by Amy Piers
I think about my bucket overflowing with candy, and I quickly decide that I can be a Ninja kind of Turtle instead. I roll the ghost outfit up into a ball and shove it behind my bed where Mommy will never find it, and never ever throw it away.
[I see you.]
I’ve agreed to let Julia host a small Halloween Party at our house tonight for a few of our friends. When I get home from work, she’s setting up the house—running around like a chicken with its head cut off. She’s squeezing the stuff from glow sticks into mason jars when I wonder what the heck kind of party is about to go down.
“These are for the window sills,” she justifies.
I raise my eyebrows and feign a smile, “Cool!”
Throwing my backpack in my room, I open up three envelopes and swiftly toss all contents in the trash. I’ve had it with my bank, so I vent to Julia.
“I told the bank seven years ago that I wanted paperless statements. Seven years! And I’m still getting physical mail, can you believe it?”
I hear the toilet flush in the bathroom, and it dawns on me that we’re not the only ones home. The bathroom faucet sounds before the door opens, as Ezra walks into the living room. His face lighting up when he sees me—my heart skips a beat against my will. I feel my cheeks flushing an embarrassing shade of watermelon.
“I thought you were back in Santa Cruz?” I choke.
“I went home for the weekend, and then I got a call from someone with a spare room in an apartment, so I came right back to check it out,” he stammers.
“You guys seem to be getting on famously,” Julia remarks, with squinted eyes, as she pours bags of candy corn into even more mason jars. My face goes from flushed to an embarrassing shade of fuschia, and I avoid the topic.
“Need some help?” I ask.
“Yeah, need some help?” Ezra parrots.
Julia hands us a bag of hot dogs and a can of pastry. She pulls up a picture of some gross hot dog mummies, and gestures, “Can you wrap these?”
Hot dogs make my stomach churn, and not just because they’re made of mystery meat. I think back to the days at school, armed with a walkie-talkie and the code word I almost always used. My mind flashes back to the principal, scolding me for saying the wrong words, and Dallas running halfway to China in the meantime.
“Ezra can take care of those,” I say, pushing the hot dogs in his general direction. “I’ll put frosting on the cupcakes.”
He shrugs and goes to grab the can of pastry at the very moment in which I choose to pass it towards him. Our hands touch for a moment, and he keeps his fingers on mine for just a second longer than would seem natural. He's smiling with his friendly green eyes, and I look away as fast as I can. Dammit, Ezra—just make the stupid hot dog mummies. All the while, Julia buzzes around the living room filling an inordinate amount of mason jars with God-knows-what. (You’d think mason jars were the only vessel on this planet, according to online pinboards.)
“How was your day?” Ezra interjects.
“Halloweeny,” I shrug. “You know how six-year-olds are.”
I want to talk to Ezra, but at the same time, I kind of want to crawl into a hole and die. The older I get, the more I discover how little I enjoy surprises, specifically ones that involve males of interest.
“Six and a half. The half really matters at that age,” Ezra adds. I raise my eyebrow and throw him a half smile. With a bit of luck, tonight I’ll realize that I only find him attractive because he’s the only guy in the room right now. Once this place fills up with eligible bachelors, I’ll see that this outrageous, minuscule crush for what it really is.
[I see red.]
I throw my bucket of candy onto the pavement so I can see how many I have.
“Dallas! Why did you do that?” Mom asks, and I ignore her because I’m busy. I have thirty-five chocolate candies and forty-three colorful ones. I’ve eaten twenty-seven candies while we have been walking, even though Mommy said I’m only allowed three. I love, love, love candy, and I am thinking about how many I will eat this week. I will get so fat in my tummy—I might explode! Also, now that I am bigger, I am the world’s best at counting. I can even count to one hundred if I wanted to.
“Does Aurora have more candies than me?” I ask Mom.
“You both have the same,” she says. “She can’t even eat candy, so who cares? Now get up off the ground.”
“Sorry Mommy,” I say, and watch the gazillionth person tell her how sweet Aurora looks in her Bumble Bee costume. I look good, too! I could have looked gooder in the ghost outfit. We are outside a house with an open door, and just then I notice a ghost waving at me. It’s about the same big as me, and just for a second, my breaths go away. I wonder if kids look like ghosts, or like see-through kids when they are dead? Does Grey look like himself, or like a sheet with eye holes? I drop my bucket of candy and run up the driveway to the door.
“GREY!” I yell.
I reach out my hands to touch the ghost, and he feels like nothing. I put my hand in front of him, and the ghost’s light goes on my skin. I wave back at him, and whisper, “Grey—is that you?”
Mom follows me, with the Bumble Bee on her hip. She pulls my arm so I stand up, and points my head to an electric thing on the roof.
“Dallas—it’s a projection. It’s not real,” she says. “You have to stop with the ghosts.”
“They are real!”
“They aren’t real! I don’t know where you got this ridiculous ghost obsession—did Zoe do this to you?”
I pull my arm away from Mommy and yell, “No!”
“I wish she wouldn’t encourage you to talk about your brother,” she says. “He’s not coming back, Dallas. Not now, not as a ghost, not ever. Do you want your candy or not? It’s strewn across the driveway, and it won’t be long before other kids are going to take it.”
I look at Mommy, and my lip starts shaking. I don’t want water coming out of my eyes—I don’t want to be a baby and cry in front of everyone. I shake my head and look down.
“You don’t want your candy?” she asks.
I shake my head again, and a tear goes onto the ground. I watch a second one land beside it.
“We seriously only came out trick or treating because you wanted candy,” she says. “You can’t take Aurora’s candy if you leave yours on the ground.”
I keep my head down, and Mommy yanks my hand. Some kids are already picking up chocolates from the driveway before they melt, and Mom tells them to go away because it’s not theirs. She puts ten chocolate candies and thirty-five colorful ones in my bucket.
“Are you OK?” Mom says, and I say nothing back. “Dallas, I’m sorry. I miss him too.”
I put the Ninja Turtle hood over my face and stop talking until the end of the day.
[I see you.]
By the time the sun goes down, our living room is filled with people in ridiculous outfits—including Julia dressed as a piece of sushi (and somehow still trying to make it look sexy) and Ezra wearing a suit, holding a sign that says SORRY (he’s dressed as a formal apology). I’m sporting a onesie with a glow-in-the-dark skeleton printed on black spandex, feeling a little more exposed than I intended. The hot dog mummies seem to be staring at me from the food table, leading me to decide I’m not quite ready to make peace with highly processed sausages just yet.
Small talk is the bane of my existence. After an hour of trying to discuss something other than the weather, rent prices, the election, and where I bought my skeleton onesie, I escape to the back steps. As I look to the city skyline in the distance, I remember the day Dallas climbed on the school roof; I look away. Sitting in this breezy city stairwell quickly loses its appeal, so I consider going inside. Then the door opens.
“Oops. Sorry, I didn’t know you were out here,” Ezra stumbles.
I pat the step beside where I’m sitting, “Join me.”
Ezra sits down, with a giant smile enveloping his face. We say nothing for a while, and I wonder if I should be regretting the ext
ension of my invitation. I was never good with awkward moments, but somehow a relationship with Dallas has helped me come to terms with silence. I dread the idea of Ezra opening his mouth and saying something small-talky, I want nothing less than having him ruin the moment with a statement about the view, or the warmth of Indian Summer.
“Just so you know,” he says, clearing his throat. “I think you're incredible.”
His compliment has caught me off-guard. Before I have time to respond, the door flings wide open again, and a guy from Julia’s work comes to sit beside us. He smells like the whiskey he’s guzzling from his stupid mason jar. The ice clinks as he lifts his drinking arm up to the sky and slurs, “Nice night, isn’t it? Indian Summer, hey? Amazing view of the city from here.”
I have never before been so repulsed by three fragmented, questionable sentences in my life. I look at Ezra and stand up, “Um, thank you. You too.”
I awkwardly stumble into the house from the back steps to find somewhere I can be alone. This time, I find solace in the bathroom, where nobody will find me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Discovery Country
[I see red.]
I wake up extra early today because today is the day that we finally get to go to Discovery Country. I already have the map—I slept with it in my hand last night, so I don’t lose it. Zoe gave it to me a couple of days ago. She printed it from her computer. She also wrote me a book, which is about what to do in public, in case I forget. It looks like this:
DALLAS AND ZOE GO TO DISCOVERY COUNTRY
We are going to Discovery Country on Friday!
Zoe and I will leave at 8am, and drive to the amusement park. It will take about an hour, and there might be some traffic. I need to stay with Zoe at all times, which will be easy, because she will wear a special bracelet that links through my belt loops.
There might be long lines, and that’s OK, because I am learning how to wait patiently. Zoe and I can play together while we wait.
If I feel tired, hungry, thirsty or frustrated I can ask for a break. Zoe will find a quiet break space for me as soon as possible. Because it’s a special occasion, I can eat some treats, but I still need some real food.
There will be lots of things to buy at Discovery Country, and I might wish they were mine. Zoe and I have agreed that we will only spend money on entry and food. Even if I’m disappointed, I will understand when Zoe says we can’t buy toys.
If I lose Zoe, I will ask an adult to call her. I will have her number on a lanyard around my neck, under my shirt. If I am lost, the safest adults to talk to are ones with kids. I will stay with the adults until Zoe finds us.
I earned this trip by showing safe, kind, trustworthy, brave and honest behavior for three months.
I can’t read the words of this book yet, but Zoe read it to me three times yesterday. We acted out all the situations like we were in a TV show. We had pretend conversations like, “Hello lady, I am lost from my Zoe and I need you to talk to her phone. The number is on my neck.” We also got this thing that looks like Ramsay’s—I mean Cinnamon’s—leash. One part clips on my pants; the other part Zoe wears on her wrist. She was very serious that I can’t take it off.
I absolutely can’t wait to go. The clock says 6:20 am and I am ready with my clothes and shoes on. I am learning to do shoelaces but I’m not so good at it yet, Zoe teached me a hundred times but it takes two hundred times to be good at shoelace tying. I am hungry, so I eat a yogurt from the fridge and also a muffin that wasn’t homemade but bought from the store. Ugh, I have to wait a hundred hours until Zoe gets here.
[I see you.]
My alarm sounds, as I shoot my arm to the nightstand and press snooze… maybe three times. Today is November fourth, the very day I have planned to take Dallas to Discovery Country. It seems like I have a degree in catastrophizing, so I need no encouragement to think of all the things that may go awry. Throwing off my blanket, I sit up in bed; today will be a good day.
I have been sleeping pretty well lately, especially knowing Thanksgiving and Christmas break are coming up. The holidays bring the hope of a little break from Dallas, despite the fact that I have absolutely zero plans for Thanksgiving, which is paradise for my introverted self. Come Christmas time, I’ll be back in Santa Cruz with the family. Ezra made the move to San Francisco yesterday and texted me to hang out this week. Between you, me, and the deep blue sea—I am trying to forget what happened on the stairs at the Halloween party. Even if I were able to admit that I have feelings for Ezra, I would never be able to tell Julia. Herein, my strategy with Ezra will revert to ignorance.
I have woken up feeling confident about today, for three significant reasons:
Leash
Lanyard
Locator
(I have made an alliterated list for your reading pleasure.)
Call me “over the top” if you must, but these three items give me immeasurable peace of mind. Sure, I’m nervous, but I have to remind myself to place fact over feeling:
FEELING: Everything about this day is terrifying.
FACT: Dallas has a history of running away, but hasn’t run in three months. He has displayed exemplary behavior since leaving conventional schooling. He has proven himself to be trustworthy, and mature enough, to handle a trip to an amusement park.
8:00am
I arrive at Dallas’s house, and his greeting reminds me of a pre-green Ramsay. He leaps from the third step, catapulting himself into my arms. Short of licking my face, he’s a picture of the old dog to whom we taught new tricks. I catch him, and he looks at me with a gap-toothed grin. If he had a tail, it would have whacked me in the legs by now.
“It’s today Zoe! It’s really today!” he yells and hugs my neck as I realize that this is the kind of choking I could get used to. I hug him back and set his wiry little body on the stairs.
“I have something for you,” I announce, opening my backpack.
“Is it a present for being good?” he asks.
“Nope. It’s a present that has no strings attached—that’s a saying that means ‘no matter what.’ This is a gift from me to you, because I want you to know you’re important to me,” I explain. “Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”
Dallas squeezes his eyes so tight and holds out his little arm. I take the location tracker out of the box and fix it to his arm.
“Open!” I exclaim. Dallas’s eyes grow wide, and he hugs his new “watch” to his face.
“I love it!” he yells, with a huge grin. “Now I will always know the time. I’m never taking it off!”
His sunny mood is contagious, and I realize that today has the potential to be wonderful. He runs inside to show the watch to his Mom, and I overhear her telling him how lucky he is to get all these treats in one day. As I walk inside, I see that Dallas is showing the watch to Aurora and Cinnamon. I take a moment to talk to his Mom.
“That was really generous of you, getting him a watch and all,” she says, looking down. Since Jacob threatened to take custody of Aurora, she has been working really hard to spend wisely so that she can afford the legal fees. I know for a fact that she stopped buying Dallas so many presents, and this is the first time I realize I’ve truly stepped into her place. She looks like a kid coming second place in a 100-meter sprint: exhausted and disappointed. She’s been given the consolation prize—the full responsibility of Dallas, without any of the perks. Here I stand, showered in affection from the boy, giving him things I can afford to buy.
“It’s a GPS tracker,” I admit. We both laugh awkwardly, in this rare moment where I’m not trying to hold her life together with masking tape. “Don’t tell him, or he’ll take it off.”
“I don’t think he’ll run,” she infers, in the kind of tone parents use when they are afraid someone else is taking their job. “He hasn’t run away since that day on the roof. Jacob didn’t believe you could fix him; thanks to you he’s practically a different kid. I don’t know where we’d be without you.”
/> “Thank you,” I clumsily accept the compliment. An uncomfortable moment passes where I realize that she thinks I’ve fixed her broken son. We haven’t even dealt with the core issue of grief, and the truth is, until she’s ready to acknowledge the role of trauma in Dallas’s behavior, we’re all just chasing our tails.
Dallas and I pack ourselves into the car, as Aurora and Sarah wave at us from the driveway. We’re finally on our way.
#
[I see red.]
The line is long, and the sun is sunny. Zoe and I practice being patient while we wait a hundred years to walk inside, but after only about fifty years, we finally go inside. We walk into Discovery Country, and it’s everything I already hoped for, but bigger! There are rides everywhere, and families, and foods that I don’t see many times.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Funnel Cake,” Zoe says.
“What means Funnel Cake?”
“Cake poured through a funnel.”
“What’s that?”
“A turkey leg.”
I laugh, “A leg? Like a turkey’s actual leg?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s pretty weird,” Zoe says, and we both laugh.
I have a list of some rides I’d like to do, and I wrote it on paper. It looks like this:
(Zoe makes a hundred lists every day, so I learned to list things too. I couldn’t do a list when I didn’t know how to do writing; now I know how to do both things because I’m nearly seven.)
I heard that Extreme Space is like a rollercoaster inside space, but you don’t leave the Earth to go there. I wouldn’t mind if we left the Earth, but I’d like to try it out anyway. When we looked on the internet, I saw this GIANT T-Rex next to a ride, and Zoe said its name was Rollercoaster Rex. I want to go on that one, because it looks like an awesome ride for tough guys like me. Then, also, I want to do Log Nation, because Zoe said it’s the most fun thing here.