My Life Undecided (6 page)

shriek and whip around to see an old man with a bandage taped over one eye clutching on to me like he’s drowning and I’m the life preserver.

“Dih yoo brih ma si-gah?” he asks, his one eye al intent and determined.

I stare back at him in horror. “W-w-what?”

“Dih yoo brih ma si-gah?” he repeats, this time a little louder. As if volume was the initial problem.

“I’m sorry,” I say, glancing uneasily down at the iron death grip he’s got on my arm. You wouldn’t think that a man this frail would be capable

of hanging on for dear life like that. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“He asked if you brought his cigar,” a helpful nurse translates as she approaches and careful y pries the man’s hand open. I immediately feel

the blood rush back to my fingers. “Every week there’s a young volunteer who goes to the tobacco shop and brings him back a cigar,” she explains.

“She kind of looks like you.” Then she turns to the man and speaks loudly and slowly. “That’s not Betsy, Mr. Jacobson.”

“Wah?”

“That’s. Not. Betsy!”

As she continues to try to explain the difference between me and some girl named Betsy, I approach the front desk and introduce myself to

the young Asian woman sitting behind it. Her name tag reads “Carol Yang.”

She flashes me a warm smile. “Good morning! How can I help you?”

“Um, yeah, hi,” I say. “I’m Brooklyn Pierce. I’m here for my first day of court-ordered community service.”

And just as quickly as it came, her smile vanishes, and now she’s looking at me like I’m some kind of violent criminal who should be locked

away and never released.

“Oh, right,” she sneers dismissively. “Wel , do you have your paperwork?”

I produce the documents that Bob received from the courthouse and set them on the desk.

But Carol sighs and pushes them back toward me with the tip of her finger, as if the criminal acts the paperwork represents were somehow

contagious. “Volunteers report to Gail. I’l page her.”

She picks up a nearby telephone and practical y yel s into the receiver. “Paging Gail Goldstein. Gail Goldstein, please come to the front

office.” I cringe at the high-pitched squeal that blasts through the overhead speakers, echoing her exact words with an underwater, gargled effect.

It’s as soothing on the ears as metal scraping against glass, but apparently I’m the only one who heard it because everyone else in the room

doesn’t bat an eye.

No surprise there.

A few moments later, a short, tubby woman with dark, silver-streaked hair and black horn-rimmed glasses waddles into the room and

proceeds to look me up and down, as if she’s assessing a horse that she’s thinking about purchasing. I assume this is Gail although she doesn’t

introduce herself. She just starts talking. Incredibly fast and with a very thick East Coast accent. I can understand her only slightly better than that

one-eyed guy who is stil waiting for his cigar to manifest.

“You’l need to sign in with me as soon as you get here and check out before you go. I have to report your hours to the courthouse so I need

to know exactly when you arrive and when you leave.” These fifty or so words escape her mouth in a total blur, but I manage to catch the gist of it

and nod my understanding.

She pul s my paperwork off Carol’s desk, secures it to a clipboard in her hand, and scribbles something on the top sheet. Then she motions

for me to fol ow her and starts off down the hal , rattling off rules like an auctioneer on Red Bul . “Always wash your hands after you’ve interacted with

a resident. Don’t try to help a resident into or out of a wheelchair. Never give our residents anything to eat or drink. No matter how nicely they ask.

And try to avoid using generic questions like ‘How are you?’ when interacting with the residents. Unless you real y want to know how they’re doing.

Which I assure you, you do not.”

“Why not?”

Gail stops at a door marked “Activity Room” and turns to face me. She shoots me a stern, almost warning look. “This is a nursing home.

People don’t come here to get better. They come here to die. So you can imagine most of them are not exactly in the best shape. As the activity

director of this facility, it’s my job to make their last days—weeks, months, whatever—as entertaining as possible.”

I swal ow hard and fight back a wince, praying that nobody actual y kicks the bucket while I’m in the vicinity.

Gail ignores my reaction and pushes open the door. “C’mon,” she orders. “Let’s find something for you to do.”

That task is easier said than done, however, because it quickly becomes evident that I pretty much suck at community service. Over the next

few hours, I manage to get booed off the bingo stage for cal ing out the numbers too fast (apparently one bingo bal an hour is the going rate around

here), I nearly kil a diabetic man by giving him a glass of lemonade, and I unintentional y cause a riot in the activity room by proposing we play

Monopoly instead of Rummikub. Because according to today’s activity schedule, eleven o’clock is Rummikub hour and suggesting any

modification to that schedule is the equivalent of suggesting anarchy.

No matter what I do, I can’t seem to avoid screwing up. It’s like I destroy everything I touch. Gail is starting to go hoarse from al the

reprimanding she’s doing, the nurses are giving me dirty looks everywhere I go, and to top it off, some real y sick-looking guy just sneezed on me.

“Wel , Brooklyn,” Gail says with a frustrated sigh after she’s successful y pacified what wil now go down in history as the Great Rummikub

Riot of Centennial Nursing Home, “I’m just not sure what I’m going to do with you.”

As I listen to the soft clanking of Rummikub tiles being maneuvered across the tabletops behind us, I’m kind of hoping she’l just give up and

sign the court document saying I’ve successful y completed my two hundred hours so I can be on my way. But judging by the determined look on her

face right now, I kind of doubt that’s going to happen.

The intercom squawks to life, interrupting her thoughts as that same high-pitched squealing voice announces, “Gail Goldstein, please report

to room 4A. Gail Goldstein, please report to room 4A.”

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in room 4A, but from the way Gail’s shoulders are slouching and her face is bitterly grimacing, I’m wil ing

to guess that it’s not good. Or at least not something she wants to deal with right now.

But then suddenly her entire demeanor shifts. Her eyes brighten, her lips curve into a scheming smile, and I can almost make out the

lightbulb flickering over her head. “Actual y,” she begins, seeming pretty darn proud of herself, “I think I might have just the job for you.”

“What?” I ask warily, sensing that my future is looking dim.

“I’m going to have you read to the resident in 4A.”

“Read?” I verify, feeling somewhat relieved by her response. I can think of much worse things for me to do in a place like this. “As in just read

aloud…from books?”

Gail bobbles her head from side to side in a gesture of ambiguity. “Wel …yeah. For the most part.”

She motions for me to accompany her as she heads back into the hal way. “Come on,” she says cheerful y—almost too cheerful y—“I’l

introduce you to Mrs. Moody.”

With a skeptical frown and a reluctant step, I fol ow her out the door and down the long corridor of rooms, scanning the plaques on the wal

for the one marked “4A,” the whole time wondering if the name “Mrs. Moody” is actual y a real name, or some kind of indicative nickname.

Mood Swings

“Mrs. Moody,”
Gail coos softly as she raps on the door three times.

“Whaddya want?” comes a rough, crabby voice from the other side, proving in an instant that “Moody” is both a name and a state of mind.

“I hear you’ve been giving the nurses some trouble again.” Gail’s tone, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite. Soft and peaceful like a

lul aby. Not in any way resembling the way she’s been addressing me.

“They’re trying to poison me!” the old woman howls in response.

Gail steps inside but I opt to remain in the hal way. For some reason, it just feels safer.

“Oh, Mrs. Moody,” I hear Gail say soothingly as I watch her pick up random items lying on the floor and place them on a dresser that’s visible

from the doorway. “No one is trying to poison you.”

“I can see it in their eyes,” the raspy voice insists. “You can tel everything from the eyes, you know? And there’s evil there. Evil, I tel ya!”

“Wel ,” Gail promptly changes the subject, “I brought someone who wants to visit with you.”

Gail’s hand emerges from behind the door and she beckons me forward. I step timidly into the room, half expecting to find a snarling, wart-

covered monster on the other side. But instead I see a smal , extremely frail-looking white-haired woman lying in her bed, the covers pul ed

protectively up to her bony, sagging chin.

“Who are you?” The woman’s eyes narrow in on me. “I didn’t order you. Go away.”

“Now, now, Mrs. Moody,” Gail coaxes. “Don’t be like that. This nice young woman has come to spend time with you.”

Excuse me?

She wants me to spend time with this crazy old bag? No. Absolutely not. I did NOT sign up for this.

Mrs. Moody squints her beady little eyes at me and vigilantly scrutinizes my face before final y declaring, “I don’t trust her. Keep her away

from my stuff.”

I take that as a clear sign for me to exit and I start back for the door. But Gail is too fast, and before I’ve moved an inch her hand is firmly

wrapped around my elbow, holding me in place.

“She clearly doesn’t want company,” I hiss under my breath.

“Just give her a minute,” Gail reassures me.

But when I look back at Mrs. Moody, whose death stare stil hasn’t softened, I’m not feeling that reassured.

“Mrs. Moody,” Gail says, approaching the bed and adjusting the sheets around the old woman’s petite frame, “this is Brooklyn Pierce. She’s

one of our volunteers today and she specifical y told me that she wants to read to you.”

No. No, I didn’t. I don’t remember saying that AT ALL.

“Brooklyn Pierce?” The edge in Mrs. Moody’s voice has now been replaced with a cold curiosity.

“That’s right,” Gail confirms.

“The little girl who fel down the mine shaft?”

I rol my eyes. Great. Even this old looney knows about my prickly past.

Gail looks at me as if to ask “Is that true?”

I nod reluctantly and grumble, “Yep, that was me.”

Mrs. Moody squints again, her mouth twisting as she careful y looks me up and down. “That’s impossible,” she final y asserts with a glower.

“That girl was only two years old.”

Gail lets out a condescending laugh and I immediately wonder if mockery is the best course of action right now. I mean, this woman doesn’t

exactly appear to be stable. “Wel , Mrs. Moody,” Gail replies, sounding like she’s speaking to a smal child. “That was over ten years ago. The little

girl would be al grown up by now, wouldn’t she? She would be…” She looks to me to finish the sentence.

“Fifteen,” I reply.

“Fifteen years old,” Gail echoes.

Mrs. Moody gives another hard stare in my direction, her eyes penetrating. After a few excruciating seconds, I have to look away.

“Ah yes,” she says with a slow nod. “I see the resemblance in the eyes. You can tel everything from the eyes, you know? I remember

watching on TV when they pul ed you out of that hole. There was fear in those eyes of yours.”

Probably the same fear I feel from being in here with you.

Gail gives me a thumbs-up sign but I don’t real y see how this situation could possibly warrant such a gesture. This woman is obviously

insane…not to mention a total grouch. I’m not exactly thril ed about the idea of spending time alone with her.

“So what do you say, Mrs. Moody?” Gail asks, that same patronizing tone in her voice. “Wil you let Brooklyn read to you for a little while?”

The old woman clucks her tongue against her mouth as she considers this opportunity. Then final y she shrugs and says, “I suppose if it

makes her happy…”

Gail beams. “Fantastic!” Although I feel considerably less enthusiastic about the decision. And I’m just about to express my less-than-

enthusiastic sentiment when it becomes apparent that I’m not going to be given a choice in the matter. Gail has already grabbed a plastic chair

from the corner and is sliding it up to the bed. Then she retrieves a stack of smal , weathered paperbacks from a nearby shelf and pushes the

books into my hand. She guides me toward the seat, applying pressure against my shoulders until I final y relent and plop my butt down into it.

“Okay, you two. Have fun!” she says, before scurrying out of the room.

I real y don’t think she could have gotten out of here any faster.

I glance uneasily down at the stack of books in my lap. The covers are so mangled and gnarled, they look like they could be wel over a

hundred years old. And from the dog-ear creases on several of the pages, it’s clear that these books have been read—no, more like devoured—

many times over. I casual y glance through the titles in the stack (four in total) and notice that they al look relatively alike. The same white cover, the

same blue banner across the top, the same author. The only differences between them are the titles and the colorful il ustrations below them. It’s

obvious these are books in a series. But it’s not a series I’ve ever heard of.

“You Choose the Story?” I ask skeptical y, reading the label that appears across the top of each book.