crews, weds, creed, sewed, weeds, drew, dew
‘THIS WAS THE best day of my life,’ I blubbered, as Amanda, Cosmo, and I left the community center just after six.
‘Well, you sure have a funny way of showing it,’ Cosmo laughed. But he put his arm around me and patted my shoulder.
We arrived at Cosmo’s car. ‘Can I offer you a lift?’ he asked Amanda.
‘Actually, some of us are going to Milestone’s,’ she said.
I could tell Cosmo was trying not to look disappointed. ‘Oh. OK.’
‘But we could all go,’ she continued.
Cosmo’s frown turned upside down. ‘I’d like that,’ he replied.
I glanced at my watch. Mom’s cooking course ended at six and it was already five minutes to. ‘I think I’ll take a pass,’ I said. ‘I’m pretty tired.’
They drove me home. ‘Want us to come in?’ asked Amanda. ‘I’d like to meet your mom. It’s a shame she couldn’t make it to the tournament today.’
‘You can’t meet her,’ I said. ‘She isn’t home yet.’ Which wasn’t a lie.
Cosmo let me out of the backseat. ‘You did amazing today, buddy. You should be very proud.’
‘You’re going to wind up with a rating of close to four hundred,’ Amanda said. ‘It may not sound like much, compared to the experts, but for your first one-day tournament, it’s pretty darn good.’
I hopped out of the car clutching my trophy and waved as they drove away, feeling a twinge of sadness that I couldn’t join them to celebrate.
And that’s when another miracle happened, the second one in less than two weeks. My cell phone rang.
‘Hello?’
‘Ambrose?’ It was my mom. ‘I tried the house, but you weren’t there.’
‘No, I’m just out front. I went for a little walk.’
‘You didn’t talk to any strangers, I hope.’
‘No, Mom.’
‘Listen … we’ve finished the cooking course, but Bob was wondering if I’d like to go out for a quick bite to eat. Italian, of course, ha-ha. But I said I’d have to check with you first. If you’d rather I didn’t—’
‘Go. Of course you should go,’ I said, and I really meant it for her too, not just for me. ‘When will you be home?’
‘By ten at the latest. I promise.’
‘OK,’ I said, and I was already running down the street.
‘You’re sure you’re fine with this?’
‘Positive.’
‘Why do you sound out of breath all of a sudden?’
‘I’m doing jumping jacks,’ I said, because it was the first thing that came into my mind.
I heard her laugh on the other end of the line. ‘OK, sweetheart. Love you.’
‘Love you, too.’
I hung up and ran like the wind in my Ikes, all the way down to Milestone’s at Bayswater and 4th Avenue, thinking that this was the second time in two weeks that a Higher Power had been watching over me.
I ran so fast that Cosmo and Amanda were just walking through the front door when I arrived.
The best day of my life turned into the best night of my life. There were about twelve of us in all. Mohammed and Joan and Larry were there from our club. Freddy Wong, the champion, showed up. A bunch of the other out-of-towners came, too. We got the waiters to put a bunch of tables together, and I sat in between Cosmo and Mohammed and right across from Freddy, which was a real honor. Freddy told us all a bunch of stories about being at the World Scrabble Championships two years earlier, where he’d placed fifteenth out of about a hundred top players. He also gave me tips on word study techniques, which I thought was pretty cool of him. He seemed like a great down-to-earth guy, and he even signed my napkin when I asked.
When our waitress approached, I couldn’t help but notice that she had even bigger boobs than Amanda. ‘For the young gentleman?’ she said, when it was my turn to order.
‘I’ll just have water,’ I replied.
Cosmo turned to me. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’
‘I don’t have any money,’ I whispered to him.
‘No worries. Buy whatever you want. It’s on me.’
‘But you can’t afford—’
‘I forgot to tell you. I got called into the foreman’s office yesterday,’ he said. ‘Starting Monday, I have full-time work.’
‘That’s awesome!’ I said, then I grabbed a menu and gave it a quick scan. After I gave our waitress the lowdown about my peanut allergy, I ordered a huge plate of fettuccine Alfredo and a Roy Rogers – some kind of fancy cocktail minus the booze.
Around me everyone was laughing and talking and analyzing the plays they’d made that day, and not just with each other, but with me too. It was the strangest yet best feeling in the world to realize that I was a part of this. And as I sat there sipping my second Roy Rogers, it dawned on me that this was what it was like to have friends. People who liked you for you. People you didn’t have to try to impress. And even though they were all older than me and some of them were much older than me, it didn’t matter. Suddenly I felt kind of emotional again. I guess Cosmo noticed because he leaned in and asked if I was OK, and I told him, with total honesty, ‘I’m fantastic.’
Then I went to the bathroom because I really needed to pee after my second Roy Rogers. When I returned, one of the out-of-town players was sitting in my seat, so I sat in hers, which put me beside Larry Schell. I had never sat close to Larry before since he was in the expert division, so it was the first time I noticed that he smelled, like a mix of old socks and rancid butter. I guess he was really enjoying his food because he made a mmmmm sound while he chewed.
I decided I should try to make small talk, so I said, ‘When did you start playing Scrabble, Larry?’
‘I played with Mother, growing up.’ It was hard to hear Larry because he kind of mumbled, but fortunately my hearing was twenty-twenty.
‘Hey, me too. I mean, I’m still growing up. But I play with my mom.’
He nodded. ‘My sister would go to the parties, and I’d stay home with Mother and play. I wasn’t invited to the parties. But that was OK.’
I suddenly had a very clear picture of Larry as a kid. I could see him being picked on and being called names, like Larry Smells.
‘And who do you play with now?’ I asked politely.
‘Mother. And the West Side Scrabble Club, once a week. But Mother, mostly. I can’t work because I have a lot of, um, health issues. So I still live at home.’
‘Oh,’ I said. Larry must have been at least forty.
‘Scrabble’s my life. I play Scrabble and, when I’m not playing, I study words. Or watch TV. I love TV. Especially “CSI.”’
Maybe it was mean, but suddenly I didn’t want to talk to Larry anymore. I thought about what Cosmo had told me, about the paths we choose in life, and how it’s easy to make a wrong turn. When I looked at Larry, I got this uneasy feeling that if I made a wrong turn, I could wind up just like him.
These were pretty deep thoughts and I wasn’t in a deep mood, so when the out-of-town lady got up to use the bathroom, I excused myself and slipped back in beside Cosmo. Amanda sat to his left, and when I bent down to pick up my napkin, I saw that they were holding hands under the table.
For dessert, I had a big piece of apple pie à la mode, brought to me by our waitress, who assured me it had been made in a peanut-free bakery.
‘Most promising newcomer, huh?’ she said, when she saw my trophy. ‘I bet a lot of girls at your school say that about you, too,’ and she gave me a dazzling smile.
‘That they do, but I tell them I only have eyes for you, Sandy,’ I replied, quickly looking at the name tag on her big boobs.
After she’d walked away, Cosmo and Mohammed burst out laughing. ‘Ambrose, you are going to be a lady-killer,’ Cosmo said.
Mohammed added, ‘If I had daughters, I’d lock them up.’
When we left, Sandy gave me a hug and there was my face, all up close and personal with her boobs. It felt like the perfect ending to a perfect day, even if she only laughed when I asked her for her phone number. Cosmo was in a great mood, too, because Amanda had accepted his offer of a lift home.
I got into the back of Cosmo’s car, feeling like a million bucks.
I had no idea that just five minutes later, everything would come crashing down around me. And that this time the Higher Power was either helping someone else, or he’d gone to bed early.
Because this time, there would be no miracle.
This time, I was screwed.