Chapter Four: So Much for Bookie
I got 37 minutes of sleep and woke up with a tight band of tension around my head. It was not going to be a good day.
“Nick? You awake?”
“Yea.”
“I’m going for breakfast. We leave in an hour. Be ready.” Kevin was still pissed off, but then that was his normal morning mode, so I didn’t pay any attention to it.
I rolled over and reached for the phone.
“Did you hear me?” Sometimes Kevin reminds me of my mother. That’s just one of many things that will assure some shrink of a healthy salary someday.
“Yes.”
“AN HOUR Nick. No joke.” I dialed the number and ignored him. “Fine, but if you’re not ready there will be hell to pay.” There always was.
“Hello?”
“BJ!” Thank God, someone was home. “Hey, hows it going?”
“Nick! How are you? We miss you.”
“I miss you guys. Hey, put Angel on the line, would ya? Bje? Hey BJ?”
“She’s not here.” Cold, clammy palm time.
“Why not?” Dear God. let her be OK. I will never hit AJ in the head again (A smart move if I ever saw one.) I will never eat pizza .... before breakfast (No sense in being a idiot.) I will never touch my .... yes I will. No sense in even pretending.
“She’s at the hospital ....”
“THE HOSPITAL!! What is it?”
“It’s a large building with patients, and you are being too damned loud.” AJ slammed the door behind him.
“Angel’s in the hospital!” I threw that up in his face, which was better than what I felt like
throwing-up. “This is all your fault!”
“My fault? What ..”
“Your tore her bear!” AJ looked surprised, guilty, and then incredulous. He has many talents.
“Nick? Nick?” I put the phone back to my ear. “Is everything OK there?”
“No, but don’t worry about it. How is Angel?”
“She will be fine. She’s just in the emergency room.”
“EMERGENCY ROOM! See AJ!” Kevin is going to be very upset to find out how hoarse I am. I’m telling him it’s AJ’s fault. “See what you did! You killed that bear and now Angel is in the emergency room!”
“Nick! Man calm down.”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down! I’ll ...”
“NICK? Hey, Nick!” I put the phone back to my ear while giving AJ a “I’ll kill you later look”, which was a first for me. “She just has a pea stuck in her nose.”
“Excuse me?” Talk about deflating. “A what?”
“A pea. She got a pea stuck in her nose. Mom took her to the emergency room because she couldn’t get it out. She just keep pushing it up in there, and Angel was screaming and ...”
“I see.” And I did. Aaron had done the same thing once, but dad had put pepper in his other nostril and Aaron sneezed it out. “ Did she use pepper?”
“Yea, but it was up in there too tightly.”
“I see.” AJ sat in front of me and crossed his arms. “Well, call me when they get home. I wanna talk to Angel.”
“Yea, I will. That’s funny.”
“What’s funny?” The fact that I am going to have my lungs ripped out by a hung-over AJ?
“She had this dream about you last night. A nightmare, really.”
“Yea?”
“Yea. It was something about someone ripping your leg off or something. She was really upset when she woke up.”
“Tell her I’m fine, and no one ripped off my leg.” My head is another story. “Have mom call me when they get in.”
“I will!”
“Good. I’ve gotta go pack” And order my coffin. “We leave in 45 minutes.”
“OK. I love you.”
“I love you too. Bye.”
I sat quietly for a moment contemplating Angel’s dream, the fact that I knew something had happened when the bear was torn, and where AJ planned to hide my body.
“Is Angel OK?”
“Yea.” Please leave it at that.
“What’s wrong?” No such luck.
“She .... got a pea stuck in her nose.” I waited. And I waited. Then I opened my eyes and looked at AJ, who was smiling.
“A pea?” I nodded. “Well, as long as she is going to be fine.”
“Yea, she will be.”
“Good. Nick?” Dear Lord. Thank you for letting me live to see my 17th birthday.
“Yea?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you.” Dear Lord. Thank you for stopping AJ from killing me.
“Yea?”
“Sure! It would be totally cruel to kill you now! I’ll do it after you get laid.” Dear Lord. You may never have heard this from a guy before, but I would like to stay a virgin a little while longer. Say until I’m 70. (Of course you know I’m kidding, but could we just let AJ believe that? Hello? God?).
“Thanks.” I jumped up, ran next door and started packing. I had enough problems without having a Kevin lecture thrown on top.
“Nick,” AJ had followed me. “last night when you freaked and you tried to call home ...”
“So?”
“Kevin said you thought something had happened to Angel.”
“Yea, I did.”
“How did you know?” I shrugged.
“I just knew when you tore the bear.”
“That bear? Mr. Bookie?”
“It’s Bookie-bear, not Mr. Bookie.”
“Nick, it’s really sad that you know that bear’s name.” Don’t I know it. “I’m sorry about that bear.”
“No problem.” It was, but having a fight now wouldn’t help anything.
“Are you guys ready?” Kevin hurried in with his bags.
“Almost.” I shoved the last of my stuff in my carry on.
“Let’s go.” I looked around the room for evidence of Bookie, but saw none.
“NOW Nick.” AJ grabbed his bags and was waiting with Kevin. I picked up mine and scanned the room once again. “What is it?”
“The bear, I was just wondering ...”
“About that damned bear?” Kevin’s eyes were threshing to leave their sockets again. Maybe his brows bothered them. “Forget it for heaven’s sake! It was just a stupid stuffed bear! Let’s go.” Kevin’s expression left no room for arguments, so I left. Anyway AJ had probably dumped the body in the trash.
“Kevin ...” I heard AJ telling Kevin something about the bear but I was too far ahead to catch it. I wanted to be away from them and on the bus. Just as the elevator door closed I heard Kevin cut AJ off with “...about that damned bear!” So much for poor Bookie.