This is the Part Where You Laugh Read Online Free PDF Page A

mini-trailer loaded with the lawn mower, weed whacker, trimmer, gas can, oil can, hand clippers, and debris buckets strapped down with bungee cords.
    I don’t knock on the door at my first house. I just start weed-whacking. The owners and I already have an agreement set up, so I do my work whether or not they’re home. I know they’ll pay me later, and they’ll pay me well too. Good tippers. So I weed-whack, edge, then mow over the top.
    Before I go to my second job, though, I stop at the house that the Sullivans used to own. I knock once and wait. No one comes. I consider leaving, but there’s a car in the driveway, so I knock again.
    I’m about to leave when the door swings open. It’s the girl. She’s my age, give or take a year, tall, near my height, 5'9". Real pretty but with a scar on her face, under her eye, a big scar, maybe two inches across then down another inch, like an L turned on its side.
    She’s staring at her phone, and she doesn’t look up when she opens the door, just says, “Yeah?”
    I hesitate.
    She has tan skin with straight black hair pulled up the way soccer players do with the double Nike headbands, and she’s one of those girls that cuts the collars out of her T-shirts. One side of her wide-open collar is off her shoulder, her pink bra strap crossing her collarbone into her shirt, and I follow that line down and look at her breasts. I try not to linger on them too long, but I check them out, and they’re nice too. Then I look back up at her face, high cheekbones and that scar.
    I can’t see her eyes since she’s still looking at her phone screen.
    She says, “Do you need something?”
    I feel scroungy in my stained work shirt, and I wish I’d showered that morning after playing basketball. The carpet on the stairs behind the girl is white. The entryway floor is polished hardwood. Even the porch I’m standing on is clean and swept. I wonder if I’m dropping grass cuttings on the porch right now, wonder if I should sweep the porch if I earn the job.
    I say, “Is your mom or dad home?”
    “No,” she says. She’s scrolling the touch screen with her finger, running through Facebook or something. She has a brace on her right knee. Strong legs. Thin ankles.
    I say, “Will you give them this flyer for me?” I hold out the paper that my grandma and I typed up together.
    The girl takes the flyer and I see her look at my hands, then stop and take another look. She glances up at my face before going back to her phone. She says, “I’ll give it to them.” She turns and catches the door with her heel. Pivots to shut it.
    I take a step back so the door doesn’t hit me in the face, and it’s good I do, because when that door closes, it slams so hard it sounds like something breaks inside the house.
    I smile.
    I don’t know why, but I’ve never minded when a pretty girl is a little rude at first. I like that edge. It reminds me of basketball, how you have to scrap a bit if you want to win.
    I think about the girl as I work the next two yards, go through what I know about her: that scar, that pink bra strap, the way she swam in her clothes, her breasts, her legs, her knee brace, that quick cut of her green eyes.

LOSING
    Saturday. I go down to the middle school to see if anyone’s playing on the outdoor courts, but the courts are empty. I dribble and shoot, do three sets of jump lunges and calf plyometrics to help build my vertical, and picture dunking while I do the sets.
    Lots of guys who are 5'9" can dunk—and some guys, Nate Robinson for example, can throw down at that height—so it’s annoying that I still can’t. I’m close, and that’s good. I can grab the rim now, and if I go up hard, I can slide the ball across the top of the rim. But mostly I get rim-checked on the front edge. Part of my problem is that I can’t quite palm the ball, so I promise myself I’ll do grip strength on my Gripmaster before I go to sleep.
    —
    On the way home from the school, I see a sign