Parked

by Danielle Svetcov

  “There’s a chocolate mousse layered with cherries and cream,” I report to Jeanne Ann when I’m back. “I think it might be crème fraiche, not cream, which Mac at Greenery says is way more interesting. And, someone brought bananas foster. I’m going for that one. They soak it in rum. I hope this place is flame retardant. Greenery used to make a bananas foster, tableside, but they had to stop when someone’s fur coat caught on fire. It might not have been an accident . . . Mac doesn’t approve of fur coats.”

  Jeanne Ann sticks a finger in her library book to hold the page. She looks up, heavy-eyed. “Sounds like you’ve found your people.”

  “Yeah, if it’s just these kids, I’m going to be okay,” I say. Jeanne Ann cracks a weak smile. I make a quick correction: “We’re going to be okay.”

  Jeanne Ann

  Cal thinks Monopoly will cheer me up.

  “You haven’t bought a single property,” he says, like it’s a real tragedy.

  “I know.”

  “You’re hoarding cash,” he says.

  “I know.”

  “It’s not really Monopoly if you just go around the board collecting two hundred dollars at Go and never spending anything.”

  “I don’t mind.” I roll the dice. I didn’t want to play in the first place. Clearly no one else did either. We’re the only ones sitting around the board after the dessert exchange. I got a brownie; he lost out on the bananas thing and landed a stale granola cookie. I washed up in the public bathroom three hours ago, next to a lady tourist from a country that apparently encourages staring—and for what? For this? “If they play the YMCA song one more time,” I say, “I’m going to rip the countdown banner off the wall, wrap myself up in it, and walk back to the van.”

  Cal laughs, lit up, and I can’t help it—I smile. Briefly. Then he looks at the board, serious again, and up at me. “Don’t you want to own a hotel strip, charge rent, bankrupt me?”

  “I can’t really get into that.” I roll the dice.

  “There—you just landed on Park Place. Buy it. That’s a great property.”

  “It’s expensive. How come they don’t cover the cost of eating in Monopoly?”

  “That’s a good point.”

  “I know it’s a good point.” I move my piece—the beggar’s hat—off to the edge of the board, to the no-place place. “This is where I live,” I say. And I dare him to argue with me.

  JULY 1

  Cal

  Nathan shakes the money can before the front door is even open all the way. The sunset is streaking oranges and pinks behind him. “Ugly, ugly, ugly vans!” he sings in rhythm with his shakes. His mom, Mrs. Caspernoff, puts her hand on his head and presses down. Mrs. Paglio shuffles in place and looks over her shoulder as if she’s being watched.

  “You remember us from last time?” Mrs. Caspernoff holds out a familiar flier from the Marina Beautification Committee. She and Mrs. Paglio are in their blue uniforms again—matching hats, gardening aprons, shoes. They’ve made Nathan wear a blue shirt and shorts with a delivery-boy cap.

  I push the flier back.

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Paglio says, humming like there’s a pigeon in her throat.

  “This really would be better directed at your mother. We need her signature on our petition.” Mrs. Caspernoff leans her head into the doorway. “Hello? Hello! Lizzie! We’ve finally caught you at home.”

  Mom has just tried to slide behind me without being seen. She’s late to work and has been looking for her purse for the last fifteen minutes. (It’s underneath the kitchen island, where she leaves it when she comes home late and snacks over the sink before bed.) She recognizes Mrs. Paglio and nods. Mrs. Caspernoff shoves the flier forward again, bouncing on the toes of her sneakers.

  No one says anything while Mom reads. Nathan tries to rocket into the house but is stopped by my leg. I’m beginning to like him, but if he comes, so does his mom, and I don’t like her.

  “Gosh, it’s a complicated situation.” Mom hands the flier to me, like it’s a hot potato. “I’m late for work, but I promise to think it through.” She smiles extra big. If this were the restaurant, and these were disgruntled patrons, she’d offer them a free tiramisu for dessert and wish them a good night.

  I edge the door closed an inch.

  “Very complicated,” Mrs. Paglio replies, almost in a gasp, pinching the collar of her shirt. Mrs. Caspernoff steps forward, whipping her ponytail around to her front. I really don’t like her.

  “We would prefer your signature now, Lizzie.”

  Mom fidgets with the door handle. “To be honest, I don’t really see the vans when I look out there. They’ve become part of the landscape. Have they done something wrong?”

  I’m going to slam the door!

  Nathan has pulled out his imaginary spyglass and is looming over the threshold, inspecting my pants.

  “Is that the question to be asking?” Mrs. Caspernoff says. “Vans are not homes. The curb is not an address. I bought my home with the idea that the bay was my nearest neighbor across the street. This affects our property values.”

  No wonder Jeanne Ann didn’t like Monopoly, yesterday.

  Mrs. Paglio is somehow nodding and shaking her head at the same time.

  “They have names!” I say, loudly, leaning forward. “They like donuts!”

  “Cal.” Mom reaches to pull me back, but I blow past her and up the stairs. I linger on the landing, out of sight. She better not sign anything.

  “My sensitive boy,” Mom whispers to our guests.

  “The Giraffe?” Nathan whines. “Nu-uh.”

  JULY 2

  Jeanne Ann

  I thought for sure the Monopoly game would scare Cal off, but he’s back.

  “You really need to move the van. A spot back, even, would be much better,” he says, pleading a little.

  “That’s Sandy’s spot. He’s not moving.” What part of desperation does Cal think is optional?

  We walk to Greenery for his morning shift and sit on crates at the back entrance. Gus, the everywhere man in the yellow raincoat, is back here too, pulling odds and ends out of his deep pockets and examining them like treasure. Cal waves—a quick wag of the hand—and starts to get up, then sits again. He looks at me with this worried expression like he forgot to turn the stove off back home. “What?” I say.

  “Nothing.”

  I’ve brought along Ender’s Game, one of the library books Cal picked out, and crack it open. “A sci-fi classic,” according to the cover. It’s not bad. There’s this boy who tries to save the world through a video game. The bad guys are insect-shaped aliens called “buggers.” My kind of problems don’t exist . . . there are no vans in Ender’s Game.

  “Listen,” Cal says. “I’m worried. You’re going to get towed. Like the last guy.”

  I look up from the book. “What last?”

  Cal stares down and away. “The last guy who stayed in your spot too long. I told you before—people get towed.”

  I place a finger in the book to hold my place. “You said sometimes.”

  “All the time!”

  I want to stick my head back in Ender’s Game and never come out.

  “He had a parrot.”

  “Who?”

  “The last guy.” Cal sounds a little exasperated. He risks a glance at me, then looks back out to the bay. “Young guy. He parked for about a month. He sold paintings on the sidewalk. The bird sat on his shoulder. It could say, ‘Major talent! Major talent!’ Then they got towed. Right before Christmas.” Cal sinks into his crate. “The bird was trapped inside. It screeched the whole time. I could hear it in my room. I watched the spot until the guy, the driver, came back from wherever he’d gone”—Cal turns toward his house—“he sat on the curb and looked right up at me, like I should’ve done something. Jeanne Ann, the bird might still be in that van, in
some ice-cold garage?” Cal looks sick. “I painted it. So other people would see. So I’d remember.”

  “That’s a terrible story,” I say. “The bird got away. I’m sure it flew home through the open window.”

  “There were others. Before him.” Cal tugs at his bandage, a new one white with skulls. “It’s a thing I do—keep track.” He looks squashed by an invisible load.

  “I’ve told Mom we have to move,” I say. “She says it’ll be the same everywhere, and at least we have a view.”

  He adjusts the crate again, closer.

  “Is she good?”

  “Who?”

  “Your mom. Is she a good cook?”

  I think he means good enough to get you out of here?

  “Yeah. She works hard,” I say.

  “What’s her best dish?”

  I shrug. “Food.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Sure: edible food.”

  He shifts his crate even closer. His Band-Aid bounces up and down on his chin every time he speaks. No one is going to tip Cal today, looking like that.

  “Okay. What did she cook for you at home?”

  “You mean what did the microwave cook while Mom worked? Boxes of stuff. When she was home, mostly eggs.”

  He straightens up—full length—pulls out his sketchbook and pats it against his thigh. Rat-a-tat-tat. I can see by his face that he doesn’t like what he’s hearing.

  “Food is food,” I grumble, but if I’m being totally honest, I can’t say for sure that’s true. Eggs, scraps of chops and steaks from O’Hara’s, frozen stuff—that’s what I know. Mom had her cookbooks, her special pots and pans, but I never saw her do more than look at them.

  He taps the sketchbook against his thigh faster. “So, how do you know she’s any good?” How do you know you won’t be the squawking parrot in a few weeks, towed to some icy garage?

  I feel something lurch inside me. He’s staring at me, and I want to look away, but I know this is a valid question. I know Mom’s good, but I hate that I don’t know if she’s good enough. “It doesn’t matter. She’s got a job.” I want it to sound final and true.

  “Yeah, but—?” He blazes at me with his eyebrows. Then he stands, pushes Greenery’s swinging service door, and walks through. For a second, after it swings back but right before it closes, I think Cal’s turned to face me, to wave goodbye, but it’s just his arms overhead—like, How can you not know this about your own mom?

  JULY 2

  Cal

  I feel instantly terrible about the look I gave Jeanne Ann and go straight to my sketchbook to make it up to her. Like I understand my own mom any better than she understands hers.

  “Scary man in line again?” Mac asks, looming over me with a screwdriver and a cup of coffee. Five minutes seated behind the counter, and Greenery’s waffle-weave rubber floor mat is already digging into my butt.

  “Um, no.” I glance up from my sketch.

  “What’s the drama? Mom sign you up for the Marines or somethin’?” She reaches for a sugar packet on the Greenery counter and empties it into her coffee.

  “Just public school for now.”

  “Well, you need to have a good reason to be down on the floor again. Your mom expects . . . You know, I don’t know what she expects . . .”

  I chew on the end of my shading pencil.

  Mac leans in for a closer look. “Oh, I like what you’ve done with the girl’s chin,” she says, tapping the edge of the sketchbook with the screwdriver.

  “Me too.” I flip back to show Mac older versions of Jeanne Ann. Mac hmmms and mmmms. “The wings really do add something. Your mom see this stuff?”

  I ignore the question.

  “I’m getting better at her face,” I think aloud. As I shade, I tell Mac about Jeanne Ann, my throat tightening.

  “It feels terrible. I wanna do more,” I say, lifting my pencil. I must look tortured, because Mac hmmphs, sips her coffee. Nods.

  “Imagine how she feels,” she says. Then she orders the Greenery servers to step over me. “Boy’s doing important work!”

  But not enough.

  JULY 2

  Jeanne Ann

  Cal’s leaving me alone about my mom. He’s shifting his attention to his neighbors—the ones in houses. He’s saved the light-green house next to his for last. I watch from the curb in front of the Carrot as he rings the doorbell, then takes two large steps back. He clutches his bag full of fliers to his chest.

  The woman who answers has thick ankles, an intense hairstyle, and a kind grandma’s face, which is not exactly how I pictured the person trying to get me removed from the neighborhood. Cal has told me about her visits to his house.

  He thrusts forward his flier. It reads: PARK IN PEACE IN THE MARINA. LEAVE THE VANS ALONE. I winced as he made them after his shift, and now I wince as I watch his neighbor’s jaw lock.

  I told Cal this was a bad idea. I told him I wouldn’t help. It’s too . . . He hand-drew the fliers with a red cross in the middle—he had to borrow a red marker from work. It looks like it was made by one of those charities that help with natural disasters. I wish I’d stopped him. I’m getting a throbbing pain in my forehead, watching this.

  I can’t hear what the lady’s saying, but she’s rolling her shoulders back, which is universal body language for prepare for battle, buddy.

  Crapinade.

  I expect her to start wagging her finger, to call for the husband or the butler.

  Instead, she gazes past him, as if at the horizon line. Cal looks over his shoulder like he’s missed something, and I follow. Sandy is sitting in his lawn chair in the “living room” between our vans, waving. He’s being his weirdo self. Nobody waves back.

  Then the lady in the green house leans close to Cal and says something, holding his hand.

  As I watch, I try to think who Cal reminds me of—someone from back in Chicago or in one of my books?—but no single person comes to mind. He’s not like anyone.

  * * *

  • • •

  “What’d she say?” Cal meets me at the crosswalk, on the van side of the street.

  “Hello, team.” Sandy shouts from his table as he pours himself tea.

  Cal and I ignore him and settle on the lip of the curb.

  “She said,” Cal whispers, “‘You’re young and can’t see all the sides of the situation.’” He looks dumbstruck.

  “What did you expect her to say?”

  “I expected her to take our side. I thought she already was working for our side. Sort of.”

  I shake my head. I swear, Cal would take candy from a guy actively mugging him.

  “She also said, ‘People do all kinds of unlikely things when they think they’re going to lose something.’ What’s that mean?”

  I look at the lady’s closed door. She’s right about that.

  “And she said I was valiant,” Cal says.

  “Why’d she say that?”

  Cal shrugs with his mouth in this funny pucker, like, I know but I’m not telling.

  “She also thinks you and I are friends,” he says.

  “You are,” Sandy chimes in from his living room.

  Cal

  We end the day with Jeanne Ann sitting in my open doorway, looking into the house. It’s as close as she’ll come to entering. And even there, it’s costing her something. I can tell. She’s calculating in her head: a quick glance to the right and left, followed by a grinding of teeth.

  Mom’s at work. I run to the kitchen and return with Popsicles, the grape ones Mrs. Paglio gave me. Jeanne Ann can’t say no to a Popsicle, I tell myself. And I definitely need one. Protesting is hard work. Many of the neighbors did not take our flier and were not interested in hearing our side. One of them told me I was a communist. I’m not even sure what that means.


  Jeanne Ann pushes away the Popsicle. She’s focused on the TV, which I turned on when we got here—I’m trying everything.

  “Who’s that woman?” she says, pointing. “With the froggy voice and the huge hands?”

  “Julia Child?”

  Julia’s rolling out dough on the TV screen, saying: “Beat it up a little bit just to soften it.”

  “Mom’s got all the reruns recorded. We watch them over breakfast and dinner. Or we used to.” The queue is exactly as Mom and I left it, weeks ago.

  “I thought your mom doesn’t cook anymore.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  “So why do you watch?”

  “It’s exciting?”

  Jeanne Ann pulls a “huh?” face, her right cheek scrunched up.

  “Okay, it’s . . . satisfying, I guess? Haven’t you ever watched a cooking show?”

  Jeanne Ann doesn’t answer. I think the answer is no. Maybe she never had a TV?

  “She looks like my mom.” Jeanne Ann leans toward the screen.

  “Who?”

  “The lady.”

  “Um . . . sure.” Julia looks like a large marshmallow; Jeanne Ann’s mom looks like a large hammer.

  “She’s a pastry chef?”

  “Yes. No. She cooks everything.”

  “Oh.” Jeanne Ann scrunches up her face like she’s doubting me again. “You think my mom knows who she is?”

  I hit pause. “Your mom has one of her cookbooks, Jeanne Ann. Everyone knows who she is.”

  I turn up the volume. Jeanne Ann really doesn’t get food.

  JULY 4

  Jeanne Ann

  I wake to marching tubas and familiar grouchy murmuring very close to my ear: “We had to park near a parade route.”

  “You got a day off!”

  Mom’s here and it’s the Fourth of July.

  I move to the front seat in my bag. Mom groans but meets my high five.

  A river of red, white, and blue flows by the nose of the van.

  I swing back and forth between the main attractions: Mom, parade, Mom, parade . . .