“Um, no thanks.”
“You should really try it. It’s like eating a cloud, if clouds had caramel filling and were made of chocolate.”
Sam laughed, and the girl looked up like maybe she thought he was laughing at her, which he was, but not in a bad way. “Maybe just a little piece.” He sliced off the smallest piece he could and took a bite. “You’re right. It tastes exactly like clouds.”
Now she laughed too, and he thought her laugh was kind of pretty, like beer cans clinking together in the wind, only not really. She took another bite of cake. He sat there staring at his piece, trying hard to think of something to say, but even though it was quiet, it was a Pa kind of quiet, nice and comfortable, except he was pretty sure he was sweating through the armpits of his shirt.
“You like planes?” she said, once she was done chewing. “My dad gets sick every time he flies, like barfing into a bag sick, which I guess is why he doesn’t visit.”
“Oh, sorry. Maybe you can visit him sometime?”
The girl looked down at her plate and didn’t answer. She’d eaten all the caramel filling part, so now all she had was a floppy shell of chocolate cake.
“Yeah, maybe. He lives in California, though. It’s really expensive to fly there.”
“True. That’s the worst.” Sam wanted to say that having a dad in California was actually a lot better than not having a dad at all, but he didn’t. The girl dug her fork into her cake, tearing off tiny chunks but not eating them.
“Hey, I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Edie.”
“Sam.”
“I know.” She laughed, but he could tell it wasn’t a mean laugh, and it really did sound like Pa’s wind chimes only a whole lot better.
“So why are you here?” he said, and then he realized that maybe that sounded rude, but Edie didn’t seem to notice.
“For the meeting. Your aunt pays me to pass out cake and help clean up, stuff like that. My mom used to come to the meetings, too, but now she mostly stays home.”
“What meetings?”
Edie studied him through her glasses, which were super cute and matched her hair, just like her sunglasses. But so what? It’s not like he really noticed.
“You know, NA.” She must have seen the way he was staring at her, like he was trying to figure out why his aunt would start a club with such a terrible name, and so she said, “Narcotics Anonymous. For people who have a problem with addiction. Your aunt started holding meetings a few years ago.”
“Like a club for drug addicts?”
“No.” Edie lowered her voice, her eyes darting to the living room. Everyone in the other room had gone quiet, like maybe they’d heard what he said, but then a chair squeaked and someone started talking again. “I mean, yes, technically, but mostly it’s a club for people in recovery. Like your aunt.”
“So they are drug addicts? Even my aunt?” This time he made sure to say it quiet, but it was pretty hard, considering. No wonder Pa had asked Aunt Jo to stay away. Drugs did horrible stuff to your body and could even make you hurt people. Like in that video they’d made him watch last year in health class.
“She’s in recovery, which means she’s trying to get better.” Edie didn’t sound angry, but she kept stabbing at her hollowed-out cake, turning the brown bits to mush. “Besides, she just got her one-year chip last month, which is a big deal. Your aunt’s a hero around here. If it weren’t for her, a lot of these people wouldn’t have anywhere else to turn.”
Sam was trying to understand, but it was a lot to take in. “That’s what all those chips are for?”
“What do you mean?”
“I found all these chips in her room, um, accidentally, and I thought they were just weird poker chips.”
“They give them out at the end of every meeting. They’re to show how long each person’s been clean.”
“I can’t believe this. What kind of drugs is she on?”
“She’s not on anything, not anymore. And just because she has an addiction, doesn’t mean your aunt’s a bad person. It’s like an illness. Regular people have problems with addiction all the time. Good people.”
“Really. Name one.”
Edie looked down and went back to smashing her cake. She didn’t say anything for a while, and so he heard what Aunt Jo said next. Her booming voice carried all the way from the living room.
“Four years ago, when I thought I’d lost everything, I decided to open up my home. If I’d known that you misfits were planning to show up, I might have changed my mind.” Everybody laughed, like she’d just made the best joke in the whole world. “I thought I’d hit rock bottom. I lost my leg and my first love, flying. I’d never been any good at sitting behind a desk, and then I lost that job, too, because of the pills. I told myself I couldn’t get any lower, and then I did something I’ll never forgive myself for. I lost my family too.”
The room got quiet, so quiet Sam could hear his breath loud in his ears. “That was when I knew I had to do something, to take control of my life. It’s been a long road, but now I’m thirteen months clean and counting.” Everyone applauded, even Edie. Sam kept his hands firmly in his lap.
“That’s enough talk and tears for one night,” she said. “There’s cake in the kitchen and, first-timers, don’t forget to pick up your chips.”
“Where are you going?” Edie said, since Sam had abandoned his plate and was already heading back upstairs.
Of course, Aunt Jo came into the kitchen at that very same moment. He could tell she knew that he knew, and he tried to think of something to say, but what? What? The worst part was that she didn’t look like a drug addict, she looked like the same Aunt Jo who used to drive down to Louisiana every year on his birthday to take him to the aviation museum.
“You can help me serve the cake,” Edie said.
Sam hesitated. Pa’s face floated behind his eyes, all crinkly and disappointed. Edie did that nervous thing with her glasses, which made him smile despite all the blue-jay thoughts racing around in his brain.
“Maybe. Just for a few minutes.”
He found a big metal spatula and started plopping slices down on plates. He didn’t look at Aunt Jo, and she didn’t push him. While she dug around in the fridge for more juice, Sam got interrupted in his serving duties, since pretty much everybody in the room wanted to stop and shake his hand.
“Glad to meet ya, Sammy.” The man in overalls and a ball cap gave him a big pat on the back after nearly crushing his hand. “I’ve been hearing about you since you were in diapers. Remember that time you peed in the Grand Canyon? We all laughed when your aunt told us that one. Fine lady, your aunt. Real keeper.”
A woman with gold strands woven into her braids hugged him so hard she nearly squeezed the life out of him. “Your auntie’s a survivor, and that means you are too. Just remember that your dad’s in a better place. Trust in that higher power, you hear?”
It went on and on, until finally the last car drove away and it was just him and Edie and Aunt Jo, along with a whole bunch of dirty plates. Sam was so tired and sore from all that shaking he thought he could sleep for a week.
“How about I order some pizza for dinner so we don’t make any more dishes?” Aunt Jo looked at Sam, and suddenly he felt the quiet of the empty house settling on his shoulders.
“If you want. It’s your house.” He swallowed, trying to decide if he was angry or nervous or something in between.
He helped Edie with the dishes while Aunt Jo ordered two large pizzas with pepperoni, pineapple, and extra cheese. He washed while Edie dried. With the water running, he didn’t have to say anything, which was good, because he didn’t know what to say about NA or Aunt Jo’s words or the fact that everybody thought she was some kind of hero.
Maybe he didn’t hate her as much as before, now that he understood more about why she’d stayed away. And if Edie was right, about addiction being an illness, then maybe it was a good thing that Aunt Jo was getting help. Bu
t it didn’t change anything. Or even if it did change things, just a little, he didn’t know what to do about it.
“You washed that fork three times.” He looked over to see Edie smiling at him. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that smile.
“Sorry.” He turned off the water and handed her the fork.
“I think that’s the last of it.”
“Finally.”
Aunt Jo finished wiping off the table and appraised their work. “That’s a mighty fine job if I ever saw one. You two make a good team.” Sam felt heat creep into his face and wished it back down again. “Now,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “How about some cake?”
Edie laughed, and even though it was a pretty terrible joke, Sam laughed too. At least a little. On the inside.
When the pizza came, Sam grabbed a slice and took a huge bite. It tasted okay at first, until he thought about how pepperoni and pineapple was Pa’s favorite and how it wasn’t fair that he could have some but Pa couldn’t.
“You only ate one bite,” Edie said.
“I’ll save the rest for breakfast.”
Aunt Jo thought that was funny, because Pa used to eat cold pizza for breakfast, too, when he was a kid, which made Sam never want to eat pizza again in his whole grape-soda life. Because none of it was fair, and he suddenly felt bad for eating any pizza at all and vowed that this would be the last time.
Dinner wasn’t that awful, though, because Edie told these funny stories about her science-fair project, which was a solar-powered glider, and how she’d accidentally knocked two of the letters off the school sign so it read Goo uck Wildcats instead of Good Luck Wildcats.
When they were done eating, Aunt Jo gave Edie an entire pizza to take home. “I know your mom doesn’t like pineapple, but she can pick it off.” Aunt Jo winked.
“Oh, I don’t think she’s home. She went to visit her sister for a few days.”
“In Tulsa?”
“Yeah, but she’ll be back on Saturday. Maybe sooner.”
It was Thursday.
“And she left you home all by yourself?” Sam could tell Aunt Jo was trying not to sound mad, but he didn’t think she was mad at Edie.
Edie didn’t answer.
“That’s it, you’re staying with us. This house has too many empty rooms as it is.”
“It’s really okay. I’m fine by myself.”
“Well, I’m not.”
Aunt Jo bustled around grabbing blankets and towels and a brand-new toothbrush, which, by the way, she seemed to have a lot of. Edie just stood in the hall looking kind of mortified, and Sam didn’t know what to say, so he just stood there, too, wishing he had a brain that knew how to make words instead of a grape-soda brain that turned to mush anytime something important happened.
“I bet I could fix that,” Edie said.
Sam had no idea what she was talking about, until she picked up one of the pieces of his plane, which were still under the hall table where he’d left them. She spun the broken propeller.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s just trash.”
Edie studied the plane for a while and then set it down carefully on the floor. “My dad was good at fixing stuff. Once, he stayed up all night fixing this robot puppy I’d gotten for my birthday.” She smiled at the memory. “That was forever ago, though, when I was, like, five.”
Sam wondered how she could talk about her dad without getting angry at him for leaving. If his dad had moved away, he thought he’d take more than a few years to get over it.
“All set,” Aunt Jo said, handing Edie a giant stack of blankets. “In case you get cold.”
“I’ll be fine,” Edie said, her voice muffled by all the fuzzy fleece.
“The guest room’s through here, this way.” Aunt Jo guided Edie to a doorway under the stairs, which opened onto a tiny room with a cozy bed, side table, and lamp. “This used to be Pops’s study.”
Edie dropped the blankets onto the bed. There were probably enough to keep her warm through an entire Arctic winter.
“Thanks, Miss J,” Edie said.
“Anytime, Miss E. Oh, and I almost forgot this.” To Sam’s horror, she reached into her blouse and pulled a ten dollar bill from her bra. “For helping out tonight. You got a safe place to keep this?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good girl. Now get some rest, and I’ll drive you to school in the morning.”
Aunt Jo left, and Sam was stuck standing there with his grape-soda brain that had forgotten how to make words.
“So, um, I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” Edie said.
“Yeah, okay.”
He still didn’t leave, because maybe his feet had stopped working along with his brain.
“Is your mom gone a lot?” The words kind of spilled out, and then right away he wished he hadn’t said them.
“Pretty much.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“It’s okay. Miss J just worries.”
“Miss J?”
“Yeah, that’s what a lot of people call her around here.”
Sam tried looking Edie in the eyes, but it was kind of like staring straight at an eclipse without those ugly paper glasses. He looked away.
“It’s been hard for her.”
“Because of your dad?”
“Because of everything. Mom’s . . . I don’t know, she tries, but . . . sometimes it’s easier when she’s not here.”
“Oh.”
Sam felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around to find Aunt Jo. “You two better get some sleep. Baby Girl leaves at eight-fifteen sharp.”
“Good night,” Edie said.
Her door clicked shut. Sam headed to his room, but Aunt Jo stopped him at the bottom of the stairs. “About today at school. I talked to Principal Everett, and he’s letting you off with a warning. Everybody understands that you’re going through a tough time.”
She waited for him to say something. He could feel her waiting, and he wanted to say something, but once again, brain: mush.
“I guess you figured out tonight where I was for the last four years.” Sam stole a look at Aunt Jo’s cracked-leather face. Maybe she didn’t look that different from the woman in those old photos, the one who used to burp him and drive him to a haunted house every other Halloween. “I wanted to tell you, to explain, but your pa . . . well, none of that matters now. What matters is that you’re here and we’re family.”
She pulled Sam into a hug, and he didn’t fight it. Once she let him go, he opened his mouth, trying to make some words come out, to say what was on his mind, but nothing happened. After a while, Aunt Jo gave his shoulder a squeeze. He watched her walk up the stairs, moving more slowly than she had the night before, and then she went in her room and closed the door.
That night, Sam turned all the lights off and sat on the windowsill in his bedroom, staring out at the shadows. He waited for one to peel itself away from the others and take the form of a cat or a boy or maybe a creepy spider. The rain had stopped a while back, but moisture still glittered on the dark grass, lit by strands of moonlight.
His first thought was, So much for it never raining in Holler, Oklahoma.
His second thought was, If Pa was really out there, trapped inside some grape-soda tree, then what was he doing here staring at nothing? He should go, sneak out while Aunt Jo was asleep and find a way to make the tree open. He slid the window up an inch, cringing at the scream of metal on metal. Crap. It was no use. After that morning, he knew he wouldn’t have the guts to jump. He’d just have to go out the front, and then? Then he’d have to walk. So now what?
Something made a shiver run down Sam’s spine. He turned to see the strange boy shimmering in the doorway. He was resting one hand on the wall, and using the other to chew on a long blade of grass.
“I like your moxie, kid, I do, but you’ve got the timing all wrong.” The Boy’s eyes glinted in the moonlight, and they didn’t look like Pa’s anymore, but like the cat’s. “See, the doorway won’t open again un
til tomorrow. Once a day, at 3:45 p.m. on the dot. That’s the deal. And even that deal won’t last long.”
Sam had a sudden urge to rush the Boy. He pictured his fist sinking into his grape-soda stomach, but he forced himself to stay still. “What do you know about it? Who are you anyway?”
“Me?” The corner of his lip curled up, revealing those same short, needle-thin teeth. “Just a friend. And you can trust me when I say that there’s no way to force the tree open, not until the appointed time.”
“The time Pa died?” Sam said, the words catching in his throat.
“That’s right. Poetic, don’t you think?”
What Sam thought was that he’d had enough. “Why are you here?”
“Like I said, I’m a friend.”
“I didn’t ask for a friend.”
“But you need one.” The Boy’s eyes hardened into two polished marbles, sucking up all the light.
Sam thought of what had happened with Pa and the Colonel, and how the Colonel had shifted midair to go after the Boy.
“Go. I don’t want you here.”
The Boy’s smile widened, revealing a darkness between his teeth even blacker than the surrounding shadows.
“As you wish.”
He winked, and then his body quivered before bursting into a cloud of silver dust that vanished as soon as it had appeared. Numb, Sam crossed the room and picked up the single blade of grass, the only evidence of the Boy’s visit. He ran it through his fingers and found that it was still wet on one end. He shuddered, standing frozen, staring at the space where the Boy had been.
When he finally crawled into bed a while later, he couldn’t sleep. Frenzied thoughts kept zipping through his brain. Thoughts like giant dragonflies with sharp legs and veiny, motorized wings.
8
COLD PINEAPPLE AND PEPPERONI PIZZA probably doesn’t seem like the best breakfast in the world, but it really was, especially when it had an extra-thick layer of congealed cheese. Sam might not have been hungry the night before, but now he couldn’t seem to stop eating. Even if he still felt bad that he could eat and Pa couldn’t. With each slice he consumed, Edie’s eyes got wider.
The Secret Life of Sam Page 8
