“So you want me to tell Kelvin and the rest of the family about you and Hanh?”
“Uh, well, not really, I guess. But if you …”
“I’m just playing. I haven’t talked to Hanh in two days. She’s mad busy all the time. I just wanted to mess with you.” She paused for a minute. “That was mean. I’m sorry.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. You know if you liked one of my friends, I’d be messing with your mind every day.”
Kenisha’s face changed instantly, and she looked at him kind of funny. “She didn’t say …” she began, and then stopped talking and looked at the ground.
“She didn’t say what?”
“Nothing.” Now she was digging in her bag and wouldn’t look at Alex. What was that about? Well, she obviously wasn’t going to tell him.
So that was that, but as they rode the 22 to Blue Hill Avenue, Alex wondered if Kenisha really did know something. Something was definitely going on. Alex figured he’d find out tomorrow, and once again he decided not to worry.
This time he came closer to succeeding because he spent the next two hours being a charming screw-up, or whatever Lewis had called him, who screwed up so much he got eight businesses on Blue Hill Avenue to agree to advertise on the teen traffic report that didn’t even exist. Three guys tried to cut him checks right there in the store, they loved the idea so much. Take that, Lewis. Take that, Harrison. Take that, Mom and Dad. Looks like I just opened a whole bunch of doors, Alex thought.
17
Eddie got home well before Alex. He had to call Tanya after eight. He had made the appointment at Jamison Creative but he realized he didn’t have any idea what they were going to create.
He went into the kitchen, where Aunt Lily was cooking dinner.
“Hey, Eddie!” she said. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going okay, I guess. Busy. A lot of work. I have to work a lot harder to get the same grades here as I did at OHS.”
“Mmmm. Hear anything else from your mom?”
Ugh. Why did he have to even come in here? Stupid. He didn’t want to talk about his mom. Every time he thought he had something regular to think about, like too much work or Tanya or whatever, she came back up.
“No. I sent her a card, but I haven’t heard anything.”
“Well, she called here today. She’s gotten far enough along that I guess they are allowing her phone calls. She wanted to check up on you. I told her you were doing great. I wasn’t lying, was I?”
“No! I mean, no. I’m doing great. I mean, I really like school, and I … well, it’s just nice to have fun, you know? I never had much fun while Mom was … after Dad died.”
Aunt Lily quietly eyed him. Eddie cursed himself. Ugh! Why did he even say that? Well, Aunt Lily wanted something, and Eddie felt like he had to give her something. He really did feel grateful for being able to live here and be a lot more like a normal kid than he had been since Dad died. “Do you think that talking to Don is helping?” Aunt Lily asked.
“Honestly?” Eddie asked.
“Yeah.” Aunt Lily smiled. “Honestly.”
“I always feel worse every Wednesday night. And we talk about the same stuff over and over. I don’t want to be … I mean, I know … I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything. It just feels kind of pointless.”
Aunt Lily chopped something for a minute. “Well, maybe we’ll think about some other options. Do you think it would be better to be with a group?”
Eddie thought about that. It might actually be nice to meet some other kids whose parents were screwed up, so he wouldn’t feel like he was the only one. “I dunno. Maybe.”
“I’ll look into it. Listen, you know your mom’s going to be done pretty soon, right?”
“What?” Eddie barked. He had known that his mom was going to get out of rehab at some point, but since he hadn’t been exactly counting the days, and since he didn’t know how many days the program lasted anyway, counting the days wouldn’t have made much sense.
“I thought you’d be happy,” Aunt Lily said, like she was really puzzled.
“Uh, well, I mean, yeah, I’m happy for her if she’s better. I mean, of course I’m happy,” Eddie said, but then why did he feel like punching something? Maybe because he liked his life, he liked living here, weird food and all, he liked the way Alex made him laugh and had his back and was his friend. The idea of returning to Oldham with Mom seemed like falling into a deep, dark hole that he’d probably never be able to climb out of. He thought about reminding Aunt Lily that she’d said he could stay here as long as he needed, of begging her to keep him here even if Mom was out of rehab, but that would be a long Meaningful Talk, and he couldn’t do that right now.
The phone rang, and Eddie practically sprinted across the room to answer it, knowing it wasn’t for him, but hoping that the distraction would bring an end to this conversation.
Strangely enough, it was for him. It was Savon. “Hey, Left Eye.”
“Soap!” Eddie said gratefully “What’s up?”
“I just got the preliminary Web page design done. Take a look.” He gave Eddie the address.
“Hang on, hang on, I gotta get to the computer here.” He signaled to Aunt Lily that he had to take the phone, and she nodded and smiled. He hoped he could avoid finishing their conversation.
He pulled up the site, which Savon had paid for with his own money. “Whoa, Savon, it looks fantastic! How did you get that subway train to go across the front like that?”
“Don’t laugh, okay?”
“Yeah, okay, what?”
“I’ve been studying HTML and Java for like three years. So, you know, that’s the only reason you could beat me at Madden. It cuts into my Madden time.”
“Well, I was doing all the shopping and the laundry for a whole year, and I still beat you.” He said this before he even realized what he was saying, before he could stop himself from saying too much. Aunt Lily had messed up his head with thoughts of his mom, and he forgot to be careful. Or maybe he’d gotten so comfortable in his new life that he’d just forgotten that he had to hide the old one.
There was a pause, and Eddie’s heart pounded as he thought, Please don’t ask, please don’t ask. Savon finally said, “So you keeping Alex in check? Is he doing anything?”
“Kenisha’s keeping him in check this week. They went to Blue Hill Ave. today, they’re going someplace called Dudley Downs or something next week.”
“It’s just Dudley, Left Eye. They’re going down Dudley. Dudley Square.”
“Oh. Right. Anyway, even if he’s not doing anything, Kenisha is there, so something will get done.”
“What about you and Tanya?”
“We’re going to Jamison Creative on Thursday.”
“Okay, then. Just make sure you get some work done. You know, don’t just sit there droolin’.”
“Oh, I’m all about getting the work done. I don’t, I mean, I’m not—”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Don’t front.”
Eddie smiled and said, as whitely as he could, “Yes, I will now discontinue my fronting. I sincerely hope to hit that.”
Savon gave a big laugh that lasted a long time. “You and everybody else at school,” he said.
“Ah, but as you may or may not be aware, I am the mack. Kelvin pronounced it so.”
Savon laughed again. “Yeah, well, if you start believing everything Kelvin says, you in some trouble.”
Eddie laughed, and they hung up. He headed to his room to brainstorm marketing ideas—and avoid Aunt Lily.
At about seven-thirty, Eddie heard Alex come home. “Attention! Attention please! All denizens of unit three kindly bow down to the master salesman!” Alex bellowed as he walked in.
“All right, Alex, calm down, will you?” Aunt Lily said. Eddie headed toward the kitchen. It was safe now that Alex was home, and anyway he was starving.
“Hey, Lily, you look great today. Order us up some food, will ya? I think it’s going to be a long nig
ht on this project. Thanks, hon, you’re doing a great job.” Alex was clearly so high on himself that he had lost his mind.
Eddie entered the kitchen as Aunt Lily laughed and said, “Listen, mister, I don’t know who convinced you I’m your assistant, but you’ll be washing dishes until you retire if you try that again!”
Alex smiled. “Edward! Ask me how many businesses we sold on the Boston Teen Traffic idea this afternoon!”
“Hey, Alexander, how many businesses did you sell on the Boston Teen Traffic idea this afternoon?”
“Eight, my friend. Eight. This for a service that doesn’t even exist. Mother, forgive my earlier arrogance. I am going to pull a grade on this project that will at last make you proud of me.”
“You know I’m proud of you already, Alex. Dad’s going to be late, so let’s sit and eat something.”
They all got plates, and Aunt Lily heaped them high with some kind of stew on some tiny rice things. Eddie dug in. He was so hungry that he barely noticed the weird spices—he just devoured it. After he’d had a few bites, he said, “So Savon called and showed me the Web site. It looks fantastic.”
“Hey, that’s awesome,” Alex replied. “So it seems that the sales force is doing a great job, the Web designer is doing a great job, which leaves the marketing team. I hope you don’t get too, uh, distracted while working with the lovely—ow! Damn!” Eddie had kicked him hard under the table. He did not want to talk about Tanya with Aunt Lily. Please don’t let her ask, please don’t let her ask …
Aunt Lily raised an eyebrow, looked from Eddie to Alex and back to Eddie. She looked like she might open her mouth, but instead she smiled.
Eddie thought he’d gotten away from that one pretty easily, but he had to get a little revenge. “So, um, Alex, stopped off for any Vietnamese food lately?”
Aunt Lily looked at them quizzically and raised an eyebrow again. Alex was smooth, though, and came back with “I think I may be losing my taste for that particular cuisine. It doesn’t seem to be agreeing with me lately.”
Eddie smiled, and Aunt Lily again looked like she was about to speak, but she said nothing, and they eventually talked about other stuff.
After dinner Eddie and Alex washed dishes, and Eddie kept sneaking glances at the clock.
“She said after eight, Eddie,” Alex said, “which does not mean you should call her at 8:13. It’s gonna look desperate.”
“I’m only calling about the project,” Eddie answered. “Aggh. What am I going to say?”
“Tell her when your appointment is for, and tell her if you have any … creative ideas.” Alex said this last part like it was the dirtiest thing in the world. “I mean, I’ll bet you have a lot of … creative ideas you’d just love to share.”
Eddie laughed, decided he couldn’t win this one, and dried a plate.
At 8:34 he couldn’t stand it anymore and picked up the phone to call Tanya. As it rang, his heart pounded in his chest, and he kept thinking, Please let it be voice mail, please let it be voice mail …
“Hello?”
“Uh, um, hi, yeah, Tanya, it’s Eddie calling.”
“Left Eye! My boy! What’s up?”
“I made us an appointment at Jamison for Thursday afternoon, so if you can get off work then …”
“Yeah, no problem. But what are we gonna create up in the Jamison Creative, Left Eye?”
“Well, I’ve been working on a few ideas, I think we should go over together—”
“All right, all right, look, I’m mad busy, but let’s have lunch on Monday and go over stuff so we don’t walk in there looking stupid, then get lectures from Lewis, all ‘my former colleagues inform me that your level of preparation, blah blah blah.’”
Eddie laughed. That was the exact speech Lewis had given in class yesterday after another group showed up at Jamison Creative and apparently expected the Jamison people to come up with their ideas for them and not just show them how to use the equipment. “Okay, see you Monday, then,” he said.
“Okay, bye,” Tanya said.
Eddie hadn’t noticed, but Alex was right by his side. “So?” he said.
“So we’re having lunch on Monday,” Eddie said, smiling. Alex started saying something, but Eddie didn’t listen. He was lost in thought, trying to work out scenarios where this lunch became something more than just a lunch, where Tanya made it clear that somebody who looked as good as her actually did want to date somebody like him, where he knew what to say.
He also realized he had to come up with some ideas so he didn’t look like a complete idiot on Monday. He fell asleep trying to write ads for the sides of buses.
Eddie’s morning classes on Monday were a complete blur. In his mind, he was already eating lunch with Tanya, and impressing her with his wit and intelligence, or at least his intelligence. Finally it was time for lunch, and Eddie met Tanya in the hall.
“So where should we go for our big date?” Tanya said, smiling. Was she trying to make him nervous?
“Uh, I don’t know,” he stammered, “I usually bring my lunch, so …”
“Okay, then, let’s go around the corner to Bulger Brothers Burgers.”
“Uh, okay.” They crammed into an elevator with about fifteen other kids and walked in silence to the burger place. With every step Eddie tried to think of something to say, but he eventually figured that saying nothing was better than saying something stupid.
When they got to the burger place, Eddie looked around and saw the juicy dripping burgers that all the downtown office workers were eating. The guys had their ties over their shoulders and had tucked big napkins into their collars. They looked incredibly dumb, but probably not as dumb as they might look with burger grease, ketchup, and mayo all over their shirts. Eddie figured there was no way he could eat something that messy in front of Tanya. He had nearly decided to get just fries when he heard Tanya order a cheeseburger with everything, so now he pretty much had to get at least that much so he didn’t look girly. Plus, the burgers smelled really good.
Once they got their food, Eddie flung his tie over his shoulder, bent gingerly over his plate, and tried to eat without slopping juice on himself.
Tanya took big, hungry bites, and when a little drop of ketchup dripped on the front of her shirt and she started dabbing it with a napkin, Eddie really thought his brain might explode. Finally he said, “So, what kind of stuff have you come up with?”
“You go ahead and go first,” Tanya said between bites. Eddie wondered if she had anything, or if she was just expecting him to do all the work. Which would actually be fine if it led to her thinking of him as more than a friend.
“Well, obviously we have to get people’s attention in the places where our customers are. I was thinking, um, I mean, well, I thought if we just made up some stickers with the Web address and some kind of catchy line or something, we could stick them everywhere. We can ask the Jamison guys, but I think we could get maybe ten thousand stickers printed for not very much money …” He looked at Tanya, who smiled at him and nodded.
“And then once we sort of get people’s attention with that, we could go to ads on the buses and trains. I called the T for the rates, and I think the prices can work for us if we actually sign up as many advertisers as Alex seems to think we can.”
“That sounds great, Left Eye,” Tanya said, smiling. She wiped her chin and said, “Okay, well, I gotta bounce, you know, get my homework together before class and whatnot. So Thursday, right after school, right?”
“Yeah. I told the Jamison people we’d be over there by four-fifteen.”
“Great. Thanks!” and she was gone. Eddie looked at his watch and saw that there was still fifteen minutes of lunch period left. That was good, because he’d only eaten half his lunch. Why hadn’t she stayed? Well, she did call it a date, and she did smile at him a lot. Maybe she really was busy.
18
Alex got a text message the next day during English that said, “MLVLS 4PM?—HNH.” He fumbled with his phone
under the table, hoping he didn’t get caught and get his phone confiscated again, because Dad had told him he wasn’t coming down here to retrieve his phone from discipline hock again, and he could just buy himself another one if this one was taken away. “OK,” he sent, and quickly put the phone back in his pocket. Everybody was paying attention to Kelvin, who was saying, “I actually think the witches are responsible for Macbeth’s actions. Because if they hadn’t said anything, he never would have even thought of murdering Duncan.” The perfect crime!
He spent the rest of the afternoon preparing to get dumped. He could just tell it was coming. He didn’t really know why, although a couple of times Kenisha had acted like she was about to say something to him, which Alex was sure was going to be a warning that he was on the express train to dumpsville. He tried to think of reasons why he was glad he was going to get dumped, but all he could come up with was if Hanh was nuts enough to break up with him for no reason, he was better off.
He considered trying to break up with her, but he couldn’t really think of a good reason to, and besides, he was kind of curious to know why she wanted to dump him, and he wanted to hear her say it. If he initiated the breakup, he’d have the advantage, but he would also let her out of doing all the hard stuff.
So when four o’clock came, he walked into Melville’s and saw that there was a new hot girl with tattoos working there. He kind of wondered if they kept a supply of them in the back where they kept the milk and sugar and stuff, and every so often the manager would call back, like, “Hey, tattooed hottie out front!”
Hanh was already sitting. She had managed to snag the two plush chairs in the front window, which was an amazing feat. Well, Alex thought, at least I’ll be comfortable while I’m getting dumped.
He sat down without bending over to kiss or hug her. He decided not to even bother with the small talk, so he said, smiling, “You’re dumping me.”
Hanh furrowed her brow. “Did Kenisha tell you? Because she—”
“No, it’s just obvious. You got all funny all the sudden. I don’t need Kenisha to tell me that.”
How Ya Like Me Now Page 11