A Life Guide To Prolonging the Inevitable

Chapter 5

            Friday, June 10th, 2011

            The phone was up against Jordan’s ear, and we were crouching behind a dumpster in the parking lot of Frigid Ridge Ice-Cream Parlor. She’d gotten the phone number from the “Quick Pick-Up!” sign taped to the glass window in front, and my heart was practically beating out of my chest.

            “Don’t worry, Charlie,” she told me, sensing my anxiety right away. “Just relax. Everything’s going to go exactly like we—”

            Someone picked up, and immediately Jordan’s voice changed; it was suddenly frog-like and trembling, like she spent all her time eating applesauce, knitting, and forgetting how to use a turn-signal. I let my forehead drop into the palm of my head.

            “Hello, son,” she croaked, and I was sure the mission would be terminated right then and there. “I was wondering if Shane Griffith is available, please. This is his mother, and I need to speak to him about—Oh, thank you, my boy.” She mouthed the word “ow” when I smacked her on the arm.

            “His mom’s not ninety, Jordan!” I hissed at her.

            “I panicked, alright?!” She whispered back, covering the mouthpiece with her hand. “Be quiet! I hear rustling on the other end.”

            Both of us shut up. We waited ten seconds. Thirty seconds. Forty-five seconds. Then we heard a deep, nonchalant, “Hello?” come from the ear-piece, and our eyes went wide. Jordan shut her cell phone with a snap, and just like that, Operation Nads was back in action.

            “Alright. He’s on the clock. Go,” she told me, and she pushed me out from behind the dumpster. I stumbled forward and my ankles wobbled in the wedged-heels we’d just bought, but I regained my balance and straightened up. I smoothed out my halter dress and began to strut—though I’d never ‘strutted’ anywhere in my whole life, and I seriously hoped it wasn’t that obvious—toward the front entrance to the parlor. From over my shoulder, I heard Jordan whisper, “Remember: don’t let him figure out who you are, and don’t leave without getting his phone.”

            “Okay,” I whispered back.

            “Good luck, girl. Knock him on his ass.”

            But as the door swung open and I stepped in, I didn’t think I had enough vitality to knock a two-ounce chipmunk on its ass. I was hit by the overwhelmingly-sweet smell of sprinkles and processed cherries, and my legs turned to rubber. I suddenly couldn’t breathe, and I felt like there was more adrenalin in my body right now than blood flow.

            Still, I managed to stumble over to the ice-cream counter and slip into one of the swiveling barstools. I caught my breath and let my muscles uncoil with every inhale. I shouldn’t be scared, I told myself. Not at all. We had a plan, and it was a damn good one. It consisted of four major keypoints, and if done correctly, each one would move us closer to shattering his confidence like he’d shattered mine.

            The first step of Operation Nads: Shane’s appearance. You know when you think someone’s really hot before you formally meet them? Then you find out they’re a raging asshole, and somehow they’re not so attractive anymore. That was the theory behind our objective today. We couldn’t attack the good looks themselves—not without a flamethrower and a definite lawsuit, anyway—but we could easily attack the benefits of his good looks. If we couldn’t destroy the source, then we would destroy the by-products, and the biggest by-product to being a hot male is the females who chase after you. If things went as planned in this ice-cream parlor today, we would make it so every girl in this hellhole of a town thought that Shane Griffith was an absolutely disgusting excuse for a human being.