Chapter 2

“Okay, everyone, wake up!”
The sound of Mr. Everstein’s voice, megaphone-like, blared through the zipped up tents.
“I’m up, all right.” Mrs. Everstein mumbled sorely. “My butts all sore from sitting myself to sleep.”
“We’re almost done now.” He said playfully. “I hope you got over that crazy situation last night.”
On a nice, morning like Mr. Everstein promised two and a half hors later than planned, Darren felt the unraveling of the truck’s back door as a wake up call enough. He did his best to play the inconspicuous cripple that had nothing for brawn, cocooning himself comfortably to be pro-tected from the calls of parents. Although a loud fart came from his right side of that position, he sucked I air through the inside of his shirt.
Jonathan… He thought, grimacing as his face was right behind his blue jeans.
He also performed his daily ritual of stretching and unusual grunt-ing.
“Oooooooooooooooh”
“Mmmmmmnnnnnnnnn”
“Eeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh”
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!”
“Ooohhhhmmmigosh!”
Mr. Everstein peeked in the truck.
“Wake up, son. It’s liftin’ time.” His presence overtook the light of the sun filtering through the tent fibers.
“Dad, that’s really humorous right now.”
“You wouldn’t mind taking Evelyn’s things, now would you?”
He turned to face him, a hand shielding his eyes.
“Sure, dad.”
In the deep thought of why ones clothes and an Easy Bake oven had to be accommodated in the same place, crammed in a huge cardboard container that was big enough to host a homeless man, Darren complied with the driest of his morning groans.
“Whooo.” Mr. Everstein waved at his nose. “Got other musical in-struments you like playing?”
Darren thumbed at his brother, not aware from his gas.
“So well start off by getting yours and Evelyn’s box of clothes out of the way while I head over to McDonalds, okay?” Mr. Everstein directed to him.
“All right, Dad.” Darren groaned again, squinting eyes from the bright gleam. “But how come Adrian’s not taking Evelyn’s box? It’ll fall on me if I’m not careful.”
Mr. Everstein shrugged.
“I’m sure you can handle it, Darren.” His father backed from the tent. “I’ll see you on the truck floor, son!”
Darren ran to the truck and sorted through various boxes. Kicking aside the container that was labeled, ‘ADRIAN’S PIMP CLOTHES. U CAN’T TOUCH THIS’, he summoned all strength for the big cube that cased his sister’s oven.
The inside of the house was the guest bringer, a marble fireplace embedded right across the entrance, and as one went up the stairs one would see three bedrooms, including a partition that smiled with tall win-dows where one could view the heart of the neighborhood.
Walking in amazement, his heart led him to the place, instinct opening that door. Overwhelmed with everything that could be sum-moned in the form of a big, joyous grin, his active side made him do cal-isthenics of praise and glee, even a fake lunge out the window. Darren’s room it became—the great comfort zone that he always longed for.


The girls from Borland Lane

Returned to the daylight, Darren attended a fight with Adrian and Jonathan over the last Pepsi in the cooler, prompting Mrs. Everstein’s in-stant arrival. She chugged it down, dropkicked the blue corpse in the backyard and told them to quit fooling around. Laughing at the losers of the fight, except for himself, Darren viewed from a distance that beauti-ful, green park from across the street.
Then, his heart almost skipped a beat, as he remembered his love for hopping on bikes and strolling down interminable sidewalks. A great friend of his before his school dilemmas spent time at home. In contrast, the time for Darren to escape was then.
Bike or legs, he was going to test drive this place.
Darren confidently strode down the sidewalk, as his bike was among the first to be packed in that jungle of boxes. Everyone remained occupied, even the two beneath the pyramid that helped hang clothes and help put together electronic equipment with their parent’s watchful eyes.
There were top-rate houses and very pleasant scenery everywhere he turned, and as he continued down the street, the growth and quality of the houses, trees and lawns were boundless.
He turned around and to his surprise, he saw a brunette haired girl striding down the sidewalk, dangling a grocery bag freely in her left hand—her alluring image somehow spelling out to him: ‘I like cute studs, sucks that you’re not.’ However a test to a good community, and to at-tract was a conversation away as people made up every one.
She’ll most likely not talk to me…Darren thought at first glance, but felt compelled to do something fast and effective before it seemed too futile then.
So there he stood like a coat rack, using the swaying movement with his head, hoping if he can “accidentally” meet eyes with that person. Hopefully, he would be accomplishing better tricks of the trade under his disposal usually done by the sleek, trim men—and find a way to forget those failed, shameful experiences with femininity back in his second grade years.
She glanced at him—a fair expression—at any rate it wasn’t any-thing of a defiant look he recognized from many female. Then, she smiled, bright and warm, and waved at him.
Probably wondering what else to do, she left him another delicate glance and kept on foot right across from the boy.
It gave him such a rush, imbibed in bliss and content, and such pe-culiar feeling to him that seemed to tear away at reality. He noticed the feel-good clothes she wore, her sensual stride, and anything else that described pure goodness to intensify his rush. Nothing could be bitter enough to sweep away the moment, except if he had to stoop extremely low in his later life.
“Un…real.”
Darren shook his head, wondering how women could allure him to those extents.
Yet, in incredible amazement, it was happening again. He eyed at another girl trotting at the sidewalk he was idling on. The wonderful auras he was picking up from his vision matched his shaking legs
And somehow, he knew the results would be different this time.
His brain over clocked its operations rampant—as the physical magnetism of women had gone up, the faster his brain worked. He took his time and relied on that second chance right in front of his eyes, and actually initiate some form of conversation.
“Hi. What’s your name?”
And there it was—that sensation arising from her lush, golden brown hair that danced in his retina, the glow in her words, and a stare that could captivate even the most hammered bar goer.
All of him froze, like a full speed train about to make that collision and too stunned to move away. The point to where he forgot what to say, let alone his name was that moment.
“...”
“Yeah?” The girl picked up his conversation lacking drones, making chuckles with a delicate force.
Darren wasn’t an Everstein right now. Darren didn’t know of any family moving onto this block, or of one that had strict laws about com-muning with the opposite sex.
However, his social drought and that law made it a little difficult to commune with women without flaw—especially this exception!
He breathed lightly, vowing to make this easy. “Dar-ren……Everstein. I just moved from Pittsburgh.”
“Hey, that’s cool.” She smiled to an unprecedented perfection.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Yeah, you guess?! What are you doing to yourself? Darren asked himself.
She sputtered laughter from her golden face.
“Awesome! Well, my name is Kendra.” she said, smiling that ap-peased him inside. Smiling too, he firmly extended his hand.
She did the same. In no possible instance he figured he could sus-tain a talk with a girl whose body, countenance, attitude and charm matched a Cover girl.
The beauty, calmly poised, one terrifically sculpted leg behind the other showed the limited game Darren had.
“It’s really awesome to meet you.” She said, already doing the common handshake among peers, Darren relying on what his keen sense had created of 21st century culture to make up a sparkling ending.
He felt a taste of his new life instantly.
“So… sort of look like a freshman, right?” She looked down at the sidewalk and back at his awed face.
“Yeah. I’m 16”
The Aphrodite look-a-like’s smile glittered in Darren’s mind again. He still didn’t know if this was a dream or a figment of his imagination playing tricks on him, or clench her hand and proclaim that God was in-deed good.
“What about you?”
“Me too!” She grinned, chuckling again. “So like…what do you do? Do you sing in choir, or anything like that?”
Darren heard a choir in infinite part harmony.
“Absolutely. It’s pretty much me.”
“Awesome! Mrs. Hartman’s really great. She’s our choir teacher. And so is Mr. Kennedy who does band.”
Darren dully smiled, chuckling nervously.
She reminded Darren of those girls he saw on a hip-hop music video when the lead is ready to blaze the camera’s lens with a close up after she stopped.
“Boy…You’re…really…packing it…” He wearily uttered.
She shockingly gasped, her face painted red instantly.
Well, I can go home and drown myself…
Darren saw that he might as well forget the hopes of lengthening the failed meeting. He couldn’t believe his mind allowed him to speak of such innuendo. Nervously blinking his eyes, he envisioned a whip like slap plastering his face once she left in haste.
Kendra burst in laughter, her mouth shielding half of her face.
“I am so sorry. I can’t believe I said that.”
“Oh…ok whatever. It happens I guess.” She fanned herself gently to prevent the tension, continuing a love stride toward the park.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine! You really don’t need to cover up what you think, Dar-ren.” She said in a soft voice. “I probably get it all the time anyway.”
With a delicate gasp, she giggled and shifted the weight of her body.
An alleluia chorus composed of the elite cherubim and seraphim angels alike played in his head. A response so positive, it sent him stunned after his mind spoke what was obvious to many men alike. Yet, he really needed to mask up his thoughts.
Kendra giggled again, his dazed face getting berated against his mentality.
“All right...Okay.” Darren spoke, flabbergasted.
“Well, what do you like to talk about?” She asked him. “Hopefully not about me!”
They both laughed, the boy feeling a bit responsible.
“No, I’m joking. So what?”
What an improbable afternoon! Not one, but two girls that caught his eye, and theirs. The second ignited a conversation, this one he would not overlook. The euphoria of the moment had reflected toward his sen-sitive side, the perfect time to bring up that particular kiosk of life, right when he decided to awe her of such experiences.
He breathed in, his instinct belting it out
“School…how’s the school?”

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Mrs. Everstein was leaning on the truck, waiting for the boy to do his share of work.
“Where is Darren? I’m gonna pawning that guitar and his alto. He’s been gone for nearly half an hour.” She had mused through clenched teeth, the unfinished work load in the Deluxe Movers signature truck aid-ing her frustration—her air wafting off her like a scorching hot grill’s illu-sions it creates.
“He thinks I’m joking. Why would one want to get lost in such a neighborhood?” she mumbled ending in a chuckle, as she was walking back to the truck for the kitchen materials.
Mr. Everstein leaped down from the three steps that lead to the residence.
“Honestly Vivienne, I don’t even know. He’ll be back eventually.” He replied, somehow vacant in his face from the post-lifting and fatigue creeping through his bones.
“He’s probably testing out the neighborhood. Don’t worry about it.” continued, Mrs. Everstein.
“Everyone needs to help.” She said however, hands planted on her hips. “Without you three, we might need to camp out here again!”
“What about Jonathan? Evelyn? They’re not deadweight.”
“Okay, and fling boxes at each other while we’re on the edge against making progress?” She scoffed, very persistent. “You know our kids.”
“We already negotiated this, honey.” He pointed out after a chuckle.
“It seemed like everybody had.”
“Exactly. Let yesterday stay yesterday and worry about today.”
There was a pause, all witnesses thinking he got the last word.
“Are we going to postpone another day of necessary labor?” She re-plied sarcastically.
Mr. Everstein stopped at the driveway, seeing a big dent on the truck that he’d know would burn a hole against their income.
“…After that crazy stint yesterday?”
The woman exchanged looks with the sky, a cloud looking like a ri-fle airing past her view.
“You are right. All this isn’t going to get us anywhere besides court, or probation possibly.”
The man snickered through his nose. “Don’t be silly! Yesterday was just a hassle, that’s it sweetheart.”
The she smiled, extending a happy hand. “But anyway, let’s pretend this didn’t happen.”
He pondered with eyes closed, grasping her fingers.
“That’s a fair compromise, sweetness.” He kissed them, continuing back to the house. “At least it wasn’t the D…you understand what I’m talking about!”
“I was hovering around that last night, believe me.”
The two shared a huge laugh, the man slapping her back calmly.
“But you know we are just fooling around!”
“Of course we are. But it was one heck of a tough night.”
As he departed, she scurried across the yard to meet their oldest hauling a big box up the porch.
“Have you seen your brother?”
He slammed the box.
“What? Why do I have to find his lazy a**?”
She delivered the evilest of eyes.
“First, you can mind what comes out of that crusty mouth or yours, Adrian.” Her finger was stiffer than her better half’s. “Second, go find him. He’s probably in the park dawdling around with nine year olds for all I care, but we need him here dawdling with the hard stuff.”
He scoffed, heading to the edge of the intersection. “It’s not like I don’t hear you guys cuss—”
“Not like sailors or yucked up toilets.” She yelled back. “So shape up, and go find your brother, amigo!”


* * *

“DARREN!!!” The mother and son shouted in tandem.
However, Darren was as deficient in his ears at this point. Kendra positioned herself alongside him, and started walking slowly.
“So. Did you like it at your old school, Darren?” not knowing she brought up a sensitive question, his mind was racing.
Make this a sweet novel, because this might be the last time this will happen.
He chose the route to ear some sympathy for starters like him, with the intention of catching up eventually. Darren was unbelievably calm to boot, as he kept up with her pace and softly sighed.
“Well, it had its ups and downs— I guess, mainly downs at the end.” He began nodding lightly. He reflected those downs of Oarsman school life that thoroughly affected his insides.
She slightly chuckled, but stopped once his subtle modesty leaked out into the form of a dry smile.
“Oh…that’s too bad.”
On the sidewalk, Adrian stood like a bystander, lounging carefree and amused on a telephone pole. Assuming he was coming back, he had nothing better to do than watch a seemingly amusing show
“This…is so not right.” Adrian mumbled to himself, aiming to abort his job and annoy his mother.
Once he saw Darren kick the road softly from the awkwardness, he almost passed out, forgetting about the pain from the splinter that caught his neck.
“Ha ha ha ha ha! Whoop! There it is! There, it, is! Looks like every-one’s going to know how Darren’s been on a mack fest!”
The two’s paces matched each others onto the entrance from the park. “I had a best friend—Brent. He was pretty popular. Until now of course we were great and did stuff together.” His heart burned, remem-bering his fraudulent face.
“I see. That’s cool.”
Darren cleared his throat nervously, hearing his mom already build up calamity from within the truck.
“There were a lot of kids that thought that I was pretty cool, too; but after sixth grade, I was great with everybody.”
“That’s nice! That’s really cool.” she added, trying to sound inter-ested.
“Eventually, it wasn’t the same.” Darren said with a faded smile—aiming for her. “They thought I was unreal, fake. I wasn’t the same any-more without getting turned down.”
“I don’t understand why people are like that. I think that people should accept.” She spoke, firm yet pleasant sounding. “It’s pretty dumb these days.”
“I know. After this one kid bragged that I wanted her ugly sister, I thought I was done.”
“Oh my gosh, are you serious?” Her hand covered her mouth the same way.
He nodded, head low. “She started crying when I was about to ex-plain, and all her friends thought I was shallow. I was just trying to be a friend, a hug doesn’t hurt!” Darren chuckled, shrugging, wondering how heavenly it would be to get one from her.
“See, if I were them I would love guys that were—accepting, like you, you know?” She kept a distance to express herself with body language. “You can’t really be yourself without anybody there for you.”
He nodded, locks in his spirit unfolding. “And I thought that was my job, to be everybody’s definition of what’s accepted. It sounds weird, but I guess I was, universal.”
“It doesn’t at all, really.”
Sighing between tense moments, Darren forced himself to make a difficult statement.
“It felt weird though, back in those times.” He pointed out. “Because I found out I had nobody that was there. They just liked me for who I thought I should be—which was universal.”
Her interested beam faded—a sixth sense where he was coming from prevailing in his hopes, and not just Pittsburgh.
They stopped in the median of the sidewalk right between his house and large estate that mocked the daylights out of his. She man-aged a quick, awkward smile, giggling.
What is going on right now? Darren timidly turned his head away, for some odd reason as if a zooming car would break the silence.
“DARRREEENNN!!!!” The human siren blared off again, only the mom doing her part as Adrian couldn’t contain himself from his unpredictable view.
His novel had gotten different reviews. It struck him in bewilder-ment as such a beautiful stranger interpreted what he said in simplistic fashion. Maybe his style of telling the tale worked, or it was that pathetic. Either way, the time to depart from the interiors of the wonderful, spar-kling planet of Glendale Oaks was sooner than the time the siren blasted his name again.
“…I got to go.” Darren drew away, halfheartedly signaling his hand to her.
In a swift attempt, she gently grabbed at one of the tips of his blue and gold shirt, and he didn’t need to care about the fabric being bungled once she did.
“Hey, maybe tomorrow we could talk sometime.”
Was that part of the lyrics to that song in Darren’s head? ‘Hall of Fame’ was synonymous with Kendra's gentle, spoken words. Thunder-struck, it seemed like her obligation to get the ambulance and put oxygen back in his system.
No way. No way on this beautiful, green, generous earth…
“……you serious about this?” He mumbled, barely audible.
She laughed again. “Yeah! Definitely. And, yeah, I know our school is not like yours.”
“Thank you.” He grinned weakly. “It’s been—awesome.”
“No problem. I’ll see you around!”
Oh, you will, Kendra, he thought.
“Hey, you too.”
“See ya!” She disappeared from the sidewalk.
Everything as far as senses were concerned was dull. All that ac-companied this strange moment was Darren’s heart beating.
“…Whoa…”
The day being the very ticket to Nirvana in his teen hood novel, how could this be explained without any contrasting thought from all of his family?
He didn’t care!