Kimchi & Calamari(5)

Within minutes the Life Skills classroom was humming like a tenor sewing-machine orchestra. My cue to get Kelly’s attention.

Think, Joseph, something witty.

My friends say I never shut up and yet there I was, a poet out of words. An iPod without a Play button.

Finally, it hit me.

“Hey, Kelly, guess which local pop-culture icon turned fourteen yesterday? Here’s a hint: it’s not a movie star or Mrs. Randall.” I spoke loudly over the gunning sewing machines, knowing Mrs. Randall was listening too.

“Hmm, let me guess. Joseph Calderaro?” Kelly opened her green, glittery eyes wide, like she had no idea.

I nodded, pretending to be surprised. “How’d you know?”

“Happy belated birthday, Joseph,” Mrs. Randall said as she passed my sewing station. She’s one of those easygoing teachers who doesn’t mind if we talk, as long as we get our work done.

“Mrs. Randall, do you know what they call an explosion in a kitchen in France?”

She shook her head. “What?”

“Linoleum Blownaparte.”

“Cute, Joseph,” she said, smiling. “Now don’t forget to adjust your thread tension.”

I lowered the dial from three to one and looked over at Kelly. She was smiling back at me. Directly at me.

“Yeah, happy late birthday,” Kelly said, flashing a twenty-four-karat-gold grin.

God, she was perfect. Even her hair, what with how it was flipped back with silver clips like the stanchions on the Verrazano Bridge.

Last year our art teacher told us that Mona Lisa has been gazed upon more than any other woman in the history of the world. Personally, I don’t think she’s much to look at, what with that foot-long forehead and her lips clamped shut like she’s got dental problems. Kelly, on the other hand, has two straight rows of pearls in her mouth.

“So where’d you spend the day commemorating your birth, at a nudist colony?” Robyn Carleton shouted from her sewing station.

I wished I could tell her that I was having a humongous birthday bash this weekend, just so I could invite Kelly.

“I skipped the party this year,” I said. “All those flashing cameras from the paparazzi hurt my eyes.”

Then Kelly told the whole class that she was having a retro-disco party when she turned fourteen in August. “I’ve got fifty names on the invite list, and I’ve barely begun,” she said, just as Rhonda Gardner walked over to her, whispered something, and pointed to Lewis.

My friend Frankie Marquette told me that I was setting myself up for rejection by liking Kelly. And not just because she’s athletic and pretty, though she is very athletic and pretty. Kelly is rich, too. Her dad owns a bunch of restaurants in central Jersey. Mom and Dad celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary at one of the Gerkens’ seafood restaurants last winter. Mom said the salmon was melt-in-your-mouth tender, but Dad complained that the waiters buzzed around the table like nervous bees.

I think Frankie completely underestimates the power of humor. He thinks you impress girls with how many push-ups you do in gym or by wearing hundred-dollar jeans that look a hundred years old. Me? I say a guy can get a girl interested by making her laugh.

Five minutes left in the period and my heart was pounding boom-ba-ba-boom like a bass drum. I had to time my every move so that I’d leave just as Kelly did. A Saturday matinee date was at stake.

The God of Perfect Timing must like drummers. Kelly and I walked out of class side by side.

“Hey, I hear you’re playing an amazon softball team today,” I said, holding the door open for her.

She nodded. “Paterson won the division title for the past two years. But right now we’ve got the best record in the league.”

We passed the science labs and headed to the lockers. Kelly told me she’d been taking private pitching lessons all spring. “Paterson has an awesome hitter who’s six feet tall. I hope all this extra coaching helps me strike out that giant.”

My mind was racing, ready to pop the question. I even had this dumb baseball riddle from Gina to tell her. But I had to be quick. English class was next, way down the hall.

“Hey, Kelly, I was wondering—”

Wham! Who wedged right between us but Lewis. He played like I was the Invisible Man and he was the suave superhero, yakking it up with my girl Kelly. And that was it. Advantage came and went for the birthday boy.





The Emperor with No Clothes




I opened my bedroom door early Saturday to find Gina standing there with her lips curved in a horse-shoe.

“Eeyore and I are not having a good morning,” she grumbled. Her stuffed donkey was tucked under her arm.

“Whatsamatta?”