Read My Most Excellent Year Online
Authors: Steve Kluger
My Most Excellent Year (19 page)
I’m sorry. This is supposed to be the season for giving thanks, not for maligning an amoral dead president—although on Thursday, the only thing I was grateful for was that I didn’t know how to speak Nigerian. Papa and Mamita had planned a quiet cocktail party for 200 of their most intimate titled friends, which meant that I
was expected to circulate amongst the diamond tiaras and ruby-studded cufflinks in our gold and white living room while wearing an ivory lace gown from the president of Greece, with a décolletage that would have made a nudist blush. Happy Thanksgiving. What’s wrong with this picture?
“
Alejandra, tu es ravissante
.”
“
Merci, Mme. Alphand
.” The French ambassador’s wife is a par-ticular thorn in my side. She’s been attempting to arrange a marriage between me and her evil son Philippe since we were both four years old and playing in the same sandbox on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington. As I recall, Philippe’s most enduring adjectives, in no particular order, included venal, selfish, ignorant, petulant, narcissistic, malicious, and (by way of summary) ghastly. So as his mother and I made small talk over canapés and sparkling cider, I lied through my teeth at the first opportunity and mentioned that I already had a boyfriend—but I was sure that Philippe would make someone a very special husband (which is entirely true, given that one of the key synonyms for “special” is “abnormal”). Mme. Alphand didn’t accept the news with much grace; the third degree that followed made me suspect that she was determined to find out who the miscreant was so that she could drag the guillotine out of cold storage.
“
Tst, tst, tst. Un autre beau? Quel dommage.
”
“
Oui
.” I smiled, both demurely and insincerely.
“
Et il s’appelle
—?”
“Anthony,” I blurted automatically, horrified at myself.
Where did
that
come from?
Fortunately, in putting together such a glittering and exclusive R.S.V.P. inventory, my parents had forgotten that Carlos collects
stray consul generals the way other people collect homeless cats and failed to allot the square footage necessary to accommodate this little quirk. In fact, having gone out for cigars twenty minutes earlier, he returned with a box of Havanas and half the Nigerian embassy. Nobody knew quite where to put them. It was just the diversion I needed to sneak up the back stairs to my bedroom, change into my jeans and sweatshirt, flop face-first onto my pink bedspread (God, I hate pink), and listen to Carly Simon on WQSX. As I saw it, I had two options for the remainder of the afternoon, and both involved climbing out the window: (1) stopping by the Kellers’ to see if Augie needed any Andy support; or (2) running away from home and joining a circus.
Any
circus.
Instead, I fell asleep and dreamt about Anthony.
Amory Park, late afternoon. I’m on my way home from school when I pass the baseball diamond. It’s empty except for a lonely figure seated in the front row of bleachers. Anthony. His head is down and his shoulders are hunched. Since I’ve never seen him bereft before, I cross over the base line and sit down next to him.
“Are you okay?” I ask hesitantly, putting a hand on his forearm. When he looks up, his face is streaked with tears. (Oh, my God. He cries??)
“I can’t find my mother,” he sobs. “She was supposed to meet me here. What am I going to do?” I search for the right words to comfort him because he’s breaking my heart. But when I
realize there’s nothing I can possibly say, I pull out my cell phone and flip it open. (Reliably practical Alejandra—she doesn’t hug, but she’s always got a plan.)
“Don’t worry,” I promise him, punching 4-1-1 on the keypad. “We’ll track her down.” I call the airport, Tower Records, and Nikita Khrushchev, but nobody’s seen her. In despair—since Anthony is staring at me with such hope lighting his face—I try Phyllis at The Word Shop. She knows
everything.
“Anthony’s mother?” she confirms matter-of-factly. “She’s working the register, honey. It’s Tuesday, remember?” Since by now her voice is coming through the speakers attached to the backstop, Anthony hears every word. He’s overjoyed. Grabbing my hand, he pulls me to my feet, and we race across Mexico City together before it gets dark. After all, he wants to be able to see her.
“Say ‘Kenmore Square,’
” I insist.
“Kenmaw Sqway-ah.”
“Say ‘Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina.’
”
“Nothing could be finah than to be in Caroliner.”
“You’re doing that on purpose.”
“I’m not. I sway-ah.”
I woke up startled, wondering why I felt such an unusual (for Alejandra) longing. Then it hit me.
What an idiot I am!
Anthony was right. The “um” didn’t have anything to do with it. He hooked me on the “sway-ah.” It was so spontaneous, so genuine, so vulnerable, and so endearing, he caught me with my left flank unguarded. The entire United States Marine Corps couldn’t have defended against it, even if they’d been on the dance floor with us. Jacqueline, did you ever have a similar epiphany with Jack? When something as simple as a twisted verb made you forget everything you thought you didn’t like? Because it was the gold medal 10 of all possible boy-moments, especially for Anthony—and it instantly made me wonder whether there were any other qualities equally worthy of a Cole Porter lyric that I might have misjudged.
ANTHONY STATUS REPORT—SEPTEMBER
T | T | T |
His hideous accent | He’s cute | Things he hated |
ANTHONY STATUS REPORT—DECEMBER
T | T | T |
Some of his opinions | His gray T-shirts | He’s cute |
His stubbornness | His hideous accent | |
Things he likes | His confidence | |
Things he hates | When he’s embarrassed |
I knew I was in deep trouble during American history yesterday, when Anthony and his father brought their diorama to school. (At first it appears to be a study in obsessive-compulsive disorder: They included valet parking in front of Union Station.) Since it has six legs and takes up a good third of our classroom, we had to spend fifteen preliminary minutes rearranging our desks before they could get it through the door—so I used my downtime to remember one reassuring fact:
Just because you discover that you may like somebody after all, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any attraction. That’s a whole other hemisphere.
Then Anthony crouched down and bent over to plug in the diorama. As it happens, he was wearing his favorite pair of worn jeans, which, from the back, fit so well that they leave nothing to the imagination. Like a witness to a natural disaster, I was physically incapable of turning away from the view. I may even have gasped.
Now,
that’s
Louvre-worthy art.
To my left, of course, I could feel Lee’s eyes boring into me, but I wasn’t about
to give her the satisfaction of boring back. If I need a Butt-Junkies Anonymous sponsor, I’ll ask for one.
Fondly,
Alejandra
P.S. I terrorized Augie into a dance lesson he didn’t really need, because it was supposed to be his penance for pulling a fast one on me. Instead, he learned the tap break in ten minutes flat, asked Mrs. Salabes to teach him two more of them, and then began improvising a pair of Gene Kelly routines from
An American in Paris
. I’ve created a monster.
Alé,
I happened to notice that you couldn’t keep your eyes off of you-know-who. It kind of reminded me of fifth grade when we put on a couple of scenes from the musical
Brigadoon
. Quita sang a song called “Almost Like Being in Love.” Would you like me to print out the lyrics for you? It looks like you might be needing them. And not for the
Kiss Me, Kate
audition either. Passion, thy name is Anthony.
—Lee
Lee,
Assuming you’re not inventing all of this as you go along (which is so like you), I’m trusting you to keep your mouth shut. The last thing I need is for Anthony to find out. I feel like I’ve caught the Ebola virus and there’s nothing I can do about it.
—Alé
Alé,
Don’t worry—some people develop antibodies. I would have grabbed him myself when we were eight, except by then we liked each other too much to fall in love.
—Lee
Lee,
Remind me again. Why doesn’t he impress me?
—Alé
Alé,
Because you’ve still got it in your head that you’re supposed to marry a prince. Know what? The only thing T.C. doesn’t have is a sword and a battleship named after him. Everything else is Royal Family. Think it over.
By the way—am I the only one who’s noticed that Andy Wexler’s turned into a walking anxiety attack? Half of him may be in love with Augie, but the jock half is freaking out. Maybe Augie should
tone down the Mary Martin routine until Andy drops back to Defcon 5.
—Lee
Lee,
Yes. You’re the only one who’s noticed. Do you
enjoy
cackling?
—Alé
AlePerez:
Stop hyperventilating! You survived your first day on the swim team with Andy, didn’t you?
AugieHwong:
Barely. We sat next to each other in our black-and-white-striped Speedos with our legs dangling over the edge of the pool, and my body managed to behave. That was the best I could have hoped for.
AlePerez:
I can’t imagine why anyone would choose to be male. It’s just so unsubtle. Women only have to deal with breasts, which are what they are. They don’t suddenly stand up whenever they feel like it and begin pointing at something they want.
AugieHwong:
You SO don’t know what you’re missing.
Andy hasn’t said much to me since we
held hands. And whenever the other guys are around, it’s almost like we never met before. Dad says it’s because the one who makes the first move always gets scared until the other one makes the second move. Is he right? I mean, in the minute and a half between my brother asking you to dance and you saying yes, did he look afraid?
AlePerez:
Wait a minute. That didn’t qualify as the first and second moves—did it?
AugieHwong:
Duh.
By the way, I tried on my
Kiss Me, Kate
audition costume and ran through “Too Darn Hot” for Mom and Dad. (Dad made me do it again so he could videotape it for Grandma Lily.) Am I really cute?? Or was Mom just saying so because she had to?
AlePerez:
You mean you didn’t
know
that?!
AugieHwong:
Thank you for the italics and the exclamation point. My self-esteem issues just kissed my ass. Sort of. I mean, why does he pretend he doesn’t know me in front of other people?
Dear Jacqueline,
I’m a little dazed and confused, but I know all of the lyrics to “So in Love With You Am I” in sign language. This has been a very peculiar day.
I stopped off at The Word Shop to pick up my copy of
Voices of
the Civil Rights Movement
that I’d asked Phyllis to order. Usually she’s handling two phone lines and the register, but that never stops her from seeing right through me.
PHYLLIS: | Good Lord, |
ALEJANDRA: | I’ve already read it. Maybe I’ll just browse the New Fiction table and— |
PHYLLIS: | He’s in the café. |
ALEJANDRA: | Who’s |
PHYLLIS: | Alejandra, your face may be pointing straight ahead, but your eyeballs are looking for Anthony Keller. |