When Alex got home that day, he was met by Eddie, who was on his way out, which Alex thought was kind of weird, since Eddie didn’t really know the city very well, apart from their bus stop and the area right around school.
“Yo, Eddie, where you going?” he asked, but Eddie just kept walking and acted like he hadn’t heard.
That’s rude, Alex thought, and went upstairs. Dad was cooking dinner tonight, which Alex figured was a pretty good reason to leave the house, but he didn’t think that was Eddie’s problem.
“Hey,” he asked his dad, “what’s up with Eddie?”
“What do you mean?” Dad said as he tried to scoop something that Alex was really afraid was gross fennel into a frying pan while holding a cookbook in the other hand.
“Eddie? Kind of short kid, brown hair? Lives here?”
“Okay, smart-ass, okay What do you mean what’s up with him?” Dad stirred the substance, which now that Alex smelled it was definitely nasty fennel, in the sizzling pan and prepared to add some turkey sausage. Ecch.
“I mean, he just ran out of here and wouldn’t answer me when I called after him.”
“Oh. Wow. I had no idea he even left. I really don’t know. Maybe you should go after him.”
“I’ll ask Mom. Where is she?”
“Laundry.”
“Okay” Alex took the elevator to the basement and found his mom sitting on the dryer reading a book.
“Oh dear,” she said when Alex told her that Eddie had stormed out. “I was afraid that might happen. He got a letter today.”
“Yeah, I always run out of the house when I get a letter. What are you talking about, Mom?”
“It was from his mom. I got one, too. I guess Dinah’s apologizing to everyone she harmed because of … well, you know. Her problem. His envelope was a lot fatter than mine.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah, you’d better just give him some space for a while. He was pretty much raising himself before he came here according to Dinah’s letter to me, so he can probably handle a few minutes on the city streets.”
Alex took the elevator back upstairs and went into his room. On Eddie’s bed was the letter from Aunt Dinah. Alex knew he shouldn’t read it. But it was right there, and he would hear the elevator if Eddie came back, and it was pretty tempting.
No, Alex told himself, that would be wrong, and he wondered why his hands were picking the letter up anyway.
My dearest Eddie,
They’ve told me that one of the things I have to do in order to get better is to admit to myself and everybody else all the ways in which my addiction harmed them.
Well, you can see why I’m having a hard time figuring out where to start with you, ha-ha. (I know that’s not really funny—I can tell by the way I’m crying as I write this.)
The last year is a blur to me, well actually the whole two-plus years since Dad died is a blur to me, and so I guess that’s the first reason I should apologize. I didn’t help you at all with how to live life without Dad. Instead I guess I pretty much stuck you with some brand-new problems.
Well, I suppose I stuck myself with some new problems, too. I guess I thought that the pills helped take Daddy’s pain away, so maybe they can help take some of my pain away, too. And I really thought they were helping at first because they made me not care, and caring hurt so very much. But I was supposed to be the mom and be in charge of the house and take care of you, and soon I couldn’t even take care of myself. I failed you, honey, I failed you really horribly, and I know you were worried. I do have some memories of those conversations before you gave up having them, when you were crying and telling me I had to stop. I wanted to, I really did, but I couldn’t.
So far I’m doing a horrible job of this. Let me try this: I’m sorry you had to do all the grocery shopping because I was high or out. I’m sorry for every single time I yelled something horrible at you because I was drunk or high or because I wasn’t drunk or high, and I can only remember some of those, Eddie, but I wish I couldn’t remember any of them, sweetie, and I know this is probably hard to believe, but you are my own special sweetest boy and you always have been, and I never meant anything else I might have said. Oh, Eddie, I’m so sorry …
There were a lot more pages, but Alex suddenly felt kind of dirty for reading this. He carefully set the letter back on Eddie’s bed, hoping it was in the same exact space where it had been, because he never wanted Eddie to know that he’d seen it.
Alex sat down on his own bed. He had known, of course, that Aunt Dinah was in rehab, and he figured it might have been kind of bad for Eddie, but it wasn’t like Eddie ever talked about it or anything, and no matter what Dad said about giving him permission to be upset or whatever, Alex knew damn well that trying to get Eddie to talk about it would have been the wrong move, so he hadn’t really known just how awful it had been.
Thinking about it made Alex want to cry. It also made him want to go hug his mom and tell her he loved her, and thank her for being his mom. It made him want to go hug his dad and say thanks, Dad, for staying alive and for cooking whatever horrible crap you are making for dinner.
But he couldn’t really do that. Dad might die of shock. And anyway, he probably should find Eddie. No matter what Mom said, Alex didn’t think Eddie was in the perfect shape to act sensible on the street, and if he walked about fifteen minutes in the wrong direction, he might find himself in some serious trouble. He tried to think like Eddie. Well, he’d probably stick to places he knew, even if he was really upset. Alex told his dad that he was going out to find Eddie, and did find himself saying “Thanks for cooking, Dad,” as he passed through the kitchen. He ran to the elevator before Dad could get the stunned look off his face and ask him what that was all about.
9
Eddie was running down the street. He had no idea where he was running to, but pretty soon his heart was pounding and he was breathing hard, and that at least gave him something to think about besides the fact that he wanted a different mom, a different self, a different life.
He couldn’t stand it. First of all, Mom was bringing up stuff she was sorry for that Eddie barely remembered, or anyway that he had been trying not to think about, that he needed not to think about if he was going to get through each day. Second of all, the letter made him hate himself, made him hate being Eddie, hate being Dinah’s son, hate being the kid that lived the life that the letter was about. He felt itchy and jittery, and he knew that he had to get out of the loft.
He felt a little bad about ignoring Alex, but he also knew if he opened his mouth, he’d start to cry, and he didn’t want to cry in front of Alex, who he suddenly hated for having his own alive parents who were weird, okay, but normal compared to Mom, because he knew how to talk to girls, because he had everything that Eddie didn’t have.
After a few blocks he was totally out of breath, and he leaned up against a pole. Just then, a Silver Line bus pulled up, and Eddie decided to just get on, because why not—he had a bus pass and everything. The bus was pretty empty—not too many people going downtown at this hour, Eddie guessed. As he sat there, he thought about how he really wanted to do something crazy, something Eddie the goody-goody would never do, something that would get him outside of himself, even just for a little while.
He guessed a lot of teens who felt like he did right then probably started drinking or doing drugs or whatever, but Eddie saw what that got you, and he wasn’t about to go down that road.
He got off at the usual stop because he didn’t have any idea where else to go or what else to do. He saw the purple Melville’s sign and decided to go in. He’d actually never even tried coffee—and right now that seemed like a good enough reason to go to a coffee shop.
It smelled nice inside, and there was some boring jazz playing slightly too loud. That girl that Alex was always pointing at through the window—Sheila, according to her nametag—was behind the counter and seemed to be the only person in the place. Eddie had to admit she was pretty cute. He look
ed at the menu over the counter. Coffee was the only word he really knew. Everything else was in a foreign language. What the hell was a caffè mocha? What was the difference between a cappuccino and a latte?
He stood there feeling stunned for a second, weighing whether to ask exactly what a cappuccino was, even though that was really embarrassing. He’d probably never come back here though, so he shouldn’t care.
But then the music he hadn’t even been paying attention to became something he couldn’t ignore. He heard a little guitar intro and a xylophone or whatever it was (“It’s a marimba!” Dad said in his mind), and even though it was just stupid hateful Elvis Costello singing “God’s Comic” coming out of the speakers, it felt a lot more like a giant hand had just come out of the speakers and was squeezing his heart and trying to make it explode.
Dad had loved Elvis Costello, and Mom had listened to this awful song over and over and over after he died, and that was one more thing that pissed him off about Mom. Why would she want to keep hearing this song with the stupid dork going “Now I’m dead” over and over and over after Dad just died? Eddie had decided never to listen to or even mention Elvis Costello again, which turned out to be a pretty easy thing for a kid to do, because that was parent music anyway, so he had forgotten all about Elvis Costello and “God’s Comic” until just now. And now on top of wanting to jump out of his skin because of Mom’s letter, he missed Dad so much it actually hurt, and that led him back to everything that happened after Dad died, which led him back to the letter, which was the thing he was trying to run away from in the first place.
Sheila behind the counter looked at him and asked, “Are you okay?”
“I …” Eddie said, “this song … my dad …” and tears came spilling out of his eyes, and Sheila was asking, as Elvis Costello was saying “Now I’m dead” for the hundredth time, “Do you want me to change it?”
Eddie couldn’t say anything, so he just nodded his head.
“I know how that goes. My dad used to listen to the Beatles and cry whenever he was drunk,” Sheila said as she fiddled around with the CD changer behind the counter. Some other song that Eddie didn’t know but which was sung by a lady and not Elvis Costello came on.
“My, um, my dad …” Eddie started to say, and then had to stop because he was crying again.
“Okay, okay,” Sheila said. “You don’t have to tell me. I didn’t tell anybody anything for a long time, and I’m not always sure it helps anyway. Listen, let me get you something. You want a latte?”
Eddie didn’t know what a latte was, but he nodded yes.
“Flavor shot? Vanilla?”
Eddie had no idea what she was talking about, but he just nodded again.
“Okay, go sit in the comfy chair there, grab a napkin or twelve, and I’ll bring it out to you. It’s on the house, or anyway, it’s on my evil corporate masters.”
Eddie slumped down in a big armchair, blew his nose, and tried to turn off the what-if machine in his mind. Because Dad did die, and Mom did lose it, and the life that Eddie had had with Mom and Dad in their happy little house was as dead as Dad was.
10
The sun had set and it was getting colder as Alex reached the street, and he looked up and down trying to imagine where Eddie was. He walked around the block and down a couple of the intersecting streets and saw no sign of Eddie. Well, it wasn’t like he and Eddie ever spent much time walking around the South End.
He saw a Silver Line bus coming up Washington Street, and he hopped on. Eddie seemed pretty happy at school, and the guard would let him into the building as long as there was a teacher in there, which there usually was in the early evening.
Alex rode ten minutes and got off right outside Melville’s. Reflexively he peeked inside to see if that cute girl with the pink hair and the tattoo around her wrist was working, even though she usually worked morning shifts. And yet there she was, leaning over the counter to talk to somebody who was sitting in one of those big chairs.
Alex reminded himself that he was supposed to be looking for Eddie, not scoping out the baristas, and he was about to turn and head toward FA-CUE when he saw that the customer with Sheila was Eddie.
Alex ran into Melville’s and said, “Eddie! Mom and Dad are worried! What’s going on, man?”
Eddie’s eyes were all puffy and red, and he wiped his nose with a napkin and gave Alex a sad smile. “Oh, you know, the usual, a letter from my mom saying I’m so sorry, and reminding me of everything she’s sorry about, and then some song my dead dad liked was on the stereo. No biggy. You want a latte?”
“It’s on the house,” Sheila said. “I’m moving to L.A. with my boyfriend tomorrow, so all coffee drinks are currently one hundred percent off.” Boyfriend. Alex was right. Somehow that was worse than the fact that she was leaving town because it meant he couldn’t even pretend he ever had a chance.
“In that case, make it a large, and gimme a hazelnut shot and some of those caramel droozles on the top,” Alex said.
He called Dad while he waited for his latte, and he watched as Eddie sipped his latte deliberately. He told Dad that they were fine, and they would be home by seven-thirty at the latest. He added that they’d just grab a slice or something, and not to hold the fennel and organic turkey sausage concoction for them.
“So,” Alex said as he sat down. He had no idea what to say, so all he said was “Sorry.”
“Thanks. It’s … I guess it’s nice that she’s getting better, but I was just starting to feel like this life was working out for me, you know, and I hate having to think about all that stuff, and then Dad and everything else.”
“Yeah.” They sipped their lattes in silence. Alex didn’t have anything to say, so he just decided to keep his mouth shut rather than say some stupid thing about how he understood, he was here for him, dumb girly stuff that didn’t really mean anything.
“Okay, Eddie,” Sheila said. “Six-thirty, and I gotta close up here. I gotta be in the passenger seat of a Honda Civic at 5 a.m.”
“Okay, Sheila. Thanks for the free coffee, and thanks for listening.”
“No problem. Stay strong there, Ed. You’re a tough kid. You’ll be okay.” All his Madden prowess aside, Alex didn’t see Eddie as a tough kid, but thinking about what was in that letter, maybe he was.
Alex watched in shock as Sheila came out from behind the counter and gave Eddie a big hug. This was his first time in here! And Alex came in here like three times a week, and he barely got a hello!
“Uh, good luck in L.A.,” Alex told Sheila as they left.
“Yeah, I figure they have coffee shops there, too, and no snow, so I’ll be all set.”
They walked out onto the dark street. “She lived in foster homes from the time she was fourteen,” Eddie said. “She used to cut herself.”
“Jesus, kid, you go out for one afternoon and you’re the mack! You’ve got her life story and a hug! And the full-press hug, too!”
Eddie looked confused. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The press! Like a lot of times if girls hug you, they kind of bend over at the waist and touch shoulders with you so that they won’t press their boobs against you. But you got the full chest-to-chest, boobs-pressed-against-you hug!”
“Oh,” Eddie said, “yeah, I guess. I didn’t really notice.” Alex said nothing and just stared at him. After a second, Eddie started laughing and said, “Well, okay, yeah, I did notice.”
Alex smiled. “Dad was kind of worried about you. Mom said you’d be okay by yourself, but I figured I should check on you, you know, just to ease the old man’s mind.”
“Yeah, well, thanks. I mean, but, you know, I probably would have been okay. It’s not like I know a lot of places to go.”
“Here, I’ll show you one,” Alex said, and they walked up to the Downtown Crossing Orange Line station. Alex was a little unsure about sharing his favorite secret spot, but if anybody ever needed it, it seemed like Eddie did. Eddie wasn’t crying or anythin
g, but he might still be on the edge of losing it.
They got off at Back Bay and walked over to the library.
“The library? You go to the library? I honestly thought you were taking me to a porn store or something,” Eddie said, smiling.
“Well, we could certainly go there later if you want, though this is actually mildly pornographic. But that’s not why I like to come here.” They walked in through the front door and went down a side hallway to a courtyard.
Alex opened the door to the courtyard, and they stepped out into the cold night. There were chairs and benches all around the outside of the square. The center was covered with some low green plants, and a naked lady made of bronze danced in the middle.
“So you see that there is a naked babe involved, but I like to come here when I want to think or whatever. It’s peaceful, and pretty, and when it’s not cold there’s a fountain around her, which is nice, and nobody really bugs you unless you’re trying to steal some homeless guy’s seat or something.”
They sat on a bench and looked at the statue in silence. Alex was about to suggest that they go grab a slice and head home, but as he looked over at Eddie, he saw that Eddie suddenly looked upset again.
“It’s just …” Eddie said, and now he was crying, “it’s like … she says she’s sorry, but it’s not that easy. She can’t say she’s sorry and expect it to be okay, because it’s not okay. I wish she wasn’t sorry, because then it would be easier to hate her, but now I feel like I should forgive her, but I can’t because I hate her right now. I don’t want to hate my mom, Alex.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, because he couldn’t say “I know,” because he didn’t know. He didn’t have any idea. I gave him the secret place, Alex thought. That’s the best I can do.
11
Eddie could tell that Alex really wanted to go home, and he should have said okay, let’s go, I’m fine, but he wasn’t fine. Even though it was really cold, he liked just sitting here, and he liked the look on the face of the naked statue lady. She looked like she had been covered in bronze right in the middle of the happiest moment of her life.
How Ya Like Me Now Page 6