Everything Else in the Universe

by Tracy Holczer

  Lucy looked around at her family, soaked them all in like a roll in sauce and, for the first time, felt the tiniest thread of a connection. Because she loved them. Whatever their eccentricities, she loved them with every bit of her heart.

  * * *

  —

  It wouldn’t be a Rossi family party without the dancing. Of course, Lucy would rather have turned her eyelids inside out than dance in her rather uncoordinated fashion in front of Milo, but the choice was out of her hands. “North to Alaska” came over the speakers, and Josh waved at her from where he was sitting with Gia.

  “Come dance with me!” he shouted, and stood up to fetch her.

  Lucy could not help but be fetched by Josh. She turned to Milo and shrugged, as if to say, What are you going to do?

  Soon enough, everyone was dancing. Great-Uncle Lando was cheek to cheek with Great-Aunt Maria, even though it was a fast song, and the Joes chased each other in between the dancers. Lucy looked around for Mom and Dad, thinking it would be good to see them close together, reminding her of the times she’d caught them dancing in the living room or on the rooftop beside the barbecue grill in Chicago.

  She didn’t see them anywhere.

  After bobbing up and down and calling it dancing, Lucy was relieved when the song finally ended and “Love Me Tender” came on, thinking Josh would go pull Gia onto the dance floor. But he didn’t. He held his arms out to Lucy, and when she stepped forward, he took her hand and put it on his waist and took her other hand in his. There was about a foot of space between them as they rocked from one foot to the other. It was her first slow dance. And it happened to be with the boy she was sure she would love for the rest of her life.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” Josh said.

  Lucy looked up into his hazel eyes and felt as though her bones had liquefied, making her quivery. She was angry at her bones for deserting her at such a time.

  “You know the draft lottery is coming, right?” Josh said.

  “August fifth.”

  “And you know I’m eligible for the draft.”

  All Lucy could do was nod.

  “Gia’s smart. She’s brilliant. She’ll end up going to Berkeley or Columbia or some other super-smart school. As smart as she is, she doesn’t have a lot of common sense sometimes. Do you know what I mean by that?”

  Lucy, unfortunately, knew exactly what Josh meant.

  “She’s passionate, and I swear she’d run into a burning building to save the animals or for women’s rights or the hundreds of other causes she cares about. She’d run into a burning building for her family, for you,” Josh said.

  Even though all they ever managed to do was get on each other’s nerves lately, Lucy knew that Gia loved her fiercely. The way she did everything fiercely.

  “If I go to Vietnam, you’ll know what she’s going through,” Josh said.

  “Don’t say that!” Lucy stopped her foot-to-foot swaying. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I have a one-in-three chance of being drafted. I just want you to promise me that, even though Gia can be a pain in the butt, you’ll help her. You know what’s coming.”

  Lucy felt so many different things. Boneless from dancing with Josh. Terrified he’d go to Vietnam. Flattered he believed she was someone Gia needed.

  Strong and capable, because she knew he was right.

  The song ended, and Josh gave her a twirl, then hugged her close.

  He smelled like Aqua Velva.

  * * *

  —

  When the party was over and most of the family had gone home, Lucy and Milo helped Great-Aunt Lilliana put the leftovers away in plastic containers to stock up Papo’s fridge.

  “What happened to the dress?”

  It was Grandma Miller, of course, her voice shrill, even though Lucy had seen Great-Uncle Lando pouring lots of pink champagne into her glass.

  “Grape soda explosion,” Milo said. “And then she landed in some tomato sauce. It was gnarly,” he finished.

  “Great-Aunt Lilliana is soaking it in the bathtub,” Lucy said. “I’m sorry, Grandma. But I don’t think the stains are going to come out.”

  “Bring me a bucket, some white vinegar and baking soda! Pronto!” Grandma dug under the kitchen sink and came out with a pair of rubber gloves.

  “What’s this?” Great-Aunt Lilliana came into the kitchen carrying a platter of chicken, Gia following close behind. “You’re going to help with the cleaning, Loretta? Nonsense. Go sit down and enjoy some anisette.”

  Grandma held up her gloved hands like she was about to operate. “I’m going to save Lucy’s dress!”

  “Save her . . . Oh, I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Great-Aunt Lilliana said. Then to Lucy, “Didn’t Gia tell you?”

  “Tell me what?” Lucy said, panicked. She rushed into the bathroom where she had left her dress, and found it tie-dyed an orange-red, like a sunset, and hanging from a line in the shower.

  Lucy was completely speechless.

  “It was ruined,” Gia said. “There was no getting out the pasta sauce, so I ran home to see what was left of the dye I just used to tie-dye some shirts for me and Josh last week. I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Grandma said. “That is some ingenuity at work.”

  Grandma didn’t think much of tie-dye and hippies, but she was a sucker for ingenuity and people who used their brains.

  Lucy touched the skirt. Somehow, Gia had made a bunch of small white circles into the shape of a heart on the chest. Great-Aunt Lilliana, Grandma, Milo and Gia all stood too close to each other in the small bathroom, fidgeting, staring at Lucy for a response, maybe.

  “Can I have a minute?” Lucy said as calmly as she could.

  “Of course!” Great-Aunt Lilliana said, and shooed them out.

  “Except Milo.”

  Milo turned back and closed the door. Lucy slid down the tile wall until she was sitting on the floor.

  “That’s quite a trick,” Milo said. He tried to do the same thing, but his legs were too long and so his knees ended up close to his ears. They were quiet for a few minutes, watching the dress drip, drip, drip into the shower drain.

  “It’s just a dress,” Milo said.

  “Actually, I love it. I don’t want to love it, but I do.”

  “Why don’t you want to love it?”

  “Because I still might be mad at Gia. I’m not ready for her to be nice to me, maybe.”

  “You can’t love a dress and be mad at Gia at the same time? That is very complicated.”

  “Life is very complicated.”

  “Sure it is.”

  Milo stood up and snooped around the bathroom, which was also very pink. Just not as pink as the kitchen. He picked up the soap and smelled it.

  “Why are you so mad at her, anyway?”

  “I overheard some plans she had to protest at Travis Air Force Base. I’ve seen what those protests look like. They throw stuff at soldiers, and I don’t think that’s right. But it feels like a dumb reason to still be mad at her.”

  “This war makes people do crazy things.”

  “She just wants it all to end, I guess. Just like me,” Lucy said. “Just like everyone.”

  Milo opened the medicine cabinet and took out a floral shower cap. Whether it had belonged to Nonnina or Great-Aunt Lilliana, Lucy wasn’t sure.

  “How do I look?” he said, putting it on.

  “It lacks the element of surprise. I’ve already seen you in a shower cap. Although the flowers are nice.”

  Milo sat down on Great-Aunt Lilliana’s makeup bench. He clicked on the lights around her makeup mirror and picked up a bright red lipstick.

  “It’s just a dress,” he said again, and put on the lipstick. “And it’s time to stop being mad at Gia.”

 
Lucy laughed against her will at Milo’s red lips. Then Milo laughed. Then he stopped laughing when, even after wiping away the lipstick, it had stained his lips a bright orange.

  Which matched Lucy’s new dress.

  20

  american legion, part two

  On Tuesday, when Grandma and Grandpa Miller were set to go back home, Lucy woke up to Grandma’s and Mom’s harsh whispers coming from the kitchen.

  “She needs a break from all . . . this,” Grandma said. “You’re working. Anthony is trying to heal and figure out what’s coming next. The poor girl needs to relax.”

  Mom’s voice: “I just don’t feel like that’s the right thing to do. Lucy would be devastated to be sent away, she’s made a friend—”

  “Who? That boy? He’s only here for the summer, anyway. I could bring her back with me and introduce her to girls her own age. I’ve already talked to Lindy and Martha Ann. They both have girls going into junior high school. Same as Lucy. That boy is turning her wild.”

  “No one is turning anyone wild, Mom. They’re kids.”

  “You told me what they’ve been doing. Digging up things that are better left buried. Visiting veterans’ homes, places where the failures go. The ones who can’t hack life anymore. The ones who’ve given up. What sort of environment is that for a girl?”

  Lucy got herself dressed as quickly as she could and marched out into the kitchen. If they were going to decide her fate, she wanted them to do it with her standing right there in front of them.

  Mom and Grandma stopped talking midsentence when she showed up.

  “I don’t want to go. I can’t leave Milo, or Dad,” Lucy said, feeling brave.

  “See?” Grandma said. “She feels responsible.”

  Grandma already had a full face of makeup on, even though it was only eight in the morning. She looked like she was going to a cocktail party. Even her dress was perfectly pressed as though it hadn’t come out of a suitcase. Lucy wondered how much time it took to make herself look just so. If Just So was worth it.

  Dad and Grandpa sat outside at the patio table, reading sections of the San Jose Mercury News, sipping cups of coffee. A transistor radio sat between them on the table and Lucy could hear the news through the closed patio door.

  Onetwothreefourfive-sixseveneightnineten.

  Lucy looked at Mom, worried. Because Mom resembled a frayed shoestring. One quick tug, and she’d break in two. She didn’t know if Mom could stand up to Grandma Miller and the fierceness with which she knew everything.

  But Lucy knew something, too. She was not getting into that Lincoln Continental with Grandma and Grandpa. Even if it did have real leather seats, air-conditioning and automatic windows.

  * * *

  —

  Before Grandma and Grandpa left, with the question of whether or not Lucy was going with them still looming, Grandpa insisted on taking Lucy for a ride.

  “Twenty minutes, tops,” Grandpa said. “There’s something we have to do.”

  “Is this a trick? Because it won’t work. I’m not going,” Lucy said.

  “It’s not a trick. Come on.”

  The morning was cool, and Grandpa put on a light Windbreaker. He held the front door open for Lucy and she decided to trust him. She could imagine Grandma trying to trick her, but never Grandpa.

  The inside of the car smelled warm and leathery, and Grandpa had the radio turned to an oldies-but-goodies station that played music from the fifties. There was lots of crooning and horn playing, and Lucy supposed she didn’t mind all that much as they drove down the hill.

  “I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself. That is an important skill,” Grandpa said. He smoothed back his white hair with one hand. It was a little curly around the edges. “Grandma’s not very happy about it. But that’s just Grandma.”

  “Kids aren’t supposed to stand up for themselves. It’s disrespectful.”

  “Now you sound like your grandmother. There’s a time and a place for most things. The trick is knowing which is which. And you, my dear granddaughter, know which is which.”

  The trees gave way to cement sidewalks, and Grandpa drove straight for Jorge’s Sweet Corn down on King Road.

  “Gotta have me some sweet corn to take home. It’s the best there is,” Grandpa said.

  Which was true as true could be. The kernels were the size of marbles and sweet as sugar. You could even eat them raw.

  “You could have done this on the way home, Grandpa. Why did you want me to come with you?”

  “This isn’t our only stop.”

  With bags full of sweet corn, they got back in the car and drove toward the Pink Kitchen Deli. Lucy didn’t feel like talking, so Grandpa turned up the music again and sang along with Frank Sinatra. Lucy remembered a family dinner years ago when they’d been visiting from Chicago and Nonnina and Grandpa Miller had sung a big-band duet to wild applause.

  And because Lucy was thinking and not paying attention to where they were going, she was completely surprised to find them turning down the same streets she’d ridden her bike on the day they went to the American Legion Auxiliary.

  “Grandpa, no. It’s okay. You don’t have to yell at them.”

  “It’s not okay. And I’m not going to yell at them. You are.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t advise yelling at anyone. But, listen, you can’t let people like that chase you into a corner. Always say the thing that needs saying.”

  Lucy reluctantly followed her grandpa up the front walkway. He didn’t even knock on the door, just let himself in.

  The same men sat at the bar, even though it was only ten o’clock in the morning. Lloyd and Louis. Two names she would never forget.

  “What can I do you for?” said Lloyd, the forgettable-faced man. Slowly, it seemed to Lucy, he recognized her.

  “My granddaughter has something to say.”

  The two men turned to stare.

  “Is that so?” Lloyd said.

  Grandpa went on, “I’m not sure what your reasons are for turning away hard-fighting men who have served their country in Vietnam. A bunch of nonsense, whatever it is. But I’m especially hard-pressed to understand why you would turn away a little girl asking for help from men she considered to be heroes.”

  Lloyd’s face didn’t change. “Not everyone is a hero.”

  “You’ve got that right. Go ahead, Lucy.”

  Lucy had no idea what to say to these men who didn’t care about her or her dad or anyone else but other World War II vets. She didn’t understand what it might take for a person who had served in a war to turn away other men who served in different wars. It seemed to her they were all connected, hitched to everything else in the universe. Even if they didn’t want to feel it.

  The way she didn’t want to feel her own connections to her family most of the time because big feelings could be hard to manage. And that made her mad at herself. And mad at these stupid men drinking beer at ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning, thinking they were better than her dad.

  “My dad spent four years in medical school. And then another four years learning how to be a heart surgeon. And just when he finished at the top of his class and got a job, he was drafted into the army for a year. To serve as a doctor.

  “He didn’t ask to be deferred, like he could have. Because he knew that someone else would have to go in his place. And even though it wasn’t reasonable—and was rather superstitious, actually—he felt like that would haunt him for the rest of his days.

  “So, he left me and my mom. He left us for almost a year so he could save thousands of boys’ lives. Young boys. Teenage boys. He lost an arm for it. And now he can’t be a surgeon anymore.”

  It was hard for Lucy to breathe. The words were coming faster than she could think them through.

  “And my friend? His dad is in Vie
tnam, too. And we found a Purple Heart that we want to return to a family who may or may not be missing their soldier. And all that seems more important than how you feel about Vietnam.”

  It could have been Lucy’s imagination, but Lloyd didn’t seem so smug. “You let one in, with their drug problems and their wild ways, you have to let everyone in. They aren’t all like your dad.”

  The four of them stood there staring at each other. There was a dripping sound coming from behind the bar, and somewhere, the second hand of a clock ticked along its unstoppable way.

  “Well, that’s just terrible reasoning,” Lucy said, spun around, pigtails flying, and walked out.

  Grandpa and Lucy were quiet on the way home. Lucy was shaky, but feeling better somehow. She didn’t even need to count her stones.

  Grandpa drove the Lincoln into the driveway and turned off the ignition. He looked her straight in the eye. “When you look for all the reasons to keep people out, you will find them, Lucy. Look for the reasons to let people in. Look for the connections instead.”

  “Don’t let Grandma take me,” Lucy said.

  “Never.”

  21

  a wishing stone

  The phone rang early on Friday, waking Lucy on the morning she and Milo were to head over to Mac and Cheese’s to sort through the sign-in books.

  Brrrriiiiingggg!

  Lucy shot out of bed, heart racing at the unexpected alarm. It was hot already, the air outside Lucy’s open window warmer than the air inside, so she closed it. She got dressed, placed the stones in her pockets and spritzed her Aqua Velva, all in a couple of minutes.

  While she dressed, Dad murmured into the phone, the deep rumble of his voice floating down the hallway, if not the words themselves. More sounds. Morning sounds. Mom pouring water into the coffeepot. A cabinet door opening, then banging closed. Two coffee cups clanking together as Mom set them on the counter.