The Perfect Place (2 page)

We will take the back stairs, Mom tells us—someone might see us on the elevator—and hold our breath, praying we make not even one sound.

Mom pushes open the door to the stairs. The stairwell echoes like the inside of a tin can. First Tiffany and then me. Mom is last.

I know before my foot hits the first step that I should've stopped to put the dictionary in my backpack. Carrying it and trying to hold on to two dolls and a pillowcase full of clothes, my arms tremble and then burn. My muscles tell me to let go, and I do. Everything falls and hits the floor. The dictionary hits the hardest.

“Jesus Christ, Treasure,” Mom yelps.

My heart is beating somewhere in my throat and I'm ready to cry. But there's no time for that. When I reach down to gather the things as fast as I can, Mom stops me with a finger to her lips.

“Shhh!”

What did she hear? If Mr. Brown finds us here, he'll have every right to call the cops. Tiffany looks up at me from a few stairs below, stricken.

We all listen now. Silence. Mom swears. She never does that unless she's fighting mad.

“Sorry,” I whisper, as we pick up the things I've dropped.

Mom doesn't look at the stuff as she shoves what she can into my arms and takes the rest herself. But she doesn't get it all. There, just there, on the step right below me, is Dad's dictionary. I reach for it.

“Leave it.”

Mom stares down at it. Her face is unreadable.

“Leave it,” she says again.

I do. And feel something inside me break.

 

Mom helps us dump the rest of our things in the back of our Ford Explorer. The truck gleams blue and silver in the moonlight. Dad bought it used for Mom three years ago as a surprise, and she hated it from the moment she laid eyes on it, I could tell. She'd never said so until after Dad left this time. Every day now she says something about how it's so ugly it practically makes her eyes bleed. In goes my nebulizer, which Tiffany dubbed my asthma machine, followed by the pillowcases full of clothes from our bedroom and Tiffany's Disney Fund.

“Wait! I want Mr. Teddy Daniels,” Tiffany says, and Mom sucks her teeth because she forgot which pillowcase he was in. She finds him at last and thrusts him at Tiffany, who asks, “Did you remember to pack his clothes?”

“Yes,” Mom replies, and goes back to packing the truck.

“Are you sure?”

Mom whirls around.

“She's sure, Tiffany,” I say quickly to avoid a meltdown. “I saw her pack them myself.”

Tiffany nods, satisfied. I didn't see Mom pack Mr. Teddy D.'s clothes, but she probably did it before she woke us up. She'd never leave his stuff behind.

My eyes find the face of our apartment building. There's a plaque above the back door, and above it a dim, buzzing light. I know that the plaque reads
APARTMENT'S FOR RENT. FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL BROWN & ASSOCIATES AT 973-627-3746.
There was scarcely a time we went through the back door that Dad didn't stop and draw our attention to that plaque and what he called the “reckless apostrophe” in
APARTMENT'S
.

Mom finishes loading up the truck. She goes around the side and opens the back door, calling us over with a jerk of her head. We don't move.

“Come on and get in
.
”

We do as we're told, first Tiffany and then me. No fighting over why neither of us gets to sit in the front seat. No Mom telling us it doesn't matter because we're all going to the same place any old way. No words at all. We leave, as still and quiet as the night.

I remember the night before Dad left. We'd been living in Cedar Hills for months, and he'd come home from work, smiling and laughing, sometimes kissing Mom on the lips in front of Tiffany and me. For months he had nothing negative to say and then suddenly one day, something came up. It always started with something. This time it was sunlight.

“There is a pall over this house,” Dad said.

“A ‘pall'?” Mom asked. It was dinnertime. She paused, her fork halfway to her mouth.

“
Pall.
Something that covers and produces an effect of gloom,” I said.

“Exactly. Look around you.” Dad pointed with his knife. “We've got every light on, and it's still dim in here. Sun's not even down yet, and look at all the shadows. These dark walls. It's like living inside a coffin.”

“We can repaint,” Mom said.

“Let's paint the walls purple!” Tiffany shouted. If it were up to her, the whole world would be the color of grape soda.

“Purple's too dark,” Mom said. “What about a buttery yellow? Or sky blue? Bring the outside in?” She leaned forward in her chair, as though sitting on the edge of a cliff. As though if Dad said no to a new paint color, she'd pitch forward and fall. “Yes” would bring her back from the edge.

We had been in the Cedar Hills, New Jersey, apartment for almost eight months, longer than we'd stayed in the two before it. Mom had even unpacked everything. She'd never done that before. She usually unpacked what we needed—clothes for the season, silverware—and left everything else in boxes. But when we'd been in the apartment for six months, she unpacked the pictures and hung them along the hallway wall. By the time Dad started to talk about sunlight, the boxes had been broken down, tied up, and left outside for recycling.

“It's an issue of warmth,” Dad said, more to himself than to us. “Can't even feel the heat half the time.”

We could hear it, though. The radiators worked overtime, clanging, banging, and burping up steam, but I still had to wear my gray hoodie inside when the temperature outside went below sixty degrees.

“So, we bundle up, learn to adjust,” Mom said quickly. She grabbed her water glass and raised it in a toast. “To learning to adjust.”

We clinked glasses, everyone except Dad, who said, “Florida,” and slapped his hand down flat on the dining room table.

“That's where Mickey lives!” Tiffany cried.

“Yes!” Dad said. “And you know what else Florida's got?” He looked at Mom, who looked down at her plate. We'd gone from Newburgh, New York, to Wilmington in favor of Delaware's cheaper rent, and from Delaware to Philadelphia because Dad wanted to see more black and brown faces, and then to Cedar Hills, New Jersey, where Dad had been certain we would stay.

“Florida's got summertime, all year round.” He laughed. “I can see it now. I'll go on ahead and get a job working outside, independently. Wouldn't have to answer to anyone.”

“Is that what this is about?” Mom asked.

That's what it had been about when we left Philadelphia. Mr. High-on-His-Horse Helmond, who ran the autobody shop, had called Dad something that meant he had to quit on the spot, pack up the car that day, and move us to Cedar Hills.

Dad went on as though he hadn't heard Mom. “I'd find us a place a few miles from the beach, maybe in Miami. A new place for the Aggregate, with palm trees in the yard. What do you say, Treasure?”

That's what Dad called the four of us, an aggregate, a whole formed by blending different elements. I leaned forward in my seat, giving Dad 100 percent of my attention and shutting out Mom's scrunched-up face.

“Let's go,” I said.

“Yeah, let's go!” Tiffany said.

“Enough! We're not moving to Miami!” Mom yelled. “It's expensive, and we can barely afford to live
here.
” She stared at Dad as if she didn't recognize him. “I can't believe you're doing this again. I just can't. You're—” She stopped, shook her head.

Dad's voice dropped low. “Go on, Lisa, tell me what I am.”

Mom said nothing.

Dad slammed his hand on the table again, but this time there was no joy in it. I jumped. Tiffany jumped. The silverware on the table jumped too.

“You're a dreamer and a coward who can't face the reality of his own life,” Mom said, and hate erupted inside of me like lava. Tiffany started banging her feet against her chair.
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
Mom pressed on, relentless. Dad taught me that word too.

“So you'd just go down ahead of us, get this outside job, set up house, and send for us when you're ready, huh?”

Dad nodded.

“Of course,” Mom said. She stood and carried her plate to the kitchen. She was always telling us we had to take at least five bites of whatever was on our plates. Even if it was spider legs and fish tails. That night it was chicken, mashed potatoes, and collard greens. I wasn't sure Mom had taken even two bites.

She stood at the sink. “You know what I think?” she said.

“No,” said Dad quietly. “But I'm sure you're gonna tell me.”

“I am.” Mom whirled around. “I think you'll go to Miami to set up house and we'll never hear from you again.”

A feeling rose in my throat like I was trying to swallow a pill without water.

“That's not true, is it, Dad?” I asked.

“Is it?” Tiffany chimed in. Her eyes were big and shiny as half dollars.

After a pause, Dad said, “Of course it's not true. Your mama's just talking crazy because . . . Well, why are you, Lisa?”

“It's not me who's crazy,” Mom said, and then there was a silence so thick it felt like you had to wade through it. I couldn't stand it. I cleared my throat.

“Do you need your inhaler?” Mom asked.

I shook my head.

Dad got up from the table and went to sit on the living room couch. I followed. Tiffany hesitated, but she came at last and climbed into Dad's lap. I had to settle for sitting beside him. I rested my head on his shoulder. We didn't say anything while Mom cleared the table. I listened to Dad breathe, evenly at first, then harder through his nose, until at last he heaved a great sigh.

“Up,” he said, and climbed out from beneath us.

He started for the door.

“You act like we're a burden to some other life you want to live,” Mom said to his back.

He didn't answer. I knew where he was going: downstairs to sit on our building's back stoop. Dad turned. His eyes and shoulders seemed to droop as he stared at the three of us. As if we truly were too heavy for him to bear.

“I'm just trying to find the right place for us,” he said. “The perfect place.”

I believed him.

M
OM
pulls onto the parkway and jerks the Explorer into the center lane. She leans on the driver's-side door, staring straight ahead. The road rumbles beneath us, and I wonder about the other people out driving tonight. People coming, people going, just like us. Only I have no idea where we're headed or when we'll get there.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“For God's sake, Treasure, don't start with the questions already. I need to get my head together first.”

My mind starts whirring. I tick off on my fingers all the places we could go.

Dad sister's house in Minnesota, but Mom called Aunt Ruby a month after Dad left to see if he'd gone to her house, and Aunt Ruby said, “Of course he's not here.” And then she added, “What is it about you that my brother keeps running away from?” Mom recounted this conversation to me, word for word, and then called Aunt Ruby, Dad, and his entire side of the family a bunch of words she made me swear never to repeat.

Mom's aunt Grace has a place down south somewhere, but Mom and Dad haven't visited her since Mom was pregnant with Tiffany and I was four. According to Dad, when they got to Great-Aunt Grace's house, there was a note on her front door that said, “Locked up. Local jail. Bring money.” After bailing Great-Aunt Grace out, Mom and Dad spent the next two days at her house, where Great-Aunt Grace spent nearly every waking moment asking Dad when he planned to get himself together. Dad vowed never to go back.

I have ticked off two places we can't go. There aren't any left.

We have nowhere to go.

The realization hits me like a punch to the chest, and for a moment, I can't breathe. I reach into my pocket for my inhaler and take two puffs. My breathing slows, but my mind does not.

Tiffany lifts her head from my lap. “Why can't we just go back? I wanna go back.”

“No going back,” Mom says.

“But what about Rachel and Wednesday tea parties?” Tiffany whines. “And who's gonna help Sam feed her hermit crabs?”

“It's over, all of it, Tiffany, and you can thank your father for that.”

Tiffany buries her face in my lap again. It's not long before I feel her hot tears on my legs. A lump forms in my throat. I close my eyes and swallow hard. Mom slams on the brakes, and my eyes snap open. She lays into the horn and bangs her hand on the steering wheel.

“He can't do this to me!” she shouts. Tiffany sits up and looks at me, her face streaked with tears and snot. “Can't just up and leave me with two kids and no money.”

Mom presses on the gas, almost kissing the bumper of the car in front of her until the driver gets the hint and moves out of her way. We pass a sign that says the speed limit is 55 miles per hour. I can tell Mom is going much faster than that.

“Maybe we should slow down,” I suggest.

“Are you a state trooper now, Treasure?” she snaps. Then she sighs and says, “I'm sorry. I'm sorry about the dictionary, too, and about your friends, Tiffany, but it's not my fault. You know that, right? You know whose fault this is, don't you?”

Tiffany curls up in a ball beside me. “I'm hungry,” she says.

“I wouldn't be doing this—any of this—if your father hadn't left me high and dry. I swear to God—”

“Mom,” I cut in. “Tiffany said she's hungry.”

Mom glances at us in the rearview mirror. “Okay. Fine. Let's get something to eat, then.”

Mom pulls into the right lane, looking for something to eat along the highway. We pass a Popeyes and an Olive Garden, both closed. It's after eleven o'clock at night. She gets off a few exits past the mall and drives around until we find a Gas & Grab, or As & Gab, if you go by the letters that still light up. Dad took us to the Gas & Grab over by our old apartment a few times. He always let Tiffany get a hero sandwich that was too big for her to finish, which is why she marches right up to this Gas & Grab's sandwich station and starts punching her order into the machine. Mom orders two more six-inch subs, totaling $15.56. Then she pulls out the credit card she uses only in emergencies, the rainy-day card. She lets Tiffany swipe it.