When I got home the thing that helped the most was Greg. He acted as if I’d never left. We spent Saturday and Sunday just hanging out. This was kind of a big deal. When Greg dated someone, we rarely saw him. Dad let me know Greg was seeing Cindy Lewis. She was smoking hot. He’d sacrificed time with his girlfriend to be with me.
I darted back to my room and got dressed. I ran down the stairs two steps at a time, and this got my mother to yell at me.
“Slow down in the house!”
I slid on the kitchen floor and hopped up on the bar stool at the counter. The sameness of everything reassured me. It was almost as if I’d been home for the past three months. Mom made me a bowl of my favorite cereal and I dove in. She had sworn I would eat them out of house and home. But hey, I was a growing boy, and growing boys eat a lot!
Mom and I hadn’t talked much. She was, I don’t know, cordial. It was weird. She kept an eye on me, and waited for me to do something stupid. I didn’t expect her to fully trust me yet, but we needed to come to an understanding. The subtle message was if I messed up, it was back to my Uncle John’s farm. In the last two days I’d caught her with a strange expression, but I intended to get back into her good graces.
“Where’s your brother?” she asked with a scowl on her face.
Mom wasn’t the easiest person to live with. She had a sharp tongue that could shred you.
“He was taking a shower. He should be down in a minute.”
I needed to clear the air.
“Mom?” I asked, and she just looked at me. “We need to talk.”
She got a sad look on her face and it looked like she made a decision.
“David, we don’t have time right now. Let’s talk after dinner.”
“Okay, Mom, but I want you to know I love you.”
She seemed to weigh my words and see if I meant them.
“I love you, too.”
It sounded forced. Before I could overthink the situation, Greg came down the stairs. He grabbed some toast.
“Come on, we don’t want to be late,” he said
I ran out first and came to a dead stop when I went through the back door. Greg about knocked me down.
“What the heck, dork?” he asked.
Standing by the car was Tami Glade. Tami and I had been best friends and neighbors since we were five. I wasn’t the only one who’d grown up over the summer. Tami had curves. She looked good wearing her usual red Phillies baseball cap with her long silky brown hair in a ponytail sticking out of the back of the cap.
Tami wasn’t a classic beauty, because the end of her nose was a little too big, but she had a healthy girl-next-door look. I’d never thought of her as sexy until just now. I saw she’d started to mature. The hint of a flare in her hips was a real turn-on for a teenage boy. It probably also had to do with being stuck on a farm for the last three months with little female contact.
I was jarred back to reality as I remembered the last time we’d talked. About a month before the party, Tami had screamed at me that she never wanted to see my loser butt again. She was the last person I expected to see.
Tami was always a tomboy. She loved to play baseball, and we had been on the same Little League team. Tami played second base to my shortstop. For a girl, she had a cannon for an arm. She gunned down more than one boy who tried to test her. She was now five-eight, and with her budding body she no longer really fit her tomboy image.
When she saw me, her eyes got wide. I saw her face go through several emotions in rapid succession. I could tell she was still mad at me, but the final emotion was relief. I saw she was going to say something but I never gave her a chance. I rushed up and pulled her into a hug.
“I’m sorry. I missed you so much,” I choked out.
I felt her relax in my arms and I heard her sob. Tears ran down my face. I had missed my best friend. I looked over at Greg and he had a goofy grin on his face. I did the math and realized that he set this up. I mouthed, ‘Thank You!’
She leaned back.
“When did you get back?”
“Friday,” I said as I fell into the pools of her brown eyes.
“How come you didn’t come see me?”
I gave a little chuckle.
“Did you want to see me?”
She at least blushed and shook her head ‘no’ as I released her from my embrace.
“I let a lot of people down. Over the summer, I changed. I’m not the same guy you remember. I’m no longer the ‘stupid boy’ you knew.” ‘Stupid Boy’ was her nickname for me. “I’m also not the jerk I was in the spring. I’m clean and sober and I intend to stay that way. I’m hoping you’ll give me a chance and we can be friends again.”
Tami looked like she was going to cry again.
“I missed you. Why didn’t you call me over the summer?”
How could I explain how messed up I was?
“I wasn’t ready. I had to fix me before I could come back, but I’m back now. Look, will you give me a chance to make it up to you?”
She took a deep breath and nodded her head ‘yes.’
“Let me get a look at you,” she said.
She looked me up and down and did a little twirl with her finger to indicate she wanted me to do a spin. If Tami wanted to check out my butt, who was I to argue? I did a little spin for her and I heard her make a little gasp.
“When did you get such a hot body? I mean, you were always cute, but dang, boy, you’re going to have to beat the girls off with a stick.”
I was glad to hear her tease me. I didn’t know where the ‘cute’ thing came from; I guess in my mind’s eye I was still the slightly chubby nerd of four months ago. I never had the best body image of myself, so it was hard to imagine being cute.
“Look who’s talking. You actually look like a woman now. Someone grew up over the summer, and I have to say you’re filling out your jeans nicely.”
“You pig!”
Greg laughed at the two of us and told us to get in the car. Tami beat me to the front seat, so I jumped in the back. She could have shotgun the rest of her life as long as I was with her. High school was going to be okay.
ON THE RIDE TO SCHOOL, I took the time to look at the old neighborhood. It had once been the place where people with money lived. Then things aged and it began to run down. Ten years ago, the neighborhood had started to come back. These big houses were on half-acre lots. It was perfect place if you had children because of the big backyards. Now there was a mix of older people, who had lived here forever, and families like ours.
The neighborhood had an easy rhythm about it that made you feel at home. It was the type of neighborhood you would only find in a small town. No one locked their doors. We all were friendly and looked out for each other. Part of the charm was the giant oak and maple trees that lined the streets and created a canopy. It was a great place to grow up.
Greg laid down the rules before we were in the high school parking lot.
“This is the first year we’ll both be in the same school since grade school. You will not embarrass me and act like a dork in front of my friends.”
“I’m not a dork,” I said, letting him know he’d hurt my feelings.
Tami didn’t help, she giggled. I gave her a mock scowl and got her laughing even more.
“Settle down, David. I know you’re not a dork, just don’t act like one.”
Greg and I were actually very close for brothers with a three-year age difference. He was a senior and one of the Big Men on Campus. I would start as a lowly freshman. Greg never tore me down in public like a lot of brothers do to their siblings. Mom and Dad taught us that you didn’t embarrass each other outside the home. Believe me, break that rule and Mom and Dad could be much more embarrassing.