by Karole Cozzo
I tilt my head and give her a Look until she finally glances over her shoulder at me.
“C’mon, Jordyn, this is the best I can do.”
The best she can do kind of sucks. Going out to dinner with Phillip definitely sucks.
I step away from the door. “We can just go another night. Sounds like that will be easier for everyone.”
“No, this is our tradition.” She stands and puts her hands on her hips. “It has to be tonight. It’ll be fine.”
Maybe it will be fine, but it won’t be good. But she’s already busy gathering Phillip’s things, double-checking that we have everything he’ll need just to get through the meal, periodically prompting and reprompting. “Time for dinner, Phillip. Time for dinner.”
“No McDonald’s!”
“No McDonald’s, Phillip. The restaurant will be quiet.”
“No McDonald’s!”
“No McDonald’s, I promise.”
“Vacuum?”
“I’m sure the restaurant has a vacuum.”
I roll my eyes and open the door, conceding defeat. Dinner is happening and now I sort of want to get it over with as quickly as possible.
Phillip rides up front because he gets carsick. I’m stuck in the back, getting passing smiles from my mom in the rearview as she tries to concentrate on the road while at the same time keeping Phillip from reprogramming the radio station presets. At least it’s a short drive to the restaurant and we make it there unscathed.
The interior of Pablo & Pancho’s is dark and cozy, with bench seating and overstuffed pillows, small candles flickering in red-and-blue mosaic cups. Despite the dim lighting, I can still feel the weight of the stares as soon as we walk through the door. Phillip is thin and frail. He walks like an agitated heron, on the tips of his toes, head moving from side to side, scanning the room for something to set him off. My mom actually dangles his Nintendo 3DS in front of him like a carrot but she insists he keep his headphones off until we’re seated, why I don’t know. He stands out without them.
In the small lobby, mariachi music, rife with the rapid-fire strumming of guitars—“Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay mi amor, ay mi morena!”—blasts over the speakers. Phillip claps his hands over his ears and begins shrieking loud enough to drown out the repetitive, passionate refrain of the song. His shrieks are high-pitched and alienlike, but nothing like the full-on screaming that will follow if we don’t get him away from the speakers pronto.
My mom quickly guides him to the hostess stand. “Three of us for dinner, thank you.”
Phillip grabs on to the tail of the young hostess’s shirt as we follow her toward the back of the restaurant, garnering more stares as we go. “Vacuum?”
“Phillip. No touch,” my mom scolds firmly, like she’s talking to a toddler, not a boy who’s taller than she is.
Arriving at a table, the hostess remains polite, but I can tell she’s uncomfortable. “I’m sorry?”
“Dyson. Hoover. Eu-re-ka, I’ve got it!” Phillips thrusts his fist into the air and repeats his little chant in singsong. “Dyson. Hoover. Eu-re-ka, I’ve got it!”
Mom laughs pleasantly, like it’s actually funny. “Phillip loves vacuum cleaners. He’s asking what brand you have here.”
The hostess smiles brightly, but obviously she thinks we’re straight out of the loony bin. “I’ll be sure to find out for you.” She drops the menus in a messy pile on the table and hightails it back to the hostess stand.
Her answer isn’t good enough for Phillip, who’s intent on finding the vacuum. My mom struggles to power up his 3DS while using one arm to keep him from escaping the booth. “Dyson. Hoover. Eu-re-ka!” He bounces up and down on his knees and flaps his arms in excitement.
I pick up on waves of annoyance crashing in our direction and trace them back to an older couple trying to enjoy a quiet meal at the table across from us. They scoot farther toward the side wall, as if they wished they could crawl inside it. Away from us.
The restaurant manager approaches from the storefront, where he’s been in whispered conference with the hostess. “Welcome to Pablo and Pancho’s. My name’s Eric, I’m the manager. Just wanted to welcome you and I hope you have a great dining experience this evening.”
He’s not here to welcome us. He’s trying to determine if my brother is the harmless type of crazy or the truly dangerous type.
“Thank you. He won’t be any trouble,” my mom insists, even as she tugs on Phillip’s arm to keep him from crawling over the table.
“Hoover. Dyson. Eu-re-ka, I’ve got it!”
“If you could possibly just tell us what vacuum cleaner brand you have here, he’ll settle right down.”
Sure. A perfectly normal request.
But the manager indulges us. “I think it’s a Shark.”
“Duunnn dunnn . . . duuuunnnn duun . . .” Phillip starts up with the Jaws theme song, using his fork and spoon as percussion instruments. “Duuunnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnn.”
I hide my face behind the enormous menu, scanning the list of sixty-four combination options as if it were the most fascinating thing ever. One chicken enchilada and one soft taco. Three soft tacos with rice and beans. Two chicken taquitos and one burrito.
I kind of want to crawl inside the wall myself.
Blessedly, I hear the start-up music from the Nintendo player and finally he is quiet.
Our waitress swaps places with the manager, who scoots away in a hurry. “Hi there, I’m Ashlyn.” She sets down the complimentary basket of chips and salsa, which I’d normally dig into, except I’ve sort of lost my appetite. Ashlyn nods toward Phillip. “He’s adorable!” she says, artificial smile stretching her cheeks, her reluctance to take our table still visible in her eyes.
The lengths some people will go to work a tip.
“You know what you want, Jordyn?” My mom closes her menu without even looking at it.
It’s not usually hurried like this. Usually we gorge ourselves on two baskets of chips and salsa before even ordering and I get a virgin strawberry margarita with a sugar rim. We make it a celebration. But not tonight, apparently.
“I’ll have the chicken enchilada combo,” I tell Ashlyn.
“I’ll have the same.” My mom is riffling through the small cooler she brought along, the one that contains various items from Phillip’s gluten/casein-free diet that is designed to keep his behavior from getting any worse.
She’s not paying attention. She always gets the taco special. She doesn’t even like chicken enchiladas.
“And I know it’s asking a lot,” she continues in an apologetic voice, lifting a container of gluten-free mac and cheese from the cooler, “but is there any way you’d be able to microwave this in the back? Maybe just for forty-five seconds or so?”
“I’m so sorry. I’d be happy to, but there’s a ‘no outside food’ policy in the kitchen.”
“Maybe a bowl of hot water I can warm it in then. That’ll do. Thank you.”
It’s not like Phillip’s going to eat it anyway. He’s just going to play with it, rolling the sticky macaroni between his fingers, enjoying the sensation.
After Ashlyn collects the menus and leaves, my mom hands a bag of rice crackers to Phillip, who is happily tapping away at his DS. Finally satisfied that all his needs have been met, she dips a chip into the salsa bowl. “So how was practice today?”
“It was okay. Just tiring. It’s hard getting back in the swing of things.”
“It’s a long day for you.” She smiles. “No more cushy poolside job.”
“I know, right?”
She’s joking, but I’ve gotten the sense she didn’t totally support my decision to work at the snack bar instead of the day camp where I’d worked last summer. But last summer and this summer were two different things. I thought maybe a new position would help me remember that. It didn’t really work out too well, even though I’d never admit it to her. Handing out freeze pops just wasn’t fulfilling. I missed the campers a lot an
d I felt jealous of the counselors who received their hugs in my place.
I missed a lot of things about last summer.
“Do your friends have some of the same classes as you do?”
“Yeah, Erin and Tanu are in my English class again. And Alex and I have history together.”
“How’s Alex doing?”
My mom has never met Alex, but that doesn’t mean she’s never heard his name. Over the past year, I’ve found myself talking a lot about “my friend Alex,” even when I’ve made a conscious effort not to.
“He’s good.” I fiddle with a chip, breaking it into a million little pieces. I stare down at the cheerfully tiled table. “He and Leighton—you know, from the team? They started going out, I guess.”
“She seems like a nice girl.” My mother crams another chip into her mouth and nods. “Very mature. Always makes a point of talking to the parents after games.”
My heart sinks, hearing one more person sing Leighton’s praises. I look out the window and my throat tightens. For a moment, I consider sharing my confusing feelings with my mom, hating how they feel all bottled up inside.
But it’s not the time to start a real conversation, not with Phillip here. She won’t be listening, not really. There’s no guarantee we’ll actually get to finish talking about anything.
Our food arrives quickly, along with a bowl of hot water to heat Phillip’s meal, and without conferring on the matter we both start shoving food into our faces. Phillip’s countdown-to-meltdown timer isn’t visible and it could expire without warning.
And even though we eat quickly, we don’t eat quickly enough. Every now and again my mom drops her fork and tries to cajole Phillip into eating the mac and cheese she went to such lengths to warm. Each time, Phillip shoves her hand away in irritation without even looking at her. Eventually he’s had enough of her pestering and lets out a noise that’s a cross between an irritable humpback whale and a bellowing moose. The old woman beside us startles in her seat.
Phillip ceremoniously dumps the entire container of mac and cheese onto the table. Then he begins flicking noodles out of his way like he was playing a game of tabletop football. He’s telling my mom there’s no way in hell he’s actually eating it, but what he actually yells is “Holographic meatloaf? My favorite!”
Flick.
A cold, wet noodle flies through the air and lands on the woman’s plate. She and her husband both stare at us in horror.
“Phillip! All done.”
My mom’s voice is stern and she grabs Phillip’s wrist, but he twists away from her, pushes onto his knees again, and steps up the game. He grabs a handful of his dinner and throws it toward the couple. His voice grows louder. “Holographic meatloaf? My favorite!”
The couple picks up their plates and carries their glasses to a table far, far away, without even bothering to ask Ashlyn if it’s okay. At the same time, my mom flags her down and asks to have our dinners wrapped. Without consulting with me first. I glower down at my untouched second enchilada, biting back “I told you so.” Styrofoam containers are packed, Phillip’s belongings are gathered, and we’re both whisked out of Pablo & Pancho’s faster than you can say “bean burrito.”
On the way home, I sit with my arms crossed in the backseat, sullen. So stupid. I mean, a restaurant is supposed to be something you enjoy, not something you endure. This is why we default to takeout so often. We should have held out for another night. Now our tradition is ruined. I’m not going to say so to my mother. I’m not going to say anything else to my mother tonight. I plan to let her know how I feel by storming up the steps to my room.
But I don’t get the chance to disappear in a huff. When we open the front door, we find my dad pacing back and forth in the foyer. His shirt is untucked, his expression is tight and agitated, and his phone is in his hand.
“What’s wrong, Jack?”
Phillip escapes to the living room, oblivious to emotional climates, but I wait at my mom’s side.
My dad pushes at his eyebrow and looks back and forth between us. He’s debating whether or not to answer in front of me. Eventually, he does. “I got an extremely upsetting phone call today.”
It has something to do with Phillip, I think at once. It does not cross my mind to consider that anything other than Phillip might be wrong . . . how twisted is that? There are grandparents who could be sick, jobs that could be lost, world catastrophes that could happen. But I’m sure it’s Phillip. It’s always Phillip.
“From the director of Bridges,” my dad continues.
Yep. Phillip. Knew it.
Bridges is this super-exclusive school our district pays for Phillip to attend so they don’t have to deal with him in any of their schools. It has this insane wooded campus complete with a horse farm and state-of-the-art gym with an Olympic-size swimming pool, which warrants the nearly seventy-thousand-dollar tuition it costs to send him there each year.
I’ve attended—well, I’ve been forced to attend—events there, and it’s a pretty cool place. Phillip doesn’t stand out among his fellow students, and he seems fairly content to be there. You can tell that his teachers and therapists are there because they want to be, and they don’t look at Phillip or talk to him the way the rest of the world does.
I hope he hasn’t blown his opportunity to be there.
“Did something happen today? They usually call me.” My mom frowns. “I don’t think I missed a call.” She scrolls through her missed-call list.
What did he do now? Phillip has already had some really rough days at school; what could he possibly have done to cause this reaction from my father?
“Bridges is closing,” my dad explains bluntly. “Some serious funding issue, something they thought was going to be resolved by the state in the nick of time.” He sighs in defeat, smoothing his hair across his bald spot—his nervous tell. “Well, it wasn’t, and effective immediately, they have to shut their doors.”
Mom’s purse falls to her feet with a thud. “This just happened overnight? There’s nothing else anyone can do? And this is the first we’re hearing about it?”
“The director was extremely apologetic and is incredibly upset himself.” Dad glances worriedly at me, something I don’t understand. “But it sounds pretty final.”
“So he just has to stay at home now?” I ask.
It doesn’t seem right, but I guess we can make do. My mom gave up her job years ago; it just didn’t work out, having to leave in the middle of shifts to pick Phillip up from school when he still went to public school and had nearly daily meltdowns.
“No, I was in touch with the district right away. They’re adamant that they’ll find another placement for him,” he explains. “Legally, they have to, within sixty days. I double-checked with an attorney, too.”
“That’s better news.” My mom’s shoulders relax. “That there’s some guarantee he’ll end up somewhere that’s appropriate.”
But my dad has not relaxed at all. He stares nervously at my mother, trying to convey something.
“The district will take care of it, right? It’s not on us to find a new placement?”
“Yes. The director of special education promised she’d take care of it, within the allotted sixty days.” He shoots another worried look in my direction as he mentions this sixty-day time frame again.
I don’t get it, all things considered. They’ve received worse phone calls. “That’s a shame about Bridges,” I acknowledge. “Shame he has to start somewhere new. But there’s got to be other options around here, right?”
My dad nods. “There are other options, yes. I can think of a few off the top of my head from when we looked around. But . . .” He looks at my mom again, eyes worried.
For one last, blissful moment, I am entirely oblivious. For one final second, I believe this has absolutely nothing to do with me.
That second passes. My memory of this day will always be divided around the moment before my father breaks the news and the horrible moments after
.
“Legally, the district can’t allow Phillip to sit at home,” my dad explains. “Legally, until a new placement is found, he has to be somewhere.” He steels himself, squaring his shoulders, and finally meets my eye. “They will be creating a temporary education plan, outlining placement in a district program.”
District programming doesn’t work for Phillip. It never has.
“Thank goodness that’s not their permanent solution,” my mom grouses.
“So he’s going to go to Park for a while?” I ask. Park is the other high school in my district, where most of the special ed classes are located.
My father clears his throat. “There are space issues at Park. Apparently, they already had to set up a whole bunch of modular classrooms because of the size of the freshman class this year. So what they plan to do is set up a temporary classroom for all students from the district that are coming back from Bridges until their new placements are found.” His eyes cloud with renewed worry. “Jordyn, honey, they’re setting up the classroom at Valley Forge.”
My breathing cuts off.
Valley Forge. As in my school. As in . . . no. Just no.
My nails cut into my palms as the words escape from my mouth. “No. Absolutely not. That’s not a solution.” I fold my arms across my chest.
My mom’s face is twisted with concern but her words offer little comfort. “I’m not sure it’s really up to us, honey. All we can do is get moving on this as fast as we can. I’ll pound the pavement, speed the application process along the best I can. We’ll get Phillip in the door somewhere that’s right for him. As soon as humanly possible.” She inhales sharply. “But, no, we can’t make that happen overnight. We’ll just all have to deal with this for a little while.”
“No,” I repeat. Salty, frustrated tears coat my throat as I remember the very recent scene at the restaurant, and I struggle to speak around them. “I don’t care if it’s ten days, I don’t care if it’s two days. One day is too much.” I suck in a shaky breath. “It’s not fair.”
It’s not. I cannot deal with Phillip at school. I can’t take the whispers and stares, having them turned in my direction once everyone realizes what Phillip’s last name is.