I'll Be Here

discipline and one day she told him this after class.  He looked right at her and said, “Impressing you is the whole point of this so I guess I’m doing something right.” 
    Then he bowed his head sheepishly and asked the question he’d wanted to ask for months, “Please go out with me?”
    They were married less than a year later. 
     In the beginning Jake moved in with us and the three of us lived in our cramped loft apartment down by the beach that had two bedrooms and one very small bathroom.  Jake would bring home real estate brochures and leave them in strategic spots—inside the lid of the kettle that my mom used to make her tea, tucked under the cover of the book that she was reading.  Mom smiled but stayed firm—she said the view of the bay made up for the small space and that she liked to be cozy with her new family. 
    Then, I accidentally walked in on Jake while he was taking a shower.  I got an unwanted visual of the male anatomy and a red-faced Jake decided that enough was enough and we needed a bigger place, no more excuses.
    Brooke Faber was our realtor. 
    She and mom hit it off right away.  It turned out that she was from a small town in Georgia about thirty miles away from where Mom grew up and they even knew some of the same people and places.  And she had a son just about my age. 
    “What a coincidence!”  Mom exclaimed as Brooke opened the door of a three-two with a wooded lot and a hot tub.  “We’ll have to get the kids together.”
    Oh my…    
    I knew Alex Faber from school. 
    He was two grades above me and therefore completely off-limits socially, but that didn’t keep me from looking at him.  I’d noticed him way back on the very first day of sixth grade.  Somehow my schedule had been messed up and I’d been placed in the wrong math so the teacher sent me down to the office to get it worked out.  Alex was leaning against the receptionist’s counter and when I walked in he turned around. 
    He grinned at me. 
    Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat
    My heart swelled.
    And so did the world.
    He was tall (which I could relate to) and the type of thin and gawky that accompanies adolescents whose bodies grow too tall too fast.  His complexion was pale and marked with a few reddened pimples and his electric blue eyes loomed out from his face like two giant blinking moons. 
    He was wearing loosely tied sneakers and pinstripe shorts and he had a black leather cord tied around his neck.  It held a small stone but I was too far away to be able to see what kind it was. 
    He was filling out a form and when he turned back to it to finish, I stared at the back of his head.  I decided that it was a nicely shaped head.  A perfect head actually.  An older boy’s head.  He wore his dark hair spiky, sticking out in every direction.  I could tell that he used hair gel and to my eleven year old self, that seemed quite sophisticated. 
    Alex left the office and I got my class switched and that was pretty much the extent of the interaction.  Alex Faber was older and exceptional and I knew that every thought in his head would be profound.  What could he possibly say to me?
    What he finally said was: “Try this.”  He placed a bright yellow ball in my hands. 
    I swallowed.
    “You’re left-handed?”
    I just nodded completely flabbergasted and overwhelmed by his nearness and the fact that he was practically touching me.  It was my first time in a bowling alley.  The place smelled like rubber and popcorn and among the florescent lighting and smacking sounds of balls against pins, I felt distinctly out of place. 
    His father was behind him with a similar quirky smile.  A thin mustache lined his upper lip.  “Call me Pete,” he told me with a firm handshake.  “Mr. Faber is my father.” 
    I didn’t normally like mustachioed men (mustaches are just cheesy, right?), but I liked Pete.  I learned that he drew comics for a living.  How cool is that?
    Alex and Pete were shocked when I explained that I’d never bowled before.  Pete chided my mom and Jake for not “rounding out my education.  Alex helped me pick out a six pound lime green ball that Pete said would do me .  They explained some of the basics like how I should stand and how to adjust my aim by lining up my thumb with the arrows on the floor. 
    I’d always thought of bowling as a crass non-sport that was mainly played by rednecks and losers.  But this was different.  Alex was far from being a loser and