Husky

by Justin Sayre

  The Blunder Wall is filled with every sort of mistake and every mistake, since the beginning of the bakery. There’re stories that come with all the pictures. Why she thinks something went wrong and who was with her when it did, and what they said or did. A lot more of these stories have Paolo in them than I expect, and he’s a lot funnier to her than he’s ever been to me. I can sort of hear her Paolo laugh when she tells me about those pictures, and it makes me uncomfortable. You can see Mom’s hands and Paolo’s hands are in there too. Mine are even in a few. Jock’s in a couple too—in fact, he’s the only face you can see in any of them. He knew the right place for everything. Jock would say, “You gotta laugh, girlie, or you’d die for to weep.” Mom always told me he was the reason she started the Blunder Wall, he named it.

  We look through more, and it’s fun listening to how excited Mom gets about each one, even the ones where she tells me, “That was such a stupid mistake, all the yeast settled there. Look. Gross.” But she laughs, just as hard at these mistakes as all the others.

  “That one almost burned the place to the ground!” Mom laughs about as hard as I have ever heard her. Almost as loud as Nanny.

  “This is awesome,” I say, sort of out of nowhere.

  “Yeah? You think?” Mom says.

  “Sure, it’s like everything you’ve done bad, but you don’t have to feel bad about it, because it’s up there and it doesn’t matter.”

  But Mom stops me. “Wait a minute. Just wait. ‘Everything I’ve done bad’? That’s not what this is. This is everything I’ve done well.”

  I don’t get it. But I don’t say that, I don’t need to.

  “Now see, this one almost burned the place to the ground, almost, but it didn’t because I caught it and saved it. And this cake, I remade that and it was better, in just about four hours. And this one, not everyone can make a doughnut look like Joan Rivers, but I did, or I was able to see it. That’s something I did right.” Mom smiles big. “When I look at this wall, I see a lot of laughs and a few tears, sure, but I see that it all works. All of it, maybe not in the normal way. But it works. And when it’s good, it works great.”

  Mom stands back from the wall, like she is the captain of a big ship and knows she can go anywhere and she likes it. I want to go along with her. But I don’t know if I’m invited.

  “Bread is a process. Every step, even the ones you screw up or you trip over, matters. And you need each one to be done as well as you can. But if you can’t do that, you have to know it, and you have to try again. Those are the things you do well,” Mom says. “You gotta laugh, girlie, or you’d die for to weep.”

  Mom looks up at Jock smiling, kisses her hand, and then presses it to his face. I know what she’s talking about, or I think I know, and there’s a part of me, a really big part of me, that knows she’s right. I can see it on her face, how right she is, but there’s a second part of me, a bigger part, that thinks, She so doesn’t get it, she’s never had to deal with kids my age. There’s nothing to laugh about.

  She turns to me with, “Right?”

  I answer, “Right.”

  Jules has started to close the store down, and Paolo is singing something in Portuguese while he cuts a big pile of dough into little piles for making rolls. As soon as we turn the corner into the oven room, Paolo perks up and looks at both of us, but he keeps singing like it’s not a big deal or anything, you know how people sing all the time. In a language only they understand. And then he starts to dance a little, even though it sounds like a sad song, but he has to show off. I don’t get it, and I don’t really want to. Mom does and she does her laugh, her Paolo laugh, which only encourages him. Why is everything he does so funny?

  “How’s it going, little man? You come to visit your mom and me?” Paolo says, taking a minute from his, like, samba of one. I did just come for Mom, but sure, Paolo. You too.

  “Yeah, he did. Isn’t that a nice thing?” Mom answers for me.

  “You’re a good kid, little man. Your mom loves you a lot, huh?” Paolo smiles. How would he know that? Do they talk about me?

  “You want to make something? Or do you just want to hang out?” Mom asks me.

  I don’t know what to say. We’re never going be alone together anymore? Is this how it is now? Whatever we try to make will have to involve Paolo, and I just don’t want that today. Maybe not ever. I know I’m being a grouch about it, and he’s all right, I guess. But all his “little man” stuff, what is that? I’m a kid, or the smallest bit a teenager, but I’m not some little man. Is it a Brazilian macho thing? Like I’m running around ordering things and making everybody do what I want, because I’m the “man”? Jock didn’t do that. Why does he always have to show off, with the slow dancing and the singing and barely any shirt? Just cut the dough and shut up or leave. If I was the man, that would be the first thing I’d tell him to do.

  It’s awful to think I want him away from Mom, even though I see how she smiles at him, and I know the laugh she gives him. And I know they went out together. I know it. Who else would Mom go out with? There’s only Paolo, and I don’t like him or his singing or his dancing or his hairy legs. Honest.

  Paolo smiles and offers me another dough cutter, as if I’m supposed to help him, but I turn really quickly to Mom and say, “What about lemon cake?”

  “Oh God, I don’t even know if I have everything,” Mom says, but she’s sort of smiling to let me know that it’s a very good idea. The best idea. Mom and I love this cake, from the first time she made it. She had it in a bakery somewhere in Wisconsin or something when she was pregnant with me, traveling with my dad, and she loved it so much, she asked the lady at the small little cake shop, how to make it. She tried to make it on her own, but it wasn’t right. And then, she and my dad had left that town, and she could never find out what she was doing wrong. The cakes she made were all good, she told me some were very good, even better than the original, but she could never get it just right. And then she had me. One day, and she has told me this story, like, a million times, but one day, I was crying or something, and she thought, I’ll make the lemon cake, that’ll be the perfect thing for this screaming brat. And she did. Using the same ingredients and the same way she had tried it so many times before. But that time, that time with me there, it was right. It was perfect. And she couldn’t tell why, or what was different. The only thing she figured was that she was making it for someone else. She was baking it to make me happy, even though I couldn’t eat it, she was doing it for me. And she sort of figured that was the real difference. She says that was the day she decided to open the bakery. The lemon cake has been our thing ever since. We get it right together.

  Paolo can’t be any part of it, and I guess that sounds all crazy mean, but I’m not doing it for those reasons, honest. I want lemon cake. I want something between her and me, something no one else can be a part of or even really know about. And I guess that is mean, but I really don’t even care.

  Mom moves around the kitchen, going into the walk-in and looking for everything that we’ll need. We don’t have lemons. That part we just don’t. “Here,” she says, going to the register and grabbing a twenty, “go down to the corner and grab, like, fifteen, at least fifteen lemons for me. I’ll get everything ready for when you get back.” I half hear her, because as soon as she hands me the money, I run out the door and down to the corner. I grab as many lemons as they have, fifteen is enough, and I take a few more just in case. I want to get back, I want to not miss a minute of making our cake together. I don’t even talk to the guy behind the counter, who always asks me a million questions anyway, I have to get back.

  I run back. I don’t even care if I’m winded or not. I swing open the door really loudly when I get to the bakery, and even though I know they had to hear me, they, like, really had to, I hear them talking. Paolo and my mom.

  “You really need to tell him. It’s not fair,” says Paolo.


  “Who’s it not fair to?” Mom asks back a little angry. Good.

  “Him. Me,” says Paolo, and you can sort of hear him cutting dough really hard.

  “I know, I’m sorry. I just feel like . . . ,” Mom starts to say, and then she stops, I don’t see her, but I know she’s biting her lip and thinking about the next thing to say, or wishing she could take back the last thing she said. And then, “You’re right. I’m sorry.” Paolo starts to say something, but I’m already in the doorway with the lemons.

  CHAPTER 17

  It’s the day of the makeover party and I’m not getting out of bed.

  It’s one of the last days I can sleep in, so I’m going to. All day. I’m not getting out of bed or getting dressed or showered or even brushing my teeth. Nothing. I’m not even going to take the sleepies out of my eyes, I’m staying in bed. Gross and smelly and fat and dirty and all by myself. Everyone else can get up and go places and get pretty for whatever they want, but not me. Not today. Maybe not ever. And even if I end up smelling like lonely, that’s fine, because I am.

  I almost get out of bed, but then I think, Why? Why go around and pretend I’m not lonely when I am or ride my bike around by myself or go to the bakery or something, anything to try to not think of the fact that it’s my best friend’s birthday, not technically, no, but it’s at least her birthday party and I’m not invited? No one really cares about that. No one. And maybe if I was some better person, a cooler person, I would think of something awesome to do, or something so unbelievable that they would actually be jealous of me, but why? Why even try? And what do I care what they think? Because I still wouldn’t get to go. I still wouldn’t have been invited. Allegra wouldn’t care about whatever I could think up to do. And why do I want to do anything to make Allegra feel anything? So I pull up my foot and put it back under the blanket and lie back down.

  It’s awkward lying in a bed when you’re not even thinking about sleeping or watching a movie or reading a book or listening to music. You feel like it’s not the right space anymore, the bed feels like it’s not yours anymore. Your time in it is over. And it’s lumpy in places that you’ve never felt before, and you can’t really find the right spot to feel comfortable again. But you don’t move. Or at least I don’t. I just stay right there. I feel the lumps and the strange spots and my clothes feel dusty in the slept-in way, but I don’t move.

  The first hour is like waiting for something to happen. Then a big nothing comes around and makes my brain stop thinking about everything. I stop wondering where they are, even this early, or what Sophie will be wearing and when Allegra will show up. At one point I sort of imagine that they will ride around in a limo all day, which sounds super stupid but just the sort of stupid that Allegra would pull when she’s trying to steal my best friend. Why not a limo, then? Why not diamonds? Or champagne?

  The second hour’s easier. The lumps start to go away. The spot I’d slept in comes back or I find it again, and it is almost like I am sleeping with my eyes open. The light is coming in the window but it doesn’t seem too bright. I can still close my eyes.

  At twelve thirty, Nanny starts to raise the volume of Jock’s TV to wake me up. Then she starts to bang and stomp around, up and down the steps, talking to herself. Yelling about all the things she needs to do and how at least she for one is going to get something done on a fine day like today. At least she’s going to accomplish something, because a day’s not meant to be wasted. But I’m not wasting anything. It isn’t like I am holding it to just myself, anyone else can have whatever they want with it. I’m just doing Nothing. It’s a thing. Everyone else can do whatever they want. I don’t care.

  By two, I think maybe I’ll watch a movie, but I don’t have a television in my room. Neither does Mom, because maybe I could go over to her room and watch something. Nanny doesn’t allow that. My computer isn’t a laptop, so I can’t bring it with me in bed. I think about even putting on music, but what? I think about every opera and every singer, but I’ve started to like the quiet. It’s the perfect sound to do nothing to. Opera would be too big for now. It would fill the room with horns and violins and dying queens, and that would be too much. Just too much for all this nothing.

  After three, Nanny goes a little nuts, I think, because nothing she’s done for hours has worked in getting me up. She hasn’t heard the creak of even my foot on the floor. Not a door open. Nothing. And then I hear her start up the steps and pass her room. Usually I would freak, but I don’t. I’m doing Nothing. By the time she gets to my floor, she’s called my name about four times, and I haven’t answered, which I guess is pretty rotten, but when she bangs on the door and then opens it anyway, I am so far in, why not just go all the way.

  “What time do you call this now, boy-o?” Nanny yells down at me.

  I look over at my clock and say, “Three twenty.”

  “Twenty after three in the afternoon, and his lordship not even out of bed. What are you at?” Nanny yells.

  “Nothing,” I say, which is the truth.

  “I can see that, and what I see I don’t like. Get up! You can’t just lie in bed all day!”

  “Why?”

  That is always the question Nanny never expects, from anybody. You’re just supposed to do things, because you’re supposed to do them or because she tells you you’re supposed to do them. It’s that clear. But in this case, at least right now, there isn’t really a clear why at all. I’m not actually supposed to be doing anything or be anywhere else. I don’t have school or a chore to do today. I’m doing nothing, and there’s actually no real reason to do anything else.

  Nanny’s face goes blank for a minute. I can see her ask herself the question, go through a list of answers, of chores or tasks or anything and everything she can think of besides the most obvious, and then she gets angry that she has wasted all that time, so she goes back to her most obvious answer and yells, “Because I say so, that’s why!”

  “I don’t want to,” I say. Not angry or yelly back. Just simply.

  “What did you say?” Nanny stops again.

  “I don’t want to,” I repeat.

  “Well, I don’t care what you want, I’ve told you to get out of that bed, and I’ve meant it, so get up,” Nanny yells back at me.

  And I say, “No.”

  I’ve never said no to Nanny ever once in my life. And I didn’t think I ever could, but here and now, I’m just saying exactly what I want to and not thinking anything else. I’m not trying to make her angry, I really don’t think it has anything to do with her. So I say no. Because it is the most honest response.

  “No, he says? No? You don’t say no to me. What’s wrong with you?” says Nanny. I think at this moment she will start screaming louder, but she doesn’t. She gets quieter, like the no has knocked all the air out of her. And I don’t want that. I don’t want to hurt her. I just want to do nothing. So I need this no.

  “Nothing,” I say in the nicest way I can think of.

  “Do you not feel well?” Nanny asks.

  “No,” I say.

  “So you just mean to stay in bed? Waste the day?” asks Nanny.

  “Yes.”

  Somehow the yes is worse than the no. Honest. Because if the no is just me being a brat, that’s one thing, but the yes is just me being crazy and she doesn’t know how to handle that. At all.

  “You’re not right, you. I’m calling your mother and she’ll put you out, if she has any sense. What do you think of that?” Nanny asks me, waiting for me to say something snotty just to give her a clue to see what side I am really falling on: Crazy or Brat.

  But I just say, “Okay.”

  “Okay, he says! O . . . kay!” And she slams the door and stomps down the stairs, yelling to herself the whole way. “Okay, he says. Okay. That’s what he says to me, okay.” Over and over, down all three flights to the kitchen, where she turns off Jock’s TV so that I
can hear just her talking to my mom. It is all a sort of threat, like my mom is the big bad something and is going to come home and kill me. But the truth is, she will just tell Nanny to leave me be.

  “No! He won’t! Told me no. Told me!” Nanny yells to Mom on the phone. I feel sorry for Mom. She’s trying to use the day, doing lots, and I don’t want to stop her. I don’t really want to stop anybody. Let anybody do whatever they like. Anybody. I just want to do nothing.

  I think about Sophie. They must be at the spa by now. I tried to imagine it a little bit, but I’ve never even been to a spa or even seen one, so I don’t know exactly what it will be like. I sort of imagine a fancier nail salon, with big, fluffy white robes and lots of New Age music playing, where people moan-sing and don’t use any words. I imagine Allegra laughing and throwing Sophie a big, fluffy robe. Sophie’s laughing too, a laugh I’ve never heard before. Both of them laugh like they don’t care who’s looking at them or who’s around and really all the ladies in the spa don’t. If anything, they just laugh too. They’re all having a marvelous time. Everything is good here, so why wouldn’t you laugh. Why wouldn’t anyone laugh, anyone who is lucky enough to come here.

  “Well, I won’t again, I can tell you that now,” Nanny yells into the phone. “And no! Not in this house, the sin of it! So come and tell him. I can’t make sense to him. All right. All right.” And Nanny hangs up, loudly too, just so I can hear it. “Your mother’s coming home to you, Ducks, and won’t that just get you right up! Won’t it!”

  It won’t. But I don’t say that. Even though she waits for it. And waits. And waits. And then turns on Jock’s TV again and goes back to banging around. I go back to my nothing.

  Mom never makes it home. And when I do finally go down at six to eat dinner, Nanny’s so annoyed with me, she doesn’t ask me a single question.