I Represent Sean Rosen (14 page)

“No, Seany. He wasn't home much at night. Another slice?”

We don't usually talk about my grandfather. When my dad got back from the kitchen, I decided to keep going. “Where was he at night?”

“I don't know, really. Working, I guess. He was very ambitious. Too ambitious.”

I guess you could say I'm ambitious, too. If my dad knew what I've been doing, would he think I'm too ambitious? “What was Grandpa's job exactly?”

“We never exactly knew, Seany. Something with stocks or bonds. Something shady.”

I knew my grandfather got into some kind of big trouble, but I never knew what kind of trouble. Like I said, no one ever talks about him. I wonder what my dad means by “shady.” Is making up a manager so an entertainment company will talk to me shady? Is there a chance
I'll
get into big trouble?

I had a million more questions for my dad, but I think this conversation was making both of us nervous, so I went back to eating pizza and my dad unmuted the TV.

A
fter the TV show, I went upstairs and spent the next four hours watching those movies that Devin and Eva said my movie is like. They're so wrong. In
Back to the Future
, Marty goes to the past, but he can actually change history. Chris and Chloe can't change anything except the way they think about things from now on.

Marty doesn't have a crush on his grandmother like Chris in my movie. In
Back to the Future
Marty's mom has a crush on
him
. She keeps touching him and trying to kiss him. It's gross, actually. Marty's parents are pretty scary in the present and also in the past. In my movie we laugh at Chris and Chloe's parents and how in love they are with their iPhones, but we like them. And we know that the things that happen to them in the movie will change the way
they
think about things, too.

I guess I didn't see
17 Again
, because I remember movies really well, and I don't remember this one at all. Mike is a dad with two teenaged kids. He's kind of a failure. He's getting divorced and he's not getting promoted at his job. He jumps into the water one day for some reason, and he gets turned into himself at seventeen.

His body is seventeen, but in his mind, he's still thirty-seven. The movie is funny sometimes, but there are things that make it hard to believe. Now that Mike is seventeen again, he looks exactly the same as the first time he was seventeen. But his wife, who was his girlfriend back then, doesn't recognize him. Mike is missing and there's this new guy who looks exactly like Mike used to look, but she doesn't know it's Mike. Neither do his kids. His daughter gets a crush on him and tries to kiss him, and his son becomes his best friend. Didn't these kids ever see a picture of their dad?

Back to the Future
and
17 Again
are about people getting another chance to fix something that didn't work out the first time. My movie is about looking at someone you thought you knew and finding out you actually didn't know them. Your grandparents were once kids just like you, and maybe even kids you would have really liked.

I don't think anyone turns into a whole new person when they get old. Maybe the reason they're so annoying now is they're mad they're not young anymore. Grandpa's virtual reality time machine doesn't let you change history. It just lets you see it.

My mom got home from work at about one in the morning. I heard her car drive up. I was in bed watching
The Bucket List
. I was only using one earbud so I'd be able to hear her. I quickly put my laptop under the covers so it would look like my room was dark and I was asleep. I paused the movie just in case.

I heard her come into the house. Usually when she comes home from working at night, she likes to eat something and have a drink. Like an alcohol drink.

I put the other earbud back in and started the movie again. A few minutes later, I felt this very light tapping on the top of my head, which was covered by the blanket. I took the earbuds out. “If it's bright enough for you to see under the covers, it's bright enough for me to see from the driveway. Also from under your door. Just for future reference.” I took the covers off my head. “What are you watching?”

“
The Bucket List
.”

“Don't worry. We're not making you stay with Grandma.”
The Bucket List
is about old people.

“Mom . . . do I remind you of Grandpa? Not your dad. Dad's.” I was actually scared to hear her answer.

“No, Sean. You're nothing like Grandpa.” She sat down next to me on the bed. “Why did you ask me that?”

“I don't know. Who do I remind you of?”

“Sean Rosen.”

That answer is so my mom. “Was Grandpa the one who didn't want you and Dad to get married?”

My mom laughed. “The
one
? One of four. It was unanimous. None of them thought we should get married.”

“Why were they like that? That makes me mad at them.”

“No, sweetie. Don't blame them. I didn't. We were very young. Even though your dad and I were a couple for three years and we had our own apartment, he was still only twenty-two and I was twenty-one. We were just graduating from college.”

“Well,
you
were.”

“Right. Though it felt like your dad graduated, too. He was there the whole time. Except for classes.”

“Did your parents like Dad?”

“They really didn't
get
him. A lot of people didn't back then.” She thought for a few seconds. “I always got him.”

“Did the Rosens get
you
?”

“Not really, but they thought I was good for him. And even though they never met anyone like me and I never met anyone like them, we always just . . . liked one another. They came to my graduation, even though your dad didn't finish.”

“If they liked you, why didn't they want you to get married?”

“Sean . . . the Rosens had a lot going on back then. And no one believed your dad was ready to settle down. No one except me. But I'm leaving out part of the story. One big reason none of them wanted us to get married . . . was that we did it right after graduation.”

“What's wrong with that?”

My mom looked embarrassed. “I mean
right
after graduation. The wedding was three hours later. We planned it that way so our parents would all be there. But we didn't tell them the plan until graduation was over.”

“That afternoon was the first time you ever mentioned it?” She nodded. I thought about it. “That actually explains a lot.”

“We never regretted it, Sean.”

“Did everyone come?

“Everyone? Yeah, our parents and the three other people we invited. It wasn't much fun. We just . . . had to do it. Wait! I don't mean we
had
to do it. I mean, I wasn't . . .”

“I got it, Mom.”

“We both just really wanted to be married. And we didn't want a big fuss.”

“I guess you guys deserve a new honeymoon.”

She kissed me good night. “Put the laptop away.”

The door closed. My pillow felt so good. What an amazing day. Mom, I'm sorry. You told me so much interesting stuff tonight, and I didn't tell you that in this very room, while you were at work, I sold my first movie to Hollywood. Maybe.

A
t school the next day I kept thinking that this was Stefanie V. President's last day of work before going on maternity leave. Before she pops. I once actually saw a video of a baby being born, and when it came out, it didn't exactly pop. I didn't see every second of it because I covered my eyes part of the time.

Did Stefanie really like my movie, or was she just being nice to a kid? She said she would definitely be in touch with Dan Welch. Wait a minute. What if she wants to call him? There was no phone number in his e-mail to her. He doesn't
have
a phone number.

What if she asks Brad to Google Dan Welch Management to get his phone number? He doesn't have a website. Dan Welch Management won't even come up on Google. But Collectibles Dan Welch might. I'm glad his website is UNameitIGotit.com and not DanWelch.com

Even if I wanted to get a phone number for Dan Welch, I can't. You have to have your own credit card. A lot of kids do, but I don't. Then you have to go somewhere to get the phone and the phone number, and someone over twenty-one has to actually sign something. It's not like on the internet, when they ask if you're over eighteen and you say yes, and nobody ever checks. So if Stefanie wants to call Dan, she won't be able to.

I just thought of something else. That time I called Brad pretending I was Dan Welch's assistant, I said my name was Chris. Chris is also the name of the kid in
A Week with Your Grandparents
. I can't believe I did that.

I wonder if Brad figured it out. I actually don't think so. I'm not saying he isn't smart, but at the beginning of the Skype meeting, he acted as nervous as I was. Actually, I think they were all a little nervous. Maybe everyone gets nervous.

The day went by very, very slowly. History felt like it lasted a century. Mr. Knapp is always boring, but today, as my grandmother (Thorny) would say, “He outdid himself.”

Then there was French.
Merde!
(I'm not going to translate that.) Mademoiselle Fou decided we would read out loud today. We do that sometimes, usually from the textbook. Last year we read
Le Petit Prince
(
The Little Prince
). Today she said we're going to read the first chapter of a book by a French writer named Marcel Proust.

Mademoiselle Fou handed out copies that she made herself from the original book. She used a paperback, and she obviously doesn't know how to enlarge things. Each page of the copy had a lot of empty space, and then in one corner, a copy of the small paperback book, with tiny writing.

Brianna was whispering something to me, and I suddenly hear, “Gaston, why don't you begin.” She was talking to me. Gaston is my French name. Everyone has to have a French name. In my row, Aurora is Celine, Jeremy is Remie, and I'm Gaston.

I was shocked that Mademoiselle Fou called on me. I didn't even raise my hand. I started to read, and she said,
“Ici.” Ici
means “here.” She was pointing to the front of the room. We usually read from our seats. I hate it when I have to stand in front of twenty-five kids I know.

It's different when you're in front of the whole school in a show, like
Le Bistro
last year. Completely different. The auditorium is dark and there are bright lights shining on you. You can't even see the audience. Plus in
Le Bistro
it wasn't
me
up there. I was playing a character. Plus I knew I was doing a show that day. I rehearsed. I was ready. Today was a sneak attack.

So I'm standing there, and I look at the first sentence of the book. I never heard of Marcel Proust, but he (or she) uses a lot of French words I never saw before. I can't completely see them now, because besides the words being so small, it looks like Mademoiselle Fou took the book off the copy machine before it was finished copying. So some of the words are s t r e t c h e d o u t.

She also didn't open the book wide enough, so the words look like they're falling into the crack. You can't always tell what the first letter of a line is.

I asked Mademoiselle Fou if she had Marcel Proust's actual book with her. She said,
“Pourquoi?”
(“Why?”) I told her the copy was a little hard to read. She said,
“La vie n'est pas facile.”
(“Life isn't easy.”) A few kids laughed. Most of them didn't know what she said.

I started reading, and after every word she interrupted me and said,
“Non.”
(“No.”) Then she said the word I just said, correcting my pronunciation. Sometimes I had a feeling that
I
was right and
she
was wrong, but I didn't say that, because I wasn't completely sure. What really got me mad was when she stopped me and then pronounced the word exactly the same way
I
did. After the third time, I couldn't take it anymore.

“That's what I just said!”

A couple of kids went, “Ooooh” and Jeremy said, “Uh oh.” Mademoiselle Fou looked at me for a few seconds, then she said,
“Tu as tort. Assieds-toi.”
(“You are wrong. Sit down.”) I sat down, and after that she didn't make anyone else try to read Marcel Proust.

I didn't feel like I did anything wrong, but I was still embarrassed. It was like your friends' parents fighting in front of you, except it was
me
.

How did this happen? How can the best day of my life be followed by one of the worst? I want to go home, but I don't have the energy to pretend I'm sick. After French I went to hide in the Publication Room, but there was an editors' meeting for the school newspaper. I waved to Brianna. She's the fashion editor. The newspaper never had a fashion editor before, but Brianna talked them into it. She waved back, then made a sad face. She knows the whole Mademoiselle Fou story.