Flash Burnout (16 page)

"You think?" I snarl.

She doesn't react. Of course she doesn't. She's the goddamn expert in tact.

I hurl myself into the car and slam the door. She walks around to the driver's side. I'm shaking by the time she starts the car.

"Drive down the block," I say, and it enrages me even more to hear my voice crack.

I love my mom; she puts the car in gear and drives down the block. She sees an empty spot and pulls over to the curb. She puts the car in park and looks at me.

I slam open the car door and stomp up and down the sidewalk, yelling every curse word I know through my hands, which are clamped over my mouth. I know Mom hears me. But I can't stop. I don't think I've ever felt this mad before.

I kick the tires of the car. I slap my hands down on the hood a few more times, and it hurts every time, and I'm glad. Finally I sink down on my knees in the grass on the parking strip. It's wet and cold, but it feels good. I need to feel the ground so I can come down. I need to feel cold so I can cool down.

My cheeks are wet when I get back in the car.

At some point my mom must have turned off the motor, because it's dark and quiet inside. She waits.

"Sorry," I mumble.

"It's okay, honey," she says.

And I start bawling.

***

You will never believe this in a million years, so I'll just say it: Marissa and her mom are walking up to our house when we get home.

"Jesus!" I yell, and this time Mom speaks up. "That's just about enough, Blake."

"Sorry."

"That's your friend Marissa, isn't it?"

Yes. And her mother."

"Ahh." My mom lifts her hand to acknowledge them. "Looks like they came to pay us a holiday call," she says.

"Effing great," I say.

"I see that you weren't expecting visitors," she says. "But please pull yourself together. I expect my family to be gracious hosts. Always."

"I know."

"Okay. Take a couple of breaths and let's go."

She gets out of the car and heads for the front door, where Marissa and her mom have stopped.

I rub a hand across my face roughly. I hope it doesn't look like I've been crying. I open the car door and head for the house.

My mom is smiling and shaking Marissa's mom's hand. "So nice to meet you, Anne. And it's nice to see you again, Marissa.
Please come in." She opens the front door and ushers them inside.

"We shouldn't have come," says Marissa's mom, shrinking inside her coat. "We should have called first. I'm sorry."

"Mom," mutters Marissa. She's holding a wrapped gift.

"No, no. This is perfect timing," says my mom. "We just got back from another visit. I'm so glad you came by tonight. Tomorrow you would have missed us. We're going out of town to visit my parents."

My mom keeps up a soothing flow of words. "Here, let me have your coats. Please make yourselves at home. Isn't it cold out? I wonder if it will snow. Anne, do you like tea or coffee? I have both. Blake, would you find your father and tell him we have visitors?"

"No!" says Marissa's mom.

We all freeze.

"I mean, no, you don't have to find your father," continues Marissa's mom. She flutters a hand up to her mouth. "Sorry. We can't stay. We just came to drop off a present." She pulls her coat closer around her and looks at the floor.

Marissa's face is bright red. "
Mom,
" she says, mortified.

"Oh, dear. Are you sure?" asks my mom.

My heart thumps with pride at my mom's kindness. She pretends that someone yelling no! after an invitation to have tea is perfectly normal. She always makes everyone feel welcome, no matter how strange they are.

"It's really no trouble at all, Anne," continues Mom. "I don't
want to keep you if you're on your way somewhere else, but we'd love to visit with you for a few minutes."

Marissa's mom shuffles her feet, still looking at the floor, as if she doesn't know what to say or do.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hewson," says Marissa. "That's really nice of you. We'll just stay for a minute." She takes her mother's arm and steers her into the living room. "Mom," she hisses. "Take off your coat."

Marissa's mom jerks her arm away from Marissa.

I glance at my mom, who is watching them. She doesn't react, except to turn to me and say quietly, "Please go fill the teakettle with water and put it on to boil. Then come back here. You don't have to wait for it to boil."

"Okay." I hurry to the kitchen. As I pick up the shiny kettle, I examine my face in its reflection, looking for signs of my earlier freak-out. My normal face looks back. Maybe a little more stressed than usual. I fill the kettle with water and adjust the gas flame under it. I wonder who the present's for. Me? But why? I didn't get a present for Marissa.

Marissa is smiling and chatting with my mom when I enter the living room. Marissa's mother hunches into the couch cushions, plucking at her hair. Without her coat, she looks frail and cold.

"Here." Marissa hands me the package, which is heavy and flat.

I take the present and hold it uncertainly. "Should I unwrap it now?"

"Yes!"

I pull off the wrapping paper and find a book titled
Earth from Above.
It's got tons of amazing full-color photos of Earth. From above. "Wow, thanks!" I say. I turn to Marissa's mom and repeat, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she says. Her eyes flick to the door, almost as if she's thinking,
Now can we go?

"Oh, how thoughtful," says my mom. "What a great book." She stands up. "Anne, would you like to help me with the tea while the kids talk photography?"

Marissa's mom stiffens and looks at Marissa.

Marissa nods and kind of cocks her head, like,
Go on.

I've never seen anyone act so nervous around my mother. How much more can she do to make this twitchy woman feel welcome?

Marissa's mom exhales loudly, and I get a whiff of her breath. Ugh. Someone should really give her a case of breath mints for Christmas. She stands up and follows my mom into the kitchen.

"Thanks again," I say to Marissa.

"You're welcome. My mom and I just wanted to say thanks again. We owe you a lot."

"Stop it, you don't," I say, embarrassed.

We sit there for a minute.

"How's Shannon?" asks Marissa.

Ohhhh,
I groan silently. A visual of Mrs. DeWinter flashes into my mind.

"Fine," I say.

Long pause.

"We just came from there, actually. Shannon's house. I took her a present," I say.

"Oh yeah? How'd she like it?"

"Good, good." I nod. My face hurts from all the fake smiling. What am I
doing?
I drop my head in my hands. This is Marissa; she's my friend. I don't have to pretend with her.

"Actually," I say, "it sucked reallyreallyreally bad."

"What?"

It's such a relief to tell Marissa everything ... about asking people for ideas ... finally asking Shannon's mother for help ... buying the perfect necklace, or so I thought ... and finding out tonight that it was not the right necklace, it was, in fact, the
opposite
of the right necklace.

Somewhere along the way I realize Marissa is giggling. I've managed to turn this traumatic event into a funny story. How did I do that?

I'm not sure, but I feel much better.

"You know what?" I say to Marissa.

"What."

"As my man Groucho Marx would say, 'I've had a perfectly lovely evening. But this wasn't it.'"

She laughs.

After its opening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1955, the
Family of Man exhibit traveled around the world. The selection process took
three years, starting with two million photos. It was winnowed to ten thousand,
with the final 503 shots coming from 273 photographers and 68 countries.

I am so done with New York.

"What's a four-letter word for Mongolian desert?" yells Poppy from the living room. He's a crossword puzzle hound.

"Gobi," yells my brother.

How sad is it that we're reduced to doing crossword puzzles with the grandparents for fun? In
New York.
The Big Apple, the City That Never Sleeps, the hub of ... something. But you know what? We've already done the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the museums, and a Broadway show. Garrett and I even got to go to a Mad Montoya concert for my birthday.

I would have gladly exchanged Mad Montoya for a birthday party with Shannon. You know, a
private
party? Where she could have given me a very special, once-in-a-lifetime present for my sixteenth birthday?

Well.

It
could
have happened.

But instead I'm chillin' with the olds.

Plane ticket to New York—four hundred dollars. Combo Christmas/birthday presents for your sixteenth birthday—two hundred and fifty dollars. Missing birthday sex while you hang out with your grandparents—priceless.

"Russ, get in here and wash your breakfast dishes," yells my mom from the kitchen.

"Coming," yells my dad from the living room, where he's lazing on the couch watching CNN and telling Poppy medical examiner horror stories.

"You stay right where you are, Russell," yells Nonna from the kitchen.

Welcome to the East Coast grandparents' house. Nonna and Poppy weren't born in Italy, but they embrace the whole waving-your-hands-around-and-yelling part of their heritage.

And my mom! It's hilarious to watch her regress to being, like, their
kid
as soon as she walks through the door of their house. The woman has master's degrees in theology and psychology, but as soon as she gets inside the Bossy New Yorker Zone, she turns into Yellen McYellalot.

My dad loves visiting the in-laws; he gets to sit around and talk shit with Poppy while eating one huge meal after another. Nonna won't let him help with the cooking or the dishes, either, no matter how much my mom protests.

"Ma, why do you do this?" my mom always yells when we first get here. "At home the boys all do their share. They don't sit around and expect me to wait on them hand and foot."

"Yeah? Well, you're in
my
house now."

My mom always ends up rolling her eyes like a teenager and saying, "How can you be such a throwback? You've only been to Italy twice!" Then she hugs my Nonna and cries, and they sit around drinking coffee and eating homemade biscotti and gossiping about the rest of the family.

After about twenty-four hours, my mom joins in with the lazing around and eating. She tends to let Garrett and me goof off, too. I think it's kind of a vacation from responsibility for her. If Garrett or I do something really out of line, Nonna or Poppy yells at us.

We've been here a whole week now. I need to get back to my peeps. Especially my Princess of Peeps. We've been texting and calling each other on our cells, but I need to feel Shannon in the flesh again. The longer I'm away from her, the more she seems like a dream, like I'll go home and she'll look at me politely and say, "Who are you again? My boyfriend? I don't
think
so."

"What's a nine-letter word for rapidly ascending or descending musical notes?" yells Poppy.

"Glissando," yells Nonna without even pausing. She used to teach piano lessons.

"I should have known that," mutters Poppy. "Can you believe this goddamn market?" He's talking about the stock market. He used to be some kind of financial guy, took the train into the city
every day for forty years. He's, like, seventy now, but he's still got a full head of hair, silver with black streaks in it, all cool and
Sopranos
-looking. I've noticed other old ladies checking him out when we're with him. I definitely inherited my Italian Stallion magic from him.

Poppy divides his attention between his crossword puzzle and the TV, where stock quotes are scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

"So this headless corpse comes in," says my dad.

Errggh.

Poppy looks up, delighted.

"Male, about forty; killed by a shotgun blast to the chest. Filled with bird shot. But then the killer decided to burn the body," says my dad.

Guhh. I feel my breakfast threatening to come back out for a visit.

"Jesus," says Poppy.

"We figured the killer wanted to disfigure the corpse, hence the missing head and the burning. If there are no dentals and no prints, it's hard to identify the guy, right?"

"Right." Poppy could listen to these tales of atrocity all day.

"Only problem is," says Dad, "the body was burned mostly on the front, not the back."

"Yes?"

"And the guy had his name tattooed on the back of his calves. Jorge on the left calf, Rios on the right."

Poppy and Garrett crack up.

Even I smile faintly. Murderers. Will they ever learn?

"His head came in a couple of days later," adds my dad.

***

It's New Year's Eve. Garrett and I had planned to take the bus into the city and celebrate in Times Square.

"No," says Poppy.

I widen my eyes and look at my parents. They both shrug New Yorkishly, like,
Hey, whaddaya gonna do?

"That's insane," adds Nonna for good measure.

"Why not?" asks Garrett.

"It's a mob scene like you wouldn't believe," says Poppy. "Trust me, you don't wanna go there. Stay home and watch it on TV in comfort with us."

Garrett and I look at each other.

"Besides, it's a scene tailor-made for the terrorists," adds Nonna. "Think about it: a gathering of thousands of people in one spot, waiting around like sheep for the slaughter. For hours."

Oh. The terrorists. Of course. They screw everything up. And way to freak me out, Nonna!

"Come on," I say. "Don't make us stay home. We're in New York!"

"Did you hear your grandmother?" asks Poppy, his eyes flashing. He's got these piercing black eyes; he looks like he's about
to jab his finger at me and say, "Drop it, or you'll sleep with the fishes!"

"But—" I try one last time.

"Put a sock in it, Blake!" he yells. Heh. Somehow I don't feel
yelled at
when Poppy yells at me.