Don't Make Me Smile (7 page)

“It doesn't seem fair, does it, Charlie?” said Dr. Girard quietly. “You're not the one who caused any of this, but you're the one who's feeling all the hurt.”

Suddenly, I felt tears coming into my eyes. It's embarrassing as anything to cry in front of strangers. I kept my head down so he couldn't see.

“Do you have a Kleenex?” I asked. “I think there's something in my eye.”

Dr. Girard handed me a whole box of tissues off his desk. I blew my nose.

“I must be catching a cold,” I said.

Finally, I looked up. “So how much time do you think it will take before I feel better?”

“I won't kid you, Charlie,” he said. “It's not
going to be quick. But there are certain things that you can do to help speed things along.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like telling your parents what you're thinking, and not keeping your feelings all locked up inside of you like I did,” he said. “Keeping everything in only makes it hurt worse.”

“Yeah, well, like I told you before, I've already said some pretty mean stuff.”

“I know. But remember,” he said, “there's a big difference between ‘telling' your feelings and ‘yelling' your feelings. Eventually, you're going to need to start talking to your parents more calmly about things, Charlie. Calmly, but
honestly.
”

He stood up. “I'm here every day. Monday through Friday, plus most Saturdays. If you ever want to talk to me again, just give me a call and we'll set it up. I mean it, okay? You can call me anytime.”

He reached out to shake my hand. Whenever a grown-up shakes my hand, it always makes me self-conscious. I never know how hard I'm supposed to squeeze. If you squeeze too tight, a lot of grown-ups will make some dumb comment, like, “Wow, that's quite a grip you've got there, tiger!” I hate it when they do that.

Anyhow, this time I must have squeezed just right, because Dr. Girard didn't comment at all.

When I left the office, the secretary gave me a card with his number on it. I shoved it in my pocket.

My father came over and put his arm around me. We walked outside to the truck.

“So how did it go?” he asked. “Are you still mad at me for bringing you?”

At first, I wasn't going to speak to him. But then I thought about what Dr. Girard had said about honesty.

“I think it was really rotten for you to bring me here without telling me, Dad” I said. “At least you could have been
honest
about it. I thought you were taking me out to breakfast.”

My father knew I was right. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I know I should have told you, but I was afraid you wouldn't come.”

True. Very true. But I didn't admit it.

“Listen,” he said. “It's still not too late for some breakfast. Why don't we go over to my apartment and I'll fix some scrambled eggs.”

I couldn't let him off too easy. “No, thanks,” I said. “I have a hard time eating over there.”

Dad drove me home without saying another word. When I got inside, I went straight to my
room. I didn't cry or anything this time, though. Instead, I took out Dr. Girard's card and looked at it.

If any of my friends ever saw it, they just wouldn't understand.

I walked to my wastebasket and tore it up.

Before I did, I memorized the number.

T
WO WEEKS after I first met Dr. Girard, it was Easter. With all the problems that were going on in my family, I had almost forgotten about it.

To tell you the truth, Easter isn't one of my favorite holidays anymore. It's better than nothing, but that's about it.

A lot of holidays seem to lose their fun when you start getting older. Easter is one of them. For me, Easter was way better when I was little. I really loved the whole Easter Bunny thing back then.

I guess there are a lot of little kids who never
take the Easter Bunny seriously. I mean, when you think about it, trying to believe that there's a giant rabbit hopping all over the world delivering eggs isn't that easy. Actually, it would probably make a lot more sense if there was an Easter Chicken. But when I was little, it didn't matter. I was one of those kids who believed whatever my parents told me. If they had told me that there was an Easter Lizard, I would have believed that, too.

When I finally found out that the Easter Bunny wasn't real, I really took it hard. And guess who told me? Good old MaryAnn Brady.

She came to school right before Easter vacation and said her mother had told her the Easter Bunny was just make-believe. She said it was really your parents who did all the basket stuff. I bet her mother
also
told her to keep that information a secret. But as you can see, even when she was little, MaryAnn was a giant blabbo.

Anyhow, when I got home that day, I ran to my mother and asked if what MaryAnn had said was true.

“Is the Easter Bunny real, or is it just pretend?” I asked.

Mom stopped what she was doing and looked at me.

“Why?” she asked. “Did someone tell you it wasn't real?”

I nodded. “MaryAnn Brady,” I said. “She said her mother told her that the Easter Bunny was really your parents.”

“So how do you feel about that?” my mother wanted to know. “Would you be upset if I told you that the Easter Bunny was Dad and me?”

“No,” I said. “I wouldn't care a bit.”

Mom smiled. “Well then, I guess that means you're old enough to understand,” she said. “MaryAnn was right. The Easter Bunny is really Dad and me.”

My mouth fell open.

“Oh no!” I yelled. “Oh no! Why did you have to tell me that? YOU JUST WRECKED MY WHOLE EASTER!”

My mother was stunned. “But, Charlie,” she said, “you just told me that you wouldn't care.”

“I lied!” I said. “I really
did
care. And now it's all ruined! You spoiled my whole holiday!”

I was a very weird kid. It took me a week before I finally settled down. And if you think that was bad, you should have seen me when I got the news about Santa.

Anyway, ever since then, Easter has lost most of its thrill for me. In my opinion, once you've looked in the basket and eaten the ears off the chocolate rabbit, the excitement is pretty much over.

My mother knows how I feel about Easter. But for some reason, this year she kept trying to make a big deal out of it. She kept saying stuff like, “Only six more days until Easter, Charlie.”

“Am I getting a basket this year?” I asked her. “I might be getting a little old for that kind of stuff, you know.”

Mom misunderstood completely. “Of
course
you're getting a basket,” she said. “You'll never be too old for an Easter basket, Charlie. Never.”

And that was that.

On the day before Easter, my mother went to the grocery store. When she came home, it looked like she had bought about a million eggs and one of those egg-dyeing kits. I'm not a big fan of coloring eggs, by the way. But since Mom had already bought the stuff, I didn't have a choice.

She boiled the eggs and called me when everything was ready. She really seemed excited about the whole operation. When I went into
the kitchen, I saw that she had five cups lined up on the counter. In each cup, there was a different color dye. I decided to get right to it and get the whole thing over with.

After I had dyed one egg in each color, I started to leave.

“Is that it?” asked my mother. “Is that all you're going to do?”

“I did one in every color,” I answered. “How many was I supposed to do?”

My mother went to the refrigerator and pulled out two big bowls. “I boiled three dozen eggs, Charles,” she said. “You've still got thirty-one more to go.”

Thirty-one more? Oh no, I thought. Not thirty-one more! What in the world were we going to do with all those eggs? I hoped my mother didn't think I was going to
eat
them all. I don't even like hard-boiled eggs. The yellow part is all dry and pasty, and the white part doesn't have any flavor at all.

“Why did you cook so many?” I asked.

She winked. “It's a surprise,” she said. “You'll find out tomorrow. Right now, just finish coloring them.”

It took me about an hour to finish dyeing all the eggs. I tried to jazz up a couple of them by
putting on some stickers. Every egg-dyeing kit in the world comes with a bunch of dumb-looking stickers. Usually, they're pictures of baby chicks pushing little wheelbarrows. You've probably seen the kind I mean. They always look real cute on the front of the egg kit. But as soon as you put them on your own eggs, they bunch all up and look awful.

“Okay, I'm done,” I said finally. “Is Dad coming over tomorrow? Is that the surprise?”

“No, your father's not the surprise,” said Mom. “I've got something else planned.”

Then she smiled and winked again.

I hate it when my mother winks at me. It was okay when I was little. In those days, I used to try and wink back. But now that I'm older, I just find it embarrassing.

When I woke up on Easter morning, I have to admit I was kind of excited. It wasn't about the Easter basket, though. I just couldn't wait to see what kind of surprise my mother had planned.

I got out of bed and hurried to the kitchen. My Easter basket was stuffed full of chocolate rabbits and jelly beans. I thanked Mom for the candy, but just as I suspected, it seemed a little babyish.

I looked all around. “So where's the big surprise?” I asked.

“It's coming later,” said my mother. Then, believe it or not, she winked at me again.

“Mom?” I said. “There's something I really need to tell you. Dr. Girard said that if something bothers me, I should talk to you about it calmly and honestly.”

My mother looked worried. She sat down in the chair next to me. I guess she thought it was something about the divorce.

“What is it, Charlie?” she said. “Tell me what's on your mind.”

“It's just that I wish you would stop winking at me,” I said. “It makes me feel ridiculous.”

Mom stood back up. She didn't say anything, but she definitely looked annoyed.

“I didn't mean to make you mad,” I said. “But at my age, being winked at makes me feel like a fool.”

“Good. Fine. I'll never wink again,” she said.

She left the room in a huff. I never realized that winking meant so much to her.

After that, the day passed pretty slowly. Time always passes slowly when you're waiting for a surprise.

By about two o'clock, I started to wonder if maybe my mother had called off the surprise completely. Maybe she was even madder about the winking than I had thought.

That's when I heard the doorbell.

“Yes! This must be it!” I said right out loud.

I ran to the front door and pulled it open.

There stood Hank.

Hank is one of my mother's cousins. She has three of them. Two of them are really cool. The other one is Hank.

We don't see Hank very often. He lives about a hundred miles away. It's what I like best about him.

Hank is a total cornball. You can tell he doesn't have any kids of his own. He's always saying the kind of stuff kids hate. You know, like calling you “little man” and junk like that.

When I saw him standing there, I was stunned for a second. I just stared.

Hank pushed his way into the house. “Hiya there, Chas!” he said loudly.

As soon as he was inside, he picked me up and swung me around.

I hate being swung around. I hate it almost as much as I hate being called Chas.

After he put me down, Hank stuck out his
hand for me to shake. “Put 'er there, big guy,” he said.

I shook it.

“
Oooeee
!” he hollered. “That's really some grip you've got there, tiger!”

“I'll go get Mom,” I said. Then I turned and ran full speed ahead to my mother's room. I hoped she wouldn't be upset. She usually doesn't like it when company drops by unexpectedly.

When I ran in, she had just finished fixing her hair.

“Mom, you're not going to believe this, but your crazy cousin Hank just showed up at our front door!” I said. “He's out there in the hall waiting for you!”

My mother smiled. “I know, Charlie,” she said. “It's perfectly okay.”

“
Whew
,” I said. “That's a relief. I thought maybe he had just dropped by or something.”

“No. I knew he was coming,” she said.

“Well, you better get out there and say hello,” I told her. “I'm going to be in my room for a while. Call me when the surprise gets here, okay?”

Mom's face went funny. “What did you say?” she asked.

“I said, ‘Call me when the surprise gets here.' ”

Mom frowned. “Charlie,” she said. “My cousin Hank
is
the surprise. He drove down to spend Easter with us.”

I was hoping I hadn't heard her right.

“Hank?” I asked. “Hank is the big surprise?”

“Yes,” she said. “I called him to spend the holiday here.”

“But … but why?”

“Because I thought it would be nice if we had someone over here to share our Easter dinner with,” she said.

“But why?” I asked again.

“Because I didn't want you to feel lonely,” she said. “I thought we should have family around us.”

“Oh,” I said.

I guess I should have tried to act happier, but
oh
and
why
seemed to be all I could come up with.

Mother put her arm on my shoulder and we walked back to the hall. Hank was still there. He picked Mom up and swung her around. Then the three of us went into the living room and sat down.

“Did you get the eggs ready?” Hank asked my mother.

“Sure did,” she said. “Charlie dyed them all himself.”