But as Mom’s shiny, highlighted hair bounced against her shoulders and her designer purse swung back and forth while we walked down 18th Street, I felt that about-to-throw-up tightness in my throat. Maybe Dad’s right that giving to a charity can have a bigger impact than giving to one person, but I doubt he actually remembers to give to homelessness charities. And he can’t be right that we shouldn’t help one person just because we can’t help every person. That’s like saying that just because I can’t get enough money to pay for OT sessions for every person on the spectrum, I shouldn’t bother trying to pay for anybody’s.
“I think we should have given money to those homeless people,” I said as we walked up to Anthropologie. “Maybe we could go back?”
But Mom said, “What homeless people?” because she hadn’t even noticed them, and then she opened the tall, heavy door to the store and stood there with one hand on the door and the other gripping the bottom of her big designer bag, waiting for me to go in.
“I . . . I can’t,” I told her. “We have to go back.”
She sighed. “Honey, if you come inside with me now and help me pick out something for Aunt Jill and Aunt Becky, I promise I’ll stop to give money to every homeless person we pass on the way back to the train station.”
“It might not be the same homeless people then!” I squeaked.
“Whoever’s out then will need the money just as much,” Mom said. She was using her trying-not-to-lose-it voice, which is slower and higher than her regular one.
And the tightness in my throat spread all the way down to my stomach, because she was right. Even if we went back to the people out there now and looked for more people on our way back to the train, there would be more people a few blocks east and a few blocks west, and we’d never even see them at all. I started to feel like maybe it wasn’t anywhere near enough to give money to the people on our route back to the train station. And it might not be enough to give money to Jenna, when she’s only one of thousands and thousands of OTs, and all of them probably have clients like Hailey.
Two women wearing long coats and carrying shopping bags wanted to walk out of the store, so Mom had to step behind the door to give them room.
“I’m trying to have a nice day with you, Lauren,” Mom said. “Please?”
Her slow, high, fake-calm voice was rubbed worn now, like the old purse she’d retired when she got this new one. A teeny-tiny part of me wanted to rewind to last year, when I would have raced into the store and hugged Mom just for agreeing to take me shopping and tuned out the homeless people on the street just like she had. But I couldn’t, of course. I followed her into the store because my brain was too jumbled to do anything else.
We went downstairs to where the house decoration stuff was, and Mom stopped to ooh and aah over everything. Candlesticks, tablecloths, coffee cups, tea sets, dish towels. All these things that nobody needs at all.
I shimmied out of my jacket, but the store was way too hot, anyway.
“Look how beautiful!” Mom picked up a teapot with pastel flowers painted on.
“Aunt Jill and Aunt Becky don’t like pastels,” I reminded her.
I wasn’t sure they’d like anything in this whole pretty, perfume-y store, actually. I tried to fan my face with one hand, but I just kept getting hotter.
Mom gave me a guilty smile. “But wouldn’t it be pretty with our pastel mugs at home?”
“We barely even drink tea!” I told her, loudly enough that the lady straightening dish towels frowned at me.
Mom must have finally remembered what I’d said after they found the stuff in my pajama drawer—about how I don’t like it that we don’t live simply—because she nodded and put the teapot down. “You’re right, honey.”
She walked toward the vases and candlesticks, and I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater, but that didn’t cool me down, either. So many embroidered dish towels and frilly aprons and monogrammed mugs.
“How about these?” Mom called.
She held up brightly colored potholders that might sort of match Aunt Jill and Becky’s cheerful, cluttered kitchen. They have potholders already, but they’re a little bit old and stained. They could buy replacements for less than half the cost of these, but everything was too hot and my throat was still too tight and we weren’t going to find anything better, so I nodded.
“Maybe a candle, too,” Mom added. “Do you want to choose the scent?”
We sniffed the candles in all the pretty glass jars. Cider and mulled wine and lavender. Then mint and rosemary, like the Aveda shampoos. I wanted to grab a few of those candles, slip them into the bottom of my bag where they’d clink against one another and remind me that I’m not just sitting back and pretending it doesn’t matter, how screwed up everything is. That I’m trying to fix something, and I won’t give up just because I can’t fix everything.
After I took those shampoos when I was at the mall with Sierra, I could breathe so much easier. It was as if I’d been up on top of a mountain where the air was too thin, but then I got back to the bottom. Right away, everything felt good and bright and hopeful, the way it had when Dad replaced all the old lightbulbs in our kitchen.
I needed some of that easy-to-breathe brightness right now, but Mom was standing too close. So I pointed to the rosemary one and said, “That one smells the best. Can we go now?”
“Don’t you want to look for any clothes? I know you’re worried about”—she paused to look for the right words—“being too extravagant. But we could at least check the sale room. Or do you want to go straight to Urban Outfitters?”
I could probably find some more jeans or other clothes to sell, but Mom and Dad are paying too much attention now. Mom already asked me about the ones from Lucky, but I told her they were a little too big, so I was saving them for when they fit.
“Unless you’re hungry for lunch?” Mom asked, and I nodded.
“I am,” I lied. “I’m really, really hungry.”
It only took her a few seconds to put her special-girls’-outing smile back on. “OK. Let’s pay and then find something yummy!”
So we headed upstairs, and when we got to the front of the line, the cashier said, “These potholders are the cutest! Would you like these things wrapped in tissue? And would you like a gift box?”
“Yes to both, please,” Mom said.
She was still smiling, and when she caught my eye, I made myself smile back, even though I couldn’t stop thinking about those candles I could have sold if I’d been able to sneak them into my purse. And how many homeless people Mom and I wouldn’t see on our walk back to the train station, and how many OTs there are in Philadelphia, and in Pennsylvania, and in the world.
Mom checked something on her iPhone while the cashier turned around to find the right size box and wrap our stuff in tissue paper.
There was nobody in line behind us, and nobody was looking at me, and there was a sale bin right at the end of the counter, full of sparkly hair clips and rings with giant round stones.
I reached into the bin—I could pretend I was just looking at the stuff if anyone noticed—and I pulled out three hair clips and a ring.
Mom looked up from her phone just as I slipped the stuff into my bag. “Dad wants us to bring him one of those cookies he likes, from that place on 16th.”
Then the cashier turned back around. “How does this box look for you?”
Neither of them knew what I’d done. My next breath came in easily, and the whole store lit up brighter, and for the first time all day, I felt completely sure that I was doing everything I could to make things better, and as long as I kept trying, then everything might actually be OK.
Just as Mom had promised, she gave a dollar to each of the two homeless people we passed on the way back to the train. The guy in the wheelchair was there still, but the other two people were gone. There was a lady holding a scrawny orange cat on the corner where the dirty-faced boy had been.
My brain started to spin, wondering where thos
e other people had gone and whether I should be saving my money for homeless people instead of autistic kids—or for homeless, autistic kids? But I reached into my purse and rubbed the cool, smooth, torquoise stone in the ring I’d taken until my thoughts slowed down.
Back in Mt. Airy, Mom and I walked home from the train station, and I went right to Sierra’s so I could drop off the new stuff to store and pick up the cuff links.
Anne let me in, wearing a cozy off-white sweater and smiling her easy smile.
“Lauren! What a nice surprise. Sierra’s upstairs working on the computer. Come on in!”
When she reached out to close the door behind me, I noticed something thin and shiny in her hand. An earring hook.
“Are you working on your jewelry?”
She used to invite me over sometimes to help her make earrings or necklaces or bracelets, and I loved to sift through beads and stones that could be combined in so many different ways to make so many different pretty things.
“I sure am. There’s a craft show next weekend, after Thanksgiving. Have you heard of Small Business Saturday?”
I didn’t answer, though, because I was remembering how one year, she made jewelry out of crummy old spoons. She flattened out the top part that scoops and bent the spoons into cuff bracelets, and suddenly the tarnished parts looked interesting, not just old.
Nothing says “simplicity” better than bracelets made out of crummy spoons.
“Sierra’s told you about the Simplicity-a-Thon, right?” I said. “Has she told you we’re looking for prizes?”
Anne’s eyebrows edged together. She doesn’t coat her skin with makeup the way Mom does, so I could see the faint wrinkles that lined her forehead.
“I don’t believe I’ve heard about the prizes, no.”
Sierra showed up on the stairs then, a few steps down from the top. She leaned against the railing and hooked one foot behind the other ankle, so one bent knee stuck out to the side. She was sort of frowning. Like maybe she didn’t want Anne to know we needed prizes still, even though we’re running out of time?
But we only had two so far, and at our last meeting, we talked about how we need one more so we can have a first-, second-, and third-place winner. It’s not like I can get my parents to offer anything simple, but Anne’s perfect. Maybe Sierra was frowning about something else.
“Tell her, Sierra,” I said, but Sierra shook her head so slightly that I almost couldn’t tell she’d moved.
“What are the prizes, Sierra?” Anne asked, and I recognized the way her voice sounded—like she was layering an exclamation point on top of the question mark at the end. Like maybe then her own extra enthusiasm could rub off on Sierra. Like Mom, trying so hard to connect.
“They’re all supposed to be, um, activities where people can create things instead of stuff that we’d have to buy,” Sierra said.
She didn’t say anything else, though, so I told the rest.
“Mariah got her dad to donate a cooking lesson, and Jake’s dad is giving a woodworking session.”
Anne nodded slowly. “Would you like me to offer a jewelry-making lesson?”
She was looking up the stairs at Sierra, not at me. Sierra swung her bent knee forward and backward and then planted her foot flat on the step.
“OK. Thanks,” she said finally. Then she turned to me. “Are you coming upstairs?”
“Yep, I’m coming. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Anne! This is going to be great!” I said, and Anne reached out to squeeze my arm.
“Thank you, Lauren.” She smiled so big, the skin around her eyes crinkled. “It’s so nice to be able to help.”
And I knew exactly what she meant. It’s so, so nice to be able to help.
The Simplicity-a-Thon started at the end of the day on Monday. Mariah had a guitar lesson, Gordy and Oscar had basketball, and the fifth-grade girls had to meet with their Spanish teacher, but Jake, Sierra, and I sat at the front of Mr. Ellis’s room while people came in to sign up and turn in the money they’d collected from sponsors.
Sierra’s job was putting each person’s donations into a labeled envelope so Mr. Ellis could count up the earnings and figure out the three winners. Jake and I were in charge of having people read the no-electronics-for-twenty-four-hours pledge and sign their initials.
Max Sherman hadn’t collected any donations, but he slapped a five-dollar bill onto the desk in front of Sierra.
“Sign me up, Daisy!” he told her. That’s what he’s called her ever since Halloween, even though I specifically told him she was a sunflower. “If I can’t use a computer, then I can’t do half my homework tonight!”
But even if a few other people only signed up for the same reason, almost seventy-five people entered. Even Audrey and Emma waltzed into Mr. Ellis’s room, arms linked and money in hand. There was nobody reading the no-electronics pledge on my clipboard, but they waited in front of Jake’s, anyway.
Audrey made a big point of calling, “Bye, Jake! Bye, Mr. Ellis!” when they left.
I caught Sierra’s eye, stuck out my tongue, and made my eyes go crossed, which made her giggle.
Jake caught me doing it. “Cute,” he said.
And even though he was teasing me, the word cute coming out of Jake’s mouth set me off giggling, too, even more than Sierra.
Tuesday afternoon at 2:30, the gym was way louder than on Halloween. We were only thirty minutes away from the end of the last school day before Thanksgiving break, and almost half the middle school was thirty minutes away from turning on their cell phones for the first time in twenty-four hours, too.
Even Mr. Ellis couldn’t project loudly enough for anyone to hear him, so he picked up the microphone, tapped it, and then held a hand up for silence. All the fifth and sixth graders held their hands up, too, which is what we’re all supposed to do. “Hands up, mouths shut”—that’s the rule. After I saw Jake’s hand shoot up without any hesitation, I raised mine, too, even though most of the other seventh and eighth graders didn’t.
“As you might have heard, this Thursday happens to be Thanksgiving,” Mr. Ellis said, and the entire gym erupted in cheers. He put his hand up again, waiting for everybody to quiet back down before he continued. “Today, I’m feeling very, very thankful for the hardworking Worship and Ministry group and this entire community, because we have earned $4,230 that will go straight to Habitat for Humanity and their important mission!”
The applause exploded again, even louder, and across the gym, Jake pointed at me, as if this was all because of me.
Sierra leaned in to whisper, “See? You turned Thanksgiving into something good.”
And, yeah, I’d only gotten $75 worth of donations total from my parents and Aunt Jill since I’d been busy trying to sell stuff for Jenna. And I sort of wished I could take at least some of that $4,000 to add to what I’d made so far for kids like Hailey. And there were all those homeless people I hadn’t helped at all.
But still. I smiled my biggest smile at Jake, squeezed Sierra’s hand, and cheered as loudly as I could.
Mr. Ellis announced the winners then. “First place goes to one of our Worship and Ministry leaders, Jake Paterson-Willis!”
Jake stood up, grinning, and high-fived the eighth graders who held their hands out to him as he walked up to Mr. Ellis. The collar of his light blue shirt stuck up in the back in one place instead of folding all the way over, but that just made him cuter—that one tiny detail wasn’t quite right.
“Second place goes to Carly Schneider,” Mr. Ellis went on. “And in third place, Audrey Lee!”
Sierra and I looked at each other as Audrey popped up and strolled to the middle of the gym, her shiny silver shoes sliding against the floor and her posture super-straight, like she’d finally listened to all her mom’s scolding not to slouch. She found Sierra and me in the crowd and shot us a gloat-y, eyebrows-raised smile.
“She probably just got her dad to write a check,” I whispered. “I bet she didn’t do any work to find sponsors at
all.”
“We have three terrific prizes for our winners to choose from,” Mr. Ellis said. “Mariah, come on up to tell us about the three choices, and then Jake will pick first!”
Mariah stood up and read the prize descriptions.
Pick jewelry making, Jake, I thought.
I couldn’t totally see a guy choosing to make jewelry—even a guy as confident as Jake. But if he did, it would be the easiest thing in the world to go next door while he was there, maybe help him thread beads onto wire. The idea of leaning over his shoulder and encouraging him as he made a necklace or bracelet for his mom made my cheeks flame so hot, I put my hands up to cover them.
But Jake said, “I’ll take the cooking lesson.”
I swallowed down my disappointment and told myself to stop being so selfish. This whole Simplicity-a-Thon was about doing something good for other people, anyway.
I tried to smile as Jake high-fived Mariah and as Carly picked woodworking, but then I saw the look on Sierra’s face and realized: Only one option left for Audrey.
Jewelry making lessons with Anne. At Sierra’s house. Right next door to mine.
Sierra looked straight down and rubbed the palm of one hand against the shiny gym floor as Mr. Ellis gave Audrey the jewelry-making certificate. And then she barely said anything when we joined the swarm of people leaving the gym. When I asked her if she thought anybody had bought the shampoos or the Anthropologie stuff during the last twenty-four hours when I couldn’t check, she only shrugged.
As soon as we made it into the hallway, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and when I turned around, there was Jake, the back of his collar still sticking up.
Adrenaline jolted through my whole body. “Hey, congrats!” I said.
“What are you doing the Saturday after Thanksgiving break?” he asked.
I was so surprised by his question that I forgot to keep walking, and somebody ran into me from behind.
“Um, nothing, I don’t think.”
Every Shiny Thing Page 11