One Small Thing

by Barksdale Inclan, Jessica

  Avery pulled the Land Rover into a parking lot next to a row of Rovers, Suburbans, and Volvos and jerked up on the parking brake. But no. This was how she would enter the school she’d fantasized about. Daniel. Daniel in trouble.

  She got out of the car and walked to sidewalk, holding her hand over her eyes and looking for the office. The September sun was beating down afternoon heat into the pavement. Avery tugged at her blouse, feeling sweat trickle down her sternum.

  “Avery, right?”

  Avery turned and blinked against the brightness. “Yes?”

  “It’s Marcia. Val’s friend? We’re in the baby group together. We met at her house.”

  Nodding, Avery ran her tongue on her molars, trying to avoid biting the soft bleeding skin inside her cheek. The baby group. Every Wednesday, Val went to a meeting, sat on someone’s living room floor, talked about every change in Tomás’ eating and nursing schedule, sleeping pattern, and bowel movements. Avery tried to listen to the recap at first, but after a while, she’d go home from Val’s and feel lightheaded and sick. Finally, she’d avoided Val’s Wednesday afternoon calls, turning down the sound on the answering machine so she could erase it without ever hearing a thing.

  “Yes. Hi. How are you,” Avery said, and then before Marcia could answer. “I’m looking for the office. Do you know where it is?”

  “Right down the hall. To your right. See?” Marcia pointed to a door with a big “Office” sign above it.

  “Gee,” Avery said. “Who would have known? Well, thanks.”

  She smiled and turned to go, ignoring Marcia’s perplexed look and obvious question: What are you doing here?

  Closing the door behind her, Avery walked up to a waist-high counter. Behind it, a woman sat at a desk, talking on the phone and behind her was an office with the name Ms. Anita Brisbo stenciled in gold ink. Below the shiny name was the word principal in black. The office glass door was opaque but even so, Avery could see Daniel’s smooth, brown head, the chair he sat in, his feet dangling over the floor. A quiet conversation seeped out under the door. At least he wasn’t hysterical, Avery thought. I can manage that until Flora or Dan gets home.

  The woman put down the phone and smiled. “You must be Mrs. Tacconi. I’m so glad you could come in. Principal Brisbo is waiting for you.”

  Avery nodded. The secretary who knew everything. Did she know Avery wanted to turn and leave without seeing Principal Brisbo? Did she know Avery couldn’t care less about Daniel and his woes? Did she know that Avery really wasn’t a nice person?

  “Come this way,” the secretary said, lifting up part of the counter. “This is the draw bridge. Fear ye all who enter here!”

  When Avery didn’t smile, the secretary patted her arm. “It’s a joke. You look as nervous as the kids. Listen, this isn’t a big deal. He’s not in real trouble.”

  Avery walked through and waited by Principal Brisbo’s door as the secretary knocked and peeked her head in. “It’s Daniel’s stepmom.”

  Stepmom? Avery almost turned to stare at the woman, taking in that word for the first time. How could she be that word or any word with mom in it in relation to Daniel? She felt so far away from him, it would take a plane, two ferries, and a bridge to reach her, not just a step.

  A large woman with spiky blonde hair sat behind the desk and waved Avery in. “Thank you, Mrs. Panawek. Come in, Mrs. Tacconi.”

  Smiling quickly at Mrs. Panawek, Avery moved into the office and looked at the top of Daniel’s head. He looked down at his shoes, avoiding her gaze. Avery winced as she bit down on her cheek, opening her mouth and sucking in a breath of air. She clutched her purse against her body.

  “Have a seat, Mrs. Tacconi.” Principal Brisbo motioned to a chair opposite her desk. Avery nodded and sat, crossing her legs and then uncrossing them and tucking them under the chair. She hadn’t been in the principal’s office since—well, since never. Loren was rustled into the office a couple of times because of fights with friends and then the time in fifth grade when she cheated on the spelling test by writing the words on her shoe. But Mara and Avery were good girls who stayed out of trouble. “Little princesses,” her father would say at the dinner table as Loren glowered in her chair.

  “What happened?” Avery asked, turning again to Daniel who was now swinging his legs back and forth, his chair legs making a soft, rub, rub noise on the linoleum tiles.

  “I think it was a valiant attempt to avoid an in-class writing exercise. Daniel here managed to hide in the sandbox after recess. The yard duty supervisor found him just as she was leaving campus.”

  “You hid in the sandbox?” She looked at Daniel and waited. He swung his legs faster, faster. If he were her kid, she’d tell him to knock it off, to pay attention, to apologize. She’d ask him why he was hiding. She’d ask him what was his problem with writing. She’d hire a tutor. She’d call her mom.

  “It was pretty smart, I told Daniel.” Principal Brisbo folded her arms on her desk, her hands large and round, rings on each finger, even her thumbs. “But we need to find out what’s bothering him in class. I know the transition to a new school is difficult, and fifth grade is a hard year. What do you think, Daniel?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Avery rolled her eyes. “Daniel! Answer the Mrs.—is it Missus?”

  “Call me Anita. In this room only, I let everyone call me Anita. A big perk when it comes to being sent here.” Anita smiled.

  “Okay. Daniel. Tell Anita what’s wrong with the class.”

  Daniel looked up at Anita and then glanced quickly at Avery. “I just want to go back home, that’s all.”

  “So it isn’t the class?” Anita asked. She sat back in her chair and pulled on one of her many hoop earrings.

  “No.” Daniel swung his legs.

  “Well,” Avery said. “This is school time. You have to be in school when it’s in session. That’s all there is to it.” She stood up and adjusted her skirt. “Listen, Anita. I’ll have my husband come and talk with you. He can deal with this. Daniel should go back to class.”

  “Oh, not today,” Anita said. “He should go home. That’s what this is all about.”

  Avery stared at her, her hand on her hip. Glancing up at the clock, she saw that there were at least fifty more minutes to the school day. Why should he go home now, when in less than an hour Flora would be here to pick him up? That way, Avery could go back to work and see what Brody and Lanny had cooked up. She could find out when she was going back to St. Louis. She could call Mischa on his cell phone. “But . . .”

  “He’s had a hard day. Go on, Daniel. Take your backpack. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Daniel got up, grabbed his backpack, and slipped by Avery into the office, where Mrs. Panawek began telling him a story about a boy who played so long in the sand box he turned into a sand worm. Avery breathed out.

  “Mrs. Tacconi?”

  “Avery.”

  “This hasn’t been easy, has it Avery? The transition into being a family.”

  “No. No it hasn’t.”

  “Are you all seeing anyone to—to smooth things out?” Anita stood up, revealing a pair of loose, rainbow colored pants.

  “Who aren’t we seeing? We have two social workers and two psychologists, not to mention the calls from—“ she waved her hand around the office. “The school. The court. The doctor. If I have to see anyone else, I’ll lose my mind.”

  “It must be rough. But, there’s a little boy at stake. He’s a good kid. He needs some help, sure. But in time. . . .”

  Avery put her hand on the doorknob, the brass cool on her palm. She glanced at Anita’s desk and noticed that there weren’t any photos of children or a husband. Just some older people—parents?—by a house and one of a woman in a sailboat. So she didn’t have any kids of her own, Avery thought, and here she was trying to give her advice. Like a man trying to tell a woman about abortion. How could Anita begin to know what the past few weeks were like? How could she know what it felt like to s
ee Daniel’s loss every single morning? How could she know what it was like to need to ignore it?

  “Really,” Anita said. “There’s the cliché, but it’s true. Time—“

  “I don’t know how long time will last. At least for me.”

  Anita opened her mouth and then said nothing.

  “Okay. Well, goodbye.” Avery pulled the door open and glanced back. The principal lifted her hands from the desk and raised her eyebrows in an expression that reminded Avery of one Brody would give her while on the phone with a caller who wasn’t interested in their product in the least. A look for lost causes.

  Closing the door behind her, Avery walked into the outer office and watched Daniel laugh at Mrs. Panwek’s story. He seemed like a different child. Kind of normal. One who didn’t stare with big, bug eyes, tracking Avery’s movements. A kid who might play with Sammy, Jaden, and Dakota at the next Fourth of July barbeque in the cul-de-sac, running with a ball or rolling on the lawn. But then he seemed to sense her, his body freezing, his face falling into its typical sullen stare. As they left the office and walked together down the long, empty hallway, all Avery wanted to know was how she could get out of here, alone, and as far away as possible.

  Daniel sat in the back seat. She’d expected him to jump in beside her, but he’d opened the back, right-hand door and buckled himself in before she had even started the car.

  “Do you want to sit up here?”

  “No. I’m not supposed to.”

  Avery looked at him in the rearview mirror. “What do you mean?”

  “The airbag. I’m supposed to be twelve before I can sit there. I’m only ten.” His eyes were wide and serious, his hands raised up just like Anita’s had been earlier. Avery shook her head and turned on the engine. She should have known that. She’d looked up the information on car and booster seats, read the latest recall information on airbags, and studied the new safety designs for cars. But with all that, she wouldn’t have known how to protect Daniel. If they’d been in an accident—and she did remember that most accidents occurred within five miles of home—he would have been crushed by the too-hard pulse of the expanding airbag. How would she have explained that to Dan and her mother and Valerie? No one would forgive her for that.

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “Can you turn on KLLC? I like that channel.”

  Avery rolled her eyes and pushed on his station. He sat back against the seat and stared out the window. Releasing the parking brake, she looked in the rearview and side view mirrors a few times and then slowly backed out, looking for small children and pregnant mothers and yard duty supervisors. Even principals. She was dangerous, a lost cause. She wasn’t a mother at all.

  At home, she poured him a glass of milk and gave him four giant chocolate chip cookies before she picked up the phone.

  “I’m supposed to have fruit. I’m not supposed to have sweets. The doctor and Flora said.”

  Avery held the phone to her chest. Daniel stared at the cookies with the same longing with which she’d looked at Mischa’s knee. “Don’t you like cookies?”

  “Yeah, but—“

  “Look, I won’t tell. Flora won’t be here for a half-hour or so. Eat them up and do your homework. Whatever you have. You know.”

  Daniel bit his lip, touching the cookie gently with the tips of his fingers, and then picked it up and began eating, taking even bites, turning the cookie like a wheel in his mouth. After one spin of the wheel he drank exactly a fourth of his milk. He didn’t look up at Avery.

  She shook her head and walked into the living room with the phone. She dialed Dan’s cell number and held the phone away from her ear because of the scratchy static when he answered.

  “Dan! Dan!”

  “Avery! I can’t hear you very well. I’m in Sac—“

  “Where?”

  “Sacramento. I went on a call. There’s been some kind of jam on I-80. I think I’m going to go to my folks’ for a while.”

  “What?”

  “My FOLKS.”

  “I know. I heard you. But—“

  The phone went dead, and she dialed again, gritting her teeth. He wouldn’t be home for hours. His number rang six times, and then the automated answer came on, “I’m sorry, the PRQ customer you have called isn’t available.” Avery clicked off. There was no use talking with him anyway. She wouldn’t even bother trying to call Bill or Marian. Dan couldn’t clear the freeway. All the alternative routes would be clogged with desperate drivers trying to get back to the Bay Area, and the only smart thing to do was to wait it out.

  But it meant that Avery would be forced to come home at six and make dinner and get Daniel in his shower and read him a story, just like Dan did every night. Her stomach growled. Lunch had been so long ago, almost on another planet.

  She started back toward the kitchen, when she saw Flora walking down the sidewalk toward the house. Flora could stay late, while she went back to work. Avery could ask Flora to stay until Dan came home, and then everything would be fine.

  When Flora walked up the front path, Avery pulled open the door. “Hi, Flora. I’m so glad you are here.”

  Flora broke into a wide smile and then almost seemed as if she would cry. “Mrs. Tacconi. You are here. Oh, dios mio, I am so glad. I say to myself, God, help me today. I cannot work. Is no emergency, but I want to go home because of my daughter. Her baby coming today. Now, she in labor. My first grandchild. I have to go home, but I think of Daniel, and I don’t know what to do. Your mother, she call me earlier, but I don’t understand it all. Something about school, yes? I was talking to my son-in-law. Pero, now, I go home. The bus, it comes in ten minutes. I see you tomorrow. No problem then. My youngest daughter, she will be here to help with the baby. I call Mr. Tacconi at his work. Yes?”

  “But Flora!” Flora turned back to Avery, but when Flora faced her, her brown eyes full of tears and relief, Avery sighed. “Okay. That’s—that’s great. See you tomorrow.”

  Flora gave her a little wave and walked quickly back up the street, her red and green colored bag swinging as she walked. Even though it involved a baby, Avery would trade places with Flora, right now. She’d take the bus to where?—Oakland, San Pablo, El Sobrante—and go to the hospital with Flora’s daughter, hold her hand, whisper the same encouragement she had to Val. She would try not to care about yet another baby slipping into the world that wasn’t hers. Anything would be better than being in the house with Daniel and his relentless looks.

  Avery closed the door and walked into kitchen. The cookie plate was empty, and Daniel had turned on the television, a music video screaming across the screen.

  “It’s time for homework,” Avery said. She put the plate in the dishwasher. “Daniel? Daniel! Turn off the television.”

  Daniel ignored her and turned up the volume.

  “Daniel!” His small back hunched, but he still stared at the screen. She would have never done this with either Isabel or her father, turning off the television as soon as either of them said one word. If her father yelled, she and her sisters froze, waiting for the words that would come next, a promise of punishment or threat of grounding. Isabel would give them the stern look, her eyes narrowed and dark, and they all knew they had gone too far. But this kid? Avery shook her head and walked over to the television.

  “That’s it,” she said, flicking it off. “Homework.”

  “I didn’t bring it home.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t go back to the classroom, remember? I don’t have it.”

  That damn Anita, Avery thought. She forgot or maybe she didn’t. The principal probably believed Daniel needed a break from the usual three hours of homework his teacher gave him. Every night, Dan said, “I don’t remember having this kind of homework until I was in college.” He even went over to talk about it with Luis, who told him that it was the parents. Parents wanted high test scores and college prep starting in elementary school, and homework was the evidence that some good results were in the offi
ng.

  Tapping her foot, Avery looked out the window at the pool. The cover floated on top of the water like a giant blue lily pad. What were they going to do for the three hours until dinner? And then what would they do after that? She turned the television back on, sat in the leather chair, and closed her eyes. This was why she’d gone back to work. To avoid hours like these, long, terrible hours of nothing with a kid she didn’t know.

  Letting the sounds of a song seep in, Avery thought about babysitting. Every weekend of her high school life, she’d had one, two, sometimes three jobs. After her father died, it was a way to get out of the house for a while, to avoid Isabel’s droopy presence. And then, she got used to the money, going with her friends on the weekends to Macy’s or Nordstrom to buy outfits to wear during the week. How had she walked into strangers’ houses and started up conversations with the parents and then the kids? She’d even gone to Hawaii with the Costellos, sleeping in a cabaña with the oldest girl and eating with the children every night at a restaurant when the parents went out to clubs. Maybe she’d been able to do it all because she knew what she was supposed to be. They knew exactly who she was—the babysitter.