The Rule of Thirds

Chapter Two

After the third garage sale, I head home. We’ve lived in the same house at 42 Catalina Drive since I was three. It used to belong to Grandma Anne and Grandpa Frank, my mom’s parents, but then they moved into a nursing home and gave the house to Mom and Dad, who didn’t have the money to buy their own. It’s a short walk from the Cherokee River, which runs through Spalding and connects all the little towns in the area. Most of Spalding’s original houses (which were more like cottages) were torn down and replaced or renovated beyond recognition. But ours is still the original cottage. It’s the only one on the street like it. I used to wish we had a big new house, like Dace’s, but now I like that ours is different from all the others. Dark brick with faded gray wood trim amid houses with that plas- ticky siding or blah concrete look. Our house looks like a Swiss Alps chalet. The roof goes right down, almost to the ground, and the front windows have these big red wooden shutters.

Inside the house is quiet—the only sign of Mom is a note on the pad of lined yellow paper, on the kitchen counter.

Pipsqueak—
At clinic till 3. Got you appt w/ Dr. Judy at

1. Please go. Not convinced hospital placement is good idea. Call me after you talk to her & let me know what she says. Love you.

Mom

I tear the page off the pad, crumple it and toss it in the recycling under the sink. Little does she know not volunteering there may be the real problem, given how I missed the meeting and all.

“Catcher in the Rye,” I say to Dad when I get to my room, focusing on the pic I usually do: he’s 17, standing by the stoop of his apartment on Christopher Street in the West Village. Hands in the pockets of his jeans, camera around his neck.

The milk bottle just fits on my windowsill. I drag my desk chair over to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in the corner beside my desk and slip the book onto the top shelf, next to the other copies. This one makes eight.

Then in the bottom of my bag I find the paper — totally crumpled—with the volunteer coordinator’s name on it, and punch the hospital number into my phone. Probably a futile attempt given it’s Saturday, but I go through the 17 prompts until I’m connected to Glenys Grange. Shock of all shockers, she answers. Maybe the volunteer gods are on my side.

“Why weren’t you at the candystriper orienta- tion yesterday afternoon?” she asks, her voice high-pitched.

Oh that? I was busy having a panic attack. I consider confiding in her, thinking she might take pity on me, but who would want a volunteer who is likely to spontaneously collapse and have a freak- out session in the middle of the hospital?

Instead, I tell her I had a small scheduling con- flict, but that I’m ready to get going on being St. Christopher’s best volunteer ever.

She makes a mmm-ing noise for longer than nec- essary and then rustles some papers for what seems like forever. “We already created the schedule and handed out the uniforms. I’ll have to see if there are any left, and I can’t promise there’ll be one in your size. This really is a hassle . . .”

“Please?”

She sighs. “We’ve been understaffed since the layoffs last summer anyway, so I suppose we can use the extra help. Fine—you can start Monday after school. Just wear khakis, a white shirt and non- marking soled shoes. I’ll put you on for Mondays and Tuesdays.”

“Oh well, um . . .”
“Is there a problem?” Glenys puffs.
I want to ask what day the music team works.

Dylan works Fridays. What’s the point of volun- teering if I’m on totally opposite to Dylan? That’s the whole point of volunteering. Oh, and getting in my mandatory-to-graduate hours. And helping people.