Water Balloon Page 9

  It keeps getting worse. Or maybe I'm just now realizing how bad it is. What have I done? I didn't know when I left that party that I'd have to give up everything. I can't just let go of all those years, the two best friendships. Every time I'm about to reach for the phone, to check my messages one more time or maybe even to call them, I stop.

  I get to the point, finally, when I stop checking messages. I don't even bother charging my phone; it's not like anyone's calling me, and it gets kind of depressing to see that I've missed zero calls.

  Jack and I spend more time together. Even when we're not together, I'm thinking about him. A lot. Wondering if he thinks about me.

  We talk every morning before he heads out to camp, and he wills me out after work each day. We walk Rig, hang out up in the tree house, and mostly, we talk. We talk about baseball camp and the twins, the Yankees, his parents and mine, and how little we're looking forward to school in the fall.

  For him, fall is all about sports, which team he might make. He's nervous about flubbing the tryouts for some new travel team. I make it seem as if my own complete lack of enthusiasm is just about the whole idea of going back to school. That's not really it. I know exactly what I'm anxious about. How do you start school without friends? I wonder if I should go buy my Elsie Jenkins limited edition tan windbreaker now.

  I'd probably lie awake each night worrying about it, but my weekdays are a new kind of thoroughly exhausting physical torture. As the twins get to know me more, they want to do more. When I come over, they have lists of all they want to do that day. Lynne says they spend their whole night asking her how to spell words so they can write them down. After three days of "GO 2 PARK" at the top of the list, I get the hint.

  Lynne drops us in the parking lot behind the playground. "What time would you like me to pick you up, Marley? I'd like to let the baby sleep a bit. Is one thirty too late?"

  "That's fine," I say.

  "Let's eat first!" Grace says.

  "Dessert first!" Faith says. "Kwee have dessert, Marley?"

  "No. We're going to play in the playground for a while, and then we'll have a picnic lunch."

  "A picnic?"

  "Yes."

  "I love picnics."

  "Excellent."

  And then, at the same instant, like twin bunnies, they take off toward the swings. "Marley! Marley! Push me!" Grace calls.

  I walk behind the swings and push Grace. I'm about to push Faith too, but she screams. "Don't! I'm pumping!"

  She's a good pumper, too. It took me a long time to get the hang of pumping—I thought it was just a leg-motion thing. Watching Faith, I see the way she works her whole body and gets the swing rocking higher and higher. Grace bends her legs out/in, out/in, but she doesn't gain any height from it. I give her big pushes.

  The girls are calm, concentrating on getting higher, higher. In the quiet I catch the metallic sound of a bat hitting a ball, over and over.

  "Push me higher, Marley!" Grace reaches out with her legs, trying to pump. "Higher!"

  "You are such a baby, Grace. You always need pushes."

  "So what?"

  "So you're a baby."

  "You are."

  Faith is pumping herself even higher than I can push Grace. As Faith's swing nears the top of its frontward arc, she jumps off.

  "Whoa," I say, relieved she didn't break her neck. What am I supposed to do if she breaks her neck?

  "Bet you couldn't never do that, Baby Grace." Faith takes off to the ladder for the high slide.

  Grace is trying not to cry. I push her as high as I can, hoping to cheer her somehow.

  I ask, "Do you ever pretend not to hear her? That might really drive her crazy."

  "She don't care," Grace says. "Stop me, Marley. I wanna go with Faith now."

  I grab the chains and slow the swing. I can't tell if she is really hurt by the things her sister says or if this is just how they are. I'm not even sure it's my business. Shouldn't the parents be dealing with this stuff?

  Grace waits until the swing has completely stopped swaying, then steps lightly off. As soon as she hits the ground, though, she is off, racing hard toward her sister.

  They meet up at the slide, where they take turns getting up the ladder and then going down the slide a different, goofy way. They do it over and over and over. Down feet-first on their back, headfirst on their side, each trying to outdo the other one for silliness.

  I stand on one of the benches to see if I can glimpse the baseball fields from here, but there are too many trees in the way. I sit back and try to pick sounds out. It's impossible, aside from the odd ping and general loud shouts. The twins are laughing loud, and the baseball field is too far away.

  Faith starts climbing up the slide when Grace is about to go down, and Grace, without a word, starts crying.

  "Faith, come on," I say. "You know you go up the ladder and down the slide."

  She gets this look on her face that I've learned the meaning of. If five-year-olds had a good cursing vocabulary, this look would translate to one of the worst words. She just sits in the middle of the slide, one foot touching each side. She is not moving.

  Grace decides to go down anyway, and she picks up some speed before banging into her sister. They tumble off at the bottom, hands and feet all tangled. I hear Grace's high-pitched yelp and race over.

  They look at me at the same time. Grace's eyes are still red from crying, but I can see now that she's laughing. "Kwee do that again, Marley Bear?"

  "No. Try to come up with some different way to nearly kill each other."

  "Okay."

  Faith runs to the monkey bars and effortlessly walks her way, hand over hand, across the length. Grace tries to follow, but her hands can't hang on; she's down on the ground after two bars.

  The minute Grace clears out from underneath, Faith races across again, this time stopping in the middle to put her feet to the bar, an upside-down bridge. Then she drops her legs back down and makes her way across, hand over hand.

  I can see Grace's frustration. She looks like she's going to walk over to Faith and kick her or pull her hair out of her head. "Anybody want to take a walk before our picnic?" I say in a ridiculous Mary Poppins voice.

  "Walks are boring."

  "I don't want to."

  "If you take a short walk with me, I'll let you eat your dessert first when we get back."

  "'Kay," Grace says.

  Faith steps to my side and puts a hand in mine. "Walks are great," she says.

  "Let's see what's on the other side of those tennis courts," I say. "Maybe there's something interesting."

  "Haven't you never been there?" Grace asks.

  "I don't think so. Have you?"

  "We been all over this park. Our daddy took us here," Faith says.

  Grace adds, "He used to."

  "Yeah?"

  "We'd ride our bikes sometimes. Tricycles and training wheels. And I'm ready for my training wheels to come off, but Mommy says—"

  "I know, Faith."

  "Mommy says that even when we were little babies, they'd take us for rides here," Grace says. "They had little seats they put on their bikes so they could ride us around. We'd just sit there. I think it must have been fun, getting riddened all around with someone else doing the riding. I'm so hungry, Marley. Kwee go back for dessert now?"

  "We just started walking. Let's keep going until we can see what they're doing over there. It sounds like there's a lot of kids playing."

  Actually, it's gone quiet. It must be lunchtime or something. I wonder what kind of lunch was in Jack's swinging baseball bag this morning.

  I see a few people now, littler kids mostly, sitting on benches with lunch boxes open on their lap and next to them. "Kwee just eat our dessert when we get back, Marley Bear? Do we have to eat the lunch too?"

  "Well?" Grace asks.

  "Marley Bear!" Faith says.

  "Lunch too," I say. "Let's just walk a little farther first."

  Finally I see Jack wal
king in from the outfield, carrying four or five canteens on his shoulder. He calls out, "Which of you geniuses left your water out in the sun?"

  I hear a round of "Sorry, Jack!" and "Thanks, Jack," and "Oops! That one's mine. Thanks!"

  He's walking over to deliver a Snoopy thermos on a strap to a kid on a bench directly in front of us when he sees me. "Marley!" he says, a big smile on his face. "And let me see, which one of you is Grace?"

  "Duh," Faith says. "Her."

  I wish I were allowed to kick her. Just every now and then. Not all the time—that would be wrong. "Be nice, Faith. This is Jack."

  "Hi," Grace says. "Marley's gonna let us eat our dessert first today because we went for a walk with her."

  "She sounds like an awesome babysitter," Jack says.

  "I don't know," Faith says.

  "So this is where the camp is, huh?" It's lame, but it's all I can force out of my mouth.

  "Kwee walk back for our dessert picnic now, Marley Bear?"

  "I thought your last name was Baird, with a d."

  "It is."

  "She's really like a bear. 'Specially when she's mad."

  "Yeah? And is she mad at you a lot?"

  "Not a lot," Grace says.

  "Yup, a lot," Faith says.

  "What are you guys doing here?"

  "We was playing in the playground and my sister was showing off on the monkey bars and then Marley Bear said we should take a walk and so now we're taking a walk."

  "Sounds good," Jack says. I wonder if he thinks I steered them over here on purpose. I mean, I totally did, but I wonder if he thinks that.

  "And we get to eat dessert first," Faith says. "And how come you know our Marley Bear?"

  "We live near each other," Jack says.

  "In the same house?!" Grace asks.

  "Jack!" A kid is calling him from one of the benches.

  "What about that infield drill?"

  Jack shrugs, which I think, I hope, means he wishes he didn't have to go.

  "Let's get back," I say, flashing a smile of grown-up regret to Jack. "Let's go eat some junk."

  "Cool," says Faith.

  "Yeah, Marley," Grace says. "You're a cool bear."

  "I'll see you later, Jack."

  "Yeah, will me out."

  ***

  I lead the twins back to the playground. They're peppering me with questions. "So whowazzat, Marley?"

  "How come you know that guy, Marley?"

  "Izzat your brother?"

  "Jack is my friend. He lives near my dad's house."

  "You got a mother, Marley Bear?" Grace asks, reaching for my hand.

  "I do. She doesn't live with my dad, so I'm not staying with her right now. I live with her most of the time. A lot of the time."

  "Your mother don't live with your father?"

  "Right."

  "Where does your brother live?" Faith asks.

  "I don't have a brother. Or a sister. Just me."

  "That's lucky," Faith says.

  Grace looks sad, then mad.

  "I don't think so," I say. "I think you guys are lucky to have each other. I'd love to have a sister."

  Faith says, "Not lucky."

  "We should find a place to wash your hands before we eat lunch."

  "Eat dessert, you mean," Faith says.

  "Well, both."

  "Dessert first," Faith says. "You said."

  "Clean hands first."

  At once, both girls are spitting in their palms and then rubbing their hands together. They each rub their hands against their shorts and then hold them up. "Clean," Faith says.

  "See?" Grace says.

  "If it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me."

  "I love Marley Bear," Grace says.

  "Let's eat," I say.

  The twins climb onto the bench by the fence and tear open the snack-size packs of cookies. "Kwee have drinks now?" they ask. I'm reaching into the cooler, opening drinks, then finding napkins to clean up the spilled drinks. The girls take off before they eat their sandwiches, back to the swings, where Faith swings high, standing on a swing, feet about a foot apart, like some tomboy version of Peter Pan. Grace practices her pumping. The swings squeak loudly, but I can still hear the metallic ping of a bat hitting a ball followed by the sounds of raised voices, cheering. Grace slows to a stop. When her swing is perfectly still, she climbs off and walks to the sandbox over in the corner. Faith joins her. I bring over my water bottle and a cup, and together we make a sand kingdom.

  "I call I'm the nasty princess that knocks down stuff," Faith says.

  "No, me!" Grace says. Not in a convincing way.

  "And I'm the Marley Bear that gets angry at nasty princesses who knock down stuff. So let's not knock it over yet."

  "When?"

  "When you're both ready."

  "I don't ever want to knock it down, Marley," Grace says.

  "How about when Mommy gets here?" Faith asks.

  Grace thinks about that. "Okay."

  "You know any jokes, Marley?" Faith asks.

  "Not a single one. I don't know any jokes."

  "Marley Bear," Grace says. "Everyone knows jokes.

  I know that one about the black and white and red newspaper. It's not funny, maybe, but I know it.

  "Okay. I know one."

  "Go 'head," Faith says.

  "Knock, knock."

  "Who's there?" Grace says.

  "Jonathan."

  "Jonathan who?"

  "Jon, a thin man just walked by."

  "Marley?"

  "Yes, Faith?"

  "Isn't a joke opposed to be funny?

  "I told you I didn't have any good jokes."

  "I have one," Grace says.

  "Go 'head," Faith says.

  "Knock, knock."

  "Who's there?"

  "Tyler."

  "Tyler who?"

  "Tyler, a thin man just walked by." Grace starts to laugh, looks at me, then at Faith. "Not funny?" she asks.

  Faith is about to say something mean when I begin to explain the Jonathan joke, and then rethink, realizing that a joke that requires explanation is probably not much of a joke at all. Also: they're five.

  We concentrate on broadening our kingdom to the far reaches of the sandbox. When we hear Lynne's horn honk, I say, "One, two," and before I get to three, Faith is knocking it down. Grace is about to cry. I show her the turrets that are still standing, and she kicks them over. I gather together the picnic leftovers and containers and walk the twins to Lynne's car.

  I help buckle them in and am about to climb into the passenger seat when Lynne says, "I have to take the girls with me now to Jenna's doctor appointment. Your dad said you could just walk home from here, that he'd meet you there. Is that okay?"

  "Sure," I say.

  "You gonna go and see your brother?" Faith says.

  "I don't have a brother."

  "Say goodbye to Marley, girls," Lynne says as she climbs back into the driver's seat. "See you, Marley." "Be a good bear," Grace says.

  Comfortable and Familiar and Right

  I'm not sure if it's a dream or if it's just an image I get in those strange minutes between being awake and asleep, but whatever it is, it haunts me. It's the first day of school. The halls aren't too crowded; I think the bell's already rung. I'm walking down the hall. Leah and Jane and some other kids are looking at me and whispering to each other behind their hands. Someone is down at the other end of the hall. As we get closer, we exchange glances and nod, acknowledging each other, the way members of the same species do. I turn and watch as the tan windbreaker disappears around the corner.

  ***

  It sucks. It just sucks. How can I not have friends? How could my two best friends just let me fall out of their lives? Will I never hang out with Leah again? Jane? When I see them at school in September, will it be awful and awkward? Where's my life? This cannot be my life. All because I water balloon blitzed at the wrong time?

  I cannot figure out how
to steer off this course.

  When it happens, it happens in the strangest way. Jack and I come back from walking Rig one Thursday afternoon and my dad's standing on the back porch, looking like he needs to tell me something.

  "I saw Leah," he says. "Riding her bike."

  "Really? Did you talk to her?"

  "Yes, I did. She said she'd been trying to get in touch with you—texting, e-mailing—that she needs to talk to you. So I invited her over. She'll be here any minute."

  "What are you talking about?" He must have misunderstood. Leah does talk really fast.

  "I just thought ..". His voice trails off and he seems to be staring very hard at me. I guess he didn't notice that I haven't seen Leah, or Jane, in weeks. It's not like I told him. He probably thought he was doing something really nice.

  But wait. Leah's been texting me? And e-mailing me? Must find my phone. Must charge my phone.

  "I figured we'd get in some pizza, you guys could play Monopoly, maybe watch a movie. Isn't that, I don't know, what girls do?"

  I swallow a desire to stomp and scream that he needs to talk to me before he makes decisions for me. Through gritted teeth I ask, "Did she say when?"

  Jack sort of backs away, calling, "See you soon, Marley."

  I wave. And all of a sudden, throwing her bike on the lawn and racing toward me, there's Leah. "OH! My God, Marley! There you are!" she says, as though we hang out every day. Like she didn't just stop being my friend. She stands right in front of me and hugs me. Hugs me! "Is everything okay?"

  No, Leah. I don't think everything is okay. But before my brain can even find words, she's off again, in pure Leah form.

  "I mean, you don't answer texts or e-mails. I've left you like twenty voice mails. I've written on your wall, sent you messages on Facebook. What is going on?"

  Seriously? "Why didn't you just ."..But of course—Leah doesn't have my dad's new number. Why would she?

  I explain about the stupid broken computer, and not charging my phone. But really, my brain's working at this as if it's a math problem written backwards in a foreign language. Why is Leah here? Did Jane turn on her too?