Stick (18 page)

Her mom got mad. “Close        your          eyes, Emily!”

Yeah. Telling Mrs. Lohman about our bath was entirely out of the question.

Like, forever.

I didn't really have any option but to just stand there. I was barefoot, and there was milk and shards of glass everywhere around me.

“I guess I should have told you that me and Bosten aren't allowed to wear pajamas. At Aunt Dahlia's, she even let us eat breakfast in our underwear. It's no big deal at all.”

That's what Emily would have said, too, if she wasn't laughing so hard.

“Stick!     Don't you move,  sweetie.  I don't want you      to cut your feet. Now, you stop trying to pick up          that mess. I'll be right back.”

She spun around and pushed Emily out into the hallway, but I could see Em poke her head around her mother's hip and smile at me once before she was completely protected from my inappropriateness and ushered away to her own room.

From somewhere down the hall, I heard my best friend's voice calling out, “Good night, Stark McClellan. I'm glad you're back home.”

I kind of liked the way Emily said my name.

Mrs. Lohman came back, out of breath and flushed; and as she had ordered me to, I hadn't moved one inch away from my spot on the floor, standing with my feet in the middle of a slick of milk that I would much rather have drank than worn.

“Here,        baby,            sit.     Oh!       I am so sorry!”

She really was kind of going overboard.

I sat on the edge of the bed, and Mrs. Lohman carefully, gently, toweled off my feet. And, yes, I felt bad about thinking how her doing that to me felt really, really good.

“Too bad about those cookies,” I said. “You make the best cookies in the world.”

She looked up at me.

I thought she was going to cry.

She even dried in between my toes.

Definitely overboard.

“Oh.           I just don't know what to do.       I never knew the first thing about having a
boy
in the house. Please, forgive me, Stick.”

The way she said “boy” sounded like some kind of disease.

“It's no. Big. Deal.”

Mrs. Lohman pulled the covers down from the bed, then she scooped up my scrawny legs in the crook of her arm and slid them between the coolness of her wonderful-smelling sheets. She lifted my head, fluffed two pillows behind my shoulders, tucked the sheets down between the mattresses as tight as any mummy or papoose was ever wrapped, and then gave me a kiss, right on top of my head.

“I am        so    sorry.”

Overboard.

And drowning.

Then she said, “I'll  bring you some fresh cookies        and a glass of milk.                           Just don't go anywhere.”

Apparently, she believed
boys
could just vanish at will or something.

And why would I want to, anyway, if Mrs. Lohman was bringing back some of her cookies?

*   *   *

I couldn't sleep.

And I couldn't make my head be quiet.

So I rolled onto my left side. I trapped it all in.

Tried to starve those animals.

*   *   *

Mom and Dad

never wanted us.

*   *   *

Me.

Bosten.

Especially me.

I was the reminder

of everything

that was

wrong.

But Bosten came first

and paid the most.

*   *   *

He did the math.

*   *   *

Things don't change you.

And it doesn't just happen.

*   *   *

I felt stupid for crying.

I could have cried a thousand times before then.

But I felt so small and alone,

and I wanted to steal down the hall

so I could put my hand on Emily's face

or rest my head in her mother's lap.

I wanted to have Aunt Dahlia hold me so tight

and so relaxed

like there was nothing at all between our hearts.

*   *   *

I wanted

I wanted

mother.

*   *   *

I dreamed of climbing

through the window

of Saint Fillan's room

carrying a flame.

*   *   *

In the morning

my chains had not come loose.

*   *   *

I think
Mrs. Lohman half expected me to show up at her breakfast table in my underwear. She was still nervous and embarrassed about what had happened in my room the night before. I could tell by the way she kept her eyes down, like she had to concentrate on counting the exact number of times she whipped frantic clockwise circles with the wire whisk in a bowl of pancake batter.

So I let her off the hook. I wore the shorts Aunt Dahlia had bought for me, and some clean socks, with a plain, white T-shirt, so she wouldn't have to stare at that word that got people so weirded out. And when she finally braved a cautious glance at me from her mixing duties and saw how I looked, I could almost feel the wave of relief, just like a big, fat swell past the craggy point of the jetty, lifting me up and making me forget about the terrible night I had just spent, not sleeping in that bed upstairs.

“Emily!” She bellowed out to the space that was her house. “Your friend's ready for his breakfast!”

And something about the way Mrs. Lohman said that made me feel a lump in my throat.

I wanted to hug her.

But I didn't.

*   *   *

Emily came downstairs,
wearing slippers and yellow pajamas that had rabbits on them. She looked so soft and warm. I wondered what it would be like to sleep with her. And I mean just
sleep
, too, not anything else. But just thinking about that made me wonder what other things might be like, too.

I looked down at my hands on the table.

I didn't feel very good.

Everything was different.

Before I knew it, Emily came over to where I was sitting and put her hands on both sides of my face and lifted it.

People don't touch me.

But I could put up with Emily doing it.

“You look terrible,” she said. “Like a raccoon.  Look at your eyes!”

I wondered how anyone could look at his own eyes.

“Let me         see,” Mrs. Lohman said.

Emily's dad put his newspaper down and leaned over so he was practically chin to chin with me. “You do      look a little               dead    from the neck up, son.”

“I didn't sleep much last night,” I said.

Then Mrs. Lohman grabbed my head and looked me square in the eyes. She laid her palm across my forehead. Her eyes filled with worry.

“You     poor      baby.”

And the way she said it wasn't just, like, “Oh, I'm concerned you might not be feeling well.”

It was more like, “Your parents are splitting up. You don't have a family. You were born wrong. There's something missing. And, by the way, you might have a cold, too.”

“You're      burning up,” she said. “You poor baby.”

I had pretty much had enough of being pouted over and touched at that point.

I sighed.

I wished I could be back at Aunt Dahlia's on the Strand.

            “We                                          need to get you back to bed.”

I smelled pancakes burning.

I wished it was my house instead.

Mrs. Lohman put her hand on my shoulder and scooted my chair out so I could stand up. I guess I did feel a little dizzy and cold, but I hadn't slept, either, and my head was still full of that awful noise.

“Aw, I'm sorry, Stick,” Mr. Lohman said. “I was going to take you and       Emily down to the pier to do some fishing today.”

He sounded sincerely disappointed.

It was weird. I mean, people caring about how I felt.

Mr. Lohman owned a little store by the pier that sold tackle and snacks, and he liked to take us fishing off the float.

“Maybe you'll      feel up to it tomorrow,” he said.

I nodded, and Mrs. Lohman began leading me out of the kitchen, toward the stairs.

“Fred, shut that        off,” she said, pointing Mr. Lohman toward her griddle.

Emily swooped in ahead of us as we went up the stairs. She opened the door to my room. I had already made the bed, and when her mother saw it, she groaned a little disappointed moan in the back of her throat.

But that was also a rule in my house. We couldn't come out of our rooms in the morning without making our beds first. And tucking our shirts in.

Emily peeled the covers down off the bed and stood there, watching as her mother led me across the perfectly clean floor where she had dropped the milk the night before.

“You         step out of the room while this boy      gets into bed,” Mrs. Lohman instructed.

And as she went out into the hallway, before turning her back to the door, Emily gave me a wry look that said nothing really mattered, anyway.

Emily.

I slipped my shorts off and nearly collapsed onto the sheets. Then Mrs. Lohman carefully pulled the socks from my feet and tucked the covers over me. She brushed her hand across my forehead again and gave a sympathetic and cooing “Awww, now…”

She snapped my shorts flat and smooth with a flick of her wrists and folded them around my socks. “We'll bring you up some breakfast,            sweetie.     Here. Why don't you take that shirt off? You're about to melt, I think.”

I sat up in bed.

Emily came back into the room as I was slipping my T-shirt over my head.

Then Mrs. Lohman said, “I think I better call your—”

Who?

Who would she call?

My mother was gone, and Dad? Dad just wasn't the person to call in these kinds of situations.

“No!” I said. I let my shirt drop on the floor. It was already damp, and Mrs. Lohman, eyeing me with concern and hurt, picked it up instantly.

“I'll     wash this.”

“Please don't call anyone, Mrs. Lohman. Please. I'll be fine.”

She pulled the covers up to my shoulders and I leaned back on the pillows.

“I'll bring you some breakfast,                      baby.”

The way she looked at me made me feel horrible, like I wanted to cry or something. And as she left us there, Mrs. Lohman said, “I suppose       we can wait and see how you're doing this afternoon.”

“Thank you.”

Emily slid a chair across the floor and sat down, right next to my face. So close, I could smell her hair.

“Don't you want to have your breakfast?” I said.

“I'll have it in here. With you.”

“I'm sorry about this, Em.”

“Don't be dumb.”

“I wasn't sad until last night. I guess I am being dumb.”

“Well. Stop it.”

“Okay.”

She brushed her hand through my hair. She never did that before, not like this. I closed my eyes.

“I wish I could make you feel better.”

“You are.”

“It's going to be okay.”

“Em?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What were you going to say?”

“Uh. Are you going to the pier with your dad today?”

She laughed. “That wasn't what you were going to say, Stark McClellan.”

“I like that now.”

“What?”

“When you say my name.”

“Well.  That's your name. Your name has always been your name. And, no, I am going to stay here with you. I missed you.”

“I missed you, too, Em.”

Mrs. Lohman appeared in the doorway, carrying a tray with pancakes and juice and milk.

I said, “Don't drop it.”

Mrs. Lohman smiled. But I could tell she kept worrying about me, and about my parents, too.

“I've never had breakfast in bed,” I said.

“Well, I hope this    makes you feel better, sweetie. You just tell Emily         if there's anything you need.”

Emily stood out of the way while Mrs. Lohman put the tray down across my legs. “I'll be right back, Stark McClellan. I'm bringing some for me.”

Then she flew out of the room.

“Is that something       new?” Mrs. Lohman said.

“Huh?”

“Calling you      
Stark McClellan
.”

“Oh.” I shrugged and took a mouthful of pancake. “She's just joking around.”

*   *   *

I didn't get better.

Emily sat there with me all day, too, like she said she would.

I woke up in a sweat in the early afternoon, when Mrs. Lohman was downstairs talking to my father on the telephone.

I didn't care what they said, just knowing what was happening made me feel worse.

Emily wiped my forehead with a cool, wet washcloth. It felt like when we took our bath together.

“Are you feeling any better?” she whispered.

I shook my head.

I pushed the covers entirely off of me. I was soaked, but I immediately began shaking from the intensity of the sudden cold.

“What are you doing?” Emily sounded annoyed. She stood up and grabbed the covers, to pull them back across my shivering bones.

I grabbed her hand and held it steady. I flattened her palm on my chest and pinned it there, just watching her. I don't know for certain what I was thinking. I was so sick and feverish and I only wanted Emily's cool hand to touch me.

And I wanted all the noise in my head to go away.

Emily waited.

She didn't pull back. She kept her hand on my chest.