The Absolute Value of Mike (14 page)

Gladys? Past? What was she talking about?

“Well, of course we're going to help you, Karen! We all want Misha home. Everything will be fine. You take care now. Bye-bye.”

“What's up?” I asked as she closed her phone and dropped it back in Junior.

“Oh, dear. Poor Karen. Her father had a stroke, so she has to go to Ohio and take care of him and her mother. She's all upset about that, and about leaving town when everyone's trying to help her.” Moo pulled on her hoodie strings. “I hope everything still works out all right with Misha.”

I almost gagged on my cookie, and clutched the edge of the table. “Misha? Why wouldn't it work out?”

“Karen's the organizer and I'm not sure how well the rest of us will do without her. She already called Past, who said he'd do what he could do, but . . .” She waved her hand. “And then there's poor Gladys.”

I was still reeling from the idea of Misha not getting adopted. “What about Gladys?”

“Karen says she's very upset. Gladys is sensitive about . . . family issues because of her own. It's as if she put all her hopes for a family into helping Misha and Karen make one.” Moo still clutched her hoodie strings and stared out the kitchen window. “When she's upset, she likes to go down to the lake and think. She always sits in a spot near our house. I wonder if she's there now. . . . Of course, I can't leave my cookies in the oven or they'll burn. Poor Gladys.”

I stood up. “I can go and see if she's there.”

“Oh, would you, Mike?”

“Sure. Um, what do you want me to say?”

She patted my arm. “You'll think of something, dear, I'm sure.”

It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness outside, which was my excuse for why I tripped twice walking down the hill toward the lake. It wasn't because I was nervous. Really.

I heard the rippling of water and the splashing plops of fish or frogs before I actually saw Gladys. She was sitting in a little heap on the shore near a scrubby bush. I didn't want to scare her by walking right up to her and surprising her, so I called out, “Hi. It's me, Mike.”

Gladys turned and nodded. “Hi,” she said softly.

I walked over and sat on the pebbly ground next to her. “Moo told me about Karen.”

She looked out at the lake for a while before picking up a stone and throwing it in. “I knew it would never work.”

“What?”

“Adoption. It sounds good. It doesn't happen like it does in movies, though.”

“Hey, my best friend was adopted from Russia. It happens. I've seen it.”

“Maybe in other places or for other people. Not here.”

“Why not?”

She gazed across Lake Revival, looking small and not at all tough, now that you couldn't see all the piercings and tattoos. She rocked gently. “We're a bunch of misfits, not families. I mean, look at the name of our town. Do Over. We can't get it right.”

“Not the first time, maybe, but there's always a second chance.”

“At having a family?” She said it with such scorn, it was like she knew what failures Dad and I were at being a family.

“Sure,” I said, but my voice didn't sound at all convincing.

She threw in another stone. “This whole project is sunk.”

“Don't say that! It is not!”

“Look, you're sweet, but you don't know anything about—”

“I don't know anything about what?” I stared at her, my eyes narrowed. “I don't know anything about family? About little boys? Who don't have moms? About . . . Misha?” I threw my own stone into the lake. Hard. “What's there to know, huh? Misha needs a home. Karen wants him. That's all there is. It's simple. And no one's going to stop it.”

She sighed. “There's no artisan's crew to make the money—”

“We're making money! We're selling stuff. We're almost up to five thousand now.”

“And we need forty. Now Karen's gone and there's no one to lead the project.”

“There are people around.”

She stared at me. “Like who?”

I started to suggest Moo but stopped. She wasn't the most organized person. Past? I didn't think Gladys would accept a homeless guy as leader, even though he didn't seem like your typical homeless guy. “How about the guys at the park who make porch pals?”

“Oh, come on. Haven't you heard their nickname? ‘The three stooges.' You want to put them in charge?”

Gladys wasn't helping the situation. But maybe she should. “What about you?”

“Me?” She wrapped her arms around herself and looked away. “Let's just say I'm not exactly an expert on building families.”

“Who is?” I asked.

“Probably anyone but me,” she said, her voice shaky.

When she started sniffling, I almost croaked. I hadn't meant to make her cry. Oh, man, now I'd done it. I was supposed to be making her feel better! The words were out of my mouth before my brain had a chance to check them out. “I'll handle it. I mean, if everyone's okay with that.”

What was I saying? Did I think this was some computer quest game,
Save the Orphan,
where I was playing the role of Dumb Kid: practically an orphan in his own home; knows ex-orphan who now has a happy family. Situation: hopeless. Likelihood of Success—

“Really?” she asked softly. “You'd do that?” Her eyes turned to me and her blinking slowed down.

Maybe if she'd laughed, I would've laughed, too, and it would've all been over. But she didn't. She looked at me . . . not like I was a dumb kid, but a guy . . . a guy who was pretty cool, capable, even clever. A guy who could actually save Misha and bring him home. “Yeah,” I heard myself say. “Don't worry. It'll happen. I'll make it happen.”

She stared at me with big, dark, glistening eyes. I felt like we were moving closer and closer to each other. My heart started beating fast and my breathing sped up so much, I tried hard to keep from panting. Was this going to be a kiss? My first real kiss? Was this how it happened? It was like watching a YouTube, except I was in it.

“Snicker-DOOOO-dles!” Moo's voice rang out from the house. “Gladys! Mike! Come get some SNICKERDOODLES!”

The YouTube screeched to a halt. Gladys and I looked at each other and smiled, then grinned, then outright laughed.

—a question where math is used to figure out the answer

 

 

I
wasn't laughing the next morning. Everyone—Karen, Gladys, Moo, Past—said I should be the one. The leader. The big boss. The head honcho. Now a kid's life was in my hands. I stared at the photo of Misha with his LEGO bridge. I'd set the picture Karen gave me on my nightstand with my own blue LEGO brick weighing it down. I didn't want it to fall or fly away in the breeze from the fan. It was such a huge commitment. Like I was bringing this kid home all by myself. How was I going to do that? I mean, sure, others would help, but the bottom line was, it was up to me. I was responsible for this kid's life. If I didn't do my job . . . well, it wouldn't get done.

I shivered on my bed, even though it was already a hot day. It made me freeze to think of things like all the unfinished paperwork in Karen's adoption file. She called her file of papers a “dossier.” I felt like some kind of James Bond who had to secure the secret file or someone's life would be . . . over. Except that, unlike Bond, I had no idea what to do and no Q with a lab of tools to help me. Also, I'm pretty sure James Bond didn't have dyscalculia to mix him up. I never heard him call himself agent Seven-Double-O instead of Double-O-Seven.

I asked Moo to drop me at Past's office while she made a scrapple run. I paced in front of his bench while he followed my movements like he was watching a tennis match, nodding at every point I made.

“So, Poppy's not making the boxes and it doesn't look like he's going to. No one else can make them without his help. I tried but that was a total joke. Moo wants to bake stuff and sell it but we don't have that much money for ingredients. She can still do the vinegar because it's cheap and she grows the herbs herself, but are those really going to sell? Gladys is knitting bling but refusing to sing, even though Moo says that's what Gladys really wants to do with her life. Porch pal production, at least, is going well.”

Past smiled and gave two thumbs-up.

“But we still need almost thirty-five thousand dollars. The LEGO bridge is barely past Italy, not even at the Atlantic Ocean yet. And there's only fifteen days left until the deadline. Wait!” I stopped pacing. “Does she need all forty thousand by then? Because she can't buy her ticket until she knows when she's supposed to go to Romania. Maybe we don't need to raise it all.”

“Actually,” said Past, “you can buy an open ticket, and she needs to show the adoption agency that she has all the necessary funds by the July fifteenth date.”

I started pacing again. “We also need to finish the dossier of adoption papers. If something goes wrong with the paperwork, it'll ruin everything! Will people even listen to me if I call the embassy or immigration service or adoption agency? Do you think my voice is deep enough? Do I sound like an adult?”

“Whoa, Mike, I—”

“Karen said we could pay a service to do it but that costs a lot of money. But maybe it's worth it. There are numbers involved and I could totally screw that up!”

Past looked at me, almost hurt. “Mike. Aren't you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“You can always ask someone for help.”

I threw my arms in the air. “Who?”

“Me.”

I let my arms drop and didn't say anything.

“Yes, me,” he repeated, scowling.

“Okay,” I said. Why not? At least he was an adult and people might listen to him. Over the phone, no one would know he was homeless. Plus, he didn't have math disabilities, as far as I knew. “We need to figure out what paperwork has to be done. I don't know the first thing about adoptions.”

“Before she left last night, Karen brought her laptop and files to me, so—”

“You?”

“Is something wrong with that?”

“No,” I said quickly, although I didn't state the obvious.
You're homeless, dude.
“Um, it's just that you don't have a great storage place for them.”

“What do you think the plastic bags are for?”

He pulled his cart around and uncovered it, showing me the large box of files as well as a laptop. “Let's get to work.”

We used Karen's computer, jiggled the Pringles can for Wi-Fi access, and brought up the adoption agency's site that gave all the steps to organize a dossier. We found a checklist and went through the box of files Karen left, checking off what she had already and figuring out what she still needed.

“She's got her criminal background check, but she still needs to get fingerprinted,” Past said. “It looks like that can be done at any police station, so we need to call her and remind her to go do that while she's with her parents. It's a good thing she already did her home inspection and had all her visits with the social worker. But someone should take these documents to Harrisburg to get the Apostilles.”

It was like he was speaking a foreign language. “What?”

“The documents need special seals, and the courthouse at the state capital is the only place it can be done. I'd rather they be delivered than use the mail and hope the right office knows what to do with them. If they got lost, it'd be months before we'd get new ones.”

“We can't afford months!”

“I know. I'll figure out how to take care of that. Meanwhile”—Past held up a thin file—“she seems to only have two letters of reference. She needs three.”

“Great. Who are we going to get to do that?”

“I'll write one.”

I tried to think of a tactful way to say it. “Dude. Are you sure that's a good idea?”

He raised his eyebrows.

“I mean . . . what are you going to put as your address?”

“I have an address.” He leaned forward and looked down the street, as if searching for an imaginary house. “I'll type it up on her laptop.” He started typing immediately.

“Maybe we can print it out at the bank,” I said, trying to see what he'd typed. “We need to go see Gladys anyway, to hand in Moo's direct deposit form.” And maybe Gladys could come up with someone other than a homeless person to write the letter of recommendation.

“Hi, Me-Mike!” Guido called.

He and the other stooges sat down at the nearby bench with cups of coffee and a newspaper.

“We hear you're in charge.” Jerry grinned at me.

“How did you hear?”

Guido laughed and nudged Jerry. “He still thinks he's in the big city. He doesn't know we all know each other's business.”

I read Past's letter over his shoulder as he typed. It sounded pretty darn good. So did his letterhead.

“I borrowed your job title,” Past said.

I laughed. “Community organizer? I'm not a community organizer!”

He smirked. “I think you are.”

“Good thing, too,” Guido said, lowering his newspaper to look over at us. “Do Over Day is a week from tomorrow.”

Past stopped typing and looked at me. “I forgot about that. Who's going to take care of it?”

“Why are you looking at me? I don't even know what you guys are talking about.”

Guido rolled his eyes at Jerry and Spud. “Do Over Day. You know, we have it every year.”