Faking Normal

I have known my friend Lynn for as long as I can remember.  We met when I was six years old and she, a mature seven.  In my heart she is my sister, and I have no memories of childhood that don’t include her. 

She and I had been friends and neighbors for four years by the time the Smiths moved in next door to me.  I am not making that name up.  No, it is not a transparent attempt at a fake last name.  Their surname was in fact, Smith.  As it happened, the Smith’s had a teenage son to their credit.  He was as delightful to look at as anyone we had ever seen. 

When I look back now, and although I cannot call his face to mind, I suspect that he actually was not all that delightful to look at.  If teenagers now are any indication, I imagine he was lanky, with unruly limbs, a bit of an acne problem, and wild mood swings.  But the cutest boy in our school was Tommy Pastori and our collective future with him didn’t look too bright, so we moved on to the new neighbor. 

Max was his name.  Like a dog.

One afternoon, I came home to find the house empty of its occupants.  The far off sounds of laughter and splashing sent me out back to the pool.  As I opened the back door and prepared to walk down the steps, I paused, arrested by the sight that greeted me.  Max was in the pool and someone else; someone better, was diving off the diving board. 

I think the adults around the pool greeted me, but my eyes never left our newest arrival as he resurfaced and shook his hair out of his eyes.  Johnny was his name.  Max’s Cousin Johnny.  We were introduced and I must have said hello.  I don’t remember.  I was staring down at perfection itself, and I’m sure the combination of my hexagonal glasses and fake front tooth—a slightly different color than its partner—stopped him dead in his tracks as well.   

Lynn and I soon cooked up a plan to marry them, thereby making us cousins by marriage.  By mutual consent we decided from then on that I would pursue Johnny and she could have Max.  After all, Max and I were next door neighbors.  We were practically related anyway. And so it began.