by Justin Olson
I’m looking all around, and I wish Seth were here to help me.
The panic inside me is growing exponentially every second that I don’t spot her.
“Grandma!”
A large woman slurping a large soft drink turns and looks at me. “Who are you shouting for?”
“Have you seen an old woman pass by here? She’s about five feet tall. Mostly shuffles her feet.”
She shakes her head. “Sorry, kid. Let me ask Ned.” She turns to the man next to her and nudges him. “Have you seen an old lady pass by here?”
The man shakes his head and turns back to the parade.
The woman looks back to me and shrugs.
I see an older guy wearing a cowboy hat farther back from the street. “Did you see an old woman pass by here?”
He ponders for a moment and then nods. I get excited, hoping that I’m close. “I can’t say as I did,” he finally mutters.
Seriously, guy? I want to ask. Why did you nod only to say no? But instead I turn quickly and head in the other direction. I am jogging as best as I can. I feel my phone vibrate.
Shoot. I pull it out while still jogging.
My dad.
My dad never calls. Especially when on a fishing trip. Something must be up. He must know.
I am dead.
Oh god.
I put the phone back. “Eloise!” I shout.
I reach the end of the parade route and don’t see her anywhere. It’s almost like she has just disappeared. Just up and vanished like my mother. I wonder about the possibility of that. But I didn’t see any UFO or anything out of the ordinary. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the aliens work on a level where they don’t want us to see them or know of their existence. Maybe they’re hiding in plain sight?
I want to cry, I’m so upset about losing my grandma.
But then I hear people shouting and I see pointing. Someone near me says, “What’s she doing?”
I hear another person say, “She’s stopping the parade.”
My heart sinks before I even look. I follow the finger of the person pointing and see Grandma leaning into the driver’s window of a car in the middle of the parade. She shuffles down to the next car, and I see people run out after her. I dart out into the parade route and shout, “Grandma.” She is good at pretending not to hear me.
As I get closer to her, I realize that she’s asking everyone, “Where’s Harold? Have you seen Harold?”
I sigh and put my hand on her arm.
She flinches. She doesn’t even know who is touching her.
“Grandma, it’s me. Charlie. Your grandson.”
The guy who was talking to her turns to me. “She seems like a sweet lady. She yours?”
I nod. “I need to get her back to the nursing home.” I turn to her. “Grandma, sit in the wheelchair.”
She doesn’t like that my hand is still on her forearm, but she manages to look at me and say, “Where’s Harold?”
I don’t want to tell her he’s dead. All I need right now is for her to sit down so that I can get her back to the nursing home. “He’s home. Let’s go back there.” I feel like a royal jerk. Though I find solace, even if I don’t fully forgive myself, in the knowledge that I’m pretty sure she will have forgotten what I said by the time we get back. I hope so, because the way her eyes light up tells me that not only does she remember her husband of forty years, but he was the light of her life.
Now I feel even worse. I’m a terrible person who is probably going to hell.
EXPOSED
• • • • •
I’m telling Seth about the adventure with Grandma today. I’m on my bed without my shirt, slowly cooking in the heat that is trapped in my room. The fan is on and the windows are open, since it has cooled off outside.
Oh, and I’m not taking any more chances today, so Tickles is stuck at Geoffrey’s house. But I left a light on for him, with the TV on, and the window’s open. He’ll be good.
“Yeah, and I managed to get her back to the nursing home in one piece.”
“Well, that’s good. You did a crazy thing today, Charlie. It’s pretty awesome, actually.”
“I’m pretty sure the whole escape was pointless. I don’t even think she knew a parade was happening. And she probably watched five seconds of it.”
“Hey, at least she got out and experienced some life—which is what you wanted her to do.”
“That’s true.”
The back door bangs open and closed. Some rustling of bags, and my dad yells up, “Charlie?”
“Shoot. My dad’s home. I better go.”
“Good luck!”
“For what?” I ask.
“Didn’t you say he called?”
“Damn. I forgot to call him back, didn’t I?”
Seth chuckles. “Sounds like it. Let me know how it goes.”
I take a deep breath and yell down to my dad, “Yeah?”
“Get down here, young man.”
I hope he hasn’t heard anything. I really hope, because it’s such a small town that when weird things happen, word travels at the speed of a UFO.
* * *
I remember this one time in sixth grade. I was watching TV when my dad burst into the house, pulling my mom by her shirt collar. “What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded.
She just smiled.
“Huh? The entire town heard you. The entire town!”
She closed her eyes with the smile still on her lips. It was like she was in some zone that she didn’t want to leave. I was riveted by what was happening but stayed glued to the couch. I thought that once they realized I was right there, my dad would tell me to go to my room.
At school the next day, kids stared at me like I was some alien. Some laughed. Joey started that. He saw me, pointed, and laughed. “Hey, Charlie Dickens. Heard your crazy-ass mom yesterday yelling about aliens. That explains soooo much.”
I didn’t know exactly what she had yelled, but it was something about all of us needing to get our affairs in order. Aliens were coming to save us.
She was wrong.
Aliens had only come to save her.
* * *
My dad’s face is sunburned. He wears a tank top and shorts—this is an outfit I rarely see him in. A small red cooler sits on the table.
“How was fishing?”
“What were you doing today?” He drops a knife into the sink and takes a bag of fish from the cooler.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t answer my call or call me back.”
“I was at the parade and didn’t want to bug you.”
My dad gives me a Come on look. “You need to call me back when I call you. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, did you have dinner?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
“Perfect, ’cause we’re having trout. You can help me cook.” He hands me the bag of freshly caught fish. Holding the heavy bag, I’m momentarily stunned. I can’t remember the last time my dad and I cooked dinner together.
He turns back to the cooler. “Oh, and if you had called, I would’ve told you that I thought about it some more, and I’m fine with having that dog stay at our house.”
“Wait. Really?”
He nods and turns back to face me. “But a few ground rules. You need to clean up after him. And feed him. And if he’s loud or eats my shoes or clothes or anything that doesn’t belong in his mouth, then he’s back over there. Got it?”
This is great news.
“Maybe it’ll get your mind off of aliens,” he says.
My dad knows exactly how to kill any elation.
A SMALL STORY
• • • • •
This time I put Tickles into a small doggie carrier and hope that no one pays much attention.
I get to Geoffrey’s hospital room, peek in, and knock on the doorframe.
Geoffrey lifts his head and turns. He has a cup over his mouth for oxygen
.
He pulls the mask down to his neck. “Charlie. Good to see you.”
I hold up the doggie carrier.
He smiles. “And Tickles.”
Tickles yaps at hearing Geoffrey say his name. I put the carrier down on the bed. “Want me to let him out?”
Geoffrey shakes his head. “Don’t want to get you in trouble.” He’s looking a bit better and a bit worse. His cough appears to be gone, at least right now. But his skin has no color. It’s like he’s a ghost.
I notice he has no flowers or cards. Nothing from anyone. That makes me sad. I wonder if his mom or his ex-wife knows he’s here.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Fine, fine.” He waves the question off with his hasty reply. This makes me think the opposite.
“How much longer are you going to be here?”
“Not sure. Hopefully not much longer. But I’m fighting a nasty infection.”
I nod and look around his room. “Oh. Good news. My dad says Tickles can stay at our house until you go home.”
Geoffrey smiles. “That’s great news. I bet Tickles loves staying with you way more than with me.” Geoffrey closes his eyes and seems to go somewhere else. As I watch him, my mind drifts—
* * *
I got home from school the day Joey laughed at me for whatever my mom had said the day before.
I did my homework, what little I had. My mom was acting weird. She was more spacey than normal. More withdrawn.
The night came, and my dad had yet to come home.
She had yet to make dinner. I honestly thought that she might’ve forgotten about making dinner. Or forgotten that dinner existed as a thing.
I knocked on her bedroom door, and she was standing at her bedroom window looking out to the Great Beyond.
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
She turned to me, startled. She hadn’t heard me enter. Or knock, apparently.
She smiled at me. “Come here, Charlie.”
I walked over and stood next to her. Her room was so dark, it felt like we were both shadows.
I know now that she was becoming a shadow. A thing that, once light shone upon it, would disappear.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
“Not looking at. But looking for.”
I was curious. “For aliens?”
She turned to me and looked into my eyes. “How’d you know that?”
I felt like I was losing my mother, that she was water slipping through my fingers, and the faster I tried to grab at her, the quicker she slipped through.
“I heard about yesterday.”
She turned back to the window. “They’re coming for me, Charlie.” She ran her hand through my hair. “I saw them the other day. They said they’d be back for me.”
I looked up at her. “But I don’t want you to leave.”
She smiled at me like I was a naïve child. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I told them about you, too. They’re coming for me and you.”
“What about Dad?”
She lost her smile. “Not him. Not him.” She finished rubbing my hair. “Just us. We’ll be together and we’ll be special. And we’ll be helping our species.”
“How?”
She smiled. “It’s complicated. But you’ll see. You’ll see soon. Now let’s get you to bed. It’s getting late.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Did you not eat dinner?”
I shook my head.
“Right. Dinner. Let’s go make dinner.”
* * *
Some time passes, and I clear my throat because I don’t know whether Geoffrey has fallen asleep or has forgotten I’m here.
His eyelids pop open. “Sorry. Sorry, Charlie.”
I smile.
“This hospital really has me thinking back over my life.”
I think this is an odd thing to say. But I constantly think over my life. Little moments are always popping up at all kinds of random times.
“Anything you want to share?” I ask. “And does your mom know you’re here? Should I contact her for you?”
Geoffrey looks at me. “She knows. Just not about . . .” He looks down at himself. “My size.” He turns to me.
I want to ask him how he could get so fat. How could anyone let themselves get so fat? But I know that’s rude. I know that’s a truly inconsiderate thing to ask another human being.
“You’re wondering how I got so fat, aren’t you?” he asks.
I look like a deer caught in headlights as my heart beats heavily. I don’t know what to say.
Geoffrey chuckles. “That’s a yes.”
I shrug. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything. I’m not really that curious.”
Geoffrey closes his eyes again. “I wanted to be big,” he says.
What? I don’t know if I heard him correctly.
“At first. I wanted to be a big guy because all my life I was so skinny. ‘Skin and bones’ everyone used to say. And I was. I was six feet tall but only a hundred and thirty pounds. In group pictures I would practically be invisible.”
He holds the oxygen mask up to his mouth and breathes deeply.
“So I think I had just graduated from college and started my first job, and I was so nice to people, and I just remember everyone taking advantage of me. I don’t know. Something about how easily people just walked all over me. I felt like I wasn’t intimidating or worth caring about.”
“So you decided to get fat?”
“I’m getting to it,” he says, annoyed.
“Sorry.”
“So I decided to lift weights. Be healthy, right?”
I nod.
“And it worked, kind of. But I wasn’t really gaining a lot of muscle. At least not quickly. So I read all those muscle magazines, and they told me to eat more. Eat a ton. I started eating all day every day and going to the gym. It worked in the sense that I was gaining muscle quickly, but I also started gaining fat, too.”
I seriously can’t believe what Geoffrey is telling me. Or that he is being so forthcoming with all this.
“At first I was freaking out about being fat. But it quickly became apparent that I could gain fat a lot faster than I could gain muscle. And really the end result was comparable. I just wanted to be bigger. So I stopped going to the gym and gained more and more fat. Well, my wife at the time . . .” He looks at me and says, “I married young.” And then he goes back to this other place in his mind. “She was growing more concerned with my expanding waistline. So I stopped getting fat. But I was about two hundred and fifty pounds. I had gained over a hundred and twenty pounds of muscle and fat and no longer felt invisible.
“My wife wanted me to lose the fat, obviously. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that. It’d be like losing myself again. But I decided to stop gaining weight. Well, another year or so went by, and I noticed that my clothes were tighter. I stepped on the scale, and it said two hundred seventy. I was only twenty-eight years old and was already two hundred and seventy pounds. It was like my body wasn’t stopping even though I was no longer consciously trying to gain weight.
“My wife eventually left me, not because of my waist but because we weren’t working, or so she said. I still felt so invisible, you know? So I just ate. And ate. Not because I wanted to get fatter. I didn’t. But I was just so hungry that I couldn’t stop eating. And ten years later, here I am. As hungry as ever. But not able to do anything about it.”
Tears form in Geoffrey’s eyes. “I can’t believe I did this to myself. Now I can’t even move without help.” The tears are streaking his wide cheeks.
I feel sorry for Geoffrey. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. Tickles yelps. He wants out of that doggie carrier.
I stand, and realize that Geoffrey should be happy for at least one thing. He got what he wanted, because now everyone who looks at him can’t look away. And yet he still comes across as a small person. You know?
I wish I could do something to help him.
COME WITH ME
• • • • •
I hold a puzzle in my hand as I walk through the nursing home. I figure Grandma can do something in here besides twiddle her fingers. The parade plan I had was a disaster.
I don’t see Susan at the nurse’s station. I am almost to my grandma’s room when I hear her voice behind me. “Hi, Charlie.”
I turn and smile. “Hi, Susan.”
“You probably know that Seth gets back tomorrow.”
The thought has barely let me think about anything else lately. I am so happy that my best friend comes back tomorrow. I nod.
“I know he’s been missing you. So I was wondering, Do you want to go pick him up at the airport with me in Butte tomorrow night? It’d be kind of like a surprise. He’d love it.”
My heart jumps at the idea. “Totally! Yes! I’d love to.” I backpedal because I came off as too excited. “Yeah, that would be cool.”
Susan smiles. “Great. Now shhh. Don’t tell him. Let’s make it a big surprise.”
I can’t wipe the smile off my face. I am going to surprise Seth tomorrow night. And then we’ll begin our summer adventures together.
Finally.
“One other thing,” she says. “I’ll let Dr. Book know you’re here. He wants to talk to you about Eloise.”
My forehead creases. “Something wrong?”
Susan walks toward me and in a hushed voice says, “She’s wet the bed twice this week. I think the doctor is planning on having her wear Depends.”
“Adult diapers,” I say.
Has it come to this?
THE PLANE HAS ARRIVED
• • • • •
I pace around the Butte airport baggage claim waiting for Seth’s plane to arrive. The place feels sterile, almost like a nursing home. And I don’t think that’s because of Susan. She is standing there patiently.
“Charlie, calm down. What are you so nervous for?”
“Not nervous.”
Truth is, I’m freaking out. Seth is moments away from seeing me, and I am moments away from seeing him. Even though it’s been only a few weeks (three!), it feels like an eternity since we last saw each other. I also can’t shake the thought that maybe Seattle caused him to realize how big a loser I am. Maybe he’s a different Seth—or maybe I’m a different Charlie? Or worse, we’re both different and won’t even recognize each other anymore.
