, to be able to have conversations that are about absolutely nothing. Doesn’t everybody want that job?”
“No.” I grab a mozzarella stick. “I have no idea what I’d want to be. Maybe I could write movies or something.” It sounds silly to even say it aloud. I don’t know the first thing about writing movies. I’ve just watched a lot of them.
“Yes! That’s it!” Paolo says, standing up from his chair. “You should write movies! And then you can write a lot of sexy scenes. That I’ll act in!”
“So, you’re basically saying I should write porn so you can act in it.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way, but, oh man, would you be down to do that?”
I take a sip of my beer so I can watch Paolo sweat out my decision. “Sure, Pow. I’ll write pornos for you to be in.”
“Woo! Planning our futures is awesome!”
It, of course, occurs to me that maybe none of this will be an option for me. Maybe my anxiety should be redirected to the idea that I might have to live off the grid with my mom, Felix, and Dane for decades, allowed to do nothing except help them with their virus mouse missions or whatever the hell it is we’re going to do.
And also redirected to the idea that maybe Paolo won’t survive. Maybe he will die on his deathdate. And I’ll be forced to live in this world without my best friend. Knowing my deathdate was before his meant I never had to think about that.
“Check this,” Paolo says, legs straddled over his chair in a compromising position. “There’s no way this move has been done before. I’ve watched pretty much all the pornography that exists, and I’ve never seen it.”
“Do you seriously watch that much porn?” I ask.
“This could be our ticket to a porn Oscar!”
“I hope so,” I say, grateful to be pulled out of my own head.
We sit there for a couple of hours, joking and laughing and talking. It’s nice. I take my time with each of my beers, so I’m buzzed but not wasted. I figure I should try to keep it together; one dumb move, and my mom might change her mind and put us back on lockdown. Paolo, however, is more than buzzed. I’ve lost track of what number beer he’s on.
“Hey, look at this guy,” he says, his eyelids half closed, his smile wavering like a lava lamp. “Maybe you could write movies with him.”
Right near us, there’s a bearded dude in a white tank top, suspenders, and jeans holding court amongst several other aggressively eccentric-looking people, at least two of them wearing aviator sunglasses, even though we’re inside and it’s nighttime. “All of his work is overrated,” Beardy Suspenders says. “He’s never not been overrated. Anybody can point a camera at people and underscore it with cool music. That doesn’t mean it’s good.”
“Who’re you talkin’ about?” Paolo calls out, much to my complete mortification. “Steven Spielsberg?”
Beardy Suspenders looks over at us. “No, we’re not talking about Steven Spielsberg, my friend. Did you add the extra s for sauced?” His eccentric cronies laugh.
“Sorry,” I say. “He’s had a little too much.”
“No need to apologize. I’d love to hear more of your little buddy’s insightful thoughts on cinema.” This horrible beard guy loves the sound of his own voice.
“Well,” Paolo says. “For example: everybody loves E.T., but he makes me feel weird inside. And didn’t it always trip you out when you see that E.T. comes from a whole species of creatures that look exactly like him? It’s like, You’re not as special as you think you are, E.T.”
“Sure, right, of course, of course,” Beardy says, nodding exaggeratedly at Paolo, some alcoholic drink with a lime in it in his hand. “Tell me more.”
“Give it a rest, man,” I say to Beardy. It just comes out, and I instantly regret it. This guy looks like he’s at least twenty-five. But, on the bright side, I’m not guaranteed to die today, so that’s something.
“I’m not doing anything,” he says, shoulders and arms raised up. “Just talking shop with your friend.”
“Okay, sure, you’re not doing anything,” I say, trying to speak his language of Douchey Sarcasm.
“Hey,” Paolo says, sticking one finger in the air. “You gotta respect what my man’s saying. He’s an effing rock star, this guy.”
“Oh?” Beardy Suspenders says. I can tell where Paolo’s going with this, and I don’t like it.
“Check it: He was supposed to die, like, a week ago. But he lived through his deathdate. Magic, man.” Paolo fans his fingers out with a flourish.
I can’t believe he just said that.
Beardy runs his hand over his beard and narrows his eyes. If I don’t do some damage control, this could be very bad. Like, permanent-lockdown bad.
“He’s wasted,” I say. “Obviously that’s not true.”
“But he seemed kinda sincere when he said it, right?” Beardy asks his friends.
“I dunno,” a girl with pink-and-blond hair says.
“And guess what, Paul Bunyan,” Paolo says. I’m hoping he’ll pass out before he can say anything else, but no such luck. “My deathdate is in, like, two weeks, and because of my man Dent, I’m gonna live through mine, too! Oh, I mean Frank.” Paolo nods at me, like, I got this. He is quite drunk.
“Well, that’s special.” Beardy turns to one of his friends, a guy whose head is shaved except for one black tuft in the front. “Our man Jefferson over here is gonna die in a couple years. Can you save him, too?”
