Girl Unmoored

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “It’s okay. You have to be here, because of the baby.”

  She didn’t say anything for a beat. Then she said, “Well. You know, Aprons, you could go to live with your grandmother.”

  Two other eyes were looking back at me in the mirror now, but these ones were mean and M’s. Instead of being afraid this time, something in my brain snapped and I watched my own smile rise up. “I already tried that,” I told her. “She said no.”

  She looked away first.

  “Give those things now,” she ordered me, nodding to the crutches that were still in my hand. I watched her wiggle the crutches under her arms.

  “Hey. Were you ever in a beauty pageant?”

  She stopped. I got ready for her to shoot darts out her eyes at me, but she didn’t.

  “Because I bet you would have won. You’re pretty enough.”

  Her face wanted to lighten up, you could tell. But instead, she hobbled out the door. So I stood there, listening to her peg it back down the hallway. When she got to my dad’s room, I turned back to the mirror and winked at the power of me.

  Mike was right. And I had a new m.o.

  33

  Silentium

  Silence

  My dad’s car came down the dirt road right as The Boss found the piece of guinea pig food I planted for him in my shoe. We were playing on my bed now, listening to the clock radio, but softly in case M screamed my name again.

  Downstairs, my dad didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then he yelled, “Hello? Is anyone home?” and M said, “Up here.”

  I waited until my dad had climbed the stairs before I began counting backward, starting at twenty. The Boss was already tucked back away in his cage and I sat on the side of my bed with my back straight and my sneakers touching the floor, ready to go.

  On fifteen I heard from his bedroom: “What now for Christ’s sweet sake?” And by eleven I heard: “Why didn’t you tell them to interrupt me?” and by five he was calling my name out like a list, louder and louder each time.

  When the door opened there I was, already looking at him. His hair was sticking out a little here and there and he kept shaking his head almost as fast as Grandma Bramhall. “What the hell happened, Apron?”

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

  “You broke Margie’s toe and you’re not going to explain yourself ?” He was holding my doorknob so tightly his knuckles were turning white.

  “It was an accident Dad,” I said finally, choppy. “Errare humanum est?”

  It didn’t work. “To error is human” doesn’t count when you break someone’s toe, I guess.

  My dad pushed his lips out like a duck and kept shaking his head, looking at me up and down, from my sneakers to the top of my head, then back down again.

  “I dropped my award on her by mistake, Dad. Ask anyone. Anyone.”

  “I have no idea how to deal with you anymore. I have no idea how to deal with any of you anymore.”

  “Are you going to send me off to live with Grandma Bramhall?”

  “Oh,” he chuckled too hard. “I get it. No, Apron. Sorry. The last thing she needs is a troublemaker living with her.”

  I stared at him, my eyes filling with every fun time he and I had ever had together, so long ago now they were nothing but amoebas, ready to slide down my cheeks and drop off to nowhere.

  “And what is that smell in here?”

  I shrugged but he glanced at my open closet and walked over to it. The Boss smiled up at him with a twitch.

  “He goes tomorrow.”

  “But—”

  “Tomorrow.” Then in a softer voice he said, “I’ll take him to a shelter.”

  He shut the door and I lay down on my bed. I didn’t go down for dinner, and no one called me to, either.

  34

  Omne trium perfectum.

  Everything that comes in threes is perfect.

  In the morning, I broke my eyes open and looked at my clock radio. It said 7:59. I threw off my covers and hurried over to check on The Boss. He looked asleep for a second, but then he started up with the twitching. I was going to have to sneak him out this morning. Guinea pig shelters didn’t exist and we both knew it.

  Down in the kitchen, there were two coffee cups in the sink and a note on my lobster that said Took Margie to doctor. Back later. I stood there to make sure no one was playing a trick on me. “Hello?” I called out, but nobody answered. “Shit!” I yelled, but still nobody answered, so it was definitely all clear.

  I ran back upstairs and got dressed, then grabbed The Boss and his cage, plus my Avon lady money and my white tennis hat. In the kitchen I took a bag of guinea pig food and a Pop-Tart and shoved them both in my backpack next to my Latin dictionary.

  Then I heard the phone ring.

  There were a few people I wanted it to be: Mike, Chad, my mom, or Grandma Bramhall, and only two people I didn’t: my dad or M.

  I picked up the receiver just before the new answering machine could get it.

  “Apron,” my dad said. “Looks like you’re getting a sister after all.”

  “Did you hear me, Apron?” my dad asked. And then told me again that it looked like I was getting a little sister and didn’t I have anything to say about that?

  Finally I said, “Okay.”

  My dad told me that he was tired of my attitude. Not once had he asked me what I won my award for, and now there was a whole school of people who knew me better than he did. He told me they would be back sometime later and hung up.

  But when they came home, The Boss and I wouldn’t be here.

  Outside it was foggy and most of it was low to the ground, which meant that later it would get hot, hot. A mosquito buzzed past me but stopped when it noticed I was alive. I slapped it fast and flicked it off my palm, then walked down the porch stairs, banging The Boss’s cage on my knee every few steps.

  Mr. Orso’s car was glistening from a recent hose-down. I thought about asking him for a ride again, but after twice it’s a habit. So I started walking up our dirt road instead.

  Another mosquito got my leg, and when I leaned down to slap it, everything spilled out of my backpack, including the coffee can of sea glass I had collected a few days ago. I put The Boss down while I picked it all up and watched him jerk his head around. “I know it looks fun,” I said realizing he’d never seen the outside before. “But you’d be toast in a minute.”

  Mrs. Weller’s orange love bug was in the driveway. I thought about knocking on her door and asking her to hide The Boss for a while, but she could barely remember to feed Nutter and he could bark, so I kept going.

  Trees were rustling above me, which wasn’t going to last long, they just hadn’t heard the weather yet. Sweat was already lining up on my forehead. I was glad I had my hat.

  By the time I got to the bus stop on Route 88 I was soaked.

  I tried to get The Boss to suck water from his tube while we waited, but he looked too stunned now to even twitch. Finally, the bus with the same old lit-up Portla d sign on it stopped in front of us.

  “Excuse me,” I asked the big bus driver. “Does this still go to Bramhall Street?” I hoped she wouldn’t notice the cage.

  “Beats me, honey,” she said, her eyebrows going in two different directions.

  I looked down. But then I heard, “Hah! Course it does. Hop on.” And when I looked back up, the bus lady was holding out a schedule for me and stretching her huge cheeks into a pile of smile. I held up The Boss, but she said, “Just keep it in the cage.”

  Only two other people were on the bus. One of them was white, but both of them were old. I sat in the single seat right behind the bus driver, where my dad told me I had to sit when I used to take it before. I was only allowed to take this bus because it went directly to Bramhall Street. Then, it was always cold and the windows were shut tight. But now, the top windows were pulled down into different size slits.

  I looked at the messy graffiti in front o
f me. Then I made sure the lady bus driver was busy watching the road and took out a pen from my backpack and wrote:

  Apron and Mike and Chad Omne trium perfectum

  When I stepped off the bus, half the Maine Medical Center was lit up by the sun, but the other half was still dark with shade. There was a banner hanging down over the entrance that said BLOOD DRIVE TODAY. But what it should have said was: SAY GOOD-BYE, because that’s all you ever really did in there.

  “And never go in there,” I told The Boss. “Everyone’s toast in that place.”

  At Scent Appeal, the broken window was the same mess of trash bags and tape. I turned the doorknob, but it was locked, even though the sign said Hours: 9:00 to 6:00 every day except Monday, which said Closed. I knocked on the door and tried the handle again, then peeked in the window. No lights were on. A teenager with ratty jeans and purple hair walked by in the reflection. I stepped back, trying to decide what to do now.

  Then I noticed the Scent Appeal van parked across the street. I put The Boss down and stepped into the road and yelled up at their window loud enough for the pigeons to take off. When a car honked at me, I jumped onto the sidewalk.

  I was about to step into the street again when Mike pulled open the front door, the sun hitting him square in the face.

  He had dark circles under his eyes and the same clothes he had on yesterday—the swipe of pollen still on his left sleeve. Seeing him like that, my stomach felt like I just ate some of M’s oatmeal.

  “Sorry,” he said, his eyelids folded over like tiny piles of laundry. “We’re closed.”

  My heart fell overboard.

  “Mike?” I said. “It’s me, Apron?”

  His eyes widened. “Apron?”

  I nodded.

  He rested his forehead on the corner of the door.

  “Didn’t see you under the hat.”

  I ripped it off.

  “Why are you closed?”

  “Bad night,” he said picking his head up. “Sorry, Apron, I think you should go home.”

  I started to say no, when something fell upstairs. Mike turned and was gone.

  I picked up The Boss and closed the door behind me. Then I put the cage down on the counter, threw my backpack off, and followed Mike up the stairs. Until I heard something that made me stop. From inside the apartment, Chad was moaning and Mike was saying, “Okay, Chad, hold on, hold on.”

  I peered around the corner. Mike was sitting on his knees holding Chad lying on the floor, rocking him slowly, a pile of wetness around them. Chad’s head was resting inside Mike’s elbow and he was quiet now, while Mike stroked his hair. Chunky piles splattered all the way up Mike’s arm and next to them an IV stand had tipped over.

  I stepped in carefully and when Mike saw me, he nodded and kept saying, “It’s okay. I got you,” over and over. I fell to my knees. Then I put my hand on Chad’s sweaty back and the three of us sat like that, rocking, until Chad picked his head up and looked at me, the chunky wetness wiped clean off his mouth.

  He screamed.

  I took my hand off him and backed away.

  “Get her away from me!” Chad yelled, pointing at me like I was a ghost, or something worse.

  Ice water poured down my arms. Mike took Chad’s face inside his hands, but Chad kept trying to turn again, to look at the monster of me.

  “It’s Apron,” Mike said, his voice serious but sad about it. “Chad. Look at me. It’s Apron. The nurse left already, okay? It’s Apron.”

  Mike let go of Chad’s head, and Chad turned his wide eyes to me.

  “See,” Mike said. “Apron.” He was rocking Chad again, his voice back down to calm. “Apron who tells you the jokes. Apron who’s your friend.”

  Slowly, slowly, like fog lifting from the grass, Chad’s eyes softened. I stayed there, not saying a word, waiting for him to find me again.

  “Okay?” Mike asked carefully.

  Chad’s mouth twitched. “Apron,” he whispered. “Look ma no hands.”

  I nodded.

  “That’s it, Chad,” Mike said. “Welcome back.”

  35

  Radix lecti

  Couch potato

  While Mike gave Chad a bath, I cleaned up. I found the bucket and gloves and mop and got to work. It wasn’t as easy as Juan Busboy made it seem, though.

  Then I stayed with Chad while Mike took a shower.

  “Why do cows wear bells?” I asked him. He was propped up on one end of the couch while I was propped up on the other, his feet in black socks almost touching mine in nothing. It was one of the only pieces of furniture left around here, this long couch. The tables for the lamps were gone now. So were the lamps.

  “Hmm,” Chad hesitated, speaking slower than he normally did. “To get to the other side?” This had been his same guess every single time so far.

  “No. Come on.”

  “To be the chicken?”

  “No!”

  “Pass the soap radio?”

  “Their horns don’t work.”

  One side of Chad’s mouth smiled, but the other side was too tired. “Hey, Apron,” he said looking at me, his brown eyes swimming inside two big caves. I stared down at his black socks. “Will you tell these jokes to Mike some day? He pretends to be an old guy, but really, he’s just a kid like you and me.”

  “Okay,” I said quietly, trying not to keep thinking what I was thinking, that Chad looked like he was a great-grandfather now.

  “And Apron,” he said. “Read him our poem too. Promise?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He kicked me gently on my foot. “Apron?”

  I looked at him. “Okay, I will.”

  He dropped his head back.

  “Chad, I know this is a weird question. But. Have you ever noticed that Mike looks a lot like—I know it’s impossible—but it’s kind of weird, how much he looks like him.”

  “Who, Apron?” Chad sounded bothered, the way he used to.

  “Like the real Jesus. Like he could practically be related to him.” My cheeks burned. It was such a stupid thing to say.

  But Chad smiled at the ceiling. “You know something, maybe he is. That would make sense.”

  “What?”

  “Why he’s such a saint.” He picked his head up to grin at me. “I bet it’s on his mother’s side, though. His dad’s gotta be related to Reagan. That’s the only possible explanation for that man.”

  Another smile cracked out of him, which turned into a chuckle and a coughing fit. And then the bathroom door opened and Mike appeared, clean and dressed, but not looking much better.

  “So,” Mike said. “I’m going to get started down there.” He flipped his wet hair and turned around to the kitchen. The IV stand was against the wall where I put it, and the bag was still halfway full. There was a big piece of tape at the end with the needle, but Mike had yelled at me when I bent down to pick it up. “Don’t touch that part, Apron,” he said. And even Chad looked worried. So I let it drag all the way across the floor without touching it once.

  “Can I get you anything, Chad?” Mike asked, turning back to us. Over his shoulder the oven clock read 12:07. Lunch time.

  “A new body would be nice.”

  “Okay,” Mike said distracted. “Bang on the floor if you need me. Come on, Apron, I think Chad’s going to sleep for a while.” Mike disappeared down the stairs and I stood.

  “Sweet dreams, Chad.” I hoped he wouldn’t forget me the next time he woke up.

  Before I was all the way down the stairs, I heard Mike say, “What the heck is this thing?”

  “Oh,” I said hurrying down the rest. “That’s The Boss. Sorry.”

  “The boss?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “M’s trying to kill him.”

  Mike turned to me with a question mark on his forehead. “Huh?”

  So I explained that he was mine, but now he had to go, which is why I had come. “I was wondering if I could put him up for adoption here, maybe one of your customers might want h
im?”

  Mike looked back at the cage. “Sure, I guess. What’s the boss mean?”

  “The foxiest singer ever?”

  Mike chuckled. “I get it. Yeah, he is pretty foxy.” Which was a little weird, my dad would never have said that about Bruce Springsteen. For a second I wished I were at home.

  “Does he sing, this Boss?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “But he twitches.” Mike laughed and told me I could put a sign on his cage and leave him on the counter. Then he opened the cash register, pulled out some money and slid it into his pocket. “All right,” he said starting for the door.

  “Wait,” I pointed to all the flowers. “What about these? Want me to wrap them up?”

  “Oh,” Mike stopped. “Right, yeah. I said we had some jobs this weekend. We had to let them go. We can’t do outside jobs anymore.” His eyes shifted toward the stairs.

  “No more weddings?”

  Mike shook his head. “Chad can’t go anywhere and I don’t want him staying alone for long. Right now I’m just trying to make enough money to pay back some debt and buy Chad as many, as much medicine as we can, to keep him comfortable.” Mike’s blueberry eyes floated away when he said this.

  “I can stay with him.”

  Mike looked at me. “I don’t know, Apron. Where’s your dad? Does he know you’re here?”

  I almost told him yes. “No,” I said.

  Mike sighed and threw his hands down. “I can’t get rid of you, can I?”

  Outside, trees screamed. I could hear them now in the dead silence. Mike didn’t want me here.

  But then his smile started slow and ended fast. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. And thanks, Apron. I’m sure you have a trillion other things you’d rather be doing.”

  I stared him square in the blueberries. “No, I don’t.”

  “Okay,” he nodded. “But don’t you think you should call your dad at least?”

  “He’s with M, finding out that she’s having a girl.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mike sighed. “Ah, life. Isn’t it strange? You finally find your way out of it, and then before you know it, you have to turn around and climb right back in again.”