Chapter Two

Of all of Ashley’s boyfriends, there were only a few that I can remember past the dates and events they represent. Lewis, of course, who would be the end of that line come August nineteenth. Robert Parker, who two months after breaking up with Ashley in my eighth-grade year was killed in a motorcycle accident. But of all of them, only Sumner really mattered to me.

Ashley met Sumner Lee at the beginning of tenth grade, before I turned ten. He wasn’t like anyone she’d brought home before: Ashley was into well-formed boys, mostly athletes—wrestlers, football players, the occasional tennis guy, but that was rare. These boys with their thick necks and muscled legs traipsed up our front walks with my sister on their arms like a trophy. They were polite to my parents, uncomfortable around me, and drank all of our milk when they came around after school. They run together like a blur, these boys, their names three letters: Bif, Tad, Mel. My father liked them because he was on his home turf, with sports as a common ground. My mother eyed her dwindling milk supply but said nothing. We all pretty much saw this to be the norm, at least until she brought Sumner home.

It was right after a nasty breakup with Tom Acker, quarterback of the Lincoln High Rebels. He was skinny and fast and chewed tobacco but only when Ashley let him. When she broke up with him he lurked around the neighborhood after school, football tucked under his arm like Ann Boleyn’s head, haunting.

But Sumner wasn’t an athlete. He was skinny and smooth, with black curly hair and bright blue eyes that almost didn’t seem real. He had a long, lazy Alabama accent and wore tie-dyes and beat-up Converse high-tops that thwacked when he walked. Sumner was the kind of person that you wanted to sit with in the sun and spend the day. He was interesting and hysterically funny and it just seemed like if you tagged along with him you’d never be bored because he never was. My mother said that Sumner was the kind of person that things just happen to, and she was right. Weird, amazing, incredible things, He led a charmed life, always stumbling into something interesting totally by accident.

One time right after he and Ashley started dating, he took us to the mall because he had to buy a shoe tree for his father for his birthday. We were walking along looking for one when we bumped into this camera crew filming one of those taste-test commercials right there in front of Cheeseables, the gourmet cheese shop where they also sell that snobby expensive coffee. They had some guy tasting a piece of cheese and they were trying to get him to say something snazzy they could film for the commercial, but he was hemming and hawing and spending too much time staring at the camera.

“So you like the cheese?” a woman holding a clipboard said to him, prodding. “Would you say it’s the best cheese you’ve ever eaten?”

“Well, it’s good,” the guy said real slowly, “but I’ve had better when I was abroad.”

“But it’s still pretty good?” the woman asked while the cameraman rolled his eyes. “Maybe the best you’ve eaten in a while?”

“It’s good,” the guy said. “I mean, I like it fine but I wouldn’t say—”

“Just say it,” the cameraman said in a low, growly voice. “Just say it’s the best damn cheese you’ve ever eaten.”

The man nibbled at the cheese a little more, taking his time. The woman with the clipboard glanced around, looking for other prospective participants, and all of a sudden Sumner says in this loud, happy voice, “This is the best cheese I’ve ever eaten!” And then he just smiled a big cheese-loving smile while the onlookers watched him and Ashley turned bright red and socked him in the stomach for saying anything in the first place. That was the thing about Ashley; she loved Sumner’s craziness, but it embarrassed her no end.

The woman with the clipboard walked over to us and looked at Sumner. “Can you say that again?”

“This is the best cheese I’ve ever eaten!” He said this in the same bouncy voice and added for extra effect, “I swear.”

The woman turned around and gestured to the cameraman. He made fast business of shooing the first cheese guy away and setting up a fresh plate for Sumner, who grinned at us as he was escorted behind the make-shift counter and took his place in front of the camera.

“I don’t believe this,” Ashley said to me.

The cameraman was talking to Sumner, who was nodding and saying at random intervals, “This is the best cheese I’ve ever eaten!” as if anyone was not clear on that point yet. They set him up with the cheese, which he took hesitantly at first, nibbled with an inquisitive look, and then let a big smile slowly work its way across his face before saying as if it had just popped into his head, with clear intonation and stress on all the right syllables, “THIS is the BEST CHEESE I have EVER eaten.”

The woman with the clipboard smiled, the cameraman shook Sumner’s hand, and everyone applauded except for Ashley, who just shook her head. Sumner collected a bunch of free cheese samples and gave them his name and number and signed an autograph for a little boy who had seen the whole thing.

We went on and got the shoe tree and thought little else about it, except that Sumner made it his signature line and said it whenever the mood struck him whether or not there was cheese in the vicinity. Then one evening we were all watching “Jeopardy!” and, right after we’d cleared a category on water fowl, who pops up on screen but Sumner, with his cheese and his big grin and of course the line, which was by that point known to the entire family and a few neighbors, all of whom called to make sure we’d seen the commercial. And suddenly, Sumner was the famous Cheeseables cheese guy. His tag line became very cool and they had him back to the Cheeseables in the mall to sign autographs and pose for pictures, and there was even talk of a national campaign, which never happened but was still very exciting. It wasn’t that Sumner went looking for adventure on purpose, more that it just stumbled across him. And for Ashley and me and my entire family, it was fun just to be along for the ride.