Bright Lights, Dark Nights (13 page)

“Uncle Dave says hi,” I said to Naomi when I found her in the main hall after lunch.

“Tell Uncle Dave I want to make out with him,” Naomi said. “Just kidding. That's horrible. I say stupid things.”

For three days now, we could find each other between some classes, but I wasn't sure how long I could keep it up, as I'd get to those classes late. This was a fairly new occurrence for me, and I don't think my teachers had picked up on it yet, or else they didn't view me as a potential troublemaker, so for now I was good.

How we used this time differed. We'd count down the time, usually. “One minute and forty-five seconds. Minute and a half.” This was in between whatever small banter or school discussion we came up with. “Thirty seconds left,” Naomi said on Monday, and came up with an odd send-off. “Quick, say something profound. I'll ponder it in class.”

“Thirty seconds till class,” Naomi said on Tuesday. “Quick, compliment me on my outfit.”

“That's an amazing color combination,” I said. “You must really know your color combos.”

“Thirty seconds left,” she said on Wednesday. “Let's touch pinkie fingers.”

We pressed our pinkie fingers together, definitely our most out-there public admission of feelings of some kind. Thirty seconds felt longer than usual.

“Can I get your phone number?” I asked. It was forward momentum from sharing funny memes on Facebook, and the brief visits between classes were feeling shorter and shorter.

“Huh?” Naomi said. “Oh, yeah. Of course.” We broke the pinkie hold, and Naomi spun her backpack around and fished out a pen. She wrote it on my palm. “Are you going to call me?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “That's what I was thinking.” If my sweaty palms didn't wash away her number first. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah, just maybe after seven, or eight, when I'm in my room,” Naomi said. “Of course it is.”

I walked backward, keeping eye contact like a smooth movie star until I bumped into a girl who told me to watch where I was going.

Naomi wasn't the only one to find me between classes. I was on my way to my last class when I passed Lester at his locker. “Wally!” he called out. I was going to be late, but Lester had a bark that made you stop in your tracks. He'd make an excellent football coach or drill sergeant.

“Hey, Lester,” I said, turning around.

“I have something for you,” Lester said, and reached into the top of his locker. He pulled out a CD in a square envelope. “You could probably get all this stuff pretty easily anyway, but I burned some music for you. The new Pusha T I was telling you about, some ASAP Rocky, Ferg. Give it a listen.”

He handed me the CD. I never thought Lester Dooley would be talking to me in a populated hallway, let alone burning me music. This had really been some year already. “Thanks,” I said. “That's awesome, I'll check it out.”

“So, listen, none of my business, but what's going on with you and Naomi?” Lester asked. Deflated the gesture a little. “Are you guys, like, a couple or what?”

“Uh…” I said. If I told him no, it sounded like she was fair game, which I guess she was. If I said yes, I'd be lying. And I didn't know Lester well enough to tell him what I actually felt for Naomi. “Not really, I mean, not right now, no.”

“But you like her, though,” Lester said and didn't ask. He smiled like he was saying “good for you,” but he wouldn't be bringing it up unless he'd hoped the answer was no. “That's awesome, man. Good luck. Keep me posted.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

Lester closed his locker and grabbed his book bag. “Hey, let me know if you need any advice,” he said, and went on his way.

*   *   *

My first phone date with Naomi was on a Thursday evening, and we watched
The Biggest Loser
together. I called her shortly before eight, with not much in the way of conversation prepared. Little did I know that Naomi could have filled a few hours just talking about the show.

“I need to get on there someday,” Naomi said. “I'm thinking maybe when I go to college, I'll put on a lot of weight so I'd have a decent amount to work off. I'd be so good at it, but I couldn't be too good, because I want the trainer to get in my face and yell at me and climb on my back and stuff.”

I couldn't see exactly why she wanted to be on the show so badly. There was a lot of crying, screaming, and falling over on my TV. “Losing weight is terrifying,” I said. This guy was ready to pass out on a treadmill, and this lady was ready to deck him in the face. “Why won't she leave this dude alone? He's going to die.”

“He just needs tough love,” Naomi said. “He probably doesn't have anyone back home to yell at him like this. Watch, in three months, he's going to look like a model. You know, if you gained the weight, I could be like Jillian. That might actually be easier for me.”

“I may never eat again,” I said. In the next scene, this girl was ready to quit—finally, some common sense—and Jillian flipped her lid. Then the guy trainer overheard and pulled the girl outside, and he was flipping his lid, too. Then my phone buzzed. I pulled it from my ear and saw a text from my sister Mel that just said
Check your email
.

I sat up in my bed, pulled my laptop in front of me, and signed in to check my e-mail. I had a message from Mel with the subject
dinner
.

Mel lived in her dorm at college a state over about an hour or two up north, and every few weeks she'd come down to stay with Mom and my mom's boyfriend, Seth, and she'd take me out to eat or we'd go to a movie or something. That's the kind of invite I was expecting when I opened her e-mail. But it wasn't quite that.

Hey four eyes, you free Friday? I'm going to mom's, I've been thinking about it and I want you to come with me. I know it's weird for you but I'll be there. I think it would be good for both of us. I'll take you out for ice cream after. Let me know? ~Mel

Seeing Mom became more difficult, it seemed, with each month that passed. At first, the idea was to spend time at Mom's and live with Dad and we'd all still be together, but it didn't work out that way, and the further we got from that time, the less I wanted to go. I'd seen her maybe twice since Dad and I moved, and not once since she moved in with her boyfriend. That made it worse. Sooner or later, I had to get it over with. I didn't want to sever ties indefinitely, but she wasn't on my immediate to-do list, either.

I did want to see Mellie, though. And it would be nice to get out of the city for a night, and especially nice to eat something good. Dad and I cooked sometimes, but it was nothing I'd brag about.

“
Auuugh!
” Naomi yelped.

“What happened?” I asked. “Did Bob smack that lady yet?”

“Huh?” Naomi asked. “No, they talked it out and hugged. But Tracy fell in the water, so Red Team only has, like, two people now! Are you watching still?”

“I still have it on,” I said. “I got an e-mail from my sister. She wants me to go to dinner at my mom's house. I don't think I'm going to go, though. It's a little weird, still.”

“You should go,” Naomi said. “Family's important. Think about Disney World and the fireworks.”

“That was a long time ago,” I said. I thought of Naomi and the party, and how she went even though she didn't like parties. She said it would be more fun if I was there. I wondered if she'd consider returning the favor.

“I have a bad idea. This is, like, the worst invite you'll ever get,” I said. “There's basically no way you'll want to do this. But here goes. Do you want to come with me to the world's worst family reunion? I'm basically at war with half of my family, so it promises to be an unpleasant time.”

“Yeah? I'm always up for some unpleasant family time,” Naomi replied. “That's my area of expertise.”

She barely took the time to think the question over. She legit wanted to spend time with me. The time was going to suck—there was no way around that. But seeing Naomi outside of school again was going to make it at least somewhat worthwhile. In the meantime, a huge fight was about to break out between the last two Red Team members. I had no doubt big hugs and tears were just around the corner.

*   *   *

Mellie picked Naomi and me up Friday night in the city in the same Honda Civic she'd been driving since she got her license, and it had been getting old then. She always looked shorter to me each time I saw her. Her arms were covered in ink, nearing sleeves at this point. She had them mostly covered tonight, though, wearing a thin sweater with the sleeves rolled up a bit. Her pitch-black hair was cut short and pulled around her face. Mel's iPod was hooked in and playing loud enough that we couldn't actually talk. She was really into classic rock, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC. So we started singing along with noises replacing the majority of words we didn't know. That was the fun part of the night and helped mask the nerves I was feeling. That was the easy twenty minutes. Naomi sat in the back with me, closer to the middle than her own seat. She still managed an impressive posture.

I knew having Naomi with me would make everything a lot easier in terms of seeing my family, but this was going to be a disaster and I regretted it already. We hadn't even officially called ourselves a couple or really told anyone we'd even been seeing each other, and here she was, meeting my estranged mother and sister. She was going to learn too much about me too fast, and I couldn't see anything happening that would bring out my charming or romantic side. This was definitely a mistake.

The longer we stayed in the car, the fewer other cars we saw. Off the highway we could even see the stars multiply. Pulling up to Seth's house, or “Mr. Spencer” as I'd known him growing up, did not feel inviting or like coming home. It felt like I was descending into the enemy's lair. Like knowing that on the other side of the front door, giant spiders would lower and cover me in webbing. It was a hard thing to look forward to or even pretend to be interested in.

This was the large house up the street from where we used to live; the house we used to live in was now inhabited by people I didn't know. They'd put up a fence and made the lawn look better.

It was a big place with three floors and a long driveway, and it was nice and clean, but it was big and nice in a different way from Naomi's house. The Millses' home was lived-in, filled with comfort and warmth. This place was just filled with stuff. I'd never even seen a TV the size of the one in the living room. Everything felt painted-on, and staged. Dinner felt staged.

“You've gotten so big, Walter,” my mom said with doting eyes. I guess teenagers grow.

Mom seemed different, but I didn't really have time to analyze it. Her hair was shorter. She was smiling too much for what we'd all been through. She still had big, doe-like eyes, brown hair that receded a bit. She was still tall and kind of lanky. I didn't know how we were supposed to be acting. I wasn't just a dinner guest; I was her son. It felt like she was applying for a mortgage loan or inviting her boss to dinner before asking for a raise. I don't mean this in a bad way, but Mom was more sour than this. She used to make fun of the neighbors, she was a little mean, but that was okay. We'd laugh about it, when I was too young to really get it.

Seth gave a distinctly fatherly squinting smile, which was off-putting. I guessed he looked like your traditional TV show father. Dressed expensively, brown hair that sat up on its own. Wristwatch. I wanted to tell him not to look at me or address me in any way. The whole scene was making my stomach turn.

Mom's cooking took me back to a bad time. Meat loaf, mashed potatoes, veggies. There was a basket of rolls. The smells fit our old house, not this place. I was in no position to enjoy food anyway.

“Dinner's very good,” Naomi said, and smiled. She was trying—I had to hand it to her. I was having trouble even doing that. Naomi was the perfect houseguest—her smile was sweet and her voice was soft. She could pull back on the biting jabs and “stupid things” without an issue. Which was great, so long as she was just saving it all for me and her family.