Husky

by Justin Sayre

  The babies must be keeping her.

  Nanny and Mrs. Zhang are talking at each other and asking me questions every once in a while, but I can’t really respond, so I just sort of smile and nod. Occasionally I say yeah, just to make it sound like I’m paying attention, but I’m not. I’m playing with a roll. One that Mom made and would be making tonight if everything was the way it was supposed to be. But she’s out somewhere now with curly hair and hopefully a shirt.

  The door opens, and I hear Mrs. Martinez because she drops something and everyone makes a fuss. When she stands up again, the whole restaurant gets lighter. I don’t know how else to say it. Mrs. Martinez is a little goofy, if you can say that about an old lady, but she is. Like now, picking up all the little things she’s dropped. She does things in funny ways, and she sort of knows it, but she doesn’t do anything to change it. She’s just goofy. And I guess she likes it like that.

  She always has this big coat with pockets full of stuff, because she doesn’t carry a purse. “Why would I need to carry a big bag like that? I want my hands free,” she says with a big grin showing whoever’s asking her why and then touching their face. She does this to everyone. Young people, old people. Strangers. And everyone is “querida” or “querido,” which means darling.

  “I brought something for you, querido,” says Mrs. Martinez as she approaches the table and touches my face. “Here are some pencils so you can do all your homeworks for the school next week.”

  My face must have done something. It does sometimes. I try to make it stop, but sometimes the thing that I’m thinking even for a split second comes right out on my face and people notice. Nanny notices and coughs. “But don’t worry, papa.” Mrs. Martinez lifts my face a little. “These are fancy pencils. Look.” And she hands me three pencils with my name in gold on each and music notes and little men singing next to it. She had them made for me, I guess. Davis is not a really common name. I barely ever get a license plate or a key chain. But there on my three pencils: Davis.

  I hug Mrs. Martinez for a long time, because tonight, after everything, it seems like the sweetest thing anybody’s done for me. Ever. And they’re just pencils. But they have my name on them, and she thought about me when I wasn’t around and wanted to do something nice for me.

  Mrs. Martinez loves to be hugged, so she holds tighter than I can, but tight as I want her to, and for a long time. So long that Mrs. Zhang has to say, “All right, we need to order.” I try to let go first, but Mrs. Martinez doesn’t let go. She holds on tighter and even feels my hair. I know not to pull away now. And Nanny touches her hand to Mrs. Martinez’s arm. Because something has changed. Mrs. Martinez is crying a little, and finally she lets go.

  Nanny pats her. “Oh, pet, it’s all right.”

  Mrs. Martinez smiles a bit and picks up one of the twenty tissues that are all over the table and wipes her eyes. She smiles as she picks up everything else and doesn’t say anything. When everything is put away, she looks only at me and smiles and rubs my face. “Are you happy, querido?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  “We all would be if we could order,” says Mrs. Zhang.

  A year ago, Mrs. Martinez’s son, Gustavo, died. He was hit by a car on 4th Avenue. He lived with Mrs. Martinez after he came home from Iraq. It was very sad. We never say anything about it. But when she cries or hugs for too long a time, we know she is thinking of Gustavo. It’s why the babies are good for her and why she’s allowed to be late. A person like Mrs. Martinez, or like Mom, should always be smiling. You want someone like that to be happy. Because when they’re not, it’s the worst feeling in the world. Worse than anything today.

  It’s a smile that should be in the world but isn’t. And that feels awful.

  After dinner, Mrs. Zhang has decaf coffee, Nanny eats the hard candy from her pocketbook, and Mrs. Martinez and I split a dessert. Nanny sometimes makes a face about it, like I’ve had enough and I should know better. But Mrs. Martinez always wants something sweet and wants me to have some of it too. It’s the only time I ever think I really get Nanny a little upset about my weight. Not mad, just sort of disappointed. It flashes across her face so fast that I can barely read it to know. I just get the second of This is not good. And then a sort of Well, go on then look. So I do.

  Tonight we split tiramisu, which is our favorite. Mrs. Martinez sometimes holds my hand while we eat it, which I know sounds creepy, but it sort of is nice. Like the dessert is just for us, and we’re alone with it. No faces matter. Just the tiramisu. And it’s always the best.

  Nanny and I walk Mrs. Zhang to the train, and she rubs my belly, again. We walk Mrs. Martinez to 9th Street, where she hugs me again on the sidewalk. And we walk home alone, always without saying a word. Nanny smiles, so it’s not a silence that makes me worry, it’s just the food. And missing Jock.

  It only lasts till the front door. As soon as she gets inside, she booms at me, “Well, you were a perfect gentleman tonight, Ducks. I’m very pleased with you. Now run up and get a shower and changed for bed.”

  It’s only about ten o’clock, but I know that she means it. So I run upstairs and head to the bathroom. My bathroom, through Mom’s room, both are empty but they still smell like her perfume.

  After I shower and put on pajamas, I go and watch TV with Nanny. We laugh and watch lots of different things, flicking from channel to channel just to see the “good bits.” And I guess I fall asleep, because at two in the morning, Nanny pushes me awake and says, “Ducks, darling, head up to your bed.” My eyes are fuzzy, but I see the TV and the clock, and I walk up the two flights to my room. Mom’s room still smells like her, but she’s not in it. Where is she?

  CHAPTER 9

  The next morning, Nanny wakes me early with a big yell up the stairs: “Are you up, up there? It’s time to be UP! You need to put yourself on an earlier schedule now, because I won’t be fighting you come the school week, I won’t. Ducks! Are! You! Awake?!” I don’t know anything in the world that could sleep through that. Anything. The house shakes sometimes, and it’s made of brick. Honest.

  “I’m awake!” I yell back down.

  “Are you telling the truth to me, now?” she yells back.

  There’s no real way to, like, answer it without being “smart,” which she hates. Being smart to Nanny is responding with your own opinion or trying to make a joke out of her own silliness. I don’t do it, but sometimes I really can’t help myself. How could I be yelling back if I wasn’t awake? Plus, isn’t being smart a good thing? It’s not a good thing when I get yelled at a whole lot more, so I just stay dumb. And quiet.

  I get out of bed and head to the shower, but Nanny screams up to me, “Your pretty friend from up the road called for you.” Nanny even knows the adjectives for us. That has to be Sophie. “She said you should go up to theirs for lunch, so I haven’t made you anything. I should be making your breakfast is what I should be making, but your lazy bones can’t rise from the bed till almost ten.”

  I walk through Mom’s room, while Nanny continues on her rant about my sleeping late, but for some reason I go really slow. For the first time it sort of sinks in that this is my mom’s room. Like my room. This is the place she sleeps and reads her books and dreams about when the day is really long and tiring, which for her is every day. This is the room where she keeps the things that are special and secret to her. This is the place that she would probably pick to be in all the whole of the world. And for the first time I don’t want to be here anymore. It’s a place I shouldn’t be. So I race over to the bathroom, anything to get out. Now, I have to find another place to shower.

  At Sophie’s, I go right in through the front door. If I waited for someone to answer, I would never make it to lunch or dinner. I bet Allegra knocks. And I bet no one hears her so she has to again. Like at my house, the TV’s always blaring at Sophie’s and Sophie’s mom argues back at it, clattering around with her co
ffee mug. I go in to say hello.

  “Hi,” I say with a weird wave that I’ve never done before but I do now because . . . I guess I think I need to be really formal after not having been in the house in a while. So I wave. It’s so stupid. But Sophie’s mom doesn’t think so.

  “Oh, hi, Davis!” She smiles over the brim of her coffee mug and puts it down and stops everything. Everything. She looks over just at me, which she rarely does even to Sophie, but she comes over to give me a hug.

  “It’s good to see you, buddy. It’s been a bit,” she says, holding me close.

  “Yeah,” I say, only hugging back a little. “I’m sorry to interrupt you.”

  “No!” she says. “These idiots don’t know what they’re talking about anyway. How’s Mom?”

  Sophie’s mom and my mom are best friends. It’s been that way forever. Sophie’s mom has a big exciting life where she goes off to all these places and meets all these amazing people, but still my mom is her favorite. Mom is always sort of proud of that and really proud of Sophie’s mom. I guess I thought Sophie and I would be like that too. Friends. Forever. And ever. And our kids would be friends and their kids and on and on and on. But I guess not. I don’t know.

  “Janet, you’re saving the world,” Mom always says to Sophie’s mom.

  “But you’re making it sweeter,” Sophie’s mom always says back, taking another cookie.

  If they can do it, why can’t we?

  “I need to call her and order the cake.” Sophie’s mom snaps back into getting things done.

  “I think she already knows,” I say.

  “Of course she does.” Sophie’s mom laughs. “You really lucked out, with a mom so good at everything.”

  “I guess I did.”

  “Well, they’re upstairs, go ahead up,” Sophie’s mom says, and grabs a big sip from her coffee mug before yelling at the TV. “They’re” upstairs. I’m already thinking of who they are.

  When I get up the stairs to Sophie’s room, I can hear laughter already, and it’s not just Sophie’s. There are a few voices. And some of them are boys’. It’s not just the words that make me stop, it’s the sounds around the words. The sounds of something sort of hidden, something that I shouldn’t know. And it makes me feel bad. Really bad. So bad, I think about going home, just turning really slowly on my tiptoes and sneaking down the stairs and out the front door. But I wait. And wait. I don’t even breathe because I don’t want them to hear me.

  Just when I can’t hold my breath any longer, the door swings open and there is Sophie, laughing and smiling, like nothing is different, like everything is funny and fun. And then she stops and screams a little because she gets scared that there is this boy in her hall almost turning blue from not breathing and not making any noise.

  “What are you doing?” Sophie says after her scream, instantly nice to me.

  From inside the door, Allegra laughs. “Who is it?”

  “How long were you standing out here? Why not just come in?” says Sophie, pushing me into the room. The face Allegra makes is polite, I guess. Polite like getting hugged by your aunt who smells like ninety-seven cats and old Easter candy. She squirms out a smile and mouths hello, but the rest of the room is really quiet. All the noise, even the sounds around the sounds are gone, and it feels really bad, because I know I am the reason. And Ryan Julesning does the jock head-bob hello to me and Brian Keller waves a peace sign at me, and I want to leave but Sophie beats me to it.

  “I have to run to the bathroom,” Sophie says as she runs out of the room. And I’m alone. With Allegra, who’s still trying to smile without making a face but can’t really help it because she is actually a bad person. And Ryan and Brian. Boys.

  Being a good person, I try to talk. “So what are you guys up to?” I say, smiling, hoping that maybe I can lead by example. See, Allegra, this is what a nice person looks and sounds like. They don’t scowl or whisper, they say things loudly and with a big smile, even if they don’t mean it, which I totally do not. Allegra doesn’t smile back or even notice.

  “I’m not a guy. Thanks.” Allegra smirks as she walks over to a chair and sits down. There are no piles of magazines in Sophie’s room today, like always. There’s nothing out of place at all. Even her clothes, which practically live on the floor, are gone. Folded and away, like Sophie was getting ready for something important. Was Allegra that important? Was Ryan? Was Brian? I know I never was.

  The boys say nothing to me. Which is nothing new. I don’t really talk to a lot of boys. I have trouble with boys like this, tough boys. Boys who wear jerseys for teams they don’t even play for. Or sit with their legs spread three feet wide. And are really into speakers and calling people brah. They all seem nasty to me. Like they want to fight you all the time. Like at any moment you could say one thing and they could kill you. Or at least punch you. And that would be fun for them. I don’t live in that world.

  Sophie comes back into the room, “Jeez, guys, don’t talk so loud.” Sophie’s noticed the quiet in the room, and she’s trying to make us all friends. It would probably be easier to turn us into dogs or cats. Or maybe unicorns. Something that was never real, ever. This is just as impossible.

  But to make a joke, I say, “Jeez, Sophie, we’re not guys.” Which would be really funny if Sophie was in the room before, but she wasn’t. So Sophie sort of smiles to help me with this “joke,” but only in a way that makes me know she’s glad that I look so dumb. Ryan and Brian full-on laugh and slap hands about it because I just did something stupid, a punchable offense. I just called myself a girl. I didn’t even wait for them to do it. Allegra’s on her phone probably tweeting it to everyone else in the world just in case. All this is ruined.

  “Where’s Ellen?” I ask.

  “Oh, she’s hanging out with Charlie today. OOhaah.” Sophie makes the they’re in love squeal, OOhaah. And Allegra laughs really hard like only she and Sophie know what that is. In fact, Sophie and I invented it in fourth grade, so Allegra’s just learning it secondhand. Ryan and Brian just nod along.

  “I really think she likes him,” Sophie says.

  “Like you like me?” Ryan jock-nods at Sophie. And Sophie blushes and says a no that is so fake, I don’t even know why she bothered.

  “I think Charlie’s a dork,” I say. Loud. Too loud. Because everyone stops. Sophie looks over at me, with this whatareyoutalkingaboutbecauseyoushouldstoprightnow look. But I don’t, and I just keep going. “Like, with his weird Charlie walk, and that long neck. He’s like an ostrich.” And I start to do his walk a little, which I’ve never done, but it at least gets a laugh from Brian.

  And Allegra says, “What else?” looking up, not wanting to miss me either failing or being a goof, both of which are valuable to her.

  “Well, you know, like, his Charlie smile,” I say. And I sort of draw up my lips real tight in a perfect little V and then squint my eyes, just how I think Charlie looks when he gives me his doofy Charlie smile. Ryan laughs really hard, because I do really look silly, but I also do sort of look like Charlie. I don’t know why I picked him to make fun of, because he’s super nice and I actually hope Ellen likes him. It would be nice for her.

  Allegra laughs again, so I sort of have to keep going.

  “You’re funny, Davis.” Ryan laughs.

  “Yeah.” Allegra smiles from behind her phone.

  Everyone is smiling except Sophie. “That’s not nice, Ducks. I think Charlie is super nice.”

  “You can be nice and have a weird smile,” I say back. “I’m just saying he makes that smile all the time.”

  “Well, don’t do that in front of Ellen. Especially if she likes him,” Sophie says. Sophie’s angry with me, and that makes all of this just feel a lot worse.

  I don’t know why I’m here. And I don’t know why Sophie invited me, if she just wants to yell at me. She didn’t yell, but you know. I was finally so
rt of fitting in and she had to stop it. And stop me. I don’t say anything for a long while after that. I just sit there and listen.

  Sophie and Allegra look at cats, or people falling on the Internet, and they laugh. After the fourth video, I start to think that Allegra must really like to see things get hurt or people and animals not being able to stay where they are.

  Ryan and Brian are yelling about basketball and showing each other moves or something stupid and tough. They get really rough, pushing and pulling at each other. I try to stay out of their way.

  Ryan lifts up his arms to show how some basketball guy blocked a shot, and all I can see is that there’s hair in his armpit. A lot of it. Like one of Hannah’s dolls lives under there. It’s super gross. I mean, I know it’s supposed to happen, it hasn’t to me yet and I’m glad, but looking at it, I don’t want it to. It looks disgusting. And how do you put deodorant on that? Do you have to cut it? Do you go to a salon for that? I guess I stare a little too long. Because Brian slaps Ryan in the stomach and says, “Look. I think he has a crush too.” Brian laughs. And Allegra turns around for this part. And so does Sophie.

  “Hey, what’re you, a fag?” Ryan laughs at me.

  And I freeze. I don’t know a single thing to do. Not one. I don’t know what’s going to happen or what I should say, but something is about to happen, and I should say something. But I just don’t . . . and then:

  Allegra walks over and hits Ryan in the stomach.

  “He was staring at my pit, Allegra,” Ryan tries back.

  “Eww!” Allegra says. “You boys are gross.”

  “Because it’s disgusting. Put down your arms,” says Sophie.

  “And say you’re sorry to Davis. That’s an awful thing to say,” Allegra says as she walks back to the computer.