Water Balloon (22 page)

"I'm not," I say. I mean it. And I think about how Jack's family doesn't seem perfect to him, even though both parents are there. Even though they live in one home and he's not constantly shuttling back and forth. I wonder if anyone's family feels perfect. Mine was for a long time. And I didn't even know it.

When we finally reach Penn Station, we walk its long, grand hallways. There are groups of kids a little older than us, with big backpacks, leaning against the wall. I'll bet their fathers aren't waiting at home, watching the clock until it's time to meet them at a train.

Jack guides me to a long line. "I've got this." He buys my ticket and hands it to me.

We ride the train, and mostly just relive the day. At one point he puts a soda bottle cap on my head and waits for me to notice.

When we get off the train, Dad's there to take us home. We say good night in front of my house, and I watch as Jack walks by the stacks of deteriorating cartons that contain my dad's old life, still piled up at the curb.

It rains most of the next week, and the twins and I are going more and more bonkers each day. We watch every Disney video at least three times. I swat away little cartoon bluebirds that seem to circle my head.

When the sun shines Thursday morning, I'm so grateful, I feel like shouting praises up toward heaven. Lynne helps me make a picnic lunch for the girls, and we pack it, along with their training-wheeled bikes, into the car.

"I do not need training wheels," Faith says.

"We know, Faith," Lynne says.

"Well, kwee just bring that tool that takes them off so I can just try? I just want to try."

Lynne looks at Grace.

"I could try too."

"Are you ready?"

"I don't know. I could try."

Lynne shows me how to take off the training wheels. "I'll put a screwdriver in the cooler and you should have no problem." She reaches into her trunk and pulls out a white case with a red cross on the front. "Take this first-aid kit just in case," she says.

On the bike path at the park, the girls ride with their training wheels on for less than a minute before Faith is begging me to take the wheels off.

"Mine too!" Grace says.

"I can't teach you both at once. We're going to have to take turns." I have an image of the first time I did this, my dad holding on to the back of my bike, running along with me. This is one of those things you're supposed to do with your father. Or at least your mother. Why hasn't their mother taught them? Poor Faith and Grace are stuck with me.

There must be a right way to do this. "Listen," I say. "I'm only going to take them off one bike. You guys are both sharing both bikes."

"We don't share good," Faith says.

"If you want to learn this today, you have to share well."

"You mean we both ride each other's bikes sometimes?" Grace asks.

"Exactly."

"That's okay with me," Grace says.

"Well, not me," Faith says.

"I'm going to take the training wheels off one bike. Grace's bike. Your bike will still have training wheels. If you want to learn to ride a two-wheeler today, it's going to be on Grace's bike. Then, when I'm teaching Grace, you can ride your own bike, which will have training wheels on it."

Faith walks into the playground and marches up a wooden seesaw. She stands in the middle, seeking balance, one foot on each side. Then she sits.

"What's she doing, Marley?" Grace asks as I start to take the training wheels off her bike.

"Thinking."

Faith comes running back. "Okay," she says.

"Okay," I say.

"Okay," Grace says. They stand there as I struggle with the screwdriver and training wheels.

Finally! "Let's go," I say.

Grace rides Faith's bike and I walk the two-wheeler over to the bike path. I check to be sure Faith's helmet is on the right way. It is. "Climb aboard," I say.

She does.

"Okay, Faith," I say, stalling for time. "Wait, Grace, you ride ahead a little bit, so you guys don't get in each other's way. Okay. Good. Now, Faith, here's what we're going to do. I'll hold on to the back of your bike, and maybe the handlebars too, and you're going to ride. You need to look straight ahead, not right down at the path, and you need to pedal, and not freak out."

"Marley, I can do it. Don't hold on. I can do it by myself."

"No, I need to—"

And she takes off before I can finish. She wobbles then straightens and then tumbles in a heap to the ground, her bike on top of her. She wails. It takes all of two seconds for her to go from riding to tumbling to screaming and crying. Grace climbs off her bike and beats me to Faith by a second.

I pull the bicycle off Faith and pull her up to a sitting position. "Are you okay?"

"Nooooooo!!!"

"What hurts?"

Faith looks at me, and I realize it's the first time I've seen her cry. It has always been Grace. "I hurt my knee! I hurt my—It's BLEEDING! Marley, my knee is bleeding!"

"It's okay, Faith. We'll put a bandage on it and it'll be fine. Don't freak out."

I remember some things from being five, and one of them is that as soon as I saw that blood was dripping, I'd freak out. Fast bandage application is essential. "Grace, can you get me that backpack, please?" She races over to the bench and brings it to me. "Okay. Here's the first-aid kit. I'm going to just clean out—"

"No clean out! That stings! No way. NO!"

"Let me just see what..." I look through the box, but all that's there are wipes and bandages.

"We need to clean it, Faith, or it can get all disgusting and infected, and—"

"Nooooo!" she shrieks.

"Are you okay?" Jack. Jack's voice. Jack?

"Marley, it's your brother," Grace says.

"Brother Jack, at your service," he says. "Can I see your knee?" he asks Faith. She's still crying hard.

"No wipes!" she screams. "No sting wipes!"

"I don't like sting wipes either," Jack says.

"Me too," Faith says. She's still crying, but not as hard.

In a stage whisper he asks me, "Did you tell them I was your brother?"

I widen my eyes with a held-in grin. "Um, no."

He's reaching around inside his gym bag, opening something and pouring it. "Here. This," he says, "is water. It is not a stinging wipe. It is water on a paper towel." He hands it to me. I put it on her knee before she can object. "Marley's just going to put it on your knee for a second."

She nods, a sad little nod of acceptance.

"How'd you know she was hurt?" I ask.

"We all heard her scream," Jack says. "I think people in South America may have heard her scream."

Faith smiles, a tiny bit, and says, "I scream good."

"Definitely," Jack says.

"I could sort of see you too. I was behind the backstop,c hasing fouled-off balls."

"Thank you so much."

He bows and takes a step backwards. "My great pleasure."

"Bye, Marley's brother," Grace says.

"Bye, Marley's brother," Faith says. "Thanks for not letting Marley sting my leg."

"See you later," I say.

He nods.

"Well, that was fun," I say.

"I'm ready," Grace says.

"For lunch?"

"My turn."

"To what?"

"To ride the bike with no training wheels."

"But," I start. Then I shut up. Because it's not easy to be brave, and she's being so brave. Not stupid. Just brave. Apparently there's a clear difference sometimes.

"Okay," I say, starting over. "Let's first eat a little snack so Faith's knee can get used to its new bandage and we can get some good riding energy here. After we've had a snack, it's your turn. Deal?"

"Deal. Hey, Marley?" Grace is tugging on my shorts.

"Yeah?"

"Knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

"Jack."

"Jack who?"

"Jack your brother!" Faith screams as she races to the bench.

"It's my joke!" Grace shouts after her.

"Jack who, Grace?" I say.

"Not Jack Whograce. Jack Who."

"Jack who?"

"Jack, a thin man just walked by." She smiles, proud.

"Good one." I smile back.

We sit on the benches, and I take out cookies and juice packs for all three of us. Faith has returned to her usual self. She's trying to take one of Grace's cookies, but Grace is having none of it. She wants to eat and get up on that bicycle.

"I'm ready, Marley."

"I need a couple more minutes, Grace. Just a few more. Hey, Faith, are you going to sit here while Grace practices or do you want to ride your bike?"

"I'll ride." She bites her cookie in half, then shoves the other half right in her mouth behind the first. "It's hard, you know, Grace. You're gonna fall and get hurt."

"Marley's brother'll help me."

"He's not my brother."

"Okay, your cousin."

"What? No. But
I'll
help you."

"'Kay. Thanks."

"Here's what we're going to do," I tell Grace as she climbs on the bike. "Let me see if your feet touch the ground. Good. Now you're going to sort of just scoot forward with your feet on the ground, and when you get going a little bit, put your feet on the pedals and start pedaling."

"Okay." She sits there for a while.

"Are you ready?"

"I'm ready in my head. I'm just scared to start."

"I know how that feels," I say. "But let's do it."

"Be careful, Grace," Faith says. "Just be careful."

"I'm ready." And we set off, slowly. It's hard to balance when you go slowly, so I start to push the bike a little. "Put your feet on the pedals," I say. "I'm holding on."

"I'm scared."

"I know," I say. "But I'm helping. Come on, I'll run with you. Just push, pedal!"

And she does. She begins to pedal, and she wobbles sharply, the bike almost falling. I hold on tight and help her straighten out the handlebars.

"Look straight ahead," I tell her, still holding on, running alongside, trying to help her hold her balance.

"Okay," she yells. "I'm scared."

And then I trip. I just go down right on my knee, feel the skin scrape. I scramble to my feet and chase after the bike, after Grace, but she's doing it, her little legs pumping hard. She's slowly wobbling her way down the path. By herself.

"Go, Grace!" Faith says.

She gets steadier as she goes.

"Stop now, Grace," I yell. She slows down, then puts her feet down. She steps off the bike, lays it on the grass alongside the path, and then starts jumping up and down, her arms over her head.

Faith comes over and asks, "Could I try again? It's Grace's bike and so I wasn't used to it but I could now. Could I? Now?"

"Of course. You'll get it this time. You're so close. Great job, Grace. You were awesome."

Before long, the training wheels are off both bikes. Faith and Grace are wobbling down the path on two wheels by themselves.

***

I can tell the storm is coming from the way the trees look. Branches are blowing; leaves look more silver than green, twisting in the wind, blowing upside down, then back. Gray clouds roll in and darken the sky with the kind of quiet stillness that fills a theater the instant before a show starts.

And it is then that I see Leah's pink and yellow bike snaking its way along the path. She's probably on her way home from flirting with Jack at the baseball field, racing to beat the storm. I start to sing under my breath that song from
The Wizard of Oz,
the one that plays as the evil Miss Gulch comes to take away Dorothy's beloved Toto.
Dunt da-dunt da DA da, dunt da-dunt da DA da!

She pulls up in front of me. "Hey, Marley."

"I'm Grace." She smiles sweetly at Leah.

"Are you Marley's friend?" Faith asks.

That was once the million-dollar question. It took some time, some painful time, but I finally know the answer. I do not like Leah. I do not trust her. And I'm going to try to do the right thing.

Leah ignores Faith. "So what are you up to?" she asks me. "Do you want to hang out or something?"

I think about Rig, how he kept walking by Beulah's house long after she was gone, still looking for his friend. Long after his friend was already gone. The rain begins to come down, and the drops are heavy, as if the rain's been waiting a long time to fall, the drops growing fatter all the time.

It's too hard to say
Our friendship is over
or even
We're
done,
so I use the words she and Jane kept saying to me, "I'm pretty busy, Leah."

Being alone in school will be really hard; it's almost impossible to think about. But being with Leah is even harder.

"Busy like for weeks busy? Come on, Marley. I'm sorry, okay? I'll be a better friend. Let's just get over it, okay?"

All those days of friendship add up to something big, something impossible to erase. Something that has come to its natural, if not altogether peaceful, end. I don't know how to say that, though.

Leah jumps on the silence like it's an opportunity. "Come on, Marley. Let's just hang and get back to normal. I've really missed you."

"I don't know, Leah. I think it's just time." As in
not enough time.
Also:
it's time.
People change, move on. We're not what we were.
And I do not trust you at all.

"Ugh," Leah says with a new variety of hair flip—the Leah Stamnick Hair Flip of Disgust and Frustration. "I wish I hadn't signed up for Curtain Call. It's so not what I thought it would be." I recognize something in her voice, and in her face. There's that about-to-cry-any-minute feeling that tormented me for months. It sucks to feel miserable. It's hard to see Leah like this. My brain keeps flashing images of second-grade Leah smiling at me with the love of pure friendship. Part of me wants to hug her. Just not the part in charge of actual body movements.

I hear the distant sound of rumbling thunder, the kind that tells sensible people to wrap up what they're doing and head indoors.

"You know what? Their mother is going to be here soon. Come on, Grace, Faith. Let's go wait for your mom in the parking lot."

"You're just leaving?"