Chapter 12

At home, after my mother stopped me from threatening my sister with one of my old galoshes to illustrate what I was going to do to her if she ever touched my school stuff again, I tried to peel the food labels off my report and maybe salvage some of it, but the pages tore, so I had to start working from scratch. This time nothing short of an invasion from Mars would stop me from finishing the report and handing it to Mrs. Bowring tomorrow.

If there was time I'd practice the piano tonight, and if there wasn't, I'd have to get up at five in the morning and practice then. If I didn't, I wouldn't have a chance of being in the Follies. I'd go through the rest of my school days alone–the weird kid without a group, wandering around the place like the man without a country.

My mother was in Gerri's room, trying to teach her how to tie shoelaces. When I calmed down I told her three times I couldn't be disturbed. Despite the galoshes, Gerri gave me a big smile and a shriek. Her head bumps looked bluer than ever and I noticed the curtains were down again. My mother said she understood I needed privacy and quiet for studying, and speaking of studying, how was school today?

I started to tell her about cutting English, but at the last minute I changed my mind. My mother was getting those circles under the eyes that old people get and she was hardly smiling any more. I told her school was fine. She told me Gerri would not be starting her school until autumn, which seemed a long way off.

She suggested I go into the kitchen for milk and cookies. She'd wanted to surprise me by baking some with Gerri's help, but when she tried to teach Gerri to break an egg into the batter, Gerri threw the shell in too. In the end my mother had to throw out the batter and go to the store for the cookies. Never mind, I told her, they tasted fine.

I think I cheered her up; a few minutes later she came into the kitchen to show me some pictures she'd taken of Gerri in the park with a Polaroid camera, and she was smiling. One of the pictures, where Gerri's head was turned good side to the camera, came out pretty nice. My mother had brought a really neat frame for it that looked like real white leather, and she said she was going to put it on top of the piano next to the photos of me and Grandpa. Just as she was about to go into the living room with the picture, the telephone rang.

My mother took the receiver off the hook, and although all she said was "Hello," right away I could tell something was wrong. She was standing there with the telephone in one hand and the picture of Gerri in the other and no kidding, her face turned practically the same color as the picture frame.

Usually, when my mother talks on the telephone, she talks. I mean she talks and talks and laughs and talks. This time, she just held the receiver up to her ear and nodded and said, "Yes," a couple of times, and finally, she put the receiver back in its cradle and she just stood there looking at me.

I stopped eating and said, "What's the matter?" and she pretended that everything was fine and said, "Oh, nothing. You want some more cookies?" and I said, "Who was that on the phone?" and then my mother just sank into the chair opposite my chair at the kitchen table and she shook her head and looked down at the placemat like she'd never seen it before.

"It was Mr. Parrish."

Mr. Parrish is the superintendent-manager of the building we live in. He's in charge of everything that goes on–sort of like the big boss of everyone who lives here. He's also pretty tough. I once saw him hold two kids he thought were trying to open the coin boxes in the laundry room until the police came. You don't fool around with Mr. Parrish.

"What did he want?"

"He wants to come up and talk to your father and me tonight," my mother said. She was drawing on the placemat with her finger.

"What for?" I said, but I didn't have to ask. Mr. Parrish was coming up to talk to my parents about Gerri. "Are you letting him come up?" I asked, when my mother didn't answer.

"What else can I do?" she asked.

***

My father ran to the piano the minute he came home. He said he had an inspiration for the release of "Firecracker" and wanted to get it on paper before it disappeared out of his head. He reached into the piano bench for blank sheet music and began to play chords with his left hand and write with his right. I was sitting on the couch listening and my mother was giving Gerri a bath. Dad suddenly stopped. "Hey, what's this?" he said, spotting Gerri's picture on the piano.

"Mom took it at the park," I said. "It's pretty good, isn't it?"

"It certainly is," Dad said, putting it back between my picture and the picture of Grandpa. "Not bad at all." He went back to playing chords and writing them down.

My mother had heard the music and suddenly appeared with Gerri. Gerri was in her nightgown and robe and, as usual, had to be held back from trying to climb on the piano.

Dad was in a pretty good mood. "Hi, Gerri! How's my photogenic girl?" he said. He hit a great big beautiful chord, and Gerri let out a squeal. Suddenly, she said, "Gee! Gee! Gee!"

My father stopped playing to look at her.

"It's the key of G," my father said. He played it one more time, never taking his eyes off her.

"Gee!" Gerri yelled.

My father looked really excited. He turned to my mother and lifted his eyebrows.

"Try a different chord," my mother said. She was holding Gerri's towel and squeezing it in her hands.

My father tried another chord.

Gerri squealed, "Gee! Gee! Gee!" again.

My father's face fell. "That wasn't a G chord. It was E sharp," he said. "For a minute there, I thought–"

He stopped talking and played an arpeggio, using both hands and what looked like his elbows and shoulders too. He didn't look at my mother, or at me, or at Gerri.

"You thought she might have perfect pitch too?" my mother asked, over the sound of the music. She was still in the doorway and still hanging like anything on to that wet towel.

"It was kind of a silly idea," my father said. He kept playing, but his moustache looked like it was drooping.

"It's not a silly idea," my mother said.

"In any case, she doesn't and it doesn't matter," my father said.

***

Dinner that night was really crazy. With all those unlabeled cans, we were eating really weird combinations. My mother wanted to open a can of kernel corn and got breakfast figs instead. My father ate the breakfast figs with his lamb chop and asked my mother if he was going to have spaghetti and meatballs for breakfast tomorrow. The spinach turned out to be cranberry sauce. My mother made one more attempt at getting a vegetable on the table and let me pick a can. What we hoped was a can of asparagus stalks turned out to be chicken chow mein. For dessert, instead of pineapple, my mother opened a can of pea soup.

My father got up from the table. "I'm not that hungry," he said. "I had a big lunch."

"Let me give you coffee, at least," my mother said, and was getting up when the doorbell rang.

"Who could that be?" asked my father.

My mother looked at me. She hadn't told my father about Mr. Parrish. I suppose she didn't want to upset him and was waiting until after dinner to tell him, like she did the time my ten-speed bicycle was stolen and she wanted to break the news gently, on his full stomach.

"It's Mr. Parrish," she said, looking whiter than ever.

"Mr. Parrish?" my father said and his face looked as if he'd opened the hall closet and the seven dwarfs had jumped out.

"Neil, would you keep Gerri in here while Dad and I go into the living room and talk to him?" My mother looked nervous, the way she looks when anyone runs a high temperature or goes out too far in the ocean at the beach.

I said I'd try. My father got up and said, "What does he want?" but I could tell he already knew pretty well why Mr. Parrish had come up here. He scraped his chair on the floor when he pushed it away from the table like he always tells me not to do, and he and my mother went into the living room.

I really wanted to hear what Mr. Parrish had to say, so I stood at the door trying to listen, but Gerri kept up her steady stream of conversation, and what with all the prancers and dancers coming out of her mouth, I couldn't catch much of what was going on in the living room.

I kept saying, "Shh, Gerri! Shh!" but she just went right on making enough racket to block out any other voices. Which gave me the idea of filling her mouth with food. If she was eating, she'd have to shut up, wouldn't she?

Where was the applesauce? There didn't seem to be any in the refrigerator. I looked into the cupboard, but aside from the rows of unmarked cans and some that still had labels that Gerri had missed, I didn't see anything that would appeal to her. Except, maybe those marshmallows on the top shelf? I thought I saw my mother give her one a couple of days ago. What were they doing all the way up there, anyway? Maybe Gerri liked them so much that Mom had had to put them out of reach?

"Want a marshmallow, Gerri?"

"Pranssssa, blix."

I was beginning to understand her, no kidding. I dragged the step stool over to the cupboard and climbed up two steps and reached in the cupboard for the marshmallows, and while my back was turned and I was up on the ladder, would you believe it? Gerri just got up and started heading for the kitchen door.

"Hey, Gerri! Come back! I'm getting those marshmallows down for you!" I called, but she didn't stop. She'd heard that strange voice in the living room and was heading his way, revving up her shuffle/shuffle to full-speed-ahead to make sure I didn't catch her.

I got off the ladder as fast as I could and ran right out of the kitchen after her, but she was already crossing the living room and heading straight for Mr. Parrish, zeroing right in on him like she had a mission to push him out of the way of a falling building. His back was to Gerri so he didn't see her, but now I could hear what he was saying.

He was saying that he'd had to bring action against a man who had had all-night marijuana parties in his apartment and he'd had to bring action against a family that was raising rabbits in the master bedroom, but he hoped he wouldn't have to bring action against us. I knew that "bring action" meant turning us out of our apartment, which is the apartment we've lived in since I was born.

My father's eyebrows moved together over his eyes, and he said that he wasn't having wild parties or raising rabbits and that Gerri needed time to adjust and why couldn't people be a little patient?

Mr. Parrish was about to answer when he sensed or heard Gerri's footsteps coming his way and he turned around and just stared at her. She was heading directly at him and his expression was like–no kidding–he'd come face to face with twenty kids trying to vandalize the basement washing machines. His mouth went straight across like he was preparing to put a knife between his lips and his body seemed frozen to the corner of the rug, like he was not a person at all, but a wood carving decorating the room.

Gerri never hesitated for a moment. I guess she knew all along why she was headed for Mr. Parrish. She shuffled right up to him, said, "Vixen, vix, blix," and threw her arms around him in a great big bear hug.

For a second, Mr. Parrish looked like he didn't know what hit him. When she let go of him, his mouth looked even straighter, his eyes rounder. There was a second or two of absolute what-next silence and then–no kidding–Mr. Parrish grabbed Geraldine and hugged her right back!

I guess none of us expected that. In fact, all of a sudden, my mother turned her back on all of us; I guess she didn't want us to see her face when she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. I guess that's the way my mother celebrates! It certainly seemed as if Mr. Parrish really liked Gerri, and if Mr. Parrish liked Gerri, he wouldn't bring action, would he? Even my father's moustache looked as if it was smiling.

I felt good too. I'd finished my reports and hidden my ring-binder out of sight. Beef would fix the cut slip, I still had hours to practice my Follies piece for tomorrow's tryouts, and now it seemed that we could stay right on in our apartment.

Things were looking up. I was sure everything would be smooth and sweet as those marshmallows in the kitchen cupboard and we'd all live happily ever after.

I should have remembered things always look brightest before the storm; no kidding, I'd never been so wrong about the future in my whole life!