Now Is Not the Time to Panic(3)

“I need help,” I said, and by this point, Charlie had come over, wondering what was going on. “I need you to help this boy get the watermelon,” I told all three of them.

“Fuck no,” Charlie said. “No way.”

“Please?” I asked them.

“Sorry, Frankie,” Andrew told me, and they started to run off, but I shouted, “I’ll give you twenty dollars!”

“Twenty bucks?” Brian asked. “No shit?”

“Twenty bucks,” I said.

“And what do we do now?”

“See that nerdy kid in the water? With the busted lip?” I told them. They all nodded. “Help him get the watermelon,” I said. It was pretty simple, but they kept staring at the watermelon.

“You in love with him?” Charlie asked me, grinning.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I feel sorry for him.”

“Yikes,” Andrew said, grimacing, like I was cursed. “Fine. We’ll do it.” And my brothers dropped all the stuff they were carrying and ran to the edge of the pool, cannonballing into the water. Andrew grabbed Zeke like a rag doll and basically carried him toward the watermelon while Brian and Charlie cleared a path using their elbows, the ferocity of their actions overwhelming the other kids, who had been wrestling over the watermelon for long enough that they were starting to tire out. When they got possession of the watermelon, a sorry-looking sight, Andrew threw Zeke onto it, and the triplets pushed him to the edge of the water, Zeke’s mouth dripping blood onto the Vaseline. And then it was over. Zeke had won.

The lifeguards blew their whistles, and the other kids acted like they didn’t care. Their chests and arms were glistening with the grease, and it wasn’t coming off in the water, but they just started splashing around, waiting for the girls to get back into the pool, the kids in their floaties, the dads with their beer guts and sad tattoos.

I walked over to the edge of the pool, where Zeke was trying to catch his breath. My brothers had already left, gone to find new ways to distract themselves.

“You did it,” I said.

“Who were those boys?” he asked, so confused.

“My brothers,” I told him.

“You did this?” he asked me, and I nodded. We both laughed.

“Your mouth is bleeding,” I told him, but he didn’t seem to care. We both stared at the watermelon, which looked like a horror movie, so many half-moon marks digging into the green rind, that greasy, disgusting film all over it.

“Will you eat this with me?” he asked.

“You’re going to fucking eat that?” I asked.

“We’re going to eat it,” he said, smiling. And we did. We really did. It was so good.





Two


IT WAS SUMMER, WHICH MEANT THAT NOTHING WAS HAPPENING. It was insanely hot, making it hard to care about anything other than eating Popsicles. My house was empty; my mom was working, my dad was in Milwaukee with his new family, and the triplets were all flipping burgers at different fast-food restaurants. I’d wander the house, listening to music on my headphones, never changing out of my pajamas. I was supposed to get a job, but I hadn’t filled out any of the applications. I was fine with just keeping up my babysitting gigs. My mom, who loved me so much and was so tired, gave up, let me have the house to myself, and at first I was happy for the silence, but soon it began to feel oppressive, like the walls knew I was the only person there and could shrink down to hold me in place.

I wasn’t looking for a friend or anything like that. I was bored. And Zeke, this new boy who seemed stunned to find himself in this dinky little town, was something that could occupy my time.

Two days after we’d first met at the public pool, after I gave him a little piece of paper with my address on it, Zeke rode his bike over to my house. He had on an oversize black Road Warriors T-shirt, two angry wrestlers, their faces painted, weird shoulder pads. My brothers loved these dudes, too. I couldn’t imagine people who seemed more different than Zeke and my brothers, but if you were a boy, there were just things you loved, I guess.

“Hey,” he said, smiling. “I live, like, four blocks away.”

I just shrugged, unsure of what to do now that he was here.

“Thanks for inviting me,” he said. I shrugged again. What was wrong with my tongue? Why did it feel so fuzzy?

“This town is weird,” he said. “It’s like a bomb was dropped on it, and you guys are just getting back to normal.”

“It’s pretty boring,” I finally said, and my jaws ached with the effort.

“It’s always better to be bored with someone else,” he offered. I gestured for him to follow me inside, into the air-conditioning.

I didn’t know exactly what to do with him, but I wanted it to be clear that we weren’t going to have sex in my empty house. I had been nervous over the past two days, worrying what I was or was not getting myself into, all the things that I did not yet want to do. I needed Zeke to know that it wasn’t that kind of thing, so we just sat on the sofa and watched horror movies on VHS, eating Pop-Tarts, which felt so far away from what I thought sex might be that it seemed safe. I was trying to put off talking for as long as possible, until it became inevitable. By then, I thought, I’d have something interesting to tell him.