Today's mom's birthday, so I need to ask strangers for money to buy a gift. People are so nice, dropping coins and fluttering coupons down on me. I smile at 'em and always say thank you. Sometimes they look real surprised, or embarrassed, but most of the time they don't hear and just walk on off. A lot of people don't look at me, even though I look at them. Every day I look at people. I look and look and look. I sit outside Rory's shop, out on the corner scrunched up small with my sweater sticking to the brick wall so people don't trip on me when they walk. I used to sit outside Mrs. Josephine's Dance Studio, watching the pretty ballerinas twirl and wishing I could move like them angels. Wishing my stomach didn't jiggle like raspberry jello, wishing that when I was little, I could've fit in the wooden crib that my parents built for my younger sister, when we thought she was going to be born. But a man told me I had to leave, told me to go to a shelter, told me I couldn't sit outside watching them girls dance. I smiled and pointed, telling the man that I lived in a house just past the park, but he was already gone. Rory's ground is wet but he comes out of his shop each day and gives me a sandwich. He sells videos and says his name isn't Rory. He reminds me every night that I got to go, got to go buy food. He helps me count my money, tells me how much people gave me, tells me to buy something nice. Tells me which coupons are for what, tells me what I should be eating. "Get cold vegetables, eat them all day long and never get hungry. Stick of celery," he'll say, "You warm enough? House clean?" He's awful nice. I love Rory.
There's a little store that Yuki owns. I didn't know her name for the longest time, she was scared of me, always placing my change on the table instead of my big, pawlike hands. Now though I'm real happy 'cause Yuki always got something picked out for me, a little something nice. She smiles, lots of gum, little lined eyes—a tiny person. Yuki smells like wood varnish, like someone stuffed all the nice things they could think of together and called it a flower. She hands me a little blue swan today and a dog treat for my pup. I always get one. "How much money today?" she says, "How much you have?" I tell her five, I've got five dollars, but I need extra for a birthday present. She smiles extra big. "Is it your birthday?" No, I say. It's for mom. "Then you can have this, too," she says, and hands me a little box, "Open when you go to sleep."
Dog treat's for my dog. My dog always says hello and I say hello and he eats a treat. Yuki says I should name my dog, but I don't want to pick a name. What if he didn't like it? I'd probably pick something stupid, anyway. Stupid like how I forgot to feed my dog and he vomited on our house's carpeting. "Mina's son. Clean it," Grandfather says, says been smelling it all day. I nod, put my blue swan in my drawer, my own little drawer in my own little room, take out my little box and lay it out on my table so I won't forget. I put food in my dog's bowl and open the cupboard right up, grab two boxes of cereal. I give one to Grandfather and he hands me a fifty dollar bill. I put the money in my drawer and crawl into bed, shaking the cereal into my mouth. I hold Yuki's present real close, real tight, and close my eyes. Just when I feel real sleepy, I take off the lid and look inside. I pick up a little glass ballerina between my thumb and my finger (the one with the broken nail) and hold her to my lamp. The light fills up inside of her and my mouth falls open at her tiny little feet, at her little nose. I run my hand over the figurine, then wipe off my finger smudges with my blue bedspread.
I tuck the ballerina in my drawer, next to a gold belt buckle my father used to wear before he left and the ballet ribbon, the white ribbon I pulled from Mrs. Josephine's ballet slipper, the one I found in the dumpster behind the studio, the one that wrapped around her ankles as if it kept them from breaking. It lies next to my only picture of my mom. She would have been fifty-six today. I fall asleep with my hand in the drawer, touching the only things I have left.
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