“Naw, just taking stock. Guess I wasn’t as tired as I thought.”
“Oh.” Funny, when I can’t sleep, it never crosses my mind to take inventory of my wardrobe. I’d rather listen to tunes or count sheep, things you can do lying down.
“How was the chowder—did you try it?” she asked.
“Couldn’t. Too stuffed with shortcake.”
“It’s not my best batch. I ran out of soy milk in the middle of making it.”
Cauliflower and soy milk? Just the thought of it was enough to give me nightmares.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll make another pot of it before the summer’s out.”
“Great.” I sat there for another minute while Aunt Collette kept up her hanger flipping, but there didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so I stood up to leave. “See you in the morning, then.”
“Wait.” She turned around and motioned me to sit back down. “Since you’re here, there is something I want to talk to you about.” She joined me at the foot of the bed and bit her lip. “I’ve decided to take your advice.” She cleared her throat and smoothed what was left of her hair. “You know, about TJ, about going out with him.”
“Cool. Is that why you’re going through your wardrobe?”
“Yup,” she said, just like Mem. “Listen, I know this is short notice, but he wants to take me out to dinner tomorrow. So if it’s not a problem—”
“No worries, Aunt Collette,” I said, which earned me a hug so tight I thought I heard a rib crack.
“Johnny, I know you haven’t had much of a summer, watching Remember all the time. You probably haven’t had a good summer since”—and here her jaw tensed—“since your father decided that having a family cut into his free time too much. I mean, sorry. I’m sorry to vent. He just makes me so mad.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “He makes me mad too.”
“You know, when you were born, I was so happy for you, that you’d have two parents to take care of you instead of just one, like Remember. And I was so happy for your mom too, that she’d have someone to help raise you. I just can’t believe he walked out on the two of you.” She looked like she might cry.
“It’s okay, Aunt Collette,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. It was most definitely not okay that Dad discarded Mom and deserted me. Granted, we didn’t see much of him even when he lived at home, but at least we knew he was there. At least we could tell ourselves he cared. Now the act was over. Dad had Princess Kim and his house in Maine and a long-distance kid. And what really makes me mad is, no matter how angry I am at him, I still miss him, and he doesn’t deserve that.
“Well,” Aunt Collette sniffed, “you deserve a regular kid summer. As soon as I hire a new clerk, you’ll get more time with your friends, I promise.”
A regular kid summer. That was something Mem would never ever get—because he wasn’t a regular kid. He didn’t seem to notice that, but Aunt Collette did, and it made me kind of sad. I thought about the video game tricks Mem taught me, and how he didn’t snitch on my mailbox pranks, and how he was willing to get the first haircut. “You know,” I said, “Mem comes right along with me and my friends.”
“And that’s…okay?”
“Pretty much. Well, it depends, but yeah, pretty much.”
“He especially likes your girlfriend Jo,” Aunt Collette said.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Okay.” She folded her arms and squinted her eyes. “But, to quote you, do you want her to be your girlfriend?”
“Why, you want to double date?”
“Very funny.”
“Oh, and just for the record,” I said, pointing to her closet, “I like that white dress with the blue.”
“That’s a nightgown,” she said, and we both laughed.
Now, this was the point where I was supposed to say good night and leave the room, but there was something I’d been wanting to ask her, and this seemed like as good a time as any. “Aunt Collette, why do you leave your parking tickets on your car all the time? I mean, isn’t it embarrassing?”
“Well…” she drawled, putting her arm around my shoulder, “I see it like this. I think people get caught for the worst acts they do in life. So if the most dreadful thing I do is park on the wrong side of the street, that’s pretty darn good, don’t you think? Those tickets are like good-behavior medals. It’s all those people who don’t get fined when their meter expires who should be embarrassed, because that means they’re doing even rottener deeds. You see?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Why don’t you sleep on it,” she said and hugged me again.
Chapter 8
The next day was not a good day to lose Mem. We’d gone outside early to make sure nothing had happened to our mailbox, then I gave Mem another bike-riding lesson. We played Operation, made tuna sandwiches for lunch, and the next thing I knew he was gone, disappeared, nowhere. I searched the house (including the entertainment center) and hollered out the living room window, but he was either out of range or ignoring me. I even turned on The Weather Channel to bait him, but it didn’t work. This was one of those times that Mem was strictly a job, and a tough one to boot.
When he was missing for a solid hour, I went out on the front porch to call him and was thinking I should probably get on my bike and cruise the neighborhood. Dirk was out shooting hoops, and if he’d been anyone else, I’d have asked right away if he’d seen Mem. I wanted to ask him—I was getting worried—but it seemed awfully chancy. While I weighed the risks, I watched Dirk dribble and shoot for a minute, and that was my big mistake.
“What’re you staring at, doofus?” he shouted.
Before I could say anything, Dirk slammed his basketball down and started tromping across the street toward me. He looked mad. And big. I didn’t know what to do, but my feet decided to meet him in the yard and plant themselves right in front of him.
“I’ve had it with you,” Dirk snarled.
“What do you mean?” I asked, figuring my only hope was to play dumb.
“You know exactly what I mean,” he breathed down at me. “Now you’re gonna pay.” He pushed me hard, and it was all I could do to stay upright. “I’m gonna pound you.”
This is it, I thought. My body as I know it will soon be replaced by a pile of shredded flesh. If only my feet had taken me inside instead of here on the open battlefield, I might have escaped pulverization. Now it was all over.
Then the most amazing thing happened. Things—I couldn’t tell what they were, exactly—started pelting Dirk, first on his butt, then on his punching arm. Stones seemed to be falling from the sky directly over him, and he winced in pain. We both looked up, but I’m the only one who saw Mem crouching on the tree branch, almost completely hidden by leaves, shooting gumballs down. He had perfect aim.
Dirk freaked. The “rocks” kept hitting him, faster and faster, harder and harder. He couldn’t get a grip on what they were or where they were coming from. Swearing and rubbing his backside, he ran across the street and disappeared into his house. And here I was in one piece, with nothing injured except a little pride. In that moment, I loved my cousin for making trees into special places and having friends who brought gumballs. I gazed up at him and gave him a hand salute, but he had his nose in the gumball box so he didn’t see me.
Mem didn’t come down right away. When he finally showed up in my room, chewing a big wad of gum and trying to whistle at the same time, I was lying on my bed, listening to my iPod. “Hey, thanks,” I said, sitting up and unplugging.
“Hmm?” he said as he extracted Jambalaya from her little hammock.
“Thanks for helping me get rid of Dirk.”
“Oh.” He sat on the floor and stroked the ferret for a minute. “Fighting’s bad.” “I know.”
“Talking’s good. That’s what we learned in school.”
“Talk? To Dirk Dempster?” I scoffed.
“Talk? To Dirk Dempster?” he said.
“I can’t talk to
him, Mem.”
“Mrs. Potts says do what’s right—talk, don’t fight. That’s what Mrs. Potts tells us.”
“Do kids fight a lot at your school?”
“Sometimes,” he shrugged. “Sometimes kids get really mad all of a sudden and they start to fight with someone. Mrs. Potts says it’s not on purpose.”
“Do you ever fight with anyone there?”
He didn’t answer.
“Does anyone ever fight with you?” I asked.
Without another word, he got up and rushed out of the room with Jambalaya; a minute later I heard The Weather Channel snap on. I wanted to tell Mem I could help him with that, but I wasn’t sure I could. I mean, look how I’d handled Dirk. Mishandled him is more like it. I’d be a mangled mess right now if not for Mem’s magic gumballs. As I put my earphones back in, I had to wonder who was taking care of who this summer.
• • •
Dirk was more than enough unwanted company for one day, but more came anyway. It was almost six o’clock—right around the time Aunt Collette was due home from the store—when the doorbell rang for the first time all summer. I was afraid it was going to be Dirk again, or worse, Dirk’s parents, and my first impulse was to take cover under my bed. Then I got this crazy idea that it might be Jo, in which case I’d want to answer it right away.
“I’ll get it,” I told Mem, but he was so caught up with Marty the Meteorologist, I don’t think he even heard the bell. When I got to the door, I opened it an inch, just enough to see that it wasn’t a Dempster. It seemed to be a girl. Not Jo, but a girl. I opened the door the rest of the way.
“Leesha?” I said. What was the giant gel-happy scissors queen doing here?
“My Aunt Holly told me to meet her here,” she said flatly. “We’re gonna help Collette get ready for her date.”
Leesha had her hair in a bunch of braids, some that were her regular inky black and others that were dyed the color of fire engines or fresh peas. She looked like a traffic light, except that traffic lights don’t frown all the time. I hoped Aunt Collette wasn’t really going to let Leesha loose on her hair tonight, but then again, if TJ liked her with that purple streak, I guess he’d like her no matter what.
“So, can I come in or what?” Leesha demanded. As if I had a choice. She stepped into the living room and said hi to Mem, who unglued himself from the TV barely long enough to wave.
“Hey, you have a ferret?” she gushed when she saw Jambalaya perched on Mem’s shoulder.
“You have a ferret?” he said.
“No, but my brother used to,” she said, not realizing he was just up to his parrot tricks.
“Oh. I got two of them.”
By this time, Leesha was squatting on the floor next to Mem. “Can I hold him?”
“Her,” he said, handing Jambalaya gently over.
“She’s so sweet. What’s her name?”
“Jambalaya.”
“Hi, Jamby baby,” she cooed. “My brother’s ferret was a biter. Can I see your other one?”
“Yup.” The two of them got up and went to my room. Weird, but it saved me from having to make conversation with anyone. I grabbed a bottle of water and waited with a magazine at the kitchen table for the two aunts to show up.
Aunt Collette got here first, looking a little flushed. “Where’s Holly? Isn’t she here yet? Oh no, Johnny, I was going to bring home something for your supper tonight but I forgot, I was in such a rush. Do you want me to go back out?”
“We’re fine,” I said. “There’s still the cauliflower chowder from last night.”
“No, I took it in for lunch. Maybe I should run back out.”
“We’re fine, Aunt Collette.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” she said, kicking her shoes off. “I’ve got scarcely an hour to get ready as it is.”
“How could it possibly take you an hour to change your clothes?”
She ruffled my hair and laughed. “You have no idea.”
I was going to clue her in about Leesha’s hairstyling “skills,” but before I could say anything, Holly burst into the house, armed with a big tray of hair goo, make-up, cotton balls and—I had no idea what the other stuff was. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Is Leesha here yet?”
“Hi, Aunt Holly,” Leesha answered from upstairs.
“C’mon, girls,” Holly announced. “We have a job to do.”
Aunt Collette, Holly and Leesha spent the next forty-five minutes in the bathroom. I don’t know what they were doing in there, but I heard a lot of laughing, a little “ouch”-ing, one “don’t peek yet!” and a monstrous blow dryer. Finally, they emerged onto the landing, and I’m here to tell you that Aunt Collette belonged on the red carpet. She was wearing a glittery black dress with high heels, her hair was swept dramatically to one side, and her lipstick was hot pink.
“Wow,” I called up to her from the living room.
“You like?” she said.
“I like.”
“What about you, Remember?” she said to Mem, who was still in my room.
He came to the doorway and froze when he saw her. “Wow.”
“It’s unanimous then,” Holly said proudly. “She’s a wow.”
“The real test is what TJ thinks,” Aunt Collette said.
“You’re a shoe-in,” Holly assured her. “Come on, let’s go downstairs and I’ll touch up your nails.”
Aunt Collette had a hard time sitting still for the nail painting. When the bell finally rang, she tripped over herself getting to the door. Holly told her to take a deep breath, and she actually sounded calm when she said, “Hey there, TJ.” He, of course, simply said, “Wow.” After Aunt Collette introduced everybody, she turned on Jeopardy to distract Mem, told me the name of the restaurant about twelve times, then ran to the ’fridge to make sure she’d posted her cell phone number. Finally, the lovebirds left, and so did Holly and Leesha. With Alex Trebek working his spell, Mem didn’t seem to notice that the house had emptied out.
I felt happy for Aunt Collette, and I think Mem did too—happy enough to let me turn on Animal Planet Extreme, the episode about the messiest eaters on earth. We ended up having Girl Scout cookies for supper (Mem likes the Thin Mints and I like the Samoas) and playing a Sorry marathon. From time to time I wondered how Aunt Collette was doing, and every time I thought of her, I was glad not to be in her shoes. What do you talk about over a whole long dinner, not to mention the car ride there and back? What if you realize before the food even comes that you don’t like the person—or even worse, that the person doesn’t like you?
I don’t think my aunt had any of those troubles though. She moseyed into the house around midnight, holding a spray of flowers and smiling at nothing, a funny glaze on her face. “Hey night owl,” she said, slipping out of her high heels and joining me on the living room couch, where I’d been lounging since Mem went bed. “How’d it go?”
“I’m supposed to be asking you that,” I said.
She touched her bouquet blossoms and rested her head on the back of the sofa. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve gone on a date?”
“You had fun, huh?”
“That’s the scary part,” she said. “I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t. Then I could put the whole thing aside and…gee, it’s hot in here. Want to go on the porch for a minute, tell me about your night?”
“Sure.”
She got us each a bottle of water, and we plunked ourselves on the front steps, leaning against the railing and stretching our legs along the stairs. One breath of the cool, grassy air and I realized how stuffy the house was. It felt good to be outside with the crickets and the stars. The only light on the street was the Dempster’s lamppost, shining dismally onto their mailbox. I avoided looking that way.
“So, how did it go anyway?” she asked.
“It went exactly like when you’re at the store. We hung out. It was fine. You weren’t worried, were you?”
She had to think about that one. “It’s just
that I—I didn’t know how Remember would take it—you know, me doing this.”
“He took it fine.”
“Good,” she said, setting her bottle on the step. “So…you think I might be able to do this again sometime?”
“Definitely.”
“Like this Saturday?”
“Wow, you really like him.”
She laughed a laugh that was almost a giggle. “I’ll make it up to you. I think I’m going to hire the Butler girl at the store, and then you’ll—”
“Will you finally give me the dirt on him?” I interrupted.
“There’s no dirt, Johnny. His name is TJ Cappellucci and he’s from New Jersey and he’s here because he’s thinking of putting in a golf course out by the reservoir.”
“A golf course, for real? Wait till I tell Mo.”
“Now, nothing’s certain yet,” she insisted. “For one thing, TJ will have to get some zoning changes, and this is a town that doesn’t like to change anything. I think we’d still be driving horse-drawn carriages down cobblestone streets if some people had their way. So don’t go telling people this is a go yet.”
I took a long drink. “Aunt Collette?”
“Uh huh?”
“What if it’s not a go?”
She sat up stiffly. “If it’s not a go, then he’ll have to go back to New Jersey and figure out where he can put a golf course…somewhere else.”
Now I understood why Aunt Collette had hoped she wouldn’t like TJ. But she did. She most definitely did.
“Now, Al Dempster,” she went on, pointing to Dirk the Jerk’s house. “He could help TJ out if he wanted. Al’s headed up the town board forever, and he could push a zoning variance through in a snap. I’ve seen him do it for people he likes, and I’ve seen him block it from people he’s ticked at. You know what? I’ve got half a mind to go over there and ask him for it myself.”
Oh no, oh no, oh no! What had I done? I’d gotten Al Dempster’s son mad, that’s what. Al Dempster, who held the key to TJ’s golf course and Aunt Collette’s happiness. If Mr. Dempster ever found out what I’d been doing to his mailbox, he’d never help out Aunt Collette, never in a million years. He’d reject a zoning change out of spite, and it would be my fault. All my fault.
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