Aunt Dinah was crying, and she went over to Eddie, hugging him and bawling. Alex watched as Eddie received the hug stiffly, just like he did when Mom hugged him.
And then he noticed that Eddie was shaking, his face was scrunched up, and that tears were pouring down his cheeks. Alex felt embarrassed, like maybe this was too private for him to see. But he couldn’t just go to his room, and anyway the walls were so thin that you could hear everything.
Finally Aunt Dinah pulled away, and Eddie stood there still looking all stiff and red-faced. Alex was surprised to find that he wanted to hug him himself.
Of course, he didn’t. Everybody stared at poor Eddie until Aunt Dinah put her arm around his shoulder, and said, “So, um, listen. We need to talk.” Then she started crying again, and they both just stood there hugging and crying for what felt like an hour to Alex. He glanced over at his mom and dad, and they just gave him these “I don’t know what to do either” looks.
Eventually Eddie and Aunt Dinah made their way over to the couch. Alex had forgotten to pause his game, and Mace Hardcastle was screaming, “My flesh! My very soul!” as he got killed again.
“Uh, let me just get that,” Alex said, and stumbled over to the TV and turned off the PS2. There was loud static and snow all over the TV screen, and Alex snapped that off, too.
“So, Eddie, you got my letter,” Aunt Dinah said.
“Yeah” Eddie said. It was the first sound he’d made since he came home.
“So you know how sorry I am, how sorry I will always be for everything that happened—no, for everything I did. It didn’t just happen. They had to keep reminding me about that, you know, I sort of, I thought of this whole thing like a terrible thunderstorm, something that just happened to us, but of course it wasn’t a thunderstorm, it was something I did.”
Eddie didn’t say anything. Mom was motioning for Alex and Dad to go to the kitchen, but Alex didn’t want to leave Eddie alone, so he looked at his mom quizzically, pretending he didn’t understand what her hand motions meant.
“It’s okay, Lily,” Aunt Dinah said, “you’ve been more of a parent to Eddie in the last couple months than I was for years, so we’re all in this together at this point.”
“All right,” Mom said, but she sure didn’t look like it was all right.
“So listen, Eddie,” Aunt Dinah said, while stroking Eddie’s hair like he was a little kid. Eddie looked like he wanted to push her hand away, but he just sat there taking it. “I screwed up, and I know I screwed up, and that’s what makes this so hard for me. I know … I know that you …” She sat there for a moment trying to compose herself. Alex thought about how scenes like this were always way better on TV sitcoms, where people screamed for two minutes and then hugged for ten seconds while the studio audience went “Awwwww,” and then they made a joke and everything was fine just in time for the last tampon commercial.
Aunt Dinah went on. “I know that you … that you want us to be together, deserve to have a normal life with a normal mom and everything. And that’s why …” She took a deep breath and paused before continuing. “That’s why, even though I know you want that and you deserve that, and I’m done with drugs, I’m not—I’m working really hard to stay sober, one day at a time, just like they say, but I just … Well, I don’t have enough money to get a new place in Oldham, and, anyway, I don’t think it’s going to be good for my sobriety to be on the North Shore, I mean, there are all those places, all the people.
“So I just feel awful about this, Eddie, about uprooting you again, about not being able to get you back to your real home, but, well, Lily and Brian have generously offered to let me stay here until I get on my feet, you know, get enough money together for first and last months’ rent so we can get an apartment.”
Aunt Dinah kind of choked up again. “I mean, it won’t be as nice a place as this, or as the old house, but we’ll get something of our own soon, I promise. But that means, for the meantime, we’ll have to stay in Boston, sweetie, and I’m sorry about that, I know you must really want to go back to Old-ham, but I’m afraid that part of our lives is really over now. I’m sorry, sweetie, I’m so sorry.” Aunt Dinah looked like it just about killed her to say this, and Alex actually kind of wanted to give her a hug and tell her it was okay.
Instead, Eddie did it. “It’s okay, Mom,” he said. His voice sounded weird and strangled, but it wasn’t the same strangled voice he used when he was trying not to cry Eddie reached over and gave Aunt Dinah a hug that lasted a long time and was embarrassing, at least to Alex.
Then Eddie stood up, and said, still in that weird strangled voice, “Alex, you wanna take a walk with me?”
“Sure, of course,” Alex said and jumped up. They went over to the elevator. Alex swung the heavy doors closed and looked over at Eddie, who wouldn’t say anything or look at him. When Alex swung the doors open at the ground floor, Eddie looked over at him and started laughing. Really, really loud. “I was so … oh my God, I’ve been so worried for so long—” and he had to stop because he was laughing so hard, “I was so afraid, I thought she was gonna …” More laughter. “‘I’m so sorry you don’t get to go back to Oldham’”—he almost choked he was laughing so hard—“I was like yeah Mom I was gonna … scream at you if you tried to make me …” and he just collapsed on the floor of the elevator laughing.
And now that it was finally over, the tension of the whole night, the tension of Eddie’s whole stay here, was over, at least for now, Alex found that Eddie’s laughter was pretty contagious, and he started laughing, too. The whole thing was just so damn sad it was funny, or maybe it was just so funny it was funny. Eddie had been getting all geared up to yell at his mom about something and she had been getting all geared up to let Eddie down easy, and when you thought about it even for a second it made you laugh, but especially with Eddie laughing so hard that tears were coming out of his eyes. It was hilarious in a weird way, and then the elevator door started trying to close on Eddie’s foot, and it kept popping back open, and the elevator started buzzing, and that was funny, too.
23
Everybody spoke in the presentation, but nobody spoke as much as Alex, and Eddie was in awe of him. He was definitely Mr. Smooth: he made jokes that even Lewis laughed at, he answered every question clearly and confidently, and five kids asked him how they could sign up for the traffic report at the end of the class.
Lewis applauded, and the entire group got to come to the front of the class as he said, “At the outset of this assignment, several of you approached me and asked exactly what my grading standard would be, what, in effect, an A would look like. I told you that as no one had ever received an A on this project, I believed it was actually impossible to do so. Now, I will need to give the written materials a thorough appraisal, and I daren’t even speculate on what kind of grade I will give those, but I’m happy to report that today, I have seen my first A-quality presentation on this project. Fantastic work, all of you.”
For the first time since Dad died, Eddie actually felt like stuff was starting to go his way Even when Mom got enough money for an apartment, they’d never have to go back to Old-ham, so he could stay here, where he had friends and a family and all the stuff he’d thought he’d have to wait till college or even later to get.
After class, Savon yelled out, “Yo, my group over here!” and everybody, including Tanya, smiled and went over to him, even though technically there was no more group because the project was over.
“I just want to thank everybody for coming through on this,” Savon said. “Y’all did a fantastic job, and I think we should think about setting this thing up for real after fourth quarter. The hard part is already done, and all we’d need is a server and a broadband connection, and some traffic reporters. Obviously we ain’t doing this right now, but think about it for the summer. I think we could make some bills.”
Eddie thought about how cool it would be if this became a real thing. And how cool it would be to have a job and some money he co
uld use to, say, take Kenisha out or something.
“Anyway,” Savon went on, “thank you. I’m proud of us.”
“Yo, I got something to say,” Tanya said. Everybody looked at her, and Eddie was afraid she was going to rip into Alex for being nasty to her. Instead she said, “I’m sorry to everybody but especially Left Eye, for not pulling my weight. I had mad stuff going on in the last few days, and though everything is okay now, I’m sorry y’all had to carry me. But thank you for doing it.” Were her eyes actually tearing up there? Well, Eddie knew about having “mad stuff” going on in your life, and he instantly forgave her for not pulling her weight. He thought it would probably take a while longer to forgive her for liking Alex, even though he found he didn’t like her like that anymore anyway.
Everybody kind of mumbled that it was fine, and Alex said, “Uh, listen, Tanya, I was mad stressed the other day, and you know, I’m sorry I was mean.”
“That’s okay,” Tanya said softly, and she even smiled.
“That’s what I’m talking about, people, the love! The love!” Savon said, and everybody kept grinning these big goofy grins and started packing up their stuff.
Eddie noticed that Kenisha seemed to be packing up extra-slow, so he dropped his notebook and found that he had a bunch of papers in his folder that he had to organize before he could leave. Eventually he and Kenisha were the only ones left in the classroom. He could hear Alex in the hallway going, “Yo, Harry, guess which advisory group got the best marketing presentation grade in the whole history of FA-CUE?”
Harrison must have been happy, because he didn’t say anything to Alex about calling him Harry or about using the school’s full acronym, and Eddie could hear him fading down the hall going, “Excellent! Hey, that is fantastic! I’m really proud of you.”
Kenisha looked at Eddie and smiled. “So,” she said, “how’d it go with your mom?”
“It went okay I mean, it was hard to see her. It was actually really hard to see her. She told me she was sorry but we could probably never go back to Oldham and we’d both have to stay in Boston at least till the end of the school year and maybe even longer.”
“Hey, that’s great!” Kenisha said, then stopped and said, “I mean, it is, isn’t it?”
“It totally is. I feel way more at home here than I ever did in Oldham, and I think it’s gonna be … I don’t know, it’s just gonna be easier for me to forgive her if we don’t have to go back to the same place where everything sucked so bad, where she was … you know, where she wanted drugs more than anything.”
“Yeah. Even if my mom wanted me to move to California, there is no way I could do it right now. But I still wish she’d ask.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said. He didn’t have anything else to say, so he didn’t say anything at all, and that was all right. That was a great thing about hanging out with Kenisha. She was kind. And smart. And, Eddie thought, pretty He liked the fact that her glasses made her look as smart as she actually was.
They walked into the hall, and Eddie was feeling better and more confident than he had felt in his whole life: they’d just aced their project, and he was surprised to find he was looking forward to seeing Mom tonight. Maybe they could start to have some kind of normal relationship, and even if they couldn’t, she never shut up about how proud of him she was, and that was definitely nice.
He thought about asking Kenisha if she wanted to go out and get some coffee or something (because, having consumed one free latte in his whole life, he was now a cool coffee-drinkin’ man), but he suddenly got afraid, and he didn’t want to ruin the best day he’d had in years by getting rejected. So he just said, “Well, uh, see you tomorrow, I guess.”
Kenisha smiled. “Yeah, you will. I keep telling Grandmom I should get a day to play hooky, but she’s not buying it.”
Eddie laughed, because he knew Kenisha playing hooky was about as likely as him playing hooky. And then he risked rejection even though he thought he’d already decided not to do that. “So, uh … can I like … call you tonight or something?”
“Yeah,” Kenisha said, smiling, and then Eddie couldn’t say anything else because he was thinking about how beautiful she looked when she smiled.
After school, Eddie went to therapy and told Don everything that was going on, and for the first time ever, he didn’t feel heavy and sad at the end of their session. He still went to his room when he got back home, but only because he knew that everybody would give him a few minutes alone after therapy, and that would give him a great opportunity to call Kenisha. He smiled at his deviousness, even as he thought that he really needed his own phone. But he’d feel bad asking Aunt Lily and Uncle Brian, and Mom was currently destitute. Well, maybe he’d apply for a job at Melville’s or something. That way he could earn money for dates.
Kenisha could only talk for ten minutes before her grand-mom started telling her to get off, but it felt good to talk to her, even though it felt a lot more awkward than any of their conversations ever had before.
When Eddie and Alex got to advisory the next morning, the door was open, and they could hear Harrison’s voice. They looked at each other. It was still fifteen minutes before school started. This couldn’t be good.
Except it was. Harrison was sitting there with a big grin on his face in front of bags of bagels, doughnuts, and munchkins, and a couple of boxes of coffee, and everybody was walking around eating and smiling.
“What’s going on?” Eddie asked, and Kelvin said, “Yo, Harry—”
Mr. Harrison cut him off with “This is a professional celebration, Kelvin, so let’s have some professional language, please.”
Kelvin rolled his eyes, and said, “Mr. Harrison is rewarding us because our advisory got the best grades on the marketing presentation.”
“That’s right!” Mr. Harrison said loudly as he moved right next to the open door. He yelled down the hall, “Yes, though certain of my colleagues have expressed concern about how this advisory is conducted, it appears that this advisory outperformed all others on the biggest academic task of the year!” He turned back to the room, smiling.
“So what did you guys get?” Alex asked Gisela.
“B plus. Second highest grade in the class,” Gisela said, smiling. “No thanks to a certain person who caused a last-minute power failure.”
“And then stayed up all night fixing everything,” Kelvin called out.
“All right, all right, I guess I have to give you that,” Gisela said.
“And I did practically the whole presentation,” Hanh called out.
“Good job,” Alex said, and for a minute, Eddie thought he was going to add something snotty about how she didn’t have any distractions, but, shockingly, he just left it at that. Hanh and Kenisha huddled in the corner and whisperered. Were they looking at him?
The rest of the day felt like an afterthought, even though Harrison bought them pizza for lunch. When school ended, Alex asked if he wanted to head straight home. Eddie said, “No thanks. I think I’m gonna hang out and try to get some homework done here, so I don’t have my mom looking over my shoulder asking me a million questions now that she’s involved in my life again.”
Alex laughed. “Okay, then,” he said, and headed out.
Eddie wandered the hall aimlessly for a minute, hoping to catch sight of Kenisha. Finally, when he made his third trip past the advisory door, he saw her standing in the hall. He reached down inside himself and clamped his fear in a tight little ball, and then stood off to the side and watched as this kind of happy, very confident, not-too-bad-looking kid replaced the sad, shy, hideous kid that had lived in his skin for so long. Then he watched as the happy kid who was actually him said to Kenisha, “So, um, do you wanna go get some coffee or something?”
“Oh, I can’t,” Kenisha said, and Eddie’s stomach fell. All of a sudden the shy kid was back, and he was yelling at Eddie see, he knew he was a loser, why did he even try? “I’m … I had a little argument with my grandmom last night, and I guess I w
as disrespectful or something, ’cause now I’m on punishment for a week.”
“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry,” Eddie said.
“Thanks. I think it was worth it. It felt good to tell her she should trust me a little more. Still, it’s too bad—I mean …” she trailed off as they reached the elevator, then said, “I don’t feel like waiting for that thing all day. I’m gonna take the stairs.”
Eddie didn’t think it ever took all day for the elevator to come, but he decided to follow Kenisha anyway. “Uh, sure, I could use some exercise,” he said as he followed her into the stairwell.
When he got through the fire door to the stairwell, he saw Kenisha waiting. She had taken her glasses off. Eddie stopped short, and Kenisha leaned down and gave him a really nice, really slow, kiss with her soft, soft lips, and before Eddie could figure out what was happening, she bolted down the stairs. “Call me!” she called out.
“I will!” Eddie responded. He took a moment to collect himself. When he got out onto the street, he saw Alex and Tanya standing on the sidewalk talking. Tanya handed Alex a piece of paper and walked away, and Alex stood there smiling.
“Alex!” Eddie called out.
Alex looked at him and immediately got this guilty look on his face. “Oh, hey, Eddie, I thought you were studying. I mean, I was just, you know, I felt like I had to apologize again, because I actually felt bad about being mean to her, and before I knew what was happening, she’s giving me her number. I mean, you’re my boy, well, no, you’re family, and that’s more important, and there is no way I’m calling her. You know I wouldn’t do you like that, right?”
Eddie was touched, and also kind of amused. Tanya was just about the furthest thing from his mind right now. “Don’t worry about it,” Eddie said. “It’s cool with me, although you’re probably going to have to pick between her and Stephanie.”
How Ya Like Me Now Page 15