Perfectly Good White Boy Read online

  Text copyright © 2014 by Carrie Mesrobian

  Carolrhoda Lab™ is a trademark of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

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  An imprint of Carolrhoda Books

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For updated reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  The images in this book are used with the permission of: © Danielle Carnito/Todd Strand/Independent Picture Service.

  Front Cover: © Danielle Carnito/Todd Strand/Independent Picture Service.

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 10/14.

  Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mesrobian, Carrie.

  Perfectly good white boy / by Carrie Mesrobian.

  pages cm

  Summary: After losing his virginity to an older girl who dumps him at the end of summer, Sean decides to join the Marines, but first he must get through his senior year of high school.

  ISBN 978–1–4677–3480–6 (trade hard cover : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978–1–4677–4628–1 (eBook)

  [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Sex—Fiction. 3. United States. Marine Corps—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M5493War 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013036749

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 7/15/14

  eISBN: 978-1-46774-628-1 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-6600-5 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-46776-599-2 (mobi)

  FOR Adrian:

  ALL OF THIS, EVERY LAST BIT,

  BECAUSE OF YOU

  Chapter One

  I stood in the back of the barn, in front of a pile of boxes marked “Tools,” watching the party go on. The senior girls’ spring party was usually down by the old railroad trestle bridge off Highway 10, but this time it was out on someone’s farm, so they’d decided to make it a goddamn hoedown or something. The barn looked like a normal barn—red, kinda faded—but it didn’t have a tractor or any animals, no haystacks or anything, just the boxes and a sound system and sawdust on the dirt floor, not to mention packs of screaming girls dressed like slutty cowgirls, in cowboy boots and bandanas and super-short shorts and long braids flying everywhere. It was loud as hell, and the circle around the keg was ass-deep in douche hockey player dudes. Eddie had ditched me for that Libby sophomore chick he was into, and I was regretting leaving the house for this shit. Eddie wouldn’t have found the place without me; it was only by luck that I’d known where it was, since I’d gone hunting on the property last November.

  I pushed my way through the douche hockey dudes to get another beer. I’d paid seven bucks for this stupid cup, and Eddie had brought his tent and shit; I might as well get loaded. But I’d barely finished the cup when the senior girls started dancing and screaming to this terrible country song, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” and so I had to get out of there.

  It was dark, and the moon wasn’t out. I could see just a little of the farmhouse in the distance, past the rows of parked cars. Everything felt still and silent and good in the cool air. Like maybe this would be fun, maybe I could handle this whole thing after all, after my weeks of being a social hermit, sitting at home, avoiding unpacking boxes in our new place with my mom. Eddie hadn’t expected me to say yes to coming to this party, even. He was used to me disappointing him in that way lately.

  I walked toward the cornfield, which was nothing but dirt the same color as the night, trying to find the tree where Grandpa Chuck and I had nailed up the deer stand last November. Wondered if the handholds were still there. Grandpa Chuck didn’t believe in those ready-made stands; you built it yourself, was his opinion. You brought some wood and made do. Enough crap to haul out there as it was, he said.

  But I wasn’t out in the fresh air five seconds when a goddamn Frisbee smacked me in the face so hard I dropped my beer. My nose gushed blood. People were laughing and yelling, but I couldn’t see who it was. But it didn’t matter, because it hurt so bad I wouldn’t have been able to throw down anyway. Since the whole thing with Eddie back in February, I’d made a deal with myself I’d never hit anyone again.

  Which was good, because it was this cute senior girl who’d thrown the Frisbee. She had a big ponytail, short denim skirt, really, really tight American flag shirt. Cowboy boots. It took me a second to recognize her through everything hurting and all the blood, but I knew her from school. Hallie Martin. She went out with this douche hockey player guy who always walked around with his mouth half open. Dan. He looked like a Dan too.

  But now she was all over me, saying stuff like, “Oh, Sean, I’m so sorry . . . Your nose is bleeding! Oh my god, I’m soooo sorry . . .” Over and over she said sorry. While I said nothing back not just because it hurt but also because I was kind of in shock. Because Hallie Martin was a year older. And how did she know my goddamn name? I only knew hers because she lifeguarded with Eddie at the YMCA. That, and you just knew the names of hot girls, generally. It was the kind of information that just downloaded naturally, along with stuff like who was playing Monday Night Football that week or when duck hunting season started or whatever.

  I let her drag me away from everyone, her holding one of my hands like I was five years old, my other hand pressed over my bleeding nose, until we got to her little tiny red girl-car. A Kia, for fuck’s sake. She dug around in the console, which gave me a minute to catch my breath. Also to check out her ass. Which was shitty of me, but whatever.

  She handed me a bunch of Dairy Queen napkins, and I mopped my face with them, trying to calm the fuck down. I wasn’t really down for girls hovering around me like this, even if they were a foot shorter than me, like Hallie Martin; it made me feel like a total chump. Plus I was getting blood all over my shirt. I didn’t want to drip it on her and her cowgirl outfit too.

  “I’m so sorry!” she said about a million times. I nodded at her, turning away and pinching the bridge of my nose, making blood rain down the back of my throat. I didn’t want to spit blood while talking and look like more of a freak.

  “I’m Hallie,” she said, turning around with me.

  Like I didn’t know!

  She moved like she wanted to shake my hand. But I was holding bloody napkins in one hand and my nose in the other, so it was a little hard.

  “Sean,” I said.

  “I know who you are,” she said. “You’re kind of hard to miss.”

  Which wasn’t good to hear.

  “You’re a year behind me in school, right? You’re friends with that kid Eddie, right?”

  Well, that was a little better than being Violent and Crazy, the labels everyone probably gave me, along with the side-eye, since the thing in the library went down in February. Though it made me feel like Eddie’s butt boy.

  “I totally love that kid,” she said. “I lifeguard with him at the Y. He’s so funny.”

  I nodded. I was out of things to say. The bleeding was pretty much done too. Just a trickle. She handed me another napkin from her car; I looked at her ass again. God. Then we both stood there, like, duh, how did this even happen?

  I stared at the blob of bloody napkins in my fist.

  “There’s a trash behind th
e house,” Hallie said, grabbing at my elbow. I could feel her fingernails. Long and sharp, making me shiver. Christ.

  “Come on,” she said.

  We started walking then. Like we were together. I was feeling a little less dumb, though I still worried there were boogers and blood all over my face. But Hallie kept talking.

  “Carenna doesn’t have keys to the house, because it’s her uncle’s farm, but we set up a bunch of recycling and stuff for later.”

  Carenna was another hot senior girl. She was homecoming royalty, but not the queen. One of the runners-up. Hallie was cuter that Carenna Whatever-Her-Last-Name-Was, but she hadn’t been in the homecoming court. Clearly there was no justice in this world.

  “You guys really planned this out, huh?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s our last year together, you know? I leave for Madison this August, so we had to start early. And a spring party is kind of an Oak Prairie tradition, you know? Carenna thought it wouldn’t be so big, though. This place is hard to find. Or so we thought.”

  “Wasn’t that hard to find. I went hunting out here in November,” I said. “My grandpa and I built a deer stand up in that tree over in that cornfield.” I pointed and she looked, not that there was much to see in the darkness. “Eddie and me found the place no problem.”

  “Lucky for you, huh?” she said. Smiled at me. She was pretty damn cute.

  And she was right: I was pretty damn lucky. And goddamn, it felt good. Things were moving in a positive direction at crazy speeds, light years away from the funk I’d been in, sitting around our shitty rental, not wanting to unpack boxes or settle in. I sneaked a look at her, down at the top of her head, as we walked. Her hair was shiny and golden and her pony-tailed bobbed as we walked past the dark fields.

  “People shoot at deer in cornfields?” Hallie asked. Like she thought I was some kind of crazy lunatic.

  “Well, I was up in the deer stand when I shot mine, but yeah.”

  “You shot it from a tree?”

  “Well . . . yeah, but . . .”

  “I owe you a beer, Sean,” she said. “Come on.”

  So, then I just kind of fell into this hole. The Hallie Martin Hole. It was a decent place to be. She smelled really good. And she looked even better. Hallie’s hair, when she pulled it out of her pony-tail, was dark reddish blond. She was a lot shorter than me, but most everyone is. I couldn’t stop looking at her.

  I had no idea why she was hanging out with me.

  But I went along with it. Me and Hallie drinking more beer. Me and Hallie drinking shots of tequila. Me and Hallie playing bad Frisbee. Me and Hallie and her friends, getting introduced. Me and Hallie, suddenly, this thing.

  Of course, Eddie was not around to witness this. Which was too bad. He would lose his mind when he found out. Still, we were kind of on a need-to-know basis these days, Eddie and me. We’d been friends since we were ten years old. So I didn’t say shit to him about him always dogging younger girls and his swoopy gelled-up hair, and he never said shit about why I broke his nose right before Valentine’s Day and he had to go to the St. Albans Dance looking like hell. I could have told him why, of course. But when I tried to explain, he said he knew, and then we just waited in silence in the principal’s office, him holding the ice pack the nurse gave him, until our parents showed up.

  My phone beeped. As if Eddie’d realized I was on to something. He’d sent his typical text. Too lazy for words, he’d only send photos, and they were usually gross. Porn shots or whatever. This time it was a shot of two horses fucking. I wondered what it meant, but couldn’t text back or laugh, because me and Hallie were sitting around the bonfire and she was surrounded with her friends and they were whispering and laughing and the girl Hallie’d been playing Frisbee with said, “He’ll be perfect,” and another one added, “Way better than fucking Dan,” and then Hallie looked at me and smiled and I was so embarrassed that I got up and went to take a piss in the bushes.

  I mean, this was fun and everything, but she was going to college, and I had another year of dumbass high school.

  Fuck.

  I finished pissing. I turned around. And there was Hallie.

  “Hey,” I said. Hoping to god she hadn’t been watching me piss.

  “I thought you were leaving,” she said.

  “No, me and Eddie are camping out all night.”

  “Did you set up your tent yet?”

  “No. Maybe he did. I don’t know.” I thought of the horses fucking photo. Wondered if that meant the tent was now occupied?

  Then, though I’d barely had done up my belt, with no plan or asking or anything, I just moved forward, closer, kind of towered over her, in a way that made her seem smaller than before, in a way that made me want to scoop her up and put her in my pocket, like she might run away. Before something else about this weird, good situation would break. I just reached out to her waist and hooked her toward me, my hand gripping the edge of her skirt, looking for anything to grab onto. And I kissed her. I was sorta wasted and not thinking much beyond GRAB SMASH GIRL.

  But she was into it. Which was amazing in itself. Because it couldn’t have been that smooth. She was on her tiptoes, wobbling in those damn cowboy boots. But somehow, it worked.

  So we made out. Nothing really involved. I maybe touched her boob over her shirt a little by accident, but it was mostly kissing. This all went down with us both up against a tree in the dark, away from the rest of the party. She smelled like bonfire and tasted like beer, but her mouth was super soft and warm.

  After a little while, she pushed back from me, folded her fingers beneath my belt, looked down. Right at The Horn I was rocking there. Jesus.

  “Carenna and I set up our tent already,” she said. “She might already be in it. But do you want to go and see? It might be more private . . .”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Do you want to get another beer?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No.”

  We walked quickly toward where all the tents were, between the house and cornfield. Nobody saw us. And we didn’t say a word to each other. She checked that her tent was empty and then she told me to take off my shoes, so I did, and stood there while she took off her cowboy boots. Then we went inside.

  Once she zipped the flap shut, bam! We were back at it.

  Except now she was under me on top of a bunch of sleeping bags and blankets. I didn’t check my watch, but it couldn’t have been that long until we were both stripped down to our underwear. But maybe it was longer, because of the way it happened. My shirt for her shirt. Then her bra, but only after I spent a lot of time feeling over it. Then my jeans. Then her skirt. There was a strict kind of order for the whole thing, unlike the other drunk hookups I’d had. But I followed everything she did. I was so turned on I would have done anything she said, anyway. Except she didn’t say anything. It was mostly signals: her hands going here or pushing mine there.

  Finally, she did talk, though. Just as her hand went down my boxers and started rubbing my dick, she said, “We can’t have sex, okay, Sean? I can’t yet. Okay?”

  What? “Okay,” I said.

  “You’re not mad?”

  Was she kidding? We were almost naked. My hands were on her tits. She was giving me a handjob. Why would I be mad?

  “Why would I be mad?”

  “I don’t know. We just can’t do it tonight. But I’ve thought about it, and I’ve got this plan, okay? I’m not just being a prude.”

  JESUS. I was about to come all over her, pretty much, and she was talking about being a prude?

  “Obviously you’re not,” I said. “Not that you’re . . . you know . . .” I sort of nudged her hand off my dick so I could actually talk like a normal person.

  “A slut?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just . . . what’s your plan?”

  “It’s not really a plan,” she breathed into my ear. “More of a rationale.”

  “Okay...”

  “If we do it t
onight, then what would we do next weekend?” She laughed in my ear and all my hair stood on end. Christ.

  “Next weekend . . .?”

  “Well, that’s when we’ll go out on a real date. Next Friday’s my birthday and I turn eighteen. So we could do something fun for that. Okay?”

  I felt like a baby again. I wouldn’t turn eighteen for months.

  But I just said okay, and we kissed again, but her hand didn’t go back into my boxers. Which was fine. Everything else was so great. Her body, her whispering into my ear, all of it weird, but still great.

  Then a girl voice shout-whispered right outside the tent.

  “Hallie? The cops are here!”

  We got dressed faster than hell. It was a total disaster. My watch snagged on the sleeping bag. She couldn’t find her shirt. The tent flap zipper jammed. She wanted to run toward the house, and I knew they’d check there and all the other outbuildings, so I had to convince her to go toward the cornfield. It was like she’d never been caught at anything and didn’t know how to be sneaky, almost.

  When we’d gotten to the tree with the deer stand, she looked at me like I was crazy.

  “You want me to climb a tree?”

  “The deer stand’s up there. It’s like a little platform. We can sit on it. You’ll see it soon enough. Grab the little wooden handholds. It’s not that high up.”

  “How do I know those handholds are safe?”

  “They’re fine! I nailed them up myself! Just go!” I kind of just pushed her into it, put out my hands so I could boost her up, and then she laughed so loud I had to shush her. Seriously, she seemed like she’d never been busted before for anything. The climb wasn’t a big thing, given that Grandpa Chuck wasn’t the most fit old guy in the world, but Hallie hadn’t struck me as the tree-climbing type. Still she launched up that fucker in no time and I followed her, surprised at her speed. The Horn didn’t mind seeing flashes of her panties, either.

  But once up in the deer stand, I sat on the outer half of the platform while she clutched the tree trunk like she was scared now. We were quiet. Watching and listening. Flashlights scanning around the barn and outbuildings. Cops hollering. The red swooping glow of the cop-car lights making everything all swimmy and sickening. Reminding me of the day in February, my dad in the bathroom. Which was nothing I wanted to think about up here with Hallie.