I. Was. Wrong.
I say, “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry.
It tastes unfamiliar and exceptional and righteous. It feels like what a grownup would say. Lesley would be proud of me.
I’m sorry.
Whatever Eric had been rehearsing in the mirror, he hadn’t rehearsed for this. He’s out of words, almost confounded.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, because it feels so good. “I was wrong.” The repetition is almost unfair, like hitting a guy when he’s down.
“Oh,” he finally stutters. “It’s okay.”
He shakes his head, looking down.
“You don’t know what it’s been like. No one will even talk to me,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“Not one person. I had frickin’ food poisoning. It’s not my fault. I could have died.”
I nod. “That sucks.”
“I’ve been thinking of changing schools,” he says.
Probably a good idea, I think.
“Don’t do that,” I say.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Screw ’em.”
“Yeah,” he says, uncertainly. “Yeah. Screw ’em.” He smiles briefly and shakes his head again. “How are you?” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“Come on. I saw it. I saw the whole thing with Tim Phillips.”
“Oh, yeah,” I say, dismissing that nonsense with an airy wave. “Whatever. They got nothing.”
“What?”
“They got nothing.”
He nods. I nod. We’re nodding, agreeing that they got nothing. Then he says, “What does that even mean?”
“It means, they got nothing. You can’t let guys like that get to you.”
“Huh,” he says. I have to admit it sounds better coming from Patrick.
We regard each other some more.
“So . . .” he says, “we friends?”
“Of course.”
He smiles, relieved. His eyes are wet. “All right.” He sticks out his hand. I shake it.
“Friends,” I say.
“Thanks,” he says, and I can see him trying to keep it together. This is a mitzvah, I can hear my mother saying, a good deed. It makes me feel good, knowing that I’m doing the right thing. I am the water on the parched landscape of his life. The balm on the wound. I am the sun rising after the endless night. I feel ashamed, again, thinking about what a coward I’ve been—it doesn’t matter how close Eric and I are, he’s still a friend. My friend has been suffering, and I abandoned him in a time of need. No more.
That’s an actual life lesson, maybe the only one I’ve learned this week: If there’s anything that makes you a man, it’s sticking up for a friend, even when that friend is unpopular, and there’s nothing more important than—OhmyGodthere’sPatriciaMorrison.
Oh my God. She’s just rounded the corner at the other end of the aisle with Tracey Howat. They’re walking with a man who must be Patricia’s dad. They’re about ten yards from us, drawing closer, pointing at and discussing the wallpaper samples on the side racks, seconds from noticing the two of us. Hey, Tracey! Come help me pick out wallpaper for my bedroom, bestie! OMG, is that Eric Weinberg, the pants pooper? And look who he’s with! OMG!! Let’s tell everyone!!
Eric is still grasping my hand. He’s not even shaking it anymore, he’s just sort of holding it while he wipes at his tears with the back of his other wrist, having a moment. The trio have paused about five yards away, having a wallpaper conference, and they’re going to notice us in about three seconds.
“Okay, well, I should . . .” I stammer, trying to disentangle myself from his grip, my face starting to burn.
“What?”
“I need to see if my brother—”
Just then Tracey turns to see me and Eric standing there exposed, caught in the spotlight, holding hands, Eric all teary eyed, and I can see the rapid process as her brain analyzes the data, recognizes us, and spits out the result: losers. Now she’s leaning over to whisper to Patricia and alert her to our presence, and before Patricia can react and turn toward us I jerk my hand roughly free of Eric’s and take off running.
“Hey!” he shouts after me. “Hey, Isaac!” but I keep running, dodging fat people and orange shopping carts and leaping over cans of house paint.
I get clear of the aisle and sprint to the left and put some distance between me and the aisle opening, finding a spot amid a floor display of refrigerators from which to do some spying. A few seconds later Eric emerges and looks left and right. I hesitate, hidden in a forest of brushed-steel refrigerators, then step out and raise a hand to get his attention. He sees me but doesn’t approach. He just stands there for a moment and looks at me, and the look says it all: He knows exactly what just happened back there in the aisle.
He glares at me hard, anger and grief and betrayal, an expression I’ll never forget. Then he walks away, heading toward the exit.
He’s not there when I go outside. Maybe he called his mother and she picked him up, I think, or he started walking home, or some combination of the two. I search for him for a few minutes, then kick one of those outdoor garbage cans that’s encased in a pebble-encrusted barrel. However much quantity of good I was feeling about myself during my reformed-Grinch moment, I’m feeling that much bad, plus about ten percent. I wasn’t the gentle rain on his arid landscape. I was peeing on it.
I can’t find Josh in the store, so I wait by the entranceway, finally just taking a seat against the wall. He comes out about half an hour later, pushing a cart with a big box in it. AIR PURIFIER says the box.
“Where’s Weinberg?” he says.
“He left.”
Josh shrugs. “Okay.” I follow him across the parking lot, the cart rattling on the asphalt.
“What about the counter?” I ask.
“Idiots. First they say they can install it today, and then they say they can’t do it for a few days. Why’d he leave? He crap himself?”
“I don’t know.”
“I feel bad for that kid. Know what he should do? Change schools.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THE WEIRD FAMILY AT DINNER
Josh makes a big pot of chili and we all sit down to eat, Terri and Patrick included. The new air purifier hums quietly in the corner, laboring to get rid of the smoky smell. Josh already made me scrub every available surface. Joey the dog is out on the back porch, after having crapped on my mother’s favorite Persian rug—twice. Lisa sits next to Terri and spends most of her time staring at her in adoration. Lisa now has several tight braids in her hair, threaded with a line of brightly colored beads.
Patrick tells a very funny story about a terrible trip he once took to Duluth, a trip that included a near-fatal encounter with a bunch of hard-ass Rangers, young men from the Iron Range in northern Minnesota. Josh doesn’t pay any attention, just periodically checks his phone and sends texts, until Terri, her mouth full of food, says, “Josh, that is so rude.”
Soon after that he gets a call and steps out onto the porch to have an agitated conversation while we all watch him. I see a knowing look pass between Terri and Patrick, Patrick shaking his head. When Josh finishes he comes back in and says, “You guys handle cleanup. I’m heading out for a bit.”
It’s a cooler night so I build a fire in the pit. Patrick and Terri come and join me for a while and we sit peering into the flames, not talking much, until Terri gets tired of the mosquitoes and they go back in. I climb into the tent and try to sleep but can’t, so I get out, fetch more wood, and get the fire going again.
As I sit there I think about the day. Of all the failures this week, what I did to Eric was the worst. Everything else was just my failure, a humiliation for myself. Running away from him was piling on his already massive heap of life-is-hell. And now where am I? Abandoned by my peeps, and not even Eric will be friends with me.
I wonder where Josh is. He seems fine, and yet somehow every day he’s a bit more tense, like a watch being w
ound tighter a few clicks at a time. I shift to thinking about Tim Phillips and what happened, and wonder if there is a shoe dangling, waiting to fall. Josh hit him. Something has to happen.
I’m still sitting next to the fire, gnawing on a big ball of dread and musing my dark musings, when Josh gets back a little after midnight. I hear the car pulling into the driveway, the headlights briefly defining the outlines of the house. The car door slams. A few minutes later and the heavy bag starts up again: boom boom booooom. I don’t think he had a very pleasant evening out. I hug my knees tighter to my chest against the cold and move a little closer to the fire.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
GET JOSH
MERIT BADGE: SWEET REVENGE
“And here’s to Isaac,” says Lesley, standing, plastic cup of white wine held high, her gaze affixed on me, “who has been through the wringer and is still doing a great job, even though his jerk brother is a jerk to him.”
“I’ll drink to that!” says Terri, and knocks her cup against Patrick’s, while Josh shakes his head and rolls his eyes.
The backyard, Sunday. Perfect summer evening: warm, slight breeze, birds calling. Paper plates, hot dogs blackened and blistered from the grill, corn, potato salad, something radioactive-looking that Terri made, called Strawberry Mess. And the best ingredient of all: the Magic Impenetrable Lesley Force Field protecting me from Josh.
“You are doing a great job,” says Lesley to me, and leans across the picnic table to give me a big mmmmuh! kiss on the forehead before she sits down again. I look over at Josh, grinning, and he’s looking back evenly, chewing slowly on the inside of his cheek.
Josh has been looking at me like this the whole afternoon and evening, his gaze saying, We both understand this game. You can stand on that side of the Force Field and throw turds at me, and I can’t do anything about it, not even act upset.
Until later, when you’ll pay dearly.
And I smile back, saying, Yes, I’ll pay later. But in the meantime I’m going to be standing here right at this line, just out of your reach, chucking as much crap at you as possible. Which is what I’ve been doing. It’s awesome.
Awesome from the beginning, when Lesley arrived, instantly erasing all the pain and horror of the week.
It had been a very full day: hard morning workout with special attention paid to how to escape the mount position, various chores around the house, marathon study session. Around two o’clock I was finishing washing the car in the driveway, Josh the Overseer indicating molecules of dirt that I had missed. I was polishing the tires when I heard a familiar hum and looked up to see Lesley approaching the house on her Vespa.
“Hey,” I said, because the sight was so unexpected, “it’s Lesley!”
“Good job, Isaac. Figured that out on the first guess. She’s here for dinner.”
She pulled into the driveway, hopped off, removed her helmet, ignored Josh completely, and came right over to me to give me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, lover,” she said.
Lover, like she read my mind the other day at breakfast and remembered it. Lover.
Then she turned to Josh and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, and there was a pause and some sort of obscure communication between the two of them, and then he held out his arms and they hugged, but I don’t think it was anything like what I got from her.
She pulled a bag of potatoes out of the little storage thingy on the back of her Vespa, tossed the bag to Josh, and we all went into the house together, me tagging along as he gave her the quick tour, gruff as always, Lesley glancing over at me with that conspiratorial smile, both of us grinning and making fun of Josh.
Terri and Patrick were out back on the porch, Terri doing Lisa’s nails for what had to be the tenth time. Lesley knew both Terri and Patrick—hugs, kisses, how’s this person, what happened with so-and-so. Then, to me, “Well, you saw my place. You going to show me your room?”
Yes.
We went to my room, Patrick and Terri’s clothes strewn about on the floor and over the unmade bed.
“This isn’t my stuff,” I said quickly.
“Really? That’s not your thong?”
She stepped into the middle of the room and did a slow, full 360, taking it all in. I tried to time it just right, moving behind her field of vision like I was ducking behind the sweeping spray of a rotating lawn sprinkler, making it to the chair and its embarrassing occupant while she was looking in the other direction, hoping she hadn’t spotted the stuffed Snoopy. Then she suddenly reversed course and twisted back toward me, and we had a moment of her regarding me as I stood there posterized, holding Snoopy.
“Um . . .” I say.
“I’ve got one just like that,” she said, and gave it a pat-pat. My love grew even stronger.
“So,” she said then, “here we are.”
“Right.”
I know when she’s being flirty she’s being ironic, but I’ll take what I can get.
“Did you get in trouble for being late to school?” she said.
“No. School was . . .” Horrible. “Fine.”
She cocked her head. “Did something happen?”
“No.”
She squinted. “Really?”
“Yes. Thanks for letting me stay over,” I said, hoping to shift things back in that direction. “I didn’t want to come home.”
She picked up one of Patrick’s combat boots, which was resting on my pillow. He really has it in for my pillow.
“Yes, I can see why.”
She chucked the boot onto the carpet, then stood with her hands on her hips, tapping her foot, examining me. Then she walked to the door and leaned out to make sure no one was around before turning to me and saying, “How are you?”
“I’m okay.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Josh is being all right with you?”
“He’s . . .”
“Being Josh.”
“Yes.”
“I let him have it, you know, about everything.”
“Oh. Maybe you shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, I made him promise to be nicer to you.”
I nodded. I had a fair idea of what sort of behavior that particular conversation was going to produce.
“You’ll tell me if he’s being mean to you again?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“I like you, Isaac. You’re my bud.”
“I know. Thanks. I like you, too.”
“Good. Hey, you have my favorite shirt?”
And so I had to reveal to her about the whole thing with the Assholes. It wasn’t so bad, though, because we ended up sitting on my bed, Lesley telling me what jerks they are and how great I am, her arm around my shoulder to comfort me, and we were sitting like that when Josh came in to fetch us.
“Hey, lovers, hope I’m not interrupting,” he said.
“Josh, you jerk,” she said, and that’s when the game really got going.
We all gathered in the kitchen, the action centering on two acti- vities: cooking, and Let’s Get Josh. There was a strange charge in the air—layers of warmth and celebration and joviality, a happy reunion, and intercut with it all was an unmistakable whiff of bitter aggression. It’s like everyone sensed that there was Kryptonite in the room, that Josh was temporarily without his powers, and everyone wanted to get in a few shots while they had a chance.
Everyone, it turned out, had a funny story about Josh, each with the same theme: You know about the time when Josh completely lost his temper because of ______ and did ______?
All the tales were like that. You know about the time he got so angry at that dude on the motorcycle and was chasing him down the middle of the street in his underwear, trying to catch him? Did you know about that time when he dumped that whole massive stock pot of cold gazpacho on the dishwasher? Remember the time ______?
It was like a storm
cloud forming, organic, spontaneous. Except it wasn’t. The more I observed, the more I could see what was happening, could see Lesley subtly orchestrating everything. Little verbal nudges to people. Didn’t you have some story about . . . ? Really? Tell us more! And then gentle hints that she knows something juicy but really can’t share it, really, she can’t, no, no, never mind, forget I said anything—oh, all right. There was this time . . .
She’s got great stories, stories I’d never imagined. So do Patrick and Terri.
But no one’s as good at it as me.
I’ve known Josh for a lot longer than they have, and I’ve seen the soft parts they haven’t: the portions of Josh’s existence that are about having parents, about being a child in a family. You know that embarrassing something, whatever it is? That feeling of not wanting anyone to see your parents drop you off at the soccer game, because it shows that you’re not a totally independent person, that there are people in your life you answer to and who used to wipe your rear end for you, and not that long ago? I’m the witness of that something for Josh. I’ve seen it and know all about it. I’m the one who can put gouges in his hardened exterior.
The time Josh got so angry he went to sit on the roof and wouldn’t come down for hours. The time Josh body-slammed the lawn mower on the driveway. The time my mom got so angry at Josh that she sent him up to the roof and wouldn’t let him come down for hours. The time . . .
I feel powerful and reckless, everyone’s laughter urging me on. Lisa listens, wide-eyed, giggling when everyone else laughs, especially Terri. Lesley literally says, “More! More!” The frog is very much on the scene, singing and dancing his heart out.
So now we’re out back eating, the game of Let’s Get Josh still continuing, if not at the same intensity. The whole time Josh has taken it with barely a word, smiling a grimacey, pained smile, nodding. Each story and joke I tell is another deposit into the bank of I’m Gonna Get My Ass Kicked. But that’s going to happen anyways, right?
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