Chapter 1

Finding the men's room in the Maple Hills Shopping Mall was no more than a puzzle. It was getting there, through the holiday shoppers who, like my mother and sister, still hadn't finished their holiday shopping on December 23, 2003, that was the real challenge. The first time I passed the hallway that contained the men's room, I found myself too far to the inside of the mass of humanity that was circling the mall like a road rally at a roundabout. Instead, I used the next circuit to gradually move to the outside, from which I was finally able to launch myself into the deceleration lane that led to my goal. I had apparently discovered the only place in the mall that was wholly devoid of life. I stepped up to the farthest left of the three urinals and was standing there, taking care of the business that had summoned me, when I heard the door bang open.

Etiquette required that I continue staring at the wall in front of me, although etiquette also required that this new visitor use the right-hand urinal rather than the one in the center. Apparently he hadn't heard that. I could sense him stepping up next to me, leaving us separated only by the shoulder-to-knee metal divider.

"Ho-ho-ho," I heard a chuckle, "so what are you wishing for this Christmas, young man?"
I glanced over. He was obviously the mall's Santa, on a break from posing for pictures with tiny tots with their eyes all aglow.

"Santa," I acknowledged him with a grin as I returned my eyes to the front. I had no idea his red suit had a zipper in the front.

"Well?" his booming voice reverberated inside the tiled room. "There must be something you want!"

"Can't think of anything," I was still grinning. Apparently the guy really enjoyed this role. Although probably they'd fire his ass if one of the customers caught him smoking in the men's room and complaining about some little girl who'd just gotten a little too excited all over his nice suit. I finished up and walked over to the sinks to wash my hands.

"So you've got everything you want in life already?" he asked, still with the loud voice. "Everything's perfect?"

"Well, no," I said. "All right, you know what I'd like, Santa? Instead of just starting high school, what I'd really like is to be finishing it."

That way, I thought to myself as I looked in the mirror and tried to smooth my hair over to the side a little, I could avoid all the assholes, the bullies, the jocks, the bitches, the sniping, the teasing, the gossiping, the backstabbing — instead of three and half more years of this crap, I'd be just about finished.

John Marshall High School was not my idea of a good time. There was a core of jocks (male and female), cheerleaders, and the generally cool; orbiting planets for band members, newspaper and yearbook types, comics, theatre freaks, and druggies, who were at least connected; and then there were people like me, whose orbits occasionally brought them uncomfortably close to the solar system but who generally preferred to stay out among the asteroid fields. I was currently on one of my forays to the center, where I seemed to have been appointed the target-of-the-month by the freshman and sophomore football players and their tart-tongued girlfriends. The juniors and seniors, thank God, thought me so far beneath them as to not even be worthy of attention

It didn't help, actually, having an older brother who was one of those seniors, bound for Auburn University next year on a football scholarship. The gym coach was constantly expecting me to show even a fraction of my brother's athletic ability; the teachers were constantly expecting me to be as much a goof-off as he was; and the girls, even in my own grade, were constantly comparing his six-foot-two, 220-pound frame to mine. At five-foot-seven and 140 pounds, I was constantly disappointing them.

"That's a pretty tall order, young man," Santa laughed as he joined me at the sinks. "So basically you just want to skip all this annoying adolescence and go straight on into adulthood, huh?"

Was Santa Claus mocking me? I looked at him in the mirror, but he still wore the same jolly expression, even on his break.

"I was more mature at six than most of the guys in my high school will be when they're thirty-six," I said.

"Maybe so," he laughed again as I dried my hands and pulled open the door. "Have a Merry Christmas, young man!"

"Yeah, you too," I mumbled as I let the door close behind me.

I made my way back to where I was supposed to meet Mom and Jeanne, noticing along the way that Santa Claus was already back at his station, making yet another kid smile as he bounced her on his knee. Probably knew some sort of mall shortcut.

My pissy mood evaporated as soon as I saw them standing there, two women for whom the Christmas season seemed to have been designed. They were comparing what they bought, Mom a present for a new family at our church with a newborn baby, and Jeanne a couple of presents for two new girls in her circle of friends in the eighth grade.

"All set, Patrick?" Mom asked. "Sure you don't want to get anything while we're here? You have presents for everybody?"

"I think so," I said, pretending to go over the list again. "Dad," — that would be a set of offset screwdrivers — "you," — a bathrobe I'd actually picked out last summer — "Dave," — a copy of the new Madden Football game — "and Jill" - a pair of earrings for my fashion-conscious seventh-grade sister. "All done."

"Jerk," Jeanne smiled at me.

"Oh, and Jeanne," I said. "I must have gotten a present for Jeanne. Still, too late now, huh?"

"Jerk," Jeanne smiled again.

I'd spent the most time picking that one out, a sweater that perfectly complemented her green eyes. I would tell her that, two mornings from now, and she would ask how anything could complement eyes hidden behind glasses as thick as hers, and I'd kid her that her boyfriends would notice, and she'd ask which boyfriend, the older college-age one or the younger high school one. Then we'd both laugh. Neither Jeanne nor I were ever going to be among the school's beautiful people. Unlike Dave, for instance, the jock of jocks, who seemed to have a different girl every week, or Jill, who was already reveling in the attention she was attracting from high school guys, to the point where she wouldn't even consider dating an eighth-grader, let alone a guy from her own grade.

Jeanne and I were different.

Jeanne would start dating when she found a boy smart enough to look beneath the shy exterior. And maybe when she got a different pair of glasses; it wasn't so much that they were thick as that the frame did nothing to hide that fact. And, in truth, she could use a little bit more developing, just like I could. Just like I got compared to Dave, she got compared to Jill, about an inch and a cup size to Jeanne's detriment. She was constantly getting teased about her "little" sister, and the stuff I heard when she wasn't around was even cattier. But I loved my sister, and I knew that, even if she kept the same glasses and the same bust, someday she'd find a guy who thought as highly of her as I did.

I would start dating when I found a girl like Jeanne.

"So what are you doing tonight?" Jeanne turned around from the front seat of Mom's car to ask me.

"Why?" I narrowed my eyes.

"Cammie's coming over," she shrugged. "I just thought —"

"I'm busy," I said.

"Oh, stop it," she laughed. "Cammie's nice."

I held up my hands.

"I never said she wasn't," I protested. "But I don't know, chubby little metal-mouth Cammie Rowe and me? Can you see that?"

"I think you two would be a very cute couple," Mom piped in from her seat.

"Don't you have driving to do?" I pointed ahead for her. "Stop signs, lights, all that?"

"She's not chubby any more," Jeanne protested. "And she gets her braces off next summer."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "But she seems so, I dunno, desperate."

"She likes you," Jeanne objected. "God knows why!"

"So what are you doing tonight?" I asked her after a suitable pause.

Jeanne smiled. I couldn't fool her.

"We're gonna listen to some tunes and then walk around the neighborhood and look at the Christmas lights," she said. "You wanna join us?"

"Wouldn't that make either you or me the third wheel?" I asked.

"Yeah, one of us," she admitted with a smile. "But you know how much I like helping you out."

"Helping me out?" I raised my eyebrows. "You mean helping Cammie out."

"Next fall, Cammie's gonna have to beat the guys off with a stick," Jeanne pointed out. "She doesn't need my help."

It was true. I left them alone for the music portion of the evening, but allowed myself to be coaxed outside for the walk. Once there, Cammie's gloved hand had shyly made its way into mine as we strolled beside Jeanne and listened to her commentary on which of our neighbors had committed serious Christmas decorating errors and which had gotten it right.

When we were back in the house, after Cammie had discarded the scarf and wool hat she'd been wearing, I was struck by the suddenly clear vision of how pretty she was, in fact, going to be next year. If I waited until next fall, I'd never even be able to get close enough to get hit with that stick.

So later that evening, while Jeanne was making hot chocolate for the three of us in the kitchen, I sat with next to her on the couch and made inane small talk. What was I doing for Christmas? Nothing special. What was she doing for Christmas? She was leaving tomorrow with her family for Rhode Island, where her grandparents lived.

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