Get Happy (13 page)

F
IN
, H
AYES
,
AND
I started hanging out together. Hayes even helped with the script writing and filming of our annual Fin and Min Show, something we’d been doing since we were seven. In honor of our employment at Get Happy, we decided this year’s show would be an original stop-action musical. It is called
Get Unhappy: Billy’s Birthday Party Goes Bad
, starring a hapless marshmallow bunny and his marsh mallow-chick friends, which quickly turns violent when the Get Happy entertainer — an evil-looking ceramic
rabbit wearing a paper pirate hat — goes off script. Peeps without heads, peeps cut in half, peeps hanging by their necks. We had no problem finding lots of pastel props and scenery because my mother had decorated every inch of our house for Easter, and I “borrowed” a number of choice items while she was at work. The filming took two weeks, because we got ridiculously elaborate, and Hayes added a score and all these cool sound effects. The screening party was awesome — at Fin’s house, of course, since we do everything at Fin’s house because my mom wouldn’t be able to tolerate the mess — and Fin served vim and vigor juice.

Eventually, spring break rolled around. My vacation began with a text from Fin on my phone when I woke up. He had sent it at something like 6 A.M.

He was driving to Minnesota to visit his grandparents. Cassie was in Aruba. Hayes and I were both spending the break at home. Hayes had a brother in college who was coming home for the week, and it sounded like he was looking forward to seeing him.

My mom wasn’t taking time off work, so I was giddy at the thought of having a week to sit around in my jammies, playing my uke and drawing little diagrams of the chords I made up so that I could remember what I liked.

Maybe some people need to go to Aruba
, I thought,
but this is enough for me.

Business was slow at Get Happy, but Hayes and I did have gigs that first Sunday of the break. It was odd being the only ones in the dressing rooms and in the van.

“So what are you two doing with your days off?” Joy asked as we drove to the first gig. I was sitting in the front with her, and Hayes was in the back.

“Minerva’s coming over tomorrow,” Hayes said. “I’m going to help her record one of her songs.” I turned around and looked at him, and he smiled and tipped his hat.

“On that little mandolin you play?” Joy asked me.

Hayes leaned forward. “It’s a ukulele. She writes her own songs. I’m going to record her doing uke and vocals, and I’ll add bass and maybe some percussion — ”

“That sounds productive,” Joy said.

“Yep,” he said. “She’s coming over at noon and bringing her uke.”

I flipped down the visor and looked at Hayes in the mirror.

“And Hayes is cooking lunch,” I said. “A special gourmet lunch. With a really delicious chocolate dessert.”

“He is?” Joy exclaimed. “That is wonderful. Most boys don’t even know how to boil water.”

“Belgian chocolate fondue, I believe is what he said was for dessert, right, Hayes?” I turned around.

Hayes laughed. “Yep.”

I hardly remember anything about those gigs. I kept wondering if he was serious about me coming on Monday, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to be or not because it sounded fun and also scary. When the day was over and we were driving back to headquarters, I was too chicken to say anything about it, and he didn’t say a word. After we had changed out of our costumes and were walking to the elevator, he told me about something that had happened at his last party, none of which I heard because I was trying to work up the courage to just ask him.

The elevator doors opened and he pulled out his cell phone. He started texting someone, which I thought was kind of rude, and I pushed the button for the lobby.

A moment later, he put his phone away, and my phone buzzed.

A text from Hayes.

“I thought you might need my address,” he said.

The doors opened.

“See you at noon,” he said, and held the building door for me. “Don’t forget your uke.”

“Okay,” I heard myself say. I must have walked out because I did arrive home that day.

W
HEN
I
AM A
parent, no matter how freaked out I am about stuff, I am never going to show it so my kid won’t know that I’m worried and won’t hide everything from me. My mom would have freaked out if I had told her I was going over to a boy’s basement during spring break to play music while she was at work; she would have wanted a background check on Hayes and would have wanted to install surveillance cameras. So I didn’t tell her.

The next day, I woke up early and made cupcakes
because I was anxious and needed something to do. Then I ceremoniously ripped the ruler off the cookie tin of my fake uke — you served me well, O Makeshift Plaything — and put a dozen cupcakes in the tin. I tried on six outfits, finally decided on one, and rode over to Hayes’s house on my bike, the cupcakes and uke in my backpack.

Knock. Knock.

He smiled.

I was nervous, so I pretended to trip on my way in, and he laughed.

“Cupcakes,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the tin. “But I’m crushed. You didn’t trust me to provide a special gourmet lunch?”

He brought me into the kitchen. On the table were — this was adorable — peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread, cut in triangles, and those little chocolate Easter eggs wrapped in foil.

He put some chocolate eggs in my hand. “If we hold them long enough, they’ll melt and then we’ll have …”

“Fondue?”

He smiled.

We sat and ate and talked. He told me that his dad was a librarian, brainy and hilarious, and that his brother was home from college, but hanging out with his old high school friends. No mention of where his mother was, and I didn’t ask.

Every house has a different vibe. The only word I can think of to describe the Martinelli house:
male.
Very brown and plain and comfortable. No knickknacks, but piles of books everywhere. No tablecloths. No scented candles. There were cartoons taped to the bathroom mirror, and funny photos of him and his brother on the fridge. After lunch, he led me through the living room and down the stairs into the basement, where there was a pool table and a desk with a bunch of recording equipment.

I’m sure I said something brilliant, like “Cool.”

“This is basically where I live,” he said, and showed me his various basses and recording equipment.

I pulled out my uke and my songwriting journal.

Hayes set up a microphone and we started recording.

Let me tell you, recording is hard. As soon as you hit that red RECORD button, you automatically tense up.

Whenever Hayes would signal me to start, I’d make a mistake. I was getting embarrassed and frustrated and sure that Hayes was regretting his offer. Finally, he leaned back and said, “Just sing it once all the way through to remind yourself how it goes. I won’t record.”

I closed my eyes and sang and played without making any noticeable mistakes, and as soon as I got to the end, I stood up and screamed: “Son of a biscuit! Why couldn’t I do that when we were recording?”

Hayes grinned. “I
was
recording!”

Genius.

Right after that, our phones both signaled an incoming text at the same time.

Fin.

Attached was a picture of him and his youngest brother, Sammy, taken with a fish-eye app. Their noses were gigantic, and goldfish crackers were sticking out of their nostrils.

We laughed so hard we cried.

H
AYES CALLED ME
the next day.

“Just say yes or no,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “What did I say yes to?”

“To coming with me to do something on my list.”

“Oooh! Where to?”

We met at the Davis El station. My mom hated the El, said it was unsafe. The only other times I had been on it was with Fin and his dad. Two years in a row, his dad took us to see a musical downtown for Fin’s birthday.

If you’ve never taken a train anywhere, subway or regular, put it on your list. You stand on the platform, waiting, and then you see it approaching from the distance. When the train arrives and you climb into it, you can’t help feeling like you’re going somewhere, not to a destination but to a destiny.

Hayes gave me the window seat. I liked looking out at everything passing by. In some places, the train went close to an apartment building or a house, and you could see inside people’s windows. In other places, it was running alongside the rooftops, and you could see exhaust fans and graffiti tags and fire
escape ladders. The train stopped lots of times, and each time, I looked at Hayes to see if we were getting off. Finally, I settled back to enjoy the scenery, except, at that point in our ride, the neighborhood was sad: boarded-up buildings, trash all over the platforms, and a guy passed out next to a doorway, with a newspaper covering his face.

As people got on and off, Hayes kept checking them out. “We just need to find the right — ”

“Drug dealer to buy from?” I whispered.

He laughed.

“The right liquor store to rob?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“The right prostitute — ” I stopped and punched him lightly. “Tell me that is not on your list.”

He laughed.

At the next stop, a little kid got on, sat by himself in one of the yellow plastic seats, opened up a book, and started reading. About eight years old riding the El alone in this neighborhood.

Hayes smiled. “I found my first man,” he whispered. “We’re getting off at the next stop. Be ready.”

When I tried to get him to explain what he was
going to do, he kept shushing me; his legs were jiggling and he was cracking his knuckles as if his adrenaline was pumping.

As the train pulled up to the next station, Hayes stood up and, without hesitating, stuck a crisp ten-dollar bill between the pages of the boy’s book. The kid looked up, shocked, but Hayes kept walking out the door. I followed and turned back to see the kid’s face as the train pulled away. Wild joy. Hayes had the same expression.

“You just gave a kid ten bucks? That was on your list? A random act of kindness?”

He laughed. “It’s trite, isn’t it? But it felt really good.” He started jumping around on the platform like a boxer loosening himself up. “Really good.”

“I wish a stranger would’ve handed me ten bucks when I was a kid.”

“
That
is my point,” he said. “That kid will grow up with a good attitude, thinking something good could happen any day.”

I punched him again.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“For going all Mother Teresa on me.”

He laughed, pulled out his wallet, and showed me two more crisp tens. “You get to pick the next one.”

“Really?”

I took the ten, excited. A new train rumbled in and opened its doors for us.