Butter (27 page)

I said so to one of my doctors later that morning and got a lecture about the difference between starvation—which was
how he apparently classified my prehospitalization diet—and true, steady weight loss. I understood that, and I was willing to do it right, now that I saw it could be done at all. But it wasn't just about seeing the underside of four hundred pounds again. The fact that I was significantly
below
that already sparked something inside of me, some faith in myself. My waist was smaller, but my world suddenly felt bigger.

I wanted to climb to the top of my mountain, not just around the side of it. I wanted to make it through an entire football scrimmage on my feet. I wanted to go a whole set onstage with the Brass Boys. And I wanted to get started right away.

Unfortunately, the doctors insisted the only place I was going right then was to another floor of the hospital. They wheeled me out of the ICU, down an elevator, and into a corridor with a lot more personality than the rest of the hospital. The walls were plastered with colorful cardboard cutouts, and even my new room had fun patterned sheets. It didn't take long for me to figure out I was in the pediatric ward.

I might have protested being placed with all the kiddies, but I'd already noticed something else too. As soon as I'd been delivered to my new room, the nurses who had wheeled me in walked right back out again. I was alone for the first time since I'd woken up.

Guess I said something right to the psych lady after all.

Mom and Dad arrived later with two backpacks full of magazines and books and paper and pens. “You can have sharp objects now,” Mom explained, but I thought I noticed a hint of doubt in her voice.

When both bags were empty, I looked up at her. “No laptop?”

She sucked her lips, so her mouth turned into a thin line. “I don't think it's a good idea.”

I held up a hand. “I promise to use it for good, not evil. Seriously, Ma, if the hospital doesn't think I'm going to kill myself with one of these pens, I don't see why you think I'm going to do it with a laptop.”

Mom answered by zipping up the backpacks and marching out of my room.

“Not everyone thinks this is quite as funny as you do,” Dad said. His hands were behind his back in a stern pose. “While you're here in the hospital, your mom and I think the focus should be on you getting better. But when we get home, we're going to have one very long talk. Understand?”

I nodded.

“Until then …” He pulled his arms from behind his back and revealed something brassy and beautiful in one hand. “I thought you might like to have this.”

He set my saxophone down gently on the end of the bed. “I miss hearing it around the house.”

“Yeah right.” I grinned.

But Dad didn't smile. He perched on the edge of my bed and buried his eyes in my sax. “Your grandpa taught your uncle Luis and me to play football. He was our coach up until high school. Did I ever tell you that?”

I shrugged.

“And your grandpa's dad taught him how to play baseball.”
Dad brushed the sax with his fingertips. “When you picked up this …”

We were silent for a moment.

“You could coach me in algebra,” I suggested.

Dad shook his head and smiled. “No, I missed my chance to be your coach. But if it's not too late, I'd like to be a fan.”

I swallowed hard to fight the lump in my throat. “I'd like that too.”

He touched my arm for a moment and then turned to leave.

“Dad?” I called out.

He stopped in the doorway and looked at me.

I hesitated. “Why are we so—Well, how come we're not more alike, you and me?”

Dad smiled. “We're not so different.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and backed out of the room. “I still go to the mountain too.”

I celebrated getting unhooked from all the freaky medical machines by taking my sax for a stroll around the pediatric unit. I ended up in a corner room crawling with kids and one frazzled nurse. I meant to back right out again, but the desperate look on the nurse's face held me. The sight of someone over three feet tall seemed to give her permission to sit for a minute. She took a chair in the corner, and I greeted the little people.

“What's that?” A girl with freckles and one arm in a sling pointed at my sax. I dug that about kids—they got right to the point.

“It's a saxophone.”

“What's a sassafone?” a sandy-haired boy in a wheelchair asked.

“It's an instrument, to play music.”

“What kind of sounds does it make?” The kids started to crowd around me.

“All kinds. Want to hear the best one?”

“Yeah!” A few kids cheered in unison.

I lifted the sax and delivered a noise that was the unmistakable imitation of someone passing gas. The room exploded with hysterical laughter. The nurse in the corner raised one weary eyebrow but said nothing. I made another noise, higher pitched but definitely in the same family. The kids on the floor rolled around and clutched their stomachs. The ones on their feet threw their heads back or hopped around and cheered. Most of them screamed, “Do it again! Do it again!” But one boy quietly asked my name.

“Everyone calls me Butter.”

“Why do they call you that?” the boy in the wheelchair asked.

“Because he makes that saxophone there sound as smooth as butter.” The Professor was leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed, surveying the scene.

“No he doesn't!” the freckle-faced girl said. “He makes it sound like
farts
.”

The laughter erupted again.

“Farts?” the Prof asked.

I responded by putting the sax to my lips and letting out a low, flapping sound that ended with a little
toot!

That got another round of giggles, and even the Professor couldn't hide a grin.

“As entertaining as that may be, can I steal you away?”

My audience protested in high, whiny voices until I promised to come back the next day.

Back in my room, the Professor tried to apologize for sending me home from Logan's, but I assured him he was blameless. I wondered how many people were now carrying around guilt about what I did—how many people I would have to convince that I did this to myself.

The Professor dropped a piece of paper with a name and a phone number on the bedside table. He pointed at it. “I spent an hour talking you up to that gentleman today.”

I plucked the paper off the table. “Who is it?”

“He's on the admissions board at Juilliard. He is also a phenomenally talented saxophonist.”

“And?”

“And he'll be in town next month, and he's willing to hear you play. If he likes what he hears, he could recommend you for an audition to Juilliard.”

“Prof, I'm not applying to colleges until next year, and I'm not sure if I even plan to study music.”

“Sounds to me like you weren't planning much of anything,” he said, suddenly sharp.

I swallowed but didn't respond.

“Your parents told me they weren't sure if you were coming back to school this semester, so I took it upon myself to make this call. You could get a GED and be a college freshman by fall.” He softened his tone. “It's just an idea, and of course it's completely up to you. You have the number. If you'd like to play for him, you can call and schedule the meeting yourself. I think
he would be impressed. You have an immense talent, Butter. Symphony of Flatulence notwithstanding.” He ended on a wink.

I thanked the Professor and sat looking at the paper in my hands for a long time after he left.

• • •

By the third day, I was itching to leave the hospital. All of my blood levels were normal, and the doctors said they were just keeping me for “observation,” which made me feel like an animal in a zoo. I visited the playroom every couple of hours, whenever I thought of a new sound I could make with the sax. I was returning from one of those trips when I smelled something familiar. I'd been so anxious to get home, I figured I must have imagined that aroma of Mom's pecan waffles. But when I rounded the corner to my room, Mom was perched on my bed, holding a hot plate.

I nearly got swept away in the smell, but I forcefully reminded myself of my plan to keep going with the weight loss. I steeled myself to tell Mom I couldn't eat her cooking anymore. But all I got out was: “Mom, listen—” Because right then, she lifted the lid from the hot plate to reveal something foreign. They were round like pancakes, but dark brown, and instead of swimming in melted butter and gooey syrup, they sat in a pool of thin caramel-colored liquid.

“It's a new recipe,” she said. She held up a magazine with a picture of a ham on the front and the blazing headline: LOW-CALORIE COMFORT FOODS. “I thought we could look through this and pick out some dishes that look good to you.”

I couldn't help myself; I went right to Mom and wrapped
her in a hug. Her tiny body almost disappeared in my arms. “It smells awesome, Ma.”

And it tasted almost as good as it smelled. I wondered how Mom had managed to make the pancakes taste like pecans without a nut in sight. Sure, the dish wasn't as good as, say, her candied yams drenched in brown sugar and butter, but it was more than food. It was a message from Mom: “I messed up too.” It was a promise to do better, and that tasted greater than anything.

Mom had come armed with more than breakfast. When I was done eating, she grabbed a bag from the window seat. I recognized the shape instantly and knew my laptop was inside. I sat up and stretched my arms out for the bag. “Gimme!”

Mom hesitated. “I don't think you should get on the Internet.”

“Please,” I begged. “I just want to play games and stuff.”

She finally relented and left me alone with the laptop. Of course the first thing I did was break my promise. I was checking e-mail within sixty seconds of Mom's leaving the room. Most of it was junk mail, but a message from Tucker caught my eye. I opened it and instantly smiled.

First of all, you are a jackass. Second, I'm glad you're okay.

The e-mail went on in that same vein, alternating between concern for my health and criticism for being so stupid.

Thank God someone called 911. I would have too, if I'd ever figured out the stupid password.

I finally found the real message buried at the end of the e-mail, and my smile slipped away.

Butter, I really am happy you're still here, but this is the last e-mail you're going to get from me, and I don't want you to write me back. I don't know when you'll read this, but by the time you do, I hope you'll understand. It's not because you broke the FitFab oath. It's not even because you did what you did. It's just that this is a critical time for me, and it's important that I surround myself with positive support. I can't worry about fixing others until I fix myself.

Well, who asked him to fix me? I blinked back tears and cursed whatever crackpot psychotherapist had fed Tucker those “it's not you it's me” lines.

I'm sorry, and I hope you get well soon. —Tucker

I closed the laptop. Mom was right; there was nothing good on the Internet.

I was just putting the computer away when I spotted something colorful—something Mom had not-so-discreetly tucked into the laptop bag.

I sighed and pulled out the pamphlets. Big bold letters on the front of the folded flyers read: “BARKER INSTITUTE. EDUCATION, ENRICHMENT, EMPOWERMENT.”

And abandonment
, I thought. But as bitter as I wanted to be, I couldn't really blame Tucker. He'd given me every chance; he
knew he was going in the right direction and he tried to pull me along, even when I fought him. But my compass was broken, and I'd insisted on moving backward. Even if I was headed in the right direction now, I couldn't ask him to wait up.

I flipped open a dark-red pamphlet and rolled my eyes at the pictures on the inside flap—before and after photos of former students. But the next page of pictures made my jaw drop. The classrooms were cavernous and designed in a theatrical fashion, with rows and rows of wooden desks looking down on the instructor's stage. It looked like the inside of an Ivy League college. The next photo was shot with a wide-angle lens, to capture every nook and cranny of the most beautiful music room I'd ever seen. Light streamed in through soaring arched windows and glinted off the many pieces of brass that filled the room. I tried to imagine the music made in that room and found myself involuntarily thinking
that
was a band I might want to be in.

I read the rest of the booklet with a little less scorn and found another shock on the back page. Three courses were listed under the heading “Family Education.” Mom had circled two: “Healthy at Home—rethinking your old recipes” and “Action/Reaction—your role in your children's health.” There was a big star scribbled next to the second one. I smiled at the thought of going to a school where Mom and Dad had to take classes too.

• • •

Finally, around four o'clock, I got the news I'd been waiting for. One of my army of doctors told me I'd be released the next morning. I went to let out a whoop, but it got caught in my
throat. I was supposed to be thrilled. Going home meant trading the creaky hospital cot for my comfy king-size bed. It meant Jell-O cups were out and Mom's tastier health-food recipes were in.

So why am I terrified?

Because the hospital was my sanctuary. As long as I was there, I was “sick” and had to be treated with kid gloves. The only thing I had to focus on was getting better; Dad had said so. But at home, it would be a different story. There would be explanations and apologies and promises. There would be decisions to make and the possibility of more mistakes. I seriously considered holding my breath until I passed out or doing something to get my blood pressure up—anything that would keep me in the zoo for a few more days of observation.