Eric
“How much longer, Eric?”
I looked over my shoulder. Endia was moving around my room, picking things off my shelves, getting a handle on what made Eric the Great tick. Just a year ago I would’ve donated an organ to have a girl as beautiful as Endia in my room. Mama was at the hospital, would be leaving straight from there and going to work. Hollywood was working until late. I had the entire house to myself.
And Endia to myself, as well.
“Just a minute longer,” I said. “Let me finish this post.”
“Maybe I can help.”
I shook my head. “You wouldn’t find this interesting.”
“Let me see.”
She was at my side before I could object further. I had one of Benny’s old laptops open on my desk. I was logged into my MySpace page. Writing a blog entry. I was going to publish the blog post as a bulletin for all of my MySpace friends to read, too. A double dose of hate spewed at my least favorite rapper.
“You don’t like Yung Chit?” Endia asked.
“Can’t say I’m a fan. No.”
She wrinkled her nose in disgust, and then looked deeper at my screen. “Eric, what’s an anathema?”
I didn’t dare tell her.
I clicked the Submit button, sent my post into the cyber universe.
“You really don’t like Yung Chit?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He doesn’t have any talent.”
“I like him.”
“I forgive you,” I said.
She punched my shoulder.
“Let’s do something,” I said. “What do you want to do?”
It wasn’t a loaded question, I swear.
But Endia got a look in her eyes that I recognized from late-night movies on HBO and Showtime. I had the run of the house. And she knew it. I thought about what that meant.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Thinking.”
She pinched my cheek. “You’re so cute when you’re thinking.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yup. I can always tell when you are, too. You get this intense look.”
“And you like that?”
“Love it.” Her voice was syrup.
She liked me thinking. It turned her on.
I started doing multiplications in my head.
Fractions.
The Periodic Table of Elements. H for Hydrogen.
Ran into some trouble as I tried to reconstruct Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech. Judge me not by the number of friends I have on MySpace but by the content of the comments they leave on my page. Something like that.
“Eric, you hear me?”
“What?”
“I was talking to you.”
Oops. Thinking too much, I guess.
“Sorry. What?”
“I figured out what we can do.”
“What’s that?” I said in my James Bond voice.
A wide smile covered her face. I stood up, looked down at her.
Might have even winked, I’m not sure.
She stood on her tiptoes, kissed me softly on the lips.
My insides rumbled like a subway.
“You had an idea of something we could do?” I asked.
“Yes.” Her eyes widened.
“Yes,” I said.
“I haven’t even told you yet.”
“Yes.”
She gave me another kiss. “I think I have an idea of what it is,” I said.
Her hand came out from behind her back. “Scattergories.” she yelled.
“Then again, maybe I didn’t,” I said.