I look over at Jonathon. He’s sound asleep.
For twenty more minutes I listen to the scientist talk about her impressions of this place. She visits cavernous holes in the earth and ambles up mountains shooting from the sea. In her lovely Texas twang she says, “Thanks to the isolation of these islands and the high rate of volcanic activity, so much about the archipelago is relatively pristine, and yet changing at a faster rate than places with less tectonic convergence. To study this special place is like studying time-lapse photography of creation itself.”
I’m not sure I understand what she just said, but I love how it sounds. Everyone in the film is smart and brown and far from here, especially the scientist. I bet she never sucked anybody’s space.
When the lights come on I close my eyes to keep the pictures there a second longer. I can still see iguanas and tortoises and blue-footed boobies. I hear the narrator say, “A place to begin,” and it makes a little glass-ringing sound inside my head.
Stranger things could happen. Losers win the lottery every day.
But when I open my eyes I see the back of Erik’s head. Oh yeah, reality. I’ll be working at the Lucky Penny this summer, signing up for dental hygiene classes in the fall. What this guy is talking about isn’t the lottery. He’s talking about a scholarship contest. That takes a grand to sign up for. That my gorgeous and brilliant ex-boyfriend will no doubt enter and win because he’s brilliant and gorgeous, and has lots of extra space to work with now that it’s not being sucked up by me.
I reach over and nudge Jonathon. “Hey,” I say. “Time to wake up.”
“So I’ll leave some flyers here with the schedule for the prep class,” says Pete the biology guy. “Everyone is welcome.”
Everyone is welcome. But only Erik and I pick up flyers.
7
Skein:
A
V
formation that birds fly in to avoid being a drag.
All the way to pick up the boys from school, I see that stupid movie with its weird tortoises, dolphins, and birds. So many crazy birds. When the boys load up, feet and backpacks fly everywhere. I almost don’t notice when Brett climbs into the seat behind me that he has a scratch on his face. Except it’s a whopper.
“Did you get attacked by a cougar?”
Brett gives me the disgusted look. His favorite facial expression.
“Who did you fight with?”
“Nobody,” he says.
“How come the school didn’t have Mom come get you?”
“Nobody answered,” says Brett. He climbs in the very back of Moby.
“That’s a whole lot of nobody.” I pull my homemade first-aid kit, complete with pocket knife and granola bars, out of the glove box, retrieve some antibiotic ointment, and pass it back. “What happened?”
Andrew shrugs his shoulders. Ever since Andrew got into sixth grade he acts like he’s entered a universe where the rest of us don’t exist. I’m not sure who Brett tells stuff to anymore, because it isn’t me. But I hope Mom at least notices he looks like the Frankenstein monster.
When I get home Mom is in the laundry room pairing socks. We have a lot of socks at our house. “You’re late,” says Mom.
Mom cleans offices. She leaves before dinner each day and then I take over with dinner and kids. She hates working nights, but this way Danny doesn’t have to go to day care and all the stuff that goes with six kids gets paid for. I’ll say this for my mom, she knows how to work.
Instead of answering, I grab two black socks and fold them together.
“We heard about this stupid scholarship today, in biology.”
“Why is it stupid?”
“Because you have to have money to apply. If you win, you have to pay part of the cost of going on the trip.”
“How much is it?
“A thousand dollars.”
“Pretty stupid,” she says. “Danny has an ear infection. I need to pick up his prescription before I go to work.” She grabs the keys, says hello to the boys who have their heads lodged in the cupboard, and leaves without noticing Brett’s face.
Danny is sitting in the chair with his head on his arms. When he lifts his face I see that he’s covered in graham cracker. He’s so sleepy it’s almost not disgusting. Danny is always sweetest when he’s sick.
“Hi,” I say. I put my hand to his forehead and it’s warm.
I make a snack of butterfly oranges for all the boys. It’s a thing Mom used to do for Melyssa and me when we were little. Before she had so many miscarriages, and then babies, and then had to go back to work. Maybe I just remember it this way, but I think she was a lot different back then. I flip two sides of an orange together on the plate. Not exactly filling but it looks pretty. I flap the wings at Danny on the plate, but he looks at me blankly. “How do you like it?” I say.
Danny picks up a wing and squeezes it.
Carson says, “Can we have a story about butterflies?”
The older boys look up at me, disgusted, but they don’t run off. We all know they’re getting too cool for this.
“Once there was a butterfly that was afraid of heights. So he walked.”
Andrew says, “Butterflies can’t walk.”
“I don’t like it,” says Danny.
Brett holds up his hand with a downturned thumb.
“No butterflies then. There’s going to be killing and maiming and bloodshed.”
“Pirates?” says Carson.
Andrew holds his thumb up. Brett rolls his eyes. Danny is doing something with his nose that I’d rather not describe, and I take it as a wait-and-see vote.
“Pirates it is then. Our story begins in a land called Deadendia, a once happy land that was cursed by dark air that came from a nearby troll-infested mountain. The smoke was so enchanted with misery that the people never even tried to escape. They just walked around being cursed until they keeled over and died. And sometimes to cheer themselves up, they kicked each other on the street or threw rocks at innocent animals. Then one day, right in the middle of a perfectly good misery session, a pirate ship of scurvy dogs sailed to their less advantaged shores.”
“The pirates were dogs?” said Danny.
“No, they were pirates. Scurvy ones,” I say. “The villagers were amazed. No one ever came to Deadendia, at least not on purpose. The head pirate swung from his ship and began to tell a tale of another land with fire-breathing mountains and dragons that swam underwater and sprayed boiling water out of their noses. The people laughed at the pirate and told him he had to pay a harbor fee if he was planning on keeping his boat in town overnight. But there were a few souls that were caught up by his tale, a few crazed souls who longed to join him in spite of certain danger....”
The phone rings. I pick up.
“Hi,” says Melyssa. Her voice is high and breathy.
“Hi,” I say. I’m lost in Deadendia.
“I ... Zeke and I had a fight.”
“How bad?” I say.
“He took his stuff.”
This gets my attention. As far as I know Melyssa has never had a fight with Zeke before. They always just do what she wants.
“What did you fight about?”
She chokes up a little and then lets her words spray like a fire hydrant. “He lives on his scholarship and this measly trust fund. If we get married and have a baby it won’t be enough and he’ll have to work. He says he can’t write and go to school and work because he’ll flunk out. I work and I’ve got a 4.0.”
“And you probably pointed that out to him, I guess.”
She chokes up again. “Well, I can’t help it if I’m smarter than he is.”
“No, I guess not.”
She blows her nose and starts crying again.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“No.”
“Do you want to come home for a while?”
“I want to come home, home.”
“Home, home? But you aren’t done with school.” I’m talking to myself as much as to Melyssa. I’ll be camping in the yard if she comes.
She says, “I can’t go to school like this. I’m a mess.”
“You’re going to drop out? You’ll lose your scholarship.”
“I’m going to get a medical extension.”
I’m trying to think about her, or at least sound like it. “Until when?”
“Until I feel better,” she says. “Which is most likely never. I can’t believe he left.”
I’d like to tell her not to worry, but I can’t.
The boys are staring at me when I hang up the phone.
“So who’s going?” asks Andrew.
“Going where?”
“With the pirates,” says Brett with disgust.
“Oh, I have to tell you tomorrow night. It’s a surprise.”
“Aw,” says Carson.
“I hate surprises,” says Andrew.
I nod my head. “You should all go play outside.”
As bad as things are in Deadendia, I think they are about to get a whole lot worse.
8
Molting:
Dropping old feathers to get new ones.
On Monday nights I leave the kids with Dad and work at the Lucky Penny. That’s one of the nights Erik works too. Howard puts Erik at the front counter and me in the back, making shakes. It’s not that Howard’s being considerate or anything. It’s just that Callie told him I might throw up in the ice cream if I had to stand next to Erik.
Making shakes is not brain surgery, but you have to keep your wits about you. For one thing, if you don’t hold the cold steel cup you blend with just right, you send ice cream flying. For another thing, you have to get a feel for how the ice cream blends with what you’re mixing so the shake doesn’t come out runny. If the shake doesn’t stand up out of the cup when I’m done, I’ll pay for it myself and start over. The last thing is that you have to clean the blender blades as you go. You can’t just stick the blade with grasshopper shake all over it into a pumpkin shake. You have to blend the blades in water until they’re completely clean, which is time-consuming and drives Erik nuts, because patience isn’t exactly his best thing.
So when the entire population of Salty Breeze Retirement Home comes in and pretty much orders enough ice cream to plug every artery they have left, and then Erik comes back with a shake in his hand and says, “They wanted Chocolate Banana Caramel, not Peanut Butter Chocolate,” I’m going about eighty in a twenty-five, if you know what I mean.
“Where’s the order?” I say.
Erik rolls his eyes. “I don’t know. They said they didn’t order this.”
“Show me the order,” I say. I know he has the receipt on a pin out front, and when there’s a mistake that costs money we’re supposed to find out whose fault it is.
“I don’t have time,” Erik says. “Just do it over.”
A truckload of adrenaline races to my head. “Can I see the order?” I ask.
“I know you’re upset,” he says, laying it on thick. Like I’m one of those old women out there who just lost her teeth in a sundae.
I’ve covered for Erik since I started working here. He messes up about once a week because he’s so good with customers he forgets to be good with typing in the right code. But I’m not covering for a patronizing me-dumper.
I put the shake I’m making down on the counter. Everyone stops what they’re doing and looks at me. I walk out to the cash register and pull the receipt off the pin. I look at the order. The prehistoric woman who ordered the shake, who obviously thinks she’s caught me at something, stares me down.
I walk back to Erik and show him the receipt. “You put in the code for Peanut Butter Chocolate. I’ll make another one, but I’m not paying for it.”
Everyone looks at Prince Charming now.
“This is just stupid,” he says, and takes the receipt out of my hand. Erik looks innocent, but there is a reason he wins on the track field. And it isn’t because he loves running. It’s because he loves to win. He has to.
“Don’t you mean
I’m
stupid?” I say.
The back room silence brings Howard charging in. He says, “Holy hell. We’ve got the whole town out there. You two get to work. Myra, don’t be a bitch about this just because he dumped you for what’s-her-boobs out there.”
I look at Erik. He has what’s-her-boobs guilt written all over him.
Erik says to Howard, “Myra’s just been under a lot of pressure lately. You know how she gets.”
What a stroke of genius to make me look like a whack job while pretending to care what kind of pressure I’m under. Who finished Erik’s paper on morphology when he had a track meet all weekend? Who convinced Erik’s dad it was a recycling project when his dad found beer cans in his truck?
Howard guffaws. “Yeah, I know the kind of pressure you give her, buddy. Those Morgan girls ... they’re all about pressure.”