Livvie Owen Lived Here (10 page)

“Have a good day, bug,” she said, although she rarely called me by that nickname at school. With a pat and a wave, she sent me into my classroom and wove her way into the crowded hall behind me.

In my class, G met me at the door with words already chosen and arranged on her Velcro strip: a photo of me wearing the green-and-yellow shirt I wore on the second day of school last year, followed by a cartoon drawing of a stick-figure person running away from a stick-figure house. G's face was accusing as she handed me the strip.

“I did
not
run away,” I protested. “I just went to check something out and I got . . . stuck. How did you know? Natasha?”

G nodded impatiently. The ripping-Velcro noise used to hurt my ears, but I had gotten used to it by now. G was rough and wild with her Velcro strip, always in a hurry to talk. She pressed the strip into my hand again: a picture of a stick figure with a horrified expression on its face, followed by a picture of a stick figure sitting on a bench.

“Yes. Stuck because I was scared.”

She looked at me gloatingly. Sometimes I thought it made G extraordinarily happy when she guessed right about my feelings. I guess because I was so dismally awful at guessing right about them myself.

Her next pictures were softer and so was her expression. A smiling face, then two hands with palms upturned, the sign for “now.”

I smiled back. “Yeah. I'm better now.”

G grinned and began putting together another sentence. I knew this one would be about something totally different, because she understood me better than anyone. I wanted to keep talking to G because she was helping me practice for everyone else. Sometimes when I spoke out loud, it was like I had strung random words together into a mockery of a sentence. They made sense in my head, but when I was finished, everyone was staring at me like I had spoken in tongues like the scary ladies at the church we used
to go to, and nobody could understand a word I said. G was never like that. She always got it.

She was about to hand me her strip again when I began to sense someone else in my presence, someone else soaking up some of my personal space. I didn't recognize the information my senses were giving me—the smell, the height, the attitude. I didn't recognize the person.

Turning quickly, I stepped back so suddenly I tripped on the trash can and almost fell. As I shouted and grabbed the coat hooks for balance, I sensed motion where the new person had been standing and I flattened myself to the wall, unreasonably afraid. I didn't like it when new people moved quickly.

The new person was nearly as short as G, and round in a way that was comforting. I found her silver hair startling because of how silver it was, and her eyes were just the same.

“I didn't mean to scare you,” she said. “I guess I should have properly introduced myself before we met. That way we wouldn't have been strangers.”

It took me a minute to puzzle out that she was kidding, and by the time I had, my body had pushed itself up off the wall and my feet had carried me a couple of steps back into what Miss Mandy explained was a polite conversational distance.

“I'm Mrs. Rhodes. I'm the new sub.”

I looked behind her as though maybe she were hiding the old sub. “Where's Mrs. Paxton?”

The sound of Velcro ripping, although I was accustomed to it, made me jump when my attention had been so focused on the new person. It was two of the pictures I'd already seen this morning: the scared face and the stick figure running away. G was grinning from ear to ear.

“Mrs. Paxton won't be joining us today,” Mrs. Rhodes explained kindly. “I'm going to be here instead. Now, what's your name, dear?”

“Olivia Lashea Owen.” I said it all in a rush because that was how I'd learned it.

“Olivia, hmm? Come again?” She leaned closer, making me lean back, which she noticed right away and adjusted herself back to her previous position. “I'm sixty-five, dear. You need to slow down.”

“Olivia Lashea Owen,” I said slower.

“Well, Olivia Lashea Owen, I heard tell that Michael and Robert just brought the breakfast basket down from the kitchen. Are you hungry?”

“She eats at home,” Michael said helpfully from the kitchen. “Always at home.”

“I think I'll take some breakfast this morning,” I said quickly. “I didn't actually have any at home this morning. I had to run outside and hide in the car.”

Mrs. Rhodes tilted her head as if she were slightly confused by this, but she let it pass. As we walked to the kitchen, she asked, “Now, surely you don't go by Olivia Lashea Owen all day long. Is there a shorter name I can call you? Lashea perhaps? Or Ms. Owen?”

I giggled, the kind you do when you're nervous. “Livvie.”

“Everyone calls her Livvie.” Michael helped again. “She doesn't like her O or her A.”

“I don't like my O or my A,” I repeated. “They make my name too long and, anyway, Tash started calling me Livvie and I like what Tash calls me.”

Mrs. Rhodes began stacking limp blueberry waffles onto a small paper tray. “And who's this Tash? Should I be watching for her?”

“Natasha's my sister. She's one of my two sisters, I mean. I have two sisters.” Sometimes my mouth kept talking when my brain was already finished. “How many . . . sisters do you have?” I was pretty sure that wasn't the question I had intended on asking.

“Oh, well, let's see. Counting the one in Florida . . . the one in Illinois and the one in Timbuktu . . . I have no sisters.” She smiled wide. “I do have a brother, though. Otis Andrews. Otis is a divine creature. Paints murals. Great, giant pictures he has to climb up scaffolding to paint. I'm quite certain he's going
to fall right on his head before the year is out, but Otis never lets that stop him.”

I slid slowly into the chair Mrs. Rhodes indicated and she settled the waffles on the table in front of me. “Here you are, dear. Fresh from the kitchen. ‘Fresh' being relative, of course.”

I liked yogurt best, or Natasha's bagels, but I took a tentative bite of the waffle. It was limp and lukewarm. I smiled thinly at Mrs. Rhodes.

“That good, huh?” she asked briskly. “Well, here, let me have that.” She whisked it back off the table. “Who wants yogurt?”

Everybody except for Michael wanted yogurt. Michael liked limp blueberry waffles because they were what he always had on Fridays.

The yogurt was vanilla and Mrs. Rhodes stirred granola bits down into it. It would have been difficult to sip, what with the granola floating around, so I used a spoon. It clacked uncomfortably against my teeth, but the yogurt made it worth it. It tasted extra good.

Having unexpected yogurt when I thought I was going to have to eat a soggy blueberry waffle made the day better by several degrees. There was almost no pressure built up inside my head and I felt relaxed and happy. I was even feeling kind enough to say good morning to Bristol when she entered, although
normally we gave each other nothing but suspicious glances. She was wearing warm colors today, so I figured it was safe.

With a startled look, Bristol said an uncertain “Hi . . .” before she and Robert went off to the corner to eat their yogurt and granola without associating with the rest of us.

Mrs. Rhodes helped Peyton eat some yogurt without the granola, and Peyton made a squealing sound and rocked her chair back and forth.

“Is it good, love?” I heard Mrs. Rhodes ask her softly. Shyly, so no one would notice, I watched Peyton's face. Her warm brown eyes kept finding Mrs. Rhodes and then slipping away nervous, like she wasn't sure how to say thank you for the yogurt. I knew how she felt, because I wasn't quite sure how to say thank you for the yogurt, either. I sat and thought about it so long, Mrs. Rhodes finished with Peyton and sat down next to me.

“So, what does this class do after breakfast?” she asked me. “Do we have some sort of a schedule we follow?”

“I have a picture schedule you can look at,” I offered, “but you have to promise to give it back.”

She smiled a slight, crooked sort of smile. “I would be happy to give it back, of course, but it would be most helpful if you would share.”

Jumping up so hard I banged the table and drew a vicious glare from Michael, I galloped to my study carrel and lifted my picture schedule out from under Monday's newsprint scraps.

“Hey! It's not set up!” The pressure was back all of a sudden.

“Of course it's not, dummy!” Bristol yelled. “Mrs. What's-her-head didn't know to do it and the old sub ran away!”

I slammed my picture schedule down on the desk, hard. “What am I supposed to do with no schedule?” I hollered, my voice feeling thin and cracking.

G followed me to the study carrel and tapped me once, but I didn't like touch when I was already full of pressure, and I jumped away from her. “Hey! Watch it!”

Stepping back with narrowed eyes, G put her hands on her hips.

Mrs. Rhodes came a little closer, but not so much that she overwhelmed me again. “May I borrow that schedule?” she asked calmly.

“It's not going to help you! It's blank!”

“What's blank about it? I see pretty white Velcro dots and a lot of potential. Let me see.” Her voice stayed calm. I could sense Mr. Raldy lurking nearby, ready to intervene if asked, and I scooted away from him, frustrated by his presence. G ventured closer
again and offered me her Velcro strip. I didn't take it because I didn't want to listen right now, but I did see the words she had chosen. A picture of G, smiling, from earlier this year—she liked new pictures a lot—and a picture of a right fist being lifted by a left hand—the sign for “help.”

“How?” I demanded.

“Oh, Georgia has offered to help? Fantastic.” Mrs. Rhodes smiled at G gratefully. “You'll know the schedule well enough to help me, won't you?”

G nodded and handed Mrs. Rhodes her own picture schedule, which G was organized enough to be in charge of. Hers was always in the proper order, neatly arranged. She did it first thing when she got to school in the mornings. Sometimes I wished I could be like G.

Working my fingers into my hair, I nonetheless did not pull. G looked at me disapprovingly and my insides felt like I had swallowed snakes. She and Mrs. Rhodes sat down calmly at my desk and began preparing my schedule to look like G's.

After several deep breaths, I realized that the pressure had started to diminish again.

“Livvie, tell them you're sorry,” I said quietly after a minute. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get mad. I got scared.”

“Fear makes a person act angry sometimes when
they really feel scared,” Mrs. Rhodes said matter-of-factly without looking up. “Now, Livvie, you've got half-eaten yogurt in the kitchen and you've got this fabulous friend here who's willing to help you fix your schedule, so really, I think that all is not lost.”

I rocked and hummed for a moment, then replied, “I think you're right.” And although neither of us particularly liked them, I gave G a quick hug in thanks.

Velcro ripped and she pressed the strip into my hand.

I knew the pictures well. They meant
You're silly
.

Mrs. Rhodes finished with my schedule and gave G's back to her. Standing, she cupped my cheek in her hand for a moment. Her hands were hot and papery and I didn't like the touch, but it would have been rude to draw away and I had been rude enough for one morning before the bell.

“You really quite remind me of Otis Andrews,” she said with a soft sort of smile.

“Does Otis Andrews get mad like Livvie?” I asked.

“Sometimes, dear. But remember what we figured out? I think mostly he just gets afraid.”

I nodded wearily and at last couldn't keep myself from drawing away from her touch.

“I'll finish my yogurt and wash the bowl,” I said. “That's what you do when you finish, you wash the bowl.” I blushed a little. She was in her sixties and probably knew what to do when you finish with a bowl.

“That sounds like a lovely idea, my dear,” Mrs. Rhodes said, and with a smile for G and a softer one for me, she headed back to the kitchen.

I worked on my real estate notebook for almost fifteen minutes before lunch. I accepted Mr. Raldy's real estate pages even though there was a Neighbor-with-an-E section in it. This portion, I separated carefully with my scissors and folded into seven tiny squares before I threw it in the trash can.

Nabor-with-an-A's rental section usually got ignored, since it was the sale houses I was interested in, but it occurred to me this was the section the Sun House was most likely to appear in. The problem was that the words were too hard, and this part didn't have any pictures. Instead each ad began with a bold-print number and some letters, followed by a lot of letters that didn't look like actual words.

Difficult enough even for a reader. I knew because
I made Bristol try once and she never got past the bold print.