Fruit (28 page)

“Now sugar shack!”

I didn’t even know what a sugar shack was and by watching Mrs. Hanlan, I still couldn’t tell. She was waving her toothpick arms in the air and everyone was jumping around like they had ants in their pants. I couldn’t stand the embarrassment anymore, so I mouthed the words “bathroom” to Nancy and jumped my way backwards until I was outside the door.

I sat down on the front steps at St. Paul’s. I felt so embarrassed. I couldn’t jog. I couldn’t dosey-do. I couldn’t do anything. I could just hear Mrs. Hanlan telling Dan all about it. How was I ever going to face them again? Grade 9 was only two and a half months away and I’d never be anyone different than I was at that moment — fat, boy friendless, taped-up Peter Paddington.

I headed straight for the Shop ’N’ Bag to see the one person I could count on — Mr. Bernard. I hadn’t been by to visit him since I started my diet. He must’ve thought I’d died or something.

“Well hello, stranger,” he said when I came into the store. “Long time no see.”

“I’ve been away on a trip,” I lied. I couldn’t tell him that I’d been avoiding his store on account of my stupid diet. He’d probably be hurt. “Europe, mostly.”

Mr. Bernard smiled and said, “Of course. I can only imagine.”

I grabbed a Caramilk and a Mr. Big from the shelf and told Mr. Bernard to ring me up.

“Vhy have you betrayed me?” Dr. Luka asked.

“I knew you wouldn’t last,” Mrs. Hanlan said.

“I thought you loved me,” Debbie Andover cried.

I paid Mr. Bernard, shoved the chocolate bars into my back pockets, and hurried out of the Shop ’N’ Bag.

“Dirty chocolate,” I whispered to myself. But I couldn’t wait to get home and tear into them.

As I was walking past Papa Bertoli, I looked in and saw Daniela sitting on one of the bar stools. There was no one else in the restaurant, so I decided to go in.

“What’s new?” I asked her.

“I think I’m gonna fuckin’ fail this year,” Daniela said, picking at the scabs on her knees. She didn’t even turn around to look at me.

“Are you sure?” I sat down beside her. If Daniela failed grade 8, that would put her behind
two
years. By the time
she graduated high school, Daniela would be older than the teachers.

Daniela nodded. “Sister Louisa told me that unless I passed all my fuckin’ projects and tests next month, she was going to keep me behind. I’ve done okay so far. I got a D- on my book report, which is like a fifty-three or something, I think. And I got twenty-six out of fifty on my math test. But today, I got back my book report and there was this big fuckin’ F on it.”

“Why did you get an F on it?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know!” Daniela shot back. “I copied it word for word from my copy of
Cosmo
.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “Copying things out of magazines is illegal. You could go to jail. Why didn’t you just write your own?”

“Because I didn’t have any fuckin’ time, okay?”

I kept my mouth shut because Daniela was getting loud. She had already picked off four scabs.

“They’ve won,” she said.

“Who?” I asked.

“Everyone,” she said. “My parents. Gianni. My teachers. Everyone who told me I couldn’t fuckin’ make it. They’ve won and I might as well just sit here for the rest of my fuckin’ life and watch everyone walk by the window.”

It was weird, but for once, I knew exactly how Daniela felt. Even though I never served tables or had a nun for a teacher, I felt like “they” had won in my life, too. “They” were the people that thought Daniela and I were losers. “They” thought they were better than us, just because they
were thin and had normal nipples and didn’t wet the bed.

But did “they” ever enter a beauty pageant, even though there was no chance of winning? Did “they” ever save one of their friends’ virginity from a Banger? Did “they” ever have the Virgin Mary appear to them in their closet? Who did “they” think they were, anyway? And why did Daniela and I always let them beat us? I was so angry, my nipples started to vibrate beneath the masking tape.

“Daniela, we’ve got to take control of our lives,” I said and slammed my palm down on the counter.

“What are you talking about?”

“I need to lose weight,” I said. “And you need to get a job. A real one. Just imagine if you were working
and
making money. Your
own
money. Then you could save up, buy a house and the only driveway you’d have to shovel would be your own. Of course, by then, you could probably hire someone to come and do all your housework for you. Can you imagine if you placed a Help Wanted ad in the
Observer
and Paolo Vernesse showed up at your door? You’d just look at him and say, ‘I wanted someone to take out the trash. Not bring it to my doorstep.’ Then you’d slam the door in his face and Paolo would go home and take out his bottle of Pino Silvestri and cry.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“What I’m talking about is you getting a real job.”

“How am I going to do something like that?”

“What if you took over my paper route?”

Daniela’s eyes bugged out. “Are you kidding me?”

I shook my head, even though I was still a little
surprised myself. But how could I change anything about myself if I didn’t start somewhere? Maybe it was time to say goodbye to Mr. Hanlan, even though he’d be upset. “You can’t hold on to me forever,” I said to him in a telepathic message.

Besides, I’d be starting grade
9
in a few months and by then, I’d be thin with plenty of boy friends and have football practice after school.

“But if you take over my route,” I said to Daniela, “you have to be professional. You have to get the papers out to people on time. And you have to watch what you say to them. People will expect you to be nice to them, whether you feel like it or not.”

“Hey, don’t fuckin’ lecture me about being a pro,” Daniela said. “I’ve spent the last fourteen years of my fuckin’ life working like a slave.”

Then she flicked one of her peeled-off scabs across the bar. I gave her the chocolate bars I had in my back pockets. They were a bit mushed up, but I told her they were still edible.

Daniela grabbed them. “I hope you didn’t fuckin’ fart on these or anything,” she said, sniffing the Mr. Big.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I said.

I was going to head home but then I figured I’d go back to the Shop ’N’ Bag and tell Mr. Bernard that he might not be seeing me for a while.

“It’s not you,” I’d tell him, “I’m just going through some big changes in my life right now.”

I just hoped he wouldn’t take it too hard.

Just as I was coming up to the door, I looked in and
saw Uncle Ed. He was standing on the other side of the counter, talking to Mr. Bernard. At first I thought, “That can’t be right. That’s not Uncle Ed.” But one look at the Hawaiian shirt told me it couldn’t be anyone else. Why was he in there, talking to Mr. Bernard? How did they know each other? I started to get angry. Why couldn’t Uncle Ed just leave me alone? Why couldn’t he stop embarrassing me? He must’ve been following me, going to the same places I went, telling everyone things about me. Private things. Things he shouldn’t know about. If he pulled my picture out of his wallet, I’d never talk to him again.

Mr. Bernard was smiling at Uncle Ed in a way I hadn’t seen him smile before. It was weird. It seemed like they knew each other.

Then there’s the other thing.
For some reason I thought of what my mom had said when I asked her why Uncle Ed never married.

“What thing?” I’d asked her.

I noticed the way Uncle Ed was leaning into the counter towards Mr. Bernard, the same way Phil the Burger King Banger leaned towards Daniela in the restaurant.

What thing?

Mr. Bernard laughed at something Uncle Ed said.

Somewhere, a car horn honked. I turned around and walked home as fast as I could.

I finally found a way to exercise that didn’t make me feel
retarded. I was snooping through Nancy’s room the other day, looking to see if Nancy had used up all her birth control pills, when I came across her Jane Fonda workout album. I looked at the picture of Jane on the cover. Her hair was pulled back and she was wearing a grey leotard. She was smiling right at me, as if to say, “I’ve been waiting for you, Peter Paddington.” And it was the strangest thing, but the more I looked at Jane, the more I realized how much she looked like the Virgin Mary in my closet door. It was almost as if God had made me go snooping in Nancy’s room to find Jane.

“Ave Maria,” I whispered and crossed myself.

Now, Jane and I are best friends. Every night, I go downstairs and spend an hour with her. We stretch, we jog, we do sit-ups, and we firm up our buns. Every time that Jane says, “You can do it!” I know she’s talking directly to me.

Sometimes, I pretend to be Jane and I mouth the words she’s saying. I make believe that
Entertainment Tonight
is filming me for an upcoming television special called “Behind the Scenes with Hollywood’s Biggest Stars.” The ratings for the show will be very high.

“You can do it, America!” I smile at the camera and squeeze my buttocks high in the air.

Jane has taught me to take things slow. I’m still on the Beginners side. I don’t think that I’m ready for the Advanced just yet. But with Jane’s help, I’ll get there.

“You can do it!” she says.

I always make sure I keep the basement curtains closed.

The other day, while Jane and I were doing our buttock squeezes, I made a list in my head of all the things I’d changed about myself since the beginning of the year. The first is that I had actually started a diet and lasted more than three days. I think I’ve lost a couple of pounds because my finger doesn’t go into my belly button quite as far. The second thing is that I’d given up my paper route. I started training Daniela the other day. It’s going pretty well for the most part, but she scares some of the older people on my route. The other day, Daniela whipped the paper at Mrs. Guutweister’s door and nearly broke the glass. Mrs. Guutweister came running out, as if a bomb had just gone off.

“You’ll have to be patient,” I whispered to Mrs. Guutweister. “God isn’t finished with her yet.”

The third thing is that I saved Daniela’s virginity all by myself. A fourth thing is that I hardly ever think of Billy Archer anymore, except when I’m in the shower. A fifth thing is that I plan to take football lessons this summer so I can join the high school team in the fall. And the sixth thing is that I’m on my way to becoming someone new; someone I always knew I was, but no one could see.

I guess the only thing that hasn’t changed are my cherry nipples. They’re still there, puffy and red. Every morning, I wrap them up and every night, I set them free. In some ways, I’m starting to get used to them. I wonder if they’ll ever go away. I ask them, but they never talk to me anymore. Sometimes, I think they’re silent because they’re angry at me. And other times, I wonder if they
ever talked in the first place. It’s weird how your mind can make you believe things that aren’t really true. Especially when it comes to yourself.

BEDTIME MOVIE #6

I’m walking down a crowded high school hallway. I hear lockers opening and closing. A bell rings and a girl laughs. But I know she’s not laughing at me. No one laughs at me anymore.

I’m thin and muscular and wearing a white T-shirt tucked into a pair of blue jeans. I’m also wearing deck shoes. My hair is long and hangs down over my forehead. It covers my eyes so that no one ever knows who or what I’m looking at. That’s part of my mystery.

Inside, I feel very powerful. Everyone wants something from me. People want me to join their clubs at school. They want me to sit at their table in the cafeteria. They invite me over to their houses on the weekend. They ask me to help them with their homework, even though they don’t really need it.

I don’t really mind, even though sometimes, I get annoyed. But I can’t really blame them, either. It’s like there’s something magical about me that no one can really describe.

Andrew Sinclair is up ahead, waiting by his locker. He sees me coming and thinks, “I should have called him. I should have asked him to the movies while I still had the chance.”

“Poor Andrew,” I think. He hates his life.

I pass the drama classroom. Debbie Andover is there,
rehearsing for her next musical. I smile to myself. One of my new boy friends says that Debbie likes me.

“You should ask her out,” he tells me. “Every guy in this school would kill for the chance to date Debbie.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say.

I turn the corner and see Christine standing at her locker. She’s wearing her “I’m Peter Paddington’s sister” T-shirt.

“I thought we talked about this,” I sigh. “That T-shirt is embarrassing.”

“Is it a crime to be proud of you?” she asks me.

Nancy walks over to us.

“Mrs. Hanlan was arrested for murdering another aerobics instructor yesterday,” she says. “They say she’s gonna get the death penalty for sure.”

I shake my head. “I’ll have to give Dan a call tonight to see how he’s doing.” I turn the corner and head down the hallway towards the shop classes. That’s where all the Bangers hang out. Most students are afraid to walk by them. They’re afraid the Bangers will beat them up. But I’m not.

“Hey Peter.”

It’s Billy Archer. He’s standing outside his locker with a bunch of thugs. They all nod at me. Billy’s wearing his parachute pants. I feel a little sexy, but I don’t let Billy know that.

“Hey Billy,” I say. “Take your pills today?”

The other Bangers laugh. Billy tells me to screw off. But he’s not angry. He’s laughing when he says it. We have that kind of relationship.

After school, I have a very important championship football game.

“We’re all counting on you, Paddington,” Mr. Nunzio says.

“Back off, man!” I say and flip my hair. I’m very temperamental, but that’s to be expected. As captain of the football team, I’m under a lot of pressure. “I’ll do what I got to do.”

Out on the field, my team and I warm up. “This is it, people,” I say. “You can stand on the sidelines or you can get in the game.”