Double Dutch (18 page)

Delia jumped back a little from the power and anger of Randy's reply. “What do you mean?” she asked in confusion. “The poster ... the police . . .” She hesitated.

“This is the first clue I've had in months,” Randy explained. “My first real hope.”

“Randy, I don't understand,” Delia admitted. Her brain felt fuzzy. “I thought you said your dad wanted you to move to California?”

Randy took a deep breath. “I guess I should have told you the truth. My dad has been missing for the last two months.”

“What do you mean ‘missing'? You told me you talk to him all the time.”

“I didn't want anybody to find out, so I've been covering for him. Every day I figured he'd come back. But he didn't. I haven't heard from him since he left on a long-distance haul.”

“Oh, Randy, you've been all by yourself?” Delia gasped.

“That's why I've been so hungry all the time, and so hard up for cash.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I thought he'd deserted me, like my mother did,” Randy replied quietly. “But this flyer tells me different and you hid it from me!” Randy's anger was returning.

“So what does the poster say?” Delia asked hesitantly. “He's not wanted by the police?”

“Can't you read, Delia?” Randy asked, looking at her as if she were one of Yolanda's Martians.

Delia sat on the bleacher and finally released the torment of the last few years. She cried loud and long, ignoring the stares of the few remaining people in the gym. “No, Randy,” she said finally. “I can't read. I've been faking it for years.” She repeated for emphasis, and the words seemed to echo in the almost deserted gym: “I do not know how to read.”

“How is that possible? Everybody knows how to read!” Randy answered in disbelief.

“It's easy if you know how to play the game. At the store when I shop for groceries for my mom, I know the colors and the sizes of the packages I want. At the fast-food places they have pictures of everything. I just ask for a number two with a Coke. At school, I guess, I listen real good, I get the video instead of reading the book, and I do really well on nonreading reports like our project for English. But it's hard to keep up,” she admitted. “I'm so tired of it all.”

“What does your mother say about your, uh, reading problem, Delia?”

“She doesn't know,” Delia replied. She pulled at the hair of the Barbie doll.

“That's impossible. How can a mother NOT know something like that?”

“It's not so hard to hide the truth, Randy. Look at what you did. Nobody knew you were living all alone.”

Randy sighed. “I guess you're right.”

“I feel so stupid,” Delia said with her head down.

“But you seem so smart!” Randy blurted out. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say you were dumb.”

“I wasn't smart enough to read that flyer about your
father,” Delia said quietly. “I really AM stupid. What does it say?”

“The police aren't looking for him—they have
found
him!” Randy said with excitement.

“What? How? Where is he? He's . . . alive?” she asked cautiously.

“Yeah, at least he was when this flyer was made up. There's no telling how old it is. Looks like it was sent out as a fax from a hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Gee, Dad,” Randy mused, “you only got as far as Columbus?” He shook his head in disbelief.

“Wasn't he on his way to California?” Delia asked.

“Yeah, he was. From what I can tell here, he was beat up and robbed and left for dead near a truck stop. How'd you let them get the drop on you like that, Dad?” Randy said more to himself than to Delia. “He was in a coma for six weeks, but it seems, now that he has come out of it, his memory is foggy, and they are looking for anyone who knows him and can help him. And that's me!” It was Randy's turn to break down with emotion. “I was afraid he was dead, Delia.”

“I almost threw that flyer away, Randy. I thought it was something really bad that would hurt you. Because I'm so stupid, I almost cost you the chance to get your daddy back.”

Randy didn't disagree with her. Instead, he said, “I gotta go. I gotta make this call.” Clutching the flyer, he ran out suddenly, leaving Delia sitting alone on the bleachers, listening to the echoes of all the victories and defeats that gym had witnessed—including her own.

M
RS
. D
OUGLAS WALKED INTO THE GYM, LOOKING FOR
Delia. “You ready to go?” she asked. “I was so proud of you today, Delia—jumping on that floor like there was no tomorrow.”

Delia thought,
I guess she's right—there IS no tomorrow. I'm dumb as a rock and I always will be!
To her mother she said with a smile, “Thanks, Mom.”

“What's wrong, honey?” her mother asked as she gathered up the second-place trophy and the huge first-place trophy.

“Just tired, Mom,” Delia replied. “It's been a long day.”

“I have an idea,” her mother suggested. “Let's go out to dinner to celebrate—someplace really nice.”

“I'd like that, Mom,” Delia said quietly. They walked slowly out of the silent gym and into the early evening, the last bit of sun splashing off the gold of Delia's trophies. Delia, quiet and thoughtful during the ride to the restaurant, was thankful her mother didn't pepper her with questions and meaningless mother-talk.

The restaurant was cool and lit with candles flickering on each table. Delia slid into the well-stuffed, comfortable seat and sighed with a bit of relief. The waiter brought two
menus, glasses of water, and bread sticks, then hovered closely for their order.

“Give us a minute to look this over, would you?” Mrs. Douglas said to him.

“No problem, ma'am.” The waiter disappeared into the shadows.

Delia looked at the menu and froze. It had no pictures on it like the menus in the restaurants that she and her friends usually visited. She held it tightly in front of her and tried to focus on the words. She squinted. She held it close to her eyes, then far away. Nothing helped. The words did their usual dance of disobedience.

“Where are your glasses?” her mother asked, noticing Delia's difficulty.

“I didn't bring them. I didn't think I'd need them today since all we were doing is jumping. I just use them for reading.”

“Do they help?” her mother asked.

“Not really,” Delia mumbled.

“Do you think we need to get the prescription adjusted? It's been a couple of years since you've seen the eye doctor.”

“Yeah, probably,” Delia replied. She nibbled on a bread stick. She decided she'd just order a hamburger and fries, like she always did. That way, she wouldn't have to worry about what the menu says. But she was so sick of hamburgers! Some pasta or some steak or some chicken would be great. But she couldn't figure out enough on the complicated menu to tell which was which. Delia sighed again.

“Are you ready to order?” The waiter had reappeared from the shadows.

“I'll have a hamburger and fries, please,” Delia said with resignation.

“Tonight is a celebration, Delia—for you,” her mother said. “Don't you want to order something different tonight?”

Delia hesitated. Then she sighed and said, “Thanks, Mom, but I really like hamburgers.”

Mrs. Douglas ordered shrimp and pasta, and Delia wished she had as well. She slumped further into her seat. Her mother smiled and said, “Cheer up, Delia! You've lived through a tornado! You're a champion! You've got more trophies than we can fit on our mantel! Why are you looking like you just lost your best friend?”

“I think maybe I did,” Delia replied.

“Yolanda? She looked great out there, although I admit I was a little worried about her—jumping like that so soon after what could have been a really serious injury.”

“No, not Yo Yo,” Delia said quietly. “Randy.”

“Oh, no wonder you look so glum,” her mother answered in that mother-knows-all tone of voice. “Did you and he have a fight?”

“Not really, I did something really stupid and it... never mind, here comes the food.” The waiter effortlessly whipped the food in front of them and retreated after refilling their water glasses.

“You want to tell me about it?” Mrs. Douglas asked as she dipped her shrimp in the butter sauce.

Delia glanced at her hamburger, which was dry and overcooked, and looked with longing at her mother's plate. “I wish I had ordered the pasta,” Delia said, sniffing the garlic flavor that drifted from her mother's plate.

“You had your chance—it's delicious,” Mrs. Douglas replied. “But what does that have to do with you and the problem with Randy?”

“Nothing. Everything.” Delia tried to blink back the tears. “You know, Mom, they'll fix the school building eventually or make us take classes someplace else, and they'll make us take that test eventually, too.”

“Of course they will, dear,” her mother replied. “Not even tornadoes can stop the school process for very long. But what's wrong?”

“Mom,” Delia whispered, her voice barely louder than the flicker of the candle in front of them. “I can't read. This is not one of Yolanda's tall tales—this is for real. I can't read my books at school. I can't read the newspaper. I didn't order the shrimp because I couldn't read the stupid menu.”

Mrs. Douglas dropped her fork. She tried to speak, but nothing came out of her mouth.

“I've been hiding it, Mom, and I'm tired of pretending. I almost cost Randy his father because of it. You have to believe me. You gotta find me some help so the words quit jumping on the page like they're jumping Double Dutch.” Delia's eyes, rimmed with tears, looked directly into the amazed eyes of her mother. “I can't read, Mom.”

Delia's mother stared at her daughter, disbelief on her face. Delia sensed her thinking back through years of mystery about irregular grades and peculiar study habits. After a long moment, she said, “I believe you. Oh, my Lord, so much makes sense now! Delia, why didn't you say something sooner?”

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Mom, guess what? I'm a dummy!'” Delia replied, sniffing, as she told her
mother about how she had slipped around the edges of reading for so long.

“Now
I know
you are intelligent. To be able to fake it this long shows amazing ingenuity. We just have to figure out how to open the doors of your brain that are locked right now,” her mother said with authority.

“I've got scrambled brains,” Delia said as she dipped a cold French fry into her ketchup. “I've never seen anybody unscramble eggs. What makes you think somebody can unscramble my head?”

Her mother laughed softly. “You'd be surprised what modern science and education can do today. Once again, I am very proud of you, Delia. First thing Monday morning we're going to get you evaluated and get to the bottom of this. We'll get you a tutor, a doctor, whatever it takes. Maybe even a specialist-your dad will help pay for it!” she said sharply.

“I'm a loser,” Delia mumbled, her head bent so low over her plate she could see the texture of the hamburger bun.

“Let me tell you something, Delia,” her mother began. “I'm the one who feels like a failure here. I remember when you were about two, I took you to the shoe store to get new shoes. I had just bought you shoes maybe two months before that, but the saleslady looked at me like I was some kind of abusive parent, telling me, ‘Your child's foot is
severely
constricted in this shoe. Didn't you notice that she had outgrown her current shoe?' I felt so bad because it just hadn't occurred to me that your foot would grow so fast. I didn't
mean
to be a bad mother, but I guess I was. So that's how I feel now—I should have noticed you were struggling. That's a mother's job.”

Delia looked at her mother in surprise. “You had your own problems to deal with—all that mess with Daddy. Everybody else learns to read with no help at all. I was just too dumb to do that.”

“Quit talking bad about yourself! You jumped like a winner today, because that's what you are,” Mrs. Douglas said fiercely. “Losers don't get to wear that beautiful jacket you've got on.”

“I didn't have to read to win it,” Delia countered.

“But you had to work hard. You are a champion, inside and out, and champions know it takes hard work to succeed. This may not get fixed overnight, you know. But we'll get there-you and me together.”

“I know,” Delia replied with relief, glad the problem was now in her mother's hands. “And Mom?”

“What, Delia? Is there more?”

Delia smiled. “Can I have the rest of your pasta? I'm really sick of hamburgers!” They both laughed, the awful tension of the evening flickering away like the candle that the waiter extinguished as he brought the bill.

D
ELIA TOOK A LONG SHOWER WHEN THEY GOT HOME, THEN
headed for the phone. She had to find out about Randy and his father. But before she could pick it up to dial, it shrilled loudly as her hand touched the receiver. It was Yolanda.

“What's up, my red-jacketed girlfriend?” Yolanda said cheerfully.

“Not much. Me and my mom went out to eat after the tournament. We had one of those mother-daughter talks.”

“She finally got around to talking about sex?” Yolanda laughed.

Delia chuckled. “No, probably by the time I'm twenty-five she'll get the nerve to do that!”

“Parents are so backward,” Yolanda agreed. “When I was five, I had to sit my mother down and tell
her
about sex!” She was laughing so hard, it sounded as if she had dropped the phone. “Seriously, what did you talk about?”