If You Knew Then What I Know Now Read Free Page A

said. An hour later, after the tears dried and my chin stopped vibrating, I limped dramatically to the bathroom, and limped the same way back to bed. The next morning, as we set off for a day of fishing for pike, the pointy fish in the lake that sparkled like chrome, the toe was purple and horrible. I hobbled to the motorboat, one sneaker on, the other dangling from my hand by the laces, because the idea of shoving the giant toe into a shoe made me swoon. “You’re fine,” he said again. “Just get in the boat.”
    Somehow, in just a year, the age difference between us now stretches out wide and obvious. Their bodies have changed, though I look the same: short, skinny, pale—a doll with a head too big for its body. Eric is even more solid, an efficient mass of energy and force with a line of dark fuzz curving along his upper lip. He barrels across the deck, he and his dad grabbing each other, clamping necks into surprise headlocks, their knuckles grinding out noogies. Jimmy is grown up too, long and lean, not
gawky anymore but tall enough so his gold flipper feet fit the ends of his legs. The sons also both have leg hair.
    If there is one thing I can enjoy about these trips, it’s watching and being this close to older boys—curiosities to a boy who hardly looks or acts like one. This year I’m following Jimmy around, watching intently as he does whatever he does. When he fishes, I fish too, sometimes so focused on the mechanics of his hands turning the crank on his pole, I forget to reel in my own line. When he and Eric swim in the lake, leaping off the roof, I station myself up there too with my stack of library books. As much as I usually love reading about twin babysitting sisters and haunted dollhouses, I can’t keep my eyes off Jimmy’s flat body as he climbs the ladder and yanks up his soaking trunks before bending and jumping again—the deep splash I can’t see but can imagine.
    I’ve also got my Walkman with me, and a satchel full of tapes. I know which ones to listen to in front of the sons and dads, and which to reserve for my bunk bed. Disney’s Favorite Songs , Volumes One and Two, for example, are bunk tapes. However, another one, the soundtrack to a rated-R movie that I’ve never seen, is a public tape. It’s music that other boys my age would actually listen to. I like all the songs except the last one—a loud insistent track with harsh, unintelligible lyrics. I fast-forward through it so I can flip over the tape and start again at the beginning with my favorite, The Pointer Sisters. On our third morning, I sit at the kitchen table listening to my tape;
Jimmy picks up the empty case, unfolds the little booklet, and asks to listen to the last song.
    I almost tell him he won’t like it, it’s the worst one, but before I can he says, “I like this band.” I hand him my headphones. With the cord strung across the plastic wood tabletop, I press PLAY and watch his face as he listens; his head begins to nod as the rough beat begins to pound. I suddenly love the song without even hearing it because I love the way Jimmy listens to it. He asks to hear it again as soon as the final notes fade in his ears, and I manage the buttons, rewinding the tape and guessing the place where the song will start. “Go back,” he says. “A little more.” Then, “There. That’s it,” when we find the silent gap. He listens again and again.
    For the rest of the trip, he’ll listen to this song after I hold up the headphones to him and swing them side to side like a hypnotist’s pocket watch. “Jim-mee? Don’t you want to hear your song again?” I’ll ask, high and cloying. When he agrees, I’ll perform a look of exasperation, shake my head but also smile, and work the buttons to cue it up. Though he doesn’t, if he were ever to turn me down, I know I’d feel a hard release of disappointment.