Anything Could Happen

by Will Walton

  Amy pulls even with me. “Matt’s right, Tretch. It will never be the same if it’s not now. Let’s go!” With that, she hustles on ahead. I feel like I might as well be running bleachers in PE. And to think I believed my dance moves were keeping me in shape.

  “Woooooow!” Matt exclaims. “Wow! Wow! Wow! Amy! Get up here—you gotta see this!”

  This kills me.

  “I’m almost there, Matt!” she calls.

  This kills me harder. Because I’m running now, and I’m almost there, too. Just right behind her, really.

  “Come on, come on, come on!” he coaxes.

  “I’m here!” she cries. She beat me. God, she beat me to it. He grabs her hand as I summit, and I see—that the whole thing is beautiful. The night sky. A meteor overhead flashing. Will they lace their fingers? Will they lace their fingers? They lace their fingers, and I am dead. I have actually died. I saddle up on a meteor and jet straight out the park. Straight out of Warmouth, away from Matt, off the face of this entire plane of reality altogether. Don’t look back, I command myself. Don’t look back. I’m being melodramatic. I look back. Their fingers are still laced.

  “I’m here,” I say.

  “God, isn’t it beautiful?” he asks, and she responds, “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  I try to agree, “Sure is,” but I’m breathing too heavily. No one can hear a word I say before it evaporates. I try again, “Sure is,” but this time it’s my body that’s evaporated, and I’m suddenly with the meteors. Light like an electric surge spits out across the black sky. It does leave me breathless. I gasp.

  Matt turns. “Hey, Tretch!” he calls. “Come over here with us. I swear it’s even better from over here.”

  At this point, a good friend probably shakes his head, says, “No, no, man, I’m good over here” or something, and lets the lovebirds have their moment.

  But a not-so-good friend—he runs right over, says, “Oh yeah, you’re right, the view’s much better over here,” and stands close enough to his friend that they bump knuckles occasionally. As if on accident.

  Now, guess which one I was.

  When we come down, Ron and Landon are sitting on a park bench. They are holding hands, too, and for some reason that makes me even sadder.

  “You guys ready?” Landon asks, and I say yes all too quickly, quickly enough that it might be rude.

  “Okeydoke.” Landon stands. “We’ll meet you at home, babe,” he says to Ron.

  “See you, babe,” Ron replies. “Tretch, Amy”—he flashes a quiet little smile at us—“I hope to see you both soon.”

  “Absolutely,” Amy says.

  “Absolutely,” I repeat. I mean, Amy Sinks and I already like the same boy and apparently the same T-shirts. I might as well copy the way she answers questions, too.

  Ron heads off toward the overfill parking lot behind the Old Muse, and we head to our spot near the entrance. Matt leans into me and whispers, “Hey, Tretch, do you mind if Amy and I listen to my iPod in the backseat?”

  “Uh, well, no, of course not. But why would you rather listen to music when you could be talking?”

  “Because I’m nervous. And I’m running out of things to say.”

  I can’t help but smile at that. “Seriously?”

  “Totally,” he says. “I know. I’m pathetic. But I’m to the point now where, for every worthwhile thing I say, I say like ten stupid things, so …”

  “Well, what are you even going to listen to?”

  “I don’t know.” He slides the iPod out of his pocket. We are beside the car now. “Who wants shotgun?” Landon asks, and I raise my hand. He pulls the door open, and I slide on in. “Thanks, Mr. Landon.”

  “No problem, Tretch-o.”

  Amy opens the door for Matt, and he fumbles with his headphones for a second while trying to buckle his seat belt. His cheeks get all bright red in the car light. I try to send a vote of confidence his way by looking in the rearview, but Amy pulls the door closed and the light disintegrates before I can.

  “You want to listen to some music?” he asks her.

  “Sure,” she says.

  “Just promise you won’t judge me for the amount of Taylor Swift. I swear, I download all of that for Tretch. Tretch doesn’t have an iPod or a phone … and, oddly, he isn’t Amish.”

  “Do the Amish especially like Taylor Swift?” Amy jokes.

  “If they do, I’m in the wrong religion,” I interject, which makes Amy laugh.

  But seriously. No one need think my love for Taylor Swift is a joke. It’s like some people (Matt) are embarrassed to like Taylor Swift or something. Not me. In fact, if anyone ever stopped me and asked, “Tretch Farm, who would you say is the voice of your generation?” I would say Taylor Swift, hands down, no competition.

  “I like Taylor Swift,” Landon confesses after all goes quiet in the backseat. I force myself to keep facing forward, to not see how close they’re getting. “She’s got this one that makes me cry.”

  “Really?” I’m both surprised and not surprised. “Oh wait, let me guess which one. Is it ‘Never Grow Up’?”

  Landon shakes his head, smiling.

  “ ‘The Best Day’?”

  “Is that the one about her mom?”

  I nod.

  “No,” Landon says. “But I do like that one.”

  “Hmm.” I have to think about this. “Okay, those are usually my go-to cry songs. Let’s see.” I’m riffling through my mental Taylor Swift catalogue. “ ‘Last Kiss’?”

  “Nope.”

  “ ‘All Too Well’?”

  “Try again.”

  “Is it older?”

  “Yeah, it’s an older one.”

  “Oh my gosh, is it ‘Fifteen’? Please tell me it’s—”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Oh my gosh, yes.”

  “Yep … What’s the line? Where she’s like, in your life, you’ll do better things than dating the popular boy, or …”

  “ ‘In your life, you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team …,’ ” I recite, pausing in rhythm.

  “Yes.” Landon nods. “I mean, where was that song when I was fifteen?”

  “Exactly,” I say. “I mean, how did you even survive?”

  “What? Being fifteen?”

  “Uh, yes.” Specifically, I meant being fifteen without Taylor Swift—but if Landon wants to give me the story of his fifteen-year-old self, I’m not complaining.

  “Hmm … movies, I guess. I went to the movies a lot.”

  “What movies?”

  “Well. When I was growing up, there was an art house cinema only a few blocks away. I used to lie to my mom and tell her I was going to hang out with friends, when really I was just going to the movies.”

  “Why did you have to lie?”

  “I guess I didn’t have to lie, but I did it mostly just because I didn’t want her to feel sad about me going everywhere by myself all the time.”

  “Oh, I understand.”

  “Yeah.” Landon pauses, reflecting. “That’s the theater where I saw King Kong for the first time. And a lot of other stuff.”

  “Oh, cool,” I say. “Yeah, that was really neat, what Mr. Ron said about seeing it again with you in college. Is that when y’all met? In college?”

  “Yeah,” Landon says. “I met him my senior year. Ron was a sophomore.”

  “And then you got married?”

  Landon laughs—actually it’s kind of a guffaw, and I don’t use the word guffaw lightly. “Well, yes, long story short … much longer story short.”

  “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Uh, sure, Tretch.”

  “Who did the proposing? Was it you or Ron?”

  Landon laughs. “You know, oddly enough, no one ever asks that. But I was the one who did the actual proposing.”

  “Nice,” I say. “Where were you guys?”

  “We were in a restaurant. This awful Mediterranean restaurant in Queens that smelled
like there was some kind of chemical leak inside it.”

  “Ooh,” I say. “Well, that sounds … romantic?”

  “Somehow I guess it was. I totally cried throughout the proposal. Ron cried when he said yes. I’m telling you, it was a mess.” He laughs. “But you know what Ron said to me after we got ourselves together enough that we could speak? And you’ll get this now that you’ve seen King Kong.”

  “What?”

  “He said, ‘Here’s to the big one,’ and we clinked glasses. Now how perfect is that?” Landon looks at me and smiles. Headlights from a passing car light up his face, and his eyes glisten.

  “Pretty perfect,” I say, still refusing to look behind me.

  In Amy’s driveway, she and Matt say their good-byes. It’s so cute. Like, I’m having to watch with one eye closed, it’s so cute.

  “Well, bye,” he says.

  “Bye,” she says. “See you soon.”

  “Yeah.” He nods. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Thanks for the invite.”

  They can’t even look each other in the face. She turns around and jogs up the front steps.

  Matt spins in the direction of the car with a massive grin and gives me two thumbs-up. So the night went well. Apparently.

  In my driveway, Landon turns the headlights off, and Matt taps me on the shoulder. He winks at me from the backseat, and we high-five each other. “Good night,” he says, not so much wishing me one as confirming what we just had.

  Tonight was a good night.

  “Definitely,” I agree, unbuckling. “Thanks so much for driving, Mr. Landon.”

  “You’re very welcome, Tretch,” he says, winking—gosh, they are the winkingest family. “Great talking to you.”

  “Yeah, it was for me, too.” I sigh, one hand on the roof of the car, the other on the door. “Well, good night, you guys. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Night, Tretch.”

  “Night, man.”

  I shut the door then, and they’re free to go. I don’t look back. I don’t look back because that’s my rule about good-byes. Once the actual good-bye is said, just keep on walking and don’t look back. Because what you do after a good-bye—that’s like the punctuation mark at the end of it all, and it can be either a period or a question mark.

  My motto: Go for the period. Don’t look back. Seal it up, put it away, and there you have it: an entire moment, perfectly packaged, complete.

  Landon and Matt back out of the driveway. I don’t turn around. I close the front door behind me. I don’t turn around.

  There’s a single light on in the kitchen, the one above the stove, and a sheet of notebook paper on the stove top. I pick it up.

  Good night, Tretch!

  We tried to wait up for you, but we got too tired.

  Hope King Kong didn’t get you!

  Love, Mom

  Beneath that is a drawing of a vicious King Kong holding a petrified-looking little boy in his fist in Mom’s signature drawing style—the one she perfected as head of the comics department for her college newspaper.

  Beneath the Kong drawing is another note.

  Hey, Tretch. Dad here. Hope your date went well. Can’t wait to hear about it in the morning. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to see you today. Work’s been pretty crazy, or, how do you and Joe say it, “cray-cray”? Work’s been pretty “cray-cray” lately. Anyway, good night. Love, Dad

  I bust out laughing at the “cray-cray” thing. Dad is pretty “cray-cray” himself.

  Beneath that is another note—this one from Joe.

  Hey, Tretch. Just writing to say I hope your date went well and to point out that Mom and Dad did not leave notes for me while I was out. Therefore, you are the favorite.

  I’m off to sleep off my feelings of inadequacy. Hopefully.

  Yours truly, Chopped Liver

  I’m laughing big-time now. Goodness gracious. My entire family is cray-cray, and I kind of freaking love them.

  I take the blue pen off the countertop and draw a heart in the only blank space left on the page. Right at the bottom. From the bottom of my heart.

  Night, everyone.

  First full day of break means me sleeping as late as I can, then sticking to my room and my stereo for as long as I can—namely, until hunger gets the best of me and I have to head down to the kitchen. I want some word from Matt, but don’t get any—probably because he, too, is riding the first day of break as long as he can.

  In all the excitement of the King Kong adventure, I managed to forget about the note Bobby Handel wrote about the two of us. Now I give it some more thought, which is probably more thought than it’s worth.

  I’ve been able to recognize Bobby Handel’s handwriting since fifth grade—which was, incidentally, the year he started to pick on me.

  The full-on bullying came in the sixth grade, when he just happened to ram me into a locker and then decided it was funny enough to do it Every Single Day after that. He didn’t stop doing it for the rest of that year. One day I actually got a cut on my eyebrow from where I hit the corner of the locker next to mine. It had swung open somehow, and I fell into it headfirst after Bobby gave me a good shove.

  Bobby saw the blood before I did. In fact, I wouldn’t have even noticed it if his face hadn’t looked genuinely concerned for a split second. And then he was gone, stomping down the hallway. I put my hand to my face and pulled it away, and sure enough there was a wet, hot red stain.

  That was the worst day of the sixth grade, hands down, but Bobby laid off of me for a little while after that, and he’s never really hurt me again. He still calls me by this stupid nickname I hate: Dancing Queen, after the ABBA song. And the funny thing is: Bobby didn’t even come up with that nickname. Nope. That credit actually goes to Mr. Tim Handel, Bobby’s dad.

  It all has to do with this time I was working out my choreography to “Physical” by Olivia Newton-John. I had heard the song for the first time on an old Glee episode, and it was my favorite at the time, especially since I had some pretty insane moves to go along with it.

  Overall, I thought I’d put a pretty good dance together. Sure, now I think it was amateur, but for a sixth grader, it wasn’t that bad. It involved a lot of standard motions like knee bends and hip thrusts and shoulder rolls. There were several fist pumps, even a solitary moment when I flopped down onto my hands and did one push-up.

  It came together all right.

  Then one day, Tim Handel was at the house talking business with Dad. The plumbing downstairs had gone kind of haywire, so he’d had to use the bathroom upstairs. I hadn’t shut the door to my room, and when Tim heard the music, he stopped to look in. I was watching my reflection move in the mirror on my closet door, making sure my hip thrusts looked fluid. Tim Handel paused and stood there looking at me with wide eyes. I stopped moving, but too late. He busted out laughing.

  “Whatcha doin’ there, Dancing Queen?” he asked once he finally caught his breath.

  I can’t figure out people like Tim and Bobby Handel, so sometimes I think it’s best to not even try. Just forget about them and go on about my day.

  Which is what I’m trying to do with the note Bobby wrote. If Matt can take it in stride, so can I.

  I walk downstairs and smell evergreen-scented candles immediately. It’s a make-do smell, considering we haven’t bought a tree yet. Mom and Dad and Joe are all so busy. I’m the only one who isn’t—I don’t think you start to get busy until you can drive. Part of me actually kind of likes it. It makes the time go slower, and I can just take everything in and think about it all.

  I thumb through a thin stack of mail sitting on our kitchen counter. A few Christmas cards from Mom and Dad’s old college friends, all of them saying things like “Let There Be Peace on Earth!” and “Merry Christmas from Our Family to Yours.” The scented candle flickers on the kitchen table.

  It used to be that the mail would be sorted and responded to immediately, but Mom’s pulling double duty now. She’s getting her master’s d
egree in finance because she’s ready to move on from her job as secretary at Farm and Handel Insurance, where my dad works. Part of it, I think, has to do with the fact that she’s discovering new things about herself, “realizing” her “full potential,” as she put it to Joe and me last Friday while she drove us both to buy new jeans. Part of it, I think, has to do with my dad. “Everyone needs a little space,” she said. “Even married couples. It’s not good for any relationship if the two of you stay cooped up in the same place all day long, then come home to the same place. We’re humans. We need our space like every other species on this earth.”

  I also think she doesn’t enjoy spending that much time up close with Tim Handel. If father is truly like son—and I believe he is—I can’t say I blame her.

  I wonder now if she’s home … and then I notice some soft music playing.

  Is it? It is.

  Celine Dion Christmas.

  Mom is definitely home.

  I walk into the den, where she’s sprawled out on the floor, dead asleep. She hasn’t slept much in the past few nights, since she’s been having final exams in all her classes. I see some old coffee still sitting in a mug on the coffee table. I pick it up and carry it to the kitchen. I’m washing it out in the sink when I hear her say, “Tretch? That you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I walk into the den, still holding the coffee mug. “You want to start a fresh pot?”

  She breathes out, and a strand of her brown hair flutters in front of her face. “Sure,” she says. “Might as well.”

  “Yesterday was the last one, right?” I ask.

  “Last one,” she says, pumping her fist. “Done. I’m just in recovery mode now.” She’s still sitting flat on the ground. Her hair’s a mess, and she hasn’t put on any makeup. But Mom’s never been one of those ladies to wear lots of makeup. She has a pretty good natural look all by itself.

  “How’d it go?” I ask.

  “Oh, it went fine, I think.” She holds her hand out and it goes limp. “It better have. I wrote about ten pages.”