Tell Me (2 page)

I walk into my house and try not to look at the table. I told Mom we should have a sheet over it or something.

I do look at it though—our dining room table, on its side, broken.

Everything else in our dining room has been picked up. Everything but the memories.

I try to remember the good times we had in this room—the holidays, my birthday parties, the time Dad and I decorated the dining room like Hawaii for Mom's birthday, with paper palm trees and huge flowers.

One stupid moment can change everything.

It happened eight days ago when Dad picked me up at the mall after my cranberry gig. Driving with Dad isn't easy.

He was driving too fast, like he always does, when a man in a black sports car cut him off. Dad takes these things personally.

“Dad, remember you're not supposed to—”

He sped after the guy, shouting out the window.

“Dad! It was, tops, an SDM.” That stands for Small Dumb Move. Lorenzo and I created anger management phrases to help my father get a grip. They don't always work.

The guy in the black car made The Ultimate Bad Gesture. My father went radioactive.

“JDT!” I hollered (Jerks Do This).

But the anger was driving Dad and wouldn't let go. He got too close to the guy's car.

“Dad, pull over!”

The guy in the black car almost hit us. Dad leaned on the horn. The guy pulled over; Dad did, too. The man in the black car got out, screaming. He stormed over to us, glared at me, and hollered, “What are you?”

I was still in the fruit suit.

“Don't yell at my daughter!”

“I'm a cranberry!” I screamed. “A helpless cranberry. I'm just trying to get home.”

The guy stared at me. At the Children's Drama Workshop, one of the things we learned was,
Use the pain
.

I shrieked, “And I have to go to the bathroom!”

A police car drove up. “What's going on?” the cop demanded.

I raised my hand. “Permission to get out of the car, officer.”

The cop nodded. I got out, waddled over, and gave the man and the policeman a 20 percent off coupon.

I mentioned the bathroom again, told them to stop by the store, waddled back to the car.

The angry man snarled, “Where do you think you're going, ace?”

The cop pocketed his coupon. “The cranberry has to go to the bathroom.”

I'm still trying to decide if I bribed a policeman.

Dad pulled out; his eyes were fierce. “Nobody does that to me, Anna. Nobody!”

It was like opening a dam. All the water came rushing out.

Back home, Mom didn't let Dad cool down. She got right in his face. “What happened?”

Big mistake. That made him madder.

So mad, he turned over the dining room table. Dishes broke. The vase of flowers crashed to the floor.

Mom screamed, “Brian, what is the matter with you?”

That was the Big Question we'd been asking all year.

Dad left.

Left Mom standing there.

Left me trying to get out of my cranberry suit.

Left Peanut, my dog, shaking in the corner.

Mom started crying. “Enough. It's enough.”

The next day Mom and I went to see Jen, our family therapist. Mom announced, “Your dad and I . . . well, we're going to be separated for awhile.”

I'd been expecting this, but the news still hit like a baseball smashing a window.

“And, Anna, I'm thinking about . . . well, not just thinking, I've made the decision to stay with Uncle Barry for a while.” Barry is her brother. He lives in New Jersey. His wife collects miniature eggs with little forest animals peeking out of them. They're all over the house. Mom hates it there.

I looked at my hands. “Where am I going to be?”

I felt this rumble in my chest like a monster was in there. I had to bend over, even though I was sitting. I put my head between my legs.

Mom said, “Breathe, honey,” like I was sitting there with my head between my legs holding my breath.

“Slow in, slow out,” Jen added.

I got the rhythm of that. I sat up.

Then we talked about me staying with my grandmother for “awhile.”

Nobody defined “awhile.”

“Anna, the flower festival is in a few weeks,” Mom mentioned.

Mim lives in Rosemont, this tiny town in Virginia that lives and breathes flowers. The whole town turns out for the flower festival. Tourists come from all over.

I said nothing.

“Honey, your dad needs to get hold of his anger, and while he does that I think he needs for us not to be around. Okay?”

Mim is Dad's mother, but she and Mom are amazingly close. And it's not that I didn't love my grandmother, but why did my parents want to live someplace without me?

Mom leaned forward. She looked so pale. “This is colossally hard on everybody. I want you to be in a place that's peaceful. I need, honestly, some space to work
this through. Okay?”

I shook my head. None of this was okay.

“Certainly, Anna, if you don't want to do this—”

“I don't know what I want! I just heard that my parents are splitting up.”

“Separating, Anna. . . .”

I pulled out my phone, went to the dictionary. “Separate,” I announced. “To divide, to disunite, to become disconnected or severed.”

Jen stepped in. “It's good to define a word, Anna, but sometimes that can label a thing too harshly. Separation can be a step toward divorce, but not always.”

Mom leaned forward. “Anna, do you want to stay with me at Barry's?”

I shook my head no, but at least she offered.

We sat there not talking.

Then I asked. I had to.

“Do you love him, Mom?”

She shifted in her chair. “Your dad and I have been married for nineteen years.”

“Do you love him?”

Her shoulders sagged. “Honestly, I don't know.”

That was my week.

I stand in the dining room. My suitcase is packed and by the door. Peanut, my dachshund, isn't sure about anything.

“It's okay, girl.”

Peanut knows this is a deep lie.

“All right, it's not exactly okay, but we're going to handle this.”

Peanut looks at my suitcase.

“I don't think I'll be gone too long.”

She looks at me. Peanut has been my dog for eight years—it's hard to put anything over on her.

“I hope I won't be gone too long.”

I see a piece of broken glass on the floor. I pick it up.

Brian, what is the matter with you?

I wonder how anger got so popular—people screaming on TV, ranting on the news, politicians yelling at each other. None of it seems to do much good.

I throw the broken glass into the trash, sit on the floor, and let Peanut crawl in my lap. “I got a card,” I tell her.

She sniffs the envelope.

“Does it smell like Lorenzo?” I open the envelope Lorenzo gave me, take out the yellow card. “Yellow is our favorite color, right?”

HAVE AN AMAZING ADVENTURE, ANNA!
COME BACK SOON OR I'M GOING TO BE IRRITATED!

I smile. Lorenzo is the best friend ever. Inside he wrote:

 

* pea in a pod

* irritated gerbil

* top of totem pole

* Health Week monkey

* beloved oak tree

 

These are some of the roles I've played over the years. Lorenzo says every role an actor plays stays with them and makes them stronger.

 

* comic cupcake

* angry worm

* amazing dancing cranberry

* the lead in Cinderella, the Early Years

* lonely radish

 

Right now I'm feeling mostly like a lonely radish.

I could sing the “Smile” song, but I don't want to.

Mom comes down the stairs stiffly. “Well, honey, are you ready?”

It won't do any good to mention that I'm not.

We lug my stuff out to the car.

We drop Peanut next door with Mr. Vincenzo, who balances a dog biscuit on his nose, and Peanut hops up to get it. This is their big trick.

I give her a hug. “You be a good dog.”

That gets a tail wag.

Mom and I fold our arms across our chests exactly the same way, then we thank Mr. Vincenzo and head out the door.

“'Bye, Peanut.”

“Well . . .” Mom doesn't finish the thought. We walk to our car, get in.

Mom sighs, starts the Malibu, and drives down Pine Street toward the Schuykill Expressway.

 

HAVE AN AMAZING ADVENTURE, ANNA!
COME BACK SOON OR I'M GOING TO BE IRRITATED!

 

I'm not sure about this being an amazing adventure.

I am sure that I need a vacation from my life.

Not a forever vacation, though. A couple of weeks should give my parents enough time to fix things.

I watch the road signs leading us out of Philadelphia to I-76.

I slump in my seat. It's official—the cranberry has left the city.

We've been driving for two hours. Mom is getting emotional.

“I need to say this, Anna. I'm just so sad about all that's happened, and you know that your dad and I are going to be seeing Jen regularly while you're gone.”

I know that. Uncle Barry's house is an hour from Philadelphia.

“And I'm hoping you won't worry, honey, because I know how worry can wear you down.”

I bite my thumbnail, not that there's much nail left.

Mom says if I stop biting my nails, she and I can go get a manicure.

Me, I'm not the manicure type.

“And I've been thinking,” Mom adds. “If you feel dizzy . . .”

“I'll sit down, Mom. Unless, I'm walking across a busy street, or I'm running away from evil.”

“Tell you what. Avoid evil, honey. Got it?”

Got it.

 

No worry allowed.

No evil allowed.

If I feel dizzy, sit down,

but not in the street.

 

“Anna, are you listening to me?”

“Yes.”

“I just want to make sure—”

“Mom, I want to talk, but could we do it a little later?”

She takes a big breath and nods. “We're making good time.”

We're in Baltimore; an hour later, D.C.

Already I miss my life.

I can hear Mr. Dez at the Children's Drama Workshop asking, “So, what are you about?”

You have to know this when you're an actor, because if you don't know that, you can't pull from who you are. You won't make your mark.

No matter what size role you get—and I've had some dinky parts, believe me—you've got to hang onto this:

 

There's something that only I can bring to this part, and I'm going for it.

 

Lorenzo and I were the only four-year-olds enrolled in the Children's Drama Workshop, but we didn't coast through on adorableness alone. We practiced hard, we learned our lines, and we worked our way up from playing two peas in a pod (in the world premier of
Jonathan, Eat Your Vegetables
), to almost starring roles.

My mom and dad came to every performance. Dad always laughed in the perfect places. He has the best laugh of any father.

Except for this past year. He's not been laughing much.

I feel a rumble in my chest. I roll down the window and suck in as much fresh air as I can. I didn't used to have trouble breathing. I got checked for asthma, but I don't have that.

When dad started changing, it got to me—I was closer to him than to my mom, but anger separates people. It's a wall that goes up. I kept trying to do things that would make him feel better, like making cookies
and asking him if he wanted to watch a funny movie. Neither one did much for his mood.

I feel a little dizzy, put my head down. This is a dead giveaway.

“Anna, are you okay?”

“Mostly.”

I know I don't seem all that strong right now, but I am strong!

I get things done. I don't give up.

I sit up. “I'm fine now.”

She puts her hand over her heart. I open my Actor's Journal. It's got my notes on the roles I've played and how I got ready for them.

 

Okay, I'm an oak tree. . . .

It's a non-speaking part that doesn't showcase my talent, but that means I act entirely with my face.

A tree has confidence, right?

I've got to let my roots go down deep.

 

When an actor goes the extra mile, that's when the magic happens.

Now suddenly, the breeze seems sweeter, everything
seems better.

We're on a winding tree-lined road, and here come the flowers. Everywhere. They hang from streetlights, they tumble over fences—pink ones, blue ones, yellow, white, red, orange. Mom drives past a hand-painted sign for the Rosemont Flower Festival.

 

BIGGER THAN EVER!

BETTER THAN EVER!

 

I wonder if I'll still be here for the festival.

I can smell the flowers' perfume. Mom drives by fences covered with wild roses. Two brown bunnies watch our car go by. I wave at them.

“It seems like nothing bad could ever happen here, Mom.”

“Nothing bad is allowed to happen. It's the unofficial town motto.”

Mom drives by another sign, much bigger:

 

CRUDUP'S COUNTRY MARKETS

YOU CAN
ALWAYS
DEPEND ON US!

 

There's a picture of a man smiling much too wide.

We drive past the Rosemont Stables. A few horses are in the field. I love horses.

Mom turns onto Flower Road, Mim's street.

Every house has stone steps leading to the front, every house has flowering trees and gardens bursting with color.

Then there's Mim's house. . . .

A painted blue fence, a porch swing, a crazy parrot figure by the front door. A purple banner flaps in the breeze. A trellis is covered with flowers. Warm light shines everywhere.

Mim is a florist. Actually, she's more than that.

She's got the ultimate green thumb. She's got a florist shop in town, but she's really a flower designer.

Actually, she's more than that.

And now I see bubbles rising in the air just above the rosebush in her front yard. They float up near the magnolia tree, carried on the breeze.

I twirl around laughing as they fly overhead.

“Well.” Mom laughs. “Your grandmother has outdone herself.”

Believe me, that's really saying something.