The Exact Opposite of Okay(6)
“If your mom were here, she’d say . . .” Betty trails off, blinking fiercely. She almost never manages to finish a sentence about my mom. As predicted, she fixes a neutral expression back onto her face, and I let it slide. “You shouldn’t feel like a fraud. Everyone starts somewhere, right?”
Right. But for most successful people, somewhere isn’t here.
“Maybe we could look at buying you another camera,” Betty suggests, slurping her milky coffee through a straw. “I’ve been working so many doubles at the diner lately that I’m not actually behind on rent for once. You may notice, for example, that the bacon we’re currently consuming is actually within its use-by date. We are practically living in the lap of luxury here. So I’m sure I could scrape together the cents for a secondhand DSLR and a lens or two. You know, if you want.”
The suggestion sends a pang through my chest. Earlier this year, when I’d begun to realize how much I wanted to make it as a comedian, Betty bought me a nice camera and a light box so I could start up a YouTube channel. I filmed a couple videos, and I loved it. People responded pretty well too. One went vaguely viral. But it was a long, cold winter that stretched all the way into early April, and Martha’s was so quiet there wasn’t enough work for Betty. I ended up having to pawn the camera to cover our gas bill. It sucked, but you do what you have to do.
“Nah, it’s all right,” I say to Betty. “I’m just gonna focus on scripts for a while. All you need for that is a working computer, and if worst comes to worst I can always use the library.” I smile gratefully. “But thank you. I promise I’ll pay you back when I sell out Madison Square Garden with my standup special.”
We chat about my weird brand of comedy for a while longer – I get my wildly inappropriate sense of humor from her. She also tells me about how back when she was a young woman, it was considered unattractive for a woman to tell dirty jokes or do ridiculous impressions of political figures. And how that made her want to do it even more.
Every time I catch myself moping about my general lack of parents, or our dire financial situation, I just remind myself how lucky I am to be raised by such an incredible human who’s always taught me how to laugh, no matter what’s going wrong in my life.
I love my grandma. Especially when watching her feed crispy bacon to a chubby wiener dog and singing her own special renditions of popular nursery rhymes. Today it’s: “Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them, largely because Little Bo Peep is fucking irresponsible and should not be in charge of livestock.” It’s tough cramming all those extra syllables into the last two lines, but she really makes it work.
8.16 a.m.
Danny meets me at the gates of my housing community so we can walk to school together, as we’ve done every weekday for a decade. I decide to forget all about the weirdness of last night in the diner and write it off as a strange anomaly that will most likely never be repeated.
“Morning,” he chirps, like a cockatoo or something similar, I don’t know. Like most people with better things to do, I’m not that clued up on bird species. And then – THEN! – he hands me a paper coffee cup with steam billowing out the top. “Picked you up a mocha.”
He doesn’t have one for himself. Only for me.
And just like that, any attempt to overlook his sudden and deeply disturbing personality transplant goes out the window.
“Oh. Um, thanks.” As I take the cup from him, my fingertips brush his, and he leaps back so far it’s like I’ve driven an electrode into his groin. His satchel plummets to the ground, and it takes him roughly ninety-eight minutes to pick it back up again, that’s how hard he’s fumbling.
“Don’t mention it,” he grins. As he stands back up, I catch a whiff of new aftershave on the breeze. Another bashful smile before he turns away.
Sorry, but WTF?? Danny and I have been friends since forever, and I’ve never seen him like this before. And we’ve been through a lot together. Especially right after my parents died. While the court was deciding who to grant my custody to, I spent a lot of time over at his house, since his mom is my godmother and all. We played outside in his family’s sprinklers, running around in just our underwear and spraying each other with water from the hosepipes. I remember liking it because nobody could tell I was crying almost constantly.
For a while we all thought I’d end up living with them, since the government had concerns over Betty’s ill health. Let the record show that I’m eternally grateful they chose her instead of the Wells. I mean, they’re amazing people, don’t get me wrong. But I can’t even imagine being with anyone but Betty.
All I’m saying is that if anyone’s gonna pick up on Danny being weird, it’s me. And he’s definitely being weird.
Regardless, the rest of the walk is fairly uneventful. We chat about the geography homework we both struggled to complete without slipping into a comalike state. We discuss plans for tonight – torn between filming a skit or binge-watching Monty Python for the gazillionth time – and speculate about what movies will garner the most Academy Award nominations in a few months’ time.
He’s forgotten to pick up a cardboard sleeve for the coffee and it burns into my palm as we walk, making it impossible to forget. As usual, we meet up with Ajita halfway to school, and she eyes the coffee like it’s a grenade with the pin pulled out. Neither of us address it, but I know she’s thinking exactly what I am: