Helena and Marissa had been nice to me about all my school stuff. That was a relief. I never looked forward to explaining my learning problems to a new classroom full of kids.
“Is this part so you can make notes and corrections?” Marissa had asked. She’d patted the blank wedge of space in my notebook with her open hand.
I was tempted to say yes. I rolled my eyes. “No, I just have some kind of
spatial relationship
problems. That’s what the special education teacher told me. It happens in reading, too,” I said. “Words sort of slide on the page.” I swept my hand to one side.
When my teacher had given me a laminated strip of oaktag to use for reading, Helena asked for one too.
“It really helps,” she’d said. The two of us had sat shoulder to shoulder in the classroom reading nook together, moving our oaktag strips down the pages of our books.
Now I listened to a freight train go by on the tracks above and behind me and wondered for a moment what it was carrying and where it was going. That made me think of Mommers again. I wondered what she would be selling in her new business. Was it something the trains would bring? Would it go right by our trailer before it reached the store or the warehouse or whatever? And, the big question: Would it really work out?
I watched Piccolo disappear into her tissue nest for a nap. The trailer was quiet. Too quiet. I checked the time again. Five past twelve. I thought about my wish.
“Come back, Mommers,” I whispered. I started to feel scared. But not from being alone—that never really bothered me so much. It was the kind of scared you get from a memory. When something begins to feel like another time—a time when things didn’t go right. A time we took some twists and turns. It was late; that was part of it. Mommers had stayed out late like this before. Then she stayed later and later, and after that, she’d stopped coming home.
I remembered the waiting. I was nine, Brynna was three and Katie was a year old. The divorce had already happened and Dwight lived nearby in an apartment but he was on a job in Vermont for the week. He’d called to talk to us every night—not to Mommers. Just to us.
Brynna, Katie and I had all been in the big bed together at the old house. They lay asleep. I lay awake.
Mommers had called the first two nights. “Addie, my business plan is going really well. It’s just gonna take a little more time.”
“Can’t you work on the plan here?”
“I’ll be back soon enough, and you’re there for the babies. See, I planned this for your winter vacation week. You’re fine, aren’t you,” she’d said. But it didn’t sound like a question and she didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll call tomorrow night,” she’d said. Click.
But she didn’t call. Dwight did, and for some reason he asked for Mommers. I stayed quiet on the line. I watched the snow coming down outside on the deck where I’d left the light on for her.
“Addie, is she home?”
I had to whisper back to him. “No,” I said.
“What?”
“Not here,” I said.
“How long has she been gone?” he asked.
I said, “Three.”
“Days?”
“Yes.”
“Oh God.” His voice went down like my own sinking heart. “Are the babies okay?”
“Sleeping,” I whispered. “I’m home from school this week, Dwight. We’re okay.”
“Is there food?”
“Peanut butter jellies.”
“You warm? Furnace running?”
I listened for the hum. “Yes.”
“Door locked, honey?”
“Yes.”
“Addie, I’m calling Grandio. He can get there quickly. And I’m getting in the truck right now. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. Depends on the snow, but I’m coming home.”
I put the phone on the cradle. I knew everything was ruined.
When Grandio got to us that night, he came pushing through the door as soon as I unlocked it. I had to hop back so the door wouldn’t scrape the tops of my toes.
“This is what I always said. That woman leaves a whole lotta nothin’ good every place she goes!” He ran his hand through his gray hairs. “Doesn’t she know she’s left her own
babies
home alone?” He searched the messy house for a fresh diaper for Katie even though I told him over and over again that it was better to just let her sleep. “Who knows when the last time was that kid got a clean bottom!” he raged. “The mother’s been gone for three days!”
“I changed Katie before bed, Grandio. Let her sleep. She’ll just be scared,” I pleaded.
Finally, he listened to me about the diaper. But he also said, “This is it. This is
child abandonment
. This is all we need. It’s over.”
“
P
sst! Addie!”
“What?” I opened my eyes. I sat up in the dark and looked at Mommers. “You’re back! What time is it?”
“Dunno. Two, I guess. I just wanted you to know I’m here.”
“Late,” I said. I heard the computer booting up. “What are you doing?”
“Checking my email. And I gotta shoot a note to Pete, too.”
“Pete?”
“That’s who I had dinner with. We worked on the business plan. Oh, Addie, he’s so smart!” she said. “And gorgeous, too.”
“Plan? I thought it was an interview.”
“Go back to sleep.” Mommers sat down and started typing.
I lay back in my bunk but I couldn’t go back to sleep. I heard Mommers go into the bathroom. I climbed down from my bunk and I looked at the computer screen, where an unsent email glowed back.
Pete:
Loved our meeting. This is going to
be great! Will see about finding more
investors. Hope my contribution
helps. See you online.
Denise
Mommers came out of the bathroom and I faced her squarely.
“Did you give him our money from Dwight?” She put her hands on her hips and gave me a frown.
I
never got a straight answer out of Mommers that night. She didn’t say she had given
Pete
our money but she didn’t say she hadn’t either. For weeks she kept on meeting him, sometimes late into the night, and she spent a lot of time on the computer. Our phone line was almost never open. Even though she’d said something about
her contribution
in that email message, we didn’t seem to be having money troubles. Mommers had new “business clothes,” which she wore on her late night meetings with Pete. The trailer was filling up with office supplies. She even bought Halloween decorations that looked like coloring book drawings and she put them up all over the trailer. We had ghosts in top hats and flying bats on the walls. She put a pumpkin face over the bare light bulb in the kitchen. In the meantime, we were out of bread.
Ms. Rivera came to my classroom to get me. She invited me into the hallway. “Addie, you’ve earned a spot in the Stage Orchestra.” She smiled.
I leaped inside of my own skin.
“I’ve been trying to call your home but the line has been busy.”
“My mother uses the Internet a lot,” I said, “for work.”
“Well, here’s a note you can give her. Practices are
mandatory
.” She tilted her head at me. “Monday and Thursday after school. We rest during Thanksgiving break. You’ll need an outfit. Black on the bottom, white on the top. Your choice, but simple works best. The holiday concert is always the second Friday in December.” She took a breath. “I think that’s it. Are you happy?”
“Yes! Thank you.”
I rushed back inside the classroom to tell Helena and Marissa. “Makes me wish I was in orchestra,” Marissa said. “But I’ll be in the audience.”
“The audience is important!” Helena said, and we laughed because it was so true.
Robert overheard us and he actually smiled. “That’s good you made it.”
I squinted at him. “Why are you being nice?”
He shrugged. “Think you can keep up learning the new music?”
Everyone in my class knew that I was a mess when it came to learning anything new.
I took a breath. “Yes,” I said. “I know I can.”
Mommers got very excited about my spot in Stage Orchestra. She pinned the letter to the fridge and circled the concert date on the kitchen calendar with a sparkle pen from her office supplies.
“Let’s celebrate!” she said. “Let’s go out to eat. How about Numbskull Dorry’s? Within walking distance!” she sang.
“Can we afford it?”
She waved a shiny credit card at me and danced a cha-cha.
I stopped in my happy tracks. “Whose is that?” I asked.
“Mine!” she said. “I got it from Pete. It’s for the business, but I can pay on it. Come on, Addie! Let’s have some fun!” She leaned right into my face and said, “Can you say that?
Fun
?” She scowled at me, then grinned. “Lighten up, kid! I’m employed!”
We had a blast. First we dressed up more than we needed to. Mommers tossed me some of her clothes to try, which didn’t quite fit. I felt funny in lady clothes but Mommers talked me into wearing one of the shirts. She borrowed a glow-in-the-dark necklace from me and we both painted our fingernails—Mommers in hot orange, me with the clear stuff. We put our hair up on top of our heads and used rhinestone bobby pins to hold back the wisps.
At Numbskull Dorry’s, I ordered first.
“Fish and chips, please,” I said.
“Fish and chips,” Mommers teased. “How predictable!”
But I surprised her when I asked the waitress, “Is Rick in the kitchen tonight?”
“You bet. Who shall I say is here?” the waitress asked.
“Addie,” I said. “From the minimart.”
“Well, it’s busy, but if he can get a second, I’m sure he’ll come out.” The waitress hurried off.
Mommers pretended to be French, and she was loud about it, too. “Oddie from zee minimart?” She let her voice rise and fall. “And who is zee gen tleman,
Reek?
” The people from the next booth looked over at us and smiled at our fun. I felt my cheeks turn warm.
“Not Reek!
Rick!
” I whispered. “He’s just the
owner
.” I tried to keep a straight face but I was no good at that.
Mommers sat back, her hand to her heart. “You’ve been keeping secrets! My, my, Oddie dahling! Tell me more!”
I leaned forward and said, “When you call me Oddie, you sound like Katie!” We burst out laughing. Maybe it was just something about Numbskull Dorry’s. It was a good times place for us.
Rick came out while we were having dessert. He greeted us as if we were his most important friends. He sat right down and Mommers flirted with him. I didn’t bother to tell her that he had a boyfriend.
Later we walked home in the cool October night. The streetlamps lit the city sidewalks and jack-o’-lantern faces glowed from the porches and windows of the houses on Union Street. Halloween was just a few days off. I was sorry I would not be trick-or-treating with my little sisters. I wondered if my old Dalmatian costume had fit Brynna, and if Katie had found something that would make her into a hamster—she wanted to be Piccolo, she’d told me.
Mommers put her hand on my shoulder to slow me in front of a brick house on a corner lot. Two orange pumpkins grinned in shining slices from a bench by the door. Little tissue ghosts hung from the knobby branches of a small tree beside the gate.
Mommers bit her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes. “We’re gonna get a new place soon, Addison,” she told me. “Maybe even by Christmas.”
I was not focused on Christmas at all. I was focused on the second Friday in December, which happened to be the twelfth. That was the night of our Stage Orchestra performance.
I worked on the music every night and tried to be ready for each practice. Ms. Rivera kept her arrangement with me and I got the score ahead of everyone else so I could start “assimilating” it. I looked up
assimilate
. Webster’s listed some scientific terms like
digest
and
metabolize
first. But the second definition seemed closer to me. It said, “to absorb and incorporate, as in knowledge.” But to me, the word that made the most sense was
learn
: “to master through study.”
Bingo!
I
guess you could say that Halloween came and went that year, or should have. Like I say, I was pretty focused on December 12, but I did try and get Marissa and Helena to go trick-or-treating with me. I thought we could start at Helena’s, hit Seneca, and then cross to Union and come down the other side. That would have been about thirty houses—pretty good loot. But Helena’s mom took her kids to a neighborhood across the bridge, which was safer, she said, and it turned out that Marissa’s parents didn’t allow her to trick-or-treat at all.
So I changed my plan. I’d do just Union and have Mommers walk out on the street with me. “We can look at the houses again,” I told her.
But Mommers put it to me bluntly. “Addie, Halloween is for little kids. Maybe some of the kids in your class are still little but
you
aren’t.”
“Helena is
taller
than I am. She’s going.”
Mommers sighed through her teeth. “You’re short, but, Addie, you have
boobs
, in case you hadn’t noticed. People will turn you away.”
“Helena’s boobs are bigger,” I mumbled.
“Besides, I have plans,” Mommers told me.
Soula and Elliot felt bad for me when I walked into the minimart after school and told them I had nothing to do on Halloween night.
“Oh, come over
here
!” Elliot said, arms open. “You can dress up! I always do. You can hand out candy at the counter.”
I grinned. I didn’t have a costume but one walk through Soula’s closet fixed that. Elliot put one of her big dresses on me—dropped it right over my own clothes—and belted it around me with two scarves. He helped me paint my face at Soula’s vanity table. He lined my eyes and drew in pointed lashes that came halfway down my cheeks. He gave me a big, bright, Soula pink mouth, and finished me off with a straw hat covered in purple fake flowers. “You’re a She-clown!” he said. He gave the hat a pat.
“Tah-dah!” Elliot announced me as we came back into the minimart from the Greenhouse.
“I don’t get it,” Soula said. She looked from me to Elliot and back at me again. “Where’s her costume?”