When we first moved here, back when I was six, I thought this was so cool. I couldn’t wait to go. I watched the big parade, I cruised the petting zoo, I begged my parents to take me on rides every day, I ate a pork chop on a stick, I had a riding lesson and got my picture taken with a cowboy. I loved everything about Rodeo Roundup Days.
Now, it just seems sort of worn out and maybe a little sad. The parade with longhorn cattle, town officials waving to the crowd from pickup truck beds, and marching bands wilting in their heavy uniforms in the summer heat. The bucking bronco contests and the side show of “Amazing Farm Animals.” The carnival rides with the jaded, inattentive operators who chew tobacco and spit the juice on the hot pavement—and occasionally hit my shoe, like one did last summer.
“You know what? I think that Village Inn pancakes are better than IHOP’s,” Charlotte says as she kicks an empty beer can out of her way. “I think actually that maybe they’re exactly the same, but at Village Inn maybe you’re expecting less, so you’re not disappointed, whereas a place that brags about pancakes—well, you know, they have a higher standard to live up to. And living up to standards is like . . .”
“The worst,” I say. Does she know what it’s like to have a former competitive figure skater for a dad? And a meteorologist mom who can predict the temperature every day to within one degree?
“Exactly,” Charlotte says as she dodges a flying taco wrapper being whipped along by the wind. My mom would know precisely how strong the wind is, but I’ll just say “very strong.”
At IHOP, there’s a young, blond hostess I don’t recognize, who tries to seat us by the bathroom. We insist on a booth by the window. Steve’s tables are usually in this area, but as soon as we sit down, I notice that he’s across the restaurant, working on the other side of the hostess station. I try not to take this as a sign of things to come.
Seeing Steve, I completely forget about everything else that happened today. Good, bad, indifferent—it doesn’t matter. Rooty tooty, what a cutie. He’s about six feet tall, which is important when you’re five foot eight like me. He has short, spiky blond hair and blue eyes, and a scar on his cheek that he got from jumping off a house roof in fourth grade and landing on a tree. He has another scar, on his knee, from where a car hit him when he was riding a bike.
Maybe I like him so much because we’re both so accident prone. And he doesn’t like his name, either—he even stole my idea and used his middle name, wearing a “Josh” name tag at IHOP for a few months.
Steve can beat almost anyone at pool, and there was a rumor going around school that he was in a 12-step program for a gambling addiction. Don’t ask me why that’s cool, but it is. Steve’s lived in a few different cities, the way I used to, the way I wish I still could sometimes, except then he wouldn’t be in any of those places, so what would be the point? He has a dozen plans for getting out of Lindville when he graduates. He works as many hours as he can here, even on Saturday nights, because he’s saving all his money to go on this cross-country trip, which he’s going to do the day after graduation.
Whenever we hang out, we always talk about the places we’d rather be, or want to visit, or live in, and we always sort of talk about it like it’s something we could do together, if we weren’t stuck in Lindville celebrating the sports event or holiday du jour. Like the way we talked about both taking French so we could go AWOL on the spring class trip to Montreal.
Instead of Steve, someone named Roger who I’ve also never seen here before takes our order. Roger wears large square glasses and looks about forty years old.
“That’s not the guy. Is it?” Charlotte asks once he’s gone. “Please tell me that’s not the guy.”
“No, that’s not him!” I start laughing, forgetting Charlotte doesn’t know me yet and I have to explain. So I do. I tell her about how I met Steve, how we kissed a few times, how I keep hoping we’ll go out.
I don’t tell her the stupid things. Like how, because Steve was a new guy in town, I decided that must mean he was The One. I don’t tell her how, the first time Steve and I kissed, on New Year’s Eve, he whispered in my ear, “I can’t believe I just did that. Did I just do that? I can’t believe I just did that,” teasing me about how we first met and how freaked out I was. I don’t tell Charlotte how happy that made me, because it was the best thing that had happened to me in so long, and that I thought my new year was off to this incredible start. I don’t tell her that the next time I saw Steve, at school, he acted like it had never happened. Because I could handle being the New-Year’s-fling girl. Sort of.
We kissed again on February 15. He was a day late for being my Valentine. We were working on this heinous group history project for school, and decided it would be more fun to ditch the group and make out instead.
The last time we kissed was when he rescued me at a St. Patrick’s Day party. This guy who was either carried away by the love of the Irish—I do have green eyes and a few freckles—or the cups of green beer would not leave me alone. I don’t even know who he was—someone’s cousin, from another town. He kept trying to put his arms around me, and then he actually pulled me onto the sofa and I sort of screamed. Steve told the guy to get lost, and then he and I hung out on the porch for a while, and one thing led to the usual. He even ditched his friends at the party to walk me home, which seemed huge to me. No guy had ever walked me home before.
I don’t know if his friends got mad at him, or what. But it’s like ever since then, there’s been this tension between us. Or at least, I feel tension, because he’s acting like we’re only friends and that’s it, as if nothing ever happened, as if we haven’t kissed and had these really intense conversations. I don’t get it.
I have hope, though. We’re due for another fling. It’s been almost three months. We’re overdue. If we were a library book, there would be a huge fine due on us.
I look across the restaurant at Steve, who’s carrying a tray of beverages to a table of two middle-aged guys in overalls and baseball caps. Why does he have to wait on them and not me?
“French. Give me a break,” Charlotte says, flipping through our textbook, glancing at the photographs. “I am not into summer school at all. You know? I’m only taking this class because I’ve gotta get the credit so I can graduate next year, because I’m behind in credits.” She explains how she and her little sister and her mom have moved four times in the past five years due to job transfers.
“That sounds kind of hard,” I say, although I’m a little envious, too.
Charlotte takes a sip of her water. “Yeah. It is. It’s like—you just get to know people, and then you leave. But I get to meet tons of people, so . . .” She shrugs. “How about you? How long have you been here?”
“Forever.” I tell her how we traveled around constantly when I was young because my father was competing and then performing as a professional figure skater. Then we settled down in Lindville when I was six. My dad got a job as a realtor, my mother became a radio meteorologist, they decided to have the big family they’d always wanted, and we haven’t been anywhere fun in years.
“So wait a second,” she says. “Your dad—he’s like Brian Boitano or something?”
“Not quite. No gold medals,” I say. “But he’s good.”
“Wow. That is so cool. I’d love to see him sometime. So hold on. Do you skate?” she asks.
“Not really,” I say. “I mean, I used to, but then I quit.”
“How come? God, I totally admire anyone who can do anything athletic,” she says as Roger comes over and sets a syrup carousel on our table with absolutely zero flair.
“Your order will be right up,” he tells us before vanishing into the kitchen.
I glance over at Steve. I have to go talk to him. This is the first time I’ve seen him since summer vacation started.
“So you’re taking French. What else? Are you working?” Charlotte asks me.
I nod. “At the coffee place Espress-Oh-Yes—you know where the Gas ’n Git st
ation is, on Highway eighty-seven? Inside there.”
“Hey, that’s cool,” Charlotte says.
“Not really,” I tell her. “I have to be there before six in the morning, and I have this coworker who thinks he’s Bono.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I work at Shady Prairies,” she says.
“You’re kidding,” I say. Shady Prairies is a huge, new retirement apartment complex on the east side of town. When they put it in five years ago, they took down a lot of old trees to make room for pools and a golf course. If there’s any shade left, I’d be surprised. “What do you do there?” I ask.
“I work in the dining room—serving. It’s sort of fun, actually—they have two seatings for dinner, at four-thirty and six, and then we’re out of there by eight. The people are nice—most of them, anyway. They always want to know what I’m doing with my life. If I have direction. Then they tell me about these trips they took like fifty years ago, and how I’ve gotta get out and see the world before it’s too late.” She pauses and cracks her green-colored bubble gum. “Which is true.”
I look over at Steve bringing a tray of food to a table. As I watch him, I make circles on the table with the blueberry syrup dispenser, but it keeps getting stuck to spilled syrup on the table.
“Oh.” Charlotte looks up at Roger as he sets her plate in front of her. “Thanks.”
I thank him, too, as Charlotte covers her pancakes with all four kinds of syrup and a packet of mixed-fruit jelly. She puts a dollop of ketchup on the side of her plate, as if she’s thinking of dipping later.
I stare past her at Steve, who’s joking around with a table of police officers. He really has a rapport with the regulars here.
Charlotte taps her fork against my plate to get my attention. “So, that’s him?” She gestures behind her with her fork.
I nod. “Sorry. Was that way too obvious?”
“He’s cute. Go say hi,” Charlotte urges me. “Ask him why he’s not suffering through French with us.”
“Really? Should I do that?” I ask. “I don’t know, though. Do you think I should? I mean, my pancakes are going to get cold.”
“Like you’re going to eat them if you don’t go say hi. What do you have to lose, anyway? Go for it,” she says.
Charlotte’s attitude is so different from Suzanne’s. Suzanne is usually telling me to hang back and wait for him to make a move. That hasn’t exactly been working too well.
I set my napkin on the table and brush off my khakis. I wish they weren’t so crinkled, but hey, it’s been a long time since 5:00 a.m., when I got dressed. As I walk across the half-empty restaurant, I try to think of something witty to say, something that will impress him. First I see Steve perching on the end of a booth bench. I wonder who he’s talking to—probably some more of his regular mid-afternoon customers. I can’t see because of the wall partition separating that section.
Then I get closer and I see who he’s sitting with. He has his arm around this beautiful girl who has an IHOP uniform on and I realize it’s the new blond hostess and they’re kissing.
He’s not taking French class with me. He’s Frenching some other girl.
I stand there for a second, doing my prairie-dog-in-headlights look, unable to move. I stare at her name tag: JACQUI. I wonder what kind of name that is, what kind of spelling that is. Meanwhile, JACQUI and Steve don’t even notice I’m standing there.
And while before, I just thought this was shaping up to be the worst summer of my entire life? Now I know it’s true.
“Hey, so what did he say?” Charlotte asks when I go back to our booth.
“I don’t know,” I say, sitting down with a squeak of vinyl. “I mean, nothing. He was with this girl. The hostess.”
“What do you mean, he was with her?”
“They’re making out,” I tell Charlotte.
“What? No way.” She sounds indignant. Charlotte cranes her neck to see them. She can’t, so she stands up and half walks over to them, taking a few extra napkins off a service cart to give her trip purpose. “That girl looks like she’s made out of plastic,” she says when she comes back. “Did you see that nose job? And her hair color is definitely not natural.”
I try to smile, because I appreciate what Charlotte’s doing. But it doesn’t really matter who the girl is. It just matters that Steve wants to kiss her and not me.
Weather on the Nines
At 6:45 a.m. I wander into the kitchen and my little sister Torvill is clamoring, “You’re up, you’re up, you’re up!” She says things in threes now—it’s her phase du jour, or rather, du summer.
It’s the first day this week that I don’t have to be at Gas ’n Git by 6:00. Dad just woke me on his way out, and Torvill, Dean, and Dorothy want their breakfasts. Mom is at the radio station to do her morning forecasts. I’ve got to watch the kids for the next four hours, until Dad gets home. Three mornings a week—and whenever else he can find time—he drives to an arena that is open year-round for serious figure skaters. He has a Russian coach named Ludmila, and he’s trying to get up to speed so he can go on some Masters of Skating tour.
“Come on, you guys,” I say, “don’t you want to go back to bed? I think it’s raining. Isn’t it raining?”
I glance at Dorothy, who is sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, making a perfect, tall stack of plastic containers, in descending size. She’ll be an engineer. She’s brilliant and scientific that way.
Torvill runs over to the window. “It’s sunny, it’s sunny, it’s sunny!”
“Then why do I hear water?” I ask.
“We were running water in the sink,” Dean says. “Dad said to wash our hands.”
I look at the kitchen sink, which is about to overflow. I rush over and turn it off, then pull the drain stopper free.
“Yogurt, yogurt, yogurt!” Torvill sings.
I rub my eyes as I look at her. Is it my imagination, or is her pink Barbie sleepwear suddenly a size too small for her?
Dean starts kicking the refrigerator. He wants to be a kickboxer, and thinks he should practice on every household item and anyone who’s standing nearby.
I move Dean aside and get out the milk, yogurt, cereal, and fruit snacks. There’s a note from Mom on the counter: “Peggy—Pears in Fridge, Please Use Up.”
Like I want some aging, moldy pears for breakfast. They’re not good enough for anyone else to use up, but they’re okay for me? Or does she mean I should foist them on to the kids? It’s unclear, like most of her early-morning notes. I want French toast, not pears. I want Eggs Benedict brought to me in bed, on a tray. In a fancy hotel. In a large city.
But no. I’ve got moldy pears and kids throwing cereal at me. And it’s another fragrant Lindville morning.
We never should have traveled so much when I was young, because it makes me want more things than Lindville has. When I was born, my father was still competing as an amateur. But after he came in 4th at Nationals and then 8th and then 16th, he realized he was in a very bad trend, which could only eventually lead to 32nd, 64th and 128th. Not that they let that many skaters compete at Nationals, but you get the gist.
He had this move he created, called the Farrell Flip, where he held his hands a certain way on his hips when he did a flip jump. But it never really caught on the way the Salchow and the Axel did. He was never successful enough to end up on a cereal box, is what it boils down to.
So he decided to give up his Olympic dream and join an ice show. Starting from when I was two, we were on the road all the time, going from city to city, which might sound hard, but it was great. I met lots of people with really extreme makeup back then. I was only a toddler, so it couldn’t have influenced me that much, but who knows? Maybe that’s why I have such an aversion to eye shadow, and why I love staying in hotels and visiting new places. And why I hate being stuck in one place year after year.
When Dad got tired of skating in sweltering costumes, sometimes playing to big crowds, sometimes playing to empty rinks, occasionally
crashing into the boards when he couldn’t see out of his eyeholes, it was time for me to start school. We moved here because they both found jobs and we’re close to my grandparents. But Dad still dreams of hearing Dick Button, former Olympic champion and a skating commentator for many years, talk about his marvelous power and spark and grace on the ice. I’m not sure Dick Button ever said anything about Dad. I think it’s something he may have fantasized about, the way he decided certain skating judges conspired to keep him out of international competition.
Torvill insists on three pieces of toast, while Dean only eats things that are grape. All they want to talk about is their fifth birthday party, which is still an entire month away. It’s right at the end of Rodeo Days, and Dean wants to have the party at the rodeo, with both a magician and a bucking bronco ride; Torvill wants to have a clown, pony rides, and a pizza party at Smiley’s Pizza. They won’t stop arguing, but at least Dean isn’t kicking anything.
Dorothy sits quietly, ignoring them, and makes a giant stack of Cheerios that could win a record for tallest cereal tower ever. She eats the Cheerios that don’t make it onto the tower.
The pears will have to wait.
I’d rather take the kids to IHOP, but I tried that once, a few months ago; it not only didn’t work, it was the most stressful forty-five minutes of my entire life, especially when the roving balloon artist was making a rabbit and Dean reached up and popped the balloon with his fork.
Fortunately, Steve wasn’t there to observe my hair with blueberry syrup and bacon toppings.
Steve. IHOP. Suddenly I remember what I’ve been trying to forget: Steve and that hostess. I push the thought away again. I can’t think about that now. I’m pretending it didn’t happen.
I toast myself a bagel, sit down at the table with the kids, and take the rubber band off the Lindville Gazette. Every article on the front page somehow relates to the upcoming Rodeo Roundup Days. The only front-page story not about the rodeo is about a gas-station robbery.
Unforgettable Summer Page 20