The Messy Life of Blue

by Shawna Railey

  “Arnie! I told you to stay on the other side of the fence and keep watch. And for goodness’ sake, quit eating the poor woman’s peas!”

  “Arnie’s not,” he whispered, still staring down at the ground. I went over to see what he was looking at and gasped. Arnie found Fruit Ninja . . . and his family!

  “Arnie! You found three Fruit Ninjas!” I laughed, but Arnie wasn’t smiling.

  “Arnie doesn’t know who he is. They all look the same. How can Arnie bring him back?” He looked so small standing there.

  I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure how to explain to Arnie that if there were other turtles there, we should leave him. The turtles probably depended on one another. Maybe they even loved one another.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to say anything.

  “He looks happy.” Arnie raised his determined little chin, even as it trembled and his eyes filled with tears again. “He should stay here.”

  I looked at Arnie. I mean, I really paid attention to him. He had tried so hard to be a true turtle hero, even if what he did was wrong. I watched as he silently wiped the tears off his cheeks. It made my heart ache for him. I knew how hard it was for him to leave Fruit Ninja there in the garden, because I knew how much he loved that silly turtle. I was really proud of him for doing the right thing all on his own. No animal should be taken out of its habitat.

  “Maybe we can come and visit him sometimes,” I said gently.

  Arnie was quiet and didn’t say anything. Then he flew toward me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I hugged him close while he cried. After a while, he started to slow down. He wiped his snot on my shirt and I didn’t even say anything mean.

  “You ready to go?” I asked when he let go of me. I glanced at Mrs. Atchinson’s house, envisioning the old lady chasing us out of her yard with a cane. We needed to get out of there. Arnie nodded and reached for my hand.

  “Blue?”

  “Yes, Arnie?”

  “Arnie’s happy you were here when Arnie had to say goodbye.”

  “Me, too.” I gave his hand a squeeze.

  “You’re a good big sister.”

  I love you, too, Arnie, I thought to myself. But out loud I said, “Last one to put on their bathing suit is a rotten egg!”

  I let him have a good head start, which in brother-sister speak is the same thing as saying I love you. I wanted him to know it, even if I didn’t say it out loud.

  18

  Uncle Harley’s arrival meant only one thing: Summer was in full effect, and the time had come to visit the set of Family Tree. My trip of a lifetime had finally arrived! I could barely contain my excitement and wiggled my butt like my pants were on fire.

  When our super-fancy limo pulled up to the hotel, I leaned my head out the window and gasped. The size of the hotel took my breath away. The main building was shaped like an L and was about a million stories high. It had revolving glass doors with concrete pillars next to concrete statues and a giant fountain that lit up the entrance with its rainbow-colored lights. Another smaller tower of rooms stood next to the main building, and in between them was an enormous pool the size of Alaska.

  And I couldn’t wait to swim from one end of it to the other.

  Our super-fancy limo driver opened our door, and then a super-fancy man in a green suit took all of our luggage, so I didn’t even have to carry anything. Once inside, my brothers and I waited while our dad spoke to a woman behind a tall counter, and then we took an elevator up to our room. It took forever to get there because it was pretty high up. It also took forever because there was a really obnoxious kid—whose name rhymes with Macksfin—who thought it would be funny to push extra buttons so that the elevator stopped six different times on the way up. I distracted my dad while Seth punched that certain obnoxious kid. When the elevator finally stopped on our floor and the doors slid open, I was the first one out, grateful for the fresh air.

  The key they gave us looked like a credit card, and my dad let me use it to open the door. Jackson got mad because he wanted to try it first, so I gently reminded him that sometimes it’s better not to be so selfish and to think of others. I also very nicely suggested that he try and not be a giant baby for the entire trip, as it wasn’t very fun for the rest of us. And even though I was only looking out for my father’s best interest, for some reason I got in trouble for saying that.

  I know. Weird, right?

  After my dad and I had a mini milk-talk without the milk and I was gently reminded to keep my opinions to myself, I finally got a chance to look around the place. It was like a real-life palace! Just like the outside, there were giant pillars on the inside next to every single set of doors—and there were a lot of them. There were two separate bedrooms and two separate bathrooms. And every single room had a TV, even the bathrooms, which was really weird and really cool at the same time. The TVs in the sitting area and the bedrooms were bigger than our biggest TV, and one of the bathrooms had a bathtub that was so big, I bet a baby T. rex could’ve taken a bath in it.

  My dad said he’d never been inside a hotel room this fancy.

  I said we should get TVs for all of our bathrooms at home.

  Seth said he hoped the minibar was free while opening a bag of chips.

  Jackson said he could smell my feet. (Guess who got the mini milk-talk without the milk that time?)

  As soon as our suitcases were brought up to our room, I changed into my bathing suit, eager to S-W-I-M. My brothers did the same and then my dad took us down to the pool. I think he was eager to N-A-P, because he found a shady spot underneath a tree, and instead of reading the book he’d brought down with him, he opened it up and used it to cover his face. But if he wanted to sleep, that was fine by me. As long as I could dip my princess toes into that amazing pool of awesomeness, I was a very happy girl.

  We spent the whole afternoon swimming, and my brothers never once left me out. We played Who Can Hold Their Breath The Longest and Seth won. We played Who Can Swim The Fastest and Seth won. We played Who Can Jump Farthest and Seth won that, too, but I didn’t even care. There were five slides and inflatable tubes and a wave pool. In between all that losing, I was having the best time of my life.

  The next morning I insisted on taking a shower even though I’d taken one right before bed the night before. I used the hair dryer in the bathroom and then I brushed my hair until it was soft and shiny. I put on a navy-blue dress, which went perfectly with my red sparkle shoes, and my grown-up gold-star earrings. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked very sophisticated, which was good, because I really wanted to make an amazing first impression.

  The same super-fancy limo picked us up and took us to the Family Tree set, where we would watch the filming of an episode. We had to sign in at the desk and they gave us each a badge with our photo on it that we wore like a necklace. Then a woman with a headset and a clipboard told us to follow her through two sets of doors until, before I knew it, we were standing in front of a set. It was London Malloy’s living room.

  And there, sitting on the couch, was London Malloy herself!

  My stomach swarmed with butterflies and my heart pounded in my chest. London was nodding at the director as he gave her stage directions for the next scene. She must’ve understood what he said, because a moment later he moved back behind the camera.

  “Action!” he called out, and then they ran the scene.

  London Malloy skipped onto the set with her dog trailing behind her. We weren’t supposed to make any sound, so when he galloped across the stage with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, I had to try hard not to giggle. She crouched down to pet him before she spoke.

  “Aww, Uncle Bradley, why can’t I take Rocky to the dog park?”

  “Because it looks like it’s going to rain soon. Besides, I have a new recipe for chicken parmesan, and I thought you could help me make it tonight.”

  Then London Malloy’s brother, Kyle, popped through the door, and he was even cuter in real life than
he was on television. When he smiled, a dimple appeared in his left cheek, and the sight of it made my heart flutter.

  “It’s okay, London, I walked Rocky this morning. Hey, would you mind helping me with my math homework? Even though I’m older, you’re still so much better than me.”

  London Malloy pulled him in for a hug, and for a moment, the siblings stayed that way, smiling as they embraced.

  “Cut!” the director yelled.

  Instantly, London Malloy shook out of Kyle’s hug, but he wasn’t upset by her force. It looked like he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

  Kyle called out to the director. “I’m confused. Why would she be better than me at math? It doesn’t make any sense. My character is a science champion.”

  London Malloy rolled her eyes. “Because you’re not the star of the show. I am!”

  Kyle must have snapped back, because it sounded like they were bickering as London followed him offstage. I stood in shock, not really sure how I felt about watching them fight like that. I looked up at my dad, and he tried to smile.

  “Well, that was certainly interesting,” he said.

  “What just happened?” Jackson asked, looking bewildered.

  The lady with the headset and clipboard approached us. “Excuse me, but can you please follow me?” We made our way back the way we came, but when we got to the main hallway, we turned down a different corridor. “These are the private dressing rooms for all our actors and actresses, as well as the hair and makeup room all our stars share.”

  She guided us through a large door into a brightly lit salon. Mirrors and lights lined the walls, with chairs set up for each station. Two women and a man stood ready to go, makeup brushes and combs waiting in their hands.

  “London Malloy will join you shortly. She is—”

  “She is what, Jennifer?”

  The headset lady jumped at the sound of London Malloy’s voice and almost dropped her clipboard. London slinked into the room and sat down at one of the makeup stations.

  “Nothing, Ms. Malloy. I was only going to say that you were getting a drink of water.” She fidgeted nervously. “I’d like to introduce you to,” she looked down at her clipboard, “Beulah Warren. She won the art contest and is here to—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you people that I do not wear headbands? They make me look like a baby and I am not a baby!” She pulled off the headband she’d been wearing and threw it across the room.

  “No one thinks you’re a baby,” Jennifer tried to tell her, but London wasn’t listening.

  I felt a trickle of sweat run down my back as I watched her behavior. My brothers were silent, which was a relief, because if they’d said anything, I would’ve started crying. I felt devastated trying to process this new London Malloy, so different than the one I’d been expecting. My hands were shaking from the shock of it all. I held them close against me so no one would notice.

  London Malloy wasn’t the person I thought she was. I moved closer to my dad and reached for his hand. I suddenly felt very alone. Here I thought she was someone I wanted to be friends with. Best friends. The truth was that I didn’t want to be in the same room as her. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted her to know anymore that my mom had died, too.

  Rocky the dog bounded through the doors and tried to jump onto London’s lap.

  “Ew! Get this smelly dog away from me!” London Malloy turned to a tall woman who had appeared in the doorway. She had jet-black hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. “I thought you said we could write the dog off the show? Can’t we just say he died somehow?”

  I gasped. Why would London Malloy want Rocky off the show? He ran over to me and sniffed my hand. I bent down to pet him, and he sat down next to me, leaning into my side. Jackson crouched down next to me and scratched him behind his ears.

  London Malloy kept on. “Or send him to a dog farm. I don’t care what they do, I just want him gone!”

  Everything she said was like word vomit—nasty and foul—and with each word that came out of her mouth, my hopes and dreams drifted further away.

  A whistle came from the hallway outside the room and Rocky hopped up, darting out the door. With the adorable dog out of the way, there was no other distraction from the horror of London Malloy, former best-friend-in-training.

  The woman with the bun said, “It’s all right, darling. I will speak to whoever I need to and have that filthy canine removed immediately.”

  “That’s what you always say, Mother, but that dog is still here. It’s like you’re completely useless.” London Malloy turned back to the mirror and fussed with her hair. “Honestly, Mother, can’t you figure out how to do something as simple as getting rid of a dog?”

  London Malloy’s mother was alive.

  And London Malloy was a terrible person.

  “Get me out of here,” I whispered. I couldn’t bear to watch her for another second.

  “London, you know I don’t like when you talk to me like that.” Her mother tried to touch her shoulder, but London jerked her arm away.

  “Then don’t be stupid, Mother.”

  “Get me out of here,” I whispered a little louder. It was like I’d suddenly forgotten how to speak, and my tongue felt thick inside my mouth. I tried to swallow. I tried to breathe.

  The woman with the headset, Jennifer, whispered something in London Malloy’s ear. She looked around the room until her eyes settled on me. Then she looked back at Jennifer and asked, loud enough for me to hear, “Beulah? What kind of name is that?”

  I found my voice.

  I pointed at London Malloy, my insides on fire from all the rage that had been building. “You are disgusting. How dare you talk to your own mother like that! My mom named me Beulah and it is a perfectly fine name. You are a fraud and a liar and I can’t believe I actually wanted you to be my friend!” I turned away from her and looked up at my dad, pleading with my eyes. I needed him to understand. “Get me out of here,” I said quietly, just to him this time.

  He understood.

  He marched me out of that room, my brothers right behind us. Jennifer scanned her clipboard, then hollered after us, “Wait. It’s not time to leave yet. You still get a photograph with London Malloy and . . .”

  I followed my dad through the maze of hallways until we were back at the front entrance. The last thing I did before walking out of those doors was take off my badge and throw it down on the ground. I was secretly happy when my brothers did the same.

  Luckily, our super-fancy limo was waiting for us, and I climbed right in.

  “I can’t believe you yelled like that!” Seth said.

  “You were awesome!” Jackson was smiling big.

  For the first time since I saw London Malloy, I felt like I could breathe again, which actually wasn’t a good thing. Breathing also meant that I could finally get enough air to cry properly, and so that’s what I did. My dad put his arm around me, and I buried my face into his shoulder.

  “That woman was her mother . . . and the way she was talking to her . . .” I couldn’t say anything more through my tears.

  “I know, kiddo. I know.” My dad patted my head.

  He didn’t really know how I felt, he couldn’t possibly, but I appreciated him trying.

  Then I remembered the two smelly, annoying, bother-some, loud, obnoxious brothers of mine that actually did know what I was feeling. I locked eyes with Seth.

  “You okay?” he asked me.

  I nodded, wiping my face and snot on our dad’s sleeve when he wasn’t looking.

  “Hey, Blue?” Jackson said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re cool.”

  I tried to smile, but I knew it was plastic. My eyes felt as empty as they did wet.

  “For real,” Jackson went on, “I could never say all that stuff. You were . . . What’s that word? Phen . . . phenan . . . phemom . . .”

  “Phenomenal?” Seth said.

  “That’s it,” Jackson said, s
napping his fingers. “You were phenomenal.”

  My dad squeezed my shoulders and whispered into my ear, “I’m proud of you, Blue. Do you know that?”

  I stared out the window as the busy city flew past us in a blur. Was I really finally phenomenal at something? And if so, what exactly was I phenomenal at? Yelling at somebody I had admired when I woke up this morning? Defending my mother’s choice in names when the truth was even I disliked the name Beulah? Or maybe I was phenomenal because I allowed myself to think that I could ever have anything in common with someone like London Malloy.

  We got back to the hotel, and my dad went with the boys back down to the pool. I stayed in the hotel room and curled up on the window seat, happy for a little alone time. The window jutted out of the wall so that I was surrounded on all three sides by clear glass. It felt like I was sitting in the middle of the world.

  I gazed into the bright blue sky and thought about my mom. I didn’t close my eyes this time, trying to see her in my mind. The fading was happening faster now, so I’d stopped doing that a while ago. Every time I tried to picture her, she got more and more blurry. It was like the ocean chipping away at a sandcastle. Each crash of the wave took a few tiny grains of sand, until there was nothing left but a hole where there used to be a kingdom.

  I knew that I wasn’t going to remember everything about my mom, and I was starting to realize that the memories I did have probably weren’t going to last forever. I remembered her beautiful red fingernails, but I couldn’t tell you if our hands were the same shape. I remembered curling up in her lap watching The Wizard of Oz, but I couldn’t recall if we sang along to the songs.

  It didn’t mean that I didn’t love her; I loved her more than there were stars in the sky. It just meant I couldn’t remember her with my eyes. Or with my brain. I remembered my mother the only way I knew how. With my heart.

  I think that’s how people are truly meant to be remembered anyway.

  Pounding footsteps echoed down the hall, followed by muffled voices on the other side of the door. The doorknob rattled wildly a second later.