Firecracker (7 page)

I
was twelve, and it was Christmas afternoon. Vivi and my dad were away in Abu Dhabi in a palace. It belonged to a college friend of Dad's who called himself Marc, although his name was not really Marc. He had a scar that stretched clean across his face and a fake finger made out of ivory. (The richer you are, the more likely you'll have friends with body parts made out of elephants. It's weird but true.) Lisbet had received a kite that morning and was off somewhere trying to figure out how to make it work. (She never did.) And so it was just me and my grandfather in the house. Neither of us was what I would call “Christmas people.” We hated lights, trees, singing, snow, movies with lessons, and shopping malls. Pretty much the only worthy part of Christmas we could both agree on was presents, and we didn't need a special day to get stuff.

We had our own traditions, and they were the high point of every December. The staff would be off, so we'd make lunch out of whatever we could find. That year, it was a sandwich of marshmallows, salami, honey cashews, grapes, lemon meringue pie, and brie. (I know that sounds disgusting and . . . well, it was.) Then we would read Lisbet's diary. Then prank call the president of the United States (who could never take a joke). Then we would drive into the town square and shoot BBs at the municipal nativity scene. If any cops were around, my grandfather would mutter something like, “Do you know who I am?” and “diplomatic immunity,” and people would leave us alone.

But my heart wasn't in it that year, and I wasn't even looking when he nailed a direct shot between the eyes of a wise man.

“Okay, enough of this,” he said. “What the hell is with you, anyway?”

“Nothing,” I said. But my voice was shaky.

“Is it gonna be a whole day of this?”

“I've been fine all day.”

“Nuh-uh. You've been no fun. I haven't heard you laugh once.”

“Maybe nothing's been funny.”

“Lisbet's diary, when she called it her ‘special monthly lady adventure'? Hilarious.”

“I'm perfectly fine. I'm always fine, you know,” I said.

“There are a million things I can do without you, if you don't want to be here,” he said. “I enjoy you, Puppy, but without you around, I can get drunk in a hotel bar.” He jangled his car keys as if it were a threat. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I avoided his eyes. “I can't tell you,” I said, “because it's the sort of thing you told me you never wanted me to tell you about.”

He made a grunting noise. “It's a boy, huh?” He looked down at his shoes. “I didn't say ‘never tell me about it,' I just said I wouldn't like it. Just tell me. You can tell me. But avoid the mushy stuff because I just ate a pound of butter.”

“It's not mushy,” I said. “I promise you that. I promise you that it will never be mushy. I'm mostly disgusted at myself.”

The week before, a boy had asked me if he could be my boyfriend. I thought I liked him. His name was Will, but he called himself “Won't,” and that's exactly the sort of thing a twelve-year-old might find interesting. (I was dumber when I was twelve than I am now.) I now know that “Won't” is about the stupidest nickname in the world. And also, every nickname is stupid if you pick it for yourself. You should never get to pick your own nickname.

At the time, I was attending an all-girls school in Massachusetts called St. Anianus, where the name was the only entertaining thing about the place. And really, after three days spent saying “Stainy Anus” out loud, it was just another school. Won't went to Admiral Sanders down the street. It was a military school and possibly also a chicken restaurant. Military schools were for bad kids. For me, having that place full of delinquents so close was good because bad kids had things I needed. I met Won't because he sold me cherry bombs, firecrackers, and sparklers. I needed to set them off in a nun's toilet (this was a Catholic school). We ended up talking for a few hours about all sorts of romantic things like lock picking and how to make napalm. When I was about to leave, he asked if he could kiss me, and I really couldn't think of a good reason why not. No one had ever kissed me before, and Won't had his mysterious nickname. So, he stuck his spongy tongue in my mouth for twenty seconds. It was not without its charm. I said what I thought I was supposed to say, “I think I like you,” and then he said, “Cool. You too.” And I walked away with that goofy, smiley expression that girls I hate always have on their faces.

“You're overreacting. Hate to say it, but you'll probably kiss all sorts of slimy boys in your life. Nothing to cry about,” my grandfather said.

“It's not that. The slimy kiss was fine. The problem was two days ago. I was coming home. I had the driver stop down the street so I could get coffee, and a lot of kids from school were there. And Antonia VeraCruz—”

“With the teeth?”

“She was there. And a bunch of other kids. And she just comes up to me and says, ‘I never could figure out why you think you're so much better than the rest of us. But now I know,' she said. ‘You're not.'”

“Hmm. Go on.”

“And then I saw where she was sitting, and he was there. Won't was right next to her.”

“It bears repeating: terrible nickname. Confusing in conversation.”

“And they all said, ‘I think I really like you,' in this stupid voice that I think was supposed to be my voice. I think maybe she put him up to being my boyfriend. It made me sad. Like
really
sad.”

Grandpa took a flask from his jacket and took a sip. He offered me one, but I was fine (and, as I mentioned before, twelve years old). “First of all, you
are
better than they are. Kissing a greasy punk doesn't change that. That's for sure. Who are you mad at, her or him?”

“Everyone. The world. But more him. I let my guard down. I shouldn't have done that.”

“Boys, they're worth nothing. Their hormones and their face acne. They're disgusting. I know because I was one, and that part of me—the disgusting part—still owns a hell of a lot of real estate in my brain.”

“I feel stupid, you know. I feel like I let someone stupider than me outsmart me.”

“Yeah. I'll say that's about right. What are you going to do about it?”

“I found a man with a gambling problem at the county records office. For a small fee, he'll change the date on Won't's birth certificate. Then I'm going to enlist him in the army.”

“Not this time,” he said quickly. “Let it go, Astrid.”

“You want me to forgive him?”

“Forgiveness,” he said, “is for those too weak to hold a grudge. But I want you to stop caring about him. You can give him a bad day, but he'll have a bad life without your involvement. He calls himself Won't, for chrissake. Just walk away knowing you learned a lesson. You're not going to trust someone so easily again, so that's good.”

“It'll never happen again. Boy stuff. It's not me, so I'm done.”

Grandpa squinted in a deep thought for almost a minute. “That's fine,” he said. “You won't get pregnant. You won't have some little bastard with a Kool-Aid mustache running around the house, asking for money. The fewer boys around here, the better.”

“So we agree.”

“Nah. It won't work. You say it now, but it won't work. I promise you that.”

“I'm not Lisbet, you know. I'm not the kind of girl who needs mushy stuff. I'm done. I'll sign a piece of paper affirming this fact.”

“Here's the thing about being young,” he said, “and I'm not saying ‘here's the thing about being a kid' 'cause you're not a kid. You haven't been one since you were a baby and I wouldn't insult you by calling you a kid. Your sister's a kid. Your father's a kid. But you're no kid.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“But you're young. So, here's the thing about being young: as smart as you are, as much as you know who you are, as much as I respect you—and I'm telling you, I don't respect anyone else—just you, and maybe my bookie. But this is true of every young person because it was true for me. You believe a lot of things right now, but there are at least three very important things that you won't believe anymore when you get old. That happens to everyone, and you're not so special that it won't happen to you.”

“You don't believe me, then?”

“It's not that I don't believe. You may hate boys every day for the rest of your life. So then there will be three other things that won't be true anymore. And you are just going to have to make your peace with it.”

“What were those three things for you?”

“Not sure yet. I'm old, but I'm going to be older still.”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Dean Rein held the piece of paper with my list of things between his thumb and his forefinger. He barely looked at it. “I thought you wanted to change, Astrid.” Dean Rein was trying a different way of talking to me. He didn't smile in the usual, fake-friendly way.

“What makes you think that? When did I say that?”

“You didn't. But I sensed it. You're here, aren't you?”

“You sensed it because I'm here? I
have
to be here.”

“You don't have to be anywhere. You always have a choice, Astrid.”

“I do?” I asked. Then I stood up and left.

I was one step out his office door when he yelled after me. “If you leave, you're going to lose.”

This stopped me. I looked back at him over my shoulder. “I wasn't aware that we were having a contest, sir.”

“Well, we are always in the middle of a contest, Astrid. And you're about to lose. You don't like to lose, do you?”

In fact, I hate to lose. Always have. Always will. “I did what you asked. I did stuff I didn't want to.”

“You went to a birthday party and tried to steal a fish. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how that met any of the requirements I laid out for you.”

“A sea anemone isn't a fish.”

“I stand corrected.”

“We went roller skating. I hated every second of that.”

“You kept the whole birthday party experience at a distance. You didn't let yourself be a part of it.”

“You know, I could've just lied and said I spent the week building homes for the homeless, but I didn't because I thought I did a pretty good job. Also, there were a lot of times that I could've said something really mean and I didn't. I could've told Lucy, ‘No one came because you eat your own hair and you talk weird,' but I didn't. I said nothing. That's an achievement for me.”

“You're saying that you should get credit for something you didn't say but could've said. Astrid, not doing something is not the same as doing something.”

“That's very inspiring. You sound like the Buddha. You should write fortune cookies.”

“This doesn't count, Astrid.”

“I made a friend, I think. The one I fainted on,” I said. “That was a really big deal for me.”

“You fell on his desk. If you had fallen a few inches in the other direction, you wouldn't have made a friend with anyone.”

“You were never that specific in terms of what you were looking for me to do.” The words were no longer on my hand, but as I understood them,
do things you don't want to do
pretty much meant exactly what it said. It was simple, but Dean Rein wanted to make it difficult. He wanted me to want to do the things I didn't want to do. I was getting a headache just trying to make sense of it.

“I can't be any clearer. You needed to do good things. Good deeds. And you didn't, so you lost. You went through the motions of one relatively good deed, sure. But I asked you for three. And if you try to change your behavior while continuing to keep the world at arm's length, you'll never make any strides. Remember, Astrid, you can't have your cake and eat it too.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What reason would you want cake other than for eating?”

“It means—”

“Are you telling me there are people in this world who have to decide whether or not to eat a cake or just display it in their homes? Like, ‘Please come over to my house and see my glass display cases of old moldy cakes'?”

“It means you can't have it all, Astrid.”

“Of course you can. Why wouldn't you just buy two cakes? I mean, if you're the kind of person who is so into keeping cakes, just splurge. Live a little. Buy another cake. You only live once, Dean Rein.”

“Are you done?''

“Let me just say this—as a friend—maybe you could stand to eat less cake, sir.”

“I want you to do this little task again. But this time, please perform real selfless acts.”

I looked out his window. The sky was blue. The grass was green. Someone was riding a horse through the trail on the quad. If Dean Rein was powerful, he probably would've orchestrated my view to look exactly like that. To show me how different Bristol was from the school I would have to go back to the next day. I had a thought. A thought that I figured would probably work. “Care to make it interesting?” I inquired.