“So she left you and your father?”
“Yes, she did. I guess I can’t blame her. It wasn’t really a happy home. I like to think at least she was happy. My father was a weak man. I never really saw her after she moved out.”
“She just left you behind?”
“Completely forgot about me. Had new children.”
“And that’s why you don’t trust women?”
“Are you Sigmund Freud now? Should I lie down on this couch?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I trust you.”
“You don’t trust me enough to tell me about your great love,” I said, and suddenly I was full of electricity again—like I was close enough to just go for it. “Was she by any chance a twin?”
Booker didn’t speak for a second, which was unusual. A sadness darkened his face before he caught himself and said, “I don’t want to talk about my past. How many times have I told you this?”
“Okay,” I said. My heart was beating too fast, so I switched gears. “I hate my parents. I love them, too. But mostly, I’m just tired of being around them. Does that make any sense? Loving and hating people at the same time?”
“Yes, I’m afraid it does.”
“So what should I be doing now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I’m just eighteen, and I know I’m supposed to be going gaga for my last year of high school and applying to colleges and making plans for the rest of my life—but I really don’t want to do anything except hang out with Alex and you.”
“Well, then be glad we both want to hang out with you, too. What a lucky thing—to have exactly what you want.”
“But it can’t last. After this year, everything will be different.”
“And yet there is now. It’s all yours and mine and Alex’s. Isn’t that divine?”
I smiled and then said, “I went out to dinner with my father last night, and he told me I had to write a fantastic college essay now that I wasn’t going to play soccer anymore. He went on and on about it and didn’t ask one question about my now. I don’t think he even knows about you or Alex.”
“His loss,” Booker said.
“I wish you were my father.”
“Don’t wish for stupid things.”
“Is it so stupid?”
“If I were your father, we couldn’t be friends, now, could we? You would hate me instead of your actual father. And I would feel obligated to make sure you were writing a fantastic college essay. We probably wouldn’t talk about anything else. And I certainly wouldn’t be playing your personal cupid if I were your father. So as you can plainly see, my being your father would ruin absolutely everything.”
I thought about it and laughed because it all made so much sense.
“Booker? If she walked into your life again—the love of your life—and she wanted to be with you, would you give love another chance?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“But if it could? Theoretically?”
“We’re different people now. Pablo Neruda said it better than I can. ‘Tonight I Can Write.’ Read that poem if you haven’t already. You’ll fall in love with Neruda and wish you were eighteen when he was—that you knew him in Chile a long time ago. I’d recite it for you now, but it would make me cry, and I hate crying in front of lovely young women.”
I swallowed hard and said, “ ‘There were moments when my love for her made me believe that I was better than I really was—or was it that she made me aware of my own potential, that she made it possible for me to transcend myself and truly become?’ Nigel Wrigley Booker, The Bubblegum Reaper.”
His eyes widened and then he roared, “How did you discover my middle name?”
“I . . .” But I couldn’t think up a good explanation on the spot.
“Did Alex tell you that? Did he show you my yearbook?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I’d never before seen Booker turn bright red.
“I’m not interested in Sandra Tackett or Louise Tackett, God rest her soul. And I need you to leave now. Right now!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was only trying to—”
“Leave me!”
Booker had never yelled at me like that before, either. His face was now turning purple, like he was about to have a stroke or something, and the look in his eyes was devastating, because I saw hatred swirling around his pupils. It scared me, so I left.
On the pavement, I called Alex and tried to tell him everything.
“Sit tight,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”
When he pulled up, Oliver was in the front seat looking glum. His glasses were taped together where the lenses met at the top of his nose, and his cheek was swollen.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“I could ask you the same,” Oliver said.
“Get in,” Alex said, and so I did.
We drove to the field where Alex and I had watched the hunter’s moon rise, and then we all exchanged information.
The pretty boys had started in on Oliver during lunch period, throwing Tater Tots dipped in ketchup at him, which explained the red spots on his shirt, so he reported them to the lunch monitor, who took two or three of the pretty boys to the principal’s office. The rest jumped him on his way home from school, breaking his glasses and leaving bruises on his ribs as punishment for being a “snitch.”