Thwonk

  Take that, Robbie Oldsberg, you massive toad!

  I turned from side to side, swishing my dress, shaking out my hair. I tore through my closet for the red heels with the little sequins (fifty percent off at Berringer’s) that matched the dress perfectly. I squeezed into the shoes that were snug, did a little twirl, and raised my arms in victory.

  Peter would call any minute, totally succumbed, and I would know devotion for the rest of my rich, full life.

  The phone rang.

  My heart stopped.

  I let it ring three times because I didn’t want to seem anxious. I whispered an earthy hello. It was Trish, mumbling through Novocain displacement.

  “Nothing yet,” I said.

  Trish garbled that she wouldn’t sleep until I called, and hung up.

  My stomach growled with anticipation—approaching ecstasy makes you hungry. I took off the dress and wrapped myself in my extra-large tartan robe and found microwavable sustenance in the kitchen—one of the perks of being the child of the Emotional Gourmet. I nuked a slab of herb bread and a container of Mom’s drop-dead Chicken Paprikash. I washed this down with a bottle of Orangina and two cherry fritters. The phone rang again. I counted two rings this time, not wanting to push my luck, and breathed my sexiest hello.

  “Mrs. McCreary,” said the pushy voice. “And how are you this evening?”

  “I’m not Mrs.—”

  “Stan Hurlehan, Mrs. McCreary, of the Triple A Siding Company, with a special offer that could change your life!”

  Keeping the phone line free was the only thing that could change my life. I said I was waiting for an emergency call. Good-bye.

  It was eight-eighteen; Peter still hadn’t called. Maybe he was injured. I did the direct, today’s assertive female thing: called his house, heard his voice, and hung up. Calling had to be his idea. I glared at the phone.

  “Ring!” I shouted.

  It didn’t.

  Peter was home; worse than that, Peter was home and not calling me!

  I hadn’t walked Stieglitz. I hadn’t done my homework. I hadn’t figured out what I would say to my parents when, in one hour, they would be landing at LaGuardia Airport, fresh from two fun-packed days and nights in New Orleans. I hadn’t exercised in days; I ran up and down three flights of stairs for thirty minutes, which kept me in the presence of the Nonringing Phone. I curled into a lump, wheezing on the kitchen floor, and wondered if I could get arrested for manipulation. I shook creeping angst from my soul and made the wedding list, keeping it just under three hundred on my side with only eight bridesmaids. Trish called again and said she was just checking the phone line.

  “Ring!” I shouted at the blasted phone.

  It did; I yanked it off the wall. “Hello!” I shrieked.

  “A.J.,” said the golden voice of my dreams…

  “Speaking…,” I crooned.

  “This is—”

  “Peter…,” I said dreamily.

  “I have to see you,” he nearly shouted. “Something’s happened…I can’t explain.”

  Love is like that.

  “Can I come over, A.J.? Please?”

  “Yes, Peter! I’m free! I live at—”

  “I know where you live!”

  Right.

  I kissed the phone. It was happening! I ran upstairs to become gorgeous, although with Jonathan’s arrow trick I could probably answer the door in arctic slipper socks and a sack and nothing would deter Peter’s heart. But I wanted to give him a good show when he scooped me up in his arms.

  At least that’s what I thought he would do.

  Succumbed people act normally, right?

  A small knot twisted in my stomach. I put on my lavender sweater that made me look sexy but sincere, and brushed out my hair until it shone and flounced with honesty. Truth seemed to be a recurring theme as I was getting dressed.

  Guilt trickled over me. I’d been anything but honest.

  I’d been selfish, corrupt…

  Jonathan hovered down from the ceiling, eating a carrot.

  “Where…have you been?” I stammered.

  “Observing,” he said gravely.

  Jonathan’s dark, dinky eyes looked right through me. I brushed off my sweater that didn’t need it and looked furtively out the window.

  “Why are you frightened?” he asked.

  “I’m not frightened!” I swallowed hard as panic rose in my chest.

  What would Peter do when he got here?

  “You must listen to the things that you try to ignore,” Jonathan intoned.

  I jumped as a honk and a screech sounded on the street. Stieglitz went positively ballistic in his death-to-intruders dance and flashed his jaws. I looked out the window and tingled as Peter’s souped-up Jeep tore up the driveway and he jumped out in epic perfection. I felt my kidneys curl. Then my parents’ car pulled up alongside him.

  I closed my eyes; it was going to be an interesting evening.

  There was no time to prepare my parents to meet their future son-in-law.

  “I hope,” Jonathan said solemnly, “that you enjoy the dance.”

  I shuddered and walked downstairs, part of me exulting, the other part nauseous. Peter was introducing himself to my mother, then he shook my father’s hand like he was priming an old pump. I made my big entrance, taking the steps slow because I was shaking. He was wearing a navy-blue turtleneck and brushed jeans—I go crazy for males in turtlenecks. His eyes locked with mine—he was a goner. Stieglitz was barking like a mad fiend, running up and down the stairs, killing the mood.

  “Stop it!” I hissed. Stieglitz darted in front of me, I tripped over his hind legs, plummeted three stairs down, and crashed, once again, at Peter’s supreme feet.

  Peter picked me up. “A.J.!” he cried, devastated. “Are you all right?”

  If I’d taken ballet, this never would have happened. I brushed myself off. Stieglitz growled at Peter like he was president of the Dog Catchers Union. Peter gazed at me like a Doberman contemplating sirloin.

  My parents stood rigid in the hall, holding their luggage, trying, as all parents of teenagers attempt through the ages, to read between the lines. I turned to them and smiled bleakly.

  “Mom, Dad, how nice to see you. I’m perfectly fine. The house is fine. How was your trip? Did you have a nice flight? You’re right on time, I see. Isn’t this nice? Oh…this is Peter, a guy from school.”

  “We’ve met,” said Dad, unsure.

  “It’s a bit late for a visit, isn’t it?” asked Mom, shifting her carry-on bag. She was gearing up to say a mouthful.

  Mom, Dad, and Peter smiled anxiously at each other as Stieglitz bared his teeth. I glared at my parents like maybe this would be a good time for them to leave us alone, all things considered. Then, just as charming as anything, Peter said, “Mr. and Mrs. McCreary, I apologize for the hour. It must seem irresponsible of me. I just needed to say something to A.J. and then I’ll go.”

  Mom and Dad sifted his words, not blinking.

  “I don’t want to do anything to give you a bad opinion of me,” Peter added, smiling at my parents with absolute charm. “I’m sorry if I’ve pushed the rules. Would it be okay if I spoke to A.J. for one moment?”

  Mom smiled back, which meant she was melting. Dad hadn’t blinked yet. Mom jabbed Dad in the ribs and pulled him toward the kitchen.

  “Ten minutes,” she said with a grin.

  “Five,” Dad countered.

  Peter waited until the kitchen door closed. I was dying. I’d memorized every inch of him; I’d photographed him from every angle; and now he was here!

  “Strict parents,” Peter said finally, rolling his eyes.

  “They’re not strict, they’re…” I let it pass. Stieglitz didn’t; he pawed the carpet and showed his teeth.

  “Hey, there, dog,” said Peter stretching out his gorgeous hand. Stieglitz flashed fangs and nipped him.

  “Bad dog!” I shoved Stieglitz into the kitchen, ran back to Peter, and attended hi
s wound.

  “I’m so sorry…he’s never done that…he’s…”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Peter whispered, caressing my hand.

  “It doesn’t?” I gulped hard, grabbing the banister with the other one for strength.

  “Can’t feel a thing,” he insisted, drawing me close.

  I could feel everything.

  Peter nuzzled my cheek; my jaw started quivering. He pulled me closer; my knees gave way. His breath was hot on my neck and I could feel the beating of his heart, like it was trying to jump out of his chest right into mine. Then he kissed me—it was like sinking in something soft, like losing all of yourself in a glorious moment in time. He kept kissing me and I kept holding on. I took a deep breath so I wouldn’t faint.

  Stieglitz went ape behind the kitchen door. I remembered where I was.

  “Peter,” I whispered breathlessly, checking the kitchen door for my parents, “you said there was something you wanted to say?”

  He grinned, stepped back, and gazed at me with total adoration. “It happened at dinner,” he said. “I was eating meat loaf and…suddenly I saw your face…”

  “In the meat loaf…”

  “In my mind!” His eyes were wild and gauzy.

  “Yes?”

  “And I realized I…”

  “Yes?”

  “I…well…I felt this shot through my heart like…”

  Jonathan was hovering halfway down the stairs, observing Peter like a scientist watches a laboratory rat.

  “And,” Peter continued, “I just knew you were the one!”

  Ecstasy!

  I reached out to hug him. None of the other boys were like this. No love had ever been like this!

  Jonathan folded his arms, waiting.

  Then Peter’s eyes cleared. He stepped back, he looked around confused.

  “What…?” he shook his head. He glared at me like I was the worst news of his life and backed off.

  “What,” Peter demanded, “am I doing here?”

  “Huh?”

  Jonathan fluttered right in Peter’s face and looked into his eyes.

  “What,” Peter shouted, “is going on?”

  “You called me,” I reminded him. “You said it was urgent!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Yes”—I was deflated—“you did!” I stared at Jonathan, who was flying in zigzag patterns around Peter’s head and chest. “You said you were eating meat loaf and…” I stopped here because it was clear he didn’t remember.

  “I’ve got to go home,” Peter said nervously, lunging toward the door. “I think I’m sick.”

  He tore down the great stone steps like a hunted animal.

  “Peter! Wait!”

  But it was no use. Peter slammed his Jeep out of the driveway and screeched off.

  I crumbled in the hall on terra cotta tiles.

  “Most peculiar,” Jonathan said solemnly, landing on the banister. “I have never observed this reaction before.”

  “He was here!” I wailed. “We were so close! And now he’s gone forever!”

  I ran upstairs and crashed on my futon in tears.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I lay on my futon, a broken shell.

  Peter Terris couldn’t stand me! I slammed my head in my nonallergenic pillow and wept bitterly.

  My parents had come up earlier, wondering what was wrong.

  “Nothing,” I sobbed, which they didn’t buy.

  “Everything,” I tried again. But I couldn’t talk about it except to say that I was giving up the entire male species because I was an abject failure at romance, and they should probably forget about ever having grandchildren.

  “We won’t hold you to that, honey,” said my mother.

  I curled into the fetal position and said I needed to be alone. They muttered parental concerns and left.

  I called Trish because I’d promised I would; when you can’t even spear a boyfriend with mythology, you need to cling to those precious relationships mired in history.

  “It was a consummate bust,” I groaned to her, “beyond torture. I can’t even talk about it now. We’re over; we never even began…”

  Trish mumbled from the good side of her mouth that she was really sorry. I said we’d talk tomorrow, I said she was a great friend, I said that life had no meaning, and hung up.

  I sighed with the depth only known to the unrequited-love professional. I remembered a conversation I’d had with Mr. Zeid last February after Robbie Oldsberg dumped me. I’d been trying to photograph the pain I was feeling, trying to communicate abandonment through my art, but instead of connecting with that, my photographs were stagnant. Mr. Zeid reminded me that it took Michelangelo eons to finish the ceiling for the Sistine Chapel, to record correctly what he’d seen and felt. I pointed out that Michelangelo got back problems from the entire ordeal, not to mention major papal stress, to which Mr. Zeid delivered his singsong line that he used to zonk every crop of new Art History students:

  “Every artist, somewhere, somehow, has to suffer. It is the strength of art itself that brings greatness and beauty out of chaos.”

  I said if suffering was a prerequisite to greatness, my name was going to be a household word.

  I pulled my quilt around me tight as Stieglitz peeked into my room, still devastated that I’d called him a bad dog. His tail was lowered.

  “It’s okay, boy.”

  Stieglitz sighed with relief and climbed on the futon. I rubbed his head and felt like an evil genie.

  Trying to make someone do something he didn’t want to do was monstrous. God was punishing me and I deserved it. I remembered a Bible story I’d learned years ago in Sunday school about King Solomon. God made Solomon king and asked Solomon what he wanted most. Solomon said wisdom and God said, good choice, and gave it to him with everything else you could imagine. Mrs. Pilson, my Sunday school teacher, said that God rewarded Solomon because he had asked wisely. Billy Haggamon said he would have asked to own the Lionel Train Company. Mrs. Pilson said she was quite certain God wouldn’t give Billy the choice.

  I had had a choice.

  A rich, magical, life-changing choice.

  And I had gone the way of Billy Haggamon.

  I had blown it!

  The phone rang; it was the siding man, probably, looking to change my life. I reached for the receiver and managed a bleak hello.

  “A.J.!” said the voice.

  I bolted up.

  “A.J., it’s Peter! Can you ever forgive me?”

  Hope soared through me.

  “I just got home, A.J., and I can’t believe I walked out like that! I don’t know what’s the matter with me, I must be sick or something!”

  He said he was sorry a hundred times; he’d been feeling strange, he explained. He’d never, he promised, ever act like that again.

  Peter said he wanted to drive me to school in the morning; I curled on my futon in a happy ball. I pictured us snuggled together in the front seat of his brown Jeep, screeching up to school as an official dating unit. I saw Julia Hart’s face drop in green-eyed envy as Peter and I paraded in matching sweaters down the Benjamin Franklin parking lot promenade that only popular students swish down, since it was in full view of the entire world. Popular students don’t worry about tripping, or burping dementedly in public—popular students are immune from life’s social spasms.

  Then he said he wanted to drive me to school every morning, as in forever!

  Joy shot through me. Yes, I shouted, he could drive me! His mother picked up the phone at this point and told him to get off and get some sleep—a real mood killer, but not even parental boorishness could extinguish our eternal flame. He said he’d see me tomorrow. He said he’d think about me tonight. Then he said he probably wouldn’t sleep much for all the thinking he was going to do about me, and I swear, if I could have jumped through the receiver into his gorgeous lap at that moment, I would have.

  Peter said he didn’t think he could wait unti
l tomorrow and I said I didn’t think I could either. That’s when his mother picked up the receiver and screamed, “Now!” like a supreme shrew. I vowed then and there that I would never be like that when Peter and I had children. I would never forget, even in my ancient, aged state, what it was like to be seventeen.

  I hung up feeling like I’d just sunk into warm fudge and threw a pillow into the air because I had to do something expansive. The pillow hit my desk lamp, which crashed to the floor with great emotion.

  I knelt down to pick up broken light-bulb pieces. There was a knock on my door and my mother walked in.

  “I heard a crash,” she said.

  “A crash of victory, Mother!”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I am absolutely wonderful, Mother! Life has taken a rich new turn!”

  Mom knelt down to help me and threw broken glass into the wastebasket. “Specifics would help, honey.”

  “Peter and I are together again. He called and everything is perfect!”

  Mom put the lamp back on my desk, dissecting my words. “Tell me about Peter,” she said finally.

  I went for the Cliffs Notes version. “He’s the most fabulous male in the universe, Mother! He is the best boy at school—not even Todd Kovich at his pinnacle, before he became a total buzzard, could beat him. He is brilliant and wonderful and he’s crazy about me!”

  “I’ve missed a lot being in New Orleans.” Mom sat on a chair, because her forty-four-year-old knees were going. “When did you start seeing each other?”

  I cleared my throat at this point. Of course, I wanted to tell her everything—however, everything was a politically incorrect move that could cause me to lose certain privileges, like my future, since telling my mother about Jonathan would get me committed, and who knew what Jonathan would do? So I said, “Today…kind of…” good and fast, and gave her time to get used to the concept.

  She took off her glasses. “Today?”

  “Things had been building…”

  She stared at me through tired eyes.

  “True love, Mother, is not bound by time.”

  “I see.”

  “True love is something that you have to trust your instincts about, and sometimes those instincts get buried, you know, even though they’re there, and then one day…splat…they gush out…like striking oil…”