I wanted to know who you were, besides the voice of Mister Ed, so I looked you up online. I found a picture of you, and I was surprised to see you were really very handsome. A Western man. Rough and kind at once. Up until then, I had only seen the face of Mister Ed when I pictured you in my mind. But I discovered you were a boy who grew up in Indiana and left school because you dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star. Before you were Mister Ed, you were Harry Leonard Albershart from Indiana, and then Allan Lane the actor, nicknamed Rocky. The article said you made thirty B Westerns—the low-budget kind—riding a horse called Black Jack through movie sets. It’s strange the way even dreams turn into jobs.
When you were on set shooting all of those B movies with titles like Desperadoes’ Outpost and Frontier Investigator, I wonder if in your head you were riding a real horse across the desert, galloping off to somewhere else. It might not be what you’d imagined when you wanted to become a star, but when you were Mister Ed, you galloped yourself into the living rooms of so many people who loved you. I know that.
Aunt Amy has watched your show since she and Mom were kids. I think it reminds her of when the world seemed safe. The way you make us laugh, it’s clean—a talking horse goes to a dentist, makes phone calls to movie stars, watches too much TV. Nothing really bad ever happens.
I wish that Aunt Amy could meet somebody like you. Someone who could make her laugh and look good in his cowboy hat as he tipped it toward her. If you were here, you could do your Mister Ed voice and make her crack up. Instead, Aunt Amy just has the Jesus Man, who never calls back.
When I see her putting on her apron in the morning to go to work, I can see the days stretch ahead of her like a desert. Even if it didn’t come perfectly true, you got to live close to your dream. But she works at the Casa Grande diner, where people go for lunch, people who seem like they wish they were meant to go to lunch somewhere else. The cooks put too much chicken salad on the sandwiches. A huge ice cream scoop of it, over a slippery tomato. They don’t bother spreading it out. And the whole thing slides off.
Last weekend, she asked me to come and visit her there. It was near the end of her shift, and I was one of only four tables. Across the room, there was a man wearing a tee shirt that said ABSTINENCE: 99.9% EFFECTIVE, with a picture of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. When his iced tea was empty, he sucked at the crushed ice through a straw. He sucked out all the liquid the ice was willing to give up. When no refill came, he snapped his fingers. Aunt Amy probably didn’t like him on account of his shirt, and she walked over without her iced tea pitcher and told him that was rude. They got in an argument, and the manager ended up giving him his glass of tea for free. Another table sitting next to me sent back their fries because they were too crispy. I watched Aunt Amy behind the counter. She sneezed into her hand, and then when she thought no one was looking, she subtly touched the new plate of fries. It surprised me that someone who believes in Jesus would do this. But it’s a hard job.
Homecoming is this weekend (thank god I’ll be with Dad), but Aunt Amy saw it marked on the school calendar, so she knew it was coming up. After her lunch shift she wanted to give me a little pep talk. She said that if I was going to be attending the school dance, she wanted to remind me to use good judgment. Then she started on a lecture about not dancing too close. “Make sure you leave some room for the Holy Ghost.” You might be laughing at that, but although she tried to smile at me when she said it, I don’t think it was meant to be a joke. She reminded me of the pitfalls of sin, and then asked me if I wanted to go shopping. Even though I need a dress, I didn’t want to go with her, because she disapproves of spaghetti straps, and all good homecoming dresses have them. I knew I’d end up with a church dress that I would feel guilty for not wearing. So I told her I had homework. Then she gave me $20 to shop with, but I didn’t want to tell her that you can’t buy a dress with that much. So I took the $20, and even though I felt bad, I figured I could get Nutter Butters for pretty much the rest of the year with it.
Today at lunch before I went to buy one, I looked for Natalie and Hannah. When I saw them, Natalie was giving Hannah a single tulip. Hannah took the tulip and put it to her face as if to smell it, even though tulips don’t smell. Natalie giggled and said, “Will you go to homecoming with me, dah-ling?”
Hannah dropped the tulip on her tray. She looked at Natalie. “What do you mean?” she asked with an edge in her voice.
Natalie said, “I just think the whole thing of dances is so stupid. I thought we should have fun with it, you know, not worry about boys or anything. We can wear flapper dresses and eat at the fondue place first.” Her voice went up at the end, in a sort of hopeful way. Then she turned to me quickly and said, “Laurel will go with us, too. Sorry I didn’t bring you a flower, Laurel. I didn’t know what kind you like. I stole the tulip from my neighbor’s yard. Mr. Dickie came out and started yelling, so I had to run. He chased me down half a block before his asthma kicked in.”
I tried to laugh.
Hannah said, “Laurel is going with Evan Friedman. Remember? Anyway, Kasey’s going to take me. I talked him into it. He’s borrowing his dad’s convertible. But I guess you can come with us if you want.”
Natalie looked annoyed. “Why would he want to go to a high school dance? He’s, like, nineteen.”
Hannah gave a sly smile and said, “I told him if he came, afterward I’d give him an extra good surprise.”
I could see then that something in Natalie got crushed. The look on her face was like when you just finished making a waffle in the morning, and you got it out of the toaster, and you put on the butter and the syrup and had it cut along the lines into square inches, and you were carrying it into your room, so excited, but then you dropped it facedown on the floor. And you felt so sad about the whole thing, you didn’t even want to make another.
Natalie just said, “Okay, that’s cool. Actually, someone asked me, anyway.”
Hannah looked at her and said, “Who?”
Natalie looked down at the floor, and then back up at Hannah. Her cheeks were red. If she was angry or embarrassed, I don’t know. But it was their moment. So I mumbled something about Nutter Butters and went away.
As I was going up to get in the lunch line, I saw Sky standing there. I started to walk the other way. But I turned back and stood in line behind him. I stared at the back of his head and didn’t say anything for a while. I kept opening my mouth, but nothing came out. Finally, I said, “Hey.”