Pictures of You

by Caroline Leavitt

  The angel turned down Broom Street and stopped in front of a small apartment building. She didn’t see Sam, a few houses down, breathing heavily, pausing to watch her next move. He was spinning with excitement. Did she live here? Six blocks away! Did an actual angel have a real house? She stepped inside and closed the door. He ran over and touched the door, wondering if she would come out again with a message for him from his mother, or if he was just supposed to be patient, the way the angel books had said. All good things come to those who wait. His grandma told him that. Maybe that was what he was supposed to do

  He gave it a few more minutes, just to be sure, and when the door stayed shut, he headed back to school; but without the angel, everything was out of whack. The lights stayed green for only a second, so he had to run across to avoid getting hit by a car. Suddenly, all these angry dogs were around, straining on leashes and barking at him.

  Hurrying, Sam breathed through his nose so he wouldn’t wheeze, still dizzy with excitement. He put his hand on his pocket, readying himself to take out his inhaler, but to his surprise, his lungs were clear. The angel had found him, and that meant something. All he had to do was put on his thinking cap and pay really good attention and then he’d figure out what to do next.

  He got to the playground just as the kids were slowly making their way back into the building, and stealthily fell back in line with them, triumphant.

  THAT NIGHT, SAM lay on his bed, one of his angel books spread across his chest. “Angels are here to comfort and protect us, to give us hope and a glimpse of the world to come,” he read. “They walk among us and we may not even know how we have been touched by them.”

  The world to come. Where his mother was. Was it like Heaven, which always seemed sort of boring to Sam, with nothing to do all day but play harps on clouds? Maybe it was like Earth, only without wars or bad stuff in it. Was his mom happy? Did she miss him the way he did her?

  He had to figure out how to see the angel again without it seeming like he was asking her for anything. He could hang around her house, watch for her and see where she went.

  Sam shut his eyes. His mother used to appear when he least expected it. He remembered one day she had rapped on the glass of his classroom door. His teacher, Miss Horton, went outside and talked to her. Sam watched the way his mother’s head tilted, as if she were listening to what Miss Horton was saying. He saw, too, the way Miss Horton frowned, and then his mother’s head shook. No.

  Then Miss Horton turned around, her face as pinched as a draw-string purse, and she opened the door and his mother came in, her shoes clicking on the floor. “Sam,” she said, motioning to him.

  “He’ll be back tomorrow,” his mother said, and her voice was so full and sorrowful that Sam began to worry.

  “Is everything all right?” Sam asked.

  His mother glanced meaningfully at his teacher. “We’ll talk when we’re in the car.”

  Sam felt the ball of worry in his stomach rolling into something bigger and bigger. He went and got his books, and the other kids snickered. As he made his way out of the classroom, someone poked him in the side and Sam flinched. As soon as they were outside, Sam tugged on his mother’s sleeve. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  His mother grinned at him. “Who wants to go for a ride?” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Can’t a mother want to spend some quality time with her son? Put on your happy face. We’re going to have an adventure.”

  An adventure! Instantly, Sam perked up. She reached into the glove compartment of the car and pulled out a map. “Put your finger down,” she told him. “Where it lands is where we’re going.” She pulled out her yellow sunglasses and put them on the top of her head. Sam put his finger in the air, hesitating. “Go ahead. Close your eyes and put your finger anywhere on the map and that’s where we’ll go.” She had that little line between her brows. She was serious! He closed his eyes and stabbed his finger on the map. “Boston!” she said.

  In a crowded diner near Boston, she turned to him and said loudly, “Don’t feel bad you didn’t get that movie role. Bruce Willis is insane not to have chosen you.”

  The man next to his mother looked up with interest and Sam’s mother gently nudged his side. “Let’s hold out for a film with DeNiro. We’ll talk to your agent today.”

  Sam grinned. “I want the Lord of the Rings role,” he said, and this time, the woman next to him glanced over. She stared at Sam, who giggled.

  “Excuse me,” the strange woman said. “Do I know you?”

  “You should,” said Sam’s mother, and she paid the check. “We have to go,” she said politely, and the whole way out, Sam felt the woman’s stare on his back.

  Oh, it was so much fun to be someone else. His mother was full of surprises. They spent the day at the museums in Boston, coming home just a half hour before his father did. When his mother saw his car pull up, she slid her finger across her mouth like she was closing a zipper. “Our secret,” she said.

  “Have a good day today?” his dad asked when he came inside, and Sam had to pinch himself to keep from laughing. “The best,” he said.

  His mother began showing up more and more when Sam was at school, and Sam never knew when it would happen. “Are you sure this is okay to do?” Sam asked, and his mother laughed. “What can the school do? I’m your mother.” She took him to fancy restaurants, and museums, and once she took him to New Hampshire to look at the mountains. Everywhere they went, she called him by a different name, Frank or Jamie and once Rocko, and she gave herself new identities, too. “We can be anyone we want,” she said.

  Once she came when Sam’s class was about to study the Revolutionary War. He loved school, and just seeing the pictures of the British in their snappy red uniforms had made him excited. “I don’t know if I want to leave,” he told his mother. “We’re going to see a movie about the Revolutionary War.”

  “Oh,” his mother said. “The Revolutionary War. I see. Get in the car.” She drove to Lexington. “Lexington and Concord. Part of history and you get to see it firsthand, not like they would do in that stupid school.” She stumbled on the cobblestone sidewalk. “If I’d known we’d be walking, I’d have worn flats,” she said. They walked and she told him about the battles fought there. They stood in front of the statue of the Minute Man and she told him they had to be ready at a minute’s notice, that’s where they got the name. “Like us,” Sam said, and his mother laughed. She ruffled his hair. “Yeah,” she said. “Like us.” She looked around. “Had enough education?” she asked, and when he nodded, they headed for the car. “Me, too,” she said. The next day, Sam couldn’t wait to get home to tell her that he had been the only one in the class who had known how the Minute Men got their name. “What did I tell you?” his mother said.

  Two weeks later, she showed up again, but this time, in the school hallway, he told her he wanted to stay in school. “We’re having science,” he protested. “I love science!”

  She got a funny look on her face.

  The sky had a dirty wash to it, like laundry that hadn’t quite come clean. His stomach was rumbling and he didn’t feel like going to another diner, didn’t feel like being Nick or Thomas or Bob or anyone but who he was, which was just Sam. He wanted to stay in his own classroom, and then to go home and eat his own macaroni and soy cheese. “Mom,” he said, tugging at her shirt. “It’s time for my science class.”

  “David,” she said. “Or you could be Timothy today.”

  “Sam. I’m Sam now,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I suppose you are.”

  She stepped inside and told his teacher that she had gotten the date wrong, that Sam’s dentist appointment must be for the next week and not this one. And when Sam got home from school, he couldn’t wait to tell her about the experiments they had done, how thrilling it was to see the jump and jolt of electricity, but his mother was flushed, her eyes as bright as pennies. “You
should have seen it!” Sam crowed.

  “And you should have seen what I saw,” she said.

  Something prickled along Sam’s back. “You went without me?”

  There was a space growing in his belly that he didn’t know how to fill. “Next time,” she told him. “Now, tell me about your science day in school.”

  After that, Sam’s mother never came to take him out of school, no matter how many days he kept staring at his classroom door waiting for her. He hadn’t gone on an adventure with her ever again, not until he had snuck into the back of her car.

  Now, he thought of his mother, floating away like dust. He thought of the angel. He thought of the door in his classroom, the long empty hall. Maybe tomorrow, instead of his mother, the angel might be the one to come for him.

  TEN

  SAM AND TEDDY were roaming the Giant Eagle supermarket, moving in and out of the aisles, past the Thanksgiving displays of canned pumpkin and cranberry sauce, until they got to the cookie aisle. The Giant Eagle had been part of their routine all month, the two of them bolting out of school, stopping here, and then winding up at Teddy’s, where Teddy almost always had something fun to do. As long as Sam was home before his father, he saw no reason to tell him where he spent his time these days.

  Teddy glanced around the empty aisle. “We could eat down the aisle and nobody would know a thing.” Teddy lifted up a bag of Strawberry Ripplies. “Whoa, these are the best. Want some?” he asked, his eyes lighting up, and Sam hesitated. Sam wasn’t allowed to have that much sugar because of his asthma, but he could already taste the cookies in his mouth. “Come on, what do you like?” Teddy scanned the shelves. “Ho Hos? Yodels? Want to go check out the candy next?”

  Sam reached for a package of Vanilla Chewies and then, grinning, Teddy took it from him. He elusively clasped the package to his stomach and turned toward the aisle. Then he coughed extravagantly, ripping the package wide open. Instantly, cookies flew from the bag, spilling into Teddy’s hands and onto the floor. Sam leaped back, amazed. Teddy wolfed one down. “What are you waiting for?” Teddy barked, stuffing cookies into his mouth and into his pockets, “Help me here.”

  “That’s stealing—”

  Teddy rolled his eyes. “Who’s going to want to buy this bag after it’s open? They’ll just have to throw them out and that’s waste and that’s even worse than stealing. Come on, I won’t do it again.”

  Sam hesitated and then, just as he decided that maybe Teddy was right, that as long as the bag was open, they should take some, a manager in a red apron rounded the corner. “Hey, you kids!” he shouted.

  Sam froze. Panicked, he looked at Teddy, but Teddy wasn’t running or even looking guilty. Teddy just stood there with the bag of opened cookies right in his hands. The manager put his hands on his hips.

  “I’ve been watching you kids. Are you going to pay for those cookies?” the manager asked.

  “We don’t have any money,” Teddy said.

  “Then that’s stealing,” the manager said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “You kids can’t just come in here and take whatever you want. I’m going to have to call both your mothers.”

  A bubble of grief welled up in Sam. The manager looked at him. “You first. What’s your mother’s number?”

  Teddy pointed at Sam. “His mother died in the car accident!” he blurted. “He saw it happen! It was in all the papers!”

  The manager took his hands off his hips. “You’re that boy,” he said quietly, but it wasn’t a question.

  Sam felt his ears burning. He couldn’t look at the manager.

  “He even got a scar from it! Show him, Sam! Go on, show him!” Sam couldn’t move, and to Sam’s horror, Teddy jerked Sam’s sleeve up, showing the scar, as jagged as a lightning bolt.

  “I read about it,” the manager said. Sam wrestled his arm away from Teddy, pulling his sleeve down.

  Teddy tapped Sam. “Don’t cry,” he told Sam. “It’s going to be all right. Please don’t cry.” He nudged Sam harder. “Once he starts crying, he never stops,” Teddy assured the manager. Sam quickly put his hands over his eyes. He wasn’t faking. Hot, salty tears sprang from his eyes.

  The manager sighed. “Go,” he said, finally. “Just get out of the store right now.” He wagged a finger at the boys. “But I catch you doing this again, next time I won’t be such a softie.”

  The boys ran, Teddy laughing as soon as they were outside the electronic door. “You should have seen his face!” Teddy whooped. “And you were great! The way you looked like you were going to cry for real!”

  Teddy dug into his pockets as he ran, pulling out cookies by the handful, showing them to Sam. Sam knocked the cookies out of Teddy’s hands, scattering them on the ground. “Hey, what’s with you?” Teddy said.

  “I’d rather go to jail than have to talk about the accident,” Sam said, his voice hard.

  Teddy stuffed another cookie in his mouth, surveying Sam. “Okay, okay, sorry. Next time, I’ll think of something else.” He pulled out another cookie. “Truce,” he said, and Sam took it, popping the cookie into his mouth, shutting his eyes as the sugar dissolved and spread across his tongue.

  They went to Teddy’s house. As soon as they got inside, they took off their jackets and flung them on the couch. Then they took down Teddy’s mother’s Scrabble set, but after a few turns, Sam’s heart wasn’t in it. He was still too angry at Teddy. And anyway, the only words Teddy came up with were three-letter ones like cat or dog, which wasn’t much fun. Meanly, still smarting from what Teddy had said in the supermarket, Sam put down the word “veneer.” Teddy scowled. “Yeah, like that’s a real word,” Teddy said. “Don’t try to act smarter than me, because you’re not.”

  Teddy stood, stretching, and went over to a cabinet, prying open the door. He held up a DVD, grinning.

  “What is it?” Sam said, and Teddy popped it into the DVD player. The words Red Hot Enterprises flashed on the screen and then there was a man and a woman in an empty Laundromat. She was wiggling around, taking off her funny socks, which were lacey and reached high up on her legs, and putting them in a washing machine and the man was moving his tongue in and out like a lizard. Then the man grunted and ripped the woman’s dress off and pushed her onto the table, laying her back among the towels.

  Sam startled. “What the heck is this?” he asked and Teddy laughed.

  “It’s what people do,” he said. “It’s called fucking.”

  Sam stared, amazed.

  Teddy was hysterically laughing. “Look at the guy’s big hairy butt!” he screamed. “And look at her boobs!”

  “This is weird” Sam said, but he couldn’t stop watching. The woman’s face was pinched, as if she were in pain. And the guy kept snorting.

  Just then the door opened, and Teddy jumped up.

  A woman came into the house, her hair flying, her face a scowl. Sam stood up, feverishly hoping Teddy would snap the movie off with the remote. But the woman wasn’t looking at the video. Instead, her eyes were scanning the room, the discarded snack packages, the abandoned Scrabble game in the middle of the floor. She turned to Teddy, her eyes dark.

  “What’s going on here? Who told you you could have company over?”

  The moans from the DVD seemed louder than ever now. To Sam’s astonishment, Teddy suddenly looked smaller, as if he had shrunk six inches. Sam could hear his own breathing, the faint wheeze that made him put his hand in his pocket to make sure his inhaler was still there.

  The woman swept her arms. “What’s this mess? You don’t pick up around here? You think I like working three jobs so you can live like a pig?” Almost casually, as if they had been watching the news, she reached for the remote and turned the DVD off.

  Teddy’s voice grew smaller. “I was going to …” he said. He stepped back from her.

  “I should have given you away at birth,” she snapped, and then she walked over and slapped Teddy in the face.

  Sam gasped, stumbling b
ackward against the couch, and the woman twisted around and stared at him. “Who’s this?” she said flatly.

  Sam looked to Teddy for help, but Teddy was pasted to the wall.

  “I’m Sam.” He could hardly get the words out. “Teddy’s friend. Sam.”

  She snorted. “Well, lucky you,” she said. She grabbed Teddy’s hands away from his face. “You send your little friend home and then get in the kitchen. You and me are going to set up some new rules around here.”

  Teddy’s mother dropped her coat on the couch and strode into the kitchen. He heard her banging things around and then Teddy suddenly shoved Sam. “You better go,” Teddy said. He opened the door, and the rain dotted his shirt.

  “Maybe she’ll calm down,” Sam said.

  Teddy shook his head. “You have to get out of here.” He gave Sam a push.

  “Can I call a cab or my dad?” Sam asked. He looked around for his jacket and grabbed it up, sliding his arms into the sleeves.

  There was a crash. “Teddy! Get in here!”

  “Can I at least have an umbrella or something?” It was cold and dark outside, and the rain was pelting down.

  “I said go! What are you, deaf or stupid?” Teddy shouted, and then shoved him out, so that he tripped and fell on the front steps, tearing the knee of his new pants. Then Sam heard the door lock.

  SAM LOOKED BACK at Teddy’s house, but the curtains were drawn. The neighborhood was deserted. His mom had never yelled at him the way Teddy’s mom had yelled at Teddy. She’d never hit him, and once, when she had seen someone on the street hitting a kid, she had pulled her car over and threatened to call Child Services.

  The rain slicked Sam’s hair down into his face. In the downpour, the whole neighborhood looked different, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure where he was.

  It was getting dark outside and by the time he got to his house, Sam was soaking wet, shivering so hard his teeth were clattering. He reached into his pocket. There was his inhaler, his tissues, which were now sodden. Where was his key? Tears sprang from his eyes and he couldn’t help it, he was crying full force now. He forgot his key! He couldn’t go back to Teddy’s. Not with Teddy’s angry mom there. Not with the way Teddy had booted him out. He ran to the back, to the fake rock that held the extra key. Fumbling, he turned it over, but the key wasn’t there.