This choice: Skip class and hang out at the portables • Go Back...Chapter #15Gossip Guys by: Seuzz   You let Connor's instincts beguile you, and edge away from the classroom door. You can have fun at the portables if Tackett and the rest are out there, and you're willing to gamble that you can get away if it's a different and worse batch of people out there.
Those portables are on the other side of the school, next to the Agricultural Annex. They are eighteen very small wooden buildings—now ratty and abandoned—about the size of semi-trailers, arranged in two double rows to form a "U." The troublemakers tend to hide on the far side of the units, facing the agricultural fields, while those with relatively clean consciences will sit in the open space facing the main building. As you approach you see two groups students sitting at opposite corners of that little courtyard. The larger group consists of a bunch of underclassmen who you recognize but can't give names to; the other group of five includes the three you're looking for: Brad Murphy, Andy Tackett and Tim Gerard.
These aren't guys you usually hang out with, but Connor had a couple of classes with them last year, so you feel comfortable about sitting with them. You muse lightly on the way Connor's instincts tug at you, as they're doing now. It's like a subtle form of gravity that you can resist easily when you concentrate, and which doesn't overpower you when you don't, but which warps your reactions unless you are careful. It's like the mental equivalent of muscle memory --
"Hey Prescott, why aren't you in class?" Spencer Osbourne calls out. He's sitting with Tackett and the others, along with another guy who whose name you don't know but whose long blonde hair and heavy-lidded eyes scream "stoner."
"Same reason you aren't," you retort. Gerard scoots over a little as you squat next to them.
"I got study hall this hour," Spencer says with a sly smile. "You got study hall?"
"Bullshit. I heard Gelding call your name as I passed his room, and he had a Bowie knife out. Who's taking notes for you losers in Hawks?" you demand of Tackett and Murphy and Gerard.
"Kevin," says Tackett. He has a deep, strong voice that he uses to intimidate people when his long face and strong jaw and buzz cut aren't enough. Right now, though, he looks like what he actually is: a creative writing brat dressed down in khakis and a grey sweatshirt.
You snicker. "Fft. Winkler. Of course he is. Tell him to run off a copy for me."
"Who said that you get a set?" asks Spencer, though he's not in the class you're skipping.
"I did, just now."
Spencer looks around the circle with a wide, mischievous grin. "Are you guys just gonna let Prescott stick his dick in like this?"
So you put your hand in the middle of the circle. "Rock paper scissors. Loser gives me their notes."
And everyone shrinks back a little. "Where'd you learn that trick?" Tackett asks. Well might he ask, since it was one of the tricks Connor used to bully his way with these guys.
"It's not a trick, it's straight up fair play. And if I play alone, all you guys lose."
"You can have a set of notes, Will," Tim Gerard says, and laughs softly to himself.
Score!
* * * * *
The guys don't exactly warm to you over the hour that follows, but you think you see a spark of respect and interest that you haven't seen in their eyes before. Not that you've ever craved their respect. Spencer Osbourne and Brad Murphy are stoners whose company you've never cared for; Tackett and Gerard are English/literature/creative types. But you like the fact that this hour they are looking at you and listening to you instead of letting their eyes slide past as they look for something or someone more interesting.
And it sounds like they like the new you enough to open up a little. At least Tackett and Gerard don't shush Osbourne when he lights a cigarette and casually drops a major piece of gossip. Instead, after glancing in your direction, they ask him to amplify. "So here I am driving down 126 on Saturday," he starts after lighting a cigarette and blowing out a stream of smoke, "coming back from the Wilderness, and I do a U-turn in the middle of the fucking street because of who I see turning into the Donna Motor Court."
There was a pause as everyone processes "Donna Motor Court." Eyes light up with curiosity. "Who?"
Another stream of smoke from Osbourne. "Kelsey Blankenship."
That's when the glances start going around. "So?" Gerard says in a guarded way. "Maybe she was meeting Kim Walsh. Her family owns it, you know."
"Oh, she was meeting someone." Spencer grins. "He was waiting out in the parking lot."
"You didn't pull in next to them, did you?" Tackett asks.
"Fuck you, no. I did another U-turn and broke a couple of traffic laws getting into the lot across the street so I could watch. It was a guy with goofy blonde hair and a dumb hat."
Tackett pushes you in the shoulder. "What the fuck, Prescott, are you and Kelsey doing dirty deeds at the Donna?"
You whip off your cap and whap him with it.
"So where's Hennepin this morning?" Spencer asks loftily.
"Oh, he's around," says Gerard, then sighs. "This is old news, Spencer."
Osbourne's mouth drops a little. "What, you guys heard about this already?"
"Not Saturday's date,," Tackett says, and shrugs. "But yeah, Karl and Kelsey are doing it. Have been since the start of school."
"No shit?" Osbourne laughs with obscene delight. "Karl is banging Kelsey up her tailpipe?"
You understand, and share in, his amazement. Kelsey is the queen of the AP clique, and one of the most stuck-up people you know. Her daddy owns the biggest car dealership in town, and she swans around in expensive bohemian-style clothes and drives a BMW. Karl Hennepin, meanwhile, is a guy like these here, who dances on the line between stoner and artist: he walks around in ragged, smelly jeans and a pot-infused sweatshirt, and likes to sport a fedora atop his dirty-blonde bouffant of curly hair. You cannot imagine the two of them as a couple.
Apparently she can't imagine it either, because the next thing out of Tackett's mouth is a caution: "They hooked up, but it's not official. Fuck, it's supposed to be a secret."
"How the fuck is it a secret if Kelsey's pulling into the Donna in the middle of the day?" asks the stoner whose name you don't know.
"So she can say was visiting Kim if she gets spotted," Tackett says.
"Kim knows what's going on?" Osbourne gasps.
"I don't know, I haven't asked, and you shouldn't ask either," says Tackett. He puts some body behind that voice of his so everyone will know he means business. "I told you it's supposed to be a secret."
"Why? Because Kelsey wants it a secret?" you ask. You wouldn't have made that deduction on your own, but Connor—who remembers Kelsey very clearly—would have. "Why the fuck should we respect that?"
"So we don't fuck things up for Karl. Look, everyone who knows Karl knows what's going on, but if Kelsey finds out it's an open secret, she'll kill Karl for not keeping his mouth shut."
"She parking in the middle of the fucking Donna!" Osbourne says. "How the fuck can she blame Karl when she's—"
"Because she's Kelsey Blankenship, that's how come," Tackett says. "She thinks she's too fucking smart to ever get caught, so if she gets caught it'll be someone else's fault."
A groan goes up from Osbourne and from you. "Why does Kelsey want it a secret?" you ask. "Oh, fuck, why am I even asking? Why doesn't Karl grow a pair and tell her that if she loves his cock so much she needs to own up to it in public?"
"Because he loves her pussy so much that he doesn't want to—" Tackett breaks off with a grimace. "Yeah, you're right, that's what he ought to do. But he's just trying to hang on right now. Maybe later on, after things are, I dunno, firmed up between them— Shut up," he sighs at Osbourne when the latter snickers at "firmed up."
"What Karl needs is some insurance," you muse after a thoughtful silence has settled over the group.
"Like health insurance?" Osbourne asks. "In case Kelsey cuts his cock off?"
"No, I mean— This kind of secret can't keep forever. Fuck, if you've noticed, how many people haven't?"
"Did you know about it, Prescott?"
"No, but now I do, and I'm usually the last to hear these things." Dammit, that was Hutchinson imparting a bit of self-knowledge to you. "So how much longer can this go on before Kelsey finds out the whole school is buzzing about her and Karl? And then you say she'll blame him." You nod at Tackett, who doesn't respond. "So what he needs—"
What you need—or what Connor needs—is a cigarette, but you resist the urge.
"So what he needs is some kind of evidence that someone else spotted them, and that it was this someone else who let it out."
"You mean we pin it on Spencer," Tackett says mischievously.
"No, do it anonymously. Put the evidence on Snapchat or Whisper. x2z. Put up some photos of their cars in the Donna parking lot. But don't circulate them, don't send them around. Just make sure they're up so that Kelsey will know she got spotted by someone who wants to make trouble for her."
There's a long silence, and by its quality you can tell you've made a good impression on the crowd.
But you don't like the question that Gerard asks next, and you don't like that he's looking at you when he says it. "So who's gonna take these photos and post them?"  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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