Finding the Worm (28 page)

I thought hard for a couple of seconds, then realized what he meant. “Why did you tell me about Quentin? Why did I need to know beforehand? Why didn’t you let me find out with the rest of them?”

“Because memorizing your haftarah and living your haftarah are two different things.”

That was all he said. I’m still not exactly sure what he meant. But I’m working on it.

After that, I walked out of his office and closed the door behind me. Then I headed around the corner and down the main hall to the banquet room. The rest of the day went like I thought it would. Hugging. Razzing. When the music started, I had to dance with my mom, in front of the entire crowd, while the band played an old song called “Mr. Wonderful.” That was the worst of it. Lonnie’s
never going to let me live that down. But after the dance was over, Beverly caught me by the arm and pulled me behind a purple curtain. She kissed me, and I kissed her back.

Then she said, “You did it.”

“Yeah, I did it. I passed.”

That made her smile. “You always pass.”

“So do you. Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know, Julian. I guess it just
is
.”

She kissed me again, real hard, and then let me go. I walked out from behind the curtain and back to the reception. I didn’t think much about Quentin for the rest of the bar mitzvah.

But I thought about him when I got home, when I saw my Bobby Murcer baseball glove in the corner of my room, and I’ve thought about him for the last week, because there are reminders wherever I look. What I’m worried about is what happens when the reminders are gone, when I’m grown up, when Thirty-Fourth Avenue is maybe just a place I once lived, and the guys are maybe just guys I once knew.

I don’t want to stop thinking about Quentin: I loved him. I love him.

It
is
the never-ness that gets you. It gets you right in the gut. I never even thought about
never
until Quentin got sick, and now, since he died, it’s all I think about.
What a teensy-weensy thing
now
is, and what a gigantic thing
never
is. It’s like we were sailing together on a boat, Lonnie and me and Eric and Shlomo and Howie and Quentin, and then, for no reason, Quentin fell overboard, and now he’s drowning in the
never
, and we’re still sailing ahead in the
now
, and I can’t throw him a rope, and I’m standing at the railing, and I’m leaning as far out as I can, and he’s still bobbing up and down, but he’s getting harder and harder to see. It’s like I’m losing him over and over again, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.

How can that be?

On the other hand, how can it
not
be? I’m sitting here, at my desk, staring at Beverly’s painting of the Bowne House, and I’m thinking about all the dead people who were once alive inside that house. Dying is part of the big picture. It’s like the frame. You can’t have a picture without a frame. Well, I guess you could, if it was one of those tape-it-to-the-refrigerator jobs little kids draw. But real pictures,
big
pictures, have a frame.

You just have to remember you’re not on the outside of the frame looking in. You’re right smack in the middle of the picture, but it’s not a picture of just you, because if it were a picture of just you, you’d never be able to fill it up. The things you do, the stuff you learn, the people you love—that’s what fills up the picture. Even when the colors start to fade.

If not for the New York Writers Workshop, Julian Twerski would never have drawn his first breath. My gratitude to the organization is enduring.

This book wouldn’t have been written without the suggestions, criticisms, proddings, and occasional hisses from the usual crew: Linda Helble (along with Spencer and Spicy Jane), Charles Salzberg (friend, mentor, and third-base coach of dubious judgment), Eric Rosenberg (memory jogger and lifelong friend), Allison Estes (whose literary insight is exceeded only by her psychic resilience), and Mississippi Luke.

It wouldn’t have been sold without the patience and diligence of Scott Gould of the RLR Agency.

It wouldn’t have come together in its present form without the wisdom and guidance, and the gentle editorial hand, of Chelsea Eberly of Random House.

Mark Goldblatt
is a lot like Julian Twerski, only not as interesting. He’s a widely published columnist, a novelist, and a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Twerp
was his first book for younger readers. He lives in New York City. Visit him online at
markgoldblattkids.com
.