o 76d8dbacab476b0a (7 page)

For a moment, you think she’s said, “I hate you, Ducky.” But she hasn’t.

Not yet.

“I do,” she says. “I hate what’s happening. I hate the way you look scared whenever I talk to you. I hate the way you stand there but sort of back up, like with your eyes, you know? Detach.

Distance yourself. I hate myself for kissing you, because I should have known something like this would happen. If I could unkiss you, I would. Totally. In a heartbeat.”

“Oh,” you say.

One of the retrievers has managed to put three balls into its mouth. It is trying to pick up a fourth, but so far, no luck.

Sunny elbows you. “Your turn,” she says.

“You’d unkiss me?” you say. “That’s not very flattering.”

“Ducky,” she says in a warning voice.

“Yeah,” you say. And then, words come, more or less. You tell her how completely miserable you’ve been. That you can’t sleep. That it’s not her fault and you’re sorry about the scared look, but it wasn’t fear of what she would do, it was fear of your own reaction. You believed that if you reacted wrong, you would scorch her feelings and ruin your friendship and it’s the one thing in the whole wide world you couldn’t stand. You love Sunny way too much and have for way too long to feel any differently, to feel in love. You don’t know why, but it’s not there. It’s something just as strong, maybe stronger. You say, “Some people are meant to be just boyfriend and girlfriend. But others are meant to be best friends.”

“Best friends,” says Sunny, seeming to perk up. “Nah.”

“You don’t wanna be my best friend?” you ask, pretending you’re hurt.

“You mean it?” she asks.

“Forever and always,” you say.

Sunny sighs and leans against you for a minute. You feel comfortable and happy and you put your arm around her and you sit there, pondering love and life and golden retrievers and Jack Russells.

Then Sunny straightens. “Don’t get all mush-brained on me,” she says. “That’s probably why I kissed you in the first place — the mush factor of summer.”

“And I thought it was my unique sense of style,” you joke back.

Sunny rolls her eyes. “I’ll give you unique,” she says.

You laugh. “You’re the one who dreams of personalized bowling shirts,” you say.

And Sunny laughs.

It feels so good.

Best friends.

Later

You are no longer hanging out in the parking lot of the grocery store.

You actually went in and bought cleaning supplies.

However, you no longer feel the need to KEEP BUSY in a PRODUCTIVE WAY.

You are now watching a bad flick, in which a monster from outer space is taking over a movie set.

You are debating the difference between science fiction and horror.

You wonder why teachers never give these questions as assignments: describe your summer vacation in terms of: a) a horror movie or b) a science fiction flick.

You would like to point out that summer vacations exist only in the minds of children and teachers. You personally have had far too much to do this summer.

And you don’t mean the bookstore.

The movie will have a happy ending. The bad guy will get turned into monster mash.

You are rooting for the monster to go on to become a movie star and then president of the United States, just like Ronald Reagan!!!

Does your summer have a happy ending?

Hard to say. Not definite. No screen kiss fade to credits.

As first kisses go, for example (you are not counting that time in third grade) this was fairly unsuccessful. You will need more lip-lock learning.

Later.

And not with Sunny.

Some things are like that. Some things end, roll the credits, everybody lives happily ever after.

You believe this is true even in real life.

Sometimes.

Occasionally.

But you, Duckster, know that you are not John Wayne. You are not that kind of hero and you don’t get that kind of ending, at least not this time.

You and Sunny have this kind of ending: Your friendship endured. Maybe it will be stronger, better.

Or maybe not.

Meanwhile, you’ve both just agreed that enough has been said, and no more needs to be done.

Time to let it go. Time to let it slide.

It’s like a piece of your back story. Maybe someday you’ll look back and laugh.

Or not.

Only time will tell.

You just have to go with that.

Sept. 4

9:00 A.M.

School Looms

Like, practically tomorrow, if you don’t count Sunday.

Why wouldn’t you count Sunday?

Don’t get into religion now, Ducky.

It makes people unconformable. Even more uncomfortable than talking about sex.

You don’t feel comfortable with either subject, so moving right along. …

Busy, busy, like, you know, busy.

Let’s count Saturday, anyway. You know how you feel about Saturday.

In just a few hours you, Ducky, will be the Saturday-night party animal.

Why yes. You are having a party. At your house. With your parents’ long-distance permission.

When you talked to them, you listened while they discussed the Greek influence in Roman

mosaics and the confluence of cultural cross-fertilization.

You thought this sounded like either sex or gardening but you had sense enough to keep your mouth shut. You heard the strangled sound Ted made and knew he was trying not to laugh.

Then your mother mentioned the possibility that she and your father might try a cooking class vacation.

“Sounds great, Mom,” Ted said in his “Sincerely Your Son, Ted” voice.

“Mmm,” you said. “Speaking of cooking, Mom, I’m thinking of cooking up a back-to-school get-together for my friends.”

“How nice,” said she.

“What sort of party?” asked your father, not to be fooled for an instant by soft words and creative segues.

“Just a few friends,” you say.

“Define a few,” your father says.

“Eight to twelve.”

In fact, if you are able to muster twelve friends, you’ve got friends you didn’t know you had, but you don’t want to explore that with your parents or Ted.

“That sounds nice,” your mother says, heading off further interrogation. “You’ll be there, won’t you, Ted?”

“Count on me,” Ted says heartily, in that same voice.

“I thought we could cook out,” you let slip, before realizing you are venturing into the land of too much information. Your mother says, “Be careful. Wear oven mitts.”

Your father says, “Use the fire-starting chimney, NOT lighter fluid.”

“I know,” you say. Then you let him tell you about the dangers of lighter fluid and how people have crisped themselves squirting it into open flames.

Then you realize that talking about cooking out has diverted them from their cross-examination mode and you say, “Well, maybe we’ll just do pizza or something.”

Relieved, your father says, heartily (and sounding disconcertingly Ted-like), “Well, that’s fine, then. That’s great.”

You get off the phone before they can think of any more questions or dispense any more advice.

You think about reassuring them that you won’t burn down the house, but you decide against it.

Smart boy, that Ducky.

Okay, okay, you haven’t written all week.

Oh, sure, you can find the time to write about all the STUFF, the DIRE COMPLICATIONS, the EXTREME DIFFICULTIES of your life. Those you chronicle faithfully.

After all, that’s what your journal is about, isn’t it? Problems. Previously, mostly other people’s problems.

So is this progress? That you have spent days, weeks, hours, hand-cramping aeons [sic]

worrying about and writing about a problem of your own? To the point of seeming self-

centered?

Who knows?

Or maybe you prefer the problems of other people. Is that sick, or what? But you can offer other people:

Sympathy, or

Advice, or

Help.

With your own life, you realize that sympathy is nice, advice may or may not be useful

depending on the source, and help?

Help is not something that necessarily fixes the problem.

In the end,

YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.

As if you didn’t know that already.

But enough of this obsession with your problems, Christopher.

Let’s show this journal the fun side of your life.

As in: the party that will soon start.

As in: happy endings (or at least, a few pretty good moments, you hope).

Uh-oh. Big crash in the kitchen. Better check it out.

THE STORY OF TED,

YOUR BROTHER

THE CRASH TEST DUMMY

So this is the sitcom moment that meets your eyes as you scope out what caused the minor earthquake somewhere in your house.

Your brother is entangled, in a bad way, with the vacuum cleaner.

Also a chair, some of a small rug (which is in the vacuum cleaner nozzle), and a former vase of flowers.

The vacuum is sucking that rug. Ted is kicking at the vacuum. The cord of the vacuum is wrapped around one of the chair legs.

D: Ted, I don’t think you should be doing that with the vacuum.

T: GET THIS OFF ME.

D: But how do you really feel?

T: I’m warning you, Christopher.

D: I feel your pain!

T: (unprintable expressions of frustration and vacuum rage)

So you take pity on the guy, walk over, and pull the plug.

The vacuum spits out the rug.

You unwrap Ted from its embrace.

You say, “Ted? What were you doing?”

Ted stands up and glares. Then he rocks your world. He says, “Well, since you’re having a party tonight, I thought I’d maybe clean up a little.”

You grab the chair, right it, and collapse into it.

Ted says, “What?”

You reject jokes as inappropriate. Also, you don’t want to discourage Ted. You settle for, “Okay.

What happened?”

Ted shrugs. “I don’t know. I was vacuuming. Then it got the rug. So I stood on the other end of the rug to hold it down and try to yank it out. I guess I pulled the rug out from under me. I’m not sure how the chair got knocked over. Or the flowers.”

“It could happen to anyone.” You are trying SO HARD not to laugh and it is KILLING YOU.

Td says, “Yeah. Well, thanks for the help. I guess I’ll finish up in here and, uh, head out. You need anything for tonight?”

“Got it covered,” you assure him. “But thanks.”

“Anytime,” he says.

He waits until you leave to plug in the vacuum again. You resolve that no matter what happens, you will not go down to the family room again.

You hope Ted can’t hear you laughing in your room over the sound of the vacuum.

Maybe you should do a little cleaning too. Of course, you’ve been trying to impose order on chaos all week, so the task ahead is not too huge.

You hope.

A Midparty

Journal Moment

You almost wore the old bowling shirt you wore when you had that unfortunate kiss incident with Sunny.

But you decided against it. Too symbolic or something.

Sunny is not wearing a bowling shirt either. She still hasn’t found one with her name on it. She says she’s wearing something even more retro: an old gym shirt.

To which Maggie says, “Yuck.”

Sunny says, “It’s clean.”

The name embroidered over the pocket is “Elaine.”

It has snap buttons and no collar.

You like the look. Even with someone else’s name over the pocket. You tell her so.

She says, “It has shorts to go with it. But I couldn’t quite see it.”

“The skirt is better,” you agree.

Ted is upstairs with some buds, watching movies in his room. He comes out from time to time.

His excuse is a trip to the refrigerator for more stomach supplies, but you realize he is also keeping an eye on the party.

Does he expect it to turn into some kind of major Ted-style blowout?

He’s in for a disappointment.

You made it very clear that you did not want your friends telling everyone about a party in a parent-free house.

You like not having your parents around when you throw a party. You do not like being

responsible for what would be left of the house after word got out that you were having a party and not adults were around to spoil the fun. … Fun like puking in the plants and dancing on the tables and driving cars across the lawn and …

Gotta go.

YAWNS.

Later

So it was a good party, if you do say so yourself.

You ate junk food and played Frisbee in the backyard using a glow-in-the-dark Frisbee.

Amalia and Brendan seem to be getting along better; she no longer moves away when he puts his arm around her.

At the same time, you suspect that he’s being careful not to be too pushy.

It’s possible that once Amalia reached for Brendan’s hand for a moment.

You call a time-out from Frisbee and you go in to make pizzas (edible Frisbees, Sunny points out).

Sunny takes charge, organizing the ingredients, wrapping people in aprons made out of towels and tablecloths.

Maggie gets into rolling out the pizza dough on the kitchen table. “We’re going for the thin crust,” she tells everybody. “You can taste the flavors better that way.”

“Chef Maggie,” Dawn teases her and Maggie smiles.

Sunny puts you in charge of “Vegetables and Sharp Objects.” That means you have to chop up onions and peppers and even the pitted olives.

You sit across from Maggie and she talks about her mom a little. How she’s in treatment. How the doctors have high hopes. How she and Zeke visited her briefly and how different she already was. “Like she knows she has to do this,” Maggie says. “Like it’s important to her.”

“Good,” you say.

“Yeah,” Maggie says. “It is.”

Then she puts the dough in the pizza pan (you are a genius — you remembered to buy pizza pans when you bought the dough) and starts on another.

When the pizzas are done, you pizza out.

You go back outside, but only Amalia and Brendan have the energy to throw the Frisbee around.