My Life Is a Joke Read online

  He ambles down the boardwalk. Schuyler climbs into the booth with me.

  Now that we’re alone, I know I should just flat-out ask him about the Walkman. But, like I said, I’m not big on confrontations. And now that I know about his mom and his dad and his trouble in Philadelphia, and how much Ms. O’Mara wants to help him, I’m not sure I want to confront Schuyler about anything. So I decide to do what I do best. Pretend nothing’s wrong. Put on a happy face. Put on a show.

  I turn to the crowd milling up the boardwalk.

  “Step right up, gentlemen. Show your lady friends that you’re a man, not a mouse. Pop a balloon and take home a gorilla the size of a house! Unless, of course, you’re chicken! Bak-bak-baaak!”

  “Don’t stand too close to a bucket of KFC, buddy,” Schuyler says to a guy strolling past the booth. “Bak-bak-baaak!”

  The guy stops, glares at us.

  And slaps five dollars on the counter.

  He steps up to the squirt gun firing line. So do three of his buddies. Their girlfriends seemed thrilled. Guess they’re all under the spell of summer love, too!

  Bill is in the crowd. I see him lined up behind one of the squirt guns, waiting his turn.

  “Hey, Jacky,” he says, shyly giving me a small wave.

  I give him a smile.

  That’s when Vinnie comes back, sipping a Pepsi.

  “Whoa,” he says. “Look at this crowd. Well done, Jacky. You and your new boyfriend done good.”

  When Vinnie says that, I can see Bill’s heart break. Seriously, his whole body slumps like his rib cage is suddenly empty. I can read the hurt in his eyes. First Bubblebutt and now Schuyler? he’s probably thinking. His shoulders heave as he sighs, turns, and slips away.

  Shakespeare was right when he wrote “The course of true love never did run smooth.”

  There are all sorts of twists and turns.

  And potholes.

  Major-league potholes.

  CHAPTER 44

  I know I should run after Bill. Tell him he’s got it all wrong. Schuyler isn’t my boyfriend. Neither is Bob. I don’t want (or need) a boyfriend. I have enough trouble just being me!

  But I can’t run after Bill. The crowd Schuyler and I attracted is too thick. Plus, I have yet another felonious Schuyler distraction to deal with.

  Vinnie doesn’t like the way his money box feels when Schuyler hands it back to him.

  “Seems kind of light,” says Vinnie. “I mean for a crowd this size.…”

  “Nobody paid with coins,” says Schuyler nonchalantly. “I gotta book. Sophia gets her break in five.”

  He takes off for the restaurant.

  Vinnie counts his cash. I can tell he’s suspicious. That he thinks Schuyler pocketed a few bucks.

  I realize I have to say something to Ms. O’Mara.

  So, as soon as my shift is over, I hit the boardwalk and head for the church. Rehearsal starts in an hour. I’m hoping Ms. O’Mara will be there even earlier than usual.

  I hear a strange, muffled voice behind me.

  “Acky! Ate oop.”

  It’s Jeff Cohen in his Bossy D. Cow costume. He’s handing out flyers for Swirl Tip Cones. I wait up for him because I think that’s what “ate oop” means when you unmuffle it.

  Jeff motions (with his right hoof) for me to meet him behind the Midway Steak House (which, come to think of it, is a pretty creepy place for a cow). When we’re away from the crowds, Jeff wrestles off his cow head. It takes forever.

  Jeff’s curly mop of hair is soaked with sweat. It’s as wet as a real mop.

  “Can’t let the kids see me without my head on,” Jeff explains. “It’s against every rule in the mascot handbook.”

  I nod. It makes sense. Sort of.

  “I just talked to Bill,” Jeff continues. “He told me that you’re dating Schuyler now. Is that true?”

  “I’m not dating anybody.”

  “What about Bubblebutt?”

  “His name is Bob.”

  “Whatever. Bill said you were being nice to him, too.”

  “Because he was being nice to me.”

  “Oh,” says Jeff. “So it’s over?”

  “It never started!”

  “Good. Because you’re breaking my dawg Bill’s heart.”

  My turn to sigh. “It’s not intentional, Jeff. I like Bill.”

  “Good. Because he told me to tell you that he likes you, too.”

  Yes, when you’re in middle school, kids never talk directly to the boy or girl they like. They use go-betweens.

  Which is why I have to go between my sister Victoria and Jeff.

  “I’ll talk to Bill,” I say.

  “Then it’s all good.”

  “Hey, Jeff?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you bring your costume to rehearsal today?”

  “Why?”

  “I know someone who loves seeing you wear it.”

  “Is it your sister Victoria? Because I love seeing her wearing her taffy uniform. It’s so white and ruffly.”

  “Well, she’s working at the shop tonight.…”

  “Sweet! I can make a surprise guest appearance right after rehearsal. It’ll be like kismet, which means ‘fate.’ It’s also the name of a Broadway musical. Anyway. Thanks, Jacky. I’ve got to bounce.”

  Jeff puts his cow head back on and waddles off to give away ice cream coupons.

  I head to the church. Ms. O’Mara is there, helping the twins, Oliver and Quinn Reinhardt, run their lines. I grab a seat and wait for them to wrap up their rehearsal.

  When they do, Oliver says, “So did you hear? Ronny got into Miss Saigon!”

  “On Broadway,” adds Quinn.

  “He’s leaving the show!” says Oliver.

  “We need a new Tom Snout!” says Quinn.

  “Any suggestions?” asks Ms. O’Mara.

  I raise my hand.

  “How about Schuyler?”

  CHAPTER 45

  This is my latest brainstorm!

  If Schuyler is in the show, with a ton of stuff to memorize—like lines and blocking (that’s what they call figuring out where you move during a scene)—he’ll be too busy to roam around Seaside Heights on a crime spree.

  “Schuyler’s really good,” I tell Ms. O’Mara. “In fact, he and I just improvised a whole scene at my booth on the boardwalk. Plus, he’s good at insults, too. Shakespearean ones. Not, you know, the usual ‘yo’ mama’ jokes.”

  Ms. O’Mara gives me a look because, yes, much like a brook, I am babbling.

  “Schuyler in the show?” she says, very thoughtfully.

  “Tom Snout could be a teenager,” says Oliver.

  “And if he’s funny…” says Quinn.

  “Oh, he is,” I blurt out. “Hysterical. They should call him Schuyler Ha-Ha, except that’s what they call me because my last name is Hart and I used to stutter even worse than I did at my first audition.”

  Now all three adult actors are staring at me.

  “We’ll give him a tryout,” says Ms. O’Mara.

  And they do.

  Tom Snout is one of the “rude mechanicals” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They’re the comic relief—the clowns. A group of blue-collar workers in ancient Athens who put on a play to entertain the duke at his wedding. Yep, there’s a play in the play. Tom Snout plays a wall dividing two young lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe.

  “I play a wall?” says Schuyler when the director explains the part.

  “Right. It’s a joke. The two lovers have to talk through your fingers like it’s a hole in the bricks.”

  “Cool.”

  “And,” says Ms. O’Mara, “you’d get to wear an extremely comical rubber nose because Tom Snout should have a big snout.”

  “Booyah!” says Jeff Cohen, because, as you know, the guy loves costumes.

  Schuyler plays a scene with the adult actors, including Tony Keefer, who used to star on the TV sitcom Who’s in Charge? His face was on the cover of TV Guide three different times. I
f you ever met him, he’d tell you. At least twice.

  Schuyler handles his lines in the scene perfectly. He even earns some laughs. Tony Keefer claps him on the back.

  “You’re good,” he says. “You remind me of a young me.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief.

  My crazy idea might actually work.

  CHAPTER 46

  The fake nose will be fantastic,” Jeff tells Schuyler. “But I still have the costume of the summer!”

  He gestures to a shopping bag stuffed with his furry black-and-white Bossy outfit.

  “You must sweat like crazy inside that thing,” says Schuyler.

  “Not really,” says Jeff, forgetting that we’ve all seen just how soaked he gets every time he puts it on. He could rent himself out for shampoo commercials.

  We’re hanging out in front of the church just as the sun sets over the ocean.

  Bill, Dan, and Meredith come trooping up the steps from the basement to join us.

  And it looks like Jeff had a word with Bill.

  “You were good in there, Schuyler,” says Bill, extending his hand to shake the hand of Schuyler, the “older” boy he thought was his rival for my affections. To tell the truth, Bill’s main rival for my affections that summer was the jolly polar bear on the Icee cups. I loved those things. Especially the blue ones, which tasted, I don’t know, blue.

  “Hey, Bill,” I say, “you want to come over for dinner some night?”

  “Sure,” he says. “When’s good?”

  “After the show opens, I guess. We’ll have pizza. Cheese pizza.”

  “It’s delicious,” says Schuyler. “Very cheesy.”

  “I know,” says Bill, shooting me a wink. He had dinner with me and all my sisters long before Schuyler blew into town. My pizza invitation is my subtle way of telling him not to worry. If I actually wanted a boyfriend, he’d probably be it. Why? Because he’s the easiest guy to talk to that I’ve ever met. But remember, girls—I’d been seriously bitten by the acting bug. My one true love that summer? The theater!

  Bill, Dan, and Meredith take off. They all have to be at work super-early the next day. I’m hanging back with Schuyler and Jeff because I want to keep my eye on Schuyler while simultaneously making sure that Jeff bumps into Victoria down at the Taffy Shoppe. You can stay very busy when you’re trying to orchestrate young love the way Shakespeare does in his plays.

  “Hey, Jeff?” says Schuyler.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I try on your cow costume?”

  “I don’t know. Bossy represents Swirl Tip Cones.…”

  “I won’t do anything weird,” Schuyler promises. “I just want to try it on for a second.”

  “But I’m supposed to meet Victoria later.…”

  “You won’t be late for your date.”

  “It’s not a date,” Jeff mutters as he pulls the costume out of the bag. “It’s a prearranged coincidence. Here.”

  My guess? Jeff doesn’t want to talk about his crush on Victoria in front of another guy. Boys are like that. The exact opposite of girls. We blab about everything even remotely romantic to each other every chance we get!

  While Schuyler pulls on the cow suit and head, I whisper my plan to Jeff. “I told Victoria I’d be dropping by the Taffy Shoppe right after rehearsal with a special surprise.”

  “Does she know I’m coming with you?” Jeff asks nervously.

  “No. If she did, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Moo meyes…” says a muffled voice. Schuyler. He’s wearing the papier-mâché cow head, so we can’t understand a word he’s saying. “Ow oo I ook?”

  “You look great,” says Jeff, who understands muffled Cow better than anybody, since he speaks it all day.

  “Ake mah ickshure.”

  “I can’t take your picture,” says Jeff. “I don’t have a camera.”

  (Yes, in 1991, a camera was its own thing, not an app on your phone. You also had to buy a roll of stuff called film to put into your camera. Things were positively prehistoric.)

  “We need to go,” says Jeff, because he’s eager for his rendezvous with Victoria. “Take off the costume. I want to wear it.”

  “Moh-kee,” says Schuyler. His hands go up to the head.

  He tugs.

  He twists.

  He yanks.

  He can’t pull it off.

  CHAPTER 47

  Jeff checks out the back of the cow head. “You snapped the latch? Oh, man, I never snap the latch. It’s rusty.…”

  “Om orry.…”

  “I need a screwdriver. Or a pair of pliers. Something to pry it open.”

  “There’s a toolbox downstairs,” I say.

  Schuyler yanks at the headpiece.

  “Don’t yank!” says Jeff. “I had to give Mr. Peterson a damage deposit on that costume when he gave me the job! If you mess it up, I’ll lose fifty bucks. Just stay here, Schuyler. Jacky?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t let him yank!”

  Jeff runs into the church to fetch the toolbox.

  Schuyler keeps trying to yank off his cow head.

  “Don’t yank,” I tell him.

  “There you are!” gushes Victoria, who comes running into the church parking lot, carrying a box of taffy. “I hoped you would be my promised surprise this evening.”

  I try to interrupt. “Um, Victoria…”

  But I forgot how hard it is to interrupt a know-it-all.

  “Oov ott de wong eye,” says Schuyler, but of course Victoria doesn’t understand him. Neither do I, actually.

  “I couldn’t wait for you a moment longer,” she goes on. “Whenever I see you in that cow costume, I just want to jump over the moon! I brought you taffy! Some are pink and some are blue. I hope you love them as much as I love you!”

  Victoria is gushing to Schuyler because she thinks the cow is Jeff! This is a mix-up of mistaken identities to rival the ones in A Midsummer Night’s Dream!

  Victoria throws her arms around the cow. Taffy tumbles everywhere.

  And that’s when Jeff Cohen comes out of the church with a pointy screwdriver.

  “I think you’re simply bovine!” Victoria gushes, her arms draped around Schuyler’s neck.

  He’s waving his arms. Trying to shoo her away.

  “Eye ot cheff!” Schuyler tries again.

  Jeff sulks off into the shadows.

  Chalk up another broken heart for Jacky Ha-Ha.

  CHAPTER 48

  I’ve never had a boyfriend before,” Victoria tells Schuyler, who she thinks is Jeff. “I know we’re not the same age, but I went to the library and did some research. Did you know that male chimpanzees prefer older females? So this is scientifically okay.…”

  While Victoria recites some very uninteresting facts about the mating rituals of everything from black widow spiders to Wisconsin loons, Schuyler wrestles with the headpiece.

  “Age doesn’t matter!” Victoria declares. “I’m in love. With moo!”

  And that’s when Sophia joins us in the parking lot.

  Why?

  Because I told her Schuyler might be at rehearsal tonight, and she’s super-eager to spend more time with him under the boardwalk.

  Finally, the cow head pops off.

  “What?” says Victoria when she sees Schuyler instead of Jeff. “I thought you were Sophia’s boyfriend!”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Sophia says to Schuyler. “I thought we had something special. I Cindy Crawford–ed my hair for you!”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Schuyler protests.

  “Tell me about it. I see now that you were simply using me to get closer to Victoria!”

  “Who’s Victoria?” asks Schuyler.

  “My sister,” I say, gesturing at Victoria. “You met her at dinner!”

  “I thought Sophia was your sister.”

  “She is. I have six of them! Remember? Let me explain, everybody,” I say.

  But i
t’s no good.

  Sophia and Victoria stomp off in opposite directions.

  Schuyler climbs out of the cow costume and stuffs it back into Jeff’s shopping bag, which he hands to me right before he stomps away in a third direction.

  Chalk up two more broken hearts on the Jacky Ha-Ha scorecard.

  CHAPTER 49

  I hurry home to try to explain things to my sisters.

  “Sounds like you really blew it, Jacky,” says Hannah when I fly through the front door. She doesn’t sound as sweet as she usually does. “Victoria is in her room, reading a Jane Austen novel, hoping it will explain this romantic mess. And do you know what Sophia’s doing?”

  I take a wild guess. “Crying in her pillow?”

  “No, Jacky,” says Hannah, her cheeks flushing. “She’s on the phone with Mike Guadagno! My boyfriend. The one who used to be her boyfriend! So, thanks for nothing.”

  Make that three broken sister hearts.

  Sobbing, Hannah runs out of the living room and into the kitchen, where I know she keeps an emergency box of fudge stashed in the refrigerator’s vegetable crisper.

  “Guess she’s mad at you now, too,” says Riley, who’s slouched on the couch and just witnessed Hannah’s meltdown.

  “Yeah. Tonight’s been my midsummer nightmare.”

  Riley nods. “I heard. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I’m thinking I might need a new role model.”

  That’s when my practically perfect oldest sister, Sydney, steps into the living room. Little Emma is right behind her, arms crossed over her chest. It’s like I’m being confronted by my sibling bookends: the oldest and the youngest.

  “If Jacky doesn’t shape up,” says Sydney, “you definitely need a new role model, Riley.”

  “Definitely,” echoes Emma.

  “I thought you were still at Princeton,” I say to Sydney. “Summer school.”