Nothing Special (17 page)

“What leg problems?”

“Hamstring,” I said.

“We know a little bit about that in this house,” Stan nodded. He wasn't smiling this time. “We sure do. Right, Tovi?”

“Yeah,” she said. “The Reinsteins have short hamstrings.”

“That's what I hear,” I pretty much shouted.

Everyone stared at me.

“Tovi has short hamstrings,” Grandpa Stan said. “So did my son.”

“Yes,” I nodded.

And then we were following Grandpa Stan and Tovi on a path outside the house. And then we were next to the golf course, so green compared to the country club in Bluffton. And then we were pulling racquets out of lockers, and my grandfather grabbed my hand and stared at it, paused over it, which made me shake.

“Do you play when you're healthy?”

“No,” I said.

“You have athlete's hands. Not like this one,” he pointed at Andrew. “He has ballerina's hands. Ha!” he laughed.

Andrew nodded.

“Too bad, Ricky Martin. Wish you had some shoes. I could teach you the game. I'm a good coach. Just ask my daughter over there.”

“Granddaughter, Papa.”

“Right…right,” Stan mumbled.

He passed out racquets to Andrew (Here you go, McEnroe!) and Gus. Tovi had her own racquet in the locker. Then he handed me a metal basket full of balls (“Relegated to ball boy, big fella”), and then we headed to the courts.

Tovi and I fell behind as we walked along. “This is terrible,” I said, my voice weak.

“No,” Tovi said. “This is the plan, okay? He's teaching Andrew to play, and when Andrew gets good enough, we're going to tell Papa who he is.”

“That's it?”

“Andrew also listens to music with him.”

“Jesus. Andrew can't play. He's the worst athlete in the world.”

“He's smart. The game is half smarts, Felton.”

“That's your plan,” I mumbled.

Ten minutes later, Tovi was smacking balls at Gus and he was tripping all over himself. She moved so quickly and beautifully that I wanted to play. (“If there are balls around, Felton will chase them…” Remember that Andrew said that?) And Stan was hitting balls at Andrew, who stood a few feet from the net. Andrew actually managed to take the ball out of the air and drop it softly back over the net half the time.

Stan yelled at him, “That's right, kid! Use what you've got. Soft hands! Kill the point. Kill the point…”

My leg muscles twitched. I did want to play. I love to play stuff. The seriously hot sun beat down on these beautiful, rich-person courts. I sweated. I felt like I should be moving. I couldn't move.

Then Andrew went on a streak of missing the ball or hitting it way off the court. Stan got more and more wound up, the more Andrew blew it. He barked at Andrew to focus. I could see Andrew get frustrated. I could see him tighten up and miss because of Stan's yelling. Maybe it was because I've hated being the focus? Maybe it was because I've felt all this pressure to do well? Maybe it was because I'd just seen that picture of my dad looking sad after winning the NCAA Championship? I don't know. But…

After watching Stan yell for ten minutes, “Focus, kid. Come on. Look at the ball!” After Stan screamed, “Your concentration is for shit…”

I stood up and shouted, “Lay the hell off him!”

Gus and Tovi stopped playing. Andrew's mouth hung open, and his eyes bulged.

Stan cocked his head and stared at me. “I'm just coaching here, Ricky Martin. This is what coaching sounds like.”

“It's okay. I like being coached,” Andrew said.

“You play sports, right? What do you play?” Stan asked me.

“Football,” I said.

“Of course, big guy. Do coaches yell at you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Okay,” Stan said. He stared harder at me. “Okay, Ricky.”

“Andy has to get home,” Tovi said. “Good time to stop!”

“You're going to have to do better tomorrow, Johnny McEnroe, or I'll bring out my whip. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Andrew said.

“Time for my nap,” Stan said. “Tovi, bring back some chicken, will you? There's no food in the house.”

“Okay, Papa,” Tovi said.

We left.

On the way home, we almost didn't speak. At one point, Tovi said, “Hope Papa forgets about the chicken. No way I'm missing Andrew's gig.”

“Doesn't he notice when you don't come home?” Gus asked.

“He's never mentioned it if he does,” Tovi said.

After a few minutes, I noticed Andrew staring at me. He said, “You don't have to protect me.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Thanks, though,” he said.

We rolled silently through the sprawl until we hit the beach again.

• • •

We're pulling off the interstate in the bus.

When we got back to the White Shells, Tovi turned right back around and drove to Stan's. “I want to get him his chicken. I've got enough time. I'm going to do it.” She took off.

Gus said, “I have a phone call I need to make. You guys go up.” He was talking to Andrew and me. I knew what the phone call was. Parents. I knew it wouldn't be easy on him.

There were still a couple of hours before Andrew had to meet with Big Rod and the other guys to sound check. On the way up in the elevator, an almost cordial Andrew asked, “What do you want to do?”

“Relax. Veg, okay? Maybe watch some
COPS
on TV.”

“Tovi watches that terrible program all the time. It's one of the reasons I feel at home here. It's like I never left you in our basement.”

“Me and Tovi are really alike,” I said.

“She's a bit more thoughtful,” Andrew said.

The elevator opened on the fifth floor, and we got out and walked to the room.

“She's more thoughtful?” I asked. (Of course she's more thoughtful.)

“The truth hurts, right, Felton?” Andrew stared at me. “Remember when you said that to me? The truth hurts?”

“No.”

Andrew let us into the room. I didn't have a key.

“You said it the day you hurt your leg. You told me I wasn't that great a pianist. You said the truth hurts.”

“I'm really sorry, Andrew.” What's weird is that I didn't remember saying that to him. I know I've thought it. But jeez, am I really that mean?

“Felton, I don't want to just hang out here with you,” Andrew said, looking around the room. “I don't want to forgive you at the moment. I'm going to go.”

“Don't. Please.”

“You can hang out with Gus,” Andrew said.

We stared at each other a moment.

“Okay,” I said. “He'll be back in a second.”

Andrew squinted at me like he was staring into my freaking soul. Spooky.

“Who is Gus calling?” he asked.

“Well…” I can't lie very well, Aleah. Heat rose in my face. “He needs to talk to his parents, okay?”

Andrew leaned his forehead in. He whispered, “Why is Gus talking to his parents?”

“Shit. Well…because they figured out he came here. They figured out we lied,” I said really quietly.

“Do they know I'm here?” Andrew asked, very slowly, very quietly.

“He's going to tell them what's going on. He wants to help us.”

Andrew stood straight up. His face turned red. “He wants to help you! He doesn't want to help me at all. If he tells his parents, they'll tell Jerri and then I'm completely screwed, Felton.
God
Damn
Cock
Snap!
” he shouted.

“No. I don't know. I can stop him.”

“Everybody helps somebody!” Andrew shouted.

“That's good. That's good, Andrew.”

“I helped you my whole life. Tovi is here all summer to help Papa Stan get better. Gus is helping you.”

“They're good people. They're good,” I said.

“Nobody…nobody…nobody ever helps me. They just screw me. They just screw me over and over.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don't know.”

Then Andrew was out the door. He flung it open and tripped running out so that he sort of smacked into the wall across the hall, and then the door gently shut itself.

My heart pounded.
Oh
no.

When Gus said at the beginning of our trip that we'd definitely get busted, I didn't think for a moment about what getting busted might mean to Andrew.

Action, reaction.

I jumped off the bed to follow Andrew out, to apologize, which wouldn't help—I just needed to do something. He wasn't in the hall and the elevator was gone. I ran down the stairs, but he wasn't there. The kid is quick when he wants to be. I checked through the lobby and restaurant. Nothing. I found Gus by the pool. He was smoking a long, thin cigarette, something he hadn't done since we got to the White Shells thirty-six hours earlier.

“I had to bum one from an old lady,” he said.

“Have you seen Andrew?”

“No.”

“I need to talk to Andrew.”

“So do my parents. They want to know what he's up to.”

“Shit. Are they hunting down Jerri?”

“Not at the moment, man. But they are seriously concerned about you guys. If you don't tell Jerri what you're doing, they're going to,” he said.

“Oh man. Oh shit. I blew this. I didn't even think.”

“I'm going to be violently grounded. Apparently telling the truth after the fact only counts for so much. Man, my mom is a freaking firebomb. She's going crazy on me.”

“Gus, I'm so sorry.”

“My bad, man.”

“No,” I shook my head. “You're the best.”

“I have to leave in the morning. I want to stay, Felton. I guess Maddie is messing up my paper route and Mom had to deliver it this morning. I'm so sorry, man.”

“Gus,” I said. “I'm serious. I love you.”

“Uh, I'm just going to smoke my cigarette.”

“Okay.”

“But thanks.” Gus sort of smiled at me. “Thanks for noticing, man. Maybe you're not a narcissist after all. Ha-ha.”

“What do you mean by narcissist?” Yes, Aleah. That's the first time I'd ever heard the term.

“It's pop psychology, man. Doesn't mean anything.”

“No, seriously. What do you mean?”

“A narcissist is someone who's so damn full of himself, he doesn't notice what people around him are doing. Like, you know, how you forgot my birthday and stuff.”

“Oh my God.”

“Dude, relax.”

“Oh shit. I have to find Andrew right now.”

“I'll be here, man.”

I walked out to the beach, but he wasn't there.

I walked over to the pier. Andrew wasn't there.

I looked in swimsuit shops and clothes shops and an art store featuring paintings of sharks and stingrays and sailboats and dolphins. I poked my head into a Greek restaurant and into a bar that was playing beach music, but found no Andrew. I looked in the DQ as I passed (saw the mustache man, but no Andrew). And finally I walked into a sports shop, not that he would be in there…

I hate to say it—then I spent twenty minutes staring at new running shoes. They were beautiful. I even tried a pair on.

Here's what's crazy, Aleah. When I went in the sports shop, I totally forgot I was looking for Andrew. He disappeared from my brain. Then a skinny kid with glasses walked passed me (Andrew-like!). Then I totally freaked. I stood and ran out of the store. (Thank God I'd removed the shoe I tried on.)

I took off running down the main street on Fort Myers Beach toward the White Shells. The flip-flops flapped, and sand got between my skin and the rubber, and it just burned. About a hundred meters down the road I stopped where I was running, next to two skater-looking twelve-year-old dudes who were sitting on a cement wall. They stared because I was probably mumbling to myself, which you know I do sometimes, Aleah. But I didn't care at that moment because I knew something very big and terrible: I don't try hard for anyone but myself, which is the root of my trouble. I act. Shit happens because I act. Everyone suffers. I don't notice.

I'm selfish. I'm self-absorbed. I'm a narcissist.

“Do you know what selfish means?” I asked one of the dudes.

“Uh, yeah,” he replied, raising one eyebrow.

“It's when you don't do crap for anyone but yourself.”

“Thanks, Einstein,” the other said.

“You're welcome,” I said.

They both laughed. I didn't.

“Narcissist.” I nodded.

“Uh-huh,” one said.

There was only one thing for me to do. I couldn't find Andrew—and if I couldn't find Andrew, he might totally leave my narcissist mind and I might start thinking about my own junk while he went off and drowned or something. I had to act. I had to act immediately on his behalf. I had to call Jerri to tell her what we were doing, tell her to leave Andrew alone, tell her that I'm the one to blame for all of this.

We're stopping here in Port Charlotte for twenty minutes because apparently we're ahead of schedule. Ha-ha. That seems totally impossible. I'm two days late.

I had to eat. It's possible I made a terrible decision in the convenience store just now: beef jerky (chewing). Salty. More crap.

Narcissist! It makes me feel smart to say that. Narcissist.

After I said “narcissist” to those two skater dudes, I ran back to the White Shells (on burning flip-flop feet). I found Gus listening to music on his iPhone, curled up on the same deck chair. Workers from the hotel were setting up a small stage for the Golden Rods gig at the other end of the pool. Made me feel sick. I didn't want to see Andrew play music. But I would go and I would cheer and I would support him. I stood over Gus.

He pulled the buds out of his ears. “Don't you think ‘the Golden Rods' is a pretty porny name for a band?” Gus asked.

“Yes,” I said. “That has occurred to me. Hey, can I use your phone, man?”

“Why?”

“I'm going to call Jerri and admit everything and make sure she knows Andrew is a good kid and beg her not to get in the way of anything that…that is going to happen down here.”

“Yeah, yeah…That's good.” Gus handed me his phone.

“She's in Chicago. I have to call Chicago.”

“You can do it, brother,” Gus said.

I nodded and took ten fast steps away, toward the gulf side of the pool. Without pausing to think another second, I pressed in your home phone number, Aleah (yes, I have it memorized, even though I almost always called your cell) and hit
Send
. It rang five times and I said, “Please. Please…” and then your dad picked up.

“Hi, Ronald,” I said. “It's Felton.”

“Hey there, my boy! Football camp going well?”

“Ronald. I need to talk to Jerri right away. She still there?”

He clearly heard the seriousness in my voice. “Yes. Right here.”

Jerri got on the line. “Are you okay? Is everything okay?” she asked, her voice sounding shaky.

“It is, Jerri, but things aren't what you think.” My heart pounded. I took big breaths.

Jerri didn't say anything for a moment. I heard her breathe. Then she said, “What?”

“Not what you think. It's all a…a sham. I'm involved in a sham, but for good reason.”

She breathed very deeply. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Okay, Jerri. Okay. Remember the pelican? From my website? Andrew put it there?”

“Yes.”

“Right. Exactly,” I said. “It wasn't a migratory bird.”

“Oh?”

“It was…Jesus. I'm in Florida with Andrew,” I spat out.

“Oh my…” Jerri exhaled. “What now? What is this?” Her voice trailed off.

“Florida with Andrew, Jerri.”

“Uh-huh. Andrew. And he's there because…? Are you with Stan and Rose?” she asked.

“Sort of,” I said, “except Rose is dead.”

“Oh no.”

“And Stan doesn't know who we are.”

“Oh God.”

“But…Tovi, Andrew's new friend…Tovi is the Tovi you remember, Jerri.”

“She's Evith's?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she's actually Tovi our cousin.”

“Okay…Okay…Okay…Why is this happening?” Jerri began to ramp up. “Why are you lying to me? Why are you boys faking going to camps and traveling across the goddamn universe? Why are you lying to your grandfather? Why…”

“I don't know, Jerri. I'm a narcissist.”

“You're what?”

“I'm self-involved.”

“Felton, I'm just not interested in your philosophizing right now, okay?”

“Okay. But this is my fault. Andrew made the plan, but this is my doing.”

“No it's not,” Jerri said. “You're not capable of this, Felton. You're not…”

“That smart?”

“You're not curious and you're not wild and you're not…”

“That smart.”

“No, Felton. Andrew is just a very, very special boy and I want to kill him. I really do, Felton. You put him on the phone right now, okay?”

“I can't. He's not here. He doesn't know I'm confessing, but we're going to be busted because Gus and I drove down here and…and…I think Andrew's doing the best he can to make things good for himself, you know? He's not really happy, I don't think. I've caused him some problems by being a narcissist. He's just…”

“He's just a maniac,” Jerri said.

“Yes. He threw my shoes in the ocean.”

“If you're in Fort Myers, it's the gulf, Felton.”

“I know.”

“You have to take it easy on yourself, okay? Not for the lying. Beat yourself up for that. Please do. But Andrew isn't your responsibility. He's mine.”

“I don't know, Jerri. I don't agree.”

“I'm coming down there.”

“No!”

“No?”

“No, Jerri.”

“Oh, I'm coming down, Felton. Don't you tell me no.”

“No. Please, Jerri. Don't freak. Don't come. Andrew needs this. I really think so. I think we need to let Andrew follow his plan. He's not in any danger. You can kill him later, okay?”

“He's not in danger?” Jerri said. “Of course he is.”

“No. None that I can see.”

“Okay…Okay,” Jerri breathed out. “So? Tell me his plan.”

“Well, Grandma Rose gave the money for this when she died.”

“Money.”

“Yes. And Andrew's using tennis and classical music to introduce himself to Stan.”

“Jesus. Good luck. Oh shit, Andrew.” I could almost hear Jerri shaking her head. “Jesus. They never gave you two money before.”

“I know. But, I think Stan caused that, not Rose.”

“And that's Andrew's plan?”

“Yes.”

“He's just hanging out with Stan, pretending not to be himself?”

“Yes.”

“It's ludicrous.”

“Yes.”

“He could get his feelings hurt, Felton.”

“His feelings are already hurt.”

“Yeah…I know,” Jerri whispered. “I know. That's fair, Felton. You two have earned your hurt feelings. You've been through a lot.”

“Yes. Yeah, Jerri. Plenty.”

“Oh shit.” Jerri paused for a second. “
Shit
,” she shouted again. Then she said, “You make Andrew call me every day.”

“He'll be lying to you about orchestra camp.”

“Fine. Whatever. I just want to know he's okay. I will kill you both when you get back.”

“Okay,” I said. “That's good.”

“Oh God. I'm so pissed, Felton. I am so freaked out.”

“But you're going to be okay, right?”

“Yes. You boys don't have to protect me. I'm better now than I've been your whole lives. Okay?”

“Okay, Jerri.”

“Jesus. What in the hell? Fine. Love you. Okay…”

When I got off the phone, I walked back over to Gus. He nodded at me. My hands trembled. He saw. He said, “Jerri all right?”

“Uh, I think so. I think she's all right,” I said.

“Good work, brother. You did it.”

• • •

Why is this bus not moving!?!?!?!?! I can't sit any longer!