Pieces of Me

by Darlene Ryan

  There was the usual pushing as we began to move toward the door but no craziness. No one came up to me insisting bugs were coming out of my nose. No one yelled that I had taken his invisible friend’s place in line.

  Inside, I helped the kids with their trays and steered them all to a table in front, which was a better place to sit even if it was closer to the food line. We were about halfway through our meal—weirdly enough, lasagna, nothing like what I’d eaten from the hotel, although it was nice and hot—when an old man climbed onto his table by the back wall. Maybe he wasn’t that old. It was just that he looked so gray—gray hair, faded gray suit, even gray skin.

  He started reciting something. It only took two lines for me to realize it was Shakespeare. His voice was deep, and it boomed off the walls of the small room. Since he wasn’t causing a problem, the staff left him alone.

  Almost everyone went on eating. The kids were looking at their mother wide-eyed. “He has a really loud voice, doesn’t he?” I said to the little guy next to me. He nodded, but didn’t say anything. “I’ll tell you a secret,” I continued. “It’s so loud, it kind of scares me.”

  God knew that was the truth. Under the long table, my legs were shaking.

  There was something about the look on the mom’s face that made me think of a dog that thought you were about to hit it. I wanted to tell her to suck it up for her kids. Like I was any expert on mothers sucking it up for their children. And then she did. She plastered a smile on her face. “It’s okay if you feel a little scared,” she said to me. She looked at the little guy beside me and pointed to the man on the table. “He’s just showing off, isn’t he, Dylan?”

  Dylan looked at me and nodded slowly. “He should be using his inside voice,” he said, his forehead wrinkled in a frown.

  “Some people forget that,” his mother said.

  “Not me.” He straightened his shoulders proudly.

  I leaned toward him. “I forget sometimes,” I whispered.

  He reached over and patted my hand. “That’s okay,” he said.

  The other kids were already eating again. I picked up my fork, and so did Dylan.

  There were just a few stragglers dragging in when we were finished. I looked over at the serving area. I could see that there were maybe a dozen cookies left. There was always something sweet here for dessert. Some of the people who came here had drug problems, and they always seemed to have a sweet tooth. I went over to the counter. The guy on the other side had arms that were bigger than my legs. I smiled at him.

  “You think I could get a cookie for the little ones?” I asked. I pointed at the kids. Dylan was putting a coat on his younger brother, and his mother was getting the baby dressed.

  “One per customer,” he snapped without looking up at me.

  “Please,” I said.

  That got him to look up. “What did you say?” he asked.

  My heart started pounding thumpa-thumpa-thumpa in my ears. “I just asked for cookies for the kids.”

  “What did you say after that?”

  I took a step backward. “Uh, I said please.” How could he have confused that with something obscene? The only word I could think of that sounded anything like it was “peas.” Did that somehow have a meaning I didn’t know about? “Never mind,” I said.

  “Hang on, hang on,” he muttered. He reached under the counter, pulled out a brown paper lunch bag and put four chocolate chip cookies inside. Then he held out the bag.

  For a second, I just stared at him with stupid written all over my face. Then I took the cookies. “Thank you,” I said.

  He nodded. “You’re welcome. You’ve got nice manners.”

  The mom and the kids were waiting for me by the end of the table. I swung my backpack up onto my shoulder and walked over to them. I handed her the bag. “For later,” I said.

  Her hand reached out toward me. She hesitated, and then she went with her first impulse and touched my arm. “Thank you for everything today,” she said.

  “Thank you for letting me eat lunch with you,” I said.

  We walked outside together. Dylan pulled at my jacket before I could leave. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  He was way too serious for a kid who wasn’t much more than maybe six.

  “My name is Maddie,” I said.

  “Mine’s Dylan, if you forgot,” he said.

  The lump in my throat came back, and I had to swallow it away before I could answer. “I remember,” I told him.

  Halfway to the street, I turned back for a look at them. When Dylan did the same, I waved and he waved back. I didn’t turn around again.

  Q pulled up at the library just a couple of minutes after six. I was happy to see the white Honda coming down the street. My back and shoulders were starting to ache from carrying the bag of clean stuff around.

  We drove over to the hotel, and Q found a place to park on the street about a block and a half away. I stayed in the car while he went for the food. The smell of spices and garlic filled the car as we drove up the hill.

  We followed the same routine as the night before. I drove the car into the garage bay, and then we walked around checking all the doors. There was nothing left in the kitchen but the stove, but at least it was still working. Supper was some kind of salad with tiny tomatoes, tiny slices of spicy beef and fancy lettuce.

  “What’s wrong with this?” I asked Q. We were sitting on my sofa with our feet propped on the desk.

  “Who knows,” he said around a mouthful of lettuce. “I’m guessing the meat. It was probably too rare. Or not rare enough.”

  “I don’t get how people can be so picky about their food,” I said.

  Q reached over and turned the crank on the radio a few times. “If I left anything on my plate, even just one bite of food, my old man would go into this rant about all the starving children in the world who would be happy to have it.”

  He was wearing his knit hat again, and his hair was sticking out at weird angles. It was kind of cute.

  “That’s not the same thing,” I said.

  He put his plastic fork down and leaned his head against the back of the couch. The band on the radio was singing about taking care of business. “One time I told him I’d mail what was left on my plate to those hungry kids.” He laughed, but there wasn’t really anything funny in the sound. “I didn’t do that twice.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I bumped his arm with my shoulder. “What’s for dessert?” I asked.

  “Good question.” He put his plate on the desk and reached over me for the takeout bag. He looked inside the Styrofoam clamshell and then wiggled his eyebrows at me. It looked like he was having some sort of spasm, and I burst out laughing.

  “Hey, chocolate cheesecake is serious business,” he said.

  “Chocolate cheesecake?” I leaned forward for a better look.

  “Eat your vegetables,” he said with pretend seriousness. “Remember all those starving kids.”

  I thought about Dylan then. I hoped he had something for supper. I hoped they all did.

  Q dropped down beside me. “Maddie, you okay?”

  I speared a tomato with my fork and then set it back down again. “When I went to Pax to put the laundry in a locker, I saw this mother with three little kids—one was just a baby.” I sighed. “I wish I could feed all the hungry children in the world.”

  “You said you wanted to go to school someday,” Q said. “What do you want to be?”

  I picked up my fork again. “You’ll laugh,” I said.

  He shook his head slowly. “No, I won’t. Tell me.” When I didn’t answer right away, he bumped me with his shoulder. “C’mon Maddie, what?”

  “A doctor,” I said softly.

  “Wow!” Q said.

  “Stupid, right?”

  He set the takeout container on the sofa beside him. “No. I could see you as a doctor.”

  I looked at him. “Yeah, right,” I said.

  He pulled off his hat and ran bot
h hands back through his hair so it stuck out all over his head. “I’m serious,” he said. “You’re smart, or you wouldn’t have made it on your own. And I’ve seen how kind you are. So yeah, you could be a doctor.”

  It was the first time someone hadn’t laughed when I said I wanted to be a doctor—not that I said it very often. It felt good and weird all at the same time.

  “What about you, Q?” I said, mostly to change the subject. “Is there anything else you want to do besides have a farm? Maybe get a business degree, or go to law school?”

  Q snorted with laughter. “Me in school? Uh-uh. Too much reading, too much talking about doing stuff instead of just going and doing it.” He traced a seam along the bottom edge of the couch. “I get that if you want to be a doctor you have to go to school, but it’s just not my thing.”

  Abruptly he stood up. “You ready for cheesecake?” he asked.

  I pulled the tomato off my fork, popped it into my mouth and nodded. I’d noticed that when Q didn’t want to talk about something, he changed the subject or made a joke. That was fine with me. There was stuff I didn’t like talking about either.

  We spent the next two nights at the building. Each morning, Q drove me downtown. Then I walked through the park and along the riverbank trail picking up returnable bottles. I made four trips to the recycling center and ended up with just over thirty dollars. Lucky for me, people were pigs. I divided the money the way I always did: a third for day-to-day necessities, a third for my emergency fund and the rest for my education fund.

  I hadn’t told Hannah—I hadn’t told anyone—but I was going back to school, just as soon as I had enough money to rent a room. I figured I could get by without a phone, but I did need an address to get an education.

  Afternoons, I kept on at my math at the library. When I did get to school, I didn’t plan on being the stupidest person in the class.

  five

  Saturday night we went back to the parking lot at All-mart. Q’s friend wasn’t working, so we’d decided to buy a pizza. He walked over to Pizza Man hoping to score one that didn’t get picked up for half the price it was supposed to be. I was heading back to the car from the washroom, cutting between the lines of cars, when I heard a little voice call my name. I looked around, trying to follow the sound. At the end of the line of campers was a beat-up dark-blue van. A little blond kid was standing beside it waving. Dylan. “Maddie,” he called again.

  I waved so he’d know I’d seen him, gesturing that he should stay there. “Hi, Dylan,” I said when I got over to him. I looked around for the rest of the family. “Where’s your mom?”

  “I’m supposed to say she’s in there.” He pointed at the mall.

  Supposed to? The hairs started prickling on the back of my neck. I scrunched down to his level. “Where is she really? You can tell me.”

  He chewed on his bottom lip. What was I supposed to do? Just leave him by himself the way it seemed his mom had? I smiled and fought the urge to throw my arms around him, which probably would have scared the crap out of him.

  He shifted from one foot to the other. “She took Summer to get her owie fixed,” he finally said.

  Okay, which one was Summer? The baby or the toddler?

  Dylan’s big blue eyes looked up at me shyly. “I’m babysitting Luke,” he said.

  I could feel my heartbeat thumping in both ears. “Where is Luke?” I asked.

  He pointed at the van. I stood up and squinted through the windshield. The passenger seat had been tipped backward, and a small person was curled up in it, covered with a jacket. It was the toddler, not the baby.

  I leaned against the fender of the van. The only thing I could think about was all the weirdos in the world. They weren’t all standing on the table reciting Shakespeare. In fact, I was pretty sure that guy was harmless. The real weirdos walked around looking like all the rest of us. How easy would it be to grab Dylan and his little brother? The fact that I was standing here with him showed how little effort it would take.

  I tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. Okay, what the heck should I do? Tell Dylan to get in the van and stay there till his mother came back? Take both kids to the Honda?

  Dylan reached over and slid his hand into mine. It struck me that to him, I was a grown-up who could fix everything. Right. I was sleeping in a car and keeping my money in the bottom of my shoe.

  His little hand was warm in mine. “Dylan, what kind of an owie did Summer have?” I asked.

  “I dunno,” he said.

  “Did she fall?”

  He shook his head. “No. But she cried a lot last night and she kept pulling at her ear. Do you think her ear is broken?”

  I shook my head. “No. I think she just needs some medicine to make her feel better.” It was Saturday night. Dylan’s mom had probably taken the baby to the emergency room. It could be hours before she came back. Why hadn’t she taken the other two kids with her?

  “Dylan, how come you stayed here?” I asked.

  He made a face and looked at me like I was stupid. “I told you, I’m babysitting Luke,” he said hotly.

  “I know,” I said.

  “And Daddy is bringing supper. Do you think he’ll be here soon? I’m hungry.”

  Daddy? I’d figured Dylan’s mom was all by herself with the kids. There was a dad? So where the heck was he?

  “Was Daddy here when your mom took Summer to get her owie fixed?”

  He kicked a rock under the van and bent to see where it went.

  “Dylan,” I said.

  “Daddy was supposed to be the babysitter, but he said I’m a big boy and I could do it.” His voice was muffled against the front of his jacket.

  I blew out a breath. Even at her worst, my mother had never left me by myself. I looked around uncertainly. Dylan was on his hands and knees, peering under the old van. Then I spotted Q. He had just crossed the street and was coming up the grass to the parking lot. He was carrying a cardboard pizza box. I stepped out away from the van and waited for him to look in my direction. When he did, I waved, and he changed direction.

  “Stay there,” I said to Dylan. I took a few steps forward to meet Q.

  He looked from me to the van and back again. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Remember I told you about meeting that mom and her kids a few days ago?”

  He nodded slowly.

  I could smell the pizza, and my stomach rumbled with hunger. “Well, two of the kids are here.”

  Dylan had gotten up and was standing by the front wheel of the van, watching us.

  “Where’s their mother?” Q asked.

  “I’m guessing the emergency room. It sounds like the baby has an ear infection.”

  Q put a hand on top of his head. “And she left two kids here.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “As far as I can figure out, the dad left them here by themselves.” I tipped my head toward Dylan. “That’s Dylan. His little brother is asleep in the van. He says his dad went to get supper and left him ‘babysitting.’ ”

  Q’s mouth pulled into a thin, tight line. “Shit,” he muttered.

  “What do I do?” I asked. “I can’t leave them here.”

  “It’s okay,” Q said. “You said the kid’s name is Dylan?”

  I nodded.

  He leaned around me and smiled at the little boy. “Hi, Dylan. I’m Maddie’s friend, Q.”

  “Q isn’t a name,” Dylan said. “It’s a letter. Q, R, S, T, U, V.”

  “You’re right,” Q said. “But it can be a name too. You know, I knew somebody once whose name was Seven.”

  Dylan scrunched up his nose. “That’s just silly,” he said.

  Q nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Is that pizza?” Dylan asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Q said. “You hungry?”

  “I’m not supposed to take stuff from people I don’t know.”

  Right. Teach the kid not to take stuff from people he doesn’t know, and then go leave
him in the parking lot at the mall. There was good parenting.

  “That’s a really good rule,” Q said. “So I’m going to get Maddie to give you a piece of pizza, because you know her.”

  That seemed to make sense to Dylan. Q pulled some napkins out of his pocket, and I opened the pizza box and pulled out a slice, setting it on a couple of the paper napkins. I handed it to Dylan. “Be careful,” I warned him. “It’s hot.”

  He nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

  I watched him take a careful bite from the end and, for a second, I almost burst into tears.

  Q fished a small bottle of water out of his other pocket and handed it to me. I unscrewed the top and gave Dylan a drink. Again he thanked me.

  I leaned over to check on his little brother in the front seat. He was still asleep. My stomach made another loud rumble.

  “Have something to eat, Maddie,” Q said softly. “It doesn’t do the kid or anyone else any good for you to go hungry.”

  He handed me a couple of napkins and I pulled apart two slices, one for myself and one for him. I squatted down next to Dylan and ate mine. Q put the pizza box on the hood of the van and leaned against the side to eat his.

  I was wiping sauce of Dylan’s face when his father came back. “Hey!” he shouted. “What the hell are you doing with my van?”

  Not What are you doing with my kid?, but What are you doing with my van? I felt my chest tighten, and at the same time I put an arm around Dylan, who was looking wide-eyed and scared in his father’s direction.

  Q pushed himself upright. “Stay here,” he said quietly. He stepped forward to intercept Dylan’s dad, standing with his feet apart and his hands in his pockets.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the man said. He made a move to get around Q, who stepped in front of him and put out his hand.

  I couldn’t hear what Q was saying, but even from the back, I could see the tension in his body. He was maybe a bit taller than Dylan’s dad, and I got the sense if it came to a fight, Q would win. Now there was a good idea, them getting into a fight while Dylan watched.