25. Commander Calvados

COMMANDER CALVADOS

The Friday night before the fair, the boy went over to Maya-Jade's. Instead of pizza, however, he found a table laid with fancy plates, candlesticks, and a yummy-looking braided loaf of bread.

"It's Shabbat," Maya-Jade explained.

"What's Shabbat?" he asked.

"It's the most important Jewish holiday there is, and it happens every week from sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday. It's supposed to be a day of rest, but really it's a night for roast chicken and challah."

"Challah?" the boy repeated, testing out the phlegmy-sounding ch pronunciation.

"Yeah. We don't always do it, but Mom is feeling so much better, so we thought we would, and also, I've kind of been telling them Josey's story." She paused. "I hope that's okay."

"Why wouldn't it be?" he asked.

Maya-Jade nibbled on her thumbnail. "It sort of feels like your story. I don't know why, but it does."

The boy was neither Jewish nor a hero, but I had chosen him, and this made it his story too. It made him feel good to hear Maya-Jade say so. It made him feel generous. So he said, "It's your story also." And though they had agreed not to show anyone the footage until it was edited together, he added, "We can even show them his latest chapter, if you want."

Maya-Jade's eyes grew moist with emotion, like he had given her a gift. But it was funny, because he felt like he was the one who'd been given something precious.

"Wow," Mim said after Maya-Jade clicked off the video. "That is incredible."

Laura wiped a tear from her face with her used-up napkin. "Truly."

Maya-Jade and the boy caught each other's eye over the candlelit table. The chicken and potatoes and challah were among the most delicious things he had ever eaten, up there with lasagna and baklava, even. It was funny, because he had chicken almost every night, but it was never yummy like this. Maybe the difference was the spices, the candles? Or maybe it was the love.

"Josey sounds like a truly exceptional man," Mim said.

"He is for sure," Maya-Jade said.

"Lots of residents have amazing stories," the boy added. "Even if they're not as, you know, dramatic." He thought of Nelson Lippincott and Lois Stein and Minna Waxman. All these people he had written off as zombies when he'd met them. How many people had he done that to? How many people had done that to him?

"I think we should say the Shehecheyanu," Mim suggested.

"The what?" the boy said.

"It's a prayer to celebrate special moments," Maya-Jade said. "You can repeat after me." She began the blessing the same way she had done when they'd lit the candles and drunk the wine (which was really grape juice) and eaten the challah, but then she got to a fun rhyming part: "shehecheyanu, v'kiy'manu, v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh."

The boy did his best to repeat the unfamiliar words. "What does it mean?"

Mim answered: "Blessed are you, Eternal Spirit, who has given us life, sustained us, and allowed us to reach this occasion."

It was such a small thing to pray for, arrival in this moment, but to the boy it felt like everything.

As they were doing dishes, Laura suggested the boy stay the night. "There's no sense driving you home if we're all going to the fair tomorrow. I can call your parents and introduce myself, if you like."

"Uh…" The boy hesitated.

"Think about it," Laura said diplomatically, and left the kitchen.

"You can sleep on the couch," Maya-Jade said. "I'll sleep in my room if you want. It doesn't have to be weird."

By this point they had fallen asleep on the couch together enough times that proximity was not the point. The point was that he had not been honest with Maya-Jade. Not even a little.

"It's not that," he said. "It's just, I live with my aunt Lisa and my uncle Morris."

"Oh." Maya-Jade sounded mildly perplexed but not overly concerned. He could've stopped there. But that wouldn't make it brave.

"I used to live with my mom," he went on. "It was just the two of us for a really long time. But she's sick. Here." He tapped his temple. And then he looked at Maya-Jade, wondering if she'd be weirded out by his mentally ill mother. But she was just staring at him with her warm brown eyes. "Anyhow, a while ago things got really bad, and I got taken away from her and put into a foster home and she got put in a hospital. She was supposed to stay there thirty days and then there'd be a hearing to see if she could have me back." His throat was closing with hot tears, but he pushed on. "But she left before the time was up and I got sent to live with my aunt and uncle." He took a big breath in, hoping the air would iron out the shakes in his voice. "So you can't call my parents for permission to sleep over. You have to call my aunt and uncle."

Maya-Jade reached for him and hugged him so hard he could hardly breathe. But it felt good, like she was squeezing the sad out of him. "I'm sorry you also lost your mother," she said.

It was the also that did it. Made him realize that in some horrible way, he was not special. Maya-Jade may have had two mothers, but she'd also lost one. Just like you, Olka, lost your mother. Just like I lost mine. The world was full of people with missing mothers, broken families. But that didn't mean that the people were broken.

And so instead of just allowing himself to be hugged, this time the boy wrapped his arms around Maya-Jade and squeezed her back.

After they'd called his aunt Lisa and secured permission for a sleepover, he and Maya-Jade made a nest of blankets on the L-shaped sofa and began their latest Fornax Force. It was the sixth movie, opening with the arrival of Commander Calvados, who was replacing the beloved General Massimo, who had been killed by space pirates at the end of episode five. As soon as the commander strode onto the ship's deck, greeted by the surly crew as Officer Calvados, to which she haughtily replied, in her now-famous catchphrase, "It's Commander Calvados," the boy struck his palm against his forehead.

"It's her!" he cried. "It's Commander Calvados!"

"Yes, it's Commander Calvados," Maya-Jade said as if he were making the famous joke.

"Not that," the boy replied. "Commander Calvados, or the lady who plays her, she's friends with Mr. Johnson, my uh…" He paused. Social worker would give too much away. "Therapist."

"Shut up! Your therapist is friends with Bea Contreras?"

"Who's Bea Contreras?"

"The actress who plays Commander Calvados!" Maya-Jade replied with a hint of duh in her voice. "I'm obsessed with her. I have like three posters of her in my room."

The boy hadn't known that, because he hadn't been in Maya-Jade's room, because it was next to Laura's room and they were supposed to keep that area germ-free.

"I can't believe you know someone who knows her!" Maya-Jade squealed.

"Maybe I got it wrong," he said. But then he looked at the frozen screen, where Commander Calvados, even with her face made up green, was so obviously the woman in the picture, not to mention the woman on the side of the bus shelter he'd been sitting in nearly every day this summer. "Only he didn't call her Bea," he said. "He called her Bug."

"Bug could be short for Beatrice, I guess," Maya-Jade replied. "Let's google. What's the name of your therapist?"

"Mr. Johnson."

"His first name!" Maya-Jade said.

He tried to remember what Etta had called him, and it came back to him. "Frank!"

Maya Jade typed in Bea Contreras and Frank Johnson . "Is this him?" She tilted the screen toward the boy, and there it was, that picture from the social worker's office, with the caption Fornax Force scene-stealer Bea Contreras steps out onto the red carpet with her friend Frank Johnson.

"Yes! He has that same picture in his office."

"Ohmygod, Alex!" Her voice pitched high and her breathing sharpened. If he didn't know Maya-Jade, he would've thought something was wrong instead of right. "Do you think he'll introduce her to us?"

He stopped to ponder this, which meant thinking about a future beyond his court date. At the beginning of the summer, he hadn't wanted to, or been able to, see that far. The hearing with the judge was like a heavy black curtain, no light getting through. But now there was a crack through which he could glimpse pinpricks of light, a future that included maybe not meeting a movie star but possibly going to the next Fornax Force movie with Maya-Jade.

He thought about the social worker wanting me to testify on the boy's behalf. He'd said no because he'd been too scared to sacrifice his present for a future he couldn't see. But now he could see it. It was a future he wanted, and maybe that meant he'd have to take the risk, show people who he was, which included who he had been. If I could see all of you, Olka, then maybe people could see all of him. Maybe they wouldn't judge him by the worst things he'd done but by the better things he was trying to do.

But that was for later. There'd been enough bravery for one day, and Maya-Jade was clicking on the movie. They snuggled together, and before the scene where Commander Calvados wins over the respect of the crew by piloting the ship through a black hole, they'd both fallen asleep.