Why Aren't You Smiling? by Alvin Orloff

John Lennon. I mean, he was a Beatle, for chrissakes, but what the hell does he see in Yoko Ono?”
    Exasperated Burnout Girl: “My stepmother is a total freak. The other day she went to the supermarket in curlers!”
    Burnout Boy with Dirt-lip Mustache: “A hash high is nothing like a pot high. It’s like a whole ’nother drug.”
    Pissed off Burnout Girl: “I got an 80 and Mrs. Pennington gave me a C+, and I said, ‘No way, 80 is supposed to be a B-…’ ”
    This was my cue! I trotted out one of Danny’s oft-cited opinions. “Grades are a form of thought control, totally fascist. I think they should be abolished.”
    Dewey, standing nearby as he emptied a bag of potato chips into a bowl, nodded his head approvingly. “I heard that!”
    The girl I’d spoken too agreed. “Yeah. Mrs. P. is a dried-up old bitch anyways. I bet she hasn’t gotten laid in years and is just taking it out on us.”
    I smiled agreeably then excused myself to find the bathroom, more for a break from the pressure of social interaction than physical need. On returning, I found the party’s atmosphere changed. Someone had dimmed the light, a few kids were necking, and the air sparkled with Sex. Boys and girls were looking at each other, giggling, flirting, touching knees. An orgy could break out at any minute. I found it hard to breathe.
    Tracey sashayed over to the stereo and turned up the Eagles, who were singing “Take it eeeesaaay,” in a manner so relaxed it was impossible to imagine them ever taking anything hard. She held her arms aloft and wiggled her fingers in Dewey’s direction. “C’mon,” she commanded. He eagerly leapt up to join her in what wasn’t so much of a slow dance as a vertical make-out session. Kai pulled Vicki to her feet and did likewise. My heart began doing all sorts of acrobatic feats not normally associated with internal organs. As Kai and Vicki’s lips locked into a long, juicy smooch, my legs, acting purely on their own recognizance, propelled me out the front door. I felt weird not having said goodbye to anyone, but knew I would have felt weirder interrupting. I walked home feeling despondent for no reason I cared to analyze.
    A few days later I found myself in Kai’s garage. As he rummaged through his sports equipment (we were about to play some horrible ball game), I casually asked, “Are you and Vicki finally going steady?”
    He looked up wearing an adorable frown. “She says going steady is for kids. So I asked, ‘Are you my girlfriend?’ And she said she’d think about it.”
    â€œAre you in love with her?”
    Kai smiled dreamily. “She kisses really good.” He turned to me. “You have your eye on someone?”
    I panicked. “Nah. Nobody in particular.”
    He grinned salaciously. “Not a one-woman kind of man, eh?”
    Could he seriously think I wanted to be some shallow, egotistical playboy? I could see in his eyes that his question was intended to be flattering, but still. All the times I’d brought up the importance of universal Love and shared my hopes of running away to Oregon had made no impression on him whatsoever. Some combination of politeness, laziness, and self-centeredness kept him from seeing me as I was.
    â€œI dunno.” I looked down.
    Kai smiled indulgently. “What’s the farthest you ever got with a girl?”
    All major religions counseled that lying was spiritually corrosive. “Shaking hands.”
    Kai let out a winningly good-natured laugh as he pulled out a basketball. “Don’t worry. Just a matter of time.”
    I shuddered, both at the prospect of more sports and the terrible truth that my only friend, with whom I shared a profound, brotherly Love, knew nothing about me. He’d kept himself willfully ignorant not only of my innate Dweebishness (which was good), but my highly spiritual