Authors: Melissa Walker
“Thanks.”
“I think he’s from Ohio or something. So do you think he’s cool?” she asked.
“Who?”
“That kid, Ethan.”
“Oh,” I said, making pink circles on the apples of my cheeks like they do in the commercials. Ethan Garrison. I didn’t think much of him. He was tall and sort of goofy looking, with floppy brown hair that was too long to be short and neat, but not long enough to be, like, intentionally long hair. It was
unkempt
. That’s the word that came to mind when he walked into my AP American History class on the first day of school and sat across the room from me. “Yeah, he seems nice.”
Amanda smiled then, and I saw its meaning, even in the mirror. It meant that Ethan had become more than the new kid—he was now Soon-to-Be Amanda’s Boyfriend.
She always had a boyfriend. Amanda had dated Daniel Bick and Rob Morris and Seth Hirschberg—each for three months plus. She’s the kind of girl who knows how to smile at a guy, what to say to make him feel good, how to throw her head back ever so slightly when she laughs to show off her long, elegant neck. She’s gorgeous, too, but not in an obvious way. She has really short blond hair—a pixie cut that might look boyish or mom-like on someone else, but there’s something about her face. Her eyes are huge and open, almost, like, anime-sized. And they’re always full of light, a little joyful, a little teasing.
And now that I knew she had her sights set on Ethan, it was my job to be encouraging.
“He’s really funny in history,” I said. It was true. I had a positive feeling about him, like he was a nice guy who’d be good for my friend.
Amanda flopped down on the bed dramatically. “So we should study, right?”
She never spent long talking about guys—she wasn’t into that. She just established her interest and moved on.
“Yeah.” I sighed and pulled out my Honors English vocab sheet. We had this really hard teacher who drilled us on SAT words every week. The year before, two kids in her class got perfect verbal scores, so I guess her methods worked, but still—exhausting.
“Let me quiz you,” said Amanda.
I gave her my worksheet and rested my back against the wall. She stretched out on my pillow and put her legs across my lap.
“Celerity.”
I rolled my eyes. “Start with one I know!”
“That’s not any fun,” she said, smiling.
“I truly have zero idea,” I said. “I haven’t started studying these yet.”
“Okay, think of it this way: if you drank celery tea, it would probably just run straight through you.”
“You mean I’d have to pee?”
“Yes, and you’d have to rush to find a bathroom with
swiftness
and
speed
,” Amanda said with a grin. “Good, right?”
“I’m supposed to see the word
celerity
on a test and think of drinking celery tea—which I’m not even sure is a real thing—and having to run to the bathroom?”
“Yes!” She was superpleased with herself. “It’ll work. Trust me.”
We went through the rest of the list, and Amanda thought up silly memory devices for each one.
Capricious
: “Think of me! I’m a Capricorn and I am so
fickle
with guys.”
Wanton
: “This is how you act around Chinese food like wonton soup—totally
lustful
and
undisciplined
.”
Some of her ideas were a real stretch, but I spent the whole study session laughing.
“We’re so acing this test,” she said when she was packing up to go home.
“Obviously, because we’re geniuses.”
“Naturally.”
She gave me a small wave and an excited smile as she left my room. “Ethan tomorrow!” she said.
And I knew he’d be hers. Who could resist Amanda?
The first time I really noticed Ethan was when our history teacher, Mr. King, made an incredibly lame joke. I rolled my eyes, and then saw Ethan see me do it. He smiled. I smiled back. His smile? It was nice. But it wasn’t like I was hit by lightning or anything.
The second week of school, Amanda invited him to eat lunch with us for the first time. Henry, Aaron, Renee, Amanda, and I always had this one picnic table on the quad—we’d kind of claimed it freshman year. Amanda and I even carved our initials on the top right corner of the table: CLEMANDA = BFF.
When Ethan came over to sit, Amanda patted the space next to her, and he and I ended up across from each other. Everyone made awkward small talk with Ethan; it was horribly dull, so I said, “Enough small talk.”
And he said, “This isn’t small talk. This is
enormous
talk.” It’s a line from this old movie called
Frankie and Johnny
that my parents love.
So I snorted Dr Pepper through my nose. For real.
“Yes!” Ethan did a fist pump. “I got Clementine Williams to laugh.”
“Like that’s some big feat?” I challenged, feeling pretty flattered that he knew my full name; it was early in the year and we hadn’t even really talked to each other yet.
“You only break at the truly funny stuff,” he said. “I’ve noticed in history.”
Then he popped a Dorito in his mouth and grinned at Amanda.
“It’s true,” she said. “Clem has a totally selective funny bone.”
“Just because I don’t laugh at the preview parts of movies like
some
people,” I said.
“Ugh, I hate that!” said Ethan, crumpling his Dorito bag in disgust. “Could people’s humor be more generic?”
I looked pointedly at Amanda then, and she giggled as she raised her hand. “Guilty,” she said. “Those are the best parts!” Her voice came out all cute, and I saw Ethan melt.
That was the predictable moment of the day—guys always turned to goo for Amanda. But the amazing thing was, Ethan made me laugh extra hard, like, ten more times that afternoon.
As we walked to Mr. King’s history class together after lunch, we saw this kid in our grade named Kevin in the hall.
“Is it me, or does he look exactly like a young version of Mr. King?” Ethan whispered out of the side of his mouth.
I glanced at Kevin. “Completely.”
“YMK!” Ethan shouted at Kevin as we passed. He held up his hand for a high five, and inexplicably, Kevin smacked it.
“Hey, man,” Kevin said, as if Ethan shouting “YMK” at him made any sense at all.
“Young Mr. King,” Ethan whispered after Kevin was gone.
“I got it,” I said, my hand clapped over my mouth to stop the laughs.
“And
that
is why I like you,” said Ethan.
In class, our desks were in this U shape that Mr. King liked to say promoted discussion, and Ethan’s seat was right across from mine. We had just sat down when Sharon Golding walked in wearing sunglasses
over
her regular glasses. I glanced at Ethan with my
WTF?
face, and he mouthed “Six eyes?” I cracked up, but no one else even noticed.
Later when Mr. King called on me to talk about the causes of the Civil War, I answered with a smartass quote from
The Simpsons
, and Ethan let out a big guffaw.
It was like he and I shared this connection. We’d look over at each other and start laughing at least three times per class. After a few weeks Mr. King even said, “Clem and Ethan—if you were sitting together, I’d threaten to separate you. As it is, I’ll ask you to avoid flirtatious glances while I’m teaching.”
That made us laugh even harder. We weren’t flirting, we were just sort of becoming good friends. And it was great to be good friends with your best friend’s boyfriend, right?
We pull into the Grafton Harbor Marina in Grafton, Illinois, where the Illinois River meets the Mississippi. There’s a sign that says THE KEY WEST OF THE MIDWEST, and there appears to be a floating booze cruise nearby. This is not the place we should be right now.
I won’t go into great detail, but it seems that sometime in the night, our toilet clogged.
Ours
meaning mine and Olive’s.
“I think somebody had one too many Double Stuf Oreos last night,” I say at breakfast.
Olive scowls at me, but there’s no avoiding it. This morning, our family was faced with a foul, odorous reality. That’s why we’re all above deck now as Dad pulls alongside the dock—it is
way
stinky down below. I jump off the boat and tie us off.
An appreciative whistle echoes behind me.
“Nice cleat knot,” says Red. I recognize his voice before I see him. When I do turn around, I notice that his orange hair is tucked into a Boston Red Sox baseball cap. He looks cute. I smile at him.
“Thanks.”
Then I see his face contort. The smell from the head has hit him.
If this weren’t so hilarious, I’d be mortified. As it stands, though, I have to laugh.
Just then, Olive steps off the boat.
I look at her, then back at Red, raising my eyebrows.
“No way,” he whispers.
I nod. I feel bad selling out my own sister, but I can’t have him associating this awful smell with me for the rest of the summer.
Olive marches down the dock past Red like she hasn’t a care in the world. She holds her head a little too high, though, and I know she’s embarrassed.
I turn back to Red and remember that I really don’t want to talk to him any more than necessary.
“I should go—” I start, trying to get past him.
He lets me by, but then he follows me at a quick clip, keeping up with my long strides.
“Did you need something?” I ask him, when it’s clear that he’s not going off in his own direction.
“No,” he says.
I keep walking. He stays with me step for step.
“Well, yeah,” he continues. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”
“What?” I ask, more like
What? You’ve been thinking about the fact that you need to tell me something after you met me once for thirty seconds?
than
What have you been meaning to tell me?
But he takes it the second way.
“It’s about the bananas,” he says.
“The bananas …” I slow down my walk to a normal stroll.
“Yeah,” he says. “There were a ton in my cart the other day, and I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
“
Okaaay
…”
“I mean, you know, bananas are, like, the
worst
thing to have in closed spaces because they can really stink up the joint after a few days with that rotten-banana smell,” he says. “And it’s not like I’m Betty Crocker or something and planning to make banana bread when they start to turn. I mean, I’m kind of impressed with myself that I even know that you can do that with brown bananas, but just because I know you
can
do it doesn’t mean I’m capable of the actual execution of baking banana bread.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, barely keeping up with his verbal flow.
“But I wanted you to know that I’m not one of those people who lets bananas stink up the boat,” he says. “It’s just that my dad likes to have about five bananas a day—the man is like Mr. Chiquita over there, so we have to keep them stocked. It’s almost like he’s a banana chain-smoker.”
Then he chuckles to himself and takes a tiny notebook from his back pocket. He flips it open.
He stops walking, and so do I.
He writes something down, shuts the notebook, then looks up and sees my confusion.
“Oh.” He opens it again and shows me what he wrote.
Dad smokes a banana.
I stay silent.
“I like to draw,” says Red. “The image of my dad smoking a banana is one I want to capture at some point, so I have to remember it. Don’t worry, I’ll write ‘Inspired by Clem’ on the back so I won’t forget who gave me the idea.”
“I didn’t give you the idea,” I say, kind of impressed that he remembers my name.
What was his real name again? Josh? Joe? John?
“Well, not directly, but definitely indirectly,” says Red. “I wouldn’t have thought of it if I hadn’t been explaining to you that I’m not one of those people who has bananas everywhere that go brown. We don’t let them go brown. My dad eats them too fast!”
He pauses and I just stare at him.
“So, yeah,” he says, finally letting the awkwardness of this entire encounter wash over him for a moment. But just a moment. Then he smiles like we’re old friends. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“Uh … thanks.” I hide my grin because I don’t want to encourage Red, but I’m a little bit happy he told me, because I did have that thought about the bananas. And most people don’t think like I do. Only Amanda really. And Ethan.
“Do you remember my name, Clem?” he asks me suddenly.
“Of course.” I’m internally panicking but externally acting quite cool, I think.
He folds his arms across his chest and blocks the narrow bridge to land.
“What is it?”
“Well, I might not remember your actual name,” I say. “But the thing is, I gave you a nickname.”
His eyes widen in delight, but they’re tinged with suspicion, if I read him correctly. Which I think I do. This guy is like an open book. “Really?” he asks. “Tell me.”
And here’s where I don’t want to admit that my nickname is so obvious and lame. I quickly scan my brain—which I usually think of as a very sharp tool—and try to come up with a fake nickname. I can’t tell him that I’ve been thinking of him as “Red.”
“Please don’t say Carrot-Top or something awful like that,” he says, before I can answer. “Carrot tops are green, anyway.”
He does have a point there.
I’m still silent while he keeps going: “What is it, like, ‘Mr. Universe’? Or ‘That-Really-Smart-and-Funny-Guy’?”
Okay, as fast as my mind is, Red’s is faster. I’m totally pressured, and I cave.
“I was calling you Red in my head,” I say.
So lame.
“Hmm … original,” he says, but he’s smiling. “It’s James. James Townsend. You could go with JT, or just call me James, or even Red, if you must, though I prefer Burnt Sienna.”
I can feel my face turning burnt sienna.
“Cle-em!” shouts Olive. She’s peeking her head out of the dock deli and waving to me. “I need some money!”