Then Again, Maybe I Won't Page 3

  I have my own room with my own closet and also my own bathroom, which my mother says I’m supposed to keep neat. Grandma has her own bathroom and so do my mother and father. All of these are upstairs. Downstairs I counted two more, which makes a grand total of five bathrooms in one house. In Jersey City we had one. If anybody had an emergency and the bathroom was in use we always ran up to Ralph and Angie’s.

  My closet has a light in it. I found this out when I opened the closet door. The light went on automatically. When you shut the door it goes out. You don’t even have to bother touching a switch or anything. I spent about ten minutes just opening and closing my closet door.

  My bedroom is at the opposite side of the house from my mother and father’s. Grandma’s is in the middle. I have three windows in my room. Two overlook the backyard and one overlooks the side by the garage. I think the reason we have this circular driveway is so you won’t get tired walking from the garage to the front door.

  From my two back windows I can see my next-door neighbor’s yard. It has a big wooden fence all around it. The kind you can’t see through at all if you’re on the ground. But from my room I can see right over it. That’s how I know we might really be rich and my father isn’t kidding around. They have a swimming pool! It’s rectangular with a statue at one end. There’s a diving board and everything!

  The thing is, every time I think about us being rich I get scared. I know it’s not going to last. I think the money will run out by January. My father used to kid around about how if he won the state lottery the money would probably last five months. It’s not that I’ll mind moving back to Jersey City. It’s just that I’ll hate to face the guys. Big Joe will probably laugh and tell me he knew it all the time. And then there’s Mom and Pop. They’ll really be disappointed. They’re so excited about living in Rosemont. But there’s nothing I can do about it.

  Grandma spent the first few days in Rosemont in the kitchen. She opened every cabinet a million times and wrote my mother a whole pad full of notes. Mostly about the stove and oven which she doesn’t like because they’re electric instead of gas.

  My mother kept telling Grandma what a wonderful kitchen it is … so modern! And how easy it will be for her to cook now. My grandmother kept shaking her head. So my mother talked louder. She always does that when they disagree. She talks loud, as if Grandma’s deaf. Only Grandma’s hearing is fine and talking loud doesn’t do any good at all.

  I found out what happens to garbage in Rosemont. Number one is, we have an automatic disposal built into the sink. All the food scraps go down there and get ground up. Number two is, we have three garbage cans in the ground by the kitchen door. And twice a week the garbage truck comes by and the cans get emptied. Nobody puts their stuff down at the curb.

  The first few mornings we lived there I got up early and rushed outside. So did Grandma. But not for the same reason as me. She walked to Saint Joseph’s every day. I wanted to make some friends before school started. That way I won’t really be a new kid. I have a whole month to meet the Rosemont guys. That should be plenty of time. I hung around the front of our house waiting for somebody to notice me. It didn’t take me long to find out that my new neighborhood is dead in the summer. I didn’t see any kids. Not even little ones.

  On my fourth Rosemont morning I met Mrs. Hoober, from the swimming-pool house. I was walking up and down my driveway counting stones when I saw her open her garage door. I watched her, hoping she would notice me. She did.

  “Oh hello,” she said. “You new?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Mrs. Hoober.”

  When she said that I noticed she was carrying a pair of brown and white shoes, with spikes.

  “What’s your name?” she asked me.

  “I’m Tony Miglione.”

  “Well, hi Tony.” She got into her car and backed it out of the garage. Then she rolled down the window and told me she was on her way to play golf at the country club.

  My mother met her later that afternoon and that night she told my father that our next-door neighbor is Diane Hoober and that Mr. Hoober is Vice-President of Amilard Drugs. And aren’t we lucky to be rubbing shoulders with such people?

  Then my mother told me that the reason I haven’t made any friends in four whole days of looking around is because in Rosemont practically all the kids go away to camp in the summer. And that Mrs. Hoober has two kids who’ll be home the end of August. Mrs. Hoober also told Mom that some families have places at the beach and stay away from June to September.

  Back in Jersey City we’d have thought you were pretty lucky to get to spend the summer in a place like Rosemont … never mind camp and the beach!

  A week later I met Mrs. Hoober again. She was getting out of her car with a lot of packages. So I ran over and said, “Want some help?”

  She handed me a big box and said, “Thanks, Tony.”

  I carried it to her front door and then she took it from me. “I see you’re having a lot of work done on your house.”

  “Us?” I asked. “No, we’re not having anything done. It’s perfect the way it is.”

  “Well, that’s funny. There’s a truck parked in your driveway all the time.”

  “Oh … that’s my father’s truck. Sometimes he drives it to work when my mother needs the car.”

  “It belongs to your father?”

  “Sure. It even has his name on the door.”

  “Oh … well, thanks for helping me, Tony.”

  “That’s okay. Bye Mrs. Hoober.”

  That night after supper I said, “You know what, Pop? Mrs. Hoober thought we were having a lot of work done on our house just because she saw your truck in the driveway.”

  My mother looked at my father. “She asked you about the truck?” Mom said.

  “No. I told her it was Pop’s. She didn’t ask me anything.”

  The next day, my father came home from work driving a new Ford instead of the old truck. He laughed and said, “What do I need with a truck now?”

  My mother said, “I’m glad you decided that way, Vic. We don’t want to start off on the wrong foot here.”

  Did he get rid of the truck just because Mrs. Hoober thought we were having some work done? That’s crazy!

  “You know, Tony … you can’t get anywhere without a car when you live out here,” Pop said. “Your mother can’t even get a quart of milk without driving a couple of miles. And the truck isn’t so good on the highway. I’ll be much more comfortable now.”

  Sometimes I get the feeling my father can read my mind.

  Along with the new car Pop brought home a regulation basketball net and professional basketball. He put up the basket on the garage and said I should keep in practice because he expects great things from me. As a basketball player or what? I wondered.

  I spent the next few days shooting baskets until my mother told me the noise was making her head hurt and that thump, thump, thump all the day long was too much for anybody’s nerves. Would I please try to find something else to do a few hours a day, she asked.

  So I watched the Hoobers’ swimming pool from my window. Nobody ever used it. What a waste! Life in Rosemont was not exactly what you would call exciting.

  On August 5th I was thirteen years old. I knew we were having roast beef for dinner and that Grandma baked me a birthday cake. But nobody asked me what I wanted. So I figured our new house is supposed to be a kind of birthday present. And anyway, I just got my basketball equipment. Still, a birthday’s a birthday! In Jersey City I always got something. Usually a shirt, a game and $5.00 to spend any way I wanted. But if my family wasn’t going to mention my thirteenth birthday … well, neither was I. I’d pretend to be happy without any presents.

  That afternoon my father came home from the plant early. He hustled me off with him in the green hardtop. He drove past the Miracle Mile Shopping Center to the middle of another town called Belmart.

  “I have a surprise for you, Tony,” my father said, backing the car into a s
pace.

  “What?” I asked. “Tell me.”

  “If I tell you it’s not a surprise.” Pop laughed. “You’ll see soon enough anyway. Come on.”

  I jumped out of the car and followed my father.

  The surprise turned out to be a brand-new red ten-speed Schwinn. Wow! This was my best birthday ever!

  After that I rode my bike around every day. I explored every street in Rosemont. I knew all the stores downtown. I found my junior high. I found the football field. I found the park. I wished it was September.

  Then Again,

  Maybe I Won’t

  Finally Joel Hoober came home from camp. We met right away. It was after supper and my mother was doing the dishes while Grandma sat at the kitchen table shelling pistachio nuts. I was eating them as fast as she was shelling them. My father was dozing in the other room. He doesn’t have a basement workshop in our new house. I guess he doesn’t need one now that his hobby is his business. When the doorbell rang my mother asked me to get it.

  “I’m Joel Hoober,” this boy said, when I opened the front door. He was my height but thinner, with very light hair and an awful lot of it. When mine looks like that my mother tells me it’s time to go see the barber.

  “Are you Tony?” he asked.

  I nodded because I had a mouthful of nuts. When I finished chewing and swallowed them I said, “Come on in.”

  My mother came out of the kitchen drying her hands on her apron.

  “Mom, this is Joel Hoober,” I said.

  Joel offered his hand to my mother. “How do you do, Mrs. Miglione. I’m happy to meet you.” Joel pronounced our name right. Not everybody does. A lot of people say Miglion-ie. But the “e” on the end is silent.

  The doorbell woke up my father. He padded into the hallway in his stocking feet. This time when Joel shook hands he said, “How do you do, sir. Glad to meet you.”

  I could tell right away that my mother and father were impressed. None of my friends in Jersey City say sir. And we don’t shake hands every time we say hello to somebody. Are all the guys in Rosemont like this? I hope not. If they are I may not make any friends here. I wish Frankie lived next door instead of this creep.

  “Well, let’s not stand here in the hall,” my mother said to Joel. “Come in … come in.…”

  Now why did she have to go and do that? Doesn’t she think I can pick my own friends?

  Joel followed my mother into the kitchen. “You want some pistachio nuts?” she asked him.

  “No thanks,” Joel said. He spotted my grandmother. I could tell Grandma was studying him because she looked up and squinted. Joel offered his hand but Grandma didn’t bother to shake it. He started his line about how happy he was to meet her and Grandma laughed, which is really unusual for her. When she laughs her mouth opens but no sound comes out.

  “My grandmother can’t talk,” I told him. “She has no larynx.”

  Joel gave me a funny look but he didn’t say anything. We walked back into the front hall.

  “Do you play chess?” he asked.

  “No, do you?”

  “Yeah. It’s a good game. Maybe I’ll teach you.”

  “Okay,” I said, but I didn’t mean it.

  Then he said, “Can you come over for a swim tomorrow?”

  “Yeah … I’d really like that.” I didn’t tell him I’d been watching his pool most of the summer wishing somebody would invite me over to use it.

  Before he left, Joel shook hands with my father again. “Glad to have met you, sir,” he said. And then to me, “See you tomorrow, Tony.”

  “Okay,” I said, closing the door behind him. I’d already learned that when the air conditioning’s on you’ve got to keep all the doors and windows closed.

  “What a nice boy!” my mother said.

  “Some manners!” my father added.

  I wonder how long Joel would last in Jersey City. About a week, I figure … if he was lucky!

  I went to the Hoobers’ right after lunch the next day. The pool was heated. It was cooler than a bathtub but not really cold. I was mighty glad I know how to swim. I don’t do anything fancy and I don’t dive, but I do jump off the board and in the Hoobers’ pool I could swim back and forth twice before running out of breath.

  Joel had on this grubby red bathing suit and he has about the knobbiest knees I’ve ever seen. I felt funny in the new suit my mother bought me this morning. I should have worn my old one.

  The chess board was set up on a round umbrella table. Joel seemed really anxious to teach me how to play. I only let him because, after all, it was his swimming pool.

  After I was there almost an hour the back door slammed and Joel’s sister Lisa came out. She was wearing a bikini and was very suntanned which made her hair look even lighter than Joel’s. All I could think of was Wow! She was the best looking girl I’ve ever seen in person anywhere. She has curves all over. I turned away from the chess board so I could keep watching her.

  Lisa climbed onto the diving board and did a perfect swan dive into the water. After four laps of the crawl she stuck her head up and spit out some water.

  “Hey Joel,” she called. “Who’s your friend? He’s cute. Too bad he’s not a little older!” Then she laughed and started to swim again.

  I could feel the red climb from the back of my neck where it started, to my ears and then my face. Why do girls always say cute? That’s such a dumb word. It makes me think of rabbits.

  The next time Lisa came up from under the water Joel yelled, “This is Tony Miglione from next door.”

  “Hi …” I called.

  But she didn’t hear because she was underwater again. I sat back in a lounge chair and watched Lisa swim. She did laps—back and forth, back and forth. Sidestroke, backstroke, butterfly—I got dizzy just watching.

  “She’s sixteen,” Joel said.

  I nodded.

  “You want a good laugh? Some day I’ll show you her diary. I know where she keeps it.”

  I looked away from Lisa. “No kidding!”

  “Yeah,” Joel said. “It’s great.”

  Then I remembered how I promised my mother that I would be polite to Mrs. Hoober. That I would shake hands and everything, just like Joel. “Is your mother home?” I asked.

  “Nah … my mother’s never home. She plays golf every day unless it rains. Then she shops or plays cards. When she’s not on vacation, that is.”

  I wondered if that’s what my mother was going to do.

  “Hey, you want something to eat?” Joel asked.

  “Okay.”

  Joel shouted at the house. “Millicent … hey Millicent! We’re hungry.”

  “Who’s Millicent?” I asked.

  “The maid. Only her name isn’t really Millicent. She’s got some Spanish name that my mother can’t pronounce so when she came to work for us my mother renamed her. She didn’t even speak English then. She taught me and Lisa to curse in Spanish.”

  “No kidding!” Maybe there’s hope for me and Joel after all.

  “Hey Millicent!” Joel called again.

  “What you want?” a voice answered from inside the house.

  “You got any cake?”

  “I got. You come get.”

  “I can’t. I’m all wet,” Joel hollered.

  “Okay. I bring. But no crumbs by pool or your father kill me.”

  “She’s scared of my father,” Joel said. “A lot of people are. Not me of course. I know how to handle him. It’s easy. Just stay out of his way.”

  Later, as I sat in my lounge chair eating chocolate cake, drinking cold milk and watching Lisa, I thought—this is really the life!

  I spent most of Labor Day weekend at the Hoobers’ pool. I learned to play a simple game of chess. Joel said he’d teach me more next time. I saw Mr. Hoober once. Lisa called him George. She was swimming around when Mr. Hoober came out the back door. She called, “Hi George!”

  Joel poked me and smiled with half of his mouth. I wondered how he did that. I m
ean when he smiles regular a whole row of teeth shows. But this way only one side of his lip goes up. He must have developed it from watching old gangster movies on TV.

  Mr. Hoober said, “I don’t like the George business, Lisa. That will be enough. Do you hear me?”

  Lisa dove under the water and stood on her hands. I watched her wiggle her toes around.

  I found out that Mr. Hoober plays golf twice on Sundays and holidays. Once in the morning with the men and once in the afternoon with his wife. And every Sunday night the Hoober family eats supper at the country club. So when Joel and Lisa had to get dressed to go out I went home.

  My mother put me through the third degree. Questions—questions—questions. She’s driving me nuts! She’s a lot more interested in the Hoobers than she is in my father’s new job. I can get her really mad if I want to. When she asks me something I answer, “I don’t know.” I’ve been saying that all weekend. She’s about ready to explode.

  Ralph and Angie were already at the house for supper. I asked Ralph was he still going to be the world’s greatest teacher and he said, “Sure Kid.” But he didn’t sound so enthusiastic. All he talked about was my father’s electrical cartridges, which is pretty funny for a guy who isn’t scientific.

  The night before school started me and Joel made arrangements to ride our bikes together every day.

  “Your bike is really neat,” he told me.

  “It’s just like yours,” I said.

  “Yeah, but mine’s a year older.”

  “Well, it’s still the same,” I said.

  “Yeah … I guess so.”

  “See you in the morning.”

  “Quarter after eight. Don’t forget,” Joel said as he walked home.

  I told my mother that me and Joel were going to ride to school together.

  “I’m so glad you and Joel made friends,” she said. “He’s such a nice boy. With a face like an angel’s!”

  I don’t know what angels really look like but I doubt if it’s like Joel. Lisa maybe, but not Joel.