Cooper left close to ten, and I went to Mom’s room, where she was hanging clothes.
“Hey,” I said. “I have a complaint to file.”
“Listening,” she said.
“How come when Cooper and Dad are around, you have no problem walking to the park, but when it’s just us, you can’t?”
She paused with a shirt halfway on its hanger and scrunched up her nose. “I go out a lot with just you.”
“But more when they are here.”
“I don’t know. They both have a relaxed way about them. It rubs off on me, I guess.”
“But I don’t?”
“You do, hon.”
I crossed my arms. “Apparently I’m not the only one attached to Cooper.”
“He is a nice boy. I have no issues with him, aside from the fact that he likes to drag my daughter’s heart around.”
“I’m the one attaching my heart to his leash.”
She gave me a thin-lipped smile but didn’t argue.
“I’m working on it,” I said.
“That’s good.”
I watched her add more shirts to hangers and stack them on her bed. I was constantly trying to downplay the fact that Mom didn’t go anywhere to Grandpa and Cooper and Dad. Convince them that she could have a fulfilling life without venturing beyond the four walls of our house. That it wasn’t a big deal. And maybe it wasn’t, but I was beginning to realize that sometimes it wasn’t about her. If I were being honest with myself, I knew that sometimes it was about me. I could remember only a handful of my events she’d attended in the past, and only because my dad was there.
“What?” she asked when she noticed me still standing there.
I sighed and lowered myself onto her bed. “Mom.”
She turned, giving me her full attention.
I played with a hanger on the stack of clothes, nervous about what I was about to say. “If I complete this list and somehow gain a depth of emotion that makes me paint like Picasso, will you come to the gallery to see my paintings on display?”
She hesitated, and disappointment hovered around me.
I should’ve just dropped it, said never mind. But that painting I’d done with her just outside the spotlight, watching me audition, gave me a vision of what it could be like seeing her at the art show, so I pushed on. “Dad can’t come, being gone and all. But Cooper will be there, and Grandpa. It will be like having your own bubble of protection. You’ll be surrounded by familiar, relaxed people.”
She pressed her lips together, and I could see the tension on her face, but she said, “Yes, honey. I would love to see your display.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
I smiled big and jumped up to give her a hug. “Now I just have to get Mr. Wallace to let me in the show.”
“He will, my brilliant daughter,” she said rubbing my back. “He will.”
EIGHTEEN
There’s this place downtown where you can sit with your feet in water and little fish come and eat the dead skin off your toes.
And you’re telling me this, why? Cooper responded.
The list. Trying something new. I needed a new painting stat, and I couldn’t think of anything. It was time to force myself to think way outside the box.
My sister has a goldfish. You can stick your foot in its bowl if this sounds like fun to you.
Nope. Fish spa.
Sounds lame.
I don’t hear you coming up with any ideas.
My brain is still thinking.
Well I’m going to try this anyway. With or without you. I still have three more new things to try, right?
Without me.
Are you scared of fish? Wouldn’t I know this if he were? But I didn’t know. Maybe I’d found his fear and I’d force him to do this with me.
No. I’m not.
Come with me, you punk.
Race today. Must mentally prepare myself to be even more awesome than I already am.
Fine.
I’ll see you at my race.
“I’m going to the fish spa,” I declared as I entered the living room. Grandpa and Mom were sitting on the couch. Grandpa had the television on. Mom had her laptop open. “Who’s coming with me?”
“Fish spa?” Mom asked.
“Little fish eat the dead skin off your feet.”
“Fish? Can’t you just use a loofah?” she asked.
“It’s an experience.”
“Won’t you catch some sort of infection?” Mom held up her foot and wiggled her bare toes.
“I don’t think so.”
Grandpa stood. “I’ll go.”
“Mom?” She was typing into the computer in a way that made me worried she was looking up the safety of fish spas.
“No, thank you. I’m writing an email to your father.”
“Tell him I said hi and tell him about the fish.”
She nodded without looking up. “I will.”
Grandpa and I sat on the tile edge of the long, trough-like pool of shallow water. The place didn’t smell like fish. It smelled like incense, and chlorine from the hot tub we had passed on our way to this room. In the water, Grandpa’s feet were surrounded by fish. “You must have more dead skin because you’re old,” I said. My feet were unadorned.
“I am the perfect age,” he said.
“The perfect age for fish.”
He ruffled my hair.
The water was a little colder than room temperature, and the coolness felt like it was traveling up my legs.
“What’s it feel like?” I asked.
“It tickles.”
“Come here, little fish,” I said, inching my left foot closer to Grandpa’s right. A single fish, appearing warped from the movement of the water, worked its way over to me. My shoulders tensed as it got closer. And just as it was about to nibble, I let out a yelp and yanked my feet out of the water.
Grandpa laughed. “What’s this? Scared?”
“No, it just surprised me.”
“It surprised you? You watched it the entire time.”
“Okay, fine, I saw it coming, but it scared me when it finally got close.”
He nodded toward my still-raised legs. “Try again. You can do it.”
They were just fish. Little ones, at that. I took a deep breath and slowly put my feet back in. The single fish that had braved the trip to my feet before had left, so now I had to wait once again. It was the waiting that was the most nerve-racking. The waiting and watching the impending approach. This time I kept my feet in. This time I felt the slight tickle of the fish as it made contact over and over again.
“That doesn’t hurt at all,” I said.
“I told you it wouldn’t.”
“I thought you were bending the truth.”
This is when I thought Grandpa would be offended, or at least fake offense, that I had suggested he would lie to me. But he just shook his head a little and smiled.
I stared at the fish for a long time before saying, “I asked Mom to come to my art show last night . . . I mean, if I end up getting in the show.”
“You did?” he asked.
“She didn’t tell you?” That worried me. They talked about everything.
“Maybe it slipped her mind.”
I wiggled my toes a little, but the fish stayed put. “Do you think she’ll come?”
“I’ll come.” He smiled over at me.
“You don’t think she’ll come?”
“I think she’ll try very hard.”