Remember Dippy

by Shirley Reva Vernick

  “Don’t have another pair,” he pouted, and then he just stood there, right in the middle of the road. Even when a car backed out of a driveway and headed toward him, he played statue, and I had to motion the car around him.

  “All right, Mem,” I sighed once the collision was averted. “Here, you wear my flip flops.” I walked barefoot the rest of the way, carrying his sneakers and wishing I could throttle him on the spot. He was the reason I had to get up so early, the reason I’d gotten into it with Dirk, the reason I was going to be late to meet my friends, the reason my whole summer was going to be a bust. And what was he doing? Humming “Zippity Doo-Da,” that’s what.

  When we finally reached Niko’s Pizza Palace, my best friends, Reed and Mo (for Montgomery), were lounging at our regular table by the window. And—what was this?—Mo’s twin sister Jo (for Josephine) was with them. The guys were negotiating pizza toppings, and Jo was inspecting a pile of coins in her hand.

  “Mem, you know Mo and Reed,” I said, pulling up two chairs. “And this is Jo.”

  “She’s pretty,” Mem said, his eyeballs popping out as if to touch her. It was the first time I ever saw him look someone in the eye for longer than a flash.

  On cue, Mo started snickering and motioning Mem to take the seat next to Jo, sticking me at the far end of the table. Then Mo started whistling “Here Comes the Bride.”

  “Knock it off, Mo,” Jo said. “I’ve seen Mem around. Nice to finally meet you.”

  “Yup,” he said, staring at his lap. “Really, really nice. To meet you.”

  “You’re not at Hull Central. Do you go to private school or something?”

  “Yup.”

  “Do you board?”

  “I’m never bored.”

  “No, I mean…” She glanced at me and back at Mem, who was still staring at her all gaga. Then she started studying her pocket change again.

  “Whatcha doing with all that money?” Mem asked.

  “Looking for American Samoa,” she answered, turning a coin over.

  “American who?” he asked, and if he hadn’t, I would have.

  “American Samoa,” she said. “I’m collecting all the state quarters. I have almost all of them, but not American Samoa.”

  “Not American some more,” Mem said. “American some more.”

  “Hey, let’s order already,” she said, standing up and shoving the coins in her pocket. “Half cheese, half pepperoni, right?”

  “Can I come?” Mem asked, prompting more laughs from Mo and Reed.

  “Uh, I’m only going to the counter, but sure.”

  When the two of them were out of earshot, Mo leaned toward me and said, “How’s it feel, having your cousin move in on your crush?”

  “Yeah, right.” I couldn’t think of any other comeback, so that’s how I answered, but I hated that it was the same comeback Dirk the Jerk had used on me just a few minutes ago. Truth is, I couldn’t deny liking Jo. Her family is part Abenaki Native American, and she’s got these big black eyes and long black hair and a killer smile. Mo does too, but it doesn’t look half as good on him.

  “I don’t know what you see in her anyway,” Mo said.

  “That’s because she’s your sister,” I answered.

  “No, it’s because she’s the queen of mean.”

  “Not true.”

  “Dude, I live with her. Believe me, she’s a snob.”

  “Well, I think—” I glanced up at Jo and lost my train of thought. She was looking at me from the counter. Smiling slightly. Curling her hair around one finger. When our eyes connected, she burst into a full smile, just for a second, then turned to Mem.

  “What’s the deal, anyway?” Reed asked. “With Mem, I mean.”

  “Huh?— Oh, my mom’s away on business, so I have to stay with my Aunt Collette and watch Mem while she works.”

  Reed peeked over his shoulder at Mem, who was still staring down Jo at the counter. “How long?”

  “All summer.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. And then Jo and Mem were back, Mem with a can of Dr. Pepper and Jo with a bunch of paper plates and napkins.

  “You guys got quiet all of a sudden,” Jo smirked. “What are we interrupting?”

  “Nothing,” I said quickly. “Hey Reed, how about some foosball?”

  “Sure,” he said, cracking his knuckles. We ended up playing until the pizza arrived.

  “Is hot,” Niko said in his Italian accent as he set the pizza on the table. Niko is one of those guys who looks like he belongs on the football field or in the boxing ring—bulging biceps, massive hands, face etched with little scars. Lucky for us and everyone else, he’s as mellow as they come. He sliced the pie and was about to leave when he noticed Mem’s sneakers sitting on an empty chair behind us. “Who is barefoot?” he asked.

  It took me a minute to realize it was me. “Oh, Niko, sorry.” I quickly forced my toes into Mem’s small shoes.

  “Don’t do it again,” he barked grumpily and walked away.

  Wow, where was the laid-back Niko I knew, and who was this imposter? “What’s up with him?” I asked.

  “Maybe he’s hungry,” Mem suggested, helping himself to a slice.

  “Yeah, maybe he’s hungry,” Jo pretended to agree.

  “Whatever,” said Mo. “So, we going swimming later?”

  “I’m in,” said Reed with a mouthful. “What about you, Johnny?”

  “I—I’m free at three…uh, are you going, Jo?”

  “Can’t—I’m due at Patsy’s in a few minutes.”

  Before I could say anything else, Reed leaned into my ear and whispered, “Guess you’ll have to wait to find out how she looks in her bikini.”

  “I heard that,” Jo glared at Reed. “You know what—I’m outta here. See you, Mem.” She stood up, put a slice of pizza on her napkin, and mouthed, “Sorry, Johnny,” before heading out the door.

  “See you,” Mem said as the door jangled behind her.

  “Nice going, Reed,” I said, but he only laughed and grabbed another slice.

  “Nice going is right, Reed,” Mo chimed in. “She left without chipping in her share. Now we each gotta pay an extra buck.”

  That’s when I realized I was stuck paying for both Mem and me. “Hey Mem, you got any money?” I asked on the off chance he might have a couple dollars.

  “Yup, here.” He pulled a $50 bill out of his pocket. Fifty dollars.

  “Jeez, where’d you get that—Aunt Collette?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where then?”

  He produced a pack of Juicy Fruit gum. “Same place as this.”

  “Where?” I asked for the third time.

  “Where? My friend. My friend Chip.”

  “That a kid at your school?”

  “Your school? Nope.”

  It didn’t really matter where it came from—cash is cash. Mo snatched the bill out of Mem’s hand and said, “We’ll get you change, buddy…unless you wanna buy us another pizza first, that is.”

  “No way,” I snapped. “Don’t anybody ask Mem for money, except me. Got it?”

  Mo shrugged, “Only kidding.” He scrambled to the counter and paid Niko, then we all hit the sidewalk together.

  “See you later,” I told Reed and Mo, who were heading in the opposite direction. “Call me for—” and then to make sure Mem wouldn’t invite himself along, I stood behind him and mimed swimming. Mem turned around in time to catch the last bit of my aerial backstroke, but he didn’t get it—at least, I don’t think he did. At any rate, he didn’t say anything, and that was a relief.

  It was a long walk home without any shoes, without any friends, without anything to fill the rest of my shift with Mem. Luckily, Mem closeted himself in his room when we got back, so I set up my GameCube and played a few rounds of StarBender. My mom called at one point just to check in; I did the good-doobie thing and told her, “Everything’s fine. We’re having a pretty all right time.”

  “Re
ally, Johnny?” she said.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Good. Because I can tell I’m going to love this project, but I can only do it if I know you’re happy.”

  “Happy as a clam, Mom.” Not.

  “I’ll call again in a couple of days then. Hi to Collette.”

  “Got it.”

  “And don’t forget to floss.”

  “Goodbye, Mom.”

  Aunt Collette got home a little late, her ruby lipstick gone and her eyes striped with those little veins that pop out when you’re tired. Mem gave her a celebrity’s welcome and begged her to play Trouble, which he’d already set up in his room. As for me, I hotfooted it to the lake to meet Mo and Reed, and I didn’t feel guilty at all for not taking Mem with me.

  Well, hardly at all.

  Chapter 3

  The next day I got to stay in bed a little later since Aunt Collette didn’t have to be at work until eleven. Mem had been watching The Weather Channel all morning, but when I came downstairs he leaped up and was all over me. “Let’s go swimming, Johnny! C’mon, let’s go swimming at the lake.”

  “What—do you even know how?” I asked groggily.

  “Do you even know how?” And then I realized he was already wearing his trunks.

  Okay, I thought, this might not be the worst way to spend the day. I guess I was still half asleep, or I wouldn’t have had such a crazy thought. “You sure you can swim?”

  “Yup. I learned at school.”

  “They have a pool at your school?”

  “Yup.” He took a pair of swim goggles out of his shirt pocket and pulled them over his head. “But I wanna swim in the lake.”

  So it was settled. I stumbled into my trunks and stuffed some towels and Twinkies into my backpack before I was even fully awake. My flip flops were nowhere to be found, though—until I looked at Mem’s feet. “You really don’t have any other shoes?” I asked.

  “Nope. Do you?”

  I threw on my sneakers, which still felt like homework and smelled like the cafeteria, and told Mem to get a move on. All I wanted was to hit the beach and get barefoot again. Then maybe I could relax for a while.

  No such luck. As we started down the front steps, something caught my eye. The mailbox. It was different somehow. I squinted against the morning glare. Something was definitely off, but what? I ran down the driveway. Now I saw. The letters didn’t say T E DIPP anymore. They said DOPE. Someone had removed the T, put the E where the second P had been, and gone to all the trouble of buying an O to replace the I.

  Dirk the Jerk. I was sure of it. I could just see him, that mop-topped, freckle-frosted freak, prowling around Aunt Collette’s yard when no one was looking. DOPE. Did he really think that being captain of the basketball team entitled him to pull a stunt like this? “C’mon, Mem,” I charged into the street. “We’re taking a little detour.”

  “Why?”

  “We need to go to the hardware store.”

  “Why?”

  I scoped Dirk’s mailbox and the gold-and-black lettering that read A. DEMPSTER. “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.”

  Mem’s face was getting red and twisted, so I knew an outburst was on its way. Sure enough, he planted his skinny little body in front of me and screeched, “But we’re going swimming at the lake! Johnny, I wanna go swimming. At the lake. I know how. I learned at school. We have a pool there. You prrrrromisssssed!”

  Great, a temper tantrum right out here for the world to see. Maybe even for Dirk the Jerk to see. Mem was acting two and I felt 99. “Okay Mem, fine, you’re right,” I said. “I told you we could go to the lake, and we will. It’s just that we can stay there longer if I get this errand out of the way first. You want to stay at the lake as long as possible, don’t you?”

  “Don’t you?” he said, his voice softer now. “Don’t you?” He started walking with me—not very fast, but at least in the right direction. “Don’t you?”

  Champlain Hardware is right next door to Niko’s. I hadn’t been there in ages, but when Mem and I stepped inside, it smelled familiar, like the paints and varnishes my dad used to keep in the garage, back in the good old days. Mr. Wizzly, the owner, greeted us from behind the counter. I asked him where he kept the letter decals.

  “Next to the No Trespassing and For Sale By Owner signs,” he said, pointing to the back of the store.

  Good, I could work in private there. So while Mem picked out the letters of his name, I racked my brains. Dempster, Dempster, what could I do with Dempster? It needed to be something really maddening—no, infuriating—but what? Then finally I had it. I took a U and a B—black on gold—and made Mem put his stack of letters away while I paid. I asked Mr. Wizzly for my three dollars change in quarters.

  “Ub?” said Mem on the way out. “Or is it bu?”

  “Neither.” I put the decals in my backpack. “I’ll tell you later. Maybe.”

  “Okay. Want some Juicy Fruit?”

  “No. Hey, let’s say hi to your mom while we’re here.” The 7-11 was right around the corner, and I figured it would fill up some of the blank time that was stretching out in front of us like a school day.

  “Yeah!” he shouted and started off faster than I’d seen him go in two days. He got there first. By the time I arrived, Aunt Collette was already pouring him a slushie the color of her lipstick.

  “Howdy, Johnny,” she said over the moan of the slushie machine. “Good timing, you two—I was about to die of loneliness.” She handed Mem his drink and started pouring my favorite, blue raspberry. “What’re you boys up to?”

  “We’re going to the lake,” Mem slurped. “We’re going swimming because I know how. But first we had to—”

  “Hey Mem, you know what?” I cut him off. “I’ll take a piece of that Juicy Fruit, after all.”

  He handed me a stick of stale gum and, thankfully, that was enough to make him switch gears. “Good day for the beach today, folks,” he channeled Martin the Meteorologist in all his squeaky enthusiasm. “Clear and sunny this afternoon, partly cloudy and cooler tonight. This is Martin the Meteorologist wishing you blue skies and starry nights.”

  “Sounds good,” Aunt Collette said, picking a People magazine off the rack and perching on her stool with it. “Now, what did you say brought you downtown?”

  Just then, the door sleigh bells jangled, and Niko walked in, although he looked more like a gangster than the perky pizza guy I’d always known. He was wearing the same grimace he had on when he caught me barefoot yesterday. His apron was stained blood-red with tomato sauce, and his sunglasses, roosting on his forehead, were like an extra set of beady eyes. “Two packs Gold Strikes,” he rasped when he got to the counter.

  Aunt Collette raised her eyebrows into triangles of surprise. “And hello to you too, Niko.”

  He made a weak laugh and smoothed his mustache. “I am sorry. It’s just that I—I need my smokes.”

  “I thought you quit.”

  “Today I am not quit. Maybe tomorrow.” He laid down his money.

  She frowned but got him his cigarettes anyway. “You okay, Niko?”

  “I am…tired.”

  “Now that I can appreciate.” She winked at Mem. “I wouldn’t mind a good night’s sleep myself one of these days.”

  “Sleep is good. Better than these.” He rattled the Gold Strikes boxes. “Well, I…” He kept his mouth open, but no words came out, and he finally turned to go. “See you.”

  Aunt Collette watched him leave and then wondered aloud as she closed the cash register, “Now, what do you suppose has gotten into him?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” I said. But before we could toss any guesses around, Mem was at the door begging to go to the beach. “C’mon, Johnny. You promised. Let’s go swimming at the lake! I know how! You promised!”

  “All right, all right,” I said, draining my slushie cup. “Let’s go.”

  “We’ll have supper when I get home,” Aunt Collette called after us. “Around seven.”r />
  • • •

  Only a few other kids were swimming when we got to the lake—no one I particularly knew—and a man and a small boy were sitting on a wooden raft about fifty feet out, fishing. The bass and pike really bite this time of year, and I could see the boy yanking something on the end of his pole. His father—or whoever the man was—leaned over and helped him with the reel, but the fish got away.

  I wondered what my own father was doing right now. Not thinking about me, that’s for sure. Even when he lived with Mom and me, he spent all his free time hiding in his basement workshop. It never would have crossed his mind to spend a morning at the lake with me. I wondered if that kid on the raft knew how lucky he was, even if the stinking fish did get away.

  Mem and I picked a spot on the sandy-stony beach and spread out our towels. Okay, I supposed as I took off my shirt and lay down, this should be tolerable. Dull and friendless, but tolerable. Mem kicked off his—I mean my—flip flops and ran straight into the water, which was still freezing cold at the end of June. He lasted about three minutes, then bolted back to his towel and gobbled a couple of Twinkies guts before going shell-hunting. I dug my Sports Illustrated out of my backpack and escaped into an article about yacht racing. I had to admit, this was kind of all right. Mem was entertaining himself, and I could chill. Yes, this was working out okay.

  Okay, that is, until Mem disappeared a half-hour later. One minute I could hear him crunching around on the sand, and the next minute he was gone. I sat up to inspect the thin strip of beach—nothing. I stood up to scan the lake—nothing. I ran knee-deep into the water and called his name over and over, louder and louder—nothing. The other kids were gawking at me, and I think the man on the raft was too.

  I didn’t know what to do. What if he were drowning right this very minute? What if he already had drowned? It would be all my fault. Visions of police cars and lake-rakers raided my mind, and my heart started pummeling my chest. I turned back toward the beach.

  And there he was, wrapping himself in his towel and digging around for more Twinkies. “Jeez, Mem,” I hollered. “Where were you?”

  He finished decapitating his Twinkie before he answered. “Picking shells. I told you I was.”