Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Making Money

by Tommy Greenwald

  “I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this,” he said.

  48

  It turns out it was all Fred Semple’s fault.

  You don’t know who Fred Semple is? Well, I’ll tell you. He’s the guy who went to my dad’s reunion just to tell everyone how awesome he was. The guy who told my parents that he sold his hedge fund when he was forty to sail around the world with his boat and his captain and his chef and his second wife who was super hot. The guy whose behavior proved to my mom that my dad was right, that the reunion was just a bunch of people bragging and showing off and pretending to care about other people’s family pictures.

  And he’s the guy that ultimately made my parents decide to leave the reunion early and come back home just in time to see their backyard turned into an unlicensed water park.

  Thanks, Fred Semple.

  I hope your boat hits an iceberg.

  49

  As the kids were getting picked up by their very confused parents, Megan, Willy, and I tried to put the house back together as best we could. Katie and her band packed up. And Nareem came down from his crazy sugar rush.

  “I’m so terribly sorry about your table,” he said to my parents, “but it would be disingenuous for me to say that I regret what I did.”

  I had no idea what disingenuous meant, but my mom seemed to buy it, because she brought him a hot cup of tea.

  My dad sat on the porch just watching us clean up, not saying a word. Moose and Coco slept peacefully at his feet. My mom tried to not help us—which was hard for her—but she did insist on sweeping up all the broken glass.

  While we were cleaning up, Megan and I discussed our next move. We decided that instead of trying to make something up, we would tell my parents the truth. I figured that the only way for them to understand anything, and possibly not kill me, was to admit everything.

  I was just about to launch into my long explanation when guess who showed up?

  Zoe.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late!” she said, jumping out of her mom’s car. “But I know you won’t be mad when I tell you my amazing news!” It took her about five seconds to realize that the party wasn’t exactly going as planned. “Wait. What’s wrong?”

  My dad smiled at her. “What makes you think something’s wrong?” he said.

  “It’s kind of complicated,” I told Zoe. So I ended up telling the whole story to her and my parents at the same time: about how my parents said I had to make my own money to go visit her in Ohio, so I decided to have my own bar mitzvah, and how Megan helped me plan it because she was a great sister, not because she was a bad daughter, and then I told them all about the ancient Ethiopian Hamar tradition of cow jumping, and dressing Moose up like a cow, and hiring Katie’s band, and collecting the checks, and blowing a fuse, and Willy trying to fix it, and the sprinklers going off, and the alarm going off, and Coco freaking out at Moose, and Moose peeing on Hannah, and Pete creating a Slip ’n Slide, and Nareem jumping over me and crashing into the table.

  It sounds like a long story, but I told it pretty fast. I think I just wanted to get it over with. The whole thing took like nine seconds.

  Finally my dad said one word: “Wow.” Then he added, “Even for you, Charlie Joe. Wow.”

  My mom, as usual, was focused on our guest. “Charlie Joe, we’ll discuss all this later,” she said. “But first, Zoe, you said you had some amazing news, and we could all use some right about now.”

  “Oh, boy,” Zoe said. “Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh boy.”

  “That’s a weird introduction to great news,” I said. I think some part of me knew what she was going to say before she said it.

  Zoe looked embarrassed. “Oh, Charlie Joe, now I feel bad that you went through all this trouble! The thing is, it turns out we’re not moving to Ohio after all. My parents didn’t want to make me go to a new school again, so my grandparents decided to move to Kenwood instead.” She tried to smile. “So I’ll only be twenty minutes away. Isn’t that great?”

  O.

  M.

  G.

  The last couple of weeks went through my head—Jake’s bar mitzvah, seeing Zoe again only to find out she was moving again, taking my dad’s dare to pay my own way to Ohio, and thinking I could get away with throwing myself a cow-jumping party as a money-making scheme.

  All for a girl who wasn’t even moving away after all.

  Suddenly I felt like an idiot—as so of course, instead of getting mad at myself, I got mad at Zoe.

  “What do you mean you’re not going?” I said. “I probably just got grounded for life making money to go visit you!”

  Zoe’s face fell. “I’m sorry, Charlie Joe. I thought you would be happy.”

  I finally lost my cool. “DO I LOOK HAPPY?”

  Zoe jumped back like she’d been smacked. I thought she might burst into tears, but before she did, she ran back to her mom’s car, and they drove away.

  I just stood there and watched her go. I felt angry, ridiculous, and most of all, guilty.

  My dad walked over and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “You’re not going to be grounded for life,” he said. “Just most of it.”

  Charlie Joe’s Financial Tip #8

  EMOTIONAL WORK IS STILL WORK.

  Work isn’t always just a job, or homework, or chores.

  Sometimes it’s emotional.

  Like, when you do something special for a girl you think you like, but it turns out to be the craziest idea you ever had, and you have to figure out a way to make your parents not hate you forever.

  That’s a lot of work.

  Life is hard enough as it is, and it’s filled with work. Yard work, schoolwork, actual work-for-a-living work. Try to avoid the emotional work if at all possible.

  50

  I ended up grounded “for the foreseeable future,” was how my dad put it. It was pretty painful, but it wasn’t the end of the world. My parents also said I had to get a different kind of job—a volunteer job that served the community. I was in no position to argue.

  “Sometimes I just don’t understand you, Charlie Joe,” my mom said later that night, as they told me the punishment. “Did you really think you were going to get away with this? Nareem could have gotten seriously hurt! And even if nothing went wrong, and we didn’t come home until tomorrow, don’t you realize that the neighbors would have told us that while we were gone, twenty middle school kids were running around having a party at my house?”

  It was more like thirty middle school students, but I wasn’t about to point that out.

  “And, Megan, what were you thinking?” Mom went on. “This is not like you. Not like you at all.” Megan stared at the ground and didn’t say anything. Meanwhile, Will looked like he thought my dad was going to spank him.

  “Megan was just helping me,” I said. “You can’t punish her.” Megan glanced at me and smiled a tiny smile.

  “No car privileges for a month,” my dad announced to Megan, which made her smile disappear pretty quickly.

  My mom shook her head. “Well, Charlie Joe, I’m glad you told us the truth. You made some very bad decisions, but I’m glad you told us the truth.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I’m glad I did, too.”

  “One last thing,” said my dad, bringing over his laptop. “Since you seem so interested in Ethiopia, we wanted to show you something.”

  He went to YouTube and played a video called “Endless Famine—Ethiopia.” It was shocking, intense, and really sad. There are a lot of children there who don’t have enough to eat. They were really skinny, way too skinny. Some were crying.

  Soon I was crying.

  “I am so, so sorry,” I said. “I was greedy and stupid and wrong.”

  My parents hugged me.

  “No argument from me,” said my dad.

  My mom gave me an extra hug. “Now about that money,” she said. We clicked a few more buttons and donated everything I made from my cow-jumping party to an Et
hiopian Relief Fund.

  That made me feel a little bit less like a selfish jerk.

  A little.

  51

  I’m still a little emotional from that last part, so I’ll let Katie tell you what happened next.

  52

  First of all, in terms of Charlie Joe’s cow-jumping party? I thought it was pretty amazing.

  But that’s easy for me to say. I’m not the one who got grounded for almost life.

  So the next day, when he called me to talk about it, I tried to make him feel better. “Charlie Joe, you created an event that people will be talking about FOREVER. That’s a real accomplishment.”

  He took a deep breath into the phone. “Yeah, but I still feel stupid. Life isn’t all about money, you know.”

  “Uh, yeah, I do know,” I said.

  “Plus, I think Zoe must hate me now.”

  “Wait, why do you think that?”

  “Because I’m a big jerk, that’s why.” Then he told me the story of yelling at her in his driveway, which did sound pretty darn jerky.

  “I’m sure she’ll forgive you,” I said.

  “I doubt it. I wouldn’t forgive me if I were her.”

  I had never heard Charlie Joe sound this down before, and I didn’t like it. For some reason, I preferred him cocky and obnoxious. So I decided to take action. “Well, that’s just crazy, and I’m sure you’re wrong, but there’s only one way to find out. Let’s call her.”

  Charlie Joe paused, then said, “You mean now?”

  “Yup, I mean now. I’m conferencing her in.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  I put Charlie Joe on hold and dialed Zoe.

  “Katie?”

  I added Charlie Joe to the call. “Hey, Zoe, it’s me with Charlie Joe.”

  “Hi, Zoe,” said Charlie Joe.

  “Hey,” she answered, clearly not in a very forgiving mood.

  “So, I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Charlie Joe began. “I acted like a jerk yesterday. I hope you’re not still mad.”

  “I am still mad,” Zoe said, clearing up any confusion.

  There was an awkward moment of silence before Charlie Joe spoke again. “Well, I’m really glad that you aren’t moving to Ohio.”

  Someone took a deep breath, and I was pretty sure it was Zoe. “Charlie Joe, it was really fun to see you at Jake’s bar mitzvah, but it’s probably stupid to think we could ever go out or anything, living in different towns.”

  “Oh,” Charlie Joe said. “Um … okay.”

  Suddenly I felt that old feeling of wanting to help Charlie Joe out. It’s annoying, the way it keeps coming back. Like a rash.

  “Zoe, Charlie Joe really likes you,” I said. “In fact, he went to a lot of trouble coming up with this crazy idea, trying to raise the money to go visit you.”

  “Not that crazy,” said Charlie Joe, trying to bounce back.

  “Charlie Joe, I really like you, too,” Zoe said. “You’re awesome. We can definitely stay in touch and text and stuff. And maybe in high school we can hang out or something. But right now, it just seems like we should just be friends. Right?”

  This time, the deep breath was Charlie Joe’s. “I guess.”

  “But thank you, Charlie Joe,” said Zoe. “Thank you for throwing that party just so you could come see me. That’s pretty much the sweetest thing anybody has ever done for me. And from what I hear, it was completely awesome.”

  “It was,” Charlie Joe said, the familiar swagger back in his voice. “There’s never been another party like it.”

  Zoe laughed, and I smiled to myself, thinking, It’s good to have him back.

  53

  I think Charlie Joe wants to tell you the rest of the story.

  54

  It’s true, I do.

  55

  In school the next week, everybody talked about the party for about two days straight. The only person who was able to change the subject was Eliza Collins, by showing off her latest new gadget.

  “It’s called the Phonetastic,” she announced, holding up this large, strange-looking contraption. “It’s a combination phone/lipstick holder/compact mirror/hairbrush/iron. And the best part is it tells you when you’re done.”

  She pushed a button and an actual hairbrush shot out of the phone and she started brushing her hair. After about ten seconds, a voice from the phone announced, “Hair looks perfect.”

  Everybody ooh-ed and aah-ed.

  “You know,” I said, “with the money you spent on that stupid phone, you could feed a family in Africa for a year.”

  Everybody turned and looked at me.

  “What?” I said. “It’s true.”

  “Well, Charlie Joe,” said Eliza, “it just so happens I’m donating my Botman to charity.”

  “Really?” Hannah Spivero asked.

  “Which charity?” Nareem wanted to know.

  Eliza made this scrunched-up face that she used whenever she wanted to convince someone she was thinking hard about something. “Um, one of the ones where the people really need robots.”

  “I need a robot,” Pete Milano moaned. “Pick me! Pick me!”

  Soon everyone was yelling, “Pick me!” and “Can I have it?” and “I’ll be your best friend!” and “I’m totally a charity case!”

  Not everyone could be as enlightened as me, I guess.

  56

  Somewhere in the middle of my third week of grounded-ness, I was coming back to the house after walking the dogs when I saw my mom and Katie Friedman having a conversation in the backyard—right about at the spot where Nareem Ramdal crashed into the glass table.

  “Katie has a great idea,” my mom announced.

  Katie smiled. “I know it’s you who usually has the ideas, Charlie Joe, but seeing as how that hasn’t been working out so great for you lately, I thought I’d come up with one of my own.”

  “I love ideas,” I said. “Lay it on me.”

  Katie pulled a pamphlet out of her back pocket. “Well, I know how you need to get a volunteer job, and I thought it might be a good idea for you to try the library.”

  I kind of laughed and choked at the same time.

  My mom glared at me. “Just listen.”

  I glared back. “Fine.”

  Katie handed me the pamphlet. “Well, it’s actually really kind of fun. The people there are really nice, and there are tons of books to read during your down time.” She raised her eyebrows. “We all know how much you love books.”

  I didn’t smile back.

  “Plus, you get free chocolate chip cookies at the café,” she added.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. Then looking for an exit strategy I added, “I think the dogs need some water.”

  As I started to walk inside, I heard Katie call after me.

  “And you’d get to work with me.”

  I turned back around.

  Katie was smiling at me.

  It was a new kind of smile.

  The kind that might be a little more than just, I’m smiling at one of my oldest friends.

  I walked back over to Katie, as my mom quietly took the dogs and led them into the house.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s try it.”

  * * *

  Two days later, I was surrounded by books of all shapes and sizes. There were books everywhere. Books, books, books. Me, and a building full of books.

  But for some reason, I liked it.

  Who would’ve thought?

  “Did you ever think you’d be sitting in the middle of a library actually enjoying yourself?” Katie said, reading my mind as usual.

  “My reputation is ruined,” I answered.

  We were on break, finishing up about forty cookies, all washed down by delicious, ice-cold chocolate milk.

  “Hey, Charlie Joe,” Katie whispered. (Whispering is the only legal way to talk in the library.) “Can I tell you something?”

  “Sure,” I whispered back.

  “I’m thinking about breaking up wi
th Nareem.”

  I felt the blood start to rush to my head. “No way.”

  Katie nodded. “Yup.”

  “Why? Because he acted crazy at my party and crashed into a table?”

  She shook her head. “No, that was actually pretty amazing.”

  “Well, why then?” I asked.

  Katie shrugged. “It’s just time, maybe.”

  That’s as good a reason as any, I guess.

  But I wasn’t sure it was the real reason.

  We looked at each other for a few seconds, not saying anything. Then I looked up and saw my supervisor, a sweet old lady named Mrs. Sixsmith, waving at me. She was pointing at a huge pile of books.

  I stood up suddenly. “I better go.”

  “Yup,” Katie said, getting up, too.

  I gave her an awkward hug and went over to stack the books, which were all romantic mysteries. I happened to glance down at the title of the first book on the pile.

  It was called Some Loves Were Meant To Be.

  I smiled, shook my head, and took a deep breath.

  Then I went to work.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  No dogs or cows were harmed in the making of this book.

  To learn more about hunger in Africa and other places around the world, and to find out how to help, please visit savethechildren.org.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I owe a huge debt to the following people: Nancy Mercado, Michele Rubin, Simon Boughton, Angus Killick, Neal Porter, Lucy Del Priore, Lauren A. Burniac, Katie Halata, Holly Hunnicut, Samantha Metzger, Molly Brouillette, Allison Verost, Andrew Arnold, Angie Chen, J. P. Coovert, Susan Cohen, Brianne Johnson, Amy Berkower, the CJJ team at Brilliance Audio, Katie Fee, Caitlin Sweeny, Tricia Tierney and everyone at Barnes and Noble Westport, Peter Glassman and everyone at Books Of Wonder, Deborah White and everyone at the Westport Public Library, the swell folks at R.J. Julia, all my colleagues at Spotco, Cathy Utz, Charlie Greenwald, Joe Greenwald, Jack Greenwald, Barbara Kellerman, Jonathan Greenwald, Kenny Greenwald, Ellen Greenwald, Jessica Greenwald, Jake Greenwald, the entire Utz extended family, everyone whom I forgot (sorry), and everyone else who will come into my writing life between now and when this book actually comes out.