Chapter 7: You’ve Got a Friend

Wednesday February 8
It’s funny how your experiences can make you see things differently. My kids were all taking after Little David by learning to walk. Mom and I were in the living room watching Little David and Coby show off their skills while Cassidy, Peggy, and Dad made breakfast. Coby pulled himself up using the coffee table and promptly fell on his butt. That triggered his face to scrunch up, and his tears to well up, when my mom began to sing to him.

I was surprised because it was a classic I’d always thought of as a love song, but it fit perfectly with the little one’s newest adventure. The song was You’ve Got A Friend. The lyrics were sung to someone who was going through a difficult time, and they were unhappy. It started out talking about if you were down and troubled that the singer would offer a helping hand. When my mom sang to Coby, he looked up and saw she had her hands held out to him.

The little giggle-box forgot about wanting to cry as Mom continued to serenade him. I joined her when she sang the chorus where it told Coby to just call out our names, and we would come running. Mom helped him stand and held onto both his pudgy little hands as they swayed to the music. In my mind, You’ve Got A Friend was forever changed to the baby walking song. I wasn’t sure whether or not the songwriter would appreciate that, but your perspective changes when life happens.

“Breakfast!” Peggy called to break up our little sing-along.

I scooped up Little David while my mom took care of Coby. Happy babies can brighten up even your darkest night, in both the song’s and my opinion.

My happiness turned to concern when I saw my dad grab the countertop with both hands, his eyes close, and his head drop.

“Rob,” my mom said with concern.

“It’s just a dizzy spell. Give me a second,” he said.

Mom handed me Coby so she could go to my dad. He opened his eyes and gave her a sheepish smile.

“I forgot to take my pills this morning,” Dad admitted.

Mom sent me upstairs to get his medicine from their bathroom. I came back downstairs with them in hand.

“I’ve been able to cut back because I’ve been getting better. Sometimes it just reminds me that I need to take it easy,” Dad said to assure my mom. “I just forgot to check my heart rate this morning.”

They’d given Dad a battery-operated cuff he put on his forearm that checked his blood pressure and heart rate. Thankfully, he was responding well to the treatment plan his doctors had laid out for him. It was still early, but they felt he would be okay and live a long life. He was relatively young and in decent shape. They wanted him to lose some weight, but that was a common issue for someone his age.

Heck, my brother had put on a few pounds. It made me worry he might end up with problems similar to my dad when he was twenty years older.

“Should we talk to Greg about his weight gain?” I asked.

My dad’s eyes narrowed at me, and then he let go of his initial irritation at the perceived dig. Then he took what I asked seriously.

“I’ll have a talk with him,” Dad assured me.

I was relieved because my brother wouldn’t take me as seriously as he would Dad. Greg would just think I was making fun of him. The truth was, Greg wasn’t really overweight yet, but if he continued, he would be. With our family history of heart issues, keeping his weight down was something he could do to help. It was something we both had to be aware of.

I’d decided today was put-up or shut-up time as far as dating a girl at Lincoln High. I’d run through the list in my mind. There were a handful of girls that could have made the decision easy if they were actually attending school with me. The short list included Halle James, my actress friend in Hollywood; Kara Tasman, a top model in New York; and Missy Stone, my favorite redhead at Wesleyan.

Locally, Gina Tasman had three strikes against her. She was Alan’s ex; even though he and I were on the outs, I couldn’t date one of Alan’s former girlfriends. The second problem I had with Gina was that she was Kara’s sister. And finally, I thought Gina and Wolf had something going. What that could be, I had no idea.

What really sealed the deal was, let’s just say it: I thought she was a bit of a bitch. It was one thing to be friends with her, but dating ... Nah, not happening.

I decided to narrow the field and focus on someone whom I hadn’t dated before. The first girl that came to mind was Kylie Ruttier. She was one of the ‘frosh’ cheerleaders that Tracy had put me in charge of my sophomore year. At the time, I’d thought they were all too young. In the last two years, they’d grown up, but in the back of my mind, I still thought they were too young. That is when I added another filter: they had to be a senior. The underage aspect could potentially bite me in the butt.

“Hey, want to have lunch together?” I asked my target.

“Uhm ... I’m not really part of your crowd. I’m not sure they would want me to come to your table.”

“Did you forget who I am?” I asked with a mischievous look.

“No, David. Everyone knows who you are, and I’m guessing that if I went to lunch with you, your friends would be nice. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m not really part of your crowd.”

“We could get a table by ourselves,” I suggested.

She gave me a skeptical look.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Let’s cut to the chase. I was wondering if you would go out with me this weekend.”

“Like on a date?” she asked as her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline in surprise.

“Yeah, like a date,” I said, suddenly worried she might turn me down.

“I guess,” she offered skeptically.

I decided just to take that as a win and pressed forward.

“I haven’t been on a first date in a while. Is there something you’d like to do?” I asked.

She barked out a laugh.

“I’m not falling for that. Everyone knows that if you ask a girl out, you plan the dates, or they get canceled.”

Wow, I’d forgotten all about that. The ‘frosh’ girls had tried to set me up, and the one they’d wanted me to go out with kept asking what we were doing. The way I remembered it, she wanted to make sure it was something that would be fun, or she didn’t want to go. I’d felt like she was playing games, so I had withdrawn the offer. I could see that someone who didn’t know all the details would think that about me.

“Tell you what. This one time, it’s Lady’s Choice. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go,” I said.

“Really? Anywhere I want to go?” she asked.

There were some people to whom, if I’d made that offer, I would be sweating bullets. Destiny Crown jumped to mind. She might make me take her to Paris for dinner. Of course, I had a loophole for that one. There was a Paris in Illinois I could use if needed.

“Sure. Why not? I think it’ll be fun to see what a girl wants to do on a first date. It also takes a lot of the pressure off of me,” I said with a little smile.

I could see she hadn’t thought this through. Planning a good first date wasn’t easy. I decided to give her an out.

“If it’s too much...” I started.

“No!” she blurted, and then her lips curled up in pleasure. “I need to think about it, but I’ll plan the date.”

“So, that means you’ll go out with me?” I asked.

“Yes, David. Was there ever any doubt?” she asked.

I waggled my eyebrows at her in response.

“Now leave me alone. I need to talk to my girlfriends to get some ideas,” she said as she walked past me.

I felt good. I had an actual first date set. Baby steps, right?

I nonchalantly slid into my seat at the lunch table.

“What do you call half of a colon?” Wolf asked the table and then paused for effect. “A semicolon.”

“Please, make it stop,” Gina begged.

“What weight does an evangelist carry with God?” Wolf continued unperturbed. “A Billigram.”

“I’ve got one...” I started with the intention to tell one of my religious jokes that I told my boys.

That was when there was a big squeal from a table on the other side of the lunchroom as my date told her friends she was going out with me. The whole lunchroom turned to see why several girls were making a racket when the noisemakers all turned and looked at me. My tablemates, in turn, all looked at me.

“I have a date,” I explained.

“With Sun Ling?” Cassidy asked.

“Yeppers,” I admitted.

I was a little put out that my friends didn’t believe me. They couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea that I would date someone ‘normal’ like Sun. I’d gotten to know her when she and I had math together, and I’d noticed something was up with her. Turned out, Sun was homeless. My mom had worked with our church to find her a family that would let her move in with them. While she wasn’t the type of girl I usually dated, I liked Sun as a person. It wasn’t like we were getting married.

I was amused by my friends. First, they’d pushed me to date someone at Lincoln High so I could enjoy my senior year. I think Tim and Wolf had visions of double-dates where I picked up the tab. Well, that wasn’t really the whole reason. They were recalling the fact that I tended to do fun things, like motocross with Brook. I could always just plan a guys’ outing, and we’d do something like that.

But with this new development, the girls were confused. Sun wasn’t the typical cheerleader type I usually spent time with. I guess most guys have a type. I liked smart, athletic girls who have outgoing personalities. Sun was more of a nerd who I suspected didn’t exercise other than when forced to in PE. She was also quiet. I guessed her to be probably five-two and weigh about a hundred pounds. Me being over a foot taller and more than twice her weight made people wonder.

I’d picked Sun precisely because she wouldn’t be my usual choice. What people forgot was that in middle school, I was the guy version of Sun. All my friends from my former nerd life were no longer around. Tami and Alan went to Wesleyan, and Jeff was no longer with us. Sun reminded me of what my life could have been like, and in some ways, I missed that.

The deciding factor was that my former nerd self would have totally been into Sun.

After Joey and Cassidy abused me, Cassidy and I met up with JD, my James Bond spycraft consultant, to do more training.

“Have you been working on your skills?”

“I try to pick the locks you gave me for a little while each day. I’m starting to get pretty good at it,” I said.

“I’ve been working on fox walking,” Cassidy shared.

I gave her a sideways look because the last thing I needed was for the little ninja to learn to sneak up on me.

“Good,” JD said. “Today, we’ll do a field trip and test out your skills. Before we do that, I want to share with you the mindset needed for a good spy. Chubby wants you to be able to fall into the role naturally and asked me to share this side of the business.”

“You were a spy?” Cassidy asked.

JD gave her a noncommittal look and then looked at me to let Cassidy know she wasn’t going to answer that question.

“A big part of the tradecraft is analyst work. You have to wade through piles of information that can be both contradictory and ambiguous to find the one key item that is relevant. The other side isn’t going to make it easy for you and will try to mislead or outright lie. That’s why a systematic approach that considers a range of alternative explanations and outcomes is the best approach. Let me give you a few tips when looking at something to try to get to the truth.

“Try not to go into a situation with an expectation of what you’ll find. When we do that, we find what we expect. We also fall into the trap of resisting the truth even when faced with new evidence,” JD taught.

“I totally get that,” I admitted.

“Another trap is to think that a small body of consistent data means it will hold true across a wider sample.”

“Can you give us an example?” I asked.

“Do you play cards?” JD asked.

“I’ve been learning to play poker.”

“Have you ever noticed that certain cards seem to keep coming up?”

“Now that you mention it, I have.”

Last time I played, it seemed a six came up on every flop. I’d actually hit trip sixes, which reinforced my belief that if I had a six in my hand, I should play it, even though that wasn’t a winning strategy.

“The truth is that, over the long haul, the odds are equal for all the cards in the deck to come up,” she explained.

“That makes sense,” I admitted.

“What I’m trying to point out is that you need to be careful not to allow your bias to creep into your thinking. To help prevent that, challenge critical assumptions. Examine alternative outcomes, even those with low probability, to see if available data might support one or more of these outcomes.

“Here’s a real-life example. In 2002, there was a sniper shooting people in the Washington, DC area. After the initial flurry of shootings, the operating assumption that emerged was that the shootings were the work of a single white male who had some military training and drove a white van. If that working theory had been locked into, they might have ignored new information that contradicted those key assumptions,” JD said.

“What actually happened?” Cassidy asked.

“Ten people were killed and three others injured. It turned out to be a two-man team. One was a 17-year-old from Jamaica. The other was a black man who was a veteran of the Persian Gulf War, and an expert marksman. They were driving a Chevrolet Caprice which had been modified so that a shooter could lie prone and fire, undetected, from inside the car,” JD shared.

“So, the only part they got right was the military training,” Cassidy said.

“And the other takeaway I’m getting from this is an example of why we should question assumptions,” I added.

“Yep,” JD said and seemed happy that we’d understood her lesson. “Ready for a field trip?”

We both nodded.

“You want me to do what?” I asked in shock.

“I want you to break into one of the townhouses,” JD said.

Cassidy had a look on her face that said she was glad it wasn’t her that had to do this task. This was crazy. I could get sent to jail for breaking into a house.

“Chicken,” Cassidy goaded.

“If you can’t even do this, how are you going to be convincing on screen?” JD asked.

“What should I do?” I asked.

“Figure it out,” JD said to be totally unhelpful.

I got out of the car and walked around the townhouses. They backed up to my dad’s golf course. The good news was that it was winter, so no one was playing it. I identified a couple of ways in and made a decision. I walked back and got into the car, and they both stared at me.

“Drive me to the clubhouse,” I said.

“He’s not going to tell us what he plans,” Cassidy observed.

“Why not?” JD asked.

“That’s just David.”

I kept a neutral look on my face. JD shrugged and drove us to the country club. The girls followed me into the Pro Shop.

“Hey, David. I hear your dad took the day off. Is he okay?” one of the employees asked.

“He was just feeling a little dizzy today. I bet he’s in tomorrow,” I said and then got to why I was there. “I need to borrow a wedge. Do you have any that are in rough shape?”

“Let me look in the back. Sometimes we have a few that are left on the course, and no one picks them up. How rough are you looking for?”

“Something you won’t mind me dinging up a bit.”

While he went into the back, both JD and Cassidy looked concerned.

“You’re not planning on breaking a window, are you?” JD asked.

I just ignored them.

“If he were doing that, he could use his tactical pen,” Cassidy finally realized.

He came out with one that looked like hell.

“We found this one when we cleaned out the lakes at the end of the year. Will this work?”

“Do you need it back? I can give it to my dad to bring in,” I said.

“No, keep it.”

We said our goodbyes and went back to the townhouses.

“You two stay here,” I said as I got out and walked around the back.

I stepped up to the sliding glass door in the back and peeked in the window. It looked like no one was home. My training had taught me that most spring-loaded locking mechanisms have a significant flaw: they can fail against upward force. I leaned the wedge against the side of the house, slipped on my gloves, and grabbed the sliding glass door’s handle with both hands. I looked around again to make sure no one was watching and jerked upwards as hard as I could. My effort pulled the door off its track and popped the spring latch to the open position.

I looked around again and, not seeing anyone, I lowered the door back onto its track. Now that it was unlocked, I eased the door open until the dowel caught the bottom of the doorframe. After backing the door off a few inches, I slid the wedge through the opening, used the club’s head to lift the dowel out of the track, and opened the door the rest of the way.

I quickly stepped through and closed the door behind me. I took a moment to scan the back to assure myself that I’d made it in undetected. Then I turned around and almost peed myself. Sitting in the middle of the room was a cat staring at me.

‘Meow.’

“Hey, Buddy, what’s up?” I asked.

Frick! I was talking to a stupid cat.

‘Meow.’

“You hungry?” I asked.

He got up and strolled to the kitchen. I followed him in, and he showed me his food and water dishes were empty. I filled up his water bowl and then opened the pantry where I found a bag of dry cat food. I sprinkled some in his dish. The cat, now having what he wanted, ignored me as he ate. Typical.

I went back to the sliding glass door, put the security dowel back in place, and locked the door. I grabbed the golf club and walked out the front door, making sure the handle was secured.

When I got back in the car, both girls stared at me. Finally, Cassidy couldn’t handle my silence.

“What took so long?” she asked.

“I had to feed the cat.”

“And then he says with a straight face, ‘I had to feed the cat,’” JD said and burst out laughing.

Chubby Feldman was on the line, and I could hear him laughing too as JD related my adventure in breaking into a home.

“The cat was hungry,” I said to defend myself.

I should know better than to say stuff like that. My mom had roasted me many times. I rolled my eyes when JD, Cassidy, and Chubby all laughed at me.

“David, good job,” Chubby said. “I also like your most recent ‘walk’ video. I forwarded it on to a friend of mine who’s a choreographer, and he has a few suggestions. I’ll send you a video of what he came up with when I get a chance.”

“Thanks.”

“I can’t wait to start filming. I can already tell you’ll be a lot of fun to work with,” Chubby added.

“I just want to do a good job for you, sir.”

“You will. Now go enjoy the rest of your day. I’ll see you at the Academy Awards ceremonies, and I’m sure I’ll have a chance to talk with you at one of the after-parties,” he said and hung up.

I got the feeling that last bit hadn’t been just an idle comment.

“I’m hungry,” Cassidy announced.

Sometimes, she reads my mind.

Friday February 10
I’d gotten some help with my ‘walk’ into school this morning. I’d bribed Marshal and Curtis, who were in my photography class last semester, to video my entrance for Chubby Feldman. Some of the theater and dance kids were assisting me as well.

I had Paul pull up in front of the school and waited. Cassidy had caught a ride with me. These days, she came over each morning, and Dad was teaching her to cook. My personal belief was that she just didn’t want to eat cold cereal at her house. It was only a matter of time before Coach Hope would be joining us for breakfast too. He already ate dinner at our place about three times a week as it was.

“Why aren’t we getting out?” Cassidy asked.

I tried to suppress my grin.

“I have a new walk to try out. Just wait for it,” I told her mysteriously.

That was when I heard the drumbeat start. I made my exit from the car, spread my feet, dropped my head, and began to let my hips twitch to the beat.

‘Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.’

The electric guitar began the opening for the old rock song Black Betty.

I’d talked to everyone and was surprised when one of the guys suggested this song. When he mentioned it, someone had pulled it up on the Internet and played it. What I was looking for was something with a driving beat that I could walk to.

My head came up, and I looked around. I pointed at a girl and then gave her the come-hither sign with the crook of my finger. She was with a group of girls, and she looked around as if to say, ‘Who, me?’ I was nodding to the beat as she hurried over.

I lifted my other arm and repeated the process. Cassidy was behind me, snickering at my antics.

Word must have gotten out. Almost everyone from the school was either at the entryway waiting to see my entrance or in classrooms looking out the windows at my helpers and me. They’d cleared the center area so I could do my thing.

We’d timed it so the second girl would be at my side when they began to sing.

Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
Black Betty had a child (Bam-ba-Lam)
The damn thing gone wild (Bam-ba-Lam)

The girls each grabbed an arm, and we strutted to the center of the area that had been cleared for us. Marshal and Curtis had set up two cameras on tripods, one facing us head-on and the other to the side. Marshal also had a handheld. Between the three angles, we figured we could edit it into a good scene.

Once we were all in place, people from the crowd joined us, and we began a choreographed dance. We only had a few moves planned because we didn’t have much time to prepare. We’d worked in a few of the iconic James Bond poses so I could do my whole Ian Bond shtick. When our routine ended, I suggested we just freestyle until the end of the song.

I spotted Destiny Crown with her arms crossed, looking like a sourpuss. I danced up to her and gave her my best smile.

“Come on, dance with me. You know you want to,” I prodded.

She rolled her eyes but soon joined me. I think the rest of the student body took that as a signal that they could join in. When the song ended, I was surprised when everyone clapped. Even Destiny had a smile on her face.

“You really are a ‘stupid boy,’” Destiny told me. “I might have to transfer if you turn this place into the set of High School Musical Number 99.”

That made me cringe. When I was a kid, Disney had put out a musical about high school kids who would break out in dance or song. Tami had made me go with her to the theater to watch it as payback for making her sit through some terrible monster movie. I didn’t complain because the monster film really was awful. I think sometimes Tami just wanted to remind me that she was a girl, even though she usually liked action movies.

Anyway, to get back on track, Disney had made several more of the movies. Many had been released straight to TV because let’s be honest, who would pay to go see that? I just hoped that when our video was done, it would be better than that.

The bell rang, so I had to hurry to get to class.

After Joey had almost made me throw up from going too hard today, she caught my attention before I went to shower.

“You got a minute?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, and she led me into her little office in the training room. I knew something was up when she closed the door.

“About the other night...” she began.

“When you came over for dinner?”

“Yes,” she said, and then took a deep breath. “You seemed to act like it was more than it was. I want to make sure you understand that we can’t be more than friends.”

“Because you’re working at the school,” I said.

“Well, that, and you’re too young,” she said.

I must have made a face because she hurried on.

“David, it has nothing to do with you. Normally, you would be the type of guy I would go for, but we are in two different places in our lives.”

“So, it’s you and not me,” I said as I shook my head.

“Exactly.”

I chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I just realized that I’m a little too full of myself. I never thought you wouldn’t be interested in all this,” I said with my best smile to try to deflect the hurt I was feeling.

“Sorry, but even with ‘all that,’ not every girl is going to fall for your charms,” Joey assured me.

“Wow! You’re harsh. Give me a minute while I wrap my brain around that,” I said and gave her my drowned puppy look.

She didn’t buy it.

“It’s just that I had a good time meeting everyone and want to come back for dinner. If you think I would ever change my mind, I’ll pass,” Joey explained.

“No worries. I’ll put on my big-boy pants and move on,” I said and huffed. Then I had an idea. “You know my brother thinks you’re hot too?”

“Do I need to talk to Phil?”

“Not him, Greg.”

Joey just blinked at me. Suddenly, I realized that she liked my brother.

“But he’s married. I would never agree to be the other woman,” she confided.

“Good. There are times I would be willing to swap out Angie, but for some reason, my brother loves her,” I said.

“You don’t like her?”

“She’s okay. She just gets on my last nerve sometimes,” I said.

“Oh.”

“The reason I bring Greg up is that he needs to get in shape. My family has a history of heart issues. I lost my grandfather that way, and my dad was just in the hospital for it. I worry about them.”

“I could help them both if you want.”

“What would work best for you?” I asked.

“If they could come to the high school before my day starts, I’d be willing to get them in shape,” Joey said.

“Do you need to get permission from the school to let them work out here?” I asked.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted.

“No worries. If we have to go somewhere else, I have a gym membership I never use. I bet they’d let me do some kind of package deal for my family,” I said, and then realized something. “Let me know how much it is for you to train them, and I’ll have Scarlet get you set up on our payroll.”

“I could use the extra money. They aren’t paying me what I’m worth here,” Joey said.

“They never do, do they?”

“No, probably not for your first job.”

Well, our conversation wasn’t a complete loss, even though I’d been dumped before we even went out. I knew that my debt to my brother for teaching Dare about girls was probably repaid in full. He would be secretly excited that I’d gotten Joey to agree to train him. I would bet he’d actually put the effort in to get into shape if she were there to watch over him.

I also knew that all I had to do was tell my mom, and she would make sure both my dad and Greg showed up. She was handy like that, sometimes.

At lunch, Cassidy was looking pleased with herself. I could tell she was dying to tell me something, so I ignored her. Tim and Wolf followed my lead, which caused Cassidy to glare at us.

“What’s up, Cassidy?” Darius asked.

I think I liked him better when he was broken and afraid to talk.

“I have video from this morning,” she announced. “David, get your tablet out so everyone can see.”

She pulled her phone out and tapped at the screen for a second, and my tablet dinged to let me know I had an email. I opened the attachment so it would download. Once it had, I put the tablet on the table so everyone could see and hit play.

“Is that from your drone?” Wolf asked.

Sometimes I wished I carried around a sign like a comedian talked about for when someone asked a stupid question.

“Seriously? That’s your question about this morning?” Gina asked.

“You need to figure out how to make her nicer,” Tim said of Gina.

“I read that when women are like that, they’re either having their period or need sex,” Dare said.

I was impressed when Chrissy blocked Gina from her intended target, Chrissy’s boyfriend.

“Don’t worry, I’ll explain it to him,” Chrissy said when Dare didn’t understand why Gina might want to do him harm for speaking the truth.

“Maybe we should buy her a BOB,” I suggested.

“Who’s Bob?” Phil asked.

“Battery Operated Boyfriend,” Jill said to fill my half brother in.

Darius looked confused.

“A vibrator,” I supplied.

While our side conversation had been going on, I watched the drone video. Paul must have launched it when Cassidy and I got out of the car. I hated to admit it, but Destiny was right. It came off too much like a bad after-school-special production. Still, my inner actor liked it. I would work with Marshal and Curtis and incorporate the drone footage. It would help with an establishment shot and be good for cutaways from a different perspective. The three of us would put it together and see what Chubby thought.