Coda 02 -A to Z

“Yes.”
“When?”
    He smiled up at me. “How ’bout now?” I had a feeling he was only saying that so he wouldn’t have a chance to back out, but I let it go.
    “Okay,” I said as I handed him the keys to the truck. “You’ll have to drive. I don’t even know where you live.”
    His apartment turned out to be in the upstairs of a split-level four-plex. We each grabbed a stack of empty boxes out of the truck. Just as we got to the stairs, one of the downstairs doors opened, and a boy stepped out. He was about thirteen. He had bad skin and wild blond hair that had been carefully styled to look messy. “Hey, Angelo.”
    “Hey, Josh.”

    “Some lady came by looking for you. She’s been here, like, a hundred times since you left. She really wants to see you.” “Are you sure she wanted me? Not Fred?” I could only assume Fred was one of the other tenants.

    Josh nodded. “Yeah. She asked for Angelo Green.” He grinned. “That’s you, right?”

    Angelo looked confused. “Yeah, man, but—a chick ?”
    Josh shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I wouldn’t call her that. She was, like, old , you know? She asked when you’d be home. I told her to check back today.”
    Angelo still looked confused but said, “Thanks, Josh,” and Josh went back inside.
    “You have a woman looking for you?” I asked jokingly as I followed him up the stairs to his apartment. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
    “Thought you knew, Zach” he said to me over his shoulder. “I’m a real ladies man.”

    “Right,” I said, laughing. “But she’s old .”
    “Josh thinks everyone over twenty is old. Asked me the other day if we had TV when I was growin’ up.” We reached his apartment. He set down his boxes and unlocked the door but then turned to me apprehensively before he opened it. “No foolin’ around here, okay?”
    “Okay,” I said. He was so serious, and I was trying to keep from smiling. I couldn’t help but add, “Not even a little bit?”
    I said it jokingly, but he didn’t laugh. His eyebrows went down a little, and he got that stubborn look in his eyes that was starting to become very familiar to me. “I mean it, Zach. It’s my space. I need it to stay mine, even if it’s only for a few more days.”
    “Okay, no fooling around, I got it!” He watched me for a second, like he wasn’t sure whether or not to believe me. Finally he sighed, pushed the hair out of his face, and opened the door.
    There wasn’t much in the apartment: one couch straight out of the Seventies and showing every year of its long life; a dining room table that was covered with junk mail; and a kitchen that looked like it had never been cooked in.
    “That is the ugliest couch I’ve ever seen,” I said, and he laughed.
    “I know, right? Came with the apartment. The table too.” “So what do you have that needs to go in the truck?”
    “My bed. A dresser. And that.” He pointed to the wall behind me.
    I turned around to see what he was talking about, and my jaw dropped. On the wall behind me was a giant plasma TV. Then I noticed the speakers. “You have surround sound?” I asked in astonishment.
    “’Course, man. You’re the only guy left in the world who doesn’t.”

    On a low table underneath the TV was a VCR, a DVD player, and a Blu-ray.

    “Blu-ray even?” I asked.

    “Yeah. We gotta start orderin’ those for the store, too, you know? Lots of people have ’em now.”
    “New technology will be the death of me.” I wasn’t kidding actually, but he laughed anyway. “You have all that,” I said, “but where are the movies?”
    He gave me that lopsided grin. “I rent ’em, remember?” I had to laugh at that. “Right. Is there a wall in your new apartment big enough for that thing?”

    “No,” he said, suddenly looking unsure of himself. “I was gonna set it up at your place.”
    It was ridiculous, how happy those words made me. Not because I was dying to have a plasma TV, but because it meant that he was planning to be there with me, at least some of the time.
    “I’d like that.”
“Thought maybe you could let me take your little TV instead?”
    “Anything you want, Ang.” And whatever doubts I may have formulated over the last hour, they were all swept away by the smile he gave me. He walked up to me and kissed me once, quickly.
    “Thanks, Zach.”
    He turned and picked up an empty box and headed for what I assumed was the bedroom. “I’ll be back here,” he