And I know it’s no dream.
I drag myself out of bed, my arms, legs, and whole body tired from the heavy load.
The floorboards squeak underneath me as I tiptoe down the hall and peek around the corner to the kitchen.
“About time,” Tobin says to me, stuffing a piece of bacon in his mouth and snapping in another blue puzzle piece. “Look, Lemonade. We only have one yarn ball left.”
Debbie turns around from the stove.
“Good morning, Lemonade.” She smiles. “I’m making breakfast sandwiches with eggs and bacon. Grab a plate, honey.”
“I’m not hungry,” I tell her, pulling a chair out next to Tobin.
He’s staring at me like I’m some kind of alien who just crash-landed out in the yard and then came in for breakfast.
“What are you looking at?” I ask him.
“What do you think I’m looking at?” he says.
“I mean, why are you staring at me like that?”
“Then why didn’t you say that in the first place?”
“Tobin!” I say, exasperated.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I guess because I want to know how you are and I don’t know how to ask you, so I’m just watching you to see if I can tell on my own. But I can’t tell on my own, so I guess I’ll just have to ask you anyhow.”
“That depends on how Charlie is,” I say, turning to Debbie.
She comes over to the table holding an open-faced breakfast sandwich with sunny-side-up eggs that are runny in the middle and two burnt-on-the-edges strips of bacon on top. She’s wearing her faded Levi’s with holes in the knees, a yellow T-shirt, and a matching bandana in her hair. She has blush on her cheeks and small silver hoops in her ears.
“I got a call from the hospital this morning, honey.” She places a warm hand on my head. “Charlie is awake and doing well. He’s going to be just fine, Lem.”
“You promise?”
“Promise.”
I lay my head on my arms on the table and cry. I probably have yolk stuck in my hair and bacon grease too, but I don’t even care.
I just cry and cry and cry.
Debbie is sitting next to me, her head on my shoulder. “Sweet girl,” she says softly. “I know how hard things have been for you. It’ll get better, I promise you it will.”
“I—I don’t know how,” I sputter through the tears.
“What do you mean, honey?”
“How to make it better,” I tell her, lifting my head up to face her.
I feel Tobin’s hand on my other shoulder then, and I turn to face him, wiping my nose with my forearm.
“By making lemonade, that’s how.” He pats my shoulder like you pat a German shepherd. “You said you know how to make it, isn’t that right?”
“I used to know,” I tell him. “But I think I forgot.”
“Well, it’s probably still in there somewhere,” he says matter-of-factly, and then goes back to his yarn ball.
I turn to Debbie.
“He makes a lot of sense sometimes.” She smiles at me.
I look at him.
He’s examining a blue puzzle piece over his wire-rims. Then he finds just the right spot for it and snaps it into place. He looks up at us and smiles.
“What?” he asks.
I turn to Debbie.
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, he does.”
After breakfast, Debbie helps me get ready so we can all go back to the hospital to visit Charlie. I watch her in the bathroom mirror while she gently brushes the knots out of my curls. She’s helping me tie a bandana in my hair just like hers. She found me a pink one back at her place and then we picked out a pink top from my chest of drawers to go with it.
I study her while she concentrates on detangling the red jungle. She looks a lot like Tobin. Mostly in the eyes and the lips.
“You miss him, don’t you?” I finally ask her.
“Who? Charlie?”
“No…Scotty.”
She stops brushing then and her eyes meet mine in the mirror.
They’re exactly the same color as Tobin’s. Bright blue with tiny specks of brown inside.
“Yes,” she says softly, starting to brush the knots again. “Very much. I’m sure just as much as you miss your mom.”
I sigh and lean on the counter in front of me, my chin in my hand.
“I miss her so much sometimes my insides hurt. Like worse than having the flu.”
“I know that ache,” she says. “I know it very well.”
“What do you do when you hurt so bad inside that you don’t know what to do with yourself?”
She takes a long time to think about her answer. I can tell she’s thinking because she looks just like Tobin when she’s doing it. Serious and intense.
“I guess I try to think about some of the best times I can remember with him. And sometimes it turns that ache into happiness. Happiness that I had Scotty in my life at all. Even if I don’t get to keep him forever here on earth, I get to keep him forever in here.” She points to her heart.
“I know exactly what you mean. I have so many good memories of the times I spent with Mama, I can’t even count them all.”
She meets my eyes again and grins real big at me in the mirror. Then she stops brushing and pulls herself up on the counter next to me. “Tell me one. A wonderful memory of your mom. I’d love to hear it.”
“You would?”
“Of course I would.”
Now it’s my turn to think really hard.
“There are so many,” I tell her. “It’s hard to choose.”
She nods like she understands. And I know she really does.
“Every Saturday morning I’d get up early and crawl into bed with her and we’d cuddle together. And then we’d get up and walk to Piper’s Bakery near the pier and get hot tea and the biggest, stickiest, gooiest bear claws you’ve ever seen. Then we’d go down by the water to find a bench and we’d eat the bear claws and we’d catch up on what happened during the week. I’d tell her all about my friends at school and she’d tell me all about the animals that came to see her and their owners, too.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Debbie says.
“Saturdays were my most favorite day of the week because of that.”
She smiles. “I can see why.”
“Now you tell me one,” I say, putting my hand on her knee.
“Okay,” she says, covering my hand with hers. “When I was pregnant with Tobin, I had to spend some time in bed and I was so bored and tired of being in bed all the time. And Scotty came home from work every day with a single tulip to put in the vase next to my bed. Just because I couldn’t get outside to enjoy them. And then he would go down to the kitchen and make us open-faced breakfast sandwiches for dinner with sunny-side-up eggs and crispy bacon on top. Because that’s what I was craving back then. Then we’d sit in bed together and watch Johnny Carson while we shared a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream. I ate all the strawberry and he always complained I didn’t share it with him.” She laughs to herself. “I stuck him with the vanilla and chocolate every time.”
I laugh too. “Is that why you only buy strawberry ice cream?” I ask her.
Her eyes get wide. “Yes,” she says. “How did you—”
“Tobin said you only buy strawberry even though vanilla goes best with chocolate cake.”
“Oh, yes, he tells me that again and again.” She smiles to herself. “I guess I buy it for Scotty…for when…if…he comes home.”
“You love him a whole lot, don’t you?”
“Deeply. Just like you love your mother.”
“Deep-down love,” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “Deep-down love.”
“Charlie said Scotty wrote you a letter.”
“Yes,” she says quietly. “I keep it with me all the time. I guess it makes me feel closer to him. To read his words. How much he loved us.”
“I know what you mean,” I tell her. “I keep Rainbow right on top of my be
d now. Even though she doesn’t smell like Mama anymore. I know that once she held that rabbit close to her and when I hold it close to me it’s almost like…like she’s holding me again. The way she used to.”
She smiles. “I remember Rainbow.”
“You do?”
“Oh, yes.”
I smile too now and know that Debbie’s right. Thinking of memories with Mama does make the ache inside me feel better. Because it’s like for that moment she’s here with me again.
Debbie looks at me. “Thank you for sharing your memory with me. And thank you for letting me share mine.”
Then she jumps down from the counter and wraps her arms around me.
“You’re very special, Lemonade Liberty Witt. I’m so glad I get to know you.”
Her arms feel nice around me. Kind of like it felt when Mama’s were around me, but different, too.
Nice different.
At ten-fifteen hours (really 10:15 a.m.), we all pile into Debbie’s copper-colored Pinto and head back to the hospital to visit Charlie. Tobin lets me ride shotgun without my even having to call it first.
On the way there my palms are wet and my stomach is still queasy.
I bite my fingernails the whole way across Highway 299, then all down Davis, and even down Blue Lake Boulevard, where the hospital is. By the time we get there, my thumb is bleeding a little, and it aches because I bit it too far down.
Charlie’s room is number 11. When we get to his door, I push it open.
“Well, there they all are!” Charlie says with a big smile on his face.
He’s sitting up in bed with a book. I scramble up on the bed next to him and wrap my arms around his neck. He looks more surprised than I’ve ever seen him, but he wraps his arms around me and gives me a big, warm hug back.
“I’m so sorry, Charlie!” I burst out, my cheek on his shoulder. “I’m just so sorry!”
“Oh, Lem, it’s not your fault,” he tells me, squeezing me tight. “I’m the one who slipped on the rocks. That was all me.”
“But if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been out there to begin with.” I pull away to face him. “Out in the rain, looking for me.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true,” he tells me. “But wherever you go, I’m going to follow you…you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because…” He clears his throat. “Because I love you, that’s why.”
Did he just say love?
Love?
Me?
Lemonade Liberty Witt?
After everything that’s happened?
After I spewed lava in every direction?
Even though I forgot how to make lemonade?
I look up at him, and he gives me another big squeeze. And it feels like I’m being pulled from the quicksand. His face tells me that he’s been there the whole time, making sure I didn’t sink too deep, waiting for me to figure a way out on my own. But when I slipped farther…he gave me his hand.
That big, strong hand with a special silver band.
Just like the night we made warm milk on the stove.
“Okay, okay, enough of this.” He clears his throat a bunch of times. “I have a very important question for you all. There’s nothing but salt-free chicken, runny mashed potatoes, and watery Jell-O in this place. Did someone bring me a bag of Tibetan yak jerky?”
Everyone laughs.
Even me.
“I am officially reinstating you as a Bigfoot Detectives Inc. employee,” Tobin tells me that evening after the hospital.
He pulls my Assistant Bigfoot Detective tag with the wad of Elmer’s out of the drawer of the desk at the Bigfoot Headquarters and pins it to my front. He stands back, cocks his head to the side, and puckers up his lips, checking to see if it’s straight.
LEMONADE LIBERTY WITT
Assistant Bigfoot Detective
I touch the edges of the badge like it’s gold. I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I’ve actually missed the stupid thing pinned to my front. It makes me feel important and part of something big.
“Raise your right hand,” he says, holding his hand high in the air.
“Oh, come on! Is that really necessary?”
“Of course it’s necessary.”
I give him my biggest eye roll ever.
“I, Lemonade Liberty Witt, promise not to blab any top secret, Bigfoot-related matters…”
I repeat it.
“To any source, including all newspapers and TV reporters, corporate spies, and any and all naysayers, while employed at Bigfoot Detectives Inc., for eternity or longer.”
I repeat that, too.
“And I will follow the lead of the Bigfoot Detectives Inc. founder and president and stop asking so many questions…”
“Come on!” I drop my hand.
He smiles. “Okay, that’s good enough, I guess. I’ll type up the reinstatement paperwork tonight. I’ll need it signed and sent back in triplicate.”
“In what?”
“In triplicate,” he says. “You know, one copy for you, one for me, and one for the file.”
“Why do you have to make everything so hard?”
“What’s hard about triplicate?”
“Well, first off, it’s a waste of time.”
“Yeah, but it’s the rules.”
“Your rules.”
“So? Without rules things would run amuck and then life would just be anarchy…a ruleless, leaderless society. Then the next thing you know, you’ll want to move the message pad…anarchy. You want that?”
“A little anarchy never hurt anyone,” I tell him.
“Actually, anarchy has been the downfall of many societies. During the Neolithic Period—”
“Okay, okay.” I hold out my hands, sensing one of his twenty-minute lists coming my way. “You win. I’ll sign it in triplicate.”
He smiles again.
He likes it when he wins.
Or maybe he’s just happy because everything is back to the way it was. The way it should be.
I smile then too.
A week after Charlie gets out of the hospital, everything is back to normal.
Mostly.
Charlie’s almost all better, except for the stitches sewn into his right eyebrow and the bandage taped over it to keep the germs out. Professor Malcolm is on his way from Idaho to give us the results from the test of the hair sample we sent him. He called Charlie last night to tell us that the local news wants to interview Tobin and me about our findings.
That morning, I choose my yellow sundress with the tiny daisies, the one that Mama bought me for a trip to the San Francisco Playhouse for her birthday last year. I carefully comb my hair and let my red curls hang loose down my back.
“Well, look at you,” Charlie says when I come to the kitchen table. “Don’t you look like a shiny new penny?”
“Thanks, Charlie, it’s—” I stop and stare at Tobin.
He is sitting at the kitchen table in a crisp striped short-sleeved shirt with a clip-on polka-dot bow tie and long khaki pants with shiny brown dress shoes. His reddish-brown curls are parted on the side and slicked down into one big wave over his eyebrows.
Minus one tan safari hat strapped tight under his chin.
“What happened to you?” I ask, giggling behind my hand.
Tobin sighs.
“My mother.” He scowls. “My mother happened to me.”
Charlie and I look at each other and laugh.
“Well, I think you look nice,” I say, pulling out a chair.
“She took my hat.” He pouts, shoveling in his seedy cereal.
“Yeah,” I say. “I noticed that first thing.”
Charlie closes the store for the afternoon to make sure there aren’t any interruptions when the news people are filming. Even though the crew isn’t scheduled until three o’clock, Professor Malcolm makes it to the store around one-thirty. When Tobin sees he’s wearing a crisp shirt and sports jacket, he finally wipes the scowl off hi
s face.
After we all say our hellos, we sit on the fluffy pillows around the fireplace.
“Kids,” Professor Malcolm says, “I wanted to let you know the results of the testing in person, before the reporters get here.”
Tobin looks like he’s going to bust wide open and explode Tobin guts all over Bigfoot Souvenirs and More. I want to remind him to breathe, but I figure it will come to him on his own at some point.
“Yes, Professor Malcolm.” I swallow.
“First of all, the footprint you casted is extraordinary. It measures fifteen and three quarters inches, and there is a distinct midtarsal break. It’s undeniable.”
Tobin and I look at each other again. And now I have to remind myself to breathe.
“And second, the fur sample you collected isn’t bear fur,” he says. “It isn’t elk or moose or anything hoofed.”
He pauses.
“What is it, then?” I finally exclaim.
“I can’t identify it.”
Another pause.
“What does that mean, Professor Malcolm?” Charlie asks.
“It means it doesn’t match any known hair sample of common wildlife from the region…or elsewhere, for that matter. It has some resemblances to human hair, but it has never been cut. What I can say with certainty is that it is an unknown primate species.”
“Primate?” Charlie asks.
“That’s right.” Professor Malcolm smiles. “It’s not fur. It’s primate hair.”
Tobin looks at me.
“We did it, Lemonade!” Tobin jumps up and starts hugging me. “We did it!”
“You see, their modus operandi is to hide,” Tobin is telling Channel Four News.
“Tell us more about that, Tobin,” the woman reporter says, holding a microphone close to him. She’s dressed fancy like the women in San Francisco, with high heels and a silk blue dress, and her hair is pulled back from her face by shiny barrettes on either side of her head.
“You see, they need to hide in this world,” Tobin says, leaning his mouth real close to the microphone. “Because they’re different. And people choose not to understand those that are different. And can become…cruel.”
“I see,” the woman says, and then looks at me. “Why is it that you’ve become a part of this?” she asks, holding the microphone out to me.
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