The Great Good Summer (11 page)

“Wait here,” she says to Paul and Ricky and me, kind of desperately, and she rushes Hallelujah Dave from the room.

“
Don't
wait. Scoot!” whispers Ricky, and we do. We slide across the slick floor, dragging our backpacks and our soda bottles with us. Then we push through the heavy glass door, and we go. In no more than about five seconds, the three of us are two blocks down and around the corner. Safe. I am panting and tripping a little and dropping my pack. And, to top off everything, I have the weirdest and most desperate urge to laugh.

“You, little lady, were cut out for this,” says Ricky. Which does make me laugh, for real, and then Paul and Ricky join me. We are laughing, doubled-over fools on the corner of Appleyard Drive and Municipal Way in Tallahassee, Florida, and it feels just fine.

There is more than one hospital in Tallahassee, so it takes a few calls, but we do it. We find my mama. She is a confirmed and official patient at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. In this, at least, Hallelujah Dave didn't lie.

“Okay,” I say. “It's really okay. We found her. She may be in the hospital, but we found her and it's gonna be okay.” I'm kinda crouching down on the gray curb, but
there's a shade tree over us, which is why we stopped here to make the calls. I lean back and close my eyes for a second. I can't believe we did it.

“Well, I'm guessin' my work here is done,” says Ricky, and as I open my eyes again, I see him reach out to shake Paul's hand, and then mine.

“Peace be with you,” I sort of accidentally say as we clasp. I can't help it—it's an automatic thing, from church.

“And also with you,” says Ricky, like it's automatic for him, too, if you can believe that. Skinny Ricky—a churchgoer, of all things. Which makes me think, no wonder he helped us, never mind his shady past. I have half a mind to say, right then and there, “See, Paul Dobbs? God
was
watching out. For all of us.” But I don't, because I, Ivy Blank Green, am turning over a new leaf where Paul Dobbs is concerned. A leaf of kindness. So instead of saying a single thing, I just reach up to Ricky and follow our handshake with a hug. And he hugs me back with a sort of pat, pat, pat on my back like Daddy might do.

It's after he turns to go and I plop back down with Paul that I have a good look at the phone in my hands. The voice mail light is blinking green again.

Chapter Fifteen

I
vy, it's Daddy. Listen, honey. We know you're in Florida, thanks to the cell phone company. And we know that Paul Dobbs is with you, or at least we're pretty sure about that, since he's not where he said he'd be or with who he said he'd be with, and you guys have struck up a friendship, I guess. So anyway, here's what I want you to do, baby. I want you to stay put. I'm coming. I'm coming to get you. And everything's gonna be fine. But in the meantime, Ives, if you wanted to give me a ring?” His voice trails off then, so I just barely hear how he says “I love you, honey” at the end.

“Oh, God. Oh no!” I say, with the phone still pressed up to my ear. “That was my daddy again. He knows where I am, and he knows you're here too, and he's on his way. Here—to Florida! I'm serious. We are good and caught, and probably in a massive heap of trouble, too.”

I shut up to listen as the second message plays. It's Abby this time. “I know you told your daddy you were at my house,” she says, “even though you weren't, and I'm not mad, not a bit, Ivy, but I am kind of scared. Where
are you? Could you send me a sign—a text or something? I promise I won't give you away to anyone. I just really, really want to know if you're okay.” She actually sounds like she's crying a little bit, and Abby hardly ever cries. I swallow hard, and the phone beeps again.

“Ivy. It's Mrs. Murray. Your daddy gave me this number. We hope you're getting these messages, sweetheart. What matters is that you know we love you. Life is a funny, changing thing, Ivy. You just got caught up in the river of life this summer, that's all. But underneath that rushing water is all of us, loving you, so let the currents pull you back home, Ivy. We are missing you here.”

“Oh, Paul. What have we done?” I bring the phone down into my lap and fold my hands around it. But Paul doesn't answer. He's not looking at me. He's leaning back and looking up at a sky that's crisscrossed with two long white jet contrails, one going one way, one going the other. I look with him and start to breathe again.

“Ivy,” Paul finally says, when a good minute's gone by, “we've got a good reason for being here, right? And your daddy, he seems like the kind of guy who understands a good reason. Right?” Paul looks calm, like his answer solves everything.

But the thing is, even if he's right as rain, it doesn't fix the fact that Daddy's on his way to Florida, we don't have Mama yet, and this whole crazy scheme might be as good as over right now.

“What about your parents?” I ask. “What are they gonna say about all this?”

Paul shrugs. “They're sort of reasonable to the power of ten. Like, so reasonable, they're almost dead half the time. I don't worry too much about them.” Which should be a relief—one thing we don't need to worry about—but Paul's voice sounds kind of sad. Almost like he wished he
did
have to worry, at least a little.

With my thumb I press and hold the button to power down the phone. I'm still not ready to call anybody back. I don't know what I'm ready for, and I guess neither does Paul, 'cause we just sit, still and quiet. Even in the shade it's hot, and my legs stick to the earth and the concrete, and my ankles look puffy and dirty, and my stomach is starting to growl. A girl can get to feeling kind of hopeless in the middle of summer in the panhandle of Florida when she's spent the morning in jail, discovered that her mama's in the hospital, and freaked out pretty near everyone who loves her.

“Okay, Ivy,” says Paul, who is just plain good at
knowing when to break a silence. “We can't just sit here till your dad arrives. I'm thinking it won't be that bad in the end. Any of it. I mean, he's gonna be glad we're okay, right?” he says. “And plus, we've found your mom. Mission accomplished!”

“No, I don't think it really is gonna be okay,” I say, right along with the creaky rumble of my stomach. “We may have technically found Mama, but she's in the hospital, of all places—and we don't even know why. My daddy's headed this way, chasing us down like a bounty hunter. And, to top it all off, we're not even close to making it to Cape Canaveral to see the space shuttle. Which, by the way, was supposed to be the fun part of the trip—
your
part of the trip. Turns out you didn't need to come at all, since I've just been wasting your time, tracking Hallelujah Dave and ditching the police and whatever other crazy and possibly illegal stuff I've gotten us into. I mean, honestly. This whole thing is turning out to be kind of a raw deal,” I say.

“Awright, well, here's the thing. It's only a raw deal if we give up now. I mean, that would be a total bummer. 'Cause then we ran away and ticked off our parents for nothing. Wasn't it you who had the motto about every day being full of ideas or something? Y'know, for Mrs. Murray? So let's come up with an idea. Come on!”

I turn my hot, filthy self to face Paul. “You remember my motto?”

“Well, um, sort of. I mean, I think so. I remember it was a good one. We all thought so.” Paul swallows a big noticeable lump in his throat. “Remind me what it was, exactly?”

“Every good day starts with an idea,” I say.

And right as I say that, I have one.

We figure out that you can pretty much go straight across the city of Tallahassee on the Azalea Route, which for some reason makes me feel better, since it sounds so sweet and mild. And you can do the whole thing for $1.25, which Paul calls a worthy investment for “a couple of fugitives about to attempt a break-in at the local hospital.”

He's trying to make me a little less nervous by making me laugh. What we're
actually
gonna attempt, though, is a break
out
not a break-in. We're gonna go get my mama before my daddy gets us. At least that's the idea.

So we're standing here at the bus stop, sort of half-laughing about our plan, when this dog comes running toward us, barking up a storm, like it's his job to guard the place. But he's big and goofy and floppy, sort of reddish
with white paint splotches—a big goofy floppy dog, just like the kind I want—and he's wearing a sweater! Which would be kind of funny anyway, but especially in Florida in the middle of summer, of all things.

He's barking and barking, and Paul yells, “Hey!” I guess to scare the dog away, but Paul is clearly the one who's scared. He backs up and presses himself into the corner of the little bus shelter and says “Hey” again, but quieter this time.

“Come 'ere, pup,” I say. “Come 'ere.” And then I do that clicking thing with my tongue that dogs love, and sure enough, he stops barking and turns away from Paul and toward me.

“Ivy, watch out,” says backed-into-the-corner Paul, even though the dog is now rubbing his head into my hands and practically purring.

“Paul, he's wearing a
sweater
,” I say, and now I'm really actually laughing at the idea of a big goofy floppy dog in a sweater being dangerous.

And then I hear some guy yell, “Sammy! Sammy, come!” And Sammy turns on a dime and heads toward home. I give Paul a full-on grin as he steps out of the corner of the shelter, and when the bus rolls up, I hop up the steps feeling better than I've felt in a couple of days,
'cause there is just nothing like a dog. I look back at Paul, and he's looking back himself, probably making sure that Sammy really did go home.

Tallahassee Memorial sits like a huge, white cube at the corner of Miccosukee and Centerville Roads. It is nothing like the pretty little hospital in Loomer, with a lawn that's lined with flowerbeds and statues of children. This hospital does not seem like a nice place to get well, is what I mean, which makes me even readier than I was before to go on up there and get my mama out.

There's a couple of big, heavy glass doors to get into the lobby. I lead the way, and Paul follows. The big clock on the wall reads ten forty-five. No wonder I'm starving, since all I've had today is a soda, and not much last night either. And, also, looking at the clock makes me wonder how soon Daddy'll be here. Is he driving or flying? Or is he taking the bus, like we did? What I wish is that he'd decided to walk his way to Florida so we could have a teeny bit more time to work this whole thing out.

A woman sits at an information desk in the lobby, and I head straight for her. Paul splits off and walks into the gift shop that's lined with balloons and stiff stuffed animals. Stiff stuffed animals are more for display than
something a person would really want to cuddle. When I was seven, I won one—a stiff bunny—in a ball toss at the Loomer County Fair. According to the way Mama and Daddy tell it, I was so disappointed that I gave the bunny back to the man at the booth and said, “Shame on you.” I still get teased about it, but honestly, nobody on God's green earth deserves a stiff stuffed animal, least of all the sick folks in a hospital.

“How may I help you today?” asks the woman at the desk. She wears green scrubs, and her badge says,
My name is Constance
. She looks like she's Mama's age. She actually looks kind of like Mama, with her long, pretty neck and soft cheeks and glossy hair pulled back like that. Only this lady's life is probably normal as nails. She's here volunteering while her daughter goes to summer camp or something, and probably their dinner's already in the slow cooker at home.

“Can I have the room number for Mrs. Diana Green, please?” My heart flutters as Constance taps away at the computer. I half-expect her to tell me that Mama's gone, but she doesn't.

She just says, “Head on up to three north, doll. That's for cardiac care. Room 312. The nurses up there will show you the way.”

“Third floor it is.” Paul's voice startles me. I didn't realize he'd stepped back beside me. He slips a banana and a bag of pretzels into my hand as we head for the elevator. “C'mon, Ivy Blank Green. Let's go get your mama,” he says. And I have to admit, I don't mind my lonely little nickname so much when Paul says it.

On the third floor when we ask for directions, a nurse called Nan says, “Oh, I can take you to Mrs. Green.” And the next thing you know, here we are, standing in front of room 312. I can see, through the open door, a pair of feet on the bed, in fuzzy socks. Mama's feet, I can tell already.