Jake (3 page)

“Hang on, hang on,” Stan said. “Your mom’s fine. At least, she’s going to be.”

It took a minute but I started to feel like I knew
that. The tears stopped. I could breathe the way I usually did. Stan looked at me like I was somebody he already knew, which sounds strange but felt good.

I looked at Miss Sahara. She still had that awful smile on her face.

“So,” she said, making it sound the way a bird chirps. “Does your mother take medication for anything?”

“Aspirin, sometimes.”

“Anything give her a rash?”

“Mangos make her look like a blowfish.”

“Mangos,” she said as if it was good news. She wrote it down. “Anything else?”

I shook my head no.

“No worries there, then,” she said, getting ready to write. “Let’s get to you. Your name?”

“Jake Wexler.”

“Jake. What’s that short for?”

“It’s Jake on my birth certificate,” I said, as I sometimes have to do. We went through a list; I sat down carefully, because I had fallen on my butt. I told her Mom’s name and our address and other stuff. I remembered who Mom’s doctor is.

“Now about somebody to call,” Miss Sahara said.

“For what?”

“To take care of you,” she said in a let’s-go-to-a-party voice. She was starting to get on my nerves. “Any family living nearby?”

I shook my head again.

Stan asked, “Where do your grandma and grandpa live?”

“North Carolina. Granddad.” Mom calls him Granddad when she’s talking to me, anyway. “The others have all died.”

You’d think it would be good to have the one. I mean, I’d like to have grandparents like anybody else. I could be happy with only the one, but we don’t visit my dad’s dad and it’s weird talking to somebody you only know by their voice and a few old pictures. I never got around to calling him anything. I’d say hi, we’d go through a couple of the usual
How’s school?
kind of questions, we’d say good-bye politely, and that was it.

“Well, that’s not too far away.” Stan said. “Granddad. Where in North Carolina?”

“My mom wouldn’t call him. So I don’t think you should either.”

Stan said, “Maybe there’s a friend of your mom’s you could stay with?”

Miss Sahara said, “We need the name of another blood relative.”

“There’s Aunt Ginny,” I said. “She’s away.”

“Away?” This was Miss Sahara and she sounded like somehow Aunt Ginny should have known better than to go away this weekend. “Perhaps we should tell her she’s needed here?”

“We can’t,” I said. “She takes women out for wilderness weekends, and nobody uses a phone. That includes her.”

“Cool,” Stan said and then frowned. “Cold.”

“They’re in a desert in Arizona this time.”

Stan grinned. “Very cool.”

“Surely they do have an emergency phone,” Miss Sahara said.

“Nope,” I said. “Well, if somebody gets hurt, Aunt Ginny can call for help, but we can’t phone her. It’s against the rules and she keeps her phone turned off. She gets back on Tuesday, though.”

“Any close friends?”

“Suzie. Can’t get her either.”

“Where might
she
be?”

“She’s on a Greenpeace boat in the Pacific Ocean.”

“Really very cool,” Stan said.

Miss Sahara said, “Any friends from your mother’s workplace?”

“Mom works at home.”

“What does
she
do?” This was Stan.

“She translates books to English,” I said. “Mostly about how people act. Behavioral science, that’s it.”

“Wow, what languages?”

“German, Danish, and Swedish.”

Stan sat back a little. Something about this impresses people. “It’s cool,” I said.

“It’s the coolest of all,” he said.

I nodded, glad that Stan got it that Mom did something as interesting as Aunt Ginny or Suzie.

Even I didn’t get it until this time I caught Mom doing a happy dance of having found just the right words. She was quiet, and there was no music, but the happy dance said it all.

So did the ice-cream sundaes we made right after. Just thinking about it almost made me cry again. I missed Mom, but mostly I missed the way we felt that day.

I gave Miss Sahara Granddad’s name. Ned Wexler. He was my dad’s dad and Mom is always careful that
he knows she’s doing a good job with me. She can’t be blamed for breaking her leg, but then, Granddad always sounded a little stiff.

That was all I knew about him. I started to wish I had a real grandparent, like Matthew’s grandma. I mean, Granddad sent presents at birthdays and Christmas. I had a present from him under the tree. It was always whatever Mom told him I wanted—without her help, he wouldn’t know what I’d like.

I didn’t know what he’d like either. Mom always sent him cigars.

I wished I could stay with Matthew Haygood’s grandmother.

“What about your school friends?” Miss Sahara said. “For one night.”

There was Joey Ziglar. Mrs. Ziglar liked me. But Joey’s family had already started for Florida, to see more family during the holidays.

I thought about asking Mrs. Baxter if I could sleep over. The last time I did, Jerry broke a window and I said I did it so he wouldn’t get grounded from hockey practice. I don’t think his mom would want me much.

Matthew Haygood’s mom and mine weren’t friendly enough for sleepovers. Mom still sort of sided with her on the T-shirt and panties thing, though.

Mom liked Sarah Jane’s mom, but I didn’t want to spend the night on Sarah Jane’s couch. If Sarah Jane woke up before I did and saw me sleeping with my mouth open or something, it would be all over school in no time.

I shook my head.

“We need a name to call for overnight.”

I stared at her.

“You can’t stay here all night,” she said. “You have to sleep somewhere.”

Looking out the window then, I saw it was practically dark outside. I missed lunch and didn’t even notice. It didn’t seem like we’d been away from home all that long. Of course, it got dark early in winter.

“You can come back tomorrow, of course. So who are we calling?”

“Mrs. Buttermark, I guess. Our neighbor. She’s sort of old, but we hang out together sometimes.”

“Hang out?”

“That’s what we say we’re doing,” I said. “She doesn’t think I need a babysitter either.”

“She ought to do.” She looked like Mrs. Buttermark got an A+.

Here I was wracking my brain for the actual people Mom would let me stay with. I could give her
anybody’s name and she would be saying, “She ought to do.”

I decided not to point this out to Miss Sahara. Really, how much more time did I want to spend with
her
?

“Mrs. Buttermark. Her number?” Miss Sahara’s smile didn’t keep her from sounding like that thin ice that Mom and I scraped off the windshield.
Crickle-crackle
.

Miss Sahara wrote the number down, then said, “Have you ever spent the night with her before?”

“She stayed with us a few times. Last month when her bathroom was being fixed, and once when Mom had a bad cold. Then again when
she
caught the flu.”

Miss Sahara looked happy to hear it. “Definitely our best choice.”

“I should talk to her first,” I said. “So she doesn’t get too worried.”

“Good idea,” Miss Sahara said.

“Also, can I tell her you’ll put me in a taxi? That way she doesn’t have to worry about cleaning off her windshield and stuff.”

“That’s not the way we do things,” Miss Sahara said.

“Mrs. Buttermark is a lot older than my mom.”
This was true, even if I did forget it sometimes. “If she breaks
her
leg getting here, there’s no one else.”

“I live over that way,” Stan said. “If he sits ten more minutes, my shift is over and I can drive him home.”

Miss Sahara said, “Stanley—”

“Stan. That’s how it reads on my birth certificate.”

Her smile wobbled. “Stan. It’s against the rules.”

“Blink,” Stan said. “You won’t see a thing.”

“Well,” Miss Sahara said, making the word into a sigh. “Let’s start with your grandfather anyway. What’s his phone number?”

I didn’t know. It was like she hadn’t listened to me at all. I said, “Let’s call Mrs. Buttermark.”

“
Sit
here,” Miss Sahara said, standing up. “Don’t go wandering around.”

Stan said, “He’d be better off over in the next wing. There’s a TV in the waiting room there. Take his mind off things.”

“Oh, all right,” Miss Sahara said.

“You hungry?” Stan
asked me as we walked away from the bad tape of Christmas music.

“Not really.” I was tired. Miss Sahara sort of wore me out with all that smiling. It would be rude to say so. Also, it worried me that she was going to call my granddad. I didn’t think Mom would like that.

She doesn’t talk much with my granddad. More than I did, but not like she’d talk to one of her friends. I didn’t know what to do about Miss Sahara or anything she was planning.

“So your mom fell on the ice, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think your mom’s purse got left where she fell or something?” Stan said. “Because nobody brought it in. I’m thinking her credit cards and stuff might be lost.”

“Mom doesn’t carry a purse since it got grabbed away from her once. There’s a waterproof pocket in the jacket she was wearing. All her money and her driver’s license and stuff goes into that pocket.”

“I think they looked in her coat.”

“It’s hidden under the pocket flap where there’s a regular pocket too,” I said. “The coat’s special. The same kind Aunt Ginny takes into the wilderness when she’s going somewhere cold.”

So we went to get Mom’s coat.

On the way, I asked him, “How long till Mom’s better?”

“A couple of months,” Stan said. “She’ll get out of the cast and then do some exercise to make sure she builds up muscle again.”

I waited outside the room Stan went into. He brought Mom’s coat out, and I went through the pocket to find her insurance card. Stan had somebody at the desk make a copy and then he gave it to me.

“You ought to take the jacket home with you for now,” he said. “Your mom won’t need it here. When they give her a locker, you can bring whatever stuff she asks for.”

“Can I call Mrs. Buttermark now?”

“Let’s do it.”

He asked the nurse at the desk to let us use her phone. She dialed a couple of numbers, listened, and handed me the receiver. It had a regular dial tone coming out of it.

“Dial your number,” the nurse said.

Mrs. Buttermark answered. She lives alone.

“It’s Jake,” I said. “Mom broke her leg and has to stay at the hospital. Can I sleep over?”

“Of course you can,” she said. “Which hospital are you at? I’ll come get you.”

“I have a ride,” I said. “We aren’t leaving this minute. I don’t know what time I’ll get there.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll be up.”

Stan sat down with me in the waiting room. He picked up the remote and flipped channels. While we stared at the TV, my brain started to work again.

When I had my tonsils out, Mom slept in a chair next to my hospital bed. If they sent me home, there was no one to be with her. That bothered me.

After Mom got through the operation, what then? How long would she be in the hospital? How long did we need to have someone to help?

Did we have to move in with Aunt Ginny? Or
would she move in with us? I could live with one short-haired cat if we turned on the air conditioner once a day. But my allergy pills were no match for Aunt Ginny’s three long-haired cats. What would we do about that?

It wasn’t the most important question at that moment, but I wondered what we’d do about Christmas, if it would come and go while Mom was in the hospital.

While the list of things to worry about got longer, Miss Sahara came back. I said, “Are they operating on my mom yet?”

“No, no,” she said as if she were tamping down a fire. “Not till Monday anyway. A doctor has to take her case.”

“I want to see her.”

She said, “That’s not a good idea.”

“I think you can,” Stan said. “She’s sleeping and she isn’t going to wake up even for you. The medicine does that. You understand?”

“I’m ten, not three.”

“Look, it’s hard for grown-ups to get the message sometimes,” he said. “I don’t want it to scare you that she won’t wake up.”

“It won’t scare me.”

It did, though.

This was not how Mom looked when she was sleeping. She was flat on her back with her leg packed in ice, and her face looked wrong somehow. Too still.

She looked more like a mask of herself.

When I touched her hand, she didn’t grab for mine. She didn’t know I was there. Like
really
didn’t know I was there. I’d never gotten that feeling before.

I felt like crying again.

Even in the morning it was more like she was
trying
to sleep soundly when I went into her room. It was like some small part of her sleeping brain already knew I was on my way. I could sneak in, but I pretty much knew if she’d had a bike in the closet, she’d have been wide awake fast.

“She’s okay,” Stan said.

At least she’s warm, I thought. That means she isn’t dead. “Well, then,” I said. “I’m ready to go.”

“You sure?”

I sort of wanted to get out of there. “Mrs. Buttermark is waiting for me. She might start to worry.”

I know I wanted to see her, and I was glad I did. But it felt worse to be standing next to her and not be able to tell her how scary this all was. It wasn’t that I
was afraid I’d cry again. I was afraid I’d hold on to her wrist and not let go, like I did when I was a really little kid and didn’t want to go to nursery school.

On the drive, Stan talked about how cool Mom and Aunt Ginny and Suzie must be. He kept asking questions. Not nosy ones. More the admiring kind.

I told him how Suzie doesn’t say men and women, she says male and female. Everything is science with her. And Aunt Ginny is a daredevil, that’s what Mom calls her. I said, “If Aunt Ginny was my mom, I’d have a bicycle by now.”

“Your mom got something against bikes?”

“My dad got hit by a truck while he was riding one. It’s made her kinda nervous about them.”