Anything You Want by Geoff Herbach Page B

“Something’s afoot. Something bad. Am I right?”
    â€œNo. It’s all good,” I whispered, still choked up.
    â€œYeah, but that F isn’t going away, Taco. You’ll see it again and again if you don’t catch up. This weekend, okay? Seriously, I’ll help you,” Brad said.
    What good would I be to my baby and to Maggie if I flunked calc? I’d be like Darius, unable to move forward in life, stuck in the past, making deep-fried fish forever. I looked at Brad. “Affirmative,” I said. “Thanks, brother. Thanks for being a great friend.”
    â€œYou got it,” Brad said.
    I had to do better, be better, dingus.
    After school I went straight home, even though a bunch of the choir peeps were meeting to practice songs from The Wizard of Oz . If you’ve never stood around a piano with a bunch of bird-singing ladies and sweet-voiced dudes to learn new music, you haven’t lived, pal. It’s always hilarious and like a party, and at the same time, you learn the shiz, so it’s both entertaining and enlightening.
    But I had no time for that because I had to be better, and that meant taking care of Maggie, being ready for her phone call. I didn’t know how long her doctor appointment would take, so she could call at any moment. She might have already left a message on the suite answering machine. I ran home as best I could and burst in the door to check for messages, but she hadn’t called yet, so I boiled some water for some buttered spaghetti and pulled a dining room chair into the kitchen. I sat by the phone and waited and waited and ate spaghetti and waited.
    I sat from twilight to total darkness, staring at the phone that did not bleat. I stood up, sat down, walked in circles, boiled more spaghetti, and sat down, and paranoia started to choke me very badly. Paranoia made me twitch and twist from the inside out. Is it because you’re a poor Taco? A jobless Taco? Did she stop loving you? No!
    Maggie Corrigan didn’t call. I didn’t want to interrupt her at her doctor’s appointment, but by 7:45, I figured the clinic had to be long closed.
    Wait till eight. Be reasonable , I told myself.
    At 8:00 p.m., I called her cell. It went straight to voice mail.
    At 8:05 p.m., I looked in the Bluffton Journal job ads online and found an ad for a dance instructor at I Could Dance All Night, a studio downtown where I’ve seen little girls dressed in puffy ballerina costumes. I called over to I Could Dance All Night. A woman answered. Loud music echoed in the background.
    I spoke loudly so she could hear me. “I’d like to be a dance instructor. I’m a good dancer.”
    The woman shouted, “Great! Where did you train?”
    â€œI’m freestyle. I dance in my bedroom and at prom.”
    â€œOh,” the woman shouted. “Sorry! I need a certified instructor. It’s in the ad.”
    I looked at the computer and saw she spoke the truth. “Shit.”
    â€œBye now,” the dance lady said.
    At 8:25 p.m., I called the Corrigans’ landline, a phone that sat on a table next to—wait for it—the same decorative, multicolored, wooden chicken statue from Bali that I’d picked up early in the summer and dreamed about the night before. My mind was really going. No one answered.
    Hi. Taco Keller here. Just wondering about… Just calling to get an update on the situation over there. Maggie and the baby. Give me a quick honk on the horn if you have a chance. Thanks so much. This is Taco, by the way. I think I mentioned that…
    I waited until 9:00 p.m. Then I pulled on my coat and hoofed it over to the Corrigans’. My ass hurt something special, but I couldn’t be stopped.
    The Corrigan house was pitch-dark. No light, no life. I rang the bell.
    Nothing.
    I yelled for Maggie from the sidewalk.
    Nothing.
    I eyeballed the side of the house and took a deep breath. Then up I went. My plan was to