by Rose Kent
The lobby doors flew open again, and in came a man wearing a white smock, pushing a woman in a wheelchair who was holding a sleeping cat on her lap. The woman handed a key to Chief, who walked over to the mail center.
“Isn’t she a beauty?” the lady beside me whispered, pointing toward the wheelchair. “That’s Catherine. She’s over in Assisted Living, and that’s her aide, Jack. Thirty years ago Catherine was hot stuff on Broadway. But with the MS eating away at her muscles, well, she’s trapped in that wheelchair, poor soul.”
The lady stood up and called, “Over here. What’s shakin’, girlfriend?”
Catherine smiled and waved. She had a milky, thin face with high cheekbones. Her hair was pulled back crisply in a bun. The cat on her lap opened its eyes and purred. Loud too. I could hear it from across the room. Right away I thought of Jordan.
“Are pets allowed here?” I asked. Back home Jordan had a turtle named Bandito. But Ma wouldn’t let him come along to New York. She’d read somewhere that officials didn’t take kindly to crossing state lines with reptiles that could carry diseases not native to the region. So the day before we left, we drove up to the Texas Hill Country and set Bandito free by a creek. Jordan cried and kicked the back of Ma’s seat the whole ride home.
“Official policy says no pets allowed. I say what harm is it for an old lady who can’t walk? Besides, if the manager made Catherine get rid of Rudy, why, he’d have a mutiny on his hands. Folks at Mohawk Valley Village aren’t your zipped-lips, rocking-chair kind of seniors.” She pointed toward two women and a man in the far end of the lobby. “Cal over there runs Tuesday-night poker in the lobby after the staff goes home. And Jessie and Veronica beside him lead a kickboxing class in the community room on Thursday afternoons. I hear it’s a real gut buster, not that I go. I’ve usually got an appointment with a bowl of ice cream around that time.”
I smiled. Ma would enjoy hearing about her passion for ice cream.
Maybe it was the lady’s pillowy body spread beside me, or the crowd filling up the lobby, but for the first time all day, I felt warm. She smelled cinnamon-sweet too. Like potpourri.
She lightly touched my knee. “What’s your name, pretty girl?”
“Tess Dobson. Just Tess.”
“Pleasure to meet you, then, Just Tess. I’m Winnie Lincoln. No relation to the president, but I like his politics,” she said, grinning. “You waiting for a relative?”
“No, ma’am. We just moved in. From San Antonio. My ma and my little brother and me.”
“You moved in here?” she said, shaking her head and making her purple earrings bobble.
I frowned.
“Forgive me, Tess, didn’t mean to make you feel bad. We’re delighted to have you and your family. And you’ll grow to enjoy this place.”
“You like it here?” I asked, staring at a thin crack in the window.
“I’d vote to knock this sorry old building down and build a new one, but the residents here, they’re good as gold. I’ve called the Mohawk Valley Village home since I retired from nursing twelve years ago, and there hasn’t been one dull day. Hollywood could make a reality show smack-dab in this lobby, with all the quirky characters we’ve got. Bet it would get high ratings, too!” she said, winking.
I wanted a place to call home too. But not this drab one decorated with zero style—and not with that Chief character as a neighbor.
Suddenly Winnie stood up, stuck her pinkie fingers to her mouth, and whistled.
“Listen up, gang! This sweet face belongs to Tess Dobson. Her family just moved in, and don’t anybody give ’em any grief. We’ll take a hearty welcome, though!”
Dozens of old folks looked over at me with curious expressions. Then they started clapping: soft, thumping claps on account of their gloves and mittens.
“What, you want to give Tess the impression that we’ve got low blood sugar or hypertension? Try that again, but with feeling!”
After a few laughs the lobby filled with applause. And cheers. And a loud, ear-piercing whistle like you hear at a rock concert—that came from Winnie.
I waved back, like a celebrity on a parade float.
Only one person didn’t clap. That crazy Chief.
A shrill gears-grinding sound came from outside, and soon all the seniors shuffled through the lobby doors.
“Better go. That’s the five o’clock Burger King–and–bingo bus. Last week’s winner took home an iPod Touch. Week before it was a giant plasma TV.” Winnie smiled and pulled her purple pocketbook strap over her shoulder. “Remember, Tess, old Winnie lives in number 132. Should you ever get locked out—well, you just buzz me.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Lincoln,” I said.
“It’s Winnie. The only person I made call me Mrs. Lincoln was a pesky HMO administrator. And Lord knows I can’t say what I called him.”
“Okay. Winnie,” I said softly with a grin.
Through the window I watched Chief help the bus driver load Catherine’s wheelchair, all the while swinging his artificial leg in circles.
Chapter 5
Late winter is an optimal time to launch an ice cream business, just in time for returning snowbirds and folks struck with spring fever.—The Inside Scoop
“Tess, make your brother quit that fussing, will ya? That shrieking is splitting my skull!” Ma yelled from the kitchen later, as she fixed supper. She had to yell. Jordan was jumping up and down on the futon, wailing like someone stuck his foot in a blender.
“No fair! No fair!” he signed when I walked near.
“Enough already!” Ma barked.
Ma’s edginess surprised me. Jordan was acting like a pain in the drain, but usually it didn’t rattle her this much.
I walked over to the futon-sofa and touched his arm. “Shush, Jordan,” I signed, pointing to the wall, where I could faintly hear a TV. “Someone else lives behind there.”
He kicked the coffee table. “Meanies! Yucky school!” he signed.
Thump. A pillow hit my head. Thanks a lot, FrankenJordan.
Facial expression counts big-time when you’re signing to deaf kids and when they’re reading your lips, so I furrowed my brow and signed, “We don’t throw!”
He paused, stuck his tongue out, and started bouncing again.
“What happened today?” I called to Ma. “He sure is grouchy.”
“We saw a stray dog out back behind the apartment building. Jordan begged me to let us keep him, but I said nothing doing,” she shouted over Jordan’s shrieks as she joined me in the living room. “We’re both worn to a frazzle from visiting his new school all morning and getting him set to start tomorrow. And we spent the afternoon walking around downtown and talking to retailers. Jimbo’s wife’s cousin’s stepsister canceled on me. Turns out she got herself transferred to the New York Lottery office in Buffalo. Barely had time to tell me that.”
Figures the Jimbo connection was a bust, I thought, frowning.
Immediately Ma spoke up. “Put away that duck-in-a-desert troubled face. Nothing’s changed as far as our plans. I’m still going full steam ahead with this business opportunity.”
Ma’s voice warmed when she said business opportunity. Not me, though. The words made me shudder slightly, like seeing lightning off in the distance.
Ma has used those words plenty of times since we got evicted from our house and bounced from one apartment to the next. She called the cutlery franchise that she bought into two years ago a cutting-edge business opportunity, pun intended. But the only thing those overpriced knives cut through was our savings. And she said Cats in the Cradle, the cat kennel she opened six months later, was a business opportunity that capitalized on the fact that cat owners were frequent travelers. We blew through two thousand dollars on that one—mostly on pet crates and giant sacks of cat food and kitty litter. Then Shooting Stars struck, and Ma took to her bedroom for three days straight, only she forgot to mention there was a Siamese cat boarding in the kennel, which was twenty miles away from our apartment. Mi
raculously Gatsby survived, but Ma’s business reputation didn’t. I still remember that hysterical lady holding a weak and droopy Gatsby and threatening to get Ma arrested.
Tonight I didn’t feel like talking about a “business opportunity.” That only led to another fancy term: financial crisis. I turned my attention back to Jordan.
He’d stopped jumping. “Good boy,” I signed. Then, remembering Winnie’s friend Catherine, I told him I’d seen a cat in the lobby earlier. “Maybe we can find out where he lives and visit him,” I added.
“Go now!” he signed sloppily, but I signed, “Can’t. We go another day.”
With that, he started kicking the armrests on the futon. They were frayed down to cross-threads, and I knew his shoe might rip through. I made a note to myself to crochet a couple of doilies to cover them. We could use some to cover the scratched furniture tops too.
I let my fingers do the yelling. “Quit that right now, mister!”
I had a feeling that Jordan’s fussing wasn’t just about a stray dog or visiting a cat. He kept signing “Meanies!” and “No go!” I let him know he was acting like a crybaby, which made him toss his stuffed turtle at me.
In the kitchen Ma unloaded more groceries. Bags were scattered all across the floor and the counter.
I spotted a familiar package sticking out of a bag and pulled it out. Chocolate pinwheel cookies. Yum. I ripped open the package and dug in.
“Not too many,” Ma said loudly, still trying to drown out Jordan’s wails. “Chicken potpies are in the oven.”
Ugggh. I hate chicken potpies, especially the store brand Ma buys. The crust always burns, and the vegetables taste like they’ve been soaked in glue.
The Jordan volume had lowered temporarily, but then his shrieks returned. It’s funny how people think deaf kids are soundless when they can bark louder than a hundred sea lions.
I poured a glass of milk and looked at Ma. “Why is he talking about meanies at school?”
Ma shook her head. “Jordan didn’t get off on the right foot with his new class.”
“What did he do?”
“The class was spread out on the floor building a Happytown milk-carton village, and Jordan wasn’t watching where he was going and squashed the police station flat like he was King Kong. The kids got really mad, and the teacher asked Jordan to apologize, and I guess he felt like they were all ganging up on him.”
“What did he do?”
“He uprooted Popsicle-stick trees from Happytown and tossed them at the kids. The teacher had to put him in time-out.”
Whoa. The Dobson kids were two for two for bad behavior today. At least I didn’t destroy property.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“The teacher’s the captain of the classroom ship, Tess, and she handled things just fine. Personally I think Jordan couldn’t understand those kids. They talk faster in New York, so it’s hard for him to read their lips. He’ll get used to it, though.”
Ma’s reaction amazed me. Wouldn’t most mothers be humiliated if their kid terrorized Happytown? Not Ma. She acted la-di-da. I wanted to tell her that we shouldn’t rely on Jordan reading lips. A sign-language instructor once told me that people only get thirty percent of the spoken meaning by looking at lips. And I wanted to tell her that she had to handle Jordan’s brat attacks better—but I didn’t. Words always fail me with Ma.
“Jordan’s new school looks super, Tess. It’s a regular ol’ public school, with plenty of special-needs kids—three others are deaf. They all looked happier than armadillos digging grub worms.”
The apartment suddenly felt calmer. FrankenJordan’s roars had subsided to whimpers. Ma checked the oven, and I swiped another cookie.
“Did you tell the teacher what a hard time Jordan has reading?” I asked.
“Didn’t have to tell her anything. She’s an educator.”
Reading is hard enough for deaf kids because they can’t hear the sounds. But in San Antonio I sensed that the teacher knew Jordan’s trouble wasn’t what he didn’t hear, but what Ma didn’t hear. She needed to sign more herself and not give in to his fuss fits. It reminded me of a movie I’d seen about Helen Keller and how she used to throw tantrums before she met her teacher Annie Sullivan because she had no other way to express herself.
I peeked in the oven. The potpies looked bubbly and mushy, and the crusts were already starting to burn.
“Hey, Ma, did you know this apartment complex is for old people?”
Ma set three plates on the counter. “You mean seniors, and of course I know. The way I see it, we could benefit from their seasoning.”
“Then you haven’t met the old navy nut.”
“Chief? Why, he saved the day this morning. Jordan was sprawled on the lobby floor, banging his fists and screaming ’cause he wanted to watch TV and skip the visit to his new school. Putting socks on a rooster would’ve been easier than getting him in the car. Just when I was about to give up, Chief limped over to help. He’s a good-hearted fella.”
“Good-hearted fella?”
“You bet. He showed Jordan his whatchacallit, leg prosthesis. Jordan got to pull it apart and snap it together like he was assembling a real live robot.”
Ma stuffed the empty grocery bags in a drawer and looked at me. “Tell me about your day.”
I gave her a thumbs-down since my mouth was still full.
“Did you make any friends?”
“No, but I might’ve earned myself a new enemy,” I said as Pete’s face flashed in my mind.
“What happened?”
“Nothing important.”
If Ma heard about my visit to Mr. Godfrey’s office, she’d start in how I had to resist that type of feisty behavior that was in my genes thanks to Pop. How I had to count to ten more and not let others get under my skin. Maybe Pop shouldn’t have slammed doors and punched holes in the walls after a few beers, but that wasn’t me, and I didn’t like her always bringing it up.
Ma started massaging my shoulders. “I heard on Oprah that it takes a whole year to get your life back after a move, honey. Give Schenectady a chance.”
Ma’s fingers felt nice rubbing my tired muscles. All those years slicing meat behind the deli counter had left her with strong hands.
“I’m trying to give this place a chance,” I said. “But I think you should give Jordan and me a choice the next time you drag us cross-country.”
“Leaving San Antonio made a lot of sense, Tess. I’m not about to wrap all my yesterdays in a fluffy blanket, and neither should you.” Ma sighed and rubbed her eyes. “How about a cold drink while we wait for the potpies? I’ll tell you all about the ice cream shop I’m fixing to buy. It’s got the cutest banana-split sign you ever did see, blinking in the window. And an old-fashioned counter with one of those shiny chrome shake machines!”
We didn’t have enough money to get the car heater fixed. Or to live in a normal apartment building with other people below age seventy. Buying this ice cream shop felt all wrong. Why hadn’t Ma learned her lesson from the past business flops, never mind the evictions from our house and the two apartments?
Well, I wasn’t up for her pie-in-the-sky plans and talk tonight. Not after the day Ottawa Creek Middle School dished out.
I grabbed two more cookies. “Sorry, Ma. I’m skipping dinner,” I said as I left the kitchen.
No wonder the apartment felt calm. Jordan had dozed off on the futon with his head resting on his stuffed turtle. I unlaced his sneakers and covered him with a throw blanket I’d knitted years ago.
In the bedroom I pulled out my bag of lanyard and started braiding a two-tone belt, light blue and dark blue. All blue, like how I felt. Here I was in a new state, a new apartment, and a new school, but déjà vu feelings kept running from my heart to my head like a ticker tape. Nothing had changed, except the weather, and that had taken a nosedive. I tried to imagine how it might feel to be stretched out on a tropical beach with a warm breeze blowing, surrounded by friendly kids sipping
refreshing smoothies and talking to me.
Without Ma’s latest business scheme. Without money worries, and far away from the slippery snow in Schenectady.
Two hours later I awoke, surprised that Ma hadn’t come knocking on the bedroom door insisting I eat dinner. My stomach was rumbling, so I walked into the kitchen. Maybe I’d nibble at the chicken-potpie crust.
Ma was sitting on a stool, slumped over with her face resting on her forearms on the counter. The three potpies sat on plates, untouched. She was out cold and snoring.
I should’ve seen it coming: Shooting Stars. That’s the only time Ma snores.
With my arms hooked under her armpits, I dragged her out of the kitchen—past Jordan, who was still asleep on the futon—and into the bedroom. I tried my best to be gentle, but I knocked a small lamp over in the living room as I passed. I lifted her up onto the bed, took off her shoes and socks, and covered her with the blanket.
I left my backpack by the nightstand, grabbed a blanket and pillow from the closet to spread on the living-room floor, and shut the door behind me, fully knowing I wouldn’t need my backpack tomorrow.
I wouldn’t be going to school.
Chapter 6
Think twice before launching a retail endeavor with family. Business partners need to share a vision and a work ethic, not necessarily the same DNA.—The Inside Scoop
Ma spent the next four days in bed, sobbing, and ruing the day we got stuck with her for a mama. She wouldn’t eat and only drank coffee with the socks on, but caffeine didn’t even get her engine going. I walked a sleepyhead Jordan to the bus stop on Friday. But I couldn’t go to school—I wouldn’t be back to watch him by the time the bus dropped him off, and besides, I had to look out for Ma.