by Jamie Sumner
“My girls!” he says, and we go to him and it’s all right. It’s going to be all right.
“Thank you, guys!” I say, holding up my new spoke covers. They’re big black-and-white whorls that swirl like a hypnotist’s wheel. Mom snaps them on like hubcaps and sits back on her heels while I do a circle around the living room.
“Those things make me dizzy just looking at them,” she says.
“I love them.”
Mema and Grandpa wade through the crumpled wrapping paper to hug me. It’s late in the afternoon now, and we’re sitting in the glow of the little Christmas tree. When I say “little,” I mean li-ttle. It’s plastic and fits on the coffee table. When you push a button on the back, it dances and sings “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” Mema got it at Walgreens at an after-Christmas sale and swore she’d never put up a real tree again.
There’s a beeping in the kitchen.
“That’s my linzers!”
“Your whatzers?”
“My linzers, Grandpa.”
He gets that blank look he had last night at the church, and I feel the hairs on my arms prickle. Everybody freezes.
He looks from me to Mema. Mema looks from him to Mom.
After a second of silence, he says, “Either my dementia’s acting up or I have never heard of such a thing in my life,” and then actually slaps his knee and winks.
I laugh. I can’t help it.
Mema swats him lightly on the shoulder. “Jonah Cowan, you’re a mean old fart,” she says.
Mom looks a little shaky, but at least she’s smiling.
“It’s a cookie, Grandpa. You’ll like it, trust me.” I actually have no idea if this is true, because I have never made one before in my life.
But Mom let me open my present early this morning, and it was a new iPad from Dad. He always sends something fancy. I guess money is easier spent than time. But it saves us both an awkward meet-up and I get something awesomely expensive, so who’s complaining? I immediately loaded every cookbook app I could find, and this was the first recipe I saw.
I’m in the kitchen stirring the marmalade while the cookies cool when Mom walks in.
“Your dad called to wish you merry Christmas, baby.”
I don’t stop my stirring.
“I didn’t hear the phone ring.”
I know she called him. He would never remember on his own. Mom holds the phone to her shoulder and whispers, “Just talk to him.”
“Fine.”
“Be nice.”
“I’m always nice.”
She rolls her eyes and puts the phone to my ear so I can still use my hands.
“Dad.”
“Lily, sweetheart.” He never calls me Ellie.
“How’s tricks?” I say.
“What’s that? I can hardly hear you.”
I hear Elmo’s World in the background, and one of the boys is screaming. They are three and five. One of them is always screaming.
Elmo clicks off, and I try again. “I’m good, Dad. How are you?”
“Good. Glad to hear it.” He sounds like he’s on a business call. I can picture him crossing talking points off a list. “We’re all good here, too. The kids say hi.”
Sure they do.
The marmalade starts to boil.
“How do you like the iPad?”
“It’s great, Dad. Thanks.”
“Good. Good.”
One of the boys screams, “Daddy!” I hear Elmo click back on.
“Look, Dad, I gotta go. But, uh, merry Christmas.”
I duck under the phone, so I don’t hear if he says it back. Mom shakes her head but lets me go and puts the phone up to her ear before walking away.
I stir and stir until my arms ache. The orange marmalade is perfect and smells spicy from the cloves. I know I should taste it, but I don’t really want to. I take it off the burner instead and roll over to the window.
I wonder if it’s snowing in Tennessee. I wonder if Dad ever misses me. I wonder if he ever wonders what I can do now. I wish I could stop wondering.
“Heeeeeey. Knock, knock. Anybody home?”
The back door is already opening, and Coralee rushes in on a cold gush of air. She’s head to toe in green spandex, like she ran outside in her long johns. And she’s got a sweatband on her head, like Barbie Gymnast. It’s green too, with sequins.
I cannot think of one . . . single . . . word to say to this.
Mema comes in smiling. “Well, lookee here. Is that Miss Coralee? I wondered how long it’d take you to come knocking.”
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Cowan.”
“You too, honey.”
“I came to see if Ellie wanted to come over.”
Coralee looks at me. I can’t remember the last time a friend asked me over. I look at Mema. Mema shrugs.
“We’ve done our Christmasing already. You might as well.”
I almost want Mema to tell me to stay. I don’t know Coralee any better than her cockatoos. What are we going to talk about? And that other question sneaks in—what if she only thinks I’m interesting because of the wheelchair? Everybody’s staring at me, waiting for an answer or for me to move. Well, I guess it’s either this or spend the rest of the day watching It’s a Wonderful Life on cable.
“Okay, but help me with these cookies first?” I say to Coralee.
It goes much faster with two people. I plop a spoonful of marmalade on one cookie, and Coralee squishes another cookie on top, Oreo-style. There’s a heart cut in the middle so you can see the bright orange of the marmalade. When they’re all done, I shake powdered sugar over the top. They might be the fanciest thing I’ve ever made.
We lay them on a snowflake plate and everybody lines up for a taste.
Grandpa eats exactly one half of a cookie.
Mema eats a whole one but dunks it in her coffee, which ruins the entire effect.
Mom eats hers slowly and says, “Interesting.”
And Coralee takes one bite and yells, “The cockatoos are gonna love these!”
Weird.
I take a bite and chew slowly. The cookies are buttery and chewy, and the marmalade isn’t too sweet. It’s exactly like the recipe said it should be.
They’re perfect.
I look at everybody dusting the sugar off their hands.
So how come nobody likes them?
After Mom takes me to the bathroom one more time, quietly, so Coralee won’t notice, I roll out the front door. It’s maybe four in the afternoon, but the sky’s already getting dark. I’m bundled up in a jacket, mittens, and scarf, but Coralee doesn’t even have a coat. I don’t think she feels the cold.
I make it to the end of the driveway before I remember: The street is gravel.
I look down at it like it’s a snake waiting to bite. There’s no way I can wheel myself on this. My cheeks are hot now, even in the cold.
I start to turn around, but Coralee’s in the way.
“You forget something?”
“Nah, I just think I’m more tired than I thought.”
“Well, hold these.” She drops the tin of linzers on my lap.
“We’ll swap jobs. I’ll push and you hold the cookies.”
I want to say no. I hate it when people have to push me. But I also really want to see the cockatoos. I show her how to tip me back a little so it’s easier to push, and we move on down the road. When we get to her gate, which hangs crooked by one rusty hinge, she leans over to look at the new spoke guards.
“Cool hypno-wheels,” she says.
Coralee was not kidding about the cockatoos. It’s like rolling into the parakeet cage at PetSmart. There must be eight or ten of them flying around the ceiling and hopping from couch to chair to table. With their white bodies and spiky feathers on their heads, they look like little punk rockers. Loud ones.
Coralee’s grandpa Dane waves us in from his spot in an easy chair in front of the TV. Apart from the cockatoos, their trailer is laid out exactly like ours, one long sh
oebox. But they have towels on the backs of all the furniture. I look around and don’t see any cages. I wonder if the birds are house-trained. And then I look closer at the towels and figure it out for myself.
Dane has a walker propped next to him, and that one piece of medical equipment makes me feel right at home. He shakes my hand and then pats the walker.
“I’ve got a bad leg.”
“I’ve got two,” I say.
He laughs a laugh that turns into a cough, and Susie comes in.
“What’d I miss, y’all?” she says. She holds a tray of sliced salami and crackers in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The cockatoos go nuts when they see the crackers, and she has to wave them off with her cigarette hand. The smoke hits me in a wave, and I swallow hard and look at the ceiling. It has yellow stains around the edges. Mom would kill me if she knew. Smoke’s bad for my lungs. But then again, it’s bad for everybody’s, so what’s a couple of hours?
Susie, Coralee explained on the way over, isn’t actually her grandmother. But she’s been around long enough, she might as well be. Susie has big blond hair just like Coralee’s.
“Hi, sweet thing. Don’t you mind these birds, now. Just swat a hand at them and they’ll get out of your way.”
“But they can smell fear,” Dane says from the easy chair.
“Hush now. Don’t tease her.” Susie pats my hand. “You’ll be just fine. But we’ll keep Daisy in the back, just in case. Don’t want her knocking into you. She’s a fifty-pounder who thinks she’s a lapdog.”
“Susie, put those crackers away. Ellie’s brought fancy food,” Coralee says, and pops the lid off the cookie tin. Powdered sugar rises out like a cloud.
“Oh, I love fancy.” Susie takes two linzers and carries one to Dane. Her nails are long and glittery.
They chew for a minute, and I look at my hands because it’s always weird to watch people eat when you’re not eating yourself.
“Mighty fine, young lady. Mighty fine,” Dane says, but he sets his down after one bite, and after a minute so does Susie.
“What a treat,” she says, and walks back over to us. “Now, you need any help with anything, you let me know.”
I nod.
As Coralee leads me down the hallway to her room, I spy three cockatoos landing on the edge of the coffee table. They start pecking at the tin. At least somebody likes my cookies.
Later, Coralee and I are watching a scary movie that she has on tape, like actual tape, VHS. She says both the video and the TV were her mama’s. The television is the size of a microwave, but at least she gets to have one in her room. Mom has screen-time limits.
The movie’s called The People Under the Stairs, and it makes me wonder why people like scary movies in the first place. I mean, why would anybody choose to be creeped out? Halfway through, Coralee leans over from where she’s stretching her legs on the floor and hits pause. I see her face and know what’s coming.
“So, can I ask?”
“Ask what?”
“What happened?”
The million-dollar question.
She points at my chair, and even though the smoke smell isn’t as bad back here, all of a sudden my eyes start to itch and I just want to go home.
“Nothing happened. At least, not like you think. I didn’t get hit by a bus or anything.”
Coralee just switches legs and says, “Uh-huh,” so I keep talking.
“I have cerebral palsy. Something happened before I was born, or right around then, and the doctors don’t know what. But whatever ‘it’ ”—I make quote signs with my fingers—“was, it made it so it’s hard for me to move.”
“Huh.”
Coralee doesn’t seem weirded out by this at all. Which is weird.
“I can walk a little. But I have to use a gait trainer—it’s kind of like Dane’s walker but a thousand times bigger.” I pat the chair. “This is easier.”
“All right, then,” she says. “Your turn.”
“My turn what?”
“Now you ask me something.”
I think for a minute.
“Okay. What’s with the cockatoos?”
Coralee sits up now and crosses her legs. Crisscross applesauce, I think. That’s something the physical therapist used to make me practice.
“Oh, them. Dane likes them, and Susie likes Dane, so she lets him keep them around. But they crap on the furniture and it drives her nuts.”
I laugh into my sweatshirt and then make a mental note to keep them away from my chair.
“Okay, I’ve got another one,” I say, feeling bolder now. “What’s with the leotard? Are you a gymnast or something?”
She laughs and then frames her face with her hands. “It’s part of the package.”
“What package?”
“I’m going to be a star, Lily-slash-Ellie. A country music star. But I’ve got to be a triple threat—sing, act, and dance.”
She hops up and does a backbend and then falls into the splits. She winks up at me with her hands on her hips. She’s like one of those balloons at the county fair that can be twisted into any shape in the world. And I want to laugh so bad it hurts, but I don’t because I can tell she is dead serious and I know what it is to want something big for yourself.
“I’m staying here with Dane and Susie while my mom ‘gets herself straightened out’ ”—her turn to use quotes—“back home in Tulsa. I hear you’re here to help out with your grandpa. He has old-timer’s, right?”
“Alzheimer’s, yeah.” I hate even saying it out loud. But word travels fast around here, so there’s no use keeping it a secret. Although I guess there’s no secret to keep if you crash your car into a grocery store and almost burn down the church. I want to ask about Coralee’s mom. What would it be like to be left behind, waiting for her to come back? Life at a bus stop. Is it better or worse than my mom always being too close?
“My turn again. What’s with the cooking?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, nobody makes stuff like this around here. Where’d you learn to do it? Some fancy-pants cooking school back in Nashville?”
I start to talk and then stop about three times. Why is this harder to explain than the CP? “No, I taught myself. Am teaching myself. It’s just something I like to do. I’ve been at it ever since I could reach the countertops.”
“Well,” Coralee says, “I think it’s amazing.” She stands and pops her back with a loud crack before falling onto the bed. “And you can be a famous baker and I will be a famous singer and we can tour the world!”
And that’s the thing I couldn’t explain. Baking is not just something I “like” to do. I love it and I’m good at it. But I want to be the best.
When everybody else was playing soccer or taking dance classes, I did this. I hunted down recipes or made them up from whatever we had in the house, and then I’d make something that didn’t exist before. Not everyone can do that—make something from nothing.
I think about the pie contest in May. Just once I want to be known for something other than my chair. I think Coralee gets it. I think she knows what it’s like to want something different from everybody else. I think we’re kindreds in the way people can be even when they’ve just met.
That night after Coralee rolls me home and Mom helps me take a bath, because according to her, I “smell like an ashtray and your friend can come play over here from now on,” I think about what my life looked like just five days ago.
I don’t have my own room. Or my own bed.
I can’t take a bath or use the bathroom alone.
I have no idea what my new school will be like.
But Coralee will be there, and Mom and Mema and Grandpa will be here when I get home.
It’s finally not just me and Mom anymore.
I’ve got people now.
6
Appointments
Dear Editors and Chefs of the New York Times,
I made your Linzer Cookies with Orange Marmalade
for my family over the holidays, and they came out perfect. Thank you for the detailed instructions, especially what you said about the chill time. I am thankful we had the four to six hours on Christmas Day to chill (ha, ha).
The thing that I wanted to say, and this is probably my fault, not yours, but nobody really liked them like I thought they would. I guess because you said these cookies would be an “instant crowd favorite,” I thought they’d be gone in a flash, but it’s going on three days now, and we’ve still got almost the entire batch left, apart from what the cockatoos ate.
So I do have a question, but it’s not about the recipe. It’s about the people you make the recipe for. How do know what they’ll like? How do you know what to feed your “crowd”?
Sincerely,
Ellie Cowan
Despite everything Mom said about the smoke, I’m still over at Coralee’s every afternoon between Christmas and New Year’s. She comes over here, too, but I never know how Grandpa’s going to be that day. Coralee has starting calling his dark moods “Al.”
She’ll text, Ur place or mine?
And I’ll say Mine if Grandpa wakes up and showers and comes out whistling.
But if he’s talking to himself and still in his pajamas at ten, I’ll say, Al’s here. Uber me.
And she’ll come over and wheel me to her place.
On New Year’s Day, though, he seems good, and so Coralee and Dane and Susie all come over to eat black-eyed peas and greens and corn bread.
“For luck!” Mema says, and we clink glasses of sweet tea. Her smile is wide, but she looks tired. Because you can hear everything in this house, I know Grandpa’s been up wandering around in the middle of the night. Sometimes I’ll hear the dancing Christmas tree over and over and over again.
Mom leans close and whispers to me while we’re eating. “Tomorrow’s a big day. We’re going to get you registered for school, and your grandpa’s got an appointment with the neurologist.” I already know this. Just like I know that neither of those things sounds like the way I want to start my New Year, but I swallow my peas and nod because Mom’s tired eyes are starting to match Mema’s.