Water Balloon (8 page)

"Whazat?" Oh, great. I'm talking like a twin.

"I didn't want to bug you. Were you guys doing something?"

I shake my head no.

"Do you want to take Rig for a walk or something?"

"That's exactly what I want to do," I say.

Jack nods. "Yes. I willed it to be."

"Is that face you were making a will-it-to-be face?"

He smiles. I realize then and there that the expression
weak in the knees
is an actual phenomenon.

I run back in to tell Dad where I'm going, all the while trying to name the weird feelings floating around my stomach and drifting up to my head. It's not that different from the way I feel at school when I have a crush on someone, always someone who has absolutely no idea, of course. But it
is
different. There's something that makes this more like its own flip side. Like instead of it being a mostly nervous, anxious feeling, this is closer to a slightly nervous, excited feeling.

As I step outside, Jack holds something up to show me. An old radio? "So we won't miss the game."

Game. The Yankees game. "Excellent," I say, feeling like a big liar. I could probably miss a season or two and not feel it too deeply.

"So," Jack says. "How was yesterday? Any easier? Or did you find out there's a high-maintenance python you need to take care of too?"

"No, just twins. I don't mean to make it sound like a tough job. I mean, it's not hard like you have to be smart or strong or anything like that."
Shut up, Marley.

A bizarre sound, like a coyote howl, distracts me.
Thank you, random coyote, for shutting me up.

"The Williamsons," Jack says. "They have this chow-shepherd mix. Look upstairs, middle window of the green house."

I see a dark nose pushed against the screen window. The howling continues, loud.

It's soon joined by a higher-pitched bark: "Arah-rah! Arah-rah! Arah-arah-rah!" On the front porch of the next house is a poofy gray dog, turning in circles and yipping at Rig. "Arah-rah! Arah-rah!" Turn. "Arah-arah-rah!" Turn the other way.

"Real dog neighborhood, huh?"

"Yeah."

"There aren't many dogs where my mom lives. Down the street, there used to be this big white boxer, Beulah. She was Rig's best friend."

Jack gives me a look.

"What? Dogs can have best friends. Whenever I walked by their house, Beulah's owner, this old woman, would ask if Rig could play for a while. He'd bound into their yard and Beulah and Rig would both get up on their hind legs to greet each other, and then play like wild things."

Usually I can't make myself talk to someone new. Today I can't get myself to shut up.

"Dog best friends," Jack says.

"Yeah, but it's so sad. Beulah moved. Over a year ago. Every time we pass that house, I mean, like, almost every day, Rig just sits and stares, like he's waiting for an invitation to the backyard. I grab his collar and try to pull him along, but he just looks toward the yard. I'm not making this up. He gets that mournful puppy-dog look. It could break your heart."

"That's pathetic. Here, come this way." He turns down a street, away from the park I thought we were headed toward. Rig, out ahead of us a little, does an excellent dog double take—looking first where we're headed and then turning to look at me. He trots to catch up. Halfway down the street Jack turns again, this time onto a path. "I take this shortcut to camp."

It's really lush and beautiful, enchanted-forest-like, with ferns growing everywhere and big trees that meet in gentle arches overhead. We're walking underneath a tunnel of branches with sunshine shafting down in unexpected pools of light, and I think of Hansel and Gretel.

"Will Rig take off after a rabbit?" Jack asks. "I sometimes see them back here."

"No, he'll be fine. Unless, of course, the rabbits hang out with flies. Then he'll do his stotal paz fly dance."

"Stotal paz?"

"Oh, it's something my friend Jane always says. Sort of the supersize version of a total spaz."

"Right. Is that who was at your house the other day? Jane?"

"Yeah, Jane and Leah. They're my best friends. Since, like, forever." My brain keeps going back to the memory of them yesterday with those other kids, drawn to it the way my index finger always seeks the slightly painful beginnings of a hangnail on my thumb.

"Hey, there's one," Jack says, pointing at a rabbit sitting on top of an old tree stump.

I watch Rig go through his rabbit-spotting routine. He freezes, like a rabbit himself, and watches. The rabbit seems to sense Rig's presence and also goes completely still. Rig's body is rigid, his ears all perked up, eyes wide open. He's panting, and his tail is pointing straight out behind him, wagging slowly. Then he takes onele ap—just one—toward the rabbit.

I always think that he's saying,
I could! I could chomp you with my big giant dog teeth! I could chase you! I could catch you! I could! Make sure you know that, rabbit! I could! I so could!

Then he looks at me and his body totally relaxes. The doggy equivalent of
Just kidding.
He goes back to sniffing along the path. Something stinky must have been along before us, because he is one enthusiastic sniffer today, reaching back into the ferns growing in the deep shade, pushing under tall, thick grasses, then sniffing up, up the trunks of trees.

"So work's okay?"

"Well, those two little girls are sort of awful to each other. I always thought there was something special, like almost magical, about a twin. I thought it would be like a real, true best friend."

"Like you and your friends?"

"Um, maybe not exactly. Or yeah, maybe. I'm not sure."

"That's exactly what Will was like," Jack says. "He moved right before school ended. When we were little, his family always used to call us the twins."

The path ends, and I see that we're near the soccer field at the park, the very one my team used to play on when I was younger. "I never knew there was a path back here."

"Ah, there is much you have not yet learned, my friend."

I get a little jolt at that word,
friend.

"You want to sit for a while?" Jack asks.

"Do you?" There is something so new here. It's like figuring out our own means of communication.

"We could keep walking."

"Sure."

Rig trots a little ahead so that we're following him again. "How long have you had Rig?"

"Since first grade."

"He's a great dog."

I know that this isn't just something he's saying; he gets it. When Leah and Jane come over, Rig runs over to greet them, barks his friendly "Ruh," with his tail wagging, and their hands go up around their faces, as far from him as they can possibly get. They don't hate him or anything. They just couldn't care less.

"Do you have a dog?" I ask. We're rounding the far side of the field, heading toward the playground and tennis courts that divide the soccer area from the baseball fields.

"We did for a while, but my brother took her with him when he moved out. She's a golden retriever: Scout. She comes over every once in a while, when my brother comes to visit. I miss her a lot. I really miss having a dog."

"Why'd she go with your brother? Was she his dog?"

"Not exactly. She was a great dog. To me. She sometimes bit people."

"Oh, that sucks. So how old's your brother?"

"Twenty."

"Are you close?"

"I don't know. We used to hang out a lot more, but he's been working really hard. You'd like him. A big fan. All year we save our money so we can buy a bunch of Yankees tickets the day they go on sale."

"So, Scout," I say. "Is that like a Boy Scout thing?"

"No, my mom named her for some girl in a movie.
To Kill a Mockingbird.
I sometimes think she wishes she had a daughter."

I'm about to tell him about Rig and the son my father never had, and maybe even clear up the big-time Yankee fan confusion. Something else gets my attention.

I spot Leah's pink and yellow bike. I lean all the way to my right, try to see behind her, to see if Jane's there too, with a posse of new friends. If anyone else is with Leah, they're following at a great distance. She rides down the path and stops right in front of me. "OH! My God! Marley! Fancy meeting you here."

"Hey, Leah. How's it going?"

"It's been an amazing week.
Amazing!
" Her eyes lock on Jack, look up, look down. She shakes out her hair, her gorgeous, wavy honey brown hair.

"I had no idea CC was going to be so intense. It's, like,
so
intense! This week? We were working on character study because next week we're going to audition? And so Jane and me were up until, like, midnight and—"

It will be August before she's done if I don't stop her. I feel Jack next to me. "Do you guys know each other?" There's a sort of grunt of nonresponse from Jack. Then I say, "Leah, this is Jack. Jack, well, duh, this is Leah."

They smile at each other.

"So anyway, I'm sorry me and Jane haven't been around. We haven't had a minute when we're not rehearsing or practicing or whatever. We'll see you tomorrow, right? At Jane's." Then, to Jack she says, "It was really nice meeting you, Jack."

"See ya," Jack says. When Leah rides off, Rig turns his big head to watch, then looks back at us.

Jack walks over to a bench and sits right in the middle, then scoots over to the end a bit and motions for me to sit, too. Rig settles at our feet.

"She can be weird sometimes, but she and Jane are my best friends," I tell Jack, even though I've already told him. There's something almost defensive in my voice that doesn't make sense.

"Yeah, she seems cool," he says. He's quiet, just looking at me, and there are those eyes. His brown hair is a little shaggy, not a look I usually like. There's just something. I start to get all fluttery inside. Unable to talk.

An ugly tan pigeon lands on the back of the bench, a little too close to me. I think for a second about Elsie Jenkins, the monochromatic no-friends girl in her tan windbreaker. I wonder what people with no friends do all summer.

We sit there for a while, just looking around. Every time I look at Jack's face, really look at it, my stomach starts flipping. If I stopped to think about any of this, I doubt I could ever talk to him. I doubt I could walk. Or breathe without panting.

***

Back at our block, Jack says, "Let me know if you want to take a walk sometime."

"Yeah, I'll will you to come outside, okay?"

"Might work," he says. "Just don't forget to make the face. The face is key." He shows me the radio. "We forgot to listen to the game!"

"Man!" I stamp my foot to show my great displeasure. As he walks toward his house I'm pricked by the feeling that I have to come clean about that whole Yankee thing. It reminds me of opening the fridge at home and smelling something sour. My mother will always take out all the bottles and cartons, open each one, and sniff. I'll just shut the door and go into the pantry to find something else, but that sour smell lingers in my brain, worrying me.

The row of cartons neatly piled in front of Dad's house has doubled since I left. He's heading out with his arms full of more when he sees me. "Leah rode by," he says. "She said you saw her at the park."

"Yeah, I went with that kid who lives over there." I point toward Jack's house, trying not to let my face show the four hundred and fifty-seven emotions that scramble into play when I even think about him.

Dad smiles, a kind of surprised smile. "Jack Hadley?"

Hadley? I nod. "How do you know him?"

"He wasn't in my class, but I know him as a student at Little Valley. And sometimes I play catch with him." I knew that. I'd seen that. There's just something about hearing him
say
that. It's just so weird. He puts the pile of boxes down next to him on the lawn.

"He was in his yard the morning after I moved in, throwing high fly balls to himself," Dad says. "I called over and asked if he wanted to throw the ball around."

I think again about the son Dad never got to have. I always thought he'd appreciate someone to have catches with, go to games with, maybe wrestle or some other contact boy sport with. I get an image of my dad and Jack wrestling and my body involuntarily wiggles and jerks, trying to shake it away, to go back in time and not have to have that image ever even appear.

Rig looks up at me, then looks around, as though he's trying to find the very thing that gave me the willies so he can chase it away. He sees nothing, so he climbs the front steps and curls up, head near his tail, in front of the door.

"Jack and I saw Leah while we were in the park. Jack showed me a shortcut path to the soccer fields." Do I keep saying
Jack?
Why do I keep saying
Jack
?

"Now that you seem to be in a less horrifically teenage mood, do you think you could give me a hand with the rest of the boxes? There aren't many left."

"I need to talk to you about something," I blurt out, reaching for one of the boxes. I'm scared, because Dad turns into this cartoony impatient old tortoise whenever things don't go smoothly, but I have to make him understand. Or this will be the worst and longest summer ever.

"Go right ahead," he says, still focused on the stacks of cartons.

"I want you to listen," I say. What I really want is for him to already know. Or to do what Mom always does, help me figure out a solution by talking the way normal people talk.

He finally stops what he's doing and looks at me. Well, that's something.

"This summer ... it's not at all what I expected. I mean, I never thought I'd have to work every day, and—"

"We've been over this," Dad says, his hand up to stop me from going any further. "It's a done deal."

I take a deep breath. "And also, no computer? Can't we at least go to Mom's so I can use my computer here? One thing that could make my days a little more fun after working at a job I sure never asked for would be to at least be able to chat or be on Facebook or whatever. But—"

He shakes his head quickly like it doesn't matter. "I have no online connection anyway."