Circumstances 50

After school, Gary and I were sitting on the patio.  Hummingbirds were darting around like they did, except when they were hovering.  One hovered right in front of me, about three feet away, for about 5 seconds.  He seemed to be studying me.  I was sure studying him.

Then he darted and swooped and was gone.  But there were several of them.  I watched another, and listened to Gary.  He was praising me.  That made me uncomfortable.  I hated getting criticized.  I liked getting praise, but I’d had so little of it in my life, I wasn’t sure how to react.  So I was trying to pay more attention to the hummingbirds than to Gary, but some of what he was saying couldn’t help but filter through.

“... you said that.  I felt like cheering.  By the way, I heard Mr. Johnson’s gone, that they took his keys, let him get some personal stuff out of his office, then escorted him out.”  He yawned, and scratched his ear, and I kept watching the hummingbirds.  “That was your doing.  Can you imagine, you doing that?  The kid who came to live with us only a few weeks ago couldn’t have done that.  No way.  You got the vice-principal fired!  You’re the man, man!  And you’ve changed!”

I squirmed in my seat.  I had to say something, just to get him to stop.  “Well, maybe a little.  You had a big part in it if I have.  So have your parents.”

“We didn’t do much.  You’re the one who’s changed.  Not only your mood and personality, either.  You’re taller now, too, and you’re gaining weight.  Oh, and shaving, remember.  Also, you carry yourself differently, now; you stand up straighter.  You get involved in conversations more, just jump in instead of sitting quietly in your chair, looking as though you’d like to hide in it.  I’d point out a couple of other things that have changed, more personal things, but you never know who might be listening.”  He grinned at me, and as he had an infectious one, I had to grin back, even though I wished we were talking about something else.

“Yep, you’ve changed.  A boyfriend now, and a whole school that knows who you are, and—”

I had to interrupt again.  Jeeze!  He’d been going on for five minutes now.  “Well, if I have changed, a little bit, don’t you think it might be as much or more because of you guys than me?”  I sat up a little straighter.  “Maybe because I’m now living in a home where I experience love every day?  And I don’t mean just for me.  I see how you guys are with each other.  No put downs, no bitching about things.  I see you supporting each other.  I don’t hear any yelling or criticizing; man, that’s different for me.  You have no idea!”

I was warming up to what I was saying, and it felt good, letting this all come out.  “Do you think maybe eating three good meals a day, every single day, and having snacks available whenever I want them and not being made to feel guilty for taking them, that that might make a difference?” My voice was getting louder.  “Do you think living with people that not only love me, but respect me, who ask for my opinion, who look to see if I need anything and then make sure I have it, that I have money in my pocket, that I can get rides when I need them, do you think any of that might make me change my outlook a little?”

OK, maybe I was getting a little worked up, but it felt good, even if my eyes were suddenly having a little leakage problem.  It felt good to be able to voice something of the feelings I’d been having.  Some of the gratitude I felt.

Gary was watching me, and then stood up and stepped over next to me.  “And you know,” he said softly, serious now, “every bit of that is what you deserved, what you should have been getting all along.”  He reached down and gripped my shoulder, then turned away and said, “Anyway, I need to get wet. Let’s swim.”

I was happy to do that.  It’d be hard for him to talk any more and further embarrass me if he was under water.

We were still in the pool when Darryl came out onto the patio.  Mrs. Jenks had let him in.  He took one look at us and began stripping off.  He got down to his boxers, then let out a whoop and ran to the pool and dived in.

I guess he forgot that diving while wearing underwear is much different from diving in Speedos.  But I was glad he had forgotten, because Gary and I had fun for the next ten minutes playing keep away with his boxers, which he had a hard time recovering from us, what with trying to keep one hand between his legs the entire time, and for all the laughing we were all doing.  He did get them back, eventually, but had to expose himself quite a bit doing so.  I wondered if Mrs. Jenks was looking; we were sure making a lot of noise.  If she was, she never let on.  She was pretty good about not embarrassing kids.

That night, after dinner, Mr. Jenks called Gary and me into his den.  When we were all seated, he told me he’d learned my mother would be terminated the next day.  He said it was likely she’d be let go in the morning.  She’d be told that she’d get one month’s severance pay, but she would be asked to clean out her desk immediately.  He thought she’d probably get her stuff from work, then pack all her other stuff in her car and drive north.  He figured she’d probably hit our town around five in the afternoon, if traffic was normal.

“The thing is, if she comes here then and tells you to go with her, there isn’t too much we can do about it.  You’ll have to go with her.  But, if we can get her to wait till the next morning, Saturday, that’s different.  I’ll have had time then to arrange things.  So, tomorrow, after school, I want you to go to a hotel rather than coming home.  If you’re not here when she comes, she can’t pick you up.  I can tell her to come back Saturday morning, that you’ll be here then.”

He grinned, a little sadly I thought.  “So you won’t be here, I made you a reservation.  For you both, of course.”

He handed Gary a card with the hotel’s name on it and the reservation number.  “I’ll have a car waiting for you near the side exit of the school tomorrow.  It’ll take you to the hotel.  Don’t come back here till the next morning.  Call a cab, and have them bring you here, but not before ten AM.  Anytime after ten on Saturday, we’ll be ready.”

He’d explained it all to me a couple of nights before.  It was weird, but we’d talked about what he was planning to do, and I’d decided to go along with it.  He’d not been sure it would work, but had thought the chances were pretty good, and I sure hadn’t had anything else to suggest.

So after school on Friday, Gary and I went out the side door and found a limo was waiting in the parking lot.  We climbed in, and were driven to the hotel.

I don’t know about most 14-year-old boys, but I know about this one.  Me.  I know that spending the night alone with your best friend in a fancy hotel, no parents around, eating in a five star restaurant, visiting their spa, having a massage—and let me tell you, that was something different, especially when you get hard as easily as I do and, well, moving on—ordering one of their adult movies on the TV in the room, ordering hot fudge sundaes from room service, sampling one of those little bottles of scotch in the mini-bar and deciding you had to be nuts to like that crap,  showering together in the huge multi-head shower they had, the whole ball of wax, well, it was all exciting and fun, and I didn’t think about my mother at all until we were both in our beds, and then I got out of mine and crawled into Gary’s, and was finally able to get to sleep.