Living with Jackie Chan (2 page)

Clover jumps up on the bed.

“Are you hungry?” Larry asks. “Want me to make you something? I already ate, cuz I’ve got a hot date. Sorry to leave you on your first night and all, but my girlfriend got tickets to this concert way before we knew you were coming and —”

“No worries,” I say. To be honest, it’s kind of a relief.

He punches my arm. “This is gonna be great. It really is.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Thanks for letting me stay with you.”

“Of course! You’re my nephew!” He ruffles my hair as if I’m still the little kid he remembers.

“OK, I gotta go finish getting ready. You make yourself at home. Tomorrow we’ll spend the whole day together.”

“Cool,” I say. He drops my duffel bag on the floor and leaves.

Clover mews at me, so I scratch her head. Above the foldout couch, there’s a giant Jackie Chan poster. The bookcase is filled with martial arts movies, including what must be every Jackie Chan movie ever made, and a bunch of karate trophies Larry got when he competed in high school and college. Larry’s always been obsessed with Jackie Chan, even though Jackie does kung fu, not karate. Larry says it’s because when he was a kid and starting to get into karate, there were never any kick-ass karate actors to get obsessed about. I guess there still aren’t.

I sit down, and Clover rubs against my arm. The bathroom is just down the hall, and I can hear Larry singing “I Gotta Feelin’.”

I lean back and stare at the ceiling. It’s covered with the glow-in-the-dark stars he put up there for me that summer I stayed here. I remember the first night, I was scared and wanted to go home. Larry lay down next to me and we stared at the stars until they started to dim. He didn’t say a thing. He just stayed there next to me, his huge muscled arm pressing against my scrawny one, letting me know he was still there.

“You OK, bud?” Larry stands in the doorway. He’s wearing a white button-up shirt and black jeans. His aftershave wafts in and catches in the back of my throat. The cat sneezes and dashes out of the room.

I sit up. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

He gives me a look, like he knows I’m not. But then he shakes it off. “Well, how do I look?” He turns around for me, kind of dancing. The gold chain around his neck sparkles.

“I dunno about the chain,” I say.

He fingers it. “No?”

I shake my head.

“All right. I’ll ditch it. So, don’t wait up for me. And uh . . . If my door’s closed in the morning, lie low if you can. That’ll be, you know, my sign. That I have company.”

“Should I hide in here till she leaves?”

“No, no. No hiding. It’s just . . . I didn’t want you to come knocking on the door or anything. You know. If you need something.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Right. OK! Well, thanks for being cool about me going out your first night here. But wait’ll you meet this girl. She’s really special. You’ll totally understand why I didn’t want anyone else taking my ticket.”

“No worries,” I say. “Have fun!” He gives me a thumbs-up and sort of bounces down the hall.

I fall back on the bed again and stare up at Jackie Chan, who looks way too happy. Kinda like Larry.

My phone buzzes, but I ignore it. I know it’s probably my mom making sure I got here safely. But it’s too late for that. It’s too late for checking in and making sure I’m OK. She should have been checking in a long time ago. But she didn’t. No one did.

When I wake up, the apartment is quiet. It’s 2:06 a.m. I roll over and hear a high-pitched grunting noise at the end of the bed. It’s Clover. I see her in the TV light, stretching out her surprisingly long furry legs. I reach for the remote and turn off the TV. I must have fallen asleep watching
Dragons Forever,
Larry’s favorite Jackie Chan movie.

Up above, the floor creaks as if someone’s in a rocking chair. The stars on the ceiling have all faded out, but I stare up and listen.
Creak-creak, creak-creak.
Slowly. In a definite rhythm. The creaking stops and footsteps cross the ceiling. Then it’s quiet.

Clover grunts again and starts to purr. I wish I could be that happy when I sleep. But I never sleep well. Not since . . . not for a while now.

I reach over and turn on the light and wait a minute, then shut it off again. The stars on the ceiling are back. I remember Larry had tried to make actual constellations, but he got frustrated and ended up making his own shapes. Instead of the big dipper, he made a smiley face. I smile, remembering.

And then I hear it.

A faint crying above me. Like a kitten, almost. But then it gets louder. And I know what it is.

A baby.

My heart starts to thump against my chest as the cries get louder.

Then footsteps hurry across the ceiling again. A muffled voice, soothing. More footsteps. Then,
creak-creak, creak-creak.
The crying gets less frantic.

But my heart is still punching the inside of my chest.

I put my pillow over my head to shut out the sounds.

But I can still hear them in my mind.

And I can see him. My baby. Wrapped tightly in a yellow blanket, a little blue cap on his head.

And me, walking away.

In the morning, I get up and get dressed before I leave my room, just in case Larry got lucky. I step into the hall and peer down to see if his door is closed, which it is. I try to imagine what a woman who’s into Larry would be like, but can’t.

It’s only nine o’clock, so I figure I have time to make a quick breakfast before I disappear for a while and give him and his girlfriend some privacy.

I leave a bit of milk from my cereal bowl for the cat and go outside. As I walk down the sidewalk, I try to remember the neighborhood, but nothing seems familiar. At the corner, there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts, so I go in and buy some coffee and head back to the apartment building and sit on the stoop. It’s Sunday, and the neighborhood seems to be mostly asleep. I take a sip and lean my head back on the cement wall along the steps.

Down the sidewalk, I see a woman pushing a baby carriage toward me. My heart automatically skips a beat. I start to get up to go back inside, but I realize Larry didn’t give me a key yet.

I’m locked out.

Crap.

I lean my head back and close my eyes again. I quietly hum the first song that comes to mind to block out any baby sounds.

“Black Eyed Peas?” a voice asks.

I sit up. The woman, who turns out to be about my age, is standing at the base of the steps, her hands squeezed around the bar of the carriage.

“Yeah. Dumb song stuck in my head,” I say. I try to act calm. But all I can think is that here’s this girl, my age, with a baby. And it’s too much.

“Think you could help me with this thing? This is my building.”

No,
I think.
No, I cannot help you.

But instead, I say, “Sure,” and purposefully head to the other end of the carriage. Together, we lift it up the steps and into the foyer. Then she unlocks the interior door.

“Thanks,” she says. She waits for me to do something else. Like leave the building.

“So, um, this is my building, too,” I say. “But I forgot my key.”

She gives me a
Yeah, right
look.

“No, really. I’m staying with my uncle, Larry.

“Larry? The Karate Man?” The way she says it, it’s more like she’s saying, “The crazy guy?”

“Yeah. I just moved here.”

“To live with Larry?”

“Just for the school year.”

She nods. “So you’ll be going to Roosevelt Tech, then?”

“Yeah.”

“What year are you?”

“Senior. You?” As soon as I ask, I realize that if she has a kid, maybe she doesn’t go to school anymore. Way to be sensitive.

“Same.”

The baby makes a noise.

“Uh-oh, I better take him to his parents before he wakes up.”

“Oh,” I say. “You’re just babysitting.”

She laughs. “You thought he was
mine
? No, thank God. Can you imagine?”

I fake a laugh.
Yes.

“No. I’m just the babysitter,” she says. “Sometimes I take him on Sunday mornings so his parents can catch up on some sleep. He keeps them up a lot. Um, are you all right?”

“Huh? Yeah. Fine.” I take another sip of my coffee to hide my face.

The baby starts crying.

“Shoot,” she says. “Here he goes. He’s a howler when he’s hungry.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She gives me that creepy look again. “You do? How?”

“I could hear him last night, I think. He must be in the apartment above mine. Either that or there’s another baby in the building.”

She nods. “No, just him. Well, see you around, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

“Look. I don’t mean to be all paranoid or anything, but do you mind if I buzz you in once I get to my apartment? We have strict rules about letting in strangers.”

Do I really look like a serial killer?

“No worries,” I say.

She pushes the carriage through the door and it closes behind her.

I lean back against the wall and wait, wondering if she’ll really buzz me in. Standing in the stuffy entryway, I feel trapped. And hot. And like I don’t belong here. Not outside. Not inside. Not anywhere.

But after a minute the buzzer goes off and the door clicks, so I quickly push it open.

I was smart or dumb enough not to lock the apartment door, at least, so I go in quietly and head back to my room. Finally, about an hour later, I hear Larry singing at the top of his lungs. I don’t hear anyone else, so I poke my head out the door.

“Coast clear?”

“What? Oh. Yeah. Um, I forgot about our signal and shut my door out of habit. Sorry.”

I shake my head.

“Did you get breakfast?” Larry saunters into the kitchen. “What a night. I think I’m in love, Sam Man. I really do.”

“Wow.”
And please, for the love of God, don’t call me that ever again.

“Yeah. She’s awesome. You know why she didn’t want to stay over?”

“Tell me.”

“She said you and I should spend time together. In fact, she almost called off our date last night, she felt so bad about me leaving you alone on your first night here.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t you get it? That’s what makes her so cool. She’s so unselfish. You’ve gotta meet her. I’m telling you. She could be the one.” He opens the fridge and pulls out a tub of plain yogurt and a carton of eggs.

“How long have you been dating?” I ask.

“Only a few months. But, Sam, it’s like I’ve known her all my life.”

“Wait. Is me being here going to screw things up? I mean, don’t you, like, want some privacy?”

He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “We can always go to her place for that. Don’t worry about it. I’m psyched you’re here! Are you kidding? Samurai Sammy!” He does a bunch of karate moves around the kitchen, then circles over to me and smacks my back.

As I watch him, I wonder how on earth this guy can be related to my dad.

“If you’re sure,” I say. I sit at the kitchen table and watch him make his breakfast.

“You gonna want some of this? It’s a protein thing I make.”

“Um. No, thanks. I’m good.”

He starts dumping stuff into a blender. “I’ve been making this concoction for, like, a month, and I’m feeling great! You should try it sometime. No steroids. Just all organic stuff. It’s amazing.” He squeezes what looks like a half a jar of honey into the blender, then turns it on until the concoction becomes smooth and a nasty-looking brown color.

“Looks appetizing,” I say.

He pours himself a giant glass and sits across from me. “Bottoms up!” His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he chugs half the glass.

“So,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “We’ve got one week together before school starts. How should we entertain ourselves?”

“Don’t you need to work?”

“Funny you should ask.” He sits up straighter in his chair, all excited. “OK, so check this out. You know I still teach karate at the local YMCA, right?”

I nod.

“Well, they asked me to do karate camp this week. This is a great chance for me to recruit some students for the rest of the year. Because you know with my charm, one class and they’ll be hooked, right? And I was thinking how you used to do karate, and you could help me out. Wouldn’t that be fun? We could be partners!”