Night Swimmers

by Betsy Byars

  Retta glanced over her shoulder at the screen door. “Oh, hi, Brendelle.” Brendelle was Shorty Anderson’s girl friend.

  “I just stopped by and Shorty invited me to stay for supper. You going to have enough?”

  “We’re just having grilled peanut butter sandwiches,” Retta said without interest.

  “Oh, listen, grill me two. I love them things.”

  Brendelle stepped onto the porch and let the screen door slam behind her. She sat on the steps beside Retta. She stuck out her left foot and pulled up the leg of her pants. “Look at that,” she said. “I’m supposed to clog tonight at the Downtown Hoedown and my ankle is swollen up like a football.”

  “What happened?” Retta asked, still looking across the fence.

  “I was getting in the car over at Foodland and this new boy was carrying out my groceries and he puts the groceries in the back seat and then he goes, ‘Have a nice day, ma’am,’ and slams the front door right on my leg. My leg was sticking out, you know, like it does when you’re getting in the car. I wanted to hit him over the head. I mean, honey, I got to clog tonight and you got to have two good legs to clog. You think anybody’s going to notice?”

  “No.”

  Brendelle turned her leg and looked at it critically from another angle. “Is it getting purple on this side or is that my imagination?”

  “It is purple.”

  “Maybe I can wear some real dark hose.”

  Brendelle lowered her foot and her pants leg. “‘Have a nice day, ma’am.’ Bang!” She re-created the incident, imitating the carry-out boy perfectly. “And the bag of groceries wasn’t any bigger than that.” She sighed. “The only reason he wanted to help me was because behind me was a woman with great big bags of flour and potatoes, and he didn’t want to help her.” She straightened. “Hey, where are the boys? I want to see them.”

  “I don’t know where they are.”

  “They’ll be here for supper, won’t they?”

  “I guess.”

  “Why, Retta, I thought you ran herd on those boys. I thought you knew where they were every minute of every day.”

  “I used to. They got a new friend, though, and I never know where they are now.”

  “Well, that’s nice—the boys having a new friend. All three of you ought to get out more.”

  “His name is Arthur.” Retta made the name sound as ugly as possible.

  “I used to know an Arthur,” Brendelle remembered. “Arthur Lee Gribble.”

  “I hope he was better than this Arthur.”

  “Well, he wasn’t. He asked me out one time and I didn’t want to go because he was bald and in those days I went for looks. Well, he wasn’t real bald,” she conceded, “but he had to part his hair low on the side and comb it over the top of his head to hide his bald spot, and the least little wind would ruin it.”

  Brendelle shifted as if trying to get comfortable on the wooden steps. “Anyway I didn’t want to go out with him but finally I ran out of excuses and said, ‘Oh, all right. Pick me up at eight o’clock.’ I got all dressed up and I sat and waited and, would you believe it, he never showed up?”

  “But if you didn’t want to go out with him, why wouldn’t you be glad he didn’t show?”

  “Because it don’t work that way. No matter how much you don’t want to go out with them, you want them to want to go out with you.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Later I saw Arthur Lee Gribble on the street and he goes, ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ and I go, ‘No, I never forget a bald head.’” She straightened. “Hey, this Arthur—the boys’ new friend—he’s not nice?”

  “I don’t know. He spied on us once, I know that,” Retta said.

  “Spied on you?”

  “Yes, while we were swimming.”

  “Where was you swimming at?”

  Retta looked up at the pale summer sky. “Oh, nowhere,” she said casually.

  “Come on, I’d really like to know. I mean, if you got friends with a private swimming pool, don’t keep it to yourself.”

  “I don’t have any friends with a swimming pool.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Shorty Anderson opened the door behind them. He was dressed in his red cowboy suit with white satin cactus plants on the yoke. “Is this girl talk,” he asked, “or can anybody jump in?”

  “I was just telling Retta that I used to go for looks in a man,” Brendelle said, grinning slyly, “but now I just go out with any old ugly thing that asks me.”

  “I’ll pass the word along,” he said, “if I run into any old ugly things.” He nudged her in the back with his knee, and she got to her feet. She stretched.

  “I—” She broke off as she saw Roy coming onto the porch. “Well, look who’s here. Come here, Roy, I haven’t hugged you in two weeks.”

  Roy came willingly. He loved to be hugged. Brendelle was the best hugger he had ever known because she put a lot of extras into her hugs. She swayed and patted him and scrubbed his hair and pretended to spank him. Then, just when he thought she was through, she would say, “One more time!” and start all over again.

  “And where’s Johnny?” she said. “I want to hug him too.” She glanced over her shoulder at Shorty. “Way I’m acting, a person would think I’m half starved for masculine affection.” She grinned. “Johnny, where are you?”

  She had a hard time with Johnny because he didn’t like to be touched. Sometimes Brendelle had to chase him for five minutes before she caught him. And then he would stand as stiff as an oar in her arms, hands at his sides, eyes closed tight.

  Brendelle saw Johnny in the doorway. “I can’t chase you tonight,” she called. “A carry-out boy at Foodland crippled me. Look at that.”

  She held out her discolored ankle. Johnny hesitated for a moment and then came forward dutifully. Hands stiff at his sides, he walked into her arms.

  She had both of the boys now. She hugged them together. It was as if she were trying, by squeezing them with all her might, to make the three of them into one huge, complicated package.

  Johnny suffered the embrace with his eyes shut. Roy swayed with Brendelle, taking advantage of every aspect of the hug.

  “I’ll start the sandwiches,” Retta said. She passed the three huggers, turning sideways so as not to disturb them. She went around her father in the same careful way. “Excuse me,” she said.

  “Put lots of peanut butter on my sandwich,” Brendelle called happily. She grinned down at Roy and Johnny. “And put lots of oleo on the grill. I love goo.”

  She bent and kissed the top of Roy’s head. “And so does Roy.” She smoothed his hair back from his forehead so she could kiss his brow. “He wants the same thing, don’t you, Roy? Lots of goo.”

  Roy lifted his head. His face shone. His answer had the earnest ring of a marriage vow.

  “I do,” he said.

  “IF YOU WANT TO see Arthur, now’s your chance,” Roy sang at the window.

  Retta glanced up from the television set. She had been watching television all day, but she didn’t really know what she was seeing. The soap operas, the game shows, passed like one long, boring dream before her eyes. “What did you say?”

  “Arthur’s in our yard, so if you want to see what he looks like up close, you can.”

  “No.”

  “I had to come in the house,” he said, his voice losing its happy lilt. “Arthur and Johnny were talking about something secret.”

  Roy stood at the window with his hands in his pockets. He was hurt. He hated to be left out. Once in kindergarten he’d accidentally colored his George Washington face mask green and had not been allowed to march in the Parade of Presidents with the other kids. He had waited in the classroom with Miss Penny, weeping with the pain of exile, vowing never to be left out of anything again.

  He glanced at Retta. He sensed that she really wanted to see Arthur up close but didn’t want to admit it. Out of kindness he began to describe Arthur to her.
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br />   “Well, he’s got on blue jeans with a patch in the back and a yellow T-shirt. There’s writing on the shirt, but I can’t read it. There’s a Band-Aid on his elbow and a watch on his arm. He’s got a—”

  “Will you shut up? I am trying to watch television.”

  “That show’s no good. It doesn’t even have good commercials.” Roy believed the quality of TV shows could be judged by the commercials. The most boring programs had commercials for false teeth glue and toilet paper.

  “I’m not watching the commercials,” Retta said, giving him a cool nod. “I’m watching the program.”

  Roy glanced out the window. “Arthur’s leaving now,” he reported. “He’s walking down the sidewalk.”

  “Good.”

  “He’s pausing, scratching his head, he’s turning, he’s—” Suddenly he broke off. He drew in a long, shuddering breath. “I smell the Bowlwater plant,” he said happily.

  “Maybe you smell Arthur,” Retta replied, making an ugly face as she said the name. She did not take her eyes from the television set.

  “No, it’s the Bowlwater plant. I’d know that smell anywhere.”

  In his mind the plant was growing, reaching for the sky, shading the countryside with its huge leaves. The enormous flowers were swelling on stems thicker than his arms and sending out their magical fragrance, today, luckily, in his direction.

  “I wish they’d close that plant down,” Retta said suddenly.

  Roy looked at her. He was as astonished as if she had proposed doing away with the Atlantic Ocean. “They would never do that.”

  “They should.”

  “Anyway, why did you say close it down?” he asked, puzzled. “You can chop down a plant, maybe, or pull it up, but you can’t close down a plant.”

  Retta turned her eyes from the television. She looked interested in Roy for the first time. “What do you think the Bowlwater plant is?”

  “A plant.”

  “What kind of plant?” she quizzed.

  “A big plant.” He was careful not to commit himself. Sometimes he got trapped that way and people laughed at him.

  “Well, you got it,” Retta said. “That’s what it is—a big ugly plant.”

  “It’s not ugly.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  “In my mind,” he said with a dignified nod. Roy felt as if he were moving toward something unpleasant. He felt himself on the edge of a step—one slip and he would descend into a world that was even less magical than it already was. He willed himself not to look down, willed the Bowlwater plant to be as he imagined.

  “Somebody told me they make army chemicals there,” Retta went on in a conversational tone. “That’s chemicals that kill people and leave the cars and buildings so that the army can use them.”

  Roy didn’t hear her. He had closed his mind. He was now interested only in what was happening in the yard.

  “Arthur is leaving again,” he said. “This time he’s really going.” Roy moved to the door and was waiting when Johnny stepped onto the porch. “What was so secret?” Roy asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Johnny crossed the room, taking his time. He plopped down in his father’s chair and slung one leg over the arm as his father did.

  “If it wasn’t secret, then why couldn’t I hear it?”

  “Don’t bug me,” Johnny said.

  There was a silence. Retta tried to concentrate on her television program, but she felt herself being drawn into her brothers’ conflict. She looked at Johnny.

  “I know you and Arthur are going to do something,” Roy was saying, “and I want to know what it is.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “I want to know! Are you going to fly the airplane or are you going to shoot the rockets?”

  “Neither.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  Retta said, “Don’t beg him. That’s exactly what he wants you to do.”

  “I do not,” Johnny said. He sat up straight in his father’s oversized chair. “What makes you think I want to be begged?”

  “Because you’re sitting there like the king of Arabia with that I-know-something-you-don’t-know sneer on your face. You’re disgusting.”

  “You’re the one that’s disgusting. You can’t stand it, can you, that I have a friend and you don’t?”

  Retta stared at him as if he were an ugly, offensive stranger.

  He got up slowly and walked toward the hall. At the doorway he paused and looked back at Retta and Roy. “I’ll tell you one thing,” he said, “whatever I’m going to do, I’m going to do it without the two of you.” He disappeared into his room.

  Roy hit his fist against his leg. “I knew they were doing something secret.” He turned to Retta. He sensed her helplessness, but he had nowhere else to turn. “Retta, make him tell me!”

  Retta looked at the empty doorway. “I can’t seem to make him do anything anymore,” she said.

  ROY RARELY PLAYED WITH his food because he was always in a hurry to eat it. The one exception was mashed potatoes. Tonight he was making a volcano of his potatoes, smoothing the sides up to a pool of melted margarine in the middle.

  A trickle of margarine ran down one side, and he quickly repaired the damage. He wished they were having green beans so he could plant trees on the side of his volcano—that way the eruption would be more dramatic. But tonight Retta had only fixed one thing—mashed potatoes.

  The volcano was almost as tall as his cup of milk now, a really spectacular display. “Look,” he said to Retta and Johnny.

  He waited until he had their attention. Then, making sound effects with his mouth, he erupted the volcano, sending margarine spilling down the sides, creating destruction on one side and then the other until the entire volcano was a flat mess of potatoes that covered his entire plate.

  Satisfied at last, he picked up his spoon and began to eat. “Want me to make something out of your potatoes, Retta?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “I can make anything—boats, rivers, planets—”

  “No.”

  “I won’t make anything for Johnny because he won’t tell me the secret.”

  “Good,” Johnny said.

  Johnny and Retta were not eating. Neither was hungry. Johnny was too excited to eat because he and Arthur were going on a secret mission that night. Retta was too suspicious to eat. She knew Johnny was up to something—she could tell from the nervous energy that caused him to dig at his food, shift in his chair, pull at his clothes, and dig at his food again.

  She watched Johnny with eyes sharp enough to penetrate his thoughts.

  “Quit staring at me,” he said finally.

  “I’m not staring.”

  “You are too.”

  She looked down at her plate and shifted her potatoes with her fork. She lifted the fork and sipped the potatoes on it as if she were taking medicine. Her eyes rolled to Johnny.

  “You’re staring at me again!” he accused.

  “Well, you’re staring at me too!”

  “All right, everybody,” Shorty Anderson said, coming into the room with a square-dance step. “Everybody can stare at me!” He had on his hot-pink velour outfit with the rhinestone lapels, his favorite. He danced around the table in his matching leather boots.

  “Supper’s cold,” Retta said.

  “I don’t believe I’ll have anything, honey. I’ll just get something at the Hoedown. Looks mighty good though.” Shorty never took chances eating in his pink suit. It cost twenty-two dollars to have it cleaned.

  “We had mashed potatoes,” Roy said, “and I made a volcano.”

  “I used to do that when my mama wasn’t looking,” Shorty Anderson said. “But my mama wouldn’t let us play with our food. That’s the only bad thing I can say about her.” He put one hand on Retta’s shoulder. “You’re lucky to have a sweet sister who lets you do what you want.”

  “Oh, Dad,” Retta said through her teeth.

  �
�Well, they are.” He turned away. “You kids behave yourselves now.”

  “We will,” Roy called happily.

  Retta, Roy, and Johnny continued to sit at the table after their father left, even though they had finished eating. Retta kept her eyes down, but her thoughts were on Johnny. He’s slipping out tonight, she said to herself.

  Finally Johnny broke the silence. He stood up, stretching. “Well, I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

  “It’s only eight o’clock,” Retta said.

  “So—I’m tired. All right?”

  As Johnny left the room, Retta looked up, eyes burning. She watched him until he disappeared into the hall. Then she got up and began to wash the dishes. Over the hot, steaming water, her face was set.

  They all went to bed early. Roy fell asleep quickly, but Retta and Johnny lay wide awake, eyes staring at the ceiling. From time to time Johnny smiled slightly in anticipation, but Retta’s face remained hard, unyielding.

  She knew the exact moment when Johnny got out of bed because she heard the creak of his bed springs. She lay without moving, eyes shut, while Johnny slipped out of his room and into the hall.

  Johnny paused in the doorway of Retta’s room. He wanted to make sure Retta was asleep. If she stirred, he was going to pretend he was on his way to the bathroom. She did not move. Breathing a sigh of relief, Johnny moved quietly into the living room.

  Johnny had always felt that the one thing he was really good at was not being noticed. Indeed, he sometimes thought he must be invisible. One day last fall, in school, his teacher, Miss Lipscomb, was passing out papers, matching pupils to papers, and then paused with one paper left in her hand.

  “Johnny Anderson?” she had said. She had looked as puzzled as if the name were foreign. He raised his hand.

  “Are you new?”

  “No’m.”

  School had been going on for six weeks. He had not been absent a single day. Miss Lipscomb had shaken her head, smiling at herself. “Well, Johnny Anderson, you and I are going to have to get better acquainted.”

  “Yes’m,” he had said, shifting so that he was, once again, hidden by the boy in front of him. In the spring, when he moved away, she said, “I really don’t feel like I got to know you at all.”