by Kelly Fordon
Sharon glanced over at her. Evie had painted one of her eyebrows on very dark. “What baby?”
“I don’t even know why selfish people have babies in the first place,” Evie said.
“Where is this baby?”
“In the back seat of the car!” Evie shouted. She put down the peaches, got up from her chair, and hurried out of the room.
Sharon followed her down the stairs. Evie flung open the door and shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun.
“Where’s Mr. Whitney?” she said.
“Who?”
“Mr. Whitney! Mr. Whitney!” Evie pointed to the house next door.
“Our old neighbor? Why in the world do you want him?”
“He has her.” Evie stomped her foot.
“Who?”
“The baby!”
“Why would he have the baby?”
“You were passed out. You left her in the car!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mr. Whitney has to save her.” Evie turned to Sharon. “This isn’t my job!” she said. “I can’t save your baby!”
Evie turned and went back up the stairs to the apartment. Sharon followed.
“What are you talking about?” Sharon said. “Did Mom leave a baby in the car? Am I the baby?”
When Sharon tapped her on the shoulder, Evie turned around and asked if Sharon had seen her guitar.
“It’s probably in the closet,” Sharon said.
In a minute, she’d forget she was looking for her guitar, and she’d start looking for yogurt or her hairbrush or maybe even the dead baby again.
Watching her, Sharon felt a sudden pity. She had not been the only one to live through the debacle that was their mother. What if her mother had left a baby in the car? What if Sharon had almost died? What if Mr. Whitney had saved her? How terrifying would that have been for Evie?
“Well, all of that happened a long time ago. We aren’t in danger anymore,” Sharon said out loud, even though she knew Evie had probably already lost the thread of the conversation. Maybe somewhere deep in her subconscious, Evie would be comforted.
“You don’t know that,” Evie said. She plopped down on the couch and pressed her fingertips into her temples.
Sharon sat down next to her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged her sister. If ever. She put an arm around her shoulder.
Evie looked over at her, startled. “Did you pay the cover?” she asked.
“You bet I did,” Sharon said.
The Phantom Arm
Mark Grantham woke up one morning to find that he had grown a third arm. He was seventeen years old. He’d stayed up late studying the night before, and at first, he thought the arm was an extension of the panic attack he’d suffered right before he’d turned out the light. He was going to fail his Chem test on Monday. Then he’d never get into college, and his arch nemesis, Gilbert Lagrasso, would secure valedictorian. Forget Harvard or even the University of Michigan. He was going to end up at some community college or worse—trade school. He’d rot in his parents’ basement forever, eating Cheetos, watching reruns of The Walking Dead, and fending off baffling texts from his mother:
mt dshwr pls
fd snk
He went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face, and that’s when he noticed the third arm. It was more like a hologram of a third arm. He could see the wall through it. When he moved over to the full-length mirror on the back of the door, he saw that it was a forearm growing out of his own left arm just below the elbow. As he stood looking at himself, it went straight up like a crossing guard’s arm. Then it waved.
Mark found his mother in the kitchen standing next to the sink staring at a countertop littered with dirty dishes. He tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned toward him, she didn’t flinch or look startled or even glance at the arm. She couldn’t see it.
“I know this is going to sound strange, Mom,” he said, “but I have this . . .”
“Would you look at this mess?” she interrupted, sweeping her hand across the room.
His sister Tricia had left the side door wide open all night and dishes piled in the sink. On the couch, his mother had discovered an overturned bowl of Froot Loops. Buster, the terrier, had gotten into the Froot Loops, then puked on the carpet. She’d stepped in the mess and ruined her slippers.
“It looks like a poltergeist blew through here!” she yelled. Mark glanced around the room.
“God only knows what time she got in!” His mother shook her head. She walked over to the kitchen table and plunked down into a chair.
Tricia was a year younger, but in every possible way she was beyond Mark, except, of course, in grades and test scores, accomplishments that only endeared him to people over forty.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll help you clean this up, but I have a big problem.” Mark took a big breath.
“First, I have to tiptoe around her because her boyfriend’s broken up with her and she’s fragile. Didn’t I tell her that nice girls wear pants?” His mother put a hand up to her cheek and scratched it absentmindedly.
Clearly, she was already losing her shit. What would happen if he told her about the third arm?
Mark returned to his room and got into bed. Luckily it was Sunday. Maybe if he went back to sleep the third arm would just disappear. He closed his eyes.
An hour later, Tricia knocked and then peeked in.
“You busy?” she asked, and then, without waiting for a reply, she ran over and jumped onto his bed. “What the hell happened to me last night? I have no fucking clue!”
Before Mark could respond, the palm of the third hand turned face up, as if to say, Do tell.
“Big night?” Mark asked.
“It wasn’t supposed to be a rager. I went to this party at Jessica’s house. It started out low-key. Maybe I had one too many shots of watermelon vodka? God, I feel like crap!”
She rubbed her forehead as if she was trying to scour off the pain. There was a slight lime tint to her skin, but she still could have walked the runway. Mark had been on acne meds so long that his neighbor Angela Anderson was a top salesperson for the product. His story was the main part of her spiel: My neighbor, Mark, looked like a leper. If there was ever a kid you could’ve called pizza face, etc., etc. Then she would show people his before and after pictures. In this way, she made a killing.
“The last thing I remember is standing on the couch yelling, ‘Am I right, ladies?’”
“Right about what?”
“That’s what I want to know!” Tricia laughed. “I have absolutely no clue!”
“Tricia!” their mother called up the stairs. “Where the heck are you?”
“Shit,” Tricia whispered, ducking down behind the bed. “Don’t tell her I’m here.”
“Hey,” she whispered a moment later. “Guess who’s down here under the bed?”
“Who?” Mark asked, and for a second he was terror-stricken. Maybe there was more going awry than just his arm.
“Buster!” Tricia whispered.
Buster had been hiding for the past week since he had been attacked by the pit bull who lived next door. Tricia and Mark had nicknamed him the “Assassin.”
“Poor Buster,” Tricia said. “Come on out, buddy.”
Buster whimpered, but he wouldn’t budge.
When Mark woke up on Monday, the third arm was still there. He decided he would just go to school and behave like nothing was wrong until he could figure out how to handle the situation. Since no one else could see it, there was no way the arm could interfere with his day-to-day life, and possibly, if he ignored it, it would simply disappear.
Besides, he was sure it was psychosomatic. In AP Psychology he’d read about every crazy disorder under the sun. After people had limbs amputated, they often felt and even saw a phantom arm. This was nothing unusual. It was some kind of stress response. Besides, if it was something worse, he didn’t want to find out before the SATs on Saturday.
&nbs
p; The first person Mark encountered upon leaving the house that morning was Mr. Pastan, the owner of the Assassin. Rumor had it, Mr. Pastan had escaped from some frightful-sounding town in Siberia. He always wore a black pea coat like a spy, even in the summer, and carried a long-handled poop grabber out in front of him like a blind man’s walking stick. He marched his pit bull, the Assassin, around the neighborhood at 8 a.m., 11 a.m., 3 p.m., 6 p.m., and 10 p.m. like clockwork. Whenever Mr. Pastan issued a command, the dog would stop in its tracks.
“Mr. Pastan and the Assassin,” Tricia said. “It’s got a nice ring to it.”
The Assassin had taken a chunk out of Buster the week before because someone (probably Tricia) had left the gate open. The day of the attack was the only time Mr. Pastan had ever talked to Mark in all the fifteen years they’d been neighbors. He’d pointed a finger at him and yelled: “Keep that dog in yard. Next time I not save it!”
Despite Mark’s animosity toward Mr. Pastan (and the Assassin), as soon as he spotted Mr. Pastan that Monday morning, his third arm started waving enthusiastically, as if they were best friends. Mark wondered if the arm was just being sarcastic like his father who always yelled, “Have a great day!” whenever people honked at him.
In school, Mark rested his real arms on his desk, and the third arm rose up from his elbow and waved to Mr. (dead) Enders in History and Mrs. (snot) Rotherman in Calculus. When he was carrying his lunch tray, it stuck out at an odd angle and waved to the popular kids with their band T-shirts and sandals. It waved to the kids who were too basic for words.
All through English, while the teacher, Mrs. Campbell, discussed Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood, the hand remained quiet, but then toward the end of class it made some finger motions as if it wanted to make a point. Mark took out his phone and googled sign language.
He didn’t hear the bell. When he looked up, everyone was gone, and Mrs. Campbell was standing next to the door staring at him.
Mark smiled at her and got up. “Sorry, I’m stressed out. I have a Chem test.”
Mrs. Campbell didn’t return the smile. “Mark, I’m surprised you had nothing to say about Dillard’s work. How about: ‘Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation’s short time falling away’? Doesn’t that just get you right here?” She pointed to her heart.
Poor Mrs. Campbell. Everyone called her the ancient ruin.
“It kills me,” he said, trying not to crack up as his third hand put its fingers together and played a tiny violin.
Gilbert Lagrasso caught up with Mark in the hall. The only thing Gilbert (6′6″, size 13 EE shoes, oily black curls) had going for him was his GPA. His glasses were thick, and his lips were as red as if he’d just finished munching on a cherry lollipop.
“Did you study for Chem?” Gilbert asked.
“A little.”
“I am totally going to bomb this one.” Gilbert shook his head, but the curls remained shellacked to his forehead.
“You always say that.”
“I know, but this time it’s true.”
“Say, Gilbert, do you know sign language?”
Mark knew that Gilbert spent most of every weekend glued to Rosetta Stone, because a couple of years back Mark had decided that since they were the smartest kids in the class, they ought to hang out. Also, he had decided this because he had no other friends. Unfortunately, it was soon clear that Gilbert didn’t have time for friends. He was too busy learning new languages. At last count, he was up to ten, including Latvian and Esperanto.
“Of course I know sign language,” Gilbert said. “Why?”
“Someone was trying to speak to me the other day. He kept doing this.” Mark held up his right hand and made the sign his third hand was making.
“That doesn’t mean anything.” Gilbert looked puzzled.
“Really?”
“Really. You’re just doing some weird mishmash with your fingers. That’s not a word. Here let me show you.” Gilbert put his books down on the ground and proceeded to demonstrate the entire sign language alphabet.
“Hm,” Mark said.
“You really didn’t study?” Gilbert picked his books back up.
“I didn’t study. I’m probably going to fail. And you know what? I don’t give a shit!”
Several people turned away from their lockers to stare. He’d said it louder than he’d intended.
“Lovers’ quarrel?” Tim Meisel, the football quarterback asked, and the hall erupted with laughter.
Mark glanced over and saw that Tricia was at her locker. She slammed it shut and pointed a finger at Tim. “Shut your face, Meisel.”
Tim put both hands up in surrender and several kids laughed.
Gilbert slunk off toward Chem, and Mark followed him.
The Chem test, and Chemistry in general, was the only thing standing between Mark and a 4.3 GPA. A 4.3, plus being editor of The Tower, a Rotary Club scholarship recipient, a Meals On Wheels volunteer, a member of junior varsity track, and a level five pianist, might just make him Harvard material. Maybe.
The first section of the test went really well, but then halfway through, Mark looked up to see the third hand making bunny ears on the wall.
He had his yearly checkup with his pediatrician, Dr. Howell, the next day after school. When the nurse called his name, he asked his mother to remain in the waiting room while he went in to see the doctor.
“With pleasure,” she said, returning to her Real Simple magazine.
Dr. Howell had been his doctor for his entire life. He was a big man with meaty arms who spent most of Mark’s exams talking about the Lions, Tigers, or Red Wings depending on the season. It was a one-sided conversation because Mark knew nothing about sports. His father had taken him to a few Tigers games when he was little, but he’d been so bored that the vast discrepancy between what he was experiencing (tedium) and what his father was feeling (pure bliss/glee) was truly disturbing.
“So, how is everything, Mark?” Dr. Howell set his laptop down on the counter and turned it on. “Still top of the class?”
“I think so, sir. Well, it’s between me and this other guy.”
“A fight to the death!” Dr. Howell laughed. “If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on you.”
“Thanks.”
When Dr. Howell approached him to begin the examination, Mark put his arm in his lap so that the third arm was flush against his chest. Later, when Dr. Howell palpated Mark’s stomach, his hand went right through the ghost arm. Mark tried not to wince. It didn’t hurt, but for some reason he felt sorry for the arm. In general, why couldn’t adults be more considerate of his personal space?
“Anything wrong?” Dr. Howell asked. “You seem a little tense today.”
“SATs are Saturday. I had a Chem test today. Lots of pressure junior year.”
“What do you have to worry about? Sky’s the limit for you!” Dr. Howell picked up his laptop and headed toward the door.
“Dr. Howell? I have a quick question,” Mark said, stepping down from the examination table.
Dr. Howell paused, his hand on the doorknob. “Yes?”
“I’m doing this project for AP Psych and I was assigned this totally bizarre case.” Mark paused. There was absolutely no way to say it without sounding ludicrous. “You know what? Forget it. I’ll ask my sister’s psychologist.”
“I didn’t know Tricia was seeing someone?” Dr. Howell raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, sure. She goes out all the time, she doesn’t try in school, she just broke up with her boyfriend. My parents think she’s a total disaster.”
“Typical teenager.”
“Yeah.”
“You set the bar pretty high. Poor girl doesn’t stand a chance.”
Mark tried to study for the SATs but ended up watching six episodes of The Walking Dead instead. The hand snapped its fingers in delight every time a zombie went down. When Mark woke up the next morning, he was so tired he was tempted to tell his mother he was sick. He�
�d never missed a day of school. He and Gilbert were the only ones out of the 1,600 students at his high school who could say that.
In the hall on the way to class, the hand shot up and waved to people Mark had never spoken to in his life: Cindy Williams, the head cheerleader, and Ray Kirby, the star baseball player. It pointed its finger at Andrea, who’d once called Mark a turd, and Britt, who’d proclaimed him “dweeb-like in every dimension.” By the time he got to Chemistry, Mark was following the arm’s lead. If it said “hi” to someone, he did too. If it waved, Mark waved his real hand. To his surprise, a couple of people actually smiled back. One of the popular girls even said, “Hey, Mark.”
Mark couldn’t believe she knew his name.
In Chemistry, Mr. Boyle walked over to him with his test and put it down on the desk with a thwack. “C+.”
The hand gave an enthusiastic thumbs up, so Mark gave an actual thumbs up, and the class burst out laughing.
“You think this grade is funny?” Mr. Boyle asked.
“A little bit,” Mark said.
“How so, Mark?” Mr. Boyle leaned in.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Someone in the back of the class snorted. Mr. Boyle frowned down at him.
“Try me.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Boyle,” Mark said finally. “I don’t think it’s funny, but . . . I finally decided I can’t let the pressure get to me. It’s not healthy.”
Mr. Boyle blinked. “Really? That’s quite mature, Mark. I don’t appreciate the laughter, and I don’t think you’re doing yourself any favors with this grade, but I agree with you in principle.” Mr. Boyle looked around the room. “Maybe the rest of you should learn a thing or two about sangfroid from Mark here.”
Gilbert caught up to Mark in the hall after class. “Sangfroid? What the hell is up with you?”
Mark shrugged. He had been thinking about the $3,342 he had saved from his lawn mowing jobs. Maybe, instead of going to college, he would drive across the country, camp in Yellowstone for a month. Maybe he’d end up like that kid who starved to death in the bus in Alaska, but maybe not. Maybe someday he could work in his cousin Nick’s fly-fishing shop out in Montana.