Brothers, Boyfriends & Other Criminal Minds

by April Lurie

  He laughed. “Oh, okay, I get it. Well, have fun, but don't get too carried away. I guess I'll see you around?”

  I flicked my hair and yawned a little. “Yeah, sure, see you around.”

  As he walked away, Brandi patted me on the back. “Congratulations, April. I knew you'd see the light. Eventually.”

  “Wow,” Olympia said, watching him from behind, “he's really disappointed. In fact, I think you just broke his heart.”

  “Olympia, don't encourage her,” Brandi warned. “He's bad news, and it's about time April realized it.”

  I sighed, popped a few carob-covered peanuts into my mouth, and as Brandi and Olympia went back to their conversation about Julie Barone and how she really should be kicked off Boosters since she couldn't even do a cartwheel, I wondered what in the world I was trying to prove. If I was being honest with myself, I'd ditch the two SP goody-goodies, follow Dominick to the band room, listen to some cool music, and collect on my next kiss. I know that sounds pathetic, but I guess when you're in love, you don't exactly think straight. I mean, really, look at Matt.

  The rest of the day dragged on, and when the last bell finally rang I picked up Larry from class and the two of us headed home. I was feeling pretty down since Brandi and Olympia had choir practice that afternoon and the only thing I had to look forward to over the weekend, beside worrying about Matt, was a tennis date with Bert and Walt. At the moment I didn't even have Larry to talk to since he was busy drumming on all the garbage lids that were still out from that morning.

  As we walked along the avenue, I started thinking about what a jerk Dominick had been lately, but that got me even more depressed, so I tried to come up with an idea for the creative writing assignment Mr. Cornelius had given us. We had three weeks to complete a thousand-word short story. He hadn't given us a specific topic but said “write what you know,” whatever that meant. My problem was, I didn't know much, and besides the fact that I was in the pay of Soft Sal Luciano, my life was pretty boring.

  But just as I was considering a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story with Matt as the protagonist, I heard someone call my name behind me. “April! Larry! Wait up!” I turned around and saw Dominick running toward us. His guitar case was strapped to his back, bouncing up and down with each step.

  Larry stopped drumming, and a big smile spread across his face. “Hey, Dom! What's happening, man?” Since Larry had been initiated into the band he'd become fluent in rock star lingo. If I hadn't been in such a lousy mood I would have thought it was kind of funny.

  When Dominick caught up to us, he put one arm around Larry and said, “Hey, not much, dude. Just wanted to say hi to my favorite drummer.” Then he flashed me that amazingly cute smile. “So, April, what's going on?”

  He said this like it was a perfectly normal question— like the two of us had been shooting the breeze all week. “Um, nothing,” I said. “School's out and I'm walking Larry home.”

  He laughed. “Well, yeah, I can see that. What I'm trying to say is, maybe we can do something, you know, hang out, listen to music? You said we liked a lot of the same bands, right? And besides”—he leaned in a little closer— “we had a nice time in the playground that day, didn't we? I know I did.”

  Before I could answer, Larry said, “Yeah! Sure, Dom! You can hang out with us! Right, April?”

  I rolled my eyes, said, “Whatever,” and walked ahead of them.

  “Hey, come on!” Dominick called. “What's with you? Why won't you talk to me?”

  Because, I thought, kissing someone in the playground and then ignoring them for a week is not acceptable. Even if you are Mick Jagger.

  I continued at a rapid pace, keeping my distance, but I couldn't help overhearing the two rock stars talk about how their band was really coming together and how awesome their first gig was going to be.

  “Hey, Larry,” Dominick said, “I really need to talk to April, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, Dom.”

  Larry went back to drumming the garbage cans while Dominick scooted up beside me. I tried to maintain my casual, blasé attitude, but it was getting more difficult with him standing so close. “Listen,” he said, “I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to talk this week. I had some stuff I had to take care of, but now everything's cool, and I thought we could hang out.”

  I wondered if the “stuff” he had to take care of had anything to do with Roxanne DeBenedetto. “Oh?” I said. “What about Bianca?”

  “Who?”

  I could hardly believe those words had come out of my mouth. I shook my head. “Nothing. I just … I don't hang out, okay? After school I have to take care of my little brother, Sammy. He's in kindergarten.”

  “That's cool,” Dominick said. “I can help. I like little kids.”

  I looked at him. His wavy brown hair had grown even longer since the summer, and as he tucked a lock behind his ear, I noticed a gold hoop in his newly pierced lobe. On top of this, today he was wearing an especially evil-looking Black Sabbath T-shirt—the one that read SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH and featured a swarm of death demons hovering over their next mortal victim. It would have been enough to send my mother over the edge. “Um, I don't think so.”

  He leaned over, peering into my face. “Why not?” That was when I saw the silver marijuana-leaf charm dangling from a string of hemp around his neck. There was simply no way I could ever introduce him to my parents.

  “Because my brother doesn't like strangers.”

  He flashed me that killer smile, and I felt something melt inside. “But … if I come to your house and meet him, we won't be strangers for long.”

  It was hard not to smile back. “No, I guess not.”

  “Please?” He nudged me a little. “Give me another chance? I promise not to bite.” He turned around and pointed to Larry. “Besides, if you're worried, Larry can be our chaperone.”

  I looked at Larry tapping out a rhythm on the nearby fire hydrant. Some chaperone. “Well …” I figured we'd have about an hour until Matt came home from basketball practice and my parents got home from work. The only problem was that I'd have to think of some way to bribe Sammy into keeping his mouth shut about our new house guest. “All right, I guess you can come over. For a little while.”

  “Great,” Dominick said. He smiled and patted his guitar case. “And if you're a good girl I might even play you a song.”

  My mother had this system worked out where Sammy walked home from school accompanied by a third-grade boy, Johnny Falcone, who lived around the corner from us. The two of them were supposed to open the back door with a key hidden in the old milk box, wait in our kitchen, and have a “healthy snack” before I showed up about fifteen minutes later. It was kind of funny because my mother thought Johnny was a “mature and responsible boy,” but what she didn't know was that by the time I arrived, he and Sammy were parked in front of our TV watching Dark Shadows and stuffing their faces with Yodels and Ring Dings from Johnny's lunch box. She would have died.

  Today, however, was different. As Dominick, Larry, and I neared my house, Sammy poked his head out the front door, and when he saw me, he jumped onto the porch and started waving his arms around. “April! Guess who's here? It's the girl from the park!”

  The girl from the park. This didn't sound good. Quickly, I scanned the street to see if Soft Sal, Gorgeous Vinny, or Frankie the Crunch was spying on our house, but except for a few kids playing jump rope, the block was empty. I raced up the steps; Dominick and Larry followed. “Sammy, what are you talking about?” I opened the door and peeked inside, but as far as I could see, no one was there.

  “Wow!” Sammy said, ignoring my question and pointing to Dominick. “You're the guy! The one”—he started to laugh—”the one who mooned us on the baseball field!”

  Immediately, Larry started laughing like a hyena. I didn't even think he knew what mooning was. “Hey, Dom, that's cool, man! Did you really do that? Moon them?”

  I wasn't quite sure, but I think Dominick was blushing. He squ
atted down beside Sammy and said, “Actually, I was mooning that punk Frankie Ferraro. He thinks he's hot crap at baseball. Believe me, he deserved it.”

  “Ohhhh,” Sammy said, nodding. Absently, he scratched his ear with the Chewbacca action figure he'd been holding in his hand.

  When Dominick saw Chewy, he said, “Hey, you're a Star Wars fan? I am too!”

  Sammy smiled wide. “I've got the whole collection. Wanna see?”

  “Yeah. Definitely.”

  Sammy took Dominick by the hand and pulled him into the foyer while Larry and I trailed after them. “Sammy?” I said, looking around. “What girl are you talking about? I don't see anyone.” But then I heard voices coming from the basement, and a moment later someone was calling my name.

  It figured that the one time I brought Dominick to my house, the place became Grand Central Station.

  “April? April, is that you?” Now I was really confused. The person calling me sounded like Matt, but (1) he was supposed to be at basketball practice, and (2) it was the first time in years he'd actually used my name and not some kind of monkey derivative.

  The four of us padded downstairs and there, to my surprise, in the middle of the floor, stood Matt and Bettina in full Shakespearean costume. “Come on down, sis!” Matt said, waving us on. “Oh, and bring your friends. Hi, Larry!” When Matt's eyes landed on Dominick, I braced myself. But what came out of his mouth was about the last thing I'd ever have expected. “And I see we have a musician here! A guitar player!” He took Bettina's hand and twirled her around. “Maybe he can play a song for us.”

  I swear, either Matt was on drugs or he'd gone completely psycho.

  Dominick leaned over to me. “Wow, your family is like totally crazy.”

  Tell me something I don't know.

  Most of the furniture in the room had been pushed out of the way to create a miniature stage, except for the sofa, where Little Joe and his cousin Marcella sat sharing a bag of my mother's organic whole-wheat pretzels. Little Joe stopped chewing and stared at Dominick. It was not a friendly stare.

  Meanwhile Bettina walked over to me. “Hi, April, it's nice to meet you. I'm Bettina.” She gave me a quick hug, and I noticed that she smelled like Yardley's Old English Lavender. “Matt's told me a lot about you.”

  “He has ?”

  Sammy elbowed me. “See, I told you. It's the girl from the park. Only she's all dressed up.”

  Bettina laughed and tousled his hair. “That's right. Sammy showed me his four-leaf clover that day. Which was pretty awesome. I'd never seen one before.”

  Larry had been standing there with his mouth hanging open. Bettina smiled at him. “Hi, Larry. It's me. Bettina.”

  For a second I thought it was really weird that she knew Larry, but then I realized, Of course she does. Their fathers are in the same crime family.

  “But …,” Larry said, “it doesn't sound like you. You talk funny.”

  She laughed, reached over, and gave him a hug. “Oh, we're just rehearsing for a play, so I have to talk with this English accent.”

  Larry nodded slowly. “Ohhh.”

  Suddenly a loud “A-hem” came from the sofa.

  “Oh, sorry,” Bettina said. “This is my friend Marcella. She and Joe have been kind enough to be our audience.”

  “Hi, April,” Marcella said. “Actually, Joe and I were the only two suckers they could find. Right, Joe?”

  But Little Joe didn't even seem to hear her. He kept his eyes glued on Dominick and grunted. “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Anyway,” Bettina went on, “I hope you don't mind us taking over your house. Matt and I really need to rehearse.”

  “Oh … no, not at all.”

  “Thanks.” She strolled back to Matt, smiling mischievously. “Matt's having a little trouble with the suicide scene. He needs to learn how to die less, shall we say, dramatically?”

  Matt grinned. “Okay, Juliet. Remember, I've only been Romeo for a couple of weeks. Cut me a break.”

  They were doing this teasing-flirting thing and it embarrassed me. I mean, really, this was my brother—the guy with the pimples who hogged the bathroom and flexed in the mirror every morning.

  “Hey, Sammy,” Dominick said. “Can we see your Star Wars collection a little later? I love Romeo and Juliet.”

  Sammy shrugged. “Okay.”

  So the four of us took seats against the wall while Matt sprawled out in the middle of the floor. Held loosely between his hands was the same Fred Flintstone cup he'd used before, so apparently he'd already drunk the poison and died. He closed his eyes and Bettina knelt over him. She began to recite, “What's here? a cup closed in my true love's hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end….” Dominick scooted closer to me and put one hand on my knee. Little Joe's eye's narrowed into slits. “I will kiss thy lips. Haply some poison yet doth hang on them….”

  When Bettina finally kissed Matt, he grinned, opened one eye, and kissed her back. She gave him a quick slap. “Cut it out, Matt!” she said. “You're supposed to be dead!”

  “All right, all right.” This was seriously getting to be too much.

  Bettina picked up Sammy's toy sword. “… O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.” I had to admit she did a pretty good job of killing herself. It was certainly way better than Matt's sorry excuse the other night.

  As the two of them lay there motionless, Dominick started to clap. Loudly. “Wow!” he said. “That was awesome! Bravo!”

  Now Little Joe looked like he was about to burst. “Who the hell are you?” he blurted out.

  “Joe!” Marcella said. “That's rude!”

  Startled, Matt and Bettina sat up.

  “Oh, sorry,” Dominick said, looking around. “I guess I should have introduced myself. I'm Dominick DeMao. April, Larry, and I go to school together.”

  “Yeah,” Larry chimed in. “Me and Dom are in a band.”

  “Oh, really?” Little Joe said.

  Sammy piped up. “And Dom's a Star Wars fan. I'm gonna show him my collection.”

  Little Joe was obviously not impressed. I wasn't sure, but I thought his eyes had landed on Dominick's neck lace.

  Matt, however, was still in Shakespearean la-la land. He stroked Bettina's hair. “Hey, Joe, what's with you? Why are you giving this poor guy the third degree?”

  This was definitely not my brother.

  “Yeah,” Bettina said. “What's your problem, Joe?”

  Little Joe frowned. “Nothing. I'm not the one with the problem.” Then he stood up, shot a few more daggers in Dominick's direction, and stormed up the stairs.

  Dominick leaned over and whispered, “I think that guy Joe may have a thing for you. He sure as heck doesn't like me.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “He's my brother's friend, that's impossible.”

  Now Sammy was studying all the rock band stickers on Dominick's guitar case. “Hey, Dom?” he said. “Will you and Larry play us a song? Please?”

  Matt jumped up. “Great idea, Sammy! Enough rehearsing! Let's have some music! Let's dance!” He helped Bettina to her feet and twirled her around again. She started to laugh.

  This was going to be interesting. I'd lived with Matt my entire life and never once had I seen him shake his booty. Even to Jim Morrison.

  “I've got bongos up in my room,” Sammy said. “Larry can use those.”

  Instantly Larry whipped out his drumsticks and said, “Solid! Bongos! I can dig it!” Everyone laughed.

  “What do you say, Dom?” Matt said.

  Dominick shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Okay then, let's take this party upstairs. See if we can get Joe out of his funky mood.”

  When we reached the kitchen, Little Joe was sitting at the table, brooding over a cup of my mother's Red Zinger tea. “Come on, Joe,” Matt said. “Larry and Dom are gonna play a few songs for us. We're gonna party!”

  But Little Joe just sighed, sipped the tea, and gazed out the window. “Nah, no tha
nks. You guys go ahead. I'll stay here.”

  Matt shrugged. “All right, man, suit yourself.”

  The rest of us gathered in the living room while Dominick took a seat on the piano bench and began tuning his guitar. Sammy ran to his room for the bongos, and when he returned, he placed them in front of Larry.

  “So, do you guys like Skynyrd?” Dominick asked, still plucking the strings.

  Matt nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. Love Skynyrd.”

  “All right then.” Dominick strummed the guitar a few times and the sound filled the room. “We'll do a few of their tunes.” He turned to Larry. “Ready, man?”

  Larry did a drumroll. “Ready!”

  They started out with “Sweet Home Alabama” and after that went into “Gimme Three Steps.” At first I wasn't going to dance, but soon Bettina took my hand and pulled me into the center of the room. Before I knew it, all of us were shaking our booties around the living room like a bunch of crazy people. Let me tell you, it sure beat doing the Hustle with Brandi. We went on like that for a while, and then Matt started doing this stripper routine, lifting his tunic and showing us even more of his disgusting hairy legs. It was pretty hilarious.

  After that, Dominick and Larry started “Free Bird,” which is really slow and pretty in the beginning, so Matt took Bettina in his arms, and Marcella began slow-dancing with Sammy. Just as I was about to sit down and take a rest, Little Joe came out of the kitchen and said, “April, may I have this dance?” I was totally floored.

  “Um … okay.” At first I didn't know where to put my hands, I mean I'd never danced with one of Matt's friends before, but Little Joe took the lead. He held me a lot closer than I expected, and as we swayed back and forth I kept thinking about the bikini incident and could barely look him in the eye.