So does he. “What cards do you have?” he asks me.
I don’t feel like playing, so I try to change the subject. “You don’t know anything about girls.”
“More than you,” he fires back. Staring at cards of sorcerers, dragons, and balls of fire, he clasps his hands together, plotting his next move. “At least I kissed a girl.”
“She was your cousin!”
“But she was cute, you have to admit that.”
“And she was your cousin. Besides, she was wishing you a happy birthday. That’s why she kissed you on the cheek.”
“Okay, fine. She only kissed me on the cheek, and thank god for that. Incest runs rampant where she lives. I would not want my kids to have six tongues anyway.” To prove the point, he loops his fingers around his eyes, swings his jaw from side to side, and rolls his pupils back so all I can see are the whites of his eyes. “Blarrrrrlllll!” he yells, twisting his tongue. “Blarrrrrlllll! Quick, Donuts, use Merlin’s magic dust to bring me back to human form. Come on, this is really hurting my eyes. Blarrrrrlllll! Summon Merlin’s powers, do it—do it now! Blarrrrrlllll!”
I toss my cards on the table. I fight an urge to switch tables … but where am I gonna go? “You’re wasting my time, Manny. What’d you have to talk to me so badly about? What was so vitally important?”
Manny sighs, collecting my cards. “You have the patience of an antelope. I bet if I gave you a book entitled Patience you would not finish it. I see now that I must begin.” He packs his cards away, then locks eyes with me. As he opens his mouth to speak, his body stiffens. “You have been through—a lot—together—me, too—a distraction—what we need.” Out of character for Manny, his words trip over themselves. He stares for a moment at his shaking hands at the edge of the lunch table. “We need a distraction, have been through a lot, need a distraction. You especially.”
I know what he’s talking about, but I don’t want to talk about it. Her. I don’t want to talk about her. To him or anyone else. I know he misses her, but not like I miss her, and I don’t want to talk about her.
I smile and say in my chummiest voice: “So what’s this plan you want to tell me about?”
He shuts his eyes. “You do not have to—we can talk—”
“So let’s talk. What’s the plan, Stan?”
“We need a distraction because—”
“Yeah! The man with the plan! The Manny with the Plan-ny. Tell me!”
He nods thoughtfully. “Okay,” he says, and begins.
“My candy enterprise has expanded. You may have noticed a surge in my sales and a spike in my popularity—or as I like to call it, my compatibility quotient. It seems that the brown-haired beauty who just walked by has yet to receive the memo, but my compatibility quotient has recently risen at least two degrees. Alas, you also may have noticed—unless you are keeping something from me—that we both lack companionship for the dance, do we not?”
“Not?”
“You are still devoid of a group, an after-party, and a potential female dancing partner, yes?”
I nod.
He takes another sip from his thermos. “I am going to solve our problems, Donuts. By nature, I am a problem solver—my math teachers would agree—and I am going to solve our problems. Well, my problem first, and then yours, if we have time, which we probably will. It is like those airplane videos, where the flight attendant instructs you to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting anyone. Safer that way. Selfish perhaps, but much safer.”
A freckled sixth grader clutching a notebook approaches our table. He isn’t there for me. I should be used to this by now.
Manny greets the kid with a smile. “Big test today, I hear. If your grade were a pizza pie, this test is a rather large slice, yes?”
“Yeah, unit exam. Environmental science. Thirty percent of my final average.”
“Wow, that is a rather large slice. Nervous?”
“Well, no. I mean, yeah, I mean, it’s a big test.”
Manny looks both ways (on both sides of the lunchroom). “The scene is safe,” he whispers to me (apparently I’m in training), then reaches into his bag and says to his buyer, “Have no fear, eat a Three Musketeers.”
The kid slips him a dollar and tears open the wrapper before returning to his seat. Manny must see my mouth agape, for he grins and says, “It is all in the delivery.”
“But he didn’t even tell you what he wanted…”
Manny shakes his head. “You tell the customer want they want. One of the many lessons I have learned along the entrepreneurial superhighway.”
“But how’d you know there was a science test today?”
“It is simple. Because I am an integral part of the social pipeline, I have access to copious quantities of information which I use to my financial advantage. That is what I have been telling you, Donuts. Unlike you, I have made something of myself, and made quite a large sum of cold, hard cash—or as I like to say, ‘freezing firm cash’—but however you refer to it, it is still money. Money that I will use, and, perhaps, we will use but only after I secure it for myself—see, that airplane motto once again—to help us acquire dates to the dance.”
“You mean go with a group to the dance, right?”
“Negatory. Why follow the masses in their groups when we can bask in the spotlight of the dance floor with dates in our arms? I am talking about dates. Not the dried fruit, either, though they are delicious and nutritious and great for your colon. I am talking about live, human dates. Can you imagine how our compatibility quotient will skyrocket with actual dates? This is what I have been needing to explain to you: my plan.”
It’s easy to get sidetracked by Manny’s blabbering, so it doesn’t hit me at first. It comes in pieces. Money, plan, dates, dance … “Wait, Manny, you want to—”
“That is affirmative. I am raising money to boost our compatibility quotients and increase our chances of landing live, human dates.”
“Wait, we’re raising money—”
He reaches across the table to cuff my mouth. “Quiet, you ignoramus.” His hand tastes like chocolate chip cookies.
I try to say sorry but his hand muffles my speech. All I can muster is “sry.”
“Can I trust you enough to remove my grip?”
I nod, so Manny lets go, then sighs. “I refuse to go down in the annals of this school as a bona fide loserasaurus, a math whiz who can count the girls he has danced with on no hands. As a rising entrepreneur, such negative attention would be an insult to my brand.” He pauses. “My motives are clean here, I assure you. I simply would like a date, especially for the pictures. Pictures are key, Donuts, because unlike you or me, they are as immortal as diamonds and candy that has not melted or been sat on. You see, pictures, like our reputations, will last forever. If we are successful in our venture, everyone until the end of time or at least until we get to high school will know we squired eighth graders to the dance.”
“Eighth graders!”
“That is affirmative. The general public will not know nor care to know anything about our candy enterprises. All they will see is a picture and pictures do not lie. They may not tell the whole story, but they do not lie.”
“But, Manny, where are you gonna get a date?”
His eyes dart around the lunchroom. “Here, at our school, fine academic institution that it is. I hope you can taste my sarcasm.” He licks his lips to exaggerate the point. “Of course, after all my work, I shall only select the most elite specimens. By ‘elite specimens,’ obviously I mean”—he clears his throat—“babes, honeys, beauties, sweeties, and/or sweetie pies.”
He sounds lamer than that lamest parent calling the lamest pair of jeans dungarees. “But, Manny, how are you gonna convince the—”
“Babes, honeys, beauties, sweeties, and/or sweetie pies.”
“Right, how are you gonna get them to go with us? I mean, you. I mean—”
“‘Us’ is fine, Donuts. I will shoulder most of the sales in the first
month until we get a rhythm, and until I land a date for myself. I will always be the boss and C.E.O. of our candy enterprise, but we are in this together. Now, for the record, we are not buying dates; that would be loserasaurus-esque. We are enticing them. We are raising money to sweeten ourselves as dance commodities: a limousine, a gourmet meal, a fine suit, concert tickets—whatever it is, we shall indeed increase our chances of getting a whiff, however brief, of the sweet scent of popularity.”
“Will it work?”
“Have you never seen a music video? What year do you live in?! Every guy in a music video gets the girl because they all have something to offer: a fresh ride, a boat, an after-party in the hotel lobby. We may not have boats or after-parties in hotel lobbies or babes, honeys, beauties, sweeties, and/or sweetie pies lined up yet, but think of raising money now as a way of stocking our ammunition for battle.” He scratches his chin. “Someone wise once said, ‘Love is a battlefield.’ Well, we shall be prepared for battle. I am talking big enough profits to give our image a metamorphosis: our hair, our shoes, our clothes, our swagger, our jewelry. Maybe some rapper bling. Really tasteful, though. I do not know if you have noticed, but I could use a new wardrobe.”
I steal a glance at his “Nobody is perfect. Except me” T-shirt. “Hadn’t noticed.”
“Most important, Donuts, the more we raise, the more we can offer: access to the hippest of after-parties that are so hip only hippopotamuses are allowed in. Only the hippest of hippopotamuses … or is it ‘hippopotami’?” He scratches his chin. “Yes, hippopotami. The hippest of hippopotami can certainly splurge for a red carpet to walk on at the dance, a forest of rose petals, a designer dress designed by a designer for our dates, a meal prepared by an Iron Chef, a helicopter tour of New Jersey, a ride to and from the dance in a Ferrari, a Bentley, a Lamborghini—”
“Could we eat tortellini in our Lamborghini?”
He rolls his eyes. “Teachers say there are no stupid questions … they are lying. But I will answer it anyway. We can eat whatever we like. Filet mignon, caviar, escargot, tortellini, you name it, we can have it—offer it, I mean, as reason for live human female beauties to dance and take pictures with us. Speaking of such…” He pauses, then scans the lunchroom premises. “You can sense her, correct?”
Of course I do. Allison Swain, an eighth grader. Allison is aces. That is a universal law. The sky is blue. The grass is green. Allison Swain is aces. Allison’s hair, a light auburn, bounces with each step she takes across the lunchroom. Those green eyes, full lips. Three freckles on her left cheek in the winter, six in the fall, nine in the spring, and twelve in the summer.
She’s my neighbor, always has been. Her lawn is always cut. Her wallpaper is pink. She drinks skim milk. Her family gets the newspaper delivered every morning, but she only reads the front page. She used to wear pigtails, pink T-shirts, and pump sneakers. Once I spied on her in her backyard among a row of plants that curve like garter snakes, but I don’t think she saw me, at least that’s what I tell myself.
Manny elbows me. “You are drooling,” he says. “And it smells terrible. I think your saliva is infected. I recommend a doctor visit to check for rabies.”
Allison stops next to a crowded café table filled with eighth graders, kisses everyone there, smiles like a Cheshire cat, and takes a seat at the end of the table next to Chad Watkins, his hair bouncy and full-bodied, his calf muscles bulging underneath the table, his right arm resting on the shoulders of Allison’s blue and white cheerleading uniform.
“They are dating, you know,” Manny says. “Heard it through the social pipeline.”
“I should talk to her,” I say, pretending Manny’s gossip and Chad don’t exist.
“Well, that sounds convincing.”
“I mean, I—I will. I’ll ask her to the dance. Without bribery.”
“I think that might be the most flabbergasting thing you ever said. I swear, the older you get, the more your brain shrinks. By the time you are forty and wrinkled, you will not remember my name. You will call me up on the phone and say, ‘Hello, there. I don’t know who you are or why I’m calling you, but hello. Hello, there. Hello.’”
“Manny, I’m telling you, I can get her to go with me without bribery. We’re neighbors, after all. I’ll start small … baby steps. I should buy her lunch.”
He grins. “First, buying someone lunch is bribery. It is nutritional compensation for a kiss, not that our cafeteria food is nutritious or proteinaceous in any way. No one in their right mind would eat the swill they serve. I need not remind you of that time I found a crusty red fingernail in my hamburger.” He gags. “It was in my mouth, Donuts, in my mouth! It was wretched, truly an abomination that should have been the end of my cafeteria food career. I should have thrown in the napkin and retired that very afternoon. But no, I went against every fiber of my being and gave it a second chance. That is when things got hairy.” He gags once more.
I can’t help but laugh. “It wasn’t that bad, Manny. It was only a single hair.”
“There was enough hair on my hot dog to clog a shower!” he cries. “The hairnets those lunch ladies wear are obviously defective, but I did not sue because my conscience is the size of a whale and my compassion spreads over continents. Besides, I had nothing to gain. Lunch ladies have even less money than I do.”
Chad picks his shirt up to show everyone his abs. They’re all very impressed, especially Allison, who goes in for a touch. She lingers too long for my liking.
“Listen to me, Donuts. Buying Allison lunch is a terrible idea. Or anyone at her table. Especially that brunette Anna Harden, with the purple headband. Ooh, baby, shiver me timbers.” (He shivers. Anna is a close second to Allison, with athletic firepower to boot. After college, she’ll either be a professional lacrosse player or a model. If she asks me, which she probably definitely won’t, I’d suggest model. Better to preserve those pearly white teeth.) “Look at them, Donuts.” He means Anna’s table, not her teeth. “There must be something in the water. Wait, is that … no, I thought they were drinking Fiji Water. Just Evian. Oh well, still something magical about that table. I bet if you pick anyone and put them there, they will turn into a goddess”—he scans the room—“yes, even no-neck Ingrid or Pippa with the long stockings or Sabrina.”
Manny nods his head at a table to the left, a few over from ours, to Sabrina, from the front row of Mrs. Q’s class, now sitting with five girls chatting away about something, their books and notebooks open. Dark hair falls over Sabrina’s eyes as she puts her elbows on the table, sips Cherry Coke, and nibbles on rat poison or the lunchtime equivalent: bologna on white bread. But Sabrina doesn’t seem bothered by her lunch, her work, the humidity, or the gossip, or the fact that Cherry Coke has long gone out of style. Immune, she seems, to it all. No dual Donuts-like personality, no self-consciousness. Just her, what she wants to eat, what work she wants to complete, what shoes she wants to wear—a pair of faded blue Converses with no laces—and when she catches me staring, she doesn’t look away. Slow jazz music isn’t playing in the cafeteria or anything, but when our eyes meet, she rolls hers and, well, that’s the end of that.
“What’s so awful about her, anyway?” I ask.
He looks around before answering. “She beat me in a debate. Nobody beats me in a debate. I cannot believe that emo girl beat me! You should have seen it. I mean, I am glad you did not see it, but it was quite a sight. It was torture, plain and simple.” Manny buries his face in his hands and groans.
“Is it safe for me to speak?”
Through his hands, he mutters, “I have concluded my recap of this unfortunate incident. I certainly will not be accompanying her in a sports car to the dance.”
“Well, I’m getting on the lunch line. Maybe I’ll invite Allison or Sabrina. I could introduce them to—”
“Stop.” He sticks his arm out like a crossing guard. “Stop right there. You want them to meet the lunch lady? Are you kidding?”
“Her name is Marsha a
nd she’s a nice lady.” I push past him.
“Not so fast, Boston Cream,” he says. “When you have returned from the garden of grease, we will reexamine my plan.”
HIBERNATION
Before I even reach the lunch line, I hear someone shout, loud enough to wake up the aliens on Mars: “HEY, DONUTS MADE IT OUT OF THE TRASH CAN ALIVE!”
My face goes crimson. Then neon red. I look behind me to see Chad pointing at me, one arm around Allison.
My heart is like a battering ram being rammed against a chest made from a door, and my breath is like a dog’s that just ran out the gate and took off down the block. I can’t find it—my breath, I mean. It ran away. But all skilled performers know that timing is everything and that keeping one’s composure is important, even when your breath runs away. “Thank you—everyone!” I shout. I reach for my chest and gasp for air. “From the bottom—of my heart, I appreciate your concern. The lesson is—to never dig for DONUTS—in the trash can! I am glad—to report that I’ve already made a full recovery!”
Before anyone can say anything else, I dash to the lunch counter where Marsha is salting fries. Her spiderweb of a hairnet is ripped in two places, but she tries (unsuccessfully) to straighten it out when she sees me approach. “Hey, sugar! Everything okay, baby?”
I can’t help but smile. “Hi, Marsha, what’s on the menu today?”
The menu is the same every day. That’s the joke. Though she’s heard it dozens of times, she throws her head back and howls. “Baby, you sure know how to make a lady laugh!”
“I’ll be here all week.”
“You promise not to run off with another woman and never come back?”
“I promise.”
“In case you do run off with a woman, a word to the wise: Women are relationship beings. Men are not.”
I ask her if the pizza tastes good.
“There you go, changin’ the topic,” she says, and chuckles. “But you’ll find out someday. A woman will tell you she wants to talk. Again. But hear me, baby: all she needs is attention and love. And to be reassured that you ain’t goin’ nowhere. Oh, you’ll see.”
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