by Maggie Bloom
Kids? Do we look like we rode our tricycles here? “Listen,” I say, toying with the idea of spilling the beans, “we don’t want any trouble. We’re just trying to find something that belongs to my friend’s great-uncle.” I tip my head in Ian’s direction. “His dad needs it real bad.”
The stranger lifts an eyebrow. “Needs what real bad?”
“A liver,” I say. “He’s got a disease. If he doesn’t get a new one soon, he’s gonna die.”
“Sorry,” he says, “I ain’t followin’.”
Fine. I guess it’s come down to this. “There’s something buried here,” I clarify. “Money. Coins. My friend’s dad needs them to pay for the operation.”
The man beams a gummy, gap-toothed smile. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
chapter 2
We didn’t find the coins, even though Crazy Shotgun Guy (he never did tell us his name) spent forty minutes working up a sweat with a bona fide shovel, leaving a hopscotch of disturbed earth in his wake.
“Sorry,” I tell Ian as we part ways in the still-dark street, half a block from my house. “Maybe we can think of something else.” I scrunch my face into a contemplative scowl. “A bake sale? Or a car wash? Oh, oh!” I squeak, the perfect idea hitting me. “We could do a charity dinner. Remember the one we had last year for the Angelos, when their house burned down?”
By “we” I mean my parents, mostly, since they’re the proud owners of The Moondancer, Milbridge’s top American eatery, pre-prom destination, and all-around good-time hangout.
Haley scuffs down the sidewalk, her legs wobbly, Clive’s cage bumping along the sloped lawn beside her.
Ian gives a hopeless shrug. “I dunno. It’s up to you.”
I lean in and deliver a shoulder squeeze. “Done,” I say. “How about next Sunday?” I notice Haley hobbling into the end of our driveway and holler, “Wait up!”
She shimmies to a stop and sets Clive in the grass.
“Thanks, Cass,” Ian whispers, his voice threatening to crack. “You’re the best.”
I brush my fingers over his hand and start jogging for Haley. Behind us in the street, the Love Machine turns over with a whine, rumbles to life and vanishes in the night.
By the time I clomp up beside my sister, I wish I could disappear too. Because no sooner do I dip a toe in our driveway than a light pops on inside the house. The kitchen light, to be exact, signifying our father’s bleary-eyed trek to the coffee machine. We’re five minutes too late, I think. Five lousy minutes. And now we’re going to be caught.
“I’ve got an idea,” I tell Haley, whose eyes are so sleep deprived they’re puffed to slits.
She simply groans.
I lock my arm around hers, snatch Clive’s cage and hustle us toward the garage, where we slink in through the back door.
“What’re you doing?” Haley mumbles, her head bobbing as I tug at the zipper of her hoodie. She swats my arm.
“Cut it out,” I say. I twirl her sideways and pull the hoodie off. “We’ve gotta look right when we go in there. You don’t want to be grounded ‘til graduation, do you?”
She doesn’t bother answering.
I usher her to a concrete sink, where our father has been known to fillet a fish or suds the downspouts of our numerous gutters. The knob grinds as I open the faucet.
“Here,” I say, flicking a few droplets of water at her hairline. “You need to be sweaty.” Due to my sister’s ebony dye job, though, my efforts are largely in vain.
I drip a stream of water from my temple to my ear, then repeat the process on the other side of my head; meanwhile, Haley starts rocking on her heels as if she’s about to tip over.
Which leaves me no choice, really.
“Ow!” she screeches as I let loose a two-handed slapfest on her cheeks. I don’t stop until I’m sure she’ll pass for a marathoner.
“Okay, do me,” I say, throwing my hands toward my face.
Her eyes crack open a bit wider. She rubs her cheeks, which are now perfectly red and blotchy. “Huh?”
“Slap me.”
She squints. “Are you nuts?”
“Do you have a better idea?” I ask with a huff.
“Than . . . ?”
“The track team,” I say. “We’ll tell Dad we were practicing to try out.”
“So we got up at . . . whatever time it is, to go for a run?”
“Yup.” I pull the ruffled curtains away from the garage window and peer at the house, our father’s square form dominating the near corner of the kitchen, giant swaths of newsprint swaying open before him.
“You can barely walk a mile,” argues Haley.
I’m out of patience. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Just follow my lead.” I grab her hand and yank. Begrudgingly, she tails me out of the garage, up the steps and into our bright, shiny mudroom.
Three more feet and we’ll be in the kitchen (if our father doesn’t hear us and come checking first, that is). I draw a breath, jog a few steps in place and . . .
Sure enough, Dad makes an appearance, the bulk of his bathrobe—not to mention his new potbelly—eclipsing the doorway. “What . . . ?” is all he says, the sight of us rendering him speechless.
Haley pushes him aside and prances by. “I’m going to bed.”
I try to follow, but Dad lunges into my path. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asks, trying to put on a bad-cop voice.
I get a pang of sadness for the peas-in-a-pod relationship my father and I used to have, before the stress of the restaurant, Mom’s heart attack, and Haley’s “dark period.” I form my lips into a pleasant smile. “To sleep?”
Dad smiles back, but it’s more of a gotcha smirk than a happy-to-see-you greeting. “C’mon, Cassandra,” he says, shaking his head. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“But . . . what do you mean?” I shoot him my famous doe eyes and angle for the table.
He studies me as I sit down and start flipping through the paper. “You were at the cemetery, weren’t you?”
I shake my head, suddenly unable to breathe.
He lays a palm on my shoulder, then pats my hair against my back. “It’s okay. We know how hard this is.” He sighs. “But you’ve gotta keep us in the loop. Stop sneaking out in the middle of the night to . . . do whatever it is you’ve been doing.”
“I don’t sneak out,” I mutter. “We were practicing for the track team.”
He bursts out laughing, which, honestly, is a tad insulting. “Yeah, okay.”
Swish, swish goes the news in my hands. “We were.”
He takes a seat beside me, and even though I try not to look, I can’t help noticing he’s aging at warp speed, the specks of gray that once dappled his temples now forging an all-out assault on his bushy mane. “It wasn’t your fault, what happened to George,” he tells me.
I wish he wouldn’t talk to me this way; it’s too raw. I’m too raw.
“He could’ve been texting anyone,” he continues. “It was an accident.” I bite my lip, shut my eyes against the tears that are welling. “And he wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”
That’s what a therapist told me too: forgive yourself for George; he’d want it that way. But I guess survivor’s guilt exists for a reason, a natural response to loving someone and being helpless to stop from losing them.
If only he hadn’t sent that message . . .
“He was texting me,” I say. “About nothing. Absolutely nothing.” (Not that I know, really, never having worked up the nerve to read that final heartbreaking communiqué.)
Dad eases off his chair and heads for the stove, where he gets the teakettle percolating. “I don’t want to say ‘get over it, Cass,’” he tells me gently. “I know it’s not a ‘get over it’ situation. But you do have to figure out how to move on. You’ve been . . . stuck for a long time.”
Most dads probably wouldn’t be so sensitive, mine included. But while Mom was sick, he changed. It was like he tried to absorb her—become her, almost�
��in case the worst happened. Thank God, it didn’t.
“I’m trying,” I say with an exasperated sigh. “I am.”
He sets a steaming mug of tea in front of me, the paper tab clinging like used bubblegum to the side of the cup. “Anything I can do to help?”
I blow on the tea, take a tentative sip. “Maybe.”
His eyes brighten. “Do tell.”
“You know Ian Smith?”
“Ian Smith?” he repeats, his eyebrows puckering.
I swirl the tea bag around in the water, creating ripples of bitterness. “He’s a senior. One of George’s friends,” I remind him. “A short guy. Kind of looks like Justin Bieber, without the Bieberness. You met him at the funeral; he was one of the pallbearers.”
“What about him?” says Dad, his curiosity—and protectiveness—piqued.
“His father’s sick.”
Dad’s spine compresses, making him seem three inches shorter. He drops into a chair. “How sick?”
Since Mom’s heart attack, Dad takes death and disease personally, even if he’s unfamiliar with the victim. “I’m not sure,” I admit with a shrug. “But I think it’s pretty bad. He needs money for a new liver.”
His gaze bores into me. “You can’t buy organs, Cass. It’s illegal.”
A swallow of tea slithers down my throat. “He’s on the list,” I explain, “for the liver. But he’s got no health insurance. And they’re broke. The only cash they’ve got is from Ian’s job at Waterslide Village, and that’s only until September.”
My father’s expression glazes over. “I could use him as a dishwasher at The Moondancer,” he offers.
It’s a nice thought—and one Ian might take him up on—but . . .
“I have a better idea,” I say. “Something more . . . immediate.” I mean, I owe the kid one, since our treasure hunt went ker-bust-o.
“Lay it on me,” Dad says, his hands doing backwards somersaults through the air.
I get up and sling an arm around his shoulder, balance on his knee like in the olden days. “Let’s do what we did for the Angelos,” I whisper in his ear, even though we’re the only ones around.
He gets a big grin. “I’ll tell your mother.”
* * *
I had George’s obituary blown up and laminated. It was two days after his funeral that I got up the nerve to clip it from the paper and parade into the Staples by the mall, a twenty crumpled in my jeans for the memorialization. When I tried to explain my request to the woman behind the counter, though, she shot me a concerned look that said: I’m about to phone the police and report you as an escaped kidnap victim.
Then she saw the obit.
While Mom was sick, I thought about obituaries a lot, wrote hers in my head a thousand times, in a thousand different, sparkly ways: a poem; a short story; a laundry list of heroic deeds. I made her into a myth. A legend. Someone the world would have no choice but to mourn, because then I wouldn’t have to grieve alone.
I don’t have a two-by-nine strip of newsprint summarizing my mother’s life—not yet—a fact that, on one level, convinces me that I’ve won the lottery. But another part of me, the part that once had a sweet neighbor, protector, and friend named George Brooks—a boy I was just figuring out how to love—feels ripped off, ripped open, destroyed.
I turn on the chintzy French floor lamp by my bed, sprawl face-first on my poufy comforter and dangle my arms for the carpeted floor. From under my bed, I withdraw a shallow black box I’ve borrowed (or, more likely, stolen, since I don’t plan on returning it) from Haley.
Inside this box is what I have left of George: the cracked wheel from his favorite skateboard; a cool, oblong rock with quartz veins he dug up the summer we both decided to become geologists; a snapshot of the two of us poking our heads out of an igloo we built in his front yard one Christmas; and, of course, the obituary.
Also in this box are things I hope will connect me with George one last time, grant me the power to deliver a final message: a small, knitted doll with X’s for eyes and a black slash for a mouth; an old nip bottle that once contained bourbon and belonged to my parents, but now serves as a vessel for the holy water I’ve pilfered from St. Dominick’s; a map—hand drawn by me—of Redeemer Cemetery, a glittery heart-shaped sticker marking George’s grave; and last but not least—the pièce de résistance—my cell phone, which captured and forever froze the final words of George Alfred Brooks.
From nowhere, there’s a knock at my door. “What?” I yell. Luckily, I’ve remembered to lock the knob.
It’s Haley. “Let me in.”
I want to complain about having a little sister, but the truth is, Haley isn’t half bad. Sometimes she even helps me. I scuff over to the door and crack it open. “I thought you were sleeping.”
“Nah. I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
She shoulders the door open just wide enough to slip inside. “Nightmare,” she tells me, her gaze catching on the box. “I got a stomachache.”
Haley’s a good sister but a bad liar; I suspect she’s here to comfort me, instead of the other way around. “You wanna sleep in here?” I ask, the light of a new day slicing over my twin headboard.
She nods meekly. “If you don’t mind.”
chapter 3
When Ian wheels his father to the head of the guest-of-honor table, I do a double take. “That’s him?” I ask Haley, elbowing her in the ribs as we slosh plastic pitchers full of ice water at the prep sink.
“Yep,” she replies without looking up.
“Didn’t he used to be . . . taller?”
“He’s in a wheelchair. What’d you expect? You said yourself that he was going to die soon.”
I hoist a number of pitchers onto a serving tray and steel my shaky grip to avoid taking a bath. “I said he could die,” I clarify. “He might die. I’m not in the business of predicting tragedy.”
Haley opens her mouth to speak, but before she gets anything out, our mother floats in between us and starts lathering her hands with antibacterial soap. “You girls doin’ okay?” she asks. “Everything under control?”
It’s weird to see Mom at the restaurant, since she usually works behind the scenes at home, keeping the books, cutting the checks, paying the bills and engaging in screaming phone fights with vendors over late deliveries and spoiled product.
“Should I put the donation box out now?” I ask. “It’s getting busy.”
The cover charge for this shindig is ten bucks a head, every cent of which goes directly into Mr. Smith’s pocket. Beyond that, guests are encouraged to give what they can to help ease his physical and financial pain. From the looks of the yellow-green raccoon mask around his eyes and the grayish tint of his lips and fingertips, though, it’s going to take quite a wad of cash to put Ian’s dad back together again.
Mom offers to set up the donation box—or basket, as it were—in a special spot by the entrance, leaving Haley and me on waitress duty.
As Haley weaves through the dining room with her tray of water, Ian catches my eye with a nonchalant wave. I unload three of my four pitchers en route to his side. “So . . . ?” I say, feeling a self-satisfied rush as I top off Mr. Smith’s glass. “What do you think?”
Ian appraises the crowd and nods. “Sweet. You really came through.”
I take a goofy bow, the serving tray tucked behind me like a tail feather. “My pleasure.” Ian’s dad looks even worse close up. “Is he, uh, up to this?” I whisper. I mean, it’s not like the guy has to dance a jig, but for his sake, it would be best if he could remain upright.
“I tried to talk him out of coming,” Ian tells me with a shrug, “but he insisted. He said it wouldn’t be proper to have a benefit without him making an appearance.”
The wicker plate that one of the real waitresses has delivered is now empty. “You guys want some more bread?” I ask.
An elderly woman seated across from Mr. Smith pipes up. “Would you, dear?”
“Sure thing.” I give Ia
n a happy pat on the shoulder, snatch the plate and flit back to the kitchen.
As I enter, Mom presses a bouquet of wildflowers at me. “Here,” she says. “I forgot about these. Drop ‘em at the Smiths’ table for me?”
I got my platinum hair and watery blue-grey eyes from my mother, a fact that, had she lost the heart attack battle, would’ve haunted me in the mirror. “Yeah,” I say, pushing the vase back at her, “just gimme a sec.” I twirl around and deposit the tray on the counter, refill the bread plate and collect the flowers with a smile.
With a bump of my knee, I swing the kitchen door open. This is awesome, I think, surveying the crowd. Ian’s dad will be okay now; Ian will be able to relax.
Then the chaos begins.
“Quick! Help!” a chorus of voices shouts. There’s a rush of movement through the dining room, in the direction of the Smiths’ table. “Call an ambulance!”
I slide the vase onto a vacant chair, bob my head around to catch a glimpse of the commotion. But I can’t make out what’s happening, until . . .
A husky gentleman in a brown tweed suit steps out of my line of sight, revealing Mr. Smith, slumped forward in his wheelchair, his milky eyes tacked open as he tries—but fails—to draw a breath. Oh, God, I think. Don’t let it be his heart. Mom was lucky. Most people don’t survive.
“He’s choking!” a muffled voice proclaims.
I make momentary eye contact with Ian, who looks crushed with panic. “Not on my watch,” I murmur. Because even though my powers are limited (and spotty in their reliability), they do exist. The proof? Something told me to bring the voodoo doll, which is tucked in my apron pocket behind my ticket pad, with me today.
But I’m running out of time.
As a trio of helpful guests, including a buff twenty-something-year-old guy who may very well be a paramedic, struggles to deliver the Heimlich maneuver to a wheelchair-bound liver patient already on death’s door, I drop to the floor, abandon the bread plate in a sea of sensible shoes and clutch around the ticket pad until I get a pinch of my fuzzy little friend (not to mention a bunch of dastardly paper cuts).