God is in the Pancakes

by Robin Epstein

  He said he’s worried about losing his dignity and becoming a useless burden. I couldn’t even respond to that because all I could think was “But I don’t want you to die.” Then again, I definitely don’t want him to suffer and then die. Which is why, for the first time since my dad left us ten months ago, I’m back here at the foot of my bed. Doing this. Which I’m not sure will do anything but turn my kneecaps into round red circles.

  Dad was the one in charge of my sister’s and my religious upbringing since Mom’s never been down with the whole God business. She says she considers herself an “agnostic,” which means instead of accepting that God does or doesn’t exist, she just kind of throws her hands up and says, “Whatever.” But my dad, he’s a big God guy, so he’d take my older sister, Lolly, and me to church on Sunday mornings. After the service Dad would drive us directly to brunch at the International House of Pancakes. We’d sing a little, pray a little, then eat a lot and come home happy, full, and hopped up on Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N Fruity delights. It was our own little ritual.

  When we’d get home Lolly and I would run around the house and Mom would inevitably complain about our sugar consumption. Then she’d say, “You are selling God through pancakes, Daniel.” Dad, feeling pretty playful at this point himself, would always respond with something like, “Well, Sheryl, God created those pancakes, didn’t He?”

  But when Dad left us, I left the church. For me, the whole purpose of going got blurry. It seemed like people were preaching and parroting one set of morals in church and then practicing another in their own homes . . . and hotel rooms. It was hypocritical and it was phony, and it broke my faith in all of it.

  And yet here I am.

  On my knees.

  “Look,” I say softly, “I know you haven’t heard from me in a while. And you’re probably mad. If you’re even there at all, that is . . . But if you are . . . and if you’re listening, I really need a favor right now: I need you to cure Mr. Sands. Please just make him well again. And then just send me a little sign to let me know that this is all going to be okay. . . . Okay?”

  “Grace!” yells a voice from downstairs.

  Definitely not the sign I was hoping for . . .

  “Grace!” the voice barks again.

  Maybe if I just sit here very quietly, she’ll assume I’m not here and—

  “Grace, I need you to get down here now!” My mother was getting shrill.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” I yell back.

  “Not in a minute. Right. Now!”

  “Gah,” I roar, looking up at the ceiling again before standing up. “I’m coming.”

  When I get down to the kitchen, Mom is standing there, tapping her foot, waving an orange ticket in the air. “Wanna tell me why I got a citation from the Department of Sanitation, Grace?”

  My head is still spinning and she’s yelling at me about something as stupid as a trash ticket? An involuntary snort comes from the back of my throat.

  “I do not find this a laughing matter, Grace,” Mom says, shaking her head. “Apparently the person whose job it is to recycle in this house has been throwing everything into the same bin outside, even though they’re clearly marked and color coded to avoid confusion.”

  “Huh,” I say.

  “Huh, that’s all you have to say?”

  “Sorry?”

  “So it’s a question if you’re sorry? Well, I think you should pay the twenty-five-dollar fine. What do you have to say about that?”

  “Fine, whatever.” I shrug. At a different time I probably would have reminded her that sorting the stupid garbage isn’t really my job in the first place. Recycling is one of Dad’s jobs. Was one of Dad’s jobs. He even used to say he liked sorting trash because it made him feel like he was doing his part for the environment. But when he left us—apparently not giving much thought to our environment—the job fell to me. More accurately the job was assigned to me, and I let it fall to the ground. In the ten months Dad’s been gone, I haven’t bothered sorting once. I just chuck everything into one bin because as far as I’m concerned, it’s his mess to clean up. It’s nothing short of a miracle that we didn’t get that ticket before now. I consider telling this to Mom, but for some reason I don’t think it’ll help my cause. I reach for the cookie jar instead, and hold out a Chips Ahoy! to her as a peace offering. I know she isn’t entirely responsible for this mess either. When she shakes her head, I give her the “suit yourself ” shrug and bite into the cookie.

  “Do you really need that?” she asks.

  “Actually,” I reply mid-chew as I hit the kitchen’s swinging door open with palm of my right hand, “I do.”

  “I’ll leave the ticket on the table for you, Grace,” Mom calls after me.

  Lolly’s room is the first door on the right when you get upstairs, and when I walk past, I can see my sister lying on the floor with her feet up against the wall, cradling the phone between her head and neck. I stand in the doorway for a moment hoping to catch her attention. “What?” she mouths when she finally sees me.

  “You going to be on for a while?”

  Lolly shakes her head and holds up the “one sec” index finger. I nod. She’s probably talking to Jake, the boyfriend. Lolly and Jake Davis have been dating for about three months now, which by our school standards makes it pretty serious. Lolly’s annoyingly quick to drop Jake’s stats whenever anyone mentions his name: senior, amber eyes, good hair, cute butt, good dresser, rich family. I know all of these things make Jake sound like he comes straight off the pages of the Perfect Boyfriend catalog, but what Lolly leaves out is that Jake’s the guy who walks around with a perma-smirk and a sense that his farts smell like flowers. But I think dating Jake makes my sister feel important, so she stays focused on the pros.

  “So, what’s up?” Lolly asks after hanging up the phone. She pulls her legs off the wall and now lies flat on the ground, her long brown hair splayed around her as she looks up at me. From this upside-down perspective her chin looks like her forehead and her dark eyebrows make it look like she’s working a partial goatee.

  I walk around to the other side so the view’s a little less freaky. “Jake?” I ask, instead of responding to her question.

  “Yeah,” she replies. “Can you believe he doesn’t want to go to the spring formal?”

  “But you do?”

  “Of course,” Lolly replies as if this couldn’t possibly be a serious question. She sits up and stares at me. “You don’t?”

  The school dance that I won’t have a date for hadn’t exactly been high on the list of priorities. “I don’t even know when it is.”

  “You do so. It’s the second Friday in May. Why wouldn’t you want to go? It’s going to be really fun.”

  I know Lolly believes this. I also know she and I now have very different ideas of fun and I can’t help wondering when, exactly, my slightly older sister and I morphed into such completely different human beings. Used to be that I was just a smaller version of her. We shared the same brown hair and fair skin, and because we were so close in age, it amused Mom to dress us in the same outfits to see if we passed for twins. Lame, I know, but whenever anyone asked if we were fraternal or identical, I remember smiling so hard, my cheeks ached.

  No one would mistake us for twins now. Lolly wears tight-fitting clothes and makeup that makes her look like one of those pretty-but-trashy big-eyed Bratz dolls. I’ve been told I have the girl-next-door look, which I think is supposed to be a compliment, though I’m not sure why. Being “generic neighbor girl” never struck me as something to aspire to. That’s why I started experimenting with the Clairol bottle the day after my fifteenth birthday. I needed some kind of change from the plain brown locks I’d rocked for the first fourteen years of my life. So I’ve been playing around with how much I can change it without my mother noticing ever since. I’ve been okay in the red direction, but when I streaked it “Butterscotch Swirl,” I saw her squinting at me a little too close for comfort the following day.
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  “You can’t go to a formal by yourself,” I reply, “unless you want to look as cool as the kids who post their video diaries on YouTube.”

  “So ask someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Who? Oh, come on, Grace! Eric.” She throws her hands in the air as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

  Even the thought of Eric at a school dance makes me laugh. “Eric? Please!”

  “You know you like him.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “he’s my best friend.” Eric’s been my best friend since we played T-ball together in fourth grade. Eric also happens to be a good-looking guy who doesn’t know it and would never believe you if you told him—not that I’ve tested this theory.

  “Okay, anything you say, Gracie. Anyway, what’s going on with Mom?” she asks. “Why was she so pissed when she came home?”

  “That’s sort of why I came in here. I need to borrow twenty-five bucks.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s making me pay the trash ticket for not properly sorting our garbage.”

  “You’re shitting me!” Lolly laughs.

  “Could I even make that up?” I reply, shaking my head.

  “She needs serious help,” she says, standing up and walking over to her dresser. Lolly opens the top drawer and takes out her change purse, then pulls out a ten and a five. “This is all I have,” she says. “But I need it back because I want to have money for the weekend.”

  “Sure, thanks,” I reply. “I’m supposed to get my pay-check soon. I just want to leave the cash out for Mom tonight so the woman doesn’t start charging me interest.”

  “Wouldn’t put it past her.” Lolly laughs again. “It’s like she keeps getting crazier and crazier.”

  “I know,” I say, “and it kind of worries me. What do you think it means for us?”

  “It means we must help each other avoid becoming like our mother at all costs.”

  “Deal,” I say, holding out my pinky to seal the pact.

  “Deal,” Lolly says, joining her pinky to mine.

  I spend the rest of the night in my room thinking about Mr. Sands and his request. But the more I turn it over in my head, the more certain I become that I can’t do it; it’s wrong.

  It’s just wrong.

  I even manage to convince myself that he probably wants to take the question back. I’m sure he didn’t really mean for me, a fifteen-year-old smartass, to take him seriously. Unless he thought that only someone with my “attitude” would do something like this? No. No. He probably only asked the question because he was feeling depressed today, and I understand that. Who doesn’t have dark days? Who doesn’t get crazy ideas every now and again?

  You can’t act on them, though. You can’t, because what if you want to change your mind later? Plus, medical breakthroughs happen all the time. Who’s to say that they won’t find a cure for his disease tomorrow? And miracles. Miracles sometimes happen too.

  Being optimistic doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’m determined to remain positive. I come to my conclusion as I lie in bed: During my next shift at Hanover House on Thursday, I’ll give Mr. Sands his pills back and tell him he has to fight this. Things can and will get better. They have to. I won’t let myself think otherwise. I won’t let myself think about his illness. I can’t let him die. I can’t let him go.

  Chapter Three

  Wednesday’s a big day at Harriton High School. It’s “VD day,” as Eric calls it: Varsity Decision day. The list of guys who make the varsity basketball squad goes up this afternoon, and I know how hugely important it is to him. Still, after the tryouts on Monday, I wanted to play it off like it was no big deal, like it’d probably be better if he didn’t make the team.

  “Appreciate the vote of confidence.” He grimaced, rubbing the bristles of his dirty blond crew cut back and forth and round and round. “You really don’t think I’m going to make the team, do you?”

  “That’s not it. At. All,” I replied, even thought it sort of was. Like I said, optimism doesn’t come so easily to me. But I explained to Eric that if bad news comes and you’re not expecting it, it’s a double whammy. First, the bad news itself sucks, and then, when your legs are cut out from underneath you by surprise, it makes it that much harder to get back up again. So I suggested we meet up at Milk Bar, our favorite coffee shop, just in case he didn’t have to report to practice. Eric didn’t bother responding.

  “That’s cool,” I said, “I’m not at all offended by how excited you seem to hang out with me.”

  “You know me, Grace. I’m all about the enthusiasm. In fact, if the whole basketball thing doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll try out for cheerleading!”

  “If anybody can rock the pom-poms and hoochie skirt, it’s you.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “I’ll meet you at Milk Bar at four on Wednesday unless I need to report to practice. And if that’s the case, trust me, I’ll text.”

  At 3:45 Wednesday afternoon, my phone’s in-box is empty. When still nothing appears at 3:50, I hop on Big Blue, my aqua-colored mountain bike, and head for the coffee shop.

  I love my bike. I don’t even care that Eric thinks it’s an embarrassment—he says I defiled it by swapping out its narrow, racing style seat for a fat, glittery banana seat. I tell him the new seat adds comfort and style. He says it made me look like a Mickey Mouse Club reject. It’s one of those topics on which we’ve agreed to disagree . . .

  I see Eric through the café’s plate glass window as I lock Big Blue to a parking meter across the street. It’s hard to gauge how upset he is because his head’s down and his nose is in his magazine. He’s never been a crier, so aside from yelling (which he does occasionally) and cursing (which, when provoked, he shows real talent for), I can’t quite picture how he would react when he saw that his name wasn’t on that list.

  I want to do something to cheer him up, and since I can’t think of anything better, I grab a handful of Haribo gummi bears from the package in my coat pocket. Then I creep toward him and at close range begin pelting bear after gummi bear.

  “What the—” Eric laughs, his hands going up in a frenzied effort to swat back the bear bombs. “Oh, you are so dead,” he says. Eric scoops up several bears from the table and fires them back at me. Every one that Eric lobs is a direct hit, mostly bouncing off my forehead.

  “You throw pretty well for a girl,” I say, both of us now laughing as I rub my face and sit down next to him.

  “I’d say ‘you do too,’ but since that’s totally sexist, I could never repeat something like that,” he cracks. “Especially not in a hippie coffee shop like this, where, if the counter girls heard me, they’d probably start spitting in my chai.”

  “The counter women, Eric. The counter women would start spitting in your chai,” I correct.

  “Riiiight.” Eric takes a sip of his drink from one of Milk Bar’s oversized mugs and the bottom half of his face disappears in the cup. I want to bring up the subject of the basketball team and the list, but I’m guessing if he wants to talk about it, he’ll say something. Plus, I’m not sure what to say except “Damn, that sucks.”

  I motion to the counter. “Want anything?” When all else fails, a chocolate chocolate-chip muffin tends to make me feel better, so I’m hoping the same will be true for Eric.

  “Nah, I’m good, thanks,” Eric replies, holding up his mug.

  I return to the table a moment later balancing my wallet and the “bonbon du jour,” a chocolate-dipped Rice Krispies treat in one hand, my cappuccino in the other.

  “Oh, and Grace, in case you were wondering, only two sophomores made the varsity basketball team.” Eric nods glumly as I return and am about to set the goodies down.

  “Only two,” I reply, giving him one of those what can you do? expressions.

  “Yeah,” he replies. “Just Mike Richter, who’s six foot five . . . and me!”

  “You?” I’m so surprised, my arm jolts and cappuccino froth spills onto my ha
nd. “No way! So why are you here?”

  “Why are any of us here?” replies my philosopher friend. Then, with a big smile Eric adds, “Practice doesn’t start till tomorrow.”

  “Eric, that’s awesome, congrats!” The moment calls for a hug, but Eric and I are not the hugging types. Instead I just give him an arm squeeze, and I feel a surprisingly firm muscle spontaneously flex under my fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner, you jerk?”

  “Just wanted to maximize your suspense.”

  “Nice work.” I shake my fist at him, but I’m the opposite of mad. This is huge and we both know it.

  “Pleasure.” He smiles. “And okay, here’s something else that might be of interest you too.”

  “I won the lottery!”

  “It’s not that interesting.”

  “I won the school raffle?”

  “Closer.”

  “Do not tell me that the creepy janitor has a crush on me,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him.

  Eric shakes his head, then leans in. “Four o’clock.”

  “Four o’clock?” I look at my watch. “What happened at four o’clock?”

  “Not that four o’clock.” He cocks his head back and to the side. “Just thought you’d be interested in seeing what’s going on at four o’clock from where we’re sitting. But don’t turn arou—”

  By the time he gives me the instruction not to look, my body has already boomeranged in such an incredibly unsubtle movement that my coffee cup skids and its contents again go sloshing over the lip, splashing the table.

  “Smooth,” Eric laughs as I stare at Natalie Talbot, the teen dream of Harriton High School, who is seated behind me to my left. Natalie’s in my art class at school, but she’s one of those people who seem to float above, possessing that combination of beauty and charm that bewitches both students and teachers alike. But right now Natalie’s leaning forward and talking rapidly to her equally hot boyfriend, Rich Wilder. Rich is the center of the soccer team, and the kid who will almost certainly be voted “Most Likely to Do Anything He Wants.” He’s leaning back in his chair, his legs stretched out underneath the table, his right forearm resting across the brim of his off-center baseball cap. Natalie looks upset. Rich looks like he’s asleep with his eyes open. It seems we’re witnessing the breakup of the century.