Free Call Me Jane by Anthea Carson Page A

Beatles like I do.
    I passed right by Raj in the living room. I could hear Krishna’s mom in the kitchen putting away dishes. Krishna’s dad was home; he was in the back office, or was it a bedroom? I must have looked upset because Raj made a comment about how maybe the dope wasn’t working. “Isn’t that stuff supposed to mellow you out?” Oooh, how I hated Raj sometimes.
    “I heard a rumor that you like Paul. Do you like Paul?” Lucy asked as soon as she was in my car. She didn’t insist on driving, so I should have known something was up, and she had no particular destination.
    “Oh, no,” I said. “The truth is, Lucy,” I was quick on my feet when I wanted to be, “I’m a little freaked out by this, but the person I keep thinking about is–you’re never going to believe this.”
    “Tell me!” Her big eyes grew bigger.
    “It’s kind of embarrassing.”
    “I don’t care.”
    “It makes me wonder what’s wrong with me.”
    “Tell me.”
    “You promise not to tell anyone?”
    “I swear.”
    “You promise not to think I’m weird?” Was this believable yet?
    “I already know you are weird.”
    “It’s just that he’s so ugly. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
    “Ziggy?”
    I nodded. And it wasn’t a total lie. I did think about him.
    “Let me drive, you drive like shit,” she said, so I pulled over. We had only gone about three blocks past her house. And once she was in the driver’s seat, we had some very clear destinations. One was Bill Taylor’s house. He had apparently called her up with an urgent request to pick him up. And plus, he had dope.
    It was almost sunset, and by the time we reached his house, it was dark. He lived in a two-story, dark-green house by the railroad tracks toward the south end of town. I know it was south, because Lake Winnebago was on the north. Lake Winnebago was not in the middle of town; the town stopped right at its tiny shores. There were towns all around the lake though, and I’ve heard that Oshkosh is really now called the Fox River Valley, and that all those little towns have merged.
    This wasn’t the first time we’d gone to Bill’s house by any means. We drove by there several times a day for Lucy to beep the horn. She always smiled when she did that. There was a little hill near his house; the hill went right over the railroad tracks, and sometimes we just went around and around his house, beeping the horn. She would speed up so that we could all have that little thrill when the car went over the hill. Sometimes Krishna would be in the backseat, and what she at first thought was funny would become so annoying that she would insist on either being dropped off at home, or at Adam’s, or Ames’ house. But everyone was used to this, and knew right away what she was planning the minute she went south on New York Street.
    Only once or twice before had we left the car or actually picked him up for any reason.
    Bill was short, only about an inch taller than Lucy. He had dark, wavy hair and really nice green eyes. He was kind of quiet. He wasn’t a punk;he was a freak. He wore things like black T-shirts with REO Speedwagon or Led Zeppelin—only he didn’t call them Led Zeppelin.
    They talked a lot about Freddy whenever they were together: Lucy and Bill. Bill was really proud of him. He made lots of comments about how this or that wasn’t going to happen to his son, and this or that wasn’t good enough for his son. He had a very slight mustache just beginning to form.
    Whenever Bill was in the car, Lucy insisted I ride in the back. Once we had taken a car trip out to some beautiful quarry in a forest, and Bill had blown the cigarette lighter out. He was using it for a charger and plugging a huge, loud boom box into it.
    “What happened to my cigarette lighter,” my mom might have asked, had she smoked. She might have been furious, except I doubt she ever knew.No, but she did blow a fuse when we completely lost the part that plugged