The Center of Everything - By Laura Moriarty Page 0,143
someone’s stare. But you can. I’ve felt it. Also, if I am staring at someone, they almost always look up. Ms. Jenkins said she knew what I was talking about, that she had felt this feeling herself, but she wasn’t exactly sure how it worked. It wouldn’t be any of the five senses, sight, touch, sound, taste, or smell. So maybe we are just imagining it, she said.
I pull back my window shade, peering outside into the darkness. The Datsun is still there. I can hear the engine running, and the faint music of the radio, still playing country music. Inside, the tiny circle of a cigarette glows bright orange, moving slowly, back and forth.
twenty
EILEEN HAS HER OWN MONEY now, from the life insurance and the investments my grandfather made before he died.
“He was considerate, planning ahead for me,” she tells my mother. “You have to give him that.”
She’s ready to do plenty of giving, now that all the money is hers. She bought Samuel a special chair for the shower so my mother won’t have to lift him into the tub, and also a machine that actually says “Yes” when he presses the green circle and “No” when he presses the red one. The voice sounds like the voice of a robot, like the car in Knight Rider. She also bought us a microwave, a new coffeemaker, and a food processor. The UPS man comes to our apartment once a week now, delivering boxes. He’s very tall, very handsome, and he smiles at my mother while she signs her name.
For Christmas, Eileen stays in Wichita with Beth and Stephanie, but she comes up the next day. She gives me too many presents—a Walkman, a pair of earrings, and a cream-colored cardigan with pearls for buttons. In the card, there is a check for six hundred dollars, my name spelled out carefully in large, childlike letters. On the memo line, she has drawn a heart.
“Eileen,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s so much.”
“It’s to help you with school.” Her hair has just recently started to turn gray, but she is wearing it in two long braids, one on each side. She wears red and green glitter around her eyes. “For college. Save it up for next year.”
“Pretty generous,” my mother says, steering Samuel’s hand away from Eileen’s braids. He groans and hits the NO button over and over again. Now, because of the machine, we have to hear him say no as much as he wants to say it, the steady robot voice speaking for him, no no no no no no no.
“Well it’s from your grandfather, really,” Eileen says. “He’s the one who made this all possible, God rest his soul.” She looks up at the ceiling as if he is really up there, floating around like smoke. My mother nods solemnly, but as soon as Eileen turns away, she catches my eye, and raises both of her middle fingers toward the ceiling like they can fire bullets. She laughs silently, her mouth open wide. I make a quick hissing sound, and she puts her hands back in her lap.
She has been doing things like this lately, my mother, not acting like an adult. Two weeks ago, she came home from work and then called McDonald’s on the phone, asking for DuPaul, plugging her nose to disguise her voice, saying she was from the Internal Revenue Service. She asked him why he hadn’t yet turned in all the forms for 1988 yet, and if he knew about the special Kansas tax on condiments. She kept going and going with this, not letting up, not cracking a smile even though she could have because she was just on the phone and he couldn’t see her anyway. But then he heard Samuel crying and realized it was her. When I went in to work the next day, he was still laughing about it.
“Your mother,” he said, stacking cups by the soda machine, “is a piece of work.”
He got her back the next week, getting all the other employees and five paying customers to individually tell her there was something in her teeth when really there was nothing. My mother thought it was hysterical.
But she is straight-faced again by the time Eileen stops looking at the ceiling. She tells Eileen it looks like I’ll get a scholarship, and so I won’t need so much money.
Eileen leans across the table, taking my hand. “Evelyn! A scholarship? That’s wonderful!”