“Yeah, I did.”
“What did you notice?”
“They were going too—uh—pretty slow.”
He nodded. “That’s right. Good. Now, uh, why do you think they were going so slow?”
“I was wondering that too,” I said. “I figured it was a funeral, or maybe somebody real old at the head of the line.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. A trace of pain came into his smile. “Sorry, chief. Wrong this time.” He used his hand to turn me around till I was facing the direction I came from. “Look.” There was the hill I had come down, and the slow-moving cars—and something else too. “What do you see?” he said.
“A sign.”
“A flashing sign?”
“Yeah.”
“Big?”
“Yeah.”
“What does it say?”
“Fifteen.”
“As in fifteen miles per hour?”
“Yeah.”
“What else do you see?”
“A school.”
“What kind of school?”
“Elementary.”
“How do you know it’s elementary?”
“The kids.”
“What about them?”
“They’re little.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Little buggers, ain’t they?”
“Yeah.”
“Look at that one there—green jacket—running. He’s downright tiny, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“That bugger’s so tiny, if you hit him he probably wouldn’t even put a dent in your bike. Right?” My lip was quivering. “Right, chief?”
“Right.”
I heard him sigh behind me. His hand gave my shoulder a squeeze and let go. “Fire or girl, chief?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“That much of a hurry, you must’ve been heading for a fire or a girl.”
“Oh, uh, girl.”
“Ah,” he nodded. “Sure, girl. Name?”
“Uh, Jennifer.”
“Jennifer. Nice name.” Another squeeze on my shoulder. “Nice name.”
Footsteps. He was walking away. But I couldn’t turn. Couldn’t face him. I heard his car start up, then pull away.
Needless to say, I didn’t get to Conestoga that day. Next day, another last-period study-hall day, I tried again. A different route, still pedaling hard, but watching for school signs. I didn’t get stopped by a cop, but I didn’t see Jennifer, either. Too late. Place was deserted by the time I got there.
I had to leave earlier. I figured out a plan Next morning I’d tell my mother I was sick, couldn’t go to school. Then around noon I’d have a miraculous recovery and tell her I was going to the library to study.
It worked. By twelve-thirty I was on the road. Then it rained. Hard. In a minute I was soaked. I didn’t care. A little rain wasn’t going to stop me. But a tidal wave did—the one that came shooting up from the back tire of a truck as it went through a puddle. It hit me in the face; I crashed into a trash can and wound up halfway across somebody’s lawn.
Next day, I really was sick. I don’t know if it was from pneumonia or discouragement, but I never made it out of bed. About four in the afternoon, I got a phone call. It was Sara Bellamy. I couldn’t believe it. I had stayed away from her since stranding her at the bowling alley.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi. Didn’t see you in school the last two days. You sick?”
“Yeah, a little, I guess.”
“Getting better?”
“I’ll live.”
“That’s good.”
Silence on the line. Time to apologize. “Uh—sorry about, uh, taking off that time.”
“Oh, that’s okay.”
“Something came up. I didn’t have time—”
“Really, it’s okay. Really.” More silence Then: “Greg?”
“Yeah?”
“You like fairs?”
“What do you mean?”
“Fairs. Games, booths, hot dogs.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Like to go to one? With me?”
“Gee, I don’t know. What day will it be?”
“Saturday.”
“Saturday, huh? Hmmmmm, Saturday… Saturday…”
“It’s at Conestoga.”
“What?”
“Conestoga Junior High. They have this fair every year. Remember Jennifer Wade? She went to our school last year?”
“Uh, I think so.”
“She’s a friend of mine and she goes to Conestoga now and she sent me tickets for some free games and stuff.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. She’s going to be working at a booth.”
“Yeah? Which one?”
“The kissing booth.”
Megin
IF ANYBODY saw me staggering under the pink-purple Dunkin’ Donuts sign, they probably thought I was drunk. I flopped onto the nearest stool and slumped over the counter. Jackie’s voice came like an angel’s. “Hi there, Moxie.”
“Hi.”
“You look a little bushed.”
“I’m dying.”
“Shouldn’t you be home for dinner?”
“Can’t make it. I’m gonna die here if you don’t mind. Just call the undertaker when I croak.”
“That bad, huh? Lacrosse again?”
I tried to nod but I couldn’t control it. My forehead hit something, a sugar container toppled from the counter. Jackie caught it.
“What’s your number, Moxie?” she said.
“What number?”
“Phone.”
I gave her my number. Somewhere in the distance I heard a coin tinkle, then Jackie’s voice: “Mrs. Tofer?… she’s here… Dunkin’ Donuts… no, no problem… we’ll feed her…”
Next thing I knew I was smelling something, not donuts. I opened my eyes: soup. “I hate soup.”
A spoon waggled before my eyes. “Come on, take it Now eat.”
I took the spoon. “I hate soup.”
“Moxie.”
“I’m too tired to swallow anyway.”
Jackie went away. When she came back she had half an old-fashioned in her hand. She broke it into pieces and dropped them into the soup. I started to eat.
“How many laps today?” Jackie said.
“Six.”
“Wow! You must have really been a terror.”
“They’re all sissies.”
“Coach too?”
“She’s the sissiest. ‘Tofer, take a lap. Tofer, take a lap.’”
“She likes you.”
“She hates me.”
“Why did she put you on the first team then?”
“She’s afraid I’ll beat her up if she doesn’t.”
Jackie laughed. “I believe it.”
I sort of felt like laughing too, but my cheeks were too weak to sink a dimple. “They’re all crybabies,” I said.
“Maybe she thinks you ought to use your lacrosse stick on the ball instead of other players.”
“Well, what’s a stick for if you can’t use it on somebody?” She just laughed. “Anyway,” I said, “I never start it. If I had the strength to lift my leg up, I’d show you how many bruises I have.”
“How’s the soup?”
“Okay.” It was great.
“Working tonight?”
“Too tired.”
“I’ll let you fill the blueberries.”
Even Jackie had never let me do that. I looked at her. “You kidding?”
“Nope. I think you’re ready.”
Talk about temptation! I might have said okay, but just then I happened to look at the donut racks. The french crullers were gone!
Jackie saw the look on my face. She chuckled. “Hey, would I forget you?” She reached under the counter and brought up a fat, beautiful french cruller. “I saved it.”
I sighed with relief. “Thanks.”
“Say,” she said, “how come you always want to take one of these with you? I thought blue
berry-filled was your favorite.”
“It is,” I said, putting the cruller in my schoolbag.
“So?”
“So—my dog likes french crullers.”
She cracked up. I was nearly out the door when I remembered, came back. “Hand,” I commanded.
She gave me a grin and put out her left hand. The top half of the little finger was covered by a rubber thimble. I pulled it off and there it was: the most fantastic fingernail I had ever seen. It was long and tapered and perfect and deep red like the others, but that wasn’t all. In the middle of it was a tiny, heart-shaped, sparkling stone—a fake diamond, I guess. You could always tell when she was filling donuts because that’s when she put the rubber thimble over it. It was like a tradition for me to take a look at it each time I saw her.
“Wow!” I said. I touched it with my fingertip. “Man!” I replaced the rubber thimble. “Gotta go.” I left swooning from fatigue and the diamond fingernail.
The french cruller wasn’t for me or a dog. It was for an old lady at Beechwood Manor, an old people’s home nearby. I was passing the place one day soon after school started when I heard a voice. I thought it said, “Hey, pass me one.” It didn’t make any sense, and anyway, who would be talking to me around an old people’s home? I kept on walking.
Next day, same thing: “Hey, pass me one.” The voice was definitely coming from Beechwood Manor, and come to think of it, I was carrying my lacrosse stick over my shoulder. (We had to take them home each night the first week to “get the feel” of them. “Sleep with it,” the coach told us. Not me, baby. I might sleep with a hockey stick, but a lacrosse stick—never.) Anyway, it was pretty creepy knowing that some senile old croaker was calling me from Beechwood Manor. I kept looking straight ahead.
Next day: “Hey, pass me one.” I looked. A hand was waving from a second-story window. I couldn’t see a face, but the voice said, “Over here. Come on.”
Well, next thing I knew, I was up in her room. She was in a wheelchair and her name was—is—Emilie Bain. She told me she used to play lacrosse when she was a kid—her and the rest all boys. She said the Indians invented it. She took my stick and we played catch across her bed with a tangerine. She could catch and throw better with the stick than I could with my hands.
When she found out I work at Dunkin’ Donuts, she rolled up real close to me and whispered, all excited, “Do you get them free?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Any kind you want?”
“Sure.”
She did a three-sixty in her wheelchair. “Can you get me one?”
“Sure. What kind?”
Her face, especially her eyes, got all remembery and she didn’t answer for a while. Then she said, “French cruller.”
So that’s how it is that I take a french cruller to Emilie every time I visit her. Actually, I have to smuggle it in, because (as she whispered) they’ve put her on a diet and she’s not allowed to eat anything good.
I don’t know why I don’t tell anybody about this. It would just come out all snurdy, me and an old lady and a donut. If I ever do tell anyone, it will probably be Jackie.
Anyway, when I got to Emilie’s room, I gave her the donut and flopped onto her bed. As usual, she offered me some of her donut, but I didn’t take any.
“You look like you just chased a jackrabbit,” she said.
“Six laps,” I groaned.
“Six? Only six? Fiddlefish.”
“That means six extra, just for me. Besides the four everybody has to do.”
“Still fiddlefish. That’s only about two miles. I used to run that far just to reach the outhouse.”
“Sure, Emilie, sure.”
She was always saying crazy stuff like that, always telling about the amazing feats of hers in the old days. Not that I believed her, but she was sort of entertaining.
“Ever hear of Gresham, North Dakota?” she said.
“I hardly ever heard of North Dakota.”
“Well, I used to live in Gresham.”
“I thought you were from Long Island.”
“I was, but we went to live in Gresham, North Dakota, for three years.”
“So?”
“So that’s where I caught a jackrabbit.”
“So? What’s the big deal about that?”
“With my bare hands. Ran it down on foot.”
“Sure, Emilie, sure.” I groaned and rolled over.
It sounded like her best story yet coming up. And it was. She said that when she went to North Dakota, she brought her lacrosse stick with her and pretty soon she had all the kids at the school she attended playing lacrosse—all the boy kids, that is. They made their own sticks. Then she taught the boys at a nearby Indian school. Then the boys at the two schools made up teams and decided to play each other, except neither of the teams wanted a girl—namely, Emilie—playing for them.
So what did she do? She remembered reading how Indians sometimes used to catch animals just by running after them until the animal gave up. If she could catch a jackrabbit with her bare hands, she asked, would they let her play? The Indian boys said okay.
So that’s what she did. There were plenty of jackrabbits around. The trick was to pick one out that didn’t go diving right into a hole. After her seventh or eighth try, she found a real dummy that couldn’t find a hole. Round and round, zig and zag they went across the prairie, all day—she was playing hooky—and just about the time school was out, the rabbit—she called it a “critter”—finally sort of curled up shivering and she just walked over and picked him up by the ears. She took the rabbit home and begged her mother to take her to a photographer. Then she let the rabbit go. When the Indian boys saw the picture, they let her join them, and she scored fifteen goals as they beat the other team 24 to 0.
It was fantastic enough just hearing a story like that, but to hear it coming from an old lady in a wheelchair—she’s eighty-nine, she told me—well, if I weren’t so tired, I probably would have burst out laughing. So I just came out with my little question that I ask when she gets too outlandish. “Emilie,” I said, “what’s it like to be old?”
Then I scrunched up and winced while she gave me the usual smack on my butt (not hard) and said, “How should I know? I’m not old.”
Then I must have dozed off, because next thing I knew, Emilie was shaking me and telling me it’s getting late and I better start heading home.
I don’t even remember walking home and getting into bed. I didn’t open my schoolbag until next morning at my locker. Besides the usual stuff, I found a plain, white envelope, which I couldn’t remember putting there. I opened it and pulled out a picture, an old photograph, kind of faded and brown around the edges. It showed a girl about my age—pretty, short hair, wide-brim hat. She’s giving the camera a grin so big and proud it almost stretches off her face, and in one hand she’s holding up a jackrabbit by the ears.
Greg
I WAS EXCITED. I was nervous. I was happy. I was everything.
I pumped iron morning, afternoon, and night. I swear I could see my bi’s growing before my eyes. My forearm vein looked like it was ready to pop out and slither away.
I Sassooned my hair every morning. I Close-upped my teeth every time I got near a sink. I Pro/Gained at every meal. Every morning: a Pro/Gain, raw-egg, wheat-germ shake. Raw vegetables. Raw fruit. Wherever I went: a potato skin in my pocket, a rubber ball in my hand.
One night Megamouth came home with donuts. My parents said she had to let me have my pick. One was crème-filled. I turned it down.
Meanwhile, all the while, I thought about the moment when I would step up to the kissing booth—and the kiss. What should it be like? Would my kiss impress her? Leave her wanting more? Turn her off? Would I just be the next pair of lips in line? Was she in touch with her spirit, our dream-life? Would our souls flow together through our lips? Would her eyes open, even before our lips parted, and see me, really see me, for the first time? And would she then, at that precise moment, k
now?
I went over the pros and cons of every type of kiss, from a tiny peck to a teeth-grinder. Once, I started to picture myself french-kissing her and I couldn’t even finish the picture. I felt dirty, filthy, almost sick. I knuckled my head. No, scum, not her, not Jennifer Wade. You don’t ever put your dirty paws or your grungy tongue on her. She stays pure and untouched until the day she marries you.
I started the countdown at 9:30 on Friday night. In twelve hours—9:30, Saturday morning—Sara Bellamy and I would take the bus to Conestoga.
I tried going to sleep at 10:00. No use. I was too keyed up.
By 11:30 I was watching the news sign off on my TV. By 1:00 the late rock show was going off. I did sleep a little bit then, in between a gunshot here and a car chase there from the late-late movies.
By 5:30 A.M. I was wide awake, watching some guy explain how to tell when your flower is too big for your pot. I got up and did some lifting—seventy-five-pound deep-squats. There was a light tapping on my door, then my father’s face. “Greg?”
“Yeah?”
“Know what time it is?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re lifting weights? Now?”
“Yeah.”
He stared for a few more squats, then slowly closed the door.
At 6:00 I brushed my teeth—fast strokes along the gum line, like I read in Reader’s Digest once. Brushed my tongue too. Then I flossed. Scooped out every nook and cranny. Used about two yards of string. I was spitting red, but it felt good, whipping my mouth into shape for the kiss. Then I brushed again to get rid of the flossed-out gunk. Then mouthwash. (Scope—minty, sweet; no mediciny breath for me)—gargle (green foaming mouth: mad teenager)—a final fast jolt of cold water—ahhh! In the history of mankind was there ever a more kissable mouth? Then I remembered; I hadn’t eaten yet.
No problem. A little more mouthwork wouldn’t hurt. Meanwhile, shower time. First I Sassooned my hair (1, shampoo; 2, conditioner; 3, rinse). Then, for washing, two soaps to choose from: Irish Spring and Camay. I went with the manly scent of Irish Spring. I tore the wrapper off a new bar. By the time I finished, the bar was about half gone. I really scraped out the crannies good, especially my belly button. Who knows what odor-causing bacteria were lurking in there? I probably dug out stuff that was in there since the day I was born.
Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush? Page 4