The Facts of Life and The Dancer, Patrick Sean Lee [best management books of all time .txt] 📗

could have been Karen, for crying out loud! No, no. I’d heard it plainly enough. It was Carol all right. Anyway, the exact spelling wouldn’t matter until I sent her the first gift. Flowers or something. Candy, perhaps. Maybe just a love letter. What, I wondered, did

guys send to their girlfriends?
The little clock on my nightstand finally reached two-twelve. Half an hour later it said two-thirteen. Great, I thought, in twenty more years it’d be two-thirty, and then I could go see her again. Just great. By that time I’d probably be dead. I tried shaking the clock for a while, hoping it would magically jump forward. No luck.
“Skip. Oh, Skippy! Come up here right now. Hurry it up.” That voice was Mom’s, in one of her “Maybe I’ll murder him, maybe I won’t" moods. Which was it, I asked myself? I quickly went down the list of possible new offenses that needed to be answered for. I felt clean, except for those thoughts of naked earth girls. I hoped she couldn’t get in my head.
Nah.
Two twenty-two.
I skulked up the stairs, wondering what it was that Mom wanted to say to me. Hopefully it would take only five minutes. Not a second more. It had to, because I had a date, and the rocket trip north to Carol’s house would take about three whole minutes. I opened the old door with a hefty shove and immediately wished I hadn’t. I could see Mom through the doorway opening leading to the dining alcove, next to the ice box, and I could hear the nasaly voice of someone whose presence I loathed. Allen was in there with her somewhere. Allen The Snake Charmer, The Talker, The Guy Who Had The Power To Wreck My Afternoon—my entire life. Allen Young. Mom didn’t turn her head or even bother to glance in my direction when I closed the door behind me.
Allen’s voice came bouncing off the linoleum floor, the ice box, the walls, the ceiling, and even the gingham curtains covering the windows from somewhere near the doorway leading out to the patio. He was blabbering away, and when I poked my head around the corner of the archway I spotted him…and his mother, either politely holding her tongue, or else bewitched by his words. The little gathering bordered on the ridiculous. Mom stood quietly, hands clutching her tea towel as though it were a gigantic set of rosary beads; as though she were in the presence of some ambassador from Rome. But of course nothing could be farther from the truth. At best, Allen could only be an ambassador from Wittenberg, and that spelled serious trouble in the eating area of the Morley sanctuary. Pop sat at the table, in his designated spot, with his left hand wrapped around a bottle of beer, and his right hand holding a pencil that he tapped gently on his bruised and bandaged forehead. He was swimming in his own insulated world of words. In front of him on the table lay the folded page of the Denver Post, opened to the day’s crossword puzzle. Whatever was going on around him, he hadn’t even the remotest interest in.
I walked in, shooting Mom a quick quizzical look, and before I’d gotten two steps, Allen faltered in his speech, then started up again, directing his comments at me.
“Skip! Oh, I’m so glad to see you! Mother and I decided that you should attend my 12th birthday extravaganza. You are the first on my list of friends! We’ve come just to invite you.” He turned to his mom who stood behind him kind of nervous-like, one hand on the edge of the rear door leading out to the patio, the other on his shoulder. A wise thing to do on her part, I thought, because should Mom get tired of listening to his nutty ramblings and decide to do something rash, Mrs. Young could have that door back open and her son yanked out before you could blink.
I glanced over Mom’s shoulder at the clock on the wall next to the ice box. Two twenty-four. There was no time for politeness or formalities. “Sure, I’ll be there. Thanks.”
As I tried to skirt around Allen and his steel-faced mother I noticed that even through the thick lenses of his glasses his eyes had grown to the size of quarters. Trouble. He wasn’t going to be content simply to acknowledge my five-word acceptance; it looked like he wanted to visit for a while with me and my family. Tell us how the moon was formed out of yellow cheese, not green. Visit with me, the guy who liked him so much that he let him skid down the bank and take a dive in the drink back in April. This kid was a glutton for punishment. What was he thinking?
Mrs. Young remained welded to the spot she’d chosen, and I had to hesitate in my move for the door, which gave Mom the opportunity to push the conversation into the area I didn’t want, nor had the time for. “Just where do you think you’re goin’ all in such a hurry,” she asked. The question I didn’t want to answer.
Allen’s mom crooked her mouth at one corner, either her version of a smile, or, more likely, a sneer. She’d probably never gotten the stains out of Allen’s creek clothes—but that simply wasn’t my fault. I didn’t think she wanted to be in our house, but now that she was, she was bound and determined to make my life uncomfortable, I think.
I looked back at the clock, cursing Allen’s and his mom’s lousy timing. Two twenty-five. A kind of panic began to set in, and I prayed that I could come up with a quick, reasonable, acceptable answer, then get the hell out of there. “Uh…to the library. Gotta’ run before it closes. Excuse me, Mrs. Young.”
Mom might have bought that except for Allen’s next statement. And who but the boy genius would have known such a fact?
“Oh my! You have plenty of time, Skip. It doesn’t close until five today, and even at five Mrs. Krumbody is often times…” He rambled on. His mom refused to budge.
I was forced to shake my head yes several times in the next 2-1/2 minutes, smiling, glancing stupidly at the clock every other second, cursing Allen’s inability to say in a hundred sentences what any normal person could say in one. If I missed Carol on account of him, I swore to myself that I’d find a pot big enough to hold him, then boil him in oil.
At two twenty-nine Allen finally shut up.
“Thanks. I’ll be there. Bye.”
I flew out the back door and jetted toward the street. I’d never make it. I knew that. As I hit the front gate I could still hear Mom yelling for me to get back in there and…whatever.
“Please Saint…Somebody. Make her late! Make her wait just another couple of minutes!”
The Lindens’, the Franz’, the Childs’, the Youngs’. The houses rushed by me in a blur. I was Mercury, but I feared that wouldn’t be enough. I crossed Ellsworth Avenue in two gigantic steps. Five more houses—or was it six—I could see a tiny piece of Carol’s house, the home of a real live princess! And then I found myself directly in front of it. I was there.
She wasn’t.
Maybe she’d walk out of that beautiful door any second. I’d wait. Oh God, You’re the guy I need to talk to. Your saints ain’t listenin’! You gotta’ help me out here. Please don’t let her be gone. Please! That’s the last favor I’ll ever ask from you, I promise!
Maybe I just oughta’ march up there and knock on…no. Can’t do that. What would they think? I never knocked on any girl’s door in my whole life. Still…what harm’s in it? I mean, what’s the worst they could do to me?
Shoot you, Skip.

I heard that answer, and it wasn’t me offering it. That had to be Him. I was screwed.
In His great wisdom and imponderable ways, God must definitely have decided that it would be better if I didn’t walk Carol to dance class that afternoon. I was devastated, naturally. I stood there in front of her house like a love-struck Romeo, shoulders slumped, words of deep affection on the tip of my tongue, but my Juliet had gone away without me. And all because of that goddamn four-eyed, loudmouthed Allen Young and his doting, unmovable mother. My mom hadn’t helped, either. She could’ve thrown them out long before I ever got upstairs. She could have.
I decided then and there to run away. I realized right off, though, that if I did, the only reasonable new address would be Carol’s. I’d have to sneak into her backyard and take up residence in her dog’s house. If she owned a dog. That was a bad idea, so I finally turned after ten minutes of sniveling and headed back home. I swore I wouldn’t talk to my Mom ever again, even if she chained me up and beat me. And I swore I’d get even with Allen somehow.

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