Smiles to Go (9 page)

BT held out his hands, wrists together to be cuffed. “Take me to the poorhouse.”

“Not yet,” said Mi-Su. There was a new firmness in her voice. I expected her usual Operation Rescue BT, but this time it was different. She didn’t give him the $300; she handed it directly to me. She looked me in the eye, smiled, daring me to say something. And she wasn’t finished. She picked up her yellow title deed cards—Atlantic Avenue, Ventnor Avenue, Marvin Gardens—and plopped all three down in front of BT. Plus the houses she had built on them.

I was practically biting my tongue in half.

She arched an eyebrow. “You say something?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“You’re not going to reach for the rule book, are you?” She was grinning.

I pled ignorance. “Rule book? Me?”

“Because this isn’t money, you know. It’s property. And it’s not a loan. It’s a gift. It’s”—she beamed her smile on BT—“charity.”

“
Hot
dog!” piped BT. He put the green houses on the yellow properties. “Wheelin’ and dealin’.”

Mi-Su was now wearing her I’m-so-sincere face. “We’re not breaking any rule book rules here, are we, Willy?”

She knows I hate that name. “Not that I can see.”

“Because we sure don’t want to break any rules, do we, Willy?”

“Can’t have that,” I said.

There was more than Monopoly going on here, but I didn’t know what it was. I had a feeling that if I said the wrong word, she would leap across the board into his arms and shout out: “He’s the one I want!”

The game, if you can call it that, played out. BT, even with his windfall “gift,” still managed to blow it all and wound up broke as always. After that, Mi-Su made a string of stupid moves and declared bankruptcy. “You win, Will,” she said cheerily.

Walking home, I wondered who the real winner was.

PD149

I
’m dreaming. I’m standing behind Mi-Su. I know there’s a smile on her face but I can’t see it. I want to tell her to turn around. I keep trying but I can’t speak. I can feel my throat getting sore. And now something is coming out of my mouth, but it isn’t words. It’s tiny flashes. A glittery stream of them. Protons leaving me flying and dying into her black hair.

PD151

S
he was right. She didn’t get the role of Marian the librarian. She doesn’t care. She’s in the chorus, a citizen of River City. She gets to sing and dance.

“I can’t wait,” she said.

“Won’t you be nervous?” I said.

“Probably,” she said.

She sang a few notes. I clapped. She bowed. She threw out her arms. She blurted,

“I love it!”

PD155

M
onopoly. My house. I told Mi-Su if she came over early we could play a little chess. Still maneuvering for alone time. So here she was, with the pizzas. Of course, Tabby was here, too, but I had that problem covered. I had lured her upstairs with
Finding Nemo
on the DVD player.

So we were alone in the basement, but my mind wasn’t on chess. It was where it’s been since this new idea came to me yesterday. I moved a bishop. I yawned, acted casual. “Hey,” I said, “I just thought of something.”

“What?” she said, mulling over her next move.

“
Goop
is playing at the Cineplex.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Deep breath…casual…casual…

“Wanna go?”

“Okay.”

“So I was thinking next Saturday? Instead of Monopoly?”

“Okay.”

Yes!

I wasn’t happy for long. BT arrived. Tabby heard him and abandoned Nemo and we were all standing there and hadn’t even opened the pizzas when Mi-Su says to BT, “We’re going to the movies next week instead of Monopoly.”

“Yeah?” he said. “What are we gonna see?”

“
Goop
.”

Tabby shrieked. “Ooo! Ooo! Can I come?”

“It’s scary,” said Mi-Su. “You’re too little.”

Tabby stood at attention. “I’m not little. I’m big.” She flopped into Mi-Su’s lap. “Please!
Pleeeeeeze!
”

“You
are
little! You’re not even in first grade! You’re an infant!”

I wondered who was shouting—and realized it was
me
. Everyone was staring. Tabby was clinging to Mi-Su. Snap #2.

Hey, listen, sorry about that. Tabby just got caught in the crossfire. She’s not the one I’m mad at. I’m mad at you, BT. And you, Mi-Su. Because when I said
WE
could go to the movies, the
WE
meant you and me. Not you and me
AND
BT.

That’s what I was thinking, but I didn’t say anything.

Mi-Su reached down over Tabby and counted out the money for her hotel. “Well,” she said, “that was quite the outburst. And a waste. The fact is, big girl”—she tweaked Tabby’s nose, Tabby giggled—“your mother isn’t going to let you go anyway.” She handed the money to me. I’m always the banker. She wasn’t smiling.

Am I losing Mi-Su already?

PD156

I
’m afraid she’s never going to smile at me again.

PD157

S
he did! As we passed in the hallway on the way to first period. And in algebra and
English. And at lunch. She smiled and talked and everything seemed normal.

I don’t see her much after school anymore. She’s busy rehearsing for
The Music Man
.

PD158

I
maginary conversation with BT:

“You’re still my best friend, OK?”

“OK.”

“Always will be.”

“Ditto.”

“But listen, this movie coming up Saturday night—it was supposed to be just me and Mi-Su.”

“Really? OK. I didn’t want to go anyway.”

“No, wait, let me explain. I mean, in my mind I was asking her for a date. Me and her. To the movies. OK? See, like, things are different now. I mean, we’re all still friends, I’m not saying we’re not. It’s just that, well, on Valentine’s night we—by ‘we’ I mean Mi-Su and I—we went to Smedley Park and I kissed
her and she kissed me back and it was, y’know, special. I mean, something sort of started between us. I really like her. I mean, as a girlfriend. I keep thinking about her. That’s why I asked her to the movies. And now it’s, like, the three of us, and I just thought maybe you ought to know that Mi-Su and I have this thing going—OK,
I
have this thing going, I’m still not sure about her—and, well, if you, y’know, like, decided you couldn’t make it Saturday night for some reason and Mi-Su and I had to go to the movie all by ourselves, alone, just the two of us, well, that would, like, be OK.”

“OK.”

“Uh, OK what?”

“OK.”

PD163

S
unday. In the dormer. Alone with the wedding gifts. Still trying to figure out what happened last night.

Mrs. Kelly drove us to the Cineplex. Mi-Su sat between me and BT in the backseat. Mrs. Kelly, the jokester, said, “No hanky-panky back there.” A minute later Mi-Su piped up, “Mom! They’re
both
trying to kiss me!” A few more minutes of nonsense, and then BT went to sleep. He does that a lot. He stays up all night and then nods off at odd times.

Mrs. Kelly dropped us off. The plan was for her to pick us up at eleven at the nearby Pizzarama. Glory be!—BT paid for his own ticket. And then whipped out a ten-dollar bill. “We went detecting last night,” he explained. A bucket of buttered popcorn and Peanut Chews and the bill was gone.

Ten minutes into
Goop
BT says, “This sucks.”

“It’s just getting started,” I said. “Give it a chance.”

We were all dipping into the bucket of popcorn, Mi-Su between us. She held the bucket. Sometimes all three of our hands were in it.

Five minutes later BT says, “I’m leaving.” He starts to get up.

Mi-Su clamps down on his arm. “No.”

I’m thinking:
Yes!

And wondering:
Why doesn’t she just let him go?

“It stinks,” said BT. “It’s a scary movie that isn’t scary. It’s not even funny.”

Mi-Su nodded. “It does stink. I’m going, too.” She turned to me. “Will?”

“What?” I said.

“Coming?”

Her eyes were glowing from the screen.

“You’re really going?” I said.

“Yeah. Come on.”

“We just paid money.”

“Money schmoney. Come on.”

Her glowing eyes were staring into mine.

“Stay,” I said.

On the other side of her, BT popped up—

“Bye”—and headed up the aisle.

“Coming?” said Mi-Su.

“No,” I said.

“Bye,” she said. She handed me the bucket of popcorn and took off.

I was stunned. Numb. It had all happened so fast, out of nowhere. I kept seeing her hand clamped on his arm. Her last words: “Coming?”
and “Bye.” She knew I wanted to stay, and she knew he wanted to go. She picked him. Instead of saying “Coming?” why couldn’t she have said, “Will, come on. Please. We don’t want to go without you.
I
don’t want to go without you.” But no. It was like an ultimatum: Coming?…No?…Bye. No hand tugging on
my
arm.

This time a week before, I had pictured her sitting in the movie beside me, maybe my arm around her, or holding hands, in our own little world. And now they were outside, the two of them, together, and I was inside, alone. How did it happen? Have I been kidding myself all this time? Have she and BT had a thing going all this time and I was just too dumb to see it? Is that why she included him in my movie date? I saw her kissing him with my own eyes at the star party. Why did I believe her when she said it wasn’t about BT? And what about Valentine’s night? Was she just feeling sorry for me? Tossing me a crumb?

I thought:
She didn’t exactly bend over backward trying to get you to come along. Maybe they’re happy you stayed behind. You don’t want to go
anywhere you’re not wanted, do you? Wake up, stupid—they probably planned this whole thing.

But on the other hand…she
did
look into my eyes and say, “Coming?” And she
did
squeeze my hand in school the day after Valentine’s.

Up on the screen the Goop was sliming under a doorway, oozing up a bedsheet and into the nostrils of a sleeping girl. I bolted from my seat. Popcorn flew. I rushed out of the theater.

They were gone.

The Cineplex is in an outdoor shopping center called Edgemont Plaza. There’s a Main Street, tall lantern-style lamps, brick sidewalks, neon. It’s supposed to look like an old-fashioned downtown. This being early March and still cold, there weren’t a lot of people outside. I started walking. Up and down Main Street. Around the parking lots. Behind the stores. I aimed for the shadows, the crannies. I kept expecting to bump into them making out behind some SUV or Dumpster. And if that did happen, what would I say? “Oh, hi! Mind if I watch you make out?…Mind if I join you?”

If I caught them, what would she say this time? “The place…the night…the neon”?

I was getting frantic. I was kicking myself for not leaving the movie with them.

I peered into the windows of restaurants, ducked into stores. I found her in Barnes & Noble. In the café section, eating a little round chocolate Bundt cake, her favorite food in the world. She was washing it down with a latte. No BT in sight.

She saw me coming. She waved me over. “Hi!” She seemed sincerely happy to see me. I sat down.

“So how was the movie?” she said.

I didn’t want to tell her what I had really been doing for the last hour. “You were right,” I said. “It stunk.”

“You should listen to us next time.”

“Yeah.”

Us.

“So,” I said, “where’s your boyfriend?”

I don’t know why it came out that way.

She didn’t skip a beat. She didn’t raise her eyebrows. She didn’t say, “What boyfriend?” Or, “What are you talking about?” Or, “You
mean BT? He’s not my boyfriend, silly you.”

She just chuckled and said, “Sleeping.”

“Oh,” I said, and then not much else as she ate her cake and gabbled on about
The Music Man
and the cast and how much fun rehearsals were. Finally she drained the latte and said, “Okay, time for pizza.” Mi-Su outeats everyone I know. “I have one regret in life—” she said. She licked her fingertip and used it to pick cake crumbs from the table. I thought of an anteater’s tongue flicking and picking off ants.

“What’s that?” I said, not sure I wanted to know.

She pushed her chair back, stood. “There’s no such thing as chocolate Bundt cake pizza.”

I smiled, but I knew she wasn’t kidding. I once saw her dip a ham sandwich in chocolate pudding.

BT was zonked out in an easy chair, sprawling, arms flopped over the sides, legs straight out and propped on his heels, mouth open, face to the bright ceiling lights. And snoring. In a facing chair, a lady with a magazine glared at him.

“He your friend?” said the lady.

Mi-Su acted surprised. “Me? Oh, no. He must be a bum off the street.”

Now the lady was glaring at Mi-Su. “If you don’t get
your friend
out of here, I’m going to the manager.”

“Uh-oh,” said Mi-Su. She tickled BT’s stomach. He snorted. His eyes opened a crack.

“Come on, Sleeping Beauty. Nap time’s over.” She took him by both hands and dragged him to his feet. “Follow us.”

BT zombied after us. When we hit the fiction stacks, Mi-Su looked back at the glaring lady and whispered, “Grouch.”

So we ate at Pizzarama and Mrs. Kelly picked us up and Mi-Su sat between us again on the way home. BT was dropped off first, and for five minutes, till we got to my house, I was in the backseat alone with Mi-Su. I wanted to sneak my hand across the car seat and onto her hand. I wanted to ask her, “So,
is
he your boyfriend?” I wanted to ask her, “So, what about me?” I wanted to say all kinds of things. I wanted to scream, “
What’s going on?
”

I did nothing. We sat side by side in the
dark until we came to my house. I thanked Mrs. Kelly for the ride.