Parts & Labor (3 page)

"You're
dreaming again, Max. It's just me."

"Oh."

Scarlett's
flaming red hair looked like real flames … at least when I was still groggy
and wasn't wearing my glasses and was waking up from that same bad dream (don't
ask). She sniffed the air.

"What's
that smell? Sour milk?"

Some
of the hurl must have gotten on my clothes. We'd have to burn everything I was
wearing to get rid of the throw-up smell. Scarlett sniffed again then shook
her head.

"Come
downstairs and help. Mom's running late again."

Then
she was gone. I looked at the clock. It was after five. I stuffed the bear
back into its hiding place—Scarlett knew I still slept with the bear, but she never
made fun of me—then I climbed out of bed and closed and locked the shutters and
window. I swapped out my rec specs for my regular glasses. Mom said the black frames made me look like a young Buddy Holly, but I didn't know who that
was. My hand hurt, and I wondered why, then I remembered I had punched the
wall. Again. I went downstairs and into the kitchen. I found Maddy singing
the
Sesame Street
theme song—she never got it right—and smearing
strawberry yogurt on the concrete floor like she was finger painting. Scarlett
was starting a load of wash. She yelled from the laundry room.

"Mom texted me that she was gonna be late, so I got Maddy from her after-school! Let's get the place
cleaned up before she gets home!"

Scarlett
was a very responsible and mature teenager so Mom gave her a cell phone (family
plan). She was a straight-A student and already thinking about college. She read
lots of books—her latest was a teen vampire romance—which kept her out of
trouble, Mom said. Reading, not vampires. Scarlett Dugan never got into
trouble. She never did stupid stuff like other kids her age did. She never giggled
or acted the fool around boys like the other cheerleaders, even though most
boys thought she was really cute. I guess she was, in a girl sort of way. But
she acted as if she could care less about boys. Clothes were her only
weakness; all she had ever wanted for her birthday or Christmas was clothes. But
her clothes never matched. She wore green with purple with yellow. She said
she had her own unique fashion sense. "I'm different and proud of
it." (I was different and got beat up for it.) Anyway, Scarlett didn't
dress like the other girls her age. She dressed colorfully and responsibly, Mom said. In other words, Scarlett Dugan was the perfect child. Consequently, I suffered from
the "second-child complex" just like every other kid I knew with an
older brother or sister: we could never measure up to the perfect first child.
Scarlett was now on her hands and knees cleaning up Maddy's mess while Maddy
made another mess a few feet away. I pointed at the table.

"I
put the bills right there."

"I
hid them," Scarlett said.

"Will
you help me with math?" I asked. "I got a D-minus on my fractions quiz."

"Max
…"

"I
can't concentrate on school work now."

She
sat back and sighed. "I know. I'll help you. After dinner."

"Thanks."

I
pulled a chair over to the sink and climbed up. I put the rubber stopper over
the drain and turned the water on then adjusted the temperature and squirted in
the liquid soap. I piled the dirty dishes from breakfast into the sink. Dad
had built a new counter with a place for a dishwasher underneath, but now we
couldn't afford to buy a new one and the old one was broken and cost too much
to get repaired. So we washed dishes by hand. My hands, mostly. Mom always said every man needed to know how to wash his own dishes and clothes anyway. I never
knew if she was being funny. I had just rinsed the last dish when Mom blew in through the back door with a Whole Foods Earth-friendly canvas grocery bag under
each arm. She kicked the door shut behind her.

"Sorry,
guys, we had an emergency C-section."

Mom was a nurse at the hospital downtown. She was still wearing her green scrubs with
Kate
Dugan, R.N., Labor & Delivery, Austin General Hospital
stitched across
the front pocket. She usually got off at four each day so she could pick up Maddy
from her after-school program, but sometimes women had their babies on their
own schedules. Mom had to go back to work full time, so we had to make some
adjustments. The Army didn't ask about that either.

"The
Mommy shift went overtime—"

That's
what Mom called her shift at the hospital because she worked around our school
schedules. Usually.

—"and
I got stuck behind full baskets at the check-out line."

She
hadn't bought that much, but Mom was the type of person who wouldn't take
eleven items into the
10 Items or Less Express Lane
. She was sniffing
the air.

"What's
that smell? Did we leave milk out from breakfast?"

She
looked suspiciously at me, but I gave her my innocent face and shrugged.

"How
was everyone's day?"

"Good,"
Scarlett said.

"I
had fun," Maddy said.

I
didn't say anything.

"How
was your day, Max?"

She
set the grocery bags on the table and brushed her blonde hair off her face.
She was only thirty-six and normally looked more like a teenager than a mother,
but today she looked tired and frazzled. I decided not to mention the bullies.

"Uhh
… okay."

"What
happened to your knee?"

She
never missed anything.

"Tripped."

She
removed a long bottle from a grocery bag and stepped over Scarlett and Maddy
and her yogurt art. She rummaged through a drawer and found the corkscrew then
screwed it into the cork like the cork had really annoyed her. She yanked the
cork out with a
pop
. She poured a big glass and took a long drink. She
leaned against the refrigerator and closed her eyes and exhaled like I did when
the pediatrician said I wasn't due for shots that visit. Scarlett and I
glanced at each other. Mom inhaled and opened her eyes.

"Did
you clean it with soap and water?"

The
nurse questions came first.

"Unh-huh."

"How'd
you do on your math quiz?"

Then
the mother questions. I decided to try a diversionary tactic (Dad had been
teaching me how to live safely with women).

"What's
for dinner?"

Mom came over and gave me a little hug. I liked the way she smelled, too. She smiled.

"Your
dad's diversionary tactics didn't work on me either."

"Oh.
Not good. The math quiz. Fractions."

"I'm
gonna help him," Scarlett said.

"Good."
Mom said. "How about bison burgers and baked fries for dinner?"

"All
right!" I said. I loved her bison burgers.

Mom bought everything organic from Whole Foods and never fried anything or cooked regular
hamburger meat because she said ranchers gave shots to the cows to make them
fatter. I hated shots, so I felt sorry for those cows. But Mom said our future eating habits are established when we're kids, so she wanted to teach us to
eat healthy, socially conscious food. So she bought free-range chickens and
cage-free eggs, hormone-free milk and antibiotic-free turkeys traceable to the
farm, although I'm not sure I really want to know where our Thanksgiving turkey
had spent its childhood. In most parts of Texas, Mom would be considered a
wacky hippie. In Austin, she was considered normal. Right now she was a
whirlwind of nonstop motion, putting up groceries, turning on the oven and grill,
pulling out a bowl, slipping a red apron over her head and tying it behind her
back, washing her hands, and then unwrapping the meat and dumping it into the
bowl. She dug her hands into the meat to make patties.

"Scarlett,"
Mom said, "start a load of wash."

"I
already did."

"Thanks.
Will you put the fries on a tray, set the oven for four hundred?"

"I'll
do the fries. You already turned on the oven."

"Oh.
Max, set the table please. Maddy—"

Maddy
dumped the strawberry yogurt on top of her head. Mom groaned.

"Maddy,
why'd you do that?"

"
'Cause I want red hair like Scarlett."

Her
voice sounded squeaky. Scarlett grabbed a handful of paper towels and started working
on Maddy's blonde hair … strawberry-blonde now.

"I'll
mop the floor after dinner," Mom said.

That
was a good thing about concrete floors—cleanup was easy with a wet mop. I
moved the chair over from the sink, climbed up, and got four plates and four
glasses. Blue plastic plates and yellow plastic glasses. You didn't use stuff
made of glass when your floor was concrete.

"How
many babies were born today?" I asked.

"Nine."

"It's
not coming out," Scarlett said. "This stuff's like glue."

Or
throw-up taste.

"I've
got my hands in meat," Mom said. "Stick her head in the sink, use
the spray nozzle. Max, get a towel from the laundry room."

Scarlett
hefted Maddy, put her head over the sink, and rinsed the pink yogurt from her
hair. I jumped down from the chair and went around the corner to the laundry
room. I didn't find any clean towels in the dryer, only a pile of dirty ones
in the basket.

"No
clean towels!" I yelled.

"Use
a dirty one!" Mom yelled back.

I
found the driest dirty towel and went back into the kitchen. I dropped the
towel on Maddy's head, and Scarlett dried her hair. I set the table with plates,
glasses, silverware, and the Scrabble board.

Scarlett
put down her letters—Q-U-I-Z—and shrieked like a girl.

"Sixty-two
points!"

Scrabble
was Dad's favorite game, so it had become a Dugan family tradition to play during
dinner. Dad would always pass on his turns and trade in his letters trying to
get a seven-letter word for the bonus points. He said it was his "high
risk strategy." It worked, sometimes.

"Very
good, Scarlett," Mom said.

"That's
the highest word score in family history," Scarlett said. "Except
when Dad got one hundred ten with zoology, triple word plus fifty-point
bonus for using all seven letters. Remember that night?"

"Yeah
… that was a great night," I said.

The
smile dropped off Scarlett's face, and her shoulders slumped. She was Dad's
"big girl." But she didn't look like a big girl now. She wiped her
eyes and said, "It'll never be the same."

We
all sat still and quiet for a long moment, until Maddy dumped the bowl of
ketchup on her head.

I
was lying in bed when Mom came in to say good-night. I had my solar system
lamp on. The ceiling glowed with stars and planets. I was eating a cookie (the
organic version of Oreos) I had snuck out of the kitchen.

"Max,
you shouldn't eat cookies in bed."

"I'm
seeking solace."

She
half-smiled and sat down next to me.

"Does
your knee hurt?"

"No."

She
checked my scrape. I had removed the Band-Aid in the shower.

"I
know you didn't trip and do this. What really happened?"

It
was spooky, how moms know everything. I felt my chin quiver, and I had to wipe
a tear away. I pointed at the floor below the Legend poster. She went over
and stared down and stood real still for a moment. Then she bent down and picked
up the pieces of the broken iPod.

"Your
birthday present from Dad."

She
sighed at the iPod remains like I did when my frog died, and I had to bury
him. Her. It.

"The
same boys?"

I
nodded.

"They
chased you home?"

I
nodded again.

"You
threw up?"

Another
nod. "On their Legend sneakers. The hundred-fifty-dollar styles. Vic
gut-punched me." I shrugged. "It was pizza day."

"I'm
going to see the principal tomorrow."

"No,
Mom, don't!
Please
. It'll only make things worse."

"Max,
you didn't flush!"

Scarlett's
voice from the bathroom.

"Sorry!"

Mom walked over to the dresser and put the iPod pieces down. She stared at Dad's photo then
picked up the Old Spice bottle. She opened the top and put it near her nose.
She liked Dad's scent, too. After a moment, she set the bottle down then came
over and sat next to me.

"Max,
this psychologist on TV, she said kids who are bullied should use verbal and
nonverbal language to back bullies down."

"What
does that mean?"

"She said nonverbal language means you stand tall and step
forward toward the bully and don't cower down. Verbal language means you shout
'Stop!' "

"And
that's supposed to work?"

"Fifty
percent of the time."

I
tried not to laugh.

"What
about the other fifty percent, when Vic steps right through my verbal and
nonverbal language and punches me in the gut? What am I supposed to do
then?"

"She
didn't say."

"Because
she's never been bullied. Mom, that stuff sounds good on TV, but guys like
Vic, they understand one thing: brute force. And I don't have it."

I
wish I could talk to Dad about the bullies; he'd know what to do. Moms were also girls, so they couldn't understand how it was with bullies. I'd seen girls tease
each other pretty bad and act mean sometimes, but that's not the same thing as
being gut-punched on pizza day.

"I
worry about you, Max. The therapist said you have some anger issues, that one
day you might …"

"Explode?"

She
nodded. "Max, I wish you'd talk to him again. He works with a lot of
Army kids. He's helping Scarlett. He could help you. I know you're trying to
be strong, like a man. Don't. Be a boy. You don't have to be the man of the
house."