Tune It Out

by Jamie Sumner

  The dryer switches cycles under my legs, and I miss the nights with Mom at the Laundromat. The rumbling and whirring noises were soothing, and it was always warm in the winter. Also, nobody talks to anybody. You come to clean your clothes, not socialize.

  Mom would read or do a puzzle from her jumbo sudoku book, and I’d listen to music on our portable CD player and make towers out of the quarters we kept in a ziplock baggie labeled Clean Me Fund. When I was really little, I’d burrow under the still-warm clothes Mom dumped back in the laundry basket. I smelled like lavender fabric softener the rest of the day.

  Ginger comes in now and hops up next to me. It takes her a few tries to do it. It’s eight o’clock on Thursday night, but she just got home. Apparently, estate law is a needy business with needy people who keep you on call just to answer questions like, Is the plane privately owned or part of the company’s assets? And if it is part of the company’s assets, Does that mean I shouldn’t have used it to fly my son to his college visit at Princeton? Seriously. That call had Ginger out the door at six this morning.

  She hands me a half-opened package of the pink animal crackers and takes a handful for herself.

  “Did you get dinner?” she asks, letting her high heels slide off and fall to the floor.

  “Yeah. Dan picked up Chinese.”

  “Good.”

  She closes her eyes and leans back. The vibration of the machine makes her shoulders shake, and she smiles. “You know, your mom and I used to do this too. We’d sit on the dryer and trade Baby-Sitters Club books until your grandma shooed us off.”

  “Mom never told me that,” I say, and feel another frizzle of anger. The more I learn about Mom, the less I understand her.

  “Your grandma wasn’t all bad. She made the best blackberry cobbler I have ever eaten.” Ginger sighs and bites into an animal cracker. “I think,” she says, pausing to chew, “she just didn’t know what to do with us. She expected we’d stay close, get jobs like hers working at the Burlington Coat Factory. When I got a scholarship, she said college was ‘above my station,’ and if I went, I shouldn’t come back to rub their noses in it.” She shakes her head. “I tried once, you know, to go see them my senior year. Their car was parked out back, and I saw the curtains move when I knocked. But they never answered the door.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  She rubs the back of her neck, then rolls down the top of the package of animal crackers in tiny, perfect folds.

  “That’s just them.”

  That doesn’t sound like much of an excuse to me. I think about Mom not even calling and thump the dryer with my heel.

  “You know, your grandpa was on disability the whole time we were growing up. He injured his back on a construction job. When they found out your mom was pregnant, they lost it. If I was above my station, well, Jill had sunk too far below. They said they couldn’t possibly take on another mouth to feed and she’d have to get a job with your grandma if she wanted the two of you to stay. So Jill left.”

  Wait. What? Mom always told me she’d been kicked out. If what Ginger just said is true, then this means she had a choice. She chose to leave. She chose to keep us separate and not let me meet my grandparents, however awful they might be. Or Ginger. All those places. All those schools I never got to finish. She always chose to leave. I bang my heels against the dryer, this time hard enough to sting. But it’s not hard enough to make the hurt go away.

  “You don’t have to do that, you know?” Ginger says, and I jump. I forgot she was there.

  “Do what?”

  “Your laundry. Just leave it in the basket, and I can take care of it.”

  “It’s okay. I like to do it.”

  “All right, then.” Ginger smiles and hops down. “I’m off to eat some cold beef and broccoli.”

  A few minutes later, the dryer buzzes, and I pull out my old jeans and new school shirts. There have been about a hundred times in the week, when my phone lights up with a text from Well or I wake up in my blue room or I swipe my student card in the vending machine to get a Twix, not because I’m starving, but just because I can, that I think about how different my life is now than it was in Tahoe. But even with all the new stuff and friends and family, I still would have chosen to go back to Mom. Now, after what Ginger just told me, I’m not so sure.

  * * *

  Friday morning is rainy and cold. The kind of cold that slinks down your jacket collar and settles into your skin. It’s been one week. One week of Chickering Academy and uniforms and algebra equations and English with Dan, where I have to call him Mr. Latimer, and theater with Mrs. Nicky, which, luckily for me, isn’t all like Monday’s class. There’s book work too. We’re in the history of vaudeville right now.

  But today I have to meet with Andrea again. She wants to talk about the questionnaire. Dan leaves me at her door at seven fifteen. We have half an hour for her to talk at me and me to stare at the floor. I don’t want to know what my answers to her questions mean. If I don’t know, whatever it is can’t be true.

  “Lou, come in! Come in!” Andrea chirps. With her hair down, it’s almost as long as mine. She’s wearing a denim dress and scuffed boots. Mom would approve. “Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Water?” she asks.

  She doesn’t mention coffee. I wonder what age I have to be for it to be acceptable to be offered coffee? I miss Joe. But at least her office is warm, and there’s a candle lit. I sniff. Lavender. It’s supposed to be calming, but it’s not doing the trick. Whatever the answers to those questions were supposed to be, I marked them wrong. And this is how she’s going to break it to me. With tea and lavender.

  “Lou, I’ve had a chance to look at the questionnaire you filled out for me on Monday.”

  “I failed, right?”

  “What? No, honey. This isn’t about passing or failing. And your teachers say you’ve been doing excellent work in class. We’re just gathering data. That’s all this is.”

  “But…”

  “No ‘but.’ This is an ‘and’ conversation. And, based on the questionnaire, it seems that certain situations trigger some anxiety in you. And that’s what we’re here to talk about.” She leans back in her chair, picks up her own cup of tea, and smiles. Like everything’s all good.

  I remember the whispers of those teachers in fourth grade and feel ten all over again. I’ve been doing really well so far. I finish my homework and eat lunch with Well and Tucker and Jacob and Geneva. I even spoke during class discussion in Dan’s class, though I didn’t want to. But none of it matters. “Let me guess. I’m ‘on the spectrum,’ ” I say, using air quotes.

  “You mean are you autistic? No, not necessarily.” Andrea puts her cup down and pauses to push up her glasses. “Lou, you can’t determine that from one test. You would need to meet with a pediatrician and therapist, be observed by your teachers and family, take some other, different kinds of tests in our learning center. All that would need to happen before any official diagnosis.”

  I slump back in my chair. I am one part relieved and one part super confused. So what does this mean? Something’s wrong, but it’s not what they thought? Is this worse? Is it worse to have something nobody understands? I tug at the ends of my hair. They’re wet from the rain. I find a knot and yank.

  “So, is there a name for it? Whatever your questionnaire was asking about?”

  Andrea takes a second before she answers. I’ve noticed this about her. She’s never in a rush to fill in silences, unlike Mom, who can’t stand the quiet, even for one second.

  “Well, there are different forms, and no two cases look the same, but yes, from what I’ve seen as an occupational therapist and what you’ve answered on the questionnaire, I’d say you have a sensory processing disorder. SPD. And if you give me your pediatrician’s contact information, I’d like to put a call in to him or her to work on getting you an appointment set up with a practicing occupational therapist. Then, if they agree that this is in fact SPD, we can start building a good le
arning plan.”

  I yank at the knot in my hair again. Sensory. Processing. Disorder. SPD. SPD. SPD. SPDSPDSPDSPDSPD, I say over and over in my head until it stops making sense. Because it doesn’t make sense. I’ve been here a week, and they already want to “fix” me. Mom wouldn’t tolerate it.

  “I don’t want a plan,” I say, and twist my skirt in my hands. It’s not as itchy now that I doused it in fabric softener and washed it ten times.

  “Okay.” Andrea sips her tea. “Why not?”

  “This is dumb. You just said I’m doing fine in school, excellent even.” I pause to channel my inner Mom. “I don’t want you to tell my teachers that I have some disorder,” I say, and add to myself, Because teachers are terrible at keeping secrets and I finally have friends for the first time in my life and I’d like to keep it that way.

  “Lou, this is not as uncommon as you think. Five to fifteen percent of kids have some form of a sensory processing disorder.” She’s trying to make this no big deal, like how people talk about having ADHD. But I’ve seen the kids who really have ADHD. I’ve seen what it’s like for them when they forget their meds. It’s a huge deal.

  I shake my head.

  Andrea puts her tea down. “But, Lou, what happens at the pep rallies? The cheering, the yelling… the blowing horns? What happens in science class when you have to stand shoulder to shoulder with your lab partner and do an experiment? What happens in the dining hall if the checkout line gets jammed, and everyone’s jostling to pay?” She pauses. “What happens then?”

  I sit back in the chair and close my eyes. Every one of those scenarios is my worst nightmare, and Andrea knows it. She keeps talking.

  “No one is doubting that you have done an excellent job coping all these years. But, Lou, not everything has to be so hard. My job is to help you get the most out of your educational experience. We can make accommodations. We can make it easier.”

  You are a fighter. I hear Mom’s words again like she’s right here. I think of Well and sharing headphones on the wet grass. Of dancing to the blues with Mrs. Nicky. Of sitting on the dryer eating cookies with Ginger. The minute I let Andrea tell everyone about this, it’ll all be over. I’ll be the “special-needs kid.” The kid with the disorder. My chance at normal will disappear. Fighters keep fighting.

  I open my eyes and sit up.

  “I don’t want a plan.”

  * * *

  Melissa, the caseworker, is standing next to her motorcycle, waiting for our end of the week check-in when Dan pulls down the drive this afternoon. I go straight up to my room without looking at her. This day has been a boatload of badness. After my meeting with Andrea, we had a memory exercise in theater. Mrs. Nicky made us close our eyes and sniff different things to see what it made us remember. She said smell is the number one sense linked to memory.

  We had to smell damp leaves, a spotty banana, and a leather shoe. Big deal. But then she passed around a box filled with coins. Most people don’t realize money has a smell, but it does. The minute I breathed in the flat, metallic scent, I saw myself squatting in front of the guitar case in Lexington, Conway, Biloxi, Tahoe, and a dozen other cities, separating nickels and dimes and quarters. I could feel the baggie that held the quarters for our laundry fund. Someone gave us a two-dollar coin once and I wanted to save it, but Mom said we needed it for gas money. Your hands smell after you handle money too, the same stink as the hangers at Goodwill. I bet nobody in all of Chickering Academy knows that smell. When the bell rang at the end of class, I walked out without looking at anybody.

  Ginger calls from the bottom of the stairs. I take a deep breath and peer out over the landing. They all look up at me from the sofa. Ginger must have taken off work early. I know Dan’s skipping his own tennis practice. This is a big meeting. I want to climb out my window and hide on the roof.

  “Long time no see,” Melissa says when I come in after walking as slowly as possible down the stairs. I am aiming at slothlike speed. She’s in all black again. I wonder if she owns anything else.

  I sit down next to Ginger. This is just another test.

  “I spoke with your school today. Seems like things are off to a good start?”

  She wants me to elaborate. I don’t.

  “Yes, Lou’s doing great in my class,” Dan says, sounding way too chipper. “We haven’t started essay work yet, but she’s a great contributor to group discussion.” This is not entirely true. I said one sentence about The Giver, and it’s because Dan asked me a direct question.

  “And friends?” Melissa asks, ignoring Dan and looking only at me. “If I can think all the way back to middle school, I remember the social dynamic can be a bit… brutal.”

  I blink back at her like I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “She’s taking theater!” Ginger says too loudly. “Her new friend Maxwell is in most of her classes, and he’s introduced her to the theater crowd. Right, Lou?”

  I nod.

  Melissa raises an eyebrow at me and writes something down. And then the silence stretches into minutes that feel like years.

  “When can I see my mom?” I want to ask her about this SPD stuff. I want to know if any other teacher ever mentioned it and she never told me. I want to know what else she’s never said.

  I see Dan put an arm around Ginger.

  Melissa clicks her pen. “Well, Lou, that depends on her and on you. She’s got to prove herself able to support the two of you—get a steady job and a permanent living situation. If she can do that, she’ll petition the court to be granted full custody again. But,” she says in a way that makes me think whatever’s coming next is really what she came here to say, “the judge will also ask you what you want before a final decision is made. So, you need to think on that. Would you want to stay here with your aunt and uncle, assuming they are willing to take on physical and financial responsibility? Or do you want to move back in with your mom?”

  How can she ask me that? I’ve only been here a week. I sneak a look at Ginger. She’s picking at the seam in her skirt just like I do. I have no idea what she’s thinking. I have no idea what I’m thinking, other than that I want answers.

  “But this was not your question,” Melissa continues. “Your question was when can you see her, and that, really, is up to Maria and child services in California. Once they file the report on their end, we can arrange a meeting. And I promise to let you know as soon as I do when that is. Okay?”

  I think I nod. I don’t hear anything she says after that. It all sounds impossibly formal and complicated. Everything is so complicated. She hands Dan and Ginger a pamphlet titled, “Resources for Kinship Caregivers” on her way out.

  We eat an early dinner. No one talks much. I catch Ginger eyeing the pamphlet on the kitchen counter. They invite me to watch a movie with them, one of the Star Wars, but I claim homework. “On a Friday night?” Dan says, but they let me go. It’s been a long week for all of us.

  Once I’m in my room, I turn off all the lights and curl up on the reading chair. The moonlight draws stripy patterns across my feet. I pull up Spotify on my phone. Already the iPod is “old school,” as Well put it. I scroll through his “Suzy Lee playlist,” because he decided I needed a soundtrack. I hit play on Lenka’s “Everything’s Okay.” It’s a beautiful song. Piano and claps and hope. I sing to myself and reach a hand down to Mom’s guitar, but I don’t pick it up.

  I think about who I need. Is it Mom or Maria or Ginger or Dan or Melissa or Well or any of the people I’ve had to rely on in the past week? If I had to pick, who couldn’t I live without? I rub my eyes and picture Mom in Tahoe on Amelie’s couch. Has she picked up the phone and put it down again a million times like I have? Or is she just happy to be free, not missing me at all?

  * * *

  Something wakes me. A clink-clinking. I’d been dreaming of Tahoe, of that time when we went swimming in the cold waters of the lake. The sky was a cloudless blue, and I could smell the coffee from Joe’s. We’d sprawled on
the sun-warmed pier to dry off. Mom lifted her sunglasses and tucked a wet piece of hair behind my ear. “Today we are mermaids,” she whispered.

  Clink-clink. It chases the dream away. I sit up. My neck is stiff from falling asleep crooked against the window. There it is again. Clink-clink. Pause. Clink-clink-clink.

  I check my phone. It’s two a.m.

  Clink.

  It’s coming from outside.

  I scooch down in the reading chair so only my head sticks up enough to give me a view of the patio.

  Clink-clink.

  There’s Well in the moonlight, crouched like a burglar in a black hoodie on the edge of the fire pit. I throw my sweatshirt over my pajamas and tiptoe down the stairs. The French doors aren’t locked. I roll my eyes. Only in suburbia would you leave your doors unlocked. I slip out into the night.

  “What are you doing here?” I whisper when I reach him, even though there’s no way Ginger and Dan could hear me from the far reaches of their bedroom. Well hops down and props his feet up on a lounge chair. He’s wearing glow-in-the-dark Skechers.

  “I’m coming to rescue you.”

  “From?”

  “Yourself, dearie.”

  “What makes you think I need rescuing?” I tuck my hands inside my sleeves. It’s freezing out here. The weather changed with the rain. Was my talk with Andrea just this morning? It feels like years and years ago.