Also Known as Elvis (19 page)

A lot of things got better after that summer. My mom got a second job where she could work from home, and I kept working at the Candy Kitchen all the way through high school. I liked working there. Hey, I'm still working there! But I'll get to that in a minute.

In the fall, Bobby and his dad came over and helped my mom plant bulbs and plan her garden. My mom and Mike even dated for a while. It didn't work out, but they stayed really good friends, and it got both of them dating again. My mom's got this really nice guy in her life now. You'll meet him. His name is Rob. He's encouraging her to go to nursing school. I've got my fingers crossed that they'll get married, like Mike did a few years ago.

Addie and Joe and Bobby and I went into eighth grade and survived it. I didn't see much of Kevin Hennessey after that. He kept going to St. Andrew's, and he came into the Candy Kitchen once in a while, but mostly he drifted off and for the most part left me alone. I stopped worrying about him, anyway. I saw how, when you came right down to it, his life was kind of sad. I don't know what became of him.

As for Becca, well, she went back to the in-crowd. Her time hanging out with Addie and the rest of us was a blip on her path to popularity. That's what mattered most to her. She flirted and dated her way through high school, never landing for long with any one guy. But sometimes we'd see each other and smile, and those
smiles of hers were like the secret texts she sent me that summer. They told me she still liked me and that she was sorry she couldn't be a better, more honest friend. Sometimes we'd even talk for a few minutes, and twice—or maybe three times—we got our dogs together to play. And then we talked and laughed like we really were friends. And that made me miss her all the times we weren't. But hey, she was just figuring herself out, too. I haven't seen her since high school. Maybe she's got herself figured out by now. I hope she's happy.

Bobby and Addie and Joe and me, we're still the best friends ever. Bobby's living in Washington, DC, working in politics at some job I don't understand. Addie is in Guatemala, building houses and teaching school. And Joe got married last summer. He and his husband live in New York City. They're all coming up here right after you're born. Even Addie, who said she'd swim all the way if she had to. And knowing Addie, she would. They can't wait to meet you, and anyway, they're your godparents, so they'd better show up, right?

As for Steffi and me, well, it's pretty funny how it all worked out—and lucky for you that it worked out at
all! In the middle of eighth grade, while I kept working part-time at the Candy Kitchen, she moved to Vermont and went to this cooking school called the New England Culinary Institute. We kept in touch. I mean, we'd really become friends that summer—good friends—so even though we were so far apart in age, we could always talk to each other about the stuff that mattered. And as we grew older, the difference in our ages just wasn't that important.

But still, she was in college and I was in high school. And then she was trying to make a life for herself, working in restaurants in Vermont, and I was starting community college, not having a clue what I was going to do with my life. I hate admitting it, but I'm not much of a student. I'm no dummy, but I get bored easily, and restless. So I dropped out of college after a year, and that's when Donny asked me if I'd take over cooking at the Candy Kitchen and more or less run the place. Me, at nineteen, running the place! I liked it all right, but I enjoyed being out front more than in the kitchen.

So one day—I was twenty by then and your mom was twenty-six—I called her up and said, “Hey, Steff,
why don't you come work for me? I need a cook.” She thought I was joking, but she needed a job, so she said, “Sure, I'll help you out for a while.”

Then I said, “Why not make it more than a while? Why don't you marry me as long as you're coming back?”

She laughed and said, “You need to grow up a little, Elvis. You still get food all over your face.”

“I'm probably always going to get food all over my face,” I told her. “Is that a reason not to love somebody?”

Well, she wasn't one to rush into things. She'd already been engaged once and broken it off. She came back to Paintbrush Falls and worked with me at the Candy Kitchen. She started adding really cool stuff to the menu, and the business grew. We brought back the jukebox and played the best music in town. We turned the place into such a success that Donny offered to sell it to us. I was twenty-one.

“We'll buy it,” I told him. Your mom was standing right there next to me. “But on one condition. Steffi's got to marry me first.”

Steffi turned to me, wiped the spaghetti sauce off my lips, and gave me a big kiss.

“Yes,” she said. And we got married six months later. Your mom and me, we're good together. We always were, even when it was crazy to think about being anything more than friends.

So, Elvis, there are a lot of people waiting to meet you. Your mom and I are at the front of the line, of course, but you've got grandparents and aunts and uncles waiting, and Bobby and Addie and Joe. There are so many people waiting for you to be born. How great is that?

Oh, one last thing. I never did ask my dad the Big Question. I didn't need to, because I figured out the answer for myself—well, with your mom's help. She was right when she said he didn't come looking for me to say goodbye because it was too hard. But two years later he did coming looking for me. And he found me.

Love,

Your dad, Skeezie

(also known as Elvis)

Other Books by James Howe

Misfits Novels

The Misfits

Totally Joe

Addie on the Inside

Other Novels

A Night Without Stars

Morgan's Zoo

The Watcher

Edited by James Howe

The Color of Absence: Twelve Stories About Loss and Hope

13: Thirteen Stories That Capture the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen

Sebastian Barth Mysteries

What Eric Knew

Stage Fright

Eat your Poison, Dear

Dew Drop Dead

Bunnicula Books

Bunnicula
(with Deborah Howe)

Howliday Inn

The Celery Stalks at Midnight

Nighty-Nightmare

Return to Howliday Inn

Bunnicula Strikes Again!

Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow

Tales from the House of Bunnicula

It Came from Beneath the Bed!

Invasion of the Mind Swappers from Asteroid 6!

Howie Monroe and the Doghouse of Doom

Screaming Mummies of the Pharaoh's Tomb II

Bud Barkin, Private Eye

The
Amazing
Odorous Adventures of Stinky Dog

Bunnicula and Friends

The Vampire Bunny

Hot Fudge

Rabbit-cadabra!

Scared Silly

Creepy-Crawly Birthday

The Fright Before Christmas

Pinky and Rex Series

Pinky and Rex

Pinky and Rex Get Married

Pinky and Rex and the Mean Old Witch

Pinky and Rex and the Spelling Bee

Pinky and Rex Go to Camp

Pinky and Rex and the New Baby

Pinky and Rex and the Double-Dad Weekend

Pinky and Rex and the Bully

Pinky and Rex and the New Neighbors

Pinky and Rex and the Perfect Pumpkin

Pinky and Rex and the School Play

Pinky and Rex and the Just-Right Pet

Picture Books

There's a Monster Under My Bed

There's a Dragon in My Sleeping Bag

Teddy Bear's Scrapbook
(with Deborah Howe)

Kaddish for Grandpa in Jesus' name amen

Horace and Morris but mostly Dolores

Horace and Morris Join the Chorus (but what about Dolores?)

Horace and Morris Say Cheese (which makes Dolores sneeze!)

ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

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www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by James Howe

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Interior design by Mike Rosamilia, jacket design by Russell Gordon

Jacket design by Russell Gordon

Jacket photograph copyright © 2014 by Michael Frost

The text for this book is set in Avenir LT.

First Edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Howe, James, 1946–

Also known as Elvis / James Howe. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: While his friends Bobby, Joe, and Addie are spending the summer on exciting adventures, thirteen-year-old Skeezie Tookis must get a job and help around the house, and things only get worse when his long-lost father appears.

ISBN 978-1-4424-4510-9 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4424-4512-3 (eBook)

[1. Single-parent families—Fiction. 2. Summer employment—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 4. Mothers and sons—Fiction. 5. Family life—Fiction. 6. Friendship—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.H83727Als 2014

[Fic]—dc23 2013015974