Uh…Okay…
I’m sitting next to a very large man who is very unhappy to be stuck in the middle of two teens. (There’s a girl in black reading a zombie book on the aisle). The man is wheezing and is very gross. He just ordered a tiny bottle of wine.
Go to Florida instead of practice football? This is where my good intentions get me: jammed against the airplane wall by a giant wine-sucking wheezer man. Huff, huff, huff. (Sound of him breathing while he stares at the side of my head.)
• • •
Okay, so Gus’s parents were on board with the drive to Michigan. Right?
There was just the Jerri question left.
It was a big question too, Aleah. First, Jerri was stung that Andrew had requested a solo bus trip to his orchestra camp (although Jerri knew not the entirety of the situation). Second, Jerri had made plans with your dad to stop in Chicago on Saturday on our drive to Ann Arbor. I sure as crap didn’t want to be at your apartment, but Jerri was very excited. (“I haven’t seen Ronald in four months!”) I didn’t think there was anyway she’d let Gus drive me.
When Gus arrived, Jerri was in the kitchen making us some ugly looking hippie hummus and bean sprout sandwiches. (I like hummus, but I don’t like sprouts—they get stuck in my teeth and then people make crap of me—at least Abby Sauter did one time in fifth grade—“booger tooth.”) Jerri didn’t act like a nice hippie, though. When Gus and I entered the kitchen, she smiled really fake and said, “If it isn’t my favorite nicotine addict! Has your girlfriend gotten any tweens drunk lately?”
Gus stood there with his mouth open, his face turning red. “Um. Not that I’m aware of, Jerri.”
“Great. Great to hear, Gus.”
“That’s not why we’re here, Jerri,” I said.
“Really?” Jerri asked. “Why are you here? Is it because you live here, Felton?”
“What’s with the sarcasm?”
“I’m just a little angry with your little friend, I suppose,” Jerri said, glaring at Gus.
“Jerri,” Gus whispered. “I quit smoking. It’s bad for me. I got a hacking cough. And Maddie? She’s really crazy, you know? But she tries hard. And she’s got a good heart. She’s really a sweet person. I’m serious.”
Gus was working Jerri. Jerri grew up a townie girl like Maddie. She couldn’t not feel for her. Gus’s lies actually made me feel kind of bad. He still smoked! Maddie did not try hard!
Maybe she does try hard?
Maybe she’s like me who isn’t Peyton Manning because her family (my family) is screwed up? Complicated.
Jerri nodded. She swallowed. She stared at Gus for a moment. Then she said, “Tell her not to get eighth graders drunk, okay? It really upsets me. It’s also dangerous. Emily Cook can’t weigh more than eighty pounds, you know?”
“I know, Jerri. Maddie feels bad about what happened,” Gus nodded.
“That’s not why we’re here, though, Jerri,” I said.
“Okay, then. Why are you here, Felton?”
Gus jumped in. “Something pretty cool happened today. My dad’s friend at U Mich, Hector Johns—he’s a professor there—invited me to take a campus tour while Felton’s at football camp.”
I nodded.
Jerri said, “Oh? That’s nice…You’re welcome to ride with us, if you’d like.”
“That’d be great, but I actually need to have my own transportation because I’ll be going back and forth from campus to the Motel 6 where I’m staying all week. So, I’ll be driving.”
“Yeah! Pretty great, huh, Jerri?” I piped in. Gus sort of kneed me in the thigh.
“I’ll be driving, so really Felton should just catch a ride with me,” Gus said. “No reason for us to pump double the carbon dioxide into the air. I guess more like quadruple, really, since you’ll be driving back to Bluffton, then returning to Ann Arbor to pick Felton up.”
This was very smooth operating by Gus. Best way to break a nice person like my mom is to make her think doing what she really wants to do is going to harm the environment and stop all future generations from existing.
Jerri shook her head, put her hands on her hips, and looked up at the ceiling. She said, “I was really looking forward to this drive for some reason.”
Of course, I knew why. I didn’t know know (didn’t think they were going to be like…boyfriend and girlfriend), but I knew she wanted to see your dad. Before Gus could stop me from talking, I said, “Jerri, I think maybe you should just visit Ronald this weekend even if I’m not with you. You could stay a couple of days, then help him move stuff back here for the summer session.”
Jerri looked at me. Squinted a little. “You think, Felton?”
“Oh, yeah. If I could visit Aleah, I sure as hell would,” I said. (I really didn’t know they were becoming a couple!)
“Nice language, son,” Jerri said. “Maybe I will.”
“Chicago’s not far,” Gus said.
“Shut up, Gus,” Jerri said. “Enough rhetoric, okay?”
“Huh?” Gus said, as if he didn’t know.
This was definitely the weekend when our parents became an official unit, Aleah. You have my lying to thank for it.
Anyway, it was a done deal. There. We did it. Gus was driving me to Ann Arbor, except not to Ann Arbor at all.
Out on our driveway Gus whispered, “What’s up with Jerri? She’s kind of mean these days.”
True. Jerri was not acting the part of the Jerri I’d known my whole life. This was not a bad thing. “I think she’s snapping out of the depression she’s been in for like eleven years, maybe. I don’t know, exactly.”
“Oh,” Gus said. “I like it.”
So, we were all set up with lies and bull crap, all set to hit the road. Apparently I have enough courage to seriously, crazily lie to my mom, even if I’m scared to go to a camp by myself.
• • •
Oh Jesus, Aleah, the plane is bouncing up and down. I think we’re possibly crashing. Seriously. The big dude just spilled a tiny bottle of wine all over himself. This is a disaster. Oh God. Jesus.
Turbulence. The big guy smiled at me. “F-bombing turbulence.” Now he’s reading what I’m writing: Hello, man. My name is Felton.
He just said, “Hiya, Felton!” I think he’s had four tiny bottles of wine.
No, only three. “Three, Felton!” he said.
He is saying out loud anything I type.
I’m a big, drunk jerk!
He didn’t say that.
Sorry.
He said it’s okay.
The girl with the zombie book is laughing. Why can’t she be my girlfriend, Aleah? She’s right here. She’s cute.
Sorry. I don’t mean it.
The man just read that whole thing out loud to the girl. She laughed at me.
I’m going to close the computer.