Twerp (11 page)

“Like what?” I said.

His smile got sly. “I think you like Jillian very much.”

“What?”

“It is all right,” he said. “I will not tell her.”

“You can tell her whatever you want—”

“You should ask her to come to the movies with you.”

“But I—”

“It will be very nice.” He nodded at me, then clammed up. It was like the period at the end of a sentence. He leaned back on the couch and crossed his legs. He’d said his piece.

“Eduardo,” I said, “I’m not going to ask Jillian to go to the movies with me.”

“Don’t you think she’s very pretty?”

“It doesn’t matter if I do or I don’t.”

“I don’t understand,
Julian
. Didn’t you write a letter to her?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Well, yes. But it wasn’t
my
letter.”

“You took someone else’s letter?”

“I wrote it. But it’s not
from
me.”

“Ah, you wrote the letter
for
someone else.”

“Please don’t tell her.”

“But she thinks you wrote it.”

I sighed. “Are you sure?”

“Sí, señor,”
he answered.

“But I
told
her—”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“I don’t know. I wish I hadn’t.”

He shook his head, which annoyed me.

“No, wait,” I said. “I
do
know why I did it.”

“Why?”

“The same reason you stuck up for Paulo and Hector at Memorial Field.”

“But the older boys … Paulo and Hector could not defend themselves.”

“Well, maybe the person I wrote the letter for couldn’t write it himself.”

“
Julian
, a woman’s heart is very delicate.”

“It’s a
letter
. Words on a page. Why is it such a big deal?”

“It’s more than words on a page,” he said. “It is feelings. It is poetry. It is truth.
La verdad
. Do you understand?”

“For God’s sake, Eduardo! Why are you blowing it out of proportion?”

“Because love is love.”

“How do you know so much about it? How old are you?”

“I am fourteen years old,
Julian
.”

“Shouldn’t you be in junior high school?”

“Yes, but I did not speak English very well when
Señor Rifkin
brought me to America. Now I speak it very well.
Very
well. I get
very
good grades. I help Paulo and Hector very much.”

“But don’t you feel weird about it—I mean, being so much older than the rest of your class?”

“It is where I belong,” he said. “I do not feel weird about it.”

“But don’t you think it’s unfair?”

“Unfair how?”

“Look at how big you are,” I said. “Plus, you’re smart. You should be in eighth grade.”

“It would be very difficult, I think—”

“Then at least seventh.”

“Thank you,
Julian
, for thinking that I am so smart. But I think I am where I belong.”

“You’re welcome.” I sighed.

“But you do not love Jillian?”

“I
like
Jillian—”

“Perhaps you love her a little?”

“No!”

“Ah.”

He ran his right hand across his chin and looked off to the left, deep in thought. I knew I’d made a real mess of things, even if I hadn’t meant to. But what could I do? I couldn’t unwrite the letter. I felt bad. But also, in a weird way, I felt good. I’d written a love letter, and it had worked—maybe not how it was meant to work, but it had worked. It was like an art project that you thought up and did right. Even if it turned out slightly off, you could still step back and admire the result: the prettiest girl in the entire sixth grade liked me.

But then I remembered Lonnie, how only an hour ago he was talking about marrying Jillian, and now I had to break the news to him that the letter had backfired. I thought about how miserable he was going to be, and I felt low again. Because it wasn’t an art project. It was Lonnie’s feelings.

“Leave it to me,
Julian
,” Eduardo said suddenly.

“Leave what to you?”

“I will tell Jillian what is in your heart.”

“You would do that?” I said.

“I know it is not your fault. You meant no harm.”

“Do you think she’ll be mad?”

He looked at me as if it was a dumb question.

“How mad?” I asked.

“She is a woman,
Julian
.”

“And?”

He pointed to his heart. “She lives here.”

I had no idea what he meant by that. “Oh.”

He winked at me, the same wink as when he was walking off the playground at Memorial Field. Then he turned and walked toward the cellar stairs. I followed him without another word.

I had a new perspective on Jillian’s dad when I came out of the cellar. Not that he wasn’t a goofball—I mean, he did still have on that
MASTER GRILLER
apron. Maybe what I
had was a new perspective on goofballs. What I mean is, maybe you can’t write off a guy just because he happens to be one. Mr. Rifkin had done right by Eduardo, had changed his life, had rescued him from that orphanage and brought him to America. His heart was sure in the right place. Even if it meant I was now the second-fastest kid in P.S. 23.

Lonnie and Jillian, meanwhile, were sitting in lounge chairs by the pool, yakking away. I knew that once he relaxed he would be fine. He was back to being Lonnie, talking a blue streak, and Jillian was cracking up, hanging on his every word. It was good to see. It even occurred to me that maybe, if she spent enough time with him, Jillian would start to like Lonnie. I mean, how could you not? Despite what Amelia said about him, Lonnie’s a great guy.

Eduardo peeled off to help Mr. Rifkin with the grill, and I angled straight for Lonnie and Jillian. They didn’t even notice me walking up until I was right there—that’s what a good time they were having. Then Lonnie caught sight of me and nodded toward the lounge chair to his right. Jillian was to his left, so he was in between us, the center of attention.

“Hey, Jules, I was just telling Jillian about the time you got caught stealing at Lind’s Department Store.”

“C’mon, Lonnie!”

“It was
hysterical
,” he said. “Eric the Red got away with
a G.I. Joe, and Shlomo Shlomo got away with a Dracula model kit, and I had an entire box of baseball cards stashed underneath my shirt—that’s like forty packs, four hundred cards—and the three of us hooked up again a block away, and we’re standing around, waiting for Julian to come out, and he never made it. We must have stood on that corner for a half hour before it dawned on us that Julian got caught. It didn’t seem possible. The guy behind the counter was about a hundred years old, and he was half blind, and even if he noticed what was going on, what could he do? Julian could’ve dodged him and got to the front door like it was nothing.”

Jillian looked past Lonnie to me. “So how did he catch you?”

“I don’t know. I guess—”

Lonnie said, “He came out from behind the counter, wagging his finger!”

“I just panicked. I was trying to put back the stuff I took—”

“Tell her what it was!”

“What does that matter?”

“It was a
Gumby
!” Lonnie shouted. That cracked him up again, and it made Jillian laugh too. I could feel my face going red, but I didn’t mind, honestly. Lonnie was on a roll. “So Julian’s sliding that Gumby back onto the rack, nice and neat, nothing out of place, and meanwhile,
the old guy comes up behind him and grabs him by the shoulder—and that’s all she wrote. I mean, there are guys who are cut out for crime, and guys who are not cut out for crime. You can figure out what kind of guy Julian is.”

“What happened to you?” Jillian asked.

“The old guy called my dad to come pick me up.”

“Your dad must’ve
killed
you!”

“No, that was the weird thing,” I said. “I thought he was going to yell, or maybe even take the TV out of my room. But on the drive home he told me in a real calm voice how disappointed he was in me and then let it go. He never mentioned it again. The thing of it was … I know how weird this is going to sound. The fact that he didn’t make a big deal of it made it worse. It just gave me a bad feeling that lasted for months. I would’ve rather he yelled.”

Jillian leaned forward and lowered her voice. “My dad would have
freaked out
if that happened to me.”

“What about your mom?” Lonnie asked. “She seems pretty cool.”

That made Jillian grin. “My mom wouldn’t have cared. She would’ve asked what I stole, like whether it was worth it.” She took another peek at her mother, then lowered her voice even more. “People always say I look like her, but I think I take after my dad. What do you guys think?”

“You take after both of them,” Lonnie said. “You got the best of both worlds.”

“What about you, Julian? What do you think?”

I wanted to be careful what I said, given what Eduardo had told me about her feelings. I glanced behind me at Mrs. Rifkin. She’d tied her bikini top and rolled onto her back. But she looked like she had slathered on another layer of suntan oil. You could see the overlapping layers on her belly, the older one that had dried up into a film and the newer one that had more of a shine. I took a good long look at her. “I don’t know which one you look more like. Maybe it’s both of them, like Lonnie says.”

“Do you think my mom has a good body?”

That felt like a wrong question to ask, and I didn’t want to answer it, but Jillian was looking straight at me, waiting to hear my opinion. “I guess … I mean, for a grown-up.”

“Your mom’s got a
great
body,” Lonnie said.

Eduardo picked that moment to drag over a lounge chair. He sat down on it backward, with his legs straddling the sides and his arms folded across the back. “The food is cooked.”

Jillian sat up straight and focused her eyes on him. “Lonnie thinks my mom has a great body. What do you think about that, Eduardo?”

“Your mother is a beautiful woman.”

“The neighbors think she’s a tease,” Jillian said. “They talk about her all the time.”

“Hey, if you got it, flaunt it,” Lonnie said.

Eduardo nodded in Lonnie’s direction without quite going along with what he’d said. “She believes in freedom. It is how she lives.”

“But she’s my
mom
. It’s
so
humiliating.”

“You should never be ashamed of your family,” Eduardo stated.

Lonnie cracked up. “You wouldn’t think so if you met my mom.”

“What’s wrong with your mom?” Jillian asked.

I knew where the conversation was about to go, and I wanted to tell Lonnie to knock it off, but there was no chance. It happened too fast.

“She doesn’t talk right. It’s like,
‘Thuffering thuccotath.’
I mean, it’s not her fault. The Nazis cut her tongue to pieces. But if you listen to her, it’s embarrassing. That’s the only word for it.”

Jillian glared right at him. “That’s a
terrible
thing to say!”

The color went out of Lonnie’s face. It was pitiful to watch. He was yukking it up one second, and the next second he had a look like that gladiator in
Spartacus
who gets a six-foot spear chucked into his back.

“No, I mean, she’s still my mom—”

“How could you say such a thing?” Jillian said.

“It’s just that … I guess you had to be there. I mean, if you heard her talk …”

Jillian looked past him to me. “Have
you
heard her talk, Julian?”

“Sure he has!” Lonnie said. “Lots of times. He’ll back me up. Isn’t it embarrassing to listen to her talk?”

“It’s noticeable, for sure,” I managed.

“But is it
embarrassing
?” Jillian asked.

I was grasping for the right answer. “I don’t know … I’m not sure I’d use that exact word. But the thing is, she’s not my mom, so it’s hard to say what’s embarrassing and what’s not embarrassing. But I’d definitely say it’s noticeable. Lonnie’s right about that.”

Right then, Mr. Rifkin walked over with a big plate of hamburgers and hot dogs. He came just in the nick of time. I had no idea what else I was going to say.

“Hey, fellas. What can I do you for?”

“I’ll have a hot dog!” I said.

“One dog, coming right up!”

He pushed the plate at me, and I grabbed a hot dog and bun. I didn’t even bother to ask for mustard. I just shoved the thing in my mouth and began chewing. That made Jillian crack up, the way I was wolfing it down. Her laughter cut the tension, and things started to feel normal. Awkward, but normal.

Mr. Rifkin passed out hamburgers and hot dogs to Lonnie, Jillian, and Eduardo, so the conversation died down for a couple of minutes. I couldn’t remember the
last time I was as grateful for silence. Mr. Rifkin went over to sit by his wife. There wasn’t much talking between the two of them either, though she did sit up for her burger. Also, he poured her a beer into a plastic cup. He had a beer too, which he drank from the bottle.

Then Eduardo said, out of nowhere, “
Julian
, have you ever played
fútbol
?”

“Do you mean soccer?” I said.

“That is a word only Americans say. The rest of the world says
fútbol
.”

“Whatever you call it, I’ve never played it.”

“You should try it,” he said. “You are a very fast runner.”

Lonnie picked right up on that. “Have you seen this guy run?”

Jillian said, “You never told me you were a runner, Julian.”

“He’s not just a
runner
,” Lonnie said. “He’s greased lightning.”

Jillian wasn’t going to let that slip by. “Well, Eduardo is the fastest runner I’ve ever seen. He won medals for it in Guatemala. He won trophies for
fútbol
and medals for running. Isn’t that right, Eduardo?”

“Then let’s have a race!” Lonnie said.

“C’mon, Lonnie!”

Eduardo waved off the idea. “No,
Julian
is much faster.”

“There, you see?” Lonnie said. “Even Eduardo knows it. You should have seen him at Track and Field Day last year. The bleachers at Memorial Field were packed. I mean, there must have been two hundred kids jammed in like sardines. The fifth and sixth graders were running forty-yard dashes against each other. Mr. Greetham was timing the winner of each heat with a stopwatch. So he’s calling out the times, and it’s like five-point-eight, five-point-nine, six-point-one, five-point-nine. You know? It’s like that for every heat. Then this Negro kid, Willie, runs a five-point-four. That makes the fifth graders cheer real loud because he’s one of them—even though, like I said, Willie is a Negro. But who cares? Five-point-four is still five-point-four. If you’re fast, you’re fast. So guys are still congratulating Willie, and they don’t even notice Julian’s heat is about to get started. Except then Greetham yells, ‘On your mark … get set … go!’ So they all turn to watch. It’s just sick, what happened. Four guys started the race, but three of them quit after about three steps. They stop dead in their tracks because Julian is so far out in front. So Julian finishes the race by himself, not even going full speed, and then Greetham checks his stopwatch, and then he checks it again, and then he says, ‘Four-point-nine.’ The entire place goes dead quiet. It’s like a miracle just happened. But Julian just jogs over to the sideline like it’s nothing.”