Miles from Ordinary Read online

  Get it out, that thought. Get it out!

  I didn’t want to think about Momma. I wanted to just be me. Me with a boy who would teach me to skateboard if I wanted. And with a nervous feeling creeping down from my scalp, I knew I did want to learn. This was so exciting, I couldn’t believe it was possible.

  I was making a friend.

  Out the corner of my eye, I looked at Aaron. He laid his head back on the seat.

  How was my breath? All day working in the library, thinking sad thoughts, breathing in the smell of books. Did my breath smell like something published before 1950 and left on the shelf all those years? What did my whole self smell like?

  Real casual, I made like I was wiping sweat from my top lip and sniffed at my armpits. Not too bad. And I could always keep my arms pinned to my sides if necessary.

  “Think your mom’ll let you?”

  Aaron’s voice surprised me. Had he seen me sniffing? I jerked my head to him so fast I popped my own neck.

  “She might,” I said. And why not? Today was going to be different. Was different already. “She just might.”

  We rode in silence awhile, me grinning like crazy on the inside. Thrill about to overwhelm me. It was sort of hard to breathe.

  “We’re just about to Winn-Dixie,” Aaron said. He leaned forward in his seat, pushing his hair behind his ear, then stared out the window. He gestured with his head and his tucked-in hair fell free.

  I looked out the window to the dirty bus stop. Only two people stood at the bench there. An ancient woman and an ancient-er man. Between them was a small silver pushcart full of groceries. The woman’s dress, flowered and past her knees, rippled in the breeze.

  For a moment I couldn’t think. It was like someone had drawn a line through my thoughts, x-ed them out. Left me blank on the inside.

  And then … “Momma?”

  I got to my feet. It felt like a fist pounded my nerves. I pulled the line even though the bus was coming to a halt.

  Where was she? Where was my mother? She should be out with the old people. She should have bags of groceries to take home. She should be smiling, waiting for me to get her.

  The whole bus stop seemed to go black and white. Right before my eyes. My breathing came so fast I thought I might faint dead away.

  I grabbed hold of the bar to steady myself as the bus lurched to a stop. Straining, I looked at the few people coming and going at the doors of the Winn-Dixie. None of them was my mother. None of them. All the sudden I felt sick to my stomach. Like I might throw up. I could feel vomit sitting at the top of my throat.

  “What’s the matter?” Aaron said.

  “She’s not here.” My voice was almost a cry of pain. My eyes felt buggy. I looked at the Payless shoe store, and the pizza parlor, and the Time Kept watch repair shop.

  In slowest motion, the old man and woman dragged their cart onto the bus. I stepped to the opposite window, flattened my hands on the glass, and looked for Momma. She was nowhere to be seen. The bus doors hissed closed.

  “Wait,” I said. My voice came out louder than I meant it to. My heart hurt, that’s how hard it hammered in my chest. “Wait. Let me off.” And then I was moving. I stumbled up to the driver, catching myself on the Plexiglas behind him. “Let me off now, please.”

  “All right, all right. Take it easy,” the driver said. He glanced at me in the mirror, his eyebrows scrunched together. The doors swooshed open and I leapt from the top step, just about falling into the road when I landed on the ground.

  Pound, pound, pound went my heart. The bus roared away, and the smell of exhaust burned.

  My eyes teared up.

  Momma. Momma. Please be working overtime. Please be loving this job. Please.

  “Don’t worry, Lacey,” Aaron said. I hadn’t realized he was here. With me.

  Not along. Not.

  “I’ll look for her with you. We’ll find her.” He touched my forearm with his fingertips.

  I couldn’t say anything. This was bad. This was bad. I knew that without even knowing what had happened.

  She’s gone. You let her get away. Selfish.

  No! I ran across the hot parking lot. Behind me I heard the skateboard hit the ground. Aaron rode up. I’d never run so fast. My hair flying back. Sweat on my upper lip. Under my arms.

  Selfish.

  “No.” This time the word escaped from me. My tongue felt fat. Too big for me to swallow.

  Momma, where are you? Calm down. Calm down. Maybe, just maybe, she was in the store. But somehow—from my clenched stomach?—I knew she wasn’t.

  Just take a deep breath. A deep cleansing breath. The smell of the black asphalt filled my nose. The scorching sun beat down. The air felt like a wet blanket. When had it gotten so hot? A car beeped somewhere behind me. Another car answered.

  “I’m not late,” I said out loud. “I know I’m not late.” My voice shook.

  For a moment I remembered the two weeks after Aunt Linda left. I squeezed my eyes tight at the thought.

  “Please,” I said, but without any sound. “Not that again.”

  It all came back to me in a flash—like lightning. How Momma wouldn’t be waiting in her room when I got home from school. How I would look for her and find her sitting on the neighbor’s lawn, them not even home from work. Or walking along the road leading into town, wearing only one shoe and her housecoat. Or in the tree near my bus stop.

  One day—I shivered just thinking of it—I looked for Momma all over the house. I walked the neighborhood. I called and called for her. And that afternoon as the sun set, when I was ready to phone the police, I collapsed on the front porch, crying.

  “What is it, girl?” I heard her voice, muffled. Sounding far away, almost.

  “Momma?” I had said.

  “What are you crying for, baby?”

  I burst into tears then. Started sobbing.

  “Momma, where are you?”

  I came to the edge of the porch and looked out over the property. Out through the oaks that grew strong and tall, Spanish moss dripping from the limbs. I looked out toward the old garage that housed Momma’s car that we hadn’t driven for months now. Out into the near darkness and called for her.

  “Where are you off to?” I had said.

  “I’m right here, Lacey.”

  Momma’s hand reached from below my feet, that slender arm of hers snaking up after it.

  I screamed till I saw light flash behind my eyelids. I screamed till I thought my voice might break.

  “I been here all along, Lacey,” Momma said, from under the porch

  “Get out!” I screamed at her. “Get out from under there, Momma. There’s snakes under the house, you know that.”

  Momma pulled herself from under the old wooden porch. Dead leaves stuck to her nightgown, cobwebs were in her hair. But lucky for her she wasn’t bitten by a snake.

  “Momma,” I said, brushing dirt from her face. “Momma, you know better than that. We’ve seen rattlesnakes in this yard. We’ve seen coral snakes. What in the world were you thinking?”

  Momma shrugged. “Granddaddy told me to,” was all she said.

  But that was over—all her running off. Ten months ago, at least, she stopped her running. She stayed home so I could go to school without worry. She didn’t bother the neighbors, didn’t peer in their windows, didn’t climb in their cars. It was done with. I had been sure.

  But you aren’t sure now.

  “I know I’m not late,” I said to Aaron. I looked him right in the eye and he looked back at me. “We said four-thirty.”

  “What?”

  “I was supposed to meet her at four-thirty.”

  “Oh.” He nodded. “I get it.”

  Into the store I ran, the air-conditioning making me feel damp where I had sweated. The smell of greasy chicken filled the air. A girl who pushed grocery carts in line glanced at me, then away.

  “Maybe your mom decided to work a little extra,” Aaron said, jogging close, skateboard tuck
ed under his arm. “My mom comes home from work late lots of times.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I hope so.” I stopped and looked at all the checkers, searching for Momma’s shiny hair. Her thin body. Twig fingers. “She’s not at any of the stands.”

  So we hunted, Aaron and me. Near the fruits and vegetables, up and down all the aisles, in the meat section—the whole time my heart beating harder or not at all. I swear, it felt like sometimes it stopped. When I realized I had lost her, it just quit. Momma wasn’t in any of those places. In fact, she wasn’t in the store period. I know because we checked the break room and the huge storage room in the back and both bathrooms.

  Momma was gone.

  You lost her, Lacey. You!

  “How about I look around the outside of the store?” Aaron said.

  “That’s a good idea.” I was having trouble getting spit down. My body was shutting off, one organ at a time. Like on TV. Like on those rescue shows where people died and weren’t rescued at all. “She’s got on a red checker’s apron. And her hair is long. And black. And pulled back.”

  Aaron nodded.

  “She’s not that tall. Just about an inch more than me. And she’s thin.” For some reason, saying she was thin bit at my insides. She was too thin, I wanted to say, but didn’t.

  “It’s okay, Lacey,” Aaron said. “I saw her on the bus. I’ve seen her at your house. I think I’ll recognize her.” He moved close to my face and I could smell the penny smell of sweat on him. Could see part of his bangs stuck to his forehead. “We’re gonna find her.” He patted at my shoulder.

  “You’re right. I’ve got to think that.” But I couldn’t make my mind think anything positive. Where Momma was concerned there was only worry.

  Aaron hurried toward the door.

  I went up to the service desk.

  The lady behind the counter smiled. Her name tag read EMMA. “Yes?”

  “I’ve lost my mother.”

  “What’s her name, honey? I’ll page her.”

  “No,” I said, wringing my hands, trying to warm them. Even in the heat I was freezing. “I’ve already looked everywhere. She’s not in the store. She’s not here.”

  “Then I can’t help you.”

  Overhead came the voice of a man advertising green beans and canned corn that was on sale today only.

  I leaned toward Emma. Her eyebrows, I saw, were painted on. Her left ear was filled with earrings. “She was here earlier, though. I dropped her off. She came in to work. To work for you.”

  Emma’s eyes went large. “Let me get the manager,” she said.

  There was a bench by the service desk, a golden oak one. I sat down while Emma called for the manager. Smells of French bread and fresh-baked cookies and garlic floated over from the deli. The fluorescent lights buzzed. I realized I was hungry, though I’m not sure I could have eaten a bite, the way I felt tied up like a knot. I waited, praying the words “Please help me find her,” again and again.

  The manager was named Alfred, though he looked way too young to have that name. Emma talked to him a moment, then Alfred walked over to where I sat.

  It was kind of like in the movies, the way he came up. You know, getting bigger and bigger with each step. Me feeling the blood race through my neck. I stood, my mouth dry. Heard Aaron walk up beside me.

  “You’re Angela’s daughter?”

  I nodded.

  Alfred said, “She left less than an hour after she got here. Quit.”

  I opened my mouth twice, trying to get the word out. “Quit?”

  Oh. No.

  IX

  “She was…” Alfred stumbled around for words. “… she was pretty upset.”

  “I see,” I said. “I see. Okay then.” But it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t at all.

  I wanted to shout at Alfred. I wanted to holler at him. To say, “You should have stopped her. You should have kept her here. Kept her safe.” Wasn’t that his duty? To make sure his employees were happy and stayed at their jobs and …

  But even as the thoughts tumbled in my head I knew they were wrong. Why, I couldn’t keep Momma home and safe. And I knew her.

  My bottom lip trembled a little. If I wasn’t careful I might just scream. It was like I could feel a scream wanting to come out.

  “Use the service phone,” Alfred said. “Call home and see if she went on without you.” Then he said, “I’m real sorry. She seemed awful distraught, that one.”

  I nodded, though I knew it was useless. It took me three failed tries before Aaron dialed home for me. And then the phone just rang. On and on. Thirty times I let the phone ring. Then I hung up.

  “She’s not there,” I told Aaron. My voice was half a whisper.

  Now he patted my elbow. His touch was awkward. But it gave me a bit of courage.

  I could do this.

  You can’t.

  I could! I always did it.

  I ran up and down that little shopping strip, looking through every store over and over for I don’t know how long. Then Aaron and I stood in front of the Winn-Dixie, neither one of us saying a word. In the distance, storm clouds piled up high. White on the top, and dark gray at the bottom. The air was heavy and still and smelled of cars and summer heat.

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay.” My backpack rested on the ground beside me, leaning against my leg. I twisted my hands till they hurt. Bit my nails till one bled. “Now it’s possible that she went home.”

  Aaron cleared his throat and I looked over at him, though he never took his eyes off the clouds building in the east.

  “Lacey,” he said. “If my mom went home, it’d be no big deal. I mean, she goes home all the time without me.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand.” Though I didn’t really. A momma who went home on her own?

  “Maybe you’re worrying about your mom a little too much. Maybe she’s fine.”

  I couldn’t speak at first. Anger boiled up into my brain. What did Aaron know? Nothing. Nothing at all!

  That’s right, a calmer me thought. Nothing at all. How could he know my momma?

  “She doesn’t think so good sometimes,” I said after moment. “I kinda have to take care of her.”

  He gave a half nod. Standing right there next to me, Aaron was a good three inches taller than I was. Something Momma would have been proud of. She always says to me when we’re sitting in my bedroom, the curtains pulled over the windows to keep out the light, “A boy oughta be taller than you, Lacey. Yes, he oughta.”

  “My momma…”

  Could I tell him? Could I tell this boy about Momma not getting out of bed on some days, or cutting herself, or crying for hours and hours? Or about the nights she didn’t sleep at all, and kept me up talking? How she was deathly afraid of birds because they meant death to her—any kind—even hummingbirds. Or how some days she was so upset, so afraid, that Aunt Linda had had to destroy all the credit cards because Momma went through Granddaddy’s money so fast trying, hoping, to keep us safe?

  No, that was too much. Way too much.

  “I mean,” I said, taking in a deep breath, “I mean, my momma’s sick.”

  That’s what Aunt Linda had said. Momma was sick. And getting worse. But I didn’t tell Aaron that. I didn’t tell him how Aunt Linda said Momma was killing herself a bit at a time. He wouldn’t get it. Not unless he lived at my place. He just wouldn’t get it.

  He wouldn’t get it? You don’t get it.

  So true. So true.

  “We better find her then,” Aaron said. Like that. He said it just like that.

  The we again. That word made me feel sad. We. Momma, Aunt Linda, and me. We.

  “Won’t your momma be wanting you home?” I asked, making the words cotton-soft.

  “I’ll call her. It’ll be okay.”

  Something kind of weird happened to me right then. I mean, I know I wasn’t handing the burden of Momma over to anyone, but I was sharing it. It’s not like I wasn’t worried, I still was. But the worry didn’t seem so heavy.r />
  Aaron walked over the pay phone to call his momma because his cell phone had died. And I stood there thinking, What if I hadn’t said something to him on the bus? What if I had stayed mad and told him to leave me alone?

  Alone. That’s the way I’d be doing things now if I had done something stupid earlier—like telling Aaron to stay with Tattoo Guy.

  Aaron showing up was a miracle.

  That’s what Momma woulda said. “Lookit here, Lacey. Macaroni and cheese, six for a dollar. And right when we need it, too. It’s a miracle.”

  In the distance, lightning played out in the darkened sky. A huge storm was coming.

  Wasn’t someone showing up just as good as six-for-a-dollar macaroni?

  Yes. Yes, it was.

  Maybe there’d be a miracle for me with Momma. I crossed my fingers.

  Aaron hurried back. “I checked in,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

  “Maybe my momma is home,” I said. “Or walking in the house right this very minute. We can catch the bus and look for her on the way.”

  “Good idea,” he said.

  Now hot air pushed across the parking lot picking up garbage and swirling it in small whirlwinds. We stood at the bus stop waiting. I glanced around, hoping, somehow, that Momma would show up. Pop out from behind some van and say, “Surprise, Lacey! I saw you looking for me. You sure did seem scared. Here I am!”

  If that happened, I swear I wouldn’t even be mad. I’d grab her in a hug around the neck and say, “Momma. You scared me something awful. I thought sure you’d left me.” And then I’d say, “Lookit here, Momma. I made a friend.” And I would introduce her to Aaron.

  But Momma wasn’t the playing-around kind. Not by a long shot. She’d never do anything like that.

  Wandering off? That had been her.

  Surprising me with something good? Not her.

  Hurting herself? Her.

  Thinking about what might make things easier for me. Not her.

  But that wandering stuff only happened a few times. And she never went far from home. She did stuff as weird, though. Like stocking up on tuna because we were gonna be in a terrible war any day now. Or washing all the clothes in the kitchen sink because Granddaddy had told her back in the olden days that’s the way real women did the laundry. Or cutting her long, beautiful nails down so short they bled.