Anyone But You Read Free

“trust me,” leaving my anxiety at an all-time high.
    Because here’s the thing: I
did
trust Benny. If he said he could get us into the show, then he would. Using his wit, his charm, or the face old ladies could never seem to resist pinching, he’d get us in all right—maybe even front and center. And that’s what ultimately had me feeling shakier than a two-legged table: Me, at a striptease. You may as well drop an elephant onto an iceberg. I’d been trying to tell myself it was a triumphant rite of passage. I was a healthy,
almost-
adolescent male whose only real experience with the human female form had been pictures of the Venus de Milo and clinical images from our life sciences seventh-grade textbook. So to see a real naked lady with an actual head and complete appendages? A month ago, I was throwing around all kinds of twelve-year-old bravado at the prospect, but now that it seemed a certainty, I was feeling the jitters. On top of that, going twenty-three stories skyward in what amounted to a giant sardine container wouldn’t help quell my growing nausea. I racked my brain for more reasons we should move along to some other amusement when Benny, as if reading my thoughts, shoved an index finger in each of his ears.
    “I’m deaf to your excuses, so don’t even start. Let’s get in line.” I inched into the queue with him, but didn’t intend on staying.
    “You go ahead, Benito,” I said, clearing my throat after I spoke. “I’ll just wait down here for you. Get a soda or something.”
    “Grow some hair on your chest, already,” he said with a sigh, as if he sported anything beyond peach fuzz. “You’re in the best clothes you own. If the worst happens—” He drew a finger across his neck, morbidly. “—at least you’re casket-ready.” He glanced down at the cuffs of my trousers, which hit about an inch too high above my ankles. “Prepared for a flood, too, I’d say.”
    “This from the boy who glued cardboard to the soles of his shoes this morning.”
    “Lay off.” Benny looked genuinely irked by this reminder of how hard up our families were. “Someday I’ll be richer than Wrigley. You can say you knew me when.”
    If confidence was any indication of success, this was probably true. Still, I scoffed and glanced again at the silver gondolas ferrying passengers back and forth over our heads. Arguing with Benny about the Sky Ride seemed to sum up our friendship in a nutshell. He was the one with his head perpetually in the clouds, while I was the grounded one. His antics were audacious, dazzling, and larger than life, whereas doorknobs and telephone directories were more intriguing than yours truly.
    “Hey, you two jokers, inch forward!” A brusque, hairy, and well-nourished man in a fedora hat and rolled-up shirtsleeves had gotten in line behind us. Benny turned around pointedly and cocked his head at a forty-five degree angle, his unwarranted moxie on full display. As I cringed, Benny leaned closer to me, then said loud enough for the man to overhear:
    “Looks like ‘The Human Ape’ escaped from the
Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
show, Nicky. Who’da thunk a steady diet of bananas could account for such massive girth?” I clenched my jaw and glared at Benny.
Stop before you get us both killed.
    “What? We’re
kids.
What can he do to us?”
    “Move it or split,” the man muttered, apparently unruffled by my friend’s obnoxious remarks.
    “Tarzan’s getting impatient,” Benny said. “Listen, Nick, forget the ride. This is
our
day. The only thing I want is for me and you to root up some memories we can tell our grandkids about some day. Minus the part about seeing naked bazoombas.”
    “Really? Because I can just picture bouncing those future tots on my knee: ‘Kids, you should have seen the size of ’em!’”
    “All I’m saying is, if you really don’t want to do the Sky Ride, then we don’t do it.”
    I was grateful to my pal for this out, but his kindness only left