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in hairstyle and gelling technique, every pair of patterned socks peeking out beneath his smartly tapered jeans was impeccable.
    Each day at 2:20 p.m. I gathered the courage to attempt an introduction. And each day, just as I was about to speak, the damn bell would ring. I failed to see, of course, that the problem wasn’t the timing of the bell but my own confidence. The bell could’vebeen late by five minutes or two hours or four weeks, and I still wouldn’t have spoken. If the bell never rang again I probably would’ve spent all of eternity in a panicked silence, unable to simply turn and say, Hello. I’m David .
    In lieu of speaking to Greg, I spent that fall trying an assortment of nonverbal ways to get his attention. In the bleachers I would cough extraloud to see if I could get him to flinch behind those black-lensed Ray-Bans. Was he even listening to music? I thought, straining to hear any sound coming from his headphones as I whooped and gagged. By the end of that week, my persistent hacking had convinced at least one person that I was deathly ill.
    â€œTake a hint, Typhoid Mary,” growled Coach Allen as he dumped a handful of Halls cough drops into my palm after gym. “You sound like you’re drilling for oil out there.”
    Every day, as fifty of us walked across the gymnasium floor to run laps outside, Greg stayed behind with a few other boys scattered in the bleachers. As the weather got chillier, the activities moved indoors. Throughout November, as I repeatedly failed to serve a volleyball correctly, Greg sat in the bleachers writing in his wire-bound notebook, somehow exempt from participation. What was wrong with Greg that kept him from physical activity? More important, what was wrong with me that I still couldn’t speak to him?
    The week before Thanksgiving break I tried a new tactic, using the Sony Discman my mom had just gotten me. It was the gray model with orange control buttons, just like Greg’s. I sat in front of him and made a point of jamming out extra-hard to my music, practically banging my head to Jody Watley’s “Looking for aNew Love.” After roll call I made a huge production of putting the Discman away, delicately winding the headphones around it like I was swaddling a preemie.
    That’s just like my Discman! I imagined Greg thinking when he saw it. It’s a sign. I’ve gotta talk to this friendless, little typhus-ridden dude who dresses like a Mormon missionary .
    But nothing.
    Greg wasn’t so expressionless when I saw him in the courtyard with his friends, a group of cool boys who weren’t identified with any specific clique. They weren’t jocks, but they weren’t bookish. They weren’t alternative kids, but they weren’t quite preps, either. They wore clothes a bit more expensive than the ones my mom could afford: brown leather Bass shoes and fitted Guess jeans cuffed at the ankle, plaid Gap shirts tucked behind woven brown leather belts. My favorite thing about them was their scent, which was strong enough to let you know they were near before you saw them. They didn’t smell like all the Eternity-drenched athletes in the locker room. Their more obscure colognes smelled sweeter and spicier. Sitting downwind of Greg every day in the bleachers, I could smell the wondrous, manly musk of him behind me. I had to find that remarkable scent.
    In the mall on Black Friday I went to the magazine section of B. Dalton books, where I lingered until the register was so busy that no employees were on the floor. And then I began my research, looking through men’s magazines like GQ and Details for cologne samples. I checked over each shoulder to make sure no one was watching before I began to tear open the glued-down paper strips, quickly smearing my wrists, forearms, and elbow crooks with Escape, Joop!, Cool Water, and Drakkar Noir. I moved quickly from magazine to magazine,trying to remember which scent I