Hit the Road, Manny: A Manny Files Novel (11 page)

Overtip.


Go barefoot.


Take tambourine lessons.

The shelf below the picture shelf was full of videos. Most of them were Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals on DVD:
Phantom of the Opera. Evita. Sunset Boulevard
. I picked up
Cats
and looked at the back cover. There was a picture of a human dressed up as a cat singing and looking up into the stage lights that were supposed to look like the moon. Clarissa said that Lulu, India, and I could watch it. Lulu didn’t want to. She said she needed some “me time.” That’s what she says when she wants to be alone. Or sometimes she says, “I have one nerve left, and you’re on it!”

Lulu went to the room that she and India were sharing to read. Lulu told her that I reminded her of Scout because I always ask too many questions and I’m a pest. Those are her words, not mine. I like to say that I’m inquisitive. “Inquisitive” means that you ask good questions. That’s what Mr. Allen, the principal of our school, called me when I asked him if he made more money than the teachers. He didn’t answer me. He just patted me on the head and jangled the change in his front pocket.

India and I settled into beanbag chairs and started watching
Cats
. Belly came out from her bath, already in her pajamas, and joined us at the part where the cats run all around the stage and sing, “Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats, Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats, Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats!” They sing the same line over and over again but stress a different word each time. The manny says it’s not brilliant songwriting but it’s catchy, like “I like big butts and I cannot lie!” That’s another catchy song.

Mom and Dad helped Clarissa with dinner while we watched the rest of the musical. Belly took her shirt off and used it as a pillow. Roger came in and watched the show with us while he drank a beer out of a bottle and ate popcorn. He called it an appetizer. When the movie was over, Belly climbed up on top of Roger’s shoulders and started pawing at his head like a cat. She even licked the top of his head like she was cleaning him. He was saved when Clarissa called us in for dinner.

We didn’t sit down at the table all at once to eat because we were having made-to-order omelets. There were bowls of cheese, onions, peppers, bacon, ham, tomatoes, cream cheese, and even avocados. Lulu and India took orders on little notepads like they were real waitresses at a diner. They even had on name tags. India’s said
FLO
, and Lulu’s said
ALICE
. Clarissa had a name tag that said
MARGE
, and Roger kept calling her “Marge in charge.” When he did this, she swatted him on the butt with the spatula.

Roger, Dad, and Mom ordered the same thing, Denver omelets, with ham, peppers, onions, and cheddar cheese. Belly ordered a cream cheese omelet and a saucer of milk so she could drink like a cat. The manny ordered a cheddar omelet with avocados and tomatoes. After he ordered it from India, he said, “Why, yer the prettiest little gal I’ve seen in this joint in some time!”

India turned around to him and put her hand on her hip and said, “Kiss my grits!” in a twangy accent just like the manny told her to.

I ordered a suicide omelet. It’s kind of like a suicide soda, where you put a little bit of every kind of soda in your drink at the soda fountain. I did it once at Pizza Hut. It was really gross because it had iced tea, Dr Pepper, and Hi-C fruit punch in it. I got a large, and my dad made me drink every bit of it to teach me a lesson about being wasteful. I threw up in his car on the way home. Mom said I taught him a lesson about teaching lessons. There’s still a stain on the floorboard of his Audi.

My omelet had a little bit of everything in it. Roger thought it sounded so good that he ordered a suicide omelet too. Clarissa made herself a garden omelet, with just vegetables. She told me that eating like that was what kept her décolletage so beautiful. I felt myself blush.

We sat around a dining-room table that was big enough for twelve people to sit at. I thought that there were so many of us that the kids would have to sit at a kids’ table, but Clarissa said that she didn’t like being separated from the kids because “kids make conversations more fascinating.” At the kids’ table we usually compare our scars and talk about who we know that pees their pants when they laugh too hard. India’s friend Taylor does. One time India imitated Napoleon Dynamite and asked Taylor if she “wanted some tots.” Taylor thought it was so funny that she left a puddle on one of our barstools. I don’t sit on that barstool anymore, even though the manny cleaned it with disinfectant.

We didn’t talk about scars or pee at dinner that night. We talked about current events, politics, and places we’d like to visit someday.

Clarissa said she’d like to visit Morocco and Vietnam.

Dad said Dubai.

India said India.

I said Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s theme park in Tennessee. Craig went there over spring break and said that there’s a ride called the Tennessee Tornado that does loop-the-loops like you’re stuck inside a tornado. The table got silent and everybody stared at me. The only sound was Belly slurping milk out of her saucer.

“I think Dollywood looks like fun,” Clarissa finally said, smiling at me.

Lulu cleared her throat and leaned up on the table, with her hands gesturing out toward her audience. “I’d love to visit Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. He was, you know, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.” Lulu looked around the room, hoping to get some approval. It was the same look that the president gives to the audience during his State of the Union address when he uses words like “resolve” and “subliminable.”

“GOY!” I said to Lulu when she was done with her story.

“What does ‘GOY’ mean?” Mom asked.

“‘Get over yourself!’” I said. “Sarah made it up.”

Everybody laughed. Even Lulu, who laughed and slapped me on the back like I was a cute kid and she was an adult.

The manny told Lulu that his parents had taken his sister and him to Monticello when they were in middle school. They had also gone to Washington DC. Clarissa pulled a framed picture off the picture table of the manny and his sister in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The manny had blond hair that was parted on the side and was long in back. He called it a mullet.

India said, “I’m wondering if your hair really fell out, or if it ran away out of embarrassment.” The manny pretended to wipe tears from his eyes.

“It’s okay,” India said, rubbing the manny’s bald head. “You’ve turned your
Glamour
Don’t into a
Glamour
Do.”

Lulu looked at the picture of the Lincoln Memorial and sighed, “Ah, the Great Emancipator,” trying to show off her knowledge again. Lulu helped me with a report on President Lincoln for history class this year. He was called the Great Emancipator because he signed a treaty that ended slavery. My report was titled “Abraham Lincoln: Forward Thinker in Top Hat.” Sarah’s report was titled “Dolley Madison: You Think You Know Everything About Her, But You Donut.” Mrs. House put a red smiley face by our titles. She even drew a top hat and a goatee on my smiley face.

“Max and I want to take a trip to Paris—,” the manny started a story but was interrupted by his dad, who stood up and started clearing off the table.

“Anybody want to help me with the dishes?” Roger asked.

I stood up and started to help clear and noticed the manny look at Mom, shrug, and then look down into his empty plate. I cleared his plate and leaned close to him. It must have cheered him up, because he lifted his head and yelled, “I get to dry!”

The “ladies,” as Belly wanted us to call them, sat around the fireplace while Dad, the manny, Roger, and I cleaned up and washed the dishes. I could hear Mom telling Clarissa about Uncle Max and his painting show. Lulu and India were playing checkers on a wooden checkerboard that was on the coffee table, while Belly was petting a fluffy yellow cat named Skimbleshanks under the collar. Mauling would be a better way to describe what she was doing, actually. Mom would stop her story every once in a while to tell Belly not to be so rough. Belly loves animals, but she can get carried away. Kind of like Lennie in
Of Mice and Men
, another book that Lulu read out loud to us. Lennie is a man who keeps mice in his pocket and loves a puppy so much that he hugs and squeezes it so hard that it dies. Belly has never loved an animal to death, but she once loved a hamster so hard that it limped away when she put it down.

By the time we finished the dishes, it was already time for bed. Mom and Dad and Belly stayed in the guest room, which had its own bathroom. India and Lulu stayed in the manny’s sister’s old room, which had a canopy bed and lots of stuffed animals and posters of a rock band called Bon Jovi on the walls. I was staying with the manny in his old room. It had bunk beds and red carpet and medals from when he used to compete in gymnastics meets when he was little. There was also a stack of cassette tapes on a shelf: Michael Jackson,
Thriller
; Hall and Oates,
Private Eyes
; Prince,
Purple Rain
.

I climbed on the top bunk and found a stack of Wyoming postcards up there. The manny must have told Clarissa and Roger that I was sending postcards every day, so they stocked up on some for me. I smiled.

On a postcard with a buffalo on it I wrote:

I wrote to Sarah on a postcard with a picture of a jackalope on it. A jackalope is a mix between a jackrabbit and an antelope. They don’t really exist. It’s really just a stuffed rabbit with deer antlers glued to its head. It looks like something that might live near a nuclear power plant.

The manny wrote a postcard to Uncle Max, and I wrote the P.S. again.

When I woke up the next morning, the manny was already up and had made his bed. He’s really neat and organized. I got up and made my bed too. I found a quarter in my bag and tried to bounce it on the bed to see if I had made it really tight. I saw on a movie once that in the army they make you make your bed so perfect that you can bounce a quarter on it. The quarter didn’t bounce. It just plopped. I think it would have bounced if there hadn’t been egg-crate foam on top of the mattress.

The house was quiet. When I walked into the kitchen, the manny and his mother were sitting at the table drinking coffee. The manny was in Uncle Max’s Basquiat T-shirt again and his pajama pants. Clarissa was wearing a terry-cloth robe that was tied so tightly that you couldn’t see her cleavage or her décolletage. She was talking to the manny softly, and I heard her say, “Matthew, we love you dearly, but people around here just wouldn’t understand. Your father is having a hard time…” She stopped when the manny looked up from his coffee and smiled when he saw me.

“Expelliamus!” he exclaimed like something magical had happened when I walked into the room. “Expelliamus” is what Harry Potter says to get his magic wand to work. The manny also used his napkin to dry his eyes. He wasn’t crying, but his eyes were watery. I hoped it was hay fever.

Clarissa stood up and kept her back to me. I could tell that she was wiping her own eyes as she walked over to the stove. “Your mother and father went on a walk around the pasture with Rog. Your mom said that you love bagels and cream cheese with jam.” She sliced a bagel in half and put it in the toaster.

The manny added, “The girls are still sleeping.”

I ate the bagel with cream cheese and jam. The kitchen was silent, and I could tell the manny and his mother were wrapped up in their own thoughts. That’s what Sarah’s mother calls it when Sarah daydreams. Sarah always daydreams. Last year during a softball game Sarah missed a fly ball because she was daydreaming. The ball almost landed on her head, but she didn’t notice it until the third baseman ran out to pick it up. She told me that she was thinking about how hot the sun was and that it probably would have done more to Icarus than just melt his wax wings. Icarus is a character in Greek mythology whose father made him wax wings to escape prison and told him not to fly too close to the sun because the wings would melt. Icarus was so excited to be flying that he forgot his father’s warning and got too close to the sun, and the wings melted and he fell into the sea. Sarah did a painting called
Icarus’s Wings
in the after-school art program. She used real feathers and melted wax. I made a macaroni peace sign on construction paper.

Mom, Dad, and Roger walked in just as I took my last bite of bagel.

“Morning, babe,” Mom said to me. I love when she calls me babe.

“Morning,” I said, and cleared my own plate and loaded it into the dishwasher.

Roger squeezed the manny’s shoulder as he walked by to give Clarissa a kiss on the cheek. It wasn’t really her cheek. It was her neck, and she squished her head and shoulder together and giggled.

“Ewww!” Lulu squealed from the doorway. “PDA is not acceptable.” She walked over and poured herself a cup of coffee. When she sat down, Dad took it away from her.

“You’re not allowed coffee. You don’t even like it.”

“I might,” she said. “I have sophisticated taste.”

Clarissa and Rog laughed.

“Do you have any Crunchberries?” Lulu asked, forgetting about her sophisticated taste.

Once everybody was up and had eaten breakfast, we decided to go into town to walk around and shop and have lunch. Dad, the manny, Roger, and I rode in Roger’s truck. The girls all rode in Clarissa’s convertible Volkswagen Bug. It was one of the old kind and was black and shiny.

“HEY, BOYS.” Belly flirted through our open window as they drove by us. She looked like she was about to explode or pee her pants she was so excited to be in a convertible. I was glad I was in the truck. Belly gets unbearable when she’s excited. That means that she’s so annoying that bears wouldn’t even eat her.

The downtown had wooden sidewalks and looked like it was out of an Old West movie. I wished I had a metal detector, because I bet there’s lots of lost change between the sidewalk slats. And jewelry, too. India told me that there was probably also a lot of spit-out gum.

Everybody waved at Clarissa and Roger like they were the mayors. They kept stopping and reintroducing the manny to their friends.

“You remember Matthew, don’t you?” Clarissa said to the sheriff, who pulled his squad car over to talk to them.

“Of course I do,” the sheriff said. “Remember when we had to bring him home that one time because he had sneaked out and was still trick-or-treating at midnight on his bicycle. We got so many calls.”

“I got a whole lot of candy, though, and some money, too. They give better stuff after bedtime,” the manny turned and told me.

They all laughed, and then Lulu pointed out a jaywalker to the sheriff and he had to leave.

The first place that we went into was an old-time photo shop where people get dressed up like characters out of the Old West and have their pictures taken. There was a group of high school girls getting their picture taken like they were saloon tramps. That’s what India said before Mom raised her eyebrows at her.

“HER WANTS TO DRESS UP,” Belly said, jumping up and down and up and down like she was on a pogo stick.

“I don’t know—,” said Mom, but Dad interrupted her.

“It might be fun to have one of the kids for my desk at the office.”

Mom looked annoyed. “Okay, but nobody dresses up like a saloon tramp.”

“Mom! RUDE!” India jokingly reprimanded.

Nobody did dress up like a saloon tramp. Lulu dressed up like a schoolmarm, with a bun in her hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a wooden ruler like she was going to swat us. India, Belly, and I were old-time students. India wore a gingham dress and had two braids, one on each side of her head. Belly wore a dress that matched India’s, and got to hold an old, raggedy doll. She wanted braids, but her hair was too short. She cried, which made the picture even better because nobody smiles in old photos. They just look sad. I got to wear knickers, which are short pants that have buttons around the calves; a plain white shirt; and a newsboy cap.

The manny thought I looked like Oliver from the musical. He started to sing, “‘Consider yourself at home. Consider yourself one of the family….’”

The picture turned out really funny because Lulu was really swatting the ruler in her hand, threatening the manny. Belly looked like she really hated school, and India was rolling her eyes, so she looked like the troublemaker. I just looked like myself. Really cute and nice, like I was the teacher’s pet.

Dad paid for two copies, one for us and one for Roger and Clarissa to put on their picture table. Dad wouldn’t let Belly look at the picture while we were walking along the sidewalk. He told her to wait until we were inside the restaurant across the street. The restaurant had one of my favorite things as a dessert special, rice pudding with caramel sauce. It was written on a chalkboard with pink chalk. Belly licked her finger and erased the
R
, so it looked like “ice pudding.” I saw her do it, but Mom didn’t.

The booths were red vinyl and made funny noises when we scooted across them. I was in shorts, so I kept sticking to them. I don’t think the waitress wiped off the seats between breakfast and lunch, because I stuck in syrup and it was gross.

“The usual?” the waitress asked Roger and Clarissa. They nodded.

“I’ll have the usual too,” I said, and closed my menu. The waitress looked at Mom.

“Grilled cheese with tomato and bacon,” Mom said to her. Then she ordered for herself and Belly, a Cobb salad to share. India and Lulu ordered Cobb salads too. Dad ordered Frito chili pie. The manny ordered a Frito chili pie too.

“Can I change my order from the usual to a Frito chili pie?” I asked the waitress. I always change my order if I order first; it’s part of what makes me “me.” Sarah says that all the time. Things that make her “her” are eating raw spaghetti, sleeping with her teddy bear, and loving tragic movies like
Edward Scissorhands
.

“Sure thing, hon,” the waitress said, before she collected the menus and screamed the orders to the line cooks.

A man with a beard and a woman the same age as Roger and Clarissa came up to the table. The man said, “Stayin’ out of trouble?” and then he laughed like he’d never said it before, but I had heard him say it to another table a few minutes earlier.

“Yep,” said Roger. “Do you remember our son, Matthew?” Roger smiled and pointed at the manny, across the table. He looked really proud to be the manny’s dad.

“Yessss!” the woman excitedly said, like she had lost her memory but now it was all coming back to her. “How are you? I haven’t seen you since you graduated from high school.”

“I’m fine,” the manny said. “You look wonderful.”

The woman smiled and then covered it with her hand.

She said, “Thank you. I walk two miles every evening. I started exercising when I started having grandchildren. I have
five
.” She emphasized “five” and then nodded her head yes to confirm that she really did have five grandchildren.

She went on, “You remember Melanie? She was about your age. She got married a few years ago to a doctor in Denver and they have three girls, and then my son, J.D., has twin boys who are adorable.” She reached into her purse for pictures. The twins
were
adorable. They had milk cheeks. Babies who are breast-fed have milk cheeks. They’re really fat and full. I learned that on the Learning Channel, which is the
perfect
name for that channel.

“They
are
cute!” the manny agreed.

The woman asked, “Do you have children? Are you married?”

Roger answered before the manny did. “He’s not married, yet. He hasn’t found the right person. He’s very special, you know…holding out for the perfect wife.”

“Too late. I got her,” the man with the beard said, and he squeezed his wife in a sideways hug while she put away the pictures of her cheeky grandchildren. They told the manny how nice it was to see him again, and the manny told them to tell Melanie hello, and then they walked away.

The manny held up his hands like people do when they ask questions, and quietly said, “Dad?! I have found somebody.”

Roger didn’t answer because the waitress brought two plates of usuals and our salads and Frito chili pies to the table. I’m glad I didn’t get the usual, because it was cottage cheese and a ham steak. Blah!

I stared at the manny while we ate. He didn’t notice. It was like he was in another world. He didn’t even make a comment when Lulu sent her Cobb salad back because there were more cubes of cheese than there was ham and she thought there should be an equal amount. He did notice me staring at him when the waitress came to take our dessert order.

He smiled and asked the waitress for an order of ice pudding.

“You mean rice pudding?” the waitress asked back.

“It says ‘ice pudding’ on the sign, and ice pudding sounds good!”

“Somebody must have erased the
R
,” said the waitress, obviously tired from her day and tired of customer humor.

Belly covered her mouth with both hands, pulled her knees up into the booth, and laughed her fake laugh, which sounds like a donkey. I ordered rice pudding too and shared it with Roger.

That night I looked at old yearbooks of the manny’s. He was voted Class Clown, Best Dressed, and Most Likely to Succeed. In every photo he had his hands on his hips. I’m going to pose like that in next year’s class photo. The manny was in his parents’ room talking to them. He’d told me that they needed some alone time. I didn’t even ask him what they were going to talk about. It was none of my business.

He was still gone when I fell asleep.