The Loser's Guide to Life and Love (6 page)

When I am being honest with myself I can, of course, account for my enduring fascination with the moon.

My mother used to read
Goodnight Moon
to me when I was little. I used to love to hear her low voice as I stared out my bedroom window.

It's such a comforting book. Just a bunny and his mother in a roomful of familiar things. No surprises. Just things the way the bunny expects them to be. Just things
the way they're supposed to be.

It wasn't long before I started looking for the moon in the night sky myself. Of course, I noticed right away that the moon doesn't stay the same—not like the pictures in my book.

“Look,” I said to my mother one night when the moon was in an early phase. I was probably three or four years old, and I was truly alarmed. “Something happened to the moon. It's broken!”

My mother laughed. “What a funny little boy you are!” Then she took my hand. “You remind me of myself, Quentin. Full of imagination. Full of mystery. Unknowable. Just like the moon.”

Only I learned that the moon, in fact, is not full of mystery.

The moon is as predictable as it is knowable….

Or so I thought.

I met Ed's friend Scout again. I've met her before, of course, but I wasn't paying attention. Today, however, I looked straight into her eyes and saw that they are dark brown and shot with gold.

She makes me want to get online and Google “screwball comedies.”

She makes me want to take a chance.

Which is why I, Quentin Andrews O'Rourke, have decided to surrender. I hereby surrender myself to the MYSTERIES of the moon.

Tonight I am working with Ali (who makes me nervous) and T. Monroe (who makes me crazy). Scout has the evening off, and I really miss her. In fact, I want to call her up on the telephone and say, “Scout! Come to work RIGHT NOW so that life will be good again!”

T. Monroe is rewinding one of the few videos we still carry, and I decide to make the time go a little faster by engaging in some friendly employee small talk.

“So what are you wearing to Ali's party, T. Monroe?”

I am pretty worried about this entire issue, actually. I can just see me and my lovely date, Quark, two boring dorks in totally uninspired costumes surrounded by fascinating guests wearing wild and exotic creations made
from the feathers of parrots.

Or something along those lines.

Without looking up from his stack of videos, T. Monroe starts quoting scripture at me. “‘And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.'”

“Thank you very much, T. Monroe,” I say. “I'll be sure to keep that in mind.”

I turn my back on him and make a mental note to myself to line up a Worf costume by next Thursday. Also, I've gone online a few times to find a few choice Klingon curses. Stuff like “Your mother has a smooth face,” which apparently is the ultimate Klingon dis.

Then I think of Ellie's smooth face and wonder whether or not she'll come by tonight.

I hope she does because, hoo-boy, did I ever do my homework THIS TIME.

Here's what I did. When I took Maggie shopping at Trolley Square earlier today, I checked out the Brazilian restaurant there called the Rodizio Grill. I immediately trotted inside and asked the hostess (dressed up like a girl gaucho) if I could look at a menu. Then (because I learned how to be prepared that one time I went to Boy Scouts) I pulled a pencil and a crumpled-up overdue parking ticket out of my back pocket and jotted down
the names of a few authentic dishes.

If Ellie comes into Reel Life tonight, I plan to tell her about the rich and varied dishes served in my beloved homeland.

 

Ellie walks through the door like Cinderella just before the clock strikes midnight.

Actually, it was only about ten, but you know how I am—unable to resist the dramatic touch.

“Hi, Sergio,” she says with a shimmering smile.

“
Alô
, Ellie,” I say, full of Brazilian swagger.

“How are things?”

“Things are going very well now that you are here.” I look at her with eyes full of meaning, and she laughs agreeably because I am so charming. I am charming Sergio.

A little silence grows between us. If I were still Ed, I would start to worry perhaps. I would think that we had run out of things to say. I would start to sweat, and probably not a manly sweat, either.

But now that I am Sergio, I know there is plenty left to be said. And unsaid. Because I am Sergio, I also realize Ellie is flirting with me by the way she is playing with her beautiful hair. Ed would not have understood this.

She smiles at me again, and then puts her elbows on the counter and rests her heart-shaped face in her hands. “Tell me some more about Brazil, Sergio. Please.”

I lean toward her. “Let me tell you about the wonderful food my grandmother used to fix for us.”

Elli's face brightens even more. “I'd love to hear all about it.”

“Well,” I say, “let me start you off with a few verbal appetizers.”

And I tell her about
pãozinho
and
pão de queijo, polenta,
and
banana frita
.

“Banana frita?”
says Ellie. “What's that?”

“Glazed banana,” I say slickly, even though it could be an unglazed banana for all I know. “With lots of cinnamon.” The lies just come pouring out of me.

“Cinnamon?” Ellie darts a tiny pink tongue over her lips, tasting the imaginary cinnamon there.

And I practically stop breathing.

The phone rings and I pick it up. “Hello?”

“Scout! Thank goodness you're home!” It's my mom, calling from work and sounding desperate. “I forgot to pick up Benny's new contacts at the eye doctor on my lunch break. Can you get them for me, then FedEx a package off to Brazil this afternoon?”

I groan a little. I hate it when I have to run errands for Mom.

“Please, Scout? Benny's sick of bumping into banana trees because he can't see.”

I laugh in spite of myself.

“The doctor's office is by the Foothill Branch Library, Scout,” Mom wheedles. “You know where
that is, don't you?”

Of course I do. It's not far from Ed's house.

Mom still wheedles. “You might find something new there you'd like to read”—she lowers her voice here—“…if you know what I mean.”

I know EXACTLY what she means.

“Fine,” I huff, totally hating myself for being addicted to love of the Regency romance variety. “I'll take care of it.”

Mom laughs and says good-bye.

I hang up (hard) and stare at the phone, thinking how much I hate it when mothers exploit the weaknesses of their children to accomplish their own ends. In fact, I think it's completely evil.

Don't you?

“Jeez, Quark! You scared the snot out of that poor old lady standing on the corner there!”

I look in the rearview mirror of Quark's car, just in time to catch sight of the aforementioned elderly person jumping up and down the sidewalk, giving us the finger.

It always gives me a start when senior citizens flip me off.

Quark takes another corner, this time (I swear) on two wheels. It's like we're in that old Disney flick
The Love Bug.

“Dude! Quark!” I gargle. “I want to arrive alive!”

He totally ignores me as he continues to blast down Foothill Boulevard. Roger Ramjet (otherwise known as my buddy Quark) makes one last terrifying turn, and then comes to a screeching halt in front of the Foothill Branch Library. Rubber-legged, I crawl out of the car like an astronaut who's just been taken for a little joyride in
Apollo 13
.

“Remind me to take the bus next time, okay?” I shout after Quark, who is already loping toward the library's entrance like a giraffe traveling at high speed across the grasslands of Africa.

My sarcasm, in case you're interested, is completely lost on him.

I know. I'm being a jerk, especially since Quark has been nice enough to bring me here so I can check out some guide books on my homeland, Brazil.

“Hello, Quark. Hey there, Ed.” Our good friend Dody the librarian greets us as I trail Quark inside.

Quark doesn't respond but heads straight for the stacks, his good-looking face screwed up in thought.

“What's up with him?” Dody asks, glancing back over her shoulder at Quark. “Is it just my imagination, or is our lovable genius even more preoccupied than usual?”

I shrug and remember the way he nearly walked through plate-glass windows at Reel Life the other night. “He's been acting pretty strange lately. Stranger than usual that is,” I add for clarification purposes.

Dody observes Quark's movements through her bifocals. “What's he doing in the poetry section?”

I gape. “Poetry? Quark hates poetry! Quark thinks poetry sucks.”

Dody keeps watching Quark as he accidentally knocks one book after another off the shelves.

“Have you ever read the book
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat?
” she asks.

“No,” I say. “Nobody told me I was supposed to.”

Dody ignores my wisecrack. “It's about what happens to people who get brain disorders.” She pauses. “Has
Quark had a head injury lately?”

“I don't know,” I say slowly, wondering if this could account for Quark's recent behavior. “He did walk into a window the other day.”

Quark apparently discovers what he's been looking for, because he snatches a thick book from the stacks and sits down at a nearby table. I say good-bye to Dody and join him.

“Don't you think she has beautiful eyes?” Quark asks.

“Dody?” It's very true that our friend Dody is one fine-looking librarian. But still. She's like about sixty years old. I'm surprised Quark would notice her eyes. Or anybody else's eyes.

Quark stares at me, then blinks in pure surprise. “I'm not referring to Dody, Ed. I'm talking about Scout.”

“Scout?” I squeak.

“Scout Arrington,” Quark repeats, looking at me in disgust because I am so very dense. “Your coworker.”

I reach across the table and slap Quark upside the head. “I know who Scout is!”

Quark blinks, then carries on. “I've been trying to compare her eyes to something that sparkles, which is why I thought of comparing them to geodes, as in ‘her eyes sparkle like geodes.'”

Geodes? The last time I thought of geodes was in the third grade during our rocks and minerals unit.

“I'm not sure the image works, however. The only
word I can find that rhymes with ‘geode' is ‘freeload.'” Quark shakes his head. “I'm looking for a new direction.”

He flips open the fat book, an anthology entitled
Great Love Poems of the Western World
. Meanwhile, I cannot speak. All I can manage is a weak gurgle.

Quark looks up and blinks.

At last I find my tongue. “Are you okay, Quark?”

He blinks again. Quark is one of those habitual blinkers.

I check to see if his pupils are unnaturally dilated. “Just how hard did you hit your head at Reel Life, anyway?”

Quark snorts at me for the second time in a week. “Don't be a moron, Ed.”

I grab
Great Love Poems of the Western World
and smack him with it.

“Hello! I am not the moron here, Quark. I am not the one making up poems about geodes!” I glare at him.

Suddenly, Quark bursts out laughing, which causes me to fire out of my seat like a bottle rocket on the Fourth of July.

Trust me on this one. A burst of sudden laughter from Quentin Andrews O'Rourke is one of life's more unnerving experiences. Fault lines shift when Quark laughs. Mountain ranges crumble. Tidal waves come crashing to the shore. Planets are blasted from their orbits and new black holes appear unexpectedly in the
universe. This is because Quark laughs louder than any other human being in the history of the world.

Several people tell Quark to shush, including a vagrant who's trying to sleep while pretending to read the morning paper.

Quark stops laughing but his smile remains, and if you were a stranger who had just walked into the library, you would look at him and wonder who this incredibly handsome movie star was, just slumming the morning away in a city library with some nerdy little geek like me.

Quark and Dork. That would be us.

Suddenly I feel so depressed, I want to start smacking myself with
Great Love Poems of the Western World
.

And still Quark keeps on smiling. He just keeps on putting out miles and miles of smiles and smiles.

“What are you so damn happy about?” I snap.

“I'm in love,” he says simply.