Also Known as Elvis (18 page)

“Oh, look at that!” Her hand tightens a grip on
my knee. “A shooting star! It's early in the summer for shooting stars.”

We gaze up at the sky, waiting for more.

• • •

It's been two hours since my dad and I pulled in. Mom and Megan and Jessie were all waiting for us when we did.

“Isn't it past your bedtime?” I asked Jessie.

“I'm too excited to sleep,” she told me. “I
knew
you'd come back.”

“You eaten?” my mom asked us.

“A bag of Doritos and half a bag of Twizzlers,” I said.

“Healthy.” Looking at my dad, she asked, “You want to stay for some supper? I can make eggs.”

“No, but thanks,” he said. “I need to get back on the road. I'll grab a slice of pizza or something.”

I don't know what they talked about on the phone when my dad called from the gas station, but whatever it was had left them acting a whole lot nicer to each other. They had forgiveness in their voices, even if they didn't say the words.

When he left, my dad gave me a big hug—not the guy kind with slaps on the back, but the real deal—and I promised I'd come visit him and Gerri over winter break and stay for a week.

For supper I made pancakes with real maple syrup, which I heated up in the microwave. Jessie and Megan had a second supper with me. And I asked Bobby and his dad if they wanted to come over and join us. I didn't feel like talking much, so I asked them to tell us about their trip to the Adirondacks.

Bobby said, “We're going tent camping for a weekend in August. You want to come? Can he, Dad?”

Mike nodded his head. “You're welcome anytime, Skeezie. Think you can handle the bugs?”

“I can handle anything,” I told him.

“Yeah, right,” Megan said.

“He
can
!” said Jessie, grabbing my arm and covering it with about a thousand kisses.

• • •

“There's another one!” Mom says, pointing.

And sure enough a second star goes flying across the sky.

“That was nice of Bobby to ask you to go camping with them.”

“Yeah, and nice of Mike to say he'd help you get your garden back. What kind of flowers will you plant? I don't even know what your favorites are.”

“Well, roses, of course. I'm a romantic, like you. And zinnias and tulips. And lilies. I guess I'd have to say that lilies are my favorite.”

Licky lifts her head from where she's lying at my feet and looks up at my mom with her happy, sad eyes.

“That's it!” I say. “We'll call her Lily! We can't keep calling her Licky. I mean, nothing personal, but that name is totally dumb.”

If this were a movie or TV show, Lily would bark now and the camera would go in close on her big, smiling face while in the background you'd hear Mom and me laughing our dopey heads off. But in real life, Lily just yawns and goes back to sleep. And Mom and me, we just sit there thinking our thoughts until we're yawning, too.

“Lily's a good name for her,” Mom says after a while. “She's a pretty dog.”

“She ain't nothin' but a hound dog,” I say. “And she's the sleepiest dog I ever did know. But she's a good dog. The best dog ever.” I reach down and rub her head. “Thank you for letting me her keep her, Mom.”

“Oh, you can thank your dad for that,” she tells me. “He worked me upstream and downriver on the phone. He said you
had
to have that dog, that you
needed
that dog, that that dog and you were
meant
to be together. By the time he was done, I told him that one, he should be a salesman, and two, I had no doubt he was right.”

“So you're where I get that whole list-making thing from,” I say.

“You get a lot from me, buster, probably more than you'd like. But you get a lot from your dad, too. It's a good thing for you he's not
all
bad.”

“Well, anyways, thanks for letting me keep her and letting her stay inside the house.”

“Oh, you can thank your father for that, too.”

“She won't be any trouble, I promise.”

“Yeah, that's what they told me when you
were born, and look how that turned out.”

I yawn and rest my head on her shoulder. “Skeezie,” she says, “you have
got
to stop using so much mousse. It's disgusting.”

“Okay,” I mumble, without moving my head. “Can I unpack in the morning? I'll have time before I go to work.”

“Sure,” she says. “But you better let the dog out first, and don't forget to feed her. She's your responsibility.”

“I can handle it. And her name is Lily.”

“Fine. And I know you can handle it. If there's one thing in this world I am certain of, it's that you can handle it.”

We sit there without moving for another six minutes. I know it's that long because I check the time on my Elvis watch. And then I get up, pull my mom to her feet, and call, “Lily! Come on, girl. It's time for bed.”

So that's the story, Elvis. I guess I should get used to calling you that. It's going to be your name, after all, even if it's my name, too. I hope your mom isn't planning on calling us Big E and Little E. That's cute for about five minutes. Like “Licky.”

Speaking of whom, Lily is thirteen and a half now. She's in pretty good health, but dogs don't live forever. I sure hope she'll hang in there until you're big enough to get to know her. She's the best dog ever, and though you and I haven't even met yet, I just know you're going to be the best son ever.

And I'm going to try to be the best dad, even if I mess up, which believe me I will. One of the things I figured out the summer between seventh and eighth grade—the summer my dad came looking for me—was that being a dad came a lot easier to me than it did to him. I don't know what it was, maybe because I was
kind of forced into the job at the age of ten—the man of the family, remember?—but I took to it like a natural. On the outside, I may have looked like a greaser, but that was just me trying to be like my father. The thing is, that wasn't really him, either. He was just trying to be something, too. Just trying to figure himself out, the way everybody does.

I got to know my dad a whole lot better in the years after that summer, and he got better at being a dad. I spent many weekends and vacations with him and Gerri and my half brothers. With the money I earned at the Candy Kitchen, I bought myself the Yamaha guitar at Strings 'n' Things. I took it with me on the bus every time I visited Rochester, and Gerri taught me to play. I'm pretty good. I'm even in a band now. It's kind of country-rock. We call ourselves the Sweet Taters. Three guesses how we came up with that.