“What are you doing here?” she asks.
I reach into my pocket and hand her two tickets and a few granola crumbs.
Her eyes light up, hopefully not out of disgust for the granola—I didn’t mean to put it in her hand, but it’s everywhere. On my shirt, on my jeans, in my jeans, on my fingers.
“Les Miz?” She doesn’t scream or hug or thank me. She just asks.
I swallow hard. “Yeah,” I tell her. “Les Miz. They’re real tickets. It’s at the Forrest Theater in Philly. I saw an advertisement in the paper.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you—”
“They’re front-row. So you’ll never have to look down.”
I expect a smile. It doesn’t come. I hadn’t planned for this.
“Jean Valjean may have to look down, Sabrina, but we’ll never have to with those front-row seats. We’ll be looking straight ahead. And slightly up.”
“Thank you, but…”
“You don’t have to go with me, but the tickets are yours. I didn’t steal them or get anything stolen from me on the way to getting them. Manny gave me a rather generous severance package—”
“What? A severance package … what are you saying?”
“That I miss you, Sabrina. I do. I miss you.”
“You miss—” She shakes her head.
“I do. I really do. I want us to go, if that’s okay, and I’ll smuggle some popcorn in and I promise not to make too much of a mess.”
“But your business … it wasn’t for me.”
“It was, was going to be, and, well, you’re my business.”
You’re my business? It sounds terrible and corny coming out of my mouth. Because it is. I need to step it up. “I was afraid before, but I was getting less and less afraid and leaping off high dives and—”
“High dives? What are you talking about?”
“High dives, with you. Being less afraid, I mean. And now I’m not afraid. I want to sing it from the rafters.”
“Please don’t sing.”
“Fine, I won’t sing, but it’s not a secret, Sabrina. I don’t want it to be. I want to tell everyone.” I do want to sing it from the rafters, but there are no rafters in the hallways. Still, I need a platform, a podium, a high space … and quickly. I step on my tent to climb on top, which for some reason sounds like a good idea, and I snap one of the supports. In half. And I trip and fall, chin to the cold hallway floor, but at least I didn’t fall in the trash. Once I’m back on my feet and standing on my broken tent, I raise my voice and tell the crowded hallways: “I HAVE AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE. EVERYBODY LISTEN UP. I WANT TO TELL YOU ALL THAT I MET A YOUNG LADY. A GIRL. A GAL.”
“You sure it wasn’t a donut?” someone shouts.
“You sure it wasn’t inflatable?” another cries.
“I MISSED HER. I HEARD A BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SONG ON THE RADIO AND WANTED TO TELL HER. IT’S A REALLY PATRIOTIC TUNE AND GOOD, TOO. NOT AS GOOD AS ‘ATLANTIC CITY,’ BUT STILL GOOD.”
Sabrina is tugging at my shirt, begging me to be quiet.
“NO, EVERYONE HAS TO HEAR THIS: I SAW A VICTORIA’S SECRET COMMERCIAL AND I THOUGHT OF HER AND WANTED TO TELL HER.”
“Awesome!” someone screams. “Tell me more!”
“I MEAN, WHAT I WANT TO SAY IS, I WAS AFRAID. I WAS A SCARED DONUT HIDING ALL MY STRAWBERRY JELLY INSIDE. NO, RASPBERRY, IT WAS RASPBERRY.” Another tug from Sabrina, to whom I whisper, “I have to tell the truth: I think the jelly inside a donut is usually raspberry … BUT I LIKE A GIRL, A VERY NICE GIRL. A GAL, WHO FOR SOME REASON LIKES ME. I THINK. JUST WANTED EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT I PRETEND. A LOT. I’M A SKILLED ACTOR AND COMEDIAN LIKE ZACH GALIFIANAKIS. BUT LESS HAIRY. HOPEFULLY YOU THINK SO. BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT. THE POINT IS THIS: I DON’T WANT TO ACT ANYMORE. I DON’T WANT TO PRETEND ANYMORE. THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO SAY: I DON’T WANT TO PRETEND ANYMORE. SO THERE YOU HAVE IT. WORLD, TAKE ME AS I AM!”
It feels like an appropriate ending, an inspiring ending, a final crescendo with which I expect some type of applause or congratulations or taunt or threat.
But all I hear is “I was hoping for the worm” from one person and silence from everyone else, and the hallways are emptying out with everyone spilling back to class.
But Sabrina is smiling.
SOAK IN THE MEMORIES
Flashing lights. Given my transitional Mohawk, my hair is gelled back as best as I can. The sides of my head are no longer flying angels, courtesy of Melinda, and my suit and tie are as nonwrinkly as my dad and I could muster. Flashing lights. My arm is around Sabrina’s pink dress. Not just her dress, her, too. She’s in the dress—I mean, of course, but I’m afraid to look at her because she’s beautiful and she’s my date and she’s beautiful and she smells of flowers and did I mention she’s beautiful? Her hair in curls that fall on her smooth shoulders, my white corsage on her left wrist.
“Over here.” “No, over here, you two.” More lights. Sabrina’s mom smiling. My dad is, too, yucking it up with her mom. Sabrina’s dad had to work, which is just fine. I already feel like the whole world is watching me with binoculars on high definition. I don’t need him around, too.
“Should I bring out some chocolate chip cookies?” Sabrina’s mom asks.
The last thing I want is something in my teeth. Besides, my stomach is doing the butterfly stroke in a pool of butterflies. I want to be out of here, out of parental company and finally alone with Sabrina—and the rest of the seventh grade class.
My stomach does another flip turn.
“No, thank you,” Sabrina and I say.
“No cookies for me, thank you,” my dad says. “Sort of on a day-by-day diet. Yesterday, no ice cream. Today, no cookies.”
“Oh, well then, should I put out some dip, everyone? I could cut up a red pepper, maybe peel a few carrots?”
“Mom, please,” Sabrina mutters through her smile.
“Come on, how about some dip?”
My dad cuts in, “Bringing out some dip is a fine idea. Right, Denny?”
I shake my head.
“Sure it is,” my dad says. “Let’s cut up a red pepper, slice up a carrot … maybe a green pepper. Got any green peppers?”
“No green peppers,” she says. “Only red peppers.”
“That’s fine, a red pepper and a few carrot sticks will do the trick. Right?”
“No.”
“Aww, come on, Denny,” my dad says. “Carrot sticks make a real healthy snack, right?”
“I don’t want dip.”
“Dip can be delicious … well, I don’t find it very tasty, but with a few vegetables … it’s still not so tasty, but not bad for you.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Sabrina’s mom says.
My dad claps his hands. “Great, let’s get some dip and vegetables out here and truly make this a celebration.” Right, because nothing screams celebration like a handful of vegetables and a cup of dip.
More flashing lights. “Over here.” “No, over here.” My arm around Sabrina. “Smile, you two—look this way … Beautiful, now it’s time for dip.”
* * *
At the front entrance of Blueberry Hills Middle, Sabrina climbs out of her mother’s royal blue station wagon into the warm April air and waves goodbye. My dad, in the front seat, waves, too. “I hope they have real Chinese food here,” I tell him, shutting the door. “You know, the Chinese food that real Chinese people eat—when they eat food that is Chinese—in a Chinese restaurant.”
(I don’t mean to sound so awkward with him. For the first time in a long time I don’t feel awkward around him. It’s just that my arms and legs and mouth feel trapped in a steel cage of nerves and I’m aware of every slight movement I make and I hate every single one. I don’t know why my hands are balled into fists. I didn’t tell them to do that and now they’re stuck. Frozen. The April air, though warm, does nothing to thaw me out. Breathe, I tell myself, but instead I tug my arms against my body and squeeze, squeeze tighter. It seems my body doesn’t u
nderstand English. I’d speak Chinese, but I don’t understand—even when real Chinese—people—not like me—speak Chinese—to myself. Even my thoughts are robotic and make no sense.)
Anyway, when I mention the Chinese food to my dad, he doesn’t yell or get out of the car in a huff. He just smiles and says, “You better ask for the manager.”
The station wagon chugs down the street and when the honor roll bumper sticker is almost out of sight, Sabrina pulls me close. “Sorry for the ride. I know you had bigger plans for transportation.”
I feel my face go hot. I want to laugh it off, but my body isn’t working.
“You okay?” she asks.
No, I’m not okay. My arms are stuck and my voice is stuck and my feet are stuck and you smell nice and I hope I do, too, but I don’t think I do and I’d check to see and smell myself but that’s not okay at dances and I couldn’t even if I wanted to because my arms are stuck to my sides like the way Manny usually walks and I can’t unstick them.
“Seriously, what if the money had never been stolen?” Sabrina says. “How would we have gotten to the dance? In a souped-up limo? A Ferrari? A Porsche?”
I breathe in and spit out the answer in one breath: “We were never going to get a sports car anyway because we probably had to get parental releases, and they were probably out of our price range anyway so it was a bad idea, a stupid idea, it was Manny’s idea, really it was, and it wasn’t realistic. It was all a dream, JUST PRETEND, REALLY…” I feel my words fading, like I have to scream to be heard, and not because of my fleeting breath. They’re being drowned out by something around me, over me, on top of me.
“Uh, Denny…”
“WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” A loud noise is muting everything I say, like there’s some new fire drill or music that’s all drums and bass, or a plane flying over or something. “I CAN’T HEAR MYSELF! YOU NEED TO SPEAK UP!”
“I THINK YOU SHOULD…”
“WHAT?”
“I THINK YOU SHOULD LOOK UP. LOOK UP!” She points skyward.
I try to get a good look, but I have to cover my eyes. The air is poking me, blinding me—sand, dirt, a windstorm clawing through my eyelids and suit. My hair is messed up now, I know it, but I can’t fix it, and from all around mumbles and groans from other students as the wind whips us from the back and the front and the side, but mostly on top, above, where that bass drum sound, that BOOM, is now a THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP. I reach for Sabrina’s hand and ask—SHOUT—if she’s all right.
“YEAH! YOU?”
I wipe my face with my sleeve and blink away the sand. Shielding my eyes against the wind, I look up. My jaw drops at the image above me. I’m aware of the bits of sand flying into my mouth, but I can’t close it. Couldn’t close it if I tried. I do try and I can’t close it because I can’t believe it. Can’t begin to fathom what’s in front of me—above me. Can’t, can’t, just can’t …
“Can’t be,” I mutter, but there it is.
And there he is.
Manny, dressed in a tuxedo, beaming—smiling a full-mouthed, openmouthed smile, a smile so wide it looks like it’s coming from a dozen mouths, a hundred mouths, and there he is above me, above everyone, waving from the window of a hovering helicopter. Not some toy, or kiddie version. A full-fledged helicopter. Now blowing dust clouds on the way down.
I shake my head in amazement. “Flabbergasting. Flab-ber-gast-ing.” I can’t help but say it, and if anyone else knew what it meant or what it really meant in the scope of Manny’s world, my world, our world … what it meant, what it all meant, what this meant—Manny in a helicopter, an actual helicopter, making a grand ol’ entrance at the grand ol’ seventh grade dance—they’d say it too: “Flabbergasting.”
The chopper descends in back of the school on an empty baseball field and everyone seems to forget the rigidity and anxiety and formality of the seventh grade dance, because everyone, boys and girls alike, in their colorful shirts and ties and pink flowers and dresses and shiny high-heeled shoes … like a rainbow running through the wind, everyone makes a mad dash around the school to get a better look. I grab Sabrina’s hand, which is warm and awesome, and race around with everyone else to get a good look, too. My shoes are tight, way too tight, and I can feel a blister starting at my heel, but it feels so wonderful to run with her, and with each painful but exhilarating step I feel young again, like Manny and I are in my backyard on a secret spy mission and it’s a matter of national security and utmost urgency that I run as fast as I can. Sprinting with Sabrina’s hand in mine, I just feel light, so very light, like the air is propelling me forward, which is probably due to the helicopter, but whatever it is it feels good. Except for the noise (deafening) and wind (blinding), it feels really good.
Turning at the corner of the school building, I can see Manny giving everyone—dozens of dancegoers and parents, and me—a thumbs-up as the chopper touches down. The pilot, a mustachioed man with a headset on, nods at the adoring crowd.
It takes a good minute and what feels like a good hour—and it really is a good minute or good hour because Sabrina is still holding my hand—for the propeller to spin to rest, and it’s a good minute or good hour for Manny, too, as he keeps his thumb in the air the whole time, grinning from ear to ear, basking in all his glory. Then he shifts in his seat, gesturing to the back for some reason. And soon I see why.
He’s not alone. Him and the pilot, I mean; they’re not alone.
The door opens and a redheaded girl in a shiny silver dress climbs out of the chopper, balancing against Manny’s hand.
Manny’s got a date. An eighth grader. The one who I asked if she knew karate.
“Evening, gents and m’ladies,” Manny chirps. He’s sporting a slick black tuxedo with a silver handkerchief to match his date’s dress. On his head, he’s wearing his signature fishing cap. He gives the swelling crowd a presidential wave and raises his date’s hand high in the air. As he hops down, Manny’s cap flies off his head, but his date snags it in the air. Such excellent reflexes … maybe she really does know karate. Manny offers to hold the cap and promises not to put it back on.
When Manny’s close enough to me, I reach for the shoulder of his shiny tux. “How did you—I don’t—how did you do it?”
“The tuxedo?” He gives himself a once-over. “It is a rental. I thought of purchasing it, but my doctor projects my growth to skyrocket in the coming years.”
“No, your date…”
“My doctor does not know the precise date. He does not know exactly when my growth spurt will occur, but he projects—”
I grab both shoulders and point him toward the redhead. “Her! How?”
“Do not hate the player. Hate the game.” Manny rubs his chin. “Market research. Market freaking research. Instead of falling over my words like you did, or using corny pickup lines, I just, well, asked. Sure, the helicopter helps, but turns out eighth graders like going to seventh grade dances. Who knew?”
“You’re serious…”
“As serious as a karate chop.” He winks, then turns to Sabrina and bows. “Evening, m’lady.”
“Evening, Manny.”
Manny shifts his gaze to the admiring crowd of parents and kids on the baseball field. “I BELIEVE THE SHOW IS INSIDE, CORRECT?” he shouts. Then he whispers to us: “Before we proceed to the dance, a picture, shall we?” He pulls out his camera and motions for the three of us to squeeze in next to him. “Wait, we need to get the helicopter in the background…” Holding it straight out and bending it back so we’re all in the shot with him, Manny snaps the picture. “Hold on, one more, make it count, and … priceless.” We all take a look. I gotta admit, we look good. We don’t even look like ourselves. I certainly don’t recognize myself, don’t recognize the proud smile on my face, the wide grin on Manny’s, or our dates, real dates, not the dried fruit. Real actual live human girls who are dates, looking happy and attractive by our sides, happy to be here, happy to be next to us, just plain hap
py. I don’t recognize us and I don’t recognize the feeling, but I do like how it feels. I love how it feels.
“A classic, indeed,” Manny points out. “Pictures are perhaps the most important part of the evening. Pictures are immortal. They last forever, live forever.” I elbow him in the side. His silky smooth tuxedo feels good even on my elbow. “But enough of my blabber,” Manny finishes. “Shall we, everyone?”
Walking around the school and through the front entrance, I avoid the gaze of Manny’s date. No way I’m looking her in the eye.
Approaching the dance hall, I’m not sure how to look at the guy in front of me, either. In a red and green tweed suit, Mr. Morgan waves us forward. I want to tell him that his suit looks swanky, but I’m not sure if “swanky” is the right word to use and he is an English teacher after all, and I want to tell him that I’ve given things a lot of thought and that I’m sorry, and that the heading on his work sheet isn’t entirely wrong, isn’t completely wrong; that it should read “Life is good flabbergasting,” but instead I say, “I assume you’re the hormone checker. Guess we gotta leave them at the door.”
He shakes his head. “Actually, for tonight, but just for tonight, hormones are allowed in. This is a hormone-friendly establishment. In fact, please bring them.” He nods at Ronald “the Gum Dealer” Latimer running in place in the center of the dance floor, his arms in full pump, his mustache twitching with every long stride. “If Ronald’s the only one dancing, we’re in for a long evening.”
He pats me on the shoulder on our way in and I can’t help but turn around and say, “Turns out Sabrina likes me, Mr. Morgan. I guess you’re not as omniscient as I thought you were.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“She understands what an intellectual powerhouse I am at English.”
“I guess so.” He chuckles. “By the way, Mr. Anonymous, thank you for the classroom equipment. Mrs. Q thanks you, too.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
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