Water Balloon Read online

  Dad glances at the arrangement on his plate and shakes his head, a smile on his face.

  "It does look pretty," he says, surprised.

  "How come you have so many? Your lawn is, like, covered."

  "I wouldn't say it's covered. The landlord lowered the rent because I'm going to tend to the lawn myself. It's just that I wasn't here in April."

  "April?" In April he was still in his old new place.

  "Dandelion season. I figured a dandelion lover such as yourself would know that."

  "So if April is dandelion season, why is your lawn covered with dandelions in July?"

  "It's not covered, but it's because I wasn't here to get rid of them when they started. If you don't catch the problem when it starts, you're out of luck. Once they turn to seed, that seed spreads all over the yard, and, well, you know how it goes. I will get to it, but in case you haven't noticed, you are looking at a new me, Marley. A more relaxed me. I will get to the weeds when I have the time to do so properly." He examines his bundle. "You didn't pull it out at the root?"

  Some new him, uptight about the roots. I shrug. "Not really. I wasn't weeding, just picking flowers."

  "They're not flowers, Marley. They're weeds."

  "To you," I say. "Mom didn't call last night?"

  "Hmm?" He's inspecting a fleck of something on the jelly jar lid. "Oh, yes. You were sleeping."

  "You should have gotten me up. I really wanted to talk to her."

  He scratches at it with his nail until it comes off. "I thought you were exhausted, so I let you sleep." He places the fleck in the center of his napkin, then folds the napkin in quarters.

  Yeah, new him. Right.

  It's good that he's trying to change, I guess, but couldn't he have tried to new-him himself a year ago? A few years ago? First he had to walk away from our Perfectly Good Life and leave me in this awful two-homes, half-Marley-here/ half-Marley-there limbo?

  We eat quietly and quickly. Dad brings his plate and cup to the dishwasher and loads them. From the hall he says, "We have to be out of here in ten minutes. You'll be ready?" I hear him close the bathroom door.

  When I was really little, Mom liked to sleep late on weekend mornings, and my dad would make a big deal about it. He'd remind me to stay quiet, make it feel like it was something big and wonderful we were doing for my mom. He'd bring me in the bathroom while he shaved. I watched him closely. He rinsed out the sink—thoroughly—every few seconds. One day, he put a pile of shaving cream on the counter next to the sink. "Play," he said. The whole time he shaved, I got to finger-paint with this big mound of shaving cream. It became a weekend tradition. Even then, I totally understood that this was wildly unlike him, that he was always neat, neat, neat and that one does not play with soaps or shaving creams. It was our little weekend secret, a different side of Dad that was all mine.

  ***

  He pulls his truck into what must be the Krolls' driveway. There are two bikes with training wheels, a red one piled on a pink one, in front of closed garage doors. The house is white with black shutters. Two shutters are missing.

  I climb out and close the door, and at the sound, I hear the bark of a big dog. Dad says I can't bring Rig. He says I need to just concentrate on getting to know the Krolls, finding out how I can be most helpful. So, okay. One day. I can do anything for one day. I survived fishing, right? Mom will find a way to fix this later.

  The screen door in front of the house opens and a woman steps out holding a baby. She's not cradling the baby in her arms. The baby's back is against the woman's stomach and chest, and it seems like the woman's hands are pushing hard against its belly. I didn't picture a baby. A baby! A tiny, totally breakable baby. I don't know how to change diapers. Or how to know when a baby's hungry. I don't even know how to hold a baby—I'd definitely be holding that kid the exact opposite way from how the mom is.

  "Robert," the baby's mother says to my dad in a friendly voice. "And you must be Marley."

  Her face is so kind. She smiles at me, and there it is again! I have to fight tears. What kind of person gets weepy at a stranger's smile?

  I look down at my feet and urge them to walk up the steps. Deep breath. "Hi, Mrs. Kroll."

  "Please call me Lynne. So, what has your father told you about us?" she asks, half laughing.

  I feel the vibrations of my dad kalumping up the stairs behind me. "Not much, Lynne," he says. "Just that she's here to help you."

  "Let's have a seat, while it's still quiet. The girls are watching TV."

  Girls! Plural? S? And a baby? I turn and glare at my dad, but he's looking straight ahead.

  My dad sits on my right; Lynne is on my left. I feel like I'm in the principal's office, even though my father is the one who did something wrong.

  "I'm hoping this will be fun for you, Marley. My girls are five, twins. They can be a handful, but they're good girls. I was hoping that you could come over each day, Monday to Friday, and play with them. Just have fun, while I attend to the baby and try to get some work done. I run a business out of the house, and between the baby and the work, and ever since ... Well, the girls haven't had—"

  The door opens and out come two girls in matching pajamas. Matching in that one is wearing Cinderella bottoms with a Snow White top and the other a Cinderella top with Snow White bottoms. They both have long brown hair snaggled in tangles down their backs, and they have the same small brown eyes, too close together. A voice deep inside me is howling, RUN AWAY, Marley! Run very fast, and do not look back!

  "Who's this?" Cinderella Top asks.

  "What are they doing here, Ma?" asks Cinderella Bottoms.

  "This is Marley Baird."

  I smile and wave a little, looking at one and then the other.

  "Marley Bear!"

  "Baird," I say.

  "Marley Bear!"

  "B-A-I_R_D. Baird. 'But, of course, they're five.'"

  "She's going to come over and play with you two this summer."

  "She's big. Why do we have to play with someone that's big? Why can't Jamie just come over?"

  "Marley's going to play and help me a little, too. She is in charge."

  I'm feeling a little half Cinderella myself: first-half Cinderella. No ball, no coach. Just pathetic servant-girl Cinderella. "What are your names?" I ask them. I'm relieved that Cinderella Top has bangs and Cinderella Bottoms doesn't; otherwise I'm not sure I'd be able to tell them apart, and they'd be able to play tricks on me that probably wouldn't be all that funny.

  "I'm sorry, Marley. I forgot. This is Grace," Lynne says, pointing to the girl with bangs. "And this is Faith."

  "All right, ladies," my dad says, standing. For the second time in a week, I'm tempted to wrap my arms around a parent's legs and start begging: Don't leave me! Then again, I don't even really want to look at him. He wasn't exactly honest with me. Since when does my dad lie?

  "I'll pick you up at two, Marley. Maybe we'll play tennis if it cools down a bit." He walks back to his truck.

  The girls are staring at me. I force myself to smile, and then think about how forced that smile must look. "Okay," I say. "What do you like to do?"

  "Paint," one says. Bangs! Which one has bangs?

  "Ride bikes," the other says.

  "Does this happen all the time?" I ask Lynne. She looks at me, but it's obvious she didn't hear anything. Or wasn't listening.

  "Why don't you play with the girls outside for a while, Marley, and then bring them in for a snack in an hour or so. You'll find a swing set in the back. If they ride their bikes, make sure they wear their helmets."

  She takes the baby and walks inside. What kind of mother is that? Hello? Just because I was once a kid doesn't mean I know how to do this. Is it legal to leave your kids with someone as ill prepared as I am? Shouldn't I be licensed for this kind of work? Or trained? Will we all be thrown in jail for complete disregard of good old-fashioned common sense? And just by the way, lady, how much will you be paying me?

  What if they skin th
eir knees? What if one climbs a tree and gets stuck? What if wasps sting them? Am I supposed to get Lynne or handle it myself? What if I need to pee and there's no one to watch them? Has no one except me taken the time to think this through?

  Deep breath. I am way more than twice their age. Okay. I will act like I know what I'm doing. I can trick them into believing I know what I'm doing. Can't I? "Let me see your swing set," I say, and the girls take off around the house. It occurs to me that they're in pajamas and should probably be wearing clothes by now. But Lynne did say to keep them outside.

  By the time I reach the backyard, Cinderella Bottoms is swinging by her legs on a trapeze bar, her Snow White top hanging down and covering her face. Cinderella Top is throwing cups full of sand out of an old-looking sandbox and into a bush.

  "Nice sandbox," I say. "Wow, you're good at hanging upside down. Do you ever get hurt doing that?"

  "Just two times. Wanna see me flip off?"

  "Let's just get you down in some nice, normal way." I hold the bar still while she reaches up with her hands and flips her legs down to the ground.

  Excellent! I have survived one minute. Two-hundred and ninety-nine more minutes to go.

  "What are we gonna do now?" Cinderella Top asks from the sandbox.

  "I could push you on the swings."

  They snort. At exactly the same time. I'm taking care of mismatched, snorting twins.

  "We don't do swings in mornings."

  "I'm bored," Cinderella Bottoms says. "Playing with you is boring. I wish Jamie could come over."

  Oh, honey, me too.

  "Isn't there something fun we could do?" Cinderella Top asks.

  "Do you want to ride your bikes?"

  "I'm ready to do a two-wheeler," Bottoms says. "Mom won't let me until Grace gets ready too. She's always tipping over on her training wheels. And crying. Like a big crying baby that cries a lot."

  Cinderella Top—Grace!—looks like she's going to burst into tears. "I have an idea!" I say. Though I don't. I look around. "Do you want to have races?"

  "No. Faith always wins. She sort of cheats."

  I'm wondering how someone can cheat at a race, though I'm not altogether sure I want to get into it. "Do you want to play tag?"

  "It's only good with a lot of people."

  I hate this job. I hate my father.

  What do kids do?" Hide-and-seek?"

  "Need more people," they say at the same time, like I am the dumbest, most clueless old person they have ever met.

  "Want to sit and look at each other?" They do not look amused. "What do you do with your mom every day?"

  "I don't know."

  "Nothing."

  "Do you want to pick flowers and surprise your mom with them?"

  "We don't have picking flowers," Bottoms—Faith!—says.

  "You can always find picking flowers. Come on."

  We walk around the yard together, with the twins running off ahead and to the sides, scouring the backyard for flowers.

  "I told you so," Faith says, as if she had been expecting a big arrangement of daisies to appear.

  I pick through the grass and find some small white clover flowers. We pull those out along with yellow dandelions and tiny buttercups, all of which are mixed in with the grass of their lawn. (It would drive my dad nuts.) I see a forgotten-looking patch of lilies at the back of the yard, half hidden behind some bushes. I tear a few blossoms from the plant.

  "Let's find a thing to put them in," Faith says.

  "I don't think your mom wanted us inside yet," I say.

  "She don't care," says Grace. "Come on."

  "No, wait. I know," I say, though again, I don't. What I need is a satchel, filled with enchanting surprises. Including at least one vase. How could I have forgotten my Mary Poppins bag?

  Finally I spot the cup that Grace had been using to empty the sandbox. A good makeshift vase. "Is there a hose out here?" I ask. The twins smile in a way that is far more wicked stepsisters than Cinderella and Snow White. They run to the side of the house, push through some bushes, and before I can say, "Change of plan! I'm going home!" I'm soaked. Soaked through. My brain takes a second to register this, since it is a clear blue, not-a-raincloud-in-the-sky, sunshiny morning. My hair is undeniably dripping. They somehow missed most of my shirt, but my shoes are waterlogged. First one little twin head and then another peeks out from behind the bush. "Oops," they say, at the same time.

  They don't look one bit sorry. I feel like opening the gate, walking by myself out to the sidewalk, and finding my way home. It's not like they could take my license away. I have no license for this!

  I am so mad, I forget which one is which. "You," I say, pointing at Cinderella Bottoms. "Go inside and get me a towel. And you," I say, pointing at Cinderella Top. "You." But I can't think of anything. I need a manual! Where's the manual?

  Cinderella Bottoms looks at her sister, and then me. She smirks and starts slowly toward the house.

  "Faster," I say. Bottoms runs a few steps before settling back into a slow-paced walk.

  "You," I say again, "have angered a Marley Bear."

  "So what?"

  "So, you do not want to anger the Marley Bear."

  "Why not?" Cinderella Top asks.

  Why not. "Because the Marley Bear is in charge?"

  I'm flailing. I'm sinking. I'm drowning in wet sneakers.

  Cinderella Bottoms is running toward us. Faith! Bottoms is Faith! She hands me a torn gray towel. I feel them both watching me as I rub it through my hair, wipe off my shoes. I turn my back to them and slip out of my shoes and place them on a rusting metal table to dry. Then I turn with a growl, my arms over my head, hands curved into claws. "Angry! Marley! Bear!" I say.

  The twins shriek with pleasure (I think), and head back to the swing set. I chase them around, beating up my bare feet, until I run out of breath. While I'm leaning against the splintery side bars of the swing set, I spot some chalk poking out of the sandbox.

  Chalk. I can do something with chalk. I pick it up and the Dad's-classroom smell of it makes me mad all over again at my stupid father for getting me into this stupid babysitting situation. I lead the girls to their driveway, where I draw a hopscotch outline. We find pebbles and play a competitive match of hopscotch.

  Faith is not what I'd call a gracious winner. Her victory dance involves a lot of butt shaking and taunting in her sister's face. As Grace's eyes well up, I suggest we go inside for a snack.

  The inside of the Krolls' house is a mess. There are papers everywhere, pairs of shoes and single shoes scattered against the wall in the hallway and under the table in the kitchen. The sink and counter next to it are piled high with dirty dishes and cereal bowls. There's a milk container, beaded with little water drops, just sitting on the counter. I hear Lynne talking fast—she must be on the phone.

  "Kwee have gummy bears?" Faith asks.

  "No. No candy in the morning." I'm making this up, but it sounds right.

  "Kwee have chocolate milk?"

  How should I know? There must be rules. I know I couldn't have chocolate milk in the morning, but what do I know about what these two can and cannot do? "How about some bananas?" I ask, after spotting some borderline brown ones on the counter.

  "Banana taffy?" Faith asks.

  "No. Just bananas. Plain."

  "Uh, no?" Grace says.

  If I think about the number of hours I have left today before I get to go home—no, not even home. Dad's place. Ouch.

  I hear steps approaching and then Lynne is in the kitchen, putting the phone back on the wall. "Marley, you're wet," she says. I am. I am wet. And my feet keep sticking to the tile floor, as if I'm walking through the remains of an old syrup spill.

  Lynne pulls some bowls out of the refrigerator and puts them in front of the twins. It might be their leftover breakfast, and it doesn't look too inviting, but at least they're sitting, fairly quiet, and eating. I think of that scene in The Sound of Music when Maria, the children's new gov
erness, is speaking to the children's father at the dinner table, and listing the mean-spirited things the children had done to her. She disguises the children's bad intentions as friendly and welcoming until all the children at the table are crying from guilt over how they treated poor Maria. I wish I had an acoustic guitar waiting on the front porch so I could lead Top and Bottoms in a rousing round of "My Favorite Things."

  But one thing has already become very, very clear: these children are no Von Trapps.

  ***

  After they finish their snack, I help the twins get dressed. I have to admit, it's sort of fun to look at their little clothes and dress them up. I was never into dolls, but putting clothes on little humans is more fun than you might think.

  We play in their room. I help them make a city out of blocks and suggest they let their stuffed animals be the rulers and the dolls their servants. They love making the stuffed animals boss the dolls around.

  I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, with the crusts cut off. After lunch, we sit on the hill by their house and watch wild rabbits.

  "Did you see that one, the way its white tail bopped when it was hopping?" I ask them.

  They nod. "There's always rabbits here," Faith tells me. "They live here."

  The bunnies sit, completely still, then race across the hill. They don't seem to have a moment of acceleration at all—they go from still to speeding almost at once, with a run, run, hop motion. There's something hypnotic about the bunnies, and I enjoy their effect on the twins. It's the first time all day the girls haven't been in some kind of frantic motion. Even when they sit and eat at the table, they're usually tapping a foot or wobbling a cup back and forth.

  "My father always kept bunnies away from our house," I tell them. "He'd catch them in traps and set them free in a park."

  "Your daddy hates bunnies?" Grace asks.

  "He's a real garden kind of guy. He doesn't like how bunnies eat all the bulbs before tulips and other flowers have a chance to grow. The wild rabbits used to eat all the vegetables in his garden before he had a chance to pick them."

  "That's bad," Grace says.

  "I guess," I say. "I'd happily give up fresh broccoli to watch a bunny go bounding up this hill."