Don’t let her ruin your concentration.
Mom: “Does it bother you, that I’m seeing a therapist?”
Mike: “Half the kids at school are in therapy.”
Mom: “Do you want to know why I’m doing all this? Trying to pull myself together?” She’s actually waiting for an answer.
Mike: “I give up.”
Mom: “To help you.”
Mike: “What! Why?”
Mom: “Because I can tell you’re unhappy. You don’t sound like yourself. You don’t act like yourself. You need help, Mike.”
Unbelievable. You’ve never been happier. This may be the first time in your life you don’t need help. And where was she when you did?
Mom: “I wonder if you should be in therapy too.”
Mike: “I’m doing great.”
Mom: “You don’t eat.”
Mike: “I eat. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He realizes he forgot to cook this afternoon and throw food out. That must be what this is about. He thinks fast. “Today was Tamio’s mom’s birthday. I was over there for a party. There was pizza and cake.” He gets a sudden ache, remembering Tamio’s house, the sunny dining room, pictures of flowers, Tamio’s mom, always so friendly…. He shoves a huge bite into his mouth.
That one counts as a double. You’ll have to run extra laps tomorrow.
Mom: “How much do you weigh?”
Mike: “I don’t know.” He never gets on the scale. Numbers aren’t important.
Mom: “You went to the doctor last spring. I’m going to look up your health record. Then I want to see what you weight now.” She pushes her chair back.
Mike doesn’t want to get on the scale. She has no right.
Call Amber.
Again Amber answers on the first ring.
Mike: “My mom’s making me get on the scale. What should I do?”
Amber: “Are you wearing clothes with pockets?”
Mike gets on the scale.
Mom (bending down to read the number): “It looks like you weigh—”
Mike: “I don’t care.”
Mom: “Well. You lost fifteen pounds. I thought you lost more.” She doesn’t sound too pleased.
Mike lets out a breath of relief. Those brass paperweights his dad left behind weigh a ton. They fit right into his pants pockets, front and back, and in his sweatshirt pockets too. The metal hunting dog is hidden in his fist.
Good dog.
CHAPTER 17
ERIC, FROM THE BASEBALL TEAM, SEES MIKE IN THE hall and invites him over to watch the World Series. Mike doesn’t even know who’s in it this year.
Mike: “No, thanks. How’s your… uh …” Eric is the kid who broke something and is out for the season.
Eric: “Growth plate.”
Mike: “Right.” He has no idea what a growth plate is. Does this mean Eric will stop growing? But Eric towers over him. He’s tall enough. Mike wishes he were taller.
Eric: “It’s healing.”
Mike: “What is?”
Eric: “My growth plate.” He laughs a big laugh. “You’re kind of out of it.”
That’s rather insulting.
Mike: “I don’t think I’m going to play this year, either.”
I couldn’t be prouder. Mike’s getting his priorities straight.
Eric: “Why not?”
Mike (with a shrug): “Just doing my own thing. Running, working out.”
Eric: “But you’re so good.”
So what? You’re good at something that doesn’t mean anything.
Eric: “You always saved my ass out there, catching those long flies. You tell the coach about this?”
Mike: “Not yet.”
Eric: “He won’t be happy.”
But you’ll be happy. That’s the important thing.
Eric: “Why are you so fidgety? It’s like you can’t stand still.”
Start wearing headphones in the hall. That way people will leave you alone.
At lunch, Mike sees Amber and she’s got on layers and layers of clothes. It reminds him of that homeless man. Mike pushes the image away.
Amber: “My mom’s such a bitch. I made the mistake of telling her I want to be a nutritionist. She laughed—she actually laughed!”
Mike: “But you’d be a great nutritionist. You know everything about food.”
Amber: “I do, right?” She tears open a pack of saltines. “Get this.” She spits cracker dust when she talks. “My mom eats at Burger King. She says it’s because of her job but I don’t believe it. I think she actually likes Whoppers.”
Mike: “Your mom works at Burger King?”
Amber runs her fingers through her hair. Several strands come loose and float to the floor like bits of cobweb.
Amber: “If I tell you, you won’t tell anyone?”
Mike: “Who am I gonna tell?”
Amber: “Tamio?”
Mike: “I told you. We’re not friends.”
Amber: “Well, all right.” She whispers something Mike can’t understand.
Mike: “She’s a cool hunger?”
Amber (annoyed): “A cool hunter. She’s hired by advertising companies to observe teenagers and see what they find cool. Isn’t that the dumbest thing you ever heard? She goes to Burger King to see the clothes kids are wearing, the shoes they have on, the phones they’re using.” Amber has chicken soup today. She spoons out the noodles and puts them on her tray. “I hate her.”
Mike nods.
Amber: “She hates all the friends I ever had.”
Mike: “Anna?”
Amber: “Oh, she hates Anna more than anyone.”
Mike: “What about your boyfriend?”
Amber: “We can’t even talk about it. It makes her crazy. She hates everything about me. She hates what I wear. She wants me to look like Melissa Sacks, with her tight little skirts and thigh-high boots. Melissa is the daughter my mom had in mind when she thought about having one.”
This is heartbreaking. Amber’s mom should be so proud of her. Amber, who is her own person, who doesn’t want to look like everybody else. But Mike doesn’t really like the way Amber’s clothes hang on her, like she’s got on a pile of laundry.
Mike: “I don’t know.”
Amber: “It’s never about me! It’s about her. When she talks to me, I count the number of times she says ‘I.’ Then she gets mad and says I’m not listening. Even then it’s all about her. ‘I can tell,’ she says. ‘I always know.’ See what I mean?”
Mike (nodding): “My dad can be like that—”
Amber: “Anyway, why should I listen to her? I could care less what she has to say.” She rips open another pack of saltines. “I was really close to my aunt Claire. She died suddenly from an aneurism. You know what that is? It’s when an artery fills with blood and bursts. My mom kept telling me to get over it. ‘Look at me,’ she said, ‘I’m moving on.’ God, I’m such a pig. My mom makes me crazy.”
Mike: “Hey, are you crying?”
Amber: “No! I just hate her so much.”
Mike thinks she sure looks like she’s crying.
Mike: “What about your dad?”
Amber: “He’s worse than useless. He thinks what my mom tells him to think.”
Mike: “Well, it’s good you have friends.”
Amber: “Friends? When I was in the hospital last summer, for four whole weeks, no one came to see me. No one!”
Mike: “Why were you in the hospital?”
Amber: “What do you care?”
Mike: “Four weeks—that’s a long time. What happened?”
Amber: “It did so happen. Are you accusing me of lying?”
She wasn’t hearing Mike right. There’s that lazy lip, rearing its ugly head, so to speak.