Oslo, Maine

by Marcia Butler

  “Yeah. But she’s busy,” he said.

  Mrs. Cabot started up the three steps to the door as if she expected to come inside. They’d never been to his house before. At least that’s what Pierre assumed, though he couldn’t be absolutely certain. It was possible his mom had Mrs. Cabot over as a friend. That is, back when his mom did that sort of thing. But the Ringleader? No way he’d ever allow her into his house. Pierre stood directly in the center of the door frame, blocking Mrs. Cabot.

  “Oh. Okay. Sure,” Mrs. Cabot stuttered, backing down the steps. “It’s just that we had a ton of leftovers from last night’s dinner and thought you all might enjoy them.”

  Pierre eyed a large platter the Ringleader held in her arms. She extended the food in his direction. Her fingernails were the same color as her toes, another sign of “look at me” disease. All the mean girls seemed to care about this matchy-match thing. Pierre thought it was ridiculous.

  “What is it?” he asked Mrs. Cabot, ignoring the Ringleader.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow on vacation. The food will go to waste,” Mrs. Cabot continued without answering his question, something Pierre hated about adults.

  The Ringleader, who’d been staring mostly at her green toes all this time, finally lifted her head and threw him her trickiest, phoniest, most evil smile to date. And Pierre suddenly knew the real reason they’d driven all the way to his house. Delivering their half-eaten food, as if they were poor, was just a diversion tactic. The Ringleader wanted an excuse to torture him one more time before they went on their stupid vacation, to rub his nose in the fact that her family had money and was way better off than his family. Yes, that was it.

  Mrs. Cabot huffed a few times, still expecting Pierre to move aside to let them in. No way. Finally, she grabbed the platter from her horrible daughter and shoved it into Pierre’s arms.

  “Thanks. I guess,” Pierre said.

  He watched them drive off and when they were a safe distance away, Pierre peeked under the foil. He was hungry—maybe the food was halfway decent. Shriveled mushrooms, smelly cheese, and a bunch of other useless food like celery, which had no taste at all so why even bother? He flung the food out the back door for the birds and jammed the platter to the bottom of a garbage pail.

  On the way back to his room, Pierre detoured into the new wing to listen at his mom’s bedroom door. They were talking about the length of her dress and whether or not she should wear a belt, because his mom had lost weight. Even through a closed door, Pierre could tell his mom’s mood just by the tone of her voice. Sloppy talk, like thick soup plopping into a bowl, meant she’d taken a pill. Peppy, like boots crunching on hard snow, meant it might be a good day. Then Pierre heard his mom laugh at something Mrs. Kimbrough said and they both giggled for a long time—a hopeful sign. Relieved, he returned to his room and instead of practicing more, Pierre decided to read Edna’s latest approved book, The Diary of a Nobody, which was finally getting good.

  Shortly, he heard their footsteps approach. A quiet tap on his door, which then swung open. They both displayed smiles—too wide, too many teeth. When adults smiled like this, something was about to happen. Usually annoying, sometimes bad. But his mom looked pretty, so maybe not so terrible. Her eyebrows were filled in with pencil, and pink dotted her cheeks. The dress she wore had flowers all over, the same shade as her eyes. Mrs. Kimbrough was fancy, too. They were obviously going someplace together, though Pierre couldn’t begin to guess where.

  “We’re going to the doctor,” his mom said as if reading his mind.

  “It’s not on the schedule!” Pierre wailed, pointing to the large monthly calendar his mom had nailed to the wall so he could “remember” upcoming appointments. The plan had been that she’d draw color-coded diagonal slashes for activities she thought should mean something to him. Red slashes were for doctor visits, always a bad day. Blue for everything supposedly fun, like the swimming lessons he secretly hated—but couldn’t tell his mom because it would just make her sad—because the Ringleader was in his diving group. Green meant violin lessons, the only thing he actually cared about. The square for today’s date was empty. No red slash.

  His mom stared at the calendar and fussed with her hair, which Pierre noticed had been washed and curled. He loved it when she managed to bathe, even if Mrs. Kimbrough helped like she had that morning.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I guess I forgot,” his mom said.

  “It’s okay. But all day?”

  “Just the morning this time, I promise. They’re going to repeat the tests to see if there’s been improvement.”

  He didn’t care what the tests showed—they wouldn’t change all the things that had gone wrong. His mom was usually sloppy and mostly sad and never cooked. His dad hardly came home, and when he did, just argued with his mom in her bedroom. Those were the things that needed fixing, not his brain. Pierre then noticed the next day on the calendar had a green slash. He pointed to it and looked at Mrs. Kimbrough, who nodded.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  “Uh-huh. And I have a surprise.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  “Want me to tell you?” Pierre asked, jumping up and down with excitement.

  “You just said it was a surprise.”

  “A clue, then?” he pleaded.

  “Sure.”

  “Vivaldi.”

  “A-minor,” she guessed correctly.

  “Now it’s not a surprise,” Pierre said, looking a bit regretful.

  “Well, you started it. How are the ‘threes’ going?” Mrs. Kimbrough asked, grinning.

  “Not too good. It’s a lot harder than I thought.”

  His mom sat on his bed staring out the window, her shoulders rounded over. And Pierre felt terrible that she didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. He made a mental note to try and remember not to get excited about anything in front of his mom. She couldn’t take it when people were happy.

  As they prepared to leave the house, Mrs. Kimbrough grabbed a grocery sack filled with sandwiches, fruit, and drinks she’d brought along for the trip. Pierre now worried it was obvious that he was glad, even relieved, that Mrs. Kimbrough was coming with them to the hospital. He’d try to remember this also, to downplay that he liked Mrs. Kimbrough so much. That would probably make his mom sad, too.

  They piled into Mrs. Kimbrough’s car and got on the road for the hour-long drive. The women talked softly in the front seat while Pierre bit into an apple and stuck his nose in the Nobody book, which was filled with weirdos. Everyone acted fussy and worried constantly about pretty much nothing. They wrote letters to each other and carried walking sticks and wore tall hats and planned lots of parties where feelings got hurt. People usually loved the wrong person. Most were a little crazy. Some were rich and mean. And, at some point, everybody was sad. Now Pierre’s stomach began to ache, probably because reading in the car made him queasy. No, he was thinking way too much about how his mom was sad and how he couldn’t fix it. He looked up just as his mom turned down the sun shield to check her makeup in the mirror. Their eyes met in the reflection and she gave him a thumbs-up. Pierre nodded vigorously. But she didn’t smile. He lay across the backseat and closed his eyes.

  The women gossiped about somebody named Doug who was arrested for kicking his dog. The guy was released, but the dog had to go to the vet. That wasn’t fair. Pierre hated Doug, whoever he was, and worried for the dog. Mr. Kimbrough’s back was acting up and he had to go to a really expensive chiropractor that they couldn’t afford. Pierre became concerned that the Kimbroughs might not have enough money to eat, and now regretted throwing out the Ringleader’s food. He should have offered it to his teacher. His dad had a bad corn on his toe and went to the foot doctor to have it sliced off. Pierre hoped that corns weren’t contagious, because what if his mom got the corn? Pierre couldn’t fix that, either. In spite of all Pierre’s concerns, his mom just laughed and laughed and laughed, which didn’t make sense, because nothing about their conversati
on had been funny. It was all worrisome and unfixable. Pierre’s stomachache turned into a sharp pain. He held his breath and pressed his fists into his belly.

  “Listen, Celine, Jim isn’t playing the concert tonight in Portland. His back,” Mrs. Kimbrough said. “The chiropractor advised him to lie low for a couple days. Would you mind if Pierre came with me?”

  Mrs. Kimbrough turned to see if he was listening. Ignoring his stomach, Pierre quickly sat up. “Mom, I want to. Can I?” he pleaded.

  “How late does it go?” his mom asked.

  “Why does that matter? It’s summer!” Pierre yelled into the back of his mom’s head.

  “That’s the thing,” Mrs. Kimbrough inserted quickly. “It’s an early outdoor pops concert so we’ll be done by eight. Back by ten at the latest. It gets so dark closer to Oslo, and Jim always drives. I could use the company.”

  She looked back again and winked at Pierre. His mom agreed easily. For the rest of the trip, Pierre stared out the window counting gophers on the interstate. Somehow, he’d remembered this was a rule his dad made up: when you counted gophers in the car, you weren’t allowed to talk. The women seemed to take his cue and Pierre was grateful for the quiet; he needed a break from hearing about the many things he couldn’t fix.

  The tests went quickly, one right after the other. While lying very still as the machines passed over first his head and then his entire body, Pierre heard the women try to discuss his condition with the technicians. As usual, they wouldn’t answer any questions. When he gave blood for the millionth time, Pierre complained that he was sick of getting poked. The nurse gave him a strange smile and Pierre figured she actually liked torturing people, because she’d picked a job where she got paid to stick people with needles. Mrs. Kimbrough asked about the medications he was taking, like the pill to prevent brain clots. Pierre had secretly stopped taking that pill because it made him feel worse than he already did. A drug to fix something that wasn’t even a problem yet, but made you feel like crap in the meantime, was the dumbest idea ever. All that went fast enough, but then they had to wait over an hour for the theory-of-nothing doctor to show up.

  “Pierre, tell me how you’re doing. In your own words,” his doctor demanded in a really loud voice. Pierre wondered whose words he would use other than his own, and why was the guy yelling?

  “I feel hopeful,” Pierre replied, purposefully vague.

  “Have you regained memory at all?”

  “I can repeat what you just said.”

  “I mean longer than a few seconds. For instance, what did you have for breakfast two days ago?”

  “Cereal. Whole-wheat toast with honey on top. Glass of orange juice,” Pierre recited like an automaton, moving his arms up and down.

  “Good. Sounds like progress,” the doctor declared, looking around the room for confirmation. Mrs. Kimbrough smiled. His mom nodded. What nobody knew, including his mom because she slept till noon most days, was that Pierre ate the same thing for breakfast every single morning.

  “Oh my God. Can we please go now?” Pierre whined, rolling his eyes.

  “He’s cranky today,” his mom explained.

  “That’s not true. I only got cranky when I had to answer his stupid questions.”

  “That’s fine, Pierre. I know this is difficult,” the doctor said.

  “I didn’t say it was difficult. I said it was stupid. Doesn’t anybody ever listen!?”

  They ate the food Mrs. Kimbrough brought during the first ten minutes of the trip home. His mom only picked at her sandwich and handed the rest to Pierre, which he gladly accepted. Food seemed to relieve his stomach pain, and for the first time in hours he felt decent.

  “Well, he’s a major drip,” Mrs. Kimbrough said, stuffing the food wrappers into her canvas bag.

  “Yeah, Claude can’t stand him,” his mom said.

  “At least there’s some people who agree with me about that guy,” Pierre said.

  “Just because Sandra says Dr. Stanton’s a drip and Daddy doesn’t like him doesn’t mean he’s a bad doctor, honey. He’s the best in his field,” his mom said.

  “Tomorrow for breakfast? I want an omelet,” Pierre declared.

  “You hate eggs,” his mom said.

  “I know, except once, when I had that omelet with onions. Remember?”

  “Oh, right. Daddy made breakfast and there wasn’t much in the refrigerator except eggs and onions. But he didn’t bother to sauté them. Just threw them in raw. Somehow that made the eggs taste good to you. That was, what, two years ago?”

  His mom would never notice, but Mrs. Kimbrough turned around. Pierre avoided her stare and looked out the side window. She rechecked the road, a straightaway, then turned again, this time with a question in her eyes. Mrs. Kimbrough had noticed, and Pierre didn’t look away.

  It started the week before. Like remembering that Ben was his friend and that Ben’s mom and dad were divorced, and they ate pizza every night for dinner because his dad didn’t give them enough money. And that Edna’s daughter was dead, and that she’d been Luc’s mother. Small things, weird stuff, all useless. Because what good did it do him to remember a fight from months ago when his dad forgot to change the oil in his mom’s car? And what was so great about remembering raw onions in an omelet? Pretty much nothing.

  Everyone was obsessed with the past. If it was bad, they were glad it was over. If it was good, they wanted to repeat it. And thinking about the future made even less sense. His mom and dad and the theory doctor, and even Mrs. Kimbrough, all wanted to know what was going to happen. Pierre knew this was impossible. There was only now, like when he played his violin. And right now, everyone in the car was ignoring the fact that before leaving the hospital, when his mom made a point of going to the restroom alone, she’d taken a pill. Pierre saw it and he knew Mrs. Kimbrough noticed, too. You only had to listen to her sloppy talk to prove it.

  “Tonight, stay on the interstate as long as you can, Sandra,” his mom advised, slowly bobbing her head up and down.

  “Of course,” she agreed.

  “What’ll you do then, loop around the lake? Cause that’s the fastest way.”

  “I suppose …”

  “And it could rain later. So, you might want to take the longer route—”

  Pierre bolted forward and Nobody flew to the floor of the car. “Shut up, Mom!” he yelled.

  “I’m trying to figure out the route for Sandra …” Her voice trailed off.

  “She doesn’t need your help. And you don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Pierre whimpered.

  “I certainly know how to drive to Portland,” she said, scratching her scalp and inspecting the dandruff, another sign of her pills.

  “But don’t you see, Mom? You can’t help with something in the future. There’s no point to it,” Pierre said with desperation.

  “Hey. Take it easy, Pierre,” Mrs. Kimbrough said.

  “No, Sandra. He’s right. There’s no point,” his mom said with a strange flatness.

  Before his mom could start to cry, because that’s what she always did, Pierre wrapped his arms around her from the backseat and squeezed as hard as he could. She still smelled like the shower she’d taken that morning.

  “Don’t cry, Mom. Everything’s going to be okay. Nothing will happen,” Pierre whispered into her hair.

  LYING LIARS

  “WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART?” SANDRA asked Pierre. She reached behind her seat in the car and felt for her violin in the footwell, to make certain it was secure for the drive home. Pierre tossed his book onto the dashboard and buckled his seat belt.

  “The violin,” Pierre said.

  “You mean the soloist?”

  “Uh-huh,” Pierre affirmed without enthusiasm.

  Since she’d brought him backstage after the concert to introduce him to a few of her colleagues, Pierre had gradually slipped into a sullen mood. Though loquacious one-on-one, she knew Pierre was typically shy in groups, and so she simply assumed
he’d been overwhelmed by the attention he’d received as Sandra’s prize student. Now, as he stared out the window toward the outdoor pavilion where the orchestra had just finished performing, Sandra examined Pierre’s profile. Eyes blinking rapidly, his mouth grimacing with thought, fingers thrumming his thighs. She reached over and tucked a few longish strands of hair behind his ear, apparently remaining a beat too long, as Pierre sloughed off her gesture with his shoulder and sidled closer to the side window. Then he pulled his book off the dashboard and buried his nose.

  “Book any good?” she asked, hoping to drag something out of him. Pierre gave her a tired stare, as if to say, I’m reading now.

  “All righty, then,” she said with jocularity. “Let’s get on the road.”

  Sandra circled toward the exit of the municipal parking lot. At intervals, she waved goodbye to friends, most of whom called out to Pierre, “Keep practicing!” Each time, Pierre produced a weak smile, only to resume his book and disposition. Sandra knew how to avoid post-concert traffic and navigated the back roads of Portland, then slid onto the interstate heading north. Within minutes of gaining speed on a long straightaway, Pierre let the book slip to his lap. His head lolled back and in no time, his eyelids dropped.

  It was a few minutes after eight, yet the sun still beat with force from the west. Sandra was grateful that the concert was over early, because the long day had all but exhausted her. Pierre now looked to have fallen deeply asleep, and she surmised that the stress of testing at the hospital had finally gotten the better of him, too. A parade of practitioners had methodically interrogated and prodded him, each one asking virtually the same questions as the previous. Then the final consult with Stanton, whose vacuous personality did next to nothing to either enlighten or reassure them. The frustration level was more than any adult could manage, let alone a boy. Yet Sandra, who’d attended a fair number of these appointments, admired Pierre’s wily people skills. Such as placating Stanton with good-enough answers to his obtuse questions, while at the same time deftly sidestepping more treacherous queries with the prattle of an innocent. With the exception of his final meltdown during the drive home (and she could hardly blame the boy), Sandra thought she understood Pierre’s ulterior motive: to appear as normal as possible so he might protect his mother.