Okay for Now

by Gary D. Schmidt

  They were smoking and laughing like something was really, really funny. The funniest thing in the whole world.

  And Ernie Eco? Ernie Eco was wearing...

  My father said, "What are you doing here?" I didn't even look at him.

  Ernie Eco was wearing my Yankee jacket from Joe Pepitone.

  Lil and I went back inside. We walked across the floor. I left the horseshoes outside Mr. Ballard's office door. Lil took my hand.

  "You better go in and get your orchid," I said.

  "I don't..."

  "Go ahead," I said.

  She waited for a bit, then she bent down to pick up the horseshoes and went on inside.

  I was gone before she came out.

  I didn't want her to see me.

  I ran. Hard. Really hard. Until I hurt so bad that it didn't matter that the world was so unstable. And it didn't even matter that maybe I was wrong: when the hurricane blew in, it would throw the Brown Pelican as far as it wanted to.

  Ernie Eco didn't come to supper that night.

  My mother asked if I'd seen Mr. Ballard and given him the note. I said yes. The orchid was in the middle of the table, and every so often she would reach across and turn it so that she could look at it from a different angle, like she was studying its balance.

  I didn't say much the whole meal. Neither did my father.

  At dessert, Lucas said he thought it was about time he should be looking for work. Christopher said he could help him get around if he could cut school, and my mother slapped at him, and Christopher said he should get credit for trying and Lucas told him he'd get by and Christopher wasn't allowed to miss a day, not a single day, and Christopher said, "How come?" and Lucas got real quiet and said, almost whispered, "Because you're not going to Vietnam, you're going to college," and my father said there wasn't any way in the whole world he was going to pay for that and Lucas said that was why he was getting a job and my father said he wasn't going to get a job because what could he do?

  Which pretty much ended dessert.

  There's a kind of angry quiet that can lie down over a house. Maybe there are some houses, like the Daughertys', that have never known it—that house probably hasn't ever had a quiet day. But in The Dump, Angry Quiet was an old friend, and he moved in again. No one talked because we all wanted to scream.

  Lucas started going out every morning to look for work. You know how many people in stupid Marysville want to hire someone who doesn't have legs?

  Zero.

  He went out in that stupid wheelchair every day the first week of April. Every day. He wheeled himself up and down every street in Marysville that had someplace where someone might get work. You know how hard it is to go down a stupid curb in a wheelchair? You know how hard it is to get back up on the other side before a light turns red again? You know how many stores even have doors that Lucas could figure out how to open while sitting in a wheelchair?

  Here's what they told Lucas:

  I don't think you could do this job from a wheelchair.

  Sorry, but I couldn't put up with a contraption like that rattling around here all day.

  It'd be too hard on you, son.

  The aisles are too small for your wheelchair. You'd never manage.

  Frankly, we don't want our customers feeling sorry about something when they walk in. People who know they're going to feel sorry don't come back to the store.

  And more like that.

  But Lucas went out every day. I guess being in a wheelchair can be pretty unstable. But Lucas isn't.

  ***

  Do you know what it feels like to walk into a house where everything is going along just fine when back at your own house Lucas is going out every day for nothing and Ernie Eco is wearing your jacket?

  That's what it was like the next Wednesday night when I went to the Daughertys' on short notice again and Mrs. Daugherty said, "Thanks for coming, Doug," and told me there were marshmallow brownies for me after the kids were in bed but they had already had theirs and they didn't need any more sugar—which I could tell because Phronsie and Davie had me by the legs and Joel was trying to push me over and Polly and Ben were waiting to see if I was going to fall over so they could pounce.

  "Don't hurt him," Mrs. Daugherty said, and Mr. Daugherty said I was big enough to take it and he laughed and that was the cue I guess for Ben and Polly because I was down on the floor before Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty were out the door, and they were tickling me until I agreed to play Bloody, Bloody Murderer and they all went screaming to hide. When I found Davie, I tagged him and he became a Bloody, Bloody Murderer too, and then we went into the kitchen and found Polly and she became a Bloody, Bloody Murderer too, and then we went ... well, I guess you can figure out the rules. And after that we all had some cold milk and I let them have just a tiny piece of marshmallow brownie and then we started in on the reading, which as you might remember takes a while.

  Phronsie had a new book, and I don't care what anyone says: elephants don't wear clothes.

  Davie made me read about this kid who had a name like Tick Tock Tiddley Wink Tembe something that I could never read right and Joel just about died laughing when I tried and you couldn't do it either.

  Joel had a book about Ben that he thought was great because he had a brother Ben and this Ben could figure out how to jump to the top of the castle and could I guess how he did it? "You can't jump to the top of a castle," I said, and Joel started to laugh and laugh and laugh because you can too, you can too, so go ahead and read it!

  Polly had this book about a house in a forest where Laura lives with Pa and Ma and her sisters. You'd be surprised how good this was, especially considering that nothing happens.

  And Ben had this book about a pig that went to Florida and it turned out to be funnier than it sounds, which was good because there are a whole lot of books with this pig—could I believe it?—and Ben wanted to read every single one.

  Terrific.

  So by the time the pig got on his way and all the kids got to bed, it was probably later than the Daughertys would have wanted it to be but it usually was, and I was sitting in the upstairs hall listening to everything settle into that kind of sweet and beautiful breathing. Mrs. Verne had given us more quadratic equations than she should have for Advanced Algebra, and then four problems about two men who were driving in different directions at different speeds for different amounts of time and who cares how far apart they could get before one of them ran out of gas, and then the breathing wasn't sweet and beautiful anymore.

  It was wheezing. From Joel's room. Breathing like the breather couldn't get enough air. I stood up. Wheezing hard and kind of desperate. I went in. Turned on the light. Joel was looking at me, and his eyes...

  Oh God, I had seen the Black-Backed Gull.

  I run to his bed and he tries to breathe. He can hardly get anything in. His eyes get bigger. He tries drawing more air in. Hardly anything.

  I run into the hall. I call home. Christopher answers. I tell him to get over here now and hang up. I run in to Joel. Hardly anything. Run to Ben's room and tell him I have to take Joel to Dr. Bottom's house and he should stay awake with the others until Christopher comes. "Is it his asthma?" he says. "I don't know," I say. I run in to Joel. He is standing by the bed with his back arched, dragging in air, rubbing at his chest, starting to cry. Sweaty. Ben runs in. "Where's your inhaler? Joel, where's your inhaler?" Joel looks at me like he thinks I can do something. Ben starts tearing the bed apart, and then he runs to the nightstand and pulls out the drawer and empties it on the bed. "I can't find it," he yells. "Joel, where is your inhaler?" Polly comes and stands by the door. She looks at Joel. "Is he going to die?" she says.

  I wrap him in a blanket. I carry him downstairs and out the door. Joel puts his arms around me, tight, like he is fighting a bloody, bloody murderer. Start to run.

  Do you know what it feels like running in the night, holding this kid who's crying but he can't cry because he can't breathe, and you're running and runnin
g and you don't know if it's your sweat or his and he's staring at you afraid and believing in you but you're not believing in you and if the Bottoms aren't home what are you going to do then?

  Running in the night running in the night running in the night running.

  Their lights are on. I kick at the door as hard as I can. Again. Again. Again. Joel drags another breath, weaker now. Again.

  The door opens. Dr. Bottom, I hope. One look at us, and he reaches out and he takes Joel. "Otis, Otis, get the shower running. Hot as you can get it. Now!" Carries Joel into the living room and looks at me and points to another room where he wants me to get something and then sees that I probably can't figure out what he wants and he tells me to hold Joel and he runs and then he comes back with this thing and he hollers, "Here!" and he holds it out and Joel grabs it and holds it to his mouth and pumps.

  And pumps.

  And pumps.

  And pumps.

  And I can hear the air dragging in but it's less draggy. And Joel—who was starting to turn a color that no human being should turn but I didn't want to tell you about that until you knew it was going to be all right—Joel looks at me and he smiles.

  Keeps pumping.

  Breathing.

  Breathing.

  Sweet, beautiful breathing.

  Beautifully.

  Dr. Bottom carries him to the stairs. Then he looks back at me. "I'm going to bring him up into the steam for a bit," he says. He looks down at Joel, breathing, watching me. "Do you know what he's telling you?"

  I shook my head.

  Dr. Bottom smiled. "I think you do."

  I did.

  It's the same thing that Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty told me when they got to Dr. Bottom's house and saw Joel asleep on the couch, covered with two afghans and being watched over by Dr. Bottom and Otis and me.

  And by the way, Otis made the coffee for us that night, and for the record, it was a whole lot stronger than Mrs. Windermere's. I guess he was used to making coffee that helps people stay awake.

  Maybe he's a good guy too.

  Mrs. Daugherty stayed the night at Dr. Bottom's house so she would be there when Joel woke up. Mr. Daugherty drove me home, then he went back for Christopher and drove him home. When Christopher came up into our bedroom, I was still awake and sitting on his bed. "So how did it go?" I said.

  This is what he told me:

  "Piece of cake."

  "Really?

  "Really."

  "They didn't..."

  "Hey, I'm not some chump babysitter. I told them all to go to bed, and they did. That's it. Get off my bed and go to sleep."

  "Shut up or I'm coming over there and kick you both to death."

  You can guess who said that.

  I went by the Daughertys' house the next morning. Joel was great. And here's what Mrs. Daugherty told me: When they got home, they saw Ben and Polly holding Christopher down on the floor, and Davie and Phronsie were beating him around the head with one hand and holding a marshmallow brownie with the other, and Christopher was begging for mercy, and when he saw the Daughertys he picked up Davie and Phronsie—who were still beating at him but not letting go of their marshmallow brownies—and he told Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty where Joel was, and they got into the car right away and hadn't even thought about telling the children to go to bed.

  Piece of cake.

  After school, Mr. Daugherty was waiting with his patrol car. When he saw me, he waved, told me to come over. He opened the side door and I got in, and he said he was going to drive me home to thank me, and he put the siren on, and off we went.

  And here's what Mr. Daugherty told me: The night before, when he got back to the house to pick up Christopher after he'd brought me home, my brother was in a heap of little Daughertys, all asleep on top of him, and he was asleep too, and still holding the book about elephants who wear clothes.

  I'm not lying. That's what Mr. Daugherty told me.

  Don't tell my brother I know this.

  Don't tell him that I know he's not a chump babysitter.

  And don't tell him that I think he may be what the Brown Pelican is.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Great Esquimaux Curlew Plate CCXXXVII

  IT TOOK A WHILE, but by the first Saturday of May, spring finally decided to stick around. Mr. Loeffler said it was the latest spring he'd ever seen, but that probably meant it would be the warmest, and he was right. I didn't even need my flight jacket anymore, which didn't mean that I stopped wearing it.

  By that first Saturday, everything had jumped from brown to green, and if you stood in front of the Marysville Free Public Library and looked at the maples up and down the street, you could watch their gold leaves unfurl like little flags, waving for all they were worth—which, after a long winter, was a lot. I pulled the Saturday deliveries past people dragging last year's leaves from under their bushes, cutting back hedges, digging up gardens by the curbs, and raking, raking, raking like the Marysville Garden Inspector was going to stop by in the afternoon. It was that kind of a day.

  Back at Spicer's Deli, I told Lil that everything looked as green as New Zealand, and she said, "How would you know?" which I think meant that I hadn't exactly done half of the work for Mr. Barber's New Zealand project that we handed in together.

  But I'm no chump.

  "I'll buy you a Coke and show you how green it is," I said.

  "Does that mean I'm supposed to go get Cokes for the two of us?"

  I shook my head. I took two quarters out of my pocket and laid them on the deli counter. Lil chinged open the register and slid them into the drawer, and I went over to the refrigerator in back and got two bottles of Coke, took their caps off, and brought them up front. There was froth at the tops of the bottles, and Lil could hardly keep from giggling when she took her first sip.

  "It always goes up my nose," she said.

  She was beautiful.

  She walked with me to Mrs. Windermere's, and I'm not lying, everything was even greener than it had been in town when I was making deliveries earlier that morning. By a lot. The maples, the oaks, the grass, the ferns coming up beside the road, the fields. Especially the fields, which even smelled green.

  "You were right," said Lil.

  She took my hand, and we walked up to Mrs. Windermere's. Slowly.

  It was still too short.

  At the house, there was a car I hadn't seen before, about a block and a half long. It was so long that it didn't fit in the turnaround. Half of it was on the grass, gleaming everywhere.

  We went to the back and I unlocked the door with the so-secret key and Lil and I brought the groceries in and put them all away and we started out because we had the whole slow walk back to look forward to and then Mrs. Windermere came in with Mr. I-Own-the-Gleaming-Car next to her.

  "Skinny Delivery Boy," she said.

  "Mrs. Windermere," I said, "do you think that maybe you could call me something else?"

  "No. Is everything put away already?"

  "Yup. We were just going." I reached for Lil's hand.

  "And this is..."

  "Lillian Spicer," said Lil.

  "It's nice to meet you, Lillian."

  "Thank you," said Lil. "It's very nice to meet you."

  She was always so polite. Did I tell you that she has green eyes? Did I tell you that she's beautiful?

  "So is Lillian your girlfriend?" said Mrs. Windermere.

  Everything stopped.

  Everything.

  "Skinny Delivery Boy, you know I never beat around the bush. Yes or no?"

  I looked at Lil. She looked at me. She wasn't planning to be helpful with this. I looked back at Mrs. Windermere.

  "Yes," I said.

  I looked back at Lil. Smiling.

  "Mrs. Windermere," said Mr. I-Own-the-Gleaming-Car.

  "And this," said Mrs. Windermere, "is Mr. Gregory, who is supposed to be producing my play at the end of the month but who is not making much headway."

  "Who is making the best he
adway any producer could possibly make with a writer who is—" started Mr. Gregory.

  "Mr. Gregory likes strawberry ice cream," said Mrs. Windermere.

  "I do not like strawberry ice cream," said Mr. Gregory.

  "Nonsense," said Mrs. Windermere. "Everybody likes strawberry ice cream. What kind did I order?"

  "Raspberry sherbet," said Lil.

  "Oh dear," said Mrs. Windermere. She shook her head. "That's too bad."

  "Raspberry sherbet?" said Mr. Gregory.

  We all sat down to small bowls of raspberry sherbet, except for Mr. Gregory, who sat down to a bowl of raspberry sherbet about as big as New Zealand because he hadn't had raspberry sherbet since he was a boy and he thought he should make up for lost time. I think he might be a good guy. At least, he looked like he might be a good guy. You can't look like Mr. I-Own-the-Gleaming-Car when you're eating a huge bowl of raspberry sherbet in someone's kitchen.

  "So are all the actors ready for the play?" said Lil.

  "That's the problem," said Mrs. Windermere. "Mr. Gregory hasn't cast them all yet."

  "You have no idea how difficult it is to find actors for as many parts as we need played for this script," said Mr. Gregory. "If only a certain writer had been willing to—"

  "A certain writer won't," said Mrs. Windermere. "Who do you still need?"

  "Helen Burns, to start with," said Mr. Gregory.

  "Helen Burns," said Mrs. Windermere slowly.

  "To start with," said Mr. Gregory.

  Mrs. Windermere looked at Lil. "There she is right there. Skinny Delivery Boy's girlfriend."

  Mr. Gregory looked at Lil.

  "I'm not an actor," said Lil.

  "No, you would be an actress," said Mrs. Windermere. "And Lillian, every young girl, once she steps upon a Broadway stage, enjoys the thrill of being an actress."

  "Not me," said Lil.

  "The right voice. The right manner. Even the right hair. I think she'd be perfect," said Mr. Gregory. "How old are you?"

  "I'm twenty-five," said Lil.

  "Have you ever acted before?" said Mr. Gregory.