by Jenn Bishop
As he picks through the various cheap plastic dinosaurs and rubber balls, I tell him some of the dinosaur names—well, the ones I remember. I was never as into dinos as Xan. There’s a short, fat blue-green one that I call Stumpyosaurus. The name gets a laugh out of Benny. So does the little dance I have him do.
A few minutes later, the elevator door bursts open. “Benny!” A woman with frizzy blond hair in a ponytail pushes a double-wide stroller with two crying babies.
“I’m so, so, so sorry. Oh, Benny.” She swoops in and picks him up, hugging him close to her chest. To me she says, “I don’t know where my mind is today. I could’ve sworn he was with the sitter, but he wasn’t, he was here with me and the twins—try telling that to my sleep-deprived brain. Oh, you’re a savior. What’s your name again?”
“Drew.”
Benny holds up the Stumpyosaurus. “Mommy, can I keep him?”
I flash his mom a thumbs-up.
“Are you sure?” Benny’s mom looks back at me.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Thank you.” She squeezes Benny again. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry about that. Mommy would never forget about you.” She pushes the stroller back and forth, not that it seems to matter for the screaming twins. At least one of them is totally overdue for a diaper change.
“Well, we should probably get out of here before we make an even bigger scene. Thanks again for saving the day. Another minute and I would’ve been in my car heading home.”
After she leaves, the children’s room goes quiet, empty in the way it only is on slow summer mornings after story hour. Anyone who has a choice is at the beach or in the park tossing a Frisbee.
Audrey makes her way back to the computer.
Clickety-clack-click.
I cross my arms behind my head and spin around in Mrs. Eisenberg’s chair.
“Hey, Drew?”
I stick out my leg to catch the edge of the desk and come to a stop.
“Yeah?”
“You were really good,” she says. “With Benny.”
Am I dizzy from the spinning or did Audrey actually just admit that I was good at something?
“I didn’t know what to do, but you did.”
She’s right. “Wait,” I say, as suddenly it all falls into place. “Are you … afraid of kids?”
Audrey shifts her gaze to the carpet. “Kind of.”
It all makes sense now, how she acted yesterday. The children’s room has to be about the last place she’d want to be stuck for the entire summer. No wonder she wants to show Mrs. Eisenberg how good she is with computers—anything to get away from the rug rats. She’s not trying to replace or one-up me at all.
“But honestly, Drew. Stumpyosaurus?”
Audrey smiles, and I return to spinning.
9
MAYBE AUDREY ISN’T GOING TO be the actual worst for the whole summer. For the rest of the day at the library, she’s actually okay. I mean, it’s not like we’re suddenly best friends or anything. Between Benny getting left behind and everything else, I almost forget what’s waiting for me back at home. Almost.
“From what Mrs. Eisenberg told me, it sounds like you and Audrey are starting to get along,” Mom says as we pull out of the parking spot at the library and head down the road to pick up Xan.
“I guess,” I say. “She’s all right.”
“I didn’t know if you’d take to sharing your turf with someone.”
“My turf?”
“You know … It’s kind of your terrain down there. Sometimes it’s hard to have someone come along and start changing things up.”
I shrug.
Mom leaves me in the car with the AC running while she goes into the Y to fetch my brother. I keep thinking about what she said as the voices on the radio debate the Providence mayor’s latest budget proposal. The person who’s trying to take over my turf—it’s not Audrey at all. It’s Phil.
At least I only have to put up with him for a few days, though. Soon he’ll be zooming off on his motorcycle, never to be heard from again, right? I suck in a deep breath. Just a few days. How many is a few, anyway? Two? Nah, that’s a couple. Three, then? Four, tops. And we’ve already survived one.
Next thing I know, Xander’s sliding into the back seat and telling us all about his day at camp and how fast he’s getting at swimming and how this one kid peed in the pool when no one was looking, and before long we’re turning down our street. I brace myself for the motorcycle in our driveway, suddenly wondering what in the heck Phil did all day.
And then there he is. Pushing the mower through our yard. My jaw tightens.
“I was going to do that tonight,” I say to Mom as we pull into the driveway. Up close now, I spot the chest hair sticking out of the top of Phil’s shirt, and the pit stains under his arms. Gross.
“Aw, Drew. He was around and he offered. This way you have more time to hang out with Filipe, be a kid for once.”
As I step out of the car, I search for evidence that he somehow messed the whole thing up. Maybe he didn’t get the edges right around the walkway. Or his lines are uneven. But I can’t find anything wrong with it.
Maybe he didn’t get to the backyard yet! Maybe I can still do that, at least. I race around the house. But when I get there, all I see are the clean, straight lines left by the mower. Something else is different too.
Not the deck. Not the back of the house. Not the shed. It’s the shrubs. All the stuff that’s grown wild over the past three years. I thought Mom liked it that way. Or that she didn’t care. But he’s gone to town, hacking it to pieces. I could’ve done that.
Why’s he helping around the house so much, anyway? Suddenly it hits me, a truth I hadn’t considered. What if Mom wasn’t lying last night when she said Phil was an old friend?
Maybe that’s all he was back then. She never talked about who her boyfriends were back in high school—not that I’d asked—and she didn’t meet my dad until grad school. Anyway. Maybe she just can’t see what’s so obvious now: that Phil had—has—a crush on her.
Somehow he found out about Dad and now he’s making his move.
Man, what didn’t he do while we were at the library all day? I’m almost afraid to go inside the house and find out. I head into the living room, and even from there the smells from the kitchen are overpowering. Curry and cumin and chicken. I curse my mouth for watering at whatever it is he’s been making. I spot the slow cooker on the counter. Everything I tried to make in that thing always ended up a pile of mush, so I gave up on it.
The door into the garage creaks open and Mom steps in. “Wow,” she says. “Smells pretty tasty in here.”
Xander races in under her arm, slipping out of his sneakers and darting toward the living room.
“One hour of screen time,” Mom reminds him. She fills up a glass of water and brings it to the door. Sweat dripping off his forehead, Phil looms in the doorframe and takes the glass of water from Mom.
“I’m going to head upstairs to change out of my work clothes,” Mom says. “I’ll be right back.”
She disappears up the stairs, leaving me alone with Phil.
“So.” Phil sets his empty glass on the counter. “How was the library today? Did you read lots of books?”
I roll my eyes. “You don’t read books when you work there.”
Phil laughs. “I didn’t realize you were working already. Aren’t there laws about child labor? I thought you had to be at least fifteen or sixteen to work.”
“I don’t technically work there. Not yet …” It’s hard to explain without somehow making it sound like babysitting. Which it is not. “Anyway. I don’t get to read. Even the librarian doesn’t sit around reading books. We’re really busy.”
“Cool, cool. You know, I’ve had the chance to visit so many different libraries all over the country the past few months. It’s pretty amazing how unique they are. And some of the facilities—you should see some of the cool new buildings the architects are coming up with. You me
ntioned you wanted to be an architect someday, right?”
What does he want? For me to give him bonus points because he remembered me saying that last night? I shrug. “When are you going back out again on your bike?”
“Pretty soon. It’s nice to have a few days off the road. That much riding really wears on your body, you know?”
As if I know one thing about motorcycles. “Not really,” I say.
“Anyway, in the meantime, I thought your mom might appreciate having some extra help around here.”
She might have, I think, when we needed it. Three years ago. I stare up at him, my mouth still zippered shut. I want to tell him I’m onto him, but I can’t get the words out as he dorkily stares back at me.
There’s nothing left for either of us to say to each other. No more small talk to make, anyway.
I chew on the inside of my cheek, searching for an out. “I’m going over to my friend’s house,” I say, heading for the door behind him. “Across the street.”
“Don’t you think you should check with your mom first?”
Who does he think he is, my dad?
He leaves just enough room for me to squeeze by him and out the door, all without saying another word.
10
OUT IN THE YARD AND away from Phil, I can finally breathe again.
Check with my mom first?
Filipe’s is practically my second home, dude. Maybe you should check with your mom. Last I heard, it wasn’t exactly safe to ride motorcycles.
As I cross the street, I hear the bop, bop, bop of the basketball bouncing on the pavement. Nothing sounds so good right now as watching a shot swish through the net.
“Hey!” I yell, but as I get closer, I can see Filipe’s not out there by himself. And he’s not with Anibal either. Theo, one of the eighth graders from the soccer team, is sipping a lime Gatorade. He sets it down on the pavement just in time to receive a pass from Filipe and take a three-pointer. The kind I only make about once a century.
The ball swooshes through the net.
“Nice one,” Filipe says before saying anything back to me.
“Hey, Drew.” Theo jogs to the hoop. He bounces the ball, switching from his left hand to his right. He makes it look easy. Let’s face it: Theo makes every sport look easy. He’s pretty much the best athlete in the eighth grade—well, except for Chloe Ramer, who’s nationally ranked in tennis.
“Think fast!”
He chucks the ball straight at me and I barely have time to get my hands out for it. It smacks off my elbow, bouncing down the pavement toward the bush. I scramble for it, kind of wanting to rub my elbow but knowing I shouldn’t. Not in front of them.
I drag the ball out of the bush, dribble it a little, and take a shot. It hits the rim at least. I make it in on the rebound and pass it off to Filipe. He gives me a weird look when he catches the ball. What’s up with him today?
“Nice wheels,” Theo says to me.
Nice wheels?
“The bike. Across the street. That thing your dad’s?”
I catch Filipe’s eye. Wait a sec to see if he’s going to say something. Does Theo really not know? But then I remember that he only moved here two years ago, after it happened.
“A friend of my mom’s,” I say, wishing I could believe that’s all Phil is.
“Too bad. That ride is sick. Someday I’m going to own a Harley.”
Filipe goes back for a three-pointer. Swoosh. “Oh yeah,” he says. “The Flip is back.”
The Flip?
He’s still barely said a word to me since I came over here. Almost like he’s embarrassed of me, or something. Even though I made my shot for once.
Filipe tosses the basketball to Theo, who dribbles it through his legs and then goes up to dunk it. Such a show-off. Sure, he’s tall. He’s also a whole year older than us. Filipe and I are still waiting for our growth spurts.
“Hey, Filipe,” I say.
He doesn’t respond.
“Flip?” I try again.
He jogs toward me, but he doesn’t look happy about it. “Theo invited himself over for …” He stops for a second, panting. “For one-on-one.”
One-on-one.
He glances back at Theo, who’s shooting a basket. The ball clangs off the rim, echoing loudly in my head.
“Oh,” I say. “I get it.” I turn for my own yard, swallowing down the things I can’t say back. All the times we let Filipe join in on our plans. Tagging along with Mom and Xan and me when we went to the beach. Or coming over to my house on family movie night, insisting we rewatch all the Star Wars movies. We didn’t do invites. We never needed to. One-on-one? Since when?
I stand at the edge of the driveway, waiting to cross the street.
“Hey, Theo,” Filipe shouts, and I turn my head to watch. “Bet I can make this shot from all the way back here.” The distance is way, way longer than a three. There’s no way he’ll make that shot. The odds are beyond against him.
Theo bounce-passes the ball. Filipe bends his knees. He’s like a spring, all that energy about to shoot out from his fingertips.
Still, there’s no way he’s making that shot.
My eyes follow the ball. Filipe’s do too.
Swish.
“Wooo-hoo! Nothin’ but net, baby.” He jogs over to high-five Theo.
All I can do is stare at the ball, bouncing on the pavement. The ball that swished through that hoop seconds ago, like it was effortless. My best friend who told me to scram. Like it was effortless.
What am I doing still standing here, anyway? Looking on while Theo passes his Gatorade off to Filipe. From here, I can’t tell if it’s an optical illusion, or if Filipe actually grew a few inches in the night. Sorry—the Flip.
I cross the street. In my front yard, my brother is helping Phil shine his motorcycle.
One-on-one.
Sometimes Dad would take Xan or me out to do something special separately. Father-son one-on-one time, he called it. Sounds cheesy, I know, but I liked it. He let me choose where to go, too. Mini-golfing or a Paw Sox game or out to the movies. Mini-golf was my favorite. The place we went had a pirate theme and Dad would try to talk like a pirate the entire time, even when he paid the attendant at the beginning.
It would take us forever to finish because Dad would always say something ridiculously pirate-y just as I was about to swing and then I’d miss the ball entirely. One time, he made me laugh so hard I accidentally dropped my club into the water. We had to pay extra afterward for someone to fish it out, but Dad never told Mom when she asked if anything exciting happened. He just winked at me when she wasn’t looking.
Xander peers up at Phil with this look on his face that I haven’t seen in forever. Is that how I used to look up to Dad?
11
AFTER DINNER, MOM INVITES PHIL to come to the park with us. We go a lot in the summer after supper, when it’s finally cooling down. There’s this loop Mom likes to walk—to help herself unwind, she says—but most of the time Xan and I do our own thing. There’s a playground with a swing set, a koi pond, and a bandstand for when they have concerts in the summer.
A lot of the time, Filipe comes with us and we’ll bring a Frisbee or a baseball to toss around, but after what happened a couple hours ago, I don’t even bother to invite him. Don’t want to get in the way of his one-on-one time with Theo.
It’s not that I need to have Filipe all to myself or anything. He can be friends with whoever he wants. I just don’t get what the big deal was today—why it needed to be one-on-one. And anyway, if somehow it did, why couldn’t he find some way to say it, instead of being a jerk while waiting for me to figure it out?
Filipe and I used to be able to just tell each other stuff. But now it feels like there’s stuff he’s not saying—that he’s purposely leaving out. And at the same time, he’s mad at me for not being able to read his mind.
When we get out of the car at the park, Xan’s about to run off to the playground like usual when Mom says, “Hey
, hey, not so fast.” Xan stops in his tracks. “I thought we could walk the loop together. The four of us, I mean.”
The four of us? I don’t exactly want Mom to walk the loop alone with Phil. But the alternative might be worse.
“Can I look for sticks?” Xan perks up. “And rocks?”
“Absolutely,” Mom says. “But you can only bring one of each back. Got it?”
I have a feeling Xan will push back on this later, but for now he says, “Got it.”
All I want to do is lag behind them, be Xan’s two extra arms for holding sticks and rocks, but Phil isn’t making that easy.
“Heard you were the hero at the library today, Drew.”
“What? No I wasn’t,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets as Phil slows down so that he’s next to me while Mom helps Xander with a stick that’s too big.
“So modest,” he says. “Just like—” He clears his throat. Just like who? I wonder, but he doesn’t leave me room to ask. “Anyway, so your mom says you’re a big reader, too. Makes sense, I guess. All that time around books. What’s your favorite? Or favorites? I know it’s not easy to choose just one.”
“I don’t know,” I say, even though of course I do. Right now it’s a tie between Holes and The Hobbit. I’ve reread both so many times my copies are falling apart.
“Well, what’ve you read recently that you liked?”
How come he needs to know so badly? In a day or two he’s going to leave town and I’ll never have to see him again. Right? That’s how Mom explained this whole deal to me, but suddenly I don’t feel so sure about any of it. If he’s got a thing for Mom, what if he—what if he stays?
“I said I don’t know, all right?”
A snap as Xander’s branch breaks. Mom turns back. “Drew,” she says sharply.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“It’s okay,” Phil says.