Good Luck, Fatty

face.
    “We’ll see about that.”
    Like Tom planned last time, we make the rounds from Pebble to White Sands to Boardwalk and back again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. “Whew,” I say, grinding the Schwinn to a halt at the intersection of Pebble and…whatever cross-street this is, which I have no ability to discern based on the lack of signage. “What’s that? Eight miles?”
    Tom stops a few feet ahead of me, as always. It must be a guy thing. “Yup,” he says. “A mile out and a mile back, times four.”
    I’d like to quit now, since my knees ache like they’ve got screws twisting around inside them and my lower back is on fire with pain. But Tom is almost vibrating with energy. “What’s next?” I ask.
    He stares at me for a few seconds (a few silent, intense seconds that somehow tell me he wants me, or loves me, or both) before saying, “We should probably take a break.”
    Is my pathetic state that obvious? I wonder. Then again, it’s sweet of him to notice. “Okay,” I agree, only too happy to rest my sore ass (this seat needs a pillow bungeed around it) and my overtaxed lungs.
    It’s been a balmy fall this year, but now, two weeks before Christmas break, a chill has begun to set in. Good thing I’m too overheated to take much notice of it.
    Tom tells me to leave the Schwinn by his fence, where he tucks the BMX between a riding mower and the pickets (is that what you call the vertical boards of a fence?). He unties the gate, and we waltz past the chicken house for the prefab deck (another feature I don’t recall from my last visit, leading me to conclude that it’s new) and then mosey into the house, him holding all the doors as we go.
    This time when we get inside, he springs a surprise on me. “I meant to show you something…” he says vaguely, “…when you came before. But, uh, we never…”
    I don’t know the layout of his house well enough to anticipate where he’s leading me (although, since it’s a double-wide trailer, it probably isn’t much different than the compact little ranch where Orv, Denise, and I live). Across from the bathroom he stops and opens a door that I figure is a linen closet.
    But it isn’t. “You have a basement?!” I squeal. There are steps behind that door; stairs to the underground.
    He grins, and for the first time, I appreciate how bright and welcoming his mouth is. “Uh-huh.”
    In my fifteen years, I have never been inside a basement. Most of the houses around here are on slabs, their owners (like Orv, Denise, and me) too poor to invest in such upscale amenities. “That is so cool,” I mutter, more to myself than Tom, who clicks on a number of tap-lights that are randomly stuck to the walls of the stairwell and then starts descending.
    “Be careful,” he tells me, the stairs creaking and groaning under my considerable girth. “These things are pretty steep.”
    I grip the railing tighter. “No problem.”
    When we get to the landing, my mind is blown even further. Not only does Tom have a basement, he has a finished basement (soothing, earth-toned paint, speckled carpeting, a sofa that’s a notch above the one I lounge across every day). And that’s only the half of it. The opposite side of the place has a retro-looking black-and-white tiled floor and two giant game tables: ping-pong and air hockey.
    Tom nudges my arm. “You wanna watch some TV? I’ve got Seinfeld on DVD.”
    I love sitcoms, especially the old ones, where people had cell phones the size of winter boots. And don’t get me started on Kramer. “Sure,” I say. I sink into the squishy sofa and wait.
    Tom rummages around in the entertainment center until he finds the discs, which he fires up on the flat-screen. “Here,” he says, passing me an icy Coke.
    I crane my neck curiously. “Oh, a mini-fridge?” I say. “Nice.” Even though I’m a Diet Coke girl, I pop the top and take a few long gulps.
    As the perky theme music bings and crackles, Tom eases in next to me on the sofa. When his thigh touches mine, I get a freaky, hot charge, as if I’ve narrowly escaped being struck by lightning. Tom wastes no time saying, “You look pretty today.”
    Why is this boy so set on screwing me? If he doesn’t knock it off, he’s going to demolish a perfectly good friendship. I roll my eyes and say, “Right.”
    “You shouldn’t do that, you know.”
    I wrinkle my brow. “Do what?”
    “Be so jerky about compliments. People are just trying to be nice.”
    Who are these