My Most Excellent Year (16 page)

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Authors: Steve Kluger

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Now that I had the home field advantage, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do—so he climbed up onto his bed and left an open spot next to him for me to sit down too. I pretended not to notice.
Don’t like the ’tude, dude.
Finally, he banged on the night table to get me to turn around, which I did eventually—but not before Mateo and I wrapped up our last round of Penguin Pat.
Take your time, kid. This is working.
So I got up to stretch like I had nothing better to do and wound up plopping down on the bed next to Hucky. By then he was so pissed, his arms were folded, his scowl went up past his nose, and his ears looked like they were going to blow off. But he
still
wouldn’t connect eyes with me. Instead, he pulled open his night table drawer, took out a videotape, and popped it into the VCR.
Mary Poppins.
We watched it twice and his attention stayed
glued to the screen. Even during Rewind. (Mateo lasted twenty minutes and then went to swing on the tire in the backyard. I got the feeling he’s seen this movie a lot more than he’s wanted to.) Shut-the-Door was in Hucky’s lap, his head was almost-but-not-quite resting on my arm, and he was tugging on his favorite piece of hair—but nothing could have pulled him away from those two English kids and their nanny. So halfway through the second run-through of “A Spoonful of Sugar,” I pointed to Julie Andrews and said “You like her, huh?” When Hucky answered back with more hand signals I didn’t understand, I knew I was going to have to copy them down and run them by Mr. Landey again.

MR. LANDEY: He says he’s been waiting for Mary Poppins to come live with him since he was four.

Mama, I may need some help here.

L
AURENTS
S
CHOOL

B
ROOKLINE
, M
ASSACHUSETTS

VIA E-MAIL

Dear Ted:

I just got a call from Elizabeth Jordan, the social worker over at the Boston Institute for the Deaf. Apparently there’s a six-year-old boy named Hucky Harper who’s secretly expanded his roster of potential heroes to include Anthony Keller (thus providing Mary Poppins with her first serious competition). Now I know why your son is so desperate to learn sign language.

Liz needs me to send a formal note over to the Institute vouching for Anthony’s character and his sense of responsibility—and since Anthony and his brother are all but biologically inseparable, I’m including one for Augie as well. Let me know if anyone else should be added to the short list of junior guardians who’ll likely be hanging out with the new Batman and Robin.

Ted, please make sure Anthony realizes that this isn’t a game you give up on after it gets old, or something you do to get the girl. According to Liz, Hucky hasn’t had an easy time of it. His mother put him up for adoption at birth, but since the pendulum is still stuck on “Too Many
Deaf Kids/Not Enough Available Parents,” she’s only been able to manage three short-term foster situations for him. For the past year he’s opened up to practically nobody—until he began communicating with your son (granted, via tactics that would have gotten them both bounced off the 1919 White Sox). So he doesn’t need to lose anyone else from his life whom he expects to have around for a while. Especially Mary Poppins and Anthony.

Incidentally, did you know that you’re dating a former
Playboy
model named Amber?

Lori

K
ELLER
C
ONSTRUCTION

BOSTON • GLOUCESTER • WALTHAM

ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION

Dear Lori:

How do you know I’m not? While I’d prefer moping around like a lost puppy until the next time I “accidentally” run into you while you’re proofing progress reports alone in Southie, that wouldn’t be mortal of me. And incidentally, I’m dropping off my son’s diorama on Monday. How big is your loading dock? (I’m kidding. Marginally.)

Tony C understands what’s at stake here. That’s what happens when you grow up without a mother. Besides, you should have seen the two of them from where I was sitting in the bleachers—my son pretending he was Carlton Fisk and Hucky pretending he didn’t care. (Not for publication, but Tony C swung on the wrong invisible pitch. We don’t need to tell him that.) And I think the lifelong Anthony Keller–Augie Hwong Fraternal Confederacy is enough proof that these kids know how to stick to anything and anyone they care about. But just to play it safe, add Alejandra to your bill of lading. Her resistance to Tony C is collapsing under its own weight.

I have two tickets to the Celtics-Clippers game on December 9. If I give you one of them in advance, we can run into each other spontaneously again. It’s a small world.

Ted

P.S. We’re having about twenty people over for Thanks-giving on Thursday, so there’ll be enough food for the entire Colonial Army. You can always pretend that you’re just stopping by to wish two of your students a happy holiday—or to preview the diorama so you won’t need pulmonary resuscitation on Monday.

P.S.2. I didn’t realize what a bad influence you’re turning into until they wrapped up Tony C’s last baseball game of the season with the traditional “2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate?” Would it have been appropriate to point out that it should have been “2-4-6-8,
whom
do we appreciate?” and then make them do it all over again?

L
AURENTS
S
CHOOL

B
ROOKLINE
, M
ASSACHUSETTS

VIA E-MAIL

Dear Ted:

Yes.

Lori

Dear Betty,

Leave it to the uninitiated to think that “Lauren” is your real name.

The bad news is that my brother is forcing me to take sign language with him after school in case I ever need to have a conversation with Hucky Harper, who didn’t turn out to be a delusion after all. This is the price I pay for making Tick listen to
Cabaret
with me
in 1999. When he said, “You owe me big time” after the sixteenth replay of “Don’t Tell Mama,” I knew he wasn’t kidding. The good news is that even though Mr. Landey never saw
All About Eve
, he still taught me how to sign: “Fasten your seat belt—it’s going to be a bumpy night.” I might as well get the kid started in the right direction. He’s six years old, he looks exactly like Tick did when we first met, and he probably doesn’t know who Bette Davis is either. If you can imagine.

What was it like when you and Bogey first set eyes on each other? Did you know right away? Because I think that’s what’s happening to me and Andy. I mean, as long as he was calling me Spidey and Wonderboy, how could I not call him Bright Eyes and Lightning Lad? (I think I’m going to switch to Aquaman once he joins the swim team.)

So far, these are the facts:

1.    When we went to the movies together, I waited in line for our popcorn and Slurpees so he could go inside to find seats. Then he called me on my cell phone from the tenth row center and said, “Hurry up. It’s
lonely
in here.”

2.    When he came over for dinner, he paid as much attention to my parents as he did to me. He helped Mom make the chin-chiang salad, he asked Dad to show him a couple of t’ai chi moves, and then they watched the first inning of the Pats game together. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear he was auditioning for the role of their son’s fiancé and they were ready to cast him.

3.    I can’t stop staring at the dimple in his chin and if I think about touching it one more time, I’m going to buy a bag of hammers and break all ten of my fingers.

4.    We both agree that if there’s really a Hell, all they feed you there is cilantro and calves’ liver.

5.    I’ve gotten into the habit of watching him across the class-room during third-period American history, when he’s least likely to get bored and catch me staring. I love the way his eyebrows squish together whenever he doesn’t understand something and how he runs his fingers through the hair on the back of his neck if his hands get fidgety. I also love the way his ears blend into his cheeks without any kind of a dividing line (how come I never noticed ears before?) and how wide his eyes open just before he sneezes. I guess there are plenty of handsome guys walking around if you just take the time to look, but if any of them are more handsome than Andy, they sure don’t live in Brookline. I really need to be more careful, though. Once when he was wearing a baby blue sweater, I left the real world so far behind that when Ms. Reed asked me a history question, I gave her an algebra answer. These days, Tick allows me five minutes of Andy-gazing before he shoots a spitball at my neck to snap me out of it.

6.    He’s sometimes afraid to sit too close to me, and I love that. And when he gets flustered, he makes every part of me light up. Yesterday at The Word Shop Café, Kathy Fine was having trouble remembering all of the words to her
Kiss Me, Kate
audition song, “I Enjoy Being a Girl.” So I routined it for her right there and even taught her the second verse just for the hell of it. And when I sang, “I turn and I glower and I bristle, but I’m happy to know the whistle’s meant for me” right to Andy, he blushed.

7.    Ever since Lee Meyerhoff snaked us into dancing together the night of the talent show, we haven’t been able to stop talking
to each other: on our cell phones, online—everything but face-to-face. No topic is too out there. It can be cornbread in the cafeteria, the potholes on Longwood Avenue, or whether farts float in zero gravity. But no matter what we’re discussing, every night before we hang up or log off, the last thing he says to me is “Sleep well.” Which only keeps me awake until 4:00 in the morning while I play those two words over and over in my head. Nobody ever told me to sleep well before.

8.    The only thing we never talk about is us.

Okay, I’ll admit that the greatest romances of all time probably started like this. But lifelong friendships start that way too, and I’m not about to make a wrong move and scare him off. I love Andy with my whole heart (oh, my God, I actually
said
that??), and if I have to settle for having him in my life as just a buddy, I’ll take it.

Remember what Judy Garland said at the end of
In the Good Old Summertime
? “Psychologically, I’m very confused—but personally, I feel just wonderful.”

Here’s looking at you, kid,

Augie

INSTANT MESSENGER

AugieHwong:
Andy’s coming to auditions with us on Tuesday for moral support. I’ve gone through the
Kiss Me, Kate
CD and decided I’m going to sing “So in Love With You Am I” while I’m staring at him in the front row. If he runs screaming into the night, I can always claim I was
just nervous and knew he’d give me confidence. If he doesn’t, we ought to be back from our honeymoon in time for rehearsals.

AlePerez:
“So in Love With You Am I” is a woman’s song.

AugieHwong:
And your point would be?

AlePerez:
I’m
singing it.

AugieHwong:
I don’t suppose they’d let me try out for Bianca and cast a girl to play Bill, do you? Or at least give me “Always True to You in My Fashion”?

AlePerez:
You’re singing “Too Darn Hot.” You’re also going to be wearing royal blue tights that Lee Meyerhoff is lending you and a gorgeous red and gold sash that’s coming off the end of a hideous red and gold tablecloth that President Fox gave Mamita in Mexico.

AugieHwong:
This is all about getting even with me for blackmailing you into the talent show—
isn’t
it?

AlePerez:
Oh, honey, I haven’t even warmed up yet. And by the way—you’re coming over to the Lycée with me so Mrs. Salabes can teach you a basic tap break for the bridge of the song. If you want that part, you’ll do as I say.

AugieHwong:
By the way. Making somebody you love blush is a
good
thing—isn’t it?

AlePerez:
Nine times out of ten.

AugieHwong:
Thanks for the non-answer.

AlePerez:
You’re welcome.

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