The Summer of Broken Things

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  But Dad’s talking. He’s saying, “When did we forget to teach you to be kind? To care about anybody but yourself?”

  Kayla: Traveling with Strangers

  I am a girl who’s riding in a taxicab to the airport. Me. Kayla Butts.

  My mood flips, and I want to giggle. I want to call Mrs. Lang back at the nursing home, the person I know who watches the most soap operas. People really do ride in cabs, in the world outside Crawfordsville, I would tell her. Some of the stuff that happens in soap operas really does happen out in the real world. For real. I want to call Harley Seitz, who’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a best friend who’s actually my same age. We’re still friends, I guess, but it’s like 99.999 percent of her brain and her time has been taken up with her boyfriend, Gunnar Graves, ever since they got together last fall.

  Guess what? I would tell her. There are other fun things in the world besides kissing Gunnar. Maybe I’m going to have a better summer than you. Maybe I’m going to fall in love with a hot cabdriver and . . .

  This thought almost makes it so I can’t even look at the man driving my cab. I peek out through lowered eyelashes—because what does it matter? A hot guy wouldn’t like me, anyway—and it turns out that my cabdriver is old. He’s got white hair.

  I know how to talk to old people. I lean forward.

  “Do you like driving a cab?” I ask him. “Have you been doing this for a long time?”

  He looks at me in the rearview mirror, and I realize he also has dark skin and the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen. I’d been too emotional and then too giddy to notice that before.

  He is not anything like the old people I know back in Crawfordsville.

  But he’s answering my questions. I think. He opens his mouth and sounds come out, but it’s not a language I recognize. Or maybe it is—maybe it’s even English—but his accent is so thick I can’t make out a single word.

  “What?” I say. “Can you talk slower? Please? My ears are a little clogged, so I can’t hear very well.”

  I flush, because I’ve automatically given one of the excuses I always use with Mr. Wicks back at the nursing home. He had a stroke last year that garbled his speech, and it really bothers him when people can’t understand. So I always make it seem like it’s my fault, not his.

  The cabdriver must not understand: Now he seems to be talking faster. Straining hard, I catch the words “Somalia” and maybe “professor.”

  Is there a place called Somalia? Maybe in Africa? And was this cabdriver maybe a professor when he lived there? No way could he be a professor here. Who would understand him?

  The cabdriver gestures at the passenger-side front seat, where books slide around. The only book cover I can see holds a bunch of curlicues and dots—is it written in some language so foreign they don’t even use the same alphabet?

  The driver pats the books, and his hand lingers in a way that makes me think of Grandpa pulling out old maps and photographs in the spring and fall, when he misses planting and harvest. Some of Grandpa’s pictures are so faded now that I can barely make out ghosts of images, but he claims he can still identify the model numbers of every John Deere tractor and combine; he can remember the reason for every little bend in the otherwise straight rows of corn.

  Suddenly, I miss Grandpa so much. The cabdriver and I don’t understand what the other person is saying, anyway, so I let Grandpa’s story spill out of me. It’s like talking to Mr. Angstrom or Mrs. Lyles, two of the nursing home residents who aren’t ever conscious, so it’s safe to tell them anything I want. It’s weird how comforting it can be to sit in their darkened rooms and hold their hands and whisper things I don’t dare tell anyone else.

  I do this with my dad sometimes too.

  “My grandfather used to be a farmer,” I tell the cabdriver now. “His farm was in our family for five generations, but the way the economy went, that wasn’t enough. So he borrowed money to buy more land. And then in the 1980s, the interest rates got really bad, and lots of farmers went bankrupt and lost everything, and Grandpa was one of them. He had to take a job as a truck driver. But he would never clean his floor mats, because he said maybe some corn or soybean seeds might accidentally fall there and sprout, and then he could say at least he owned that much of a farm. He carried around dirt in his truck the way you carry around books. It’s kind of the same thing.”

  The cabdriver answers, talking faster than ever, his words even more incomprehensible. No, wait, there is one word I can understand: “war.” The cabdriver says it again and again: War . . . war . . . war . . .

  Was there a war in his home country? Is that why he ended up here?

  My face reddens even more. Somalia . . . Maybe I have heard of that country before. Maybe I have heard of a war there. Sometimes when we go visit my father at the VA nursing home, the other patients tell us their stories. Some of them are older than the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, but not as old as the Vietnam vets. Maybe some of those men talk about fighting in Somalia.

  You have to be respectful to people who survived a war. Maybe this cabdriver fought in a war and I’m babbling away to him about dirt.

  The cabdriver takes his hand off his books and gestures at something rubber-banded onto the sunflap over his head. Maybe he’s saying, This is my family. He pulls down a picture of lots of people with dark skin. Grandparents and parents and children. The women and the girls wear coverings over their heads, letting just their faces show, not their hair. I guess that means they’re Muslim. I don’t know anyone like this family back in Crawfordsville. But this is like all the old people at the nursing home whipping out pictures of their families.

  “They look like nice people,” I say politely, just like I say to all the people in the nursing home. I tell old people this even when I know for a fact that their kids and grandkids never bother visiting. Even when I know for a fact that their grandkids or great-grandkids are some of the worst bullies at Crawfordsville High School.

  I don’t know the cabdriver’s family. Maybe they really are nice people. Maybe people outside Crawfordsville are nicer than people in it.

  Can I dare to hope that that’s true?

  Now the driver points out the window—we’re almost to the airport. My stomach twists a little and I rehearse the instructions Mom relayed from Mr. Armisted: The cab ride was already paid for, so you don’t worry about that. The cabdriver will get your suitcase from the trunk, and then you can go on into the airport. Mr. Armisted and Avery will watch for you—remember, I sent that picture so they’d be sure to recognize you—but if you don’t see them right away you can always call . . .

  The cabdriver pulls up to the curb. He gets out and goes around to the trunk, so I do too. He puts my suitcase down on the sidewalk, then leans toward me.

  “Good-bye, granddaughter of a farmer,” he says, and it seems like he’s trying hard to pronounce the words the same way I would. “Have a good trip.”

  He understood what I was saying. He understood me better than I understood him. Maybe he even understood every single word I spoke.

  I feel a little like I’m standing here naked, my ugly, blobby body on display for anyone to see.

  But he’s saying nice things, I remind myself.

  I stammer out a “Thank you.” I want to apologize, too, for not understanding him. But someone’s calling my name behind me: “Kayla? Kayla?”

  I turn around, and Mr. Armisted and Avery are walking toward me.

  Mom said they wanted to arrange a meet-up for Avery and me before we were actually leaving for Spain. But Avery had soccer tournaments every weekend, and then she had soccer camp, and Mom got stuck working a lot of nights and . . . it never happened. Avery was also really busy last December, and the only time Mom could take her her Christmas present was one Saturday morning when I had driver’s ed. So I haven’t seen Avery since two Christmases ago. She had braces back then, and she’d gotten tall in a way that reminded me of a baby giraffe just learning how to use its long legs. (Mr. L
ang at the nursing home likes to watch nature shows, so I’ve seen a lot of baby giraffes taking their first steps.)

  Avery doesn’t have braces anymore. She has such straight, white, perfect teeth that it reminds me how much my dog tooth sticks out on the left side. I pull my lip down to hide it.

  Avery also isn’t baby-giraffe gawky and awkward anymore. She’s dancer graceful, or maybe teen-model graceful. She moves like she knows people are watching her, like she thinks they should watch her. (I mostly move like I’m darting from shadow to shadow, hoping nobody notices me.) Avery’s got stretchy black leggings on—yoga pants?—and they cling to her legs just right, and her long blue shirt blouses out just right, kind of like a minidress, but classy, not slutty, because of the leggings underneath.

  I pull my shirt down to cover the label on my jeans. I hope if Avery saw it, she doesn’t know that Faded Glory is a Walmart brand.

  Avery doesn’t seem to be wearing any makeup, and that makes me feel like the eyeshadow and mascara I put on is too dark and heavy. She flips her long, thick ponytail over her shoulder, and it’s like the practiced moves girls have on YouTube.

  Mr. Armisted grabs my hand and shakes it.

  “Kayla!” he says heartily. “You made it! With plenty of time to spare.”

  “I . . . guess so,” I mumble.

  It always throws me off to talk to other people’s fathers, but this is worse than ever. I mainly recognize Mr. Armisted from the annual Armisted family Christmas card, where they all looked so glossy and glowing and happy. I used to study those photos so carefully; I knew I would seem awkward and weird if I stared like I wanted to when we would go visit Avery and he was there.

  “The cabdriver didn’t have any trouble finding your mom’s car?” Mr. Armisted persists.

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so.”

  I have to hold myself back from asking, Do you know how much you look like a dad on a TV sitcom? Only real?

  Seeing Mr. Armisted in person again reminds me of a game I used to play when I was little. I’d look through the sale circulars that came in the mail, and Grandma and Grandpa would tease, “Oh, Kayla, are you in the market for a new chain saw?” or “Kayla, you looking for a new pickup truck?” when really I was just looking at the ads that featured male models so I could pick out the one that looked like the best dad.

  Even at three or four years old, I already knew that my own father would never again be able to do anything but lie in a bed. He would never again be able to pick up a chain saw. He would never again be able to steer a truck or build a pole barn or cast a fishing line.

  He would never again be able to hug me.

  Or just shake my hand.

  Even if your dad hadn’t had that accident, he would never have been like Mr. Armisted, I tell myself. He wouldn’t have worn shirts with polo pony logos on the pocket. He wouldn’t have flown around the world making millions. He wouldn’t have wanted to. He was proud of being a marine. Proud to serve his country.

  I look away from Mr. Armisted, but my brain is still churning out wouldn’t haves: Even if your dad hadn’t had that accident, he never would have hired some other teenager to be a “paid companion” for his daughter. He wouldn’t have needed to. He would have taught you to take care of yourself.

  “Were you talking to the cabdriver just now?” Avery asks. She doesn’t put out her hand to shake, but she kind of smiles. It looks like she’s trying to, anyway.

  “Yes,” I say. Did I break some rule I didn’t even know about?

  “Do you know him?”

  Better than I know you, I want to say.

  There is no way I’m telling her about Grandpa. Or anyone or anything else that’s important to me.

  “Just being friendly,” I say, attempting a failed smile of my own.

  “Oh,” Avery says.

  And then it’s like none of us knows what to say to the other two. We stand awkwardly for a moment, until Mr. Armisted grabs my suitcase and says, “Well, let’s go, then. Off to Spain!”

  I notice that he leaves Avery to carry her own suitcase. Or pull it, I mean—unlike mine, hers is on wheels. But is that fair when she’s the daughter and I’m just the paid companion? Should I offer to carry hers?

  I don’t think I can say anything. It might make me cry.

  Forget worrying about speaking Spanish. Forget worrying about being in a foreign country. How am I supposed to live with total strangers for the next eight weeks?

  Why do the Armisteds want me to?

  Avery: Complications

  “Avery, put your phone away,” Dad says.

  We’ve checked our luggage and gone through security, and now we’re sitting at the gate. Our flight is delayed fifteen minutes—because of thunderstorms in Chicago, or something like that. Dad’s been explaining to Kayla that the whole airline system is interconnected, and the plane we’re supposed to fly on might be coming from Dallas, and still be delayed by Chicago weather.

  I don’t care. I’m texting back and forth with Shannon and Lauren, who are on their after-lunch break at soccer camp. They claim the drills they ran this morning were harder than any I did there. I think they’re just being wimps, but I don’t say that. I’m telling them about Kayla, and how embarrassing she’s been ever since she got here. I want them to know exactly how much I wish one of them were with me instead.

  Then K stared at Auntie Anne’s like she’s never seen one before, I write.

  Never eaten a cinnamon pretzel? Too sad, Lauren writes back.

  Maybe she hasn’t, Shannon writes. Didn’t you say she lives in Nowheresville? Maybe she’s never even been to a mall.

  Maybe that’s y your dad is taking her to Europe. B/c K’s disadvantaged, Lauren writes.

  She must be texting five or six other people at the same time she’s texting me. You can always tell with Lauren. She starts using abbreviations when she’s losing interest in a conversation.

  “Avery!” Dad says in a low voice, his teeth gritted like he’s trying to yell at me without anyone else noticing. “Didn’t you hear me? I said, put the phone away. Stop texting. Participate in the conversation we’re having in real life.”

  I could say, Texting is real life. I could say, Oh, yeah? I’d be happy to if you’d have let me bring a real friend with me. I could say, I’m not having a conversation with Kayla. You are. But I take one look at Dad’s face and say, “I’m just telling them good-bye. It’s rude not to do that.”

  Quickly, I type, Gtg. Boarding. Next time I text I’ll be in Spain!

  It’s not a bad thing to make them feel a little jealous. Remind them that even if I have to put up with Kayla, I get to do it in a cool place.

  Dad still has that look on his face like he’s about to explode. I’m saved from whatever he was going to say next because his phone pings. He looks at it and groans.

  “Now it’s a forty-five-minute delay,” he says. “We’re really going to have to run to catch our next flight.”

  “Run?” Kayla repeats, like that’s something else she’s never heard of.

  “During the layover,” I say. I want Dad to see that I’m trying with Kayla. Or to think that I am. “We’re flying from here to Washington, DC, where we’ll change planes, and then the new plane will take us on to Madrid. That plane will be at a different gate, maybe even in a different terminal. How fast we run could be the difference between making the flight and missing it. Dad, remember that time we had to run to make that flight home from Aruba? Because customs took so long?”

  Kayla bites her lip.

  “I know we have a layover,” she says in a tight voice, like I’ve offended her. “I read the schedule your dad sent.”

  Maybe I really did sound like, How stupid are you, not to know this? instead of Here. I’ll be kind and explain everything.

  “And I said we’d eat at the DC airport, didn’t I?” Dad chimes in. “Looks like there won’t be time for that now. We should get sandwiches here. Avery, come help me carry things. Kayla, you c
an stay here and hold our seats. What do you want us to get you?”

  Dad’s in boss mode. This is how he sounds on the phone, talking to people at work. But I have a bad feeling about the way he divided us up.

  Sure enough, as soon as we’re in the Wolfgang Puck to-go line, he says in his hardest, coldest voice, “You will stop making fun of Kayla to your friends. And you will erase that entire conversation from your phone. The one about Kayla being from Nowheresville.”

  I gulp.

  “Dad, that was private!” I protest. “Nobody else was supposed to see it! Why were you reading over my shoulder?”

  “Because you were so clearly tilting away from Kayla, trying not to let her see,” he tells me.

  “Well, I never said Kayla was from Nowheresville,” I defend myself. “That was Shannon. I can’t help what my friends say.”

  Dad’s lips are pressed into a thin, disapproving line.

  No, I’m reading his face wrong. It’s more like . . . he’s in pain.

  “Avery, thirty years ago, I was the one from Nowheresville,” he says. “You know I wasn’t on an airplane until I flew to that first job interview in New York.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know that story,” I say. “You panicked because you thought you’d have to pay for the Coke they gave you on the plane, and you barely had enough cash with you for the cab to the interview, and this was before you had a credit card, and you were imagining yourself as a homeless person in New York City the rest of your life.”

  Sometimes, when Dad tells that story he turns it into some big comedy, making his every mistake and misperception sound ridiculous. Usually, when Mom’s around, she’ll add something like, No, David, you would have found a nickel on the sidewalk and invested it, and you would have been a millionaire inside of three months. Or No, you would have put all the other homeless people to work for you and built the biggest company in town.

  I decide since Mom’s not here, I need to finish the story.