Husky Read online

  “That’ll be good for you. Get some air in you before you get over there.” Nanny smiles and pats me twice on the head, telling me again what a good thing I’m doing. If I walk, I also get to listen to music, and it’ll take me a little longer to walk over there. I don’t know why, but Nanny’s making me a little nervous about it all.

  “I’m going to call, to make sure you get there, so don’t dawdle around,” Nanny says loudly.

  “I won’t,” I say loudly over the weatherman on Jock’s TV saying today is going to be too hot to go out. Stay home if you can, he says. But I can’t. I have to go, and the button-down may have been a very bad choice.

  It’s hot, but since it’s still early, it’s not as hot as it’s going to get. The air is heavy, and like the shredded wheat brick, you almost have to chew it. Maybe that’s why Nanny gave me cereal, so I would be ready. I put on Così fan tutte by Mozart. It’s a happy opera, one of the few I guess, but I figure I need all the help I can get today.

  It’s all about these two guys who love these two girls, but they don’t know if the two girls love them back, so they decide to pretend to go off to war and tell the girls to wait for them while they’re away. The girls promise they’ll wait. But the shaky part is, the boys don’t actually leave. They just pretend and they come back in disguise as new people to trick the girls to fall in love with them. It’s a creepy thing to do, because even if it works or it doesn’t, nobody wins. There’s a song in Così fan tutte—when the girls say good-bye to the boys for the first time—that is called “Soave sia il vento,” and it sounds like a perfect good-bye should sound. At the end, when they’re almost gone, the music does this thing where it keeps calling, repeating to the people leaving, saying good-bye over and over again, until the last one, the one which the characters might think, Oh, they can’t hear me anymore, instead of getting quieter, it gets louder to make them hear. I love it, but then I remember that’s it a lie. The boys are faking it, and they will be back in a few minutes to do something terrible. But the girls don’t know that yet, so at least they mean it. It must count. Sometimes I guess it’s better not knowing. Maybe. Or maybe sometimes, people come back?

  When I get to Mrs. Martinez’s, I ring her apartment buzzer and wait. She doesn’t answer at first, so I give her a minute. Then another. Then another. And buzz again. Still nothing. Did she forget I was coming? I buzz again, a real long buzz to make sure she hears me and loudly, over the buzz, I hear, “Yes? Who’s it?”

  “Mrs. Martinez, it’s me, Davis. My nanny told me—” Before I can get the words out I hear her loud-buzz the door open, and I go through. She lives on the third floor in a pretty old building, so I have to take the stairs. By the time I get up there, I know I’m going to be a puddle. My armpits are already soaked from the outside. This might be just the beginning of a very wet day.

  When I get to the third floor, I’m huffing a bit, so I try to walk slower till I get to Mrs. Martinez’s apartment. I hate huffing to catch my breath more than anything else. I guess it means that I’m not in shape, and I guess I’m not, but I hate the sound of it, I hate feeling like I can’t breathe and everyone else knowing it too. I just don’t want it to be obvious and especially after only three flights. So I take my time.

  Mrs. Martinez is standing in her doorway holding a baby and smiling so big that the baby is trying to grab both ends of it. “Querido! You came to see us! Yes, he did, José. Look. Who is that come to see us? Quién es? Quién es?” Mrs. Martinez keeps asking the baby who I am, but he doesn’t know, and I don’t know him either. I think it’s cool that he speaks Spanish already though.

  When I get closer, Mrs. Martinez and the baby give me a big hug, and Mrs. Martinez makes the baby kiss me, which takes a long time, since we don’t know each other. He doesn’t really kiss me, but sort of bumps my face. Mrs. Martinez is so happy with that, we can finally go inside.

  The air conditioner isn’t on, I can’t tell if there is one at all. So the apartment is just hot. It smells like something too, but nothing I can really name. It’s not a food smell, or an old-person smell, or even a baby smell. It’s lonely. That’s the only name I can put on it. It smells like lonely, like when you’ve been sitting in your room all by yourself for a long time, and you haven’t changed the sheets or even opened the window because it’s just you, and that’s it. It’s just you. Alone. It’s a lonely smell, and it smells that way because you are.

  It’s cleaner than I thought it would be, like, a lot cleaner. I figured with all the stuff she always has in her pocket, and the way she always looks a little frazzled when I see her, her house would be like that too. But it isn’t at all. It’s almost all white, pearly white, with just spots of color where her furniture is bright. There’s nothing out of place.

  Mrs. Martinez takes me into the living room to put the baby down on the blanket on the floor. She has one of those big old TVs that looks like it comes with a chest of drawers, but the screen is really small. It doesn’t make any sense and it must weigh a ton. I hope I don’t have to move that. On top of the TV is a picture of her son, Gustavo the soldier, who died. He’s there just looking out at something, all dressed up in his uniform, like a stamp. The picture isn’t that big, but without anything around it, it looks really huge. Also, she’s attached palm strips from Palm Sunday masses—and they stick out in all directions—and rosary beads on the corners of the frame. It sort of looks out of place, because he’s there in the frame looking so put together but everything around him is leaves and beads.

  “Do you need something to eat, mi amor? I have so much food here, I can make you whatever you like.”

  “I already ate this morning. Thanks,” I say.

  “What did she feed you?” Mrs. Martinez smiles back at me.

  “Just cereal.”

  “Is that all she gives you? Out of a box? And she expect you to come here and work all day? You can’t do nothing on just that. No. I got to make you something.” Mrs. Martinez gets up and goes to the kitchen. “You stay there and watch José, mi amor, he loves you so much already, he’ll be a good boy for you. Won’t you, José?”

  I look at José and José looks back. I say, “Hola.” I don’t know what else to say. I hope he understands.

  Mrs. Martinez starts making something complicated, I can tell from the sounds of all these different things getting opened and closed and frying and stirring. Very soon the whole house smells like good things. It covers up the lonely smell a bit but not all the way.

  As she cooks, Mrs. Martinez asks me questions from the kitchen. A lot of them I don’t know how to answer but, when I try to, she answers them for me. Will I do good in school? “Of course you will, mi amor, because you is so intelligent. You do good at everything.” Will I get good grades? “You’re going to be the top of the class.” Will I meet a nice girl at school? That one is totally hers. “They will all be after you, ’cause you is so handsome and strong.” With Mrs. Martinez, you could never feel bad about anything in the world because even before you could answer it, she would cut you off with how wonderful you are. I even start to believe her. But then I remember all the stuff she doesn’t know. Like the lonely smell mixed up now with lunch, you can only cover it up so much.

  Finally the food is done. Mrs. Martinez brings out a big plate for just me. It’s rice and chicken and vegetables, and it smells like the best thing I’ve ever smelled. Even José gets excited when he sees the steam off the plate.

  “Don’t get up, I’ll bring it,” Mrs. Martinez says as she sweeps into the room and hands me the plate. “We’ll sit on the floor and eat, yes?”

  The plate she hands me is so full, it’s a little hard to hold with one hand, so I put it down and just look at it. It’s colorful and hot, and all of it looks fantastic. I didn’t think I was this hungry, but being here in front of this, something this good, I don’t know how I could be anything else but starving. She comes back with a knife and fork a
nd a bottle for José, and after handing everything out she sits in her chair and watches us, smiling. Smiling bigger and bigger after each bite. It’s like she’s watching the best show on TV ever, and can’t wait to see how it turns out.

  “You like, querido?” Mrs. Martinez asks.

  “It’s great,” I mush out, even with my mouth full.

  “I just try to put something together for you, it’s just something good for a good boy. I make something better for dinner.”

  The whole time I eat, Mrs. Martinez doesn’t say anything, she just watches and smiles. Sometimes she even moves her mouth along with me, like she’s coaching me how to eat it. When I have a good bite, she smiles bigger, so I try to smile back, but I’m really trying to hint that I would like it better if she’d stop watching me. She doesn’t pick up on that and then she looks at Gustavo.

  “When he go to army,” Mrs. Martinez says, pointing to the picture of her son, “he writes me letters telling me how much he miss my food. Every day, I miss your rice, Mama. I miss your beans. He never say he miss me once.” Mrs. Martinez laughs at this hard, I guess because she knows it’s funny, because it’s not true. He missed her a lot.

  I eat everything on the plate. I have to. I’m being watched. When I’m done, Mrs. Martinez takes the plate out into the kitchen. “That’s how you have to eat to be strong. Your abuelita should know better. Cereal! From a box!” She laughs to herself. José sort of laughs too, he must have heard a word he knows.

  I’ve already been here for about three hours, and I’ve done nothing but sit, eaten twice, and played with the baby. I haven’t moved anything, barely even myself. I’ve answered—or half answered—a bunch of questions. But I’ve never been asked if I’m ready to do what it was I was needed to do. I haven’t asked yet either, but maybe I should.

  “Mrs. Martinez, Nanny told me you needed me to move some boxes or something?” I ask her.

  “Yes, I need you to move something for me,” she says, sort of not answering. “It’s too heavy for me to lift, and it’s all put away in the closet, I just need to figure out what to do with it first. Do you want a soda?”

  Another hour goes by, and José takes a nap. Mrs. Martinez says I can turn on the TV and watch anything I like, but I sort of don’t want to. I want to do the thing I came to do and leave. I don’t know why I’m getting so anxious about it. I mean, everything is nice here and I’m not bored. But there’s a feeling of something sort of not being done or not wanting to be done or talked about that makes me feel really uncomfortable about the whole visit. And the lonely smell is always there.

  After four hours, Mrs. Martinez starts going through drawers and giving me things. Pencils, pens, notebooks, army men, a Barbie for one of my friends, an ice cube tray that makes ice cubes in puppy shapes. She’s giving me so much stuff from drawer after drawer that she starts a bag for me to take home. Every minute the bag gets filled with something else. By hour five, José’s mom comes and takes him back down to their apartment. We all hug and bump faces good-bye. In hour six, Mrs. Martinez wants to make more food, but I feel like I’m going to explode, so I just ask, “Mrs. Martinez, I might go home if you don’t need me to move anything, is that okay?”

  I hear her stop in the kitchen. “No, mi amor, I do need you to move something for me. I’m sorry. You right.” She comes to the doorway and says, “It so nice to have you here, I just didn’t want you to have to go, but you have to, you got things to do and you want to be with your friends, I know.”

  I don’t. I don’t have to go anywhere, but I feel bad just sitting here. I don’t say any of this. And I know I should, but I just wait. Mrs. Martinez takes a big breath and says, “All right, you right. You right.”

  Mrs. Martinez walks through the living room to the back of the apartment and waits outside a closet door. She just waits there. And I wait behind her. It’s a few minutes before she can do anything, but then she just opens the door. The closet is filled with boxes, all piled up and ready to be moved. All have the name Gustavo written on them. They’re filled with all his stuff. And I guess I’m supposed to move them out.

  I guess I should move past her and start, but I don’t. She’s just looking at them, and she doesn’t move at all. It’s awful to think of everything a person ever owned just in a bunch of boxes, but that’s how it is. We wait, the both of us looking at the boxes and not moving. Everything he was is in there. And it is supposed to go.

  Mrs. Martinez says, “He was a good boy, my Gustavo, like you, he was good. And strong. And handsome. So handsome.”

  I don’t know if I’m supposed to agree, or say anything, so I don’t. I wait.

  “It’s so short all this, mi amor,” says Mrs. Martinez. She doesn’t turn around and look at me, but she knows I’m there. “You remember that. It’s so short, you have to make it all count. And you will. You will, I know it. Like my Gustavo. You will.”

  She moves a little forward to grab a box I guess, and I step forward to help her, but she touches the box, and then she starts to close the door. When she turns around, she’s smiling again, like I should be eating something. So I smile back, like it all tastes wonderful, but we’re both pretending now.

  “I’m sorry, you came all this way, mi amor. But I can’t today. Not today. I need to keep. I need to keep.” She smiles at me with tears coming into her eyes.

  “It’s okay. I can come back anytime you want,” I say, smiling back.

  “You’re a good boy, querido.” Mrs. Martinez smiles.

  After I leave, I listen to “Soave sia il vento” again, and it sounds so beautiful. But more beautiful, if that’s possible. I know that it’s fake and a trick, but maybe that’s what it needs to be. Maybe it’s better not to know.

  Or maybe people will come back.

  CHAPTER 16

  I can’t really walk home right after that. And I know I’ll get in trouble for not being where I’m supposed to be, but I need to take a minute, for myself. And then, more than anything, I want to see Mom. So I go to the bakery. It’s still open and Jules is behind the counter.

  “H-ey,” says Jules.

  “Is my mom here?” I ask.

  “In back.”

  Paolo’s baking and tries to high-five me and talk to me, but I just keep walking. This fast-walking thing is really working for me. When I get to the back and to the Blunder Wall, I see Mom sitting at her little desk going over papers and looking so sort of peaceful. I don’t know why, but I stop and I look at her like that for a long time. Just to see her how she is when she doesn’t think anybody is around. And she seems so like herself. It makes me happy to know her like this.

  I put down the bag of all the stuff Mrs. Martinez gave me and walk to the doorway of the small, bright office to knock on the doorframe. Mom jumps a little but turns around and sees me. “Hey, what are you doing here?” she says, not angry or disappointed or even remembering that I am currently breaking the rule I was just punished for but happy and smiling, like it’s a big surprise just for her. And as she smiles I almost tackle her into a hug.

  “Buddy, are you okay?” she asks, her voice sort of muffled by my shoulder. When she breaks her mouth free, she asks, “How was Mrs. Martinez’s?”

  I don’t answer for a minute, I just want to stand there for a little bit and not think about anything else. Anything else. Not the lonely smell and the picture with the palms or the boxes and boxes with someone’s name who can never read them, or the song that’s a lie or the voices in my head telling me to scream on the street, or the lies of people you figured this whole time couldn’t ever do that, ever. I just need a minute with my mom, because she is none of that.

  “It was fine. I mostly ate,” I say, pulling away for a bit.

  “I bet you ate well,” Mom says with a laugh, and then she sort of jumps. “Here, wait, let me call Nanny before she freaks out and you get in more trouble.” Mom dials on her cell ph
one, and I can hear Nanny screaming into the phone.

  “Yes, he’s here. Yeah, he’s fine. He said it was fine. I’ll send him home in a little bit, and he will go right there.” Mom nods at me to make me agree, so I do. “Right there, yes. Okay. All right. Yes. Okay. Mom, I have to go. Okay.” Mom hangs up the phone and lets out a big breath. “Jeez, that lady can talk. What’s wrong, buddy?”

  “I just wanted to see you,” I say.

  “Oh yeah? Well, that is pretty special, I appreciate that a lot.” Mom smiles. “Well, I’d get you something to eat, but I guess you’re probably not hungry.”

  “I don’t mean to interrupt or anything, I just wanted to stop in and say hello. Honest,” I say back.

  “No, I’m so glad you did. I love to see you, anytime. You want to make something with me or have a soda, maybe . . . inspect the wall?” Mom smiles so big at the last one, I know that is exactly what she wants to do, and her smile gets me excited about it too. So sure, let’s look at the Blunder Wall.

  Mom gets the most excited about the Blunder Wall most of the time, but tonight for some reason, she’s almost giggling about it before we make it over. I guess it might be because I’m here and she gets to share it with me. I’m not here a lot anymore. Or maybe she has a new one that got so gnarly and she wants to show off.

  At first she takes me through some classics: the pie that exploded, the challah bread that somehow unraveled, the cupcake that grew straight up and looked like Marge Simpson’s hair. And then some new ones: a roll that ended up looking like an angry old man, an apple turnover that burned so bad it looked like an oil spill, and lastly a wedding cake that was perfect one minute—there’s a picture of it—and then in the next photo it’s crumbled to the ground. Disaster. Terrible. We have to laugh about it now, but that night it meant Mom didn’t get to sleep in her bed. It’s funny to me that Mom still takes these pictures. She starts to smile about it almost right off. She gets annoyed and stuff when it happens, but there’s also a little bit of her that thinks, Isn’t this just Blunderful?