I HAVE HATCHED A plan!
Last night, I watched Min’s video, which involved a guy on a Segway and a box kite and was very funny. Then I watched the video for “Money Changes Everything.” And then I watched several Althea Orris videos, and I remembered about how I was supposed to think positively and convert my mental energy into two hundred and fifty dollars. And that’s when I had an idea!
It involves breaking a rule, but desperate times call for desperate measurements and I need two hundred and fifty dollars and I really cannot show my face at school until I have it, so I am simply going to ask someone for the money. And that someone is my grandmother!
My father made this rule up years ago that Grandma Hildy is allowed to give me and Desmond presents, but that the presents are not allowed to be money or gift cards. We are not supposed to take money in any form from our grandmother, not even a quarter for a gumball. When I was little I thought that this was because my grandmother was secretly poor and didn’t want us to know, so of course I never took any money from her and once, when I was six, I even tried to give her five dollars. But now I realize that this is just a rule of my father’s and does not make any sense much like many of his other rules, for example the one about how I should go to bed at 8:30 p.m., which never happens, by the way.
So I find a brown paper bag for Desmond to put his lunch in and give him a little pep talk about fitting in so Simon Yee will ignore him. I do a very smart thing and explain it in terms of science. It’s called camouflage, and butterflies do it all the time, I tell him. Desmond likes butterflies, so I am hopeful that he finds this inspiring. It’s like I always say, school is like makeup—it’s all about blending.
And now I am on my way to Grandma Hildy’s apartment so that I can get the money before I see Zelda, and if my grandmother does not have the cash, then maybe she can just write out a check or send the money to Zelda via PayPal.
Robert is misting the orchids in the lobby when I go in, and he scowls at me as usual but I just ignore him and head upstairs. Althea says grouchiness is contagious, and I don’t want to catch it.
When I step out onto my grandmother’s floor, I see Ms. Shaw stepping out of her apartment with a tiny little bag of garbage that must have about two tissues in it and nothing else. I am a little afraid of Ms. Shaw because she is always wearing a bathrobe. She claims to be a writer, but my dad once told me that this is just something people say when they are unemployed. Usually, I pretend that she doesn’t exist, which works well, because she is pretty spaced out and may not even realize I am a real person and not a ligament of her imagination. But today, she seems to see me, because she says, “I heard her go out.”
“My grandmother? You don’t have any idea where she went, do you?”
Ms. Shaw shrugs. “1986?” she says, as if this is some kind of answer. Then she shuffles down the hallway, toward the door where the trash chute is.
1986? What kind of answer is that?
Shoot. This is no good. I consider asking Ms. Shaw if she noticed whether my grandmother had her purse with her but decide that this would sound suspicious.
Ms. Shaw returns from the garbage area, shuffling slowly in her bunny slippers. She’s a little old—maybe forty or so—but she moves like she’s older than Yoda. She should do some yoga, I think. Yoga for Yoda. “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?” I ask as she pushes open her door.
Ms. Shaw turns back toward me and cocks her head, like she had forgotten I was here. Then she says, “She’s probably in her friend’s time machine. 1986!” Then she slips inside her apartment and shuts the door.
Ms. Shaw needs to positive-think her way into some social skills.
But once her door is shut, I see the number on the plaque outside. 2085. My grandmother’s is 2086. So . . . maybe she’s in apartment 1986?
I head for the stairs.
The stairwell in my grandmother’s apartment building is rarely used, but it is always very clean and I like the way noise bounces off the walls. There are no windows, and today the light between floors flickers like a birthday candle refusing to light. I struggle against the heavy fire door on the nineteenth floor, and as it gives way, a rush of wind blows past me, nearly knocking me down. I can’t quite figure out where it is coming from, but there must be an open door or window somewhere that is causing a draft.
I look down the hall and see a door that is slightly open and I begin to wonder if this is where the draft might be coming from. Sure enough, air seems to be whistling through the doorway. The number on the brass plate is 1986, with a name below: Earl Johnson. Oh! Earl! My grandmother’s kind-of-maybe boyfriend. Now this all makes sense. I stick my mouth up to the door and say, “Hello?” Nobody replies, but I hear voices. One of them sounds like my grandmother. I do not want to barge in on a private conversation, so I just listen in a little to try to find out if this is the kind of conversation that is private.
I push the door open a little wider with one finger, and I can see just a sliver of Mr. Johnson’s living room. He has a bookshelf that is very neatly arranged, alphabetically, with several copies of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood at the top. There is a whole section for Stephen King, including The Tommyknockers, Pet Sematary, two copies of Cujo, and four copies of Misery. There’s a section with John Irving. Below that are shelves loaded with classic VHS tapes, like Back to the Future, The NeverEnding Story, The Lost Boys, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Stand by Me, and Pretty in Pink. Nearby, another two shelves are completely loaded with small blue Smurf figurines, and below that are dolls in boxes: Michael Jackson, Rainbow Brite, G.I. Joe. There’s even a Pee-wee Herman doll.
And I think that this is very interesting, because it almost seems as if Mr. Johnson lives in a museum. Like, his apartment reminds me a little bit of the Richmond Room at the Met. It is set up to look like a room in the Federalist historical time period, and this is like that, only it is set up to look like . . . I don’t know. The 1980s, maybe?
I can see Mr. Johnson’s torso and legs in a large cream-colored chair. I can’t see Grandma Hildy, but I can hear her voice, and she’s saying, “—where did you find it?”
“Scandinavia!”
“You’re kidding.”
“The internet is an amazing place, especially if you know what you’re looking for.”
My grandmother laughs, and says, “Let’s play it!” and a few moments later, I hear a crackle of static, then the opening bars of some jazzy pop music—a weird blend of synthesizer and saxophone. Finally, a very familiar voice starts to sing, “Oh, oh, oh . . .” There’s no doubt about it—that’s Cyndi Lauper, but it’s not a song I know.
“I haven’t heard this in years,” my grandmother says. I can’t see her face, but I can hear her smiling.
Mr. Johnson rises from his seat slowly, like a bear waking up, and I’m surprised at how tall he looks. Then he steps forward, and I can’t see what he’s doing, but I imagine that he’s holding my grandmother’s hand, and a moment later, she and Mr. Johnson are dancing around the living room.
“This music makes me feel like I’m in my thirties again,” my grandmother says.
“Oh, but you are,” Mr. Johnson tells her. “When you’re here, you are. It’s called time traveling.”
The hallway feels wavy to me, and I still have that underwater feeling of almost drowning. The light feels strange, as if I can see the ripples over my head and sunlight is far away.
I don’t know what to make of all of this, but it doesn’t seem like the right moment to interrupt my grandmother. So I take a deep breath and skulk-toe down the hallway and slip into the stairwell.
I hurry down nineteen flights of stairs, thinking about Grandma Hildy and Mr. Johnson dancing in his peculiar retro living room. It is a little strange to think that my grandmother is friends with someone who lives in a 1980s museum. I wonder if she wishes that she could go back in time. Would Grandma Hildy really want to go back to a time when I wasn’t even born? I can’t imagine her in her thirties. What would she do if she could get a do-over?
My brain is so busy with this and other deep thoughts that I am three blocks away before I even realize that I forgot all about the two hundred and fifty dollars.