by Maggie Bloom
“Holy…” I whisper, alarmed by the war-zone look my home has assumed.
“Just remember,” Duncan tells me as we ease out of the van, repeating the mantra he’s hatched on the way over, “the authorities have things well in hand.”
I want to say, How do you know? But I bite my tongue.
As bad as the Royale looks from the back, it’s even worse from the front, which Duncan and I discover when we round the side of the car en route to the house.
I stop in my tracks and stare. “What does that say?” I wonder aloud (and mostly rhetorically). The Royale is bathed in graffiti so thick I can hardly make out the color of its hood: sun-bleached blue.
Duncan steers me by the shoulder toward the door, and when we get inside, Denise outright tackles me. “Oh my gosh!” she exclaims, hugging me so hard I stop breathing for a second. She smoothes my hair against my back and squeezes again. “I’m so glad…so glad you’re all right.”
Why wouldn’t I be all right?
Past the refrigerator is Orv, hands buried in his pockets, clenching his jaw and staring glassy-eyed into the living room, the source of unfamiliar cop voices. “Um…” I say, gently withdrawing from Denise’s embrace, “…what happened?”
Denise shrugs, twists her lips sideways. “A bunch of kids…well, uh…they chucked a rock through the front window.” As an afterthought, she adds, “And the car’s wrecked.”
I turn to Duncan. “You can go if you want,” I say. “There’s probably nothing you can do anyway.”
“Call your mother later,” he replies on his way out. “She’ll be worried.”
* * *
While the police officers—one stout and burly, the other two lanky and fish-eyed—wrap up their documentation of the scene, Orv disappears into the crawlspace and comes out with a dusty length of cardboard leftover from some long-forgotten purchase of Gramp’s, which he duct tapes over the sizeable hole in the window by his La-Z-Boy.
Denise ushers the cops outside. From the kitchen table, where I sit scraping a dried gob of Mrs. Butterworth’s off the napkin holder with my thumbnail, I hear the officers reassure Denise that she, Orv, and I are simply the victims of haphazard vandalism. A gang of restless youths with nothing better to do on a Saturday night.
It’s a tempting theory, but one that leaves me less than convinced. Because all I can hear is Justin White’s agitated voice ordering me into Evan Richter’s Dart, set to a soundtrack of Corey Benson’s popping knuckles. Revenge, I think, makes a bit more sense. Not that I’ll be letting anyone in on this train of thought.
Orv plops into the chair beside me. “You okay?”
Why does everyone keep asking me that? “Yeah,” I say. “You?”
“Ain’t that big a deal,” Orv claims, “’cept for the money it’s gonna take to fix that window.” He shakes his head in defeat. “’Course, the Royale’s a goner.”
“How’s Denise gonna get to work?”
He scratches at his chin like a neurotic cat. “Don’t tell her this,” he says just above a whisper, “but I know a guy who buys cars at auctions and fixes ‘em up. I think he’ll sell us one on credit.”
Gramp must be turning over in his grave. “Credit?” I think Orv either threw it out or buried it somewhere in the garage, but Gramp used to have this plaque he’d carved with the maxim: Neither a borrower nor a lender be. (I’m pretty sure he stole that saying from Ben Franklin or Shakespeare, but that’s another story.) ‘Til the day he died, Gramp would parade visitors around the house to worship that plaque as if they were kneeling at the altar of the Money God.
Orv squinches his shoulders toward his ears. “What do you want me to do, Bobbi-Jo?” he asks, “make Denise walk? We ain’t got the money.”
“How much do we need?” I say, wondering what’s taking Denise so long outside. I tip my chair back and steal a peek out the window, where I spot her picking shards of taillight debris out of the driveway cracks.
“Total?” Orv says, pinching his eyebrows together. “Who knows? I’ve never bought a window before.”
“What about for the car?”
“Depends on what kind of car.”
“Let’s just say the kind of car your friend gets from the auction.”
Orv stares at the ceiling, thinking. “A thousand, at least,” he tells me. “Fifteen-hundred would be better. We could get a good one for that.”
“Do you think Denise could hitch a ride for a few weeks, like you and Miss Esther do?”
“Probably,” he says, eyeballing me with confusion and curiosity. “Why?”
“Oh, nothin’,” I say, certain he’ll laugh if I tell him what I’m thinking. But still… “I want to help.”
“Yeah?”
I nod tentatively. “The Yo-Yo’s in April,” I say, realizing just how dumb my idea sounds. “The grand prize for my division is a thousand dollars.”
Orv doesn’t laugh, at least not on the outside. Nor does he roll his eyes, a reflex much harder to suppress than an errant chuckle. But he also doesn’t speak. At all.
“So…” I continue, “…maybe I can, uh, come up with some of the cash, and we won’t have to go on credit or whatever.” Before I catch myself, I flap my hand through the air like Marie. (Oh, God, now I’m adopting her mannerisms!) “Even if I don’t win, there’s runner-up prizes,” I add. “Hundreds of dollars worth, I think.”
Orv shoots me one of his rare nice-guy smiles (man, the dude is stingy with affection). “Every little bit helps,” he says with a tinge of optimism.
Right then, the screen door clanks open and in comes Denise with a shopping bag full of shattered…glass?...plastic? “I’m putting this in the garbage,” she tells Orv and me. “Make sure you don’t cut yourselves.”
* * *
Since Marie and Duncan flitted back into town, I’ve been shortchanging Harvey at The Pit. And he needs me more now than ever, business having roughly quadrupled on the news of Lex Arlington’s support of, and—yes!—participation in, the Yo-Yo.
I check in a shipment of bicycle helmets and begin displaying them in place of the ones that have recently sold. Harvey likes bold color palettes: lime green, electric blueberry, purple pizzazz, all of which feature prominently in our protective headgear.
“So, Bobbi,” Harvey says as he tears down a bike in preparation for another rebuild job, “have you managed to locate Buttercup?”
Just the mention of that scruffy feline has me ready to burst into tears. I gulp before remarking, “Nah. He’s gotten off somewhere good this time.” My thoughts hang up on Tom for a moment, how he selflessly searched for the ragamuffin with me until…
Harvey slips the wrench he’s been using back into his rolling toolbox and says, “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“Me?” I ask like a moron; there’s no one else here.
He joins me in front of the helmets, plucks the blueberry one off its hook. “Your birthday’s right around the corner, isn’t it?”
“A week from today,” I say.
He holds the helmet up to my head, as if he’s mentally trying it on me. “Think this’ll match your bike okay?” he asks. “Because you’ve got no business risking your skull out there.”
My heart swells with happiness, because even though I can’t stand those obtrusive things making my scalp sweat and itch, compressing my temples and gouging their straps into my double chin, I know Harvey’s only trying to protect me. “It’s perfect,” I say as he hands it to me.
Harvey grins. “Happy Birthday. A little early, but…”
I jiggle the helmet onto my head, adjust its straps wide enough to fit and then click the thing into place. “Not bad,” I say with a nod.
Harvey gives the helmet a satisfied rap of his knuckles and says, “Stellar. Just the thing to help me sleep at night.”
Is it wrong for a teenage girl to kiss an old dude (on the cheek, of course)? An old dude for whom she works? An old dude who, once upon a time, was her high school principal? An old dude
who is a perfect gentleman and, in fact, may very well be gay?
I don’t bother riddling out the answers to these questions but instead sling my arms around Harvey’s shoulders and plant one a few inches in front of his ear. He startles briefly and then returns my hug. And my kiss. To the helmet.
chapter 12
TOM IS waiting outside The Pit when I get off work, his BMX balanced on its side against the curb, where he squats over a cluster of stones he’s arranged into a rough pyramid. Behind him on the sidewalk is a knotted plastic shopping bag, its contents obscured.
Obviously, he’s here for me.
As a girl of enhanced size, I’d like to point out that, although some large people are easy to hear coming—puffy breaths, slacks rustling between their thighs, the slap of meaty footsteps—others, like me, can be quite stealthy, even to the point of imperceptibility.
I clear my throat to let Tom know I’ve slithered up next to him.
“Oh,” he says, jumping to his feet and brushing his jeans off. His nose twitches nervously. “Hi.”
I have never found Tom Cantwell more darling than I do right this moment, yet I can’t think of a thing to say. “What are you…?”
“I didn’t know when you’d be getting…” He glances at the sun as if he’s checking a watch. “…uh, out here.”
“The Pit closes early on Fridays now,” I say with a tilt of my head in the shop’s direction. “Harvey joined a knitting club.”
“That guy…” Tom says, chuckling. “I don’t know…” When his eyes lift to meet mine, I get a sudden urge to let him screw me. A bolt of lightning in my netherland.
I shake off the sensation and, in Harvey’s defense, argue, “He’s all right.”
Tom rights the BMX and mounts it cockeyed, one foot balanced on a pedal and the other on the sidewalk, where it threatens to strike up a game of footsie with me. When I reach for his shopping bag, he takes an abrupt dive, beating me to it.
“What’s that?” I say, not bothering to disguise my curiosity.
He loops the bag around his wrist, where it dangles and periodically smacks against the bike’s steering column. “I’m headed to Bob’s Lunch,” he tells me, adroitly changing the subject. “Wanna come?”
“They’re open?” I have been to Bob’s Lunch—a ramshackle diner-esque eatery by the railroad tracks with actual greasy spoons—plenty of times with Gramp, but always at noon-ish. We are now solidly in supper territory.
“ ‘Bob’s Lunch’ is a misnomer,” Tom tells me. “They should drop the ‘lunch’ and just call it Bob’s.”
I take a couple of lazy steps toward the Schwinn and say, “It’s a what?”
He hops a tire up onto the curb. “MIS-nomer,” he repeats. “Badly named; wrongly named. It means something like that, in Latin anyway.”
Bob’s Lunch is at least a mile from The Pit. Maybe more. I point the Schwinn in the right direction. “What are you, one of those idiot-savants?” I joke. Gramp adored the movie Rain Man, which, until he died, we watched—and rewatched—every Christmas Eve and Easter morning. I think he fancied himself a bit like the Dustin Hoffman character: a mental genius who couldn’t punch his way out of a paper bag.
“Possibly,” Tom says, not seeming the least bit insulted.
He kickstarts the BMX and floats out in front of me. As I pedal along behind him, I realize that this lovely boy, a boy I don’t deserve and one who has no business being interested in a tubbo like me in the first place, just may be the fairytale. My Prince Charming. The boy of this girl’s dreams.
Tom leads us the back way around to Bob’s Lunch, the restaurant’s lot nothing more than a double-wide driveway rearing up to a defunct dance studio and a discount commercial bakery. We prop our bikes on either side of a wobbly tree and head around the corner for the entrance, Tom’s shopping bag tucked under his arm, our fingertips brushing incidentally as we walk.
Tom holds the door and, once we’re comfortably inside, waits for me to select the seating (a good thing, since the booths here are too slender to accommodate my inflated jellyroll).
I pull a chair away from the nearest table and plunk down gracelessly (note to self: in the future, aim for the comportment of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis or Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge).
Tom settles opposite me, and I track that shopping bag of his as if we’re playing our own little shell game, him the streetwise huckster and me the unsuspecting tourist willing to toss away five bucks on a battle of skill and wit. I can’t bend over to check (too obvious), but I’m almost certain he’s clamped the mysterious bag between his thigh and the chair. But where will it go next?
“They’ve got good sweet potato fries here,” he tells me, skidding a menu over the tabletop. “I’ll split ‘em with you, if you want.”
At least he doesn’t assume I’m a hog. “Sure,” I say. I scan the menu and suggest, “Oh...and the fried pickles. We could get those.” In addition to Milky Ways, which, I’m proud to say, I haven’t ingested since the quest for Buttercup (I gave the one from Marlowe’s to Denise), it’s highly likely I’m addicted to fried pickles. Thank God, I don’t come across them too often.
He shrugs. “All right.”
I look around and notice that we must’ve hit Bob’s Lunch during a lull; there’s not an employee in sight. Or a customer, for that matter. “Where is everyone?”
“I dunno,” says Tom, following my gaze.
We languish in silence for a minute or two before I cock my head and, once again, ask, “So…what’s in the bag?”
There really isn’t a way to describe the look that comes over Tom’s face, but if I had to put words to it, I’d say it’s a regretful pity-smile with a twist of care and hope.
I hear plastic rustling under the table, and then something begins tapping at my knee. “Take it,” Tom says.
I grope along my thigh until my hand finds the bag, which I draw to my lap and struggle to unknot. Meanwhile, Tom’s foot jackrabbits off the pedestal between us so forcefully that the table rocks out of line with its row. I get the bag undone and peer inside, dumbfounded by what I see. “Uh…” I manage to say, my breath caught in my throat. “I…”
“You don’t know yet, do you?” he asks sweetly, as if the baby I might be carrying could be his.
I shake my head, clamp my lip under my teeth and let the tears go. My period is as disappeared as Buttercup.
Tom’s eyes gloss over as if he may cry too. “You should find out,” he tells me, “for sure.”
I coil the bag around the pregnancy test and clear the wetness from my cheeks with my fingertips. “I will,” I say. “Thank you.”
Before anyone from Bob’s Lunch can make an appearance, we agree to a rain check and slip out into the dusky evening, our fingers intertwined and the heaviness of love in our hearts.
* * *
I haven’t touched the scale or the pregnancy test, each holding its own brand of terror.
“Anyone need the bathroom?” I call to Orv and Denise, who are nuzzled together on the couch, opposite the jerry-rigged window. “’Cause I’m gonna take a shower.” With only one bathroom in the house, it’s always polite to ask.
“Go ahead,” shouts Orv, his tone giving me the impression he’s about to savor some alone time with Denise.
My bedroom is only one door down from the bathroom, kitty-corner to Orv and Denise’s room. I make a quick check of the hallway before scuttling through with my pajamas, a towel, the scale, and the pregnancy test, all clutched in a heap at my chest.
The lock on the bathroom door is busted (that little button on the handle just pops back out, no matter how many times you shove it in), so I snatch a jug of bleach from under the sink and jam it between the door and the vanity, which probably won’t stop anyone from bursting in on me, but gives me an acceptably false sense of security.
I draw a deliberate breath. Okay, here goes, I think as I tear into the scale’s cardboard packaging. I’m not sure I’ll have the guts to ask the
pregnancy question, but the weight issue I’m prepared to confront.
It takes me a few minutes to get the batteries properly installed and the digital readout programmed for my age and height, but soon I’m poised toe-to-scale, a knot of anxiety roiling in my stomach. I take the step (why prolong the agony?), stare down at the display with a mixture of dread and hope. Last I knew, I clocked in at a solid two twenty. But as the numbers settle, they hover in the high one hundreds. One ninety-seven, one ninety-eight. I’ve lost over twenty pounds? No way. I hop off the scale and then back on again, and the results are the same: one ninety-eight point two. I want to scream.
Suddenly I’m hopeful about the pregnancy test too, since, if I were preggo, I should be gaining weight, not losing it.
The pregnancy test is even more complicated to operate than the scale, particularly since its directions are microscopic and printed mostly in foreign languages.
I read and reread the English version until I’m sure I’ve got at least a vague grasp of the testing procedure, which requires me to aim my pee at a tiny little stick (presumably without bathing my hand in backsplash or dropping the stick into the toilet bowl). Alternately, the instructions suggest I may pee into a cup, dip the stick just-so into the pee, and proceed as directed.
Another good thing about Denise (besides the fact that she loves me more than my parents do) is that she’s kind of a germaphobe. Consequently, we always have a stack of Dixie cups in the medicine cabinet. I pull back the mirror and pilfer one from her stash, then peel the wrapper off the pregnancy test and rest the stick on the vanity. Owing to my size and relative klutziness (not to mention my complete lack of experience in these matters), it takes a good bit of effort for me to cajole my pee into the cup (so imagine the trouble I would’ve had if I’d tried the direct-to-stick method).
