It was a month or so before the restaurant first opened, and he was trying to figure out what the official menu would be. It was the first time in his life he’d been forced to write down recipes he had always just kept in his head.
He and Mom were in the kitchen together, cooking one meal after another, which we were giving away to neighbors, because not even Frankie could eat an entire menu. Mom had taken courses in French cooking last year, after finally admitting that Dad was the better Italian chef. It was her way of staking out new taste-bud territory. They had created these fusion FrenchItalian dishes, but that particular night as they cooked, Dad kept having to stop Mom from adding new ingredients.
“You know what your mother’s problem is?” he said to me as they cooked. He knew better than to ever criticize Mom directly. It always had to be bounced off a third person, the way live TV from China has to bounce off a satellite. “She suffers from ?Restless Recipe syndrome.’”
Mom’s response was to throw me a sarcastic “Oh, please” gaze, that I would theoretically relay back to my father at our stove somewhere in Beijing.
“It’s true! No matter what recipe she’s cooking, she can’t leave it alone—she has to change it.”
“Listen to him! As if he doesn’t do the exact same thing!”
“Yes—but at a certain point I stop. I let the recipe be. But your mother will get a recipe absolutely perfect— and then the next time she cooks it, she’s gotta add something new. Like the time she put whiskey in the marinara sauce.”
It made me laugh when he mentioned it. Mom had added so much whiskey, we all got drunk. It’s a cherished family memory that I’ll one day share with my children, and/or therapist.
Finally she turned to talk to him directly. “So—I didn’t cook out the alcohol enough—big deal. I’ll have you know I saw that on the Food Channel.”
“So go marry the Food Channel.”
“Maybe I will.”
They looked at each other, pretending to be annoyed, then Dad reached around and squeezed her left butt cheek, she grinned and grabbed his, then the whole thing became so full of inappropriate parental affection, I had to leave the room.
I’m like my father in lots of ways, I guess, but in this respect I’m like my mother. Even when the recipe’s working perfectly, I can never leave well enough alone.
With about a dozen time contracts to fill out—each one a little bit different—I tried to hurry home from school that day, hoping to avoid anyone else who wanted to shave some time off their miserable existence. That’s when I ran into Skaterdud. At first he rolled past me on his board like it was just coincidence, but a second later he looped back around. He flustered me with his eight-part handshake before he started talking.
“Cultural Geography, man,” he said, shaking his head—it was a class we were both in together. “I just don’t get it. I mean—is it culture? Is it geography? You know where I’m going, right?”
“The skate park?” I answered. Sure, it was closed for the winter, but that never stopped Skaterdud before.
“I’m talking conceptually,” he said. “Gotta follow close or you’re not never gettin’ nowhere.”
I’ve learned that silence is the best response when you have no idea what someone is talking about. Silence, and a knowing nod.
“I’m thinking maybe one favor begets another,
I nodded again, hoping he hadn’t suddenly become bilingual. It was hard enough to understand him in one language.
“So you’ll do it?” he asked.
“Do what?” I had to finally ask.
He looked at me like I was an imbecile. “Write my Cultural Geography paper for me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because,” he said, “I’m gonna give up six whole months of my life to your boy Gunnar.”
That got my interest. No one had offered that much. The Master of Time was intrigued.
Skaterdud laughed at the expression on my face. “Ain’t no biggie,” he said. “It’s not like it’s never gonna matter—’cause don’t I already know when I’m gonna be pushin’ up posies? Or seaweed, in my case?
I was actually following his logic, and it scared me. “So ... why just six months?” I said, playing along. “If your future’s all set in stone no matter what you do, why not give a year?”
“Done,” said Skaterdud, slapping me on the back. “Don’t forget—that Cultural Geography paper’s due Friday.”
“Whoa! Wait a second! I didn’t say it was a deal.” I was getting all mad now, because I felt like I was a sucker at a carnival, and had gotten tricked into this—so I said the first thing that came to mind, which, sadly, was: “What’s in it for me?”
Skaterdud shrugged. “What do you want?”
I thought about how stockbrokers get commissions when they make a deal, so I thought,
“Done,” he said again. “Let me read the paper before you turn it in so I know what I wrote.”
8. Who Needs Cash When You’ve Got Time Coming Out of Your Ears?
I have never been in the habit of cheating at school. I mean, sure, the occasional glance at my neighbor’s paper on a multiple-choice test or a list of dates written on my forearm, but nothing like what Skaterdud wanted me to do. Now not only did I have to write two passing papers, but I had to make one of them sound like he wrote it —which meant sounding all confusing but making enough sense to get a passing grade.
The Dud’s paper got a B with an exclamation point from the teacher, and since I used all the good stuff in his paper, I got a C-minus on mine. Serves me right. The Dud gave me my month commission the morning we got our grades back, slapped me on the back when he saw my grade, and said, “You’ll do better next time.”
That day I went off campus to get pizza for lunch, because the lunch ladies were secretly spreading the word that this was a good day to do a religious fast.
Problem was, I didn’t have any money. Rishi, who ran the pizza place down the street, was Indian. Not Native American, but Indian Indian—like from India—and, as such, made pizza that was nothing like the Founding Fathers ever envisioned. Not that it was bad—actually each type he made was amazing, which is maybe why the place was always crowded, and he could keep raising his prices.
I stood there, drooling over a Tandoori Chicken and Pepperoni that had just come out of the oven, and began rummaging through my backpack for spare change—but all I came up with were two nickels, and a Chuck E. Cheese
