Close to Famous (11 page)

She looked at me again. Then she read, “Water the plants outside, but only at the roots. If you water the petals they will get brown and I will not be happy.”

“I want you to be happy.”

“Good.” She handed me the list.

“Is that it?” I asked.

She put her fingernail on some words. “What does that say?”

I sucked in air. “Boy, I wish I'd brought my glasses.”

She studied me. “Feed the parakeet from the box of birdseed in the closet near the refrigerator. Do you see that?”

I nodded.

“You're sure you see that?”

“Yes, ma'am. As plain as anything.”

“Why don't you do those three things and then we'll go over the rest of the list.” She sounded almost nice when she said it. I breathed easier. She grabbed a Ho Ho from the counter and left the room.

I went to get the dog food and found a can opener after opening close to every drawer in the kitchen. I couldn't find the chicken at first and was thinking spiteful thoughts about spoiled dogs who only eat fancy food. I finally found the chicken and parmesan cheese. By mistake I dropped the chicken on the floor and the two dogs ran in and tore it to shreds. They didn't need it chopped at all.

“That's enough, you guys.” I tried to clean up the chicken and got growled at. I sliced off a hunk of parmesan, threw it in the corner, and the dogs ran after it. I picked up what was left of the chicken. “Okay. You've had your lunch.”

I wish I could just bake for Miss Charleena, since I was not very good at this job.

I cleaned up the floor, went to the closet, and looked everywhere for the birdseed, but I couldn't find it. I went back to check the list; the words blurred together. I looked for the bird I was supposed to feed and I couldn't find that either!

I heard the click clicking coming closer.

Miss Charleena came in, leaned against the wall, and crossed her arms. “Well?” she asked.

I smiled with everything I had. “I fed the dogs and they really loved how I did it. But I can't find the birdseed.” This next part was harder to admit. “Or the bird.”

She stood there.

“There is no bird,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“There is no bird.” She studied my face. “You can't read. Can you?”

I STOOD THERE, hot with shame. I wanted to run, but my feet felt nailed to the floor.

I wanted to scream,
Hey, good trick, Miss Charleena. You really fooled me.

“I asked you a question,” she said softly.

She could play all her tricks and games on me, she could stand there like she'd won, but I didn't have to answer her.

“There's lots of people who have trouble reading,” she said, like I'd been living in a cave and didn't know that.

I looked down at the dogs' golden dishes. I felt my face get tight and my jaw get hard.

Miss Charleena walked over to the refrigerator, poured herself a glass of milk, and stirred chocolate syrup into it for the longest time. It seemed like the sound of that stirring spoon was in front of a microphone.

“I've gotta go, Miss Charleena.”

“Not before I tell you something.”

But I headed out the door, down the path, tears shooting from my eyes.

“Foster! Wait!”

I ran as fast as my skinny legs could go, tripped over a rock in the road, and fell flat on my face, scraping my knees bloody, spitting mud from my mouth.

I hated Miss Charleena for tricking me. I hated Macon for getting sick. I hated Mama for bringing us here.

I got up and ran some more.

“Foster,” Mrs. Ritter, my main sixth-grade teacher, had said to me, “do you understand that you are graduating by the skin of your teeth?”

I didn't know teeth had skin, but I didn't want to get anything more wrong at this school, so I said, “Yes, ma'am.”

“I don't see the value of having you repeat sixth grade again.”

I was with her on that.

“But I cannot stress the need for you to develop better work habits, because if you do not, young lady, your life will be limited beyond what you can even imagine.”

I saw a sign up ahead, but I couldn't read it. I felt like there was a sign hanging on me.

Limited.

Challenged.

Stupid.

Lazy.

I sat down in the dirt and cried, as lost as any girl ever was in this world.

I don't know how long I sat there. I wasn't sure which way was home.

Did I head up or down? Miss Charleena lived on top of the hill. I didn't want to see her ever again, but I didn't have much choice. I headed up until I saw her big gray house.

I knocked at the back door. I rang the doorbell. I shouted, “It's me, Foster!”

Finally, Miss Charleena opened the door. “What happened to you?”

I smoothed back my hair. “I fell.”

She looked at me like she had X-ray vision.

“I got lost,” I added. “And I spent some time being upset.”

“Let's get some bandages on those knees.”

“I don't mean to be any trouble.”

She made a noise and pointed to the bathroom.

I went inside. It was beautiful blue with white trim and a silver mirror on the wall. First thing I did was get blood on the white rug. I ran the water and soaped up my knees. I patted them dry and got blood on the towel. My hands had cuts, too. I washed my face.

“You all right in there?”

“Yes.”

I put ointment on my knees and hands and put bandages over them. I found a comb and tried to fix my hair. The comb broke—my hair can do that. I walked out holding the rug and the towel.

“How much do you like these, Miss Charleena?”

“Why?”

I showed her the blood.

She sighed and looked at my shoes. I'd forgotten to take them off, but she didn't mention it. “I'm not much of a cook, Foster, but I could make you a hamburger.”

I was hungry. “That'd be good.”

I sat on a stool in the kitchen as she took out hamburger meat and pressed it hard into a patty. I cleared my throat. “If you don't mind me saying, if you pat the meat gently it'll stay juicier.”

“I didn't know that.” She looked at the patty. “How do I undo it?”

“Well.” I went over and tore the meat into little sections and patted them together lightly.

She got out a frying pan and turned it to high.

“Uh, Miss Charleena. It's better to cook a burger not quite so hot.”

“You've got a lot of opinions on hamburgers, Foster McFee.”

“I watch the Food Network a lot.”

“I never watch it.”

I could tell. “Sonny Kroll is my favorite chef. I've been watching him for years. My specialty is baking—cupcakes, butterscotch muffins.”

“Butterscotch muffins!”

“These muffins open hearts,” I told her.

“What do you need to make butterscotch muffins?”

“Butter, brown sugar, vanilla, flour, salt, eggs, pecans, and butterscotch pudding mix.”

She wrote that down. “I'll make sure I have that when you come tomorrow. I'm guessing you'd like to make your own burger.”

I really would. I went over to the stove and turned down the heat a little. “Do you have some oil?”

She handed it to me. I spread a little in the pan. “That gets it nice and crunchy on the outside.” Miss Charleena was sitting on the stool watching. “And you've got to wait till you see the burger getting cooked through just like this. That's when you flip it, not before. You've got to be patient.” She made a noise again. I put salt and pepper on the top.

Miss Charleena got me a hamburger bun; I split it and put it in the pan with the burger to get it toasty. She put barbecue sauce on the counter. I layered my burger on the toasted bun, put the sauce on.

“That looks good,” she said.

I handed it to her. “Here, you eat this one. I'll make another.”

She took a bite. “This is a fine burger. Mine always tastes dry.”

I made another patty and put it in the pan.

She smiled. “Where do you keep your recipes, Foster?”

I knew where she was going with that question. “In my head.”

She nodded and ate the burger. “I used to have a terrible time with reading. If I hadn't gotten help, I wouldn't have been able to be an actor. It was the hardest thing I ever did.”

What did she just say?

She finished her burger. “Learning how to read just about split my brain open, but it was worth it.”

My brain had enough splits in it already. I flipped my burger.

“I used to do what you did, Foster—say I'd lost my reading glasses, ask people to read to me. I kept the secret for a long time, but it's hard to live like that.”

If she knew how hard it was, then why did she trick me?

“I could try to help you.”

Was she kidding?

I've tried to read, and the words turn to smudges on a page. I've tried sounding them out. I've tried memorizing them.

My burger was done.

I put the burger in a bun, heaped on barbecue sauce, and wasn't sure what was happening in my heart.

“I could maybe teach you to cook better, Miss Charleena.”

She looked at me. She had the longest eyelashes. “Many have tried to teach me to cook, Foster, and they have failed. What makes you think you can do it?”

“I don't know. I just love it, I guess, and I want other people to love it, too.”

“Why do you love it?”

I didn't know how to tell her that cooking saved me.

“I'd really like to know, Foster.”

“Miss Charleena, in school I feel like an all-out loser, but when I cook, I feel like I can beat the world.”

She smiled. “Maybe we could work out a deal. You give me some cooking lessons and I'll help you with your reading.”

I wasn't sure I wanted to combine something I loved so much with something I hated.

My mind raced back to sixth grade and Mrs. Ritter making me read out loud in front of the entire class. I'd be tripping over words as the other kids smirked.

Concentrate,
she'd say.

I was doing that!

Then don't call on me, okay? Just leave me alone!

I'm not going through that again. No way.

“I'll give you cooking lessons, Miss Charleena, but I'm not up to reading right now. School's hard enough without having it spill into summer.”

“I understand.”

I ate my burger, then she handed me the phone. “Call your mother. I'll drive you home.”

I punched in Mama's number and got her voice mail. “Hi, Mama, it's me. Miss Charleena is driving me home. Oh . . . and the bleeding's stopped. You don't have to worry.”

Miss Charleena reached for her keys and headed for the door. “One more thought on reading. What if it turns out you can do it?”

I looked away. It would mean a lot. More than I know how to say.