Chuckie was still howling.
I knelt down in front of him. “Hey, I have something for you.”
“A prethent?” He sniffled.
“Yes, a present. Stay put.” I bounded to the living room and grabbed my backpack. From inside the front pocket, I fished out the brownie I’d saved from lunch. Not saved, actually. Snitched from an abandoned tray on my way out.
Chuckie tore into the napkin wrapper.
“Save some for Michael,” I said.
Michael reappeared in the doorway. Hastily he started picking up pieces of Cap’n Crunch. “He doesn’t have to,” Michael muttered, but I saw him eyeing the brownie.
“I’ll buy brownie mix at the store,” I told him.
“And some bread and peanut butter for lunch,” Michael said. “We ran out two days ago.”
“What’ve you been eating?”
He shrugged. “I just borrow stuff.”
Oh, no. I should’ve noticed. At least Chuckie’s lunch was provided. I removed Mom’s Visa card from her billfold and scrounged around in the bottom of her purse for bus fare.
As soon as I dropped off the boys at the neighbor’s, I was out of there. If I didn’t have to take care of Chuckie and Michael, I’d never come back.
M
y eyelids fluttered. Regaining consciousness, I heard someone at the table behind me snoring. Was he mocking me? Had I been snoring? I whipped my chin up off my chest as Mrs. Bartoli finished her introduction to chapter 10, Quadratic Equations.
The bell rang and Mrs. Bartoli said, “Your take-home tests are due today. Leave them on my desk on your way out.” The sound of perforated paper being torn from notebooks punctuated the stale air.
It was the last assignment I’d tackled this morning. At one-thirty
A.M.
By the time I got home from grocery shopping, made the boys dinner, supervised Chuckie in the tub, stood over Michael while he groused about doing homework, got everyone to bed, and cleaned up the house, it was after midnight.
My paper was a mess, all smeared with erasure marks. It embarrassed me to turn it in. I waited until the room cleared before approaching my advanced algebra teacher. “If you can’t read this, Mrs. Bartoli, I’ll be glad to copy it over,” I said.
She glanced down at the paper, then up at me. “You didn’t type it?”
My cheeks flared.
“I’m kidding, Antonia. It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
She laughed. “Half the class didn’t even do the assignment. And you’re worried if I can read your answers?” She chuckled again.
I didn’t think it was funny. “Do you want me to type it? I could reserve a PC at lunchtime.”
Mrs. Bartoli slapped her hand over mine—the one hastily retrieving the top sheet from a slim stack of test papers. “It was a joke, Antonia. I’m just teasing you.” She arched both eyebrows. “Can’t you take a joke?”
Sure, when it’s funny, I almost said. I hated being teased. At the door I stopped and whirled. “Next time I’ll type it.”
She met my eyes and frowned.
“Just kidding, Mrs. Bartoli. Can’t you take a joke?” I smirked inwardly and left.
At home that night I opened a box of Banquet fried chicken and whipped up some instant mashed potatoes. Real gourmet. It used to be, when Mom got home from work, she’d cook. Or leave me instructions on the days she had evening appointments.
Was she still sleeping? I wondered at the ceiling. No one could sleep this long and live. It didn’t look like she’d even gotten up to make coffee.
Maybe she was dead. That’d be perfect. Leave us without
any
parents. At least there’d be one less mouth to feed. Antonia! I chided myself. You’re a terrible person.
“I got a note from my teacher that you gotta sign,” Michael said at my side. He shoved a slip of paper under my nose.
It was a permission slip to go to the Museum of Natural History tomorrow. The slip had to be signed by a parent or guardian.
My eyes locked with Michael’s. He said, “I left it with Mom, but I guess she forgot. If I don’t get it signed, I can’t go and I’ll have to stay in the liberry all day.”
My jaw clenched. “Give me your pencil.”
Michael handed me his stub.
As I scribbled my name, as illegibly as possible, I said, “If your teacher asks, tell her I’m your guardian.” Which wasn’t a total lie.
He wiped his runny nose on his sleeve and took back the slip. Then he shuffled out to the TV.
We ate in the living room while watching
Wheel of Fortune.
By seven o’clock I was getting worried, so I scraped together what was left from dinner and took a plate up to Mom’s bedroom. The sun had set and eerie shadows fell across her rumpled bedding.
For a moment I just stood in the doorway and stared. Why, I didn’t know. It was a familiar sight. When the lump in bed stirred, I said softly, “Mom? You awake?”
“Who is it?” Mom shot up. “Kurt, is that you?”
“No, Mom. It’s me. Antonia.” Your slave child, I thought.
Mom fell back on the pillow.
“I brought you some dinner.” Forcing a smile, I fibbed, “It’s Kentucky Fried. Your favorite.”
She rolled back over. “I’m not hungry,” she mumbled.
“Okay, fine.” I set the plate on her dresser, harder than I meant to. A chicken wing jumped off. It slid across a stack of pictures that had been spread out all over the bureau. Most of the pictures were of Mom and Dad when they were younger. The chicken wing left a greasy smear on one of the pictures.
I started to wipe it off, then noticed it was a picture of us at Christmas. Mom was sitting in front of the tree, hugging Michael. She looked like she was pregnant with Chuckie, so it must’ve been … three years ago? Yeah, must’ve been. Mom was wearing a Santa hat. I remembered she’d put on the whole Santa suit earlier in the day when Michael declared, “There’s no stupid Santa Claus. Tyler told me.” I remembered her saying to me, as she buckled the belt, “I want him to believe. Just one more year.”
She’d looked pretty convincing with her big belly. Especially going around the house ho-ho-ho-ing in this deep voice. Silly. But Mom was always doing crazy stuff like that. She was so happy that whole time she was pregnant.
In the picture I was sitting beside Mom, holding up a new sweater set that Santa had brought. I still wore that set occasionally, even though it was way too tight.
Dad must’ve taken the picture, since he wasn’t in it. That was the last Christmas before …
My eyes strayed up to Mom’s mirror. I freaked. For a second, I thought I saw him. Then I realized it was only me. Mom always said I had Dad’s eyes and crooked smile.
The smile faded and all I saw was this tired-looking person with stringy brown hair hanging in her eyes. Mom would be horrified if she saw how long my hair had gotten. Maybe I was hoping she’d notice.
She let out a little whimper and I looked down at her. A wave of sympathy washed over me. “Try to eat, Mom,” I said. “You need to keep your strength up.”
“Why?” she asked.
When I didn’t answer, she exhaled loudly and sat up.
“Did you take your medicine today?” I asked.
She raked her fingers through her hair. In reply, she said, “Hand me my cigarettes, will you, Antonia?”
I glanced down at her nightstand. An ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts. When had she started smoking again? I wondered. Then I saw a big black mark where a lit cigarette had burned a hole. Great. Now I’d have trouble sleeping, worrying whether she was going to set the house on fire.
“You’re out of cigarettes,” I lied, noticing that the pack had fallen behind the nightstand.
Mom clucked in disgust and stood up. “Run down to the 7-Eleven and get me a couple of packs, okay?”
“They won’t sell cigarettes to me. You know that.”
She mumbled some obscenity. Then she dragged past me and headed for the bathroom. “You’re going to have to be more help around here, Antonia,” she snapped on her way past. “I can’t do everything myself.” She slammed the door in my face.
J
azz was late for our Friday session. Good, I thought. Maybe she realized how ridiculous this arrangement was, too, and dropped out. It’d be like her. Did Dr. DiLeo actually expect Jazz Luther to honor her agreement to put in fifteen hours? I wondered what she’d done to deserve the punishment.
With a
whoosh,
the door flew open and Jazz swept in. “I’m late. I know,” she said, flopping into the chair cattycorner from me. “My watch crapped out. Crap.”
She tapped an inch-long, blood-red fingernail on the watch crystal and held her wrist up to her ear.
“Well,” I said. “I think our time is up.”
She blinked at me and burst into laughter. Jabbing my shoulder with one of those lethal talons, she replied, “You’re bode.”
“What?”
“Bode,” she repeated. “You know, bode.” She clucked her tongue. “It’s, like, okay, acceptable, cool.” Jazz flipped her frizzy hair over her shoulder.
“Thanks,” I muttered. “I’m, like, honored.”
She curled a lip.
She looked different today. What was it? Her clothes were the same, maybe a low-cut tank top under the purple jacket. Same shredded jeans and boots. Wait. The hair.
“Like it?” Jazz asked. “That’s why I’m late. I ditched lunch and went to my mane man instead.” She twisted her head and ran her palm along the hairless left side. Her scalp had been shaved from ear to crown. One side only.
“It’s, uh …”
“Bode, right?”
Mowed
was more like it.
Jazz grinned. “My parents are going to cronk.”
Cronk?
Geez, we didn’t even speak the same language. I knew what she meant, though.
“They’ll probably ground me for life,” she said. “Which would suit me fine because I’d be outta there. Away from that rat hole.”
How far away? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. Instead I said, “You really think your parents will ground you?” Maybe she wouldn’t make it to school Monday. Or the day after. Or ever again.
Jazz sighed. “I wish.” She tipped back in her chair and plunked her feet on the table. “They’ll just yell and threaten to send me to prep school. Again. Or to my sister Janey’s. Then I’ll tell them how, when they dump
ed me on her last summer, she totally corrupted me by taking me out partying. And if they weren’t neglecting me so bad I’d be normal. You know, lay the old guilt trip on “em.”
“Do you really talk to your parents that way?” I asked.
“Course. Don’t you?”
“No way.”
“What, they’d smack you?”
My face flared. “No, my parents never hit me. They’ve never laid a hand on me.”
Jazz removed her feet and leaned forward. “Never? Not even to, like, hug you?”
Our eyes met briefly before mine dropped. This is a total waste of time, I thought. Exhaling exasperation or weariness or both, I riffled through my backpack for my counseling folder.
Jazz said, “I’m sorry. Sometimes my mouth takes off without my brain. So, your parents don’t hit you. That’s good. At least
that’s
not your problem.”
“Look.” I slapped the folder on the table. “We’re not here to talk about
my
problems. We’re here to help
you.”
Jazz smiled. “So, you admit you
have
problems.”
I wrenched the folder off the table and stood. “I’m leaving. If you’re not going to take this seriously, then let’s just forget it. I have better things to do.”
“Like what?” She sneered. “Homework?”
“Yes, like homework. I’m giving up my homeroom for you, which means I have to do homework at night, which means I don’t get to bed until late, which means—”
She cut me off. “Let me guess. You got a permanent case of PMS?”
She must’ve felt the fire shooting from my eyes because she said, “Hey, chill, Tone. Just because I’m joking around doesn’t mean I’m not serious. Haven’t you ever heard of laughing through the tears?” Her voice wavered a little, as if she were on the verge of tears.
It drew me back down to my chair.
Jazz covered her face with her hands and burst out sobbing. Then she hiccuped twice and removed her hands.
She wasn’t crying. She was laughing!
She sucked in a fake sob and laughed again.
I lurched to my feet and charged out the door.
“Tone,” she yelled after me. “Wait, I’m kidding. Come back.”
“Never,” I muttered. “I’m never coming back.”
“Dr. DiLeo, I can’t do this,” I told him. “I can’t counsel a crazy person. You’ve got to find someone else.”
He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on knees. “What’s the problem exactly?”
Exactly? She’s on drugs. I couldn’t say that, although it was probably the truth. “She mocks me,” I said. “She’s mocking the whole program. She doesn’t take it seriously.”
He shook his head sadly. “I thought if anyone could reach her, you could.”
That made me feel bad. Like she was doomed without me.
He met my eyes. “Did you start at step one on the list? Trying to find something you have in common?”
“We never got to step one,” I replied. “She’s so …” I couldn’t even come up with a word.
Dr. DiLeo offered, “Unique?”
That wasn’t it. Weird. Whacked. Freaky. Punk. “We don’t have anything in common,” I said. Thank God, I didn’t add.
Dr. DiLeo straightened his wire-rims. “I bet you could find something,” he said. “You’ve met twice. What have you talked about?”
“Nothing,” I answered. “I mean, she does all the talking. She told me how I could get a free tattoo with a body piercing.”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to sit in on the session?”
“No!” That’d be worse, I thought. She’d never show me her tattoos. “I want you to find someone else. I’m not the right person for—”
“You’re the perfect person, Antonia,” he said, cutting me off. “You’re responsible, intelligent, caring …”
“You can’t find anyone else, can you?”
“How’d you guess?” He grinned.
I glared.
Dr. DiLeo sobered and said, “Maybe if you opened up a little, she would, too. I know she comes on strong, but you have to take control, Antonia. Start slow. Talk about school or your family. That should be something you can both get into. I bet if you share your feelings, she’ll share hers.”