A Simple Case of Angels (4 page)

8

—

Before bed
that night Nicola stood in the bathroom brushing her hair. When it was loose, her hair reached her waist. But it was almost never loose because June Bug loved Nicola's braid.

June Bug sat at Nicola's feet now, staring up, so the triangular flaps of her ears fell back. She looked so funny like that, her ears long and Chihuahua-pointed instead of folded like two small silky napkins, one black, one white.

Once Nicola had finished brushing, she braided, weaving the thick sections of hair together over her shoulder.

June Bug shifted from side to side in anticipation.

Nicola secured the end of the braid with the hair elastic.

June Bug bounced.

“Okay, June Bug!”

When Nicola leaned sideways, June Bug sprang and grabbed hold of the braid. Nicola stepped into the hall with the dog hanging on. She got all the way to the kitchen where her mother was working on the giant holiday crossword puzzle, the one that filled two whole newspaper pages.

“I need an eight-letter word for ‘heavenly being,'” Mina said, before looking up and frowning. “Nicola, that's fifteen pounds of dog dangling from your braid. It can't be good for your neck.”

June Bug let go, thudding four-footedly to the floor.

“Thank you, June Bug,” Mina said, returning to the puzzle.

June Bug headed for her pillow in the corner, Nicola for the chair across from her mother. She leaned over and swept the eraser tailings off the newspaper with the end of her braid.

“How did Grandma Bream die?” she asked.

“Cancer. Do you remember much about her?”

“I remember visiting her apartment. I remember her cinnamon buns.”

Mina smiled. “She liked to bake.”

“And I remember her funeral, sort of. She didn't seem very old.”

“She wasn't, unfortunately. Not even seventy.”

“Grammy and Grampy don't seem old, either. Not like people in a retirement home.”

“Grammy and Grampy are amazing. Seraphim.”

“What?”

“That's the eight-letter word for a heavenly being.” Mina searched the vast network of squares for the place to write the word.

“I'd like to take June Bug to visit a retirement home. Is that okay?”

Nicola half-wished that her mother would say no. Shady Oaks smelled bad, and the old man, Mr. Milton, frightened her with his booming voice and the strange things he said. Even worse was that man stomping on the snow angel.

Except if Mina did say no, June Bug would have to wait until the priest found her a different place to do a good deed.

“What retirement home?” Mina asked.

“It's called Shady Oaks. It's over by the church.”

“What church?”

“Our Lady of Perpetual Help. You remember. I went there with that girl Lindsay.”

“Does the retirement home have anything to do with the church?”

“No,” Nicola said, in case her mother was heading toward an Embarrassing Talk.

Nicola had suffered through several of these. The Embarrassing Talk about Where Babies Come From. The Embarrassing Talk about What Your Big Brother Is Going Through and Why He Is So Mean. Nicola would rather not have known the facts in these Embarrassing Talks. She wasn't planning on making babies, not after living with Jackson. And after living with ­Jared, she was never going to have anything to do with boys.

“I stopped there today when I was walking June Bug and asked if I could bring her. They said to come back tomorrow.”

“You already went? On your own?” Mina pushed the puzzle aside. “Nicola. We talked about this.”

Nicola hung her head. That was the talk about the Bad People Who Would Just Love to Get Their Hands on Unattended Children, which was not so much Embarrassing as Terrifying. She fiddled with the end of her braid.

“So you've already organized this visit?”

“Yes. I want June Bug to cheer up the old people. I'm hoping it will make up for the turkey and the tree and everything else. I'm hoping it will make her a good, kind dog who won't get in so much trouble.”

“That's lovely, Nicola,” Mina said. “I'm proud of you. Certainly you can go.”

Nicola smiled the way you do when you get something you don't want very much. A small smile.

“But I'd like to go with you the first time.”

“That would be great,” Nicola said, brightening.

“And I'd like you to bring a friend.”

Nicola slumped. “Who?”

“Are you still not talking to Mackenzie?”

“She has other friends now.”

“What about Lindsay?”

“She's not really a friend,” Nicola said. “She just sits next to me in school. She loves flowers and brides. And she follows me around at school, which is annoying.”

“It sounds like she wants to be friends with
you
.” Mina pointed across the kitchen. “The class list is in that drawer.”

Nicola found the list with the phone numbers. She took it to the den where Jared was playing on the computer. He kept the phone with him at all times, even in the bathroom. Even with Nicola telling him through the door, “I don't think Julie Walters-Chen would be too impressed if she found out you were sitting on the toilet while you talked to her!”

“Don't tie up the line,” Jared said now.

Nicola stuck out her tongue and went to the living room to call.

Lindsay answered, sounding so happy that Nicola had phoned. “What did you get for Christmas?”

“Nothing,” Nicola said. “I didn't want anything.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“The best thing I got,” Lindsay said, “was a subscription to
Today's Bride
.”

Nicola sighed. “Can you give Ignacio a message? He was going to help me find a place to visit with June Bug. But I found a place myself.”

“What place?”

“A retirement home. I'm going to take June Bug to do her tricks.”

“Oh,” Lindsay cried. “
That
sounds like fun! Can I come? Please?”

9

—

Jorie buzzed
them in — Mina and the girls and June Bug. She smiled until she saw Lindsay's bouquet, crazy in a good way, crammed with every type of flower. “Oh, dear.”

“My mom's a florist,” Lindsay said. “She lets me have the leftovers. I arranged it myself.”

“Give it to me,” said a younger nurse who was filling little paper cups with pills from bottles lined up on the counter. She was taller than Jorie, her light brown hair in a high ponytail. She took the bouquet from Lindsay and practically flung it on the nursing station counter without even putting it in water.

All the while, June Bug tugged on the leash wrapped twice around Nicola's hand, trying to make a break for the hall. The disinfectant-pee smell was just as strong today.

While Mina and Jorie chatted, Nicola read the names on the pill bottles. She smiled at the nurse filling the cups. The nurse frowned back. Lindsay just stood there, trying not to breathe, or so it seemed.

“I told the manager she was coming,” Jorie told Mina. “You should know he wasn't thrilled. He'll be less thrilled about two girls.”

“Maybe they shouldn't stay,” Mina said.

“No, no. It will be such a treat for the dears. I'm just saying in case he shows his face. He manages several homes in the city so they might not even see him.”

The nurse who was filling the pill cups piped up, “She said she would quit if they couldn't come.”

“I'd quit anyway if it wasn't for the dears,” Jorie said. “I've been working here three years. Then this past summer the place was sold to a chain. Mr. Devon's running all their homes. So, Nicola? Don't mind Mr. Devon if he shows up scowling and frowning. You won't be doing anything wrong. That's just how his face looks.”

The other nurse laughed bitterly.

“Do you want to stay?” Mina asked them, glancing around the place and sniffing.

Beside the nursing station was a lounge where a TV played the Shopping Channel. Three old people were there — one asleep in her wheelchair in front of the TV, one sitting at a table staring at a balled-up tissue, and a third very thin woman in an armchair talking to herself.

Lindsay, her hand over her mouth and nose, stared through the pink frames of her glasses at the old people who didn't seem to notice each other, let alone visitors with a dog.

“June Bug wants to cheer everyone up,” Nicola said, meaning she would stay, no matter how bad it smelled.

“I'll see you in about an hour then,” Mina said.

“You're leaving?” Nicola asked.

“I've got so much work.”

Jorie buzzed Mina out. Lindsay watched forlornly, but followed Jorie when she led them to the lounge.

It was only two days after Christmas, but there wasn't a tree. No decorations of any kind. Not even pictures on the wall, or plants. Just the blaring TV advertising a special cloth called the ShamTastic that could absorb twice the amount of spilled liquid as a regular cloth.

They went over to the old man sitting at the table. June Bug, who was much more interested in continuing down the hall, had to be dragged.

“Look, Mr. Eagleton!” Jorie said to him. “We have visitors today! These two girls. Nicola and — what's your name, sweetie?”

“Lindsay.”

Mr. Eagleton, who had gray hair and an unwashed smell, continued to gaze at the tissue on the table like it was a crystal ball. He didn't react until Jorie touched his shoulder. Then he looked up in slow motion and blinked at her with watery eyes.

“Can you pick her up?” Jorie asked Nicola, who scooped up June Bug and held her in front of the old man's face. His expression didn't change when June Bug stretched her neck out to lick him, but his mouth fell open.

“Do you want to say something, Mr. Eagleton?” Jorie asked.

He did, but he took a very long time to do it.

Finally, all three sounds dribbled out. “P…U…P.” They could hardly hear them for the excitement of the woman on the TV demonstrating the ShamTastic.

“Mr. Eagleton,” Jorie said, “I am most impressed! Did you hear that, Glenda?” she asked the other nurse, who was approaching with a tray of medications.

Glenda grunted.

Jorie told the girls, “Mr. Eagleton hasn't spoken for three months.”

“Doesn't anyone visit him?” Lindsay asked, as they moved to the old woman slumped in front of the ShamTastic commercial. She was the same bibbed woman Nicola had seen the day before.

“It's hard for families when their loved ones don't know them anymore. So, no. They don't visit very often.”

“Or ever,” Glenda chirped.

Lindsay said, “That's terrible.”

There were other smells, too. Nicola placed them now. The smell of nothing ever happening. The smell of being lonely and forgotten and confused.

The bib woman wouldn't wake up so they took June Bug over to the woman in the armchair, whose gray hair stuck out all over her head. Jorie called her Mrs. Cream.

“Decimand,” she muttered, smiling and looking pleased. “Decimand. Decimand.”

“What does ‘decimand' mean?” Lindsay asked.

“It doesn't mean anything,” Jorie said.

“Then why is she saying it?” Lindsay's face had turned the same color as her glasses frames.

“It's her condition, sweetie.”

“Decimand!” Mrs. Cream exclaimed when June Bug was lifted up for her to see. With a thin shaking hand, she patted the top of June Bug's head.

“Are you strangers?” a voice bellowed behind them. They all swung around, June Bug still in Nicola's arms.

“There he goes again,” sighed Glenda, who was helping Mr. Eagleton swallow his pills.

The old man from yesterday, Mr. Milton, staggered straight for Nicola, staring. His eyes were bright blue under the spiky feeler brows.

Nicola set June Bug on the floor, expecting the dog to rush over and greet the old man making his monsterish way toward them — one step, then a pause while he dragged the other leg forward.

Instead, June Bug shot past Mr. Milton and down the hall, dragging her leash behind her.

“Mr. Milton,” Jorie said, linking her arm with his unmoving one. “She's not a stranger. It's Nicola, who you met yesterday. Remember? And her friend ­Lindsay.”

Lindsay shrank back.

“Nicola's little dog is going to … Goodness. Where did the dog get to?”

Nicola pointed in the direction June Bug had disappeared, then hurried off with Lindsay trailing.

Beyond the nursing station was a long, slippery hallway lined with doors, all of them closed. Before one of them, June Bug was sniffing, making deep snorkeling sounds, trying to figure out the odors. Even Nicola, who couldn't smell half as well, noticed the flowery perfume.

“What's she doing?” Lindsay asked.

“There's something in there she wants,” Nicola said. “It must be the kitchen.”

Before Nicola could grab June Bug's leash, the dog tore off again. She slowed briefly to sniff under the next door, then ran on.

At the third door, she scratched the way she did when her ball or one of Jackson's Matchbox cars rolled under the furniture.

Nicola caught the leash just as Jorie came around the corner. Immediately, June Bug started pulling Nicola back over to the first door.

“Is this the kitchen?” Nicola asked Jorie.

“It's Mr. Fitzpatrick's room.”

“Can she meet him?” Nicola asked.

“Mr. Devon said not to disturb anyone sleeping. I'm pretty sure Mr. Fitzpatrick's sleeping. It's all he does.”

The slow-moving Mr. Milton reached them then. He lifted his good arm in its baggy flecked cardigan and pointed at the door.

“Help! Get them out!”

“This was what I was afraid of, girls,” Jorie said. “He gets so agitated.”

“Help!” he boomed, as Glenda came brisking around the corner with a little paper cup of pills in one hand and a glass of water in another.

“Pill time, Mr. Milton,” she sang out to him.

Mr. Milton looked right at Nicola. “Help! Don't forget!”

“You girls wait at the front,” Jorie said. “I'll buzz you out as soon as we get him settled.”

Nicola and Lindsay watched the green pajama-ed pair lead Mr. Milton down the hall. They turned to go.

On their way to the front entrance, pulling the reluctant dog, they passed the nursing station. Behind the counter were the stools where Jorie and Glenda sat, cupboards and file cabinets. A phone. A wastebasket.

And filling the whole wastebasket was the bouquet Lindsay had brought, stuffed in head first.

Lindsay shrieked when she saw it. “That's the meanest thing I've ever seen! And this is the awfullest place!”

In the lounge, Mrs. Cream and Mr. Eagleton slowly swiveled their heads and stared.

Then Glenda appeared. Lindsay pointed to the discarded bouquet.

Glenda shrugged. “Flowers aren't allowed.”

“But why not?”

“Because Mr. Devon said. He makes the rules. I just follow them.”

“Is he allergic?” Lindsay asked.

“He's either allergic, or he really, really hates flowers.”

Glenda stepped behind the nursing station counter and pressed the buzzer to unlock the doors.

The two girls dressed in the vestibule. “That didn't go so well,” Nicola said.

She invited Lindsay to come over and plan what to do the next day.

Lindsay said no. “I'm going home to lie in my Feel Better Box.”