by Beth Vrabel
“Is that your mom?” Kerica whispered as I sat down.
I nodded.
“She’s pretty.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said.
“She looks like you when you first came here.”
“What do you mean?” Mom and I look nothing alike. Kerica shifted in her seat and opened her book. “What do you mean?” I asked again, a little louder.
She shrugged. “A little . . . I don’t know. Stiff.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then I realized how uptight I sounded, so I stretched out like I was made of liquid. Kerica giggled and I grinned back, finally starting to feel less worried.
I was just about to spill everything that had happened onto Kerica’s lap—the conversation with Eliza, the fight with James, the weird way Mom had been acting. I knew it would be a little awkward. I mean, Kerica and I had just gotten to know each other. Really, I didn’t know anything at all about her yet, other than she reads a lot and she can be really snarky. But it’d be so nice to be able to dump my brain onto someone, the way I used to be able to with Eliza. And I had a feeling she’d give good advice.
“The truth is—”
“Do you two, like, live in here?” Sandi sauntered up to us and let her backpack slide down her arm to fall with a thud by her feet. “I mean, it’s summer. Summer! I come here because I have to, when I should be swimming, shopping, or even sleeping. But you two . . .”
Kerica took three deep, loud breaths through her nose. Then in her snotty only-when-Sandi-is-around voice said, “Why don’t you share with us just why you have to be here, Sandi. I’m sure that’d be interesting.”
Sandi’s tanned face flushed. She sort of twitched a little. “That’s none of your business,” she snapped.
Kerica picked up her book and held it directly in front of her face. I had a feeling she was smiling behind it.
“Alice.” Mom held a bunch of pamphlets in her hands. She shoved them into her big shoulder bag. “Are you ready to head back?” I bent to pick up one of the pamphlets that she had dropped.
The type on the pamphlet was three times the normal size, so I easily read it even though I wasn’t holding it close to my face. “Addison School for the Blind,” I read out loud. “Mom?” I guess it came out a little squeaky and loud because suddenly even the hushed voices in the library snuffed out.
Mom’s gaze shifted between Kerica, who was now peeking over the top of her book, and Sandi, who grabbed the pamphlet out of my hand. “So, you really are blind? Huh,” she semi-snorted.
Mom sighed. “Your dad and I decided the best option for you would be a specialized school, Alice. We’re just looking into which one.”
“What about me?” I asked. “Don’t I get a say?”
“We’ll talk about this at home. Let’s go.” Mom’s voice was strained and tired. She turned to leave.
I grabbed her arm and turned her back around. “But I’ve always gone to public school.”
Mom ran her hands along her pulled-back hair, smoothing a few stray pieces in place. “In Seattle,” Mom snapped, “where we knew everyone. This is going to be different. You’re going to need to learn skills, like how to get around and how to use the vision you have—how to live independently.”
“You can show me these things! I can learn them myself.”
“Home, Alice. Let’s go.” She turned and began walking away, but I stayed rooted next to the hand chair.
“Why can’t you show me?” I shouted at her back.
“Because I don’t know how!” she screamed.
Now I heard chairs shift as people turned to watch us. Mrs. Morris paused in the middle of hanging a poster on the bulletin board. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yes, we’re just leaving,” Mom said in a fake pleasant voice. She turned toward me again and took three quick strides so she was so close I could smell her sour coffee breath. Her eyes squeezed shut and her lips were pressed so hard together they looked white. She hissed, “We’ve made quite enough of a scene here. Let’s go.”
Mrs. Morris hummed a little as she put flyers in stacks around the room and shooed kids around in their seats as Mom and I glared at each other. Any time she got close to someone, she shoved a flyer at them. “Sinkville Success Stories, read all about it. Essay contest for Sinkville children!”
“Flyer?” Mrs. Morris shoved one into Sandi’s hand. “You could go sit down somewhere and read it. Kickstart our tutoring for the day.”
“No, thanks,” Sandi said. “This is more entertaining.”
Mom and I kept right on glaring.
“Sandi,” Mrs. Morris said a little too chipper in the background, “this could count toward your summer work. And there’s a cash prize. Two hundred dollars!”
Sandi snagged the flyer from her hand but didn’t move away from the showdown.
“Flyer?” Mrs. Morris handed one to me, forcing me to lose the glare war. Moms. They’re always on the same side. “You could win a contest!”
I held up the flyer. SINKVILLE SUCCESS STORIES was printed across the top.
“Thanks, Mom,” Kerica said in a high-pitched fake voice as Mrs. Morris shoved a flyer at her, too. “Think I should enter?”
Mom and I resumed glaring.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Morris said in the same odd high pitch. “You could win a certificate!”
Still glaring.
Mrs. Morris cleared her throat and then read the rest of the flyer aloud: “Our town has been incorporated for more than one hundred and twenty-five years, yet all anyone seems to know about it is the M. H. Bartel Paper Mill and the smell that comes from the millwork. Share all the ways Sinkville is more than just its smell and you could win two hundred dollars, a trophy, and town recognition. The award-winning town guide will kick off Mayor Marshall’s campaign to change our town’s reputation!”
Mom and I kept glaring. I was first to crack. Again.
“Maybe,” I hissed, “instead of special schools for me, you should look up special places for you. Places that will teach you how to get around and how to fit in. Because I might be blind, but you’re the one who doesn’t leave the house or get dressed or take care of stuff.”
Mom’s cheeks turned bright red and her eyes filled. I felt a little sorry, but just like I couldn’t stop myself from throwing that taco, I couldn’t hold back from slapping her with more words. “You used to want to help me. Now you don’t even get out of bed, except on days when you want to ruin my life.”
“I’m doing the best I can,” Mom’s whisper voice cracked. “I’m not . . . I’m not well right now.”
Sandi stepped closer, her eyes wide as she listened to our hushed fight. I glanced over at Kerica, who still held the flyer in front of her face. But I knew she was listening, too.
“Then you need to try harder.”
Mom grabbed my arm and turned to leave again. “This is not the place, Alice—”
I yanked my arm free and stomped my foot. “But we just got here!” I sat down in the hand chair and smoothed the flyer on my lap. “I need to get started on the contest.”
Mom stared at me. I could feel her eyes boring into the top of my head. “Fine,” she said after a couple minutes. “I’ll pick you up later.”
“I’d be happy to take her home this afternoon,” Mrs. Morris murmured to Mom. She put her arm around Mom’s waist and they walked like that toward the front desk, talking in low voices.
I couldn’t sleep again that night. The glowing numbers of my alarm clock flashed ten o’clock. Sighing, I grabbed my iPad and dialed Eliza’s number.
“Hey, Alice!” Eliza picked up on the second ring. She looked totally different, with glossy red lips and smooth hair. Well, half her head had smooth hair. Someone stood behind her but I couldn’t see the person’s face.
“Who is it?” the person—a girl’s voice—asked. She grabbed a chunk of Eliza’s hair and ran it through a straightener. Eliza’s wild curls fell from it like shiny black paper. The
girl’s face dipped into the screen. I tried not to glare at the way her jaw popped open. “Are you, like, okay?” she said to me. To Eliza, she said, “Is she sick?”
Eliza’s cheeks flushed. She laughed. “No, this is Alice. She lived in your house. She’s just sort of pale.” Ah. So the girl must be Sam, the hip-hop dancer who stole my house and was now after my best friend.
“Who?” Sam said. She stood and grabbed another chunk of Eliza’s hair, so all I saw was her hands and chest.
“Alice. I told you about Alice,” Eliza said.
“Nah. Don’t think you did. But whatever. Hi, Alice,” Sam said, half smiling at the screen.
Eliza hadn’t even talked to her about me? Her best friend since kindergarten? What the heck! I felt my nostrils flare as I took deep breaths.
“Everything okay, Alice?” Eliza asked.
Part of me wanted to hang up, but I really needed to talk to someone. I needed a friend. “Can we talk?” I asked.
Eliza giggled. “We are talking, silly.”
Stupid Sam laughed, too.
“Alone, I mean. Can I talk to you alone? For just a minute.” Sam dropped Eliza’s hair.
“That’s kind of rude,” Eliza said.
“No, it’s cool. Just come over to my house after you’re done,” Sam told Eliza. “And don’t take too long! I want to practice our moves for the party this weekend.”
“Party?” I asked once I heard Eliza’s bedroom door snap shut.
Eliza crossed her arms. “Yeah. Sam’s teaching me a dance for a party she invited me to.”
“Oh.”
After about thirty seconds of being quiet, Eliza snapped, “Well, what did you want to talk about?”
I gulped. “I miss you. I miss . . . everything.”
Eliza dropped her arms. “I miss you too, Alice.” She flopped back on the bed, holding the iPad. Finally she looked like my friend again. “So, what’s up?”
“My mom and I got in a huge fight. She wants me to go to a school for blind kids. Can you believe it?”
Eliza didn’t respond for a while. “But you are blind,” she finally said.
“I’m not that blind, though! I’ve always gone to public school!”
Eliza’s lips twisted like she was chewing her words before she said them. “Do you know that your mom and mine worked it out so that we’d always be in the same class?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’m glad they did,” she said, “don’t get me wrong. But it was so that I could make sure you got where you needed to be and had everything you needed.”
“So?” I snapped.
“So, we never really tried to make other friends. And, since you’ve been gone, I’ve really gotten to know loads of other kids. Not just Sam, but kids we’ve been in class with forever and never really talked with because it was always just us. I liked helping you, but maybe if you could do things on your own, I would’ve been friends with them all along. I’m kind of . . . popular now. Can you believe it?” She actually grinned at me, like I should cheer or something. She sat up and bounced on the bed.
“Sorry to be such an inconvenience!” I snapped.
“Stop, Alice! I don’t mean it like that. I just think, maybe it’d be good for you to figure stuff out on your own. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Maybe you could make friends with people more like you.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” I stormed. My heart hammered and my throat felt too tight.
“Alice, all of this is coming out wrong! I just mean—”
“Whatever, Eliza. You better go. Sam—and all of your other friends—are waiting for you. I don’t want to hold you back.”
Dad woke me up the next morning. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said, “let’s get some breakfast.”
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I asked, grabbing at his tie. His breath smelled like coffee. Why did parents drink that stuff? It tasted awful and it didn’t smell good, either. But I had cried myself to sleep the night before and breathing in something so familiar—even if it was bad coffee breath—made me feel a little better.
He pulled the tie from my hand and swatted me softly across the nose with the end of it. “First, we’re going to breakfast.”
I was so excited I forgot my glasses, just pulled on some clothes and rushed out to meet him in the kitchen.
“Go wake up your brother,” said Dad, punching out a text on his cell phone and not looking up.
I stopped outside of James’s door, not really wanting to face him. When I returned from the library I had wanted to talk to him about the school-for-the-blind pamphlets. But now, I didn’t want to face him. Maybe it was babyish, but I just wanted Dad to myself.
I rapped a little with my knuckle and his door swung open. No James.
I skipped back to the kitchen. “He already left!” I sung to Dad.
“Huh,” he said, still staring at his phone. “You think he checked in with Mom?”
“Yeah,” I said, even though I was pretty sure James left without telling anyone.
“Okay, then,” Dad said. “Let’s go.”
Dad’s phone rang four times on the way to Williams Diner, which is just across the street from the Mill. It’s sort of the nexus of the stench. I held my T-shirt up over my nose like an oxygen mask. It gave the rotting eggs smell an edge of laundry detergent freshness.
“Stop it,” Dad whispered in my ear as we got out of the car. “You’re being rude.”
“But it’s ruining my appetite,” I whispered back.
He yanked the shirt down over my nose. “They’re watching you.” Dad jerked his face toward people walking into the diner. This made my eyes widen. People were watching me? I couldn’t make out their faces; the early morning sun was so bright my eyes stung and made even squinting painful. Have you ever gotten a paper cut on your eyeball? Me, neither. But I’ve got to think it feels a lot like how much my eyes were burning. Except maybe instead of one paper cut, I had a thousand or so. By the time we entered the diner, my face was streaked with tears.
“What’s wrong with the lil’ miss?” someone asked as Dad led me inside. The man’s voice sounded like dried mud. “Gretel!” he called out. “Little kid here’s hurt!”
“It’s the sun,” my dad answered, leading me by the elbow to a table. “I forgot to make her wear a hat. This happens sometimes when she goes from a dark car to the bright light.”
I tried not to whimper, but it still really hurt.
“Will this help?” Between my wet lashes and blurry eyes, I saw a wide, warm hand with bright pink nails. It held a dripping wet cold cloth, which the hand pressed to my eyes. Instant relief! “S’okay, honeybun,” the woman said, and suddenly my heart hurt worse than my eyes.
“Grandma?” I asked. I knew it couldn’t be; my dad’s mom had died two years earlier. But this voice, it had the same tea-with-honey sweetness as hers. My eyes started to sting again, but not from the sun.
The woman chuckled, and she squeezed my hand with hers. All around me, I heard shuffling of feet and questions as people crowded around us.
“She all right?”
“What she need?”
“My daughter’s a doctor; let me give her a call!”
“Nah, nah, she’s fine,” Dad said. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “She just is sensitive to the sun.”
“Course she is. Looks like a porcelain doll,” the woman with Grandma’s voice said. “Bet she pinks up faster than an egg fries.”
The feet shuffled back to waiting tables. Dad and the woman talked back and forth—ordering breakfast, I think—but I couldn’t concentrate on the words. I just listened to the voices.
After a few minutes, I heard the clink of plates being lowered on the table. I took the damp cloth from my eyes. Dad and I were sitting on the same side of a red vinyl booth. The table had a gray flecked Formica top. On top of it was a plate of the biggest, fluffiest pancakes I had ever seen. They were piled high with cherry sauce and whipped
cream.
“Wow!” I murmured.
“Your dad thought you’d like these!” Grandma’s voice said. I looked up at the woman. She must’ve been about sixty, with blonde hair tied back in braids and clipped at the back of her neck. Grandma had had fluffy dark curls and was super thin and tiny. This woman was rounder and younger. Grandma never wore any makeup and her face was always shiny. This woman’s face was powdered and matte and her lips were a very unnatural shade of cotton candy pink.
She watched me steadily as I stared at her face. “See, not your grandma after all. My name’s Gretel.”
Dad squeezed my shoulder again. “Gretel owns the Williams Diner.” He slurped on a plastic straw sticking out of a Styrofoam cup, momentarily distracting me.
“Is that a milkshake? For breakfast!” I asked.
Gretel chuckled again. “All he eats is milkshakes!”
“Hey!” Dad put his hands up like he was holding us back. “It’s coffee flavored!”
Dad sucked down his milkshake and I tackled the mountain of pancakes. After every few slurps, Dad would point out someone or something in the diner. Like the man who perched at the counter like a bald eagle. He had a newspaper in his hands, but Dad told me the man never read a word. He got all his news listening to the people around him. Dad told me the man, the only one there wearing a suit other than Dad, was Mayor P. Harold Marshall. That’s how he introduced himself to newcomers like us, but Dad said everyone called him Hank.
“The only one who calls him Harold is Gretel. Hank’s here at opening every morning, leaves for a couple hours, comes back for lunch, and I usually see his pickup in the lot when I head home at dinner.” Dad leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “I think he’s in love with Gretel.”
“Or at least with her milkshakes,” I whispered back as Gretel handed the man a Styrofoam cup like Dad’s.
When the bell on the door rang out to announce another diner, I turned in my seat. A girl led an elderly man to the booth across from us. It was so close I could touch the booth with my outstretched hand. The girl, who looked about James’s age, didn’t sit down. She got up to grab a couple place settings and a paper placemat and brought them to the table.
