15
“I wasn’t sleeping,” he silently yelled in his mind. Thinking about Anne Homer in his house was the last thing he wanted to do, and cleaning the family room would only remind him of why he was doing it. The thought of being within a few feet of her made his insides all jittery. But he also knew that the crazy side of his mother never peaked out from behind her calm, easy-going veneer more than when guests were coming over. With only an hour left before they arrived she wasn’t going to let up until he took care of the family room.
Tommy and his mother never saw eye-to-eye on what “picked-up” meant, but he was pretty sure he knew what the minimum was, and that’s what he set his sights on. He straightened a few magazines, put the remote next to the TV, and put some pillows back on the couch. Then he got a rag and a can of spray. He had argued with his mother that “picking up” did not include dusting, but he had lost that battle a long time ago. In fact, he had lost is several times. She had countered with “You know what I meant,” which he had learned the hard way was code for “This is not a discussion.” Amy Bryant was a patient and indulgent mother, but the prospect of visitors dried up her patience and shifted her indulgence to her guests.
The mechanicalness of dusting, at least the way Tommy did it, left a space in his brain that was easily filled with daydreams. Dusting brought on thoughts he had been trying to avoid. The idea of being in the same room as Anne Homer brought back the jitters. Not because he disliked her, it was more that he idolized her. Her very presence made him feel small. She was everything he was not. In Tommy’s eyes, she was everything the rest of humanity was not. She was beautiful, she was smart, she was athletic, she was popular, and unlike her friends, she was unfailingly nice. She was perfect. When his mind really went free he thought she must be an angel. His real mind, the one he had some control over, knew that those thoughts were just his imagination running wild, but still he wondered how this one person could be so different from everyone else in the world.