Prologue #3
Davy looks up at me with wide eyes as if he’s imagining what this will look like. Finally, he asks, “Do you have a boyfriend?”
I snort. “No.”
“Why not? Greg is Amanda’s boyfriend.”
I pull at a thread on the blown knee of my jeans. “I don’t have time. And I’m leaving in a few months for college. Seems silly. And distracting.”
“I can be your boyfriend.”
I laugh fully. “You cannot.”
“Why not?”
It’s hard not to smile. Now that he’s not scowling and making me look bad, he’s cute in his little hat and squeaky voice. “The difference between our ages for one. You’re only seven and I’m seventeen. That’s a lot of years.”
He sits up a little straighter. “My dad is three years older than my mom.”
I know Mr. Nickels. He teaches social studies.
“Hm.” I squint at him. “There’s also the difference in interests. I don’t think we have much in common.”
He wiggles in his seat. “We both like glass.”
Again, I laugh. “Fine, we both like glass. But I don’t think that’s enough.”
“You can be my girlfriend even if I’m not your boyfriend.”
“I don’t know about that.” I slip the magazine into my backpack. “What do you even think a girlfriend is?”
His face turns beet red. “The girl you love and marry.”
It takes all my jaw strength to contain my laugh. “I don’t think that’s right.”
“It is,” he argues. “My mom was my dad’s girlfriend.”
“Hm.” I consider what he’s saying and if it’s worth arguing.
If the kid wants to call me his girlfriend, I guess I don’t care.
It’s not so different than the fact Joshua Jackson’s poster hangs over my bed, and I spend every night delusionally dreaming he’ll stroll off the set of Dawson’s Creek to come find me.
Davy and I can read together once a week and—gotcha!
“If I let you say I’m your girlfriend, will you read with me? ”
“Like we just did?”
“Uh-uh.” I shake my head. “Next time you have to help me with the words.” I hold out my hand for him to shake. “Deal?”
He stares at it long enough I’m not sure he’s going to take it. I don’t know if bribing a seven-year-old into learning to read is the most ethical move, but compared to the recent Enron scandal, this is nothing. Plus, this kid is kind of growing on me; he should learn to read.
When he puts his little hand in mine and shakes, he says, “Deal,” and I smile wide.
“Deal,” I echo.
“You’re pretty,” he says.
I puff out a laugh. I am pretty, but a little kid saying it makes it awkward. “Okay.”
He grins a tiny-toothed grin then leans to the boy sitting with Amanda. “Clint.” Clint eyes him. “Miss Reese is my girlfriend.”
Amanda’s face looks as though she’s just found a box full of kittens who shit glitter.
“Aww!” Her hands fly to her mouth. “That is the cutest thing ever. Miss Reese is my best friend you know.” She winks at Davy. “We should double date.”
Wow.
“Okay everyone.” I pin Davy Crockett with a look to reel him back in. “We have reading dates every Thursday for the rest of the year unless you want us to break up. What do you want us to read about?”
He shrugs. “Glass?”
Everyone else in the room is lost in books with bright illustrated covers, and somehow, I’ve become the make-believe girlfriend to a kid who can’t read but is happy to learn about the market value of a material that’s been made for thousands of years.
I won’t argue.
“Works for me.”
Miss Green sings a too-cheery tune that involves clapping and ends with “Eyes on me,” making little faces turn to her as she explains their exit strategy.
Davy Crockett obediently stands. “My birthday’s next week,” he tells me. “I’ll be eight.” In my silence, he adds, “Old enough to be your boyfriend.”
I laugh. He’s persistent, I’ll give him that.
The next week, I bring him a piece of sea glass from my mom’s antique store for his birthday and a comprehensive book on glass and its applications for us to read together. The week after that, his parents have drilled a hole in the glass and it’s hanging from a leather strap around his neck.
I teach him to read the words sand, glass, and fire; he gives me a picture of stick figures holding hands in front of a volcano with our names written in large letters on the top and the caption I lava you.
“My dad helped me write it,” he says, shy.
Amanda swears it’s the cutest thing she’s ever seen, and my mom hangs it on the fridge like it’s a prized possession meant to be displayed. My asshole sisters frame the damn thing and hang it on the wall next to my parents’ wedding picture one night while I’m at work.
By the time the semester is over, I know more about glass than most people on the planet, and the boy—Davy Crockett as I call him right until our last day together—knows how to read.
He asks me to marry him with a Ring Pop.
“I can’t today,” I tell him.
“When I’m old enough and you’re rich?” he asks, his little voice filled with infinite hope.
“By then,” I say, “I’ll already be married to someone else.”
He considers this. “But if you aren’t?”
Despite the absurdity of the situation, I laugh. “I guess we’ll just have to see.”
He grins like this means something. I don’t have the heart to tell him it doesn’t.