by Jen Malone
As if she can read my mind, Mom breaks the silence. “Hey, you didn’t tell me Sibby got into Tufts.”
The car slows as we hit a red light and I sense her turn to me. I steal a glance at her.
“Oh,” she says softly.
“Oh, what?” I snap.
“You didn’t know? Wow, my plan for tonight certainly didn’t pan out the way I’d hoped. Oh, honey. I’m so, so sorry.”
“The light’s green,” I state, a half second before the driver of the car behind us lays on the horn.
Mom hits the gas pedal and I pull my knees up, leaning them into the door. Short of hanging a “Closed for Conversation” sign, I can think of no better hint I could send her. I know none of this is her fault, but I’m too raw for compassion tonight.
She’s quiet through several more lights, then I nearly topple over when she swerves the car into a hard right turn and screeches to a stop. I blink and look around; we’re in the empty parking lot of a closed flower shop.
“Mom, I really don’t want to talk about—”
She waves me quiet, reaching across me to unhitch her glove compartment. “Neither do I.”
She pulls her iPad out, then opens her door.
“We need to get in the back for this,” she orders, sliding from her seat. A second later she’s behind me in the second row.
“This is weird, you know that, right?” I say, ignoring her route and climbing through the opening between the front seats.
I settle beside her and wait for whatever is coming next, though I suspect I’m not going to like it.
“Look,” she says. “You are very clearly wound to a tick trying to keep all these emotions bottled up inside you.”
“Mom—” I start, but she stops me with an upheld hand.
“Just wait. I’m not going to make you talk to me about it. The offer of a therapist is evergreen, but I’m not even going to force that, because, quite honestly, I know you’re a lot like me and neither of us are very good about putting ourselves on the line like that. But. You’re a shaken soda can and we need to crack the lid just a tiny bit and let some air escape. Skating was my attempt, but since that didn’t go so well, here we are.”
“Here we are . . . at a shuttered florist?” I ask, aiming for a little levity to gain control over this strange turn of events.
She ignores my question and asks her own. “Did I ever tell you about the first case I lost?”
“What? Um, I don’t think so.”
“My client was a mom who had three little kids, all born here, so all citizens themselves, but she was from Peru. I’d been so sure I could win the judge over to my side when he saw the little ones, so I had them lined up right behind their mother in the first row of the courtroom. When the judge ordered the woman deported, the oldest—she was maybe eleven—wailed and raged beyond anything you can imagine. It was heart-wrenching. I was so stunned by the loss that I was numb. I barely reacted.”
Mom fiddles with her wedding ring as she talks. “Afterward, my boss could not shut up about how impressed he was that I was able to keep my emotions in check so well in the midst of that scene and he awarded me an even bigger case right on the spot.”
She snorts. “Message received, loud and clear. Tamp down the drama, lock the ooey gooey away, earn everyone’s respect.”
“Okayyyy,” I say. I can probably guess where she’s going with this story as it relates to me, but I’m still not sure what’s up with the iPad or why we’re in the back seat.
She sighs deeply and reaches for my hand. “The thing is, I’m afraid I might have passed that strategy on to you by example, without making sure you also knew one critical piece of information.”
“What?” I whisper, wary.
“You can only bottle it up for so long before it catches up with you. I learned that the hard way when I broke down crying during a different—equally brutal—hearing. But I needed to find a solution, because I knew that keeping my emotions in check wasn’t just about earning my coworkers’ respect; it also let me be the best ally possible for my clients. They’re already terrified and they need to know that they have an ally who is solid and steadfast.” She collects her breath, then says, “So . . . I found one.”
“A solution?”
“Yup. With special thanks to the brave men and women of our military forces.” She turns her iPad to me to display YouTube’s home screen. The video queued up is titled “Soldiers Coming Home, Most Emotional Compilations #26.”
Mom gestures to the screen. “This sucker is guaranteed to have you sobbing your eyes out in two point five seconds, and if it doesn’t, I have a slew of others bookmarked.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “You want me to watch sappy videos with you?”
I’m relieved it isn’t anything worse than that, but also a bit skeptical.
“I want you to let steam out of the pressure cooker. By crying over sappy videos, yes. The trick is, you can keep it from being personal; the tears don’t have to be about you. You just have to release what’s in there. Okay?”
I glance around the back seat. “I—okay. Yeah, I guess so.”
Mom smiles. “Good. And then when we’ve cried all the tears, we switch to epic fail compilations and laugh our heads off. Sound like a plan?”
“How often do you do this?” I have a sudden image of my mother parked in the breakdown lane of the highway, blotting her eyes when a lieutenant emerges from a stuffed bear mascot at his kid’s football game, then clutching her gut as some asshat attempts to use his sloped roofline as a ski jump.
She bites her lip and peeks at me from under her lashes. “Let’s just say I recently upped my data plan.”
I blink at her. “You are an interesting woman, Mom.”
“Takes one to know one,” she says. “Now come here, baby.”
She angles herself so I can fit my back against her chest and props the iPad on my lap. Her chin tucks into my shoulder and her vanilla bean lotion invades my nostrils.
She presses Play.
We’re only twenty-eight seconds in when the first fat tear spills over. By the three-minute mark I have to pause the video to wring out the cuff of my sleeve and Mom laughs around her own sobs. It should feel terrible to cry this hard . . .
But it doesn’t.
16
RING, RING.
My pulse jumps.
Ring, ring.
Literally everyone I know texts, so if my phone is ringing—
Oh god. Can’t breathe.
The caller ID is a string of numbers, no name.
Slide to answer, you jerk!
“Hel— Hello?”
“Hi there! This is Suzy from Travel Discounts and I’m calling with some exciting news! You may already be the winner of a four-day, three-night cruise to—”
“Fuck off, Suzy!”
Suzy is not offended.
Suzy is a robot.
Suzy doesn’t have feelings. She doesn’t have a heartbeat to regain control of or a stomach to unclench.
Suzy doesn’t have a liver to fail.
Which one of us might be the lucky winner here, Suzy? Cuz I’m thinking maybe it’s you.
Click.
17
MY PLAN FOR THIS ENTIRE SUNDAY IS TO PAINT UNTIL I DROP.
Things have quieted down ever so slightly over the last week. Heart-pounding robocalls aside, letting the pressure out of the steam cooker helped some.
So does the fact that April vacation week starts next Friday and everyone at school is focused on that instead of me. I guess my not frothing at the mouth, or bleeding from my ears, or doing anything else interesting to indicate I might be on the verge of imminently checking out of this world, means everyone can relax around me. Continuing to ask the kid on the organ transplant list if anything’s changed since the last time you asked must not be all that exciting when the answer remains, “Nope. Nothing at all.”
No news isn’t actually good news where my liver is concerned. My MELD score
climbed a point again at my appointment last Friday, which puts it back to twenty-four, but I’ve been here before and had it recede, so I’m trying to remain optimistic.
As for the rest, well . . . avoid, distract, ignore. Stay strong.
Today, distraction gets top billing.
I step back to admire the first bits of lettering applied to the brick wall and soaking up the sun’s rays. Once done, my mural will span an entire side of a restaurant that’s currently under renovation and scheduled to open in early May.
“Pardon me, miss,” a voice behind me says. “I hate to disturb you, but I heard this weird rumor that President Obama once had a pet porcupine, and I was wondering if you might be able to confirm or deny?”
I push my sunglasses up the bridge of my nose and don’t bother hiding my grin as I turn to face Will.
“Well, if it isn’t my surrogate big brother. This is a surprise. I didn’t realize we had another unscheduled check-in today.”
Neither of us has reached out to the other since the night at the ropes course nearly two weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean I’m not happy to see him now.
He smiles. “Well, by definition unscheduled wouldn’t be on your calendar, now would it?” I stick my tongue out at him, but he ignores me and continues, “But that’s not what this is.”
I hadn’t thought it made sense to arrange another “playdate” for us, given the way the last one ended and how it essentially obliterated the ability to be Badass Amelia around him, but . . . maybe I jumped to conclusions? Because I’m feeling decidedly banter-y just at the sight of him.
“No? What is it, then? Wait, if my father sent you to make sure I’m not up on the ladder without a spotter, I will—”
Will holds out a hand. “Easy, Decks. This is . . . Here’s what this is. This is: it’s a beautiful spring day and I was in my dorm room messing around online and feeling crappy about not going outside to enjoy it, but also a little wrecked from staying up way too late last night, and then I saw something on Tumblr about Snoop Dogg considering a run at the presidency in 2020 and knew immediately who I wanted to laugh about it with.”
I hold up my hand. “Snoop Dogg cannot be our next president. We’re all in agreement on this, right?”
Will contemplates. “Three guesses what substance he’d legalize nationally with his first executive order. And think of the trivia potential.” He laughs when I roll my eyes. “Anyway. It felt like a sign that I should ditch the dorm, venture out into the sun, and track down this interesting person I know. So here I am. Well, after stopping at your house first and getting pointed here by your dad. He didn’t mention anything about a ladder, by the way, but he did give me this for you.”
Will holds out a bottle of sunscreen.
“Of course he did,” I say, accepting both it and his explanation with a smile.
“I got to your house just as he and your mom were taking off for the Sox game. How’d they score tickets to one of the first of the season?”
I squirt a dab of sunscreen on my fingertips and smooth it onto my cheeks as I answer him. “One of the store’s customers couldn’t use his, so he gave them to my parents.”
Will whistles. “For opening week? Sure hope that guy never has to pay full price for a box of nails again.”
“Pretty sure Mr. Ventresca has been getting hefty discounts since back when my gramps was alive.”
“Still,” Will murmurs.
He steps back and takes in my wall. “So, because you couldn’t join them, you painted an homage to the Green Monster?”
I groan. The paint color I chose for the background is a very similar deep green to the landmark wall behind the outfield at Fenway Park, but I hadn’t made the connection.
“Totally unintentional and now I won’t be able to unsee that—thanks a lot!”
“You’re welcome,” he says, grinning. He gestures at the wall. “What’s this gonna look like when it’s done?”
“Better than it currently does!” I promise.
The building that will house the bistro is actually cute. It’s set back a bit from the street, which leaves room on the sidewalk for an outdoor seating area that, according to the renderings displayed in the front window, will have hanging fairy lights and the same bright red umbrellas that dot Parisian cafés. Inside, the design plans read “cozy chic.” It’s all perfectly adorable . . . except for the ugly, poorly paved abandoned parking lot abutting the place.
What the owners of this vacant lot are doing sitting on the cash potential of commercial space this close to Harvard Square is beyond me, but it’s none of my business. What is my business is stealing approaching patrons’ attention away from the half acre of littered asphalt and onto something more aesthetically pleasing.
“Do you have any sketches?” Will asks.
I pull out my phone and show him my design. The quote I’ve just started lettering is by Maya Angelou: We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. Ringing it will be a riot of all different flowers, forming a colorful border.
“Wow, that’s really beautiful. Would I redeem myself for the Green Monster comment if I offered to help?” Will asks. “I mean, if you have any tasks an artistically challenged person couldn’t possibly screw up.”
The words are barely out before I’m striding to the ladder I left tucked behind the building. “How are you at spotting?” I call over my shoulder.
I’d be a fool to pass up this opportunity. I’d planned to stick to the quadrants I could reach from the ground today, then hit Sibby up tomorrow, assuming she’s not too sore from today’s derby bout and even knowing it might mean finally having The Talk about Prom with a Purpose. It hangs like a constant mist between us, though she hasn’t mentioned it once since we made uneasy peace about the whole Tufts thing at the disastrous practice last week. This would let me avoid that a bit longer.
Will is quick to respond, lending a hand as I situate the ladder against the wall. He waits for me to climb near the top, then steps both feet on the bottom rung to stabilize us and lifts the paint can.
“You might get some on you,” I warn, dipping my brush. “Is that okay?”
I peer down and watch him check to remind himself what he’s wearing. Ah, boys. So clueless when it comes to clothes. I could have told him without looking that he has on a plain black T-shirt with a small V-neck and faded khaki cargo shorts that are frayed and trail threads at the hem.
He shrugs. “No biggie. Hey, you never did confirm the Obama porcupine rumor, you know.”
“Did you make that up on your way over here?”
“Mayyyyybe.”
I flick the barely wet brush at him, spattering his arm with tiny droplets of yellow that stand out against his light brown skin. “He didn’t have a porcupine, but he did have an ape,” I tell him.
“He what?”
I dip my brush again and lightly trace the outline of a poppy flower. “Yup, when he was a kid in Indonesia. He named it Tata.”
“Oh, okay, but it was in Indonesia, not the White House. That makes it a little more understandable.”
I glance down at him and laugh. “Yeah, well, Calvin Coolidge had two pet raccoons and they did live at the White House. Rebecca and Riley. No! Reuben. Rebecca and Reuben. And Hoover’s son had two pet alligators.”
“Bet that kept the fence jumpers away.”
I grin. “There’s some debate about whether they lived on the grounds. FDR was so obsessed with his dog Fala he made him an honorary army private during World War Two.”
“By the way, how does it feel to be an unending fount of useless presidential trivia?”
I jerk my arm out, threatening to flick paint at him again. “It’s entertaining you, isn’t it? That makes it useful, thank you very much.”
I’ve spent the week feeling washed clean by the tears and in a slightly better place emotionally. But “slightly better” doesn’t compare to “light and effervescent,” which is how I feel right now, with my disease far—or at least f
arther—from my mind, my mural underway, and Will nearby to bat around insubstantial nothings with me and to make me laugh.
As if he received the directive, he calls up to me, “Maybe we can get Snoop Dogg a porcupine as an inauguration gift.”
18
“GET STUFFED, YOU PIECE!”
Sibby’s curse echoes through her apartment and beckons me down the hall. Whatever she’s doing in her room, she’s not too happy about it, and I can’t help wondering what’s waiting to greet me—with Sibby you can never be sure. I edge the door open and am immediately smacked in the face with something small but hard.
“What the—!”
“Cripes, I’m so sorry!” Sibby’s eyes are wide, but then crinkle with amusement. “I had no idea you were out there.”
“What was that?” I ask, massaging my cheek.
Sib glares at the offending object on the floor by my feet, which appears to be a harmless marker, as she sucks on the pad of her index finger. She has to speak around it to inform me, “Nasty bugger pinched me when I closed it.”
I roll my eyes. “Need me to call an ambulance?”
Immediately I regret my words, because not so long ago she was screaming for someone to do exactly that for me. Luckily she doesn’t seem to make the connection, because she merely pats the spot next to her and orders, “Come. What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t let my best friend take off for a week in New York City without a proper goodbye from her favorite person.”
It’s only Thursday night but tomorrow’s Good Friday, so school vacation week gets extended by an extra day at the beginning this year. Sibby’s mom—who’s the director of partnership at the American Repertory Theater—is planning a summer trip to New York for their donors and her insanely lucky daughter gets to tag along this week to help scout which Broadway shows and restaurants to include on the itinerary. I mean, really.
Except Sibby does not look like someone who will be stepping onto a train in a couple hours. I allow my field of vision to expand enough to take in the rest of the scene. She sits cross-legged in a small clearing in the center of her rug, while the rest of her floor looks . . . well, like a craft store exploded. There are at least five piles of poster boards and dozens upon dozens of markers, colored pencils, and crayons flung about.