Also Known as Elvis (3 page)

“I'm sorry, Skeezie,” he says.

“That's okay.” I can see from his face that he wanted to give me better news. Mike, like Bobby, is a good guy. “Thanks for asking anyways.”

He suggests I try the stores in town and I tell him I will, although we agree I should steer clear of Awkworth & Ames.

As I'm getting back on my bike, I hear Mike call Bobby “Skip” and Bobby call his dad “Hammer,” their at-home nicknames for each other. I look back over my shoulder and see Mike throw his arm around Bobby's shoulders, and I think maybe it's not so bad I didn't get a job here. Bobby and Mike are the only family they've got, so they're real close. I'm not sure where I would fit in.

• • •

Three days go by, and I've gone to all the stores in town, but nobody's hiring. One good thing: Addie's dad told me this morning he'd pay me to mow their lawn, which is really nice of him, because I once heard him say that mowing the lawn is his favorite form of meditation.

Okay, that's just plain weird, but Addie's parents are not exactly what you'd call normal and Addie has inherited their genes, so what can I say? Weirdness abounds.

Anyways, the point is that it was really nice of him to offer and I said I'd do it, but I still need a job. A few bucks once a week from mowing a lawn isn't going to get the toilet fixed.

So after my third morning of trying to convince people they should hire a thirteen-year-old with greasy hair and no skills over an unemployed college graduate, I stop at the Candy Kitchen to lift my downhearted spirits with a frosty Dr P. I'm wishing I had enough cash for some of those sweet potato fries, but that's going to have to wait until
after I've mowed Addie's lawn next week.

Steffi is wiping down the counter when I open the door so hard it knocks over an umbrella stand. If there were any customers in the place, they'd probably yell at me or something. But Steffi's the only one that I can see, and she doesn't even look up.

“Hey, Elvis,” she goes.

“How did you know it was me?” I answer. “Am I the only one who knocks over this stinkin' umbrella stand? And what's up with an umbrella stand? I mean, who puts their umbrellas in umbrella stands? Who
has
umbrellas?”

Steffi stops wiping and looks up at me. “You have a lot to say on the subject of umbrellas,” she says. “Are you that interested or do you just like the sound of the word?” She brushes a strand of hair off her forehead, and I get this funny feeling like I'm going to tip over or something.

Okay. Up to now, I am the only one of the Gang of Five—that's what Addie and Bobby and Joe and me call ourselves even though there
are only four of us; it's kind of an inside joke—anyways, I'm the only one who doesn't have a girlfriend or something. Don't ask, it's like their hormones are on steroids, because all three of them have girlfriends or boyfriends. Or
had.
Joe broke up with his boyfriend Colin a while back, and Addie and her boyfriend DuShawn broke up a month ago. But Bobby and his girlfriend Kelsey are still going strong.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, right. Steffi. So I'm standing here looking at her in her tight
LIFE IS GOOD
T-shirt with her
HELLO MY NAME IS STEFFI
badge right over the word
good,
watching her brush this strand of hair off her forehead, and I suddenly think I'm going to tip over and crash into the door and knock down the umbrella stand all over again, and it's so weird because, I mean, what is that about? How come I'm staring at somebody brushing stupid hair off their face, mumbling, “How should I know why I'm talking about umbrellas?” and “Yeah, umbrella's a pretty cool word,” and waiting for a big hand to
come down out of the sky and stamp
100% IDIOT
on my forehead? Luckily, Steffi rescues me with, “You look like the heat's getting to you, Big E. How about a Dr Pepper? On the house.”

“Really?” I can't believe it. If Steffi treats me to a Dr P, I'll have
almost
enough money for an order of sweet potato fries.

“Can I get
half
an order of sweet potato fries?” I ask.

“I'll give you a whole order for the price of half if you share,” she says.

“Is that allowed?” I ask, like I'm running for president and trying to avoid a scandal.

“I have an in with the cook,” she tells me. “He happens to be the boss. He also happens to be my cousin.”

“Cool,” I say. I'm not sure what's cool about it, but it seems like the right thing to say.

Steffi gets me a Dr P and I straddle a stool, while she goes off to the kitchen and gets us our sweet potato fries. I'm thinkin' how whack it is that I'm thinking Steffi is cool, and, yeah, she looks
pretty good, but
she's six years older than me.
And then I remember how Bobby once told me how he had this big crush on Joe's aunt Pam, who is in her twenties, for cryin' out loud. I guess hormones don't worry about stuff like if somebody's your friend's aunt or could have been your babysitter just a few years before.

When Steffi returns and slides the basket in front of me, I notice that it's, like, a supersize portion. I pull out the measly single I have stuffed in my jacket pocket, along with a handful of change.

“Keep your money,” she says. “I'm taking a break and can have anything I want.”

I'm not sure she's telling the truth, because while she's eating the fries she keeps doing stuff like cleaning the milk shake machine and refilling saltshakers. That doesn't look like a break to me, but I'm not about to argue with free fries.

While I watch her work I notice two things: the way she moves her body to the music that's playing, which is a very nice thing to notice, and how whiny the singer is, which is not.

“This music sucks,” I say, by way of making conversation.

Steffi spins around, slaps the damp rag on the counter, and grabs the basket of fries. “That's it!” she says. “No more fries for you!”

“What? What'd I say?”

“
That
is Patsy Cline!”

“Yeah, so?” I motion for her to return the fries, which she says she'll do after I wipe the ketchup off my face. What is she all of a sudden, my mother?

“Patsy Cline was one of the greatest country singers of all time,” she informs me, putting the basket down about a foot away from where it had been before, in case she needs to grab it away in a hurry again, I guess. “Maybe the greatest. She's classic, like Elvis. And this song? This song is a classic.”

“Doesn't mean I have to like it,” I tell her.

Now she grabs a squeeze bottle of ketchup and holds it up to her lips like a mike. “ ‘Crazy,' ” she starts singing along, “ ‘crazy for loving you.' ”

Man. No matter where you turn, it's all about
love. Even the King, that's what he sings about, except in my two favorites, “Hound Dog” and “Blue Suede Shoes.” Maybe that's why they're my favorites.

Steffi's singing gives me a chance to move the basket of fries closer and scarf down half my half. I've drained my Dr P by now, wishing I hadn't because the salt is getting to me. The song is starting to get to me, too, in a nice way, not because I like Patsy Whiny's voice any better, but because of the way Steffi sings. She's got her eyes closed and she's feeling it.

“You got a good voice,” I tell her when the song ends and Patsy starts singing another one, something about falling to pieces or something.

“Thanks, Elvis,” she says, looking serious and kind of sad. “You like to sing?”

I give her half a nod. I sing all the time in the shower and sometimes for my friends, but they tell me to shut up because they're tired of hearing “Hound Dog” and “Blue Suede Shoes,” so I stick mostly to the shower.

Steffi gives me another Dr P without my even asking for it. She picks up a fry, sticks it in her mouth, and says, “The fries are getting cold.” We both crack up at that, because that's supposed to be my line.

“So what's going on, Elvis?” she asks. “You're usually in here with your friends. Why the solo act today?”

I tell her about how I have to get a job and I'm having no luck. I think she's going to say, what do I expect, I'm only thirteen; I'm lucky to have somebody's grass to cut; I should be hanging out at the pool, driving the girls crazy. But she doesn't say any of those things.

Instead, she says, “I've been working since I was your age. Babysitting jobs first, which I still do, then helping out my mom in her shop, and then here for the past couple of years. We needed the money as far back as I can remember, and after my dad left, it was all hands on deck. Even my brother, who's pretty limited in what he can do, he's had to help out, too.”

Maybe if I were older or smarter, I'd ask her about her brother 'cause it sounds like something's wrong with him, but all I can focus on right now is that her dad left her, like mine left me. I want to say something about that, but I don't have a clue what it should be. So I just say, “So you know what it's like.”

“Yep,” she goes. She leans on her elbows and looks me right in the eyes. This should make me extremely nervous, but for some reason it doesn't. I feel like I know what she's going to say next and I can't believe my luck. If luck is what it is.

“Why don't you work here this summer?” she asks me. I was right! “We can really use the help. I'll speak to my cousin Donny, but I know he'll say it's okay. You'll have to talk to him anyway about hours and pay and all that good stuff, but what do you think? All the fries you can eat. Not a bad deal, right?”

Not a bad deal at all. All the fries I can eat. Free Dr P's. And Steffi to look at. If we could just do something about the music, it would be perfect.

“I'll take it,” I tell her.

“Great,” she says.

We eat the rest of the fries before they get too cold, bopping our heads to Patsy Whiny. When she sings the words, “ ‘I don't know what's comin' tomorrow; maybe it's trouble and sorrow,' ” I think,
Like the T-shirt says, life is good.

Turns out the T-shirt's wrong, and it's Patsy who's got it right.

My mom's mom, Grandma Roseanne, doesn't talk a whole lot, and when she does she says things like, “My hip is killing me,” or, “Feels like rain” (even when the sun is shining), or “Look what the cat dragged in.” She's not exactly what you'd call full of good cheer.

Anyways, every time we go to visit, I walk in the door and she says, “Look what the cat dragged in.” I never really got it. She lives with my aunt Lindsay and her family and, okay, they've got cats—five of them, to be exact—but not one of them has ever dragged me anywhere. Then one day one of them
did
drag something in. Half a dead mouse. That's when I understood what the expression means. “Look who I'm as happy to see as half a dead mouse.” At least, that's what it sounds like every time my grandma says it.

Thanks, Grandma. I'm happy to see you, too.

I think of this expression every time the door of the Candy Kitchen opens and somebody I know walks in. It's not like I think of my friends as half a dead mouse, it's just that the words are in my head. I never say them out loud, but every time Joe or Bobby or Addie or even my mom walks in the door, there I am thinking the cat dragged them in.

“Hey, Skeeze!”

I look up and there's Joe slamming open the door, just missing the umbrella stand, arm in arm with Zachary, his new best friend. The two of them are wearing bright-colored high-tops, baggy shorts, and these crazy Hawaiian shirts Joe would describe as “retro meets fashion forward” that they got at the thrift shop down by the Trailways station. It's like a two-person tween gay pride parade right here in Paintbrush Falls, except for the fact that Zachary isn't gay, or doesn't know yet that he is. I've got to hand it to Joe; he's got chutzpah. (That's a word I learned from Joe's grandmother, who has a lot more to say than mine, and half the time it's in this Jewish
language called Yiddish.
Chutzpah
means nerve.)

Right behind them come Addie and
her
new bff, Becca. Well, okay, Becca isn't exactly her
best
friend. In fact, up until the end of the school year, they were more like frenemies, but then they started hanging out together and Becca lost some of her attitude and most of her makeup and turned out to be a whole lot nicer than anybody thought she was.

And, without all the makeup, a whole lot prettier.

By which I mean, she definitely does
not
make me think of half a dead mouse.

They surprise me by sitting at the counter instead of our booth at the back. I guess it's because that's where I am, putting away glasses that just came out of the dishwasher.

“So how are you guys?” I ask.

“Okay,” Addie answers. “It was a slow day at the library.”

This makes me laugh. “Um, is there ever a
fast
day at the library?”

“I just mean,” says Addie, getting a little huffy,
“that there was hardly anyone there, even for story time. Does no one read
books
anymore?”

Becca says, “Books, books. I think I remember those. Weren't they those things made out of paper that had words in them?”

“Very funny,” says Addie.

Joe says, “Well, consider yourself lucky that you weren't doing
my
job today, Addie. We were having the kids make these paper-bag wind socks, and this one boy, Jeremiah, who I swear is the devil's child, kept blowing up the paper bags and popping them in everyone's ears. And this girl, Eloise, who is very sensitive, wouldn't stop crying and saying that Jeremiah had made her deaf. And then this other boy, Liam, started screaming at Eloise because he thought she couldn't hear, and then this girl, Leeann, wet her pants.”