Girl in Reverse (9781442497368) (17 page)

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Sorry?

“I didn't bring it over. The picture.” He takes the bodhisattva's head out of his tablet. “And here's a sketch of it I did.” He gives me a puzzled look and hands them over. “It's the bodhisattva at the museum, right?”

I nod and stare at his perfect little ink drawing. Now it's my turn to fill in the blank. I don't. The faucet drips.

“Why'd ya have that?” he asks, glancing at my purse. “What about the other ones? Can I see them?”

My stomach drops. I clutch my purse. “I don't have them today. I . . .” I am one million degrees. I check the clock. “Oh, gosh! Wow! I'm late for an appointment.” I grab my books and sprint to the door, turn back a split second and wave the sketch at him. “Thanks.”

“But, hey! Lily . . .”

*  *  *

I spend the next half hour, the entire bus ride to the Sisters of Mercy Home, playing out the scene of actually showing
Elliot everything in my Gone Mom box. He would go nuts, ask a zillion questions. The thought grows as fast as a weed in my garden of bad ideas.

I won't. I can't. But what if I did?

I step off the bus at the Sisters of Mercy Home for my
appointment
with Joy. Actually, I intend to kidnap her. I dash across the street and up the orphanage steps. Her water dish is ice. In seconds she is meowing around my feet. I pick her up and whisper, “What're you doin' out here, featherweight? It's too cold.”

She is little and perfectly built to transport. Her magnificent green-gold eyes stare up at me without blinking.

“This is an adoption,” I say as I dart back across the street to the bus stop with her inside my coat. “
Your
adoption. I know somebody who needs you.”

In a few minutes we step onto the bus, which strictly prohibits animal passengers. I feel illegal, but I can live with it.

We get off a few blocks from the art museum and, after a little walk, enter the lobby of Evangeline's apartment house. I find her name on a mailbox next to a sign that reads:

ABSOLUTELY

NO SOLICITORS

NO PETS

Damn. Joy squirms up as if she wants to chat. I rub her little black neck feeling thunked on the head. What to do? “You can't live inside my coat forever. So we can either go back to Sister Immaculata or to the art room or
home
home. That's about it.”

The art room's
out
—unless Mr. Howard would take her. She can't live at the House of Chow, with its fishy kitchen and aquarium. I can't stand the thought of the Sisters of Mercy Home—returned orphans feel permanently sunk on life.

I open my coat to give her more room. She seems to be asleep, trusting fate—which is
me.
I wrap one arm under her, balancing my books and purse in the other, and walk the entire way home with that
you did the right thing
flame burning inside.

Mother's here, in the kitchen. I hear the Mixmaster. I head straight to our
immaculata
basement and unbutton my coat. Joy jumps down and runs right behind the furnace where it's warm. I brush black hairs off my parka. It will take no time for Mother to sense something new in the house. I might as well have ushered a camel down the basement steps.

I head back up imagining Joy's little kitten prints all over the divan and dining room table. “Mother,” I say over the beaters. Mother flips it off, turns to me in her navy-blue apron. I plant my feet, hold the counter edge. “I found a cat, a kitty, who needs a home.”

She waves her spoon. “Well, put a sign at the grocery store. Is it diseased or pregnant?”

“No!” I lower my voice. “It's not
diseased.
”
Are all orphans
diseased
? And what's wrong if she
is
pregnant, I'd like to know? Cats don't need penance.

Mother's eyes narrow. “Where has it
been
?”
She's been living in an orphanage. Is there something
wrong
with that?

“It's a
she
,” I say, “and some
nuns
were taking care of her and they can't anymore.” I know that nuns will sound good to my mother. Better than a junkyard cat.

“Where is it?”

“In the basement.”

“Seriously, Lily.”

“Seriously, she's in our basement,” I say, pointing down the hall toward the closed door. “She has black fur. Her name is Joy.”

My mother looks puzzled.

“She's just
black
, plain black. There's nothing wrong with that. People who don't want black cats are just superstitious.” I force myself to look right at my mother. “People step around them, don't want them crossing their path, but not me.” Usually I can sniff her mood, but I can't figure it out at the moment. Either she doesn't believe me, or she's starting her silent treatment, or maybe, for once, she is trying to figure
me
out.
Ha!

I open the refrigerator, get the milk, and pour a dish,
giving my mother plenty of time to—
almost hoping
she'll—say something offensive about black cats. Besides Ralph's secret pigeons there has never been a pet in our house.

“You want to meet her?” I ask. Mother's eyebrows arch. “I'm not kidding. She's really here.” My mother tilts her head—left, right. It either means “okay” or that her head is falling off.

I go to the basement. “C'mon, Joy.” She gives me a wary look. “Time to meet my mother.” I carry her upstairs. She immediately jumps from my arms, sniffs the kitchen, cleans her nose, and sniffs some more. Mother stares at this wild creature from outer space. Joy does figure eights around her feet, dusting Mother's house shoes with her tail.

Mother jiggles her foot. Joy pounces on the bow on her slipper. Mother jiggles again. Joy pounces again. This goes on awhile. “Does it have a name?” she asks.

“Yes. I already told you, her name's Joy.”

“You say sisters kept her? Where? At your old school?”

I lean down and pat Joy's back. “Uh . . . she was a nun's cat. So was her mother . . . well, or a cat-nun with kittens!” I know I'm not making any sense, but fortunately Mother isn't listening. She turns to me and says something unbelievable. “I used to have a kitty.” She looks off, her mouth moving silently as if she's listening to a memory. “Pazooie Pazaza.”

Watching my mother's lips say the name is astounding.
The way her mouth hangs open a bit after the last
za . . .
“Was that really its name?” I say.

“
Her
name.” Mother kneels down and rolls her knuckles over Joy's little head. “Pa-zoo-ie Pa-za-za.”

Joy meows, turns a circle, and curls up—a purring black puddle in front of my mother's Frigidaire.

*  *  *

“Cats shape themselves around the habits of the people who feed them,” Dad says later between sneezes. He's obviously allergic to Joy but not admitting it. He looks at Ralph and me across the dinner table, points to the kitchen door, and whispers behind his napkin, “If your mother wants to keep that
cat
, then so do I—so do
we
, right?” He sips his bourbon, rattles the ice, and adds, “That animal's gonna have
her
on a leash the way your mother will follow it around with the sweeper. I say, save a step and vacuum the cat!”

Joy follows Mother into the dining room. Mother sets her sausage-and-green-bean casserole on a trivet and says, “I heard that comment about the leash, Don, and I'll have you know that my first cat, Pa-zoo-ie Pa-za-za, was black, just like Joy, and she raised her tail like a skunk.”

Ralph and Dad share a glance. Mother sits down and lets Joy hop onto her lap.

“Well, how-dee-do,” Dad says. We all sit, hypnotized, smelling that old, skunky cat of hers. He nods at Mother.
“Joy will elevate your vacuum to family-member status. At least sweepers are cheap to feed!”

It feels good to laugh. Drowns out the siren that's been going off inside me since Friday night.

“Wasn't Joy supposed to be
yours
?” Ralph asks me later in my room. “I mean, since you couldn't leave her with that nun, Evangeline.”

“Yeah. Her being
mine
didn't last a minute. She's a professional orphanage cat. She knows what she's doing, filling the lap of the loneliest.” I instantly feel a pang. I need to tell Evangeline what happened, how I adopted Joy for her, and that I'm sorry she can't have her.

“What do you mean?” Ralph says. “Do you think Mom's lap is
lonely
?”

I shrug. “I don't know. But Joy does.”

Sidestep it or step
in
it.

Which?

If I step
in
, go back to the museum and hunt down the world-renowned mythmaker Dr. Michael Benton, I will need to take my box and the pictures, which means lugging them to school first. Ugh.

If I sidestep, I can be
done
right now. No more brave flame of truth, but less pain. Maybe.

I sink down in my bubble bath. Joy sits on my towel taking a cat bath. This is a rare appearance. Since the moment they met, Joy became Mother's guardian shadow. I pile up bubble mountains like I did as a little girl, with Ivory soap for a boat.

Gone Mom traveled alone all the way from China for a reason. So why can't I travel a few miles to the museum?
Simple. It would explode our family. I sit up. My bubbles slosh. On the other hand, there is no one on earth but me who
can
do it.

It's my trip to the truth now.

I shiver, my mind twisting into a new curiosity about Lien Loo. Not about what she did to
me
, but about her as a young woman probably not much older than I am. Was she truly planning to go to school here? Why? Her father was famous. They had archaeology school in China.

I can't blow out the flame—or is it fury?—in me. As I dry off I realize I have made a two-step plan—first confront my parents with my box, then Michael Benton.

*  *  *

“Ralph, I am warning you, I've decided to show them the case.” He looks up with a stricken expression. “I'll show them everything but the pictures and the slipper.”

“
Why?
They're going to blame me for snooping around up there. They're going to discover the pigeons and—”

“No they won't. Not unless you tell them. It's just going to be the truth about how you found the box in the attic like any kid would. . . .” Ralph gives me an expression that says
I'm not any kid.

“Right!” I say. “Sorry. You are only disguised as a normal person. But anyway, looking around in your very own attic isn't a crime. I am going to do it. So you might want to go on an extended campout . . . or not. It's going to be a
test
. I'm
going to put the box in plain sight and see if either of them shows a glimmer of recognition.”

“Well, one of them
has
to because I wasn't born yet and
you
didn't hide it under a dirty tarp in the attic, so . . .” Ralph gives me the Boy Scout sign. His voice hops octaves. “My pigeons and I accept the challenge. I will witness the test and help interpret results.”

Ralph is the coolest uncool brother on earth.

So right after dinner, while Dad is in the kitchen helping dish up butterscotch pudding, I put Gone Mom's box, closed, in the middle of the table by the dessert spoons. With the evidence right there, Dad can't ho-hum it away.

They don't notice it for a second. Ralph sits hunched in his chair, his stalker skills in high gear. I grip my napkin, on the verge of exploding.

“What's this doing on the table?” Mother asks. Ralph and I share a minute glance. Dad inhales sharply, pats the cigarette pack in his pocket, and shoots a look toward the ceiling. Ralph and I say nothing. The air closes in. The radiators gurgle and spasm. Joy weaves through the chair legs, meows at Mother.

“Don?” Mother insists. “Is it something from work? Blueprints? Invoices?”

Ralph's eyes shift: Mom—Dad—Mom.

“So, hmm . . . I don't know.” My father wipes his mouth, screws up his forehead, without looking at me. “Actually, I
believe this is from the
home
, Vivian,” he says, packing a pillow around every word. “It was given to us when we picked up Lily.”

“But you . . .” Mother snaps her mouth shut; her eyes finish the sentence—
you said you got rid of it.

“I . . . uh, just stuck it in the attic. I'd forgotten all about it.” Dad gets busy distributing the pudding and spoons.

“You hid it in the attic under an old tarp,” I say too loudly.

“Did you look in Lily's box, Dad?” Ralph asks with a slightly phony tone of little-boy enthusiasm.

My father examines the ceiling molding. “I maybe remember shaking it, and yes . . . there were scraps of wood, as I recall, and sticks and rocks and rubble. Nothing much.”

“It was only
nothing
to you,” I say.

Mother's eyes are trained on my box. I know she is already finding fault with it.

I reach out, slide the case over, and open it. One at a time I put everything on the table. I even turn the box upside down and tap a cornerful of dust onto the tablecloth.
There!
Mother leans in, looks over the wrist rest, the incense box, the dusty brushes and broken jade bit. Under the table Joy claws her chair leg. Mother reaches down and places her on her lap.

“These things were left to me . . . from my life
before
I came there,” I say. “Before” silently screams
from my birth mother.

Mother looks from me to her husband. “But . . . ?”