Inside Hudson Pickle Page 4

“COPD? But he’s only in his thirties —”

  The doctor cut her off with a click of his pen. “I know. He’s too young. That’s why we need further investigation: X-rays, arterial blood gas …” The doctor spoke like a sports announcer doing a play-by-play.

  I didn’t understand anything the doctor (or my mom) was saying, so I stopped listening and stared at the machine attached to Uncle Vic’s finger. There was a wavy blue line on the monitor with numbers next to it that kept changing from ninety to ninety-two. I stood there imagining I was watching the scoreboard at an NBA game.

  “Hey, kid.” Uncle Vic tapped me on the arm to get my attention. “I heard you made a scene at practice.”

  “It was nothing,” I said quietly so I wouldn’t interrupt the doctor. I hoped the more Mom concentrated on Uncle Vic’s health problems, the less she’d think about mine. And the sooner we would be out of there. The Sabres game was starting soon.

  “You and me are just the same,” Uncle Vic said with a grin. “Not going to let a few lung problems slow us down.”

  The nurse next to Uncle Vic turned to look at me. “You have lung problems?”

  The doctor must have heard the question because he stopped midsentence and finally looked my way. “And you are?”

  “Hudson.”

  “My son,” added Mom.

  The doctor narrowed his eyes, examining me like I was a skeleton hanging out in the corner of a lecture theater. “He looks too old to be your son.”

  Mom blushed. “I did have him when I was young …”

  “No, really,” the doctor said, still looking at me. “And his features are different —”

  “He’s my nephew,” Uncle Vic interrupted. “Tall for his age.”

  “Okay, then.” The doctor hooked his reading glasses over his ears and scribbled something in Uncle Vic’s chart. “I think I’d better get some family history.”

  “There’s not much to know, Dr. Carreira,” Mom said quickly. “It’s just me and Hudson, and he’s healthy apart from childhood asthma.”

  “Which I’ve outgrown,” I added for Mom’s benefit more than the doctor’s.

  “Any history of lung disease on his father’s side of the family?”

  Mom’s face scrunched up as if on reflex.

  “Hudson’s father lives on the coast,” said Uncle Vic. “There’s no contact. He could be dead for all we know.”

  A layer of stale hospital air, too thick to breathe, closed in on me. No one talked about my dad — ever. There were no pictures, no mementos. Nothing. And yet suddenly I’d been forced to think about him, or at least the idea of him, twice in just a few days. I inhaled slowly, trying to focus on the here and now like my hockey coach had told us to do. I shoved the thought of my dad to the back of my brain, where it belonged.

  Dr. Carreira broke the trance that had come over us at the mention of my dad and death. “Ethnicity?”

  “European. Hudson’s father’s Croatian,” Mom said softly.

  I took a sharp breath. Croatian was a lot less shocking than dead. Still, it was the most I’d ever heard Mom say about him.

  “Our roots are mainly English,” added Mom, “mixed with a little bit of Dutch and …”

  As she rattled on like she was listing recipe ingredients, the doctor stared at me as if we’d both been cast in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. “Ethnic diversity is good from a genetic point of view,” he said. “Do you have any children, Victor?”

  “None that I know of,” Uncle Vic answered with a chuckle.

  The doctor scribbled something on the medical chart. “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”

  “Just Martha,” Uncle Vic replied.

  “Any half sibs?”

  “No,” said Mom.

  “Any health problems for you, Martha?”

  “No.”

  The doctor pushed on the end of the pen so the ballpoint went in and out, in and out. The clicking noise — among other things — was starting to annoy me. “Victor, I think you need to see a genetic counselor.”

  A look of horror crossed Mom’s face. “But we just told you — there is no family history.”

  “I think there’s one associated with the respiratory and neurodiagnostic clinic. I’ll add a note to the referral,” announced Dr. Carreira.

  “Don’t you think we’re overreacting?” Mom nibbled at her thumbnail. “Should we maybe just repeat the spirometry test to rule out lung disease?”

  “I’m not ruling out anything without further testing,” said the doctor. “This could be COPD. It could be the synergistic effect of an upper respiratory infection, smoke and medication. It could be part of a genetic syndrome. It could be nothing.”

  “It’s nothing.” Uncle Vic scratched at his neck, and the green hospital gown shifted, exposing the tree tattoo that covered his shoulders and back. I studied the nurse’s face for a reaction to the dark lines that snaked their way down his body, forming the roots of the tree. Every time I saw them, I shuddered at the thought of a needle injecting ink into his skin — a process Mom had described to me in excruciating detail. More than once.

  The nurse didn’t even flinch. She’d obviously seen things a lot more shocking. But Mom still looked horrified as she clutched her bony wrist — her own flawless skin so pale that it almost glowed in the dark.

  Uncle Vic didn’t bother to adjust his gown as he swung his legs off the stretcher. “Are we done here?”

  “Just one more quick blood test,” the doctor said, making large checks in small boxes on a page attached to the front of the chart.

  Uncle Vic stuck out his arm and turned on the charm. “I’m starting to feel like a pincushion,” he said to the nurse. “Can you get me some type of prescription for the pain?”

  How could a couple blood tests hurt someone with a tattoo as big as Uncle Vic’s? As the nurse prodded his arm for a vein, I excused myself. I hoped they were showing the game on the TV in the waiting room.

  Walking away from the tiny curtained space, I could hear Mom and Dr. Carreira exchanging medical jargon in low tones. Uncle Vic was singing to the nurse — either to distract himself from the needle or to score some real sympathy. As corny as it was, I didn’t doubt that the nurse would be into it. Women always seemed to like Uncle Vic. At least at first. I’d never known him to have any long-term relationships, just an ongoing stream of good-looking girlfriends.

  Of course, that didn’t mean he’d never had anyone special in his life. Anything was possible, and I was starting to think there was a lot I didn’t know about my quirky little family.

  Chapter Six

  Things at home went back to their regular, boring routine for the rest of the week. Even Uncle Vic’s healthy, veggie dinners started to seem normal.

  Sometimes I liked having him around. He made a mess and upset some of Mom’s heavily guarded routine. But the rest of the time, he was just there, complaining about how much he missed his guitar, even though Mom had pulled an old one out of the closet for him. (I’d yet to get a straight answer on where, or who, it had come from.)

  Anyway, our boring home was still boring, but somehow Uncle Vic made it more tolerable.

  School was a different story. The work was much harder in junior high, and I was already falling behind. One of my teachers sent a note home with a request that I redo my completed homework sheet, which was now covered in red ink. Mom blamed it on my lack of privacy and cleared some space in the basement for Uncle Vic. But I still couldn’t sleep through the night, even without Uncle Vic’s snoring. It was like the back of my brain was getting too full — the thoughts I kept locked up there were constantly trying to escape.

  By Friday I hadn’t even started my report for Career & Tech. So I was totally unprepared when Ms. Lavender asked us to interview each other. We were supposed to act as if we already worked in our chosen profession
s. Even worse, she paired me with Willow — the last person I wanted to catch me unprepared.

  “I heard you had an asthma attack at basketball practice,” she said after we’d turned our desks so we faced each other.

  I nodded, feeling defensive and exposed, like I’d been sent to the box for a penalty I didn’t deserve. How far had the story spread?

  Willow stared at me, uncomfortable, like she expected me to start hacking up snot all over her like I had in preschool. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” she said.

  I clenched my teeth in anticipation of some crack about my height — the kind of comment I should be used to by now, but wasn’t. Growing tall enough to be mistaken for your mom’s boyfriend was humiliating enough. But I still didn’t have a good comeback for all those references to the Jolly Green Giant, Big Foot, Paul Bunyan and, of course, Big Bird.

  But Willow didn’t mention my height. Instead, she hit an even sorer spot. “Haven’t really seen you since you got held back.”

  I sank into my hard chair, my face flush with embarrassment. I’d missed a lot of school in second grade because of my asthma. Willow wasn’t ahead of me because she was supersmart. I was behind her because I was superdumb. With a pain-in-the-butt illness. “Yeah.”

  Willow smiled mischievously. “Qué bueno verte de nuevo.”

  “You still speak Spanish?” I asked, remembering the flash cards she’d plastered all over her room — a desperate attempt to teach me her native language so I could play the part of a Mexican prince at her tea parties. Which I’d only attended extremely reluctantly. To say it hadn’t worked would be a mammoth understatement. Anyone who grew up watching Dora the Explorer knew more Spanish than me, no matter how hard Willow tried.

  Now she rolled her eyes like I’d just said something really stupid — which I had, of course.

  “I speak Portuguese and French now, too,” she said.

  “Then why do you want to be a postal worker?” I asked. “Why not a translator for the United Nations or something?”

  “Why do you want to be a firefighter?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Willow laughed. “I guess you’re not ready to do the interview, then.”

  “Uh. Not exactly. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay.” Willow tucked her long black hair behind her ears. Immediately, one of her curls bounced back in defiance. Willow ignored it, but I could not. “I’ll go first,” she said.

  “Thanks.” I watched the curl out of the corner of my eye.

  Willow sorted through the papers on her desk. “That means you have to ask the questions.”

  “Uh, yeah, of course. So … why do you want to be a postal worker?”

  Willow laughed again, and it sounded kind of nice. Her voice was high-pitched and airy but not too girly or squealish. “For this assignment, you’re supposed to pretend I’m already a postal worker.”

  “Right, sorry,” I stammered. “Why did you become a postal worker?”

  “Because I wanted to spend every day outdoors,” said Willow. “And I like being active.”

  “Active? Don’t you just walk up and down the street delivering mail?”

  Willow frowned. “Walking is healthy. And you have to carry a heavy bag.”

  “Right. Of course,” I said, even though it didn’t exactly sound like a workout. “Sorry.”

  “I just mean that I didn’t want to be stuck behind a desk all day.”

  Willow seemed so sure of herself, like Trev did when he talked about karate or gaming.

  Not being behind a desk sounded good to me, too. I realized something: “That’s the same with firefighting.”

  “Plus, mail carriers set their own schedules.” Willow talked with her hands, like Mom did when she was giving me a lecture. “They have a route. They deliver the mail. When the mail is delivered, their workday is done. There’s no standing around wondering what to do. When you’re busy, you’re busy. When you’re not, you’re not.”

  “Same with firefighting,” I blurted out. I wasn’t buying Willow’s sales job on mail delivery, but she was starting to make me think that firefighting was actually kind of cool. More than a profession glorified by the imagination of a kindergarten kid, anyway.

  Willow scratched her chin — she had a dimple there that I’d never noticed before. “Not really. Firefighters sit around the fire station for hours at a time, waiting for a call, and when they finally get one, they have to instantly spring to action.” Willow twirled her hand in the air above her head. “That sounds totally different to me.”

  “Yeah, but when they’re hanging out at the fire station, they can do what they want: eat, play games, work out …”

  Willow creased her eyebrows together. “We’re supposed to be talking about me —”

  “And firefighters get to compete in the World Police and Fire Games,” I said, suddenly remembering all the reasons I’d wanted to be a firefighter when I was little.

  “So you really do want to be a firefighter?” Willow leaned forward in her chair. “I got the feeling you were just blowing off the assignment.”

  “Firefighting’s awesome. And the World Police and Fire Games are almost as big as the Olympics,” I said, even though I didn’t think it was true.

  “I like sports, too,” said Willow, “but probably not as much as you do.”

  “Weren’t you thinking of being a sports broadcaster?”

  Willow shrugged. “Well, I like mail more.”

  “But mail is so … lame,” I said, unable to stop the thought from tumbling out.

  Willow’s jaw stiffened. “My dad works for the US Postal Service.”

  “Oh.” I wanted to crawl under my desk, though there was no way I would fit. I’d forgotten her dad was a mail carrier, our mail carrier, in fact. Or he had been until he was promoted to postmaster of Bluster’s central post office.

  But Willow didn’t look too offended. “What does your dad do?” she asked.

  I pulled back from my desk like I’d been burned. Another reference to my dad. From Willow of all people. How could she forget? “I don’t have a dad.”

  “Of course you do —”

  I cut her off before she had a chance to lecture me on the birds and the bees. “Yeah, but he’s just, uh …” My voice cracked. “Gone.”

  Willow must have sensed my embarrassment, which, given my red-hot face and stammered speech, didn’t exactly require psychic ability. Her voice softened: “I knew you didn’t live with your dad, but I assumed he was still around.”

  I cleared my throat and concentrated on keeping my voice even. “No,” I said. “He’s not.”

  “No birthday cards? Christmas phone calls? Video chats? Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh.” Willow bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s no big deal.” I tried to sound casual as my heart hammered in my chest like it was competing for a world record. “But we’re way off topic.”

  Willow pushed her hair off her forehead. “Right. Ask me another question. A good one.”

  I didn’t come up with anything that could be described as good. But somehow I managed to cover the basics, like what kind of training you need to deliver the mail. Willow answered all my questions patiently, even though I made a few more stupid comments before the class was over.

  “You’re lucky we have guest speakers next week. But you’d better be ready for my questions next time,” Willow joked when the bell rang.

  As we stood to turn our desks, she caught my gaze and didn’t let go. Standing there eye to eye, I realized she was almost the same height as me. I felt like I was standing at center court, ready to take the tip-off against someone superhard to beat.

  “I will be,” I said, even though I’d forgotten what I needed to be ready for.

  “Firefighting’s a pr
etty decent profession,” Willow said as she gathered her books together. “I can totally see you doing it.”

  A grin pulled at the corners of my mouth as I lowered my head, stepped into the aisle and rammed right into Trev.

  “Whoa!” he shouted.

  “Sorry,” I said, reaching out to steady him. “Ready for practice?”

  “Yeah.” Trev shook my arm off his shoulder. “So?”

  “Let’s head to the gym together.” I made the suggestion for his benefit as well as mine. Safety in numbers and all that. Bullies were less likely to pick on a pair of kids, even if one hated the other. Trev had to see that, right?

  But his face soured, and I knew he was about to blow me off.

  Then suddenly his expression changed. “Hey, Willow,” he said.

  I hadn’t realized she was still there.

  “Hey, Trev,” Willow said. “How are things at the Roundhouse?”

  “Deadlier than ever.” Trev smiled.

  “How do you know about the Roundhouse?” I asked.

  “I took some karate lessons there,” Willow said.

  Trev grabbed her backpack off the floor and handed it to her. “Haven’t seen you in the dojo lately.”

  “It was just a summer thing.” Willow flipped the backpack over her shoulder. Her hair followed in a cascade of curls that smelled like shampoo.

  My gut knotted. I took a step toward the door. “You coming with?” I asked Trev.

  “Wait up for me, you guys,” Willow said as Trev started to push ahead of me.

  “What for?” I demanded, not meaning to be rude. It’s just that Willow had flustered me enough for one day, and I needed this practice to be perfect. Or at least a heck of a lot better than the last one.

  “I’ll walk with you,” said Willow. “The girls are practicing, too.”

  “Oh,” Trev and I said at the same time.

  “Don’t sound so excited.” Willow chuckled. She didn’t notice Aidan strutting up the aisle behind her until he was close enough to poke her in the ribs. She jumped. “Oh! Aidan! You scared me!”

  “So, you’re playing basketball with the big boys tonight, eh, Willow?” Aidan flashed us all a lopsided smile. “Maybe you can teach Wheezy here a few moves.”