“Scoot over!” he shouts, scratching his beard.
He wiggles between Jeanne Ann and me, which, I’ll be honest, dulls some of the joy of his arrival. I peek over to check on her. Her hand grasps at air.
“This is living!” Sandy declares, waving wildly to his wife across the street.
Then he grabs our hands and locks them together on his belly. This time, Jeanne Ann gives mine a squeeze.
Jeanne Ann
Turns out, lying in the street for an hour draws a lot of attention. Especially if the lying causes traffic to snarl, cops to sweep in, and news cameras to roll.
Dusk is streaking the sky purple and orange, and we are about to watch TV footage of the morning from our new parking spot: Cal’s driveway. After the tow truck let us go, we reversed the van up here and went right back to selling eggs. Now we’ve returned and are counting our money. It totals $360. I’ve checked my math three times.
Cal watches over my shoulder. We’re sitting on the Carrot’s back bumper, legs swinging. It’s just camping . . . in a van . . . in my friend’s driveway.
I fold the money and stuff it into my overalls, surprised and satisfied. Mom cooked and no one can tow us. No one can ticket us for not feeding the meter either. Because there is no meter. We’re invited to stay here as long as we want. I think we may stay a few more days. Maybe longer. If we have a few more days of sales like today, we will be rich in no time. Rich for people living in vans.
Mom is warming to our new location, in her way. She’s standing off to the side with her arms crossed, muttering: “This will never work. We can’t stay here.” But she doesn’t have a better plan, and she actually entered Cal’s house twenty minutes ago—“I gotta use the girls’ room”—and came out with her hair brushed. Everyone is trying not to stare. Also, Mom keeps accepting popcorn from Mrs. Paglio, who’s been ferrying the snack over from her house—down her driveway, up Cal’s, back and forth, back and forth. Sandy’s sitting cross-legged on the ground, hugging his own giant bowl. He and Mrs. Paglio are swapping long, deep glances.
Lizzie is hip to hip with Cal, inspecting him for cuts. “An axel was three inches from my boy’s head,” she says about every minute. Cal flexes his arm muscle idiotically every time.
“Ready?” he shouts, pointing the remote control. The TV newspeople sent us a video of all their raw footage from this morning; Mrs. Paglio made that happen. I motion for Mom to sit next to me on the bumper. She drags herself over reluctantly. Because no one wants to test to see if Mom will go inside again, the adults have rigged up a television outside, propped up on a square of butcher block just in front of our toes. The van sinks when Mom rests her weight on the bumper. “I really don’t like this,” she says.
“I know,” I say. “But I do. I wish Sam-who-left-us-hanging could see this.”
She takes that in silently, leans over me like the teapot in the song, and checks my head for injuries. “Don’t be mad at him. He and I are the same.”
“No way.”
“He’s back at O’Hara’s or someplace like it. Sweating to prove himself. Getting underpaid and overworked by the Hydra. Feeling a little like he deserves it.” She drops my hair. Her face is serious and a little sad. “You’re all future, Jeanne Ann. Sam and me, we’re all past.”
“That’s not true. You got us here.”
“Here is a driveway, kid. Before this I almost starved us.” She looks up at Cal’s house. “If this is an improvement—and I think maybe it is—then you’re the reason.” She pushes herself off the fender. “I’m going to be over there, working on doing better for us.”
She returns to her spot on the side of the driveway, while I weigh the bad and good of what she’s said. Cal gives me a look, scooting closer to fill her empty space. I nudge him with my shoulder. I know he heard. He stays quiet, though, just turns and hits PLAY.
The screen fills with a close-up of Cal and me and Sandy lying in the street, then jumps to a shot of a policeman writing a four-hundred-dollar parking ticket, then to a crowd of men and women congregated around our vans—a flash mob, who knows where they came from—marching with signs that read: WE PAID FOR THE STREETS, LET US PARK ON THEM!
Then the narration begins.
“‘Park in Peace’ protests have sprung up across the city today as the selfless, dangerous, and defiant acts of two San Francisco kids and a retiree sparked the collective rage and frustration of an entire city. With city rents skyrocketing, living in a car, van, or RV is often the only option . . . but only if City Hall allows long-term parking . . .”
Mom snorts. Sandy throws popcorn at the image of San Francisco City Hall.
Onscreen, the TV interviewer, a woman with blue eye shadow and glossy lipstick, asks, “Now that you’ve got your home back, what will you do?”
She places a microphone in front of my nose. I am standing beside the Carrot trying to get gravel out of my hair and squinting. I am obviously not thinking clearly, but the effect is good. “Make more biscuits?” I say to the camera.
Back on the driveway, Lizzie reaches over Cal and pats my knee.
Onscreen, the TV lady interviews us about the move from Chicago, the days and nights in the van, the tow. The camera pans the intersection. It takes in Cal’s house, the line of parked vans, the bay, Greenery, and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Then it zooms in on our cart. There’s Mom, beating eggs and gently pushing them across the griddle. There’s me, moving biscuits to plates with a spatula. The longer the camera is trained on us, the more customers arrive to find out why. The TV footage captures some transactions:
Customer 1: “I’d like two orders of the eggs, hold the cheese.”
Mom: “No cheese, no order.”
Customer 2: “Can I get the biscuit, no eggs?
Mom: “Nope.”
Customer 3: “I’ll have the eggs, dry, herbs on the side, biscuit warmed.”
Mom: “You’ll have the eggs the way I serve them. She”—Mom pokes me with her thumb—“handles the biscuits.”
Customer 4, Bad Chuck’s mom: “Do you have a license for this business?”
Mom: (Silent.)
Bad Chuck’s mom: “You know butter is very unhealthy.”
Bad Chuck: “I love butter!”
Mom: “Is that your son?”
Bad Chuck’s mom: “Excuse me?”
Mom: “Give the kid a free meal, Jeanne Ann—extra butter.”
Customer 5, Mac: “I’ll take it however you make it.”
Mom: (Silent. Proud.)
Customer 6: “Hey, you give discounts to garage bands kicked out of their garages?”
Mom: “You drive a puke-green van?”
Customer 6: “Yeah, I guess?”
Mom: “No.”
The interviewer with the blue eyeshadow fills the screen again, smiling so hard, it looks like she’s hurting herself. “Two chicks on a roll,” Sandy yells at the screen through a mouthful of popcorn as the news camera zips past Mom and me to take in the whole bay. The narration continues: “The freedom to park in peace will allow this child and her mother to work and live in peace. And that’s all you want, right, Jeanne Ann?”
The microphone turns to me again. “Well, that’s not all I want,” I say, staring straight into the camera. “I’d like a sleeper sofa, three meals a day, naps for my mom, a library card, a bathtub and shampoo, a functioning thermostat, washing machine and dryer, a street address, a front door, a refrigerator, a place to hang my clothes, a great seventh-grade teacher . . .”
My list went on and on. Nowhere on it was “move back to Chicago,” Cal points out later. He notices everything.
BACK TO SCHOOL
AUGUST 20
Cal
Jeanne Ann, meet me at the Paglios’: 7 a.m.
Jeanne Ann, meet me at the Paglios’: 7:15 a.m.
Jeanne Ann, meet me at the Paglios’: 7:18 a.m.
“She’s not getting my notes.” I peek past Sandy—Mr. Paglio—but I see no movement in the driveway next door.
“Cream or sugar?” Sandy says, setting a teacup and saucer in front of me on his table.
“Let the boy be,” Mrs. Paglio says, squeezing her husband’s knee. “First day of school. He’s got a lot on his mind.”
Sandy wiggles his brows and leans over for a kiss: “I know all about having a lot on my mind.” Mrs. Paglio offers him her cheek, smiles, and rolls her eyes. They do this all day.
We are in lawn chairs in the Paglios’ horseshoe driveway, tucked into the shade cast by Sandy’s camper van and a big, leafy tree. The chairs are new—cushioned, with recliner settings; Mrs. Paglio insisted. They have decided to live in their van, in their driveway, until “bigger decisions are made.”
“I like those wings you’ve got on the oolong,” Sandy says, tapping the new sketchbook in front of me. I’m working on the food cart’s expanded menu. Customers have demanded a beverage option. “They can drink from a hose” was one suggested solution—Joyce’s—and tea was the other.
“Get him off me!”
We all turn toward the voice—Jeanne Ann’s—a driveway over. My driveway. She’s adjusting something on her new bike, and swatting away Nathan, who’s trying to climb aboard. His mother is racing up the driveway after him with what looks like a bowl of cereal.
“I thought we were all having tea over here,” Sandy says, pushing himself to standing. I can’t tell if he’s really upset or just pretending.
“You keep saying that, and I keep telling you, it’s their first day of school. Leave them be.” Mrs. Paglio is speaking with binoculars pressed to her eyes. She’s spying on the new crop of vans across the street, confirming that all is calm and mostly right, which she will report back to the still huffy co-chair of the Marina Beautification Committee, Mrs. Caspernoff, currently in my driveway, trying to haul Nathan home. The two women have struck a deal. So long as Mrs. Paglio can verify that every van or RV on the block is quiet and clean, complaints will not be lodged.
“Bring me someone. How ’bout the adults?” Sandy points to Mac, at the bottom of his driveway, helping Jeanne Ann’s mom. They’re cutting a sunroof in the food cart.
The “adults” snort as I roll past them on my bike. I snort back. They are my guardians for two days while Mom’s on her mountain retreat, developing new recipes for Greenery. She says she’s figured out what needs her undivided attention and it’s not me. She left a classified ad on my pillow before she left: “Will trade meat grinder for ride to emergency room.”
Good one!
“Take me with you!” Nathan howls.
“You have a first day too. You don’t want to miss it,” I say, trying to get ahold of him.
“The teacher will make me sit all day!” he whines.
“How ’bout this,” Jeanne Ann says. “How ’bout meet us here after school and tell us all about your horrible, wart-faced teacher and your terrible first day?” This offer shocks Nathan and me. I grab him while his mouth is still hanging open.
“Lower him over!” Sandy hollers. “I’ll show him fun.” Nathan’s mom watches as we lower her son headfirst over the hedge that divides the two driveways. She looks unsure of what to do with the cereal bowl in her hands. “We’ll return him after tea, Mrs. Caspernoff,” Sandy assures her, taking the cereal bowl, then guiding Nathan toward the cups on his table. “Now, young man, first rule of growing up: Act out when no one is watching.”
I’m not sure I agree with that rule.
Jeanne Ann
I run back to the van one last time, to make sure I’ve got everything. Mom meets me there and lifts my chin gently upward and orders me to have a good first day.
“Okay.” I think we’re both surprised this is happening. In San Francisco. And that we are smiling—mouths stretched wide, as far as a smile can go. We have caught a break. Today it feels officially real. We still live in a box, but it’s actual living, not barely scraping by. I pull away; she pulls the other way. Neither of us is entirely comfortable with being entirely comfortable.
Cal is pretending to inspect the gears on his bike. He has someplace he wants to take me before school, which is why we’re leaving early and why he is so impatient to go. I like making him wait. I receive more notes that way. I am saving them under my sleeping bag. I will be able to tease him mercilessly about them someday. Even the word someday makes me uncomfortable.
I push off on my bike—a garage-sale find, twelve gears, mud guard, rear basket—and Cal pulls alongside.
“Principal Dan says we should come in through the back entrance.”
“Principal Dan?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought we were going someplace before school.” I was hoping for a donut shop. The climb is starting. I grind into the pedals. I hate this part.
“You’ll see.”
The ride up is only three long blocks, but it puts me in a bad mood. I can’t believe we’re going to have to do this every day. It’s like starting the day barfing.
Cal hands me a peach as we walk our bikes onto the sidewalk, toward the back of the school. “From Sandy,” he says. “I told him you’d be crabby about the uphill.”
I swipe the peach out of his hand.
“Greetings, Earthlings!” Principal Dan is sitting on a step in back. It looks like he’s been waiting for us.
Cal shakes his hand, which seems a little formal. I just nod. I still don’t like that the principal knows about Mom and me.
We lock our bikes, then follow Principal Dan as he practically skip-walks around the corner of the building, stopping in the spot over the basketball courts and puddles where Cal and I first inspected the school, weeks ago. There are still rusty hoops and faded lines; fewer puddles, though.
Principal Dan swings open a door in the fence. We descend stairs into the playground. “This way,” Cal says, tugging my sleeve. “Remember this?” We’re standing in a bend in the yard, where two buildings meet. There’s a shrub underneath a barred window, providing shade. “You said we’d read here?”
Yeah. I did. It’s the same as before, but now we’re in the corner looking up instead of above it looking down. Across from us, like twenty long strides away, is a slab of the large retaining wall that surrounds the yard. And hanging from the slab is a white sheet.
Cal and Principal Dan look at each other and snicker-giggle. I get the sense they’ve been talking for a while about whatever this is. I look from face to face and scowl. I don’t think Cal is going to be a fireman when he grows up. I think he’s going to be a goofball head of school like Principal Dan. “You do the honors, Cal,” Principal Dan says.
Cal walks over to the sheet and pulls.
Underneath is a mural that is clearly Cal’s work—the signature wings. But there are no human faces in it. Just a street scene with a bazillion red-and-blue wings holding up an orange van.
“Oh, jeez,” I say, leaning in for a closer look. “Is that our block?”
“Yeah,” Cal says, looking pleased with himself.
“We like it,” Principal Dan says. “A lot. Massive improvement to the exterior—painted with real verve. We can’t believe Cal’s previous school would object to such an evocative work.”
“They called it graffiti. It’s not graffiti,” Cal says.
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure what to say. The painting makes me feel tight. Like a hug that goes on too long. I will have to get used to it. Like I got used to Cal. I give myself two months.
Principal Dan pats Cal on the arm about fifty times on the walk back to the bikes. He offers to let us hang out in the office till school starts, but Cal says we have other plans.
“We do?” I say.
He’s already pushing his bi
ke toward the street. “I thought, since we have so much time . . .” He disappears over the lip of the hill.
“Hey!” I say, throwing a leg over the seat. “Hey!”
Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Yes.
The fast air slaps eyeballs, chills teeth, whips skin, blurs sound.
Tcktcktcktcktcktck . . . Wheeeeeeee!
This is what it’s like to be the wind.
We ride right down the middle of the street.
Cal’s quiet if you don’t count the sound of his pride.
“What should we do?” I yell.
Sky melts into city. City melts into bay.
“Fly!”
From: The Chicago Public Library, Sulzer Branch
To: Cal and Jeanne Ann
Re: We found you!
Date: August 17
Dear Cal,
I am writing on behalf of the Chicago Public Library. We have spent several weeks trying to track down the family living in your driveway and were so pleased to read about your heroic efforts in recent newspapers, all on behalf of our Jeanne Ann. Please share this letter with her at your earliest convenience. We’ve enclosed a self-addressed, stamped envelope and stationery so that she might send us a reply, describing her state of mind and the events of the past summer. We’ve been so very worried. Also, please give her the books we’ve enclosed. They’re advance copies of novels that are about to publish, and we’d very much like to hear Jeanne Ann’s opinion of them. Finally, we’ve reached out to the librarian at the San Francisco Marina Branch Library, which—according to our maps—is the closest to you. We’ve asked him to treat you both with special care. There will be a pillow and small desk waiting there. Jeanne Ann will understand.
—Full of relief and affection,
Marilyn Jablonsky
P.S. If this is not the best address at which to reach Jeanne Ann, please notify us of a better one.
P.P.S. Speaking of desks, please tell Jeanne Ann that I recently found the cardboard box filled with her overdue library books. I knew she wouldn’t mishandle property of the Chicago Public Library, even if she is a resident of a new city and a ward of its libraries now. The box was hiding in plain sight, right where we usually find Jeanne Ann. How silly of me not to look under her desk! We found her goodbye note too: “Sorry, no time to re-shelve.” Only Jeanne Ann would apologize for that.
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