When Friendship Followed Me Home

by Paul Griffin

  She looked at me and then back at the road. “I think that was the most unconvincing ‘good’ imaginable. Come on now. It’s just us here. How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’m messing you guys up,” I said.

  She pulled the car over and held my hand for a little bit. “I can’t have you feel that way, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s going to take some time.”

  “I know.”

  “I feel awful for you.”

  “I don’t want you to, though.”

  “I want to help you. Leo does too. We’re all adjusting. It’s a learning curve, right? I’m completely thrown, Ben. Tess was so easy about everything. The worst things could happen, and she smiled right through them. I miss her so much, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “I looked up to her. I wanted to be her. But I couldn’t. She was always so pie in the sky, and for me it was always, I better have the raincoat handy. I don’t want that to be true, but it is. I’m messing you up.”

  “No. You got stuck with me.”

  “Will you stop saying that? Please, all right? I’m going to be better. I promise. We’ll keep each other’s spirits up, okay? You and me. And Leo too. We’re all still reeling, right? Things will get better. We just need time to pass. It’ll work out fine. I really think it will.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay. It’ll work out.”

  “Yes.” She wiped her eyes and got herself together. “We’ll get the dog now, and then I’ll make you some homemade soup. I’d very much like to do that for you. Now, connect your phone to the stereo and play me your favorite music.”

  I played her this rap ballad Mom loved, full of banjos and trumpets that got her singing along and up out of her chair and dancing, and she’d get me going too, and we swung each other around. The chorus went:

  What’s your worry, what’s your hurry,

  where you running off to?

  Stay a while, dance up a smile,

  remember we’re free to be true.

  We’re free. We’re always. We’re you and me.

  I was so happy remembering her, the way Mom laughed loud when she danced like that, and then I looked over to Jeanie and she was crying again.

  33

  THE MYSTICAL MANHATTAN BOOKSTORE TOUR

  Leo was still asleep when Aunt Jeanie and I got back to Cypress Hills. “Poor guy was up all night packing boxes for an early UPS pickup,” Aunt Jeanie said.

  “Mine are ready to go too,” I said. “My books, I mean.”

  “Fabulous. We’ll drive them to Strand as soon as you’re feeling better.”

  “I feel terrific, really,” I said.

  “No, rest. Soup’s on the way.”

  I sat out on the back porch with Flip. The fake marble angel had arrived. Its face was—shocker alert—weepy. I called Halley. “Why are you home on a school day?” she said.

  I told her, and she wanted to bring me chocolate-covered pretzels. “I can’t sit still,” I said. “Let’s go into the city.”

  • • •

  The Mercurious-mobile pulled up to the house. We loaded the book boxes into it. “Ben, are you sure you’re up for all this activity?” Aunt Jeanie said.

  I felt like dancing. Halley’s wig that day was gold with pink leopard spots. Leo came outside with some serious bed head. Mercurious put out his hand. “Mike Lorentz.”

  “Right, right. Leo Petit.” He wiped his hand on his sweat shorts and shook. “I would have done this. Driven Ben, I mean, to the bookstore. I feel bad now. Can I get you a beer? Actually, I, we’re out of beer. We have plenty of coffee, though.”

  “I think the sellback desk closes at one,” I said. I had no idea when the sellback desk closed.

  “I see,” Leo said. “I see. Well, thanks, Mark. Thanks for helping out champ here, I guess.”

  “I’d love to take you up on that drink another time, Leo,” Mercurious said. “We all should get together for dinner.”

  “That sounds nice,” Aunt Jeanie said.

  • • •

  Mercurious helped us load the books into Strand, and then he was off to the Museum of Natural History to talk with the parents of this kid who was having his bar mitzvah party there the next week. The clerk opened the boxes. “You took good care of these,” he said. “We’ll have an estimate for you by five or so.”

  We went to Mickey D’s and got shakes and a burger for Flip. Halley only had two sips and gave me the rest of her shake, and I was completely messed up with a sugar rush. “Okay, so how’s this for the next installment of The Magic Box?” I said. “Flip pilots the golden blimp toward the moon Libris without incident.”

  “He’s an expert guide dog, duh.” She took back her milk shake and gave some to Flip. His head disappeared into the cup.

  “Flip docks the blimp to the antenna on top of the Branch for Interstellar Travel, where Penny is waiting with a dish of Chips Ahoy! of course.”

  “How much do you love my mom? She’s the total Queen of Cookies.”

  “She whisks Helen, Bruce, and Flip into the star map room and rolls out a chart that goes from one end of the library to the other. Flip trots over it, sniffing one route and then another, until he finds the one he wants and marks it off with two scratches that make an X. Penny looks really worried. ‘Flip has chosen the fastest route, but also the most dangerous,’ Penny says. Turns out the route goes smack-dab through the Rayburn Belt.”

  “It has to be done,” Halley said. “‘However,’ Penny says, ‘I’m less worried about the nefarious warlock zombie overlord Rayburn than I am the danger you present to yourselves. Promise me you won’t peek into the magic box until you get to Mundum Nostrum.’”

  “It’s that scary, what’s inside?” I said.

  “That powerful.”

  “Wow.”

  “Totally.”

  The manager came over. “Excuse me, kids, but you can’t have the dog in here.”

  “He’s a therapy dog,” Halley said.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll go.”

  We went out. “You need to stand up for your rights,” Halley said, “not to mention Flip’s.”

  “Let’s do a bookstore tour,” I said. “Book people love dogs.”

  “We’re selling back all your books and now you want to buy new ones. This makes perfect sense.”

  “Me and my mom used to do like four a Saturday.”

  “Let’s start at McNally Jackson,” Halley said. “It’s mystical in there.”

  “Mystical?”

  “The air’s buzzy, like when you’re watching a lightning storm that’s far away and can’t hurt you but it lights up the whole sky pink with violet curls.” We went to the sci-fi section and sat on the floor, back-to-back, and read while this little boy pet Flip.

  “Ha, I got you to like I, Robot,” I said.

  “It’s purely research for The Magic Box,” Halley said. “This is the price I pay for having a writing partner with spectacularly undeveloped reading tastes.”

  Next we went to Broadway, to the Scholastic bookstore. There was a huge painting of Clifford the Big Red Dog. Flip whined to climb out of the backpack. At Books of Wonder, Peter, the guy who ran it, knew both of us. “And I often thought you should know each other,” he said. “When it comes to book lovers, destiny is reality.” He treated us to snacks at the Birdbath Bakery. Halley had two bites of chocolate muffin and gave me the rest. At Barnes & Noble Union Square she bought her dad sparkly purple reading glasses. The last stop was Housing Works. “Everybody who works here’s a volunteer,” Halley said. “They give all the money to people who are HIV positive or have AIDS, and especially to those who’re homeless. Ben, we’re so lucky.”

  “That’s what Mom used to say. This was her favorite.” We went to the checkout desk. “Coffin f
or a pickup,” I said to the clerk. I’d called it in the week before.

  “Let me guess,” Halley said. “Star Wars IV, A New Hope, to replace the three copies we just dropped off at Strand.”

  The clerk handed me Feathers. I handed it to Halley. Her eyes widened on the yellow sticker on the cover: SIGNED COPY.

  Halley Lorentz screamed so loud the store went quiet. “OMG! She held this book. I’m holding this book. It’s like I’m holding Jacqueline Woodson’s hand! Flip, total knuckle bump! Ben Coffin, you are the most seriously amazing human being ever!” We went to the café and took turns reading parts we liked, and then she got to the line about the special moments. “‘Moments that stay with us forever and ever.’ And there’s that face again,” she said.

  “That’s the one line I don’t like,” I said.

  “Of course you do.”

  “It’s a lie. You can’t go back.”

  “But The Magic Box, the time travel to the past—”

  “Is a story, fantasy. I’m talking about science now. Everything vanishes. It has to. That’s how time works. My mom’s gone, okay? The sooner I accept that, the fact I’ll never see her again, the sooner I can move on.”

  “You can see her every time you close your eyes and think about her.”

  “But she’s not there. Not here. She’s ashes under a fake marble angel in a little yard in Cyprus Hills. That’s it. That’s all that’s left of her.”

  “No. Please. I can’t think that way. I can’t have you think that way. I really, really need you to believe that we’re forever.” Her face was scrunched and red and wet.

  She was freaking me out. One minute she’s laughing and the next she’s crying like somebody died. That’s when it hit me. You don’t tell a friend who’s between chemotherapy treatments that you don’t believe life goes on forever somehow, some impossible, non-scientific way. No, you be a good friend, and you lie. “Look, I wasn’t thinking right,” I said. “I was feeling sorry for myself and got messed up there for a second. Truth told, I do believe. Halley, seriously, I do.”

  “You don’t, though. You don’t.” She held Flip close, and he licked her eyes. She put him in my lap and got up. “I better head on home.”

  “Sure, no problem. Let’s go.”

  “Alone, Ben. I need to think, okay?”

  “Halley—”

  “No.” She put her hands on my chest to stop me from following her. An old guy said to her, “Is he bothering you?”

  She got on the bus and pushed into the crowd and I couldn’t see her anymore.

  34

  THE DUMBEST THING I EVER DID

  I called but she wouldn’t answer. I texted her and got nothing back. Now I really understood how she felt when I didn’t reply to the texts she sent those days leading up to my mom’s funeral. Then my phone did beep. It was Strand.

  The store was crowded now, and I felt a little dizzy waiting on line to pick up the money. Flip yipped at me and put up his paw and cocked his head. He did a little dance that made everybody laugh, except me. When it was my turn at the counter, the man handed me six hundred dollars. “We gave you top price, I promise,” the guy said. “The books were in excellent shape overall. You averaged around a dollar fifty each. You had just about four hundred volumes there. What, you think they were worth more?”

  “No, the money’s great,” I said. “Thanks. It’s a lot more than I thought I’d get.”

  “Then why do you look so . . . ?”

  “So what?”

  “Like somebody just socked you in the face?”

  • • •

  I was so messed up, I took the wrong train, my old one, to where I used to live. I didn’t realize my mistake until the last stop when everybody got off. I got off too. I needed to walk around outside where there was more light.

  Flip and I went to the boardwalk. His tail wasn’t up and wagging the way it usually would be on a nice day, when we were walking by the beach. My sadness was getting into him. This man in a wheelchair was coming from the other direction. He had two beggars cups and no legs. He was telling me some story about why he needed money, but I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy staring into his eyes. He looked really familiar, but I just couldn’t figure out from where. I gave him fifty bucks. That was how the guy at Strand paid me, all fifty-dollar bills.

  The man in the wheelchair looked at the bill, then he looked at me, and then he looked up to the sky and howled and said, “Woohoo!” He did a wheelie and spun around and said to anybody who’d listen, “Now this kid is an angel! Seriously. This kid has true power. This young man understands, okay? He has wisdom. Man, you’re a gift, okay? You and that beautiful dog. You made my day, little brother. You made my day. It’s not the money, I swear. It’s your heart. Bless you. This is everything, man. This is everything.” That’s when I knew who he reminded me of. Mom. Same eyes, filled with laughing, even during sad times, when she made me give that crummy old dollar to the woman who had sold Flip. I’d said it was nothing, just a lousy buck, but she made me look into her eyes and hear her when she said it was everything.

  This man in the wheelchair was a magician for sure. He made me feel like maybe my mom’s spirit was still around, traces of her. He made me feel good. Flip too. His tail was up and whipping around. I needed to keep feeling this way, that maybe the beautiful moments in your life, the people you love really can live forever. All you have to do is remember them, like Halley said.

  I found somebody else on Neptune Avenue, an old woman pushing a shopping cart full of blankets and a ripped plastic bag filled with clothes. She didn’t flip out like the man in the wheelchair when I gave her fifty dollars, but she was just as happy, I’m pretty sure. She was missing teeth, but she smiled like she didn’t care. Her laugh was pretty, like a song you can dance to.

  A woman in the deli was going to have to put some food back because she didn’t have enough money, until I gave her fifty dollars.

  The hot dog vendor in front of the aquarium didn’t have any business and looked pretty hopeless until I bought franks for me and Flip and told him to keep the change.

  I’d given away all but one of the fifty-dollar bills. I figured I’d keep the last one and put it with the money I was saving up from my coupon deliveries, for when I turned sixteen and I could live on my own.

  Except I wouldn’t be following Halley up to college anymore. All that lightness I’d felt that last half hour, giving away the money, was gone now.

  I was about to get back onto the train when I remembered what Chucky told me, that Rayburn was living just down the street with his cousin. I turned around to look back to the end of the block. “What do you think, Flip?”

  Flip cocked his head.

  • • •

  The house was even worse than Chucky said. It was more than beat-up. Half the windows were broken. The little front yard was weeds and garbage. Flip looked at me like, Are you sure you want to do this?

  I went to the door and knocked. This guy with slicked hair and no shirt answered, even though it wasn’t warm that day. There weren’t any lights on in the house, and sheets over the window blocked out the sun. The house smelled like rotten food. The guy nodded, like, What do you want?

  “Damon around?”

  “Damon!”

  Rayburn was squinting when he came to the door. The sun was low and bright in his eyes. He rubbed them, like he couldn’t believe it was me. “Coffin?”

  He looked bad. Really bad. He looked smaller than I remembered, shorter, thinner—and dirty. His hair was all greasy. I gave him that last fifty-dollar bill, knowing the second the money left my hand that it wouldn’t feel anything like it did when I gave away the other bills.

  He looked at the bill, then at me. “What’s your problem, man?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  When I was walking up the steps to the house,
I was thinking that if there was a heaven, and my mom was looking down, she would be proud of me. But now she just felt so far away. It all felt bad now, even when I gave away the other fifty-dollar bills, like I’d bought people into being happy, into making me feel good. Still, I gave it a shot with Rayburn. “I heard you were having a hard time,” I said. I headed down the steps.

  His cousin came out and said, “What’s up? Problem out here?”

  “Dude just gave me fifty bucks,” Rayburn said.

  “Why?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Maybe he’s got a crush on you. That little dog, man. That’s a girl’s dog. Hey, why’d you give my boy Damon fifty bucks?”

  I was moving faster now, heading for the front gate. It was lopsided and dragged on the concrete and hard to open. Another guy was out there now, also no shirt, lots of tattoos. They started calling me names, I probably don’t have to say which ones. One of the guys threw half a sandwich at me. Flip and I ran, and they were laughing really loud now. I looked back over my shoulder, and Rayburn was laughing too. He couldn’t look weak in front of his boys. He cursed me, but his heart wasn’t in it, I could tell. His eyes were wet, like he was going to cry. He looked mad, then sad for a second, then mad again, like he remembered he wasn’t allowed to be nice. I was mad too. Mad at myself. How could I be so stupid? I really was losing it. Losing everything, my mind, my money. Losing everyone.

  35

  THE FAKE MARBLE ANGEL

  I saw Leo from outside the house. He was on the phone, pacing in the kitchen. I didn’t bother to go in. I took the alleyway into the backyard and sat on the rock next to the fake marble angel. Her eyes had no pupils, I noticed now. Leo came out. His shirt and shorts were all sweaty. “Went for a run,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Jeanie’s still out there,” he said. “Yeah. So how’d you do? You make out okay with the books? You didn’t let them rip you off, did you?”

  “They paid me fine.”

  “Good. A man makes money, right? Attaboy.” He slapped my back as he walked past me. He bent to pull a weed from a crack in the patio. Flip slinked away from him, toward me. Leo stood up and turned toward the weed bucket right when Flip was sneaking behind him. Leo stepped on Flip’s foot, Flip yelped. Leo hopped to get off Flip’s paw and tripped over a crack in the concrete. He put out his hands to break his fall, but like I said, Leo was a big guy. He landed hard and cursed. “I think he broke my wrist,” he said. I tried to help him up but he pulled away. “Get off me,” he said. He looked at his wrist. “If it’s broken, I’m gonna be mad.”