unlimited stores of courage and heart, replenish our battered muscles with the fuel of our fundamental goodness and wipe the cocksure grins off their collective wily faces. We were always one karate kick away from beating ass. Eric, never a karate kick away from anything but an infected zit, stood off to the side watching, occasionally shadow-punching the air around him, or walking on the ground-level balance beam and closing his eyes to practice being blind.
“My uncle’s a Hollywood producer,” he told us. “I wrote a script and sent it to him. He said he might be interested.”
“That’s bullshit,” Adam said. “Your uncle’s a loser, like you.”
There was logic in that assessment, biological certainty, yet somewhere in us, we clutched at the dream. What if Eric really did have an uncle in Hollywood? What if he had written a script?
Eric was horrid, but he could write. We’d all seen Hilary Smith look up from her perpetual note-passing to Tricia Foster—the second prettiest girl in the fifth grade—when, in Language Arts, Eric read his story aloud about a lonely grasshopper. We thought it was embarrassing, how the bug’s legs sawed a plaintive tune that made the attendant blades of grass sway with melancholy. It was disgusting, putrid in every sense, but Hilary had reclined her head against the rim of her chair, her waterfall of blond hair splashing on the windowsill behind her as she gazed dreamily upward at a cluster of pencils stuck in the ceiling. We would never forget how her mouth opened slightly, how her lips pursed as her fingers spread out long and slender on the skin of her jeans under her desk. Perhaps she thought her hands beneath the desk were invisible, but to us they were glowing, as if Eric’s story had transformed her from the undetectable Susan Storm into Jean Grey, the fiery Phoenix, an aura of flame rising from her skin, and we were the ones bathing in her heat.
Every time we back-flipped off the monkey bars, the girl we were saving from certain death as she plunged off a collapsing bridge was Hilary Smith. Every time we aimed our karate kicks into the air, we were going for the throat of the heinous villain who held a shotgun to Hilary’s cheek and threatened to blow her beautiful mouth into the tennis courts. Of course, if Hilary were home sick, our kicks were trying to save Tricia Foster. If both of them were home sick, then we were split on who should play the Invisible Girl.
Adam felt that Karen Watson, a Japanese girl who’d been adopted by an American family and basically raised white, was the next prettiest prospect. While we all agreed she was talented at being invisible, Benji argued that another Karen, Karen Hitchcock, who wore her hair exactly the way Hilary did, was prettier. While Karen Watson was definitely cute, he insisted her parents’ whitening left her in a perpetual state of confusion. We’d often notice her trying to catch her reflection in a windowpane as she picked at the wings of the horrible Farrah Fawcett blowback her parents made her wear and tried to imagine what she’d look like if she could just comb it naturally straight. We tried to imagine that too, but reiterated to Benji that if Karen Watson were invisible, it wouldn’t matter what her hair looked like. Benji countered that Karen’s invisibility was irrelevant. We were superheroes. We’d be able to sense her confusion. Then, in a tight scrap, we wouldn’t be able to trust her. A smart villain could exploit that weakness.
If Eric had an opinion about which girl we should try to save when both Hilary and Tricia were sick, he never offered it. Or if he did, we never cared enough to listen. I sided with Adam and we won the argument when I pointed out that if Tricia were absent and Hilary weren’t, then Hilary would pass notes to Karen Watson. “That must say something,” I said. “Hilary clearly knows who’s pretty, because she’s pretty. She’s the expert.”
Benji was probably
“My uncle’s a Hollywood producer,” he told us. “I wrote a script and sent it to him. He said he might be interested.”
“That’s bullshit,” Adam said. “Your uncle’s a loser, like you.”
There was logic in that assessment, biological certainty, yet somewhere in us, we clutched at the dream. What if Eric really did have an uncle in Hollywood? What if he had written a script?
Eric was horrid, but he could write. We’d all seen Hilary Smith look up from her perpetual note-passing to Tricia Foster—the second prettiest girl in the fifth grade—when, in Language Arts, Eric read his story aloud about a lonely grasshopper. We thought it was embarrassing, how the bug’s legs sawed a plaintive tune that made the attendant blades of grass sway with melancholy. It was disgusting, putrid in every sense, but Hilary had reclined her head against the rim of her chair, her waterfall of blond hair splashing on the windowsill behind her as she gazed dreamily upward at a cluster of pencils stuck in the ceiling. We would never forget how her mouth opened slightly, how her lips pursed as her fingers spread out long and slender on the skin of her jeans under her desk. Perhaps she thought her hands beneath the desk were invisible, but to us they were glowing, as if Eric’s story had transformed her from the undetectable Susan Storm into Jean Grey, the fiery Phoenix, an aura of flame rising from her skin, and we were the ones bathing in her heat.
Every time we back-flipped off the monkey bars, the girl we were saving from certain death as she plunged off a collapsing bridge was Hilary Smith. Every time we aimed our karate kicks into the air, we were going for the throat of the heinous villain who held a shotgun to Hilary’s cheek and threatened to blow her beautiful mouth into the tennis courts. Of course, if Hilary were home sick, our kicks were trying to save Tricia Foster. If both of them were home sick, then we were split on who should play the Invisible Girl.
Adam felt that Karen Watson, a Japanese girl who’d been adopted by an American family and basically raised white, was the next prettiest prospect. While we all agreed she was talented at being invisible, Benji argued that another Karen, Karen Hitchcock, who wore her hair exactly the way Hilary did, was prettier. While Karen Watson was definitely cute, he insisted her parents’ whitening left her in a perpetual state of confusion. We’d often notice her trying to catch her reflection in a windowpane as she picked at the wings of the horrible Farrah Fawcett blowback her parents made her wear and tried to imagine what she’d look like if she could just comb it naturally straight. We tried to imagine that too, but reiterated to Benji that if Karen Watson were invisible, it wouldn’t matter what her hair looked like. Benji countered that Karen’s invisibility was irrelevant. We were superheroes. We’d be able to sense her confusion. Then, in a tight scrap, we wouldn’t be able to trust her. A smart villain could exploit that weakness.
If Eric had an opinion about which girl we should try to save when both Hilary and Tricia were sick, he never offered it. Or if he did, we never cared enough to listen. I sided with Adam and we won the argument when I pointed out that if Tricia were absent and Hilary weren’t, then Hilary would pass notes to Karen Watson. “That must say something,” I said. “Hilary clearly knows who’s pretty, because she’s pretty. She’s the expert.”
Benji was probably
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