Everything Is Fine. Read Online Free

to her.
    “Umm, hmm.”
    She starts to open it — one finger at a time, but just when I’m about to see, she clenches it again and starts to laugh.
    “I’m just kidding, sugar,” she says and opens it all the way.
    It isn’t a fish.
    It’s two scrunched-up pieces of orange paper.
    “Oh,” I say.
    “Take them both,” she says.
    I take them and put them in my shorts pocket.
    “Honey, don’t you even want to see what’s on them?”
    I shrug and her mole starts shaking again because she’s laughing. “That’s fine. That’s fine, honey. You are one original girl.”
    I want to karate chop her but instead she does something I didn’t know she was going to do.
    She grabs me and hugs me.
    I am in her fat fat fatty rolly all around me and it’s hot and smells like bread and coconut.
    At first I just stand there and let her hug me.
    Then I put my arms around her.
    They don’t even get to her sides, and she says, “Oh my.”
    Finally, she lets me go and her mascara is down her face.
    That’s when I decide Norma can fix things.
DEAN MACHINE
    I see a strange man out the window looking with Colby’s dad at the Dean Machine.
    But I don’t see Colby.
    I’m holding Mom’s sorbet and watching.
    He has his shirt off and is looking at his arm while Mr. Dean is talking at him with his hands. He doesn’t have guns like
     Henry’s.
    Then Mrs. Dean comes out and then Dixie, but this time the bikini is blue with stripes and she’s wearing cutoffs.
    Dixie looks like she doesn’t care about anything.
    I don’t either.
    She kisses the strange man. I guess Henry from Wichita is gone.
    I don’t see Colby.
    They all get in the Suburban and Mom says, “Mazzy?”
    It’s quiet but I can hear her even quiet.
    “Yeah, Mom. I’m coming.”
    The hum of the swamp cooler maybe didn’t let her hear me so I say it louder. “I’m coming.”
    But I still watch.
    Mr. Dean starts the car and the Dean Machine slowly pulls out of the driveway.
    That’s when Colby comes running out in different swimming trunks that I’ve never seen.
    He’s running out and then someone else is behind him.
    But it’s not Randy.
    It’s a girl.
MOM
    “So it’s a girl I’ve never seen.”
    She is sitting up and not looking at me.
    “I think it’s his girlfriend.”
    Mom’s nightgown is the blue one and it’s stuck to her chest from the sweat. I lean over and pull it away and blow.
    “Does that feel better?”
    She turns her head toward the window and I keep going.
    “Do you think it’s a girlfriend? Because I don’t.”
    Then I tell her about Norma and the pieces of paper she stuffed in my hand that say: “One Free Frosty from Wendy’s.” And I
     tell her how I have two.
    “So I could get us both one.”
    And I could because Wendy’s is on Ninth and we live on Sixth.
    I tell her how Colby is different now and that school might be bad this year because Katy Buchanan said you have to change
     classes and there’s not enough time to get to your locker because you get a demerit if you’re late so you have to carry your
     books all over and you could get a hernia.
    I also say, “The only good thing is I’m going to take art like you, Mom.”
    She still looks out the window and a sweat drip runs down her neck.
    I almost tell her about the paintings I already did but I don’t want her to know I’m in her studio.
    So instead I tell her about Lisa and José and how things are tight for them — that’s why we don’t have any marshmallows or
     anything.
    I tell her that Norma is driving around with Mr. Grobin and how her fat is bigger than it was last year after the accident
     when she was here for three days straight and made that soup that gave Dad diarrhea.
    That was the first time I ever really talked to Norma.
    I tell her I record Dad’s show so she can watch if she feels like it.
    I tell her there’s a social worker named Mrs. Peet who isn’t nice and says things have to change.
    I also tell her that if she wants, I can help her