Stuck in the 70's Read online

  “I singed it, at most. But I apologize. I didn’t know what would happen.”

  “You didn’t really expect Shay to travel in time, though,” Evie says. Sometimes I wish she weren’t so darn smart. She opens the garage door.

  “Where are you going?” I ask her.

  She walks outside without answering or even turning her head.

  “Good-bye, Evie,” I say, but I’m not sure she can still hear me.

  12

  “I can’t believe I’m still stuck here,” Shay says as we stand in the garage.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stuck here with you.”

  “Maybe you should give me that makeover you mentioned.”

  “You want me to help you now, after you burned my arm?”

  “Singed a few arm hairs, you mean. I didn’t know that would happen. Shay, please help me be less geeky. This is my last year of high school, my last chance to get invited to the cool parties and stuff, and you may be my last hope.” I cock my head and stare at her wide-eyed in an attempt to look especially pitiful. “Please? And afterward, I’ll ask my parents to let you stay here.”

  “Like I have anywhere else to go.” She sighs. “Fine, I’ll give you a makeover.”

  “Tyler Gray, reporting for duty, ma’am.” I cleverly salute her.

  “The military thing? Very uncool.” She opens the door connecting the garage to the house and walks in. I drop my hand and follow her.

  She leads me to the downstairs bathroom, in front of the mirror, and stands behind me with her silky hands on my cheeks. She has the sweetest scent, like roses sprinkled with cinnamon. I’m loving this makeover already.

  “Tyler,” Shay says. “Find me some tweezers for your unibrow and an ice cube to numb you. And a scarf or something we can tie over your mouth to muzzle your screams.”

  “Screams?” I squeak.

  She laughs, evilly. “After what you just did to my arm, it’s payback time.”

  “On second thought, maybe I don’t need a makeover.”

  “Take it like a man.”

  After I give her the instruments of torture, she brings the sharp tweezers dangerously close to my corneas and pulls out one of my eyebrow hairs.

  “Ow!”

  Her response is to pluck off another hair by its extremely sensitive root.

  “Shay, it hurts! Stop! I beg you.”

  “Quit whimpering.” She keeps the tweezers in play. “There’s a whole hair forest growing between your eyes.”

  “I’m sorry about singeing your—ow!—arm. Truce! You’re torturing me!”

  She waves the tweezers in front of my face. “Keep your eyes closed, shut up, and hold still, if you know what’s good for you.”

  So I do. I grit my teeth too. I think I hear Shay laughing behind me. It’s all an excruciatingly agonizing blur.

  Finally, she says, “Not bad. The redness and swelling shouldn’t last long.”

  “Redness and swelling?”

  “Open your eyes and look in the mirror,” Shay orders.

  Whoa. She was right about the brow tweeze making a difference. It’s almost worth the horrific pain. My eyes look bigger and brighter. Which I don’t admit, because a guy’s not supposed to care about that stuff.

  “Do you have a Dustbuster for your old unibrow hairs?” Shay asks me.

  “Huh?”

  “Dirt Devil?”

  I stare at her.

  “Swiffer?”

  “I’ll get a broom.”

  “Fine. I’m exhausted.”

  “You’re exhausted?” I raise my skimpy brows. “I just had practically half my face torn off.”

  “Well, I just suffered fourth-degree arm burns,” Shay says. “I’m going to sit on that glider in the backyard.”

  “Want company?”

  “No! Just clean up in here and then go ask your mother to let me stay. And keep those damn Christmas lights away from me.” She exits the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

  I stare at myself again in the mirror. I must admit I look kind of cute.

  After I rid the bathroom of plucked brow hairs, I use the upstairs phone to call Evie.

  She’s cranky. “What was that all about in your garage? Tyler, you know Christmas lights aren’t going to send anyone into the future.”

  I smile. “That was all about wrapping a string of lights around a pair of long, shapely legs.”

  “Shay’s more than just a pair of legs, Tyler.”

  “I know you’re above thinking about stuff like that, Evie, but—”

  “How do you know what I’m above thinking about?”

  “Whoa. Mellow out, Evie.”

  “You’re so preoccupied with—”

  “Hey, listen. I’m going to talk to my mom now about letting Shay live with us. I’ll try to have her call you. So wait by the phone, okay? And get ready to disguise your voice and act like a terrible parent.”

  “Now?” Evie sounds even crankier.

  “I promise to give you twenty dollars if it works. I was saving for upgraded computer parts, but that’s all right.”

  “I can’t believe I’m helping you get together with a girl.”

  “Yeah, you’re a good friend. Thanks a lot.” I hang up the phone and look for Mom.

  She’s in the kitchen as usual. While she makes cookies, I sit at the table giving myself a pep talk. You can pull this off, Tyler. It’s just a little lie. Shay is counting on you.Finally, I say, “My friend Shay is in really bad shape. Could she stay with us for a while? Temporarily, of course.”

  Mom looks up from the mixing bowl. “I feel bad for her, but I’m not her mother.”

  “Her mother isn’t acting like one.” I point to the kitchen phone. “Call her and ask.”

  “No, Tyler.”

  “She’ll just be here for a little while, until things get straightened out. She can live with her aunt as soon as she returns from France.”

  “No.”

  “Mom, she hardly has any food.”

  “She’s welcome to stay for dinner tonight.”

  “She’s so lonely living by herself. Please, Mom. Call her parents. Can I dial the number for you?”

  She gets an egg from the refrigerator, cracks it open, stirs it into the batter, and tastes the cookie dough on the spoon. She nods. Which probably means she’s satisfied with the batter, but could be interpreted as Yes, Tyler, you can call Shay’s parents.

  I pick the latter, wasting no time in dialing Evie’s number and putting the handset to Mom’s ear. I hope Evie’s standing by. Mom mouths no,but I keep the phone where it is.

  She wipes her hands on the apron and holds the handset to her ear. “Hello. Is this Mrs. Saunders?” Pause. “Mrs. Saunders, I’m calling about your daughter.”

  Phew.

  Evie is a duchess of deception, a manure magician, a true b.s. artist. After a few minutes, she has Mom swiping at her eyes and saying, “But she’s your own child,” and, “Don’t you care what happens to her?” and, “I’d be happy to have her.” Evie definitely deserves the twenty dollars I promised her, as well as my undying friendship.

  Finally, Mom slams down the phone. “Shay can stay. She can sleep in Heather’s room.”

  I hug her, trying not to whoop for joy.

  “And I’m calling the child welfare office.”

  “No, Mom!”

  “That woman should be reported!”

  “Just wait. Please. Shay’s aunt will take her in.”

  “All right. But now how am I going to break this news to your father?” Mom says.

  The better question is whether he’ll even notice. “Will Dad be home tonight?”

  “Yes. That’ll be two nights in a row.”

  I never catch a break.

  After Tyler gives me the t humbs-u p, I walk into the kitchen to thank his mother.

  Ouch. She’s wearing green eye shadow, bright orange lipstick, and a pink polyester dress. Which is enough to give someone a headache, or if someone a
lready had a headache from a Wild Turkey-fest seven hours ago, make it a lot worse.

  “Oh, shoot, I think I missed a wrinkle when I ironed this.” She’s staring down at the skirt of her frilly lilac apron.

  The woman irons her aprons? Is she insane? My mom doesn’t even own an apron.

  “Shay, sweetheart, can you tie this for me?” She motions to the apron strings dangling by her legs.

  I ’ll help anyone who calls me a sweetheart. As I tie her apron, she says, “And could you help me fix dinner?”

  “I d idn’t know dinner was broken.”

  She d oesn’t laugh.

  “That’s a joke, Mrs. Gray. I’m happy to help.”

  “Oh, sorry. Ha ha, good one,” she says somberly.

  She’s a sweetheart herself, though her makeup job could scare small children. And there’s something nice, in a dorky way, about preparing a family meal.

  Except for the raw chicken. She shows me how to remove the gizzards, which are another name for the disgusting parts. There’s a scrawny, raw neck made up of thick skin and tiny bones, a black stinky liver, and a rubbery thing which I d on’t even want to know what it is. The gizzards are even grosser than regular raw chicken. Like Fear Factor gross. But I take them out for Mrs. Gray, trying not to breathe through my nose.

  I tear off iceberg lettuce so she can rinse the leaves and put them in a bowl she cranks called a salad spinner. “One of these days,” I tell her over the whirring noise, “the market will sell lettuce already washed, torn, and bagged, and chicken already cut up.”

  “People appreciate a home-cooked meal.”

  I nod. They do appreciate it. I do, at least.

  Mom and I never cook. We order takeout from China Express, Salad Shoppe, or California Quickie, or we microwave Lean Cuisines, and we watch E!or Extra while we eat. Once Mariel tried to bake cookies with me, but Mom yelled at her later for bringing sweets into the house. Mom d oesn’t trust the housekeepers’ cooking. “Those Mexicans put lard in everything. That’s why t hey’re so fat,” she says. She d oesn’t get, or d oesn’t care, that none of the housekeepers was really fat. They just w eren’t L.A. thin.

  After Mrs. Gray and I finish making the chicken and salad, we “fix” scalloped potatoes, lima beans, and rice pudding.

  “You d on’t need to go to extra trouble for me,” I tell her.

  She stirs the rice pudding while opening the oven to check on the potatoes. “Oh, this is normal.”

  “We never cook in my house.”

  Mrs. Gray claps her hand over her mouth.

  I hope she d oesn’t get that D ay-G lo orange lipcrap on her teeth. It looks like it might be poisonous. I imagine what she’s thinking: Even worse than Shay’s parents abandoning her, the poor child d idn’t get home- cooked meals.

  I’m chopping bananas and Mrs. Gray is dissolving lime Jell-O powder into hot water when the phone rings. On her way to answer it, she primps her permed hair as if the caller could see her.

  After a few moments of chitchat, there’s a long silence. Mrs. Gray’s forehead is all wrinkled.

  Uh-oh .

  “But I’m making that Jell-O mold you like so much,” she says softly.

  Pause.

  “Yes.” She sighs. “A big client.”

  Pause.

  “Of course I understand.”

  She hangs up the telephone, freezes for a moment, then pours the bowl of watery Jell-O into the sink. She gathers the canned pineapple rings, maraschino cherries, and mini marshmallows, and shoves them into the cupboard. “Who wants to eat with boring old me?” She closes the cupboard door with a bang.

  “I do, Mrs. Gray. Not that y ou’re boring. Or old.”

  “What if I bought short skirts? Like you wear. Like those women’s libbers in miniskirts and no bras.”

  I’m not making her over. I’ll have my hands full with Tyler. Besides, putting Mrs. Gray in tight sweaters w on’t solve her problems. Though I wish s he’d ditch the church lady dresses and bright eye shadow. Not my business.“Mrs. Gray, you look just fine.”

  She flips her apron up and buries her face in it. In a muffled voice, she says, “I feel so stuck.”

  She’s stuck in the 70’s as much as I am. I have to help her. “You could get a job. You seem to be a hard worker.” What an understatement. She makes Martha Stewart look like a soap opera addict.

  Of course! She could be the next Martha Stewart. Or rather the pre-Martha Stewart. “Mrs. Gray. You could, like, start a TV show with household hints.”

  She takes her face out of the apron. “Like Heloise?”

  “Sure.” Never heard of her, but I ’ll go with it. “Like, with tips about cooking and flower arranging and stuff, advice about making everything just right at home. You could start your own magazine, and, oh my gawd, next thing you know y ou’d be worth millions. Only d on’t sell stock with insider information, okay?”

  “What?”

  “Mom, are you all right?” Tyler stands just outside the kitchen.

  “Of course.” She has a pained look on her face. But that seems to be her usual expression.

  “When’s dinner?” he asks.

  “Dinner? Right. I guess we could eat now.”

  Heather comes down and we set the table. While we eat, Mrs. Gray serves herself small helpings, pushes them around on her plate, gets up to offer us more food, steals occasional glances at the phone, and d oesn’t eat a thing. Finally, she says, “I c an’t get a job, Shay. I’m a wife, a mother.”

  “Oh, sure you can. Tyler and Heather are in school all day anyway. I could help you find a job.”

  “My husband w ouldn’t want me to work.”

  “What do you want?”

  “She wants what Dad wants. She wants to make him happy.” Tyler clenches his fork in his fist. “ We’re supposed to be a happy family.”

  Mrs. Gray gets up from the table, taking her plate toward the kitchen. “Girls, can you clean up after dinner?” Her voice wobbles. “I’m going to rest in my room.”

  “Mom?” Tyler says.

  “Are you okay?” Heather asks.

  “I’m fine.” But she sounds even more miserable than usual.

  “See what you did?” Tyler spits out.

  “Me? What I did? You know, with your attitude toward women, you w ouldn’t last a day in 2006.”

  “I d on’t need to. It’s 1978.” He gets up from the table.

  “At least clear your plate,” I tell him.

  “That’s women’s work.”

  I follow him as he heads for the stairs. “Are you telling me when your genius friend Evie grows up, she’s not allowed to be a physicsologist or whatever?”

  He turns around. “Physicist, Shay. Sheesh. And Evie’s not really a girl. I mean, I d on’t think of her that way.”

  “News flash, Tyler. Evie’s a girl. And she should be allowed to do whatever she wants. Just like your mother. Gawd.”

  We d on’t speak for the rest of the evening. The only person I talk to is Heather as we clean in the kitchen, and that’s just to say things like, “Can this go in the dishwasher?” and “Which sponge should I use?”

  Later, I lie in the trundle bed in her room, listening to her steady breaths while I struggle for sleep.

  I picture my bedroom at home. I miss my things. My laptop, my cell phone, my mini fridge. I hope someone’s watering my fern. Probably Mariel is, if my mom hasn’t fired her yet.

  I try to conjure up Mom’s thin face, her eyes, lighter than mine and narrower. Supposedly, my dad is a dark-eyed, married millionaire. Mom met him in a hotel bar. We get big checks from Texas every month. Mom says t hey’ll stop when I turn eighteen, so that’s why she still hangs out in bars. I imagine my mother’s hair, dyed sunkissed blond and lengthened and thickened with $1,500 extensions, the butt she firms with Buns of Steel workouts four times a week, her stiletto heels, which she walks on like t hey’re sneakers, her weak warning of “ Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” which leaves my options wide o
pen, as she rushes out the door.

  I let out a little moan. Gawd, I hope Heather’s asleep.

  “Shay?”

  I never catch a break.

  “Are you okay?”

  I switch my thoughts from Mom to happier ones. I picture the bent back of Mrs. Gray, her ruffled apron with its thick bow that I tied for her today. “I’m fine, Heather.”

  “I want to say I’m sorry. For calling you Shake, and stuff like that.”

  “It’s okay. Thanks for sharing your room.” I picture Heather now, her scraggly hair and pale, angry face. “I was watching you tonight, Heather. You’d look great in bright colors, especially near your face. Something with a red collar, or maybe, like, a turquoise scarf.”

  “You have a problem with my clothes?”

  “No, but you could do even better.” I know I sound fake as hell. “I could show you makeup tricks too.”

  “I’m going back to sleep.”

  “Okay,” I whisper. But I ’ve ruined the moment. It’s not okay. Nothing’s okay.

  13

  “I can’t stand riding this bus,” Shay says. “You have to get me home.”

  “Why should I help you? You complain about the school bus like you’re better than everyone else. You tell my mother she should get a job even though my dad doesn’t want her to. You promise me a makeover, but all you do is pull out half my eyebrows—in a highly painful manner, I might add.”

  “Gawd. And you say I complain a lot. What the hell do you want from me?”

  “For one thing, you can help me figure out this time travel stuff.”

  She looks at me like I’m nuts. “How am I going to do that? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not an honors student like you.”

  “I don’t know if you can help, but you can at least try. Two heads are better than one. Three, actually, if Evie works with us too. And you’re the only one who actually experienced time travel. Maybe you can remember some clues about how it happened.”

  “I was passed out, Tyler.” The bus stops a little short at a red light, and Shay slams her hands into the seatback in front of her. “Plus, I don’t know anything about science.”

  “Attend classes with me. My physics class might be especially useful.”