Water Balloon (3 page)

Why am I thinking about Elsie Jenkins, tan-windbreaker loner girl? Could it be because I'm sitting on a boat, participating in the silent holding of a fishing rod with my dad, my who-cares-what-Marley-wants-to-do dad, with no friends in sight for what feels like fourteen hours?

There has never, in the history of modern civilization, been a morning with more time in it.

I don't catch anything.

By the time we're done, Dad catches two fish. He throws them back.

Yeah, that was worthwhile.

I think about an endless span of days, of living with Dad and the monotony of watching some little kid. A whole summer of days as long and boring as this one. I want to jump into the lake and swim away, swim into a perfect summer.

When we get back to Dad's, I let him unload everything from the truck into his garage and I run into the house. I feel all fishy and I want to shower before Leah and Jane get here.

I'm about to call Jane to find out what time they're coming, but there's a message from Leah. "Marley? Listen, I'm really sorry, but I don't think we're going to be able to come over today. OH! My God. We got all this prep work we have to do before the first class. I didn't know there'd be, like,
homework.
Anyway, we're working in groups, and Jane and me—listen, I'll just call you later and explain, okay? I hope you're having fun."

Oh, yes. I'm having a great time. Woo. Hoo.

I call Mom's cell phone. She has to fix this. I don't care if she's on a mini-vacation, visiting with friends or whatever. She has to make this better. I leave a message, ask her to call me as soon as she can.

Dad calls in from the garage, "A little help?" I go in the bathroom, pretend I didn't hear him. Wasn't fishing his idea? Let him put away all his own stuff in his own stupid way. There's never been a more this-goes-here-and-that-goes-there kind of person than Robert Baird.

After my shower, I can't find a place for myself. At home, I have my spots—the throw rug on my bedroom floor, my chair at the kitchen table, the love seat in the den. I take my book and try the living room couch. It's kind of hard, not inviting. I sit on a stool at the kitchen counter and open my book, but after two pages, I'm up and looking for a new spot, feeling a little Goldilocks-y.

"Hey, Marley," my dad calls from his room. "I need to go through some of these boxes. Would you give me a hand?"

I walk out the kitchen door into the backyard. I head through the weedy grass and sit under a big tree toward the back with my book until it gets too dark to read. I'm not entirely proud of myself.

***

The next morning I'm up very early, and I have that same confused feeling of wondering where I am, and then there's Rig, with his big head just resting on my bed. My bed at Dad's.

Why didn't Mom call back last night? Now I'm stuck for today. I have to babysit.

And Leah never called back.

Jane didn't call.

Yay.

Rig leads me to the door. At home, there's a back door that I think of as Rig's door. When he has to go out, he sits there, patiently. When we're not in the room, he stands there, and he has this very soft, I-don't-mean-to-be-rude-or-interrupt "Ruh" he uses to get our attention. His language is all
Ruh
all the time, but it's always been clear to me what he's trying to say. I am fluent in Rigspeak. Poor Rig! We haven't even taken the time to show him what to do here. He doesn't know where to "Ruh."

"Hang on a sec," I whisper to him. He looks at me, then sits.

On top of my little duffle bag, Dad left me a new shirt last night, a present. A Yankees shirt. I recognize this—it's a gesture. It's how my family speaks. Dad is telling me something. It means something like
I know I do things that drive you crazy, but I'm glad you're here.
I'm about to dig out something more normal when Rig whimpers, reminding me that he's waiting, that a doggy bladder cannot just pass the time while a frivolous girl seeks out suitably cool clothes. I reach into the big duffle and pull out shorts and pull them on along with the navy blue shirt with the white entwined
NY.

I lead Rig through the kitchen and out the back door. He's the kind of dog that would never take off, even if a gang of gorgeous golden retrievers was strolling down the street with trays of bacon strapped on their backs. So I let him explore, and I look around. The grass is still dewy this early, but what is really amazing are the clumps of dandelions. Usually there aren't so many this time of year. For whatever reason, there are dandelions at all different stages of life—yellow flowers, puffy white globes, some closed tight, others looking ready to spread their seed at the first wind—in small clusters all over the lawn.

When people describe flowers, they use lovely adjectives—
delicate, fragrant, elegant.
A dandelion is its own thing: bright and resilient. I start to gather the yellow ones, collecting a bouquet. I try to pull them out the way Dad taught me to, reaching down deep for the roots, but they break at the stem.

Sometimes I imagine a different world where people love dandelions and jump up and down, slapping high-fives with their neighbors each time one shows up. They'd be reeling from the wonder of it all—this cheerful yellow bud that just appears without even having to plant it. (What? It's a fantasy. Are all your fantasies totally normal?)

Rig, on the other side of the bushes, lets out a single "Ruh." It sounds like his
Hi, friend
bark, louder than his
I have to pee
bark, somehow friendlier. I wonder if he's found a new squirrel friend. He's quiet after the one "Ruh," so I turn my attention back to the lawn.

I walk all over and find some long grasses and goldenrod and a few little white clover flowers. I line the dandelions in a neat row and trim the bottoms with my fingernails so they're even. I tuck goldenrod and clover between the stems, wrap the grass around the bundle three times, then tie a perfect knot in the middle.

I'm starting a second one when I hear a guy's voice. "Hello? Does this dog have a person?" I follow the voice around to the other side of the hedge, and I see the guy—around my age. He's playing with Rig exactly the way Dad does, pretending to slap the side of Rig's mouth. Rig's doing his chimpanzee imitation. Are all males programmed to play with dogs a certain way?

I always have a hard time talking to new people. It's especially lame being me because my dad is always looking to introduce himself to strangers everyplace he goes. If you could think of a quality in a parent most likely to embarrass a child, I'm pretty sure this is it. Walking down a beach—on vacation!—he's all,
Hey, how you doing? Gorgeous day! Love your umbrella. Great boogie board!
I have been known to pray for quicksand.

"Hi," I say now, aware of how unnatural I sound. Rig, as though he's been busted
(Oh no! Marley caught me playing with a stranger!),
drops into a perfect obedience school sit.

"Oh, hey," the guy says. When he looks up I can see below his baseball cap that he has smart eyes, a strange light blue. "I'm Jack. I live here." He motions with his chin to the small brown house diagonally across from my dad's. The corners of the two backyards touch. "This dog's yours?"

"Yeah. This is Rig. Well, his real name is Gehrig."

"Gehrig like Lou Gehrig?"

"Exactly," I say.

He looks at my Yankees shirt and grins, which makes his eyes nearly disappear into little slits. He has a long, narrow dimple, like an innie belly button, in his left cheek. "You a Yankees fan?"

"Sure am." I can't believe I said that out loud. I know a lot about the Yankees, but I am quite sure I cannot honestly call myself a fan. I can't figure out a way to unsay it. "I'm Marley," I say. At least that's true.

"Ha—like that dog movie?"

How original. "No, like Marley Baird."

"Your dad's Mr. Baird?"

"Mr. Baird? Robert Baird, yeah. I'm staying with him."

"He teaches at my school."

"You go to Little Valley?"

"Yup. How 'bout you?"

"I'm at Hills East."

"Cool," Jack says.

I nod.

He nods back, eyebrows up.

I nod again.

"This," Jack says, saving us from another round of nodding, "is one great dog." Rig is sitting right in front of Jack, gazing up into his face, like they've known each other forever. Jack rubs each of Rig's ears and then reaches down and picks up a long black vinyl bag. "First day of baseball camp," he says, pointing with his chin, possibly in the general direction of the park. "I'm going early." He seems embarrassed. "You here for the day?"

"No, the whole summer."

"Cool. You just hanging out?"

"No, I'm working. Babysitting some little kid."

"Well," Jack says, lifting his bag up onto his shoulder. "Have fun." He sets off down the street, his bag swinging and hitting him on the shins with every other step, the sound the same as Rig's happy sound:
thump thump thump.

***

When Dad comes into the kitchen, he finds orange juice already poured into the cups and a fresh dandelion bundle on a napkin on his plate. It's a gesture. As Mom would say, I'm making an effort.

Dad glances at the arrangement on his plate and shakes his head, a smile on his face.

"It does look pretty," he says, surprised.

"How come you have so many? Your lawn is, like, covered."

"I wouldn't say it's covered. The landlord lowered the rent because I'm going to tend to the lawn myself. It's just that I wasn't here in April."

"April?" In April he was still in his old new place.

"Dandelion season. I figured a dandelion lover such as yourself would know that."

"So if April is dandelion season, why is your lawn covered with dandelions in July?"

"It's
not
covered, but it's because I wasn't here to get rid of them when they started. If you don't catch the problem when it starts, you're out of luck. Once they turn to seed, that seed spreads all over the yard, and, well, you know how it goes. I will get to it, but in case you haven't noticed, you are looking at a new me, Marley. A more relaxed me. I will get to the weeds when I have the time to do so properly." He examines his bundle. "You didn't pull it out at the root?"

Some
new him,
uptight about the roots. I shrug. "Not really. I wasn't weeding, just picking flowers."

"They're not flowers, Marley. They're weeds."

"To you," I say. "Mom didn't call last night?"

"Hmm?" He's inspecting a fleck of something on the jelly jar lid. "Oh, yes. You were sleeping."

"You should have gotten me up. I really wanted to talk to her."

He scratches at it with his nail until it comes off. "I thought you were exhausted, so I let you sleep." He places the fleck in the center of his napkin, then folds the napkin in quarters.

Yeah, new him. Right.

It's good that he's trying to change, I guess, but couldn't he have tried to new-him himself a year ago? A few years ago? First he had to walk away from our Perfectly Good Life and leave me in this awful two-homes, half-Marley-here/ half-Marley-there limbo?

We eat quietly and quickly. Dad brings his plate and cup to the dishwasher and loads them. From the hall he says, "We have to be out of here in ten minutes. You'll be ready?" I hear him close the bathroom door.

When I was really little, Mom liked to sleep late on weekend mornings, and my dad would make a big deal about it. He'd remind me to stay quiet, make it feel like it was something big and wonderful we were doing for my mom. He'd bring me in the bathroom while he shaved. I watched him closely. He rinsed out the sink—thoroughly—every few seconds. One day, he put a pile of shaving cream on the counter next to the sink. "Play," he said. The whole time he shaved, I got to finger-paint with this big mound of shaving cream. It became a weekend tradition. Even then, I totally understood that this was wildly unlike him, that he was always neat, neat, neat and that one does not play with soaps or shaving creams. It was our little weekend secret, a different side of Dad that was all mine.

***

He pulls his truck into what must be the Krolls' driveway. There are two bikes with training wheels, a red one piled on a pink one, in front of closed garage doors. The house is white with black shutters. Two shutters are missing.

I climb out and close the door, and at the sound, I hear the bark of a big dog. Dad says I can't bring Rig. He says I need to just concentrate on getting to know the Krolls, finding out how I can be most helpful. So, okay. One day. I can do anything for one day. I survived fishing, right? Mom will find a way to fix this later.

The screen door in front of the house opens and a woman steps out holding a baby. She's not cradling the baby in her arms. The baby's back is against the woman's stomach and chest, and it seems like the woman's hands are pushing hard against its belly. I didn't picture a baby. A baby! A tiny, totally breakable baby. I don't know how to change diapers. Or how to know when a baby's hungry. I don't even know how to hold a baby—I'd definitely be holding that kid the exact opposite way from how the mom is.

"Robert," the baby's mother says to my dad in a friendly voice. "And you must be Marley."

Her face is so kind. She smiles at me, and there it is again! I have to fight tears. What kind of person gets weepy at a stranger's smile?

I look down at my feet and urge them to walk up the steps. Deep breath. "Hi, Mrs. Kroll."

"Please call me Lynne. So, what has your father told you about us?" she asks, half laughing.

I feel the vibrations of my dad
kalumping
up the stairs behind me. "Not much, Lynne," he says. "Just that she's here to help you."

"Let's have a seat, while it's still quiet. The girls are watching TV."

Girls! Plural?
S?
And a baby? I turn and glare at my dad, but he's looking straight ahead.

My dad sits on my right; Lynne is on my left. I feel like I'm in the principal's office, even though my father is the one who did something wrong.