Chapter 36

I did some advance work for my plan. I called his house when I was pretty sure he wouldn't be in. I spoke to Sunny and asked her to tell Jeff I would be by for him around 7:30, maybe a few minutes later.

"Is everything okay?" she asked. "You sound a little funny."

"No, everything's great." In that moment I learned a key lesson about lying.

I had practiced lying all my life and I considered myself quite good at it. Pick the emotion, the stress level, the sincerity you want to portray, feel them, then tell the lie.

But it was very difficult to lie to Sunny. I instinctively understood the reason: I cared what she thought about me. I didn't want being caught in a lie to lower her opinion. That created real stress as it tapped my conscience.

In the past, I didn't care at all what the other person thought of me. I had a position I wanted to get to and if lying did the job, great. If I was caught in a lie, oh yeah, I remember now, and make up a better one. Caring could really gum up the works. Just another danger to face in my brave new world.

I tried to cover up and Sunny graciously pretended to believe me, though I had no such illusions.

At 7:30 on the dot I pulled up in front of the Goldberg house, projecting cheer and confidence.

Jeff came out of the house and I was shocked into silence for a moment before I started a belly laugh. It kept expanding until there were tears streaming down my cheeks. It took me a good two minutes to get myself under control. I motioned him to go inside.

He had on a white golf shirt like his InTime shirt, with no logo. The collar was turned up for God's sake.

His brand new jeans were pre-faded and carefully pre-torn. To get a pair of normally-colored jeans this faded he would have had to buy them before his bar mitzvah.

He finished off the look with a pair of tan, Steve Madden flip flops with an almost squared-off toe. All he needed was an imported beer in his hand.

"What the hell are you wearing?" I asked him.

He didn't immediately respond. Sunny appeared from the direction of the living room.

"Sunny, how could you let him out of the house dressed like this?"

"I tried to tell him," she said.

"Jeff, what were you thinking?" I asked.

"Well, we had this party tonight with your friends, and you always roll your eyes at what I wear. So, I decided to get something cool. I went to the Izod store.

How do I put this nicely?

"Jeff, you're not cool like other guys. No matter how you dress, nobody's ever going to mistake you for a hip, cool dude.

"You're cool like Jeff. Nobody else is like Jeff. You know who you are and what's important and you're fine with that. That is cool.

"Other guys see a standard of what's hot now, in terms of clothes, music, language, whatever, and they conform skillfully. They're seen as cool. And in that sense, they are cool.

"You're cool just being you. You don't care what anybody thinks, except for today." I started waving my hands around, I guess expressing my confusion. "You've got to explain to me what this is. I have no idea. Why did you do this?"

My hands kept going the entire time.

"Well, last night you got me to thinking. You are the one doing all the changing and I thought I could try to make an effort to -"

"Stop right there. I went temporarily insane last night. You did nothing wrong. You've done nothing wrong. I just lost my mind and decided the sun is made of pickled herring."

I have no idea where that metaphor came from, but even more surprising, it was met with instant understanding; not a blip.

I had been speaking in a somewhat agitated voice because this caught me by surprise and I was embarrassed about my behavior the previous night. My tone became calm.

"Jeff, you haven't changed anything because there isn't anything important you have to change. You're Jeff. You're cool. That's it."

In the brief silence that followed, Sunny moved close to me and brushed the back of her fingers down my cheek. I waited for Jeff's response.

He tilted his head and gave us a sheepish grin.

"I was kind of confused."

"No kidding," I said. "If a street person walks up to you and shouts, 'The moon toppled the wall because the sidewalk was hungry, ' are you a little confused? Well, a crazy person came up to you last night and said something like that."

"So, you don't think I look good in this?" He gestured toward himself with his hands.