“Shut up,” Zoey mumbled. “You were such a scaredy cat you didn’t even come with me to that party. Now, just for the sake of argument, why would such a completely moronic contest would make Rusty Parker smart?”
“You know. Because he thinks of all kinds of things no one else thinks about.” Zoey was on his side. She didn’t want to corner him, but he was the one asking for it.
“Yeah. Like having a luau party. In December. Even Judy Dartwood said she froze her tits off. And she has some melons.” Zoey gestured surreptitiously to make a point. “You know, there’s a lot of protective fat there.” Part admiration, part envy commingled in her voice.
“Zoey, I’m not talking to you about melons,” Matty said in resignation, knowing that it wasn’t entirely up to him if they did or did not.
“Melons are a perfectly healthy fruit,” Zoey commented. “So, we concur that Rusty Parker is super smart, right?”
Matty nodded. He was feeling a bit better already. “Next.”
“All right,” Zoey agreed. “Rusty Parker is a complete meathead,” she recited from the invisible list.
“That’s not true,” Matty protested again. “That’s not where the meat of Rusty Parker is.”
Zoey grinned and her eyes glinted with mischief. She pedantically lifted her long hair and wrapped it into a bun on the crown of her head. Then, she pushed a pencil through it to keep it in place. “Am I rocking the sexy librarian look yet?” That was random. That was Zoey.
Matty looked at her and made a suffering face. “Wrong dude to ask, Zoey. But, if it helps, I think you might be able to scare off some crows if you choose your location well.”
She threw a French fry at him. “Shut up, virgin.”
Matty grinned. Since they were considered hamster-weight, it was okay for all of their matches to consist of hits below the belt. They could hardly hurt each other. “Really,” he said with a sigh, “even if Rusty Parker plays basketball, that doesn’t mean he’s a meathead.”
“As you say, my friend,” Zoey said with a shrug.
“Hey, you’re supposed to be the devil’s advocate here,” Matty reminded her.
“Right, right. Let’s continue. Rusty Parker is a total womanizer.”
Matty deflated considerably. Yeah, he could extol on Rusty’s amazing looks and intellect – which the guy used mainly for throwing some of the hottest parties on campus – all he wanted, but he couldn’t deny that. “You really had to go there,” he said, but without any real reproach.
Zoey offered him a sympathetic smile. “Come on, Matty, you know what to do.”
“Zoey, I’m not putting on a cat boy suit. Xpress is talking shit.”
Zoey groaned in frustration. “Could you at least try? Maybe, just maybe, this one time, Xpress is not talking shit. If he’s into cat boys, and you dress up as a cat boy, that’s your best chance.”
“Of making a fool of myself? And where would I even wear such a costume? While attending Mrs. Lane’s class on human resource management?”
Zoey took a long sip from her soda. “That’s some really forward thinking there, Matty. I like it.”
“Oh, come on,” Matty groaned and rolled his eyes. “Not even in a cat boy suit would Rusty Parker ever acknowledge I exist.”
Zoey narrowed her eyes. “He totally would. Come on, you have the perfect body for wearing a cat suit. Wait, didn’t you just say that you crashed into Rusty? How did that go?”
Suddenly, Matty felt less in the mood to share, mainly because he knew what Zoey would say.
“Come on, was all this build up for nothing?” Zoey insisted.
“All right,” Matty admitted reluctantly. “I bumped into him by mistake, I landed on my ass, and he gave me back my glasses.”
“Did you introduce yourself?” Zoey asked, this time with wide excited eyes.
Matty sank low in his chair. “I ran away.”
Zoey didn’t say anything but let her hands speak for her. Her small fists cut through the air, mimicking a strangling motion, then they shook up and down, only to spread into open palms as if she had just dropped Matty into a heap of self-loathing. “That’s it,” she said. Marty shrank in his chair at the determined look in her eyes. “This year, you’re going to get Rusty Parker to know who you are. You’ll wear a cat boy suit, a bear boy suit, a pelican boy suit, I don’t care. You’re going to do it.”
“Um, says you?” Matty asked cautiously.
“Come on, Matty, do you really want your college years to end on a ‘what if’ note? And what are you afraid of, anyway?”
Matty knew very well what he was afraid of. But could Zoey understand him? Once he learned for a fact that Rusty Parker would never be interested in knowing good ol’ plain Matthew Han, was there anything else left? Sure, he was cute, Zoey said that much, he took care of his body, lifting weights and whatnot, but his genes could only do so much. He had a feeling that even if he were ever into guys, Rusty Parker would like some muscle god or someone like that.
Zoey snapped her fingers in front of him to bring him back to reality. “Matty, no one says you have to do it all in one step.”
“What steps are we even talking about when it comes to cat boys? Should I start communicating through meows of varying intensities?”
“No, but you could start getting out of your nerdy clothes more, and into cooler ones. You really have a nice body.”
“Yeah, if you’re into Korean boy bands,” Matty mumbled.
“Which I totally am,” Zoey said. “Do you have any idea how much I envy you? It’s because of your grand-grandfather that you have perfect skin. Don’t make me want to kill you in your sleep so that I can peel off your skin and dress myself in it.”
“Wow, that turned into Silence of the Lambs fast,” Matty commented.
“Silence of the what?”
He wouldn’t go on a tangent now and talk about old movies. “Never mind. Come on, Zoey, it’s my curse. I’m just pretty enough for girls to like me. It would be so much easier if I didn’t like guys, right?”
Zoey leaned back into her chair and crossed her arms. “Matthew Han, you’re not saying what I think you’re saying. Grow some guts, or some balls, or whatever. Get a cat boy suit. Try it on, study in it, until, you know, it feels like a second skin.”
“It sounds to me more like a recipe for a descent into madness,” Matty said and buried his face in his palms. “But I suppose you’re right. This year is now or never. Who knows if I’ll ever get to see Rusty again once we finish school?” The answer was pretty obvious. “All right,” he said, trying to sound as determined as possible.
“For real?” Zoey clapped her hands in glee. “Look, you’ll have to dish out some real cash. You’ll also need a wig, okay? None of that cheap stuff, not when it comes to something as important as this.”
“Great.” Matty let out a sigh. “I suppose I can continue to tutor, at least for some time.”
“Do that. It will be money well spent.”
“Make sure my folks never hear about it. They’ll blow a gasket.”
“Does it say ‘traitor’ above my head?” Zoey pointed to an invisible point up in the air.
“I’m counting on it, okay? They told me ‘no tutoring’ this year. They want to make sure I graduate with a good GPA.”
“They shouldn’t worry,” Zoey said. “You’re like only second to Jonathan Hamilton in this place.”