The Rule of Threes

by Marcy Campbell

  Mom leaned over to kiss my forehead, and she let her lips linger. That was how she liked to check my temperature, which wasn’t exactly scientific. “Hmmm, maybe ninety-nine-point-five, not too bad. I’m going to call you at lunch and have you check your temperature with the thermometer and see if you need more Tylenol, okay?” she said.

  “Okay,” I said, “but wait, Mom, I have a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  I saw both Tony and my dad rush past my doorway and down the stairs, probably late.

  “What are we going to tell Grandma? About Tony, I mean? Are we going to keep him a secret?” If Tony always stayed home when we went to visit the assisted living facility, if we never, ever, slipped up and mentioned him, and if Grandma never came to our house . . . but I was really tired of secrets.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Mom said, but she didn’t seem so sure. We were flying by the seat of our pants on a lot of things lately. That wasn’t like our family, and I hated it.

  In a few minutes, I heard the door open and shut three times—Mom leaving for Grandma’s, Dad for work, and Tony for the bus. My concept board was still on its stand in the corner of my room, and I started thinking about Olive and our argument. We’d had fun at the Shoppe, but I still worried whether things were okay between us. Maybe I’d send her, and Rachel, a text, to hammer out some contest stuff. I could make use of the good-bad-good sandwich.

  Good morning, team! I’m really excited to talk about art for the outer office. Yeah, ART!

  BUT I’m sorry to say I caught something at the assisted living place we visited with my grandma and I have a fever. But it would be great if we could meet with Mrs. Abbott in case she has some ideas or posters lying around. I have a collection of great frames in my attic!

  There. Good-bad-good, sort of.

  After a few moments, I got a reply from Olive.

  Oh no!! I hope you feel better soon.

  Hope it’s not cookie day at lunch .

  I will get you one if it is.

  Aw, thanks, Olive. Don’t worry, I’ll be working on the contest from home. If I feel better later, I can paint the bookcase today.

  That would be awesome!!! Also, I can stop by and talk to Mrs. Abbott today!

  Thank you, Olive!

  I lay in bed with the phone for a few minutes, but didn’t get any more beeps. Had Rachel even seen my message? I felt myself getting sleepy and lay my head back against my pillow. I sent one last text:

  Have a good day!

  There was no response. Olive was probably off the bus already and headed to class. I pictured Rachel looking at the texts and deciding whether or not to reply—and then not replying. It was better to imagine that she didn’t get them at all. Mittens hopped up on my bed, happy to find a warm body on a week-day morning, and settled in for a nap, while I burrowed under the covers and quickly drifted back to sleep.

  I woke to the sound of the front door slamming and looked at my clock. 11 a.m. Why would Mom be back so early? Couldn’t she trust me to take care of myself? My stomach growled. If she was going to stay home and baby me, at least maybe I could get her to make me some pancakes.

  As I started to get out of bed, Tony came rushing up the stairs. He poked his head into my doorway.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, “were you sleeping?”

  “I was,” I answered, “until I heard the door. I thought you were my mom.” I pressed the back of my hand against my forehead. It didn’t feel very hot anymore. “What are you doing here?”

  “Walked home.”

  “Why?”

  “This.” Tony pointed to his T-shirt. It had a picture of a big smiling poodle with a pink bow in its fur and the words Sexy B*tch Dog Grooming underneath.

  “Ohhhh,” I said. “Did Mom see what you were wearing this morning?” There was no way she would have let him go to school in that. She wouldn’t even let me wear shorts unless they went down to at least the middle of my thighs.

  “I had my hoodie over it. But I got too hot.”

  “Why didn’t you just cover it back up?”

  “I tried that! But Mr. V was being a total jerk. He said he was going to call my mom, but he meant your mom because he can’t call my mom. So, anyway, your mom didn’t answer, and when he called my . . . dad . . . Robert . . . at his office, the secretary said he was at another branch today and tied up in a bunch of meetings.”

  Tony tossed his backpack into the corner and dropped into my white beanbag chair so hard, I was worried he’d bust the seams and I’d have Styrofoam pellets everywhere.

  “Take it easy,” I said.

  “It’s not like it’s even a swear,” Tony said, looking down at his shirt. “I mean, it’s a female dog.”

  “Oh, come on, Tony.”

  “What? It is!”

  “Yeah, I know it is, but, you know that shirt is the kind of thing adults would say is inappropriate,” I said, in a high-pitched voice like the mean lunchroom lady. “Children! Would you like to have your lunch with Mr. Villanueva!!!” We both started laughing.

  “You look like you’re feeling better.”

  “It’s just a cold,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll be back at school tomorrow. What about you? Are you supposed to change and go back, or what?”

  “I’m not going back,” he said, “not today.”

  I sat up straighter in my loft, propping the pillows behind my back. Mittens didn’t like being jostled, so she skittered down the ladder and went to rub against Tony’s legs.

  “You should probably just call him Dad from now on,” I said. “I mean, Robert sounds weird, and . . . obviously he is your dad, so . . .”

  Tony’s face lit up like I’d given him some big gift, which made me feel really cruddy for telling him to call our dad Robert in the first place. And then I remembered what Rachel had said, about calling people what they want to be called.

  “That reminds me,” I said. “Do you like being called Tony? Instead of Anthony, I mean?”

  “Oh, yeah, definitely.” He rolled his eyes. “Only my mom calls me Anthony, and only when I’m in trouble.” I imagined Mr. V calling him that today.

  “Can’t you just change your shirt and go back and talk to Mr. Villanueva? Show him that you’re not trying to cause trouble?”

  “What’s the point? He’s already got me figured out,” Tony said. He gave Mittens a scratch behind the ears, then crossed his arms.

  I wondered if that was true. Did Mr. V have all the students figured out? Did he have me figured out? There were so many students, and he’d just started at the school, so he barely knew most of us. He clearly didn’t know how to motivate teams to enter the decorating contest because he’d said on the announcements that he was disappointed in the “paucity” of entries, which I’d had to look up. It meant there weren’t many, just the six groups. That was good for the BFFs, though—less competition.

  But being sent home for a dress code violation was not a good way for Tony to start out at a new school.

  “My mom could take you shopping,” I said.

  “Yeah, she mentioned something about that,” Tony replied, “but I guess she’s pretty busy with your grandma right now.” He pulled Mittens into his lap, and she started purring immediately. “What’s she like anyway?”

  “Grandma? Oh, she’s awesome,” I said. “She always wants to hear what I’m doing, and she knows all about design things.” An image appeared in my head from when we’d left her with the health aide after the assisted living trip, how I’d peeked into her room and saw her asleep, and she looked so, so tiny. “She’s sick, though,” I said. “She has Alzheimer’s. She can’t remember stuff very well, and it’s going to get worse. She can’t take care of herself.”

  Tony nodded.

  “You don’t have to worry about it, though,” I said. “She’ll be at the assisted living place, and you don’t have to go there. It’s not like she’s your grandma.”

  Watching this sad look come across Tony’s face, I realized I was be
ing an idiot. It wasn’t just my grandma he was thinking about; it was his mom. After all, she was sick, too. She couldn’t take care of herself either, not right now anyway, and so she couldn’t take care of him.

  “Ummm, you know, if you wanted,” I said, “I could take you to the Good Samaritan Thrift Shoppe, so you could pick out some clothes. I’ve got a month of allowance saved up, and stuff there is really cheap.”

  “That’s where my mom got this!” Tony said, looking down at his dog shirt, and we both started laughing again.

  “Looks like you were just there anyway,” he said, pointing to the bag sitting on my desk.

  “Oh yeah, my friend Olive and I went shopping while you and Dad were playing basketball.” I felt a little leftover pang of jealousy about that, but brushed it aside and climbed down my ladder. “What do you think of these?” I pulled out the yellow paper organizer and baskets. “We’re doing the design contest for Spirit Week. Have you heard about that? We’re decorating the outer office, that lobby where you came to see Mrs. Abbott the other day. That’s why we were in there, to get measurements and stuff.”

  “Yeah, I heard some cheerleaders talking about the contest at lunch,” he said. “It seems like it’s mostly sixth graders who are into the whole contest thing. The seventh graders are more into the football game and pep rally.”

  “But you heard about the frozen yogurt truck, right?”

  “Yeah, I mean, it’s a bribe for voting.”

  I didn’t like the sound of the word bribe. “No, it’s just that Mr. V wants the whole school to get excited, so, you know, if everybody votes, he’ll bring in the truck.”

  “But how is he going to be sure everyone votes?”

  “I don’t know, I mean, he knows how many kids there are, and he can count the votes.”

  Tony put his hands on his hips. “Do you really think he’s going to go through all that trouble? And what about people who aren’t at school that day?”

  Tony was acting like he was way older than me, instead of just one year. He was deflating my excitement balloon so fast I could almost hear the air leaking out.

  He must have noticed, because then he said, “Listen, I love frozen yogurt, and obviously I’ll vote for you.” He was looking around my room in that way he had, like he was silently memorizing everything. “Your room looks really nice,” he said. “Put together, I mean, like everything is just where it’s supposed to be, but I don’t mean, like it’s boring, but more like . . . if something was moved somewhere else, it wouldn’t look right.” He scratched his ankle. “Never mind, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  I stood there with my mouth hanging open. Did Tony understand . . . design? Is that why he was always looking so closely at things? I found myself having two competing thoughts: First, designing was my thing. I didn’t need Tony barging into it. But, second, with Rachel’s disappearance, and with all the work we had to do . . .

  “I totally know what you mean,” I said. “Thanks, Tony.”

  At the very least, maybe I could help Tony fix up the spare room where he was sleeping. Right now, it was just an old boring room with his clothes strewn all over the floor.

  “What was your place like? Your apartment?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing special,” he said. “I mean, it’s not as nice as this place, not by a long shot, but my mom . . . she always used to try and fix it up, before she got sick.” He looked at my yellow vase. “The landlord wouldn’t let us paint or put any holes in the walls, so there wasn’t a whole lot we could do, but she liked to go to garage sales and buy stuff, like old vases that she’d put flowers in, you know, just wildflowers we’d pick alongside the road. She’d put them in a vase in the dining room.” He looked embarrassed suddenly. “I don’t usually notice stuff like that.”

  “Of course you do,” I insisted. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Even if you don’t consciously notice it, your subconscious is paying attention, always,” I said. That was the whole plan behind the color scheme, the calming happiness combo of greens/blues/yellows.

  Tony stood up. “I’ve got enough problems with my conscious self,” he said. “I don’t need to go digging for more trouble beneath that.” He laughed a little and so did I.

  “So . . . you’re okay, with living here? I mean, you like it here?” For the first time, I really felt like, if Tony didn’t like it, then it was mostly my fault, and I didn’t want to be a bad host, or a bad person.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking around. “It’s a nice place. Robert, I mean, Dad, is a nice guy. It’s nice to play ball again.”

  “Is that it?” I asked. “He’s your dad, I mean, he’s not just some guy.” I felt a bit offended, like I had to stick up for my dad, even though lately I’d been having some confusing thoughts about him.

  “Well, yeah, but he is just some guy, right now. You can’t just meet somebody and have some instant connection like you’ve known them all your life.”

  I was thinking of stories I’d heard of long-lost family members reuniting. “Sometimes that happens, though,” I said.

  “In the movies, maybe,” Tony scoffed. He chewed his thumb. “I miss my mom,” he said.

  “Has she called you yet?” I asked, but was immediately sorry I did. Tony looked away.

  “Yeah, she did, but it wasn’t easy to talk to her, you know? She doesn’t . . . sound like herself, and she’s got someone, some person, who’s in charge of the house, standing there listening, plus a bunch of people in line waiting for the phone, rushing her.”

  “Where is she?” I asked. This was a house? It sounded more like a prison.

  “She’s in a rehab house,” he said. “At least it’s not jail, though it sort of seems like it is,” he added, reading my mind.

  He looked like he was about ready to cry. “I’ve never been there. She doesn’t want me there. She said some of the people are ‘scary’ and anyway, she’ll be out before we know it. She’s just got to work . . . really hard and . . . not mess up.”

  Tony talked like he was the grown-up, like his mom was the kid. “It’s real easy to mess up, that’s the problem. You think you’ve got yourself cured, and then your brain plays tricks on you, pulls you right back.” He shrugged. “That’s what my mom says anyway.”

  “I guess being around my mom is pretty different,” I said.

  I saw a slight smile appear on Tony’s face. “You can say that again. They’re different as night and day.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “It’s just different.”

  I kicked my legs out from under my covers. I didn’t feel like lying around in bed any longer. I didn’t feel very sick. But Mom had already called in to the school, and Tony wasn’t going back today. I looked at my clock. It was only 11:30.

  “Hey,” I said. I couldn’t believe I was saying this. “Do you want to help me paint a bookcase?”

  Watching Paint Dry

  Tony was a pro with the primer. I admired the way he made clean, careful strokes with his paintbrush. Most kids would just make a mess of things. Come to think of it, most kids wouldn’t even know what primer is.

  We took turns dipping our brushes into the can. “Where’d you learn how to paint?” I asked.

  “My mom’s boyfriend.”

  For a second, my dad’s face flashed into my head, but he couldn’t have meant him. They’d just met. Then I had another thought. Had Tony’s mom considered my dad to be her boyfriend once? What had Dad thought? Thinking about it felt really gross.

  “Hey, watch what you’re doing,” Tony said.

  A big white dollop of primer plopped from my brush onto the tarp.

  “Oops!” I said. I was normally much more careful.

  Tony went on. “She was dating this guy with a house painting business, and I worked for him in the summer.”

  “That must have been kind of fun,” I said. I was picturing him out in the sunshine, building some arm muscles, daydreaming while he worked.

  “Fun?”
Tony said. “No. Not fun. Not unless you like to get up at the crack of dawn, and stand on a ladder in the boiling-hot sun while some hairy guy yells at you to work faster.” He stopped, his brush hovering for a minute like he was remembering something. “You know, he didn’t even pay me. He said me and my mom were costing him a ‘load of money,’ and I had to ‘earn my keep.’”

  “Is he . . . at your house?” I asked. “I mean, you know, while your mom is in the rehab place?”

  Tony laughed. “No, that guy is long gone.”

  He carefully removed the shelves from the bookcase so he could paint behind them. I took them into the cool garage and got out my sandpaper. “Long gone,” I heard him say again, and then he whistled, a low, descending note, like the sound when you lose all your lives in an arcade game.

  The primer stuck better if you roughed up the wood first with sandpaper. I went over all the surfaces a few times, watching the little pile of dust accumulate. Out in the driveway, the sun beat down on Tony. I saw him catch a white drip off a corner of the bookcase with his brush. He wiped the bristles across the top of the can.

  He’d taken off his troublemaking T-shirt, and I could see the tan lines on his arms. He had the same shape as my dad, though skinnier, too skinny. Dad said he hadn’t been eating all that well at home, but he was sure eating here. Two servings at dinner, sometimes three, so maybe he’d fatten up a little bit.

  “Why don’t we move that into the garage, where it’s cooler?”

  “I’m almost done,” he answered, “then we can eat lunch.”

  Oh yeah, lunch. I’d forgotten about that. I suddenly had a great idea. “I’ll make us a picnic!” I said.

  I wiped the sawdust off the shelves and primed them. It didn’t take long. Primer didn’t have to be perfect. When I finished, I went into the house to gather some food and a blanket, and when I came back out, Tony was washing up at the spigot.