The Loser's Guide to Life and Love (14 page)

(NOTE: It is acceptable for poems not to rhyme.)

(Um. There isn't one….)

OUCH!

Whoa! Whatever current just passed between Quark and Elli practically blasts me off my feet. In fact, I sort of feel the way I did that time I plugged in the Christmas tree lights and blew them all out. Quark heads straight for me like a heat-seeking missile.

“Ed!” He yodels. “Did you hear that?”

I nod.

“Who
is
she?”

I grin as I explain. Frankly it doesn't take a genius to see that as far as Quentin Andrews O'Rourke is concerned, Scout (who prefers short men) is ancient Egyptian history.

Yes!

Not that I deserve this kind of help from the universe, but,
yes again
!

“Go talk to her,” I say to Quark, who is suddenly suffering from an acute case of rigor mortis. I give him a little shove. “You can do it.”

Without any particular plan of attack in mind, I thread my way through the crowd toward Scout.

“I'm back,” I say.

“So I see.”

“I have something to tell you.”

“So tell me.”

I clear my throat. “I am tired of disguises. I am tired of deceptions.”

“Me too.”

“And besides that, I can't breathe.”

Scout laughs as I lift the mask off my head and come face-to-face with her.

“I am not Sergio who surfs off the coast of Australia,” I say.

“Or hunts big game in Canada with Canadian Mounties,” she says.

“Or races Formula One cars and frolics with topless princesses in Monaco,” I say.

“Or rides camels in Egypt.”

“Or hikes in the Himalayas,” I say. “I'm Ed. Who sweats.”

The two of us look straight at each other and laugh again, and this time we cannot stop laughing, even when everyone around us starts to dance.

I'm not kidding. They're all dancing. The kids and the ladies with the dogs, the Goths, the skaters, the guy with the snake, the moms in the sweatsuits, T. Monroe, Rick and Mary, Quark and Ellie, Ali and the Warrior Princess. Dancing and spinning and swirling, they sweep us through Ali's house with them out onto Fourth Avenue and across the street into the old Salt Lake Cemetery, where beneath a bright moon, shadows leap happily out of the ground to join us.

“Look at all these people,” breathes Scout, “dancing on graves.”

“Dancing on graves?” I say. “What a great cliché!”

Then I pull Scout tight against me and we join them—hand in hand we dance by the light of the moon.

You are NOT going to believe what just happened!

As Ed and I were dancing, we accidentally collided with an older couple dancing next to us.

“Sorry about that!” Ed apologized immediately.

I recognized the woman. She comes into Reel Life with her two little granddaughters, Maria and Rosa, whom Ali entertains with magic tricks.

“No problem,” her partner said. He gave us a gentle smile and held out a calloused hand—a strong hand that has known years of hard work—and said, “I'm Sergio and this is Pilar, my good wife of forty summers and counting. Pleased to meet you.”

I gasped. Ed practically swallowed his own teeth. “You're Sergio?”

He nods.

“Did you ever work at Reel Life?”

Again, the true Sergio nods.

“Dude! I've been wearing your badge, like, forever!”

The true Sergio laughed. “I worked there a long time ago. Ali hired me when Pilar was ill and I was between jobs. Ali is a good friend, is he not?”

Ed nodded slowly, then clasped Sergio's outheld hand. “I'm Ed McIff, and this is Aurora Aurelia Arrington.” He turned to me with a dazzling smile. “My girlfriend of one summer evening…and counting.”

The next day at work Ali says, “I got something for you, McIff. Here.”

He drops a brand-new badge on the counter in front of me. It says “Ed.”

I pick up my name tag and turn it over a couple of times in my hands. “Finally.”

Ali shoots me a wicked grin. “Had to make you earn it first.”

Carefully he removes the name tag that says “Sergio” from my frilly shirt and banks that baby straight into the garbage can.

“So long, farewell,
auf Weidersehen
, good-bye,” I say, channeling Maria von Trapp.

He watches as I put on the new one, after which he gives me a casual salute. I snap to attention like John Wayne in an old war movie and start to sing loudly. “Silver wings upon their chest! These are men, America's best!”

Ali immediately puts me in a choke hold. “You one crazy mother, McIff. You know that?”

“I know that,” I say, happy that I am a crazy mother.

Ali releases me, plants a friendly slug on my arm, and strolls toward his office.

Had to make you earn it first.
Ali's words run suddenly through my head like the lyrics of a song so good it gives you goose bumps.

I call him out just before he steps into his office. “ALI!”

He turns around slowly, folding his great thick arms across his great thick chest. The hoops in his ears gleam gold.

“Yeah?”

I try to put into words the brand-new, incredibly insane thought that I'm thinking. “Did you—did you set me up? Did you give me Sergio's name
on purpose
?”

Ali throws back his head and roars out a huge laugh that hangs in the air above us like the smile of a crescent moon.

Then he turns around and disappears into his office without saying a word.

Poof!