Danny Constantino's First (and Maybe Last?) Date

by Paul Acampora

  “I don’t know,” I admit.

  “You’re going to find out soon enough,” she tells me. “Try to keep it for yourself a little while longer.”

  Somehow, I make it to the end of the day without sharing my secret. I move in and out of classrooms quickly. I don’t hang around in the hallway, and I skip the bus so I can ride with Gram. Mom’s still at work when I get home, so I grab a snack and then start my homework at the kitchen table. I’m interrupted by a loud knock at the back door. Before I can answer, Ajay lets himself in.

  “We’re in my garage working on the unicorn,” he says. “Are you coming?”

  “Now?”

  “Trojan unicorns don’t build themselves, Danny.”

  I close my books and follow Ajay. Just a few minutes later, we’re inside the Kallis’ garage, which is more like a storage unit than a place to park cars. In fact, I can’t remember ever seeing a car in here. Together, we step over a stack of old cardboard and scrap wood that’s piled on the floor. At the back wall, several beat-up bicycle wheels lean against a worn wooden workbench that’s covered with tools. “What are the wheels for?” I ask.

  “They roll,” says Ajay.

  “Thanks.” I nudge a giant box with my toe. “What about this?”

  A side flap bursts open, and Zoey pops out. “Hi, Danny.”

  Startled, I leap back, stumble, and fall into Ajay.

  Zoey stands, then nods toward the big carton she just crawled out of. “To answer your question, that’s a refrigerator box.”

  I look up at Ajay. “Zoey’s here.”

  What I really mean is, What is Zoey doing here?

  “She’s going to be a huge help,” Ajay promises.

  “My father is Jimmy Roy,” says Zoey. “He owns Jimmy Roy Appliance World.”

  I think this is supposed to mean something to me. Unfortunately this means nothing to me.

  Just then, Asha enters from a door that connects the Kallis’ garage to their kitchen. “Is it true?” she asks Zoey. “Are you an endless supply of cardboard?”

  “It’s true,” says Zoey. “I am.”

  Now I understand.

  Asha claps her hands together. “We’re going to have an endless supply of cardboard!” Her tone suggests that cardboard is worth its weight in diamonds. For our purposes, she might be right.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask,” I say. “How exactly are we going to make a unicorn out of cardboard?”

  “Show him,” Ajay says to Zoey.

  Zoey reaches into a pocket and pulls out a wrinkled piece of notebook paper that’s been folded into a palm-sized rectangle. She opens the sheet, stretches it flat, and holds it so I can see a stunning pencil sketch of a wild, graceful unicorn galloping through a lush, misty forest. “Did you makes this?” I ask.

  Zoey offers a little shrug. “I like to draw.”

  I stand. “It’s amazing.”

  “That’s why I asked her to help,” says Ajay. “She’s an artist.”

  “Plus I bring an endless supply of cardboard,” Zoey adds.

  “That’s pretty good too,” says Asha.

  I look at the boxes piled around us. “Do we really need all this?”

  Asha lifts a big appliance carton. “We’ll probably need even more. Cooper the Trojan Unicorn is going to be huge.”

  “Big enough to carry at least two people inside,” says Zoey.

  “We’ll dress up like ancient Greek warriors,” adds Ajay. “We can pull Cooper in the pep rally and in the parade.”

  “Who gets to ride inside?” I ask.

  Ajay, Asha, and Zoey exchange a quick glance. “Natalie Flores Griffin,” they all say at once.

  “Oh no,” I say. “Natalie is not—”

  Ajay cuts me off. “Just think about it. Everywhere Natalie goes will turn into a mob scene. She won’t get to see the parade. She won’t have any fun, and we’ll hardly get to talk to her. This way, we can all go to the parade together. Maybe the pep rally too.”

  “You want to put her inside Cooper the Trojan Unicorn?” I say.

  Ajay grins. “Isn’t that what a Trojan unicorn is for?”

  I study the materials spread around the garage. “It’s really going to be that big?”

  “We have an unlimited supply of cardboard,” Asha points out.

  “And this definitely won’t be like the cow?”

  “The unicorn is a much more graceful creature than the cow,” offers Zoey, who pauses, then adds, “Nothing against cows.”

  I think about Natalie going to last year’s parade in disguise, and I consider my own limited celebrity experience at school. I can see why staying undercover—or inside a unicorn—might make sense. “Okay,” I say. “You’re right. This is a great idea.”

  Ajay smiles. “I stole it from Odysseus.”

  I take the unicorn drawing from Zoey. “May I?”

  She shrugs. “Sure.”

  I find a hammer and a stray nail among the jumble of tools on the work bench. A couple whacks later, I point at the paper now hanging on the wall. “Unicorn pride,” I tell my friends. “It’s justified.”

  For the next hour or so, we break down boxes and spread them flat. With duct tape, staples, and a few long, slender pieces of wood for extra support, we connect pieces of cardboard so that we make large rectangles that stretch the length of the garage floor. Standing on edge, they’d touch the ceiling. Zoey kneels atop one of the rectangles and begins to sketch the outline of a horse’s body that will be slightly bigger than a minivan.

  “What about a horn?” I ask.

  “That will come later,” Asha promises.

  While Zoey and Asha draw, Ajay and I try to figure out how to attach wheels to a sheet of plywood so that our Trojan unicorn can move atop a rolling platform. Without a bicycle’s forks, it’s going to be a challenge. Still, when Ajay steps back to consider the work in progress, he announces, “This is awesome.”

  Zoey, pencil between her teeth, laughs while she erases a bushy tail, which, at the moment, looks like a set of hot rod flames shooting out of a horse’s butt. “It has potential.”

  The whole thing still looks like a pile of scrap wood and used appliance boxes to me. “Are you kidding?”

  Asha lowers her own pencil. “Danny,” she says, “you have to look past the mess.”

  Late afternoon sun shines through dirty garage windows. The light makes specks of airborne dust glow like diamond fireflies. I squint to pretend that those fireflies are floating and flickering above some magical unicorn glade. No matter how hard I try, I’m still standing in a garage filled with junk.

  “Beginnings are supposed to be messy,” Asha adds.

  “Is that how this works?” I ask.

  “That’s how everything works.” She finds her pencil and returns to drawing.

  A half hour later, Zoey lets us know she’s got to leave soon. “It’s Wednesday,” she explains. “I cook on Wednesdays.”

  “You cook?” says Ajay. “For what?”

  Zoey rolls her eyes. “At my house, we call it supper.”

  Asha laughs. Ajay and I continue trying—and failing—to figure out some way to attach wheels to a sheet of plywood. Zoey grabs a marker and adds long, fancy eyelashes to our magical creature’s face. I guess this unicorn is going to be a girl. A few minutes later, a big truck pulls into the driveway and honks a horn.

  “That’s my father.” Zoey stands and considers the giant horse sketch covering the cardboard sheet spread across the floor. “What do you think?” she asks.

  Asha, Ajay, and I study the drawing. “Not bad for a beginning,” says Asha.

  “She means it’s excellent,” says Ajay.

  “That’s what I said,” Asha tells him.

  Zoey smiles. “I think so too.”

  The sun is almost all the
way down when I start home, so I walk around the block rather than cut through neighbors’ yards. Approaching my house, I see Gram’s Camaro in the driveway. In the shadows, the car looks like a big cat ready to pounce. A shadow paces back and forth across the kitchen window. Gram doesn’t pace, which means Mom’s home. I haven’t seen her in over twenty-four hours. But the last twenty-four hours have been amazing, and I don’t think she can take that away. I really believe that.

  Until I open the door.

  Chapter 8

  do not say shebang!

  Inside, Mom’s hollering at somebody, but she doesn’t sound angry. I open the door and discover that she’s yelling into the phone. “Roddy,” Mom says. “Don’t you understand? This changes everything!”

  Gram’s seated nearby with both shoes off and one foot on the kitchen table. She leans forward and massages her toes. “Hey, Danny. How was your day?”

  It’s hard to believe that I was on the phone with Natalie Flores Griffin less than twelve hours ago. “It had some good parts.”

  She flashes me a quick grin. “Glad to hear it.”

  Sometimes, when the light is just right and Gram’s expression is just so—like right now—I can see exactly what she must have looked like when she was a girl. I am sure she was a troublemaker.

  “Who’s Roddy?” I ask.

  “Roddy MacSweeney,” says Gram.

  “Madeline MacSweeney’s father?”

  Gram nods. “He’s on the Halloween festival committee with your mother.”

  Mom is on so many community boards and town committees that I don’t even try to keep track anymore. “What changes everything?” I ask.

  “What do you think?” says Gram.

  I glance at Mom, who’s got a cell phone tucked between her head and shoulder. At the same time, she’s stuffing chopped pineapples, blueberries, and bananas into a blender. “I’m making a power smoothie,” she whispers to Gram and me. “Want some?” She adds a scoop of oatmeal and a package of frozen green spinach to the mix.

  “Replace the spinach with a quart of mocha caramel ice cream, and then we’ll talk,” Gram tells her.

  Mom responds by fastening the blender lid and pushing a button, which creates a sound that’s nearly as loud as Gram’s Camaro.

  Mom turns her attention back to the phone. “Roddy,” she shouts over the blender. “Listen to me! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. A real live celebrity festival queen just fell out of the sky and into Cuper Cove. We’re talking free publicity, TV coverage, social media, you name it . . . Yes, the whole shebang . . . SHEBANG . . . It means ‘big deal’ . . . You learn something new every day . . . Roddy, I need you to focus. The sun is shining. It’s time to make hay . . . It’s a saying . . . Never mind about the hay. Just call Alma Putski and tell her she can be our Halloween queen next year . . . I know how old she is . . . I know one hundred is a big birthday . . . Roddy, after ninety-nine all the birthdays are big, so I think we can agree that being Halloween queen at a hundred and one will be no less impressive than . . . Don’t be a pessimist. Of course she’ll be here next year . . . No, Alma will not think your call is a shebang . . . Roddy, do not use the word shebang . . . Roddy, I’m hanging up now . . . Give Alma my love.”

  Mom ends the call, shuts off the blender, and shakes her head. “Saint Monica, pray for us.”

  “Saint Monica?” I ask.

  “Patron saint of those dealing with disappointing children,” Gram informs me. I have a feeling she may have prayed to Saint Monica one or two thousand times herself over the years.

  “I’m not disappointed in Danny.” Mom lifts the pitcher. “But let me tell you about this Halloween fest committee. If a gift horse pooped a gold brick in their lap, they’d call in a parade clown to scoop it up and throw it away.” She fills a tall glass with thick green goo. “Anybody want some smoothie?”

  “It looks more like a sludgie,” I say.

  Gram eyes the mixture. “It looks like plant food to me.”

  Mom looks my way. “Danny?”

  “I’m not a plant,” I tell her. “And please tell me you weren’t talking about Natalie Flores Griffin just now.”

  Mom takes a big gulp of the spinach oatmeal fruit brew. “Delish,” she says, “and definitely fuel for a future marine.”

  “We already gave one boy to that gun club,” Gram mutters. “They’re not getting Danny too.”

  “Danny could do a lot worse than grow up to be like his father,” Mom says.

  Gram turns to me. “Sorry, Danny. Your mom says you have to die before you turn twenty-six.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Mom tells my grandmother.

  I have to agree. “Gram, that’s not what she’s saying.”

  “Danny,” says Gram, “please tell my daughter that it looks like she just ate a caterpillar.”

  It’s true. Mom’s smoothie put a thick green mustache on top of her upper lip.

  “Why don’t you tell her yourself?” I ask.

  Gram switches feet and starts massaging her other toes. “I don’t want it to sound like all I do is criticize.”

  Mom takes a napkin and dabs her mouth. “So I was just talking to Roddy MacSweeney about Natalie Flores Griffin.”

  “No,” I say. “She is not going to be the Cuper Cove Halloween queen.”

  Mom sips more spinach smoothie. “Why not?”

  “We don’t need a queen,” I tell her. “We’ve got you.”

  “I’d rather run city hall than a royal castle,” Mom says. “And by the way, I’d appreciate it if you’d pitch in a little more on my campaign.”

  “Your campaign to be home even less than you are now?”

  “Danny,” says Mom. “I’m doing all this for you.”

  “You’re certainly not doing it for Alma Putski,” says Gram.

  Mom rolls her eyes. “If it makes you feel better, we’ll give Alma a pumpkin and tell her she was the best Halloween queen we’ve ever had. She won’t even know the difference.”

  “I didn’t invite Natalie so you could make her your own celebrity apprentice,” I tell my mother.

  “Danny,” Mom says, “from what I hear, you didn’t invite Natalie to anything.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Mom lifts her glass, tips it back, and finishes the green power potion. She wipes her face and gives me a grin. “Asha sent that invitation, and then Natalie Flores Griffin fell into your lap.”

  “Excuse me,” Gram says from her seat at the kitchen table, “but nobody will be spending any time in my grandson’s lap.”

  I feel my face burn red. “How do you know who asked who to what?” I turn to my grandmother. “How does she know these things?”

  Gram shrugs. “It’s possible that she’s a witch.”

  “It doesn’t matter if I’m a witch or not,” Mom says.

  “So you’re not denying it?” Gram asks.

  “I am not a witch,” Mom promises.

  I’m not sure if I believe her.

  “Even if I was a witch,” she continues, “having Natalie Flores Griffin in town for Halloween and not asking her to be our festival queen would be rude. She’s a celebrity. Actually, she’s a big star. She’s going to want to be in the spotlight.”

  I take a seat at the table across from Gram. “I happen to know for a fact that she does not want to be in the spotlight.”

  “It sounds like you and Natalie have discussed it,” says Mom.

  “That’s right.”

  Mom brings her glass to the sink, gives it a quick rinse, and places it in the dishwasher. She does the same for all the pieces from the blender. “Did she tell you about her new movie?”

  “We didn’t talk about movies.”

  “It’s called Sidewalk Scarecrows,” Mom says. “It’s all about a group of scarecrows in a small N
ew England town during Halloween. Sound familiar?”

  I shift uncomfortably. “So?”

  “So she’s in a movie that’s totally based on our town, Danny. Do you really think she’s coming to Cuper Cove to stay out of the spotlight?”

  “I really think she doesn’t want to star in any show that you’re planning.”

  “I bet I can convince her otherwise,” says Mom.

  I stand. “Listen, Miss Everything-I-Touch-Turns-to-Sold! It’s not up to you. It’s up to Natalie, and she already made her decision.”

  Mom closes the dishwasher. She faces me for a moment, then turns to Gram. “Remember when Danny used to respect his mother?”

  “I respect you,” I say. “I just want you—”

  “To do everything your way?”

  “Only if I’m right.” I don’t mean to raise my voice, but now I’m kind of yelling. “Which I am!”

  “I’ll let you know when you’re right,” Mom says. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

  “You’re going to tell me what’s right?” I ask. “You just stole a festival crown from a hundred-year-old lady, and you drank a spinach sludgie for dinner.” I make a face and gag. “That’s not even food!”

  Mom closes her eyes and sighs. “Saint Monica—”

  “I don’t understand why you actually pray,” I tell my mother. “You already think you’re God.”

  “Maybe I just like talking to myself,” Mom snaps at me.

  “So your biggest fan won’t have to miss a word you say?”

  “Danny,” says Mom, “if I were God, there’d be some serious smoting going on right now.”

  “Okay,” says Gram. “That’s enough. One of you is just acting like a monster right now.”

  “Even your grandmother thinks you’re acting like a monster,” says Mom.

  “I never said which one of you is the monster,” Gram points out.

  “Fine.” Mom turns to storm out. At the kitchen door, she stops and looks back. “We’ll just leave it up to Natalie!” After the pronouncement, she stomps away.

  Gram sighs. “She always was very good at the dramatic exit.”