by A. E. Cannon
“I did a report on Brazil in the fifth grade,” Quark says. “That was a few years ago, of course, but I suspect much of the information still pertains.”
“Dude! Lucky for me,” I say.
“Brazil,” begins Quark, “is a beautiful country full of rain forests that shelter a rich and varied bird population….”
When we pull into the Reel Life parking lot, Quark (the Brazilian bird expert) surprises me some more.
“I think I’ll come inside and—you know—rent a DVD,” he says.
First the drum solo. Now this.
I’m pretty sure the last time Quark saw a movie was when he and I were kids and my mom took us to see The Little Mermaid at the old Villa Theater with her and Maggie. The experience put Quark off of movies for good. I think it also made him a little afraid of my mother. He gets that deer-in-the-headlights look whenever she says hello to him, like he’s terrified she’s going to stuff him in the trunk of her car and force him to watch The Little Mermaid again.
“A DVD, Quark?” I whistle as I crawl out of the car. “Wow!”
“So,” he says, slamming his door shut, “what do you recommend?”
What would you recommend to someone like Quark if you were me?
“Well, we have some very good documentaries,” I say.
Quark actually lets rip with a snort of contempt, which surprises me as much as the drum solo and the sudden interest in finding a good DVD. Quark is not a snorter by nature. One of the things I like best about Quark, in fact, is that he never snorts when I say something stupid. Which is often. Which is why I appreciate the way Quark usually lets my comments wash over him like waves on a beach.
“Are you okay?” I ask as we walk through the parking lot together. “You’re pretty much not acting like yourself tonight.”
“I’m fine,” he says. “I just want to watch something else besides a documentary now and then. I am a human being, you know, Ed.”
I clutch my head as I stagger through the front door and bellow loudly (like the Elephant Man), “I’m a human being! I’m not an animal! I’M A HUMAN BEING!”
Startled, several Reel Life customers look up from the racks and stare. Quark blinks in confusion. T. Monroe purses his thin lips and shoots me a prissy look. Scout busts loose with a hearty laugh.
“Six o’clock on the money,” Ali says. “You’re getting better, McIff.”
“Thanks,” I say quickly. Also respectfully. Without making eye contact.
I glance up at Quark to see if he enjoyed my impromptu Elephant Man monologue, but he isn’t paying attention to me. He’s way too busy looking at Scout, who’s working with T. Monroe behind the front counter.
“Do you think it’s a sin to accidentally swallow a fingernail you’ve bitten off when you’re supposed to be fasting?” T. Monroe is asking Scout.
“T. Monroe is a Jesus freak,” I explain under my breath to Quark.
“Do not disrespect my man T. Monroe,” says Ali, suddenly materializing behind me and Quark. “He knows exactly who he is, and he keeps the rest of us honest.”
I mumble a hasty apology to Ali, while Quark keeps staring at Scout.
Actually, “staring” is putting it way, way, way too mildly. He is “gazing” at Scout as though she were the moon. Any minute now his eyeballs are gonna pop out and roll around the carpet.
“Scout,” I say, “you remember my neighbor, Quark.”
Scout smiles. “Sure. How are you, Quark?”
Quark stands rooted to the spot like the tallest tree in a forest of very tall trees. His mouth is slightly ajar, like the door of a large American car.
“Did you come to hang out with me and Ed, or can I actually help you find something?”
Quark talks like he’s in a dream. “Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you very, very, very much, Scout.” He blushes—blushes!—when he says her name.
Scout gives a light shrug and a friendly smile. “No problemo. What kind of movies do you like?”
“Don’t listen to him,” I volunteer. “He probably likes films with subtitles.”
Quark is the kind of guy who wouldn’t mind reading to pass the time at a movie.
“I didn’t ask you what Quark likes, Ed.” Scout frowns at me. “I asked Quark.” She bathes him in her best Employee-of-the-Month smile.
“I enjoy the so-called screwball comedies from the 1930s.” Quark says this in the exact same way a very bad actor says lines he has memorized (barely) for a very bad scene in a very bad movie. Naturally I do not believe him for a second. Screwball comedies? Please. This is clearly a term he’s recently picked up while listening to NPR or surfing the ’net.
“Quark,” I say sternly. “Am I going to have to take you into the men’s room and give you a swirlie? Don’t stand there telling Scout you like screwball comedies. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“But I love screwball comedies,” Scout says, her entire countenance lighting up like a scoreboard at a soccer game. “Topper, Bringing Up Baby, The Awful Truth. Those are such incredibly great movies!”
“Yes,” says Quark the Liar. “I agree.”
“Which is your favorite?” Scout leans across the counter and glows at him.
“It would be difficult for me to say,” Quark muses.
“No kidding,” I say.
“I know what you mean.” Scout nods at Quark while ignoring me completely. “Although I pretty much love any film with Cary Grant in it.”
“Yes,” says Quark the Double Liar. “I agree. Cary Grant is ‘the man.’”
I groan. Do my ears deceive me?
“Hey!” Scout says, ignoring me still. “Maybe we could have a screwball comedy film festival. We could sit together in my basement, eating popcorn—the real kind, drenched in butter, not microwaved—and watch old movies for hours and hours.”
Quark’s jaw unhinges again.
As for me, I just stand there in my frilly white Reel Life shirt, gaping at my two best friends. To tell you the truth, I feel like I’m watching an updated version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers set in Salt Lake City.
FIRST ALIEN:
Do you see the male earthling called Quark and the female earthling called Scout?
SECOND ALIEN:
Yes, O High Commander. I see them.
FIRST ALIEN:
Let’s go snatch their bodies and turn them into sorry movie geeks who enjoy the so-called screwball comedies from the 1930s.
SECOND ALIEN:
I hear and obey.
One of the really great things about Scout is that she is an Honorary Guy. She likes guy stuff, including guy movies. Whenever Ali and Scout and I have to close on a Saturday night, we’ll put on a Jackie Chan flick, and Scout almost dies on the spot from pure cinematic happiness. She loves action movies. NOT screwball comedies from the 1930s.
Trust me on this one. I, Ed McIff, know Scout Arrington inside and out.
Quark hangs around for a good thirty minutes, shambling after Scout. If I didn’t know Quark as well as I do, I’d almost say he has a thing for her.
Quark? Interested? Oh ha, frickety ha! Please don’t make me laugh!
Quark finally makes a move to leave about the time a group of Trekkies dressed as their favorite characters walks through the door. Although Trekkies drive me crazy, I have to admit that the guy who’s dressed as Worf looks pretty sharp. Maybe I could go as Worf to Ali’s costume ball and earn a little respect for a change.
“Dude,” I say to Worf. “Where’d you get your outfit?”
He answers me in a guttural language that sounds like the Orcs in Lord of the Rings.
“He’s speaking Klingon,” Captain Picard informs me. He turns to Worf and issues a crisp mandate. “As your commanding officer, I advise that you speak to him in his own language.”
Quark looks intrigued by this unexpected exchange between Reel Life customers, while Scout works hard to swallow a smile.
“That would be English,” I tell Worf.
“And also Brazilian,” Scout adds. “He’s bilingual.”
“As am I,” Worf says. “I started teaching myself Klingon when I was in the fifth grade.”
“Impressive,” says Quark. Unlike me and Scout, he’s serious.
“Everything you need to know about the language is online if you’re interested,” says Worf. He turns to me. “You can rent an outfit at the Costume Shoppe on Thirty-third South, by the way.”
“Great,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Gay’be’!” he says—whatever that means.
As Worf and his posse walk away, Quark reluctantly picks up his pile of fifteen DVDs, and smiles one last time at Scout as he walks toward the exit.
“Yes, well,” he says, still smiling over his shoulder at Scout. “Thanks again.”
“My pleasure.” Scout beams back.
BAM! Quark misses the door by a mile and plows straight into the plate-glass window. He hits it with such force that the DVDs fly out of his arms like a flock of birds.
I burst out laughing. Meanwhile, Quark stoops over to pick up the DVDs and manages to bang his head into the window again.
Scout glowers at me and then scrambles to Quark’s side to lend a helping hand. “Are you okay?” she asks.
“Jeez, Quark,” I say. “Since when did you start using your melon as a wrecking ball?”
Quark chooses to ignore this.
“Thank you so much,” he says instead to Scout, as she piles DVDs into his waiting arms. “May I also compliment you on having such beautiful windows. They are the cleanest, most beautiful windows I have ever seen in a business establishment. I mean that sincerely.”
As this point, I am nearly DEAD with sympathetic embarrassment for Quark.
What’s sympathetic embarrassment? you ask. You know how some husbands start suffering from morning sickness when their wives get pregnant? That’s called sympathetic pregnancy. Well, sympathetic embarrassment is when you start feeling the extreme social pain someone else SHOULD be feeling for himself because he’s done something stupid. Such as crashing into a plate-glass window twice, for example.
“McIff!” Ali barks.
I am, as always, all ears when it comes to Ali.
“Help your boy out to his car.”
I sketch Ali a quick salute and do as I am bid.
“What is with you?” I ask Quark as we walk back through the parking lot.
His mouth is pressed into a thin line. He doesn’t answer.
“You look like you just swallowed your lips, Quark,” I point out.
He still doesn’t say anything—just unlocks his trunk and dumps all those great screwball comedies (from the 1930s) inside.
“Hey! Careful with the merchandise there, pal!” I warn.
Quark slams the trunk shut.
“Screwball comedies?” I say. “What was that all about? If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you had a thing for Scout! Ha! Ha! You and Scout!”
Quark bends over to get into my face. His cheeks are blotchy and his nose is red, besides which it is starting to swell.
“Shut up, Ed,” he says. “Just shut the bloody hell up. And by the way, you can find your own damn ride home!”
Shaken, I walk back into Reel Life.
“Is Quark okay?” Scout asks.
“I honestly don’t know,” I say.
Scout chews on her lower lip thoughtfully as she stares out at the parking lot. “He’s a good guy, isn’t he.”
“He is,” I say, “although I’m sorry if he bugged you, Scout. Neither Quark nor I get out much, which makes us both act like dorks when we’re in public.”
“Relax.” Scout laughs. “He didn’t annoy me at all. In fact, I enjoyed talking to him.”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
Here’s the thing. Quark is strange. There’s just no getting around that fact. And I do give him a pretty bad time because that’s the only way I have of keeping his Mr. Wizard weirdness from making me crazy. Still, underneath the goofiness, Quark is a truly decent person. One of the best. And I would have felt really, really bad if Scout, without knowing what a good guy he is, had turned Quark into a joke behind his back.
I’m just getting ready to go on my ten p.m. break when Ellie walks through the door, looking as fresh as flowers.
Well, maybe not flowers. That’s the kind of clichéd and stale comparison that English teachers like to humiliate their students for making. But Ellie does look fresh. And beautiful, too, with straight and shining hair falling long down her back.
Suddenly I can see the two of us in a movie together.
Ellie walks into the video store where I’m working. Wearing a white hat with a very large brim, she turns so that I (the world-weary and cynical owner of the store) catch my breath as I see her lovely face.
ME:
(doing a voice-over) Of all the cheap, two-bit video joints, she has to walk into mine.
Quickly I touch my hair. I’m sure you’ll be relieved to learn it’s still there.
“Alô, Ellie,” I say with a big Brazilian smile. “Como vai?”
I can’t believe it. Her blue eyes actually a) brighten and b) widen with delighted surprise. For the record, this is the sort of reaction that Ed never gets.
“Sergio! I was hoping you’d be here tonight!” Ellie glances around until she spies Scout. “Hey, Scout!” Ellie calls over the heads of customers while waving enthusiastically.
Scout, who looks like she’s just swallowed a large dish of stewed prunes, returns Ellie’s greeting with the sort of small, stiff wave favored by members of the British royal family.
“Isn’t she the best?” Ellie asks, turning her blue gaze on me again.
“The best,” I agree. Then dropping my voice, I add, “And so are you.”
Ellie (who turns an attractive shade of shell pink) smiles shyly at me.
Okay. I can feel it. I am totally losing my head.
“Say something in Portuguese for me, Sergio,” Ellie says.
I start counting, rolling my r’s like crazy so that they sound just like big, wild waves crashing over movie stars making out on the beach.
Ellie’s smile broadens. “What are you saying, Sergio? It sounds so…romantic. Is it?”
“Yes,” I say. “It’s a love poem about—”
“Numbers,” says Scout as she walks up behind me. “Brazilians love doing math so much, they write romantic poems about numbers. Isn’t that right, Sergio?”
I feel like a balloon after the air has just whooshed out of it. “Sim,” I say. “That is very true. My people love math. We cannot help ourselves.”
Ellie looks totally confused but manages to rally. “Oh. That’s really interesting. I love learning interesting things about other cultures. Don’t you, Scout?”
“Sim,” says Scout, glaring at me.
Just then Ali whistles for me like he’s Captain von Trapp and I am one of his sissy sons in a sailor suit.
“Sir!”
“Go on break,” he orders. “Scout, baby, I need you over here.”
“Gotta run,” says Scout. “Adeus.”
“Do you want to go on break with me?” I ask Ellie. Full of smiles for Sergio, she nods.
I buy Ellie and me some Snelgrove’s ice cream at Squirrel Brothers next door. She orders burnt almond fudge in a waffle cone, which happens to be Scout’s favorite too. Together we sit at a café table outside and stare at the sky.
“There sure are a lot of stars out tonight,” she says. “I’ve noticed that you don’t usually see this many here because of all the city lights. At home there are stars to spare.”
Did I just hear a touch of loneliness in her voice?
“Do you miss home?” I ask.
She looks at me and smiles brightly. “No.”
I look at her, not sure if she’s telling me the truth.
“What about you, Sergio?” Ellie asks. “Do you miss Brazil?”
I squirm a little. “I don’t remember that much about it, to tell you
the truth.”
She looks disappointed, and the very last thing I want to do right now is disappoint this girl.
“I do, however, remember the rain forests that shelter a rich and varied bird population,” I say.
“Oh, I love birds! I love the music they make!” Ellie says. “Tell me about the birds, Sergio.”
I look at the sky above. “See all those stars up there? Well, in Brazil there are as many birds as there are stars.”
“Birds like stars,” Ellie breathes.
“Yes, only they’re all different colors. Green and pink and peacock blue with tail feathers that stream out behind them so that they look like—” I draw a blank.
“Like shooting stars.” Ellie finishes my simile for me.
“Exactly! Like shooting stars.”
“Imagine,” she whispers. “Birds like singing shooting stars.”
And here’s the thing. I really can imagine it just the way I said it—bright jungle skies filled with birds swirling around and around like shooting stars, green and pink and peacock blue.
Ellie and I look straight into each other’s eyes. We don’t say words.
We don’t need to.
The Letter Ellie Wrote
Dear Mom and Grandma,
I saw my friends Scout and Sergio again tonight, and we had a great time! Sergio told me some very interesting things about Brazil. Did you know the skies are constantly filled with all kinds of birds there? Meanwhile, Mary keeps buying me sinful chocolates from a place called Cummings on Seventh East—I like the Rum Victoria the best—and Rick keeps fixing these amazing dinners—clam linguine and Caesar salad last night.
How could I not be happy here? Stop worrying about me. That’s an order!
Tell grumpy Mr. Hurst at the grocery store that I actually miss him. Say hello to Mrs. Hafen and yummy baby Isaac next door. Promise Boots I’ll bring him home a can of gourmet cat food. But only if he stops picking on the dogs.
Love always,
Ellie
P.S. What’s blooming in the garden right now, Gran?
THE EMAIL ELLIE WANTED TO SEND
