All the Lost Things

by Michelle Sacks

  Actually I think the other moms don’t like Mom because she can be a SHOW-OFF and a SELFISH BITCH sometimes. Dad called her that before, but she deserved it because of her BAD BEHAVIOR. A lot of her behavior is bad, like when she has a bunch of CAN’T GET OUT OF BED days and she just lies around crying and staring at the walls. Or other stuff that’s EVEN WORSE.

  I did twenty jumping jacks for my fitness and then one more dance routine with a little tap-tap footwork and I sang:

  YOU KNOW WHO is a stupid head, I wish wish wish he was good and DEAD.

  Clemesta opened her mouth to say something but then Dad came out of the shower in his towel. His chest was wet and all the hair was stuck down and his belly was poking out over the top. That’s called LETTING YOURSELF GO and Mom says it’s a very bad thing.

  Dad pulled out clean clothes and handed me a pair of my leggings and a long-sleeved shirt with red stripes that makes me look like a candy cane. Sometimes I lick my arm when I’m wearing it but I still taste like a person.

  “I love this one,” I said. “That was a good one to pack.”

  “I’m glad,” Dad said.

  “Did you remember my toothbrush?” I said. Dad pulled it out of the bag, along with a tube of Crest.

  “Actually I wish you forgot this. Then I could get a new one. Because the spikes on this are very old. Like one hundred years.”

  Dad peeked out the window. “We can pick up a new one.”

  “Do you have my hairbrush?”

  “Uh, I couldn’t find that.”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes I forget to put it away. I can buy another one.”

  I went to brush my teeth, and fix my hair. I used my fingers like a comb and then I tied it in a ponytail and then I made it loose again.

  When I came out of the bathroom, Dad was still peeking out the window at the cars below. He looked at his phone and slipped it into his pocket.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Downstairs at the front desk, the creamy-faced lady asked if we had enjoyed our stay.

  “It was scrumptious,” I said, and she gave me a big smile.

  Dad forgot to say goodbye and thank you, SILLY DAD.

  “He has bad manners,” Clemesta said.

  “He just forgot,” I said. “Sometimes grown-ups have A SIEVE in their heads and it lets out all the things they are meant to remember. Probably it’s a side-effect of the stress disease.”

  Dad pulled out of the parking lot and drove down the main street. It was funny-looking, like an olden-day town from the movies and not like anything at home. Dad said I should keep my eyes peeled for a diner so when I saw a sign for The Hop Inn I yelled STOP. There was an American flag at the entrance, next to a garden gnome with a red hat who was busy cooking pancakes. They weren’t the real ones for people to eat, they were the ones for gnomes. Inside they cooked the ones for people.

  We chose a booth at the window so we could look out onto the street. I gave Clemesta the best view, because she likes to watch people and also look out for any IMPENDING DANGER so she can warn me and keep me safe. She usually does a very excellent job of it too.

  The waitress came over to our table and handed us each a menu. Her name was BETHANY and she had hair the color of ketchup and a pretty bracelet made of tiny white shells and she smelled of strawberry perfume. I liked that she gave me my own menu, instead of thinking I was a baby who needed someone else to read to me. Probably she could tell I had an advanced and watery brain.

  “You visiting?” she said.

  “We’re on an adventure,” I told her.

  “An adventure?” she said. “Well, you’re a very lucky lady.”

  I gave Dad a big smile so he would know how happy I was to be on our trip. He was reading the menu and he didn’t see.

  Bethany poured him a mug of coffee from her silver pot and took our orders for TWO HOUSE SPECIALS which were pancakes made from buttermilk and full of chocolate chips.

  “Good choice,” Bethany said.

  Dad took his phone out of his pocket to look at a map. He kept making it bigger and bigger with his fingers, which is actually easy to do once you know how. Mom lets me play on her phone when we are on TOP SECRET trips to Manhattan. She doesn’t usually like me messing with it but on those days she lets me do whatever I want until it’s home time. That’s called BRIBERY and it means I get something nice in exchange for keeping my mouth SHUT UP and the secret inside the secret-secret box.

  “We’re co-conspirators, Dolly, aren’t we?” Mom says. We pinkie promise and Mom giggles. “Naughty us!”

  I don’t like being naughty but Mom doesn’t even care and that’s another reason why she gets the name SELFISH BITCH.

  Dad was concentrating on the map but I couldn’t see much. I dipped my finger in the sugar and licked off the white dust. Dad started looking at the news on his phone, scrolling through all the words very quickly.

  “Where are we headed?” I said.

  “You’ll see.”

  “But where, though?”

  “Um, Virginia.”

  “But that’s another whole state!”

  “Yeah. Because this is a real adventure. We aren’t just going across the street.”

  I was very excited and I jiggled in my seat and looked around at the other people who were for sure not having an adventure. Dad drank his coffee but it wasn’t making him perky like it’s meant to. He still looked very sleepy, actually.

  Bethany came over with two plates piled high with pancakes and two small silver jugs of maple syrup balanced in her hands.

  “You’re very good at balancing,” I said. “How did you learn to do it?”

  Bethany made a funny snorting sound with her mouth. “Well, darlin’,” she said, “I’ve been doing this twenty goddamn years is how.”

  “That’s nice,” I said, but she wasn’t smiling when she walked away.

  “Virginia,” Clemesta said. “That’s very far.”

  “Yes,” I told her. “It’s the adventure.”

  She scowled. “Why can’t we have an adventure closer to home? Like Long Island.”

  “Because that’s obviously not the best place. Here, have some pancakes.”

  Clemesta shook her head. “I’m watching my figure.” I smushed the syrup with the whipped butter and made a special sauce. The pancakes were delicious.

  Dad was gobbling his down in big mouthfuls and he was finished before me. He drank more coffee.

  I tried to eat delicately LIKE A LADY with my mouth shut like Mom always reminds me. If she was here I wouldn’t be allowed to eat pancakes at all because she is obsessed with healthy food and she doesn’t like me to eat anything that will make me fat. She is already CONCERNED ABOUT MY SHAPE, because I am not skinny-small like she is, I am wobbly-soft like a marshmallow. She says there is an EPIDEMIC OF CHILDHOOD OBESITY in this country and no one picks the fat kid in life, which means you will always be sad and alone. I don’t want that to happen. I want to be like Mom, who will never be alone because of how pretty she is.

  I would like to be less squishy but it’s very hard to always watch my diet and skip dessert and say no to candy treats that the other kids can eat whenever they want. In the bath, my belly makes three smaller bellies and my thighs are ON THE LARGE SIDE. Clemesta says it doesn’t matter and it’s better to be a kind-hearted marshmallow than a string bean with a lump of black coal for a heart. Mom says all it takes is DISCIPLINE, like when I brought home a cookie that I specially baked at school for her Mother’s Day treat and she shook her head and said, “Really, Dolly, you know I don’t eat any sugar.” She threw the cookie straight into the trash and I tried not to cry with my broken feelings. Later, when she was taking a bath, I fished it out and ate it myself. It was sweet and chewy and delicious.

  Mom spends a lot of time working on staying pretty but I didn’t get her same discipline, like I didn’t get her figure or her hair. There are some days when Mom forgets her discipline too, usually on the CAN’T GET OUT OF BED days but s
ometimes also on the BEST MOM days when she says, “To hell with it all” and spends the whole day making the house spotless and cooking big dishes of her world-famous macaroni for us to eat on the rug with no plates just forks. She wears sweatpants and no makeup and we’re allowed to bake on those days, because Mom doesn’t hate sugar anymore, and we make cupcakes, which I decorate with frosting and sprinkles, and Mom says, “Isn’t this the best?” and I say, “You bet,” and we lick the runaway frosting from our lips.

  Sometimes on those days Mom will look at me and stroke my cheek and say, “Dolly, I think being your mom is the best job in the world.” That makes my heart want to explode and I always say a wish for Mom to stay BEST MOM forever. But she never does.

  Right now she is WORST MOM. WORST MOM is the opposite of Best Mom and she should be fired from her job of Mom or punished VERY STRONGLY. That’s not being kind but sometimes it’s okay if you take a break from kindness for a short while and go back to it later when you’re ready and the other person has learned all their lessons. Like after a TIME-OUT when you come back into the room with sorry in your eyes and REPENTANCE in your heart.

  I stabbed my fork into the last pancake on my plate.

  “Do not make me fat,” I told it. I stabbed it again and then put it in my mouth.

  Bethany brought over her coffeepot and refilled Dad’s mug AGAIN. He was drinking coffee like it was water and he needed eight glasses for his brain.

  “How was that?” Bethany said.

  “Delectable,” I said.

  She smiled at me and I saw that she had those special dimple-holes in her cheeks that I wish I had and sometimes try to make by pushing my fingers deep into the skin until they leave a mark. They always disappear again unless you’re born with them but only very lucky people get that. They get to stay adorable forever, not just until they turn seven when suddenly everybody says you are old enough to understand EVERYTHING and also please STOP BEING A BABY.

  Dad asked Bethany for the check and forgot the magic please and thank you words AGAIN.

  Clemesta rolled her eyes. “It isn’t that hard to remember.”

  “Yeah, he wouldn’t get any gold stars on his chart for manners. Probably only one for driving,” I said.

  When we walked back out to the car, Dad forgot to hold my hand but I didn’t remind him because my hands were greasy from the maple syrup and I didn’t want him telling me to go wash up. The pancake gnome tipped his hat as we passed him. He told me that his name was Gerhard and he came from Germany on a ship.

  “Auf Wiedersehen,” I said.

  I learned that from a movie.

  Dad stopped by an ATM that was not far from the car, and I watched him fold more bills into his pocket. Clemesta made her eyes big and I shrugged. “Maybe we’re actually very rich.”

  Before Dad drove off, I made Clemesta comfortable in the back with her head looking out the window.

  “Did we win the lottery?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Yesterday was Saturday. Did we have the lucky ticket?”

  Dad shook his head. “I never got one.”

  “But you keep getting piles of money from the ATM. I thought you won.”

  Dad laughed. “No, sweetheart.”

  “Oh. Well, I hope yesterday wasn’t our very lucky day and we missed it.”

  Dad buys his FINGERS CROSSED WINNING TICKET from Mr. Abdul every Saturday. We always choose the same numbers and we kiss the card and make a shopping list for when we win. If Dad’s treated me to a candy bar I have to finish it before we get back home so Mom won’t get mad. Sometimes I choose a fifty-cent toy from the machine instead because toys can’t make you fat. Mom says lottery tickets are a waste of money but she wastes way more money all the time. Besides, when Dad wins then she won’t have one single more thing to complain about and she won’t be able to yell at Dad to BE A GODDAMN MAN and she won’t have any reason to be a WORST MOM.

  A good trick for when Mom is being WORST MOM is the vanishing trick. I shut my eyes and Mom goes away and then I say, “Now you are gone and I am somewhere else, and you will miss me and cry and be mad at yourself for making me go away.”

  “Maybe Mom vanished from us this time,” Clemesta said. “She had a bag packed. Remember, we found it hidden in the back of the closet?”

  “That was for the girl weekend with Rita.”

  Clemesta made a face. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Surely sure.”

  Dad tapped his phone so he could hear the lady tell him where to turn. Her voice was very friendly and I bet she was pretty.

  “Are we driving all day again?”

  Dad looked at me.

  “Because that isn’t so much fun.” I bit my lip. I didn’t want Dad to get mad or think I was ungrateful.

  “What about we do the shopping trip?” Dad said. “That will be fun.”

  “Yeah.” I looked out the window. Everywhere felt empty of houses and people, not like back home where you are always knocking into someone. Some of them don’t even say sorry.

  “Where is everybody?” I said.

  Clemesta shrugged. “Maybe they left.”

  “To go where?”

  “I don’t know. Mexico. Or across the oceans.”

  “I like our ocean,” I said.

  “Me too.”

  “It’s called the North Atlantic.”

  “I know. I remember Miss Ellis teaching us.”

  “The other side of the country gets the Pacific Ocean. It’s warmer for swimming, but we have much friendlier sea creatures.”

  Clemesta nodded. “The other side of the country is where YOU KNOW WHO lives. In Los Angeles.”

  “Do NOT say his name,” I said. “It makes me want to throw up my guts.”

  I folded my arms and looked at Dad. He has dark hair like me, apart from the middle bit on top which likes to hide in the drain of our shower. I always feel sad looking at that part of Dad. And sometimes I just feel sad looking at Dad PERIOD, because once upon another time he was smiling all the time, and now he mostly never does. I saw a video once from when Dad lived in Florida and worked as a Mortgage Broker. I don’t know what job that is, but Mom says it was much better than the one at VALUE MOTORS. She calls this one BENEATH HIM and HUMILIATING, whatever that means. Anyway, in the video, Dad was laughing a lot and smiling and making a CHAMPAGNE POPPING TOAST, and he was looking very shiny and fancy, and Uncle Joshua was there, and Mom was next to him in a beautiful floaty red dress and they were having a party on a yacht with all their friends and everyone looked very, very happy, like they were in a movie or a reality TV show.

  Dad and Mom don’t look like that anymore, and Uncle Joshua doesn’t look like anything because he’s dead. Actually Dad’s whole family is dead and that’s a shame because it means I don’t get so many gifts at Christmas and for my birthday. Probably if they were alive I would already have the jewelry box and a Lego Grand Hotel, which Savannah got in the mail from her uncle Richie.

  I picked at the skin around my nails. Mom says that’s a bad and unhygienic habit, like nail biting and nose picking. Sometimes I don’t care, or I forget. Clemesta bites her hoof-nails too, but only when she is an EXCESSIVE BUNDLE OF NERVES. Probably she should take those same little white pills that Mom eats after breakfast.

  I touched my loose tooth again and tasted the leftover syrup that was sticking to my fingers.

  Dad took the next right turn off the ramp and pulled up in the parking lot of a Walmart. As we climbed out of the Jeep, an ambulance came screeching by and stopped right behind us. Two men burst out of the back and vanished into the alleyway behind the store.

  “I wonder who they’re coming to rescue?” I said. “Maybe it’s another lion mom with a cub stuck in her belly.”

  Dad squeezed my hand.

  Inside, the Walmart was as big as a whole city and very bright like you were standing in the sun.

  “Pick out whatever you need,” Dad said.

  “Just stuff for today
?”

  “A couple of days,” Dad said.

  “And toys?”

  “Anything you want. Go wild.”

  I looked around the aisles but actually there was hardly anything to pick out. The store was full of big red signs saying HALF OFF and STORE CLOSING SALE and REDUCED TO CLEAR, and a lot of the shelves were empty.

  Dad went off to find the things he forgot to pack for himself, and I picked through the girls’ clothes. I found a purple ballet tutu and pulled it over my head. I couldn’t find a mirror to see what I looked like. I lifted it off and went to get everything else I needed. I walked up and down, up and down, looking at the empty shelves. Soon the whole store would be cleared out and you wouldn’t be able to buy anything at all.

  I passed the aisle with books and magazines. A man in a big green coat stood holding a magazine called CONCEALED CARRY. There was a gun on the cover and he closed his eyes and rubbed it against his jeans, right by his PRIVATE PARTS. I ran down the aisle away from him. I wished Dad hadn’t left me alone.