18
SLIDE
—movement of a figure along a line
There’s a difference between watching videos and actually donating money, though. People must’ve been too busy rolling on the floor laughing to see our appeal for cash at the end. I kept thinking about how much more money we’d raise if Poppy would just get off his butt and make those boxes.
“How’s Poppy doing?” said Past as we entered the quiet soup kitchen to set up for Gladys. “Any movement?”
I slumped on a chair at one of the long tables inside, exhausted from days of preparing for Do Over Day—printing and posting flyers, getting the word out electronically, talking to just about everyone in town about what they needed to do. “Poppy? Yeah, he’s moving, all right. Now he’s putting his duck slippers all around the house to give us hints of what he wants. First, Moo found one under the sink where he keeps his Preparation H, because he was almost out. Then she found one in the fridge where she normally puts his soda, but she’d run out. And last night he wanted his A.1. sauce for his scrapple, only I didn’t know that, and Moo was out talking to her tomatoes, so no matter how many times he smacked his busted yardstick on Felix—”
Past flinched.
“—Felix the clock—I didn’t get him what he wanted, so he finally had to get up and go to the fridge himself. It was the first time I’d ever caught him out of his chair. Anyway, he was so ticked that when he sat down again, he threw a stupid duck slipper at me!”
I could tell Past was trying not to laugh.
“It’s not funny! The man is seriously annoying.”
“The man needs counseling.”
“The man needs a kick in the butt!”
“Okay,” he said, still smirking, but covering it up by bending over his cart and pulling out camera equipment. “Let’s get this place ready for Gladys.”
I looked around the soup kitchen. It was a big white room with a linoleum floor like a school cafeteria, complete with tables and chairs. The walls were covered with peeling posters about churches and government agencies. It didn’t look like the greatest backdrop for a music video. Fortunately, the kitchen, which was partially open to the rest of the room, had black curtains that could be shut to divide it from the eating area. We pulled them closed and set a chair and mike in front of them just as Gladys walked in.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m not sure I’m good enough for YouTube.”
“Come on, Gladys,” I said, pulling her over to the chair. “Have you seen some of the crap that’s on YouTube? Belching, farting, people falling, lots less skill than you have. And I’m adding at the end what you’re singing for, remember? We still need . . .” I tried to remember exactly how much we still needed for Misha’s adoption. “Almost thirty-two thousand dollars. Hey! Has my dad deposited money in Moo’s account yet?”
She shook her head.
“Are you kidding me?” I swung my arms out so violently, I almost knocked over the tripod and camera that Past had just set up.
“Mike!” Past yelled.
I grabbed the tripod, saving it.
“You can IM him later,” Past said.
“Like it does any good,” I muttered.
He paused. “Let’s focus on Gladys.”
Gladys looked positively horrified. She clutched the seat of the chair and I thought her eyes might roll back in her head at any moment. We tried saying, “Roll ’em!” several times, but she stared at the camera like a statue.
Eventually, Past went over and stood behind her, and I recorded him singing some old song called “Anticipation.” Gladys didn’t even react.
“That was a Carly Simon hit decades ago. This one is an R.E.M. classic called ‘Losing My Religion.’ ” He really enunciated a line about singing, but Gladys still didn’t move.
Finally, we heard a squeak.
“What?” I asked, running over to her so I might be able to hear.
“Stand,” she whispered. “I think I need to stand?” It came out like a request.
I practically pulled her off the chair and stood her up while Past took the chair away. She wavered a moment, then stood still.
I ran behind the camera. “Okay, why don’t you start by just saying hi, maybe introduce yourself.”
“I’m Gladys.” But that was all the talking she did.
All I could think was She needs a better name. Gladys was so . . . not like a cool singer. “I’ve got it! Your stage name is going to be Glad-Ice!”
A small smile crept across her face, ending in a laugh. “Glad-Ice,” she said, nodding. “I like it.”
Past turned the spotlights on her. Gladys’s voice came out softly at first, but got stronger and stronger. By the time she’d completed her first song—a Billie Holiday number, she said—she was standing, relaxed and natural, and her voice was at a normal volume. And gorgeous. In fact, by the time I started recording, she looked completely cool. She moved—no, flowed—around the “stage” with the mike in her hand, belting out lyrics.
And, wow. The girl could sing. And not just sing. She was the complete package. An entire experience. An art form. She was the only person who could sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and make it sound sexy.
And sultry. I discovered what sultry meant. Hot. Sweaty. The way I felt watching Gladys. When she moved on to “Love for Sale” and sang, “Who would like to sample my supply?” it was all I could do to keep from lunging at her. I had to suck it up, literally, when Past tapped my shoulder and said, “Mike, you’re drooling on the equipment.”
That kind of broke the mood. For Gladys, too. “Oh, no!” she said. “It’s after nine! I was supposed to meet—be there by nine.”
“Be where?” I asked.
She just shook her head and made for the door.
It wasn’t the best ending to the night and I was a little bummed when Moo picked me up. Why did Gladys have to run off like that? Why couldn’t she stay and hang out with us? With me. I kept thinking, There’s not that much of a difference between fourteen—going on fifteen—and eighteen.
As Moo drove us home, she rattled on about her talk with Gladys earlier that day. “I told her those piercings are only to keep people away. And that her family may have been appalling but that going out with dope-heads isn’t going to help her. I think I may have upset her.”
“You didn’t actually put it that . . . bluntly, did you?”
“Of course.”
“Jeez, Moo! You can’t come right out and say stuff like that! You have to approach it gradually and kind of hint at it.”
“Mike. I don’t have that much time left. I could be hit by a car tomorrow. You know the crazy way some people drive. Anyway, that Numnut is a convicted felon—Dr. P told me.”
“The eye doctor? How would he know?”
“His brother-in-law is a police officer. Numnut was convicted of”—she dropped her voice to a whisper—“car theft.”
“Does Gladys know that?”
“I just told her today. I don’t think she’ll go out with him anymore.”
“Well, she left the recording session to meet someone.”
Moo’s face turned as white as her hair. “And you didn’t stop her?”
I sank down in my seat. I felt like I’d failed Gladys. “She said she had to get somewhere by nine and she was going to be late. I don’t really know where—”
“Big Dawg’s.”
I was going to ask how she knew, but all I could do was hang on as I saw both yellow sneakers jam on the brake pedal, fishtailing Tyrone around to head us back the way we came.