All the Answers (11 page)

Ava thought about calling Sophie to tell her, but she didn't think she'd want to know if it had been one of her parents. She felt bad enough knowing about Sophie's dad and kind of wished she could un-ask that question.

Ava dropped the pencil in the desk drawer, popped a reed in her mouth, and put together her saxophone. She ran through some scales to warm up and played the
Titanic
song. It would
have been pretty if she hadn't seen the movie. But now she knew it was about icebergs and death and drowning, so she couldn't like it, no matter how much Miss Romero wanted her to play it.

Ava tried Miss Romero's song again, too—the frantic one the pencil said she liked. Ava had to slow it down a lot to get the right notes, and it sounded stupid that way. She put her saxophone down and flipped through the other music. It all looked too hard, or too slow and sad.

Ava flopped the music onto her desk and saw her notes from the nursing home again. At the bottom was the name of the musician from Grandpa's first wish: Johnny Hodges.

She went back to the kitchen. “Okay if I look something up on the computer?”

“Sure.” Her dad had the TV on. The newspeople were starting to guess which candidate would win Ohio.

Ava sat down and saw she had an email from Sophie. The subject line had Jason Marzigliano's name with a bunch of exclamation points and little hearts made out of less-than signs and threes. The body was a single run-on sentence. When Sophie was excited, punctuation was the first thing to go.

OMG Jason was at gymnastics when I got there and he said hi to me and I said hi back before he went over to the vault but then all I could think about was what the pencil said and I was just like EEEEEEEEEEE and so I might ask him to go out with me soon so I don't have to wait!!!!

Ava smiled. Sophie's crazy energy was contagious sometimes. She closed the email, typed “Johnny Hodges” in the search box, and found out right away that Grandpa's wish wasn't going to work out. Johnny Hodges was a jazz musician who had died in 1970. Grandpa must have heard him play a long, long time ago. But not before the days of video cameras, apparently, because one of the search results was a link to a video. Ava clicked on it.

Johnny Hodges actually looked a little like Grandpa, with bushy eyebrows and a scruffy mustache. He had more hair, though, and his hadn't turned white when this video was taken back in the 1960s. He played alto saxophone, like Ava.

Scoo-ba-doo-ba-doo-wahhh …

Only not like Ava. Johnny Hodges's sound was mellow and smooth, as if the music that poured out of his horn had never had a worry in its life. “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” the song was called, and Johnny Hodges played it with his whole body, like the music was working itself right up from his toes and he just had to move a little to bring it out.

Bwahhh-ba-doo-be-doo-wooo …

Ava left the video running and opened another window to see if she could find the sheet music.

“Hey, Dad … If I give you two dollars, can I use your credit card to buy music for this song?”

“Sure.” Dad was still glued to the election coverage. He pulled out his wallet and waved the card in her direction.

Ava downloaded the song, printed it, and went back to her room. She didn't sound like Johnny Hodges when she was sight-reading the piece, but she didn't sound bad either. She wondered if maybe a little of that chilled-out feeling was getting out of the song and into her.

Right when she was taking a breath, she heard the kitchen door close and stopped to listen for Mom's voice. She hoped her parents wouldn't start arguing about the election again. But it was quiet.

Ava looked out her window and saw her dad walking down the sidewalk in the streetlight. She looked at her alarm clock. It was a quarter of nine. Late to be going for a walk.

Ava's eyes fell on the paper with her questions about Sophie's dad and the answer about why he'd left his family, and her stomach twisted. Ava liked Mr. Chafik. He loved to sing and laugh, and he was funny like her dad. How could somebody so nice do something like that?

And Sophie hadn't known a thing about it. Ava looked out the window at her father, hurrying along in the streetlight, and a big, awful what-if rushed into her gut and squeezed out every last note of calm. She grabbed the pencil.

Where is my dad going right now?

It didn't answer. Stupid, stupid, stupid free will! Ava slammed the pencil down on the desk.

What if he wasn't just going for a walk? What if he was using his dumb free will to go somewhere else, to see somebody who
wasn't her mom so he could fall in love with her? Ava felt like she'd eaten way too much sugary junk food. Her heart was racing, and her stomach hurt, and she
knew
she was being ridiculous, but she couldn't make her body stop feeling awful and couldn't make her head stop thinking those things, so she raced downstairs, threw on her sneakers, and went outside.

“
Mehhh!
” Lucy yelled at her, but Ava forced herself to be still. She waited, holding the screen door behind her so it wouldn't slam. Then she raced down the steps and squinted into the dark. Her father was at the end of the block. If he was just out for a quick walk, he'd turn right and do the loop they always did on their bikes—the one that went past the park. That's what he would do. He'd turn right and loop around the block by the park and come home where he belonged. Ava held her breath and waited for him to turn right.

He turned left.

So she raced down the block after him.

Ava flew to the corner, then paused and peered down Maple Street. Her dad was walking down the sidewalk whistling—
whistling!
—as if taking a walk in the dark was a perfectly normal thing for him to be doing. He went past the market, crossed Champlain Avenue, and kept walking. Where was he
going?
Ava followed him, keeping her distance, staying in the shadows.

Finally, her dad slowed down and turned into the driveway to—the fire station? Why would he be going there?

And then she remembered it wasn't just a fire station today. It was a polling place. Her mouth dropped open.

“Dad!”

He whirled around and held up his hands. “Ava! What are you doing here?”

“What are
you
doing here?” Ava pointed to the campaign signs that lined the sidewalk. Her voice shook, but the words
spilled out. “You're
voting
! How could you? You made a deal with Mom. You promised!”

“I just … I was watching the news, and—”

“Evening, Rich!” Mr. Varnway called as he headed to his car. “You and Alisha trying to be the last two votes before they count 'em?”

“Just me tonight, Ed.”

“Oh, no, she's here.” Mr. Varnway pointed to the fire station. Yellow light poured from the open door. “Saw her in line on my way out. You two are ships that pass in the night, eh?” He chuckled and waved and got into his Jeep.

Ava looked at her dad. “Did … did you guys change your mind and decide you'd vote after all?”

“No.” He pressed his lips together, looked at the lit-up door, and then turned back to Ava grinning. “Come with me! We're going to surprise Mom.” He took off running toward the door, and Ava followed, but she had a pit in her stomach that felt like it was in the process of growing into a whole, humungous avocado. Was he going to confront Mom right here? If they got into a fight right in front of everybody …

“Over here. Shhh!” Dad waved for Ava to hide at the side of the door, pressed against the building as if they were on some kind of police stakeout.

Her mom's voice drifted out of the building. “Well, tell Raymond I said hello and I hope he's feeling better. Have a good night.”

High-heeled footsteps clicked across the floor, and just as they got to the door, Ava's dad jumped in front of it. “Nice night for democracy, isn't it?”

Ava's mom jumped about a mile and then just stood there, eyes huge, staring at her dad.

Ava was blinking like crazy. She wanted to hide. She wanted to crawl between the cracks in the bricks like an ant so she wouldn't have to see them argue. No, she wanted to run—to run away and keep running so she wouldn't have to hear them either. But her feet felt cemented to the sidewalk, and she couldn't go anywhere, so she braced herself for the worst.

Her dad burst out laughing.

Big, loud belly laughs.

And then her mom laughed, too. “How did you
know
?”

“I was … I was …” Her dad was laughing so hard he couldn't catch his breath, and the voting-place volunteers were starting to stare.

Mom's eyes got even bigger. “You didn't know, did you?! You came to vote, too, you stinker!” She shook her head, then held out her arms, and Dad wrapped her up in a big hug.

Ava stared. They didn't look like they were about to get divorced, but the pencil would probably say you could never tell about these things. Free will and everything. Still, she couldn't help feeling a little better.

“Come on, Ava.” Her dad held one arm open. “Family hug, and then you can come with me to cancel out Mom's vote.”

Ava went into the booth with her dad and helped him fill in the little bubbles while her mom waited. Then Ava slipped her dad's ballot into the counting machine, and they left. Ava still felt full of nervous prickles, but neither of her parents seemed mad on the walk, so she tried not to worry.

It was past nine when they got home. Dad went to say good night to Emma, but Ava stayed in the kitchen while Mom started the dishes.

“At least you really did get dish soap,” Ava said, reaching for a towel to dry. “So it wasn't a total lie.”

Mom sighed and squirted some soap into the sink. A few bubbles floated up toward the ceiling. “How much have I damaged your image of me tonight?”

Ava thought about that. “Not much,” she said. If Dad wasn't mad, she figured it was okay. “But I'm never going to forget the look on your face when Dad jumped out at you.”

Mom laughed and handed Ava a plate to dry. “Never is a mighty long time.”

Ava smiled. That was a quote from
Peter Pan
, almost. As usual, Mom had made up her own version. “It's supposed to be an
awfully
long time,” Ava told her. “It was also an
awfully
funny expression on your face, so I think it's fair to say I'll never forget.” She wiped off the plate and slid it onto the pile in the cupboard. “Hey, Mom … I was wondering about something.”

“What's that?”

“Why don't you and Grandpa talk very much?”

“Grandpa doesn't talk much to anybody.” Mom held out a handful of dripping silverware.

“Yeah, but … it seems like …” Ava dried the forks and spoons and put them away. She should have planned this conversation better. It wasn't like she could tell Mom what the pencil said. “I don't know. It just seems like maybe you're mad at him or something.”

“Nope.” Mom ran some more hot water into the sink. “We just don't see things the same way.” She turned off the water, reached over with her sudsy hands, and gave Ava a quick hug. “Get ready for bed, okay? I'll come to read in a bit.”

Ava nodded. She'd have to try asking about Grandpa another time. She was tired anyway.

Ava went upstairs and changed into her pajamas. She was on her way to brush her teeth when she heard music coming from the kitchen. Jazz music. Ava figured her parents would be watching election results on TV, but this sounded like that Johnny Hodges song she'd found online earlier.

She crouched at the top of the stairs in her pajamas and peered through the spindles on the railing. The TV was off. But there was Johnny Hodges, playing on the computer screen again, all
da-ba-doo-ba-doo-wahhh-wahhh
, with his eyes half closed, lost in the music, while his drummer grooved away behind him.

And there were her parents—her father, holding her mother close, Mom's tight black curls tucked under the blond-gray stubble on Dad's chin. They were smiling. Dancing while the soap-suds sat in the sink.

Ava brushed her teeth, went to her room, and picked up the pencil.

Are Mom and Dad really okay with each other and as happy as they look right now?

“They really are,” the voice answered.

This time, Ava believed it.

What's up with Mom and Grandpa?

The pencil didn't answer. Ava figured she'd phrased the question wrong, but she was too tired to try again. At least her parents were happy. The polls were closed, so their big arguing season was over.

Who won the stupid election?
Ava wrote.

The pencil answered. Ava wasn't sure when the official results came out, but once they did, Mom wasn't going to be happy for long.