Parked

by Danielle Svetcov

  “Why did you go home?” I rub my eyes—they feel woolly. I haven’t slept yet. I got Sandy and returned to the vans. I wonder if Mom checked in on me when she got home from her banquet last night. I don’t think so. There would be a SWAT team in our driveway right now if she knew I was not in my room.

  Sandy leans toward me, elbows on his thighs. “Because my wife is beside herself. I live in a space one-seventeenth the size of my real home.” He flings his arm out toward his house. “To her, I’m behaving irrationally. To me, I’ve just retired. I’m old. I’m going to die one day, and I don’t want to waste another minute in that house. She doesn’t understand. She wants to live out her days attending smoked-fish luncheons with master gardeners. She wants to think about the symbolism of orchids. The road doesn’t offer the refinements she says she requires. She’s angry that I’m making her choose.”

  I don’t understand either. “You’re dying?”

  “We’re all dying.” He combs his fingers through his beard, glances at the yellow clamp on his tire that prevents him from going anywhere. I don’t think it was part of his living outdoors plan. “If you keep that in mind every day, Cal, you’ll be much less scared of the little stuff.”

  “I think they’re going back to Chicago,” I say. That doesn’t feel at all little.

  “That would be okay,” Sandy says.

  “No, it wouldn’t!” I hate how I sound. Like a baby. But it’s the truth. I take a breath. “I’ll never see her again.”

  Sandy lets go of his beard and adjusts his chair so he’s knee to knee with me. He reaches over and places a hand on each of my shoulders. “We will help them get back on their feet, Cal. After that, they should go where life is best for them.”

  “I didn’t help enough. Not with them. And not before either. Or before or before or before.”

  Sandy mushes up his forehead squinting at me. “You saw those other tows too, eh?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sandy nods. “I still hear that parrot.”

  I snap my eyes to him. “Me too.”

  A figure emerges from behind a tree at that moment—Gus—and shakes the dew from his battered raincoat. Sandy looks up and twinkles his eyes and Gus twinkles back. “He lost somebody he can’t get back,” Sandy says, lowering his voice.

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me.”

  I stare at Gus as he works his knitting needles out of his pocket. He’s found some yarn and is making something with it.

  Why did I never think about the knitting before? Who does he knit for?

  Why?

  I’ll get him more yarn.

  . . . I will ask him if he wants more, first.

  “I find it’s more tolerable if you spread the blame around,” Sandy says, watching me. “Blame the city for not leaving them be, and the landlords for charging sky-high rents, and the tow truck drivers for being too good at their jobs, and the people in the vans for not thinking far enough ahead. And then, way down at the bottom of the list, me and you.”

  That sounds a lot like not feeling bad at all. That sounds like an excuse. “I want to blow up this parking spot. Make it impossible for anyone to park here ever again.” I lean my head into my hands. This hurts so much more than it ever did before. And it’s not even my own pain. It’s Jeanne Ann’s. Or maybe it’s not. Do I even know how Jeanne Ann feels? I try to really imagine it. I’m not sure I can. And that only hurts more.

  “That’s one approach,” Sandy says. “Blowing it up. But there’s a better way, I bet.” He waves at something behind me. “We’ll figure it out.”

  Jeanne Ann

  “That’s your date?” Mom asks as we idle at the stop light, opposite our spot. Sandy is waving. Cal has stood up.

  “It wasn’t a date.”

  “The kid’s wispy.”

  “You mean tall?”

  “Naw. I mean weak.”

  This annoys me.

  “He’s not.”

  She rolls down her window and takes a deep breath of warm air.

  “I’ve been reading your cookbooks,” I say, testing.

  Mom runs her hand over the dashboard, fiddles with the radio dial that’s never worked.

  “Can you make that stuff, in the books?”

  The light turns green, and we lurch across the street, coming to a hard stop in front of our parking spot. Cal jumps to the curb with his chair. Sandy shakes his teapot.

  Mom revs the engine, puts the van in reverse, and prepares to back in.

  I study her profile. “Mom?”

  She sighs—“Jeanne Ann”—looks at me quickly, scrunches up her face—is that a glare, a shrug, a wince? “It would be better if you forgot about those books.”

  I fold my hands in my lap.

  She honks a quick blast to signal our return.

  She knows that I know that I cannot forget about books.

  PLACE

  ADDRESSEE INCORRECT OR NO LONGER LIVES HERE, RETURN TO SENDER

  From: Chicago Public Library, Sulzer Branch

  Re. Notice of Overdue Books

  Date: July 13

  To: Jeanne Ann Fellows, 798 W. Wilson, Chicago, IL 60622

  This is a notice to inform you that the following books, checked out on May 8, are overdue:

  Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

  Frankenstein

  El Deafo

  Oliver Twist

  Nooks & Crannies

  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

  The Golden Compass

  The Night Diary

  Hatchet

  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

  The Lottery

  The Phantom Tollbooth

  The War That Saved My Life

  The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

  A Long Way from Chicago

  One Crazy Summer

  The BFG

  Howl’s Moving Castle

  When You Reach Me

  Pippi Longstocking

  Swallows and Amazons

  The Little Princess

  Born Free

  Ballet Shoes

  The Penderwicks

  The Saturdays

  Brown Girl Dreaming

  101 Dalmatians

  From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

  Merci Suárez Changes Gears

  Redwall

  The Railway Children

  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

  A Little History of The World

  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Mai . . .

  The Way Things Work

  Finance for Dummies

  Your fine is 25 cents a book, per day, or $351.50 total. If the books are not returned within 8 weeks, you will be fined for their entire value. Please call this branch library if you cannot locate the missing items or if you need to renew. Thank you, The Chicago Librarians

  Jeanne Ann, You’re very good at disappearing. You’re very good at most jobs you set your mind to, so it should not surprise me that you’re good at one more. Perhaps too good. We’ve got fifty librarians on the case now, one for each state in the union, and none can seem to locate you. Very slippery, and more than a little worrisome. We’ll have you the moment you enroll in school; that’s what we’re all telling ourselves, between hand-wringings. Wherever you are, hang in there. I know this letter probably won’t reach you, but I’m writing it anyway. Desperate times. Find the nearest library and hunker down.

  —One of Fifty, Marilyn Jablonsky

  JULY 15

  Cal

  “Come over. Let’s watch Julia Child.”

  “Can’t,” Jeanne Ann says. Which is what she said yesterday and the day before that.


  She’s sitting in the driver’s seat of the van, dividing her attention between the rearview mirror and the windshield. I’m in the passenger seat but facing her. It’s got to be a hundred degrees in here. Freak heat wave. My hair sticks to my forehead like pasta to sauce.

  Somehow, Jeanne Ann looks cold and alert. She’s got a metal spatula in her lap. I feel scared for any tow truck driver who approaches.

  “Icy lemonade and Julia Child?” It’s hard to make anything sound enticing with my tongue hot-glued to the roof of my mouth.

  The Paglios said that bribery is a perfectly acceptable way to motivate someone in a situation like this. They said I should try everything. Food, books, cash. Since the tow, Jeanne Ann’s back to micro-bites of peanut butter. She and her mom are nearly broke again. Sandy’s regular snack deliveries are the day’s bright spots—at least for me. He bulks them up as much as he can without blowing his cover. I’ve decided I’m glad she doesn’t know who he really is. He’s our secret weapon in disguise.

  A siren blares, and Jeanne Ann rockets to the back window, pushing back the curtain.

  “Can you see it?!” she yells. “I can’t see it.”

  “It’s an ambulance,” I say quickly as it turns right into the parking lot by the piers.

  “Ambulance,” she repeats, hands over ears, face two shades paler than a moment ago. This is the third siren in less than an hour. She can’t get much paler.

  Jeanne Ann returns to the driver’s seat and gazes at the houses across the street.

  “You’ve got to move the van,” I say.

  She blinks her eyes so slowly it almost looks like she falls asleep for a second, but then they’re wide again. “This is it. We . . .” She doesn’t finish the thought.

  “Come on,” I say. “We can watch the van from across the street.”

  She shakes her head and fiddles with the key in the ignition. “It’s too far. They could tow us like that.” She snaps her fingers.

  “You’ll go stir-crazy in here,” I say. She hasn’t left the van except to use the restroom.

  “Too late,” she says, staring dead ahead, like she knows how this story ends.

  I don’t think it’s too late. But it’s hard to argue with someone so sure.

  Jeanne Ann

  I swear I can hear Cal thinking of something else to offer. This is his millionth visit. He doesn’t get that it’s over, he can go home, no more making the best of it. Things are back to the way they were. Rock bottom. He guessed it the other day: I am Mom’s accomplice. She can’t make this work without me. My job is the van, keeping it safe. We are as tangled as my hair.

  “How about the library? I’ll get you more books,” he says.

  “No thanks.” Mrs. Jablonsky would not approve of my borrowing books on someone else’s card. “I shouldn’t have accepted before.” I’m sorry, Mrs. J.

  I abandon the front seat and flop onto my sleeping bag. I need to give him back those library books. I’m surrounded by pots and pans that fell off the ceiling rack during the tow, laundry that we can no longer afford to wash at the Laundromat, cookbooks I wish I’d never opened. I pat the front pocket of my overalls. The remaining money won’t last long if we keep getting ticketed and towed. Before she went back to work, I told Mom we needed a minimum of three thousand dollars. She agreed—“to go forward or . . .” She can’t bring herself to say “back.” Three thousand dollars. It sounds impossible. Like paddling a canoe to the moon. Mom thinks she’ll have enough in three weeks if she works back-to-back eighteen-hour shifts. The restaurant may as well fit her with a bit and yoke her if she’s going to work that much.

  “How about takeout Chinese? We can eat it right here. I’ll get extra fortune cookies,” Cal says.

  It’s harder than ever to look at him, those wide eyes. He just sees possibilities. I mean, fortune cookies? Ha. I’ll only believe mine if it reads: YOU WILL NEVER SLEEP IN A REAL BED AGAIN.

  “You can’t fix this, Cal.” I push the library books into his hands. I wish he would quit trying.

  JULY 16

  Cal

  “Save the Marina! Say no to squatters! Save the Marina! Say no to squatters!”

  The Marina Beautification Committee is marching circles in the grass, chanting slogans and waving signs. I count fifty people, most in blue aprons and gardening hats. They’re close enough that we can see their sneers. Nathan is out there, whacking the backs of his mom’s knees with his sign. And—oh. I breathe in fast. Mrs. Paglio too. Why? She should be protesting the protest. She’s only on that committee to get Sandy home—that’s what Sandy says. And she wants Jeanne Ann and her mom to park someplace where they won’t get towed. I don’t think she’s thought through where that magical place is. It’s not near here.

  At least Mrs. Paglio isn’t waving a protest sign. She’s looking a little lost, actually.

  We are sitting around Sandy’s table, wishing the ocean would sweep up the protesters and wash them away. The grass around us is littered with stuff: pots and rakes and gnomes—anything related to gardening that the Beautification Committee could sell for its fund-raiser, which ended right before the protest began.

  “Ech,” Sandy says, pulling at the neckline of his DILL WITH IT T-shirt. “Terrible. Disgraceful.” His face is crumpled, like he was forced to drink spoiled milk.

  The students who live in the RV at the back of the line have looked up from their books. They’re watching the protest. The bike messenger is poised over his bike seat, unsure whether to stay and guard his home or flee before things get nastier. The guy with the can collection locked to his fender is sitting in his front seat, hands on the wheel, windows shut tight. Even tourists are slowing down to see what’s going on.

  “We are an eyesore,” Jeanne Ann says, matter-of-fact, without looking up from her book. She smacks a metal spatula against her thigh.

  She’s here, outside, because of the book in her hands and the food that Sandy has put out on his table. That’s what it took to get Jeanne Ann four steps from her ignition—Superfudge and actual fudge. I bought the book, used, so she couldn’t make excuses about upsetting the laws of the library and because she said, all those weeks ago, she loved it. It may even be her original copy—I got it from the same bookstore. She keeps examining the binding for signs that it was previously hers.

  Sandy is watching her every move, blinking like his eyelashes have been stuck together all morning, like he’s seeing her for the first time. She’s just turned her chair away from the protest and pulled her book closer to her nose, so she doesn’t have to watch.

  “That’s it,” Sandy mumbles, pushing out of his chair.

  “Oh, jeez,” I say, as he marches into the green. “What’s he—? Where—oh.”

  He reaches the edge of the protest and then sort of dives into the middle of their circle.

  “I love that woman! Now stop this nonsense right now!”

  I suck in a breath so fast, I start coughing.

  Jeanne Ann is slow to react. She raises her head like she’s just noticed a change in air temperature. Then she sets her book in her lap. Then she twists around to look at me. “Was that . . . ?” She stands. I’m trying not to look in Sandy’s direction.

  “I love that woman!” Sandy yells again, so that now I have to look.

  Beside me, Jeanne Ann is climbing onto her chair for a better view, stretching her neck. “What did he say?” Sandy’s surrounded by blue aprons and confused faces. “What’s he . . . ?”

  He lunges for the person standing still among the protesters. Mrs. Paglio. Then he dips her backward and kisses her, like in the movies. I pinch my eyes shut. The crowd gasps.

  “Oh, gross.” Jeanne Ann has covered her mouth. “That poor woman!”

  This is the beginning of the end. I can just feel it.

  Jeanne Ann

  “Holy holy holy!” This is nuts. “Tha
t’s the lady who wants us out of here, right? Kissing our Sandy?”

  Cal has his eyes shut, shaking his head. He’s clearly as baffled as I am. The Blueberries in the green can’t seem to hold their signs straight. Their chants have dimmed and their line has broken in about three places.

  “Is she the one he wants to drive around the world with? His ‘friend’? Holy holy holy. I did not see that coming. Did you see that coming?” I reach for the fudge on the table without thinking and eat it. I’d like some popcorn too. The big commotion has passed, and now Sandy is weaving around shovels and broken pottery, marching his prize toward the crosswalk. “Cal?” I hear furious pencil-shading instead of an answer. He’s not watching. I lean toward him, tap his shoulder. “The movie’s not over! Look up. Cal! This is—”

  He lifts his head. His cheeks, splotched with red, make him look like he’s melting from the inside out, the heat just reaching his skin.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nods but doesn’t answer. I think he’s in shock.

  I yank on his sleeve and swallow a snort. I didn’t think it was possible, but I laugh. Which reminds me. I scan the road. No tow trucks. Even better, some of the Blueberries are packing up the chipped pots and going home. “Sandy romances the neighbor and the protest collapses. Maybe he is our Robin Hood.”

  Cal adjusts in his seat. “Robin Hood?”

  “Don’t look now—they’re at it again!” I cover Cal’s eyes. Sandy and the lady with thick ankles and the white whip of hair have reached her front door and are kissing between admiring glances at the sunset. “I can’t watch! I can’t not watch!” I look away and then back. “My neighbor is having a fling with your neighbor!” But even as I squeal it, I hear the strangeness. Why—why would the woman in the giant green house let someone like Sandy kiss her? He’s nice. She’s not. She lives in a house. He lives on the street.

  Cal clears his throat, removes my hand from his eyes and maybe holds on a little longer than he needs to. He bends back over his sketchpad. “Last year,” he says, “I touched a girl’s hair.” He continues his shading, head way down. “Her locker was right below mine. She was crying because her boyfriend dumped her—he dumped her like three times in sixth grade. Her hair was always so close to my hands.”