As If Being 12 3/4 Isn't Bad Enough, My Mother Is Running for President!

by Donna Gephart

  When the car stops, I see reporters near the school’s rear entrance. I reach for the door handle, then remember the rule: Never get out of the car when it stops. That is the time you are most vulnerable. Wait until the area is secured. Someone will open the door and get you out.

  And that’s exactly what happens. Mr. Martinez opens my door and offers me his hand. Such a gentleman. Then he yanks me out and rushes me to school. Reporters call my name and snap photos.

  I can’t put up with this for ten more months. Maybe the voters won’t like that Mom fell and will stop voting for her in the primaries. Then life can get back to normal. This thought makes me smile, and as I do, someone snaps my photo. Finally, a photo where I look happy.

  Inside school, I open my locker and am shocked to see another envelope with a heart over the a in my name. Because of Mom’s accident this morning, I’d completely forgotten about having a secret admirer. But apparently my secret admirer hasn’t forgotten about me. I shove the envelope into my backpack, feeling better than I have all morning.

  Fortunately, during advisory, Mr. Applebaum is furiously writing something at his desk, completely oblivious to the class, so I have plenty of time to open my envelope and linger over the card inside.

  Vanessa,

  How do I like thee? Let me count the ways.

  1. You’re funny.

  2. You’re smart.

  3. You’re not bad at art.

  Yes, I am. Once I drew a picture of a penguin and Mom said it was an excellent rendering of a Dalmatian.

  4. You’re great at smelling, oops, selling, um, spelling.

  5. Your eyes are fine.

  I notice “fine boobs” is nowhere on the list. Whatever!

  6. The purple clothes you wear are divine.

  Very funny.

  7. I’d like to hold your hand in mine.

  OHMYGOD!

  I glance at Reginald and blush fiercely. He wants to hold my hand? Reginald pretends to do homework at his desk. He’s probably too embarrassed to look at me. I had no idea he could write poetry like this. The only time I heard Mrs. Durlofsky compliment his poetry was after I helped him write the one about winning a basketball game. That boy’s got more depth to his soul than I ever imagined.

  I reread the poem throughout advisory. My cheeks get warm every time. But by the middle of first period, the glow of the card has worn off and I’m worried about Mom again. Maybe her fall was God’s way of telling her to drop out of the race. She should listen to God. What if something worse happens? She should stop this campaign stuff and come home. Why does she need a whole country to run? I’ve got enough going on in my pathetic life to keep her busy for at least the next four years!

  I tap my pencil eraser against my lips. Maybe, if I were lucky enough to contract some horrid disease, Mom would drop out of the campaign to take care of me. Nothing too ghastly, of course, because I’m not good at dealing with pain or swallowing pills.

  I think of the medical terms I’ve been studying for the bee. Maybe a simple case of hypothermia (Hypothermia. H-Y-P-O-T-H-E-R-M-I-A. Hypothermia.) would do the trick. I snort. As if I could actually be stricken with hypothermia in Florida!

  I spend the rest of the day alternating between obsessing about my secret admirer and coming up with a disease I could get that’s bad enough to make Mom stop campaigning but not bad enough to kill me. There’s got to be something. Maybe impetigo. (Impetigo. I-M-P-E-T-I-G-O. Impetigo.) I’d have unsightly skin lesions and be highly contagious. Mom could catch it…if she was ever home long enough to catch it.

  But as much as I want Mom home with me, I know this campaign means the world to her. She’s told me the story of Victoria Woodhull a dozen times. Woodhull was the first woman to run for president of the United States, fifty years before women were even allowed to vote! How cool is that? Obviously, she didn’t win. But when Mom was ten and read a book about Victoria Woodhull, she decided she wanted to be president. That’s a long time to know what you want. The only things I’ve wanted since I was ten are boobs.

  Who am I to stand in the way of Mom’s lifelong dream?

  Coach Conner barking instructions in P.E. snaps me back to reality, and I don’t like what I see.

  The horse is set up in the middle of the gymnasium with thick blue mats beneath it.

  Not a real horse. The kind with two handles on top that I’m supposed to grab as I leap over. As if! I have enough trouble leaping over carpet fibers and dust particles without tripping and falling flat on my face. Not everyone is on steroids, you know, Coach Conner!

  There are two people in front of me before it’s my turn to run and jump over the ridiculously high apparatus.

  I groan my disappointment when Josh Friedman runs, leaps, and easily clears the horse. I hope those mats are soft. The next person, the one who will jump before me, is Michael Dumas. And unless he takes forty minutes to run and jump, I’ll be forced to take my turn. It’s not that I don’t like Michael, but right now, I hope he stumbles and breaks the horse so badly we’ll be forced to switch to badminton.

  OHMYGOD! Michael Dumas’s skinny legs don’t even touch the horse as he leaps over to the other side. Thanks a lot, Michael!

  Since Michael is on the other side, there’s nobody standing between me and that horse. Even Mr. Martinez is stationed by the far wall, not doing a single thing to protect me from the upcoming humiliation.

  “Run and jump over that horse!” Coach Conner barks.

  What if I get hurt? Look what happened to Mom this morning. I could seriously injure myself. Then Mom will have to take time off from the campaign and—

  “Run, Rothrock!”

  I charge toward the horse, grab the handles, and stop.

  “Rothrock!” Coach Conner shouts, coming closer and slapping his clipboard. I see Mr. Martinez take a step toward us, and am grateful. I wonder if Mr. Martinez could take Coach Conner. Coach is pretty muscular. But Mr. Martinez probably knows martial arts and stuff. Besides, he’s got one thing Coach Conner doesn’t have: a gun.

  “Rothrock?”

  The class’s laughter tells me three things:

  1. Coach Conner has been talking and I haven’t been listening.

  2. I’m making a complete idiot of myself in front of the entire class.

  3. P.E. should be illegal in Florida, if not in all fifty states and Samoa.

  “Can we try that again?” Coach Conner asks, looking directly at me. Then his voice escalates. “And this time actually jump over the horse!”

  I’m not sure whose face is redder—his or mine. Kids laugh behind me. I glance at the clock near Mr. Martinez and will time to magically shoot forward so that this torture will end and I can go home to the Purple Palace and a nice warm lemon square. I can almost taste sour lemon on my tongue when—

  “Rothrock!” Coach Conner drums his fat fingers on his clipboard and says, in a singsong voice, “Can we do this before, oh, I don’t know, Election Day?”

  Election Day? My stomach tightens. What do you mean by that, you Neanderthal? Wait. You’re not a Neanderthal. You’re a…you’re a…Republican. I knew it! That’s what this is all about. I grind my heels into the mat. I look at the horse. It’s not so high. I can do it. This is for you, Mom.

  I run forward, feet pounding, arms pumping. I see Michael on the other side of the horse. Since he went before me, he’s my spotter. His arms are extended and his eyes are hopeful.

  If I hurt myself, Mom will have to take time off from the campaign—

  I grab the handles, lean my weight on my right arm, and sail upward, throwing my legs over the left side. I’m doing it!

  My size gigantic foot catches on the end of the horse and I tumble forward. Fortunately, my head breaks my fall. Actually, my left arm breaks my fall. And when it does, I hear a loud snap. Pain shoots from my wrist. “Aaaah!”

  Michael stares at me, his arms still outstretched as if to catch me.

  I look down, tears welling in my eyes. I am a puddle of pain an
d humiliation.

  “Good thing the mat was there, huh, Rothrock?” Coach Conner laughs. “You’re okay, right?”

  I look up and grimace, afraid to jar my arm. I can’t stop tears from flowing; I’ve never felt physical pain like this before.

  Michael Dumas kneels before me and touches my left hand so gently it feels like a butterfly landed. I look into Michael’s eyes, and for the first time since kindergarten, I notice they’re a gorgeous shade of green, like the emerald in Grandma’s favorite necklace.

  Michael steps back, and Coach Conner grabs my left arm above the elbow and shakes it as though he’s trying to dislodge my hand from my wrist. “Arm okay, right, Rothrock? Just shake it out.”

  “Aaaargh!” Tears stream down my cheeks. I see flashes of light and feel like I’m going to faint.

  “Stop!” Michael screams. “You’re hurting her.”

  I see panic in Coach’s eyes. “Your arm’s okay, right, Rothrock?”

  My arm is definitely not okay, you…you…you Republican!

  Mr. Martinez charges forward and knocks Coach Conner away from me. Kids gasp. Coach lies on the mat, stunned and red-faced.

  Mr. Martinez gently puts his arm around my shoulders and whispers, “Can you stand?”

  I nod, shaking tears onto the mat.

  “Okay, we’re going to stand,” Mr. Martinez says. “Slowly.”

  I do and my wrist explodes with pain. I can’t believe anything can hurt so much. I’m panicked that the thing poking from beneath my red, swollen skin is my bone.

  As Mr. Martinez and I walk toward the door, I look back and see Coach Conner stumble to his feet. Most of the kids stare in my direction. In the quiet of the gym, I hear a basketball bouncing on the wood floor. Reginald Trumball, love of my pathetic life, is at the far end of the gym shooting baskets while I’m cradling what is sure to be a broken wrist.

  “Good luck, Vanessa.”

  I turn toward the voice. Michael Dumas waves with one hand, the other pressed to his mouth.

  The eight most horrible things about being in the emergency room:

  1. I’m still wearing my embarrassing P.E. T-shirt and shorts. As bad as they are, they’re preferable to the peekaboo-view hospital gown a male nurse offered me. As if!

  2. My wrist really hurts.

  3. It smells like alcohol in here—the kind rubbed on your skin before you get a needle. And even though I hate getting needles, that would be way less painful than how my wrist feels.

  4. Did I mention how much my wrist hurts?

  5. Even though the administrator of the hospital came to see me, no one gave me anything for pain until Mom could be reached. And that took nearly forty-five minutes. She was meeting with the mayor of Cincinnati or something. File that under neglect!

  6. Even with pain medicine, my wrist still hurts.

  7. Some inebriated (Inebriated. I-N-E-B-R-I-A-T-E-D. Inebriated.) guy on a gurney just rolled by. He smelled like alcohol, but not the stick-a-needle-in-your-arm variety. He was singing “Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?” and his hospital gown flopped open. Mr. Martinez shut the curtain around my bed in a big hurry, but not before I got a full view of the guy’s hairy you-know-what!

  But the most horrible thing about being in the emergency room is…

  8. I’m completely surrounded by people, but not one of them is my mom.

  “She’s on her way,” Mr. Adams assures me. Then he mutters, “This has certainly been a day for accidents.”

  Grandma looks positively pale as the orthopedist sets my bone. I scream. It hurts worse than breaking it in the first place. He slips a cotton glove with the fingers cut off on my hand and positions my fingers downward. While he takes a fiberglass cast out of a plastic bag and runs it under water before putting it on, I keep expecting to see Mom walk in, but she never does.

  There’s one positive thing, though. I get to choose the color of my cast: blue, green, pink, or purple. I choose purple. It will match all my clothes.

  Back home, Grandma piles pillows for me to rest my broken wrist on. I have to elevate it above my heart. My hand is swelling and I’m afraid the cast is going to explode. I try to wiggle my fingers, but they’re fat and stiff.

  Mrs. Perez brings me a tray with a flexible ice pack to wrap around my cast, a bowl of chicken soup, and a warm lemon square. I’m starving, but I feel nauseated. Probably from taking pain pills on an empty stomach. I manage a few sips of soup, glad I didn’t break my right arm. How would I eat? Write? Study?

  Study! I need to focus on studying for the County Bee. OHMYGOD! How am I going to concentrate with this thing on my arm for eight to ten weeks? My panic subsides slightly when I realize I learned some new spelling words today:

  1. R-A-D-I-U-S—the bone I broke on the far side of my wrist.

  2. E-D-E-M-A—a fancy word for swelling, which my arm is doing like crazy underneath my cast.

  3. I-N-E-B-R-I-A-T-E-D—the guy who rolled by on the gurney.

  Mrs. Perez stands, wringing her hands, while Grandma sits on the edge of my bed. “Can I get you anything, dear?” Grandma asks. “More pillows? Is the pain medication working? Do you need—”

  My door bursts open.

  “Nessa!”

  I’m so startled I upend the tray with my good arm. Warm soup soaks through my pajama bottoms. Could this day get any worse?

  I’m prepared to be angry with Mom. How could she have been unavailable when I needed her most?

  But the instant Mom gasps at my cast, rushes over, and kisses my forehead, I’m toast. All I want is to be alone with her. I’m sorry it took breaking my wrist to get her back, but I’m glad she’s here.

  Both Mrs. Perez and Grandma wipe at my pajama bottoms with tissues. So, instead of chicken-soup-soaked pajamas, I have chicken-soup-soaked pajamas with bits of blue tissue stuck to them. I look at Mom, pleading with my eyes.

  Mom kisses Grandma on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom. You were a lifesaver today.” Then she looks at Mrs. Perez. “Gloria, I really appreciate all you did today, but I’ll take it from here.”

  Mrs. Perez gives a little nod, grabs the tray, and leaves.

  Grandma kisses my forehead, looks at me with pity, and says to Mom, “I’ll call you, Elyssa.” From the doorway, she throws me a kiss. “Elevate, dear. Elevate.”

  If I raise my arm any higher, every teacher within a three-mile radius will call on me.

  As soon as my bedroom door closes and I’m alone with Mom, I weep. I weep because my wrist is swollen and painful. I weep because my pajamas are soaked with chicken soup. But mostly I weep because Mom is finally here.

  “Pain?” Mom asks.

  I nod because I can’t explain all my feelings. Mom hands me tissues and lets me cry until I can’t anymore.

  “Better?”

  I nod. “Except that I smell like a bowl of chicken soup.”

  Mom and I both laugh.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she says. “Can you walk?”

  “I broke my radius, not my femur,” I say, attempting humor. But the minute I move my arm, pain blindsides me and I don’t feel the least bit funny.

  “Let me get you a pill,” Mom says.

  I close my eyes and nod. “Bathroom. Medicine cabinet.” I’m already sick to my stomach, and don’t want to take another pill without eating something, so I take a bite of the lemon square.

  Mom returns with a pill in her palm. One dry pill. Doesn’t she remember I hate taking pills? That she used to put medicine in a bowl of applesauce for me when I was younger? It took a dozen gulps of ginger ale for me to swallow the pill in the hospital, and even then it got stuck.

  I think of how much I needed Mom today when she wasn’t there. Anger bubbles inside me and I blurt, “Where were you today?”

  “Oh, Nessa.” She smooths my unsmoothable hair. “You know I was campaigning and—”

  “You should have—” I choke on a bit of sour lemon square. I’m coughing, but want to tell Mom I was scared
when I heard my wrist snap. I think of the smells and sights in the emergency room. “You should have been with me. I needed you, and you weren’t there.” I realize I sound whiny, but don’t care.

  Mom takes a deep breath. “Vanessa, please take this pill. The pain is probably getting to you.” She grips the elbow of my good arm. “And we’ll—”

  I jerk away from her, accidentally knocking the pill out of her hand and banging the back of my head on the headboard. “Just go,” I say, rubbing my head. When my throat gets tight and tears gather on my lower lids, I turn my head away.

  “Vanessa, I can’t help you if—”

  “Don’t,” I say. My skin is wet and cold, and I know I’m going to start sobbing any minute. “I don’t want your help.”

  “Vanessa, at least turn around and look at me.”

  I refuse to turn my head, not to be defiant, but because I don’t want to cry in front of Mom right now.

  “I flew all the way back here so that I could…Oh, never mind!”

  I hear my bedroom door slam. And my tears begin to flow.

  Changing out of soaked pajamas while wearing a cast is almost as challenging as replacing chicken-soup-splattered sheets with fresh ones while wearing a cast. As soon as I secure one corner of the sheet, the other pops off. And it’s especially daunting because every movement sends pain shooting through my arm.

  By the time I climb back into bed in dry pajamas, I’m so exhausted that I elevate my arm and immediately fall asleep.

  A couple of hours later, I bolt awake, spelling “assassination.”

  My dream was horrible. I was onstage at the bee, but it wasn’t the bee. It was Mr. Applebaum’s classroom and everybody was there—Reginald, Michael Dumas, Mr. Martinez, Coach Conner, Grandma, and Daddy.

  Acting like a robot, Mr. Applebaum said, “Vanessa, your word is ‘assassination.’”

  In my dream, I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I’d gotten up to “A-s-s” when I searched the audience for Mom and realized she wasn’t there. I panicked and messed up my word, saying nonsense letters like “m-n-o-p” and “x-y-z” and “t-t-f-n.”