The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 20

At recess the next day, Maribeth's classmate, Bubby O'Hara told a joke. He said, "What time do you go to the dentist?" He paused for effect and then, with a sly grin, he delivered the punchline. "Tooth-hurty." The kids burst into boisterous laughter the way kids do when they're in a pack.

Maribeth analyzed the joke. What was so funny about two-thirty? In her head, three-thirty sounded funnier than two-thirty. She committed Bubby's joke to memory. There may come a time when telling a joke could come in handy and obviously, the kids thought the dentist joke was funny even if she didn't understand it.

When the school day ended, Maribeth found Indigo waiting for her, snuggled against a tall man in a denim vest. He wore a scraggly beard and a ponytail and lots of colorful beads around his wrists and neck.

"Maribeth," Indigo said with a girly voice. "This is Sequoia."

She was tempted to ask what happened to Vernon but like many of Indigo's male companions, maybe he'd show up again or maybe he wouldn't.

"What's up, munchkin?" he said, looking so proud of himself as though he'd just quoted some obscure passage from Shakespeare.

Maribeth said nothing and turned toward her mother with a blank expression.

Both Indigo and Sequoia smelled like some form of hemp and their eyes had a pinkish glaze. 

"C'mon. Let's go," said Indigo.

During the walk home, they whispered to each other and giggled. It seemed to Maribeth that she could float away like a balloon and neither would notice.

"I could totally do about a dozen donuts right now," said Sequoia.

Indigo said, "I was getting a falafel vibe."

"And the flat noodle thing. Oh, man." He came to a full stop on the sidewalk. "I almost forgot what lasagna was."

"Far out."

They broke out into raucous laughter that had them doubled over, fighting to catch their breath. Indigo laughed so hard, tears streamed from her eyes.

Maribeth understood her comprehension of humor was limited, actually less than limited, but why someone would laugh about forgetting a word made absolutely no sense. She leaned against a tree and watched them, dumbfounded. When they finally stopped laughing, Indigo slipped her arm around his waist and they resumed their walk, Maribeth following.

The word 'lasagna' did sound kind of funny. She got that. But if you forgot what lasagna was, why would that make you laugh? Oh, geez. It became a source of irritation so she stopped trying to figure it out. But the next thing her mind fixed on was equally perplexing.

The little girl couldn't imagine how anyone could be physically attracted to Sequoia, especially because he wore leather sandals that featured his big, knobby Hobbit toes. Indigo said Sequoia was cute, a word Maribeth believed was reserved for puppies, kittens, and bunnies. It all seemed totally nonsensical.

........

Maribeth noticed a pattern. Most days after school, Maribeth spent with her mother in her hemp eco-friendly detergent shop in the basement of the laundromat. Afterward, they would come home to their apartment and eat plant-based foods, sometimes just plants, and then Sequoia would visit and usually spend the night.

There was a lot of kissing and hugging and groping before Maribeth was sent to her room. She thought their behavior was inappropriate but maybe she didn't fully understand the word.

Indigo and Sequoia would then retreat to the couch where they would discard most if not all of their clothes, and then moan and groan while doing whatever they did to make the couch sound like it was hopping across the room. Maribeth didn't care to investigate. Sequoia wasn't the first man to share the couch with her mom. This had become a familiar routine. So when the adult activities were in session, Maribeth stayed in her room and read. When things got especially loud in the living room, she'd immerse herself in her favorite book, admiring Lizzie sawing boards, nailing the planks together, and finally, erecting her treehouse.

One Saturday morning, when Maribeth and her mother arrived at the laundromat, they discovered that the door to Indigo's studio space had been pried open. The cigar box where she stashed her money was empty. Someone had gotten away with more than seventy dollars in hard-earned cash. In this part of town with broken windows in empty storefronts, abandoned cars in the streets, and layers upon layers of graffiti on nearly every surface, it was inevitable that something like this would happen. Maribeth stood in the corner watching her red-faced mother flail her arms and curse. It was a long afternoon.

That evening, back at the apartment, as usual, Sequoia showed up, this time to comfort Indigo. She sobbed into his chest while he patted her back and stroked her hair. Maribeth was about to retire to her room when she noticed it. There between Sequoia's Hobbit toes, were bright blue fibers, the same color as the blue shag rug in Indigo's hemp eco-friendly detergent shop.

Not in tune with what most people would recognize as bad timing, Maribeth confronted Sequoia, accusing him of breaking into her mother's studio and stealing her hard-earned money. He denied her allegations and said something about her words ripping apart his soul and something about dimming his light force. She couldn't remember precisely. But what she remembered vividly was Indigo shouting that Maribeth was a strange little girl who had ruined her life. Two weeks later she moved in with her Aunt Sonya without so much as an "Oh, geez."