by Zoe Fishman
“So think about it. It would be nice if you came along.” He patted me on the back and left the room.
Outside, I retrieved my bike in a haze of anxious fog. This was serious. I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t warn David because he didn’t know I knew. And besides, how could this be fixed? Was he going to pretend to be on the team? Suit up and then kind of linger off to the side like some kind of creepy fan? And wait—this meant that he was actually planning to pretend to go to Atlanta, so as not to tip off my parents. What was with him? Why go to all of this trouble? Unless, of course, the rumor was completely untrue and I was the gullible jerk who believed it—and wanted to believe it. Was I really a sister so desperate for her brother to screw up that she mistook hearsay for truth and gave herself an ulcer in the process?
I pedaled slowly. The road shimmered ahead of me. Should I just confront David and get it over with? That way, if it was true, he had time to try to forge some sort of game plan, and if it wasn’t true, I was just casually mentioning a rumor that I had heard. Yeah, that was the way to face it—as casually as possible. I made a left and soon was sailing down the hill that led to the pool. I closed my eyes and tried to appreciate the wind on my face.
“Ruthie!” yelled Jason from inside the snack bar as I parked. “You ready to pull double duty today?”
“Whaddya mean?” I asked as I walked in.
“Your jackass brother took off for a soccer game in Atlanta and left us high and dry. On the biggest day of the summer no less.”
“What?”
“He took off for a soccer game.”
“But it’s not until Saturday! Today is Thursday.” Never mind the fact that he doesn’t even play for the team—that he doesn’t even go to the damn school. Ruth, quit jumping to conclusions. Stay calm.
“All I know is, he said he wanted to leave today, so he left.”
I threw my backpack behind the snack bar and collapsed into the white plastic chair while Jason opened the fridge and did a quick corndog tally. “We should be okay on food today. I did a huge shop this morning. Hey, who died? You’re lookin’ a little sour.”
“Just a shitty morning.” I sighed. “I’m not in the mood for this today. And how come I have to pull a double? It’s bullshit.”
“Join the freakin’ club, princess. You think I’m in the mood to deal with a hundred screaming kids and their parents?” He pointed to his truck, which was parked in the back. “That oughta cheer you up. You know what’s fillin’ up that bed?”
“What?”
“Watermelons! We’re gonna grease ’em up and do that relay race we did last year.”
“Great, I can’t wait.”
“Buck up, Wasserman, I mean it. You’re gonna look back on these summers when you’re old and creaky and realize that this was the good life.”
“Don’t we need to hang some dumb American flags or something?” I rifled through my bag for a cigarette.
“Hey there, watch yer mouth. Ain’t nothin’ dumb about that flag. Man, I love that song—how does it go? I’m proud to be an American—”
“Where at least I know I’m free,” I chimed in flatly.
“And I won’t forget the men who diedddddddddd—”
I lit my cigarette and blew smoke in his face.
“Real nice, Ruth. You’re just way too cool for school, ain’tcha?” He took it out of my hand and crushed it beneath his sneaker. “This is a no smoking area. Let’s go check the chlorine.” I sulked as I flip-flopped along behind him, straightening the plastic lounge chairs as I went. He knelt down to fill the plastic vial with water.
“It’s hot as hell already,” he said. “Damn.”
“Hey, do you think David’s been a little weird this summer?” I asked.
“Weird how?”
“I dunno, weird as in not his usual self. Sorta quiet.”
“Yeah, I guess so, now that you mention it.” He held the vial up to check the level. “Perfect.”
“Has he said anything to you at all?”
“Has he said anything to me about bein’ quiet? Ain’t that an oxymoron, Ruthie?” I rolled my eyes. “Why, you worried about him?”
“No! Not worried. Just curious.” It was obvious Jason knew nothing.
“Hey!” called Dana from the parking lot, interrupting the conversation.
“Dana!” he yelled back. “Get yer ass down here and lube up some watermelons!”
I blew my whistle. “No running!”
The kids were like feral cats today—screaming like banshees, jumping off every raised surface, shoving food in their faces at every opportunity, peeing in the pool. It was off the charts.
All the while I couldn’t get my mind off the whole exhibition game mishigas. Not only was David lying to my parents about school, but he was lying to everyone else as well. Me, Jason, and who knows who else. Leaving early to play for an imaginary soccer team at an imaginary college where he was imaginary enrolled? I was so confused. Where was he?
“Yo, Ruth, I’m here to relieve you.”
I jumped, startled by Kevin’s voice below me. “Oh, sorry. This heat has melted my brain.” I scooted over and kept my eyes on the pool as he climbed up.
“Hey, are we okay?” he asked. I looked up as my feet hit the pavement.
“Huh?”
“I just feel like you’ve been pretty frigid to me since our argument.” His eyes were obscured by his mirrored sunglasses. My own face stared back at me.
“Yeah, well, you know. I don’t agree with what you said.” I scratched a mosquito bite on the top of my left foot with my right.
“I get that. I’m sorry I said it.” He raised the umbrella slightly. “That’s not how I feel all the time.”
“Yeah. I guess the way I see it is that if that word is even in your vocabulary, it’s the way you feel most of the time.”
“Can we just agree to disagree and go back to the way things were?”
“Could you at least try to open your mind, Kevin? Just a little?”
“Deal.”
“Okay, deal.” I smiled at him. I knew that our conversation would most likely have no effect on him, but just to be speaking about it seemed hopeful enough.
“When’s the pizza comin’?” I asked Dana back at the concession stand. I filled up my water bottle and eyed the card tables decorated with American flag paper tablecloths, napkins, and plastic utensils.
“In about a half-hour,” she answered, yawning. “I am starvin’.”
I was too, but I didn’t know what I was going to eat. I could scrape all the toppings off the pizza and just eat the bread. That would kill two birds with one stone—hunger and the prying eyes of the pool’s concerned citizen brigade. Strategizing every meal was exhausting. It was like a culinary game of “Survivor,” only I was the solitary contestant.
“Ruth?” I turned to find Khaki holding up a plastic water bottle. “Could I get a refill, please?”
“Of course.” I took her bottle from her. “Hey, Khaki, you look great.” She had lost weight, but I hadn’t been able to see it until now. The bones in her face had started to emerge. No longer round, her face was more like a small, freckled heart.
“I ran this morning,” she whispered, glancing nervously at Dana, who was texting furiously on her BlackBerry.
“You did?” I came out from behind the desk and hugged her. “That’s amazing! How did it feel?”
“Awful.” She sighed. “Well, just at first it was awful. It got a little bit better after a couple minutes or so.”
“Seriously? I am so proud of you. Running on your own? That is badass.”
Her eyes widened at my curse. “Thanks, Ruth.” She glanced over at the food table. “I’m gonna have some pizza later. Just a slice or two. Because I ran and stuff.” She looked up at me. “I can, right? That’s the moderati
on thing you were talking about?”
“It is. And of course you can. You’ve earned it.”
“Ruth!” We looked up, startled. It was Laney. “Ruth, did you see Miss Khaki today? Doesn’t she look wonderful?” She kneeled down and gave her daughter a peck on the cheek. “I mean, we are on our way to bein’ a supermodel, aren’t we, Khak?” Khaki gazed at the concrete. “Ruth, we could not be more pleased. Thank you for all of the work you’ve been puttin’ in. Khaki just adores you.” She paused. “Isn’t that right, sweetie? You love Miss Ruth.” Khaki nodded dejectedly.
“Oh, I didn’t do anything. It’s all Khaki. She a strong girl. I’m really proud of her.” I took her hand and squeezed.
“Khaki, now you know Mama’s got some vegetable slices all crisp and ready for you in the cooler. We’ll have some of that instead of that nasty pizza, mmkay?” She smoothed Khaki’s hair.
“Hey, can I steal your daughter for a sec? Just to talk?”
“Sure you can. Y’all have fun. Khaki, when you’re finished, I’ll be at our table settin’ up lunch.” Khaki nodded dejectedly.
We sat on the grass a few feet away from the entrance. “So,” I said.
“So,” she replied, picking at her purple toenail polish.
“Veggie slices, huh?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Did you tell your mom that you ran today?”
“Yeah, she doesn’t care.”
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me.”
“Well, she should. You can’t deny yourself all of the time. If you do, you’ll break and eat your way through ten pizzas.”
“Ten?”
“Okay, ten is an exaggeration.”
“Do you eat pizza?” she asked accusingly.
“Well, I—”
“Mmm hmmm. I thought so.”
“Khaki, I want to tell you something. You think I’m skinny and I’ve got it all figured out, right?”
“You just said you did. Moderation, you said.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “The moderation thing is true, but I—I’ve kind of lost my way a little, I think.” I’d barely admitted this to myself, and here I was talking to a nine-year-old like she was my shrink.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I just sort of wish that someone had been honest with me about the healthy way to lose or maintain weight when I was your age. I mean, I’ve told you that I’ve basically been on a diet myself since kindergarten.”
“Like me.”
“Yes, exactly like you. Except you’re smarter than I was.” She smiled.
“No one ever really taught me to be smart about food. I think in a lot of ways my mom was just as unhelpful as yours is with you. It’s not their fault really—it comes from a place of love and concern, I think—but it’s bad news to teach you an all-or-nothing attitude. It’s not a fun way to live, and in the long run it does more damage than good.”
“But how? You look great. You’re skinny, and everyone thinks you’re pretty. That doesn’t sound too bad to me.”
“Khaki, you know when you’re scared of, say, dogs or thunder?”
“Or snakes?”
“Yeah, or snakes. Well, that’s how I feel about food most of the time.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. I’m scared of food. I can save a drowning kid, but I can’t eat a bite of mashed potatoes because I’m scared that I’ll gain weight. It’s sad, and it’s not a healthy way to live. I know that, rationally, but once you form a habit, it’s hard to break.”
“Like my mom. She smokes cigarettes, but she thinks no one knows. She hides behind the shed in the backyard.”
“Exactly like that.” I swallowed my tears. “I don’t want you to live like that. I want you to have a piece of pizza when you feel like it. Does that make sense?”
“How come you’re tellin’ me to listen to this, but you won’t listen yourself?”
“Your mom tells you not to smoke, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But she still does, right?” Khaki nodded.
“I guess it’s sort of like that. But I’m gonna try to be better, to moderate. Maybe we could both try it together.”
“But you’re leaving soon, to go back to Michigan. How can we do it together if you’re not here?”
“Email, duh.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” I stood and reached down to help her up. “And I’ll talk to your mom too, okay?”
“She’s not gonna like it,” she replied as I pulled her to her feet.
“Yeah, I know. But we’re in this together now.”
Was I going to face this problem? Finally, I’d admitted out loud that it was a problem. Yes, it had been to a nine-year-old, but still. It was a start.
I sat on the deck watching Jason and Dana preside over the watermelon relay. The goal was to swim a length of the pool with a slippery watermelon in tow. Shrieks of laughter and whistle blows filled the air as the glistening fruit refused to cooperate. Should I call David? I could keep my mouth shut and hope for the best—the best being David playing in the game and no one the wiser about the rumor and my subsequent awfulness. Or I could take a risk and warn him ahead of time. My phone weighed heavily in the pocket of my shorts. Could I pull it off in a text?
I pulled it out and flipped it open and shut, and open again, debating. I had to do it. The trick was how. Just do it, Ruth. He probably won’t even respond. My heart raced.
Where ru?
I typed. I laid the phone on my lap and took a deep breath. The watermelon relay continued. Khaki and her mother swam beside each other, laughing, trying to contain the fruit between them. I smiled, surprised.
Msspi. Why?
I felt like I was going to puke. What now?
U sure?
My sticky palms smeared the phone’s keypad.
What?
Are you sure ur in Msspi?
Ruth, what the hell?
That was when I knew that he wasn’t. My stomach dropped.
Pls call me.
I stood up, my heart pounding in my ears.
“Ruth, where you goin’?” yelled Jason from the other side of the pool. “We’re about to play Sharks ’n’ Minnows!”
“I’ll be right back,” I replied. I made my way to the pump room behind the pool. Inside the tiny concrete room, the pump chugged and whirled. My phone vibrated again. David was calling. I closed the door behind me.
“Hi.”
“Ruth, what’s happening?”
“David. Did you drop out of school?” Silence. “David?”
“Why are you asking me this?” he asked softly. I had expected him to be angry and defensive, but instead he just sounded sad and tired.
“I heard a rumor.”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
“Yeah, what?”
“I stopped going last semester.”
“But I don’t understand. Why?”
“A lotta reasons, I guess.”
“But why didn’t you tell Mom and Dad? Why are you still pretending to go there? Why are you still pretending to play soccer?” I was crying.
“I just—I just didn’t know what else to do. I knew they would kill me, you know? I figured I’d stay in Atlanta until I figured out a plan.” I heard the flick of a lighter and then a sharp inhale. “But then I really wanted to come home for the summer and work at the pool. I love that dumb place. I thought not doing that would be more suspicious, I guess. They would’ve wanted to come visit me here. Jesus, Ruth, are you crying?”
“No,” I sniffled. “David, where did you live last semester? How did you make everything up? Your report card and stuff?”
“Ruth, I know it’s fucked up. I’m fucked up right now, okay?”
“
I mean, you’re pretending to be in Atlanta right now, playing soccer. You’re not even on the team. And they’re coming down there to surprise you—”
“Wait, what?”
“That’s why I texted you. Mom and Dad are coming! They want to surprise you at the game.”
“Shit. Shitfuckshit.”
“What are you gonna do? Where are you anyway?”
“When were they gonna leave? Saturday morning?”
“Yeah.” We sat in silence. The pump heaved beside me.
“Well, I’m gonna have to tell ’em.” He sighed. “Had to come out sometime, I guess.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the beach.” I sighed deeply. “Listen, I’m gonna come home tomorrow afternoon and tell them. I need you to not say anything before then, okay?”
“Great, another secret to keep for you.”
“Ruth, please. I’m begging you here.”
“Okay,” I mumbled. “But you will come home, right? You will tell them?”
“I will. I swear.”
“Okay.”
“Ruth?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. I—I owe you.”
“Yeah, I know you do.” Again.
I hung up.
24
“Looks like she’s on safe and sound,” said Dr. Cooper. He fidgeted with the temporary crown that was now adhered to my throbbing gum. My entire mouth was numb, and my head felt like a balloon. I’d had three cavities filled and a root canal in less than two hours. I would never pass a road construction crew again without wincing in pain.
“You okay, Ruth?”
I nodded.
“Now, you’re gonna have some pain when the novocaine wears off, no question about it. You make sure your mama has some ibuprofen handy.” Great, no fun drugs.
“How you gettin’ home?”
“I drove,” I answered. My voice bore an uncanny resemblance to Charlie Brown’s teacher.
“Honey, you’re not drivin’ anywhere. Why don’t you call somebody to come get you?”
“But what about my car?”
“It’ll be fine here till mornin’, when you or your folks can come retrieve it.” He patted my hand. “You take as long as you like arrangin’ your ride home. I’ll see you in a week for the rest of the work.”