Absolutely Almost(57)

            I like when it rains in New York.





putting

it together.




            I didn’t mean to take that A-10 Thunderbolt down off the closet shelf. I really didn’t. I meant to leave it up there forever.

            But somehow, when I wasn’t thinking too good maybe, I took it down. And I opened the box. And I peeled the tape off the tops of the little plastic bags. Carefully, so none of the tiny pieces would spill out.

            And I started to put it together.

            It was easier this time, since I didn’t have to go so slow, waiting for Dad to help. It was easier this time, because I’d done it before. The directions made more sense. The pieces fit together right, exactly perfect.

            I didn’t mean to build a real model A-10 Thunderbolt. But every day, it got just a little bit bigger.





smart.




            Calista and her boyfriend broke up. For real. She didn’t tell me at first, but I knew she was sad. Somehow I just knew. And when I asked her about it, she started crying, right there on the couch. Not grown-up crying either, but big, blubbery kid sobs.

            “I’m sorry, Albie,” she said. Tears were running down her face. “I’m such a mess today. Just ignore me, okay? It’s not a big deal. We’ll start on your homework.”

            But when Calista was in the bathroom washing her tears off, I snuck out of the apartment and down the elevator and outside to the bodega.

            “Can I have some ice cream?” I asked Hugo. “I don’t have any money, but I’ll stack lots of cups tomorrow. Three hundred. A thousand, even.”

            Hugo tilted his head to the side. “No donuts today?” he asked.

            “Calista’s sad,” I told him.

            And when I said that, well, Hugo practically jumped out from behind the counter and leapt to the ice cream fridge. “Here,” he said, handing me a pint of mint chip. “Or do you think she’d rather have chocolate? Oh, that sweet girl. Is she okay?”

            “I think she’ll be all right,” I told him. “But she and her boyfriend broke up.”

            Hugo shook his head. “That boy must be an idiot,” he said.

            I agreed.

            When I left the bodega, I had a plastic bag stuffed full of ice cream—mint chip and chocolate and cherry vanilla and caramel swirl and Heath bar crunch. Hugo said it was on him, I didn’t even have to stack cups for it.

            Calista practically chewed my head off when I got back inside the apartment. “Where on earth did you go?” she yelled at me. She had her phone in her hand. She’d been dialing someone. “You gave me nine heart attacks.”

            I held out the plastic bag. “It’s from Hugo,” I told her. I took the ice creams out, one by one, and set them on the table. And then, because I thought she might be worried, I said, “Even though this is ice cream, it isn’t an ice cream day. It’s a sad day. But I think it’s too late to go to the zoo.”

            “Oh, Albie.” And wouldn’t you know it, Calista started crying again. But this time it seemed like it was okay. “Come here.” And she stretched out her arms and wrapped me in a hug. A tight one.

            “You seemed like you needed a sad day,” I told her, through the pinch of the hug.

            She laughed a tiny laugh. “You were right,” she said. She stretched out her arms to look at me. “How did you get so smart?”

            I just shrugged.

            • • •

            We ate ice cream sundaes instead of dinner. I didn’t ask, but it seemed like, by the time I went to bed, Calista was maybe feeling just the tiniest bit better.