“Chill out, Manny, she’s just a girl.”
He huffs. “You sound like a man of the world, a regular world traveler. Tell us sheltered creatures what girls are really like. Why on earth are you macking with the cheese with Sabrina? Have you already abandoned our plan?”
“Of course not. Didn’t you see me selling candy in there? I sold out.”
“Indeed you have.” He looks both ways. “Let me give you something to chew on.”
“I just ate lunch.”
“Not literally, metaphorically. Are you familiar with macaroni?”
“The pasta?”
He nods.
“I know all about pasta, Manny. Remember, I asked if we could bring tortellini in our Lamborghini.”
He rolls his eyes. “How could I forget…”
“So what’s your point?”
“Listen, macaroni is a pasta like any other, but it got labeled as a cheese lover. Labeled in households, restaurants, commercials, and fun-size microwavable packets. We cannot fathom macaroni without its mate, its bride, its gloppy yellow cheese. Macaroni and marinara? Macaroni and sausage? Not unless it is out of a Chef Boyardee can or sloppily served by Marsha at your favorite cafeteria establishment. Somewhere along the line, macaroni got caught up in the wrong crowd, rubbed elbows—pun intended, my friend—with its cheesy neighbors, found itself in mixed company and consciously led the cheese on, making it blush, making it melt, and look where it got him: labeled, branded, cemented in history alongside the pasteurized by-products of a cow.”
“Wow.”
“Indeed you are capable of rhyme. I am very impressed. Sound the trumpets, cue the violins, for you, sir, are a natural poet. A bona fide Bobby Frost, a teenage one at that. And teenagers, as you well know, Mr. Court Jester, get branded. Labeled. Cemented in history as this or that. Popular, or not. Athlete, or not. Musician, or not. Thespian, or not. A mint-condition academic powerhouse such as myself—or not. A donut-swilling, sad, Springsteen-loving, Jolly Rancher—”
“I get it.”
“Or not. We cannot take the chance, so allow me to finish. Teenagers get labeled, especially by their relationships. What social pack they belonged to, who they dated, who they squired to a dance (hence our elaborate operation to maximize profits), who they boogied with on the dance floor, who they kissed, who they dated for a day, week, month, year. It stays with them. Forever. That is what our candy operation is about: avoiding a negative label for all of eternity.” He pauses. “If you go forth with Sabrina, she will be on your résumé. Not to be melodramatic—which contrary to popular belief, is not the mellow, laid-back version of drama—but thirty years from now, when we are all middle-aged, people might forget your antics, your jokes, your grades, your clothes, your hair, your looks. But they will never. Ever. Ever. Ever forget your résumé.”
“Are you finished?”
“Yes, Donuts, but understand, that is why I have lacked a date up until now. I have chosen carefully. And now with the vehicular, musical, and other amenities we can acquire with our candy money, we’ll have our choice of date, smorgasbord that our school is. But I am only in this if we are in this together.”
“Fine, but understand this: I’m not embarrassed by her. I like her.” I fight a blush.
“She is your group partner, Donuts. She is supposed to be nice. I bet you think waitresses like you, too. And hostesses, salesladies, clerks, cashiers, managers…” He laughs at his own joke. “I bet you think the lady you buy tickets from at the movies likes you, too. And the lady who rips your ticket. I bet she is gaga for Donuts.”
“Stop! I don’t know what I want to do for the dance. I don’t know if Sabrina even likes me the slightest bit, but if she made it to my, what do you call it?
“A résumé.”
“Right, a résumé. She’d look good there. She’d be the only one there.”
He sighs. “I need to know now. If we are going to make our fund-raising operation work, I mean truly work, together, we need to find out now. And in order to find out, we need to step up our market research, take a chance with a purchase of some sort, or get more aggressive in other ways. I doubt we have raised enough money for a helicopter yet, but it is time we spice things up. Desperate times call for desperate measures and Lord knows we are desperate. At least I am, and it is time to get spicy. Are you still with me or not?”
“I don’t understand what you mean by spicy, but I don’t like the sound—”
“All that matters is this, Donuts: Have you betrayed our partnership or are we still in this together? Are you with me or not? I need to know now.” He lowers his voice. “Before we take this to another level that we cannot turn back from.” He pauses, then runs his hand through his hair. “Or until it all grows back.”
DESPERATE MEASURES
“Oh my god, can you believe what my son-in-law got me for my seventieth birthday? I mean, hel-lo, who in their right mind would turn down a gift certificate for a Swedish massage? Certainly not this lady.” Though she’s on the phone, “this lady” with the nasal voice, sagging cheeks, and pink curler in her hair points to herself with two shaking fingertips covered in orange nail polish. “I’ve met silly people before in my lifetime, but this lady”—again the orange pointers—“is certainly not one of them. My daughter has married a charmer, I’m telling you. He even got me three full tubes of foot cream all the way from the Dead Sea. And, honey, you know me and foot cream. We go together like chocolate and ice cream.”
MELINDA’S MAKEOVER, it says on the window. And this lady must be Melinda. Her salon, which smells of hair spray, has eight mirrors with chairs, though no one else is sitting in them because Melinda’s the only one here. She’s on the phone beside a row of sinks and pictures of boys and girls with all sorts of haircuts: spikes, fades, perms, bowl cuts, afros …
“I think we’re in the wrong place,” I whisper to Manny.
He runs a hand through his mop of hair, now ungelled and with a mind of its own. “This is the right place. It was recommended by one of my classmates, and I did do my research. This hair salon got a five-star rating on Yelp.”
“By who?” I scoff. “The shuffleboard club?”
A framed picture of Miami Beach above Melinda’s name, a bumper sticker to the side of her station that reads “I [heart] Art Deco.” Combs soaked in blue vials, a yellow hair dryer, and a sign that reads NOBODY NOTICES WHEN I GET THINGS RIGHT, which brings me no comfort.
Neither does Manny’s elbow in my ribs. “Do not judge this place by its appearance. That is why we are here, after all. The female species has deemed our current appearance unworthy of its company. So we shall work on that appearance.”
Melinda looks up. “Hold on a sec, will ya, boys?” Then she whispers in the phone, “I gotta go, Lucinda. I have new clients. Yeah, they’re young, too. They look like charmers.”
“We are charmers, are we not, Donuts?”
“You can’t be serious about this…”
Melinda hangs up the phone and opens her arms. “Well, look what the wind blew in this aft-a-noon. Hello, boys, how can I help you?”
Manny clears his throat. “We are looking for makeovers. Well, I am. My friend Donuts here is a bit squeamish about change.”
Melinda nods in my direction. “Well hello, Mist-a Donuts. Funny, I believe I ate you fa-breakfast. You were powdery and had those little coffee cake crumbs on top.” She kisses the inside of her orange fingertips. “Delicious!”
To keep from laughing, Manny smothers his mouth. I’m not sure what’s so funny or why we’re even here in the first place. I mean, I understand getting aggressive with our strategy to improve our compatibility quotient, as Manny would say, but I look fine the way I do. Don’t I? And anyway, aren’t makeovers for girls?
“Don’t worry, Mist-a Donuts, sweetie.” She waves an arm in the air, then bends it at the wrist. “Melinda’ll take care of yous.”
Manny pipes up. “Greetings, Ms. Melinda. I am looking for the perfect haircut an
d style to attract members of the opposite species and leave them flabbergasted.”
“Species? You mean, like aliens?” Melinda rubs the back of her arms. “They give me the heeber jeebers.”
“No, not aliens. Females. Though sometimes I get them mixed up myself.” He sighs. “They do often confound me. Especially now. We have a dance coming up.”
Melinda puts a hand to her heart. “Oh my! Prom season is upon us already! I should redeem my gift certificate now for that Swedish massage before my shoulders get too stiff, all jammed and jammy.”
“No, not prom. It is the seventh grade dance.”
“Oh my, the seventh grade dance, quite a rite of passage. Like multiple Bar Mitzvahs at your school at the same time.”
“Yes, uh, I had not thought of that and, anyway, unlike most spineless students at our school who migrate to dances in flocks of ten and twenty, Donuts and I would like to bring dates to our seventh grade dance.”
She raises her pink-outlined eyebrows. “How ambitious you two are. Are you sure you’re only seventh graders? Oh, honey, you look much older.”
Manny grins. “Indeed, but we are not necessarily going for an old look. More of a different look. A perfect look. That is it! I want to look like Mr. Perfect, former World Wrestling Federation Intercontinental Champion.”
She frowns. “Unfortunately, sweetie pie, I’m not quite familiar with wrestlers. Do you have a picture?”
“Only in my locker. At school.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Can you describe it for me?”
“He has curly blond hair, oily, that falls from his head in spirals, curlicues … like oily curly fries hanging on all sides of his head.”
“Oh my, that doesn’t sound so good, honey.”
Dejected, Manny asks Melinda what she recommends.
“Honey, I have hundreds of other styles to choose from. They’re all numbered.” She hands over a book of hair. I mean, a hair book. I mean, a book of hairstyles. “I can pretty much do whatever you’d like, honey bunches. I’m a very versatile stylist.”
“See, Donuts? That is what everyone said on Yelp: ‘very versatile.’”
I wish Melinda hadn’t called us honey bunches. Too similar to my mom calling me Honey Bunches of Oats, but I have to focus now. On my hair.
And Manny’s already in the chair, ordering a blond #45.
THE KITCHEN SINK
Oily curly fries. Now that I think about it—I mean, look at it—it’s the perfect way to describe the Mr. Perfect do that Manny wanted. And got. So badly.
“Honey, as the politicians should say in their commercials on my television set: My name is Melinda and I do not support this message,” Melinda kept saying, but Manny assured her it was for a good cause.
Assured me, too. For my hair, I mean.
I was tired of the wings on the sides of my head, but …
To chop off all the hair on the sides of my head and replace it with an orange Mohawk, hair-sprayed to full attention …
This was Manny’s idea, which I wasn’t on board with, but his chants of “Mo-Hawk, Mo-Hawk, Mo-Hawk” brought me back to the days of “Do-Nuts, Do-Nuts,” and I liked that performance feeling, leaping outside myself into another body. Plus, it goes perfectly with my desk surfer persona, if anyone remembers my trash can shenanigans.
“Aloha, new look!” I actually say that in Melinda’s chair. “I do like the new orange do.”
Manny scolds me for embarrassing him with lame jokes, then pulls out a wad of dollar bills to pay Melinda for her “versatile services.” Then he tells me to pay for half, so I reach into my sock.
“My pleasure, boychicks. Now good luck boogying down at the dance! Make sure you get a nice suit. You don’t want to look shlumpy.”
“Shlumpy?”
“That’s right. You don’t want to look like a shlump. You want to look nice.”
We wave goodbye to Melinda.
With my orange hair dye and Manny’s perm included, we’re still left with over eight hundred dollars but no dates. Until tomorrow.
At least, that’s the plan.
* * *
What do I have to lose? What do I have to lose? That’s what I keep telling my new Mohawk self walking into school today—at 8:30, not 8:15. The less time I have to spend in school in front of other people the better. But what do I have to lose?
As usual, I’m supposed to meet Manny in the hallways, but “usual” is the last word I’d use to describe him. Brushing the blond curly fries from the front of his face, Manny struts toward me, orange leather shoes clapping against the hallway floor. A loose-fitting black suit hangs on his wiry frame, a blue shirt and pink tie underneath. In his side pocket, a yellow handkerchief matches his new hair.
For the first time in years, his backpack is behind him instead of against his chest.
“Brooks Brothers,” he says, slowly spinning around, modeling his new (and expensive) transformation.
“But, Manny, all the money!”
“Clearance rack.” He brushes the lint off his shoulders. “I am indeed a smart shopper—and a sharp one, too, eh? Eh? What do you think?”
“I think we look ridiculous.”
He gasps. “I certainly do not, but I admit that you do. You look flabbergasting.”
I look down at a red-checkered shirt tucked into dark green pants. With my orange Mohawk, I look like Christmas on fire. I know that because Manny tells me so.
“Okay, Christmas on Fire, listen up. Here is the plan…”
Thankfully, Sabrina hasn’t seen me yet. Maybe she’ll be absent. Maybe she got picked to sing in Les Mis. Maybe she’s working on our project from home. Maybe …
“Are you listening, Donuts? We need to keep selling candy and do our very best to raise our compatibility quotient—and see if we have already done so with our new looks. It is my hope that our makeovers, combined with a renewed push to complete our market research, will make for a successful day. ‘Successful’ meaning a day of dates. From now on, D-Day will be a national holiday to celebrate our Day of Dates. The day perfection was finally achieved by a rising entrepreneur and his pastry-named friend.”
The first part of his plan—the selling part—sounds fine. It can’t hurt to raise more. If it miraculously works out with Sabrina and I don’t need to rent a car or plane or limousine or hang glider for someone else to go with me, I’ll give the money to Manny. Or keep it to buy my own car or plane or limousine or hang glider. Or a new food group for the Natural Schmoozer. And top-of-the-line paper towels for him, too.
It’s just that second part of his plan—complete market research and actually get a date—that doesn’t sound so easy. I mean, Sabrina’s not even here.
“You are first,” Manny says, nudging me in the back. “Go get them, tiger.”
“But where? Who?”
“That one,” he says, pointing to an eighth grader with curly red hair and dimples, unloading books at her locker. “Find out what attracts the opposite species. And this time, Donuts, I am watching.”
“But I don’t even know her.”
“Then acquire information for me. Better yet, acquire a date for me.”
He hands me a briefcase. It’s not heavy but certainly not light. “What’s in there?” I ask.
“The kitchen sink,” he says.
“A whole sink in a briefcase?”
He rolls his eyes. “It is an expression. The kitchen sink means ‘everything,’ which in our case means information on everything we can possibly offer. You will find brochures on transportation, a guide to the concert series next month, a spreadsheet of all the hippest after-parties, pamphlets on cooking classes and science museums and formal attire for you and her in hundreds of styles and colors, and coupons for pocketbooks and necklaces, oh, and extra candy bars…”
His voice trails off as he nods in the direction of Ronald Latimer, who is handing out candy bars (regular size this time) at his locker, free of charge. The pigeons swoop in for a complimentary snack.
“Sweeties, Ronald, sweeties, sweeties, sweeties…”
“This may be our last shot,” Manny says. “Do not let me down. Make her feel comfortable, inquire about her availability, toss a pickup line in there if you must, but get in, get info and/or a date for me, and get out of there. That is an order.”
* * *
It feels wrong. But for Manny I’d do anything. Well, almost anything. No way am I asking her to the dance. No way will I bribe her in any way. And no way I’m using any lame pickup lines. Information is all I need. Good ol’ safe market research. The redhead is slamming her locker. My hands are sweaty and cold, especially the one gripping the briefcase.
I look over my shoulder. Manny raises a fist. You can do this, he mouths.
Do what? I have no idea what I’m doing. But it’s too late to turn back now. For me, I see him pleading.
I clear my throat. “Excuse me,” I say. “Excuse me.” But she’s already walking away, and though I tell myself not to, I’m following her. “EXCUSE ME!” I say, loud enough for her—and everyone else on that side of the floor—to hear me.
The whispers fill the halls: Yo, look at Donuts’s Mohawk. Dude looks like he got his fingers caught in an orange outlet. Dude lost his marbles, except the orange ones. His hair looks like orange Gatorade froze while being dumped on his head. You’ll never believe how many orange icicles Donuts glued to his head … Check it out …
I wait until the crowd finishes checking me out before I start speaking to the redhead.
She has fair skin and an easy smile. She looks like an orange daisy.
“Excuse me,” I say again.
“Yes, I hear you,” she says. “What is it?”
“We have similar hair color, but yours, of course, is better-looking. As are you, compared to me.”
“What?!” She’s already walking away and I haven’t even shown her the brochures for sports cars and helicopters and launching pads and laser tags and I’m failing, failing again. I’ve failed Manny and he’ll always be alone. Alone. Alone. I’m not cut out for this, any of this, and I’ve failed myself and failed Manny and I might as well give up, give up on myself, but I can’t give up on Manny and—
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