He reached for a bag of chips on the coffee table and shoved a handful in his mouth. Crumbs scattered across his shirt. “It’s just for one Saturday, and I told Viv you’re very responsible and good with numbers, so you could work the register and Ivory could help the customers. The guy who runs the barbershop next door will be around all day if there are any problems.”
Since I couldn’t exactly say Ivory was one of the last people on earth I wanted to spend an entire Saturday with, I told my dad I already had other plans. School stuff. Lots of school stuff. “Couldn’t you get somebody else?”
My dad gave me his best salesman look. “This is important to me, Josh. I need to learn how to do Web sites and press releases and stuff like that for my Elvis business. I’m just asking you to give Ivory a hand for a few hours in Viv’s store.”
Note to Dad: An entire Saturday is not a few hours.
“The rest of the weekend is yours,” he said, brushing off his shirt. “I don’t ask you for help that often, do I?” There was the guilt line designed especially to plunge straight into my thirteen-year-old heart.
“Sure, whatever,” I said in a frustrated voice. Getting up, I pretended to storm out, leaving him to watch his stupid movie and eat his bag of chips by himself.
Clearly, my movie boycott didn’t work, because a week later, at nine o’clock in the morning, we were in the car heading to Viv’s store. Dad looked remarkably un-Elvis for once. He had trimmed his sideburns shorter than usual and he wore a plain white business shirt and blue pants that I seemed to remember were part of his Murphy’s days.
“Haven’t been to a class in years,” he said nervously as we drove.
Viv’s store was in a small strip of tired-looking stores and businesses not far from Murphy’s Shoes. A sign above the place spelled out VIV’S VINTAGE in faded purple letters, with a daisy (what else, right?) used in place of the apostrophe. Crammed with junk, the front window looked like a bizarre prop collection for a Hollywood movie. There were mannequins in sequined dresses, a white claw-foot bathtub full of old hats, large Japanese fans, and even, in one corner, a plaster head of Elvis with part of his nose chipped off.
My dad pointed at the Elvis head as we walked past. “Isn’t that great? Viv says she’s going to loan it to me one of these days. Maybe I’ll put it in one of my upstairs windows and get the neighbors talking,” he joked.
Note to Dad: I’m sure they already are.
Viv was standing at the door when we got there and a string of metal bells jangled as we walked in. She hadn’t turned on the lights yet, so the store was still dark and smelled faintly of mothballs. It reminded me of visiting my grandma’s house in Florida. I always stayed in her spare bedroom, and whenever I opened the bedroom’s narrow closet to put my suitcases inside, that was the smell that came wafting out. An old but friendly smell.
Reaching out, Viv squeezed my shoulders. “Thank you for giving up your Saturday to help us out. That was so kind of you, Josh.” The way she said it, gushing over every word, made me suspect my dad had already told her I wasn’t crazy about helping out in the first place.
“Ivory’s in the back.” Viv pointed toward a bead curtain separating the store from an office. “I’ll give you the tour and then we’ll be on our way.”
The tour was fairly simple since the place only had three rooms—the store, the cramped office behind the bead curtain, and a small closet with a purple door that had the words TRYOUTS HERE painted on it (meaning this was where people could try on the old, mothball-smelling clothes).
Viv showed me how to run the register and how to use the credit card machine. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Just zip the plastic through the slot and punch in a few numbers. No big deal. Ivory came out and sat at the counter, pretending to read a book while we talked. She was wearing a ridiculous black-and-white-striped hat that shaded most of her face. Think zebra.
“Well, that’s about it,” Viv said finally, pulling a purse over her shoulder and jangling her car keys. “You two have fun today and sell a lot of stuff, okay?”
Looking around the store, I didn’t believe either one of those things would be possible: fun or sales. In my pocket, I’d brought along a deck of cards and planned to set a new world record by playing Solitaire for the next eight hours straight, with a few breaks in between to eat the lunch and snacks I’d packed.
However, Ivory had other plans and they seemed to include endlessly talking to me. My dad and Viv hadn’t even been gone ten minutes when she began telling me every detail of the wonderful book she was reading. Even though I tried to make it pretty clear that I never read stories about dragons and mystical kingdoms and things like that, she still insisted I had to borrow the book someday. “It’ll change your life,” she said, confidently snapping the cover closed. “I promise.”
I didn’t like reading in general. I’d been one of the last kids in my first-grade class who learned to read. The experience was something I still tried to avoid thinking about—not only how slowly I used to read, but how embarrassing it had been to sit in the hallway with my “special” tutor trying to sound out words on giant flash cards—
Attempting to change the subject, I asked Ivory how she got her name, since it wasn’t exactly what you would call typical.
She explained that it came from a lady who used to work part-time at Viv’s Vintage. “Back when my mom was pregnant with me,” she said, “this retired lady used to help out in the store on the weekends. There was an old piano in the front window back then, and she and my mom would goof around sometimes and play little songs on it, if the store was quiet. One day, I started kicking right in the middle of ‘Chopsticks’ and the lady told my mom maybe she should call me Ivory when I was born. So she did.”
I know my face must have looked completely blank, because Ivory tapped her fingers on the counter like an imaginary keyboard. “Ivories…the name for the keys on the piano. Get it?”
Note to Mom: Thank you for not naming me after any musical instrument. Imagine going through life called Oboe or Cello. Or worse, Tuba.
“How’d you get your name?” Ivory asked, propping her feet up on the counter and tilting her head back to peer at me from underneath the zebra.
I told her my mom wanted a name that didn’t rhyme with anything. Of course, then Ivory had to go through all of the words that rhymed with Josh. “What about posh, gosh, wash”—she counted them on her fingers—“slosh, hogwash…”
Ignoring my unamused look, Ivory continued rambling on, smoothly slipping in another one of her relationship questions after she had run out of words that rhymed with Josh. “So do you remember anything from when your parents got divorced?” she asked me while unwrapping a piece of gum.
I don’t know what made me tell her about the plants, since I hardly ever talked about my parents’ divorce with people. Mom and Dad had split up when I was five, so it was hard to remember much about it anyway. But for some reason, I started explaining to Ivory how, after the divorce, my mom had decided to move back to Boston, where she was from. All of our stuff was packed inside a big moving truck. Everything except for the plants, that is.
My mom is a big plant lover—ferns, ivy, tropical plants, that kind of thing—and she decided it would be safer to keep her plants in the backseat of our car rather than the moving truck. “I guess that’s when I finally realized that something was seriously wrong—that we were not coming back,” I said to Ivory.
I could still remember crying and blubbering over and over, “Why are we taking the plants?” as we drove away from my dad’s house one January afternoon with the snow falling around our car like a sad divorce snow globe. Never mind that we were following a big truck with half the house packed inside. It was the stupid plants that bothered me. In my mind, I could still picture those plants filling the entire left side of the car like man-eating Amazon jungle vines: Josh Greenwood and the Attack of the Divorced Houseplants.
According to my mom, I threw such a fit abou
t the plants that she finally stopped at a service plaza in Ohio and left the pots sitting on the curb. She often jokes about going back to look for them.
“So that’s about all I remember about my parents’ divorce—the plants,” I finished quickly, embarrassed at how much I’d said. “I was only five.”
Ivory nodded. “I can totally see that.” The situation with her dad was different, she explained, because her parents split up when she was a baby and her dad was “out of the picture,” in her words. She waved her hand. “No problem, his loss.”
The entire time we talked, nobody came into the store. By lunchtime, the jangling doorbells still hadn’t made a peep, and I had listened to enough Phantom of the Opera on the store speakers to last for about ten lifetimes. When I mentioned how few customers we’d had (like zero), Ivory threw an irritated look in my direction. “It’s just a slow time of day. People sleep in on Saturday mornings. What do you expect?”
We did have two customers after lunch. A mom and her screechy-voiced daughter came inside to dig through the hat bathtub. By the time they were finished, it looked like an explosion in the window display. But Ivory convinced them to buy four hats before they left. “It’s our Saturday afternoon shoppers’ special,” she said, turning on the charm. “Buy three and you get one free.”
Those hats would end up being our only sales for the day: a grand total of $22.91. Ivory claimed that sales usually picked up in a week or so, once October arrived and people started looking for Halloween costumes.
“Let’s see what the zodiac book says business will be like next week.” Ivory reached under the counter to pull out a dog-eared book called 365 Days of Personal Horoscopes and Business Forecasts. It was the kind of paperback you’d find for sale in drugstores next to the magazines or the breath mints. “You would be amazed at how often the predictions in here are right,” she told me as she licked her index finger and began searching for the page she wanted.
Laying out a row of cards, I didn’t bother to answer.
“According to the book, we’re going to see increasing sales next week, with some unpredictability toward the end of the week,” Ivory said, looking up from a page.
Right. The hat bathtub will probably sell out.
“I’m supposed to have more opportunities for creativity next week. And you”—she turned to another page—“are supposed to watch out for an unexpected surprise at the beginning of the week.”
“Does it say what the surprise is going to be?” I asked, knowing of course that it wouldn’t, because that’s the way horoscopes are written. To be vague on purpose. So if you found a dollar bill on the sidewalk, you might think that was the unexpected surprise. Or if an airplane crash-landed on your house, that would count, too.
“It just says watch out for an unexpected surprise.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks for warning me.”
Anybody but Ivory would have picked up on the sarcasm.
But Ivory just continued on in her own little zodiac world. “As a Leo, you need to watch being too impatient this week, too. And your ego can get in the way, if you’re not careful.” She looked up and caught my annoyed expression. “I’m just reading this for your own good, you know,” she insisted, arching her eyebrows.
I wondered what gave Ivory the idea that I needed to know any of this stuff for my own good. Why is it that certain people feel like it’s their job to point out what other people need? Look at yourself in the mirror, I wanted to say to Ivory. You wear zebra hats, hang out with guys who wear dog collars, and believe in the stars and planets running your life. I’m not the one with the problems here.
Checking my watch for the tenth or eleventh time, I decided the hands had definitely stopped. It was only three-thirty and Viv’s Vintage stayed open until five-thirty for all of those last-minute shoppers who needed a pair of plaid pants or a nice powder-blue polyester suit. It was going to be a long afternoon.
19. Signs of the Zodiac
As it turned out, Ivory’s prediction did come true two days later—which is exactly how horoscopes can pull you into believing in them. After you hear one, you can’t keep the little zodiac voice in the back of your mind from whispering maybe the moon and stars do know all.
On Monday morning, the gym teacher took us outside to play baseball. Puddles of water from the downpour we’d had on Sunday still dotted the clay of the ball diamond, but the sky was totally clear and blue. The trees on the far edges of the school property were beginning to change color and the warm air smelled like fall. It made me feel kind of homesick for Boston and my friends.
We lined up on the grass to pick teams. I was picked fourth by a guy named Dave, who looked like he was probably part of the vending machine crowd. First, because he appointed himself the team captain and nobody disagreed, and second, because he wore a sports jersey with his last name plastered across the back.
Fourth wasn’t a bad spot to be, I decided. It was better than being picked last—or after a girl. Or a fat guy. Digger, the dog-collar guy, was in the class and he was picked last for the other team. In fact, he wasn’t even really picked—the teacher just divided up the last few people with a “you here” and “you over there” arm move. Since nobody knew me that well yet and we hadn’t played baseball before, being picked fourth wasn’t too bad. Maybe I looked like I had potential.
In the second inning, with our team losing by one run and with two people on base, I went up to the plate. Behind me, I could hear the team captain and a few of the other guys call out, “Go on, Boston dude, hit one out of here.” I shaded my eyes against the sun and looked out at the field, which was pretty pathetic. The pitcher for the other team was good, but the outfield was dotted with their last picks, including Digger, who was standing in the farthest part of the field among the tall wet grass and fuzzy weeds. If I could smack one that distance, I was all set.
The ball came sailing toward me, like a fat and juicy grapefruit curving through the air. I swung hard. The crack of the ball meeting my bat sounded like a soda can exploding.
Note to pitcher: In Boston, I’m a very good hitter.
The ball flew toward the outfield, and Digger was just about the only person who had any chance at it, and not much chance at that. I watched him stretch upward so that sky and glove were connected for a brief minute, and then in one slow-motion frame it all began falling apart. Digger started tipping backward, landing heavily on his butt in the grass, and the ball sailed easily into the outfield. My team went nuts, clapping for me and laughing at Digger, who was just getting up and brushing off his wet, grass-covered gym shorts. Home run.
As I jogged around the bases, I could barely keep a big smile from cracking across my face. When you run the bases, it’s better to look as if it isn’t a big deal, as if this is something you do every day. People take you more seriously that way. So I kept my lips pressed together and my eyes focused on the brown dirt gliding under my feet.
Score one for Ivory’s horoscopes.
And then, a few hours later, another unexpected surprise followed the first one. I was reaching for some ketchup and napkins on the condiments table when somebody called out, “Hey, Boston dude.” I turned around slowly, half expecting some object to come flying toward my face, because the entire cafeteria experience at Listerine still made me jumpy. But instead, I saw the team captain from gym class strolling over with his tray. Dave, right? I tried to reach back in my memory for the name. I was almost positive it was Dave.
“Good hit,” he said.
“Yeah, thanks.” I put on my home-run straight face again and glanced down at my tray to make sure there was nothing embarrassing on it, like cooked carrots or a fruit cup. It looked okay.
And right there in front of Charles W. Lister’s smiling portrait, I was invited to sit at the vending machine tables. I mean, it wasn’t a formal invitation delivered on a silver platter or anything. Dave didn’t say, Come join the popular kids next to the Cheetos. He just nodded in the direction of the vending ma
chines and said, “Some of us sit over there if you’re looking for a table.” And then he headed that way.
It took me a few minutes to decide whether or not the invitation was good for that particular day—or some future date. Kind of like those coupons you get at amusement parks: good on your next visit. Would I look desperate if I raced over to the table right after being invited? Or if I waited a day or two, would the guy forget he had invited me?
Note to self: If you wait, there is also the possibility that your next game could be a complete disaster. You could trip over home plate or something.
I casually headed toward the tables, hoping somebody would spot me and wave me to an open seat. Nobody did. Dave was sitting in the middle of a table directly in front of the soda machine. The words ICE-COLD PEPSI were right above his head. Six or seven other guys sat around him.
“Can I sit here?” I asked a guy on the end who was chugging a carton of chocolate milk and had four more lined up next to his tray.
“What?” The guy turned toward me with an annoyed expression. The kind of look you would give an irritating fly that had suddenly begun buzzing around your food. My hands began to sweat as they held tighter to my tray and I looked for a way out. Could I do a quick reverse and say, uh, sorry, wrong table?
But then Dave stood up and pointed in my direction. “It’s Boston dude,” he hollered. “Have a seat. Everybody move over so he can sit down.” The chocolate milk guy used his arm to slide his milk cartons over and clear a space on the end. I squeezed in with my tray balanced precariously on the edge of the table, half on, half off. With my right arm clamped firmly down on the side of the tray to keep it anchored to the table, I had no idea how I was actually going to eat anything on it.
Dave Ernst (that was the last name printed on the back of his jersey) introduced me by saying I was the guy who had hit a baseball straight at Dog Face. Everybody at the table busted up laughing. “Really, you hit one at Dog Face?” The chocolate milk guy turned toward me, suddenly interested.
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