Finding Perfect

by Elly Swartz

  “Tell me about the worry.”

  I search for ridicule in his words, but there is none. He just listens to me. Really.

  “I worry about my brother, Ian. If I don’t do all the stupid stuff I need to do to make me feel okay, bad things will happen to him.” I scratch my scab and it opens again. Blood starts to trickle down my leg. 224, 228.

  “What kind of bad things?”

  “Like he’s going to die in his sleep or from Triple E or get hit by our neighbor driving to work.” 232, 236.

  He says nothing.

  I look up at him. I have to know. “Do you think I’m crazy?” My voice trembles with the possibility that I am.

  46

  weird for a reason

  MY DAD ENTERS DR. Andrews’s office, worry etched into the wrinkles on his forehead.

  A burning sensation churns in my stomach.

  “I believe your daughter has what her grandmother likely had: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.”

  240, 244, 248, 252.

  He says more, but all I can think about is Parker Ray and Maria F.

  When we get home, I run straight to my room. I close my eyes tightly and wish hard for a different me. A me that doesn’t care about perfection or counting or the number four. I try to remember a me before this me came along. I can see her, barely. The counting resets. 4, 8, 12, 16. I guess if I made my OCD list now, I’d have more yeses. Maybe it was always that way, but I just didn’t see it.

  My phone rings. It’s Mom.

  The minute I hear her voice, the tears roll with purpose. “Hey, Mol.”

  “Hi.”

  “It’s going to be all right.” The sound of her voice makes me almost believe her.

  I nod, but say nothing, forgetting she can’t see me.

  “I love you, Mol. I’m coming back.” I should be happy. This is what I wanted. But now, I’m just numb. I hang up the phone and look around my room. My snowy white dresser is bare for the first time since Papa Lou handed me Huey in the Rockville Diner. The kaleidoscope of smashed glass on my floor is completely gone.

  “Hey, how’d we do?” It’s numbers one and three—Kate and Ian.

  “Good. Thanks.” I’m touched they tried to clean up my mess. 20, 24.

  “Dad said Mom’s coming home,” Kate says.

  “I know.”

  “So, maybe you’re weird for a reason. She should be here. She should have never left.” Kate and I share a silent understanding.

  “You know you smell like her,” she says.

  I hug my sister as I count in my head. 28, 32, 36, 40.

  Ian’s standing at my desk in his Spider-Man costume.

  “Hey, Buddy, I’m sorry that I yelled at you,” I say. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he says, then sticks out his hand and gives me Beethoven the Zebra. “Kate helped me glue it back together.”

  47

  welcome home

  THE NEXT DAY, MOM’S in the kitchen when I come into the house after a walk with Oscar. She’s wearing our brown birthday boots. Her black hair is still short. I run my hands through my twenty-six inches.

  “You lied,” I say to the back of her cranberry sweater. This isn’t how I imagined our reunion. I envisioned hugs and tears and I-love-yous. But instead, these words spill out onto the tile floor.

  She spins around and steps closer with the hug I’ve desperately wanted.

  I move back. The numbers spit. 20, 24, 28, 32. “You said you weren’t leaving me, but going to something. That was a lie.”

  She sets her glass of water on the whipped-crème white Formica table. “It wasn’t. I meant it. I went to Toronto for work. I didn’t leave you.”

  36, 40, 44, 48. “But you did. You left me and Kate and Ian. And Dad.”

  She looks away. She can’t deny the last one. They’d been separated for six months before her escape to Toronto.

  I stare at her newly painted nails. Blue like Hannah’s bangs. She never used to wear nail polish.

  She steps in. 52, 56, 60, 64. I step back.

  “I’m sorry, Mol. I am.”

  My reminder ring goes off. Mom smiles.

  “I didn’t handle things well, but I’m back now.”

  I fight the tears that won’t be ignored and leave her standing alone in the kitchen.

  In my room, I find what I’m looking for and am about to head downstairs when I hear the kitchen door open and slam close.

  Then Mom’s boots walking toward the door.

  Then Kate’s voice. “Don’t.”

  “I’m so happy to see you. I’ve missed you.”

  “Mom, don’t,” Kate warns.

  “You look great.”

  “Seriously, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t act like you’re my mom.”

  “But I am.”

  “You lost the right to parent me when you got on that plane to Toronto.”

  “Kate, that’s not fair. I didn’t abandon you. Dad was here.”

  “But you weren’t. You weren’t here when Kevin broke up with me. You weren’t here when Ian cried himself to sleep every night. You weren’t here when Molly came apart onstage in front of the entire school.”

  My body tightens at the mention of me and my unraveling. 68, 72.

  “So, yeah, you lost the right to try and parent me now,” Kate says.

  I can hear her crying and want Mom to say it’s all going to be okay.

  But she doesn’t.

  When I get back to the kitchen, I see Ian hugging Mom, and Kate standing on the other side of the room with a box of tissues.

  I walk over to Mom and hand her the beaded necklaces. Then I stand by Kate.

  Mom’s face confirms what Kate told me.

  She left them. She left us. She left me. 76, 80.

  Mom drapes the necklaces around her neck. “Thank you,” she says. “I’ve missed these. I’ve missed all of you. I know there’s no way to explain this to you three, but when I left, I needed to go. But now, the only place I need to be is here with you.”

  48

  twizzler test

  IT’S BEEN FOUR MONTHS and three days since that day onstage.

  I grab a magazine, pretend to read about some kid who solved the Rubik’s Cube in a little over five seconds, and focus on not counting. I notice Dad staring at the shiny plaque on the wall that reads, Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.—Anonymous. Dr. Gretchen Gordon’s office has stuff like that all around. In the bathroom it says, I’m a person who also happens to have OCD.—Patricia Perkins-Doyle. Dr. G. is the best referral I ever got from Dr. Andrews, even though her large rhinestone owl earrings took some getting used to.

  The door to the office opens. Short spiky red hair walks in. It’s Parker Ray. Turns out he lives just two towns over from me. We met last week in the waiting room and had a long talk about the number eleven. Still hard to believe that number makes anyone feel better. I wave.

  “Hi,” he says, sitting next to me.

  “Hey.”

  Dad tries hard to act like he’s not listening.

  Parker tears open a bag of M&M’s and pulls out the green ones. “There’s this group of kids like us that meets Thursdays at the YMCA. Want to come?”

  Before I can answer, a twenty-something in pastel pink calls, “Molly Nathans.”

  “I’ll, um, let you know.”

  A group of kids like us. It’s hard to imagine being in a room full of people who might like the number eleven. Parker Ray is the only one I’ve ever met. He has a beagle named Max, and last week we walked Max and Oscar around the block. Three times. Part of Dr. G.’s master plan.

  I follow the nurse into Dr. G.’s office. The first time I was here, I confessed all of my weird stuff. Dr. G. didn’t even flinch. She said that she’s seen lots of kids do tons of weird stuff because they “have” to.

  “My patients kiss windows, lick shoes, eat paper, tap the light switch, read backward, and whistle four
short times followed by one long one. Molly, you’re not odd or crazy, you’re just in need of some help,” she had told me.

  All I could think of was why anyone would want to lick a shoe.

  “OCD is the doubting disease.” Then she looked into that place inside me that most people don’t see and said, “It’s okay to be scared, but you don’t have to be the victim of your brain. I’m going to give you what you need to fight the doubt and win. It’ll be hard at first, but eventually it’ll get easier.” Then she handed me Twizzlers.

  When I walk into her office today, the Twizzlers are on the table. There are ten. It’s a test: I need to eat three. She talks to me while I grab the first one. “How did it go this past week at home?”

  “I did okay yesterday and today. The first few days of the week were more like a C minus.”

  She shares a gentle smile. “Bright side, Molly. Remember, focus on the good stuff.”

  My homework last week—no counting. A month ago, I wasn’t allowed to count by fours in class. Now I’m not supposed to count at all. This has been really hard. Really hard. She hands me another Twizzler.

  “What about the glass animals?” She warned me this may be a tough one to break. I needed to ask Ian to play with them and then I could clean them up, but no ruler. After my freak-out-smash-and-trash, I only have fourteen left. Last week, I confessed that while I let Ian go all ninja on my glass figurines, I did use my ruler at the end. Just once.

  “I’d say I’m a solid B, maybe even a B plus. I let Ian play with them and I even left the room.” She slid the third Twizzler toward me. If I eat this one, there will be seven left.

  “Where did you go?”

  “My mom had stopped by.”

  Her eyebrow arch screams, Well, isn’t this interesting? “How was that?”

  “Fine.” She stares at me an extra-long second. “I guess I’m more happy that she’s back than mad that she left. Kate’s still super mad. And Ian’s just happy Mom can take him to school again.” I pause, then add, “She was still wearing the beaded necklaces even though they completely clashed with her shirt, and she wanted me to try her new juice.”

  “Any good?”

  “Better than the liquid salad, but worse than a milkshake.” Mom has kept her word and hasn’t gone back to Toronto. She decided to start her own juice company, Mama’s Juice, right here in Lantern. She said she wants to be around more.

  “Have you visited her at her new apartment?” That was another part of my homework. I needed to spend time at Mom’s new place. It’s just two miles away from my real home, but Dr. G. knows that perfect doesn’t travel well.

  I nod and stare at the last Twizzler. “Last week, I went with Ian. We helped my mom blend the spinach, kale, leeks, and celery combination she’s named Winter Rejuvenation. Then we left.”

  Before Dr. G. could quiz me about what I did and didn’t do while I was there, I blurt out the latest romance news. “Mom and Dad went on a date.” I know she loves this kind of stuff. People magazine and Us Weekly are all over her office.

  High eyebrow arch this time.

  “Last week, they went to The Flying Fish and came home past midnight. Kate and I waited up. We saw them laughing.” That was date number two.

  Dr. G. gives me a polite smile.

  “I know it doesn’t mean anything. Kate already warned me. Anyway, I don’t even know what I want to happen. For now, things are a step above fine.”

  “A step above fine sounds pretty good.” A real smile. “We got off track. So what did the figurines look like when you returned to your room?”

  “No big deal.”

  We both laugh.

  “I cleaned them up. No ruler. No line. Just off the floor and onto my dresser.” I eat the third Twizzler.

  “I’m really proud of you.”

  “All this stuff makes me want to take a nap.”

  “I know, but it’s working.”

  We talk about Ian and Kate and more about Mom and Dad. Then I ask her about what Parker Ray said. Dr. G. tells me there’s a support group of kids with OCD and she thinks I should give it a try.

  “Is it homework?”

  She laughs. “No. It’s a choice.”

  When our hour is almost over, she gives me my to-dos for next week. “I want you to mess up the collection yourself.” She trails on with more directions, but I’m stuck on “mess up.”

  There is only one person who can help me with this assignment.

  49

  meet max

  DAD HANDS ME SOME papers to proofread. That’s my job today. He hates grammar and spelling. A few weeks ago, we decided to write an article together on children and OCD. In addition to all things grammar, I was in charge of the interviews. I interviewed Dr. G., Mom, Dad, Kate, Ian, and Parker Ray.

  I am six hundred words in when Bridgett shows up. She hands me a very large black binder that says Promising Obituaries across the front. “I wrote these, and since you’re all into this editing stuff, I thought you could edit this.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s my book. I’m going to self-publish, but first I want to be sure everything’s spelled correctly and there are no major mistakes. A grammar mistake in an obit would be totally embarrassing.”

  “When did you do all of this?” The book is at least three inches thick.

  “I don’t know. Over time. That’s not the point. Will you edit it for me?”

  “Sure, as soon as I’m done revising the article with my dad.”

  “Thanks. I’ll leave it here with you. I’ve got another binder I can use while you work on this one. Oh, and if you ever need to write my obit, you should use these as a guide, especially Ms. Pinkman’s on page seventy-six. It makes me cry every time I read it.”

  “B, we really need to find you another hobby.”

  I close the door behind her and hug the big book of obits. I feel like I’m getting back to being me. It’s hard, but it’s definitely getting easier to fight the worry.

  * * *

  MY JOURNAL STAYS IN the car when Dad drops me off in front of Hannah’s house. Before I get to the door my phone buzzes. It’s a text from Ryan with a link to the video of Sebastian’s winning slam poem called “The Sea.” It already has 1,000 hits online. I smile. My next slam poem is already written. But for now, it’s just for me.

  The truck beeps loudly as it backs into the driveway. It’s moving day. Hannah’s dad got a job at The Big Red Tomato, a new Italian restaurant in Seattle. Hannah comes running out. We hug and I try not to count or cry.

  We go upstairs into Hannah’s room and tuck ourselves safely on the floor of her closet, thankfully hidden from the chaos. Our hands clasp. My silent tears roll down my cheeks.

  “Did you bring the stuff?” she asks. Her voice cracks.

  “Yes, but first, I have a present for you.” I slowly take the plastic bag out of my backpack, thankful it still has water in it. “Meet Max.”

  The bright blue Siamese fighting fish swims in circles at the sound of his name. Or my voice. Or maybe that’s just what Siamese fighting fish do.

  “Oh, Molly. He’s beautiful.” She slips Max into Fred’s old bowl.

  “Now, to the other stuff.”

  “Wait. I have a present, too.” Hannah hands me a check.

  I don’t understand what this is.

  “I came in second in the business contest.”

  “Hannah, that’s amazing.”

  “Since my dad got a job, I decided to do something else with my winnings.”

  I look at the check in my hand. It’s made out to the OCD Foundation.

  We hug tight. Hannah and me are Hannah and me again.

  “And because I can’t leave with a guilty conscience, I told Mrs. Melvin I used her money for the contest entrance fee.”

  “What happened?”

  “She said she meant to give me the fifty all along.”

  I decided not to remind her that I did suggest just asking Mrs. Melvin first.

/>   “Now, what did you bring?” she asks.

  “I brought our third-grade class photo where we’re holding hands dressed as sunflowers, the medals I won at Color Day for coming in first place in my first race, my peach lip gloss, a box of sixty-four-count crayons, my Bazooka Joe fortune, my glass piglet, the photograph of us with our braces and frizzy hair at the fifth-grade summer picnic,” I say.

  “You’ve never had frizzy hair.”

  “Okay, maybe that was just you.” I smile.

  “Anything else?”

  “The gimp keychain you made me at camp, and four Thin Mints.”

  “We’re going to put the Thin Mints in?”

  “No, we’re going to eat them.” I hand her two and eat the other two.

  “What did you find?” I ask.

  “My first-ever business plan for Lemonade on Laurel Lane and the drawing you made for me when Goldilocks died.”

  “You were so sad about that fish. You cried for three days straight. I was so thankful when you got Fred.”

  “I also put in the anklets we got at the carnival after we rode the upside-down roller coaster,” she says.

  “And you threw up all over the sidewalk.”

  “Yes, there was that. Thanks for reminding me. Anyway, I put in Eloise, the book we read every night you slept over, two red-and-white-striped circle mints from the last time we ate at Mandarin Gourmet, and two braided Color Me Bracelets. A blue-red-and-yellow one for each of us.”

  “I think we should include a note.” I grab a piece of paper from her Hannah Levine pad. One of the few things that isn’t packed yet. “This way when we dig it up in ten or twenty years, there will be a letter from the now, younger us to the later, older us.”

  We work on the letter for a while. I can hear Hannah’s dad calling to the movers to be careful of their heads hitting the low ceilings and warning them of the fragility of his antique gnome collection.

  February 1, 2014

  Dear older Molly and Hannah,

  Hi. You’re reading this because you dug up our time capsule. We hope you are both great and together. So funny to think you may be married, with kids even. We are twelve. Our plan: We’re going to visit every summer, room together in college, and then rule the world. Kidding about the ruling-the-world part. We’re hopeful that by the time you read this, Molly will be a famous slam poet (and not counting or organizing anymore) and Hannah will be the owner of a very cool business.