Thanksgiving was kind of cool because it was at Grandma’s house, who I hadn’t seen for a long time. There was also my aunt and uncle, who I don’t remember ever meeting. There was a little bit of cheek pinching and of course a lot of “you’ve gotten so big!” and “you’re almost grown up!” and all that other good stuff.
I had asked my mom about going to New York. She said it sounded like fun because she wanted to visit Aunt Nancy and Unce John. But, she said she wasn’t so sure if we could get flights and blah blah blah. All I cared about was that part about “it sounds fun.”
Anyway, so one afternoon, not long after I got home from school, the telephone rang. Expecting it to be Brix, who had said she’d call me, I let it ring a couple times while I sipped my water. I picked up.
“Hello?” a voice asked.
“Hello.”
“Robinson?”
“Yea?”
“It’s Zac.”
“I knew that.”
“Sure you did. So, what’s up?”
“Last night I watched an hour-long special on prostitution,” I said.
“Whoa, that’s cool,” he said, like I was crazy.
“My mom said she thinks going to New York sounds fun,” I said.
“That’s good. According to our schedule, we’re going to New York on the twentieth.”
“Cool, I’ll tell my mother.”
“Okay.”
“So, what’s up?” I asked.
“Not too much,” he shrugged.
“Liar.”
“What?”
“You’ve got to be up to something, silly, you’re in Europe!”
“London.”
“Which is in Europe, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yea.”
“So, when’s your next performance?” I wondered.
“Later. Um, I kind of have to go, I mean, we’re in London and my parents don’t know I’m using the telephone.”
“Okay, how about you call me like, closer to Christmas and I’ll tell you if I’m going.”
“Okay.”
“Tell your brothers I say hello and I love them.”
“You bet.”
“Okay, see ya,” I laughed.
“Bye.”
I hung up. I was going to really have to explain to Mom that we needed to go to New York. I mean, I had the chance to see Ike, Tay, and Zac for a week, see Daddy, see all my buddies, see Rockefeller Center, the possibilities are endless!
When Mom came home, I asked her again about New York. I had looked up plane fares for the twentieth and the nineteenth to all three airports (Newark, LaGuardia, and Kennedy) I printed out the info and gave it to her. I’d also called Daddy and he said I could come. I practically set up the whole thing. She said she’d see about it and tell me in a few days. She wanted to call Aunt Nancy and junk.
So, I waited it out with Brix and Odessa, shopping for Christmas presents and all that fun stuff. Finally, Mom decided that going to New York sounded like fun and it deserved to happen. She made all the arrangements. I didn’t know where Ike, Tay, and Zac were, and so I just had to wait until they called me.
On about the fifteenth, the telephone rang. Odessa was over. We were wrapping presents (she has a couple brothers, and I was helping her wrap theirs).
“Hello?” I asked into the phone.
“Hi,” a voice said.
“Umm... hi,” I said. Who was it?. Odessa looked at me to see who it was, but I just shrugged. I had no clue.
“Robinson?” it had to be Ike, Tay, or Zac.
“Yea?”
“It’s Tay.”
“Oh, hi, Tay.” Odessa nodded. “What’s up? Don’t say nothing cuz that’s a lie.”
“We’re in L.A.,” he laughed.
“Cool. Oh yea, my mother said we could go to New York, our plane leaves on like, the nineteenth I think.”
“That’s cool.”
“We read your diary,” Tay laughed. There were some voices in the backround.
“What was I like in the third grade?” I asked.
“You liked cookies and cream ice cream, hated Mrs. Birch, and had a crush on a kid named Danny Michaels,” he said.
“Oh yea! I forgot all about that kid. There was this one time, in the library, when he-”
“I know, he dropped an encyclopedia on your foot and broke your toe,” he laughed.
“I bet that gave you guys a good chuckle,” I said.
“A little,” he said, but I knew he meant they had laughed a lot. What else was new?
“Do you want to talk to-” he paused and yelled at someone, “Ow! Cut it out!” and then he continued, “Do you want to talk to Zac?”
“Okay.”
“Hi!” he sounded very, very hyper.
“Hi, Zacky, what’s up?”
“I won’t say nothing, or else you’ll beat me up, and so... umm... we have a show in three hours.”
“Cool,” I replied. I heard some voices in the backround.
“Uh-oh, I gotta go,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll see you soon,” I laughed.
“Okay, bye!”
I hung up.
“That was Tay?” Odessa asked.
“Yea, and Zacky,” I said, going back into the living room where we were attempting to wrap some really large presents that her parents had brought her brothers.
The telephone rang again. I ran into the kitchen and slid across the floor in my socks. I scampered back to the phone. Odessa and I were cracking up like crazy.
“Hello?” I giggled into the phone.
“Hi, it’s me again,” it was Tay.
“Hi, Tay,” I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“I tripped on my way to the phone, and I almost died,” I laughed. Odessa was still cracking up.
“You’re not much better at walking than you are at roller blading, are you?” he laughed.
“Hey, shut up!” I continued to laugh. Odessa looked at me, to see whatI was talking about. I pressed the speaker phone button.
“Anyway,” he paused to finish laughing at me, “My mother is a really smart person, you know, because, um, where are we supposed to meet?”
“Oh, duh!” I said, sighing from my laughter.
“So like, you know the place better than we do...”
“Okay, what airport are you coming in on?” I asked.
“Um...” he paused and yelled, “Yo, Dad, what airport?” Then he turned back to the phone, “Newark.”
“Cool, that’s not far from my home in Jersey. Anyway, what time and what airline are you getting in on?”
He told me the whole thing, and I wrote it down. For no apparent reason, Odessa started cracking up in the other room.
“Is somebody there?” Tay asked.
“Yea, it’s Odessa,” I started laughing. “You’re on speaker phone.”
“HI, TAY!” Odessa screamed.
“Hi,” he laughed.
I stepped away from the phone and started to ballet dance.
“Anyway, Robinson, so you’ll meet us at the airport?”
“Yea,” I laughed from the middle of the kitchen floor, where I was doing an arabesque (just in case you’re wondering, that’s where you stand on one leg and lean way down and stick your other leg in the air).
“What are you doing?”
“Ballet,” I said, spinning around.
“You are seriously messed up, do you know that?”
“Yes, I do,” I affirmed.
I gave Tay my dad’s number in New York and my aunt and uncle’s in Jersey. “Oh, but don’t forget, ask for ‘Tay’ and not ‘Robinson’,” I said.
“Okay,” he replied. “Well, I gotta go.”
“Okay, bye,” I laughed.
“BYE ODESSA,” he called.
“BYE!” she responded.
“See ya soon, Tay,” I laughed.
“Bye.”
I hung up again.
Odessa and I finished wrapping all the presents. Then, we did our geometry homework and ate some pizza. Odessa’s mom came and picked her up in a couple hours. I was so excited. No more school because of Christmas vacation, and I get to go to NEW YORK!
