Also Known as Elvis (14 page)

He takes a deep breath and keeps his hand steady on my shoulder.

“What it is, is . . . I want you to come live with me, son. With Gerri and me. We both want you to. I told your mom this morning, and she says it's up to you. So think about it, will you? You don't have to answer me right now. Just think about it. That's all I'm asking.”

In an instant I go from total shock to wanting to kill my mom.

Harsh? Ya think?

But whoa, I mean, dude, one minute my mom needs me for everything from feeding her daughters to fixing the toilet, and the next minute it's, see ya, sayonara, ciao kiddo, go live with your dad. If ever there was a serious “what's up,” this is it.

I shrug my dad's hand off my shoulder and exit the Ranger as fast as I can.

“I'll call you tomorrow!” he calls after me.

Whatever.

From the sidewalk I can hear my mom inside the house yelling at Megan to stop watching TV and get to bed. This must wake Jessie up, because she's suddenly crying and my mom is screaming, “Now what!” And this makes Jessie cry louder and Megan turn up the volume of the
TV, and this insane laugh track turns the whole house into a sitcom.

I need to change the channel.

• • •

Inside Penny's old doghouse I try to make sense of my crazy life. Once upon a time, I must have been a happy baby and my mom and dad must have been happy parents. Right? I mean, even if it wasn't for long, there must have been a time when they were all
goo-goo
and
ga-ga
and
kitchy-kitchy-koo
whenever they saw me. Tickled my feet and made me laugh. Rubbed their faces in my belly and sang little songs about their sweet baby boy.

Kelsey was telling me once about this artist named Andy Warhol who said that in the future everybody would be famous for fifteen minutes. He must have said this a long time ago, because when you look at reality shows and YouTube and stuff like that, it's true. The future he was talking about is now.

So isn't it like that when you're born? Don't you get at least fifteen minutes of being famous to your parents? Of being the center of their universe? Of
being loved without anybody yelling or crying or leaving?

How come it falls apart? Steffi's dad left. Becca's dad left. My dad left. And now my mom couldn't care less if I leave.

Maybe I should.

I pull the picture of my dad and Gerri out of my pocket. There's enough light coming through the cracks in the broken boards that I can just make it out. All I see when I look at them is that they're happy. If I live with them, maybe I'll be happy, too. Maybe my mom knows that. Maybe she's saying I'll be better off without her and Megan and Jessie.

Maybe she's saying they'll be better off without me.

I'm so tired I can't even move. I fall asleep holding that photo, my head resting against the splintery inside of Penny's doghouse.

Sometime later, I feel my mom's hands on my arms.

“Come inside,” she says. “Come to bed.”

The next morning I wake up to find a note on the table by my bed. It's lying on top of the picture of Dad and Gerri.

“Hi, baby,” it starts. (Three guesses who it's from.) “I've taken the girls to camp. Kyra's mom is going to pick them up after for a playdate. You're off duty for the day! Your dad is coming by at twelve to take you to lunch. I couldn't remember if you have to work. If you do, let him know.

“Love you, Mom.

“P.S. I bet you thought I didn't know about your hideout. I'm glad I did.”

Rubbing my head (confusion balls exploding in my brain), I put the note back on the table and reach for the
Get Fuzzy
desk calendar Addie gave me after she and DuShawn broke up. Tomorrow is Saturday. My friends will be coming home. The first thing I'll want to do is walk over to Bobby's house.
He's the best person I can think of to help me figure this whole mess out.

But my dad might expect an answer before tomorrow. I'd text Addie or Joe, but it's still early, and they're on their last day of their vacations, and why ruin it for them? Besides, sometimes you really want to talk to somebody face-to-face. I could talk to Steffi, but then I come up with the crazy idea of biking out to Becca's house. Maybe it's not crazy, but it feels that way because I've never really talked to Becca about anything serious, other than Penny. I sure never asked her for advice. But hey, she's been through this whole divorce thing, and she lives with her mom and stepdad. So I convince myself that the idea is not crazy. I decide, as Addie would put it, that it's brilliant.

Turns out it's neither crazy nor brilliant. It's just bad.

Before she moved away, Becca lived right here in the village, just down the street from Addie. When they came back, her family moved into Graymoor Estates, this development a couple of
miles out of town where if you squint the houses all look the same: big and puffed up, like SUVs or those fuzzy boots the girls all wear. It's not like they're mansions or anything, but they're a whole lot nicer than any of the houses me and my other friends live in. And the streets have names like Willow Way and Warblers Lane. They're big on
W
s. Becca lives at 25 Windswept Court.

I text her to ask if it's okay for me to come and she says,
awesome.
Lowercase. No exclamation point. But still:
awesome.
So after a bowl of this weird health store version of Cheerios my mom gets (once a month she tries to get us to eat healthy), I pump some air in my tires and head off.

Graymoor Estates, here I come.

• • •

When I pull up in front of her house, Becca is lying out on a towel, working on a tan. You would think the first thing I would notice is that she's wearing a bikini top and short shorts, but instead I'm scanning the towel for sunblock. I don't see any.

“You never heard of ultraviolet rays?” I say,
dropping my bike. “You want to get skin cancer?”

If I could, I'd hit delete. But I've already hit send. It's confirmed: Like Buddy the Elf in that old Christmas movie, I am a Cotton-Headed Ninny Muggins.

“Wow,” she says. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Sorry. I just . . . you know, you don't want to get . . .”

“Skin cancer. Right.”

“Um, nice top,” I go, neatly moving the focus away from death-causing skin lesions to her breastal region. Nice move, Muggins.

“Wow,” Becca says again, this time meaning it and sitting up to give me a better look. “Thanks! I just bought it. It's JC Penney, but don't tell anybody.”

I zip my lips, then say, “Where's Max?”

Wrapping her arms around her legs, Becca rests her head on her knees. “Over at Cody's,” she tells me. “He's having a playdate with Charlie. It's hot out here. You want a Diet Coke?”

“Sure.”

For the next twenty minutes or so, it goes on like this, easy talk and Diet Cokes in Becca's kitchen, which looks like something on HGTV. In my head, I'm thinking how it's not so hard talking to girls, after all. I guess it's a skill I picked up this summer, like making sundaes and sweet potato fries. Pretty soon I'm imagining that this is
our
kitchen, Becca's and mine, and that we're married and have a couple of kids, who are outside playing (wearing
lots
of sunblock), and the thought of being married to Becca makes my face go hot. I can tell my cheeks must be red, but Becca doesn't say anything, not like that time when she pointed at my face and said she wanted a cherry on top just that color. She doesn't even seem to notice.

I'm trying to figure out a way to ask her what it's like having a stepdad and was it hard for her to move away from where her real dad lived when her parents got divorced, and I think I'm almost ready when there's a knock on the kitchen door. Three knocks, followed by two knocks, followed by one.

Becca's face lights up. “That's Cody!” she goes, running to the door.

And in walks Mr. Perfect Teenage Boy, carrying an armful of Perfect Puppy-Pandas, who are squirming to get free.

“Ooh, the babies!” Becca squeals. Taking Max from Cody, she lifts him up to her face and buries her nose in his belly. “Ooh, who's my scrumpshee-umpshee!”

I expect Cody to give me a guy look that says, Girls! What're you gonna do? But he doesn't. He just nods in my direction like I'm the plumber who's come to fix a leak under the sink and says, “Hey, how's it goin'?”

Then, turning back to Becca, he goes, “Beck, you gotta see this. I taught Max and Charlie this cool trick. Here, sit down on the floor and put your legs out in front of you.”

Beck?

And that's it. All of a sudden, we're right back in the Candy Kitchen the day Becca came in with Royal and Sara. It's like I don't exist. She's all
eyes on the puppies . . . and Cody. I don't even get a text message under the counter. Everything the puppies do and everything that Cody says make her giggle. The one time I say something—something I personally think is pretty darn funny—she just smiles politely, like I'm the slightly-smarter-than-average plumber who's come to fix a leak under the sink and wasn't that clever and aren't I almost finished and ready to leave.

So I say, “Well, I better get going.”

When I get nothing back, I say, “Don't forget to use your sunblock.”

Becca looks up at me with this expression that says I really
am
a Cotton-Headed Ninny Muggins.

“So, I'll see ya,” I go. “Thanks for the Diet Coke.”

“No worries,” Becca says, hardly looking up as Max leaps over her outstretched legs for, like, the tenth time, and I think,
No worries. Good luck with life, pal.

It's out of the way, but I've got over an hour before I have to be back home to meet my dad. I still don't have any answers for him and where I'm headed probably won't give me any, but it's where I need to go. And even though it's hot, it feels good to be riding my bike. It reminds me of all the times after my dad left when I'd hop on my bike and hit the road, not knowing where I was going, just wanting to feel the wind fly by me as I went.

By the time I reach the shelter I'm so thirsty that even the thought of the warm water in the fountain just inside the door sounds good. But when I open the door, I forget all about my thirst and head straight for the front desk.

I'm in luck. That nice lady named Peg is there, and she remembers me.

At first she seems happy to see me, but then
her smile collapses in a way that tells me my luck just ran out.

“Are you here to see Licky?” she asks.

“Um, yeah,” I go. “I mean, if it's okay.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” she says. “Licky was adopted yesterday.”

“Yesterday?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“Can you tell me who took her?” I ask, trying not to sound pitiful.

Shaking her head and giving me a look that says I am pitiful even if I'm trying not to be, she says, “I'm really sorry, honey, but I can't do that. We're not allowed to give out that information. I wasn't here yesterday, so I didn't meet the people who adopted her, but I'm sure she's found a good home. I know how much you liked her, and it's not the same, but would you like to look at some of the other dogs?”

I shrug and tell her no thanks.

“Well, maybe another day. You come back anytime. Okay?”

“Sure. Okay.”

I walk back outside, past the fountain with its warm water, and get back on my bike. And now I'm heading home to go have lunch with my dad, who's going to try to convince me to leave the only place I've ever known and go live with him in a strange city two hundred miles away. And what I'm thinking is, what do I have to lose?

1. We can go bowling anytime we want.

2. It'll be easier on your mom. She'll have one less mouth to feed.

3. You won't have to work.

4. Gerri is way cool. She'll teach you how to play the electric guitar.

5. We'll get you your own electric guitar.

6. You can play in our band.

7. Hey, would your mom let you play in a band? No way.

8. A boy needs his dad, especially when he's a teenager.

9. If anybody busts your chops, I've got your back.

10. I miss my son.

Burger King this time. I'm having a Double Stacker and my dad ordered a Triple Whopper. If Addie were here, she'd be lecturing both of us and we wouldn't hear the end of it until we dropped dead. And then she'd blame the burgers. In case you haven't guessed it: Addie's a vegetarian.

What I'd probably tell her is that we need meat to get through this conversation. Heavy amounts of meat.

“You got something that's mine,” my dad says for openers.

“What're you talking about?”

“I think you know. Listen, you want a picture of me and Gerri so bad, all you got to do is ask.”

I reach into my pocket and hand over the picture.

Putting it in his own pocket, my dad says, “Tell your mom thanks for letting me know. Did you take anything else she didn't find? Just curious.”

I mumble no and keep my attention on my tray. BK fries are tasty, but not as good as Betty & Pauls curly fries or our sweet potato fries at the Candy Kitchen. Hey, maybe we should call it the CK.

“Anything else in the glove compartment interest you?”

I keep my head down and mumble.

“What'd you say?”

“I said, now that you mention it.”

“Now that I mention it, what?”

Lifting my head, I say, “Now that you mention it, I did find something of interest. How come you didn't tell me the truck isn't even yours?”