Stuck in the 70's (8 page)

She gets an egg from the refrigerator, cracks it open, stirs it into the batter, and tastes the cookie dough on the spoon. She nods. Which probably means she’s satisfied with the batter, but could be interpreted as
Yes, Tyler, you can call Shay’s parents.

I pick the latter, wasting no time in dialing Evie’s number and putting the handset to Mom’s ear. I hope Evie’s standing by. Mom mouths
no,
but I keep the phone where it is.

She wipes her hands on the apron and holds the handset to her ear. “Hello. Is this Mrs. Saunders?” Pause. “Mrs. Saunders, I’m calling about your daughter.”

Phew.

Evie is a duchess of deception, a manure magician, a true b.s. artist. After a few minutes, she has Mom swiping at her eyes and saying, “But she’s your own child,” and, “Don’t you care what happens to her?” and, “I’d be happy to have her.” Evie definitely deserves the twenty dollars I promised her, as well as my undying friendship.

Finally, Mom slams down the phone. “Shay can stay. She can sleep in Heather’s room.”

I hug her, trying not to whoop for joy.

“And I’m calling the child welfare office.”

“No, Mom!”

“That woman should be reported!”

“Just wait. Please. Shay’s aunt will take her in.”

“All right. But now how am I going to break this news to your father?” Mom says.

The better question is whether he’ll even notice. “Will Dad be home tonight?”

“Yes. That’ll be two nights in a row.”

I never catch a break.

After Tyler gives me
the t humbs-u p, I walk into the kitchen to thank his mother.

Ouch. She’s wearing green eye shadow, bright orange lipstick, and a pink polyester dress. Which is enough to give someone a headache, or if someone already had a headache from a Wild Turkey-fest seven hours ago, make it a lot worse.

“Oh, shoot, I think I missed a wrinkle when I ironed this.” She’s staring down at the skirt of her frilly lilac apron.

The woman irons her aprons? Is she insane? My mom doesn’t even own an apron.

“Shay, sweetheart, can you tie this for me?” She motions to the apron strings dangling by her legs.

I ’ll help anyone who calls me a sweetheart. As I tie her apron, she says, “And could you help me fix dinner?”

“I d idn’t know dinner was broken.”

She d oesn’t laugh.

“That’s a joke, Mrs. Gray. I’m happy to help.”

“Oh, sorry. Ha ha, good one,” she says somberly.

She’s a sweetheart herself, though her makeup job could scare small children. And there’s something nice, in a dorky way, about preparing a family meal.

Except for the raw chicken. She shows me how to remove the gizzards, which are another name for the disgusting parts. There’s a scrawny, raw neck made up of thick skin and tiny bones, a black stinky liver, and a rubbery thing which I d on’t even want to know what it is. The gizzards are even grosser than regular raw chicken. Like
Fear Factor
gross. But I take them out for Mrs. Gray, trying not to breathe through my nose.

I tear off iceberg lettuce so she can rinse the leaves and put them in a bowl she cranks called a salad spinner. “One of these days,” I tell her over the whirring noise, “the market will sell lettuce already washed, torn, and bagged, and chicken already cut up.”

“People appreciate a home-cooked meal.”

I nod. They do appreciate it. I do, at least.

Mom and I never cook. We order takeout from China Express, Salad Shoppe, or California Quickie, or we microwave Lean Cuisines, and we watch
E!
or
Extra
while we eat. Once Mariel tried to bake cookies with me, but Mom yelled at her later for bringing sweets into the house. Mom d oesn’t trust the housekeepers’ cooking. “Those Mexicans put lard in everything. That’s why t hey’re so fat,” she says. She d oesn’t get, or d oesn’t care, that none of the housekeepers was really fat. They just w eren’t L.A. thin.

After Mrs. Gray and I finish making the chicken and salad, we “fix” scalloped potatoes, lima beans, and rice pudding.

“You d on’t need to go to extra trouble for me,” I tell her.

She stirs the rice pudding while opening the oven to check on the potatoes. “Oh, this is normal.”

“We never cook in my house.”

Mrs. Gray claps her hand over her mouth.

I hope she d oesn’t get that D ay-G lo orange lipcrap on her teeth. It looks like it might be poisonous. I imagine what she’s thinking:
Even worse than Shay’s parents abandoning her, the poor child d idn’t get home- cooked meals.

I’m chopping bananas and Mrs. Gray is dissolving lime Jell-O powder into hot water when the phone rings. On her way to answer it, she primps her permed hair as if the caller could see her.

After a few moments of chitchat, there’s a long silence. Mrs. Gray’s forehead is all wrinkled.

Uh-oh .

“But I’m making that Jell-O mold you like so much,” she says softly.

Pause.

“Yes.” She sighs. “A big client.”

Pause.

“Of course I understand.”

She hangs up the telephone, freezes for a moment, then pours the bowl of watery Jell-O into the sink. She gathers the canned pineapple rings, maraschino cherries, and mini marshmallows, and shoves them into the cupboard. “Who wants to eat with boring old me?” She closes the cupboard door with a bang.

“I do, Mrs. Gray. Not that y ou’re boring. Or old.”

“What if I bought short skirts? Like you wear. Like those women’s libbers in miniskirts and no bras.”

I’m not making her over. I’ll have my hands full with Tyler. Besides, putting Mrs. Gray in tight sweaters w on’t solve her problems. Though I wish s he’d ditch the church lady dresses and bright eye shadow.
Not my business.
“Mrs. Gray, you look just fine.”

She flips her apron up and buries her face in it. In a muffled voice, she says, “I feel so stuck.”

She’s stuck in the 70’s as much as I am. I have to help her. “You could get a job. You seem to be a hard worker.” What an understatement. She makes Martha Stewart look like a soap opera addict.

Of course! She could be the next Martha Stewart. Or rather the pre-Martha Stewart. “Mrs. Gray. You could, like, start a TV show with household hints.”

She takes her face out of the apron. “Like Heloise?”

“Sure.” Never heard of her, but I ’ll go with it. “Like, with tips about cooking and flower arranging and stuff, advice about making everything just right at home. You could start your own magazine, and, oh my gawd, next thing you know y ou’d be worth millions. Only d on’t sell stock with insider information, okay?”

“What?”

“Mom, are you all right?” Tyler stands just outside the kitchen.

“Of course.” She has a pained look on her face. But that seems to be her usual expression.

“When’s dinner?” he asks.

“Dinner? Right. I guess we could eat now.”

Heather comes down and we set the table. While we eat, Mrs. Gray serves herself small helpings, pushes them around on her plate, gets up to offer us more food, steals occasional glances at the phone, and d oesn’t eat a thing. Finally, she says, “I c an’t get a job, Shay. I’m a wife, a mother.”

“Oh, sure you can. Tyler and Heather are in school all day anyway. I could help you find a job.”

“My husband w ouldn’t want me to work.”

“What do
you
want?”

“She wants what Dad wants. She wants to make him happy.” Tyler clenches his fork in his fist. “ We’re supposed to be a happy family.”

Mrs. Gray gets up from the table, taking her plate toward the kitchen. “Girls, can you clean up after dinner?” Her voice wobbles. “I’m going to rest in my room.”

“Mom?” Tyler says.

“Are you okay?” Heather asks.

“I’m fine.” But she sounds even more miserable than usual.

“See what you did?” Tyler spits out.

“Me? What
I
did? You know, with your attitude toward women, you w ouldn’t last a day in 2006.”

“I d on’t need to. It’s 1978.” He gets up from the table.

“At least clear your plate,” I tell him.

“That’s women’s work.”

I follow him as he heads for the stairs. “Are you telling me when your genius friend Evie grows up, she’s not allowed to be a physicsologist or whatever?”

He turns around. “Physicist, Shay. Sheesh. And Evie’s not really a girl. I mean, I d on’t think of her that way.”

“News flash, Tyler. Evie’s a girl. And she should be allowed to do whatever she wants. Just like your mother. Gawd.”

We d on’t speak for the rest of the evening. The only person I talk to is Heather as we clean in the kitchen, and that’s just to say things like, “Can this go in the dishwasher?” and “Which sponge should I use?”

Later, I lie in the trundle bed in her room, listening to her steady breaths while I struggle for sleep.

I picture my bedroom at home. I miss my things. My laptop, my cell phone, my mini fridge. I hope someone’s watering my fern. Probably Mariel is, if my mom hasn’t fired her yet.

I try to conjure up Mom’s thin face, her eyes, lighter than mine and narrower. Supposedly, my dad is a dark-eyed, married millionaire. Mom met him in a hotel bar. We get big checks from Texas every month. Mom says t hey’ll stop when I turn eighteen, so that’s why she still hangs out in bars. I imagine my mother’s hair, dyed sunkissed blond and lengthened and thickened with $1,500 extensions, the butt she firms with
Buns of Steel
workouts four times a week, her stiletto heels, which she walks on like t hey’re sneakers, her weak warning of “ Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” which leaves my options wide open, as she rushes out the door.

I let out a little moan. Gawd, I hope Heather’s asleep.

“Shay?”

I never catch a break.

“Are you okay?”

I switch my thoughts from Mom to happier ones. I picture the bent back of Mrs. Gray, her ruffled apron with its thick bow that I tied for her today. “I’m fine, Heather.”

“I want to say I’m sorry. For calling you Shake, and stuff like that.”

“It’s okay. Thanks for sharing your room.” I picture Heather now, her scraggly hair and pale, angry face. “I was watching you tonight, Heather. You’d look great in bright colors, especially near your face. Something with a red collar, or maybe, like, a turquoise scarf.”

“You have a problem with my clothes?”

“No, but you could do even better.” I know I sound fake as hell. “I could show you makeup tricks too.”

“I’m going back to sleep.”

“Okay,” I whisper. But I ’ve ruined the moment. It’s not okay. Nothing’s okay.

13

“I can’t stand riding
this bus,” Shay says. “You have to get me home.”

“Why should I help you? You complain about the school bus like you’re better than everyone else. You tell my mother she should get a job even though my dad doesn’t want her to. You promise me a makeover, but all you do is pull out half my eyebrows—in a highly painful manner, I might add.”

“Gawd. And you say
I
complain a lot. What the hell do you want from me?”

“For one thing, you can help me figure out this time travel stuff.”

She looks at me like I’m nuts. “How am I going to do that? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not an honors student like you.”

“I don’t know if you can help, but you can at least try. Two heads are better than one. Three, actually, if Evie works with us too. And you’re the only one who actually experienced time travel. Maybe you can remember some clues about how it happened.”

“I was passed out, Tyler.” The bus stops a little short at a red light, and Shay slams her hands into the seatback in front of her. “Plus, I don’t know anything about science.”

“Attend classes with me. My physics class might be especially useful.”

“Even if I wanted to enroll in your school—which I don’t—it’s not like I have transcripts or a birth certificate. Technically, I haven’t even been born yet.”

“You could go to the school library and read books.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t do books. I take it there’s no Net hookup at the library?”

“What do you need a net for?”

“
The
Net, not
a
net. Never mind.”

“So is it a deal?”

She rolls her eyes. “Okay. I’ll try to learn something.”

“And you’ll give me a makeover, try making me popular.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.” I offer my hand to shake, but she rolls her eyes again.

I fumble through my backpack propped between my feet and pick out
The Great Gatsby
. “Since I’m going to be spending a lot of time researching time travel theories, why don’t you read this and explain it to me. English is actually my weak subject.”

“Everything is my weak subject.”

“Not romance, I bet. I don’t get the romance.”

“No, you probably wouldn’t.” She takes the book.

She comes to our table at lunchtime with a whole pile of books. Besides
The Great Gatsby,
there are two beauty and fashion volumes and a physics text. Maybe she
has
been reading about time travel. I make room for her beside me.

She hides the books under the table and sits down. “I’ve figured out hem lengths and makeup trends for the year 1978,” she announces like it’s Nobel Prize-worthy.

“Shay, you have a library card?”

“I don’t need one. I guess barcodes haven’t been invented yet.”

“Barcodes? Huh?”

“I’ll bring the books back when I’m done with them,” she says. “Hey, there’s nothing faster than the speed of light, right?”

Across from us, Evie says, “You read that correctly, Shay. Nothing can surpass the speed of light.”

She quizzes us more, about jet propulsion and the fourth dimension. She borrows my notebook and jots down notes.

“See? Physics can be fun,” I say.

She rolls her eyes, then claps her hands. “Social makeover time. Tyler, you said physics class can be fun. Don’t ever mention that in public again. It’s on my list of things a high school student should never say. Listen up.”