At this point Eddie was crying so hard he couldn’t see the paper, and his tears were splattering the ink anyway, so he threw his notebook down on the floor and curled up on his bed and cried and cried because he felt completely alone.
14
Selfish? Alex sat at the table pretending to do his homework and wondering if he really was selfish. Just because he wanted to get a little help from his cousin to leave the house?
He’d been making a huge effort—hell, it wasn’t even an effort anymore—he just included Eddie in everything, laughed at teachers with him, scoped out girls with him, and had his back whenever Savon or Kelvin tried to dis him.
But, then again, it was kind of cheesy to try and get Eddie to pretend to be upset about his mom. Alex heard him crying late at night often enough to know that he didn’t need to pretend to be upset, and maybe that part was kind of selfish.
Still, he’d only wanted to get out and see his girlfriend! Was that so wrong? Probably not, but as he thought about it, he figured that the way he did it might have been wrong. He could have pretended to be doing laundry and gone down in the elevator, but left the house instead of going to the basement. And Eddie probably would have covered for him. Dumb. Why didn’t he think of that before? He guessed that girls made him do dumb stuff. Although it wasn’t like he’d never done any dumb stuff before he got interested in girls. Damn—with Mom and Dad on his back all the time at home, and Harrison and Lewis and pretty much every other adult on his back at school, he’d just managed to piss off his best ally and, this was a weird thought, probably his best friend.
He went back to their bedroom door to try to say he was sorry, but he could hear Eddie crying in there, and he didn’t want to go in while that was going on. So he went to the couch and turned on the TV. He should do something nice for Eddie, something purely unselfish. Eddie never said anything, but he was obviously totally into Tanya, which seemed like an odd choice to Alex, but there had probably been stranger couples in the history of the world. So maybe he could help out a little bit.
The next morning, Eddie was acting normal again, and as they ate their organic cinnamon puffs, Alex said, “Uh, Eddie, I’m sorry about last night. That was kind of a dumb thing for me to ask you.”
Eddie looked at him for a minute, then said, “Yeah, well, it’s okay. I guess if I had T—a girl waiting for me, I’d probably do the same thing.”
“Yeah, you’d sell me out in a heartbeat for a piece of tail. That’s what all the ladies say, anyway”
Eddie punched him, smiling, and said, “Yeah, that’s why all the ladies steer clear of me. They’re afraid of getting their hearts broken.”
“Sure, dawg, you got a bad rep, you know, mackin’ all over Oldham, had to skip town ’cause of the baby mama drama.” Alex laughed, imagining Eddie tooling around the suburbs in a pimpmobile with little sons and daughters. Eddie laughed, too, so everything was cool between them.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as cool with Hanh because she had waited for him at the bubble tea place and he had been so busy thinking about how he wasn’t selfish that he hadn’t called her back. She gave him dirty looks all day, and he tried and failed to catch her alone. He called her at lunch, but she wouldn’t answer her phone. He basically didn’t know what to do. He was really glad that girls were not exactly like boys in most ways, but he did kind of wish that when they were mad at you, you could just make a joke and they would punch you and everything would be okay.
The next day, Hanh ignored him all day After school, they had to go meet with Lewis as a group to get their proposal notes back. Alex was annoyed. Why couldn’t Lewis have these meetings during class instead of giving those boring lectures? Alex was also nervous. Not because he was worried about the grade, but because he really needed to go down to Hanh’s place and try to patch things up, and if this meeting took too long, he was going to be late for dinner, and then he’d be in trouble with his parents, which would be worth it if he was back on Hanh’s good side but would be a serious bummer if he wasn’t.
Alex was the last member of his group to arrive at the marketing room. And all he’d done was go to the bathroom, run downstairs to get a drink, and look around the lobby for Hanh for a few minutes. Jeez.
“Ah, Mr. Scoville. I’m delighted you are able to make the meeting. And I’m sorry to inform everyone else that they’ve lost five points on this part of the assignment due to your unprofessional tardiness!”
The other members of the group began to grumble, but Lewis cut them off with “Let us remember that we never air our differences in front of the client, and let us remember that the client in this case is me. Whatever tension exists outside of this setting, in here you display unity. Should you wish to beat Mr. Scoville senseless once I’ve left, that is of course your business, though I would suggest that you don’t do that on school property or leave any visible marks, as a black eye might hinder Mr. Scoville’s attempts to present himself professionally.” Lewis gave a little smile, and Alex clamped his teeth together and looked at his desk. Why was this guy being such a jerk about him being a little late? Now everybody was going to be even madder at him.
“Fortunately for all of you and perhaps especially for Mr. Scoville, the five-point deduction leaves your grade at a 90, which is an A minus and still the highest grade of any group in this class. You have simply thought outside the box in a way no other group has, and I commend you. Now, that having been said, there are still many unanswered questions about your proposal. Do take note, because I’m giving you these questions only in oral form.”
Alex watched as Kenisha, Savon, Eddie, and even Tanya got out pens and notebooks. Alex rummaged through his bag for a notebook and whispered, “Eddie! Pen?” while Lewis gave him a disapproving look. Stupid. Not like all five of them had to take notes anyway, but whatever.
“First, how will you collect your data? Second, how will your customers access the traffic reports? Third, and most important, what’s your model for making money? Will your customers pay for this information? Will radio stations pay for it? Will it be advertiser-sponsored? Obviously you won’t have time to have done thorough research or run the numbers, but I’ll expect preliminary answers to these questions tomorrow.” He paused here as everybody gasped. “One of my tasks here is to get you accustomed to working under pressure. I think you’ll find me a demanding client, but it’s my hope that this experience will allow you to keep your cool when dealing with demanding clients in the private sector. That will be all, and good day.”
The group packed up their notebooks and filed into the hall. Alex was at the door when Lewis said, “Mr. Scoville, a moment please.” Alex looked at his watch and felt like jumping out of his skin. He had to get down to Chinatown! And he didn’t have time to listen to some boring lecture.
“Alex,” Lewis said, and his voice sounded different—not all stiff and formal—and this was the first time Lewis had ever used his first name. “You’ve got the role of the charming, funny screw-up down pretty well.” This was so unfair! Charming, okay, but Kelvin was the funny screw-up! “I don’t think you should settle for that. You’re capable of a lot more. I can tell you from my decades of experience in the private sector that your intelligence and charisma can take you very far. However, so far you’ve been riding the charisma and totally neglecting the intelligence. Why is that?”
“Uh, I don’t know.” Jerk. What did he mean about Alex neglecting his intelligence? He used his intelligence all the time, like for coming up with excuses. Though actually Eddie was even better at that than Alex was.
“You can continue to coast by on what’s easy for you and remain at C level pretty much forever. Or you can actually put some effort into something, and there will be no limit to the doors that will open for you.”
“Uh, okay.”
“Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, walking out the door. This was why he hated this place, hated Lewis, hated all adults. They all thought they had
you all figured out. Oh, yeah, I see you for an hour every day, so I know all about you, I can tell you about yourself. Jerk. And that crap about closing doors again. It was like they all had the same corny script, and they read from different parts.
Alex really wanted to stalk off and be mad for a while, but the rest of the group was waiting in the hall.
Savon—Savon, of all people—punched him quickly and hard on the upper arm five times. “That’s one for every point we lost. You’re lucky I didn’t let Tanya at you.”
“I have never gotten an A at this damn school,” Tanya said. “If I don’t get one because of you, I’m gonna slap you so hard your whole family will feel it.”
Alex couldn’t help smiling. “See, it’s your soft feminine side that’s so charming. At least that’s what your boyfriend shaking the cup full of change outside said.”
“Kids, kids,” Savon said, “where’s the love in this group? We gotta work together, y’all.”
“Yeah,” Kenisha said. “I can only imagine how many points we’ll lose if you actually do slap him.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, “Mr. Lewis would be like, ‘I note that Mr. Scoville has a terribly unprofessional red handprint upon his cheek. Fifteen-point deduction.’” Kenisha and Savon laughed, and even Tanya smiled a little.
“Okay, okay,” Savon said, “listen. We are going to have to meet in advisory at 8 a.m. to answer these questions. Everybody better be thinking about this all night long, and have some dreams about it, and don’t be coming in at 8:10 talking about ‘Oh, I forgot.’” Savon looked at Alex.
“I got my one free period of the week tomorrow, so I’ll type stuff up if y’all come in with some ideas that ain’t stupid,” Savon said, looking at Eddie.
“Dag, who put you in charge?” Alex asked.
“Uh,” Eddie piped up, “actually we did in the first meeting while you were, uh, in the bathroom.” He said that funny, like he wanted people to know Alex wasn’t really in the bathroom. Everybody was just piling on Alex today. Fine.
“Left Eye,” Savon said, “you better get your cousin here on time.”
“Yes sir, Soap sir!” Eddie said, and saluted, and everybody went their separate ways.
Alex grabbed Eddie’s sleeve. “Listen, man, I gotta go down to Hanh’s place, she’s all mad at me, and I can’t let it go another day and I really can’t wait until all my homework’s done. Will you cover with Mom and Dad?”
“I … uh … I’ve got my appointment …” Alex could see Eddie getting annoyed, and he hoped there wasn’t another lecture coming, because he didn’t think he could deal with that today Fortunately, all Eddie said was “Okay. I’ll tell them that you and Savon had to stay behind to work on project stuff.”
Eddie was awesome. Alex figured that tomorrow he could put Operation Tanya into action for him. For now, Alex left school and took the train downtown, making a couple of stops before arriving outside of Pho Saigon. He thought about walking in, but then he figured if he got Hanh in trouble with her dad, it wouldn’t help his cause. He went around back, into the alley that Pho Saigon shared with three other restaurants, a jewelry store, and a market. There were five stinking Dumpsters back here, and Alex started wondering if this was a dumb idea. He stood at the back door, trying to ignore the garbage smell. He called her, but of course she didn’t answer, so he sent a text message: IM AT YR BACK DR. PLS OPEN UP.
He watched as his phone told him, “Message sent successfully!” and waited and waited, watching the minutes tick by on his phone. After five minutes, he was getting mad, and he was about to leave when the door creaked open. He hoped it wasn’t Hanh’s dad about to chuck a bag of garbage toward the Dumpster, because if it was, he’d probably hit Alex in the face with it.
Fortunately, it was Hanh. “What?” she asked in an annoyed voice, and Alex found that the speech he’d been rehearsing just sort of evaporated out of his head once he saw her face. He handed her a bubble tea, a single rose, and a shiny balloon that said SORRY on it.
Hanh took the stuff and tried to keep scowling, but she couldn’t help smiling. “Now, see, where am I going to put all this stuff?” she said. “You’re just lucky you’re cute,” she told Alex, and she kissed him. “Now get out of here. And call me tonight.”
Sometime later, Alex found himself outside his house, thinking that he must have floated there.
15
At therapy, Don had told Eddie it was good he’d expressed his anger in an unsendable letter to his mom. However, the sooner he wrote and mailed an actual letter to her the better because “you’re carrying it around unwritten, in your head, and it’s obviously weighing you down, which you don’t need in the middle of a big school project.”
So now he was sitting in the middle of a pile of crumpled-up paper. He crumpled up another one, kind of imagining it was Mom’s face while he did it. He got out another piece of paper and started to write. He’d gotten as far as Dear Mom, You selfish bitch when Alex burst through the door.
“Oh yeah!” he said. “Yeah, I am Mr. Smooth, and she forgave me, and she gave me a big kiss, and I have you to thank for the smooth cover-up at home, you are the man, Edward, you … oh. Hey, what’s wrong?”
Eddie figured there was no way to disguise it, because he was really upset and sitting in a pile of unfinished letters, and anyway Alex now owed him at least two, and he was tired of carrying this whole thing around by himself, so he said, “Well, you know, I got that letter from my mom, and I figure I should write her back. But … but … I don’t … I feel like I should tell her ‘It’s all okay, I forgive you,’ but I don’t forgive her, I hate her! I hate her! What kind of way is that to feel about your mom? This sucks! I hate her and I hate hating her, and I hate … I can’t even think about anything else until I get this letter written. I tried to work on the project …”
He looked at Alex. He felt completely crushed by his life right now, and he wished he could just take it easy all the time like Alex did, but Alex had it easy, and he never would …
“Okay,” Alex said, and Eddie was really glad he hadn’t tried to hug him or something. “Well, why do you have to write her back?”
“Because she’s in rehab, she’s waiting for my letter because I’m a beacon in her darkness or some damn thing, and if she screws this up, there is no way I’m going to be walking around feeling like it’s my fault.”
“So what do you have so far?”
“‘I hate you, you selfish bitch,’ stuff like that. I obviously can’t send her anything like that, but I can’t say, ‘Thanks for the letter, Mom, it’s all okay,’ either.”
“See, now this is where you need my expertise. You’re trying to do something hard, right, and you want to get out of it, and who is the champion in that department?”
“What, do you have a letter already written? Do I get to copy off you for a change?” The idea actually made Eddie smile for the first time in hours. He was glad Alex was here.
“Hilarious. No. Your first mistake is trying to write a letter. Let’s think postcard. Here, I always grab these at restaurants, especially if there’s a hot girl on them.” He rooted around in his desk drawer and handed Eddie a postcard. “Okay, so what does she need to hear that you can stand to say?”
“Um, I don’t know. I guess, ‘I got your letter, I’m glad you’re getting better, I still love you,’ or something.”
“Great! Start that off with a ‘Dear Mom,’ and you’re golden!”
Eddie considered this. He couldn’t really send his mom a three-sentence postcard. Could he? Then again, he also couldn’t spend the next three weeks not writing a two-page letter. Well, what the hell. It was better than nothing, and then it would be done. He wrote “Dear Mom” and followed it with the three sentences he’d said earlier and signed it “Love, Eddie.” He dug into his notebook, found the address of the treatment center, addressed the postcard, and held it up to read again.
Suddenly Alex was laughing. Eddie started to get mad, but then Alex sai
d, “Uh, dude, oh, I’m sorry, but I … I just think you’d better send a different postcard.”
Eddie turned over the postcard. There was a beautiful, sweaty woman with colossal boobs and her red-fingernailed hands wrapped around the neck of a bottle, and at the bottom of the card it said “Frost Vodka Makes Me Hot!” Eddie started to laugh, too. “Yeah, I guess …” he couldn’t finish his sentence because he was laughing too hard.
“Not the greatest thing to send the booze ad to the rehab facility,” Alex continued, and Eddie kept laughing, because the whole thing was just so stupid, and it really wasn’t funny at all, but that didn’t stop him.
Eventually they collected themselves, and Alex gave him a postcard with a picture of what Eddie would have sworn was the same sweaty woman from the vodka postcard, but this one was a cologne ad, so Eddie figured that was okay. When he went to bed that night, he chuckled thinking about a vodka postcard showing up at the rehab clinic, and right before he fell asleep, he realized that this was the first night he’d gone to bed feeling happy in a really long time.
The next day, Eddie was nervous walking into advisory. He had tried to think about the project last night, but then he got involved in writing his postcard, and then he was tired, and now he was walking into a meeting with nothing at all prepared. He hated the sick feeling in his stomach. He really couldn’t understand how Alex did this all the time.
Kelvin and Aisha and Gisela were doing homework, and Savon and Tanya were sitting there waiting for them. “Damn!” Tanya said. “I can’t believe Alex is here before Kenisha! Nice work, Left Eye!”
“Yeah,” Savon added, “this is the first time that boy’s been on time for anything. You better just make sure you grab him right at the end of school so he doesn’t cost us more points.”
At this, Kelvin piped in. “Oh, shoot, losing points! See now, I hate to start this in the advisory, because we’re like family and all, but it looks like the smart side of the family is sitting over here! We ain’t had no extra meetings with Lewis. Y’all’s proposal must be horrible, yo!” Kelvin was grinning really broadly. “It’s gonna be tough workin’ for me when y’all get older, but don’t worry, I’ll be fair.”
How Ya Like Me Now Page 9