C, My Name Is Cal

by Norma Fox Mazer

  On the way out of school, I had another depressing thought—that I was just another notch on Leslie Branch’s belt. Just one more kiss on her way to the Guinness Book of World Records.

  Chapter 9

  Garo and I were in the mall downtown in the city, shopping. Garo likes to shop. I pretty much hate it. The plan was, shop first, then hit the library. We could have split up, me to the books, him to the stores, but we like keeping each other company.

  We didn’t get straight down to business. We went into the record shop first and browsed. Then we got hungry and bought slices of pizza. Then to the department store and the underwear department. I started yawning right away.

  “What’s your problem?” Garo said.

  “Bored.” I don’t mind being given new things, but the work of finding them bores me silly.

  Garo was right at home picking up socks and color matching them against the undershorts. “Look at this, Cal, an almost perfect match.”

  “Why do your socks and shorts have to match?”

  “It’s style, Cal. Style matters!”

  “Are you telling me what you wear on your butt is a matter of importance?”

  “To me, yes. Now here, look at these.” He held up a pair of shorts. “Close, but not the color blue I want. I want something with more bounce.”

  “If I need socks—” I said.

  “I know, I know, you just go out and buy socks.”

  “Right. And if I need shorts, as long as they fit—”

  “You’re satisfied,” he finished for me. “Do you like these green ones? Look at this!” He held up a pair with hearts on them. “Now if I could find a pair of socks with red hearts—”

  We must have spent an hour before Garo got what he wanted. Half a dozen pairs of color-coordinated shorts and socks. Garo looked happy. A satisfied shopper.

  “On to the library,” I said.

  “Sure, sure.” Now it was Garo’s turn to yawn. Just the thought of a roomful of books could do that to him.

  We were almost to the cashier when Garo said in an odd voice, “Cal … look!” His freckles had lit up like neon signs.

  “What?” I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, just shoppers and a few suspicious-looking people who were probably store detectives.

  “Cal … is that Fern Light working at the checkout?”

  I looked at the dark-haired girl. “Could be. Did you know she worked here?”

  “No! What do I do now? I can’t check out there,” he said in an agonized voice.

  “Why not? She doesn’t care what color your socks are.”

  “Cal! Underwear!”

  “Fern’s a big girl, Garo. She knows you wear underpants.”

  He stood frozen, clutching his packages and staring at Fern and mumbling about what she’d say.

  “She’s the girl you like, isn’t she?” I asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why don’t you just admit it?”

  “She’s not the one. It’s just, it’s just …”

  “It’s just that you think I’ve got brain damage, boy. Fern is the one.”

  “Okay, okay, but I don’t want to hear you telling me you don’t like her, Cal.”

  “I don’t. So kill me.”

  “I don’t want to hear that from you, Cal! Not from my best friend!” He tried to hit me. He must have forgotten he had all those packages. They went flying. Plastic-wrapped shorts and socks on little plastic hangers all over the floor.

  “Fern’s the one.” I piled stuff in his arms. “I knew it! Why her?”

  “Why don’t you like her? She’s a terrific girl, she’s smart, she’s beautiful, and she’s—”

  “—got a big sarcastic mouth,” I finished for him.

  He peered toward the checkout counter. Fern was half hidden by a display of scarves. “You don’t really know her. She’s not sarcastic, she’s slightly, uh, slightly—”

  “Slightly superior,” I suggested.

  “Ease up,” Garo begged. “You don’t know what it feels like to feel this way.”

  “I know what it feels like to kiss a girl,” I said suddenly.

  He turned toward me. “Who?”

  “Leslie.”

  “You kissed Leslie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cal! You didn’t tell me.” He looked over toward Fern again. “Are you sure that’s her? I can’t check this stuff out with her.”

  “Oh, sure you can. What’s the big deal?” There I was, with my confident-sounding voice. Man of the world. As if I’d checked out dozens of pairs of underwear with dozens of girls. “Look,” I said, “just go up there, put down your stuff. Act casual, make some conversation, take out the money. Pay. She’ll see what a nice guy you are.”

  “Don’t you think she knows I’m a nice guy?”

  “She may think you’re a fool. You tell too many jokes around her. Be cooler. Don’t say so much.”

  “Shh! She’ll hear you.” We walked the long way around and approached the counter from the other side. By the time we got there, Fern had left the checkout and was heading for the escalator. We followed her up to the third floor, to the package wrapping counter. When we got there, we saw it wasn’t Fern. It was someone else, who, when we got up close, hardly looked like Fern at all.

  After Garo paid for his stuff, we headed for Ben and Jerry’s for ice cream, to revive us, as Garo said. “I sort of knew it wasn’t Fern,” Garo said. “I guess I was just hoping.”

  “Would you have talked to her?” I said, and then I saw my father.

  I saw him coming out of the bank next to Penny’s. I saw a tall man in a sport jacket. A tall man, slightly balding, in a worn blue sport jacket.

  I walked toward him. Garo was saying something. I kept walking toward the man in the blue jacket. Garo called me, I think. My father was moving toward the exit. I walked faster, keeping his tall, slightly stooped figure in sight.

  Then he was at the revolving door to the parking lot, and I ran. He was in the door. I pushed past people, through the door, into the parking lot. He was gone.

  Chapter 10

  I didn’t tell anyone about “seeing” my father. It must have been a mirage, seeing what I wanted to see—like Garo’s mirage of “seeing” Fern. What had Garo said? I guess I was just hoping. That would fit me, too, I suppose, although there was a difference. I didn’t even know I was thinking about my father, whereas Garo was definitely aware that he was thinking about Fern.

  Did I say thinking? Talking would be more accurate. Now that her name was out in the open, I couldn’t shut him up about her. He woke up in the morning with her name coming out of his mouth. He talked through breakfast and then all the way to school. It was how he’d seen Fern in the music room … and Fern’s eyes … and did I know Fern was running for Student Senate? But in school, if he saw her, not a word. He went mum, silent, mute. He just blushed and walked by her.

  “Garo, you’re all talk and no action,” I said. We were in our room.

  Garo rubbed his head, dug his fingers into his scalp where he’d been shaved. The hair was starting to come back, and it was itching him like crazy. “I know. What should I do? I can’t say anything to her. She’ll laugh at me,” he said. That was one breath. The next was, “Should I call her, Cal? Maybe I could talk to her if it was on the phone.”

  “Good idea.”

  “It is?… No, I don’t know her number.”

  “I’m sure Mom will let you borrow the phone book, Garo.”

  “What would I say?”

  “You could start with hello.”

  “Hello,” he practiced. “Hello, Fern.”

  “Put a little more punch into it, Garo.”

  “Hello, Fern!… How’s that?”

  “Great. You’ll blow out her eardrums.”

  “Hello?” He paused. “Fe-e-e-rn?” He looked at me.

  “Can you do it without sounding like you’re not sure that’s her name?”

  “Hello? Is this Fern?” H
e stood in front of the mirror. “Hello.… This is Fern, isn’t it?” He put his hand to his ear, as if he were holding a phone. “Hello! Fern Light?… Hello. Fern Light, Garo here!… I’ll never get it right. You do it, Cal. Call her for me.”

  “And what am I supposed to say? Fern, this is Calvin Miller, and I’m calling for my shy friend Garo.… He’s not too bright but he’s got a good heart.”

  “I’m not shy. I’m just having a little trouble with this now.”

  “I know and I don’t understand it. Why all this trouble about making a phone call?”

  “Cal, don’t you understand anything? This isn’t just calling any girl. And even if I do it, what am I going to talk about?”

  “Buying candy-striped underpants,” I suggested.

  He threw a pillow at me. “Get serious.” The phone rang, and he froze. “What if it’s her?”

  “It would be another miracle,” I said. “A superior cool miracle.” I went across the hall to Alan’s bedroom. It couldn’t be Fern. Too much of a coincidence. Or my father … But when I picked up the phone and heard a man’s voice, for a moment I thought … No, I don’t know what I thought. I stopped thinking.

  “Cal? This is Tom Lustig.”

  It took me another moment to get myself together again. Then I said, “You want Mom, Tom?”

  “No, you, Cal. How would you like to model for me? You and Garo. I need two wholesome-looking kids for this assignment. If you can do it, I want you at the studio next week. I’ll pay you regular rates,” he added.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay, you’ll do it? Don’t you want to talk to Garo?”

  “No, he’ll do it. We’ll be there.”

  “You know where the studio is, don’t you?” Tom asked.

  “Sure.” I’d gone there with Mom the time she did the Wate Pow(d)er session.

  “You take the bus into the city—”

  “Right, I know.”

  “It’s the Number Five,” Tom said, “and you can pick it up—”

  “I can get there okay, Tom.”

  Mom went by in the hall and stopped. “Who’s that?” she said.

  “Tom,” I said. “He wants me and Garo to model.”

  Tom was still giving me directions. He has a tendency to overinstruct. I held the phone away from my ear and made the bla bla bla sign with my hand to Mom.

  “Tom, this is Nina,” she yelled. “Stop treating my son like an idiot.”

  I handed her the phone and went back to Garo. “Hey, Garo, we’re going to be models.”

  I knew he wouldn’t mind. But not only didn’t he mind, he went a little loony with excitement. “I’m a model,” he lisped, and he started mincing around, swinging his hips. He put a sock on his head like a hat and tied a shirt around his waist. “I’m going to be a famous, beautiful model. Where’s my lipstick? Where’s my eye mascara, or whatever you call that stuff.”

  “Now you have something you can talk about to Fern,” I said.

  “Tell her I’m going to be a model?” He staggered. “You’re crazy. You ever hear of a boy being a model?”

  “Are you serious? Open a magazine. Guys are models all the time.”

  “Gay ones,” he said.

  “Don’t be so stupid.” I suddenly tipped up his bed and buried him under his blankets and stuff. When he started to crawl out, I sat on him.

  Mom pounded on the wall. “Stop making so much noise, I’m on the phone.”

  “We’ll be quiet,” I shouted, just as Garo got his arm around my neck and sent me crashing.

  Chapter 11

  Saturday morning, while we were eating breakfast, we listened to Bud Droger on the radio reviewing a new movie, Crazy Raisins. “Shut him off,” Garo said. He didn’t like Bud Droger.

  “I want to hear him.” I like movies, and I like reading and hearing reviews about them. I like Droger, too, even though the last time he drooled over a movie—he called it something like “an instant classic of perverse humor”—I privately thought it was totally asinine.

  “If I did movie reviews,” Garo said, “they’d be short and sweet. I’d say, ‘Fast Guns is a bunch of crap!’ Or, ‘I give Avery Avery ten stars!’ Or, ‘Run, don’t walk to see Tickle Me Quick!’ I’d be right to the point. Not like windy Droger.”

  Droger gave Crazy Raisins five thumbs-up. “A belly whopper,” he said. “A hilarious fresh surprise, an original fantasy with a totally amazing twist at the end.”

  “So let’s go,” I said. “It sounds great.” Then I remembered I didn’t have any money.

  “I’ll treat,” Garo said.

  “No, you won’t.”

  “I’ll make you a loan, then.”

  “No.”

  “Cal, don’t be so stiff-necked. You’re going to work tomorrow morning for Mrs. Princestein, and next week you’ll make more money from Tom.”

  “Okay, but I pay you back right away.”

  We wanted to go to the early showing, but Mom had other ideas. The weather had warmed up and Mom said it was time for our first outdoor spring cleaning. “Get the rakes, Cal. Garo, get the plastic bags. Hop to it, boys.” She kept us busy right up to movie time.

  Walking to the theater, I started thinking about Garo as a talk show host. When he was famous, people would quote his opinions on movies, too. And on food and records and books. That would be really cool. I could see him in the studio, sitting in front of the mike with earphones on, zinging in a cassette for a song, then taking a call, listening and answering, making someone feel good. I knew just what his life was going to be. I probably thought more about Garo’s future than mine. Mine was just a big dark blank to me.

  There was a line of kids waiting to buy tickets. They’d probably all heard Bud Droger that morning. We got in line, and there was Fern and Angel Hayes in front of us. Talk about timing! If we’d spent five more minutes raking the yard … or come for the first show, we’d have missed them.

  When Garo saw the girls, it was just like when he heard that Tom wanted us to model. He went loony. He started talking in a loud, excited voice about—you’re not going to believe this—cockroaches.

  “Did you hear about the new breed of cockroaches? They look like regular cockroaches, but they fly, and they like light instead of dark. You know what that means? They’re right there in the house with you like your cat or your dog. They crawl up the walls, they get on your TV, they swarm up the table, they get in the food.”

  Fern and Angel turned around. “Do I hear a familiar voice?” Fern said in her usual sarcastic manner. Her eyebrows started wagging like flags in a high wind.

  Garo’s mouth was going even faster than her eyebrows. “I heard that down in Florida, if you go outside on the lawn, you step into squashy piles of them. They crawl up your legs, they fly into your hair, they creep into your ears and your nose. Can you imagine a cockroach in your nose?”

  “Uggg!” Angel shuddered.

  “Hi, Garo,” Fern said. “I guess you must like cockroaches. You sound so enthusiastic about them.”

  “Yeah,” Garo said lamely. He seemed to have run out of breath and talk at the same moment. “They’re, uh, interesting,” he said. I guess he couldn’t believe he was actually talking to her.

  “I read about those roaches,” Fern said. “They’re moving up north. This way, actually. In about a year, some people think they might make it all the way up here.” She glanced at me. “Then they’ll be living in our cities and getting in our houses.”

  “And ears and noses,” I said, under my breath.

  “Excuse me?” Fern said, ultrapolitely.

  “Forget it.”

  “Excuse me?” she said again. “Did you say something? Did you make a contribution to this conversation?”

  What a witch. I didn’t bother answering her. I stared across the street, as if I saw something of great interest out there. And I did. Because the same spooky thing happened again that had happened last week in the mall. I “saw” my father. Or, anyway, I saw
that same tall, skinny man wearing dark pants and a blue sport jacket.

  I knew it couldn’t be my father. He wasn’t here. He was in Maine.

  No, I didn’t actually know that. That was only where he’d sent the last postcard from. Three years ago. Right now he could be in Mexico or Mozambique or Massachusetts. Or Moravia. Or Outer Mongolia. He could be anywhere in the world, so why would he be here?

  Anyway, it wasn’t him. He had more hair than that man. And he was taller. And why would he still be wearing the same blue sport jacket he’d worn nine years ago?

  I crossed my arms, clasped my hands onto my elbows and held on, held myself back from running across the street. Held onto myself and told myself all this sensible stuff, all these good sensible reasons why that man going out of sight could not be my father.

  The line was moving forward. “Come on, Cal!” Garo beckoned me, holding up the tickets.

  In the lobby, I stopped to buy popcorn. “I’ll get the seats,” Garo said.

  When I went into the theater, I looked toward the back row, where we usually liked to sit. But then I saw Garo, down in the middle, sitting right behind Angel and Fern.

  When I sat down he dug into the popcorn, a big handful, dropping half of it. I thought he was going to pass out with excitement. Or choke himself the way he was stuffing his mouth, then gulping it all down. Suddenly he leaned forward between the two girls. “You want some popcorn?”

  “I’ll have a little,” Fern said. She gave me a sarcastic glance. “If it’s okay with your silent friend.”

  “Don’t get it stuck in your teeth,” I muttered.

  The girl had hearing like a bat. “Oh, thank you for the advice. So glad you told me, Calvin! I left my How to Eat Popcorn Guide Book at home today!”

  I slumped down in the seat, then sat up straight, aware that Fern was watching me from the corner of her eye. Then slumped again. What did I care if she was watching me? I tried to ignore her. She was talking and laughing with Angel. I caught a word here, a word there.

  The lights went out, the movie came on. I watched the giant figures on the screen. People were moving around rapidly, laughing and gesturing. Afterward, I could hardly remember the movie. What I did remember was that man. That skinny man in the worn blue jacket.