Claudia and Mean Janine

  One morning, I was at the hospital with Mimi. She was sitting in an armchair and had insisted on getting dressed. We were waiting for her speech therapist to come, and I was quizzing her.

  I sat cross-legged on her hospital bed. “What color is this?” I asked, holding up a corner of the white sheet. Mimi frowned. “Shiroku …”

  “English, Mimi. In English.”

  “It’s … not black,” she said finally.

  “White,” I reminded her.

  “Oh, yes. I—I can know this.” (As I said, she would mix up her words sometimes.)

  I held up one of her flash cards. “What’s this?”

  “Hitsuji … no … sheep!” said Mimi.

  “That’s right! Hey, Mimi, you’re doing great!”

  “She certainly is,” said a voice.

  Dr. Marcus had appeared in the doorway.

  I greeted him happily. I liked Dr. Marcus a lot. So did Mimi (even though she had said so in Japanese and Mom had had to translate).

  “In fact, she’s doing well enough to go home tomorrow.”

  “Home?” I cried. “Tomorrow? Oh, that’s terrific!”

  Mimi smiled. “Mmm,” she said, nodding, and I knew she couldn’t think of whatever words she wanted to use. But her smile said plenty.

  That night, Mom and Dad and I held a meeting about Mimi. My parents had spent the afternoon talking to Dr. Marcus and the nurses and therapists.

  “She’ll have to go to the hospital every day for therapy,” said Dad. “Mom and I will arrange to do that. She’s supposed to be at the hospital from about two to five.”

  “But what will she do all morning?” I asked.

  “She can look at magazines or watch TV,” replied Mom. “But mostly she ought to practice what she’s learning in therapy. She can’t be left alone—”

  “I’ll stay with her,” I volunteered immediately.

  “You will?” asked Mom. “Are you sure? It would be wonderful if you could. We don’t want to interrupt Janine’s classes.”

  (I was sure that would be a relief to Janine. All she had done the past week was bury her nose in one book after another. She said she had exams coming up, but it seemed to me that she just didn’t care much about Mimi.)

  “We’ll pay you, of course,” Mom went on.

  “Pay me!” I said. “You don’t have to pay me. This is Mimi. I want to take care of her. I’m part of her family.”

  “Yes, but you’ll be missing out on the play group. And you’ll have to work with Mimi at least part of the time. You won’t be simply keeping her company. She’ll need help. It’ll be a lot of work.”

  “We-ell …” I said.

  “I think we ought to pay you your regular baby-sitting wages,” said my father.

  “I agree,” said Mom.

  “Okay,” I gave in. “But only if you don’t tell Mimi. I wouldn’t want her to know I’m getting paid to help her. I think it would hurt her feelings. Deal?”

  “Deal,” replied my parents.

  So Mimi came home from the hospital the next afternoon, and the following morning was the beginning of my first day taking care of her. Of course, I had plenty of help during breakfast, but by eight-thirty when everyone had left, Mimi and I were on our own. I knew I could call our neighbors, the Goldmans, or Stacey’s mother, if we had any trouble. And all the emergency numbers in the entire country were posted by the phone in the kitchen. It felt weird, though, not to have the Thomases around for help. Kristy had moved. Her home was clear across town now.

  Mimi sat in the kitchen with me while I cleaned up our breakfast dishes. Every so often I’d ask her a question.

  “What am I doing now, Mimi?”

  “You are … are … washing the … the things we eat from.”

  “What are those things called?”

  “They are … plants. No, plates. And the round things we drink from.”

  “And what are those called?” I knew Mimi must be frustrated, but I wouldn’t give up.

  Questions, questions, questions. That’s what the first two hours of the morning were. We walked from room to room. I asked her about everything. When she had trouble, I’d give her a memory trick to help her. (That’s how my third-grade teacher helped me with my terrible spelling.)

  “The next time you need to remember the name of this,” I said, pointing to a chair, “picture a cherry growing bigger and bigger until it explodes, spraying out cherry juice. And when you think of cherry, remember the word chair.”

  “Oh, no,” said Mimi, smiling. “I am sure I will call that a cherry from now on, my Claudia.”

  But she didn’t. When I pointed to the chair about ten minutes later, Mimi frowned, then smiled. I knew she was picturing the exploding cherry. “That,” said Mimi triumphantly, “is a chair.”

  Later, I got out Mimi’s penmanship book and she practiced writing with her left hand. When she had had a rest, she helped me make beds, doing a pretty good one-handed job.

  We had just finished lunch out on the back porch, when the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it!” I said. “You stay here.”

  I ran through the house and opened the front door. There were Stacey, Mary Anne, Kristy, and Dawn, all holding papers and packages.

  “Hi, you guys!” I greeted them happily.

  “Hi!” said everyone.

  “We just finished the play group,” added Stacey. “We thought we’d come visit Mimi.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” I said. “She’s out on the back porch.”

  My friends followed me to the porch. When they saw Mimi, they zoomed in on her like a bunch of bees who had spotted a flower.

  They all began talking at once, and dropping presents in her lap.

  Immediately, Mimi forgot her words. I heard her mumble something about kodomo. Aside from that, she resorted to, “Mmm,” and smiling. But when the girls sat down and Mimi felt less flustered, she perked up.

  “I am … happy to see you,” she said slowly.

  “Oh, boy, are we ever happy to see you,” replied Mary Anne emphatically.

  “Look,” said Stacey, “Charlotte made you that flower.” She pointed out what must have been the day’s art project: a section of an egg carton stuck on a pipe cleaner and painted brilliant colors.

  “And David Michael doesn’t go to the play group anymore,” said Kristy, “so he sends you a joke instead. His joke is, how many elephants can you fit in a sports car?”

  “How many?” asked Mimi.

  “Six. Three in front and three in back!”

  “Oh …” Mimi smiled, but looked mystified.

  “The Thomases have moved, Mimi,” I told her. “Remember? They were getting all packed up and everything.”

  “Oh … oh, yes,” said Mimi, and I knew she really had remembered. “Do you like nor yew house?”

  Nobody laughed. They knew what Mimi meant.

  “The house is fine,” said Kristy. “I’m not sure about the neighborhood, though. There aren’t many kids around. Watson said most of them got sent to camp for the summer.”

  My friends stayed a while longer. When they left, it was time to help Mimi get ready to go to the hospital. Dad showed up at one-forty-five to drive her there, and then I had to go to the Newtons’ to baby-sit.

  Lucy was just getting ready for a nap when I arrived. Mrs. Newton seemed to be in a rush. “Can you finish with her?” she asked me. “I’ve got a meeting in fifteen minutes, and Lucy is a mess from lunch. She needs her diaper changed, too.”

  “Sure,” I replied. “Where’s Jamie?”

  “On his way in. He was playing in the backyard.”

  “Hi-hi,” said Jamie, appearing in the doorway to Lucy’s room.

  “Honey, I’m going to leave now,” Mrs. Newton told Jamie. “You have fun with Claudia.”

  “Bye, Mommy,” said Jamie casually.

  Mrs. Newton dashed downstairs.

  Jamie crossed the room to Lucy, who was lying on her changing table. “Hi-hi, Lucy-Goosey,” he said, m
aking a silly face at her.

  Lucy smiled at him.

  Jamie picked up a toy squirrel and zoomed it around Lucy while I tried to change her. Her smile became a grin, and she waved her arms in the air.

  Jamie looked critically at Lucy. “Your face is messy,” he said.

  “I know it is,” I told him. “I’m going to clean her up in a minute.”

  “I’ll clean her up,” said Jamie.

  “No, I better do it,” I said. “It’s a big job. She’s got baby food in her hair, and I need to change her undershirt, too.”

  “I can do it.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but let me do it anyway. It’ll go faster.”

  “Boy,” said Jamie crossly. Then he stood on his tiptoes and shouted into his sister’s face, “Dumb baby! Why did we ever get you?”

  Lucy burst into tears at the sudden noise, and Jamie stomped down the hall, muttering something about, “Won’t even let me help.” Then he sulked for a while. By the time Lucy woke up from her nap, though, he was his old cheerful self. He tickled Lucy and played pat-a-cake with her. And when I let him help me dress her, I thought he would burst with pride.

  We had a fun afternoon, but when I left the Newtons’, I was exhausted. It had been a long day. And I had the nagging feeling that Jamie and Lucy reminded me of Janine and me, but I wasn’t sure why.

  Thursday

  This morning I didn’t baby-sit – I Mimi-sat. Claudia was sitting for Nina and Eleanor all day, so Mrs. Kishi asked if I could stay with Mimi. I was happy to, of course, but I wasn’t expecting Mimi to be so different. She can’t even remember the simplest things sometimes. In case any of you stays with Mimi while she’s getting better, you should know that she gets upset easily. Frustrated, I guess. She yelled at me and Mimi has never, ever yelled at me. In fact, as for as I know, she has never yelled at all. So be careful.

  Now, the funny thing is, although Mimi yelled at Mary Anne, she never yelled at me or Mom or Dad or Janine the entire time she was sick. Maybe it’s because we’re her family. I guess it’s one thing for me to trail around after her, pestering her with questions, but something else for a friend of the family to do it. I bet she was embarrassed. She was probably embarrassed just for needing a sitter in the first place. After all, she was a grown woman, not a baby like Lucy Newton. Anyway, I felt terrible for Mary Anne. She’s shy and sensitive, and things like this really upset her.

  The reason Mary Anne was staying with Mimi was that I had told the Marshalls over a month ago that I would sit for Nina and Eleanor. Mr. and Mrs. Marshall had a very important all-day event to attend in Stamford, so they had called way in advance for a sitter. I didn’t want to back out of the job, Mom and Dad didn’t want to take any more time off from work than they already had, and they didn’t want to ask Janine to miss a class.

  So we asked Mary Anne to stay with Mimi. Of course she said yes immediately.

  I didn’t have to be at the Marshalls’ until ten o’clock, but I told Mary Anne to come to my house at nine-thirty. That gave me plenty of time to show her Mimi’s exercise book and flash cards, and to explain what things Mimi could and couldn’t do, what to fix for lunch, when Dad was coming home, etc.

  Mary Anne listened patiently and asked me a few questions. She knew where I’d be if she needed help. I told myself I could always bring Nina and Eleanor back to my house, if necessary.

  At ten minutes to ten, I had to leave. “Okay, Mimi,” I said. “I’ll be over at the Marshalls’. I have to baby-sit. But Mary Anne will stay with you. Dad’ll be here a little before two.”

  “This is fine, my Claudia,” Mimi answered slowly.

  I gave Mary Anne the thumbs-up sign and left.

  Mary Anne said that right from the start, Mimi was, well, difficult. Not mean or anything. But, for instance, as soon as I was gone, Mary Anne suggested to Mimi, “How about working on your flash cards?”

  And Mimi replied, “Oh, Mary Anne, why do we not watch the … the … big box?”

  Mimi never watches television. Well, hardly ever. So this was pretty unusual.

  But Mary Anne didn’t want to argue with Mimi. She decided that maybe listening to people talking would help Mimi’s speech, so she found a talk show on TV. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very interesting show. It was about tax reform or something. Mary Anne was bored immediately, and after about five minutes, she realized that Mimi wasn’t even looking at the screen.

  Mary Anne jumped up, flicked off the TV, and said, “Come on, Mimi. It’s a beautiful day. Let’s sit on the porch and I’ll help you with your flash cards.”

  Mimi heaved a big sigh, but apparently couldn’t think of anything to say. She let Mary Anne help her out to the porch.

  When they were settled, Mary Anne held up the top card.

  “Kitchen,” said Mimi.

  “No, chicken,” Mary Anne told her.

  Mimi remained silent.

  “Say chicken,” Mary Anne prompted her.

  “Chicken,” whispered Mimi.

  I could just picture the two of them on the porch with the flash cards. Mary Anne was wearing a jeans skirt, a pink and white striped blouse, and loafers with no socks. I’m sure she was perched on the edge of her chair with her feet crossed. One hand was probably holding up the cards, and the other was probably playing with her hair.

  Mimi would have been sitting just as primly in her chair, only settled well back in it, since her balance wasn’t very good. She had put on a blue pantsuit that morning, and I had helped her choose a little gold peacock to pin on her blouse. Lately, she had taken to sitting stiffly and sort of cradling her useless right arm in her good left one.

  Mary Anne held up the next card.

  Mimi looked thoughtful. Then her face grew pink. “Hitsuji?” she suggested after a moment. “No … no …”

  “It’s a sheep, Mimi,” said Mary Anne.

  “Ah. Mmm …” Mimi’s speech was disappearing, along with her nerve.

  “Say it,” said Mary Anne.

  This may have been the real beginning of the problem. I’m not sure. The thing about Mary Anne is that although she’s shy, she can sound sort of schoolteacherish sometimes. In fact, she said recently that she wants to be a teacher one day. Maybe Mimi thought Mary Anne was being pushy, or treating her like a child. (“Say da-da, Lucy. Say da-da. Oh, what a good girl!”)

  “Say it,” Mary Anne said again.

  “Sheet.”

  “No, sheep. Puh, puh.” Mary Anne emphasized the p sound at the end of the word, which I’m sure Mimi had heard just fine and had meant to say. It just hadn’t come out right.

  “Sheep. PUH. PUH,” Mimi repeated loudly.

  Mary Anne hesitated then. She wondered if she should forget about the cards, but she remembered my saying that if Mimi wanted to get better, she would have to drill, drill, drill every day. Even Saturday and Sunday.

  So Mary Anne held up the next card. It showed a baseball bat—for some reason, one of the toughest words for Mimi to remember.

  “Mmm,” said Mimi. “Mmm …”

  “No,” said Mary Anne. “Buh, buh.”

  “Buh … buh … be quiet!” said Mimi as loudly as she could. She got unsteadily to her feet. “Be quiet!” she shouted again. She started to teeter off the porch into the house.

  Mary Anne stood up nervously.

  “And leave alone! I can do myself!” said Mimi.

  “All right. All right. I’m just coming along behind you. I won’t help you,” said Mary Anne. She followed Mimi. What, she wondered, should she do if Mimi locked herself in her bedroom?

  But Mimi made her way into the kitchen, holding onto her right arm the whole way, even though Mom and I had told her many times to use the cane she’d been given by her physical therapist.

  In the kitchen, Mimi sat down huffily for a few moments. Then she stood up again and began slamming the cupboard doors.

  “Mimi?” asked Mary Anne. “What—”

  “Special tea,” Mimi managed to say. “We
need it.”

  “Oh,” said Mary Anne, relieved. “You’re right. We do. How about, um, how about …” (Poor Mary Anne was so nervous about upsetting Mimi that she hardly knew what to say.) “I could get out the special cups and the pot, if you’ll find the tea.”

  “Yes, yes.” Mimi began to calm down.

  Twenty minutes later, the tea was before them. Mary Anne had made it (following Mimi’s garbled instructions), but Mimi was able to pour left-handed.

  She and Mary Anne each took a sip.

  “Ah,” said Mimi. “Good.”

  “Wonderful,” agreed Mary Anne. “We haven’t had special tea in a long time.”

  “Mary,” said Mimi, “I am sorry. I did not mean to … talk at you.”

  “That’s okay,” said Mary Anne. “I think I deserved it.”

  “No one deserves rude.” Mimi put down her cup and held out her left hand. Mary Anne took it. Mimi smiled at her. “All forgive?”

  “Yes,” said Mary Anne. “And I have a suggestion. Let’s play hooky.”

  “Hooky? Oh … yes!” Mimi laughed.

  Mary Anne laughed, too.

  They spent the rest of the morning watching game shows on TV. Mimi got pretty good at Wheel of Fortune. I decided that she should watch it every morning.

  On the day before Lucy Newton’s christening, I worked with Mimi in the morning, as usual. She and I had never discussed her blowup at Mary Anne, and Mimi had been quite cooperative with me, my parents, and her therapists since then. We could see improvement every day. Her speech was getting better and her limp was going away. She still didn’t have much use of her right arm, though, and the occupational therapist worked hard with her to increase the use of her left hand. That was difficult for Mimi, since she used her hands a lot—cooking, embroidering, knitting, sewing. And no matter how well she learned to use her left hand, there were some things she’d never be able to do one-handed. I found her bag of knitting needles stashed in the hall closet one day.

  Mimi was sad and disappointed, but she wouldn’t complain.