Seven Stories Up (18 page)

At last we arrived in front of Fortunata’s booth. He was cutting up an apple. “You’ve returned,” he said pleasantly. “I hope you were satisfied with your purchase.”

“Yes!” said Molly. “Or … no. Well, I haven’t tried it yet. But I feel better.”

“That’s all that matters,” said the man. “Apple?” He held out a slice.

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Molly.

“You?” He held out the slice to me, and I took it
silently as I tried to sort out what to say. I watched the man take a bite. After he swallowed, he said to me, “So, then, it’s
your
turn, is it?”

“I … yes!” I said, startled. “How did you know?”

“Process of elimination,” said the man.

“Oh, well, I mean, I doubt you can help. But I—”

He spoke softly. “If you
doubt
I can help, I can’t. What is it you need?”

“I’m not sure how to explain it,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

“Try,” he said.

“Well, I need …” I faltered. “I need to find … my future.”

He looked at me, staring deep. His eyes were a warm greenish brown, a comforting, earthy color. “Your
future
? You’re certain about that?”

I nodded. “I’m sure.”

“In that case,” he said, setting down his apple, “show me your palm.”

I glanced at Molly nervously, then slid my trembling hand into his still one. The man lowered his eyes, stared down a minute, then looked up. His face had gone pale.

“What?” I asked, petrified. “What
is
it?”

“No.” He dropped my hand. “
This
I can’t do.” He took a step backward. “It’s too much.”

“Why? What’s the matter?” asked Molly.

“Wait,” I insisted. “Please
tell
me. What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “You are
between
futures. I think you already know that. Don’t you?”

I nodded.

“I
can
tell you that all will be well,” said the man, “no matter what may come. The world will keep turning. You will have good days and bad, wherever you are, whoever you are. Can you take comfort in that? Is it enough?”

I shook my head. There were tears waiting behind my eyes, burning. “It isn’t.”

“Oh, dear,” he said. He looked genuinely sorry.

“I just want my mom,” I choked out. “That’s the only thing I want in the world.”

“If that’s true,” said the man earnestly, “then focus on that. Don’t look away; don’t forget it. The more you care about something, the more you
need
it … the more likely you are to make it real. Do you understand?”

I nodded again. “I just want to be
sure
. If you could promise me that everything would turn out, it would be so much easier to believe.…”

“Ahh, but you’ve got it backward,” said the man as he ducked inside his tent. “
You
have to believe. Until you do … anything can happen.”

“Annie?” Molly reached out and placed a hand on my arm. “Are you all right?”

I brushed her hand off and dropped to the grimy curb, staring at my scuffed Mary Janes. Inside I was shaking. “No,” I said softly.

“What’s wrong?” She knelt beside me in the street. “You’re so … different all of a sudden. I wish I could help. I
want
to help.”

“He said anything can happen,” I murmured darkly.

“What?” Molly asked. “What did you say?”

I looked up into her eyes. “
Anything
can happen.”
I was almost shouting now. “Anything! Do you get it?”

“I’m trying,” she said softly. “I really am.”

“I just want to go home.” I threw a rock into the street.

Nothing had actually changed since yesterday, but everything was wrong. I felt like screaming. I did
not
feel like trying to explain something I didn’t understand to Molly.

When she sat down beside me, I stood up and began walking again. “Wait!” Molly called from behind me. “Annie, wait! You’re going too fast.”

I turned back and saw she was panting, clutching her chest. Of course she was. None of this was her fault. I knew that. But she was here, and Mom wasn’t. She was better, and I … might never be.

“Annie!” called Molly again. “Please? Don’t leave me!”

I took a deep breath and trudged back to where Molly was bent over. I watched her wheeze. “I’m just going to find us a taxi.” I scowled. “Stay here.”

She rose. “No. I’m all right now. I can keep up.”

We started moving again, together. We walked in silence, away from the water. The houses were dingy. A few cars passed us, but no taxis. We couldn’t see the water anymore, and I had no idea where we were.

Then a raindrop fell.

I picked up my pace as more drops fell.

“Great!” I shouted miserably as I ran. “C’mon, run, Molly!” Molly tried to keep up, sprinting beside me. When would we see a taxi?

In the distance, out over the water, there were big ugly clouds spreading toward us like a bruise. As rain spattered down and the bricks grew wet under my feet, I thought of Mom, fifty years in the future, fumbling at the hotel door. I ran another block. I was soaked.

Behind me, Molly called my name.

Without turning my head, I called out, “What is it?”

“Should we find some cover?” she asked.

I just kept running.

“Please, Annie!” Molly called. “What’s wrong? Why won’t you talk to me?”

I still didn’t stop.

“Annie!” she shouted. “Let’s wait out the rain, okay?”

I didn’t turn back. I let loose and ran. It hurt, and
that
felt good. My heart thumping, my head pounding, the rain spitting around me, and my feet beating the rough bricks.
Take that, take that, take that
. I didn’t know what would happen, but as long as I was running, I couldn’t stop to think.…

The rain came harder. My braid had come undone
and my hair was streaming down my back. Then I hit a loose brick and almost fell. I stopped to catch my breath. I could see Molly far behind, but my vision was blurry. I rubbed my eyes. I was dizzy. I was panting too hard. So I sat down, there in the rain. I was so wet, it didn’t matter. I waited to catch my breath, for the rain to stop. For Molly to catch up.

Now I was wheezing badly. I’d never breathed so hard sitting still. I hiccupped and gasped, and I couldn’t tell what was asthma and what was me trying not to cry. But I couldn’t stop any of it. The ragged gasping and my ragged wish for Mom, all mixed up together. I closed my eyes.

That was how Molly found me. She knelt beside me, in my puddle. She looked into my face, and I saw her fear. “Why didn’t you slow down?” she shouted, wiping the wet hair from my face.

I could only shake my head. I was racked by a spasm.
This
wasn’t supposed to happen to me. Molly was the sick one.

“I’ll get help,” she said. She stood and ran to a house, banged on the door, but nobody came. Thunder crashed. The afternoon was dark as dusk.

Molly ran back to me. “We haven’t time to waste,” she said. “Come on.” She began to pull me, to tug at my arm.

“We’ll find a taxi,” she was saying. “We’ll get you safe.” Molly held my hand. She dragged me to my feet. I stumbled after her.

The rain came on harder, but we walked slowly. Molly pulled my arm around her neck, and I leaned against her. I could feel her thin shoulder tremble under my weight. We kept our faces down. The thunder was loud above. We trudged through the puddles, holding each other, soaked to the bone. It was hard to tell the mud from the horse poop. I didn’t even care.

For a minute I was breathing better, wheezing less. After several blocks of narrow dark streets, we turned onto a wider avenue and ducked under a tree. It wasn’t enough to keep us dry, but the drops came slower there. Still no taxis passed. Molly let go of my arm and walked away.

For a second I thought she was ditching me. Then she turned and stood right in the middle of the avenue, waiting. At last a car came, swerved to miss her, and kept on going. Then another, which splashed through a puddle and covered her with mud. At last one honked and slowed. “Crazy kid!” shouted a voice through a window.

“Please, sir, we need a ride!” Molly shouted. “My friend is sick.”

“You’re wet!” yelled the driver.

“I have forty-three dollars!” Molly screamed.

The car rolled to a stop, and a minute later we were in it.

I lay on the seat, clutching my chest, dripping and gasping and grateful. I looked up at Molly. She was wheezing too.

“Jinx?” she asked.

I tried not to laugh. It hurt to laugh. “Jinx,” I whispered.

As the car rumbled along, I felt myself calming, slowing. I was catching my breath. I was breathing. It would be okay. It would all be okay.

At last we were pulling up in front of the hotel. Molly shoved her entire bundle of money at the man. Then we were in the elevator, heading up to our room. After that, Molly was stripping off my wet dress, helping me into the bed. She was tucking me in.

“You’re much better,” she said. “Still, I’ll go for the doctor. Will you be okay, for just a minute, alone? I promise I’ll be quick.”

I nodded.

I heard her walk away, and as she opened the door, she said, “It’s so strange, Annie. Seeing you like this is like seeing
me
, almost. I wish I could help you. It doesn’t feel fair. You’ve helped me, and now I want
you
to be better. I want you to be happy. More than anything in the world.”

I lay there in the darkness and felt my chest rise and fall. “I’ll survive,” I panted.

“I know you will,” she said. It sounded like the truth.

“Molly,” I wheezed painfully. “How will you pay for the lamps … now?”

“Just rest,” she said. “I’ll be back with Dr. Irwin.”

I nodded, and the door shut.

I was alone. Breathing hard.

I lay in that big bed and found myself awash in memories, all the details I’d been afraid to lose in my fog each morning. Mom, the smell of her Pert shampoo, her loud laugh. The way she chewed her fingernails at the exact moment she was telling me not to bite mine. Her straw purse slung over one shoulder. The mini Snickers bars she hid from me in the freezer. All the things I thought I’d forgotten. They calmed me, those thoughts. Mom letting me steer the car while she put on lipstick. Mom throwing a Rubik’s Cube out the kitchen door when she couldn’t finish it. Mom singing me to sleep.

After a few minutes Friend curled up on my chest and purred into my wet skin, the nook of my neck. He rubbed my face, concerned. It felt nice to have him there as he butted his little head into my cheek, my nose, my mouth.

Until … something happened.

One minute I was remembering, and feeling that
warm furball against my face, and the next I had a tickle in my throat. Then I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get a breath, not one. It wasn’t like I was gasping; it was like I
couldn’t
gasp. I threw a hand up, but there was nobody to see it.

I sat up and opened my eyes, looking wildly around the room. Where was Molly? I pushed Friend off me, and then stumbled to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and tried to breathe in the hot wet air. It wasn’t enough.

I opened the medicine cabinet, looking for something, anything, wishing for my inhaler, but there was nothing.

Then I saw it—the blue bottle, the dust I didn’t believe in. The poison. Shining on the top shelf. I was out of air, out of time. There was nothing left to lose. I opened the bottle, tipped it back, and then … I felt a giant spasm rack my body, and the dust went flying, spilling blue into the cat box at my feet.

I would have shouted, but there was no air for shouting. I could only think my shout. With a stabbing pain in my chest, I dropped to the floor. And as the lightning flashed, and the lights went out, and the world spun into darkness, I took one last try for a breath. Alone. I was so alone.

I wish
, I thought to myself as my eyes fluttered.
I wish
I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish for Mom, for Mom, for Mom, I need my mom
.

Then a clap of thunder tore the night and trembled my darkness.

And then.

Light, blinding. It hurt my eyes.

“Annie, kiddo! Here, breathe deep.”

I sat up, gasping, clutching, grabbing at air. I was sprawled on cold white tile. My stomach lurched, and when I saw her … I burst into tears.

There
she was.
Here
she was. At last.

With a robe around me, and in her hand something plastic, purple, my inhaler, a tube of breath, a godsend, tasting of perfume and hair spray and medicine. I was breathing and crying and crying and breathing, sucking it in, all of it. Mom and the air and the
now
, home. Everything was expanding, my lungs so big they could take in the world. Every breath, shuddering with tears. I wanted every breath. All of them. I sobbed and collapsed back onto the tile.

Mom dropped too, sitting on the floor beside me. She was holding me, pulling me into her lap. I was crying, and she was saying, “Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. Honey. Honey. You’re fine.”

And I settled into calm. Shhh. Shhh. I
was
fine. I was safe, and home. I was back and the rain was still beating against the window. It was as if I’d never left. One long crazy night.