9

—

Jorie buzzed them in — Mina and the girls and June Bug. She smiled until she saw Lindsay’s bouquet, crazy in a good way, crammed with every type of flower. “Oh, dear.”

“My mom’s a florist,” Lindsay said. “She lets me have the leftovers. I arranged it myself.”

“Give it to me,” said a younger nurse who was filling little paper cups with pills from bottles lined up on the counter. She was taller than Jorie, her light brown hair in a high ponytail. She took the bouquet from Lindsay and practically flung it on the nursing station counter without even putting it in water.

All the while, June Bug tugged on the leash wrapped twice around Nicola’s hand, trying to make a break for the hall. The disinfectant-pee smell was just as strong today.

While Mina and Jorie chatted, Nicola read the names on the pill bottles. She smiled at the nurse filling the cups. The nurse frowned back. Lindsay just stood there, trying not to breathe, or so it seemed.

“I told the manager she was coming,” Jorie told Mina. “You should know he wasn’t thrilled. He’ll be less thrilled about two girls.”

“Maybe they shouldn’t stay,” Mina said.

“No, no. It will be such a treat for the dears. I’m just saying in case he shows his face. He manages several homes in the city so they might not even see him.”

The nurse who was filling the pill cups piped up, “She said she would quit if they couldn’t come.”

“I’d quit anyway if it wasn’t for the dears,” Jorie said. “I’ve been working here three years. Then this past summer the place was sold to a chain. Mr. Devon’s running all their homes. So, Nicola? Don’t mind Mr. Devon if he shows up scowling and frowning. You won’t be doing anything wrong. That’s just how his face looks.”

The other nurse laughed bitterly.

“Do you want to stay?” Mina asked them, glancing around the place and sniffing.

Beside the nursing station was a lounge where a TV played the Shopping Channel. Three old people were there — one asleep in her wheelchair in front of the TV, one sitting at a table staring at a balled-up tissue, and a third very thin woman in an armchair talking to herself.

Lindsay, her hand over her mouth and nose, stared through the pink frames of her glasses at the old people who didn’t seem to notice each other, let alone visitors with a dog.

“June Bug wants to cheer everyone up,” Nicola said, meaning she would stay, no matter how bad it smelled.

“I’ll see you in about an hour then,” Mina said.

“You’re leaving?” Nicola asked.

“I’ve got so much work.”

Jorie buzzed Mina out. Lindsay watched forlornly, but followed Jorie when she led them to the lounge.

It was only two days after Christmas, but there wasn’t a tree. No decorations of any kind. Not even pictures on the wall, or plants. Just the blaring TV advertising a special cloth called the ShamTastic that could absorb twice the amount of spilled liquid as a regular cloth.

They went over to the old man sitting at the table. June Bug, who was much more interested in continuing down the hall, had to be dragged.

“Look, Mr. Eagleton!” Jorie said to him. “We have visitors today! These two girls. Nicola and — what’s your name, sweetie?”

“Lindsay.”

Mr. Eagleton, who had gray hair and an unwashed smell, continued to gaze at the tissue on the table like it was a crystal ball. He didn’t react until Jorie touched his shoulder. Then he looked up in slow motion and blinked at her with watery eyes.

“Can you pick her up?” Jorie asked Nicola, who scooped up June Bug and held her in front of the old man’s face. His expression didn’t change when June Bug stretched her neck out to lick him, but his mouth fell open.

“Do you want to say something, Mr. Eagleton?” Jorie asked.

He did, but he took a very long time to do it.

Finally, all three sounds dribbled out. “P…U…P.” They could hardly hear them for the excitement of the woman on the TV demonstrating the ShamTastic.

“Mr. Eagleton,” Jorie said, “I am most impressed! Did you hear that, Glenda?” she asked the other nurse, who was approaching with a tray of medications.

Glenda grunted.

Jorie told the girls, “Mr. Eagleton hasn’t spoken for three months.”

“Doesn’t anyone visit him?” Lindsay asked, as they moved to the old woman slumped in front of the ShamTastic commercial. She was the same bibbed woman Nicola had seen the day before.

“It’s hard for families when their loved ones don’t know them anymore. So, no. They don’t visit very often.”

“Or ever,” Glenda chirped.

Lindsay said, “That’s terrible.”

There were other smells, too. Nicola placed them now. The smell of nothing ever happening. The smell of being lonely and forgotten and confused.

The bib woman wouldn’t wake up so they took June Bug over to the woman in the armchair, whose gray hair stuck out all over her head. Jorie called her Mrs. Cream.

“Decimand,” she muttered, smiling and looking pleased. “Decimand. Decimand.”

“What does ‘decimand’ mean?” Lindsay asked.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Jorie said.

“Then why is she saying it?” Lindsay’s face had turned the same color as her glasses frames.

“It’s her condition, sweetie.”

“Decimand!” Mrs. Cream exclaimed when June Bug was lifted up for her to see. With a thin shaking hand, she patted the top of June Bug’s head.

“Are you strangers?” a voice bellowed behind them. They all swung around, June Bug still in Nicola’s arms.

“There he goes again,” sighed Glenda, who was helping Mr. Eagleton swallow his pills.

The old man from yesterday, Mr. Milton, staggered straight for Nicola, staring. His eyes were bright blue under the spiky feeler brows.

Nicola set June Bug on the floor, expecting the dog to rush over and greet the old man making his monsterish way toward them — one step, then a pause while he dragged the other leg forward.

Instead, June Bug shot past Mr. Milton and down the hall, dragging her leash behind her.

“Mr. Milton,” Jorie said, linking her arm with his unmoving one. “She’s not a stranger. It’s Nicola, who you met yesterday. Remember? And her friend ­Lindsay.”

Lindsay shrank back.

“Nicola’s little dog is going to … Goodness. Where did the dog get to?”

Nicola pointed in the direction June Bug had disappeared, then hurried off with Lindsay trailing.

Beyond the nursing station was a long, slippery hallway lined with doors, all of them closed. Before one of them, June Bug was sniffing, making deep snorkeling sounds, trying to figure out the odors. Even Nicola, who couldn’t smell half as well, noticed the flowery perfume.

“What’s she doing?” Lindsay asked.

“There’s something in there she wants,” Nicola said. “It must be the kitchen.”

Before Nicola could grab June Bug’s leash, the dog tore off again. She slowed briefly to sniff under the next door, then ran on.

At the third door, she scratched the way she did when her ball or one of Jackson’s Matchbox cars rolled under the furniture.

Nicola caught the leash just as Jorie came around the corner. Immediately, June Bug started pulling Nicola back over to the first door.

“Is this the kitchen?” Nicola asked Jorie.

“It’s Mr. Fitzpatrick’s room.”

“Can she meet him?” Nicola asked.

“Mr. Devon said not to disturb anyone sleeping. I’m pretty sure Mr. Fitzpatrick’s sleeping. It’s all he does.”

The slow-moving Mr. Milton reached them then. He lifted his good arm in its baggy flecked cardigan and pointed at the door.

“Help! Get them out!”

“This was what I was afraid of, girls,” Jorie said. “He gets so agitated.”

“Help!” he boomed, as Glenda came brisking around the corner with a little paper cup of pills in one hand and a glass of water in another.

“Pill time, Mr. Milton,” she sang out to him.

Mr. Milton looked right at Nicola. “Help! Don’t forget!”

“You girls wait at the front,” Jorie said. “I’ll buzz you out as soon as we get him settled.”

Nicola and Lindsay watched the green pajama-ed pair lead Mr. Milton down the hall. They turned to go.

On their way to the front entrance, pulling the reluctant dog, they passed the nursing station. Behind the counter were the stools where Jorie and Glenda sat, cupboards and file cabinets. A phone. A wastebasket.

And filling the whole wastebasket was the bouquet Lindsay had brought, stuffed in head first.

Lindsay shrieked when she saw it. “That’s the meanest thing I’ve ever seen! And this is the awfullest place!”

In the lounge, Mrs. Cream and Mr. Eagleton slowly swiveled their heads and stared.

Then Glenda appeared. Lindsay pointed to the discarded bouquet.

Glenda shrugged. “Flowers aren’t allowed.”

“But why not?”

“Because Mr. Devon said. He makes the rules. I just follow them.”

“Is he allergic?” Lindsay asked.

“He’s either allergic, or he really, really hates flowers.”

Glenda stepped behind the nursing station counter and pressed the buzzer to unlock the doors.

The two girls dressed in the vestibule. “That didn’t go so well,” Nicola said.

She invited Lindsay to come over and plan what to do the next day.

Lindsay said no. “I’m going home to lie in my Feel Better Box.”