Not on purpose, anyway.
But the adults all had stories. And they toldevery damn one.
Breakfast turned into a litany of testimonials. The time I fell off Old Man Pipkin’s roof. The time I built a fire in the Pesikoffs’ driveway. The time I ran my bike into a parked car in front of the Turners’ house.
Not to mention all the math-based businesses I’d tried to start in the summers: Algebra Tutoring for Dummies, Master Your Times Tables at Last, and (Fun) Math Camp. No takers for that one. We also reminisced at length about the time I set up a lemonade stand, but instead of selling lemonade, I tried to sellfinancial advice. I was like Lucy fromPeanuts,but my hand-lettered sign readBECOME A MILLIONAIRE!
I’d garnered one client, and it was Grandma Dodie.
But everybody’s favorite story, of course, was the time I was selling Girl Scout cookies, and Mr. Dunn answered his front door while brushing his teeth, and I saw the foam at his mouth, thought he had rabies—and ran away screaming. That really cracked the table up. Myfear of rabies. Hilarious.
I endured all these stories with the scowl of a wet cat.
“Why does everybody only remembermyshenanigans?” I asked, after far too long. “Cooper was involved in ninety percent of these incidents.Mastermindedmost of them!” Then I pointed at Cooper likeJ’accuse!and said, “I only built that fire because Cooper wanted to make s’mores! And Cooper was the Director of Putting Up Flyers for the math camp! And Cooper was the one who shouted ‘Rabies!’ at Mr. Dunn before webothran away screaming.”
“Cooper just had such a sweet face,” Mrs. Vargas said, like he could never be a troublemaker.
We all turned to regard Cooper’s face.
And that’s when Bridesmaid Two, ever the interrupter, decided to ask, “What do you do for a living, Cooper?”
“He’s in a band,” I said.
Just as Cooper answered, “I work for the BBC in London. I’m a Foley sound artist.”
I turned to him. “You’re awhat?”
He wasn’t in a band? How did I not know this? I mean, yes—he’dbeen gone for four years, so he’d had plenty of time for a secret career change. But I’d seen him a lot lately.
Hell, we’d justslept together!
But, now that I thought about it, had I asked Cooper evenonequestion about himself since he got here? I felt a punch of guilt for having been so veryall about mefor the past twenty-four hours.
“What’s a Foley artist, Cooper?” Mrs. Dunn asked.
“We make the sounds for movies.”
“Like the soundtrack?” Bridesmaid Two asked.
But Cooper shook his head. “The sounds, not the music.”
Brody liked this. “Like explosions and stuff?”
“Yes, that. But—everything. Movies mostly just record the actors’ dialogue, and everything else gets added in later. Glasses clinking. Grocery bags rustling. Footsteps.”
“Footsteps?” Mr. Vargas asked.
Cooper nodded. “You can create every possible human emotion with footsteps. We have a whole closet of prop shoes.”
Nowthiswas a good topic. Why hadn’t we spent all of breakfast talking about this?
“So if you need to make the sound of thunder, would you go out and record some thunder?” Mr. Dunn asked.
“For thunder,” Cooper said, “I like to use a piece of aluminum sheet metal. You punch it and then ripple it.”
“Is that better than the real thing?” Mrs. Dunn wanted to know.
Cooper nodded. “The sound has to fit the visuals just right—plus, the pacing of the scene. So you watch the screen as you record the sound.”
