Odessa Again (21 page)

“World-Class Limousines,” a voice chirped.

“Yes, good morning.” Odessa used the most adult voice she could muster. “I’m sorry to tell you that we have to cancel an order. The car coming to 121 Orchard Street. Please refrain from sending it.” She paused, not sure what else to say. “That is all.”

“Will do,” the voice said, and hung up. Odessa hadn’t expected that to be so easy.

Oliver cocked his head. His look said,
What
was
that
all
about?,
but Odessa just pretended she couldn’t read looks.

Right then Mom came downstairs in her pretty flower shirt, jeans, and boots with heels. Again, Odessa thought she looked beautiful.

They sat and ate breakfast and the doorbell didn’t ring.

Mom looked at her watch.

The doorbell still didn’t ring.

Odessa cleared the dishes, careful not to spill anything on her pale yellow dress. She wanted to look her best when she shouted
I
object!

Mom was pacing now. She picked up the phone and hung it up again. She went to the front door, stepped outside, looked up and down the street, and came back in again.

“Oh boy,” she said.

“What is it, Mother?”
Odessa
the
Innocent.

“There seems to be a problem with your ride to the wedding.”

“Why don’t you just take us?”

“Because I shouldn’t be the one to have to drive you. It’s his responsibility to make sure you get there on time today of all days.” Mom picked up the phone and dialed, held it to her ear, and then hung it up. “Voice mail. Typical.”

She picked up the phone again. This time she called Uncle Milo. Uncle Milo, famous for doing nothing, had something he had to do that morning that prevented him from driving his niece and nephew to their father’s wedding.

How Odessa loved Uncle Milo.

“Mom,” Odessa said. “We have to go. We can’t miss the wedding. Please. Time is running out.”

As Mom went to get her keys, Odessa darted back up to the attic. She stood and looked around the room she loved so much, and she wondered if she’d be saying good-bye to it soon. With Mom and Dad getting back together, maybe they’d buy their old house again, or maybe get a new one.

She stood on her cheetah-print rug, the rug that hadn’t been lost in the betwixt.

“Thank you,” she whispered to the floor. “For everything.”

She ran back downstairs, and they all piled into the station wagon that was not a limousine and sped off to the wedding Odessa was going to stop.

The streets she knew so well rushed by outside her window. Inside, her heart felt full to bursting.

Her new life was about to begin.

Or maybe it was that her old life was about to begin again.

Time can be tricky that way.

The New New House

Odessa sat down on a cardboard box marked
Odessa’s stuffed animals.
She wasn’t sure she was going to unpack this box. She wanted her new room to be grown-up. A fifth grader’s room. Maybe she’d have Uncle Milo carry the box down to the basement for storage, since the new house had no attic.

This house was theirs. A forever house, Mom called it.

“Forever?” Odessa asked. Forever was a very long time, and time couldn’t always be trusted.

Mom put a hand on her head and smiled. “Forever for now.”

They’d bought it from a couple whose kids had grown up and gone off to college. There were someone else’s scribbles on the kitchen wall and scuff marks on the stairs from someone else’s shoes, but Odessa didn’t mind. They could paint the walls and refinish the wood. This was their
forever
for
now
house.

Odessa and Oliver wouldn’t have to switch schools, but they would ride a new bus. She worried about Claire and their bus friendship.

But then Claire said, “Why don’t you just come over after school sometime? We can hang out at my house.”

So that was just what Odessa planned to do.

The new bus wouldn’t take them by their old house, or their old old house. It traveled a new route that went by Dad and Jennifer’s apartment, where it would pick up Odessa and Oliver every Thursday morning now that they’d turned dinner-with-Dad night into sleepover
-
at-Dad-and-Jennifer’s night.

Dad and Jennifer’s wedding had turned out differently from how Odessa had planned—obviously—because here they were, married to each other, four months later.

They were married, not
re
married.

When Odessa had arrived at the church that morning with only minutes to spare, Mom had pulled up to the entrance and kept the car running.

“Hurry up,” she said. “You’re late.”

“You have to come,” Odessa said. “Come inside with me.”

“No, honey. You have to do this on your own. No, not on your own,” she corrected herself. “You have to do this with your brother. Your person in this world.”

“Mom, please,” Odessa pleaded. She wished she’d written that note. Wished she had a slip of paper that said what she needed to say, because it was hard to speak with the car running and the clock ticking.

“Please come inside so that I can shout
I
object!
And Dad can see that to
re
marry means to do it again to the same person and then we can go back to our old lives and you won’t have to go to work and Oliver will be happy and maybe we can move to a new house together but I still want my own room.”

She held her mother’s hand firmly, but she could feel Mom pulling away. Usually, it happened the other way around—it was Odessa who tried to extract herself from a parental grip.

Mom took a deep breath and let it out again. Gathering up her courage, Odessa hoped, to walk inside the church.

“There are three things I want to say to you.” Mom turned around in her seat completely, so that she faced Odessa and the struck-silent Oliver.

“One: I’m happy. I love my job and I love my kids and I’m starting to really like life the way it is. I love your father because he is the father of my children, but I do not want to be married to him anymore. I. Am. Happy.”

She held up two fingers, the way the teachers at school did when they wanted to make sure the class was still paying attention.

“Two: It’s okay for you to go in there and have a good time. I don’t want you to root against them out of some sort of loyalty to me. Everything will be better if everyone is happy. So let them have this day, and try to enjoy it too. Weddings are fun and you’re dressed to kill. And whether you have a good time or not is entirely up to you.”

“And three.” She took her three fingers and reached out to stroke first Oliver’s and then Odessa’s cheek. “I am so proud of both of you. You are growing up so fast and so beautifully.”

Odessa noticed Oliver’s hand in hers. She couldn’t have said who had taken whose hand first. He pulled her toward the car door.

Words.

There would be no pushing or shoving or stomping or shouting
I
object!
Mom had used her words. And they’d made Odessa see things differently, which, after all, is the purpose of words.

Odessa and Oliver got out of the car and stood in front of the church. Mom smiled and waved, gave a quick honk, and drove off.

*

Now, as Odessa unpacked her light yellow dress and hung it in her new closet, she thought about that day four months ago when Dad stood at the altar with Jennifer. He looked so tall and handsome. Her eyelids sparkled and her lips shimmered even more than usual. They held each other’s hands and looked into each other’s eyes and it was as if no one else was even in the church. When the minister asked if anyone had any objections, Odessa knew she couldn’t object to Dad and Jennifer, she’d just have to get used to Dad and Jennifer, and maybe that wouldn’t be so hard.

Later she danced with Dad, and she danced with Jennifer, and even Oliver danced like those hamsters in the commercial he loved, and what she’d thought would be the worst day of her life turned out to be lots of fun, just like Mom said.

Odessa returned home that night after Dad and Jennifer left for their honeymoon, and she went to her attic. She rolled up her rug, closed her eyes tight, and jumped, not because she wanted to undo anything about that day—the day was sort of wonderful—but because she wanted to see what would happen.

Was she really out of opportunities to make a change? To undo something about her day that had gone in a way she didn’t particularly like?

She jumped and she jumped harder, pounding her feet against the floor until her mother finally came upstairs and asked, “What is this racket all about?”

“Nothing, Mom,” Odessa said. “It’s all over now.”

*

Odessa took a look around her new room. There were more boxes to unpack than she remembered packing. She pulled out her certificate from math camp and hung it over her desk. She and Theo weren’t in the same group, but they shot baskets together during free time and sometimes ate lunch together. The math was hard but not too hard, and she’d made friends with a girl who didn’t go to their school, a summer friend, and Theo had started growing his hair shaggy again.

She could hear Oliver in his room next door. He was singing a song from Camp Kattannoo. He’d made friends there. Friends who were not furry and small and smelly. He was doing okay without her and her GMOP or G-MOOP. He was looking forward to the third grade.

She’d given him a housewarming gift. A huge pirate Lego set he’d had his eye on for months.

“Wow! This thing costs like a hundred dollars!”

Odessa knew exactly how much it cost.

She heard a knock on her door. She figured it was Oliver, because she’d reminded him all through the move about knocking and privacy and not listening in on her phone calls.

Or maybe it was Sofia, who’d said she wanted to stop by to check out Odessa’s new room, and Odessa had said
Come
on
over
because she still loved Sofia. Sometimes Sofia wasn’t the world’s greatest best friend, but other times she was.