Нил Шустерман - Antsy Does Time

“It just takes practice. I could teach you.”

“Sure, why not?” I was thrilled by the prospect of her coaching me in verbal expression, even though me being a public speaker was about as likely as angels playing tennis. Or seagulls. “I promise to give speeches even worse than you paint,” I told her.

She laughed, I laughed, and then the moment became awkward.

“So...” I said.

“So ...” she said.

What happened next was kind of like jumping off the ten-meter platform at the Olympic pool they built when someone in public planning got high and actually believed the Summer Olympics might come to Brooklyn. A couple of years ago, I stood on that platform for five minutes that seemed like an hour, while my friends watched. In the end the only way I was able to jump was to imagine that I was a nonexistent ultracool version of myself. That way I could trick my self-preservation instinct into believing it wasn’t actually me jumping.

Standing there in front of Kjersten, I dug down, found ultracool Antsy sipping on a latte somewhere in my head, and pulled him forth.

“So I was wondering if maybe you’d like go out sometime,” I heard myself say. “A movie, or dinner, or trip to Paris, that kinda thing.”

“Paris sounds nice,” Kjersten said. “Will we fly first class?”

“No way!” I told her. “It’s by private jet, or nothing.” I was dazzling myself with my own unexpected wit, but then ultracool Antsy left for Starbucks, and I was alone to deal with the fallout of his cleverness.

“A movie would be nice,” she said.

“Great... uh ... yeah ... uh ... right.” This is like the guy who lifts a five-hundred-pound barbell, then realizes he has no idea how to put it down without dying in the process. “A movie’s a good choice,” I told her. “It’s dark, so people you know won’t see us together.”

“Why would that matter?”

“Well, you know—you being older and all.”

“Antsy,” she said, in a lecturing tone that really made her sound older, “that doesn’t matter to me.”

“Well, good,” I said, enjoying the prospect of walking into the multiplex with Kjersten. “And anyway, a movie-theater date will give me lots of great opportunities to be embarrassed.”

“I certainly hope so,” she said, smirking. Which of course made me go red, which of course made her smirk even more.

This was all going so well! It would have been perfect, except for the fact that her father was weird, and her brother was dying. She must have read what I was thinking, because her smile faded and she looked away.

“I’m sorry about my father,” she said.

I shrugged, playing dumb. “He didn’t do anything.”

“He came home,” she said. “These days, that’s enough.”

Even though I was curious, I didn’t want to ask what she meant, just in case she didn’t want to tell. I looked at the mural, giving her time to gather her thoughts. Then she said, “He was a partner in a law firm, but a few months ago the firm fell apart. He hasn’t worked since.”

“But he’s gone all the time—what does he do all day, look for work?”

And Kjersten said, “We don’t know.”

After my Kjersten encounter, I walked home, nearly getting run over twice on the way, because my head was stuck in an alternate universe. Everything Ümlaut was one step removed from reality; the way they dealt with Gunnar’s illness; the Mystery of the Disappearing Dad—even the fact that Kjersten was going to date me was weird, although it was the kind of weirdness I needed more of in my life.

My own father’s arrival at home later that same night didn’t raise the homeland security index, as it did in the Ümlaut household. That was mainly because everyone but me was already in bed.

“Hi, Antsy,” he said as he shuffled into the kitchen. “You’re up late.”

“Just came down for a drink,” I told him, even though I’d been stalking around the house all night with thoughts of Kjersten and Gunnar clogging up my brain. We sat down at the table. He grabbed himself some leftovers from the fridge, and I ate a little, even though I wasn’t hungry. I thought it was strange how he can be at a restaurant all night, then come home and have to eat leftovers.

“I heard your friend is real sick,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

That surprised me. “I didn’t know you knew about it.”

“Your sister keeps me informed on things.”

I could tell he wanted to say something meaningful. Thoughtful. But whenever he opened his mouth, all that came out was a yawn, which made me yawn, and pretty soon whatever he wanted to say got KO’d by the sandman. We left the dirty dishes in the sink, too tired to put them in the dishwasher, and said our good nights.

It was like this more and more between us—more yawning, and less talking. For my father, the restaurant was like the crabgrass in Gunnar’s backyard. It had taken over everything. Even on Monday, which was supposed to be his day off, he would do taxes, or go to the fish market to get a jump on the fancy Manhattan restaurants. I think I liked it better when he had a mindless corporate job. His work was miserable, but when he wasn’t working, he did stuff. Now, instead of a job and a paycheck, he had a business and a “calling”—as if feeding Brooklyn was a holy mission.

As I went to bed that night, I thought about Mr. Ümlaut, and the weirdness that filled that house like a gas leak. If nothing else, I could be thankful that my own family weirdness was not lethal.

I got a call from Lexie on the way to school the next morning.

“I want to make sure you’re free on Saturday the nineteenth,” she said.

“Let me check with my social secretary.” I glanced over at some fat guy sitting next to me on the bus. “Yeah, I’m free.” And then I realized with a little private glee that I might actually need to keep a social calendar now, if things worked out with Kjersten.

The nineteenth was the first day of Christmas vacation, when rich people went off to exotic places where they hate Americans. Sure enough, Lexie said, “My parents are flying me to the Seychelles, to spend the holidays with them,” and she added “again,” as if it would make me feel better to know she was legitimately embarrassed by her lap of luxury. “They haven’t bothered to visit since the summer, so I have to go—but before I do, I’ve planned a special adventure for Grandpa.”

The phone signal kept going in and out—all I heard was something about a team of engineers and lots of steel cable.

“Sounds like fun,” I told her. Sure, I could do it. It’s not like “vacation” was in my family’s vocabulary since the restaurant opened. Then she got to the real reason for her call.

“Oh, and by the way, I’m having dinner at the restaurant with Raoul, and you’re invited.”

By “the restaurant,” I knew she meant Crawley’s, her grandfather’s first restaurant. By “you’re invited,” she could have meant a whole lot of things.

“Just me?” I asked.

“No. You... and a date ... if you like.”

Now I knew what “you’re invited” actually meant. “Wow—an invitation to a five-star restaurant for me and a date. Wouldn’t it be easier to put one of those electronic tags on my ear before you release me into the wild?”

She huffed into the phone.

“Admit it—you just want to keep track of me.”

She didn’t deny it, she just continued the hard sell. “Don’t you think whatserface will be impressed if you take her out for a fancy lobster dinner on your first date?”

“How do you know it’s our first date?”