90 Days of Different

by Eric Walters

  “What? What are you doing, what are you saying?” It was Barney. His eyes were wide, and his expression couldn’t have been more confused if I’d taken a bite out of him instead of the burger.

  “This burger is disgusting,” I yelled. I reached over, grabbed it back from the startled customer and held it out for Barney. “Try it yourself—have a bite.” I pushed it into his face, and he stumbled back a step. Shocked didn’t describe his reaction. He looked terrified, like he was dealing with a crazy person. Okay, he was dealing with a crazy person. Was this really me?

  Everyone in the whole restaurant was silent, every sound stopped, every eye on me. Nobody moved—it was like the entire restaurant was frozen in place. I braced, waiting for Barney—or anybody—to react. There was nothing. They all stood stunned, silent and still as statues.

  “You know, if staff occasionally washed their hands after using the facilities this food wouldn’t taste nearly as bad,” I said.

  A groan went up from the people, and somebody yelled, “That’s disgusting!” Someone else said, “I told you so!” But from Barney there was nothing. I could see the wheels turning, but he was struggling to speak. Instead he just made gurgling sounds, like he had so many words he wanted to say that they were all stuck in his throat. How could he fire me if he couldn’t talk?

  I grabbed the two cartons of French fries that remained on the tray and tossed them into the air. They rained down on the customers, unfreezing everybody as they exploded in movement and screams and laughter.

  “You-you-you,” Barney stuttered. “You are-are—”

  “Come on, say the word—you can do it,” Ella said encouragingly from behind.

  “Fired! You are fired!” he screamed.

  Ella and I screamed out in delight, jumping up and down and hugging as the customers looked on in amazement and disbelief.

  I posted getting fired and then put up a picture of Ella and I dressed in our uniforms and a second one of me knocking over the drinks. Ella had even managed to take a video of me with Barney, ending with me tossing the fries in the air. We’d put that on YouTube and posted the link on Facebook and Twitter. It had already been viewed by almost three thousand people! It wasn’t like a kitten playing a piano, gone viral with millions of views, but still, it was pretty amazing. And, of course, the more people who saw the video, the more followers I got on Twitter and Instagram. In one day I’d gotten almost three hundred friend requests, dozens and dozens of retweets and lots of new followers. It seemed like everybody in the world had not only worked at a fast-food restaurant at one time but had wanted to do exactly what I’d done. In some strange way I had become a fast-food hero. And, as bizarre, this was even better than being employee of the month.

  I’d been racing through friend requests, just checking them off, when one caught my attention. It was Barney, the manager of Burger Barn. I accepted his request, and then he put up a nice message thanking me for making him “famous” and saying there were no “hard feelings.” He also wanted me to know there had been a “bump” in business at the Burger Barn by people coming in after seeing the video. He invited me back to have lunch—on the house—if I promised not to start a food fight.

  Ella had told me she was proud of me and that I’d surprised her with how extreme I’d gotten. I’d surprised myself even more. How many surprises did I did have inside of me still to come?

  DAY 11

  My blog entry for today:

  How stupid for me to write in the roller-coaster blog that I hate snakes.

  Ella didn’t know that—until she read about my fear. I had gotten a terrible sinking feeling when we pulled up and I read the sign. Reptile World. Snakes. It had to be snakes.

  I was right. The place was filled with snakes. So many of them, and each one creeped me out. Then we stopped in front of the cage that was home to the one Ella had brought me to “meet.” It was the biggest snake I’d ever seen in my life. An anaconda.

  Before I could meet it, I met the trainers/owners of the place, a couple called Chip and Amber. Both of them were covered in tattoos—mainly of snakes, which were on their arms and in Chip’s case “coiled” around his neck and up onto the side of his face.

  I went into the snake pen with them. I was really scared stiff. Amber took my hand and made me gently touch the snake. It felt different than I thought it would. It was warm and soft and smooth. Then they picked the snake up—it took the two of them—and gently draped it around my neck. That’s the picture you see—a fifteen-foot anaconda wrapped around my neck. I’m not sure why I’m smiling, but somehow it seemed almost surreal—until I realized I couldn’t breathe so well anymore. That’s when the pictures stopped and the keepers and photographer and Ella all worked to unwrap it from my neck.

  DAY 15

  The knot in the pit of my stomach was from a combination of adrenaline and anxiety. What a strange way to feel about going to the shopping mall. I looked around furtively, trying to see what dangers or different could be lurking. There was nothing but stores and shoppers. No heights or snakes or roller coasters.

  Ella was all smiles and confidence, but why wouldn’t she be? It wasn’t like I had something planned for her.

  “So what’s going to be happening today?” I asked.

  “Maybe we’re just going for a stroll in the mall. Don’t you like the mall?”

  “I’m not that big into shopping—you know that.”

  “Believe me, we’re here to shop but not to buy,” Ella said.

  The knot got tighter. “Can’t you just tell me what we’re going to be doing?”

  “It’s not we, it’s you, and I’ll tell you soon enough. You have to admit that I’ve arranged some pretty interesting things for you to do so far.”

  “I’m not arguing with that.” They had been interesting, but she really seemed to enjoy watching me twist in the wind.

  “And let’s be honest. These aren’t the things you’d normally do.”

  “These are things that no normal person would normally do,” I said.

  “Normal people go on roller coasters and eat sushi and sherbet.”

  “Normal people don’t try to get fired from a job at Burger Barn.”

  “Normal people don’t want to work at Burger Barn to begin with. Getting fired was simply a part of pushing you. Do you want to stop?”

  I thought about that for a split second. Part of me did want to stop. I couldn’t let that part win. I couldn’t let the unmade bed beat me.

  “No. Keep them coming. I can handle different.”

  “I like that confidence—even if it’s false confidence. Part of the reason I don’t tell you in advance—besides the fact that it really does amuse me not to—is that I know how you worry.”

  I did worry. No question. Wait. “Amuses you?”

  “It is funny to watch you go through these things.” She paused. “Is that mean of me?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Come on, when you watch America’s Funniest Home Videos, don’t you laugh when people fall down?” Ella asked.

  “Of course. A little.” But they weren’t people I knew.

  “You know what they say—it’s funny until somebody gets hurt, and then it’s hilarious.”

  “I’ll see if I can make things more hilarious for you.”

  “That’s so considerate of you! But there’s no chance of you getting hurt today. And as I speak, here we are.”

  We were in the middle of the food court. It was almost noon, and there were lineups at all the fast-food counters. All the seats were taken, and people were wandering around, trays in hand, waiting for tables to open up.

  “And to make it even easier for you,” Ella said, “I’m going to give you hundreds of choices.”

  There were dozens of little food places, but not hundreds. I was confused.

  “I thought we’d already done the food thing. This won’t be a
genuine different.”

  Ella laughed. “I’m going to let you select from a menu of different types, but food has nothing to do with it. How many people do you think are here?”

  There were many, many people here—many, many to witness whatever I was about to do. It would be a very public display, whatever it was. My stomach tightened even more.

  “You get to pick a person,” Ella said.

  “Pick a person for what?”

  “To kiss.”

  “What?” I gasped.

  “You know what a kiss is. I want you to walk up to somebody and give them a kiss.”

  “You want me to kiss a perfect stranger.”

  “Soph, nobody is perfect, although those guys over there at the table by the KFC look pretty close to it.”

  I looked. There were three guys about our age having a meal. As I watched them, one of them looked over at us, and we made eye contact. He gave a little smile and a slight nod of his head. The others turned around to look in our direction, and I looked away.

  “Ella, get serious. Do you really expect me to just walk up to somebody I don’t know and kiss them?”

  “Of course not. You can introduce yourself, say a few words—you can even ask for permission if you want.”

  “What if they say no?”

  “Then you find somebody else. I’m sure somebody will kiss you. You’ll find some willing participant in our social-science experiment.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Are you telling me there’s not one person in this whole mall you wouldn’t want to kiss?” Ella asked.

  “Of course there’d be somebody. It’s not that. I can’t just kiss a stranger.”

  “First off, once you kiss him he won’t be a stranger. Second, it sounds like if you did that, you’d be doing something different, something you’ve never done. Wait, aren’t you supposed to be doing something different for ninety days? Look, just take it a step at a time.”

  “And what exactly is the first step?”

  “Select the person you think you’d like to kiss. Just look around. There’s no harm in doing that, is there?”

  I shrugged. She was right. I looked beyond Ella to the herd that surrounded us. Hundreds and hundreds of people were grazing. The three guys were still there, eating now, mercifully, not looking in our direction. They were cute. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to kiss one of them.

  “Okay,” I said as I started to walk away.

  “Okay you’ll do it?”

  “Okay I’ll look around.”

  I started walking, glancing from table to table and over at the people standing in line to place their orders or get their food.

  “See anybody you like?”

  “Ssshhhhh,” I said. “Let me at least look in peace.”

  I worked my way between the tables. So many people, so many potential choices, yet so few real choices. There seemed to be a lot of females and older people—many, many senior citizen types and mothers with small children, but not that many people around my age. Then again, I could go for a little bit younger or a lot older. That would increase the number of potential recipients of my kiss.

  That sounded so strange, even saying it in my head. I was going to walk up to some stranger and just plant a kiss on him. What if he had the flu or bad breath or something worse? What if he yelled at me for even suggesting it?

  “Well, do you see someone?” Ella called.

  “I see lots of somebodies but not a specific someone.”

  “You’re being too picky.”

  “Picky. Do you see somebody you’d just walk up to and kiss?” I asked.

  “I see half a dozen, including the three guys I’d already pointed out, but maybe I’m not picky enough. Just make a choice. It’s not like you’re going to marry him or date him or even see him again. But who knows—you might turn a frog into a prince.”

  “Only a princess could do that.”

  “Well then, that might just work today.”

  Did she mean she thought I was a princess? I was going to say something when I spotted the person. He was on the other side of the court, and I couldn’t see all of him, but I just knew. It had to be him.

  “The sooner you do it, the sooner we can—”

  “I found him.”

  “You did? Where is he, where is he?”

  “Right over there,” I said and pointed.

  “There are a lot of people over there. Which one?”

  “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Ella wasn’t the only one who could play this game.

  I walked between the tables, dodging people with trays who were too busy looking for a seat to look out for me. When I stopped, Ella bumped into me from behind. I turned around.

  “A little privacy would be nice,” I said. “I want you to give me a bit of distance.”

  “But I have to be close enough to take pictures,” she argued.

  “Your phone camera has a zoom.”

  Ella looked like she was going to argue, but she didn’t. She stayed and I walked.

  The closer I got, the more certain I was. The resemblance was uncanny—and I wouldn’t have noticed if it wasn’t for Ella’s bizarre request.

  I stopped in front of his table. His head was down, and he was reading a newspaper. There was a coffee cup on the table. I stood there, unsure what to say, thinking I should just leave, and then he looked up. “Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  “Do you want the table?” he asked.

  “Um, no, but could I join you?”

  “What?”

  “Could I join you?” I asked louder.

  “Of course, but you’ll have to speak up. My hearing aid doesn’t always work so well when there’s so much background noise.”

  “I understand,” I said, speaking even louder.

  As I sat, he rose slightly to his feet. “You don’t need to do that,” I said.

  “People of my generation were raised to show courtesy to a female.”

  I guessed he was somewhere in his late seventies or early eighties. “My grandfather would have done the same thing,” I said. “You look like him—a lot.”

  He laughed. He even laughed like my grandfather. “I think when we get to a certain age, we all start to look alike. How old is your grandfather?”

  “He was eighty-one when he passed.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “It was a while ago.” Almost five years. “But I still miss him.”

  “That’s sweet. I’m pretty close to my grandkids. I just wish we didn’t live so far apart. They’re on the other end of the country.”

  “My grandpa didn’t live close either.”

  He was my mother’s father, and when he died it felt like losing a little more of her. He’d told me that her dying was the hardest thing he’d ever gone through, and that the only people who truly understood were my brother and father and me, because we’d lost her too.

  “He died without me being able to say goodbye to him,” I said.

  “That’s sad for everybody. I’m sure he knew you cared for him.”

  “He knew. I just wish I could have done one more thing.”

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “Give him a goodbye kiss on the cheek.”

  “That’s so sweet.” He paused. “I know I’m not your grandfather, and it’s not the same, but if you wanted to…” He turned to the side and with one finger pointed to his cheek.

  I got up slightly in my seat, leaned across the table and kissed him on the cheek.

  “It’s been a few years since a beautiful young woman wanted to kiss me. Although I still get kissed on a regular basis by a woman who isn’t quite so young but I think is still beautiful.”

  “Your wife?”

  He nodded. “My wife of fifty-two years. My wonderful
Anita. She’s here somewhere in the mall. She shops, and I read the paper. It seems to keep us both happy.”

  “That’s lovely.”

  “I’m probably not going to tell her about this little kiss though. Every marriage needs a little mystery, and I wouldn’t want her to be jealous.”

  “Then I better get going before she comes back.”

  “Probably best,” he said.

  I got to my feet. “Thank you.”

  “No, thank you. It was my honor to be your grandfather’s stand-in.”

  I walked over to Ella. I expected her to look annoyed. Instead she was all smiles.

  “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” she said.

  “This was better than you had planned. Thank you, Ella, thank you for pushing me a little bit more.”

  DAY 17

  I looked up from my book as Oliver slammed the refrigerator door closed—again. This was his third trip in the last ten minutes, and each time he came away empty-handed. Whatever he was looking for, he hadn’t found it, and he wandered out of the kitchen.

  I turned back to my book. It was for one of my first-semester courses, and I was having trouble focusing on it. It wasn’t necessarily boring, but I was feeling a little distracted. Between the things Ella was arranging and the fact my father and brother were going away tomorrow, my head was too occupied with the present to think much about what was going to happen in September. September was a lot of days and a lot of differents away.

  I’d continued to share some meals with my father and brother, but mostly the two of them cooked and shopped separately. Their food was in the main fridge in the kitchen, and I was using a little bar fridge in the rec room that was about the size of the one I would have in my college dorm room. I’d told my father I was getting myself prepared, but that was only part of it.

  The sight, the smell, the sucking sound of food exiting the can and plopping onto a plate to be microwaved was more than I could handle. Did anything that plopped ever taste good and could it ever be good for you?

  I’d heard a lot about the “freshman fifteen,” which supposedly was how many pounds a first-year college student usually put on. There was no way I was going to let that happen to me. I was way too in control to—