Smiles to Go (12 page)

“Your singing was great,” I said.

She chuckled. “You couldn’t hear me.” Her eyes were flying.

“Sure, I could,” I said. “And your dancing was great, too.” I was starting to feel stupid. She just looked at me, waiting, wondering.

“So…,” I said, and jumped in, “Let’s go to the freshman dance.” She just stared at me. “OK?”

She said, “You mean together?” The smile was still there, but it wasn’t real.

I felt a chill. “Yeah. ’Course.”

Her eyes wouldn’t look at me. Her smile tilted. “I was afraid you were going to ask me.”

Afraid?
Afraid?

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Somebody already asked me.”

My kneecaps fell to my feet. I thought: BT!

“Who?” I said. And thought:
No, not BT.
I remembered the cast party at her house, and I knew. The star of the party. Star of the show. Mr. Music Man himself. Rob Vandemeer.

“Danny Riggs.”

I thought I heard her say Danny Riggs.

“Huh?” I said.

“Danny Riggs.”

She
did
say Danny Riggs.

“Who’s Danny Riggs?”

She shrugged. “A guy.”

This was all so strange. I felt like I’d stumbled into the wrong conversation. Or into one of those string theory parallel dimensions.

I said, “What kinda guy?”

She laughed. “A guy kinda guy. He’s on the stage crew. He makes scenery.”

“He asked you?”

She laughed again. “Is that so shocking?” She struck a pose. “I’m cute. I’m a star. Who wouldn’t want to ask me?”

All I could say was, “When?”

The smile vanished. “Last week. Nobody else”—finally her eyes swung into mine—“
nobody else
was asking, soooo…”

I just stared at her. And at the trophy case, at a tall silver quartet of Greek columns and a blue stone plate that said:

BASKETBALL CHAMPIONS
DISTRICT ONE
1998

I felt her hand on my arm. “Hey, no big deal.” The smile was back. She looked around. “Gotta go. See ya.” And she was gone.

I turned to the bright lights, the bright, chattering, laughing people. I wondered if one of them was Danny Riggs.

PD219

I
n the dormer. Staring at her roof.

Warm. Window open. Along the street forsythias hurled yellow fountains. In the driveway below, BT and Tabby were fighting. She wanted to skateboard on the sidewalk. He wouldn’t let her.

Danny Riggs…Danny Riggs…I couldn’t get the name out of my head. I was sad. I was mad. I was jealous. Sadmadjealous. Still couldn’t believe it. How could some other guy know her well enough to ask her to the dance and me not even know about him? I racked my brain, trying to remember her ever saying his name before. Who did he think he was? Didn’t he know we grew up together? That we
were like brother and sister for years until we started to notice each other another way? Didn’t he know that his dance date, the dazzling Miss Mi-Su Kelly, kissed me—me!—on Valentine’s night? And again just last Sunday, only one short week ago?

Down below BT was showing off, doing stunts for Tabby. They’re called ollies. Tabby tried to do an olly, fell. They laughed.

I wandered through the dormer. What were we saving all this stuff for? A framed painting of a seashore landscape leaned against the stationary bicycle. I ran my finger along the top edge. My fingertip was gray. Dust. Everything was dusty except my telescope and the wedding gifts.

I ran a silver ribbon between my fingers. I tugged slightly. It held firm. Still tightly tied after all these years. The silver paper was fading to white along some edges and corners, where the afternoon sun strikes. Seventy-eight years they’ve been sitting, waiting. A hundred years from now will they still be here, the wedding gifts of Margaret and Andrew Tuppence, waiting, unopened?

PD219

N
ightmare. I’m being chased by a swarm of fireflies.

PD220

D
anny Riggs. Danny Riggs.

I spent the day checking.

He just moved here last year. He lives on Hastings, right behind the school. Homeroom 113. I got out two minutes early, rushed to 113, waited in the hallway. He’s taller than me. Skinny. Blond crew cut. Braces. Earring. Cheap clothes. Wal-Mart. Payless.

I followed him. Easy to do in the after-school mob. Pretty soon we were the only two. I hung way back, wondered where he was going, wondered why he was walking so far, no skateboard. Terror:
he’s heading for Mi-Su’s!
He wasn’t. When we got downtown he went into Snips. Maybe his mother is a hairdresser.

After dinner I took Black Viper for a cruise past her house. About ten times. I wanted her to come out. I didn’t want her to come out. Was she behind a window, seeing me, purposely not coming out? What would I say if she did?

She didn’t.

I hate Danny Riggs.

I hate BT. This all started when he kissed Mi-Su at the star party last October.

I wanted to talk to Korbet. Suddenly talking to Korbet Finn was the thing I wanted most in the world. I pushed off, raced home, rang his bell. Mrs. Finn answered, smiled. “Will.” Or more like, “
Will?
” Because, even though they’re right alongside us, I never show up at their door. And here I was, a teenage big kid coming to ask for their five-year-old, like, “Can Korbet come out to play?” I had to think fast.

“Hi, Mrs. Finn. Can I see Korbet a second? I have this paper to do in school and I need to talk to a little kid.”

“Well,” she said, “he turns down most interviews, but let me see.” I just stood there with a dumb cow face; I was too preoccupied to realize she was being funny. “Come on in.”

“Uh, this would work better outside,” I said. Stupid.

When he appeared in front of me in the doorway beaming and said, “Hi, Will!” I was so happy I wanted to cry. We sat on my front step. I asked him a couple of stupid questions just in case his mother interrogated him. He took it all in stride. He didn’t seem to notice or care that a teenager had showed up asking for him. Now that I had him here, I didn’t know what to say.

His lips were blue. “Been eating blueberry water ice?” I asked him.

“Smackin’ Jacks,” he said. “Want one?” He was ready to run and get me one.

I told him no thanks.

I couldn’t help staring at him. This little survivor. He took incredible abuse from Tabby and still kept coming back. No visible scars, no limp in his personality. Going with the flow. How did he do it? Was it his age, or did he have something I didn’t have?

He picked a blade of grass, stuck it up his nose.

“Ever hear of protons?” I said.

An April ant moved across the flagstone at his feet. He placed the blade of grass in front of it. It walked around. “What’re protons?”

“They’re little,” I said.

He brightened. “Like ants?”

“Smaller,” I said.

He thought. He looked around. He grinned. “A cootie?”

“Smaller.”

He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. He knocked my knee. “You’re funnin’ me, Will. Nothing’s littler than a cootie.”

“You could fit a billion protons into the eyeball of a flea,” I told him.

His mouth dropped. His eyes went wide. He knew from my face and my voice that I wasn’t kidding, he knew it must be true, but it wouldn’t stick to his brain. I wanted to say, Korbet, I’m sad. Can you make me feel better?

I said, “Protons die.”

He looked at me. “Do they go to Heaven?”

How could I answer that? “Korbet,” I said, “what would you do if you liked a girl—”

He jumped in, beaming. “I
do
! Tabby! I
love
her!”

“—I know—if you liked a girl and you asked her to go to a dance with you but somebody else already asked her first? What would you do?”

He uncurled his index finger, propped his chin on it. He pondered grimly for half a minute, staring off down the street. At last he nodded. He looked up. The gray of his eyes matched the flagstone. He looked older than five. He spoke: “Ask her to the
next
dance.”

PD221

I
’ve been playing a lot of chess with my father. The tournament is this coming Saturday. Every once in a while it occurs to me that I’m defending champion. I used to practice all the time. I should have been gearing up for weeks, but I haven’t. I can’t concentrate. My father beat me yesterday. I stunk.

Today was no better. It felt like all I did was stare at my father’s defense. Did I want to sacrifice my queen to open up the board? Or take
the safe route and capture his knight? My eyes kept drifting to the back row, to his king and queen. But that’s not what I saw. Instead of the royal couple, I saw Mi-Su and Danny Riggs, dancing in a black-and-white checkerboard ballroom.

“Daddy! Come here, quick!”

Tabby was at the door. Dad and I were locked in my parents’ bedroom. It’s our Tabby defense. She knows chess takes concentration, so she tries to disrupt us whenever she gets wind that we’re playing. She always calls out for my father, but of course it’s me and my concentration she’s really after. Sometimes I’m amazed at how devious a five-year-old can be.

“Daddy!”

My father ignored her. He once told me that he allows her to do it because it’s good training for me—I must be able to shut out distractions.

“Daddy!”

“I can’t think,” I said.

“Focus,” he whispered.

Except for the pest, we tried to simulate tournament conditions. A timer sat on the table.

“Daddy! There’s something in the hallway! Come quick!”

The king and queen were waltzing across the floor…time was running out…couldn’t think…couldn’t think…blindly I moved my rook, took his knight. I hardly had time to pop my clock before Dad pounced, sending his bishop clear across the board, into my king’s face. “Check,” he said.

Never saw it coming. Now I was in big trouble.

“Daddy! Mommy wants you!”

My turn again. It was no disgrace to lose to my father. It happens half the time. But I never get trounced, and today he was trouncing me. I could tell he was disappointed in me. But I also knew he wouldn’t let up. Even when I was little, he never let me win. When I finally did, I knew I’d earned it. He groomed me for that tournament. When I won, he was so proud. And now I was letting him down. Somewhere Mi-Su and Danny Riggs were smiling dreamily at each other and my sister was pounding on the door and I couldn’t think…couldn’t think…the clock was ticking…

“Daddy! I’m bleeding!”

Ticking…

I roared: “Tabby! Shut up!”

My father’s eyes flared.

The clock pinged.

I was out of time. I couldn’t believe it. That hadn’t happened to me since I was six. My father was staring at me. I couldn’t read his face.

“It’s her fault,” I said.

My father was moving pieces, resetting them for another game. But something was wrong—when I told Tabby to shut up, she shut up. For the last minute, nothing but silence from the other side of the bedroom door. And now I heard a faint sound. A kind of hissing, sipping sound. I turned in my chair. A red and white striped straw was poking under the door. She’d done this before. She was trying to force us to come out by sucking the air out of the room. When I turned back, my father’s neck was red. He was biting his lip.

PD222

W
e were first at the lunch table. Alone for the moment, if you can call being in the same room with three hundred other students alone. We had both brought our lunches from home. We unwrapped our sandwiches. I felt her staring.

“Hi, Grumpy,” she said.

I looked up. She was smiling sweetly.

“Huh?”

“I said, ‘Hi, Grumpy.’”

I looked around. “You talking to me?”

“No, I’m talking to your chicken salad sandwich.”

“Who’s Grumpy?” I said.

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. Grumpy. Sourpuss. All week.”

I smiled. “I’m not grumpy.”

She laughed. “
That
…is the fakiest smile I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”

“Fakiest isn’t a word,” I told her.

She was silent for a while; then: “Will.”

“What?”

“Will.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

I looked at her.

“Will…it’s just a dance. He asked me first. We’re only in ninth grade. There’s three more years. No big deal. I still like you. Get over it.”

BT and others were heading our way. I shrugged. “I’m over it.”

PD223

I
lost again to my father yesterday. And on my way to losing today. I’m going to lose in the first round on Saturday. I’m not only going to lose, I’m going to be embarrassed. I’ll be exposed as a fake and a fraud and a fluke. People will say, “He’s no good. Last year’s win was a fluke.” They’ll make me give my trophy back. “You’re a disgrace to the tournament,” they’ll say. I don’t want to go. I hope I get sick. I’m losing and I’m sad and I’m grumpy and the rooks and pawns keep looking up at me, like,
“So what’s the next move, dummy?” and I’m
not
over it and Tabby was pounding on the door…pounding on the door…

I punched my clock button.

My father looked up. “You didn’t move.”

“I’m not going,” I told him.

He cocked his head. “Not going? Not going where?”

“To the tournament. Saturday. I’m not ready, and I can’t
get
ready because of her. Maybe you can focus with all that racket, but I can’t. I’m not you. I’m not going.”

My father yelled past me, “Tabby! Stop!”

My father hardly ever raises his voice. When he does, Tabby hides in her bedroom closet. I heard her running off.

My father restarted the timer.

I punched it.

“I’m not going,” I repeated. “It’s too late. She’s ruined a week of practice.”

“She’s gone,” he said. “She won’t be back.”

“It’s not just that,” I said. “She’ll be there all day Saturday. She’s into my head now. Just knowing she’s there in the audience—” I knew I was reaching but I didn’t care; I’d unleashed
my mouth and it was taking off. “I’m hearing her in my dreams. I’ll be stinko. I’ll make a fool of myself.”