Don't Make Me Smile

by Barbara Park

  “You look fine,” I said. “Can I go now?”

  Dr. Girard laughed some more. For a guy who worked with nutcases all day, he sure laughed a lot.

  “Do you think you could be a little clearer?” he said. “I mean, do I look happy to you? Or depressed? Or mad? How do you think I look?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess you look happy.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I am happy.”

  Well, goody-goody for you, I thought. Why was he acting like such an idiot all of a sudden? Personally, I didn’t care whether he was happy or not. All I wanted to do was get out of there.

  Dr. Girard kept talking. “The thing is, though, I wasn’t always as happy as I am right now. As a matter of fact, Charlie, when I was your age, I was just about the most miserable kid that you’ve ever seen in your life.”

  I knew he was setting me up. He wanted me to ask him why he used to be miserable. I tried not to, too. But my curiosity got the best of me.

  “Okay. I give up,” I said. “Why were you miserable?”

  “For the exact same reason that you are,” he said. “I was miserable because my parents told me they were getting divorced.”

  I should have known he was going to say that. He was trying to find a way to get me to talk about my own situation. It was sneaky, I thought. But it wouldn’t work.

  “As a matter of fact,” continued Dr. Girard, “I was so unhappy about the divorce that I did something pretty strange.”

  Once again, my curiosity got to me. What could he have done that was any stranger than the things I had done? What was stranger than going to live in a tree?

  “So what did you do?” I asked.

  “I stopped speaking to my parents,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. That was it? He honestly thought that not speaking to your parents was strange?

  “No offense, Dr. Girard,” I said. “But what’s such a big deal about not speaking to your parents? I stop speaking to my parents all the time.”

  “For a whole year, Charlie?” he asked. “I didn’t speak to either one of my parents for a year. Not one word.”

  Now I felt insulted.

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “I’m not some dumb little kid, you know. I understand what you’re trying to do here. You’re trying to get me to talk by making up a bunch of wild stories. No one can stop speaking to their parents for an entire year.”

  Dr. Girard leaned over his desk and looked me straight in the eye.

  “One … whole … year,” he said again.

  This time, I could tell he wasn’t kidding.

  “But that’s impossible,” I said. “How could anyone stop talking for a whole year?”

  “Wait. Hold it. I didn’t say that I stopped talking, completely,” he said. “I said that I stopped talking to my parents. I talked to everyone else just fine. My friends, teachers … everybody, except Mom and Dad.”

  “Wow,” I said. “My mom and dad get mad if I clam up for even a couple of days. What did your parents do?”

  “They did exactly what your father did today,” he said. “They took me to a child psychologist. In fact, they took me to a bunch of psychologists. But it didn’t do any good. I was a very stubborn kid. I would talk to the psychologists as friendly as could be. Then I’d go home and not say another word.”

  This was unbelievable. “So let me get this straight,” I said. “You didn’t say one single word to your parents at all? Nothing? Never?”

  Dr. Girard shook his head. “Nope. I mean once in a while, when they asked me a question, I would shake my head yes or no, but that’s about it. I never opened my mouth. Not even at Christmas.”

  “So you didn’t ask for any presents?” I asked. This guy was amazing.

  “Not one,” he said. “And believe me, that turned out to be a very big mistake.”

  “Why? What happened?” I asked.

  “Well, that Christmas I really wanted a basketball hoop and a stereo,” he said, “but since I wasn’t speaking, no one knew it. I thought about writing a Christmas list on a piece of paper, but I decided that would be almost like talking, so I didn’t do it.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “when I got up on Christmas morning, all I found under the tree was a game of Life, a ton of school clothes, and some handmade mittens.”

  I started to laugh.

  “Wait. That’s not the worst part,” said Dr. Girard. “My mother put fruit in my stocking. Two oranges and an apple. She knew I’d hate that. I’m sure that’s why she did it.”

  I laughed even louder.

  “Take it from me, Charlie,” he said. “If you ever decide to stop talking to your parents for any length of time, wait until after the holidays.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I could never last as long as you did. I always think of too many mean things that I want to say to them.”

  Dr. Girard nodded. “Well, sometimes, that’s okay,” he said. “Sometimes it’s better to say what’s on your mind—even if it’s mean—than to keep everything inside.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve said plenty of mean things to them already, but it doesn’t seem to be helping me that much. I still feel just as rotten as I did when they first told me. Maybe even rottener.”

  The doctor thought a minute. “Tell me something, Charlie. When did you first find out about the divorce?” he asked.

  “Last Sunday night,” I said.

  Dr. Girard looked surprised. “Last Sunday night? But that was only a week ago.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said. “It’s been a whole week, and I feel just as bad now as I did then.”

  He leaned forward. “But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” he said. “A week is no time at all, Charlie. If you’re thinking that you should feel better in only a week, you’re in for a very unpleasant surprise. It takes time to get over something as big as this. Lots of time.”

  “I understand that, Dr. Girard,” I said. “But every day I seem to feel even sadder than the day before. I think I’m getting worse instead of better.”

  He shook his head. “Let me try to explain something to you,” he said. “What if last Sunday night, instead of finding out about the divorce, you’d had an accident. Let’s say that you fell off your bike and you broke your arm. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Well, if last Sunday night you fell off your bike and broke your arm, would you expect it to be healed by today?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No, of course you wouldn’t,” he said. “Because you know that broken bones take lots of time to heal. But what a lot of people don’t know is that there is another part of us that can take even longer to heal than broken bones. And that is our emotional part, Charlie. Our hurt, broken feelings.”

  I sighed. “No, you don’t get it, Dr. Girard,” I said. “It’s not just my feelings that are hurt. This is a lot worse than that. Hurt feelings happen when your father puts his chef’s hat on his hand instead of his head. I can get over stuff like that. I do it all the time.”

  Dr. Girard looked puzzled. But I didn’t feel like explaining the chef’s hat thing, so I kept on going.

  “My parents are ruining my whole life,” I said. “It’s like they’ve wrecked every part of it. And nothing will ever be the same again.”

  “Like what?” asked Dr. Girard.

  “Like everything,” I said. “You ought to know. Like the three of us will never take a vacation together again. And on Christmas morning, it will only be Mom and me. And whenever I have something special to tell my dad, I’ll have to call him on the phone. Before, when I had something to tell him, I used to just listen for the sound of his truck pulling into the driveway after work. But I can’t do that anymore. Because he won’t be coming home anymore.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair, does it, Charlie?” said Dr. Girard quietly. “You’re not the one who caused any of this, but you’re the one who’s feeling all the hurt.”

&nb
sp; Suddenly, I felt tears coming into my eyes. It’s embarrassing as anything to cry in front of strangers. I kept my head down so he couldn’t see.

  “Do you have a Kleenex?” I asked. “I think there’s something in my eye.”

  Dr. Girard handed me a whole box of tissues off his desk. I blew my nose.

  “I must be catching a cold,” I said.

  Finally, I looked up. “So how much time do you think it will take before I feel better?”

  “I won’t kid you, Charlie,” he said. “It’s not going to be quick. But there are certain things that you can do to help speed things along.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like telling your parents what you’re thinking, and not keeping your feelings all locked up inside of you like I did,” he said. “Keeping everything in only makes it hurt worse.”

  “Yeah, well, like I told you before, I’ve already said some pretty mean stuff.”

  “I know. But remember,” he said, “there’s a big difference between ‘telling’ your feelings and ‘yelling’ your feelings. Eventually, you’re going to need to start talking to your parents more calmly about things, Charlie. Calmly, but honestly.”

  He stood up. “I’m here every day. Monday through Friday, plus most Saturdays. If you ever want to talk to me again, just give me a call and we’ll set it up. I mean it, okay? You can call me anytime.”

  He reached out to shake my hand. Whenever a grown-up shakes my hand, it always makes me self-conscious. I never know how hard I’m supposed to squeeze. If you squeeze too tight, a lot of grown-ups will make some dumb comment, like, “Wow, that’s quite a grip you’ve got there, tiger!” I hate it when they do that.

  Anyhow, this time I must have squeezed just right, because Dr. Girard didn’t comment at all.

  When I left the office, the secretary gave me a card with his number on it. I shoved it in my pocket.

  My father came over and put his arm around me. We walked outside to the truck.

  “So how did it go?” he asked. “Are you still mad at me for bringing you?”

  At first, I wasn’t going to speak to him. But then I thought about what Dr. Girard had said about honesty.

  “I think it was really rotten for you to bring me here without telling me, Dad” I said. “At least you could have been honest about it. I thought you were taking me out to breakfast.”

  My father knew I was right. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I should have told you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

  True. Very true. But I didn’t admit it.

  “Listen,” he said. “It’s still not too late for some breakfast. Why don’t we go over to my apartment and I’ll fix some scrambled eggs.”

  I couldn’t let him off too easy. “No, thanks,” I said. “I have a hard time eating over there.”

  Dad drove me home without saying another word. When I got inside, I went straight to my room. I didn’t cry or anything this time, though. Instead, I took out Dr. Girard’s card and looked at it.

  If any of my friends ever saw it, they just wouldn’t understand.

  I walked to my wastebasket and tore it up.

  Before I did, I memorized the number.

  (ten)

  TWO WEEKS after I first met Dr. Girard, it was Easter. With all the problems that were going on in my family, I had almost forgotten about it.

  To tell you the truth, Easter isn’t one of my favorite holidays anymore. It’s better than nothing, but that’s about it.

  A lot of holidays seem to lose their fun when you start getting older. Easter is one of them. For me, Easter was way better when I was little. I really loved the whole Easter Bunny thing back then.

  I guess there are a lot of little kids who never take the Easter Bunny seriously. I mean, when you think about it, trying to believe that there’s a giant rabbit hopping all over the world delivering eggs isn’t that easy. Actually, it would probably make a lot more sense if there was an Easter Chicken. But when I was little, it didn’t matter. I was one of those kids who believed whatever my parents told me. If they had told me that there was an Easter Lizard, I would have believed that, too.

  When I finally found out that the Easter Bunny wasn’t real, I really took it hard. And guess who told me? Good old MaryAnn Brady.

  She came to school right before Easter vacation and said her mother had told her the Easter Bunny was just make-believe. She said it was really your parents who did all the basket stuff. I bet her mother also told her to keep that information a secret. But as you can see, even when she was little, MaryAnn was a giant blabbo.

  Anyhow, when I got home that day, I ran to my mother and asked if what MaryAnn had said was true.

  “Is the Easter Bunny real, or is it just pretend?” I asked.

  Mom stopped what she was doing and looked at me.

  “Why?” she asked. “Did someone tell you it wasn’t real?”

  I nodded. “MaryAnn Brady,” I said. “She said her mother told her that the Easter Bunny was really your parents.”

  “So how do you feel about that?” my mother wanted to know. “Would you be upset if I told you that the Easter Bunny was Dad and me?”

  “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t care a bit.”

  Mom smiled. “Well then, I guess that means you’re old enough to understand,” she said. “MaryAnn was right. The Easter Bunny is really Dad and me.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “Oh no!” I yelled. “Oh no! Why did you have to tell me that? YOU JUST WRECKED MY WHOLE EASTER!”

  My mother was stunned. “But, Charlie,” she said, “you just told me that you wouldn’t care.”

  “I lied!” I said. “I really did care. And now it’s all ruined! You spoiled my whole holiday!”

  I was a very weird kid. It took me a week before I finally settled down. And if you think that was bad, you should have seen me when I got the news about Santa.

  Anyway, ever since then, Easter has lost most of its thrill for me. In my opinion, once you’ve looked in the basket and eaten the ears off the chocolate rabbit, the excitement is pretty much over.

  My mother knows how I feel about Easter. But for some reason, this year she kept trying to make a big deal out of it. She kept saying stuff like, “Only six more days until Easter, Charlie.”

  “Am I getting a basket this year?” I asked her. “I might be getting a little old for that kind of stuff, you know.”

  Mom misunderstood completely. “Of course you’re getting a basket,” she said. “You’ll never be too old for an Easter basket, Charlie. Never.”

  And that was that.

  On the day before Easter, my mother went to the grocery store. When she came home, it looked like she had bought about a million eggs and one of those egg-dyeing kits. I’m not a big fan of coloring eggs, by the way. But since Mom had already bought the stuff, I didn’t have a choice.

  She boiled the eggs and called me when everything was ready. She really seemed excited about the whole operation. When I went into the kitchen, I saw that she had five cups lined up on the counter. In each cup, there was a different color dye. I decided to get right to it and get the whole thing over with.

  After I had dyed one egg in each color, I started to leave.

  “Is that it?” asked my mother. “Is that all you’re going to do?”

  “I did one in every color,” I answered. “How many was I supposed to do?”

  My mother went to the refrigerator and pulled out two big bowls. “I boiled three dozen eggs, Charles,” she said. “You’ve still got thirty-one more to go.”

  Thirty-one more? Oh no, I thought. Not thirty-one more! What in the world were we going to do with all those eggs? I hoped my mother didn’t think I was going to eat them all. I don’t even like hard-boiled eggs. The yellow part is all dry and pasty, and the white part doesn’t have any flavor at all.

  “Why did you cook so many?” I asked.

  She winked. “It’s a surprise,” she said. “You’ll find out tomorr
ow. Right now, just finish coloring them.”

  It took me about an hour to finish dyeing all the eggs. I tried to jazz up a couple of them by putting on some stickers. Every egg-dyeing kit in the world comes with a bunch of dumb-looking stickers. Usually, they’re pictures of baby chicks pushing little wheelbarrows. You’ve probably seen the kind I mean. They always look real cute on the front of the egg kit. But as soon as you put them on your own eggs, they bunch all up and look awful.

  “Okay, I’m done,” I said finally. “Is Dad coming over tomorrow? Is that the surprise?”

  “No, your father’s not the surprise,” said Mom. “I’ve got something else planned.”

  Then she smiled and winked again.

  I hate it when my mother winks at me. It was okay when I was little. In those days, I used to try and wink back. But now that I’m older, I just find it embarrassing.

  When I woke up on Easter morning, I have to admit I was kind of excited. It wasn’t about the Easter basket, though. I just couldn’t wait to see what kind of surprise my mother had planned.

  I got out of bed and hurried to the kitchen. My Easter basket was stuffed full of chocolate rabbits and jelly beans. I thanked Mom for the candy, but just as I suspected, it seemed a little babyish.

  I looked all around. “So where’s the big surprise?” I asked.

  “It’s coming later,” said my mother. Then, believe it or not, she winked at me again.

  “Mom?” I said. “There’s something I really need to tell you. Dr. Girard said that if something bothers me, I should talk to you about it calmly and honestly.”

  My mother looked worried. She sat down in the chair next to me. I guess she thought it was something about the divorce.

  “What is it, Charlie?” she said. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “It’s just that I wish you would stop winking at me,” I said. “It makes me feel ridiculous.”

  Mom stood back up. She didn’t say anything, but she definitely looked annoyed.

  “I didn’t mean to make you mad,” I said. “But at my age, being winked at makes me feel like a fool.”