Parked

by Danielle Svetcov

  Cal’s flipping through his sketchbook, which allows me to stare at him. He’s got a decent face. I guess. Wide, wet eyes. With this far-off worried kinda stare—like he’s working out a big problem in his head. But his expression changes the minute he picks up the pencil. Everything smooths out. This must be the real him, the one that forgets I’m here.

  “So,” I say. “Why are you everywhere I am?”

  Cal sets down his pencil and glances at the second chocolate bar beside him. He slides it over, then pushes up the sleeves of his bomber jacket, which looks like something he pulled out of a costume closet. It’s black, but everything else he wears is this washed-out brown, including the bow tie. It’s like he stepped out of a confused time machine.

  I slip the chocolate into my front pocket while looking away. I know the answer he’s not giving: Mom and I are like sad guppies at the bottom of his fish bowl; he couldn’t resist checking to see if we breathe through gills.

  “Does this usually work for you?” I say.

  “What?”

  “Watching someone from your window, then stalking them?”

  He pauses, raises a finger like he’s going to deny it. “It’s my first time.”

  I look at him a second, then lean over to get a view of his sketch. He’s working on my nose. It actually looks like my nose. He’s drawn wings on my back, though, which, last time I checked, I don’t have.

  “Don’t you have friends you should be drawing, or a family dog?”

  He shrugs, keeping his eyes on the page. “I’m between friends right now. No dog.”

  At least he’s honest.

  “And you decided to skip summer camp?” He looks like the band-camp type. He erases a part of my hair, then stops to lift his head and squint at the sun. “I tried camp, once. I spent a lot of time at the nurse’s station.”

  I need to stop asking questions. Just enjoy the chocolate, I tell myself. I pick at a splinter poking from the bench. Two of my neighbors are at a picnic table nearby, bent over a textbook, arguing about something on the page. I guess they’re not seventh-grade dropouts.

  I smell bacon again. Bacon and chocolate smell good together.

  “ . . . They let me handle easy cases—little kids who cut themselves, bumps and bruises and ice packs. That was the only part of camp I liked.” He shrugs. “I don’t get bored at home. There’s lots to do.”

  He looks less sure of himself all of a sudden, like the last part might not be totally true.

  “Stalking is time-consuming,” I offer. “You can’t really afford other commitments.”

  Cal looks at me quickly then, and his face changes again—fills with a smile so fast and easy that I start to smile back before I remember to stop.

  “Right” is all he says. He pushes his sketchbook toward me, flipping a few pages back and showing me a drawing he’s done of the Carrot, as seen from—I guess?—his room. This should freak me out, but it doesn’t. The van looks solid and quiet, and kind of peaceful.

  “Are you visiting friends out here or something? A grandma?” he says.

  I shoo away a seagull, then shake my head. No grandma, no daddy, no sugar-daddy, no aunt, no uncle, no family. No good one, at least. And no time for friends.

  Nobody to owe, nobody to kick us out, is how Mom spins our loner status. She says people can have a hard time seeing you as anything other than what you used to be.

  “So you just live in the van?”

  I glare at him, like he’s thrown a rock through our window. “So you just live in a gigantic house?”

  He leans away. “I didn’t mean—I’m . . .” He looks across the street to his house. “It can get lonely with just two of us. Lately, we don’t say much. I stare out the windows a lot.”

  I can’t believe he’s complaining. “Thanks for the chocolate,” I say, standing. I sound the opposite of thankful. But who cares? I’m just a fish in a bowl he decided to feed. Everyone knows the guppies don’t make it.

  JUNE 20

  Cal

  The doorbell rings late the same day, and I’m certain it’s her. She’s come to tell me to never speak to her again, that she prefers chocolate from someone who talks less about his gigantic, lonely house.

  I drag my feet to the front door, passing Mom’s purse, upside down on the living room couch.

  Two women, like a celery stick beside a stack of cabbage, stand in a huddle on our front step with the toothless kid from Bumblebee Camp between them. A sideways wind catches the women’s blue sun visors and they reach up to press them to their heads. The kid yanks at a polka-dot bow tie around his neck. I give him a point for good fashion. The cabbage is Mrs. Paglio from next door, but the tall woman beside her is a stranger. She’s wearing a long, narrow skirt with running shoes, like she’s just walked home from work; her hair swings from a tight ponytail threaded through the back of the cap. “Good evening! I’m Lily, Lily Caspernoff.” She gestures to herself, wipes a mist of sweat from her upper lip, then points down the street. “We live at one hundred Marina Boulevard. This is my son, Nathan. And you know Anna Paglio.”

  “The Giraffe’s house!” Nathan slides forward for a better view of the living room. “Wow.”

  “Is your mom home, Cal?” Mrs. Paglio leans with Nathan to see past me. She smells like her house: peaches. Her white wedge of hair looks more stiff and creamy than before, like it’s turned to butter.

  “She’s at work,” I say.

  “Oh.” Mrs. Caspernoff and Mrs. Paglio sink a little.

  “They want your money!” Nathan shouts. “Give’m all your money!”

  Mrs. Caspernoff pulls her son against her legs and covers his mouth. “Ha-ha. He’s just turned seven. Nathan—shhhhhh.” Nathan shakes a metal bucket filled with coins. He tips it forward to show me the contents. “We’re here to talk to your mom about what’s been going on across the street,” Mrs. Caspernoff adds, lowering her voice. She and Mrs. Paglio turn halfway toward the street, then back. “The Marina Beautification Committee has made those”—she tracks her eyes to the left—“vehicles our number one priority. We are here to rally neighbor support to get them removed.”

  Mrs. Paglio clasps her hands together at her waist, closes her eyes, and sort of sways to the sound of Mrs. Caspernoff’s words, like she’s trying to memorize them for later. I recall the blue flier I found in our kitchen a few days ago. I study Mrs. Paglio’s face. She opens her eyes, smiles at me, and winks. She once brought Mom a garden-themed bumper sticker that read: I WET MY PLANTS. Maybe she’s a spy, fighting the committee from the inside.

  “Yes. Yes,” she says now. “Just that.” She sounds like she’s reading a script.

  “Please tell your mother we came by?” Mrs. Caspernoff says.

  “But why?” I ask.

  The boy, Nathan, removes his tie with a yank and stuffs it in the money bucket. So much for fashion.

  Mrs. Paglio raises her eyebrows, sending her frown lines running into her forehead. Mrs. Caspernoff scrunches her nose. “Why? We just explained . . .”

  “No—why do the vans need to be removed?”

  Mrs. Caspernoff clears her throat and grips Nathan’s elbow.

  “They’re not doing anything wrong,” I point out.

  “Your mother will understand the seriousness of the . . .” Mrs. Caspernoff dips her head to acknowledge the vans again. “There are neighborhood committees like ours all over the city, trying to clean up the streets. Sidewalks were not made for people to live on. Those—they need services, care. They can be dangerous, unstable. Anything could happen.”

  “And they’re ugly!” Nathan declares, zipping between his Mom’s legs.

  “Nathan!” She loses hold of him, grabs for his shirt, misses.

  “That’s what you say. ‘Ugly, ugly vans!’”

  Mrs. Caspernoff smiles stiffly. Nathan is sidestepping down the
driveway.

  “We’ll return another time,” Mrs. Paglio says, glancing at the chase behind her. She holds out a flier to me and slips a twenty-dollar bill into my palm with it, raising her eyebrows again in a “you know what to do with this” way. And I do. I think. “There are safer, cleaner places to stay than in a van in a city,” she adds in a solemn voice. “Facilities for those who can’t care for themselves properly, and for their children.” She makes sure to look me in the eye on children. “For the others who are merely avoiding responsibilities, well, they need to quit their carousing and return home.”

  I shut the door a little too hard after they leave, then, through the living room window, watch them shuffle down the driveway.

  Dangerous? Carousing? I look at the twenty in my hand. Return home?

  They’d need to have a home to return to.

  * * *

  • • •

  “I.M. S.O.R.R.Y.”

  I Morse it over and over in different variations. Sorry. So sorry. Very sorry. Soooooooooooooorry.

  She doesn’t even need to know Morse to just flash me a sign—anything to show she sees me. But there’s no reply.

  The bearded man living in the red van behind her responds again instead.

  “M.O.R.E. C.H.O.C.O.L.A.T.E.”, he says. And then: “O.F. C.O.U.R.S.E. I. T.I.P.P.E.D. T.H.E. C.L.E.A.N.I.N.G. L.A.D.Y.”

  It makes no sense unless he’s—what did the celery stick at the door say? Unstable. Unless he’s unstable or I’m unstable or . . . there’s someone else Morse-ing besides just him and me.

  JUNE 21

  Jeanne Ann

  “Keep up, kid!”

  I knew things were different this morning when Mom took time to braid her hair.

  Her wide back blocks my view of the sidewalk ahead. She’s got Eating Your Way Through the Golden Gates tucked under her arm. At the intersection, she stops to consult the book, harrumphing at passersby who bump her as they scoot to get past. She has more in common with telephone poles than people. A hair escapes the braid she’s wrapped around her head, and somehow she tucks it back into place, perfectly, with thick and nimble fingers.

  Sandy’s freedom talk inspired her, or, possibly, the parking ticket we can’t afford. The free food she saw him give me probably didn’t hurt either.

  I’ve been invited along for good luck today. “But stay quiet,” Mom says as she J-walks, crosses on red, and makes lewd gestures at walkers who slow us down. Boom, boom, boom—her feet pound the pavement. I’m huffing but thrilled.

  So you just live in the van?

  No, Cal, we’re just exploring options. That’s what I should’ve said to him.

  We’re going to knock on the doors of dog-eared restaurants in Eating Your Way Through the Golden Gates. They have names like Café Plunder, Chez Zoop, Frangalu. “Don’t laugh,” Mom barks as we march. I wouldn’t. I haven’t. I’m sure they’re all better than O’Hara’s House of Fine Eats, where the most beloved dish is deep-fried dinner rolls, where waiters call all diners “pal” or “bub,” and where the owner—who knows Mom’s police record—considers a “raise” a free bowl of spaghetti on Christmas and a whack to the back. It wasn’t the sort of place a kid hung out except in an extreme emergency. Mom stayed as long as she did because they paid in cash, “under the table,” no questions asked—and because, she says, “I didn’t think I could do better.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “What’s your name?” the chef at the first restaurant asks.

  Mom doesn’t answer, just shifts her knife case to her other hip. I didn’t know it was possible, but she’s nervous.

  “Hello? Is this an audition or a knife massage?” The chef, whose legs are too short for his body, sits on a stool by the sink, feet kicking over open air.

  We’re in a basement kitchen with no windows, or it feels that way. Mom has to duck to avoid hitting a sprinkler head on the ceiling. “We wear white here,” a woman informed us when we entered the dining room, then cringed as she led us here. We are in our usual uniforms. Me: overalls, Converse high-tops, and a formerly clean T-shirt from a library fund-raiser. Mom: black O’Hara’s House of Fine Eats camo tank top, work boots, and tight jeans that stop at the calf.

  “Joyce Fellows,” I shout from my corner by the fridge, where I’m supposed to be inconspicuous.

  The chef pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s got a killer headache. I already don’t like him, but we’re not here to like him. He just needs to hire Mom and pay her every other Friday so we can rent an apartment. He checks his watch, then nods at two eggs on a plate, near Mom. “Okay. Improvise, Ms. Fellows.”

  Mom unrolls her knife case, adjusts the pan already on the stove, and turns on the flame. In two strides she’s at the fridge, making split-second choices about what she needs: butter, some green stuff that looks like weeds, cheese. “You got this?” I whisper.

  “Can I throw the omelet in his face when I’m done?” she whispers back, then spins toward the stove. The cooking goes fast: sizzling, cracking, beating, pouring, nudging, inspecting, sprinkling, pushing. It’s like ballet over fire. She smiles without meaning to, I think—not in an “I’m happy” way, but in an “I’ve got this” way. I’ve seen Mom do this a million times—we lived on eggs in Chicago—but I don’t get tired of it. I can’t believe this is the audition test. I thought he’d have her hanging upside down from the ceiling, deep-frying fish eyes or something.

  When she’s done, she doesn’t say a word, just holds the plate out to the chef.

  He looks down at it, pokes at the edge, then pulls a fork out of his front pocket and takes a bite.

  “It’s good, right?” I say, stepping out of the fridge’s shadow.

  “Who referred you to me, again?” He’s jumped off his stool and stepped forward to study Mom. He seems stuck on her eyebrows—which meet in a thick V—and her nose, which looks like a medieval weapon. Lots of people get stuck on Mom’s face.

  “No one,” Mom says. She’s staring at her eggs. I get the sense she wants them back. I get the sense she’s impressed him in ways he didn’t expect and maybe she didn’t expect either.

  “Tell him how you read about his food in that book, Mom,” I call out. I know I should be quiet, but I’m afraid she won’t brag for herself. “She has this giant book called—”

  Mom lifts her narrowed eyebrows, which stops me short.

  “So, what else can you do?” the chef asks.

  Mom shrugs. “The line.” I think “the line” means working at the stove.

  “Pastry?” he asks.

  Mom grimaces like she’s spied roadkill just past his right ear.

  “You see this kitchen.” The chef gestures to our surroundings. “It’s a closet. To cut down on bodies, we need cooks who can do everything: dance, sing, strum the guitar. Know what I’m saying?” The chef is staring at Mom’s knives while he speaks and wrinkling his nose.

  “I’ve only done the line,” Mom says, tapping the side of the stove with a spatula. “Just the line.”

  “We need our chefs to be flexible, nimble. You’d have to do pastry sometimes, maybe a lot of the time.” He waits a beat, but Mom doesn’t leap. The chef pulls a face—impatience? He sighs. “Well, leave me something. A number. A résumé. Things go sideways . . . if we get desperate enough . . . you never know.” He heads toward the swinging door that leads to the dining room. He hits it, then turns back and glances at Mom’s eggs. “And, if you know anybody looking to dish-wash, that’s a post we need filled ASAP.”

  The door squeaks on its hinges as he passes through.

  Mom is already shoving her knives in their carrying case. “Come on.”

  “Wait. What?” I sprint across the kitchen to stand in front of her. “You have to go after him. He liked your eggs. Just go tell him you’ll do the pastry.”

  Mom shakes her h
ead. “Pastry is formulas.”

  “Who cares?”

  “I do. I don’t know them.”

  “So you’ll learn.”

  “No. I won’t. Pastry is for prisses who can’t think on their feet. It’s not cooking.”

  I pick up the chef’s used fork and point at the swinging door that’s still creaking a little. “That’s two different things. Which is it—you don’t know how, or you don’t want to?”

  “Jeanne Ann.”

  “Couldn’t you have lied?”

  “He wasn’t going to hire me anyway.” Her voice is low and tired.

  “I think he was.”

  She shoots a look at her knife case, then me. “It’s not a fit. And he was a jerk.” The kitchen door squeaks again as she smacks through to the other side.

  I take one last look at the spotless floors, the bare counters, the greaseless stove. Unlike O’Hara’s House of Fine Eats, no one’s at risk of catching tetanus here.

  I feel nauseated and hungry at the same time. We just hit the jackpot, and she chucked the winning ticket. I pull the plate of eggs toward me, rub the chef’s fork on my shirt. The eggs are still steaming.

  I want to scream, and I want to eat.

  The first bite makes me almost forgive her. The eggs taste like lightly salted clouds . . . of butter. I want to eat ten more. I want to run a crust of bread across the plate. But I have no bread and no choice but to lick the plate clean. This could’ve been her kitchen. But it wasn’t a fit. She says it wasn’t. And I believe her?

  * * *

  • • •

  At an A-frame restaurant resembling the house in Hansel and Gretel, a chef races around a stove, talking to Mom without actually looking at her. “Chicago? You people know how to work.” He fondles his ponytail and attempts to smile but seems unused to the effort.

  “Tell me, have you ever been a chef de cuisine?” he says.

  Mom hesitates. “No.”

  “A sous chef?”