Tell Me (3 page)

“It makes five hundred bubbles a minute. Aggie's grandson finally got off his butt and rigged it up.”

Mim walks toward us. And you have to understand what happens to my grandmother's face when she sees me; it's like the sun shines through her. I stand in the perfect warmness of that and give her a long hug.

“All right now, Anna, let me look at you. . . .”

I spin around as bubbles land on my face.

“You're looking fine, girl.”

“You are too, Mim.” She's wearing her growing clothes—dirty jeans, dirty boots, and her big blue-and-white checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her eyes are royal blue; they don't miss much.

She puts her arm around Mom. “How are you, honey? You've had a time.”

Mom bites her lip, squares her shoulders.

Excuse me, but I've had a time, too!

We walk past Mim's white pickup truck with
FLOWER PEOPLE
written in curly purple letters. We head up the steps to her green front door, which is always open. Nobody locks their doors here except the sheriff.

Her old dog, Bean, comes up wagging his tail. I drop my bags, kneel down, and rub him till my hands get tired; he rolls on his back so I can get his stomach. “Okay, that's enough for now.” Bean looks hopefully at Mom.

Mim shakes her head. “It's never enough with this dog. I'm trying to teach him contentment, but he lives for the moment, won't take the long view.”

We walk in, past a bright purple wall with a sign:
NO WHINING
.

Piles of books are everywhere. There's a red Chinese chest next to a yellow rocking chair, a fluffy green rug, and above the fireplace in a silver frame:

 

GO FORTH AND SET THE WORLD ON FIRE

 

That's what I want to do!

I flop into the hugging chair and pull the fluffy arms
of the chair over my shoulders. It's big, deep, and soft. There's something almost human about this chair. Next to a painting of sunflowers that Mim painted is a picture of me and my parents smiling. Mom and Dad had just had a big fight right before that was taken.

You can't always trust a photograph.

But you can trust a hugging chair. I close my eyes and feel about six, the best kind of six, when you're young enough to jump into a lap and get a bear hug and be covered with a blanket and know, just know, that everything is going to be all right.

I open my eyes and see Mom standing there. I look at her, really look, the way Mr. Dez taught us to see things as actors.

Going past her deep brown eyes.

Her sunburned nose.

Her feather earrings.

Her bright green shirt, her white jeans.

So, if I was my mom right now . . . how would I be feeling?

I'd be scared at what's happening to the marriage.

I'd be grateful Mim is here so Anna can be in a safe place.

I'd be worried about the future, angry at my
husband, and so not looking forward to living with Barry, his wife Pru, and all those eggs.

I'd be wondering about everything.

I'd be trying to seem brave.

I get up from the hugging chair and beam a mega smile at Mom.

“I'm okay,” I tell her.

Basically, this is true.

She studies my face.

I raise one eyebrow, wiggle my ears.
You doubt me?

She laughs, wipes the tears away.

“Brownies?” Mim calls from the kitchen.

You need to understand the power of these brownies. Dad says if astrophysicists discovered this force, life as we know it would change.

“Maybe just one,” Mom says.

Ha!

Mim comes out of the kitchen with a tray of brownies. A tear rolls down my mother's face. “I'm sorry. I didn't come here to cry. . . .”

Maybe you did, Mom
.

Mom and Mim are in the garden talking, sitting in the deep blue chairs under the arbor covered with grape
vines. But I'm in an even better place: on the roof deck of Mim's house. It fits into the flat part of the roof; there's a ladder leading up and a thin white railing. There are big outdoor pillows up here. I'm on one of them, eating blue-ribbon brownies. My grandpa Mel built this deck. It's the best place to quiet your heart.

I look across from the roses by the split-rail fence to the rich, green grass. The sprinkler is busy watering; the sunshine is better here than anywhere. I look out past Mim's fence to the next house over—Dr. Gudrey's house. It sits up on a hill surrounded by trees. A yellow butterfly flits by.

Mom and Mim look like they're talking about something superserious. I wonder if they're talking about me. I wave, but they don't see. It's so quiet, not like Philadelphia. My grandpa came up here to think; he said it gave him a higher perspective. Grandpa Mel was a roofer, and he always looked at things from the top down.

“On the roof,” he'd tell me, “you see things differently. When you can get on top of a problem, you can begin to patch up the holes and the leaks that you couldn't see before.”

When Dad wondered if he should go back to school and get his teaching degree, he came up here to think
about it. Everything seemed to say yes, so he did and he taught seventh grade math for five years.

Then the school had to make budget cuts . . .

The brand-new teachers were let go . . .

And then Dad was laid off . . .

He changed after that.

He had to go back to being an accountant, which he hated.

He had to leave the thing he loved, the thing he'd worked so hard to achieve.

I wish my dad and I could sit here again like we used to.

And now I see a horse—it's far away, but it looks white with a black mane. There's a rider on it. The horse is racing across the hills, and it's like that person and horse are one great thing of speed.

I've been on a horse exactly twice. The first time went well, the second time I got thrown and sprained both wrists.

Mom said, “No more lessons.”

“Mom, that's breaking the rules. When you fall off a horse, you've got to get right back on!”

“No,” she said.

I love horses.

The sprinkler stops; the water droplets gleam in the light.

My phone pings. It's Lorenzo—he loves horses, too, as long as they're not moving. He gets extreme motion sickness.

His message:
This week's challenge: Do three things you've never done before. Are you in?

I smile, type:
Yes
.

Our friend Becca, who is away for the summer, too, writes:
Already done 4 things today I've never done before. I hate this camp
.

Lorenzo:
But have you done this?

I click on a photo of Lorenzo clinging to a horse on a moving carousel looking like he's going to lose his lunch:
Stayed on for 2 min/didn't puke
.

Me:
Awesome!!!!!

Mom calls from the garden. “Anna, I have to go.”

I feel a pang in my heart as I pocket my phone and climb down the ladder.

I wish she could stay longer.

She and I fold our arms the exact same way and look at each other. “We can do this, Mom.”

She smiles. “Yes, we can. And I expect great reports from you.”

I laugh. “Anna in Flowerland.”

I walk her out to the car, give her an intensely long hug. “Major bravery, Mom. That's what we're going for here.”

She salutes, gets in the car. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

And she's off.

And here I am, holding tight to major bravery.

It's only a separation,
I tell myself.

I picture my parents separating, like pan juices and fat do in a gravy separator. The fat comes to the top, the juices stay at the bottom.

We did a science video of this in school. I was a water droplet, Lorenzo was a hunk of fat. We had a fight because fat and water don't mix—Lorenzo went one way and I went the other. We got six hundred and eighty-one hits on our video, mostly from me and Lorenzo checking to see if anyone was watching it.

Mim walks out. “This week,” I tell her, “I need to do three things I've never done before.”

She laughs. “That won't be a problem.”

I wake up early. Bean is licking my toe. Peanut never does this. I giggle.

From the kitchen Mim says, “I think he's bored.”

Bean gets his disgustingly gross tennis ball that he's been chomping on for years and presses it into my hand.

“I have to go to the bathroom, and then we'll play.”

Bean makes a disappointed noise.

“It's not like I go outside, lift my leg, and it's over.”

Another noise.

“Deal with it.”

Mim hands me a warm strawberry muffin as Bean and I head outside. Can I tell you how good this muffin tastes? Strawberries and brown sugar swirls are in every bite.

Bean is getting impatient. We walk down the path that circles Mim's garden. The daylilies are awake and open to the sun, the peonies are fat and pink, with ants crawling all over them. Baskets hang on the trellis that my grandpa Mel put up right before he died. Butterflies dance around Mim's daisies. She even has a mirror behind a tree that makes the flowers near the back door feel like they're right in front of you.

Bean whines.

“We're getting there. You can't rush in a magical place.”

We head down the stone path past the wisteria vines. We get to the clearing by the split-rail fence. Bean drops the ball and looks at me.

“How lucky do you feel today?” I ask him.

He wags his tail, I pick the ball up and throw it high. Bean jumps up and catches it in his mouth. This is his big talent. I throw it again—he catches it running, like a baseball player going for a pop fly. He rolls it back to me. I throw a grounder to the fence. He gets that one, too. He rolls it back to me.

There's a noise behind me.

“Whoa, Zoe.”

I turn to look.

A white horse with a black mane and black legs is standing there. A girl older than I am sits in the saddle. They come right up to the fence. She's got deep-green eyes and the longest eyelashes. I think this is the horse I saw when I was sitting on the roof deck.

“Don't come at her from the front,” the girl says. “She'll spook.”

I step to the side and look at this horse's head, the small pattern of black splotches on the neck. I want to touch her.

“Our grandmothers are friends,” the girl says to me. She points behind her to the house on the hill. Dr. Gudrey lives there. “I'm Taylor.”

“I'm Anna.”

Taylor nods like she knows that. She pats the horse's neck. “This is Zoe.”

I wave at the horse. “Hi.”

Taylor reaches down and hands me a piece of an apple. “Give it to her, but from the side.”

I do this. Zoe takes the apple from my hand.

I breathe out slow.

“You can rub her shoulder a little.”

I climb up on a split rail of the fence and rub Zoe's
shoulder. I haven't been close to a horse in a long time. “Good girl, Zoe,” I say. I remember being thrown. Zoe looks at me. Her eyes are so soft. I look down.

I've got some issues, okay?

But I keep rubbing. “How you doing, Zoe? Does this feel good?”

And now this horse brings her head close to me and puts it near my shoulder. I figure if this wasn't okay, Taylor would say something.

I stand here and don't move.

“How long are you here for?” Taylor asks.

“I don't know.”

Taylor nods like she knows what that's like.

Zoe nuzzles me. I didn't know horses do this.

“Do you ride?” Taylor asks.

“No.”

“You should ride,” she says. “There's nothing like it.”

Taylor makes a quiet noise and Zoe turns from the fence; a quick touch of the reins and Zoe starts trotting . . .

Then goes faster . . .

Taylor rides this horse like it's the easiest thing in the world.

I can't tell you how much I want to do that.

“That girl on the horse . . .” I say to Mim as she and I climb into the pickup.

“You met Taylor. Good. . . .” Mim backs out of the driveway. “She's one resilient kid. I do believe it was the horse that saved her.”

“Zoe?”

I wait for Mim to tell me the story, but she doesn't. She drives down the street and turns left by a painted unicorn.

I laugh. “I love that!”

“We have a lot of those around. Some towns paint cows, we paint unicorns.”

Past a gazebo now, past a park with a sign,
CRUDUP GARDENS
, past more unicorns, another huge road sign:

 

CRUDUP'S COUNTRY MARKETS

YOU
CAN
ALWAYS DEPEND ON US!

 

Mim pulls into the back of Flower People, her shop, the best place for flowers anywhere. “Anna, my girl, are you ready to touch lives?”

I laugh. “Always.”

Mim throws a crazy purple scarf over her shoulders.
“That's the right answer.”

Mim's in action, doing a dozen things at once.

A guy, maybe sixteen, comes in holding mum plants. “The funeral procession starts at noon.”

Mim nods and puts two bouquets together. “Get me the mint and the catnip.”

What?

The guy hands these to her, and she puts them in the bouquets.

“Anna, say hello to Burke.”

“Hello to Burke,” I say.

The guy smiles. “You're the actor.”

I shake my hair dramatically. “Yes.”

Burke looks at his list, looks at Mim. “Cassidy's needs as many dogwoods as we've got, Mirando's now only wants pink roses for the wedding . . .”

“They need to stop changing their mind.” Mim groans.

“And,” Burke continues, “Carl Bristol called and wants to know if he can water his cactus with coffee.”

“What kind of coffee?”

Burke looks at his paper. “French roast.”

“Tell him once a month, no more. Anna, Burke here can put up an arbor one-handed. My kind of man.”

Burke smiles. He's got light blond hair and an almost- beard. He's wearing jeans, sandals, and a green Flower People T-shirt.

I'm standing by the indoor fountain looking at the pots and baskets hanging from the ceiling. Mim points at me.

“Girl, you've got big deliveries to make today.”

“I do?”

“They require a person of your unique gifts.”

Burke laughs in a way that makes me nervous.

I ring the doorbell at Leona Cushman's house with my elbow because the vase of roses I'm holding is so big—it's an “I'm Sorry” bouquet sent to her from her husband, Harold.

I don't know what Harold did, but Mim said it's my job to sell the apology.

A lady opens the door. “Mrs. Cushman?” I ask.

“Yes . . .” She looks at the flowers and smiles.

Flowers aren't all she gets this morning.

I hand them to her, take a big gulp of courage.

You can do this, Anna.

My mouth feels dry, but I need to get over that.

“Woo woo . . .”
I sing.

Now I start swaying.

 

He's sorry.

Woo woo woo.

Reall
y so
rry.

Uh-oh!

Let the flowers show how much he cares.

Woo woo woo.

He's sorry!

Woo woo . . .

 

I go for the big finish, throw my hands out . . .

 

Wooooooo!

 

My voice cracks on the high note. I hate when that happens.

I wrote this little song in the car. If Lorenzo was here, we'd have harmony. It's so much easier to sing with somebody else.

Mrs. Cushman gives me a big tip and shouts, “You've outdone yourself, Mim!”

Mim waves from the truck, and we're off to, I'm not kidding, the pet cemetery.

“No singing on the next one,” Mim warns. “Look
solemn even though you're a dog person.”

“Meow.”

One down on Things We've Never Done Before.