One Man Show (8 page)

“Hi, it’s me.” It was Wally. “I finally came up with a present for your grandma’s party. My ma has this shawl she bought
in Mexico when she and my dad went on that cruise. Never been worn - it’s like brand new. So, what time should I get there
tonight?”

Gulp!
Jeremy had accepted my invitation almost two weeks before. He was totally cool and had even told me he was “looking forward
to the big event” before he disappeared for spring break. Wally hadn’t mentioned the party at all since I first brought it
up, so I was hoping he’d forgotten all about it. Guess not.

“Hello?” he said.

Just lie,
I told myself.
Make it quick and painless.

“Change of plans, Wal. Party’s canceled. Granny’s sick.”

“Oh. Sorry,” he said. “So, wanna take a bus to the mall or something instead?”

“Nah. I’ll probably just stay in tonight.”

Okay, quick, but not so painless. Lying to your best friend was on par with kicking puppies. I was sure it’d come back to
“bite me on the butt” someday, as Granny says. But a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.

Twelve hours later my colorful banner was hanging over the dining-room table downstairs, which was covered in goodies. I had
thought we were on a tight budget, but to me it looked like enough food for a sumo-wrestling convention. A roasted turkey
was hiding the stain on the fancy lace tablecloth, and surrounding it was a tray of lasagna with meatballs, both potato and
macaroni salad, plus three different kinds of
cheese - and that was just “the tip of the iceberg lettuce,” as Aunt Birdie says. Aunt Olive’s masterpiece was hidden on the
top shelf in the pantry: a triple-decker chocolate fudge cake with raspberry filling and sprinkles.

Second cousins, great-aunts, and great-uncles arrived one after another, piling their jackets on Aunt Birdie’s bed. Mom’s
boss from the Donut Hole showed up with two boxes of assorted. “Mr. Ortega - Barry - is
my
guest,” Mom announced to the family. I wondered if
guest
meant
date.
I could tell from the suspicious looks my aunts gave “Barry” that they were wondering the same thing.

All anyone could talk about (besides “So, who is this Barry Ortega?”) was the big television star who was coming. Whenever
the doorbell rang, everyone stared at the front door as if the President of the United States were about to walk in. It almost
seemed that the party was for Jeremy Jason Wilder and not Granny Grubbs.

“Is that TV boy here yet?” Granny kept asking me.

“Any minute now.”

Even she was excited about meeting a sitcom star face to face. I’d never seen Granny so dressed up in my life, and I don’t
think it was for the sake of Great-Aunt Iris and her husband, Hoyt, from Sheboygan. Her white hair was braided and wound in
a bun, like a snake coiled on top of her head. She had on her navy blue church dress - and lipstick! That was a first. Ah,
the power of celebrity.

“Maybe you should phone that TV boy’s house to see if he’s on his way,” Granny said. “I’m going to bed soon and I’d sure hate
to miss him.”

“Bed? But your party barely started!” I said. “There’s gonna be cake - and presents.”

“I had that mole cluster on my neck removed last week. At my age that’s present enough.”

“Granny!”

“Well, I’m just saying.”

I beelined it to Mom. She’d know what to do.

“We’re going to have to do the cake right away,” she said, looking worried. “You know your gran - with that arthritis medicine
she takes, she can conk out at any minute.”

The doorbell rang. Nobody budged.

“That door’s not gonna answer itself,” Granny said. “It’s the TV boy for sure.”

I hurried to the front door and stood there with my hand on the doorknob. I couldn’t swallow. It felt as if one of Aunt Olive’s
meatballs were lodged in my throat. I took a second to breathe, then opened the door.

“Hi, Dustin Grubbs!”

It was LMNOP.

“Sorry to interrupt the festivities,” LMNOP said in her sloppy lisp, “but I wanted to stop by to wish your grandmother a happy
birthday. And give her these.”

She pried the lid off the plastic container she was holding. It was loaded with goopy brownies.

“Is that him?” Granny asked. “Where did I put my glasses?”

“No, Gran,” I said. “It’s just the kid from next door.”

The whole room groaned and picked up their dropped conversations and plates.

“He looks different in person,” Granny said, squinting out the door. “Kinda girly.”

“This isn’t Jeremy,” I said. “This
is
a girl.”

“I’m Ellen, remember? Happy birthday, Mrs. Grubbs,” LMNOP said, handing her the brownies. “My mom’s gonna need the container
back. It’s part of a set.”

“Well, thank you, sweetheart,” Granny said. She picked up the smallest brownie and inspected it closely. “These don’t have
nuts in them, do they? I’ll croak.”

“No, ma’am,” LMNOP said. “They’re nut free.” Granny popped the whole brownie into her mouth. “They’re chocolate free too.
We used organic carob instead.”

Granny made a face as if she’d just licked the bottom of a shoe. She spat the brownie into a napkin and handed it to me.

“I don’t think that TV boy is coming,” she said, half yawning. “I’m going to bed.”

“No, Gran, not yet!” I yelled.

There was a knock at the door. I must’ve slammed it in LMNOP’s face without realizing it. She was a pain, but I
thought I should at least offer her a cracker or something, so I opened the door.

“Sorry I’m late.”

LMNOP was gone, and Jeremy was standing in her place.
He showed!

My great-aunt’s stepdaughter by her second marriage screamed, “It’s him!” and dropped a glass.

“That’s what I thought too,” Granny said, “but it’s only the little girl from next door. Don’t eat her brownies.”

“No, Gran, this
is
Jeremy,” I said. “Come on in!”

As soon as he stepped through the doorway, it felt as if everything were going in slow motion, as if this couldn’t actually
be happening. But there he was, in the flesh, standing in my house with his black leather pants and his shiny black hair.

“Everybody, this is my friend Jeremy Jason Wilder.” My stomach jolted when I heard myself say that. “Jeremy, this is everybody.”

He’d barely taken off his jacket before he was drowning in a clump of distant relatives.

“Okay, clear the way,” Granny said, trotting toward Jeremy. “Don’t smother the child before the birthday girl gets a hug.”

The lights went out.

“Oh, good Lord,” Granny said. “It’s happened.”

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“I’ve gone completely blind!”

“Happy birthday to you,”
Aunt Olive warbled.

Everyone gradually joined in the singing and switched attention from Jeremy to Mom, who paraded out of the kitchen carrying
the cake. It had a pink 7 candle and a blue 5 candle glowing on top.

Aunt Olive took the last
“to yooou!”
up an octave, drowning out everyone else with her wobbly soprano.

“Give it a rest, Olive,” Granny said. “You’ll drive all the dogs out of the neighborhood.”

Jeremy and I joined the guests gathering around the dining-room table, where Mom placed the cake. Granny hovered over it with
her eyelids fluttering, as if she was having a hard time settling on a wish. For a split second the candlelight on her face
made her look eighteen.

“Don’t tell your wish, Ma,” Aunt Birdie said, “or it won’t come true.”

“Oh, darn it anyway, Birdie! Now I forgot what I was wishing.”

“It’s okay, Gran,” I said. “You’ll think of another one.”

“I hate to squander the few good wishes I have left. I’m not long for this world, you know.”

“Just blow them out already,” Aunt Birdie insisted.

“Okay, on the count of three,” Mom said. “One…” - everyone joined in - “two…
three!”

Granny took another minute. Finally her cheeks puffed out as if she were hitting the high note in a trumpet solo. A
gust of air exploded from her that made the Happy Birthday banner flutter and the candle wax splatter. Everyone applauded,
and the lights came back on.

Suddenly the cake didn’t look so irresistible: sitting in the middle of it, gleaming white against the chocolate frosting,
were Granny’s false teeth.

“Lost your uppers!” Aunt Birdie said, and snapped a picture.

Granny snatched her teeth and sucked them back into her mouth, like if she did it fast enough, no one would even notice that
they had flown out.

Fat chance. The whole room was bent over in hysterics. I thought Jeremy would split his pants from laughing so hard. It wasn’t
exactly the scene I was hoping for, but at least he looked as if he was having a good time.

Next thing I knew, Great-Aunt Iris asked Aunt Birdie to take a picture of her with Jeremy, and suddenly everyone wanted a
picture taken with the big TV star. A line formed.

“Watch the birdie!” Aunt Birdie said, snickering. She was changing positions like a fashion photographer, snapping away so
fast, her camera was smoking. “Just strike a pose, say cheese, and keep on moving, people. Ooh, with that swanky red blouse
he has on, these’ll make stunning Christmas cards!”

I wouldn’t have blamed Jeremy if he’d done an about-face and headed for the hills. But he smiled through shot after shot.
Finally I grabbed him and led him into the kitchen, where he could have a chance to catch his breath.

“Your family sure is - friendly,” he said.

“You mean crazy. You can say it. Sorry they ambushed you like that.”

“No prob. I’m used to it,” he said, reaching into an open bag of potato chips on the kitchen counter.

“You hungry?” I asked. “All the good food is in the other room, but we could eat it out on the back porch, where it’s safe.”

He nodded, stuffing his face with chips.

“Okay, I’ll go and get it,” I told him, heading into the dining room. “Grab us some Cokes from the fridge, and I’ll meet you
out there.”

I was counting on my aunts’ cooking to impress Jeremy, ‘cause nothing else was going to do the trick. So I piled a little
bit of everything onto two paper plates, crammed some napkins into my pants pocket, put two forks in my shirt pocket, and
hustled to meet him on the porch.

“Nice breeze,” I said, kicking the screen door open. I glided down the stairs, careful not to spill anything, and sat next
to Jeremy, who was on the bottom step. “It’s like a sauna in that kitchen. Not that I’ve ever been in one - a sauna, I mean,
not a kitchen.”
Okay, don’t say anything else dumb like that.
I handed him the fuller, neater-looking plate, a napkin, and a fork. “You can have the drumstick if you want,” I told him,
but he didn’t want. “Well, you have to try my aunt’s meatballs. You’ll die.”

“If you say so.”

Jeremy stabbed a meatball and shoved the whole thing into his mouth.

“Omigod!”

At least, that’s what I think he said.

“Incredible, right?” I said, and stuffed my face with a meatball too. It was burning hot, so I immediately let it drop back
onto my plate. “Man, I killed my tongue!”

Jeremy was laughing and speed-chewing at the same time.

“I didn’t know those candle-warmer thingies worked so well,” I said, wiping sauce off my mouth.

We both took giant gulps of Coke to wash down the meatballs, and without any warning a burp slipped right out of me. Jeremy
let one fly too, and we laughed some more. Total connection. I leaned against the railing, gnawing on the turkey drumstick
and watching a bug brigade swarm the porch light. Nobody said anything for a while; there was just the sound of distant-distant-relatives
chattering and the two of us slurping. But it didn’t feel at all uncomfortable.

“You know what?” Jeremy finally said, flicking something off a slice of garlic bread. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to a party
like this before.”

“A big family get-together?”

“Yeah - well, no. Just a laid-back, come-as-you-are, pick-your-teeth type thing.”

Come-as-you-are? Great-Aunt Iris wore a fox stole.

“Or pick-your-teeth-off-the-cake type thing,” he said, cracking up. “I thought I’d bust a gut.”

“Sorry you had to see that,” I said, smiling. “Sometimes my gran forgets to use her denture adhesive.”

“Don’t worry about it. All old farts start going wacko; they can’t help it,” he said, scooping up a forkful of potato salad.
“But your aunt with the camera - what’s her story?”

“Aunt Birdie? What do you mean?”

“She just seems like - I don’t know. Is she a little soft in the head or something?”

“Not that I know of.”

Another long silence. This one wasn’t so comfortable.

“Whatever, I’m cool with it,” Jeremy said, chewing. “You should see all the weirdos in L.A.”

Anyone else you want to take a stab at while you’re at it? Aunt Olive and her off-key singing? Great-Uncle Hoyt and his lazy
eye?

“Plastic forks, homemade potato salad - culture shock! This is just a lot different from the Hollywood parties I’m used to,”
he said, studying my expression. “That’s all I was gettin’ at.”

He should’ve quit while he was ahead. I stared down at my plate and squashed the yellow guts out of a deviled egg with my
fork.

“You mean in a trailer-trashy kind of way, right?”

He didn’t say a word after that, and that said it all. The hope
that had been building up inside of me - that we’d become friends - suddenly came crashing down. I actually thought I’d heard
the
thud,
but it was the screen door’s slamming.

“Come on, boys!” Aunt Birdie was bouncing in the doorway in a pointy paper hat, waving us inside. “We’re about to do the presents
in the living room.”

“Hey, I wasn’t supposed to bring a present, was I?” Jeremy whispered to me.

“Shucks, no,” I said in my best hick voice. I finished the rest of it in my head.
This ain’t one of dem fancy-shmancy Hollywood birthday shindigs, where people bring gifts and wear shoes and everythang.

We left our plates on the porch step and followed Aunt Birdie into the living room. Granny was surrounded by packages and
was sitting in the middle of the couch on her “sweet spot” - the sunken-in part where she always sat.