Maine Squeeze (34 page)

But then we got to know each other better, and I admitted I slipped up sometimes—I actually felt close enough to him that I could admit that I liked Taco Bell. I told him it was okay for him to order whatever he wanted, that I had no right to preach when I was still sneaking ice cream at work now and then. But he still wouldn't.

Everybody else gets sick of me watching
National Geographic
and
Wild Discovery
over and over. “Not the polar bears again,” Bryan's always complaining. “You've seen this like thirteen times!” Beth yells.

But Dave understood. He wouldn't watch them with me, but he understood. Sort of. I thought so, anyway.

He's a Buffalo now. I mean, he's a CU Buff. Not sure if he deserves to be.

Just woke up from really horrible dream about Dave. Have to write it down before I forget it.

Damn. Forgot it already while I was writing that.

Mom is wacko. More than before.

She announced at dinner that we're all going to this big family Thanksgiving reunion at Grandma and Grandpa Callahan's in Nebraska. She's planning it three months ahead of time because the whole Von Dragen side of our clan will be there. Also because she lives for planning, right next to cleanliness and budgetliness. Like I want to see the Von Dragens after they gave me obnoxious middle initials that I have to leave off forms unless I want to be rejected from college due to my infectious nature. Repulsive middle name, boring last name. Smith.

Why can't I have a cool last name like Jane? Nakamura. Courtney Nakamura. Okay, so it doesn't really match, and I'm not Japanese, but so what?

You can't fit Von Dragen on a form. I've tried. The closest you can get is “Von Drag,” and that is definitely not the impression I want to give. It's been my mission in life to keep anyone from finding out my middle name. I think the only person who knows it is Beth. Well, Beth and Dave. Of course he's already forgotten it, like he's forgotten me and my phone number.

“I thought we arranged this,” I said to Mom. “I want to stay here for Thanksgiving. There's the football game, and the parade, and the
fun
.” Besides, Dave might come home for a few days. It might turn out that we both grew enough in 3 months that we're ready to get back together. You know, like that fast-grow fertilizer Mom uses on the lawn. Not that it works for
her,
but that's because she buys the no-name brand left over from last year.

I shouldn't be so harsh about Mom. She really only does all this because she's a single mom now, and the three of us probably are expensive to keep up. But come on, where's all that child-support money from Dad going?

Back to reuniting with Dave. I know I've changed in the past month. For instance, I'm about a hundred times more better—oops, meant to write “bitter.”

“But Courtney, your grandmother will be so hurt if you don't go,” Mom said, as the phone started ringing. The phone rang like six times while we were trying to eat, and each time it was a telemarketer. Mom gets really mad. I tell her to unplug the phone, but she's made it this personal mission to yell at each and every telemarketer.

“Mom, we got Caller ID so you don't have to take those calls,” I said.

“If they can disturb me? I can disturb them,” she said. But the problem is she gets in this really nasty mood and all of a sudden normal topics become battles.

“Courtney, you're going, and that's final. We all have to be together,” she said. “It means a lot to me. Don't you care how I feel?”

Then Bryan starts talking about how if I don't have to go, he can stay home with me—

“Okay, okay, I'll
go
,” I said. I don't eat turkey, but does she care about that? About how it makes
me
feel—nauseous? Thanksgiving is like poultry worship. I'm not into that.

Besides, baby-sit Bryan all weekend? No thanks. I'd rather get salmonella poisoning, which is very possible at Grandpa's. He likes a moist bird—i.e., still breathing.

The only positive thing I can say about my little brother is that he has a crush on Beth. That is his
only
saving grace. Other than that, his personality is as distinctive as the dozens of crumpled tube socks scattered on his bedroom floor. “You don't get it,” is his favorite expression. “I have to live with three women and no guys. Nobody gets it.”

No, we don't. And we don't want to.

Deep Late-Night Reflection (a/k/a Insomnia):

Maybe this thing with Dave bothers me so much because of Dad. How he took off to be “free,” but now he's married again. (Speaking of jerks.)

Then again he and Mom are happier apart; they used to fight a lot. About money, about her working as a temp accountant instead of having her own business, about the rock garden and lawn care, about everything. So him leaving and the divorce wasn't an all-bad thing, except at the time.

I wonder if Mom ever thinks about getting remarried. Of course she'd actually have to date someone first, and she hasn't done that in a long time. I told her once that she should hook up with this guy from her book club, and she told me she was against hooking up on principle. I think she thought I was talking about drugs.

Anyway, if I don't date this year and Mom doesn't … does that mean I'm turning into her?

Let's see. Do I wear panty hose until they're so sheer they're transparent and held together by 8 swabs of clear nail polish? No.

Do I wash out plastic bread bags and reuse them, even when they've had tuna-onion salad sandwiches in them and make peaches taste like dead skunks? No.

Do I sit with my three best friends every Saturday morning and gossip and drink too much cheap coffee? No. Well, sometimes. But I only have two friends.

I'll have to check this list from time to time—make sure I don't slip into Momdom.

Dreamt I was driving to Nebraska. I was going too slowly and horses pulling covered wagons kept passing me. This little girl with a white bonnet stuck out her tongue at me as her pa's wagon dusted me. Pioneer road rage.

Then a buffalo came out of nowhere and ran out right in front of the car. I swerved so I wouldn't hit it. Only I swerved the wrong way and plowed right into the buffalo. And all the wagon people started shaking their fists at me, like I was the one responsible for slaughtering all the Plains bison.

The movie could be:
Buff Meets Bull
(our car or at least the one I'm allowed to drive is an old maroon Taurus, so I decided to go astrological and call it what it is) (anyway, I love hoofed animals, just not eating them).

Buff was now roadkill.

Bull was now totaled.

Then Jaws of Life approached to pull me from the wreckage (the pioneer wagons took off for Kansas), and I discovered Dave was sitting in the backseat.

“You could have missed her,” he said. “If you just hit the brakes a little quicker.”
Her!
Did he have to call the buffalo a her? Why did he care more about what happened to her than to me?

This dream was the pits. I was jealous of a BUFFALO.

We argued about my driving until I started feeling really guilty: the car was totaled, a buffalo was dead … and Dave hated me. Then the gigantic metal Jaws of Life dropped me onto the pavement, rejecting me like a too-small fish. It was awful.

Today's Truth or Dairy trivia question:

“Who holds the record for being the most annoying person ever?” (Actually it was something about the number of Coloradans who've won Olympic medals—nobody got it.)

There is nothing worse than a failed, frustrated guidance counselor who ended up starting a business making ice cream and smoothies instead of counseling, because there was more “potential” in it. Gerry's favorite word. “Potential.” I'd potentially like to whack him with the ice-cream scoop every time he says it.

We never knew him when he was a counselor at Bugling Elk—I don't think he lasted more than a year or two, tops. But it seems like he always has kids from BE working at T or D—he keeps getting people referred to him, and so he never has to work hard at hiring. It was Beth's idea we go work there. On days like today, I do so want to remind her of that. When she quit smoking, she decided a job here would be a “healthy outlet” for her. Me, I just needed some CASH. (Jane won't do it because she won't work in fast food because she's against uniforms on principle because of bad fashion. We told her it's not fast food and it's not a uni, it's an apron. She still won't even consider it.)

But anyway, the thing about Gerry is that it also seems like he never really quit counseling. It's in his blood or something.

Today at work, he said, “Courtney, I have an observation. Would you like to hear it?”

I restrained myself. I need this job. Plus it's fun, working with Beth. “Sure, Gerry!”

“I couldn't help noticing that over the past few days … well, don't take this the wrong way. But you're not making the sundaes and smoothies with your usual flair.”

Flair? Like I'd won awards or something.

Then Gerry leaned in with his patented look of concern. “Is everything all right?” he asked me.

I had just made three Banana Splitsvilles in a row. They were works of art, as far as I was concerned. You have to stick flags with toothpicks through banana wheels and then into each scoop of ice cream, and arrange coconut and chocolate flakes in perfect symmetry with chopped pecans and walnuts, and then there's the whipped cream. I mean, it could take some people three or four minutes. I've got it down to two and a half.

“Everything's fine,” I said.

“Really.” He gazed into my eyes as if he were about to tell my fortune. “Everything's fine at home.”

I nodded.

“At school,” he said.

I nodded again.

“With Dave.”

I tried to nod, but my neck got stuck in this cramp all of a sudden, and I couldn't get it to move. So instead I smiled, showing him all my teeth.

“You've been snacking on the pecans again,” he said.

Busted.

I did see Grant on the way home from work, out in the parking lot. Avoided him. He'd only try to tell me something about Dave. I'm not ready.

Besides, any of Dave's friends are former friends of mine—i.e., enemies.

Oscar got a new prescription today. He looked like the world's most pathetic mutt when I got home from school. He was fritzing out—his tongue was hanging out (more than usual) and his legs were twitching and there was this trail of frothy drool around his bed. Another grand mal seizure. I hate when Oscar has seizures, it really scares me.

I called Mom at work. She said to call Dr. Wolper right away. It's cool because Dr. Wolper makes house calls and you never have to wait that long, unless she's in the middle of a surgery. She came right over when I told her about Oscar's latest seizure.

“I see this in a lot of patients like Oscar,” she said as she pressed the stethoscope to Oscar's chest. “Probably needs to have his dose upped a little.”

How she can find a heartbeat through all that gray fur is a mystery to me.

The funniest thing about Oscar's prescription bottle of phenobarbital is the sticker warning him not to drive after taking the medication.

“He's a dog,” I told the lady at Walgreens when I went to pick up the new 'scrip.

“Then he really shouldn't be driving, should he?” she replied. Not even cracking a smile.

“Actually, he's fine during the day. He just shouldn't drive at night,” I said.

I heard someone behind me laughing. So I turned around and saw Grant “Lake” Superior standing behind me in line for a prescription. Why? I feel like I keep seeing him everywhere. His face turned red when our eyes met. Don't look at what he's picking up, I told myself. Just in case it's condoms or something private.

Who gets prescription condoms, though? I mean, that would be pretty weird.

“Um, hi,” I said, stepping aside to make room for him.

“Hey.” He signed the form, and the pharmacist handed him a little bag.

Grant doesn't think he's superior to anyone—you know, casting against type and all that. I remember when he used to be this really scrawny guy, the kind everyone pushes around in the lunch line back when that stuff was funny. Then last year he got taller and wider and turned into a hotty. And he still has the scrawny-guy personality, so he's like this perfect hybrid, something nature designed over time like the way certain snake species look like leaves so they can be camouflaged under a pile of leaves and then kill anything that comes close.

Not that Grant's a killer. Or a snake. In fact, if Beth were smart she would have held on to him after their little tryst last year. (Is tryst the right word? Or do I mean rendezvous?) Except for
that
disaster (remember how hurt he looked when she blew him off that day at lunch? He thought they were a couple—she was already checking out someone else), I can't think of anyone he's gone out with.