More Happy Than Not

I throw the ball, but I fucking miss.

We both run for the wall, and Thomas shouts “Suicide!” and before I can call it myself, I’ve been beaned so hard I crash straight into the wall and sink to the ground.

“Aaron!”

Genevieve rushes over to me, but I’m fine, or should be in a few days, at least. She massages my temples and I turn to see Me-Crazy celebrating his hell of a hit. And Brendan is shaking his head, no doubt disappointed in my bad throw.

“You sure you’re okay, babe?” We sit the rest of the game out, my head still pounding.

“I could down a bottle of Excedrin right now,” I say, which are poor choice words for the guy with the suicide attempt on his life record. We watch the game while chatting about how she’s going to miss having someone tall around to reach for high things when she flies to New Orleans on Tuesday afternoon. I’m about to tell her something that would be rated NC-17 if it were a movie, when Thomas beans the hell out of Fat-Dave so hard, Brendan claims he felt that one. And sure, they all sympathize for the dude with extra poundage as a shield, but when I get hit in the fucking head, the only one who makes a move for me is my girlfriend. That’s gotta be contractual or something.

The game comes down to Thomas and Brendan and Me-Crazy. Between Thomas and Brendan, someone’s balls gotta drop sometime in the next few rounds so Me-Crazy doesn’t win out of fear. Brendan has a really bad throw (not that I’m going ahead and shooting him a disappointed look or anything) and it rolls toward my mom and our neighbors.

“I’ll get it,” I offer so I can test my motor skills after that hit to the head. To my relief, I don’t walk like some toy with bad wiring. My mom has the handball by the time I get to her and I throw it back over to Brendan. “Rough game over there.”

“I preferred the water-balloon fight,” Mom says.

“Even when we were throwing bottles of water at Me-Crazy?”

“I don’t think there’s any more damage that can be done to that boy,” Mom says a little too loudly, getting some laughs from some neighbors who I know without knowing, if that makes sense. But there’s one woman I sort of, kind of, definitely recognize, something to do with her piercing green eyes and tousled mass

of red-orange hair. That hair is like a candle’s flame.

“Hello, kiddo,” the redhead says in a light English accent that’s got a tinge of South Bronx flavor to it.

“Evangeline!” I practically shout. She’s my old babysitter and I had the biggest crush on her. It’s weird seeing her casually drinking when I never saw her drinking as a kid, which, you know, made her a good babysitter. “I want to hug you or something but I’m really sweaty and, uh, dude-like right now.”

She puts down her beer and hugs me anyway. She messes with my hair and looks me in the eyes. “So this is little Aaron Soto nine years later. You’re so handsome. I’m sure you have plenty of gorgeous suitors fighting over you, yes?”

“Just the one girlfriend, actually,” I proudly say. It’s sort of awesome being able to tell my first crush that I’m basically off the market now. She shouldn’t have turned me down when I asked her out after my Power Rangers marathon.

“One lovely girlfriend he snuck away to spend the night with yesterday,” Mom grumbles. “Behind my back.”

“How was London?” I ask Evangeline, ignoring Mom. If I remember right, she’s only nine or ten years older than me. “You broke my heart to study abroad, right?” I cried and cried after she left, not that I’m going to own up to that right now.

“I was studying philosophy at King’s College. Though if I could rewind time I would happily trade in courses about pre-Socratic ideologies in favor of playing race cars with you.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear.” I smile. “So you’re back. For good?”

“I am, I am. I need to figure out work now, but am simply relieved to be back in the states where I’ll take our God-awful subway traffic over the London Underground any day of the week.” She suddenly gives me the same sad look she used to have whenever she had to tell me my mom was stuck at work for another hour or two. “I’m sorry about your father. If you ever want to talk, kiddo, give me a holler, even if it’s just to tattle on your brother for not sharing the Player One controller.”

I pocket my hand so she won’t see my scar. My mom lowers her head. Better to chat with Evangeline instead of Dr. Slattery, the awful therapist I spent a few weeks talking to. “For sure.” I fake-smile because everyone wants happiness for me as much as I want it for myself. “Welcome back.”

I head back to the game just in time to see Me-Crazy bean Brendan with the ball. Thomas must’ve been eliminated a minute or so before because he’s already sitting down with Genevieve, probably chatting about fireflies again. I sit on the other side of Gen and Baby Freddy asks me, “Who’s that redhead with your mother?”

“My old babysitter,” I answer. “She’s pretty gorgeous, right?” This catches Genevieve’s attention. She stops talking with Thomas and turns around to scope out her competition. “I had the craziest crush for Evangeline as a kid. But I’ve moved on.”

Brendan asks, “How didn’t I know this, you punk bitch?”

“Because I haven’t illustrated my autobiographical graphic novel yet, asshole.”

Later I escape with Genevieve for some alone time before her father picks her up. She won’t be around to meet tomorrow—her aunt is taking her shopping for her retreat—but we’ll definitely be in touch and will see each other for her birthday on Monday. I walk her to the car. She punches me in the shoulder before joining her father, who grunts my way and guns the engine.

Thomas looks tired by the time I make it back to the courts. He’s sitting by himself, watching the others drinking Arizona iced teas and laughing. “You good?” I ask him.

He nods. “More fun than I ever have on my block.”

“You doing anything tomorrow?”