Wilson Mooney, Almost Eighteen

by Gretchen de La O

  She was a different bird to start with. Always smiling, always able to find something positive in the steaming heap of a mess I call life experiences. There had only been a handful of times when I could remember her ever being mad. She constantly found time to help people when they asked. She always saw the glass as half full, an optimist to the core. Maybe that was what balanced our friendship. I was the one always trying to find out what motivation people had for helping me, while she just bounced around trusting everyone.

  “Oh my God, Wilson, Mr. Goldstein isn’t here today. He left early for the weekend. I overheard him telling Mr. Weinstein he was going out of town and won’t be back until Sunday night, something about skiing. I guess you’re gonna miss your chance to get your fill before the weekend.”

  Great, this was awkward. How was I going to tell my best friend that I was leaving for the weekend tonight with our roommate, Cindy, and there was a slight chance Max could be going to his family’s cabin and (an even slighter chance) that I am going to see him without her? Although she was optimistic, it didn’t mean she wasn’t easily tipped into becoming jealous. Okay, here goes nothing.

  “Joanie, CindyinvitedmetoAspenthisweekend.” I blurted out in one strung-together breath. This was the part where I started making excuses. “She bought the ticket before she even asked me. Can you believe it? I wasn’t gonna go, but she wouldn’t have gone without me. Now, who am I to mess up her vacation with her father?”

  She didn’t say a word as her face went red. She just stared at the black- and white-tiled floor of the cafeteria. I knew she felt left out. Believe me, I knew exactly how she felt, and that was what was so messed up about it. I wish she had plans this weekend; it would’ve made my life a little less complicated and I wouldn’t have felt so guilty.

  “I probably won’t have much fun. You know me and the snow.” Joanie’s head rose, she wasn’t good at hiding the struggle that blanketed her face.

  “Come on, Wilson, I think I can handle you taking off with Cindy for a weekend. I’ll be fine. You better text me! I don’t wanna have to go out there and kick your ass.” She pointed her long thin finger at me. I bounced back and forth and held my fists in front of my face. She slapped my hands down.

  “He’s gonna be there, isn’t he?” she asked. I stopped; suddenly I felt the gap between us.

  “According to Cindy, his family has a cabin there. She doesn’t know anything—about him and how I feel. I wish you were going to be there.”

  “Well, I’m not. You’re gonna be on your own.” One dig, then I waited for her to apologize.

  Joanie grabbed me and pulled me into a bear hug. “I’m sorry. You text me the minute anything happens. You know I love ya, miss you already,” she mumbled.

  “Me, too.”

  Just as Joanie pushed me away, Cindy came running up. Her eyes wide and bright, a smile held captive by braces sparkled in the light. She grabbed my hands and pulled me to face her. I noticed Joanie’s eyes narrow and the edges of her lips bend down. I knew it was painful for Joanie to see Cindy excited about me going with her for an entire weekend. Especially since Joanie only put up with Cindy because we all were roommates; heck, I think that was a mutual consensus.

  “You’ll never guess who’s going to Aspen this weekend, too; oh, hi Joanie.” She glanced at my best friend before she looked back at me. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Chase Romero.” Her eyes glazed over and I could tell this weekend was going to be all about him.

  Chase graduated from Brown Academy for Boys last year and now goes to Stanford. Wesley and Brown have a long-standing tradition of arranging dances and social events between the two schools. The administrators and parents believe it give the students the opportunity to co-mingle with like minds and social standards. I think it’s a way for the wealthy families to pick and choose who their kids are going to be allowed to bring into their own socially privileged networks and profitable empires. It was at our first dance in the ninth grade when Cindy fell in love with Chase. Four years later, she was still so infatuated with him that she got her father to agree to write a pretty hefty check to Stanford, a little insurance for her acceptance in the fall. It must be nice.

  I really couldn’t understand what she saw in Chase. Yeah, he was good looking. He had the slick, jet-black hair off his ears, ocean blue eyes, and a perfect smile, but his communication skills lacked the finesse to talk himself out of a paper bag. He thought “exacerbate” was a type of fishing tackle. Do I need to say more? “To each their own,” that was what my grandma used to say. Besides, I had my own situation I wanted to focus on—Max Goldstein. He and I were going to meet in Aspen and have dinner, even if he didn’t know it yet.

  Chapter three:

  I hugged Joanie goodbye and grabbed my bag. It wasn’t an emotional goodbye, it was a see you in a couple of days goodbye. I promised her I would text her the minute we landed, and when I found Max. It was a remarkable symbol of our friendship. She had taken the place of a parent figure in my life; and as inconvenient as it felt sometimes, it was a peerless comfort that filled my soul when I realized it. We had each other in this world of ill-fated events. I knew she would be there for me, no matter what.

  The dorm-room door flew open and Cindy stood at the threshold, waving her one free hand.

  “Come on, we are going to be late to the airport.” She strutted past me and forced a roommate hug goodbye on Joanie.

  “We’ll see ya when we get back. Miss you already!” Her words dripped with a spurious tone to make Joanie jealous. She turned and grabbed my arm, pulling me; I turned and watched Joanie disappear behind the door.

  We all had our own stories of why we were at Wesley. For all the crap Joanie had lived through, she was still optimistic, trusting, and open; it boggled my mind. She was the youngest of four. Her oldest brother was forty-six, her other brother was forty-three and her youngest sister was forty. Twenty-two years later, hello Joanie. Her parents told her she was an accident because of menopausal sex. Can you believe it? They tried to sue the doctor for lack of information on how babies were made during freaking menopause. Her parents were so opposite of mine. They were married, older, established, and had already raised three children. None of her thirty-something-year-old siblings offered to take her. They all thought it best to send Joanie away to boarding school.

  So at the ripe young age of eight, Joanie entered the boarding school system. That was when I met her. We both liked the scent of sweet peas and the taste of warm sauerkraut. Our favorite color was green and she loved beanie babies as much as I did. It was like some power greater than anything brought us together; if you believed in such things. We’ve been best friends ever since.

  I tossed my bag into the trunk of Cindy’s sports car. Her father bought her a 2010 Audi TTS Roadster. Fire red with black interior, it was an early graduation present. Heck, I think they go for at least sixty G’s. It was beautiful. I slid my fingertips along the side of the car. It felt smooth, strong, and expensive. Where was she going to park it so it didn’t get jacked from the airport? I guess it didn’t matter too much to her. She was so rich, daddy could buy her a new one; must be nice.

  The ride to the Oakland airport was all about how she was going to find out which cabin was the Romeros’. How, this time, she decided to go up to Chase and profess her love to him. She even worked out telling him how she dreams about them being together. Please—so desperate. Give me a vomit bag, the one with the metal tabs to seal it off. Her infatuation was totally different than my feelings for Max. First, she didn’t see him every day. Oh, then there was the major fact that he liked Dena Larson. Who was, by the way, out of his league. Dena looked like a model for Victoria’s Secret. Hello, tiny waist and D-sized boobs; there was no way Cindy could compete with that. She could almost fudge a B-cup on a cold day. The only thing Chase and Cindy had in common was that their names both started with the letter C and the fact that both of their families were over-the-top rich.

  What was I thinking
when I agreed to go to Aspen with Cindy? If the thirty-minute ride to the airport was any indication of how the weekend was going to be, maybe I should have faked the H1N1 flu and lived with the ramifications. Holy cow, that girl could talk. The only saving grace, my thoughts of Max Goldstein.

  Cindy pulled into long-term parking and popped the back. She unloaded the huge suitcase and backpack that took up most of the trunk. I just had a duffel bag. I didn’t fly much, but from what I’ve heard, it’s better to take one bag and carry it on with you so they wouldn’t lose it. Besides, it wasn’t like we were going for a week or anything. A couple of pairs of jeans and a few shirts worked for me. I flipped my bag across my shoulder and was ready to go. She pulled the suitcase behind her and strapped her backpack across her shoulders. Price you pay for having more than you need, I guess. If the airport offered little slave boys to carry her bags, I wouldn’t put it past her to do it.

  I watched her fight the suitcase up the steps. “Oh my God, this sucks,” Cindy griped as I grabbed the bottom of her suitcase and pushed.

  “What do you have in here, bricks of gold?”

  The suitcase had to weigh seventy-five pounds.

  “No, just necessities.”

  We crossed the road and headed toward the Southwest curbside check-in.

  “We can check in with this outside guy right?”

  “Oh, Wilson, they are called skycaps,” she chuckled as she looked back at me. That was the part of this weekend I wasn’t looking forward to: how stupid she could make me feel because I wasn’t as traveled as she was. Truth be told, this was only the second time I’d taken an airplane anywhere. The first time I went on an airplane, I was thirteen and my eighth grade class flew down to So-Cal to go to Disneyland for our graduation trip. That was a bust. I ended up with food poisoning and spent the whole second day of my flex-pass in the hotel room with Mrs. Sheath. A mother of three obnoxious boys, she wasn’t nurturing at all. In fact, she accused me of faking it; even when I was up-chucking my guts and hugging the porcelain, she tossed me a towel and shut the door. I was just glad I caught it before it landed in my vomit. That was the worst trip ever. This trip has to be better than Disney from hell.

  “Whatever, we can check in here, right?” I dropped my duffel at my feet and turned to her to help.

  “Hi, ladies, welcome to Southwest Airlines, where are we taking you today?” a gray-haired, clean-cut, uniformed man said as he grabbed the tickets and loaded Cindy’s suitcase on a carpeted metal wheelie cart.

  “Aspen,” my voice cracked.

  “Actually, Denver,” Cindy corrected me as she looked back and shook her head.

  Strike two. I’ve never liked people who kept correcting the mistakes I made or kept tallies on the stupid things I did, just so they could bring them up later at an inopportune time or in the heat of an argument.

  Anyone who would argue with me would win. I didn’t have the space in my head or the ability to catalog the stupid things people did or hurtful words they would say. I guess I was the best kind of friend, because I wouldn’t remember all the times they shat on me or screwed me over. Call it a blessing or a curse; it was just the way I was.

  The skycap smiled and nodded. “Well, Ms. Mooney, have fun in Aspen and enjoy your flight.”

  “Thanks.” I grabbed my bag and we headed through the faux security and up to gate 25. Lucky for us, it was one of the first gates we came to; not so lucky for me, I had to sit for an hour and a half listening to Cindy talk about Chase. How she loved his hair; how his gorgeous ocean blue eyes called to her; how she wondered if he was a good kisser; how her name would sound as Cindy Romero, then Cindy Browler Romero. I snapped.

  “Cindy, I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” I hurried to the restroom across from our gate.

  “I’ll go after you. They start the pre-boarding pretty quick,” she shouted as she adjusted her backpack on her lap, unzipping it to pull out a pen. No doubt to practice writing her name as Cindy Browler Romero. I didn’t say anything; I just nodded and kept walking. I don’t think it even registered with her how irritated I was.

  I was relieved to have a moment of time where I didn’t have to hear about Chase. There had to be something else I could get her to talk about. Skiing—that was it. I would mention how excited I was to learn how to snow ski. Man, I frickin’ hated the snow. I hated being cold. I hated wearing beanies on my head and gloves on my hands. Without fail, my head would get unbearably itchy and I wouldn’t be able to scratch it with gloves on. I could never really get a good scratch going, so it was inevitable that I would have to take the gloves off, making my hands cold and my hair frizzy. Besides, I was very tactile. I liked to feel surfaces around me, and when you wore gloves it screwed up the sensation.

  When I came back from the restroom they were already pre-boarding our section. Cindy was bouncing up and down and acting like she had to pee.

  “Sorry, I didn’t think I took that long.”

  “Come on Wilson, I have to have an aisle seat. If I get stuck between you and some random person with B.O., I swear, I will not be a happy camper.” She pointed to my duffel bag and turned toward the ticket agent.

  What was I doing? I was leaving my best friend behind to spend the weekend with Cindy on the slight chance I would get to see Max Goldstein on a ski slope. Oh, Max. Okay, so I wasn’t a gambler, but the odds of a slight chance were well worth the cost of a weekend with her. I texted Joanie, telling her we were getting on the plane and how much I wished she was with me. She didn’t respond.

  I couldn’t blame her. In her eyes, I was going to Aspen to ski and hang out with our roommate. But in reality, I was stuck being Cindy’s muse. Listening to all the things she wanted to say to Chumpy Chase. Something clicked in my head and it all made sense. I was the girl that made her look good. Shit, that was it. If she made me look like a total douche, then she looked good to Chase. Of course that was it. I had my work cut out for me.

  “Great, the only seats in our section are window and middle. Well, guess you’re next to B.O. man.” She sent me a scathing glance.

  “Fine, I don’t mind.”

  I pushed my duffel bag up into the overhead storage and waited for her to squeeze in next to the window.

  “Wait until he strikes up a conversation about his dead wife or his perfect children.”

  I pointed up to the open door of the storage above our heads. “Cindy, aren’t you going to put your backpack up there?”

  “Hell, no. I have my iPhone in here, all my make-up, and my wallet. It’s going down at my feet.” She shoved it under the seat in front of her.

  “When we land in Denver, how are we getting to the cabin?”

  “My dad has rented us a Toyota Sequoia. It will be there for us when we land.”

  “How far away is Aspen from Denver?”

  “About four hours. We’ll get there in time for a late dinner.”

  “Well, which type of burrito are you going to have?” I laughed. I thought it was funny—she didn’t.

  “My dad has a fully staffed kitchen at the cabin; we don’t eat burritos.” She turned toward the window, plugged her ears with her earphones, and started messing around with her iPhone.

  Strike three. Now I understood why the big man upstairs didn’t make me rich. He gave me the life I had to make me humble. I don’t think Cindy knew what true struggles were. She grew up privileged—summers in Europe, winters skiing in Aspen. Her struggles were, like, which bracelet she was going to wear with which outfit. God forbid if she wore an outfit twice in the same month. In our dorm room, she took the entire closet and had an armoire imported from Italy to hold the rest of her clothes. I guess one of the benefits of having Cindy as a roommate was that, when we needed something to wear, she would pick out something from her closet and give it to us. Of course, she threw it up in your face when she needed a favor. Remember when I gave you that cute lavender top from Christian Dior? Those were the words of favors. She was never taught that people do things for yo
u just because they were your friend. Pretty sad, huh? Maybe my reason for this trip was to show her that she didn’t have to buy her friends. Wait—she bought my ticket to Denver. I’d better just stick to being her muse.

  The plane took off and pressure raged heavy against my chest. The only thing I could relate it to was when you drop steeply on a rollercoaster. Luckily for me, the older gentleman next to me smelled like green apples mixed with caramel. He actually made me hungry. When I turned to him and inhaled through my nose, he looked at me and smiled.

  “Sorry if I upset your friend. I am claustrophobic and can’t sit confined with people on both sides of me.”

  “No problem, I understand.” The space between us seemed to squeeze tighter.

  He cleared his throat, “I’m John Samuel.” He twisted and held out his hand.

  “Wilson Mooney, nice to meet you.” He had a nice, firm handshake.

  His eyebrows scrunched together like two caterpillars kissing. “Wilson? Is that a family name?”

  “No. More like a cruel joke; but definitely not a family name.”

  “You don’t like it? I think it’s pretty cool. It’s different. How did your parents come up with that name?” Oh come on, was he really interested in this story? Or was he trying to kill time in the air?

  “My mom played volleyball and loved the game; the day she found out she was pregnant, it was the big game against John Muir High School, and the coaches didn’t let her play. She named me after the ball. It was her homage to volleyball. She never played another day in her life.”

  “Really?”

  “No, actually, I was named Wilson after the governor of California.”

  “Hum.” He looked at me, almost believing until I cracked a smile.

  “No, I wish I had a great story, but I don’t.” I turned and faced the seat in front of me. I didn’t feel like telling him the truth about it. What person in their right mind would want to hear about my childhood? In particular, how I was named after a boy my mother wished was my father.