Switch

by Tish Cohen

  It’s the kind of thing that depresses me to pieces.

  I hear voices outside the office and slow down. As I get closer—close enough to hear what they’re saying—I realize Mom is here. The second bell rings but I ignore it, instead heading down the steps to where I can sit on a bench as Joules and pretend to fuss with my shoe.

  “ … but they’re changes only you can make, Brayden Jacob,” Mom says. I look over to see Kaylee and Kaia in the double stroller. Michaela stands behind Mom’s legs, still clutching the taffy-colored dog. I notice she’s dressed in her sandals and a long T-shirt of Cici’s, cinched with a belt. Brayden leans against a railing and stares at his shoes. “Breaking lifelong patterns takes deliberate and determined choices. And I can’t make them for you.”

  Bray mumbles something I can’t hear.

  “Those friends of yours are good people, but they’re choosing a destructive path. What you have to remember is they are making that choice for themselves. You can choose something else entirely.”

  Those losers he hangs out with. They must have gotten into trouble again. I’ve told Mom to make him dump them but you heard her. It’s all about choices.

  Two policemen come out of the office and I see now that the glass door has been boarded over with plywood. Someone has broken into the office, and from the way the cops are looking at Brayden, it’s pretty clear they think he was involved.

  Here’s the thing about Bray. He’s one of these kids who gets too big a kick out of things. He gets bored easily, and if one of his moron friends suggests something illegal, if it’s just the slightest bit funny or if Bray has had a dull day, he’ll go along with it. He’s not a bad kid but he’s naive. Always figures, “Ah, we won’t get caught.” And Mom, she loves him so much and is all about him making better choices. But Bray’s too immature for that, he’s too easily swayed by the promise of a fun night. Maybe one day he’ll make smarter choices, but right now he can’t. Or won’t.

  Mom needs to police this kid. He needs to be forbidden to hang with those guys. She sees the decency in everyone, but those guys aren’t decent. I try to tell her, but that’s Mom. She knows best and, in her eyes, even the most gruesome murderer could change if he’d only remember he is not his past and he has the control to make better choices. Even Charles Manson.

  I’ve tried to talk to Bray. I’ve pointed out what sort of futures these other guys are setting up for themselves and how he is different. He could have it good. But he winds up calling me Mandrea and I end up pounding him, and then he doesn’t take me seriously.

  I watch as the principal tells Brayden to head to class. Mom talks to Mr. McCluskey for a bit—the police do too—and then everyone starts to look around as if the conversation is done and they need an excuse to leave. The cops go first, after leaning over and giving the Ks a little poke that makes them giggle and kick their fat, sandaled feet—it’s nearly impossible not to give the Ks a little poke that makes them giggle and kick their fat, sandaled feet. The principal says goodbye with a half-salute that Mom probably enjoys—he doesn’t even look at the twins before he goes, probably because he sees enough kids over the course of a day and can’t stand the sight of a couple of possible terrors in the making.

  Finally it’s just Mom and the girls. But she doesn’t leave right away. In the morning breeze, she pulls a sheet of paper out of the diaper bag, reads it over, then tacks it to the bulletin board beside the office door. Then she reaches into the diaper bag again and gives Kaylee and Kaia each a small plastic container full of Cheerios, which makes their feet even happier than the cops made them.

  Mom smiles and it’s all I can do to stop myself from running over there, wrapping my Joules arms around her and begging her to believe I am still her daughter. To just accept that sometimes freaky stuff happens and let me come home. I’m not kidding, it hits me so hard in the gut I could throw up.

  She slides the sunglasses down from the top of her head onto her nose and, holding Michaela’s hand, wheels the babies toward the steps up to the quad, which she will have to cross in order to walk them home. But there are, like, eight steps. She can’t possibly get a double stroller up them alone.

  I drop my bag and run over to her, grinning like an idiot. I’ll help her. I’ll lift the front end while she lifts the back and I’ll get a few seconds of her to keep me going for the rest of the day. As I approach, I say, “Hi, Mrs. Birch. Can I help you up the stairs?”

  She narrows her eyes at me, obviously recognizing me from the other morning in my bedroom with Joules, and takes a step backward as if she’s thinking about bolting. Then Mom motions toward the stucco wall, behind which is a ramp I didn’t know existed. “Thank you. But I’m okay with the ramp.”

  Idiotic of me. Of course there’s a ramp. How else could a wheelchair or a dolly get down to the office? I can feel my cheeks burn. “Oh, right! I forgot about that.”

  Mom stares at me through her dark glasses, the wind fluttering her bangs. She’s wearing the thin silver necklace I got her for her birthday a few years ago. It’s too thin, I know, for an adult to wear, but it was cheap and pretty and I thought it would match her hair. Anyway, she wears it all the time. If she ever thought it was stupidly thin, she never mentioned it.

  “Your babies are adorable,” I say, leaning over to squeeze Kaia’s sandal. “You’re a little cutie, aren’t you?”

  Kaia laughs, kicks at me playfully and says, “Again! Again!”

  Kaylee sets her Cheerios on her lap and holds up her chubby arms. “Up!”

  How I would love to pick her up.

  Mom laughs and pulls the stroller away, with some struggle, and points it toward the ramp. “Thanks for your offer. You have a nice afternoon now.” Without another word, she wheels the girls away.

  Out on the street, a car honks. Traffic roars past. I stand there, staring at them until the principal comes out of the office again, walks past me and mutters, “Second bell has rung, Miss Adams. Get into the office and get yourself a late slip.”

  I wander back to where I dropped Joules’s bag.

  Before I head into the office, I stop at the bulletin board to see what Mom posted. It’s one of those flyers where the bottom is cut into phone number tabs you can pull off and take with you. What it says thumps me in the stomach: “Mother’s Helper Wanted.”

  Which means two very rotten things. Joules is being no help with the kids. And Andrea Birch is being replaced.

  I rip off a tab and slip it into my pocket.

  chapter 15

  Our house on Highcliffe Court doesn’t sit square on the lot. I mean, this entire neighborhood was built on a hillside with one main road winding to the top, and shooting off to both sides are stubby cul-de-sacs where each house is placed according to the slope. Our house is on a pie-shaped lot with the hill rising straight up in the back, so the house is turned away from the street a bit. Which sometimes makes people confused. Often they come to our side door thinking it’s the front. It drives Mom nuts because the den is right there, so she might be inside folding laundry and all of a sudden the door beside her starts banging.

  Today it works well for me. Fully aware that Mom is a bit suspicious of Joules, I decide that getting Dad onside first might increase my chances of getting hired as the Mother’s Helper. Besides that, I miss him. I want to see him.

  It’s just after six o’clock, Thursday night. With any luck, Dad will be taking command of the weather in the den while Mom is in the front of the house fussing with dinner.

  I knock on the side door and almost instantly it flies open. Dad stands there, all red-headed and buzz cut, his droopy face all friendly and his feet all slippered. Behind him I can hear the music from The Weather Show. It’s the song they play every ten minutes when they show the local weather in stages of what’s happening right now, what’ll be happening the rest of the day, then the next three days, the next week and the next two weeks. Usually all you see is a little illustration of the sun. Sometimes Dad gets lucky and there’
s a teensy drawing of a cloud beside the sun. But that’s mostly it.

  He rubs the top of his head with his palm and smiles. “Well there. What can I do ya for?”

  I can’t resist. It’ll make him so happy. “Umm, I was wondering if you have the time. The exact time.”

  You can’t believe how high his eyebrows shoot up. The man is thrilled. He pushes up his sleeve and consults his watch, pushing a few buttons. “I surely do.” After a squint, he announces, “It is six-oh-eight, my dear. Universal Time.”

  “Oh, thanks. I’m actually here about the Mother’s Helper position. Is it filled yet?”

  This makes him even happier. He opens the door wide and motions for me to come in. “It most certainly is not. The boss isn’t home just yet but you can leave a bit of information for her. She’ll be thrilled that you stopped by.”

  I follow him into the den and take a deep breath, trying to drink my life in. If I was hoping to detect a smell, I’m disappointed. It hasn’t been long enough. My life still smells like nothing.

  He pulls out a chair at the folding card table set up by the far wall and he lowers the volume of The Weather Show without turning it off. “I’m Gary Birch. And you are?”

  “Joules Adams.”

  “Good, good.” He sneaks a peek at the TV and frowns, then looks back at me. “So you’re looking for a part-time job, are you, Joules?”

  “Yes. Working with children.”

  He laughs. “Well, you came to the right place for that. You have any experience babysitting? Do you have your certificate?”

  I nod. “Both, yes. I’ve watched kids of all ages.”

  “You live nearby?”

  “Just over on Skyline.”

  He whistles like he’s impressed. “Some gorgeous properties up on that hillside. You have a good view from your place?”

  “Pretty nice. But I think I like your house better.”

  This thrills him right down to the sheepskin slippers. “Well, now, isn’t that interesting. You see straight through to the next town from your place?”

  I shrug. I can see him processing this: the possibilities of seeing straight across to another county to keep track of not only his own pressure system but his neighbors’.

  “Well, I think the big boss is going to like you just fine, Joules. I might even put in a good word for you.” He winks. “We have a daughter about your age. Andrea. You see her around school?”

  “Um …”

  The sound of grocery bags comes from the kitchen. About a second later, Mom’s head pops around the corner. “Who are you talking—?” Her face falls when she sees me. “Oh. Hello.”

  “Honey, we have here our very first applicant for the position of Mother’s Helper. All chock-full of experience and training and what have you. I’m sold on Joules. What do you say? Should we give her a try?”

  Silently, I beg. Silently, I plead. It’s the only way I know—until I figure things out—to get back into this house, at least part-time. I can help with Bray—whose crush on Joules Adams might finally come in handy. He might actually listen to what she has to say about his friends. I can listen to my dad’s slippers padding around the back room. I can see the way the Ks settle right down after their bath because they know Mom is going to sing them “Rock-a-bye, Baby.”

  I can try to figure out if they really do know who I am.

  Mom has to say yes. She has to.

  I throw him a big smile. “I actually love working with kids. I can sterilize bottles, change diapers, wash sheets, watch them at the playground. Anything at all. Help with dinner.”

  Dad winks at Mom like hiring me is in the bag. “Tell me, Miss Joules, what do you charge?”

  “Anything. I don’t even care. You don’t even have to pay me at all. I just love kids.”

  He laughs. “Oh, don’t you worry. If you do the work, you reap the rewards. I think we agreed on seven dollars an hour, didn’t we, hon?”

  Mom smiles politely. “Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to hire a friend of Andrea’s.”

  Dad leans back and looks at me as if I’ve turned into a monkey. “You’re friends with our Andrea?”

  “Well, yes, I—”

  Mom says, “Joules was here yesterday morning, when she and Andrea went to the bridge.” She looks at me, analyzes me.

  I smile. “I know it looked weird. It was this stupid kid thing. We wanted to make a wish come true. Idiotic. It was my idea, not hers. A bad choice. And I’m sorry if I trampled your flowers.”

  Mom seems almost willing to forgive and see me in a different light. Not quite, but almost.

  “We all have to make choices,” I add, hoping to hit her in her soft spot. “And I’m trying to make some good ones for once. Trying to make sure I don’t repeat the poor choices of my past. It’s what life is about, right?”

  It’s worked. I can tell by the way Mom has tilted her body toward me. She leans against the door frame. “And you say you have training?”

  I nod yes at the same time Joules’s cellphone rings loudly from her purse. I ignore it. “I do. And the instructor said I was the best …”

  Dad points toward the phone, which is still ringing. “Go ahead and get that.”

  “No, it’s okay. My instructor said I—”

  Mom said, “You’d better get your phone. It could be important. It could be your parents.”

  With Joules’s phone, it could be anyone—Shane, even. I really don’t want to answer it right here, right now, when I’m on the verge of getting hired back into my life. Then again, if I don’t, Mom will take it that I don’t care about my parents and she’ll think I’m not family oriented. I have no choice. Praying the call is a wrong number, I flip open the phone. “Hello?”

  The connection is so loud I have to hold the phone away from my ear. Nigel’s voice says, “That you, missie?” When I say loud, I mean loud. Mom and Dad can hear him for sure. I wish Dad would up the volume on the TV or someone would have a coughing fit or something. Anything to drown out Nigel.

  “Jujube—you there?”

  “Yes, Nigel. I’m here.”

  “Now what did we say about calling me names that make me sound like a shallow rock star?”

  Mom and Dad look at each other and smile.

  “Dad, I’m kind of busy right now.” Why does Joules have the stupid volume set so high? I scramble to find a way to turn it down.

  “Listen, pumpkin,” Nigel’s voice booms through the back room. It’s as if he’s here with us, shouting as loud as he can. Mom and Dad start fussing with things on the table to make like they’re not listening, but they hear him. Boy, do they hear him. Dad even starts to joke around and cover his ears.

  “Bit of a glitch,” Nigel shouts. “It’s all a matter of red tape and legal garbage, ridiculous really. You’d think these wankers would spend their time arresting actual criminals, but baby, I need to let you know what’s going on. I’m in jail.”

  chapter 16

  I didn’t get the job.

  Mom didn’t come right out and say it but it was pretty clear from the way her mouth crushed itself into the shape of a flattened bicycle tire. If there is anyone, anywhere, Mom doesn’t approve of it’s a parent who “abuses their God-given privilege to care for a child.” And I’m guessing Mom thinks it’s pretty hard to care for a child from the inside of a prison cell.

  One year this teeny tiny newborn baby girl came to us. Lee-Ann, her mother called her, if you could call this woman a mother. I don’t often see them, the parents of the foster kids. It’s usually the lady in the flowered pants who drops off and picks up. But after Lee-Ann came—a long time later, three months or maybe four—I started to see this beat-up old car sitting outside the house. In it was a nervous lady, kind of young, really skinny with scraggly yellow hair and the kind of teeth that push out your lower lip. She wore all this blue glop on her slitty eyes and smoked nonstop.

  I’d see her on my way home from school, not e
very day or anything but often enough. She never made like she was watching our house. When I walked past she got busy lighting another cigarette or examining her nails or digging through her glove compartment. But come on, there are only four houses on our cul-de-sac and only one of them houses the abused offspring of lousy parents. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who she was, what she was up to. She wanted to catch a glimpse of her baby. When I got real close she’d always look up as if she was surprised to see someone and flash me a smile with these scary chipped teeth.

  Lee-Ann was a really well-behaved baby as far as babies go. Slept through the night, never fussed, loved bath time. The weird thing about her was that she never cried. I didn’t even think that was possible for a baby—to never cry, not even once. Even when Mom and I took her to the doctor for shots, the doctor poked her with the needle and nothing. Lee-Ann just looked at him and blinked.

  I thought she was some kind of super-baby, but one time late at night I got up to get a drink of water from the kitchen and overheard Mom and Dad talking in the back room. They were talking about Lee-Ann’s mother and why Lee-Ann never cried. The woman in the car, apparently, used to go out and leave Lee-Ann all alone. Sometimes for hours. So here was this baby who at first probably cried and cried in the hope that her mother would respond, but eventually she just gave up. She learned crying doesn’t get you much in life and stopped bothering. The night the flowered pants lady took her into foster care, the mother had left the house in the evening and not come home until six the next morning. By that time her neighbors had figured out what was happening. The police had broken into the place, given Lee-Ann to the Child Services people and were waiting for the mother at the kitchen table.

  You should have heard Mom go on about that mother. Called her a nasty piece of business who should get sterilized already. Mom said that if she ran the show she’d ensure certain people, once they’d proven themselves to be abusive or neglectful to a child, be sterilized by law.

  Her forgiving attitude toward wayward fosters does not extend to lousy parents.