It is full of Barbie dolls.
“Sunny,” you say, “we have to talk.”
Ignoring you, she says, “there’s a bucket of sand by the back door. Would you get that for me?”
You obey.
When you return, Sunny is emptying all the best-sellers from the window.
You return them to the shelves, refraining from asking questions. By now, you have cleverly deduced that Sunny has plans for these dolls. Plans involving the window display.
You spend a pleasant half hour or so pulling books that involve beaches, oceans, and summer activities from the shelves. These include a horror book set at the beach, Moby-Dick, several guides to shells, a book about beach vacations, and Treasure Island (personal childhood favorite). You’ve decided to insist it be included, even if Sunny objects.
But she doesn’t. Instead, she suggests that you get some petty cash and buy a bottle of suntan lotion and some not-too-uncool-but-cheap sunglasses to go with the display.
You return to find Sunny arranging the books on a couple of beach towels that she has also brought along.
You remind her that she’ll be in trouble if she gets sand in the books’ bindings.
Or at least if they were library books she would be.
She makes a face. You make a face back.
You know from humiliating childhood experience leading to lifelong fear of the species Librarianimus Horribilus.
Also lions, tigers, bears.
Cro Mags?
You will not think about those jerks, those hall jockeys, those losers who somehow manage to make your life miserable.
School is out. For the summer.
You have no fear.
No fear. Ducky fears no Cro Mag. Nor Neanderthal either. (neither?)
Movie advertisement:
Ducky is John Wayne. And the Duke fears NO MAN.
But did John “the Duke” Wayne fear women? Did he…
Another customer.
MOMENTS LATER
ANOTHER CUSTOMER WHO POLITELY declines your offer of assistance.
You try not to feel REJECTED.
Okay, just kidding. Customer rejection happens not to be a problem for…
What is Sunny making those faces for? Why is she pointing at that customer? Yeah, the baggy clothes are a bit fashion-over but…
A John Wayne Moment
YOU LOOK UP. SEE the guy slide a very large art book into the inner pocket of his coat.
You blink. Not a Duke blink, a Duck blink.
You do NOT BELIEVE YOUR EYES.
The guy starts to walk oh-so-casually to the door.
Sunny slides in front. “Did you find everything you needed?” she asks.
Her eyes are sending you SIGNALS.
Dial 911?
No.
Call the police the regular way?
No.
“No,” says the shoplifter. He steps to one side.
Sunny steps to the same side.
He steps to the other side.
Sunny steps to the other side.
A shoplifter dance.
You recover your (dim) wits and race (casually, sweating, dry-mouthed) to join the party. “Hey,” you say.
(Hey? Hey? The Duke, wherever he is, is NOT impressed.)
“I think you might have forgotten to pay for something.”
The guy, now that you notice, is big. As in MUCH TALLER THAN YOU.
He’s also armed with a large, heavy art book.
You brace yourself for the possible direct delivery of art appreciation to your skull. You smile.
Sunny opens her mouth. You glance at her and beam the following universal signal to her: BE PREPARED. FOR ANYTHING.
Does she understand it?
She frowns slightly, closes her mouth. Her look says, YOUR TURN.
“What?” says the guy. “What are you talking about?” He is pretty convincing. You are amazed at how convincing he is. You want to believe him.
And then he does the most amazingly GUILTY thing in the world. He puts his hand over the inside pocket where the book is stashed (or books—at that moment, you don’t know how many he’s got kangarooed away in hidden pouches).
You look at his hand.
You look up at him.
You fold your arms and raise one eyebrow.
You admit, here only, that you’ve practiced this look on occasion. Privately. But you have never, ever said, “Bond. James Bond” while doing it.
Ever.
You stare at Mr. Pocket book. He stares at you.
It gets way too quiet. A little pulse is jumping at one corner of his mouth. He needs a shave. But not much. His face is mostly fuzzy and you realize that he is younger than you thought he was.
Then Sunny says, “It happens more than you’d think. Book people are so absentminded. And they leave things here all the time too. Car keys. Gloves. We have quite a lost-and-found collection…. Anyway, if you’ll step to the register, I’ll be glad to ring up your choices for you.”
Pocket book looks at you.
You drop the eyebrow and give him an encouraging nod.
“Right,” he says.
You step aside and motion toward the register. Sunny stays beside him and you step in to guard the rear as she moves around to ring up his purchases.
“Check?” he croaks. “Is a check okay?”
“Cash,” Sunny says smoothly. “We prefer cash.”
Like she’s going to take a check from him. Like he’s gonna use his real checkbook.
Okay, so maybe he would. Who knows?
He fumbles out a wallet—and the art book.
You have an inspired moment and say, “You might want to make sure you haven’t forgotten any other books you were interested in buying.”
He jumps. His hand goes to the other side of his coat.
You hope this guy doesn’t make a living doing this. Apart from the illegality thing, the ripping-people-off-who-are-trying-to-make-a-living-themselves thing, he’s gonna starve.
He’s really bad at his job.
He ends up paying for three paperbacks, but not the art book. Not enough of the folding green stuff.
And Sunny tells him, with deeply insincere regret, that the credit card machine is not working.
Just in case his credit cards are faux. Smooth Sunny.
The shoplifter bolts with his purchases.
You and Sunny face each other.
CUT TO:
SUNNY: YOU WERE COOL, Ducky. I mean, I was totally freaked and there you were.
D: Hey [there’s that word again], if you hadn’t stepped in front of him, he would’ve been so gone.
S: Yeah, but after I did that, I didn’t know what to do.
D: That line about book people being absentminded? Brilliant.
S [modestly]: Thank you. My hero.
D: My hero.
Sunny laughs. You laugh.
“We’re a good team,” Sunny says.
“Yeah,” you say. “We are.”
Aug. 16
OKAY. YOU’RE A SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY and you like to go shopping. You just spent the day shopping.
With a girl.
Who is thirteen.
(But not just any girl. Sunny.)
Does this make you strange?
Answer: No. You are already strange.
Besides, who cares? It’s not like anyone saw you. And even if they did, WHY DO YOU CARE?
And besides again, even if THEY (whoever they are) saw you, they’d just think you were hanging out with a cute girl.
Anyway, it wasn’t your idea to go shopping. Sunny and you were hanging at the mall and it just… happened.
One minute you were watching the little kids throw pennies in the fountain (standing, of course, right next to the sign that said, “please don’t throw pennies in the fountain”). The next minute, you found yourself giving face time to window displays. Nodding when Sunny said, “Puh-lease, the colors are unnatural. In a bad way.”
Rema
rking on, for example, your need, someday, for something in cashmere.
“I wouldn’t have to wear it,” you say. “Just keep it around and pet it. A cashmere pet. Soft. Color-coordinated. House-trained.”
Sunny is laughing.
And then wham, bam, you’re in a store.
Actually, you go willingly into your favorite try-on-and-spend emporium. Lots of retro stuff. Sunny has a sunglasses vision (that’s what she calls it) and you end up with a pair of either extremely geeky or over-the-edge-cool old sunglasses that she insists you wear even though you are indoors.
“It’s a very bright mall,” she says.
“Tell me before I walk into, say, a display. Or a store window,” you reply.
You drift into a wig place. You’re a little creeped out by it. All those loose scalps on all those severed heads.
But Sunny dives right in, trying on wigs likes they’re hats.
A black Cher number with bangs—not Sunny’s best look.
Not yours either.
Even with the dark glasses.
The “wig consultant” has been offering advice to another “client.” She makes the sale, the client bags the hair, and then the consultant turns to you and Sunny.
Sunny is now in a Little Orphan Annie number: red curls going SPROING!
The consultant gives her a mouthful of smile. “May I help you?” she says.
Unspoken words: “Like, out of my store? Now?”
“No thanks.” Sunny picks up a mirror to get a better peek at the back of her head.
“Orphan Annie isn’t your style,” you say and want to BITE OFF YOUR TONGUE since it has been—what?—only a few months since Mrs. Winslow died.
“Half an orphan might be,” Sunny says without missing a beat.
Her eyes meet yours in the mirror. They have a funny expression. Challenging? Expectant?
You answer with a disgusted face.
You never know what Sunny’s going to say. It’s one of the things you like about her.
You also like that you can let her know when you think she’s pushing ’tude on you.
The look vanishes from Sunny’s eyes. She smiles. Megawatt. Indecipherable.
Like you’ve passed a test.
She says, “Don’t wig on me, Ducky.”
The consultant’s teeth disappear into a thin-lipped, “been there, heard that” grimace.
You ponder the meaning of Sunny’s look, her smile.
You ponder the idea that selling wigs is sort of like selling shoes, only at the other end.
Sunny removes the red fright curls. She stares at herself for a second in the mirror, smooths her own much-better-looking hair, and says, “Do you think I’m pretty, Ducky?”
This you didn’t expect.
You say, “Pretty?” in a cowardly, stalling-for-time sort of way. You look at the wig. You look at Sunny.
You realize she is pretty. Without a doubt.
“As in not ugly,” says Sunny.
Are you in trouble? Could be. Trying to keep it light you say, “Without the wig you are beautiful.”
Sunny looks pleased and you try not to look relieved when she laughs. You laugh too.
Inside you are going, “WHEWWWWW!”
What if Sunny had asked you that (sorry to be sexist but so far you’ve never heard a guy ask this) GIRL QUESTION: “Do I look fat?”
No right answer to that one.
And what does it mean, anyway?
Fat compared to what?
Fat, how?
Fatheaded, if you’re a Cro Mag?
Define fat.
Fat in which places?
Fat according to what culture?
Sunny flutters her eyelashes at you, gives the rest of the wigs a quick look, then says thanks to the consultant.
We wander out of the wig store and loiter/saunter around the mall.
Sunny catches your hand and swings it gleefully.
“Isn’t this fun?” she says.
“It is,” you say back.
“Next time we go out to play, you get to choose the game.”
“Mall hunt is a pretty good one.”
“Quality time,” Sunny agrees. “You know, Ducky, you are so not like other guys.”
Is this a good thing? A bad thing?
It’s not a thing you didn’t know already, thanks to the Cro Mags.
You wonder if this is Sunny’s way of saying, “you’re weird, Ducky, but it’s okay.”
You say, “Yeah, but am I pretty?”
That sets Sunny off. She is still snorting with laughter as you pass the food court.
You are wondering if you are, well, ugly. You meant to be funny, but did Sunny have to laugh quite so hard?
You nod absently as Sunny finally stops laughing, sniffs, and pronounces the odor “mystery meat.”
“We’d have to give Dawn artificial resuscitation,” she remarks.
“It’s pretty rank,” you say. “A smell like that makes you understand Dawn’s eco-vegetarian ways.”
“True,” Sunny agrees.
You remember Dawn is in Connecticut for the summer with her mom and stepfather, etc. You ponder the fact that Dawn goes back and forth between two sets of parents while your parents just go away.
To places like Greece. Crete, to be specific.
Why Crete?
Why not Crete? It’s far away. Your parents seem to like that.
A toy store display catches Sunny’s eye. “Look,” she says. “Noah’s Ark. All the animals two by two going up into the boat.”
You squint through the dark glasses.
“Like everyone we know,” says Sunny. “Two by two.”
“On cruises?” you say.
She ignores your lame humor. “Amalia and Brendan, who’ve been together much since Brendan got back from camp. Tyler…”
“Maggie says he’s not her boyfriend—” you begin.
“Maggie’s just talking. They are girlfriend-boyfriend. Look at how they’re acting. Togetherness Plus while Tyler’s in town between movies.”
“I guess,” you say. “I haven’t seen that much of them.”
“Cause they’re seeing soooo much of each other,” Sunny says triumphantly.
“I’m glad. For Maggie. And for Tyler.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Sunny sits on a bench, pats the seat beside her.
“Ah, nature,” you say, pushing aside the fronds of the tree above the bench. It’s one of those mall trees that need no light.
Originally from the jungle?
“What we need here are some artificial pigeons to feed,” you remark.
You turn to see Sunny staring. At you.
That look again.
Is something going on in Sunny’s life that she’s not telling you? Should you ask?
“Sunny?” you say.
She blinks. “Sorry. Spacing.”
She smiles at you.
You smile at her.
The tree rustles in… who knows what? The mall breeze? The fumes from the food court?
A real mall moment.
Aug. 20
Friday
Friends (a NOT-for-Television Story)
Ring, ring.
Ducky picks up the phone.
Mother of Ducky: Christopher. Darling, how are you?
D: Fine. Cooking dinner.
MOD: How nice! [Pause] Cooking? Dinner?
D: Yes. How are you? How’s Crete?
MOD: I guess it’s dinnertime, isn’t it?
D: Here. What time is it there?
MOD: Your father says hello. Do you want to talk to him?
D: Tell him hello. I’m making fruit salad. So we don’t get scurvy.
MOD: [Pause] Oh. Is Ted there?
D: Hold on. TED!
World-traveling parents do that. They call and ask questions and you answer and you have a conversation in which you talk about one thing and they talk about another. Maybe it’s the difference in time zones.
Maybe
as long as they hear the voices of their sons, they figure everything is okay.
It’s okay. If you like having a Ted-sized family.
You might say you still have issues with them for NOT BEING HERE, especially for the basic family moments: Christmas, for example.
But you don’t really have issues, do you, Ducky?
Hardly at all. You like your freedom. You are learning important life skills.
Housecleaning. Ordering takeout.
Cooking.
You wonder if you will be a chef. You’ve learned to cook in self-defense.
You cook because a man (even John “the Duck” Wayne) cannot live on cereal and take-out pizza alone.
Of course, your brother scarfs it up and says, “decent,” and then leaves the dishes. You say, “Ted, I cooked. You clean up.”
He says, “Sure. Later.”
“Later” in Ted-speak means “before the parents get home.”
Weeks. Months. Years.
Well, maybe not years.
So you sigh your long-suffering sigh, reject the thought of dumping the remainder of the fruit salad over your ungrateful slob of a brother’s head, remind yourself he’s the only bro you have, and clean up yourself.
In self-defense. Another course not offered in the local dojo: housework as self-defense.
Ah, domestic arts.
Maybe that’s why your parents travel. No housework.
They pack. They unpack. When they get to a big enough hotel, they call room service and have everything cleaned.
Your father is talking about going to Pompeii, in Italy.
You mention that you thought Pompeii was buried under ash or something.
“You know about Pompeii?” your mother sounds surprised and pleased.
You almost tell her you watched a late-night TV movie about it, but you stop.
Both the words “late night” and “TV” make parents go, well, parental.
You say, “mmm.”
“Fascinating place,” she says. “An entire town buried in volcanic ash.”
You imagine your own house buried in volcanic ash. When they dug it up in the future, what would they think?
Later
BUSY WEEK. HAVEN’T HAD much time.
Time flies. Doesn’t matter if you’re having fun or just cooking and cleaning and having nonconversations with your long-distance parents.
Big zero night ahead.
Phone.
Okay, back.
Just when you thought you could count on a quiet, boring evening at home.