“No,” she says, and looks at me with bad eyes. “I never take things home for José and the kids.”
“Okay,” I say, and I get it.
And she’s still looking at me, her round chin shaking like she might cry or murder.
“Okay,” I say.
“I’ll be back next week,” she says, and she leaves.
Lisa is usually nice to me.
I wonder what Dad said. I wonder how Dad thinks he can fix things. He just messes things up even though we do have Soft Batch cookies now.
KIWIS
Lisa didn’t buy any oranges.
But she did buy kiwis.
Five kiwis.
But a kiwi is the wrong size. In the mirror it looks pokey. Or too round. I even try it with a shirt over it but the fuzz makes me itch.
HERE IS A DRAWING OF WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE: pencil on paper
She also bought a cantaloupe.
I don’t try it.
OLIVIA
I try not to think about her.
It’s easier.
I might mow the lawn for when Dad gets here. I also should clean up the art room.
But I don’t think I will.
MY ART ROOM: paper on paper
COLBY
Colby says, “You went to yoga?”
“Uh-huh.”
He’s on his bike and he’s weaving between things like a broom, a football helmet, and three Tootsie Rolls.
I’m sitting in the sprinklers.
“Yoga is stupid.”
“Kind of.”
“My mom is stupid.”
“Oh,” I say.
“It’s dumb she made you go.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
He keeps riding. And then he says, “Me and my dad told her you were okay but sometimes she just does whatever.”
“Oh,” I say.
I’m about to ask him about Dixie but then he crashes.
And he says, “Ooooooooooo,” and he is bleeding.
I get up to help him but he runs inside.
I try his bike and I don’t crash.
COLBY’S BIKE WRECK: pastels on cardboard
MISSING NORMA
Norma and I had thought of a few plans to help Mom.
The noni juice.
Ocean music.
Hypnosis.
Oprah’s feel-good tips.
We thought of a lot of things.
I even thought maybe Norma could stay with us and we could tell Mrs. Peet that she was my aunt and she was going to take care of us.
“Would you do that, Norma?”
“Sure, honey. I’d love to.” She took a bite of a Twinkie. “But I don’t know that your dad would like it.”
“Oh,” I said. She was right. Norma had offered to stay with us when it happened last August but Dad said no. He said we were fine. We’re fine. We’re a family and we’ll survive this.
Now he’s gone. And Mom’s in bed.
Fine.
MOUNT RUSHMORE
In South Dakota there are four presidents carved into a mountain.
On the Discovery channel, they said it took fourteen years to make their faces and they almost added a lady — Susan B. Anthony — but then they didn’t.
I tell Colby and he says, “So?”
I say, “Do you think that’s weird?”
He says, “Not really.”
I say, “Have you ever seen it before?”
He says, “What?”
I say, “Mount Rushmore.”
He says, “Uh, yeah. I go there every freaking week because it’s so interesting. Who doesn’t want to look at presidents’ faces carved into a mountain?”
Then he pulls a green thing from his teeth and says, “Do you want to see the engine of the Dean Machine?”
“Okay,” I say. So we do.
While we are looking, a couple of guys I don’t know ride by on their bikes. Colby sort of sits up and starts to wave when one of them yells, “Hey Colby, you suck.”
Colby turns red.
“You’re not going to make the team, reject.” Their laughs trail behind them.
Immediately, Oprah’s advice pops into my head and I yell, “Stop that. I don’t like it!”
They don’t hear.
I look at Colby. He looks even more red. “You don’t suck,” I say.
His lip is trembling so I say, “What’s that?” And I point to this black greasy thing.
It’s the radiator.
After we look at the engine, Colby gets us some otter pops just like we used to eat.
MOUNT RUSHMORE BUT WITH ME AND COLBY INSTEAD OF TWO OF THE GUYS: pastels on canvas
OLIVIA
Olivia got a gobstopper stuck in her nose once.
They were my gobstoppers and Mom said I should have been watching more closely.
Olivia just laughed and I smiled and Mom was trying not to because I was in trouble.
NORMA
The day before Dad is supposed to get here everything is still.
The air is hot and heavy and no one is outside.
Not Colby because the Dean Machine is gone.
And not even Norma even though we usually pull weeds at this time.
I think about going over there but instead I turn on the sprinklers and walk through them four times and then turn them off.
Then I go inside and get the Q-tips.
I come back outside and sit on the curb and I see Mr. Grobin under his car with his legs sticking out.
It’s so hot.
I wonder if he knows where Norma is.
I almost yell: Where’s Norma?
But instead I get a Q-tip and I start digging in my ear and watching Mr. Grobin.
I like to dig in my ear even though in fifth grade Mr. Porter said you shouldn’t dig. You should just let the wax come out on its own.
But I like to wait and wait and wait and then finally get the Q-tips and you can get big balls of wax smeared on the ends.
I like to see how much I can get and I look at it.
I like to look and see how much there is and if it’s more than last time.
I’m doing that when Mr. Grobin comes out from under his car.
He doesn’t say anything to me even though he looks at me.
I wave.
He walks over to Norma’s house and goes inside.
Then I dig again in the same ear.
Not a lot.
I put the used Q-tips on the sidewalk and lie down to rest before I do the other ear — I don’t want to do it all so fast.
That’s when the ambulance comes.
AMBULANCE
The ambulance comes swerving into our neighborhood and stops in front of Norma’s house.
I almost yell: “You have the wrong house.”
Because Norma is fine. I pulled weeds with her yesterday.
I almost yell: “She’s fine.”
But instead I sit and watch because I haven’t seen an ambulance that close since it happened with us and I can’t move.
They just pull up to her house and then people start coming out from all over the neighborhood.
Just like with us.
“What’s going on?” someone yells.
Just like with us.
Where’s Mr. Grobin?
I’m just sitting with my Q-tips and staring.
I am about to yell: “Nothing’s wrong with Norma,” but I don’t.
The men go inside and I sit.
The men come outside and Norma is on a stretcher with a thing on her face. Mr. Grobin is walking next to them.
That’s when I stand up. There’s something wrong.
I can’t breathe.
Not Norma.
Not Norma.
Mr. Grobin is talking to one of the men.
I just stand.
I stand while they put Norma in the back.
I stand while they close the doors.
I stand while Mr. Grobin runs back toward his house.
I stand
while the other people who are standing around start going home.
I stand until they start pulling out into the middle of the road with the siren screaming, and then I run.
The tears are coming hard down my face. I run out in the middle of the road in front of the ambulance.
THE AMBULANCE: pencil on paper
NORMA’S AMBULANCE
When the ambulance screeches and doesn’t hit me, the driver is yelling, and Mr. Grobin, who had run to his house, is running back to Norma’s when everything happens.
“Mazzy!” Mr. Grobin yells.
But I am hysterical because Norma is in the ambulance dying.
The driver gets out and says, “What are you doing?”
“What’s wrong with her?” I yell. “Is she dead?”
“No,” says the driver.
“No,” says Mr. Grobin.
“No,” says everyone.
I am shaking and Mr. Grobin is pulling me away from the ambulance toward the side of the road.
“Sorry about this, sorry. She’s a good friend of the lady in there. Sorry, go ahead and take her. We’ll be right behind.”
I am still shaking and the driver runs back to the ambulance.
Mr. Grobin sits me on the curb and waves the ambulance on as it goes around the corner.
A few lingering neighbors are looking at us and Mr. Grobin tells them, “Get the hell out of here.”
Then he sits by me. I scooch away. Tears are running down my face and I do not cry.
“She’s going to be okay,” he says. I scooch farther away. “I promise you.”
I wipe my face and snot on my T-shirt.
Mr. Grobin gives me a rag that has grease on it from his pocket. I wipe more snot and then give it back.
“How do you know she’s going to be okay?”
“Because this happens every once in a while. Norma’s been under a lot of stress. You probably know that Norma is diabetic.”
I didn’t know.
“She just had an insulin reaction. Have you heard of that?”
“Yes,” I say. It was on Oprah.
“This is not out of the ordinary; it’s just usually Norma can fix it before it gets this bad.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about but I’m glad he is talking. When it happened with us, no one talked to me.
“What’s an insulin reaction?”
He tells me.
“But she eats Twinkies.”
“She eats a lot of things she shouldn’t. She’s trying to be better about it but she doesn’t have a whole lot of self-control.”
I cough.
He looks at me and then says, “Do you want to come with me to the hospital?”
“No,” I say.
He puts his hand on my back and says, “She’s going to be okay.”
“Okay,” I say. And then he leaves.
I sit there for a long time afterward.
Norma is sick.
She probably can’t take care of us.
And she could die.
I don’t do the other ear.
Instead I just go home and lie on my bed.
I see a spider crawling up the door.
Then it’s behind the blinds.
I wonder how many spiders are in our house.
MOM’S SPYDER
After the Range Rover was gone, Dad bought Mom a black convertible Spyder.
“It’s an awesome car, Roxie,” he said.
This was when Mom had stopped eating and was beginning to become how she is now.
She didn’t answer him.
“Don’t you want to take a ride in it?”
“No.”
“It’s a convertible. You’ve always wanted a convertible.”
“No.”
“Well, Mazzy and I are going for a ride to get ice cream whether you come or not, huh, Mazzy?”
I looked at Mom. She was sitting in her nightgown at the kitchen table. It was eleven in the morning on a Saturday and I’d never seen her in her nightgown except in her room and I’d never seen her just sit. Especially on Saturdays.
“Mom,” I said. “Just come.”
“No.”
She was holding a cup of milk and Dad and I were both watching her.
“Just for a little ride.”
“No.”
We sat like that for awhile until Dad finally said, “Okay, let’s go, Mazzy.”
“Mom?” I whispered.
She was staring.
We got in the Spyder and Dad swore.
I didn’t say anything.
We went for a ride but we didn’t get ice cream.
Mom has never ridden in the Spyder.
Not once.
COLBY
Colby knocks on the window.
I am putting a hard-boiled egg on my sandwich.
And then I’m trying to balance a chocolate chip Soft Batch on top of it.
It keeps falling off.
That’s when he knocks and whisper-yells, “Mazzy.”
This is the first time this summer he has come to talk to me without me yelling first. I want to hurry and see what he wants but I have to get the Soft Batch to stay.
“Mazzy,” he says again.
“Hang on,” I say.
“What are you doing?”
I don’t answer because I almost have it.
But it keeps falling off so I just go to the window. “What?” I say.
“Can I come in?”
His face is pressed against the glass and his glasses are off.
“What?” I say.
“Can I come in?” he says louder.
“What?”
“Can I come in? What’s your problem?”
I look around. I’ve been trying to clean for Dad so there are rags and buckets and Windex and newspaper and stuff all over.
Plus Soft Batch cookies spread on the table.
“Okay,” I say.
Then his face is still pressed against the glass.
“I said okay,” I say.
Still pressed. He isn’t moving.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to figure out how to get in.”
Then I remember I had put signs on the two doors: “Do not disturb. No one can enter these doors. Maintenance.”
I’d put them up in case Mrs. Peet came over.
I say to him, “You mean the signs?”
“Yeah.”
I bite my lip.
“Yeah, you probably can’t come in,” I say.
“I can’t?”
“I guess not. I forgot about the doors. If I let you in then I have to let everyone in.”
I feel bad he can’t come in because this is the first time since Mom got sick that he wants to, but I didn’t know if Mrs. Peet was watching our house or something.
Then he says, “What about through the window?”
I think about it and then I say, “Hang on.”
I put my hair behind my ears, get up, do a karate chop, and then go to check on Mom even though Colby’s face is pressed on my kitchen window. I’ve never let a boy through the window before.
MOM
Her door is closed.
I never leave the door closed.
I look down the hall. No one.
“Is someone here? Bill?”
No one answers except my mom’s voice from in her room. “You can come in, Mazzy.”
It’s loud and really her voice.
I look at the door.
It’s brown.
Then I open it and she is sitting up and sort of normal-looking.
“Mom?”
“Hi, baby,” she says.
“You’re awake.”
“Uh-huh.” There is color in her face.
“What are you doing?”
“Just thinking.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“A little bit.”
A little bit. A little bit. She is feeling a little bit better and she is talking to me.
> “Dad’s coming home tomorrow,” I say.
“I know.” She smiles. “You’ve been missing him, huh?”
I’m confused. “You know he’s coming home?”
“Yep.”
“How do you know?”
“You’ve been telling me every day for a week, baby.”
I’m still standing in the doorway when she says that and I slump.
“You mean you heard all that?”
“I guess. I mean, yeah. But it was sort of like a dream.”
I bite my lip and watch her move toward the edge of the bed. “Are you getting up?”
“I think so. I think I might take a shower.”
“Really?”
She looks at me and smiles. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile in a month.
“You don’t think I need to? Do I smell that good?” she says.
I knock my head on the door frame. “It’s just, you don’t, it’s just —”
“I know,” she says. “It’s okay.”
“Mom, I’m sorry about your room.”
For the first time she sort of looks around. “What about it?”
“I’m sorry about my clothes and the books and the shoes and everything.”
She smiles again and says, “Go let your friend in.”
She’d heard? She’d been listening. She’d heard.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t need help?”
“I’m okay,” she says.
I turn and start down the hall, but then she says, “Maz?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“Could you shut the door?”
She is still sitting on the edge of her bed like it’s a regular Thursday.
“Okay.”
I shut the door and stand there for awhile.
I stand there.
And stand there.
And stand there.
I stand there until I hear Colby knocking on the window again.
My mom is taking a shower and Colby Dean is waiting for me to let him in.
COLBY IN THE WINDOW
“So?” he says.
“So what?” I say back, and I put a strand of hair in my mouth. I wish I still had the oranges.
“How do I get in?”
Everything Is Fine. Page 6