The Manny Files book1 (8 page)

I remembered that I had worn my Scooby Doo underwear that day So instead of stripping in the lockers with everyone else, I walked to the bathroom stall, closed the door, and changed in
private. Once I was in my swimsuit, I carefully folded my clothes so that the Scooby Doo underwear was between my Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants. Nobody saw them. I put my folded clothes underneath one of the benches and walked out to the swimming pool with the rest of the boys.

Ms. Grant and Principal Allen split the kids up into groups based on swimming ability. They put me in the low group, which was mostly girls. There was one other boy named Scotty, but he had to wear floaties because one leg was shorter than the other. I pointed out to Mr. Allen that I knew how to swim and it was probably an oversight that I wasn’t put in a more advanced group.

He looked down at me and said, “Why are you complaining? You could be back at the school doing math or English.”

I wanted to grab the toupee off of his head, throw it in the middle of the swimming pool, and yell, “Rat in the pool. Rat in the pool.”

But I didn’t.

On my way back to my group I walked by Sarah. She was in the top group. Craig and the other boys, who look like they already have muscles, were in the top group.

Sarah saw my disappointment and said, “Swim with Scotty. He’s nice.”

He
is
nice.

Scotty and I made up a game. One of us would sit on the side of the pool and yell out a category (colors, states, Broadway plays), while the other one would jump in and try to name something from the category before he went underwater. It usually sounded like this: “Redblubblubblub.” “Oklahoblubblub.” “
The Lion Ki
blubblubblub.”

Scotty’s floaties helped him win the game.

When we opened our lunches, Scotty discovered that somebody had splashed water on his. His bagel looked like a sponge that was leaking cream cheese milk. I shared my lunch with him. He likes Swedish fish as much as I do. I ate the red ones. He ate the green ones. We built little sand castle pyramids out of the bag of sand until it had been an hour and the danger of cramping was gone.

When Ms. Grant blew the whistle to signal that the wait was over, I jumped in, grabbed my stomach, and pretended to have a cramp.

“If only I’d waited one more minute,” I moaned, and pulled myself underwater.

Scotty laughed.

Sarah yelled from the high dive, “Judge me.” She plummeted into the water headfirst.

“Ten,” I yelled.

“Ten,” Scotty yelled.

Sarah abandoned her group and spent the rest of the day swimming with Scotty and me.

At two thirty Ms. Grant blew the whistle and hollered. Ms. Grant doesn’t yell. She hollers.

She hollered, “Go get dressed. We’re fixin’ to leave.”

We climbed out and went into the locker rooms. Craig was the last one out of the pool. Ms. Grant had to yell at him twice. He bobbed up and down in the water and pretended that he couldn’t hear her.

I grabbed my folded clothes from underneath the bench and went into the bathroom stall to change. I unfolded my shirt and pants but couldn’t find my underwear. I shook out my Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants and even rifled through the pockets. Nothing. I looked inside my shoes, in case I was suffering from a brain lapse and had maybe stuffed them in there.

They were nowhere to be found.

I walked back out into the lockers to see if I had dropped them, but they weren’t on the floor. Where could they be? I felt like Mom searching for her car keys (she found them in the refrigerator once).

I raced back to the bathroom stall and decided to get dressed without them. Uncle Max calls going without underwear “going commando.”
When he says this, Lulu pretends to dry heave.

I got dressed, minus my underwear, and exited the locker room with the rest of the boys.

We lined up in single file, again shortest to tallest, and began walking back to our school. I could feel my khaki pants right up against my skin. I turned around to see where Scotty was in line but instead saw Craig walking along with my Scooby Doo underwear on the top of his head like a hat. Nobody would have known that they were mine if Mom hadn’t written my name on the waistband.

KEATS,
in big black letters, stretched across Craig’s forehead.

What a crummy day. I even had to ride the bus home alone because Lulu had to go to piano lessons and India had an after-school project. As the bus pulled away, I saw Craig standing on the sidewalk in front of the school whipping my underwear around in circles above his head and waving to me with his other hand.

I wanted the bus to get me home as fast as it could because I thought I might burst into tears at any minute. But then I remembered that Grandma was going to be there when I got home. I didn’t want to cry then. I couldn’t wait to see her.

When the bus reached my stop, I leaped out the door to race home.

“See you tomorrow, darlin’.” I barely heard the bus driver.

Housman met me in the driveway and ran with me into the house.

My hair was still wet from swimming when I spotted Grandma. She was lying up on her throne bed in the middle of the living room. She told me later that it was more comfortable than the water bed. Belly was taking a nap on pillows on the floor next to Grandma’s bed.

And Uncle Max was there! He and the manny were laughing in the kitchen. They didn’t stop smiling as they talked to each other. They looked like the hosts of the morning show on television. It was like they’d known each other forever.

I ran and jumped into Uncle Max’s arms. Housman jumped up and down at Uncle Max’s feet.

Uncle Max groaned and pretended to have a bad back when he picked me up.

He said, “Keats, you’ve grown so much. Is that a mustache?” He looked closely at my upper lip.

Uncle Max had been in San Francisco for three months going to museums and meeting with art gallery owners. He brought Lulu, India, Belly, and me kimonos from a little Japanese shop in San Francisco. Mine was red. He brings us the best presents from his trips.

I put the red kimono on over my clothes, sucked my cheeks in, and walked through the kitchen like a fashion model. Uncle Max and the manny were still laughing when I went to check on Grandma.

I gave Grandma a hug, and she asked me how school was. I didn’t tell her about Craig and my underwear because I thought it seemed silly compared with her broken hip. I did tell her about Scotty and how Sarah swam with us and about the game we made up.

She said, “Keats, my feet are cold. Could you please rub them for me?”

I went to the end of the bed and began rubbing Grandma’s feet. They
were
cold. Mom’s feet are always cold too. She says that bad circulation runs in her family. I thought about Grandma’s feet hanging through the ceiling over Grandpa Pete’s head.

She fell asleep.

“Come back at about six thirty,” I heard the manny tell Uncle Max before the door shut.

The manny turned to me and said, “Did Ms. Grant look babe-alicious in her swimming suit?”

I smiled but didn’t laugh.

“What’s wrong?” asked the manny “Did you forget that I’m hilarious?”

So I told him about being put in the low
swimming group, and about Craig and his new hat, which happened to be my underwear.

“He sounds like a butt head,” the manny said, laughing at his own joke.

It took me a minute to laugh, but when I did, the manny said, “Oh, thank goodness, I thought I’d lost my gift of humor. I don’t think I could cope with losing my humor and my hair all in one lifetime.”

I laughed again.

Then the manny told me that Craig probably did that to be the center of attention. He said that Craig probably knows that I don’t have to do anything to be the center of attention because I have natural charisma and style. He said that I’m just like John F. Kennedy, and Craig is more like Richard Nixon.

I saw a television show about Richard Nixon on the Biography Channel. He had cheeks like Droopy Dog.

“Go get your homework done,” said the manny. “Your uncle Max is coming to dinner tonight.”

I disappeared to my room and didn’t come out again until I was called for dinner. I had been putting all of my sweaters and winter things into big Rubbermaid tubs, replacing them with khaki shorts, Hawaiian shirts, and
linen pants that Dad had brought for me from Mexico.

When I walked through the living room, Grandma’s bed was empty and her wheelchair was gone. She was in the dining room with everyone else. They screamed,
“Surprise!!!”
when I walked in. Everybody was sitting around the dining-room table. Grandma was wheeled up next to Lulu.

They all had underwear on their heads.

Even Lulu, who hates the word
underwear.

Mom had on a pair of Dad’s boxers.

Dad had one of Mom’s bras.

Lulu had a pair of India’s flowered panties.

India had Lulu’s Tuesday underwear.

Belly had DecapiTina’s little white ones hanging off one ear.

Grandma had on one of Belly’s nighttime pull-up diapers.

The manny had a pair of boxer briefs.

And Uncle Max was wearing a pair of Grandma’s big lacy ones, the ones that my sisters had held up and laughed at when they unpacked Grandma’s suitcase.

The manny handed me a pair of my own Scooby Doo underwear to wear on my head.

We ate the entire dinner that way. Dad even answered the door with Mom’s bra on his head.
It was Lucy, our next-door neighbor, selling Girl Scout Cookies.

He bought four boxes of Thin Mints.

Our last writing assignment for the school year was to write a one-paragraph essay about what we want to be when we grow up. Sarah wants to be a horse veterinarian. Scotty wants to be a children’s doctor. The poofy-red-haired girl wants to own a beauty salon. Craig wants to play on a professional football team.

I think that Craig should be more realistic. Maybe he’ll get to play in a prison league someday.

I want to be a concierge in a fancy hotel like the Ritz-Carlton or the Four Seasons. The concierge gets to wear a suit and make reservations at five-star restaurants and theater shows for people who have forgotten how to do it themselves. Last year, before Grandma fell and broke her hip, India and I went to New York City with her. We stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria and she took us out to a fancy dinner. Lulu was at a sleepover and Belly stayed home with Mom and Dad because she was too little.

Grandma asked the concierge, “Could you recommend a nice restaurant that has wonderful food and elegant ambience? Oh, and we’d prefer a place where the maître d’ doesn’t kick the children when nobody’s looking.”

The concierge had short black hair that looked wet and shiny. His knuckles were hairy. He looked like one of the male models from Mom’s
Vogue
magazines. He wore round silver cuff links.

He leaned in toward us and said, “Nobu has a fabulous young chef, and the soft-shell crab rolls are divine.”

My ears tickled when he said the word
divine.

“Balthazar is also quite fancy, and the food is sublime.”

The back of my neck tingled when he said the word
sublime.

Grandma told the concierge to make a reservation for four at Balthazar for seven thirty, and she slipped him five dollars with a handshake. India didn’t even notice.

“Who else is coming to dinner?” I asked Grandma as we rode the elevator up to our room.

“It’s a surprise,” she said back to me.

Back in the hotel room I wore the complimentary shower cap and took a bath. I changed my clothes four times before India finally yelled, “Keats! We have to go!”

We arrived at the restaurant five minutes before our seven thirty reservation. I had on my wedding suit and bow tie. India wore a red silky skirt and white collared shirt, the same kind Dad wears to work. She had it tied at the waist, with the knot on her hip. Around her neck she wore the little string of pearls that Grandma had given to her last Christmas. Grandma wore a black velvet shawl over white pants and a white turtleneck. She looked divine and sublime.

I stood and watched the people having dinner at their tables. Everybody wore black. They looked like they were having a wonderful time. Clanking wineglasses. Laughing. Giving cheek kisses to one another when they said hello.

I can’t wait to grow up.

Whenever the front door opened, I would look over to see if it was our surprise dinner guest. I thought that it might be Andy Warhol or Liza Minnelli. They’re the two most famous people in New York City. Andy Warhol is a skinny artist who wears a white wig and paints portraits of movie stars. Liza Minnelli sings just like her
mom, who was Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz.
Whenever I read anything about New York City, Andy Warhol’s and Liza Minnelli’s names are mentioned. India told me that Andy Warhol wasn’t alive anymore and that Liza Minnelli probably had a personal chef and didn’t go out to eat. I still kept an eye on the door and hoped.

When the door swung open, it was better than Andy Warhol and Liza Minnelli. It was Uncle Max, dressed from head to toe in black, except for a white scarf around his neck. He looked just like Halston, the clothing designer. Halston is always in the pictures with Andy Warhol and Liza Minnelli. Uncle Max gave India and me high fives and then hugged Grandma.