The Other, Better Me Read online

  I hope no one thinks I need the bathroom right now.

  When I reach Ms. Archambault’s yoga class, I open the door slowly so I won’t disturb the corpses.

  She’s playing this weird music that sounds like underwater sea creatures doing breathing exercises. She says soothing words about “the gentle movement of air” and “the weightlessness of thought.” It sounds silly to me, but it’s working on the corpses. No one moves a muscle.

  Okay, so they’re not actually corpses. They’re just really old people who are lying flat on their backs, eyes closed and arms relaxed at their sides. Ms. A calls this part of her sessions “Savasana.” She says it means “sleep,” which makes sense because that’s what most of the old people end up doing.

  I count twenty-two people, which looks like a lot when they’re all lying down. I’m pretty sure seven of them are already asleep. Make that eight, because Deidre Samuelson just dozed off too. I’ve told Ms. A that I’m keeping track of the numbers for a math project, but really, I just find it funny to watch them dropping off. It’s even better if one of them starts snoring.

  Ms. Archambault’s voice is as smooth as the turtle pond at McLean Park. “Aaaaaand emerge from your rest,” she says. “Feel the energy returning to your fingertips and toes. Your arms and legs. Your chest and neck and head.”

  Pretty soon, most people open their eyes. The men who are still awake nudge the ones who are asleep. As they come to, they all have this little smile like they just got caught doing something naughty.

  Mrs. Samuelson is the last to wake up. She doesn’t even move when her neighbor pats her gently. The woman laughs and tries again. Again, nothing happens. I’m starting to wonder if Mrs. Samuelson has really gone full-on corpse when she smacks her lips and opens her eyes. She smiles at the anxious woman leaning over her. I don’t think she knows she was asleep.

  Ms. Archambault bows her head and presses her hands together like she’s praying. “The light in me honors the light in you,” she says softly. “Namaste.”

  Everyone repeats “Namaste,” which sounds a lot like “Have a nice day!” Except without the exclamation point because some of them have only just woken up.

  They all thank Ms. Archambault as they leave. The women go first while the men hang around trying to be the last to talk to her. I think it’s funny how they all have a crush on her. When they’re awake, anyway.

  Mrs. Samuelson is asleep again. I’ve never seen anyone do that before. Maybe Ms. Archambault should start a business as a sleep specialist. She could call it Ten Seconds to Slumber. Think of all the money she’d make from those people who buy expensive medicines to help them sleep.

  Finally, it’s just Ms. Archambault and Mrs. Samuelson and me. While Ms. A slides her portable speaker into its carry case, I kneel beside Mrs. Samuelson and whisper, “Time to go home, Mrs. S.”

  She’s smiling, but she doesn’t wake up.

  “I’m real sorry,” I continue, “but Ms. Archambault needs her dinner. She gets all cranky if she doesn’t eat.”

  “I heard that,” Ms. Archambault mutters.

  “Just kidding!”

  She rolls up her mat and walks over to me. “So how many fell asleep today?”

  “Eight,” I say.

  Ms. Archambault frowns. “They’re supposed to be meditating, not sleeping. You hear that, Deidre?”

  We both stifle a laugh.

  “What’ll we do if she never wakes up?” I ask.

  “Leave her for the cleaning staff, obviously. You can’t expect me to lug a body all by myself. Although, come to think of it, Deidre’s as light as a twig.” She nods at today’s corpse-award winner. “So I guess I could handle her with help.”

  I pull a face, and Ms. Archambault rolls her eyes. “I’m kidding, Lola. . . . Well, except about the body-lugging part.” She bursts out laughing. “Come on, let’s get you some dinner. All this talk about corpses has me hungry.”

  She kneels down beside Mrs. Samuelson and places her hand on the woman’s arm. “Come along, Deidre. I don’t work overtime.”

  Mrs. Samuelson’s smile seems pasted on.

  “Deidre.” Ms. Archambault’s voice sounds different. “Deidre. Honey?”

  She slides her fingers to the woman’s cheek and then quickly down to her neck. She presses her fingertips against the woman’s crinkly skin.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  Ms. Archambault’s face turns white. “L-Lola,” she stammers, “could you go get some help?”

  I wait for her to say she’s kidding. This has to be a joke, right? Only I can see she’s not kidding, and I can’t seem to breathe or move my legs. “Is . . . is she . . . ?”

  “Lola,” says Ms. Archambault firmly. “Please call for help.”

  I walk to the door on shaky legs. When I’m out in the corridor, I ignore the no running rule and sprint to the front desk. Marcia, the manager, stops what she’s doing as soon as she sees me. “What the matter, Lola?” she asks.

  “Mrs. Samuelson,” I say. “She . . . I think she’s . . .”

  Marcia doesn’t wait for me to finish. She grabs her cell phone and runs around the front desk and along the corridor. She’s calling for an ambulance before we even reach the studio.

  Ms. Archambault is sitting cross-legged on the floor. She holds Mrs. Samuelson’s right hand in both of hers. Her eyes are closed like she’s praying, but she doesn’t look scared or sad. She looks as peaceful as the old lady lying beside her.

  I’ve never seen someone die before. I’ve never really thought about how it would look or sound or feel.

  “Do you want to get Lola home?” Marcia asks Ms. Archambault.

  My neighbor opens her eyes and nods. “Oh, yes. I—I’ll be right back.”

  Ms. A doesn’t get up with her usual lightness. As she walks to the door, her footsteps seem heavy. Even the way she pulls out her phone and calls my momma looks wrong somehow.

  “Is this yours, Lola?” Marcia points to a book on the floor. There’s a girl on the cover, and it takes me a moment to remember where I’ve seen her before. It feels like a lifetime ago that Jayda gave the book to me at the library.

  It was a lifetime ago. Mrs. Samuelson’s lifetime.

  I take a deep breath and step back into the room. As Marcia gathers Mrs. Samuelson’s belongings, I approach the old woman. Finally, I’m standing over her. Mrs. Samuelson is still smiling.

  I bend down and pick up the new book. The brave-looking girl with the old-fashioned clothes stares at me. It’s like she’s peering right into my soul.

  I think this girl wouldn’t be frightened like I am. I think she’d be like Marcia and Ms. Archambault. I bet she’d kneel right on down and take Mrs. Samuelson’s hand and say goodbye because it’s the right thing to do.

  So I do too.

  6

  The Pasta Cure

  An ambulance is pulling up as we leave the fitness center. Ms. Archambault takes my hand and squeezes tight. She hasn’t done that in months, but I let her now.

  I walk to the golf cart in a daze. Ms. A starts the engine without turning on the fairy lights. Someone waves at her, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

  When we get home, she pulls into her little gravel driveway and parks. Momma arrives a few moments later. She takes a thermal bag from the passenger seat of our car and walks over briskly.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, putting down the bag and wrapping me up in a tight hug.

  I nod.

  She hugs Ms. Archambault too. “Are you going to be all right, Marybeth?”

  “Yes,” says Ms. A, though I’m not sure she really means it. “How about you, Veronica? Are you feeling okay?”

  Ms. A’s been asking that every day since Momma got sick a couple years ago from something called an “overactive thyroid.” Once Momma started feeling better, Ms. Archambault changed her greeting from “How are you doing?” to “How are you feeling?” which sounds similar but doesn’t feel like it. And Momma always sighs and sa
ys, “I’m fine, Marybeth,” in the same tone Ms. Del Rio uses when someone’s misbehaving in class.

  But Momma isn’t sighing now.

  Arm in arm, Momma and I head across the patchy grass yard that separates our houses. Once we’re inside, I sit on the threadbare sofa while Momma turns on the heater against the wall. It’s already warm, so she just does the LED flames. Momma says looking at a fire always makes things better. I think she’s right.

  “You okay?” she asks, turning on a table lamp with a shade the color of deepest sunset. “Must’ve been a shock for you, huh? You want to talk about it?”

  I shake my head. I’m not trying to be difficult. I just don’t know what to say. Counting corpses was a routine, like Momma walking me to the bus stop. But it’s different now. One moment, Mrs. Samuelson was sleeping. The next, she was dead. Sleep and death looked pretty much the same, as far as I could tell. And that’s a little scary.

  “I’m sorry you had to see it,” Momma says.

  “Why?”

  “Well . . .” She seems confused. “It’s just a hard thing to see.”

  “Not really. She was smiling. Ms. Archambault said it’s how she would’ve wanted to go.”

  “Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that.” Momma sits beside me and rests her head against mine. I always like it when she does this. Her soft hair tickles me. Her work clothes smell of fresh herbs. Which reminds me, I’m hungry.

  “Is there something to eat?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Of course.” She opens the thermal bag and pulls out two glass containers. In third grade, I did a class project on waste and recycling. I told Momma it was bad for us to keep using Gregoria’s Styrofoam containers. That evening, she took me shopping for reusable containers. We even have designer sporks in different colors, one for each day of the week.

  She pops the lid off the first container and hands me the purple Friday spork. I stab a piece of curly fusilli pasta and gobble it up. The melted cheese sauce is still hot.

  “Gregoria wants me to tell you, she’s switching to recyclable take-out boxes,” says Momma.

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. Says she’s tired of feeling guilty every time she sees yours.” Momma runs her fingers through my hair. “I’m telling you, it’s lucky she likes you so much. Otherwise, she might’ve kept the Styrofoam and replaced me instead!”

  She’s trying to keep things light and jokey. But after what happened tonight, anything seems possible. What if Momma did lose her job? What would we do? Ms. Archambault would probably let us stay in the house, but half of our dinners come from Gregoria’s. My insides twist up like a knot.

  I take another bite and try to shake the thought away.

  “Did you know Mrs. Samuelson?” I ask around a mouthful of food.

  “Only through Marybeth. I know they go back a long way. She’ll miss her.”

  I swallow the pasta. “Momma, do you think my daddy’s dead?”

  Her fingers stop moving. Everything seems to get very still and quiet. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because he hasn’t written or called since I was three, right?”

  She nods slowly. “That’s true. But no, I don’t think he’s dead. Healthy men in their thirties don’t usually die.”

  “But you got sick. And anything could happen in seven years.”

  She kisses my head. “I don’t think he’s dead, Lola.”

  It always makes her uncomfortable when I ask about my daddy, so I don’t do it often. But today, I really need answers. “Do you miss him?”

  Momma runs the back of her hand across the sofa cushion. There’s a little velvet left at the edges. It changes color beneath her fingers.

  “Honestly, yes,” she says. “I miss him. At least, the version of him I fell in love with. I’ll always be glad we met, because otherwise, I wouldn’t have you. But there are still times I wish things had worked out differently. Does that make sense?”

  I’ve just taken another mouthful, so I nod. Momma nods too.

  “You know,” she says, “when you go to Kiana’s for the sleepover tomorrow, you’re going to have to make it real clear that Mrs. Samuelson died of natural causes. Otherwise, Kiana will want to interrogate the poor staff at the fitness center.”

  I tsk. “Would not!”

  “Would too! She’s a clone of her father, that girl.”

  We’re back to fathers again. Only I don’t know if I’m a clone of mine.

  “Can I see the pictures of you and my daddy?” I ask.

  Momma’s eyes drift away. “Sure you can.”

  She walks through the living room to her bedroom. Now that she’s gone, I miss feeling her leaning into me. It’s like I’m trading Momma’s warmth for an old photograph of my daddy.

  She returns with her laptop. This time, she doesn’t sit with me. She places it on the coffee table and clicks on a folder named “For Lola.”

  “I’m going to get my pj’s on,” she says.

  I watch her turn the corner to her room. Her bed squeaks as she sits down.

  I scroll through the photographs as I eat. There are over a hundred of them. They’re like old friends or memories—one quick glance and I remember everything about them. Only, everything isn’t much when you’ve never met one of the two people in the pictures.

  Momma says my daddy was handsome, and she’s right. He has a wide smile and the same untamable hair as I do, except it looks good on him. And then there are his eyes, sky blue in the camera flash. I would’ve liked eyes like those.

  I wonder what he looks like today. Different, probably, because Momma sure looks different. Not just older, but like she’s missing a spark. In the pictures, she looks happy. Radiant, Ms. A would say, like there’s a light shining from inside her. I haven’t seen that light in weeks. Maybe months.

  Would Momma light up again if she saw him?

  I keep looking at the photos for a few more minutes. Then I close the laptop and carry it through to Momma’s bedroom. She never came back to the living room. Maybe she didn’t want to look at the pictures. Or maybe looking at them makes her feel sad.

  Or not. Instead, she’s sprawled diagonally across the bed, breathing deeply, fast asleep. Again.

  My mind flashes back to Mrs. Samuelson. Momma’s clearly not dead, but I don’t understand why she’s sleeping either. Her shift at the restaurant wouldn’t normally be over for another half hour. And she was too tired to get out of bed this morning. I want to ask what’s going on, but I don’t want to wake her.

  I lift the edge of the comforter and pull it across her so she won’t be cold. Then I turn out the light and close her door.

  Back in the living room, I pop the lid back onto the container and put the leftover fusilli in the fridge. I wash my spork and Momma’s mug from this morning. Usually, I’d hand them over to Momma, but she’s not here, so I dry them too. Then I pour water in the coffee machine and put two spoons of coffee in the paper filter. We’re ready for the morning. It’s only eight o’clock, and I feel very awake.

  I shut off all the lights in the house. When I’m done, I can see through the blinds to the streetlights outside. Ms. Archambault’s golf cart seems to glow in the moonlight. Her kitchen light is still on too.

  I open the front door quietly and pad across the grass to her house. I knock real gentle, and the door begins to open. But it’s not Ms. Archambault. It’s Ned.

  “You okay, Lola?” he asks.

  “Yeah. Is Ms. A doing all right?”

  He steps onto the porch with me and closes the door behind him. “Take a seat,” he says, pointing to the rockers.

  I sit down, and he does too.

  “Deidre was a good friend,” he says. “They knew each other almost fifty years, if you can believe that.”

  I sure can believe it. Mrs. Samuelson looked like she was ninety, and even Ms. Archambault is a lot older than she looks. A couple months ago, Momma whispered to me that she’s seventy-six. Just after she said that, Momma got all nervous and ma
de me swear I’d never tell a soul, which is why I only told Kiana.

  “She’ll be all right, though?” I ask.

  “Oh, sure. Marybeth’ll bounce back. Nothing keeps Marybeth down.” He lifts his right foot and rubs his tattered sneaker up and down his left ankle like it’s itchy. That’s when I notice there’s a lump under his sock.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “It’s a bracelet.”

  “Oh.” I don’t want to be mean, but it looks weird. “Do old men normally wear ankle bracelets?”

  “More than you think,” he says. “More than should, anyway.”

  That seems like a very strange answer, but Ned has always been full of strange answers. One time, I asked him why he keeps hanging out at Ms. Archambault’s house even when there’s nothing that needs fixing. He told me he was “auditioning to be the fourth Mr. Marybeth Archambault.” I didn’t understand, so I asked Ms. Archambault what that meant. “It means he’s going to be single a long time,” she told me.

  I think Ms. Archambault wants to be single a long time too.

  “I’m sorry she lost her friend,” I say finally. “Can you tell her I’m thinking of her?”

  “Sure will, Lola.”

  I rock forward and stand up. I walk down the three porch steps and across the grass.

  When I’m halfway to my house, Ned calls out, “How are you doing, by the way?”

  I turn to face him. “I’m good,” I say, because that’s what I grew up learning to say. Whenever someone asks me how I’m doing, I say, “I’m good” or even, “I’m great.”

  But I’m not good. Not really. I’ve got questions, about both my momma and my daddy. About what she meant when she said she missed the version of him she fell in love with. And about why he stopped writing and calling me just when I got old enough to know what I was missing.

  Because if there’s one thing I know for sure now it’s that someone can leave you in the time it takes to fall asleep.