You Should See Me in a Crown(31)

We’ve only been working for, like, fifteen minutes, but I find that I’m ready to go already. Well, ready to go somewhere with Mack. The only aspect of the campaign that makes any sense to me at all is the community service, honestly. But it feels empty to give back in a town like Campbell, a town that already has all the resources it needs. If I’m going to do this, I want to serve in a place that actually needs our help.

It’s a risk.

We might lose the points for the day.

But sometimes it’s worth it to do what feels right.

“Um, yes. Absolutely!” She nods quickly and wipes her hands on her overalls. She reaches down to grab her board from where it rests next to the cart full of tables. I swear her green eyes sparkle as she looks up at me. “Where did you have in mind?”



We pull into a spot on the street next to an unassuming brick building. Mack is too down-to-earth to act squirrelly about the neighborhood that I’ve brought her to, but I can tell she’s wondering what we’re doing here.

“Are you good with kids?” I finally think to ask as she trails after me across the street.

“Um, yeah.” She nods. “I haven’t been around any in a while, but—”

“Miss Lizzie! Miss Lizzie!” She’s cut off by the sound of kids screeching my name as soon as we step through the doors. There’s no chance to prepare her for the mass of rug rats that barrels toward us, wrapping themselves around her legs and pulling my hand toward the rec room. “You’re back!”

“Liz, uh …” Mack is frozen in place, pinned to her spot by Peanut Parker sitting on the floor in front of her tying her shoelaces together. “A little help here?”

I shake my head with a laugh. Peanut’s a fiery six going on twenty-six and has loved giving newcomers a hard time since the day she was born. “Peanut, leave her alone! This is why I don’t bring people around anymore—y’all don’t know how to act.”

I brought Gabi once, two years ago, when I was volunteering over the summer. And Peanut—then just a four-year-old terror in the day care—finger painted all over the prized pale pink leather Givenchy tote G’s grandmother had gotten her for her sixteenth birthday. Honestly, I’ve never seen my best friend cry the way she cried that day. It was a tragedy the likes of which we dare not speak.

Needless to say, I stopped bringing guests to Bryant House.

But I feel like I can trust Mack with this part of my life. And if the way she’s suppressing a giggle while she imitates a giant’s voice as she stomps around with Peanut wrapped around her left leg is any indication, I made the right choice.

“Lizzie.” Dr. Lamont surprises me by putting her hand on my shoulder. She’s a tall, slender black woman in her mid-fifties. She moves so gracefully, sometimes I barely even hear her coming. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming by?” She tilts her head in Mack’s direction with a smirk. “And bringing a friend.”

“Yes, Dr. L, my friend.” I turn to wrap my arms around her neck in a tight embrace. “Mack and me were out doing some service in Campbell today. But I thought you all might need us more.”

Bryant House is always looking for people to come by and help. It’s a cornerstone of the Indianapolis community—a day care, a summer camp, a refuge for neighborhood kids with nowhere else to go. But beyond all that, Dr. L has been organizing support groups and events specifically catered to the kids getting treated at the children’s hospital down the road and their families since I was a kid. It used to be a part-time pet project, something she did to help the families of her patients, but since she retired, she’s gone full-time at the house.

She treated Robbie when he was still really little, before she left medicine, and watching her work is one of the reasons I decided I wanted to become a hematologist.

“Well, come on, then. The littles need someone to read to them for a while.” Dr. L kisses me on the forehead and nods to the rec room. “You better come on too, Red the Friend.”

I look over my shoulder at Mack, whose face has gone completely pink.

“Um, yes, ma’am.” Mack whispers something at Peanut, and the little girl giggles and runs ahead into the rec room. I couldn’t quite make out what she said, but no one ever gets Peanut to follow an order on the first try. Not even me.

We walk down the short hallway that leads to the rec room. Normally the kids would be outside, but I heard on the news there was a shooting in the neighborhood last week. Dr. L is always extra careful with letting the kids on the playground after news like that.

While Dr. L reprimands some of the six-year-olds—the oldest in this particular age group—for roughhousing, Mack comes up beside me. “Okay, please tell me who this magnificent Amazonian woman is and why do I feel like offering up my firstborn child to her?”

I shake my head, and my laugh bubbles up from that place in my gut where only the most honest laughs come from. I realize I’ve laughed more with Mack this afternoon than I have in a long time. “Well, first of all, you should offer up your children to her because she is a better parent than any I’ve ever seen, and she doesn’t even have kids.

“And second,” I continue, “her name’s Dr. Leanne Lamont, but you can call her Dr. L. She rules this place with an iron fist and a heart of gold.”