Why Can't Billy Idol Love Me?

Chapter 3

Because at the rate things were going (i.e., glacial), I wasn’t ever going to have one. Kurt Thompson was a quarterback. Me, I was a safe background player on the soccer team. Guys like him (i.e. straight) didn’t go for guys like me (i.e. not straight). (Tip: Being strategically neutral about everything s****l makes it really hard for anyone to figure you out. How can they date you if they can’t get to know you?) And if somebody actually did like me, well then I was really doomed. How could we ever be together? Forget “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” my high school’s policy was “Don’t Tell, Don’t Exist.” From Kurt to Cassandra to my mother, my entire life was a lie.

The tie was still on the bedpost. I’d read online about other boys who’d offed themselves by hanging. All you have to do is find something to put around your neck and lean forward; once you passed out, gravity did the rest. I put the tie back around my neck and slipped it neatly over the bedpost to test it. Sure, Mom would be devastated at first, but maybe not when she found out the truth about me. Wouldn’t this be better? Nobody wants a fag for a son.

CHAPTER ONE

Dance class: just what every high school kid can’t wait to take. Arts Appreciation was pretty cool eventually, and so was Ms. Malik, but the first part of the year was the historical part, and it was just plain awful. We’re not talking hip-hop and break-dancing, or raw street moves. We’re talking square dancing, and clogging, and the waltz. The waltz, people. Sooo relevant in the 21st century. And this week’s dance: the minuet. Not minUTE, like tick-tock mind you, but Min-YOU-et. A dance from the days of Mozart, 1700 and something (see, Ms. Malik, I do listen...).

But the day that we were learning to get down like ye olde dudes in powdered wigs, Cheri and Teri Langer were out sick, and that left me and Jim Bartell with no dance partners. He and I were making fun, like what if we got stuck dancing together and what a dumb dance it was anyway, and how we were so relieved to sit it out. Without Rick the d**k around, Jim was pretty cool. Dylan was also in the dance class, but he was too busy tripping over his own feet to notice us. It was the first time I’d gotten a taste of Jim without all the macho bullshit that normally got in the way because he was so busy trying to impress his alpha-dog.

“Do you think they had a kind of hip-hop back then?” Jim said. “Like this was them bustin’ a move?” He pressed his hand to mine and did a little move like all of the other kids but with some funk thrown in, and I laughed out loud.

“I can’t wait until we really learn to move in this class,” I said, imagining tearing up the dance floor, “not some dance for 80-year-olds with walkers.” Jim and I were cracking up when I suddenly knew something was off. When you feel a teacher’s eyes on you, you know you’re in trouble; and Ms. Malik had one of the best stares in the business. We both shut our mouths and turned.

“All right you two, I was gonna let you sit it out, but since you’re such rebels, since you two think it’s so funny, let’s see what you’ve got.” She shoved us out onto the dance floor with everyone else.

“You mean…together?” I couldn’t believe she was serious.

“Yeah, you take the woman’s part,” she said to me, and I thought was going to disappear into the floor. The Woman’s Part? Already this was appearing in mental-headlines fifty feet tall: SHANE NOBLE PLAYS “WOMAN’S PART” IN MALIK’S CLASS!

“I’m not dancing with him,” blurted Jim. “That’d be totally gay.” He blushed hard.

Ahem, wrong thing to say to liberal art instructor.

Ms. Malik stared us both down. “And what exactly is wrong with gay?”

At freshmen orientation, tolerance and acceptance were stressed, and they even mentioned the word s****l orientation in there with race, color, gender, and all that discrimination stuff. It didn’t make much of a difference in the hallways or locker-room, but staring down the double-barrel of Ms. Malik’s fiery brown eyes you could tell somebody took it seriously.

“So, unless you two want failing grades for today’s lesson and a trip to the office, I suggest you pair up and ‘bust a move’ as you so aptly put it, Jim.”

I stepped into position, willing to go through with it if Jim was. My mom was pretty hands-off, but the one thing she wouldn’t put up with was bad grades—especially not for something stupid like disobeying a teacher. Then I had the strangest idea: what it would be like to have Jim’s hand on my back, or to hold his hand. Jim? But he was a dumb jock and kind of a bully sometimes. But his eyes, like pools of dark amber.

“Fine,” said Jim. “Gimme an F, I’m not doin’ it.”

“Then you can enjoy Mrs. Blakely’s company, and then come right back here for detention after school… where you will do the Minuet if you have to perform it with a mop.” Known for backing her teachers for the most part, Barbra Blakely wasn’t called The Barb for nothing. “I’m sure your parents will love coming to pick you up after they get off work.”

The other kids giggled as Jim set his angry jaw, grabbed me and jerked me onto the dance floor. Blood rushed through my ears and I hoped he couldn’t feel the heat that pulsed into my hands. His hands were huge and rough and for some reason that made my heart pound. He was so close I could smell him—sun and sweat and shaving cream. The room briefly dropped away and I found myself wanting to pull him to me. I could see his black razor stubble like fine grains of dark beach sand, the curl of his oh-so-long eyelashes. What else could I possibly think of but “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” by the timeless Brit crossover band, The Police.

We were only on our second round of the slow and complicated dance when Jim lost his place, his body felt jerky. His palms were as sweaty as mine and I wondered if he could tell what kind of sweat mine was: Nervous, embarrassed and romantic all rolled into one. I wished we’d been in the class alone, or that I went to an all-boys school so it wouldn’t be so awkward. I was so flushed that I was sure someone would notice, but everyone was sweating a little, the heat of so many students moving around. And then I felt something hard between us as his hips bumped against mine, and it wasn’t his hipbone either!

“I can’t do this,” said Jim, dropping my hand.

“Aww, wittle girl can’t handle it?” said Dylan with a pout. “Gonna wun off to the Pwincipaw’s office?”

“f**k you, Thompson,” said Jim under his breath, and you could just feel he was boiling for a fight.

“Excuse me?” Ms. Malik didn’t yell when she got mad. Instead, her voice got very quiet, and that’s when you knew you were in real trouble. “Nobody talks like that in my class. Jim, that’s two days of detention, and Dylan, that’s one for you. Now both of you march.”

“Don’t we need a pass, Ms. Malik?” Dylan asked, lathering on a deadly dose of ass-kissing sarcasm.

“Anyone stops you in the hallway, you tell ‘em to come knock on my door and I’ll explain it to them. Or would you like to open your mouth again and earn yourself another day?” Dylan just shook his head. It was no fun to be on the receiving end of her wrath, but I had to admit that Ms. Malik ruled.

I watched Jim grab his bag and storm off with Dylan in tow.

“Shane…” Ms. Malik held her hands up, palms out, like somebody in a royal court. I took my place. Her hands were soft, and she smelled sweet—not at all like Jim. The dance became just a lesson, and now I had time to digest the horror of what had just happened. Not for a second had Cassandra crossed my mind. Dancing with her was just fine, but Jim’s touch felt like rocket fuel and left me with the most awful feeling of all: I wanted more.

CHAPTER TWO

My desire was beyond my control to suppress; and from Jim’s reaction, I wasn’t the only one. For all of my pretending with Cassandra, I’d never succeeded in producing a feeling anything like this. Everyone else might have been fooled by how I acted with her, but I could not fake who I was on the inside. I could, however, avoid it for a while longer if I was smart.

Even from down the hall, I could see that the glass fishbowl of the central office was slow, thank God. Sometimes at the beginning of the semester, it was so crowded with schedule-changers that you didn’t stand a chance. But I knew someone who worked behind the counter—Cassandra!

“Hey, I need a favor.”

“Oh do you? And what’s in it for me?” She gave me the eye and licked her lips. I blushed. Mrs. Blakely was just ten feet away in the Principal’s office. With the blinds up, it was a straight shot to seeing us, and maybe even lip-reading. “I just need you to check on availability in Sanchez’s sculpting class. I wanted to switch out of Malik’s.”

“Yeah? Jim was ragging on that class, too. Lemme see what I can do.” Cassie gave a nonchalant glance over her shoulder just to make sure Mrs. Blakely was still busy with Principal Schifrin.

I gave her a quick glare of worry, but she just shrugged. “Don’t worry about her, she’s gunning for School Board this semester and it’s all she talks about. Poor Schifrin’s lucky if he can eat lunch without her getting out a flowchart or something.”

“Barb in Charge, right?” I chuckled at our in-joke of a TV show featuring the world’s most micromanaging vice principal. For once, I was thrilled that Blakely had more to worry about than watching us all like a hawk.

Cassie pulled out a sliding work tray from the counter, which had a cheat-sheet for computer passwords. After deftly entering the digits, she closed the drawer and tilted the screen slightly away from Mrs. Blakely’s direction. “Looks like Sanchez is full up and Malik needs students. Sucks to be you.” Sanchez was full up because the guy was a 26-year-old with soap-opera looks and a hands-on approach to sculpting that all the girls found irresistible.

“Think maybe you could talk to Blakely for me? You’re in good with her…”

“Yeah, I could.” Dating Cassandra made everything into a Devil’s bargain. “But if you want me to break the rules… then you’re gonna have to break some too. Maybe with a cherry on top, too.”

Oh no. That again.

If Hall & Oates had only been in my generation, they would have named their Billboard #1 hit “Maneater” after Cassie.

She maneuvered innuendo into everything. It had been titillating before I realized I didn’t enjoy kissing girls. Now, I just found it increasingly annoying. What should have been a sexy diversion was instead like a game of Truth Or Dare. I didn’t want to play along, but play along I did. I had to get out of that class. I could not face going back to the scene of the woody.

“What do you want for it?” I played dumb, but we both knew exactly what she wanted—but my virginity wasn’t something I was comfortable giving up just to switch classes.