Chapter 2 #2
By the time I turned fifteen, girls had completely taken over my orbit.
I found my eyes darting at them when we passed in the halls.
I spent a stupid amount of time in front of the school bathroom mirrors, adjusting the way my thick hair fell over my ears and forehead, or wetting the cowlicks to keep them from sticking up.
Although I’d heard a few girls say I was “cute,” I hated the way I looked; my ears were too prominent, my brows too thick.
I had a full mouth, which I hated. I wanted a flat upper lip because mustaches looked better over those, and I dreamed of growing a mustache and looking older.
I did a hundred push--ups every night to try and make my scrawny chest thicker.
I rolled up the sleeves of my shirts, because I thought it made my shoulders look broader.
I had gotten pretty good at music—-my piano playing had led to guitar and bass playing as well—-and I tried walking around with the aloof sneer of my favorite rock stars.
But every time I caught my reflection, I looked like a fish.
Conversing with the opposite sex was also a challenge. Without a mother to advise me, I was lost.
“How do you know if a girl likes you?” I asked my father once.
“Hard to say, Alfie.”
“Isn’t there some clue?”
“Well, if she doesn’t walk away when you say hello, you have a chance.”
That wasn’t much help. Although I had the power to erase bad first impressions, I still seemed vulnerable to every mistake.
Once, at a local diner, a group of girls was sitting in a booth.
I had a serious crush on one of them, Natalie, a sophomore who pinned her blond hair back with two pink clips.
She seemed shy and friendly and sometimes smiled when I walked past her in school.
My buddies and I were in another booth, and they egged me on to speak with her.
One bet a dollar I couldn’t hold Natalie’s interest for a minute.
I slowly approached the table. I had a nervous habit of moving my hands when I spoke, and when I finally made eye contact with Natalie, I began to say, “Hi, how are y—-” when my right wrist flicked forward and knocked a glass of chocolate milk into her lap.
Her elbows shot out sideways. “Oh my God!” she yelled. When she glared up from her now--soaked jeans, all I could mumble was: “Look at that.”
Look at that?
Needless to say, I twiced myself out of that situation.
But the second time didn’t go much better.
I avoided the chocolate milk but was so focused on controlling my hands, I ran out of things to say after hello.
Once she rolled her eyes at her friends, I knew I was toast. I dug my palms into my pockets and walked straight to the men’s room, where I hid for the next fifteen minutes.
That was the end of my crush on Natalie. And the dollar.
?
It was about this time when my father, who had grown sideburns and let his hair lengthen beyond the crew-cut stage, came home with a bag of McDonald’s cheeseburgers.
He put two on a plate, slid it in front of me, and sat down across the table.
As I unwrapped the yellow paper and took my first bite, he announced he was getting married.
“What?” I said, choking. “To who?”
“Her name is Adeline.”
“Who is she?”
“She works as a Realtor.”
“I don’t understand. When did you meet her? When do you see her? Why do you want to marry her?” All those questions belied the loudest one screaming in my brain: What about Mom?
“I know this is probably hard for you, Alfie. But it’s time for me to have someone in my life.”
“You have me,” I mumbled.
He smiled. “Not a son. A wife. It’s good for a man to have a wife. Adeline is a lovely woman. You’ll see.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Six months. We met at the bowling alley.”
“Where is she going to live?”
“What do you mean? She’s going to live here.”
“With us?”
“Of course, with us.”
I pictured this strange woman sharing his bed. Sharing his bathroom. Eating from our plates. I put down the cheeseburger and sat there tearing up, feeling like a wrecking ball had just knocked me clear out of my life.
“Dad?” I finally said.
“Yeah?”
“Is she going to take down the pictures of Mom?”
“Of course, not, Alfie. She’s not like that.”
But she was. Adeline and my father got married at a courthouse with three witnesses—-her older sister, my dad’s friend Larry, and me.
An hour later, my new stepmother pulled her 1972 Chevy Impala into our driveway.
She adjusted her big sunglasses as my father lugged in three orange Samsonite bags.
It was mid--March, and there was still snow on our porch.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know you, Alfred,” she said.
“Everyone calls me Alfie.”
“But your given name is Alfred, right? That’s what your father told me.”
I felt a burn of betrayal. My father was giving up family secrets before the woman even ruffled a couch pillow.
“Anyhow, Alfie is a name for a little boy,” she said. “You’re hardly a little boy anymore. You’re almost six feet tall.”
“Six foot and a half inch.”
She blinked, as if not used to being corrected.
“Six foot and a half inch then,” she repeated. “Alfred.”
We ate our first meal together that night in the kitchen.
She made salmon croquettes, which I hated.
The next day she packed me a lunch for school, tuna salad, which I also hated.
That weekend my father insisted we all go for a drive, and she told him three times in less than an hour, “Slow down, Lawrence, you’re going to cause an accident. ”
The following week, while I was down in the basement playing piano, the door opened and I heard her yell, “That’s enough banging now, Alfred. It’s after eight!”
Four months later, I came home to find new furniture in our living room. An egg--shaped chair, an alabaster couch with lime stripes, and a matching ottoman. Missing was our old end table, the one that held my mother’s framed photograph.
And the photograph itself.
“Where’s her picture?” I yelled.
“What picture?”
“My mother’s!”
“Oh. It’s in the closet for now, with some other things. We’ll find a new place for it.”
“Which closet?”
“Does it matter?”
“Tell me which closet!”
“In the hallway.” She tried to change the subject. “How do you like our new furniture, Alfred? You haven’t said anything.”
“It’s ugly.”
Her neck actually moved backward an inch. “That was rude.”
“Well, it’s true. It’s ugly as sin.”
“Take that back. Take it back right now!”
“Fine,” I groused. “I take it back.”
I spent the next few hours in my bedroom, holding my mother’s photo.
Everything I feared was coming to pass. I had finally gotten used to life alone with my father.
Now came this second family upheaval. I thought about that final conversation with my mom, when she patted the bed and said, “Let me tell you all the things I love about you.” Somehow, I could never picture Adeline saying something like that.
So I made a decision. That night, during dinner, I expressed a sudden interest in how my dad and my new stepmother had met.
My father mostly shrugged, saying, “Why does it matter?” But Adeline happily recounted the story: how she’d gone to a bowling alley on a date, but the man never showed due to car trouble.
My dad, there with his league team, had gone to the bar for drinks and, noticing her alone, offered her a beer.
“One thing led to another,” she said, rubbing the back of his neck, “and here we are.”
I wanted to vomit.
But I pressed on until I learned the exact date of their meeting.
Then I raced to my room and scurried through my notebooks.
I read what I was doing earlier that day.
It was a Wednesday. Typical routine. Breakfast. School.
Lunch in the cafeteria. Things I could not specifically recall.
But that afternoon, the notebook said, I’d gone skateboarding with Wesley at a local park.
I remembered that. I closed my eyes and whispered twice.
Instantly, I was back at that park, steering my board up a ramp, then cruising back down. My body felt different. Smaller. Less solid. I didn’t realize how much I’d grown in ten months.
“What time is it?” I yelled to Wesley.
“Four forty--five!” he yelled back. “Why?”
My father’s bowling league started at six thirty. I had to think fast. I looked around for something dangerous. There was a small footbridge that covered a creek, with a three--foot ledge on each side.
I took a deep inhale, then revved my wheels and steered onto that ledge. Halfway along, I leapt into the air. I had zero confidence I could land back on my board—-and I didn’t. My foot hit the ledge, then my shin, then my knee and elbow. I flipped into the creek.
“Alfie!” Wesley yelled.
I needed stitches in three places, which was more damage than I’d intended to inflict.
It was the first time I’d truly injured myself and allowed the suffering to continue.
I was surprised at how much it hurt. But, as I’d hoped, my father was called, and he stayed with me at the emergency room.
It took a while because the hospital was busy.
When we finally left, he touched my shoulder.
“You all right, Alfie?”
“I’m OK, Dad.”
“I don’t understand something. Wesley said you jumped off your skateboard?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It was stupid.” I rubbed my sore knee as I stole a glance at his watch. It was after seven. “Dad? Can we eat at the diner tonight? I’m starving.”
“Yeah, all right.” He looked at me as if my very existence puzzled him. “What were you thinking, Alfie?”
“I guess I wasn’t,” I said.
But, of course, I was. Having tended to his son’s emergency, my father never went bowling. He never met Adeline. He remained single.
And a certain photo remained on our end table.