He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. His cheeks looked fuller than she remembered. And the race-car design that had been shaved into his hair had already started to grow out; now it just looked patchy. Was Karen really taking Ruby out of Betts on account of this…child?
As usual, it was clear that no one in Jayyden’s family had shown up for the celebration. With a swirling brew of sympathy, trepidation, and—if it was possible—preemptive nostalgia, Karen asked, “Which one is your story?”
“That one,” he said, pointing to a sheet of lined paper next to Ruby’s.
“Oh, cool,” said Karen, lifting it up.
The story was only one page long and featured poor grammar and spelling. But in its own way, it was well paced and kept the reader wanting to know more. Or maybe it was just that Karen could never hear enough about how the other half lived. Jayyden’s story was about a boy who gets into a fistfight on the playground with another boy because of a misunderstanding; one gives the other a black eye, but they eventually become friends. By the end of the story, the two are close enough to call each other the n-word, have their own special handshake, and share a pizza together at the park. In the narrative, Karen found both confirmation of Jayyden’s disposition toward violence and a challenge to her assumption that he was beyond redemption. There was one comment on the Comments sheet—Good job, signed Jasleen’s mom. Seeking to inspire the author, not patronize him—or, God forbid, antagonize him—Karen wrote: Very well-told story! I felt like I was there. I’m glad Aquille and DeShawn make up in the end. I wish I could hear more about what happens to them. You’re a talented writer. Ruby’s mom. Then she set her pencil back down on the table and glanced over at the author. Jayyden looked at her inquisitively. Or was it suspiciously? Or maybe he wasn’t seeing her at all. “Cool story!” Karen told him.
“Thanks,” he said. But he didn’t immediately pick up the Comments sheet to see what she’d written.
Karen moved on to the next story at the table, which was by April Fishbach’s son, Ezra. It was called “The Story of Cheese,” and it was about a boy who gets mad at his mom at the food co-op they belong to because she won’t buy him his favorite kind of “fedda”; his mom explains that armies from the country where the cheese is made are occupying another country and killing innocent people, so they have to buy cheese from somewhere else. Very realistic, Karen wrote. She was tempted to add, I could see your mom denying you nutrition for geopolitical reasons, but refrained. April herself was standing only a few feet away, dinning in Mumia’s dad’s ear about a sit-down to protest police brutality that she was apparently organizing. Ralph was smiling but appeared skeptical.
Karen would have liked to read Chahrazad’s story, but the girl’s writing was tiny, and Karen needed stronger glasses. All she could make out was the title: “The Girl Who Didn’t Want to Go Back to Yemen.” So she skipped ahead to the last one at the table, which had been written by Empriss. At first glance, the story appeared to be quite long. But after opening it, Karen discovered that Empriss had written only one sentence per page and that the book was mostly composed of illustrations done with a purple marker. It was called “The Present.” On the cover Empriss had drawn a picture of a girl holding hands with a stick figure wearing sunglasses. The story was about a girl named E. who hadn’t seen her dad since she was four years old. She asks her mom why her dad went away. But her mother won’t say why. Then he shows up, and he has a present for her—a locket in the shape of a heart—and he tells her he loves her and he’s sorry he had to go, but now he’s back. On the last page of the story there was a disclaimer. Empriss had written: If this sounds realistic, that’s because, if I saw my dad, I’d be so happy too. I’d throw my arms around him and tell him I loved him. Because I only saw him once since I was four.
Wow—powerful story, wrote Karen as an achy feeling enveloped her chest, and her eyes grew shiny with tears. Though whether or not her upset was due to Empriss’s storytelling skills was hard to say.
“You okay?” said Lou, suddenly appearing at Karen’s side.
“Oh, thanks. Just having a hard day,” said Karen, dabbing her eyes with her knuckles.
“Hey, I’m here if you need me.”
“Thank you—really,” said Karen, spontaneously reaching over and hugging Lou even as she saw before her the limits of their friendship. Karen feared that, if Lou knew where she was headed later that morning, she’d judge Karen in the same way that Karen had once judged Laura Collier. Karen also doubted that Lou would still be hugging her. “I’m just losing it for no apparent reason,” she went on. “Though I did have a horrible fight with my husband last night.”
“Find me a couple who doesn’t fight,” said Lou. “I’ve never met any. Gunnar and I? We try to stick to physical violence only, especially when it involves dirty dishes left in the sink for ten straight hours while he’s lying on the sofa playing Shadow of Mordor.”
“Okay, that makes me feel better,” said Karen, chuckling through her tears. “By the way, if you need a good laugh yourself, check out”—she leaned into Lou’s ear—“you-know-who’s son’s story. It’s a classic of the genre. Set in a food co-op, of course.”
“Naturally,” said Lou.
“Though if you’re in the mood for heartbreak, that one will slay you.” Karen discreetly pointed at Empriss’s paper.
“Oh, yeah. I read that,” said Lou. “I believe that genre is called So Realistic It’s Actually Memoir.”
“Exactly,” said Karen.
“People screw up their kids so badly.” Lou shook her head.
“I hope I’m not one of them,” said Karen.
“Please,” said Lou, making a wry face. “You mean by providing Ruby with too many after-school enrichment classes in one week?”
“Are you telling me I’m a horrible cliché?”
“The worst,” said Lou, smiling.
Lou’s words were still reverberating in Karen’s head when, five minutes later, she said good-bye to her, then to Ruby, and headed back out of the building. At the corner of Cortland, rather than continue walking to the train station, she turned left—in the direction of Edward G. Mather Elementary.