by Jamie Sumner
When we got back to the truck and I unlatched the guitar case to count our tips, I found a yellow piece of paper along with the usual coins and bills. It was a coupon for the fancy ice cream parlor.
Mom held up “lunch,” a jar of peanut butter and a box of Ritz, and said, “No spoons, baby Lou. Hope your hands are cleanish.”
I held up the coupon. “Ice cream places have spoons.”
She sighed. You could buy a gallon tub at Kroger’s for the price of one tiny scoop at this place. But she slipped it in her back pocket and took my hand.
As we walked back up the hill toward town, we hummed a little “You Are My Sunshine.” Mom’s always good with the harmony.
“Baby, you have the voice of an angel.”
“So you say.”
“You do, love. That’s why I do this, you know. All this.” She pulled me to a stop outside the warm glow of the Snow Cap Creamery, but I didn’t want to hear that speech just then. Didn’t want to be called her “better half” like she always did when I complained about the performing. I just wanted some ice cream. I took the coupon and walked in.
It was deliciously cool and quiet inside, and there was only one guy ahead of us in line. I took my time wandering in front of the cold case, eyeing the sherbet and the chocolate praline and the blueberry. We never got ice cream. Frozen food in a truck with nothing but a small cooler isn’t exactly practical. Mom laughed as I paced in front of the counter, waiting for the guy in front to hurry up and pay already.
And then it happened.
He must have ordered a shake or smoothie or something, because the blender whirred to life like a demon, like Ginger’s, but worse because it was only two feet away. I covered my ears, but the whining drone of it snuck past, and I began to shake, first my head and then my whole body. The girl in the striped apron at the blender had no idea. She kept going. A thousand bees in my head. My heart in my throat. I dropped the coupon and ran.
Mom found me crying on the sidewalk behind the Snow Cap five minutes later. Without a word, she handed me a double scoop of mint chocolate chip. My favorite. And then she hummed some more “You Are My Sunshine” while I ate. There was only one coupon. She didn’t get a cone of her own.
I stare up at my ceiling. Mom would never abandon me. Never. Which leaves only one conclusion: This is all my fault. She’s “under investigation” because I can’t do a simple thing like drive a truck two miles down the road without wrecking our whole lives. Guilt twirls in my stomach like an eel, dark and slick. I taste the acidy tomato juice again and sit up. I will take this “opportunity,” as Maria called it, to practice being normal here. So that by the time Mom calls me, I’ll be her good-luck charm like always. We’ll pick up with LA just like we planned.
Meanwhile, this is the day that will not end. The Saturday that stopped time. I hear a door slam downstairs. Dan’s probably back from tennis. Nice, teachery Dan, who might very well be my English teacher on Monday. I put my earbuds in and crank the music up loud, dragging a pillow over my face to keep away any unwanted noises.
Not a minute later I feel a thwack, thwack, thwack at the foot of the bed and jerk upright. I yank out the earbuds. There is a boy in my room—a very skinny boy with dark hair and blue fingernails. And he is swinging a racket one inch from my foot.
“Well?” he says.
I hug my pillow. And then I try to speak. But my voice is hiding somewhere under the pillow next to my hammering heart.
“Well.” He holds out a hand. At the threat of a handshake, I scoot back and knock into the headboard. It shakes loose my voice.
“Well what?” It’s squeaky, but it’s there.
“No. Well.” He points at himself with his racket. “I’m Well. You must be Louise.”
His green T-shirt has a screen print of U2’s War album on it, and it looks intentionally distressed. There is a red sweatband around his head like he’s an extra in a Jazzercise video. It makes me curious and a teensy bit less nervous.
“Your name is Well?”
He sits down at the end of the bed. “Maxwell, actually, but that’s atrocious. Nobody needs that kind of name unless they own a country. Am I right?”
I shrug. I’m still not sure what’s happening right now. Well keeps talking.
“So, Coach Latimer said you were starting at Chickering on Monday. Listen, Lou. It’s Lou, right? Listen, Lou, don’t let them push you into dance or choir or whatever watercolor lily pad nonsense they’re painting in art. You’re taking theater. I’m in theater.” He leans in and points his racket at me. “Theater. Promise me.”
He’s bossy. And acts like he already knows me. “I—I thought I’d just take English and math and science and… the normal stuff.” As soon as I’ve said it, I wonder, Is that the normal stuff? I haven’t been in school in more than a year. And it was elementary. I want Well to go away before he laughs at me.
And then he laughs at me.
“Ha, yeah, that’s because you’re normal. And that’s what normal people expect. But this is Chickering Academy.” He stops here and twirls his racket. “At Chickering,” he says in a voice that sounds like the flight attendant giving announcements, “we like our pupils to be well-rounded, multitalented individuals.” He leans in again. “Aka, you either play a sport or you join the arts.”
He wasn’t laughing at me. He called me normal. I point at his racket. “But you play a sport and do theater.”
He laughs again. I made someone laugh. I can’t even believe it. I hardly ever talked to the kids when I was in school, because I knew I wouldn’t be there long and because, soon enough, they’d see me freak out over a jump rope hitting my leg or a book slamming shut or any of the other thousands of things that happen when I’m around people my age.
Well is talking again. I force myself to pay attention.
“Yeah, I do both. Because I am the well-well-well-rounded Well.” He waves the racket around. “And because my dad makes me do both.”
The door opens, and Dan ducks his head in.
“There you are! Maxwell, I’d assumed you’d wait for me to introduce you, since you begged to stop by.”
Well shrugs.
“Maxwell is also in the sixth grade. He lives down the road. I hope, ah, he didn’t startle you,” Dan says to me. I see him thinking back to Ginger with the blender. I want him to shut up before he says anything that would ruin this. I actually want to say the words “shut up” to an adult.
“No. We’re just talking,” I say.
“Oh. Good.” He looks uncomfortable now, like he doesn’t know what role to play here: parent, teacher, or pal. “Maxwell, get your stuff.” I guess he’s chosen teacher. “I told your dad I’d have you home ten minutes ago.”
Well shrugs again.
“He won’t notice.”
“Go get your stuff anyway. I’ll meet you down at the car in two minutes.”
“All right, Coach. All right.”
Well stands as Dan leaves. I stand too, because it feels weird to wave good-bye from the bed. Then, instead of leaving, he picks up Mom’s guitar where I left it by the door. No one has touched that guitar but me and Mom. I want to grab it back. What if he messes it up?
“I thought you went by Well,” I say, hoping to distract him so he’ll put it down.
“It’s kind of a new thing.”
He’s talking, but all I can do is watch his hands on the strings. “I’ve been at Chickering since kindergarten, so everybody knows me as Maxwell.” He pauses, strums an E chord and, to my total amazement, tunes it better than I did. “But let’s just say I’m trying to reinvent myself.”
“Maxwell!” Dan yells from the foot of the stairs.
“It’s a process,” he says, and sets the guitar down gently next to the reading chair under the window. Then he holds up a hand for a high five. I look at him, calm as can be, and say, “Catch you later, Well.”
“Ohhh, cool as a cucumber,” he says as he grabs his racket and moonwalks out. I look over at t
he guitar.
If a kid like Maxwell can reinvent himself, so can I.
8 We’re Going to Be Friends
The outfit is laid out on the reading chair like a murder victim. It is Monday morning at six thirty. School starts at seven forty-five. I cannot possibly put this on. I hold up the blue-and-gray plaid skirt. The white button-down. The navy sweater vest. I should have seen this coming. It’s fancy private school. Of course they have uniforms.
Ginger and I got into our first argument over it yesterday after they got back from church. I didn’t go. Being frisked by an airport security guard was nothing compared to the thought of singing hymns and going to Sunday school with a bunch of WWJD kids. Ginger and Dan were fine with that. But when they got home and Ginger pulled out the uniform, still wrapped in cellophane, and I said I wouldn’t wear it, that was the big deal.
“Lou, you have to wear the uniform.”
“I won’t. I can’t.” It was too much. The fabric was stiff, like it had been starched to death, and it made me itch just to touch it.
“Sorry, kiddo. Ginger’s right,” Dan said as he loosened his tie. It was navy blue with what looked like little yellow bees on it. I leaned closer. Nope, they were tiny Pac-Mans, like from the old video game.
“If you can wear Pac-Man to church, how come I can’t wear my sweatshirt to school?”
He rolled up his tie and sighed. “If you want to go to Chickering, you have to be in dress code. Them’s the rules. I can’t wear Pac-Man to school either, if that makes you feel better.”
It didn’t.
“Then I’ll go to public school.”
They both shook their heads.
Ginger said in her lawyer voice, “We’ve already registered you and informed both Melissa and Maria. If you really are miserable and still want to switch after you give it a few weeks, then we’ll go through the necessary steps to get you transferred.” She wore pearls to church, I noticed.
I was about to say, Mom wouldn’t make me wear a uniform, and then I realized that’s exactly what she does when I put on the dress and boots and suede jacket for performances. It’s just that I’m used to that kind of uniform.
Still, I was about to keep arguing. Or take the outfit and hide it in their big house so no one could ever find it again. But then I thought of Well saying that’s because you’re normal, and I realized I did kind of want to go to Chickering. Take theater. Be normal. I looked down at my own outfit. It was not normal to wear the same grubby sweatshirt for five days in a row and to be so freaked out about new clothes.
And so, here I am, Monday morning, standing in the middle of the room in a towel, trying to make myself walk over and put on the skirt.
“Lou! Breakfast!”
I place my hand on the shirt. I let it sit there until it doesn’t want to jerk away. And then I do the same with the skirt. There’s a zipper and hook on the side that I know will freak me out if they brush up against my bare leg. I decide to put the shirt on first and hope it’s long enough tucked in to keep the metal off my hip. I dress very slowly, like I’m pulling it on over a bad sunburn. Twenty minutes later I walk stiffly down the stairs and perch on a barstool behind the kitchen counter. It’s bearable, just, if I don’t think about it too much. But add that to everything else I don’t want to think about, like starting at a brand-new school partway through the year after not being in a school at all in more than a year, and wondering where Mom is waking up today, and there’s literally no safe thought in my head.
Ginger turns with cup of coffee in hand when she hears me. “Oh, let me see! Stand up!”
I do, very slowly so the skirt doesn’t swish against my skin.
“You look lovely, Lou. Blue really suits you.” She’s dressed for work in a black pencil skirt, high heels, and a green sweater. Her hair is twisted up in a knot. She looks like the business version of an American Girl doll. I look like a homeless person in a school uniform, which is exactly what I am. She hands me a banana and a bowl and points to the row of cereal boxes in the pantry.
“Sorry. I’m not really much of a cook. Saturday was an exception.” I remember the tomato chunks and say a little prayer of thanks. I walk over to the pantry. Wow. There have to be eight different cereals in here. I pick out a box of Frosted Flakes—name brand!—and then let my eyes wander up the shelves. Organic lentil soup and peanut butter. Some kind of jam with a French label. Whole-wheat pasta and jars of olives and bottles of steak marinades. It’s so much food in one place, it takes my breath away. I pick up a package of pink-iced animal crackers.
“Those are my favorite,” Ginger says from over my shoulder.
“Mom’s too,” I say, and crinkle the package in my fingertips. She always lets me have the sprinkles that fall to the bottom of the bag.
Ginger smiles. Her lips are shimmery with pale peach lipstick. “We used to walk to the gas station down the road from our house and buy them with change we found in the couch cushions.”
And there it is. Another memory of Mom I never knew. How many times have we eaten these cookies? Why didn’t she tell me that story? My stomach clenches, and I put the cookies back. It’s not fair. None of this is fair. It’s like Mom’s a stranger I’m just now being properly introduced to. I sit down with my bowl and pick at the fabric of my skirt under the table. Ginger leans against the counter and sips her coffee. I lean toward the smell.
“Want some?” she asks.
Is this a test? I’m supposed to say no, right? Except I say “yes, please,” because I haven’t had coffee in days and my head hurts and it’s not just left over from the concussion. She pours me half a cup and passes me a little carton of fancy creamer—organic cinnamon mocha something or other.
“I probably shouldn’t let you, but coffee is one thing I do know how to make,” she says. We clink our cups together, and I forget about my skirt for a minute.
Dan walks in as I’m rinsing my dishes in the sink, even though Ginger told me to leave them. Who just leaves dirty dishes sitting in the sink? He’s wearing khakis with a sharp crease all the way to his loafers. His tie is the same blue-and-gray plaid as my uniform. He lifts a leather satchel over one shoulder. He is the perfect picture of an English teacher.
“Ready to go?” he says.
I grip the edge of the counter, dizzy with fear, even though this part has already been explained to me in detail. Because Chickering is a private school, they don’t have buses. Dan will take me to and from school in between tennis practice. Today I will meet with the guidance counselor during first period to go over my schedule and discuss my “school plan” based on the files they sent over from my one year in Biloxi and the few times before that when I actually went to school long enough to have a file. But my insides still turn to Jell-O when he opens the door.
“Wait!” Ginger stops us as we’re walking out. “Take this.” It’s an iPhone.
I look at it in my hand. It is pink with a gold case covered in flowers. “You want me to take your picture?”
“What?” Ginger looks confused. “No! Lou, it’s for you. I’ve programmed in both our cell numbers, and our address is in there too. You just call us if you need us, okay?”
I don’t know what to say. It’s a brand-new iPhone. I’ve never had a phone in my life. And now I have an iPhone and an iPod. I stop and pat my jacket pocket to check if it’s still there. Is this what the rest of the world is like? New phones and music and clothes any time you want them? I take it from her gently like it’s a baby bird. It’s too much. It would take a year of singing on street corners for change to come close to paying for this. I’m grateful and sad and amazed and confused. I am too many things at once. My throat closes up.
Ginger mistakes my silence for acceptance and moves to hug me. I flinch. She sees it. Her hands hang there in the air like she’s paused, until she turns it into a weird two-handed wave.
“Well, have a good day, Lou.”
I wave back. “Thanks. I will.” Red embarrassment creeps up my neck. N
ow she’ll think I’m ungrateful. It’s just another reminder that I don’t know how to be around people other than Mom. And now I have to meet a whole school full of them.
* * *
Dan listens to NPR on the way to school. Of course he does. He asks me if I want to change it, but I shake my head. The low voices are kind of relaxing.
We turn down a long driveway lined with magnolias whose leaves are still bright green even on the last day of September. When the driveway opens up to give a full view of the school, I gasp. There’s no way this white mansion is a school. But there it is, surrounded by green lawns, tennis courts, a football stadium, and a baseball field. Where’s the flat brick building with heavy locked doors? Isn’t that what schools are supposed to look like? We keep driving all the way around the back to faculty parking. Even from behind it’s beautiful—white-painted brick with turrets and ivy and heavy, dark wood beams. It looks like something out of The Sound of Music. I want to crawl under the spare tire in the back.
I sit while Dan gets out of his Jeep, a green dented thing I bet he’s had since college. There are Dave Matthews bumper stickers on the back. He grabs his satchel and his coffee. I am still sitting when he walks over to my window. I can’t look at him. I dig my nails into my palms, which are slippery with sweat. Suddenly the zipper on my skirt is way too sharp and tight on my waist. I breathe in short little puffs of air and hum a line from Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” over and over again.
After a minute or two, Dan motions for me to roll down the window. I crack it open one inch.
“It’s okay if you’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“Okay. It’s okay if you’re embarrassed you came to school with a teacher.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
He takes a quick sip of coffee and leans against the car. He doesn’t know what to do with me. I watch kids walking in. Except for maybe the purses and hair clips, the girls are dressed exactly like me. I look at my skirt. You would never know I lived in a truck a week ago.
