Parked

by Danielle Svetcov

  “Am I . . . ?” Bleeding. Yes.

  I go to dab at the blood with the elbow of my sweatshirt; he flinches and takes a step back.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I am.

  He touches his face and looks at the blood on his hand, then he turns toward his house.

  “Come on.” I tug him back. “You can lie down on my sleeping bag. We’ve got some wet wipes in here somewhere.”

  I open all the doors and windows so he’s not suffocated by the smell of dirty laundry, feet, and peanut butter.

  Laid flat, Cal’s a foot too long for the van, ankles and shoes dangling out the back doors. He’d never survive in here as long as I have.

  Cal

  I try to sit up, but she glares at me until I lie back again.

  “It’s just a cut,” she says, adjusting my backpack under my head. But I know it’s bleeding like crazy. I can feel a drip. She hands me another moist towelette. “I’m sorry.”

  I think she is. She’s kneeling next to me, searching for damage. “You got some blood on your jacket.”

  I shrug. It’s not the worst news. “It’s not my jacket. My mom gave it to me. Some old boyfriend’s, I think. If I don’t wear it, she won’t give my paints back.” The words just slip out one after another.

  Jeanne Ann’s face twists into a question mark.

  “Mom’s decided I need ‘adjustments.’”

  “What? Nah.” She flicks my sleeve. That’s the second time she’s touched me. I am suddenly warm, and the dent in my face doesn’t hurt. Jeanne Ann’s on my side.

  I shrug again. “It’s mostly—it’s just a big misunderstanding.”

  She leans way over, her nose hovering close to my forehead so that I have to close my eyes for a second and seal my lips, because I could easily tell her everything. I want to. It would feel good. The vans, the sketchbook, the wings project, the mural and everything that led up to it and everything that’s happened since. I could tell her—about my allowance. How I’ve given it away every month since I turned eight. About my portraits—how I choose each person, why. About—

  “Are you dead?” she says, poking my forehead.

  Touch three.

  I open my eyes. “There was this time when I was eight,” I start to say, and I mean to tell the story of the lemon-pistachio loaf and the man in the yellow raincoat, but the first words are so strange in my mouth. What if this all comes out wrong? It’s happened before. Or what if she doesn’t actually get what I’m doing, thinks it’s all stupid? Or what if she’s annoyed? That seems very likely; she’s already made it clear it’s annoying when I ask about her life out here . . .

  “You’ve got a history of bang-ups,” she says, when I don’t say anything more. She touches a spot on my forehead, near the hairline. Her fingers are cool and dry. Fourth touch.

  “I—um,” I say, rubbing the place her fingertips were. “Some hot oil jumped out of a frying pan and got me. I was a baby, in one of those baskets on the floor.”

  Jeanne Ann doesn’t look particularly impressed, like maybe I should’ve jumped out of the way.

  “I don’t remember it. My mom told me. She was frying zucchini.”

  “She remembers what she was frying?”

  “Oh, yeah. She remembers everything she’s ever made. She used to be this really great cook.” I can tell Jeanne Ann that.

  Jeanne Ann looks dubious, like how can this woman who makes you wear a stupid jacket also be good at something worthwhile?

  “She was,” I say, trying to sound convincing. “Now someone else cooks for us and Mom runs the rest of the house.” I realize how obnoxious this sounds the instant after I say it. By us and house, I mean Greenery, but Jeanne Ann probably thinks I mean us as in Mom and me, like we snap our fingers and food just arrives on our dinner table, which, I guess, it sort of does, but that’s even more confusing. “I mean,” I say, trying to correct myself—but then I see Jeanne Ann nodding, lost in thought, eyes sorta glazy, maybe not even hearing, and all I feel is relieved, because I’m not ready.

  I lie still and let my eyes rove—over the metal walls, which are gray inside, not orange like I expected, to the sheet covering the back window, which makes me think of sleepovers and forts. “It’s not so bad in here. Like a little cabin.” I feel safer than I thought I would.

  From my back pocket, I slide out two twenty-dollar bills—given to me by Mrs. Paglio—and deposit them under the nearest pillow. Jeanne Ann doesn’t see.

  “I thought of it that way at first,” she says, hearing me again. “On the drive out.” Her eyes are roving now too. “Our place in Chicago was a dump, but it couldn’t get towed or ticketed or sideswiped.”

  I imagine what it would feel like—the walls shrinking to fit us. “You guys brought a lot of pots and pans,” I say. They dangle over our heads.

  Jeanne Ann climbs deeper into the van, leans against a wall. “Mom’s.”

  “That’s a big bookshelf.” It lines the left side of the van, mostly empty.

  “Yeah,” she says, sinking, and I cringe. I didn’t mean to remind her of her books.

  But the shelf isn’t totally bare. It still holds about eight cookbooks. My mom’s got a lot of the same ones. I turn onto my side, lever my elbow and hand to prop up my head. “So, your mom’s a real gourmet, huh?”

  Jeanne Ann turns to the cookbooks and blinks. “I have no idea.”

  I look from her to the shelf and back.

  Aha.

  I do.

  Jeanne Ann

  Mom, saw a picture of steak in one of your cookbooks. Weird green sauce on it, but otherwise looked like steak. Hope you’re not working at a vegan restaurant. —JA

  Cal leaves and I deposit the note on Mom’s pillow and wait for her to get home from wherever she’s killing time. I would prefer to deliver the message in person. I would like to see her reaction to the vegan joke and the word working.

  It’s getting dark, so I check the locks again. Sandy’s outside. He gives me a wave and a nod, so I nod back. I read Mom’s cookbooks to pass time. Cal seemed impressed by them. Also, I have nothing else to read.

  When I look at my watch again, it’s ten p.m., and I’m hungry from looking at all the pictures of food. I know how to chiffonade lettuce and truss a chicken now. In theory. And gorgonzola is no longer a mystery. It’s a cheese. Moldy cheese. That’s what Mom wanted to serve at O’Hara’s House of Fine Eats before we left. No wonder her boss wouldn’t let her put it on the menu. Gross.

  Where is she? Mom’s taking her pretend job a little far, I think as I fall asleep.

  JUNE 26

  Cal

  The doorbell rings while Mom is looking for her purse, shouting reminders to me from the kitchen. I was about to leave for school—my new school—on Mom’s orders. Orders. Orders. Orders. School hasn’t even started. She just wants me to hand-deliver my school registration papers. “To make an impression and get a taste of the new scenery,” she says. “And wear your jacket!”

  Her purse is next to the refrigerator, behind a plant. She left it there last night. It’s going to take her fifteen minutes to find it without my help, which is going to make her twenty minutes late for work. But she doesn’t want my help. Apparently, if I am too involved in her life, I’m “tripping” through mine. How that makes any sense when she’s got me wearing clothes she picked out and working behind the counter at her restaurant is, well, it doesn’t make sense. Throwing the “kitchen sink” at the problem seems like it’ll just . . . ruin the kitchen.

  The doorbell rings again.

  “Cal!” She’s glancing at her watch as she comes around the corner and finds me frozen in place, holding the registration envelope stuffed with my birth certificate, report card, proof of address. Her clogs continue—clunk-clunk-clunk—over to where I stand. “Were you going to open the door?”

  I really don�
��t want to. I’ve looked through the spy-hole and seen Mrs. Paglio on the other side. She’s carrying a flower pot with two hands, framed in fog. Purple flowers this time. “Do I have to?”

  Mom edges past me—a now familiar look of confusion and disappointment on her face—and throws open the door.

  Mrs. Paglio steps inside without being invited. She’s got a dirt streak across her forehead and wears gardening gloves, a shade hat with a chin strap, and an apron stamped MARINA BEAUTIFICATION COMMITTEE. It’s possible my face is now communicating a look of confusion and disappointment too.

  “Lizzie,” she says, giving Mom a quick nod. “Cal.” She shuts the door quickly and walks to our front window—the one that looks out at the bay. I think this is the first time Mrs. Paglio has ever been inside our house.

  “Everything okay?” Mom says. Mom’s peeking over Mrs. Paglio’s shoulder, trying to see what part of the view has Mrs. Paglio so upset. All I see is a wall of soupy fog. I can’t even make out the vans across the street, let alone the water.

  “Not really,” Mrs. Paglio says, dragging the y through her molars, then cutting it off abruptly when she turns into the room and finds Mom right up in her grill. She zigzags around her and shoves the flower pot into my hands. It bends my registration envelope, soaking the corner where the pot is dripping.

  “Zinnias,” she says. “For delivery.” Mrs. Paglio pulls money from the pocket of her smock, a five and a twenty. I have no free hand, so, after searching me for a spot to stow the bills, she rolls them up and tucks them into the dirt; they look like two little weeds, poking up from the soil.

  “That’s for”—she glances at Mom, whose mouth hasn’t quite closed since Mrs. Paglio arrived—“running my errands.” Then Mrs. Paglio signals for me to stoop. She cups her hands around her mouth and whispers in my ear:

  “The twenty goes across the street. The five’s for you. And there’s a message I want you to deliver with the flowers.” She stands on tiptoes to lean closer to my ear and continues to whisper.

  “Huh?” I say, not understanding anything but the money part.

  She frowns. “Never mind,” she says, sounding tired. She squeezes my wrist. Her hands are warm and lined with tissue-y wrinkles. “Just deliver the flowers.”

  Mrs. Paglio leads the way out and I follow. I have no choice with Mom watching.

  “Cal—” Mom hails me before I can reach the bottom of the driveway. I stop and wait. Mom’s lectures occur practically any time I’m standing still now.

  “It’s very nice of you to run errands for Mrs. Paglio.”

  I shrug.

  That’s who I am: nice. Even to neighbors behaving strangely.

  I start again toward the intersection, but I can feel Mom following me with her eyes.

  “What happened to your chin?” she shouts.

  I stop again and touch the Band-Aid. Smooth plastic. I want Mom to figure out what’s happened—all of it—by herself. I don’t answer.

  Mrs. Paglio turns right at the bottom of the driveway, shuffling toward home. I go left and head for the crosswalk.

  “When you get there, say, ‘I miss you.’” That’s the message Mrs. Paglio asked me to deliver with the flowers. I wish she’d spent more time explaining. She’s watching me from the other side of the street now. When I raise my hand to signal I got it, she slips around the side of her house and disappears.

  I look at the quiet line of vans. The way the fog flows over and around them, like dry ice—a person could pretend it’s all a magic trick. All the vans could disappear, then reappear someplace else, someplace better.

  I approach slowly. Which one do I deliver her message to? There’s something I’m missing, something obvious, between Mrs. Paglio and the vans, something right in front of my face.

  A fast-moving object, about the size of a second grader, tramples my right foot as I stand there.

  “Hey!” I wobble, then lose my grip. The flower pot crashes to the ground.

  Jeanne Ann

  “I caught him red-handed!” Cal announces, striding up to the table between the vans, one finger hooked in Bad Chuck’s collar, the other arm hugging a cracked flower pot topped with a soggy envelope. Cal and Bad Chuck have materialized like phantoms out of the mid-morning fog. Or that’s how it seems. I’m still half asleep. A crashing sound woke me up.

  Cal’s got a new Band-Aid on his chin, Superman-themed, and his weird jacket tied around his waist. Bad Chuck looks like a potato bug curled in on itself.

  I fall into a seat next to Sandy, who’s grinning into his tea like he knows something I don’t. “Your mom left for work early,” he reports first thing. He’s her secretary now too, apparently—his job description is rapidly expanding. He’s deposited food on our windshield the last five mornings and has laid out a platter of cheese on his card table, enough for the whole neighborhood. I wonder what he stole to afford all the grub. But I won’t ask. My stomach can’t afford to know too much. And we need to save all we can—the cash from the mystery windshield deliveries, the cash from my books, the cash not being spent on food—for future rent.

  “Red-handed!” Cal repeats.

  “I didn’t do anything!” Bad Chuck whines. He looks out toward the garden shed where a bunch of ladies in blue uniforms are milling, fading in and out of the fog. One of them—blond ponytail, sun visor—looks like she could be his mom.

  Cal sets the broken flower pot on the ground. It’s gushing dirt. And money. I think I see a twenty and immediately wish I could unsee it. I don’t want to know who it’s from.

  “Show them,” Cal orders Chuck.

  Sandy sets down his tea to give his full attention. He appears highly entertained.

  Bad Chuck’s holding a stack of something. He places it on the ground next to the broken pot. They’re signs. Each one’s got two metal toothpicks sticking out the bottom and reads:

  Rebeautify the Marina. 6 p.m., Saturday, July 16.

  Join us for an epic yard-sale fund-raiser, followed by a protest to demand the removal of curb-side squatters who mar our breathtaking view!

  —The Marina Beautification Committee

  “They’re everywhere,” Cal says, swinging his arm out. Sandy’s retracted his grin.

  I push back my chair and walk into the grass behind us. There are similar signs in front of benches, and all along the grass perimeter. We couldn’t see them before because of the fog, not even two feet away. I keep walking, tracing the whole area. A giant REBEAUTIFY THE MARINA banner hangs over the entrance to the piers.

  “Mom said I could run around if I put the signs in the grass. Ask her. I got to run real fast,” Bad Chuck’s saying when I return. He grabs a sign from Cal and tries to sound out the letters.

  His mom must have had him jamming signs in the ground before dawn. I look back to the group of ladies by the shed. The sight of them is suddenly chilling, like a coven of blue garden witches. The fog keeps their secrets.

  Sandy yanks a sign out of the nearby grass and makes a low rumbling sound in his throat. Then he squats by the broken pot Cal deposited on the ground and carefully runs his fingers over the flowers. “Zinnias,” he says, smiling briefly. “Someone’s missing someone.”

  There goes my theory about Sandy stealing flowers. But why is Cal bringing over potted plants?

  I fall back into a chair and take a bite of Sandy’s cheese. If this were Chicago, if a library were threatened by an evil real estate developer, if our lean-to building were about to be torn down and replaced with a gas station—I’d be so angry. I’d be marching in the streets, rattling a saber, or at least a broom. Here, I just sit.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Cal says, sounding breathless, sounding as though he believes the opposite.

  “Sure,” I say. Part of me wants the ladies in blue to win, to drive us out. Maybe Mom will take us back to Chicago if she can’t live right he
re. But the other part of me worries that leaving this spot will unravel the little we’ve got spooled, that there is no place else for us.

  I study the line of vans behind ours: bent antennae, rusty fenders, torn curtains, missing hubcaps. Would I be scared of us if I weren’t one of us? Would I want us gone?

  Maybe.

  Maybe definitely.

  Sandy tears up one of the signs he’s removed from the grass. He has fight. “Bullies,” he barks under his breath. He tears up another sign. He believes we deserve this parking spot.

  I wonder if he is feeding the other vans on the block.

  “Here,” Cal says, handing me the twenty-dollar bill I’d spied in the broken pot. “I—I just found it. And this five”—he presses the five into my hand too—“I found them both on the ground. With this, um, broken pot.”

  “I’m not taking your money,” I say, holding it away from my body.

  “No, really, it’s not mine. I just got lucky. If you’d been on the corner a minute before, you’d have found it yourself.”

  I set the money on Sandy’s table, away from me. I won’t take it. But I won’t take my eyes off it either.

  Bad Chuck sinks into a chair next to Cal—he seems to sense he’s done something wrong—but it’s a quick remorse, because he suddenly jumps up, runs to the garden shed, and throws himself on the leg of the lady with the blond ponytail—must be his Mom—nearly knocking her over.

  Nobody says anything for a while after that. What’s there to say: What’s bad is going to get worse?

  An hour goes by. Or maybe ten minutes. It’s hard to gauge time out here. It’s very slow or very fast, depending on how hungry or tired or exposed you feel. With Cal around I can sometimes lose track of it. I can trick my mind into thinking we’re just meeting in this spot because it’s equidistant between our two homes.

  Cal’s doodling on the back of a manila envelope on the table. Two of the corners are wet.

  I pull the envelope toward me and flip it over. “‘Registration materials for Cal Porter.’”