Almost Home

by Joan Bauer

  I tried to sound like a game show host. “Aliens have landed and taken us captive in their spaceship, and after giving us a ride around the sun, they bring us back home.”

  Reba touched her southern bell necklace, thinking.

  “It was a cool spaceship, too,” I added. “You have two minutes to write the note . . .” I looked at my watch. “Beginning now.”

  Reba looked off into the distance to get an idea. She tapped her pen and started writing. I was dying to look over her shoulder, but that’s against the rules.

  “Sixty seconds,” I told her.

  She wrote faster.

  “Thirty . . .”

  “And the countdown. Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .”

  She signed her name, underlined it just in time, and handed it to me.

  Dear Creatures,

  Thank you for the ride in your spaceship. It was very clean, and I must say, being with all of you and trying to focus on all the eyes you each have on your heads made me and my daughter see things in a new way. I’m sure that you all come from good homes on your planet, and I will be letting the rest of the earth know how kind you were to me, although perhaps you want to rethink hovering over my backyard and sucking me into your jet stream. It did take me a few minutes to stop screaming and get to know you. I’m not being critical, it’s just a suggestion. The next time you’re in the atmosphere, please stop by for tea and sweetie pies.

  Yours very truly,

  Reba Cole

  “Reba Cole,” I shouted, “you are our grand prize winner!”

  She laughed. “What do I get?”

  I wished I could give her the world.

  I miss the old Reba.

  24

  THE 151 BUS pulls up, and Lexie and I get on. Big Bob’s Budget Bus had a slight sour smell; this bus smells better. It heads down the street and I look out the window at the stores and the people walking by.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the driver shouts, “feast your eyes on this fine city. We’re glad you’re here.”

  That makes me grin, and I look at the big streets and the tall buildings and wonder if I should feel happy when Reba is locked up in a mental hospital. The thought of that makes me tired.

  Lexie doesn’t seem like she ever gets tired. She’s pointing out buildings and a big park. “That’s Lincoln Park,” she tells me. “There’s a zoo in there, boats on a pond.” She points down a street. “Best ice cream in Chicago is that way. What’s your favorite flavor?”

  It’s been so long since I got to choose, I just eat whatever people hand me. “Chocolate chip,” I tell her.

  “We need to get you some of that.”

  Reba’s favorite is maple pecan—that’s not easy to find, but back when we had our house, she’d buy vanilla ice cream, let it soften, put it in a bowl, and stir in some maple syrup and toasted pecans, then she’d freeze it again. We’d eat it in big yellow bowls on the porch. Those bowls got broken when the sheriff came and carried all our stuff to the street.

  We used to cook up a storm in our kitchen—we’d make lovely pizzas, hamburger soup, and sweetie pies, the best dessert ever. They’re like little pecan pies with buttery dough.

  Today Lexie and I are heading to her favorite store to get me some clothes, not used ones, either. I look out the window at Chicago. I never want to leave this big, wonderful place.

  I look up on the wall of the bus. There’s a poster of a homeless man sleeping on the street and the words GET HIM THE HELP HE NEEDS.

  I study the picture of the homeless man. It doesn’t tell the story. In his heart, that man’s got dreams he’s packed away.

  Lexie says, “Come on, it’s our stop.”

  “You ladies have a good day now,” the driver says.

  Lots of people say that, but this guy says it like he means it.

  I smile back at him, and the craziest feeling comes over me.

  I almost feel normal.

  Of course, my mother’s in a mental hospital and just the other day I didn’t have a place to sleep, but sometimes feelings are like a butterfly landing on your arm for a few moments. King Cole told me that.

  “You just enjoy them while they’re perched there,” he said.

  That man was an official genius.

  The whole world should know, but they never will.

  x x x

  “What’s your favorite color?” Lexie asks me.

  “Yellow.”

  We’re standing in a store that’s got more clothes than I’ve ever seen. Lexie marches to a rack of tops and goes through them with total focus. She lifts up three yellow tops and hands them to me.

  I don’t know how to tell her I haven’t shopped in a real store for ages. I hold the tops close. They smell new.

  I need new so bad.

  “Shorts,” Lexie says, and we head over to another rack. I go through them slowly because I pretty much want them all. I hold up a pair of bright white shorts, figuring she’ll say they’re not practical. Reba was always saying that.

  “Try them on,” Lexie says.

  I head to a big room with mirrors, where lots of women are trying on clothes. One lady is in a badly fitting pink dress and I want to tell her, Don’t buy it. You look awful.

  I feel like I’ve got the sign over my forehead: HOMELESS GIRL.

  I take extra care with what I’m trying on. I fold the clothes I’m wearing neatly on a bench. I try on the white shorts and they feel so good. Two of the yellow tops fit funny, but the last one I put on, it’s like it was waiting for me to find it.

  I look at myself in the mirror, I run my fingers through my hair, and then I turn away because I’m crying.

  “You look so pretty,” the lady in the bad pink dress says to me. I’m not sure she’s a good judge of pretty, but I’ll take it, so I smile.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” I wipe my tears and turn around in the mirror, seeing all the angles of this yellow top and how it hangs just right. A lady carrying lots of clothes walks in—she’s pretty, like a model. I watch her from the corner of my eye. She puts on belts and scarves and stands in front of the mirror like she owns the world. I stand off to the side and try to copy her, put my hand on my hip, shake out my hair, and look superserious.

  She prances back to her changing area and I prance back to mine. Lexie has more clothes for me to try. It seems like it’s Christmas and my birthday when I put on this bright pink top. I feel like I can beat the world.

  King Cole told me I could do that.

  My hair looks scraggly, but right there, Lexie says, “Let me braid it.” And she does just that.

  I’m here to tell you, I look like a new girl.

  25

  SHUSH IS HAVING a good time—probably the best time of his whole life. He is jumping straight up in the air and shaking his furry head in freedom. I run around Lexie and Mac’s backyard trying to catch him. They’ve got every kind of flower here, and I’m yelling, “Don’t pee on those flowers, Shush! Don’t!”

  “It’s okay,” Lexie shouts at me through the kitchen window. “Let him run.”

  I lie down on the grass and Shush jumps over me. Then he trots over and licks my face until I start laughing.

  Do you know how good Chicago grass smells?

  I’m not sure I ever want to leave. A hard thing is happening, too. Part of me doesn’t want Reba to get out of the hospital yet. I want to stay here with Lexie and Mac.

  “I’ve got cookies,” Lexie says. “Just out of the oven.”

  “Coming.” I head inside with Shush.

  Do you know how good this kitchen smells?

  I stand over the pan of chocolate cookies and breathe deep. Then I think about waiting for Reba on the bench and seeing her face when she finally showed up. My breath catches in my
throat.

  “Do you think Reba’s got to stay in the hospital for a while?” I ask Lexie.

  “A week more, they told me.”

  “Oh.” That’s not too long a time.

  “I know that’s got to be hard for you.” Lexie hands me a cookie and puts the others on a tray.

  I take a bite. It’s warm and chewy like a cookie should be. “I like it here.”

  “And we like having you.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. “Just in case you’re feeling at odds with that, let me tell you—liking it here doesn’t mean you love your mom any less.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No.”

  Two men and a lady walk into the kitchen carrying guitars and scoop up the tray of cookies.

  “You sing?” Lexie asks me.

  “Well . . . kind of . . . I mean, I used to.”

  Lexie laughs. “That qualifies here. Sugar, meet Dez, Bodie, and Margo.”

  “We’re the band,” the tall guy with a ponytail says. They head down the basement steps with the cookies. Shush goes under the kitchen table to hide.

  Lexie goes after them. “We need to defend our food, Sugar. Come on.”

  x x x

  This basement I’m in, it’s got dark wood walls, and there are microphones set up in the corner by a drum set and a keyboard. A banner hangs behind the microphones: FRESH RIVER. Mac comes down wearing a Fresh River T-shirt. Dez, Bodie, and Margo are tuning their guitars.

  Mac, on a harmonica, plays something bluesy. Margo on the bass comes in with a beat that keeps repeating. That beat is so good, I’m moving to it. Lexie sits down at the keyboard and starts playing. Mac taps his foot.

  “Yep,” says Margo, nodding her head to the beat, and the other two guitar players jump in, then Lexie plays the melody on the piano. The music is so good, I’m clapping along, and then Mac starts singing.

  I was sick and tired a living,

  I was walking in the desert so dry,

  I was stopping to quit and stepping in spit

  And couldn’t find a place of supply.

  But then the words my mama told me

  Fell down on me sure and true,

  She said, listen now, this isn’t going to last,

  ’Cause you’re just passing through.

  They were all singing now in harmony.

  And yes, we’re just passing through, oh Mama,

  We’re just passing through.

  So take a load off your feet and sing it out sweet,

  ’Cause we’re just passing through.

  I love this song!

  Mac stops playing and says, “Bodie, I need you to go higher on that riff on the chorus.” Bodie plays his guitar part higher, twirls around, and Mac starts singing,

  Climb out of your rut

  and get off your butt

  and suck in your gut

  I’m laughing now at the crazy words and now I’m singing with them.

  And yes, we’re just passing through, oh Mama,

  We’re just passing through.

  So take a load off your feet and sing it out sweet,

  ’Cause we’re just passing through.

  Lexie looks at me grinning. “You like that song, Sugar? Mac wrote it.”

  “I love it.”

  The band practices some more. I sit here feeling happy, listening to their music. Reba doesn’t sing too well, but she loves to dance, and I picture her all new inside, dancing across the floor with Shush in her arms.

  But Reba’s not dancing free, she’s in a locked place. I don’t think I can feel happy knowing that.

  You know what it’s like to move from being happy to being not? It’s like swinging as high as you can and someone stops you as you come back down.

  “I love your band,” I say. “But I’m tired. I’m going upstairs.”

  I don’t know why being happy is so easy to lose.

  x x x

  I’m lying on my stomach on the white bed in the pink bedroom. I put a dog treat on the rug, waiting; finally Shush’s head pokes out from the white bed ruffle. He grabs the treat and goes back to hiding.

  “So, do you think about your mother?” I ask him. “Do you think about the place where you used to be? I do.” I pull up the ruffle and look at him lying there. “Do you remember our old house? I remember painting the porch with Reba and King Cole. I remember all my birthday parties in the backyard. Reba always went full-out with those. You weren’t there for a party.”

  I’m having trouble breathing, and I need to be quiet or else this could move into an all-out panic attack.

  I close my eyes and feel like a drum is pounding in my chest. I try to think of sweet things, like sitting on the front porch harmonizing with King Cole, like catching fireflies with Reba. Fireflies would perch on her hand and stay there for the longest time. “You glow, little one,” she’d whisper to them. I wish I could catch a firefly and bring it to her in the hospital.

  Shush’s head pokes out and he whines a little, which means he wants to come up with me. I check his paws to make sure he’s not dirty. This is a white bed, after all.

  “Okay. You can come up.” I lift him, and he settles right into the crook of my arm. “It’s good here, huh?”

  He closes his eyes.

  “Here’s the problem with the world, as I see it. People try to fit you into their box and say, this is normal, this isn’t. People could look at you and say you’re a messed-up dog, but you’re just sensitive.” Shush is looking at me. “If you were just a regular dog, who needed three walks a day and barked all the time, I couldn’t keep you. See, you fit with me and Reba.” I stroke his head. “Do you miss her? Yeah, me, too.”

  Shush sniffs my hair. “This is a braid. Don’t chew on it.”

  He looks at me a little strangely.

  “I look different, huh? I look like I can beat the world. Right?” I look in the mirror, superserious, like that model lady did. “Beating the world is easier said than done,” I add.

  Shush sighs and puts his head on my shoulder.

  “Change is good,” I tell him. “Some change, that is.” I hum the passing-through song.

  x x x

  The next morning I go to see Reba, still humming the song. Dana Wood is with me.

  “It will take a few more weeks for your mom’s medicine to start working, Sugar.”

  Why don’t they give her medicine that works faster?

  I sit with my mother. We don’t talk much, I just hold her hand and let her know I’m here.

  Reba sighs from this private place in her heart.

  “You’ll get out of here,” I tell her.

  “When Mr. Leeland comes—”

  “No!” I shout. “You remember the monster at the door?”

  She looks down, shaking her head.

  I put my face close. “You remember? The man who came about the money?”

  I look at my mother sitting on the bed. “Don’t forget that, Reba.”

  She closes her eyes, presses her lips together hard, and nods, but something tells me I’m going to have to keep reminding her. The trick with monsters is they know how to hide.

  “I’m tired,” Reba says. I cover her with a sheet and kiss her cheek.

  Don’t give up, Reba. Don’t.

  I’ve learned something about sadness this last year. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just sit with someone who’s hurting; you don’t have to say anything or offer advice, you just sit there.

  I think dogs understand this better than people.

  So all that week I sit with Reba in the hospital, and I realize that I want to help people more than I want to do anything else. She gets a little better, too. I keep remembering King Cole’s favorite hoc
key movie and what the coach said to the players right before their big Olympic game. So I tell her, “I know things don’t look so good right now, but you’ve got to believe that this is your time, this is your day to win, you’ve got to gather up what you’ve got because today you are the greatest woman in America! Now go out there and do it!”

  “What?” Reba says.

  Maybe that was overkill, but I hope some of it sinks in.

  26

  “TRY TO LET this sink in,” I tell Shush, “because not every dog has a calling. You do.”

  I show him what I found on the Internet about helper dogs.

  “This might seem like a lot at once, but the first thing we’ve got to do is help you learn to walk across busy streets and not get stressed by the horns and the garbage trucks. Then you need to go into a hospital and handle all the background noise there. Then comes the good part. We go to rooms where people really need a hug from a fur ball. That’s you—you’re the fur ball. And in those places, you just do your thing—wag your tail and make people feel special. You can do that.”

  Shush purrs.

  I put the leash on him and he sits down. I slap my thigh twice, which is his signal to heel, but he digs in his heels and doesn’t move.

  “No.” I slap my thigh again. “Heel.”

  He’s not going there.

  “Dogs like to walk,” I mention.

  Not this dog. I pick him up and carry him outside. I get him across the street. An old man and his old dog are sitting on a porch. For some reason Shush starts pulling toward them. The old dog lifts his head, Shush sits right at the foot of the porch steps. The old dog rises.

  “Now, I’ve not seen Merlin show much interest in things of late,” the old man says to me. “Merlin, you like this little dog?”

  This old dog Merlin gets up slow and Shush heads up the stairs. Shush starts sniffing Merlin, and Merlin doesn’t seem to mind. The old man asks me, “You walk dogs?”