I decided to let everyone else fix the stage. I went down to our one audience member. She was clapping, and a smile never hurts--at least not a smile like that. I wanted to ask her if she had liked it, but that would have sounded way too eager, so I decided not to do that.
“Did you like it?” I asked.
“It was terrible,” she said, which made my stomach drop, but she was still smiling, which made my heart beat in my ears, “but terrible in a good way. Did you really write that?”
“Mrs. Humphrey wrote the bits that sounded wise, but I wrote the rest. Sort of. Some of the rest I wrote during the day--but I was writing a different play, and then this play showed up in the nighttime, and then we worked on it and--yeah, I wrote it. And you liked it?”
“Didn’t I just tell you?”
“You said it was terrible.”
“Okay, fine. Yes, I liked it.” Her face got more serious. “It was a very nice apology, Perry. Thank you.”
I shrugged. “It seemed like just saying I was sorry wouldn’t be enough. I know I wasn’t much of a friend during the day, and I still don’t think I’ll be very good, but I want to try.”
Then something happened that was a surprise. From the look on Brie’s face, it wasn’t just a surprise for me, but I was definitely among the surprised. I was maybe chief of the Surprised Tribe, because looking at her right then, something inside me opened up just a crack. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it might have been the closet where I used to keep the ocean, and it started to rush out all at once.
“I want to try, because I like you. I think you’re funny and crazy and you make me do insane things and I love it, because the insane things are still nice and they make me happy, and you’re beautiful and I was a total idiot to not notice you before. I’m so glad you found me here in the City, because I think without you I’d still be stuck, and I’m still kind of stuck, but I’m trying. I’m trying, and I wanted to tell you that now, because I don’t know what I’ll feel like when I wake up, but I’ll still be trying, and I hope you’ll be patient with me, because I’m basically an idiot, but I like you, and now I’m repeating myself--”
Brie hugged me, and I shut up. She rested her head against my shoulder, and my toes and fingers tingled. Nerve damage, probably.
“Thanks for the play, Perry. I like you, too.”
I decided I was happy with this kind of nerve damage. I put my arms around her gently.
“I do hate to interrupt,” said Mr. Punctilious, “but I would like my chance to say goodbye before anyone decides to be so rude as to wake up.”
Brie pulled back and my arms and chest felt empty.
“Goodbye?” she asked.
“Yes, Brie. Now that you’re done coming to the City, I wanted to be sure to get a proper hug before you go.”
“What do you mean, ‘done?’” I asked.
Mrs. Humphrey and Father Thomas stepped down off the stage to join us.
“You don’t have a mirror, Mr. Crows,” said Mrs. Humphrey, “but anyone looking at you right now can see that you’re done here. You don’t need to come back, at least not for a while.”
Father Thomas smiled and nodded. “I’m happy for you, Perry. You and your friend.”
“But hang on,” I said. “I didn’t mean to--this isn’t--this--”
“Sucks,” said Brie. “This sucks.”
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Punctilious. “It does. And I will miss you both more than you can imagine right now, which is why I’ve decided something. What you said before got to me, Perry.”
I blinked at him. “Did I say something?”
“Yes. Probably shouldn’t try to explain things to my family, but you can tell them you’re a friend of mine from the library, and you’d like to see me. I’m sure my wife will let you. She has a soft spot for polite teenagers.”
“What are you saying?” asked Brie.
“Jerome and Marjorie Brixton. We’re the only Brixtons in the phonebook, so far as I know.” Mr. Punctilious took a deep breath and let it out. “I’d like you to come see me. It would be a relief to me to know that someone knows me as I am now, and not as a an insensate lump on an adjustable bed.” He sniffed. “And I think it might mean something to my wife to know that I’m remembered.”
“Jerome and Marjorie Brixton,” I repeated.
“Of course we’ll come see you,” said Brie. We looked at Father Thomas and Mrs. Humphrey.
“Oh, please,” said Mrs. Humphrey. “How hard can it be to find a priest? And Patricia M. Humphrey is too distinct to be mistaken for anyone else. Besides, everyone else is a ‘Humphries.’ I, however, am singular.” Her eyebrows lifted behind her glasses and one of us smiled. It wasn’t her.
“We’ll come find you, too,” I said.
“If you have the time,” said Father Thomas, smiling.
“You’d better,” said Mrs. Humphrey.
Brie and I looked at each other.
“I guess we should say goodbye to Zoli and Mrs. Absinthe, too,” said Brie. “And to Pork Chop.”
“Right,” I said, then I looked over my shoulder. “Do you hear something buzzing?”
Brie looked at me sharply. “Do you turn your alarm off on the weekend?” she asked.
“Of course--crap! I forgot!”
“Call me!” she said. “No! Dang it. We’re going to visit my grandmother all weekend. Do you have my cell phone num--”
I swatted my alarm clock. Hard.
Even with that abrupt goodbye, Saturday was like a Dr. Seuss story. I was bouncing off the wall, I was rolling like a ball, I was trying to read a book, I was making a feeble attempt at being an amateur cook.
Okay, that wasn’t a very good version of a Dr. Seuss story, but it wasn’t a very good attempt at cooking either—who knew you could mess up pancakes? I really didn’t care. The play had worked. I had apologized.
Mom decided to put my energy to good use. After I mowed the lawn in crisp air and folded all the towels, I felt slightly calmer. But still happy.
Very, very happy. It was a new feeling for being awake.
“You know tomorrow’s going to be rough,” said Not.
“What am I doing here?” I asked. We were on the same bench where we had first met, the hill and the City stretched out below us. “I thought I’d be done with the City.”
“You probably are,” said my dream, “but I missed you, so thanks for coming back.”
“Anytime,” I said.
“Really?”
“How should I know? I don’t understand how I got here in the first place.”
“Good point,” said Not. “Look, I don’t want to keep you long. You do need your sleep, but I wanted to warn you that tomorrow is going to be rough.”
“I don’t want to hear that,” I said. “And how do you know, anyway?”
“It just will be. Today you’re at the top of the world, tomorrow you’ll be fifty feet down, under a pile of rocks, popped tires, old diapers, and rejected beet greens.”
I could almost taste something rotten in my mouth. “Sounds…fun.”
“I don’t mean to be a wet blanket—I am a dream, and we tend to be pretty upbeat—but I figured you could use a warning.”
“But why? Why will I feel that way? Today was so good. Last night was awesome!”
“And your body and mind are worn out. You’re going to crash, Perry.”
I looked up at the moon above me, immense and silver.
“That sucks,” I said.
“Yeah.”
I looked back down. Glow-in-the-dark flowers wandered around on the face of the hill below us. A few glanced up at me, hopefully, but I guess my face didn’t offer them much hope, and they wandered off to find food somewhere else.
“It won’t last, though,” said Not. “It’ll get better.”
“Will it?”
“See how you feel Monday morning. Well, if not Monday, then Tuesday. Or at least by Wednesday.”
“Right.” I breathed in and out. “I’m going to miss you, Not.”
“Maybe,” said my dream. “But not for very long, I think.”
He was right about Sunday.
When I wasn’t at church, I stayed in bed and stared at the wall. Dad sat down next to me for a while, but he didn’t say anything. It seemed like he understood.
That night I slept without dreaming.
I'm glad we came back to Not. I was wondering about him. I still am. I guess I'll keep reading.
ReplyDelete