four

FEBRUARY 8

I was reading the application and jotting down curse words and offensive comments in the margins when Booker and Barbra came over after their shift slinging baked goods at Crumb.

Bites lost his mind when they knocked, barking and growling and hurling himself against the door. There’s no sneaking into this house.

While Barbra got Bites, whose reactivity training never quite took, calmed down, Booker presented my grandparents with his usual offering of baked goods. Booker’s my best friend, and he’s great with older people. And younger people, too, I guess.

My grandparents are in their late sixties, but they seem about ten years older. They both worked physically hard, unhealthy jobs most of their lives. My grandma spent the last twenty-five years working cleanup at a fish-packing plant. Grandpa was a welder for his whole adult life. They retired with about twelve serious health conditions apiece: bad backs, bum lungs, arthritis, diabetes, allergies. The whole deal.

Neither of them is supposed to eat sugar or flour, but I was not about to interfere with their crush on Booker and his gifts of highly refined carbohydrates.

“Well, Booker!” I heard Gramps say from his easy chair in the living room. “How’s life treating you? Baking up a storm?”

“Yes, sir,” said Booker.

“Oh, Booker. Cinnamon swirls!” said my grandmother. “And apple Danish. You are a stinker!”

“Damn it,” said Grandpa. “Going to make us fat.”

My grandparents weigh about eighty-six pounds apiece. They weren’t going to get fat at this stage of the game. They go nonstop from about five thirty in the morning. They putter around the house and the yard, meet their friends for coffee at McDonald’s or Tim Hortons, golf, curl, attend meat raffles at the Legion, and do a lot of other activities that appeal to the fun-loving senior crowd. By eight p.m., it’s like someone took out their batteries. They sit in their chairs in front of the TV and don’t move until they go to bed at nine o’clock.

“No, sir,” said Booker. “Not you. Or Mrs. Smith.”

“Hello, Barbra,” said Gramps. “I guess you’re here to keep John on the straight and narrow?” This was followed by a hacking cough and some laughter. My grandparents are extremely okay people. They really are.

My mom and I have lived with them for my whole life, so they’ve basically raised me. In the past seven years my mom has started traveling for her work, which is teaching ESL, so she’s hardly ever here. Now she works in Dubai and only comes home once a year, which is fine. We’re not super close. There’s not a lot of difference between having awkward conversations on Skype and having them in person.

Living with my dad had never been an option. He’s a long-haul trucker who lives on the mainland in an undisclosed location. I don’t go to visit him. Ever. My dad takes his duty to shirk his paternal responsibilities seriously. From him I got my impressive hyphenated name.

All in all, my situation is fine. My grandparents are the best people I know, except for Barbra and Booker. But they’re also sort of tired and let me get away with anything. Which I appreciate.

After the greetings were done, Booker and Barbra slid into my room and closed the door behind them.

Barbra gave me a kiss and then flopped onto my bed.

“I love them,” said Booker. “Seriously. Your grandparents are like the salt and pepper shakers of the earth.”

Booker’s home situation is lousy, and he never misses a chance to admire my grandparents.

“So stay here. They’ve invited you enough times.”

“No can do. My sister left last year. The position of Target-in-Chief falls to me now. My little brother is too young for the job.” He glanced at the paperwork on my desk. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Don’t tell me it’s time for college applications already.” He took the extra chair, turning around in it so he could prop his legs on my bed. He pulled a can of beer and a bag of Doritos out of his knapsack. “I thought we decided to stay working-class heroes forever.”

“I’m not even sure the Salad Stop qualifies as a working-class job.”

“Yeah, it occupies a strange middle ground. All that kale. It’s not right.”

He offered us chips. We both said no.

Booker’s the first one to say he’s got a bit of an eating problem. It gets worse, then better, then worse, depending on how his mother is doing. If she’s stable, he eats like two regular guys. When she’s in one of her dark periods, he eats like a powerlifting team. Booker is big and good-looking, with dark hair that reminds me of early Elvis, and he looks like he couldn’t give a shit, which is deceiving. He cares so much that it takes about five thousand calories a day to keep himself soothed. At least, that’s what he says. His relationships with girls aren’t much better than his relationship with food. Either he gets too attached and the girl pulls away, or the girl is completely wild and ditches him for an asshole.

Barbra and I have been together since we were all in eighth grade, so he thinks we know just about everything there is to know about relationships. He says that if he could meet a nice girl, and by that he means a girl like Barbra, he would settle down. It’s probably true. Barbra has a way of making you feel like the world makes sense. She’s really grounded. If I ever forget how lucky I am to be with her, Booker reminds me, pronto. Actually, everyone does. I basically won the girlfriend lottery with Barbra.

“No, it’s this application for a contest. I’m just rage reading it.”

I sat near the end of the bed, and Barbra wiggled around to rest her feet on my thighs.

“Is it an application to take me on a ten-day cruise to the Bahamas? I think I would enjoy cruising the ocean blue with a few thousand seniors.”

I rubbed her feet.

“No, it’s for that annual scholarship to get into Green Pastures.”

Barbra sat up quickly, jerking her feet out of my hands.

Booker stopped drinking his beer, and his hand froze on its way to deliver a chip to his mouth.

“What?” they said together.

“Is it sculpture this year?” asked Barbra.

“Tell me it’s metalwork, dude. If it is, you’re in like sin!” said Booker.

“Nope. Fashion. And this is the last year I’ll be eligible.”

“Shit,” said Booker.

“Huh,” said Barbra. “You in a fashion competition. Now that would be interesting to watch.”

“Are you saying you don’t find me fashionable?”

“Well, you do have a hate-on for anything that seems trendy, including all stores and most clothes,” said Booker.

“There’s that,” I said.

“Green Fields is a dump,” said Barbra, her brown eyes seeing right through my jokes and into the disappointment. “Their facilities are barely even so-so.”

“Yeah, well, it was a long shot.”

The three of us didn’t talk for a while.

“I found out in Career Tragedies,” I said finally. “You know that girl who wears the funny suits and has that old-fashioned hair? She had the announcement this afternoon.”

“I know that girl,” said Booker, who has made a point of knowing every single girl in school, an impressive feat, since there are nearly twelve hundred people in our school and half of them are girls. “She’s got some serious style.”

Barbra also nodded, recognizing the description.

“I think she looks ridiculous. Well, anyway, she had the flyer.” I gave a little laugh. “I told her I was way into fashion. Said I was going to enter. She looked unimpressed.”

“You should do it just for the hell of it,” said Booker, chugging his beer.

“Please,” said Barbra. “He doesn’t need that place. Can you imagine listening to him complain about all the spoiled kids up there?”

“True. You’ve got us. You’ve got your workshop in the garage. Screw Green Pastures.”

“Just imagine what he would make for a fashion show,” said Barbra, grinning.

“I’m fashionable,” I said, feeling a little stung by their reaction, even though I agreed with them.

“You,” said Barbra, giving me a kiss, “are fashionably unfashionable. Just how I like you.”

I made a big show of crumpling up the application and throwing it in the garbage. But when they were gone, I pulled it out and started to fill it in. I would strike a pointless blow for the have-nots and those of us who are not going places.

Motto: What’s to hate about fashion and fashion people? See quote below.

Never fit a dress to the body, but train the body to fit the dress.

—ELSA SCHIAPARELLI