Super, super weird.
JUNE 16
Cal
I march back to the house.
This can’t go on. I can’t sell pastries at Greenery. I have more important work to do.
I’d tell Mom right now that she needs to put things back the way they were—if her eyes weren’t closed and her head weren’t resting against the living room couch like that. It’s her “everything hurts” pose, usually the result of filling in as late-shift dinner maître d’. Her frizzed-out hair looks like it was rubbed against a balloon.
I hesitate, then sit. Maybe we could just watch a Julia Child episode this morning and—PING! Her eyelids flip up and in one swift motion she’s grabbed my chalk-covered hand and slid off the couch to kneel at my feet, pulling her sweater tighter around her shoulders. Like she knows I didn’t show up for work. Like it’s time for a reckoning.
I stare at her scalp a second too long; she has gray hairs sprouting, which has nothing to do with anything, except when you’re a portraitist you notice these things.
“Just remember I love you and that what I’m about to say is not another consequence,” she says, glancing at a piece of paper, then standing.
Wait. This was going to be my turn to lecture her. “Mom—”
“I cannot rewind the tape,” she says, glancing at her paper again. “Yesterday, you were in diapers. Today, you’re almost in seventh grade and pee with the door closed. Don’t make that face, Cal. This is hard. Let me get it out.” She places the paper in her mouth for a second and laces and unlaces her fingers. She takes it out again and says, “I know how to raise a restaurant. I’m less sure about a boy. I’ve kept you close, but I haven’t really steered. And that worked for a while, but you’ve lashed out”—she flings out her hand to illustrate—“and now things have to change.”
“Lashed? No, I . . .”
“A single mom can’t be expected to get everything right,” she continues. “What I’m trying to do is a quick correction. The Greenery job, this whole summer, it’s going to be a dose of”—she sweeps her arm over her head so hard, I think it’s going to swing back and whack her in the face—“real life, out there, with me steering but not hovering. So you can find your feet without me tripping you. You’ve got to stick with the program. No skipping work.”
“Mom.”
But she keeps going. I hear “earn your own keep” and “road to manhood” and “color swaps” and “making friends again” and “the school of hard knocks.” The lecture is several minutes along when I realize she means an actual school.
She’s transferring me out of Point Academy.
There’s more, but I can’t hear with all the internal screaming.
JUNE 16
Jeanne Ann
Mom is watching me eat. She keeps sliding bits of her meal onto my plate, then nudging the bits closer to me, so that I know that she knows I haven’t eaten them yet. “Mom.”
“What?”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
She shrugs. “You eat.”
She’s brought us to a different restaurant, a tiny one, squeezed between a used-book store and a grocery selling bruised fruit. They make these fried bean balls called falafel here. When we ate out in Chicago, which wasn’t often, it was usually this. Cheap and filling. It’s the first meal we’ve eaten outside the van since we got to San Francisco eight days ago. The windows look steamed. Grease coats the walls. Just like joints we went to in Chicago. “Trust me, this’ll be good,” Mom said when we walked in.
Trust me, you’ll love San Francisco. Trust me, it’s all gonna work out. Trust me, our future is West. Trust me, trust me, trust me.
Our food came a few minutes ago, mounded on paper plates. It’s yummy. Not that it matters. I’d eat salty dirt. The walk here nearly killed me. Hills, hills, hills, hills, hills. They’re everywhere—one after the other, like a kick-line of sleeping volcanoes. They start climbing almost immediately after you get beyond the block of mansions across the street from the vans and RVs. A person without enough money to take a bus or trolley is either rolling down one hill or crawling up another. I need food. More food.
While I stuff myself, the chef marches over with extra sauce and stares at Mom. We’re not much to look at on a good day—neither of us has ever bothered much with hair or makeup or socks for that matter—and after almost two weeks in the van, well . . . crapinade. Is he going to kick us out?
“I think you have spent time in kitchens,” the chef says, pointing at one of several scars on Mom’s arms. “You suffered so others could eat.” He pulls up his food-stained sleeves to show us his burn scars. I relax. A little. Mom’s response—a tenth of a smile—would barely register under a microscope. She has him beat—twice as many scars—and that’s just on her arms. A weird kind of victory, but we’ll take it.
He offers us a honey-and-nuts thing called baklava—free—on his next pass. I wait for Mom to push it back toward him. Mom refused a birthday cake from the Chicago librarians once—called it “charity we didn’t need”—but she surprises me now and slides the baklava to the center of our table. I eat my half fast, before she can change her mind. Mom watches, then skids her chair back from the table, grabs a book from her purse, and dumps it in my lap. I’ve never seen it before. It’s called Eating Your Way Through the Golden Gates. I’ve flipped through thinner encyclopedias.
“You’ve dog-eared half the book,” I say. Mrs. Jablonsky does not approve of dog-earing. She does not approve of gum-chewing or self-help books by movie stars either. “So many vegetarian restaurants. Doesn’t anyone like salami in this town?” I think of that boy I keep seeing, with the chalk and the owl eyes hiding behind all that hair. “Are there fewer vegetarians in Chicago because of the cold?”
Mom looks at me like I’m cracked, then slides the second half of the baklava toward me. “Really?” I hold it up to my mouth to give her a chance to change her mind.
She nods, then grabs my wrist before I can pop in the last bite. “I gotta ask a favor, kid.”
Her face goes kinda stony.
“Okay,” I say.
She lets go of my wrist. “I need to find a job.”
“Okay.” This is not exactly breaking news. It’s not like we’re waiting on a trust fund.
“And I need you to be patient while I look.”
When am I ever not patient?
“I don’t know people here,” she says. “It might take a while.”
“You know that guy Sam,” I point out.
“Yeah.” She looks down at her book. “Right. I do.” She fans the pages. “The thing is, I already interviewed at a few places, and they turned me down.”
“You did? They did? When?”
“Where do you think I’ve been going every day?” She falls back in her plastic chair, like she’s spent.
I shrug. “You said you were being a tourist.”
She looks at me like I should know better. “I didn’t want you to worry,” she says, “if I didn’t get one in the first couple of days.”
When I just stare at her, she adds, “It doesn’t matter. Look, Jeanne Ann. I need you to understand, we don’t have a place to stay. Just the van.”
I am suddenly, ferociously thirsty. I look past her to the exit, to the air outside the window that is in extremely short supply in here. “But what about . . . ?” My voice sounds squeaky, parched. There’s not enough water on earth for the fire inside me.
“Sam won’t work. He’s—he’s on vacation.”
“For how long? How do you know? Did you go back?”
Mom pauses, twists her mouth down. “I called.”
“When?”
“Found a pay phone. He says he’s out, three weeks. And his roommates aren’t into strangers being there without him.”
“Three weeks? Mom!”
“It’ll be oka
y. We’ve done fine so far. We just need to keep thinking of it as an adventure.”
“I don’t need any more adventure.”
She gets quiet. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“After he comes back, we can move in with him?” She stares at me instead of answering. Too long. “Mom?”
“Yes, if we need to.”
The fire has run up my neck to my ears.
“Why didn’t you call him before we came all this way?”
She leans forward so our faces are close. “I should’ve. But I didn’t want to slow down. I needed to just go. If I slowed down, we’d still be there.”
I feel like crying. I think I am crying. I’d rather still be there.
“We’re low on funds,” she adds, squeezing my hands. Like it’s an afterthought. “So we’re going to start, you know, being careful.”
Now the table is wet. Now my nose is running. “Why did we splurge on this food? How much do we have left?” Did she spend the money that got tucked under our windshield wipers? I hold up my paper plate and slap it down. How many mistakes can one person make? Crapinade.
She doesn’t answer right away, long enough for me to figure out the answer for myself: I should be as full and as happy as possible when receiving bad news.
“I budgeted for a few weeks,” she finally says. “I didn’t think . . . I didn’t plan past that. Jeanne Ann, don’t.”
I have my arms pulled over my head, as if I can hide from this.
“Don’t be mad. That’s the favor I’m asking. Don’t be too mad. Give me a little time.”
That’s asking a lot. That’s asking so much. I’ve given her time already.
She leads me outside to a nearby stoop. The city’s summer cold finds my bones. I hug my knees and face away from her. A group of girls with pierced noses and thigh-high boots walks past, followed by a mumbler in an old yellow raincoat and red rain boots, poking at the back side of a flip phone. Mom looks at me sideways, concerned, sits up a little straighter and tightens her ponytail. “We should wash up when we get back to the Carrot,” she says. We haven’t showered since Donner Pass. Donner Pass was over a week ago. I nod at her, though I don’t think I will—I was going to shower in our new apartment. I was waiting to celebrate with shampoo and conditioner.
I peek at Mom. She looks pretty crushed, which must be how I look too.
“This reminds me of home . . . if I squint my eyes super tight . . . and cross them,” I say, watching the city stomp by. I want to be hopeful. I want to try. The alternatives stink.
“But brighter,” Mom says, patting my back, scooting closer.
“And with hills.” I clench my toes.
“And without overhead trains.”
A guy snapping photos of himself nearly trips over Mom’s feet.
“And with . . .” I am tempted to say prospects, but don’t. We are a jinx-accustomed family.
“Did you apply at any restaurants you liked?”
She smiles for a second.
“I liked them all.” She leans closer. “They just didn’t like me.”
JUNE 17
Cal
“A.R.E. Y.O.U. O.K. O.U.T. T.H.E.R.E.?”
I’m reading a book on Morse code while trying to send my first Morse message. It’s a lot of flashlight work. My thumb is spasming. “A.R.E. Y.O.U. O.K. O.U.T. T.H.E.R.E.?” takes me five minutes to send.
I scan the dark outside my window. It’s ten p.m. I know the girl in the van has a flashlight. I can see it moving inside. She’s probably reading. During the day, if her mom’s around, she’s always sitting on the sidewalk, reading.
It’s stupid that I thought she’d know Morse. I just wanted her to know it.
Di-di-dah-dit, di-dit.
A flashlight is sending back a message, but not the right flashlight. The Morse reply is coming from the van parked behind hers, the red one. The bearded guy lives in that one. He’s outside his van more than any of the van-dwellers, lounging in lawn chairs, like the sidewalk and grass are his yard.
I scribble out his message in my sketchbook. It takes forever, but I translate it to “F.I.G.U.R.E. O.U.T. T.H.E. R.E.M.O.T.E. C.O.N.T.R.O.L. Y.O.U.R.S.E.L.F.”
Maybe it’s a riddle?
Maybe he’s mentally, um, unwell.
I snap off my flashlight. Maybe I am.
JUNE 18
Jeanne Ann
Someone is knocking on the back doors of the Carrot when we return from the public bathroom this morning.
His green T-shirt reads: DILL WITH IT.
Mom and I hang back, eyeing him from a not very hidden spot at the Carrot’s front fender. A thick beard threaded with gray drapes over the top half of his shirt. He sways slightly on two knobby and sunburnt knees, wiggling his toes in flip-flops. When no one answers his knock, he rests his belly—Santa XX large—against the van, cups his hands around his eyes, and peers in our window. I know this guy. His is the hand that tripped the kid from Bumblebee Camp the other week.
He knocks again, then mumbles something and looks up. He catches us staring.
I turn away, though I know it’s too late.
“Oh! Thank goodness!” he shouts, and barrels forward with one arm outstretched, the other tugging an overstuffed suitcase.
Mom and I edge backward along the lip of the sidewalk.
“Sandy,” he says, pointing to himself, and then to the van behind ours. “I’m your next-door neighbor.” He runs back and whacks his red camper van on the hood. “Oh, hallelujah. You’re home.”
He brings his arm down, but his face—the little of it I can see through his beard—is still lit up. I look away. I’m embarrassed for him. But that feels wrong too.
“I saw you pull in,” he says, “but I’ve been so busy with this event I’m, ah, catering that I just pretended it was okay to be rude for a brief spell and not introduce myself. But it wasn’t okay. I can see that now.”
He knocks on his skull, gently, jiggling a huge ring of keys that’s dangling off a belt hook on his shorts. “What you must think of me. And now, I’m about to double down on rudeness.” He stops and assesses us. “Do you have a whisk I could borrow?”
Neither of us moves.
There’s something about the way he’s smiling. Something . . . I look him over again. This time my eyes catch a flash of light coming from his wrist. A reflection off a watch band. Gold?
I look back at his face.
His van is a little wider and higher than ours, and the tires look new. The exterior paint hasn’t rusted yet.
“I couldn’t help but notice your array of cooking tools in there.” He leans on The Carrot and peeks in again. “It’s like a kitchen on wheels. Remarkable.”
He is not exaggerating. There is a pot rack hanging from the ceiling, a knife block jammed with blades by the spare tire at the rear, and behind the driver’s seat, a cardboard box overflowing with wooden spoons, spatulas, measuring cups, garlic presses, smocks, mixing bowls . . . all of which Mom may or may not have lifted from O’Hara’s House of Fine Eats when she marched off the job.
He lets go of his suitcase and claps his hands together. “You know, I could use a rubber spatula too. It’s for a good cause.”
Mom and Sandy lock eyes. He grins, she snarls.
High noon for the homeless.
I guess that’s what we are now.
JUNE 18
Cal
They’re making . . . smoothies? An extension cord runs from the orange van to a blender on the table behind it. I passed them on the way to Greenery this morning.
The bearded guy in the red camper van looked to be in charge. He had the tall lady in camo washing greens—spinach, chard, parsley?—in a metal bowl. The girl was close by, reading a book in a lawn chair. The camo lady walked over a test-sip on a spoon, and the girl accepted it without looking up
.
I slump across the Greenery counter, sketching the scene from memory, then set aside my pencil. I tear at an almond croissant, lay a shred on my tongue; the butter in it curdles somewhere between my mouth and my stomach.
They’re all friends now?
“Cal, buddy, serve the customer his croissant.” Mac bumps me with her hip as she passes by. “He’ll be right with you, sir.”
Do people living outside make friends faster than people living inside?
I can’t imagine running an extension cord from our house to the Paglios’ next door so we could make bright green smoothies together in their blender. I mean, we have our own blender, our own kitchen, and our own electricity. Mom would probably sniff and tsk anyway and point out all the ways they’d turned out wrong. It would be easier to just stay home.
JUNE 18
Jeanne Ann
A criminal, but perhaps not a mastermind, is what I think of Sandy, while wrapping the twenty-dollar bill he gave me around my thumb and sipping my smoothie. It tastes like frozen spinach and oatmeal cut with Bit-O-Honey. He gave us twenty each for helping out. Crisp bills. Mom didn’t stop him; I’m trying not to dwell on what this means.
She told me to sip mine slowly and took hers with her to get peanut butter, jelly, bread, and a can of scurvy-fighting pineapple. And then she came right back. No job search today. Yesterday she tried eight places. No dice. She sharpened her knives to murderous points afterward; she doesn’t want to talk about it. I know she’s trying. I know she’s mad. I prefer smiling Mom, barreling through Beartooth Pass after the snow cleared. It wasn’t that long ago.
I’m back in Sandy’s “living room”—between the tail of the Carrot and the front of his red camper van, sitting in a lawn chair. His card table is between us.
“Is that sunset a knockout or what?” he declares, slapping a magazine against the suitcase that always seems to be right beside him. The magazine looks brand-new—probably lifted from a nearby mailbox. He’s got his feet kicked up on the cooler that holds the smoothies.
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