Beetle Boy (10 page)

“I am PERFORMING with him, Mr. Porter. We are scheduled to perform TOGETHER. So I can't very well stay away from him, can I?”

She took my hand and said to the librarian: “Lead on, dear! We are ready to inspire your young readers!”

We were led away, down the hall, heading to the auditorium. Behind us, I could hear my dad exclaiming and asking angry questions about why I was performing with another author instead of alone. Mrs. M. held fast to my sweaty hand. The tears had dried on my cheeks. I let myself be led. If she had picked me up and carried me in her arms onto the stage, I wouldn't have objected. I felt—what can I say?—
rescued
. I was with Mama Bug.

We walked into the spotlight together. There was a mic on a stand and a wireless mic. Mrs. M. attached the wireless mic to my costume and looked deeply into my eyes, asking me word-lessly if I was ready to begin. The auditorium had gone completely silent. I nodded.

“My name is Martha Manning,” she said grandly, and she threw open her arms, embracing all the kids in the auditorium—about two hundred first-, second-, and third-graders. They broke into spontaneous applause. “And THIS,” she paused dramatically. “This is my special friend, Beetle Boy. Is he not magnificent, with his black wings and his quivering antennae?”

I was leaning into Mrs. M.'s skirt like a four-year-old. I gave the audience a little wave. Again, applause.

“Beetle Boy is here to tell you a story! A story from his life under the ground, before he came here today to your wonderful school.”

She turned to me again, clasping her hands in delight at the story I was about to tell. The story I had spent half the night memorizing. Of course, I had forgotten every word. I looked at Mrs. M. in alarm, communicating this, and somehow, somehow, she understood and produced a copy of
Meet Beetle Boy
, pulling it from the floppy pocket of her cardigan. She opened it as though it were a sacred scroll and held it up in the air. “Do you want to hear how our story begins?” she asked the students.

They did! They were already cheering to hear the beginning of my stupid story.

Mrs. M. handed me the book with a flourish, opened to the first page. “Tell us your story, Beetle Boy!” she commanded.

I took it from her and focused on the words, and I opened my mouth and out came the opening sentence: “One day, the dirt all around me was especially yucky, and I needed to be in some nice clean grass for a change. So I began to crawl.”

Beside me, Mrs. M. began to swim through the air with her back hunched over. The kids went wild—like it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.

“I crawled and I crawled and I crawled. Pretty soon, I saw the sun peeking through a hole in the dirt. Then I was in the sun and it was cool.”

You get the picture. Stupid book, cute kid in a costume, crazy lady acting like a crawling bug. A total hit! The auditorium kept bursting into applause. When I finished reading my story, it was pandemonium. Then I answered questions from the audience, Mrs. M. smiling at me and leading the kids into easy, safe territory. She was in charge.

Then we were finished! The school librarian gave me a big squishy hug, and even my dad didn't seem angry anymore, although he wouldn't make eye contact with Mrs. M., which I'm sure was fine with her. My dad got handed a big check from the librarian for seventy-five preordered books. After that, he was in a rush to leave, and he started pulling me by the arm from the gymnasium to the school entrance.

I was looking around for Mrs. M., realizing she hadn't even mentioned her own book during the presentation. I wondered if she needed to sell books to pay rent like we did. I wanted to ask her if she needed some of the money. But Dad was pulling me by the arm away from the school and into the parking lot, toward our car. Then I saw Mrs. M. off to one side of the parking lot, sitting inside her little blue hatchback with her head lowered over the steering wheel. She did not look up. I wanted so much to thank her, but Dad was basically dragging me to the opposite side of the lot. He was beside himself with excitement about selling seventy-five books at one school.

He was probably thinking, How many schools could we actually hit in a single day … Four? Five?

I was thinking,
I didn't die. I didn't die.

In the days following my auditorium triumph, the need to thank Mrs. M. grew inside of my heart like a weed. On a Saturday, I snuck some money out of the grocery fund and walked by myself a mile and a half to the downtown office supply store and bought her a present—a pen in a case with a row of diamonds on the clip. It felt like the perfect gift, one author to another. Thank you for preventing the total annihilation of my identity, Mrs. M.

After the auditorium gig, my dad bitched for weeks about how that has-been had stolen the spotlight from me because she was so jealous and such an old hag and a few worse things. I, on the other hand, was hiding my present of ink and diamonds in the pocket of my coat, taking it everywhere I went. Each time I looked at it, I could relive that sweet moment when Mrs. M. had said, with her hot breath and her steely voice, “
I am in charge of you today.”

Clara set up the reunion quickly—for the next Thursday, her day off, at 3 p.m., right after Liam “gets out of school.” Like she is suddenly so aware of his schedule.

Will your mom be free around that time?

I do not know or care what Mom does with her days, but this is one of several things Clara is asking me and my answer is always the same.

“No idea.”

What kind of cookies does she like?

“No idea.”

Does she drink coffee or tea?

“No idea.”

Is she cool about us living together?

This question puts me over the top. “Jesus, Clara! Do you think for one minute that I care what my mother thinks about us living together?”

Don't yell at me, Charlie! I'm doing this for you!

I completely snap. “Oh my God! You are not doing this for me! You are so not doing this for me! This whole thing makes me want to jump out of a window and break my other leg! Maybe then I could be in a hospital, and I wouldn't have to watch you getting all mixed up with stuff that's none of your BUSINESS!”

She put her hands up to her face as though I had slapped her, her face mushing into tears. God, I hate, hate, hate it when people cry. If I hadn't been in a cast and unable to move quickly, I would have lurched for the door and run away.

Instead, I mumble, “Sorry, sorry, overreacting, can't help it.” I hold out my arms to her guiltily. She shakes her head through her tears, refusing my hug.

If you're my boyfriend, then this is my business, Charlie. That's how it works if you want to be in a relationship with me.

“I'm already in a relationship with you! I'm doing the best I can! I'm trying to tell you I'm not ready for this, Clara. You won't listen to me.”

I listened to you. I am totally here for you. But I just think—

“You think everything is so simple. God, you think people can just … forget the past if they all sit down and eat cookies together! Well, it's not like that with the Porter family! Nothing good will come of this visit. It is not a good idea!”

She has listened to this, but now she wipes her eyes, calm again, back in charge.

Well, Charlie, I invited them, and I can't just uninvite them. We have to go through with it. If it doesn't go well, we won't have to ever do it again. And for your information, I do not think everything is simple. I know there's a lot of sad stuff in your past that you don't want to talk about. I'm trying to be patient. But the opportunity arose for a visit, and I decided to be open to it and make an effort, just like you made an effort with my family. Now, would you just please tell me … does your mom drink tea or coffee?

“Clara, I swear to God, I honestly don't know. I don't know if my mom drinks coffee or tea. And I don't care.”

But then later, maybe because of the questions, I start to remember little things. I remembered a teapot. It was china blue and had some significance—someone in her past had given it to her—her own mother? My mom drank tea. A special tea for her asthma. Another tea for her nervous stomach. And then I remembered that she was a vegetarian and that my dad hated her cooking and sometimes went out for fast food by himself after she had cooked something healthy for him. And I remembered that she made her own soap and put almond oil in our bathwater. And that she played hymns on the guitar, but only when we were in bed, so that I would sometimes hear her singing as I was falling asleep. I did not want to remember these things. They were pointless details of a lost time. They added to my dread. I was pinned.

Mrs. M. came to her front door in an unrecognizable form. She was wearing a baggy blue cardigan over a white blouse and ordinary jeans. No wig! Her hair was very short, as short as mine, and gray-blond. She did not look like a witch. She looked completely normal, like somebody's plain old grandmother. She also did not look particularly happy to see me.

“What in the world? Charlie? How in God's name did you get here?”

“Dial-a-Ride,” I said. “Easy, breezy.”

“Who told you where I live?”

“You're in the phone book, Mrs. M.! I can use a phone book, I'm nine years old. May I come in?”

“You may … you may … come in,” she said warily. “But why do you
want
to come in?”

“I brought you something,” I said. I patted my pocket, where the diamond pen rested. I pressed myself through the door and walked past her, into her house.

“Is your brother home alone?” she asked. A pattern was forming; she often asked me about Liam, and I didn't like it.

“He's fine. He's with the new babysitter.”

Her house was surprisingly normal—a one-story ranch with a small, shady front porch and a fenced-in backyard. As she led me from the front door to the kitchen, I craned my neck like an owl, taking it all in—the wooden floors, the colorful throw rugs, dark red pleated shades on the windows. It was really nice. Comfortable. Not trashed, like our apartment, but also not too clean. Kind of busy. Cozy. Mrs. M. had projects—knitting baskets, sewing baskets, stacks of books, a jigsaw puzzle on a table, halfway done—hummingbirds in a garden. I noticed that her furniture looked old, but not dirty. Her kitchen had beautiful wallpaper and a skylight and the kitchen windows had white curtains. White curtains! I was acting nonchalant, but the details of her house filled me with happiness. Mrs. M. invited me to sit at her corner breakfast nook—green vinyl seats and a paisley tablecloth. I plunked down and smoothed the fabric in front of me with both hands. Amazing. Clean. I was very hungry, but I sensed I might be pushing it to ask for food.

Mrs. M. was watching me. “Is everything all right today, Charlie?”

“Oh sure. Everything all right with you?”

“Why are you here?”

“I told you, I
brought
you something. And you weren't at the last author conference. That big one in Grand Rapids. I looked for you.”