I’m Afraid to Tell You

Veronica rifled through her room looking for a Barbie doll. She dug in drawers, old crates, and under her bed. She could see the doll in her mind, but she couldn’t remember where it was. It was so frustrating.

“Mom!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. She had to yell, she was under her bed.

“I’m right here, Veronica! Don’t shout!” her mother shouted. “Honey! I can’t hear a word you’re saying. Come in the kitchen!”

Oh sure. It was okay for Mrs. Morgan to yell halfway around the globe, but the rules were different for Veronica Morgan. Veronica crawled out from under her bed and walked begrudgingly into the kitchen. Her mother was standing in the middle of the room looking confused.

“I don’t know what to do for dinner.” She sighed. “Any ideas?” It was a silly question since they both knew the answer.

“Hunan Delight?” Veronica said.

“A girl after my own heart.” Her mother moved toward the phone.

“I love you, Mommy.” All of a sudden Veronica was overwhelmed by the idea of her mother dying and not being there to order Chinese food. She really was so ungrateful sometimes.

“I love you too,” her mother said. “What brought this on? Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Mommy?”

“Yes, my darling.”

“I want to do something with a Barbie. Didn’t I used to have one? Do you know where it is?”

“You know what?” her mother said as she smoothed Veronica’s hair. “I actually do. Or at least I’m pretty sure I do.”

This was amazing news because organization was not her mother’s strong suit. Veronica’s grandmother had everything labeled and packed in plastic protective sleeves and orderly rows but she hadn’t passed that gene down. Veronica’s mother was very good at putting things in places and forgetting the places she had put them.

“Where?” Veronica asked.

“I’m afraid to tell you,” Mrs. Morgan said.

“No,” Veronica said with mock horror. I’m afraid to tell you was a Morgan family euphemism for the front closet.

“Yes,” her mother said. “Two words. Three, actually. The. Front. Closet. There is a box in there filled with birthday gifts you never wanted. I planned on giving them to a charity. But, as usual, I haven’t gotten around to it.”

Veronica gave her mother a hug and ran out of the kitchen, happy she had a scatterbrained mother who was too disorganized to do things like give a box to charity.

“Please be careful in there, honey!” her mother said. “I want to eat dinner and go to bed. I’m too tired tonight to take you to the emergency room.”

Veronica was sure this new part of their project, the human element, as Sylvie called it, combined with their scientific data about the plants and their drawings, would get them As. She opened the closet door slowly and pulled the string attached to the light bulb, expecting to flood the place with yellow light. But there was so much junk everywhere the light barely made a difference.

There was tall junk, short junk, junk on shelves, junk on the floor. She was surrounded by junk. Wrapping paper rolls, a set of skis (no one in her family had ever skied, as far as she knew), the lethal golf clubs. A fur coat startled her. There was an exercise machine folded up and Veronica had a vague memory of her father promising one year to get into shape (one of his particularly famous lies). There was a bunch of folding chairs they used for Passover, an ironing board, piles of board games, and on a shelf above her head bottles and bottles of wine and champagne. She pushed her way through the coats, eating a mouthful of fur in the process.

With the aid of a flashlight she found the box she was looking for. Inside was a set of dominoes, three Candy Land games—all unopened—a set of Boxcar Children books, and at the very bottom two Barbie dolls, still in their packages! She took hold of them and made her way back to civilization.

“Did you find them?” her mother shouted.

“Yes!”

“Well, good! I guess it was meant to be.”