In My Shoes (35 page)

My mom. “Yeah, I would. I should probably
call Mike pretty quick, too.”

“Right, well why don’t we get together later
so we can make sure we’ve got everything sorted out moving forward?
We’ve got some unlearning to do.”

“That sounds good to me. Why don’t I pick…oh
yeah, I don’t have a car anymore.”

“You will soon. Your mom said you could get a
car.”

“Really?” I said, excited.

“Yes, but she’s got some ground rules she
said she’d think about and give you today.”

“That is…awesome!”

“I thought you’d like that. So, in the
meantime, I’ll pick you up at, say two?”

“Okay. I’ll see you at two.”

We both said goodbye and I hung up the phone.
I really wanted to call Mike and give him the good news, but I had
to see my mother. I opened the door to my room and started walking
down the hall, when I realized the first thing I needed to unlearn.
I needed to stop walking like a girl.

I tried to readjust my walk, but I was caught
somewhere in the middle of walking like a guy and walking like a
girl. Fortunately there was nobody around at that moment, because I
probably looked like someone walking with a mess in their
pants.

I continued down the hall and found my mother
on the couch, eating breakfast and watching television.

“Hi, Hon,” she said.

I didn’t say anything. I just sat down next
to her and lay my head on her shoulder. It’s funny, but sometimes
you don’t realize the little things you enjoy until they’ve been
taken away from you.

I’ve never thought of myself as one who has
taken things for granted, but I’ve definitely found a new
appreciation for all that I have. I pulled my head back up to look
at her and she just smiled. We sat quiet for a while, sitting next
to each other, silently watching TV.

After a while, my mother finally broke the
silence.

“So…I suppose we should talk about your
car.”

“Okay,” I said, turning my body to face
her.

“You have a ten thousand dollar limit. If you
go a
little
over, that’s okay, but you need to keep it
around ten thousand.”

“Okay.”

“So, it won’t be a new car, but we don’t want
it to be a piece of junk either. We will research cars, and find
out what should be available in your price range, and how those
cars rate. Once we have a list of acceptable cars, we will go out
and try to find something you like that we can have certified.”

“Deal.”

“There’s more,” she said in a kind, but
parental voice.

“Sorry.”

“You will have to care for your car. It needs
to be kept clean, and the same rules will apply that you have with
my car.”

“Is there anything else?” I asked.

“Yes. One last thing. The money your father
left was for you to get a good college education and to have a
small start when you get out of college. I’ve never let you get a
job because I wanted you to focus on school. I still believe in
that, but you are almost eighteen. So…I will pay for your gas and
insurance during this school year. Next summer, you can get a job
and your income will go into a separate account to pay for your gas
and insurance after that.”

“Really?” I asked, even more excited. She has
never wanted me to have a job.

“Yes, but you understand that I’m talking
about a summer job, right?”

“Right.”

“When school starts, you are going to be
focusing on college. The money you earn over the summer will need
to stretch out across the school year, so don’t go spending it
all.”

What if I can’t get a job to cover the
expenses?” I asked.

“Between gas and insurance, you’ll need about
$4,000 for the year. If you can find a job that pays ten dollars an
hour and you can work full-time, you will be able to cover it. So
that’s your goal. If you can’t find one, we’ll deal with that then.
You’ll still get your weekly allowance, because I’m still going to
need your help around here.”

“No problem,” I said. “Thanks.”

“You are welcome. You’re a good kid, Jake.
You deserve it.”

We turned our attention back to the TV and
just sat there for what seemed like forever. It was nice to be
home.

After getting some quality time in with my
mother, she announced that she was going to get cleaned up and run
some errands.

“Yeah, I need to get cleaned up, too,” I
said.

“Do you have anything special planned for
today?” she asked.

“I’m probably going to go hang out with Mike
for a while and then I’m going to see Nicole after that.”

“So, are you going to tell me what happened
with your date last night? You didn’t seem to want to talk about it
when you got home.”

“Oh, it was just really awkward. Jessica is a
nice girl, but she’s more Mike’s type. They actually have a date
tonight.”

“That’s…fast,” she said.

“No, it’s okay. We were all pretty much in
agreement that we weren’t going to work out. It was actually my
suggestion for them to go out.” Sort of. Details weren’t really
necessary here, right?

“Well, okay. As long as you are okay with
it.”

“I’m definitely okay with it.”

“So, does this mean your attention is going
to be back on Nicole?”

“That’s a hard one to really explain. I don’t
really know what is going to happen with Nicole, but she’s become a
good friend.”

“Well, it’s really best if you can become
friends with a person before you date them. Down the road, a
relationship built from friendship will help get you through the
difficult times.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” What else could I
say to that?

“Okay, Hon. You have a great day, and I’ll
see you tonight. Or are you going to stay at Mike’s tonight?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll call.”

“Sounds good.” She turned and started to walk
out of the room.

“Mom?” I said.

“Yes?” she said, turning back toward me.

“I love you.”

She smiled warmly. “And I love you.”

I walked back down the hall to my bedroom and
closed the door behind me. Inside, I picked up my phone and called
Mike.

“Hello?” He sounded like he just woke up.

“Mike, it’s me.”

“Hey, what’s up?”

“No. It’s
me
!”

“Jake? Dude, you’re back? It’s about time! I
was starting to think you’d never be back.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Can you come over?”

“I can if you pick me up.”

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“Shower first,” I said with a laugh.

“I’ll see you in thirty-two minutes
then.”

We said goodbye and I hung up the phone. Now
it was time for a shower. I grabbed my clothes and went to the
bathroom to wash up.

Being a girl wasn’t all bad, but…I was really
looking forward to quick showers and getting ready in under twenty
minutes. I won’t miss the makeup, either.

Once I had showered and dressed, I relaxed in
my room to wait for Mike. It was nice being in my room, alone
again. Nothing seemed to be out of place. Nicole had kept
everything pretty much just as I had left it.

I lay on my bed taking it all in. I knew it
was silly, but I was a little afraid to close my eyes. A little
part of me worried that if I closed my eyes, I could wind up back
in Nicole’s body. So, I just stared at the ceiling, thankful it was
my
ceiling.

Mike arrived just over a half hour after I
hung up with him. I knew he would be fast. Even though I’ve seen
him plenty over the last week, neither of us could really be
ourselves around each other. I would guess that even though he knew
it was me in Nicole’s body, there was still a hesitation to be
himself because he couldn’t actually see me.

Mike walked in and came straight back to my
room. I heard him call down the hall, so I jumped up off my bed,
ready to leave.

I opened the bedroom door as he was getting
ready to turn the doorknob.

“Dude, is it really you?”

“It’s really me.”

With that, Mike gave me a very awkward hug.
It wasn’t uncomfortable because he gave me a hug. It was awkward
because I don’t think he’s ever given me a hug before, and emotion
has never been one of his strong points. It was a nice effort,
though.

We turned to leave, and my mother opened her
bedroom door, dressed for the day.

“Hello, Mike. Long time no see. How are
you?”

“Good Angela. How are you doing?” Mike always
puts on his best charm for my mother.

“I’m fine, thank you. So, what are you boys
off to do?”

“Well,” he replied, “we haven’t really
decided yet. We could go back to my house and play games,” Mike
said turning back to me. “Or, we could go catch a movie.”

“Let’s…not do a movie,” I said. I’d had
enough of movies yesterday.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to figure it out.
Have a good day Jake,” my mother said, giving me a kiss on my
forehead. “You too, Michael.”

My mother headed to the garage while Mike and
I headed out the front door. As we got in his car, Mike broke the
silence.

“Man, it’s good to have you back. I realized
over the last week…I don’t have a lot of friends.”

“Yes you do,” I argued.

“Well, not good friends. I mean, I have
plenty of people who are kind of friends, but not a lot of good
friends.”

“You know,” I replied, “you don’t need a lot
of friends. You just need good friends.”

“Yeah, but it helps to have more than one
good friend, especially in case your one good friend becomes a
girl. It would have sucked if you had stayed like that.”

“No kidding. But, I’d say we got a couple
more good friends out of it, so it wasn’t all bad. Not that I’d
want to do it again,” I quickly added.

Mike laughed. “So, what do you want to
do?”

“Why don’t we go to your house and hang out.
We can play video games for a while, and then maybe you can help me
research cars.”

“You’re getting a car? Dude, that’s awesome!
How’d that happen?”

“Well, when I found out that I had the
savings account that my father left me, I thought I should ask to
get a car. I mean, I’m always having to count on others to get
around.”

“And your mom just said yes?”

“I don’t actually know how the conversation
went. I asked Nicole to ask my mother before we had changed back,
and apparently she asked last night. My mother gave me the
conditions today.”

“So, what are the conditions?”

“I have a ten thousand dollar limit. We have
to do research to find which cars are reliable. I get to get a
summer job…”

“Dude, she’s going to let you get a job, too?
I thought she said you had to focus on school?”

“She did, that’s why she said it has to be a
summer job. I have to earn enough money over the summer to afford
the gas and insurance for the whole next year.”

“How much is that gonna be?”

“She thinks I need about four thousand to
make it through until the following summer.”

“Is that possible?”

“I think so. I hope so.”

“Hey Jake, we should both get a job at the
same place.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,
Mike.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going to need them to like me. I want to
do whatever job I get right, and I can’t do that if you are goofing
off at work.”

“Dude, that hurts. I won’t goof off at work.
If we get a job at the same place, I won’t do anything to mess it
up for either of us.”

“Yeah, but you goof off at school. How am I
going to know it’s going to be any different?”

“I don’t know. I’ll show you.”

“How are you going to show me?” I asked.

“Well, we still have months before school
ends. I won’t mess with you any more during school. At the end of
the school year, if I’ve kept my part of the deal, we look for jobs
together. Deal?”

That actually seemed like a good idea. If he
could take school seriously for the rest of the year, I would at
least know he was serious…and I’d have less tripping in the aisles
to deal with. He might actually get better grades, too.

“Okay, deal. You take school seriously for
the rest of the year, and we’ll look for jobs together.”

“Cool.”

The drive to Mike’s house made me feel normal
again. We talked about nothing in particular, which is what we used
to do. I was shedding the nightmare of the last week, and it felt
good.

The next couple of hours went by quickly.
Mike and I played video games. I schooled him. It must have been
all of the frustration that had built up, finally getting to
release. I don’t think Mike even cared. He was probably just
enjoying the return to normalcy, too.

After we had our fill of playing video games,
we got on his computer and started researching cars. We found a
website that rated cars by make, model and year. They also had a
list of best rated used vehicles by price range.

Mike and I started on the list in my range
and quickly reduced the list by any cars that were, as Mike liked
to call them, “hard to look at.” We couldn’t look at pictures of
all of the cars, so I relied on Mike’s car knowledge. Mike likes
cars and knows a lot about them. Well, he knows a lot more than me,
anyway.

Next, we started removing the oldest cars
from the list, until we narrowed the list down sufficiently. If we
kept it within seven years, there were still plenty to choose
from.

At that point, we needed an account to get
more information, so I wrote down the cars that we had left and
figured I would check them out more with my mother later.

Once we were finished looking at cars, we
decided to go out and eat lunch. We went to our favorite
hole-in-the-wall burger joint, Nick’s Burgers. I don’t even know
how they stay in business, because it seems like we’re the only
ones ever in there. We must always miss the lunch and dinner
crowds.