Living with Jackie Chan

  “You babysit for him every weekend,” I say. “How could you miss him?”

  She shrugs. “I just do.”

  We watch and don’t watch the kid until we get to the mall stop and step out into the cold with everyone else.

  “So, where to?” I ask.

  “No idea. Let’s just walk.”

  When I follow her inside the mall entrance, we’re accosted by holiday music, fake trees, and the nauseating smell of scented candles. Stella pauses and turns in a circle, taking it all in.

  “Don’t you just love the holidays?” she asks.

  Um.

  “Oh, look! Newbury Comics! I love that place. Let’s go there first.”

  Stella picks up every single gag gift and shakes it in my face. “You should get this for Larry!” She holds up an Einstein bobblehead. Its head shakes all over the place. “I’m so smart. Yes I am, yes I am, yes I am,” she says as fast as his head nods.

  I laugh.

  “Oh, my God!” she yells.

  A bunch of people look over at us.

  “What?”

  “You just laughed!”

  I stop smiling. “And?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh. I must have magical powers.”

  I know this can’t be true. I mean, the laughing part. “Funny,” I say.

  She elbows me. “Sorry. I’m just not used to seeing you look, you know, happy.”

  “Way to harsh my mellow,” I say. Because honestly? She really did. Who wants to hear how depressing they are?

  “Harsh your mellow? Wow. Larry is really rubbing off on you.” She reaches up and pinches my cheek. “You should laugh more often,” she says. “It’s good for you.”

  “Now who sounds like Larry?”

  She shrugs.

  But she’s right. For the first time, I feel like maybe it’s OK to feel happy once in a while. It’s been so long, I feel like I almost forgot how.

  We end up leaving the store without buying anything.

  “Who are you buying for, anyway?” I ask as we zigzag through the stream of shoppers. I suddenly have an impression of us going into every single store in the mall and doing exactly what we just did. Picking up a bunch of crap, laughing at it, and putting it back down. Which would actually be fun if we weren’t secret friends and we weren’t, in reality, probably shopping for crap for her boyfriend.

  “Oh . . .” she says. “A bunch of people.”

  “Like?”

  “My mom. And . . .”

  “The boyfriend,” I finish.

  “‘The boyfriend’? C’mon Sam, you know he has a name.”

  “Sorry. I mean, Britt.” And you know my name, too, I think. Yet you refuse to use it.

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like his name is shit, not Britt.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Just c’mon.” She drags me into another store and makes me stand there while she holds up some shirts in front of my chest and squints, as if she’s trying to transfer Britt’s face onto mine. Seriously.

  “Please tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing,” I tell her.

  “What?” She puts the shirt back on the rack and blushes. “Fine. Tell me what you want for Christmas.”

  I roll my eyes. “Nothing.”

  She punches my arm.

  “Um. Ow?”

  “C’mon. If you could have anything, what would it be?” She smiles at me like she genuinely wants to know. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a familiar hat. And then, even more familiar long brown hair falling out of it.

  My heart stops like I just took a kick to the chest. Then it speeds up so fast I can barely breathe.

  It’s the unmistakable rainbow hat Caleb’s mom gave her last year.

  Ellie.

  She’s two display racks over from us. I swing around fast.

  “Sam?” Stella comes around to face me again.

  I grab the display rack to hold myself up.

  “I have to go,” I say. I rush out of the store and start running.

  “Sam! Wait up!”

  I dart through shoppers and baby strollers. Why are there so many damn baby strollers? I keep running until I find an exit, and then I am heaving into the trash can just outside the door. Heaving and, oh my God, crying. What the hell. I quickly wipe my mouth and face and just breathe and try to calm down. But my heart feels like it’s trying to punch its way out of my chest.

  Could she have seen me? Was it even her? I can’t breathe.

  No. It couldn’t be. Why would she be at this mall, four hours from home? The hat’s crazy, but obviously not the only one in the world. I’m an idiot.

  “Sam?” Stella runs over to me. “Are you OK? Ick! What happened?”

  She puts her hand on my arm in this caring way that I don’t deserve. I shrug her off.

  “Look,” I say, backing away from her. “I can’t help you. I don’t know what your boyfriend wants for Christmas, OK? And I honestly don’t care. I have to get out of here.”

  “What? But —”

  I start walking away from her.

  “Sam!” She runs after me and grabs my shoulder to swing me around and make me face her.

  When I do, I see it. That look. That same goddamn pathetic look. The Don’t leave me here look. The I need something from you look. My eyes start watering up again. I swear if I had a knife on me, I would jam it into my jugular.

  “What’s going on?” she asks. “You can tell me. I’m your friend.”

  Really? What kind of friend? The kind that only hangs out with me — will only even be seen with me — when her boyfriend is MIA? What kind of a friend is that?

  “Sam,” she says, because I am too much of a wimp to ask those questions out loud. “Talk to me.”

  I force myself to meet her eyes. Her beautiful brown eyes that are boring into me. Trying to see my soul. The real me. I realize hiding who I really am from her is no better than her hiding me from Britt. We’re both good at deception.

  “It’s OK,” she says, still studying my face.

  For the first time, it feels like maybe it is.

  I take a deep breath. “You have to stop calling me Sam,” I say. “I’m not Sam. I’m not . . . I’m not who you think I am. I thought I could be. I thought I could do the whole ‘fresh start’ thing, but I can’t. I want to be Sam, but I can’t be. My name’s Josh. All right? My name’s Josh.”

  “All right,” she says quietly. “Josh. I’ll call you Josh. I’m sorry.”

  “No! Don’t be sorry. Don’t you get it? I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  “But — why? You didn’t do anything.”

  “Yes I did,” I say.

  Yes I did.

  “What did you do?” This time Stella is the one to step away from me.

  “Can we go somewhere? I can’t talk here.”

  She looks uneasy about this. Like she’s afraid of me now.

  “Forget it,” I say. “Listen. I’m a loser. You don’t want to hang out with me.”

  “I know that’s not true,” she says. But she doesn’t seem to want to get any closer, and I don’t blame her.

  “Let’s just go home.”

  We get on the next bus and ride in silence. When the bus stops by the park entrance. Stella jumps up and says, “Let’s get off here.”

  The park is deserted, since it’s December and it’s freezing outside. Only the dog walkers racing their dogs out to some unfortunate bush and racing back home again are around. We find a bench and zip our coats up to our chins.

  “OK, mystery man,” Stella says. “What’s your story?”

  I don’t know why she wants to know so badly. Why she cares. But I’m glad she does.

  “I don’t know where to start,” I tell her.

  “You could tell me what happened at the mall,” she says.

  I breathe in the cold and let it sting my lungs. “I thought I saw someone I knew. Fr
om my old school.”

  “And this person gave you a panic attack?”

  A panic attack? Is that what that was? God. I am such a loser.

  “I don’t know. I guess. I’m sure it couldn’t have been her, but —”

  “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “She must be some girl to have that kind of power over you.”

  Power over me? After what I did to her? I wouldn’t call it power. I don’t know what I’d call it, but not that.

  We watch an old woman walk by with an enormous black poodle. She nods at us and speeds up.

  Stella waits patiently for me to reply.

  “I don’t really want to talk about her,” I say.

  “Was she your girlfriend?”

  Did I not just say I didn’t want to talk about her?

  “No. It’s complicated. But — no.” I picture her again in the van that night. Looking at me. Waiting for me to say something. Anything. Anything but what I did say. Not that. My hands turn into fists in my pockets.

  “Well, there was obviously something between the two of you,” Stella says.

  Obviously.

  She waits for me to explain, watching me with her trusting, kind eyes. They are too familiar. And this is all too much.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I say.

  She sighs. “Relationships are so complicated.”

  Understatement.

  “Sometimes, it’s like, you never really intend for them to get so serious, right? I mean when you’re our age. We have our whole lives waiting for us. How many people actually end up with the people they date in high school? But we treat our relationships like they’re these precious, infinite things. Like our love is so freaking permanent. When, realistically speaking, they probably have months to live.”

  “That’s very deep,” I tell her, relieved to move the focus away from me.

  “Thank you. But you know what I’m saying, right?”

  “Sure. But if you really think that, why do you stay with Britt? He makes you cry, like, every week. Why stay with a guy who makes you cry all the time?”

  “He doesn’t make me cry.”

  “Uh, OK,” I say sarcastically.

  “I’m serious. I do that to myself. Partly because I get so upset with myself for messing things up.”

  “How do you mess things up?”

  She shrugs. “Just stupid stuff. Forgetting to call and let him know where I am. Things like that. I know what you’re thinking. I shouldn’t have to call in to report my location every time I go somewhere. But he only wants to know where I am because he loves me and wants to make sure I’m OK.”

  “And not hanging out with me.”

  She looks annoyed. “Look. Britt is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I was a nobody before we started dating.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Anyway, I never dreamed in a million years that the cutest boy in school — sorry — would want to be with me. And I don’t want to mess it up. He’s so great. He’s funny, he has tons of friends . . .”

  “What about you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Do you have friends?

  “His friends are my friends.”

  “Don’t you have your own friends?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  I wait.

  “I have you,” she says.

  “I’m a secret friend. What about ones he knows about?”

  “I have girlfriends, too. Sure. It’s just hard to be close with them, because we don’t spend a lot of time together anymore.”

  “Since you started dating Britt.”

  She sighs. “It’s worth it. He makes me happy. He makes me feel good about myself. I like being with someone who wants to put his arm around me, you know? In public. Like he’s proud to be with me. I know he’s a little possessive, but he’s the only guy who ever cared about me. It’s, like, he wants everyone to know I’m his.”

  “His?”

  She shakes her head. “You know what I mean.”

  Sadly, yeah.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I get you. I wish you didn’t feel like he’s the only one who cares about you, though. Because plenty of people do. Besides Britt.”

  She smiles like Larry does when he thinks he’s being coy. “Oh, really?”

  I feel my cheeks burn.

  “That’s not what I meant. Just that, you have friends.”

  “I know. Thanks, Sa — Josh.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Thanks for being a friend.”

  “A karate-only friend, you mean.”

  She shifts uncomfortably on the bench. “I’m sorry. I know it’s rude not to pay attention to you at school. But Britt gets so crazy jealous. Besides, you don’t really seem like you’d want to hang out with us, anyway. Britt’s friends don’t exactly seem like your type.”

  Because they’re popular? Cool? Normal?

  “True,” I say.

  “So you’re OK with being ‘karate friends’?”

  I shrug. “Yeah, sure.”

  She scooches closer to me and puts her head on my shoulder. I can smell her shampoo and wish it didn’t smell so good. I guess I can see why Britt is so jealous. Who’d want to lose a girlfriend like Stella?

  “You’re a good guy, Josh. A real karate man.” She gently punches me in the arm. “You’re also good at changing the subject. We were supposed to be talking about you.”

  “You’re very violent,” I tell her.

  “Anyway,” she says, rubbing her arms to keep warm. “Are you going to tell me your story or what?”

  “What.”

  She elbows me the way she always does. “You should, you know. I’m a good listener. It can’t be that bad. No more pathetic than my story, at least.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Secrets will eat you up, Josh. They really will.”

  “I know,” I tell her.

  A man rushes past with his tiny dog, urging him to find a spot and go already. I wonder if it’s the cold he wants to escape, or if he has some great life to hurry back to.

  The truth is, part of me does want to tell Stella my secrets. I want to tell her about the baby. And about what happened. That night. Sometimes I want to tell everyone. Just so I can get rid of it. Because she’s right. It’s eating me up. But when I turn to face her, when I look in her eyes and see her seem so genuinely interested in my screwed-up life, I can’t do it. I can’t disappoint her.

  I don’t want to lose her.

  And I know if I tell her the truth, I will.

  So I watch the man and his tiny dog instead. The dog walks around a small tree and gets its leash tangled around one leg. The man mutters something about how dumb the dog is as he gets the paw free.

  “Just so you know,” Stella says after we’ve been quiet a few minutes, “if you ever change your mind? I’m here.”

  She gives me her smile, and I feel myself melting, even though it’s freezing.

  “Thanks,” I say. I try to give her my best smile back. One that says I mean it. I really am thankful. For a minute, I think she’s going to rest her head on my shoulder again. But instead, she leans her head back and looks at the leafless branches above us. So I look up, too, and just stare through the branches and up to the cold white sky.

  We sit there for a while like that. But then Stella starts to really shiver and it’s obvious that it’s time to go home.

  When we get back to our building, she stops before she gets to the elevator.

  “Thanks for coming with me,” she says.

  “We didn’t really accomplish anything,” I say. “Sorry about that.”

  “Yes, we did.” She turns to come back toward me and puts out her arms, like she wants to give me a hug. But without thinking, I step back. Because for some reason, I feel that same panic I felt earlier at the mall.

  “Well, see ya,” I say, and turn away from her fast.

  What is wrong with me?

  “U
m, see ya,” she says, confused.

  I start up the stairs before the elevator doors even open, and then I stop and turn around.

  “Hey,” I call down.

  She tilts her head up to look at me.

  “Thanks,” I say. “You know. For being a friend.”

  Even though I’m a freak.

  She smiles. “No problem.” She opens her mouth like she might say something else, too, but before she can, I turn around and hurry the rest of the way up the stairs.

  Larry goes all out for Christmas Eve. He’s invited Stella and her mom for dinner, since Arielle went upstate to be with her family. He also invited this old lady who lives on the first floor whose husband died last year and it’s her first Christmas alone. Plus a bunch of other people in the building who I haven’t met.

  Larry, Stella, and I cook all day. We make tons of “finger food” that Larry found recipes for online. We’re each assigned three different types. When those are all done, we make Christmas cookies. Larry admits he didn’t have time to make cookie dough himself, so he bought the unhealthy premade dough that comes in sheets. He acts like this is the worst crime known to man. But, he says, he made up for it by making the best homemade icing we’ll ever taste. He also bought a bunch of cookie cutters in the shapes of Christmas trees and reindeer and other Santa-type stuff. He divides up the icing and shows us how to make different colors with food coloring, and then we sit at the kitchen table and decorate the cookies. Larry blasts old Christmas tunes and sings off-key while Stella and I get carried away making pink and blue Christmas trees.

  I know it sounds crazy, but this might be one of the best days of my life. There’s something about being here. The smells of cooking. The laughing. The sun coming through the window, making spirits bright . . . OK. Lame. But anyway. It’s nice. And way better than being stuck alone in my parents’ cave of a house. I bet they didn’t even bother to put up the tree now that I’m not coming.

  When people start to arrive, Larry directs them to the tree and the box of ornaments waiting to be hung up. He bought a ton of Santa hats and tries to force people to wear them. Somehow I manage to luck out and get away from him whenever he starts waving one in my direction. He makes Stella and me walk around with trays of food to offer people. There’s lots of wine and foul-smelling eggnog that Larry spiked to the hilt. “Don’t put it near any candles,” he jokes to everyone, which gets old fast.