Shrimp (19 page)

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*** Chapter 23

I served my
time faithfully, but while the end of the school semester meant liberation from the work-study job at the restaurant, liberation from Alexei the Horrible was not to be mine.

I believe it's a constitutional right that the day after Christmas should be about sleeping late, lazing around the house all day without bothering to change out of your pajamas, and eating the leftover box of See's Christmas candy. The nonday is supposed to be capped off by watching
It's a Wonderful Life,
then bawling when George Bailey's war hero little brother toasts his big brother as "the biggest man in town," even though it's really his wonderful wife, Donna Reed, who saves the day. In Alexei World, the day after Christmas meant an 8 a.m . wake-up bugle (seriously), an egg-white breakfast followed by a run up the Lyon Street stairs, followed by an afternoon of ambushing the little princess with college brochures. Clearly he pegged me as the wrong kind of princess, though, because his brochures were from the likes of the University of Miami, USC, Hofstra, and Boston University. I did give half a glance to the Chico State, Loyola, and UC-Santa Cruz apps, but finding no brochures for schools I would actually consider or who would consider me (the University of Hawaii, NYU, Hampshire College, or any Semester at Sea boat), I gave up. My punishment was the nighttime video of a speech by

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Alexei's hero, Noam Chomsky, that Alexei popped in for us to watch.

Us
included a surprise leftover in the house. Since Nancy had cut the deal for me to stay home in San Francisco, I had offered to share baby-sitting chores with Josh's regular sitter so Sid and Nancy didn't have to cancel their trip when Josh came down with the chicken pox a week before Christmas. Josh was better by the time they left with Ash for Minnesota, but not well enough to travel and be abused by Granny A, so he had stayed home with me and Alexei, who was staying at Fernando's apartment on the side of the house while Fernando visited family in Nicaragua. The sitter took care of Josh during the days, and I had him at night.

The meds couldn't knock Josh out, but Noam Chomsky sure had. What does a ten-year-old boy care about a documentary on linguistics mixed with politics (or something), with no dash of special effects thrown in? Josh is a boy so hyper that when he was a baby he used to grip the safety bar on his stroller as he jumped around in the seat so he could watch all the action passing by, until his little body would get so exhausted he would plunge face forward onto the safety bar, dead asleep. Now Josh had exchanged the stroller safety bar for a sister's lap to pillow his head. We were on the L-shaped couch in the family room, Alexei facing the television, and Josh and I on the side part of the couch, Josh with a smile on his pretty face of fading pock-marks, probably dreaming of boy wizards. I looked up at Alexei and asked him, "Are my parents paying you extra to bore us to this extreme, Alexei?"

Shrimp has been so busy in the days leading up to

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Wallace's wedding that I've hardly seen him, so I'm almost grateful that Josh got sick and had to stay home--he's great company. Sometimes I love Josh so much I want to gobble him whole; at the same time I'm tempted to make him a nice little Ritalin Kool-Aid when he gets too loud and physical, climbing all over me and never letting me win at
Super Mario,
which he plays with full-body grunts and many curse words learned from Ash. But Josh is also a snuggle bear who asks me, 'Are you going away again?" when I put him to sleep, and hugs me extra hard when I tell him I'm not going away that soon but I'll always be his best girl. At least in my mind I will be, but the competition is getting fierce. He's a princely-looking blond boy with the longest, dreamiest eyelashes you ever saw, and despite his proclamation that girls are yucky (except me, of course), he's got babes-in-training from his school calling him every night and he's been invited to more parties his fifth-grade year than I have in the whole of my life. Perhaps it was his fate to get chicken pox and be stuck recovering at home with me, because I have gotten much opportunity to give the bedridden boy many talks about using his power for the good, and I hope when he is a high-school-age popularity boy that he will be the guy who is nice to everyone, from the jock crowd down the ladder to the outcast tier, where his big sister traditionally resided until this last school year. Josh's future girlfriends may feel free to thank me for molding his boyfriend potential from an early age.

Alexei lifted Josh from my lap to carry him upstairs to his real bed. When Alexei came back down, he hit play on the CD player without checking to see what was in the stereo, so we were treated to 01' Blue Eyes singing classic

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love songs. With the dim track lighting in the family room, the kid crocked asleep upstairs, and an open bottle of sparkling apple cider on the table, you'd almost think we had some romantic ambience happening. Except it was Alexei in the room, not Shrimp, and suddenly the Doritos I'd been munching caught up with me and a fart exited my body, causing the usually stone-faced Alexei to break out laughing.

If I was going to be humiliated like that, why shouldn't Alexei be also? I asked Alexei, "So did Kari dump you, or are you still going to make a fool of yourself over Mrs. Robinson from three thousands miles away when you go back to school?" College Boy is anxious to return back East to Fancy University now that his semester off is over, but he has been close-lipped (so to speak) about the status of his and Kari's relationship.

In response to my question, Alexei grabbed the remotes on the table. He turned the stereo off with one and turned the television and Noam Chomsky back on with the other. Then he jumped onto the couch next to me and made fanning gestures with his hands. His atrocious CK cologne was a pleasant distraction, in this instance.

Alexei was just looking at me, and we were both sort of laughing and smiling and shoving each other, as two people who mostly despise each other but who don't find the other entirely vile are naturally inclined to do, when all of a sudden the mood changed; a spark ignited. Somehow our mouths drew nearer to each other's by some inexplicable gravitational pull that was as exciting as it was repulsive, and was not purely based on lack o' Shrimp sexual frustration. A mantra played in the back of my mind, reminding

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me that Shrimp and I were: just friends, just friends, just friends. Didn't that make side orders admissible in the court of platonic aggravation? Yet right as Alexei's lips were about to touch mine, we both pulled back at the same exact second. Alexei said, "You have Doritos breath." I responded, "You have Listerine Strip breath, which is worse." Alexei looked as relieved as I felt that our strange little moment had not materialized into an actual kiss.

Maybe that Noam Chomsky guy would say I experienced a moment of clarity, because what I realized was this: not that Alexei and I weren't into each other that way, but that maybe I am capable of having a platonic friend who's a guy. Just not Shrimp.

I said to Alexei, "So if you'll turn that damn Noam Chomsky video off and put the music back on--I'll trade you Sinatra for classic Aerosmith--I might listen if you want to tell me what's so great about going off to some dumb college, and, like, what you plan on doing with your life once you're finished there."

Alexei poured us fresh glasses of sparkling cider and said, "Make yourself comfortable, Princess. It's gonna be a long night."

"Good, because since you've got me trapped, you might as well tell me all about what happened with Kari, too."

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*** Chapter 24

With Josh's getting
sick and getting left behind in San Francisco, the holiday season, and Sid and Nancy taking off with Ash for Minnesota to see dying Granny A, in all that chaos we forgot a very important date that falls the week between Christmas and New Year's: Josh's birthday. The whole situation, in my opinion, was very
Home Alone
meets
Sixteen Candles,
and I was
Clueless
on how to solve it. Josh's friends were all gone on Christmas vacation with their families, so it's not like I could invite them over for an impromptu party, and I was not about to pull a Nancy and take him to tourist trap Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. at Pier 39 for a birthday celebration. There was nothing left to do in this crisis except turn to the one person who could figure it out for me: Sugar Pie. And man, did she come through big time.

If you need to stock a last-minute party with guests who can't leave The City for the holidays, and who might love Harry Potter more than Josh, what better venue than a nursing home--excuse me, assisted living facility? I love old people. Who else would have the time and heart to decorate their party room for an HP-themed party, with an endless supply of fruit punch, Jell-O, and Boston Baked Beans subbing for Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, on just a few hours' notice?

During the car ride over, Josh couldn't figure out why I

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was wearing a McGonagall black tower hat, or why Alexei had bulked up his clothing so he'd look even closer to Hagrid size, until we led him into the party room, where an assortment of old-timers were milling around with Sugar Pie, Shrimp, and Helen and Autumn.

Not having the best collective vision, the party group didn't notice the guest of honor's arrival until about a minute after he'd knocked over a bowl of M&Ms in his sprint to retrieve the hastily created Nimbus2000 broomstick in the corner, but the smile on Josh's face when the group finally got around to saying "SURPRISE" in unison was big. His would not be a party with a piñata, and no one in that crowd was up for a game of Twister, but a party full of HP peeps, along with many treats and grown-up dancing to a collection of popular tunes (if you're 70-plus), could more than substitute.

Hmm, future career idea to DO something: create party-planning business organizing last-minute celebrations for forgotten birthdays.

Helen, who made for an interesting almost-bald-headed Hermione with square black geek glassless glass frames on her eyes, grabbed Josh's hand for the first dance under the paper lantern hanging from the ceiling. I doubt Josh knew who Benny Goodman was, but he had no trouble pulling off a postmodern robot dance with Helen to the WWII swing beat. Alexei took Cho Chang--that is, Autumn--off for a dance, while the tiniest Dumbledore ever, Shrimp, took my hand. I've always suspected there is some magic brew between Dumbledore and McGonagall, and our slow dance to the fast number, holding each other tight, my head on his shoulder, soulful silence between us, only proved that.

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Shrimp and I danced through several songs, oblivious to the dance partner changes happening around us, until You-Know-Who--Sugar Pie--cut into our dance. Shrimp took her hand, thinking she was exchanging Alexei for him as her dance partner, but she shot him her best Voldemort death glance and took my hand instead. The two dudes left partnerless by Sugar Pie's cut-in, Shrimp and Alexei, exchanged awkward looks but did not move forward to dance with each other. They gave each other the soul brother handshake followed by the obligatory shoulder butt, then they both hot trotted their separate ways.

Sugar Pie said, "That was an awful slow, tight dance you and Shrimp just had to 'Mack the Knife.' Since you didn't notice, I'll inform you for future dances: It's an uptempo number. So is it safe to say you two are back together?"

"We're not there yet, my friend, not quite there."

"When do you think you will be?"

"Did you bring your tarot cards down for the party? Cuz I would like to figure out the same thing. It's just so...
nice...
between us, so it's like neither of us wants to ruin that. We are disgraces to our teenage libidos. I guess we are supposed to have some Official Talk if we ever decide to officially get back together, but we've both either been too busy or we're just dodging the topic entirely. Sugar Pie, is true love a fallacy?"

The song ended and Sugar Pie and I took seats next to the Hogwarts-decorated dining hall table heaped with cake and candy and--someone was really forward-thinking-- bottles of Turns. Sugar Pie took a sip from her Dixie cup of grape Kool-Aid and answered my question. "Maybe you ought to stop worrying so much about some idea called true

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love, and think harder about the simple, plain reality of what love you have in you to give, and receive in turn. Love that's about the person--the real person, that lost soul boy whose future plans are vaguer than yours, the one too scared to admit how much he needs you because maybe he's afraid of losing you again--and not about some romanticized notion of who you thought that person was. Think about whether you have gotten to know this person well enough this time around to have earned the right to call it love."

"Do you love Fernando?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Is it true love?"

"It's better--it's real, which makes it harder, too, sometimes. Fights and handicaps and him taking off to Nicaragua for Christmas and not inviting this old lady along and all."

Ouch. I asked her, 'Are you mad?" Sugar Pie nodded. 'Are you going to break up with him?" She shook her head no. I wanted to know, "You're not dying, right? Because you said maybe you weren't planning on living here forever."

Sugar Pie laughed. "Not that my doctor has told me, baby. I may be getting on in years, but this lady isn't planning on going anywhere. Not just yet."

Josh arrived with a THUD on my lap, and banged his head against my chest. The sugar, dancing, and an engaged audience of people who knew the Hogwarts universe better than he had temporarily spent him. He whispered in my ear, "Your other family isn't taking you away, are they?" I looked down at his worried face and suspected this was the question he'd wanted to ask me since I got back from New York