arctic, accost, carotin, action, cacti, cat
COSMO SENT FLOWERS to Amanda that morning, but he didn’t hear from her. On Monday he told me that he’d tried to call her a couple of times, but she wasn’t home or just wasn’t answering.
When he still hadn’t heard from her by Wednesday, he refused to go to Scrabble Club. I missed it even more than I thought I would. I went upstairs to see if Cosmo wanted to play Scrabble, just the two of us, but Mrs E told me he was out.
‘At an NA meeting,’ she said.
I waited to hear his car pull up so I could go and talk to him, but he still hadn’t shown up by the time Mom came home.
On Friday, after my mom left for work, I knocked on the back door for my self-defense lesson. Cosmo answered, wearing his tank top and sweatpants. He looked rough and kind of jittery, and he was halfway through a cigarette.
‘Do your parents let you smoke in the house?’ I asked, because I knew they didn’t.
‘They’re not home,’ he replied, crabby-like.
‘They’ll be able to smell it—’
‘Ambrose. Lay off, OK?’
I looked at his outfit. ‘Did you work today?’
‘No. They haven’t been needing me as much as I’d hoped.’
‘That’s too bad.’ There was an awkward silence for a moment, then I said, ‘I’ve been working on my blocks. I think I’m getting better.’
‘Yeah, about that. I can’t work out with you today.’ He wouldn’t look me in the eye. ‘I have to go out.’
‘Where to?’
‘Not your business.’
‘If you could just give me a hint …’
‘Ambrose—’
‘Or I could go with you.’
‘Jesus, Ambrose, back off. I’ll see you later, OK?’ He closed the door.
I had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling. So instead of going back to our apartment, I ran around to the front of the house and climbed into Cosmo’s car. I crawled into the backseat and crouched down on the floor.
A few minutes later, Cosmo got in the car and we pulled away.
We’d been driving for close to half an hour. My legs were cramped and sore, and the waistband of my pants was biting into my flesh, cutting off my circulation. I started to worry that if I stayed like this long enough, they’d have to amputate me from the waist down. This thought started to freak me out and I decided that I had to shift my position, so I waited until a car horn honked loudly nearby and I moved.
From my new position, I could just barely see out the back window. I could tell we were in a rough part of town. There were boarded-up buildings and some tragic, scary-looking people wandering around, people who looked more like zombies than human beings. A couple of them wandered into traffic like they didn’t care if they lived or died. To be honest, I felt scared. I wished I’d just stayed home.
I don’t know if it was fear, or something I ate, but suddenly I had to fart something fierce. I let it out slowly, silently. But even if Cosmo couldn’t hear it, he couldn’t help but smell it. All the windows were closed.
‘Aw, gross,’ I heard him mutter up front. I hoped he might open his window, but he must’ve thought the smell was coming from outside because the window stayed shut.
Just when I started to worry I might get carsick, Cosmo pulled over to the curb. I ducked down and felt a rush of cool air as he opened his window.
‘Hey. Got anything today?’ I heard him say.
Next thing I knew, two messed-up looking guys – one with long greasy hair and the other one with no hair at all because he’d shaved his head bald and had a huge tattoo on it of a hand gripping his forehead – were at the window. I tried to make myself smaller.
‘Whatcha looking for?’ asked tattoo-guy.
‘Whatever you got,’ said Cosmo.
‘Long as you got the cash, we can set you up,’ said tattoo-guy, and he reached into his pocket.
Suddenly greasy-hair-guy looked in the backseat and locked eyes with me. ‘You want some for the kid, too?’
Oh, man.
Cosmo turned slowly in his seat. I sat up and gave him a feeble wave. ‘Oh, hi,’ I said.
Anger flashed through Cosmo’s eyes. For a moment, I felt scared of him and scared of what he might do. But just as quickly, the anger disappeared and he looked a little deflated.
‘Never mind,’ he said to the two guys.
He pulled away from the curb. I could hear the two guys yelling as we drove off.
Cosmo was quiet for a few minutes, then he said, ‘You might as well ride up front.’ So I climbed over the seat and sat beside him and buckled up my seat belt and locked my door because I still felt scared.
‘Is there an NA meeting today?’ I asked him.
‘There’s always an NA meeting.’
‘I think we should go.’
‘Ambrose. It’s called Narcotics Anonymous.’
‘OK, then. You go. I’ll wait in the car.’
He glanced at me and shook his head. ‘You are one of a kind.’
‘Is that a compliment?’
‘It’s an observation.’
Cosmo knew of an NA meeting taking place in Kerrisdale, another neighborhood on the west side of Vancouver, so we drove up there together. It was a beautiful early April day, so I went to the nearby park and sat on a bench to wait for him, eating the jumbo bag of chips Cosmo had bought for me and thinking.
Contrary to what my fourth-grade teacher had once said to me, I wasn’t a total idiot. I knew I couldn’t watch Cosmo 24/7. I knew that if he really wanted to do drugs again, it would be impossible for me to stop him.
So I had to think of things that would take his mind off drugs. Things that would make him feel better about life, and about himself.
When he came out, I told him, ‘I have a plan.’
‘A plan for what?’
‘A plan for you to win Amanda back.’
‘This is crazy,’ Cosmo said, as we stood outside Amanda’s apartment the next night.
‘No,’ I corrected him. ‘It’s romantic.’
We were wearing matching tuxedo T-shirts that I’d found at Goodwill that afternoon. I’d bought them with some of my quarter collection. Cosmo clutched a bouquet of flowers.
There were lights on in Amanda’s apartment, so we were pretty sure she was home. Lucky for us, her balcony doors were open a crack. A pink bicycle with knitted handlebar covers sat on the balcony, along with a bunch of potted plants.
I put my mom’s boombox on the pavement and handed Cosmo a lyric sheet.
‘Ready?’
‘No.’
I pressed PLAY and suddenly Luther Wright’s voice filled the air. I had it cued up to ‘Darlin’’, and the machine was cranked up to full volume. Cosmo and I started to sing along.
‘Darlin’ when you love me I feel home sweet home …’
Except Cosmo was mumbling instead of singing, so I hit the STOP button. ‘C’mon, you’ve gotta belt it out. Sing it like you mean it,’ I said.
A few people were eyeing us curiously from the sidewalk as they passed, enjoying the pleasant spring evening. Cosmo’s face had turned beet red. ‘I can’t do this.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m going to look like a total moron.’
‘Maybe. But, at this point, she already thinks you’re a total moron, so what have you got to lose?’
He sighed. ‘Point taken. Let’s get it over with.’
I hit PLAY again and this time Cosmo belted out the lyrics with me. His voice was, well, crappy, which had me a little worried. An old man stopped to gawk, and in Amanda’s apartment building, a few people stepped out onto their balconies.
‘There’s nothing we can’t talk about, like the last time we had it out, and that’s the truth. And I lost a tooth,’ we sang. ‘I lost a tooth’ was my favorite line, and I thought it showed we had a sense of humor, too.
Just when I was starting to worry that everyone in the building was hearing our song except Amanda, a woman poked her head out of Amanda’s balcony doors. Only it wasn’t Amanda. Then a few more women stepped out onto the balcony. They were all holding knitting needles and half-finished sweaters and scarves. It dawned on me that Amanda must be having one of her Stitch and Bitch sessions. Cosmo’s face had gone even redder, which I didn’t think was possible, but he kept on singing.
‘You say you like the way it makes me smile. And even if I can’t chew my food, it’s nothing compared to what I’d do to be with you.’
Some of the women started to laugh.
‘Amanda, you’d better get out here,’ one of them called.
Finally Amanda herself stepped out. She looked gorgeous, even though she was just wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. At first she looked confused. But when she saw Cosmo and me, she started to clue in that this performance was for her. She looked stunned, then embarrassed. Even in the fading evening light, I could see her face turn the same color as Cosmo’s.
‘I’m still ahead of all the chumps you never knew. And that’s the truth.’
The song ended. A few of the sidewalk gawkers clapped, and so did a handful of the women from Amanda’s Stitch and Bitch group.
‘What do you want?’ Amanda asked, and I was bummed out because her voice carried the same edge of steel that it had on the last night we’d seen her.
‘I just want to talk,’ said Cosmo.
She pursed her lips. Her Stitch and Bitch pals waited with bated breath. One of them nudged her encouragingly.
‘Fine,’ she said, at last. ‘Come on up.’
When we got to her door, the Stitch and Bitch ladies were just leaving. A few of them smiled at Cosmo on their way out, but more of them gave him dirty looks. I guessed they’d bitched about him more than once while they’d stitched.
We stepped inside. Amanda’s apartment was tiny, but neat as a pin and full of really interesting stuff, like old movie posters and a collection of I Love Lucy plates that hung on the walls. She also had shelves full of female superhero action figures, like Wonder Woman and Batgirl.
‘Nice apartment. Is that a wall bed?’ I asked, pointing at a large slab of wood with a handle, in the middle of one wall.
‘It is indeed,’ she said. Then she ruffled my hair. ‘It’s good to see you, kiddo.’
But when she turned to Cosmo, the smile disappeared and she crossed her arms over her chest. ‘You want to talk? Talk,’ she said.
Cosmo glanced at me. ‘You think you can give us some privacy, Ambrose?’
There was nowhere to go but the balcony or the bathroom, so I chose the balcony. I left the doors open a crack so I could hear everything.
‘Amanda, you don’t know how sorry I am,’ Cosmo was saying. ‘I just wish you’d give me a second chance.’
‘I’m going to tell you a story,’ Amanda said. ‘My last relationship, I was with the guy for three years. We were engaged, till I found out completely by accident that he’d been cheating on me, practically from the very beginning, with a string of different women. He told me they didn’t count. I kicked him out that night and I haven’t spoken to him since. So, as you can see, I’m not big on second chances.’
‘But I’m not like that—’
‘You were the first man I liked enough to date since him. And I had my doubts about you, too. But then, you were a Big Brother, and you seemed so genuine … You made me feel like a fool again, Cosmo. I refuse to be treated like a fool.’
‘I never thought of you as a fool, Amanda. I’m the fool. I thought, if I told you the truth, you wouldn’t have even considered going out with me.’
‘You’re probably right.’
‘I swear it won’t happen again.’
‘But how do I know that?’
‘You think I’d humiliate myself like that out there if I wasn’t serious?’
I heard Amanda giggle, which was a good sign.
‘I like you, Amanda. Very much.’
‘And I like you, too.’
I peeked inside and saw Cosmo sit beside Amanda on her cherry red love seat. He took her hand. My heart felt lighter than it had in weeks.
‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘Start coming to Scrabble Club again, and we’ll try to get reacquainted. But just as friends for now.’
‘Sounds fair.’
‘And, Ambrose, since I know you’re listening, you can come inside now.’
I thought about pretending I hadn’t heard that, but there didn’t seem to be much point, so in I came.
‘I have something for you,’ said Amanda.
‘What?’
She dug around for a piece of paper on a desk near the front door. ‘Everyone missed you at the club. Even Joan.’
‘I missed you guys, too.’
‘But if you want to come back, you need to get your mom to sign this.’ She found the piece of paper and handed it to me.
‘What is it?’
‘A consent form.’
My heart sank. ‘What if she doesn’t sign it?’
‘Then you can’t be in the club.’
‘You mean, you’d kick me out?’
‘Put yourself in my shoes. I could get into a lot of trouble.’
‘Please don’t give me the boot.’
‘I won’t. Not as long as your mom signs this.’
‘It’s not that simple,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘Yeah,’ said Cosmo, from the love seat. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’
The worst that could happen was that my mom would flip out a) that I’d been lying to her and b) that I’d been hanging out with an ex-con after promising I wouldn’t. And that because of a and b, she’d do what she did in Edmonton when she got tired of her job, and in Regina when she got tired of Nana Ruth, and in Kelowna when she got fired from her job because she got drunk at a staff party and made wisecracks about the dean when he was standing right behind her, and in Calgary when my dad died and her work at the university went down the toilet because she was grieving, and they never did offer her a full-time position but instead let her go after two years: She’d pack us up and move us to a whole new city and expect us both to start all over again.
That was the worst that could happen.
But all I said to Cosmo and Amanda was, ‘Fine. I’ll give it a try.’