Gracefully Grayson Read online

  “Okay.” She pauses. “Grayson?”

  “Yeah?” I realize I’m holding the phone to my ear with both hands.

  “So, I’m free tomorrow. What time do you want to go?”

  “You can go?”

  “Yeah, but my mom wants to know what time the bus leaves and where exactly we’re going.”

  I smile. “Okay! Great! We can leave whenever you want. The express buses run all the time on the weekends. It’s in Lake View, on the corner of Broadway and Belmont. I don’t know the exact address, but I can find out. It’s called the Second Hand. Want me to look it up?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll tell her. Do you want to meet at the bus stop at ten?”

  “Yeah, that’s perfect!” I say.

  “Okay, see you tomorrow.”

  “Great. Bye.”

  I end the call and sit back down on my bed for a minute, beaming. I stay that way until I feel up to explaining to Aunt Sally and Uncle Evan that I have plans with a friend for the first time since second grade.

  I ZIP MY dark purple sweatshirt to my chin and put up the hood to block out the Chicago wind as I head for the bus stop. I glance down at my wide, gray, shiny track pants. The foggy image of the skirt that I saw in the mirror this morning is already flickering and fading. I think I can feel Aunt Sally, Uncle Evan, Jack, and Brett watching me from the living room window fifteen floors up, but I don’t turn around to check.

  Amelia is making her way down the street, and I try to forget that my pants are still pants as I wave to her and smile. Her chin is buried in the neck of a red peacoat. I really should have worn something warmer. It’s freezing out.

  “Hi!” I say as she joins me under the glass enclosure. Her eyes look pink. “Do you have a cold or something?” Then I realize that she’s been crying, and I feel like an idiot. She takes a crumpled, used-looking piece of tissue out of her pocket and blows her nose.

  She takes a deep breath. “Sometimes I just hate my mom,” she says, blowing her nose again. She shoves the tissue and her hands into her pockets.

  “Oh,” I say. It’s like the words are nothing to her. My mom. I look at her blotchy face, and for a second, I try to imagine what it would be like to be able to hate your mom, but I don’t even want to think about it. “Why?” I finally force myself to ask.

  “She’s just constantly hounding me about the way I look. She was so excited when I told her I was going shopping. She was like, ‘Be sure to get some tops to flatter your figure.’ She may as well just tell me I’m fat and ugly.” She sits down on the bench and slouches forward.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I tell her. “That’s so obnoxious.” I search for the right words, but I don’t know exactly what to say.

  “Whatever,” she says. “It doesn’t matter. I’m used to it.”

  The bus pulls up. We sit in the back. She takes a deep breath and pushes her hair out of her face.

  “So, why do you live with your aunt and uncle?” she asks as the bus starts to move.

  I feel like I’ve been hit from behind by a wave of lava, and even though I’m still freezing, I’m suddenly sweating. I’m an idiot for not knowing the question was coming, for not rehearsing. I know I can’t avoid answering. This is what having friends means, I tell myself.

  I haven’t had to talk about it for so long—not since Aunt Sally and Uncle Evan made me do those sessions with that stupid therapist in fourth grade. I think about his office and the paintings and drawings on the walls that other kids made for him in his “art studio.” What losers, I remember thinking. What pushovers. What could this guy possibly be doing for them that’s so great? The thought made me furious then, and it makes me furious now. You need to stop isolating yourself at school, he used to tell me. He didn’t know anything about me.

  But maybe Amelia could. She’s studying me. I have to say something, so I take a deep breath, stare at the seat in front of me, and start to talk.

  “When I was four, my parents died,” I tell her. I talk fast. “We lived in Cleveland. There was a car accident. It was really bad. It was on the highway. There was this truck that swerved into their lane, and they were killed instantly.” I glance at her quickly. She’s staring at me, and I look down at my feet, at my dark blue gym shoes that are almost purple. “I was at preschool when it happened.”

  I feel like I’m reading from a storybook, and I want to slam it closed now and throw it out the window like it’s on fire. I look at Lake Michigan. The waves are white and wild next to the gray highway. Two trucks fly past us. I realize I’m not breathing, and I force myself to.

  “Oh,” Amelia says quietly.

  I stare at the dust and dirt that’s shoved into the crevice around the metal window frame next to me, and for some reason, I think of my old blue house. I don’t remember it, but I have a picture of it on the bookshelf in my room. There’s a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn with one of those SOLD banners crossing over it. Uncle Evan told me that he tried to get the real estate lady to take the sign down for the picture, but she said it was too much trouble. I don’t know why, but I wonder about the people who bought it. I wonder if they painted it, or if the house is still blue.

  “It was bad,” I say. “But I don’t remember it at all. My uncle Evan is my dad’s brother, so I came to live with them.”

  “Oh my God,” she says, and then she’s quiet again. It seems like I should say something else.

  “My grandma Alice lives here, too. She’s really sick now. Anyway, I guess it made sense for me to come to Chicago.”

  “Oh my God,” she says again, and I don’t know what else to say.

  For a while, both of us are quiet. I watch out the window as the bus pulls off the highway. “So have you been to Lake View?” I finally ask her as we slow down at the bus stop, thankful to have something else to talk about.

  “What? No,” she says, as she follows me off the bus. We stand at the corner in a crowd of people. “Maybe I should consider myself lucky,” she says as we cross the street. She stares straight ahead as she talks. Her long, red hair is blowing across her cheek.

  “I guess so,” I say.

  “I mean, maybe I don’t have it as bad as I thought.”

  I look at her round, solid face, and I open the door of the Second Hand. She walks in, up the sloped wooden floor that looks like it has survived a thousand floods, between the circular racks of clothes, and toward the YOUTH sign that hangs crookedly at the back of the store. I follow her.

  A guy behind the counter with a shaved head, earrings, and a nose ring says hey to me as I pass him. Two women dressed in black layers and wearing bright lipstick sift through the clothes on a rack.

  We’re the only ones in the back of the store. There are fewer racks of clothes back here, and the back door is cracked open so the air isn’t quite as thick with the scent of mothballs, which is good because the smell makes me want to vomit. To the side are three minuscule dressing rooms with old bedsheets for doors and a giant mirror is propped against the wall. I stand in front of it and study my skinny body. My purple hood is still up and I take it down, unzip my sweatshirt, and run my fingers through my hair. I push my bangs carefully to the side of my forehead. My eyes sting from the cold air outside, my nose is pink, and I notice again how my chin looks squarer and less pointed than it used to.

  Uncle Evan has shown me pictures of Dad when he was my age, and I know I look like him. The thought makes me want to smash the mirror. I shove my fists into my pockets because what I really want is for Dad to be here, and I wonder for the millionth time if I’d still have to be this lonely if Mom and Dad were alive. In old black-and-white pictures, Grandma Alice looks just like Mom did. I search my face in the mirror for any hint of her or Mom in me, but I can only see Dad.

  I quickly walk to where Amelia is browsing in the girls’ section. Her coat is in a neat pile on the floor near one of the dressing room doors, and she’s searching through a rack labeled GIRLS’ DRESSES AND SKIRTS in messy writing on a laminated sign. “What do you think of this one?” she asks, pulling out a deep purple, floor-length skirt. The fabric is thin and scrunched, like an accordion, and is interrupted three times by bands of deep purple lace. The lace pulls the fabric in and makes soft swells. I stare at it.

  “It’s great,” I say, and I reach out to touch the fabric.

  “Are you looking for anything?” Amelia asks. She quickly drapes the skirt over her arm. “I thought you needed winter clothes.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I say, and walk to the boys’ racks, still watching her out of the corner of my eye. I filter through the hangers, but really I pay attention to Amelia on the other side of the room. She’s collecting a pile of clothes—deep pinks and purples, laces and embroidered flowers, and they’re draped over her arm like shimmery gowns from a fairy tale.

  The clothes I run my fingers over are way less majestic. I search halfheartedly for shirts that are narrow but extra long, colorful plaids, and bright fabrics. I pull out a green, metallic-looking Green Bay Packers jersey. The sleeves glisten in the artificial light, and I walk to the mirror with it and hold it in front of my chest. It’s too long, and would come down almost to my knees. I could ignore the lettering on it. With my old jeans that are too tight now, I could imagine it’s a sparkling dress over leggings.

  “What’d you find?” Amelia asks, walking over to me with her soft pile of clothing still hanging tenderly over her arm.

  I study the image of the football jersey in the mirror. Green Bay Packers screams at me from the chest. “Ah, nothing,” I say, and hang it on the rack closest to me. “It’s too big.” My imagination is failing me. I’m way too old to play dress-up. I look down at my feet. My purplish blue shoes look completely blue in the bright lights.

  “Are you sure?”
Amelia asks. “Do you want to try it on? I’m going to try these on.”

  “Nah,” I say, taking a deep breath. “It’s okay. It’s hit or miss in secondhand shops. They don’t have much in my size this time.”

  “Okay,” she says, walking away. She lets herself into a dressing room, and I sit on a stiff, metal chair next to the mirrors where I don’t have to look at myself. I study the scratches on the wood floor. Amelia comes out to examine how she looks in each new dress, skirt, and top. She stares at herself for a long time in the purple skirt. “I don’t know,” she says, cocking her head to the side. “Do people at Porter wear things like this?”

  I sit up straight and look at her carefully. “I mean, not all the time,” I tell her. “But I think it’s fantastic.”

  In the end, she puts it back on the rack. She buys a shorter black skirt with a flouncy ribbon around the bottom and a white T-shirt with flowers embroidered around the neck. I am empty-handed as we leave the store. I didn’t realize it had started to rain while we were inside. I pull up my hood against the drizzle, and we board the bus for home.

  AMELIA AND I go to the Second Hand every Saturday in November. She tries on clothes and sometimes finds something to buy. Unexcitedly, I search the boys’ racks. One windy morning, I give up on the idea of finding anything I’ll like. I leave Amelia behind and walk away from the boys’ section to the shelves of knickknacks at the front of the store.

  “Who buys this stuff?” Amelia asks, suddenly by my side.

  “Are you done shopping?”

  “Yeah, they don’t have anything good today.” Amelia runs her hands over dusty vases and grimy statues of sleeping cats and prancing horses.

  “Hey, look at this!” I pick up an old golden birdcage with a blue plastic bird on a perch inside. I turn it around in my hands. On the side is the thing to wind it with.

  I twist the knob and put it back on the shelf. Amelia and I stand there. For a minute nothing happens, but then the bird slowly starts to flap its dusty, feathered wings, like it’s finally waking up from a super-long nap. Old-fashioned, rusty-sounding music chimes. The notes are creaky and uneven, and the fluttering becomes jerkier as Amelia and I watch. It looks like the bird is trying to fly through glue, but its wings keep getting stuck. We glance at each other, and Amelia starts to giggle.

  Suddenly, the bird freezes, its wings outstretched, and, in slow motion, it tips over and falls off its metal perch. Amelia grabs my arm. “Oh my God, I think we broke it,” she whispers, fixing her mouth into a frown, trying hard not to laugh. The bird is lying on the floor of the cage, one of its wings still twitching, as the music continues to ping. It almost looks like the bird is trying to get up and fly away.

  It’s kind of depressing to see it lying there like that, but I smile at Amelia anyway. “Let’s get out of here!” she whispers, laughing. I look behind me. The man at the register is staring at us. Amelia is hysterical now, and I quickly drag her outside. I can hear the still-dying chirps of tinny music until the door clicks shut behind us.

  Outside, the cold air is sharp. Amelia collapses in laughter on the concrete steps of the Second Hand, and I sit down next to her. I guess it’s stupid to feel bad for a plastic bird, and watching Amelia laugh so hard makes me start to laugh, too. “We totally broke it,” she finally says, trying to compose herself.

  “Come on,” I say, standing up, still laughing. “It’s freezing. Want to get hot chocolate? There’s a coffee shop down the street.” I grab her hands and pull her up.

  When we get to the coffee shop, she saves us two seats at the bar by the window while I order our hot chocolates and a marshmallow square to share. We hold the paper cups in our freezing hands. Our reflections are pale and blotchy in the giant window. The people walking on the sidewalk pass through them. They’re so close that we could touch them if the wall of glass wasn’t there.

  Amelia takes the lid off of her paper cup and dunks a piece of marshmallow square in. I watch her and do the same thing. “Next Saturday, I’ll take you to this other coffee shop a few blocks that way,” I tell her, pointing out the window. “Our nanny used to take us all the time. They have way better snacks.”

  “Cool,” she says, as she swivels back and forth on her stool and smiles.

  Back home, Aunt Sally looks up from her laptop when I let myself into the front door. “Grayson,” she says, lifting her reading glasses onto her head. She puts the laptop next to her. “How was your morning with Amelia?”

  “It was great,” I say.

  “I’m so glad.” Aunt Sally smiles at me and then looks down at her fingernails for a second.

  “Grayson, honey?” she says, looking back up, her face serious now. “Your uncle Evan is planning to go over to the nursing home. He got a call from Adele when you were out. Your grandma…” She pauses and tilts her head softly to the side. My heart jumps. “Well, you know she’s been more and more confused, lately. And Adele said she took a nap this morning and when she woke up, she had a fever. The doctors are worried that she might have pneumonia.”

  “Oh,” I say, and I feel sort of guilty because I should be thinking of Grandma Alice, sick in her bed at the nursing home, but I’m not. She’s had Alzheimer’s for practically as long as I can remember. I’m thinking instead of the black-and-white picture on my nightstand of me, Mom, and Dad. You can only see our faces, but you can tell that Mom was tickling me. My back is smushed into her, and I’m laughing. Dad’s arm is around us both.

  “’Kay,” I say. I know I sound nervous, and I can tell Aunt Sally is waiting for me to say more, but my brain feels stuck. I don’t feel like standing there anymore, and I head for my room.

  A few minutes later, Uncle Evan quietly taps on my door. He lets himself in and sits on my bed. I’m standing in front of the mirror tying my hooded sweatshirt around my waist. I’m trying to see it as a purple skirt, but I can’t focus. I keep thinking again of how in all the pictures I have of Mom, she looks like a young version of Grandma Alice.

  “Grayson?” Uncle Evan starts.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why don’t you come with me to the home to see your grandma?” I give up on the sweatshirt and throw it onto my bed. It lands on my pillow next to the picture on my nightstand. Uncle Evan and Aunt Sally aren’t even related to Grandma Alice. They wouldn’t be taking care of her if it weren’t for me.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Good. Do you think you can be ready in fifteen minutes or so?” he asks. I nod, and he drums his fingers on his knees as I sit down at my desk chair. I pull my colored pencils and sketch pad out of the top drawer and stare at my half-finished drawing of a rose bush. I hate the nursing home. It’s so depressing.

  “So, Grayson,” Uncle Evan finally says, “Aunt Sally and I were talking last night. We want you to know how glad we are that you’ve made a new friend. You seem happier now that you’re hanging around with Amelia, and we think it’s really fantastic.” He smiles. “Did I ever tell you that your Aunt Sally and I met when we were in sixth grade?”

  “Really?” I ask, but then I look down quickly. I know what he’s getting at. “It’s not like that,” I tell him. “We’re just friends.”

  “Of course,” he stammers. “I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s okay,” I tell him, and I smile to try to make him feel better. In pictures of Mom, you can see that she had the same wrinkles on the sides of her eyes that Grandma Alice has. Once, a long, long time ago, Grandma Alice told me they were matching smile wrinkles. I reach up and touch the side of my face, but it’s smooth.

  “Well, okay, then,” Uncle Evan says, getting up off my bed. He stops behind me on his way to the door and pauses, placing his hand on my shoulder as I pick up a red colored pencil.

  “Really, son, we’re glad you’re happier.” I cringe. He gives my shoulder a little squeeze. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready.” He shuts the door quietly and completely behind him.

  Even though the nursing home is supposedly a nice one, it’s gross, and it smells like rubbing alcohol, Band-Aids, and old people. In the elevator there’s a nurse and an old man with a walker. I try not to stare at him. He’s trying to talk, but no words are coming out. It’s like he’s chewing on air, and my eyes sting.