THE HEART ATTACK

            My little sister Jojo is telling the hopital coffee shop waitress that Dad got sick at work this morning.
            "That's why he's in the hospital," says Jojo.
            "That so?" says the waitress. She sticks a filter into the coffee machine tray, dumps a pouch of coffee in, and whacks a button. The machine begins mumbling.
            "He's in the intensive chair," Jojo says.
            "Yeah?" The waitress begins sorting silverware and stacking plates. She's moving twice as fast as anyone else in the room.
            "Mom says it's a heart attack," Jojo says.
            The waitress stops and looks at Jojo. She reaches across the counter and ruffles Jojo's hair.
            "Poor little duck," she says.
            Jojo looks like a little duck. She's only five, with soft yellow hair, and she's little and plump and friendly, like a duckling. If I ever looked like a duckling I don't anymore. I'm eleven and skinny and my hair is dark. I look like a little mongoose.
            "It's intensive care, silly," I tell Jojo.
            She looks up at me, surprised. "Care?"
            "Chair sure sounds better though, don't it?" the waitress says to me.
            Then our neighbor, Dr. Poulis, is standing behind us.
            "I'm here to give you girls a ride home," he says.
            "Where's Mom?" I ask.
            "She has to stay with your father," he says. "He's still in intensive care."
            "Is there anything you girls would like to ask me?" Dr. Poulis asks us in the car. "About hospitals or heart attacks or anything?" He is a large bald man with a nice smile. We like him. He has a very friendly retarded kid who plays softball with us.
            Neither of us wants to talk about heart attacks with Dr. Poulis. We sit quietly in the back seat. Jojo holds my hand. When we drive through our neighborhood, I see some kids I know playing roof ball. One girl sticks her tongue out at me. Everything looks exactly the same.
            "You two are young to be alone at home," Dr. Poulis says when we get to our house. "Would you like me to stay with you?"
            "We won't be alone," says Jojo. "Leolina is there."
            Leolina is the cleaning lady. She is an old Black woman from Jamaica with a low gravelly voice and beautiful false teeth. She worked for my Aunt Laura for years. But one day she took her dentures out of her mouth, stuck then under my cousin Ricky's nose and clattered the teeth together. Ricky wet his pants. Leolina came to work for us.
            Mom says Leolina is the world's best cleaner. She's also a practical joker. What Leolina really loves is to wait until you're sitting on the sofa, lost in a good book. She'll come stealing up with the big old Hoover vacuum cleaner until it's right under your toes. Then she turns on the juice. The Hoover starts up with a roar, you jump ten feet in the air, and Leolina laughs so much she has to sit down on the floor.
            When she tells people that she loves working for us, I think that's what she's thinking about.
           
            When Leolina answers the front door, she's got her teeth out. She always takes them out when nobody is home. She expects to see me or Jojo and a few of our friends. She doesn't expect to see Dr. Poulis. He tells her that Dad is sick and that Mom brought us from school to the hospital, but children aren't allowed in the intensive care unit. Mom has to stay with Dad. Would Leolina watch me and Jojo for a few hours?
            Leolina stands there glaring at him with her mouth clamped shut. She never talks to strange grown-ups with her teeth out. She's hoping he'll shut up and go away.
            "I know you're only supposed to clean and not take care of the children," says Dr. Poulis, "but this is an emergency. I know you won't mind helping out."
            He's not going to go away. He's going to keep talking.
            Leolina makes a noise like "hmmmmph," turns around, and heads back into the house, leaving us standing on the front porch. She's given up and gone to put in her teeth. Dr. Poulis looks down at me and sighs.
            "Wouldn't you rather come over to stay at my house until your mom gets home?" he asks.
            "I don't want to be in a strange house," says Jojo. "I want to be home."
            I probably ought to tell him about Leolina's teeth but they're a secret, outside our family.
            Leolina comes back. "Don't you worry," she says to Dr. Poulis, with a wide smile. "We'll be fine." She pulls me and Jojo into the house and bangs the door shut.
            "You girls run upstairs and change out of your school clothes," Leolina says. "I'll be up soon."
            "What about Dad?" asks Jojo.
            "He'll be fine," says Leolina. "He's in the hands of Jesus."
            "But he's Jewish," I say.
            "How do you know he's in the hands of Jesus?" Jojo asks.
            "Little bird told me," says Leolina.
            "Which little bird?"
            "Never you mind," says Leolina. "Run on up. I'll be along."

            We go up to our rooms. Jojo's is next to mine. Through the wall, I hear her put "Leaving On A Jet Plane," one of Mom's old 45s, on the record player Mom keeps in Jojo's room. It used to be Mom's favorite song; now it's Jojo's.
            "All my bags are packed I'm ready to go..."
            Jojo once played a song about being followed by a moon shadow all afternoon until I finally took it off the turntable and jumped on it.
            After I've put on my play clothes, I go into her room. Jojo, still in her school clothes, is sitting in bed. She has the door in bed with her. This is completely against the rules. She is hugging the dog, who is delighted to be on the bed. I wish I'd thought of the dog.
            I used to have a bird -- Pete the Parakeet -- but the dog ate him. The day it happened, my parents picked me up after school to break the news. When I came out of the school building and saw both Mom and Dad sitting in the car, I knew something awful had happened. I thought my new baby sister had died. Even when they told me it was the parakeet and not my sister, I began to cry. Mom held me. When I was all cried out, Dad asked me what I'd like to do, since they'd taken the afternoon off to be with me. I said I wanted to do something special that I'd never done before.
            We went home and got the baby and went bowling.
            How come I could cry then but I can't cry now? There's something wrong with me. I could cry for Pete the Parakeet but not for my own father.
            Jojo doesn't need me; she's got the dog. I go back to my room. I pick up a book but I can't read. I lie down on the bed and listen to the music coming through the wall and try to picture my father's face. I can't.
            After a while, Leolina comes in. She still has her teeth in, and she's carrying one of the candles that Mom keeps for dinner parties.   "We're going to light this candle and say a prayer to Jesus," she says.
            "But I don't believe in Jesus. I'm Jewish."
            She stares. "Dont believe in Jesus?" she whispers.
            "But I can't," I say.
            "Poor little thing," says Leolina. "Her daddy's in the hospital and she don't know enough to pray."
            I begin to cry. Leolina takes me in her arms. She smells of sweat and ammonia. "That's all right," she says, rocking me. "You go ahead and pray to anyone you want. Jesus'll hear you anyway."
            When I wake up, the sun has set and the room is dark. Leolina has lit the candle. I watch the flickering shadows it makes on the ceiling and think about my father in the intensive chair unit. I imagine a big sunny room with lots of different chairs in it. Some big and some small, but all soft and comfy. Dad comes in and sits down in one of the intensive chairs. Soon, the chair will make him well again.