Opposite of Always(66)

“We should stay at your house tonight,” he says.

“That’s cool with me. Whatever you want to do.”

“It’s what I want to do.”

“Okay,” I reply, trying to remove any edge from my voice. Were my voice a color it would be white, and were it an object it would be a flag. The most important thing you can do for Franny, Mom said earlier this morning, is just be there, Jack. You two don’t know it yet, but one day that’ll be the only thing that matters. So, that’s what I’ve made up my mind to do. Be there. Be here.

“Okay,” he repeats.

Franny’s bedroom is a hodgepodge of familiar comforts. The beanbag chair I’m slouched in is the same one I’ve slouched in for nearly a decade. Franny still has posters of bands taped up that he doesn’t listen to anymore. His bookshelf is sagging with heaps of comics still in their slipcovers; the latest Black Panther sits atop. On his desk, where he’s sitting now, is what we’ve started calling The Stack. The Stack is as precarious as the last few moves in Jenga. A steadily growing pile of scholarship offers to schools all over the country; letters and packets boasting about each school’s advantages, falling over themselves to recruit one of the nation’s top athletes. You can feel The Stack’s desperation. Look at me, yoo-hoo, please, please, pick me!

It’s odd, though. So many schools ready to hand him the keys to their kingdom, but he wants to be here, forty miles away, with us—Jillian and me. That State is not even one of the top ten schools recruiting him, and yet he’s willing to go there because he doesn’t want to be away from Jillian, from me. Of course, he’d never say that, but it’s understood. Jillian and I have both tried to push him to do what’s right for him, but he won’t even entertain a different path. I know what’s best for me, man. Trust.

Franny sees me eyeing The Stack and he smiles. His first grin tonight.

“How many more since last week?”

“Half a dozen maybe,” he says. “But still no word from our beloved Whittier.”

I shrug. “If they’re too stupid to accept you, then maybe I shouldn’t go either.”

“You’re crazy, son,” he says, grinning harder. “I tell you that today? How crazy you are? First of all, your moms would go upside your head if you turned down Whittier. And then she’d probably come after me next.”

“Probably,” I concede, laughing.

“Uh-uh, no probably about it. True story.”

“I’m saying, though. Who wouldn’t want Francisco Hogan at their school? Who wouldn’t want Francisco Hogan, period?”

“I tell you this much, man.” Franny wags his head, stares in the direction of the kitchen, of the rolling laughter, of the best peach cobbler known to man. “Either you want me or you don’t. But I don’t want anything that doesn’t want me back.”

JILLIAN: Hey, how did it go? He’s not answering my texts or calls.

ME: Not great. He’s in quiet mode.

JILLIAN: Damn. Too late for me to come over?

ME: Never.

Twenty minutes later, Jillian descends the basement steps, her long legs taking the stairs two at a time. We always joke that she’s 90 percent legs, 8 percent head and shoulders, and only 2 percent torso.

“Hey, boys,” she says.

Franny looks at her, then at me. “You two texting behind my back?”

Jillian walks over, kisses the top of Franny’s head. He looks up at her, his big brown eyes ready for whatever she has to give. She cups his face.

“Baby,” she whispers. She sits on the sofa beside him, pulls his head into her lap. He doesn’t resist. “Baby,” she repeats.

And I can’t tell you what we watch, only that we sit there for hours, and that at one point I increase the volume because there’s something inside of me, the part that loves these two people, that knows Franny doesn’t want me to hear his sobs.





Mighty Magical


Mighty Moat is even better the second time.

And it’s no secret why. Kate. Even Jillian and Franny seem to have a better time.

“Is it just me, or do you feel like the band is playing just to us right now?” Franny shouts at one point.

“It’s not just you,” I shout back.

After the show, Kate takes me by the hand, leads our foursome backstage, and it’s like she knows everybody, everyone stops doing whatever to wave or say what’s up, but honestly, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know any of these people; that’s just her, she has that take notice thing going on and you can’t help but to, well, take notice.

We stop at a red door covered in black Magic Marker stick-figure people. Kate knocks and someone yells come on in, and we go right in. And it’s freaking Mighty Moat! In their freaking grungy-T-shirt-wearing flesh!

“Katieeeeee,” sings the guitarist. “Get your ass in here.”

Franny and Jillian look at me in equal disbelief. “This is real, right?” Franny asks. “This is happening?”

“Hey, you guys want champagne?” the lead singer yells, as a cork pops and sails across the room. And then another cork fires. And another. And soon the band’s spraying everyone in a champagne shower. And then Franny shouts a war cry, covers his eyes, and dives into the fray.