Smart Cookie

by Elly Swartz

  Are you handy? (Things break all the time at the B&B. I already know how to fix a leaky toilet and tweak the radiator so it doesn’t groan.)

  Would you feed Lucy and Winston if I were ever gone?

  Do you like me?

  I’m not used to making lists. Not sure I’m even doing it right. I read it to Winston, who doesn’t stop eating the almond-and-avocado mush I made him. I take this as a sign of approval, then shake the snow globe Gram gave for me for my fifth birthday. It has a photo in it of Dad, Mom, and me sitting together on the beach just before sundown. I stare at it and wonder what Mom would ask the Possibles. When I can’t think of anything else, I leave my closet and head to the front of the B&B.

  It’s empty. A good sign.

  Elliot doesn’t believe in that stuff. He doesn’t make a wish when the clock turns 11:11, which I always do while squeezing my eyes shut to block out everything but the wish. And, he almost walked under a ladder the other day on the way to school.

  The front door creaks open. Remind Dad to WD-40 those hinges, I think to myself as Georgia steps in.

  She looks nothing like her profile picture.

  “Helloooo!” the woman sings in a totally-not-believable Southern accent. Her face looks like the older aunt of her online photo, and her skirt is too short and too tight and too not momish.

  I remind myself not to make a decision until I score her answers to the questions on my list. Maybe she’s not as old or tightly wrapped as she appears.

  “Um, hi. I’m Frankie.”

  “Well, hello there. I’m Georgia and I’m lookin’ for Brad.”

  “My dad.”

  Her expression goes from excited to deflated as she realizes she’s just walked into a package deal. I guess I got my answer to question number one. I wonder if I can award negative points.

  I decide I can.

  That’s minus ten so far.

  “How nice.” She glides around the room, running her pointer finger along the top of the dresser. “Do you live here?”

  She asks like it’s some kind of disease. Another minus ten.

  I nod.

  She picks up the snow globe the Mendelsons gave dad as a thank-you gift. It’s of the B&B, or at least a place that looks like the B&B—redbrick, wraparound porch, garden in the back. “I never saw the point of these. I mean who needs fake snow falling down on a fake world.”

  I take the snow globe, give her another minus ten, and put it down under miscellaneous.

  She sneezes. And sneezes. And sneezes.

  I count eight stunted, squeaky sneezes in a row.

  “Is there some kind of animal livin’ here?” She looks around with eyes that seem to be getting puffier and redder by the minute.

  “We have a beagle and a hedgehog. We’re pet friendly,” I say proudly.

  Sneeze. Sneeze. Sneeze.

  “I’m”—sneeze—“allergic.” She blows her nose. Loudly.

  I want to say the ad clearly states we have pets, but instead, I just give her another minus ten and a box of tissues.

  Then Dad walks in.

  It’s too soon.

  Way. Too. Soon.

  “Honey, have you seen my screwdriver? It’s not in the box.” He’s rummaging around behind the desk, barely noticing Ms. Georgia.

  “Sorry about that. It’s on my nightstand,” I say.

  “Well, you must be Brad,” Georgia says, trying to swallow her next sneeze as she inches closer to my dad.

  “I am.” Dad wipes his greasy hands on his pants and goes to shake her hand.

  She waves it away and sneezes again. “My, you’re not at all like your photo. You’re even better.”

  Uh-oh.

  Dad doesn’t know about his photo.

  Or his profile.

  Although if he did, he’d be relieved that Elliot and I chose the picture of him I took last spring when we hiked our mountain together. He looks happy and natural. Not like the shots we take every Thanksgiving when he looks like he swallowed his smile with a side of mashed potatoes and gravy.

  Dad gives her a polite but puzzled nod and thankfully ignores the photo reference. “Do you want a room?”

  Georgia tries to squeeze out a smile before her next sneeze. “I make wonderful pound cake.”

  “That’s nice.” Awkward glance.

  “So this is your daughter?” Georgia moves away from the desk and stands behind me with her hands resting on my shoulders.

  This. Is. Not. Working.

  My dad nods.

  “Only one?” she asks.

  He nods again, and I take a step to the right.

  “That’s perfect. I love children. I’m not lookin’ for a tableful, but one could work.”

  A tableful?

  Dad looks confused. His forehead wrinkles like a shar-pei puppy. He’s about to say something, until I jump in. “Dad, I, um, meant to tell you earlier. I ran out of hot water this morning.”

  He turns toward me.

  I nod. “Yep. After only like three minutes.”

  “That shouldn’t happen. I replaced the hot water heater last month. I’ll check it out.” Then to Georgia, “It was nice meeting you. Francine can help you if you choose to stay.”

  Dad disappears down the stairs. I stand awkwardly in the middle of the room.

  Then the door opens again. It’s Reggie Hogan, the Halloween Grinch. His burger grease scent gives him away before he even steps into the room. He takes the toothpick out of his mouth and grabs a handful of individually wrapped mints that are for our guests.

  “Where’s your father?” he asks in a voice graveled from the cigar that dangles from his mouth whenever he’s giving the toothpick a rest.

  “You just missed him.”

  “Well, little lady, you tell him I stopped by. Be sure to let him know I need to speak with him soon. It’s real important.” Pause. His shiny, pointy shoes move closer. “You know, the older you get, the more you look like your mama.”

  I step back. Reggie grew up in Dennisville, too. But he never left.

  Then he turns to Georgia, ignoring her puffy eyes and scanning the rest of her, from her whitened teeth to her pointy heels. He grins and says, “Hello, darling.”

  She shimmies over to him and digs deep for her best Southern belle performance. “Why, hello there.” They make sugarcoated small talk, and Reggie doesn’t seem to mind her horrible accent and squeaky sneezes.

  “You hungry?” he asks.

  “Starving. And, if I don’t leave this place soon, I’m going to swell up like a water balloon.”

  Going to swell up? She already looks like a pufferfish.

  “Well, you’re in luck. I know this great place a few blocks from here. It’s got the best burgers, actual customers, and, hopefully, my cousin Mickey. He owes me some money, so lunch is on him.” He laughs and looks around the empty lobby, “Besides, this place is dead.” Then turns to me, “Your daddy better do something soon or this here B&B is going to slip right through his fingers.”

  On the way out I hear him mumbling, “Should’ve never been his to begin with.”

  Once the door shuts behind them, I run up to my room. Lucy uncurls from the middle of my bed and trails behind me to the floor of my closet. I flop down with my cell phone, cheese cubes from the guest tray, and my count-down-to-the-parade calendar. The fancy blue dress I had to wear to Gram’s eightieth birthday party tickles the top of my head. With a big red never-erasable Sharpie, I cross out Georgia’s name from the top of my Possibles list. I make a new list titled Impossibles and write Georgia’s name at the top of that one. Then I move to the calendar and count.

  Fifty-three days until the parade.

  Fifty-three days to find a mom.

  “Hey, it’s me,” I whisper into my cell phone so none of the guests can hear me.

  “Who’s me?”

  I say nothing. With my charcoal pencil, I shade the unicorn’s tail in the mural I’m drawing on the wall in my closet. Dad doesn’t exactly know about it
. Not sure it would make everyone feel at home at the Greene Family B&B.

  “Frankie?” Elliot asks.

  Lucy tucks her nose under my leg, hoping for more cheese. “Yes. Who else says ‘it’s me’?”

  “I guess no one. How’d it go?” He asks between two huge, frog burps.

  “Remember when I made cookies that first time and accidentally grabbed soy sauce instead of vanilla?”

  “Those were terrible.”

  “It was like that. But way worse. Georgia was nothing like her profile. She was older, meaner, faker, and left the B&B with Reggie Hogan.” Lucy licks my ears and cheeks and eyelids and nose. It’s dangerous to talk while she’s full-on face-licking. Her tongue could so easily end up smack in the middle of my mouth. Gross.

  “Reggie? What was he doing there?” Chewing halted.

  I try to speak without opening my mouth too much. “He wanted to talk to my dad.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t say. Just yammered on about the Drop Bye Tavern being busier, his cousin Mickey owing him money, and how this place should’ve never been my dad’s. Not sure what any of that really means.”

  There’s a long beat of nothing while Lucy focuses on my right ear. It kind of tickles.

  “You still there?” I ask as I pull Lucy off my head.

  “What if this has to do with the ghost?”

  My voice is now the smallest of whispers. “There’s no ghost! Your laser-heat thingamabob went off, that’s it.”

  “Put it all together, Frankie. The off-the-chart laser reading, Joe and Mr. Barker asking about moaning and floating spirits at the B&B, Mr. Barker’s warning to be careful. Reggie saying the B&B should’ve never been your dad’s. And Mickey owing him money.”

  “How does all of that equal a ghost?” I ask, smudging the edges of the tail with the back of my fist.

  “Mr. Barker talked about some poor dead guy and how Reggie was angry. Remember?”

  Elliot doesn’t wait for my response. “We now know Mickey owed money to Reggie. What if Reggie went to collect the debt from Mickey, there was a scuffle, and something bad happened? Not on purpose, but by accident.”

  “Stop! First, no one says ‘scuffle.’ Second, you’ve been watching too many episodes of Law & Order. Third, Reggie wasn’t mad when I saw him. He was gross and flirty and hoping to run into Mickey so that Mickey could buy greasy burgers for him and Ms. Don’t-Want-a-Tableful. Doesn’t sound like Reggie thought Mickey was dead.”

  “Maybe that was just a cover. What he wants you to think. When really Mickey is dead—”

  “And what? Haunting the B&B? That makes no sense.”

  I look over and Lucy is nose-to-nose with Winston. That never ends well.

  “I know, but I just don’t think all this stuff happening at the same time is a coincidence. That’s all.”

  I hang up with Mr. Death-Be-Everywhere and log on to Connection.com. Obviously, I need to change my dad’s profile. Possible #1 had zero interest in motherhood, me, Lucy, or Winston. I reread, review, and tweak, add loving and family oriented, then hit UPDATE.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  Read the chapter on Brown v. Board of Education for my civics class tomorrow.

  Wait.

  Answer eight problems on quadrilaterals for math class.

  Wait.

  Watch Lucy scamper away when Winston crawls onto my shoulder and nose-to-nose turns into nose-to-quills.

  Wait.

  Then, buzz.

  One hit on Dad’s updated profile.

  Hi, Brad. My name is Evelyn. I love kids, B&Bs, drawing, and being outdoors. Want to meet?

  Already so much better than Georgia.

  I check out her profile. Evelyn. She looks nice. Momish. She has happy eyes and brown hair in a ponytail—without lumps. I message her back and set up a date.

  Lucy digs into my garbage can and drags over an empty container of vanilla yogurt. That’s when I remember it’s trash day.

  A year ago, Dad delegated me Trash Kid. No cape. No superpower. Just one smelly job. Every week, I need to empty the trash bins in every room in the B&B and take the bursting bags of garbage to the metal dumpsters outside. I knock on each door before entering with the master key. The second week as Trash Kid I didn’t knock first and found a very naked Mr. Reed in the shower singing “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. Thankfully, he didn’t see me, but I saw way too much of him.

  It takes me an hour to get through all the rooms. I start at the top with Yahtzee, Checkers, and Chess. Then I move to the next floor and tackle Monopoly, Connect 4, and Clue. I skip the Game of Life. Gram empties her own garbage. She says the world has two kinds of people, savers and trashers. She’s a saver. Big-time. Dad’s a trasher. Finally, I land in our smallest room, Rubik’s Cube, and our biggest, family-friendly room, Candy Land. Candy Land has the most garbage. This is the Rubin family’s first visit, and their cans are overflowing with lots of paper, juice boxes, stinky diapers, and gum wrappers.

  Last up is the lobby and kitchen, and when I finish with them, my four trash bags are heavy and smelly and annoying. I heave them over my shoulders, slide on my rain boots, and run to the garbage bins around back. The dark sky stares down at me. I hold my breath as I open the metal lid. The smell of leftover lasagna, meatloaf, and tacos from the week hits me in the face. I toss the bags into the containers. When I run to the porch to get the rest of the bags, I see Annie across the street.

  What she’s doing over this way? Her apartment’s on the opposite end of town. I’m about to wave and show her I’m wearing the mouse pin she gave me last week, when she pops into her car and drives away.

  Weird.

  The sun pokes through the rain clouds, so I shuffle Lucy out the door for a bathroom break. We take a slight detour past the shed, and I wait for the big red door to stop begging me to see what’s inside. It doesn’t. I stand there for a long minute. Maybe there’s trash in there that I should throw out. Lucy runs laps around the shed. Sniff. Run. Sniff. Run. Maybe I should go inside and check. There’s no ghost in there. And even if there is, it’s probably just Mom visiting. I’m not sure if that makes me happy or sad, but I try the door anyway.

  It doesn’t budge. Lucy and I turn to leave.

  “Still locked?”

  I jump back startled. It’s Elliot and his death-o’-meter. “You here to check on your ghost?” I ask.

  “Hey, I wasn’t the one trying to get in.”

  “It’s trash day,” I say, almost convincing.

  He laughs. “Tell yourself whatever you need to, but I think you’re starting to believe me.”

  Lucy scratches at the boards on the outside of the shed.

  “Even Lucy knows there’s something in there.”

  “Something. Like a dead mouse or rabbit. Not someone.”

  He reaches out and hands me the metal rod. “You try it.”

  I grab the laser, partly to see if maybe he’s one ounce right, but mostly to show him he’s 100 percent wrong. Before I can do anything with it, I spy Jessica-call-me-Jess sitting on the curb across the street, head in her hands, crying. Elliot sees her, too.

  “What should we do?” Elliot asks.

  I shrug. “The last time I saw her cry was when Sasha Malone stole her Twinkie at lunch in first grade.” I’ve been in school with Jessica since I moved here in kindergarten. Then, in fourth grade, everything changed. Her dad bailed, her mom sold their home to Elliot’s family, and Jessica, her mom, and little sister, Leila, moved into an apartment in town. That’s when she stopped speaking to me. No explanation. Just total silence.

  “Well, we can’t do nothing,” I say, handing him back the ghost meter.

  “Actually, we could do nothing,” Elliot says.

  I ignore him and call Lucy, who’s frantically trying to dig her way into the shed, and the three of us walk across the street.

  The moment we’re spotted, Jessica stops crying. I swear that’s a skill. To be able to stop in under fi
ve seconds. That would have been useful when Dad told me we were moving. Instead I cried for two days straight. That’s how I know what a pufferfish looks like.

  Jessica looks up. Her eyes and nose fight for the reddest part of her face.

  “What do you want?” Lucy ignores the snap in her voice and licks her face.

  “Just wanted to see if you were okay,” I say.

  She wipes her wet face with the back of her hand, as if she can successfully hide that she’s been sitting on the curb crying. “Elliot, you better be taking care of my house and my yellow rose bushes in the back.” Anger wraps every syllable.

  “Technically, they’re not your—”

  I elbow Elliot. This is not the time for technicalities.

  I just nod. “You all right?”

  Silent glare.

  In that moment, I wonder if it’s possible to hate and pity someone at the same time. Gram says Jessica hasn’t seen or spoken to her dad since he left that day in fourth grade. Not sure how Gram knows this, but the senior center is the base of all town gossip.

  “Leave. Me. Alone.”

  Her voice rattles me back to the curb.

  Okay, maybe it’s just hate.

  “How’s this bright and beautiful day treating you?” asks Annie, a few days later, a smile spread across her face and a kindergartner stuck to her side. I think about asking her about the other day, but before the words find their way out, she digs into her bag and hands me something. This time it’s a pack of glow-in-the-dark stars. They’re all different neon colors, and I know exactly where I’m going to put them. In my closet above the countdown calendar.

  “This star is Fitzgerald’s secret portal to Lazos where people and pets live forever,” I say, pulling a green one out of the package. Maybe Mom’s there. The words dangle unsaid. I give Annie a double-fisted hug. The only kind to give according to Gram—“Hug me with both arms, like you mean it.”

  “Oh, sweet girl, you go on now and have a wonderful day.” She holds the hand of her five-year-old shadow, and Elliot and I head into school.

  When we get to English class, I see Jessica surrounded by her minions. She’s pointing and fake laughing. She looks in my direction, and I turn away, tuck the stars into my backpack, and take my seat.