Piper touches my arm. “Do you remember me?”
“No, but I remember somebody singing to me.”
Actually, I don’t remember that, but I figure it was nice of her to sing to me.
“Really?” she says. “You were in a coma, but I felt like you could hear me. Just knowing you could hear me makes my day.”
Luna says she’s starved and is getting some food. She walks away.
“Nice to meet you,” I tell Piper, Jasmine, and Gerald.
“Where are you going?” Piper asks.
“For food,” I say with a smile.
At the kitchen table I get a small plate of sausage balls, cheese, crackers, and brownies. Luna’s acting like I’m not in the room. I follow her outside and sit at a table by the pool.
“You can be with Piper if you want to,” Luna says. “She likes you.”
“Why would I want to be with Piper?” I ask.
“Having a girlfriend is on your bucket list,” Luna says.
“She’s a few years older than me,” I say. “And I’d rather hang out with you unless you’re waiting for Gerald. I think he likes you.”
“He likes me for my sofa,” Luna says.
I see a guy staggering around the pool. “He’s going to fall in.”
Luna turns her head. “Jasmine’s boyfriend, Lucas,” she says. “I predict before the night’s over, Jasmine will dump him.”
I kind of feel sorry for Lucas.
“She probably is with another guy right now,” Luna says. “Or else they would be together.” She looks over at Lucas. “He’s not always like that.”
Lucas pushes a girl into the pool.
“Did you grow up here?” Luna says.
“Sort of. When I was six, my dad dropped me off at my grandparents’ and never came back. I haven’t seen my dad since then. I don’t remember my mom.”
Luna flinches. “I remember that finding them is on your bucket list.”
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“When?”
“When what?” I say.
“Are you going to look for them?”
“Maybe I’ll see my mother soon. I have to talk to a detective first.” I look at the pool. Lucas is dragging another girl toward the water. She’s laughing as he throws her in.
Luna looks me in the eyes. “What’s going on?” she asks.
“I have her address.” I look away, tapping the table. “She lives in North Carolina, but she doesn’t want to see me.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. I should’ve waited for you to tell me if you wanted me to know.”
“It’s okay.” I’m watching Lucas. “He’s coming this way. I bet you’re next to go into the water.”
“I just have a big mouth,” she says, not listening to me. “I didn’t mean—”
Lucas grabs her by the arm and pulls her toward the pool. She starts yelling, “Get your hands off me!”
I stand and knock my chair over.
When they’re at the edge, she somehow flips him into the water. He goes under, then surfaces and hangs on to the side. Luna comes back to the table.
Lucas climbs out of the pool and curses at Luna. He pulls his iPhone out of his pocket. “You have to pay for it,” he says.
“Leave her alone,” I say.
She turns around. “Moron.” She throws a sausage ball at him. It hits his chest and bounces onto the concrete. He picks it up and squashes it with his hand. He stomps toward us, eyeing me.
Is Luna crazy to be calling him a name? I want to
keep breathing.
She clutches my arm.
“We don’t want any trouble,” I say to Lucas.
Lucas gives me a look, and I take a step backward. I trip over the chair and fall. He grabs my neck and tries to stuff a sausage ball into my closed mouth. I smell grease and garlic, and I feel some grit. I never tried holding my breath this way before.
“Release him or I’ll sausage your balls,” Luna says. Of course she can talk and use non-verbs. I’m the one smothering.
A couple of guys pull his hands off my throat and drag him away. I stand up. Jasmine appears and starts cursing him. She tells him to pack his stuff or she’s calling the police.
Lucas starts crying.
“I should’ve just let him throw me into the pool,” Luna says and starts gasping. “He doesn’t deserve to be thrown out tonight.” She starts crying and places her hand on her chest. Gasping, she grabs on to me.
I help her to the chair and sit next to her.
“Try to take some deep breaths,” I say. “I’ll take care of you.”
I hold her wrist and check her pulse. It’s fast and faint. Her skin’s damp. I’m afraid something’s wrong with her heart. I know about heart attacks. When I was younger, I watched Grandpa have his last one.
Grandpa was slumped over in the kitchen floor and clutching his chest.
I called 911. A man answered. “What’s your emergency?”
“My grandpa is having a heart attack,” I said.
“Is he breathing?”
“He’s gasping, and his skin is wet and bluish.”
It took eight and a half minutes for help to arrive.
Luna’s pulse isn’t running away now, and it’s strong, but I hold on to her wrist to keep checking it. “You’ll be okay. Just stay still a few more minutes.”
“It’s nothing. I hurt my funny bone,” she says. “When he grabbed my arm, it hurt. And then the pain made my heart beat fast, and I felt nauseous for a minute. I’m fine now.”
I didn’t see her bump her elbow.
“I can’t take pain,” Luna says. “It kills me when I get a paper cut.”
I didn’t know paper cuts hurt. I’ve seen Nana suck her finger when she’s gotten one. I check my watch. I’ve been outside a half hour, and my body temperature’s normal.
“You are so sweet,” I hear. I turn my head and see Piper. “Protecting Luna like that.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I say.
“Lucas is such a loser,” Piper says.
I hate it when people are called names. “He was trying to fit in,” I say.
Piper laughs and walks away.
“Are you saying I shouldn’t have thrown him into the pool?” Luna says.
“No.”
“He’ll never fit in.”
“He shouldn’t have to try,” I say. “Jasmine is supposedly his girlfriend, but she wants to break up with him. She decides to use him so she’ll have a birthday party. That’s not right. She should’ve told him in the first place.” I shrug. “I didn’t see her with him at all earlier. Instead she was hanging out with her friends from work.”
We sit there for a while people-watching and talking about nothing in particular. Pretty soon, there are only a few couples left in the pool making out.
“I guess we’ll be heading in different directions about the same time if you decide to go to meet your mother,” she says.
“You’re definitely moving?”
“I have to go. I’ve quit my jobs. My apartment’s rented.”
“I have a crazy idea. What if we go to North Carolina together? I can leave anytime. We could go to the beach or to the mountains. Whatever you want to do.”
“I can’t,” she says.
“Okay,” I say.
The overhead lights start going out.
“I think that’s our hint it’s time to go.” Luna gazes at me. “Let’s go to your house, okay? Watch TV or something? But don’t get the wrong idea, okay? I don’t feel like going home yet, and I like talking to you. In a few days, I’ll be gone, and you’ll probably be headed to North Carolina.” She gives me a smile. “You should not miss an opportunity to meet your mother.”
Luna looks through the movies in the stud
y and chooses two: Garden State and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She says I should make the final choice. “We can watch both,” I say although I’d rather watch something like Indiana Jones. “Or we can find something new on cable.”
We watch a new movie. I don’t even know the name or who is in it. It’s a romance kind of like Romeo and Juliet, and the lovers both die at the end. Luna weeps. I don’t. I knew the ending at the beginning.
Then we decide to go outside to the pool.
I turn on the lights, and the wind’s making the water ripple. Luna heads back inside to get a blanket. The water looks so great that I jump in, swim a lap, and then dry with a towel. My clothes are dipping wet, but I’m not in the mood to change. The water might help keep my body temperature from going up. It’s fine right now. It’s only ninety-seven.
I’ve sat out here lots of nights when the sky was starry. That reminds me of the meteor shower I heard about on the news, but it’s not going to happen for a week. It has a name I don’t remember. Having Luna come over and watch it with me would be pretty great, but she’s going to be gone by then.
Watching meteors would be too sad to do alone. You’d think about them as falling stars, and of course you’d have to make a wish on every one of them, while knowing the whole wish-upon-a-star thing is a lie.
But I like to believe it’s true, just like I want to believe Pinocchio became a real boy.
“Hey,” Luna says. She has a blanket hanging over her arm, two drinks inside the blanket pressed against her chest, and a bowl of popcorn in her free hand. She sets the popcorn and drinks in the space between the lounge chairs, lies down, and covers up with the blanket.
It’s like I’m floating. I’m feeling great, but maybe I’ve been sniffing too much oxygen or nice-smelling hair.
Then we eat popcorn and watch the sky. We don’t talk. After a while I look over at Luna, and she’s asleep holding the empty bowl of popcorn. I take it and set it down. I think about waking her, but I don’t want her to go home.
I sit and wait for her to wake up.
But she doesn’t. She’s still sleeping. I touch her wrist with my hand.
“Don’t check my pulse,” she says.
Chapter 25
I’m dreaming and I missed all the good parts, or I’ve died and gone somewhere else. Water washes over me from my head to toes. I wipe my face and open my eyes. Luna’s shaking and holding a bucket.
I’m not dreaming. I’m still in the lounge chair by the pool. “What’s going on?” I ask.
“We fell asleep. You’ve been in the heat for hours, and you could be confused. It’s hot out here. Get into the water.”
But it’s dawn, and the normal July temperature at night is seventy-five degrees. Maybe I am confused. I mean, I never know. If a person could know, they’d start acting not confused. I get up and jump into the pool. My brain’s a little foggy, so I only hang on to the edge and go underwater a few times. Then I climb out and dry off.
I’m fine. “What time is it?” I ask.
“Six thirty.”
I smile at her. “Thanks for waking me,” I say.
“You’re okay?”
“Yes.”
“I overreacted.”
“Not really,” I say.
“That’s just great,” Luna says. She wheels around and picks up the empty drink cans, the empty popcorn bowl, and the blanket. She heads inside.
My grandmother would’ve been calling the paramedics, and Veronica would have been in the driveway waiting to wave them down. That’s overreacting.
I go into the kitchen. Luna’s not there, but I can hear water running. I go to my room, change into dry clothes, lie down, and fall asleep.
My watch beeps me awake.
I do my routine, and on the way to the kitchen I hear Veronica and Luna laughing.
“Hey,” I say, walking into the kitchen kind of wondering what Veronica thought when she arrived and Luna was here. I’m kind of embarrassed.
“I was telling Luna to always expect the unexpected around here.” Veronica smiles at Luna. “One morning when I came to work, the air-conditioning unit had quit working, and his grandmother hadn’t noticed. Temperature was over eighty,” she says. “David was practically in a coma. That was when he was much younger, and back then his temperature would spike quicker.”
“What did you do?” Luna asks.
“We threw David into the bathtub and called to have the air conditioner repaired.” Veronica laughs.
Luna cracks a smile.
“There is always something happening around here,” Veronica says.
Because Nana and Veronica would overreact, I think.
Veronica places her cup into the sink and turns toward me. “Let me know if your temperature gets above a hundred and two. I’ve got work to do.”
I check my watch. “My temperature’s only ninety-nine.” Actually my temperature is a couple of degrees higher, but it isn’t at the danger level. “I’m taking Luna to pick up her car. Is that fine with you?” I ask Veronica.
“If you’re sure you’re okay.”
“I am.”
A moment later, I hear the vacuum cleaner roar to life in another room.
Luna’s writing in a notebook.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Making a list of what’s dangerous for you.”
I grin. “Ironing boards,” I say.
“What?”
“Ironing boards. Have you ever read This Hurts?”
She shakes her head and keeps writing. I hope she’s not writing “ironing boards.”
“It’s a play about a guy who doesn’t feel pain. He keeps a list of what hurts. He’s sitting in a laundry room when he gets hit with an ironing board, and he adds that to his list. Then he has trouble deciding if ironing boards are dangerous or if he should only be afraid of them.” I shrug. “Anything can be dangerous to anybody.”
“This is documenting number of hours outside, your body temperature, and the outside temperature.”
“More research,” I say.
“You’ll be able to see on paper if you’re making progress. You need to keep track.”
I shrug. “I don’t want to. I rather not know,” I say.
“Let’s go pick up my car,” she says, sounding annoyed.
I get the car keys from the spider plant. I don’t know why I still keep them there.
On the way to the auto repair place, I’m trying to think of something we could do today. I wish we could go on a hike or rafting down the river.
We’re told the car won’t be ready for an hour. We sit shoulder to shoulder in plastic chairs in the auto-repair waiting room. I probably should’ve skipped a chair and sat in the next chair, but somebody was already in it. A country love song is playing on the radio. It’s about this guy who loved this girl until he died, but she never loved him back. You’d think she’d have cared a little. Lately I’ve been thinking it would be wondrous to be loved.
Luna gets paper from her notebook, and we play Hangman for a while.
Then she takes out a calendar and looks at it. From the look on her face, you’d think she was reading the worst book ever.
I stretch out my legs. Waiting in an auto repair shop and inhaling oily smells is better than I ever imagined it could be. There’s no place else I want to go, no other person I’d rather be with.
“What all are you having done to your car?” I ask.
She looks up from her notebook. “Just getting the radiator fixed. It’ll get me to where I’m going.”
“To the Magic Kingdom.”
“I haven’t decided yet. Have you ever been?”
“No.”
“It’s hot and crowded.”
“And magical.”
“It was when my parents took me years
ago,” she says. “They acted like little kids.”
“I’ll have to visit you.”
“Definitely, if I go there.”
Then my cell phone rings. “What’s taking you so long?” Veronica asks.
I sigh. “We have to wait for the car. It won’t be much longer.”
Sometimes it’s like I’m on a long rope, and it’s getting tighter around my neck.
“I’ve been worried to death,” Veronica says. “All you need to do is call me when you’re late and check in with me.” She’s out of breath.
This is how I know she cares. “Sorry,” I say. “I’ll be home soon.”
When Luna’s name is called, I go to the counter with her and offer to pay.
She shakes her head. “You are wonderful, but no thanks.”
It’s getting dark outside, and I’m sitting looking out the front window. There’s nothing moving around. I wish I could look out and see more.
Veronica left a few hours ago.
I asked Luna if she wanted to do something today, and she said she had to deep clean her apartment, paint, and fix some holes so she’d get her deposit back.
I go to the top of the stairs and slide down the banister like I used to do when I was a kid. It’s kinda fun. At the bottom I hear knocking. I tiptoe to the front door and look out the peephole, my heart pounding.
I see Cameron and open the door. He’s smiling, and Scruffy’s wagging his tail. “I have good news. Scruffy’s a certified service dog now, and I have a job at the pet store. I can take him to work with me.”
“That was quick,” I say.
“I hired a trainer for service dogs, and then Scruffy passed the test right away with flying colors. I’m here to take you out to celebrate at Maxwell’s Pub. It’s a hole in the wall, but the food is good.”
“That’s terrific,” I say.
“Spencer and Marcello are meeting us there,” he says. “I tried to call, but you didn’t answer.”
I check my pocket. “Be right back,” I say and head to the kitchen. My wallet and cell are on the counter where I left them.
I text Luna.
Going to Maxwell’s Pub. Want to meet me there?
At first, the hostess at the door says dogs aren’t allowed, but Cameron takes Scruffy’s certificate out of his pocket. The hostess reads it.
Painless Page 13