Teenage Waistland (32 page)

“How’s that?” I hear Bobby mutter, and I jerk up my head to look at him, to see if I imagined it. He’s still slumped in his seat and he’s studying his fingernail. But then he raises his eyes to mine and nods his head to let me know I heard right.

I’m struggling already—even though I’m still on my first set of bench presses—when I totally freeze mid-grunt to listen.
Crap
—it
is
the hum of the electric garage-door opener I hear. Dad’s home. Knew it would be tight today! With my morning run, some stupid glitch in the store’s inventory system that I had to deal with, then football practice, I had no choice but to save my chest workout for late afternoon. And I was busting my hump to finish before Dad showed up.

Dad’s involvement with my weight training over the years has helped me move some serious iron—he’s kept track of my progress, designed my training routines, and taught me how to break through plateaus. And just having him here in the basement with me has always been great motivation. Now, though, when Coach has been complaining about my performance and I’ve been benching the same wussy weight for two weeks straight, the last thing I need is Dad in my face.

“What do you mean you can’t finish three sets at two ten?
We were at two sixty only two months ago.” “It’s the running, kid. You’re burning through all your muscle.” “For God’s sake, buddy—what, are you growing a
vagina
?”

Footsteps in the kitchen above me, the slam of the refrigerator door, and then—my stomach churns—creaking on the basement steps.

“Hey, buddy. How’s it going?”

I push with everything I’ve got and manage to set the barbell back on the rack before he comes into view. My face is dripping with sweat and I still have another half hour before I’m done.

“Your last set?” he says.

“Nah—two more to go,” I answer, and mentally kick myself in the groin. Should’ve said yes.

“Great,” he says as he gets behind me. “Ready for more weight?” I can push myself to the limit when Dad’s spotting me because he’s there to grab the barbell if I burn out. But the weight I’ve got is already a bitch.

“Nah—I’m good,” I say, still breathing hard from the last set, and then brace myself for some grief. Instead of giving me any, though, Dad strides over to the mini-fridge and tosses me an ice-cold bottle of water. And then, instead of getting behind me again, he plops down in the old recliner and takes a long swig of root beer. Our favorite.

“Dawson wants the store,” he says. I grab my towel, wipe my face, and sit up on the bench. The water bottle feels Godlike against my forehead. “He’s offered me two million for it.” Damn. I unscrew the top and suck the whole thing down in one gulp.

“But the building and the real estate’s worth more than twice that!” I say. Dad shakes his head.

“Two mil just for the business itself. He wants a twenty-year lease.” My adrenaline shoots back up. “I got to admit,” he continues, “it’s a good offer. Especially with the housing slump. We could cover the mortgage and live comfortably on the rent alone. Crazy to pass up, b—”

“Totally crazy,” I practically shout.

“
But
—as I was saying—it’s your legacy, kid. You’re the next Konopka in line for it. And the minute Dawson puts his name on the sign, that’s fifty years of our family’s heritage gone forever. So, obviously, I had to turn him down.”

I bury my face in my towel. From total elation to total devastation in less than a minute. I try hard to keep my back from shaking. The last time he caught me crying—I was nine and the football we were tossing hit me in the face and gave me a bloody nose—he said, “Hey, buddy—what, you get your period or something?” But Dad’s not saying a word. And then I feel him lower his weight on the bench next to me. I shove over to make room.

“Talk to me, kid. It’s been rough for you, I know. You’re off to a rocky start in football, and your mother just told me about that friend of yours who died and how depressed you’ve seemed about it.” I know Dad’s trying to comfort me and all, but now I’m pressing the towel into my eyes to crush out the tears. We sit like this for a couple of minutes. Finally, I whip the towel across the room and turn to look him straight in the eye. I don’t give a crap if he sees me crying—keeping the truth from him would be much worse.

“Dad, I know how important all this—this stuff is to you, and I don’t want to let you down, but I—I just don’t feel the same way about it anymore.”

“What’s ‘all this stuff,’ buddy?” Instead of the icy look he’s
given me the few times I’ve challenged him on something, though, Dad looks away and then starts examining the freckle under his nail. I take a deep breath, and then another.
Grow a pair!

“All your ‘legacy’ stuff, Dad. I’m sorry, but … I don’t want to be stuck in the same town for the rest of my life running a lumberyard. Maybe I’ll go into computers or engineering or something. And—and”—
grow a pair!
—“and I don’t want to be a—a fat—a lineman anymore.” I did it. I just broke the old man’s heart. Dad’s just staring at his fingernail. But I’m breathing easier now. And I feel a ton lighter. Like it’s all finally off my soft titty chest.

I’m examining my fingernail now. The two of us Big Bobby All-State Lineman Konopkas crammed up next to each other on a weight bench examining our fingernails. Dad sits up suddenly and raises his arm. For a split second, I think he’s going to slam me in the face with his elbow and my heart starts pounding. But his arm goes over my head and around me. He even pulls my head against his.

“I want you to know how proud I am of you, son,” he says, almost like he’s whispering. Almost like
he’s
crying! I can’t see, though—the side of my head’s leaning against his temple. “You made your own decision to have that surgery. Even when you knew I didn’t want it for you. And then with enormous discipline I’ve never thought you capable of, you’ve been up every morning with your running. Up with the bloody
sun
! Just so you could get it in
before
work. Past summers, I had to come into your room and kick you out of bed to get you over to the store. And now, not only are you logging, what, ten miles at the crack of dawn, but you always show up on time, and, without any prompting from me,
decide we need to automate the business, and then spend weeks with a stack of manuals and install it for us.
Your
contribution to the business played a role in Dawson’s generous offer.” That’s when I jerk my head away and look at Dad. His eyes are a little red but he’s smiling and nodding at me. “The deal Dawson’s proposed includes
you
installing that RFID system of yours. In all his stores.”

There’s this amazing runner’s high—a feeling of pure happiness and power and freedom that flows through every inch of your entire body and makes you feel like you can do anything. Like you can run forever. That’s nothing compared to the way I feel at this moment—when Dad’s proud of me not for what he’s wanted for me, but for what I’ve accomplished on my own. Nothing in the world can beat this feeling. Until Dad rises from the bench and says, “I’d better call Dawson before he changes his mind.” I’m absolutely flying—until I realize that there’s only one person in the world I want to share all this with, and she’s in trouble. But when I pick up the phone, I dial Marcie instead.

Mom and I are just getting back from our morning walk when Liselle flies by going at least double the speed limit, then screeches to a stop at the curb. Her right front tire is on the curb, actually.
Great
, I’m thinking,
the whole plan’s done for
. There’s no way Mom’s letting me anywhere near that car, let alone drive fifty miles to Long Island in it. Before she has a chance to say a word, I run into the house to get my bag, praying to myself the whole time. And when I get outside again, it’s like a miracle. There’s Mom standing in the street
chatting
with Marcie and Liselle. I give her a big kiss on the cheek and say, “I’ll call you when we get there.” Then I get into the backseat and whisper, “Slowly, please, or you’ll freak her out,” as we pull away, all of us smiling at my mom and waving.

“East, listen up,” Marcie starts in as soon as Mom’s out of view. “You play it exactly like we discussed, like this is no big deal.”

“I don’t know—”

“You were able to talk her into letting us tell Bobby everything. If she can handle that, she can handle this.” Liselle glances at Marcie and Marcie ignores her. “All I know is we can’t let her go to Tijuana tomorrow. Char’s got a lot of heavy stuff she hasn’t even started to deal with, and the best place for her to do it is in group.”

“I know,” I say. “But it’s one thing to let us tell Bobby and another to come face to face with him with no advance warning. Imagine how upset Char could be when she discovers what we’ve got planned for her.…” Marcie shapes her fingers into a gun and pretends to blow her brains out.

“East, you need to focus on the big picture. If Char gets her surgery in Mexico like Jen and isn’t forced to tackle her ‘underlying issues,’ she’ll have much bigger problems than being confronted by people who want to help her. Besides, Char
will
be psyched to see Bobby, especially since this was his idea in the first place.”

“No, Marcie. This was
our
idea. You’re the one who said that if Char wasn’t going to come to Teenage Waistland, then TW should go to her.”

“But it was Bobby’s idea to meet up at his football game, and it’s the perfect setting for this—this—”

“Ambush?” suggests Liselle. Marcie turns her imaginary gun on Liselle. “Nooo—I’m driving!” She laughs, and then Marcie turns back to me.

“
Intervention
, East. The word is intervention. That’s where a group of concerned family and friends confront someone in trouble and get them to seek help. That’s what this is,” Marcie says. She turns her finger gun back to Liselle. “Right?” Liselle nods and laughs again.

I shake my head. “She’s not going to like this.” Marcie is
closing her eyes and shaking her head, like not only does she strongly disagree with me, but my concern over Char’s reaction is too dumb to waste ear function on. “Seriously. I mean Bobby is like this football hero, and to have a bunch of fat kids show up at his football game? He couldn’t get us out of there fast enough when we visited him at practice.”

“East, you raise an excellent point,” Marcie says, mocking Betsy. “It’s a
ginormous
deal that this football hero invited a bunch of fat kids to his big game. If he didn’t care about Char—or everyone in TW, for that matter—he’d never have done it.”

“But Marcie,” I say, “he never even texted her after all the horrible things we told him, and it’s been like almost two weeks. What if he gets freaked out in front of his hotshot football buddies and acts like he doesn’t know her again—like that time in the lobby?”

“East, stop catastrophizing and compose yourself,” Marcie shrieks. “This isn’t about Bobby anyway—this is about Char’s life, and it’s our only foolproof chance to stop her from going to Mexico!” Marcie stares at me from over her headrest, but I don’t look away.

“It’s
not
foolproof, Marcie, it’s fool
ish
,” I say. “Dangerous, even. Char says she can’t face anyone from TW ever again, but even if everyone else makes her believe how wanted she is and how necessary she is to the group, I know her.
Bobby
rejecting her could break her. He’s too much of a wild card in this plan.”

Marcie pulls out her finger gun. “Look, East, we’re about there, so just clam up and put your best foot forward. Remember—if this fails, we’ll have no choice but to move to plan B.”

“Plan B?” I almost shout in relief.

“Yeah, but in plan B, Liselle has to total her car with all of us in it. People in traction find travel difficult.” I watch as Marcie and Liselle crack up and high-five each other. Then Liselle swerves into Char’s driveway and honks the horn.

Char peers out from her bedroom window, and two seconds later, she flings opens the front door and comes running out in a pale yellow blouse, white flowy skirt, and flip-flops. Perfect. She looks really nice. Even her hair is all blown out.

Her hair. I tap Liselle’s shoulder. “Can you put the top up for Char so her hair’s not a wreck when we get there? Getting her out of the car is going to be hard enough,” I whisper frantically.

Liselle clamps her hand to her mouth and then moans, “I’m such an idiot. The top’s home in the garage!” Already things are going badly.

“So, does this work for my surprise?” Char’s calling as she spins around in front of the car.

“Absofreakinglutely stupendously,” Marcie yells. “Now get in this car!” Char gets in next to me and we’re off.

“So, now you guys can tell me. Where are we going?”

Liselle says something in hushed tones to Marcie, and Marcie pulls the scarf we planned to use as Char’s blindfold out of the glove compartment.

“Put this on—it’ll keep your hair from flying all over the place. It’s a bit of a ride,” Marcie says to Char.

“Okay. Enough. I don’t like surprises—” Char starts, but Liselle immediately launches into this rambling tale of how she mixed this green-mud facial-mask stuff for herself and Marcie last night, but read the directions wrong. After it
hardened, they had to chip the mask off their faces with butter knives.

“Like freaking concrete!”

And then I’m telling the story of how once Char and I were making our own play dough but we didn’t have cream of tartar, so we idiotically substituted tartar
sauce
instead. We ended up burning my countertop with the hot blob of relish-y doughy junk.

“Shroud and I still get sick when we smell anything related to pickles,” Char laughs.

“Well, we’re not going to any sloppy burger joint, so no worries,” Marcie says.

As we near the exit, Marcie’s pointing at the road signs and mouthing,
Do something
to me. After a moment of panic, I start blathering on to Char about this birthmark on my arm that I’m afraid might be turning cancerous. She examines it closely and then pulls out her cell phone to Google “skin cancer.” While she’s tapping away, Marcie grins at me and shakes her head mouthing,
She’s so predictable
. But that’s not entirely true. None of us can predict how Char’s going to react when she looks up from her research and realizes we just pulled into the Syosset High School parking lot.