moment, we were in a
cooking class, and Abby’s group was making chocolate chip
cookies.
She lingered, watching instead of
participating. As usual, no one paid her any mind. The other
students were too focused on the lesson to care about what Abby was
doing, and the instructor was letting her stay in her comfort
zone.
I decided that I should put a stop to
Abby relying on me so much, so I walked away and stood in the back
of the room. She wasn’t pleased that I left her side. She kept
looking over her shoulder at me.
I shot her a little wave of
encouragement, and she relaxed a bit. Still, she kept shifting her
feet and rocking back and forth. I could tell that all she wanted
was for the class to end.
I thought the chocolate chip batter
looked mighty tasty. I wouldn’t have minded pitching in. Soon the
cookies would be going into the oven, scenting the air with a
home-baked aroma, the kind of sweetness I missed out on by not
having a home.
As a boy, I lived like an orphan on
the streets, hanging out in the back alleys of 105, immersed in the
stench of garbage and liquor. On occasion I would charm my way into
the backdoor of a bakery and let the owner take pity on my poor,
hungry soul. Mostly I resorted to stealing. I never told Abby how
tough my young life had been. It was easier to keep that stuff to
myself.
“ You stink,” I heard a
voice say from behind me.
Fuck. I turned around, knowing it was
Face. He was another of Abby’s people. He wasn’t a whole person,
though. Basically, he was just a huge round head, sans hair, with
nondescript features and long, tapered hands attached to his chin.
His purpose in life was to scold you when you did something stupid.
But sometimes he just poked fun at you for the hell of
it.
“ Screw you,” I said to
him.
Face made a tsk-tsk sound. That was
his signature noise. “You reminded Abby to shower today, but you
never took one yourself. Like I said, Seven. You stink.”
I didn’t smell from missing one measly
shower. Did I? I almost sniffed my armpits to be sure, but I
decided not to give Face the satisfaction of knowing that he’d made
me question my hygiene.
I squinted at him. He bounced around,
keeping himself afloat and using his hands like wings. He was a
weird-looking duck. I’d always thought of him as a cross between
Mr. Potato Head and Humpty Dumpty, but without Mrs. Potato Head or
all the king’s men.
“ Go pester someone else,”
I said.
“ No one can see me except
you and Abby.”
He had a point. “Then go take a nap
with Dingo. He can see you.”
“ Don’t be an idiot. How is
he going to see me if he’s asleep?”
He had another point. “Then go find
Bud.” He was another of Abby’s people.
“ Bud’s busy, you moron.”
Face motioned to the other side of the room.
Sure enough, there was Bud, behaving
as if he was scouting the kitchen classroom for his next location.
In Room 105, Bud was a movie director who smoked cheap cigars and
idolized Alfred Hitchcock and Carlo Ponti. He actually looked a bit
like the two of them: short, fat, and partially bald. But that was
where the similarities ended. His work would never compare to
theirs, nor did he speak with a British or Italian accent. He
talked like he was from the Bronx, even though he’d never been to
New York. He also had this ridiculous habit of mispronouncing the
word people, saying “papple” instead. He looked about sixty, but in
schizophrenic years, he was immortal.
I understood why Abby had created me
and Dingo, but Face and Bud? The only thing I could figure was that
Face represented the jerks in the outside world who bullied Abby
when she was little, and Bud was there to direct the
craziness.
I turned back to Face and saw that he
was flipping me off. Christ almighty.
“ You’re a dickwad,” I
said. “Oh, no, wait.” I gave him the once-over. “You don’t even
have a dick.”
“ Ha. Ha.” He rolled his
eyes. He loved this type of banter. “I heard that it’s