Counting Thyme (13 page)

“Duh. It's California,” she said, crossing her eyes at me on the iPad.

“Oh. Yeah.” We laughed.

“I can't believe you got me all of my favorite things,” I said, unwrapping an ear of chocolate corn. The chocolate
was from Hans and Harry's, our favorite bakery back home. I peeled the gold label off the plastic and stuck it to my sweater.

“
When the dog bites,
” Shani sang. “
When the bee stings
—”

“
When I'm feeling sad,
” I joined. “
I simply remember my
favorite
things, and then I don't feeeeeeeeeeeeeeel
—” I squeaked.

“
So bad!
” Shani sang, laughing as I flopped back on my bed and bit into the chocolate.

“So did you talk to that Jake guy again?” she asked, and I choked a little on the chocolate. “Wait a minute,” she said, “You like him!”

“No I don't! I mean, I don't know.” I knew what it meant to like someone, but I'd never liked anyone before. Before Shani could say anything else about Jake, I changed the subject. “My mom made me take cookies to the annoying neighbor with the giant bird.”

“Did he tell you to get lost?”

“Close. He acted like I was trying to poison him. He's totally crazy. He gave us this disgusting burnt casserole and Mom was like,
what?
”

“Old people are crazy. My grams keeps putting her slippers in the oven to warm them up. Mom swears she'll burn the house down one day.”

Then I told her about Emily and Lizzie, and how they were so competitive about the Spring Fling. “Lizzie said I should try out for something. But I can't sing. And we both know I
shouldn't
dance.”

Shani cracked up. “You could do it as a joke,” she said.

I picked at a nail. “Well, the show's in March.”

“Oh.” Her eyes fell.

“I'm coming back before then, duh. Mom gave me two days of time for Christmas. I have over a hundred hours now. I'm not missing our birthdays again.”

Shani grinned. “Well, you could just do it for now. It'll be fun!”

I knew she was just saying that because she loved projects more than I loved Coke floats, but hearing her tell me to do it felt weird, and kind of wrong. Suddenly all I could think about was how Shani was doing things without me, too.

“Is that what you're doing with Jenny Hargrove? Having fun?”

She blinked. “That's just for school.”

“But you guys have been hanging out, too,” I said, letting all my worries break free. “What's next, sleeping over and making her calendars?” I felt terrible saying that, but it was the truth.

“Why are you giving me such a hard time?”

A long minute passed where I didn't say anything. What was I supposed to say?
I miss you and I wish I was home instead of sitting around this tiny apartment with my family all week? I wish I felt like I actually belonged somewhere, instead of living in between?

Shani tapped the screen. “Look, we both wish you were here. But you're not, and Mom doesn't want me sitting around the house”—she made air quotes—“‘
wasting away
.' It's hard when you're not there in the morning. And at lunch. But I don't blame you.” Her voice trembled a little. I'd hurt
her feelings, and she didn't deserve it. She wasn't the one acting like a big baby.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm going to stop being stupid now, okay?”

She smiled.

“As long as you promise to call me next week,” I added.

“Deal,” she said. Then she stuck her tongue out, and I leaned so close to the camera that my eyeball filled the screen.

“Cut it out, or the eyeball of doom will suck you into its gooey center!”

She squealed, and I leaned back. “Look, I gotta run,” she said. “Mom's making me go to the mall with my idiot cousins. But I'll e-mail you later. Promise.”

We said good-bye, and a familiar empty spot opened up in my heart again.

I flopped back against my pillows and grabbed Mr. Knuckles.

“What do you think?” I asked the fuzzy green hand. The color had faded over the years, the fabric more gray than green. “Should I do the Spring Fling?”

Mr. Knuckles pumped his fist at me.

“You say yes to everything,” I scolded, and Mr. Knuckles bounced from side to side. With his fingers curled up, the move didn't look much like a wave, but I got the message.

MAZEL TOV

THE NEW YEAR ARRIVED WITH A BANG, AND NOT JUST FROM THE
fireworks that I missed when I passed out on the couch at ten o'clock. This bang was from below us, in Mr. Lipinsky's apartment, and it was so loud that Mom jumped halfway across the kitchen.

Cori was still at her sleepover, and Dad was trying to get some work done on his laptop while Val watched a show. Meanwhile, Mom and I were attempting to cook Grandma's Kay's traditional New Year's Day dinner of black-eyed peas and collard greens, only it wasn't going so well. But Mom was determined, because collard greens weren't just tradition—they were a superfood, packed full of vitamins and other good stuff. We'd been on the phone with Grandma for an hour, trying to get Mom's greens to hurry up and cook so we wouldn't be stuck chewing on grass-flavored leather for dinner. When the bang happened, Mom told Grandma she'd have to call her back, because apparently our neighbor was blowing something up downstairs.

“Do you think he's okay?” I asked, following her into the living room.

“No,” she said with an eye roll just like one of Cori's. “I mean, yes. But I caught him stuffing old grocery flyers in Val's stroller when I left it downstairs yesterday, so anything's possible.”

“Maybe he's trying to be nice.”

“Really? You think he's nice?”

“No.” I just thought there was a chance—a very small one—that maybe Mr. Lipinsky was actually trying to help us with the flyers in his own weird way. But Mom obviously didn't agree.

She tapped Dad's headphones to get his attention and told him Mr. Lipinsky was blowing things up downstairs, in case he wanted to do anything about it.

“Are you serious?” Dad said. “Maybe it's just his TV.”

“A couple of skeptics, both of you,” Mom said, looking at me and Dad. “Fine. I'll go down there myself and get to the bottom of this.”

“That's not what I meant,” Dad said, but Mom just shook her head.

“Oh no. Don't change your tune now that I'm going.”

Dad held his hands up in surrender.

“I want to go,” Val said, hopping up from the couch.

“Not this time, honey.”

Val pouted. “I'm not scared of him,” he said, crossing his arms to show us how tough he was. “I can do things, too, you know.”

Mom dropped to one knee. “I know.” She gave him a
squeeze. “We'll be right back.” She looked at me. “Thyme, you're coming with me.”

“Why me?”

Mom gave Dad a look. “You're my witness.”

On the way downstairs, Mom was kind of mumbling to herself, like she was practicing what she was going to say. Then, when she knocked on the door to apartment 3B, her face looked paler than usual, and I realized she might actually be nervous about confronting Mr. Lipinsky face-to-face.

When he pulled open the door in his purple robe and his crazy this-way-and-that hair, I stepped right in front of Mom and said, “There's a building code, you know. You can't just blow stuff up inside your apartment. It's dangerous!”

“Thyme!” Mom exclaimed, while Mr. Lipinsky stared at me, his gray eyes as piercing as usual.

Then he did the weirdest thing.

He shouted, “Mazel tov,” clapped his hands, and slammed the door right in our faces.

“What on
earth
,” Mom said. Then she knocked again, and when Mr. Lipinsky opened the door with absolutely no sign that he was sorry in the least, Mom let him have it.

“Excuse me,
sir
, but if you think you can treat us so rudely after we have been nothing but understanding about your endless stream of complaints, you are sadly mistaken! Believe me, I'd rather shut my finger in a door than come down here, but you can't expect us to just sit up there and wait for you
to blow a hole in our floor. Now, what exactly is going on in there?”

Oh wow!
I couldn't wait to hear what Mr. Lipinsky would say to that.

But he didn't say anything at all. Not for a whole minute at least, while Mom stood there with her arms crossed and her perfect bangs all out of shape and her pale face blotched with red.

Finally, she said, “Don't you have anything to say?” That was Mom's cue to apologize.
Thyme, do you have anything to say to your sister? Cori, what do you have to say to Val?
The answer was always supposed to be
I'm sorry
, though I usually wanted to say “nope.”

Mr. Lipinsky cocked his head to the side and jiggled his ear lobe. “I'm a bit hard of hearing,” he said. “I'm afraid you'll have to speak up.”

Mom's face got so red, I thought she'd explode. “You're crazy,” she said.

He actually smiled. “What other people think of me is none of my business.”

“Are you blowing things up in there?” she demanded, and the old man's mouth twitched. Then she brought out the big guns. “I'm happy to call the police if that's what's required.”

“No need,” Mr. Lipinsky said. “No need at all.” Then he turned around and left us there.

Mom looked at me with her mouth hanging open like a fish, so I just said, “He does that sometimes,” because he did
have a habit of cutting you off mid-conversation, but he usually shut the door when he did it.

Mr. Lipinsky came back with an open bottle of champagne in his hands, and Mom just said, “Oh,” very small, like she wished she could disappear, because that must've been what we heard upstairs. Champagne pops when you open it. I remembered when Dad brought some home the night Val got into the 3F8 trial. The cork from Mr. Lipinsky's bottle must've nailed the ceiling beneath our kitchen floor.

“It's my late wife's birthday,” he said, glancing at the ceiling, like he had when I gave him the cookies, only now it made sense. Ada was his wife, and she was dead.

Mr. Lipinsky looked back at Mom. “You people must be celebrating the New Year.” He extended the champagne bottle, but Mom backed away like he was offering a used hankie.

“No, thank you,” she said. “Though I am sorry for your loss.” She almost sounded sorry, too. Mr. Lipinsky had really thrown her for a loop.

“Suit yourself.” He tipped the bottle back, and just as he took a swig, a short figure barreled between me and Mom and flung himself around Mr. Lipinsky's legs.

Then three things happened very fast:

1. Mr. Lipinsky spit his champagne all over us.

2. Mom screamed, “Val!”

3. Val shot into Mom's arms like a real-life flying superhero.

“Why you little—” Mr. Lipinsky said, wagging his trembling fingers at Val like he wanted to strangle the life out of
him. Then he slammed the door in our faces again, only this time Mom didn't knock to make him apologize. She just ordered us upstairs immediately, with instructions not to touch a
thing
until we'd washed ourselves off in the bathroom.

“This is why we don't hug strangers,” she told Val, who just nodded miserably.

I nudged Val's shoulder. “If it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure you scared him to death, too.”

“Don't encourage your brother,” Mom said, but I swear I also heard her say, “Serves the old fool right,” under her breath.

After Dad picked Cori up from her sleepover, we called Grandma again to say happy New Year from the dining table. The traditional meal had started with her and Grandpa. There were pictures of him feeding me black-eyed peas for good luck in the New Year when I was little. He looked so nice, with his round cheeks and giant hands, that I wished I remembered him, but he died before Val was born. Mom said Grandpa's laugh had been the best. That he'd made everyone else laugh, no matter how they felt.

Mom had given Grandma a tablet for Christmas, and she was doing her best to video-chat with us, though she kept leaning too close to the screen every time she spoke. “I got your thank-you note just yesterday, Thyme,” she said, her wrinkled mouth filling the screen, which made Val giggle. “Such lovely handwriting.”

“Thank you, Grandma.”

“I wish I could say the same for you, Rosemary,” Grandma scolded.

“
Mom,
” Mom said, which made me and Cori laugh. It was so weird hearing Mom say that word in that way.

“In other news,” Dad said with a wink for Mom, “I think we're ready to dig in. Shall we start with the greens?”

Dad raised his fork, and Grandma raised hers. She was sitting at her table in San Diego with a plate of greens and black-eyed peas, just like us, only she also had a thick slice of her homemade bread. It looked so good, I could practically taste the butter.

We all took a bite, except for Val, who was eating regular green beans instead.

Then we chewed.

And chewed.

Finally, Grandma asked how the greens turned out, and we all smiled and nodded, although no one swallowed a thing because Mom and I must have really messed up. The greens were way too salty. But with Grandma watching, none of us were about to spit our food out. Somehow, I got my bite down, and lucky for us, Grandma didn't seem to notice that we barely ate anything for the rest of the meal. It turned out that we hadn't soaked the black-eyed peas properly after all, so they tasted like little chips of cardboard, hard and chalky and even yuckier than the greens.

“This was just lovely, Rosemary,” Grandma said when we were finishing up.

Our food had been so far from lovely, I had to fight the
urge to giggle. Mom must have felt the same way, because she just smiled and made an
mm-hmm
noise with her lips sealed shut.

Then Grandma said, “Oh, I almost forgot. That nice woman from the real estate agency called. I'm just going to give her my set of keys for now. That should take care of her for you. I didn't want you worrying, with everything else you have going on.”

“What real estate lady?” Cori asked.

Mom coughed, grabbed her water, and washed her food down in a hurry. “That's fine, Mom, thanks,” she said to Grandma. “It's nothing,” she said to us. “We were just short a set of keys. How about you kids say good-bye. We'll talk to Grandma again soon.”