On Thursday afternoon the phone rings. Linda is making bead jewelry in her room with her little friend Jodie. Dad is trying to nap on the couch, so after the first ring I answer the phone in my parents’ bedroom instead of the kitchen.
“You’d better sit down,” Gordon says.
“Why?”
“Are you sitting down?”
“Yes.” I sit on the edge of my parents’ bed.
“I have tickets to Buddy Guy tomorrow night. In Boston.”
“What?”
“Buddy Guy. At Berklee College. My dad got the tickets as a surprise, and we were going to go together, but he has a business thing and he can’t go. It’s a miracle, Bilbo—Buddy Guy. My dad said we could take the train in by ourselves. The concert starts at eight fifteen. We pick you up at seven o’clock. He gave us money to go out to eat afterward—”
“Whoa. I just have to make sure I can go.”
“Whoa back. You would consider missing a Buddy Guy concert? It’s free. We have great seats. You don’t have to pay a cent.”
“I know. But sometimes I have to babysit,” I whisper.
“For your sister?”
“No, for, you know, my dad. I didn’t mean to say babysit. I meant to say watch, or just sit with. My mother works, and my sister is too young. You know, he’s sick. He doesn’t stay home by himself.”
“That’s right.” In the silence that follows looms the thing I haven’t been mentioning. Gordy is here again, in our living room, while Dad walks back and forth without talking to him. How could he understand this? I barely understand it myself.
“I’m sorry,” Gordy continues. “I shouldn’t put the pressure on. It’s just—”
“Just what?”
“Well, when my mom was really sick, my dad hired a nurse. Two nurses actually. Around the clock. He had to work a lot, that’s why. But I get it, I completely understand. So…”
Suddenly going to a concert by Buddy Guy, legendary Chicago bluesman, is what I want more than anything in the world. Sitting on a commuter train that’s nearly empty because everyone’s going in the opposite direction. We each have our own bench, so we talk to one another across the aisle. Gordy drums the metal part of the seat in front of him while we hum “Ninety-Nine and One Half” and “What Kind of Woman Is This?” We eat Chinese food or pizza in a restaurant where the customers are all city kids. Just us, in the city at night. No adults telling us what to do.
“How would we get home, anyway?”
“We take the train home, too. My dad’s going to pick us up at the station. We have it all worked out, Bilbo. The whole situation is ready, it’s just waiting for you to step into it. I could ask somebody else, but I thought you were the one who would really appreciate it. Anyway…”
“I think I can. I’ll ask. Assume that I’ll go, okay? Assume that I’m going, unless you hear otherwise. No, wait—I really have to think about this.”
“If you can’t go, I’ll see if Mitchell wants to. Or Andy. Are you a definite yes? Do you want to give me their phone numbers just in case? Or should I wait to hear back from you first?”
“No, I’m almost definitely a yes. Assume I’ll go.”
“That was confusing. But I completely understand.”
“I have to go,” I whisper. My voice got loud there for a minute when I pictured tomorrow night in Boston. It was almost like I was there, even.
When I hang up the phone and walk down the hall, Dad is waiting on the living-room couch.
“Is something wrong, Billy? Did someone get hurt?”
“No, no one is hurt.”
“From the tone of your voice, I thought something was wrong.”
“It’s okay, Dad. It was just Gordon.”
“Should we watch TV, then?”
“Yes. Let’s watch TV.”