Smiles to Go Read online

  She ripped the bagel, offered me a piece.

  “No thanks,” I said.

  She sighed, chewed, sipped apple juice.

  “Dad says you were sleeping when he left.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Snoring.”

  “I don’t snore.”

  “He says you were.” Why would my father say that? “He says you were out walking last night.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Great.”

  She took my hand, squeezed my fingers. “I hate to see you worried, but in a way I’m glad you are.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I don’t mean it that way. I knew you would be.” Her voice sagged, like her shoulders. “I just know how pestered you feel sometimes.”

  “Some times?” I tried to say it with a grin.

  She laughed, squeezed my fingers. “I know…I know…” She stared at me, looked away—“Will”—looked back at me—

  “Will…why do you think she throws her black jelly beans in the wastebasket?”

  “She knows they’re my favorite.”

  “And?”

  “To tick me off.”

  “And?”

  I shrugged. “What else is there? It’s like everything else. She makes sure I see her, because if I don’t see her I won’t get mad. And that’s what she wants, to make me mad.”

  My mother closed her eyes and gave a weary sigh. “You’re hopeless.” She hugged me as she said it. “Did you come on your skateboard?”

  “No.”

  She looked surprised, then not surprised. “I need you to go home and meet me back here.”

  “I still have legs.”

  She squeezed my knee. “Good. An hour time enough?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Easy.”

  “Okay. When you get there, go to your sister’s room and take a look at Ozzie. A really close look. Then come back and tell me what you find.” She pushed me from the seat. “Go. I’ll meet you right here in an hour.”

  Home was less than a cross-country course away. I was there in twenty minutes. I took the stairs two at a time. Ozzie looked pretty normal to me, until I turned him over and saw the gash in his underside that was laced up like a sneaker. I untied the laces and pulled it open and reached inside and pulled out a Morningside lemonade container. A mailing label said in big red letters:

  FOR WILL—TOP SECRET!!!

  The words looked adult-made, but I figured I knew who did the dictating. I took off the yellow plastic lid. The container was three-quarters full—of black jelly beans.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, staring at the jelly beans, at the gutted octopus. The horizontal world I had thought I occupied was tilting, dumping me somewhere else, somewhere new. I carefully replaced the container in the octopus and returned to the hospital.

  I waited on the bench. When Mom sat beside me, she stared at my face for a long time. At last she said, “You found it?”

  I nodded.

  “And?” Still searching my face.

  “And…” I shrugged. I had feelings but not words.

  She laid her hand on mine. “Let me get you started. You’re not exactly sure what to make of Tabby’s little secret, but you think you just saw a side of her that you maybe hadn’t noticed before. Does that come close?”

  I nodded.

  She looked away with a long sigh. “Do you know what she does afterward, when you’re not looking?”

  I shook my head.

  “She takes the jelly beans back out of the wastebasket. She dusts them off. She has her own special dust rag. Then she puts them in her secret place. She’s going to give them to you on your next birthday.”

  “Dusted off?” The words came out choky.

  She squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry. She won’t know it, but I’ll substitute new jelly beans at the last minute.”

  I didn’t know what to do, what to say.

  Feelings were flooding. I reached up, flicked at the end of a gushing pink branch. Petals fell.

  I felt her head on my shoulder. “Will…she’s too little to understand the best way to get you to love her. So she just does it her way.”

  Something in me wouldn’t give up. “Which is being a pest.” But this time I smiled as I said it.

  She poked my knee. “Exactly. Why do you think she keeps fooling with your trophy? Because she thinks you love that little pewter man more than her.” Her breath caught on the last word. “Sometimes you”—she made a fist and punched my knee twice, thumb out, girl-style—“you get so wrapped up in your own little world you don’t see what’s right in front of you. Whatever interests you—you—that’s what she zeroes in on.”

  Chess

  Trophy

  Skateboard

  Black jelly beans

  Star party

  Mi-Su

  BT

  I cleared my throat. “There’s something I always wondered about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The wedding gifts. Why hasn’t she ever ripped them open?”

  She nodded, gave a quiet chuckle. “I threatened her. I told her if she ever messed with the gifts, you would not walk down the aisle with her on First Day.”

  We sat for a while, breathing.

  Now she was lightly rubbing my knee, brushing away the punches. “You know what she wants? More than anything?” I shook my head. “She wants to be just like you. Her big brother.”

  She hugged my arm. “Do you even know what color her eyes are, Will? Do you?”

  Petals falling…pink petals falling everywhere…

  PD227

  I don’t know how my mother stands it, staying in the room all this time. Every other minute she checks the tubes, reads the monitors. She touches Tabby’s face. She reaches under the sheet to feel if her feet are cold. She holds her hand, runs her finger over it, kisses it. She rubs her earlobes between her thumb and forefinger. I’ve never seen earlobes get so much attention.

  She talks to Tabby as if she can hear. She says things like, “Will’s here,” and “Mommy’s going to go see the nurse. I’ll be right back,” and “Korbet says hello.” She reads Korbet’s note to her. I’m not sure if this is a good idea, knowing how Tabby feels about Korbet, but I don’t say anything. She reads picture books to her. My father has brought a stack from home. The Velveteen Rabbit, Chicken Little, etc. I think of BT reading adult murder mysteries to her. She would prefer that.

  The doctor calls it an “induced coma.” Keeping her “asleep on purpose”—that’s how he said it. “Asleep on purpose.” So “things can settle down.” He comes in. The nurses come in. “So far, so good,” everybody says.

  I want to believe it. I want to believe she’s just sleeping. But I don’t. I don’t know where she is, but it’s not sleep. And I don’t believe this “so far, so good” crap either. Neither do my parents, I can tell. The tiny doctor says they’ll stop the medicine—I think it’s dripping from one of those bags—little by little, and they’ll turn off the ventilator and she’ll wake up, and then they’ll really know how she’s doing. My mother said, “When?” The tiny doctor said, “As soon as possible.” I wanted to club him.

  I had to get out. Move.

  I ran through neighborhoods, other lives, other worlds. Solipsism. A man on his lawn mower. Green and yellow. A high-school kid with earphones, washing his car, suds creeping down the driveway. High in the bright blue sky the moon showed like a fading fingerprint. It seemed so weak, so out of place, as if it stumbled into broad daylight by mistake. Unseen protons dying by the billions.

  My footfalls came down like periods to my mother’s words:

  She wants to be just like you.

  She wants to be just like you.

  She wants to be just like you.

  Like a riderless horse, I wound up back at my house. Another look at the room, at Ozzie, smiling at the thought of the hidden jelly beans. I stood at the top of the stairs and said, in the em
pty house: “My sister loves me.”

  Light blinking: phone message: Mi-Su: “Hi. Just checking. Wish I were family, so I could come. I called Danny. I told him I couldn’t go to the dance. Not with Tabby…so…well…just letting you know. Bye.”

  I returned to the hospital to find that Dad had finally persuaded Mom to go home for a little while, just to get a shower, change clothes. She whispered in Tabby’s ear. “I’ll be back in an hour, sweetie. Not a minute longer. Daddy’s going to drive me home. Will’s here. Maybe he’ll read to you. He loves you.” She kissed her ear, said to me, “Back in an hour. You’re OK?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Sure?”

  “Mom. Go.”

  They went.

  We were alone.

  The ventilator wheezed. The hanging bags dripped. The little green numbers told her vital signs. Under PULSE the number was 65. Her fingertip glowed red. Oximeter. I remembered the time I woke up with her straddling my chest, saying “Wally ate a potato every day.” I wanted to go back to that moment right then.

  I pulled the chair close, till it was touching the bed. For the first time I noticed the other plastic bag, hanging from the side of the bed. I guessed what it was: yet another tube in her, so she can pee. I don’t know why, but just thinking of this, seeing how her pee filled up half the bag, made me really happy, like, “She’s working!”

  I was afraid to touch her. Her face was so purple and swollen, like her cheeks were stuffed with socks. Where the tube entered her nose, the transparent plastic was foggy. I touched her little finger, just touched it. Then I held her hand, the one that didn’t glow. I was thinking of when sometimes—crossing a street or parking lot—my mother or father tells her to hold my hand and, boy, does she love that. And she milks it. She comes up and she doesn’t just slip her hand into mine so we can get this over with as quickly and painlessly as possible. Oh no. She jabs her hand up—she’d wave it in my face if she were tall enough—and gives me her snooty grin and says, “Mommy says you hafta hold my hand.” She sneers the last three words. So I snatch her hand and off we go…and now, thinking back on it, remembering how furious I would get, I was a little surprised that I’ve never given her just a little retaliation squeeze, a little finger-masher. The second we hit the other side of the street—it never fails—she yanks her hand from mine and cheats me out of the satisfaction of being the one to let go, and away she runs yelping like a banshee.

  She wasn’t squeezing now. Her hand just flumped, limp as one of Ozzie’s eight arms. The sheet moved faintly—up, down, up, down—to the rhythm of the ventilator. I touched her chest—three fingertips lightly—up, down, up, down…

  Maybe he’ll read to you.

  I took the top book from the stack. Silly Goose. I started reading. I stopped. Geese? Chickens? Rabbits? She didn’t want to hear this stuff. “Hold on,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  I ran to the patient library down the hall and was back in five minutes with a ratty copy of The Murderous Maid. I began to read aloud: “When Harold Jensen looked out the window he saw a sky-blue Chevrolet pull up to the curb. An attractive woman, her red hair tied up in a bun, got out of the car. She put on a pair of glasses and stared directly at his front door. She referred to a piece of paper in her hand. Probably making sure she has the right address, thought Harold. ‘Dear,’ he called to his wife in the kitchen, ‘I think the person you’re interviewing for the job has arrived.’”

  I tried to read with expression, but there was no reaction from Tabby. By the end of the first chapter the story was heating up pretty good. I was about to begin chapter two when I remembered my mother’s question. I laid the book down. I took a deep breath, felt creepy. Just do it. I reached down to her bruised and swollen face. My hand trembled. I placed the tip of my finger on her closed eyelid. Is this possible? Only one way to find out. I slid my fingertip down till I felt her feathery eyelashes. I applied a slight pressure. I held my breath. I pushed upward. The eyelid came up, like a tiny shutter, a shade. Her eye stared at me. She sees me. She sees me not. It was green. A bold green that surprised me. A green I’d seen before but couldn’t remember where.

  At home in the kitchen I found a lopsided cake with chocolate icing and two handmade notes to Tabby from the chipmunks. I’d bet four hotels on Park Place that BT made the cake himself.

  In the night I dreamed:

  I’m underground. Buried alive. Can’t see. Can’t breathe. Can’t move. My fingernails claw at the dirt. Above me—a sound. It’s BT, sweeping the metal detector, looking for me. I hear the hum of the detector coming closer…closer…I claw, try to scream “I’m here!” but my mouth only fills with dirt and the humming gets louder and louder and suddenly it’s not BT anymore, it’s Tabby, and she’s singing “Wally ate a potato every day” over and over and I’m trying to scream…trying to scream…

  PD228

  My father didn’t go to work. My mother slept in the hospital again last night. My father woke me up, said, “School today.” So next thing I knew I was sitting in algebra class. Wondering why.

  Mi-Su was in the next aisle, two seats up, working her pencil, crossing stuff out. Every few minutes I remembered that she cancelled the dance with Danny Riggs. A week ago I would have been jumping for joy.

  Whenever she looked at me her eyes were sad. Afraid. I told her, “Don’t worry. She’ll be all right.”

  Kids kept saying things:

  “Oh Will…”

  “How’s your sister?”

  “Hey man, I heard…”

  Once, I heard a whisper behind me: “Dead Man’s Hill!”

  The period ended. I grabbed my books and walked out of the classroom and…out of the school.

  Outside!

  Heading for the street.

  Did I really leave school in the middle of the day?

  I think I pulled a BT.

  In the house. Alone. So quiet. Empty. Not right.

  I zombied from room to room. I sat on the edge of her bed. It’s little-kid size, not like the ICU bed. No tubes, no ventilators, just bed. Just room. Sad-sack Ozzie on the pillow. Witch’s broomstick in the corner. She begged for it for Christmas. When she doesn’t sleep with Ozzie, she sleeps with the broomstick. On the floor, her toolbox. And a paperback novel, from her personal librarian, BT. The Magpie Murders.

  Also on the floor, a coloring book. Let’s Be Bears. I picked it up, paged through it. She gets colors all wrong. Green sky. Blue bears. Even at her age I made my skies blue. There has never been a time when I didn’t know the sky is blue, the grass is green, bears are brown.

  I heard something outside. I went to the window. It was Korbet. He must have been staying home from kindergarten today. He pedaled his orange fish back and forth in front of our house. He pedaled furiously, hunched over. Back and forth…back and forth…

  It was like he was trying to make her well. He figured if he pedaled hard enough, long enough, she would be OK, she’d come home.

  I drifted around the house. Empty. Helpless. I wished there were an orange fish I could pedal furiously.

  I heard her voice in distant rooms…

  Where’s the party?

  In yer dreams, lugnut!

  Daddy! I’m bleeding!

  I’m a big kid!

  Mischief Night!

  Bob, you smell bad.

  I stood in the kitchen, and it was that September Saturday morning again. The smell of strawberries. Tabby saying, “Riley picked his nose.” Tabby answering the phone. Tabby saying, “Phooey!” Tabby jabbing the phone in my face: “For yyew.” Mi-Su: “Quick!” The voice on the radio. The proton dead. Tabby…Tabby dropping slices of sweet potato in the toaster…Tabby climbing onto the counter…

  I sat on the counter. I said the words:

  “Riley—”

  “Picked—”

  “His—”

  “Nose!”

  And jumped to the floor. Dishes rattled.

  It was all I could think of to do. Since
she couldn’t be her, I’d be her.

  I got my own secret stash of black jelly beans from my bedroom closet. I dropped them into a wastebasket one by one:

  plink

  plink

  plink

  I yelled, “Mischief Night!”

  I dumped a pile of Lucky Charms onto the living room carpet.

  I let the vacuum cleaner run in the closet.

  I turned on every faucet in the house.

  The phone rang. I picked it up—“Barney’s Saloon”—and slammed it back down.

  I went to my room, turned my trophy around.

  The phone rang. I picked it up—“Barney’s Saloon”—slammed it back down.

  I went up to the dormer. I stood before the wedding gifts. I closed my eyes. I saw her in the ICU, so small in the bed, the tubes, the bags, the contraptions…I tore open a gift. Silvery wrappings, silver ribbons flew. Downstairs the phone was ringing. I tore open more gifts. Here were towels, thin little towels, lacy borders. A blue teakettle, white speckles, tin, I think. Two glasses, stemmed, tulip shaped. A wooden tray, little carved angels facing each other from the handle holes. A set of wooden salad bowls. A pillow, with red and blue stitching: “Home, Sweet Home.” Picture albums, black pages. A fancy, brassy mantle clock.

  In one of the boxes, an envelope. It said “Betsy.” Not Margaret. All my life I’ve known my great-grandmother as Margaret. But it wasn’t. It was Betsy. They called her Betsy. She called herself Betsy. And that made all the difference. I ran to the telescope. Crazy, I know, but…why not? I looked through the eyepiece, turned the focus knob…yes…there…1930…I saw them, Betsy and Andrew Tuppence, dashing down to the pier, the huge ship foghorning Hurry! Hurry! Her shoes in her hands, wedding dress flashing white, a swan taking off, Andrew calling “Wait!” the two of them laughing…laughing…all the way to Africa…

  I went downstairs, passed the ringing phone, picked up—“Phooey!”—slammed down, went outside. Korbet was pedaling in slow motion now, exhausted. Tear tracks stained his cheeks. He looked at me as if I could fix things. I turned away.