Before the divorce, the move, the shit and the fan, Monday was my favorite day of the week. Mom and I would hop in her beat-up Malibu, crank Elvis, and roll down to Evergreen Asian Diner, proud purveyors of the best Kung Pao chicken this side of the Great Wall.
One Monday, Mom told me about the time she hitchhiked from Glasgow to Dover and almost fell into the river Thames. I listened like a sponge, pretending not to have heard this one before, just happy to soak in the magic of Mondays. She finished the story, and together, we laughed the bamboo shoots off the roof. (In the history of History, no one has laughed like my mother, so fiery and thoroughly youthful.) She cracked a fortune cookie against the side of our table like an egg, then unrolled the tiny vanilla-scented paper. I waited patiently for the celestial kitsch: the doors to freedom and the dearest wishes and the true loves revealed by moonlight. But her fortune wasn’t nearly as fortuitous as all that.
Just then, staring at the paper, Mom did three things.
First, she stopped laughing. It was tragic, really, to watch it evaporate like that.
Second, she sipped her beer and held the fortune across the table. “Read it, Mim,” she whispered. She never called me by my nickname. From her lips, it sounded strange and guttural, like a foreigner mispronouncing some simple word. I looked at her fortune, flipped it over, flipped it again. There was nothing written on it. No words of wisdom or dire predictions, just . . . nothing. A blank strip of paper.
The third thing she did was cry.
Signing off,
Mary Iris Malone,
Darling of Celestial Kitsch
31
Liquid Good-byes
I SHUT MY journal with a pop and climb down off the hood of the truck. Across the parking lot, Beck and Walt exit the restaurant, and immediately, I can tell something is off. Beck has his arm around Walt, who appears to be walking gingerly.
“What happened?” I ask as they approach the truck.
Beck opens the door, helps Walt get inside. “Midway through his last plate, he just stopped. Said he was all wrong.”
“I’m all wrong!” groans Walt from inside the truck.
“See?” says Beck.
I climb in on the passenger side while Beck hops behind the wheel. “What’s wrong, buddy?”
“My head, my stomach, all of me. I’m all wrong.”
Up close, his face is pale and clammy. I put my hand on his forehead for a few seconds. “Shit. He’s burning up.”
“Okay, well . . .” Beck pulls out his phone.
“What’re you doing?”
“Looking for the nearest hospital.” A few seconds later, he says, “We’re in a town called Sunbury. Looks like there’s a neighborhood clinic just down the road, except . . .”
“What?”
“It’s closed. For—”
“Don’t even say it.”
“—Labor Day weekend.”
I swipe my bangs out of my eyes. “So what, then, people are supposed to hold off on getting sick until after the holiday weekend?” Between us, Walt is moaning, rocking back and forth in his seat. “Well, we have to do something. That fucking buffet probably gave him food poisoning. He probably needs a stomach pump from all that red chicken.”
“The feeding!” moans Walt.
“I think I found a place,” says Beck, staring at his cell.
“Well, let’s go, man.”
Beck stuffs his phone in his jacket and revs up the engine. Walt’s moaning has reached new heights, and suddenly, I realize I don’t know the kid’s last name. How do I not know that? What kind of friend am I? A hospital means paperwork, and paperwork means knowing last names. If this is something serious, we’re in trouble.
A few minutes later, Beck pulls into the parking lot of a strip mall.
“Where’s the hospital?” I ask.
He turns off the ignition and points through the windshield.
SUNBURY VETERINARY
Animal Care Center
(Open Holidays)
“Animal care center?”
“Come on, buddy,” says Beck, ushering Walt out of the truck.
“Animal care center?” I reread the sign, just in case I got it wrong the first time. Nope. Spot-on. “Beck, you can’t seriously be—”
Beck slams the door. I watch through the windshield as he throws Walt’s arm over his shoulder and helps him inside the clinic. (Correction: animal care center. For animals.) Shaking my head, I drop down out of the truck and join them inside.
The front room reminds me of the principal’s office at my school: minimal decor of maroons and browns, cheesy posters, dusty leather chairs, prehistoric magazines.
A youngish girl appears from a back room, and like that, this idea goes from bad to bullshit. Her dark hair is tied back in a bun; she’s wearing a surgical uniform, which appears to have once been blue. But no longer. From head to toe, this girl is covered in blood. Liters of it.
“Hello,” she says, like it’s nothing, like we’re locker partners, like she didn’t just take a blood shower and then come out here all, hello.