I don’t answer.
She doesn’t say anything.
I bite my nail and watch her some more.
Then I go to the dock.
Dixie is sort of weird. Not like a real adult.
DIXIE AND ME AT THE DOCK: pencil on paper
BILL
Besides Mrs. Peet who is trying to be our social worker and Norma who is fat, there is an old friend of Dad’s named Bill who does home health care.
Dad pays him to come here on the side because Mom needs help and Bill also gets her pills when she runs out.
Bill was Mom’s idea, and when Dad left, we hardly needed him because we were fine.
Now we need him bad.
Bill rolls Mom onto her stomach or onto her back.
Lately he has to wash her because she won’t get up.
I tell him, “Don’t tell Dad how bad she is.”
He says okay, but I think he’ll tell because he and Dad are golf buddies.
Then I say, “And don’t wash her private parts. I do that.” I say that because I don’t think he should.
At first I did do it.
I washed her private parts but every time I did I felt sad.
I said to her, “Will you please do this yourself?”
I always made a mess with bringing the buckets of water to her bed and trying to get her clean.
“Please, Mom. Just do it yourself.”
The bathroom would have puddles all over and she’d just sit there.
So I stopped.
Then Bill found out.
He said, “Mazzy, you been doing your job?”
I was watching a rerun of Oprah where she gives everyone a car.
“What?”
“You been washing your mom?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah. I have.”
“Nope.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she smells.”
“Oh,” I said. And it made me mad because Mom might have heard that.
“What do you want to do? You want me to do it?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said.
He was standing in the doorway of the TV room and his hands were on his hips like a lady on Days of Our Lives.
Bill shook his head and went back in Mom’s room.
I think he washes her private parts now.
I wish Mom would just do it.
FOOD
When Dad found out he had to stay away longer than he thought, he asked Bill to bring us food. Bill asked someone else to do it.
She sometimes forgets. Her name is Lisa and she smells like hair spray.
She’s Bill’s friend who needed some extra cash.
She’s supposed to come every week but sometimes she forgets. I feed Mom what’s in the kitchen even though all she really wants is sorbet and Diet Coke.
Once I put SpaghettiOs in the blender and gave it to her like a shake.
She threw it up.
Lisa says, “Sorry sister, about last week. José was out of town and the kids were all over and you know how it gets.”
I watch her unload oatmeal and juice and hope she got more marshmallows. “José is working real hard these days but he has to go out of town sometimes to do jobs.” She takes out ketchup and buns and hamburger. “Oh, what am I thinking. Those are for us.” She puts them back in the bag. “You and your mama doing okay? You look like you doing okay.”
She takes out cans of soup and a loaf of Wonder Bread, two cartons of sorbet, and three jars of strawberry jam.
I like her big hoop earrings.
“Okay,” she says, “I think that’s all. I got a call from you daddy. He cranky sometimes, eh?”
I nod my head.
“Why don’t he just do this stuff hisself?”
I stare at her.
“He live around here, don’t he?”
I stare at her.
“He the guy on TV?”
Still stare.
“They divorced?”
I lick my teeth.
“I hear they not divorced.”
Lick them again.
“What’s wrong with your mama anyway?”
I scratch a fly off my face.
“He says I got to bring juices and on time or he won’t pay me.”
I nod.
“Okay then, I see you next week.”
There are no marshmallows and no milk.
I climb on the counter and wash my feet in the sink.
SPRINKLER
Colby is outside sitting in the Dean Machine and I am outside sitting in our sprinkler.
It is 108 today.
Colby is wearing football pads and his swimsuit and he’s sitting at the driver’s wheel.
“What are you doing?” I yell.
“Nothing,” he says.
“Why are you out here?”
“ ’Cause I want to be.”
“Are you on a football team or something?”
“No.”
“Oh.” And then I say, “Do you want to sit in the sprinkler with me?”
He looks over.
“It looks stupid.”
Lately Colby thinks everything is stupid.
“It isn’t,” I say back.
“Okay.”
He takes off his pads and leaves them in the boat. Then we sit in the sprinkler.
When Colby sits, he has rolls on his stomach. I don’t say anything.
Two cars drive by, a convertible yellow one and a dump truck.
Another car goes by and a bike with a man on it. The man is whistling and driving with no hands.
“I can do that,” Colby says.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Want to see?”
“Okay.”
He gets his bike out from their garage. It has a flat tire.
“The tire is flat,” I say.
He looks at it and swears like his dad. “Stupid piece of crap.” And then he leaves it in the driveway and comes and sits back in the sprinkler.
“This is the dumbest summer of my freaking life,” he says.
I say, “Oh.”
He lies down in the sprinkler and I do too.
“The grass is pokey.”
“I know.”
“Why does your yard looks so nasty?”
I look around. There is hardly any green grass and so many dandelions. I think it looks pretty.
I tell him.
“I guess,” he says. “I guess it does if you like weeds.”
We lie in the sprinklers.
ME AND COLBY IN THE SPRINKLERS: charcoal on paper
WEDNESDAY AT NOON WITH MRS. PEET
Mrs. Peet comes over and says, “Okay, today is the day.”
I stare at her through the screen.
“I am with Family Services. You are required to let me in or the police will come over here and make you let me in.”
It seems like she’s lying so I say, “We’re fine.”
She says, “That’s not what the neighbors think. Let me in.”
The neighbors? Which neighbors? Mr. Grobin? Norma? The Deans?
She says, “Mazeline, right? It’s okay. I just need to check things out.”
I say, “Show me your badge or something.”
She sighs and shows me her card.
She looks bad in the picture so I open the door.
“So your mother, she lives here with you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Just the two of you?”
“No. My dad lives here too.”
She writes something down and then says, “He does?”
“Uh-huh.”
She makes a ticking noise and then says, “How’s your mom?”
“Fine. And my dad is fine too.”
“Is he here?” She looks up at me. Clearly surprised.
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“On a work trip.”
She nods. “So I’ve heard.”
“When will he be back?”
I stare at her then and flare my nostrils. She makes another note on her clipboard.
She moves my Willy Wonka sweatshirt and sits on the couch. I sit on the beanbag.
“Can I talk to your mom?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She’s working.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a famous artist.”
Mrs. Peet looks at a sheet of paper. “Ahh, yes. That’s right. Well, I need to talk to her nonetheless.”
Nonetheless. Nonetheless, you are not supposed to be here and you have to get out, you government boob lady.
I pull a hair from my bangs. “You can’t talk to her. She’s concentrating.”
“Mazeline, go get her or I’ll get her myself.”
I pull another hair and it looks gray. “Does this look gray to you?”
Mrs. Peet stands up and yells, “Mrs. Roany?”
“Ms.,” I say.
No one answers back.
“Mrs. Roany,” she yells again, and again I say, “It’s Ms.”
Silence.
“I told you,” I say.
Mrs. Peet clears her throat.
That’s when I say, “The end,” and stand up.
“What are you doing?”
I say again, “The end, and you can go now,” and I open the door.
Mrs. Peet says, “Honey, you’re not getting rid of me that fast.”
She gets up, walks down the hall, and starts looking in rooms without even asking me.
I follow her because she didn’t ask me.
Mom is curled up today.
But I did remember Mrs. Peet was coming so at least she has some lipstick and a sweater on.
“Hi, Mrs. Roany.”
“It’s Ms.,” I say.
Mrs. Peet doesn’t answer me or anything. Instead she writes on a clipboard and she says, “How long has she been like this?”
I shrug.
“Is she always like this?”
“No.”
“Mrs. Roany?” she says again.
“She’s tired. She was working for hours before you got here.”
Mrs. Peet gives me an old-woman look and says, “Has she been to see any health-care professionals?”
“Bill.”
“Who’s Bill?”
“He takes care of her. He’s a nurse and he comes over all the time.”
She writes something down.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? What’s the diagnosis?”
“Nothing. She’s just tired, like I said.”
Then she’s looking at the clothes on the floor.
“What are all these clothes doing?” she says.
“They’re mine,” I say.
“Why are they in here?”
I don’t say anything. Instead, I look in the mirror and I have red eyes today.
“Hey. You listening to me? Why are your clothes all over this room? Don’t you have your own room?”
I put my face real close to the mirror and look at the yellow between my teeth.
Mrs. Peet is silent and looking at me and we’re both looking in the mirror at each other but I am also looking at the yellow between my teeth.
Then she says, “Something has to be done around here. I don’t care who your father is.”
I say, “He’s coming home soon. He’s going to be here probably tomorrow or the next day.” I look at her now. I turn around and look at her. “Everything is fine. He’s just gone for a few days.”
Mrs. Peet is writing something on her clipboard again and then her pocket starts buzzing.
She looks at her cell. “Mazeline, I have to go but I will be back. I need your father’s cell number.”
I go back to looking at the yellow in my teeth.
“Mazeline?”
I gave her a number.
“That’s your home phone.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve gotten the machine six times.”
I sort of smile but then I pick up some floss from under a bag of eye shadows.
“Tell me now, Mazeline.”
I think about giving her a fake number but instead I say the real one.
She types it into her phone and then shakes her head. “I guess I should warn you, things are going to change around here. You can’t be here alone with her. Your daddy and I are going to have a talk.”
My gums start to bleed.
And then she sort of jumps over the clothes in the doorway, like if she walked on them, something bad would happen.
And she’s gone.
I slam the door after her and then open it and slam it again.
In the kitchen I pull out some mayonnaise and a spoon.
Out the window I see Mrs. Peet and Mrs. Dean talking outside.
I start to feel hot.
MRS. PEET IN REPOSE: crayons on cardboard
DAD
I text-message Dad a code word: Government.
This is the first time I have ever texted Dad since he left at the beginning of June.
It’s now the beginning of July.
He calls all the time but usually I don’t answer.
And I never text.
Until now.
Me and Mom are fine except for when the government says we’re not.
NORMA
Maybe Norma could help.
MOM
My mom used to travel. Before she met Dad.
She has a painting called Beachy Head.
“What’s Beachy Head?” I asked once when she was working on it.
“A cliff. A cliff by Brighton,” she said. Looking at the painting with a brush in her mouth. “It’s windy and beautiful and terrifying.”
“Oh,” I said.
And then she looked at me. “I went there several times while I was in England. The wind made me feel like I could fly.”
I thought about that. My mom flying. “One day I’ll take you there,” she said. “You have to feel the wind at Beachy Head.”
“Okay,” I said.
And then we both looked at the painting.
COLBY AND NORMA
I ask Colby if he knows Norma.
“No.”
“You don’t? She lives across the street.”
“I know. She’s lived there forever, duh.”
“I thought you said you don’t know her.”
“I don’t.”
“Oh.”
Then, like she heard us talking, she comes out on her front porch, her fat swinging because she’s wearing a tank top.
“Hey!” she yells.
Colby swears under his breath and I see her fat again. She is a fat fat fatty. We’re sitting in the sprinklers and Colby says, “This summer sucks so bad.”
Norma is walking over and Colby is getting up. “Wait wait wait, young man,” Norma calls. “I got something for both of you.”
Colby still gets up and goes into his house.
She is breathing hard and her flowered tank is soaking under her armpits.
“Where’d he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, well. I have something for just you then.”
She holds out a fist.
I wonder if she has a fish in there.
“Do you want it?”
“What is it?”
“Get up and see.”
She’s standing outside the sprinklers in slippers and her makeup is starting to drip from the sun.
I get up and shake the water off.
“Are you excited?” she asks, holding the fist out as I get to her.
“Umm, hmm.”
She starts to open it — one finger at a time, but just when I’m about to see, she clenches it again and starts to laugh.
“I
’m just kidding, sugar,” she says and opens it all the way.
It isn’t a fish.
It’s two scrunched-up pieces of orange paper.
“Oh,” I say.
“Take them both,” she says.
I take them and put them in my shorts pocket.
“Honey, don’t you even want to see what’s on them?”
I shrug and her mole starts shaking again because she’s laughing. “That’s fine. That’s fine, honey. You are one original girl.”
I want to karate chop her but instead she does something I didn’t know she was going to do.
She grabs me and hugs me.
I am in her fat fat fatty rolly all around me and it’s hot and smells like bread and coconut.
At first I just stand there and let her hug me.
Then I put my arms around her.
They don’t even get to her sides, and she says, “Oh my.”
Finally, she lets me go and her mascara is down her face.
That’s when I decide Norma can fix things.
DEAN MACHINE
I see a strange man out the window looking with Colby’s dad at the Dean Machine.
But I don’t see Colby.
I’m holding Mom’s sorbet and watching.
He has his shirt off and is looking at his arm while Mr. Dean is talking at him with his hands. He doesn’t have guns like Henry’s.
Then Mrs. Dean comes out and then Dixie, but this time the bikini is blue with stripes and she’s wearing cutoffs.
Dixie looks like she doesn’t care about anything.
I don’t either.
She kisses the strange man. I guess Henry from Wichita is gone.
I don’t see Colby.
They all get in the Suburban and Mom says, “Mazzy?”
It’s quiet but I can hear her even quiet.
“Yeah, Mom. I’m coming.”
The hum of the swamp cooler maybe didn’t let her hear me so I say it louder. “I’m coming.”
But I still watch.
Mr. Dean starts the car and the Dean Machine slowly pulls out of the driveway.
That’s when Colby comes running out in different swimming trunks that I’ve never seen.
He’s running out and then someone else is behind him.
But it’s not Randy.
It’s a girl.
MOM
“So it’s a girl I’ve never seen.”
She is sitting up and not looking at me.
Everything Is Fine. Page 2