Lakewood(8)

“That’s great,” Miss Toni had said, “but again, how much is this medicine you’re prescribing her?”

“Mom,” Lena whispered.

Deziree stirred. She said an opossum as large as a dog had been in the kitchen. It kept moaning and wailing. Somehow, she understood that the sounds meant “Give me a slice of cheese.” Her voice was slurred, but it sounded more like sleep, Lena thought, than an emergency. The opossum left after he ate his cheese and said that all the Johnsons were good people.

Her mother, curled on the bed, took a breath, moved quickly, and threw up over the side.

“Migraine?” Lena made her voice as small as possible. It was April, one of Deziree’s worst months for them. The air pressure, the pollen puffing out, days that could yo-yo between 20 degrees to 60 and back. It had cost at least $80,000 to find out Deziree’s migraines, which were treatable, were a trigger for her “episodes,” which were “a mystery.”

“Yes,” Deziree said.

She allowed Lena to help her up. Lena walked her mom first to the bathroom, hooking an arm around her waist when she realized one of her mother’s legs was mostly limp today. In the bathroom, she helped Deziree onto the toilet, then grabbed her washcloth and dabbed away all the mess from her face and neck. Thankfully, none had gotten on her sleep mask.

“Shower?”

“No.”

Lena got her mother set up in her bedroom. All her sheets were still back in her dorm room, and she draped her robe over her mother’s feet to keep them warm.

“Lena?”

“Water?”

“Yes. But also: I love you. Thank you.”

Lena cleaned all three messes, worrying as she did it that the Lemongrass and bleach smell of the cleaning products would make Deziree feel extra-miserable. She went to the store and got Gatorade, a bottle of water with electrolytes in it, and some saltines. Tomorrow was a scheduled day for Miss Shaunté, and she texted back and forth with her until she agreed to stop by tonight just to make sure everything was okay. Then Lena drove the hour back to school. It was only until she was back in her dorm room that she realized there was a little bit of her mom’s sick on her sleeves.

Instead of reading the 50 pages she needed to do for class next day, Lena dabbed at her pantsuit with a Tide detergent pen while watching TV. Then she took Tanya’s expensive all-natural cleaning kit off her desk and cleaned their dorm room, throwing almost everything out of the mini refrigerator, scrubbing the floor-length mirror, wiping down the seat of Tanya’s desk chair. Near the end of it, Tanya returned.

“I could smell you cleaning from down the hall.”

Lena smiled, but continued sweeping.

“Do you need to talk or keep cleaning?” Tanya’s voice was gentle.

Lena turned away, knew if she saw a sympathetic smile, a gaze that neared compassion or kindness, she would start crying. “Cleaning. Maybe talk tomorrow.”

Tanya nodded, gathered more books and notecards, and left.

Hours later, Lena got into her bed—the sheets still dryer warm—desperate for sleep. A worry tapped her on her left shoulder: Should you sell the house? Another pulled her hair: Was it possible for Deziree to somehow live with you next semester? A third asked about homework: You need to keep your GPA at a 3.5 to keep your scholarship, Lena! Another jumped on her stomach and asked her what more could you be doing? You can sleep when everything is settled. Lena sat up, pulled out her phone, and searched for the closest place to sell her plasma. Researched what she would have to do to sell her eggs. Every website agreed on one thing: There was not much of a demand for African-American eggs.





4


On the day before her last exam, Lena’s phone rang. Blocked Caller. “You’re invited,” said a man who introduced himself as a representative of The Great Lakes Shipping Company, “to do further testing for possible inclusion in the Lakewood Project.” The pre-screening would last five days. When they hung up, Lena dropped her phone. She was a mosaic of happiness, relief, and the immediate sharp anxiety of getting everything in order in less than two days.

Once she had thought up a good lie, Lena called her mom.

“Mom, I got a short-term job house-sitting for one of my professors.”

“Plants?”

“House-sitting.”

“I mean, if he has good plants, you’ll take pictures and send them to me.”

“He doesn’t seem like a plant person to me,” Lena said.

“I’ll figure it out with Miss Shaunté and the neighborhood ladies. Just focus on your exams.”

Lena’s grandmother would have asked so many more questions—the professor’s name, address, landline, how this had been arranged. She would have listened to Lena’s explanations, the sound of her voice, searching for a hint of anything untoward. Deziree was always filled with enthusiastic confidence in Lena’s abilities. “You have your grandma’s brains and my sense of humor. You’ll be fine.”

Tanya was lying on the floor, oblivious to everything. She was listening to her headphones and muttering in Japanese to herself. Flash cards with kanji written on them were spread around her. When she noticed Lena looking at her, she pulled off the headphones and said, “I’m going to fail this exam.”

“You’re going to do great.”