Then it was Noah’s turn. “Noah, my man!” Andrew shouted. “Show these girls how it’s done!”
Noah promptly threw the ball straight down onto the grass with the same sort of flailing arm motion you’d use to swat something away from you.
“Good try,” Andrew said encouragingly. “Try it again, Noah, only stand a little more sideways, bend your elbow a little, and release the ball when your hand is still at its highest point.”
Noah processed that and adjusted his body minutely before throwing the second ball. It stayed in the air a little longer but still hit the ground closer to him than to the dunk tank.
“One more try,” said the skinny teenager with a bad case of bedhead who was manning the booth. High-schoolers got community service hours for working at the festival—I had done it myself at that age. He handed Noah his last ball.
Biting his lower lip in concentration, Noah took a deep breath and hurled the ball with all his might.
Unfortunately, his aim was so far off that the ball actually hit the teenager, who grabbed his arm and shouted, “Shit, man, be careful!”
“Hey, hey, watch your language,” Andrew called down to him.
“It hurt.” The kid rubbed his arm. “That’s it,” he snapped at Noah. “Your turn’s over.”
Noah slunk to my side, his head down.
The kid said to me, “You going?” and held out a ball.
I hesitated, but Noah said, “Yeah, Mom, do it. Dunk him.”
“Yeah,” Coach Andrew said, leaning forward. “Dunk me, Noah’s mom.” He was laughing at me. He didn’t think I could do it.
He was the grown-up version of all the athletic jerks—like Caleb and Oliver and Austin—who were going to make Noah’s life miserable for the next decade or two of his life. I desperately wanted to wipe the smile off his face.
I grabbed the ball and was already pulling my arm back for the throw when the teenager stopped me and said I had to back off a few more feet—the adults’ throw line was farther back. From that distance, the center of the target looked awfully small. And it had been a long time since I had thrown a ball for any reason other than to give Eleanor Roosevelt something to fetch. But I planted my feet and threw hard.
The ball fell embarrassingly wide of its mark.
“Aw, come on,” Andrew said. “That’s not even close.”
I glared at him and hurled the second ball as hard as I could.
It bounced off the edge of the target.
“Is that the best you can do?” The coach made a big show of leaning back and crossing his ankles. “Might as well make myself comfortable. I’m not going anywhere.”
I snatched my third and final ball away from the teenager and threw it straight and hard.
It missed by even more than my two previous attempts.
“Shit!” I said, stamping my foot in annoyance.
“You can’t say that in front of the kids,” said the teenager primly.
“You did,” I pointed out irritably.
“You know, I could give you guys some private coaching,” Andrew called down to me. “You and Noah both. Teach you how to throw a ball so it actually goes where you want it to.”
“I know how to throw a ball,” I said. “He just made me stand too far back.”
“Ri-ight,” he said. “What about you?” he called over to the young woman standing behind me. “You think you can hit the target?”
“Definitely,” she said.
“Good. I’m sweltering here. I’m ready for a nice cool swim.”
“Oh, I’d love to see you go down,” she said with a laugh. I turned to look at her. She was tall and thin and striking, with long, wavy blond hair, fashionably large aviator sunglasses, and an outfit—a white tank top and faded blue jeans—that made her look both athletic and very sexy. Of course, with her body, anything would look sexy, even a flowered muumuu. I suspected she was an assistant teacher—there were a few new ones every year, and they were invariably young and beautiful.
“May I have a ball?” she asked the teenager, who was staring at her, stunned, his mouth slightly open. I wondered what it would be like to have that effect on people. He shook himself awake and handed her a ball.
“Excuse me,” she said to me and I realized I was standing there staring at her openmouthed just like the boy. I moved aside so she could step up to the line. She squinted at the target, took up a pitcher’s stance, and let the ball fly.
She missed, but only by a little: the ball bounced off the pole, just south of the release mechanism that would have dunked him.
“Hah!” Andrew called out. “You missed by a mile.”
“More like an inch. And I was just getting my bearings on that one. Now I know exactly where to aim.” She beckoned to the teenager, who eagerly stepped forward to hand her the next ball. This time she took longer to get into position, tilting her head back, eyeing the target, and adjusting her feet and her shoulders until she seemed satisfied. Then she wound up and threw the ball, hard and straight. There was a sudden “Ping!” and a shout from Andrew as his seat gave way under him and he dropped into the tank of water.
A couple of the girls screamed. Noah cried out, “Awesome!” The teenager and I applauded, and the girl looked around, laughing. “Thanks,” she said and took a little bow.
“You’re good,” I said, and the teenage boy said, “That’s the first time anyone’s been dunked today.”
“I played ball in school,” she said, like it was no big deal. She trotted up to the tank, where Andrew was holding on to the edges, shaking the water off his face and fishing around for his cap, which had fallen off during his plunge. “I’m sorry, baby,” the girl said with a grin. Their faces were pretty much on a level. “Had to do it. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Nice job.” She leaned forward, over the edge of the tank, and they kissed right on the lips.
“She kissed him!” Noah said with amazement. “She dunked him and then she kissed him!”
“She’s my girlfriend,” Andrew explained with a grin as the girl stepped back. “It’s okay.”
There was a lot of whispering from the sixth-grade girls at that bit of news. Andrew climbed out of the water and resumed his place on the platform, water pouring from his clothes and hair. He wrung out his baseball cap. “It’s soaking wet.”
“It’ll keep you cool,” his girlfriend said.
“I’m plenty cool now. In fact, I’m freezing. That water’s like sixty degrees.”
“Serves you right,” she said.
He gave her an exaggerated scowl. “When I get down from here, you are so going to pay for this.”
“Yeah? When’s that?”
“I’m done at noon.”
She looked at her watch. “Oh, good. Not too much longer. I’m starving.”
Noah was a suggestible kid. He tugged on my hand. “I’m hungry, Mom.”
“Okay. Let’s go get something to eat.”
We turned to go.
“Hey,” Andrew yelled after us. “Come back later when someone else is up here and I’ll help you with your pitching.” It wasn’t clear whether he was talking to me or to Noah.
I just nodded and we walked away.
6.
Sorry I’m a little late,” I said to Melanie as I joined her behind the counter at the hot-dog booth. “Noah had to go to the bathroom just as I was heading over and then I had to find Mom so I could leave him with her.”
“I just let Cameron and Nicole run off with their friends,” Melanie said. “It’s totally safe. Every teacher from school is out there.”
“It’s not a question of my letting Noah run off with friends,” I said. “It’s a question of his not having any friends to run off with.”
Melanie didn’t respond because someone was suddenly thrusting little paper tickets at her and demanding a hot dog. And then a woman was asking me for a hamburger “with no sesame seeds on the bun,” which had me completely stumped. Fortunately, Melanie over
heard and interrupted what she was doing to lean over and explain that all the buns had sesame seeds.
“My son doesn’t like the seeds,” the woman said. She was wearing a cropped leather jacket even though the sun was high in the sky and blazing hot. “We go through this every year. I don’t understand why you people insist on only having buns with seeds.”
“Sorry,” said Melanie. “Do you want it without the bun?”
“You can’t eat a hamburger without a bun. There’s no point.”
“My son always eats burgers without buns,” I said. “He can’t eat wheat.”
“Oh, poor thing,” she said with sudden sympathy. “I know just what that’s like. I went off wheat for a while and I had so much more energy, but it was just so hard to maintain. Don’t you think?”
“He doesn’t have a choice,” I said. “It’s a medical thing.”
“Mine too.”
Sure it was. Some quack doctor had convinced her she’d feel better if she stopped eating bread. A little difference between that and my son’s chronic autoimmune disease, but I wasn’t going to get into it with her.
Melanie intervened. “Here!” she said, handing over a circular, foil-wrapped package. “I cut the top off—that’s where all the sesame seeds were. Ketchup’s over there.”
“I’ll see if he’s okay with this.” The woman snatched it and walked away.
“You’re welcome!” I called after her.
“Shh,” Melanie said, hitting my arm. “Go help those people.” She pointed to a big family that had just come up. It took a while to get them all outfitted with hamburgers and hot dogs, but it gave me a chance to figure out how the system worked. There were several grills set up on a separate lawn about twenty feet away. For some undoubtedly sexist reason, only men seemed to be doing the actual grilling, but Carol Lynn Donahue was working as a runner, carrying the platters of cooked meat over the grass to us. It was our job to put the dogs and burgers on buns, wrap them in tin foil, and exchange them for the tickets people had bought at a separate booth. Six tickets for a burger, five for a hot dog.
“I went to college for this?” I said to Melanie after twenty minutes of fairly frantic burger-wrapping and hot-dog distributing.
She raised her eyebrows. “You only went to college for a year.”
“Good point,” I said. “You went to college for this?”
Before she could answer, there was a cry of “Mom! Mom!” and Cameron and Nicole came running up to the booth.
Cameron was a gorgeous little boy, tall and thin like his mother, but with his father’s light brown curly hair. Right now he was literally jumping with excitement. “Mom, Dad’s here! With Sherri! He said he’d come say hi but Sherri had to go pee first.”
“Really?” Melanie’s voice was suddenly unusually high. “Your father’s here? He didn’t tell me he was coming.”
“We asked him to,” Cameron said.
“You’re not mad, are you?” Nicole asked, peering up at her mother’s face. She looked a lot like her dad, with a round face and gorgeous huge brown eyes that didn’t miss a thing.
“Of course not,” Melanie said with a strained smile. “It’s fine.”
Someone came up and asked me for a hamburger. As I handed it over, I whispered to Melanie, “You want to go hide somewhere? I can run interference for you.”
“Too late.” She gestured toward the field. Gabriel was striding across the grass toward us.
“There you are!” he said as he bore down on us. “The kids told me you’d be here.”
“Yes, I’m working here,” Melanie said a little too brightly. “It’s so nice to be able to help out.”
He reached over the tray of hot dogs to give me a warm hug. “Rickie! I’ve missed you! How are you, darling?”
“Good,” I said. “I’m good.” I couldn’t help smiling at him. That was the thing about Gabriel: he always seemed so genuinely happy to see you that it was impossible not to respond in kind.
He turned toward Melanie. “Hi, Mel,” he said more softly. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek—softly, but you could see his lips really connect with the skin there. It wasn’t an air-kiss. His eyes, so much like Nicole’s, were keen as he stepped back to study her face. “You okay?”
“Never better,” she said, flushing dark red, which was moderately better than the pale greenish-white she had been a few seconds earlier.
Nicole was looking back and forth between her parents anxiously, but Cameron was grinning ear to ear. “It’s nice all of us being here, isn’t it?” he said eagerly.
“Very nice!” Gabriel said. He scooped up Cameron and swung him up high before clutching him against his chest. “I love the Autumn Festival! I’ve been dreaming about these hot dogs for days. I’m going to eat like I’ve never eaten before.”
“You always eat a lot,” Nicole said.
“That I do!” He put Cameron down and mussed Nicole’s hair.
“Where did Sherri go?” asked Cameron.
“Oh, she wanted to wander around a little, see the sights.” He kept grinning down at the kids, but now it felt like it was to avoid making eye contact with Mel and me.
“Naomi told me she was famous,” Nicole said. Naomi was Nicole’s best friend and occasionally her worst enemy. “She recognized her and said we were so lucky we knew her and she wants an autograph.” Then, with a sudden anxious look at her mother. “But I don’t have to get one. I mean, I don’t care if she’s famous.”
“She asked to come,” Gabriel said. It wasn’t clear who he was talking to. “I was going to come by myself but she asked if she could come. I thought it would be okay?” He gave a quick questioning look up toward Melanie, who was just standing there like she was frozen, a stiff smile on her tight lips.
“Of course,” she said tonelessly. “You’re allowed to bring whoever you like. Or is it whomever? I can never remember which is right when it’s the object of the sentence, can you?”
I said quickly, “Hey, Gabriel, will you do me a favor and take the kids to go find Noah? He’s with my mother but I know he’d rather be hanging out with you guys.”
He got it. “Of course. Come on, kids, let’s go find your cousin.”
As soon as they were out of earshot, Melanie’s whole body went limp. I put my arms around her and she let her head sink down onto my shoulder. “I can’t believe he brought her here,” she whispered. “It’s my event.”
“It sucks,” I said. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
“And they’re excited that she’s here. She’s famous. How can I compete with that?”
I squeezed her tightly. “Your kids are smart—they’ll see right through her.”
“Everyone will see her here with him.” She stood up. Her eyes were swollen but she wasn’t actually crying. “It’s so humiliating.” Someone came up and asked for a hot dog and she handed it over mechanically without even smiling or saying “Thank you,” which was very un-Melanie-like.
“It’s only humiliating if you let it be,” I said. “Act like you don’t care. Better yet, don’t care. Someday soon, you’re going to be dating someone wonderful and Gabriel will be sick of Sherri.”
“I can’t imagine ever being with anyone else,” she said. “That’s the worst part. That I still love him in spite of everything.”
I remembered what Ryan had said. “Did you ever think about giving Gabriel a second chance?” I asked.
“What would have been the point?” she said wearily. “He is who he is. Even back when we were dating, he—”
“Excuse me?” said a tall man with glasses who had stepped up to the counter. “Is it possible to get a burger that’s not beef?”
“We have veggie burgers,” I said.
“What brand?”
“I have no idea.”
He narrowed his eyes at me.
“Let me go find out,” I said with a sigh. I gave Melanie a quick pat on the shoulder and headed toward the grills. Carol Lynn was coming my wa
y with a tin of freshly cooked hamburgers, the weight of it making the narrow, ropy muscles in her arms stand out even more than usual.
“Hey.” She nodded in Mel’s direction, resting the tin on her hip while she stopped. “She okay? That was her husband, right? And they’re separated?”
“Yeah.” I had no desire to gossip about Melanie’s private life with someone over the age of forty-five who was wearing a baby-doll T-shirt with the word Juicy over her chest.
When it was clear I wasn’t going to say more, Carol Lynn said, “I feel for her. I remember when I was going through this—school events were the worst. Do you think I should say anything to her?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“I just want her to know it gets better.”
“That’s just what I was telling her.”
“Only… it never gets all better,” she said.
“Yikes,” I said. “That’s depressing.”
“It’s just life.” She stared down at the foil-covered tin propped against her side. “We all have crap to deal with, right?” She shifted and lifted up the tin again. “Ah, well. Better get this over to the counter while it’s still hot.” I nodded and watched her make her way over.
Her T-shirt looked normal from the back.
I hailed one of the grilling dads, who wiped the sweat out of his eyes long enough to dig up a veggie burger package and show it to me. I came back to the counter, but the tall guy had vanished. “What happened to Veggie Burger Guy?” I asked, but Mel and Carol Lynn were talking quietly and intently to each other and didn’t seem to hear me.
Tanya Bonner came gliding up to the booth. “Why are you all up front?” she asked, an edge to her voice. She was wearing a cotton hat with an enormous brim, which contrasted oddly with her severely tailored outfit but made it clear that the sun wasn’t going to get anywhere with her skin. “One of you is supposed to be the mover. Two servers and one food mover. I thought I explained that.”
“I’m the food mover,” Carol Lynn said, a little guiltily. “I just brought this over.” She gave a little push at the tin she had set down on the counter.
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