Read Online I'm with Stupid by Geoff Herbach - Free Book Online Page B

Christmas and New Year’s. I didn’t get a single call. Facebook was still going. (Unofficial representatives—girls and alumni—posted on my page.) I received direct messages on Twitter. But if I turned notifications off on my phone, I didn’t see any of them. For the first time in several months, I was sort of free.
    Free.
    Except that Andrew asked me about Aleah the third day while we ate some cardboard toaster waffles. “How is she?” he asked.
    The waffle caught in my throat. “Gone” is all I said.
    â€œOkay,” he said, nodding. “It’s okay,” he said, like he expected the break-up.
    My chest hurt.
    ***
    When I stay in Florida, I stay in the room where my dad used to sleep when he visited years ago.
    I don’t necessarily believe in ghosts. Not real ghosts, spirits floating around and saying “Boo!” and crap, but maybe I did back then, back on winter break.
    Dad’s room doesn’t have much in the way of pictures or posters or stuff from when he was a kid, except one framed poster of Bill Murray, totally cross-eyed, from the movie Caddyshack with “The Wisdom of the Lama” written on it ( Gunga Galunga…Gunga Gunga Galunga ). It’s pretty funny. “Your father made me move this poster all the way to Florida—he loved Bill Murray that much,” Grandpa said.
    I can appreciate that Dad loved Bill Murray. Was Dad a comedian wannabe like me? Maybe.
    There are no boxes filled with papers or books in the closet. There are no boxes of old cassettes or records. There are no tennis trophies or medals or ribbons. I actually sort of figured that Andrew, because he’s constantly on the lookout, would find some awesome treasure trove of Dad information: diaries, letters, musings, crap like that, which would say, Felton Reinstein…this was your father who gave unto you your hair and manly life…
    He left behind a Bill Murray poster and some clothes.
    A couple pairs of his shoes sit on the closet floor. They fit me perfectly. (I took a pair last year.) A few dress shirts hang on the bar. One drawer is filled with T-shirts and shorts. The shirts smell like my dad, which you wouldn’t think I’d remember, but I do.
    That smell made me feel close to him. Over break, late at night, I’d ask questions to the air. “Did you feel better when you crushed a tennis ball?”
    I don’t know that I believed in ghosts exactly, but I’d feel air move when I asked a question. It felt like Dad was saying, “Yes.”
    ***
    â€œPapa’s worried that you’re too much like your dad,” Tovi said. Tovi calls Grandpa “Papa.”
    Me, Andrew, and Tovi walked down Fort Myers Beach. Grandpa Stan had stayed behind at the house because he wasn’t feeling well. (Turns out he had an ulcer and a hernia!) We’d driven out there because Andrew plays with that old-fart Beach Boys cover band called The Golden Rods. He had a practice a little later at the White Shells Hotel.
    â€œHe’s worried you’re too much like our dad too,” Andrew said to Tovi.
    â€œI’m not anything like him. I don’t get why all you other Reinsteins are so angsty. Life is great,” Tovi said.
    â€œI agree,” Andrew said.
    â€œYeah, well…” I said. “There’s a lot of bad shit in the world, you know?”
    â€œSo?” Tovi asked. “There has always been bad shit and there always will be bad shit. Why worry about it?”
    â€œYou sound like Karpinski,” I said.
    â€œWho?” she asked.
    Pelicans crashed into the water near us, scooping up fish in their big rubber beaks.
    â€œPapa asked me last night if I thought you’d be offended if he sent you to a psychologist,” Tovi said.
    â€œMe?” I asked.
    â€œShe’s not talking about me,” Andrew said. “I’m my own psychologist.”
    Tovi laughed.
    â€œYeah, good luck to you,