I move out of the way and thank Ms. Williams for the book. When Carly realizes the teacher gave me a present and not her, she lets out a pathetic noise that sounds as if she’s been punched in the gut.
“Carly, are you ready to take Ginger home?” Ms. Williams asks.
Carly volunteered—of course—to watch the class hedgehog for the summer. She stands near Ginger’s crate like a Secret Service agent guarding the president. Maybe she’ll fall asleep with Ginger on her lap this summer and wake up with marks on her legs from Ginger’s quills.
When the bell rings at the end of the day, most of the girls hug each other good-bye at the lockers, milking every last second of school time until next September. I vault over the hedge near the school entrance and skid to a halt in front of the crossing guard. When she tells me to have a nice summer, I shout back that I intend to. At home, I throw my backpack onto the porch and let out Bodi. I think about grabbing his leash but decide against it. We’re finally free!
Making Fruit Grenades
Matt and I get my markers and draw grids on the avocados piled on the kitchen counter. When we finish, we take them outside and stack them like cannonballs. Then we “borrow” three bags of potting soil from the garage, empty them into the middle of the driveway, and build two large mounds. We take our places behind the opposite hills.
“If we were still in school, we’d be in Social Studies right now.” He pelts me with one of the avocados, which lands in green chunks on my sneaker.
I hurl an avocado back but miss. “Even worse than Social Studies, we’d be in assembly watching Mr. Demetri sing stupid folk songs and play his guitar.”
I’m not sure if it’s our explosion noises that bring my mother out of the house, but when I look up she’s standing on the porch watching us bomb each other.
“They are hand grenades,” I inform her.
“I got it.” She looks at me with that face that tells me I’ve messed up once again. “I was going to use those avocados for dinner.”
I point to the green mush all over the driveway and our clothes. “They’re still edible. Why don’t you bring out a bag of chips?”
She closes the door without answering and I know we won’t be seeing chips anytime soon. Besides, Bodi has already eaten the biggest chunks of avocado off the driveway.
The next person to appear on the porch is my father. One of the good things about having a father who works from home is that he’s always around. Unfortunately, that’s one of the bad things too.
He places a box of large garbage bags on the stairs. “I assume you two are planning on putting all that potting soil back, right?”
“Right,” Matt and I both pretend to agree.
Dad takes a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet and places it under the box. “Then you can walk to the store and replace those avocados.”
My father keeps talking, but Matt and I are only focused on the crisp ten-dollar bill calling our names. I’m thinking seven, maybe eight, king-sized candy bars; I bet Matt is thinking the same thing. When my father finally goes inside, Matt and I dive for the money. He gets to it before I do.
“Giant bag of popcorn, a tub of ice cream, or a box of cupcakes with sprinkles?” He snaps the bill at me like it’s a towel in gym class.
Matt and I skateboard to the grocery store, and I ask the man in the produce department if there are any avocados on sale. He brings out several from the back room that are much cheaper than the ones in the bins. Matt and I have enough money left over to get a quart of chocolate fudge ice cream. We take utensils and napkins from the salad bar, then sit on our skateboards out back to eat.
“Guess where my mom decided we’re going on vacation this summer?” Matt asks.
I shrug and dig at the vein of fudge buried along the side of the carton.
“Martha’s Vineyard. Isn’t that where the girl in that newspaper article drowned?”
I suddenly feel envious of Matt’s vacation plans. Not because his family is going away and we’re not, but because he is one step closer to having a real adventure than I am.
“Why don’t you ask your mom if you can take me? I took you to San Francisco last year, remember?” Since I’m an only child, my parents often let me take friends on vacation. Sometimes I take Matt, and sometimes I just take Bodi.
Matt tries to get at the fudge by fencing his spoon with mine. I finally move my spoon out of the way to make room for his.
“I’ll ask my mom if you can come. But it’s three thousand miles to the Vineyard. I’m not sure what she’s going to say.”
I whisper a prayer from inside my head straight to Matt’s mom. Say yes; I’ll be good. Say yes; I’ll be good.
When we finally get home, my mother tests the avocados in her hand and tells me they’re overripe and will be brown inside. She sweeps them off the counter into the trash, then wipes off my chocolate mustache with the dish towel. She uses a little too much force, but I don’t complain. We have takeout Chinese food for dinner and I don’t complain about that either. I take a thumbtack and fasten the slip from my fortune cookie onto the bulletin board in my room: A STORY WILL UNFOLD BEFORE YOU. I bury myself underneath the covers and hope it will be true. If only I could get the guys at the fortune cookie factory to do my summer book report too.
I focus on my new plan—to talk Matt’s mom into letting me accompany them on vacation.
Poor Dad
Even though it’s summer vacation, I don’t mind going to work with my dad. He’s an artist who draws storyboards for films, and today he’s working with a director shooting a horror movie. It’s great to spend the day on a movie set scattered with fake body parts and chainsaws. While my father meets with the director about how he wants the storyboard to look, I bug the prop man to give me his recipe for fake blood. The guy laughs but won’t let me in on his secret.
When Dad and I eat lunch in the studio cafeteria, I check out his sketches. They’re the kind of basic drawings I make for my vocabulary words but with better backgrounds and from different angles.
I laugh when I see an actress with pretend blood on her arms, eating a salad at the next table. But Dad doesn’t pay attention to her; he’s looking at the man she’s with, a young guy with cool glasses and a goatee. Dad looks down at his drawings and suddenly seems sad. I ask him what’s the matter.
“They get younger and younger all the time,” he says.
“The actors?”
He shakes his head. “The artists. They come out of school now with all this animation experience. It’s tough to compete.” He tucks his sketches under his jacket on the chair beside him.
I know the conversation is going to come back around to me. When you’re an only child, it always does.
“That’s why it’s important for you to keep up with your schoolwork. It’s a tough job market out there.”
I want to remind him that I’m only twelve, but he seems depressed, so I don’t bother. When we head back home, I don’t ask him to stop at the comic book store in case that will make him feel even worse.
Later, when Dad falls asleep on the couch watching the news, I get an idea. I take one of the markers from his worktable and start to make him a little younger looking. My father sleeps as heavily as a giant woolly mammoth and doesn’t wake up until my mother walks into the room and screams.
“Derek! What are you doing?”
“Just practicing my artistic skills.”
She starts to laugh when she sees my father’s face, but then her eyes widen. I follow her gaze to my hand and realize I am holding a permanent marker. My father rises and catches his reflection in the living room mirror.
“Derek Martin Jeremy Fallon, you have gone too far!” Mom says.
“I thought I’d help Dad keep up with the young guys, that’s all.”
My father looks at the long, wide sideburns and half a mustache. “It’s actually not that bad.”
“Jeremy!” my mother yells. “Don’t encourage him!” She runs into the kitc
hen and comes back with a dish towel, but my father’s new facial hair isn’t going anywhere soon.
She rubs his mouth with so much force, I wonder if he’s going to need dentures when she’s through with him. As I march up to my room, I make a mental list of all the cool stuff I could do with a set of fake teeth.
The next morning when my father comes downstairs, I try to hide my laughter. He’s still got some of the sideburns I drew on him and he’s wearing a black T-shirt that’s too small. He combed his hair with my mother’s gel, so it’s sticking up in a million directions. As funny as my dad looks, his attempt at being cool makes me sad. Now it’s my turn to give advice.
“You shouldn’t worry about all those young guys getting all the jobs,” I say. “You’re a good illustrator. You just have to do what you told me—keep at it.”
He looks at me like I’m actually saying something that makes sense instead of just regurgitating the same old stuff he always tells me. “You’re exactly right. We’ll both dedicate ourselves to our studies this summer.”
And just like that, I realize that by trying to help my dad I’ve committed myself to even more work. You know that saying, “Nice guys finish last”? It’s 100 percent true.
Forcing My Parents to Admit the Truth
I pick a bouquet of coneflowers from Mr. Parker’s garden for Matt’s mom to persuade her to let me go on vacation with them. I also help Matt sweep his sidewalk and water their container garden. I even help carry his mother’s six bags of groceries into the house. But when Matt finally gets an answer, his mom says no.
Matt and I plug his sister’s old sunlamp into the outlet on the side of the house to try to set the grass on fire.
“Is it because Massachusetts is so far away?” I ask.
“No. I think she decided against it after talking to your mom.”
“My mother told her I couldn’t go?”
“I think so. Sorry, dude. I tried.”
Matt’s sister Tanya comes running out of the house and asks if we’re insane—she says that it’s drought season and we could start a fire that might burn for days. In the middle of her speech, I tell Matt I have to leave. Ever since Tanya started babysitting around the neighborhood, she’s been impossible. Bodi runs alongside me when I skateboard home.
As I slalom between the traffic cones I set up in the street, I imagine a giant-size sunlamp I could use to interrogate my mother. Since I don’t have one, I climb onto the roof of the garage with the croquet set instead. It takes a few swings before I nail the satellite dish with the green ball. Moments later, my father storms outside.
“If I miss a hole-in-one in this tournament because you’re messing around with the satellite dish, I swear to God, I’ll use that mallet on you! Put the dish back where it was and get down here this minute!”
“I’m not coming down till I find out why you won’t let me go to Martha’s Vineyard.” I take another shot and hit the satellite dish again. My skill has definitely improved since I started doing this in third grade.
My father screams for my mother, who comes outside with two pairs of reading glasses tucked into her hair like a headband, another on the neckline of her shirt, and a fourth pair actually on her eyes. Usually she can never find them, but now it seems every pair in the house has found her.
“Derek, not again. Please!”
I tell her I’m not coming down until she tells me why I can’t go on vacation with Matt. My father throws up his hands in surrender and goes inside.
“I didn’t want you going on vacation with Matt’s family because the Vineyard is all the way across the country. It’s too far.”
“You didn’t want me going because you’re afraid I’ll find out about that girl who drowned.” I correct myself. “You’re afraid I’ll find out about Susan James.”
It’s as if the sound of Susan’s name loosens something inside my mother. Even from my perch on the roof, I can see she’s suddenly sad.
“Get off the roof and I’ll tell you everything.” Her tone is so calm that I toss down the balls and mallets. But as soon as I hit the ground, she yanks me into the house and serves up a big slice of MomMad. “I don’t want you up there again, do you hear me? It’s not safe, and that satellite dish is expensive.”
I squirm away from her and sit at the kitchen table. She sighs and sits down beside me.
“We rented a house for a week in Martha’s Vineyard one August on our way back from visiting Grandma in Boston. You were two years old.”
I sit on my hands so I won’t fidget while she’s talking.
“Some people from the studio where Dad was working were also on vacation there and invited us for an early dinner. We didn’t know anyone on the island, so we called a babysitting service. They sent over this nice college student with excellent references to sit for a few hours.”
“Susan James?”
My mother’s voice gets even more quiet. “Yes. She was a freshman at the University of Maine living at home with her parents on the Vineyard for the summer.”
I try to sit quietly, even though it’s incredibly difficult not to interrupt with a million questions.
“We told her to stay at the house, but as soon as we left, she strapped you in the car and took you to South Beach. By the time the woman from the service called us, you were back at the house asleep, safe and sound. We couldn’t believe it when the woman told us Susan had drowned.”
I still want more details. “But how?”
My mother seems to weigh how much to tell me before she speaks. “I guess you wandered into the water, and Susan went in to get you. She pushed you to shore but the riptide pulled her back in. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think it was your fault.”
Why couldn’t I have left that stupid newspaper article alone? If I had known the drowning had anything to do with me, I never would’ve asked all those questions. I should’ve known extra reading would be hazardous to my health.
My mother leaves the kitchen and comes back with a folder. “Susan’s mother and I wrote several letters over the years.”
I look through the folder and find a Christmas card with a snowman on skis.
“I know it wasn’t our fault or yours—Susan never should’ve left the house with you—but I felt guilty anyway.” Mom puts her hand on mine while I’m still holding the card. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a child.”
I suddenly realize it’s Thursday, my parents’ date night. “Should you cancel Amy?” I ask. “She’s not my favorite babysitter, but I don’t want to accidentally kill her too.”
Mom takes the card away. “You were not responsible. You were two years old—you didn’t do anything wrong.” When she dials Amy’s number to tell her she and my father decided not to go out tonight, I know it’s not because she’s afraid for Amy’s life but because Mom doesn’t want to let me out of her sight. I can’t blame her; I don’t feel like straying too far from home either. She asks Dad to pick up some takeout from the Greek restaurant near the pier.
The three of us sit in the backyard and watch Bodi run back and forth along the fence, chasing the terrier next door. As I eat my lamb kebab, I finally get why my mother didn’t tell me about Susan. I spent a week bugging her for details; now that I have them, I’m more miserable than before. It seems my curious mind got the better of me, that this time I should’ve left things alone. I poke the wooden skewer into the palm of my hand until my father tells me to stop.
Trying to Forget
For the next few days, I try to forget about the newspaper article, but I can’t. Even though I know the truth about what happened, I can’t stop nagging Mom with a thousand questions. What did Susan James look like? Where did we stay on the Vineyard? Eventually, my mother puts a halt to my interrogation and tells me the subject is now closed.
A few years ago when the commercial building next door went up for sale, my parents bought it, and my Mom moved her practice there. She’s been a veterinarian for more than twelve
years. She also has a boarding business she calls “Pet Camp” and a grooming service she calls “Pet Spa,” which makes me think of dogs getting massages and lying around with cucumbers on their eyes. In reality, it’s more like picking off ticks and getting the gunk out of their ears.
I’m so glad to be on vacation, I help Mom tack new photos onto the huge collage in her waiting room. When people first bring their animals to her, she always takes a picture of them with their dogs, cats, lizards, ferrets, hamsters, or birds, then places them in her collage that now takes up almost the entire wall.
“I saw Maria Rodriquez at the store the other day,” she says.
“Who?”
“Carly’s mom. We talked about you two getting together this summer.”
“First of all, I’m too old for you to be setting up playdates. Second of all, she’s a brownnosing Goody Two-shoes, who I despise.”
“Oh, come on—she can’t be that bad.” Mom tacks a photo of an elderly man with a cockatoo on his shoulder to the wall.
“Trust me, she is.”
When she’s finished, my mother takes a novel from her purse, kicks off her shoes, and settles into one of the comfy waiting-room chairs. I don’t buy it.
“If you’re doing this as an example of how much fun reading is, it’s not working.”
She closes the book but keeps her finger in the page. “Believe it or not, Derek, not everything has to do with you. I have a free hour and just want to relax—do you mind?” She waves me off and goes back to her book.
My Life as a Book Page 2