“Move, Apron,” Nurse Silvia ordered me through her shiny lip gloss.
I slid away and looked up at that Jesus and prayed for him to help Grandma Bramhall. Please, I said, putting my hands together. Do something. But of course he didn’t. He just hung there and when I looked back over to her, Grandma Bramhall’s head was almost at a standstill.
They started to lay Grandma Bramhall down across the pew, so I slid all the way over to the other side and ran up the aisle, slapping my palms against the entrance door.
Outside, the sun burned straight into my eyes. I ducked my head and ran down the stairs, past the statue of Mary holding her baby with the chip in his foot.
And got struck by lightning.
It cracked my forehead and split me down the middle. Everything went dark. I fell to the ground.
And then there was Jesus, down from the rug, shaking his long blond hair over me.
8
Semper ubi sub ubi ubique.
Always wear underwear everywhere.
Two blurry faces were leaning over me. One of them was Jesus and the other one was bald. Both of them knew my name.
“Apron,” they kept saying. “Can you hear us?”
Somebody else was hammering a nail into my head. I closed my eyes. “Stop it.”
“What?” Jesus asked. And then I saw the crooked teeth.
I covered my face with my hands and groaned. I had been hiding from these teeth since Saturday. Every time I saw that ORD UCK in Mrs. Weller’s driveway, I biked by it so fast I had to pull over and catch my breath.
“Looks like she’s got a hard-boiled one, Mikey,” the bald man said. “I’ll get my Big Gulp.” I heard him walk away.
Mike touched my shoulder. “Man, I’m sorry, Apron. You just ran smack into me.”
My teeth throbbed. I looked through my fingers and saw Mary and her baby smiling down at me. And then I remembered Grandma Bramhall’s head.
“I have to get out of here,” I said, sitting up.
“What are you doing here?” Mike asked, easing me down again.
A car door slammed and the bald man yelled, “She comin’ around, Mikey?”
“Think so,” he answered.
“I’m fine,” I said sitting up again. I tried to stand, but my head split further apart so I let Mike take my arm and help me.
“Good thing you’re a kid,” the bald one said in front of me now, studying my forehead. “That’ll be gone by tomorrow.” I studied him back. He was bald but young, like Mike, only skinnier and shorter and he had a big black birthmark on his neck.
Mike took the Big Gulp from him and handed it to me. “Put this on your head, Apron. You sure you can stand?”
I nodded and put the melting drink on my forehead. Down at my feet there were white flowers and pieces of broken glass inside a puddle. In the parking lot, there was a white van with its back door open and Scent Appeal 321 Center St. Portland written across it.
“We’re doomed,” the bald man said, squatting down, shaking water and glass out of the flowers.
“Stop it, Chad. I’ll get it.” Mike let go of my arm and yanked him up by the wrist. Chad turned and walked back down toward the van.
“You sure you’re okay?” Mike asked me.
I told him yes, but his eyebrows still didn’t believe me. He knelt down over the pile and started shaking out the flowers himself.
“Wait a minute. Did I do that?”
Mike smiled. “It’s okay.”
But I knew that it wasn’t. Casablancas were expensive, and hard to get in Maine, and now they were all bent or broken.
“But they’re Casablancas,” I said.
Mike looked up at me, surprised. “It was my fault. I didn’t see you until it was too late.”
He must have seen my underwear. People who bang their heads into huge vases and fall down in their mini long-sleeved Lilly Pulitzer dresses have to show their underwear at some point along the way. I smoothed my dress down and watched Chad pull another bunch of Casablancas from the van.
The Big Gulp was starting to feel good on my head.
“Apron, why are you here?” Mike asked.
“My grandmother.” I pointed to the church door. “She’s in there.”
“Your grandmother?” Mike stood up fast. “Does Millie know?”
“It just happened. Her head’s probably stopped by now.”
Mike’s forehead squeezed together. Mrs. Weller and Grandma Bramhall had been friends since before Maine got electricity. In the distance, I heard a siren getting closer. “What are you talking about?” Mike asked, his blueberry eyes drilled straight into mine. “Does she need help?”
“Coming through,” Chad panted behind us, struggling with another huge vase. Mike whipped his head around, his blond hair shimmering like the sun on top of Grandma Bramhall’s pool. “Whoa, Chad. Let me get that.”
Chad handed him the vase, then wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve and headed back down toward the van again without saying thank you. The sirens kept getting closer.
“Apron, does your grandmother need help?” Mike asked again, but not waiting for an answer this time and walking by me with the flowers. Below in the parking lot, an ambulance pulled in and stopped right behind the Scent Appeal van. Chad had his hands on his ears when he ran out from behind the door and jumped up onto the path. Mike stopped and all three of us watched two men in dark blue clothes, one old and one medium-old, leap out of the ambulance, run to the back and pull out a gurney. The older one asked Chad something, but he shrugged and looked up at us.
“The victim inside?” the same man asked when he got up to us, not even stopping for the answer, those wheels crunching over broken glass.
“Yes,” I said. Then they were gone.
“What is going on?” Chad yelled up to us, throwing his hands in the air.
“Apron’s grandmother,” Mike yelled back, starting up the path again. I put the Big Gulp down by the baby Jesus’s chipped toe and followed him.
9
Fiat lux.
Let there be light.
The church was darker than I remembered it. Mike looked around for a place to put the vase down, but there wasn’t one. M was sitting on the top step of the altar, her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. Mr. and Mrs. Haffenreffer were sitting to the side of her. My dad, Nurse Silvia, Reverend Hunter, and the other nurse were spread out behind the paramedics, who were picking Grandma Bramhall up gently. I could see Grandma Bramhall’s eyes were open and one of the men was talking to her. Mike moved a few steps ahead and placed the vase down carefully on one of the pews. Chad stepped in behind us, breathing heavy.
“Is she all right?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Isn’t that your dad?”
I nodded.
“He’s getting married?”
“Uh-huh,” I said. But really, I didn’t want to talk about it, so I stepped away from them.
Grandma Bramhall was in the gurney now, sitting up with a mask over her mouth. The older paramedic was talking to my dad, using his hand to tap on his own chest like a monkey. It made my dad look worried instead of mad. Then the other paramedic started rolling Grandma Bramhall toward us. Before she reached me, I saw her head shaking. It might have been a little slower than normal, but it was her same old shake all right.
“Grandma Bramhall?” I leaned into her as she went by. “I’m so sorry.”
She said something, except I couldn’t hear what under the mask.
After she was out the door, the other paramedic and my dad walked past us. My dad looked over at me with his face stone cold. “Stay with Reverend Hunter, Apron. Until I get back.”
Mr. and Mrs. Haffenreffer walked by us next. Mrs. Haffenreffer’s arm was tucked inside Mr. Haffenreffer’s elbow and her eyes were pinched up as much as her mouth now. Mr. Haffenreffer nodded at me, but in a thank-God-you’re-not-my-kid kind of way.
“Who’s the bride?” Chad asked way
too loudly.
“M,” I answered. I was glad about Grandma Bramhall’s shake, but now I was stuck with Reverend Hunter.
“Who?”
“She’s from Brazil.”
Chad just said, “Oh.”
Down at the altar, Nurse Silvia and the other nurse were pulling M up by the elbows. The veil was flipped over her head so you could see her red, crying face. Reverend Hunter said something as he walked by her and headed into his office. After that, all three nurses headed up the aisle toward us.
M hissed at me. If she were a lion, I would have been dinner. Nurse Silvia didn’t look at me, but there wasn’t a speck of brown shine on her lips anymore.
“Whoa,” Chad said trying to shake M’s mood off his arm. “If looks could kill.”
I swallowed. They didn’t know the half of it.
Outside, the siren turned on again. At the altar, M’s red roses were lying on the top step.
“Did your grandmother have a heart attack?” Mike asked.
“Maybe.”
“Do you want us to drive you to the hospital to find out?” he asked. Chad’s face scrunched up next to him.
“That’s okay. Her head’s still shaking. And my dad told me to stay here.”
“You sure?”
I nodded.
“But don’t you, like, go to school?” Chad asked.
“Not when your dad’s getting married,” I mumbled. Mike flashed Chad a look.
“Well, anywho,” Chad said clapping his hands and heading back up the aisle. “We have work to do, Mikey.”
Mike smelled like soap and Mr. Solo mixed together. “Don’t lift anything heavy,” he warned Chad.
“Okay, Mom,” Chad sang back to him.
“That’s Mother to you,” he called back.
I looked around the Church of Sadness, wondering where the least amount of tears could be stuck. Mike was watching me. “Did you bring anything to do? Homework or anything?”
I shook my head.
He started to say something but then took my arm instead and hooked it under his. Pressed together like that, the thing in my belly button pinged on again. “Tell you what. Let’s go find the Reverend,” he said, walking me down the aisle.
When we got to the end, Mike let go of my arm and picked up the roses.
“For you,” he said. “I now pronounce you … a kid.”
He handed them to me and I stared into the dark red swirls, which were perfect except for the fact that they were M’s. I looked back up at Mike, and then I was looking at two Jesuses: one standing in front of me, bowing slightly, and the other, on the rug hanging above him.
“Wait here,” Mike said. Then he walked over to Reverend Hunter’s door, knocked, and stepped in.
After he said something, he waved me over and I put down the roses.
Reverend Hunter had changed into black pants and a white shirt, and one of his arms was in the middle of sliding into a black sleeve.
“That’s a terrible story, son. I’m sorry for you both,” he said. “Did they get into your shop?”
“No,” Mike shook his head. “The shop’s okay. But we’re running a little behind.”
Reverend Hunter handed Mike a keychain. “Take all the time you need,” he said.
Mike nodded. “Thanks for the second chance, Reverend. I’ll make sure to lock it this time. Thanks. Thank you.”
Reverend Hunter dipped his chin and finished getting into his coat. “Very good,” he said gathering some papers together. When Mike turned to me, he winked.
“And one more thing, Reverend. I know Apron’s dad told her to stay with you until he got back—”
Reverend Hunter’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh dear,” he said, just noticing me. “I’m due at a meeting in twenty minutes. I guess you can come if you like, Apron. Or I could drop you off at school?”
I looked down. If I showed up at school like this, in the Lilly Pulitzer dress Mrs. Perry gave me for Christmas, Rennie and Jenny Pratt would know I had been lying when I told them I was having my teeth pulled.
Mike was watching me. “Well actually, we were wondering,” he said with his hands on his hips. “If Apron might be able to stay. We could use the help. It’s a big wedding, the Farmington wedding. And her dad’s expecting her to be here anyway. Right, Apron?”
I tried not to smile, but one side of my mouth snuck up there anyway.
“Apron? Did your father ask you to wait here?” Reverend Hunter leaned onto his desk and waited for my answer. I nodded. So he started buttoning his coat. “Fine then.”
“Great,” Mike smiled. “That’s great.”
Reverend Hunter started to leave but when he got up to me, he stopped.
“I’m praying for your grandmother, Apron,” he said, before stepping through the doorway.
Mike smiled at me and was about to shut the door behind us, when we both noticed Chad, struggling with another vase halfway down the aisle. Mike groaned and dropped the key in my hand, “Hold this, would you?” he asked. “He’s like a toddler.” He ran up behind Reverend Hunter, who nodded at Chad while Mike grabbed the vase out of his hands.
I looked down at the brass keychain; a small Jesus on a cross. I couldn’t get away from this guy.
10
Nemo saltat sobrius nisi forte insanit.
Nobody dances sober unless he’s insane.
“Apron,” Chad scowled. “How’d you get a name like that?”
“My mom,” I told him.
“What’s your brother’s name, Oven?”
Mike nodded his head toward me. “This is the girl I told you about. The one who saw the show last week. Apron, this is Chad. My friend. He’s the choreographer.”
Chad curtsied. We were all at the top of the aisle now.
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves another set of hands, Chaddie.” Mike cheered like we were at the Meaningless Bowl instead of in the saddest church on earth.
Chad crinkled his sweaty forehead together. Then he flipped his hand down like he was showing me his engagement ring. “Whatever floats your boat,” he said, heading down to the altar. Except every few steps, he held his arms out like he was waltzing with someone, spinning them around in graceful swirls.
“Follow me, Apron,” Mike said. So I did. All the way outside.
At the statue of Mary, Mike stopped. “You’re saving me, Apron. Chad isn’t feeling too well and we have to rig up this whole place up by three o’clock. And I have to rest the cords for tonight.” He smiled his blueberry eyes at me, tapped on his throat and turned back down the path again.
I picked the Big Gulp up off the statue and carried it down to the trash can. Mike opened the back of the van and inside were bunches of flowers wrapped in newspapers. Dozens and dozens of them, smelling like happiness. “Wow.”
“You can say that again. It’s a big wedding. You ready?”
I stuck both arms out and Mike dropped a dripping bunch into them.
“Fleabanes.”
“Hey, how did you know that?” he asked with his head inside the van.
“I just do,” I said.
After three deliveries of Casablancas, white peonies, and bluebells to Chad at the altar, I stopped to watch him start arranging bouquets. A few times he changed his mind and started over again. And every time I brought him another bunch, the church smelled a little lighter. Then one time, the flowers Mike placed in my arms turned out to be a boom box instead.
“Just remind him to keep it down,” Mike warned. “Tell him to remember what happened the last time.” I nodded, but didn’t say anything at all when Chad plugged the box in and Madonna came out.
At first Chad kept the music low, but every time I walked back in with another load, it seemed to get louder. I kept sneaking looks at him tiptoeing in between piles of flowers, then spinning fast and shaking quick. His blue jeans were so baggy you could see the top of his underwear, and his T-shirt had circles of sweat under each arm. But he moved so smoothly it was contagious. My body kept
trying to copy him, one hip going this way and one shoulder going the other, while he danced to “Lucky Star.” Mike smiled when he walked in and saw Chad. But then he said, “All right, Material Girl, tone it down a bit,” looking a little worried instead. He had me fill up a lemonade pitcher with water in the girl’s bathroom and bring it to Chad. “Make him drink it, Apron,” Mike said. I tried, but Chad just pointed to a spot on the floor where I should leave it. He probably knew about the amoebas, too.
Once all the flowers and vases were inside the church, Mike went to park the van.
I hoped that Chad would be too busy dancing to notice me watching him. He was the best dancer I had ever seen, even better than the people on Dance Fever. But when I sat down in the first pew, he looked up at me and snapped off the music.
“So Apron, how old are you?” he asked out of breath, sitting down on the top step right where M had been bawling her eyes out.
“Thirteen,” I answered, waiting to see if that was good or bad.
Chad raised his eyebrows. “Thirteen, huh? I was thirteen once.”
“Yup,” I said, politely. I was used to Rennie saying dumb things like this, but not a man.
Chad looked at me funny. “What do you think? I was never a kid?”
I pulled my shoulders up to my ears. But truthfully, it was kind of hard to imagine.
“Fine, I’ll prove it,” Chad said. “When is the best time to see a dentist?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tooth-hurty!” he said slapping his hands on his knees. “Get it? Tooth—hurty?”
“Pretty good,” I nodded. I thought about telling him the only people I knew who told jokes were pre-schoolers and old people. But when he closed his eyes I could see he was really sweating.
“Whew,” he said wiping his forehead and lying back on the floor with his arms spread out.
It was getting kind of hot. I wished I had kept Chad’s Big Gulp now. I made it through two weeks without water. My dad told me I was being ludicrous. “What are you going to do when your science teacher shows you the bugs on your eyelashes, rip your eyes out?”