IT WAS A Saturday evening, and I was hanging out in my room, thinking about that college thing again and that I didn’t really want to go. I mean, I did want to go, but only after taking a year off. You know, to find myself. Well, that was lame. But it was true. Was there such a thing as being a little lost? I mean, if you were lost—?well, then you were lost. I didn’t know shit. I was going through the motions. Maybe a lot of people just went through the motions. Maybe that worked for some people. But I knew that the going?through-the-motions thing wasn’t going to work for me. No bueno.
Sam was in her room working on her admissions essay. I didn’t have to wonder what she was going to say, because I knew she’d make me read it. And she’d want to read mine. And I didn’t have one to read. What was I supposed to say: Take me. You won’t be sorry. I’m the greatest thing since the invention of the cell phone? We were supposed to talk about ourselves. Yeah. Hello, they call me Mr. Excitement. But I am pretty good in a fight.
Sam texted me: Have a good idea for my essay. U?
Me: No ideas. Not good at selling myself
Sam: I’ll help you
Me: I’m worthless
Sam: Ur not. Don’t ever say that
Me: I thought u were mad at me
Sam: Nope. We should bake a cake
Me: What?
Sam: U know, a cake?
Me: U know how?
Sam: No. But u do
Me: Where is the we?
Sam: Teach me. We can take it to Mima tomorrow
Me: Good idea
Sam: And we can take her flowers
Me: The evil Sam went away?
Sam: No worries. She’ll come back
Me. Saturday Night. Sam.
WE WERE IN THE KITCHEN, and I was teaching Sam how to make a chocolate cake from scratch.
“Why not just bake from one of those Betty Crocker boxes?” she said.
“I’m impressed. You know about Betty Crocker.”
“Go ahead. Mock me.”
We gave each other looks. Yup, we were all about giving each other looks. “See, Sammy, we have all the ingredients. It’s not that hard.”
She was watching me put in the dry ingredients as she read them aloud from the recipe book.
“You want to know what each ingredient does?” I asked.
“You’re really asking me that question?”
“How are you ever going to learn to cook if you don’t know what each ingredient does for the recipe?”
“The physics of chocolate cake? Not interested.”
“Now who’s mocking whom?”
She watched me as I broke two eggs and beat them. “Guess it doesn’t look that hard. Still, Betty Crocker’s easier.”
“We’re not going for easy. We’re going for taste.”
“Whatever.”
“It was your idea,” I said. “You said you wanted to learn.”
“I lied.”
“Yup.”
When the cake was in the oven, Sam watched as I made the frosting. “You’re not like most guys.”
“Thank you. I think.”
“What makes you so sure it was a compliment?”
“I don’t want to be like most guys. So it was a compliment.”
Maggie sat there and watched us as we played verbal volleyball. I always wondered what that dog was thinking. Probably nothing complicated.
Dad walked in from the backyard, where he’d been working on a painting. “What’s with the cake?”
“We’re making it for Mima.”
“That’s sweet.”
Sam smiled. “Well, we’re very sweet young people.” She couldn’t leave out that little teaspoon of sarcasm—?part of her recipe for living.
Dad grinned. “I’m going to clean up. I’m going out tonight.”
Sam couldn’t help herself. “Going out with anyone we know?”
“Just a movie with an old friend.”
It’s not as if we were surprised when the doorbell rang and it was Marcos. I had never noticed how handsome he was. Still, he wasn’t as handsome as my dad. And he was shorter. I wondered if most kids noticed their parents and how they looked. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. I hadn’t exactly taken a poll.
Dad seemed a little embarrassed by the whole situation.
Sammy didn’t help him out one damn bit. “Text if you’re going to be out late.”
Marcos just shrugged and grinned at her.
Dad couldn’t get out the door fast enough.
“I don’t care if he is cute. If he hurts your dad, I’ll kill him.”
“Are we going to start that again?”
“How come you don’t care?”
“I do care. I learned something about my dad today. Something very beautiful. You know that game What If? Well, Sam, what if my dad hadn’t adopted me?”
“I don’t know, Sally. I don’t have an answer to that one.”
“Not,” I said. “Not, not, not.”
“Enough with the nots already. Basta.”
“I don’t know what would have happened to me if Dad hadn’t adopted me—?but I do know I wouldn’t have this life. And it’s the only life I know. I wouldn’t have Mima, who is the greatest grandmother in the fucking world—”
“Did you just use the F word?”
“Sarcasm looks really good on you, you know that?”
“Couldn’t help myself.”
“I know. I know. But, Sammy, if it weren’t for my dad, I wouldn’t know you. You wouldn’t be my best friend. You wouldn’t be living here. You know, I asked my dad once if he believed in God. You know what he said?”
“Tell me.”
“He said, ‘Every time I look into your blue eyes. Every time I hear you laugh. Every day, when I hear your voice, I thank God for you. Yeah, Salvador, I believe in God.’”
Sam leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re the luckiest boy in the world.”
I nodded. “You bet your ass.” Yeah, I was the luckiest boy in the world. But I was still a boy. Shit.
Sam and I were sitting at the kitchen table admiring the chocolate cake we’d baked.
“Who knew?” Sam said. “Chocolate cream cheese frosting.” She was really happy. “Who knew that teaching a girl how to bake a cake could make her happy?”
“Did the girl learn?”
“I took notes.” She tapped her temple. “Up here. And it’s really beautiful.”
“It’s all about the aesthetics.”
“You love that word.”
“My dad’s an artist.”
Right then, for whatever reason, I got this not-so-great idea to have a glass of wine. So we sat at the kitchen table and opened up a bottle of red. I poured us each a glass. We toasted our cake.
I swear I don’t know what got into us. Pretty soon we were having a second glass.
“You think your dad will get mad?”
“Hmm,” I said. “It’s not as if he’s going to kill us.”
We both shrugged and kept drinking. The thing is, I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to know what it felt like to be drunk. You want me to explain this with logic? Well, where was the logic to loving? Where was the logic to dying in accidents? Where was the logic to cancer? Where was the logic to living? I was starting to believe that the human heart had an inexplicable logic. But I was also starting to get drunk, so I wasn’t trusting anything I was thinking.
As I opened up a second bottle, Sam and I looked at each other with a kind of what-the-hell thing on our faces. “Did you know I used to think that every person was like a book?” I said.
Sam laughed. “Boy, you are a talker when you drink.”
“I can shut up.”
I poured us another glass of wine.
“No! Don’t! Just talk. You do know that I do most of the talking in this little mutual admiration society of ours.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“You do know what that means, don’t you?”
“It means you like to talk more than I do.”
“You’re an idiot. It means you know me better than I know you.”
“You know me.”
Sam looked at me. I wasn’t going to argue with her. Not because I wouldn’t win the argument, but because I knew she was right.
“I’ll try and do better.”