Outside Beauty

  Next morning the first thing I heard was pounding on our door. My heart stopped for a moment. Pounding on a door was always a bad thing.

  “What?” Marilyn called out.

  “Are you all decent?” It was Mack.

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  The door opened, and Mack stood there looking cheerful. “Good news, the new antibiotic is working. Your mother seems to be rallying. Her fever broke last night. I just got the news from Dr. Jefferson. Ah, the world is a fair place sometimes. I’m going to write about that tonight.”

  We all jumped up. “Is it for sure?” I asked excitedly.

  “For sure and then some. The doctor is surprised how she’s surging back. She’s going to make it, girls.”

  Relief flooded me. It was like yesterday the world was a bad place and today it was a good place. I actually understood Mack for the first time. The world was a fair place sometimes.

  “Yep, she’s over the hump,” Mack continued. “Hey, that would make a good song title. ‘Over the Hump.’” Marilyn and I had to laugh at that one, and he looked offended. “I thought about being a songwriter before I bought my restaurant.”

  “Dad, that’s a great song title.” Marilyn looked at me and smiled, and I smiled back.

  Mack looked at me. “Now, Shelby, don’t be making your mother cry when you visit her today.”

  “I won’t. I promise. Well, I don’t promise, but I’ll try really hard.”

  “Okay, get dressed so we can get there before noon.” I looked at the clock in our room. It was ten a.m. And then I looked around again in alarm.

  “Where’s Maddie?” I asked Mack.

  “She’s been up since five studying with her father. Poor kid. She looked flat-out exhausted when he woke her up.”

  And that’s when I decided. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to do it, but I did know there was no way Maddie was going back to Arkansas with Mr. Bronson.

  “We need to powwow about Maddie,” I hissed to Marilyn the moment Mack left the room.

  “Okay, later,” she agreed.

  Once dressed, we hurried into the kitchen to see what smelled so good. Mack was making French toast and singing. He sang like he did everything: with his whole self but not very well. Maddie was already at the kitchen table, her hands in her lap, waiting for breakfast. Mr. Bronson sat next to her, a napkin tucked into his collar.

  “Oh, they finally get dressed,” Mack teased. “The sleeping beauties finally make it out of bed.”

  Larry picked up Lakey and hugged her to him. “I’m happy for you girls,” he said. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “So what else did the hospital say about Mom?” Marilyn asked.

  “Just the most important thing,” said Mack. “She’s over the hump. You girls just may be back at your homes tonight. Bronson says if everything is fine he needs to get back to teach his summer class.” Get back? But we’d just gotten here.

  After breakfast we all headed to the hospital. Mack was in great form, yelling with abandon out the window at anyone he felt had offended him, which was quite a few people.

  I have to say, I’d never understood what my mother saw in Mack, but now I found myself actually liking the man.

  And despite his driving, we got to the hospital first. He took the steps two by two, then grasped a nurse’s hand and kissed it, saying, “Thank you for taking such good care of my ex-girlfriend. I would marry you if I didn’t love her.”

  The nurse couldn’t help smiling. My sisters and I laughed.

  Mack headed off toward my mother’s room when a nurse called out, “We moved her out of intensive care. She’s in 402. But it’s not quite visiting hours yet.”

  “You’ll have to call security to keep us from visiting her now.”

  The nurses didn’t call security, and we all walked into room 402. I was surprised that our mother looked exactly as she had the day before. But Mack couldn’t be subdued. He air-kissed her. “My ravishing ex, how nice to see you on this beautiful morning.”

  She smiled. Anyway, her teeth were still beautiful. She had the most perfect smile of anyone I’d ever seen. Maddie’s smile was more wonderful, but not as perfect.

  “I’m so relieved, Mom,” Marilyn said, sinking into the chair beside her.

  “Me too,” I said, bouncing on the balls of my feet.

  “I don’t know what all the fuss was about,” Mom said. “I was never planning to die.”

  “Of course you weren’t,” Mack boomed. “You’ll outlive us all!”

  “Mack, you’re funny,” she said, almost flirtatiously.

  The others showed up just then. Mr. Bronson stopped at the door, looked at us, looked down at Maddie. “We’re not supposed to be in here.” He leaned in the room to take Maddie’s hand and said, “We’ll wait outside until the nurse says it’s okay.”

  He led Maddie out of the room.

  Jiro walked in anyway. He looked down at my mom and said, “Happy for you. Too strong to die.”

  “Shelby told me you said I was strong like a horse.”

  He looked trapped for a second, then said, “You very strong. Always very strong.” He laughed. “You beat me arm wrestling once!”

  Mom wanted us to stay with her for a little while, so we all noisily tried to do a crossword puzzle together and got only three words. Even Jiro yelled excitedly when he got one of the words. “I read dictionary!” he said. “I read dictionary!” Mr. Bronson and Maddie came in when the nursed okayed it. They sat quietly, awkwardly, and as I watched Mr. Bronson sitting so straight and so stiff, I realized something: He was shy. But before I could think further about this, the nurses kicked us out for being too loud.

  chapter fifteen

  AT HOME THAT EVENING WE needed a serious powwow. Marilyn said, “She’s on a high right now, but she may be brought down to earth when she really studies her scars.”

  “She could be in the parallel universe where beauty doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “There’s no universe like that!” Marilyn said.

  “Yes, there is,” I insisted. Then, just as I’d said to my mother, I told Marilyn, “I’m in that universe.”

  “No, you’re not. We’re all in the same universe. It’s a small one—the only people in it are the four of us and Mom.”

  “I’m in the universe where beauty doesn’t matter,” I said stubbornly.

  “Mom is her beauty,” Marilyn said.

  “No, she’s not,” I said.

  Marilyn looked annoyed. “All right, let’s move on. Let’s get back to the main subject of this meeting, which is our dads.”

  Lakey said, “My turn! I love my dad, but I feel out of place at his house. His wife is polite to me and I have to be polite to her, but I can’t really act like me. And it’s not fun like it is with all of you. I have to behave phony.”

  Marilyn said, “My dad’s okay, but he’s kind of a nut.”

  We fell silent. I thought for a moment. What did I think about Jiro? I guess I felt he was embarrassing but that it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t actually have a lot of faults besides dressing badly and talking funny.

  Maddie said, “I have to pee.” She waited. “May I?” she said.

  “Of course,” we all said.

  She got up and left the room.

  “Who asks for permission before they pee?” I said.

  “Bronson probably makes her,” Marilyn said.

  “But why anybody would ask? Wouldn’t the answer always be yes? You can’t say no if somebody has to pee.”

  “Maddie’s acting weird,” Lakey said for about the fourth time in two days.

  “That’s the real reason we’re having this meeting,” Marilyn said. “We need to find a time we can powwow without Maddie. Maybe we should meet after she falls asleep.”

  When Maddie walked back in, nobody spoke. She looked around at us suspiciously.

  “Okay, meeting is adjourned,” Marilyn said.

  “Is that it? Did I miss anything?” Maddie said
.

  “Nope,” we all said.

  “Boy, I’m tired,” I said. “How about you, Maddie?”

  “I can go to sleep if you think I should.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “It’s really up to you if you’re tired.”

  “I guess I’m tired.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Then let’s all go to sleep.”

  We all got in our pajamas, Maddie changing in the bathroom. Someone knocked at the door. “Come in,” said Marilyn.

  Larry entered and gave Lakey a kiss. Then he came over and gave each of us a kiss before saying, “If your mother is still doing well tomorrow, Mr. Bronson and Jiro need to get back, so Maddie and Shelby will be leaving the day after tomorrow. You and I can stay a couple of days longer if you want.”

  “I want to stay as long as I can,” Lakey said.

  “That’s what I thought. We’ll do that. I don’t need to get back for a few days.” He kissed her again and left the room.

  We all lay in bed. I could feel that Marilyn and Lakey were still awake. Finally, Marilyn said, “Maddie?”

  She didn’t answer, so Marilyn, Lakey, and I got up. Marilyn cracked the door and then said, “They’re watching TV. We’ll have to stay in here. Just talk quietly.”

  We sat near Marilyn’s bed. “It’s like she has two personalities,” Lakey said.

  Marilyn said, “It’s like she’s a Stepford daughter.”

  “A what?” Lakey said.

  “It’s like she’s a robot.”

  “I think we need to get her out of there,” I said. “We can’t let her go back with Mr. Bronson.”

  “I agree,” Marilyn said. “But what can we do?”

  “We can all run away together,” I said. Neither sister said no, I noticed.

  Marilyn said, “Nothing feels right or normal with Mack. It kind of drives me crazy. And even if it didn’t, Maddie needs to be with us. It’s like she’s at a military school or something! I almost want to shake her and say ‘Where’s Maddie!’”

  “I know! That’s exactly how I feel.” And so I asked, “Where could we go if we ran away?”

  We all thought for a moment, and then Lakey said, “How about Larry’s cabin in Colorado?”

  “Do you know how to get there?” Marilyn asked. I leaned forward; I could detect a note of possibility in Marilyn’s voice.

  “I can find it without the address. I remember the street name. It was called Mountain View Road. The only thing is, one day I threatened to run away to the cabin. So Larry might know where we’re going.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea in my estimation, but it wasn’t a good idea, either. Still, it was the only idea we had so far. “There’s Jiro’s garage,” I suggested.

  “We can’t live in a garage,” Marilyn said.

  We all fell silent. I looked at my funny feet and wondered whether I’d inherited them from Jiro. I would feel bad running away because he’d been awfully nice to me. On the other hand, Maddie’s welfare was the most important thing.

  “Okay, I vote for Larry’s cabin,” I said. “It sounds perfect. Where else are we going to go? Maybe we could leave a note with the fathers saying we’re fine and not to tell Mom because she’d get too upset.”

  Lakey said, “I agree. I don’t want to live with Larry and his wife. I want to live with you.” Then she started crying. Then Marilyn and I started crying.

  Larry peeked into the room. “Everything all right in here?” he said. “Girls, girls, you don’t need to worry about your mother. The doctor is very optimistic. I spoke to him on the phone just a little while ago.” Then he looked right at Lakey. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

  “Yes,” she said through her tears. “We were just talking.”

  “All right,” he said. “Call if you need anything.” He closed the door.

  Lakey rubbed her eyes. “I miss you guys. It’s so lonely out there. I can’t stand it.”

  “How would we get to the cabin? Should we take a bus?” I said.

  We looked at Marilyn. “I’ll have to drive,” she said. “I have a set of my dad’s car keys. Maybe it’s better to go right away when they don’t expect it. Shelby, you need to tell Maddie when she wakes up tomorrow.”

  “Wait, what did we just decide?” I said.

  “That we’ll leave sometime after we visit Mom tomorrow.”

  The next day our mother was doing even better. When we arrived, she was ordering two nurses around. “No, no, make the head of the bed higher. The blood is going to my face and making it look bloated. Where’s my water? I need to clean all the drugs out of my system. There’s nothing more aging than drugs.”

  The nurses shook their heads with annoyance but did as she asked. They left, and we gathered around our mother.

  “Dr. Jefferson is such a nice man,” she said. “He brought me a flower today.” She indicated a flower in a plastic cup. “He said he got it from his own house. I wonder where he lives. Of course, if we all moved in, I would need to put my own touches on the house, but I shouldn’t say more because it’s bad luck to put the cart before the horse.” She smiled broadly, the most cheerful I’d seen her since the accident. I was so glad to see her smile. But I also knew that if Mom was getting better, truly, then we had to leave. Today.

  Back at the apartment, Mr. Bronson announced that he’d booked a return flight back to Arkansas. “Madeline, it’s a nine o’clock flight. Have your things packed before you go to bed. Now let’s start your reading lesson.” She followed him into the kitchen.

  I rubbed my temples. Marilyn caught my eye. “Tonight,” she mouthed. I nodded.

  We three older girls powwowed in our room without Maddie. “Okay, let’s take a final vote,” Marilyn said. “If we are going to do this, if we are going to Colorado, it needs to be tonight. So, are we leaving? Yes or no?”

  “I vote yes,” I said.

  “Me too,” Lakey said.

  “Me too,” Marilyn said.

  We returned to the living room, acting as normal as possible so the fathers wouldn’t think we were plotting anything. All afternoon we watched soap operas and talk shows with Jiro and Larry. Jiro fell asleep three times and Larry fell asleep twice. At one point Jiro said, “No understand Americans. Why they go on talk shows and embarrass themselves?”

  “I think they like to be on television,” I said.

  “Why they like that?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to be on television.”

  “I do,” said Marilyn. “After I’m famous, I’ll go on television all the time.”

  “What will you be famous for?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Then we fell silent again, lying like sloths around the TV. It was hard to believe we would be running away that night. We were doing a darn good job of acting normal.

  When Maddie finished her lessons, Larry went into the kitchen to cook us what he called his “special ultradelicious tacos.”

  The news shows were on, and we just kept watching TV. Mr. Bronson scolded us: “You girls should be doing something. You need some fresh air instead of lying around inside all day. Get out of the house and get some exercise!”

  We just looked at him.

  “But Larry’s about to serve dinner,” Marilyn said.

  “After dinner, then. I don’t want to see you lying around all night. It’s repulsive.”

  After dinner all four of us went downstairs and sat on the stoop. Marilyn and I met eyes. “Maddie,” I said, in a careful voice. “We have a plan.”

  “A plan?” she said. “A plan about what?”

  “Well, a plan that’s a big secret.”

  She looked at me suspiciously. “What kind of secret?”

  “Can you promise you won’t tell your father?”

  “I can’t promise,” she said right away.

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s my father, so he’s the boss.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he said . . . whatever, I don’t know
.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know him that well and I don’t, I don’t know, uh . . .”

  “Why?”

  “You’re playing Why? with me!” Her eyes sparkled but then died out.

  I said, “Ythegou uhthegalmthegost smthegiled.”

  Then she did smile, but only slightly. I smiled back.

  Now she just looked curious, not suspicious. “Why can’t I tell anyone?” she asked.

  “Because it’s a secret between the four of us.”

  She pondered that. “All right.”

  “You promise you won’t tell on us?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  Marilyn said, “Good! Here’s the plan. I’m going to drive Mack’s car, and the four of us are going to go away together. We’ll come back when Mom can take care of us again.”

  “We can’t do that!” Maddie said. “I’ll get in trouble. I have to tell my father!”

  “You promised!” we all said.

  “That’s because you tricked me.” She stood up.

  I stood up too. “Maddie. You can’t tell him. Please?”

  She sat down again and didn’t answer.

  Marilyn leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. “We’re going to Larry’s cabin in Colorado.” She sat back proudly.

  Maddie looked interested. In fact, she looked very interested.

  “It won’t be for long. Just until Mom’s better, and she’s already getting better now.”

  “Like how long?” Maddie said.

  “Like a month or so,” I said.

  “Yeah, a month,” Marilyn said.

  “And how would we get food?”

  “With our money,” I said.

  Marilyn, Lakey, and I looked at Maddie. Her lips moved as she thought about it, and I could tell she was repeating it to herself as if she couldn’t yet fully comprehend it all.

  Finally, I said, “Maddie, are you in or out?”