Going Nowhere Faster (11 page)

“Mom has never ironed anything in her life,” I said, and stuck my jeans into the contraption. There was a large yellow switch on the side. I flipped it and nothing happened.

“It’s not on,” Olivia said, pointing to the cord.

I plugged the Iron-a-rama in. It made a loud wrenching sound before a huge billow of steam rushed out, almost scalding off my eyebrows. Chopper barked. Olivia yelped. A buzzer went off and I pulled out the jeans, which were at least twice as wrinkled as before.

“Try again,” Olivia suggested.

When the buzzer went off the second time, my jeans were four times as wrinkled as before, and had a long black stain on the back. Olivia shrugged.

“Want to see what eight times as wrinkled looks like?” I asked, almost positive I had an extra pair of khakis somewhere at the bottom of the closet.

My mother was downstairs in the kitchen with Prarash. They were eating noodles out of the same huge bowl, a handmade ceramic one that had monkeys linking arms all the way around. I’d always liked that bowl. Not anymore.

“Stan!” my mother said. I could see in her eyes she was still upset about the park and the yelling and the Fry Mobile. So what? I was still upset, too. She was about to say something, then thought better of it.

“The young bee wears a jacket,” Prarash said, slurping up a final long noodle, and then wiping soy sauce from his beard. “A yellow jacket. Ha-ha.”

My jacket was black. “My jacket is black,” I said.

Prarash looked at my mother indulgently. “Humor and the young, yes? But they will learn.”

It was so annoying I wanted to scream. Instead, I said, “Mom, can you cash my Happy Video check? I don’t have any money.”

“Only if you tell me where you’re going,” she said, then started rooting through her bag. “Why so dressed up?”

“Umm . . . ,” I said, aware of Prarash staring at me, and trying to ignore him. “Just a thing. For school.”

My mother nodded, pulling handfuls of junk from her enormous pocketbook. Scarves and a brush and hemp tissues and a change purse and homemade beeswax lip balm and a scissors and pens and pencils and a pear and bracelets and a book (about Che Guevara) and a melted string cheese and another book (about Vietnam) and a can of dolphin-safe tuna and a barrette and a tire-pressure gauge, but no wallet.

“I can’t find my wallet,” she said.

“Didn’t school end two months ago?” Prarash asked.

“Um . . . yeah,” I said. “Summer school.”

“You’re not in summer school,” my mother said.

“Listen,” I said, resisting the urge to stamp my foot like OIivia, “I’m going to be late. Can you please just lend me some money?”

My mother looked at Prarash. “Is there any cash in the register at the store?”

He shook his head. “Not much. In fact, less than I thought.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, I don’t want to say anything. Implicate anyone. But . . .”

“But what?”

Prarash sniffed his fingers. “There seemed to be a bit of money missing at the end of the day.”

“That’s impossible,” my mother said, reclasping her overalls. “You and Roberto were the only ones in the store all day. We didn’t have a single customer.”

“Exactly,” Prarash said, sniffing again. The double-sniff. A bad sign. My mother stared at him.

“It is not for a humble believer such as I to cast aspersions. Merely to sit and absorb as the world unfolds.”

“Stan!” my mother called, as I slammed the door. And even though it closed, with a satisfying clunk, I could still hear Prarash chuckle and say, “Teenagers.”

I was an hour early. Keith was behind the counter, halfway through a box of Twizzlers.

“Whoa!” he said. “Check out
GQ.
”

I had on a shirt with buttons. And cuffs. And a collar.

“I’ve got a date,” I said.

“You better.” He laughed.

“How’s business?”

He raised an eyebrow and scowled, pointing a Twizzler at me, which bent in the center and then was actually pointing at the
Horror
section.

“You didn’t actually just ask me
how business was,
did you?”

“Umm . . .”

“Stan, Stan,
Stan
. . . you’ve gotta get your chops together. Are you going to say
ludicrously dull
things like that on this date of yours?”

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

Keith swiveled in his chair and came around the counter. He adjusted my collar, fluffed my hair, and then made me stand with my hips pointed out.

“That’s better. Now repeat after me: I am confident.”

“I am confident.”

“I am in control.”

“I am in control”.

“I am one bad mutha.”

“I don’t want to say that.”

“Fine,” he said, going back to his chair and opening a ZAGNUT, “if that’s the way you want to play it. But just remember that your old buddy Keith was giving stud lessons before your father was born.”

“Keith, you’re thirty-five,” I said. “That means you were giving lessons to other zygotes.”

“My point exactly,” he said, licking toasted coconut off his fingers. “What’s a zygote?”

“Well, okay,” I said, “let’s start with mitosis . . .”

Keith’s chair creaked. Bolt failure seemed imminent. “Let’s not.”

“All right, all right,” I said, holding up my paycheck. “Can you cash this for me instead?”

Keith glared. “How do I know it’s good?”

I showed him the seal of Happy Video. I showed him the address of the store. I showed him his signature.

He shook his head. “Sorry, looks forged.”

“Seriously,” I said. “I have, like, no money.”

Keith popped the register and shrugged. “We got, like, eight bucks in here. It’s been deader than Mick Jagger tonight.”

“Mick Jagger’s alive,” I said.

Keith nodded, as if that proved his point. He stood and shoved a big ham-fist into his pocket. “Here. You can borrow this.”

I held out my palm. He filled it with nickels and lint.

“Wow. Great. Must be at least a dollar twenty.”

“No problemo,” Keith said, and popped open a Snickers.

On the way out, I picked up a couple of things off the floor and straightened a few movie boxes. At the door Keith said, “Stan?”

“Yeah?”

“Knock her socks off.”

Miles pulled up fifteen minutes later. Cari was in the front seat and Ellen was waiting in the back.

“Hi,” I said, sliding in.

“Hey, Stan,” Cari said.

“Nice shirt, Mr. Blackwell,” Miles said.

Ellen gave me a little wave that said she was still singed by her time in the Fry Mobile. She was wearing a white sweater (low-cut), jeans (tight), and makeup (lots). She looked totally different. I put off trying to decide how much I liked it or not.

“Listen, I am so,
so
sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, squeezing my elbow. “Really. It took me a while to catch my breath, but . . .”

“So, you’ve met Chopper!” Miles said.

Ellen laughed. Miles revved the engine.

“Where we going?” I asked.

Miles looked at me in the rearview, tearing around a corner, which forced Ellen to press against my chest. She was warm and soft, two hundred twenty volts of longing shot from my ankle to my neck.

“It’s a surprise!” Miles winked, and then passed another car.

A half hour later, we walked into a large, loud room. There were beer steins on all the windowsills and pictures of soccer players on the walls. The waitresses wore frilly white dresses and blue aprons. The busboys wore blue lederhosen and little hats. Plates of schnitzel and weiners and wursts came pouring out of the kitchen, carried on enormous platters to families sitting at picnic tables arrayed about the room.

“German food?” I laughed. “
German
food?”

“What?” he said. “This place is great!”

“I’m with you, Stan,” Cari said, sticking out her tongue. “Ick.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure, huh?” Miles asked. “Plus, as an added bonus, I called ahead to make sure they don’t serve tofu!”

“How about you, Ellen?” Cari asked. She was wearing a skirt and a green blouse and almost no makeup. She had little dark ringlets and dark skin that made her look always tan. She had a way of asking you questions like she really cared about the answers.

Ellen looked around, and then shrugged. “It’s umm . . . interesting.”

“Very diplomatic,” Miles said. “Very United Nations.”

“Boutros Boutros-Ghali,” I said, just because it was fun to say.

There were men at the bar looking at Ellen. There were women at the bar, but none of them looked at me. A severe old man in a green suit led us to a table.

“I wonder if they’ve ever heard of salad,” Cari said, looking at her menu.

“Amen,” Ellen agreed.

“Salad?”
Miles hissed, mock-outraged. “Shhhh . . . they’ll kick us out.”

Someone in the kitchen dropped a plate, punctuating his warning.

“Well, guys, what’ll it be?” the waitress asked, suddenly just
there,
large and blond and imposing. Her name tag said
BUFFY
.

Buffy?

Miles ordered himself a beer. We all looked at one another while Buffy wrote it on her little pad.

“Um . . . all the way around,” I said, hoping my voice sounded a fraction deeper than usual.

“Sorry, hon,” Buffy said, smacking her gum, “but I’m gonna have to see your ID.”

“Ummm . . . ,” I said, looking at Ellen, who was staring at the floor. I looked at Cari, who jutted her lip in sympathy.

“I think I . . . um . . . left it at . . .”

“Okay,” Buffy said, “so that’s one beer and three Diet Cokes, right?”

I nodded lamely.

“Be right back.”

Ellen was looking at Miles with a grin. “Wow. How come they don’t card you?”

Miles shrugged. “I have the mojo.”

“What
ever,
” Cari said, turning to me. “I should have warned you, Stan. Miles always does that. He gets a kick out of it.”

“No, I get a
beer
out of it,” Miles said, a little snappy. They kind of glared at each other. I’d never seen Miles and Cari argue before, not even a little.

Buffy came back with an enormous beer and three tiny and pathetic Cokes and took our order. The girls went first, then me and Miles.

“So,” Buffy said in disbelief, staring mostly at me, “that’s
three
salads and
one
bratwurst plate?” She put her hand on Miles’s shoulder while saying “bratwurst.” He smiled and toasted her with his beer. Buffy sniffed and walked away.

“I
like
her,” he said.

“You would,” Cari told him.

“So.” Miles grinned, ignoring Cari and turning toward Ellen and me. “Are you guys, like,
going steady
?”

There was a silence. I squeezed my fork. Miles cackled. It occurred to me that he’d started drinking before picking us up.

“Hilarious,” I said. “Really.”

Cari punched his arm. “Stop it.”

“Ow!” he said, sucking on the red spot where her knuckle had hit him.

“So tell us about the conservatory, Ellen,” Cari said.

“Hey, Ellen,” Miles overrode her question, “did you know Stan’s old man is an
inventor
?”

Ellen smiled. “He is?”

I shrugged. “I guess. Not really.”

“Sure he is.” Miles laughed, signaling to Buffy for a refill. “The
car
?”

“Oh,” Ellen said, “I didn’t realize that was . . . an invention.”

Cari looked at the bread sticks. I looked at the bread sticks. After a while, Buffy brought over our tray, one lone bratwurst steaming toward the ceiling.

After the world’s longest dinner, Miles went to the bathroom and Ellen went to make a phone call.

“Next time, I pick,” I said.

“Yes, please,” Cari agreed, with a little smile, and then looked down and played with her napkin.

“What’s going on with you guys?” I asked.

“It’s that obvious, huh?”

“It’s different, that’s for sure.”

She sighed. “You know I’m going to college in a few weeks, right?”

I nodded. She was going to Ohio State. “So soon?”

“I need to find an apartment. And a job. And some friends.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Well, Miles knows it, too. He could have applied. He could move, or . . .” She shook her head. “But he’s too busy being cool and funny and now it’s, like, August, you know?”

I did know. “I’m in the same boat.”

“Yeah, but with Miles, it’s like it’s
my
fault. You’re not going to blame me too, are you?”

I laughed. For some reason, I wanted to tell her about Berkeley. About how I wasn’t going. How I was way behind signing up and being hazed and buying a new sweatshirt and everything.

“By the way, why aren’t you going anywhere?” she asked. “Of all people —”

“Excuse me!” I interrupted, as our waitress walked by. Buffy didn’t seem to hear and kept going.

“You want me to take it up to the register?” Cari asked.

“I’ll go.” I smiled. “I have way more experience in this area.”

“What area?”

“That’ll be four ninety-eight,” I said in a falsetto, “due back Wednesday.”

Cari giggled. Then resumed torturing her napkin.

“But I’m not sure I have enough,” I said, unbelievably glad Ellen wasn’t there to see. I held up my check and showed it to Cari. “Didn’t have time to cash it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Cari said, and gave me another twenty. “I always come prepared. Miles tends to disappear when the check arrives.”

“That jerk.” I smiled.

“That jerk,” she said, not smiling.

I crossed the room, looking for the cashier. Busboys and waitresses crisscrossed at top speed. Families came and went, children yelling. Men sat at the bar, cursing at a soccer game. Somehow I got lost and missed the front desk completely. I took a left and almost walked into a utility closet.

“Ha-ha,” said some guy, pointing at me. He had a lone strand of sauerkraut dangling from his chin.

“Yeah,” said his friend, “ha.”

They slapped five.

I crossed the restaurant, angling toward the bathrooms, and ended up next to a darkened hallway. On one side was a pay phone with an
OUT OF ORDER
sign. There was a stack of plastic high chairs. On the opposite wall was a cigarette machine. I could see Miles’s crazy hair poking out above. His back was turned, so I walked over and grabbed his arm, about to say something hilarious about German food. He looked up, surprised. Ellen was leaning against the wall beneath him. He’d been kissing her.