Okay for Now

by Gary D. Schmidt

  Then she asked about Lil.

  I was a chump.

  When I got back to the deli, Mr. Spicer was bawling beside the cash register. Just bawling, and not even trying to hide behind the flowers that were lined up in pots on the counter. All orchids.

  We were both chumps. But you know what? It's not so bad when you're chumps together.

  At the library, Mr. Powell had spread one of my sketches of the Arctic Tern out on a table—one of the big sketches, as big as Audubon's. "I thought we might try to work with some watercolors today," he said. "Perhaps we could start with the background."

  A box on the table held maybe fifteen, sixteen circles of paint and a bottle of water.

  "Mr. Powell," I said.

  "We'll mix the colors until we get them right."

  "Mr. Powell, we don't have the Arctic Tern plate anymore. How will we know?"

  "We have what we remember," he said.

  I sat down. I looked across the room to the table where Lil usually was sitting.

  "It will be a surprise for her," said Mr. Powell. He dipped the brush into the bottle. "Let's get the color of the water first." He swirled his brush in one of the blues, then handed it to me. "What do you think?" he said.

  "It looks like a color from New Zealand," I said.

  "Let's see what happens if you start mixing them together, a little bit at a time."

  So I tried mixing them together a little bit at a time. And here's what happened: the right color came. We both saw it at the same moment. Exactly the right color of the cold, smooth, frothy deep water below the Arctic Tern. Not at all like New Zealand.

  "Now draw your brush evenly along the line. Right. Right. Keep on. Now let the brush up from the paper. Right. Dip your brush again, and start back at the top. Draw down, down—no, it's all right. Let the paint suggest the texture. Down, down. And again."

  That afternoon, I painted in two of the waves behind the Arctic Tern.

  "How many times did you mess it up?" said Lil.

  "None."

  "Doug, you are such a liar."

  "You'll see it when you get back home."

  Then we were quiet, because we didn't know when that was going to be.

  And I'm not lying, you wouldn't want to be where Lil was for very long.

  If you took the blue paint for the waves and added some green to make it look like puke, that would be the color of the walls. And the tiles on the floor. And the curtains by the window. And the tube that led from a dripping bag into a needle that got stuck in Lil's arm somewhere underneath the tape.

  "Does it hurt?" I said.

  "How do you think a needle stuck up in your arm would feel?" she said.

  "I think I'd start shrieking like an insane woman who has been locked in an attic for a great many years."

  "That's what it feels like," she said.

  "Do you want me to shriek for you?" I said.

  She thought about that. "That might help," she said. "You really do shriek pretty good. But then they might kick you out."

  I didn't shriek. She held out her hand, and I took it.

  "I loved playing Helen Burns," she said. "I just don't want to be Helen Burns. You can sit down on the bed, you know. It's not going to break. At least, not because of a skinny thug like you."

  "I thought..."

  "I'm not going to break either. One in four, and I'm the one."

  I sat down on the bed.

  "When all this is over," she said, "we're going to Broadway and see Jane Eyre. And then we're going to the top of the Empire State Building. And after that we're going to see the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History. And then we're going to walk down Fifth Avenue like we own it."

  A nurse came in. "It's time to draw some blood, honey. Just a little poke."

  "And afterward we'll go to Central Park and you can sketch people and charge them five dollars a drawing and then we'll take the money and find a French—oh"—she squeezed her eyes shut—"a French restaurant and eat stuff that we can't even pronounce."

  "Just a few more minutes," the nurse said to me. "She's tired, so just a few more minutes."

  Lil opened her eyes. "Someday I'm going to live in New York City," she said.

  "I'm pretty happy in Marysville," I said.

  Lil opened her eyes really wide, and maybe I did the same, because it kind of surprised me too. But it was true. It really was. I was happy in Marysville. I didn't even know it until I said it. But it was true.

  "We'll find a way to compromise," Lil said.

  "No, we won't. We'll live in Marysville."

  Her eyes started to close. "You are such a jerk." She yawned. "It's cold in this room. You can lie down if you want and get under the blanket."

  That's what I did. She had to scoot over a little, and that wasn't so easy because she was attached to so much stuff. And we had to move the tube going into her arm so that I wouldn't lie down on it. That wasn't so easy either. But we hurried, because we knew we had only a few minutes before the nurse came back. And I lay down next to Lil and I put my arm around her and felt her relax into me. And when she spoke, it was only in a whisper. "Doug," she said, "I sure hope I'm the one in four."

  "You are," I said.

  "Who says?"

  "Me."

  A long silence. I thought she was almost asleep.

  Then, "All right," she said.

  And that's when I knew, I knew, I knew that she was going to be all right. Don't ask me how. But I knew. I'm not lying. Not about this. Not ever about this.

  Stats don't mean anything. But some things mean everything.

  And that June, those things that mean everything, they kept coming, faster and faster.

  On the second Saturday, after my deliveries, Lucas was waiting for me in front of the Marysville Free Public Library. I could tell he'd been out looking for work all morning. He had this tired, beat-up look, and it wasn't hard to figure out what he'd been hearing: "I'm sorry, son." "Nothing for you today." "I don't think you could handle it." "Don't waste my time."

  You'd look tired and beat up too, if you'd been hearing that.

  "So you want me to pull you up the steps?" I said.

  He looked at me, and his face got hard for a second, like the old Lucas. But not exactly like the old Lucas. "You don't think I can do it myself ?"

  "Lucas."

  "You don't think I can handle it?"

  "I think you can handle anything," I said.

  "Darn right," he said. "Darn right I can handle anything."

  He turned around and backed his wheelchair toward the six steps. Then he looked over his shoulder, leaned back, and pulled up on the front of the left wheel. Then he leaned back even more, and I'm not lying, the wheelchair started to go up the first step—kind of crooked, but up—and then he began to fall over.

  I started toward him.

  But he leaned forward and caught it, and he had the left wheel up on the first step. Then he leaned again, and pulled up on the right wheel, and with a heft, there he was, on the second step, balanced. He looked at me, sweating.

  "What do you have that goofy grin on your face for?" he said.

  "Do it again," I said.

  He backed up to the next step, leaned back, hefted up, sweated.

  "Not bad," I said.

  The third step, and he almost went over that time, but he caught himself, and leaned forward a little bit more, and then the fourth, and fifth, and then he drew himself back to the sixth, and grunted and pulled, and came back down onto the fifth.

  "No. Stay put, little brother."

  I did. You would have too.

  He backed up again, waited for a moment, leaned to the left and pulled up, squeezing his eyes tight, and brought the chair half up, then leaned to the right, squeezed his eyes again, and so came over the last step of the Marysville Free Public Library. He was breathing a little bit heavily.

  So was I.

  "Not bad," I said.

  "It's all in the balance," Lucas said. />
  "You were a little slow."

  "I'll practice."

  That smile.

  Then the library door opened and out came—and you're not going to believe this, but it was June, and as true as true—out came Coach Reed. From the library.

  I'm not lying.

  "Pretty good," he said to Lucas.

  "Thanks," said Lucas.

  "It would take a lot of strength to pull yourself up like that."

  "I guess," said Lucas.

  "I guess," said Coach Reed. He looked at me. "Your brother?"

  I nodded.

  "Jack Reed," he said to Lucas. Then he held the door of the library open so that Lucas could wheel himself through. Lucas probably didn't want him to, but after a day of trying to fit your wheelchair through the doors of places that didn't want you, he might have been glad to have someone hold the door.

  I looked at Coach Reed as I went through.

  He looked back at me.

  I went on in, and over to the elevator.

  "Hey—" Coach Reed.

  Lucas stopped and slowly spun himself around. And you know what? He looked like he was going to be okay. He might be tired and beat up, but he was going to be okay. That's what he looked like.

  And it was June. I bet Arctic terns fly strong in June.

  "I hear you've been looking for a job," said Coach Reed.

  "That's right." Old Lucas voice.

  "Any luck?"

  "Yeah," said Lucas. "Yeah, lots of luck. Everyone around here says that a guy in a wheelchair is just the kind of guy they've been looking for. I'm trying to decide between, I don't know, eight or nine offers."

  "Sounds tough."

  Lucas started to spin around again.

  "Maybe you could come work for me," said Coach Reed.

  He really said that. June.

  But Lucas didn't believe him.

  "Funny," Lucas said. "Really funny. You ought to be on stage. You could make a living telling Guys with Missing Legs jokes. They're not as funny as Guys with Missing Arms jokes, but maybe you could come up with some of those too."

  "I'm not kidding."

  Lucas wheeled himself closer. Still old Lucas.

  "So what do you want me to do? Coach track? Maybe the high jump? Or the pole vault? I'm a heck of a pole vaulter."

  Coach Reed looked at me, then back at my brother. "Maybe track. Maybe gymnastics. I saw you come up the stairs. Maybe weight training. I have a feeling you might be able to do a whole lot of things that you don't think you can."

  "How do you know?"

  Coach Reed looked at me again. "Because I was there too."

  Long silence.

  "I need an assistant," said Coach Reed.

  "Then maybe you better find someone who—"

  "Assistant Junior High School Gym Coach. There are two weeks left in this school year. If you started now, you could get your feet wet and be ready for September."

  "If you notice, I don't have any—"

  "Monday morning. Seven o'clock in the morning. We're beginning the last Basketball Unit. If you're there, the job is yours—that is, if you think you can keep a bunch of junior high kids from pulling any funny business on you."

  "I won't be there," said Lucas.

  Coach Reed looked at me.

  "Yes sirree, buster," I said. "He'll be there."

  "All right," Coach Reed said, and went on down the steps.

  I think I could have kissed him.

  Lucas looked at me. "I'm not going to take a job I can't do."

  "You're right," I said. "I don't think you can handle it."

  Lucas stared, like the old Lucas was going to say something. But the old Lucas didn't. Instead, Lucas nodded, and his face got all set and determined. And then he started to smile. He spun his chair around.

  Mrs. Merriam walked up. She had her glasses on, so she didn't look so loopy.

  Lucas laughed. He laughed!

  "Can I help you?" she said to him.

  "I think I'm fine," he said.

  We took the elevator upstairs.

  Lucas didn't mind the steel gate that we had to draw across. And he didn't mind the way the elevator rattled around on its way up. And he didn't mind the sound of the pulleys straining themselves. And he didn't mind that at the top, the elevator stopped a couple of inches below the floor. He jerked his chair up and pulled himself over the lip.

  At the table where Lil usually worked, Mr. Powell was mixing watercolors. "You're late," he said.

  "Lucas had a job interview," I said.

  "For what position?"

  "Assistant Junior High School Gym Coach," said Lucas. "We start a Basketball Unit on Monday."

  And you know what? I'm not lying. Mr. Powell didn't seem surprised at all. "Make them do free throws," he said. "Free throws discipline the mind and the eye and the hand. There's nothing like them."

  Lucas laughed. So good. "It sounds like you know what you're talking about."

  Mr. Powell raised an eyebrow. "I'm a librarian," he said. "I always know what I'm talking about. Mr. Swieteck, does this gray look right?"

  We went over to the table which, you might remember, my Arctic Tern was on top of. "Who drew this?" Lucas said. He didn't need to lean down so close anymore.

  "Your brother," said Mr. Powell.

  Lucas touched the edge of the paper.

  "It's a copy," I said.

  "My brother?" said Lucas. He leaned forward. "It looks like he's flying off the page."

  "He's falling into the water," I said.

  Lucas shook his head. "No, he's not. He's going wherever he wants to go."

  "Exactly right," said Mr. Powell, and he handed me a paintbrush.

  You know what it feels like to stroke color onto an Arctic Tern flying off the page, going wherever he wants to go?

  Terrific.

  It was June, you remember.

  On Monday, Lucas left the house before I did. By himself. Heading to Washington Irving Junior High School. I went down to the gym between periods to watch him practice free throws from his chair. (The stats weren't so good, but if you remember, stats don't mean anything.) During lunch—which I had again—I watched Lucas run basketball drills. And at the end of the day, he was gathering up loose basketballs when I came in, and James Russell was calling out, "Coach Swieteck!"

  You think Lucas wasn't smiling when he heard that?

  You think I wasn't smiling when I heard that?

  I waved, and Lucas waved, and I went into Coach Reed's office. He had the Presidential Physical Fitness charts spread out, and he was going through each one with his finger on the lines. He paused and looked up at me.

  "Thanks," I said.

  "Go home," he said.

  June.

  Somehow the message had gone out to all the teachers that the last two weeks of school were the last opportunity to bury the students of Washington Irving Junior High in work. Every other school in the country was getting ready for campouts and parties to celebrate the end of the year. But not us.

  In world history, Mr. McElroy was starting the Causes of World War I. You know how many Causes there were for World War I? No wonder they fought.

  In English, Miss Cowper said we were going to finish the year with selections from John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, which didn't sound bad because Charley is a dog and how bad could a dog story get? And it wasn't bad, except we had to keep notes about Steinbeck's technique because we were going to be writing our own travel accounts—fictional or nonfictional—for the year's final composition.

  Doesn't that sound all-fired exciting?

  In Advanced Algebra, Mrs. Verne told us that she was going to end the year with an Introduction to Geometry, and when we pointed out that Geometry wasn't taught until tenth grade, she congratulated us on our powers of observation and told us all to be sure to bring protractors the next day.

  In PE, we were practicing free throws. Every day. Lots of free throws. Because they were supposed to discipline the mind
and the eye and the hand.

  I didn't complain to the coach.

  In physical science, Mr. Ferris announced that NASA had given the go-ahead and in just a month, Apollo 11 would blast off to the moon. This is what happens when you dream dreams, he said. He couldn't stop smiling, not even when he was describing the thermodynamics of the fuel for the Saturn rocket that would carry the command capsule and the LEM. Otis Bottom asked if we were going to make some fuel to see if it would explode. Even then, Mr. Ferris could not stop smiling.

  In geography, we had gotten all the way over to France, and Mr. Barber started us on Maps of France Under Louis the Fourteenth—or maybe it was the Fifteenth—and we were supposed to copy all the important rivers and mountains and cities and towns and underline places that Louis the Fourteenth or Fifteenth had visited according to Geography: The Story of the World.

  I'm not lying, the map that I drew was something that you would stop to look at. Audubon himself would have stopped and whistled, which is just what Mr. Barber did. Then he crouched next to me, and the scent of his coffee steamed up.

  "Douglas, did you trace that?"

  "Nope."

  "And those seagulls?"

  "I thought they would add realism."

  "They're fantastic," Mr. Barber said.

  "Thanks," I said.

  He whistled again. Then he stood up and took a step.

  You know one thing that Mr. Powell taught me? He taught me that sometimes, art can make you forget everything else all around you. That's what art can do. And I guess that's what happened to Mr. Barber, who forgot that his left foot was behind the back leg of my chair. Who took a step without remembering to take his foot away from the back of my chair. Who tripped, but caught himself. But who couldn't catch the coffee that flew out of his cup, swirled around in the air for a second, and finally splashed down all over my Geography: The Story of the World and started to soak into the pages as fast as it could.