“Dinner’s ready,” Dennis yelled from the kitchen.
“Feed me,” Mom said.
Dennis and Mom were gross. So lovey-dovey. Terrence and I rolled our eyes and gagged.
Dennis placed the chicken noodle casserole on two pot holders in the middle of the table. Terrence and I had eaten it for lunch, but at least Dennis’s meal actually tastes like chicken. Mom passed around plates. Terrence grabbed me a Tab from the fridge and a Coke for himself. I took four forks from the silverware tray.
We said a quick prayer thanking God for the food and hoping no one died anytime soon with the impending threat of world war. You know, the usual.
The conversation lagged a bit until Dennis asked about our day. Mom started complaining about the idiotic guests who stayed in the many rooms at the Flat Inn. “Honestly, some people shouldn’t be allowed to travel.”
Dennis was next. “It’s very busy. The film crew has been at the store every hour on the hour buying supplies. Sales are most definitely up. They should film a movie here every year. It’s definitely good for business.”
Terrence didn’t talk much. Like me, he wasn’t quite used to this new family dynamic. When we first moved in, he spent every moment in his room. He only came out for food but usually brought it back to his room. We rarely made eye contact. We were, like, living in a dream world. Our parents had done this to us, my dad, his mom. I just hoped it was worth it. The secrets. The extramarital affair. The sex. I hope it was worth it in the end. (I can’t believe I wrote sex. Pray for me, dear reader. Please.)
I didn’t tell what my day was like. Mom did that. She was the one who brought up the shower. And everyone laughed. “It was probably a scene out of Carrie,[18] right?” she asked.
“Well, yeah, water instead of blood,” I said.
“And you got suspended?” Dennis asked.
“For one day. I wouldn’t even call that a suspension.”
Terrence scooped mashed potatoes onto his plate. “Rodney was pissed,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you were his partner, and now he has to do the work.”
I laughed. “I’m going to enjoy doing worksheets for the rest of the semester. I regret nothing.”
Mom choked back a laugh.
“Does this suspension mean I’m grounded?” I asked.
“No. I can’t watch you.” Mom handed me a piece of buttered bread, and I set it on my plate. “So have you decided on who you’re going to take?”
“No—”
“It’s a big decision.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or serious.”
“Dead serious.”
“If I don’t take Dana, she’ll kill me.”
“With friends like Dana, you certainly don’t need enemies,” Dennis said.
“You know that’s right,” Terrence said, chugging his Coke.
“Or Max,” Mom said.
“He’d be correcting everyone on the set. That would be annoying,” I said.
“Do you have any other friends?” Dennis asked.
Mom whacked him on the arm. “Dear, she has friends.”
“I have friends. I have friends,” I said.
“Of course you do, Laura. I didn’t mean it how it came out,” Dennis said, apologizing.
The truth was, I didn’t have a lot of friends. I had a lot of adversaries—but those certainly didn’t count as friends.
“Well, take someone who won’t overshadow you. Who will let you have your day in the spotlight.”
“And that certainly wouldn’t be Dana,” Mom said, clearly giving her opinion on Dana.
And I got it. Dana was annoying.
Terrence scooped himself a third helping of casserole while trying not to laugh. No one ever gave him hell for his friends. Dim-witted as they might have been.
“What about Terrence?” Dennis asked.
“Dad, don’t,” he said, shaking his head.
“Everyone wants you to pick them. Just like in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,[19] everyone is going to want your Golden Ticket. It might as well be Terrence.”
“Yeah, honey, don’t pressure her,” Mom said, patting his hand.
“No pressuring, just thought this would be an awesome bonding time for them.”
“Laura, you don’t have to,” Terrence said, getting up to grab another Coke for himself. “Want another Tab?”
I nodded as sirens blared in the distance. Wooooooweeeeewooooo. The crew was testing the sirens for the fifth night in a row.
Chapter Five
Terrence’s grandmother, whom I called Grandma Jennings (she wanted me to call her that), left a tin of homemade fudge on the back steps. Dennis took a handful, melted them, and poured it all over some homemade vanilla ice cream (homemade—it said so right on the label). I grabbed a bowl and a spoon and headed to the enclosed porch to eat in peace, but Terrence was already out there, reading the liner notes to Purple Rain.[20] He collected tapes like I collected comic books. (Those selection sheets from Columbia House[21] were always filled out. Eight tapes for a penny. I called it a scam. He said it wasn’t. But he was also known as Terry with a Y and Terri with an I on those forms. So who was scamming whom?) I sat down with Alpha Flight, volume one, issue sixteen. It wasn’t out until Friday, but Dewayne Smith, owner of the local bookstore, liked to hook me up early with my favorites, which included X-Men, the Flash, and Firestorm. Especially Firestorm.
“Who do you think would win in a fight, Batman or Superman?” Terrence asked me, picking up another tape from his overflowing tape deck.
“Superman—wait—Batman—wait—Christopher Reeve or Adam West—or are we going by comic and—”
“Wow. You are a geek.”
“Geeks will inherit the earth,” I said with a mouth full of fudge ice cream.
“Yeah, they will,” he said, placing Run-DMC’s[22] self-titled album in the tape player and then pressing play. (They’re a lot more aggressive with their rhymes than the Sugarhill Gang[23] or Kurtis Blow[24] or Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.[25])
“Hard Times”[26] started, and he nodded and tapped his foot to the beat. “I finally got it,” he said, handing me a cassette tape.
“No way,” I said. “It was your white whale.”
“I know. It came on the radio, and—boom—it was mine,” he said, taking the cassette tape back and replacing the Run-DMC in the boom box. Somehow he’d pressed the record button just at the right time, praying to the radio gods that the DJ didn’t talk just as the song started. It was a lot of work to record a song off the radio.
He turned the volume to full blast and looked at me and smiled.
Not many would admit that Joni Mitchell was one of your favorites. But Terrence wasn’t like most people. His musical faves were eclectic. They ranged from Johnny Cash to Billy Joel.
I wasn’t exactly a connoisseur when it came to music. Whatever MTV deemed to be in the top twenty, I listened to—and Madonna. But when Terrence was at his mom’s, I’d been known to come in here and listen to his music. He had cassettes full of different musical stylings. CCR, The Band, Queen, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, even a little John Denver, seriously…
18
A horror novel written by Stephen King. It was published in 1974. Seriously, it’s about high school and the struggles we girls go through and the revenge scenarios some of us imagine. Pretty smart for a guy who was writing about girls.
19
It’s a movie that came out in 1971 and starred Gene Wilder. It’s also a book but has a slightly different title,
22
Hip-hop group from Queens, New York, consisting of Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, and Jason Mizell.
23
Hip-hop group from New Jersey consisting of Michael “Wonder Mike” Wright, Henry “Big Bank Hank” Jackson, and Guy “Master Gee” O’Brien. They are known for their 1979 hit “Rapper’s Delight
25
Hip-hop group consisting of DJ Grandmaster Flash and five rappers, Melle Mel, the Kidd Creole, Keith Cowboy, Mr. Ness/Scorpio, and Rahiem.
26
A song by Run-DMC. It was released in 1983 as a cassette single under Profile records. It was originally recorded by Kurtis Blow in 1980 for his self-titled debut album.