Read My Life as a Book Online

Authors: Janet Tashjian

My Life as a Book (6 page)

BOOK: My Life as a Book
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Mom takes the card away. “You were not responsible. You were two years old—you didn't do anything wrong.” When she dials Amy's number to tell her she and my father decided not to go out tonight, I know it's not because she's afraid for Amy's life but because Mom doesn't want to let me out of her sight. I can't blame her; I don't feel like straying too far from home either. She asks Dad to pick up some takeout from the Greek restaurant near the pier.

The three of us sit in the backyard and watch Bodi run back and forth along the fence, chasing the terrier next door. As I eat my lamb kebab, I finally get why my mother didn't tell me about Susan. I spent a week bugging her for details; now that I have them, I'm more miserable than before. It seems my curious mind got the better of me, that this time I should've left things alone. I poke the wooden skewer into the palm of my hand until my father tells me to stop.

Trying to Forget

For the next few days, I try to forget about the newspaper article, but I can't. Even though I know the truth about what happened, I can't stop nagging Mom with a thousand questions. What did Susan James look like? Where did we stay on the Vineyard? Eventually, my mother puts a halt to my interrogation and tells me the subject is now closed.

A few years ago when the commercial building next door went up for sale, my parents bought it, and my Mom moved her practice there. She's been a veterinarian for more than twelve years. She also has a boarding business she calls “Pet Camp” and a grooming service she calls “Pet Spa,” which makes me think of dogs getting massages and lying around with cucumbers on their eyes. In reality, it's more like picking off ticks and getting the gunk out of their ears.

I'm so glad to be on vacation, I help Mom tack new photos onto the huge collage in her waiting room. When people first bring their animals to her, she always takes a picture of them with their dogs, cats, lizards, ferrets, hamsters, or birds, then places them in her collage that now takes up almost the entire wall.

“I saw Maria Rodriquez at the store the other day,” she says.

“Who?”

“Carly's mom. We talked about you two getting together this summer.”

“First of all, I'm too old for you to be setting up playdates. Second of all, she's a brownnosing Goody Two-shoes, who I despise.”

“Oh, come on—she can't be that bad.” Mom tacks a photo of an elderly man with a cockatoo on his shoulder to the wall.

“Trust me, she
is
.”

When she's finished, my mother takes a novel from her purse, kicks off her shoes, and settles into one of the comfy waiting-room chairs. I don't buy it.

“If you're doing this as an example of how much fun reading is, it's not working.”

She closes the book but keeps her finger in the page. “Believe it or not, Derek, not everything has to do with you. I have a free hour and just want to relax—do you mind?” She waves me off and goes back to her book.

I leave her in the waiting room and visit the animals in the kennel: a basset hound named Lionel who's here while his owners are on vacation and two gray cats I've never seen before. I give Lionel a treat from the canister on the counter, then sneak a peek at my mom, who's still reading even though she doesn't know I'm watching. She has on the same content face that Carly had at Jamie's store, and I wonder if books make only girls happy. Then I remember my dad and Uncle Bob both like to read, and I start to wonder what's wrong with
me
. Maybe it's like blue eyes and blond hair—there's a reading gene some people get or don't get at birth.

When my mother turns the page, she spots me near the door. “It's the perfect time to start one of those books on your list.”

“No thanks.”

“I'll get us some cookies.”

“No thanks.”

“I'll help you with the words you don't know.”

“No thanks.”

“Two chocolate chips per page?” She pats the seat next to her, an invitation for me to sit down. “Let me see the illustrations you did of your vocabulary words so far.”

I run back to the house and get my sketchbook, sit down next to her, and show her my drawings.

She smiles. “Some of these remind me of your father's. Did you know he used to get yelled at when he was young for drawing all over his homework?”

I shake my head.

“One of his teachers called his drawings ‘messy doodles' and ‘a waste of time.' I bet she'd be surprised to find out he gets paid to do them now.”

This gives me an idea, and I draw a picture of Dad as a kid using a giant pencil as a battering ram, knocking down the school's exit door. I choose the colors carefully, the way I always do. When I finish, Mom asks if she can have it. I say yes and she tacks it to the wall next to the main desk.

I spend the rest of the afternoon checking the details of my illustrations. I may not make my bed, pick up my clothes, put away my DVDs, or wipe the puddles of water off the floor after I take a bath, but I'm never messy with my drawings.

BOOK: My Life as a Book
7.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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