by Patti Kim
“That seat’s reserved. You can’t sit there,” she says, and sips her Diet Coke.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not handicapped. That’s the handicap seat.”
I open my pint of chocolate milk and chug it down. When Sydney sees I got no mind to sit in the back, she says, “I guess disabilities come in all shapes and sizes.”
Someone spits out her soda.
Someone giggles.
Someone says, “Oh my God. That’s, like, mean, Syd. Be nice.”
I take a big bite of my sloppy joe to keep myself from saying something offensive, something I might regret. I chew my food. I feel the bun sticking to the roof of my mouth. Sauce runs down my wrist. I got two halves of a maraschino cherry in my fruit cocktail. You’re pretty lucky if you get one half, so I’m choosing to count my cherries. I finish off my chocolate milk and burp.
They all look at me.
“Pardon,” I say, and lick off my milk mustache.
“As I was saying, we need a theme for the dance,” Sydney says.
“Masquerade!”
“But that’s so Halloween,” Sydney says.
“Let’s just stick with the Winter Wonderland theme.”
“But that’s so boring. They do that every year. I want this year to be special. I want to start some new traditions. I really want to leave a mark. Like I want it to have my signature on it, if you know what I mean,” says Sydney.
“This isn’t the Sydney Show,” says Tammy.
“But it is,” Sydney says, and flips her hair.
“Ha-ha.”
“Disney?”
“What are we, like in second grade?”
“How about we call it Avalanche and just bury everyone in snow?”
“Yeah, Snowmageddon.”
“Snow Monster Ball. That would be so cool.”
“No,” says Sydney.
“You keep shooting everything down. Do you have any bright ideas?” asks Tammy.
“I do. I’m so glad you asked. Saving the best for last. Okay, so, I’ve, like, thought about this, like a lot, and it’s like a personal dream of mine. Are you ready? I really think that we should do… drumroll…”
We wait.
Sydney pops off the stool, jumps, pumps one fist in the air like she’s cheerleading, and shouts, “Aspen!”
The room is struck silent. This storm of brains has hit the fan.
“Ass what?” someone asks.
“Aspen, dummy, as in ski resorts for the rich and famous? Mountains of Colorado? Don’t you know anything?”
“Have you been there?”
“Yeah, like every winter practically. I’m kind of getting bored of it, but I feel like this dance needs that special magical flare. It needs a major upgrade. I want it to be posh and luxurious and have that exclusive membership sort of feel. I envision, like, this welcome-to-Aspen ski-lodge theme with logs for walls and a great big stone fireplace and an ice sculpture of our mascot and a snow machine so that it’s, like, snowing on the dance floor, and for our pièce de résistance, a ski lift.”
“We could have snow cones, too.”
“And a chocolate fountain.”
“We should make s’mores in the fireplace.”
“And fur! I want fur. Like a big bear rug in front of the fireplace and fur trim on dresses. This is going to be so awesome. Welcome to Aspen!” Sydney says.
I choke on my cherries. I clear my throat and blurt out, “How much is this going to cost? Who’s going to pay for it?”
All heads turn to look at me except Sydney’s. She smiles and says to her followers, “Oh, now that she’s done stuffing her face with sloppy joes, the girl speaks. This goes for everyone—please keep all your comments constructive and positive. Otherwise, as president, I have the right to dismiss anyone out of my meeting.”
“Hey, Syd, she kind of has a point. Aspen sounds amazing, but it sounds really expensive,” someone says.
The room’s so quiet you could hear the clock tick.
“I really don’t need any of this negativity. We’ll find the money. The school can do, like, those fund-raisers. And we’re charging for tickets. We’ll charge more than usual. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Money is no object. We can make this happen, guys. Dream with me. Besides, I’m not hearing any other brilliant ideas.”
“I got an idea,” I say, and raise my hand.
“No, we are not doing a hoedown,” says Sydney, holding her palm out to stop me.
Some laugh.
“Syd, be nice,” says Tammy, giggling.
“I’m trying,” says Sydney, sipping her Diet Coke.
“What is your idea, Mickey?” asks Sunny.
“Thanks, Sunny. Well, I was at the pound the other day, and I’m happy to announce we adopted a cat. Name is Cyclops McDonald. She’s only got one eye, but she’s the cutest thing. I don’t know if y’all been to the pound lately, but that place is packed with cats and dogs. You know what happens to these guys if they can’t find a home? They get put down. I don’t know about y’all, but that really bugs me. Why don’t we help save some lives? I propose we call our school dance the Winter Rescue Dance. We can donate some of the money from ticket sales to the shelter. We can raise awareness. Maybe we can even hook the dogs and cats up with loving families! We can ask the pound to bring cats and dogs to the dance. And heck, we can invite our families, too, so they can all come and dance and meet the cats and dogs and maybe even take one home. Sydney, you know that mark you’re aiming to make? Well, hot dang, believe you me, this here Winter Rescue Dance is going to put you on the map,” I say, and toss my milk carton into the trash can. Score. As I gather my things and start heading to the door, I add, “Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if you get on the local news for being some kind of hero.”
As I make my grand exit, I hear them talking.
“That would be, like, so cool.”
“I want a dog.”
“I want a cat.”
I want to eavesdrop at the door, but I don’t. I keep going on my merry way, ’cause deep down I don’t mind what they say about me and my ideas. I’m not hungry for applause. I feel full. The hall’s empty. It’s quiet out here. Bell’s about to ring any second now. For the first time in a long time, I feel the cloud-nine lightness of not giving a rat’s rectum what they think of me. I feel free.
thirty-two
It’s Family Day at Golden Gardens Assisted Living. The only reason me and Benny are here is ’cause Ma promised us cupcakes and punch. Since she’s now the events coordinator, she has to make sure Family Day runs smooth. If you don’t got family dropping by to say hi, that’s where me and Benny come in. Ma said to play like we’re someone’s grandkids ’cause some of these seniors got no one visiting. So we sit, chat, play checkers, play cards, eat cupcakes, and sip punch, which has in it lime sherbet, lemon slices, and maraschino cherries. It’s the kind of punch that’s so good, it knocks out the cupcake in the first round.
As I pour myself another cup, I spy a glossy black toupee that brings to mind strands of licorice. I recognize this man. As he limps toward the table with a cane, I say, “I know you. You’re Superman.”
He stops, takes a real good look at me, tapping his cane, and says, “Gidget? Is that you?”
I burst out laughing, nearly spitting out my punch. I wasn’t expecting him to remember me. As he picks up a cup with a shaky hand, he says, “What’s your name?”
“Mickey,” I say.
“I’m Herman, but you can call me Superman,” he says.
“Okay.”
“This is how I’m going to remember your name.” He starts to sing the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song.
I join in, and together we sing “M-O-U-S-E.”
“What a bunch of brats. Catchy song, but annoying-as-hell kids. Don’t be like that, Mickey,” he says, reaching into his jacket pocket.
“No, sir,” I say, and pour him some punch.
He pours half the punch back into
the bowl, pulls out a flask, opens it with his shaky hands, pours a splash of something else into his punch, and says, “Keeps me going.”
He walks to a table near the window. I follow with his cupcake. He moves slower than a snail drenched in Elmer’s. And he’s spilling punch all over the carpet. I’m reaching to take his cup, when a talon swoops in and grabs it. It’s not a real talon. It’s a hand, but it may as well be the talon of some fancy-pants exotic bird, pet to some fancy-pants Queen Shebalicious, because the bony fingers are tipped with long shiny red nails and decorated in rings with gems so gigantic, candy Ring Pops come to mind.
“Herman, are you baptizing the carpets again?” an old woman asks, and sips Herman’s punch. “You naughty man,” she says, and takes another sip.
“Who are you here for, darling?” she asks me.
“My ma works here. She’s right over there,” I say.
“Colleen’s your mother? Oh, I like Colleen. Bless her heart. She had us dancing the Electric Slide. She’s nicer than that other one we had. What was her name, Herman? Oh, she was a mean one. She’d just sit us in front of a television set and sometimes forget to turn it on. We’d wait and wait and wait, and the next thing we know, she’d gone home for the day. But I like your mother. She keeps us entertained. But she really ought to do something about that dreadful hair of hers. Sweetheart, now tell me something. Have you received Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” she says, taking my hand and squeezing it. Her bracelets jingle.
“Yes, ma’am. Praise the Lord,” I say.
“Darling, do you see that man over there at the door? That’s my son. Look how handsome he is, but I do wish he wouldn’t slouch so much. It takes two inches off his height. A man has to stand proud and tall,” she says.
I wave my arms, and the man sees us. Once he starts walking over, I tell the woman to have a nice visit and walk away.
I look for Benny. He’s sitting at a table in the back corner. An old lady with an Easter hat talks to him, but he’s busy stuffing his face with a cupcake, licking chocolate frosting off his fingers. The room is filling up with all kinds of folks, old and young. I guess that’s family for you. Music’s playing in the background, but fading fast as voices take over. It’s a nice room. The fancy wallpaper and carpet and curtains remind me of a fairy-tale ballroom, but it don’t feel anything like happily ever after here. It’s kind of boring and sad. And I feel kind of sorry, like how I felt for the cats and dogs at the shelter. It’s like they’re both stuck somewhere they don’t really want to be, waiting around for who knows what.
Ma pours more ginger ale into the punch bowls. She looks real nice in her red blouse and black skirt. And her hair don’t look bad. It looks real pretty, and I feel proud of her for making Family Day happen for everyone.
A man standing at the doors makes me do a double take ’cause I swear he could pass for Daddy from across the room, and I wonder if Ma feels how Daddy’s not here, it being Family Day and all. Wonder if she wishes he’d walk in and surprise her. If he had a mind to walk back into our lives, this moment would be prime, ’cause he’d see Ma getting along without him, doing just fine, looking prettier than she ever did when he was around, and he’d want in on all this good stuff. Maybe he’d get down on one knee and propose again and beg to come back and take a stab at a fresh start. Fairy-tale wishing is as stubborn as a wart that won’t die. And from the way Ma’s smiling and talking to folks and getting along and setting up more cupcakes and punch, it looks like Daddy ain’t even the crumb of her thoughts.
I help myself to another cup of punch, looking for anyone who might be in need of a granddaughter.
thirty-three
Once an idea, or a vision, as she calls it, grips the imagination of one Sydney Stevenson, she is all in, obsessively all in. Even if that idea wasn’t originally hers, she will grab it like it’s her baby doll and blast off, making all her dreams come true by bossing everyone about what to do. Put up posters! Pass out flyers! Sell tickets! She’s talking to parents, talking with the pound, talking to teachers about decorations, advertising, getting word out to local news channels, music, food, drinks, bake sale, donations.… She got Pizza Oven to donate pizzas. She got PetSmart to donate chew toys. She got Party Plaza to donate balloons. She got a parent to build a dog-house photo booth.
Honest to angels, cross my heart, hope to die, I do not mind—not even a little itty-bitty bit—that someone other than myself, especially Sydney, is in the spotlight. Ain’t that weird? It’s like, who gives a flying fart?
I’m just feeling real good about what matters most: The Winter Rescue Dance is full-force on.
It’s like the cafeteria is getting a makeover for tonight’s dance. Larry puts up streamers with Nawsia. Sydney’s on the hunt for the disco ball. Tables get covered with sheets of white plastic. Signs get painted on long sheets of butcher paper. Framed pictures of dogs and cats up for adoptions are used for centerpieces. Even Asa and his guys help by blowing up balloons. But once they start singing like Alvin and the Chipmunks, putting more helium in them than in the balloons, everyone swarms over to the tank so they, too, can sound like Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.
Sunny and I sit on the stage steps, cutting paw prints out of construction paper. For a dollar, you can buy a paw print, write your name on it, and tape it to the wall, goal being a wall of paws for a good cause.
“Those are some nice paws you’re cutting,” I tell Sunny.
“Yours don’t look too nice. That look like baseball mitt,” she says.
“Well, thanks a lot.”
“Well, you welcome a lot.”
What I really want to tell Sunny is that I missed her and it’s nice to be cutting out paws together and I wish we could be best friends again and how’s Howl-may doing, remember how she called me an angel, remember that? But instead I ask, “How’d you do yours?”
Sunny gives me one of her paw cutouts and says, “Here, you trace like this.”
“Oh, duh. Why didn’t I think of that?” I say, tracing her paw.
“Are you so excite about dance?” she asks.
“I can’t wait. It’s going to be a blast.”
“You slow dancing with Larry?”
“Maybe. Since I told him to stop stalking me, he’s been leaving me alone. I guess if I feel like slow dancing with him, I’m going to have to do the asking. Who do you want to dance with?”
She lowers her head while looking up through her bangs over to the balloon station.
“Asa?” I ask.
She bites down on her pinkie and nods, smiling sly and shy.
“Oh my Lordy, girl, I never would’ve guessed in a bazillion. You like Asa?”
She shakes her legs and flaps her hands like she’s swatting mosquitoes and whines, “Don’t say to nobody.”
“Mum,” I say, zip my lips, turn the key, and throw it across the cafeteria.
“I think I’m in the love,” she says.
“Real?” I ask.
“He say hi to me. He call me Sunny J. That’s so cool. He’s so cool, right?”
“Man, you like him ’cause he said hi to you and called you a cool nickname? I thought you were smarter,” I say.
“No. I am soooo dumb-dumb with the love,” she says.
I laugh so hard I cut right through a paw.
She leans into me and whispers, “I don’t know the slow dance. Do you know the slow dance? Did you do before?”
“I’ve danced with a boy, but it wasn’t slow. So I guess to answer your question, no, I have not slow danced before, but how hard can it be? You just kind of sway, you know, left, right, left, right, kind of like a grandma on a sideways rocking chair. You have to face each other, but don’t look at each other ’cause that’s just too goo-goo-gah-gah, so you gotta look way over yonder and look like you’re bored to death. His hands go on your waist and you put yours on his shoulders like a pair of shoulder pads. Right? Ain’t that it? And then you rock to beat of the song. You’ll feel it. And you have
to hold your breath the whole time until one of you passes out. And whoever doesn’t pass out wins,” I say.
“Like this?” she says, and holds her breath, making a blow-up fish face.
“More like this,” I say, and make a bigger blow-up fish face.
“Hey, Mickey, this is best dance idea,” she says.
“I think so too.”
“This your idea. Are you mad?”
“I’m not. Not even a little bit. I can’t even try to feel mad. Ain’t that something?”
“But no one say, ‘Good job, Mickey,’ and ‘Mickey is so great to have great idea.’ No one say that to you. Everyone say to Sydney.”
“It’s weird, right? You’d think I’d be all up in arms about not getting credit and recognition since I love me a spotlight, but it’s like that part don’t matter to me. What matters is those poor animals getting a chance.”
“You change.”
“You changed too.”
“We suppose to change.”
“I guess so.”
“Is growing up.”
“Are you still mad at me?”
“I was, but not now. Are you mad at me?”
“I was, but not anymore. Why’d we fight again?”
“I don’t know. I think is my problem too. Sometimes, I feel like, ummmmm, you know like, ummmm…,” Sunny says, letting the scissors fall off her fingers onto her lap.
“Like what?”
“Like pet for Mickey.”
“So you felt like my pet?”
“Yes. So I follow you too much. Because you so, you know, like, confident and so self-sure and talk loud and so friendly and you talk your mind just like that and you know English so good and you know America so good and I have bad English and I don’t know and follow you like little pet. Sometimes I like, but sometimes I hate, and I want to go away from you and tell you, ‘No, don’t do like that.’ Because the real friend is equal. Right? I want equal. Not like pet. Come here. Go there. Come over here. Do this. You mine. Good doggy. It bother me because it make me feel like a nothing, but I like you, but it bother me. So when Sydney like me, I don’t want to go to her first time, but you say go, go, and I see I can go away. But Sydney the worst and treat like pet because my English is broke and she make so much teasing and squeeze my cheeks and call me Joo Joo, and I want to punch like this,” she says, pumping her fists.