Sean Griswold's Head (21 page)

I switch from seething mad to pure elation in five seconds flat. I hadn't thought of the fire alarm as a gift, but I'm not about to take it away. She doesn't get many presents that aren't picked out by her dad's girlfriend.

Jac's enthusiasm is pure electricity. My body jolts up in response and I dance. Even if we're in full view of nearby traffic. Even if I'm supposed to be in class. Because she didn't tell! And I'm dancing with my best friend.

I remember the therapy right in the middle of the moonwalk. “Wait! We have to end the fight. I brought something for you. To show I'm sorry for being such a massive jerk.”

I retrieve the plastic bag I hid on the other side of the dogwood and dump the contents onto the grass. “
Hoppy
Easter!”

Candy-filled Easter eggs spill onto the grass. Jac picks one up and shakes it.

“I kind of bombed Valentine's,” I say. “And you've tried to help me, really. I'm not going to lie—your uh … level of involvement did freak me out, but that's how you are and I love it about you. Usually.”

“And usually it's okay, but I probably did go too far. I do that sometimes.”

“Wait, let me tell you about the present. So since I bombed Valentine's and Easter is coming up, I thought we could have an egg hunt. Just, you know, for fun.”

She cracks open an egg and chews a jellybean. “It's perfect.”

“It's nothing,” I say.

She seizes me in a giant squeeze. “I really am sorry I pushed you into Sean. I'm sorry about all my pushing,” she whispers, suddenly serious.

“I probably never would have talked to him if you hadn't.”

“But I know how you are and should have gone at Payton pace, not Jac speed.”

“It's fine,” I say.

“He's a great guy.”

“Yeah, well, I let him go.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“I … I don't know. I had to do it, and now it's like … it's like I'm broken. I miss him so much.”

“It'll work out. You deserve each other. You deserve the best.”

I close my eyes and squeeze her harder. “
We
deserve each other.”

She squeezes me until I can't breathe. “How much longer are we going to hug like this?”

We let go and laugh, then squeal and hug each other again.

PFE

March 19 9:32
PM

I'm not going to spend a bunch of time dwelling on this because the damage is done, the water is under the bridge, the road has been crossed, the song has been sung, BUT—Jac did not tell Sean. And unless Ms. Callahan is the world's worst counselor ever, she didn't either. There is one other person who knew about the PFE. I would kill him for disclosing my secret, but he is already kind of sort of dead.

For Grady's sake, I hope Ms. Callahan does a session on Anger Management issues
real
soon.

TWENTY-SEVEN

PFE

March 20 10:54
AM

Have you ever lost a pair of jeans and thought they were gone forever and you bought other jeans that look good in their own way and made you happy but nothing fit you like THOSE jeans, but then you find those jeans and you realize your butt looks even better in them than you remembered, as if your butt was made for the jeans and the jeans were made for your butt?

Jac and I are back. I don't know who is the butt and who is the jeans.

Metaphors definitely aren't my thing.

Jac and I go right back to our old life the next day. The life where we meet in between classes, walk home, e-mail, and talk on the phone. Our life before Sean.

Although, we can never totally go back to how things were because I am still keenly aware of his existence. Every time I see his big old head bobbing across the quad, I feel like a phoenix—bursting into flames only to cool off before rising up and doing it all over again. But I did it to myself. It's a choice I have to deal with. It's this choice that a small part of me deep, deep inside thinks might have been wrong. Because either way, I'm not happy without him. He was my daily fix. Now there's just another hole I have to figure out how to fill.

So, with the aid of Jac, I go into full 007 mode with the Great Plant Idea. We find Miss Marietta's home address online, which is only a quarter of a mile away from me. Jac insists on writing the card, which works for me since my dreams lately have been haunted by its endless blankness. My job is to pick up the plant, which I do with the help of a begrudging Trent. Jac meets me at the front of our teacher's housing community at 1500 hours.

“Do you have the card?” I peek out from behind one of the plant's massive spikes.

“You didn't ask that right. Code, remember?”

I roll my eyes. “Has the white dove landed?”

“Roger. Are you ready to deliver the green goblin?” Green goblin = well, duh, right? Our code talk is more obvious than Pig Latin.

After a secret handshake and three strolls around the block to “stake out the place”—in case, you know, Russian spies try to thwart the delivery—we ease the plant onto the doorstep. Jac places a gloved finger over her lips while she rings the doorbell. Then we sprint to the hedge lining the right side of her yard. We should just run away altogether to avoid getting caught. It works better if Miss Marietta doesn't know who the plant is from. The anonymity, the awareness that it could be anyone in the universe—or at least our high school—thinking of her is what she needs. When she comes back to school, she'll look at each student and wonder, and the mystery will shift the focus. It will ease the pain. At least, that's how it would work for me if I were in her shoes.

I hope I'm never in her shoes.

She opens the door. She's in a fuzzy orange robe, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Even from across the yard between tree branches, the grief is etched on her face. She plucks the card out of the plant, which is complete dessert for us. I thought she'd just take the plant in. This way we get to see her read the card.

When she first starts reading, she keeps looking at the plant, like she's trying to connect what the card says with this massive creature invading her doorstep. But halfway through her face relaxes. Her eyes dart across her yard, but never settle on one thing long enough for her to see us behind the hedge. Then she picks up the plant, gingerly touching the spikes, and the last thing we see before she closes the door is the faintest suggestion of a smile.

“That was amazing.” I breathe out. “What did you write?”

I glance over at Jac and see her face is streaked in tears. “That stuff you said about plant cells,” she says.

“No one reacts like that to plant cells. Not even Miss Marietta.”

Jac lies down on the grass, her arms crossed over her body like a corpse. The tears are still falling, down the corner of her eye and into her hair. “I added a little bit more.”

“Like …”

“I just said I know what it's like to lose your dad.”

You know in those old cartoons how there's always an Acme anvil hitting the characters when they finally realize something? I felt like a whole factory full of those things were knocking me out. Of course she knew what it was like. Jac hadn't always been Jac, the girl with the divorced parents who gets to do whatever she wants. She used to have a dad and a mom who, okay, fought a lot, but there was some sort of unit there. Having a dad gone because he can't help it is one thing. Having a dad leave by choice is another.

“You do know how it feels, don't you?”

She hiccups. “Yeah.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You helped me out when he left,” she says. “It feels good to be able to help her.”

We both don't say anything, thinking the same thing. I say it first. “My dad isn't gone.”

“Nope.”

“I should stop acting like he is.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don't know how to do that.”

“Yes you do.”

And suddenly I'm overwhelmed by another feeling, but this one lifts me up instead of weighing me down.

PFE

March 24 8:17
PM

This gazillion-kilowatt lightbulb is just glowing over my head. I now have a new force to focus all my energy on, now that that other focus thing we don't need to mention is un-focusable.

I'm doing it. The MS 150, a bike ride to help fund MS research. Have I mentioned my dad has multiple sclerosis, a crippling disease that affects hundreds of thousands of Americans every year? There isn't a cure—yet. (I got that blurb from the brochure. I find the
yet
part to be particularly motivating. See? I'm totally serious. Signed up and read an official brochure.)

So, it's all come full circle. Ms. Callahan had me think about other things so I might eventually get to my dad's MS, and I'd say a bike ride in his honor is pretty dang close.

Jac's helping me look for sponsors. That girl should really look into something like event planning or car sales. Maybe Sean's mom can get her into realty.

Uh, I hate when he pops up like that. Like the cork on the champagne. Right in my eye.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The weather warms enough for me to bike outside again, and I'm at Valley Forge every afternoon. Although I feel him in every loop and curve I ride, I don't physically see Sean once. He's probably found a new route. Which makes me glad, obviously, because it sucks seeing him. But also … well, it sucks
not
seeing him.

I go to my dad's office, my mom's book club, the Y, my school office, a practice for my old basketball team, anyplace where the name Payton Gritas might be familiar so I can raise more money. Each cent donated gives me more accountability to finish the ride and makes me less likely to quit when I'm alone on that bike with nothing but the thought of why I'm there to begin with to keep me going.

My mom and dad leave for San Francisco the Friday before spring break so they can see the Specialist, the mighty man who will hopefully wave his I-have-a-bazillion-dollar-degree wand and make some magic happen. Dad finally got to take the patch off, though the vision in his right eye isn't fully restored. He still has the cane—he doesn't use it all the time, but it's gut wrenching to watch him when he does. Yet, even as I watch him hobble into his car, there's a tiny feeling nibbling inside me. Despite everything I've seen him go through, I still need to believe that he can get better. I still hope.

The last day of school is filled with word searches and videos and other teacher time wasters. I get called down to the office during final period. Ms. Callahan is standing behind her desk when I get there. A blue striped bag, decorated with a not-so-cute cartoonish duck, sits expectantly in front of her. She claps when she sees me and motions toward the gift.

“I just wanted to give you a little present before your big race,” she says with a benevolent smile.

“Uh, thanks!” Please don't let it be a muumuu. I pull each sheet of green tissue paper out of the bag and fold it neatly next to the gift. When there's nothing between me and Ms. C's token of thoughtfulness, I close my eyes and reach inside. My hand closes around something furry and I open my eyes to see what looks like a dead rodent. I drop it on the desk fast.

“What is it?!”

Ms. Callahan scoops up the fur ball and holds it up to the sunlight leaking through her blinds. “This is Fuzzy.”

“I can see that it's fuzzy. Does it have rabies too?”

She laughs and tosses it to me. “It's not alive, Payton.”

It's not. It's a toy mouse, the kind filled with catnip that has a little bell jingling inside. The fur is matted, and one of the button eyes is missing. She's given me a used cat toy. I'm taking counseling sessions from a woman who thinks this … this thing is an appropriate gift idea.

“A mouse. I'm lost.”

“It belongs to Mr. Nippers. Well, belonged. Now it's yours. I bought him a new Focus Object.”

“This? So … your CAT has a Focus Object?”

“I'm a big fan of them, if you can't tell. Mr. Nippers was mine after my divorce.”

“Divorce?” I ask in a croaky gasp.

“You're looking at the former Mrs. Otis Bartisqua. You can see why I went back to the maiden name.”

“Sure. But … wait. So you're giving me your Focus Object's Focus Object? I'm totally lost.”

Ms. Callahan motions for me to take a seat. “Otis and I were best friends as kids, high school sweethearts, got married in college. He knew me inside and out. And then he didn't. Somewhere along the line, we both let it go. I didn't realize how much until he served me with divorce papers. So there I am, thirty-eight and without my Otis for the first time in my life. I took to watching quite a bit of Food Network, and was on my way to buy one of those sharp Japanese knives I saw on a commercial when I saw Mr. Nippers in a pet shop window.”

She strokes the nearest picture of her beloved feline. “He was playing with that cat toy with such concentration, such focus. It's what I remembered my life being, all in a direct line, all working for a goal, before Otis left. So I bought him. Took him home. Ditched the Food Network addiction and gave everything I had to Mr. Nippers. He became my Focus Object.

“I would watch him for hours playing with that toy, swatting at it, hunting it. He never seemed to care that he couldn't ever conquer it. It was the pursuit, the promise that kept him going. And by shifting all my energy onto Mr. Nippers, it gave me time to heal the Otis wound. We're friends now. And I've involved myself in more things. But I still have Mr. Nippers. It wasn't one or the other. I got both.”

“But I'm not over my dad and I don't have Sean—my Focus Object.”

“While I do believe your apparent choice in a Focus Object was … unconventional, to say the least, I still think he might have helped. Mr. Nippers didn't make everything with Otis go away. That's not the point of a Focus Object. If it was, you wouldn't be any different than a cutter or a bulimic, transferring your pain into something else. It's not a permanent fix. But sometimes, Payton, you have to take the scenic route, even when there is a straight road ahead of you.”

I jingle the mouse in the palm of my hand. One eyeball seems to wink at me. Mr. Nippers will find a new Focus Object. This race is mine. The fact that I might run into the former object of my affection, well … I'll deal with that when I have to.

Mom and Dad are set to call that night and give us the word from the almighty Specialist. The thing with MS is, there is no Plan A or Plan B. What applies today might not tomorrow. They might say my dad is all right, to stick with his meds, or maybe switch his meds and the flare-up should resolve itself. Or that he's gone to the next level, that he will continue to deteriorate, that sensation will never return. And they might give him a big “Heck if we know” and send him along his uncertain way.

Trent has finally faced his fears and asked Yessica out, and true to her name, she complied. He's sitting at the kitchen counter, tapping his nails on the granite. They're well-groomed, along with the rest of him—hair slicked back but not greasy, button-down blue shirt and designer jeans. His nervous energy shifts from staring at the phone to staring at the clock. Mom and Dad still haven't called and it's already seven. He's set to pick up his workout goddess in thirty minutes. I plop down next to him and join in the fidgeting. Trent was supposed to drop me off at Jac's a half an hour ago so we could go to the pre–bike ride bash put on for all the volunteers and cyclists. I don't mention to Trent that we're late. The phone call takes precedence.

After hours, or minutes or seconds—time is lost at this point—the phone rings. We stare at each other, frozen, until Trent snaps out of it and grabs the phone on the third ring.

“Dad? Oh.” He hands me the phone wordlessly.

“Hello?”

“Payt? I tried your cell. What's going on?”

“Jac. We're waiting to hear from my dad. Do you want to just go and I'll meet you there?”

“Roger.”

“Who's Roger?” I ask.

“It means ten-four.”

“Huh?”

“You are so not James Bond. Have Trent drop you off at the party. I'll see you there.”

I hang up and look again at the clock. A quarter to. Trent is going to be late. “Jac's going to meet me at the party, so you can just drop me off there. Whenever we go.”

Trent looks at the clock too and shakes his head. “I'm going to have to go now.”

“What?”

“Hey, whether it's me or you picking up the phone, it doesn't matter. I'm going to go get Yessica, we'll come get you, and then we'll drop you off at your thing.”

“You're leaving me here alone?” My palms begin to itch and I alternate scratching each hand. “Can't Mom call your cell or something? I mean, you're the one who knows what's going on; if they tell me news, it might not even make sense. Don't you think—”

“I'm going to get Yessica. You're the one that wanted to be included on all the family stuff, remember? The phone can't bite.”

Yes it can. At least, the info relayed by the phone can. Twelve minutes later it rings again. Each ring is like the hiss of a rattlesnake, warning me not to come any closer. But thanks to Trent's sudden absence, I have no choice.

“Hello?” I say in the faintest whisper of a voice.

“Payton?” It's Caleb. He sounds far away. Probably because he is. “Hey, is Trent around?”

“No, he just left.”

“Oh, can you have him call me? Or I'll try his cell. I need to talk to him about something.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah, oh … so you know all about that?”

“Duh.” How does he not know that I know? He left the country, not the galaxy.

“Mom said they talked to you, but she never told me everything they said. So how do you … how do you feel about it?”

“How do you think I feel?”

“Righto. How's he doing?”

“He had to go to a Specialist.”

“Righto again.”

“What's with the righto?” I ask.

“I think I picked it up from my roommates.”

“So accents are contagious.”

“Highly.” He pauses. “How about everyone else? You know, this may not be my place to say this because I'm not the one who is sick or even there but … I told them to tell you about Dad. Back when they first told Trent and me. I knew you could hack it. I knew you could help them.”

I switch the receiver to my other ear, then switch it back. Honestly, I was like nine when he graduated high school. He always seemed so much older and so smart and I was just a kid. But he's treating me like an adult.

Caleb's sigh stretches across the Atlantic. “Trent moving home and Mom quitting work … I don't know if it's really helping. That might be awful of me to say, but I thought about moving back and decided it wasn't right. It's supportive, don't get me wrong, but I realized Dad isn't on his deathbed. He can live with MS. I think he'd prefer that anyway, not feeling responsible for changing everyone else's life. The thing now is, we—the family—all need to live with it. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah. It does.” The phone beeps. “Hey, I've got another call, can you hold on?”

“I'll let you go. Just tell them to call me. And hey, if you ever need to call too … I know we don't usually talk but … it's nice hearing a Yank accent every once in a while.”

“Sure. Cool. Thanks.”

He clicks off and the other line beeps again.

I don't even have time to think about what just happened, how there's a sibling living on another continent who I hardly know who gets me better than anyone in this house. Having that conversation with Caleb, which might actually have been our first one as quasi-adults, gives me a little push to click over.

“Hello?”

“Sunshine?” Dad. Well, we're just getting right to the point here, aren't we? No Mom to buffer the news. Almost three months spent not going THERE, to the unknown of MS and now we're about to go THERE. And I only hope we can still go back.

I swallow. “How's San Fran?” I ask, artificially bright.

“Well,” he begins slowly. “We haven't seen much of it. We went straight from the airport to the hotel to the doctor.”

Sirens wail in my brain. It's coming. I can't stop it. “Oh, well, is the weather nice?” I'm peeling the Band-Aid off hair by hair.

“Rainy.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.”

My dad laughs. “What for?”

“The rain. You hate rain.”

“It didn't bother me because I was inside. With the doctor. The Specialist.”

Dun dun dun. The Specialist. I hold my breath. Years pass. Babies are born and grow into men. Empires rise and fall. And finally, after seventy eternities end, I exhale. “What did he say?” says a tiny voice I know is mine, although I'm so disconnected from my body I don't feel like I actually asked it.

“Well, there's good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”

“I don't want any news,” I answer automatically. Robotically. I'm a machine that's just had a spontaneous system override. I explode. “Call Trent and tell him.”