Odessa Again

by Dana Reinhardt

  In the deepest of shadows, I hide in plain sight.

  What am I?

  A few hands shot up and then some came down just as quickly. Odessa leaned back into the bleachers. She didn’t even try to solve the riddle. She didn’t need to.

  Ms. Banville called on a fifth grader.

  “I don’t know … maybe dreams?” she said.

  “Good guess, Rochelle,” Ms. Banville said. “But no, that is incorrect.”

  She wandered over to a kindergartner who had both his hands in the air and was waving them so wildly they’d snagged the curls of the girl sitting next to him.

  “Yes, Jeremy?”

  She held the microphone to his mouth.

  “Elmo?” he said.

  The whole school laughed, but not the way they laughed in the lunchroom at Oliver. Or the way some girls used to laugh at Claire. They laughed because little Jeremy was adorable with his crazy hands and out-of-the-blue answer.

  When do kids go from adorable to just plain weird in the eyes of everyone around them?

  There were a few more guesses—an owl, a bat, an invisible friend. One third grader said “Big Bird” and then sulked when he didn’t get a laugh.

  Ms. Banville read the riddle aloud again. She scanned the bleachers.

  “Theo?”

  Odessa turned around and saw Theo, her Theo, with his hand in the air.

  Both Theo and Odessa were good at perplexors. “If Bob eats apples but not bananas and Bertha likes pears but not oranges” and those sorts of problems. But this one was different.

  Theo dropped his hand into his lap and tugged at his T-shirt. “Um, the letter D?” he said.

  Sofia grabbed Odessa’s knee and gave her a The boy you love is about to win! squeeze. It was the perfect moment between two best friends. Nobody knew. Nobody saw. Nobody embarrassed anybody.

  Ms. Banville gave a sly smile and motioned for Theo to come down from the bleachers. He stood next to her.

  “How do you mean?” she asked.

  “Well, there’s a d in darkness but not in light, and there’s one in daytime but not in night, and then, like, there’s one in the middle of the word shadows. So …” He shrugged.

  Odessa had known Theo was smart, but she hadn’t known he was brilliant.

  “Congratulations,” said Ms. Banville, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Tomorrow you will be President for a Day.”

  Applause filled the gym, and nobody clapped harder than Odessa. She was so swept up in his victory, in his breathtaking intellect, in her sudden vision of Theo as the President, arm in arm with Odessa, his First Lady, that she almost forgot what she had to do.

  Get home. Back to the attic. She looked up at the clock. Oh no! She couldn’t wait until after school.

  Sofia looked at her. She sent a silent message: Are you okay?

  Odessa nodded.

  She thought of running home. Of all the streets she was forbidden to cross. Even if she had the courage, the house would be locked. Though she was happy she wasn’t a Latchkey Kid, right now it was very inconvenient that she didn’t have a key around her neck.

  She needed a Plan B.

  Vomit.

  Her most feared thing in the world.

  The fourth grade was lining up to go back to their classrooms. Sofia linked her arm through Odessa’s. A cluster formed around Theo with lots of back-slapping and high-fives and all those things boys did when what they really wanted to do was hug somebody.

  Theo looked happy, in his bashful way. He wasn’t a bragger. He had humility.

  Odessa felt a pang of regret. Of compunction.

  Theo had won the contest fair and square. No luck, only his brilliance, which was the very core of why she loved him, long hair or short. And now she was going to snatch this victory right out of his hands.

  He would never know, of course, but she hoped anyway that he’d find it in his heart to forgive her for what she was about to do.

  She broke away from Sofia, ran to the front of the line, and grabbed Mr. Rausche’s sleeve.

  “Uuuuggghhh.” She clutched her middle. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.” Even saying the words made her healthy stomach turn.

  Mr. Rausche looked her over, making a face. “Odessa Light-Green …”

  Come on, Mr. Rausche, is this the time for a cheapo name joke?

  She made an overly dramatic groaning noise.

  “Hurry,” he said. “To the nurse’s office. Go.”

  The nurse kept her distance from Odessa as she speedily dialed her mother’s cell phone.

  Voice mail.

  “Have a seat,” she said to Odessa. “We have to wait to hear back from your mommy.”

  Mommy. How embarrassing. Did this nurse realize she was in the fourth grade?

  “I can’t wait,” Odessa said. “I have to go home NOW.”

  “I’ve left a message. I’m sure she’ll call back when she gets it.”

  “But,” Odessa said, “I’m running out of time.”

  The nurse looked puzzled. How could Odessa make this woman understand? She had to get home so that she could jump back and give Oliver the answer.

  Then … it came to her. Sometimes there’s another solution right under your nose, but you fail to see it because you’re too focused on the obvious.

  “If you can’t reach my mother,” Odessa said, “can you call my father?”

  The nurse nodded wisely, as if this were an unusually intelligent idea. She checked Odessa’s file, and dialed.

  Odessa knew Dad would answer. He always had his BlackBerry within arm’s reach.

  The nurse hung up. “He’s on his way.”

  Odessa’s heart soared. It wasn’t that she’d be able to beat the clock, it was that Dad, with all his markets and stocks and trading and his new apartment and his new almost-wife, still could make time for her. His sick kid.

  Or his fake-sick kid.

  When she climbed into his car, he handed her a bottle of ginger ale and one of her favorite magazines. He put on 101.3, the station she and Jennifer both loved. Odessa was in a hurry, but still, she wished the drive would last forever. She tilted her seat back a little. Dad took her hand.

  Just then the next wrinkle in her plan occurred to her.

  “Dad,” she said. “You need to take me home.”

  “Where do you think I’m taking you? I’m taking you home, so you can rest up and feel better.”

  Odessa swallowed. “No, Dad, I mean home. To Mom’s house.”

  Dad pulled the car over to the side of the road. He reached into his glove compartment and took out a roll of his minty tummy tablets.

  “My apartment is your home too.” He turned to face her. “I know you don’t spend as much time there as you do at your mother’s, but that’s because of our schedules and my work, and we’re just trying to make things easier for you and Oliver. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t feel like you are at home with Jennifer and me.”

  Why’d he have to look like he’d just lost his favorite hamster? And why’d he have to say Jennifer’s name?

  Odessa stared straight ahead, out the windshield of the car that wasn’t moving. Even though it was her favorite station, a song she didn’t like played on the radio.

  “I know, Dad. It’s just that I really need to go to Mom’s house. The Green House. I need to go to my room. My own room. My attic room. Please. I know you don’t understand, but I really need to go there. Can you take me there?”

  “Your mother is at work. I don’t have a key.”

  “Mrs. Grisham has a key. We can borrow hers.”

  “Wait here,” Dad said. He climbed out of the car with his BlackBerry and paced up and down the sidewalk with it pressed to his ear.

  “Fine,” he said as he started the car engine. “I talked to your mother. I’ll wait there with you until she gets home.”

  Odessa’s feet felt heavy as she climbed the stairs to the attic. She told Dad she was just going upstairs to change into pajamas.
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  It was so nice to have him there. He was in his regular seat on their couch, waiting to start a movie on pay-per-view, one of the stupid comedies they loved watching together. It felt almost normal to see him there. She could imagine all four of them together, in this new house.

  She didn’t miss her old house. She just missed her dad.

  She looked at her clocks.

  12:47

  The assembly started at nine. She had some time to spare. Just enough for a movie she’d seen a billion times before.

  She ran downstairs.

  “What happened to your pajamas?” Dad asked.

  She threw her arms around him. “Thanks, Dad,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For picking me up. For the ginger ale and the magazine. For leaving work early. For taking me here. For watching a movie with me.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, sweetie. I’m your dad.”

  “I know, but I just feel thankful so I wanted to tell you, because if I don’t I may not get the chance again and I don’t want to live with compunction.”

  Dad squinted at her, then reached over and put his hand on her forehead. “Did the nurse take your temperature?”

  She grabbed the blanket and put it over the both of them. She rested her head on his shoulder and they watched their movie and Odessa dozed off for a minute, and when her eyes snapped open again she thought, quickly, of two things.

  One, that it wasn’t strange, not strange at all, to have Dad in Mom’s house. And two, that she’d better hurry upstairs or else her whole GMOP would fail.

  “I’ve gotta go,” she said, jumping up and running to the attic with the sort of energy not typically possessed by a sick child. “I’ll be back,” she called.

  She wished that she didn’t have to leave. That they could sit together until Mom got home. Mom would walk in and see Odessa and Dad on the couch, and maybe they’d smile at each other. Maybe they’d have dinner together. Maybe he could stick around until bedtime.

  But she had to go back for Oliver—and there she was, filing into the gym with her class at 8:58 a.m.

  The second grade had already arrived and taken their seats on the bleachers. Odessa broke from the line and ran over to her brother. She grabbed him by the collar and leaned close in to his face.

  “The letter D,” she whispered.

  He tilted away from her, as if he were protecting himself from an incoming slap to the cheek. “Huh?”

  “Just listen to me for once, Oliver. It’s the letter D, okay? The letter D. That’s the answer. I know you’re shy, but you have to raise your hand and say ‘The letter D.’ That’s all you have to do. I’ll give you a hundred dollars if you just say ‘the letter D.’ ”

  She turned and ran back to join her class, taking the same seat, one row in front of Theo.

  Ms. Banville started in with her instructions about not shouting out the answer, and Odessa watched Oliver. She knew that look. Pure panic spread across his face.

  She glared at him. The letter D, she mouthed silently.

  He shook his head slowly: No.

  His shoulders slumped and he looked down at his feet, refusing to meet her gaze across the bleachers even though she sent him the strongest telepathic message she could: Don’t wimp out. Do it. Raise your hand. Don’t be a toad. I wasn’t planning on giving you the money, but I will, I really will, if you just do it!

  Finally, after answers of dreams and owls and bats, Ms. Banville called on Theo.

  “Um, the letter D?” he said.

  Oliver finally turned his eyes back to Odessa and shrugged.

  Sorry, he mouthed.

  You should be sorry, she thought. After everything I went through for you—you blew it! I tried to help you, but you, Oliver Green-Light, are a helpless toad.

  Sofia squeezed her knee again—The boy you love is about to win!—and again Odessa enjoyed basking in Theo’s brilliance, but she was mad at Oliver. Really mad.

  Once a toad, always a toad.

  On the bus home she sat next to him for what she’d decided would be the very last time.

  Before she could say anything he blurted out, “I don’t know how you knew the answer, but however you found out, it isn’t fair. I don’t want to be a cheater. And anyway,” he said, his eyes welling up with tears, “I don’t want to be President for a Day. Maybe you do, but I don’t.”

  “What! You don’t? What do you want, then, Oliver? Really. What do you want?” She was almost shouting at him now.

  “I just want to be normal. I just want my old life back,” he said, sniffling. “I just miss my old life.”

  A hole ripped in the water tower inside her and she could feel her anger draining from her body.

  Of course. There it was.

  Oliver missed his old life.

  Odessa missed her old life too.

  She reached into her backpack and took out her sweatshirt. She handed it to her brother so he could wipe his tears.

  “Don’t worry, O,” she said. “I’ll get you your old life back. I promise. I can fix this.” Then, if only to convince herself, she added: “I have the power.”

  With Dad’s wedding only a few weeks away, Odessa didn’t have a lot of time to get her old life back.

  But then she thought about how quickly things could change. One day Dad lived with them, the next he didn’t. Mom said, “We’re putting the house up for sale,” and suddenly it belonged to someone else. Mrs. Grisham showed them around the new house, and the next week they were moving in.

  Change can happen quickly, and Odessa just needed to be quick about it.

  To re something means to do it again.

  Dad needed to remarry Mom, not some woman named Jennifer. Just because Jennifer was nice to Odessa and had sparkly eyelids and shimmery lips didn’t mean she needed to marry Dad. Odessa didn’t want to hurt Jennifer, she really didn’t.

  Maybe when all this is over, Odessa thought, I’ll find someone nice for Jennifer to marry.

  But first things first. It was time to re-hyphenate her family.

  She started with her lavender dress. It was so beautiful, so twirly and delicate. She hated to see it get ruined, but she had to do what she had to do.

  It was a Saturday morning and she asked to try it on again. “It’s just that I love it so much,” she said.

  Jennifer was in the kitchen making crepes, her specialty. They were delicious, covered in powdered sugar and chocolate. As Oliver carried his to the table, Odessa twirled right into him, slipping her hand under his plate and flattening it to her chest.

  “Oliver!” she shouted.

  He stared at her openmouthed.

  She shot him a look: I’ve got this. This is all part of my plan. But he didn’t understand. Oliver couldn’t read lips, and he wasn’t so great at reading looks either.

  “I-didn’t-do-it-it’s-all-your-fault-you-knocked-into-me!” he screamed.

  Jennifer grabbed a kitchen towel, but it was no use. The chocolate was everywhere. The lavender dress turned a not-very-attractive maroon.

  Dad stood there with his hands on his hips.

  “I’m soooooo sorry.” Odessa tried to sound remorseful. “I didn’t want to ruin your wedding.”

  “It’s okay,” Dad said. “We’ll just have to get you a new dress.”

  “But it won’t be this one. And I’m supposed to wear this one.”

  “It’s just a dress, Odessa.” Dad reached over and steadied his hand on the still-shaking Oliver. “And I guess this means Oliver doesn’t have to wear his lavender tie.”

  That was Odessa’s next plan, to draw on Oliver’s tie in permanent marker. Now that wouldn’t work either.

  Okay. Think big.

  It took her the rest of the weekend to work up the courage, and then, finally, on Sunday afternoon, shortly before Dad was to drive her and Oliver back to Mom’s, Odessa started looking for the scissors.

  If this had been the Green House she’d have known where the scissors wer
e, and she wouldn’t have had to ask Jennifer. If she hadn’t had to do that, she might have gotten away with her plan. But she did have to ask. And so Jennifer must have wondered where Odessa had wandered off to with those scissors.

  Oliver and Dad and Jennifer were doing a puzzle, a big one of underwater sea creatures. It looked as if it could take days to do, which was why Odessa figured she had some time to spare.

  She pretended she was going to the room she shared with Oliver, but when she saw no one was looking, she snuck into Dad and Jennifer’s bedroom and closed the door. She found Jennifer’s wedding dress hanging in the closet in a white zippered bag.

  Odessa planned to quickly snip the straps with the scissors, but when she took the dress out and laid it on the floor she decided that maybe the straps weren’t enough. What if Jennifer just pinned them?

  She’d have to cut a hole in the middle. It wouldn’t be easy: there was some sort of hard, underwire thing, and also, the fabric was so beautiful, so delicate, sewn with little tiny beads. She ran it through her fingers, feeling regret, compunction. But she’d made her brother a promise. Promises were precious too.

  She grabbed hold of the scissors. She picked up the dress and searched for its middle.

  Just then she heard Jennifer’s voice.

  “What is going on in here?” She was calm but mad. Yes, mad for sure. Jennifer was always so nice, so friendly: it was the first time Odessa had seen her mad. She looked like she’d maybe stopped breathing, but then she managed to shout out: “Glenn!”

  Odessa could lie. Say she had no intention of ruining the dress, but there she sat with the scissors in one hand and the dress in the other. How could you not put two and two together?

  Dad came running and froze in the doorway.

  Odessa thought right then of a poem she’d loved when she was little about this kid who doesn’t understand money and ends up giving away a dollar in exchange for five pennies. His dad’s face turns red, and the kid thinks it’s because his dad is proud, but of course he’s not proud, he’s angry. And when Odessa saw her father’s red face she wondered if maybe he was the opposite of that dad in the poem—though he looked angry, maybe he was really proud.