“She’s on edge,” Richard said, by way of defending his wife and recusing himself.
“She’s always on edge,” Cricket said.
“Well, that’s true,” he said, almost smiling, “but summer is always worse and this summer we really have to band together because now we don’t have Abby. We have to pull our weight.”
“I do!” Cricket said. She got groceries at Bilson’s. She set the table. She walked Dodo back to her apartment all the time. And she was making it so they could go away overnight to the dumb Hamptons.
They never noticed when she did something good.
She should run away. She knew how. There were so many books that were practically how-to manuals on the subject. She went to her room and closed the door. Okay, slammed the door. Really hard. She pulled up her blanket and bunched her winter coat and a towel from the floor into the shape of a body under the covers. That was the first thing people running away from home did. They sculpted a decoy body. In the morning when your bumbling and clueless parents finally came to wake you up, they discovered you were gone. You’d run away hours before. You were already across state lines.
When Claudia from The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler ran away, she used her instrument case as luggage. Too bad Cricket had quit the violin in second grade. She’d have to use a duffel bag. Although, how much stuff could you really fit in a violin case?
She was so tired of being subappreciated. Sub was Latin for under. She was so, so underappreciated. She grabbed jeans and shorts, socks and underwear. All went in her duffel bag. She never wore dresses; should she take one?
The next step of running away was tying a bunch of sheets together and making a ladder to throw out the window. Cricket lived on the sixth floor. She’d probably need like twenty sheets to make it the whole way down. And when she landed, she was going to land in a Dumpster. Gross. If she lived in the suburbs she’d be climbing down from the second floor to land in grass. She cut the Dumpster-landing scene. She’d escape through the living room window. Much more visually appealing.
A crowd would gather. Traffic would be held up. Maybe reporters from the news would come. Nosy Pete the doorman would call her parents on the intercom to tell them their daughter was climbing out the window. They’d run out and wait for her to get to the ground, panic-stricken, terrified. Her mother would be gasping, clutching at her chest. Cricket would reach the ground, drop her bag, and run into her arms, ready for her mother to apologize.
If only Dodo still lived in California. Cricket would run away to there. It would be an epic cross-country adventure. When she arrived, Dodo would take care of her. They’d eat great food, Cricket would learn to play bridge, they’d drive in Dodo’s bouncy Cadillac, swim in her pool. But Dodo lived down the hall now, so California was out. And Cricket had already told her parents she was sleeping there tomorrow night. The stuffed animals looked worried.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she told them. “I’m spending the night with Dodo tomorrow. I can’t run away.”
They still looked worried.
14
FATEFUL FRIDAY
Friday morning, the second day of her summer vacation, Cricket woke up in her bed at home.
“I told you I wasn’t going anywhere,” she said to the schnauzer. And speaking of going, Bunny was running around getting her real estate listings ready and doing Lord knows what else before they left for the Hamptons house hunt at ten a.m. Cricket suspected she’d have to make her own breakfast, but the biopsy results were back, so there wasn’t time for breakfast anyway. She went right to the lab and got to work.
Her suspicions were confirmed. Every biopsy showed the presence of White Cloud Disease. That was the reason all the animals had forgotten the Greek they’d learned over the past year. Her heart sank. She’d been way too hard on them. She’d assumed they just weren’t trying. But White Cloud Disease lowered the brain’s resting temperature, inhibiting the synapses from firing properly. A thick, cold film formed over everything. It wasn’t fatal, but your memory was affected. Cricket made her morning rounds, trying to be gentler and more complimentary than usual. Then she went to the kitchen.
Her father must have had a grueling morning shaving because he had lots of toilet paper scraps stuck to his face. He looked like a folk-art pillow from a craft show.
“Good morning, Cricket,” he said.
Cricket could tell he was stressed-out.
“Good morning, honey,” her mother said. Bunny looked perfect.
Richard put three slices of sprouted-seed bread in the toaster. He kept trying to lower the bread slices in the toaster but they kept popping back up. He was so agitated he nearly broke the thing.
“Dad, it’s not plugged in, that’s why the lever won’t stay down,” Cricket said. “You’re really looking forward to renting a summer house, huh?”
He was going to have to write a large check today. A deposit for some cockamamy house he couldn’t afford. The Cohens were going to go into massive debt so that Bunny could raise the money she needed for the programs she’d designed to help people with less privilege than she was born into. And he’d had to give up gluten in the process. Bunny had decided the family was going gluten-free. Her husband complained about it all the time.
Cricket plugged the toaster in for her father and pushed down the lever.
“Thank you. How is that paper going?” he asked. “Can I see what you’ve written?” He loaded up the blender with protein powder and flaxseed.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to show you,” Cricket said.
“Because you haven’t written anything. Have you written anything?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t believe you. At all,” Richard said. He looked at Bunny. It was clear that neither of them believed her. He turned on the blender.
“Cricket, why haven’t you started your memoir?” Bunny called over the sound of her smoothie being made. Sometimes Bunny could hear through walls, above jackhammers, from other cities. “Oh, Cricket. I don’t know what to do about this. You’ll have to make your own bed with Mr. Ludgate.”
But Bunny couldn’t leave it alone.
“All right,” she said at the calendar, with a mechanical pencil in her grip and hope in her eyes, “today is Friday. It is due to Mr. Ludgate on Monday.” Bunny looked up and made eye contact with her daughter. “So, if you begin writing today and don’t procrastinate, you can have a draft by … What is this dinner on the fifth of July, Richard?” Bunny asked with concern.
Cricket handed her father the almond butter.
“The Lysanders. At the beach,” her husband said. He was trying to butter his gluten-free sprouted toast without crumbling it. “Bunny, this is a fool’s errand.”
“What is?”
“Spreading anything on this crazy cracker of a piece of bread. It’s like trying to butter crumbs.”
“The Norwegians do it. But I don’t remember anything about the Lysanders,” Bunny said. “I don’t like forgetting things. It makes me feel old. Is it hot in here?”
“No. But do we even have a house yet? Maybe we should spend the summer here?” Cricket asked. That was one way of avoiding surfing camp.
“Daddy and I are finding a house today, no matter what. And if not today, tomorrow,” Bunny said, like a mind reader. “I wish you’d look at the calendar, Cricket. Your whole life would be so much easier. Everything everyone needs to know is right there. No one in this family pays any attention to the calendar. We’re spending the day with the Realtor, it says so right here, and we aren’t coming home until we have a house. You might have to move in with Dodo.”
“I didn’t remember about the Lysanders either,” Richard said. “But Jim e-mailed me yesterday. So I wrote it down. If you’re losing your mind, I am, too.”
“In red? Oh, Richard.”
“Please don’t be so controlling—at least I’m making an effort to use the calendar. Don’t get ma
d at me for using the wrong color on it.”
“I’m not being controlling,” Bunny said carefully, tracing Richard’s red-pen letters over with a blue marker. “I’m being neat. And organized. A system is only a system if it is followed.” She turned and faced her daughter. “All right, young lady, as I was saying, finish the draft Saturday afternoon and then you can polish it up and be all done by Monday.”
“Are you serious?” Cricket said.
“Are you? That’s the due date, Cricket. This one is going to be so much easier since you don’t have to make anything up.”
“It’s harder if I can’t make anything up,” Cricket said. Her mother would never understand. Most days she ran through the apartment waving her checklists around like a child with a good report from her teachers.
Bunny wrote the due date for her daughter’s memoir on the calendar.
“Mom!” Cricket said.
“Cricket, you don’t have a choice. You gave Mr. Ludgate your word,” Richard said. He made an offering of the smoothie he had just blended. “Bunny, she’s got to get that thing finished.”
Cricket didn’t like the smoothies her parents drank and she didn’t like the way they were nagging her either. She opened the fridge and was greeted by rows of colored organic fruit and vegetable juices. Bunny would be the perfect astronaut, content with neatly labeled packets of freeze-dried food that required no cooking.
“Cricket, your mother and I are leaving in twenty minutes. Maybe you’ll accomplish more without us hounding you. Bunny, where is the jam I like?”
“Richard, I don’t want to leave her alone.”
“Do you want her to write the memoir or not? She’ll be fine. There’s a doorman. We’ve left her alone before. And when she’s lonesome, she’ll walk down the hall to your mother’s.”
* * *
Cricket stayed out of her parents’ way as they bickered and got in each other’s way, even though they were only packing one small suitcase for their weekend trip. Finally goodbyes were said and the front door was closed and triple-locked behind them.
Her father was right. All she needed was to be left alone. She’d absolutely get the assignment written. She walked from one end of the apartment to the other, confused by her brain. It was usually large and expansive and on the verge of brilliance, but today it felt dark and small and empty. Maybe she had White Cloud Disease.
What was there to write about? The houses her parents rented every summer? The life she was required to live while her parents entertained people they didn’t like in order to get money out of them to give to the Cause they cared about?
Maybe she could write about Veronica Morgan, the friend she had taken for granted?
She’d feel better after a cup of tea. An idea would definitely come after she had a good, strong cup of tea. She filled the kettle and turned on the stove.
The wall phone next to the refrigerator rang.
“Cricket, it’s Mom.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“I don’t like this whole business of leaving you alone.”
“I’m fine.”
“Please keep your phone on and charged at all times. And take this receiver into your room. I don’t want to worry. I love you. And please check in with Dodo every now and then.”
“I will. I love you, too. Come back with a good house.”
“We will. Be careful. Don’t use the oven. Or the stove. Don’t let Dodo use the oven. No roast chicken.”
“Okay.”
“Daddy wants to say something. I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Okay.” Cricket held on to the phone between her shoulder and her cheek so she could rummage in the freezer. She found some croissants from a fund-raiser breakfast a few months back.
“Cricket? It’s Dad. We love you and trust you. Be careful. Keep your phone charged. It’s not a phone if we can’t call you.”
“Okay, Dad. Don’t spend too much money. It’s not money if we don’t have it.” She took the bag out and turned on the oven to preheat.
“That’s my girl. Love you tons. Write that paper.”
“I am!” Cricket said.
* * *
She wasn’t. She put her pastry in the oven and drank her tea in front of the television after making her bed. She then went back to the kitchen, threw out her tea bag, which she had left on the counter, put the milk back in the fridge, put the bag of croissants back in the freezer, and wiped off the honey she’d dripped on the counter. Then she turned off the oven and waited for her hot croissant to cool down. She’d successfully wasted twenty minutes. Procrastination be thy name. She was on a roll!
Her parents always said that life included doing things you don’t want to do. Do you know how many things I do because I have to? her mom would say. Welcome to the real world, her dad would add.
Cricket didn’t like the real world. That’s why she’d gone to Iceland in her memoir. What if she could turn this around by pretending Mr. Ludgate wasn’t making her write the essay? What if she herself just wanted to rewrite her memoir? (Why anyone would choose to rewrite a perfectly good memoir was anyone’s guess, but this was the game and she was playing.) She went back to her desk and started thinking of titles:
“Life in the Air Shaft: The Cricket Cohen Story.”
“Subappreciated: The Cricket Cohen Story.”
And then her favorite:
“Rocks for Brains: The Cricket Cohen Story.”
She had a lot of titles. Three! If only she had a story.
15
THE YELLOW COUCH
At eleven o’clock her life was still too boring to write about. So she turned the oven back on, put in another croissant, made a cup of coffee the way Dodo had taught her, put the croissant on a pretty plate, got a napkin, filled a little ramekin with jam, and arranged it all on a tray.
Dodo adored nice food and a good presentation. That was one of the reasons none of the people hired to look after her worked out. Every applicant bragged about being an excellent chef. But vinaigrette was the measure of a person for Dodo, and Abby’s wasn’t even homemade. It was from a bottle. If a person failed at vinaigrette, Dodo never forgave.
“Room service,” Cricket said, knocking on Dodo’s door. When Dodo first moved down the hall they had played this game every day. Dodo loved hotels.
“How wonderful!” Dodo said, opening the door. “Set it over there, would you?”
“Dodo, can I fix your blouse?”
“What’s the matter with it?”
“The buttons aren’t lining up,” Cricket said.
“Oh! By all means. When I was younger, my mother told me my favorite thing to say was Byself. I wanted to do everything by myself. What’s the hot gossip?” Dodo said, and closed the door.
Cricket put the tray down on the kitchen counter so she could rebutton her grandmother’s shirt.
“Mom and Dad left.”
“They left us alone?” Dodo said, with a twinkle in her eye. She ate her croissant and drank her coffee. “Cricket, where did you learn to make such a good cup of coffee? It’s so important. If you can make coffee, an omelet, and a vinaigrette, you’re all set.”
“What about a roast chicken? I thought that was on the list?”
“It is!”
Cricket noticed a couple of bags of groceries by the kitchen sink, so she started unpacking them.
“Oh! Thank you, Poopsie. I forgot about those.”
“Where does the mustard go?” Cricket asked.
“In the pantry.”
Bunny’s pantry was one shelf neatly lined with protein bars. Dodo’s pantry was a small closet filled with spices Cricket had never heard of, sumac and turmeric and juniper berries. She had oils made from avocados and grape seeds, vinegars from all around the world. Cricket put the jar of Dijon mustard on a shelf next to six other identical jars of Dijon.
There was a container of chicken salad and a quart of milk in the grocery bag. She wondered how long the bag had been sitting out because t
hey were both warm. She threw them out, just in case.
“Who’s here?” Dodo asked.
“Me,” Cricket said.
“Did you just hear a car pull up in the driveway?”
“No, did you?” There weren’t any driveways on West Sixty-Fourth Street.
“I thought so. Is someone here?” Dodo said, walking to the window and looking outside.
“Dodo, did you forget you were in New York?” Cricket asked.
“I think I did,” Dodo said. “I’m nuts.”
“No,” Cricket said. “You lived in California for a long time. It must be confusing.”
“It is. I’m confused. What was I doing?”
“I don’t know. What were you doing?”
“Oh, I was in the bedroom, come.”
Cricket wondered when and if the house in California would ever stop being the place she thought of when she thought of Dodo. The house in California with all the sunlight and the artwork and the two different living rooms. Of course Dodo went back there in her mind sometimes. This house, this New York apartment, was smaller and darker.
Dodo’s bedroom was at the end of the hall. There was an open suitcase on the bed.
“You’re packing?” Cricket asked.
“Yes! I was packing. I’ve got to get out of here for a little while. I don’t have a ticket yet, but that doesn’t matter. Planes leave all the time for somewhere. Come on. You come with me. Let’s have an adventure together.”
“I’d love to.”
“Look, I’ve packed all these things.” Dodo proudly showed Cricket the contents of her suitcase: five pairs of white pants.
“Well, Dodo, I like to bring some underpants when I go on a trip.” Cricket said. She tried to remember what else she’d actually packed yesterday before giving up on the idea of running away.
“So do I!” Dodo said. “So do I.” She went to her dresser drawer and took out three pairs of underwear and put them in the bag. “Socks? For me feet? Me feet, me feet, me feet.” Dodo made up a little song.
The Half-True Lies of Cricket Cohen Page 6