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by Tish Cohen

  “Honestly, Andrea. I don’t know what is happening here. Is this some sort of passive-aggressive way of saying you’re not willing to help out with the kids? Because if it is, quite frankly, I’m hurt. Not only is it self-destructive but it’s insulting. I thought I raised you to be open with me.”

  I can hear Kaylee or Kaia, or both, playing in the background. I step up onto the porch and try to decide whether it’s better to look straight at Mom or avert my eyes in submission. In the interests of not looking shifty, I go with the straightforward glance.

  “And don’t give me that look, young lady. Mr. Buchanan tells me you were in a room you’d been strictly forbidden to enter. When you were supposed to be in Spanish.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re not what?”

  “Trying to be passive aggressive. It’s not a way to get out of helping with the kids. I swear, this is all just circumstantial.”

  She sighs, exasperated, and crosses her arms. “Honestly, I find it very hard to understand how, after sixteen years of not having detentions, you find yourself with two in two days.”

  “I swear.”

  “The situations we find ourselves in don’t just happen, Andrea. We create them. Just like we create our lives. I didn’t just wake up to this life with all you kids and call it circumstance. I manufactured this family of ours.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “I don’t like your tone!”

  “What? No tone! I just meant—”

  “You know, after I got the call from the school today, for the first time ever, I toyed with the idea of bringing in a mother’s helper. I did. And I’ll tell you something, it pains me that I feel I can’t count on you. It really does.”

  I decide to change the subject. “Has Michaela spoken yet?”

  “Maybe if I’d been able to work with her a bit. But the twins were wild today. And it’s quite possible one of them swallowed Play-Doh.”

  Kaia and Kaylee toddle up behind her, all sweaty white hair and fat pink cheeks and brown eyes the size of CDs, both cute as anything, but Kaylee is whining. She tugs on Mom’s pant leg. “Up?”

  Mom continues. “If trouble is not what you want at school—or at home—then do something about your behavior. If you ask me, it is twice as hard to get in trouble at school as it is to just put your head down and get to work.”

  “You don’t understand. The first time it was Joules and the second time it was Will.”

  “Up?”

  “Andrea. Worse than getting yourself in trouble is pointing your finger at someone else.”

  “Up. Up?”

  “I am not pointing my finger at anyone …” I pause to consider this. “Okay, maybe I am, but I’m not kidding when I say …”

  Kaylee tugs harder on Mom’s pant leg, then bends over to throw up blue Play-Doh on the rug by the front door. Right away she starts to wail. Now Mom picks her up. “Well, I guess we know which one of you ate the modeling clay, don’t we? What’s the matter, sweetness? Your tummy hurt?” Kaylee nods and tucks her delicious chin—as small and red as a strawberry—into Mom’s neck.

  Mom looks at me. “See what I mean? I don’t blame Kaylee for vomiting on the rug. I blame myself for turning away while she was playing with the Play-Doh. I manufactured this mess. Do you see the difference?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.” She blows her bangs off her forehead. “So what do you say? Want to clean up Kaylee or the rug?”

  About three hundred and thirty days. Seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty hours. Four hundred and seventy-five thousand, two hundred seconds. That’s when I’ll be in my cozy, Play-Doh–free dorm room at Stanford.

  “Andrea? Kaylee or the rug?”

  I toss my backpack and hold out my arms. “Kaylee.”

  But when Mom tries to hand her over to me, Kaylee turns away and clings more tightly to Mom, wailing even louder. Mom pats her head. “Okay, okay, nothing to cry about. You can stay with Lise.”

  Now Kaylee’s bright little eyes look toward me. I tug on her chubby foot. “Does that mean I have to clean up the yuck? Huh, Kaylee? Are you making me clean up the yuck?”

  Kaylee smiles and starts to kick, nod her head yes.

  “Gross!” I say, feigning disgust. “I have to touch that blue stuff?”

  Kaylee squeals, “Yes! Drea do it!”

  I tickle her exposed belly now. “You want Drea to do something so yucky? You’re a little bum-bum, that’s what you are.”

  Kaylee tries to tickle me back, but in leaning forward, she’s sick again; this time liquid Play-Doh spurts all over my shirt. Her face burns red and she cries as Mom rushes her down the hall to the bathroom before it happens again. “Don’t forget to soak the mat in vinegar after you clean it up, Andrea,” Mom calls back to me. “That way it won’t smell.”

  Puke clean-up. That, apparently, is the life I’ve manufactured. Along with not being born Joules Adams.

  Mom’s voice. “And make sure Kaia doesn’t get into it!”

  Too late. Kaia has seated herself cross-legged in front of the pile of slop and has already driven a car through it. On the floor now, I pull off my already ruined shirt, take the car from her, and, sitting in the hallway in my bra, I clean the toy with my top. “Uh-oh. We got Hot Wheels in the vomit.”

  Kaia pokes at my abdomen and laughs. “Drea belly buttin.”

  “You’re a belly buttin, Kai-Kai.”

  She chortles in delight as I head into the kitchen for rags and water. “No. Drea belly buttin!”

  Just then Brayden thunders in with two of his friends. They take one look at me returning with a bucket in my white sports bra—fraying at the edges and rendered dingy gray from an unfortunate incident involving hot water and a black sock—and nearly fall over shouting and laughing as I hide behind the bucket. Brayden squeals, “Ugh, the horror. You’ve burned out my eyes!”

  I threaten to swat him with a sopping rag and he stumbles toward the back room with Tomas and Ace in tow, all bumping into each other and the walls as if blinded.

  “Morons,” I mutter.

  Kaia stands up and waddles after them. She claps her fingers on and off her eyes as she goes. “Owowow, burned a eyes too!”

  With a great sigh, I plunge the rag into the bucket and think about cleaning up the rug. I try not to think about destiny, what’s on my shirt, what Brayden will say about my raggedy bra tomorrow at school and, most of all, where Joules Adams’s lips are right this very moment.

  Later that night, once the twins are tucked in and Mom is giving Michaela a bubble bath, I lie on my bed and consider what, exactly, is lacking in my mother. I get that she wants to give back to foster kids, but why so many? Why so extreme? And was having one natural child part of her grand scheme—so this fortunate person could grow up and eventually fill the role of unhired and unpaid help? My mother should consider herself lucky I was a girl. Imagine if Brayden had been her natural child. He’d have been no help whatsoever. She’d never have been able to take in so many kids. She’d have had to fulfill her dream with beings less demanding than human children. Guinea pigs, maybe. Or Sea Monkeys.

  There’s a knock on my door. At least someone in this house still honors rules. I tell whoever it is to come on in. It’s Cici and Sam, dressed in runners, shorts, baggy T-shirts and sneakers.

  “She’s making me jog,” Cici whines, pointing her thumb at Sam. “Wanna come make fun of her?”

  Sam slaps her thighs. “I want to have a tighter butt by next spring. This jiggle is unacceptable. I look like J. Lo.”

  Cici starts laughing. “J. Lo would die of insult.”

  “You’re not fat or jiggly, Sam,” I say.

  “I am. It’s okay, I can take it.” She tugs at her shorts and sucks in her belly. “But by April, watch out!”

  “Maybe if you ate one less bag of Doritos each day, I wouldn’t have to go through the torture of running.” Cici looks at me. “Please come, Andrea. It’ll be so terrible.”

&n
bsp; I grin. “As tempting as that sounds, I’m pretty sure Mom would interpret the horribleness as fun and insist I return to jail.”

  They leave.

  Once they’re gone, I figure it can’t hurt to earn a few brownie points with Mom. I cross over to Michaela’s side of the room and straighten her pillow and covers. I set the stuffed dog under the sheets as if he’s waiting for her. Then I take her pajamas into the bathroom and ask Mom if she’d like any help.

  Mom looks tired. She’s on her knees, bent over the tub, where Michaela sits staring at the wall while her neck gets washed. The girl doesn’t acknowledge me as I enter, nor does she acknowledge that anyone is scrubbing her neck. It’s as if she’s blind and deaf. Mute, too. She reminds me of Helen Keller, closed. In her own private world, not allowing anyone else in.

  Not that I blame her.

  “Did the flowered pants lady say if Michaela was always like this? Quiet, I mean,” I ask.

  Mom looks up. “Who’s the flowered pants lady?”

  “You know, the one from Child Services.”

  “Huh. I never noticed her pants.”

  “They’re kinda hard to miss.”

  “Anyway, no one at CS knows anything about her life before … you know.”

  “How are her parents?”

  Mom shakes her head as if to say “Not in front of Michaela.”

  I hold out Michaela’s folded pajamas, hoping to soften Mom’s edge. “Do you want me to dress her?”

  “I think we should disrupt her routine as little as possible. Just leave the pajamas on the counter and I’ll get her ready.”

  I do as she says but stay in the room to help with brushing her teeth—I’m in charge of the young ones’ teeth. Always have been, always will be.

  Mom gets Michaela to stand up, then wraps her toothpick body in a towel. As she pats the child down, she turns to face me. “Is there something else?”

  “What? No, I was just waiting to do her teeth …”

  Michaela starts to drop back into the water, threatening to soak the end of the towel. Mom grabs for the end and scoops Michaela back to standing, sloshing water all over the floor. I drop down with another towel to sop up the mess but Mom shoos me away. “All right. This bathroom is too small for three of us. Please go get Michaela’s bed ready for her.”

  “I did,” I mumble as I leave the room. “I did get her bed ready.”

  The phone rings from the hall table. I rush to pick it up before the ringing wakes the twins. “Hello?”

  “Andrea?” It’s a male voice. Dare I hope? “It’s Will.”

  I press the phone against my chest and try to breathe. Will. Calling me again. It’s weird how different his voice sounds—if anything he seems closer than if we were standing side by side. The intimacy of it makes it hard to breathe. I untangle the long cord and race with the phone to my room so as to have a bit of privacy before Mom brings Michaela in to tuck her under the covers. Quietly, I shut my door and dive onto the bed. “Hey. Hi.”

  “Hey. I hear you got into trouble today. Feels like my fault.”

  “No. I mean, yes, I did get into trouble, but I don’t blame you. Not at all. I mean, yes, it was because of you I went into the room, but how could you know what I would do? You were just minding your own business like I should have done. I should have ignored the sound of the guitar and continued on my way to Spanish instead of spying on people on the second floor. Not that I was spying. It’s just that I’d seen Mr. Buchanan a few minutes before, back in the—”

  “Andrea?”

  Of course. I’m babbling. Stupid me. “Yes?”

  “Remember I said I wanted to ask you something?”

  “Yes. But Joules came in and then, well. Then things kind of got uncomfortable. Not for you, obviously. For me.” I lie back against the pillow and touch the spot where I’d like his head to be. Close enough that our hair gets tangled.

  He pauses. “Yes. I was just going to ask if, yesterday, when you were in the car and all that …”

  He’s silent. I squish the pillow to make a groove for his head. “Yes? When I was in the car?”

  More silence.

  “Will? Will?”

  The phone’s gone dead. And the timing could not be worse. He was right there, about to say something really important. Important enough to call me about. Twice. Just as I’m climbing off my bed to try another phone, Mom walks in with the other end of the phone cord in her hand.

  “Why is the phone in here?”

  “You unplugged it?” I squeak in horror.

  “I tripped over the cord, then came looking for it.”

  “Please can we plug it back in? Will was in mid-sentence. He’ll think I hung up on him.”

  She narrows her eyes and ushers the pajama-ed Michaela onto the cot. “Isn’t that the boy you mentioned earlier? Will?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s the one you’re acting up for?”

  “No! He has nothing to do with any of this. Please let me call him back. He’ll hate me for hanging up.”

  “I need to make a phone call. You’ll see him at school tomorrow. But, seriously, you should think long and hard about this boy. I’m not sure he’s a great influence on you.”

  “Mom, please. I need to just call him real quick. Then I’ll think long and hard while you make your phone call.”

  “Sorry. I have to make my call before eight. It’s to Child Services, so I’ll be a while.”

  “But Mom …”

  Michaela clutches her dog and starts to whimper again. Mom sits down beside her and pets her forehead. “Andrea, please. You’ll see him at school tomorrow.”

  She turns off the lamp beside the cot and, as impossible at it seems, Michaela’s breathing slows to a steady rhythm. One thing is certain, she falls asleep fast and hard. Mom motions for me to turn on my bedside lamp, which I do, then she flicks off the overhead light and comes to sit on the foot of my bed, I’m sure, to have a mother–daughter talk. To tell me she understands how crazy life in high school can get and knows what it’s like to love a boy. Maybe even to reconsider the phone call with Will.

  “Mom, please let me explain about Will. It’s not what you think …”

  “I can’t take in any more today, Andrea. I have a headache; I’m exhausted. All the little ones are in bed and I’m done with anyone under the age of twenty.”

  She tosses something onto my lap—the bedazzled rubber gloves from Gran—then stands up and yawns. “Clean up the kitchen before you turn in, will you, please, honey? And make sure to scrub the spaghetti pot with an SOS pad. The sauce burned the bottom and it’s all caked on.” She closes the door behind her.

  On the floor, where Mom’s feet just were, is a balled-up Kleenex she probably used to wipe someone’s runny nose. As I stare at the crumpled tissue, I swear to God, I start to hate that little wad, the way it’s tilted up to look at me. Its crevices resemble a horrible face with slitty eyes—and it appears to be mocking me.

  I slip my hands into the gloves and pick up the snotty tissue. Then I take it over to the trash can and rip it up into tiny snotty little pieces. When there’s nothing left that is large enough to rip, I drop it into the garbage and push it down with my foot.

  I pace around the room like a caged I-don’t-know-what. Animal. I’d say leopard but I’m probably more like one of those monkeys who lopes along sideways as if one of his legs is turned the wrong way. Doesn’t matter. The point is, I can’t take my life any more.

  Standing in the glow from my lamp, I stare down at the gloves. This is it, then? This is what I was meant for? To be someone’s slave girl, to be ordinary, to never have my needs met? Furious at my mother, I watch the way the jewels flash and spark in the light.

  Then something strange happens. And it could very well be my anger shooting out through my hands, or the ugly color of my destiny winking at me, but for a second, a half-second even, all the gemstones flash green. And then it ends. Back to plain old, plain old.

  Ki
nd of like me.

  I can’t do dishes right now. I can’t. I’d throw the plates on the floor and roll around on them just to feel the china pierce my skin. I feel like I’m trapped—I can’t even play music in my own room. I stare at my Stanford letter for a minute, but not even Mortimer Wolf can cheer me up right now.

  I have to leave. Go. I have to be anywhere but here. I yank open my window and tear a few leaves off the rosebush growing over the sill. Even through the gloves, a thorn pricks me. Then, with a quick glance to make sure Michaela is still asleep, I climb outside, drop quietly onto the grass and start to run.

  I don’t know how long. I don’t know how hard. I don’t even know where I am. Past my school, I know that much. Past Laura Belanger’s house near the old theater. Past the little store where my Mom once bought white Birkenstocks, which kills me a bit. I mean, who buys white Birkenstocks? Mom just isn’t into making a personal statement with her outer self. If anything, the appalling state of her clothing and sandals and her unpolished toenails is her statement. As if she’s saying, “Here I am. I dare you to judge me.” The trouble is, jerks like the sales guy that day do judge her. I could tell from the way he packed the white sandals in the box and smiled—more to himself than to her—and said, “Well. You know what works best for you.”

  Jerk.

  At some point it begins to rain. Hard. My skin is wet beneath my shirt and water trickles into the gloves to pool at my fingertips in a way I can only describe as disgusting. The train underpass looms ahead in the darkness and I start to run for cover beneath the bridge, but my waterlogged shoes make for a slippery climb up the embankment. I stumble a few times, scraping my knees, before setting myself in the dirt and listening to the drum of rain on the steel girders overhead, and the sound of the odd car tearing through puddles down below.

  It makes no sense, this life. I mean, who decides which kid gets sent into which family, which house, which body? Who did I wrong to wind up assistant caregiver to so many needy kids? And what about Joules? Was there a lineup for her position in life?