Everything Is Fine. Page 7

  “How come you want to? It’s eight o’clock.”

  “Just do,” he says.

  I think about that as I lean against the counter.

  “Okay.”

  Then I open the window and pull off the screen and Colby climbs into my house.

  OLIVIA

  Olivia is or I guess was nine years younger than me.

  She never saw a boy come through our window.

  SUGAR

  Colby crawls through the window and knocks down the calendar from last year that’s still up, breaks two glasses, and gets his hands all wet because the counter has juice on it.

  “Sick,” he says.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Don’t you clean?”

  I look around the kitchen.

  It never really looks all that good since I got in charge.

  I don’t say anything.

  He washes his hands and then sits at the table so I sit at the table.

  “Do you want a marshmallow?”

  “Okay.”

  I get out the bag.

  “Do you want them cooked?”

  “No,” he says, and stuffs three in his mouth.

  Then we are quiet. Colby’s eyes are a little cross-eyed without his glasses and he has spiked his hair down the middle. He looks sort of weird. Not like Colby.

  “Did you do your hair?”

  “Uh no, Bill Clinton did it for me,” he says, even though his mouth is full of white foam.

  “Oh,” I say. “I like it.”

  “Of course you do,” he says, and he looks down at his arms. “Do you think I’m getting natural guns?”

  “Not really.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I mean, not really.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why? Do you want them?”

  “Sort of.”

  And then we sit.

  Then he says, “I’m probably getting contacts.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  Then he says, “Colored ones.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you want to know which color?”

  “Okay.”

  “Yellow.”

  I eat a marshmallow and he’s just looking at me.

  “Don’t you think that’d be cool?”

  I eat another one.

  Then I say, “How’s Dixie?”

  Colby turns sort of red. “She’s cool.” He stuffs three more marshmallows in his mouth.

  Then he says, “My mom said she’s trashy.”

  “Trashy? She said that about her sister?”

  Colby nods. “She just said that she dresses slutty and that she better do it while she can because Mom says her boobs are going to drop and her butt will get big.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  I eat another marshmallow and my stomach is getting inflated.

  Colby is drawing circles on the wood table with his finger. “I know it’s weird how my mom says stuff like that about her own sister.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  He looks at me. “Aunt Dixie did say one thing about you, though.”

  “She did?”

  “Well, about your . . .” and then he mouths the word MOM and looks out the door toward the hall.

  “What?” I say, but I say it soft.

  “They were over for a barbecue and me and Aunt Dixie got left alone at the table.”

  He takes another marshmallow and says, “Can you melt this one for me?”

  “Later,” I say. I want to know what Dixie said.

  “Okay,” he says. Then he wipes something from his nose and looks at it.

  “What did she say?” He is taking forever.

  “She started asking things about you and your mom and crap.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like,” he says, and then he stops and his eyes drop.

  “What?”

  “Like she’d heard what had happened to Olivia and all that.” He stops again and we sit. Then he says, “And she said it was so crappy how people talk about your mom the way they do.”

  I feel something sink in my stomach.

  He looks at me.

  I look back and say, “What are people saying?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even know she’d know people who even knew your mom but I guess my mom and dad say stuff.” He pauses, pulls a marshmallow apart, and then sticks it to his arm. “Plus, everyone knows because of your dad and everything.”

  Dad.

  He sticks another one on his arm and doesn’t look at me.

  I get up and put the marshmallows on a plate.

  “Do you like them burned or not burned?”

  “Whatever,” he says. He is making a tower now.

  I press start on the microwave and am watching it go around and around when he says, “Randy asks about it too. Almost everyone does.”

  The microwave beeps but I don’t move.

  “I just say I don’t know.”

  He turns in his chair. “Is that what I should say?”

  I shrug.

  He looks at his shoes again and then says, “Do you guys have any sugar? I was supposed to come over and ask for sugar.”

  COLBY AND ME WITH MARSHMALLOWS: crayon on paper

  DAD AND ESPN 360

  It all started when Dad got a phone call from the network.

  He was up for the job.

  Mom didn’t want him to take it.

  “Roxie, this is huge. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”

  “I thought we were waiting for ABC,” she said.

  They were talking in the kitchen and me and Olivia were watching Barney or something in the living room.

  They never fought.

  Except about jobs.

  Dad didn’t say anything.

  Mom did. “Dave, this is ESPN 360. This is curling and foosball,” she said.

  “Give me a break,” he said, and he was louder than normal.

  All I could think was, Please don’t let us move. Please don’t let us move.

  Things were good — and before we got here we had to move and move and move. I liked it here.

  Mom didn’t want to leave because she had lots of friends and she had her art studio and her business and Dad was making money as the local sports anchor and people liked him and everything was how it was supposed to be.

  They kept talking and talking and finally Dad yelled something. It made Olivia jump, and she looked over at me, her fat cheeks red and her mouth open.

  “It’s okay,” I said. But then Dad yelled again and Olivia’s face started to scrunch up and soon she was crying.

  Mom ran into the room yelling, “See what you did, Dave. You’ve upset Olivia.”

  Dad followed her and watched her pick Olivia up. She was whimpering and put her head on Mom’s shoulder.

  I looked at the carpet.

  “This is a family decision, Dave. What’s best for the family.”

  Dad stood in the doorway, silent, while Mom rocked Olivia back and forth. The air was heavy, and this moment I remembered so well.

  It’s almost like it’s frozen.

  He said, “Things are going to change, Roxie. What works for you doesn’t always work for me. Things change.”

  And then he walked over, kissed Olivia on the nose, nodded at me, and went out the front door.

  Three days later it happened.

  ART

  I never tried to do art before.

  She always asked if I wanted her to teach me but I didn’t.

  I don’t know why.

  Now I want her to.

  In Mom’s art room I’ve made it better even if it’s messier.

  Like I pulled out her paintings and put them on the walls.

  She used to have them out plus some of her drawings of us and the finger painting Olivia had done, but after everything happened, she took them all down.

  Instead, she put up prints of van Gogh or Klimt or someone famous.

  Not her own stuff and not our stuff.
>
  Right after she did it I asked her, “Where are all our paintings?” She was scribbling something on a pad of paper at her worktable and didn’t respond.

  “Mom?”

  Still scribbling.

  “Mom?”

  She jumped. “Oh, Mazzy. What do you need?” She sounded mad.

  “Nothing,” I said, and then I left and watched TV.

  The room looks better now with her stuff and my stuff and Olivia’s finger painting.

  BOOBS

  I made a chart about boobs.

  There are many different kinds.

  Norma’s are droopy like melons.

  Mrs. Peet’s are big but pushed together and it’s because of a bra.

  Dixie’s are round and straight out.

  Mom’s are little hills.

  Mine are bumps.

  BOOB CHART: pen on paper

  DIXIE

  I think Dixie understands me.

  I like her bikini and how she doesn’t care.

  Plus, Mrs. Dean doesn’t like her so I do.

  ART CLASS

  Mom told all her students that she wasn’t teaching for a while.

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, should I plan on bringing him next month?”

  “No.”

  “I’m so sorry to bug you, but he loves these classes and we paid for three months in advance.”

  No response from Mom.

  “Are you okay?”

  No response from Mom.

  Mom was just standing at the front door and I was standing behind her, and Mrs. Willis, whose kid Seth had been taking lessons for six months, was talking through the screen door. Mom wouldn’t let anyone in.

  “Umm, well. So I guess we’ll just wait.”

  “Do that,” Mom said.

  “You have no idea?”

  Mom was in her bathrobe and she was slumped.

  I wanted to tell Mrs. Willis to shut up and leave.

  But she still talked and Mom still slumped. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No.”

  Mrs. Willis looked past her at me — she sort of gave me a look like please help but I made my face stone like Mom’s.

  “Some of the other moms have been wondering too.”

  Stone.

  Mom walked away and I was left there standing with Mrs. Willis.

  “Go away,” I said, and I shut the door.

  Now, since the art room is mine for a while, I act like Mom and lock the door.

  And I turn on her CDs.

  With her music and her paintings and the smell of oil, I can almost imagine everything back how it was.

  MOM’S STUDIO: watercolor on wall

  COLBY AND THE SPYDER

  I give Colby the sugar but then he doesn’t leave.

  Instead we go outside and sit in the Spyder.

  We only do it because Colby begs me.

  I don’t like the Spyder so much.

  Colby wants to be behind the wheel. “This is such a cool car.”

  We came out the back door because Colby says the signs say no entrance, not no exit, which is true.

  So we’re sitting there and he says, “Did your dad ever let you drive it?”

  “Me? No.”

  “Steer?”

  “No.”

  No one has really driven it since Dad bought it. It just sits.

  “I’ve driven the Dean Machine.”

  “You have?”

  “Yeah. Tons of times.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “And I could drive this thing too. I could smoke some pavement with this.”

  I look at the rearview mirror while he’s talking. It’s black outside. And stars with just a sliver moon.

  “How fast do you think this could go?” he asks, and he is massaging the steering wheel.

  “I don’t know.” I wonder if Mom is in the shower.

  “Fast,” he says.

  Then we sit and Colby has his hands on the wheel and I have my hands in my lap.

  Colby starts making vrooming noises like we’re driving.

  I just sit.

  Mom is inside taking a shower.

  She’s back. Things are going to be back to normal, even with Colby.

  A light goes on at Colby’s.

  “I gotta go,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  Then he says, “Thanks for saying I don’t suck.”

  I smile.

  And then he says, “I think McKinley Prep is going to be stupid.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  And then he does something weird.

  He puts his hand on my head — like he’s my grandma or something.

  I don’t know why but my stomach flips.

  I look at him and he is looking at me. Weird-like.

  “What?” I say.

  He turns red again and says, “Nothing.” And then he gets out and runs home.

  SOMEONE ELSE

  After Colby leaves, I stay in the Spyder.

  In the dark, I feel like someone else.

  Dad is coming home.

  Mom is in the shower.

  Colby put his hand on my head.

  NORMA

  I am about to get out when I see a car pull into Norma’s.

  It’s Norma’s red car.

  I sink down in my seat.

  Mr. Grobin goes around and helps Norma out of the car.

  She’s wearing her yellow T-shirt and tie-dye stretch pants and she’s walking really slowly.

  Part of me wants to run over there or yell or do something.

  Instead I sit scrunched up in the Spyder.

  She’s sick and she didn’t tell me.

  She almost died.

  I scrunch up even more.

  MOM

  Inside I put the marshmallow bag in the trash and try to wipe up the counter.

  The shower isn’t on.

  “Mom,” I yell.

  Wait.

  “Mom?”

  Wait.

  “Mom, do you want your pills?”

  Maybe she is in the shower drying off.

  I get the sorbet and the pills and a cup of noni, which maybe is the reason she is feeling so good, and go to her room.

  She isn’t there.

  “Mom?” No answer but the light in her bathroom is on.

  “Mom?” I knock on the door.

  Nothing. I try the knob. It’s locked. “Mom?”

  Knock again. “Mom?”

  I put my ear to the door — I can hear something but I can’t tell what it is. Like a buzzing sound.

  “Mom? What are you doing?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Mom, open the door.”

  No answer.

  “Please, Mom. Open the door.”

  Nothing.

  Please no please no please no.

  I pound on the door. “Mom! Open the door!” Pound and pound and pound on the door.

  “Mom, please. Please open the door.” I pound and pound and pound until my fist is red and my throat hurts from yelling.

  I slide to the ground and accidentally knock the sorbet and pills and noni over. The black noni spirals on the white carpet and the sorbet falls in a big green pile.

  I am breathing deep and watching the noni slowly spread and touch the sorbet. Then the two are together — pushing against each other.

  I’m thinking they would mix but instead they push at each other and make spikes — like they’re fighting for space.

  I put my finger where they touch and trace them together into a spiral — a noni and sorbet spiral around and around and around and around.

  FUNERAL

  At the funeral, Dad spoke.

  He wore his pink shirt and the tie he wore when he was recognized by his network — his lucky tie that cost over 200 dollars.

  He got a haircut and new shoes and he looked like he was supposed to.

  He tried to have Mom do her hair. “You’ll feel be
tter.”

  But Mom just sat in front of the mirror and wouldn’t move.

  Dad’s eyes were tired.

  “Roxie, please. We have to leave in fifteen minutes.”

  I was sitting on the toilet, watching her get ready.

  Since it happened, I didn’t like to be alone. I followed Mom wherever she went. I slept on the floor in her room. I ate when she ate. I did what she did.

  She never said I couldn’t. She never said she was mad.

  So I sat on the toilet, my hair a mess too.

  “Mazzy, get up and get going,” Dad said. His body almost took up the entire doorway. I never realized how big he was.

  I looked at Mom. She didn’t move, just sat looking blankly at the mirror.

  The day before, Dad had gone out and got us both new clothes. He got Mom a silk gray shirt and a black skirt that was a little too big even though he took one of her other skirts to size it.

  It had been a week and Mom had already lost weight.

  He got me a purple dress.

  “Purple?” I said when he got back. He shrugged. “The lady said it’d be good for this kind of thing.”

  The dress was bulky — too big everywhere. So Mom and me, we looked like sacks. Dad looked like a TV sports anchor with a shirt my mom had picked out.

  After I put on the dress, I was going to go to the kitchen to get some water but then I saw Dad with his head in his hands.

  He was shaking.

  I wasn’t thirsty anymore.

  We sat in the front pew.

  Dad sat at the stand because he was talking.

  The casket was right there. Right in front of me and Mom. It looked like a doll box. Like one of Olivia’s doll beds.

  Pink.

  Silver.

  Shining.

  The picture of Olivia at Newport beach sitting on top — the one we took the year before on our family vacation.

  Next to Mom was Agnes and her five kids and then Ted her husband. They were the only family we had and they flew all the way from Kansas, which cost them over a thousand dollars. They had to get a hotel too because there obviously wasn’t room at our house and that was fine and everything, but Ted had a new job and it was not easy to get work off and to lose all that money.

  “Oh,” said Mom.

  I think Norma was there too.