Bubbles

by Abby Cooper

  “Yup,” I said for the millionth time. The truth was, they all kinda looked the same to me, but I definitely wasn’t going to tell that to her.

  She looked at herself in the giant mirror.

  “I don’t know. It’s a little bunchy. Excuse me,” she called to a passing salesgirl who didn’t look that much older than me. “Do you have this pink tank in a smaller size?”

  The salesgirl smacked her gum super loud and rolled her eyes. “Um, no. You’re wearing an extra small. That’s as small as they go.” She made a huffy kind of laugh sound and walked away.

  “Well. That was rude,” Mom said.

  I could tell she was trying not to be sad, but she was totally sad. Her whole body wilted and her eyes got that twitchy I’m-about-to-cry look in them that I knew so well. The scary thing about it was that it didn’t just happen when she was thinking about Pratik. It could happen over anything these past few months, even things that seemed not that important, like a snotty salesgirl.

  I knew this was a bad idea. I should never have agreed to come. I should have stayed on the couch at home and forced Mom to stay there with me.

  A bubble formed over Mom’s head right then.

  I’m doing the best I can. Why is everybody out to get me? Why can’t one thing go right?

  Something weird came over me then, the strongest, most serious I-need-to-do-something-and-I-need-to-do-it-now feeling ever. It bubbled up and fizzled over faster than the massive eruption of Mount Vesuvius thousands of years ago. Mom was really trying, I could tell. This wasn’t a false alarm. She wanted to go out and do something and she wanted to have fun and she was doing everything she could not to cry. Yeah, maybe it would have been better to stay home, but we were here, this store and this salesgirl and the rudeness were upon us, and it wasn’t okay.

  Forgetting all about my ankle, I leaped off the couch and chased the girl out of the dressing rooms and all the way to the other end of the store. My feet got a little tangled up in each other as I sprinted, and they seemed to really want to crash into the tall plastic tree over by the hats. I stretched my arm as far as it would go and tapped the salesgirl on the shoulder. Then I fell into the fake tree.

  “Excuse you,” I said, in the most serious voice you can use when you’re covered in fake dirt.

  She turned around and rolled her eyes again. “Yeah?”

  I stood up and brushed myself off. This girl probably thought I was the biggest weirdo ever, but right now it almost didn’t matter.

  “You were rude to my mom,” I said. “I know maybe it’s annoying to you that she wanted a smaller size, but she’s going through a hard time, and it’s kind of a big deal that she even wanted to come here today. So…” My voice trailed off. I didn’t know what else to say. But something had to be said, and now it had been.

  “Oh.” The girl shifted back and forth on her fancy lime-green sneakers. I wondered if they were for running or spinning or what. Maybe they were special for wandering around giant stores. I was sure Viv had a pair of those, too. “I’m sorry,” she told me. “I didn’t know.”

  “Well, now you do,” I said, noticing the bubble forming over her head.

  Your mom isn’t the only sad one.

  “And, uh, I’m sorry, too,” I said. “Just, for, like, anything in your life that’s going on that’s hard.”

  Before I knew what was happening, the girl’s arms were around me. She was hugging me. The not-so-snotty salesgirl was full-on hugging me.

  “Thank you,” she said when she pulled back. There were tears in her eyes. “Everyone thinks I’m fine since it’s been so long since it happened.” She stared at the fake tree plant the way Mom stared at cocoa. “My dog, Teddy Roosevelt, died,” she explained. “I’ve had him almost my entire life.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Teddy Roosevelt?”

  Her face turned red. “Yeah. I’m really into history.”

  “So am I.”

  “Really? Awesome!”

  Who knew? Not only was the snotty salesgirl not so snotty, we also had something in common.

  “Do you want another hug?” I held out my arms, and she practically fell into them.

  When she pulled away, she smiled at me. “Tell your mom I can order an extra-extra small from our Old Orchard location. It should be here within the week.”

  “Thanks.”

  * * *

  “Where’d you run off to? And should I even ask about the dirt?” Mom was still in the dressing room area, but she wasn’t trying anything on. She was sitting on the wobbly couch I somehow hadn’t fallen off or tripped over. That reminded me—my ankle. I reached down and rubbed it. It actually felt okay. Normal. Better than normal.

  “I just wanted to ask her about that shirt again,” I said. “It was super cute on you. She said they can order a smaller one and you can get it this week. Oh, and I fell into a tree, but I’m okay. It wasn’t a real tree.”

  Mom’s eyes lit up.

  “Why are you so excited that I fell into a tree?”

  She laughed. “Sorry. I’m just happy about the shirt. It’s nice to get a win, you know? Even if it’s a little one.”

  “An extra-extra small one,” I agreed, thinking about the shirt. I smiled. “Definitely counts.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. For the first time in a while, I had done something using all my energy and all my heart—and it felt great. It wasn’t that hard, either. I just had to act like I cared. And it wasn’t even an act—I really did care. Of course, caring didn’t bring back Teddy Roosevelt or anything. But it brought back the salesgirl’s smile. And that was pretty cool.

  Mom ended up leaving with one of the eighty-dollar headbands (there was one on clearance for fifteen) and I got a really cute purple water bottle with sparkles on the sides. As we were checking out at the register, I noticed a big sign advertising the triathlon. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see it; after all, ZOOM Athletics was a sponsor, and they were offering that massive prize for the winners. But there it was, staring me right in the eyes.

  Mom noticed it, too.

  “Is that the race you and your friends are doing?” She handed her credit card over to No-Longer-Snotty Salesgirl, and I looked at her. She knew? She’d actually heard me when I told her I was going to practices, even when she was staring off into space?

  “There’s an adult race, too,” she mumbled, more to herself than anyone else. Where was Mom going with this? She hadn’t done a race in forever. She hadn’t looked at the stuff in her box in forever. She hadn’t done anything in forever. She couldn’t seriously be thinking …

  “Can I sign up for this?” Mom asked.

  No-Longer-Snotty Salesgirl laughed. “You’re in luck,” she said. “Today’s April first, the last day to register!”

  Mom looked at me and grinned. “You mind if I do the adult triathlon? I doubt I’ll be any good, but it’d be fun to try.”

  I didn’t know what to say. That was exactly what I wanted, sorta. Mom wanted to do something again! And I hadn’t even had to run the race to convince her. Just by trying my risk, my risk had paid off.

  But maybe it wasn’t over yet. If Mom was after little wins—and felt this good when she got one—what would it be like if she got a Big Win? What would it be like if I got one with her? Together?

  And what would happen if we didn’t?

  Maybe it was even riskier than it was before.

  “You’re still in, right?” Mom stuck her credit card back in her wallet, filled out the form, and handed it to the salesgirl. Even with nerves rattling around inside me like cool historical coins, I made myself nod.

  Mom grabbed her bag, smiled at No-Longer-Snotty, and hugged me harder than she had in a long time.

  “I’m so excited to do this together,” she whispered into my hair.

  And for the first time in forever, with Mom’s arm linked through mine as we walked to the bus stop, even though it was going to be super tough for me to win the race—or even to just do the ra
ce—for a minute it felt like anything was possible.

  27

  YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE

  Going to WPA with Mom after school was totally different than going with my friends. I wasn’t worried about anything. I was curious about what kind of injury I’d get next, but not stressed. Plus I had my snazzy ZOOM water bottle with me, so even if I broke my face or something, I’d be hydrating in style.

  Mom seemed pretty nervous, though. She was all decked out in her I-mean-business ZOOM headband and hot-pink tank (the extra-extra small came just in time), but she kept looking around like some terrifying Gym Monster of Doom was going to jump out and attack her at any second.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “Some kind of weird triathlon stretch?” I was fairly sure that you didn’t run with your head, but Mom probably knew a bunch of tricks that I didn’t. We turned down a long hallway I’d never seen before. WPA was humongous. I thought we’d seen it all, but there was still more to discover around every corner.

  “It’s nothing,” Mom said, finally looking straight ahead at the room we were going into, where a giant oval-shaped track stretched from one end to the other. If I was going to fall here, it’d be because of my own two feet and nothing else. Just how I liked it.

  Mom still looked nervous. Her face was splotchy red and a little green, like a Christmas tree we should’ve taken down a long time ago.

  “Are you going to throw up?” I didn’t really see anywhere for her to do that here.

  “No. It’s just…” Mom looked around some more. “This is Pratik’s gym, too. We used to come here together.”

  Ohhhh. Now everything made sense. Why she had taken longer getting ready for this than I took getting ready for school on picture day. Why her head wouldn’t stop spinning around. Why she was more jumpy than the people at NASA probably were before they sent the first astronauts to the moon in 1969.

  “I don’t see him anywhere, do you?” Mom asked. I glanced around. This was totally the worst floor for us to be hanging out on. There were doors everywhere, and people poured in and out from almost every direction. Had there always been so many doors? If I ever opened my own gym, my own anything, it would have one door and one door only, and a security person standing there who would alert everyone inside if somebody appeared who they didn’t want to see.

  “Don’t see him,” I told her, but I knew it wasn’t going to help. Just because I didn’t see him right this second didn’t mean he wasn’t going to show up at all.

  “I don’t want him to think that I’m following him around or something.”

  Maybe this was why I used Mom’s gym membership way more than she ever did.

  “Mom, he doesn’t own the place.”

  I crossed my fingers behind my back. I didn’t actually know what Pratik did in his vice president job. For all I knew, maybe he did own the place, and wanted to go overseas to build more fancy gyms with way too many doors.

  Mom wandered over to the track’s starting line. I gulped and stared down at my sneakers. I had known going into this that running was going to be my worst thing, but now that I’d seen how bad I was at swimming and biking … well, it couldn’t get much worse than that, could it?

  I had a sinking feeling that maybe it could.

  But today was different. I had Mom with me. When she used to do triathlons, we crossed the finish lines together. I’d wait there with BFF Britta or Pratik or whatever guy Mom was going out with at the time, and when I saw her neon-purple tank top coming at me, I’d go out into the street, grab her hand, and we’d make a mad dash for the end.

  My feet always got so tangled up in each other when I tried to run by myself, but holding on to Mom steadied me, somehow. When she dragged me toward the finish line, I always made it there. We did it together, but I only really did it because of her.

  I knew I’d have to run my race without her, but maybe some of her skill would rub off on me during practice.

  Mom stretched her arms to her sides and followed their motion slowly with her head. She was pretty sneaky, but not sneaky enough to fool me.

  “You should have to do another lap every time you look at the doors,” I said.

  She laughed. “I’m busted, huh?”

  “Very busted.”

  “There are just so many guys around here who look like him.”

  I made a serious face. “Mom, Wolfson women are not doormats.”

  “What?”

  I laughed to myself. I hadn’t thought about it in a while, and it was a really weird thing to say out loud. But it just seemed like something Mom needed to hear.

  “Ms. Wolfson said it to me once. I think it just means, like, don’t let anyone else be the boss of you and put gross stuff from their shoes on you. Like if something bugs you, don’t just sit there and take it.”

  “Oh.” Mom smiled. “Okay. Thanks, Soph. You’re right. I don’t even know why it’s bugging me—he’s probably traveling for his job. And even if he is here, I shouldn’t hide. I should…”—she eyed the track—“run.” She said it again. “I should run.”

  “Me too.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Are you?”

  Mom and I looked at each other. Were we ready? No. Not at all, probably never would be, and we both knew it. But we were here, and we weren’t doormats, and we were going to do a triathlon.

  “Ready,” we said together, and, with a quick nod and glance at each other, we were off.

  28

  ERUPTION

  Mom looked almost as clueless as I felt going down the track. She kept glancing at her feet like she’d never seen them before in her life and had no idea what she was supposed to do with them.

  My feet, on the other hand, were actually behaving for once in their lives. It was super confusing. I thought I would have gone splat on the ground in two seconds flat. I thought I’d be a human pancake, stomped on and smashed by all the real runners’ feet before I even realized how pancake-y I was.

  But I wasn’t a pancake.

  I was hungry for them, for sure, with bananas and chocolate chips, but I hadn’t turned into one. Yet.

  It was a very nice surprise.

  I tried to stay with Mom, but she was going way too slow. She waved me forward with her hand and told me to go ahead. So I did. I ran. Past a whole bunch of other people. Around the track once and twice and a third time. Again and again and again and again. I thought of Kaya and Rafael and Viv and injuries and being terrible at things and being left out and seeing bubbles and therapists and stress and doing too much and not doing enough and I imagined myself putting all of it behind me in a humongous box and I imagined everything staying put in that box as I sprinted ahead and around and away. I know you’re not supposed to run away from your problems, but I wasn’t doing that. I was just putting them down for a second. And it felt like nothing I’d ever felt before.

  I caught up to Mom after I’d made another lap around her. She was huffing and puffing like crazy.

  “I … am … so … out … of … shape,” she said, with a massive breath between each word. She slowed down more until she totally stopped. “Keep going, Soph,” Mom told me. “You’re doing amazing. And I’m fine. Really.”

  She was right. I was doing amazing. Running was amazing.

  But she wasn’t fine.

  There was a bubble over her head almost immediately. I hate this. I’m never going to make it around. Why am I even trying?

  I looked at Mom. Even in her awesome new tank top from ZOOM, this was Stare at Stuff Mom running around this track, not the real Molly Mulvaney.

  I was about to take off again—what else could I do?—when I got an idea.

  “Mom, remember when we used to play that game where we pretended that I was an erupting volcano and you were the townspeople?” I giggled just thinking about it. We always wanted to go see a real volcano, but they were too far away and it cost too much money to go to any of them. So instead we’d settle for me shouting “Erup
tion!” at the top of my lungs and chasing Mom all over our apartment, then collapsing in a fit of giggles and hugs like three hours later.

  I watched her face break into a smile. She remembered!

  “Well…” I said, getting ready. “Eruption!”

  I charged at Mom with every shred of energy I had left. She shuffled forward, and soon her shuffle turned into a jog, and her jog turned into a full-on sprint.

  “Not so fast, townspeople!” I hollered, pushing myself harder. I was running faster than I ever had in my life. It was like my legs had a mind of their own, plus a whole bunch of strength and power I never knew existed. Where had these legs been hiding during gym class all this time? And all the other times when I tried to run?

  We ran and ran and ran and somehow never ran out of energy. I don’t know about Mom, but I forgot about all the other people in the gym, and all the other people everywhere, too. I forgot about bubbles and therapists and Kaya and Rafael and Viv and sadness and stress and doing too much and not enough and the possibility of serious injury. I even forgot where I was for a minute, which was a very bad move, because, as I was thinking about absolutely nothing, I crashed right into Mom.

  Who had stopped because she had crashed right into Pratik.

  * * *

  “Hey, you two,” he said, like it was no big deal that Mom had knocked him flat on the ground. He jumped up and brushed himself off. “Interesting way to start my workout. How are you?”

  No. No. No no no no no.

  I grabbed on to Mom’s hand and pulled her up. She had to be totally embarrassed, but it was kinda funny in a weird way. After everything Mom had done to make sure we didn’t see him at home, there he was, at the gym, the second we finally forgot about him. He looked different since I’d seen him last. Shorter hair. Fancier shoes. But he was definitely still Pratik.

  “I’m good,” Mom said in a way-too-happy kind of voice.

  “I’m good,” I echoed.

  “I … um.” It was like Mom had forgotten how to talk all of a sudden. “Sorry I knocked you down. Are you okay?”