I sat back down in disgust. “My love life?”
He smirked. “Yup. See, she made you invite her over here. First she arranged to be in your class. Then she probably knew you’d be the only two freshmen in there, so she would be your partner. Her final sly move was to use her femi-mind tricks to control you into asking her out.”
“Femi-mind tricks?”
“Yeah. All the high school girls have ’em.”
I stared at AJ blankly. He’s used to that, so when he’s on a roll, it doesn’t affect him. He continued as though I were leaning forward on one arm, looking up at him in an awed silence. “See, you know how there’s, like, band camp and football camp and stuff right before school starts?”
I nodded as slightly as possible. I didn’t want to indicate any sort of agreement or anything.
“Well, for girls, I’ve heard there’s this special kind of camp that we’re not supposed to even know about. For maybe three days before freshman year, they go up to the high school for, like, hormone boot camp. I’m pretty sure the instructors are the senior cheerleaders or something. Anyway, the girls master essential feminine wiles, and then they use ’em on us.”
“Um, and you know this how?”
“Because of Elena Zubritskaya.”
Elena Zubritskaya was this girl who had moved to our town from Russia in seventh grade. She was short and petite, with dark hair and glasses. In middle school, she had been quiet, shy, and mostly invisible. I hadn’t seen her around in high school so far, but I guess AJ had.
“What about her?”
“What about her? What about her? Have you been walking the hallways blindfolded for the past two weeks? She went away for the summer a mouse, and came back a raging tigress!”
“Really? Little Elena?”
“Believe me, Pete, you are the last male in the world who’s still thinking of her as ‘little’ Elena. She’s a whole new woman. I mean, she always had a raging body …”
(She did? I honestly, honestly had never noticed.)
“… but now she’s working it. I mean, the girl is strutting through the building. She has completely morphed into a bespectacled love goddess! Plus, you know how she didn’t used to talk a whole lot, and we thought she couldn’t even speak English? Now she’s like ‘So heavy this books,’ and eleven guys suddenly appear to help her with her bag. Or she’ll go ‘I no have pencil,’ and instantly, there’s seventeen guys standing around her with pencils in their hands. She might not have her grammar down yet, but she’s suddenly fluent in the international language of love. And she’s leaving a trail of destruction. It’s sick.”
AJ took a break from talking to practice driving toward the hoop, while I sat there trying to follow what Elena Zubritskaya had to do with Angelika, or with AJ’s imaginary secret hot-girl boot camp. AJ isn’t a big fan of silence, though, so eventually he started lecturing me again. “So you see, Pete, that’s how I know this Angelika babe is bent on dominating and controlling your mind.”
“And what do you think I’m supposed to do about this?”
He tried a behind-the-back layup, watched the ball rattle around the rim before rolling off, and said, “Any control you think you have is an illusion. I recommend you just let it happen.”
I pondered this for a while. Then I picked out what I thought was one of the bigger gaping flaws in his so-called logic. “OK, then. Let’s just say Elena has suddenly been endowed with some kind of Victoria’s Secret mojo.”
“Oh, she has. She totally has.”
“Whatever. She’s not using it on any one specific guy, right? She’s just captivating every guy in sight.”
“So?”
“So, even if I think Angelika might be flirting with me specifically, she’s probably not. She’s probably just using her femi-mind tricks on everyone, and I happen to be sitting next to her in one of her classes.” I couldn’t help but notice that, despite the blatant insanity of this whole discussion, AJ now had me using his daffy new word. I swear, he’s insidious.
“Well, then, either she is flirting with you deliberately, or she’s flirting with you deliberately. Which means she is, in fact, flirting with you deliberately.”
“Wha-a-at?”
“See, if she weren’t, you wouldn’t wonder if she was. But you are wondering, which means she is.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose right above my glasses. My head was starting to hurt. “Even assuming that she is interested in me, why in the world would she be? We just met. I don’t know anything about her, and she doesn’t know anything about me. We’ve barely even talked.”
“That’s perfect. You’re a mysterious stranger on a train.”
“Huh?”
“Women like mysterious guys. Trust me: It’s well-known.”
“Well, what happens when I stop being a stranger on a train? I mean, after all this flirting, won’t she eventually get to know me?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Won’t that be the end of the mystery?”
“Sure, but then she’ll like you for all of your studly attributes.”
“Like what? My commanding five feet of height? My keen eyesight?”
“No, you’re an athlete. Women love athletes.”
Again with the insensitiveness. Insensitivity? Whatever, here was AJ, blundering in and stomping on my biggest sore spot. “Uh, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not an athlete anymore.”
“Yes, you are. You’re an injured athlete. They love that, too. You’re like a wounded bird she can nurse back to health.”
“But what if I’m never nursed back to health? The doctor said I might not pitch again.” Actually, I was being dishonest. The doctor had flat-out said that I WOULD never pitch again.
“Meh, he was wrong.”
I glared. AJ ignored. “I’m serious, Pete. And even if he was right, you just won’t pitch. You can be our catcher.”
“Our catcher?”
“You know, on the JV team.”
“First of all, I can’t play catcher, either. What if someone is stealing second base? How am I supposed to throw the ball down? What am I going to do, send it there by FedEx?”
“OK, you can play first, then. Lots of lefties play first. Plus, none of this will matter, because you’re going to be fine. If doctors knew everything, they wouldn’t get sued for malpractice, would they?”
AJ didn’t get it. I would still have to throw the ball sometimes, even to play first. And I was never going to be allowed to throw again. But of course he didn’t get it, because I never came right out and told him. I had never come out and told him the whole truth about my diagnosis, my surgery, the physical therapy — anything. Maybe it was just because I hated thinking about the details. Maybe it was because I didn’t want him to think I was a wuss. And maybe in a small, little part of the back of my mind, I was afraid he wouldn’t hang out with me anymore if I was a lost cause.
“My prediction, Petey, is that by springtime, you’ll be totally good to go.”
I gave up on the baseball argument and changed the subject. Just talking about throwing a ball made me feel all panicky, anyway. “But then I won’t be a wounded stranger bird on a train anymore. So won’t Angelika lose interest?”
“Nah, by then you’ll be, like, soul mates.”
Not for the first time, I wished I could be AJ. It wasn’t only that he had a healthy throwing arm — it was that he always believed good things would happen. Reality didn’t even enter the picture. “All righty,” he said, “I’ll make you a deal. If I hit my next three free throws, Angelika and you are meant to be.”
“Oh, because you control my destiny with your ability to make your foul shots?”
He nodded, and started dribbling the ball.
“But you don’t control my mind, right? Angelika controls that?”
He nodded again, shot, and scored. Twice.
“And what about my free will?”
Dribble, shoot, swish. “Dude. Who needs free will when you’ve got
Angelika?”
My grandfather came over for dinner that night. Mom wasn’t saying much, Dad was still at work, and Grampa was as quiet as usual. I hadn’t seen him since the day he had given me his cameras, and I was totally on edge. I was scrutinizing his every move, looking for signs that he was going senile. Mom would say, “Pass the peas, Dad,” and I’d be like Does he remember what peas are? Whew, he does. But did he pause for a minute to think, or did he recognize the peas right away? OK, I’ll give him a 10 for “identifies vegetables.”
Dinner gets kind of long when you’re concentrating that hard on something so horrible. When everyone was done, Mom volunteered to do the dishes so “You boys can enjoy some male bonding.” Male bonding? What were we going to do, drink three beers and then shoot a moose?
Thinking of the word “shoot” reminded me of the forthcoming portrait date with Angelika. I told Grampa about it, and he asked, “Have you ever shot a serious portrait before?”
“No, but I’ve helped you do it a bunch of times. I’ve been with you at the studio for hundreds of engagement photos and stuff — I know what camera settings to use and everything.”
He said, “Are you sure? It’s different when you’re the one in charge of the shoot. Plus, sometimes with a live model, you forget what you’re doing. The pressure and all …”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Well, you want to be absolutely positive. Especially with an attractive young lady sitting in front of you, you might find it hard to concentrate.”
“How do you know she’s attractive?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You just told me.”
See, he’s totally fine, I told myself. His wit is as sharp as ever, and he can still read me like my thoughts are engraved on my forehead. But wait, if he’s in such great shape, why did he give me all of his cameras and everything? I almost asked him about the cameras right then and there, but then I got an idea. I thought, What if I do some photography stuff with him? Maybe something might come up….
“Grampa,” I said, “I might need some practice before Angelika comes over. Do you think maybe you could sit for me?”
“Me?” he said. “I don’t know what kind of practice that will be. I hope to God this girl doesn’t look remotely like your old, shriveled grandfather.”
“Oh, come on. I just need somebody to sit there and let me get all the equipment set up and ready. That way I won’t have to, um, fiddle around when Angelika is here.”
Grampa’s eyebrow shot up again, but thankfully, he didn’t comment. And he followed me into the basement, where all the photography stuff was. Then he got right down to business. As I set out a stool for him, he fired off a series of questions:
“Are you going to shoot straight on or in profile?”
“With flash or without?”
“Lights and reflectors, or no?”
“Head and shoulders, or full-length?”
“Color or black-and-white?”
“What lens are you going to use? Do you want a blurred background, or do you want sharp focus all the way to the backdrop? Are you going to shoot automatic or manual? Have you charged an extra battery? Always charge an extra battery. And have some drinks ready, especially if you plan to have her under the lights for a while. It gets hot under the lights.”
For a little while, as I scrambled to work out everything I had to do for this shoot, I told myself I had been crazy. Grampa was fine. He had thought of a million laser-sharp questions on the spot — and I had probably only considered half of them ahead of time. He actually was saving me from looking like a moron in front of Angelika.
When I was ready, Grampa sat very solemnly and looked at me with great gravity. I checked the light meter on the camera, moved one of the lights a little closer to his stool, and started snapping away. I took maybe twenty pictures from the front, and another fifteen from the sides, moving closer and farther from him. I just couldn’t seem to get a decent shot, though. Grampa noticed my frustration, I guess, because he said, “If the setup isn’t working, don’t keep banging your head against the wall. Try something different.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“How should I know?” he replied. “You’re the photographer.”
Then I had an idea: I turned off all of the lights on one side of Grampa, and switched the camera from color to black-and-white. With one peek through the viewfinder, I knew I had it right now: every line in Grampa’s face, every shadow around his eyebrows, stood out in stark relief. Before, he had just been some old guy in a chair. Now the image I was seeing had real, magnetic power.
I snapped off three shots from slightly different angles, but as soon as I peeked back at the first one, I knew I had my shot. I couldn’t wait to get this loaded onto my computer and show him how great it had come out. I knew he was always an incredible stickler about cleaning up and packing everything away after a shoot, so I put everything away very neatly. I covered every lens, double-checked that I had turned off the camera, zipped everything into the camera bag, and then double-checked all the zippers and buckles on the bag. Grampa once told me he’d forgotten to check his bag’s straps on a shoot at the Grand Canyon, and watched in horror as two of his favorite lenses had gone bouncing and smashing off the edge and into the gorge hundreds of feet below. I wanted him to know I had been listening.
I got everything squared away and turned back to Grampa. He was leaning forward on the stool, looking expectant. “Hey,” he said, “I don’t have all day. Are you going to take my picture, or what?”
If you don’t want to have lots of unexpected hassles in your life, my advice is that you should never be too good at anything. I mean, if Angelika and I hadn’t done such great work on our portraits, the rest of my year would have been about ten million times easier.
She came over on a Saturday afternoon. I had no idea what to expect. Was this a date? Because aside from meeting up with a bunch of girls at the ice skating rink every Saturday in middle school, and that one time I fooled around with Sheldon Kleiderman’s cousin Abigail in an empty Hebrew school classroom during Sheldon’s bar mitzvah, I wasn’t exactly the king of experience in the chicks-’n’-babes department.
And did I want it to be a date? I mean, Angelika was so cute it made me uncomfortable to look at her, but then again, if I fell for every girl who made me uncomfortable, I’d never get anything done. Plus, aside from being cute, who knew what she was like? I knew nothing about this girl. Maybe she was a cute, boring nerd. A cute, vicious psycho. A cute axe murderer.
Just in case, I spent the whole morning running around cleaning everything. I even vacuumed the basement while my mother stared in shock. Then there was the frantic and repeated use of mouthwash, the agonized checking and rechecking of wardrobe, even the ultra-long shower, which lasted until the water started losing heat and my father yelled through the door, “What are you doing in there, Pete? Your sister never took a shower this long!”
For the record, I am not so sure that was true.
But eventually, cleaned, jeaned, and fresh of breath, I stood at the doorway and let Angelika into my would-be love lair. Admittedly, both of my parents were hovering around and gawking, which wouldn’t have been my choice for setting up a steamy photo-shoot atmosphere. And when the awkward introductions were done and Angelika and I went down to the basement, my mom made a big show of leaving the cellar door wide-open behind us.
I figured at least I was a nice-smelling child of embarrassing stalkers.
As soon as we were alone — or at least semi-alone — Angelika said, “So where’s all this fancy equipment I’ve been hearing about?”
Why did everything this girl said have to sound so flirtatious, like each sentence had some hidden meaning? I decided she was probably talking about Grampa’s cameras and lenses. Probably. I opened up the camera backpack and took out Grampa’s main camera body, along with two different portrait lenses. “Um, well, h-here’s what I thought I’d use to start with,” I stammered. “
I think it makes sense to try for some, uh, full-body shots” — UGH, that sounded sleazy — “and then, if we don’t like what we’re getting, we can get a little closer in. With this telephoto lens, I mean. Not like I’d be, uh, getting closer to you. Uh.”
That’s great, I thought. End a freaking sentence with “Uh,” why don’t you? Smooth.
She giggled, then got serious. “Sounds like a plan.” She pointed to the stool I had set up for my grandfather during his practice shoot. “Is this where you want me?”
That was when the sweat started to soak through under my arms. “Yeah,” I said, grabbing the camera and rotating the first lens into place. I looked through the eyepiece at her, at which point I realized she was wearing a white shirt, and I had hung a white backdrop. If I took the pictures this way, Angelika would look like the world’s cutest floating head. I got to work switching backgrounds, while Angelika asked me personal questions. I’ve always hated personal questions, but at least it was better than sweating into the awkward silence.
“So where’d you get all this gear?” she said.
“Uh, my grampa. My grandfather. Paul Goldberg. He was a professional photographer. Maybe you’ve heard of Goldberg Photo? He did weddings, parties, commercial shoots…. He even won a lifetime achievement award from Modern Bride magazine.”
“Doesn’t he have a truck with a yellow mountain on it?”
I nod.
“I think I’ve seen it around town. So, uh, he left you this stuff in his will? That’s really touching.”
“No, he’s not dead or anything. He’s retired, that’s all. Over the summer, he decided he’d had enough of photography and gave everything to me. I mean, we always did a lot of shooting together anyway, plus he’s getting older and he just —”
“Can’t shoot anymore, huh?”
I turned and looked at her. Of course, I’d had that very same thought, but I didn’t like hearing somebody else say it. “He could still shoot. He just decided it was time to quit.”