“Please don’t touch the plaque, miss,” the guard says, so I drop it again, which was maybe not the best move because it crashes to the floor and the plaque breaks off of the stand. “Oh, crap!”
“I’m sorry.” Cassius takes a deep breath, but his voice is still shaking. “I tripped on the steps here and I knocked over the plaque.”
“It was an accident,” I put in.
“I didn’t see it,” Cassius says. He sounds furious and embarrassed, and I don’t blame him. “You should consider adding some bright tape to these steps.”
“Tape?” the guard repeats.
“It’s dangerous for people with a vision impairment,” Cassius goes on.
“Do people with vision impairments visit art museums?” I ask.
“I’m telling you that I have a vision impairment, and the light’s so dim that I had trouble seeing the low step.”
“I see,” the guard replies. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” but Cassius sounds like, No, you jerk, obviously.
“There are a lot of rare pieces of China and enamel . . .” the guard begins.
“Are you concerned that I might knock them over?” Cassius demands.
The guard doesn’t say anything.
“I’ll be very careful.” Cassius’s voice is slow and deliberate. Then, bitter: “My friend will keep an eye out.” And here, he looks at me, so of course I back him up.
“I’ll help him,” and I grab Cassius’s hand, and the guard nods like that is okay and then goes away, thank goodness.
Once she’s gone, we turn and start up the steps. We go slowly. I hold Cassius’s arm. “Why did you say that?” I whisper.
“Because it’s true.” Cassius does not whisper.
“No, it isn’t.”
Cassius stops on the stairs, but he does not look at me. “I have Best disease,” he says slowly. “The center of my vision has a big blot on it. That’s why I look at everything like this.” And then he tilts his head back crazily and looks at me with his nostrils again. I can see that there is still a small smudge of red beneath his right nostril, but think, I can’t wipe that for him without looking like I’m trying to pick his nose, and then . . .
And then . . .
Well, I don’t really know what to do. I am standing here, looking up Cassius’s nose, and as usual, my mind veers suddenly and I am thinking about this singer, Michael Jackson.
Once, my mom told a story. She said that when Michael Jackson died, they found all of these drugs in his body. And it was really strange, because her whole life, she had just thought that Michael Jackson was a weirdo. Like, he bought the bones of the Elephant Man and had a best friend who was a chimpanzee and stuff like that. “I thought he was crazy,” Mom told me, “but he was really just on drugs. SO DON’T DO DRUGS.” That was the moral of that story.
But right now, I am thinking about how my mom thought that Michael Jackson was crazy, but he was really sick with drugs. And I thought that Cassius was . . . I don’t know, kinda weird and not good with people, but really he has some disease that makes him . . . not see very well?
And before I know what’s happening, I just start crying. Like, tears are streaming down my face until it’s as wet as it was when I was out in the rain, and Cassius is just standing there, and I realize that OHMYGOD he doesn’t even know I’m crying because he can’t see me! I let out a big sniffle.
“Are you crying?” Cassius asks.
“Yes.”
“Why? You’re not going blind.”
“What?” My voice is screechy, and the stairway is superechoey, so I lower the volume. “Now you’re going blind?”
“Isn’t that why you’re crying?”
I huff, “I was crying because you are vision impaired! I didn’t know you were going blind, too!”
Cassius shakes his head. “You are a trip, Callie.”
“Is it getting worse? You’re going to go blind-blind? Like completely?” I’m pleading with him now, but I don’t know what I expect him to say. My hand is still on his arm, and he puts his fingers over mine. Then he gently guides me back down the stairs and for a minute my eyes are so watery that I can hardly see and I think, Oh it’s the blind leading the blind, but I do not say that because I am not completely an insensitive jerk.
At least, not out loud.
Down the hallway, and then we are back in the garden court, and I take a few deep breaths until I feel sort of hollowed out, like a decorative Halloween gourd. We sit on the lip of the fountain. We just breathe awhile, but it’s not as nice as it was before.
“When I found out that I had Best disease,” Cassius says finally, “and that I was going to go blind, I told my parents that I didn’t want to waste any more time in school. I needed to see things. I needed to see them now, while I could. So we agreed that as long as I could still get around, I could go do what I wanted, and we would find a way to make it into schoolwork.” He reaches out and strokes a leaf with a fingertip. “I couldn’t stand being in school, and having everyone . . . you know.”
“How do you . . .” I taste the salt as a tear trickles into the corner of my mouth. “How do you read?”
“I listen, mostly. Audiobooks.”
I pause and then—
“Why am I crying?” I can’t stop. I’m trying and I really can’t. “Why aren’t you crying? What’s wrong with you? You should be crying!”
“I guess I’ve had more time to get used to it. And mostly, I just feel really lucky that I can still see. You know, for the most part.”
And this makes me cry harder, but more quietly, at least. I pull a small mirror out of my messenger bag. “Ugh,” I say, brushing away my tears. I look like a complete hag—my face is all splotchy and my eyes are red and I have, like, bags under them. “You’re so lucky you can’t see me right now.”
Cassius’s face wrinkles into a smile. “You always find a bright side, Callie.”
Cassius puts an arm around my shoulder, and I lean my head against his chest. I inhale the sweet smell of the garden mixed with the sweet smell of Cassius. I don’t know if it’s his hair or his deodorant, or what, but he smells really good. I close my eyes and I just concentrate on those smells.
“Are you okay?” Cassius asks after a while.
“Yes.”
Cassius starts to shift, like maybe he wants to get up, and so I open my eyes and look up at him. “Can we stay here? Just a little longer?”
He looks down at me from his curious angle. “Sure.”
We sit there for a while. Every now and then, a single person or a couple will walk into the courtyard, but none of them linger.
My cheek is against his shoulder. He is wearing an olive green T-shirt, and it must be one of those ridiculously expensive ones, because it’s soft as a pillowcase. I can feel his collarbone against my ear, and I can hear his heart beating. It’s an interesting thing, that everyone has a heart. It just pulses away, and you never really pay any attention to it.
Except when it’s breaking, of course.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
In which . . . enlightenmentation
“NOW, IF YOU WILL slowly open your eyes, you should feel your body filled with light and energy . . .” Tinkly music and the sound of ocean waves roll from a small speaker.
The man in the big khaki overcoat lets out a loud snore, but the old lady in the pink suit opens her eyes and blinks. She has a sweet smile, and I really like how she matched her lipstick to her handbag. “Oh, that feels wonderful!” she says in a German accent, so it sounds like “vonndervul!” She’s so cute; I could just put her into my pocket.
“Feel the positive energy . . .” my mother is saying.
“Vonnderful!”
The man snores again. My mother tries to ignore him, but the German lady gives him a poke. “Vake up, you!”
He does not move, and from the smell coming off of him, I think he might not wake up for a while. He smells like he just came from Beertown. Like maybe he went swim
ming in the Beer Pool there and then took a Beer Shower. And then rode to Manhattan in a Beer Cab . . . while drinking a beer.
“Take a deep breath in through your nose . . .” My mother inhales deeply, and then realizes what a mistake this is, since she is sitting next to Beer Guy. She coughs, and the German lady pounds her on the back. “Take a . . . cleansing . . . (cough, cough) breath through your mouth . . .”
Let me just tell you one thing: this is not the worst workshop I’ve seen my mom give.
In addition to selling soap, once a month my mom runs a meditation workshop at the local library. Did you know that there were libraries in Manhattan? Well, neither does anybody else, which is one of the reasons that nobody ever comes to these things.
But my mother just says that it makes her feel good to help people relax and direct their energy. She also volunteers helping out-of-work people with their résumés. It’s kind of like the social work she used to do, except that this pays nothing, which is even less than she used to earn.
At the end of the session, Beer Guy is still asleep, but the old woman gives my mother a hug. “Zat vas vonnderful! Vonnderful!”
My mother sighs happily as she watches the old woman leave. “Sometimes, I really feel like I’m making a difference,” she says, and I think about how great my mom is at positive thinking. Really, she’s a natural.
We walk up Fifth Avenue, and my mother stops to sigh over a dress in the Saks window. It’s very pretty, and I think it would look great on my mother, and I say so.
“When would I wear a dress like that?”
“You could just wear it around the apartment,” I suggest. “Or to a Pie Soiree, or something.”
“I don’t think I’ll be having another Pie Soiree,” Mom says. Her voice is sad, but it’s sad in the way it is when you’re just saying something that you know is true.
“Why not? I thought you said that the last one went well.”
Mom shrugs. “Well, a lot of those people were from the fund, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again any time soon. They weren’t as great as I thought they were, anyway.” A few steps away a homeless man sits near the curb. Before him is a can that reads, “Homeless veteran. Please help!”
Mom reaches into her handbag for her wallet.
“Thank you,” the man says as she drops a five-dollar bill into the can. Then she looks through the file she is holding and pulls out a piece of paper. “Here’s a list of resources—shelters, meal programs, stuff like that.”
The man looks surprised. “You a social worker, or something?”
“Used to be.”
He folds up the paper and tucks it into a pocket. “God bless you.” He sounds really sincere, and for a moment I get this weird feeling, like maybe he’s a holy man or something, dressed up in dirty clothes to try to trick us into being kind. But a moment later, I realize that, no—he’s just a regular poor dude. Still, that nice feeling stays on me. My mom thanks him for the blessing, and we walk on.
“Do you ever miss working at Pooh Corner?” That’s what we called the place where she used to work, which was really called Unity House, and was on the corner of Wynne and Pugh Street. When I was a kid, I thought it was “Winnie the Pooh” instead of Wynne and Pugh. Pooh Corner.
“I do. I thought it would be fun to start my own business and be my own boss. But it turns out that making soap and running a business is just as much work as being a social worker, and sometimes it feels a little . . .”
“Pointless?”
She laughs. “Yeah.”
“Do you ever think about going back?”
My mom keeps walking. She is staring straight ahead. “Sometimes it’s not that easy.”
I think about Grandma Hildy, and how she wishes she could go back and do things differently.
“Why was Grandpa Constantine so mad at Uncle Larry?” I ask. My mom and I are walking side by side, and I notice that our strides are the same length. We are almost the same height now, which is strange.
She lets out a sigh. “Your grandfather was an old-fashioned man, Callie. He had old-fashioned beliefs. And those were different times. So he forbade anyone in the family to have contact with Larry. Honestly, I don’t know if your grandmother ever got over it when he died.”
I feel like something has lodged in my heart—like a stone, or an arrow, maybe. “But why would she agree to that?”
“Everything was so different then. A lot of people really thought that being gay was a sin, and that people could choose not to be gay.”
“But Uncle Larry was her son!”
“Yes, but she thought he was going through a phase. She thought that it would pass. Constantine made her choose, and she chose him. But I think she really believed that either Constantine or Larry would come around after a while. I don’t think she ever expected Larry to die so soon . . . None of us did.”
“And dad? He didn’t talk to his own brother?”
My mother stops and faces me. Her brown eyes are like warm chocolate. “Callie—why do you think your father was written out of the will?”
And just like that, the whole situation comes crashing down on me, squashing me flat. It is like the sky has fallen on me.
My dad refused to listen to my grandfather. My grandfather punished him for it.
“Your father always supported Larry. He was there at the end, even though it cost him . . .” I am still crushed beneath the sky, but I can hear my mother’s voice. “Your dad is a loyal man, Callie. He always does what he thinks is right, even when it’s hard. He kept working for the family business even after Constantine refused to go to Larry’s funeral—”
“What? He didn’t go to the funeral?”
“No. Stephen was going to be there, so he didn’t go.”
“Stephen.” I remember the man in the photo. “Uncle Larry’s friend?”
“His boyfriend.”
His boyfriend? Suddenly, the painting in my grandmother’s apartment makes sense. Perfect sense. “Did Grandma Hildy go to the funeral?”
“Yes.”
I am so relieved that the sidewalk goes a little blurry. I’m not sure why that is important to me, but it is. My mother reaches for my arm, because I am about to step off the curb and into the traffic because, apparently, my brains were squashed out of my head when the sky fell on me.
My mother’s eyes are teary. Her warm hand is still on my arm, and suddenly I am having this weird thought that my mother used to be my age, and even Desmond’s age.
I wonder if Desmond and I will be different when we grow up, or if we will just still have the same kinds of thoughts and worries that we have right now. Like, will we still be kids, kinda, just in these weird old wrinkly bodies? Looking at my mother, I am almost positive that I am seeing young her—Little Mom, who is just trying to make the best of things. “Callie, we’re having a tough moment right now,” she says after a while, and I know she is talking about my dad’s job and the money situation and all of that. “But things will get better. They always do.”
I know she’s right. This world and everything in it, it’s all just swirling around us and you can’t even hang on to anything, because everything is always changing.
My mother closes her eyes again and breathes, just breathes in and out for a moment, and I feel her getting stronger as the bad feelings pass away, kind of like clouds passing across the sky. She looks up at me. “That’s why we have to try to live without regrets,” she says to me. Then she turns toward traffic that has been rushing by us, and faces the people on their cell phones, the people hiding behind sunglasses, just trying to get home, the taxis and the hissing bus on the corner. “LIVE WITHOUT REGRETS!” she shouts.
Nobody looks up.
The light changes, and we cross the street, and we disappear into this big swirling ever-changing cloud of people—just trying to get home now, like everybody else.
CHAPTER TWENTY
In which our heroine makes a decision
ONCE WE GET HOME,
I volunteer to go pick up Desmond at improv class. On the way there, I stop to pick up a big soft pretzel and I put mustard over the whole thing, just like Desmond likes it.
I can’t wait to see him, and hear about his day with Simon Yee. I’ll bet it was much better, now that there’s no lunch bag to worry about!
Improv class is in the basement of his school, but when I get there I don’t see Desmond in the group of kids, who have, apparently, turned themselves into a living machine. They are pumping their arms and twisting their bodies, and making whirs and clangs and gongs, and it looks like fun, but Desmond is sitting by himself with his back against the wall, not even looking at the other kids. The teacher, Ms. Taymor, waves at me enthusiastically, and then points to Desmond and shakes her head, then makes some intricate hand gestures that seem to mean I don’t know what’s wrong, so I walk over to him and sit down beside him on the floor.
“What happened?” I whisper, looking up and down his arms for bruises. “Did Simon—”
“Simon didn’t say anything to me today,” Desmond says. “Not a word.”
“Well—that’s great.” I hand him the big, fat pretzel, and he smiles a little.
“You’re so nice to me, Callie.” His eyes fill with tears, and I just want to hug him. He takes a bite of the pretzel.
The group in front is still whirring and gonging, and Ms. Taymor shakes her black curls and shouts, “Take it to a TEN!” and the whirring and gonging gets louder and crazier.
Desmond just chews his pretzel and I can tell that he is not even seeing this crazy machine in front of us.
“If Simon left you alone then why are you—”
“He left me alone, but he started picking on Zephyr. He said he was a fat dummy.”
“What?” Now I’m mad. Zephyr is basically the nicest kid in the world. Okay, second nicest. “Zephyr’s barely even chubby! Why would he do that?”
“Take it to a ONE!” Ms. Taymor shouts, and the machine quiets down, and the movements get smaller.
The room has grown almost silent, so Desmond whispers, “Because Simon Yee is a rampallian.”