Ms. Bixby's Last Day

by John David Anderson

  Every day after school we would set off on one of his adventures, making couch forts or digging holes in the park to bury our treasure in, a quarter or a packet of Smarties that we would forget to go dig back up. The best was when we pretended we were secret agents and would spy on my sister, using my iPod to record her conversations or just hiding in her closet until she heard us breathing and screamed at us to get out. I spent more time with Topher than with my own family. I’m sure they weren’t thrilled with the idea, this kid with the wild, scraggly blond hair and even wilder blue eyes monopolizing my carefully allocated free time, but Topher was polite around my parents and earned “decent enough” grades, so I was allowed to keep him as a friend. Friends were important to my parents, provided I didn’t have too many and they didn’t interfere with the quest for accomplishment and recognition.

  We managed to stay in the same class as each other every year. Topher says it’s because we are a duo. Like Batman and Robin or Finn and Jake. Other students, mostly boys, would sometimes make fun of us, sing the tree song, or just give us dirty looks. I’d learn about other things they said behind our backs eventually. I know Topher did too, but he never said anything to me. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that we stuck together. And saved the world from the giant robots after school.

  Topher is a constant, like pi or radical two. He was there when I had to have my appendix removed, showing up at the hospital afterward with strawberry milk shakes and comic books. He was there when my father and mother both had to go out of town on separate business trips and I spent four agonizing days with Christina bossing me around, acting like my mother even more than usual. He was there when Tyler Fisk threatened to “beat the living snot out of me” because I snitched on him for cheating off my math test. We both ended up with bruises that day and compared them on the bus ride home. Mine was bigger by a quarter of an inch, which made Topher jealous for some reason.

  Constants are called that for a reason. You can take them for granted. Like sunrises or breathing or the hissing sound a can of Coke makes when you open it. Like the quote your teacher puts on the board every morning.

  Or your best friend saving your seat on the bus.

  “Woodfield Mall.”

  Operator 57 calls out the stop in her gruff voice, and I stand. Topher and Brand shuffle behind me as we step off into the dewy grass, which thankfully isn’t quite long enough to reach the cuffs of my socks. On our side of the street is the mall, a Sears and a JCPenney tethered to each other with strings of shops that my sister, Christina, could probably describe in detail. On the other side is another row of shops, punctuated by half a dozen restaurants. One of them is a McDonald’s, but we aren’t ready for that yet. We are going to the bakery three shops down, the first red circle on the map. That’s where we will find the first item on our list.

  This is all part of the plan. The plan that we cooked up on the playground and then had to change when we found out Ms. Bixby was going to Boston. The plan that had us meeting up outside the school and calling in sick. The plan that calls for us making our first stop here to purchase item number one and then boarding bus number 37 downtown. There we will pick up item number two, though I’m still not sure how we are supposed to pull that off. It’s illegal, for one. And probably expensive. Topher says he has an idea, but he won’t tell me what it is, which means it’s an especially bad one. Item number three on the list will be obtained last, because otherwise it will get soggy, which is why we don’t need the McDonald’s yet. After item three, we will walk the six remaining blocks to the hospital. Just like the three kings in the Christmas carol, Topher says. We break Ms. Bixby out of the hospital, take her to the park circled on the map—the one I looked up last night along with the bus schedule—and then . . .

  I’m really not sure what happens then. I just know I wasn’t about to let Topher go without me.

  “There’s Michelle’s,” Brand says, pointing. I remember what he said last Monday under the monkey bars as we penned notes on his arm. Michelle’s is a must have; there can be no substitutes. Topher told him he sounded like a commercial, but he was right. Ms. Bixby mentioned Michelle’s by name.

  “Come on.” Topher gives me a tug and we run across the street, dodging potholes and cars. Brand leads the way, me in back, as the bus rumbles off, letting off one last odiferous cloud of exhaust.

  Michelle’s Bakery is a medium-sized stone building with tall glass windows filled with cakes. Most of them are probably plastic—either that, or cardboard pieces pasted together with thick, crusty icing, hard as limestone. My father told me once that all vanilla ice cream in photographs is actually mashed potatoes, because mashed potatoes don’t melt. One reason why the real thing is never as pretty as the picture.

  The sign for Michelle’s is also white with rolling green letters, all pressed close together. The blinking blue light says Catering Available. Another sign advertises Open Till 8 on Weekends. There is a poster for a missing cat named Princess Paw Paw. I’m not fond of cats. My family doesn’t own any pets, which is only odd because my sister is planning to become a veterinarian. I suspect she just wants to become a doctor but doesn’t want patients that can argue with her. We walk in and a bell on the door jangles.

  “Hello. Welcome to Michelle’s,” says a man with an accent that catches me off guard. I look around and spy him standing behind a counter, the only other person in the bakery besides us. The man is large—not overweight like Mr. Mackelroy, but large like a wrestler, thick muscled and bulky. He has dark, bronze skin and black hair. In keeping with my expectations, he at least has a mustache.

  “Are you Michelle?” I ask. I’m not trying to be rude. I’m just curious. He doesn’t look like a Michelle. Topher says that sometimes I say things that can easily come off the wrong way. I’m wondering if this is one of those times. Beside me Brand is already shaking his head.

  “Not Michelle,” the man says. “I’m Eduardo.”

  “Eduardo,” I repeat. It’s another habit of mine, echoing people. I just want to make sure I heard right. He looks like an Eduardo.

  “Michelle’s just the name on the sign. I’m the guy who bakes the cakes.”

  I nod. Then I look around. The bakery, at least, smells much better than the bus. Everything in here is white, except for Eduardo and me. There are rows of cupcakes in the glass display in front of us, each of them curlicued with thick whips of frosting. My mouth waters looking at them. At my house, the closest we get to dessert are chewable vitamins. My parents have a lot of rules.

  “So you mean you, like, run the joint?” Brand asks the man behind the counter.

  “I own this bakery, yes.” Eduardo offers an impatient-looking smile. I get the sense this isn’t the first time he has explained this.

  “So then why not just call the place Eduardo’s?” Topher asks. Sometimes, I think, my curiousity rubs off on him.

  The large man behind the counter sighs. His mustache actually curves up at the ends. I’m tempted to reach over and tug on it to see if it’s real or if it’s like the cardboard cakes in the window, but I don’t, because people don’t like it when you pull on their facial hair. I know this from experience.

  “Let me ask you something,” Eduardo begins, draping both large hands over the cash register in front of him. “And be honest. Would you rather buy a big, fancy, expensive cake from a place called Eduardo’s or from a place called Michelle’s?”

  I don’t actually see where it makes any difference so long as the big fancy cake tastes good, so I just shrug. Maybe it’s a trick question. Ms. Bixby would ask trick questions sometimes just to make sure we were paying attention. My favorite was: Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world? Everyone in class got it wrong but me. Eduardo doesn’t wait for an answer. “Would you go to a Mexican restaurant named Michelle’s?” he prods.

  “I don’t eat Mexican food. The beans make me f—” I start to say, but Topher elbows me in the side, so I don’t f
inish the sentence. It doesn’t matter. Eduardo knows.

  “Me too,” he says, patting his stomach. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s what beans do. What people do. The natural order of things. It’s to be expected. We are creatures of habit. Most people, they prefer to buy their cakes from a place called Michelle’s. That’s just how it is.”

  I look at the sign for Michelle’s in the window and try to imagine it saying Eduardo’s instead. Maybe he’s right. I know exactly what Ms. Bixby would say if she were here, though. She’d say when you are content to be simply yourself, everyone will respect you. It’s something she borrowed from Lao Tzu. I know because I looked it up too. Lao Tzu wasn’t so wise, though. He was also the one who said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, not bothering to mention the five million more steps you have to take after that. I’ve done the math.

  I look back at Eduardo and consider telling him about Lao Tzu and suggest maybe he change the name of his bakery, but I’m guessing he probably wouldn’t take the advice of a twelve-year-old Japanese kid named Steve.

  “So what can I do for you gentlemen?” Eduardo asks. Behind us Brand has wandered off already, looking at the enclosed glass cases, heading to the refrigerators on the other side. I fill in the gap he leaves behind, shuffling closer to Topher.

  “We are looking for a cake,” Topher says, raising one eyebrow and using one of his make-believe voices. He’s done this as long as I’ve known him. I guess he’s pretending we are police detectives or something. Police detectives who hunt down suspicious desserts. “White-chocolate raspberry supreme cheesecake. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

  Eduardo who owns Michelle’s nods appreciatively, stroking his mustache, playing along. “Yes. I know this cake you speak of,” he says.

  “So you know how we can get it?” Topher nudges.

  “That depends,” Eduardo says. “Do you want it whole or by the slice?”

  Topher looks to me. Probably he senses a story problem coming on, and I’m the math genius among us. “How much?” I ask, thinking of the original plan, which was to get a whole cake and split it among the four of us, but then thinking about how much money we have between us.

  Without even batting a lash, the man behind the counter says, “Seven ninety-nine for the slice. Fifty-four ninety for the whole enchilada.” The word enchilada strikes me as funny for some reason and I almost laugh, but Topher is not at all amused. You can tell by the way his eyebrows jump into his bangs.

  “Fifty-five dollars?”

  The baker with the curly mustache shrugs. “At Eduardo’s you could probably get it for forty. But this is Michelle’s, so it’s fifty-five.” He gives us a wry smile, and I count two silver teeth. Topher looks physically pained.

  “I thought you said it would be three bucks,” he whispers at me.

  “I said it had three dollar signs in the review online. That means it’s expensive,” I explain. Behind us, Brand is still standing at the freezer, staring at his reflection in the frosted glass. Topher throws his hands up.

  “Forget it,” he says. “No way. No cake is worth fifty bucks.”

  I nod in agreement. It does seem like a lot for creamy cheese and sugar. Eduardo leans over the counter and clears his throat. His cheeks are pocked. I can see now that his mostly coal-colored hair is shifting to gray by his ears. He beckons us closer with one finger and Topher and I lean in.

  “Excuse me, mijo, but have you ever tried Michelle’s white-chocolate raspberry supreme cheesecake?” He’s speaking to both of us, but it seems as if he’s looking right at me. His eyes are spooky. They are brown, but so dark that it looks like he just has two giant pupils. I shake my head.

  “¿Crees en Dios?” Eduardo asks.

  “I don’t speak Spanish,” Topher says.

  “I can only count to twenty,” I say, though I’m pretty fluent in Japanese and I know a few Russian curses that Topher and I learned off the Internet. But I’m guessing Eduardo is not going to call me a glupo mudak.

  “Are you a religious person?” Eduardo translates.

  I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but Topher is looking at me like I’m supposed to answer. His parents are atheists. I take communion, at least, so I nod.

  “And have you ever been to heaven?”

  Obviously another trick question, but I don’t have a trick answer, so I don’t even bother. Eduardo points his finger at us in triumph. “That’s because you’ve never tried my white-chocolate raspberry supreme cheesecake.” Then he slaps his hands on the counter with a tremendous thump, and my knees knock instinctively. “Trust me, amigos, eight dollars a slice is a bargain. Heaven should be so cheap.”

  “Fine,” Topher groans. “We’ll take two slices.” I’m not sure what kind of math he’s doing. I’m guessing he thinks we will split each of them in half, though if it comes to sharing with Brand or even Ms. Bixby, I will probably pass. I’m not comfortable sharing my food with just anyone. Topher asks me for money, and I fish for the ten that I brought. He digs in the front pocket of his backpack and pulls out a paper clip holding a ten and two fives. He adds the fives to mine and slaps the cash on the counter. He keeps the other ten in reserve. “Two slices,” he repeats.

  Eduardo is about to take the money when Brand’s voice stops him.

  “We’re getting the whole cake.”

  I turn to see him standing right behind us. He has his wallet out. I didn’t know he owned a wallet. I don’t own a wallet. I don’t even have a paper clip. Brand produces a twenty and lays it on the counter, making it forty dollars. I’m not sure about his math skills either.

  “Dude, what are you doing?” Topher hisses.

  “It has to be the whole cake,” Brand says. “No compromises.”

  Eduardo eyes the bills suspiciously with his brown button eyes. “The whole cake is fifty-four ninety,” he reminds us. Topher starts to say something, but Brand puts a hand on Topher’s shoulder.

  “Why don’t you two wait for me outside?” he says.

  Topher hesitates, but I head for the door. I’m used to following directions.

  My father said the same thing not too long ago: told me to wait outside. And I would have, because I am in the habit of doing whatever either of my parents asks of me. Maybe I should have, but then I would have missed the look on his face when Ms. Bixby finally called him out.

  It was a parent-teacher conference, but it wasn’t the regularly scheduled parent-teacher conference that only comes once a year. This was an impromptu meeting, arranged by my father almost immediately after seeing my last report card, most notably the B in language arts. Not a B plus, which is disappointing but can be tolerated due to its close proximity to something better, but a pathetically ordinary B, like a boil, ugly and bumpy and sticking out amid the array of As, impossible to ignore. I was afraid to bring the report card home. The B was an abnormality, I knew, and it called for an explanation. I offered the best one I could, which was that I struggled with some of the reading quizzes and writing assignments. My mother nodded and told me I would do better next time, but my father wasn’t satisfied.

  Which was how I found myself standing outside room 213 with my father the next evening after dinner, my mother at gymnastics with Christina, whose report card was blemish free and already magneted to the refridgerator. Ms. Bixby appeared in the doorway, looking cheerful despite being stuck at school so long. She asked us to come in. I started to go, but my father grabbed my shoulder, holding me back.

  “Wait out here,” he said, pointing to the chairs teachers keep in the hall for students who need time to “reflect on their choices,” like when Trevor Cowly blew his nose in his hand and then wiped it on the back of my shirt. I started to head toward the chair when Ms. Bixby interrupted.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Sakata,” she said evenly. “Steven is welcome to join us.”

  My father looked at Ms. Bixby, then at the empty chair, then at me. Finally he bowed his head and Ms. Bixby ushere
d us both inside. I noticed him staring at her hair. He did the same thing at Back to School Night. Ms. Bixby reached up and touched the strand of pink self-consciously.

  You think that’s something, you should see my tattoo. That’s what Ms. Bixby usually said whenever someone, usually a new student, commented on her hair. Of course, she had confided in all of us that she didn’t really have a tattoo; it was just something clever to say. Ms. Bixby didn’t use the imaginary tattoo line on my father, however. She just touched her hair and asked us both to sit down. He retrieved the report card from the inside pocket of his suit and set it on the desk between them, then immediately launched into a prepared speech on the topic of “The Recent Decline in Steven’s Evaluated Performance,” complete with a painstakingly accurate account of my elementary career thus far, which had been B-less, though dotted with a few near-miss A minuses. Somewhere in the speech I heard the words surprising, error, and inexcusable. Ms. Bixby listened patiently, waiting for a breath, keeping her eyes on my father, who concluded by asking her how it was possible for his son to be given such a grade.

  “Your son earned a B,” Ms. Bixby said. “I didn’t give it to him. He did very well on all his spelling tests, and his reading comprehension has improved steadily from the beginning of the year. He’s an excellent student.”

  “Exactly. Excellent,” my father said, repeating the part that interested him. “Excellent is A work.”

  “Bs at Fox Ridge Elementary signify above-average work,” Ms. Bixby clarified.