Rocky Road Read online

  “Can’t imagine what came over me,” she said as the tow-truck driver hitched a cable to the Lincoln Town Car’s shiny front bumper. “Guess I was plumb excited about finally reaching the famous city of Schenectady. I’ve done my research, Mr. Mayor. I know this place saw plenty of action dating back to ol’ George W.’s days—George Washington, that is.”

  “Quit jabbering, Ma!” That’s what I wanted to say. She was playing her Texas twang so bad, she sounded like Yippee Coyote.

  But the mayor didn’t fall for Ma’s flattery. As Pop used to say, it felt colder than hell with the furnace turned off. Mostly he kept scowling at Ma. And when she told the mayor that VIPs she knew personally said Schenectady might be the next washed-up city to turn things around, he exhaled a warm cloud and walked away without another word.

  “Hush, Ma. You’re making things worse,” I whispered. Not that I was worried about Mayor Legato liking us—it was too late for that. Money was on my mind now. The police officer had already given Ma a ticket for something called driver inattention. And I knew insurance would be coming after her for all this damage.

  Ma has a lot to say, but she never has a lot of money.

  Another hour and two stops later, we pulled into the Mohawk Valley Village. That’s what Ma called it, anyway. It was too dark to read the sign.

  “You and Jordan wait in the lobby while I find the rental office,” she said.

  The lobby of Building One smelled like stale potato chips. Its faded plaid wallpaper and coffee-stained carpeting reminded me of ugly “before” footage on my favorite home-makeover show.

  There were no magazines, no toys, and nothing worth looking at in the waiting area, so Jordan started peeling leaves off a fake tree next to the love seat.

  “Stop,” I signed, and he growled back at me. Hunger is a surefire way of turning my brother into FrankenJordan.

  Next thing I knew, he was pulling tissues from a box and flinging them into the air like a flock of seagulls. Kleenex soon covered the floor by my feet.

  “I mean it, Jordan. Stop!”

  He stuck out his tongue. “Tess no fun,” he signed, and he charged into the laundry room just as Ma returned.

  Ma said our apartment was four floors up—number 418. “The good news is they fixed the hot water. The bad news is we got one bedroom, not two like they promised, and the elevator’s busted.”

  So I wrestled Jordan down from the dryer he was standing on, and up the stairs we climbed. By the third flight we were all huffing. My heart was feeling heavy like my feet, so I tried a positive-thinking exercise I read about in a magazine. In my mind I pictured Ma unlocking the apartment door to reveal a gorgeous suite with a plush leather sectional, a floral arrangement on a glass coffee table, and the soothing smell of lavender candles.

  When we reached the door of 418, I stopped the mind-over-matter wishing. Who cared what the apartment looked like? It still beat sitting in a freezing car.

  That night, Jordan and I shared the bed, and Ma slept in the living room on a futon that was pretending to be a sofa. Ma plumped the pillows that had been flattened from the car ride, dug sheets out from the U-Haul, and spread a down comforter she found in the bedroom closet on us. Warm under that soft, cozy blanket, we snoozed like ducklings in a nest.

  The familiar smell of chorizo sausage, onions, and zucchini frying got me up around eleven. Ma’s lunches and dinners are no great shakes, but when she’s up to it, she’s capable of whipping up better Tex-Mex breakfasts than any diner, and I’ve been to every one in Texas north of Raymondville. (The ones that let kids eat free, anyway.)

  “Come and eat, Tess,” Ma called, pointing the spatula at the kitchen stool. I thought she’d be wiped out from that long drive and our crash landing here in Schenectady, but she didn’t show it. Obviously she’d been up early enough to make it to the grocery store. Her wavy black hair was pulled back neatly in a braid, even if the loose gray strands showed she was overdue for her monthly color rinse. (I clip the L’Oréal coupons and apply it for her. She’d let me cut and style too, but I consider hair a specialty best left to cosmetologists.)

  Ma picked this apartment because Jimbo’s wife’s cousin’s stepsister recommended it via e-mail. They offered furnished units for dirt cheap, and Ma liked the dirt-cheap part. Ever since we were evicted from our last apartment, we’d been living on what she calls a girdle budget. Her grocery-store paycheck didn’t stretch far, and she was always quick to add that no matter what the divorce paperwork stated, Pop didn’t pull his financial weight.

  “I get better support from ninety-nine-cent panty hose” is how she put it, but I didn’t think she pushed hard either. Ma said Jake Dobson and responsibility were like oil and vinegar; they didn’t mix. It was five years since the divorce, longer since Pop lived with us, though it didn’t seem like that long to me. I still remember the night Ma kicked Pop out like it was yesterday. He wobbled into the kitchen late on a Friday night, smelling like his favorite Pabst Blue Ribbon and slurring his words, not much different than other Friday nights. Only this time, when Ma frisked his jean-jacket pocket, it was empty. He’d blown through his paycheck, and we were out of eggs, detergent, and hot sauce. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back—Jordan and I put hot sauce on everything—and Ma told him to get packing. He stormed out of the house without so much as a goodbye to Jordan and me, and that made Ma even madder. Just as he reached the truck in the driveway, Ma ran upstairs, yanked their wedding picture off the wall, and flung it out the window. It smashed to pieces on the hood of the truck as he backed out, with Ma shouting, “Good riddance, ya cockeyed cowboy!”

  I knew the only real money we had was in a trust fund my grandmother set up back in Texas, but so far Ma hadn’t touched it. She called it the Ditch Fund, and many times she told me the story about how her mama and paw spent a lifetime earning that cash the hard way: breeding horses. “With my right hand resting on a tub of horse liniment, I swore that I’d save that chunk of change for when things hit bottom. And then I’d come up with a sound plan to dig out of that ditch.”

  “If you didn’t touch the Ditch Fund, then how can we afford to move here?” I had asked during the ride.

  “I sold my engagement ring and wedding band, and I put in all that overtime at the Albertsons deli counter, remember? I knew we’d need a furnished place.”

  Ma was right about needing furniture. We had close to nothing besides the odds and ends in the U-Haul and a set of beat-up southwestern patio chairs that Ma inherited from her parents’ ranch years ago. Sometimes I wondered if Ma thought Pop had a contagious disease, what with all his stuff she threw out. She even pitched the rattlesnake boots he won in a card game, and I bet they cost a pretty penny.

  Ma scooped meat filling into the tortillas as I looked around at what the Mohawk Valley Village brochure called a newly renovated kitchen. The cabinets were freshly painted like they said, though that must’ve been one farsighted painter. Brush bristles were stuck to the puke-green cabinet doors, and the walls had spots missing paint. And the sink was cracked, like someone had whacked it with a cast-iron pot. The kitchen had a counter with three wobbly stools with ripped cushions. At least there was a microwave, even if the door handle was broken.

  Ma poured me a glass of juice. “Jordan still sleeping?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. He needs the rest.” She refilled her mug. Ma drinks her coffee with the socks on, meaning plenty of cream.

  “Better add batteries to the shopping list,” Ma said, pointing to the wall clock. It was stuck on 2:25. Beside it was a frayed poster of a horse race titled “Saratoga, Top of the Stretch.”

  I sipped the juice. “We’ve got to find a craft store. If the home-fashion police saw this place, we’d be under arrest. We need new curtains, throw pillows, and a gallon of paint primer, and that’s just for starters.”

  “Decorating can wait, my crafty queen. First thing this morning, I’m calling to get you registered to start school tomorrow. And
I’ll ask about the best school for deaf kids. They must have a good one nearby.”

  My mouth dropped open. “What do you mean, they must have a good one nearby? You said that’s why we moved here!”

  “’Course they got a crackerjack school for deaf kids, Tess. I just haven’t seen it yet. How ’bout you give me twenty-four hours before quizzing me on local geography?”

  Ma put a chipped yellow plate in front of me with two breakfast tacos and a pile of apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. A newspaper called the Daily Gazette rested beside it.

  “I’ve been studying the classifieds,” she said, pointing to the paper. “Trying to find the best place to hang a shingle. I’m fixing to meet Jimbo’s wife’s cousin’s stepsister on her lunch hour when you’re at school tomorrow to hear more about this city. More to come, but I’ll give ya a preview like they do in the movies. Something sweet is calling for Delilah Dobson in the world of retail.”

  The world of retail? I didn’t like how that sounded. “Something could’ve called you back in Texas, and we would’ve saved a lot of gas,” I said. For one, we had no money; two, we knew nobody in New York; and three, aside from slicing ham and scooping ranch-style beans for deli customers, what did Ma know about retail?

  Then, as if it would make me feel better, Ma rubbed my back. “Trust me, honey. I’ve got a plan.”

  My whole life I’ve wanted to trust Ma, but that’s impossible if you’re around her more than an hour. Know that guy Murphy, whose law always predicts the worst? Ma lives by the Dobson Doctrine, which promises sunshine and lemonade—but we end up with rainstorms and spoiled milk.

  I finished off my first taco and spooned hot sauce onto the second. “What kind of business are you talking about?”

  “The kind that wipes away sadness the way an antibiotic clears an infection.”

  “Selling what?” I asked, chewing. The suspense wasn’t killing me, but it was getting on my nerves.

  Ma started singing. “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream….”

  I gulped down a mouthful of spicy sausage. “You want to buy an ice cream truck?”

  “Heck, no! The mayor would never approve that license after my tango with his car door. I mean an ice cream shop.”

  I stared at her long and hard. “Here? Now? It’s freezing. People don’t buy ice cream when it’s cold.”

  “It won’t be cold forever,” she said, refilling her coffee again. “And some white powder falling from the sky is no reason to squash a celebration. Why, we’ve already got three half-quart containers stocked in our freezer and we just pulled into town! You know our family motto: ‘Ice cream warms the heart, no matter what the weather.’”

  Ma started rattling off reasons why an ice cream business might save the day for us. Stuff about how the shop would mostly be open when Jordan and I were in school, and what a good fit this was, what with our family’s “passion for the products.” She was going to bring to the business the same mind-set and rituals we used at home: every day is an ice cream day deserving special bowls and spoons, plenty of scrumptious flavors, and enough wild and wonderful toppings to make a kid belt out, “Yahoo!”

  For a few minutes my mind took off in a delicious daydream, imagining Ma’s exotic ice cream shop might even make Willy Wonka jealous that he hadn’t looked beyond candy. No mother in San Antonio ever gave a kid’s birthday party with more belly-jiggling laughter than Ma, never mind tasty frozen treats and fun-blasting games.

  But then a cold wind rattled the windows, and I remembered where we were. Who we were, and what might be happening—Shooting Stars. The seesaw moods that struck every so often and made Ma sleep little, spend too much money, and do crazy things at a turbocharged pace. In the beginning she soared, full of energy and grandiose plans. But like a shooting star, she eventually burned and crashed to earth—to bed, actually, unable to do much but sleep, stare at the ceiling, and cry.

  Ma’s Shooting Stars got us into money trouble. They caused Pop to escape in his beer, which caused her to send him packing. Right now I wondered what I always wondered: Was this spur-of-the-moment New Year’s move because of a mood swing? And if so, how long would she fly high—and then, how soon till she crashed?

  The bedroom door opened, and out shuffled Jordan. He stopped in front of the living-room window and started giggling and clapping and bouncing up and down like he was on a pogo stick.

  “What’s going on?” I signed.

  He paused in thought and then raised both his hands, cupped them, and brought them down, all the while wiggling his fingers.

  What’s he signing? Maybe he’s describing those old-fashioned musty drapes. “Yes, silly curtains. Downright ugly, if you ask me,” I signed, making my best “Yuck” face.

  “Don’t worry, Tess will make new ones,” Ma said.

  Jordan read Ma’s lips, shook his head, and kept pointing out the window. And then he did a handstand, flipping over and smashing into the futon, still wearing an electric smile that lit up the whole apartment.

  “What is it? What’s he saying?” Ma asked.

  “Don’t understand,” I signed to Jordan.

  Squealing now, Jordan rushed over to the kitchen counter and grabbed my arm, knocking my fork to the floor. Then he yanked me off the stool.

  “Hold your horses!” I signed and spoke, laughing as he pulled me toward the living room.

  It hit me—I knew what had come over him. The reason was falling outside. “Snow, Ma! Jordan sees snow!” I shouted.

  We all stared out the big window, suddenly speechless at the whiteness that lined the world like tissue paper.

  Ma picked Jordan up, kissed him, and spun him around. “Hooray for Jordan! ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!’” she sang at the top of her lungs, shaking her right hand to sign joy, one of the few signs she knew.

  I wiggled my straightened fingers as I moved my hands down in front of me so Jordan would get the sign right. “Snow.”

  Jordan watched and then copied the sign over and over, giggling all the while. Seeing him snow-struck like that made me laugh too, for the first time in weeks.

  “So, what’re we waiting for, Christmas?” Ma shouted, untying her apron.

  Jordan dashed to the closet for our coats. “Hurry!” he signed. “Snow!”

  Down the stairs we flew, out through the potato-chip-smelling lobby to the snow-dusted parking lot. Snow tickled our faces, landed on our hair like white confetti, and filled our noses with jolting freshness. If New Year was a fragrance, I decided, it would smell like this.

  Jordan scooped his sock-covered hands into the fluffy whiteness and threw a snowball at my pajama leg.

  Giggling, I molded one with my cold, bare hands and nailed him on the back of his jacket.

  Ma stood beside us, twirling like a ballerina and laughing. “Get a gander at this winter wonderland,” she said. “This here’s a welcoming omen, Tess. Good things are happening for the Dobsons. Ice-cold good things.”

  For a second I thought of Pop, how he always rolled his eyes at what he called Ma’s Pollyanna proclamations. “Death and taxes are the only things a man can count on,” that’s what he said. But then I looked at Jordan, standing next to me with his tongue stretched out as far as it would go, watching snow dissolve on it.

  Just a month ago, on a muggy December afternoon in San Antonio, we’d seen A Charlie Brown Christmas together. Jordan had been mesmerized as the Peanuts gang caught snowflakes on their tongues.

  “Me do that,” he signed, pointing to the TV, but I explained that we didn’t get snow in Texas.

  Now he got his turn.

  My better judgment was telling me to exercise caution before inviting hope to this sorry city, Schenectady, but watching Jordan catch snowflakes and seeing Ma’s ballerina dance got the better of me.

  “Woohoo!” I shouted, and I stuck out my tongue and tasted white magic too.

  Chapter 3

  The savvy ice cream retailer understands curb app
eal. You can judge a book by its cover and a shop by its entryway.—The Inside Scoop

  Uh-oh. 8:14. I’d hit OFF instead of SNOOZE. I’d be late on my first day of school here in Antarctica. No wonder—I hadn’t fallen asleep until past two. Ma says insomnia runs in our Dobson blood. So do morning grumpies. Jordan was still sleeping as I jumped from the bed and wiggled into my jeans with a ten-pound chip on my shoulders.

  “Bus is coming, Tess. Git your motor in overdrive!” Ma shouted from the kitchen.

  “Big deal if I’m late,” I growled to myself.

  Ma handed me my lunch and an envelope as I scrambled out the door. “Take these registration forms. Bus picks up a block south, by the fire hydrant. Hurry!”

  I tried, but hurrying on snow-covered ice is no walk in the park, especially without winter boots. Just a few steps from the lobby door I slipped and fell. Then I flopped again near the apartment-complex entrance, right where the snow plows had dumped a pile of gray, sludgy snow.

  As I got up and brushed dirty snow off my jeans, I saw the big wooden sign. The sign that I missed when we arrived after dark: MOHAWK VALLEY VILLAGE—INDEPENDENT & ASSISTED SENIOR LIVING.

  The words struck like a cane to the head. This place was for old people! What was Ma thinking, moving us here? But I had no time to let it sink in. The bus pulled up and I ran to catch it.

  By the time we reached Ottawa Creek Middle School, my hair was messy, my jeans were damp, and my sneakers were soaked. I wanted to find the girls’ room and peek in the mirror to check if my big ears were poking out or if my neck was covered with nervous blotches. No time. A bell rang, so I hurried to the main office.

  They sent me to guidance.

  “Have a seat, please. I’m Ms. Hockley. Is Tess short for something?” the guidance counselor asked matter-of-factly as she escorted me to her office, which faced the reception area.

  “Just Tess,” I answered. She was the tallest woman I’d ever seen. Way over six feet. With a deep voice too, like a Texas prison warden. (Pop once told Ma and me that Texas has the toughest prisons in the country, though he never explained how he knew this. Years later Ma admitted that between his thirst for booze and his crummy driving record, she had a feeling he might’ve had firsthand experience with those wardens.)