Then there was this other guy who had come from confession, and his priest wanted him to say like fourteen thousand Hail Marys for writing obscene graffiti on the Gowanus Expressway. He negotiated it down to one month of community service. I guess the kid figured a month donated to Gunnar was just as good.
The kid was all worried about it, though, and took it even more seriously than Ashley.
“I don’t want to give up a month if I’m gonna croak tomorrow or anything,” he told me, “because it means I’ll owe days from last month, and I don’t need that kind of grief.”
“C’mon, it’s not like it’s real or anything,” I remind him. “It’s just to make Gunnar feel better.”
“Yeah,” he says, “but what if turns out to be real after all—like those chain e-mails you gotta forward to ten people, or you die?”
“Those aren’t real!” I tell him.
“Yeah,” he says. “But how can you be sure ... ?”
I think about that and get all uncomfortable, because I have been guilty of forwarding those stupid e-mails, too. But I usually just send them to people I don’t like.
I sigh. “Okay. What if I make your contract void if you’re scheduled to croak before next month? That way you won’t owe any days, and you can enter the pearly gates totally free of debt.”
He thought about that some more, finally agreed, and happily went back to his priest, mission accomplished.
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I have to admit, it felt good to be doing something positive for Gunnar, in spite of the fact that it hadn’t brought forth a second kiss from Kjersten, regardless of how little salami I ate, or how much mouthwash I used. I think maybe her reluctance came from the picture Dewey Lopez published in the school paper of our first kiss. Luckily it wasn’t on the front cover, since he also snapped a picture of Principal Sinclair coming out of the bathroom with his fly open and a piece of shirttail hanging out. Definitely front-page material. Still, the page-four article was seen by the whole school, with the unpleasant headline LOVE SKIPS A GRADE.
I don’t know how it affected Kjersten’s social standing, but it sure did elevate mine. Everybody wanted to know about it, but I kept quiet, because I figured Kjersten might respect a guy who didn’t kiss and tell—even if that guy was one year and seven months younger than her. (Yes, I snuck into the office and checked her school record to find out exactly how much older than me she was.)
Kjersten never mentioned the article or the picture or, for that matter, the kiss. But she did continue to tell me what an entirely great guy I was, which meant another piece of Trident might only be a few days away.
“It’s so, so special that you’re sensitive to Gunnar’s little problem,” Kjersten told me when I handed her the month Howie gave me—which was month number seven and counting.
At the time I had laughed, and wondered how she could call it “a little problem.” I’m not wondering anymore. And I’m not laughing either.
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By Friday, I had gotten Gunnar a full year.
6. A Nasty Herd of Elephants That Are Nowhere Near as Embarrassingly Adorable as Me. Don’t Ask.
Nobody gets up early on Saturday morning in our house anymore. Friday night’s a late night for the restaurant. Mom and Dad are usually up even later than me—and that’s saying something. I slunk into the kitchen at around eleven that morning to see Mom, clearly still on her first cup of coffee, trying to comfort an inconsolable Christina.
“But I don’t want to put Ichabod to sleep,” Christina said through her tears. “It’s inhumane.”
“It’s inhumane to let him suffer.” She looked at our cat, who was now lying on the windowsill in the sun. If he was suffering, he wasn’t showing it. It was actually the rest of us who were suffering, because poor Ichabod was so old he had forgotten the form and function of a litter box, and had begun to improvise, leaving little icha-bits in unlikely places.
“It’s the way of all things, honey,” Mom said sympathetically. “You remember Mr. Moby—and what about your hamsters?”
“It’s not the same!” Christina yelled.
Mr. Moby was Christina’s goldfish. Actually a whole series of goldfish. She named them all Mr. Moby, the same way Sea World named all their star whales “Shamu.” Then she graduated to hamsters, which were cute, cuddly, vicious little things that would devour one another with such regularity you’d think cannibalism was in their job description. But Christina was right—this was different. A cat was more like family. Besides, in my current state of mind, mortality was kind of a sore spot.
“Mom,” I said, “couldn’t we just let nature take its course, and let Ichabod go when he’s ready?”
“I’ll clean up if he misses the litter box,” Christina said. “Promise.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe she can levitate it out the window.”
Christina scowled at me. “Maybe you could give Ichabod one of your friend’s extra months.”
