The Downside of Being Charlie (5 page)

“I can call your teachers and tell them we have some kind of emergency,” she said over huge Belgian waffles she'd made for my special birthday breakfast.

I shook my head no and made up some lame excuse about a huge test I couldn't miss. And before she could come up with a way to keep me home, I was out the door. It quickly became one of the worst decisions I've ever made.

Most of the day went smoothly . . . a little too smoothly. A quiz I was actually supposed to take in history got postponed, and we had a sub in another class who had us watch a video. I was thoroughly enjoying my good day until I realized these were signs. Something was not right.

I could have just chocked it up to luck, and maybe this had been the universe's way of saying
Happy birthday, Charlie, I know your life sucks, so the cosmic forces and I have come together and we hope you have a nice day. Enjoy!
☺
. But I knew better. By lunchtime, my stomach was in knots, with that feeling your gut gives you when it's saying,
Hang the fuck on, brother! Some stuff is about to go down
—and all too soon I realized the universe is really a sadistic bitch that's been setting me up for the biggest birthday fuck ever.

I can still picture Mom perfectly on that day. Well, at first I didn't quite see her so much as the insane amount of helium balloons that were headed toward the front office, bouncing off people and taking up most of the walkway. She reminded me of an old underwear commercial where these guys dress up like fruit and one of them is covered in purple balloons to look like a gigantic cluster of grapes. But Mom was three gigantic clusters of grapes in Technicolor.

“Hi, honey!” she yelled from down the hall, waving, and peering around the balloons. People laughed and pointed at me as Mom started making her way toward me and Ahmed.

“Holy shit,” I whispered to Ahmed.

“Wow. Okay, just relax, no biggie,” Ahmed said. No biggie? Had he seen what I saw? This was a freaking humongous, insane biggie!

“Surprise!” she yelled. More laughter, more pointing.

“Mom . . .”

“Isn't this great! I wanted to make it special just for you. After all, it is your last year as a kid, officially!” she gushed and then she did the only thing that could have possibly made her plan worse than it already was. She cleared her throat and started singing. My blood raced up to my face like the red stuff in a thermometer on a sweltering day. I felt like I was going to die. People laughed harder. I remember how incredibly loud her voice had sounded and how I wished I could magically transform into a gnat and fly away. I remember thinking this couldn't possibly be happening and how long could the seemingly innocent freakin' birthday song possibly
be? Since then I've figured out that it takes approximately fourteen seconds to sing “Happy Birthday” to someone, but it felt like an entire hour. And I really hate that song now.

“. . . dear Charlie . . .”

More people who were laughing and pointing and staring at me formed around Mom, Ahmed, and me. And to his credit, Ahmed didn't even pretend to not know me.

“. . . to you . . .” Thunderous applauses and deafening whistles exploded from the crowd as Mom finished, and she was so damn pleased with herself that her face was beaming. She looked like she just sang at Carnegie Hall and didn't even notice how my heart had stopped beating, how my lungs didn't work, how I was actually dying of humiliation.

She gave a bow and thanked the crowd, and they cheered her on even more. A nervous teacher who had seen everything finally broke it up by announcing loudly that everyone should get to class. Very slowly did the cheers die down and the crowd finally dispersed. I heard a few whispers and lingering giggles as everyone left the Fuck Your Son's Birthday Show.

“I was going to try and convince them to let me take these to your class and sing to you so you'd really be surprised, but, oh well. This works too. Here you go, honey!” she said. Was she serious? Yes, she was. I couldn't move. I was the Tin Man left out in the rain.

“Charlie! Take them,” she said, laughing. “Told you I was gonna do something special!”

I lifted a rusted arm and took them before she said
anything else. I stood there like an idiot as she grinned from ear to ear like she'd just done the most spectacular thing in the world. I wanted to kill her. But the bell rang and I had to get to my next class, so I told her I had to go.

“Okay, see you later. I'm making something special for dinner.” She winked and left me with the big mess she had just made. I couldn't believe it, and yet, I could.

Now, my options were to walk around like balloon boy the rest of the day or pop approximately thirty balloons and return home empty-handed, which would require some kind of explanation for Mom. Either option seemed ridiculous, which was why I was grateful when Ahmed, wonderful remedial-reading, general math, Ceramics I, II, and III–taking Ahmed, came up with the most brilliant idea in the world.

“That's a lot of freaking balloons,” he said, “a
lot
.”

“I know.”

“It's too bad, really just too bad,” he said.

“I can't walk around like this,” I said, my voice shaking and not catching his drift.

“I mean, it's just too bad,” he said again.

“What the hell are you talking about!” I yelled, dumping all my frustration onto him. “What's too bad?” I said, “That my mom is insane? That I look like an idiot? That this,” I said as I raised my fist holding all the balloon strings, “is supposed to brighten my day?”

“Well, yes, all those things are bad,” he said, “but what's really bad, really, really bad,” he continues, “is how some dumbass is going to bump into you and make you lose your grip on those things, and how they'll just
. . . float away.” And even though I'm totally straight, I remember thinking how much I loved Ahmed and that he was quite possibly the best guy on earth.

I was suddenly eternally indebted to both Ahmed and the architectural genius who designed open school campuses. Instead of one huge building, there are a bunch of small buildings that each house a row of lockers and several classrooms. Outdoor walkways connect them all together to form one semi-eerie minicompound. It's a total bitch in the heat (especially when you're over two hundred pounds) and sucks when it rains, but insanely perfect when your mom shows up with a trillion balloons that you have to get rid of—fast. Ahmed gave me a light push and I opened my hand. We grinned at each other. The bundle of tangled strings slipped through my fingers easily.

“Now you don't have to lie,” he said as we watched them go higher and higher. Despite the horridness of what I had just experienced, I had to admit, they looked pretty spectacular against the blue sky. The wind carried them away, and we watched as they got smaller and smaller and finally disappeared.

“Yeah,” I said as I watched my problem float away, and I remember wishing all problems were that easy to get rid of.

Today, though, Mom's gone. There's no arguing about me staying home—no crazy-ass balloons to embarrass me with. I'm glad I don't have to think about her.

Dad comes downstairs right before I head out. “Sport, hey! Happy Birthday!” he yells. He hugs me and slaps me on the back a few times. “I can't believe it. Eighteen
years ago today, your mom and I . . .” He stops suddenly and looks away. It's weird how we can't bring her up when she's not here. He shrugs it off. “Well, I just want you to know I'm proud of you,” he says.

“For being another year older?”

“No, I mean, yeah. You're growing up, Charlie, and you really know how to handle yourself. Look at you,” he says, “you weren't happy with your weight and you changed it.”
Wasn't that because you made me?
“Anyway, you're really something, you know? In lots of ways, you have more will than I do.”

Dad is getting a little too sentimental. Even though what he's saying is nice, I don't feel like partaking in this feel-good moment. In the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder what he'd be saying or how he'd be looking at me right now if I were still fat.

“Thanks, Dad,” I say a little awkwardly as I gather my backpack. Ahmed is here and honks his car horn.

“We'll celebrate later, okay?” he calls out as I head out the door.

“Sure,” I call back.

When I get into the Roller Skate, Ahmed throws a cigar at me and a
Best of Dean Martin
CD.

“Happy eighteenth, player! Now you can officially vote, buy cigars, and purchase . . .” He clears his throat and adjusts his tie in true Sammy Davis Jr. fashion. “Gentlemen's magazines.” He raises his eyebrows and laughs. I laugh too and thank him for the CD and cigar even though I neither smoke nor can stand the smell of cigars. Dean Martin is pretty cool, though. “And since all you ever do is listen to your iPod, we can keep this
in my car,” he says, plucking the CD right out of my hand and tearing off the wrapper.

“Thanks a lot,” I say, not surprised because pretty much every gift Ahmed has given me has found its way back to him. I put the cigar in my backpack as the Roller Skate zips us off to school.

The day goes as usual and then during drama, the very class I'm trying to switch out of, I get called down to the guidance office to discuss a schedule change.

My guidance counselor, Ms. Sheldon, wears a bright green shirt that hurts my eyes. She has short, gray hair that resembles a buzz cut, and she wears red-framed glasses attached to an elaborate bejeweled chain. In the four years I've been at this school, this is the first time I've met her. She is happy to meet me, she says, and why haven't I been in to chat with her before? I shrug my shoulders since there's really no way to answer that question. I look around and notice the many pictures of students and big bubbly girl-writing on handmade cards decorating her office. Apparently, stopping in to chat is something lots of other students have done.

“So this is your senior year! Are you excited?” I nod.

“And look at you, with all these AP classes and a, oh my gosh, a 3.8 grade point average? That's impressive. Really, congratulations,” she says, turning to me and smiling. I fiddle with my watch.

“I do notice one small setback, though,” she continues, “no extracurricular activities, Charles, and that's something
colleges are definitely looking for these days.” She looks at me over her glasses.

“Yeah,” I say and take a deep breath. It's not like I hadn't thought of that before.

“Why?” she asks.

“Just . . .” I shrug my shoulders. “I don't know,” I tell her, which is entirely false. The truth is that fat doesn't do extracurricular activities. Fat always gets in the way. Fat makes you stay home so people don't notice you or say shit behind your extra wide back.

She nods. “Well, your grades are fabulous, so maybe if you join some clubs this year, you'll still have no problem getting into the college of your choice, which brings me to this. You want out of drama, I see?” she says, looking at the schedule change request form I filled out after school on the first day.

“Yep.”

“Well, you're not the first one, but I'll tell you this, I think you should seriously consider keeping it. Staying in drama might offer a great extracurricular opportunity for you.”

I shift in my seat uncomfortably.
No, just get me out of there
. I don't want to be talked into staying in the class, but she keeps going on and on, and the more she talks, the more I sink into the quicksand of compliance. I can't say no now. She's been talking nonstop for the past fifteen minutes.

“. . . not even on stage, but you can do some work backstage and . . .”

First Tanya Bate . . . now this.

“. . . love to see a student challenge himself, try new
things, and it might even be a great topic for a college essay. So, what do you say, Charles?” I say screw you, lady.

“Sure,” comes out instead.

“Great! I'm proud of you. You'll see, it'll probably end up being your favorite class.” Doubt it.

Ten minutes later, I'm still reeling as I stumble back to class with no schedule change. How do they do that? She looked nice, and yet, the old bat had somehow duped me into staying in drama. I decide to skip the rest of class and go sit on a bench, mentally composing my bio to post on FML.

As I sit feeling sorry for myself, thinking what a crappy birthday this is turning out to be, Charlotte VanderKleaton appears out of nowhere and walks past me. I sit still and stop breathing, hoping she won't notice the loser sitting here with absolutely nothing to do. I stare at the cracks on the ground until she is a safe distance away. I see her going in the direction of the drama room.