I made a conscious decision once I left home and opened a door to my new life, that I would omit certain details that might stand me apart from other college freshmen. For instance when Kenny talked about home, usually complaining about a stupid argument he had with his Mom or how dumb his sister was for hooking up with a convict, I would just nod. When it came time for the questions to be reversed, instead of saying my sister was dead, I chose to just never have one. It was easier that way.
When one night sitting and eating pizza, Kenny said, “How come you never complain about your family?” I just shrugged and said, “There’s not much to complain about. My family’s great. I’m really lucky”
Since that day ironically enough, I ended up with the nickname of sunny boy! God I hated that. I still do; I so desperately wanted them to change it to Kaos, but they would have none of it. “Kaos is for a guy who is a mess and you my friend are as far away from a mess as possible”
I kind of liked living that lie. Nick Carter the sunny boy who had a perfect, no mess life. I started to make up fake family stories about singing carols and mandatory Sunday dinners and I even gave myself a curfew. The guys laughed about it but to me it was the beginning of my great novel. And my biggest deception.
College life suited me well. I found that by the time that Halloween rolled around I had totally felt like this was in fact my home. I had a group of friends, I enjoyed my classes and best yet no one new the real me.
Life was good.
In early November our college had a parents weekend. When suddenly the cafeteria would go from selling us crap to extremely good food complete with ice sculptures and the lobbies and the college halls were suddenly dusted and immaculate. I never thought about how parents day would effect the little story that was my life.
Howie had told me that he planned on coming up for parent’s day and I was so happy about it that I almost marked the days off my calendar. I missed him so much it was almost ridiculous. I missed his nagging, his three hour bathroom rituals and his silly little winks to me when passing in the kitchen or on the stairs.
The problem that was beginning to surface was why would he be coming and not my parents? The problem with my stories was they were so fun and convincing that everyone couldn’t wait to meet my imaginary parents. We were so close that it would seem insane if they were both no shows at parents day.
I decided to come up with an elaborate tale of a father who was called away on last minute business overseas. My father was an owner of his own business that caused him to be out of town a lot. My happy sunny one anyway. My Mom was just a happy housewife so her not showing up would be a little more difficult. Maybe Mom had to go and baby sit Kevin’s kids or something.
“I hope you have prepared yourself for the wrath of Linda” Kenny said walking in and throwing his backpack on the floor.
“Linda?” He nodded and sat down, “Yeah my Mom. She is coming by herself this weekend. She wants me to stay with her in a hotel”
I laughed at him, “I’m sure it won’t be that bad Kenny”
“Clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about sunny boy!” He placed his feet on his desk, “What about yours? Are they coming?”
I explained to him then that both parents were out of town and that my loving brother was going to make an appearance.
“Bummer man! I wanted to meet that dad of yours. He sounds like a trip!”
“Maybe next time” But I was thinking over my dead body!
Now besides my fake out there was also Kelly’s. With her college also having parent’s weekend we had to pretend we were a happy couple so that her Mom and dad would no longer suspect what was in essence true.
We were going to meet for dinner at Legal Seafoods after Kelly’s last class. We made sure we were there first way before either of them showed up. She came running into the restaurant looking like a million bucks. She was beautiful and her smile just melted me. “Sorry I’m late…take this” She said handing me a necklace.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“You are supposed to give it to me when my parents get here”
“Oh” I said taking it from her and placing it in my pocket.
Between the two of us we had mastered the great art of lying. We laughed and joked with her parents, all the while holding hands and even kissing a few times. The grand finale was me presenting her with the beautiful necklace I bought for her. By the end of the evening we were pretty sure that both of them were convinced of our fondness for each other which I admit wasn’t totally deceitful on my part.
We hugged on the way out and as Kelly pulled me close to her she whispered, “I owe you one for this Nick”
My walk home was filled with thoughts of home and school and how they had become vastly different from each other.
Probably the only thing I didn’t lie about in my first year of college was my grades and my love for the classes I was taking. The classes were pretty big but yet intimate. The professors really did a good job of trying to get to know all of us and I admit with some of the questions and one sided discussions we had I quickly became a favorite of my English literature teacher.
On the day of Howie’s visit that’s where I was sitting; listening to Karl prattle on about George Orwell. He made us call him Karl because he wanted his class to be as informal as possible.
Between listening to his lecture and staring at the clock, the last two hours before Howie were taking forever. Then coming from behind me I heard a small sniffle. “Bless you” I said by instinct.
Then about two minutes later it happened again. A sniffle then a blown nose but this time followed by the faintest hint of a whimper. I turned around, never much liking the sound of someone crying.
There was a girl sitting directly behind me with a tissue in her hand, eyes all puffy and writing away in her notebook.
“Are you okay?” I whispered trying to get her attention. She looked up and then quickly looked back down. “Yeah…I’ll be fine” She chocked out.
“Are you sure?” She nodded and then ignored me, so I turned around and went back to counting the minutes until the weekend.
After class I walked out into the brisk air taken by the gust of wind that came out of nowhere to find that same girl now sitting on a bench and crying. I have no idea why I felt compelled to find out what was going on with her, but I did. So once again I walked over and sat down next to her. “Hey…is everything alright?”
“I’m having a bad day” She looked over at me again and smiled. Her eyes were a brilliant green, accented I’m sure by the wetness behind them. “I’m sorry to hear that but at least it’s the weekend” I shrugged trying to pull something out of the air to make her happy.
“It’s all the same to me”
She reminded me of Melissa in a lot of ways. They had the same hair color, a darkish brown, a little longer than shoulder length and the same body type; chubby. I extended my hand to her, “I’m Nick”
She grabbed it and gently shook, “Amy” Her eyes shifted from my face and back down to the ground. I was making her uncomfortable.
“So Amy, you live in the dorms?”
“Yeah Macungie hall”
“Oh that’s the next dorm over from me” She smiled again, “Cool”
I stood up to leave realizing that Howie was probably going to be arriving within the hour, “It was nice meeting you, I guess I’ll see you around”
She nodded, “Nick…thanks”
“Thanks for what?”
“Seeing me….taking notice… just thanks” Those words hit home. I remember uttering them myself when I was younger. She sees me. That’s what I had said at Mel’s funeral.
“No problem” I found myself melancholy by the time I hit my room where Kenny’s mom was yelling.
“Sorry Mom” He said grabbing his clothes off the floor and dropping them into a basket.
“You can’t really expect to live in a pig sty like this!!” Once again he nervously gathered his mess and continued to clean, smiling at me when I walked in like I had just saved his life.
“Nick!!!” He said walking over and placing his hand on my shoulder, “Hey mom this is Nick. The one I was telling you about”
I was a little scared of her as she ran towards me but then she embraced me in a huge hug, “Nick!! It’s so wonderful to meet you! I see you keep your side of the room nice and neat. Hopefully Kennykins will be able to learn from you!”
I smiled and when her back was turned to me I mouthed Kennykins back to Kenny pouring some salt into his wounds I’m sure but it served him right, he did call me sunny boy!
“Darling we are going out for dinner, would you like to join us?” Kenny had a hopeful look on his face but I shook my head, “I’m sorry but my brother is due here any minute. Maybe next time though”
With a little more arguing the two finally left. Comic relief at it’s best. I was just about to lie down and turn on Kenny’s humongous television when a phone call from the front desk informed me I had a visitor.
I couldn’t believe how excited I was. I almost ran all the way down to greet him, when I finally reached the lobby there he was staring at a poster of some kind of bar show going on in Harvard Square.
He turned and smiled when he saw me. I quickly moved in for a hug, “Hey D!!”
“How’s it going Nicky?”
I grabbed his duffel bag and walked with him back to my room. With Kenny sharing a hotel room with his mom, I invited Howie to spend the weekend in my dorm room. I figured it would save him money and I truthfully didn’t want him to leave. Not yet anyway.
“How was your trip? Did you hit a lot of traffic?” I asked him as I threw his stuff on Kenny’s bed and took a seat by my desk.
“Hey! What if I had glass in that bag?” I rolled my eyes at him. Now this was the Howie I missed. I would never tell him that though.
“So kiddo what’s new? You look great by the way. College suits you well”
I stood up and modeled my green hooded sweatshirt and gray sweatpants for him; he laughed.
“So what do you wanna do first?” I asked kind of hoping he would just say let’s hang out in the room, order a pizza and talk.
“I’d love to meet your roommate. I was going to take him out to dinner with us”
“He just left with his mom”
“Ah well do you have anyone else that would want to come?”
Part of me really didn’t want to. I kind of liked keeping my brother to myself. I decided to go for it, probably because I didn’t want Howie thinking I had no friends. “Are you kidding me? None of these guys would pass up free food!” He laughed again, “Oh you are really bringing back some memories for me Nicky”
About an hour and three friends later we were on our way towards Fanueil Hall. Hairy Mike did most of the talking and we all kind of just laughed at his stories. Luckily Howie never asked about why he was called hairy Mike. Occasionally during dinner I would look over to see my brother staring at me, probably because during the meal my father’s business came up. As well as some of the fake stories I told the guys. I didn’t think of that, of how it would look to my brother. The lies I had told, the fake me.
Howie paid for everyone which made me feel proud as they hugged him and said thanks. Later that night as we sat in the room watching the David Letterman show he decided to bring some stuff up, “So I’m just curious kiddo…what’s with the fake parents?”
“um…Howie you DO know our real ones right?”
“Yeah I know but why such an elaborate story?”
“I don’t know…I guess I like feeling like the normal one for once”
He didn’t pursue it any farther, I think he understood. “The other thing I want to say…”
I looked towards him and he had that I’m gonna be a dad for a minute look on his face, “Yeah?’ I asked hesitantly.
“They mentioned you and drinking an awful lot” that’s true. They really did, but the thing is, after my first drunken display I really made sure when I did have a beer that it was only one. They made it seem like I was an alcoholic or something. I guess they figured it was my brother, how would they know there was more to his job then that?
“Howie they exaggerated a bit”
“Okay because you know with your ulcer you can’t be drinking that much”
“Howie I’m not dumb”
“I didn’t say you were, just be careful. I know how important it is for you to belong, don’t get sick okay? I’m too far away from you to worry”
“I usually have one beer”
“Well the night you called Rok…”
“I know, that was a little extreme” I interrupted. I knew Brian would call Howie and say something!
“Just be careful okay…sunny boy” He laughed when he said that. He was enjoying that new nickname of mine a little too much.
We talked a bit more about home. He never brought up dad which I was pleased with. He did talk about AJ and Sarah and made me laugh a few times talking about AJ and his anxiety about being a new dad. I almost spit up my milk, yes milk. When Howie is around I have to drink milk for my ulcer. Anyway, I almost spit on him when he told me what they were going to name the baby if it was a girl; Eva.
As the lights were turned off and all you could hear was the sound of drunken guys running the hallways screaming obscenities at each other, my brother turned on his side and threw me off guard, “You know…they’ll like you anyway”
“What?”
“Your friends will like you regardless of what your parents do are who they are”
“I know” but I really didn’t.
“Just don’t spend so much of your time being that sunny boy. Let them meet Nick”
“Maybe someday” I said as I closed my eyes doubting that would ever happen.
